Preaching and History: the Audience of Ranulf Higden's Ars Componendi

Medieval Sermon Studies

ISSN: 1366-0691 (Print) 1749-6276 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ymss20

Preaching and History: The Audience of Ranulf Higden’s Ars componendi sermones and Polychronicon

Jane Beal

To cite this article: Jane Beal (2018) Preaching and History: The Audience of Ranulf Higden’s Ars componendisermones and Polychronicon, Medieval Sermon Studies, 62:1, 17-28 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13660691.2018.1529891

Published online: 22 Oct 2018.

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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ymss20 MEDIEVAL SERMON STUDIES 2018, VOL. 62, NO. 1, 17–28 https://doi.org/10.1080/13660691.2018.1529891

Preaching and History: The Audience of Ranulf Higden’s Ars componendi sermones and Polychronicon Jane Beal English Department, University of La Verne, La Verne, CA, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS In his Ars praedicandi sermones, in traditional yet rich metaphoric language, Ranulf Higden; ars Ranulf Higden compares Christ to a fountain, a shepherd, a rock, a lily, a praedicandi sermones; rose, a violet, an elephant, a unicorn, and a youthful bridegroom wooing Polychronicon; John Trevisa; his beloved spouse. Ranulf encourages preachers to use such metaphors Latin; English; audience; preaching manual; preachers; while using them himself, rendering his text a performed example of sermons; Christ what he encourages. This text is clearly linked to two others: Ranulf’s Latin universal history, the Polychronicon, and John Trevisa’s English translation of it. In the Polychronicon, Ranulf relates the life of Christ, utilizing some of his own rhetorical suggestions from his preaching manual. He also depicts a cross-section of good and bad preachers, including Gregory, Wulfstan, Eustas, St Edmund, and one William Long- Beard and his kinsman, who exemplify (in diﬀerent ways) the wisdom conveyed in Ranulf’s instruction in the Ars praedicandi. This essay suggests that the literary relationship between the preaching manual and the Polychronicon supplies additional support for the idea that the audience of the latter was not noblemen exclusively, but also clergymen who preached and had responsibility for the care of souls (cura animae).

‘Preach at all times. If necessary, use words.’ – attributed to Francis of Assisi. Ranulf Higden was a fourteenth-century, Benedictine monk of the monastery of St Werburgh in Chester, England. He joined the abbey in 1299, at a suitable age, and he lived there more than sixty years, passing away in 1363/64. He is buried in a tomb in Chester Cathedral. He spent his years living according to the Benedictine rule, and historical records document only one notable adventure in his life: in 1352, he was summoned to appear before King Edward III with all his chronicles in order to give advice in a royal council (though the matter under consideration is not known today).1 In addition to the usual prayers and labours of a Benedictine monk in a large, influential abbey, Ranulf Hidgen wrote a considerable number of works in Latin, originally intended to instruct and encourage other monks and clergymen – especially monastic preachers. Ranulf was prodigious and capacious of thought, producing a preaching manual, a mirror for curates, and a universal history of the world – his Ars componendi sermones, Speculum curatorum, and Polychronicon – each of which he ‘signed’ with acrostics that were formed by the first letters of chapters of the works and included his name. He also probably authored a treatise on the teaching of Latin grammar, another on the ecclesiastical calendar, and a collection of sermons.2 Among these works, his Polychronicon is the most influential. It was translated by John Trevisa before 1387 and by an anonymous translator of the fifteenth century. John Trevisa was a Cornishman who attended Exeter and Queen’s College, entered the service of Lord Thomas of Berkeley as a priest,

CONTACT Jane Beal [email protected] © International Medieval Sermon Studies Society 2018 18 J. BEAL and translated other works from Latin into the vernacular English of the fourteenth-century; given his role in expanding Ranulf’s original audience, his English translation is given with Latin quota- tions from Ranulf’s Latin Polychronicon in this essay.3 Trevisa’s version was printed in 1482 by Wil- liam Caxton, who made substantial revisions to the whole and added an eighth book. Caxton’s disciple, Wynkyn de Worde, subsequently re-published Caxton’s modernized version of Trevisa’s English translation of the chronicle in 1495. Given that Ranulf was a preacher and an instructor of preachers, it can come as little surprise that his chronicle as well as his preaching manual reflect his calling. Indeed, close reading of both texts shows that the Polychronicon implements certain instructions from the preaching manual, specifi- cally in representations of Christ and depictions of preachers.4 Such representations make the Poly- chronicon relevant to the preachers of sermons who might access it. The chronicle thus can be viewed as functioning in a way akin to Ranulf’s Speculum curatorum, albeit in another genre: the universal history. The Ars componendi sermones of Ranulf Higden clearly sets forth why a preacher must preach: to increase the spread of divine worship, to illuminate the Church Militant, and to inflame mankind’s affection towards the divine, and, of course, ‘to promote salvation’.5 By identifying the preacher’s goal, Ranulf intimates his own: instructing preachers in the most effective means of promoting salvation. Ranulf’s instruction thus centres on the person of Christ, who is, for the writer, both the author and the subject of salvation. In the Ars componendi sermones, in traditional yet rich metaphoric language, Ranulf compares Christ to a fountain, a shepherd, a rock, a lily, a rose, a violet, an elephant, and a unicorn, but he most frequently compares him to a youthful bridegroom wooing his beloved spouse. The spouse is variously understood as the Virgin Mary, the Church, and the individual human soul.6 Ranulf encourages preachers to use such metaphors while using them himself, rendering his text intricately performative: a ‘saying’ that is also a ‘doing’.7 His text explains exempla by exemplifying and sermons by sermonizing, and his instruction manual is designed to encourage formulaic oral performance (i.e., preaching) which should, in turn, promote salvation. The performativity of Ranulf’s rhetoric is, perhaps, not so different from that of other authors of preaching manuals, yet its effect appears in an unusual place: the Polychronicon. In the chronicle, among other things, Ranulf relates the life of Christ, utilizing some of his own rhetorical suggestions from his preaching manual. He also depicts a cross-section of good and bad preachers, including Gregory, Wulfstan, Eustas, St Edmund, and one William Long-Beard and his kinsman, all of whom provide historical documentation, as it were, for the wisdom of Ranulf’s instruction in the Ars componendi sermones. In order to understand the literary relationship between Ranulf’s preaching manual and his chronicle, it will be useful first to consider the genre of preaching manuals and then the specific contents of Ranulf’s particular preaching manual.

The medieval genre of ars praedicandi As James J. Murphy outlines in Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, the art of preaching had a long history that, for Christians, had roots in ancient Jewish synagogue practices as well as the example of Christ. Augustine codiﬁed ‘preaching theory’ in De doctrina Christiana, where, among other things, he out- lined three functions of rhetorical eloquence – teaching, delighting and persuading – and advised preachers: ‘But for us to be listened to with obedient compliance, whatever the grandeur of the speak- er’s utterances, his manner of life carries more weight’.8 Gregory the Great put it more succinctly when he observed: ‘Whose life is despised, his preaching is held in contempt’.9 Thus Augustine and Gregory emphasized that not only the sermon, but also the preacher himself must teach by exemplum. This instruction would become a major aspect of later sermon manuals, especially in the thirteenth century. As Claire Waters observes, ‘The appropriate interaction of life and teaching, of preaching and practice, and the signiﬁcance of that interaction, is one of the main topics of the artes praedicandi’.10 The thought emerged in early sermon manuals like Gregory the Great’s Cura MEDIEVAL SERMON STUDIES 19

Pastoralis (AD 591), Rabanus Maurus’s De Institutione Clericorum, Guibert of Nogent’s Liber quo Ordine Sermo Fieri Debeat (AD 819), and Alain de Lille’s De Arte Praedicatoria (AD 1199?) as well.11 In the thirteenth century, the ars praedicandi genre emerged fully. Sermon manuals typically defined preaching, explained how to compose sermons (often ‘thematic’ ones), and instructed preachers about how to live holy, exemplary lives. In these manuals, as Marianne G. Briscoe notes, summarizing Alan de Lille, preaching ‘is speech to a public group concerning their faith and morals. The purpose of preaching is to form (or reform) mankind. The methods used are reason and the citation of “authority”, the medieval term used to refer to the writings of Scripture, the Fathers, some classical authors, and other more contemporary, accepted sources’.12 Alan de Lille not only defined preaching, but its form in a thematic sermon; his work became the model for later manuals and sermon definitions (or, as Briscoe puts it, the ‘unchallenged paradigm for sermon practice and the preaching manual’s instruction for as long as new medieval artes were written’).13 The form consisted of several parts:

1) a text or quotation from a theological authority, called the thema (hence, ‘thematic’ sermons), with preference given to selections from the Evangelists, Psalms, Epistles of Paul or books of Solomon; 2) the ‘humble demeanour of the preacher himself’ which was intended to win the good will of the audience; 3) the exposition of the theme; 4) the citation of other authorities in support of the theme and its interpretation; 5) the use of emotional words and exempla to illustrate the theme (though irrelevant rhetorical ﬁgures and confusing demonstrations of logic ought to be avoided).14

These elements helped make up the sermon genre; details which fall under these headings deter- mined the type of sermon being preached.15 In addition to deﬁning preaching and the form of preaching, i.e. sermons and how to compose them, Alan de Lille and other composers of preaching manuals considered how preachers could best conduct themselves. As Waters notes, ‘While many of the artes are primarily rhetorical manuals on the construction of a sermon, most contain some attention to other matters – anything from the preacher’s morality, to his gestures, his subject matter, his deportment, even his clothing’.16 Authors of preaching handbooks were thus concerned not only with what was said and how it was said, but with the character of the one who said it. Ranulf’s Ars praedicandi is, in most ways, typical of the genre of which it is a part. It begins with a preface that outlines its structure:

When one is skilfully making sermons, certain general factors must be considered, in particular, the selection of a theme, its introduction, the division of the principal parts and the development or subdivision of the principal divisions, the extension of the subdivision of the members, and their amplification.17 In the chapters which follow, Ranulf teaches how the parts of a sermon may be composed along these lines. Ranulf asserts the importance of a preacher’s character and a sermon’s qualities in his opening chapter: ‘Three things are necessary in the preacher: the correctness of his intention, the holiness of his behaviour, and aptitude for public speaking. A sermon should also possess three qualities: rel- evance of the theme, correctness of the division, and usefulness of development’.18 His twinned emphases, on the preacher’s character and the sermon’s qualities, is borne out in the remaining nine- teen chapters of the handbook. The first three chapters concern the preacher’s character while the fourth focuses on taking suitable care to speak properly. Chapters 5–10 concern the suitability of the theme, its relation to the topic, its biblical origin, proper division and agreement. Chapter 11 concerns the protheme, chapter 12 the introduction of the sermon and prayer for grace, and chapter 13 the enticement of the audience. Chapters 14–16 concern the introduction and division of the theme while chapters 17–20 concern the elaboration of the sermon. As Jennings notes, Ranulf’s ‘delightful medieval bias’ emerges in 20 J. BEAL his ‘acceptance of an allegorical signification for biblical names, in his scriptural exposition which allows for historical, tropological, allegorical and/or anagogical approaches, and in his care to dis- tinguish the Parisian preaching patterns from those in use in Oxford’.19 He also makes use of the Aristotelian argumentative devices of induction, syllogism, and enthymeme, and he notes such con- cepts as universals and particulars, genera and species, substance and accidents,20 while focusing above all on the importance of clarity and the person of Christ.

Imitatio Christi in Ranulf’s Ars componendi sermones Christ and the salvation that comes through him is Ranulf’s whole reason for composing a preaching manual. The depiction of Christ in the Ars componendi sermones becomes important not only for this most obvious reason, but because Christ was the model preacher for later Christian preachers as well as the subject of many of their sermons, whether directly or indirectly. As James J. Murphy notes:

Christ set a model for Christian preachers in several ways. Most importantly, he confirmed and reinforced the Judaic practice of using Scripture as proof; he distinguished carefully between parables and ‘direct’ discourse; he distinguished between evangelizing (announcement) and teaching (exposition of doctrine); and finally he made constant comparison of earthly and divine through the use of analogy and metaphor. Each of these features runs through Christian preaching even to the present, but they are especially prominent in the medieval period.21 So, for medieval preachers, Christ was the ideal example, one worthy of imitation. Ranulf himself makes clear that preachers are imitatores of Christ when he writes, ‘According to Gregory, Christ taught good and true things and nevertheless he suffered evil things, but He who is always “a strong- hold in times of trouble” (Psalms 9. 10) comforted Him. So it is for the imitators of Christ, that is, preachers’.22 A review of Ranulf’s references to Christ and depictions of him in the Ars componendi sermones illustrates Christ’s centrality to the medieval preaching mission and, more particularly, relates to Ranulf’s depiction of Christ in the Polychronicon, a connection which suggests that the universal history, like the sermon manual, served to instruct monastic preachers – and once the Poly- chronicon was translated into English by John Trevisa, a much wider audience. The title ‘Christ’ appears forty times in Ranulf’s preaching manual, but there are several more references to Jesus by titles like ‘Son of God’, ‘Lord’, ‘Crucified One’, and ‘Risen One’. In many instances, as the context makes clear, Ranulf uses a quotation from the Old Testament to allude to Christ. He especially meditates on a verse from one of the prophets, Isaiah 62. 5: ‘The young man shall dwell with the maiden’.23 It appears in the sermon manual, in whole or in part, no less than eight times, and each time Ranulf further explicates it or relates it to his subject. Ranulf is clearly enamoured with the biblical imagery of the Bridegroom Christ and his Bride, who is variously Mary, the individual human soul, or the Christian Church, the New Israel, though Ranulf is most interested in making the young man signify Christ and the maid, Mary, as his first long meditation on the verse shows.

Likewise, on the Lord’s Annunciation, the theme [might be], ‘The young man shall dwell with the virgin’ [Isaiah 62. 5]. This can be introduced through Sacred Scripture. In the Law [Torah] it was taught that the high priest might not take as his wife either a divorcee or a harlot, but only a virgin from his tribe. But since about the Son of God it says, ‘You are a priest forever’ [Psalms 109. 4], and so forth, he ought to be associated with the virgin. Although this is mystically authenticated about Christ and his Church according to the Apostle in Corinthians, ‘I betrothed you to one spouse [that I might present you] a chaste virgin’ and so forth, this was literally authenticated about Christ and the glorious Virgin with whom he began today to dwell as his mother, wife, and sister as Isaias foresaw saying, ‘The young man will dwell with the virgin’.24 Ranulf introduces this passage as an example, one meant to teach the preacher how to select his thema, the scriptural passage on which he will preach on a given Sunday. In the paragraphs which follow, Ranulf explains how one might introduce such a theme: by philosophic or poetic writing, a proof such as an induction, example, syllogism or enthymeme, or by a simile from nature. In MEDIEVAL SERMON STUDIES 21 his discussion of an introductory simile, Ranulf uses a vivid metaphorical language in order to further depict Christ in relation to Mary.

Again, this theme is introduced, as follows, as a similitude from nature. The strongest animals, the elephant and the unicorn, are captured in this manner: the elephant becomes mild through the song of the virgin and the unicorn grows tame on the lap of a virgin; so also, having been shown the breasts of a virgin, is the most powerful son of God, as is said in Luke, blessed is the womb that for the and the breasts that nursed thee [Luke 11. 27]. [The most powerful son of God] was softened by the song of a virgin when she sang, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord’ [Luke 1. 38]. Similar to the ferocious unicorn is God’s Son who destroyed those men and angels who opposed him and aspired to what was beyond them; but he became mild like the unicorn when he grew [the body for] his sacrifice in the lap of the virgin, thereby fulfilling Isaias, ‘The young man will dwell with the virgin’.25 In this passage, Ranulf predominantly uses two metaphors, wherein the signifiers are an elephant and a unicorn and the one signified is Christ. He depicts these noble animals in their legendary relation to a virgin whom he takes as representative of the Virgin Mary.26 Ranulf’s interest in the relationship of Christ and Mary in the sermon manual is mirrored in the Polychronicon, within which Mary’s vir- ginal conception of Christ becomes a main topic in the section devoted to the vita Christi.

The Vita Christi in Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon Ranulf’s life of Christ in the Polychronicon is set in historical context. Ranulf introduces Christ in a discussion of John the Baptist at the end of Book III, and then opens Book IV with the precise (medieval) date of Christ’s conception, which he believed had occurred in March. According to the medieval historical worldview, shaped by the Patristic writers, the sixth age of the world begins with Christ.27 Ranulf makes something of the typological relation between the first Adam and the second, Christ, then mentions (citing Marianus) that Christ’s conception occurred seven days before April and his crucifixion, eight days before. Ranulf then gives some consideration to the number of days and nights Christ spent in the tomb before commencing Christ’s life proper. In relating the vita Christi, he draws primarily on the Gospel of Luke and the work of Bede. Ranulf tells the familiar story, beginning with the events surrounding the nativity, including Mary’s conception and visit to Elizabeth her cousin, and Joseph’s discovery of her pregnancy and decision to keep her as his promised bride (after an angel intervenes). He continues by discussing the census that led the couple to Bethlehem, Christ’s birth and circumcision, the visit of the kings (Epiphany), Christ’s presentation at the Temple for circumcision as an infant, and the flight into Egypt to escape Herod and the slaughter of the innocents. Ranulf then gives a long interpolation on the dates of Christ’s conception, birth, and death, referring especially to Bede’s De Temporibus. The first chapter of Book IV concludes on this note. In the succeeding pages, Ranulf relates three stories of miracles that occurred at Christ’s nativity, all of which are directly connected to the miracle of Mary giving birth virginally. Citing Martinus, Ranulf says Romulus set an image of gold in his palace which would not fall until a maid bore a child. It fell when Christ was born (the first miracle) as did a temple in Rome (the second miracle). Ranulf’s third miracle concerns Caesar, who saw heaven open and a maid standing on an altar with a child in her arms when he heard a voice say, ‘This is God’s son’. So Caesar himself fell down at that visionary moment. Theologically speaking, the repeated image of falling in response to the birth of Christ is a symbolic representation of worship. Falling down in worship is thus figured as the appropriate response to Christ’s majesty and the miracle of the virgin birth. Thematically speaking, this relates to Ranulf’s meditation in the Ars componendi sermones, ‘The young man will dwell with the maiden’, for Christ himself chooses to ‘fall down’ from heaven, to clothe his divinity in humanity, and become the father, husband, and brother of Mary and all mankind. Clearly, Ranulf’s depiction of Christ in the Ars componendi sermones is more imagistic while the representation of Christ in the Polychronicon is more concerned with a series of events understood to be historical – perhaps naturally so, since the character of the depictions suits the genre in which each 22 J. BEAL appears. However, the Christ of each text is related, not only by the subject (Christ himself) and the author (Ranulf), but by the interesting fact that the Polychronicon illustrates the instruction given in the Ars componendi sermones. The Polychronicon uses miraculous examples to confirm the historical effect of the ‘young man’ dwelling with the ‘maiden’. In the Polychronicon, Ranulf tells of two other natural wonders that happened when Christ was born. Nato Domino fons olei trans Tiberim de Taberna Emeritoria per totum diem effluxit, et circulus circa solem apparuit (‘Whanne oure Lorde was ybore a welle of oyle sprange byyonde Tyber oute of the taverne Emeritoria and ran all a day, and a cercle was seen aboute the sunne’).28 This sentence opens the second chapter of Book IV of the Polychronicon and signifies Christ’s birth. It also corresponds to Ranulf’s depiction of Christ as fountain in the beginning Chapter XIII of the Ars componendi sermones. In the sermon manual, Ranulf is demonstrating how to win over an audience.

It is expedient for the preacher, as long as this is inoﬀensive to God, that from the start he render his audience willing and attentive listeners and concerned about following the argument. This can be done in many ways. In the ﬁrst one, let something unusual, subtle, and curious be proposed – possibly [the narrative] of some auth- entic miracle – which is able to be applied to the topic and attract the audience. For example, if the theme were ‘a spring rose out of the earth’ [Genesis 2. 6], reference to a certain fountain in Cicilia which Gerald of Wales talks about his Topographia hiberniae can be made:

Whenever anyone dressed in a red gown approached this fountain, immediately water was released from it; however, the fountain remained undisturbed in the face of anyone clothed otherwise. That fountain is Christ, about whom it is said in Ecclesiasticus, ‘The word of God on high is a fountain of wisdom’ [Ecclesiasticus 1. 5]. One approaching it in a red gown, that is Christ during his passion, draws forth the living waters of grace. Indeed, by the ﬂowing blood Christ, ‘the earth quaked and the rocks were rent’ [Matthew 27. 51]. Unless they are harder than rocks, how much more ought your hearts to be moved and split open at the call of the word of God.29 In the sermon manual, Ranulf encourages preachers to ‘preach some mysterious, subtle and curious thing’ to get audience attention; in the universal chronicle, Ranulf opens a chapter on the life of Christ with just such a thing. Most interestingly, the ‘curious thing’ is a fountain in both cases, one of water and the other of oil, both signifying Christ, the ﬁrst his death and the second his birth. As before, when the Polychronicon mirrored the theme of Isaiah 62. 5 that is emphasized in the Ars componendi sermones, so here: Ranulf uses a fountain as the ‘curious thing’ to appeal to the audience of the Polychronicon just as he encouraged preachers to use a fountain as the ‘curious thing’ to introduce their sermons. In addition, at the most basic level of comparison, Ranulf clearly represents Christ as preacher in the Polychronicon, thus alluding to the example, Christ, whom he exhorts preachers to imitate in his preaching manual. In Book IV of the universal history, the chronicler notes Christ’s baptism, temptation, and three-year ministry, in which Christ coepit praedicare et baptizare (‘to preche and cristene’)30 and after healing a man, he ascendit in montem, ubi duodecim apostolos elegit, quod ad praedicandum misit (‘wente up into the hill: there he chees the xii aposteles and sent theim for to preche’).31 Trevisa’s translation, ‘up into the hill’ is a clear allusion to the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. 1: ‘Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them’. The notion of Christ as preacher in Book IV is complemented in the Polychronicon by later stories of preachers, both good and bad, who serve to remind preachers in Ranulf’s audience of what they should and should not be, do or say.

Preachers in the Polychronicon In addition to following the historical fortunes of the preaching orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, Ranulf considers three admirable preachers, Wulfstan, Eustas, and Edmund, and two detestable ones, one William and his kinsman. Later medieval preachers could look back on these earlier ones in the pages of the Polychronicon and see their role reflected in the past. From MEDIEVAL SERMON STUDIES 23 the examples Ranulf gives, preachers could see the rhetorical power of preaching employed for good or ill effect. In Book VII, Chapter 8, Ranulf re-tells the life story of Wulfstan, bishop of Worchester, drawing on William of Malmesbury’s De Pontificibus Book I, Chapter 3. Among other things, Ranulf relates the effect of Wulfstan’s sermonem de pace ad populum.

Hic dum semel sermonem de pace ad populum faceret multi ad pacem redirent. Unus autem corum nullo suasu, nec etiam episcopi, rogatu, concordare voluit. Cui in medium adducto ait episcopus, ‘Scriptum est Beati pacifici; ergo non pacifici sunt miseri et filii diavoli. Illi ergo cujus es te commendo donec resipiscas’, et statim ille mancipium hostis effectus coepit dentibus stridere, spumas jacere, caput rotare. Qui tamen a Wul- stano sanatus, cum pacem repudiaret, iterum et tertio arreptus est ab hoste, quousque offensam dimitteret. (In a tyme he made a sermoun of the pees to the peple, and meny men tornede to love and to pees. But oon there was that wolde nought be acorded in none wise, neyther for resoun, ne for skile, nother for prayeng of the bisshop. He stod bifore the bisshop, and the bisshop seide to hym, ‘It is i-write, ‘Men of pees beeth i-blessed;’ than they that beeth nougt men of pees, beeth wrecches, and the develes children. Thanne but thou amende the, I betake the to hym that hath the as his owne childe’; and anon he was made the enemyes his maunciple, he gan to ligge and to fome, to grisbite and to grynde with the teeth, and to caste his heed aboute. Wolstoun helede hym agen, but he wolde nougt of pees; thanne the fend had hym eft at the thridde tyme, forto he hadde foryeven al manere of trespas.)32 The anecdote reveals the power of preaching to turn men to peace. It also reveals that not every lis- tener will respond positively to a positive message. The conflict between the bishop and the furious, apparently demon-possessed man is both extreme and threatening, yet Ranulf shows the bishop act- ing with authority to bind the angry man until he had forgiven ‘al manere of trespas’ (offensam dimitteret). Forgiveness, in this anecdote, appears to be the key to the angry man’s freedom. The incident is a memorable one, particularly given the angry man’s physical reactions (grisbyting, teeth gryndy- ing, and head casting about), which makes it the more likely to be noticed by a preacher reading or listening to the Polychronicon. Indeed, the vividness of the moment corresponds to Ranulf’s advice in the Ars componendi sermones ‘to frighten the congregation from the outset with some terrible story or exemplum’,33 a method that ensures the audience will be paying attention. The effects of Wulfstan’s sermon are contextualized by the significant events of his life, including, among other things, that he managed to retain his episcopate when William the Conqueror would have deprived him of it: cum rex Willelmus conquestor propter literature insufficientiam et Gallicae linguae carentiam eum privare intenderet (‘for unsufficiant of lettrure, and also for he kowthe no Frensche’).34 A contemporary preacher listening to a reading from this portion of the Polychronicon might have taken comfort from the notion that Wulfstan’s spiritual authority was not contingent upon his literacy. Even in his death, Wulfstan retained his sanctity; no ashes fell on his grave when the church beside it burned down. The holiness that protected Wulfstan before the angry man and preserved even his grave from the stain of soot might also protect and preserve the fourteenth-century preacher if he imitated this bishop. In a second case, in Book VII, Chapter 32, Ranulf relates the story of Eustas, abbot of Flai. The power of Eustas’s preaching does not, in this instance, bind angry men, but instead produces miracles.

Hoc anno venit in Angliam Eustachius abbas de Flay praedicare verbum Dei, et fecit multa miracula, inter quae benedixit fontem de Wy juxta Cantuariam, de quo potante ceperunt sospitatem. Nam et mulier daemoniaca ibidem bibens evomit duos nigros bufones qui cito conversi sunt in canes, deinde in grandes asinos, qui ascen- dentes in aera foeda post se vestigia reliquerunt. Effecit Eustachius sua praedicatione ut multi usuras dimitte- rent, mercata per diem dominicum non tenerent, ut lumen indeficiens ante corpus dominicum in ecclesiis haberent, ut proceres discum eleemosynarium in mensa foverent. Ipsi tandem Eustachio alici praelatorum invi- dentes dixerunt, ‘Non licet tibi falcem ponere in messem alienam’. Quibus ille dixit, ‘Messis quidem multa, sed operarii pauci’, et sic dicessit in Normanniam Mirabile. (This yere Eustas abbot of Flai cam in to Engelond forto preche Goddes word, and dede meny miracles: among the myracles he blessed the welle of Wy besides Caunter- bury, and sike men that dronke therof had her heele; ffor a womman that hadde a fende with inne her dranke therof, and caste up tweye blake taddes, that tornede anon in to houndes, and than in to grete asshes, and fliy up in to the ayer, and lefte foule soores after hem. This Eustas by his prechynge made meny men leve userie and 24 J. BEAL

chepynge and feyres in the Sonday; he made that ligt schulde brenne always in cherches to fore Goddes body, and that lordes at the borde schulde have almes disches. At the laste som prelates hadde envie to this Eustas, and seide to hym, ‘Thou hast no leve to sette thyn hook in other men ripe’. ‘There is moche corn to rype’, quod he, ‘and fewe workmen’; and so he wente into Normandie.)35 Eustas arrives in England as a missionary to praedicare verbum Dei (‘preche Goddes word’). He blesses a well which then cures the sick, and he exorcizes a woman’s demon. The miraculous effect of Eustas’ preaching is complemented by moral, liturgical, and social effects: men quit usury and fairs on Sunday; light burns in symbolic reverence before the consecrated host in church, and rich men keep ‘almes disches’ beside them at supper to remind them of their Christian obligation to the poor. Ironically, the efficacy of Eustas’s preaching produces jealousy amongst English prelates, who inform him that he ought not to be harvesting in their fields. Eustas answers them with a paraphrase of Luke 10. 2, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few; ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send workers into His harvest field’.36 But rather than contest the will of other church leaders, Eustas, in a demonstration of humility, leaves England to minister in Normandy. Again, as with the Bishop Wulfstan, a fourteenth-century preacher reading or listening to the story of Abbot Eustas might find much to admire and imitate. Certainly Eustas’s preaching was efficacious on multiple levels – miraculous, moral, liturgical, and social – and later preachers might hope to be equally effective. The decision to answer an insult from church leaders with scripture is instructive, as is Eustas’s chosen course of action thereafter, which was, apparently, to avoid conflict and serve elsewhere. Only a few chapters later, in Book VII, Chapter 35, Ranulf relates the finely detailed life story of St Edmund, who in addition to being a saint was also a preacher. On three different occasions, Ranulf links Edmund directly to the preaching profession.

Raro in ecclesia edit, sed aut stans aut genua ﬂectens exoravit. In tribus specialiter enituit, nam erat predictor egregarius, disputation acerrimus, lector pius … (Seelde he sat in chirche, but he badde his bedis stondynge other knelynge, ﬀor he was a nobil prechour, a scharp arguer, and a mylde lyster …)

Praedicans apud Oxoniam, Gloverniam, Wygorniam, imbres super populum irruentes precibus avertit … (He preched (praedicans) at Oxenforde, at Gloucetre, and at Wircetre, and reyn that fyl on the peple he made hit torne ayen with his prayeres …)

Allata sibi eucharistia dixit, ‘Tu es, Domine, quem amavi, in quem credidi, quem predicavi, praeter quem aliud non quaesivi’. Et sic sumpto viatico dixit, ‘Homines dicunt quod ludus vadit in ventrem, sed ego dico quod vadat in mentem’. Inde lavans vulnera imaginis crucifixi et deosculans dixit, ‘Haurietis aquas in gaudio de fontibus Salvatoris’. (Whan the sacrament of the auyter was i-brought to hym he seyde, ‘Thou art my Lord, the I have i-loved, in the I have i-trowed, the I have y-prechid (quem praedicavi), the I have i-sought, and non other. Man tellith that it gooth into the wombe, bot y telle that hit goth into the soule and thought’. Than he wesche the woundes of the ymage of the crucifixe, and kussed hem ful swete, and seide, ‘Ye schal kecche up water in ioye of oure Savyour his welles’.)37 Ranulf depicts Edmund first as an exceptional preacher, one whose role is complemented and enhanced by his other strengths as a sharp debater and a devoted reader. Ranulf also represents Edmund as an itinerant preacher, one with pulpits in at Oxford, Gloucester, and Worcester, and ren- ders Edmund’s last prayer before dying one that includes reference to preaching. Indeed, Edmund’s intense devotion to the crucifix is demonstrated in a prayer with a thema, Haurietis aquas in gaudio de fontibus Salvatoris (‘ye schal kecche up water in ioye of oure Savyour his welles’), which might serve well for any sermon – and indeed does, as we shall see in the discussion of William Long-Beard below. As with the bishop and the abbot, St Edmund could serve as a model for later preachers in his exceptional preaching, shrewdness, and piety. Preachers might see Edmund’s itinerant preaching as worthy of imitation and his devotion to the Cross of Christ as exemplary. His devotion was not only saintly, but clearly linked to Edmund’s personal identity, as his prayer makes plain: ‘Thou art my Lord, the I have i-loved, in the I have i-trowed, the I have y-prechid …’ (Trevisa’s translation, my emphasis). MEDIEVAL SERMON STUDIES 25

Most interestingly, only few chapters earlier, in Book VII, Chapter 30, Ranulf tells the story of one William Long-Beard, also known as William Fitz Osbert.38 William uses the same thema which Edmund uses in his prayer as the subject of the only sermon Ranulf includes in the entire Polychro- nicon. This sermon, however, is not articulated by an admirable preacher, but by a man that Ranulf clearly means his audience to detest. He explains that William, among other things, wore a long beard only to seem magis conspicuus et spectabilis (more ‘worthy’ and ‘semelich’ in speaking), falsely accused his own brother of treason (even though his brother had put him through school), veno- mously condemned the private deeds of rich men and excited poor men so hugely to the love and desire for freedom adeo plurimos quasi praestigiis fascinatos sibi devinxit (‘that he socied meny to hym as though they were bewicched rigt with wichcraft’).39 He gathered a following of Lon- doners ready to riot against King Richard, but Hubert, the Archbishop of Canterbury, persuaded them to give pledges of peace. So William, undaunted by the Archbishop, incited the crowd with a sermon in which he claimed he was ‘the savyour of pore men’.

Unde et sumpto de sacris scripturis themate ita exorsus est: Haurietis aquas in gaudio de fontibus salvatoris. ‘Ego’, inquit, ‘sum pauperum Salvator; vos pauperes duras divitum manus experti; haurite nunc de fontibus meis aquas doctrinae salutaris, et hoc cum gaudio, quia jam venit tempus visitations vestrae, ego’, inquit, ‘dividam aquas ab aquis. Aquae nempe populi sunt; dividam ergo populum humilem et fidelem a populo superbo et perfido, dividam electos a reprobis, velut lucem a tenebris’. (And he took a theme of holy writt, and gan to preche in this manere: ‘Haurietis aquas in gaudio de fontibus salvatoris’; that is, ‘Kecheth up water with ioye of the savyour his welles’. ‘Iam’, quoth he, ‘the savyour of pore men; ye beeth pore men, and haveth assayed the hard hondes of ryche men, and now kecheth and laveth up water of hulful lore up of my welles, and that with ioye, for the tyme of youre visitacioun is y-come. Y schal’, quod he, ‘departe and to-dele and departe the peple that is trewe and meke from the peple that is false and proude; y schalde parte good men from evel men, as lygt from derkenesse’.)40 William’s ‘sermon’ contains a not-so-subtle claim that he is Jesus Christ, ‘the savyour’. From this claim, William sets himself up as judge, one who can separate true people from false, good from evil, and, in strikingly Johannine language, ‘light from darkness’. Rather than extrapolate moral interpretation from his theme for his audience’s edification, he applies it directly to himself, asserting that the ‘wells’ are his. The more obvious reading, of course, is that the wells are Christ’s, and this is the interpretation St Edmund gives to the same signifier a scant few chapters later. In effect, St Edmund’s prayer re-reads the thema of William’s sermon, this time, correctly. The sequence of events that follows William’s sermon proves, even without St Edmund’s counter- example, that William’s preaching is not trustworthy. Men of arms approach William to take him, and he slays one of the townsmen among them, then flees with his concubyne cum concubina sua inseparabiliter cohaerente (‘that wolde nevere from hym’) and a few of his men. He takes refuge in a church, which he treats velut castello (‘like a castel with strengthe’)41 but his followers do not come to deliver him as he hopes. Fire and smoke compel him to come forth from the church, and the son of the burgess whom he slew now attacks him, cutting open his stomach with a knife. Afterward, he is drawn and hung, together with nine others. William’s followers then begin to defame the archbishop and revere William as a martyr. William’s kinsman, a priest, begins to preach along these lines, so that people respond by digging up William’s bones to use as relics to heal the sick. But the chronicler’s disapproval of the situation, and more particularly of William, is incontrovertibly clear:

Tantumque invaluit inceptus error ut prudentes quosque fascinasset nisi ea quae de illo gesta cognoverant cau- tius advertissent. Sane excepto eo quod paulo ante captionem suam homicidium comiserai, quod utique cuilibet cordato viro ne pro martyre coleretur sufflicere debuerat. (This error hadde so his forth whan it was bygunne that it wolde have bewicched wys men and redy ne hadde thei rediliche i-take hede to the doynge that thei knewe of this William his dedes; for he slow a man a litel to fore his takynge, and that is ynow for a wise man to knowe that he schulde not be worschipped for a martir.)42 As if this were not enough, Ranulf points out that, in his last confession, William admitted to having sex with a woman in St Mary’s Church and calling on the devil to deliver him when his followers did 26 J. BEAL not. Archbishop Hubert excommunicates William’s kinsman, the priest who preached in his favour, and the people conquievit (‘reste’).43 In contrast to depictions of Wulfstan, Eustas, and Edmund, which contain relatively few inser- tions of authorial judgment in the historical narrative, the depiction of William is highly prejudicial. There can be little doubt of how preacher-readers and other listeners were supposed to respond to William. The language of ‘bewitching’ and ‘witchcraft’ in Trevisa’s translation implies that William was not a preacher, but a witch, or at least that he used the power of preaching to bewitch others for his own self-aggrandizement. Whereas Wulfstan, Eustas, and Edmund reflect virtuous preaching and concomitantly virtuous lives, and thus instruct the preachers in Ranulf’s audience about how to live and preach, the lives of William and his kinsman reflect the absence of virtue in either life or preaching, and teach the audience only by their bad example. Although William’s audience might have been enchanted with him, Ranulf’s will not be, given the chronicler’s characterization of him. As Ranulf points out in the Ars componendi sermones, citing Gregory the Great, ‘Whose life is despised, his preaching is held in contempt’.44

Conclusions The literary relationship between the Ars componendi sermones and the Polychronicon suggests that the latter exemplifies the teachings in the former. This is evident in at least three different areas, dis- cussed above: the meditation on the thema from Isaiah 62. 5, ‘The young man shall dwell with the maiden’, which appears in the sermon manual and is then emphasized through miracle stories in the universal chronicle; the example of the natural wonder of the fountain, symbolizing Christ, which Ranulf encourages preachers to use to appeal to their audiences in the manual and which he himself uses in the beginning of Book IV, Chapter 2 of the Polychronicon to re-commence the vita Christi; and finally, the depiction of Christ as the ideal preacher. The Polychronicon may also be viewed functioning as a kind of ‘mirror for preachers’, like Ranulf Higden’s Speculum curatorum, on account of its stories about preachers.45 Wulfstan, Eustas, and Edmund – a bishop, an abbot, and a saint, and preachers all – serve as imitable models for an audience of fourteenth-century preachers. William and his kinsman, on the other hand, serve to instruct Ranulf’s audience about what they should not imitate. It is worth noting that this material complements John Trevisa’s interest in preaching, which is one reason he may have chosen to translate the Polychronicon: so as to reach, not the monastic preachers who could read and understand Ranulf’s Latin, but other priests and lay preachers seeking to reach a larger audience of vernacular English speakers. In keeping with this aim, the translator may have produced the English Polychronicon for preachers for another reason: the universal chronicle contains large sections quoted or paraphrased from the Latin Vulgate. When Trevisa translated Ranulf’s chronicle, he was also, in effect, translating the Bible for a large audience who better understood (and sometimes only understood) the vernacular. The extent of Trevisa’s Bible translation within the Polychronicon has been little recognized, but examination of it sheds new light on the debate about Trevisa’s possible participation in (or parallel development alongside) the circle of Wycliffite Bible translators and on the reception of the English Polychronicon in late-medieval England.46

Notes 1. John Taylor, The Universal Chronicle of Ranulph Higden (Oxford, 1966), pp. 1–3. For discussion of the broader historical context, see R. V. H. Burne, The Monks of Chester: The History of St. Werburgh’s Abbey (London, 1962). 2. Taylor, The Universal Chronicle, pp. 182–84, which contain Appendix V, ‘Writings by Higden and Writings Attributed to Him’. In addition to the three signed works and the three probable works of Ranulf Higden, other works have been attributed to him, including two collections of Distinctiones and the Abbreviationes Chronicorum. The Chester Cycle of mystery plays was attributed to him in the Tudor period, but these MEDIEVAL SERMON STUDIES 27

plays, written in English, are not in keeping with the Ranulf’s literary career and unlikely to have been written by him (Taylor, The Universal Chronicle, pp. 6–7). See also Margaret Jennings, ‘Higden’s Minor Writings and the Fourteenth Century Church’, Proceedings of the Leeds Literary and Historical Society, 16 (1977), 149–58. 3. On the audience of the Polychronicon, see A. S. G. Edwards, ‘The Influence and Audience of the Polychronicon: Some Observations’, Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Literary and Historical Section, 17 (1980), 113–19; Lister Matheson, ‘Printer and Scribe: Caxton, the Polychronicon, and the Brut’, Speculum, 60 (1985), 593–614; Ralph Hanna III, ‘Sir Thomas Berkeley and his Patronage’, Speculum, 64 (1989), 878– 916; Rita Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic Traditions and Ver- nacular Texts (Cambridge, 1991), and Jane Beal, John Trevisa and the English Polychronicon (Tempe, 2012), esp. chap. 4 ‘Translating Truth: Vernacular Preaching, English Bibles, and Trevisa’s Audience’. 4. Ranulf Higden wrote and re-wrote the Polychronicon over a span of years, thinking first to end it in 1327, then adding material to 1340; later continuations were added by others. For discussion, see V. H. Galbraith, ‘An Autograph Manuscript of Ranulph Higden’s Polychronicon’, The Huntington Library Quarterly, 23 (1959), 1–18. Ranulf’s Ars componendi sermones, which Margaret Jennings dates to 1340, possibly post-dates the ear- liest versions of the chronicle; it probably coincides with the dates of some of his revisions of his chronicle. It is worthwhile to consider the relationship between the two works, as this essay does, for it appears that Ranulf’s ideas expressed in the preaching manual subtly shape certain aspects of the chronicle, including the life of Christ and representation of preachers contained therein. 5. Ranulf Higden, Ars componendi sermones, trans. by Margaret Jennings and Sally A. Wilson, Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations, 2 (Leuven, 2003), p. 34. For the Latin, see The ‘Ars componendi sermones’ of Ranulph Higden, O.S.B., ed. by Margaret Jennings, Davis Medieval Texts and Studies, 6 (Leiden, 1970, repr. 1989, 1991). For contextual discussion, see Margaret Jennings, ‘Monks and the Artes praedicandi in the Time of Ranulph Higden’, Revue Bénédictine, 86 (1976), 119–28. 6. The bride of the Hebrew Bible is Israel; in the Christian New Testament, the Church. The interpretation of the bride as the individual Christian soul originates with Origen’s commentary on the Song of Songs in the second century. Thus, like the Virgin Mary or Mary Magdalene, each Christian soul is a sponsa Christi. This idea was ubiquitous in late-medieval monastic thought and practice. For further discussion, see E. Ann Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia, 1990). 7. See J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, The William James Lectures (Cambridge, MA, 1975). 8. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, ed. and trans. by Edmund Hill (New York, New City Press, 1996), p. 237 (my emphasis). 9. Gregory the Great, Homilarum in evangellia, Lib. I, Hom. xii; cited in Wilson, Concerning the Art of Preaching, p. 6. 10. Claire Waters, Angels and Earthly Creatures: Preaching, Performance, and Gender in the Later Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 2004), p. 2. 11. James J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1974), p. 275. 12. Marianne G. Briscoe, Artes Praedicandi, Typologie des Sources du Moyen Âge Occidental, Fasc. 61 (Turnhout, Brepols, 1992), p. 21. 13. Briscoe, Artes Praedicandi, p. 22. 14. Briscoe, Artes Praedicandi, p. 23 (paraphrased). 15. On sermon types, see Beverly Mayne Kienzle, The Sermon, Typologie des Sources du Moyen Âge Occidental (Turnhout, 2000). 16. Waters, Angels and Earthly Creatures,p.2. 17. Higden, Ars componendi sermones, trans. by Jennings and Wilson, p. 33. 18. Higden, Ars componendi sermones, trans. by Jennings and Wilson, p. 34. 19. Jennings, ‘Introduction’, in Higden, Ars componendi sermones, p. 20. 20. Jennings, ‘Introduction’, pp. 20–21. 21. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, p. 276. 22. Higden, Ars componendi sermones, trans. by Jennings and Wilson, p. 46. 23. Siegfried Wenzel has shown that Higden borrowed this verse and its use for the introductio of a thematic sermon from an anonymous art of preaching called Quamvis. See Wenzel, The Art of Preaching: Five Medieval Texts and Translations (Washington, D.C., 2013), pp. 250–55. The eight repetitions of the verse in the preaching manual suggests that Ranulf Higden meditated on this verse before choosing to include it here, perhaps as part of a lectio divina practice of Bible study or in response to the use of the verse in a Book of Hours. This would be consistent with medieval Benedictine monastic orthopraxis. 24. Higden, Ars componendi sermones, trans. by Jennings and Wilson, p. 51. In an earlier, unpublished translation completed by Sally Wilson alone, key words are rendered slightly differently in this passage: ‘virgin’ is given as ‘maiden’; ‘mystically’ as ‘allegorically’; and ‘authenticated’ as ‘factually verified’. Wilson, trans., Concerning the Art of Preaching, p. 28 (personal communication). 25. Higden, Ars componendi sermones, trans. by Jennings and Wilson, p. 52. 28 J. BEAL

26. For historical overviews of the reception the idea of the unicorn in the biblical, classical, and medieval writings, see Odell Shephard, The Lore of the Unicorn (London, 1930) as well as a critical response to that study by Allen Godbey, ‘The Unicorn in the Old Testament’, The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, 56.3 (1939), 256–96; Margaret Freeman, The Unicorn Tapestries (New York, 1976), esp. chap. 1 ‘The Unicorn in Ancient and Medieval Texts’, pp. 11–32 and chap. 2 ‘The Unicorn in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art’, pp. 33–66; and Beryl Rowland, Animals with Human Faces (Knoxville, 1977). See also Jane Beal, ‘The Unicorn as a Symbol for Christ in Medieval Culture’,inIlluminating Jesus in the Middle Ages, ed. by Jane Beal (Leiden, forthcoming). For a select bibliography, see ‘Unicorn’,inThe Medieval Bestiary (online): http://bestiary.ca/ beasts/beastbiblio140.htm. 27. On the seven ages of the world, their beginning and end points, and their influence on the chronicle tradition, see Chris Given-Wilson, Chronicles: The Writing of History in Late-Medieval England (London, 2004), esp. chap. 6, ‘Time and Place’. 28. Polychronicon, IV, ed. by Babington and Lumby, p. 279; cf. Seeger, Polychronicon, p. 389. Translations are given from John Trevisa’s English Polychronicon: together, the Latin and English versions of the chronicle reached a very large English audience in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and beyond. For further detail on the early modern audience, see Beal, John Trevisa and the English Polychronicon, esp. p. 6 ‘Translating Culture: Manu- scripts, Printed Editions, and Early Modern Materia’. 29. Higden, Ars componendi sermones, trans. by Jennings and Wilson, p. 49. 30. Polychronicon, IV, ed. by Babington and Lumby, pp. 332–35; cf. Seeger, Polychronicon, pp. 401–02. 31. Polychronicon, IV, ed. by Babington and Lumby, pp. 338–39. 32. Polychronicon, VII, ed. by Babington and Lumby, pp. 374–77. 33. Higden, Ars componendi sermones, trans. by Jennings and Wilson, p. 49. 34. Polychronicon, VII, ed. by Babington and Lumby, pp. 380–81. 35. Polychronicon, VIII, ed. by Babington and Lumby, pp. 182–85. 36. See also Matthew 9. 37–38. 37. Polychronicon, VIII, ed. by Babington and Lumby, pp. 222–23, 226–27, 234–35. 38. As far as modern scholars know, William Fitz Osbert was not a priest or licensed preacher. He did have a university education and had apparently been on Crusade. The Polychronicon interprets the speech he gave to foment an uprising among the English poor as sermonizing (‘exorsus est’ / ‘preche’) and, by extension, presents William Long-Beard as a preacher. However, it should be noted that it was not uncommon for speeches that were not sermons, such as academic or Parliamentary discourses, to open with a scriptural verse. 39. Polychronicon, VIII, ed. by Babington and Lumby, p. 147. 40. Polychronicon, VIII, ed. by Babington and Lumby, p. 151. 41. Polychronicon, VIII, ed. by Babington and Lumby, pp. 152–53. 42. Polychronicon, VIII, ed. by Babington and Lumby, pp. 154–57. 43. Polychronicon, VIII, ed. by Babington and Lumby, pp. 156–57. 44. Higden, Ars componendi sermones, trans. by Jennings and Wilson, p. 36. 45. The Speculum curatorum is currently being edited: the first two volumes have appeared and a third is planned. See Ranulf Higden, Speculum curatorum. A Mirror for Curates, Book I: The Commandments, ed. and trans. by Eugene Crook and Margaret Jennings, Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations, 13.1 (Leuven, 2012), and Ranulf Higden, Speculum curatorum. A Mirror for Curates, Book II: The Capital Sins, ed. and trans. by Eugene Crook and Margaret Jennings, Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations, 13.2 (Leuven, 2016). 46. For discussion of Trevisa as a Bible translator, see David Fowler, ‘John Trevisa and the English Bible’, Modern Philology, 58 (1960), 81–98; Jane Beal, John Trevisa and the English Polychronicon, pp. 67–87; and Anne Hud- son, ‘The Origin and Textual Tradition of the Wycliffite Bible’,inThe Wycliffite Bible: Origin, History and Interpretation, ed. by Elizabeth Solopova, Medieval and Renaissance Authors and Texts (Leiden, 2017), pp. 153–56.

Notes on contributor Jane Beal, PhD is an Associate Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. She is the author of The Signifying Power of Pearl (Routledge, 2017) and John Trevisa and the English Polychronicon (ACMRS/Brepols, 2012), editor of Illuminating Moses: A History of Reception from Exodus to the Renaissance (Brill, 2014) and Illuminating Jesus in the Middle Ages (Brill, in progress), and co-editor of Translating the Past: Essays on Medieval Literature in Honor of Marijane Osborn (ACMRS, 2012) and Approaches to Teaching the Middle English Pearl (MLA, 2017). She also writes poetry, ﬁction, and creative non-ﬁction: http://sanctuarypoet.net.