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Society, theodicy and the origins of heresy: towards a reassessment of the medieval evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Janet L. Nelson
Janet L. Nelson*
Affiliation:
King’s College, university of London
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Extract

I shall not be presenting in this communication the fruits of any original research: my aim will be simply to put together some of the results of recent work by others, and on that basis to offer a little contribution to ‘the great seven-storey library’ which professor Le Bras hopes will one day ‘be devoted to studies of the structure and whole life of every religion at every moment of its history’.

It is best to begin with some explanation of my title: much of the debate on the origins of heresy has centred on the question of whether or not it represented a ‘social problem’. Thus when Grundmann asks if social questions were at the root of heresy, he means, was heresy the expression of material deprivation on the part of the unprivileged? This sort of connection has of course been made by historians usually stigmatised as Marxist (though Marx himself would, I think, have disowned some of their crude anachronisms); Werner, for example, explains heresy as a protest movement against the economic and social exploitation of the feudal system.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 9: Schism, Heresy and Religious Protest , 1972 , pp. 65 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1972

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References

page no 65 note 1 ‘Sociologie de l’Église dans le Haut Moyen Âge’, in Settimane [di studio del centro Italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo], VII (Spoleto 1960) 11, p 611.

page no 65 note 2 Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter (2 ed Darmstadt 1961) pp 519ff.

page no 65 note 3 Die gesellschaftlichen Grundlagen der Klosterreform im 11. Jahrhundert (Berlin 1953), and Pauperes Christi. [Studien zu sozialreligiösen Bewegungen im Zeitalter des Reformpapsttums] (Leipzig 1956). But see also Koch, [G.], Frauenfrage [und Ketzertum im Mittelalter] (Berlin 1962)Google Scholar - a work of insight and fine judgement.

page no 66 note 1 The Problem of Pain (London 1941) p 4. I have learned much from Obeyesekere, G., ‘Theodicy, Sin and Salvation in a Sociology of Buddhism’, in Dialectic in Practical Religion, ed Leach, E. R. (Cambridge 1968) pp 7–40 Google Scholar. On dissonance and personal commitment, see Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W. and Schachter, S., When Prophecy Fails (Minneapolis 1956) esp pp 25ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Wilson, B. R., ‘A typology of sects in dynamic and comparative perspective’, Archives de Sociologie des Religions, XVI (Paris 1963) pp 49–63 Google Scholar.

page no 66 note 2 But see Toch, H., The Social Psychology of Social Movements (London 1966)Google Scholar, and Sargant, W., ‘The Physiology of Faith’, British Journal of Psychiatry, CXV (London 1969) pp 505-18Google Scholar.

page no 67 note 1 For a guide to the huge bibliography on this subject, see Russell, J. B., ‘Some Interpretations of the Origins of Medieval Heresy’, Medieval Studies, XXV (Toronto 1963) pp 26–53 Google Scholar. See now also Moore, R.I., ‘The Origins of Medieval Heresy’, History, CIXXXIII (London 1970) pp 21–36 Google Scholar; and the judicious remarks of Brooke, C. N. L. in JTS, XVIII (1967) pp 256-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reviewing J. B. Russell’s book, Dissent [and Reform in the Early Middle Ages] (Berkeley 1965). Manteuffel, T., Die Geburt der Ketzerei (Vienna 1965)Google Scholar has unfortunately been inaccessible.

page no 67 note 2 Morghen, R., ‘Problèmes sur l’origine de l’hérésie au Moyen Âge’, Revue Historique, CCXXXVI (1966) pp 1–16, at p 10Google Scholar.

page no 67 note 3 Wakefield, W. L. and A. Evans, P., Heresies of the High Middle Ages (New York 1969) Introduction, pp 21-2Google Scholar.

page no 67 note 4 Franzen, A., A Concise History of the Church, ed Dolan, J. P.(rev ed London 1969) pp 187ffGoogle Scholar.

page no 67 note 5 Brooke, [C. N. L.], ‘Heresy [and Religious Sentiment: 1000-1250’), BIHR, XLI (1968) pp 115ffGoogle Scholar.

page no 67 note 6 See Russell, Dissent, and Morrison, K.F., Tradition and Authority in the Western Church, 300-1140 (Princeton 1969)Google Scholar.

page no 68 note 1 Gellner, E., ‘A pendulum swing theory of Islam’, Annales Sociologiques (Paris 1968) pp 5–14 Google Scholar, and Saints of the Atlas (London 1969).

page no 68 note 2 Among historians, the following survey owes most to Bloch, M., Feudal Society (London 1961)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Duby, G., Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West (London 1968)Google Scholar, and Southern, [R. W.], Western Society [and the Church in the Middle Ages] (Harmondsworth 1970)Google Scholar; among social scientists, to Wolf, E. R., Peasants (Englewood Cliffs 1966)Google Scholar and Fried, M., The Evolution of Political Society (New York 1967)Google Scholar.

page no 68 note 3 So Ralph Glaber, praising the achievement of a cluniac abbot, stressing at the same time his noble birth, and that ‘summum in palaciis regum ac ceterorum principum obtinebat locum’. Historiarum Libri Quinque, 111, v, c. 16, ed Prou, M. (Paris 1886) p 66 Google Scholar.

page no 69 note 1 Ep. 171, MGH Epp. 111, Epistolae Karolini Aevi, 11, ed Dümmler, E. etc (Berlin 1895) p 282 Google Scholar.

page no 69 note 2 From the prayer ‘In diebus’ in the royal consecration Ordo edited by Schramm, P. E., ‘Die Krönung bei den Westfranken und Angelsachsen von 878 bis zum 1000’, Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kan. Abt, XXIV (Weimar 1934) pp 211ffGoogle Scholar. Schramm’s opinions on the origin and date of this Ordo stand in need of revision.

page no 69 note 3 See Schramm, , ‘Mittherrschaft im Himmel: Ein Topos des Herrscherkults in christlicher Einkleidung’, in his collected papers, Kaiser, Könige und Päpste (Stuttgart 1968) 1, pp 79–85 Google Scholar.

page no 69 note 4 See Reydellet, M., ‘La Conception du Souverain chez Isidore de Seville’, in Isidoriana, ed Diaz, M.Diaz y (Leon 1961) pp 457-66Google Scholar; Schlesinger, W., Beiträge zur deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte des Mittelalters (Göttingen 1963) pp 109, 111 Google Scholar, notes the appearance of the distinction between rex and tyrannus in ninth-century Frankish chronicles, with similar implications.

page no 70 note 1 For details, see Russell, Dissent. But some of the categories imposed here (‘eccentrics’, ‘reformists’) are unhelpful, while in general, the social environment of religious phenomena receives too little attention: for example, Russell chronicles the brief career of the prophetess Theuda, reprimanded by the synodists at Mainz in 848, without any reference to the troubled political situation at that period in her homeland, Alemannia.

page no 70 note 2 Vielhaber, K., Gottschalk der Sachse (Bonn 1956)Google Scholar gives a sympathetic account. Epperlein, S., ‘Sachsen im frühen Mittelalter’, Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Berlin 1966) pp 206ffGoogle Scholar, argues that Gottschalk’s doctrine reflected Saxon opposition to the ‘Feudalisierungspolitik’ of the Frankish church. But the only evidence he can cite for the view that Gottschalk’s teaching was taken up by the population at large – MGH, Epp. v, Epistolae Karolini Aevi, 111, ed Dümmler, E. and Hampe, K. (Berlin 1899) p 481 Google Scholar – turns out to relate to the monk’s activities, not in Saxony, but in Italy ! Mr J. B. Gillingham kindly drew my attention to Epperlein’s article.

page no 70 note 3 Heil, W., ‘Der Adoptionismus, Alkuin und Spanien’, in Karl der Grosse. Lebenswerk und Nachleben, ed Bischoff, B. (Düsseldorf 1965) 11, pp 95–155 Google Scholar.

page no 70 note 4 Some aspects of these changes are brilliantly analysed by J. F. Lemarignier, ‘Political and monastic structures in France at the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century’, reprinted and translated by Cheyette, [F. L.], Lordship and Community [in Medieval Europe] (New York 1968) pp 100-27Google Scholar; Dhondt, J., ‘Les solidarités médiévales. Une société en transition: la Flandre en 1127–1128’, Annales. È[conomies]. S[ociétés]. C[ivilisations], XII (Paris 1957) pp 529-60Google Scholar; Duby, G., ‘Les “jeunes” dans la société aristocratique’, Annales. E.S.C., XIX (1964) pp 835-46Google Scholar, and ‘Les sociétés médiévales: une approche d’ensemble’, Annales. E.S.C., XXVI (1971) pp 1-13; Luzzatto, G., ‘Mutamenti nell’economia agraria italiana dalla caduta dei Carolingi al principio del sec. XI’, in Settimane, 11 (1955) pp 601-22Google Scholar; Leyser, K., ‘The German Aristocracy from the ninth to the early twelfth century: a historical and cultural sketch’, PP, XLI (1968) pp 25–53 Google Scholar. Two valuable area-studies are Duby, G., La Société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise (Paris 1953)Google Scholar, and Fossier, [R.], La Terre et les Hommes en Picardie [jusqu’à la Fin du XIIIe siècle] (Paris 1968)Google Scholar. Le Goff, J., ‘Note sur société tripartite, idéologie monarchique et renouveau économique dans la chrétienté du IXe au XIIe siècle’, in L’Europe au IXe au XIe Siècle, ed Manteuffel, T. and Gieysztor, A. (Warsaw 1968) pp 63–71 Google Scholar, suggests some interesting correlations between social and ideological change.

page no 71 note 1 Abbot Philip of Harvengt wrote of Paris in the mid-twelfth century (PL 203 (1855) col 31): ‘Hic ad pulsandum tantus concursus, tanta frequentia clericorum, ut contendat supergredi numerosam multitudinem laicorum ! ‘ I am grateful to professor W. Ullmann for pointing out to me the significance of developments in education.

page no 72 note 1 See Southern, Western Society; Chenu, M., Nature, Man and Society [in the Twelfth Century] (Chicago 1968)Google Scholar; among recent detailed studies in English, Cowdrey, H. E. J., ‘The peace and the truce of God in the eleventh century’, PP, XXVI (1970) pp 42–67 Google Scholar, and Brooke, ‘Heresy’. Southern, [R. W.], St Anselm [and his Biographer] (Cambridge 1963)Google Scholar shows the varieties of religious change in the mirror of monastic life and thought. A useful perspective on this material may be found in Weber, M., The Sociology of Religion (London 1965)Google Scholar. Parsons, T., ‘Christianity and modern industrial society,’ in Sociological Theory, Values and Sociocultural Change. Essays in Honour of P. A. Sorokin, ed Tiryakian, E. A. (Glencoe 1963) pp 33–70 Google Scholar, at pp 33-49, analyses changes in medieval Christianity but disappointingly sidesteps the crucial problem of causation. Much greater finesse seems to have been applied to comparable problems by social anthropologists. In preparing this paper, I have found particularly valuable Douglas, [M.], Natural Symbols (London 1970)Google Scholar; Horton, R., ‘African Conversion’, Africa, XLI (London 1971) pp 85–108 Google Scholar; and Turner, [V. W.], The Ritual Process[: structure and anti-structure] (London 1969)Google Scholar.

page no 73 note 1 Quoted by Southern, St Anselm, p 120. On Damian’s asceticism, see P. McNulty’s introduction to St Peter Damian. Selected Writings on the Spiritual Life (London 1959).

page no 74 note 1 Some excellent studies, together with a guide to the bibliography, are contained in the collection, Hérésies et sociétés [dans l’Europe préindustrielle, 11e–18esiècles], ed Le Goff, J. (Paris 1968)Google Scholar. The importance of the obedience issue is indicated elsewhere in the present volume by Miss B. Bolton, ‘Tradition and Temerity’ (below, pp 79-91).

page no 74 note 2 See Borst, A., Die Katharer (Stuttgart 1953)Google Scholar, and, for a brief discussion, the article, ‘ Cathari ‘, by Dossat, Y. in the New Catholic Encyclopedia, 111, pp 246ffGoogle Scholar. The geography of heresy is illuminated by [C.] Violante, ‘Hérésies urbaines [et hérésies rurales en Italie du 11e au 13e siècle’,] in Hérésies et Sociétés, pp 171-98, and by the short articles of R. Manselli and P. Wolff (ibid). Turner, Ritual Process, chs III and IV, explores the meaning of communitas.

page no 74 note 3 On the complexity of female motivations see Koch, Frauenfrage, esp pp 23ff. Werner, Pauperes Christi, pp 53ff compares the role of women in early medieval religious life with their disadvantageous position in feudal society.

page no 75 note 1 M. Chenu, ‘Orthodoxie et hérésie’, in Hérésies et Sociétés, pp 9-14.

page no 75 note 2 In the present volume, above, p 48. See also Cohn, N., The Pursuit of the Millennium (rev ed London 1970)Google Scholar.

page no 75 note 3 See Chenu, Nature, Man and Society, ch VI: ‘Monks, Canons, and Laymen in Search of the Apostolic Life’, and ch VII: ‘The Evangelical Awakening’. Both chastity and poverty seem to me to have been ‘natural symbols’, in professor Douglas’s sense, of personal and social renovatio.

page no 75 note 4 Violante, ‘Hérésies urbaines’, p 185. On dualist cosmology and its social referent, see Douglas, Natural Symbols, pp 119ff.

page no 75 note 5 Russell, Dissent, p 262.

page no 76 note 1 See G. Fournier, ‘Rural churches and rural communities in early medieval Auvergne’, in Cheyette, Lordship and Community, pp 315-40; Fossier, , La Terre et les Hommes en Picardie, I, pp 167ffGoogle Scholar (conversion only completed in Carolingian times); and, for indirect evidence, Constable, G., Monastic Tithes from their Origins to the Twelfth Century (Cambridge 1964)Google Scholar. The differential nature of this development, with parish organisation existing much earlier in some dioceses, is stressed by J. F. Lemarignier, ‘Quelques remarques sur l’organisation ecclésiastique de la Gaule du VIIe à la fin du IXe siècle’, and the comments thereon of Semmler, J., in Settimane, XIII (1966) pp 451-86 and 571ffGoogle Scholar.

page no 76 note 2 Evidence from medieval sources is presented, though in a rather unsystematic way, by Lea, H. C., Materials toward a History of Witchcraft, ed Howland, A. C. (New York 1939)Google Scholar, and by Baroja, J.C., The World of the Witches (London 1964)Google Scholar. It is to be hoped that a medievalist will soon study this important subject, despite the gaps in his evidence, with the sensitivity that A. Macfarlane and K. Thomas have recently brought to their researches on witchcraft beliefs in the early modern period. Meanwhile students of medieval heresy can find much food for thought in Douglas, Natural Symbols, ch VIII, and in many of the readings in Witchcraft and Sorcery, ed Marwick, M. (Harmondsworth 1970)Google Scholar: in his postscript, for example, the editor draws attention to evidence for the decline of witchcraft beliefs following on urbanisation and differentiation.

page no 76 note 3 See Grundmann, ‘Hérésies savantes et Hérésies populaires au Moyen Âge’, along with the comments of Le Goff, in Hérésies et Sociétés, pp 209-14 and p 216.