CHAPTER FIVE
ROBERT GROSSETESTE’S THEOLOGY OF PASTORAL CARE
James R. Ginther
In 1250, Robert Grosseteste (ca. 1170–1253), bishop of Lincoln, made his way from his diocese in England to Lyon in order to present a dossier of complaint before the papal court.1 Th e catalyst for these documents had been the Archbishop of Canterbury, Boniface of Savoy (r. 1241–1270). When he had become archbishop he found the archdi- ocese saddled with tremendous debt and so soon implemented a taxa- tion policy that some of his suff ragans found unbearable. Th at policy became even more problematic when the archbishop insisted on mak- ing formal visitations to various dioceses, each of which included some rather steep procurations.2 Opposing these policies in normal circum- stances would have been diffi cult, but given the fact that Boniface was a creature of Henry III (and that he had strengthened that royal con- nection by his niece’s marriage to Henry) the archbishop appeared to be wholly untouchable. However, by the end of the 1240s a number of English bishops, out of frustration, selected Grosseteste to represent their concerns at the court of pope Innocent IV. Th eir selection of Grosseteste was no doubt based on his reputa- tion for tenacity and blunt speech.3 Th ey were hardly disappointed.
1 Th ere is no comprehensive, critical biography of Grosseteste, but Francis S. Ste- venson, Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln: A Contribution to the Religious, Political and Intellectual History of the Th irteenth Century(London, 1999), remains useful for a general narrative. More recent studies are James McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste (Oxford, 2000) and Richard W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste: Th e Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1986; revised 1990). More focused research can be found in James R. Ginther, Master of the Sacred Page: A Study of the Th eology of Robert Grosseteste, ca. 1229/30–1235 (Aldershot, 2004) and Robert Grosseteste and the Begin- nings of a British Th eological Tradition: Papers delivered at the Grosseteste Colloquium held at the Greyfriars, Oxford on 3rd July 2002, ed. M. O’Carroll (Rome, 2003). 2 On procurations connected to visitation, see C.R. Cheney, Episcopal Visitation of Monasteries in the Th irteenth Century (Manchester, 1931), pp. 104–118. 3 Southern, Grosseteste, pp. 252–257, describes how Grosseteste in 1235 clashed with the royal court, the English bishops, and the papal legate over the problem of legitimizing bastard children. 96 james r. ginther
Grosseteste entered into the court records a dossier of six documents, all of which together made a formidable case against the archbishop.4 His opening speech for his memorandum, read aloud on his behalf by a cardinal deacon, made it clear that the archbishop was a threat to pastoral care in England. Grosseteste laid out the four specifi c com- plaints of the English bishops: (1) that the archbishop was permit- ting more and more ecclesiastical entities to be exempt from episcopal visitation; (2) that secular authorities were interfering in the bishops’ pursuit of immoral behavior; (3) that the archbishop was permitting a greater number of appeals against episcopal judgments; and fi nally (4), the archbishop’s visitations were becoming fi nancially and administra- tively oppressive.5 Th is was the clarity that Grosseteste’s fellow bishops were hoping for. Th at clarity, however, came at the expense of Grosseteste’s propen- sity to cast his arguments in the starkest of terms. Grosseteste framed the archbishop’s behavior within a broader context of ecclesial mal- aise: while the history of the church has been a great expansion of the faith throughout the whole world, that expansion has been narrowed as if it is now in a small corner. Infi - delity has taken over a large part of the world and has separated it from Christ. Schism has separated the majority of the
4 Servus Gieben, “Robert Grosseteste at the Papal Curia, Lyons, 1250: Edition of the Documents,” Collectanea Franciscana 41 (1971), 340–393. I cite this as Lyon Dossier, ed. Gieben, with the appropriate pagination. Gieben’s edition includes eight docu- ments, but two were added to the dossier aft er 1250. For a diplomatic analysis of the memorandum, see Joseph Goering, “Robert Grosseteste at the Papal Court,” in A Dis- tinct Voice: Medieval Studies in Honor of Leonard E. Boyle, OP, ed. J. Brown and W.P. Stoneman (Notre Dame, IN, 1997), pp. 253–276. 5 Lyon Dossier, ed. Gieben, pp. 363–365. 6 Ibid., p. 353: “. . . coarctata est velut in anguli brevis angustiam. Plurimam namque mundi partem occupavit infi delitas et a Christo separavit. De parte vera dicta christiana magnam partem separavit a Christo schisma. De parte autem residua, quae respectu duarum praenominatarum admodum ut puto et parva est et pauca, non modicam portionem separavit a Christo haeretica pravitas. Quasi autem totalitatem residui con- corporaverunt diabolo et a Christo separaverunt VII criminalia peccata . . .”