Preaching in thirteenth-century hospitals

This article uses thirteenth-century hospital sermons as a window into the moral and religious environment of these charitable institutions, large numbers of which were founded during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. What emerges from the reportationes of sermons preached in the hôtel-dieu of Paris and ad status sermons directed at hospitals' personnel and inmates by Jacques de Vitry, Humbert of Romans and Guibert de Tournai is a spirituality that stressed the penitential (and potentially salvific) power of doing works of mercy (in the case of hospital workers) and bodily suffering (in the case of hospital inmates). The particular social context of hospital preaching is also evident in preachers' anxieties about the quality of hospital administration. The sermons that were preached in thirteenth-century hospitals reflect the heightened value placed on caring for the sick and poor, a historical development more often associated with the later middle ages.     

Rethinking the Pseudo‐Eligius sermon collection

St Eligius of Noyon (d. 660) has been credited with the authorship of a collection of sixteen sermons since their publication in the sixteenth century. However, this article demonstrates through a detailed analysis of the sources used in these sermons that the collection cannot have been composed before the end of the ninth century. The sermons were written to be preached by a bishop in the vernacular to a mixed audience of clergy and laity. This article also shows how the sermons for Maundy Thursday can shed light on the theory and practice of public penance in the late Carolingian church.     

What's in a name? Clerical representations of Parisian beguines (1200-1328)

This article examines how Parisian university clerics responded to the city's communities of beguines (uncloistered religious women), highlighting in particular the ways in which clerics employed the term ‘beguine’ in sermons and preaching material from thirteenth-century Paris. Because the beguines were not hidden behind convent walls but were instead a visible presence in the city, they were often the focus of Parisian clerics' ideas about religious women. Sermons preached, composed, and copied in Paris reveal the process by which Parisian medieval thinkers constructed, although not always consciously, a negative meaning for the term ‘beguine.’ Always poorly defined, ‘beguine’ evoked a wide variety of meanings and associations for clerical observers in medieval Paris. The varied ideas about and images of the beguine allowed the Parisian intellectual elite to include these women in discussions of their own position in society as clerics in charge of the religious instruction of the laity. Clerics used the beguine as an example of the contemplative life, often comparing their own intellectual approaches to religious knowledge with the beguines' mystical knowledge. These positive comparisons, however, were joined by negative accusations when clerics expressed concern that the beguine thought too highly of her spiritual gifts.     

What's in a name? Clerical representations of Parisian beguines (1200-1328)

This article examines how Parisian university clerics responded to the city's communities of beguines (uncloistered religious women), highlighting in particular the ways in which clerics employed the term ‘beguine’ in sermons and preaching material from thirteenth-century Paris. Because the beguines were not hidden behind convent walls but were instead a visible presence in the city, they were often the focus of Parisian clerics' ideas about religious women. Sermons preached, composed, and copied in Paris reveal the process by which Parisian medieval thinkers constructed, although not always consciously, a negative meaning for the term ‘beguine.’ Always poorly defined, ‘beguine’ evoked a wide variety of meanings and associations for clerical observers in medieval Paris. The varied ideas about and images of the beguine allowed the Parisian intellectual elite to include these women in discussions of their own position in society as clerics in charge of the religious instruction of the laity. Clerics used the beguine as an example of the contemplative life, often comparing their own intellectual approaches to religious knowledge with the beguines' mystical knowledge. These positive comparisons, however, were joined by negative accusations when clerics expressed concern that the beguine thought too highly of her spiritual gifts.     

September 11: A Christian Fundamentalist Interpretation

Abstract

This article analyses sermons preached by Free Presbyterian ministers in the United States following the World Trade Centre tragedy and the attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. It explores how these religious fundamentalists made sense of the event theologically. While terrorists carried out the attack, ultimately God was believed to have been responsible. It was considered God's way of punishing the American nation for its sin. Ministers' use of the Old Testament and God's covenantal relationship with ancient Israel is both the theological and historical backdrop to their explanation of September 11. Concentration on the Old Testament and fundamentalists' exegetical approach means that politics and religion are tightly intertwined. Emphasis on the militaristic portions of the Old Testament also helps justify the war in Iraq. Although Free Presbyterian doctrine is based on institutional separatism and believers' withdrawal from "the world" the sermons connect parishioners to their wider society through a shared sense of patriotic loyalty and national loss.     

Dominican Dignitaries and Private Preaching at Papal Avignon Part I: The Sermon by Pierre de Palme (12 March 1340)

ABSTRACT

Private preaching at papal Avignon (or in general, for that matter) has yet to receive much scholarly attention, in part because the texts of private sermons are not always easy to come by. The survival of two private sermons, both by Dominican dignitaries and both delivered to the same audience (a cardinal and his familia) in the same venue during the same Lenten preaching cycle, provide an opportunity to explore the phenomenon of private preaching at the Avignonese curia. In the first article of a three-part series, I present the edited text of the sermon by Pierre de Palme, Prior of the Dominican Province of France; the second text will appear in part II, with analysis and observations in the third and final part.     

The Elephant In and Out of the Room: Remigio dei Girolami’s Responses to Charles de Valois

In November 1301, Charles de Valois, brother of French King Philip IV, entered Florence at the request of Pope Boniface VIII and his Florentine allies. While Charles’ mission was ostensibly peacemaking between Florence’s Black and White factions, in reality his visit led to violence and exile of leading Whites, including Dante. Much of what we know about these events was written in retrospect, from the chronicles of Compagni and Villani to Dante’s Commedia. The Florentine Dominican Remigio dei Girolami, however, preached two sermons that week that provide a more immediate impression. One was given at the official communal welcome ceremony for Charles. The other, one of his sermons De pace, was probably given at a semi-secret peace procession mentioned by Compagni. Rhetorical analysis of these two sermons shows that Remigio tailored his message to his audience. When Charles was present, Remigio diplomatically avoided the subject of factional division, instead advising Charles on his upcoming mission to Sicily (perhaps subtly encouraging him to get on with it and leave Florentine politics alone). In Charles’ absence, however, Remigio obliquely criticized Charles and stressed to his fellow-citizens that, as the sermon’s thema stated, peace was in their power.     

The Preacher Facing a Reluctant Audience According to the Testimony of Exempla

Abstract

In spite of the fact that from a theological point of view disobedience can sometimes be positive, in the preachers’ sermons to the people (ad populum), disobedience is always a strongly condemned sin. We focus on the sermones vulgares of Jacques de Vitry and on collections of exempla. In order to analyse the forms of reluctance and contestation to the norms proclaimed by the sermons, we evaluate the steps of this resistance ranging from lack of attention and disrespect to criticism and even hostility. Nevertheless, sometimes one must recognize that it is the preacher’s incompetence that leads to the failure of his pastoral care, for example when the preacher prepares unclear sermons (like Jacques de Vitry when he was a beginner) or is unable to tell a story or to make himself heard. It is even worse when the preacher conveys bad opinions. However, the biggest trouble comes when inattentive and disrespectful listeners are able to interrupt the preacher to contest any inconsistencies in the sermon or mistakes in the doctrine. When the sermon has no effect on the audience, it has clearly failed to get its message across. The preacher can also face competition from singers, jugglers and dancers who can distract the audience from the sermon.     

Food, drink and ritualised communication in the household of Eleanor de Montfort, February to August 1265

This article investigates the use of feasts and gifts of food in the household of Eleanor de Montfort between February and August 1265. In his influential The dangers of ritual, Philippe Buc argued, through a study of early medieval chronicles, that rituals in medieval Europe were regularly targets for disruption and aggressive manipulation either in practice or in the texts reporting the rituals. This article tests Buc’s thesis against administrative records from thirteenth-century England. The evidence from Eleanor’s household accounts is illuminated through a study of contemporary literary sources and didactic texts. It concludes that the administrative records indicate that rituals in practice were less habitually the subject of manipulation and conflict than the literary evidence indicates.     

Sermons,Preaching, and Liturgy: Practices,Research Methods,and the Case of Giordano da Pisa

This article analyses the relationship between sermons, preaching, and liturgy within the Order of the Friars Preachers in late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Italy. It provides an account of a specific method for the study of the medieval ‘modern sermon’ by investigating the reportationes of the sermons given by Giordano da Pisa, a Dominican friar who preached in Florence and Pisa between 1302 and 1309. The investigation using this method shows that the sermons’ subjects and arguments, often considered by historians to be a direct consequence and reflection of Florence’s social and economic reality, had in fact also much to do with the evangelical story or epistolary passage assigned to the specific date of the liturgical calendar: there are thus two principal influences rather than just one. This approach to Giordano’s sermons provides a new perspective on his work as a preacher by being more attentive to the internal construction mechanisms of sermon discourse.     

Prêcher sur le prêche. La réflexion de Maurice de Sully sur l’importance et la nature de la prédication

The paper presents an analysis of the work of Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris (1160–96) and the author of one of the earliest complete collections of sermons for lay people. The focus of the analysis is the idea of the preaching as it was understood by the preachers themselves. The importance and the nature of this pastoral activity are quite often presented in the sermons. They also seem to be alluded to through the structure of the sermons and vocabulary used by the preacher.     

Between Two Paradigms: Harriet Pullen and the Earliest Australian Female Preachers

This article focuses on an eye‐witness account of a series of sermons preached in Brown's River, Tasmania, in 1836–1838 by Harriet Pullen — arguably the earliest documented instance of female preaching in Australia. It explores the context, motivation, and reception of Harriet's preaching, comparing it with the two main paradigms of female preachers that can be found in the contemporary literature: the preacher as “prophetess” and the preacher as “helpmeet.” While Harriet has much in common with both paradigms, she does not fit neatly into either. Her preaching activity is best understood as a convergence of the two paradigms, within a context of domestic church gatherings in a frontier missionary situation.     

The political significance of Christine de Pizan's third estate in the Livre du corps de policie

Although the general historical context of Christine de Pizan's Livre du corps de policie (LCP), the Orleanist-Burgundian feud occasioned by the periodic insanity of King Charles VI, has long been recognised, the precise argument that the author wages through her unique configuration of the third part of the body politic has not been explored. This essay reads the LCP as an intervention into the escalating struggle for power between Charles VI's brother, the duke of Orleans, and his cousin, the duke of Burgundy. Christine's purpose emerges most clearly in her peculiar arrangement of the third part of her body politic, le peuple, where two points bear particular consideration: her inclusion of the University and her division of the ‘merchants’ across two separate categories, a repartition which seems to refer to the contemporary distinction between the highly-placed merchants of Paris and the butchers. Christine seems to be arguing that if the University were to make common cause with the ruling burghers and well-placed merchants, they could force into submission their more restless brothers and sisters, the butchers and their thuggish followers, whom the duke of Burgundy would finally convince to rise up in 1413 in what has become known as the Cabochian Revolt.     

‘Christ and the soul are like Pyramus and Thisbe’: An Ovidian Story in Fifteenth-Century Sermons

ABSTRACT

The sophisticated ways in which several fifteenth-century preachers used Ovidian stories and their allegorical interpretations prove that late medieval sermons represent a promising but neglected area for classical reception studies. Preachers – whose names are today almost forgotten by scholars but whose sermons circulated at large in early printed books – considered Ovidian allegories as powerful instruments for instructing, entertaining, and moving their audiences. This article begins with a review of the literature on the presence of Ovid in sermons, and discusses the methodology to study the transformation of classical myths in preaching. Then, it focuses on four sermons that incorporated the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, which appears in the sermon collections written by Conrad Grütsch, Johann Meder, and Jacobus de Lenda. The repeated use of this Ovidian myth allows us, therefore, to investigate how different preachers appropriated and re-elaborated this story, and the role that it played in diverse contexts. Finally, the analysis of these texts also sheds light on the use of the Ovidius moralizatus in fifteenth-century sermons.     

La Cour Notre-Dame de Michery: a response to Constance Berman

In a recent article in JMH, Constance Berman suggested that the thirteenth-century history of the Cistercian nuns of La Cour Notre-Dame de Michery in France has been distorted by scholars' reliance on the fifteenth-century cartulary of the house. This compilation, she argues, was meant to portray the nunnery as a failure and to justify its transformation into a male priory. The authors of the present article attempt to show that Berman's doubts about the reliability of the cartulary are unjustified and that the archeological evidence of the church of La Cour which she uses to infer La Cour's financial vigor in the thirteenth-century actually points strongly in the opposite direction.