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Alan of Lille and the New Man

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Michael Wilks
Michael Wilks*
Affiliation:
University of LondonBirkbeck College
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Extract

Let them be forbidden access to this work, wrote Alan of Lille in his Anticlaudianus, who would only look for the image of sensuality and not the truth of reason . . . Do not allow those tasteless men, who cannot take their studies beyond the bounds of the senses, to impose their own interpretations on this book . . . lest the majesty of its secret meanings be profaned, like pearls cast before swine, when divulged to the unworthy. But what is this majestic secret significance which Alan wished to keep hidden from people so lacking in good taste as to want to probe it and misunderstand it? On the surface the Anticlaudianus, Alan’s most famous work, is an epic romance about a celestial journey and a great battle which is clearly being used as a moral treatise, a summa de virtutibus et vitiis. His long poem tells the story of how the goddess Nature, in council with the Virtues, seeks to make a new type of person, the homo perfectus. They realise that such a divine being cannot be created unless a soul is brought from God, whereupon Phronesis, the searcher after truth to whom the secrets of God are revealed, undertakes a journey to heaven in a chariot constructed by the seven liberal arts and drawn by the five senses. With the aid of Theology and Faith, Phronesis meets the heavenly host, the Virgin Mary, and eventually God himself, who has a soul made for her. She brings this soul, carefully sealed to keep it fresh, back to the waiting body, and the novus homo is complete. He then has to prove himself in a great pitched battle between the virtues and the vices.

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Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 14: Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History , 1977 , pp. 137 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1977

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References

1 [ de Lille, Alain (de Insulis, Alanus), Anticlaudianus, prologus, ed Bossuat, R.] (Paris 1953) p 56 Google Scholar, ‘Ab huius igitur operis arceantur ingressu qui, solam sensualitatis insequentes imaginem, rationis non appetunt ueritatem, ne sanctum canibus prostitutum sordescat, ne porcorum pedibus conculcata margarita depereat, ne derogetur secretis, si eorum magestas diuulgetur indignis. . . . infruniti homines in hoc opus sensus proprios non impingant, qui ultra metas sensuum rationis non excedant curriculum.’ All references are to this edition. The English translation by J. J. Sheridan (Toronto 1973) now replaces that of W. H. Cornog (Philadelphia 1935).

2 de Lage, [G. R.], [Alain de Lille poète du xiie siècle] (Montreal/Paris 1951) p 52 Google Scholar, and see here further for an extensive comparison of the Anticlaudianus with the De planetu Naturae; also Delhaye, P., ‘La vertu et les vertus dans les oeuvres d’Alain de Lille,’ Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 6 (Poitiers 1963) pp 13–25 Google Scholar.

3 VIII, 147-8, p 177, ‘Jam perfectus erat in cunctis celicus illc et diuinus homo.’ A prime source here is the account of Nature’s visit to heaven in order to complete her work by creating man in the De mundi universitate, otherwise known as the Cosmographia or Megacosmus et inicrocosmus, of Bernardus Silvestris, ed C. Barach and J. Wrobel (Innsbruck 1876, reprinted Frankfurt 1964).

4 II, 147, p 77, ‘Fronesis, cui cuneta Dei secreta loquntur’; II, 106-7, P 76, ‘quin superos adeat, quin uisitet astra Deique imbibat archanum’; V, 166-7, p 128, ‘poli regina caduca deserit atque Dei secretum consulit’; compare V, 114, p 126, ‘Hic archana Dei, dittine mentis abyssum’. This derives from Matt. xiii. 11, I Cor. ii.7.

5 Bossuat p 35.

6 For example Rom. vi. 3-7, I Cor. xv.44-9, II Cor. v.17, Ephes. ii.12-16, iv.13, 24; and in general see Ladner, [G.B.], [The Idea of Reform] (Cambridge, Mass., 1959) especi ally pp 39 seq CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an illustration of Alan’s use of this principle elsewhere see his Expositie prosae de angelis, ed d’Alverny, [M.-T.], [Alain de Lille: Textes inédits] (Paris 1965) p 200 Google Scholar.

7 Ullmann, W., Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages (3 ed London 1974) pp 32 seq Google Scholar and here further references; also now ‘Dante’s Monarchia as an Illustration of a Politico-Religious Renovatio ,’ Traditio—Krisis—Renovatio aus theologischer Sicht: Festschrift Winfried Zeller, ed Jaspert, B. and Mohr, R. (Marburg 1976) pp 101-13Google Scholar.

8 For a fuller discussion see my articles in Studia Patristica 9 (Berlin 1966) pp 477-512, and Augustinus 12 (Madrid 1967) pp 489-510; also ‘The Idea of the Church as Unus homo perfectus’, Miscellanea Historiae Ecclesiasticae 1 (Louvain 1961) pp 32-49. Alan’s conception of the world as a reflection of the civitas Dei is also to be seen in his sermon for Palm Sunday, written in 1179 or 1184, in which he describes how the army of angels led by Christ fights to defend the novum castrum Ecclesiae against the army of demons: d’Alverny, pp 246-9. The similarity to the Anticlaudianus is noted p 141.

9 See the valuable general assessment by d’Alverny, M.-T., ‘Maître Alain—nova et vetera ’, Entretiens sur la renaissance du xiie siècle, ed de Gandillac, M. and Jeauneau, E. (Paris 1968) pp 117-35Google Scholar.

10 The phrase is Sheridan’s, p 27. The use of literal, moral and allegorical senses is extensively applied to the bible in Alan’s Liber in distinctionibus dictionum theologicalium, PL, 210 (1866) cols 686-1012.

11 Prologus, p 56, beginning ‘Hoc igitur opus fastidire non audeant qui adhuc nutricum uagientes in cunis, inferioris discipline lactantur uberibus. Huic operi derogare non temptent qui altioris scientiae militiam spondent. Huic operi abrogare non presumant qui celum philosophie uertice puisant.’

12 IX, 387-8, p 196, ‘Nam regnum mundi legum moderatur habenis ille beatus homo.’

13 IX, 336-8, p 195; VIII, 363-4, p 183, ‘iuuenis constanter ad ista erigitur’; and for puer see VIII, 200 and 216, pp 178, 179.

14 VII, 77-86, p 159, ‘Dat iuueni dotes predictas Copia, pleno perfundens cornu Nature munera, nullam mensure metam retinens in munere tanto. Et cornu quod nulla prius munuscula, nullum exhausit munus, totum diminditur, in quo se probat et quantum possit metitur in ilio. Accedit Fauor in dotem, ne tanta priorum munera perfecte perdant preconia laudis. Hiis fauet ergo Fauor, donans ut dona piacere possint et celeri perflat tot munera Fama’; VIII, 119-23, p 176, ‘Ergo Nobilitas dotes et munera profert, Fortuna dictante modum, iuuenemque beatum Nature dono, uirtutis munere, dote electi, nulla peccati labe iacentem afflat honore suo.’

15 VIII, 249-54, p 180, ‘Morbida, mesta, tremens, fragilis, longeua Senectus, innitens baculo nec mentis robore firma, bella mouet bellique nouo iuuenescit in estu. Debilitas, Morbi, Languores, Tedia, Lapsus illius comittantur iter, qui Martis amore succensi, pugne cupiunt impendere uitam’; IX, 149-51, p 189, ‘Quamuis pigra forct, quamuis longeua Senectus, quamuis delirans, quamuis torpore fatiscens, prona tamen calet in bello, iuuenescit in armis, . . .’

16 IX, 156-8, p 189, ‘Ergo propinqua neci, morti uicina propinque, florida canicie, rugis sulcata Senectus oppositum ruit in iuuenem, . . .’

17 VIII, 201-3, p 178, ‘...sic seuit in ursum hinnulus, in quercus armatur uirgula, uallis in montes, lepus in catulos, in tigrida damme.’

18 VIII, 216-17, p 179. ‘Qui solus, puer et belli male conscius, in nos armatur cedrosque cupit delere murica.’ Compare 198-201, p 178, ‘In nos maturas euo bellique potentes, in numero plures, maiores uiribus, unum expertem belli puerum, uirtute minorem armauit Natura parens’.

19 VIII, 317-37, pp 182-3, ending ‘Quelibet a simili Virtus gerit arma uiroque iurat in auxilium; que totum Martis honorem dat iuueni, cui bella mouet Natura, suamque donat ei palmam belli pugneque laborem.’

20 VII, 148-51, p 161, ‘Ne cultu nimium crinis lasciuus adequet femineos luxus sexusque recidat honorem, aut nimis incomptus iaceat, scalore profundo degener et iuuenem proprii neglectus honoris . . .’

21 For which the alternative title De officio viri boni et perfecti is more appropriate. For this type of literature in general see Born, L. K., ‘The Perfect Prince’, Speculum, 3 (1928) pp 470–504 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berges, W., Die Fürstenspiegel des hohen und späten Mittelalters (Leipzig 1938)Google Scholar.

22 VII, 138-44, p 161, ‘Constancia uultus scurriles prohibet gestus nimiumque seueros abdicat incessus, ne uel lasciuia scurram predicet, aut fastus nimius rigor exprimat usum. Et ne degeneres scurrili more lacertos exerat et turpi uexet sua brachia gestu, aut fastum signans ulnas exemplet in arcum, . . .’

23 VII, 156-60, p 161, ‘Ne uitanda foris oculus uenetur et auris, melliflue uocis dulei seducta canore, seducat mentem deceptaque naris odore deffluat in luxus, uisum castigat et aurem, frenat odoratum;’ and see the whole section dealing with the gifts of Modestia and Constancia beginning line 117, p 160.

24 VII, 166-396, pp 162-8.

25 VII, 342-3, p 167, ‘...deffendat uiduas, miseros soletur, egenos sustentet, pascat inopes faueatque pupillos.’ The king’s obligation to defend widows and orphans features in Germanic coronation orders from at least the tenth century (although the papacy claimed the Roman church as the supreme tribunal charged with their protection) and rapidly became a standardised formula, also applied to other bishops and knights, which required them to secure their dependents’ rights generally. One of the charges involved in the deposition of Adolf of Nassau in 1298 was his failure to do this. The biblical basis is Ps. lxvi. 6, Isa. i. 17, 23: hence the view that widows and orphans represented all Christians.

26 Compare II, 304-5, p 81, ‘An que sola solet bona poscere, sola recidei hoc commune bonum . . .?’

27 The principle that the function of the royal sceptre is to add the force of command where necessary to the teachings of the faith (for example V, 247-8, p 130, ‘precepti robur cidem Consilio miscens’) is contained in the description of Theology as queen of heaven ‘quam probat esse deam uultus sceptrumque fatetur reginam’ (V, 181-2, p 128), who ‘Librum dextra gerit, sceptrum regale sinistra gestat et ad librum plerumque recurrit ocellus; sed raro tendit ad uirgam, tandemque reuertens circuit ille manum solcrs, ne leua uacillet, succumbens honeri uirge, sceptrumque resignet’, V, 104-8, p 126. That the figure of a king with book in one hand and sceptre or sword in the other on renaissance emblems indicates divine rulership and derives from classical descriptions of Apollo by way of Justinian’s famous phrase in the prologue to the Institutes that the imperial majesty was ‘non solum armis decoratam sed etiam legibus armatam’ has been shown by Kantorowicz, E. H., ‘On Transformations of Apolline Ethics’, Charites: Studien zur Altertumswissenschaft, ed Schauenburg, K. (Bonn 1957) pp 265-74Google Scholar. This conception of rulership is of course essentially Platonic: but note also Aristotle’s account of Solon in Const. Ath., XII, 4. It was rendered by Bracton, De legibas et consuetudinibus Angliae, I, i, 1, as ‘In rege qui recte regit necessaria sunt duo haec arma videlicet et leges’; also Aegidius Romanus, De regimine principum, III, iii, 1; and frequently applied to medieval rulers before being adopted by Machiavelli: Gilbert, A. H., Machiavelli’s ‘Prince’ and its Forerunners: ‘The Prince ’as a Typical Book ‘de Regimine Principum’ (Durham, N.C., 1938) pp 64-5Google Scholar.

28 Petit-Dutaillis, C., The Feudal Monarchy in France and England (London 1936) p 180 Google Scholar.

29 See further SCH 5 (Leiden 1969) pp 85-9.

30 The view that child rulers were corrupt oppressors in rebellion against God follows from Isa. i.2-4, iii. 12, but the text most quoted in this connection is Eccles. x.16, following its use in the De duodecim abusivis saeculi, 9 (ed Hellmann) p 51: for example Jonas of Orleans, De institutione regia, 3 (ed Reviron) p 141; Hincmar of Rheims, De regis persona et regia ministerio, 2, PL 125 (1852) col 835 Google Scholar, and subsequently by John of Salisbury, who applied it directly to Henry, II in Entheticus, 1463, PL 199 (1900) col 996 Google Scholar. Innocent, III, Regestum super negotio Romani imperii, 29 (ed Holtzmann, ) p 45 Google Scholar used it to dismiss the claims of Frederick II in 1200-1. Previously Gregory VII, Reg. I, 24, had urged Henry IV to stop being childish and imitate instead the wisdom of the sancti reges: on this see now Schneider, G., Prophetisches Sacerdotium und Heilsgeschichtliches Rcgiium im Dialog 1073-1077 (Munich 1972) p 43 Google Scholar.

31 VII, 92-8, pp 159-60, ‘Munera letkie largitur grata Iuuentus, et quaniuis huius soleat lasciuia semper esse comes, deponit eam moresque seueros induit atque senis imitatur moribus euum: in senium transit morum grauitate Iuuentus. Sic etate uiret iuuenis, quod mente senescit, etatem superat sensus, . . . ’; VII, 170-1, p 162, ‘Illa monet iuuenem monitu seniore senisque largitur mores iuueni.’ For a list of classical precedents see Sheridan, p. 30.

32 IV, 376-86, p 118, ‘qualiter in stellis regnans artansque planetas imperio seruire suo, nunc stare meantes cogit, nunc tumidos sectari deuia sola maiestate iubet, nunc libertate meandi concessa motus, reddit sua iura planetis; qualiter alternans uultus erroris in ortu fit puer inque die medio iuuenescit adultus, mentiturque uirum tandem totusque senescir vespere: sic uarias species etatis ad horam sol prefert unusque dies complectitur euum.’

33 II, 48, p 74: Reason approves Nature’s plan that ‘sol nouus in terris oriatur’; and compare this with the description of heaven as the home of the celestial sun ‘quem sol mundanus adorat, cui celum stelleque fauent et supplicat orbis...sol alius sed non aliud, sol unus et unum’, where God rules the heavenly powers: ‘qua residet rex ipse poli, qui cuneta cohercet legibus imperii, qui mimine numina celi constringit, cuius nutu celestia nutant. Hec igitur uicina Deo uix sustinet eius immortale iubar, ius magestatis inundans, expectat lumen,’ VI, 245-83, pp 148-9. Alan’s description of the sun as oculus mundi (II, 121, p 76) is an expression usually applied to Christ, and for medieval sun-kingship as an imitatio Christi see my Problem of Sovereignty (Cambridge 1963) pp 276, 424. In his contemporary work the Alexandreid Walter of Châtillon expressed the hope that there would be a new rex Francorum who would ‘toto radiaret in orbe’, PL 209 (1855) col 518: this has been identified as a reference to Philip Augustus soon after his coronation by Hutchings, [C. M.], [‘ L’Anticlaudianus d’Alain de Lille: Étude de chronologie’], Romania, 50 (Paris 1924) pp 1–13 Google Scholar, at p 6. For the prince as another sun who sees and judges all in John of Salisbury see Policraticus, VI, 26 (ed Webb) p 266.

34 Alan’s requirement that the New Man should not seem too much of a philosopher, but should observe the mean (‘philosophum nimis esse probet, tenet inter utrumque . . . mediocriter omnia pensat’, VII, 152, 155, p 161; also 119-20, p 160, ‘nac in dando mensuram deserit, immo singula describit certo moderamine finis.’), although set in the context of nothing more significant than a discussion on length of hair, is curiously reminiscent of Plato’s emphasis on the doctrine of the mean and his view in the Republic that the best ruler would prefer to be wholly a philosopher and would only become a king as well with reluctance. Alan regarded Plato as the supreme philosopher (I, 131-4, p 61; II, 345, p 83), but it still remains to be established how much of the Republic was known to the twelfth century. The ideal of the monarch as philosopher, later to be used by Dante, seems to have come into fashion in the latter part of the century, despite John of Salisbury’s view that courts and princely households were no place for a true philosopher, Policraticus, v. 10 (ed Webb) p 566. Rahewin’s continuation of the Gesta Friderici, iii.1, of Otto of Freising declared that Barbarossa possessed the gift of supreme wisdom, which brought such tranquillity to Germany that men changed their nature and the land its climate and character; whilst Godfrey of Viterbo’s Speculum regum hailed Henry VI as a philosopher king, and argued that no ruler could rule well or be happy unless he was a philosopher: ‘imperator expers philosophiae . . . errare potius quam regnare videtur,’ MGH, SS, 22, pp 21 seq; also Pantheon, prologus, ‘Tu vero Henrice, regum omnium felicissime, sicut a pueritia curasti phylosoficis inhaerere doctrinis...” For the development of court literature in the empire see now McDonald, W. C., German Literary Patronage from Charlemagne to Maximilian (Amsterdam 1973)Google Scholar.

35 The poem lends itself to dramatic presentation, and a musical version by Adam de la Bassée, canon of Lille, is known from the late thirteenth century, ed Bayart, P., Ludus Adae de Basseia canonici Insulensis super Anticlaudianum (Lille 1930)Google Scholar. The long description given by Alan, of the domus Nature (I, 109 seq, pp 60 seq)Google Scholar, its great hall (aula) far grander than ‘palacia regum’, with a series of mural paintings which are a play (ludus) upon fictions turning them into truth (see in particular lines 119-30, 152-64, 186) contains a number of references to contemporary figures and situations, and may also refer to an actual setting. Like John of Salisbury, Alan was later to become critical of the abuses of courtiers, especially clerics: see his Ars praedicandi, 36, PL 210 (1855) cols 180-1, which de Lage, p 28 n 52 suggests may relate to the court of Philip Augustus.

36 The ceremony was delayed by the prince’s illness following a hunting expedition during the course of which he got lost for several days: Pacaut, M., Louis VII et son royaume (Paris 1964) pp 217-18Google Scholar; Warren, W. L., Henry II (London 1973) pp 147-8Google Scholar.

37 II, 200-4, P 78, ‘Hec pictura suis loquitur misteria signis; non res ipsa magis, non lingua fidelius unquam talia depingit talique sophismate uisum decipieus oculis, rerum concludit in umbra qui preco solet esse boni pacisque figura.’

38 II, 181-7, p 78, following I Reg. xviii.1-3: the passage continues, 188-99, ‘Vt sibi Pyrithoüs se reddat, redditus orbi Theseus inferni loca, monstra, pericula uictat, uiuere posse negat in se, nisi uiuat in illo; Tydeus arma rapit, ut regnet Thydeus alter, in Polinice suo pugnat seseque secundum, dum regnare cupit sibi, poseere regna uidetur. Alter in Euralio comparet Nisus et alter Eurialus uiget in Niso; sic alter utrumque reddit et ex uno comitum pensatur uterque. Atride furit in furiis eiusque furorem iudicat esse suum Pilades patiturque Megeram, ne paciatur idem Pilades suus alter et idem.’

39 A date of 1182-3 is stipulated by Hurdlings, p 13, and has been accepted by de Lage, pp 20-4, and Bossuat, p 8 n 7 and p 13 n 1, although extended to 1181-4 by Sheridan, pp 24-5. The latest possible date of 1184 would seem to be determined by the use made of the Anticlaudianus by John of Hanville(Jean de Hauteville or Johannes de Altavilla) in his Architrenius of that year; but the supposed allusion to Henry II and his four sons in I, 171-83, p 62, would put the Anticlaudianus before June 1183, when Henry the Younger died. The mention of ‘our Ennius’ and his carmen pannosum on the fortunes of Priam in lines 165-6 is said to refer to the De bello Troiano of Joseph of Exeter, who was in France c1180 to 1183, and completed the poem in 1184, although this does not seem to be a very firm attribution. The only substantial argument against an earlier date is the apparent reference to Walter of Châtillon’s Alexandreid in lines 166-170: ‘illic Mevius, in celos audens os ponere mutum, gesta ducis Macedum tenebrosi carminis umbra pingere dum temptat, in primo limine fessus heret et ignauam queritur torpescere musam.’ The Alexandreid was probably started in 1176, but not finished until 1181. However Hutchings himself, p 5, makes the point that this comment sounds as if the Alexandreid had only been begun and that Walter was having difficulty in writing it. There is therefore no compelling reason to date the Anticlaudianus to 1181 or after, and serious historical objections to this later period. The Franco-Flemish alliance was relatively short-lived, and by the summer of 1180 the situation had changed dramatically. Henry II’s invasion had petered out after the meeting with Philip Augustus at Gisors in June, which reaffirmed the treaty of Ivry of 1177, and the French monarchy’s alliance with Flanders was finally broken when Philip of Alsace and Baldwin of Hainault joined the Blois party in rebellion against Philip Augustus in May 1181. Eventually Philip Augustus went so far as to threaten to divorce Isabella in 1184. Moreover the hostile tone of the poem towards Henry II, valid enough for the period between Henry’s abortive attacks on Francéin Ii77and 1180, would make progressively less sense during the 1180s as Henry entered that oddly lackadaisical period of exhaustion when he seemed to be resigned to leaving the conquest of France unfinished and cultivated good relations with Philip Augustus, almost as if he was waiting for the young king to develop into a worthy opponent for Henry’s sons. In medieval terms there would be nothing unusual about calling a man in his forties senex (Henry II was 47 in 1180), but to describe Philip Augustus as a boy or youth would be increasingly irrelevant after he was 15. At the same time the possibility must be borne in mind that the Anticlaudianus as we have it is a revised version of an earlier original (although Sheridan comments, p 194 n 14, on the hasty unrevised character of the last two books). The second prologue talks about rewriting an old document: p 57, ‘Scribendi nouitate uetus iuuenescere carta gaudet, et antiquas cupiens exire latebras ridet’; and there are several suggestions that the work has already been published and attacked, and returned for correction: prologus, p 55, ‘In quo lector non latratu corrixationis insaniens, uerum lima correctionis emendans, circumcidat superfluum et compleat diminutum quatenus illimatum revertatur ad limam, impolitum reducatur ad fabricam, inartificiosum suo referatur artifici, male tortum proprie reddatur incudi’; also the conclusion, IX, 410-11, 420-6, pp 197-8, ‘O mihi continuo multo sudata labore pagina, cuius ad hoc minuit detractio famam, uiue...ne liuor in illuni seuiat aut morsus detractio figat in ilio qui iam scribendi studium pondusque laboris exhausit, proprio concludens fine laborem. Si tarnen ad presens fundit sua murmura liuor, et famam delere cupit laudesque poete supplantare nouas, saltem post fata silebit.’

40 Note the description of Concordia, II, 174-7, p 78. ‘Forma, figura, modus, numerus, mensura decenter membris aptatur et debita munera soluit. Sic sibi respondent concordi pace ligata membra, quod in nullo discors uinctura uidetur.’ Despite the reading favoured by Bossuat and Sheridan, this passage does not sound as if it is still talking about hair.

41 Especially Phronesis, for example I, 270-97, pp 65-6; compare 476-7, p 71, ‘Subiecti senio non deflorata iuuentus formarum, formas semper facit esse puellas.’

42 I, 448-9, p 70.

43 I, 420-7, p 69, ‘Sed quia principia nullo concludere fine . . . censetur turpe, fluitans, mutabile, stultum, cedere principiis malo quam cedere fini. Sic ait et tanto dubiorum turbine tota curia concutitur turbataque turba sororum fluctuat in dubiis, . . .’; also 395-402, p 68.

44 I, 457-60, p 70, ‘subiecti formcque uidet connubia, cernit oscula, que miscet concrecio, queue propinat unio natiua, formis subiecta maritans, subiecti que forma facit,.. .’ The sense of touch (represented by the fifth horse of the heavenly chariot) is a pledge of alliance binding aspirations together by a love-knot: IV, 210-12, p 113, ‘Ops, superum genitrix, in signum federis isto Naturam donavit equo, quo nodus amoris firmior effectus illarum uota ligauit.’ Alan makes extensive use in the poem of the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii of Martianus Capella, ed Eyssenhardt, F. (Leipzig 1866)Google Scholar, which describes an ascent to the palace of Jupiter to arrange a heavenly marriage between Mercury and Philology. It has recently been argued by Luttrell, C.A., The Creation of the First Arthurian Romance: A Quest (London 1974)Google Scholar that the theme of love and marriage in the Erec et Enide of Chrétien de Troyes is adopted from the Anticlaudianus, although this would involve a major re-dating of Chrétien’s work from c1170 to the mid-1180s. An earlier dating of the Anticlaudianus would narrow the gap between them.

45 I, 468-71, p 70, ‘Hic subiecta uidet, formis uiduata, reuerti ad Chaos antiqum propriamque requirere matrem inque statu proprio puram iuuenescere formam nec sua degeneris subiecti tedia flere.’

46 I 495-501. P 71. ‘quomodo terrestrem formam celestis ydea gignit et in nostram sobolem transcribir abissum, . . . qualiter in mundo fantasma resultat ydee, cuius inoffensus splendor sentitur in umbra.’

47 The principle was in use well before John of Salisbury: for example Hugh of Fleury, De regia potestate et sacerdotali dignitate, I, 3 (MGH, Lib, II, 468), ‘Verumtamen rex in regni sui corpore patris omnipotentis obtinere videtur imaginera...ut universitas regni ad unum redigatur principium.’ For the later use of this analogy in France see Kantorowicz, E.H., The King’s Two Bodies (Princeton 1957) pp 218 seq Google Scholar; Giesey, R. E., ‘The French Estates and the corpus mysticum regni ’, Album H. M. Cam (Louvain/Paris 1960-1) 1, pp 153-71Google Scholar; Bell, D.M., L’idéal éthique de la royauté en France au moyen âge (Geneva/Paris 1962) pp 108-9Google Scholar, 136, 155; and in general Lewis, P.S., Later Medieval France: The Polity (London 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Compare Aquinas, , De regimine principum, I, 12-13 (ed Parma, 1865, XVI, 235)Google Scholar, ‘Hoc igitur officium rex suscepisse cognoscat, ut sit in regno sicut in corpore anima, et sicut Deus in mundo...ut loco Dei iudicium regno exerceat’; and note the remark, much quoted by the Roman lawyers, addressed to Nero by Seneca, De clementia, I, v, 1, ‘tu animus rei publicae tuae es, illa corpus tuum . . .’ For the ideal of the soul as a kingdom ruled by the will as king, see now Stadter, E., ‘Die Seele als minor mundus und als regnum ’, Miscellanea Medievalia, 5, ed Wilpert, P. (Berlin 1968) pp 56–72 Google Scholar. With Alan the body of the New Man is to be appropriate to the soul like a hall fit for a king: ‘regi respondeat aula’, VI, 421, p 153.

49 On this see further my ‘Chaucer and the Mystical Marriage in Medieval Political Thought’, BJRL, 44 (1961-2) pp 489-530; and for the theological basis of the Church as the bride of Christ, Batey, R.A., New Testament Nuptial Imagery (Leiden 1971)Google Scholar.

50 I Reg. x.6; also ix.16, x.1, 7-10: see Funkenstein, J., ‘Unction of the Ruler’, Adel und Kirche: Festschrift für G. Tellenbach (Freiburg 1968) p 10 Google Scholar; and for an illustration of coronation as a form of political baptism making the ruler a new man, Deshman, R., ‘Otto III and the Warmund Sacramentary: A Study in Political Theology’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 34 (Munich 1971) pp 1–20 Google Scholar. It was applied to Conrad II by Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi, 3 (MGH, SS, XI, 250); and compare the Anglo-Norman Anonymous, Tractatus IV (MGH, Lib, III, 664), ‘quod vir unctus oleo sancto et divina benedictione sanctificatus mutetur in virum alium, id est in christum domini,’ which is related (669) to Christ’s baptism in Jordan as a form of coronation. For the close connection between baptism of the righteous and their enthronement in heaven in the early church see Widengren, G., ‘Den himmelska intronisationen och dopet’, Religion och Bibel, 5 (Uppsala 1946) pp 28–60 Google Scholar; Beskow, P., Rex Gloriae: The Kingship of Christ in the Early Church (Stockholm/Gothenburg/Uppsala 1962) pp 147-9Google Scholar. A similar theory can be found in the anonymous fourteenth-century Avis aux roys, perhaps written for Charles V.

51 I, 235-41, p 64, ‘Non terre fecem redolens, non materialis sed diuinus homo nostro molimine terras incolat et nostris donet solacia damnis, insideat celis animo, sed corpore terris: in terris humanus erit, diuinus in astris. Sic homo sicque Deus riet, sic factus uterque quod neuter mediaque uia tutissimus ibit’; also 363-70, pp 67-8, ‘Dispar natura, dispar substancia, forma discors, esse duplex hominis concurrit ad esse; una sapit terras, celum sapit altera, celis insidet hec, illa terris, mortique tributum cogitur ista dare, mortis lex excipit illam. Hec manet, illa fluit; hec durat, deperit illa; essendi nomen gerit hec, gerit altera numen; corpus habet terras, celesti a spiritus’; and compare the description of Christ in heaven, V, 443-70, pp 136-7, beginning ‘Hic habitat quern uita deum uirtusque beatum fecit et in terris nierait sibi numen Olimpi, corpore terrenus, celestis mente, caducus carne, Deus uita, uiuens diuinitus, extra terrenum sapiens, intus diurna repensans . . .’, although the passage is written in such a way as to make it clear that Alan is also describing the heavenly reward awaiting the man who lives a Christ-like life on earth.

52 VI, 390-6, p 152: God says ‘Hoc mihi iampridem Racio dictauit ut uno munere respicerem terras mundumque bearem numine celestis hominis, qui solus haberet tot uirtutis opes quot munera digna fauore, tot dotes anime quo saltem mundus oberrans floreret, uiciis aliorum marcidus, immo iam defloratus in flore resurgeret uno.’ See also VII, 229-37, pp 163-4, ‘non illas largitur opes que sepe potentum excecant animos et magestatis honorem inclinant, minuunt leges et iura retardant, sed pocius donat thesaurum mentis et omnes diuicias animi, quas qui semel accipit, ultra non eget, immo semel ditatus semper habundat, quarum rectus amor, possessio nobilis, usus utilis, utilior largicio, fructus habundans. Hec est gaza poli, celi thesaurus.’ This is reminiscent of the remark attributed to Louis VII in 1179 that in contrast with the wealth of the king of England the French had nothing except bread, wine and joy: Walter Map, De nugis curialium (ed James) p 225; and Giraldus Cambrensis’ explanation in his De principis instructione that the success of Philip Augustus against the tyranny of England was due to his possession of virtues symbolised by a flower, which brought such peace and justice that the two kingdoms would best be united under Capetian rule: on this see Baldwin, J.W., Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and his Circle (Princeton 1970) 1, p 254 Google Scholar.

53 Wilks, Problem of Sovereignty, pp 428-30, and here further literature; also now Strayer, [J. R.], ‘France: [The Holy Land, the Chosen People, and the Most Christian King’, Action and Conviction in Early Modem Europe: Essays in Memory of E. H. Harbison], ed Rabb, T.K. and Siegel, J. E. (Princeton 1969) pp 3–16 Google Scholar.

54 See Studia Patristica, 9 pp 498-9, 505, for a list of passages utilising this adhesive terminology (conglutinatio, agglutinatio, foederatio, adhaeratio, cohaerentia, etc) deriving from the corpus compactum of Job, xli. 6-8, 14-17; compare the Anglo-Norman Anonymous, Tractatus IV, p 669, ‘et sancte potestati sanctoque regimini sancti cohereant, et ministri et sanctorum decens sit copula et in glutino Dei unita conventio.’

55 VI, 162-9, pp 145-6; also VII, 57-61, p 158, ‘animarti Concordia carni fedarat et stabili connectit dissona nexu. Iunctura tenui, gunfis subtilibus aptat composito simplex, hebeti subtile, ligatque federe complacito, carni diurna maritai.’

56 II, 50-2, p 74, ‘possideat solus quicquid possedimus omnes; omnis homo sic unus erit, sic omne quod unum: unus in esse suo, sed erit uirtutibus ominis.’ Dante’s monarchia is described as ‘uno solo principato e uno principe avere, il quale, tutto possedendo e più desiderare non possendo, li re tenga contenti nelli termini delli regni, siechè pace intra loro sia . . .’ Convivio, IV, 4 (ed Moore) p 299.

57 VIII, 172-3, pp 177-8, ‘turba furcns, gens dissona, concio discors, plebs dispar, populus deformis’; compare Gregory, I, Libri moralium, XXXIII, 14, PL 76 (1878) col 690 Google Scholar, ‘In pacto enim discordantium partium . . .’ For concordia as the distinguishing feature between a populus and a multitudo in Sallust and Augustine see Earl, D.C., The Moral and Political Tradition of Rome (London 1967) p 123 Google Scholar; and in general Adams, J. Y. du Q., The Populus of Augustine and Jerome: A Study in the Patristic Sense of Community (New Haven/London 1971)Google Scholar.

58 VIII, 211-13, p 179, ‘Sed melius gens nostra simul collecta nouellos Nature teret insultus fastusque recentes demittet, ueteri reddens elata ruine.’ For the previous history of this principle with Charlemagne see Ullmann, W., The Carolingian Renaissance and the Idea of Kingship (London, 1969)Google Scholar.

59 VIII, 176-85, 193-7, 214-15, pp 178-9, ‘Allecto prorumpit in hec: Que iura, quis ordo, quis modus, unde quies, que tanta licencia pacis ut nostras Natura uelit proscribere leges et mundum seruire sibi, dampnare nocentes, et iustos seruare uelit, cum nostra potestas eius preueniat uires, nostroque senatu plebescat Natura minor, totiensque subacta legibus imperii nostri, mutare ualebit amplius et nostris subducere colla cathenis? Prob, pudor! . . . Sed pudeat nos iura sequi, quas uiuere iuste non decet, aut precibus uti. Pro legibus ergo sumende uires, uis pro uirtute feratur. Nos pro iure decet assumere robur et armis res dictare nours et sanguine scribere leges . . . Ergo pari strepitu, concordi Marte, furore equali lites et bella geramus in illum . . .’ At the same time Phronesis appears to be distinctly unhappy, in what I take to be a comment on the contemporary situation, at the suggestion that Philip Augustus should withdraw from the contest and accept the unnatural peace of 1177 which had left the two disparate forces existing side by side like water and flame: V, 311-24, 357-68, pp 132-4, ‘Dum transit, miratur aquas, quas federat igni indiuisa loci series, nee flamma liquorem impedir, aut flamme certat liquor ille repugnans, sed pocius sua deponunt certaminis arma. Nee iam natiuos querunt memorare tumultus quos ligat assensus discors, discordia conchors, pax inimica, fides fantastica, falsus amoris nexus, amicicia fallax, umbratile fedus. Figit in hiis uisum mentemque Sophia, sagaci perquirens animo quis pacem fecit adesse, pax ubi nulla manet; quis Martern iussit abesse, Mars ubi iura tenet; quis fedus nexuit illic, fedus ubi nullum; quis pacem miscuit ire, litigio fedus, liti coniunxit amorem . . . Hoc solo magis ilia stupet meliusque mouetur, qua nexus mediante fide, quo federe pacis frigida conueniunt calidis, fluitancia pigris. Hic ubi nullus adest pacis mediator et omne fedus abest extrema ligans, quod pace reperta deleat hostiles rixas pugnamque recidat, defficit inquirens, querendo uincitur illa; quesitu superata suo sed uicta querelis deffectus queritur proprios; sic ista querela questio fit, Fronesi suspiria sola relinquens. Nec mirum si cedit ad hec Prudencia, que sic exedunt matris Nature iura . . .’

60 See the list of Allecto’s armed supporters, VIII, 218-316, pp 179-82.

61 VIII, 259, p 180, ‘belloque calent cum rege ministri’, although he figures as domina in lines 224 and 227, p 179. He also appears as Pluto as well as the other Furies: I, 262-5, p 65; VIII, 305-14, p 182; 339, p 183. Alan probably had difficulty with the sex of his archvillain simply on account of his use of classical sources, but it is possible that he was not averse to Allecto also being identified with Adela of Blois, in which case the four tyrants who follow Nero in I, 171-83, p 62, mentioned below, could double as Adela’s four brothers: William, archbishop of Rheims, Henry, count of Champagne, Theobald, count of Blois and Chartres, Stephen, count of Sancerre. Note also the condemnation of Progne, deluded by the tyrant Tereus, as a false mother who took arms against her own son, II, 221-4, p 79.

62 VIII, 190-2, p 178, ‘Ius nostrum pax subripiet, quod tempore tanto deffendens nobis prescriptio uendicat, usus confert et iusto titulo collata tuetur?’

63 Alan’s predilection for storms is a well known characteristic: for fulgura belli, III, 411, p 101; and note the contrast between wars and earthquakes, thunderbolts, tempests and gales in I, 194-8, p 63. The prologue begins with a storm shaking the world, p 55.

64 I, 171–83, p 62, continuing ‘Fractus amore Paris, Veneris decoctus in igne, militat in Venerem; dum militis exuit actus, damnose compensat in hac quod perdit in armis. In Dauo propriam miratur noctua formam et uultus peccata sui solatur in ilio.’ If Nero is Henry II, then Midas, Ajax, Paris and Davus can be seen as Henry’s four sons, Henry the Younger, Richard, Geoffrey and John respectively: see Hutchings, pp 10-12; de Lage, p 22.

65 VIII, 208–10, p 179, ‘Numquid Silla nouus, alter Nero uincere posset leges, antiquos rursus renouare furores Rufinus, Katelina nouus peruertere mundum?’ For Atreus, Tereus, Crassus and Pompey as examples of tyrants see II, 213-41, p 79, Concordia’s speech beginning ‘Si mea iura, meas leges, mea federa mundus olim seruasset uel adhuc seruaret amoris uincula, non tantis gemeret sub cladibus orbis.’

66 Claudius Claudianus, Works, Loeb, ed (London 1922) 1, pp 24–97 Google Scholar; and for further discussion of Rufinus and the In Rufinum see Cameron, A., Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius (Oxford 1970) pp 63–92 Google Scholar. Alan appears to have thought that Claudian was the fifth-century Gallic theologian Claudianus Mamertos, author of a treatise De statu animae: de Lage, p 51; Bossuat, p 34; d’Alverny, p 305 n 56.

67 IX, 113-14, p 188, ‘Gens euo, sensu, cautela, uiribus, armis pollens’.

68 The distinction is between the tyrant who creates his own right by force and the king who uses his power to enforce true right: VIII, 193-7, P 178 (note 59 above).

69 The phrase is John of Salisbury’s (Policraticus, VIII, 17): for Alan, II, 45, p 74; and note his description of Lucifer as the divine ruler who became a slave, IV, 297-9, p 115, ‘Iam seruit qui liber erat, mendicat habundans qui fuit, exilium patitur qui primus in aula regnabat, patitur penas a rege secundus’, which may be compared with Platonic and Aristotelian views of the tyrant as a slave-ruler.

70 VIII, 367-9, p 183, ‘. . . et armis cedunt uerborurn pugne: iam mistica bella rem sapiunt, pugnas cum res non ipsa fatetur.’ Hence the double title of the poem. The actual contest of virtues and vices is drawn from the Psychomachia of Prudentius: see Bossuat, p 35.

71 Like the New Man himself (see the list of royal titles, II, 54, p 74, ‘tutor, defensor, iudex, athleta, patronus’), Alecto appears as Athleto in the summary, p 201. Philip the Fair was hailed as ‘totius christianitatis athleta’ in a grant of 1294, cited Strayer, ‘France’, p 10. This eventually developed into the ceremony in sixteenth-century France in which the new king was summoned to rise from his bed to attend his coronation in an analogy with the renewed sun rising as a bridegroom to pursue his heavenly course like a giant refreshed (Psal. xviii. 6-7, ‘Exsultavit ut gigas ad currendam viam’): on which see Jackson, R. A., ‘The Sleeping King’, BHR 31 (1969) pp 525-51Google Scholar; also Kantorowicz, , The King’s Two Bodies, p 50 n 19 Google Scholar, for earlier applications of the idea. Christ as gigas became a stock item in medieval treatises on the virtues and vices to represent zealous pursuit of duty, for example Peraldus, , Summa, III, 5 Google Scholar. A variant of this depicted Christ as the healer of the sick giant of mankind, who rises from his bed: Arbesmann, R., ‘The Concept of Christus-Medicus in St. Augustine’, Traditio, 10 (1954) pp 1–28 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 23-5. The principle of combat between two giant athletes derives from the Pauline notion of a final contest between Christ as the second Adam and the man of sin, for example II Thess. ii. 3-10, which itself owes much to the Greek belief that the rebirth of a new order would follow the appearance of Anthropos, the prime man born out of the great cosmic struggle between the forces of law and chaos. For Christ as Anthropos and the second Adam see Hanson, S., The Unity of the Church in the New Testament (Uppsala/Copenhagen 1946) pp 65–73 Google Scholar, 112-17.

72 IX, 113-16, p 188, and see above note 18.

73 IX, 126-32, p 188. For the New Man’s armour see VIII, 321-37, pp 182-3, beginning ‘Armatur celestis homo superumque beata progenies, que tanta noui discrimina Martis sola subit’.

74 I, 258-65. pp 64-5. For the ineffective king as himself a species of tyrant see Peters, E., The Shadow King: Rex Inutilis in Medieval Law and Literature, 711-1327 (New Haven/London 1970)Google Scholar. Attention should ako be paid to that section of Concordia’s speech which emphasises the disunity between the various factions and the fear of engaging in a struggle with such daunting prospects which have led to the present condition of the kingdom, but ends by urging all to unite in performing a great work and service for the common good: ‘acrior insultus uiciorum pugnaque maior nobis incumbet, si nos diuiserit error; postquam cementi rumpit discordia muros, hostili pugne muros exponit inhermes; acrius insultat seuitque profundius ensis, conserte partes ubi nulla repagula donant nee series harum conserta recalcitrat ensi; acrius in uolucrem Iouialis fulminat ales, cum plebem uolucrum uenientis disgregat horor; uberius torrens effunditur, obice nullo deffendente uiam fluuioque negante meatum. Ergo concordes uotum curramus in unum: quod Natura petit, Racio commendat, Honestas approbat, immo cupit, Pietas deposcit et instat. Nec Fronesis sola, distans, contraria, discors nos omnes pacis conformi lege iugatas diuidet in partes ut amoris uincla relaxet, sed pocius constans, congaudens, consona, concors, in nostram mentem ueniet nec uicta labore cedere credatur citra preludia lucte, vel tumido flatu perflare superbia mentem, uel sibi liuor edax animi mordere recessus. An que sola solet bona poscere, sola recidei hoc commune bonum, nostrum decus, utile uotum, nos omnes que sola libens et sponte mouere in tantum deberet opus tantumque fauorem, si riamata minus torperet nostra uoluntas nec tantum uellet animus conscendere noster?’ II, 282-309, p 81.

75 Aeneid, VI, 791-5. It is probable that Philip derived his title of Augustus from this rather than the usual explanation that it was coined for him by his chaplain William the Breton because he made France grow: Powicke, F. M., CMH 6, p 285 Google Scholar. Alan makes no attempt to solve the contradiction inherent in his use of the more common view of Saturn as a baneful, threatening influence (II, 115, p 76; IV, 465-83, pp 120-1; VI, 457-8, 475-81, p 154), but he may have been following Claudian’s description of Theodosius as victor over the Furies, In Rufinum, I, 50-2, ‘Heu nimis ignavae quas Iuppiter arcet Olympo, Theodosius terris. En aurea nascitur aetas. En proles antiqua redit’: on this see further Ladner, Idea of Reform, pp 16 seq; Cohn, N., The Pursuit of the Millennium (London 1957) pp 1–21 Google Scholar; Reeves, M.E., The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford 1969) pp 295 seq Google Scholar; and in general now Yates, F.A., Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (London 1975)Google Scholar.

76 Isa. ii. 4, Joel iii. io, Mic. iv. 3.

77 IX, 391-402, pp 196-7; and compare the description of the garden of Paradise, VI, 234-72, p 148. For a convenient survey of the origins of this see Ferguson, J., Utopias of the Classical World (London 1975)Google Scholar. A similar view of the terrestrial Paradise needing neither ploughshares nor ploughmen, and connected to heaven by a mountain, was transmitted to the fifteenth century via Dante: Oakeshott, W., ‘Some Classical and Medieval Ideas in Renaissance Cosmology’, Essays in Commemoration of Fritz Saxl (London 1957) pp 245-60Google Scholar.

78 Folz, R., Le couronnement impérial de Charlemagne (Paris 1964) pp 257-64Google Scholar; and in general Le souvenir et la légende de Charlemagne (Paris 1950); de Pange, J., Le roi très chrétien (Paris 1949)Google Scholar.

79 II, 45-9. P 74.

80 Prologus, p 57, ‘Autoris mendico stilum falerasque poete, ne mea segnicie Clio directa senescat, . . . Fonte tuo sic, Phebe, tuum perfunde poetam, ut compiuta tuo mens arida flumine, germen donet, et in fructus concludat germinis usum.’ It would be interesting to know exactly what is meant by his ‘laudes poete nouas’, IX, 425-6, p 198.