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THE WORK CALLED CONGESTA AND FIFTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH THEOLOGY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2018

SIEGFRIED WENZEL
SIEGFRIED WENZEL*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Abstract

Congesta, written about the middle of the fifteenth century in England and only partially preserved, is a massive sermon commentary, originally in five volumes, covering the Sundays of the church year, some feast days and common sermons for saints, and two special occasions (“In Time of Persecution” and “For Religious”). Of the entire cycle only forty-six sermons are extant in two manuscripts (Oxford, Magdalen College MSS 96 and 212). The commentary deals at great length with the Epistle or Gospel lection of the respective Mass. Its anonymous author, probably an English Carthusian, excerpted long passages from over 130 named authors and anonymous works, including Petrus Berchorius, Saint Brigid of Sweden, and the Imitatio Christi. The sermons, which are basically moral postillation of the lections and show much concern with the qualities of a good pastor, can be seen as part of the reforming tendencies in the English church marked especially by Thomas Gascoigne. The article describes and discusses the sermon cycle, analyzes the sermon for 23 Trinity, and discusses the structure of the sermons and some of the authors of the later Middle Ages that are quoted or excerpted. An appendix lists the authors and anonymous works quoted in alphabetical order.

Keywords

CarthusiansCongestafifteenth centuryImitatio Christipreachingsermon cyclestheology
Type
Research Article
Information
Traditio , Volume 73 , 2018 , pp. 291 - 319
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University 2018 

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References

1 For example, Gillespie, Vincent, “Chichele's Church: Vernacular Theology in England after Thomas Arundel,” in After Arundel: Religious Writing in Fifteenth-Century England, ed. Gillespie, Vincent and Ghosh, Kantik, Medieval Church Studies (Turnhout, 2011), 3–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 30–31.

2 “Modernos praedicatores, quorum labor major est circa formam et modum divisionum et concordancias vocales textuum quam circa declaracionem rerum utilium.” Rogers, James E. Thorold, ed., Loci e Libro veritatum: Passages Selected from Gascoigne's Theological Dictionary Illustrating the Condition of Church and State, 1403–1458 (Oxford, 1881), 24Google Scholar.

3 “Postillation” is the progressive explanation of or commentary on the verses and phrases of a biblical text.

4 “Praedicare materias assumptas declarando, et textum scripturae sacrae secundum ordinem textus postillando, seu exponendo, fuit modus praedicandi sanctorum patrum.” Rogers, Loci e Libro, 44.

5 Paralleling his return to an older form of theology: “Gascoigne was apparently converted to a predominantly patristic theology c. 1432.” Ball, R. M., Thomas Gascoigne, Libraries and Scholarship, Cambridge Bibliographical Society Monograph 14 (Cambridge, 2006), 1Google Scholar.

6 Later medieval artes praedicandi were fully aware of such a form and its use by contemporary preachers; see Wenzel, Siegfried, Medieval Artes Praedicandi: A Synthesis of Scholastic Sermon Structure, Medieval Academy Books 114 (Toronto, 2015), 45–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the use of the older form in actual sermons by John Dygon (1384–after 1449), fifth recluse at Sheen, see Sheila Lindenbaum, “London after Arundel: Learned Rectors and the Stratagems of Orthodox Reform,” in Gillespie and Ghosh, eds., After Arundel, 187–208, at 201–2. Dygon begins his sermons with postillation of the text of the lection and then follows the pattern of a scholastic sermon. An example in translation can be found in Wenzel, Siegfried, Preaching in the Age of Chaucer: Selected Sermons in Translation (Washington, DC, 2008), 166–81Google Scholar.

7 The size of the folios is 355 x 255 mm (A) and 360 x 260 mm (B), respectively. Both manuscripts were very briefly described in Coxe, Henry O., Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1852), 2:52Google Scholar and 93–94. I follow the description in the new, as yet unpublished catalogue of Magdalen College manuscripts prepared by Ralph Hanna, with thanks to Dr. Christine Ferdinand, former college librarian at Magdalen College, and her successor, Dr. David Green, for making the catalogue entries accessible to me and for other services.

8 Here and in the following I number the sermons consecutively. The sigla used (T39, etc.) are those established by Johannes Baptist Schneyer, Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters, für die Zeit von 1150–1350, 11 vols., Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 43 (Münster, 1969–90), insert, and slightly modified in Wenzel, Siegfried, Latin Sermon Collections from Later Medieval England (Cambridge, 2005), 404–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Notice that despite the explicit quoted above, there is no sermon for St. Anne (S50a, July 26) in this volume. Presumably the next volume would have begun with a sermon either for St. Anne or, more likely, for T49.

10 “Regular cycles,” in contrast to random collections, which gather sermons by one or more authors in no particular liturgical order.

11 See Wenzel, Siegfried, The Sermons of William Peraldus: An Appraisal (Turnhout, 2017), 39–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Thus called in B, at 25ra. Antethema occurs also in A, at 72ra. The word “thema” is used several times throughout A and B.

13 The line numbers in the left column correspond to the text in manuscript B, whose lines are fairly short. The bold-faced texts are parts of the pericope that are postillated. I indicate the length of excerpts only where it exceeds ten lines.

14 Historia monachorum 1 (PL 21:394–95).

15 Gregory, Homiliae in Ezechielem 1.2 (PL 76:796–97).

16 Decretum 1.1.94–95; De cons. 2.71.22 and 1.67.22; D.1.43.2; in Friedberg, Emil, ed., Corpus iuris canonici, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1879, repr. Graz, 1959), 1:391–92Google Scholar, 1341 and 1312, and 155, respectively.

17 Gregory, Moralia in Job 33.23 (PL 76:700–701).

18 Berchorius 17.16, on Judg. 19, fol. 73rb–va. Here and in the following I have used the edition of Berchorius, Petrus, Morale Reductorium super totam Bibliam (Cologne, 1515)Google Scholar.

19 Cf. Aquinas, Thomas, In II Sententiarum 35.1, in Opera Omnia, ed. Fiaccadori, Petrus, vol. 6 (Parma, 1856)Google Scholar.

20 Cambrensis, Giraldus, Topographia Hiberniae 2.12, in Dimock, James F., ed., Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, Rolls Series 21.5 (London, 1867), 95Google Scholar.

21 Meditationes piissimae 9.12 (PL 184:499).

22 See Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale 14.23, in Speculum major (Douai, 1624), 4:549Google Scholar. The quoted text corresponds to Legenda aurea, ed. Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, 3rd ed. (Leipzig, 1890), 99.

23 Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion 16, in Opera omnia, ed. Schmitt, F. S., 6 vols. (Seckau, Rome, and Edinburgh, 1938–61), 1:112Google Scholar.

24 Berchorius, Reductorium 32.4, on John 8, fols. 191vb–192ra.

25 Lombard, Peter, Sententiae 3.39.4, in Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, ed. Brady, Ignatius, 3rd ed. (Grottaferrata, 1971–81), 2:221–22Google Scholar.

26 Augustine on Pss. 55:6 and 9:24 (PL 36:654 and 126, respectively).

27 Odo of Cheriton, Sermon for Epiphany, Paris, BNF MS Lat. 16506, fol. 142rb–va.

28 Berchorius, Reductorium 24.7, on Dan. 8:9 (fol. 154ra). The quotation ends with Isa. 59:14.

29 Peter of Blois, Compendium in Job, in Opera omnia, ed. I. A. Giles, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1846), 3:45–46.

30 The quotation agrees with the text of John Chrysostom, Nemo laeditur nisi a seipso, as it appears in Libellus s. Iohannis Chrysostomi, quod nemo laeditur nisi a seipso (Antwerp, 1536), n.p. It differs from the version printed in PG 52:465–66.

31 Decretum 83.6 (in Friedberg, Corpus iuris [n. 16 above], 1:294).

32 Aquinas, Summa theologiae 2.2.111.1, with quotations from Augustine, Gregory, and Ambrose; in Aquinas, Thomas, Summa theologiae, ed. De Rubeis, et al. (Turin and Rome, 1948), 3:557–58Google Scholar.

33 See Tubach, Frederic C., Index exemplorum, FF Communications 204 (Helsinki, 1969), 29Google Scholar (no. 304).

34 Peter Lombard, Sententiae 3.38.3 (2:216–17).

35 John of Salisbury, Policraticus 3.5 and 3.4; in John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. Clemens C. I. Webb, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1909), 1:183–84 and 177–78.

36 Aquinas, In III Sententiarum 9.2.3.

37 Haymo, Homiliae 136 (PL 118:727).

38 Nicholas of Gorran on Matt. 22:15, in Commentaria Nicolai Gorrani in quatuor evangelia (Cologne, 1537), fol. 62v.

39 Robert Holcot, Sermon 40, in Cambridge, Peterhouse MS 210, fol. 50rb –vb.

40 The author takes census, “tribute,” to mean “money.”

41 Petrus Chrysologus, Sermons 1–4 (PL 52:185–96).

42 Aquinas, Summa theologiae 2.2.94.1–2 (ed. Marietti, 3:477 and 480).

43 Decretum: De cons. 3.27–28 (in Friedberg, Corpus iuris [n. 16 above], 1:1360).

44 Gorran on Matt. 22:15 (ed. Cologne, 1537, fol. 113r).

45 Odo, Ascendente Iesu in naviculam, Paris, BNF MS Lat. 16506, fol. 146va.

46 Berchorius, Reductorium 24.2, fol. 149ra–vb.

47 Hugh of St. Cher on Ps. 134:17, in Hugo de Sancto Caro, Biblia cum postilla (Basel, 1498), 2: n.p.

48 Augustine, De mendacio 15.26–29 (PL 40:506–7).

49 Cf. Duns Scotus, Opera omnia, 26 vols. (Paris, 1891–95), 18:271, with quotation of civil law.

50 Ambrose, Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam (PL 15:1802) and De sacramentis 1.2.5 (PL 16:419).

51 Gregory, Moralia 4.36 (PL 75:677).

52 There are, however, exceptions, evidently caused by oversight of the scribe or decorator: sermon 5 lacks the initial for its main part (A, 55va, blank); so does sermon 9 (A, 135rb). Sermon 12 also lacks the initial and begins in line (A, 193rb), a reader having added “Thema sermonis” in the margin. The same is the case with sermon 21 (B, 2va, marginal “Thema”). Again, the main part of sermon 22 begins in line without enlarged initial, following upon “Oremus” (B, 15vb). In sermon 23, likewise, the main part begins in line, without enlarged initial, following an invitation to pray: “In anathemate [sic] fiebat questio” (B, 25ra). Finally, the last sermon, sermon 46, lacks an enlarged initial but begins with a new line and blank space, “Gustate” (B, 303ra).

53 For an example, see the summary of sermon 30 at line 191.

54 For the structure of a “scholastic sermon” and its various parts see Wenzel, Medieval Artes Praedicandi (n. 6 above).

55 See n. 6 above.

56 The figures here given are approximate for comparison.

57 For instance, in B at 96ra the text hand wrote “In Reductorio morali” in the margin, but the extract comes from Nicholas de Lyra, as is correctly noted in the text in B at 96rb.

58 On “logical grid” see Siegfried Wenzel, Sermons of William Peraldus (n. 11 above), 24, 44, 55, and 101–56.

59 For instance, Repingdon's sermon for T64 has, briefly, the following structure (which amounts to a divisio textus): A) Triplex malicia Phariseorum, made up of 1) cordis nequicia, 2) sermonis fraudulencia, and 3) questionis versucia; B) Tria in Christo partim veneranda, partim imitanda, made up of 1) divina sapiencia, 2) detestancia adulacionis, with four reasons to avoid flatterers, and 3) confutacio Phariseorum per publicam iusticiam, in a) ostensio numismatis, b) confessio inscripcionis, and c) iusta diffinicio questionis. See Oxford, Corpus Christi MS 54, fol. 370va.

At this point a second distinction appears, with the same terms, which leads to four things in a denarius and further numbered parts, to the end of the sermon. Like this one, Repingdon's “grids” are complex and are at best hard to follow and at worst confused. On Repingdon's work see further below.

60 “Ideo dicunt: ‘Dic nobis, discipulis tuis, qui te magistrum vocamus; amicis, qui sic commendamus [sic]; dubiis, qui sic ignoramus, quid tibi videtur,’” etc., in B at 123va, referring to Matt. 22:17.

61 “Sunt tres questiones inter alias que multa mouent corda deuotorum ad contemptum mundi,” in B at 123va, corresponding to Cambridge, Peterhouse MS 210, fol. 50rb: “In sacra scriptura sunt tres questiones.”

62 Cf. Wenzel, Medieval Artes Praedicandi (n. 6 above), 84.

63 Fols. 111ra–112va. It is unclear whether all twelve reasons or only the last (marriage was instituted in paradise) are credited to “Parisiensis.” The entire section with such addresses occupies B at 107vb–114rb.

64 The excerpts agree with Petrus Berchorius, OSB, Morale Reductorium super totam Bibliam (Basel, 1515).

65 For some Distinctiones or theological dictionaries from later medieval England, see Wenzel, Siegfried, “Distinctiones and Sermons: The Distincciones Lathbury (Alphabetum morale) and Other Collections in Fourteenth-Century England,” Mediaeval Studies 78 (2016): 181–202Google Scholar.

66 Berchorius, Petrus, OSB, Dictionarius seu Repertorium Morale, 3 vols. (Venice, 1589)Google Scholar.

67 Mostly from his commentary on the Sentences and the Summa theologiae, but also such others as Contra Gentiles, De perfectione spiritualis vite (in B at 7r, with a long extract), and De potestate pape.

68 Always quoted as “Lincolniensis,” with some fifteen quotations or excerpts, from his Dicta, epistles, De decem mandatis, several sermons, and a work entitled De viciis. Sermon 40 contains a long section on his “unjust excommunication” by Pope Innocent IV and his appearance in a vision to the pope two years after his own death (B, 269va).

69 One quotation in sermon 10, apparently from his no longer extant commentary on the Psalms: “Quales condiciones predicatores haberent … secundum doctorem sereaker [sic] in istis duobus versubus: Celi enarrant dies diei, etc.” (A, 154vb).

70 Quoted once, from his On the Sentences (A, 1ra).

71 Docking is quoted multiple times: “De mandato” (B, 89va); “super 5 mandato” (B, 218va); and “in lectura sua super Deuteronomio” (B, 313vb).

72 Dymock is quoted twice, on the subject of relics (A, 237ra) and on prayers for the dead (B, 254rb).

73 From his commentary on the Sentences and his Breviloquium, the latter also referred to as “De veritate theologie” and “De veritate sacre scripture.” I have not been able to trace a quotation from “Similitudinarius” (A, 257va).

74 On Walden see further below, 00 and 00.

75 From Woodford, on whether the Eucharist is to be celebrated daily (A, 69rb).

76 “Frater Johannes de Gersonno (?) de celebracione misse” (A, 69vb).

77 In A, at 221ra–v, 277ra–278rb, and 289rb–va.

78 A, 185vb.

79 Smalley, Beryl, English Friars and Antiquity in the Early XIVth Century (Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar.

80 B, 3vb.

81 A, 135vb.

82 See n. 00.

83 Including the Liber imperatoris celestis ad reges, quoted in A, 175ra.

84 A, 274va. The excerpt is from Augustine, Ep. 47.

85 “Actor: Hec omnia recitanda putauerim vt moderni religiosi omnes speculari possent in patribus quid de obseruancia regulari amiserunt in filiis” (B, 317vb).

86 For example: “rusticus cognoscit animal suum per mark” (B, 124rb). Also frequent are glosses, such as: “terre aquose, anglice marischgrunde” (B, 95ra).

87 For example: “in a molde” or “encressyng of synne” (A, 10ra and 24va).

88 For example: “que impediunt … possunt dici anglice fernesse, bysynesse, and seknesse” (A, 13rb).

89 “Prouerbium … in anglicis: Hyt is goode to take a soppe for the myste” (margin: “thre soppys for the miste”) (A, 52va); “vulgare dictum: Hyt ys a schrewd lyon that / beteth or eteth hys dame” (A, 135va–b); perhaps also “of a old henne wold be a yong peroun” (A, 136ra).

90 For example: “Iudicium racionis obscuratur vnscapabully per passions … et per vnscapabull’ / peruertyd iudicium” (B, 283va–b).

91 For instance: “Augustinus sermone 18 volumine 2o … sermone 51 volumine primo” (B, 255va); and “Augustinus sermone 87 volumine 3” (B, 282rb). The texts quoted are from Augustine, Serm. 351 and 353, respectively.

92 Especially a reference to a prophecy: “Sed hec exposita sunt in prophecia libro 8, capitulo xi, Muro, pagina [or paragrapho] 6 … vt in prophecia libro 2o, capitulo 26, Ariete, pagina 2o [sic] … vt Salomone libro 1o, capitulo 22o, Amico, pagina 5” (B, 270va).

93 “Hec continentur in cronica que dicitur Flores historiarum in monasterio Euesham, per 30 miliaria ab Oxon’. Et plenam historiam istam de excommunicacione iniusta domini Linc’ a papa Innocencio 4o videbis scriptam inter fratres minores Oxon’ in libro qui intitulatur Speculum stultorum siue laicorum, siue Speculum clericorum et laicorum” (B, 269va). Flores historiarum is the work by Matthew of Paris. The report of Grosseteste's excommunication appears in Speculum laicorum, ed. J. Th. Welter (Paris, 1914), 94.

94 Rogers, Loci e Libro (n. 2 above), 200.

95 Rogers, Loci e Libro, 223.

96 For his books and readings see R. M. Ball, Thomas Gascoigne (n. 5 above). Further, see the fine account by Christina von Nolcken, “Gascoigne [Gascoygne], Thomas,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, http://www.oxforddnb.com. The spade work on Gascoigne done by Winifred A. Pronger has still not been superseded: “Thomas Gascoigne,” English Historical Review 53 (1938): 606–69 [Part 1], and 54 (1939): 20–37 [Part 2].

97 Rogers, Loci e Libro, 24.

98 A, 7ra–vb (two passages, with a total of 127 lines). In the passages referred to Waleys gives an example of preaching with the help of a syllogism. In Congesta the contiguous passages deal with the fons vivus of the hymn. See Charland, Th.-M., Artes Praedicandi: Contribution à l'histoire de la rhétorique au moyen âge (Paris, 1936), 367–68Google Scholar.

99 Congesta qualifies an author's name with “egregius doctor,” “venerabilis,” or “sanctus [Thomas]” only occasionally. One might add that Gascoigne and Congesta also differ in matters of moral theology. For example, a lectio on indulgence(s) that may (or may not) be by Gascoigne and certainly follows the structure he advocates in his Dictionarium, argues its points with strong reliance on Augustine rather than on thirteenth-century theologians. See Pronger, “Thomas Gascoigne” [Part 2], 21–23. In contrast, when Congesta discusses indulgences in a passage that particularly interested a later reader, its author simply furnishes excerpts from several authors (Hugh of St. Victor, Scotus, Bridget, Bede, Augustine), including a long passage from Franciscus de Mayronis (“De indulgenciis,” in Sermones de sanctis [Basel, 1498], fols. 97vb–100ra), in Congesta (A, 303rb–304rb). Gascoigne's Dictionarium is still awaiting a critical edition.

100 Cosme de Villiers de Saint-Étienne, Bibliotheca carmelitana, 2 vols. (Orleans, 1752), 2:84Google Scholar. Congesta quotes him briefly in A, 15ra, on intellectual error.

101 B, 317rb–va, from chap. 20 of the Regula.

102 “De incepcione Cartusiensis ordinis sicut patres nostri narrauerunt nobis quidam clericus regens actu Parisius in theologia… . Erat autem tunc temporis quidam canonicus Remensis magister in theologia nomine Bruno uel Brunus… . Hec de fundacione ordinis Cartusiensis” (B, 316va–317ra).

103 A, at 285vb–286ra; 288va; 290rb–va; and 291ra–b. An edition of the four passages will appear in Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique.

104 Kempis, Thomas Hemerken à, Opera omnia, ed. Iosephus, Michael Pohl, 2 (Freiburg, 1904)Google Scholar.

105 During its early years the work was also known as Musica ecclesiastica and its author was sometimes thought to be Jean Gerson. I have not found either title in the two manuscripts, and Gerson is quoted only as the author of De celebratione Missae.

106 Three of the four excerpts are identified only by a final “Hec ille,” and one lacks even that much.

107 See Lovatt, Roger, “The Imitation of Christ in Late Medieval England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 18 (1968): 97–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 107 and 110.

108 Lovatt, “Imitation of Christ,” 111.

109 Staubach, Nikolaus, “Eine unendliche Geschichte? Der Streit um die Autorschaft der Imitatio Christi,” in Aus dem Winkel in die Welt: Die Bücher des Thomas von Kempen und ihre Schicksale, ed. Bodemann, Ulrike and Staubach, Nikolaus, Tradition; Reform; Innovation: Studien zur Modernität des Mittelalters 11 (Frankfurt am Main, 2006), 11Google Scholar.

110 Oxford, Magdalen MS 93, fols. 269r–295v. The first part of De musica ecclesiastica was copied here in 1438 (fol. 275v).

111 Gillespie, Vincent, Syon Abbey: With the Libraries of the Carthusians, ed. Doyle, A. I., British Medieval Library Catalogues 9 (London, 2001), 228Google Scholar, 248, 256, and 281 (Musica ecclesiastica); 797 (Revelationes, seven copies); 235 (Speculum spiritualium); and 108 (Berchorius). Item 891 in the early fifteenth-century catalogue contains not only the Musica ecclesiastica but also Petrarch's On the Penitential Psalms and Gerson's De celebracione misse (281). For some recent work on the Imitatio Christi, see Staubach, “Eine unendliche Geschichte?”; and Van Dijk, Rudolf, “Die kartäusische Rezeption der Nachfolge Christi,” in Liber Amicorum James Hogg: Kartäuserforschung 1970–2006; Internationale Tagung Kartause Aggsbach 28.8–1.9.2006 Kartause Mauerbach, ed. Niederkorn-Bruck, Meta (Salzburg, 2007), 102–31Google Scholar.

112 Consuetudines 28.3 (PL 153:693).

113 See Anne Hudson, “Netter [Walden], Thomas,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (n. 96 above).

114 See James G. Clark, “Whethamstede [Bostock], John,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

115 See Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections (n. 8 above), 112–15.

116 Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, 113–14 n. 63.

117 The work has been studied extensively in a dissertation by Simon Forde, “Writings of a Reformer: A Look at Sermon Studies and Bible Studies through Repingdon's Sermones super evangelia dominicalia” (PhD diss., University of Birmingham, 1985). See also Forde, , “New Sermon Evidence for the Spread of Wycliffism,” in Amos, Thomas L., Greene, Eugene A., and Kienzle, B., eds., De Ore Domini (Kalamazoo, 1989), 169–83Google Scholar.

118 Simon Forde, “Repyndon [Repington, Repingdon], Philip,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

119 Sharpe, Richard, “John Eyton Alias Repyngdon and the Sermones super Euangelia dominicalia Attributed to Philip Repyngdon,” Medium Aevum 83 (2014): 254–65Google Scholar.

120 Oxford, Bodleian MS Laud misc. 635, fol. 369rb (the explicit).

121 Because of the crucial importance of a chosen thema, the “scholastic sermon” could also be called “thematic sermon,” if by “thematic” one understands the short text on which the sermon was based (i.e., not “topical”). A good, though brief, discussion of the change from homily to scholastic sermon can be found in Tugwell, Simon, “De huiusmodi sermonibus texitur omnis recta predicatio: Changing Attitudes towards the Word of God,” in De l'homélie au sermon: Histoire de la prédication médiévale, ed. Hamasse, Jacqueline and Hermand, Xavier (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1993), 159–68Google Scholar, at 161.

122 “Verumtamen de viribus nostris diffidens et de diuine gracie confidens optimo suplemento, ne ignorancie tenebra inuolutum me contingat a Scripture catholica intelligencia exorbitare, decreui pocius aliorum sanctorum doctorum et fidelium postillatorum sentencias [fol. 1rb] colligere quam mea ingerere inpudenter, non subtilibus set rudibus me similibus morem gerens” (Oxford, Corpus Christi MS 54, fol. 1ra–b).

123 Hence, M could be called Omelie super evangelia de sanctis et festis.

124 Oxford, Corpus Christi MS 54, fol. 1ra.

125 Whether this reflects an influence of Wyclif is hard to say. I find no direct mention of Wyclif or his “opinions” in M. For the more customary label “verbum Dei,” see Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, 188, and n. 29 above.

126 The rubricator labels the individual pieces “sermones,” consistently in A, occasionally in B; and the texts themselves contain an occasional “sermo” referring to the text of Congesta, such as: “Sermo presentis diei stabit in processsu sacri ympni ‘Veni creator spiritus’” (A, 3va); “In principio sermonis dirigamus oracionem” (A, 87ra); “pro processu sermonis” (B, 223ra); and so on. There is no surviving authorial prologue in A or B.

127 To single out their most often quoted curious authorities: M relies on the Franciscan John Peter Olivi at least sixty-eight times in seventeen omelie, whereas Congesta does so on the Benedictine Berchorius at least 150 times in forty-six sermons.

128 See Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, 119, and nn. 11–12 above. I hesitate to assign a terminus ante quem, since the date(s) of Gascoigne's remarks about Pecock is/are uncertain, and this would at best be a weak argument ex silentio.

129 Other marginalia throughout both A and B are written by the text hand.