“Let everyone consult his own conscience” Sin and interiority in the thought of Anselm of Laon Teun van Dijk Teun van Dijk - Student number: 5695767 RMA Thesis – Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Universiteit Utrecht Supervisors: dr. Rob Meens and dr. Irene O’Daly 1 Abstract: The development of the thinking on sin and confession in the twelfth century has given rise to claims that the modern concept of the “individual” or the “self” find their birth in the twelfth century. This topic has been much discussed and nuanced, but there is a scholarly consensus that there certainly were developments in the thinking on the “self” and the human interior during this time, often expressed in writings about the topics of sin, penance, and confession. Discussions of this development are often related to 'revolutionary' thinkers such as Peter Abelard, who supposedly turned away from traditional authorities and relied on his own rationality in order to explore questions of interiority. This thesis will be concerned with the teachings of a more ‘traditional’ and often neglected thinker from the early twelfth century, the schoolmaster Anselm of Laon (d.1117 CE). As such, this thesis is centred around a study of the sentence collections connected to Anselm’s cathedral school in Laon, primarily through the framework of those sentences concerned with topics related to the theme of sin. As this thesis argues, ideas of a ‘discovery’ or sudden emergence of the “self” or the human interior have to be revised. Rather, the sentence collections from the school of Laon show us that a thinker such as Anselm of Laon, who was firmly rooted in the work of traditional authorities, took part in a gradual, complex development which saw the intensification of the thinking about the human interior in the early twelfth century. Cover image: First folio of a copy of the Liber Pancrisis, Harley MS 3098. 2 Table of contents: Introduction: ................................................................................................................................................3. Chapter one: The Laonnois Sententiae, Their Origins, and Their Goals:............................................12. - I: From oral teaching to writing:…………………………………………………………... 12. - II: The different sentence collections and their provenance:................................................................ 17. - III: The sententiae’s theological goal:.............................................................................................. 20. Chapter two: Anselm of Laon and Rupert of Deutz on Human Free Will and Responsibility:... 24. - I: Rupert of Deutz’ challenge to Anselm:.......................................................................................... 24. - II: Augustine and God’s hardening of the human heart:.................................................................... 29. - III: Rupert on God’s will and human responsibility in his De voluntate Dei:................................... 33. - IV: Anselm and the relationship between the will of God and human free will:................................. 36. - Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................... 41. Chapter three: Anselm of Laon on Propassio and the Steps of Sin:.................................................... 44. - Introduction:..................................................................................................................................... 44. - I: Propatheia and propassio in the work of Jerome:...................................................................... 49. - II: Augustine and Gregory the Great on the steps of passion and sin:................................................ 53. - III: First movements in the time between Gregory and Anselm: .........................................................60. - IV: Propassio in the school of Laon:...............................................................................................63. - Conclusion: .......................................................................................................................................69. Chapter four: Confession and Interiority in the School of Laon:……………………………... 71. - Introduction:..................................................................................................................................... 71. - I: Anselm on tears and compunction:................................................................................................ 75. - II: The ten lepers, Lazarus, and the vivification of the soul:............................................................... 81. - III: Anselm and Gratian on Psalm 87:11:.......................................................................................85. - Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................... 90. General Conclusion:................................................................................................................................. 93. Appendix:................................................................................................................................................. 100. Bibliography:............................................................................................................................................ 105. 3 Introduction: Anselm of Laon was one of the most important figures in the ecclesiastical circuits of his hometown Laon. He climbed the ranks from master of the cathedral school, to chancellor, dean and finally archdeacon of the same cathedral of Laon.1 Besides this impressive cursus honorum within the cathedral chapter, Anselm was mostly known as a teacher of theology and biblical interpretation. It was in this role that he was highly regarded by most of his contemporaries, and he taught many of the brightest minds of his time.2 Despite his many students and the high praises heaped unto him by the likes of John of Salisbury and Peter the Chanter, there were also those who held less fond views of Anselm’s intellectual prowess.3 Peter Abelard’s famous description of his time as a student in Laon paints Anselm as a fire that creates smoke without light, a tree that bears no fruit. In other words, for Abelard Anselm represented the old-fashioned master who spoke well but said little, who earned his fame by conservatively reiterating patristic statements without any critical analysis.4 As in his own time, modern scholarship also shows opposing views on Anselm’s talents. On the one hand, there were those that argued in favour of Anselm’s creativity, and saw him as one of the innovating forces responsible for the systematic sentence collections of the later twelfth century, as well as the thirteenth-century summae.5 On the other hand, there are those who 1 For the definite account on Anselm, his life, and his school, see Cédric Giraud, Per verba magistri. Anselme de Laon et son école au XIIe siècle (Turnhout 2010). For Anselm’s cursus honorum, see especially pages 42-60. 2 Giraud has been able to identify more than twenty students of Anselm, hailing from France, Britain, Italy and Germany. See, Giraud, Per verba magistri, 69-112. 3 See for example, Cédric Giraud, “Anselm of Laon in the Twelfth-Century Schools: Between Fama and Memoria”, in Lucie Dolezalova (ed.) The Making of Memory in the Middle Ages, 337, 343. 4 Peter Abelard, Historia Calamitatum, in Dag Nikolaus Hasse (ed. and trans.), Abaelards “Historia calamitatum”: Text – Übersetzung- literaturwissenschaftliche Modellanalysen (Berlin; New York 2002), 7. For assessments of Abelard’s statements about Anselm, and what it has meant for scholarship on the School of Laon, see among others: Alexander Andrée, “Anselm of Laon Unvieled: The Glosae Svper Iohannem and the Origins of the Glossa Ordinaria on the Bible”, Medieval Studies 73 (2011), 217-260, 219-220; Giraud, Per verba magistri, 108-114. 5 For accounts of the historiography of the early twentieth century, see Andrée, “Anselm of Laon Unveiled”, 219; Marcia Colish, “Another Look at the School of Laon”, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age, 53 (1986), 7-22; and Giraud, Per verba magistri, 21-25. 4 follow the assessment of Abelard, emphasising the conservatism and dullness of Anselm’s school. For example, Richard W. Southern has called Anselm “colourless”, and “certainly no charismatic figure”.6 At least part of the scepticism with which Anselm’s intellectual capabilities have been regarded in modern times can most likely be attributed to the fact that his teachings only survive in piecemeal fashion. Indeed, apart from a single letter, there are no texts directly written by Anselm that have been handed down to us. Instead, the contents of his lectures have to be deduced from two different types of sources: collections of sentences, or sententiae, compiled by his students, and biblical commentaries coming from the cathedral school. Consequently, there have been debates about the validity of speaking about a “School of Laon” because of the diversity of theological opinions found in the sentence collections attributed to it. Valerie J. Flint has therefore argued that there was no such thing as a coherent theological school of thought with a clear doctrinal direction. According to her, we can merely speak about the existence of a school at Laon, under the direction of Anselm and his brother Ralph of Laon (d. 1133). 7 This