PREACHING
REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS
Bourgain Bourgain (l’Abbé L.), _La chaire française au xiie
siècle_ d’après les manuscrits, Paris, 1879.
Clerval (see the list for Chapter VI).
Cruel Cruel (R.), _Geschichte der deutschen Predigt im
Mittelalter_, Detmold, 1879.
Douais Douais (C.), _Essai sur l’organisation des études dans
l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs au xiiie et au xive siècle_
(1216-1342). Prèmiere province de Provence. Province
de Toulouse, avec de nombreux textes inédits.
Toulouse & Paris, 1884.
LM Lecoy de la Marche (A.), _La chaire française au
moyen âge_, spécialement au xiiie siècle, d’après les
manuscrits contemporains, Paris, 1886 (2nd edition).
Owst Owst (G. R.), _Preaching in medieval England_, an
introduction to sermon manuscripts of the period c.
1350-1450, Cambridge, 1926.
PL _Patrologia latina_ (Migne), cited by volume and column.
Perdrizet Perdrizet (Paul), _Étude sur le Speculum humanæ
salvationis_, Paris (thèse), 1908.
Polheim Polheim (Karl), _Die lateinische Reimprosa_, Berlin, 1925.
The historian of twelfth-century preaching finds the “prodigious
success”[1] of St. Anselm’s sermon on the Assumption not even faintly
echoed in the flat record. The same disappointment awaits any one who
shall turn from the fame of John Bunyan’s preaching to his printed
sermons. In both cases the reputation is more convincing than the record.
The testimony leaves no doubt that the preacher was eloquent; but his
eloquence has not been preserved. The seventeenth-century record and the
medieval, though in different directions, are alike insufficient.[2]
Even when we have on the page before us the very sentences—and often
we have something less, or even something different, we lack something
of the eloquence. For the difficulty of transmission is so fundamental
that it thwarts even the records of our own day. Oratory is typically
the energizing of a message by a speaker for a specific audience. Its
style depends on all three. In varying degrees all three enter into its
composition. The occasion becomes part of the message. Between speaker
and audience there is mutual response. Therefore of all the arts oratory
is the most perishable.
But the history of oratory, though often baffling, is not hopeless. So
perishable that it can never be quite recaptured, oratory may be so
charged that even through imperfect record much often transpires. For any
given period its records not only reveal much of the habit of the time,
but conversely can often be so interpreted by that habit as to become
really significant. Medieval sermons can thus be related not only to the
medieval pedagogy of rhetoric, but to actual habits of composition and of
style. In a form of oratory continuous for nearly two thousand years they
will show at least what in preparation, composition, utterance, record is
typically medieval.
For the middle age preaching is the characteristic form of oratory.
Political oratory being in abeyance, legal oratory having little scope,
preaching practically monopolizes the third field distinguished by
Aristotle, occasional oratory, the oratory of here and now. Teaching,
clearly of course a sermon function, sometimes becomes the main object;
but even so it is not incompatible with other oratorical use of the
occasion. Indeed, a sermon hardly succeeds as teaching except through
the typical means of occasional oratory. For a sermon is different from
a lesson, and even more different from an essay. As a form of oral
composition it has opportunities and methods distinct from those of the
bar or the senate. Occasional oratory, always beset by temptations toward
sophistic,[3] has always opened on the other hand the highest ranges. In
preaching, the safeguard against sophistic is in the distinctive use of
the occasion to move men to action. Always emotional, occasional oratory
becomes in preaching a distinct form of persuasion. Relying less than
political oratory on argument, reasoning less and pleading more, it is
even more urgent toward a goal. This character, achievement alike and
misuse, is vivid in the medieval preaching of the friars.
Medieval preaching is occasional oratory not only in the ancient
application to special solemnity, but more significantly in using the
familiar recurrences of the Church year. The whole western world kept not
only Christmas, but Candlemas, Michaelmas, and the rest. Nothing is more
characteristic than the focus of popular emotion upon Corpus Christi. The
calendar of feasts and fasts was the actual calendar. A medieval auditory
had a great common fund of conscious and subconscious associations.
The surrounding symbolism of stone and glass was familiar from land to
land. The pulpit was beside the altar. The regular sermon on a Sunday
or a feast was at Mass after the gospel, which furnished its text.[4]
The atmosphere of prayer was intensified by specific petition preceding
and following. “Let us therefore ask our Lord to give me good words for
you” ended the exordium, or “Pray that we may be illuminated,” or “Pray
the Lord, therefore, that by the power of spiritual teaching to-day your
hearts may be uplifted”;[5] and the congregation united in _Pater_ and
_Ave_. So the sermon ended with prayer, and was immediately followed
by common intercessions. Though some of these conditions are constant
throughout the history of Christendom, never before or since have they
combined at once so amply and so widely to constitute the conditions
of preaching. In this special sense medieval preaching was the oratory
of occasion. At no other time has oratory had at command so large and
constant a fund of common emotional associations.
A. VERNACULAR TO THE PEOPLE, LATIN TO THE CLERGY
The appeal of medieval preaching to this common emotional fund, though
it cannot often be measured, can be analyzed often as to style and
composition, oftener as to habit of thought, in abundant documents. Even
in print hardly any medieval material is more abundant—and there are
further stores in manuscript—than collections of sermons. In order to
interpret these, we must constantly remember how they were made and why.
First, medieval sermons are habitually gauged to one of the two typical
audiences. Either they are for the lay folk in parish church or cathedral
(_sermones ad populum_), and were preached in the vernacular; or they are
for the clergy (_sermones ad clerum_), i.e., before synods, councils,
schools, oftenest of all in monastery chapels, and were preached in
Latin.[6] In either case, until the late middle age, the record was
always in Latin; in either case the preparation also, the notes and
outline and more or less of the further composition, was usually in
Latin. In the former case of a sermon preached to a lay congregation
the record gives at most only a translation.[7] In the latter case of a
sermon preached to a monastic community the record is at least nearer to
the spoken word. We can press further, therefore, the analysis of sermons
preserved by such communities as the Cistercians and the Victorines.[8]
Though popular preaching is no less worthy of study, less of it has been
transferred to the written page.[9] But translation, though it could
convey little of the spoken vernacular style, must not be thought of as
involving the difficulties of to-day. In the middle age every cleric
was bilingual; and every preacher of distinction enough to be recorded
not only read and wrote Latin habitually, but spoke it fluently.[10]
His schooling having been in Latin, both written and oral, his daily
offices, his reading, and whatever writing he did being still in Latin,
he used Latin easily and naturally in thinking out and ordering a sermon
or in giving another’s sermon, or his own afterward, the permanence of
writing. Since he would not be embarrassed, as young preachers sometimes
are to-day, by trying to recall phrases and sentences, preaching in the
vernacular from Latin notes might even leave oral composition the more
free.
B. COLLECTIONS
The other process, the final rendering in Latin, was by no means
always of the sermon as preached. It might be merely a digest, or
more expansive, or the whole sermon. All three degrees seem to be
exemplified among the printed sermons of Fulbert.[11] The compilers of
Odo of Morimond say: “he was very eloquent; but in writing his sermons
we have ignored the form for the substance.”[12] Collections often show
distinctly less concern for record, for commemoration of achievement,
than for guidance. Some even of the more important collections have
evidently this practical aim. They propose not only inspiration, but
practical suggestion and direction for future sermons on recurrent
themes. They are less anthologies than repertories. Maurice de Sully,
Bishop of Paris, thus designed his widespread collection primarily for
the pastors of his diocese.[13] The study of preaching, not merely the
preservation of notable sermons preached in his time (_sermones reportati
de auditu_), seems to have been the object of the collections of Pierre
de Limoges. Clearly the best known of these, his _Distinctiones_,[14]
arranging not only whole sermons, but outlines and suggestive passages
alphabetically by subjects, is meant for reference. That the collections
commonly had in view the practical use of successful sermons as models is
suggested again and again, and sometimes indicated.[15]
The great thesaurus of Jacques de Vitry[16] is systematically practical,
a collection not primarily _of_ sermons, but _for_ sermons. Models,
outlines, suggestions, intended for adaptation in the vernacular[17] are
arranged according to the Church calendar: four books for the seasons,
a fifth for the saints, with three expositions for each day, the first
of the introit, the second of the epistle, the third of the gospel. The
sixth book is classified for adaptations to typical social groups. What
has naturally most attracted modern historians in this storehouse is the
abundance of illustrative descriptions and stories, the _exempla_. A
resource prized in all times for popular address, the _exemplum_ was so
cultivated in medieval preaching as to call forth many collections.[18]
It looms unduly large to modern readers because the _exempla_ have now
an extraneous interest in reflecting medieval life, and because they
were taken not only, as now, from contemporary life, from history, from
legend, but also from the bestiaries.
The basilisk, they tell us, bears in his eye his poison, vilest
of animals, beyond others to be execrated. Wilt thou know the
eye that is empoisoned, eye of evil, eye that has fascination?
Then think thou upon envy. St. Bernard on the Psalm _Qui
habitat_, xiii. 4; PL 183: 237.
The mythical zoölogy is now often too diverting to keep its effectiveness
as illustration. But to recover this, and to realize that the bestiaries
do not convict the middle age of credulity, we need not go back of St.
Francis de Sales. _Exempla_, after all, are a commonplace of preaching
because they are a necessity.
The general thesaurus and the special[19] alike confirm the impression
of wide use of a common fund of topics and illustrations. But sermon
helps are not peculiar to the middle age. Every age has offered to its
preachers something equivalent to the medieval handy manuals.[20] Not
only preaching, but all occasional oratory, has always been beset by the
temptation to rely on pattern and stock.[21] That the middle age had many
conventional sermons is less significant than that it had St. Bernard and
the early Dominicans.
C. MANUALS
Medieval manuals of preaching are no more specific than modern manuals
as to their rhetoric. That is typically generalized, or even taken for
granted. For instance, Guibert de Nogent’s _Liber quo ordine sermo fieri
debeat_,[22] concerned entirely with interpretation, has no rhetoric
at all. The anonymous Chartres work on popular preaching quoted in
part by Clerval[23] gives, besides the usual procedure and advice, a
practical counsel for preparation and one for delivery. The first is to
fix meditation on the specific object of that sermon and on the specific
means most likely to bring it home, not on the words. The words will come
if the matter is surely ordered. The second is to increase urgency from
quotations of texts through _exempla_ uttered with loud appeal until the
congregation shows emotional response, then to moderate the tone so as to
lead quietly to the final benediction.
Another anonymous manual[24] sets forth eight methods of expansion
(_De dilatatione sermonum_): (1) definition and exposition of terms,
especially of their “moral” significance; (2) division, not to be
so minute in a sermon as in a treatise; (3) proof, by contraries,
enthymemes, examples, again to be guarded from subtlety; (4) citation of
confirmatory texts; (5) degrees, i.e., positive-comparative-superlative,
as in exhibiting one of the virtues; (6) metaphors, not to be multiplied
nor mixed; (7) symbolism, i.e., allegory, tropology, anagogy; (8) cause
and effect. Most of these are commonplaces of rhetoric. Some of them,
and their use for dilation, suggest the same preoccupations as the
_poetriæ_.[25]
The Dominicans, devoted to preaching, maintaining a long and severe
discipline of studies, provided systematically for oral composition.
“_Legendo, studendo, disputando_”[26]—the last tallies not only with
Dominican fame, but with the focus, and the increasing emphasis, of
oral training on logic.[27] Otherwise the manual of the fifth Dominican
General, the _De eruditione prædicatorum_ of Humbert de Romans, says
little of rhetoric. Rather it is practical psychology, as are the second
book of Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ and the sixth book of Jacques de Vitry.
Practical by another method is the manual of Alain de Lille, _Summa
magistri Alani doctoris universalis de arte prædicatoria_.[28] “First we
must see,” he says at the end of his preface, “_what_ preaching is, its
distinguishing qualities of expression and of thought, and its typical
species; secondly, _who_ should preach; thirdly, _to whom_; fourthly,
_why_; fifthly, _where_.” His first chapter, after brief consideration
of preaching as public speaking, sets forth the special sanction for
sermons of the gospels, the Psalms, the Pauline epistles, and the “books
of Solomon” as offering instruction in morals. Winning his audience by
his own humility and by the practical import of his message,[29] not by
appeals to applause, the preacher proceeds to the twofold exposition of
the text. “Let his words be sometimes emotional (_commotiva_), to soften
the minds of his hearers and bring tears. But let the sermon be concise,
lest prolixity bring instead boredom.... Finally he should use _exempla_.”
Chapter ii proposes for a theme the scorning of the world (_De mundi
contemptu_), and for its text, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
Distinguishing the vanity of this world as thus typically threefold,
Alain quotes _Romans_ and the Psalms and adds Persius. “Thus the preacher
should confirm each division of his text. His next step is to show where
is vanity, where vanity of vanities, where all is vanity.... The scorning
of the world, thus established by the way of the world itself, should be
established also by consideration of man’s end (_a causa finali_).” The
peroration apostrophizes human blindness (_O homo, si mundana_, etc.).
In a word, Alain furnishes a specimen order and procedure. Succeeding
chapters thus present other usual topics: scorning of oneself, gluttony,
the other deadly sins, the heavenly hope, spiritual grief and joy,
patience and each of the other virtues, love of God and of one’s
neighbor, etc. The remaining headings of his prefatory division are
taken up at chapter xxxviii; and his consideration of different types in
congregations has the humor to include the sleepy. The title _Summa_,
then, implies a preacher’s book of reference, with advice and direction
subordinated to classified material. The distinction of this _Summa_ is
its systematic conciseness.
D. SYMBOLISM
Much more distinctive than any provision of collection or manual for
ordinary use of a common fund is the prevalence of symbolism. The “moral”
exposition that followed the literal commonly had this direction. For
medieval symbolism was not merely a habit of exposition; it was seen as
well as heard because it was a habit of conception. The cathedrals still
exhibit in sculpture and glass what came in words from their pulpits. The
Psalms, especially those recurring in the daily offices, thus conveyed
from generation to generation the eternal word of God. For every psalm
was the lyric cry of David, or of some other ancient Hebrew, only in
the first instance (_litteralis expositio_). It always meant more; and
its further meaning (_moralis expositio_), as cumulating progressive
experience of God, was more important. It always meant not only David,
but every other soul thus answering God, the “poor man” of every time and
of every clime, every individual then and there focusing and enlarging by
those words his own experience.
So far the “moral” interpretation treats the psalm as an extreme case of
literary inspiration, appropriates it as having the universal validity of
every lyric that has survived the centuries. A religious classic, more
widely and intensely spiritual than any other body of lyrics, the psalter
is still only a classic. But medieval interpretation always took a third
step. Every psalm meant not only David, and further not only every
“poor man” making it his own, but also “the man,” the Lord incarnate to
share all humanity and to give men “power to become the sons of God.”
Thus the Psalms spanned the centuries, connected the New Testament with
the Old indivisibly, and were the voice of man in every age answering
God in the Church. The habitual use of the Old Testament, and even of
secular history, as prefiguring is here focused in its simplest form.[30]
Simplest and commonest instance of symbolism, the interpretation of the
Psalms is characteristic. Though not, indeed, peculiar to the middle age,
it opens a widespread medieval habit.
The habitual use of the _Song of Songs_ as symbolic of the Christ and
his Church reminds us that symbolism is essentially poetic. It was
the usual poetic of medieval preaching in interpreting not only the
Scriptures, but all human experience. As behind the word lay spiritual
meaning, so behind the veil of the senses lay the realities of life.
The so-called “otherworldliness” of medieval preaching is no ignoring
of physical facts; it is a sustained and consistent call to see through
them. What medieval philosophy defined as seeing “in the aspect of
eternity” (_sub specie æternitatis_) medieval preaching inculcated as a
habit of vision. The habit might, indeed, degenerate, as in that popular
manual of the fourteenth century, the _Speculum humanæ salvationis_,[31]
into extravagance or minute formalism; but even so it kept some view of
history as a providential progress. It might rise, on the other hand,
to express the immediate apprehension of the mystic, the vision of
spiritual genius. But the distinction of the medieval mystic is rather
in degree than in kind. The whole age is characteristically habituated to
mysticism. No other poetic vision is equal to Dante’s; but no other form
of poetry in his age, whether in verse or in sermon, is commoner than the
vision.
Not only to the rapt was the visible world eloquent of the unseen eternal.
Full, indeed, is everything of supernal mysteries, abounding
each in its special sweetness if the eye that beholds be but
attentive, as of him who knows how to suck honey from the
stone and oil from the hardest rock. St. Bernard, _De Laudibus
Virginis Matris_, I. 1; PL 183: 56.
In the following sermon of this series St. Bernard refers seriatim to
the accepted prefigurations of the Blessed Virgin. She is the perennial
antagonist of the serpent (Genesis iii. 15), the _mulier fortis_ of
Solomon (Proverbs xxxi. 10), the burning bush (Exodus iii. 2), Aaron’s
budding rod (Numbers xvii. 8), Isaiah’s rod from the root of Jesse (xi.
1), the rod that smote the rock (Exodus xvii. 6) and divided the sea
(Exodus xiv. 16), Gideon’s fleece (Judges vi. 37-40), the woman who is
the Lord’s new creation (Jeremiah xxxi. 22). The prefigurations of this
list had an obvious appeal in sermons through being familiar in hymns, in
sculpture, in glass. Evidently St. Bernard loved them for their poetry;
but he is also convinced of their sanction. He even formulates the theory
of symbolic prefiguration.
These words [“To-day ye shall know that the Lord will come”],
indeed, have in Holy Writ their [historical] location in place
and time; but not incongruously have they been adapted to the
vigil of the Lord’s Nativity by mother Church—the Church, I
say, she who has with her the counsel and spirit of her Spouse
and God.... When, therefore, she changes or shifts words in
Holy Writ, her combination (_compositio_) has more weight than
the passage in its original place, the more, perhaps, the
greater the distance between figure and fact, between light and
shadow, between mistress and handmaid. St. Bernard, _In Vigilia
Nativitatis Domini_, III. 1; PL 183: 94.
His second sermon for Advent carries out the prefiguration of the rod, or
stem (_virga_).[32]
From these passages I think it now manifest what is the stem
proceeding from the root of Jesse, and what is the flower on
which reposeth the Holy Spirit. For the Virgin Mother of God
is the stem, her son is the flower, flower indeed the son of
the Virgin, flower white at once and ruddy, the chosen from
thousands (Cantic. v. 10), flower that angels desire in their
visions, flower at whose fragrance the dead have revival, and,
as he himself beareth witness, flower of the field (Cantic.
ii. 1), not of the garden. Flowereth the field without human
ministry, not by sowing of any one, not upturned by spading,
not from without made fertile. So entirely, so the Virgin’s
womb hath flowered; so inviolate, unimpaired, and chaste the
body of Mary as the pasture of the eternal vigor hath burgeoned
its flower, whose is a beauty beyond corruption, whose a glory
unfading forever. O Virgin! stem of the highest, to what a
summit thou liftest on high thy holiness! even to him that
sitteth on the throne, even to the Lord in his majesty. Nor is
that a great marvel, since thou has sent so deep the roots of
thy meekness. O truly celestial plant, that art precious above
all and holy above mankind! O true tree of life, which alone
was worthy to bear the fruit of salvation! _De Adventu Domini_,
II. 4; PL 183: 42.
The symbolism of his sermon in the Epiphany octave on the marriage at
Cana is specifically moralized.
Now, methinks, ye have fathomed to what my words are tending.
To-day ye have been hearing the wonder performed at the
marriage, beginning indeed of the Lord’s tokens, even as a
story sufficiently wonderful, and in significance still richer
in gladness. Great indeed was the sign of the heavenly power,
that water turned into wine at the Lord’s bidding; but far
better that other changing at the right hand of the Highest
which in this one is prefigured. We are bidden every one to
the spiritual marriage at which of a truth the bridegroom
is Christ our Lord. Wherefore we sing in the Psalter: _And
he as a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber_ [Psalm
xviii. 6]. Spouse indeed are we to him, if this seem not to
you incredible, both all together one spouse and every soul
by itself a spouse singly. But when can this be conceived
of its God by human weakness, that we should be his beloved
as a bride is beloved by her bridegroom? Far enough is this
bride below her bridegroom in origin, below in her nature,
below in her dignity. Nevertheless for that ancient Æthiop
woman the son of the eternal king from far made his advent,
and that for his own he might espouse her, feared not even to
die for her. Moses, indeed, took to wife an Æthiop woman, but
his marriage availed not to change the Æthiop’s color: Christ
will present his bride, whom he loved in her baseness and all
her foulness, glorious with his own glory, his Church without
spot or wrinkle. Aaron may murmur; Miriam (Maria) may murmur,
not the new, but the old, not the Lord’s mother, but Moses’
sister; not, I say, our Mary, she who shows her solicitude if
some lack perchance is found at the marriage. Ye, therefore, as
is meet, amid the murmurs of the priests, amid the murmurs of
the synagogue, give your entire devotion to these our common
acts of praise and thanksgiving. _Dominica Prima post Octavam
Epiphaniæ_, II. 2; PL 183: 158.
Such preaching shows the same preoccupation as the symbolic windows
of the cathedrals, their carved capitals, above all the thronged but
harmonized groups of their great porches. It is not merely conventional
illustration; it is a constant and consistent reminder of the history of
mankind as a scheme of redemption.
E. COMPOSITION
1. Imaginative Method
The most conventional form of symbolism is allegory. This may be no
more than what Lowell calls “personification by capital letters,” as in
the Vice and Virtue, the Reason, Feeling, or Nature, of the eighteenth
century. Even so it has more point when the convention is as instantly
recognizable as the seven deadly sins of medieval capitals and poems,
or the four cardinal and the three theological virtues, or even the
seven liberal arts, each with appropriate costume, attitude, gesture,
or action. How pleasant allegory may be in verse is evident in the wide
popularity of the _Roman de la Rose_.
But no less evidently such pictorial aggregation offers little to
preaching, since it has no vigor of composition. To be moving, allegory
as well as higher symbolism must be narrative. The classic demonstration
of this, the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, was written by a preacher. The art
has never been more widely or more expertly pursued than in the middle
age. The fourteenth-century English _Piers Plowman_ suggests even more
vividly, with its strongly oral manner, how allegory might move in
preaching. A sermon might be not only enlivened by passages of easily
recognizable description; it might further be vivified by making the
figures individuals and by putting them into speech and action. A
complete demonstration is furnished in the interlude, prologue, and tale
of Chaucer’s Pardoner. That accomplished rascal is made to display the
whole art of oral narrative, from its vulgar drama to its high ranges
of symbolic suggestion. The case is extreme; but the method has been a
resource of popular preaching from the days of Nathan’s rebuke to David
down to the present. Oral narrative, often with dramatic dialogue, has
been heard again and again, both in such base uses as the Pardoner’s and
in such urgency of message as Bunyan’s, because it has been found surely
persuasive.
Here is the high art of the _exemplum_. Often the medieval record puts
us off with a summary; sometimes the manuals give a mere note, “Tell
the story of so-and-so”; but sometimes there are clear clues to such
narrative art as makes the Pardoner’s tale breathless. An _exemplum_ of
Walter Map’s lets us divine how dramatic the tale might be in the pulpit.
But for other men the monastic life turns out otherwise. Far
more pitiable was the fate of a noble and eloquent man who,
likewise a monk of the same community, was in the same case
recalled to arms. [After winning great fame as a warrior, he
had in penitence become a monk, vowing never again to shed
blood. But when the countryside was harried, his old comrades
dragged him forth, in spite of his protests, and made him lead
them once more.] Enduring many reverses of battle with a noble
fortitude, he was always reanimated by defeat to fight again,
and, inflamed as it were with new ardor, would fly at the
enemy the more fiercely, and whether they fled or held their
ground, would indefatigably stick to them like glue. When the
enemy sought to crush him by the size of their company, they
found that victory goes to bravery, not to numbers. Burning
with wrath, therefore, and increasing their force many fold,
they surprised him in a valley hemmed between two cliffs,
and had him almost trapped. No hope, for he was caught; no
issue, for he was held; they went to work the more leisurely
because the more securely. But he, bursting into their midst
like a tempest, scatters them like dust in a whirlwind, and
so stupefies them by his daring that they see nothing to do
but run. Promptly he hangs on their rear with his band, small
enough in comparison with theirs; and the throng of the enemy,
in the effort to save their lords from him, becomes the
prize of a single monk. But one leader of that attack, after
escaping, makes a detour ahead and, mingling unrecognized with
the monk’s men, works back steadily toward the monk, risking
his own life to take his. The monk, almost stifled with toil
and sun, calls his page, enters a vineyard, doffs his armor,
and, while his band passes on, stretches himself half-stripped
to the air under the shade of a tall vine. Then the skulker,
leaving the line of march and slipping up stealthily step by
step, pierces the monk with a deadly dart and escapes. The
monk, knowing himself near death, confesses his sins to the
page, the only person within reach, bidding him impose penance.
He, being a layman, swears he knows not how. But the monk,
extreme in his penitence as in everything, says: “Impose upon
me by the mercy of God, dearest son, that in the name of Jesus
Christ my soul may be in hell doing penance up to the day of
judgment; so that then the Lord may have mercy upon me, lest
with the wicked I behold the countenance of his wrath and
anger.” Then replies the boy with tears, “My lord, I impose
upon thee for penance that which here before the Lord thy lips
have uttered.” And he, accepting with word and look, devoutly
received the penance and died.
Here let us remember the words of mercy, In whatsoever hour a
sinner shall repent, he shall be saved. Wherein he might have
repented and did not, whether he omitted anything possible, we
may discuss; and God have mercy on his soul. Walter Map, _De
nugis curialium_, I. xiv.
2. Logical Method
Composition as a progress of thought, logical sequence, ordering by
paragraphs, shows on the other hand little that is distinctively
medieval. As in other times, differences here are rather individual.
Bourgain does not establish his assertion of a general weakness of
order;[33] and his addition that even St. Bernard proceeds by leaps[34]
is extravagant. Lecoy de la Marche has more warrant for asserting that
medieval sermons generally lack such sustained progress[35] as Bossuet’s.
For often the course of a medieval sermon is not only shorter;[36] it
is less sustained by a progress of paragraphs than forwarded by stages
of emotion. The latter method may be for its audience no less valid.
Indeed, preaching must learn poetic as well as rhetoric. Its composition,
ideally embracing both, will be bent toward the one or the other by the
particular preacher and audience. The medieval abeyance of sustained
logical progress, if in fact it was general, may have been due to
preoccupation with those poetic methods which were effective with some of
the greatest preachers.
The school lore of rhetoric, however, was weak in the inculcation of
logical progress. Busy with style, confusing in this study rhetoric
with poetic, it offered too little practical guidance for preaching
as composition. Doubtless the lack was filled in some cases by the
teacher;[37] but the shift of pedagogy to logic implies, among other
things, dissatisfaction with rhetoric.[38] What medieval rhetoric lacked,
medieval logic, for all its triumphs in other directions, could not quite
supply for preaching. The disputations of the schools, excellent for
general training in oral fluency, in precision, in detecting and meeting
error, could not reach the specific skill of continuously instructing,
winning, and moving a silent congregation. They might even lead a vain or
unwary preacher astray. Medieval preaching has been accused of habitual
over-division, of tedious minuteness in headings and subheadings.
Unfortunately such sermon divisions are not peculiar to any period.
They seem no less common, for instance, in printed English sermons of
the seventeenth century. But the medieval record, at least, does not
always reproduce the actual preaching method.[39] Sometimes it gives
little beyond the outline, which thus seems the more barren. Sometimes it
uses a sermon as the occasion for further development, rather providing
for future than following actual exposition of the text. Where the
record seems to follow, there is evidence enough to make probable that
the dominance of logic did deviate many late medieval sermons into
over-analysis.
Analysis, the very function of logic, can never suffice, as Aristotle
makes clear, for presentation. In preaching, its value is not for
organizing, but for preliminary study. It is rather for the preacher than
for his audience. It belongs rather in his notes than in his sermon. But
though doctors analyzing daily in the schools might rely unduly on their
habitual method when they preached, they preached oftenest to the schools
themselves, that is to special audiences habituated to logical method.
The popular preaching of the Franciscans can hardly have had that bent.
The Dominicans, severely trained in logic, were also trained specifically
to preach. St. Bernard, preaching both to monastic communities and to
the people, will not be accused of over-division. Neither St. Anthony
of Padua nor St. Bernardine of Siena can have set Italy on fire with
elaborate analysis. These considerations, though largely _a priori_,
are at least as weighty as contrary inferences from the sermon record.
They permit the belief that medieval preachers realized as generally as
preachers of other times the apothegm of St. Ambrose: _Non in dialectica
complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum_.
F. STYLE
Medieval sermons, for all the defects of transmission, offer ample and
various demonstration of the force and beauty of medieval Latin. In
contrast to the archaistic composition of the Renaissance, medieval
sermon Latin moves at its best with ready variety and even in ordinary
use with easy fluency.
1. Rhythm
Pierre de Celles,[40] fairly typical of ordinary expertness, is clearly
rhythmical. St. Bernard’s ardor and winsomeness, the oral immediacy of
his expression, appear in no resource of his style more strikingly than
in his very pace.[41]
We have heard with our ears what is full of grace and worthy of
acceptance: “Jesus Christ the Son of God is born in Bethlehem
of Judah.” My soul hath been melted at this announcement; but
my spirit in my breast is surging in haste to utter this joy
and this exultation of your desire at the time appointed. Jesus
is interpreted Savior. What so necessary to the fallen, what
so desirable to the wretched, what so useful to the hopeless?
Nay, elsewhere whence is salvation, whence even some slight
hope of salvation, in the law of sin and the body of our death,
in the evil of the present day and the place of our affliction,
unless it were born to us anew and unlooked for? Thou perhaps
desirest salvation; but the bitterness of the remedy, when thou
thinkest alike of thy weakness and of thy illness, affrighteth
thee. Fear thou not. Christ is very gentle, mild and of great
mercy, anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows, who
receive, though not his very fulness, yet some of the fulness
of his anointing. But lest thou, hearing his gentleness,
shouldst undervalue the might of thy Savior, cometh his title,
the Son of God. _In Vigilia Nativitatis Domini_, VI. 1; PL 183:
109.
Now let us return unto Bethlehem, and let us see this word
which is wrought, which the Lord hath wrought and hath shown to
his people. House of bread it is by old rendering; good for us
there to tarry. Where hath been the word of the Lord, naught
shall fail of the bread which shall strengthen the heart,
as saith the prophet: “Comfort thou me according unto thy
word” (Psalm cxviii. 28). In every word from the mouth of God
proceeding mankind liveth, liveth in Christ as Christ in him is
living. _Ibid._ 10; PL 183: 114.
Happy then forever are these our brethren, who now have been
freed from the snare of those that hunted them, who from the
tents (_tabernaculis_) of our campaigning to the halls where we
shall be resting have made their passage, their fear of evil
lifted, their hope singly and fully now established. This is
the faithful, all the faithful body, greeted in “There shall
no evil happen unto thee; neither shall any plague come nigh
thy dwelling” (_tabernaculo_: Psalm xc. 10). _In Psal. Qui
habitat_, XI. 2; PL 183: 225.
2. Balance and Rime
Balance, beloved of occasional orators from Gorgias down,[42] is useful
in sharpening the iterations and contrasts of preaching.
Human weakness must realize its limitation.... The counsel of
preaching, rather the counsel of the truth itself and of the
divine reason, calls on man to yield his own reason. Let him
fear not to yield himself entirely, following God entirely,
and boasting in the Lord entirely, knowing him in whom he
believes as able to keep the deposit of oneself and to give
it increase (2 Tim. i. 12). He will restore thyself to thee,
and with interest. He takes it as earthly, to restore it in
heaven. He takes it in humility, to restore it exalted. He
takes it as diminished, to restore it perfected. He takes it as
empty, to restore it face to face with God in contemplation.
He takes it corrupted, to render it incorruptible. He takes it
in wretchedness, to render it happy, transferring a creature
of time to the eternal, man unto the godlike. Achard of St.
Victor, _De septem desertis_[43] (peroration).
Such balance often leads, through mere inflectional correspondence, to
rime. That rime of clause with clause was avoided as a vice even in
classical Latin is an exaggeration of Renaissance scrupulosity.[44] The
middle age, following rather Augustine and the tradition of the schools
of Gaul,[45] found rime desirable, and often sought it to mark parallel
or contrast. Simple, ordinary use of it is heard again and again in a
sermon by Hilduin.[46]
Porro bruttis animalibus paleam littere relinquamus, et de
medulla tritici panem vite confestim filiis porrigamus.
Elinand uses it to point an epigram.[47]
Quæsivit me diabolus, et invenit, et circumvenit; quæsivit me
Christus, invenit et subvenit.
Richard of St. Victor’s rime often marks insistently exact balances.
Hic flos factus est nobis medicina, ex illo mel et cera, in
ipso potus et esca; medicina in redemptione, potus et esca in
justificatione, mel et cera in glorificatione.
Ex hac medicina sanitas sempiternæ incorruptibilitatis;
ex ejus esca refectio internæ satietatis;
ex ejusmodi potu ebrietas æternæ securitatis;
de illius cera splendor summæ claritatis;
in ejus melle dulcor indeficientis felicitatis.
PL 196: 1032.
It may mark a progressive iteration. Repeating _florida_ and _transeamus_
from what he has just said, he goes on:
Sternamus itaque viam nostram floribus talibus, et per
florida virtutum transeamus, munde et honeste procedamus, ut
processionem nostram pulchram et gratam faciamus, et pascha
floridum digna celebritate perficiamus. _In Ramis Palmarum_, PL
196: 1059.
Even such insistence remains within the limits of rimed prose; it is only
extreme use of a widespread habit. Exceptional, on the other hand, since
it repeatedly verges toward verse, is St. Anselm’s Lament of the Magdalen
at the tomb.[48]
Audivimus, fratres, Mariam
ad monumentum foris stantem;
audivimus Mariam
foris plorantem.
The device was so easily abused as to call forth more than one
warning;[49] but it was so obvious a means of emphasis as to be widely
prevalent.
3. Refrain
St. Bernard, though he does not avoid rime, shows habitually no need of
it to strengthen his iterations. With him iteration often advances from
rhetorical cumulation to poetical refrain.
“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a
virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name
Immanuel,” which by interpretation is God with us. Flee not,
fallen Adam; for God is with us. Fear not, mankind, nor hearing
the name of God be affrighted; for God is with us: with us
likened by incarnation, with us by unification. All for us his
coming, though he be one of us, like unto us in our suffering.
_De Adventu Domini_, II. 1 (end); PL 183: 41.
His fifth sermon for the vigil of Christmas uses incremental iteration to
contrast _to-day_ and _to-morrow_.
This our task to-day; for to-morrow’s shall be neither in
sanctification nor in preparation, but in the very vision of
majesty. “To-morrow,” saith the word, “ye shall see the majesty
of God in you.” This is the meaning of the patriarch Jacob:
“To-morrow unto me shall my justice make answer” (Genesis xxx.
33). To-day, indeed, justice is in observance; to-morrow it
will answer: to-day it is practised; fruit cometh to-morrow.
But that which man hath not planted neither shall he harvest.
For neither shall he then behold the majesty who hath meantime
made light of the holiness, nor shall the sun of glory rise
for him to whom the sun of justice has not arisen, nor shall
he see the light of to-morrow who has not been enlightened by
to-day. Nay even he himself, who to-day for us is made justice
by God the Father, shall appear as our life to-morrow, that we
also may appear with him in glory. For to-day he is come to
us in childhood, that man may not have wherewith to magnify
himself, but that we may be rather converted and become as
children. To-morrow shall be shown how great is God, how worthy
of praises, that even we ourselves may be magnified in praises,
since every man shall have his praise of God. Nay, those whom
to-day he has justified, to-morrow he shall magnify; and to the
achievement of holiness shall succeed the majesty of vision.
No empty vision this, consisting only in similitude. We shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Therefore here
also the words are not simply “Ye shall see the majesty of
God”; but significantly is added “in you”. To-day, indeed, as
in a mirror, we see ourselves in him as he taketh our nature;
to-morrow we shall see him in us, when he giveth of his nature,
since he will show us himself and take us up to himself. This
is what he promised to minister at his coming; and meantime we
have received of his fulness, not indeed glory for glory, but
grace for grace, as it is written ‘The Lord will give grace
and worship’ (Psalm lxxxiii. 12). Despise not, then, the gifts
preceding, if thou yearnest for those that follow. _In Vigilia
Nativitatis Domini_, V. 3; PL 183: 107.
Refrain reinforces other incremental iteration in an ardent sermon on the
_Magnificat_.[50] The very insistence exhibits strikingly the value of
cumulative progress for charging exposition with emotion.
1. _Magnificat anima mea Dominum._ Magnificat voce, magnificat
opere, magnificat affectu. Magnificat laudando, amando,
prædicando. Magnificat, laudandi, amandi et magnificandi formam
simul et materiam dando. _Magnificat anima mea Dominum_: quia
magnifice a magnifico Domino magnifica est. In primis ad
imaginem et similitudinem Dei anima mea mirabiliter a Domino
creata est; sed postea in Adam miserabiliter deformata, nunc
mirabilius, gloriosius et magnificentius a Domino renovata
est. _Magnificat anima mea Dominum._ Magnificat omnis creatura
Dominum, sed amplius super omnem creaturam anima mea Dominum
magnificat. In omni enim creatura nihil tam magnifice fecit
Dominus sicut animam meam. Sed Dominus est: sicut voluit, sic
factum est. _Magnificat anima mea Dominum._ Dominum magnifica,
non temetipsum. Qui semetipsum magnificavit, quantum in
ipso fuit, Deum exhonoravit: et ideo non se exaltavit, sed
præcipitavit. Tuum est te ipsum humiliare, Domini exaltare.
2. _Et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo._ Vide
qualis ordo. Prius citharam, postea psalterium tetigit: prius
animam, postea spiritum posuit: non enim prius quod spirituale,
sed quod animale; deinde quod spirituale. _Et exsultavit
spiritus meus_, extra omnem creaturam, extra seipsum etiam præ
immensitate gaudii saltavit. In quo? Non in me; sed _in Deo_
creatore meo, cognitione et amore ejus fervendo: et hoc non
per me, sed mediante et salvante me _Salutari meo_ Jesu filio
meo, singulariter meo. Meus est Deus, meus Salutaris, meus
est filius. Omnium quidem et mei conditor est, sed mei solius
filius est: et me mediante omnium salus est.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Bourgain, 31. The sermon is in PL 158.
[2] “The lord Abbot preached in chapter on the Epiphany a magnificent
sermon. I have rendered it rapidly, as well as I could from memory, to
send to you.” Odo, quoted by Bourgain, 16.
“Les sermons d’Hildebert n’ont donc pas été prononcés tels qu’ils sont
écrits.” Bourgain, 41.
Cf. LM 120-121 on the manuscript sermons of St. Thomas Aquinas. For the
text of St. Bernard’s, see Mabillon’s introduction to PL 183.
[3] See Chapter II above.
[4] Special sermons, panegyrics for instance, might be preached after
Mass. Both were called _sermones in mane_ in distinction from the
afternoon _collatio_, which, however, might continue or confirm them. See
LM, 223-226.
[5] Quoted by LM, 289.
[6] The evidence is so ample as to leave no further dispute, though there
were naturally exceptions, as in the case of lay brothers in monasteries.
See the review in either Bourgain or LM, and for the sermons of St.
Bernard Mabillon’s introduction to PL 183.
[7] E.g., Pierre de Blois (PL 207: 750) sends by request a written
(Latin) version of a sermon preached in French, remarking that the Latin
naturally has more amplitude.
[8] As was suggested by Langlois, _L’éloquence sacrée au moyen âge_,
Revue des deux mondes, 115 (Jan., 1893): 177.
[9] Cruel, 338, has some racy bits from the Dominican Frater Peregrinus.
[10] Samson, famous twelfth-century Abbot of St. Edmund’s, preached in
two vernaculars, as well as in Latin. This, doubtless, and his Norfolk
accent, seemed worthy of record. His command of Latin and one vernacular
would hardly be mentioned. “Homo erat eloquens gallice et latine magis
rationi dicendorum quam ornatui verborum innitens. Scripturam anglice
scriptam legere novit elegantissime, et anglice sermonicari solebat
populo, sed secundum linguam Norfolchie, ubi natus et nutritus erat; unde
et pulpitum jussit fieri in ecclesia et ad utilitatem audiencium et ad
decorem ecclesie.” _Cronica Jocelini de Brakelonda_, Camden Soc., London,
1840, page 30; “Rolls Series,” 96, vol. I, page 244.
[11] _Sermones ad populum_, PL 141.
[12] Bourgain, 86.
[13] Bourgain, 48; LM, 45.
[14] About 1273. See LM, 107-109.
[15] See, e.g., Polheim, 390, on St. Anthony of Padua; Cruel, 337, on
Frater Peregrinus.
[16] Cardinal, bishop, historian, famous preacher; died 1240.
[17] This, as well as their derivation from his own _sermones ad
populum_, explains the title _sermones vulgares_. The scheme by books is:
I. Advent to Septuagesima, tempus deviationis;
II. Septuagesima to Easter, tempus revocationis;
III. Easter to Pentecost, tempus reconciliationis;
IV. Pentecost to Advent, tempus peregrinationis.
V. Sancti Maiores, Commune Sanctorum.
VI. Secundum Diversitatem Personarum.
See LM, 55-58.
[18] E.g., Étienne de Bourbon’s _Tractatus de diversis materiis
prædicabilibus_, for which see LM, 113. See also Little (A. G.), _Liber
exemplorum ad usum prædicantium sæculo xiii compositus a quodam fratre
minore anglico de provincia hiberniæ secundum codicem dunelmensem ed._,
Aberdeen, British Society of Franciscan Studies, 1908.
For Jacques de Vitry see Crane (T. F.). _The exempla ... from the
sermones vulgares of J. de V._, ed. with introduction, analysis, and
notes [of sources and parallels], London, 1890 (Pub. Folk-lore Soc. XXVI).
See also Mosher (J. A.). _The exemplum in the early religious and
didactic literature of England_, New York (Columbia University Press),
1911.
[19] For Guillaume d’Auvergne’s _De faciebus mundi_, a thesaurus of
figures, see LM, 70.
[20] One of these was called from its first text, the Advent “Let us cast
away the works of darkness,” _Abjiciamus_.
[21] See above, Chapter I. As in sophistic, encomium was most readily
formalized. See Bourgain, 198, on stock panegyrics.
[22] PL 156: 22. See Bourgain, 67. Guibert died in 1124.
[23] 314, from MS Bib. Nat. fonds latin 9376, folio 89.
[24] MS latin 16530, as summarized in LM 295-296.
[25] See above, Chapter VII. B.
[26] Quoted and discussed in Douais, 65-67. See also LM 131. LM notes
(27) that in 1273 half of the principal sermons at Paris were by
Dominicans, a large proportion of the remainder being by Franciscans.
Humbert de Romans died in 1277.
[27] See above, Chapter VI.
[28] PL 210: 110-198. For Alain’s _Anticlaudianus_, see above, Chapter
VI. D. 1.
[29] The phrase _captare benevolentiam_ and the two ways are traditional
and oft-repeated.
[30] Quatuor sunt regulæ scripturarum quibus quasi quibusdam rotis
volvitur omnis sacra pagina: hoc est historia, quæ res gestas loquitur;
allegoria, in qua ex alio aliud intelligitur; tropologia, id est moralis
locutio, in qua de moribus componendis ordinandisque tractatur; anagoge,
spiritualis scilicet intellectus, per quem de summis et cœlestibus
tractaturi ad superiora ducimur. Guibert, _Liber quo ordine sermo fieri
debeat_, PL 156: 25 D.
In the Victorine thesaurus _Sermones centum_ (PL 179) the 39th opens
according to this scheme as follows. _Jerusalem civitas sancta_ (Apoc.
21) et _civitas sancti_ (Isa. 52). Secundum historiam civitas est
terrena, secundum allegoriam sancta est Ecclesia; secundum tropologiam
vita spiritualis, secundum anagogen patria cœlestis. PL 179: 999.
See also Hugh of St. Victor’s _De triplici intelligentia sacræ
scripturæ_, chapter iii of his _De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris_, PL
175: 11-12.
[31] For this and for its relations to symbolistic habit see Perdrizet.
For one of the many earlier examples of minuteness see the Advent sermon
of Pierre de Celles on Isaiah xvi. 1, “Send the lamb” (_Emitte agnum
tuum_), PL 202: 687, which draws significance from every part of the
lamb: the four feet, the belly, the back, etc. Alain’s chariot (above,
VI. D. 1), remote and artificial to us, was a familiar allegory. Cf. his
theological application of _grammatica_ and _rhetorica_ in the verses _De
incarnatione Christi_, PL 210: 577, and Bourgain, 256.
[32] The following translations from St. Bernard in this chapter attempt
to suggest his characteristic rhythms. Though these cannot, of course
be imitated exactly, even partial or approximate rendering may make him
sound the more like himself.
[33] Bourgain, 261. Clerval makes the same criticism (313) of Pierre de
Celles. Cruel gives some means of testing it as a generalization by his
abundant analyses and digests.
[34] “St Bernard lui-même ne marche que par soubresauts.” Bourgain, 261.
[35] “On ne trouvera point au treizième siècle le grand art, l’éloquence
de longue haleine.” LM, 17.
[36] But here too the record may sometimes be misleading. See above, page
234.
[37] For the Dominicans, see above, page 237.
[38] For this implication in John of Salisbury, see above, page 171.
[39] See above, page 229.
[40] PL 202: 637 seq.
[41] St. Bernard’s dactylic pace is more marked at the opening of the
first sermon of this series: “Laborat affectio mellifluæ dulcedinis
copiam latius effundere gestiens, nec inveniens verba. Tanta siquidem
est gratia sermonis hujus ut continuo incipiat minus sapere si unum iota
mutavero.” PL 183: 87.
[42] See Chapter I above, page 42.
[43] Modum suum agnoscat humana imbecillitas.... Consilio meo, immo
consilio ipsius veritatis et rationis divinæ suam deserat homo rationem.
Non timeat se totum deserere, totus Deum sequens, et se totum jactans
in Domino. Sciat cui credit quia potens est depositum ipsius reservare
sed et augmentare. Ipsum tibi restituet, et cum usura. Accipit in terra
et restituet in cælo. Accipit humilem et restituet sublimem. Accipit
diminutum et restituet perfectum. Accipit vacuum et restituet facie ad
faciem Deum contemplantem. Accipit corruptum et reddet incorruptibilem.
Accipit miserum et reddet beatum, temporalem transferens in æternum,
hominem in Deum. Quoted by Hauréau, _Histoire littéraire du Maine_, I.
19. Achard was Abbot of St. Victor 1155.
Cf. St. Bernard’s “Neque sine salute Jesus, neque sine unctione Christus,
nec sine gloria venit Dei Filius: siquidem ipse salus, ipse unctio, ipse
gloria.” _In Vigil. Nativ. Dom._ I. 2; PL 183: 87.
[44] For the history of Latin prose rime, with ample documentation, see
Polheim; for concise summary, Perdrizet.
[45] See above, Chapter III. A.
[46] _In Fest. S. Dionisi_, last sentence of the exordium. The sermon is
quoted in full by Bourgain, 384 seq.
[47] _In Ascens. Dom._, quoted in context by LM 312 from Tissier VII. 252.
[48] MS latin 2622, ff. 12-18 (Incipit omelia Beati Anselmi super
Johannem de planctu Magdalene), as printed in Bourgain, 373-883.
Bourgain’s comment, 225-227, does not clearly distinguish between such
passages and the rimed prose of most of this _Planctus_.
For a discreet use of rimed prose, deliberate but relieved from
insistence, compare the passage from Alain de Lille quoted in Bourgain
88: “Fenum et stipule sunt”, etc.
[49] E.g., the one quoted in Bourgain, 235, against “rimorum melodias
vel metrorum consonantias que potius fuerunt ad aures audientium
demulcendas quam ad animum informandum” (MS latin 15005, folio 193).
[50] _In Canticum Beatæ Virginis Mariæ_, placed by Mabillon among the
sermons attributed to St. Bernard doubtfully or erroneously (PL 184:
1121).
Imitative translation is practically precluded by the intractable rhythm
of the familiar English “My soul doth magnify the Lord.”
For an exposition of this text different even in the handling of
iteration see Hugh of St. Victor in PL 175: 416.