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… novo sensu sacram adulterare Scripturam: Clement VI and the Political use of the Bible*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Diana Wood
Diana Wood*
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
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Extract

Medieval biblical commentators traditionally interpreted the Bible in terms of the ‘four senses’ of Scripture—the literal-historical and the three ‘spiritual’ senses, the allegorical, the tropological or moral, and the anagogical. Recently attention has been focused on the use of a variation of the allegorical sense, namely, political allegory. This was the application of a biblical text to a current political situation or argument. The Roman revolutionary Cola di Rienzo, after hearing Pope Clement VI preach in consistory, gave it another name altogether—sensum adulterum. Clement had apparently delivered the customary papal allegorization of the two-swords passage (Luke, xix. 38), according to which both swords, that of spiritual authority and of physical power, were in the hands of the priesthood.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 4: The Bible in the Medieval World , 1985 , pp. 237 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1985 

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Footnotes

*

I should like to thank Katherine Walsh and Vincent Packford for their advice and encouragement in the preparation of this paper.

References

1 For a definition see B. Smalley, ‘Use of the “Spiritual” Senses of Scripture in Persuasion and Argument by Christian Scholars in the Middle Ages’, RTAM (in press). On the ‘four senses’ in general see Lubac, H. de, Exégèse médievale. Les qualre sens de l’Ecriture (Paris, 1959-64).Google Scholar

2 Robinson, I.S., ‘“Political Allegory” in the Biblical Exegesis of Bruno of Segni’, RTAM, 1 (1983), pp. 69–98Google Scholar. See also Smalley, Becket, pp. 30-6.

3 ‘Il commento di Cola di Rienzo alia Monarchia di Dante’, ed. P.G. Ricci, StM, 3rd series, vi, pt II (1965), pp. 679-708 at pp. 705-6. It has not been possible to trace the sermon to which Cola referred. Since Cola said Clement delivered it during the first or second year of his pontificate, during processes against Louis of Bavaria, and Cola was at Avignon from January 1343 until the summer of 1344, Ricci has identified it with that preached on Maundy Thursday, 10 April, 1343 (ed. H.S. Offler, ‘A Political collatio of Pope Clement VI, O.S.B.’, RB, lxv (1955), pp. 125-44). This sermon contains no reference to the ‘two-swords’ passage, nor to the subsequent quotation by Cola of Clement’s rendering of the ‘great tree’ of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Daniel, iv. 7—9). The interpretation of the two-swords passage is the one normally quoted by Clement in his political collationes, and is taken from Bernard, De Consideratione, iv, 3.

4 Cola di Rienzo, ‘Il commento’, p. 705.

5 Ibid.

6 Smalley, B., ‘The Gospels in the Paris Schools in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, II’, Franc Stud, xl (1980), pp. 366–9.Google Scholar

7 Smalley, Becket, p. 32.

8 Ibid., pp. 30-6; de Lubac, Exègèse médievale, ii, 2, pp. 380-1.

9 Ullmann, W., The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages (London, 1955), pp. 7–14Google Scholar; ‘Leo I and the Theme of Papal Primacy’, JTS, ns, xi (1960), pp. 25-51. For the influence of the Bible on medieval principles of government in general see Ullmann, , Law and Politics in the Middle Ages (London, 1975), pp. 41–50Google Scholar, especially p. 43, n. 1, where further bibliography is given.

10 Ullmann, Growth of Papal Government, pp. 426-37; Maccarrone, M., ‘Vicarius Christi’; Storia del titolo papale = Lateranum, xviii (Rome, 1952), especially pp. 91–118.Google Scholar

11 “On Clement’s sermons see Mollat, G., ‘L’oeuvre oratoire de Clément VI’, AHDLMA, iii (1928), pp. 329–74Google Scholar; Schmitz, P., ‘Les sermons et discours de Clément VI’, RB, xli (1929), pp. 15–34Google Scholar; Wood, D., ‘ Maximus sermocinator verbi Dei; the Sermon Literature of Pope Clement VI’, SCH, xi (1975), pp. 163–72.Google Scholar

12 On the structure of late-medieval sermons see Caplan, H., Of Eloquence. Studies in Ancient and Medieval Rhetoric, ed. King, A. and North, H. (Ithaca and London, 1970), pp. 235–59.Google Scholar

13 See his tract, De arte praedicandi, ed. Caplan, Of Eloquence, pp. 143-59. Caplan points out that the attribution to Henry of Langenstein, once thought likely, is now considered doubtful: ibid., pp. 135-6.

14 MGH Const., VIII, no. 100, pp. 142-63.

15 Paris, Bibliothèque Ste Geneviève, MS 240 [hereafter referred to as St G 240], ff. 26r-41v.

16 Pierre Roger, St Thomas Aquinas Day Sermon, 1340, St G. 240, f. 399v: ‘Bene ergo [Thomas] conscripsit rectissimos sermones et veritate plenos, licet enim sunt aliqua pauca que communiter non tenentur, tamen ex hoc non est doctrina eius abicienda, sicut nee doctrina Augustini nee aliorum. Hoc enim privilegium Deus solam divinam scripturam habere voluit, ut in ea sola nullum firmentum aut contagium falsitatis’.

17 Pierre Roger, Postill on ‘Quia quorundam mentes’, Brussels, Bibliothèque Royal Albert Ier, MS 359 (11437-4o), f. 26v.

18 Cf.Chydenius, J., Medieval Institutions and the Old Testament (Helsinki, 1965), pp. 11–12; 44–52; 73–9.Google Scholar

19 MGH Const., VIII, no. 100, pp. 151-2.

20 Ibid., p. 155.

21 Ibid., p. 154. Cf. Hugh of St Victor, De Sacramentis Christiane Fidei, ii, II, ch. 4: PL clxxvi, 418.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid. Cf. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps., xliv, 19; CSEL, x (1), p. 507.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid. Cf. I Kings, xvi. 6-13.

26 Ibid., p. 153.

27 Clement VI, Coronation collatio for Louis of the Fortune Islands, BN, MS lat. 3293, f. 298r: ‘Unde in toto libro Regum quamdiu reges servaverunt fidelitate Deo, obediendo eis mandatis ipsum colendo el adorando, tamdiu regnum eorum fuerat prosperatum. Sed quam cito infideliter agebant, erga dominium et multa infortunia patiebantur, et regnum ad alios transferebatur’.

28 This idea had been expressed in the anonymous Weistum of 1252. See Zeumer, K., ‘Ein Reichsweisthum über die Wirkungen der Königswahl aus dem Jahre 1252’, Neues Archiv, xxx (1902-5), p. 406Google Scholar. For discussion see Mitteis, H., Die deutsche Königswahl und ihre Rechtsgrundlagen bis zur Goldenen Bulk, 2nd ed. (Brünn, 1944), pp. 216–17.Google Scholar

29 On the relationship between Clement and the Visconti during the early years of the pontificate see Biscaro, G., ‘Le relazioni dei Visconti di Milano con la Chiesa. Giovanni e Luchino—Clemente VI’, Archivo Storico Lombardo, liv (1927), pp. 44–95.Google Scholar

30 On the incompatibility of infallibility and sovereignty see Tierney, B., Origins of Papal Infallibility, 1150-1350: A Study on the Concepts of Infallibility, Sovereignty and Tradition in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 1972), especially pp. 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 St G. 240, ff. 458r-63r.

32 Ibid., f. 458v.

33 Ibid., f. 459v.

34 Ibid.: ‘Modo quot bella quot mala sequebantur in Tuscia et in civitatibus que semper fuerunt fideles ecclesie sicut sunt Florentia, Perusina, Senensis manifestum est. Et ideo … nos … volumus istam reconciliationem facere, non attendentes tantum ad proprium comodum quantum ad comodum rei publice’.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.: ‘… sed dicit textus quod Joab cecinit buaina et retinuit populum volens parcere multitudini. Si ergo iste voluit parcere multitudini proditrici pessime et ingrate, quid debet facere vicarius Christi ne multitudini obedienti et grate tot mala perveniant certe multa mala pati?’

37 Ed. Schunk, J.P., Beyträge zur Mainzer Geschichte, ii (Mainz and Frankfurt, 1789), pp. 352–75.Google Scholar

38 Ibid., pp. 352-3.

39 Ibid., p. 354.

40 Ibid., p. 355.

41 Ibid., pp. 356-7.

42 Ibid., pp. 362-73.

43 Ibid., p. 373.

44 Ibid., p. 374.

45 Wood, D., ‘Infidels and Jews: Clement VI’s Attitude to Persecution and Toleration’, SCH, xxi (1984), pp. 115–24.Google Scholar

46 MGH Const., IV, 1, no. 1166 (= Clem., II, xi, 21).

47 MGH Const., VIII, no. 100, p. 150.

48 Ibid., p. 151.

49 Ed. Schunk, Beyträge, pp. 332-40.

50 Ibid., p. 333. Cf. Biblia Sacra cum Glossa Ordinaria (Antwerp, 1617), ad Deut., xxi. 20, col. 1592. See the article by B. Smalley, ‘Glossa Ordinaria’ for the Theologische Realenzyklopädie (in press).

51 Schunk, pp. 333-4.

52 See Wilks, M.J., ‘The Idea of the Church as Unus homo perfectus and its Bearing on the Medieval Theory of Sovereignty’, Miscellanea Historiae Ecclesiasticae (Stockholm, 1960), pp. 32–49Google Scholar. Further bibliography is given at p. 39, n. 24.

53 Ed. Schmidinger, H., ‘Die Antwort Clemens’ VI. an die Gesandtschaft der Stadt Rom vom Jahre 1343’, Miscellanea in onore di Monsignor Martino Giusti: Collectanea Archivi Vatcani, vi (Vatican City, 1978), pp. 344–65, at p. 349Google Scholar. In general see his ‘Die Gesandtschaft der Stadt Rom nach Avignon vom Jahre 1342/43’, Römische Historische Mitteilungen, xxi (1979), pp. 15-33.

54 Schmidinger, ‘Die Antwort’, p. 349.

55 Cola di Rienzo, Verus Tribuni Libellus contra scismata et errores, scriptus ad Archiepiscopum Pragensem, ed. K. Burdach and P. Piur, Briefwechsel des Cola di Rienzo, II, iii (Berlin, 1912), pp. 231-78, at pp. 233-4. On Cola di Rienzo, and for bibliography, see Wieder, J., ‘Cola di Rienzo’, in Karl IV. und sein Kreis , ed. Seibt, F. = Lebensbilder zur Geschichte der bömischen Länder, iii (Munich, 1978), pp. 111–44Google Scholar. Unfortunately M.B. Juhar, ‘Der Romgedanke bei Cola di Rienzo’ (dissertation, Kiel, 1977) is not available to me.

56 Cola di Rienzo, Libellus, p. 246.

57 See above p. 246.