However, is pride all in the head? If so, does it follow that pride is completely separate from the passions? Despite the association of pride with the rebellion of the angels, Aquinas argues against the idea that pride exists solely in the rational power. Pride is “the appetite for excellence in excess of right reason.” 34 Unlike the appetite for food and other natural, life-sustaining desires, pride involves a desire for something difficult to obtain, so Aquinas defines it as an irascible appetite. 35 Although in a narrow sense, the irascible appetite is located in the sensitive appetite, in a broader sense it belongs to the intellective appetite, which may also include anger, as in the case of God’s anger. 36 So although pride involves desire and the will, it does not involve the sense appetite, meaning that angels, demons and people can all experience pride.
Furthermore, despite its primacy and associations with the rational soul, pride can be either venial or deadly, according to some authors; and veniality often—if not explicitly—suggests the passions, or some other vague pre-rational force or feeling. In his Scale of Perfection, Walter Hilton describes the venial circumstances of pride. To commit the venial sin of pride is to “fele in thyn herte a stirynge of pride” that is “agens this wil.” Such stirrings against the will are merely remnants of the “peyne of origynal synne.” 37 Aquinas also allows for venial instances of pride “by reason of their imperfection (through forestalling the judgment of reason, and being without its consent).” 38
Material Pride
Finally, pride is material: both as an agent of disease, particularly plague, and when prompted by the physiological processes of aging. Paradoxically, health and illness may also facilitate pride. The material relationships between pride and the medicalized body are explored in the following section.
Homiletic and moral texts associate pride with youth and middle age and the particular complexional balance that might incur pride. The Middle English lyric “Of the Seven Ages,” for example, warns the mature man against pride. 39 Rather than generally correlating health with reckless delusions of invincibility, the concept of the “pride of life” finds an embodied explanation in the humors. In his encyclopedia Liber de natura rerum [Book on the Nature of Things], Thomas of Cantimpré (d. c. 1276), a Dominican theologian and contemporary of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, writes that as the body ages and cools, the desires of the flesh and pride also cool. 40 Thus the proud have a similar humoral structure to the lustful. Indeed, in warnings against the weaknesses of the flesh and how the devil might tempt people based on their humoral imbalances, both lechery and pride tempt the sanguineous. John Gower, in Mirour de l’Omme [Mirror of Man], for example writes that if he is “sanuin soie de nature,” [sanguine in nature], “lors me fait tempter de Luxure,/D’Orguil et de Jolietée” then the devil tempts him with lechery, pride and wantonness. 41 Therefore, pride may be inspired not only by complexional heat but by its accompanying physical beauty.
I use the masculine pronoun deliberately, because the “pride of life” as a quality of a particular point in the life cycle almost invariably assumes a basis in male physiology, as is implicitly the case in discussion of all the sins, barring lechery. 42 As male physiology peaked at middle age, meaning physical, moral and intellectual perfection, perfecta aetas [the perfect age] could be something of a moral liability as regards the sin of pride. 43 However, this is not to say that pastoral writers do not condemn women for pride in their beauty, rich garments and ornaments. 44
Yet in a wider social context, pride’s most pressing material connection with medicine and the body is plague. Plague entered England in the late 1340s, and almost 40 outbreaks occurred between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Although what we refer to as the bubonic plague is caused by a specific bacterium, diseases were not so easily isolated or classified in the period in question. “Peste” or “pestilence” could refer to a variety of fevers and diseases that spread across the population. Medieval medical writers often attempt to fit symptoms of emerging epidemics into existing disease categories. 45 Numerous cultural and social historians have recently argued that the Black Death marks a key point of transition in the understandings of causality, illness and the human responsibility for sin. More specifically, medical texts and chronicles written during the outbreaks in the first hundred years bear witness to a plague that was “rapidly becoming domesticated,” with more care paid to the etiology and specifics of the illness and greater confidence in cures, yet fewer references to apocalyptic signs, astrology or God. 46
The Black Death was brutally indiscriminate, leading medieval moralists to describe plague as a collective punishment for a collective sin, rather than as an individual punishment for an individual sin. The texts that deal with plague—dedicated plague treatises, poems, sermons, and accounts of visions—contain three types of causes: the supernatural, such as divine punishment for sin; primary causes, such as astrology; and secondary causes, such as individual bodily composition.
Many texts urge the administration of both special processions and prayers; for example, William Zouche, Archbishop of York ordered that special processions be held twice a week in his diocese so that “the kind merciful Almighty God should turn away his anger and remove the pestilence and drive away the infection from the people whom he redeemed with his precious blood.” The Archbishop acknowledges both supernatural and natural causes in the same breath in his account of “how great mortality, pestilence and infection of the air are now threatening various parts of the world … and this is surely caused by the sins of men.” 47 Other writers stress the role of prayer and religious services in both preventing and curing pestilence.
When commentators specify the collective sin that caused plague, it is almost always pride. Some writers specifically mention tournaments and contemporary fashion. Addressing the particularly high death toll among children, other commentators blame the disobedience of children as well as the indulgence of their parents; for example, “for this synne of unworschepynge and despysynge of fadres and modres, God sleeth children by pestilence, as ʒe seeth al day. Ffor in the olde lawe children that were rebelle and unbuxom [disobedient] to here fadres and modres were ypunysched by deth.” 48
Still other religious writers blame plague on the spread of heresy. Although metaphors of infection and contagion were used to describe heresy as early as the eleventh century, they gained material resonance during the Black Death. In England, the proto-Protestant heretics known as Lollards were linked with the spread of plague. As we saw in the previous chapter, Lollards were said to “infect” the people with false doctrine. However, the disease of heresy is also material: “pestilence and misery” fall upon those who support the Lollards and allow them to thrive. 49 Furthermore, medieval homilists cite biblical precedents for epidemics caused by sins. For example, one fifteenth-century dominical cycle cites King David whom God punishes for “his pride” by sending “a grete pestylence in his kyngdome þat in iij dayes and iij nyʒtis there dyed of his pepil seventene thowsande viij tymes tolde.” 50
The recurrent emphasis on contagion in medieval medical accounts can cause confusion. Contagion did not have the same meaning as it does now. Rather than thinking of disease as something external that enters the body, we should think of disease as resulting from an internal imbalance of the four humors. External factors such as the air could influence the humors. For example, the influential Isidore of Seville writes in Etymologies that “pestilence is a contagion that as soon as it seizes on one person quickly spreads to many. It arises from corrupt air and maintains itself by penetrating the internal organs. Although this is generally caused by powers in the air, it never occurs without the consent of almighty God.” In this passage, Isidore both discusses two natural causes, corrupt air and corrupt organs, as well as attributing the ultimate causative power to the supernatural. Furthermore, we note that by “contagion” he refers to pestilence itself, not the method of transmission. Later in the passage he clarifies that contagion [contagium] comes from
“touching … because it contaminates anyone it touches.” 51 Contagion results from touching because it contaminates those whom it touches, not because it spreads through touch, as we understand it today.
Whilst tending not to mention collective sin, medical texts on plague acknowledge the roles of God and certain kinds of behavior in causing and curing the disease. After outlining various means by which people can protect themselves against plague, a Middle English translation of the widespread plague treatise by John of Burgundy (d. c. 1390) offers a conventional disclaimer: “if it be the wil of God, that is above al other thynges … he may be preserved and kept from evil accidentis and from th’effecte of pestilence.” 52 The effectiveness of all human medicine lies ultimately in the hands of God. Likewise, before recommending particular herbal remedies, the “Canutus” plague treatise, an incredibly popular fifteenth-century English tract based on the fourteenth-century work of Johannes Jacobi (d. 1384), urges that as a “remedie in time of pestilence, penaunce & confession” are to be preferred over “al other medicynes.” 53
The widespread devastation caused by the plague prompted doctors to consult the heavens. Astrology had an established place in medieval medicine: astral alignment at birth was believed to influence physiological composition and the best course of treatment for patients. All things on earth and in the air were thought to be a combination of the four elements: air, fire, earth and water. These elements consisted of a combination of contraries: hot and cold, wet and dry. Each planet was associated with a set of contraries, as was each person. We recall that human beings were thought to consist of an uneven mixture of humors—blood, choler, melancholy and phlegm—that reflected the elements and the contraries. The alignment of the planets at birth affected one’s humoral composition.
In 1345, a particular conjunction of malignant planets (Saturn and Mars) was blamed for the plague. According to a report made by the Paris medical faculty in 1348, this particular alignment “caused an evil disposition or quality in the air, harmful and hateful to our nature” along with “strong winds … particularly from the south.” 54 The southern wind and corrupt air are recurring causes in plague treatises, some of which warn against all bad smells.
When the same astrological influences and air prevailed, variation at the individual level, however, explained why some members of the population became sick and died, whereas others did not. As John of Burgundy writes, “thei abiden hole whose complexioun is contrary to þe aire that is chaungid or corrupt, and ellis al folke shuld corrupte and die in the aire at oones.” 55 Those whose complexions were similar to the corrupt air—warm and moist (the sanguineous) or warm and dry (the choleric)—were most susceptible.
Evincing knowledge of these complexions, the “Canutus” plague treatise explains that one person may be more disposed to death than another due to a hotter natural temperature and larger and more blocked pores. Behavior both contributes to these physical conditions and reflects natural composition; “men that spare no lecherye, & they [that] vse bathes, & them that swette with labour or be gret wreth, thys bodyes be more dyspossyd to the morbe pestilencial.” 56 Lecherous and angry dispositions are characteristic of sanguineous and choleric people. Therefore, medical texts focus on particular “sins” when they promote prevention. Lechery, in particular, was thought to make the body susceptible to plague, as explored in more detail later.
Religious texts are mixed in their attribution of natural causes. In Piers Plowman, William Langland replicates a form of plague preaching that blends both supernatural and natural causes. The priest Reason “preved that thise pestilences was for pure synne/And the south-west wynd on Saterday at even/Was pertliche [clearly] for pride and for no point ellis.” 57 In this chain of causality, the disease-causing wind is God’s instrument to punish the people for their pride. However, the Bishop of Rochester Thomas Brinton scornfully remarks, “let those who ascribe [plague] to planets and constellations rather than to sin say what sort of planet reigned at the time of Noah when God drowned the whole world except for eight souls, unless the planet of malice and sin.” Brinton goes on to note that God is “the best astrologer.” 58
However, some religious writers explain the misfortune of some plague victims as the result of God’s mistakes in aiming. Thomas Brinton himself describes God as an archer who “sometimes shoots the arrow of death beyond the target (that is, the sinner), by hitting a father, mother or other elderly person; sometimes this side of the target, by hitting a son or daughter or other young person; sometimes to the left hand side, by hitting a neighbor.” 59 It is clear from this passage that medieval notions of causality are not uniform.
In Dives and Pauper, a fifteenth-century manual on the Ten Commandments, the clerical Pauper constructs a complex analogy of God as a blacksmith to explain what “causyn moreyn [plague], sekenesse.”þu seeist at eye þat qhanne þe smyth gryndyȝt a knyf or an eex or a swerd on his stoon þe stoon doth nought but goth alwey aboutyn in oo cours, and as þe smyth þat syttyȝt abouyn wele disposyn and heldyn, so gryndyȝt þe stoon. Ʒyf he wele it grynde sharp, it shal gryndyn sharp. Ʒyf he wele it grynde blont and pleyn, it shal gryndyn blont & pleyn. Ʒyf he wele it grynde square, it shal grynde square. Ryght as he wele þat is grynde so it grynt. Ʒyf he take awey þe knyf, eex, or swerd, þe stoon gryndyȝt ryght nought and þow it goth aboutyn þe same cours as it dede aforn. Ryght þus it is of God and þe bodyis abouyn. For þe planetys and þe bodyis abouyn goon alwey abouten in on certeyn cours in queche God ordeynyd hem at þe begynnyng of þe word, queche cours þey shullyn kepyn in to þe day of doom. And as God wele þat þey werkyn, so þey shullyn werkyn. Ʒyf he wele þat þey gryndyn sharp and causyn moreyn, sekenesse, tempest, hungyr, werre and sueche othere, þey shullyn doon so. Ʒyf he wele þat þey gryndyn pleyn and smothe and causyn helthe of body, fayr wedyr and helysum, plente of corn and vytalyis, pees and reste, þey shullyn doon so. Ryght as God wele þat þey werkyn, so þey shullyn werkyn, so þat God may doon wyt þe planetys qhat he wele & he may don withoutyn þe planetys what he wil. In qhat synge, in qhat consetellacioun, conoinccioun or respecth þat þey bene, alwey þey been redy to fulfellyn þe wyl of God. 60
Here, Pauper employs the argument about God’s ordinate and absolute power mentioned in the last chapter. Like the blacksmith, who has control of the edge of the knife yet is limited by his own abilities, God is limited by his creation once he has “ordeynyd” that the planets and heavenly bodies move in a certain course. 61
Although plague usually serves medieval poets as a mere backdrop or point of reference, one medieval vision directly concerns plague and contemporary accounts of its causes. 62 The fifteenth-century Vision of Edmund Leversedge concerns a dying man’s vision of the life to come. As is conventional in this genre, the man receives a warning of future horrors if he does not confess his sins and change his behavior. However, the dying Edmund is infected with what he calls “þe plage of pestylence.” 63 Although there is no way to diagnose him unequivocally, the speed of his disease (he lies as though dead within three hours) and its clinical symptoms are consistent with bubonic plague. His face is pale, his tongue swollen, and his pain (presumably caused by rupturing sores) so severe that he is driven to frenzy. As for the cause of his plague, the speaker blames pride. The sin of pride (and other unnamed sins) “rayneth most comynly in this realme of Englande, with þe whyche synne and pepylle þat God is gretly displesid, and without amendment hit wyl be þe cause of uttire distruccion of þis seyd realme,” yet also represents “the synne I usyd before this tyme in myn awne person.” 64 Several times the vision details the excesses of contemporary clothing in which Edmund and his peers indulged. Extravagant dress was considered a form of pride and is conventionally condemned in pastoral discussions of pride. 65 Examples of overdressing given in the vision include short gowns and doublets, long hair, and pointed shoes. Therefore, this vision presents both individual and collective sins as causes.
Pastoral writers warn that although pride has the potenti
al to damage health, health might also weaken a person’s defenses against pride. 66 And if physical beauty and health encourage pride, physical ugliness and sickness may serve as deterrents. The homilist of Bodley 649 lists the various disfigurements accompanying diseases, such as the twisted mouths caused by lesions, the noses eaten away by cancer, and the torn-out eyes of migraine sufferers. In the tradition of assigning contrary virtues to vices, humility is correlated with pride. However, this humility is often configured in recognition of the body’s frailty and susceptibility to disease. For example, the compiler of Summa Virtutum de Remediis Anime describes humility as the ability to “consider our miserable status … for in our stomach lies a lump of phlegm [massa tissanaria] which looks extremely disgusting when it is thrown up in drunkenness; in our bowels are excrements, and in our loins the most vile matter of the human body.” Here, humility is equated with fleshly lowliness, the capacity for disintegration and disease, both in deliberate excess and normal functioning. 67
In other contexts, the remedies of pride—humility and meekness—offer not only spiritual but material rewards. In addition to the spiritual rewards of forgiveness of one’s sins and the promise of heaven, paying one’s tithes (as a pillar of humility) promises physical health and ample harvests in Fasciculus Morum. 68 Other pastoral works, such as Quattuor Sermones, refer more metaphorically to meekness as the “vtter remedye ayenst pryde and a sanatyf salue.” 69
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