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A Sermon in Praise of Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Siegfried Wenzel
Siegfried Wenzel*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

Worcester Cathedral MS F.10 forms a random collection of Latin, English, and macaronic sermons which were gathered and copied by a fairly large number of scribes in the middle of the fifteenth century. These sermons, most of them anonymous, are for a variety of occasions and audiences and have been entered in no particular liturgical order, even if, as the presence of several sets of quire numbers indicates, the individual quires were reordered several times in the medieval period. The collection contains a number of pieces that were evidently preached to a university audience, as is shown by their addressing “magistri” and by internal references to a university milieu. Their locale was presumably Oxford. Besides such general university sermons, the collection also includes two that are labeled “Introitus Sententiarum” and three other pieces that agree with these in form — the scholastic sermon structure — and content — praise of theology or holy Scripture and Peter Lombard. These five pieces are introitus, academic speeches or sermons which, according to university statutes, bachelors as well as masters (or doctors) of theology were required to deliver as they began their courses on the Bible or on Peter Lombard's Sentences. In addition, the manuscript contains an item that is very similar to the introitus sermons in that it follows the scholastic sermon structure and praises its subject. The latter, however, is not theology but philosophy, and the thema on which the piece is based is not a biblical text but a quotation from Aristotle. A sermon on a secular text itself is a rarity in medieval sermon literature, certainly from England; and appearing as it does in a sermon collection, the piece seems to be a rarissima avis stuck in the wrong flock.

Type
Articles
Information
Traditio , Volume 50 , 1995 , pp. 249 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by Fordham University 

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References

1 For a more detailed discussion of this manuscript, see Wenzel, Siegfried, Macaronic Sermons: Bilingualism and Preaching in Late-Medieval England (Ann Arbor, MI, 1994), 55–58 and 182–200. I am grateful to the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral, to its librarian, Dr. Iain MacKenzie, and to Mr. Ronald Stratton, for allowing me access to the manuscript and for permission to edit this sermon.Google Scholar

2 Student monks from Worcester priory usually went to Oxford and stayed at Gloucester College. The manuscript contains a sermon by Master John Fordham held at the general chapter (W–71). Fordham was a monk at Worcester from 1396 to 1438, held a D. Th. from Oxford (ca. 1407), and presided at the general chapters of the Benedictines from 1420 to 1426 (A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 vols. [Oxford, 1957–59], 2:705). See also Wenzel, Siegfried, Monastic Preaching in the Age of Chaucer, The Morton W. Bloomfield Lectures on Medieval English Literature, 3 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1993).Google Scholar

3 See Wenzel, Siegfried, “Academic Sermons at Oxford in the Early Fifteenth Century,” Speculum 70 (1995): 305–29.Google Scholar

4 The second principal uses only two parts; I do not know whether this was done deliberately or is the result of scribal error.Google Scholar

5 This form has been described many times; for a recent account, see Wenzel, Siegfried, Preachers, Poets, and the Early English Lyric (Princeton, 1986), 66–69.Google Scholar

6 For the requirement that sermons use biblical themata, see for instance Robert of Basevorn, Forma praedicandi, chap. 15, in Th.-M. Charland, Artes praedicandi: Contribution à l'histoire de la rhétorique au Moyen Age (Paris, 1936), 249.Google Scholar

7 The reference is attributed to Augustine's De origine discipline; the writer was probably thinking of Augustine's (more balanced) evaluation of secular sciences in De doctrina Christiana, book 2. Here, as in the case of other quotations in this sermon, one suspects that the author either quotes from imprecise memory or else draws on secondary sources or florilegia; see also notes 36 and 52–54 below.Google Scholar

8 Cf. the edited text below, lines 11, 16, etc.Google Scholar

9 A brief survey of these different types is given in Wenzel, “Academic Sermons.”Google Scholar

10 Lines 3–15 of the text edited below; my translation.Google Scholar

11 The manuscript reads appareant, an evident scribal error.Google Scholar

12 J. M. Fletcher, “The Faculty of Arts,” in Aston, T. H., gen. ed., The History of the University of Oxford; vol. 1: The Early Oxford Schools, ed. Catto, J. I. and Evans, Ralph (Oxford, 1984), 369–99, at 369.Google Scholar

13 Gibson, Strickland, ed., Statuta antiqua Universitatis Oxoniensis (Oxford, 1931), 34, lines 14–19 (perhaps before 1350); 247, lines 23–28 (A.D. 1432). Gibson gives a survey of the arts curriculum at Oxford (lxxxviii–cii).Google Scholar

14 H. Denifle and E. Chatelain, Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, 4 vols. (Paris, 1889–97), 1:230–32.Google Scholar

15 Denifle and Chatelain, Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, 2:696.Google Scholar

16 Rashdall, Hastings, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. Powicke, F. M. and Emden, A. M., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1936; original ed. 1895), 1:461–62.Google Scholar

17 James A. Weisheipl, O.P., “Curriculum of the Faculty of Arts at Oxford in the Early Fourteenth Century,” Medieval Studies 26 (1964): 142–85, at 164–65.Google Scholar

18 Leff, Gordon, Paris and Oxford (New York, 1968), 159–60. Similarly Fletcher, “Faculty of Arts,” 390: “Inception itself … was often known as the principium, held on a dies disputabilis … At the principium … the student … first read a lecture and then acted as an opponent.”Google Scholar

19 James E. Weisheipl, O.P., “The Structure of the Arts Faculty in the Medieval University,” British Journal of Educational Studies 19 (1971): 263–71, at 269.Google Scholar

20 Fioravanti, Gianfranco, “Sermones in lode della filosofia e della logica a Bologna nella prima metà del xiv secolo,” in Buzzetti, Dino, Ferriani, Maurizio, and Tabarroni, Andrea, eds., L'insegnamento della logica a Bologna nel xiv secolo (Bologna, 1992), 165–85. The eulogy referred to, in sermon form, is edited on pp. 177–85.Google Scholar

21 Kaeppeli, Thomas, “La raccolta di discorsi e di atti accademici di Simone da Cascina, OP,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 12 (1942): 235–45.Google Scholar

22 The speech is discussed and edited by J. Vennebusch, “Collatio philosophiae commendatoria. Aus dem Introitus zu einer Physikvorlesung des 14. Jahrhunderts,” Vivarium 21 (1983): 136–56. Vennebusch considers this to be the prelude to a lecture series on Aristotle's Physics, given either by a university master in the arts faculty (not a bachelor) or by a philosophy teacher at a studium, and modeled on the scholastic sermon form. The material studied by C. Piana, Nuove ricerche su le Università de Bologna e di Parma (Quaracchi, 1966), 12–82, apparently also includes some principia in the faculty of law.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 One must keep in mind, however, that university students in general were required to attend mass, where they would have had plenty of opportunity to hear university sermons. “Les étudiants dans les quatre facultés, étant tous clercs, il est normal qu'ils soient astreints à prendre part aux offices religieux organisés par l'Université: processions, messes, sermons. L'assistance aux sermons universitaires est donc obligatoire pour tous”; P. Glorieux, “L'enseignement au moyen âge: Technique et méthodes en usage à la Faculté de Théologie de Paris, au XIIIe siècle,” Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age 35 (1968): 149.Google Scholar

24 Beyond the introitus, the scholastic sermon form was also used to present and commend a new lecturer; see Wey, Joseph C., “The Sermo Finalis of Robert Holcot,” Medieval Studies 11 (1949): 219–24; see also Tachau, Katherine H., “Looking Gravely at Dominican Puns: The ‘Sermons’ of Robert Holcot and Ralph Friseby,” Traditio 46 (1991): 337–45. Likewise, the scholastic sermon form is used in the graduation speeches for doctors in medicine by Gentile da Foligno, ca. 1341; see Schlam, Carl C., “Graduation Speeches of Gentile da Foligno,” MS 40 (1978): 96–119. It is of course not unheard of that even modern academics occasionally cast a commendatio magistri sui in the form of a medieval scholastic sermon.Google Scholar

25 Aristotle, , De insomniis 2, 460a13–14; in Aristotle, On the Soul, Parva Naturalia, On Breath, ed. Hett, W. S. (Cambridge, MA, 1935), 354.Google Scholar

26 MS appareant.Google Scholar

27 MS phi'a.Google Scholar

28 The work cited was written by Al-Farabi; see Gundissalinus, Dominicus De divisione philosophiae, ed. Baur, Ludwig, in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Texte und Untersuchungen, 4.1–2 (Münster, 1903), 158–61. With the quotation compare the similar statement in Robert Kilwardby, O.P. De ortu scientiarum 46.422–23: “Ex quo patet quod sermocinalis scientia ultima est in humana inventione, prima tamen debet esse in ordine humanae doctrinae, et ideo ante alias doceri debet” (ed. Albert G. Judy, O.P., Auctores Britannici medii aevi, 4 [London and Toronto, 1976], 148). In the following paragraph “sermocinalis scientia” is shown to include logic.Google Scholar

29 MS po'e.Google Scholar

30 MS error.Google Scholar

31 A light interlinear letter, perhaps s, appears between n and i.Google Scholar

32 MS diuti'm.Google Scholar

33 Pseudo-Boethius De disciplina scolarium 1.12; ed. Weijers, Olga, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 12 (Leiden/Köln, 1976), 97.Google Scholar

34 MS gemetricas.Google Scholar

35 The manuscript reads “7 me'e”; I cannot find any passage like this in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Google Scholar

36 Perhaps Augustine De doctrina Christiana 2.31.48. Matthew of Gubbio quotes a similar text attributed to “Augustinus in compendio sue loyce”; see Fioravanti, , “Sermones” (n. 20 above), 178.Google Scholar

37 MS taquam.Google Scholar

38 nobis written twice.Google Scholar

39 omitted in MS.Google Scholar

40 MS commenda.Google Scholar

41 MS sensitiua.Google Scholar

42 Pseudo-Aristotle De porno; ed. Plezia, Marianus, Aristotelis qui ferebatur Liber de pomo, versio latina Manfredi, Academia scientiarum polona, Auctorum Graecorum et Latinorum opuscula selecta, 2 (Warsaw, 1960), 64, lines 4–5. The work has been translated by Mary F. Rousseau, The Apple or Aristotle's Death (De pomo sive De Morte Aristotelis) (Milwaukee, WI, 1968). It is quoted six times in the presentation speeches by Gentile da Foligno; see Schlam, , “Graduation Speeches” (n. 24 above), 111.Google Scholar

43 Pseudo-Aristotle De pomo, ed. Plezia, , 64, lines 6–10.Google Scholar

44 MS insensibilibus.Google Scholar

45 Aristotle Eth. nic. 1.5, 1095b20; in Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Rackham, H. (Cambridge, MA, 1939), 14.Google Scholar

46 MS et.Google Scholar

47 MS compat.Google Scholar

48 “Huius” here and in line 113 probably refers to Aristotle's Metaphysics, rather than the first principal part of this sermon.Google Scholar

49 The preacher may be thinking of Aristotle's Metaphysics 12.7, 1072a–73a, in Aristotle Metaphysics, ed. Tredennick, Hugh, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1936), 2:146–51. In the manuscript, the numeral “12” is preceded by “2,” which has been canceled.Google Scholar

50 MS speculand’.Google Scholar

51 MS mandatum.Google Scholar

52 Perhaps Boethius Consol. 5. prosa 6.43; ed. Bieler, L., CCL 94 (Turnhout, 1957), 105; or else a general reference to the Consolation of Philosophy. Google Scholar

53 I cannot find any text like this in Cicero's works, including Ad Herennium. Google Scholar

54 Cf. Hamesse, Jacqueline, ed., Les Auctoritates Aristotelis: Un florilège médiéval. Etude historique et édition critique (Louvain, 1974), 20.4: “Philosophia docet hominem cognoscere suum creatorum” (p. 273), from Aristotle's De pomo. The text of the latter edited by Plezia (see n. 42 above) reads: “[Homo] per ipsam cognoscet creatorem suum” (p. 54).Google Scholar

55 Five lines of a moralized note about gluing a strip of gold and of silver together follow without break.Google Scholar