Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Holland, Alexander (2018) John Bromyard's Summa Praedicantium: An Exploration of Late-Medieval Falsity through a Fourteenth-Century Preaching Handbook. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/68440/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html JOHN BROMYARD’S SUMMA PRAEDICANTIUM: AN EXPLORATION OF LATE-MEDIEVAL FALSITY THROUGH A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY PREACHING HANDBOOK Alexander William Holland Doctor of Philosophy in Medieval and Early Modern Studies University of Kent 91,417 words May 2018 1 CONTENTS Abbreviations – p. 2 Introduction – p. 3 PART 1 – p. 19 Chapter 1 – The life and works of John Bromyard, p. 19 Chapter 2 – The manuscripts and printed editions, p. 59 Chapter 3 – The function and composition of the Summa Praedicantium, p. 81 Chapter 4 – The circulation and use of the Summa Praedicantium, p. 128 PART 2 – p. 162 Chapter 5 – The sources and construction of the chapter Falsitas, p. 172 Chapter 6 – Truth and falsity, p. 185 Chapter 7 – Justice, power and authority, p. 215 Chapter 8 – Knowledge and identity, p. 237 Conclusion – p. 267 APPENDICES Appendix A – A list of identifications, p. 277 Appendix B – Citations in the Summa Praedicantium, p. 280 Appendix C – Prologus: transcription and translation, p. 298 Appendix D – Falsitas: transcription and translation, p. 306 Bibliography – p. 357 2 ABBREVIATIONS BRUO – A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford CBMLC – Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum DMLBS – Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources DNB – Dictionary of National Biography MF – Manipulus Florum ODNB – Oxford Dictionary of National Biography SP – Summa Praedicantium ST – Summa Theologica 3 INTRODUCTION The Summa Praedicantium In this thesis I examine how the idea of falsity was employed by an orthodox preacher during the late Middle Ages as a means of constructing and preserving ‘truth’. In order to do so, I focus on the Summa Praedicantium, an encyclopaedic preaching handbook compiled in the first half of the fourteenth century by the Dominican friar John Bromyard. In addition to a prologue, the Summa contains 189 chapters organised alphabetically, from Abiectio to Xps (Christus). Many of these deal with purely religious themes, whilst others are concerned with more secular issues such as political theory, commerce and social relations. Some, such as Falsitas, contain significant elements of both. In principle, a preacher could extract arguments, exempla and authorities from the Summa in order to create his own sermons, or to incorporate them within other homiletic and didactic texts. The work is large, containing over 14,000 citations and 1200 exempla. In the earliest surviving manuscript (a substantial codex that can be dated to the middle of the fourteenth century), the text covers 629 folios. There are two complete extant manuscript copies of the Summa, and a third which contains two parts of a three volume set. Additionally, there are two distinct abbreviated versions of the text. The most comprehensive of these (with regards to the number of chapters abridged) may be found in two fifteenth-century manuscripts, one of which only possesses the chapters from A to L. An alternative abbreviated version has been included in a fifteenth-century miscellany; this manuscript also contains – amongst a variety of other religious texts – two further extracts from the Summa. Between 1484 and 1627 the full version of the text was printed seven times on the continent, but no modern edition has ever been published.1 Peter Binkley had hoped remedy this state of affairs by publishing a scholarly edition in the late 1990s, but the project failed to materialise. In addition to the Summa, a number of other texts have been attributed to John Bromyard, three of which are extant. The most important of these is the Tractatus Iuris Ciuilis et Canonici, a preaching handbook whose argumentation derives from canon and civil law sources. Two sets of sermons also survive: the Exhortationes and the Distinctiones. 1 Details of the manuscripts and early printed editions are included in Chapter 2, pp. 59-80. 4 Most scholars have become acquainted with John Bromyard through the work of G.R. Owst, whose two volumes on preaching extensively mined the Summa for witty, informative and curious anecdotes.2 Following in the footsteps of a number of early modern bio- bibliographers, Owst mistook the author of the Summa for a younger namesake who was active in the latter half of the fourteenth century. Since Owst, a number of unpublished PhD theses have considered specific aspects of the text, whilst a scattering of scholarly articles have also directed attention to the Summa, focussing on topics such as sorcery, sex and misogyny. More frequently, however, Bromyard must settle for a much briefer appearance in academic works. The majority of these publications cherry-pick excerpts from the Summa as a means of propping up an argument, and although there are many valid reasons for adopting this strategy, it comes replete with the obvious drawbacks of a cut-and-paste approach, taking the material out of its original context. In so doing, there is an evident tendency to see the Summa as a mirror of medieval society, rather than as a text which was actively participating in contemporary conversations. The bio-bibliographical record from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century Present scholarship is still indebted to the medieval and early-modern bio-bibliographical tradition which furnished important details concerning Bromyard’s life and works. However, that tradition has also embedded several confusing and misleading traps into the narrative. Thus, at various times Bromyard has been portrayed as three distinct individuals: John, William, and Philip. He was apparently active in the late thirteenth century when the Dominican Order was in the throes of youthful vigour, but was nevertheless still fighting Wycliffites into the early fifteenth century. In more modern times, he has been variously described as ‘doctor’, ‘abbot’ and ‘bishop’, none of which are consistent with the known facts.3 Delving into this web of rumour feels akin to unravelling a Gordian knot; it is, however, a worthwhile endeavour. Indeed, although the following summary of bio-bibliographical accounts may appear somewhat 2 G.R. Owst, Preaching in Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926), and Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1961). 3 Owst, in particular, was adamant that the author of the Summa Praedicantium was ‘Doctor Bromyard’: see n. 2. Brian Stone calls Bromyard an abbot: Brian Stone (ed.), Medieval English Verse (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), p. 15. John Cox calls Bromyard a bishop: John Cox, Shakespeare and the Dramaturgy of Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), p. 37. 5 repetitive, it should also prove useful to modern scholars. Digitalisation has made many of these texts more accessible, but they are still difficult to navigate, not least because of the obscure Latin abbreviations they tend to employ for individuals and sources. John Bromyard first enters the bio-bibliographical record in the Catalogus Scriptorum Ecclesie, a bibliography of ecclesiastical writers and their works composed by Henry Kirkestede, prior of Bury St Edmunds.4 Henry compiled the Catalogus in about 1360 whilst serving as novice master and librarian of the abbey. Two records pertain to Bromyard: the first refers to a ‘Johannes de Bromyerd’ who had written a ‘Tabulam de iure canonico et ciuili moraliter’; the second refers to a ‘Wilhelmus Brumyard Anglicus frater praedicator [qui] floruit A. Ch. 1349’, who was the author of a ‘Distincciones’ and a ‘Summa bona quae vocatur Brumyard.’5 The modern editors of the Catalogus, Richard and Mary Rouse, identify Johannes and Wilhemus as the same individual. John Bromyard next appears in the Tabula Quorundam Doctorum Ordinis Praedicatorum, a list of Dominican writers composed in 1414 by the Spanish friar Louis of Valladolid, O.P. (c. 1380-1426).6 Louis names ‘Johannes Bromiardi’ as the author of a tract ‘secundum ordinem alfabeti moralizando iura canonica et civilia’.7 A generation later, Albert of Castile (c.1460-1522) composed a brief chronicle of the Order of Preachers, a text which also contains bio-bibliographical records of important Dominican authors including Bromyard.8 Two entries are relevant, one of which refers to a ‘Ioannes Bromiord, anglicus’ and the other to a ‘Ioannes Broviardi’. Albert attributes eight works to Bromiord (Summa Praedicantium, two sets of Sermones de tempore et sancti, 4 Henry of Kirkestede, Catalogus de Libris Autenticis et Apocrafis, ed. by Rouse and Rouse, CBMLC, 11 (London: British Library, 2004). For a brief biography, see R. H. Rouse, ‘Kirkestede, Henry (b. c.1314, d. in or after 1378)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2942> [accessed 18 Aug 2017]. 5 Henry of Kirkestede, Catalogus, pp. 341-42, 511. 6 Heribert Christian Scheeben (ed.), ‘Die Tabulae Ludwigs von Valladolid im Chor der Predigerbrüder vom St.