Medicine and the Seven Deadly Sins in Late Medieval Literature and Culture

by Virginia Langum

  Gower’s Midas in Confessio Amantis demonstrates the insatiable, dropsical thirst of the avaricious. In Gower’s version, Midas is a “courteis king” who does not have a particular avaricious disposition at the outset of the tale. 12 When the god of wine, Bacchus, offers him one wish, he debates over what is most pleasing to man’s nature: delight, worship, or profit. He is uncertain about delight on the grounds that it will pass with age and “schal ende in wo.” 13 He is also anxious about choosing worship as he thinks that it will induce pride. However, he reasons that wealth invites thieves and might promote vanity. After some deliberation, “he fell upon the coveitise/Of gold” almost by accident, making Midas a more sympathetic character in Gower’s account. 14

  However, following the constraints of the traditional story, Midas must serve as a negative exemplum of greed. Everything he touches turns to gold, even those things that have negative value in gold, such as the basic staples of life. Gower writes: “hunger ate laste/Him tok, so that he moste nede/Be weie of kinde his hunger fede.” 15 When he cannot sate his hunger,... hath this king experience

  Hou foles don the reverence

  To gold, which of his oghne kinde

  Is lasse worth than is the rinde

  To sustienance of mannes fode. 16

  The story demonstrates that avarice is contrary to human nature, while associating the sin with the specific disorder of dropsy:Men tellen that the maladie

  Which cleped is ydropesie

  Resembled is unto this vice

  Be weie of kinde of Avarice.

  The more ydropesie drinketh,

  The more him thursteth, for him thinketh

  That he mai nevere drinke his fille,

  So that ther mai nothing fulfille

  The lustes of his appetit. 17

  Like their co-sufferers trapped in an endless cycle of thirst that cannot be broken, the avaricious are elsewhere gripped by a tenacious fever. In Mirror of Man, for example, Gower writes “it is said—but improperly—that an avaricious man has much money, but the truth is that money has him. Furthermore, “as a feverish man does not have fever, but rather the fever has him in subjection, sick and suffering, so that he cannot taste any flavor, so the avaricious man is similarly servant to his gold.” 18

  In a similar vein to unquenchable thirst and perpetual fever, some writers compare avarice to open sores that will not heal. In the fifteenth-century lyric “Medicines to Cure the Deadly Sins,” avarice is “an horribill sore” that troubles the speaker continuously “ffor evyr he covetith more and more/Off plastris than I purvay more.” 19 The poem analogizes the futile feeding of the desire with money with the feeding of the open sore with medicine. Instead of more plasters, “a mastir of ffysyke lore” recommends the “gentyll herbe” of “elemosina” or alms so that the sore will “dry and vanysh away.” 20

  As we have seen, blindness functions as a rhetorical device throughout discussions of the seven deadly sins, including accounts of avarice and the avaricious, who are blinded by worldly possessions. In regards avarice, Peter of Limoges offers a scientific justification that blends the medical and the metaphorical:In order to see an object, there needs to be some object between the eye and the object. The eye cannot see an object plainly and clearly unless the object is separated from it by a proportional distance, and therefore since greedy people put temporal wealth over the eyes of their heart, they form a perverse judgment about riches, so that they consider things that are worthless to be precious. And just as a corporeal eclipse will occur because of the interposing of an object that casts a shadow between the sun and the eye of the body, so from the fact that through a too ardent love something earthly is placed between the eye of the heart and the sun of justice, a spiritual eclipse will take place in the soul of the greedy person. 21

  The distorted value accorded to wealth and possession thus mirrors that of perspective in one’s vision. In more iconographic and allegorical descriptions, the eyes of the avaricious are impaired (sometimes obstructed by shiny metal or smoke) or misdirected, pointing downward toward the earth. 22

  Dealt to several of the sins, leprosy also symbolizes avarice, drawing on Old Testament authority. Medieval sermons and other texts cite the story of Giezi in 2 Kings 5. In the biblical story, the prophet Eliseus miraculously cures the Syrian general Naaman of his leprosy. However, Eliseus’ greedy servant Giezi tries to profit from the cure by asking Naaman for silver and clothing. For his greed, Giezi becomes afflicted with Naaman’s leprosy. The association of this story with avarice is clear in the use of “Gyesite” as a synonym for simony in Pilgrimage of the Life of Man. 23

  Furthermore, sermons specifically use images of leprosy to warn against avarice. Lambeth 392 associates certain symptoms of leprosy with sins. In quite a long discussion of the fourth symptom, or property, of leprosy, the “gret plente of þurst” symbolizes “þe synne of auarice and of coueitise for a lepur man is euer more þursti and drie of kynde for þe more þat he drynkþ”; likewise, the more riches the covetous man has, “þe more couetous he is.” 24 The homilist continues with the story of Giezi to illustrate the punishment of the avaricious: “doom wiþ outyn mercy to hym þat doþ no mercy and þis is þe lepre of Giezi” who is punished for his covetousness. The implications of leprosy for heredity are also applied to avarice: “so þe meselrie of coueitise drawiþ to þis couetos men and to þe seed of hem and þerfor þe sonys of hem wol nout ʒeldyn aʒen þat her fadris for couetise haue takyn wiþ wrong and þerfore ʒif þe sonys wityngly wiþ holdyn suche wronge gotyn goodis þei schullyn wiþ her fadris be dampned for euer in helle.” 25 Yet the hereditary nature of sin, unlike leprosy, involves an active decision by the sons to clutch their fathers’ ill-gotten gains.

  Metonymic Avarice

  What kind of passion is avarice, if any? In medieval religious texts, avarice is not a distinct passion but rather associated with two passions: a particular type of concupiscence and fear. Aquinas distinguishes between natural and non-natural forms of concupiscence. If concupiscence is a “craving for pleasurable good,” there are two types of pleasurable good. The first comprises natural goods that are “pleasurable to the nature of the animal,” such as food and drink, which both animals and people desire. The second kind of concupiscence, which Aquinas calls cupiditas is a craving for those things “beyond that which nature requires,” which is experienced only by people. 26

  The passion of fear often appears in pastoral descriptions of avarice. For example, Fasciculus Morum lists “the fear one has in possessing property” among the three qualities of avarice. 27 This avarice-induced fear has physiological implications, as all passions were thought to have had. For example, after the tale of Midas, Gower continues his exploration of the unnaturalness of avarice in Confessio Amantis with the tale of Tantalus. Here, avarice is shown to be hard on the heart, inducing sleeplessness and restlessness: “for hou so that the body reste,/The herte upon the gold travaileth/Whom many a nyhtes drede assaileth;/For thogh he ligge abedde naked, /His herte is everemore awaked.” 28 Modern psychological and neurobiological attempts to pathologize avarice frequently also identify a source in fear. 29

  Theologians and medical writers understand fear as physiologically hard on the heart. According to medieval medicine, fear causes the vital spirits to rush to the heart. The absence of the vital spirits in the body causes coldness. Therefore, fearful or timid men are considered to be cold, and coldness is thought to increase fear and timidity. Inducing wrath thus produces the opposite effect, drawing the vital spirits away from the heart to the extremities, and can serve as a corrective for fear and coldness, as advised in medieval medical texts. 30

  Material Avarice

  Material dispositions or conditions can shape avaricious tendencies, just as avarice can affect the health of the body. The body most commonly caused or at least predisposed a person to avarice through the natural and inevitable aging process. What is the physiological basis for this understanding of avarice as age-induced?
The aging human body was associated with changes in temperature and increasing disposition toward certain sins. We recall from our discussion of pride that the medieval encyclopedist and theologian Thomas of Cantimpré claims that although the desires of the flesh and pride cool as the body ages, greed for money and possessions grows. 31 In a similar vein, the thirteenth-century theologian Peter of Limoges writes, “avarice has established a ludicrous and lamentable fellowship with old people, so that when they should need things less, they long for them more passionately, and the quicker they come to the point of relinquishing possessions, the more eager they are to face dangers [to keep them].” 32 As with other physiological conditions and forces, aging impacts ethical dispositions.

  Theologians recognized the potential tension between age-induced avarice and the culpability for sin. Aquinas directly addresses this in his section on avaritia. Responding to the potential objection that avarice is not a sin, made on the grounds that the natural cannot be sinful and avarice comes naturally to old age, Aquinas argues that “natural inclinations should be regulated according to reason … though old people seek more greedily the aid of external things … they are not excused from sin if they exceed this due measure of reason with regard to riches.” 33

  In medieval medical accounts, the elderly were thought to suffer from increasing dryness in addition to coldness, correlated with their melancholic imbalance. 34 According to one medieval surgical manual, melancholy’s “lordschipe” “y-gendrid of drede & sorowe, and he is cold and drie, and an humor of þe erþe … coueitous.” 35 The late thirteenth-century Giles of Rome, translated into English by John Trevisa, explains that “comonliche þe sowle folweth complexions of þe bodye,” and thus “as olde men in here owne bodye faillen in humours and in lif, so þei dreden þat al here good faillen.” 36

  Pastoral accounts reflect these medical explanations. Peraldus associates avarice with the element of the earth: its cold and dry qualities and its age: “according to [the nature of] earth, which is the lowest element, springs acedia and greed.” Greed [avaritia] is borne from the qualities of the earth, “because like the earth it is cold and dry; therefore, old men, in whom heat and humidity are lacking, are exceedingly greedy.” 37

  In a more extensive treatment, Robert Rypon associates the sixth age, “old age,” with the cold and dry melancholic complexion, which disposes one to avarice, for it is “natural for coldness to gather and for dryness to consume moisture.” 38 Rypon follows this naturalistic and medically consistent explanation of the aging process with the more common symbolic connection with dropsy, but passes over the latter quickly in order to focus on its cure. Just as nature disposes to avarice, nature also “ordained a general remedy against this vice”: mercy, or “the virtue by which the mind is disturbed by the misfortune of those who are afflicted.” 39 Although mercy was not typically listed as a trait of the melancholic in medical texts, Rypon elaborates on how, in context, the suffering of the melancholic might be expanded to include their fellow Christians:By nature you should do for others what you wish to be done to you if you were in a similar situation. But if you were in need, you naturally desire relief, so naturally you would do thus for your neighbor in need. And this virtue is especially natural in the aged because from nature they have serious weaknesses in themselves … these natural defects in old people make them think of the brevity of life and remember their last days and have compassion on the poor who have similar defects or greater … 40

  Rather than the symbolic dropsy, physiological imagery provides a more vivid and detailed mode of analysis for Rypon both in describing the sin and its cure.

  Despite the strong connection between avarice and age, reinforced by the diminishing heat of the body, pastoral texts often also describe the “glowing heat of avarice.” 41 Disagreeing that the bodily changes accompanying natural aging promote greed, other thinkers instead link greed with other desires and thus heat. While avarice is most commonly associated with the desire for money, moralists also refer to desire for rank, knowledge, and position. According to this alternative logic, all desires are tempered as aging and cooling occur. However, some of these accounts separate avarice from covetousness. The early fourteenth-century confessional manual Handlyng Synne separates the two vices in terms of nature and the body. Mannyng explains that “coueytyse, cumþ of kynde of blode” whereas “auaryce, ys noþer kynde ne gode.” 42 Here, the author draws on the Middle English word “kind” which can mean both “natural” and “good.” Covetousness is thus a perversion or excess of a desired good, whereas avarice removes good. “Couetyse, cumþ oþerwhyle of gode;/ But auaryce wyþdrawþ mannys fode.” 43 Furthermore, “couetyse, to gode men mowe hyt charge;/ But auaryce, ys noþer gode ne large/Couetyse, ys of wylle, as ys a bayte,/But auaryce, ys nygun haldyng strayte.” 44 The distinction between covetousness and avarice is thus biological.

  Giles of Rome also makes this distinction. He writes that while the elderly do not crave or desire what they do not possess, they jealously guard what they do. They “lyueþ in mynde and in trist of god þat þei haue ygete, and trist nat in gode þat þei scholde gete here aftir.” 45 Thus the hoarding of wealth is associated with cold and older age and the acquiring of wealth is associated with heat and younger age. Confusingly, the words used to describe these activities (acquiring and hoarding, or covetousness and avarice, respectively, in Modern English) are often conflated in medieval accounts. When avarice is correlated with summer, cholera, and heat, in Speculum Sacerdotale, the early fifteenth-century handbook for priests, it is unclear whether the writer means the acquisitioning of wealth or the keeping of it. The writer assigns the four seasons of the year to the body’s four humors and four types of related sinful behavior. Men fast to combat their natural inclinations caused by the dominance of the given humor in each month. In summer, when hot and dry cholera dominates, fasting “chastens in us the obnoxious heat of avarice.” 46

  Of course, fasting due to avarice is its own sin. As the compiler of Jacob’s Well exclaims, “ʒif þou faste as an averous man, þi purs byddeth þe faste, þi bely byddeth þe etyn; þus þi two goddys arn contrarie, þi bely is large in oþere mennys costys, but þi purs is euere-more scarse; þou fastyst as a nygard.” 47 Medical texts also draw a connection between avarice and digestive difficulties. In Guy de Chauliac’s surgical manual “an auerous” is synonymous with a “nigard or constipate.” 48

  Furthermore, pastoral writers implicate the practice and practitioners of material medicine in their discussion of avarice. One late medieval homilist groups “leches, physicyons, taverners and tollers” as those “that by fals soteltees takyn falsely mennus goodes.” 49 The association of physicians and the practice of medicine with avarice was so common as to function as a metaphor for other avaricious groups. One homilist compares sinful ecclesiastical judges to such physicians:For every vice and for every sin they prescribe only a single medicine—that which is called by the popular name of “pecuniary penalty.” This certainly appears to be well called “a penalty,” because it is very “penal” to many; nevertheless, whether it ought to be called a “medicine” I do not know. Yet, in truth I think that if it is a medicine, it deserves rather to be called “a laxative medicine for purses,” rather than “a medicine for souls!” 50

  This image not only accounts for developments in discretionary medicine and penance, which adapted particular cures and penances to fit particular patients and sinners, but aligns the traditional association of constipation or dropsy and avarice with a satirical portrayal of doctors.

  As cures for the avaricious, pastoral writers prescribe almsgiving and pity. In Mirk’s Festial, “almus dede hyt quenchyth synne and þe fyre of couetyse,” again aligning covetousness, in particular, with heat. 51 Many pastoral texts simply advise pity. 52 Yet the moistness of pity could provide a physiologically sound cure for the dryness of greed, a connection used by a fifteenth-century homilist to advocate the “moystnes of pyte.” 53 He explains that “he that wan
tiþe þe vertu of charite and of pite he hathe no pyte on pore pepyll and one þem þat be seke and nedy: he is lyke a man þat hathe not a very holsome stomake to þe comforthe of the body.” 54 Likewise, the same homilist links the declining health of an aging man with the decline of “pite and compassion,” a medically supported argument in terms of the natural drying of the body with age. 55

  Theologians and pastoral writers were sensitive to the potential medical comparisons to and physiological explanations for avarice and covetousness. Some of their engagement with medical imagery remains firmly on the symbolic end of the spectrum, whereas others enlist the sin’s material complexity in order to draw critical distinctions of the role of the will and culpability, particularly in regards to aging.

  Notes

  1.Cited in Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins, p. 76.

  2.Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II–II, Qu. 118, art. 6. While this translation uses “covetousness,” I use “avarice” according to the original avaritia to avoid confusion.

  3.Ibid., II–II, Qu. 118, art. 6.

  4.Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth, p. 43.

  5.Bloomfield argues that avarice receives increasing attention from the twelfth century onwards with increased wealth and yet did not replace pride at the head, because the scheme was already firmly in place (The Seven Deadly Sins, p. 75, 95). There is, however, a rich pre-twelfth century history of avarice, which is traced by Richard Newhauser, The Early History of Greed: the Sin of Avarice in Early Medieval Thought and Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), with some examples placing avarice before pride (p. 106). See also Little, “Pride Goes Before Avarice,” pp. 16–49.