The Origin, Development, and Refinement of Medieval Religious Mendicancies

by Prudlo, Donald S.

• ISBN13: 9789004181809
• ISBN10: 9004181806
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-02-28
• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub
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Summary

The nature of mendicancy as it developed among various religious orders during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is the subject of considerable debate. In spite of this, little in the way of a comprehensive review of the phenomenon as a whole has been undertaken. What has been done has either been order-specific (with an emphasis on the Friars Minor) or has focused on points of special conflict regarding the mendicant ideal (University debates, Spiritual Franciscans). Little work exists on the roots of mendicancy, or on the creative ways in which mendicancy was understood (and deprecated) in various quarters. Few studies try to bring together both the theory and practice of religious mendicancy. The effect that events had in molding and changing the mendicant ideal is also often neglected, as are the ways in which it was independently and creatively appropriated by individuals and groups. Needless to say, all of this is strange for a movement that most are content to label Mendicant. Perhaps it may even be the case that mendicancy is not useful as a descriptive concept. The purpose and intention of this handbook is to offer an analysis of the term and to present an up-to-date and comprehensive introduction to the phenomenon of religious mendicancy in the central and later middle ages. It provides a contextualized guide that will introduce the central issues in contemporary scholarship regarding the mendicant orders. This project approaches the controversies from a multitude of angles and unites in one volume the insights of different disciplines such as social and intellectual history, literary analysis, and theology.The present work is divided into three main sections, I) The origins and foundations of medieval mendicancy, II) The development and articulation of mendicant ideals, III)The reception and appropriation of mendicancy in the middle ages. The chapters herein serve as a solid point of departure for advanced students and scholars.

Excerpts

IntroductionDonald S. PrudloNear the end of the nineteenth century the Victorian rambler and travel writer Augustus Hare was present in Rome for the Annunciation procession at Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. There he witnessed a ceremony that dated back to the time of the prominent Dominican Cardinal, Juan de Torquemada (known to theological history as Johannes de Turrecremata; 1388-1468). The Dominican had established a charity for the poor girls of Rome the purpose of which was to present a number of them with a dowry each year on the 25th of March. Hare witnessed two lines of young women in the piazza in front of the church, one of them distinguished from the other by white wreaths. These were the girls destined to enter the convent. As such they were entitled to double the dowry of those headed for matrimony. Wondering at this, Hare was told simply that "money placed in the hands of religion bears interest for the poor."This offhand comment discloses a tension inherent in the very idea of religious poverty and mendicancy. It illustrates the sometimes uncomfortable nexus between money and indigence, reform and relaxation, power and powerlessness. It also points in the direction of a solution arrived at after hundreds of years of debate in the middle ages. From the beginnings of Christianity decadence and reform had performed a continual dance. Reform attracted support, comfort succeeded asceticism, and was often followed by corruption, leading to new and creative types of reform. This collection of essays is an attempt to offer a comprehensive portrait and outline of the complexity and creativity surrounding one of these periods of reform and response: the issue of religious mendicancy in the later middle ages. Mendicancy was both lived and contested during the period that this book considers. Today there are unfortunately many cases in which the term has become a convenient placeholder for critical thought. While battles raged in the medieval period about its proper interpretation -- indeed they were also given new life by the Reformation controversies -- the word mendicancy has become a nominal token in a post-confessional age. It is the purpose of the present work to bring forcefully to the forefront of historical consciousness the complexity and multivalency of the religious mendicancies of the medieval period.A reappraisal of the idea of mendicancy has certainly been made possible by significant studies that appeared in the last hundred-or-so years. What may justifiably be called the "Francis industry" was profitably begun by Paul Sabatier in his Vie de Saint François d''Assise in 1894. Accompanied by the publication of critical editions of many of the sources surrounding early mendicancy, it was followed by an abundance of new biographies approaching Francis from every conceivable angle. This flood of new Francis material has continued to the present day as the "Poor Man of Assisi" continues to exercise a fascination for scholars from many different fields. While consistently illuminating St. Francis by placing him in new lights, this path of study has also been very constricting. Much becomes concentrated and fixed on Francis'' person that could more constructively be viewed in a larger context -- by examining mendicancy before, apart from, and in development long after the Franciscan founder. Without downplaying Francis'' genuine importance, this present work tries to decenter him from the debate and, in so doing, to complexify the story and illustrate the subtle shades of distinction and development that gave mendicancy its vitality and vibrancy.Scholars began similar work on Dominic and the Friars Preachers near the same time as Sabatier, though on a much more modest scale. While excellent critical work on Dominican sources began in the 1890s, in terms of mendicancy, scholarship on Dominic tended to develop in the dominating light of Francis. There were particularly numerous exchanges on the topic of the originality of Dominic''s commitment to poverty. Yet it was the later Preachers and Minors who worked out a comprehensive defense of their title as mendicants, all the while refashioning it in the light of heresy, inquisition, sainthood, university work, and new urban realities.Herbert Grundmann broke new ground in his Religi?se Bewegungen im Mittelalter, published in 1935. Grudmann had provided a far-reaching and broad analysis of religious movements that situated mendicancy among other contemporary phenomena such as women''s religiosity and heresies. His study placed mendicancy into a much wider context. Later innovative studies in economic, social, and gender history also contributed to a more coherent account of the mendicant movement. The purpose of this collection is to gather contributions from many of the significant scholars who have worked so hard to advance a more integrated and cohesive account of mendicancy in its multifarious form and patterns of development. The essays in this collection are an attempt to look anew at a term that is too often rendered meaningless by overuse and lack of precision. These contributors forcefully bring forward the idea of an organically developing concept that decidedly predated the Mendicant orders themselves, and which those very orders reimagined and reinterpreted almost from the moment of their embracing of Apostolic poverty. There is not always agreement among the contributors of this volume, many various positions are formulated and forcefully defended. This, I think, adds to the value of the text, presenting to the reader a map and grid of various positions and to recent scholarship. What they all bring forward is that it is now opportune to reexamine the meaning of "Mendicancy" itself and to ask whether we are speaking of Mendicancy or mendicancies, and to free ourselves from outworn generalizations in order to get to the facts of the matter.Augustine Thompson''s piece opens this collection with a thorough account of the early history of the idea of religious mendicancy. Analyzing the evolution of the practice of Apostolic poverty in the twelfth century, Thompson discusses both orthodox and heretical approaches to implementing the imitation of the Apostles. He shows that much that has been attributed to Francis is actually found in his predecessors. Thompson points out that mendicancy was not a primary lens through which the new orders understood themselves, especially regarding the issues surrounding the creation of an alternative clergy. He questions the appropriateness of even using "mendicant" as a title for the early orders, and remarks that begging was not central to these groups'' identity. Perhaps most significantly Francis, in Thompson''s view and against many earlier assertions, was no radical innovator, but rather a traditionalist, bringing to fruition movements that had long been in the offing. Included in his chapter is an overview of the canonical status of mendicancy, an often underrepresented perspective on the issue. All of these considerations open the way for a broader consideration of mendicancy than is usually found, and sets the stage for the later chapters, which explore the various paths down which the interpretations of the slippery concept of mendicancy wended their way.The chapter by Anthony Lappin guides one through the long-running controversy over Dominic''s relationship to poverty. Though much of this present edition works to decenter Francis, likewise Lappin turns the focus away from Dominic and places it more on his mentor Diego of Osma as the motive force behind Apostolic poverty among the Friars Preachers. Additionally Lappin also challenges the long-held attribution of genuine poverty to Cathar heretics, suggesting that it was perhaps only the Waldensians who truly embraced a mendicant-style poverty. For Lappin, the focus of the early Friars was on preaching, and he proposes that their commitment to poverty was in reality a practical and ingenious respo