After that, what happened to the bishop could not be fully ascertained, because of both the flight of his men and the imminent night. But the will of God caused the following events to take place, in order that the chronology and the manner of the martyrdom could be made manifest. It so happened that Count Frederick was captured upon his return from Rome, and led as a prisoner to Cologne. Once there he openly confessed his own guilt and pointed out by name the other performers of the parricide, accusing even his own brothers (mentioned above) as likewise being guilty. Along with himself and another man, his scribe Tobias was captured. Placed in chains and in the hope of subsequent indulgence, he exposed in writing in what manner and by whom the blessed bishop was murdered, in agreement with the facts that the agonized confession in Rome of the count and the other abominable men had brought to light. This he did at the request of certain canons (those who had also strongly urged me to write), in order that the account could be written more accurately. This said about the matter, shall suffice.
And when the lord bishop had gone far enough along the concave road—so writes Tobias—the attendants who had been sent ahead, by seizing his horse’s bridle, turned the horse around so violently that they wrenched the bridle from his hands. Unable to leave the road by either side (as it was concave and very narrow), the archbishop fled down the slope, in the middle of the road. But the men followed him, and Joachim wounded the horse on the thigh. Since they could not overtake him from either side of the road, Herenbert, on horseback, leaped off the road onto the steepest footpath and caught him (as he was to confess), seizing Engelbert violently by the collar of his cloak and dragging him down sideways as he bent forward, until they were both on the ground. But soon the bishop, who was stronger than the other man, rose up again vigorously and fled off the road into the bushes, with Herenbert still clinging, alone, to the edge of his cloak. When the count heard this clamor in the bushes, he rushed closer and is said to have shouted: “Grab him and don’t let him go: For the man is being made stronger than we are!” Then the bishop uttered words of supplication, and said: “Saint Peter, with what [crime] do these men charge me?” Gnashing his teeth, Frederick replied: “Bring me the thief! Bring me the man who disinherits noblemen and spares no one!”102 At this point Giselher, observing Herenbert clinging to the archbishop’s cloak, rushed down and, chasing after them frantically, struck the first wound on Engelbert’s head; and with the second blow, I believe, he cut off his hand; finally, that same Giselher ran his body through with his sword.—These words are Tobias’s.
At the same time, Jordan, a man whom Engelbert had banished, rushed suddenly onto the scene to inflict the largest wound on his head (so he bragged in Isenberg), causing the bishop to cry a second time: “Oh woe!” Then, turning to him again, Herenbert bored through him once more with his dagger, while Count Frederick wailed and shouted: “Woe to me, a wretched man! That’s going too far!” When Giselher (whom I mentioned before) tried to chop off Engelbert’s head, it was to Frederick that Godfrey, whom the Count had sent out to stop him, dragged Giselher by the hair. Still, barely ten paces separate the oak tree by which the men first attacked Engelbert to the place where he was finally dragged down, completely decimated (and where now, above the site of his martyrdom, a chapel has been constructed). It was at this spot that that herd, like rabid dogs and famished sons of perdition, bored into his whole body with the sharpest daggers prepared for the event, so that between the top of his head and the soles of his feet not a single part of his body remained free of wounds. This is just like what was said by the prophet regarding the figure of Christ, whose member Engelbert became by dying for the sake of justice: “Many dogs have encompassed me: the council of the malignant hath besieged me” and so on (Ps. 21:17).
Next it is said that one of the men sliced into the bottom of his foot, in order to appraise whether he was in fact dead. And then they all rushed back onto their horses, to reconvene at the place where the count was waiting, and left the body lying on the ground. Oh blind presumption! Oh madness not of men but of beasts, which did not shirk from so boldly, so cruelly, so odiously murdering the anointed one of the Lord, the priest of the Lord, a mighty pontiff, and not just any pontiff, but the father and prince of pontiffs—and, what should have been most terrifying of all, the most powerful duke and guardian of the Roman Empire. Having succeeded in the murder, the men, full of the devil, departed with their count—or rather that instigator of the entire malice—leaving the priest of the Lord to lie upon a dungheap as if he were not anointed with oil.
A certain knight named Leonius, who had remained with Engelbert when he was first attacked, chased after Henry the cellarer of Hemmerode, who had gone a little way ahead. “Oh lord cellarer,” he said, “what should we do? Our lord the archbishop has been seriously wounded and taken captive by Count Frederick.” By this he related simply that which he had seen, thinking that this is what had really happened. Unimaginably distressed, Henry replied: “Surely it would be proper to go back and see what is going on around him, or find out where he is being taken.” They turned back immediately to the site of the murder, where they heard noises of the attendants wandering around in the woods. It was already night. And while they were walking about and looking around, they stumbled over the destroyed body of the martyr, which was full of holes and exceedingly horrible to see. Greatly alarmed, the men left to retrieve from the nearest houses a stinking cart which had carried dung earlier that same day; this was by the cellarer’s advice, so that the body would not perhaps be disgracefully treated by wild animals should it remain in the woods overnight. But behold: The body of that glorious prince, which when they left it was still partially clothed, they found almost completely naked when they returned. For aside from his leggings and overshirt, which hung about his neck, the attackers had left him with nothing; his undershirt and a little cap, though, were still to be found next to the body. All these things were so steeped in blood and so torn to pieces that the thieves had passed over them as if they were not of the barest use. But through them many healing cures have been effected, even today.
From Decay to Splendor
Body and Pain in Bonvesin da la Riva’s Book of the Three Scriptures
Manuele Gragnolati
Bonvesin Da La Riva’s Book of the Three Scriptures is an eschatological poem that describes hell in the Black Scripture, Christ’s passion in the Red Scripture, and heaven in the Golden Scripture.1 Enormous attention is given to the body within the whole text, which opens with contempt for the decay and rottenness of the earthly body and ends with triumphal praise of the splendor of the glorious body. In this essay I will analyze the meaning of the emphasis granted to the body in the poem and discuss the portrayal of Christ’s passion as the midpoint in the transformation of the body from decay to splendor.
Bonvesin da la Riva was a tertiary of the Humiliati and arguably also of the Franciscans. He was born in Milan before 1250 and died between 1313 and 1315.2 The Book of the Three Scriptures was written in the Milanese dialect in the last decades of the thirteenth century and was composed to be sung and recited orally to a wide and popular audience. It was a sort of oral preaching whose goal was more practical than explanatory or expositive.3 The author announces his expectations at the beginning of the work, where he stresses that understanding is necessary but putting such understanding into action is absolutely essential:
Listening without understanding would have no effect, and the person who understood quite well would still accomplish nothing if he failed to put into action what he had understood. That to which man fails to commit his intellect and energy is of no avail. In this book of ours, there are three sorts of script. The first is black and full of fear; the second is red; the third is fair and pure, wrought in gold only, speaking of great sweetness. Thus, the time comes for speaking of the black script, of the birth of man, of life and death, of the twelve pains of hell, where there is great woe. May God keep us from entering its doors! The red is concerned wit
h the divine Passion, with the death of Jesus Christ, the queen’s son. The Golden script speaks of the divine Court, namely, of the twelve glories of that excellent city. (Black Sc., 11. 5–20)
These lines make it clear that the three sections of the book, represented by the three scriptures, are not independent but, on the contrary, strictly connected to each other: the opposition lies between the fear of black and the fair purity of gold, and the transition between the two is red. Expressions like “grand pagura” in line 10 or “gran dolzura” in line 12 foreshadow the emotional way in which the listeners should respond to the descriptions of the poem. This expected emotional response is exemplified in the following lines, which introduce the beginning of the black scripture and stress that “anyone who reads it with heart and mind should sigh and weep bitterly” (Black Sc., 11. 23–24). Bonvesin’s aim is the composition of a text that could provoke in his audience what Sixten Ringbom defines, when discussing different attitudes toward art images, as the “empathic approach” of the beholder that developed in the late Middle Ages: while listening to the poem, the public was expected to feel a deep and powerful emotional experience that would produce strong empathy involving both heart and intellect.4
In order to give rise to this response, Bonvesin uses various strategies throughout his work. The Black Scripture and the Golden Scripture are constructed both to mirror each other and to contrast with each other. The opposition between them is designed to provoke opposite emotions and is conducted according to what we could call, in Jean Delumeau’s words, an “evangelism of fear” and an “evangelism of seduction”: from the description of the misery of human life and of the torments of hell to the praise of the celestial glories.5 In the Red Scripture, the empathic approach is encouraged by the identification of the red scripture with the actual passion of Christ, as though the very blood of Christ were the ink of the text. This image was expected to stimulate both the thoughts of the intellect and the emotions of the heart.6 It also foreshadows the actual description in the central part of the poem that strongly emphasizes Christ’s corporeal suffering and, in doing so, stresses his humanity and pushes the audience toward a feeling of proximity with him.7
The Black Scripture begins with a De contemptu mundi. This woeful vision of life originated in monasteries, was further developed in the convents of mendicant orders, and was finally transmitted to the whole of society as a “self-evident truth,” which was expected to provoke in the public strong feelings of its own misery and pettiness.8 The general deprecating tone of Bonvesin’s description is fixed from the very first lines, which state that “the birth of man is of such kind that he is engendered in nasty entrails by blood that is commingled of vileness and filth” (Black Sc., 11. 25–27). Bonvesin repeatedly stresses the miserable condition of the human body, which is weak, slack, and liable to continuous rottenness and decay (11. 23–40). Even when men or women are beautiful externally, they are always ugly and filthy on the inside:
After he is grown up and fully formed, whether he be a male or a fine girl, he may be of a fair and excellent appearance outside, but no one, either knight or lady, is fair inside. There is no male or female of such beauty, whether small or great, queen or countess, that they are fair inside—this I boldly affirm. Instead, they are vessels of filth, vessels of great nastiness. No good thing issues from the body, only vileness. Out of the fair mouth come spittle and slime, through nose and ears and eyes pure nastiness. The vessel is fair outside, but inside there is a great rottenness. There is no food in the world, however precious it is, that does not rot inside as soon as it is hidden there. From the members of one’s body, though they seem precious, issue no good fruit, only disgusting. (Black Sc., 11. 41–56)
On earth everything changes, everything decays, everything is fragmented. Our wretched life is mutable, transient, precarious, and merciless:
Now rich, now poor, and now in misery, whether one is hungry or thirsty or in difficulties, the Wheel (of fortune) does not stop, it is always turning, out of control—now one smiles, now one weeps, and now one is ruined. . . . Or he will be sick, to his great discomfiture, with fever or gout or another affliction, so that there is no one so fair or so mighty that he may not become ugly and feeble in his great distress. One day, he will be singing, joyful and in good spirits; the next, he will be dejected and doleful. One day, he will be laughing, high-spirited and charming; the next, he will be mean and distasteful and hangdog. (Black Sc., 11. 65–84)
The tone of the description becomes even darker when Bonvesin moves to the description of the decomposing dead body, which is described as becoming more and more rotten—just an ugly prey for worms:
The arms and legs, which were well-formed and fleshy, so fair and strong, nothing but skin and bones now. Truly, they will quickly rot underground in the ugly ditch. . . . O God, O wretched flesh, how slack and ugly you are, how disfigured you are, how vile you look. No champion or doctor or lawyer can be found to defend it from rotting. . . . The ditch is your lodging place, the worms your relatives. O flesh, why are you arrogant during our life? The worms await you the more eagerly the more you surrender yourself to rich food and excess. Your thoughts are few, for you do not think about the assault you are going to suffer. (Black Sc., 11.149–64)
As Philippe Aries has pointed out, the connection between the moment of personal death, “one’s own death,” and the image of the rotting corpse, was common in the late Middle Ages. Decomposition and physical decay were not restricted to a “post mortem” condition but were “intra vitam”: corruption was present in cadavers but also in the midst of life.9 This is evident in Bonvesin’s De contemptu mundi, where the putrefaction of the corpse is only one, even if perhaps the most striking, among the several imperfections of the earthly body. Immediately after the detailed description of the decomposing cadaver, Bonvesin attributes the cause of all this rot and suffering to original sin: “Pains and torments and death and thirst and hunger—all these things we endure through Adam’s sin. Let us direct our lives along that narrow path that is pleasing to God who will raise us up without fail, and so we will certainly be counted as His ‘leaven.’” (Black Sc., 11. 165–68). Corruptibility, fragmentation, and decay, not the body itself, are negative and result from the Fall. Bonvesin holds out the promise, however, that if men behave properly, they will find the “salutary wealth” of heaven (1.112) and, as we will see, eventually regain the very same body as on earth but redeemed from all its previous imperfections.10 Only then will their glory be complete.
In the remaining lines of the Black Scripture, Bonvesin describes the moment of the sinner’s death and his punishments in hell. According to this eschatological vision, the only thing the sinner can do when he dies is to regret his behavior and to express an impossible wish: “O poor miserable me, how unpleasant this is for me! If I must be punished with such a grievous torment, I would gladly return to the world with all my heart; I would do such penance that God would be satisfied with it” (Black Sc., 11. 221–24). But it is too late, and as Bonvesin relates, it is impossible to attain salvation without the body: “O sweet Father most high, what great solace it would be if he could return to the world with his body! The soul issues forth, and thereupon he is dead. He came to his senses too late, nor did he see the light in time” (Black Sc., 11. 225–28). Both body and soul are necessary and both are responsible for the destiny of each person. Hence damnation entails the eventual punishment of both: “Because both soul and body are guilty together, on the great Judgment Day . . . , body and soul will burn in this tormenting fire” (Black Sc., 11. 242–44).
Bonvesin is perfectly aware of the theological doctrine that the body will return only after the last judgment and that until that moment the anima exuta, the separated soul, will be alone in the other-world. Nonetheless, his description of the twelve punishments of hell is mainly corporeal. A limitless physicality characterizes the twelve infernal torments of the Black Scripture, where the presence of the body is continuously imp
lied and what is described is a fully somatomorphic soul.11
The first pain is the “dark fire that burns in that pit” (1. 298). The fact that the anima exuta could be tormented by corporeal fire was amply discussed by medieval theologians.12 But here Bonvesin goes further: the senses and the faculties of the body are continuously implied in his description of the sufferings of hell.13 For instance, in the tenth pain, diseases of every sort harrow the damned and disfigure their bodies:
The wretch is afflicted with every sort of disease; he is full of fistulas, morbid, delirious, feverish and paralytic, scabby from head to foot, malarial and gouty, bloated and pellagrous. Squinty and lame, his back crooked and verminous; his hideous and repulsive head hurts all over; the eyes are both rotten, the neck scrofulous; his teeth hurt him, he cries out, as if he were rabid. His arms are dislocated, his cheeks sunken, his tongue all swollen, his face emaciated, he is cancerous and half-blind, his shoulders slump, the stench of his ears stinks horribly. His limbs are swollen and gangrenous through and through; his inward parts are rotten and noisome, his chest is one (big) abscess, which keeps him in great pain. (Black Sc., 11. 750–63)
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