Friars’ Tales: Sermon Exempla from the British Isles 9781526112811

Table of contents :
Front matter
Dedication
Contents
Series editor's foreword
Preface
Abbreviations
Biblical and other quotations
Introduction
Translations: The Liber Exemplorum
Translations: Selected exempla from the Cambridge Dominican Collection
Select Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

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Manchester Medieval Sources Series

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series advisers  Rosemary Horrox and Simon MacLean This series aims to meet a growing need among students and teachers of medieval history for translations of key sources that are directly usable in students’ own work. It provides texts central to medieval studies courses and focuses upon the diverse cultural and social as well as political conditions that affected the functioning of all levels of medieval society. The basic premise of the series is that translations must be accom­ panied by sufficient introductory and explanatory material, and each volume, therefore, includes a comprehensive guide to the sources’ interpretation, including discussion of critical linguistic problems and an assessment of the most recent research on the topics being covered. also available in the series Mark Bailey  The English manor c. 1200–c. 1500 Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate The Templars Simon Barton and Richard Fletcher  The world of El Cid: Chronicles of the Spanish Reconquest Andrew Brown and Graeme Small Court and civic society in the Burgundian Low Countries c. 1420–1520 Samuel K. Cohn, Jr. Popular protest in late-medieval Europe: Italy, France and Flanders Trevor Dean  The towns of Italy in the later Middle Ages P. J. P. Goldberg  Women in England, c. 1275–1525 Martin Heale  Monasticism in late medieval England, c. 1300–1535 Rosemary Horrox  The Black Death Simon MacLean  History and Politics in Late Carolingian and Ottonian Europe: The Chronicle of Regino of Prüm and Adalbert of Magdeburg Anthony Musson with Edward Powell Crime, law and society in the later middle ages I. S. Robinson Eleventh-century Germany: The Swabian Chronicles I. S. Robinson  The papal reform of the eleventh century: Lives of Pope Leo IX   and Pope ­Gregory VII Michael Staunton  The lives of Thomas Becket Craig Taylor  Joan of Arc: La Pucelle Elisabeth van Houts  The Normans in Europe David Warner  Ottonian Germany Diana Webb  Saints and cities in medieval Italy

FRIARS’ TALES

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MedievalSourcesonline Complementing the printed editions of the Medieval Sources series, Manchester ­University Press has developed a web-based learning resource which is now available on a yearly subscription basis. MedievalSourcesonline brings quality history source material to the desktops of students and teachers and allows them open and unrestricted access throughout the entire ­college or university campus. Designed to be fully integrated with academic courses, this is a one-stop answer for many medieval history students, academics and researchers ­keeping thousands of pages of source material ‘in print’ over the Internet for research and teaching. titles available now at MedievalSourcesonline include Trevor Dean The towns of Italy in the later Middle Ages John Edwards The Jews in Western Europe, 1400–1600 Paul Fouracre and Richard A. Gerberding Late Merovingian France: History and hagiography 640–720 Chris Given-Wilson Chronicles of the Revolution 1397–1400: The reign of Richard II P. J. P. Goldberg Women in England, c. 1275–1525 Janet Hamilton and Bernard Hamilton Christian dualist heresies in the Byzantine world, c. 650–c. 1450 Rosemary Horrox  The Black Death Simon MacLean History and politics in late Carolingian and Ottonian Europe: The Chronicle of Regino of Prüm and Adalbert of Magdeburg Anthony Musson with Edward Powell Crime, law and society in the later Middle Ages Graham A. Loud and Thomas Wiedemann The history of the tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’, 1153–69 Janet L. Nelson The Annals of St-Bertin: Ninth-century histories, volume I Timothy Reuter The Annals of Fulda: Ninth-century histories, volume II R. N. Swanson Catholic England: Faith, religion and observance before the Reformation Elisabeth van Houts The Normans in Europe Jennifer Ward Women of the English nobility and gentry 1066–1500 Visit the site at www.medievalsources.co.uk for further information and subscription prices.

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FRIARS’ TALES

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Thirteenth-century exempla from the British Isles selected sources translated and annotated with an introduction by David Jones

Manchester University Press Manchester

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Copyright © David Jones 2011 The right of David Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press

Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA

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www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978 0 7190 8424 9 hardback ISBN 978 0 7190 8425 6 paperback First published 2011 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any ­external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not ­guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in Monotype Bell by Koinonia Ltd, Manchester

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For all the Joneses: Lilian, Christopher, Alison, Steven and Lisa, and in memory of Jack

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Contents Series editor’s foreword Preface Abbreviations Biblical and other quotations Introduction Medieval preaching and preaching aids The Liber Exemplorum The Cambridge Dominican Collection Exempla: transmission and content

page ix xi xiii xv 1 2 9 11 14

Translations The Liber Exemplorum Selected exempla from the Cambridge Dominican Collection

27 154

Select bibliography Index

189 195

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SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD This latest addition to the series makes available two late thirteenth-century collections of exempla – the short stories or anecdotes with which medieval preachers sought to enliven their sermons and press home their message. Both were compiled by members of the mendicant orders who placed themselves at the forefront of the drive to instruct the laity – a Franciscan born in ­Warwickshire but spending much of his career in Ireland and a Dominican almost certainly based in Cambridge. Much of their material was drawn from older authorities, but both collections include material for which the compilers claim responsibility and which can be located quite precisely both geo­g raphically and ­temporally. Historians, following in the footsteps of ­nineteenth-century folklorists, have become increasingly interested in the possibility that stories such as these, designed to appeal to a lay audience, might open a window onto the attitudes of their listeners as well as of their compilers and allow us to glimpse that elusive quarry ‘popular culture’. Particularly intriguing in this respect are the stories which the preacher claims to have heard first hand, such as John the clerk’s encounter, en route to visit his mistress, with a demon in the form of a talking dog [LE 22]. The collections also provide important evidence for changes of emphasis in the Church’s teaching and, indeed, for issues where practice seems to have been in advance of official sanction, as in the possibility of transferring indulgences to the dead. These and other issues are explored and contextualised in David Jones’s valuable introduction. Of course we have no way of knowing how congregations received these stories and how effective they were in getting across the desired theological point. The compiler of the first collection printed here was evidently conscious that his listeners might take away the wrong message and, unusually, makes the occasional suggestion as to how this might be avoided. Thanks to David Jones’s admirable translation a wider audience will now be able to test their own reaction to this rich assembly of stories.

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Rosemary Horrox Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge

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PREFACE Exempla, the stories with which preachers enlivened their sermons and impressed salutary moral lessons on their hearers, have long been appreciated as a source of key importance for medieval history. Their place in the preacher’s rhetoric of persuasion depended upon those who heard them finding them plausible, and it is because of this that their short, pithy narratives can open up a window not only on the preaching culture of the churchmen who collected and used them but upon the attitudes and beliefs of their less well documented lay hearers. The exempla translated here come from two collections put together by friars, one Franciscan and one Dominican, working in the British Isles in the last quarter of the thirteenth century. This was a pivotal period in the history of the medieval Church, when vigorous efforts were being made to raise the moral and educational standards of the lower clergy, and a new style of popular preaching, much of it done by the friars, sought to re-evangelise the Christian laity. Exempla played an important part in that preaching and yet, for all the work being published on preaching and on the mendicant orders more gener­ ally, little of the abundant primary material is available in English translation. It is hoped that this volume will do something to fill this gap. I first started work on this project at the suggestion of Professor David d’Avray, my friend of more than thirty years, who has been a constant source of encour­ agement since I began work on it. He has read and commented on my drafts, read through reams of translations, been a willing and cheerful soundingboard for ideas and sent me off-prints and copies of material which I would not otherwise have seen. This book would (literally) not have been started, still less finished, without him. I owe a large, if more distant, debt to the two remarkable men, Mr R. P. H. Mermagen and Mr M. E. Quick, who nearly forty years ago taught me history at Dover Grammar School and to Mr Brian Haines, who cheerfully surren­ dered what little free time a busy schedule allowed to teach one boy Advanced Level Latin. I should also like to record my gratitude to Professor David Bates and Professor Henry Loyn, who first interested me in medieval history, and to Professor Hugh Lawrence, who supervised my graduate studies. Their teaching sparked one of the abiding interests of my life. I am most grateful to them. I am grateful to the British Library and Durham Cathedral Library for per­­­ mission to consult and cite manuscripts in their care, and I should like to record my thanks to the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, the Warburg Institute, the Institute of Historical Research and the university libraries at Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews for access to their collections.

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xii

preface

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I am grateful to Professor David McKitterick, Librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge for his help with manuscripts of the sermons of Odo of Cheriton and to all those at Manchester University Press who saw the book through to publication. Writing is necessarily a solitary business and I am grateful to all those who, in different ways, have drawn me out of libraries and away from the word processor: Grant and Liz Anderson; Richard Ashton; Gavin and Caroline Baptie; Shaun and Yeşim Flaherty; Gwyn and Jill Jones; Peter Lowthian; Billy McKee; Ian and Jo Neill; Nick Newman; Andy Penpraze; Mark Reeves; Jay Roberts; and Robert Scott. I owe a special debt to Stephen Burston and Kevin Forrest for the beer and the good times which they shared with me throughout the period in which I worked upon this book. They (and others) were too polite to ask what I was up to when I turned up for work each evening laden down with my ‘Latin homework’ and, if they are now surprised to find their names in a book about medieval history, I hope that they are also pleased. My brother, Christopher Jones, was always ready to dig me out of holes with the word processor, often at very late hours and at a distance of over four hundred miles. This book is for him and the rest of my family.

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David Jones Edinburgh January 2010

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ABBREVIATIONS

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AASS

Acta Sanctorum

Baldwin, Masters J. W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and his circle (2 vols, Princeton, 1970) BL

British Library, London

CCCM

Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Medievalis (Turnhout, 1971–)

CCSA

Corpus Christianorum, Series Apocryphorum (Turnhout, 1983–)

CCSL

Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout, 1953–)

Chevalier

U. Chevalier, Repertorium Hymnologicum (Analecta Bolland­­ iana, Subsidia Hagiographica 4, 6 vols, 1892–1921)

Crane

T. F. Crane (ed.), The Exempla or illustrative stories from the Sermones Vulgares of Jacques de Vitry (1890)

CS

F. M. Powicke and C. R. Cheney (eds), Councils and Synods with other documents relating to the English Church ii: ad 1205–1313 (2 parts; Oxford, 1964)

DC

Dominican Collection of exempla, translated at pp. 154–88

EETS

Early English Text Society

Fasciculus Morum Fasciculus Morum: A fourteenth-century Preacher’s Handbook, ed. S. Wenzel (University Park and London, 1989) FF

Folklore Fellows

GE

Gerald of Wales, Gemma Ecclesiastica, ed. J. S. Brewer (J. S. Brewer, J. F. Dimock and G. F. Warner (eds), Opera Giraldi Cambrensis [RS, 8 vols, 1861–91], Vol. 2)

LE

Liber Exemplorum, as translated at pp. 27–153

Legenda Aurea

Jacobi a Voragine Legenda Aurea vulgo Historica Lombardica dicta, ed. T. Graesse (3rd edn, Bratislava, 1890)

Little

Liber Exemplorum ad usum praedicantium saeculo xiii com­ positus a quodam Fratre Minore Anglico de Provincia Hiberniae, ed. A. G. Little (British Society of Franciscan Studies 1, Aberdeen, 1908)

MGH

Monumenta Germaniae Historica

MOFPH

Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica

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abbreviations

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xiv

PG

Patrologiae cursus completus, series Graeca (161 vols, Paris, 1857–1866)

PL

Patrologia cursus completus, series Latina (221 vols, Paris, 1844–1864)

RS

Rolls Series

Tubach

Frederic C. Tubach, Index Exemplorum (FF Communica­ tions 204, Helsinki, 1969)

VF

Fratris Gerardi de Fracheto O.P. Vitae Fratrum Ordinis ­Praedicatorum necnon Cronica Ordinis ab anno MCCIII usque /  ad fidem codicum manuscriptorum accurate ad MCCLIV  recognovit, notis breviter illustravit Benedictus Maria Reichert (MOFPH 1, 1896)

de Vogüé

Grégoire le Grand: Dialogues, ed. A. de Vogüé, trans. P. Antin (Sources Chrétiennes 254, 260 and 265, Paris, 1978–80)

VP

Vitae Patrum (PL, Vol. 73)

Walther

H. Walther (ed.), Proverbia Sententiaeque Latinitatis medii aevi: lateinische Sprichwörter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters in alphabetischer Anordnung (6 vols, Göttingen, 1963–9)

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Biblical and other quotations Biblical references are to the Latin Vulgate and the English Douai translation. These contain some books which appear only in the Apocrypha of most other English translations and some books have different names. Where references (notably in the numbering of the Psalms) or names of books differ in the ­Authorised Version, those from the latter are given in brackets. In translating Biblical quotations I have used both the Douai translation and the Authorised Version more or less interchangeably according to the needs of the context. Exact quotations from the Bible are italicised; Biblical allusions are in normal type. For material from non-Biblical sources, I have used quotation marks to indicate those parts of the text known to have been lifted directly from another source.

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Introduction

Exempla are plausible stories, drawn from literary sources or from life, which are used to seize the attention of a preacher’s audience and illustrate a moral or theological point, usually by delivering a salutary lesson.1 This volume presents in translation material from two collections of exempla assembled in the British Isles in the last quarter of the thirteenth century. One, the Liber Exemplorum (LE), was compiled by an English Franciscan working in Ireland. The whole of the surviving text is translated here.2 The other, probably the work of an English Dominican based in Cambridge (DC), is represented by fifty-two stories, about one-sixth of the total.3 Much of the rest of this collection reproduces material from earlier authors, but the stories translated here, which the compiler recounts on his own authority or which he claims to have heard from reliable first-hand witnesses, are those most revealing of his attitudes and outlook. These two collections are important because they are among the earliest to survive from the British Isles. Their short, pithy narratives are not limited to matters of Church doctrine and practice, but touch on a wide range of more workaday matters and provide vivid snapshots of medieval life in the broadest sense. Exemplum-collectors and preachers were fully aware of the value of using material familiar to the layman from his daily experience which would drive home the lesson intended more forcefully. The exemplum genre is therefore of key importance for the history of lay as well as ecclesiastical attitudes and mentalités. This has long been appreciated, in Britain as well as on the Continent, where French historians of the Annales school have been especially prominent 1 J. Le Goff, The Medieval Imagination, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago and London, 1988), 78. 2 Liber Exemplorum ad usum praedicantium saeculo xiii compositus a quodam Fratre Minore Anglico de Provincia Hiberniae, ed. A. G. Little (British Society of Franciscan Studies 1, Aberdeen, 1908). 3 The text of the stories was published by S. D. Forte, ‘A Cambridge Dominican collector of Exempla in the thirteenth century’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 28 (1958), 115–48.

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FRIARS’ TALES

in using this evidence,4 but little of the extensive surviving material has been made available in annotated English translation. It is hoped that this volume will go some way towards filling that gap.

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Medieval preaching and preaching aids The decades either side of the year 1200 saw a remarkable re-­orientation in the religious life of western Europe, characterised in large part by a new and urgent interest in the spiritual life and moral welfare of the laity. From the thirteenth century onwards this led to a remarkable explosion in popular preaching, which is associated mainly with the orders of friars. For while considerable numbers of sermons by bishops, the secular clergy and monks survive, it was the friars who developed training programmes for preaching, conducted preaching tours throughout Christendom and beyond, and were most prominent in the production and dissemination of preaching aids.5 In a landmark decree, the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 required every Christian man and woman to confess to their own parish priest and to take communion at least once a year, at Easter. The same concern for the laity’s moral welfare informed the Council’s decrees on preaching, which required bishops to choose men ‘effective in action and speech, suitable for executing the office of sacred preaching to advantage’, who would assist the bishops and supplement their work ‘not only in preaching but also in hearing confessions and enjoining penance and in everything else pertaining to the saving of souls’.6 This need had long been recognised: bishops were required to preach to the laity of their dioceses every Sunday but, even when this duty was fulfilled, it could lead to as little as one sermon per diocese each 4 Use of exempla has not been limited to the Annales school. For instance, the Russian historian Aron Gurevich drew heavily on the evidence of exempla. See especially A. Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception, trans. J. M. Bak and P. A. Hollingsworth (Cambridge, 1988). 5 For what follows, see especially D. L. d’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars: Sermons diffused from Paris before 1300 (Oxford, 1985); B. M. Kienzle (ed.), The Sermon (Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental 81–3, Turnhout, 2000); and S. Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections from Later Medieval England: Orthodox Preaching in the Age of Wyclif (Cambridge, 2005), 227–402. There is an excellent summary in K. Jansen, ‘The Word and its diffusion’, in M. Rubin and W. Simons (eds), The Cambridge History of Christianity 4: Christianity in Western Europe c.1100–c.1500 (Cambridge, 2009), 114–32. 6 Fourth Lateran Council, c. 10: G. Mansi (ed.), Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio (31 vols, Venice, 1759–98), vol. 22, cols. 998–9.

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INTRODUCTION

3

week. There had been attempts to supplement the bishops’ efforts, most notably during the ninth-century cultural and religious revival of the Carolingian renaissance, but these often centred on the production of Latin homilies for imitation.7 Continental collections of sermons in the vernacular are rare before the thirteenth century and, although generalisation is dangerous, it is doubtful how many parish priests had the training or linguistic skills to turn Latin sermon materials into effective vernacular sermons.8 In late Anglo-Saxon England, there may have been a more extensive tradition of vernacular preaching. The monastic revival known as the ‘tenth-century reformation’ produced sermons and other devotional literature in Old English which may have fostered a richer preaching culture than is evident elsewhere. The cycles of vernacular sermons composed by Abbot Aelfric of Eynsham, who died in c.1010, circulated widely and it is likely that they were used both for imitation by other preachers and for private devotional reading by educated layfolk.9 After the Norman Conquest, in the twelfth century, there is more concrete evidence of vernacular preaching to the laity: according to William of Malmesbury, for instance, Bishop Ralph Luffa of Chichester conducted preaching tours of his diocese three times a year; Abbot Samson of Bury St Edmunds preached in his own Norfolk dialect to large congregations in his abbey church; and the Battle Chronicle describes how Abbot Odo preached ‘for the edification of uneducated, ordinary people’.10 These, of course, may have been exceptional cases which contemporaries commented upon precisely because they were unusual, and in any event relatively few can have heard the preaching of a bishop travelling about his diocese or an abbot like Samson or Odo. As the episcopal reformers of the thirteenth century appreciated, what was needed was regular, weekly preaching by parish priests.11 In thirteenth-century England, provincial and diocesan legislation, 7 For Carolingian sermon materials, see T. N. Hall, ‘The early medieval sermon’, in Kienzle (ed.), The Sermon, 203–70 (at 219–27). 8 d’Avray, Preaching of the Friars, 18; M. Zink, La Prédication en langue romane avant 1300 (Paris, 1976), 13. 9 M. Godden, Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies: Introduction, Commentary and Glossary (EETS, Supplementary Series 18, 2000), xxii–xxiv; J. E. Cross, ‘Vernacular sermons in Old English’, in Kienzle (ed.), The Sermon, 561–96. See also M. Clayton, ‘Homiliaries and preaching in Anglo-Saxon England’, Peritia 4 (1985), 207–42. 10 R. Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075–1225 (Oxford, 2000), 451–4. 11 Ibid., 451.

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which communicated the Fourth Lateran Council’s programme of reform to the local level, required parish priests to explain the sacraments and expound the Ten Commandments, the formula of confession, the formula used in baptism, the seven deadly sins, and the main points of the Creed.12 By this time, materials for simple catechetical preaching of this sort were becoming quite widely available to parish priests; in the first half of the thirteenth century, several English bishops, among them Alexander of Stainsby, the bishop of Coventry-Lichfield,13 Walter Cantilupe of Worcester14 and Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln,15 issued simple outlines of this material for use by parish priests. These tracts, or summulae, often circulated alongside the bishops’ synodal statutes, and priests were enjoined to read and digest the contents, on which they could be examined by their superiors. The extent to which the lower clergy actually did preach has been the subject of some debate, but it is clear that many of them were ill-equipped for the task: synodal legislation assumed that they commanded only a low level of Latin literacy and the linguistic and theological ignorance of many parish priests was a constant source of complaint at a time when spreading literacy among the laity was raising expectations which few secular clergy could meet.16 It was gaps such as these that the friars would seek to fill, but the Church had already made a number of attempts to remedy the situation before the mendicant orders were licensed by the papacy at the ­beginning of thirteenth century. As is well known, from the late eleventh century 12 See the comprehensive list in Grosseteste’s Lincoln constitutions of c.1239 (CS i. 268); see also Archbishop Pecham’s influential Ignoratio sacerdotum of 1281 (CS ii. 900–5). 13 CS i. 214–26. For discussion of the whole genre, see F. Kemmler, ‘Exempla’ in Context: A Historical and Critical Study of Robert Mannyng of Brunne’s ‘Handlyng Synne’ (Studies and Texts in English 6, Tübingen, 1984), 24–59; see also Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, 229–39. 14 CS ii. 1059–77. For the date and origins of this text, see J. Goering and D. Taylor, ‘The Summulae of Bishops Walter de Cantilupe (1240) and Peter Quinel (1287)’, Speculum 67 (1992), 576–94. 15 Robert Grosseteste, Templum Dei, eds J. Goering and F. A. C. Mantello (Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 14, Toronto, 1984). 16 D. W. Robertson, Jr., ‘The Frequency of Preaching in Thirteenth-century England’, Speculum 24 (1949), 376–88 and d’Avray, Preaching of the Friars, 49–50. For the educational limitations of the lower clergy, see C. H. Lawrence, ‘The English Parish and its clergy in the thirteenth century’, in P. Linehan and J. L. Nelson (eds), The Medieval World (2001), 648–70 and Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 485–6. For a more optimistic view, see J. H. Denton, ‘The competence of the parish clergy in thirteenth-century England’, in C. M. Barron and J. Stratford (eds), The Church and Learning in Later Medieval Society: Essays in Honour of R. B. Dobson. Proceedings of the 1999 Harlaxton Symposium (Donnington, 2002), 273–85.

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INTRODUCTION

5

the papacy launched large-scale preaching campaigns, first in connection with the Crusade movement and later in an effort to combat the spread of popular heresy. This was, moreover, a time when urban life was reviving throughout western Europe and the Church authorities became aware of the need to address the pastoral needs of those who lived in towns. Popes began to sanction new orders or organisations specifically charged with preaching to the Christian laity, and the Cistercians also became involved in preaching campaigns, most notably against the Cathar heresy in southern France. In doing so, popes could tap into the religious ideal of the ‘apostolic life’, usually seen as preaching the Gospel in poverty, which was already attracting large numbers of lay men and women who flocked to hear the sermons of wandering evangelists. It was an ideal which would find its ultimate expression in the orders of friars. The idea of an itinerant apostolate dedicated to ministering to the Christian laity therefore already had a long history by the time the mendicant orders were approved by the papacy at the beginning of the thirteenth century, but it was something which the friars would make very much their own. The earliest surviving constitutions of the Dominican Order (1220) noted that ‘our order is recognised as having been specially instituted from the very beginning for preaching and the salvation of souls’;17 the Franciscans also saw preaching as central to their mission. From the earliest years, friars travelled extensively throughout Christendom and far beyond it, preaching wherever opportunity arose, in town squares, churchyards, parish churches and, in time, in the large urban churches which they built for themselves. Both orders rapidly established an impressive network of schools to train men for preaching and other pastoral work18 and members of both orders played a leading role in devising and producing aids for ­preachers.19 The production of preaching aids also stretched back many centuries, but the enormous explosion in popular preaching from the thirteenth century onwards led to their production on an almost industrial scale. 17 Constitutiones antique ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, prologue: A. H. Thomas (ed.), De oudste Constituties van de Dominicanen: Voorgeschiedenis, Tekst, Bronnen, Ontstaan en Ontwikkeling (1215–1237) (Bibliothèque de la Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 42; Leuven, 1965), 311, as cited in M. Michèle Mulchahey. ‘First the Bow is bent in Study’: Dominican Education before 1350 (Toronto, 1998), 3. 18 Mulchahey, ‘First the Bow is bent in Study’; B. Roest, A History of Franciscan Education (c.1210–1517) (Leiden, 2000). For preaching in the orders of Carmelite and Augustinian Friars, which began as eremitical movements, see Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, 288, 292. 19 Mulchahey, ‘First the Bow is bent in Study’, 400–79 and D. L. d’Avray, Preaching of the Friars, 64–90.

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Treatises on the art of preaching now appeared in increasing numbers, together with more and more elaborate and detailed manuals on ­confession and on the virtues and vices. Collections of model sermons, which provided skeleton or fully developed sermons for imitation, were copied extensively and circulated widely.20 The earliest Biblical concordances were compiled by teams of Paris Dominicans at this time. ­Florilegia collected useful quotations from Scripture and other sources, and collections of ‘distinctions’ explored the symbolic and other meanings of words and passages in the Bible. And there were exemplum-collections. The use of exempla to seize and retain the attention of a preacher’s audience and hammer home a moral or theological point has a long history.21 Greek and Roman orators used exempla extensively, while in Christian literature their use can be traced ultimately to the parables of the Gospels. Exempla are found in the work of many of the Church Fathers. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers and the stories of the Italian saints in the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, the pope who died in 604, have close affinities with exempla and much of their material was later reused in exemplum-collections, including the Liber Exemplorum. But the exemplum emerged as a distinct literary genre only during the twelfth century, when it achieved particular prominence in the spiritual writing of the Cistercian Order. The Cistercians produced several important collections of exempla in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the best known and most influential of which was the Dialogus Miraculorum composed by Caesarius, the prior of Heisterbach in the Rhineland who died c.1240.22 20 Thomas of Chobham, who died c.1233, has left works in several of these genres: Summa confessorum, ed. F. Broomfield (Analecta medievalia Namurcensia 25, 1968); Summa de arte praedicandi and Summa de commendatione virtutum et exstirpatione vitiorum, ed. F. Morenzoni (CCCM 82 and 82B, 1988 and 1997). Treatises on preaching sometimes included a number of model sermons; for an English example, see Alexander of Ashby’s De artificioso modo predicandi, in Alexandri Essebiensis opera theologica, eds F. Morenzoni and T. H. Bestul (CCCM 188, Turnhout, 2004), 23–71. 21 The best introduction to the subject is C. Bremond, J. Le Goff and J.-C. Schmitt, L’Exemplum (Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, 40; 2nd edn, Turnhout, 1996); J.-Th. Welter, L’Exemplum dans la littérature religieuse et didactique du Moyen Âge (Paris and Toulouse, 1927) is still useful, especially for individual collections. A comprehensive on-line bibliography is available at www.gahom.ehss.fr/bibliex. 22 Caesarii Heisterbachensis monachi ordinis Cisterciensis Dialogus Miraculorum, ed. J. Strange (Cologne, Bonn and Brussels, 1851); Caesarius of Heisterbach, The Dialogue on Miracles, trans. H. von E. Scott and C. C. Swinton Bland (2 vols, London, 1929). For exempla extracted from Caesarius’s sermons, see A. Hilka (ed.), Die Wundergeschichte des Caesarius von Heisterbach, i (Bonn, 1933).

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From the early thirteenth century, exempla were taken up with enthusiasm by the friars and other preachers; from this time onwards, exempla were used with increasing frequency not only in sermons but also in moral treatises, confessional handbooks and Biblical commentaries. Several important continental collections survive from this period. Jacques de Vitry, an Augustinian canon and later cardinal-bishop of Tusculum who died in 1240, was an energetic preacher whose cycles of model sermons are rich in exempla. Jacques does not appear to have made or circulated a collection of the exempla which he used, but others soon excerpted them from his sermons and several collections of them survive from the thirteenth century and after.23 Etienne de Bourbon, a Dominican inquisitor who died c.1261, made a collection of preaching materials entitled the Tractatus de diversis materiis praedicabilibus.24 Although unfinished at his death, the treatise includes more than 3000 exempla which he grouped under the different gifts of the Holy Spirit. Other important continental collections include Martin of Poland’s Promptuarium Exemplorum (c.1261–79), the Tabula Exemplorum secundum ordinem alphabeti (c.1279) and the Alphabetum Narrationum of Arnold of Liège (c.1308–10).25 Few exemplum-collections in the strict sense survive from the British Isles from the period before the 1270s, and the collections presented in this book are therefore among the earliest extant. One early forerunner was Gerald of Wales’s Gemma Ecclesiastica, which was written c.1197. Gerald had studied in Paris, and as archdeacon of Brecon he sought to raise the pastoral and moral standards of the local clergy along the lines then being propounded by Peter the Chanter and other Paris theologians. The Gemma contains a large number of anecdotes which reinforce Gerald’s points, and this material is important in the context of this volume because it was the source of 28 exempla in the Liber 23 There are three modern collections: T. F.  Crane (ed.), The Exempla or illustrative stories from the Sermons Vulgares of Jacques de Vitry (Publications of the Folk-lore Society 26, 1890); J. Greven (ed.), Die ‘Exempla’ aus den Sermones feriales et communes des Jakob von Vitry (Sammlung mittellateinischer Texte 5, Heidelberg, 1914); G. Frenken (ed.), Die Exempla des Jacob von Vitry: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Erzählungsliteratur des Mittelalters (Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters 5/1, Munich, 1914). 24 Stephani de Borbone Tractatus de diversis materiis praedicabilibus, eds J. Berlioz and J.-L. Eichenlaub (CCCM 124, Turnhout, 2002– [in progress]). See also A. Lecoy de la Marche (ed.), Anecdotes historiques, légendes et apologues tirés du recueil inédit d’Etienne de Bourbon (Paris, 1877). 25 Welter, L’Exemplum, 228–30, 294–7 and 304–19; La Tabula Exemplorum secundum ordinem alphabeti, ed. J.-Th. Welter (Thesaurus Exemplorum fasc. iii, Paris and Toulouse, 1926).

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Exemplorum. It is clear, moreover, that exemplum-collections in the strict sense were in circulation in the British Isles before the 1270s; the Liber Exemplorum, for instance, refers to two earlier collections, the ‘common examples’ and the examples of Deodatus, from which it drew material. Surviving sermons also show the extensive use of exempla and similar illustrative material; the sermons of Odo of Cheriton, who died in 1247, are well known for their use of animal fables and ‘parables’, which were excerpted and collected together for reuse during the medieval period.26 Important British collections of exempla from the later thirteenth century include a collection of uncertain date in Oxford, Balliol College MS 228 and the Speculum Laicorum (c.1279–92). Exempla also occur widely in the pastoral works of John of Wales, the distinguished Franciscan theologian and preacher who died in 1285, and the Fasciculus Morum, a preaching handbook of Franciscan origin and datable to c.1300.27 These short, vivid narratives are important because they offer insights into a whole range of aspects of medieval church life. Although exempla occur in sermons intended for many different kinds of audience, their use was particularly recommended when preaching to the laity or others who would otherwise find the sermon’s theological or moral content too difficult to grasp or too dry to concentrate upon; the use of entertaining or salutary stories would make the preacher’s lessons more palatable and more memorable. It was also recognised that, as part of the preacher’s rhetoric of persuasion, stories had to be plausible, so that the hearer would readily accept its moral lesson; and a particular value was often attached to stories drawing on situations familiar to the layman from his own day-to-day experience.28 Like all exempla, these stories necessarily reflect the clerical concerns of the preachers who collected and used them. But they also indicate what preachers thought a congregation might find plausible, and they therefore constitute an important source for the mentalités of the past.

26 L. Hervieux (ed.), Les Fabulistes latins depuis le siècle d’Auguste jusqu’à la fin du Moyen Âge, iv: Eudes de Cheriton et ses dérivés (Paris,1896). 27 Welter, L’Exemplum, 233–6; A. Kehnel, ‘The narrative tradition of the medieval Franciscan friars of the British Isles: Introduction to the sources’, Franciscan Studies 63 (2005), 461–530 (at 481–4, 490–2, 495–7). For modern editions, see Speculum Laicorum, ed. J.-Th. Welter (Thesaurus Exemplorum fasc. v, Paris and Toulouse, 1914) and Fasciculus Morum: A Fourteenth-century Preacher’s Handbook, ed. and trans. S. Wenzel (University Park and London, 1989). 28 Welter, L’Exemplum, 68–82. Jacques de Vitry’s sermons for the laity use exempla roughly three times as often as those for clerical audiences (Bremond et al., L’Exemplum, 151).

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The Liber Exemplorum The first of the collections used here is the Liber Exemplorum, the Latin text of which was published by A. G. Little in 1908 from the sole known manuscript, Durham Cathedral Library MS B.IV.19. This is a composite manuscript measuring 24 by 16.5 cm., which also contains several short religious pieces written in a variety of hands dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The part of the manuscript containing the Liber Exemplorum was probably written in the mid-fourteenth century.29 The exemplum-collection is divided into two parts. The first, devoted to ‘Higher Matters’, deals with Christ, the mass, the Cross, the miracles and feasts of the Virgin, the angels and St James. The second, ‘Of Lower Matters’, is arranged in alphabetical order and treats of the virtues, the vices and a variety of pastoral and other matters, including confession, marriage, tithes, behaviour in church or on consecrated ground, and excommunication; there are also sections on different professions or groups such as lawyers, clerks, executors of wills and merchants. The text is imperfect in that it lacks the preface referred to in the body of the text and the second, alphabetical section ends at the letter M, with the entry ‘Of mindfulness of Death’ (De mortis memoria). In its present state the manuscript contains 213 exempla, but the original total was probably between 400 and 500.30 As it survives, the collection is anonymous, although the author’s name may have appeared in the lost prologue. Internal references show that it was compiled between the death of Eudes Rigaud, archbishop of Rouen, in 1275 and that of Tomás Ó Cuinn, bishop of Clonmacnoise, in 1279 (LE 67, 142). Internal evidence also shows that the author was a Franciscan friar born at Ansley in northern Warwickshire,31 who spent much of his life in Ireland. Although he never states that he was a member of the Franciscan Order, he mentions Adam Habe as ‘my custos’, a title used only by the Franciscans, and describes Tomás Ó Cuinn, who 29 Little, v–vi; T. Rud, Codicum manuscriptorum Ecclesie Cathedralis Dunelmensis catalogus classicus (Durham, 1825). See also P. Meyer, ‘Notices sur un recueil d’exempla dans le MS B IV 19 de la bibliothèque capitulaire de Durham’, Notices et Extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale et autres bibliothèques 34/1 (1891), 4–47; for references to Tubach’s index, see J. Berlioz and M.-A. Polo de Beaulieu (eds), Les Exempla médiévaux: Introduction à la recherche, suivie des tables critiques de l’“Index exemplorum” de Frederic C. Tubach (Carcassonne, 1992), 165–72. 30 For the arrangement and sources, see Little, vi–xviii. See also Welter, L’Exemplum, 290–4 and Kehnel, ‘Narrative tradition’, 489–90. 31 LE 22. He describes Peter of Arden as his fellow-countryman (LE 38), which also indicates that he was a Warwickshire man.

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was a Franciscan, as ‘a brother of our order’ (LE 95, 142). He is known to have been a member of the Franciscan house in Dublin when Alan de la Zouche was justiciar of Ireland, c.1256–58 (LE 117). He studied in Paris during or after the Barons’ War of 1264–65, where he knew Roger Bacon (LE 38, 104). Thereafter he served again in Ireland, probably for many years: he was at one point in Drogheda (LE 180) and was the lector, that is theological lecturer and general adviser, to the Franciscan friary in Cork, a period which he describes as seven years before the time of writing (LE 62). Many of the exempla are drawn from standard Christian sources, such as the Lives of the Desert Fathers (38 exempla), the Dialogues of Gregory the Great (14), the Life of St John the Almsgiver (9) and the works of Augustine (8).32 Of written sources closer to the compiler’s own time, the Gemma Ecclesiastica of Gerald of Wales is unusually prominent as the source of 28 stories. He also draws seven exempla from Peyraut’s Summa de vitiis and three from his Summa de virtutibus. Other exempla cite written material produced by the friars themselves and which is no longer extant. Franciscan sources include the book of John of Kilkenny, which recorded a story heard from a friar who had travelled in the Holy Land33 and the examples of Deodatus, who is described elsewhere as the minister of the Irish Franciscans.34 Dominican authors, including Jordan of Saxony (LE 208) and Richard Fishacre (LE 31), are also represented, as are sources which cannot be ascribed with certainty to either order, such as the sermon by a friar from Wycombe (LE 207) and an unidentified collection of ‘common examples’, which is the source of four stories.35 About one-eighth of the stories in the Liber Exemplorum do not appear to survive in any other collection.36 Some are drawn from the author’s own experience: he tells the story of a murder at Carrigtohill in County Cork from his personal knowledge (LE 62, 167) and he was present when the earl of Ulster’s younger brother was violently prevented from joining the Franciscans in Dublin (LE 117). Many more were reported to him by other friars: some were stories which he heard in Paris, one 32 For a full list of sources, see Little, x–xi. 33 LE 136. For John of Kilkenny and Deodatus, see Kehnel, ‘Narrative tradition’, 484–6, 491. 34 LE 98, 149, 207. 35 LE 9, 106, 157, 212; for discussion, see Kehnel, ‘Narrative tradition’, 486–8. 36 There are twenty-six in all, for which the author cites a personal source or his own experience: LE 22, 38, 43–46, 62, 66–7, 95, 99, 104–5, 110, 112, 117–8, 136, 142, 166–7, 180, 191–2, 199, 211.

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of them from an Italian friar and another from ‘a certain religious’ who had been at the siege of Seville.37 The rest were collected over a long period in England and Ireland and they sometimes include material from those returning from preaching tours (LE 95, 142) or visiting from abroad (LE 192, 213). The Liber Exemplorum is important because it is the earliest surviving collection of exempla known to have been compiled by a member of the Franciscan Order.38 It is also the earliest surviving collection, of any provenance, to arrange part of its material in alphabetical order.39 It also provides important evidence for the extent and content of mendicant preaching in Ireland at a period when material is otherwise sparse.40 Thus it gives details of other books of sermon-material circulating in Ireland at the time41 and it is from the Liber Exemplorum that we have evidence for Tomás Ó Cuinn’s preaching tour in Connacht, which took place before he became bishop of Clonmacnoise in 1252; although the sermon was almost certainly delivered in Irish and the Liber Exemplorum reports the matter in Latin, the compiler heard the story from Tomás himself and it very probably preserves at least the gist of what was actually said (LE 142). Other stories provide information about preaching in Ulster and elsewhere in Ireland at a time when almost no other evidence is available.42

The Cambridge Dominican Collection The second collection is preserved in London, British Library Royal MS 7.D.i, a manuscript written in England in the late thirteenth century measuring 12 by 9.5 cm. In addition to the exemplum-collection, it contains the Elucidarium by Honorius Augustodunensis, a treatise on the daily life of a Cistercian monk and a collection of theological 37 LE 38, 44, 45, 104. 38 Welter, L’Exemplum, 290; J.-C. Schmitt, ‘Recueils franciscains d’exempla et perfectionnement des techniques intellectuelles du XIIIe au XVe siècle’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 135 (1977), 5–21. 39 Welter, L’Exemplum, 290; Schmitt, ‘Recueils’, 19. For the use of alphabetical order in this period, see M. A. Rouse and R. H. Rouse, Authentic Witnesses: Approaches to Medieval Texts and Manuscripts (Notre Dame, 1991), 191–255. 40 A. J. Fletcher, ‘Preaching in late medieval Ireland: the English and the Latin tradition’, in A. J. Fletcher and R. Gillespie (eds), Irish Preaching 700–1700 (Dublin, 2001), 56–80. 41 LE 9, 98, 106, 136, 149, 157, 207, 212. 42 LE 95, 146, 166.

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notes on sin. The manuscript’s medieval provenance is not known but its small format, ideal for taking on journeys, was one which the friars made very much their own.43 The exemplum-collection comprises 315 stories, fifty-two of which are translated here.44 There is no title, prologue, colophon or author’s name but the compiler was almost certainly a Dominican friar based in Cambridge.45 His stories frequently feature members of the Dominican Order,46 either as protagonists or as the author’s source, while Cambridge, which is the setting for seven of the stories, is mentioned more than anywhere else; the number of other locations in East Anglia, including Bury St Edmunds, March, Norwich and unspecified places in Norwich diocese, may also indicate a Cambridge connection. Other places mentioned include Bath, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Kilnsey, Leicester, Lincoln, London, Oxford, St Albans and Winchester. Three further stories are set at unspecified locations in England, and there is a handful of stories set in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The variety of places mentioned probably reflects the extent to which the compiler travelled as an itinerant preacher. It is also possible that he had lived or studied in Paris, which appears eleven times; other places in France, either named or not, appear on an additional five occasions.47 The text has no subject-headings and there is no discernible overall arrangement of the material, although there are runs of stories on particular themes. Welter calculated that in all there were 140 exempla on dogmatic matters (the Creed, the Commandments, the sacraments 43 G. F. Warner and J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections (4 vols., 1921), i. 184–5. For the format, see D. L. d’Avray, ‘Portable vademecum books containing Franciscan and Dominican texts’, in A. C. de la Mare and B. C. Barker-Benfield, Manuscripts at Oxford: An Exhibition in Memory of Richard William Hunt (Oxford, 1980), 60–4. 44 J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, iii (London, 1910), 477–503 gives a synopsis of each story, with notes on sources and analogues; see also Welter, L’Exemplum, 244–8, which gives a conspectus of the standard written sources which the compiler used. The collection is also discussed in W. A. Hinnebusch, The Early English Friars Preachers (Rome, 1951), 300–306. 45 The following necessarily emphasises the importance of the collector’s personal sources but a large number of standard, written sources are also cited, which are listed by Welter, L’Exemplum, 247n. 46 Those in this volume are DC 4, 31, 34, 45, 55, 58, 96, 97, 100, 106, 132, 133, 137, 139, 140, 184, 185, 200, 209, 211. 47 Welter, L’Exemplum, 244–8; Forte, ‘Cambridge Dominican’, 116. It is noteworthy that none of the stories set in Paris is presented as an eyewitness account and that most of them come from Jacques de Vitry.

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and good works, indulgences, crusading and pilgrimage) and 175 on sins and vices (gluttony, simony, vanity, hypocrisy, theft, avarice, drunkenness, adultery and clerical concubinage).48 This is the earliest surviving exemplum-collection undoubtedly made by an English Dominican. Welter has shown, on the basis of a comparative study of material in other collections, that the Dominican Collection reached its present form between 1270 and 1292,49 but it may have been several decades in the making. The compiler claims (DC 163) to have heard Jacques de Vitry, who died in 1240. Should we take this claim at face value? Jacques’ sermons were widely disseminated from an early date and the compiler may have taken the story from a written source.50 Nevertheless, several other exempla indicate that he was collecting anecdotes from the 1240s onwards. He heard Cardinal William of Sabina preach when he passed through Cambridge in 1247 (DC 96); two of his stories about St Edmund of Abingdon, who died in 1240, came from an intimate friend of the saint (DC 117, 149); and he records other events as happening in 1243 (DC 227) and 1250 (DC 32, 140). These indications that the collector was active from the middle of the century may also be borne out by the presence of a number of anecdotes about the Dominican Order which also appear in the Vitae Fratrum, a collection of miraculous and other stories about the order’s early years which was based on material submitted by the order’s different provinces between 1256 and 1260.51 In two cases (DC 133, 176), the Dominican Collection gives more detail than the Vitae Fratrum. The compiler may therefore have had access to the sources which lie behind the Vitae Fratrum or have been collecting his material when these stories were circulating in the 1250s or even earlier.

48 Welter, L’Exemplum, 246. Welter completed work on an edition of the text, but it was never published. 49 Welter, L’Exemplum, 245–6. Welter showed that the Dominican Collection took about twenty exempla from the Tabula Exemplorum, completed between 1270 and 1277, and was the source of over one hundred stories in the Speculum Laicorum, compiled between 1279 and 1292. 50 Forte suggests that the compiler may have heard Jordan of Saxony preaching when he visited England in 1229/30, but the text does not specify this and the sermon may have been circulating in a written form (DC 4). 51 DC 133, 176, 177, 211. For the importance of this and other exemplum-collections in establishing and passing on a coherent Dominican identity, see M. Schürer, Das Exemplum oder die erzählte Institution: Studien zum Beispielgebrauch bei den Dominikanern und Franziskanern des 13. Jahrhunderts (Vita Regularis 23, Berlin, 2005).

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Exempla: transmission and content The essential function of the exemplum was to seize and retain the attention of a preacher’s congregation, and the lesson imparted in the narrative was an important part of his strategy to teach his hearers to be better Christians. Collections usually cover a wide variety of topics and they provide evidence of the range and variety of illustrative material upon which preachers and moralists could draw. They also show which subjects most concerned them and, because the exemplum had above all to be credible, they can be taken as an indicator of what preachers thought their audiences would believe and understand. As Mark Pattison observed, the preachers of any period ‘are as necessarily bound to preconceived notions, as to the language, of those whom they have to exhort. The pulpit does not mould the forms into which the religious thought in any age runs, it simply accommodates itself to those that exist. For this very reason, … sermons are the surest index of the prevailing religious feeling of their age’.52 The mix of material and range of topics in the Liber Exemplorum are typical of the exemplum genre. The first part of the collection is chiefly devoted to Christ and the Virgin, the Mass and the saving power of the Cross. The second part has exempla on a wide variety of doctrinal, moral and other topics. These include the vices (anger, sloth, avarice, theft, gluttony, envy, lust), the virtues (charity, love for God, love for one’s neighbour, faith, humility, mercy), the sacraments and church practice (baptism, confession, marriage, indulgences, behaviour in consecrated places or on holy days, tithes and the need to respect church property), and the sins and other failings thought to beset particular professions or groups (lawyers, usurers, merchants and clerks). Some of these subjects call for some comment here. In 1215 the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council linked confession with annual (or more frequent) communion, and together these two sacraments became the bond which held the faithful in a single community of belief and religious practice.53 The extent of confession before 1215 is a matter of some debate,54 but by the end of the twelfth century theologians and 52 M. Pattison, ‘Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688–1750’, Essays and Reviews (2nd edn, London, 1860), 267, cited in d’Avray, Preaching of the Friars, 258–9. 53 M. Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1991), 12–82. 54 For confession before 1215, see A. Murray, ‘Confession before 1215’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th Series, 3 (1993), 51–81 and Sarah Hamilton, The Practice of Penance 900–1050 (Woodbridge, 2001). For the position after 1215, see A.

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canonists were already placing a new emphasis on individual contrition and stressing the importance of addressing the needs of the faithful by imposing penances on a case-by-case basis. In the thirteenth century, confession played a central part in the ‘re-evangelisation’ of the laity, and preaching (and therefore exempla) naturally played an important role in communicating the new thinking.55 Exempla on confession often stress the uncertainty of human life and encourage timely confession and repentance to ensure that one is not in a state of mortal sin when death suddenly supervenes; the Liber Exemplorum has three stories specifically intended for this purpose and others in this volume could be used in the same way.56 Some exempla emphasise the need for confession to be complete and to omit nothing, however trivial it may seem (DC 58), while others stress the central role of the priest in hearing confessions; in one particularly striking story, a man is protected from the devil when he makes his confession direct to God, but the audience is invited to reflect on how much more strength and power lies in ‘true confession, made to a priest as ordained by the Church’.57 In other cases confession is presented as a sign of a change of life (LE 45, DC 34), which protects from the devil,58 crushes the power of demons59 or frees the penitent from punishment or consignment to Hell;60 mercy is always available to those who repent, no matter how heinous their faults. The Eucharist is also a prominent theme. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries theologians had avidly explored the subject of the E ­ ucharist and the nature of the change which the bread and wine underwent at the moment of consecration. What emerged as the Church’s settled doctrinal position was transubstantiation, the doctrine that the host Murray, ‘Piety and Impiety in thirteenth-century Italy’, in G. J. Cuming and D. Baker (eds), Popular Belief and Practice (Studies in Church History 8, Cambridge, 1992), 83–106 and N. Bériou, ‘Autour de Latran IV (1215): La Naissance de la Confession moderne et sa diffusion’, in Groupe de la Bussière, Pratiques de la confession (Paris, 1983), 73–93. 55 A. E. Bernstein, ‘Teaching and preaching Confession in thirteenth-century Paris’, in A. Ferreiro (ed.), The Devil, Heresy and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages: Essays in honor of Jeffrey B. Russell (Leiden, 1998), 111–130. 56 LE 110–112; DC 45 was also intended to make the same point. LE 44 could also be used in the same way. 57 LE 95; see the discussion by L. Scanlon, Narrative, Authority and Power: The Medieval Exemplum and the Chaucerian Tradition (Cambridge, 1994), 72–4. 58 DC 55, 62 and 77; LE 100. 59 LE 94–5; see also LE 113, where confession erases the devil’s record of sins committed in a church. 60 LE 98–100.

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and the wine were wholly changed into the actual body and blood of Christ. From the twelfth century onwards, the Western Church presented the Eucharist as its foremost sacrament, a sacrament which brought the faithful into the presence of Christ’s own body. As with confession, exempla played a key role in disseminating theological knowledge among the clergy and in teaching the laity about the Eucharist, which now took a central place in the religious life of the West. From the twelfth century onwards, stories stressing the efficacy of the mass or explaining the theology of the Eucharist circulated in increasing numbers.61 Often specifically aimed at combatting doubt or heresy, exempla typically used miraculous events to reinforce faith in the transformation of the elements in the mass: hosts which bleed or are visibly transformed into Christ’s body are common (LE 10), as are visions in which the Christ Child appears in place of the host (DC 34) or is even seen being consumed by the celebrant.62 Other stories deliver warnings: the officiating priest must lead an appropriate life (LE 194) and must not celebrate mass without confessing and repenting of his sins (LE 97); those taking communion must have confessed beforehand (LE 14); the congregation should attend mass with due reverence, without chattering during the service (LE 113) or leaving early (LE 62); and the host should not be treated with disrespect or used inappropriately (LE 10, 99). The celebration of masses was recognised as one of a number of ways of ameliorating the lot of the dead suffering in Purgatory, which had emerged by the twelfth century as a place or condition of temporary punishment after death. By this time, theologians had begun to distinguish between the guilt attached to a sin and its punishment: guilt was remitted by confession and contrition, while punishment was removed by performing the penance enjoined by the confessor. When such satisfaction had not been made by the time of death, the debt was paid through a period of expiatory punishment in Purgatory, where the punishments are often presented as closely reflecting the sins committed.63 Masses for the dead, sometimes in the form of trentals of masses celebrated on thirty consecutive days (LE 18), were regarded an important means of helping those in Purgatory. In one story in the Liber Exemplorum a soul in torment says that he can be helped ‘through prayer and especially through the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist’ (LE 121). The Dominican 61 LE 10–22, 51, 99, 197, 121; DC 201–2. 62 Rubin, Corpus Christi, 83–129. 63 LE 121, 157; DC 201–2, 315.

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Collector describes how a known, finite number of masses was required to release a soul from Purgatory (DC 202) and tells another story in which a dead man’s suffering was eased whenever his sister said a psalm from the Office of the Dead (DC 200). There were other means of achieving the same end. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving were all recognised from early times as effective ways to help the souls of the dead,64 but a more recent development was the idea that they could also benefit from indulgences. Indulgences, which become increasingly common from the mid-twelfth century, were grants of remission from specified periods of enjoined penance granted by popes, cardinals or bishops, in return for acts of piety or devotion, such as going on crusade or pilgrimage, contributing to charitable causes, reciting particular prayers or listening to sermons (LE 166). Indulgences were intended to avail those who earned them, and their transfer to the use of the dead raised difficult theological problems; theologians discussed whether the Church in this world could exercise jurisdiction over the souls of the dead who had passed from this world and undergone the judgement of God, and whether remission could be transferred from one person to another. The first papal indulgence benefiting those in Purgatory was not granted until 1476, but practice was far in advance of theory or papal sanction. A number of thirteenth-century exempla feature the transfer of indulgences and their application to the benefit of the dead, including one in the Liber Exemplorum (LE 166) and another in the Dominican Collection (DC 4); others occur in Etienne de Bourbon65 and the Speculum Laicorum.66 What is striking in the case of the Liber Exemplorum story is the entirely worldly way in which the transfer is effected, as if the indulgences were any other piece of property. The transfer is nevertheless effective and the dead man is immediately released from Purgatory as a result. To underline the point, the author warns the living not to ‘despise indulgences, whose miraculous benefits the dead deserve to receive’; in a similar vein, Etienne de Bourbon notes that a knight who had been on the Albigensian Crusade used his indulgence to release his father from Purgatory ‘by the authority of God and the pope and the Church’. 64 See DC 100, in which Jordan of Saxony grants all his merits to a dying girl and after her death undertakes unspecified acts of penance on her behalf; LE 98 has a story of a clerk who performs seven years’ penance on behalf of his mother. 65 Stephani de Borbone Tractatus de diversis materiis praedicabilibus, prima pars, De Dono Timoris, eds Berlioz and Eichenlaub, 177. 66 Speculum Laicorum, ed. Welter, nos 326–7.

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Finally among themes covered by the exempla, one may mention the cult of the saints and of Mary in particular. The saints, whose miracles and lives of exemplary virtue made them a rich source of material for preachers, are copiously represented in the exempla in this book, but they are all overshadowed by Mary; her pivotal role in the Incarnation and unique relationship to Christ gave her an unmatched ability to intercede in the court of Heaven and enabled her cult to dominate the religious life of the later Middle Ages. The Liber Exemplorum has ten exempla dealing with the origin and nature of the main Marian festivals,67 plus a further sixteen stories of the Virgin’s miracles.68 Most of the latter circulated widely in the countless collections of Marian miracles which proliferated from the eleventh century onwards and many of them adhere to a pattern. A person of otherwise reprehensible life sings the Hours of the Virgin each morning or habitually says the Ave Maria when passing a statue of Mary, who saves him from his enemies or rescues him from death or damnation. The stories thus emphasise Mary’s loyalty to her devotees and the efficacy of the protection which she affords them,69 often in return for what the Liber Exemplorum calls ‘so small an honour paid to her’ (LE 44). The sources used in the two collections are, like the topics covered, characteristic of the genre, about one-third of the material being drawn from patristic sources. The exemplum was in some ways a conservative genre, whose power to persuade depended in part on the authority which a preacher could claim for his story. In exemplum-collections this is often reflected in the high proportion of stories drawn from standard Christian sources, with the Desert Fathers, Jerome, Augustine and Gregory the Great usually featuring strongly. The same concern led collectors to stress the reliability of their sources, whether written or oral; the compilers of the Liber Exemplorum and the Dominican Collection were both at pains to provide references to written or personal sources for almost every story quoted – indeed, they do so to an extent unusual for the genre.70 67 LE 30–9. 68 LE 40–55; see also LE 173. 69 R. Fulton, ‘Mary’ in Rubin and Simons (eds), Cambridge History of Christianity 4: Christianity in Western Europe c.1100–c.1500, 283–96 (at 286–7), discussing versions of LE 40 and 52. For the cult of Mary generally, see M. Rubin, Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (London, 2009) and Emotion and Devotion: The Meaning of Mary in Medieval Religious Cultures (New York and Budapest, 2009). 70 S. Wenzel, Verses in Sermons: Fasciculus Morum and its Middle English Poems (Cambridge MA, 1978), 45.

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This does not, of course, mean that stories transmitted in exemplumcollections were static and unchanging. Indeed, they were not intended to be so. Many collections systematically reworked material or gave cross-references to stories which were relevant to more than one topic, a development which reached its apogee with the Alphabetum Narrationum, compiled at the beginning of the fourteenth century.71 Above all, of course, further reworking could be expected when an exemplumcollection fell into the hands of a preacher, who would take the material which he found there and adapt it to the needs of the moment. As far as can be judged, the Liber Exemplorum and the Dominican Collection respected their written material, and for the most part they adhered closely to their written sources, but this was not invariably the case. In common with other collectors, the compiler of the Liber Exemplorum sometimes paraphrased his material in order to make it more accessible (LE 29), added relevant material from other sources (LE 184), or wrote from memory (LE 60, 137). More importantly, he adapted stories to illustrate different themes or to make them appropriate for different audiences. The same exempla are used, for instance, to illustrate both the mercy of the Virgin and the sin of lust (LE 46, 199), to attack sloth and to condemn injuries inflicted on the innocent (LE 62, 167), to illustrate the saving power of the Cross and for preaching against gluttony (LE 25, 153), and for preaching on marriage and ‘on good words’ (LE 101, 188). Moreover, the author frequently explains how a particular story should be adapted to different audiences. For instance, if stories about the shortcomings of monks are used in sermons to the laity, they should be couched in general terms to avoid bringing monks into disrepute; only in sermons to religious should all the details be given (LE 154, 155). The preacher must be careful not to give offence or use unsuitable language: words like ‘dung’ or ‘excrement’ should be toned down and the preacher should say ‘mud’ or ‘dirt’ instead.72 He must not enter into political controversies (LE 104) and, if using exempla about incest or sodomy, the preacher is advised to speak only in general terms to avoid giving offence or putting sins into his listeners’ minds.73 Less often a collector may edit or add to his sources to make a particular point or bring his material up to date. One striking instance is the Liber Exemplorum’s treatment of a story drawn from Gerald of Wales, in which Louis VII destroyed a papal privilege granting him 71 Bremond et al., L’Exemplum, 61–2. 72 LE 165 and compare 99, 200 and 206. 73 LE 197, 200, 206.

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the revenues of all the vacant bishoprics and abbeys in his kingdom (LE 116), something which the kings of England and France claimed as their ‘regalian right’. Gerald frequently criticised the English kings of his own day for plundering the material wealth of the Church, and regularly praised French kings to the detriment of their English counterparts.74 But the Liber Exemplorum goes further and gives the story an individual, contemporary slant. The compiler contrasts Louis and Henry II by adding that Louis had protected and offered hospitality to Thomas Becket when he was being persecuted by Henry, and describes Louis as ‘the most Christian king’ (rex Christianissimus), a phrase which does not occur at this point in Gerald’s text. By the time the Liber Exemplorum was being compiled, the title ‘most Christian king’ had become the Capetians’ peculiar prerogative and its application here to Louis VII emphasises the virtue of the king of France in contrast not only with Henry II, whose knights had murdered Becket, but with subsequent kings of England who did not bear the title of ‘most Christian king’. The compiler also adds a final sentence which points up the contrast between Louis, who died in 1180, and unspecified kings of his own times: ‘How happy the princes of our day would be if they followed the example of this prudent king in his pious struggle on behalf of Holy Mother Church!’ For an English friar writing in the 1270s the target would almost certainly have been English kings and the long episcopal vacancies, many of them artificially prolonged by the Crown, during the reigns of Henry III and Edward I. As may be expected, widely disseminated exempla and those used over a long chronological period can show considerable variations in the details of the stories themselves or the emphasis placed upon them. But exempla of comparatively recent origin can exhibit similar changes, especially in the names of the protagonists or in the circumstances surrounding the central incident of the example. Gerald of Wales’s account of the death of Maurice de Sully, the bishop of Paris who had died in 1196 (LE 11), was written within a year or so of the event, but later accounts, which are widespread, give different reasons for the canons’ reluctance to offer him the Eucharist, and some make Hugh of St Victor or Odo de Sully the focus of the story. The ‘miracle of the bees’ (LE 16), which the Liber Exemplorum also takes from Gerald, occurs widely from the mid-twelfth century, again with considerable variation of detail. St Brice’s vision of the devil recording the words of those chattering in church (LE 113) also emerges in the twelfth century, but thereafter 74 R. Bartlett, Gerald of Wales: A Voice of the Middle Ages (Stroud, 2006), 79–86.

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occurs featuring several other saints and is sometimes conflated with a story in which the devil collects syllables lost or elided in the singing of Mass. The Liber Exemplorum’s account of the castle swallowed up by the earth (LE 112), which has analogues in Celtic folklore, was reproduced with little change in a model sermon composed by John Mirk in the 1390s.75 However, this version did not go unchallenged. The Gesta Romanorum, in line with the work’s overall plan, provided it with a spurious historical setting in the reign of a fictitious Emperor Theobald, and the protagonist’s need to acquire money is explained by means of an imperial decree forbidding marriages between persons from different social classes. Instead of killing a merchant, the suitor gains his wealth by killing a blind nobleman, and a long moralisation is added.76 Another collection, from Silesia, claims to have taken the story from Cassiodorus’s Tripartite History, where it does not in fact appear; in this version, the impoverished knight murders the lady’s husband.77 This story in its various forms may stand for many in which later versions make changes apparently intended to enhance a story’s credibility or its claims to historicity. Sometimes these changes may be followed in some detail. The Liber Exemplorum’s story of Lanfranc rebuked by a child for his theological speculations on the banks of the Seine (LE 86) is first known to appear in the works of Caesarius of Heisterbach, where the name of the scholar is not given; he is simply ‘a certain schoolman’ teaching in Paris.78 Several later collections also tell the story about an anonymous master but stories tend to be more memorable and immediate with a named historical figure at their centre. From the time of Thomas de Cantimpré, whose Bonum Universale de Apibus was completed by 1263, the story was widely associated with Augustine of Hippo, the renowned theologian who had died in 430, and set on the shores of the Mediterranean. This version of the story rapidly achieved currency throughout Europe, but the attribution did not go uncontested and Lanfranc is only one of several other names which became attached to the story: at the end of the thirteenth 75 S. Powell (ed.), John Mirk’s Festial (EETS, Ordinary Series 334–5, 2009–10), i. 132–3. Vol ii, containing the notes, had not appeared at the time of going to press. 76 H. Oesterley (ed.), Gesta Romanorum (Berlin, 1872), no. 277; S. J. H. Herrtage (ed.), The Early English Versions of the Gesta Romanorum (EETS, Extra Series 33, 1879), no.  63. 77 J. Klapper (ed.), Erzählungen des Mittelalters in deutscher Übersetzung und lateinischen Urtext (Breslau, 1914), no. 7. 78 For what follows, see H.-I. Marrou, ‘Saint Augustin et l’ange’, in L’Homme devant Dieu: Mélanges offerts au père Henri de Lubac (Lyons, 1964), ii. 137–49.

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century, an Italian Franciscan told the story of an early member of his order, Raynaldo d’Arrezzo; in the fifteenth century the story was being told about Alan of Lille, the eminent Paris theologian who had died in 1202. The Liber Exemplorum claims to have taken the story from ‘an old sermon’, which is likely to have been Odo of Cheriton’s sermon for the Feast of St Michael, where it appears in almost identical terms. This sermon belonged to a cycle of sermons probably written after 1225,79 only a few years after Caesarius was writing, and as far as is known it is the earliest text to make Lanfranc the story’s protagonist. The Liber Exemplorum, the Speculum Laicorum and an exemplum-collection from Silesia all follow this lead;80 and eventually, in the 1390s, the Liber Exemplorum’s text was incorporated almost word for word into the detailed account of Lanfranc’s career given by an English chronicler, Henry of Knighton.81 Thomas de Cantimpré fleshed out his version of the story with references to Augustine’s extensive writings on the Trinity and his position as bishop of Hippo, presumably in an effort to give it an authentic air. The same process can be seen in the Lanfranc version of the story. Neither Odo nor the Liber Exemplorum give specific indications as to their source, but later collections refer to sources in the ‘chronicles of the Franks’ or the ‘Deeds of Lanfranc’; the Speculum Laicorum also adds that Lanfranc later became archbishop of Canterbury but was at that time studying in Paris. Again, the effect is to make additional claims to historicity, but Lanfranc never studied in Paris and the claim to chronicle evidence also appears to be specious. Nevertheless, there is an important point to be made. Augustine did eventually emerge as the story’s most famous protagonist, but the earliest versions have an unnamed Paris master at their centre and Lanfranc became associated with the story shortly afterwards. It is only by stripping back these later accretions that one clearly sees the story for what it is – an ­expression of concern about theological speculation in the thirteenthcentury schools. 79 J. B. Schneyer, Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters für die Zeit von 1150–1350 (Münster, 11 vols, 1969–90), iv. 497 (no. 179). For the dating, see A. C. Friend, ‘Master Odo of Cheriton’, Speculum 23 (1948), 641–58 (at 658). 80 For the version in the Speculum Laicorum, not printed in Welter’s partial edition, see BL, Additional MS 11284 fol. 85v; J. Klapper (ed.), Exempla aus Handschriften des Mittelalters (Heidelberg, 1911), no. 9. 81 Chronicon Henrici Knighton, vel Cnitthon, monachi Leycestrensis, ed. J. R. Lumby (RS, 2 vols, 1889–95), i. 88–9.

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Such stories hold many pitfalls for the unwary. Exempla depended for much of their effect on the authority claimed for them, but such claims cannot always be taken at face value and the Lanfranc story and the Liber Exemplorum’s story condemning regalian right show evidence of a deliberate attempt to add colour, credibility or contemporary relevance to a story already in circulation. Many exempla, including those apparently from written sources, have something of the character of gossip or funny stories, which gradually change as they pass from one person to the next. They therefore require careful probing: analogues and sources need to be identified and careful attention paid to the relationship between the different versions of an exemplum and to their dating. Above all, they need to be approached with a lively awareness that they are complex witnesses to aspects of contemporary culture, rather than something which can be mined for nuggets of historical fact. Exempla for which collectors claim to have had a personal, oral source raise still more complex problems. First, they represent or claim to represent an oral culture which has been written down – stories which circulated in the vernacular but which we have to approach through their written, Latin form. Second, given the free approach sometimes taken with written material, how can one be sure that stories which claim to be eyewitness accounts or for which the collector claims to have had a reliable first-hand source are exactly that? It is worth noting at the outset that the compilers do not usually report events which they witnessed for themselves. One exception appears to be the armed abduction of the earl of Ulster’s brother from the Franciscan house in Dublin (LE 117); the compiler may also have had personal knowledge of a related incident, the death of Sir Robert of Stafferston (LE 118), which took place in Dublin on the same day. The compiler of the Liber Exemplorum also heard one story from a laywoman who approached him for spiritual advice (LE 62, 167). Otherwise they do not claim to offer eyewitness accounts or the unmediated testimony of those present at a particular event. Almost all of the other stories came to the compilers from other friars or clerks.82 This is a trend also reflected in other collections83 and the stories are perhaps best seen as a product of the culture of storytelling within the mendicant orders: a shifting population of itinerant friars, many of them perhaps eager 82 LE 22, 38, 43, 44, 45, 46, 62, 66, 95, 99, 104, 110, 112, 142, 166, 180, 191, 192, 199, 211, 213; DC 18, 32, 33, 34, 62, 63, 77, 78, 87, 93, 96, 97, 120, 132, 139, 140, 163, 183, 185, 200, 202, 216, 217, 227, 228, 313, 314, and 315. 83 Bremond et al., L’Exemplum, 87.

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to obtain new preaching material, made every friary a natural place for the swapping of stories and experiences.84 The Liber Exemplorum contains evidence of foreign visitors to Ireland telling stories of their own countries (LE 192, 213) or of stories being told in front of large groups of friars (LE 44, 95). Four stories originated or were recounted in Paris, an important centre for the dissemination of exempla.85 The Dominican Collector does not usually name his sources. He usually cites ‘a trustworthy man of religion’ or a ‘certain trustworthy person’; on other occasions, he claims to have known the man in the story or to have heard the story told in a sermon. The Liber Exemplorum does usually name its sources, and sometimes the information given is backed up with considerable corroborative detail. The transmission of a story from the original event to its appearance in the Liber Exemplorum sometimes involves several stages, each of them described in some detail: a layman tells the prior of a Premonstratensian abbey about something which happened to his son; the prior uses the story to instruct a canon in his monastery; the canon later becomes a Franciscan and passes it on to the compiler of the Liber Exemplorum (LE 43). How should one interpret this? As with written sources, caution is required. In another story a Dominican claimed to know the whereabouts of a roll on which demons had recorded all of a man’s sins and which had been recovered by the Virgin Mary (LE 51), and it is possible that in some cases the more everyday provenance claimed for other stories was simply constructed to give a greater appearance of authenticity. As with all exempla, the author’s main purpose was to enshrine a higher moral truth in an engaging story; the names of claimed witnesses or details of the story’s transmission would have played their part in securing an audience’s attention and may have encouraged them to accept the story as literally true, but they cannot be taken as a guarantee of the story’s historicity. Stories of this sort should, however, be distinguished from those taken from established Christian classics or from existing exemplum-collections: they obviously take us much closer to the oral religious culture of the day than does a story plucked from the Desert Fathers or Gregory the Great. While the stories are not eyewitness accounts and necessarily reflect the concerns of the educated clerical elite who recorded them, preachers valued and used them precisely because they thought 84 Kehnel, ‘Narrative tradition’, 466–75. 85 LE 38, 44, 45 and 104. For the importance of Paris in this respect, see d’Avray, Preaching of the Friars, 198–202.

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that their audiences would find them plausible. In Alan E. Bernstein’s phrase, exempla reflect the ‘the clerical calculation of popular concerns’,86 and their value depends on the notion that preachers were seeking to tell plausible stories about the kinds of things that their hearers did and believed. Teaching was of course an essential element in the exemplum genre and the contents of many of the stories closely mirror contemporary Church legislation. In this sense exempla necessarily contain a large top-down element, in that exemplum-collectors and preachers were seeking to further the Church’s official agenda and their material was inevitably harnessed to teach, persuade or even frighten listeners into complying with Church teaching and practice (LE 95). Nevertheless, in their search for material they cast their net very wide and exempla can preserve traces of unofficial religious practices or local folkloric beliefs which may not be recorded elsewhere.87 Historians of the Annales school, often using techniques borrowed from the social sciences, have successfully mined this material to produce studies of attitudes to the supernatural, the afterlife and local cultic practices, of which Schmitt’s study of the quasi-religious cult of a dead dog, ‘St Guinefort’, is perhaps the best known.88 Schmitt’s main source, Etienne de Bourbon, was an inquisitor who used the story as a warning against superstitious practices. There has been much discussion about the extent to which the institutions of preaching and confession represented an attempt by a clerical elite to impose its desired norms on a laity clinging to unofficial religious practices which may have had their origin in pre-Christian times.89 It is clear, however, that stories of this sort, while not eyewitness accounts, are unlikely to be completely invented and can therefore open a window onto the popular culture of the day and to official reactions to it. Finally, what can be said of the reception of exempla by those who heard them in sermons? Exemplum-collectors and preachers regularly remark 86 Bernstein, ‘Teaching and preaching Confession’, 118. 87 In this volume, see LE 192. Little showed that the custom described was recorded as late as 1862. 88 J.-C. Schmitt, The Holy Greyhound: Guinefort, Healer of Children since the Thirteenth Century, trans. M. Thom (Cambridge and Paris, 1983). 89 For a sense of the issues, see J. van Engen, ‘The Christian Middle Ages as a historiographical problem’, American Historical Review 91 (1986), 519–52 (at 529–31) and J.-C. Schmitt, ‘Religion, folklore and society in the medieval West’ in L. K. Little and B. Rosenwein (eds), Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings (Oxford and Malden, 1998), 376–387. See also C. S. Watkins, History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge, 2007), 5–12.

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on the alarming or salutary quality of their material90 or on the effectiveness of preaching in general. Did exempla have the desired effect of keeping the audience attentive and delivering the lesson intended? One has in large part to rely on the evidence of the exempla themselves, which inevitably emphasise the remarkable occasion rather than the run-ofthe-mill, but it is clear that people did interrupt, argue or ask questions during sermons and that this was not limited to the educated classes.91 Response to exempla appears to have varied. When a preacher expressed his doubts about the literal truth of one of the Liber Exemplorum’s most striking stories, a member of the crowd shouted out that he could vouch for it personally (LE 112), but sometimes an exemplum misfired. The Dominican Collection provides an instance of this (DC 106), in which a friar’s good intentions are met with a sharp rebuke, and the compiler of the Liber Exemplorum felt the need to spell out the moral of one story for fear that the wrong conclusion might be drawn (LE 125). As one would expect, exempla regularly complain of those who did not attend church at all (DC 86, 87), chattered during the service (LE 113) or left before it ended (LE 62, 63). Others fell asleep during the sermon. Preachers used exempla not only to condemn inattention, but to combat it by making the sermon more palatable. A secular story might revive the audience’s attention: Caesarius of Heisterbach tells a famous story about monks who slept through their abbot’s sermon and only woke when he mentioned King Arthur92 and the Liber Exemplorum has a similar story which goes back to the Desert Fathers (LE 64). Some preachers disapproved of the use of secular literature in sermons but Etienne de Bourbon used Arthurian material extensively and even those who did not approve noted that secular literature, and exempla more generally, could be useful in combatting a congregation’s tendency to nod off. It was perhaps partly with this in mind that from the thirteenth century onwards some preachers tended to group most of their exempla together towards the end of the sermon, where their punchy, memorable stories would be best placed to underline the preacher’s final exhortations.93 90 LE 102, 111, 144, 145, 147, 192. 91 Jacques Berlioz, ‘L’auditoire des prédicateurs dans la littérature des exempla (XIIIe– XIVe siècles)’, Medioevo e Rinascimento 3 (1989), 125–58. 92 Caesarii … Dialogus Miraculorum iv. 36 (ed. Strange, i. 205). 93 Bremond et al., L’Exemplum, 160–1, with evidence from the sermons of Jacques de Vitry. Of course, some manuscripts of model sermon collections may have grouped their exempla at the end of the sermon for the convenience of users, who could then deploy them wherever in the sermon they thought fit.

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[PART ONE: OF HIGHER MATTERS]1 (How the star of Christ appeared) [1] John Chrysostom2 in his commentary on Matthew gives the following account of the star of Christ which was seen in the East: ‘I have heard some say that there was a people who lived in the extreme East, by the Ocean, who talked of a certain sacred writing named Seth concerning this star and the benefits which would be conferred through it, which had been handed down through generations of learned men. They selected twelve of their most learned men and put them in place to await the star and when one of them died he was replaced by his son or some other close relative. In their own language they were called Magi, because they glorified God silently and without speaking. Each year after the corn-harvest they climbed up a certain mountain called the Mount of Victory, where there was a cave in the rock; it was a most beautiful place, covered with handsome trees. There they washed and offered themselves to God and silently praised Him for three days. They did this for generations until a star appeared to them over the Mount of Victory in the form of a boy with the image of a cross above. And the star spoke to them and instructed them and told them to go to Jerusalem. They set forth and for two years the star went before them and they did not lack for food or drink in their scrips. The rest is reported at length in the Gospel. Eventually they returned and preached and instructed many people. But when the Apostle Thomas came into those parts,3 they joined with him and were baptised.’ [Of Christ’s infancy] [2]  A truly remarkable and delightful thing about Christ’s infancy is recorded in the Tripartite History of the Church, book 6, chapter 41 as 1 I have followed Little in using square brackets to indicate material which does not appear in the manuscript, while round brackets indicate rubrics or, more rarely, text added in a later hand. 2 Pseudo-Chrysostom, Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum 2 (PG 56: 637). 3 According to legend, ‘Doubting’ Thomas took the Gospel to Parthia and India.

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follows.4 ‘It is reported that in Hermopolis in the Thebaid there is a tree called Persidis, which can cure many people’s illnesses if a part of its fruit is tied to the sick person’s neck. They say that, when Joseph had fled into Egypt with Christ and the Mother of God to escape from Herod and had reached Hermopolis, as soon as they entered the city the tree was unable to bear the arrival of Christ and bowed down to the ground and humbly worshipped Him.’

(Of the manner of Christ’s Passion) [3] Augustine says that one of the ten sibyls5 foretold the manner of Christ’s Passion, but he does not say which sibyl this was. Of this sibyl he says in The City of God, book 18:6 ‘He shall afterwards, she said, come into the hands of those who do not believe, they shall smite God with unclean hands and with an impure mouth they will spit forth poisons but He shall meekly submit His holy back to their beatings and suffer their buffetings in silence, so that no one may know that He is the Word or whence He has come to speak to those in Hell, and He shall be crowned with a crown of thorns. For food they will give Him gall and for His thirst vinegar; they shall place before Him this table of inhospitality. Foolish race, you did not know your God, when He showed Himself before the minds of men; instead, you have crowned Him with thorns and have mixed bitter gall for Him. But the veil of the Temple shall be rent and darkest night shall come for three hours in the midst of the day. And He shall die the death, taking sleep for three days; then, returning from Hell, He shall come forth first into the light, showing the beginning of the Resurrection to those who have been called back from the dead.’ Here ends the prophecy. [4] Here I add something which I found written in some famous postils on the Gospel of John.7 It is this. In a book about the contest between Simon Magus8 and Peter before Nero9 it is recorded that Pilate 4 Cassiodorus, Historia Tripartita vi. 42 [sic] (PL 69: 1058). 5 Sibyls were priestesses at Greek and Roman shrines who were thought to have prophetic powers. In Christian literature, some sibyls were said to have prophesied the coming of Christ, as here; for a further instance, see LE 34 below. 6 Augustine, City of God xviii. 23.2. 7 Unidentified. Postils are marginal notes or commentary, usually on a Biblical text. 8 Simon Magus was a magician who came into conflict with St Peter when he sought to buy the power to bestow the gifts of the Holy Spirit (Acts 8: 9–24). A number of other exploits are narrated in the New Testament apocrypha and the Church Fathers. 9 Passio ss. apostolorum Petri et Pauli 18–20: R. A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet (eds), Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha (Leipzig, 1891–1903), i. 135–7.

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admitted that his heart always told him that Christ was the Son of God. Thus it is written in John 19 that the Jews said, ‘We have a law and by that law he must die, for he has made himself the Son of God.’ When Pilate heard that saying, he grew the more afraid,10 that is to say to kill Him, than before. [5]  This saying should not be left out. The master says in the Histories11 that the column to which Jesus was bound still shows traces of His blood. Blood was drawn from His back with whips and bloody sweat stained the other parts of His body. We can also believe that the thorns in His crown drew blood from His head. Thus He was stained with blood so that we may say that not only were His hands and feet and sides spattered with blood but that Christ ascended from Bosra, that is from the world, with all his clothing stained with blood.12 After a number of other matters, he adds:13 ‘It is recorded that a school then flourished at Athens and when the wise men enquired into the reason for the darkness which covered the whole world when the Lord was crucified, Dionysius the Areopagite said that the God of Creation was suffering.’14 ‘God of Creation’ means ‘God, the maker of Creation’. You see therefore that when God the Creator suffers in human form, the sun laid aside its nature because it could not put forth its light at such an hour; not only did the sun put its nature aside but so did the other parts of the Creation: ‘the earth did quake’15 and so on. [6]  It will be useful to spell out for the uneducated how the mystery of Christ’s Passion was accomplished in seven hours of a natural day.16 Although there are different opinions about the time of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, one may safely say that the Lord was scourged at around the first hour or not long afterwards; at around the third hour or not much later, He was crucified; at around the sixth hour, darkness came over the whole world; at the ninth hour, the Lord gave up the ghost; at the hour at which Vespers are usually said in church, He 10 John 19: 7–8. 11 Peter Comestor, Historia Scholastica in Evangelia 167–8 (PL 198: 1628). Here and elsewhere, the compiler uses the phrase ‘the master’ to refer to Peter Comestor, the renowned theologian and chancellor of Paris who died c.1178. 12 Isaiah 63: 1–3. 13 Comestor, Hist. Schol. in Evang. 175 (PL 198: 1631). 14 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: not found in this form but compare Letter vii.2 (PG 3: 1082). 15 Matthew 27: 51. 16 Compare, for example, Hugh of St Victor, Speculum Ecclesie 3 (PL 177: 340) and Miscellanea vii.10 (PL 177: 873–5); see also Fasciculus Morum, 519.

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was taken down from the Cross; afterwards, at about the hour when Compline is said, He was buried; in the middle of the night, or at least before full daylight, He rose from the dead and this is the reason why each day we sing seven hours in the church. Thus we sing one hour, called Prime,17 in honour of Him Who, as has been said, was scourged for our sake at or around that time. We sing one hour, Terce, in honour of Him Who was crucified for us at about the third hour. We sing what is called Sext in honour of Him for Whose pain and suffering the sun lost its light around the sixth hour, that is around midday. We sing the hour called Nones in honour of Him Who gave up His spirit for our sake at the ninth hour. We sing Vespers in honour of Him Who, after dying the death which He bore for our sake, was taken down from the Cross at about the time when Vespers are usually sung. We sing Compline in honour of Him Who was placed in the tomb around that time. We sing Matins in honour of Him Who rose from the dead in the middle of the night or at any rate before full daylight. These famous verses are about this interpretation:18 Prime yields to whips; Terce undergoes death; Sext covers the sun but None sees Him dying; Vespers takes Him down; Compline lays Him in the tomb; Having conquered Death, He rises again in the midst of the night.

Let the verses be understood as above and differing opinions will not bring us any blame. [7]  If one asks about the time of the Resurrection, we cannot state it with certainty. While Ambrose19 feels that it was in the middle of the night, Augustine says that the Saviour rose at dawn; however, the Church seems to agree with the blessed Augustine, for it celebrates Matins for the Resurrection of the Lord. We can, of course, take it as certain that He rose before full daylight.20 17 The canonical hours, listed here, were times of daily prayer and the services prescribed for them. Times varied according to the season, but in summer the following may be taken as a guide: Matins at daybreak, Prime 6 am, Terce 8 am, Sext around noon, Nones 2.30 pm, Vespers 6 pm and Compline at around 8 pm. 18 A number of similar verses are printed in Analecta Hymnica medii aevi 30 (Leipzig, 1898), nos 13–30; see also J. de Douhet, Dictionnaire des Légendes du Christianisme (Encyclopédie Théologique viii, Paris 1855), 641. 19 St Ambrose of Milan, who died in 397. 20 Comestor, Hist. Schol. in Evang. 185 (PL 198: 1636–8), which draws on Ambrose, Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam 10 (PL 15: 1842) and Augustine, De consensu evangelistarum iii. 24 (PL 34: 1197–9).

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(How Christ appeared to His Disciples after the Resurrection) [8]  As the Historia Scholastica says,21 the Lord appeared to the disciples ten times after the Resurrection – five times that day and five times afterwards. First, to Mary Magdalene;22 secondly, to the women returning from the tomb, when they grasped His feet and worshipped Him.23 Thirdly, to Peter, although it is not recorded precisely where and when in the Gospel.24 Fourthly, to two men journeying to Emmaus.25 Fifthly, to the apostles when Thomas was not there.26 Sixthly, He appeared to them after eight days when Thomas was present.27 Seventhly, to seven disciples fishing on the Sea of Tiberias.28 Eighthly, to eleven disciples who had met on Mount Thabor in Galilee.29 Afterwards He appeared twice on the day of the Ascension. The first time was to the eleven who were eating together in the upper room when He reproved their unbelief and ordered them to go to the Mount of Olives and He immediately disappeared.30 Behold! a new appearance: immediately after the meal, the eleven apostles and other disciples and the holy women who had set forth from the city according to the Lord’s command came to the Mount of Olives and He immediately appeared to them and, as they all looked on, He was lifted up into Heaven so that He should allow us to share in His holiness.31 [9] There now follows a sweet-sounding example which sweetly commends the Lord’s Resurrection to us for the sweetness of our hearts, which Brother Robert of Dodington32 has told me is also written in the book called The Jewel of the Priesthood or the book which is called Marimi [qui dicitur Marimi] but it is at any rate among the common examples.33 It is this. A certain bishop in Campania, a catholic man of 21 Comestor, Hist. Schol. in Evang. 188–94 (PL 198: 1638–42). 22 Mark 16: 9; John 20: 11–18. 23 Matthew 28: 9–10. 24 Luke 24: 34. 25 Mark 16: 12–13; Luke 24: 13–31. 26 Luke 24: 34–49; John 20: 19–25. 27 John 20: 26–29. 28 John 21: 1–24. 29 Matthew 28: 16–20. 30 Mark 16: 14–19. 31 Luke 24: 50–51. 32 Robert also appears in LE 166 below. 33 Not found in the Gemma Ecclesiastica of Gerald of Wales. The ‘book called Marimi’ has not been identified and this example is not known to occur elsewhere. The

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holy life, as it pleased the Lord, became blind. One Easter Day the holy man was sitting alone in church and it chanced that a young man passed by him. Not able to see him but hearing him, the bishop said, ‘Who is there?’ The young man said, ‘It is I, my lord.’ And the bishop said, ‘What news do you bring?’ The young man replied, ‘The news, my lord, is exceedingly good, for the Lord has risen.’ At this the bishop rejoiced greatly in his heart and burst out, ‘May the Lord bless you, my son, for in truth this is good news. Better news was never heard!’ Not long afterwards it happened that a rich benefice fell vacant in the bishopric. When it came into the bishop’s hand, he summoned the young man and said, ‘My dearest son, you brought me the wonderful news that the Lord had risen and I, out of love for Him about Whom you told me this, give this living to you.’ The young man heard this and gave the bishop due thanks. A short time later, the Queen of the World, the Mother of Mercy, appeared one night to the bishop in a dream and said to him, ‘Lord bishop, you gave that living to the young man who brought you the good news of My Son’s resurrection. Now I shall do this for you.’ And she placed her hand on one of her holy breasts and the full breast dropped milk into each of the bishop’s eyes. At this, the bishop awoke and opened his eyes and immediately found that he could see more clearly than he had ever done before. The end of the example.

(Of Christ’s body) [10] (A fine miracle concerning the Eucharist.) Here are added some examples about this most holy matter which were collected and set down in writing by Master Gerald de Barry of good memory, whose name was first mentioned in the prologue above, in his book The Jewel of the Priesthood.34 He writes thus. ‘In the kingdom of the French, in the city of Arras one Easter Sunday, a woman took a host consecrated as if to be taken to the sick, which the priest had carelessly given to her, and tied it up in the hood of a silk garment and placed it in a chest. When a long period of time had passed and the matter had been completely forgotten, the woman lay awake one night and saw the same chest surrounded by a great light. Absolutely terrified, she showed it to her husband. They saw the same thing the following night and the night after that. Deeply troubled and thoroughly frightened, the woman eventually remembered the host placed in the chest. First thing in the morning, she and her husband opened the chest, unwrapped it ‘common examples’ [exempla communia] are also quoted in LE 106, 157 and 212 below. 34 GE i, 11 (ed. Brewer, 40). The prologue to the LE does not survive.

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all and eventually found the silk cloth and the knot where the host had been was soaked with what seemed to be fresh blood. Without delay they showed it to the priest with tears and great terror and then with due honour carried it in procession to the church. The priest untied the knot in front of everyone and the host appeared like bleeding flesh on one side while the other half was still in the form of bread. The letters impressed on the host stood out clearly legible both on the flesh and on the bread as proof of a greater and more manifest miracle. Having heard about the miracle, a great crowd of people gathered together, not only from the city itself but from neighbouring towns and villages, people who either had doubts or who had completely turned aside from the teaching about the body of Christ. They saw with their own eyes and touched with their own hands and, after also seeing the many other signs and wonders which God saw fit to work there at that time, returned to a sure and certain faith and the True Way which they had left. Within eight days of this it chanced that I was passing through the area when the whole city was buzzing with the story of the recent miracle. And when in a spirit of devotion I approached and saw and made careful enquiries and took note of what happened, I, who had never wavered on the matter, became all the more certain and strong in my faith through the evidence of my own eyes.’ The end. [11]  Another quite remarkable example is recorded in the same book as follows.35 ‘I also think it fitting to place here an example about Maurice, the bishop of Paris. When he was close to death, the canons of St Victor, where his body rests, brought to him an unconsecrated host instead of the body of the Lord which he desired, because he had received the sacrament three days earlier.36 When he saw it, he raised himself from the bed and sat up and said, “In truth, you are deceivers – I did not believe you to be so. I do not ask for this but for the very presence of my Lord Jesus Christ. I want Christ to be present in His own person.” When he said this, they were amazed and frightened and brought him a consecrated host. When he saw the host which they now offered him, he immediately threw himself onto the ground and prostrated himself on his elbows and knees and said, “This is in truth what I desire. This 35 GE i. 9 (ed. Brewer, 32–3). Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris, died in 1196 and the story occurs widely from c.1200, sometimes featuring Odo de Sully, bishop of Paris 1196–1208 (BL, Royal MS 7.D.i fol. 62v), or Hugh of St Victor (BL, Additional MS 33956 fol. 27 and Ci nous dit 131 (ed. G. Blangez (Paris, 1979–86), i. 141). See Tubach, no. 2691 and Baldwin, Masters, i. 157 and ii. 108. 36 In most versions of the story Maurice was refused the sacrament because he was too weak to swallow.

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is what my soul has always desired.” And most devoutly holding and kissing the host, because he was not able to receive it because of his great weakness, he died in the Lord that same day.’ —37  No doubt in the homeland of Heaven he enjoys that in which he so steadfastly believed and which he so devoutly loved and desired on his journey through this world. For this is the food for which he then hungered and which now without doubt fully satisfies him. Indeed, he has left an example of sure and certain faith, so that we may firmly believe that the body of Christ is truly present there, indeed that Christ is wholly God and wholly man, Who was born of the Virgin Mary and suffered under Pontius Pilate.38 It is also an example of devotion and love so that we may all the more love Him Who so loves us that for us He laid down His life to be food and nourishment for our souls. [12]  I now add here some dread examples which are written in the same book in these words.39 The first is this. ‘It should be noted here that the Eucharist is of such great dignity that those who are unworthy cannot receive it and especially not those who do not believe. For we saw in Paris an Englishman well educated in the liberal arts, who was called Master Richard de Aubry. He was a shining example of piety and good morals among the clergy. He disciplined his body with fasts and vigils, with long periods of privation and constant prayer, and he completely impoverished himself with the generosity of his alms. But when, at length, he lay stricken with a mortal illness, he was not able to receive the body of the Lord which was brought to him. Instead, he unwillingly turned his face away, saying that he was visited by this deserved punishment of God because he had never been able to maintain a firm belief in this article of faith. And so, entering on the way of all flesh without the viaticum40 (would that it had been a good way!), he was freed from human cares.’ [13]  A second example, only a little less awesome, is recorded in the same place in these words.41 ‘Again, there is the example concerning Urban,42 the third pope from Alexander III, who was taken from 37 Here as elsewhere I have used an em dash at the beginning of a new paragraph to indicate ‘editorial’ or other explanatory matter which appears to have been added to the compiler’s source. 38 The phrasing here echoes the Creed. 39 GE i. 9 (ed. Brewer, 33). 40 The viaticum was the Eucharist as given to a person close to death. 41 GE i. 9 (ed. Brewer, 34). 42 Urban III, pope 1185–7.

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the archbishopric of Milan to be pope. He was an eloquent man who outwardly appeared to have a zeal for justice and church discipline. When he lay at the point of death, his mistress sat close by as if for the obsequies but, the story goes, at the instigation of demons, she waited to snatch the viaticum from his mouth. For he had received it but could not swallow it; we cannot say what prevented him but nevertheless we do know that some doleful circumstance did so.’ —  In this we also have a notable example of fear lest, as we come with great fear to that heavenly table, even if we consume the dish of life in the sacrament, we are nevertheless deprived of the benefits of so great a feast and indeed, what is more serious, we should partake of what was the dish of life to our everlasting damnation. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, [eateth and drinketh judgement to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord].43 [14]  A third on the same matter.44 ‘A man from near York received the body of the Lord unworthily on Easter Sunday, for he had not submitted himself to holy penance for his sins. After dinner that day he brought up everything that he had eaten and likewise the following day and the day after that and he did not stop vomiting until he died.’ [15]  A fourth is found in the same book as follows.45 ‘It happened in our own times in Devon in England that a certain man received the Eucharist on Easter Sunday and – why I do not know – kept it whole in his mouth. He straightaway returned home and went into his garden and hanged himself with a noose because the wrath of God had come upon him.’ [16]  ‘In Germany in our own day a certain man was given the Eucharist but through lack of faith or disbelief he placed it in the hollow of a tree in his garden.46 After some time he suddenly became very poor and needy, having through some misfortune lost everything which he had amassed. He was pondering the reasons for his ill-luck and then he remembered what he had put in the tree. He went to the tree and looked inside, where he found a swarm of bees making honey as if they were in a hive. He brought his priest to see this spectacle and, having 43 1 Corinthians 11: 29. 44 GE i. 54 (ed. Brewer, 163). 45 GE i. 54 (ed. Brewer, 163). 46 GE i. 11 (ed. Brewer, 42–3). This story appears to originate in the mid-twelfth century and becomes widely diffused, in various forms, thereafter: Tubach, no. 2662 and L. Kretzenbacher, ‘Die Legende von der Hostie im Bienenstock’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde 56 (1960), 177–93.

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broken and removed the shell of the hive, penetrated to the inside and found in the middle a church made of wax; there was, however, not a single drop of honey. It had a tower and bells, with an altar and a chalice on it with corporals and a paten,47 and this so precious treasure, unfittingly concealed before, was placed in the chalice as decently as the nature of the place allowed, not only through the work of little bees but also through the ministry of angels. It can be piously believed without any doubt that in this instance God worked through the angels and the angels in turn worked through the little bees. This delightful structure, the container and the contents, was presented by the priest to the bishop, by the bishop to the archbishop, by the archbishop to the emperor and, because of its novel display, by the emperor to the pope.’ [17]  He adds another example which can encourage our devotion to the Holy Eucharist, which he relates in this way. ‘It is recorded,’ he says, ‘that in Poitou in our own day a devil spoke to men through the mouth of a possessed woman.’48 ‘Because the devil was wont to appear in the swellings and movements of the woman’s body, when they placed a gospel-book or some saints’ relics on her swollen throat, it immediately went down into her stomach and from there into the parts below the groin. When the book was placed there, the devil jumped back again to the upper parts. In the end they offered the woman the body of Christ and the demon answered, “Fools! You can do nothing. For you feed her spirit, not her body. What I have is power not over her soul but over her body!”’49 The end. [18] He adds another example in his admirable way on the same topic immediately afterwards.50 ‘But I must not be silent about what I remember taking place in my own monastery three years ago. A monk named Justus, who was skilled in medicine, faithfully served me when I was in authority in the monastery and attended me during my frequent illnesses. In due course, he fell ill and the end of his life was approaching. While he was ill, he was attended by his own brother, Copiosus, who to this day makes his living by practising medicine in Rome. When Justus knew that his end was approaching, he told Copiosus that he had 47 Corporals were white cloths, usually linen, upon which the host and chalice were placed during the celebration of mass; a paten was the plate or dish for the bread at the Eucharist. 48 GE i. 17 (ed. Brewer, 53). 49 GE i. 18 (ed. Brewer, 54). 50 Not from Gerald as stated but from Gregory, Dialogues iv. 57 (ed. de Vogüé, iii. 188–94).

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three pieces of gold hidden away. This, of course, became known to the monks who carefully searched through all his medicines and found the three pieces of gold hidden in one of his preparations. When this was made known to me, I could not close my eyes to so grave a fault in a brother who was living a communal life with us, for it had always been the rule of our monastery that all the monks should share a common life and therefore that no one should have any private property. I was greatly saddened and I began to wonder how I could correct the fault of the dying man and provide an example for the monks who would survive him. I summoned Pretiosus, the prior of the monastery, and said, “Go. Do not let any of the brothers associate with the dying man or offer him consolation. When he is at the point of death and asks for the other monks, let his brother in the flesh tell him that all his brethren shun him because of the coins which he hid. Thus at least at the point of death compunction will pierce his soul and he will be purged of the sin which he committed. After death, do not let him be buried with the other monks, but make a hole somewhere in the midden and throw his body in and on top of it throw the three gold coins which he left and let everyone cry, ‘May thy money perish with thee!’51 and then cover him with earth.” In doing this I wanted to profit both the dying man and the brothers who were still alive: the man’s remorseful death would enable him to be saved and such a severe condemnation of greed would prevent others falling into the same sin. And that is what happened. For when the monk had reached the point of death and was anxious to commend himself to his brothers, no one would come near him or speak to him. Then his brother in the flesh told him why everyone shunned him. He immediately shuddered in deep revulsion at his sin and left his body full of remorse. He was buried as I had commanded. All the brothers were greatly troubled at this decision and began to bring out the smallest and most ordinary objects and things which they had always been allowed to possess under the rule and to fear lest they have anything for which they might themselves be condemned. Thirty days after his death I began to feel compassion for the dead monk and I thought with great sadness of the punishments inflicted upon him and started to look for a remedy which would snatch him back. I then summoned Pretiosus, the prior of our monastery, and said sadly, “Our dead brother has been tortured by the fire for a long time. We owe him a charitable gesture and we can help him as far as we can to be saved. Go and from today for thirty days in a row offer the holy sacrifice for 51 Acts 8: 20.

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him.52 Let no day pass without the healthful victim being offered for his pardon.” He left immediately and did as I said. However, we were burdened with other matters and did not count the days. One night the dead monk appeared to his brother Copiosus in a vision. When he saw him, he asked, “What is it, brother? How are things with you?” He replied, “Up to now things were bad. But now I am well, for today I received communion.” Copiosus immediately went and told the monks in the monastery. The monks carefully reckoned up the days and this was the thirtieth on which they had made the offering for him. Copiosus did not know what the brothers had done for him and the monks did not know what Copiosus had seen in the vision but when they found out, it clearly appeared from both the vision and the sacrifice that the dead brother had through the saving sacrifice escaped from punishment.’ The end of the example. —  Let the preacher use this material as suits his theme and as the edification of his audience requires. [19]  He also adds two delightful examples which deserve to be remembered forever.53 The first he describes in this way. ‘We have heard that a man was taken prisoner by his enemies and bound in chains. On certain days his wife had the sacrifice offered for him. After a long period, he returned to his wife and told her the days when his chains were loosened and the wife saw that these were the days when she had caused the sacrifice to be performed. This was corroborated and confirmed for us by an event which had taken place seven years earlier.’ The end. [20] He gives another example as follows.54 ‘Bishop Agatho of Palermo, as many trustworthy and pious men have borne witness and still bear witness to me, was ordered to come to Rome in the time of my predecessor of blessed memory, but he ran into so great and powerful a storm that he despaired of escaping such dangerous seas. A sailor named Varaca, who is now a clerk in the same church, steered a small boat behind his ship but the rope broke and the boat suddenly disappeared in the heavy seas. The bishop’s ship, however, after many dangers and battered by the waves, eventually reached the island of Utica. When on the third day the bishop could not see any sign of the sailor who had been snatched from him in the little boat, he was greatly saddened and believed that he was dead and, as the only act of 52 Commemorating the dead with a trental, the saying of mass for the deceased on thirty consecutive days, was a common late medieval practice. 53 Gregory, Dialogues iv. 59 (ed. de Vogüé, iii. 196). 54 Gregory, Dialogues iv. 59 (ed. de Vogüé, iii. 196–8).

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charity which one can perform for the dead, he ordered that the sacrifice of the Saving Victim be offered to Almighty God for the pardoning of his soul. When this was done and the ship was repaired, he sailed on to Italy. When he reached the port of Rome, he found there the sailor whom he had thought dead. Then he rejoiced exceedingly and asked him how he could have survived so many days in such dangerous seas. He told him how he had been tossed by the waves with the boat which he steered, how he swam when the boat filled with water, how he sat on the hull when it turned turtle. He added that he did these things without ceasing, day and night, and his strength was completely exhausted by both hunger and his physical efforts, and he explained how divine mercy had saved him. For this is what he still attests to this day: “I struggled amidst the waves and I was very weak. Suddenly my mind felt oppressed by a great weight, I did not know if I was awake or asleep when lo! right in the middle of the sea a figure appeared to me and gave me bread to eat. As soon as I ate it, my strength returned and not long afterwards a passing ship rescued me from the waves and carried me to land.” When he heard this, the bishop asked him the day when this happened and he found that it was the day when the priest on the island of Utica had offered up to Almighty God the sacrifice of the Holy Mass for him.’ The end of the example. [21]  There is an example which commends the mass to us in the Life of St John the Patriarch of Alexandria, who is also aptly known as St John the Almsgiver.55 It is something that the holy patriarch himself used to tell. A man from Cyprus was captured by the Persians and for four years was held shut up in prison and bound with iron chains. His friends heard that he was in fact dead and three times each year, on particular days, they held holy masses and offered up prayers for him. Now, on those very days a radiant figure loosened his chains so that he would thenceforth be free and happy without any restraint or injury. Afterwards he escaped and returned to Cyprus and he heard from his friends what they had done for him and he joyfully told them on which days he had known peace and grace and they rejoiced in this also. It is therefore a pious and healthful thing to remember the dead so that they may be freed from their sins. [22]  I know a clerk named John, a fellow countryman of mine with whom I was once quite friendly. He told me this himself and I am quite 55 See Vita s. Johannis Elemosinarii 24 (PL 73: 361). St John the Almsgiver, patriarch of Alexandria, died in 619.

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convinced of his veracity. One night he went from Ansley,56 the village where my father lives, to a nearby village called Arley, to visit a concubine whom he had there, who at that time was also well enough known to me. As he was going along alone, his sword hung around his neck, he saw a large dog walking in front of him. He marvelled greatly at the appearance of the dog but still more wonderful was what he soon heard. For the dog turned round and said to him fiercely in English, ‘Give me your sword!’ He put his hand upon his sword and with a brave heart replied still more fiercely in English, ‘You lie, by the death of Christ!’ Whereupon what had appeared to be a dog, but was in reality the devil in the form of a dog, immediately disappeared, unable to endure the power of the glorious death of Christ, even when named by a sinner. The end of the example. [23]  A delightful example which reminds us of the great efficacy of Christ’s Passion in times of need is found towards the end of the first book of the Life of St Bernard,57 where it is written that on one occasion the man of God was sick and was rapidly approaching his last moments. When he appeared to be drawing his last breath and was in a trance, he was ordered to appear before the Judgement Seat of the Lord. Satan stood there on the other side, levelling unjust accusations at him; when he had finished all the charges and the man of God had to speak in his own defence, he was not afraid or frightened in any way but said, ‘I admit that I am not worthy and cannot attain the kingdom of Heaven by my own merits. But my Lord has attained the kingdom by a two-fold entitlement – His inheritance from His Father and the merit of His own Passion – and, content with the one, He gave the other to me and by His gift I can rightfully claim it and I will not be confounded.’ At this the Enemy was himself confounded and the man of God recovered himself. [24]  What we have read in the Life of St Edmund the archbishop of Canterbury has the same import.58 For on one occasion when he was 56 Little takes the manuscript’s Honestleia as meaning Astley (Little, vii). In fact Ansley must be intended: J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Warwickshire (English Place-Name Society 13 (1936), 75 and 96. Ansley and Arley are a few miles apart in northern Warwickshire; Astley is also close by. 57 See William of St Thierry, Vita s. Bernardi 63 (AASS Aug. iv. 272) and Alan of Auxerre, Vita s. Bernardi 13 (PL 185: 491). St Bernard, the abbot of Clairvaux who died in 1153, is a common figure in exempla; see J. Berlioz, M.-A. Polo de Beaulieu and C. Ribaucourt, ‘Saint Bernard dans les exempla médiévaux’, Vies et légendes de saint Bernard: Création, diffusion, réception (XIIe–XXe siècles) (Commentarii Cistercienses, Textes et Documents 5, 1993), 116–40. 58 Edmund of Abingdon, archbishop of Canterbury 1234–40, who was canonised in 1246. Similar stories occur in most of the surviving Lives of Edmund: C. H. Lawrence,

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humbly bowed in prayer, the devil appeared to him in the form of a fearful beast. When God’s holy man saw this, he knew that it was the devil and he attacked him and strongly adjured him as follows, ‘I adjure you by the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ that you should tell me how you may best be overcome when you tempt me.’ Thus compelled, the reluctant demon angrily replied, ‘In what you have said’, for he did not wish to name the blood of Christ. It was as if to say, ‘I cannot be conquered better than in calling to mind the blood and Cross of Jesus Christ.’ And thus B59 says that no devil shall be able to resist when he sees the sword by which he has been overthrown.

[Of the Cross] [25]  We have an example of the power of the Cross in the first book of the Dialogues60 about a nun from a monastery under the rule of St Equitius. Gregory reports the story of the holy woman as follows: ‘One day a handmaiden of God belonging to the same nunnery went out into the garden. She saw a lettuce and she desired it and, forgetting to bless it with the sign of the Cross, bit greedily into it; however, she was seized by the devil and immediately collapsed. And while he tormented her, they ran and told St Equitius, the father of the monastery, what had happened and asked him to come quickly and help her with his prayers. Soon the priest entered the garden and the devil who had snatched the nun away began to cry out and make excuses, saying, “What have I done? What have I done? I was sitting on a lettuce; she came and bit me.” Then in great anger the man of God ordered him to leave and have no place in the handmaiden of the Almighty. He immediately left and no longer had the strength to touch her.’ The end of the example. — You see therefore the strength of the Cross. Because the woman did not bless the plant, the devil had the power to enter it and to torment her, as Gregory relates; from this you can see that if she had signed it with the Cross, the devil would have had no power over it. [26] You will find another notable example concerning the power of the Cross in book 3 of the Dialogues, where St Gregory writes as follows.61 ‘One day a certain Jew was journeying along the Appian Way from Campania to Rome. When he reached the hill at Fondi he saw that St Edmund of Abingdon (Oxford, 1960), 101, 234–5, 252 and The Life of St Edmund by Matthew Paris (Stroud, 1996), 128, 142. 59 Source not identified. 60 Gregory Dialogues i. 4 (ed. de Vogüé, ii. 42–4); the story is also cited in LE 153. 61 Gregory, Dialogues iii. 7 (ed. de Vogüé, ii. 280–4).

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it was already growing late and, unable to find anywhere to stay, he decided to spend the night in the temple of Apollo which was close by. He greatly feared the irreligious place and, although he had no faith at all in the Cross, he nevertheless took care to protect himself with the sign of the Cross. In the middle of the night, he grew afraid because he was alone there and while he lay awake, he suddenly looked around and could see a crowd of evil spirits which seemed to be walking before their prince to pay honour him – indeed, their ruler had taken his seat in the heart of the temple. Their ruler then began to talk about the deeds and accomplishments of each spirit, so that he would discover how much evil each one had done. And when the Jew, who was wide awake, saw this and his heart was racing with anxiety and trepidation, the spirit which led all the others gave orders that they should find out who had dared to sleep in the temple. The evil spirits approached him and looked at him most carefully and saw that he was signed with the mystery of the Cross and said, “Alas, alas, the vessel is empty but it has been signed.” At this the whole crowd of evil spirits disappeared. The Jew, who had seen this, immediately got up and went straight to Andrew, the bishop of Fondi; he told him everything that had happened and was instructed by him in the Faith and was baptised and he received Christ’s grace and was saved.’ The end of the example. [27]  We find in The Book of the Deeds of Barlaam and Josaphat the servants of God62 that a certain great magician, named Theodas, sent demons to Josaphat, who was the most Christian son of the king of India, to tempt him in any way possible and turn him from faith in Christ; this was after Josaphat had converted to the Faith and the magician did this at the command of his father the king, who was the worst of pagans. So the demons sent against him tempted him as best they could but they could not prevail. So eventually the magician surrounded him with the most beautiful girls who with words and caresses and every sort of fleshly delight sought to cast him down from the stronghold63 of his holiness; so strong was the temptation that he was on the point of falling, but he strove so manfully that he evaded all the snares of the devil and greatly confounded him – as the devil himself bore witness. For the evil spirits which Theodas had sent against the saintly boy came back to him in confusion and admitted their defeat and, although they are most 62 Pseudo-John Damascene, Vita ss. Barlaam et Josaphat 31 (PG 96: 1153–6 and PL 73: 568). The Deeds of Barlaam and Josaphat is a Christianised version of legends about Buddha which circulated widely throughout the Middle Ages. 63 Little prints arte, but the manuscript is not clear and the correct reading appears to be arce which I have translated here.

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deceitful, they openly admitted the reason why they were overthrown. Theodas then said to them, ‘Feeble and wretched ones, how have you been overcome by a single boy?’ Then the evil spirits, compelled by the strength of the Lord, unwillingly revealed the truth, saying, ‘We were not able to resist nor indeed to look upon the strength of Christ and the banner of His Passion, which they call the Cross. At that sign we turned, weakened and consumed, and the princes and rulers of darkness fled. For before the young man was strengthened with the sign of the Cross, we rushed upon him and attacked him strongly, but as he called on Christ for help and armed himself with the sign of the Cross, he angrily chased after us and built for himself the most impregnable fortress. We pondered what to do and found a stratagem in using women to tempt him; it was by this means that our prince once spoke to Adam and overcame him. But now we are regarded as nothing by this boy and the hopes that we had of him are dashed. For once Christ was called upon for help, the fire of His heavenly anger burned us and put us to flight and we no longer dare approach him.’ Thus did the evil spirits openly report what had happened to Theodas. [28] Similarly, as it is written in the Lives of the Fathers,64 St Syncletica said, ‘Have you begun something good? Do not be deterred by the obstacles placed in your path by the Enemy, for the same Enemy is destroyed by patience. For those who start out in a boat and raise the sail at first find a favourable wind; afterwards, the wind blows in the other direction. But the sailors do not unload or leave the vessel because an unfavourable wind has blown up; instead, little by little, they make their way against the storm until they find the right course once more. Thus, when we encounter an evil spirit, let us raise the Cross as our sail and complete our journey through this world without danger.’

[Of the mercy of Our Saviour] [29] For the commending of our Saviour’s mercy there is a most useful example concerning the most holy priest Carpus, which he himself related to St Dionysius, who recorded it in his letter to Demophilus.65 It is reported in this way: St Carpus was a most holy priest to whom the Lord granted many notable visions. It happened that a heathen had with evil enticements drawn a local Christian into infidelity. St Carpus knew this and was moved by such great sadness and anger 64 VP v. 7.18 (PL 73: 896). 65 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Letter viii. 6 (PG 3: 1097–1100). In medieval times, a large number of works were wrongly attributed to Dionysius, a prominent Athenian citizen converted by St Paul (Acts 17: 34).

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against both of them that he spoke to the Lord in a great rage and with anguish in his heart, saying that it was unjust that such impious men who pervert the straight ways of the Lord should live; and he asked the Lord to send fire to burn them and to snatch away their wretched lives as vengeance for the iniquity which they committed against God and Holy Church. During this period of sadness, despair and anger, it happened that he arose as usual in the middle of the night for Matins and saw that the house in which he stood was open to the skies. He looked up and saw Heaven itself laid open above him and Jesus sitting in the presence of a great multitude of angels. Looking down again, however, he saw before him the very pit of Hell, ghastly and woeful, as it is; he also saw the aforesaid impious men standing at the edge of the pit, quaking and pitiful and almost losing their footing; he also saw the serpents crawling up out of the pit and leaping up at them and striking at them with their tongues and [entwining themselves]66 around their feet and dragging them so that they fell into the hellish pit. When they were about to fall in, St Carpus, forgetful of his holy life, rejoiced greatly and was displeased that their fall was being delayed. Behold! just as the wretched men were finally about to fall, Carpus drew himself back from the brink and looked up to Heaven and saw Jesus take pity on them and rise from His heavenly throne and go down to them and put out His blessed hand to draw them back from the pains of Hell. And turning to Carpus, He showed him how stupid and mistaken he had been in speaking in anger of the wretched men for whom he should have asked for God’s mercy so that through His mercy he might, with God’s will, lead them out of sin and bring them to the saving Christian life. Therefore the Lord said to him ironically, ‘Strike against me’, that is to say ‘hurl your bad words against me’. ‘For surely it seems good to you to exchange a place in the pit with the serpents to dwell with God and His holy angels?’ And He added this blessed and sweet saying, ‘I am still ready to suffer again to save men and this would be a pleasing thing for me’, that is to say ‘if need be.’ I say this because it is not necessary; for He suffered death once and that death was so strong and powerful a force that it would be sufficient to destroy all the sin in the world even it were multiplied a thousandfold, were we to do our part. Without doubt the Lord clearly showed in His words of mercy that there is no falseness in what the prophet Isaiah says: As I live, saith the Lord,67 and so on. 66 There is a word missing in the manuscript here; I have given the sense of the PG text. 67 Isaiah 49: 18.

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—  I have taken this saying from the letter of Dionysius, whose words are difficult, and therefore I have preferred to convey the sense rather than copy the text itself; anyone who wishes may read the letter and in this way he will no doubt find the truth.

[Of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary] [30]  Of the Nativity of the Mother of Mercy, Jerome68 says in a letter that the angel came to her father Joachim and her mother Anna, when the latter was about to conceive; he said to Joachim, ‘Anna your wife shall bear you a daughter and you shall call her name Mary.69 She shall be holy unto the Lord and filled with the Holy Spirit from her mother’s womb and she shall bear Him Who according to His name shall be the Saviour of all men.’ To Anna he said, ‘A daughter shall be born unto you who shall be called Mary. Without sin, she shall as a virgin bear a son, as a handmaiden bear the Lord Who shall in name and fact be the Saviour70 according to the New Grace.’ This is in the place mentioned. [31]  There now follow some examples which are worth remembering and embracing in all devotion, for their delightful prophecies prefigured the heavenly birth. For Christ was born not only on account of the Jews but also so that all peoples might be blessed in Him, as God promised Abraham;71 thus it was not unfitting that the nativity of Christ, Who would be born of a virgin, should be revealed not only to the holy prophets of God’s people but also to just men and women who belonged to heathen peoples. One philosopher, although an unbeliever, foretold the heavenly birth thus: ‘In the sign of the Virgin a virgin shall be born; she shall suckle a son but shall not have known a man.’ Doubtless, when he says ‘in the sign of the Virgin’, he means that the Blessed Virgin was born in the autumn, when the sun is in the sign of Virgo, that is in the month when the sun is in the part of the sky called Virgo.72 — I found this in a sermon by Brother Richard Fishacre of good memory,73 a very great master who belonged to the Order of Friars 68 Pseudo-Jerome, Libellus de Nativitate s. Mariae 3–4: J. Gijsel and R. Beyers (eds), Libri de Nativitate Mariae (CCSA 9–10, 1997), ii. 285–93. 69 Compare Genesis 17: 19 and Luke 1: 13 and 31. 70 This interpretation of the name Jesus occurs throughout Jerome’s Liber Interpretationis Hebraicorum Nominum (ed. P. de la Garde (CCSL 72, 1959), 76, 82, 136, 156 and 160). 71 Genesis 22: 18. 72 From an early period, the Nativity of the Virgin was celebrated on 8 September. 73 Richard Fishacre was a noted English Dominican scholar who died in 1248. I have not identified the philosopher.

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Preacher, who would not have put it in unless he had read the philosopher. For he was a clerk of great learning and so he put in the name of the philosopher but it has now slipped my mind.

[Of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s conception] [32] One must not pass silently over this incident recorded in the Historia Scholastica.74 The Romans, who were then enjoying a long period of peace, asked Apollo how long peace would last; they received the answer that it would last until a virgin gave birth and remained a virgin after the birth. Believing that this was not possible, they built an enormous and wonderful temple to peace as if it would last forever. But when He was born Who came to send not peace but a sword,75 it fell to the ground. This event is touched on briefly in the histories. [33]  Moreover, across the Tiber where the Church of St Mary now stands, a fountain of oil burst forth and ran down in abundance towards the Tiber. This is also briefly recorded in the same place.76 [34]  Another example worth remembering is what took place when the Heavenly King was born and which specially marked out the time of His birth. For, as Athanasius77 recounts in his book on the constitutions of the primitive Church, Octavian Augustus,78 who was at that time the emperor of the world and in whose reign Christ was born, took advice from the Tiburtine sibyl79 and, laying aside his crown and imperial robes, prayed to the Lord in ashes and sackcloth. And behold! he saw Heaven open wide and the Virgin holding a little baby in her arms. And he heard the words, ‘This is the altar of the Living God.’ Then, when peace was granted to the Church, a church was built in that same place in commemoration of this divine prophecy in honour of the Blessed Virgin. It is called the church of St Mary of the Altar of God or of Heaven.80 The end of the example. 74 Comestor, Hist. Schol. in Evang. 5 (PL 198: 1540). 75 Matthew 10: 34. 76 Comestor, Hist. Schol. in Evang. 5 (PL 198: 1540). The church is Santa Maria in Trastevere. 77 This work has not been identified but the story is widespread from the late twelfth century. For the earliest known version, see Mirabilia Urbis Romae 11: R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti (eds), Codice Topographico della Città di Roma iii (Fonti per la storia d’Italia 90, 1946), 28–9. 78 Augustus, emperor 27 bc–ad 14. 79 One of the sibyls (see LE 3 and its n. 5), who was associated with the town of Tibur, modern Tivoli. 80 Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome.

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[Of the Feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary] [35]  We must add in her honour at this point, exactly as we found it written, why the celebration of a feast of the Glorious Virgin arose.81 A certain hermit, who was renowned as having reached the pinnacle of virtue, would hear each year on the day of the Virgin’s Nativity the harmony of heavenly song and with devout prayers he begged the Lord to show him why this heavenly harmony always sounded in his ears on that particular day. And the angel of the Lord stood before him and said, ‘Do not marvel, O soul devoted to God, that you have heard such song in the heavenly homeland. For the Perpetual Virgin who bore God was herself begotten, that is born, on this night. Although men do not know this, it is well known to the angels in Heaven. Therefore tell the sons of the Church what you have seen and heard so that they too may all take part together in the celebration of the court of Heaven.’ Having said this, the angel immediately disappeared. But the hermit told everyone about the vision granted to him, as the angel had commanded. From then on the Church began to celebrate the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin in her honour, to whom be honour and glory. [36] This, moreover, is the reason for celebrating the feast of the Purification that is found in the histories of the Church.82 The Emperor Justinian83 began as a just man but afterwards became a cruel and monstrous heretic to the extent, it is believed, that because of his treachery and lack of faith the earth grew dry, corn grew short, the harvest failed and there was a great plague and famine. In this situation, they devised a new and unfailing remedy, for the Queen of Mercy is a resort for individuals and communities in times of trouble. The image of the Virgin was carried through the city and wherever it went all sickness fled from the merits and prayers of Mary and the harvest and fertility were restored. They then decided to establish the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Mary through whom they had been freed from every disaster; for the feast had not been observed before this time. And thus it was established and accepted that the feast 81 Processions for the Nativity of the Virgin were first established in the West by Pope Sergius I (687–701), but the story of the hermit does not appear before the twelfth century. See John Beleth, Rationale divinorum officiorum 149 (ed. H. Douteil, CCCM 41A: 288, where references to the story in Honorius Augustodunesis are also given). 82 The Purification of the Virgin (2 February) commemorates her visit to the Temple which, according to Mosaic Law, took place forty days after she had given birth (Luke 2: 22–38; cf. Leviticus 12: 2–8). 83 Justinian, emperor 527–65. He introduced the feast of the Purification throughout the Eastern Empire in 542; Sergius I introduced it in the West.

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should be observed throughout the world; and it is significant that it was first observed at that season when those converted to Christianity used to illuminate the whole city of Rome with candles and torches in the manner of the gentiles. For this reason Pope Sergius changed this mistaken custom so that all Christians should join in processions on that day and have burning tapers in their hands in commemoration of the presentation of our Lord in the Temple; and this is to show that Christ is present there. For in the candle there is the flame, the wick and the wax. The wax signifies the flesh of Christ taken from the Virgin; the wick is the soul which lies hidden in the flesh; and the flame and its light are His divinity.84 The end of the example. [37]  Indeed I have myself read the reason for the institution of this feast in The Book of Excerpts, which I trust completely.85 ‘In the time of Justinian the Great there was a great plague at Byzantium, which is now Constantinople. For this reason, in that same year the feast of Holy Mary the Mother of God, that is of her Purification, began to be celebrated; and the plague stopped. And this feast in Greek is called the hypapante because on that day the Lord was brought to the Temple and Symeon and Anna met Him;86 for hypapatesse is Greek for “meeting”.’ The end of the example. [38]  On the same subject, I must not omit something concerning the feast of the Assumption of the Glorious Virgin87 which was related to me and to Brother Roger Bacon in Paris.88 There was a surgeon, who was my fellow countryman and was indeed born in the same parish as 84 Compare Hugh of St Victor, Miscellanea vii. 9 (PL 177: 873). 85 Hugh of St Victor, Libri Excerptionum ix. 4 (PL 177: 267); see also Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma Animae iii. 24 (PL 172: 649). 86 Luke 2: 34–8. 87 The Feast of the Assumption celebrates the Virgin’s being ‘assumed’, body and soul, into Heaven. 88 Roger Bacon, the famous Franciscan scholar and scientist, was probably in Paris at the time of the Barons’ War (1264–65) and in 1266; he may also have been there c.1254–57: A. B. Emden, Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 (3 vols, Oxford, 1957–59), i. 88. Bacon believed that he had a duty to probe the marvels of nature and apply them to the good of Christendom, but there is no contemporary evidence to support his posthumous reputation as a magician: A. G. Molland, ‘Roger Bacon as Magician’, Traditio 30 (1974), 445–60. Interest in magic at the university of Paris also features in LE 104 and is well attested elsewhere. In 1277 Bishop Etienne Tempier conducted an investigation into the university and condemned all ‘books of necromancy or which contain experiments in divination, the invocation of demons or spells to the peril of souls’: H. Denifle and E. Chatelain (eds), Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis (4 vols, Paris, 1889–97), i. 543; E. M. Peters, The Magician, the Witch and the Law (Hassocks, 1978), 89–91.

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me, named Master Peter of Arden. He was well known to all the Irish clerks of his day and in my time took a wife at Paris and was a citizen of the town. He told me and Brother Roger Bacon that he knew a certain Spanish magician well.89 Several times he invited him to his house for fellowship and relaxation. This magician, wanting to repay Master Peter, one night took him and the companions that he wished to bring with him outside the city; he made a circle according to his art and summoned his demon. When the demon came, he answered everything which they put to him. Indeed he took them with him in the same way each night for five nights, each time speaking in the same fashion with the demon whom he had summoned. But the fifth night was the eve of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. The demon was summoned according to the rite of the art which had been handed down but he was slow in coming. He was summoned again and again, to the point that the devil-master became greatly angered with the devil. Eventually the devil did appear, wailing and moaning and making deep and mournful sighs like a boy who has been beaten, and he said to them, ‘I marvel at you. For the angels in Heaven are celebrating the feast of Mary the Virgin and you are unable to rest on earth!’ They heard this and marvelled, indeed they were greatly afraid – and no wonder. And Master Peter, as he has sworn, took pity on the demon and said to him, ‘What is the matter?’ He replied, ‘Things go exceedingly badly with me.’ Then they dismissed the demon and returned to their lodgings. The end of the example. — Behold, Christian, with what great joy you should celebrate the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, for the devil himself, the Glorious Virgin’s enemy, is compelled to declare that the feast should be celebrated and the angels in Heaven also celebrate it with such great joy. According to a learned man with whom I have discussed the matter, the devil said that things were truly bad for him on that joyful feast-day because on the feasts of the Virgin and the saints their torments are increased. How this happens, I leave to the judgement of better men than I. [39]  Now since sweet mention has been made of the Assumption of the Glorious Mother of God, if anyone should ask about the time of her assumption, answer him in this way. It is recorded in the short chronicles that the Mother of Life died in her sixty-third year, on 89 Spain was an established conduit for Arab scientific and magical texts, a fact often reflected in stories of this sort: C. S. Watkins, History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge, 2007), 161–5.

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16 August in the sixteenth year after the Lord’s Passion. Again from the short chronicles: The Glorious Virgin lived this mortal life for sixty-three years; for she was fourteen when she gave birth to Christ, and lived thirty-three years with Him and after His Passion sixteen years.90

[Of the miracles of Blessed Virgin Mary] We have found some miracles of the Glorious Virgin Mother of God recorded in a certain little book. We say ‘some miracles’ because, if they were all written down, many books would have to be written. For through her Christ our God, the blessed fruit of her womb, has seen fit to work His wonders in this world. Of these miracles, which we have read in the little book that I have mentioned, the six written below come to mind at the moment.91 This is the first. [40]  There was a clerk in the city of Chartres who was lax in morals and occupied by the cares of this world – indeed, he was completely ensnared by carnal lust. Nevertheless, he was greatly mindful of the Holy Mother of the Son of God and often greeted her with the salutation made by the angel.92 It is reported that when he was killed by his enemies, they knew that he had led a quite impious life and decreed that he should be buried outside the cemetery. So they buried him outside the churchyard, as befitted such a man. And when he had lain there for thirty days, the Holy Virgin of Virgins took pity on him and appeared to a clerk saying, ‘Why have you acted thus towards my chancellor and placed him outside our cemetery?’ When he asked who her chancellor was, the saint answered, ‘The man whom you buried outside the churchyard thirty days ago. For he used to serve me most faithfully and often made his salutation at my altar. Go immediately and take his body from that shameful place and bring it into the churchyard.’ When he told everyone this, they marvelled greatly and opened his tomb and found a most beautiful flower in his mouth and they discovered that his tongue 90 Little notes that the Annals of Multifernan, which were the work of an English Franciscan working in Ireland c.1274, also give the Virgin’s age at her assumption as 63, whereas the Legenda Aurea gives it as 60 or 72. However, the details of the Virgin’s life given here are found more widely than Little suggests: The Commonplace Book of Robert Reynes of Acle: An Edition of Tanner MS 407, ed. C. Louis (New York and London, 1980), no. 17 and notes; see also T. N. Hall, ‘The ages of Christ and Mary in the Hyde Register and in Old English literature’, Notes and Queries, New Series, 35 (1988), 4–11. 91 Only three miracles from a written source follow, but Little suggests that the others may be LE 52–4. All six stories appear widely in collections of the Virgin’s miracles. 92 The Ave Maria (‘Hail Mary’): Luke 1: 28.

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was whole and clean as if ready to praise the Virgin, so that all those present would know that with his mouth he performed that service which had pleased her. And they carried his body to the cemetery and they praised God while they gave it a fitting burial. We believe that this happened and that the Holy Mother of God did this not just for him but also for us, so that both we and those who hear of this miracle will look to the Mother of God and her love. [41] A second example taken from the same book. Another clerk lived in a certain place who was also greatly devoted to God and His fostering Mother and, among other good deeds with which he sought to please the Holy Virgin, he would devoutly chant this antiphon in her honour:93 ‘Rejoice, Mother of God, Virgin Immaculate. Rejoice, thou that received joy from the angel. Rejoice, thou that bore the Bright Day of Everlasting Light. Rejoice, mother; rejoice, Holy Virgin Mother of God. Thou alone art Mother-Virgin. Every creature does praise thee as the Mother of Light. Be for us, we beseech thee, our Intercessor Everlasting.’ When he was overcome by sickness and had reached the point of death, he grew anxious and very frightened. Then the Holy Virgin Mary appeared to him and said, ‘Why are you beset by such great fear? You brought me joy so many times. Do not fear, for you will suffer no harm but henceforth you will share with me in the joy which you sang to me.’ He heard this and thought that his health had been restored and while in his joy he tried to lift himself up, his soul left his body and sought the joys of paradise where, as the Holy Mother of God had promised him, he will rejoice everlastingly. One should therefore reflect how well she remembers such deeds and does not cease to aid those who serve her. [42]  A third example.94 There was a man named Ebbo who often stole the property of other men and nourished himself on goods which he had stolen from others and stealthily carried off as if they were his own. But he loved the Holy Mother of God with all his heart and, even when he was going out to steal, he would pray devoutly and say the Ave Maria. One day he was stealing things not his own, when he was suddenly overcome by his enemies and held captive. When he was not

93 Chevalier, no. 6757; for the full text, see PL 158: 1046, where it appears among works formerly attributed to Anselm. 94 A common story: Tubach, no. 2235. See also B. de Gaiffier, ‘Un thème hagiographique: Le pendu miraculeusement sauvé’ and ‘Liberatus a supendio’, in his Etudes Critiques d’Hagiographie et d’Iconologie (Brussels, 1967), 194–226 and 227–32.

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able to purge himself of his guilt,95 those judging him decided that he should hang. He was shown no mercy but was led straight off to the gallows to be hanged. And when he was strung up and his feet were hanging in the air, lo! the Holy Virgin Mother came to his aid and, as it seemed to him, for two days lifted him up with her own holy hands and did not let him suffer further harm. Shortly afterwards, when those who had hanged him returned to the place and found him alive and cheerful as if he had suffered no harm, they thought that the noose had not been fastened around him properly. When they approached intending to cut his throat, the Holy Mary ever Virgin again placed her hands on his throat and did not allow them to cut it. The man told them that the Holy Virgin Mary was helping him and they marvelled greatly and released him out of their love for God and His Mother; afterwards, the man went away and became a monk and thereafter served God and His Most Holy Mother as long as he lived. [43]  Another wonderful example which is similar to those mentioned was told to me and many others by Brother Henry of Foxton of our order, a good, truthful and reliable man. When he was a Premonstratensian canon in England, before he entered our order, he heard this example from the prior of his monastery, Brother Robert of Whaddon. It is one which deserves always to be remembered. There was in those parts a head of household called William of Earlston,96 who had a son named Henry; Henry was a clerk who once had five marks a year from the church of Thurneby, where Brother Henry’s father was rector. Now, the clerk died at an early age and after his death, according to the wishes of the Lord, he appeared to his father.97 His father asked how things were with him and he said that through the help of the most glorious Queen of the World, the Mother of God, he had obtained eternal salvation. ‘For when I died,’ he said, ‘the good and bad things which I had done were put on the scales and weighed, but the evil 95 The word used here, purgare, usually indicates taking an oath or undergoing the ordeal to establish one’s innocence. Both were common legal practice and both represented an appeal on the accused’s part to God. For examples of compurgation by oath, see LE 182–3 below; compare LE 184 and DC 93. 96 Berwickshire. The others places mentioned cannot be identified with certainty. Stories of the Virgin or other saints weighting the scales are common (Tubach, no. 4180; see also LE 60). 97 Ghosts and other apparitions appear frequently in exempla: see also LE 62, 121, 137, 150, 157, 166, 167 and 195a; and DC 4, 65, 93, 100, 183–4, 200–202, 227, 314 and 315. See J.-C. Schmitt, Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in Late Medieval Society, trans. T. L. Fagan (Chicago and London, 1998) and A. Joynes (ed.), Medieval Ghost Stories: An Anthology of Miracles, Marvels and Prodigies (Woodbridge, 2001).

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completely outweighed the good, which amounted to almost nothing. When I was therefore on the point of being damned, the Mother of Mercy, the Queen of all the World, approached and, placing one of the toes of her holy feet on the scale with my good deeds, which was flying upwards because of the lightness of the good things I had done, she drew the scale down by her power and made it far heavier than all my evil deeds; and thus judgement was given in my favour and through the aid of the Glorious Virgin I was granted eternal life. But I did not have any merit in the sight of the Queen of Heaven except that when we said the Office of the Blessed Virgin in church and you and the other clerks all sat, I would always stand in honour of the Glorious Virgin.’ All this did William, the father of the dead clerk, tell Prior Robert. O with what heartfelt devotion, service and honour must we venerate that queen who looks kindly on so small a service and snatches away those who serve her from condemnation to eternal death and brings them to the inaccessible realms of glory! [44]  I remember yet another example which commends the kindness of Our Glorious Lady in a most notable way, and which also happened in our own day. That renowned and catholic prince, the king of Castile, was besieging Seville, a famous city which he eventually captured after a great struggle and much effort.98 On one occasion he assembled a huge army and moved his camp towards the city. As they drew near, the army halted in a particular place for three days so that they could all make their preparations and provide for both their spiritual and their physical needs. There were several priests with the army to hear the confessions of the people, among them being a certain religious99 who afterwards became a friar in our order and spent his time in the province of Aragon.100 Now, this friar once came on business to Paris, where in the house of our order he related to a great number of friars a 98 Seville was captured by Ferdinand III of Castile in November 1248 after a siege lasting sixteen months. Different versions occur in a number of other collections, all of them Franciscan: Oxford, Balliol College MS 228 fol. 312 (England, late thirteenth century); L. Oliger, ‘Liber exemplorum FF. Minorum saeculi xiii’, Antonianum 2 (1927), 256–7 (no. 108) (Italy, thirteenth century); J.-Th. Welter, ‘Un nouveau recueil Franciscain d’exempla de la fin du 13e siècle’, Etudes Franciscaines 42 (1930), 618–19 (no. 203) (Midi, 1272 x 1297); and BL, Add. MS. 27336 fol. 57v (Italy, early fifteenth century). The story printed by Oliger gives the confessor’s name as Brother Martin of Spain. 99 A member of a religious order. 100 For the friars’ presence on military campaigns, which is well attested, see D. S. Bachrach, ‘The Friars go to war: mendicant military chaplains, 1216–c.1300’, Catholic Historical Review 90 (2004), 617–33.

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wonderful, indeed delightful, occurrence which he had seen and heard with the army. For he said that, while he was in the army, when they had halted for three days to make plans, after everything that was necessary had been done, all the knights got up onto their horses in the usual way. And lo! when he wanted to mount the horse allocated to him, a young man ran up begging and adjuring him to hear his confession. He replied that he could have confessed during the three days which had just gone by and that he could not lag behind the army. The other man was insistent, adjuring as strongly as he could in this world that he should not on any account fail to hear him. So the religious thought, He cannot be so insistent without good reason; at all events, it will be best that I should hear him. And he sat down and heard his confession – and in truth he needed to confess. When he had done this, the brother, who was afterwards a member of our order but who at that time was a member of another religious order, said to him, ‘What moved you to come to confession at this time?’ He answered, ‘Three nights ago a most beautiful woman came to me and said, “Get up, wretch, go and confess”. I was terrified and when I awoke I began to wonder what it could be. I thought it was just a dream, so I did not worry about it. It came to me again on the second night, repeating exactly what it had said before but I still took no notice. But on the third night, that is to say last night, it appeared to me and said, “Get up, wretch, and go and confess for this day you will die”. When I heard this I was completely paralysed with fear and awoke and I feared that what I had previously thought only a dream was true; and that was the reason why I have come to confession now.’ The brother heard this and said to him, ‘Have you ever done anything to give special honour to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God?’ He said, ‘No, father, for you will easily understand from my way of life that I have not given much thought to such things.’ So the friar said to him, ‘Think again, hard. For the Blessed Virgin is exceedingly kind. Thus she never forgets anything done in her honour, no matter how small.’ He thought about this and eventually replied, ‘When I was a boy and living with my mother, she had a servant-girl named Mary whom she often called by name, as women do, and it was her habit whenever she called her name to say the Ave Maria straightaway. For she was a woman who was greatly devoted to God. I was then a boy,’ he said, ‘and I took up this habit of my mother’s and made it my custom to say one Ave Maria whenever I heard the name Mary. It is a custom that I have never abandoned.’ The friar said to him, ‘Go, go. For this honour, although small, has saved your soul.’ The young man went off to the army. And behold!

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when they came near the wall, where they had to bombard the city with their siege-machines, one of the machines was not set up quite correctly. When a huge stone was placed on it to be hurled at the city and the machine was discharged to throw it, the stone went up in the air and came straight down again and fell unexpectedly onto the young man and crushed him into the ground. And behold! in this way did the Glorious Queen of the World, on account of so small an honour paid to her, free his soul from the mouth of the lion101 and most mercifully prepare him for the life eternal. The end of the example. [45] Now comes an example which I once heard in Paris in the week following the Assumption of our Most Glorious Lady. A certain Brother Bartholomew of Italy, a pious and educated man, preached to the friars in chapter about the glorious Jewel of Heaven whom this example concerns. ‘A friar,’ he said, ‘who is still alive, was once standing in church praying earnestly and saw a vision in which Heaven opened up and the Queen of Mercy fell down on her knees before her Son and put out her hands and thus humbly begged and prayed for a certain sinner who was notorious throughout the country for his evil reputation. To cut the story short, he was so much filled with the devil that he neither feared God nor had regard for man. The friar saw this but did not know what it was. For the vision immediately disappeared. The friar therefore wanted to know what happened and asked a colleague to go to the man and see if the Holy Virgin had perhaps begged for grace on his behalf. When he approached, the evil man saw him, but he was no longer evil but filled with pious devotion to Christ and he rose to greet him and received him with honour. And when the friar spoke his holy words before him, he answered in brief and healthful fashion, ‘Friar, I have lived an evil life until now and I have caused God the most grave offence in all things; may you show me the way whereby I may win God’s favour and save my soul, for I am prepared to do anything.’ Matching his words with his deeds, he made a humble and contrite confession and changed his life in so remarkable a way that it was clear to all who knew him that this was a change for the right hand of the Most High.102 In this way, the Queen of Mercy graciously showed him such great kindness that, in order to obtain the grace by which he was saved, she had not only asked but even went so far as to stretch out her hands and humbly and sweetly bend those blessed knees on which she had carried her infant Son and kneel before Him. 101 2 Timothy 4:17. 102 Psalms 76: 11 (77: 10).

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[46]  I now relate to the glory of Our Lady what I heard from Brother Nicholas of Wexford, a good and truthful friar.103 For he told me of a wretched man who had for a long period kept his own sister as his concubine. After a long time spent in this vile state, the man was struck down by a serious illness. He was approaching his last hour and, lying as if dead for a day or more, his whole body, both above and below, was cold and there was only the slightest sign of warmth or breath in his breast. So he lay there as if dead and meanwhile he was led down to Hell and, when the demons wanted to cast him into Hell, the Virgin came and freed him from the pit of Hell and caused him to be restored to life. When he told this to Brother Nicholas after he had made his confession of other matters, the friar said to him, ‘How is it that Our Lady wanted to protect you when you have lain so long in the corruption of so great a sin?’ He answered, ‘In truth, there was no reason for this except that my sister used to brew and each time she brewed we would first give one bowl, that is two gallons, for love of the Virgin and on account of this service undertaken in her name, small though it was, she graciously rescued my wretched soul from the fires of Hell.’ The friar told this to me and many others in Dublin as he had heard it from the mouth of the penitent man in the course of his confession. O how unfortunate are those who hear the name of good mother Mary from a poor man and pass by pretending not to hear when, amidst so much sin, she does not disdain to recall so small a service performed in her name! [47]  I must not pass silently over an example about Theophilus.104 ‘For there was a man named Theophilus in one of the towns in Cilicia, who so prudently and carefully managed the affairs of the church that, when the bishop died, all the people acclaimed him as worthy of the bishopric. But he was content with being vice-dean105 and preferred someone else to be made bishop. When the new bishop unjustly removed him from his position of honour, he found the situation so difficult to bear that he hired a Hebrew magician to recover his place as steward and sought help from the prince of demons. He told him to renounce the Son of God and His mother and all the teaching of the Christian Faith and 103 See also LE 199, which is another version of the same story. 104 The story of Theophilus, the immediate precursor of Faust, was extremely common throughout the Middle Ages (Tubach, no. 3572). The ultimate Latin source is a Life translated from Greek by Paul, deacon of Naples, in the ninth century: G. G. Meerssemann, Kritische Glossen op de Griekse Theophilus-Legende (7 eeuw) en haar latijnse Vertaling (9 eeuw) (Brussels, 1963), 17–40. 105 I have translated the manuscript’s vicedecanatu; Peyraut (the source used here) and the Legenda Aurea, 593 have ‘administrator’ (vicedominatu), which seems more appropriate for the duties described.

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to write down his renunciation and seal it and give it to him; and thus he bound himself to his service.106 On the morrow his place of honour was returned to him but, not long afterwards, he recovered himself and in the church of the Blessed Mary scourged himself in penance. First he reconciled himself to the sweet Mother of God and then, when she appeared to him, he confessed his belief in Christ, the true Son of God Who was born of the Virgin Mary, and the whole of Christian teaching, and through her he regained the grace of Christ her son and, as proof of the pardon granted to him, Christ’s mother again appeared to him as he slept and placed his charter of denial and renunciation on his breast. After receiving it, on the following day, which was a Sunday, Theophilus laid the whole matter before the bishop and the whole church and urged everyone to praise God and Mary the mother of Christ and three days later, still standing in the very place where the sweet Virgin had appeared to him, he died and was buried.’ You will find this example written in exactly the same words in the Summa on Virtues in the section on Hope.107 [48] I have found one more example about the kindnesses of the Glorious Virgin in an old sermon and one should not pass over it.108 It is this. A certain poor woman loved the Blessed Virgin and very often decorated her image with roses and lilies and in whatever other way she could. Now, it happened that her son was taken prisoner and hanged. The woman came in great sadness to the statue of the Virgin and asked her to restore her son to her. And because she did not receive her son back as quickly as she would have liked, she said, ‘You gave no help to one in need, so this will serve you right, won’t it?’ For she was almost beside herself with grief. ‘If you do not restore my son to me,’ she said, ‘I shall take your son from you.’ And when she dared to put out her hand to take away the image of the Christ-child, her son was standing next to her and tugged at her garment and said, ‘Mother, what are you doing? Do you not see? Look – the Mother of God has given me back to you.’ Thus the rejoicing mother received back her son. 106 For the development of this story in the context of increasing reliance on records in writing, see M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (Oxford, 2nd edn, 1993), 186–90. 107 Guillaume Peyraut, Summa de virtutibus, ii. 3.3: Guillelmi Peraldi Summae virtutum ac vitiorum (2 vols, Paris, 1668–9), i. 131–2. Peyraut was a Lyons Dominican who compiled two summae (outlines of theology) on the virtues and vices, both of which were completed by c.1250. It is likely that both works were intended for use in preaching and pastoral care. 108 A common story: Tubach, no. 1024.

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[49]  I found another in another old sermon as follows.109 Some clerks journeying through thunder and lightning sang the Ave maris stella.110 The Blessed Virgin opened out a sort of canopy over them and they remained safe in its shade until the storm had passed. One must not doubt therefore that the mantle of her mercy will shelter her servants when the storm of death threatens, so that they are not struck down by the Son. [50]  Another on the same topic.111 A certain holy monk, who honoured and served the Blessed Virgin with great devotion, was gravely ill and close to death. And when his brethren were sitting around him to offer him consolation, he said in a great voice, as if in a trance, ‘Alas for me! For I have never done anything good in this world nor ever served God.’ His brethren heard this and marvelled greatly, with much sadness in their hearts. Afterwards, when he came out of the trance, he said, ‘Blessed be the hour in which I served the Holy Virgin.’ When the monks sitting around him heard this, they asked what he had said and why he spoke in this way. He replied, ‘When I first spoke, I saw the house full of demons who were trying to snatch my soul. The blessed Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ, came and with a scorpion put all the demons to flight.’ And thus, with the help of the Lady of this world, was he saved. [51]  Another on the same subject. There was a clerk who was exceedingly lewd and lustful and much given to other vices as well. Despite all this, he devoutly offered up the Ave Maria and the Hours of the Virgin and willingly attended church to sing at mass in her honour. When on one occasion he was taken seriously ill, he seemed to see the Lord sitting on the Throne of Judgement where many demons had gathered to accuse him. One of them showed a great roll on which all his sins were recorded and he said that by right he should have him. Then he saw the Glorious Virgin standing next to her Son, carrying a small roll on which all his good deeds were written but, in comparison with the evil that he had done, they were trifling in importance and few in number. It was decided that the good and evil deeds should be weighed, which they were, with one roll placed on one scale and one on the other. And lo! the Blessed Virgin Mary with her holy arm weighed down the scale with the roll of good deeds, which was rising up because it was 109 Source not identified. There is a version of this story in Oxford, Balliol College MS 228 fol. 286v, where the source is given as St Bernard. 110 ‘Hail, Star of the Sea’, a popular Marian hymn: Chevalier, no. 1889. 111 Compare VF v. 5.4 (ed. Reichert, 277–8), which tells this story about Alan, the prior of the York Dominicans.

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lighter; and thus the roll of sins was raised up and fell into the hand of the Mother of Goodness. She took it and gave it to the clerk and told him to cleanse himself by means of confession. As I found written at the end of this example, a certain Friar Preacher named Gilbert said in Cambridge that he knew where this roll was to this day. Moreover, one of our brethren, who heard this from Brother Simon of Hinton,112 had written this in his book, and thus he had the example from one or more men who had certain knowledge of it. [52]  A third story on the same topic is often told.113 A monk, who was sacrist of his monastery, was filled with lust and one night left the monastery to go to a woman. While he was crossing a bridge over the river, the devil threw him into the water and he drowned. Angels rushed to see if they could help him but demons came, saying, ‘He is ours, for he was caught while about our business.’ But the Queen of Mercy was there to prevent the wretched man from being damned when he had done her some service, however small. For the clerk had indeed been accustomed to greet the Blessed Virgin by saying the Ave Maria whenever he passed before the statue of the Holy Mary; moreover, when he was setting out over the bridge where he drowned, he chanted the Ave Maria and the Matins of the Virgin. Thus the Most Holy Virgin came to his aid when he was in trouble and said to the demons, ‘O most evil ones, put down this man, for he has been my servant.’ When they persisted in claiming him as their own, the Mother of Life said, ‘I shall bring his case before My Son so that He may give judgement in the matter.’ Meanwhile, it was time to ring the bell for Matins and, when they looked for the sacrist, they eventually found him drowned in the river and they dragged him out and by the prayers of the Virgin his life was restored so that he could amend his way of life. Restored to life, he got up and he told them how he had been drowned and how he was rescued from the demons and restored to life by the Virgin. And, glorifying God and the Blessed Virgin, he mended his life and ended his days in peace. [53]  A fifth [sic] on the same subject. A poor man gave all that he had to other poor people in honour of the Blessed Virgin. When he prayed to her at the hour of his death, she came to him and said, ‘Come, my dear one.’ And she led him to the joys of Heaven, while all the angels heard this and went with them, singing sweet melodies. 112 Simon of Hinton was prior provincial of the English Dominicans 1254–61. Little suggests that the Franciscan mentioned here may be John of Kilkenny, who appears in LE 136 below. 113 A common story. See Little, 136 and Tubach, no. 5139.

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[54]  Another on the same.114 An abbess kept to a strict and pious life both in regard to herself and to those under her authority, but through the influence of the devil she became pregnant by a clerk. The nuns found this out and rejoiced and reported her lapse to the bishop. He named a day when he would perform a visitation and promised that the abbess would be disgraced if she were found to have sinned. When the abbess heard this, she prostrated herself before the altar of the Blessed Virgin and humbly begged for her mercy. And in her great sadness the abbess was overcome by exhaustion, but the unfailing fount of mercy freed her of the child, and for her part had the child carried by an angel to be reared by an anchoress and thus was she delivered from the shame which she had brought upon herself and which had been promised. [55]  Another on the same topic. A monk, who was passing through a wood, was saying the Ave Maria. Thieves planning to rob him saw two girls holding a towel, in which they were receiving the most beautiful roses from his mouth. How would they ever harm him, whom they saw in this way to be an intimate of the Heavenly Rose who springs eternal without the thorn of sin?

[Of angels] [56]  How angels help us at times of trial is illustrated in the Lives of the Fathers.115 We find it recorded there as follows. Abba Moses116 was once so beset by the spirit of fornication that he could not sit in his cell but went to the holy Abba Isidore and told him about the temptation that he felt. When, consoled by Holy Scripture, Moses was still unwilling to return to his cell, Abba Isidore and Moses climbed up to the higher part of his cell and Isidore said to him, ‘Turn westwards and look.’ When he turned he saw huge crowds of demons, greatly agitated and rushing about as if preparing for battle. And Isidore said to him again, ‘Turn back to the east and look.’ And when he turned he saw a numberless multitude of holy angels. Isidore said, ‘Those whom you saw in the west are those who assail even the holy ones of God. Those to the east are those whom the Lord sends to help His saints. Know therefore that there are many that are on our side, as the prophet Elisha says.’117 Having heard this, the saintly Moses was comforted. The end of the example. 114 For the many variations on this theme, see Tubach, nos 2 and 4. 115 VP v. 18.12 (PL 73: 982–3). 116 Abba (‘father’) was commonly used as a title and form of address for the Desert Fathers; see also Mark 14: 36. 117 4 (2) Kings 6: 16.

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[57]  Another example on the same topic is found in the same book as follows.118 Abba Macharius said, ‘Two strangers came to me doing penance and said, “We want to remain here”. I gave them an axe and bread and salt and I showed them a place where they could make a shelter and stay, thinking that they would flee because of the hard work involved; and I showed them how to make a wall from palm fronds. They patiently did all that I told them and did not come to me for three years; and I thought, What are they doing? They do not come and ask me or anyone else about their thoughts. For those that are from afar come to me; but these, who are close by, do not come. So I went to them and found them in silence; and after their manual labour and their meal, they said to me, “Are you leaving this place?” I answered, “No.” We rested for a while and I prayed that the Lord should reveal their thoughts to me and the roof of the cell opened and it became as light as day. Thinking that I was asleep, they got up and stretched their hands towards Heaven and stood in silence. And I saw demons landing on the younger one like flies, some on his mouth, others on his eyes; and I saw the angel of the Lord holding a fiery sword in his hand driving away the demons. But they could not come near the older man. At about dawn they went to sleep. And when they woke, they sang psalms and with each word a fiery lamp came out of the mouth of the younger man and ascended to Heaven. In like fashion, when the older one opened his mouth and chanted, a cord of fire came out of his mouth and reached up to Heaven. When I left I knew from this that the older man was without sin but the Enemy was attacking the younger one.’ The end of the example. [58]  We have a third example, brief and awesome, written as follows in the same book.119 ‘One of the Old Men120 asked God to let him see demons and it was revealed to him: “You do not need to see them.” But the Old Man implored Him saying, “Lord, Thou art able to protect me with Thy grace.” But God opened his eyes and he saw creatures like bees surrounding a man, gnashing their teeth around him. But God’s angels were reproaching them, that is they forbade and inhibited them.’ The end of the example.

118 VP iii. 195 (PL 73: 802). 119 VP v. 1.11 (PL 73: 994). 120 I have used ‘Old Man’ or ‘Old Men’, with capital letters, to translate senex when it refers to one or more of the Desert Fathers, who were hermits or monks living in Egypt from the third century onwards.

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[Of St James] [59] Because there is an exceedingly holy shrine of St James in Galicia,121 which is part of Spain, I have thought it worthwhile to include here some useful and memorable material about St James the Great. Let me first record what Master Hugh of St Victor, the Church’s great teacher, relates in part 16, chapter 2 of his book on the sacraments.122 He puts it like this. ‘I must not be silent about what I have heard on this matter. A certain monk of proven reliability told me that his abbot faithfully confirmed that when he was making a journey to visit some monks who lived some way off, he stopped for the night, as one does, in a particular place. There he learned about an event well known to all the inhabitants which had taken place a few days earlier. A pilgrim going to pray at the shrine of St James had stopped in the same place. As is the custom of travellers, he got up in the night, before dawn,123 and went out from the village into the wood nearby. There, as sometimes happens, he by mischance lost his companions and began to stray from the path. And when he had gone some way, he met a man of august bearing and countenance; when asked who he was and where he came from, he told him his name, the place that he came from and the reason for his journey. The stranger claimed that he was St James, to whom the man was going, and that he already knew all about him. Then he praised the man’s devotion as if truly pleased that they had met, commended his pious intentions and said that a great prize had been prepared for him and that his reward was not far away. Then, with words which assailed the man from all sides, he eventually described the miseries and sorrows of this life, how everything that we love in this life is short-lived and in like fashion how all things which we fear or cause us pain pass without delay. Meanwhile, with what seemed like reasonable arguments of this sort, he gradually began to plant a contempt for life in the mind of the man, who suspected nothing untoward, and to remove his fear of death. In the end, he said that no virtue would help the man, that instead he should hasten from this life and, if he could find no other route, that he should take his own life; for he should not 121 The shrine of St James the Great at Santiago de Compostella was an internationally important pilgrimage centre throughout the later Middle Ages. 122 Hugh of St Victor, De sacramentis ii. 16.2 (PL 176: 583). This story occurs widely from the eleventh century onwards, most notably in the miracle-collections of St James and of the Virgin. For references and for discussion in the context of attitudes to suicide, see A. Murray, Suicide in the Middle Ages, i: The Violent against Themselves (Oxford, 1998), 277–86. 123 The LE text is corrupt here. I have translated the PL text.

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allow himself to be long detained among these sorrows but that he should hasten to the joy prepared for him. What more? Tricked, he gives his assent to the deceiver’s arguments, seizes his sword and cuts his own throat. His companions, who had looked everywhere for him, eventually find his dead body. The corpse is carried to the village that they had left. And, because the man with whom they had stayed that night seemed to know something about this kind of crime, they falsely accuse him and demand that he pays the penalty. The man saw that his innocence was impugned without cause and begged with all his heart for divine aid, when behold! the man who had been dead suddenly arose and, to the amazement of everyone present, showed that the man was innocent. He told them how he had been led down to Hell by the same evil angel who had persuaded him to take his life; but on the way they met a man of radiant countenance and he said that he was St James. The saint snatched him away up to Heaven and led him to the throne of the Supreme Judge and there, pouring out prayers on his behalf, secured his restoration to life. He said that he saw many thousands of angels there but, when asked about their form and appearance, he said that there was nothing like them in this world and nothing which would enable him to describe the quality which he had seen in them, except perhaps fire or light and even they were quite dissimilar. He said that he could remember but could find no way in which to describe what he had seen.’ The end of the example. [60]  There is another example on this subject which is worth recalling. As Turpin, the former archbishop of Rheims, who had been with Charles the king of the Franks and emperor of the Romans124 in many campaigns, battles and times of trial, relates in a certain letter,125 which I have also read myself, the aforesaid Charles in a great struggle overthrew the Saracens, who had destroyed Christianity in Spain, and killed them or made them his vassals. This done, he rebuilt many churches which had been erected in honour of St James which the Saracens had destroyed – he rebuilt them, I say, adorned them and restored them to their proper condition. Then having brought peace to Spain and all the adjoining lands, he returned to France and crossed into Germany, where soon after his arrival he fell sick unto death. Meanwhile, on a certain feast124 Charlemagne, emperor 800–814. 125 Pseudo-Turpin, Historia Karoli Magni, 33: Karolellus atque Pseudo-Turpini Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi, ed. P. G. Schmidt (Stuttgart, 1996), 186–92. For the different versions of the story and its development, see B. de Gaiffier, ‘La Légende de Charlemagne: Le Péché de l’Empereur et son pardon’, in his Etudes Critiques d’Hagiographie et d’Iconologie (Brussels, 1967), 260–75.

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day, the archbishop was celebrating a solemn mass in the presence of the people. And lo! while the clerks were chanting, the archbishop fell into a short trance and saw a great army of demons passing by him. He asked one of them, ‘Where do you rush to?’ He replied, ‘That Charles who did so many evil things in this world is sick and close to death and we are going to steal his soul.’ When he heard this, the archbishop adjured the demon to come back to him and tell him what they had done. Then, waking from the trance, he completed the unfinished mass. After a while, he was celebrating mass again, when he was caught up in a trance as before and saw the multitude of demons passing him on their way back. He saw the demon to whom he had spoken before and said to him, ‘What did you do?’ He replied, ‘We were cheated of our hope. For when all his good deeds were weighed against his evil deeds, the evil outweighed the good and for this reason we straightaway wanted him as ours. But that headless one,’126 he said, ‘came and carried a huge mass of stones and placed them on the scale with his good deeds. And the stones made his good deeds outweigh the bad and thus he snatched him from our grasp.’ When he heard this, the archbishop awoke and knew that the emperor was dead and would enjoy eternal salvation through the merits of St James – which is what happened. For the archbishop made enquiries and discovered that he had been led forth from the prison of his body at that very hour.

[PART TWO: OF LOWER MATTERS] The second part, as has been said above,127 is called ‘of Lower Matters’, that is of the vices and the virtues and their qualities, and it is divided up by rubrics in alphabetical order.

[Of sloth]128 [61]  There is an example concerning St Antony129 which shows how sloth is overcome.130 It is recorded of him in the Lives of the Fathers 126 St James was beheaded. 127 i.e. in the lost prologue to the work. 128 Throughout this section I have translated the Latin acedia as ‘sloth’. Acedia actually has a number of aspects, including idleness, despair, depression, mental slackness, lack of religious fervour and an inability to settle to the routine of the eremitical or monastic life: S. Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill, 1960). 129 St Antony the Great, one of the earliest and most renowned of the Desert Fathers, died in 356. 130 VP v. 7.1 (PL 73: 893).

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as follows. ‘One day, when the holy Antony was living in the desert, he was afflicted by temptation and said to God, “Lord, I want to be saved, and my thoughts do not let me. What shall I do in my tribulation? How shall I be saved?” Saying this he went outside and saw someone like himself sitting and working, then getting up from his work and praying, then sitting and working once more. It was an angel of the Lord sent to correct and reassure Antony. And he heard the voice of the angel saying, “Do likewise and you shall be saved.”’ And so it was. [62] Since devout prayer and careful attention to the ecclesiastical office repel sloth and lassitude, it follows that the more anyone absents himself from prayer and the office at the appointed hour, the more he makes his heart a vessel ready for sloth and lassitude. Indeed, those who do absent themselves from the divine office at the due time cannot escape unscathed. You have an example of this, preacher, in the virtuous and pious widow killed seven years ago in Desmon in Carrigtohill,131 near Cork, where, as far as my abilities allowed, I was discharging my duties as lector.132 Now, during the war which was then raging in Wales,133 the woman fled from the lands of the elder Lord David de Barry in Wales, where she had been living until then, to the same lord in Ireland. She received a burgage from the lord in Carrigtohill, where she brewed; this labour supported her and her 30-year-old sister, who was still a virgin, and she was regarded as a woman of virtue by all her neighbours. Because she dressed and nourished herself well enough on the fruits of her labour, certain wicked people thought that she was wealthy. One winter’s night one evil man, who wanted to have the money that he thought she had hidden away in a strong-box, broke down the wall and entered her chamber and slit her throat with a deadly little knife. But he took nothing away; for the scream of the dying woman struck him with terror and he immediately fled. After some days, however, the dead woman appeared to her sister, the virgin whom I mentioned. When she saw her sister, she was very sad and asked her condition. She said it was well and her sister asked if she had suffered any further punishment after she had left her body. She answered, ‘After I left my 131 Carrigtohill is a few miles east of Cork. David de Barry, mentioned here, is known to have held the manor of Carrigtohill in 1234, when he was granted a licence to hold a market there: Calendar of documents relating to Ireland preserved in the Public Record Office (5 vols, London, 1875–86), i, nos 2170, 2183. For another version of the story, see LE 167 below. 132 i.e. theological lecturer and general adviser. 133 David de Barry held the manor of Manorbier (Pembs.), and Little suggests that the war may have been Llewellyn ap Gruffydd’s campaign which destroyed nearby Tenby in 1259.

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body I was thrown into the fire.’ In great sadness her sister adjured her by the death of Christ to tell her the reason. She replied, ‘Because on feast-days I used to leave church before communion.’134 But her sister did not understand this word. She therefore adjured her by the death of Christ to tell her what it meant. She answered, ‘I can speak to you no more.’ She then disappeared. In English her words exivi ante communionem mean ‘I left church before communion.’ The surviving sister afterwards came to me when I was in Carrigtohill one day and told me what happened and asked me to explain this phrase. I asked her, however, if her sister used to come out of the church before mass was finished. She said, ‘Yes, because she had no man or woman who knew how to take care of her business.’ So after the Elevation of the Host135 she used to go home to ensure that none of the goods in her house were lost. Hearing this, I explained to her what she asked and told her that Christians must wait in church until the end of mass, because at the end the priest receives the body and blood of Christ on behalf of all the parishioners present, as if it were put in their own mouths; therefore everyone must remain until that moment, certain that by virtue of the sacrament, which the priest receives for everyone, every person of good will and devotion will receive spiritual refreshment for his soul. I therefore said, ‘Thus because your sister left before the end of the mass, when the priest receives the saving food of the sacrament on behalf of everyone there, she was punished by the fire that you have described.’ [63]  A noteworthy example to the same effect is found in the second book of the Dialogues, where it is written as follows.136 ‘In one of the monasteries which St Benedict137 had founded throughout the region there was a monk who could not stay still at prayer-time. As soon as his fellow-monks began to pray, he would go outside and his wandering spirit made him do worldly things of no lasting value. After he had been admonished by his abbot many times, he was taken to the man of God,138 who sternly upbraided him for his foolishness. He went back 134 The Fourth Lateran Council laid down that the laity should take communion at least at Easter; it is likely that many also did so at Pentecost and Christmas (compare LE 99). At other times lay participation was limited to attending mass, where the celebrant received communion on behalf of all those present. 135 At the Elevation of the Host the celebrating priest held aloft the Eucharistic wafer for the adoration of the congregation. This took place at the time of the consecration of the bread and wine, immediately before the celebrant took communion. 136 Gregory, Dialogues ii. 4 (ed. de Vogüé, ii. 150–2). 137 St Benedict of Nursia, the sixth-century founder of Western monasticism. 138 i.e. Benedict.

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to his monastery but followed what the man of God had told him for barely two days, for on the third he returned to his old ways and started wandering outside at prayer-time. When the matter was reported to the servant of God by the abbot whom he had appointed, he said, “I shall come in person and correct him myself.” The man of God therefore came and at the appointed hour, when the psalms were over and the monks devoted themselves to prayer, he saw that a little black boy was dragging the monk outside by the hem of his robe. Then he whispered to the abbot, who was named Pompeianus, and to God’s devoted servant Maurus, “Do you not see what this person is who draws our monk outside?” They answered, “No.” Benedict said, “Let us pray that you may see whom this monk follows.” After two days of prayer Maurus could see but Abbot Pompeianus could not. On the following day, after prayer, the man of God went out of the chapel and found the monk standing outside and he beat him with a stick because of the blindness that was in his heart. From that day on, the monk did not heed any of the blandishments of the little black boy but remained quite still throughout prayers. Thus the old enemy has not dared to tempt him again; it is as if he had suffered the blows himself.’ [64]  We have found a most useful example for the condemnation of sloth and lassitude in the Lives of the Fathers as follows.139 God had granted a solitary named Machutus the grace that if there was ever a discussion of spiritual matters in the monastery – which might last all day and all night – he would not fall asleep; but if anyone tried to introduce slanderous or idle talk, he would immediately fall asleep so that his ears would not take in such poison. He used to say that the devil was eager to draw monks into idle talk and was hostile to all spiritual teaching. To illustrate this, he would use this example. He said, ‘I was once speaking to some monks for the good of their souls and they were overcome by such a deep sleep that they were unable to open their eyes. But I saw that this was the work of the devil and I started to talk about idle matters, at which they were immediately roused from their sleep and rejoiced. But I shuddered and said, “Up to now I have spoken of divine matters and all of you were fast asleep. When the discourse turned to idle matters, you were all eager to listen. This was the work of an evil spirit.”’

139 John Cassian, De Coenobiorum Institutis v. 29 and 31 (PL 49: 246–8); see also VP iv. 34 (PL 73: 837).

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[Of lawyers]140 [65]  An example that is fearful to relate and awesome to hear concerns Stephen, the rector of Caldecote.141 In England there are many towns named Caldecote but, according to my information, a man named Stephen was rector of a place of that name who, after studying law for several years, said to his brother, a knight named Robert de Bloy, ‘Do you know Stephen, the clerk of Caldecote?’ He replied, ‘That is you. Sign your forehead with the Cross.’ And Stephen said, ‘I do not know the clerk but, whoever he was, two black monks in the corner have brought against him a sentence which can never be rescinded.’ And having said this he immediately breathed his last. The end of the example. [66]  I must not pass silently over what took place in England in our own day, as I heard from Brother Thomas of Ufford,142 who was at one time a well-known friar in Ireland. He heard Brother Hugh,143 at one time warden of the friars in London but who was then studying in Cambridge, mention the event in a sermon. Now, a little while earlier a clerk was studying law at Cambridge where he was making much progress but, as many men do, he used the laws unjustly. For he thought that he would live a long time, but he was deceived. For, wretched man, when he wanted to live a better life, he was struck down by illness and was on the point of death. When the hour of death was approaching, the clerks all gathered around him in the customary way and he shouted out loudly and with great force, ‘Appeal! Appeal!’ The clerks present 140 Lawyers often feature prominently in exemplum-collections, which rarely present them in a favourable light: they are avaricious, venal, unprincipled and willing to sell their services without regard for the truth. Pastoral theologians placed them alongside pimps, procurers and sycophantic courtiers, groups whose employment was morally dubious to the point that they stood in need of special penitential instruction. See Baldwin, Masters, i. 57–9, 192–8. 141 The version of this story in Primo, a summa on the vices probably compiled between 1234 and 1241, notes that papal legislation forbade all those with cure of souls from studying or practising civil law: Summa Virtutum de Remediis Anime, ed. S. Wenzel (Athens GA, 1984), 11–12 and 46. For differing interpretations of this ban, see W. Ullmann, ‘Honorius III and the prohibition of legal studies’, in his Law and Jurisdiction in the Middle Ages (London, 1988) and S. Kuttner, ‘Papst Honorius III und das Studium des Zivilrechts’ in his Gratian and the Schools of Law, 1140–1234 (London, 1983). Wenzel suggested that Stephen may be Stephen de Holewell, rector of Caldecote during the episcopate of Hugh of Wells, bishop of Lincoln (1209–35). 142 Thomas of Ufford also features in LE 95; he may have been related to Robert of Ufford, who was justiciar of Ireland in 1268. 143 Hugh was warden of the London Franciscans c.1245: C. L. Kingsford, The Grey Friars of London (British Society of Franciscan Studies 6, Aberdeen, 1915), 54.

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marvelled at him and asked what the matter was and he shouted again and again with great urgency, ‘Appeal quickly! What are you doing? Appeal!’ After he had shouted in this most wretched manner, he said in a dolorous tone, ‘Ah! You delayed too long, for sentence has been pronounced against me. I am damned for eternity!’ And after these words he breathed his last and went down to eternal damnation, which was shown to him for our benefit rather than his. Let lawyers and advocates and bailiffs also take note, for a doleful sentence awaits them if they stray from the path of righteousness. [67] Another most noteworthy example about lawyers, which is awesome to hear, was told to me by a Norman who, I am quite sure, would not tell me anything unless it were true. This is what he told me. There was in Rouen a clerk named Master William Bodin, whom the Norman knew like himself and whom he saw almost every day in the city. For he was a lawyer and he regularly attended the consistory court of Brother Rigaud, who was at that time archbishop of Rouen.144 Of course, in his actions he did not travel along the path of righteousness, as few in his profession do – and behold the sort of fate that was allotted to him. For one day when he was planning to go for a walk at about the first hour of the day on the bridge at Rouen, he saw an enormous crowd of men and women in the street and in boats and on the bridge itself and he was borne up on high by demons and carried in the air beyond the Seine, which is very wide there. Soon he was even carried beyond the great abbey of St Mary du Pré.145 And eventually he was dropped by the demons and his body crashed to the ground and was smashed and broken. Thus the wretched dead man found the reward which he deserved. The end of the example. [68] Again, the remarkable punishment which God metes out to lawyers gives us the strength to hate and revile this sin. For his tongue seems to a dying man to move faster than the breeze or the wind, as if to say, ‘I have been quick to sin.’ This is in the Summa on Vices.146 [69]  ‘Wicked lawyers are wont to behave most unwisely at the point of death, when there is an especial need for wisdom.’147 As is recorded in the Summa on Vices, ‘one man who was offered the Eucharist in his last hours said, “Let it first be decided whether or not it is right for me 144 Eudes Rigaud, a Franciscan friar who was archbishop of Rouen 1248–75. 145 Notre Dame du Pré, a Benedictine house outside Rouen. 146 Peyraut, Summa de vitiis iv. 2.6: Guillelmi Peraldi summae, ii. 104. 147 Ibid.

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to receive it.” Those present said, “We judge it right and just”, but he said, “This is not a just judgement. It is not for you justly to judge me a bad man, for you are on the same level as me.”’ He spoke the truth, for it was for God to condemn him to his damnation. You see, if you listen to the words of the wretched man, how he perverted what people said, not caring about that food of salvation which he should have most eagerly demanded; and this was because his mouth was not worthy to swallow that blessed nourishment – his mouth, I say, which had been accustomed to pervert truth into falsehood. [70]  ‘When another lawyer, who was at the point of death, was urged to take the sacrament, he asked that it be delayed. When his friends were unwilling to give it to him because they could see death within him, he appealed against this as a manifest injustice.’148 [71]  Again it is fitting that evil lawyers should be bathed in boiling gold. ‘Thus we read in a tragedy by Seneca,’ as is written in the Summa on Vices,149 ‘that a man seemed to see Nero bathing in Hell. His attendants were pouring boiling gold in around him and, when he saw a band of lawyers approaching, he said, “Venal race of men, my friends the lawyers, come and bathe in here with me; there is still room – I have kept it for you.”’

[Of avarice] [72]  Gregory tells a fearful story about avarice in the fourth book of the Dialogues.150 ‘Chrysaurius, as his kinsman Probus, whom I have already mentioned, used to relate, was an exceedingly wealthy man in this world’s terms; but he was as full of sins as he was of riches, swollen with pride, a slave to the pleasures of the flesh, burning with the fires of avarice to acquire more wealth. Thus when the Lord decided to put an end to so many sins, He struck him with a bodily illness. When he reached his last moment, at the very hour when he was about to leave his body, he opened his eyes and saw the foulest and blackest spirits standing before him and fiercely threatening to carry him off to the dungeon of Hell. He turned pale, trembled, broke into a sweat and cried out loudly asking for a period of grace; and he called out in distressed tones for his son Maximus; I was already a monk and I knew that Maximus was a monk as well. He said, “Maximus, hurry, I have never 148 Ibid. 149 Ibid.; the story does not occur in the surviving tragedies of Seneca. 150 Gregory, Dialogues iv. 40 (ed. de Vogüé, iii. 142–4); the same story appears in ­Gregory’s Homiliae in Evangelia xii. 7 (PL 76: 1122).

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wronged you in any way; take me under the protection of your faith.” Maximus soon arrived, the whole household gathered together grieving and wailing. They could not see the evil spirits which were pressing in on him so that he could hardly bear it, but they discerned the presence of those pulling at him from what he said, from his distressed state, pallid complexion and the way in which he trembled. For he would turn this way and that in his bed out of fear of the foul spirits; he lay on his left side and could not bear the sight of them; he turned to the wall and they were there. Hemmed in by the spirits, he despaired of ever finding rest and began to cry out loudly, “Truce at least until morning!” But as he called out in this very way his soul was snatched from his body. It is therefore quite clear that he saw these things for our benefit rather than his own and that the vision was intended to profit us who still enjoy the long-suffering patience of God. For what did it profit the man to see the foul spirits before his death and to seek a period of grace, when he received none?’ The end. [73]  Although in this example Chrysaurius is described as full of vices and he deserved to be shut up in wretched damnation on account of so many sins, it is reported that in acquiring his wealth he burned with the fires of avarice. Therefore, an attack specifically directed against avarice can be made using the same example in the following way. St Gregory tells a fearful story of a certain rich man named Chrysaurius. He was an avaricious man who greedily amassed great wealth; thus he lived a miser, eagerly amassing riches as long as God willed. But woe unto the wretched man! For his end came before he thought – a woeful end appropriate to such a man. For when he would have wished to enjoy a longer life he was struck by illness. And when he reached his last moments – and so word for word as in the last story to the end. [74]  We have found two other examples on the same subject in the Lives of the Fathers.151 They are copied here word for word. The first is this. ‘The monks used to tell of a gardener who gave the rewards for his labours to the poor and kept back for himself only what he needed for his own sustenance. But then Satan entered his heart and said to him, “Take a little money for yourself in case you need it when you grow old or fall ill.” And he took it and filled a gallon vessel with coins. Then it happened that he fell sick and his foot began to rot; he spent the money which he had taken on doctors and had nothing left. Then one of the doctors came to him and said, “Unless your foot is amputated, it will rot completely.” And they fixed a day to amputate the foot. The man 151 VP iv. 6.21 (PL 73: 892).

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recovered himself and repented of what he had done. He shuddered and wept, saying, “Be mindful, O Lord, of my previous good deeds.” When he said this, the angel of the Lord stood before him and said, “Where is the money which you took and where is the hope of which you spoke?” Then the man understood and said, “I have sinned, O Lord. Pardon me and I shall not do the like again.” Then the angel of the Lord touched his foot and straightaway he was cured.’ Those who saw or knew of this glorified God. [75]  Another example against the rich and greedy is found in the same place.152 It is this. ‘One of the fathers told a story about an Old Man who once came into the city and sat down at the door of a wealthy man who was dying. As he sat there, the Old Man saw some black and fearsome horses and each rider held a fiery staff in his hand. When they reached the door, they left their horses outside and each rider hurried inside. The sick man saw them and called out in a loud voice, “Lord, help me!” But they said to him, “Have you become mindful of God now that the sun has grown dark for you? Why have you not called upon Him until today when you enjoyed the brightness of the day? But now, at this hour, there is no hope or consolation for you.”’ The end. [76]  Since it is not expressly stated whether the wretched man was damned or repented at the last moment and obtained salvation, this story may be concluded with words which, while preserving the truth, may instil awe in your audience. It is clear that he was a wretched man and he died soon afterwards. So, immediately after the narrative, one might say something like this: The wretched man soon went on the way of all flesh. He went, as the common phrase goes, to the place where he will long dwell and where he has what he deserved in this world. What can his riches profit him now? It is better for such a man who, because of his greed and avarice, has to ride with horsemen such as these to the burning pit of Hell, never to have seen a penny piece or never to have been born for he is damned eternally. In English it is put like this: Better that I was never born Than life and soul be so forlorn.153

With these or similar words the example can be brought to a close.

152 VP vi. 3.14 (PL 73: 1012). 153 The verse occurs widely: S. Wenzel, Verses in Sermons: ‘Fasciculus Morum’ and its Middle English Poems (Cambridge MA, 1978), 187 and Fasciculus Morum, 490.

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[Of baptism] [77] For commending the power and grace of baptism, St Augustine relates a number of miracles in his book, The City of God.154 The first is this. ‘In Carthage a most pious lady named Innocentia, who was from the higher reaches of society there, had a cancer in her breast, something which the doctors say is incurable. So usually they cut out the part of the body where the tumour took hold; alternatively, they do not treat it at all so that, although death is the inevitable outcome, the patient’s life may be prolonged to some extent. In this they claim that they are following the advice of Hippocrates. She was told this by a skilled physician, who was a close family friend, and turned to God alone in prayer. When Easter was approaching, she was told in a dream to stand in the part of the baptistery where the women watch and ask the first newly baptised woman whom she met to sign her with the sign of Christ. This she did and her health was immediately restored, as she told the whole city. The doctor, who had advised her to undergo no treatment if she wanted to prolong her life by a short while, afterwards examined her and found her completely cured, even though he had earlier recognised her condition when he performed a similar examination. He eagerly asked her what treatment she had received, for he wanted to find a treatment which would prove the teaching of Hippocrates wrong. When she told him what had happened, his voice and expression showed that he thought little of it, so much so that she feared that he would make some insulting remark about Christ. But he replied with a humorous solemnity, “I thought that you were going to tell me something remarkable!” When she looked horrified, he quickly added, “What was so remarkable in Christ healing a cancer when He once raised to life a man who had been dead for four days?”’155 [78]  Augustine also tells this story in the same place.156 ‘Who knows of the physician157 in the same city who suffered from gout? He had submitted his name for baptism and the night before he was baptised he had a dream in which some curly-haired black boys, who he realised were demons, forbade him to be baptised that year. He refused to obey, even when they stamped on his feet and caused him the most acute pain that he had ever suffered; instead, he overcame them, for he did not 154 Augustine, City of God xxii. 8. 155 A reference to the raising of Lazarus (John 11: 17). 156 Augustine, City of God xxii. 8. 157 I have followed the text of Augustine, which reads medicus (‘physician’) rather than the mendicus (‘beggar’) of the manuscript.

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wish to delay washing in the font of rebirth as he had promised. For in baptism he was relieved not only of the unusual level of pain but also of the gout itself and never suffered any more pain in his feet for the rest of his life. I know it, at any rate, as do a very few of the brethren whom the story managed to reach.’ Of course Augustine speaks in this way to upbraid the man, who did not spread the story of this miracle. [79]  ‘There was, moreover, a man from the town of Curubis,158 who was cured when he was baptised not only of paralysis but also of a serious hernia, and he was freed from both complaints, as if he had never had anything wrong with his body, as soon as he came up from the font of rebirth. Who knows of this outside Curubis except those very few who chanced to hear of it somewhere? But when we heard of it, we had him sent to Carthage on the orders of the saintly Bishop Aurelius, although I had already been told about his case by people whose word I could not doubt.’

[Of love for God] [80]  Now, the unfailing kindnesses shown to us should draw out our affection and love for God. There is the example of the lion which, as the story goes and as is related in the Summa on Virtues,159 ‘a knight rescued from a serpent and which did not wish to leave the knight. For what excuse will they have who abandon their Saviour and consort with the serpent of Hell? If dripping water can hollow out a stone, what excuse will there be for those whose hard hearts are not softened by the unfailing mercies of God?’ On this subject Anselm says in his book of meditations: ‘Behold, O Lord, Thou hast made me and I owe my whole being to Thy love; Thou hast redeemed me and I owe my whole being to Thy love; Thou hast promised such great things and I owe my whole being to Thy love, indeed I owe as much more than myself as Thou art greater than I, for whom Thou gavest Thyself.’160 [Of love for our neighbours] [81] The example of the blessed John the Evangelist161 urges and moves us to show love to our neighbours. For when the saint had reached extreme old age and could scarcely be carried to church by 158 Augustine, City of God xxii. 8. 159 Peyraut, Summa de virtutibus ii. 4.3: Guillelmi Peraldi summae, i. 159. Other references are given in Little, 139–40 and Tubach, no. 3057. 160 Anselm, Meditatio 3: F. S. Schmitt (ed.), S. Anselmi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi opera omnia (6 vols, Edinburgh, 1938–61), iii. 91. 161 Compare Legenda Aurea, 61.

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his disciples and could say nothing else, he said, ‘My children, love one another.’162 Eventually his disciples and brethren who were present heard him always repeating these same words and said, ‘Master, why do you always speak thus?’ He replied, ‘Because it is the Lord’s commandment163 and if you do only this, it is enough.’ [82]  The way in which we should love one another is illustrated in the example of the philosopher in the Summa on Vices.164 ‘When someone said to him, “This man is that man’s friend”, he said, “Why then is this man poor when the other is rich? He is not a friend who does not share his good fortune.”’ The end of the example.

[Of wicked clerks] [83]  It is recorded in the Life of the St Thomas the Martyr165 that evil and haughty clerks did much to provoke the quarrel which arose between the saint and the king of the English about Church policy. It is therefore written there that these proud and evil clerks were not clerks but tonsured demons. [84]  You will also find this example on the same topic in The Jewel of the Priesthood.166 ‘The bishop of Amiens, Robert de Camera, a wise and holy man, was approached by a dean on behalf of certain men presented to him for ordination, who said, “You are able to perform a great work of charity, for they have no other means of support.” The bishop replied, “If they sought this for the benefit of their souls rather than their bodies, they would receive it; but since they seek only material things, they shall not, for they are unworthy.”’ [85] This example, also concerning clerks, is written in the same place. ‘A monk at Monmouth in the Welsh Marches used to dispute frequently and very bitterly about the Holy Trinity. Although his prior forbade him to do so on several occasions, he nonetheless continued in his wicked ways and one evening he disputed most vehemently on the formidable subject of the Holy Trinity, that is about the plurality and 162 2 John 5. 163 John 15: 12 and 17. 164 In fact from Peyraut, Summa de virtutibus ii. 4.15: Guillelmi Peraldi summae, i. 180. See also Summa de virtutibus ii. 4.3 (Guillelmi Peraldi summae, i. 150), where Peyraut attributes the saying to Socrates. 165 Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury 1163–70. I have not found this anecdote in the many surviving Lives of Becket. 166 GE i. 49 (ed. Brewer, 136); compare the similar story in GE ii. 27 (ed. Brewer, 296). Robert de Camera was bishop of Amiens 1165–69; he also features in a number of stories told by Peter the Chanter (PL 205: 220).

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diversity of the persons and the identity of the substance. But, when morning came, he found himself deprived of all his knowledge and for the rest of his life he never regained his memory.’167 [86]  Moreover, an example which I found in an old sermon168 and which I have often heard in the past warns clerks not to examine God’s majesty too closely. It is this. When Master Lanfranc169 was crossing the Seine, some distance from his companions, so that he could try to understand fully the threefold nature of the persons of the Trinity and the unity of its essence, he saw a boy spooning water from the Seine into a small hole. The master asked what he was doing. The boy replied that he was putting the whole of the Seine into the little hole. The master said, ‘You will never be able to do that.’ The boy replied, ‘Neither will you be able to solve the questions that you ponder’ and he immediately disappeared. The master wanted to ponder the majesty of God further. So that he should not be overcome by vainglory,170 he entered a monastery in Normandy and, pretending to know nothing, was regarded as a fool for Christ’s sake.171 But he could not hide so great a light under a bushel. Afterwards he was brought thence to a position of great honour.

[Of carnal thoughts] [87]  If you are perhaps looking for a precaution which you can take to overcome thoughts of this kind, your answer is in the Lives of the 167 GE i. 51 (ed. Brewer, 148). For the concerns underlying this and similar stories, which are common, see E. M. Peters, ‘Transgressing the Limits set by the Fathers: authority and impious exegesis in medieval thought’, in S. L. Waugh and P. D. Diehl (eds), Christendom and its Discontents: Exclusion, Persecution and Rebellion, 1000–1350 (Cambridge, 1994), 338–62; and ‘Libertas inquirendi and the vitium curiositatis in medieval thought’, in G. Makdisi (ed.), La Notion de la Liberté au Moyen Âge (Paris, 1985), 89–98. 168 Perhaps Odo of Cheriton’s Sermon for the Feast of St Michael: J. B. Schneyer (ed.), Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters für die Zeit von 1150–1350 (Münster, 11 vols, 1969–90), iv. 497 (no. 179). I have used the text in Cambridge, Trinity College MS B.1.9 fol. 155r, which closely resembles the LE text. 169 Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury 1070–89. For the development of this story, see pp. 21–2. See also M. Gibson, Lanfranc of Bec (Oxford, 1978), 224 and H.-I. Marrou, ‘Saint Augustin et l’ange’, in L’Homme devant Dieu: Mélanges offerts au père Henri de Lubac (Lyons, 1964) ii. 137–49. 170 Proverbs 25: 27. 171 Odo and others go on to describe how Lanfranc disguised himself as a fool in his search for a truly observant monastery and then appeared incognito to refute the heresy of Berengar of Tours; for this story’s circulation in Franciscan circles, see Thomas of Eccleston, De Adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam, ed. A.G. Little (Manchester, 1951), 64 and Gibson, Lanfranc, 224–5.

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Fathers,172 where it is written as follows. A certain brother asked one of the Old Men, ‘What should I do because my thoughts are always occupied with fornication?’ The Old Man said, ‘When demons sow this seed in your heart and you feel this, do not converse with them, for to suggest such things is what demons do. And although they do not stop suggesting these thoughts to you, they do not force you. It is therefore in your power to take them up or not. You know what the Midianites did when they adorned their daughters and placed them in front in the sight of the Israelites;173 they did not force anyone to have intercourse with them but those who wished went unto them. The others were indignant, however, and punished their fornication with the death of those who had shown this presumption.’ The monk said, ‘What shall I do, for I am frail and lust overcomes me?’ The Old Man said, ‘Be steadfast in the face of the demons and, when they speak sinfully in your heart, do not answer them but get up, pray and repent, saying, “Son of God, take pity on me”.’ The end of the example. — Of course, we learn from this example that fools are overcome by carnal thoughts because they consent to have these thoughts and do not resist them at the outset; this is also made plain in an example written in the Lives of the Fathers in this way. [88]  ‘When one monk was being tempted by the spirit of fornication,174 he approached a renowned Old Man and begged him saying, “Pray for me, for I am troubled by fornication.” The Old Man prayed to the Lord for him. And again he came to him a second time and said the same thing to him; and he often came to the Old Man in this way and he earnestly prayed to Lord for him, saying, “Lord, tell me whence come this brother’s trials, for I have prayed to Thee and he has not found a remedy.” And the Lord revealed to him that the devil was tempting the monk; and the Old Man saw him sitting down and the spirit of fornication, in the guise of different women, was next to him as if playing with him and an angel sent to help him stood there and grew angry with the brother because he did not prostrate himself but delighted in his thoughts and gave his whole mind to them. And the Old Man realised that the reason lay in the monk himself and declared, “You consent to these thoughts.” And he taught him how he should resist such thoughts and the monk lived again through his teaching and prayer and found respite from this temptation.’ 172 VP v. 5.32 (PL 73: 882). 173 Numbers 25: 6. 174 VP v. 5.19 (PL 73: 878).

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[89]  Another on the same subject.175 ‘A brother came to Abba Pastor and said, “Many thoughts come into my mind and I am in danger from them.” And the Old Man threw him out into the open air and said, “Take a deep breath and stop the wind.” He replied, “I cannot.” The Old Man said, “You cannot forbid thoughts to enter your mind, but it is in your power to resist them.”’ [90]  It is written in the same place that ‘one of the Old Men said, “We are not condemned because bad thoughts enter us, only if we use our thoughts badly. For through our thoughts we may suffer ruin; on the other hand, it is through our thoughts that we may be crowned.”’176 [91]  As is recorded in the same book,177 another Old Man said, ‘Be like a man who passes an inn on the road and smells something cooking – perhaps some roasting meat. Anyone who wants to can go inside and eat. He that does not want to, only takes in the smell and passes by. In the same way, shake your shoes free of excrement, arise and pray. For we do not eradicate thoughts but fight against them.’ This saying is written in the Lives of the Fathers. [92]  Now if it happens that thoughts so assail you that it is difficult to resist them at all when they begin, then the ultimate remedy, as I believe, is to seek refuge in the Cross or Passion of the Saviour in the manner and according to the examples described above under the title ‘Of the Cross and Passion of Christ.’178 [93] A notable example about lustful thoughts is written in the Dialogues, book 4.179 [94]  Confession is exceedingly effective in fighting against unclean thoughts.180 Thus one of the holy fathers said to someone beset by the spirit of fornication, ‘My son, do not hide your thoughts; it is thus that the unclean spirit is confounded and leaves you. For nothing confounds and crushes the power of demons more than revealing one’s secret and unclean thoughts to the holy and most blessed fathers.’

175 VP v. 10.55 (PL 73: 922). 176 VP v. 10.86 (PL 73: 928). 177 VP v. 5.16 (PL 73: 877). 178 See LE 3–7 and 25–8 above. 179 Perhaps the story of the priest from Nursia who avoided all sexual contact with his wife: Gregory, Dialogues iv. 12 (ed. de Vogüé, iii. 48). This story is quoted by Gerald of Wales in GE ii. 16 (ed. Brewer, 240). 180 A paraphrase of VP v. 5.3 and 13 (PL 73: 874 and 876).

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[Of confession]181 [95] Similar examples concern confession and they must not be passed over in silence. I place this one first because you can be entirely certain of it. Brother Adam Habe of good memory, a friar both holy and pious as well as a well-known and indisputably effective preacher, was a member of our order during my own time and was once head of my own custody.182 On one occasion this friar called together a great gathering of people on a day when he was preaching; before the people had gathered together, a man came to him and asked to make his confession. He told the friar that the reason was this. That very night he had gone alone from one town to another and when he was on the road he saw in the distance a dreadful beast coming towards him. It was so vile that he immediately knew that it was the devil in the guise of the dread creature. He stood there, so terrified that he was almost beside himself with fear. Wondering what to do, he was aided by the light of faith, although he was a sinner, and straightaway took the axe which he had in his hand and made a circle around himself formed with signs of Christ’s Cross. He thought and feared, however, that because of his sins he would be delivered into the power of the devil, and well knew that, unless God helped him, he not would be able to escape from the devil. So, knowing that God is merciful and quicker to show mercy than to condemn, he called out to the Lord, saying, ‘Lord, I do not have a priest to whom I can confess my sins. I promise Thee that I shall abandon my sinful life and, because I do not have anyone else to whom I can confess my sins until I reach a priest,’ he said, ‘Lord, I have done this, and this, and such and such’; and in this way he confessed his sins to God, as if he were actually in His presence. And behold, marvellous – indeed joyful – to tell, as soon as he had confessed one sin, a wall immediately began to rise up a little on the ground around him. When he confessed the next sin, the wall grew higher. When he confessed the third, it rose higher still and so, little by little, as he continued his confession, the structure of this wall grew with divine power until, when his confession was complete, it was so high all around him that he stood safely inside it as if in a strong tower. But he was still stricken with such great terror that he could not feel safe in his own heart – and no wonder, for at the beginning, when by the merit of his faith, his penitence and the c­ onfession 181 For further material on the need to make a timely and complete confession, see LE 110–12 and DC 45 below. 182 Adam Habe was probably custodian of Dublin; the incident took place close by. The version of the story in Oxford, Balliol College MS 228 fol. 308v names the friar as Ahab.

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that he had made the wall began to rise up, the devil came in that most terrible form and tried with all his might to bring the wall down. As he cried out and continued his confession, which was still incomplete, the devil desperately tried to climb over the unfinished wall but was repulsed by the strength of God’s power and fell back down. But he charged at the wall again and, using all his strength, tried to climb over the wall which had now grown higher and the wretched man inside cried out and almost breathed his last at the fearful sight; but the devil fell back down as before. The devil made unceasing charges and attacks on the wall to get to the wretched man inside but the wall continued to grow and each time the devil was repelled and repulsed by God’s power. In this desperate situation the poor man stood inside his walls until day. But after the wall had reached its full height, the devil, who could do nothing else, leapt onto the top of the wall and raised his ghastly head so that in this way the man would be overcome with terror. The wretched man was in such straits and so afraid that all night he made so many vows to God and made so many promises that it was almost impossible for anyone to fulfil them. For he would have chosen to live all his life in the most abject poverty, toil and distress that could be devised, provided that he lived, rather than facing another night like this. —  So you now see, Christian, how much power true confession, made to a priest as ordained by the Church, has against the devil when this confession, made to God in the midst of a field, was so powerful against him. Indeed, this confession had no power except through the pious wish and intention to confess his sins in the due fashion and completely change his manner of life according to the will of God. The man therefore, in confessing his sins in great terror to Brother Adam, told him all this and more about the incident, saying that in his sermon he should, without mentioning his name, relate the whole story – which he did, with the man himself sitting at his feet. Let no one doubt this story, for Brother John of Galtrim and Brother Thomas of Ufford,183 and many other friars heard it from Brother Adam and they reported it to me and many others. And I do not know whether I heard this from him or not; I do know that I would indeed have heard it from him, had I not been hampered by sloth or idleness. This happened near Dublin and the man involved was at that time bailiff of Turvey.184

183 Galtrim is in Co. Meath. Thomas of Ufford also appears in LE 66. 184 Co. Dublin.

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[96]  Now, it is written in the Life of St Kentigern185 that a certain lady of Scotland secretly loved a knight, to whom she gave a valuable ring which her lord had given to her. Some time later, when the lord had gone into a wood to hunt, it happened as is sometimes the case that, when the others went off in different directions, the knight stayed alone with the lord. And while they were resting alone by a river, the knight fell asleep next to the lord and the lord recognised on his outstretched hand the ring which he had given to his lady; he secretly took it from the finger of the sleeping man and threw it into the river, then he woke the knight and returned to the palace. And he summoned the lady and commanded her to bring him the ring which he had presented to her as a token of his love. But she, greatly frightened by this, sought to delay for three days, in which time she could have it brought from the place where she claimed to have put it for safe-keeping. Meanwhile the lady sent to the knight to whom she had given the ring and, when she discovered that he had lost it, went to confess to St Kentigern, then the bishop of the place, laying bare her sins with great compunction. Then, at his master’s command, Kentigern’s assistant pulled a fish from the river and gutted it and inside it found the ring, which he immediately brought to his master. He knew from what the lady had confessed to him that it was her ring and sent it to her. She received it with joy and within three days showed it to her lord as she had promised. [97]  One must not be silent about the story told in the book of Abbot Peter of Cluny.186 A certain priest was ensnared in the sin of the flesh but he dared to celebrate mass without repenting of his fault. Lo! when he reached the sacrament, the host suddenly vanished from his hands. This also happened the second and third times. Completely amazed at this, he went to his bishop and, confessing his sin, accepted the penance enjoined upon him. After spending a long time in penance, with dispensation from the bishop and hoping that his sins were forgiven, he again celebrated mass. He reached the point at which he would receive the Eucharist and the three hosts from the three earlier masses, which had previously disappeared, suddenly appeared again before his eyes. Indeed, he found the chalice almost filled with blood. This example is also written in the book called The Jewel of the Priesthood.187 185 Jocelin of Furness, Vita s. Kentigerni 36: A. P. Forbes (ed.), The Lives of St Ninian and Kentigern (Historians of Scotland 5, Edinburgh, 1874), 222–5. St Kentigern of Glasgow died at the beginning of the seventh century. 186 Peter the Venerable, De Miraculis i. 2 (ed. D. Bouthillier (CCCM 83, 1988), 9). 187 GE i. 51 (ed. Brewer, 147). Although Peter the Venerable died in 1156, Gerald claims that the man went to Archbishop William of Sens (1168–76; archbishop of

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—  Let no one therefore doubt that he can find mercy in God if he is willing to repent of his sins and makes a true confession. For without doubt true repentance and pure confession are greatly pleasing to God; for on account of this priest’s repentance and confession He wanted to show him so much grace that He saw fit to grant him the most holy sacrament which the wretched man had lost on account of his sin. [98]  Among the examples of Deodatus I have found this which is also on the same subject.188 A married woman had committed adultery when she was married and, when her husband died, gave herself up to vile prostitution and proceeded so far in her shame that she lost all her goods and was afflicted with the deepest sadness because of this. The devil came to her in the form of a young man and said to her, ‘Why are you sad like this?’ She replied that this was because she had become poor. He said, ‘If you submit yourself to me, I will double for you everything which you had.’ She agreed and the devil said, ‘I shall come back to you after eight days so you may do what you have promised me.’ He went away and meanwhile ensured that the wretched woman became rich. He returned and said, ‘Do what you promised me.’ When the unfortunate woman readily agreed, the devil said, ‘First, take all the religious into your house and make them fornicate with you. Talk loudly in church and prevent others from praying there. Take in the poor by day but at night throw them out and give them nothing.’ She followed the commands of the devil but at length she was laid low by illness and reached the point of despair. When her son, who was a clerk, saw this, he carefully advised her about her salvation, asking where she had obtained such riches. She told him everything just as it had happened. He said to her, ‘Trust in the Lord’s mercy and renounce the devil in whose service you have long lived and call for a priest and confess your sins.’ She replied, ‘Go quickly and find a priest so that I may confess to him all the sins which I have committed during my lifetime against the will of God.’ He hurried to fetch the priest but behold! demons came with a great and fearful noise. Rheims 1176–1202), ‘who was still alive when these things were written down’. He also records the story in Speculum Ecclesie iv. 27: J. S. Brewer, J. F. Dimock and G. F. Warner (eds), Opera Giraldi Cambrensis (RS, 8 vols, 1861–91) iv. 326–7. 188 Deodatus, who is also cited in LE 149 and 207, cannot be identified with certainty but an exemplum in Oxford, Balliol College MS 228 fol. 309v describes a Deodatus as minister of the Franciscans in Ireland (printed in Little, 142–3). Deodatus was probably minister provincial between John de Ketene, who was absolved from office in 1254, and Gilbert de Clane who appears in 1266: E. B. Fitzmaurice and A. G. Little, Materials for the History of the Franciscan Province of Ireland ad 1230–1450 (Manchester, 1920), 22 and C. Mooney, ‘Irish Franciscan Provincials’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 56 (1963), 8.

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She was so struck by terror at the assault of the loathsome creatures that she died before the priest arrived. Seeing this, the son confessed on her behalf and accepted seven years’ penance. When this period was over, his mother appeared to him and said, ‘I thank you, my son, for your penance has set me free.’ [99]  A friar whose truthfulness I do not doubt told me one example on the same topic. It is this. Between Graigne-na-managh189 and New Ross190 lived a man known as Palmer because he had been a pilgrim in the Holy Land; his Christian name escapes me at the moment. He kept a public house and one day he bought a cask of wine to sell to patrons, but his wife thought that he had paid too much because there was no shortage of wine at that time. She was therefore afraid that they would make a loss on the purchase. While she worried about this, she talked about this with some other women a number of times, as often happens, and on one occasion one of them said to her, ‘What will you give me if I ensure that you sell your wine as you wish?’ With a greed characteristic of women, she immediately came to an agreement with her. The witch191 therefore said to her, ‘You will next take communion at Christmas; keep part of the Eucharist in your mouth and, when you come home, put it in the cask of wine and you will get what your soul desires.’ For the wine had been bought before Christmas and the tavern-keeper’s wife was fasting for Advent and would next take communion at Christmas, which is what happened. She therefore took communion and kept part of the sacred host as the witch had told her and put it into the cask of wine. But she did not escape divine punishment, which followed in a remarkable, indeed holy, fashion. For when she wanted to pour out the wine to sell it, she took one spigot after another but, to be brief, could not find any wine at all. So, quite worried and amazed, she took her husband’s pilgrim’s staff and, to investigate the matter further, put it inside the cask; she could not find a single drop of wine but, when she took the staff out, the fragment of the host came with it. When she saw it, she remembered her evil deed and understood that this was divine punishment. She therefore took the sacred host with fear and reverence and went to the priest and most contritely confessed her sin. When he heard of this extraordinary and unprecedented happening, he did not 189 Co. Kilkenny. 190 Co. Wexford. 191 For the use of the host in witchcraft, hinted at here, see M. Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1991), 338–41 and P. Brouwe, ‘Die Eucharistie als Zaubermittel im Mittelalter’, Archiv für Kirchengeschichte 20 (1930), 134–54.

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dare impose penance on the woman but told her to go to the friars, where she would be able to get better advice for the good of her soul. So she came to Brother Donekan,192 a member of our order, and humbly confessed to him; he gave her absolution and imposed an appropriate penance upon her and when she returned home, she went to the place where the cask lay and heard from inside it a whispering sound as if the wine inside were boiling. She therefore took the spigots which she had put down beside the cask and pressed them into the holes in the cask. And she could hardly stop up the hole quickly enough to prevent the wine from rushing out in a torrent. Therefore, through the merit of confession she recovered the wine which she had lost through the actions of the witch and she rightly gave thanks to the kindness of the Creator. —  In this example the Lord clearly shows us the great power of holy confession; for it expunges blame, it expunges divine punishment, as can be seen clearly in this case. For the wine lost through sin would never have been recovered through the merit of confession if the sin had not been forgiven through the merit of the woman’s confession and repentance. The friar who heard the truth of the matter from the mouth of the woman herself told me this example. Of course, if anyone fears that in telling all the details of this story he may put it into the minds of evil or foolish persons to do something bad in describing the placing of the fragment of the sacred host in the cask, for men are prone to evil deeds, he may if he wishes or does not know any better simply say that the witch taught the woman to do some foolish thing full of sin involving a wine-jar, which was greatly displeasing to God, and He therefore punished her sin most severely. For the woman did as she had been told but divine punishment followed, and thus one may proceed to the end, without ever mentioning the Holy Eucharist. Let each man see that he speaks discreetly in such matters. [100]  Another on the same topic.193 A certain woman, while devout in prayer and in giving alms and in many other good works, in her shame always concealed a single sin which she had committed in her youth. When she eventually fell sick and was close to death, countless demons gathered about the cell of an anchorite194 living in the same town. 192 LE 166 describes Brother Donekan as still alive when this book was written. 193 Source not identified. Most versions of this common story spell out that the woman had committed incest. 194 An anchorite was a person who lived an ascetic life enclosed in a cell. The cell usually adjoined a church.

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Among them sat one who was like a judge and he asked each of them what he had done. One demon rose up and said that on the morrow he would have the soul of a dying woman whom men had thought holy. He claimed that there was one sin which she had never confessed and said, ‘And when she does want to confess, I will stop up her mouth so that her sin cannot be laid bare to the priest’; and he said what the sin was. The anchorite, however, heard all of this. In the morning the anchorite sent for the priest and told him everything that he had seen and heard. Following advice from the anchorite, the priest went to the woman and spoke to her once more about confession. He did not wish to mention anything to her about this sin. But the priest could see that she was close to damnation and could pretend no longer. He said, ‘Did you not commit such a sin in your youth which you have never revealed to me in confession?’ The woman heard this and with the greatest sadness and contrition she confessed her fault and immediately washed away her sin in a great flood of tears which continued until she breathed her last. On the second night the demons gathered for a second time in the same place as before and the chief of the demons asked for the soul that had been promised to him. And the demon which had made the promise said that the woman had confessed, as has been said, and therefore the angels had borne her soul up to Heaven and that she was with God. —  See how great is the strength of repentance and confession, through which a sinner may be taken so quickly from the devil!

[Of marriage] [101]  On one occasion while the holy Abba Macharius was at prayer195 a voice called out to him, as is recorded in the Lives of the Fathers: ‘Macharius, you have not yet attained the merit of two women who live in the next city.’ When he heard this, the Old Man arose and went to them and, when he had found them, said, ‘Tell me what work you do.’ But they said to him, ‘Believe us, father, this night we have not been away from our husbands’ beds. What work can we have?’ Then, compelled by the Old Man’s questions, they said, ‘We are not related to one another in the worldly sense but we decided to marry brothers according to the flesh. Today it is exactly fifteen years that we have both lived in this house and we have never argued or said a cross word to one another. We considered entering a nunnery but, when we asked 195 VP vi. 3.17 (PL 73: 1013–14). This is a common example, which is repeated in LE 188 below.

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our husbands, they would not allow us to do so. We therefore made a pact with God that until the day we died no worldly speech would pass our lips.’ And the Old Man said, ‘In truth, there is no virgin or married woman or monk or secular to whom God does not bestow the Holy Spirit according to each person’s chosen way of life.’ [102] The blessed priest Gregory recounts a dread example of immoderate passion between husband and wife in the first of his ­ Dialogues.196 ‘A noblewoman living in the nearer parts of Tuscany had a daughter-in-law who, a short time after her marriage to the son, was invited with her mother-in-law to the dedication of the chapel of St Sebastian the Martyr. The night before she was to go in procession to the dedication, she was overcome by a fleshly desire and could not forbear to lie with her husband. When morning came, the pleasure which she had taken in the flesh oppressed her conscience but her shame demanded that she should take part in the procession, for she blushed more at the opinions of men than she feared the judgement of God, and she went with her mother-in-law to the dedication of the chapel. But as soon as the relics of St Sebastian entered the chapel, an evil spirit took possession of the lady’s daughter-in-law and began to torment her in front of the whole congregation. At first there was only one devil in her but soon after, as the Lord permitted, he left her and a swarm of devils entered her. She began to shake with as many movements, to shout with as many voices as there were spirits within her.’ But, although her sin displeased the Lord, He took pity on the wretched woman and, at the entreaties of the holy bishop Fortunatus, liberated her from the demons. —  What does this example show if not that those who are enslaved by unbridled lust within marriage surrender themselves to the devil? —  A similar example concerns the wife of young Tobias197 which, if the preacher uses it to full effect, may shake his hearers with a salutary terror.

[Of strife] [103]  This example, which is written as follows in the book called The Jewel of the Priesthood, shows what kind of leader and originator 196 Gregory, Dialogues i. 10 (ed. de Vogüé, ii. 94–6). For attitudes to lust within marriage and the extensive list of feast-days, fasts and penitential periods when sexual intercourse between husband and wife was not thought appropriate, see P. J. Payer, The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Middle Ages (Toronto, 1993). 197 Tobit 6–8, where Tobias overcomes the evil spirit which possesses his wife Sara.

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they have who devote themselves to strife.198 ‘At the coronation of the emperor of Germany, a great quarrel arose between the barons and princes of the empire over their dignities, privileges and honours and because of this they drew their swords and sixty or more knights were slain. When the fighting was finally over, mass began and had proceeded as far as the sequence. After the singing of the last verse, “You have made this day glorious, O Lord”,199 in the silence before the Gospel is proclaimed, the most evil intriguer shouted in a loud voice mimicking the chant of the last verse of the sequence, “I have made this day a day of war.” He then flew away, carrying away with him a large piece of the church roof which he had torn off.’ The end of the example. —  You see who leads – or rather who scoffs at – those who devote themselves to strife. They are ministers of the devil and, as long as they do his will, they are laid open to his derision. [104] Again, how we should recoil from disputes and divisions is shown in this example which Brother Bonaventure of Tuscany told me when he was studying with me in Paris.200 He said that a certain magician on one occasion conjured up a devil which he used to consult and speak to and asked him if he knew Merlin. He replied in this way: ‘I know your Merlin very well. And very soon Britain will blossom under Henry201 as it did under Merlin.’ This was a number of years before the war in England in which Simon de Montfort of happy memory was killed.202 You see therefore that the devil regards those that are warlike and quarrelsome as plants and thinks of them as flourishing like a tree 198 GE ii. 6 (ed. Brewer, 189). The historical basis of the story is the armed altercation between the abbot of Fulda and the bishop of Hildesheim in Goslar Cathedral at Whitsun 1063 in the presence of Emperor Henry IV: T. Heikkilä, Das Kloster Fulda und der Goslarer Rangstreit (Helsinki, 1998). For the development of the legend into the form given here during the course of the twelfth century, see Heikkilä, Das Kloster Fulda, 23–4. 199 The last line of the Whitsun sequence ‘Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia’ (Chevalier, no. 18557): Notkeri poetae balbuli liber ymnorum latine et theotisce editio minor, ed. W. van den Steinen (Munich, 1960), 52–5. 200 Little suggests that the friar may have been Bonaventure of Mugello, who went on a mission to the Greeks in 1273. Nothing else is known of him. 201 The manuscript reads Edwardo, which shows that the anecdote reached its present form after Edward I’s accession in 1272, but Henry III must be the king intended. 202 The Barons’ War, 1264–65; Simon de Montfort was killed at the battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265. For Simon’s close association with the mendicant orders and other churchmen, as well as the view of some contemporaries that he was a martyr who died fighting for the traditional liberties of England, see J. R. Maddicott, Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, 1994), 77–105, 251–4, 265–6, 279–80, 295–306 and 354–6 and A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England c.550–c.1307 (London, 1974), 421, 423 and 435.

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which first blossoms, so that it may afterwards bear fruit. Indeed, in the devil’s view, they are of his kind who flourish in their quarrels in this world because from their souls eventually come forth the fruit of death which the devil devours in Hell; thus Britain has blossomed under the prince I have named as it once did under Merlin. For in his time Britain, which is now called England, was almost brought to complete ruin partly by the internal quarrels and wars of the Britons who then inhabited the land and partly by the incursions of the Angles, who attacked the Britons frequently and in many different ways.203 — Let him who reads this take care never to name publicly the prince mentioned in this example. For it is enough to say that the devil named a certain great prince then living in England, saying that the time was at hand when Britain would blossom under him as it had done under Merlin.

[Against those who are dishonest about tithes] [105]  Let this example move those who are dishonest over tithes, let it move them, I say. There was in our day in the parish of Balrothery204 a certain matron whose sheep one year bore twenty lambs. It seemed to her a great injustice that she should surrender two such small lambs as tithe and so, struck by the devil’s arrow, she sought to hide ten of the lambs so she would only have to give the Church one lamb from the ten which her neighbours could see. She therefore hid ten of the lambs under a large vessel so the real number would be concealed until she had rendered her fraudulent tithe. But behold the most pleasing judgement of Him Who sees all things! She gave one lamb as tithe and not long afterwards lifted up the vessel to find that nine lambs were dead and only the tenth alive; struck by so salutary an event and looking to the just judgement of God, she admitted her deceit and gave up the living lamb to the Church and undertook devout and contrite penance for her sin. The woman herself spread the news of this event through the whole parish. The end of the example. 203 According to Geoffrey of Monmouth and others, this lawlessness ended only with the coming of King Arthur. For contemporary comparisons of Edward I with Arthur, which were encouraged by the king himself, see R. R. Davies, The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles 1093–1343 (Oxford, 2000), 32–3 and 40–3; L. Coote, Prophecy and Public Affairs in Late Medieval England (York, 2000), 43–82; and N. J. Higham, King Arthur: Myth-making and History (London, 2002). See also Gransden, Historical Writing, 476–80 and R. S. Loomis, ‘Edward I, Arthurian enthusiast’, Speculum 28 (1953), 114–27. 204 Co. Dublin.

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[106] This example is found among the common examples and is solemnly reported of the blessed Anselm, the archbishop of Canterbury.205 On one occasion in the autumn he entered the barn on the manor where he was staying and found it half full and saw a huge demon sitting on a pile of corn. So he said to his bailiff, ‘Where did we get this corn?’ He replied, ‘From our demesne.’ The archbishop said, ‘Have you not paid your tithe?’ He said, ‘No.’ The archbishop said, ‘Take it all out straightaway and give a true and faithful tithe of all of it.’ When that was done, the tithed part could not be contained in the barn. Malachi chapter 3: Bring ye all the tithes into my storehouse206 and so on.

(Of slander) [107]  In Numbers chapter 12 we find that Miriam the sister of Moses and Aaron his brother spoke against Moses. And there follows what the Lord said to them: ‘Wherefore were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?’ And His anger was kindled against them and He departed. And, immediately after that: Behold, Miriam became leprous, white like snow. After that it says that Miriam was shut out from the camp for seven days,207 that is until she was cured. From these words we can see that Miriam criticised Moses, but she did not go unpunished. For she was immediately struck down with the vilest leprosy and for seven days was shut out from the fellowship and society of God’s people. In this we are given an awesome example: the slanderer is stricken not outwardly but inwardly, with a leprosy of the soul and therefore deserves and merits to be cut off for ever from the fellowship and society of all good people unless he is cured by penance. Thus it says in Proverbs chapter 24, Mix not with those that speak slander, for their calamity shall come suddenly and who knoweth the ruin of them both?208 That is to say those who speak and those who willingly listen to slander. [108]  On the text just quoted it says in a gloss209 ‘that the blessed Augustine wrote these verses on his table or caused them to be written there: ‘May anyone who likes to tear at the lives of others with his words / Know that this table is not worthy of him.’ 205 Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury 1093–1109. A common example: in addition to the references in Tubach (no. 488), see Fasciculus Morum, 85 and Speculum Laicorum, ed. Welter, no. 174 and note. 206 Malachi 3: 10. 207 Numbers 12: 8–10 and 15. 208 Proverbs 24: 21–2. 209 Bede, Super parabolas Salomonis allegorica expositio ii. 24 (PL 91: 1010). The verses are a version of those in Possidius, Vita s. Augustini 22 (PL 32: 52).

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Indeed, if the slanderer is not worthy to sit at Augustine’s table, he is more stupid than a fool if he thinks himself worthy of Christ’s table. Of this table Luke the disciple says, Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations. And I appoint unto you as My Father hath appointed unto Me that ye may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom.210 Slanderers are excluded from this table. For they are the dogs mentioned in the Apocalypse: Let the dogs be outside.211 It is indeed just that slanderers should be outside and excluded from the communion of the saints in their homeland, for it is most unworthy that the secrets of those who have travelled thus far with the saints should be made known to them, as is implied in the Life of St John the Patriarch of Alexandria, of whom it is written as follows. [109]  Now, this memorable example is found in the Life of the saint that I have mentioned and it can be used to attack slander and slanderous accusations.212 The saint himself used often to call this to mind, which is written in the Life in exactly this way. When the most renowned Council of Nicaea was celebrated in the presence of Emperor Constantine, a great number of the clerks or monks hated one another and envied one another and brought to the prince little books containing defamatory verses or slanders. When he had found slanders in some and malicious reports or ill-will in others, he ordered all the writings and defamatory books to be burnt. He also added this memorable saying: ‘In truth, if with my own eyes I had seen one of God’s priests or monks fall into sin, I should have taken off my cloak and clothed him so that he should not be seen by anyone.’ The end of the example. — For indeed, those slanderers who repeat evil things about their neighbours, whether true or false, do not willingly cover up the faults of others; it therefore follows that unless they take good care, they shall at the Latter Day bring their own faults, bare and uncovered, before the Just Judge so that the Lord’s saying through Ezekiel the prophet will be proved true: As he hath done, do likewise unto him.213 And also in the Book of Wisdom: Wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also shall he be punished.214

210 Luke 22: 28–30. 211 Apocalypse (Revelation) 22: 15. 212 Vita s. Johannis Elemosinarii 35 (PL 73: 370). 213 Ezekiel 12: 11 and 24: 22. 214 Wisdom 11: 17.

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[Of those that delay in repentance] [110]  A certain Friar Preacher, who once belonged to the London house, had a brother who was a clerk and the rector of a church. This clerk had a concubine, whom he had kept for several years. His brother – that is to say the Friar Preacher – often asked, urged and sought to persuade him to send the woman away and offer God his penance for his sin. But he did not listen. Eventually the friar came to his house and said to him, ‘In truth, dearest brother, you should know that I shall never come to your house again so long as you keep that woman here.’ The clerk was so moved at this that he replied, ‘My brother, I promise you faithfully that I shall send her away before that day comes’ and he named a particular day. His brother could get no more from him. It then happened that the same clerk was at a feast with his friends before the agreed date. Happy and cheerful, he sat down and began to eat with them, when a small piece of food became stuck in his throat and choked him and the wretched man died suddenly in their midst and received his judgement in the fires of Hell before the day which he had fixed to lay aside his sin. The end of the example. —  Brother Robert de Sudesey215 of the Order of Friars Preacher told me this story. He is a saintly man, who is reliable in all matters and he was also the companion of the friar mentioned, that is of the clerk’s brother. [The friar came to] London,216 travelling the fifty leagues to his house, as soon as he heard of his wretched brother’s death. [111] You will find a third217 example, no less terrible or remarkable than the others, in Bede’s book on the history of the English. He tells it as follows.218 There was a great king in England called Cenred, a just, upright and God-fearing man, who shunned wickedness. The king had a follower who served him faithfully and well but in fact he neglected his own salvation. For he was a soldier. The king, as a pious and catholic man, took pity on the soldier’s condition and often urged him to repent and leave his sins behind. He willingly listened to the king and promised to mend his ways. But he did not do so. Thus did the wretched man live and he nourished his life on sin; and lo! when God wished to put an end to his vices, he was struck down by an ailment of the body and he neared his end. When the king heard that a thegn 215 Place unidentified. 216 The text is corrupt here. 217 Actually the second example; something has been omitted here. 218 Bede, Hist. Eccles. v. 13.

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who had been so useful to him was ill, he came to visit him and spoke these healthful words, urging him to renounce his sins at last and turn to God in a true, if belated, spirit of repentance. For he said, ‘Our Lord God is merciful and prepared to forgive the evil that we have done.’219 The sick man listened to these beneficial words patiently, even if he did not profit from them, and said to the king, ‘In truth, my lord, I shall lay aside my sins and repent. But if I were to confess now, while I am sick, people would say that I was frightened and scared, that I was confessing my sins now out of fear. But as soon as I recover, I shall confess and renounce all my sins.’ The king could say what he wanted but he could get nothing further from him. So the king left and came back to him on another day. And lo! as soon as he saw the king coming in, he shouted out as if he were mad and said to the king, ‘What do you want here? You will never be able to do anything that will help me.’ The king replied softly, ‘Sign yourself with the sign of the Cross and you will taste true health.’ In a miserable voice, he replied, ‘I am not mad but I have the worst of visions before my eyes.’ ‘What is it?’ said the king. ‘What is it?’ ‘In truth,’ said the other man, ‘two most beautiful angels came and sat by me, one by my head and the other by my feet. They had a tiny little book and held it out for me to read. There I read all the good deeds that I have ever done, but they were few indeed. When that was done, they put the book down and lo! demons came and filled the entire house; and one, who was the master and chief of the others, sat above the rest. One devil arose and produced an exceedingly large book, a heavy and awesome volume which he gave me to read. And behold! I read there all the evil things I have ever done since my infancy – not only evil deeds which I had done and evil words which I had spoken, but also the slightest thoughts in which I had sinned. When I had read as much as they wanted, the figure which seemed to be the master and prince of the others asked the angels who sat by me, ‘Why are you sitting here? What are you waiting for? You well know that you have no lawful claim to him.’ They said, ‘Indeed that is true. We have no claim to him. Take him – take him with you and add him to those that are damned.’ At this the angels got up and went out. And lo! two demons arose and struck me with two sharp plough-irons, one on the lower part of my body and one on the upper part, that is to say on my head. These plough-irons are now passing into my body and as soon as they meet within my body I shall die. And look! two demons are ready to drag me away down to the torments of Hell.’ Having said this, he immediately died, and was 219 Joel 2: 13.

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straightaway dragged down to the torments of Hell as he had said, where devils immediately tore at him and dragged him to the fire which will never be extinguished. As Bede says at this point: ‘It is clear that his wretched fate was shown to him not for his own benefit but for ours, as the blessed Gregory writes about certain people’ in his Dialogues.220 —  It is indeed for our benefit and to afford us an example that the Lord showed this man his own fate, so that we might profit from it while God’s mercy can still mercifully avail us. And let us be sure that if we reach the point of death in a state of mortal sin, He will not spare us any more than He spared this man. For this is what the Lord teaches very clearly in the Gospel; for we read that certain men came telling of the Galileans whom Pilate had killed221 and the Lord said, ‘Suppose ye that they were sinners above all the others? I tell you, Nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.’222 [112]  How patient the Almighty is in rewarding those who daily put off changing to a better life is illustrated in this example, which it is appropriate to link with those which have gone before. It is this. When a great lady’s husband died and she became a widow, she was sought in marriage by many men but one stood out as handsome, though poor, physically attractive and accomplished in arms. And when he set himself to persuade the lady to marry him, she liked his handsome body but, as is usual, did not like his poverty and made a reply on these lines: ‘Most dear one, I am a lady. How can I accept you, who are a poor man of such slender means? It is not you but your poverty that I do not like. If you had some means of support, I would happily accept you.’ When he heard this, the nobleman left and he saw a public street where merchants often passed by. He found a merchant passing by with a great amount of money, killed him and stole all that he had with him. Thus the man suddenly became rich and, transformed from a poor man into a man of standing, he came again to the lady and showed her his wealth and asked her to accept him. Amazed that he had so suddenly acquired so much wealth, she asked how he had amassed such riches and she would not accept him unless he told her the truth. Greatly encouraged by his love for the woman and not wanting to offend her in any way, he confessed the truth. The lady heard this and said that, if he wanted her, he should go to the place where the dead man lay 220 Gregory, Dialogues iv. 40 (ed. de Vogüé, iii. 138). 221 The manuscript reading of occurat is corrupt; I have given the sense of the Biblical text. 222 Luke 13: 1–3.

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and perform a night’s vigil there. When he did this and he carefully looked about the place, he saw in the quiet of the night the dead man sitting down with his hands stretched out to Heaven praying to the Lord, saying, ‘Lord, Thou art a just judge, Thou knowest that I died unjustly. If it please Thee, grant me justice!’ And a voice rang out from above, saying, ‘You will be avenged thirty years from today.’ Then the dead man returned to his grave. The living man returned to the lady and told her what he had seen and heard. Thinking that the man would make satisfaction through penance within the allotted period, the lady took him as her husband and each day they increased in wealth and in their standing in the world. They had children and through marriage formed ties with the more important families in the area. Each year when the time came around, the lady would often ask her husband to do penance. But he was blinded by worldly prosperity and put off repentance from one day to the next until, with one year following another, the thirtieth came around. When the day fixed for vengeance was at hand, the nobleman made great preparations in one of his castles and invited all his friends to a banquet on the day. When they had all arrived for the feast, he ensured that no one was there who might cause him to fear. But when they were all feasting and enjoying the happy day, a fiddler came to the gate and asked to be admitted, as often happens. The doorman did not dare admit anyone else and told his lord about this, who told the doorman to let the fiddler in. He did so and at the appropriate time the fiddler wanted to perform his office. While he was tuning his fiddle, a man came and as a joke rubbed the strings of his bow with lard or some other kind of fat. So when he took up the bow and drew it across the fiddle, there was no sound because the lubricant had stolen the notes away. What was he to do? Greatly embarrassed, he put his fiddle back into his bag and got up and left. When he was some little distance from the place, he realised that he had lost one of his gloves and, wondering where it could be, he looked all about him and then turned back to the place from which he had come, as people often do. And lo! he saw nothing there but an empty piece of land. Amazed at the sight, he returned the way he had come. And when he came to the place where the castle had stood, he found nothing there but an empty patch of ground and in the middle there was a spring and next to it lay his glove but the castle and everything in it had been swallowed up by the earth. Indeed, the Lord clearly showed in this example that He is patient in repaying our sins;223 therefore, as time passes and the 223 Ecclesiasticus 5: 4.

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vengeance of God approaches with a just judgement, make no tarrying to turn to the Lord and put not off from day to day224 and so on. Brother Hugh of Sutton used this example while preaching overseas,225 saying that he had heard it related in this way and, when he expressed doubt that it had actually happened, one of his audience said, ‘Friar, you may relate the story with confidence, for I know the place where it happened.’

[Of those who do injury to the Church] [113]  An example from the Life of St Brice,226 the one-time disciple and successor of St Martin,227 bears witness to the extent to which unseemly behaviour in church stands in the way of Christians’ salvation. For it is recorded that when St Martin was celebrating mass, the blessed Brice saw a devil behind the altar, writing down the sins committed in the church by those who laughed, talked or impeded the service of God. And when the devil did not have enough parchment, he wanted to stretch it but he tore the parchment and hit his head against the wall. Brice saw this and laughed. Having celebrated mass, Martin rebuked him for laughing; Brice told him why he had laughed; the devil was summoned and told him what he had written. And the blessed Martin preached to the people and they were contrite and confessed so that the devil was compelled to erase all that he had written.228 [114]  The following examples clearly show how those who do injury to the Church offend God. The Historia Scholastica229 records that Pompey, who had until then been most fortunate in war, never fought and won again after his companions had defiled the Temple and stabled their horses in its entrance. And Heliodorus, who also wanted to despoil the Temple on the orders of his lord the king, was scourged by God.230 224 Ecclesiasticus 5: 8. 225 The phrase used here, in transmarinis partibus, often refers to the Holy Land. 226 Source unidentified. For this widely diffused story, which occurs with a variety of different protagonists, see M. Jennings, ‘Tutivillus: The Literary Career of the Recording Demon’, Studies in Philology 74 (1977), no. 5 and Brian S. Lee, ‘“This is no fable“: Historical Residues in two medieval Exempla’, Speculum 56 (1981), 728–60. 227 St Martin, bishop of Tours, died in 397. St Brice succeeded him as bishop and died in 444. 228 For discussion of this and similar stories in the context of the development of literate mentalities, see Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 186–90. For use of the story to control women in particular, see K. Cawsey, ‘Tutivillus and the Kyrkchaterars: Strategies of Control in the Middle Ages’, Studies in Philology 102 (2005), 434–51. 229 Comestor, Hist. Schol. on 2 Maccabees 9 (PL 198: 1529). 230 2 Maccabees 3: 23–5.

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[115]  A second example on this subject found in the same book must not be ignored.231 It is this. When the English first took Dublin,232 a certain archer offered a penny at the great cross in the church of the Holy Trinity. But, when he left, the coin immediately flew after him and he took it back. He returned to the cross and took the penny back again but the same thing happened, to the amazement of the many bystanders who saw this. Then he confessed before everyone that on that very day he had robbed the archbishop’s houses within the church precincts. When penance was enjoined on him for his sin and he returned all that he had taken, with great fear and reverence he brought the penny to the cross for a third time and this time the coin at last remained there and did not move. The end of the example. — Of course, this example is also suitable for use against theft if, while preserving the essence of the story, it is recounted simply about a robbery from someone’s house. [116]  Now, a third most praiseworthy example on this same subject comes to us from the same book.233 It concerns Louis, the most Christian king of the French,234 who reigned at the time of the blessed Thomas of Canterbury and who was a most generous and charitable host to the archbishop while he was being persecuted by King Henry. This is the example. ‘A clerk in the king’s household returned from the Papal Court and reported that the business on which the king had sent him had been taken care of. To appear all the more loyal to the king he showed him a privilege in which the supreme pontiff granted him custody of all the vacant cathedrals in his kingdom and the right to receive their revenues during vacancies.235 When the king heard this, he immediately tore the privilege from the clerk’s hands and threw it on the fire, saying that he thanked him for performing the duties assigned to him but for this matter or any other which might endanger his soul, he would have neither the king’s gratitude nor God’s.’ The end of the example. 231 Actually from GE i. 52 (ed. Brewer, 155–6). Gerald also tells the story in Topographia Hibernica ii. 46: Brewer et al., Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, v. 129–30. 232 21 September 1170. 233 GE ii.11 (ed. Brewer, 217); also Gerald, De Principis Instructione i. 20: Brewer et al., Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, viii. 133. 234 Louis VII, king of France 1137–80; Becket was archbishop 1162–70 and spent most of his archiepiscopate in exile in France. 235 For kings’ appropriation of revenues and patronage during an episcopal or abbatial vacancy, which was deeply resented by the Church, see M. Howell, Regalian Right in Medieval England (London, 1962) and G. J. Campbell, ‘Temporal and Spiritual Regalia in the reigns of St Louis and Philip III’, Traditio 20 (1962), 351–84.

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—  How happy the princes of our day would be if they followed the example of this prudent king in his pious struggle on behalf of Holy Mother Church! [117] Those in Dublin at the time were able to witness a doleful example of the terrible punishments inflicted on those who attack the Church. When Lord Alan de la Zouche was justiciar of Ireland236 and our brethren, in my presence and – alas! – following my advice, had clothed as a friar David de Burgh, the brother of Lord Walter, who is now earl of Ulster,237 Walter’s knights and men-at-arms and retainers came and broke down the partition in the middle of the church and inflicted dreadful violence on the whole convent, violently snatching him away from us, depriving him of his habit and taking him back to the world, which I fear endangered his soul. For when he had later taken a wife, he was suddenly snatched from their midst. But I do not tell this story because of that, but rather because of what happened in Dublin on the day when he was clothed as a friar and abducted. For when he had come to our church, at the end of the mass of St Paul, the incensed household broke in and committed acts of appalling violence throughout the building. A lout, a strong man from Thomas Court,238 who had come with them because Lord Walter was staying there, beat repeatedly on the inner doors of the church and, acting as if he were mad, did as much violence as he could. Then he went out and, like a man who has had too much wine, he was unable to lift his own head and, clinging to the wall by the new gate, he limped along slowly and when he almost reached the end of the wall he suddenly collapsed and died in front of many onlookers, both nobles and common folk, of both sexes, both residents of the place and people who had come there for different reasons. And when he had been buried in the cemetery, the body was dug up on the orders of the archdeacon and buried like a dog in a pit outside the town.

236 Alan de la Zouche occurs as justiciar of Ireland in June 1256 but had probably been replaced by October 1258: H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, The Administration of Ireland 1172–1377 (Dublin, 1963), 79. 237 Walter de Burgh was created earl of Ulster in c.1264 and died in 1271; his younger brother David appears to be named only in this exemplum. Families were often reluctant to allow sons to join the mendicant orders, as the well-known cases of Francis, Salimbene and Aquinas show. Walter’s oppression of the Church is well documented: Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland i, no. 2551 and ii, nos 713 and 860; and Calendar of Close Rolls, 1307–13 (London, 1892), 545–6. 238 de domo sancti Thome: either Thomas Court (i.e. the area around the abbey of St Thomas) or the abbey itself.

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[118]  A no less dread example concerns Sir Robert of Stafferston,239 knight, of Munster. On the same day and at the same hour, he rode to the church, sword by his side, lance raised, of terrible aspect and he made to enter the church to abduct the young man. But his war-horse would not obey him and shied at a chain hung over the road which a boy could have jumped without difficulty. But behold what misfortune befell him! When he afterwards went out on his estate with his hunting hawk, unless I am mistaken, and he loosed the bird, it did not want to come down from a tree where it had perched. He took the lance, which his squire had been carrying, and lifted it up to where the bird was lodged, so that the bird would jump onto the end of the lance, as they usually do, and he would be able in this way to recover the bird. But as he raised the wooden shaft, the metal tip fell down. Behold! with a sudden vengeance the lance, borne down by its weight, hurtled down like a stream and struck him in the neck and penetrated as far as his heart, for God exacted a just revenge that a man who had sought to violate God’s church with a raised lance should, when the moment was right, be struck down by the same lance. These things are well known, as we see every day with our own eyes. Let those who dare to violate the rights of churches see how God’s justice will repay them, for without doubt it is more concerned with the rights than with the walls of churches. [119]  I also place here two examples promising a very similar reward for those who desecrate churches which are written in the book called The Manual.240 The first is this. A man named Richer, knowing his wife in a cell adjoining the church, became stuck inside her like a dog, so that for some time they could not by any means be torn apart. [120]  This is another in the same place.241 A king of the Lombards, 239 Co. Meath. 240 Compare William of Wadington, Manuel des Péchés, lines 6881–6916: F. J. Furnivall (ed.), Robert of Brunne’s ‘Handlyng Sinne’, ad 1303, with those parts of the Anglo-French treatise on which it was founded, William of Wadington’s ‘Manuel des Pechiez’ (EETS, Original Series 119 and 123, 1901–3), ii. 281–2. It is noteworthy that the couple are married; in most other versions of the story, they are not and the man is often a priest or a monk. Wadington explains, however, that the couple have fled from their enemies and taken refuge in a monastery, where they appear to live permanently. For contemporary discussion about the permissibility of sexual intercourse in a consecrated place in such circumstances, see Payer, The Bridling of Desire, 89–100 and Dyan Elliott, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1999), 61–80. 241 Not in the Manuel des Péchés. Ultimately from Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum iv. 47: ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS Rerum Langobadicarum et Italicarum saec. vi–ix (Hanover 1887), 136.

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who was a heretic, ordered that he should be buried in the cemetery of St John. A man broke into the tomb and carried off the treasures with which the king had been buried. St John appeared to him in a vision and said, ‘Why have you dared to touch this man’s body? For, although he was not a true believer, he placed himself under my protection. Because you have presumed to do this, you will never enter my basilica again.’ And that is what happened. For, however many times he sought to enter the church of the blessed John, he would suddenly recoil from the thought as if someone had struck him hard in the throat. [121]  I have found one dread example against those who violate the liberty or immunities of the Church in an old sermon. It is this. A dead knight appeared in a vision to another knight who survived him, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, do not be troubled. I have come to seek your help.’ When the knight asked the dead man’s condition, he said, ‘I am afflicted by agonies without number but the pain I find hardest to bear is that I violated a churchyard and wounded a man there and robbed him of his hat which I am now made to wear – I feel as if I am being crushed by a huge mountain.242 That is why I ask you to make satisfaction to the church and the priest and the poor man.’ The man asked if he could be saved and he said that he could, through prayer and especially through the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist. He promised that he would have masses celebrated for his salvation. The dead man touched the living man on the arm and the skin and flesh opened up as far as the bone as a sign to remind him of his promise; in truth the injured man did not feel any pain. —  Alas! what will those who oppress churches do when they journey into Hell, when this knight, who eventually departed penitent, suffered such pain in Purgatory because of this fault?

[Of charity] [122] The same St Gregory tells another story on the same lines soon afterwards.243 ‘A certain pious man named Deusdedit lived near to us and worked as a shoemaker. Another man saw a vision about him in which a house was being built for him but the builders seemed 242 The punishments meted out in the next world are often presented as mirroring the sins committed before death: see LE 157, DC 201–2 and 315. This correspondence also appears widely in accounts of journeys to the other world: A. Morgan, Dante and the Medieval Other World (Cambridge, 1990), 116–18. For Purgatory generally, see J. Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory, trans. A. Goldhammer (London, 1984). 243 Gregory, Dialogues iv. 38 (ed. de Vogüé, iii. 136). Gregory has not been mentioned for some time and it is evident that something has been omitted or rearranged here.

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to work only on Saturdays. When he later enquired about the man’s life, he found that he worked each day but on a Saturday he would take whatever food or clothing he had left over to the church of St Peter and give it to the poor. Learn from this how deservedly the fabric of his house increased each Saturday.’ [123] Yet another example worth remembering on this subject is found in Bede’s History of the English and concerns St Oswald, as follows.244 The blessed Oswald was once king in the northern parts of England. For there were at that time at least four kings in England. But the blessed Oswald was a Christian king who was most fervent in his love for Christ, outstanding in his holiness, generous to the poor and especially devoted to works of charity. Now, it happened one day that the king was sitting at table with St Aidan, then the bishop of that country, sitting beside him. A man approached whose duty was to care for the poor and he told the king that so great a multitude of paupers had arrived that there were still many who had received nothing and there was nothing left to give them. The king, who was greatly troubled that he had nothing to give to the poor, put his hand out towards a silver bowl and said, ‘Take this bowl and give it to the poor.’ He was speaking about the bowl itself, not just about its contents. And that is what they did. Then the bishop rejoiced in the king’s sincere charity and goodness and, with great gladness in his heart, said, ‘May this arm never decay.’ Now, this entreaty did not come about chance, but issued from his mouth as a prophecy inspired by the Holy Spirit, as events proved. For when the blessed Oswald was killed by his enemies in the just war which he justly fought for his country, that arm was cut off but it did not and can never decay, but will always remain whole and intact, preserved as a most precious relic in a richly adorned shrine. There can be no doubt that the Lord wished to show in St Oswald clearly and plainly what great power there is in charity, for a man who took care to serve charity with a good and faithful heart could never suffer decay in his sins. [124] There now comes one notable example about charity which Gregory recounts in his homilies, on the Gospel text When Jesus had drawn nigh unto Jerusalem, as follows.245 ‘I seek to commend to your love the miracle which my son the deacon Epiphanius, who is here with me and who came from the province of Isauria, says happened in the neighbouring region of Lycaonia. He says that a certain man there, 244 Bede, Hist. Eccles. iii. 6. 245 Gregory, Hom. in Evang. ii. 29 (PL 76: 1300), quoting Matthew 21: 1.

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named Martirius, was a monk of the most exemplary life, who was journeying from his own monastery to visit another. On his way, he met a leper on the road, whose limbs were disfigured with the thick sores of elephancy and who wanted to return to his hospital, but he was too tired to do so. He said that the hospital was on the very road along which the monk Martirius was hurrying. The man of God, taking pity on the leper’s exhausted state, immediately took off his cloak and cast it around the leper’s shoulders and, with his cloak wrapped around him, lifted the leper up onto his shoulders and carried him back. And when they drew near to the monastery gates, the holy father of the monastery began to shout out in a great voice, “Hurry, hurry! Open the monastery gates, for brother Martirius is coming carrying the Lord.” Indeed, as soon as Martirius reached the entrance to the monastery, the man who had appeared to be a leper, jumped down from his shoulders and, now appearing in the form in which the Redeemer of humankind, Jesus Christ Who is both God and man, is usually recognised by men, ascended to Heaven before Martirius’s eyes and as He did so Christ said to him, “Martirius, you were not ashamed of me on earth; I shall not spur n you in Heaven.” As soon as the holy man entered the monastery, the father of the monastery said to him, “Brother Martirius, where is the man that you were carrying?” He answered, “If I knew who He was, I should have grasped His feet.” The same Martirius used to say that when he was carrying Him, he could not feel his weight at all – and no wonder, for how could he who carried Him Who bears the weight of our sins feel any weight? We must therefore ponder the value of brotherly compassion and reflect how much the bowels of mercy246 join us to Almighty God. Thus we approach Him Who is above all things when we abase ourselves in our compassion for our neighbour. In physical matters, no one reaches the heights unless he strives to do so; in spiritual matters, it is certain that the more we are drawn by compassion, the nearer we come to the heights. But behold! it was in no sense enough for the Redeemer of humankind to edify us by proclaiming what He would say at the Last Judgement: Inasmuch as ye have done this unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me;247 He also demonstrated what He said in His own person before the Judgement. That is, he showed that anyone who performed the good works of mercy for the benefit of the needy was doing it especially for Him for Whose love he had done these things.’ 246 Colossians 3: 12. 247 Matthew 25: 40.

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—  There now follow some choice examples which commend the most holy practice of almsgiving from the Life of St John the Patriarch of Alexandria, who is also deservedly known as St John the Almsgiver. [125] Now comes an excellent example concerning Peter the tax-gatherer which is recorded in the Life of St John the Patriarch as follows.248 There was a tax-gatherer, it says, named Peter who had a lot of money but who was exceedingly uncharitable and excessively mean. One day, when some poor men were sitting warming themselves in the sun, they began to praise the houses of all those who gave them alms and curse those where they had received nothing. While they were talking in this way and were discussing who was charitable and who was avaricious, the name of Peter the tax-gatherer came up. And they all asked each other but no one could be found who had ever received anything from his house. So one of them said, ‘What will you give me if today I get some sort of blessing from him?’ And they made a wager with him and he came to the rich man’s gate and stood there, waiting for him to arrive. It happened that an ass came by, fully laden, carrying bread to the rich man’s house. Just then Peter himself arrived too. And he saw the poor man and grew angry and, because he did not have a stone to hand, he threw a loaf at him. The poor man took the loaf and hurried back to his friends; he showed them the loaf and was unwavering in his claim that he had received it from Peter’s own hands. After two days the rich man fell sick and was close to death and in his sleep saw himself taken before Christ’s Judgement-Seat and compelled to give his account. On one side stood some frightful Moors, who drew up an account of his whole life since infancy and weighed it, as it were, on the evil scale. Those on the other side were noble figures who strove to help him and, when they were wondering what they could set against his evil deeds, one of them said, ‘All we have is a single loaf which a poor man received from him two days ago – and he did not give that willingly, but in anger.’ The bread was then put on the scale and the weight on the scales was equal. Then those who had tried to help him said to the tax-gatherer, ‘Go and live henceforth according to the lesson which this bread’s effectiveness can teach you.’ So he woke up and, terrified by the awful vision, began to sigh and groan as he considered how great his sins were, how true were the accusations which the dark ones had levelled at him, what a dread sentence he would have received if mercy had not been shown to him. When he recovered himself, he said, 248 Vita s. Johannis Elemosinarii 21 (PL 73: 356–7). The story is very common: Tubach, no. 3727.

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‘If a single loaf thrown in anger can benefit me to this extent, from what great evils does he free himself and what great rewards does he deserve who gives out of charity and who cheerfully gives alms? For God loveth a cheerful giver.’249 From then on he was transformed. It was a change worked by the right hand of the Most High.250 He suddenly became mild and humble, patient and most charitable. He distributed his goods, he gave them to the poor. He so loved charity, so fulfilled the works of mercy that did not spare his own body. —  Take care, Christian, how you understand the power of this bread and do not say to the people that the bread was literally equivalent to all his sins, for that is false; it was done out of malice and thus the work was dead. Say rather that the Lord showed him the loaf balancing all his sins to teach him through the bread that he should lead a life in which his good deeds would outweigh all his sins, as was afterwards made clear in his life. [126]  The change brought about in this Peter is commended to us in the remarkable example recorded below. As is related in the Life of St John the Patriarch,251 a certain sailor escaped naked from a shipwreck and came to this man and fell at his feet and asked him for some clothing. Thinking that he was a beggar, he took off his cloak and gave it to him and asked him to wear it. But the sailor did not want to put it on; he put it up for sale. When the man who had given it saw that he was motivated by money, he was greatly saddened and locked himself away and wept and lamented, saying, ‘I was not worthy that a needy man should have anything to remember me by.’ When the man of God fell asleep, he saw the Lord wearing the cloak which he had given to the sailor and saying to him, ‘Why are you crying, Peter? Do you know this cloak? Lo! I wear it because you gave it to a poor man and I give you thanks because I was naked and you clothed Me.’252 Then, marvelling at this grace, he began to bless the poor and to say, ‘If the poor are so dear to Christ that he regards an act of charity towards them as a kindness performed for Him, I shall not die until I become as one of them’; and so it was. For he gave all his goods to the poor and, eventually for Christ’s sake he himself became extremely poor and now enjoys the reward promised to the truly poor, for blessed are the poor in spirit.253 The end of the example. 249 2 Corinthians 9: 7. 250 Psalms 76: 11 (77: 10). 251 Vita s. Johannis Elemosinarii 21 (PL 73: 357). 252 Matthew 25: 36. 253 Matthew 5: 3.

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[127]  Similarly, St John the Patriarch, as is recorded in his Life,254 took a bishop named Troilus to visit the poor, whom he supported in great numbers. And he so commended and encouraged him to love the needy that the bishop gave thirty pounds in gold to the poor. Then the bishop returned to his lodging and, recalling the gold which he had given away and thinking that he had lost so much money, began to worry so much that he was struck down by a grave fever. But the holy patriarch heard about this and knew the reason for it; he arose immediately and visited the bishop and said many edifying things to him, among which was this: ‘My brother, the money which you gave to the poor a short while ago I shall repay as if it were a loan which you made to me.’ This he did. He accepted the money and straightaway recovered his health and called down many blessings on the holy patriarch. But God, Who is merciful, wanted both to chasten him in His fatherly goodness and to arouse the grace of compassion and charity in him and, as he slept after dinner, He showed him in his dreams what mercy he had lost through his avarice. For he saw, as he said, a house whose beauty and size could not be matched by anything that man could build and the entire door was gold and above the door was a circular inscription: ‘The everlasting abode and resting-place of Bishop Troilus.’ When he read this he was filled with great joy, quite sure that the emperor would give him the house. But lo! someone hurried up, sent by the King of the World, and ordered the inscription to be taken down and changed and another to be written up. The inscription was therefore taken away as Troilus looked on and another was put in its place: ‘The everlasting abode and resting-place of John the archbishop of Alexandria, bought for thirty pounds.’ When Troilus saw this, he rose from his sleep and told the holy patriarch what he had seen and indeed thenceforth he was more generous and loved charity and unfailingly displayed the grace of generosity. [128]  When, as is written in the same Life,255 the tax-gatherers were harassing a certain man who was in desperate straits, he asked an army officer, who was wealthy, to lend him fifty pounds in gold and offered to give him pledges for double the amount if he wanted. He promised him the loan but delayed in giving it to him. The tax-gatherers pressed and harassed the man anew and he made for the fountain from which all drank and with tearful prayers told the most holy patriarch of his need. Moved to tears, he immediately did what the man asked and said to him, ‘My son, if you wish, I will give you the very robe that I am 254 Vita s. Johannis Elemosinarii 26 (PL 73: 363–4). 255 Vita s. Johannis Elemosinarii 29 (PL 73: 366).

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wearing.’ For among his other remarkable qualities this stood out – he could not see anyone cry without immediately shedding tears himself. The following night the commander saw in a dream a figure standing upon an altar, to which many people were bringing offerings and for each offering which they made, they received one hundredfold from the altar. And he saw himself standing by the altar and the patriarch standing behind him. One offering lay next to him and someone said, ‘Sir, take the offering and lay it upon the altar, so that you may receive one hundredfold as the others did.’ He hesitated but the patriarch, who was next to him, ran forwards, took the offering, offered it and like the others received one hundredfold from the altar. Waking from the dream, the commander summoned the man who had asked for the loan and said to him, ‘Take the loan which you asked for.’ But he said, ‘The merciful patriarch anticipated you and has taken your reward. For while you delayed in doing what you promised, I was forced to flee to the common refuge of all men.’ Then he remembered what he had seen and said, ‘You have rightly said that he anticipated my service to you.’ He anticipated the reward, for he was not neglectful of the benefit or slow to appreciate the merit of his action. But woe unto those who wish to do good works but delay, who can do good but neglect to do so! Thus it is written, Say not to your friend, Go and come again, tomorrow I will give thee, when you can give immediately.256 [129] Another example about the same matters. A man who was devoted to works of charity came out of his house one day and heard a man shuddering and shaking with the winter cold and, looking around for him, he eventually found him wretched and naked. Moved by pity he carried him home on his back as gently as he could and clothed him and carefully placed him by the fire and with great piety washed his feet with warm water. While he was doing this, he saw two holes in his feet and he wept, overcome by piety. ‘His feet are pierced,’ he said, ‘like Christ’s.’ And straightaway He Who had seemed to be a poor man, not actually poor but the Fountain of Mercy, disappeared. For He had come in the guise of wretchedness to show His approval of the good man’s act of mercy. [130] I have also found a quite similar example in an old sermon as follows.257 A certain householder was devoted to works of charity and one day he ordered his steward to take in twelve poor men out of love for Christ. When he looked at them, he found that there were 256 Proverbs 3: 28. 257 John the Deacon, Vita s. Gregorii Magni ii. 23 (PL 75: 96).

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thirteen. He upbraided his servant for this, saying that he had exceeded his instructions. And when this happened for a third time, the master was extremely angry with the steward because he seemed to have little regard for his orders and then the Lord appeared to him and said that only twelve had entered the house. ‘And I was the thirteenth,’ He said. ‘For I wanted to show Myself to you alone, who did this act of charity out of love for Me.’ [131]  Another in the same text is drawn from the Life of St Martha.258 When the blessed Martha, who had received the Saviour into her house, died at Tarascon,259 the Lord Jesus Christ graciously took part in her funeral ceremony, unbeknown to those of the Faith taking care of her burial. As our Lord went by, a certain clerk asked Him who He was; the Lord did not speak but showed him a scroll which He held open in His hand. Nothing was written on it except this little verse: Martha, who received Me, will ever be remembered; She need fear no adverse judgement on the Latter Day.

And when he had unrolled the scroll, he found that nothing else was written on it. If the Lord so much commended charity shown to Him in His own body, will He not reward charity shown to the poor who are His limbs? Of course, there is no doubt of it. For it was He Who said, ‘As you do unto the least of these, you do unto Me.’260

Of excommunication [132]  The blessed Benedict teaches that a sentence of excommunication is to be feared, with a salutary example which Gregory records in the second book of his Dialogues:261 ‘Not far from his monastery two nuns of noble birth were living in their house and a certain pious man offered them his services in their daily life. But in some people a noble lineage gives birth to an ignoble spirit and the more one remembers being above others, the less inclined one is to humble oneself in this world; thus these nuns had not been able to moderate their tongues in a manner suited to their religious calling and their wounding remarks often angered this good man, who served them in their material life. 258 Pseudo-Marcella, Vita s. Marthae: B. Mombritius (ed.), Sanctuarium seu Vitae Sanctorum (Paris, 1910), ii. 238–9. 259 According to tradition, Martha, who showed hospitality to Christ in the Gospels (Luke 10: 38–42), travelled to southern France and died in Tarascon. 260 Matthew 25: 40 and 45. 261 Gregory, Dialogues ii. 23 (ed. de Vogüé, ii. 206–8). The manuscript reads tertio libro in error.

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When he had borne these things for some long time, he went to the man of God and told him what great slanders and insults he suffered. The man of God heard this and immediately commanded the nuns, saying, “Correct your tongues; if you do not do so, I shall excommunicate you.” He did not actually pronounce a sentence of excommunication, but only threatened them. But the nuns, who had not changed their former ways, died within a few days and were buried in the church. When solemn masses were celebrated in the same church and, according to the custom, the deacon called out, “Let anyone who does not take communion retire!”, their nurse, who used to take their offering to the Lord on their behalf, saw them rise from their tombs and leave the church. When on numerous occasions she had seen them leave when the deacon reached this point, for they were unable to remain in the church, she recalled what the man of God had told them while they were still alive, that is that he would deprive them of communion if they did not mend their life and speech.’ —  Of course, this example is not to belittle the sentence with which Holy Mother Church calls for those justly condemned to be cut off from the communion and society of the whole Church, both Militant and Triumphant.262 When the deacon calls, ‘Let anyone who does not take communion retire!’, he does so without prejudging anyone. If anyone should not be involved in the sacrament of the altar, that is when the host is consecrated and the people take communion, let him leave the church. This was the custom then observed in the Church. [133] How much the devil profits from this sin is not easy for us to unfold. ‘A devil which spoke through a possessed man, after being adjured by a man of virtue, said that this was a sin which profited them greatly. For a single excommunicate causes one hundred persons to sin every single day that he makes them offer him the Eucharist.’ This example is written in the Summa on Vices.263 [134]  Some examples in The Jewel of the Priesthood show how much a sentence of excommunication is to be feared. The first is this and it is written in these words.264 ‘An example about St Bernard abbot of Clairvaux, as is found in his Life. He came to a church where services could 262 The Church Militant consists of those Christians in this life who wage war against sin and Christ’s enemies; the Church Triumphant comprises those who have triumphed in this struggle and are now in Heaven. 263 Peyraut, Summa de vitiis vi. 3.38: Guillelmi Peraldi summae, ii. 331. 264 GE i. 53 (ed. Brewer, 160), and ultimately from William of St Thierry, Vita s. Bernardi 6 (AASS Aug. iv. 270).

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not be celebrated because of a swarm of pestering flies. When the saint heard this, he said, “In the name of the Lord I excommunicate them.” And in truth in the morning all the flies were found dead, both in the church and in the cloisters and in the precincts of the monastery.’ [135a]  Another is found in the same place as follows.265 There was a woman in the time of the same Bernard whom a demon incubus266 made a habit of subjecting to violent sexual abuse as often as he wished. When the woman was brought to Abbot Bernard and the matter was made known to him, he immediately had the candles lit and cast out the demon and strictly forbade him in the name of God and Christ Jesus to have any contact with that Christian woman, and thus the woman went away forever cured of so great an affliction. [135b] A third example on the same topic follows immediately on the last, as follows.267 ‘Again, there is a story about St Nannan who lived in a town in Ireland, where his church honours him to this day. There was a huge number of fleas which grew so great that the place was almost entirely deserted and emptied of its inhabitants because of the pestilence. By excommunicating and cursing them the saint drove them into a nearby meadow and through the saint’s merits God’s power so cleansed the place that not a single flea was to be found in it thereafter. However, the fleas were so numerous in the meadow that the place remains unapproachable not only to men but also to beasts.’ — Of course, many similar stories on the same topic can be found which show that one should fear the sentence of the Church. ‘For if a curse has such great power over demons and also over snakes and tiny creatures, whose animal nature excuses them from sin, should not legitimately imposed excommunication and the curse called down by good men be greatly feared by men endowed with reason who knowingly commit sins from which they cannot be excused?’268

265 GE i. 53 (ed. Brewer, 160). 266 A demon in male form which was believed to have sexual intercourse with women. 267 GE i. 53 (ed. Brewer, 160). Gerald tells the same story in Topographia Hibernica ii. 31: Brewer et al., Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, v. 119. 268 GE i. 53 (ed. Brewer, 161).

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Of dishonest executors269 [136]  One Brother Vincent, who was born in Burgundy, reported this event to Brother John of Kilkenny,270 a holy, discreet and trustworthy man who used to be custodian of different Irish custodies – at one time of Drogheda, at another of Cork. Brother Vincent, however, was at that time a custodian in the Holy Land and he came to a general chapter on behalf of the custodians there. Now this was the story which the friar told and which he claimed to know to be certainly true. There was in Burgundy a usurer who had obtained all or almost all his property through usury. He was exceedingly rich. He lived like this as long as God permitted. Eventually he was stricken by some bodily ailment until his body swelled up and he was close to death. He lay on his sickbed and, prompted by the grace of God’s pity, he looked back over all the years of his life in bitterness of soul.271 He placed all his worldly goods before the eyes of his life and clearly saw that of all his riches almost nothing was truly his; they belonged to others, from whom he had stolen them by his usury. He turned these things over in his heart and, lying alone in his little bed, he was full of regret. But what was he to do? When the occasion offered itself, he sent for his parish priest and two neighbours whom he trusted and he said, ‘You know that I have amassed great riches. Know also that they were all or almost all acquired through usury.272 Thus they are not mine but belong to those from whom I extorted them in evil fashion. For this reason I cannot dispose of them as if they were mine nor can I put them in my will. So I now appoint you my three executors and I adjure you and beg you with all my heart to make careful enquiries and find out whose property made me rich and restore it to the rightful owners. And I beg you all,’ he said, ‘because this illness so taxes me, that you ensure that I cannot dispose of this 269 Nominating one or more persons as executors, charged with implementing the terms of a will and ensuring that the wishes of the testator were carried out, was largely a development of the early thirteenth century, when they rapidly acquired wide-ranging powers and duties: M. M. Sheehan, The Will in Medieval England from the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to the end of the Thirteenth Century (Toronto, 1963), 148–62, 215–30. From an early date dishonest executors appear frequently both in documentary sources and in pastoral literature. 270 John of Kilkenny’s book, mentioned at the end of the example, is not known to survive. 271 Isaiah 38: 15. 272 Canon law regarded the profits of usury as stolen goods. As such they could not be passed to one’s heirs and the Church taught that restitution of goods or money extorted through usury was an essential element of penitence. In an effort to enforce this, the Second Council of Lyons (1274) declared void any will made by a usurer which had not been witnessed by a bishop or, as here, the testator’s parish priest.

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property.’ They agreed that they would follow his instructions faithfully. But this was not enough for him; in addition, he laid a curse upon them, saying, ‘Now I set forth along my road and I cannot dispose of the property. But I would happily have done so if God granted me time. Therefore I ask God that, if you do not do what you promise me, each of you should receive from God his own particular punishment: that you,’ he said, addressing one of them, ‘should be consumed in terrible agony by St Antony’s fire.273 That you,’ he said to another, ‘should be afflicted with the vilest leprosy. And that you,’ he said to the third, ‘should die a sudden death.’ Soon afterwards he made his way from this world and all his goods fell to the disposition of the three executors. These three friends, if we may call them such, seeing so much property, such abundant riches, were struck by a devilish greed and said to one another, ‘How and when will we find the rightful owners of so many goods? What shall we do, brothers?’ This was their unanimous decision: ‘Let us divide the estate into three parts and for the time being let each of us take a share as if it were a loan.’ This is what they did. What can I say? The men became exceedingly rich, they increased in wealth and honours and became great men among the great. But woe unto the wretches! All this only brought them misfortune. For when they thought that they were living more prosperously, when they contented themselves with his goods, God’s vengeance fell upon them as the dead man had warned them and had asked God to ensure. For one was consumed in dreadful and elaborately devised torments with St Antony’s fire, another was stricken by the most dreadful leprosy and, after a short interval, the third died suddenly. For when one of them was struck down by the vengeance of God, the others did not heed the reason for his death and afterwards by a just judgement the wrath of God fell upon them all. Behold the sort of punishment they store up for themselves who knowingly deal dishonestly with the property of the dead! Indeed, if they die unpunished, they will receive the reward of everlasting damnation unless they repent. The end of the example. —  Brother Vincent, whom I have mentioned, knew all this to be true, as he told Brother John. Brother John also wrote this story in his book, from which I have copied it with my own hand. 273 Erysipelas or ergotism, a condition caused by eating rye infected with fungus, is characterised by severe burning sensations, convulsions, nervous disorders and gangrene. Several versions of this common story (Tubach, no. 1933) make it clear that each man died in the manner which he most feared; see the versions of the story translated in J. Le Goff, Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages, trans. Patricia Ranum (New York, 1990), 43–4.

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[137]  There now follows another noteworthy example for attacking dishonest executors, which is found in the deeds of Charles, king of the Franks and emperor of the Romans; I found it in a certain old sermon and I have also heard it told elsewhere.274 It is this. There were once two mercenaries with Charles, king of the Franks. They were serving in the king’s army when one of them fell sick unto death. Realising that he was approaching his end, he said to his companion, ‘My dear friend, I put my trust in you. I have a horse and my clothes and weapons. Take them all and sell them and spend what they fetch for the salvation of my soul.’ The sickness grew worse and he was buried with his kin. After his death, his companion took the things mentioned and sold his arms and clothes for the benefit of his soul, but his horse was a fine beast and he kept it for himself. After eight days, his dead companion appeared to him. When he saw him, he asked him how things went with him. He answered, ‘Now I am well. But formerly things were bad. For now I have been freed from pain and I would have been released from torment earlier if you had not deceived me. For if you had given my goods to the poor who had prayed for me, I would not have suffered so much pain. For this reason, tomorrow you will die a wretched death.’ And that is what happened. For on the following day a great crowd of demons in the form of crows surrounded him and carried him high into the air and then let him fall. He fell on a hard rock and, with his limbs and neck smashed and broken, he received what his wickedness and faithlessness had deserved. The end of the example.

(Against those that work on feast-days)275 [138]  Examples in The Jewel of the Priesthood attest how dangerous it is to violate feast-days with servile work.276 The first is this, and it is written in these words. ‘There is the example of Raoul de Faye, the uncle of Queen Eleanor, who against the advice of King Henry II dared to go hunting at Woodstock277 on Good Friday, which is when Our Lord 274 Pseudo-Turpin, Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi 7 (ed. Schmidt, 28–30). As in LE 60, where the same source is cited, the author appears to be writing from memory. 275 The evidence suggests that the Church’s prohibition of work on Sundays and feastdays was generally observed in medieval England, but the large number of exempla of this sort shows that the authorities were never wholly confident that work or unsuitable leisure activities would not intrude on the Church’s prescribed holidays: B. Harvey, ‘Work and Festa Ferianda in medieval England’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 23 (1972), 289–302. 276 GE i. 54 (ed. Brewer, 162). 277 Raoul de Faye, uncle of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, was count of Saintonge and seneschal of Aquitaine. Woodstock (Oxfordshire) was the site of an important royal residence from the early twelfth century onwards.

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ascended the Cross for our salvation. But divine vengeance immediately snatched his right eye from his head when his horse followed a deer into a wood thick with brambles – a terrible lesson for all and a perpetual reminder of his rash transgression.’ [139a]  A second example from the same source is as follows.278 ‘In the case of St Lawrence it is certain that God often looks severely upon those who fail to observe his feast-day. In our own land of South Wales in the time of King Stephen it happened that a certain man was bringing his harvest home from the fields on a cart on the feast of St Lawrence. And behold! fire as if suddenly sent down from Heaven consumed all the corn and the cart as well. As for the oxen pulling the cart, some were consumed by fire, others stampeded and were hurled from the high cliffs into the sea as if in a raging fury. It is noteworthy that the Lord wished to punish with fire the wrongs done to His martyr whom He had wanted to test so gravely with fire.’279 [139b]  A third example is this, which is written in the same place.280 The author of the book says, ‘I have seen with my own eyes bread baked on that day which, because of the miracle and the novelty of the thing, is carried from place to place to be shown to people, dripping with blood both inside and out.’ [140]  A fourth example is also in the same place, written in these words.281 ‘Similarly of St Eilweth in our own country, on whose feastday, as you know, those seeking her shrine were wont to act out in front of everyone present the very work which they used to do on feast-days, as if they were mad or out of their minds.’ The example ends. —   The meaning of this example is as follows. Those in the Marches of Wales who rashly worked on feast-days came, according to the custom of the country, to the shrine of St Eilweth and, as if maddened and out of their minds, acted out the very works which they had done on feast-days. And thus they represented the work which they had done unlawfully. And thus they showed that such work was unlawful. Thus the Lord was accustomed to punish such transgressions there in order to show others the right path. 278 GE i. 54 (ed. Brewer, 162). 279 St Lawrence was martyred by being roasted on a gridiron; for a number of reasons why his feast-day was regarded as especially holy, see Legenda Aurea, 496–501. 280 GE i. 54 (ed. Brewer, 162–3). 281 Ibid. Gerald reports several similar stories in Itinerarium Kambriae i. 2: Brewer et al., Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, vi. 32.

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[141]  Another dread example on this topic is found in the Life of St Ouen, the archbishop of Rouen, as follows.282 One day the blessed Ouen ‘was on the road and came across a poor little man. One Sunday he had been milling flour and his thumb became so tightly stuck to the palm of his hand that blood issued from the socket and the stick on which the millstone turned was clamped so tightly between his thumb and his palm that it was completely impossible to wrench it away.’ However, he was cured by St Ouen who made the sign of the Cross over him when he fell at his feet and in tears confessed his fault.

Of faith [142]  To commend the virtue of faith and to combat faithlessness and lack of steadfastness in faith, I think there is much value in what I was told by Brother Tomás Ó Cuinn,283 a brother of our order, a good and faithful and well educated man who, after he had shown himself to be a conscientious servant of God during many years of poverty, humility and toil as an authoritative and edifying preacher, was made bishop of Clonmacnoise. During his time as bishop he told me this. ‘When I was a preacher in the order,’ he said, ‘I once went to preach in Connacht. There was at that time a remarkable – or rather terrible – pestilence in the diocese of Clonfert. For when men went to their carts or were in the fields or were walking in the woods, they told me that they used to see an army of demons passing by and sometimes fighting among themselves. When they saw this, they were immediately struck down with sickness and like to die, they became weak and collapsed and many died wretchedly. When I heard this,’ he said, ‘I summoned a great meeting of the people and I preached the Word of God, saying this among other things. “Now,” I said, “you have among you a great pestilence which is wrought by the demons which many of you often see in these parts. Do you know why demons have the power to do this kind of harm to us? It is certainly because you are lacking in faith. You are too frightened of their power and do not believe and think and trust that the Lord wants to defend and guard you from harm. It is because of this that the Lord allows them the power to work this evil against you. If you had a firm faith and were certain in your belief that they could only do as much as the Lord allowed and you mended your lives, humbly asking the Lord to defend you from their snares, you would be sure that they could not harm you. And you see and know,” he said, 282 Vita s. Audoeni ii. 18 (AASS Aug. iv. 813–4). St Ouen (or Audoin) died in 684. 283 Tomás Ó Cuinn, custodian of Drogheda and subsequently bishop of Clonmacnoise 1252–79.

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“that we are men who in this world do more against them and speak more evil of them, and yet I stand here speaking all these evil things of them and preaching; and I tell you that I want them to come to me and do whatever they can to me. Let the demons come, I say, if they dare, let them all come. Why do they not come? What are they doing? Where are they? Once more, I mock them in this way in everyone’s hearing.”’ And lo! from that hour the demons disappeared, to the extent that they never afterwards appeared in that land and the pestilence stopped immediately which had so long and so miserably afflicted the people. You see how little demons can do when firm faith confronts them and when the taunts of one poor friar speaking with a firm faith can overcome all their efforts. The end of the example.

Of wicked children who behave badly towards their parents [143]  ‘A certain old man made over the whole of his estate to his son, who at first was kind towards his father but afterwards drove him from his bed, which he wanted for himself and his wife, and in the end he made him sleep outside. And when winter came and the old man was overcome by the cold because his son had taken his good bedspreads for himself, he asked his son’s son to ask his father to give him something to cover himself with. The boy was only able to obtain from his father two ells284 of coarse cloth for his grandfather; his father still had two more and in tears the boy asked to be given them. When his father asked what he would do with them, the son said, “I shall keep them until you are like your father. And then I shall give you nothing more than you now wish to give to him.”’ This example is written in the Summa on Vices.285 [144] An example handed down by the blessed Augustine in The City of God shows you clearly how hazardous and how hateful it is in the sight of God for children to cause harm to their parents.286 For he says, ‘There were ten brothers and sisters – seven men and three women – from Caesarea in Cappadocia, who were well respected in their community. Their mother, who had been left destitute by the recent death of their father and who had been very harshly treated by them all, laid a curse upon them and soon God’s punishment came upon them and they were all afflicted with a frightful trembling of the limbs. For all their limbs trembled with such a fearful shuddering and shaking that in this most 284 An ell was a measurement of about 45 inches (112 cm). Jacques de Vitry tells a similar story (Crane, no. 107) which implies that three ells were insufficient to make a shroud for an adult. 285 Peyraut, Summa de vitiis vi. 3.37: Guillelmi Peraldi summae, ii. 319. 286 Augustine, City of God xxii. 8.22.

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loathsome state they were unable to bear the stares of their fellowcitizens and they wandered wherever the whim took them and they travelled through almost the whole of the Roman world. Two of them, a brother and sister named Paulus and Pauladia, came to us; reports of their wretched condition were widespread and they were already well known in many places. They arrived about two weeks before Easter and attended church every day, visiting the shrine of the most glorious martyr St Stephen, where they prayed that God would now be appeased and restore them to their former health.’ This in His mercy He then did. The end of the example. —  You see, Christian, what terrible vengeance fell upon those who were not afraid to cause harm to their parents. For the punishment was so severe and of such a kind that they could not bear to be seen by their fellow-citizens but wandered uncertainly almost throughout the world, so that the children of Christians would be chastened by their example and therefore never dare to cause harm or injury to their parents.

Of theft [145]  I have found a notable and most powerful example against theft in the Life of St Brendan as follows.287 When the blessed Brendan and those monks who were at sea with him reached an island, he came to a town where he found a house made ready and furnished with couches and seats and a table set up and napkins and loaves of extraordinary whiteness and fish. Brendan knew that these things had been prepared for him and his companions by God and they took refreshment there. In the house vessels of different metals hung on the walls along with bridles and horns chased with silver. St Brendan commanded his brethren saying, ‘My brothers, take care that Satan does not lead you into temptation. For I see the devil urging one of the three brothers who followed us from our monastery to commit a most shameful theft.’ Indeed, the three monks of whom he spoke had been sent home by St Brendan when he set sail but they had sailed after him, not being able to bear being sent away. After they had eaten and had worshipped God, the monks fell asleep and St Brendan saw the work of the devil – that is a black child who had a bridle in his hand and he toyed with it in front of the monk. And immediately St Brendan arose and began to pray all night until dawn. When the time was right, they set out on their journey. Then St Brendan said to them, ‘Look at our brother, of whom 287 Navigatio Sancti Brendani abbatis 6–7: ed. C. Selmer (Notre Dame 1959), 14–16. St Brendan was an Irish abbot who died in 578. The account of his voyage circulated widely in Latin and other languages throughout the Middle Ages.

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I spoke to you yesterday. He has a silver bridle in his lap.’ And he fell at the feet of the man of God saying, ‘I have sinned, father. I beg you, pray for my soul lest it perish immediately.’ All the monks prostrated themselves on the ground, praying to the Lord for their brother’s soul. The monks got up and when the brother was lifted up from the ground by the holy father, behold! they saw a little black boy leap from the lap of the monk shouting out in a great voice, ‘Man of God, why do you eject me from the home where I have lived for seven years and deprive me of my inheritance?’ St Brendan turned to the monk and said, ‘Receive the body and blood of the Lord; this will be your burial place.’ So it proved; the soul of the monk was saved and was taken up by angels of light as his brethren looked on. —  You see from this example that as soon as you engage in theft you become the devil’s monkey with which he plays as he pleases. But when he plays with you, you are accursed because he hangs your soul on the gibbet of Hell; for he would certainly have done so with the wretched man of whom I now speak, if the prayers of the holy men had not snatched him from the hand of the devil. For it says in chapter 9 of the Apocalypse that the evil spirits have power over those that have not repented of their sins and especially, as it says at the end, of their thefts.288 [146]  Now there follows a quite salutary example against theft which Master Albert, the former archbishop of Armagh, related in a sermon in Ireland as follows.289 Three pilgrims left their own land for India to worship at the relics of St Thomas the Apostle. When they had entered a certain town in that country, the inhabitants rejoiced at their coming, so much so that there was almost a quarrel among the burgesses about whose house they should stay the night in, but eventually they sent them to the town provost out of respect for them. When day came, he provided rich cloths for their horses and, bidding the pilgrims farewell, asked that they should not take it ill that he hurried from the house and said, ‘The king has decreed that today all the great and wise men should come together and give judgement on a certain matter.’ The subject of the dispute was this. A certain man leased some land to a neighbour for four years; and, when the tenant ploughed the field, the ploughshare immediately turned up a great lump of gold. So he thought: I rent only the land, not the gold. I have no right to the gold; I shall return it to the owner of the field. The owner, however, said, ‘I leased to you not just 288 Apocalypse (Revelation) 9: 3 and 21. 289 Albert Suerbeer, archbishop of Armagh 1239–46 and subsequently archbishop of Prussia-Livonia and archbishop of Riga, who died in 1274. Little points out that the story originates in an oriental story about Alexander the Great.

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the land but what it yields. The gold is yours.’ This is what they had to decide. While the case was pending, the king had the gold hung up in the field next to the road. After making their pilgrimage, however, the pilgrims returned and found the gold hanging there. And one of them said, ‘Look! The Lord has provided us with this gold because we are poor.’ The second pilgrim said the same. But the third said, ‘We have no right to this. Let us return it to its rightful owner, for I do not agree at all that we should take it.’ But the other two took it against his wishes and carried it off. And when there was a great debate in the assembly on the matter, someone who knew that the gold had been taken said, ‘It is pointless discussing this; the gold has been stolen.’ When he heard this, the king was angry and they told him that the pilgrims had taken the gold because the farmers would not have dared. The pilgrims were brought back with the gold and they all prayed that the Lord should punish the man or men whose idea it had been to steal the gold. When they had done so, the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up290 the two evil-doers, the one on the right and the other on the left of the just man, who remained unharmed between them. The end of the example. [147]  An example in the second book of Gregory’s Dialogues makes theft loathsome to well-disposed people.291 ‘On one occasion, our Exhilaratus, whom you have known since his conversion, was sent to us by his master to take to the man of God in the monastery two wooden vessels of wine – what we commonly call casks. He brought one but during the course of his journey hid the other. The man of God, from whom actions done in his absence could not be concealed, took the wine and thanked him but, as the servant was leaving, he warned him saying, “Take care, my son, not to drink from the cask which you have hidden. Tip it up carefully and you will find what it contains.” The servant was deeply ashamed and left the man of God and, when he went back, he wanted to check what he had been told and, when he tipped the cask, a serpent immediately came out of it. Then the servant Exhilaratus saw what was in the wine and took fright at the evil that he had done.’ The end of the example. —  What do we learn from this example if not that those who love to steal hand themselves over to the serpent in Hell to be poisoned and killed? For from this example of theft, albeit so trifling, they will have the poison of dragons for their wine.292 290 Numbers 16: 30. 291 Gregory, Dialogues ii. 18 (ed. de Vogüé, ii. 194). 292 Deuteronomy. 32: 33.

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Of Heavenly joy [148]  We read in the Deeds of Barlaam and Josaphat293 the servants of God that, when Josaphat, the most holy young son of Avenir the king of India, was greatly tried by the temptation of lust, he humbly sought God’s help to overcome this temptation. In a vision he was shown both the punishments of Hell and the joys of Heaven. So Josaphat, who had been tempted, as has been said, and who had immediately sought God’s help, saw himself carried off by a number of imposing figures and passing through places which he had never seen before. But first he was shown the punishments of Hell, then the joys of eternal happiness in the form of a city filled with every kind of joy and inexpressible bliss. He saw many marvellous joys, which my tongue is entirely unable to describe. And he heard a voice, saying, ‘This is the rest of the Just. This is the happiness of those who have pleased the Lord.’ Then the august figures took him back the way they had come. He was filled with happiness and joy and said, ‘Do not take from me, I beg you, this ineffable joy. But allow me to dwell in some bright corner of this city.’ But they said, ‘It is not possible for you to be one of these now, but you will go there with much labour and sweat, if indeed you can muster sufficient strength.’ [149]  I have also found this example on the same topic among the examples of Deodatus.294 A devil which spoke through the mouth of a possessed person was asked by Brother Jordan,295 who was at one time master of the Friars Preacher, what sufferings he would endure to be saved on the Day of Judgement. He replied, ‘If the entire world were on fire from the east to the west and from the north to the south, I should willingly bear that agony until Judgement Day to be able to recover what I have lost. And if there were a fiery column full of sharp spikes from the Earth to Heaven, I should climb up and down seven times each day to be saved on Judgement Day. And nothing so much grieves and oppresses us as the fact that you, who are dust and a vessel of dung, should have such joy.’ 293 Pseudo-John Damascene, Vita ss. Barlaam et Josaphat 30 (PG 96: 1149–52; PL 73: 566–7). In the original the prince sees the joys of Heaven before the pains of Hell and the sequence of events may have been rearranged here to reflect the order usual in medieval visions of Heaven and Hell: C. Zaleski, Otherworld Journeys (New York and Oxford, 1987), 75. 294 For Deodatus, see above at LE 98, n. 188. 295 Jordan of Saxony, master-general of the Dominican Order 1222–37, who also appears in DC 4, 100, 132, 133 and 211 below.

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[150]  Another example about the same things.296 Two monks who knew one another well made a bargain that whichever of them died first should, if the will of God allowed, tell the other his condition in the after-life.297 Soon afterwards, one of them set forth on the journey of all flesh and, after half a year had passed, appeared with a great light shining through the window in the dawn while his colleague was praying after Matins. He said, ‘Bless you.’ When the other monk recognised him and asked him how he fared, he said, ‘As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord,298 and more for ever.’ And he immediately disappeared.

Of vainglory [151] This example about vainglory is found in the Lives of the Fathers.299 ‘A monk said to Abba Pastor, “If I give my brother a piece of bread or some other thing, the demons defile it so that it seems that I did it to please man.” And the Old Man said, “Even if it was done to please man, we must still give our brothers what they need.” And he told him this parable. “There were two men who were farmers living in the same city: one of them sowed his seed and reaped a poor and meagre harvest, but the other did not sow anything and reaped nothing at all. So if a famine came, which of them would escape starvation?” And the monk answered, “The one who sowed, however poor and defiled his harvest.” And the Old Man said, “Let us also sow a little, however defiled it may be, lest we die when famine comes.”’ Of gluttony [152]  In Book 2 of On the Properties of Things Alexander Neckham300 relates how a certain nobleman was by hereditary right count of Pontoise but was nevertheless enslaved by the sin of gluttony. When he died, his son succeeded him, a noble man of moderate habits, the 296 A common story: Tubach, no. 3592. 297 Pacts of this sort are a common device in exempla (LE157, DC 183, 227 and 314). See also Schmitt, Ghosts in the Middle Ages, 137. 298 Psalms 47: 9 (48: 8). 299 VP v. 13.6 (PL 73: 944–5). 300 Alexander of Neckham, De Naturis Rerum ii. 187: ed. T. Wright (RS, 1863), 334. This is a common example which appears to originate in the Vita of St Simon of Crépy, who died c.1082 (Stephani de Borbone Tractatus de diversis materiis praedicabilibus i. De Dono Timoris, eds J. Berlioz and J.-L. Eichenlaub (CCCM 124, 2002), 519–21; see also Tubach, no. 4880 and Fasciculus Morum, 639). For the association of toads with the corpses of the sinful, see J. Berlioz, ‘Crapauds et cadavres dans la littérature exemplaire (XIIe–XIIIe siècles)’, Micrologus 7 (1999), 231–46.

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comforter of the poor and of widows; he used often to visit his father’s tomb in tears of devotion and with generous gifts asked the poor to pray for his father. So it happened that one day he prepared a noble feast for some other noblemen but before the meal he led his guests to the tomb and ordered the stone removed. When it was moved away, all those present saw a loathsome and foul toad clinging to the throat of his dead father with its fore-feet. When he saw this, the son burst out crying and said, ‘O father, father! Such great feasts used to pass down your throat. Such is the reward of gluttony!’ At the time he hid his sadness but afterwards he made over the whole of his inheritance to the king of France and set off for Jerusalem. The end of the example. —  Behold! As the good son said, such is the reward of gluttony. The glutton used to take an unworthy delight in what passed down his throat and it is plain that the toad had his throat in its possession to show that he had been handed over to the hellish creature to suffer the torments of Hell because of the sin of gluttony which had passed down his throat. [153] St Gregory relates another example in the First Dialogue301 about a nun who, in the garden during her leisure time, ate a lettuce and was snatched away by a demon. — Find this example above under the rubric ‘On the Cross’302 and treat it according to the needs of this subject. To do this, it is unnecessary to mention the Cross. And if the Cross is mentioned, her gluttony will be all the more greedy and all the more pleasing to the devil, because in her greed she did not sign the lettuce with the Cross. The end of the example. [154]  St Gregory recounts in his Fourth Dialogue303 another salutary example against the gluttonous and those who habitually eat at times when they should not. It is this. ‘There is still with us today a priest from Isauria named Athanasius who said that this fearful thing had happened in his time in Iconium. There, he said, in the Monastery of the Galatians, was a monk who was held in high regard. He appeared to be a man of virtue, who seemed to live a well-ordered life in all respects; but, as his end showed, he was far from what he seemed. For he appeared to fast with his brethren but he ate in secret, a fact entirely unknown to his brothers. But he was overcome by sickness and reached 301 Gregory, Dialogues i. 4 (ed. de Vogüé, ii. 42–4). 302 See LE 25 above. 303 Gregory, Dialogues iv. 40 (ed. de Vogüé, iii. 144–6).

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the end of his life. When he was at the point of death, he made all the brothers in the monastery gather around him. They thought that at the death of such a man they would hear him say some sublime and edifying words. Trembling with fear, he was forced to admit to them the Enemy to whom he had to go, handed over without mercy. For he said, “When you thought I was fasting with you, I was eating in secret; and lo! I am handed over as food for the dragon whose tail has bound my knees and feet, indeed it has put its head inside my mouth and has sucked out and stolen my breath.” He died immediately after saying this and the dragon which he saw did not allow him time save his soul through repentance. It is clear that he saw this for the profit of those who heard him, for he came to know the Enemy to whom he was delivered and he did not escape.’ The end of the example. —   Although this story refers to a monk, if it is used in the form in which it is written, it will cause scandal among the religious and not be very edifying to the people. Some slight changes can be made while preserving the essential truth of the story; then it will edify the people without causing offence to anyone. Clearly the monk was a man and therefore the whole story can be told as concerning a certain man. It is also clear that he should have fasted when he only pretended to do so, otherwise he would be guilty of hypocrisy; therefore, if he ate when he pretended to fast, it follows that he ate when he should have fasted. You may therefore tell the story in this way: Gregory tells how a certain man used to eat when he should have been fasting; this is true, as has already been said. But he was overcome by sickness and reached the end of his life. When he was at the point of death, men gathered around him, as is the custom, and according to the Lord’s will and in great anguish and regret he told them dreadful things – that on account of his gluttony he would be handed over to be eaten by a dragon in Hell. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘its tail has bound my knees and feet, indeed it has put its head inside my mouth and has sucked out and stolen my breath.’ He died immediately after saying this and the dragon which he saw did not allow him time to save his soul through repentance. If the example is used in this way, the truth will be preserved and the people will be shaken with fear without giving offence to anyone. If the sermon is preached before religious, the example will make an excellent attack on hypocrisy if used in its original form. [155]  You will find a fourth example in Bede’s book on the history of the English,304 where it is written and reported in this way. ‘I knew,’ 304 Bede, Hist. Eccles. v. 14.

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he says, ‘a brother who belonged to a noble monastery but who led an ignoble life; he was often rebuked by his superiors and, although he refused to listen to them, they bore patiently with him because of his exceptional skill as a craftsman. But he was a great slave to drunkenness and the other pleasures of the flesh and he preferred to stay day and night in his workshop rather than go to church with his brethren to pray or listen to the word of God. When he fell sick, he called the other monks and, lamenting greatly like someone already damned, told them that he saw Hell open and Satan who was hurled down into the depths of Tartarus and next to him were Caiaphas and the others who had put Christ to death. “Near to them,” he said, “was a place prepared for me.” When the brothers heard this, they urged him to repent. But he said, “There is no time now for me to repent, for judgement has already been passed upon me.” Saying this, he died without the saving viaticum.’ The end of the example. — You see that this example is about a monk beset by the sins mentioned and it is not prudent to say such things of the religious before the people. But, since he was also a man, the whole story can be told about a man while still preserving the truth. And although he was overcome by many faults, it is clear from the story that he was particularly enslaved by drink, and was therefore without doubt a drunkard. Thus the whole story can be told of a drunkard in this fashion: Bede tells a salutary story of a drunk who willingly spent his life in drinking. Time passed and he was struck by an illness and was close to his end. Men gathered around him, as is the custom– I say this because the monks whom he summoned were men – and, lamenting like someone already damned, he told them that he saw Hell open and so on as above to the end of the story. However, if you are preaching to religious, all the details will be useful. [156]  Now the devil’s attitude to the gluttonous and the most effective remedy against this sin is best illustrated in this example recorded in the Lives of the Fathers in this way.305 Demons were so assailing a man that, straightaway at the first hour of the day, they inflicted on him such terrible hunger and weakness that he could scarcely bear it. But he said in his heart that ‘I will bear whatever is inflicted upon me until the third hour and then eat.’ But at the third hour he thought, ‘Yes, now I must wait until the sixth hour.’ And at the sixth hour he soaked his bread in water and said, ‘While the bread is soaking I must wait until the ninth hour.’ When the ninth hour came, he finished his prayers, as 305 VP v. 4.58 (PL 73: 871).

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was his custom, and so he ate. And when he had borne this for some considerable time and he sat down one day to eat at the ninth hour, he saw a column of smoke rising from the basket where the bread was stored and going out of the window of his cell. From that day he did not feel hungry and his body did not grow weak. But rather he was so much strengthened in his faith that he took no delight in taking food for two days. The end of the example. [157]  I have found this example among the common examples306 about two rich men who out of their love for one another bound themselves that whichever died first should tell the survivor of his condition in the next life. One was a miser, the other a drunk. It happened that the drunk died first. One day in a secluded place he appeared to the survivor, horribly disfigured and frightful. When the man asked why he looked like this, he led him to an exceedingly dismal place where there were seven demons carrying seven vials filled with the most deadly poison. One of them said to the dead man, ‘I drink to you, comrade’; and the dead man was compelled against his will to drink the deadly contents, and each of the demons served him in the same way. This done, he said to the living man, ‘I shall suffer these torments for all eternity and many worse ones too’; and afterwards he disappeared.

Of humility [158]  In the Lives of the Fathers are found very many good examples concerning humility.307 And this, among others, should not be passed over in silence. It is found there that the blessed Antony said, ‘I have seen all the snares of the Enemy spread out over the whole world to catch and kill the souls of men. And I groaned and said, “Who do you think can get through such snares?” And I heard a voice saying, “Humility.”’ The end of the example. [159]  Another example on the same subject is found in the same place, as follows.308 ‘Abba Daniel said that in Babylon there was a prominent person’s daughter who was possessed by a devil. When the holy monk came to the great man’s house, the possessed girl came and slapped him – that is to say, the demon slapped him with the girl’s hand. He, however, turned the other cheek as the Lord taught us to do.309 But the demon, compelled by this, started to shout, “O the violence of the 306 This unidentified source is also cited in LE 9, 106 and 212. 307 VP v. 15.3 (PL 73: 953). 308 VP v. 15.14 (PL 73: 956). 309 Matthew 5: 39; Luke 6: 29.

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commandment of Jesus Christ drives me out!” and the girl was immediately cured. And the holy Old Men who saw and heard this said that possession by the devil falls in humble obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ. This was what they said: “The devil cannot possess the girl, that is to say remain in her, any longer because of the humility of him who obeys the commandment of Jesus Christ.”’ The end of the example. [160] Again, a praiseworthy example is recorded in same place as follows.310 The devil met Abba Macharius on the road. He was carrying a scythe for harvesting. He wanted to strike him and said to him, ‘I suffer much hurt from you, Macharius, because I cannot prevail against you. For whatever you do, I do as well. You fast and I eat nothing. You keep vigil and I do not sleep. In one thing only do you beat me – your humility. It is because of that that I cannot prevail against you.’ The end of the example. [161]  Another example from the same source on the same subject.311 Someone asked a certain father who showed great forbearance how he had so much humility that, when there was any tribulation in the monastery, he did not speak. He said to him, ‘When I entered the community, I said to my soul, “You and the ass should be as one”. Just as the ass is beaten and does not speak, suffers injury and does not complain, so should it be with you, for the Psalm says, I was as a beast.’312 The end of the example. [162]  The example about two brothers in the same place313 should not be overlooked. It is as follows. ‘Two monks, brothers according to the flesh, were living together and the devil wanted to separate them from one another. It happened that the younger brother lit a candle and placed it on a candlestick. The devil knocked over the candlestick and the light went out; for this the older brother beat him angrily. But he repented, saying, “Be patient with me, brother, and I shall light it again.” And thus the devil was conquered by patience and a pagan priest heard how the demon had been overcome and he became a monk, saying, “Humility has overcome all the power of the Enemy, for I heard them saying, ‘When we assail monks, one of them turns away and repents and this destroys all our power.” ’ 310 VP v. 15.26 (PL 73: 959). 311 VP v. 15.30 (PL 73: 960). 312 Psalms 72: 23 (73: 22). 313 VP v. 15.89 (PL 73: 969).

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[163] Again, this short saying about true humility is found in the Lives of the Fathers.314 ‘An Old Man said that if anyone should ever say “Forgive me” and humble himself, he would burn the demons that tempted him.’ [164]  We have found this saying on the same topic recorded in the same place.315 Abba Pinuphius told one brother whom he wanted to admit to the monastery, ‘Humility is proved in these ways: first if the monk has subdued all his own desires; secondly, if he does not hide his deeds and thoughts from his superior; thirdly, if he leaves nothing to his own discretion but does everything according to the judgement of his superior; fourthly, if in all things he remains gentle in obedience and constant in the face of tribulation; fifthly, if he causes no one injury but patiently bears injuries done to him; sixthly, if he does nothing except according to the Rule; seventhly, if he does everything that he is told, even if he thinks the task lowly or demeaning; eighthly, if he pronounces himself inferior to all men; ninthly, if he guards his tongue and is not a chatterer; tenthly, if he is not facile and quick in laughter. For in such matters is true humility found.’ [165]  An example in The Jewel of the Priesthood can be quite valuable in encouraging humility.316 It is as follows. ‘The birth and decline of the human body and its condition in between are able to teach us a great deal when we understand the frailty of our earthly condition, as can be seen in the reply that Dionysius made to Alexander of Macedon. The king had asked, “What was I? What am I? What will I be?” The philosopher answered each question in turn, “Vile sperm, a vessel of dung and food for worms.”’ —  Let the preacher take care to use appropriate words. He may say ‘mud’ for ‘dung’, ‘a thing of small value’ for ‘vile sperm’. For if he says that when you were conceived you were a thing of small value, it will be understood well enough. Let us therefore take care to use these or similar words in matters of this sort.

314 VP v. 15.78 (PL 73: 967). 315 VP iv. 31 (PL 73: 836), ultimately from John Cassian, De Coenobii Institutis iv. 39 (PL 49: 193). 316 GE ii. 4 (ed. Brewer, 183); Gerald tells the same story in De principis instructione i, preface: Brewer et al., Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, viii. 5. The story and the phrases used by the philosopher become common from the late twelfth century onwards.

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Of indulgences317 [166]  I add here an example which can encourage people of virtue to love indulgences. There was once a friar of our order in Ireland, who was still living after my arrival in that country, a most renowned preacher whom the people followed from one neighbourhood to another because of the efficacy of his preaching. On one occasion he was preaching in Ulster, accompanied by Brother Donekan,318 who is still alive, and was carrying his preaching mission from one town to the next. A great crowd always followed them, not only for their preaching but because of the indulgence made available in lieu of penance.319 One common fellow, along with the others, followed them each day from place to place, taking with him what money he could afford, and he suffered this travail chiefly in order to obtain the great indulgences which they were then giving. But when the money which he had taken with him was all spent, he had to return home. One day, as he made his way home, he passed through a certain town and entered a particular house, where he sought and was given lodgings. The householder asked who he was, where his home was and where he was travelling from. He answered each question truthfully, saying that he had followed the preaching friars for such a long period and that he had so many indulgences of such great value, which he listed. When the man of the house heard this, he thought of his son who had recently died and said, ‘How well it would be for me if I had so many indulgences for my son who has just died!’ The man, speaking in a light-hearted and foolish way, said, ‘Indeed, sir, I will sell you all the indulgences for your son’s use.’ The other man said, ‘I will certainly buy them.’ He said, ‘In truth, I spent this amount in acquiring the indulgences. Give me the same amount plus a pot of beer to seal the bargain.’ The man agreed and the deal was struck. But lo! the following night, while his host slept, a spirit appeared to him in a vision at dawn, surrounded by a bright and radiant light, and spoke to him. While he wondered who this was, the spirit said, ‘I am your son and may you enjoy God’s blessing as a good father, for I was freed 317 Indulgences granted specified periods of remission from the penance which a confessor imposed upon a penitent. See N. Vincent, ‘Some pardoners’ tales: the earliest English indulgences’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 12 (2002), 23–58 and R. N. Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England: Passports to Paradise? (Cambridge, 2007). 318 Brother Donekan is also mentioned in LE 99. 319 For indulgences granted to those who listened to sermons preached by Franciscans in Ireland, see F. J. Cotter, The Friars Minor in Ireland from their Arrival to 1400 (New York, 1994), 78.

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from torments by the indulgences which you bought for me and now I go to Heaven.’ And he vanished. The father got up, unable to sleep for happiness, and with great joy in his heart he told his household what he had seen. But the foolish man who had sold the indulgences was still in the house and, when he heard this, wanted to return the money that he had received, saying that he wanted the indulgences back. The householder, however, refused and he went away without any indulgences, the benefits of which were carried off by the householder’s son. — Therefore, the living should not despise indulgences, whose benefits the dead deserve to receive in this remarkable fashion.320 This event became quite well known in Ulster, and Brother Donekan told Brother Robert of Dodington321 that this had happened while they were preaching, and the man of the house and the foolish vendor both also told them this.

Of injury done to the persons or property of the innocent [167]  Those who unjustly injure the innocent will in time feel the force of their actions. For they face an extremely powerful assailant, as the witness of Holy Scripture teaches and with which the example below clearly agrees. The widow mentioned above under the rubric ‘Of sloth’,322 who was cruelly murdered at Carrigtohill, as the sister whom I mentioned above told me, after her first appearance described under the same rubric, appeared to her again and said, ‘May you beware, may all my other friends take care not to harm or inflict punishments upon those who killed me or to try to call down evil upon them. You should know that I have a most excellent champion but he does not wish to strike yet.’ The surviving sister heard these words and wanted to know who this champion was. Her female curiosity was aroused and she said forcefully, ‘Sister, by the death of Christ, who is he?’ She answered, ‘The Nazarene.’ And she said no less forcefully, ‘But sister, by the death of Christ, who is that?’ For the woman, like a simple or uneducated person, did not know what she meant by the Nazarene; but the dead woman replied, ‘I can tell you no more.’ She then disappeared. She was there320 Theologians debated whether indulgences gained by the living could avail the dead or be transferred from one beneficiary to another, and indulgences for the dead were not sanctioned by the papacy until 1476: R. W. Shaffern, The Penitents’ Treasury: Indulgences in Latin Christendom, 1175–1375 (Scranton and London, 2007), 159–71. However, it is clear from exempla and other evidence that indulgences were seen as benefiting the dead from a much earlier period: Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 21–2. 321 See LE 9 above. 322 LE 62 above.

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fore greatly troubled and yearned to know who her sister’s champion was but she did not dare tell anyone what she had seen in case people only laughed at her simplicity. In the end she met me when I arrived at the church in Carrigtohill, as I mentioned above. In her simplicity she was actually quite frightened and she told me everything which her sister had said, saying, ‘Father, my heart is sorely afflicted by what my sister told me and I do not know what she meant when she said that her champion was the Nazarene.’ I then explained that the Nazarene is Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is so called because He stayed with His blessed mother in Nazareth until He revealed Himself to the world. So I said, ‘The Nazarene is Our Lord Jesus Christ. He is your sister’s champion because He wishes to fight for her and wreak terrible vengeance on all those who did her harm. But she said that He did not wish to strike yet because out of His great mercy He would allow them to come to repentance. Unless they do so swiftly, however, before they know it, He will strike them exceedingly hard and inflict painful deaths upon them and hurl them into the fire which will never be put out.’ The woman’s sister took great consolation from this. For these sisters and how one of them was murdered, see above under the heading ‘Of sloth’, in the second example.

[Of envy] [168]  He who seeks an effective example against envy can find what he is looking for in the Book of Numbers, chapter 16. This concerns the remarkable punishment visited upon Korah, Dathan and Abiram whom the earth swallowed alive because of their envy of Moses and Aaron. Preacher, note well the aforesaid chapter. [169]  St Augustine declares how vile a sin envy is in his book On Virginity:323 ‘The devil comes in two forms, pride and envy.’ The same saint says in his book On Christian Discipline:324 ‘May God keep the plague of envy from the minds of all men. Envy is a sin of the devil, but its mother is pride. Stifle the mother and there will be no daughter.’ [Of anger] [170]  In the Lives of the Fathers325 there is a saying of Abba Agathon about anger or wrath as follows: ‘Even if he were to raise the dead, an angry man would not please God.’ The end of the saying. 323 Augustine, De Virginitate 31 (PL 40: 413). 324 Augustine, De Disciplina Christiana 7 (PL 40: 673). 325 VP v. 10.13 (PL 73: 914).

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[171]  Again, we read this saying on anger in the Lives of the Fathers.326 ‘An Old Man said, “The passions arise in four ways: first from the heart, secondly from the face, thirdly from the tongue and fourthly from action. If a man can bear evil so that it does not enter his heart, it does not reach his face. If it reaches his face, let him guard his tongue so that he does not give voice to his anger. If he does voice his anger, let him take care that it does not result in blows, but soon subsides. For there are three types of man as regards the passions: there is the man who is willingly harmed or injured by someone and spares his neighbour, according to the nature of Christ; there is the man who does not harm or want to be harmed, according to the nature of Adam; and there is the man who harms or injures or commits slander or urges others to do harm, according to the nature of the devil.”’

[Of judgement] [172]  We have read in the Life of St John the Patriarch of Alexandria327 a remarkable example concerning the need to give judgement without delay. It is as follows. One day when the holy man was going out of the city to pray at the shrine of the holy martyrs John and Cyrus, a woman ran up to him crying out, ‘My lord, avenge me for I suffer a great injury at the hands of my son-in-law.’ Some members of the patriarch’s household said, ‘My lord, hear her case when you get back.’ But he said, ‘Who can say with certainty that I shall come back or that I shall be alive tomorrow? How will God receive my prayers if I disdain to listen to the poor?’ For this reason he did not wish to leave the city until he had done justice to the woman. [173]  An example in the little book on the miracles of the Glorious Virgin teaches us what mercy unjust judges may expect.328 For it is reported there that in Rome a man named Stephen was appointed a judge; he often perverted justice by accepting bribes and, by giving to some what they were not entitled to and by stealing goods from others, he judged many people unjustly. After a short time he died and, although he should have been damned according to his true deserts, he was set free by the prayers of St Praejectus the bishop and martyr, 326 VP iv. 76 (PL 73: 774). 327 Vita s. Johannis Elemosinarii 30 (PL 73: 366). 328 Source not identified, but see the fuller version of the story in the twelfth-century ‘Miraculum S. Praejecti episcopi Arvernorum ex Cod. Brux. 9119’, Analecta Bollandiana 2 (1883), 239–42, which sets the story during the reign of Emperor Henry IV (1056–1106). The story also occurs in the miracles of St Lawrence in Legenda Aurea, 494–5.

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to whom he had had a special devotion. He said that, when he was led to the judgement of the Most High Judge, the Lord gave judgement against him, saying, ‘How often he stole the property of others and took bribes and gave false judgement and sold the truth! It is fitting that he should go to the place of Judas the Betrayer.’ But St Praejectus prayed for him to the Lord and with the aid of Mary, the mother of God, he was freed and restored to life, accepting a period of thirty days to make good his penance. —  You see, unjust judge, what a severe judgement is in store for you. Judas the Betrayer awaits you so that you, who betray Christians, may receive the punishment of him who betrayed Christ. [174]  In the Lives of the Fathers we read that ‘one brother wanted to be converted but his mother forbade it.329 But he was not deflected from his intention, saying, “I want to save my soul.” She resisted but ­afterwards permitted it and he became a monk but he spent his life neglectfully. And it happened that his mother died and her son – the monk – grew ill. In a trance, he was snatched away to judgement and he found his mother with those who were being judged. When she saw him, she was amazed and said, “What is this, my son? Where are your fine words when you said that you wanted to save your soul?” Dumbfounded and speechless, he stood there not knowing how to answer his mother. Then he recovered himself and repented of his neglectful life, saying, “If I could not bear the reproaches of my mother, how shall endure the humiliation of facing Christ and the angels and all the saints on Judgement Day?”’ [175]  Again, a saying of Abba Elias, as we have read in the Lives of the Fathers, which has the same import:330 ‘I fear three things: when my soul shall leave my body, when I shall meet God and when sentence is pronounced against me.’ [176]  We have another remarkable example on the same subject from the Lives of the Fathers, where it is written thus.331 Abba Ammon said to someone who sought a saying332 from him, ‘Go and think in the way that men in prison think. For they ask, “Where is the judge? When will the judge come?” and they weep because they await their punishment. In the same way, the monk must always be vigilant and must chastise 329 VP v. 3.20 (PL 73: 863). 330 VP v. 3.4 (PL 73: 861). 331 VP v. 3.2 (PL 73: 860). 332 The Desert Fathers were often approached by their disciples or the laity for an edifying ‘word’ or saying.

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his soul, saying, “Woe is me, how shall I stand before the JudgementSeat of Christ, what account shall I give of what I have done?” And by thinking in this way you can be saved.’ The end of the example.

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—  Although this chapter expressly says that monks must always be vigilant, this is in fact necessary for every Christian, whoever he may be. [177]  As the Master says in the Histories,333 ‘Jerome found in the annals of the Hebrews that there are fifteen signs which will herald the Last Judgement. This is in the book of the same name. Whether these days will be consecutive or spread out over a period he does not say. On the first day, the sea will rise by forty cubits above the height of the mountains and stand erect like a wall. On the second day, it will fall so much that it can scarcely be seen. On the third, sea-monsters will appear on the surface of the ocean and their roaring will reach up to Heaven. On the fourth, the sea and the waters will burn. On the fifth, the grass and trees will give a bloody dew. On the sixth, buildings will tumble down. On the seventh, rocks will clash together. On the eighth, there will be a universal earthquake. On the ninth, the earth will be levelled. On the tenth, men will go out of their caves and will wander about as if they are mad and they will be unable to speak to one another. On the eleventh, the bones of the dead will rise and stand upon their tombs. On the twelfth, the stars will fall. On the thirteenth, the living will die so that they may rise with the dead. On the fourteenth, Heaven and earth will burn. On the fifteenth, there will be a new Heaven and a new earth and all people will rise again.’ There follow these words of the Master: ‘And Jesus added, For as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be,334 that is to say it will be sudden and full of light and the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the Heavens, that is in the sky. For the Lord will appear in the sky above the place where He ascended and before Him there will be the instruments of His Passion like a triumphant banner – the Cross, the nails, the lance. And the marks will be seen on His flesh so that they may see Whom they pierced and in the valley of Jehoshaphat335 every man will be judged, when the angels gather them together.’336 333 Peter Comestor, Hist. Schol. in Evang. 141 (PL 198: 1611). The text quoted by Comestor was attributed to Jerome throughout the later medieval period but it cannot be traced back further than the eleventh century: William W. Heist, The Fifteen Signs before Doomsday (East Lansing, 1952). 334 Matthew 24: 27. 335 A valley outside Jerusalem, believed to be where Christ would appear at the Last Judgement (Joel 3: 2). 336 Mark 13: 27.

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[178]  Now an example recorded in The Jewel of the Priesthood will show how awesome and fearful the Last Judgement will be.337 ‘There was in our own day in Piacenza in Italy a man possessed by a demon who was approached by a good man named Huginus and some others. The possessed man, or rather the demon within him, spoke fiercely but Huginus said, “Poor wretch, do you not believe in the Day of Judgement to come?” The demoniac said, “Ask me about anything else but do not ask me about that day.” But Huginus said, “In the name of the Living God, I adjure you especially about that day. You know that you will be damned on that day, so why do you do so many evil deeds with which you add to your sorrows and punishments?” He replied, “I know how quickly that day will come when the number of the angels is filled.338 That is why we try all we can to ensnare everyone so that the number will not be reached. For if the whole world were mine, I would give it away to put off the Day of Judgement for a single day.”’ —  O Lord Jesus Christ, if demons are so afraid of that day, what can we wretches know, apparently safe from danger in our bed of pleasure? Awake thou that sleepest!339 [179]  Of the judgement which we rightly fear Augustine says, while addressing the Lord in the sixth book of his Confessions:340 ‘Nothing called me back from the deep whirlpool of carnal pleasures but fear of Thy judgement to come, which never left my heart.’

[Of oaths] [180]  Brother W[illiam] of Kent, a holy man who was trustworthy in all things, told me that the wife of Adam, a burgess of Drogheda whom I myself knew well, was a good and virtuous woman; however, she was accustomed to swear more than one should. She came to him one day and said, ‘Brother William, last night I dreamt that I saw Our Lord Jesus Christ nailed to the Cross before me, bleeding and wounded, just as He was when He was crucified.341 When I saw this, I called out 337 GE i. 18 (ed. Brewer, 55). 338 i.e. the number of souls predestined to be saved; it was believed that when the number was reached, Judgement Day would come: Apocalypse (Revelation) 7: 4. 339 Ephesians 5: 14. 340 Augustine, Confessions vi. 16. 341 The idea that swearing wounds or disfigures Christ’s body is a commonplace in pastoral literature, often illustrated in art. See C. Woodforde, ‘A medieval campaign against Blasphemy’, Downside Review 55 (1937), 357–62 and F. Kemmler, ‘Exempla’ in context, 140–3.

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in great terror and revulsion, saying, “Lord, who has wounded Thee in this way? Who has injured Thee thus?” He answered, “You and your kind, who swear by My suffering and Passion all day long. You are the people who have wounded Me. You crucify Me and make Me bleed.”’ The end of the example. —  You see, Christian, how you injure Christ with your great swearings, with your unlawful oaths. Thus with your tongue do you make a lance and fashion sharp nails to pierce the body of Christ. [181]  You will find another example on this topic written in The Jewel of the Priesthood.342 Here is the example, which is written in these very words. ‘It is written that around the beginning of his reign the king of England, Henry II or his son Richard (I name them both and do not do not specify which one because such things can do damage if made public), loosed his best hawk at a heron for hunting as well as for enjoyment. When the hawk with its fleet wings had almost caught the heron as it strove for the heights, the king, as if certain of the capture, said, “By God’s eyes, by His throat, by the king’s evil,343 the bird will not be able to escape.” He was accustomed to swear in this way. When he had spoken, the heron turned about and quite miraculously changed from prey to predator and pierced the hawk’s head with its beak and, gouging out its brain, the unharmed and uninjured heron threw the dying hawk to the ground before the king.’ The end of the example. —  What does this tell you, Christian, what else can it be except that the flying devil will pierce the brain of those who swear and with a sharp beak kill their souls with everlasting and endless death? [182]  Another example on this topic is found in the same book as follows.344 ‘A certain man ate a goat which he had stolen from a neighbour who was also his godfather. When his wife quarrelled with him about this, he said, “I am not the godfather of the goat nor did I lift the goat’s son from the font.” But when he was accused by his neighbour, he sought to clear himself by swearing on the tomb of St Malo345 but, as he made his oath, the goat cried out loudly from his stomach and the miracle became well known throughout the region.’ The end of the example. 342 GE i. 54 (ed. Brewer, 161–2). 343 Scrofula, a swelling of the glands of the neck. It was believed that the kings of England and France could cure scrofula by touch. 344 GE i. 52 (ed. Brewer, 156). 345 For compurgation by oath, see above at LE 42, n. 95.

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—  Of course, if you note this example, what will it mean other than this, that perjury will cry out against you on the Day of Judgement as evidence for your damnation? [183]  A third example which also attacks this sin is written in the same book in these words.346 ‘When a certain young man from his own household had stolen a pair of iron greaves from Raymond, Earl Richard’s constable in Ireland,347 the whole of his household purged themselves of the crime by taking an oath on the crucifix in the church of Holy Trinity, Dublin. And not long afterwards the young man returned from England where he had fled. No one suspected him of the crime and, a slight and wretched figure, he prostrated himself at Raymond’s feet and offered to make good his fault and sought his pardon. He also openly and publicly confessed that he had suffered so much persecution from the Cross, for after his perjury it seemed to lie so heavily on his neck that afterwards he had been able to get no sleep or rest.’ [184]  ‘You will find in the Legend of St Nicholas the story of a man who borrowed money from a Jew, to whom he gave St Nicholas and his altar as a surety.348 In due course, the term of the loan expired; the Jew asked to have his money returned straightaway but the debtor falsely claimed that he had already given the money back. When he was standing at St Nicholas’s altar and was about to take his oath that this was true, he cunningly handed to the Jew a staff in which he had secretly hidden the money, so that the Jew would be holding it while he was taking the oath. And thus he swore that he had given the money back. This done, he was returning home rejoicing in a job well done, when he happened to fall asleep and a heavily laden cart ran him over and crushed him and broke his staff, which was lying by his side, and the coins inside popped out. And thus his punishment for perjury was made manifest and his deception was uncovered; the money was returned to the Jew who, having witnessed such a great miracle, was – along with his whole household – converted to the Faith and baptised.’ Moreover, the dead man was revived by the prayers of St Nicholas and those faithful persons who prayed for him and these two verses are sung about this in a chant in his honour:349 346 GE i. 52 (ed. Brewer, 157). 347 Raymond le Gros was the earl of Pembroke’s deputy in Ireland c.1173–76: Richardson and Sayles, The Administration of Ireland, 73. 348 GE i. 53 (ed. Brewer, 156). In Gerald’s version, the fraudulent debtor is not revived. 349 Chant for the Feast of St Nicholas. See Chevalier, no. 19244; the full text is printed in F. Procter and C. Wordsworth (eds), Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesie Sarum (3 vols, Cambridge, 1879–86), iii. 36.

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He raised a man from the dead at the fork in the road And a Jew was baptised at the sight of the gold.

(Of good words) [185]  An example about speech which is worth remembering is found in the Lives of the Fathers, where it is written thus.350 ‘Some of the fathers said that on one occasion, while the Old Men were sitting down and discussing pious matters, there was among them a man with the gift of second sight who saw angels moving their hands and washing the Old Men. As they turned to talk about mundane things, the angels disappeared and pigs covered in muck revelled among them and soiled them. When they started to talk about pious matters again, the angels returned and washed them.’ The end of the example. [186]  Another example is found in the same place as follows.351 God had granted one of the prominent Old Men the grace of seeing what others could not. He said that ‘some monks had once been sitting and talking of the holy scriptures, which concern the salvation of souls. Holy angels stood round about them rejoicing and smiling upon them; for they rejoiced that they spoke about God. However, when they spoke about something else, they immediately moved afar off and grew angry with them. And filthy pigs, full of disease, came and rolled among them. For demons in the form of pigs delighted at their empty chatter. In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin.’352 The end of the example. [187]  The blessed Gregory also recounts in the fourth book of the Dialogues a quite salutary example about vain or foolish chatter.353 ‘A man of venerable life, Felix bishop of Porto, was born and brought up in the Sabine region. He bore witness that there was a nun there who, while she was chaste as regarded the flesh, could not keep from garrulous and foolish chatter. She died and was buried in the church. That very night the guardian of the church saw in a vision that she had been dragged before the altar and cut in two; one part burned but the other remained untouched. He got up in the morning and when he told the monks and went to show them the place where she had been consumed by the fire, traces of the fire remained on the marble before the altar as if the woman had been burned there by a corporeal fire.’ 350 VP vi. 1.3 (PL 73: 993). 351 VP iii. 36 (PL 73: 762). 352 Proverbs 10: 19. 353 Gregory, Dialogues iv. 53 (ed. de Vogüé, iii. 178–9).

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[188]  Now we are warned by an example in the Lives of the Fathers how much honest speech advances us along the road to perfection.354 Once when the holy Abba Macharius was at prayer, a voice called out to him, ‘Macharius, you have not yet attained the merit of two women who live in the next city.’ When he heard this, the Old Man arose and went to them and, when he had found them, said, ‘Tell me what work you do.’ But they said, ‘Believe us, father, this night we have not been away from our husband’s beds. What work can we have?’ Then compelled by the Old Man’s questions, they said, ‘We are not related to one another in the worldly sense but it pleased us to marry two brothers according to the flesh. Today it is exactly fifteen years that we have both lived in this house and we do not know whether we have ever argued with one another or said a cross word to one another. We thought of entering a monastery for virgins but, when we asked our husbands, they would not allow us to do so. We therefore made a pact with God that as long as we lived no worldly speech would pass our lips.’ And the Old Man said, ‘In truth, there is no virgin, no married person, no monk or secular upon whom God does not bestow the Holy Spirit according to each person’s chosen way of life.’ The end of the example. [189]  Another example on the same topic follows thus.355 A monk said to one of the Old Men, ‘I desire to keep my heart pure.’ He answered, ‘How can we keep our hearts pure if our tongues have an open door?’ The end of the example. [190]  A third is found in the same place as follows.356 ‘Some monks once wanted to come to Abba Antony and they set forth from Scetis by boat and on board they found an Old Man who also wanted to go to Antony. The monks did not know him and they sat in the boat talking of the words of the fathers and of Holy Scripture and their manual work. The Old Man was silent throughout. When they came to port, they found out that the Old Man was also going to Abba Antony. When they arrived, Abba Antony said to them, “You found a good companion for the journey in this Old Man.” Then he said to the Old Man, “You have many good monks with you, abba.” The Old Man said to him, “They are good indeed but their house has no door. Whoever wishes may enter the stable and release the ass.” He said this because they said whatever came into their minds, even about pious matters.’ 354 VP vi. 3.17 (PL 73: 1013–14). The same story appears in LE 101. 355 VP vii. 11.27 (PL 73: 937). 356 VP v. 4.1 (PL 73: 864).

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(Of games which should not be permitted)357 [191]  I must not pass in silence over something remarkable, a powerful story which makes us loathe worldly games which I was told by Brother Bartholomew, a holy and trustworthy man of the Order of Preachers and a friar of long-established piety who was often entrusted with his order’s business.358 There was in our own day a priest in England, a handsome fellow, strong and easy-going and given to a life of pleasure. The priest found it pleasing and enjoyable to see wrestling matches and dances and so each year on the eve of his church’s feast-day, when the holiday was celebrated, he would say Matins at the beginning of the night with all due ceremony, as is the custom, and then go out to watch the wrestling and the dancing which always took place at night. On one occasion, however, he went out in his usual way on the vigil of the feast and came to the wrestling, where lo! horrible to relate, he saw two of the foulest demons sitting upon the two young men fighting in the ring, and every movement that they made during the course of the fight was controlled by them. The devil sitting on one man moved his arm and made him punch his partner. The demon sitting on the other man’s hip moved and according to the movement that he made the man tried to throw his opponent. What can I say? The demons moved the limbs of the men this way and that and the wrestlers did nothing that did not have its origin in their moves or their design. The priest saw this and was deeply afraid. Nevertheless he still went to the dance, where men and women mingled together dancing. And lo! he saw two demons sitting on each of the men and two on each of the women, one on each arm. For the demons controlled the arms and legs of each person, both male and female, in each move or turn which they made. What else? After some time, during which the demons had jerked them about unceasingly, he could see clearly that one demon, who was sitting on the arm of one of the men, took his hand, and another, who was sitting on the arm of a woman who was holding the man’s hand, took her hand and they led them away from the dance and took them to a ditch. When they got there, they set about the devil’s work for which the demon had led them there and acted out their shame. The priest 357 Thirteenth-century bishops repeatedly forbade dancing, wrestling, games and lewd singing in churchyards, all subjects mentioned in this section, sometimes on pain of excommunication. For discussion, see A. Brown, Church and Society in England, 1000–1500 (Basingstoke, 2003), 106–8. 358 Little suggests that this may have been Bartholomew of Tours, who attended the General Chapters held in London in 1263 and in Paris in 1269 when he was definitor for France. The definitor was an official elected to assist provincial or other superiors in the Order.

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therefore went to his bed terrified and, when he awoke, he found that he was most severely affected. In short, no hair remained on his head, no nails or skin on his body, and such a severe illness afflicted him that for a whole year he was unable to celebrate mass. A brother of their order, who was also the son of the priest, told these things to the friar mentioned above, who told me. The end of the example. —  You see, Christian, who leads those that frequent amusements of this sort, you see how they lead them and to what end they try to bring them. [192]  Again on the subject of unlawful games, I should not leave out what Brother Peter, who was at one time the companion of Concedus our visitor359 and who succeeded him in that office when he died, told me and certain other friars in Dublin. He said that in his homeland of Denmark there was a custom that when women lay in childbirth, the women from the neighbourhood would come to attend them and to perform their dances and unlawful songs. On one occasion it happened that when the women gathered around a woman who was giving birth and, according to the evil custom of the country, wanted to perform their lewd dances, they gathered a bundle of straw and fashioned it into a man with straw arms and put a hat and belt upon it and called it ‘bovi’ and then they performed their dance. Two of the women took the straw man and danced together and sang and, as was the custom, while they sang, they turned towards the doll in a lustful manner and said, ‘Sing bovi, sing bovi, why are you silent?’ And lo! the devil, who had power over the wretched women, replied in a fearsome voice, saying, ‘I shall sing.’ And immediately he shouted – not the doll, that is, but the devil within it – and gave forth such a dread noise that several of the women fell down dead. Others were struck by such dread and terror that they were weak for a long time and barely escaped with their lives. —  I therefore advise young people, male and female alike, to take care, to take care in what they do. For they enjoy their dances and their foolish songs in this life, but without doubt they can see from this example that their games are nothing to them but a preparation for everlasting death. It was for this reason that the holy [Sara]360 prayed to the Lord, ‘Lord, never have I joined with them in play.’ She, no doubt, looked on the evil of such games with an uneasy heart. 359 An official who conducted visitations to maintain discipline and correct abuses. 360 The manuscript has Hester regina (i.e. Esther) but the passage is actually from the prayer of Sara (Tobit 3: 17).

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[193]  Again, some examples written in the Summa on Vices show how hateful unlawful games are.361 When a certain knight in the course of a game swore by the eyes of God, his own eye fell from his head onto the chequerboard.362 And an archer, exceedingly angry because he had lost a game, fired an arrow up into the sky as if to avenge himself against God. At the same hour the following day, when he was sitting down to a game, the bloody arrow fell back down onto the gambler. [194]  I have found yet another memorable example on the same subject in The Jewel of the Priesthood, which the author relates in these words.363 ‘In our own day there was a priest in the area around Worcester in England who sinfully joined in the part of a song which is repeated over and over again and which they call the refrain. One festival night he had heard the song with its refrain all night long while the dancers circled the church. It was a matter to which he gave little thought but on the following day he stood at mass in his priestly robes and, instead of the greeting the people with “Dominus vobiscum” and so on, he sang out in a loud voice the English refrain “Swete lamman dhin are”;364 he was deservedly struck with profound shame at his sinful and remiss behaviour. In English the sentence means “My sweetest friend, your lover desires your favours”.’ The end of the example. — What do we learn from this if not that those who devote their ­attention to idiotic trash of this sort will be entirely disoriented at the end and will be in confusion for all eternity, because all the confusion of the present time is only a sign of the confusion at the end? And it is just that the kind of people who through their fatuous preoccupations forget to orient themselves to God should be entirely disoriented at the end.

361 Peyraut, Summa de vitiis iv. 2.15 and ix. 2.1: Guillelmi Peraldi summae, ii. 157 and 378. 362 For the association of gaming, swearing and blasphemy in pastoral literature, see R. Purdie, ‘Dice-Games and the Blasphemy of Prediction’, in J. A. Burrow and I. P. Wei (eds), Medieval Futures: Attitudes to the Future in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2000), 167–84. 363 GE i. 43 (ed. Brewer, 120). Gerald adds that the bishop of Worcester, William de Northolt (bishop 1186–90), forbade the singing of the song mentioned for the rest of his time as bishop. 364 The manuscript’s reading, ore, appears to be corrupt; I have given the GE reading of are.

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(Of lust) [195a] This other example is no less notable. As is written in the aforementioned book,365 a man reported that when he asked a virgin who led a most holy life what had brought her to this, she replied, ‘My father was a modest and holy man but physically weak and feeble; he was so quiet that those who did not know him thought that he had no voice. In contrast, my mother was enslaved by sins, extremely talkative, given to lust and other vices. She was never sick from her birth until her last day in this world. Meanwhile, it chanced that my father died, worn out by his many long illnesses, and straightaway the wind blew and rain and lightning and thunder prevented him from being buried for three days. Those living nearby said, “He was so great an enemy of God that the earth will not receive him.” When my mother died, however, the weather was very calm and the funeral proceeded without difficulty. But after her death I began to wonder at Vespers one day whose way of life I should imitate – that of my father, who lived quietly and soberly and whose whole life was taken up with illness and tribulation and when he died the earth would scarcely receive his body; or that of my mother, who lived so much ensnared by lust and indecency and who ended her life unscathed and made such a fortunate end. And I thought, It is good to live for pleasure and lust like my mother. While I was thinking in this way, a huge figure of terrible aspect stood before me and said, “Come and see which life you want to choose.” And he took me by the hand and led me into a huge field, where there were great joys and great happiness and indescribable beauty. There my father came to meet me and he embraced me and called me his daughter. I asked him if I could stay with him and he said, “Not yet. But if you follow in my footsteps, you will come here soon.” Then he took me to a loathsome place, where my mother was burning with fire, where there was gnashing of teeth and worms and serpents, where she was in agony, up to her neck in a furnace, and I saw her gnashing her teeth in pain. For the furnace was burning with fire and I smelt the terrible stench of the worms. And she said to me, “Woe is me, my daughter, for I suffer these torments because of the things I did. Look what great torments I suffer because of my small sins and little indiscretions.” I turned these things over in my heart and chose to imitate my father’s virtues.’ 365 Actually adapted from VP vi. 1.15 (PL 73: 995–8). For discussion of this common story, see F. C. Tubach, ‘Exempla in the decline’, Traditio 18 (1962), 410–11 and ‘A Girl’s Vision of Heaven and Hell (V 511,2): a Mediaeval Exemplum’, IV International Congress for Folklore-Narrative Research in Athens (1.9–6.9.1964): Lectures and Reports, ed. G.A. Megas (Athens, 1965), 576–80.

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[195b] Another example on the same topic occurs in the same book.366 ‘Abba Moses said, “Fornication is born of these four things: through an abundance of food and drink, long sleep, an idle and pleasant life and going about in fine clothes.”’ [195c] There is now a memorable saying on the same subject which may also be useful.367 An Old Man said that the eyes of animals ‘are naturally placed so that they of necessity always gaze upon the ground and can never look up to Heaven. Thus it is with the soul of anyone who delights in a sweet and voluptuous life; once one has sunk down to the feast of lust, it is difficult to raise one’s eyes to God or know anything worthy of God.’ [196] I must not pass silently over the example of Pachon in the same book; it is reported in this way.368 ‘I was travelling through the desert and visited each of the holy fathers over a three-day period and among them was Pachon, whom all the fathers in the desert held in great respect. When I confessed my lustful thoughts, he said, “Do not let this worry you, for you do not suffer because you are lax. For the place where you dwell and the difficult life there bears witness on your behalf, for no women ever come there; this has happened rather because of the jealousy of the devil, who also hastens to deceive men’s souls. Behold! you see that I am now an old man; I have spent forty years in this cell with the help of Christ’s grace busying myself with the salvation of my soul and I endure temptation even now.” This was completely true, because for twelve years after the fiftieth year it did not spare me night or day. Therefore I went out and walked around in the desert and I found a hyena’s cave369 and I lay down there naked all day so that the wild beasts would come out and devour me. Then evening came according to the Scripture: Thou hast appointed darkness and it is night370 and the beasts came out, male and female, and smelt me from head to foot and licked me all over and left me. So I thought that God had spared me and I returned to my cell. But after a few days the same temptation assailed me more strongly than before. For a demon changed himself into an Ethiopian girl whom I had sometimes seen in 366 VP iii. 58 (PL 73: 769). 367 VP vi. 1.8 (PL 73: 994). 368 Palladius, Historia Lausiaca 29 (PL 73: 1130–1); for the original Greek text, see The Lausiac History of Palladius, ed. C. Butler (2 vols, Cambridge, 1898–1904), ii. 75–6. 369 I have translated the PL reading, hyenae (hyena); this is also the reading of the Greek original. The manuscript’s leene (lioness) appears to be a misreading of [h]iene, perhaps suggested by the Biblical passage quoted which goes on to mention lions. 370 Psalms 103 (104): 20–21.

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my youth as she collected ears of corn at harvest-time. She sat upon my knee and I was greatly aroused; so I angrily punched her and slapped her on the cheeks and the apparition immediately disappeared, but for two years I could not bear the stench of the hand with which I struck what appeared to be her face. So I despaired of my salvation. I heard an inner voice saying, “Go, Pachon, fight the fight. It is for this that I have allowed you to suffer these things – not so that you should think otherwise or be praised for your virtues, but for you to recognise your weaknesses and not trust the way that you live and be placed under authority and be humble, putting your trust in God’s help.” Thus made certain of the help of the mercy of God, I returned to my cell, passing the rest of my days in peace.’ The end of the example. [197] The blessed Gregory also tells a salutary story about lust in Dialogues book 4 as follows.371 ‘A dread thing happened in the province of Valeria. The bishop of Syracuse, a man of holy life named Maximianus, who for a long time was the head of my own monastery in this city, used often to tell this story. On Easter Saturday, a most sacred day, a certain official there acted as godfather at a girl’s baptism. After the fast, he went home and became very drunk on a lot of wine and asked that the girl should remain with him and that night he was the cause of her damnation – something which it is horrible even to mention. In the morning he arose and the guilty man decided to go the baths, as if the water in the baths could wash away the stain of his sin. So he went there, washed and began to worry if he should go to church. If he did not go on so great a feast, he would be ashamed before men; if he did go, he feared the judgement of God. But the desire to avoid embarrassment before men overcame him and he went off to church. He stood there shaking with fear, at every moment wondering when he would be snatched by an unclean spirit and tortured in front of the whole congregation. He was deeply afraid but nothing happened to him while mass was being celebrated. He came out of church a happy man and on the following day he confidently entered the church; and it happened that for six days in a row he went to church happy and untroubled, thinking that either the Lord had not seen his sin or had mercifully forgiven what he had seen. But on the seventh day he died without warning. And when he had been placed in the tomb, for a long time everyone saw a flame rising from his sepulchre, and it burned his bones until it consumed his whole tomb and the earth, which had been piled up to form his burialmound, was levelled. In doing this, Almighty God showed the hidden 371 Gregory, Dialogues iv. 33 (ed. de Vogüé, iii. 108–12).

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suffering of his soul when, before human eyes, the fire consumed his very body. In this way God affords those who hear of this a salutary example, which shows us how a living and feeling soul suffers for his sin if unfeeling bones are themselves burnt to nothing by the punishment of so great a fire.’ The end of the example. — You see, preacher, how this wretched man corrupted his own spiritual daughter on holy Easter Saturday and on account of his sin received an unheard of and miserable punishment. Of course, if the example is used in this way, it will move people less because in the entire audience there will scarcely be one who has ever committed such an act or who, indeed, has even heard of such an act being committed and thus the example will have no effect on people. Now since it is clear that the man sinned through lust or committed the sin of lust, let the whole example be couched in terms of a man who, one drunken night, committed the sin of lust with a certain woman and thus it will be clear to your audience, the essential truth of the story will be retained and the hearts of your hearers will be shaken with fear. [198]  The same author recounts another dread example which serves the same theme.372 ‘There is also present with us our venerable brother Venantius, the bishop of Luna, a most noble and truthful man, who attests that he knew personally and his men witnessed for themselves what they say recently happened in Genoa. For there, they say, a man named Valentinus, who had been protector of the church of Milan, died. He was a most lascivious man, full of all sorts of follies and was buried in the church of St Syrus the martyr. But in the middle of the night voices were heard in the church, as if someone was being violently pulled and dragged outside. The watchmen came running and saw some hideous spirits, who had bound Valentinus’s feet together and were dragging him out of the church while he was shouting and yelling as loud as he could; they were terrified and returned to their beds. In the morning, however, they opened the tomb in which Valentinus had been placed; but they did not find the body there but in another tomb and its feet were bound together as they had been when the corpse was dragged from the church.’ The end of the example. —  Although this wretched man was full of all sorts of follies, he was nevertheless also lascivious, that is to say lustful; therefore the whole example can be used as concerning a lustful man if you preserve the essential truths. In this way the people hearing the story will receive a salutary lesson. 372 Gregory, Dialogues iv. 55 (ed. de Vogüé, iii. 180–2).

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[199]  I must not be silent about what Brother Nicholas of Wexford told me and several other brethren in Dublin on the same topic. He said that a poor man, who was mentioned in Part One above,373 who on many occasions had had sex with his own sister, was struck down by a serious illness and was close to his last. While he lay as if dead, he was taken to be hurled down into Hell because, prevented by the severity of his illness, he could not obtain God’s forgiveness or make his confession; however, he was snatched back and restored to life through the help of the Virgin on account of some service that he had done her. Therefore, restored to life and health, he came to the friar and devoutly confessed his sins. Of course, his sin was not hidden; on the contrary, the man was so notorious that he could not remain anywhere for long. He told the friar the pains to which he saw the lustful condemned in Hell. There was a huge pit, broad and deep, filled to the brim with the fiercest of fires. Lo! on one side in the fiery pit stood men who were on fire, indeed they seemed to be nothing but flames; on the other stood burning women, who glowed all over like iron left in the fire. Each man and woman held a fiery whip the size of a threshing-flail and with the burning flails they rained blows upon each other in the fire in which they burned and glowed. The men and women beat one another without ever pausing or taking any rest, and yet they will have it worse on the Day of Judgement when their bodies and souls will be thrown together into the eternal fire which will never go out and Isaiah’s prophecy will be fulfilled: garments mixed with blood (that is the body, which is the clothing of the soul, is stained with blood, which is the bloody sin of lust) shall be with burning (that is with the soul with which he sinned) and the fuel of fire,374 for as he fed the fire of lust in the flesh, he will doubtless feed the infernal fire of Hell with his flesh for ever. For this material, see above under the rubric ‘On avarice’, example one375 and under the rubric ‘On gluttony’, example five.376 [200]  This attack upon this sin is found in The Jewel of the Priesthood as follows.377 ‘On the passage in the Second Epistle of Peter, Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, He condemned them with an

373 For Brother Nicholas of Wexford and another version of the same story, see LE 46 above. 374 Isaiah 9: 5. 375 LE 72. 376 The reference given is to LE 156, but LE 157 is probably intended. 377 GE ii. 3 (ed. Brewer, 180).

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overthrow,378 one commentator says: “He wanted to preserve the region round about as an example of the punishment of ancient times. For the most beautiful apples grow there, which those who see them want to eat; but if they pick the fruit, it falls apart and turns into ash and gives off smoke as if it were still burning.379 For the fire which once punished the Sodomites shows that the wicked are going to suffer without end; that their land continues to smoke, that its finest fruits contain ashes and corruption shows that, although carnal pleasure delights the foolish, in matters which cannot be seen it retains nothing for itself except the smoke of their torments rising up for ever and ever.”’380 You will find these words in two glosses.381 The end of the example. —  However, what is said here of the Sodomites may be described as happening to certain men who were slaves to vile lust, which is a more fitting and suitable expression to use in preaching. [201]  Moreover, in the same book, The Jewel of the Priesthood,382 are found the two following attacks upon lust. The first is this. ‘When the beautiful and notorious prostitute Lais offered herself to Diogenes and asked a small price for her shame, he replied, “I will not buy shame at so high a price.” It follows that if a heathen philosopher, who did not belong to the Faith, shunned the defiling act because of the shame which follows the brief and transitory act, how much more must the Christian shun every vile desire of the flesh to avoid everlasting punishment, when his wretched spirit is tormented by the pains of Hell?’ [202] Another follows on immediately.383 It is as follows. ‘If the philosopher, who was lacking in faith and charity but led by reason alone, declined to commit carnal acts, saying, “If I knew that the gods 378 2 Peter 2: 6. 379 See Wisdom 10: 6. 380 Bede on 2 Peter 2: 6 (PL 93:76), which is quoted in the Glossa Ordinaria (PL 114: 691–2) on the same passage. For the ‘fruit of Sodom’, see also Augustine, City of God xxi. 5, 8. 381 This sentence does not appear in Gerald of Wales. The phrase ‘two glosses’ may refer to two consecutive sections of the Glossa Ordinaria, on different words in the Biblical text; alternatively the two glosses may be the Glossa Ordinaria and Bede’s original work. 382 GE ii. 5 (ed. Brewer, 185) and ultimately from Aulus Gellius i. 8, where the wise man is named as Demosthenes; Gerald himself gives the name as Demosthenes at GE ii. 1 (ed. Brewer, 172–3). For other occurrences, which are common, see Little, 155 and J. Hinton, ‘Notes on Walter Map’s De Nugis Curialium’, Studies in Philology 20 (1923), 455–6; see also Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium, ed. and trans. M. R. James, rev. C. N. L. Brooke and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1983), 304. 383 GE ii. 5 (ed. Brewer, 185).

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would forgive me and that men would not know what I did, I would still disdain to sin”, how much more should the Christian, who is rooted and founded in faith, turn away from acts of lust, not only to follow after purity but also to avoid everlasting punishment and attain the glory of Heaven?’ [203] Some other examples written in the same book should not be overlooked.384 The first is this and it is written as follows. ‘It concerns a man who arranged a night-time assignation with a certain hostess. At the exact moment of her arrival, he seemed to see a large toad swallowing his right hand, which by chance was hanging out of the bed as he slept. He was completely terrified and sat up straight in bed and, when he tried to pull his hand away, the hostess was holding it tight in her own hands. After this salutary warning, he came to his senses and drove the noxious animal away and dismissed the woman.’ [204] A second example follows immediately afterwards, in these words.385 ‘There is also a story about a nun who cast her eyes upon a clerk whom she chanced to see through the window as he passed by. She at once burned with such a passion for him that she could think of nothing else while at prayer or attending mass. She was so tormented by the strength and distressing nature of this temptation that she had little power to resist, but as best she could she fortified herself against the assaults of the flesh with prayers and the sign of the Cross. Then one night a young man appeared to her in her sleep who wanted – it seemed to her – to have sexual intercourse with her. At first she struggled with this and then used reason to resist her lustful feelings; when she considered the matter carefully, it seemed that the youth was not only of an unnatural size but did not appear to be human at all. Terrified at the sight of him, she leapt out of bed and with a manly courage cut him in two and killed him with a scythe which, it seems, was hanging in the dormitory. There immediately issued from him a foul stench of a kind that she had never smelt before. The strength of the smell awoke her and, whenever afterwards she thought of the dream, she seemed to smell the stench. Thus through God’s fortifying grace she was granted a warning vision and was cured.’ [205]  A third example follows straight after the last in the same place as follows.386 ‘There was a monk who went to an orchard where he had 384 GE ii. 11 (ed. Brewer, 222). 385 GE ii. 11 (ed. Brewer, 222–3). 386 GE ii. 11 (ed. Brewer, 225), and ultimately from Vita s. Thaisis i (PL 73: 661).

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arranged to meet a girl. They went from place to place and had found a rather secluded spot, when the girl said, “We have gone far enough. No one except God has seen us here.” The monk said, “Does God see us here?” She answered, “Yes, but no one else does.” The monk was immediately stricken with compunction and abandoned her and went back. “It is true,” he said. “We should fear much more being seen acting sinfully by our Creator than by our fellow men.”’ [205b] This example is also found written in the same book.387 ‘A soldier, who had passionately loved a girl for a long time, was hoping that she would come to his bed in the night as they had arranged. While he lay awake, anxiously awaiting his desire, a greyhound bitch which had had her puppies under a bench came sniffing round for scraps and bones which had fallen from the table. She paused by the bed and the soldier, thinking that it was the girl, put out his arms as if to embrace her. But the bitch, fierce in the defence of her pups, immediately ripped at his arm with her teeth and inflicted a serious injury upon him. The soldier, however, was quick to avenge himself and grabbed the sword which lay next to him at the head of the bed. At that very moment the girl left her own bed and tiptoed along to the soldier’s bed as promised. Now he, remember, was expecting the bitch, not the virgin, and all his love had turned to pain and all his lustful thoughts to anger and revenge. Thinking that he was striking the dog, he raised his sword and ran the girl through with his blade.’ The end of the example. —  See how our cunning enemy meddles with us in suggesting these sinful actions. He not only seeks our souls in their due time but greedily snatches away our bodies by precipitate and sudden death so that he may rage furiously against them both. May anyone enslaved by sins of this sort beware lest, unless they very quickly repent, if I may use the Saviour’s words, they all likewise perish.388 [206]  It will be useful to place here for ease of recall what has been handed down in different places in Holy Scripture to make us abhor this sin. Of course, we read in Genesis that on account of this sin all humankind except for eight souls was destroyed.389 In the same book you will also find that because of the sin of the flesh seven cities and their inhabitants were burned and consumed by fire and brimstone streaming down from Heaven.390 Moreover, in the Book of Judges we 387 GE ii. 11 (ed. Brewer, 226). 388 Luke 13: 5. 389 Noah’s Flood (Genesis 7). 390 The destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah and other cities (Genesis 19).

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read that because of the sin committed with a single woman in a single night there were slain 65,000 fighting men and more, not counting their wives and little ones, so the number of those killed for that sin can be reckoned at least 100,000.391 The end of the example. —  But how shall anyone flee the judgement of God, who has squandered his whole life in this vile sin and has not heeded the judgement that God will bring against fornicators and adulterers?392 —  Let the preacher take care that he does not openly name the sin which caused the flood or the sin of the Sodomites; instead, let him call them both either the sin of the flesh or the sin of lust, which is of course the truth. [207]  On the same topic I have also found this among the examples of Deodatus.393 A young man loved a girl of noble stock outside marriage and one night, when he came to the chamber where she lay and tried to enter in his usual way, she saw him and cried out, ‘Ah! Ah! Ah! Flee, demon!’ For it really seemed to her that he was a demon. He went away stricken with fear. And when he got back to his horse, the horse bolted. He called a dog which he owned which, also stricken with a similar fear and revulsion, fled headlong. Then, realising that he was not in a state of grace, he took himself off to visit a hermit to tell him what had happened. When the hermit saw him, he adjured him to leave as if he were the devil. He was unwilling to do this but asked him to hear his confession while averting his eyes. This he did. When he had made his confession, the hermit looked at him once more and found that his normal appearance had returned. This is the fate of the lustful who are reluctant to confess their sins and are made like demons. A friar from Wycombe left this example in his sermons. [208] Brother Jordan, who was once master of the Order of Preachers,394 [has left] another example on the same matters. When he had asked a demon which was speaking through the mouth of a possessed man about his nature, that is the nature of the devil, he eventually asked him this question: ‘Why,’ he said, ‘do you delight so much in the foulness of sins and especially of lust?’ [He replied,] ‘In a great city there are men whose job is to clean the latrines. They suffer the terrible stench but they do so willingly because of the high wages which they receive 391 i.e. in the fighting which followed the rape of a Levite’s wife (Judges 19: 22–20: 48). 392 See Hebrews 13: 4. 393 See also LE 98 and 149 above. 394 Compare VF iv. 15.5 (ed. Reichert, 196–7), where the reference is to a university master who cleans the Paris sewers.

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for this. Thus we smell the foulness of sinful souls but we rejoice in the reward, because the sinful soul is our meat and drink.’

(Of merchants)395 [209]  We have read a noteworthy example in the Life of St John the Patriarch as follows.396 A ship’s captain suffered a grave loss at sea and with many tears begged the holy man for the grace of his compassion. He told him to take five pounds in gold and he bought goods with it and put them in his boat. Soon afterwards he suffered a shipwreck and lost the merchandise. He did not, however, lose the vessel. So he approached the holy man once more and, presuming upon his charity, said, ‘Take pity on me as God took pity on the world.’ The patriarch said, ‘Trust me, my brother, if you had not mixed that money with the money of the Church, you would not have been shipwrecked.’ And he gave him another ten pounds in gold. He again bought merchandise and set sail and a storm blew up and he was shipwrecked and lost everything, including the ship itself. However, their lives were saved. In his despair and anguish he wanted to kill himself. But God took pity on him and revealed this to the patriarch who summoned the wretched man. When he saw him covered in dust and his clothes in tatters, he said, ‘May Almighty God have pity on you. For I believe that from this day you will not suffer another shipwreck. This happened to you because you are not the rightful owner of the ship.’ He soon ordered one of the ships which served the Most Holy Church to be handed over to him filled with 20,000 bushels of corn. He took the ship and set sail, but for twenty days and nights the sailors were unable to find their way, whether they steered by landmarks or by the stars; the helmsman, however, could see the patriarch helping him, saying, ‘Do not fear. You are on the right course.’ He saw this in the spirit. Therefore after twenty days they appeared in the British Isles and they disembarked and found that there was a great famine there. The impoverished citizens blessed God for the relief which they had received and offered the captain a certain amount of money or a particular weight of pewter for each bushel. He chose half of the one and half of the other and returned a wealthy man. The end of the example. 395 Merchants were frequently criticised by canonists and others as men who were motivated solely by greed, made unjustified profits and were tainted with usury. They also swore copiously in order to seal bargains and conducted business on Sundays and other holy days. See Baldwin, Masters, i. 261–311 and M. Haren, Sin and Society in Fourteenth-century England: A Study of the Memoriale Presbiterorum (Oxford, 2000), 163–170. 396 Vita s. Johannis Elemosinarii 7 (PL 73: 346–7).

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—  Let the cheating merchant take care how he grows rich; for either he will receive a visitation in this life and lose his worldly goods to his ultimate profit or he will be visited in the life to come, so that he will lose both himself and his goods for eternity, unless he repents, for he has swallowed down riches [and he shall vomit them up again].397 [210] An attack on evil merchants can be based on the action of Constantine the Great,398 the first Christian emperor. For it is recorded in the Book of Excerpts399 that he ‘enacted a law prohibiting crucifixion, which was then in use among the Romans, and ordered the sign of the Cross to appear on the coinage.’ Now, let us consider these words and we will see what merchants may learn from them. For the cross used to be the punishment for theft and it was then made the design and ­decoration for coins; and here is a lesson for merchants who buy and sell with coins. They learn that in their dealings they must have before their eyes Him Who suffered death on the Cross for our sake and Whose Cross is engraved on the coinage; otherwise, just as the cross has changed from a punishment for thieves to a design for the coinage used by merchants, they will themselves exchange the cross on the coinage for the cross of thieves in Hell, that is for the gibbet of Hell, so they may be most wretchedly nailed up as the vilest of those who steal from the Lord. Let them be nailed up and damned everlastingly, as it says in Ecclesiasticus chapter 5: confusion and shame is upon the thief.400 For such false merchants are thieves, who with coins fraudulently snatch the goods of others, as other thieves do.

(Of the mercy of man) [211] An example which commends man’s mercy towards his ­neighbour was related to our brethren by Brother Geoffrey Blund, a prominent member of the Order of Preachers, who is now and has for many years been their lector and who was for some years the vicar provincial for Ireland.401 He related this example in a sermon before the

397 Job 20: 15. 398 Constantine, emperor 306–337, who converted to Christianity in 312. 399 Hugh of St Victor, Liber Excerptionum viii. 1 (PL 177: 255). 400 Ecclesiasticus 5: 17. 401 The vicar provincial was responsible to the prior provincial of England for the Dominican houses in Ireland. This office is recorded in Ireland from 1256, and an independent Irish province was not created until 1484: W. A. Hinnebusch, The Early English Friars Preachers (Rome, 1951), 209–10.

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people. In the forest which King Richard created near Winchester,402 where Brother Geoffrey said that he had also been, there was a knight who used to indulge his love of hunting, despite a royal command forbidding this. He was spotted by the foresters, brought before a court, successfully prosecuted and deprived of all his land. When the king was beyond the seas and he could find no remedy in England, he decided to go to the king and beg for his grace, which he did. But it is well known that those who seek grace in the courts of princes need men to help them and to speak in their favour. When the knight came to the court, he had no human help but divine aid did not fail him. For Our Lord helped him and behaved in a most sweet manner towards him; for in the past the man had done things which were most pleasing to the Lord. [His father had been killed by a certain knight] and, in the manner of worldly men, he plotted to attack and kill him. One Good Friday he happened to find his father’s murderer on the road in a place which offered him the chance of revenge. He raged against him and threatened to kill him but the other man humbled himself before him and begged him, in the name of Christ Who died on the Cross for the sake of mankind on that day, to take pity on him and spare him. When he begged him in the name of Our Lord’s Passion, he was moved to mercy and mercifully forgave him the death of his father out of his love for Christ Who died for us and let him go in peace. He did not set great store by this action but God gave great weight to it, as He made clear. For when the man came to the king to ask for mercy, one day he entered a chapel where the king was attending mass. He was standing behind the king in the lower part of the chapel and, when they reached the Agnus Dei403 and the pax404 was offered to the king, there was not any nobleman nearby to whom he could offer it. So the king looked behind him to offer the pax to someone there and he saw the knight kneeling before the Cross and the image of the Crucified turning towards him as if to a friend. The king saw this and was amazed but concealed this 402 The New Forest was in fact created by William the Conqueror. Perhaps ­significantly, other versions of the example set the story in the time of Richard I: Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard (RS, 7 vols, 1872–83), iii. 213–5 and Oxford, Balliol College MS 228 fol. 309v (printed in Little, 156). 403 ‘Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy’: a phrase from the mass. 404 The pax was the kiss of peace exchanged by members of the congregation during mass. From the twelfth century onwards, the kiss of peace was often conveyed by means of a pax-brede or osculatory, usually a small plate with a representation of the Crucifixion. This was kissed first by the celebrant and then in turn by each person who received it.

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until mass was over. When mass had been celebrated and the king was leaving, the knight fell at his feet and begged for his grace and mercy. When the king asked who he was and what his suit was, he explained what he had done and why he had been stripped of his estate. The king, who for the time being pretended not to show mercy, which was in fact his intention, asked if he knew of anything that he had done for Christ which would have pleased Him. He said no. When the king urged him to think if he had ever done such a thing, he remembered how he had forgiven the man who killed his father and said to the king, ‘In truth, my lord, I can remember only one thing which I have done for the love of Christ Who was crucified for us – I spared the man who killed my father.’ And he told him the whole story. And the king said, ‘For the love of Him for Whom you showed mercy and forgave the man who killed your father, I return all your lands to you.’ And that is what he did. — From this example we can see that those who show mercy to their enemies deserve the friendship and help of God. Thus it is written, Blessed are the merciful [for they shall obtain mercy].405 [212]  I have found a quite similar story recorded among the common examples as follows.406 There were in Italy two knights, the greater and more powerful of whom had castles, as they do in that country. A great quarrel arose between them and the less powerful knight one day seized his opportunity, broke out of his own small castle, rushed headlong at his enemy and killed him in front of his men. Then, returning unscathed, he closed his castle gates and remained in the fortress. But the son of the murdered knight and his kin waited for him to come out so that they could kill him and show him no mercy. Now, on Good Friday that year he saw from the battlements men from the surrounding country hurrying to church barefoot, as is the custom, and he thought that he would do the same, even if he were killed as a result. He therefore went down and left the castle and made his way towards the church like the others. And behold! the son of the dead knight saw this and rushed upon him and seized him, intending to kill him in revenge for his father’s death. The knight realised his desperate predicament but could find no way of escape. He therefore humbled himself before his adversary and asked and begged him, in the name of the goodness and death of Jesus Christ Who died for us on that day, that he should forgive him for 405 Matthew 5: 7. 406 Ultimately from Peter Damian, De frenanda ira 5 (PL 145: 655); compare also Vita s. Johannis Gualberti 2–3 (AASS July iii. 328). The ‘common examples’ are also quoted in LE 9, 106 and 157 above.

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the death of his father. The young man, moved by the Holy Spirit and this saving greeting or adjuration, mercifully forgave him his father’s death. And when they went to church together to worship at the Cross and the young man knelt to kiss the Cross, the image of the Crucified broke loose from the nails in His hands and feet and raised Himself up to receive his kiss, as if in recognition of the mercy which, for His death, the man had shown to the knight who was his enemy.

(Of mindfulness of death) [213] One must not pass silently over what Brother Nicholas of Aachen, who was at one time the visitor for Ireland, told us, that is to say told many brothers in Cork, about an emperor of Germany called Henry, who is now called St Henry in that country.407 He said that there was a young duke of a certain duchy in Germany. The duke, I say, was young, as if he had recently come into the duchy by hereditary right. On one occasion, when there was no indication that anyone else was there, the duke heard a voice saying to him, ‘After six.’ He wondered what this could mean and decided in his heart that this could be nothing other than the Lord warning him that after six days he would die. So what did he do? He immediately went to confession and cleansed his heart and for six days in a row he busied himself with prayer and almsgiving and his whole heart was entirely devoted to works of this sort, for the man confidently expected to die after six days. But lo! the six days passed and even the seventh […]408

407 St Henry II, emperor of Germany 1014–24, who was canonised in 1146. The story is found in Adalbert, Vita s. Henrici II imperatoris 2 (AASS July iii. 723 and MGH SS iv. 792). 408 The rest of the text is missing. According to Adalbert, Henry realised on the seventh day that he was not going to die on the sixth day after the vision and then thought that he would die in the sixth month after it. This did not happen either. He continues: ‘And when he had completed the whole period of six years and the first day of the seventh came round, he was consecrated emperor. Then he realised that this was the import of his vision and gave thanks to God Who had graciously revealed his elevated status to him’.

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SELECTED EXEMPLA FROM THE CAMBRIDGE DOMINICAN COLLECTION [4]  Brother Jordan of venerable memory,1 the master of the Order of Preachers, described in a sermon how a deacon of holy life held in pious affection an anchoress’s servant-girl on account of her virtuous life. When she fell ill and died, the deacon desired to come to the aid of the girl’s soul and in his heart he secretly and silently wished that God should grant for the freeing of her soul the indulgences which he had obtained by preaching and in other ways. So it happened not long afterwards that the dead girl appeared to the anchoress whom she had served while alive. She was smiling radiantly and when the anchoress asked how she was, she said, ‘Very well.’ And she said, ‘Thank the deacon, because he freed me from Purgatory with the indulgences which he granted to me.’2 [18] A certain virtuous and reliable religious told me that on one occasion when St Edmund the archbishop of Canterbury3 was journeying to a particular place with his household and his staff were busying themselves with the necessities of life, the saint walked alone in a meadow4 deep in meditation and prayer. And while he was alone there, a boy appeared to him and said, ‘Edmund, speak to me!’ But he pretended not to hear and did not make any reply. So the child again spoke to him boldly and clearly, ‘Edmund, speak to me!’ Then Edmund answered him gently, for his speech was gentle, ‘Good little boy, go and play.’ And the boy said to him, ‘Do you not recognise me, Edmund? 1 Jordan of Saxony, master-general of the Dominican Order 1222–37. Forte suggests that the author may have heard the story from Jordan himself, who visited England in 1229/30. 2 For the transfer of indulgences from one person to another and their application to the use of the dead, see LE 166; compare the story of a Dominican transferring his merits to a dying girl in DC 100 below. 3 Edmund of Abingdon, archbishop of Canterbury 1234–40, who was canonised in 1246. The surviving Lives of St Edmund set the story in his schooldays at Oxford, rather than during his archiepiscopate as here: Lawrence, St Edmund, 101, 225–6 and The Life of St Edmund, 120–1. Two sermons of Robert Rypon, an Oxford-trained theologian and Benedictine monk who died c.1419, set the story in ‘the Cowmede’ at Oxford: Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, 73, citing BL, Harley MS 4894 fols 42v and 47r. 4 I have translated the manuscript’s reading of pratello; Forte prints procello (‘storm’) in error.

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Look again at my face.’ Then, in amazement, Edmund looked again at the child’s face and saw that it was beautiful beyond all human knowledge and written upon it were the words ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’.5 And the child spoke again saying, ‘You will undergo tribulation for My name’s sake, but always make the sign of the Cross on your forehead with these words and I shall free you from all tribulation.’ And when He had said this, the child ascended to Heaven before his eyes. St Edmund never spoke of this incident until his last illness, by which he was taken from this world. Then he revealed what had happened to a monk who had once been his spiritual adviser, as the man whom I mentioned reported. [19] I learned from a pious and virtuous man that, when a man renowned for the practice of magic wanted to demonstrate his art before William, king of Scots,6 a religious was present while the magician was summoning demons with his spells. He was in the house privately saying the passage from John’s Gospel In the beginning and so on7 and, as long as he was reading this passage from the Gospel, the other man could not achieve anything with his spells. So he said in front of everyone, ‘Someone here is hindering me and unless he stops what he has begun I shall be completely unable to do anything.’ It is thus made clear what strength is in the Gospel text, In the beginning and so on; when it is said by one of the faithful who trusts in the Church, it has a power which overcomes all the delusions sent by devils. [31]  On one occasion, a Friar Preacher named Bernard was celebrating High Mass in a convent. After the consecration of the Lord’s body and blood, while he and those assisting him were standing at the altar, he began to sleep. His assistants saw this and marvelled, for they knew him to be a holy man who was devoted to God and they did not dare rouse him before he woke of his own accord. When he did so, he put down only half the consecrated host next to the chalice on the altar. When the mass was over and everything had been done according to proper form, they asked him why he had been sleeping and what had become of the other half of the host. He answered, ‘A devout and holy man was at the point of death. When his life was about to end, he desired with all his heart to receive the body of Christ. But he did not have anyone 5 The inscription placed over Christ’s head on the Cross. 6 William the Lion, king of Scots 1165–1214. 7 John 1: 1. The phrase in principio is often used to indicate the whole of John 1: 1–14, a passage thought to ward off evil and which was used in exorcism: M. W. Bloomfield, ‘The magic of In Principio’, Modern Language Notes 70 (1955), 559–65.

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who could give it to him and the Lord sent me to him with half the host which I consecrated. Then I gave him communion and immediately after receiving the viaticum he gave up the ghost and made his journey to the Lord.’ And he told them the name of the sick man and the place where he was ill, which was many miles from where he was celebrating mass. The friars made careful enquiries and found that the time of death was as Brother Bernard had told them. Those who had been with the sick man when he died stated that Brother Bernard had given the sick man communion at the very hour when this took place. [32]  I know a priest who was celebrating mass in the summer of 1250 and, when he was due to consecrate the host, a huge fly, like a large bee, greatly troubled the priest by flying around the chalice and neither he nor his assistant could find any way of getting rid of it. After the consecration of the body and blood of the Lord, the priest lifted his eyes up to the body present at the altar and thought, ‘Lord, Thou art the Creator and Ruler of all living things and every creature is subject to Thy will and serves Thee. Thou wilt be able to free me now, in an instant, if it please Thee, from fear of this creature of Thine.’ Scarcely had he finished when the fly immediately flew up from the altar into the air and before the priest’s very eyes a spider spread its web around the fly and held it there until mass was over, when it allowed it to fall to the ground as if dead, so that through the agency of this creature we may most truly understand that, after the consecration has been duly performed, the Creator and Saviour of all things is Himself present on the altar, the Son of the Living God. Thus the prophet speaks to our Father in Heaven: Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.8 [33]  A well-respected religious told me that, when he was a clerk in secular employment, he was personally involved in the events related here. After dinner one summer, when the men were sleeping in an outer part of the house, a girl found a beautiful woman eating at the door of her father’s house and, at her command, she ate with her. She asked her to come to her in the same place at the same time the following day. The girl then returned to the household, who noticed that she was swollen around the eyes. They asked where she had been and she told them what had happened to her. The woman came again on the following day and told the girl to go with her but many people forcibly restrained her. The woman came for her in this way many times, but one day the parish priest and a great crowd of people came and, among others, two held the girl’s head and two held her feet and two lay on her body to 8 Hebrews 2: 8.

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restrain her, and even then she was carried up into the air in front of them. Then the priest came with holy water and rods and sprinkled her with the holy water and with one hand he held her down and with the other freed her with the rods.9 Then in front of everyone she said, ‘I cannot come with you.’ They asked who she was talking about and she said, ‘About that servant-boy who runs by the door bareheaded.’ The priest said to her, ‘Is the woman, whom you once saw as beautiful, now changed into a foul servant-boy?’ When he said this, such a great roar of thunder descended on the house where this took place that those present thought that the house was falling down. They rushed outside and saw one small cloud in the whole sky. On the following day the girl was taken to church and the priest began a mass of the Blessed Virgin for her. When he reached the elevation of the body of Christ, she could not remain a moment longer in church without going outside and she completely disgorged all that she had eaten of the devils’ food. She therefore went out and brought it all forth and afterwards was able to stay in church and confess her sins. At the very time when the men came to take him to the girl, the priest had a vision. For he seemed to see a tree sprinkled with the dew of Heaven and he took a branch from it and with that branch he brought a madman to his right mind and restored him to his former condition. And he then understood from this vision that the tree was the Catholic Church made fruitful by the dew of Heavenly Grace and the branch was the most holy sacrament of the altar through which this girl was restored to her former state. [34]  The following was reported to me by a religious born where the actual events took place. A young man there was his father’s heir but after his father’s death he was prodigal, spending lavishly and living beyond his means to the extent that he had squandered almost all his inheritance in buying goods and in pledges to the Jews.10 After this he became most distressed and, almost in despair, went to consult the Jews. They saw that he was wavering in his faith and they began to 9 The beating of the possessed person often played a central role in the exorcism of demons. 10 Lincoln, where this story is set, had a well-established Jewish community, many members of which were actively involved in usury. Conflict between the Christian and Jewish communities in Lincoln at this time is shown in the case of Little ‘St’ Hugh, a Christian boy whose death in 1255 led to the hanging of eighteen Jews and the imprisonment of many more: see J. W. F. Hill, Medieval Lincoln (Cambridge, 1948), 217–38 and G. I. Langmuir, Towards a definition of Anti-semitism (Berkeley, 1990), 237–62. Concern that Jews were seeking to convert Christians, as suggested here, is also reflected in Henry III’s Statute of Jewry (1253) and in frequent papal legislation from c.1250.

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attack our religion, especially the sacrament of the altar, and to say what the Jews of old said to Our Lord: How can this man give us His flesh to eat?11 When the young man heard this he began to wonder whether all Christian people could be wrong in this way. He heard that there would be a great gathering of religious in the town and he decided to attend, thinking that he might receive advice and help at so great a gathering. So he came to their church and heard mass celebrated by one of the friars of the order. After the consecration, when the friar who was acting as celebrant lifted up the body of Christ, the young man saw in the celebrant’s hands the body of the Christ-child.12 After mass he sought out a friar from the convocation to hear his confession and advise him how to save his soul. So a friar came and heard his confession and advised him to go to the Holy Land for the love of Christ, Whom he had most truly seen on the altar. The place where this happened was Lincoln. The gathering was the chapter of the Friars Preacher. The celebrant whose mass he heard was Brother William of Thetford.13 [45]  They say that a certain bishop fell ill and sent to a Friar Preacher and asked him to visit him on the following day. But the friar told the messenger, ‘It is not in my power to promise this; I cannot promise to come tomorrow, for I do not know whether it shall be granted to me to be living then.’ When he heard the friar’s reply, the bishop ordered him to come without delay. The friar obeyed the command and soon came to the bishop and, when he had heard the bishop’s confession, he returned home. The bishop died that very day. [54]  Master Henry Sandford, who was first archdeacon of Canterbury and later bishop of Rochester,14 said that he had heard the confession of someone who confessed to him that he had done homage to the devil and given him a silver spoon as a pledge. When with great contrition he was confessing this and other sins to the master, there suddenly fell at their feet what he believed to be the same silver spoon. The man making his confession carefully looked at its markings and knew for 11 John 6: 52. Jews often feature in stories in which they deny the Incarnation or denigrate the Eucharist: M. Rubin, Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews (New Haven, 1999). 12 For the widespread use of miracles of this sort (and exempla more generally) to teach the laity about the Eucharist, see M. Rubin, Corpus Christi, 108–29. See also L. Sinanoglou, ‘The Christ Child as sacrifice: a medieval tradition and the Corpus Christi plays’, Speculum 48 (1973), 491–509. 13 Provincial chapters are known to have been held at Lincoln in 1238 and 1244; a William of Thetford or Thefford was prior of the Oxford Dominicans c.1236. 14 Master Henry Sandford, bishop of Rochester 1227–35.

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certain that it was the same spoon which he had given to the devil as a pledge of the homage which he had performed. Then at the man’s request the master kept the spoon for himself. Afterwards, when he was made bishop, he always used this spoon himself at table in commemoration of so wonderful an occurrence. [55] Similarly, it is reported that a woman who served in a man’s household abhorred the sin of lust so much that when a man tried to snatch a kiss in her master’s cellar she struck his head with a flagon full of liquid. The devil found her purity hateful and appeared to her sometimes in the form of a youth, sometimes as a beautiful woman. At first he began to teach her to say Veni, creator Spiritus15 and Ave Maria and similar things, but afterwards, when he had appeared to her a number of times, he began to teach her to be slothful, to drink and eat copiously and to flirt with young men and things of that sort and, when she was exhausted by her labours, to immerse herself in water. He told her to avoid hard work and he also began to reveal a number of occult matters to her. But when she told her lord these things, it happened that two Friars Preacher were approaching the house and her lord advised her to speak to them about the health of her soul. When the friars were giving her advice about saving her soul, she began to find such matters extremely wearisome. But that night, when she wanted to go to bed, the devil appeared to her in a loathsome form: sending out sparks and flames, he was carrying a great fiery knife and threatened that, if she dared to confess to the two friars, he would kill her with the knife in his hand. The woman was terrified and cried out to her lord at the top of her voice; he came straight to her and, when he knew the reason why she was crying out, he immediately took her to the friars to confess. She confessed all her sins, but she omitted one – the oath which she had made to the devil that she would never reveal to anyone what he had told her. But then she openly confessed that sin with all the others. Then, a month later, the devil appeared to her again. He stood a long way off, not as before, and spoke to her as if he were afraid. For she was freed from the snares of the evil spirit through her confession. One of the two friars, who heard these things from the woman herself, told him who has written this. [58] A certain well-born and devout woman was gravely ill in Cambridge, where the Friars Preacher, whose order she loved with a special affection, often visited her. When the end of her life was approaching, one friar, who was her confessor and to whom she had 15 ‘Come, Creator, Holy Spirit’: Chevalier, no. 21204.

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entrusted the direction of her spiritual life and the salvation of her soul, visited her. The lady complained to him about a grizzled black horse which seemed to stand by her head and whose gaze greatly troubled her. The friar could see or hear no sign of the creature but thought to himself how much lords and ladies of that sort glory in the vanity of fine horses and their harnesses and asked her most earnestly to examine her conscience and try to recall if she had at some time committed any sin in this regard which she had not confessed. Then she quietly considered the matter and said, ‘I have confessed everything which I have been able to remember but recently, when my will was read out to me and it mentioned the horse which would pull my body along for burial with its saddle and harness and trappings, which ladies have been wont to use, I was wicked enough to rejoice in my heart and in this I confess that I have sinned.’ Then, absolved by her confessor, she was no longer troubled by apparitions of this sort but afterwards made a happy end in the Lord. [62]  They say that the devil appeared to a certain sick matron in the form of a bear, which frightened her exceedingly. When she told this to her confessor, he counselled her to make a full confession of her sins and then to fortify herself with the viaticum against the temptations of the Enemy who had assailed her like this in the guise of the bear. Then the confessor said to her once more, ‘You have still not made a full confession; you have another mortal sin in your heart which you are ashamed to confess. In truth, you must know that you can never be freed from the power of the devil unless you strive to confess everything which is in your mind.’ Then she was contrite and confessed to him a certain grave and hidden sin which she had never been willing to confess until now. When she had done this and she had confessed fully and been given absolution by her confessor, all her fears of the bear immediately disappeared and, after that confession, it never frightened her again, but from that same illness she received the salvation of her soul through the virtue of a true and complete confession and departed from her body. A trustworthy religious told me this, a great preacher and a man of authority, who heard this story from the priest who heard the woman’s confession in her last illness. [63]  A man beset by lewdness once contritely confessed his sin to a perceptive confessor who enjoined the man, who refused to undertake fasts and other works of penance, simply to abstain from this sin; this he undertook to do, rejoicing that he could thus avoid the heavy penances usually imposed for sins of this kind. When he was sitting alone in his

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room, the temptation of his old sin began to trouble him greatly, but while he thought that he could not ever violate so modest a penance, he manfully resisted temptation. And lo! his evil habit made it difficult to leave his ways to such an extent that, as if maddened by his desire to sin, he began to rage in front of his companions. So they started to tie him up as if he were a madman. From this the innocent should learn to keep themselves in purity and shun the evil practice of great sins of this sort and in like fashion their elders should learn to abstain from the evil ways into which they may have fallen if they wish to be saved by repentance, because they must do great violence to themselves in resisting temptations. For the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force.16 I learned this story from a trustworthy and discriminating man who knew this man’s fate and his circumstances and the place where it happened and who heard the person’s confession. [65]  A trustworthy man told me that he heard this from a bishop who, he believed, knew the matter which I shall relate and the people involved at first hand. An abbot, while himself performing works of great penitence, was habitually harsh on sinners, even when they were repentant. For whenever one of the monks fell into temptation, even when he was contrite, he immediately removed from him any position of authority and ever after showed him a harsh countenance. But it happened meanwhile that a young monk of high birth received from him a position of authority in the monastery and, while he was most solicitous about the many things in his charge, he fell into grave temptation. He took hold of himself, summoned up his courage and, albeit in fear and sorrow, confessed his fault to the abbot. The abbot immediately deprived him of his office and thereafter showed him his habitual hard face. At this point, the monk who had confessed fell sick and died. Then one night, when the abbot was occupied in prayer, the monk, who had died only a short time before, appeared to him and said that because of the confession he had made the Lord showed him mercy and admitted him to the Life Eternal. Then he said to the abbot, ‘It is not on my account but on yours that I have come to tell you this. For unless you mend your ways towards the penitent and behave less severely towards them, you will lose all your goods and be forever damned because of your harshness.’ [77]  A trustworthy religious told me about another member of an order who was preaching the word of God and who told him that this had once happened to him while preaching. After the sermon someone 16 Matthew 11: 12.

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came up to him and said, ‘Friar, I am an exceedingly wicked sinner, to the extent that I despair of God’s mercy.’ The friar said, ‘What have you done?’ He said, ‘Murder, adultery, sacrilege and many other sins. Above all, I performed homage to the devil and gave him a charter which I signed in my own blood as a token that I should never leave his service, and there is no remorse in my heart for all these sins. How, therefore, can I hope to receive God’s mercy?’ Then, when the friar could not find any way to bring him to repentance, he eventually obtained his permission that the next night he should pray for him as devoutly as he was able to. The friar did not cease to pray for him; he prayed for him and at the same time persuaded other friars to pray for him in like fashion. Then the sinner went to sleep. While his eyes were closed, he was shown this vision. He seemed to be present at the Judgement to come and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour was sitting in judgement upon him on the Judgement-Seat attended by the apostles and other saints. There also appeared there dreadful demons, with the other wretches who would be damned along with him. Then he trembled and grew faint and said to himself, ‘Alas! Wretched me! I shall be with them. Indeed it is most just that I should be with the demons, whom I have served so well, for I performed homage to the devil and promised to serve him.’ While he sorrowfully reflected on these things, he looked again at Christ. Sweet Jesus spoke to him gently and mercifully, saying, ‘You still have hope for life and time for repentance if you want it. Come back to me and repent and I shall receive you.’ When he heard this he rejoiced greatly and awoke from his sleep and went to the friar and told him about his vision from the very beginning and afterwards confessed his sins to him and, with a firm hope of God’s mercy, performed his penance, truly alive and praising the Saviour, Who came to call the repentant to penance and Who causes the angels forever to rejoice over one sinner who repents.17 [78]  Brother Walter of St Edward told me that a man told him in confession that this had happened to him. The man, who was in a state of mortal sin, once fell seriously ill and his conscience told him that he would be damned because of his sin unless he followed the counsel of the Church and confessed and performed penance. He sent for a priest to whom he made a complete confession of his sins in the intention of performing his full penance. When he had done this, something appeared to him in human form, protesting that he had wronged him and promising him that he would return. Then, knowing that this 17 See Luke 5: 32 and 15: 7, 11.

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was the devil, he signed himself with the Cross and the devil immediately vanished like a shadow. Afterwards, when the sick man, stunned and shaken, was reflecting on this, an immensely tall figure appeared holding in his hand a huge sheet of gold which he offered to the sick man but he, as before, knew that this was the devil and, placing all his trust in the Lord, he again signed himself with the Cross. And thus, in front of the sick man’s eyes, the apparition descended into the earth on the sheet of gold, first up to the knees, then as far as the midriff until the earth swallowed him and he vanished from view. And thus did true repentance save the sick man from the devil and restore him to true health. [86]  A young man in the archbishopric of York told me that some Cistercian lay-brothers lived on a grange there called Kilnsey,18 which belongs to the abbot of Fountains. On a Sunday, perhaps around the time for mass, they sent a young man and one of the other servants into the wood to cut down a tree for one of the monks.19 When the young man struck the tree, blood poured out. The young man saw this and did not thank God for so great a miracle; but he fell down and was struck blind. The servant wanted to pick up his axe but he could no longer do so. What a great miracle! The servant saw this and made the sign of the Cross on the eyes of the blinded man and his sight was restored. Realising that he had regained his sight, he immediately got up and again began to cut the tree, which still continued to bleed. I marvelled at this effusion of blood and said to the young man, ‘Was there much blood?’ He replied, ‘Indeed, my lord. It was like a gushing spring of water.’ The young man was still cutting the tree when a voice said in English, ‘Leave, leave, leave!’ The unfortunate one replied, ‘You will not scare me like this!’ Again the voice repeated the same words but he replied in the same way as before. The voice came for a third time and repeated the words and added, ‘Cursed be he that sent you here!’ When they left, a few days later, the lay-brother who had sent the young man to the forest or his fellow lay-brother killed the young man. I do not 18 Kilnsey (Yorkshire, West Riding). A grange was an outlying estate of a Cistercian house, usually supervised and worked by lay-brothers. For Kilnsey and its importance, see C. Platt, The Monastic Grange in Medieval England (1969), 212–13. 19 For the prohibition on Sunday working and the extent to which it was observed, see LE 138–41 and notes. For criticism of the Cistercians as avaricious, which was widespread after 1150, see G. Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1996), 33–4, 302. Compare also Archbishop Pecham’s condemnation of the order in 1284 as ‘the hardest neighbours that prelates or parsons could have’: C. T. Martin (ed.), Registrum epistolarum Fratris Johannis Pecham archiepiscopi Cantuariensis (2 vols, RS, 1882–85), ii. 726–7.

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know what befell the lay-brother or whether he ever faced trial. [87]  A trustworthy religious told me that in the diocese of Lincoln, in the town where he was born and brought up, there were two people, a man and a woman, who sinned together in their lust.20 Once, on All Saints’ Day, a woman told them that they should forgo their fleshly desires on so great a feast-day and turn to spiritual matters, but the man said that he would not abstain from sin with his concubine for all the saints’ sake. When the others went to Matins, they stayed in bed together. When the others returned from Matins, they found both the man and the woman dead in bed embracing one another. [93]  A trustworthy religious told me that someone in Norwich diocese, where he had himself been born and brought up, leased a piece of land for a certain period to one of his neighbours. When the time came when the land was due to revert to its owner, the other man claimed that there was still a further year to run. Then on a great feast-day the owner of the land said to him in the churchyard in front of many people from the parish, ‘Swear before all these good people that what you claim is true.’ This he did before all of them. But the man who took the oath later fell sick and died – albeit not that soon after. After his death a great number of people in those parts were visited by many terrifying visions. But while many people afterwards said many things about this, there was one simple man, a trustworthy and God-fearing fellow, who one moonlit night was walking alone past the cemetery where the man was buried, when a dreadful figure appeared to him, wearing sackcloth, bareheaded and he thought that he could see huge flies like dog-flies swarming around the man’s neck like bees as they enter their hive. Then he said to the apparition, ‘I adjure you by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit that you should not harm me and that you should tell me whether you were ever a Christian.’ And the dread figure replied, ‘I was a Christian but you yourself were present when I denied my Christian faith. For I am Master Hugh, who committed perjury in the churchyard in front of you and many others for the land of Maurice FitzHubert.’ For Hugh was his name and the man whose land he unjustly retained beyond the due term by swearing a false oath was Maurice FitzHubert. And he added, ‘Go to my wife and tell her to take five marks from the money which I gave her when I died and use all of them as I told her to at the time.’ He then vanished. The man went to the dead man’s wife and told her everything. She fully acknowledged 20 Compare BL, Add. MS 6716 fol. 54v, which has a story of profaners of All Saints’ Day strangled by a devil.

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that all the signs which her aforesaid late husband had sent through him were completely true.21 [96] When Cardinal William, the lord pope’s legate in Norway,22 preached before many important persons in the cemetery of the Friars Preacher as he passed through Cambridge, he told me two stories about the saints’ love for the most sweet name of Jesus, claiming that they were authoritatively recorded at the curia in Rome, where these things took place. One of them was as follows. The blessed martyr Ignatius23 stood before the pagans who persecuted Christians and publicly and unceasingly uttered the name of Jesus and strongly urged other Christians to put all their hope and trust in this name, Jesus, in all their tribulations. The pagans asked St Ignatius why this name was constantly on his lips and why he and the other Christians strove so hard to suffer such fearful tortures for its sake. St Ignatius answered them like this: ‘I cannot keep Jesus out of my heart or out of my mouth because His very name, Jesus, is inscribed deeply on my heart.’ Then the pagans, who wanted to put this to the proof, killed him and opened up his heart and found the name of Jesus written on the holy martyr Ignatius’ heart in letters of gold. [97] The other story which the cardinal told there was about the Apostle Paul.24 It is this. The blessed Paul taught so many wonderful things about the name of Jesus and suffered so many terrible reverses for its sake, as is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and his epistles. And when he had been beheaded and his head lay far from his body, his tongue still shouted out the name of Jesus in a strong, clear voice and urged Christians to praise God. For He has done all things according to His will and is blessed forever.25 Amen. [100] It is reported that Brother Jordan, the master of the Friars Preacher, was on one occasion visiting a woman who was sick in body 21 The version of the story in BL, Add. MS 33956 fol. 82r ends ‘the aforesaid man related these things to two Friars Preacher, but he did not wish that they should be made known in the area where they took place lest they cause offence to the friends of the dead man.’ 22 William, cardinal-bishop of Sabina and papal legate to Norway (d. 1251). William had been a close associate of St Dominic and spent about three months in England in 1247, when he was the guest of Walter Suffield, bishop of Norwich. For his career, see G. A. Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm von Sabina (Helsingfors, 1929). 23 Ignatius of Antioch, who was martyred c.107. This is a widespread example (Tubach, no. 2498); see also Legenda Aurea, 157 and Fasciculus Morum, 179. 24 The same story appears in the Legenda Aurea (p. 383). 25 Cf. Romans 1: 25; 2 Corinthians 11: 31.

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and mind and who had fallen into almost complete despair.26 He could find no other way of bringing her to hope for forgiveness, for she had committed many terrible sins and had never done anything good, but he said to her, ‘Woman, whatever good I have ever done in this life, I make over to you in its entirety. Do not despair but be sure and certain in your hope for forgiveness.’ When she heard this the woman’s hope for forgiveness was greatly strengthened and she set forth from this life on the way of all flesh. So the friar, that is to say the master of the Order of Preachers, began to undertake more severe works of penance. While he was performing acts of penance more severe than usual, lo! the dead woman appeared to him while he was meditating. She was in a state of great beauty and thanked him because she had been placed in the chair which, because of his merits, had been prepared for him in Heaven. And she said to him, ‘Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for sinners, greets you because of the charity that you showed to me and assures you that on account of this love your merits will be doubled and after your death you will find that they will live in Heaven forever.’ [106]  An old woman in Wales had an only son, who was killed. She asked a Friar Preacher how she should pray for her son’s murderer. The friar said, ‘Pray that God should forgive him his sins.’ She said, ‘What will happen to me if I pray for him like this?’ The friar said, ‘If you are penitent and you confess, by praying in this way you will obtain forgiveness for your sins.’ The woman heard this and said, ‘I will willingly pray for him, indeed to obtain such a great reward it would not seem difficult to kill my son with my own hands.’ [117]  An important and venerable man who had been extremely close to St Edmund the Confessor told me that the blessed Edmund once told him this story about himself.27 When he was a regent in theology at Oxford,28 a general announcement was made that he would preach to all conditions of men and that all clerks and laypeople should assemble 26 This anecdote is not known to occur elsewhere but a similar story about a deacon appears in DC 4 above, which also cites Jordan of Saxony for its source. A story of a master-general of the Dominican Order from Vercelli who transferred all his merits to a harlot to whom he had been betrothed as a boy occurs in BL, Harley MS 2316 fol. 1; it probably refers to John of Vercelli, master-general 1264–83. 27 This does not occur in any of the surviving Lives of St Edmund. There is no evidence for Forte’s suggestion that the author’s informant was Robert Bacon, the Oxford Dominican who died in 1248. 28 A regent was a master of arts formally lecturing in the university. Edmund is thought to have taught as a theological master at Oxford from c.1214 until at least 1222, when he was appointed Treasurer of Salisbury: Lawrence, St Edmund, 110–24 and The Life of St Edmund by Matthew Paris, 24–7.

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and that he would preach to them; when he was due to give the sermon, he was occupied by reading, prayers and other matters and delayed working on his sermon until the evening before he was due to deliver it. He intended to work on the sermon during the night but he was overcome by sleep and slept until morning. So, when he awoke and saw day breaking, he started to pray like this: ‘Sweet Lord Jesus, do not allow Thy Word to be held cheap today because of me.’ Again overcome by tiredness, he fell asleep in spite of himself. And lo! a dove then appeared and placed its beak in his ear and he woke at its touch and, comforted by the great trust which he placed in God’s mercy, he preached so outstandingly that day that, as the blessed Edmund himself admitted to the man whom he told about this, he had never found more grace in a single sermon. [120]  A trustworthy religious told me about a married woman whom he saw with his own eyes after the death of her husband.29 She was a noblewoman who was very compassionate to the poor but who showed a special tenderness towards lepers, whom she always helped as much as she dared, for her husband was exceedingly harsh to the poor and especially so to lepers. Meanwhile, when her lord was away, it happened that a leper came to the house and asked the lady to bathe him. She took pity on him, secretly received him in her husband’s chamber where, with her maids, she attended him while he bathed. Then the leper, who had already been bathed by the lady, asked and begged that he should be placed in her husband’s bed after his bath. She agreed, albeit with great reluctance, and while he was lying in the bed, her husband suddenly arrived at the gate. She heard this and with great trepidation went to meet her lord. He was suspicious of her and immediately entered his chamber and, finding in his bed a wonderfully sweet smell, he tried to find where so strong a scent could be coming from. He went to the bed and pulled back the bed-clothes and found nothing there but the most beautiful roses giving off a wonderful scent. When this happened and the truth of the matter was revealed, he left all that he had to his wife’s discretion and asked her to spend all their goods on the poor in the way that seemed to her most fitting. 29 As far as is known, this common example (Tubach, no. 3020) first appears in a model sermon by Jacques de Vitry intended for a congregation of hospital-workers. For the story’s development and context, see S. Farmer, ‘The Leper in the Master Bedroom: thinking through a thirteenth-century exemplum’, in R. Voaden and D.Wolfthal (eds), Framing the Family: Narrative and Representation in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods (Tempe, 2005), 79–100. See also C. Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2006), 61, 135–6.

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[124]  A man of great renown told me that his grandmother or mother was most merciful to the poor and needy and gave everything in her house to the poor, except for a few things that were necessary to feed herself and her husband and to provide for her household’s basic needs, so much so that all the vessels were empty of flour or other supplies. The poor again came asking for alms. When the husband said that he would help the poor before he dined, she said that she had given everything in the house to the poor. Then the husband, who in his compassion could not bear to hear the cries of the needy, said to her, ‘Wife, I tell you that I shall not eat today until the poor have something from our goods.’ And she said to him, ‘My lord, you do not believe me but I have given everything to the poor. Come and see if there is any food left anywhere in the house which has not been given to the poor as I have said.’ Then she took him as if to show him that all the storagevessels were empty. When they came into the store-room to see if all that the woman had said was true, they found that the vessels, which had previously been filled with the flour and other goods which had been given to the poor, were once again full to the brim. When they saw this they thanked God and afterwards took all the more care to give their goods to supply the needs of the poor. Another religious, who was a relative of the man who had already told me about this, also told me these things; he said that the woman was the mother of the first man who informed me. [132]  A preacher and pardoner was carrying some precious saints’ relics with him, and he used the power of the relics to cast out many unclean spirits from those who were possessed.30 One day he was trying to cast out a devil, which mocked him saying, ‘I am not frightened of you and you cannot use your relics to cast me out but soon others will come, travelling in pairs,31 and it is granted to them that they will prevail against us and lessen your power. We have summoned our council and decided to send fifty demons against each pair of them.’ This is reported to have taken place shortly before the coming of the Friars Minor and 30 Pardoners were usually laymen attached to religious foundations for which they solicited alms and publicised indulgences. While they often had an unsavoury reputation and Chaucer’s corrupt pardoner is well known, the point here is a different one: the pardoner has come up against an adversary which only the friars will be able to overcome. Compare LE 142 above, where the friars are also presented as particularly effective against demons. 31 From the order’s earliest days, Dominicans were required to travel in pairs, partly for companionship and mutual support and partly for safety. For references and discussion of this in a specifically British context, see W. A. Hinnebusch, Early English Friars Preachers, 285–6.

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the Friars Preacher. Brother Jordan of good memory, who was master of the Order of Preachers, told this story, showing how much caution and care each friar needs to exercise when such a great host of demons opposes each one of them. [133]  In Bologna there was a possessed man through whom an evil spirit spoke and he had hurled many slanders against Brother Jordan.32 He often used to speak with Brother Jordan. The same demon once scoffed at his preaching, saying that he would catch nothing but flies. He replied, ‘Flies harmed Pharaoh in Egypt33 and in the same way those whom I catch in the net of my sermons will harm you and your confederate.’ Then the demon said, ‘Let us enter into a pact that henceforth you will not preach to the students and I will not tempt any of your brethren.’ And the man of God replied, ‘Heaven forfend that I should ever enter into a pact with Death and an agreement with Hell! If you ever tempt my brethren, with God’s help they will only progress from good to better. You, however, will always be cast down from bad to worse.’ [137]  It is said that when the Friars Preacher were sent to preach in the islands of Scotland34 there were evil spirits there which were abusing young women. When they heard about the arrival of the friars, they threatened the women whom they abused and they forbade them to go to those who would come carrying staves because, they said, ‘They have been given power over us.’ As the demons had foretold, two friars came to preach there. The women confessed their sins to them and they taught them how to resist the unclean spirits and be strong in the faith. Then the spirits came and threatened the women and tried to take possession of them in their usual way but they could not overcome them. So they howled in despair, ‘Just as we have been expelled from here, let us go to the country of those who expel us.’ On the last day on which the friars preached, a great wailing and howling was heard in the air, which was believed to be the demons bewailing their expulsion and the liberation of the people by preaching. 32 Less detailed versions of the same story occur in Jordan of Saxony, Libellus de principiis Ordinis Praedicatorum 113 (ed. H. C. Schebeen, MOFPH 16 (1935), 78) and VF iii. 30 (ed. Reichert, 124). 33 Exodus 8: 20–24. 34 The Dominicans first came to Scotland in 1230 at the invitation of King Alexander II. Their houses were limited to the mainland but for their activities in the islands, see A. O. Anderson (ed.), Early Sources of Scottish History ad 500–1286 (reprinted Stamford, 1990), 605, 619, 622.

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[139]  One Friar Preacher told me that, while in foreign parts,35 he had heard this story from an innkeeper and indeed from many other friars also lodging there, as if in thanks to God: ‘Blessed be God for His gifts, Who makes us poor or rich, for when I had tended my vineyard for four years in a row and it remained completely barren, I reached such depths of poverty that I scarcely owned anything with which I could buy food except my wife’s cloak. In abject poverty I stood in my vineyard sorrowing and needy, when two friars from your order came and asked me who in the city would offer them lodgings for the sake of God. Not knowing how to answer them but knowing that the hearts of the citizens were not well disposed to other poor men, I reflected: You have lost everything that you had except your wife’s cloak and you did not relieve a single person’s poverty when you were able to, but at least you can now try to help these poor men with what you have left. So I took them to my house and called my wife in quietly and told her to take her cloak straight to the city and with it buy bread and wine and other things that we needed. When this was done and we had dined with your brethren, I began to tell them everything that had happened. They listened and took pity on me and one of them said, “And where is your barren vineyard?” When I told him where it was, the friar put out his hand towards it and blessed it. The friars went on their way and the great fruitfulness of the vineyard returned and henceforth it bore more fruit than four similar vineyards which were next to it, so much so that in a short time I became richer than I ever was before. As it says in Proverbs, The blessing of the Lord maketh men rich.36 From then on I prepared for you and your mules a decent lodging with whatever you might need.’ If it were permissible to name them now, we know of several people who grew quite rich and wealthy in the goods of this world when they began to provide for such people and offer them hospitality, who were themselves previously quite destitute. And no wonder if they now grow rich when performing such works; for the Truth promises in the Gospel that in this world they will receive a reward one-hundredfold.37 [140] I myself knew a Friar Preacher who approached the order and joined it in these circumstances. When he was still a secular and 35 A thirteenth-century Franciscan collector of examples claimed to have heard a similar story from a Brother Dominic who heard it at Romans in southern France: L. Oliger, ‘Liber Exemplorum FF. Minorum saeculi xiii’, Antonianum 2 (1927), 215 no. 6. The phrase translated here, in transmarinis partibus, often refers to the Holy Land. 36 Proverbs 10: 22. 37 Mark 10: 30.

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planning to find a way of living a penitent life, he came one day to a friar of the Order of Preachers and made his confession and told him what he proposed. The friar then spoke to him in this way: ‘My most dear son, even though what you propose to do is good, you should still pray devoutly to God that He may grant to you what is most pleasing to Him.’ On this account he taught him to say the antiphon Veni, sancte spiritus, reple tuorum [corda fidelium]38 nine times with the prayer of the Holy Spirit. On the following night, when the lord heard the bell of the Friars Preacher ringing for Matins, he arose and prayed as the friar had told him. When he lifted his head from the ground, for he had been prostrate in prayer, he suddenly saw a man standing before him in the habit of a Friar Preacher, in that he clearly saw two hoods on his head – a white hood with a white scapular and a black hood with a black gown.39 It was, however, about midnight and he was in a stone cell, where there was almost no light because all the shutters were closed. He saw this and sought out and entered the Order of Preachers. When he had been a member of the order for some time, after an illness, he was thinking that he would soon die; one night, when he had recovered, he seemed to hear the voice in the Epistle of James the Apostle saying, ‘Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the Earth and hath long patience for it until he receive the early and the latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draws nigh’40 and so on. And again from the same passage: ‘Behold, we count them happy which have endured. Ye have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord, for the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.’41 For it was then a Friday and the morrow of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.42 When he arose in the morning and thought over what he had been told, he opened his Bible and straightaway the same text of the blessed James appeared before him, although when he opened the book he did not know where to find the passage. Afterwards, when he had laboured for some years in the order, he wondered what it would be best for him to do from now 38 ‘Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful ones’: the antiphon of the Holy Spirit (Chevalier, no. 21252). 39 The scapular was a loose garment worn under the friar’s cloak. The Dominicans wore a white scapular under a black cloak, both of which were hooded. 40 James 5: 7–8. 41 James 5: 11. 42 The Morrow of the Assumption (16 August) fell on a Friday in 1224, 1241 and 1247 but the event cannot be dated more precisely. The next episode in the story took place in 1250.

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on – whether he should devote himself to prayer or study or preach and hear confessions. Then one day, it happened that during the morning he lay his head down to sleep before an altar dedicated to the blessed Mary Magdalene and other true penitents, when he seemed to hear this loud and clear: ‘There is no sacrifice like a zeal for souls.’43 Thenceforth he preached and heard confessions more often and more willingly than before and above all strove to pray for the salvation of all people to the best of his ability. It was at that time, around Lent in the year 1250, that this last event took place. A pious woman, who was remarkably devoted to God, made it her practice to recite every day the Psalms of David in honour of the Lord’s Passion. That is to say, in saying them she recalled all the details of the Passion – in the first verse of the Psalter recollecting our Lord’s right foot, and thus she proceeded through His limbs and joints until she reached His head and finished the Psalter. However, on this particular Friday in Lent, she began the Psalter and had reached, Save me, O God, for the waters are come into my soul,44 a psalm which is interpreted by the holy fathers as referring to Christ’s Passion,45 but at that point she stopped her meditation on Christ’s body and His side pierced with the lance and the blood and water issuing from His side and was overcome by a deep sleep. And behold! two men were carrying a crucified man, who was completely covered in blood. They said to her, ‘Tell him’ (they gave the friar’s actual name) ‘to ponder and preach more about Him’ and they showed her the crucified man whom they were carrying between them. And while the woman was thinking about another pious person of the same name, they told her that that was not the person whom they meant and they specifically named the person that this story is about. [149]  An important and trustworthy man who was specially close to St Edmund told me that he had heard from St Edmund’s own mouth that on one occasion he had been offered a church by the archbishopric of Canterbury but he had refused to take it. He afterwards had a dream. He seemed to be in the church of Canterbury, that is to say where St Thomas ended his life, and there he saw St Thomas dressed in his archi 43 Gregory, Homeliae in Ezechielem i. 12 (PL 76: 932). As suggested here, the Dominican Order valued study largely as a preparation for preaching and other pastoral work: Mulchahey, ‘First the Bow is bent in Study’: Dominican Education before 1350. 44 Psalms 68 (69): 1. 45 Compare, for example, the interpretations of Augustine and Cassiodorus quoted in the Glossa Ordinaria (PL 113: 946); see also Jerome on Matthew 26: 32 (PL 26: 206). I have not found other examples of the devotion described; the use of the psalms by the laity in the period before the advent of the books of hours remains largely unexplored.

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episcopal robes coming to greet him but he looked at him sadly. Then he said to Thomas, ‘My lord, what have I done? How can I have offended you?’ He replied, ‘Why have you refused to be a clerk in my house?’ And he said, ‘My lord, if it pleases you that I should be a clerk in your house and I am offered another benefice belonging to your house, I shall not refuse.’ At this the vision disappeared and he was afterwards elected archbishop and he accepted and it is believed that because of this vision he did not dare object to his election.46 [163] Master Jacques de Vitry47 told me that in Paris there was a extremely rich usurer, who was very well-known and who was very close to King Philip.48 His name was Anselm. Brought to contrition when he heard the word of God, he abandoned all his property and set forth on the narrow path of the monastic life and there devoutly and humbly served God and soon strove to live more humbly and more modestly. Hearing this, King Philip of France came to see him and, when he saw Anselm, who once lived so lavishly and luxuriously, now wearing harsh and wretched clothes and entirely content with coarse bread and a cheap pottage made from herbs and pulses, he shuddered and said, ‘Alas for me, Anselm! What you do to avoid the pains of Hell is not possible for me, for I am bound up in the cares of royal power.’ [176]  A Friar Preacher in the convent at Lincoln49 fell sick and was at the point of death, when he saw a crowd who seemed to be dressed as black monks passing before him. Then he saw another group, in white robes, who went two by two as if in procession. Each pair moved forwards together and shared a hood which covered both their heads and as they passed they bowed as if in deference to him. The sick man, who for a short time regained consciousness, told his brethren about the vision saying, ‘Those who had gone by were evil; but those who 46 This is not found in the surviving Lives of Edmund, but several of them do emphasise that he was an archbishop in the tradition of Becket’s defence of Church liberties, and links with Becket became an established part of his hagiographical persona: Lawrence, St Edmund, 168–81, 217 and 261–3 and The Life of St Edmund by Matthew Paris, 168–76. 47 Jacques de Vitry, bishop of Acre 1216–26/27 and cardinal-bishop of Tusculum 1228–40, was a noted preacher. It is not clear whether the compiler heard Jacques preach or took the story from a written source; Jacques’ exempla circulated independently from an early date. 48 Philip II Augustus, king of France 1180–1223. The king appears in a number of exempla, which are discussed in J. Le Goff, ‘Philippe-Auguste dans les exempla’, La France de Philippe Auguste: Le Temps des mutations (Paris, 1982), 145–55. 49 Compare VF v. 3.13 (ed. Reichert, 267), where the location is given only as ‘in England’. The Dominicans are first recorded at Lincoln in 1238.

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came afterwards in pairs were the Friars Preacher.’ For he said that the hood over the heads of each pair was the reward of those who go out together to preach, which is granted not only to the friar who preaches but also to his companion.50 After this the friar, as if in a trance, saw them taken up into Heaven, where he recalled seeing a most beautiful copy of Luke’s Gospel. And lo! he said that he would soon set forth to listen to it, that is to the glossed Book of Luke. Having said this, he went to his rest in the Lord. [177]  There was in a certain convent in England a most outstanding young friar of the same order51 who was of handsome appearance and imbued with great knowledge and ability as a preacher. As he approached his end, he lay as if dead, his brethren standing around him in prayer. And, after the penitential psalms and when the litany had been said by the friars alternately, he opened his eyes and began to speak. ‘The Lord,’ he said, ‘has visited me since the beginning of this Office.’ He added, ‘I have been to a most sublime place, where I heard behind Christ our Lord and His most sweet mother the Virgin Mary a most beautiful chant. And I said to the Lord, “Shall we go there, Lord?”’ Afterwards he said, ‘I have received a remarkable consolation from the sweet chanting which I have heard.’ And he added, ‘Henceforth nothing can frighten me, for I have given myself entirely into the protection of the Glorious Virgin and I rely entirely on my faith in the true religion.’ Then with great earnestness of heart he asked the friars to offer up to the Lord prayers of intercession on his behalf that He should not be angry that he had revealed these matters to them. Thus he said farewell to his brethren and began to turn over in his mind and ponder the name of the Holy Virgin Mary and, after a short while, he sank into a gentle sleep and quietly passed away in the Lord. We must believe that he merited to hear the song of the virgins before he died for, as his confessor bore witness, he himself passed from this life in a virginal condition. [183]  A certain good religious told me that one of his brethren, who was not yet professed as a member of his order and whom I myself also knew from infancy, was sick and close to death when he began to shout, ‘Jesus created me and redeemed me and He has most assuredly not abandoned me!’ And he added, ‘I believe in the Son of God, Who is neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit except in essence and He will be 50 For preaching in pairs, see DC 132, note 31. 51 There is a scribal error in the manuscript, which describes this as happening to a Cistercian, but a Dominican is clearly meant; the story also appears in VF v.3.14 (ed. Reichert, 267), where the friar is named as Walter, of Norwich Priory.

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my salvation.’ It seemed to the brethren present that he repeated this prayer many times, perhaps a thousand times, without a break and not one of the brothers could stop him repeating the same words. When he came to his senses, they asked him why he repeated the same words so many times. He replied, ‘The house in which I am lying seemed to be full of demons who harshly accused me of wavering in my belief in the Incarnation of the Lord. It was an accusation which filled me with great terror and every time I said “Jesus created me and redeemed me and He has most assuredly not abandoned me” and “I believe in the Son of God, Who is neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit except in essence and He will be my salvation”, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared before me and comforted me saying, “Because you have put your trust in me, you shall be saved.”’ And the sick man added, ‘After these words of comfort from my Lord Jesus Christ, I drew from them a great hope that I would be saved.’ Indeed, the trustworthy religious, who knew a lot about the sick man’s life, told me that he had been subject of much temptation about the Incarnation of the Lord before he fell sick, wondering how God the Creator of All Things would want to abase himself so much as to become man and to bear such great trials in order that Man, His creation, should be saved. Again, he told me that during the sick man’s last illness he asked him, if he died and it was permitted, to tell him what happened to him after death. Thus, shortly after the man’s death, the survivor anxiously awaited an answer, and on about the sixth day after his death the dead brother appeared to him in a dream, his face aged, saying that it was far better for him dead than it had been when he fought the fight in the mortal flesh. [184]  Brother Adam, the sacrist of the Friars Preacher in Cork,52 saw in a dream a figure sitting in the middle of the friars’ choir against the tomb of a lady buried there. He did not know whether it was a man or a woman but it seemed more likely to be a woman, for she was extremely slim with most beautifully adorned hair and a precious robe about her body. It seemed to him that she had risen from the dead and could reveal the secrets of both the present and the future. He approached her and asked her in the name of Jesus Christ to tell him something about the fortunes of the friars and of his own condition. In a very feeble and thin voice she replied, ‘The friar whose confession you heard 52 The manuscript appears to read Cartag’, and Herbert (Catalogue of Romances, iii. 493) suggests that this may be Cardiff. In fact Cork (Corcagie) must be intended because the prior of Cork told the same story to Gerard de Frachet, who names the dying friar as Brother Walter: VF v.3.15 (ed. Reichert, 268). The Dominican house in Cork was founded c.1229.

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a short while ago will soon die. You will prosper and the brethren will prosper but they will be greatly oppressed by an interdict53 in or after a year’s time.’54 On the following day he reported this to the friar whose confession he had previously heard and to me and the other brethren. That night the friar fell ill and he made his general confession and received the last rites. On the third day, I believe, one of the friars asked him how he was and he replied, ‘Now I am quite well, for the dread of death which I felt up to now has entirely fled. For the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me and comforted me and said that on Tuesday I should come to him.’ This is what one of the friars told me after he died. Thereafter, whenever the friars came to him, he would earnestly ask them when the day of his death would come, and he would smile and say cheerfully, ‘I know what I shall receive on the day of my death.’ He also said to me that the Lord appeared to him and told him that he should reprove a local magnate, Lord David de Barry,55 on three counts: he was not lawfully married to his wife; he feasted too well and too often; and he stole the property of the poor. ‘There are other things which he told me,’ he said to me, ‘which I shall not tell you now.’ He told me this on a Sunday. On the following night, after midnight, he began to sing the Office of the Dead. When he had sung the preface, he paused when he was saying the canon of the mass56 and then began again with the chanting of the Pater Noster57 and the Per omnia58 and so on. At this point, he immediately passed over, as one friar who was present said. Another who was there said that he expired after saying the communion anthem Lux eterna.59 During the following week he appeared in a dream to Brother Adam the sacrist, to whom he had predicted his death as described above. When he asked about his condition, he said that from the outset he had never suffered any hurt except that until that hour he could not go freely where he wished. ‘Now, however,’ he said, 53 An interdict was an ecclesiastical penalty which withdrew church services and denied Christian burial to specified persons or to a whole region. Exceptions were normally made for the baptism of infants and for anointing the sick. 54 ad annum vel post annum. 55 Either Lord David de Barry who died in 1261, or his son, also David, who was justiciar of Ireland in 1266–68 and died in 1278. For the former and for evidence of the family’s lands around Cork, see LE 62 above. 56 The canon was the climactic part of the mass, which included the consecration of the bread and wine and the Elevation of the Host. 57 ‘Our Father’: the Lord’s Prayer. 58 Per omnia secula seculorum (‘For ever and ever’): a stock liturgical phrase and the last line of the canon. 59 ‘Let eternal light shine upon them’: anthem from the Office of the Dead.

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‘I am free to do anything and to go where I want, for there is only one Who is in authority over me.’ [185] Brother Bartholomew of Grimston60 told me on his deathbed that, about the time when the Friars Preacher first arrived in Cambridge,61 when he was a secular and was studying there, he had a vision of this sort. He seemed to be at the Last Judgement and our Lord Jesus Christ sat on the Judgement-Seat and angels were sent to gather together those who were to be judged and with many blows compelled the damned to face their judgement. And as the friar admitted, after spending twenty-five years as a Friar Preacher, he was still fearful when he thought of the blows which he had heard, but he thought he saw some men in the dress of the Friars Preacher who were safe in the presence of Christ the Judge and he thought, ‘O how well it would be for me if I were of that company!’ And he approached them and thrust himself among them and he remained with the brethren and thus avoided the pains of Hell. After this he awoke and found himself in a raging fever. He then decided to enter the Order of Preachers and laboured therein for twenty-five years and at length made a happy death on the Thursday before Good Friday, while the Office of the Lord’s Maundy was being performed and they were reading the Lord’s saying, Now before the feast of the Passover62 and so on. [200] A reliable and most devout religious told me that she was anxious to know something of the condition of her brother, a knight who had died and whom I also knew myself. When praying for him she would often say something like this: ‘Lord, when shall I know something certain of my dead brother? If he needs my help, may it also perhaps please Thee to come to his aid in some way.’ She often said these and similar things, when lo! one Sunday night after Matins, when around dawn she was closing her eyes in a light sleep, her dead brother appeared to her, a woeful figure who was suffering terrible agony. He said, ‘My sister, the Lord has heard your desire. Therefore do I now truly appear to you and you know that I am in agony because of my sins and that I suffer these things in Purgatory. After this pain I shall go 60 Prayers for Bartholomew of Grimston and two other friars appear in the de Brailes book of hours, which was written in Oxford c.1240. It is thought that they were spiritual advisers to the original owner of the book: C. Donovan, The de Brailes Hours: Shaping the Book of Hours in Thirteenth-century Oxford (London, 1991), 125–7, 130–1. 61 It is not known when Dominicans first arrived in Cambridge but the first certain reference to the priory is in 1238: P. N. R. Zutshi and R. Ombres, ‘The Dominicans in Cambridge, 1238–1538’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 60 (1990), 313–73 (at 315). 62 John 13: 1.

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from there to my rest. Help me, help me please, may those who are dear to you help me escape from my agony, for I know that this is true: were it not for the boundless love of the most sweet Jesus Christ, I would be forever damned. Therefore, sister, tell the Friars Preacher and the Friars Minor to preach to all men that the mercy of God is most sweet because, if men knew this, not one of them would be so ungrateful to God as ever to commit a sin or offend Him with their wrong-doing, when He daily confers so many and such great blessings even on those that sin and offend against His will.’ When the dead man’s sister asked if it availed him in any way when she said the psalm De profundis63 for him, he said that it did and he added, ‘My sister, the sweetness of God is so great that the least thing that the living do for us who are dead and in Purgatory helps us greatly.’ And with these words he disappeared. [201]  It is reported that a certain religious each day devoutly said the Office of the Dead for two brothers of his order who had recently died. One day, however, he omitted to do so. The following night one of the dead men appeared to him and led him through a beautiful meadow to a lake; around the lake he saw many men stuck in the mud, some up to the knees and some up to the chin. Then a huge man appeared and he thought that this must be the keeper of those who were stuck fast in the mud. The man showed him a small boat without any tackle and he said, ‘Get into the boat.’ He reluctantly did so and the figure immediately disappeared. He was very afraid [for he had neither]64 helmsman nor tackle but those who were trapped in the mud nearest to the water used their hands to make the boat go forwards until it reached the end of the lake. And there, on the right, he saw a most handsome city, beautiful beyond all imagining, and on the left of the lake a great palace; there he met a man of the most noble appearance who was leading two Friars Minor to the sublime city. He said to the friar, ‘Wait here. I am going to take these friars to the city and I shall come back to you.’ At this point the friar awoke from his sleep. The following night the same man appeared to him in the very place where he had left him and said, ‘Friar, do you wish to see and know what you have long desired?’ When he asked what he meant, he led him into the palace and there opened a small door. And then he said to the friar, ‘Look in the cellar.’ When he did so he saw the friars for whom he had prayed; one of them was sitting with his hood covering his head and looking rather sad; the 63 ‘Out of the depths have I cried out unto Thee’: Psalms 129 (130): 1, a text used in masses for the dead. 64 Something is evidently omitted here.

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other’s tongue was ablaze with fires and he was in a most wretched state and cried out to the man who had brought our fellow there in a terrible voice, ‘Help me, my lord, for my tongue gives me dreadful pain!’ Then the other replied, ‘You are deservedly and justly punished in your tongue, for with your tongue did you sin grievously;65 if you wish to be released from your punishment more quickly, ask your brother here to pray hard for you.’ And that is what he did. At this point he awoke and it was the day of the chapter. He therefore went to the friar presiding over the chapter and asked that every friar present should celebrate as many masses for the friar as they did private masses that day. Again, on the following night he found himself once more in the place where the noble figure had been leading two Friars Minor to the city and there he saw the same man leading the same two friars, for whom he had asked for masses to be celebrated, in the same fashion and the same manner as he had led the other friars – that is to say the Friars Minor. When he had witnessed this, the sight disappeared and he woke from sleep rejoicing from the threefold vision; he was exceedingly glad and told his companions, when he saw that the moment was right, that the dead friar whom I mentioned was suffering agonies in his tongue. I saw this myself and remained for a long period in the same convent with this friar. In truth, he seemed to many men a most smooth-tongued chatterer, but his superior, who heard his confession during his last illness, bore witness that he had made a full and pure confession of his whole life. He said this in my hearing. And afterwards the celebration of masses and other good works were able to free him from the pains of Purgatory after death. [202]  A trustworthy religious told me about someone who belonged to his own community but who was not yet professed as a member of the order. He grew sick and was close to death and constantly asked him to aid him with his prayers after death. As the friar slept on the seventh night after his death, the dead man appeared to him and asked for his help, for he was greatly afflicted by the pains of Purgatory. The surviving friar asked how and why he was afflicted and he said, ‘That kitchen afflicts me.’ And the friar saw demons in the guise of menials bringing him forth on a wagon. Then the friar, terrified by the sight of the demons, reflected on the power of the name of Jesus and began to call out and say, ‘Jesus! Jesus!’ And straightaway all the demons fled when the most powerful name of Jesus was invoked. The dead man 65 Punishment in Purgatory is often presented as closely reflecting the sins committed: see LE 121 with note 242, and DC 202.

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remained there alone with the friar. When the friar asked which was the best form of the religious life, he said, ‘Those who do most good please God best.’ Then the friar wanted to know how many masses celebrated for him could free him from the pains of Purgatory and he said that he needed five hundred. He then disappeared. When the friar who had seen these things neglected to obtain from his brethren the celebration of this number of masses for the dead man, he appeared to him in his sleep once more, upbraiding him harshly and calling him most false. Then the friar took pity on him and prayed more earnestly for him and strove more diligently to get others to pray for the liberation of his soul. A short time after this the surviving friar again grew slack in obtaining prayers for the dead man, who appeared to him in a dream once more. He was in a fairer state than before and he was accompanied by a number of imposing figures who were watching over him. Then they said to the surviving friar, ‘If you want to know how he fares, place your hand on his head.’ So he put his hand on the dead man’s head and he thought that there was not so fierce a heat in any fire in this world. Then the dead man said to him, ‘Your hand which you placed on my head is so cold, for the hand symbolises what a man does and brotherly love is warmth.’ Then the dead man vanished along with those who had appeared with him. Indeed, the dead man, while he was a secular, lived sumptuously off the goods of the poor and delighted in the pomps of this world, for he had been rector of two churches and he habitually spent the goods which he received from them in this way. And the reason for his suffering can appropriately be seen as a kitchen, as the dead man said above. For, as it is written, ‘a man shall be punished in the way in which he sins’.66 And he who heard his confession before he entered the religious life and likewise during his last illness bore witness to this. He said that he did not remember anyone before this man making a fuller or purer or more complete confession. Again, before his death the dead man said to the friar, to whom he had spoken three times, that if he was in need of help after death he would come to him if he could and tell him what help he required. Thus it appears that he was permitted to do this by the Lord Who also caused His angel to appear to Joseph in his dreams, so that he would take Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Angels, into Egypt;67 and again he told Joseph to return to the land of Judah with 66 A proverbial expression (Walther, no. 21238); compare Wisdom 11: 17. For punishments in the next life which reflect the sins committed before death, see above at LE 121 note 242. 67 Matthew 2: 13.

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the Christ Child and His mother.68 He knew the names of the persons mentioned and learned the whole truth from them, but he did not give their names because they were still living. [211]  In the time of Brother Jordan, the master of the Order of Friars Preacher,69 there was in Italy a brother of great simplicity and humility who was often deep in prayer and who was exceptional in the fervour of his devotions. He began to experience marvellous and unusual feelings of pleasure, in that he conceived so great an affection for some of his brethren, for whom had an especial love, that when they were absent he thought that they were present in spirit and he could almost feel himself with them, all enjoying one another’s company and embracing each other with a wonderful sense of delight. Someone who saw that the friar was so joyful that, even when he wept in prayer, one might think he was laughing rather than crying, [told Master Jordan]. When this was reported to Master Jordan, who was present there, he recognised the tricks of Satan and found that the friar was deluded by a demon and showed him that he should not rejoice in any part of the created world but in the Holy Spirit. At this the friar devoted himself to prayer so that he should not be deceived and lo! he suddenly realised that the master had spoken the truth, that is to say that one soul could not take such delight in another, but that it was the angel sent to watch over him, rejoicing at his progress and taking pleasure with his soul. For a long time it also seemed to this friar that there was such a sweet smell on his hands and clothes that it seemed as if something perfumed were being kept in his cell. When he told the master what he felt in his heart, he told him that he should take pleasure not in the angel or any other creature but in God. When he heard this he became exceedingly sad that he had been tricked by a demon in this way and devoutly begged the Blessed Virgin, before whose altar he prostrated himself, that he should not be deceived. And when, in floods of tears, he prayed earnestly and uttered impassioned curses against his association with the devil, behold! all the pleasant feelings and joy and the sweet smell, which he had previously savoured, was turned to such bitterness and foulness that he could not bear it. Wherever he was, either in bed or at table or anywhere else, the bitter and foul smell followed him, so much so that he could not sleep or eat and he was afflicted with this misery until he had been able to purge himself of the pleasant feelings and sweetness. Thus freed from 68 Matthew 2: 19. 69 Jordan of Saxony, Libellus de principiis 116–19 (ed. Schebeen, 79–81), where Jordan records this as happening to himself; see also VF iii. 33 (ed. Reichert, 126).

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these miseries, he received such a brightness and grace of the spirit that, whereas he had previously been a simple man of little learning, he became filled with an understanding of the Scriptures and a wonderful ability to explain and expound the sacred writings and henceforth he advanced greatly in both learning and holiness. [216]  A trustworthy religious of exemplary character told me that he knew a woman who was still alive who had often confessed things like this to him. When she was 16 and was living in her father’s house, a figure often appeared to her. He was richly dressed, sometimes in silk and sometimes in vestments of gold. He asked her to have sex and sometimes he would come to her when she was sitting with others in the hall and would kiss her without anyone else knowing. Meanwhile, she married but the devil did not stop his attentions because of that; she, however, always resisted him and gave birth to two sons by her lawful husband. When on one occasion, during her confinement, the devil came to her and said, ‘Unless you give yourself to me, I shall bring complete ruin down upon you and steal from you everything that you have loved on earth.’ The woman again resisted but the devil breathed into her eyes and she immediately went completely blind. Soon afterwards her husband died, and then likewise her son, whom she had loved greatly. The woman was deeply sorrowful at these events, when the devil appeared to her again, saying, ‘If you agree now, I shall cure your eyes and restore your sight.’ When she heard this, she granted what he had sought, believing that she would recover her sight if she did so. But when the woman submitted to the demon, he immediately grabbed her most roughly and then violated her. Soon after, her stomach began to swell to a huge size but her sight did not improve at all. When she realised this, she said to the demon, ‘Why do you not restore my sight as you promised?’ But the deceitful spirit and the father of lies, wanting to deceive her further, said to her, ‘You will not have your sight yet.’ The woman realised that she had been deceived by a demon and sent for a wise confessor, to whom she revealed everything that had happened. Once she had confessed, her stomach began to grow smaller and afterwards to secrete a liquid in a remarkable fashion. After her confession, the devil was not able to come to her again but thereafter, whenever he drew near, he would often terrify her with a great noise. The woman, who still had one son, once cursed him in a moment of anger and lo! this son died suddenly before three days had passed. The man who told me these things did not want the place where they happened or the woman’s name to be made known at this time.

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[217]  One religious told me in confidence that on Good Friday he and some others had gone in a spirit of deep devotion to kiss the cross in the middle of the choir, as was the custom of their order and lo! there suddenly entered into him an amazingly sweet savour which seemed to fill his whole heart to the extent that every kind of worldly food was wearisome to him. And the sweetness remained in him for almost a year, until he went to his prior who gave him some sound advice. For because of the sweet flavour the friar often went without any food to the point that he was completely weakened and exhausted, as if he were about to breathe his last. So his prior said to him, ‘Brother, I believe you are being tempted by the devil. For when he is unable to draw the chosen ones of God into sin by evil means, the devil often transforms himself into an angel of light at a just man’s right hand in order to deceive, so that in this guise he may more easily bend him to his will and cause his downfall. Therefore now ask the Lord with all your heart that, if you are being tempted by the devil, He should not allow you to be further deceived by such apparitions and delusions.’ The brother therefore prayed and, as I believe, others prayed earnestly on his behalf. And lo! when the brethren had finished their prayers, the sweet taste completely left the friar. Indeed, the friar, realising that he had been tricked by the devil, began to eat and drink along with the rest of the community. In this way he regained his former strength by eating the normal diet of the community and laboured as he had done before the devil tricked him and through his labours his brethren afterwards profited greatly. [218]  As I learned from certain trustworthy persons, when St Edmund the archbishop of Canterbury was still a regent in theology at Oxford,70 after lecturing one day he promised that after dinner on a particular day he would dispute before his students.71 A short while before the disputation72 he was overcome by a great feeling of sleepiness and began to rest for a while on the ground by his bed.73 While he was resting, the devil came in his sleep, rushing upon him and pressing him hard. But when St Edmund felt the devil pressing hard upon him, he thought of 70 See DC 117 and note 28 above. 71 A relatively common example (Tubach, no. 1858). The version given here is fuller than any of the others cited by Tubach or any of the versions in the surviving Lives of Edmund; see LE 24 and the sources cited there. 72 A disputation was a formal academic exercise in which a master put a question and a chosen student responded, answering objections from the master or others. The master summed up the arguments before giving his determination of the question. 73 All the Lives of Edmund remark that he never slept in a bed after he became a university master (Lawrence, St Edmund, 100).

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making the sign of the Cross over himself with his right hand and thus putting the devil to flight but he was not able to do so because the devil was holding his hand tightly. Then he wanted to sign himself with the left hand but again the devil was holding that as well so that he could not use that hand either. When he was unable to help himself by using his hands, he began with all his heart to cry out to our most sweet Lord Jesus Christ, ‘Lord, through the power of Thy Passion and Thy most precious blood, free me now from the power of the Enemy.’ When he had prayed in this way, the devil immediately fell to the ground and the blessed Edmund fell on top of him, commanding by the power of the name of Jesus Christ that he should tell him what most readily destroys the power of the devil. Then the devil, adjured by him in this way, answered, ‘It is that which you just named in your prayer which most effectively destroys and demolishes the devil’s power.’ [227] A certain trustworthy member of a religious order told me about another religious who had been especially close to him. When he was dying, he entered into a bargain with a friar, who had looked after him during his illness, that he would appear to him after his death. After his death he appeared to the friar twice, once when he was awake and at prayer and on another occasion while he was asleep, each time in a dread and terrible fashion. For he was accompanied by two servantboys, black like Ethiopians, one on his right and the other on his left, who held chains fixed to each side of his mouth. When he began to speak, the two servant-boys both pulled the chains and by pulling him in this way caused him great pain. Then the man who was still alive and to whom he had appeared asked him how he could bear such agonies and he answered, ‘I am tormented all day like this by the servant-boys with their two chains, because in life I was a hypocrite who spoke good and flattering things to a man’s face and evil and slanders in his absence.’ These things took place in England in the bishopric of Bath in the year of the Incarnation of Our Lord 1243.74 I am silent here about the place, profession and identity of the person, as the man who told me wished. [244]  Again, when a learned man was planning to compile a summa of civil law75 and began to work on the project, paralysis suddenly seized the middle part of his body. From this he understood that this work was not pleasing to God and he stopped working on what he had begun 74 The manuscript reads m cc xliii (1243), not 1253 as given by Forte. The version of the story in BL, Add. MS 33956 fol. 84r gives the date as mccxl et l, which I take to mean 1241. 75 Compare the story of Stephen of Bloy, a rector of a church who was studying civil law, in LE 65 above.

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and was accordingly restored to his former health. Master Robert de Burwelle told me that this had happened to him. [310]  There is a story that a member of the Order of Preachers was talking informally with a man in Cambridge when he asked him whether he was in a state in which he would dare to die. But he replied, ‘I do not propose to die yet.’ The other man said, ‘Would it be enough for you to live ten years?’ And he said, ‘I hope to live longer than ten years.’ Then the friar said, ‘If you were allowed to live fifteen years, would that be enough for you?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘I hope to live longer still.’ But what happened afterwards? The man who counted upon living even longer did not survive ten more days. [311] It is reported that there was a great prince who inflicted enormous cruelty during his lifetime.76 A clerk, who had been brought up at his court and who had been granted benefices and great riches by the prince, was exceedingly troubled about the prince’s condition after death when he had led such a cruel life. One day, when the clerk and some others were passing through a forest in which the prince had often hunted, he was thinking a good deal about the way that the prince had hunted there when lo! a dense cloud came down upon them and in the darkness and gloom the clerk became separated from his companions. When he was wandering alone in the forest as if lost, he met a rider on a great horse who said to him, ‘If you want to know, as you long to, how your lord is faring, get down quickly from your horse and get on mine. He will carry you to the gate of a manor house. Dismount there, go inside and enter a certain room and you will see your desire. But if you want to escape with your life, leave the horse at the gate and get back onto him as soon as he neighs and I sound my horn. In this way you will escape all danger.’ Hearing these things, the clerk mounted the horse and did the other things that he had been told. When he entered the room, lo! there was placed before him a throne of fire and sitting upon it was a man wearing a fiery crown upon his head. Then a stag with exceptionally sharp antlers came in and threw him off the throne and onto the ground, where it tore at him all over his body with its antlers in a most brutal way. The stag then went out and the man returned to his place and sat down once more on the throne. And behold! two black and fearsome hunting dogs came in and again dragged him from his throne and launched a remarkable attack on him. They went out and 76 Tubach catalogues this as no. 2517. The reference should be 2621, where it is cited only from BL, Add. MS 6716 fol. 25. In fact, the example also occurs in the Fasciculus Morum and numerous other works (Fasciculus Morum, 368–9 and 371).

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the prince once more sat on the throne when a young man came in with a sword and seized him by his crown and cast him down from his throne onto the ground and ran his sword through his heart and cast it at his feet and went out. Then the king again returned to his place as before and said to the clerk who saw and witnessed these things, ‘I am he whom you seek. Behold my throne and my crown, which weighs more than the whole world.’ When the clerk asked about the stag and the hunting-dogs and the young man with the sword who had treated him so cruelly, he replied, if I can recall his explanation correctly, in this way, ‘I hated the clergy and out of contempt for them I shaved the head of a stag and cut off its horns. Then once I was hunting in this forest and I had two men hanged here because they held two hunting dogs outside my pleasure and they did not make them hunt as I wished. Then with my own hands I killed a young man with a sword. Thus I justly suffer these things because I sinned greatly against the clergy and my neighbour.’ When he had said this the clerk heard the neighing of the horse and the sound of the hor n and straightaway he mounted the horse and, as the man had told him, he escaped all danger, but as he left he could hear the noise and tumult of demons behind him. A trustworthy religious told me these things, saying that he had heard them from a master who had heard them from the daughter of the prince himself. I think it better to conceal rather than state the names of those involved, for their names are quite well known. [313]  A trustworthy man of religion told me that he heard this from reliable people who had themselves been present. They were visiting a lawyer at Oxford who was sick and almost at the point of death – so much so that he had completely lost the power of speech before he had made his confession or received the viaticum. While they were grieving for him, the sick man made a sign for them to bring him a chalice which was there; on its bowl was an image of the Lamb and on the right side of the stem that of Christ’s Cross. When the chalice was offered to him, he put the lips of the cup to his own lips and while he held the bowl to his mouth in this way, he spoke aloud to them. Those present saw this and marvelled and said to the sick man, ‘How can you now speak, when you could not do so before?’ He answered, ‘Do you not see the devil present here who previously held my throat so that I was completely unable to speak? But while I had at my mouth the cup, on which is the image of God and the sign of the Cross of Christ Who taketh away the sins of the world,77 the devil could no longer hold my throat because of 77 John 1: 29.

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the strength of the Lamb of God and the sign of the Cross of Christ Himself.’ Then the others said to him, ‘Hold the cup firmly to your mouth until you have made a full confession of all your sins to the priest.’ And he answered, ‘I have too long delayed confessing my sins and making satisfaction for them.’ After this he put the cup down from his mouth and died without confession or viaticum. [314]  A trustworthy religious told me that there were two brethren in an order of outstandingly deep piety who were especially close to one another. When one of them was dying, the other asked him if possible to inform him of his condition after death. A long time after his death, he appeared to the man who was still alive in his current condition and said, ‘Behold I now show you that I am forever damned and this great storm has blown up because of me, for the weather and the sky were calm and will be so again after I have left you.’ For before he appeared the weather had been beautiful but while he was present there was a great and terrible storm. The survivor marvelled and was greatly amazed how anyone professed in so renowned an order could be damned, and asked the dead man why this was so. Then the dead man replied, ‘I am damned because, although I lived among others in the order, I was always grudging in the obedience enjoined upon me by my superiors and was never truly obedient in my heart.’ Afterwards he added, ‘I must leave you now. Look – the storm that I spoke of will follow me.’ So he left and immediately the terrible storm suddenly disappeared78 as he had predicted. [315]  A trustworthy man who was rector of a church in the diocese of Norwich told me something which happened in his parish. There had been a royal bailiff there, a man of intemperate character who was harsh towards his neighbours,79 but whose wife feared God and took pity on the poor. He died still hard-hearted and his wife still devout. Afterwards their only son and heir greatly desired to know the condition of his parents after death. He therefore asked God to fulfil his desire. A long time afterwards, the son was in a certain place when his mother appeared to him; she was radiant and said that she was saved. 78 The manuscript reads apparuit, but disparuit is evidently meant. 79 Bailiffs appear frequently in exempla and other pastoral literature, where they are usually portrayed as avaricious, over-zealous and cruel. For contemporary complaints about royal bailiffs, which were widespread, see H. M. Cam, Studies in the Hundred Rolls (Oxford, 1921), 142–92; Cam notes that in 1274 the men of Norfolk, where this story may be set, complained that the county was overburdened with bailiffs (Cam, Studies, 147). For the Church’s concerns, see M. Haren, ‘The Interrogatories for officials, lawyers and secular estates of the Memoriale Presbiterorum’, in P. Biller and A. J. Minnis (eds), Handling Sin: Confession in the Middle Ages (York, 1998), 135.

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Then, rejoicing greatly that his mother was saved, he asked how his father fared and she answered, saying, ‘My son, your father is close by. Ask him his condition.’ Then he looked about him and saw the terrible figure of his father; when he asked him his condition, his father replied, ‘The Son of God denied me and took me up most harshly and placed me at the centre of His wheel, where the axle of a cart or wagon is always turning, where there is never any rest but always toil and travail while the cart or wagon is drawn by animals.’80

80 According to the Fasciculus Morum, 339–41, the bailiff ‘despoiled God’s poor and left them wretched’ and was ‘continually punished by diabolical and mad beasts because he treated the beasts of the poor badly’. For an argument that Norfolk men were regarded as dishonest and avaricious and that the author was writing according to type rather than from experience, see A. J. Fletcher, ‘Chaucer’s Norfolk Reeve’, Medium Aevum 52 (1983), 100–3.

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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

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The exemplum genre Berlioz, J., ‘Le récit efficace: l’exemplum au service de la prédication (XIII–XVe siècles)’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome 92/1 (1980), 113–46 —— and M.-A. Polo de Beaulieu (eds), Les Exempla médiévaux: Introduction à la recherche, suivie des tables critiques de l’‘Index exemplorum’ de Frederic C. Tubach (Carcassonne, 1992) —— and M.-A. Polo de Beaulieu (eds), Les Exempla médiévaux: Nouvelles Perspectives (Paris, 1998) Bremond, C., J. Le Goff and J.-C. Schmitt (eds), L’Exemplum (Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental 40, 2nd edn, Turnhout, 1996) Kehnel, A., ‘The narrative tradition of the medieval Franciscan friars of the British Isles. Introduction to the sources’, Franciscan Studies 63 (2005), 461–530 Kemmler, F., ‘Exempla’ in Context: A Historical and Critical Study of Robert Mannyng of Brunne’s ‘Handlyng synne’ (Studies and Texts in English 6, Tübingen, 1984) Scanlon, L., Narrative, Authority and Power: the Medieval Exemplum and the Chaucerian Tradition (Cambridge, 1994) Schmitt, J.-C., ‘Recueils franciscains d’exempla et perfectionnement des techni­ ques intellectuelles du XIIIe au XVe siècle’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 135 (1977), 5–21 Schürer, M., Das Exemplum oder die erzählte Institution: Studien zum Beispielgebrauch bei den Dominikanern und Franziskanern des 13. Jahrhunderts (Vita Regularis 23, Berlin, 2005) Tubach, F. C., Index Exemplorum: A Handbook of Medieval Religious Tales (FF Communications 204, Helsinki, 1969) Welter, J.-Th., L’Exemplum dans la littérature religieuse et didactique du Moyen Âge (Paris and Toulouse, 1927)

Published exemplum-collections Caesarii Heisterbachensis monachi ordinis Cisterciensis Dialogus Miraculorum, ed. J. Strange (Cologne, Bonn and Brussels, 1851) Crane, T. F. (ed.), The Exempla or Illustrative Stories from the Sermones Vulgares of Jacques de Vitry (Publications of The Folk-lore Society 26, 1890)

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Forte, S. D., ‘A Cambridge Dominican collector of Exempla in the thirteenth century’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 28 (1958), 115–48 Frenken, G. (ed.), Die Exempla des Jacob von Vitry: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Erzählungsliteratur des Mittelalters (Munich, 1914) Greven, J. (ed.), Die ‘Exempla’ aus den Sermones feriales et communes des Jacob von Vitry (Heidelberg, 1914) Hilka, A. (ed.), Die Wundergeschichten des Caesarius von Heisterbach (Publikationen der Gesellschaft für Rheinische Geschichtskunde 43, Bonn, 1933–37) Lecoy de la Marche, A. (ed.), Anecdotes historiques, légendes et apologues tirés du recueil inédit d’Etienne de Bourbon, dominicain du XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1877) Liber exemplorum ad usum praedicantium saeculo XIII compositus a quodam Fratre Minore Anglico de Provincia Hiberniae, ed. A. G. Little (British Society of Franciscan Studies 1, Aberdeen, 1908) Le Speculum laïcorum: Edition d’une collection d’exempla composée en Angleterre à la fin du XIIIe siècle, ed. J.-Th. Welter (Thesaurus Exemplorum fasc. v, Paris, 1914) Stephani de Borbone Tractatus de diversis materiis praedicabilibus: prologus, prima pars De Dono Timoris, eds J. Berlioz and J.-L. Eichenlaub, (CCCM 124, Turnhout, 2002) Stephani de Borbone Tractatus de diversis materiis praedicabilibus: tertia pars de eis que pertinent ad Donum Scientie et Penitentiam, ed. J. Berlioz (CCCM 124B, Turnhout, 2006)

Exempla in translation Caesarius of Heisterbach, The Dialogue on Miracles, trans. H. von E. Scott and C. C. Swinton Bland (2 vols, London, 1929) Coulton, G. G., Life in the Middle Ages (4 vols, Cambridge, 1928) Gerald of Wales: The Jewel of the Church: A Translation of the ‘Gemma Ecclesiastica’ by Giraldus Cambrensis, trans. J. J. Hagen (Leiden, 1979) Gregg, J. Y., Devils, Women and Jews: Reflections of the Other in Medieval Sermon Stories (New York, 1997) Platelle, H. (ed.), Thomas de Cantimpré: Les Exemples du Livre des Abeilles (Turnhout, 1997) Schmitt, J.-C., Prêcher d’exemples: Récits de prédicateurs du Moyen Âge (Paris, 1985)

The medieval church Bolton, B., The Medieval Reformation (London, 1983) Brown, A., Church and Society in England, 1000–1500 (Basingstoke, 2003) Constable, G., The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1996) Duffy, E., The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c.1400– c.1580 (2nd edn, New Haven, 2005)

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Gurevich, A., Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception, trans. J. M. Bak and P. A. Hollingsworth (Cambridge, 1988) Morris, C., The Papal Monarchy: the Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford, 1989) Shinners, J. (ed.), Medieval Popular Religion: A Reader (Peterborough, Ontario, 1995) —— and W. J. Dohar (eds), Pastors and the Care of Souls in Medieval England (Notre Dame, 1998) Swanson, R. N. (ed.), Catholic England: Faith, Religion and Observance before the Reformation (Manchester, 1993) ——, Religion and Devotion in Europe c.1215–c.1515 (Cambridge 1995) Tanner, N., ‘Pastoral care: the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215’, in G. R. Evans (ed.), A History of Pastoral Care (London, 2000).

Medieval preaching d’Avray, D. L., The Preaching of the Friars: Sermons diffused from Paris before 1300 (Oxford, 1985) Faire croire: Modalités de la diffusion et de la réception des messages religieux du XIIIe au XVe s.: Actes de la Table ronde de Rome, 22–23 juin 1979 (Rome, 1981) Hanska, J., ‘And the Rich Man also died; and he was buried in Hell’: The Social Ethos in Mendicant Sermons (Bibliotheca Historica 28, Helsinki, 1997) Kienzle, B. M. (ed.), The Sermon (Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occi­­ dental 81–3, Turnhout, 2000) Owst, G. R., Preaching in Medieval England: An Introduction to Sermon Manuscripts of the period c. 1350–1450 (Cambridge, 1926, repr. New York, 1966) ——, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1933, 2nd rev. edn, Oxford, 1961, reissued 1966) Rouse, R. H. and M. A. Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia and Sermons: Studies on the Manipulus Florum of Thomas of Ireland (Toronto, 1979) Spencer, H. L., English Preaching in the Late Middle Ages (Oxford, 1993) Wenzel, S., Latin Sermon Collections from later Medieval England: Orthodox Preaching in the Age of Wyclif (Cambridge, 2005) ——, Preaching in the Age of Chaucer: Selected Sermons in Translation (Washington DC, 2008)

The Friars Brooke, R. B., The Coming of the Friars (London, 1975) Hinnebusch, W. A., The Early English Friars Preachers (Rome, 1951) Lawrence, C. H., The Friars: The Impact of the Early Mendicant Movement on Western Society (London, 1994)

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Mulchahey, M. M., ‘First the Bow is bent in Study’: Dominican Education before 1350 (Toronto, 1998) Roest, B., A History of Franciscan Education (c.1210–1517) (Leiden, 2000)

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Confession Bériou, N., ‘Autour de Latran IV (1215): La Naissance de la Confession moderne et sa diffusion’, in Groupe de la Bussière, Pratiques de la confession (Paris, 1983), 73–93 Hamilton, S., The Practice of Penance, 900–1050 (Woodbridge, 2001) Haren, M., Sin and Society in Fourteenth-century England: A Study of the Memoriale Presbiterorum (Oxford, 2000) Minnis, A. J. and P. Biller (eds), Handling Sin: Confession in the Middle Ages (York, 1998) Murray, A., ‘Confession before 1215’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 3 (1993), 51–81

The Eucharist Bynum, C. W., Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond (Philadelphia, 2007) Rubin, M., Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1991)

Mary Fulton, R., From Judgement to Compassion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800–1200 (New York, 2002) Rubin, M., Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (London, 2009) ——, Emotion and Devotion: The Meaning of Mary in Medieval Religious Cultures (Budapest and New York, 2009)

Saints and miracles Bartlett, R., The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2008) Head, T. (ed.), Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology (New York and London, 2001) Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. W. G. Ryan (2 vols, Princeton, 1993) Sigal, P.-A., L’Homme et le Miracle dans la France médiévale (xie–xiie siècle (Paris, 1985) Stouck, M.-A. (ed.), Medieval Saints: A Reader (Peterborough, Ontario, 1999) Sumption, J., Pilgrimage: An Image of Medieval Religion (London, 1975)

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Vauchez, A., Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. J. Birrell (Cambridge, 1997) Ward, B., Miracles and the Medieval Mind (London, 1982) Webb, D., Pilgrimage in Medieval England (Hambledon and London, 2000) Yarrow, S., Saints and their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth-century England (Oxford, 2006)

Purgatory and indulgences Le Goff, J., The Birth of Purgatory, trans. A. Goldhammer (London, 1984) Shaffern, R. W., ‘Learned discussions of indulgences for the dead in the Middle Ages’, Church History 61 (1992), 367–81 ——, The Penitents’ Treasury: Indulgences in Latin Christendom, 1175–1375 (Scranton and London, 2007) Swanson, R. N., Indulgences in Late Medieval England: Passports to Paradise? (Cambridge, 2007) Vincent, N., ‘Some pardoners’ tales: the earliest English indulgences’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 12 (2002), 23–58

Ghosts and the other world Bynum, C. W., Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York, 1995) Joynes, A., Medieval Ghost Stories: An Anthology of Miracles, Marvels and Prodigies (Woodbridge, 2001) Lecouteux, C., Fantômes et revenants au Moyen Âge (Paris, 1986) Schmitt, J.-C., Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in Late Medieval Society, trans. T. L. Fagan (Chicago and London, 1998)

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Index

Aachen, Nicholas of 153 Abba 60 abbess, pregnant 60 abbot, severe 161 Abingdon, St Edmund of 13, 40–1, 154–5, 166, 172–3, 183 Abraham 45 Alexander the Great 125 All Saints’ Day 164 almsgiving see charity alphabetical order 9, 64 anchorite 84 angels 60–1 anger 102, 128–9, 182 Angles, invasions by 88 Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury 74, 89 Antony the Great, St 64, 123, 136 Arden, Peter of 9, 49 Arthur, King 26, 88 Ashby, Alexander of 6 Assumption of the Virgin 48–50 Augustine, St 10, 18, 21–2, 28, 30, 73–4, 76, 89, 114–15, 128, 132, 145 Augustus, emperor 46 avarice 37, 70–2, 123, 163, 188 Ave Maria 50–1, 54, 58–60, 159 Bacon, Roger 10, 48 bailiffs 69, 89, 187–8 baptism 73–4 Barons’ War (1264–65) 10, 87 Barry, David de 65, 176 Becket, St Thomas 20, 75, 96, 172–3 Benedict, St 66 blasphemy 132–3, 139 Bloy, Robert de 68 Blund, Geoffrey 150 Bologna 169

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Bourbon, Etienne de 7, 17, 25–6, 119 Brendan, St 115 Brice, St 20, 95 Burgh, David de 97 Burgh, Walter de 97 Burgundy, Vincent of 109–10 burial in unconsecrated ground 37, 50, 97 Burwelle, Robert de 185 Byzantium, plague at 47–8 Caldecote, Stephen, rector of 68, 184 Cambridge 59, 68, 159, 165, 177, 185 Camera, (bishop of Amiens) Robert de 75 Candlemas (Purification of the Virgin) 47–8 canonical hours 30 Cantilupe, (bishop of Worcester) Walter 4 carnal thoughts 76–8 see also lust Carpus, St 43–4 Chanter, Peter the 7, 75 charity 59, 75, 99–106, 149, 168 Charlemagne, emperor 63–4, 111 Chartres 50 Cheriton, Odo of 8, 22, 76 childbirth 138 Chobham, Thomas of 6 Christ birth 27, 46 body see Eucharist Christ Child 154–5, 158, 181 at the funeral of St Martha 106 infancy 27–8, 180–1 as leper 101 mercy 43–5 Passion 28–30

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devotion to 152–3, 172, 183 power of 40–1 as poor man 105–6 Resurrection 29–32 wounded by swearing 132–3 see also Jesus, name of church behaviour in desecration 95 inattention 66–7 leaving early 65–7 sexual intercourse 98 talking 82, 95 violence 95, 97–8 failure to attend 26, 163–4 Church, injuries to the 95–9 property of 96 theft from 99 churchyard 50, 99, 164 behaviour in 99, 137, 139 Cistercian Order 5–6, 163 avarice 163 exempla 6 granges 163 lay-brothers 163–4 preaching 5 civil law, study of 68, 184 and cure of souls 68 Clairvaux, St Bernard of 40, 108 clerks, wicked 75–6 Comestor, Peter 29, 31, 46, 95 ‘common examples’ 8, 10, 31, 89, 123, 152 compurgation 52, 133–4, 164 concubine 35, 39–40, 56, 91, 164 confession 14–15, 54–6, 59, 79–85, 158–60 delayed 158, 187 see also repentance, delayed efficacy 15, 78–80, 84–5, 95, 148, 159–60, 162–3 erases record of sins 84, 95 need for completeness 15, 60. 84–5, 159 protects from devil or demons 15, 78–80, 84–5, 95, 159–60, 162–3

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role of Church in 15, 80 vicarious 83 Constantine 90, 150 contrition 15 Cork 10, 65, 175–6 Crépy, St Simon of 119 Cross, the 41–3, 163 cruelty 185–6, 188 dancing 137–8 dead, appearances of the 52–3, 65–6, 99, 111, 119, 123, 126–8, 140, 154, 161, 164, 166, 175–80, 184, 187–8 death, mindfulness of 153 see also human life, uncertainty of demon(s)15, 24, 35–6, 40, 42, 49, 58–9, 60–1, 64, 69, 73, 75, 77–8, 82, 84–6, 89, 92, 95, 108, 111, 113–14, 119, 120, 122–5, 132, 135, 137, 141, 148, 155, 162, 168–9, 175, 179, 181–2, 186 see also devil(s); sins, recorded Demosthenes 145 Denmark 138 Deodatus 8, 10, 82, 118, 148 Desert Fathers 61 Lives/Sayings of 6, 10, 18, 24, 26, 43, 60–1, 64, 67, 71–2, 77–8, 85, 119, 122–5, 129–30, 135–6, 140–1 devil(s) 15, 20–1, 36, 40–1, 49, 56, 67, 77, 79–80, 82, 85–8, 92–3, 95, 107, 115–16, 118, 120, 122–4, 128–9, 133, 137–8, 141, 148, 155, 158–60, 162–3, 168, 181–4, 186 homage to 158, 162 pact with 56, 82, 162, 169 pledge given to 158 possession by 36, 123–4, 132, 168 see also demon(s); sins, recorded Diogenes 145 Dionysius the Areopagite, Pseudo29, 43 Dodington, Robert of 31, 127

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index

Dominican Collection, the Cambridge date 13 oral material 24 sources 12–13 topics covered 12–13 Dominican Order see Friars Preacher (Dominicans) Donekan, Brother 84, 126–7 doubt 33–5, 158, 175 Drogheda 10, 113, 132 drunkenness 122–3, 142–3 Dublin 10, 23, 97 English capture of 96 Edward I, king of England 20, 87–8 Elevation of the Host 66 envy 128 ergotism see St Antony’s fire Eucharist 2, 14–16, 32–9, 155–6 and confession 2, 14, 35, 81 efficacy 38–9, 157 frequency of 66 host, miraculous 32–3, 35, 81 host, used in witchcraft 83 lack of faith in 33–5, 158 miracles 32–3, 35–9, 158 pax 151 see also Elevation of the Host; viaticum excommunication 106–8 executors 109–11 exempla adaptation 19–23 collections 6–13 folklore 25 lay audience 1, 8, 29 oral culture 23–5 reception 25–6 exorcism 155, 157, 169 faith 113–14 Fasciculus Morum 8, 29, 72, 89, 119 fasting as penance 160 Faust 56 feast-days revels 137, 139

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sexual intercourse 86, 142–3, 164 work 111–13 Fishacre, Richard 10, 45 forest laws 151, 186 fornication 60, 77–8, 82, 141 Fountains, abbot of 163 Franciscan Order see Friars Minor (Franciscans) friars 4–8 expertise 83–4 hostility to 97–8 on military campaigns 53–5 Friars Minor (Franciscans) 168, 178–9 Holy Land 109 Ireland 11, 65–6, 68, 82, 83–4, 109, 113–14, 126–8, 132–3, 138 Connacht 11, 113–14 Cork 153 Drogheda 113 Dublin 56, 97, 144 Ulster 11, 126–7 London 68 Paris 55, 87 preaching 55, 113–14, 126–7 recruitment 52–3, 97 Friars Preacher (Dominicans) 5–7, 11–13, 45, 59, 137, 150, 154–6, 158, 165–6, 168–75, 177, 181, 185 Cambridge 12–13, 59, 159, 165, 177, 185 efficacy 168–9 habit 171 Ireland 150, 175 mission 5, 171–4 recruitment 169–71 travel in pairs 168, 174 Scotland 169 Galtrim, John of 80 games, unlawful 137–9 Gesta Romanorum 21 ghosts 52 see also dead, appearances of the gluttony 119–23, 176, 180

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God, love for 74 Good Friday 152–3, 183 Gregory the Great, St 6, 10, 18, 24, 36, 38, 41, 66, 70–1, 78, 86, 93, 99–100, 105–6, 117, 120, 135, 143 Grimston, Bartholomew of 177 Grosseteste, (bishop of Lincoln) Robert 4 Guinefort, ‘St’ 25 Habe, Adam 79–80 hanged man, saved 52, 57 Heaven joys of 118–19 vision of 44, 46, 55, 118 Heisterbach, Caesarius of 6, 21–2, 26 Heliodorus 95 Hell pains of 70–2, 91–3, 99, 122, 144, 150 vision of 44, 56, 118, 122, 144 Henry II, emperor 153 Henry II, king of England 20, 96, 111, 133 Henry III, king of England 20, 87 Henry IV, emperor 87, 129 Hinton, Simon of 59 holy days see All Saints’ Day; feastdays Holy Land 95, 109, 158, 170 hospitality 170 hospital workers 167 Hugh (warden of the London Franciscans) 68 human life, uncertainty of 15, 53–5, 91–5, 158, 185 humility 123–5 hunting 151, 185–6 hypocrisy 184 Ignatius, St 165 incest 56, 84, 142–4 incubus 108 indulgences 126–7, 154 innocent, injury done to the 127–8 In Principio 155

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interdict 176 Ireland, preaching in 11 James, St 62–4 Jesus, name of meaning 45 power 165, 174–5, 179, 184 Jews 41–2, 45, 134, 157–8 convert Christians 157 converted 42, 134 at Lincoln 157–8 magician 56 and usury 134, 157 John the Almsgiver, St 10, 39, 90, 102–5, 129, 149 John the Evangelist, St 74–5 Judas 130 judgement 129–32, 162 scales of 52–3, 58–9, 64, 102 Judgement Day 118, 131–2, 177 judge, unjust 129–30 Justinian 47 Kentigern, St 81 Kilkenny, John of 109–10 Kilnsey 162 king’s evil, the 133 kings see Arthur, King; Edward  I, king of England; Henry II, king of England; Henry III, king of England; Louis VII, king of France; Philip II Augustus, king of France; Richard I, king of England Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury 21–2, 76 latrines 148 lawyers 68–70, 184, 186 see also civil law, study of lease 116, 164 leper, Christ as 101 lepers, attitudes to 89, 167 leprosy, as punishment 89, 110 lewdness 160–1 Liber Exemplorum arrangement 9

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compiler 9–10 date 9 oral sources 23–4 prologue (lost) 9, 32, 64 sources 10–11 topics covered 9, 14 use of written material 19–23 Lincoln 157–8, 173 Little ‘St’ Hugh of 157 literate mentalities 95 see also sins, recorded Louis VII, king of France 19–20, 96 lust 50, 58–9, 76–8, 86, 140–9, 159, 164 see also incest; sexual intercourse Magi 27 magic 48–9, 87, 155 Paris 48, 87 Spain 49 see also witchcraft magician 42, 48–9, 87, 155 Hebrew 56 Spanish 49 see also witch marriage 85–6, 176 disparaging 21, 93 sex in 78, 86, 98 Martha, St 106 Martin, St 95 Martirius, St 101 Mary 18 Ave Maria 50–1, 54, 58–60, 159 feasts 47–50 Assumption 48–50 Nativity 45 Purification 47–8 Hours of 58 life 49–50 miracles 32, 50–60, 129, 144 virgin birth 46 Mary Magdalene, St 172 mass see Eucharist merchants 149–50 mercy 150–3 Merlin 87–8

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money 37, 70–2, 93, 102–3, 109, 123, 134, 149–50, 157, 173 see also avarice Montfort, Simon de 87 Nannan, St 108 Nativity of the Virgin 45 neighbours, love for 74–5 Nero 28, 70 New Forest 151 Nicholas, St 134 Noah 147 oath 164 see also compurgation; swearing obedience 187 Ó Cuinn, (bishop of Clonmacnoise) Tomás 11, 113–14 ‘Old Man’ 61 papal privilege 96 pardoner 168 parents, respect for 114–15 Paris 6–7, 10, 12, 20–2, 24, 29, 33–4, 48–9, 53, 55, 87, 137, 148, 173, 191 exempla disseminated from 24 parish clergy education 2–4, 83–4 preaching 3–4 parish priest 2–4, 32–3, 35–6, 66, 79–83, 98, 109, 137, 139, 156–7 confessor 79–80, 82–3, 85, 160, 162, 187 Eucharist 66, 79–80, 156 executor 109 exorcism 156–7 Passion 28–30 devotion to 152–3, 172, 183 power of 40–1 patience 43 Paul, St 165 pax 151 Pecham, (archbishop of Canterbury) John 4, 163 penance 2, 15–17, 35, 57, 61, 81,

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83–4, 88–9, 94, 96, 126, 130, 160–2, 166 power of 162 vicarious 83 see also fasting Peyraut, Guillaume 56–7, 69–70, 74–5, 107, 114, 139 Philip II Augustus, king of France 173 pilgrim 62–3, 83, 116–17, 158 pluralism 180 Pompey 95 poor, kindness to 99–106, 167–8, 170, 180, 187 poor, oppression of 176, 187–8 poverty, monastic 37 preaching 2–6, 25–6, 45, 55, 57–8, 68, 76, 79–80, 95, 99, 105, 111, 113–14, 116, 126–7, 148, 151, 154, 161, 165–7, 169 preaching aids 5–8 pride 106–7 prostitution 82 Purgatory 16–17, 99, 154, 177–80 souls in indulgences for 17, 126–7, 154 masses for 37–9, 99, 178–80 merits transferred to 166 penance performed for 83, 166 see also dead, appearances of the Purification of the Virgin 47–8 quarrels 86–8 regalian right 19–20, 96–7 regent master 166 relics 36, 168 religious (noun) 53 repentance, delayed 68–9, 91–5, 158, 187 Resurrection 29–32 Richard I, king of England 133, 151 Rigaud, (archbishop of Rouen) Eudes 69 Rome 46 Rouen 69

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royal power 173 Sabina, William of 13, 165 St Antony’s fire 110 St Edward, Walter of 162 saints 18 St Victor, Hugh of 33 Sandford, (bishop of Rochester) Henry 158 Santiago de Compostella 62 Saxony, Jordan of 10, 13, 17, 118, 148, 154, 165–6, 169, 181 scapular 171 Scotland 155, 169 scrofula 133 Sergius I, Pope 47–8 sermon 45, 55, 57–8, 68, 76, 79–80, 95, 99, 105, 111, 113–14, 116, 126–7, 148, 151, 154, 161, 165–7, 169 Seville, siege of 53 sexual intercourse clerks 40, 78, 91 on holy days 86, 142–3, 164 on holy ground 98 with demons 108, 169 with godchild 142–3 within marriage 78, 86, 98 see also incest; lust sibyl 28, 46 Simon Magus 28 sins, recorded 24, 52–3, 58–9, 92, 95 slander 89–90, 184 sloth 64–7 Sodom 144–5, 147–8 Spain 49 Speculum Laicorum 8, 13, 17, 22, 89 Stainsby, (bishop of CoventryLichfield) Alexander of, 4 strife 86–8 Sudesey, Robert de 91 Suerbeer, (archbishop of Armagh) Albert 116 suicide 35, 62–3 Sully, (bishop of Paris) Maurice de 20, 33 Sully, (bishop of Paris) Odo de 33

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Sutton, Hugh of 95 swearing 132–5 wounds Christ’s body 132–3 talk edifying 67, 135–6 hypocritical 184 idle 67, 95, 135–6, 179 proud 106–7 slanderous 89–90, 184 see also swearing Thefford see Thetford, William of theft 96, 115–17, 133–4 theological speculation 21–2, 75–6, 175 Theophilus 56–7 Thetford, William of 158 Thomas the Apostle, St 27 tithes 88–9 toad 120, 146 trental 16, 38 Trinity 75–6 Tutivillus 95 Ufford, Thomas of 68, 80 Ulster 126

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Urban III, Pope 34 usury 109, 134, 149, 157, 173 vainglory 119 vanity 160 Vercelli, John of 166 viaticum 34, 156, 160, 186–7 Vitae Fratrum 13, 58, 148, 169, 173–5, 181 Vitry, Jacques de 7–8, 12–13, 26, 114, 167, 173 Wales, Gerald of 7, 10, 19–20, 31–6, 75–6, 78, 81, 87, 96, 107–8, 111–12, 125, 132–4, 139, 145–7 Wales, John of 8 Wexford, Nicholas of 56, 144 William the Lion, king of Scots 155 witch 83 see also magician witchcraft 83 see also magic women, control of 95 wrath 102, 128–9, 182 wrestling 137

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