This is the second of several essays investigating the continuity of literary theory and of the principles which may account for its development. In the first, ‘The Ancient Hypothesis of Fiction: An Essay on the Origins of Literary Theory,’ I described how the nature and sources of literary terminology might indicate the premises upon which a theory of literature, in the sense of fiction or poesis, was conceived and defended. The adoption of terms from medicine, politics, ethics, geometry, dialectic, and rhetoric by those who first discussed the purposes and deficiencies of fiction reveals the way in which a theory of literature may have been forming in its borrowed vocabulary prior to the recorded documents, as well as the ways in which later theorists would perceive, define, and defend their critical principles. Since the premises of its emergence were to determine its methods of survival and transmission, I shall briefly recapitulate my previous analysis of them as an introduction to the present essay.

To the inventory of Medieval Latin Aristotle Commentaries published in Traditio 23 (1967) 313-413, 24 (1968) 149-245, 26 (1970) 135-216, 27 (1971) 251-351, 28 (1972) 281-396, and 29 (1973) 93-197, I would like to make the following additions and corrections. They consist of a list of additional authors with biobibliographical note and indication of manuscripts and editions.

Yvain, Chrétien's masterpiece, has been conventionally seen as a counterpoise to Erec et Enide, attempting to reconcile the conflicting claims of love and chivalry. The several versions of this interpretation are misleading, if not quite wrong, because they divert our attention from what is special about Yvain to what it has in common with Erec. In all of them the lion is peripheral, although for Chrétien himself the lion gave the romance its name: Le Chevalier au lion. I intend to argue that Yvain is rather a critique of the Arthurian ideal, using patristic — or, if one prefers, Christian — psychology to show its hero fall victim to the sins of superbia, invidia, and ira in the first part and triumph over them in the second. Chrétien, I propose, made the lion a symbol of ira as a power of the soul and as ambivalent emotion, so that the two-part figure of the Chevalier au Lion — Yvain with his lion — dramatizes the restoration of ideal order within Yvain himself. Since the story of Yvain derives almost certainly from a Celtic source, Chrétien's originality consists not in the main events but in their disposition and in the emphasis assigned them in order to reveal their psychological and moral significance. I shall use comparisons with the Welsh story of Owein and the Lady of the Fountain to set that originality in relief, for whether the Welsh romance itself is the ultimate source of Yvain or both develop from some common source, it very likely approximates the form of the story prior to Chrétien's revision. It contains all the essential elements of Chrétien's romance — except Yvain's meeting with the hermit and the dispute between the daughters of the Lord of Noire Espine — masterly in detail but loosely connected, without moral focus or thematic coherence. Yvain, on the other hand, is distinguished, as this essay will try to show, by Chrétien's use of a progression of parallel incidents, together with the symbolic figure of the lion, to reveal gradually the meaning of the whole.

In 1332 Philip VI of Valois set in motion a campaign to levy traditional aids in his kingdom. Although for a number of reasons the effort failed, the episode casts significant light on the development of royal fiscal policy in France. Its importance lies chiefly in the fact that it terminated, at least temporarily, a period of experimentation and indecision lasting since the time of Saint Louis, who had claimed as legally due to him by the general custom of the realm various traditional aids. These customary payments were fundamentally arbitrary levies which kings and other lords collected from their vassals and subjects on occasions and in amounts determined essentially by customary practice and by the extent of the lord's power over his dependents, rather than by the lord's evident and undeniable need for help. Some aids — those taken for crusading and to ransom the lord — were easier to justify than others—those collected for marrying a daughter or knighting a son, for example. The legitimacy or illegitimacy of the aids was not, however, of central importance, since custom was their chief justification, and it was long usage that Saint Louis emphasized in claiming the aids he sought. His success in implementing his demands was not great, thanks to the manipulability and vagueness of custom. Still, the conviction with which he voiced his claims was impressive.

A number of recently published studies have drawn attention to the ‘radical moisture,’ a concept developed in classical antiquity and the Middle Ages to help explain the nature of life and the occurrence of aging and of fevers. These studies have examined the broad history of the concept over a span of two thousand years; they have, however, not presented in detail the sequence of the transmission and evolution of the concept in the Middle Ages. It is my intent to focus upon the history of the radical-moisture concept in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to try to establish the particular stages by which it entered medieval medical doctrine, and in particular to examine the importance of Avicenna's Canon for western physicians in consolidating their first disorganized impressions of the concept. I shall illustrate the stages in the transmission process by referring to the use of the concept at the University of Montpellier, for that school has left us a number of texts from the thirteenth century that reveal how the introduction of new Arabic or Greek medical works could alter the medieval academic physician's approach to a familiar topic; they also reveal the way in which personal tastes and interests could lead colleagues to react differently to new materials.

Some people say the Western world is in a mess, and what it needs is to rediscover its religion. Of the two chief kinds of objection made to this idea, scientific and social, the second is probably nearer the centre of debate now. Its main form, put broadly, is the theory that religion is a device promoted by the rich to stop the poor rebelling. A social theory like this has an historical dimension. To tell if it is true, data are needed about what people have actually done, rich or poor. Since history so far has mostly been about the great, the need for data is all the keener in respect of the poor. The aim of this article is to add, in the context of this general debate, to known data about poor men's religion, from an especially crucial and obscure period: the central Middle Ages.

Although they were primarily interested in the theoretical issues at stake, the late-medieval papal publicists who dealt with the relationship between church and state were aware of and influenced by important current developments. Augustinus Triumphus makes surprisingly few references to current events. However, he treats at some length the question of whether or not the pope must reside in Rome — because of some of the criticisms that had been directed against his residence in Avignon. He discusses the question of whether or not the pope can resign his office — because this had been an issue of some concern ever since the resignation of Celestine V. Furthermore, he treats in some detail of the issue of Christian perfection — how it was realized by Christ and the early church, and how it can be realized in the contemporary church — because of the storm that had surrounded the protests of the Spiritual Franciscans. In view of all this it is undoubtedly the case that he and like-minded political theorists devoted the time they did to the church-state issue, not merely because there were interesting theoretical issues at stake, but because it was a vexing problem for the society in which they lived. This society had witnessed two major confrontations between the spiritual and temporal authorities: the conflict between Boniface VIII and Philip IV of France in the early part of the fourteenth century, and the conflict between John XXII and the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria in the third decade of the century, and all of this had not been without its influence on the papal theorists.

In the following I offer a sequel to an earlier article on the source for the Remedia sections in Chaucer's Parson's Tale. There I presented extracts from a Latin treatise on the virtues referred to as Postquam, which treats seven virtues in the same order as the Parson's remedies against the Seven Deadly Sins and furnishes precise verbal parallels to a large portion of the relevant passages in the Parson's Tale, passages for which no convincing source had previously been suggested. I also noted that in several manuscripts Postquam is preceded by a similar treatise on the vices and that the latter provides interesting parallels to Chaucer's treatment of the Seven Deadly Sins. The relation between this Latin treatise and Chaucer's text, however, is unfortunately not as simple as it was in the case of the Remedia. It is complicated, first of all, by the fact that much material concerning the Seven Deadly Sins in the Parson's Tale derives — as has been known for some time — from Peraldus's Summa de vitiis. Hence, my pointing at a different Latin treatise on the vices and claiming for it a greater closeness to the Parson's Tale than Peraldus has will involve a comparison between this treatise and Peraldus in their relation to the Parson's Tale. In addition, the discussion grows even more complicated because of the fact that not one but two new treatises on the vices must be considered. I shall refer to them by their initial words, Quoniam and Primo respectively. They are both abbreviations of Peraldus's Summa de vitiis, clearly made in England in the third quarter of the thirteenth century. Quoniam rearranges the Seven Deadly Sins found in Peraldus (Gula — Luxuria — Avaritia — Accidia — Superbia — Invidia — Ira — Peccatum linguae) in the more normal order (Superbia — Invidia — Ira — Accidia — Avaritia — Gula — Luxuria, with several sins of the tongue distributed among other chief vices), selects material from Peraldus, and adds much material not found in Peraldus, including several English verses. Primo in its turn appears to be a revision of Quoniam. It reduces the Peraldian as well as the non-Peraldian material found in Quoniam. Despite slight changes in the wording, it contains no significant material which is not also present in Quoniam. The English origin of both works is shown by the English verses in Quoniam, by several references to England, and by an interesting exemplum against greed and the overly zealous pursuit of the law, which is preserved in both treatises.

Recent studies on the history of reform in the early and medieval church have been highly influenced by the works of Gerhart Ladner. In his writings Ladner stresses primarily the ideological foundations of reform. He distinguishes, moreover, the idea of reform from other types of renewal. In contrast with cosmological, vitalistic, and millenaristic renewal, reform implies conscious intention and finality. Church reform, consequently, both in its personal and institutional dimensions necessarily involves some concept of what a church should be. For this reason in most reform ideologies the idea of the ecclesia primitiva has played an important role. The primitive Church is regarded as a privileged moment in the history of the Church since it was in immediate personal contact with its founder and the direct recipient of his message.

The pejorative phrase of the title, penned by Eóin MacNeill in his article ‘Beginnings of Latin Culture in Ireland’ has clung tenaciously to the study of Hisperic texts. Indeed, it was repeated some twenty-odd years later by Bieler in his ‘Hibernian Latin’. However, the belief that Hisperica Famina and the texts related to them — the Lorica of Laidcenn, the Rubisca (possibly by Máeldub of Malmesbury), the St. Omer Hymn, some of the writings of Aldhelm, and a few other works — are the products of a literary decadence rests squarely on the assumption that they spring from southwestern Britain, especially Wales, around the middle of the sixth century; to cite MacNeill:

It has long been believed that pictures of the creator marking out the universe with a compass, common in late-medieval manuscripts, were inspired by Wisdom 11.21 which says of God: ‘Omnia in mensura, et numero, et pondere disposuisti.’ Yet anyone who examines the forty-odd creation scenes with compass extant in psalters, horae, picture Bibles and other manuscript books will see quite clearly that only seven of these pictures illustrate literally the processes of weighing with scales, measuring, and numbering, as mentioned in the Book of Wisdom. The majority simply show God holding a compass with his handiwork before him, and seem to have been inspired by the opening chapters of Genesis — in which there is no compass — or by Proverbs 8.27, where God sets not a compass but a circle upon the face of the deep.

The liturgical ceremony for the taking of the crusading cross did not develop until well into the twelfth century. Texts which reveal how the cross was bestowed are relatively rare from the period 1095 to 1200. It was not until the thirteenth century that pontificals commonly contained such a ceremony. It is not clear why the rite for taking the cross took so long to develop, but two twelfth-century Italian pontificals from the Graz University library shed some light on how the liturgical ceremony evolved on the continent.

A strong attachment to education and scholarship very early distinguished the orders of friars established in the thirteenth century. Although Francis of Assisi had made no provision for such activities in the new religious movement which he founded, nevertheless, not long after his death in 1226 the Franciscans had already begun to show a pronounced intellectualist bent. In a sermon delivered in 1229, Odo of Châteauroux noted the influx of scholars into the Order and the prominence of the Franciscans in the Paris schools. Subsequently, some of the finest minds in Europe were converted to the Franciscan style of Christian life; and the enthusiasm and aptitude of the friars minor for teaching became very apparent — transforming them into almost a separate universitas.

The practice of magic was much in vogue in the Renaissance and even the word had gained a limited respectability. Thus in 1558 when Giambattista della Porta published his collection of curiosities of art and nature he did so under the title Magia naturalis, and even in the next century the far more sober Bishop John Wilkins was to publish a book entitled Mathematicall Magick. Such works indicate essential similarities between magic and science in that each has as part of its aim the application of not readily apparent knowledge to practice. But we should not think that the widespread acceptance of natural magic in the Renaissance meant that the term had become a synonym for what we should now call science, for we still have to bear in mind such pictures as those of Marsilio Ficino chanting his Orphic hymns, of John Dee conversing with spirits through his medium Edward Kelly, and of Tommaso Campaneüa and Pope Urban VIII closeted together and performing secret rites to ward off the plague.