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The Knowledge of the Heart: Reading the Ancrene Wisse in the Context of Twelfth- Century Monastic Conscience Literature

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The Knowledge of the Heart: Reading the Ancrene Wisse in the Context of Twelfth- Century Monastic Conscience Literature The Knowledge of the Heart: Reading the Ancrene Wisse in the Context of Twelfth- Century Monastic Conscience Literature Jordan Church A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences School of Literature, Art and Media Department of English University of Sydney 2016 Abstract This thesis addresses the nature and role of contemplation in the early-thirteenth-century English Ancrene Wisse (AW). Previous scholarship on the text has debated whether or not it ought to be described as ‘mystical,’ and has generally focused on language and imagery that the AW shares with more conventionally recognised mystical literature. This thesis takes a different approach by focusing on the role of the conscience within the text. The AW prescribes a rule of life that governs the heart. The AW author defines a pure heart as a clean conscience. An attempt to understand the contemplative life in the AW must first establish what the author means by the conscience; applications of modern and medieval scholastic understandings of the conscience to the AW are anachronistic. This thesis explores the AW author’s handling of conscience within the context of twelfth-century monastic thought, as expressed in three treatises on conscience which have hitherto received minimal scholarly attention: Peter of Celle’s De Conscientia, and the pseudo-Bernardine Tractatus de Conscientia and De Interiori Domo. In these texts, conscience is neither a moral guide nor a record of personal conduct. Their authors synthesise a new understanding of the conscience from different elements within classical, biblical, and patristic thought. This thesis argues that this distinctive approach to conscience gave rise to a different form of contemplative thought and practice that lies outside the mainstream development of medieval mysticism. Rather than utilising tripartite schemas of spiritual ascent based on the stages of purgation, illumination, and union, the conscience texts base their view of union with God on the model of moral reasoning. This thesis argues that the AW participates in this school of thought on conscience and contemplation, rather than more conventionally recognised traditions of medieval mystical literature. Contents Note on Texts and Translations ........................................................................................... 3 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 4 1. The Problem .............................................................................................................. 4 2. The Ancrene Wisse ..................................................................................................... 7 3. The Modern Conscience ............................................................................................ 9 4. The Medieval Conscience ........................................................................................ 10 a. Scholasticism ........................................................................................................ 11 b. Conscience and Inwit ......................................................................................... 14 c. Outside Scholasticism ........................................................................................... 19 2. The Contemplative Conscience and Mystical Consciousness ................................... 28 3. Thesis Outline ......................................................................................................... 31 Literature Review.............................................................................................................. 33 Chapter One: Peter of Celle .............................................................................................. 52 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 52 2. Memory in the Present: Peter’s Definition of Conscience ........................................ 55 3. Acquiring a Conscience: Peter’s Description of Conscience ..................................... 64 a. Description and Composition ................................................................................ 64 i. The Chariot ....................................................................................................... 71 ii. The Guest Chamber ....................................................................................... 74 iii. Solomon’s Temple ......................................................................................... 77 iv. The Tower, Temptation, and Confession ......................................................... 85 b. A Rule of Life.................................................................................................... 91 4. Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 93 Chapter Two: Two Pseudo-Bernardine Conscience Texts ............................................... 96 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 96 2. Tractatus de Conscientia ......................................................................................... 96 3. De Interiori Domo ................................................................................................. 106 4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 127 Chapter Three: The Ancrene Wisse ................................................................................ 130 1 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 130 2. The Heart as a Moral Faculty ................................................................................. 131 3. Will and Desire ...................................................................................................... 137 4. Charity .................................................................................................................. 148 5. Thought of the Heart.............................................................................................. 158 a. Reason and Understanding .................................................................................. 159 b. Thoughts as Meditations and Weapons ............................................................ 163 6. The Guest Chamber ............................................................................................... 169 7. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 171 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 174 Appendices ...................................................................................................................... 178 Appendix A: Tractatus de Conscientia .......................................................................... 179 Appendix B: De Interiori Domo .................................................................................... 192 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 231 2 Note on Texts and Translations All citations from the Ancrene Wisse are, unless otherwise noted, from Bella Millett, ed., Ancrene Wisse: A Corrected Edition of the Text in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 402, with Variants from Other Manuscripts, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). References to the AW are given parenthetically in text as section (P for the Preface, Roman numerals for subsequent sections), and line numbers from Millett’s edition. Citations from Peter of Celle’s De Conscientia are, unless otherwise noted, from Jean Leclercq, OSB, La Spiritualité De Pierre De Celle, vol. 7, Etudes De Theologie Et D’Histoire De La Spiritualité (Paris: J. Vrin, 1946). I have also drawn upon Hugh Feiss’s emendations to the text as found in Peter of Celle, Selected Works, trans. Hugh Feiss (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1987), 38-40. References to De Conscientia are given parenthetically in text as page and line numbers from Leclercq’s edition. Citations from the Tractatus de Conscientia and De Interiori Domo are from the text included in volume 184 of Jacques-Paul Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina (Paris: Migne, 1841-64). References are given parenthetically in text to the paragraph numbers as they appear in the Patrologia Latina. I have also included the same paragraph numbers in my translations of the texts, found in the appendices to this thesis. Direct citations from the texts are accompanied by footnotes which also include the volume and column number from the Patrologia Latina. Biblical citations, unless otherwise noted, are from Robert Weber and Roger Gryson, eds., Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, 5th ed. (Nördlingen: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007). I have accordingly followed the Vulgate’s numbering of the Psalms. Translations from Latin and early Middle English are provided in the footnotes. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. 3 Introduction 1. The Problem The Ancrene Wisse (AW) provides two rules of life for women living the rigorous, solitary life of anchoritism.1 One rule is inner, and
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