The Preaching of the Master: Thomas Aquinas’s University Sermons on Happiness

ABSTRACT

The single task of the Parisian masters of the thirteenth century was to read Scripture, a task they performed by way of the famous legere, disputare, praedicare. Although intimately connected these three are rarely studied in relation to each other. Thomas Aquinas’s sermons on the beatitudes (Matthew 5. 1–10) can be compared to his commentary on Matthew and the Summa Theologiae. This opens up a new perspective on the sermons, addressing some of the questions they raise. The edition of Aquinas’s sermons by Louis Bataillon is instrumental in performing this task and will therefore be considered in greater detail. The present article seeks to contribute to Medieval Sermon Studies by way of a more theological approach and to present to theologians the importance of a greater appreciation for the sermons of the masters.     

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.     

Obedient Passion—Passionate Obedience: Ashraf Ali Thanawi's Sermons on the Love of the Prophet

Ashraf Ali Thanawi (1863–1943) was one of the most influential South Asian preachers and authors of the twentieth century. His sermons range from Friday sermons in Arabic to those held before select disciples or at mass rallies in Urdu, and they were printed ever since his lifetime in great number and consistency. This article is particularly interested in the emotional roles allotted to preacher and audience and the overlap between religious and emotional dimensions of the communication process. Against the background of the changing roles of emotions in colonial India and the turn of preaching to print, this contribution focuses on sermons that concern the celebration of the birthday of the Prophet (mīlādu ‘n‐nabī), a practice that was central for an emotionalised piety directed towards the person of Muhammad and was highly contested. Thanawi elaborates on the necessity, limits, and cultivation of the love towards the Prophet and discusses the evocation and expression, intentionality, and temporality of the Muslims’ ideal emotional practices. Maintaining limits of devotion serves as the basis for an even more passionate love. Obedience, in preaching as an emotional practice as much as in the religious feelings towards the Prophet, is central to develop and communicate feelings that are all‐pervading, continuous, and unimpaired.     

‘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.     

Julian of Vézelay,a Twelfth-Century Critic of his Monastery's Worldly Success

Abstract

This article analyses the sermons of the Benedictine monk Julian (c. 1080 – 1165) from the small Burgundian monastery of Vézelay in the context of the other contemporary sources issuing from this monastery. It argues that Julian was a reformer who criticized his monastery for an unhealthy attachment to its newfound wealth and neglect of proper monastic practice. The themes in his preaching may further be reflected in some of the capitals of the cathedral Sainte-Madeleine at Vézelay. More broadly, his sermons provide a striking illustration of one monastery's struggle to come to terms with an influx of money in the twelfth century.     

Preaching the Cross: Liturgy and Crusade Propaganda

Abstract

This article is an exploration of preaching on the cross very broadly from the time of Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo onwards. After a brief examination of some early medieval examples, the discussion focuses on Rabanus Maurus and a sermon attributed to Odilo of Cluny. The discussion then centres on the High Middle Ages: sermons by Bernard of Clairvaux, Alan of Lille, an anonymous Cistercian abbot, the vita of Marie d'Oignies, Alexander of Ashby, and model sermons by Humbert of Romans. Before concluding, it explores opposition to the cross, as expressed in inquisitorial documents. The essay also includes crusade preaching, as well as liturgical preaching on the cross or involving the cross, and sermons on the cross that could serve for more than one purpose.     

Building urban Christian communities: sermons on local saints in the Eusebius Gallicanus collection

This article uses the sermons in the anonymous collection known as the Eusebius Gallicanus to explore the ways in which preachers in fifth-century Gaul tried to build urban Christian communities, focusing particularly on the subset of sermons which deal with local saints. In these sermons preachers adapt a tradition of Christian language and thought to the specific circumstances they faced. They seize the opportunity provided by their subject matter to evoke a vision which is urban, localized, and which stands in contrast to more 'universal' conceptions of Christian community.     

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.     

Religious Emotions and Emotions in Religion: The Case of Sermons

This article examines the challenges posed by combining the categories of religion and emotion in historical studies. It analyses two major ways of framing this: religious emotion and emotions in religion. By taking sermons as a case study, both as a religious practice and a genre of historical source, an approach that retains the useful elements of each approach is developed. At the same time, the article explores the potentials of sermons as a source for the history of emotions, noting important consequences in the history of religious communication for the history of emotions and vice versa. In particular, reception history approaches are explored as a way to enrich accounts of the emotional aspects of sermons. Further, the article serves as an introduction for the collection of articles: “Preaching and Passions: Sermons and the History of Emotions.”     

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.     

Twelfth-century Italian confraternities as institutions of pastoral care

When studied through canon law and scholastic pastoralia produced in the universities in the thirteenth century and beyond, medieval pastoral care comes across as spiritual care, more specifically the administration of sacraments and preaching, provided by the clergy for the faithful. This article complicates that view by arguing that in the twelfth century, the laity alongside the clergy was active in the provision and organisation of pastoral care. The sources examined are the surviving statutes of five religious confraternities – along with the obituaries and sermons in two cases – in Italy that flourished in the twelfth century and before. Each of these confraternities was centred around a church, established after an apostolic ideal, included laymen and women and local pastoral clergy of all levels, met regularly to celebrate the Eucharist, prayed for the dead members and made public confessions. Members prayed for and attended to the corporal needs of each other in case of sickness. In the final analysis, these twelfth-century confraternities appear as transitional institutions between the early medieval monastic confraternities focusing on prayer and the late medieval and renaissance confraternities focusing on charity. Their study opens a window onto the lay expectations of and contribution to pastoral care in medieval Italy.     

“To Prostitute Morality,Libel Religion,and Undermine Government”: Blasphemy and the Strange Persistence of Providence in Britain since the Seventeenth Century

This article looks at the long term history of blasphemy in Britain and its relationship to the phenomenon of providence from the seventeenth century through to the twentieth. This, it is suggested, has substantially dominated the appearance of blasphemy accusation and public concern linked to the moral security of the realm. Using sermons and didactic writing from the seventeenth century, the article demonstrates how conceptions of providence and blasphemy were linked to produce a forceful culture which protected rulers against challenges to the community. Using demonstrations of public opinion the article shows how in the twentieth century the providential fear of misfortune as a result of blasphemy became linked with issues of national safety and prosperity. The article concludes by suggesting that the link between blasphemy and providence enabled both to remain credible into the twentieth century and beyond, undermining many of the linear models of both secularization and the growth of rationality.