Thèses sur le sujet « Sermoni medievali »

Based on author's Thesis (Ph. D.) Michigan State University, 1991.
A collection of 60 homilies from the anonymous Middle English translation of Robert de Gretham's Anglo-Norman Miroir, or Les évangiles des domnées. Includes bibliographical references (p. [555]-558) and index. Also issued in print.

Current scholarship on the devotional practices of late medieval England has emphasized two representations of Christ. The first, considered the dominant trend, is that of the suffering Christ; the second, a minor, but important trend particularly for female audiences, is the maternal Christ. Both are revealing of the nature of late medieval Christo-centric devotion. This project contributes to the understanding of late medieval Christocentric devotion in England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by examining the representation of Christ in a martial role, as presented to clerical and lay audiences through the medium of popular sermons. It is a new contribution to the scholarship of late medieval devotion in its demonstration of a multifaceted Christ; the martial Christ echoes, but in many ways also contrasts, the images of the suffering and maternal Christ, in order to provide its audience with a more complex rendering of the human Christ, one which may have been more accessible to a lay populace seeking to form a relationship with him. This project also contributes to the growing field of sermon studies, intended to be comprehensive in nature. It uses a different approach to sermon studies, in that the entire corpus of nearly 4,500 sermons was reviewed. This was done in order to provide the most complete picture of the martial Christ. As a result, this project examines Christ in various martial roles, as well as his modelling of knighthood for kings, knights, preachers, and the laity. These representations were utilised by preachers to instruct their audiences in devotional practice, specifically forms of affective meditation; it was used as a didactic tool to teach the laity the complex doctrines of redemption and atonement; and finally, it was employed as a means to demonstrate the importance of right living in order to fulfill what Christ had promised on the cross, that is eternal salvation.

This dissertation examines narratives of decline as part of the late medieval discourse of complaint and social criticism, focusing on vernacular orthodox and Wycliffite preaching, and on Piers Plowman. I argue that these texts sought to ‘place’ their readers and listeners within a narrative, where the past was characterised by the build up of sin, and where future recuperation depended on a will to reform in the present. I draw on the work of Paul Ricoeur to account for the interaction between textual narrative and human experience, and so to describe the way narratives of decline were offered to readers and congregations as a way to understand their own lives. Preachers and poets identified narratives of decline with one another, creating a ‘horizon of expectations’ about the ultimate consequences of sin and social decay, and with other narratives where decline led to reform, creating a ‘horizon of expectations’ about the possibilities for renewal. Narratives of decline formed part of the authoritative critical rhetoric of orthodox preaching, but were also appropriated by ‘unlicensed’ speakers like the poet of Piers Plowman, and by the heretical preachers of the Wycliffite movement. These texts, or group of texts, which, in turn, form the topics of my three main chapters, understood decline in different ways, and proposed very different kinds of reform in response to it. In orthodox preaching, narratives of decline most often served to promote a new engagement with the Church, commonly through the custom and practice of penance. Yet for Piers Plowman, and, in different ways, for the Wycliffite preachers, the Church itself was involved in narratives of decline. These writers redeploy the rhetoric of decline in more radical ways, challenging the ‘horizon of expectations’ they inherit from orthodox preaching.

Critics have offered many views about the structure of Piers Plowman. Provided with few clues, they have tried to determine from the dominant features the poem's organizing factors. However, since 1926, when G. R. Owst suggested in Preaching in Medieval England that the meaning of Piers would become clear if the poem were compared in its thematic and artistic elements with sermon literature (295-296), only a few critics have discussed Langland's use of the sermon form. This present study argues that Langland structured his poem as a sermon to answer the Dreamer's question, "How I may saue my soule?" (B. I. 84), and to explain that salvation is attained by knowing and observing the love commandments, a Scriptural theme frequently treated in the sermons of the time. By comparing the structure of Piers with that of the sermon as Robert of Basevorn describes in Forma praedicandi (1322), I show that Langland forms his poem with the use of sermon "ornaments": invention of theme, antetheme/protheme, prayer concluding the antetheme, restatement of theme, division and confirmation of divisions, and concluding prayer. In addition, I show that the visions and passus, which are interrupted with the Dreamer's awakening, form subdivisions in each of the sections. I also show that Langland uses dream-allegory, dramatic-narrative, and satirical exempla to embellish his explanation of salvation. This parallel of the "art" in Langland's poem with the "art" of preaching shows that the poem has a definite structural and thematic unity and that the logical plan makes Christian belief concerning salvation understandable, instructive, and persuasive.

The thesis, concerning the ideas of the Church, meant as an assembly of people with different degrees of responsability, deals with a section of two chapters about the structures assumed by Franciscan model sermon collections before 1260. The different ways they use to write their sermons is focused to underline how sermon structuring is just another way to approach Sacred Scripture and all problems having a basis on it, in our case the Church. The period chosen for this study also shows the fact that earlier franciscan generations do not introduce a new methodology nor in exegesis neither in sermon composition, as they use all their former education to introduce the new way of life in which they have become a part only after having finished their studies. At the end of the section it’s clear that for these friars there’s not a central or common way to use sermons to explain the concept of the Church, as their first approach to it is based on their attention to the public and to the theologic method they assume. That’s why I’ve divided the eight collections studies for areas of preaching: for Italy Antony of Lisboa, Lucas Apulus, Supermons de Varisio and an anonimous friar writing a de sanctis series of sermons still kept in the Biblioteca Antoniana di Padova; for France Jean de la Rochelle, Guibert de Tournai and Bonaventura de Balneoregio, and, at last, for German area, Berthold von Regensburg. It’s clear that, as in Italy and Germany each praecher acts and writes by his own, in France the Franciscan, having a very important studium in Paris and being involved in the University academic and practical disputes, seem to have a more uniform ecclesiological and homiletic way of thinking, depending one from the other for his own theological education. The second section of the thesis focuses on similitudines about Church, trying to see how Greyfriars thought themselves in the Church and different status perfectionis moving in it. The images of the sun, the moon and the stars, of the field, of the vineyard and of the good Shepherd are here seen in their functional and allegorical meaning. They show a Church based on preacher function, but this is one is not seen as a separate cathegory of Churchmen, but only as an attibute of the praelatus, at least until the Parisian dispute known with the name of Querelle. In effect in the ‘50s there’s a real changement in church conceiving: in Guibert’s and Bonaventure’s sermones, in fact, it’s clear the emerging of the pseudo-dionisian point of view, or, better, a new use of De Hierarchia caelesti in order to defend the place of Mendicant orders in church hierarchies, based on the presentation of the new status of preacher as an intermediary between the height of contemplation and the cura animarum. The study also demonstrates the changing in preacher’s attitude to people: from a performance of the Word of God to provoke confessions to a doctrinal teaching spread through preaching act. This passage is visible mainly reading Italian sermons, as they start before, during the XIII century, of the others and because they reflect different approaches to the Verbum Dei, even touching popular preaching. there’s no surprise in this observation, as French Franciscan sermon writers are all important theologians and they are used with academic preaching and exercise, but it’s quite astonishing to see how Italians seem to be closer to Peter the Chnter’s cicle ideas than Jean de la Rochelle. Berthold of Regensburg, instead, as he’s concerned with antiheretical preaching, moves between the two positions: he usually sas that penitential preaching is to prefer for it’s salvifical purpose, but, as the heresy spreads by doctrinal mistakes, it’s important to face them with a huge doctrinal exposition of the most important points of Christian belief. The last point highlighted by this chapteer is that Franciscan preachers from the earlier period, substitue the generical cathegor of laycus or coniugatus in the tripartions of the Church, with the more specific concept of paenitens, focusing their ecclesiological view on the ecclesiastical public and banishing the simple believers on the edge of the conception of Ecclesia militans. The fourth and last chapter of the thesis deals with the problem of preaching about the Pope’s role in the Church. In it, I’ve studied sermones for the In cathedra feast and a little number of other complex images connecting the Pope with the other persons acting in the field of the Lord. The result of this study is again the discover of a real gap between the thought about Peter’s Primate before the Parisian querelle and during its first phases. The preachers acting not being involved in that dispute, infact, seem to base their words on the papal theories spread during the previous century and the beginning of the XIII, almost from Innocent III, the other ones, instead, base their preaching on the new concept of potestas and hierarchia taht we can even see in their theological and polemical threatises of the period. At the end of this work I can say that, even if the results seen during it, are interesting and give some other argumentations about the way Franciscan acted and thought in the first period of the Order, this thesis is, necessary, not a definitive work, as it opens lot questions that could be answered not only assuming the Franciscan point of view, as the could be helped by the studying and editing of texts from Dominican friars and secular clergy, during, before and after the period here presented.
La tesi presentata si costituisce di due sezioni: una relativa all’identificazione e descrizione delle fonti e degli autori trattati e l’altra concernente i risvolti ecclesiologici contenuti in queste opere. Il lavoro muove dalla necessità di sottolineare la diversità dell’elaborazione, omiletica e teologica, dei diversi frati, mettendone in evidenza l’ambiente di formazione, la cultura e il contesto interno all’Ordine in cui essi si inserirono al fine di comprenderne l’elaborazione teologica, e più in particolare ecclesiologica anche e soprattutto attraverso il loro diverso modo di rapportarsi alla Sacra Scrittura e alla natura formale del testo da loro proposto. La prima sezione dunque, separa in due capitoli distinti i frati italiani, a cui viene assimilati Antonio da Lisbona, da quelli d’Oltralpe, francesi e tedeschi. Nel primo capitolo ho svolto una breve trattazione delle questioni inerenti l’Ordine francescano in genere, e particolarmente nel suo sviluppo peninsulare, al fine di ricostruire i movimenti di idee e problematiche che diedero vita alle quattro raccolte di sermoni studiate. Dopo una breve prosopografia ho regolarmente proceduto all’individuazione degli scritti dei singoli autori e all’analisi strutturale delle loro opere. Ho dedicato molto spazio a tale compito in quanto ritengo che i sermoni, in quanto frutto di uno sforzo esegetico, riflettano il clima culturale e dottrinale in cui inserirli già al momento della loro scelta formale. Sono stata confortata in quest’impressione dalla varietà di combinazioni che ho potuto individuare nei sermoni italiani, certamente più indipendenti tra loro dei paralleli testi francesi. Antonio di Padova, per esempio, sceglie di comporre un vero e proprio trattato teologico e in quanto tale utilizza una struttura più simile a quella elaborata dai vittorini alla fine del XII secolo. Tale operazione, visibile soprattutto nei sermoni festivi, fa sì che anche l’immagine di Chiesa emergente dai testi antoniani rifletta uno stadio arcaico dell’elaborazione minoritica, in cui le dipendenze dall’ambiente canonicale e monastico sono spesso più evidenti delle innovazioni. Uno sguardo più approfondito al sermone per la ventiduesima domenica dopo Pentecoste, dedicato alla doppia trattazione del giorno del giudizio e delle mancanze dei membri della chiesa dei propri tempi, ha offerto l’occasione di illustrare i problemi, per lo più liturgici, ma non solo, contenuti nel testo del frate lusitano, come non avrebbe potuto essere fatto all’interno della seconda sezione della tesi, in cui le argomentazioni complessive appiattiscono necessariamente i sermoni a seconda delle domande a cui si intende farli rispondere. Grazie a questo lavoro, dunque, ho potuto notare il peso assunto nei sermoni antoniani dai prologhi concordanti, in cui, lungi dal limitarsi alla sola esortazione morale, spesso l’autore apre dei brevi trattati sui compiti del predicatore, e la differenza di struttura e di argomenti proposti dai sermoni festivi, più simili nel loro svolgiemnto ai testi che si stavano contemporaneamente scrivendo nei circoli culturali parigini guidati dal Cantore. Ho inoltre cercato di evidenziare come l’argomentazione ecclesiologica di Antonio, non possa essere in alcun modo trattata svincolandola dal suo contesto biblico, in quanto facente parte di una quadriga fondata su autorità tra loro concordate in modo da creare un continuum esegetico per tutta la durata della raccolta. Il secondo autore trattato nel capitolo è Luca da Bitonto, frate minore pugliese, morot probabilmente intorno al 1242. Egli ha lasciato una raccolta di sermoni festivi commissionatagli direttamente da un ministro generale dell’Ordine, che ho potuto ritenere essere Aimone da Faversham. La raccolta, dalla ricca intessitura escatologica, ha rivelato gli interessi “gioachimiti” del frate minore, e la sua attenzione per categorie sociali quali gli ebrei e i greci. A questo proposito ho preso le distanze dalla scarna bibliografia sull’autore, la quale ritiene tali preoccupazioni per la Chiesa orientale e per l’unità della Chiesa, un retaggio di un soggiorno dell’Apulus, negli anni ’30, in Grecia, credendo invece più probabile ed economico ritenere che le argomentazioni a favore delle due minoranze etniche e religiose citate sia dovuta più alle origini regnicole del frate che a sue esperienze estemporanee. L’analisis strutturale dei testi del bitontino ha portato alla luce la cultura canonicale dello stesso e la sua conoscenza del diritto ecclesiastico, fugando invece le voci di un suo possibile coinvolgimento nelle attività della Facoltà teologica parigina, non suffragata neppure a livello argomentativo dalle fonti. Dalla Puglia mi sono poi spostata nel milanese, studiando i sermoni in circulum anni di Sovramonte da Varese, autore da cui aveva preso il via la mia intera ricerca. Avvalendomi degli studi già compiuti sulla biografia del frate, ho potuto verificare l’autenticità della raccolta a lui attribuita. Ho poi proceduto nel rilevare le forme, vicine a quelle antoniane, sebbene molto più semplificate, dei sermoni. La struttura di questi si è poi rivelata utile a supportare l’ipotesi, ormai certezza, del carattere popolare dell’opera del varesino, rintracciandone il pubblico in un insieme di laici e religiosi probabilmente di area lombarda, in cui le presenze ereticali sembrano essere il motivo stesso per cui Sovramonte scrisse i suoi 56 sermoni. L’ultimo autore italiano di cui mi sono occupata è un frate anonimo, la cui opera è custodita presso la biblioteca antoniana di Padova, ms. 470, in cui ho ritenuto di poter individuare un frate minore attivo nell’Italia settentrionale negli anni 1255 -1260, correggendo quindi la precedente datazione del Gamboso. L’analisi della struttura e delle fonti di questa raccolta di sermoni de sanctis mi ha permesso, oltre all’identificazione detta, di mettere in luce la natura liturgica e unitaria del testo e il suo impiego mi è stato utile per un confronto tra italiani e contemporanei maestri parigini. Il secondo capitolo mi ha portata a varcare le Alpi e ad occuparmi dei francescani dal loro arrivo in Francia al loro coinvolgimento attivo nella querelle con i maestri secolari. Ho seguito, grazie ad una ricchissima bibliografia, i loro insediamenti, mettendo per lo più in luce i momenti di contrasto tra i nuovi venuti e le autorità religiose tradizionali al fine di creare un collegamento tra le vicende dell’Ordine e le preoccupazioni della sermonistica proveniente dai suoi studia. Mi sono dunque concentrata su Parigi, città nella quale fu più forte la concentrazione di frati minori e il cui ambiente universitario portò alla stesura di diversi tipi di trattati teologici e di raccolte di sermoni. Per il periodo studiato sono state ritenute tre raccolte: i sermoni de tempore e de sanctis di Giovanni de la Rochelle, i sermoni de tempore di Gilberto de Tournai e quelli di Bonaventura da Bagnoregio. Dei primi, dopo aver ripercorso la vita del loro autore, sono state messe in luce le problematiche compositive e autoritative, rinunciando a fare una panoramica completa dell’opera per la sua mancanza di unitarietà, mettendone invece in risalto la varietà di fonti, strutture e destinatari, legati per lo più al mondo ecclesiastico e accademico attivo intorno alla facoltà di teologia di Parigi. Ho poi proceduto all’analisi del sermone per la Sessagesima (exiit qui seminat) confrontandolo con le direttive date dallo stesso frate ai suoi confratelli per la stesura del sermone e trovandolo, caso abbastanza raro nel genere, in accordo con quel Processus negociandi themata sermonum. Questo, insieme con il reperimento delle fonti utilizzate nei testi, mi ha portato a ritenere l’opera del la Rochelle redatta in stretto contatto con le problematiche nate intorno alla metà degli anni ’30 del XIII secolo nella facoltà teologica parigina relativamente allo status del predicatore, non più considerato nel suo rapporto con l’esortazione per la confessione, come invece compare nei sermoni italiani, ma in quanto tale, attribuendo dunque alla predicazione uno statuto a sé stante in vista della salvezza del credente. Credo che Giovanni de la Rochelle sia uno degli autori in cui più è visibile l’importanza del connubio tra elaborazione dottrinale e sviluppo strutturale del sermone. Il Rupellense fu anche maestro del secondo e del terzo predicatore minorita di cui mi sono occupata: Gilberto da Tournai e Bonaventura da Bagnoregio. La produzione sermonistica di questi due autori è stata analizzata solo parzialmente, in quanto non tutta la loro opera rientra nei limiti cronologici della tesi, riflettendo anche temi nati all’interno dell’Ordine a seguito del Capitolo di Narbona e della restrutturazione normativa del dottore Serafico. Ho quindi analizzato in dettaglio i sermoni de festiis e de sanctis di Gilberto da Tournai, alla ricerca in essi di dipendenze dottrinali e strutturali dal suo maestro e dal suo più famoso confratello, trovandole e dedicandovi un discreto spazio nel capitolo. Vicino a queste però ho potuto mettere in luce, grazie alle edizioni di singoli sermoni approntati da altri illustri studiosi, le dipendenze testuali e argomentative del frate minore da Iacopo da Vitr, i cui sermoni ad status e communes conobbero una straordinaria diffusione nella prima metà del XIII secolo. Questa serie di dipendenze, e spesso di copiature, è stata trattata per mettere in guardia il lettore della raccolta del turnacense dall’assumere come minorita molte delle sue parole, soprattutto quando si miri a fare qualche excursus nei sermones ad varios status (1280 circa), di cui si sono studiati, a titolo comparativo, solamente i due testi de ecclesia. Infine ho concluso la mia panoramica sui minori francesi inserendo tra di essi Bonaventura da Bagnoregio, italiano di nascita, ma francese di cultura. Di questo notissimo autore ho studiato principalmente i sermoni domenicali, gli unici raccolti e rielaborati dal Serafico in persona, mettendone in evidenza la strutturazione tripartita costante. Questo elemento è stato messo in collegamento sia con la diffusione, proprio da parte della normativa bonaventuriana, del sermo di tipo parigino all’interno degli studia minoritici, identificando dunque nella raccolta dei domenicali un modello volutamente perfetto da cui i frati dovevano attingere anche formalmente per i propri sermoni, sia come rispondente alle nuove esigenze di elaborazione ecclesiologica createsi a seguito degli attacchi di Guglielmo di Sant’Amore. Il secondo capitolo si chiude trattando la raccolta, isolata per la propria area, di Bertoldo da Ratisbona. Ho messo in luce le caratteristiche compositive dei Rusticani de Tempore di questo frate, al fine di rilevarne l’estraneità alle contemporanee elaborazioni francesi e la contemporanea vicinanza con i sermoni di Luca da Bitonto, dovuta probabilmente alle maggiori preoccupazioni escatologiche derivanti ai due autori dalla frequentazione dei testi di Gioacchino da Fiore. La seconda sezione della tesi si sviluppa su ulteriori due capitoli: uno relativo alle immagini e funzioni assegnate all’ecclesia militante nelle raccolte dei sermoni minoritici precedentemente presentati e uno sulla presentazione della teoria del primato papale all’interno dei sermoni per la festa di San Pietro in cathedra e di pochi altri testi in cui il discorso non si limitasse a brevi e fugaci accenni. Il primo capitolo di questa sezione prende le mosse dall’isolamento delle similitudini sull’Ecclesia militans presenti nelle raccolte dei frati minori, principalmente gli astri, il campo, la vigna e il buon pastore, rilevando la differente incidenza di queste immagini nelle raccolte degli anni ’30 e ’40 del secolo rispetto a quelli successivi. I frati Minori, a confronto soprattutto con la tradizione esegetica dei Padri, attraverso queste immagini presentano un’immagine della Chiesa terrena in cui la predicazione assume una posizione sempre più rilevante, e cambia la propria natura, già nel corso deli anni Trenta, da penitenziale, cioè a servizio della confessione, a dottrinale, cioè volta all’insegnamento delle dottrine evangeliche. L’analisi dei singoli membri introdotti, attraverso apposite distinzioni, in ciascuno dei sermoni, festività per festività, fa inoltre emergere una progressiva “clericalizzazione” del concetto di Ecclesia, in cui i laici vengono rapidamente messi ai margini di essa a favore di una categoria di persone organizzata e individuata all’interno di una visuale gerarchica: i penitenti. Negli anni ’50 del XIII secolo, però, si registra un cambiamento dell’utilizzo delle similitudines utilizzate per spiegare gli status perfectionis. Pur non eclissando totalmente le immagini precedenti, infatti, i frati Minori coinvolti nella querelle parigina, iniziata nel 1252 a seguito dell’attacco rivolto da Guglielmo di Saint-Amour e dai maestri secolari della Facoltà di teologia ai Mendicanti, fanno emergere un’ecclesiologia sempre più legata all’utilizzo sistematico di una nuova interpretazione del De Hierarchia caelesti dello pseudo-Dionigi Areopagita e del paragone tra le schiere angeliche e le gerarchie ecclesiastiche. Proprio in questi autori, cioè Bonaventura da Bagnoregio e Gilberto da Tournai, emergono due importanti cambiamenti all’interno dell’Ecclesia: il ruolo del predicatore viene infatti diviso dalla figura del praelatus, di cui era precedentemente un semplice attributo, e assimilato invece al grado dei perfetti, come mediatore tra la contemplazione e la cura animarum. L’ultimo capitolo della tesi si è occupato della figura del pontefice. Essa non viene usualmente inserita all’interno di immagini complessive della Chiesa, oppure è solamente accennato il suo ruolo di guida nella similitudine del corpus ecclesiae, come nel caso dell’Anonimo antoniano 470, e dunque non poteva costituire un semplice paragrafo del capitolo precedente. L’analisi dei sermoni per la cattedra di san Pietro e di pochi altri passaggi concernenti il pontefice e il suo rapporto con la Chiesa, ha dimostrato come in quest’ambito i frati Minori si basino principalmente sulle teorie elaborate dagli autori precedenti, soprattutto Innocenzo III, almeno fino all’inizio della querelle parigina, in cui essi presero l’iniziativa per l’elaborazione di una nuova teologia del primato atta a difendere, attraverso l’esaltazione del potere pontificio, anche la posizione gerarchica degli ordini Mendicanti contro la concezione tradizionale, basata sull’interpretazione episcopalista, di cui erano interpreti i magistri saeculares dell’Universitas parigina. In appendice vengono presentate, in questa versione ancora in modo provvisorio, le trascrizioni si alcuni sermoni ritenuti significativi per la prospettiva ecclesiologica, degli autori la cui opera sia ancora inedita: Luca da Bitonto, Sovramonte da Varese, l’Anonimo antoniano 1470, Giovanni de la Rochelle, Gilberto da Tournai e Bertoldo da Ratisbona.

This thesis on medieval sermon manuscripts aims to increase our understanding of the Franciscan Berthold von Regensburg, who is considered to be the most significant German preacher of the late Middle Ages. For this reason, I have selected twenty-one Latin and six German codices, dating from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. These codices have been analyzed to identify the writing material, internal structure and paratextual features. The underlying idea is that the codicological and paratextual organisation delivers insight not only into the date and provenance of the manuscripts, but also into their function and actual use. I set out, in my first chapter, with some general thoughts about the specific process of communication involved in sermon manuscripts. The focus of my second chapter is on the structural and guiding elements in manuscripts, such as indices, numbering systems and various types of rubrication. The third chapter is concerned with marginal annotations, which can refer to the content of the text, call for attention, or even aim to deter from reading or copying a particular passage. In chapter four, I discuss a number of current issues in codicology and the complexity of codicological structures, which leads me to the proposition of a new concept of ‘corresponding codicological units’. In the fifth chapter, I argue that the attribution of Berthold’s sermons to his name fades in the late-thirteenth century, in favour of the term Rusticanus, which fills the position of the author for the the most part of the fourteenth century. In my final chapter, I discuss different concepts of book ownership. By demonstrating the significance of material and structural features, I show the strength of a codicological approach in achieving a new, in-depth understanding of Berthold von Regensburg and medieval sermon culture in general.

Medieval rhetoric, as a field and as a subject, has largely been under-developed and under-emphasized within medieval and rhetorical studies for several reasons: the disconnect between Germanic, Anglo-Saxon society and the Greco-Roman tradition that defined rhetoric as an art; the problems associated with translating the Old and Middle English vernacular in light of rhetorical and, thereby, Greco-Latin precepts; and the complexities of the medieval period itself with the lack of surviving manuscripts, often indistinct and inconsistent political and legal structure, and widespread interspersion and interpolation of Christian doctrine. However, it was Christianity and its governance of medieval culture that preserved classical rhetoric within the medieval period through reliance upon a classic epideictic platform, which, in turn, became the foundation for early medieval rhetoric. The role of epideictic rhetoric itself is often undervalued within the rhetorical tradition because it appears too basic or less essential than the judicial or deliberative branches for in-depth study and analysis. Closer inspection of this branch reveals that epideictic rhetoric contains fundamental elements of human communication with the focus upon praise and blame and upon appropriate thought and behavior. In analyzing the medieval world’s heritage and knowledge of the Greco-Roman tradition, epideictic rhetoric’s role within the writings and lives of Greek and Roman philosophers, and the popular Christian writings of the medieval period – such as Alfred’s translation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, Alfred’s translation of Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care, Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, and the anonymously written Vercelli and Blickling homiles – an early medieval rhetoric begins to be revealed. This Old English rhetoric rests upon a blended epideictic structure based largely upon the encomium and vituperation formats of the ancient progymnasmata, with some additions from the chreia and commonplace exercises, to form a unique rhetoric of the soul that aimed to convert words into moral thought and action within the lives of every individual. Unlike its classical predecessors, medieval rhetoric did not argue, refute, or prove; it did not rely solely on either praise or blame; and it did not cultivate words merely for intellectual, educative, or political purposes. Instead, early medieval rhetoric placed the power of words in the hands of all humanity, inspiring every individual to greater discernment of character and reality, greater spirituality, greater morality, and greater pragmatism in daily life.

In this dissertation, I examine the various ways in which medieval authors used the term "lollard" to mean something other than "Wycliffite." In the case of William Langland's Piers Plowman, I trace the usage of the lollard-trope through the C-text and link it to Langland's dependence on the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Regarding Chaucer's Parson's Tale, I establish the orthodoxy of the tale's speaker by comparing his tale to contemporaneous texts of varying orthodoxy, and I link the Parson's being referred to as a "lollard" to the eschatological message of his tale. In the chapter on The Book of Margery Kempe, I examine that the overemphasis on Margery's potential Wycliffism causes everyone in The Book to overlook her heretical views on universal salvation. Finally, in comparing some of John Lydgate's minor poems with the macaronic sermons of Oxford, MS Bodley 649, I establish the orthodox character of late-medieval English anti-Wycliffism that these disparate works share. In all, this dissertation points up the eschatological character of the lollard-trope and looks at the various ends to which medieval authors deployed it.

La Bible est présente dans bien des textes médiévaux, mais les modes de ce tissage scripturaire sont encore une terra largement incognita. Nous avons voulu ici montrer comment elle était utilisée et mobilisée dans les collections épistolaires de l’espace Plantagenêt (deuxième moitié du XIIe siècle), durant laquelle des « causes célèbres », au premier rang desquelles le conflit entre Thomas Becket et le roi Henri II, virent s’affronter des clercs « maîtres de la Parole ». Il ressort de cette étude que citer l’Écriture était un choix et non une évidence, et que ceux qui faisaient ce choix utilisaient ces références, et les ressources offertes par l’exégèse, dans leurs relations sociales et leurs prises de position politiques, avec parfois une grande sophistication. Il est également apparu que, durant la décennie où l’affaire Becket eut lieu, les textes de référence en matière droit canon qui devinrent dans les années qui suivirent des auctoritates absolues, le Décret de Gratien et les décrétales pontificales, n’avaient pas encore acquis ce statut ; la Bible pouvait donc, de façon inhabituelle, être prise comme autorité juridique à part entière
The Bible is everywhere in medieval texts, but the ways it was precisely involved in the writing of those texts are still very much to be investigated. This dissertation sheds light on its uses in letter-collections composed within the “Angevin empire” in the second half of the 12th century. A few “causes celebres” led clerics, the “masters of the Word”, to fight one another; the conflict between Thomas Becket and Henry II is the most famous of those. Referring to Scripture was a choice, and not a reflex; those who made that choice used their biblical references, and the exegesis that illuminated their meaning, to foster their social position and relationhips and to fight their political battles, sometimes in rather sophisticated ways. The texts that would soon become the utmost authorities for canon law, Gratian’s Decretum and popes’ decretals, had not yet acquired such status, making possible for Becket and his companion to use the Bible, in an unusual and striking way, as their main legal auctoritas

Syon Abbey, established as the first Birgittine monastery in England in 1415, quite soon became a powerful institution within the order. Although often asserting their own conceptions of the Rule, the English Birgittines still sought the advice of Vadstena, their mother house, when it came to certain important matters concerning monastic life. The present work contains editions of two Latin texts: Responsiones, a document consisting of 175 questions and answers on the Birgittine Rule and daily life in the monastery, and Collacio, a sermon reflecting similar matters. The first part of the Responsiones consists of answers to five questions, sent from Syon to Sweden by letter. An important issue concerns the leadership in the monastery and the role of the Birgittine brothers. Were they to be seen as monks, living in their own monastery, or as religious assistans to the sisters? The second part was written as a direct result of two English brothers visiting Vadstena in 1427 and contains 170 questions and answers dealing with various matters of importance: how to interpret certain Birgittine texts, regulations on food, silence and speech as well as questions on preaching, liturgy and introduction into the monastery. The Collacio, in the manuscript said to have been presented to the Swedish community, was probably written by Syon’s conservator, the Benedictine abbot John Whethamstede of St Albans. Written in a highly metaphorical language rich in references to the Bible and Classical authors, the message to the Birgittine order is clear: first, it is wrong to have two leaders (confessor general as well as abbess) in one community; second, the Birgittines should strive to dispose of later additions and explanations and seek the original and true intentions of the foundress, Saint Birgitta. The thesis contains an introduction, editions with translations, glossary, indices, bibliography and plates.

The Conduct of Life, also known as the Poema Morale, is a verse-sermon that has been largely ignored by literary histories, and despite the longevity of its textual tradition its various texts have never been the subject of extended study. This dissertation brings together the seven manuscript versions of the text, which date from the end of the twelfth to the end of the thirteenth centuries, and re-examines them individually and as a cohort exhibiting variance. It therefore offers a revealing indicator of how continuity and change actually operated through the interaction between preceding tradition and scribes and audiences. This is achieved through a three-fold analysis of the verse sermon which highlights the fluidity of the manuscript culture during this period and the willingness of scribes to adapt texts to suit new purposes, to create differences due to dialect and comprehension, or copy variants from a now lost exemplar. First, an edition of the text, based on the version found in Cambridge, Trinity College MS B. 14. 52, folios 2r-9v , explores, through the accompanying notes, the themes, style and phraseology which not only reflect the influence of earlier English literary and hortatory texts but also represent a living tradition which found popularity within diverse writing and social environments. Secondly, a diplomatic edition of each text is presented, preceded by an introduction to the text, grammar and dialect, with full codicological and palaeographic notes. Finally, a parallel text edition bears witness to the copying and reshaping of the text throughout its history. It is accompanied by extensive linguistic notes which highlight the adaptation and textual variance between each version of the Conduct of Life. Each new variant has not only been read in relation to the other versions of the same work but also in relation to the manuscript context it newly occupies as a result of its transmission. Each copy reshapes the material within an established structure of rhythm and metre and, therefore, the dissertation concludes that the sermon is recreated as a series of individual texts, which might be individually analysed, because each is different, particularly within their specific physical and historical moments. This fluidity or mouvance suggests for the Conduct of Life and, for that matter, the texts that preceded it in the historical narrative of the twelfth century that there is no authentic text; that the instability of the manuscript 'tradition' moves from manuscript to manuscript.

This diploma thesis entitled Marian sermons of Anthony of Padua is based on the translation of four speeches to the Marian Feasts given by Anthony of Padua a Franciscan theologian and preacher (1195-1231). These speeches belong to the cycle Sermones dominicales and have never before been translated into Czech. The work includes insights about Anthony of Padua himself and his relationship to Franciscan spirituality. Important too, is a theological analysis of the sermons with particular focus of Anthony of Padua's conception of the Virgin Mary. In addition to focus on on the author and his views there is particular attention paid to the stylistic and the linguistic techniques used in his work.

Les termes du traité de paix entre Charles VI et Henri V qui est ratifié par les deux souverains à Troyes en mai 1420 sont plutôt clairs et paraissent aisément applicables : l’unique héritier de Charles VI, le dauphin Charles, est déshérité; Henri V, par le mariage qui l’unit à la fille du roi de France, Catherine, devient le nouveau successeur légitime de Charles VI et, lorsque celui-ci mourra, règnera sur le France et l’Angleterre sans toutefois unir les deux royaumes; le traité scelle aussi l’alliance entre la Bourgogne, l’Angleterre et la moitié nord de la France dans la guerre contre le parti armagnac que dirigie le dauphin Charles et qui contrôle la moitie sud, le royaume de Bourges. Toutefois, lorsque la cérémonie de la cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul de Troyes se termine, la théorie du document se heurte à une réalité bien différente. Alors que le traité prévoit une adhésion totale de la moitié nord de la France à la paix et la disparition politique du parti armagnac du dauphin Charles, c’est tout le contraire qui se produit : des mouvements d’opposition ou de résistance au traité et à l’autorité qu’il confère à Henri V comme héritier et régent de France surgissent de toute part et le parti du dauphin, bien loin de disparaître, tient tête à la « coalition » anglo-franco-bourguignonne. À tout cela vient s’ajouter le décès prématuré, en août 1422, d’Henri V qui, lorsque Charles VI le suit dans la tombe en octobre de la même année, laisse les royaumes de France et d’Angleterre entre les mains d’un roi qui n’a pas encore un an. Tous ces faits semblent bien signifier l’échec de la paix et les responsables chargés de l’appliquer en sont tout à fait conscients. Il n’en demeure pas moins que la décennie qui suit la ratification du traité, malgré tout ce qui s’y oppose, est le théâtre d’une véritable tentative d’application de la paix de Troyes ou, du moins, des articles et des éléments de celui-ci que l’ont peut réellement mettre en pratique.
The terms of the peace ratified by Charles VI and Henry V in Troyes in May 1420 are pretty clear and seem easy to apply : the dauphin Charles, sole heir of king Charles VI, is disinheritaded; Henry V, by wedding the daughter of the king of France, Catherine, becomes the new legitimate heir of Charles VI and, when the latter is to die, will reign over France and England without, however, unifying the two kingdoms; the treaty of Troyes also seals the alliance between Burgundy, England and the northern half of France in the war against the armagnac party of the dauphin Charles which controls the southern part of France, the kingdom of Bourges. Yet, when the peace ceremony of the cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul of Troyes is over, the theory of the treaty comes up against a completely different reality. While the treaty plans a total adherence to the peace from the northern half of France and the politic death of the armagnac party and of the dauphin Charles, what occurs is quite the opposite : aresistance movements to the treaty itself and to the authority that it gives to Henry V as heir and regent of France arise from everywhere and the dauphin’s party, far from disapearing, holds fast against the « coalition » formed by England, France and Burgundy. Last but not least comes the untimely death of Henry V in August 1422 wich, once Charles VI follows him in death in the following October, leaves the kingdoms of Fance and England in the hands of a less than one year hold baby-king. All those facts seem to imply a quick failure of the peace and the people in charge of applying it know it too well. Nevertheless, the ten years following the ratification of the treaty and despite every difficulties against it are the withnesses to a genuine attempt to properly apply the peace of Troyes or, at least, of some of its clauses and elements that really can be putted into practice.