Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-cnmwb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T07:36:39.625Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Burning of the Amalricians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Extract

On 20 November 1210, before a large crowd of spectators which had flocked to the market-place of Les Champeaux outside the Saint-Honoré Gate in Paris, the heretical Amalricians were burnt at the stake. Fire that day consumed ten men, of whom nine were certainly laicised priests, deacons and sub-deacons. Six days earlier, at the nearby church of St Honorius, they had been stripped of their clerical status and handed over for execution to the royal officials of the rex chrislianissimus, Philip Augustus. Indeed, from the time some three months beforehand that Master Ralph of Namur, discoverer of their existence and pseudo-convert to their beliefs, was instructed by his clerical superiors to infiltrate the sect – an act of ecclesiastical espionage which eventually delivered the Amalricians to the flames – a highly placed royal counsellor, the Hospitaller Brother Guerin, had been consulted immediately. For this was a matter of urgency, and not just to the Church.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

This essay is a revised version of a paper presented to the Scottish Medieval Group's Glasgow Conference (20 Sept. 1986). I should like to thank Mr M. D. Lambert for his very helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft, although responsibility for the shortcomings which remain must be my own. This is the third item in a scries of interrelated studies in medieval revivalism. With affection and gratitude, I dedicate it to Professor Emeritus Denys Hay of the University of Edinburgh.

1 Most of the texts pertaining to the Amalricians can be found appended to a monograph which is not, in itself, particularly valuable, Capelle, G. C., ‘Autour du de'eret de 1210 – Amaury de Bene’, Bibliothèque Thomiste xvi (1932), 89111Google Scholar, for the dossier. The standard printed editions of these texts are cited in the first instance and, thereafter, by page numbers alone, according to their location in Capelle. Additional valuable material is included in M. T. d’Alverny's important discussion, ‘Un fragment du proces des Amauricians’, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale el Litte’raire du Moyen Age xviii (1951), 325–36Google Scholar. Very full notes and bibliography are given in H. Grundmann, Religiose Bewegungen im Miltetaller; I have used the Italian translation by Ausserhofer, M. and Santini, L. N., Movimenti religiosi nel Medioevo, Bologna 1974, 344 ffGoogle Scholar. Capelle prints only extracts from the Contra Amaurianos; references to it below are from C. Baeumker's edition in the Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, xxiv. 5/6, ed. M. Grabmann, Münster 1926. A chronicler omitted by Capelle is the third continuator to the Citron. Reg. Cot., MGH SS rer. Germ., xviii. 230. Two further chroniclers alluding to the events of 1210 are analysed in the second of my studies in medieval revivalism, cited below. Accounts of the execution are found in Œuvres de Rigord el de Guillaume le Breton, ed. Delaborde, H.-F., Paris 1882Google Scholar, i. 230–3; William the Breton, 100. Cacsarius of Heisterbach's Dialogus Atiraculorum, ed. Strange, J., Cologne 1851Google Scholar, i. cap. xxii. 304–7; Caesarius of Heisterbach, 103, RHGF, xviii. 279; Robert of Auxerre, 104. These are the leading reports of narrative interest, but probably not by eye-witnesses. Details about some of the individuals put to death will be supplied at appropriate points in the discussion which follows.

2 The problem is that the Paris 1210 decree of condemnation refers to a Dominicus de Triangulo, who is not given an ecclesiastical order or position, and who is not mentioned at all by Caesarius. Hence, it is not possible to state with certainty, as Grundmann does, op. cit. 345, that there were no laymen among the degraded clerics who perished in the flames. See Charlularium Universitatis Parisimsis, ed. Denifle, H., Paris 1889Google Scholar, i. 70–1, no. xi, which is not in Capelle, op. cit.

3 William the Breton, 100. It is interesting that Caesarius informs us only about the churchmen consulted by Master Ralph. On Guerin, see Baldwin, J. W., The Government of Philip Augustus, Berkeley 1986, 115 ffGoogle Scholar.

4 Cf. the astute remarks on ‘university careerism’ in Murray, A., Reason and Society in the Middle Ages, Oxford 1985, 218–27Google Scholar and, with reference to the University of Paris c. 1200, 219.

5 William the Breton introduces his narrative of Amalric and the Amalrician affair, with the words ‘in diebus illis studium litterarum florebat Parisius’, especially praising King Philip's role (as that of his father before him) in safeguarding the privileges of the scholars, 99. Baldwin draws upon William in tracing Philip's involvement with the scholars, 343ff., and passim.

6 The same decree (sec above n. 2) which lists the condemned Amalricians also mentions David of Dinant, Aristotle's natural philosophy, etc. See Leff, G., Paris and Oxford Universities in the 13th and 14th Centuries, New York 1968, 193–4Google Scholar; 195–6 (Aristotle); Cappuyns, M., Jean Sent Érigène, Louvain–Paris 1933, 183Google Scholar, 246ff., relates Honorius Ill's 1225 proscription of Erigcna's De divisione naturae to the Amalrician affair.

7 Sumption, J., The Albigensian Crusade, London 1978, 118Google Scholar.

8 Les Statuts synodaux français du XIIIe siècle, I: Les Statuts de Paris el le synodal de l'Ouest (XIIIe siècle), ed. Pontal, O., Paris 1971, 88–9Google Scholar, no. xciv; although the ultimate source for this is a papal letter of 1208, the synodal statute itself dates from 1213, or somewhat later (cf. 81 n. 4).

9 Best seen, perhaps, in Robert of Auxerrc, RHGF, xviii. 279.

10 Maisonneuve, H., Études sur les urigines de l'Inquisition, Paris 1960, 168–9Google Scholar, and nn. Could Innocent III's letter of 17 Mar. 1211 (PL ccxvi. 391) discussed in Duvernoy, J., Le Catharisme: l'histoire des Cathares, Toulouse 1979, 143Google Scholar, have any bearing upon the Amalricians? The traditional assumption has been that the accusations of heresy brought against the canon of Langres pertained to Catharism. Yet Robert Courson, who, as papal judge-delegate, was involved in this 1211 business of the Langres canon, was also, during the previous year, one of Ralph of Namur's advisors in apprehending the Amalricians. This is brought out by M. and Dickson, C., ‘Le Cardinal Robert de Courson’, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale el Litté;raire du Moyen Age ix (1934), 76Google Scholar, 79ff., utilising Cacsarius of Heisterbach. The Dicksons state that the anonymous chronicler of Laon identifies the canon of Langres and curé of Mussy-sur-Seine as one of Amalric's followers, ibid. 80. Although it is certainly true that the Laon anonymous includes a brief passage on magister Galterus de Muissi, canonicus Lingonensis, which is found immediately after his discussion of Amalric and David of Dinant (RHGF, xviii. 715), this docs not demonstrate discipleship in heresy, and the matter has to be left unresolved.

11 The Melrose chronicler speaks of widows and the unsophisticated as being the particular targets of the heretics, Chronica de Mailros, ed. Stevenson, J., Edinburgh 1835Google Scholar, 110; Capelle, ‘Autour’, III.

12 Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen, 303ff., may stress their role unduly, although his discussion remains indispensable. Female participation in Amalricianism presents an interesting parallel with the Beguines and the new urban mysticism.

13 The Laon anonymous chronicler, 98, calls him the last, or most recent, of all the Amalrician heretics. This chronicler inserts his account of Amalric and the Amalricians in two ‘notes’ s.a. 1212, the first referring to the burning in Paris as occurring superiori anno, hybernis temporibus, and the second immediately preceding events which he dates June 1212. The chronicle terminates in 1219.

14 From the time of Jundt, A., Histoire du Pantheisme Populaire au Moyen Age, Paris 1875, 31 ffGoogle Scholar., a number of later episodes, such as the destruction of the Ortliebians of Strasburg (1215?), the burning at Troyes of a heretic who claimed to be the Holy Spirit incarnate (1220), and an outbreak of Waldensianism at Lyons (1225), have been ascribed to supposed Amalrician influence. Cohn, N., The Pursuit of the Millennium, London 1970, 152–6Google Scholar, is of this persuasion. Yet there is no evidence that any of these rather diverse incidents were caused by the secret diffusion of Amalrician doctrines in the years following 1210, nor is there anything to prove that the Amalricians fathered the fourteenth-century heresy of the Free Spirit, see below n. 62.

15 Glossing the Fourth Lateran Council's decree on Amalric, the illustrious canonist Hostiensis maintains that Amalric still had influential disciples in 1215, which explains (or so Hostiensis alleges) why the conciliar fathers chose not to specify what it was that Amalric actually taught. He himself deliberately chooses not to name these men. He gives as his source for Amalric's ideas (and his exposition, for reasons which will be discussed, cannot be taken as reliable) no less a figure than Cardinal Eudes of Châteauroux. Hostiensis can most conveniently be read in Capelle, ‘Autour’, 93–4. Lerner, R. E., ‘The uses of heterodoxy: the French monarchy and unbelief in the thirteenth century’, French Historical Studies iv (1965), 192Google Scholar, interprets Hostiensis’ statement to mean that Capetian court circles included men sympathetic to Amalric's beliefs. Any hint of official patronage for heretical ideas, however, seems unlikely, especially in view of the fact that Philip Augustus personally authorised the fate of the sectaries.

16 A brief overview of his life appears in DHCE ii (1914), 1004ff.

17 See d’Alverny, ‘Fragment’, 326 and n. 3. In Obiluaires de la Province de Sens, II: Diocèse de Chartres, ed. Molíníer, A. and Longnon, A., Paris 1906, 275Google Scholar, an obit for 16 Aug. reads: Amauricus de Bena, miles. It does not seem possible to date this entry with any certainty (mid-twelfth-fourteenth century?). Was he a kinsman of ‘our’ Amalric?

18 The anonymous chronicler of Laon emphasises this point, 98.

19 On this, see Caesarius of Heisterbach, 102.

20 Alberic of Trois-Fontaines in MGH SS, xxiii. 890; in Capelle, ‘Autour’, 104. Alberic makes it clear that Amalric was ejected from his grave ‘after four years’.

21 Chart. Paris, i. 70–71.

22 William the Breton, 100.

23 Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, ed. Alberigo, J., et al. , 3rd edn, Bologna 1973Google Scholar, constitut. ii. 231ff.

24 For whatever reason, the Church did not seek to publicise Amalric's teachings (cf. n. 15 above). Malcolm Lambert alerted me to the topos of heresy-insanity in this passage. For eleventh-century instances, see Stock, B., The Implications of Literacy, Princeton 1983, 104Google Scholar, 106, 123, 199. And, for a notable twelfth-century example, Leclercq, J., ‘L’hérésie d'après les écrits de S. Bernard de Clairvaux’, in Lourdaux, W. and Verhelst, D. (eds), The Concept of Heresy in the Middle Ages (11th–13th centuries), Louvain 1976, 1226Google Scholar at p. 21, ‘insania Manichaei’.

25 The glossators kept his name as a heretic alive, but, with the exception of Hostiensis, they said nothing about his ideas. Cf. Constitutiones Concilii Quarti Lateranensis una cum commentariis glossatorum, ed. García, A. García y, Vatican City 1981, 140Google Scholar, 466, 483.

28 Le Liber pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, L., Paris 1955Google Scholar, ii. 452; in Capelle, ‘Autour’, 105. Polonus (d. 1279) concluded that Amalric was burnt at Paris together with his adherents, which does not inspire much confidence in the quality of his information. Of later ecclesiastical historians, Pipinus (d. 1320), Triveth (d. 1328), Bernard Gui (d. 1331) – excerpts in ibid. 106–8 – virtually reproduce Polonus. Ptolemy of Lucca (d. 1327), 108–9, in addition to Polonus, drew from Vincent of Beauvais. Cf. his Speculum quadruplex, iv, Speculum historiale, ed. Benedictines of Douai. 1624, repr. Graz 1965, 1,221–2, who in turn copied the words of William of Breton.

27 Latin text, ed. F. Ehrle, in Archiv für Literatur und Kirchengeschichte ii (1886), 130; Capelle, op. cit. 109. McGinn, B., Visions of the End, New York 1979Google Scholar, comments on Angelo and translates the passage as cited, 216–17, but is mistaken in identifying the ‘Master Ralph that confuted it’ (i.e. the doctrine of the sect of the Amalricians) with Radulphus Ardens (334 n. 52). The correct Master Ralph would be none other than Ralph of Namur. Where did Angelo of Clareno obtain his information about Amalric? Not from Polonus, nor from the other ecclesiastical historians, who do not mention Master Ralph. It must have been while he was in France, at the time of the Council of Vienne (cf. Angeli Clareni Opera, I: Epistole, ed. Auw, L. von, Rome 1980, p. xxivGoogle Scholar), that he came across and utilised one of the versions of William the Breton then in circulation (e.g. in Vincent of Beauvais); and also in translation in Les Grandes Chroniques de France, ed. Viard, J., Paris 1930Google Scholar, vi. 290–3.

28 Gilson, E., History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, New York 1955, 240–1Google Scholar.

29 Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter, Leipzig 1874, 175Google Scholar.

30 P. 99.

31 This treatise, a major source of knowledge of Amalrician beliefs, will be discussed below.

32 P. 99.

33 P. 305.

34 Nevertheless, as d';Alverny points out, Erigena was not referred to in the condemnation of 1210, ‘Fragment’, 334–5.

35 For ecclesiology, see Congar, Y. M.-J., Sainte Église, Paris 1963Google Scholar. It is a matter of regret that, only on the penultimate page of his book Das Kirchenbild Innocent III, Stuttgart 1983, 329Google Scholar, does W. Imkamp so much as allude to the papal concept of Christianitas. Thus, for Innocent III and the populus christianus it is still necessary to turn to Rupp, J., L'Idée de Chrélienté dans la pensée pontificate des origines à Innocent III, Paris 1939Google Scholar.

36 Cf. Roscher, H., Papst Innocent III und die Kreuzzüge, Göttingen 1969Google Scholar.

37 Chiefly valuable for its study for the sources and for the problems it raises is Raedts, P., ‘The Children's Crusade of 1212’, Journal of Medieval History viii (1977), 279323CrossRefGoogle Scholar, whose conclusions, however, should be treated as provisional.

38 Contemporary with Amalric and the Amalricians was the pantheism of David of Dinant, which was, it must be stressed, intellectually distinct from theirs. For present purposes, the most important fact about David of Dinant is that he did not seem to have established a religious movement, as Amalric did. Théry, Note G., ‘Autour du décret de 1210: I. David de Dinant’, Bibliothèque Thomiste vi (1925)Google Scholar.

39 Pp. 333. 335.

40 Ibid. 331 and n. 1 (Ursines); Wakefield, W. L. and Evans, A. P. (eds), Heresies of the High Middle Age, New York-London 1969, 259Google Scholar, 731 n. 14 (Orsigny), with excellent notes on the sources translated.

41 The 1210 decree of condemnation (Denifle, Chart. Paris., i. 70) refers only to William of Poitiers as Master; Caesarius (101) names Guarin; the Laon anonymous chronicler awards the same title to both Bernard and Godin (98). On the other hand, Caesarius singles out Bernard as the sole member of the group not to have been a student of theology.

42 These sources include: the condemned propositions of 1210 (cf. above n. 2); the extant fragment from their official interrogations (in d'Alverny, ‘Fragment’, 331–3); the sermon of John the Teuton (Hauréau, B., Histoire de la philosophie scolastique, Paris 1880Google Scholar, 1/2. 93–4: in Latin, and in French paraphrase; in Capelle, ‘Autour’, 90); and William the Breton's report (99–100).

43 On Gamier of Rochefort, see DHGE xix (1981), 1,289–92; Dictionnaire de Spiritualile vi (1967), 125–8Google Scholar. Also note Haring, N. M., ‘The Liberal Arts in the sermons of Gamier of Rochefort’, Mediaeval Studies xxx (1968), 4777CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 D'Alverny, op. cit. 334, however, considers the Contra Amaurianos to be lune ampliation de la cedula primitive [i.e. the complete articles of accusation or Capitula inquisitionis, cf. 332 n. 1] rédigée à loisir par un théologien. So it would have to post-date the apprehension of the heretics. Her verdict on the Contra Amaurianos’ supposed dependence upon the Paris interrogation might be challenged on textual grounds, but the most serious objection to it arises from the prominence of Master Godin in the treatise, and he was, of course, absent from the Paris trial.

45 P. xxv.

46 In cap. vii. 21, when the Amalricians contest the ‘fables‘of the Paris masters, they display not only the confidence of their own academic background but also their ambivalence towards it. More directly of interest, there is a hint of theological disagreement within the sect (sunt tamen inter eos aliqui qui) pertaining to the nature of Christ's exterior and interior bodies, cap. xi. 46.

47 Cap. ix. 24; cap. x. 30. Garnier's jocular references to Godin have an oral quality which almost allows us to think of his point-by-point refutation of Amalricianism as a dialogue; cf. cap. x. 31.

48 Sec Bacumker's remarks, intro. p. xxxi.

49 Baker, D., ‘Heresy and learning in early Cistercianism’, Studies in Church History ix (1972), 100Google Scholar.

50 See Bloomfield, M. W. and Reeves, M. E., ‘The penetration of Joachism into northern Europe’, repr. in West, D. C. (ed.), Joachim of Fiore in Christian Thought, New York 1975, i. 117ffGoogle Scholar. The issue is fully discussed in Töpfer, B., Das Kommende Reich des Friedens, Berlin 1964, 272 n. 71Google Scholar.

51 Particularly, ‘The Abbot Joachim's disciples and the Cistercian Order’, repr. in West, op. cit. i. 151–67.

52 Dickson, G., ‘Master John of Toledo (Tolet) the albus Cardinalis (d. 1275) in Perugia…’, Boltettino delta Depulazione di Storia Palria per l'Umbria lxxxi (1984), 2575, at pp. 47–52Google Scholar.

53 From condemned propositions of 1210, Denifle, Cart. Paris., i. 71; Wakefield and Evans, Heresies, 262.

54 Contra Amaurianos, cap. i. 2, 7; cap. ix. 24ff.

55 Ibid. cap. vii. 21ff.

56 Ibid. cap. iii. 13ff., and cap. v. 17–18.

57 Denifle, Chart. Paris., i. 71; Wakefield and Evans, op. cit. 263.

58 ‘Sicque Deum locutum fuisse in Ovidio, sicut in Augustino’: Caesarius, 101.

59 Ibid. 101.

60 Contra Amaurianos, cap. xii. 48; William the Breton, too.

61 P. 109. It should be noted, however, that Angelo also said that King Philip, using Master Ralph's arguments and authorities, managed to extinguish and extirpate the sect at that time.

62 Lerner, R. E., The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages, Berkeley 1972, 13Google Scholar and n. 237.

63 Cap. ii. 12.

64 Ibid. cap. vi. 18ff.

65 The MS variant is not in Capelle, ‘Autour’, 101, but in Dialogus, ed. Strange.

66 P. 100.

67 Denifle, Chart. Paris., i. 71–2.

68 P. 90.

69 P. 111.

70 Especially note Robert of Auxerre, 104. But is there an overtone here of the species pietatis motif, as there definitely is with John the Teuton, 90: ‘speciem siquidem pictatis habentes exterius in vultu et sermone…’. See Grundmann, H., ‘Der Typus des Ketzers in mittelalterlicher Anschauung’, repr. in idem, Ausgewählte Aufsätze, Stuttgart 1976, i. 313–27Google Scholar, at pp. 317, 319, 322. I owe this suggestion, as well as the reference, to M. D. Lambert.

71 On thirteenth-century societies of penitents see Meerseman, G. G., Dossier de l'Ordre de la Pénitenceau XIIIe siècle, Fribourg 1961Google Scholar. A good conspectus on the ‘pastoral revolution’ (a phrase coined by the late E. Delaruelle) is by Foreville, R., ‘Les statuts synodaux et le renouveau pastoral du XIIIe siècle dans le Midi de la France’, repr. in the valuable collection of her essays, Gouvernement el vie de l'Église, London 1979Google Scholar, no. xv.

72 Future essays in the present series of ‘studies in medieval revivalism’ will consider a number of these themes. Cf. G. Dickson, ‘The flagellants of 1260 and the crusades’, Journal of Medieval History (forthcoming).

73 Cap. vi. 19.

74 Denifle, Chart. Paris., i. 7 1.

75 P. 103. ‘… vultu elevato se spiritu in celum raptum simulabit … ’: in virtually the same words as Caesarius' (which makes one suspect some form of indebtedness or, perhaps, a common source) is the contemporary Chron. Reg. Col., cont. ii, MGH SS rer. Germ., xviii. 187, and cf. n. 1; in Capelle, ‘Autour’, 110.

76 See E. W. McDonnell, Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture, New York 1969. On the term Papelarden, Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen, 313ff., who also cites the second Cologne continuator (c. 1220) as referring to the Amalricians as Beguines; in Cappelle, op. cit. 110.

77 Chron. Mailros, 111.

78 Here I am drawing upon, and modifying somewhat, material from my ‘Joachism and the Amalricians’ in the Calabrian journal Florensia ii (1987), 3545Google Scholar. On the subject of Amalrician Joachism there now exists a scholarly consensus that the borrowing of Joachite theories by the Amalricians, if not fully demonstrable, can be thought of as highly probable, Grundmann, op. cit. 307; d'Alverny, ‘Fragment’, 334; Töpfer, Kommende Reich, 272.

79 Bloomfield and Reeves, concluding that’ the Amalricians remain, for the student of Joachism, an enigmatic group’, still refer both to ‘the resemblance between Amaury's [Amalric's] views and those of Joachim’ and to ‘the group of Amalricians who continued to develop and propagate ideas of this nature after the death of their leader… It seems most probable that they drew upon the thought of Joachim’: ‘Penetration of Joachism’, 783. Cf. Reeves, M., The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages, Oxford 1969, 473Google Scholar, where the note of caution prevails.

80 Mario dal Pra, Amalrico di Bine, Milan 1951, n. 27, refers to t h e hypothesis of F. Tocco in this connection.

81 See Brown, E. A. R., ‘La notion de la légitimité et la prophétie à la cour de Philippe Auguste’, in Bautier, R.-H. (ed.), La France de Philippe Auguste, Paris 1982, 77110Google Scholar, esp. pp. 88–9.

82 See above n. 23.

83 Denifle, Chart. Paris., i. 72; Wakefield and Evans, Heresies, 263.

84 P. 99. William repeats the same providential theory: ‘In hoc ergo tempore dicebant Testamenti novi sacramenta finem habere, et tempus sancti Spiritus incepisse’: 100. Similar ideas would be heard again in Paris during the struggle between Fra Gerardo of Borgo San Donnino and William of Saint-Amour over the scandal of the Joachite-influenced concept of the ‘eternal gospel’ in 1255.

85 Preger, Geschichte, 183. His dates are inaccurate, however.

86 For instance, the problem of Joachism in relation to the disciplinati of 1260 can certainly be approached in this way. Other revivals, too, such as the shepherds' crusade of 1251, can be illuminated by isolating the phase of the movement in which the onset of prophecy would best explain the subsequent direction which the enthusiasm took. I intend to consider this aspect of the shepherds' crusade in the sequel to my ‘The advent of the Pastores (1251)’, Revue Beige de Philologie et d'Histoire lxvi (1988), 249–67Google Scholar.

87 Denifle, op. cit. i. 70; Laon anonymous, 98; Chron. Reg. Col., cont. iii; Caesarius for Bernard's residence in Paris, 103.

88 Contra Amaurianos, ix. 24; x. 30; Chron. Mailros, 111.

89 Pursuit, 152.

90 ‘Wilhelmus aurifex, propheta eorum’: Caesarius, 101; and ‘Spiritus sancti…et principaliter per septcm viros loquetur quorum unus ipse Wilhelmus crat’: ibid. 102.

91 The urgency of the times and the sacral-historical use of the prophetic nunc are, for example, conspicuous elements in the crusade ideology of Bernard of Clairvaux. The use of such rhetoric, of course, antedates Bernard, just as it extends into the pontificate of Innocent m and beyond.

92 Cap. xii. 51. See also the 1210 propositions, Denifle. Chart. Paris., i. 72.

83 P. 102.

84 This seems to be a valid inference from Master Ralph of Namur's promise that one day he intended to preach Amalricianism in public, Caesarius, 103.

95 D'Alverny, ‘Fragment’, 330. Cf. the discussion in Wakefield and Evans, Heresies, 731 n. 19.

96 The passage from the 1210 decree against them (Denifle, op. cit. i. 70) mentions not only the Lord's Prayer and the Creed as vernacular works which must have been theirs (cf. the Pater nosier above) but also saints' lives. Furthermore, De libris theologicis scriplis in Romano probably belonged to them, too. Ambiguity arises because theological notebooks pertaining to the ideas of David of Dinant have previously been cited in the document.

97 Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, 104, tells us that Ralph of Namur later became cantor at Cambrai.

98 Christian doctrine was a defence against heresy, but, perhaps more fundamentally, it justified a binding set of religious observances. Christian philosophy, on the other hand, was not for the laity: ‘It is necessary to tell the laity often that they should not inquire into the reasons for the articles of faith, nor of the sacraments, because, so great is the sublime nature of the faith, that that which lies at its core cannot be comprehended by the intellect.’ This was the message directed to the early thirteenth-century priesthood, Pontal, Statute synodaux français, 234–5, no. exxxii (from the synodal of the west of France, post-1215). On credal aspects of thirteenth-century Christianity there is an excellent discussion in Schmitt, J.-C., ‘Du bon usage du “Credo”‘, in Faire Croire, Rome 1981, 337–61Google Scholar, which I came across after completing this essay.

99 The most recent discussion of the Metz affair of 1199 is provided by Boyle, L. E., ‘Innocent in and vernacular versions of Scripture’, in Walsh, K. and Wood, D. (eds), The Bible in the Medieval World, Oxford 1985, 97107Google Scholar. And also note Sneddon, C. R., ‘The “Bible du XIIIe siècle”: its medieval public in the light of the manuscript tradition’, in Lourdaux, W. and Verhelst, D. (eds), The Bible and Medieval Culture, Louvain 1979, 127–40Google Scholar.

100 Fulk attempted to expound the teachings he heard from Peter the Chanter at Paris to his own flock, in the form of Sunday and feastday sermons. See O'Brien, John, ‘Fulk of Neuilly’, Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society; Literary and Historical Section xiii (1968–70), 105–48, at p. 113Google Scholar.

101 The Dominicans found lodgings in Paris as early as July 1218, Vicaire, M.-H., Saint Dominic and his Times, London 1964, 260Google Scholar.

102 Infelici marlyrio: a description of the Amalricians’ end, attached to the condemned Paris propositions of 1210, Denifle, Chron. Paris., i. 72. Return of Philip Augustus: Caesarius of Heisterbach, 103.

103 Denifle, op. cit. i. 71.

104 See above, n. 93.

105 Caesarius, 103, from the translation by Scott, H. von E. and Bland, C. C. S. of the Dialogue on Miracles, London 1929, i. 350–1.Google Scholar