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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
In English and American Studies in German, summaries of theses and monographs, a supplement to Anglia, 1983, there is a notice of Hans Sauer's edition of the Middle English poem the Owl and the Nightingale with a German translation. Sauer stresses ‘that no completely satisfactory interpretation of this fascinating poem has been suggested so far. At best, only some of the aspects of O & N are covered by the various allegorical explanations or by reading it as a burlesque-satirical poem - these interpretations by no means explain its significance as a whole.’ The present paper suggests that a knowledge of the papacy's changing attitude t o marriage in the twelfth century, as expressed in the development of canon law, as well as in the deliberations of English provincial synods, goes far to illuminating the scope and purpose of this Middle English satire/burlesque.
1 Tübingen 1983, 33 n. 22; Sauer, Hans (ed.), Die Eule und die Nachtigall. MiUelcnglisch Deutsch (Universal-Bibliothek. 7992, 2), Stuttgart 1983Google Scholar.
2 Hume, Kathryn, ‘The Owl and the Nightingale: contexts and interpretations’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania 1971, 23.Google Scholar
3 The Owl and the Nightingale, ed. Grattan, J. H. G. and Sykes, G. F. H. (EETS cxix), London 1935;Google ScholarThe Owl and the Nightingale, facsimile of the Jesus and Cotton Manuscripts (hereinafter cited as O&S facs.) (EETS ccli), London 1963, intr. N. R. KerGoogle Scholar.
4 Ker's introduction to the facsimile says that both J and C MSS seem to have been written in the second half of the thirteenth century. ‘The difference between the hands is a difference of kind, not of date’, ibid. p. ix. This, however, does not affect the supposition that the lost common MS goes back to an even earlier original.
5 Wright, Thomas (ed.), The Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes (Camden Society), London 1841.Google Scholar
6 Dronke, Peter, Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love Lyric, 2 vols, 2nd edn, Oxford 1968.Google Scholar
7 For specific studies on marriage and canon law: Brooke, C. N. L., ‘Marriage and society in the central Middle Ages’, in Marriage and Society, studies in the social history of marriage, ed. Outhwaite, R. B., London 1981, 17–34;Google Scholaridem, Marriage in Christian History, Cambridge 1978,Google Scholar Inaugural Lecture; idem, ‘Aspects of marriage law in the eleventh and twelfth centuries’, in Proceedings of the Fifth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Salamanca 1976,Google Scholar S. Kuttner and K. Pennington (eds), Monumenta iuris canonici, ser. C, subsidia 6, Vatican City 1980, 333-44; Dauvillier, J., Le mariage dans le droit classique de I'Église, Paris 1933;Google ScholarMolin, J. B. and Moutembe, P., Le Rituel du mariage en France du Xlle au XVIe siècle, Paris 1974,Google Scholar on liturgy; Esmein, A., Le Mariage en droit canonique, 2 vols, Paris 1891;Google ScholarHaring, N., ‘The interaction between canon law and sacramental theology in the twelfth century’, in Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Toronto 1972Google Scholar (hereinafter cited as Proceedings 1972), ed. S. Kuttner, Monumenta iuris canonici, ser. C, subsidia 5, Vatican City 1976, 483-93.
8 Lines 1331-1510, O&N, EETS cxix, 41-7. The Jesus MS has been used throughout for citations.
18 Lines 1500-9.
19 Lines 1516-17; Owl's speech runs from lines 1515-1601.
20 Line 1519.
25 & hire sende betere i bedde.
26 Professor Christine Fell (Nottingham) has advised me that it is, at this date, unwise translate bondeman as ‘bondsman’ and suggests ‘peasant’ as less open to challenge.
27 Lines 1575-82.
28 þe louerd in to þare þeode.
Vareþ vt on þare beyre neode.
29 Delhaye, Philippe, ‘Le dossier anti-matrimonial de l'Adversus Jovinianum et son influence sur quelques écrits latins du Xlle siècle’, Mediaeval Studies xiii (1951), 65–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30 PL xxiii. 221-354. Interpreting 1 Cor. vii. 1 ff, ‘Bonum est, inquit [Paul] homini muliercm non tangere. Si bonum est mulierem non tangere, malum est ergo tangere. Nihil enim bono contrarium est nisi malum. Si autem malum est, et ignoscitur, ideo conceditur, ne malo quid deterius fiat. Quale autem illud bonum est, quod conditione deterioris conceditur? Nunquam enim subjecisset, unusquisque uxorem suam habeat, nisi praemisisset, propter fornicationem autem. Tolle fornicationem, et non dicet, unus-quisque uxorem suam habeat…Non dixit bonum est uxorem non habere: sed, bonum est mulierem non tangere; quasi et in tactu periculum sit: quasi qui illam tetigerit, non evadat, quae virorum pretiosas animas rapit, quae facit adolescentium evolare corda: alligabit quis in sinu ignem et non comburetur? aut ambulabit super carbones ignis, et non ardebit (Prov. vi. 27, 28) ? …Quomodo igitur qui ignem tetigerit statim aduritur: ita viri tactus et feminae sentit naturam suam, et diversitatem sexus intelligit…Sed quoniam in Ecclesia diversa sunt dona, concedo et nuptias, ne videar damnare naturam. Simulque considera quod aliud donum virginitatis sit, aliud nuptiarum…Concedo et nuptias Dei donum, sed inter donum et donum magna diversitas est’, 229. ‘Only if you cannot be continent, then marry, since it is better to marry than burn’, 1 Cor. vii. 8. ‘Ideo melius est nubere quia pejus est uri. Tolle ardorem libidinis, et non dicet melius est nubere. Melius enim semper ad comparationem deterioris respicit, non ad simplicitatem incomparabilis per se boni’, 232. ‘Si per se nuptiae sunt bonae, noli illas incendio comparare’, 233.
31 Ibid. 218-19.
32 ‘Neque enim erunt post resurrectionem conjugia’, ibid. 240-1.
33 ‘Hoc quod factum est, in propatulo est, quod qui in paradiso virgines permanserunt, ejecti de paradiso copulati sunt’, ibid. 263.
34 ‘Porro qui uxorem non habens, credidit, et liber a servitute conjugii vocatus est a Domino, ille vere servus est Christi’, ibid. 236. ‘Qui sine uxore est sollicitus est quae Domini sunt, quomodo placeat Deo. Qui autem cum uxore est, sollicitus est quae sunt mundi quomodo placeat uxori, et divisus est’, ibid. 240-1. Peter Lombard used Jerome's Adversus Jovinianum in saying the wise man loves his wife by reason and not by affection, for the violence of sexual passion does not reign over him. ‘Nothing is more shameful than loving one's wife as one loves an adulterous woman’, Liber IV Senlenliarum, Distinctio 31 c. 5, Quaracchi 1916, ii. 939Google Scholar.
35 P L xxiii. 262.
36 Ibid. 244.
37 Augustine argued that th e origin of sin lies in the will and not in the body; hence the importance of intention in twelfth-century debates and in the Nightingale's position, City of God, xiv. 5. For a general discussion of these attitude s see Duby, Georges, Le Chevalier, la femme et leprêtre: le manage dans la France féodale, Paris 1981, 31–3.Google Scholar Also see idem, Medieval Marriage, two models from twelfth-century France, trans. Forster, E., Baltimore-London 1978, a preliminary studyGoogle Scholar.
38 PLcxl. 815 ff.
39 Ibid. 817.
40 Ibid. cap. xxxiv.
41 Ibid. cap. xlii.
42 Ibid. cap. lxii.
43 Ibid. cap. lxiii. 826.
44 Ibid. cap. lxiv-v. 826-8.
45 Ibid. 949-50.
46 See , Duby, Le Chevalier, 72.Google Scholar
47 Noonan, J. T., ‘Marita l affection in the canonists’, Studia Gratiana xii (1967), 479–510;Google Scholar and idem, Contraception, a History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, Cambridge, Mass. 1966Google Scholar.
48 Neither Burchard's collection of the early elevent h century, nor the collections from the circle of Gregory VII, nor Ivo's Panormia (end of the eleventh century) ever became a focal point for organised teaching, although a general doctrine of interpretation among canonists existed early. But prior to Gratian's Decretum, Ivo's Panormia was the most influential of treatises. See Kuttner, Stephan, ‘The revival of jurisprudence“, in Benson, R., Constable, Giles, Lanham, Carol (eds), Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, Oxford 1985, 311Google Scholar.
49 , Duby, op. cit. 11.Google Scholar
50 Malmesbury, William of, De Gestis Regum Anglorum, 2 vols, ed. Stubbs, W. (Rolls Series xc, 1889), ii, lib. iii. 293,Google Scholar quoting , Ovid, Meta. ii. 846:Google Scholar ‘Non bene conveniunt, nee in una sede morantur, Majestas et Amor’; and ‘Pacem cum Philippo rege comparavit, data sibi i n uxorem privigna, de qua ille Lodowicum tulit qui modo regnat in Francia; nee multo post, pertaesus connubii, quod ilia praepinguis corpulentiae esset, a lecto removit, uxoremque Andegavensis comitis contra fas et jus sibi conjunxit’, ibid. 315.
51 The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. and trans. Chibnall, Marjorie, Oxford 1973, iv, bk viii. 186–7, 260-2.Google Scholar
52 Ibid. 262-3.
53 Ivo of Chartres, Decretum and Panormia, PL clxi. Also see , Duby, Le Chevalier, 175; andGoogle ScholarLabonte, Y., Le Mariage selon Yves de Chartres, Bruges 1965.Google Scholar ‘Desponsata viro, conjugis nomen accepit. Cum enim initiatur conjugium conjugii nomen assumitur. Non enim defloratio virginitatis facit conjugium, sed pactio conjugalis. Denique cum conjugitur puella conjugium est, non cum viri admistione cognoscitur, Panormia vi. 14. 1247. ‘Conjuges verius appellantur a prima desponsationis fide, quamvis adhuc inter eos ignoretur conjugalis concubitus’, ibid. vi. 15. ‘Conjugium fit etiam absque carnali commistione et concubitu…conjugis appellatio ubi non fuerat nee futura erat carnis commistio. Propter quod fidele conjugium ambo parentes Christi vocari meruerent, et non solum ilia mater, verum etiam ille pater ejus’, ibid. vi. 16 (but see n. 49 below). Ivo clarifies how the union is a social and public affair guaranteed, as it were, by the priestly ritual: ‘In contrahendo conjugio ista sunt observando (Leo papa). Qualis uxor esse debeat, quae habenda est secundum legem? Virgo casta et desponsata in virginitate et dotata legitime, et a parentibus tradita, et a sponsa et a paranymphis accipienda, et ita secundum legem et Evangelius publicis nuptiis honeste in conjugium et liquide sumenda et omnibus diebus vitae suae nisi ex consensu et causa vacandi Deo, nunquam propter hominem separanda, et, si fornicata fuerit, dimittenda. Sed ilia vivente, altera non ducenda, quia adulteri regnum Dei non possidebunt [Cor. vi] et penitentia illius per scripturas recipienda’, ibid. vi. 36. 1251. Also see , Burchard, Decretum ix. 2, PL cxl. 815Google Scholar.
54 Panormia vi. 5; ‘sine publicis nuptiis nullus ducat uxorem’, ibid. vi. 6.
55 ‘Nuptiae publice celebrari debent’, ibid. vi. 9.
56 ‘Sed post sponsalia quae futurarum nuptiarum sunt promissio, foedera quoque consensu eorum qui contrahunt et eorum in quorum sunt potestate celebrantur’, ibid. Also, ‘De his quorum consensus requiritur in sponsalibus’ vi. 11. Note that the father's consent is to be shown, but the girl can contradict his wishes, ‘si haberet justam causam contradicendi’, if the spouse chosen for the girl is shown to be of unworthy morals, vi. 12. Further on consent, see vi. 102. 1271–2 (‘quare non debet solvi conjugium, et quod sine consensu utriusque non sit matrimonium’).
57 ‘Quapropter a primordio aetatis sponsalia effici possunt, si modo id fieri ab utraque persona intelligitur, id est, si non sit juniores quam septem annis’, ibid. vi. 13. 1246. The desponsatio could be before puberty but, to contract marriage, one had to attain the age of puberty; since there had been a ‘primordial interest’ in contracting betrothals before puberty, they would be authorised from the age of seven when children begin to understand the meaning of their acts, Ep. xcix. The Council of Nimes (1096) specified (cap. 13) that young girls ought not to marry before twelve years old, cited in Fliche, A., Histoire de I'Église: la Réforme grégorienne et la reconquite chrétienne (1057-1123), Paris 1950, xvi, 462–7Google Scholar.
58 ‘In desponsatione conjugium initiatur. Desponsata viro, conjugi nomen accepit’, Panormia vi. 14. Also vi. 14. ‘Uxore mortua, licet viro aliam ducere, sed non repudiat vel desponsatam’, vi. 34. 1250.
59 ‘Qualiscunque sit mulier, ex quo semel placuit viro, non est dimittenda.’ Citing Augustine De Sermone Domini in monte: ‘Si uxorem quisque habeat, sive sterilem, sive deformem corpore, sive debilem membris, caecam et surdam, vel claudam, si quid aliud sive morbis et doloribus laboribusque confectam, et quidquid excepta fornicationis causa cogitari potest vehementer horribile, pro societate et fide sustineat’, ibid. vi. 104.
60 Decretum vi. 45, 46, 48, 49.
61 Panormia vi. 36; for text, see above n. 53.
62 ‘De separatione conjugii carnalis ob causam carnalis fornicationis’, ibid. vii.
63 Ibid. vii. 27 and 31. ‘Quando dicitur committi adulterium. Adulterium est, cum vel. propriae libidinis instinctu, vel alienae consensu cum altero vel altera, contra paclum conjugate concumbitur, atque ita frangitur fides, quae in rebus etiam corporeis et abjectis magnum animi bonum est’, vii. 22. 1285.
64 ‘Secunda conjugia, sicut et prima, licita esse probantur…Item: nee contra humanae verecundiae sensum audeo dicere, ut quoties, viris mortuis, voluerit, nubat femina, nee ex meo corde propter scripturae sanctae auctoritatem, quotaslibet nuptias audeo condemnare’, ibid. vi. 59. ‘Non peccat bigamus, sed praerogativa sacerdotii exuitur. Qui sine crimine est unius uxoris vir teneatur ad legem sacerdotii suscipiendi. Qui autem iteraverit conjugium, culpam quidem non habet coinquinati, sed praerogativa exuitur sacerdotis. Item cognoscamus non solum de episcopo et presbytero apostolum statuisse, sed etiam Patres in concilii Nicaeni tractu addidisse, clericum quemquam non debere esse, qui secunda conjugia sit sortus’, vi. 63. But when the partners are still alive, ‘Manet inter viventes quoddam vinculum conjugale quod nee separatio, nee cum altero copulatio possit auferre, sicut apostata anima velut de conjugio Christi recedens, etiam fide perdita sacramentum fidei non amittit, quod lavacro regenerationis accepit’, vi. 74. 1258, and, ‘Conjugale vinculum non solvitur, propter perpetuam continentiam, consensu utriusque conjugis servandam’, vi. 75.
65 , Duby, Le Chevalier, 179–80.Google ScholarPanormia: ‘redder e vero debitum conjugale, nullius est criminis; exigere autem ultra generandi necessitatem, culpae venialis’, vi. 26. Also: ‘Scripsit nobis Theoberga regina se velle dignitate seu copula exui, et sola privata vita esse contentam desiderare, cui nos scripsimus, non hoc aliter fieri posse nisi eamdem vitam conjux ejus Lotharius elegerit’, vi. 76, 77. ‘Causa religionis conjugia solvi non debent’, vi. 78; and ‘sine uxoris voluntate viro continere non licet’, vi. 79. 1259.
66 , Duby, Le Chevalier, 181–2.Google ScholarIvo of Chartres, Ep. 280,Google Scholar PL clxii. 281-2. Also see Goody, Jack, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe, Cambridge 1983,CrossRefGoogle Scholar especially ch. vi, for an interesting economic argument as one of the bases of the papal reform movement. The wide extensions of the prohibitions on marriage tended to weaken the control of property by kin, helping to retain in church hands what had already been secured. The economic effects of the reform movement resulted in a reorganisation of the landed property of laymen and in changes in transmission, namely to a single heir or to the Church.
67 Ivo to Hildebert of Lavardin. ‘Quoniam a principio conditionis humanae naturali institutione conjugiam constat esse sancitum, nullum credo posse fieri divortium, nisi causa interveniat quam lex admittit, aut Evangelium. Adhuc enim vigebant Judaeorum et gentilium, secundum legem naturalem, sociata conjugia, et nulla vel rarissima erant christianorum connubia’, Ep. 230, PL clxii. 233. See also n. 65 above.
68 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De Sacramenlis II. ii. 12, PL clxxvi. 488;Google Scholar, Duby, op. cit. 193Google Scholar.
69 Ibid. 196. Lombard, Peter the, Liber Sententiarum iv. 26Google Scholar.
70 Bernard, St, Ep. 216Google Scholar (written 1142): ‘Quomodo quos Ecclesia conjunxit, disjunxit camera?’ earlier citing Matt, xix, 6: ‘Quod Deus conjunxit, homo non separet’, PL clxxxii. 379-80.
71 PL clxxxiii. 1095.
72 For a more moder n edition of Bernard's letters, see Opera vii: Epistolae 1-180; viii, Epistolae 181-310 plus Epistolae extra corpus 311-547, Rome 1974, 1977. The numbering is the same, and the texts given below are corrected against this edition. Ep. 224: ‘Qua fronte, obsecro, tantopere aliis praescribere de consanguinitate laborat, homo cum sua (quod palam est), tertio ferme consanguinitatis gradu permanens consobrina?’, PL clxxxiii. 394; Opera, viii. 93.
73 , Duby, Le Chevalier, 57–8.Google Scholar
74 Ep. 174: ‘Sed non valuit ante sancta esse quam esse; siquidem non erat antequam conciperetur. An forte inter amplexus maritales sanctitas se ipsi conceptioni immiscuit, ut simul et sanctificata fuerit, et concepta? Ne hoc quidem admittit ratio…restat ut post conceptum in utero iam exsistens, sanctificationem accepisse credatur, quae, excluso peccato, sanctam fecerit nativitatem, non tamen et conceptionem’, PL clxxxii. 335; Opera, vii. 391-2. H. Silvestre shows how Rupert of Deutz (Liège) (d. 1129) had already argued that the power of procreation was a gift from God and not a result of sin. Silvestre argues that Rupert's views on marriage and conjugal sexuality were unique for his time, Silvestre, H., ‘La prière des époux selon Rupert de Liége’, Studi medievali, 3rd ser. xxiv (1983), 725.Google Scholar I owe this reference to Dr Constant Mews, Sheffield University.
75 Peter the Lombard, II Sent., Quaracchi 1916, 1051. Chatillon, J., ‘L'influence de S. Bernard sur la pensée scholastique au Xlle siècle et au XIIIe siècle’, S. Bernard théologien (Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis iii-iv, 1953), 284–7; 280Google Scholar.
76 Ep. 62: ‘aut viro suo priori, si adhuc vivit, reconciliare, aut, si ille noluerit, sicut hanc innuptam, sic ilium cogere absque uxor e manere’, Opera, vii. 155.
77 Ep. 7: ‘Nam conjugium, cum et fieri liceat, et non fieri, factum iam solvi non licet. Quod ergo ante nuptias medium esse liquebat, in iam conjugatis puri boni vim obtinet’, PL clxxxii. 96; Opera, vii. 34.
78 Salisbury, John of, Policraticus, 2 vols, ed. Webb, C. C. J., Oxford 1909, 305.Google Scholar
79 Helmholz, R. H., Marriage Litigation in Medieval England, Cambridge 1974.Google Scholar
80 Gratian, Decretum, Dictum ad C. 27 q.2 c. 34: ‘Sciendum est quod conjugium desponsatione initiatur, commixtione perficitur’. , Helmholz, op. cit. 26Google Scholar.
81 Silvestre, Hubert, ‘Dix plaidoiries inédites du Xll e siècle’, Traditio x (1954), 373–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar These are stereotyped pleas and advocates' responses. Th e fifth plea, inspired by Gratian, where there is no distinction between sponsalia and matrimonium: ‘un “époux” se plaint qu'on lui ait enlevé sa femme; l'adversaire soutient que mariage passe fiancailles’. plea:…’cum enim ad nubiles annos iam ilia pervenisset et legitime matrimonii contractum inire posset, in istum consensit paction e coniugati coram testibus ad hoc vocatis ut, si opus esset, hui c perhiberent testimonium veritati. Quibus astantibus interrogata a sacerdote de consensu coniugii, in istum plane et plene dixit se consentire et suum astipulavit consensum data fide desponsationis… Sed forte dica t adversarius non fuisse coniugium quia inter eos non fuit cummixtio carnalis’, 385. response: ‘Licet enim precessisset promissio (quod tamen hec contradicit) quia non est secuta traditio que rem facit esse possidentis, nullatenis hec sua fuit, quia, cu m promissio de futuro sit per eam non efficitur aliquis dominus rei. Quamvi s ergo ponatur illam isti desponsatam fuisse et pactum coniugale cum eo inisse (quod ips a renuit), non ideo tamen inter istos coniugium fuit’, 387.
82 ‘Nuptias non concubitus, sed consensus facit’, Digest 1. 17-30; , Helmholz, op. cit. 26Google Scholar and n. 7. The treatise on marriage in the Libri IV Senlenliarum, is found in Book iv, distinctiones 26-36, ii. 912-67.
83 , Helmholz, Litigation, 28–30.Google Scholar
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85 , Helmholz, op. cit. 30–1.Google Scholar
86 , Sheehan, ‘Choice’, 10 n. 18.Google Scholar
87 C.31 q.2 c. 3 and C.31 q. 2 d.p.c.4.
88 C.32 q.2 cc. 13-16, etc.; , Sheehan, op. cit. 12–13Google Scholar.
89 Sent., Dist. 27 c. 3.
90 , Helmholz, Litigation, 34.Google Scholar
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92 See n. 57.
93 Cheney, C. R., English Synodalia in the Thirteenth Century, Oxford 1941, repr. 1968, passim.Google Scholar
94 Ibid. 32-4; and Cheney, C. R., English Bishops' Chanceries, 1100-1250, Manchester 1950;Google Scholar episcopal acta from the mid-twelfth century show clear imitations of papal style, 72.
95 , Cheney, Synodalia, 34.Google Scholar See also Barraclough, Geoffrey, Papal Provisions. Aspects of church history constitutional, legal and administrative in the later Middle Ages, Oxford 1935.Google Scholar Barraclough sees this as a victory over localism and particularism, and indeed, the doctrine in the poem indicates the vernacular response to such successful universalism of marriage doctrine.
96 , Cheney, Chanceries, 7Google Scholar; on the officialis, 20.
97 Knut Wolfgang Nörr, ‘Institutional foundations of the new jurisprudence’, in , Benson, et al., Renaissance and Renewal, 334Google Scholar.
98 Sheehan, Michael M., ‘Marriage theory and practice in the conciliar legislation and diocesan statutes of medieval England’, Mediaeval Studies xl (1978), 408–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
99 Ibid. 410.
100 Provincial Council of Westminster (1175), canon 18; Sheehan, 411. See also Councils and Synods, eds Whitelock, D., Brett, M., Brooke, C. N. L., Oxford 1981, I. ii, 965–93Google Scholar.
101 , Sheehan, op. cit. 411.Google ScholarCouncils and Synods, I. ii. 991; and Brooke's comments on Henry II's practice, 967.
102 , Sheehan, ‘Marriage theory’, 423.Google Scholar
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104 , Sheehan, op. cit. 437 n. 115.Google Scholar
105 Locke, F. W (trans.), The Art of Courtly Love, Andreas Capellanus, New York 1957, 44 and 46.Google Scholar
106 , Helmholz, op. cit. 59.Google Scholar
107 Ibid. 64.
108 Ibid. 101, 70.
109 Ibid. 74.
110 , Esmein, Le Manage, ii. 89–95.Google Scholar
111 , Helmholz, Litigation, 101.Google Scholar
112 Post, J. B., ‘Ravishment of women and the Statutes of Westminster’, in Legal Records and the Historian, ed. Baker, J. H., London 1978, 157.Google Scholar
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114 Ibid. 437 n. 115.
115 , Sheehan, ‘Choice’, 21.Google ScholarFlamburgh, Robert of, Liber poenilenlialis, ed. Firth, J. J. F., Toronto 1971Google Scholar.
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119 Ibid. 314-15. Lekai, Louis, The Cistercians. Ideals and reality, Ohio 1977,Google Scholar notes that, by the end of the twelfth century, most Cistercian abbeys turned out to be collectors and users of tithes. And by 1184 a bull of Lucius III freed all Cistercian abbeys from the punitive authority of bishops. They exercised their right to preach and administer the sacraments; and, with an increase in their use of episcopal insignia, their competition for precedence in various public functions caused them to become a constant source of irritation to the secular hierarchy, 68; also on the hostility of black monks and older orders joined by bishops, 395. A letter of Innocent m to the general chapter of the Cistercians in 1214 contained the fullest catalogue of current charges against them, 395. See also Leclercq, J., ‘Passage supprimé dans une épître d'Alexandre in’, Revue Bénédictine lxiii (1952), 151,Google Scholar for a letter addressed to the order calling attention to the deviations from the ‘holy institutions’ of the founding fathers. Also Knowles, David, The Historian and Character, Cambridge 1963,Google Scholar ‘Cistercians and Cluniacs’, 50-75.
120 The term ‘Cluniac’ was often used for any black Benedictine monk in the late Middle Ages, and there is a problem when one speaks of Cluny in determining the meaning of ‘Cluniac’. See Constable, G., Cluniac Studies, London 1980,Google Scholar introduction. Constable notes that Cluniac customaries were freely adapted at other houses. One speaks of the spread of the Cluniac order in the sense, not of a juridical union, but of a loose confederation of monasteries some of which followed a way of life that was more or less parallel to that at Cluny. See also idem, ‘Monastic legislation at Cluny in the eleventh and twelfth centuries‘, Proceedings 1972 (above n.7), 153.Google Scholar Even contemporaries were in doubt as to who was, and who was not, a Cluniac, and the term was used loosely. Here, it is used to refer to the older Benedictine order in contrast with the newer Cistercians.
121 ‘Clerekes. Munekes & canunes/þar beoþ pos gode wike tunes’, lines 729-30.
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123 De nugis curialium, ed. and trans. James, M. R., rev. Brooke, C. N. L. and Mynors, R. A. B., Oxford 1983,Google Scholar the Dissuasio Valerii (based heavily on Jerome), Distinction iv. c. 3-4, 288ff.
124 See lines 184ff.: Nightingale:
‘Playde mid soþe. & mid ryhte./& may vr eyþer hwat
he wile./Mid rihte segge. & mid skile’,
suggesting that Master Nicholas of Guildford will best judge the pleas of each.
125 Lines 32-5.
127 Lines 59-61.
128 Lines 101-38.
130 Lines 157-60.
131 Lines 177-84.
132 Lines 191-2.
133 , Map, De nugis, Distinction i. c. 24. 72–8.Google Scholar
134 Lines 277-98.
136 See Lackner, Bede, ‘The liturgy of early Citeaux’, in Studies in Medieval Cistercian History presented to Jeremiah F. O'Sullivan, Spencer, Mass. 1971, 1–34.Google Scholar Also Knowles, David, ‘The primitive Cistercian documents’, in Great Historical Enterprises: problems in monastic history, London 1963, 197–222;Google ScholarBouton, J. and Damme, J. Van (eds), Les Plus anciens textes de Citeaux: sources, textes et notes historiques, Achel 1974.Google Scholar The above indicate the liturgical and spiritual departures of Cistercians from Cluniac custom as highlighted in the poem.
137 Abelard's criticism, in a letter to St Bernard, PL clxxviii. 335-40.
138 , Lackner, op. cit. 15.Google Scholar
139 Ep. 398 of Bernard, St. ‘Cantus ipse, si fuerit, plenus sit gravitate: nee lasciviam resonet, nee rusticitatem. Sic suavis, ut non sit levis: sic mulceat aureas, ut moveat corda’, PL clxxxii. 610–11;Google ScholarOpera, viii. 376.
140 , Lackner, op. cit. 16.Google Scholar
141 De nugis, Dist. I. c. 24. 74/5 (continues in c. 25).
142 Opera, iii. 80-108.
143 , Lackner, ‘Liturgy’,19. SeeGoogle ScholarWilmart, Andre, ‘Une riposte de l'ancien monachisme au manifeste de S. Bernard’, Revue Bénédictine xlvi (1934), 334–5; andGoogle ScholarTalbot, C. H., ‘The date and author of the Riposte’, in Petrus Venerabilis, 1150-1956, eds Constable, Giles and Kritzeck, James (Studia Anselmiana xl, 1956), 72–80Google Scholar.
144 Constable, Giles, ‘The monastic policy of Peter the Venerable’, Pierre Abelard-Pierre le Vénérable, Paris 1975, 119–38; esp. at p. 130.Google Scholar
145 Ibid. 135. Also , Lekai, who notes: ‘The peculiarity of the case of Citeaux resulted largely from its immediate proximity to Cluny. In Burgundy the advocacy of eremitical discipline within a monastic community was taken as a challenge to the mode of life accepted everywhere in the heartland of the Cluniac “empire”. The founding fathers of Citeaux were forced at the outset into a defensive posture’, Cistercians, 23.Google Scholar For a detailed discussion of the argument see the Chronicles of Malmesbury, William of, Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. Stubbs, W., 2 vols, (Rolls Series xc, 1889), ii, lib. iv,Google Scholarde Cisterciensibus, 380-5; and Orderic Vilalis, iv. 312-27. Both were Benedictines. Also see Bredero, Adriaan, ‘Cluny et Citeaux au XIIe siècle: les origines de la controverse’, Studi Medievali xii (1971), 135–75;Google Scholar, Knowles, ‘Cistercians and Cluniacs’, 50–75.Google Scholar
146 Lackner, 20. See text in Martene, E. and Durand, U., Thesaurus novus anecdotorum v, Paris 1717, 1599, 1601Google Scholar.
147 The Cistercian author of the Dialogus duorum monachorum (1154/5), Idung of Prüning, also criticised Cluniacs: ‘since your abbots are without a head [i.e. autonomous in their own abbeys] like acephali with no master over themselves, everyone in his own monastery does what he wants and omits what he wants. This is the reason that the religious life in your monasteries is not durable.’ See Huygens, R. B. C., ‘Le moine Idung et ses deux ouvrages: “argumentu m super questionibus” et “Dialogus duorum monachorum”’, Studi Medievali, 3rd ser. xiii (1972);Google ScholarDialogus ii. 62. 437 and Dialogus iii. 31. 452.
148 Constable, Giles, ‘The letter from Peter of St John to Hato of Troyes’, in Petrus Vencrabilis, 38–52;Google Scholar esp. at pp. 46-7. Text, 50-1.
149 Lines 240-1.
150 Vila Prima, I. iv. 20, PL clxxxv; sec also Williams, Watkin, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Manchester 1935, 14.Google Scholar Owl's affirmation of good eyesight, lines 363-74.
152 Duby, Georges, Saint Bernard, I'art cistercien, Paris 1979, 72Google Scholar and passim. Also Bernard's, StLiber ad milites lempli de laude novae militiae, in Opera, iii. 205–40, text: 213-14Google Scholar.
153 The nightingale accused her, lines 412-16.
155 Lines 543ff.
156 Lines 563 ff.
157 Lines 625-34.
158 Lines 640ff.
159 For an ideal Cistercian monastery as presented by Aubert and Dimier, repr. in , Lekai, The Cistercians, 266.Google Scholar Lekai notes that one of the prime requirements was a stream that could be delivered.to provide water for the fountain and the two latrines, 265-7. Also Fergusson, Peter, Architecture of Solitude: Cistercian abbeys in twelfth-century England, Princepton 1984.Google Scholar See the review by Bucher, François, in Speculum lxi (1986), 414:Google Scholar ‘The first wooden structures included a barn-like dormitory under the oratory, which was a sensible arrangement for sanitary reasons and heat conservation.’
160 Lines 660-705. There is an interesting parallel here with Abelard's poem to Astralabe, his son, where Abelard says, 'for one who tells the truth there is no strain in telling-it is feigning that's the effort, before one speaks’. ‘Qui dicit verum non hoc dicendo laborat:/ Fingere falsa prius nititur, inde loqui.’ See the new edition of Carmen ad Astralabium, in Dronke, Peter, Abelard and Heloise in Mediaeval Testimonies (W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture 26), Glasgow 1976, Appendix A, 43–4Google Scholar.
161 Lines 716-36.
162 Ich graunti þat þu go to dome.
To vore þe sulve pope of róme.
163 Lines 757-60.
165 Lines 854-5.
166 ‘Ne singe ich heom nofoliot’, line 868. If there if a play on ‘foliot’ here, the reference may be to one Hugo de Folieto, canon (d. 1174), who wrote a De nupliis, the first book of which criticises marriage following , Jerome'sAda. Jon., PL clxxvi. 1205–6.Google Scholar
167 ‘Ne weneþ no mon for þi pipinge.
þat eny preost in chirche singe’.
168 This interesting reference to Norway is paralleled in the Cottonian and Peterhouse collections of papal decretals (part of the English ‘primitive’ Worcester family) which include several decretals received by Norwegian bishops (especially the archbishop of Trondheim) during Alexander III's pontificate found in full, accurate versions in these English manuscripts. Archbishop Eystein of Trondheim visited England in the early 1180s and stayed at Bury St Edmunds (Aug. 1181-Feb. 1182); his visit is also referred to in chronicles of jocelin of Brakelond, Oxford 1949, 15–16,Google Scholar and in , Stubbs's edn of the Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, i. 269Google Scholar and n. 1. For these references and discussion see Duggan, C., Twelfth century Decretal Collections, London 1963, 117Google Scholar.
169 Lines 905-32. See Lekai, The Cistercians: by the mid-twelfth century, the Cistercian order possessed about 350 houses, in every country in Europe, 34. By 1146, there were two Cistercian monasteries in Norway and a third in 1207. In England and Wales they possessed seventy-six abbeys; Scotland's first abbey was at Melrose (1136), 40.
171 Scholde hi yollen also þu dest.
Hi myhten a fere heore preost.
172 Lines 1014-24.
173 Lines 1031-6. Abelard would criticise Bernar d and the Cistercians for not using the traditional liturgy. And, by this point in the poem, it would seem that ‘the Church's song’ means the dissemination of ecclesiastical doctrine.
174 Lines 1043-66. On punishment of a seducer by castration in Bracton, ii. 408, fo. 144V, providing exegesis on Glanvill, and also on Paris, Matthew, Chronica Majora v, ed.. Luard, R. (Rolls Series lvii, 1880), 34–5,Google Scholar j. B Post notes that, ‘apart from the solitary instance from 1222 by Bracton, no conviction of rape or seduction with a sentence of mutilation has yet been found. The plea rolls show instead a wide range of resolutions: settlements or land settlements’. These cases refer to virgins who were seduced. But later Statutes of Westminster I and II (1275, 1285) refer to ravishment of any matron or maiden, without her consent before or afterwards, being considered a capital offence. The has suit for the goods taken with an abducted wife. ‘The statutory extension of the appeal of rape to matrons in Westminster II. c. 34 brought within the purview of an existent private action the problem of ravished wives’, ‘Ravishment of women’, 150. Also see Hurnard, N. D., ‘The jury of presentment and the Assize of Clarendon’, Ehr lvi (1941), 402,CrossRefGoogle Scholar citing Pipe Roll 26 Henry 11 (Pipe Roll Society xxix, 1908), 79, that rape was a matter of presentment (king's suit) as early as 1180. Rape and abduction in English law were criminal offences.
175 Lines 1067-74. This is not only a reference to the Nightingale as a bird. Monks, theoretically, were also forbidden to bear arms.
See above n. 174. For the later thirteenth century the Statute of Westminster II (1285) dealt with the problem of the female eloping with, or abducted by, an unacceptable suitor. The force of the Statute is on consent. ‘The latter part of the felony clause made ravishment of a woman capital “although she consent afterwards”. It replaced the tacit consent of an appeal unprosecuted within forty days. It precluded any effective complaint of common law encroachment upon the strictly ecclesiastical matters of simple fornication and adultery. By thus discounting a woman's consent, the wishes of others - technically the Crown, but by extension, family - were allowed to override her own, despite her nominal status as victim and the time-honoured concord by marriage (i.e. that a woman could choose to marry her seducer) was removed’, , Post, op. cit. 158.Google Scholar In the poem, it is clear that King Henry saw the knight's maiming and killing of his wife's alleged suitor as a criminal case which disturbed the king's peace. Statute of Westminster I (1275). c- 13 reads: ‘no one should ravish nor take a maiden under age, regardless of consent, nor a matron nor maiden over age without her consent. Offenders convicted at private suit should have the “common right”; if no one sues within forty days, the king would do so; the penalty on conviction being two years imprisonment and ransom.’ This was altered in Westminster II.
178 It seems likely that the Nightingale's story was a well-known legal case, the particulars of which have not yet come to light.
179 Lines 1169-74.
180 Lines 1177-84.
181 Lines 1325-8.
182 Lines 1649-50. In the Cistercian Summa Carlae Caritatis, c. 26 it says that Cistercians may only have crosses made of wood. See , Lekai, The Cistercians, appendix, p. 450Google Scholar.
183 Lines 1660-1.
185 Lines 1689-96.
186 Lines 1739-44.
187 Lines 1792-4. Explicit.
188 See, especially, Epp. 188 and 189 of St Bernard, PL clxxxii; Opera, viii. 10-16.
189 Ep. 188: ‘ut dum qui publice peccat publice arguetur, comprimant sese etiam alii, ponenles tenebras lucem, disputantes in triviis de divinis’, 353; Opera, viii. 12. ‘Ita usurpat sibi humanum ingenium, fidei nil reservans’, PL clxxxii. 353; Opera, viii. 11.
190 Ep. 189 to Pope Innocent: ‘non attendebam terram, in qua habito, spinas et tribulos germinare mihi, succisis succedere novas, et rursum illis alias sine fine, sine intermissione succrescere. Audieram hoc; sed melius, ut nunc experior, ipsa vexatio dat intellectum auditui. Innovatus est dolor, non exterminatus; lacrymae inundaverunt, quia invaluerunt mala; et expertis pruinam, irruit super eos nix. Ante faciem frigoris hujus quis sustinebit! Hoc frigore refrigescit charitas, ut abundet iniquitas’, PL clxxxii. 354; Opera, viii. 13.
191 ‘Leonem evasimus, sed incidimus in draconem, qui non minus forsan noceat sedens in insidiis quam ille rugiens de excelso, PL clxxxii. 354. ‘Quanquam non jam in insidiis, cujus virulenta folia utinam adhuc laterent in scriniis, et non in triviis legerentur. Volant libri’, PL clxxxii. 355; Opera, viii. 13.
192 In 1129, the monks from Aumône founded the first Cistercian monastery in England. By 1153, the Cistercian order had around 350 monasteries, 164 founded directly by Clairvaux. Bernard himself founded around 70. See Leclercq, Jean, Études sur Saint Bernard et le texte de ses écrits (Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis ix, 1953)Google Scholar.
193 Ep. 193 to Ivo, cardinal: ‘Magister Petrus Abaelardus, sine regula monachus, sine sollicitudine praelatus, nee ordinem tenet, nee tenetur ab ordinc…totus ambiguus, nihil habens de monacho praeter nomen et habitum…Iniquitatem in excelso loquitur: integritatem fidei, castitatem Ecclesiae corrumpit’, PL clxxxii. 359; Opera, viii. 44-5.
194 Ep. 332 to Cardinal Guido; ‘disputantem cum pueris, conversantem cum mulierculis’, PL clxxxii. 537; Opera, viii. 271.
195 It seems that Geoffroy d'Auxerre collected Bernard's letters c. 1145 and published them. Out of 366 MSS containing letters, 157 of them conserve letter collections, J. Leclercq, Etudes.
196 Ep. 189; ‘Ille nihilominus, immo eo amplius levavit vocem, vocavit multos, congregavit complices. Quae de me ad discipulos suos scripserit, dicere non euro. Disseminavit ubique se mihi die statuto apud Senonas responsurum. Exiit sermo ad omnes, et non potuit me latere. Dissimulavi primum, nee enim satis rumore populari movebar…Convenerunt autern praeter episcopos et abbates plurimi viri religiosi, et de civitatibus magistri scholarum, et clerici litterati multi, et Rex praesens erat. Itaque in praesentia omnium, adversario stante ex adverso, producta sunt quaedam capitula de libris ejus excerpta’, PL clxxxii. 355, 356; Opera, viii. 14-15.
197 Berengarii scholastici Apologeticus contra beatum Bernardum Claravallensem abbatem et alios qui condemnaverunt Petrum Abaelardum, PL clxxviii. 1857-1870.Google Scholar
198 ‘Ut rideas, lector, videas: imo videas ut irrideas quae ridicula tibi occurrent. Et quemadmodum ipse Berengarius te monet in epist. seq., si quid in personum hominis Dei (Bernardi scilicet abbatis Clar.) dixit, joco legas, non serio’, ibid. 1857.
199 Ibid. 1869-70.
200 PL clxxviii. 1165.
201 Ibid. 1195-7.
202 , Delhaye, ‘Le dossier’, 74.Google Scholar
203 Sic et non, ed. Boyer, L. and McKeon, R., Chicago 1976, 448–52.Google Scholar But also see Ep. Abelard to Héloïse, which is devoted to the spiritual union of marriage. In the final prayer Abelard says: ‘God, you who, from the beginning of creation, in drawing woman from man's side, have established die great sacrament of marriage…’. In Ep. 7, a response Héloïse's request for a history of the origins of her order of nuns and for a rule for women, Abelard exalts the feminine sex, praising virginity throughou t history, pagan, Jewish and Christian. The personal letters between Abelard and Héloïse are in Muckle, Joseph (ed. ‘Historia Calamitatum’, Mediaeval Studies xii (1950), 163–213,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Mediaeval Studies xv (1953), 47–94.Google Scholar The letter of Héloïse on th e religious life and Abelard's first reply are in Mediaeval Studies xvii (1955), 280–1; andGoogle Scholar Abelard's Rule for religious women, McLaughlin, T. P. (ed.), in Mediaeval Studies xviii (1956), 241–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
204 , Brooke, ‘Marriage and society’, 21.Google Scholar
205 See , Dronke, Abelard and Heloise, 45–6.Google Scholar
206 , Duggan, Twelfth-century, 147 and passim.Google Scholar
207 Ibid. 147-8. Also Brooke, C. N. L., ‘Canons of English church councils in the early decretal collections’, Traditio xiii (1957), 471–80;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCheney, Mary, ‘The compromise of Avranches of 1172 and the spread of canon law in England’, Ehr lvi (1941), 177–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar 1n general, see Fransen, G., Les Décrétales et les collections de decrétales, Turnhout 1972;Google ScholarKuttner, Stephan, ‘Notes on a projected corpus of twelfth-century decretal letters’, Traditio vi (1948), 345–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
208 Cheney, Mary, ‘Pope Alexander III and Roger Bishop of Worcester 1164-79: the exchange of ideas’, Proceedings 1972 (n. 7 above), 207–27.Google Scholar
209 , Duggan, op. cit. 89.Google Scholar
210 Ibid. 118.
211 On the more local reception of legislation, see the following studies on the role of archdeacons, who were traditionally close to their bishops and important in administration, serving as a kind of ecclesiastical police, scrutinising and correcting clerical and lay conduct at the parish level: Morris, Colin, ‘A consistory court in the Middle Ages’, this Journal, xiv (1963).Google Scholar Archdeacons made public accusations in the court or rural chapter and assigned punishments. They used the visitation tour during which enquiries were made into transgressions against morality or church property. The rural chapter was the setting for public accusations, judgments and punishments, and for the enforcement of new conciliar decrees. See A. Amanieu, ‘Archidiacre’, in Dictionnaire de droit canonique, 948-1004; and Thompson, A. Hamilton, ‘Diocesan organization in the Middle Ages and rural deans’, Proceedings of the British Academy xxix (1943), 153–94;Google ScholarScammell, Jean, ‘rural chapter in England from the eleventh to the fourteenth century’, Ehr lxxxvi (1971), 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
212 De nugis, 288-9.