Last Things

by Bynum, Caroline Walker; Freedman, Paul;

  104. Ibid, (following Albertus Magnus, De meteoris, 3.3.20, p. 663): “Corpora autem perfectorum animalium raro formantur in nube, licet hoc semel dicat Avicenna contigisse, quod corpus vituli de nube cecidit. Et hoc ipse maxime attribuit virtuti stellarum in tempore illo formam vituli imprimentium.”

  105. Ibid., 277: “Gens sine capite flagellariorum adventum Antichristi prenuntiavit.”

  106. Ibid., 281: “Vidi, cum se flagellarent, aliquando ferramenta dicta carni taliter infigi, quod uno tractu quandoque, quandoque duobus, non extrahebantur. . . . Cor lapideum esset, quod talia sine lacrimis posset aspicere.”

  107. Ibid., 282–84: “Ex tractatu de flagellariis hiis, quem edidit Gerhardus de Cosvelde, rector scolarium in civitate Monasteriensi Westphalie, cum secta ista cursum suum cepisset et potissime vigeret et non cito desitura putaretur.” Because this passage is little known to modern scholars, it seems worth describing at length here. In his edition of Heinrich’s chronicle, August Potthast was not able to identify either Gerhardus or his treatise (p. xx), nor was it known to Richard Kieckhefer (personal communication). Horrox mentions but does not translate this astrological section in her excerpts from Heinrich’s chronicle (Horrox, Black Death, 150).

  108. Heinrich von Hervordia, Liber de rebus memorabilioribus, 283: “Et sol fuit dominus anni in eadem significatione. Et aries erat domus tertia, cadens ab angulo medie noctis, qui appellatur domus terre. Et in eodem signo erat Saturnus combustus radio solis. Huic signo jungebatur pisces in eadem domo tertia, que erat cadens. In quo erat Mars et Mercurius, similiter cadentes cum piscibus.” And 284: “Domus 3. cadens ab angulo noctis 6. gradu arietis. In hac domo sunt omnes significatores hujus secte, pro qua est questio facta, scil. Sol, Pisces, Mars, Merc., Saturnus.” A horoscope divides the heavens into twelve artificial divisions called mundane houses (or places or sometimes simply houses); each of the twelve mundane houses was said to have significance for some different aspect of life. There is something wrong here, however, either in Heinrich’s copying or in Gerhardus’s calculations. In Heinrich’s quotation of Gerhardus at least, the planets of Mars and Mercury are in the sign of Pisces, which would have to fall within the second house in his horoscope and not the third if the third house indeed begins with Aries 6°.

  109. Ibid.: “Est ergo calculatio talis: Sol in ariete, que fuit domus tertie, multiplicat religionem et sectam. Nam domus tertia est fidei et religionis et mutationis, ut patet in Alkabitio, doctrina prima: de naturis domorum et earum significationibus.” Alchabitius and most authors more commonly make the ninth mundane house the signifier of religion, but Gerhardus’s interpretation is possible according to Alchabitius. See Alchabitius (al-Kabisi, al-Qabisi), Alchabitius cum commento: noviter impresso (Venice: Melchior Sessa, 1506), fol. 7: “Tertia domus est fratrum et sororum et propinquorum ac dilectorum fidei atque religionis mandatorum ac legatorum mutationum atque itinerum minorum et significat esse vite ante mortem.”

  110. Heinrich von Hervordia, Liber de rebus memorabilioribus, 283: “Et incipit hec religio ab oriente, quia aries est signum orientale, ut patet ibidem. Et respicit precipue Alemanniam, ut dicit glosator super Alkabitium in doctrina predicta. Quare hec secta precipue vigebat in Alemannia.” See Alchabitius, Alchabitius cum commento, fol. 2v: “Aries ergo Leo et Sagittarius faciunt triplicitatem primam: quia unumquodque istorum signorum est igneum masculinum diurnum calidum scilicet et siccum colericum. sapore amarum est quoque et hec triplicitas orientalis. Cuius domini sunt in die sol et in nocte Jupiter et eorum particeps in die ac nocte est Saturnus.” The assigning of various regions to various signs was not at all standard; there were many variations.

  111. Heinrich von Hervordia, Liber de rebus memorabilioribus, 283: “ Verumtamen, quia Mars conjunctus Mercurio, testatur super percussiones acuum et sanguinis effusionem, ut patet ibidem, doctrina secunda: de naturis planetarum cap. de Marte. Et Mercurius e converso testatur super percussiones flagellorum, ibidem cap. de Mercurio.” Cf. Alchabitius, fol. 10: “Mars masculinus nocturnus malus . . . et natura eius colorica amari saporis et ex magisteriis omne magisterium igneum et quod fit per ferrum et ignem: sicut est percussio gladiorum cum martellis. Cumque ei complectitur Saturnus significat percussionem ferri . . . Si mercurius percussionem acuum,” and fol. IIV: “Si [Mercurio complectitur] Mars significat . . . numerum percussionum flagellorum atque clavarum.”

  112. Heinrich von Hervordia, Liber de rebus memorabilioribus, 283: “Et quia isti [Mars et Mercurius] erant in domo Jovis simul in predicto tempore in eadem domo tertia, cadente cum sole, induxerunt hominibus hujus secte penitentias per flagellationes acuum, et non sine ypocrisi, ut patet ibidem” (in addition to the mundane houses, each planet is assigned a particular sign that is its domus or domicile or mansion, in which it has particular strength). Cf. Alchabitius cum commento, fol. IIV: “Et significat ex sectis culturam unitatis et horum similia: et hoc secreto cum hypocrisia et simulatione.”

  113. Heinrich von Hervordia, Liber de rebus memorabilioribus, 283: “Et quia aries respicit caput, ut omnes concedunt, in quo fuit Saturnus cum sole, supponunt peregrini hujus secte pilleum griseum ante oculos, facientem Saturninum aspectum.”

  114. Ibid.: “Item hec secta horrendum facit casum ad terram. Cujus causa sine dubio est, quia sol et Saturnus et alii ejus significatores in predicto tempore ceciderunt ab angulo terre.” The 3d, 6th, 9th, and 12th houses are considered “cadents”; the 2d, 5th, 8th, and 11th, succedents; while the 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th mundane houses are the angles or cardines. Thus the sun and Saturn, in the third mundane house, are “cadent.”

  115. Ibid.: “Sed diceretur: que est causa nuditatis eorum? Dico, quod combustus Saturnus et ejus vilitas, quia sic adhuc est in domo sui casus. Sed Venus existens in domo Saturni addidit verendis, tybiis et cruribus ipsorum albam vestem. Nam testatur super vestes muliebres et pudibunda.” Each planet has a particular degree of the zodiac in which it has an access of power, its exaltation; the opposite sign marks a low degree of influence, the planet’s fall or dejection (casus).

  116. Ibid.: “Dicunt ipsi, tabulam lapideam sectam hanc continentem per angelum de celo venisse. Quod teste Deo fingunt et mentiuntur. Sed causa fictionis et dicti eorum est Saturnus cadens, qui testatur super res graves, ut sunt lapides, et super oracula et super apparitores rerum secretarum.” On the so-called Heavenly Letter, see Lerner, “Black Death and Eschatological Mentalities,” 537; Richard Kieckhefer, “Radical Tendencies in the Flagellant Movement of the Mid-Fourteenth Century,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 4 (1974): 165–66; and (with caution) Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961, 1970), 129–34.

  117. Heinrich von Hervordia, Liber de rebus memorabilioribus, 283:

  Notandum etiam, quod scorpio, signum dolositatis et mendacii, in dicto tempore fuit in medio celi. Quapropter infinita mendacia sectam hanc precedunt et secuntur; immo major laus et gloria hujus secte est in mendaciis. Nam medium celi est domus Jovis et glorie et sublimationis, ut ibidem doctrina secunda: de naturis domorum. Hec tamen mendacia vulgus appellat miracula propter fidem Jovis. Item hec secta nullum habet fundamentum stabile, quia omnia signa rerum eam testantia sunt instabilia propter scorpionem.

  See Alchabitius, Alchabitius cum commento, fol. lOr, on Jupiter: “et [Jupiter] significat fidem et appetitum in bonis.” On the long tradition of beliefs about Scorpio’s baleful influence, see Luigi Aurigemma, Le signe zodiacal du Scorpion dans les traditions occidentales de l’Antiquité gréco-latine à la Renaissance (Paris: La Haye, 1976). There are errors in the horoscope as printed in Potthast’s edition (or as Heinrich copied it or Gerhardus erected it). There is no indication of which sign begins the 10th house, but it must be Scorpio, given the reference in the text and the order of signs. That makes the horoscope in error as to the ascendant, which is given as Scorpio 14°, but which must be Capricorn 14°.

  118. Heinrich von Hervordia, Liber de rebus memorabilioribus, 283–84: “Alia causa brevitatis pretermitto, sed dico, quod est
imatione mea secta hec pure naturalis est, et quod agitantur quadam specie furie, que vocatur mania. Et possibilie est, quod in aliqua parte mundi fiat persecutio cleri ab hac secta. Et secta non diu durabit, sed cito et cum confusione et infamia finem habebit.” (emphasis added)

  119. Within a paragraph, however, Heinrich returns to the subject of the plague, which he describes through a lengthy quotation from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (VIII, 523 seq.), in which the poet tells of a plague sent as punishment by Juno, which is lifted only after prayers and vows are made to Jupiter. If he means to imply similarly a divine origin for the Black Death, he does not spell this out for his readers. Heinrich von Hervordia, Liber de rebus memorabilioribus, 284–85.

  120. Ibid., 285–86:

  Quarto anno Karoli [1351] in opido Hamelen supra Mindam in metis Westphalie et Saxonie pestis quedam singularis oboritur. Siquidem fovea fodiebatur, purgabatur et eruderabatur in area civis cujusdam ibidem. Fossor existens in imo, subito, nescitur a quo tactus, corruit et exspiravit. Alius descendit ad extrahendum primum jam frigidum, et ipse quoque mox extinctus est. . . . Tertius cautius agere volens, fune forti cingitur circa corpus, per quem de fovea, cum opus esset, extraheretur. Ad medium fovee descendens pervenit, totoque corpore stupidus esse cepit et rigere. Signum dat. Semivivus extrahitur, aliquamdiu sic permanens. . . . Quartus descendens in foveam similiter ut primi duo periclitatur. Quidam opinabatur, in aliqua cavernula fovee serpentem basiliscum habitare, qui visu et anhelitu suo, quidquid sibi propinquat, divitur vitiare; aliis putantibus, terram in fovea qualitatem aliquam venenosam contraxisse, quia prius et tempore multo latrina fuerit in eodem loco. Quid autem esset in veritate, penitus a nullo sciebatur. . . . Demum consilio casu transeuntis extranei decoctio in modum sorbitii ex aqua et farina silignis in quantitate tanta, quod fovea repleri posset, paratur, et de ipsa fortissime bulliente fovea totaliter ad summum usque velocius infunditur et impletur. . . . Quo facto et per decoctionem illam vel interfecto basilisco vel fovea a venenosa qualitate purgata et recentificata, Hamelenses peste dicta liberantur.

  121. Albertus Magnus, De meteoris, 3.2.12, p. 629:

  Ego autem vidi in Paduana civitate Lombardiae, quod puteus ab antiquo tempore clausus inventus fuit, qui cum aperiretur, et quidam intraret ad purgandum puteum, mortuus fuit ex vapore cavernae illius, et similiter mortuus est secundus: et tertius voluit scire quare duo moras agerent, inclinatus ad puteum adeo debilitatus est, quod spatio duorum dierum vix rediit ad seipsum: cum autem exspirasset vapor putrefactus in puteo, factus est bonus et potabilis.

  122. See note 82 above. This is not the only parallel between the two texts; both mention the Carinthia earthquake, for example.

  123. John Clynn, Annales Hiberniae, 37: “ne scriptura cum scriptore pereat, et opus simul cum operario deficiat, dimitto pergamenam pro opere continuando, si forte in futuro homo superstes remaneat, an aliquis de genere Ade hanc pestilenciam possit evadere et opus continuare inceptum.”

  124. Opinion of the Paris Medical Faculty, 156: “Amplius pretermittere nolumus quod epidemia aliquando a divina uoluntate procedit, in quo casu non est aliud consilium nisi quod ad ipsum humiliter recurratur, medicos tamen non deserendo.”

  125. Utrum mortalitas fit ab ultione divina, 51: “Deus non solum retrahere posset afflictionem supernaturaliter inflictam, sed etiam cursum nature in suis accidentibus retardandis.” The question is posed in either/or terms: “Utrum mortalitas, que fuit hijs annis, fit ab ultione divina propter iniquitates hominum vel a cursu quodam naturali” (44).

  126. Continuatio novimontensis, 674, col. 1: “Item eodem anno infinita disturbia in diversis regionibus apparuerunt, quemadmodum principaliter orta fuit seva pestilentia ultra in partibus orientalibus . . . ex maligna impressione superiorum causa efficiente.”

  127. See Smoller, History, Prophecy, and the Stars, esp. chaps. 2 and 6.

  128. His prognostication appears in Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine, MS 3893, fol. 65–99 (the sole Latin manuscript). There is an early printed edition: Pronosticum, sive tractatus qui intitulatur de veritate astronomie, a principio mundi usque in ejus finem (Antwerp: T. Martens, before 1503). There is also a French version, existing in two manuscripts: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 7335, fol. 115ra–131ra; Paris, Bibliothèque Ste. Geneviève, MS 2521, fol. 37–57v. There is a brief mention of Jean in the late fifteenth-century compilation of Simon de Phares, in Jean-Patrice Boudet, ed., Le recueil des plus celebres astrologues de Simon de Phares (Paris: Champion, 1997), 563–64. See also Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1923–58), 4:146–47; Jean-Patrice Boudet, Lire dans le ciel: la bibliothèque de Simon de Phares, astrologue du XVe siècle (Brussels: Centre d’Etude des Manuscrits, 1994), 80–83; and Smoller, “The Alfonsine Tables,” 224–31.

  129. For a more detailed description of medieval conjunction theory, see Smoller, History, Prophecy, and the Stars, 20–22, 70–71, 73–74; John D. North, Chaucer’s Universe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 370–74; and John D. North, “Astrology and the Fortunes of Churches,” Centaurus 24 (1980): 181–211.

  130. Bibliothèque Mazarine, MS 3893, fol. 94v: “Videtur ergo probabile cum naturali lumine per presentem triplicitatem aquatica antichristum et per futuram igneam diluvium per ignem naturaliter exspectandum.” See Smoller, “Alfonsine Tables,” 226–28.

  131. E.g., the work of Pierre Turrell (published in 1531), described in Smoller, “Alfonsine Tables,” 231–36; see also Denis Crouzet, Les guerriers de Dieu: la violence au temps des troubles de religion, vers 1525–vers 1610, 2 vols. (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 1990), 1: 103–53; and Paola Zambelli, ed., “Astrologi hallucinate”: Stars and the End of the World in Luther’s Time (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1986).

  132. Watts, “Prophecy and Discovery,” esp. 96. (But it must be noted that Columbus, like John of Paris, based his prediction on a calculation of the world’s age and the belief that the world would endure only 7000 years.)

  Community Among the Saintly Dead: Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons for the Feast of All Saints

  I gratefully acknowledge the generous help and encouragement of my teacher Caroline Walker Bynum and that of my classmates in the Eschatology seminar at Columbia University. I thank Nicole Randolph Rice for reading portions of this article before its publication.

  1. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super cantica canticorum 26.3.5, in Sancti Bernardi opera, ed. Jean Leclercq, C. H. Talbot, and H. M. Rochais, 8 vols. in 9 (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957–77), 1: 173 (hereafter SC in SBO); trans. Kilian Walsh and Irene Edmonds in Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs, Cistercian Fathers Series, 4 vols. (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1971–80), 2: 63 (hereafter Song). Abbreviations for the works of Bernard of Clairvaux in Latin are taken from “Commonly Used Abbreviations,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly (Vina, Calif.: Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux, 1994).

  2. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones in festivitate Omnium Sanctorum 1–5, in SBO 5: 327–70 (hereafter OS in SBO); trans. a priest of Mount Melleray [Ailbe Luddy], Sermons for the Feast of All Saints in St. Bernard’s Sermons for the Seasons and Principal Festivals of the Year, 3 vols. (Dublin: Brown and Nolan, 1921–25), 3: 330–96 (hereafter All Saints, in Sermons for the Seasons).

  3. SC 26.3.5 in SBO 1: 173; trans. in Song, 2: 63.

  4. I have not addressed this question directly here, but I believe that further investigation would show that the boundary between self and other is, for Bernard, lodged most fundamentally in memory and body.

  5. OS 2.2 in OSB 5: 344. Bernard is thinking here of 1 Cor. 9: 26–27. Unless otherwise indicated, the translations are mine.

  6. Bernard of Clairvaux, Officium de sancto Victore, in SBO 3: 501; trans. Robert Walton, The Office of St. Victor in The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercian Fathers Series 1 (Spencer, Mass.: Cistercian Publications, 1970), 169.

  7. OS 5.2 in SBO 5: 362; trans. in All Saints, in Sermons for the Seasons 3: 384.

  8. In the twelfth cent
ury, as today, one of the Gospel readings for the Feast of All Saints was the Sermon on the Mount, and the bulk of Bernard’s first sermon is a commentary on the Beatitudes, which he refers to as the “ladder on which the whole band [of saints] whom we honor today have climbed to glory”; OS 2.1 in SBO 5: 343.

  9. Bernard McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism, vol. 2 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 1994), 212. The language of repose has a long history in monastic literature; see Jean Leclercq, Etudes sur la vocabulaire monastique du moyen áge, Studia Anselmiana Philosophica Theologica 48 (Rome: Herder, 1961), 67, 102–3; idem, Otia monastica: études sur le vocabulaire de la contemplation au moyen age (Rome: Herder, 1963), 13–26, 119–21; Michael Casey, Athirst for God: Spiritual Desire in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1988), 229–30. In Bernard’s own works, see, for example, SC 4.3.4 in OSB 1: 20; trans. in Song, 1: 23; Liber de gradibus humilitatis et superbiae 7.21, in OSB 3: 33–34 (hereafter Hum in OSB); trans. G. R. Evans in Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Steps of Humility and Pride, in Selected Works, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 117–18; for sleep as vital, watchful slumber, ecstasy, and embrace with Christ, see SC 52.2.3–3.6 in OSB 2: 91–93; trans. in Song, 3: 51–54. On the paradox of “waking sleep” and on the significance of otium in Bernard’s writings and in writings of other medieval monastic authors, see Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, trans. Catherine Misrahi, 3rd ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982), 67; idem, Vocabulaire de la contemplation, 27–41, for the word’s ancient, biblical, and patristic use.

  10. OS 2.5 in OSB 5: 346; trans. in All Saints, in Sermons for the Season, 3: 359. Restlessness sometimes has a positive connotation, as, for example, when Bernard writes of the bride soul who “cannot rest. . . unless he [Christ] kisses me with the kiss of his mouth”; SC 9.2.2 in OSB 1: 43; trans. in Song, 1: 54. In this case, restlessness is desire and will be consummated in the “ecstatic repose” of the “kiss of his [Christ’s] mouth”; SC 4.3.4 in OSB 1: 20; trans. in Song, 1: 23. Furthermore, Leclercq points out that “to desire Heaven is to want God and to love Him with a love that the monks sometimes call impatient. The greater the desire becomes, the more the soul rests in God”; Leclercq, Love of Learning, 68. Thus it is only while seeking that the soul can rest.