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VOLUME XIX NUMBER

WINTER 1995

RENAISSANCE

AND REFORMATION

RENAISSANCE

VOLUME XIX NUMÉRO

HIVER 1995

Renaissance and Reformation /Renaissance et Réforme is published quarterly (February, May,
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New Series, Vol. XIX, No. 1 NouveUe Série, Vol. XIX, No 1

Old Series, Vol. XXXI, No. 1 1995 Ancienne Série, Vol. XXXI, No 1

CONTENTS / SOMMAIRE

EDITORIAli

ARTICLES

The Sexual Identity of Moll Cutpurse in Dekker and Middleton's The

Roaring Girl and in London

by Susan E. Krantz

Du "conseil des muetz" au "taire parliez": le langage du geste chez

Rabelais et Montaigne

par Guylaine Fontaine

Celebrations Held in Siena during the Government of the Nine
by Gordon Moran and Michael Mallory

Figuriing Justice: Ideology and the Discourse of Colonialism in Book V of
The Faerie Queene and A View of the Present State of Ireland

by Walter S. H. Lim
45

BOOK REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS

John O'Malley. The First Jesuits

reviewed by Nicholas Terpstra

Galileo Galilei. Le messager des étoiles

recensé par Louis Valcke

Martin Wamke. The Court Artist: On the Ancestry of the Modem Artist;
David Howarth, ed. Art and Patronage in the Caroline Court

reviewed by Use E. Friesen
76

Camille Wells Slights. Shakespeare's Comic Commonwealths

reviewed by Rick Bowers
78

J. M. de Bujanda & al. Index de Rome 1590, 1593, 1596

recensé par Maurice Lebel
81

Tina Krontiris. Oppositional Voices: Women as Writers and Translators of
Literature in the English Renaissance; Charlotte F. Otten. English

Women's Voices, 1540-1700
reviewed by A. Lynne Magnusson

James Dauphiné. La bibliothèque de Du Bartas
recensé par Jean-Claude Temaux

Daniel Javitch. Proclaiming a Classic: The Canonization of Orlando

Furioso
reviewed by Antonio Franceschetti

ANNOUNCEMENTS / ANNONCES

RECENT BOOKS / LIVRES RÉCENTS

EDITORIAL

Le contenu de ce numéro de Renaissance
et Réforme est marqué par la question des
interdits. C'est d'abord la somme
sidérante des condamnations de livres,
telle qu'elle se révèle dans les Index
publiés par le Centre d'Études de la Ren-
aissance, qui ne peut manquer de nous
frapper. La Renaissance est une époque
traversée par une gestion difficile de
l'interdit. Cet interdit prend évidemment
de multiples formes, tant sur le plan des
comportements sexuels comme dans le
théâtre londonien que dans celui du
langage même comme chez Rabelais et
Montaigne. Il dépassait largement les
frontières du religieux. Il a semblé affecter,
comme le montre l'article de Walter Lim
dans ces pages, tous les systèmes de
représentationsàl'oeuvredansl'entreprise
coloniale à l'époque de la reine Elizabeth
pre Nous sommes toujours tentés d'en
tirer pour notre époque des leçons de
vigilance. Si nous assistons maintenant à
la fin, ou tout au moins, au déclin des
bibliothèques, il n'est pas sûr que cet
événement annonce pour nous des condi-
tions favorables à l'expansion des idées
et du savoir libre. Nous sommes toujours
aux abords d'une certaine obscurité de la
pensée.

The content of this issue of Renaissance
and Reformation poses the problem of
interdictions. The publication of the most
recent Index at the Centre for the Study of
the Renaissance (University of Sherbrooke)
reveals the astounding impact of censor-
ship on book publications and the dis-
semination of ideas throughout Europe in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Interdictions and condemnations took
many forms, from the strict codes of
social and sexual behaviour (as in the
London theatre) to the regulations sur-
rounding the use of language (as in
Rabelais and Montaigne). Similar at-
tempts at controlling representations of
power seem to pervade the entire colonial
enterprise during the reign of Elizabeth I
in England. It is always rather tempting to
draw conclusions which would apply to
our own times. If we are, as some of us
think, in the midst of a definitive decline
of the printed book, it is nevertheless
unclear whether such a decline will in the
end foster the freedom of speech and the
diffusion of new ideas. It appears that our
civilization is always at the brink of un-
known periods of darkness and that we
must remain vigilant.

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 1 ( 1 995) /3

The Sexual Identities of Moll

Cutpurse in Dekker and

Middleton's The Roaring

Girl and in London

SUSAN E.
KRANTZ

Summary: Moll Cutpurse dramatically demonstrates the insufficiency of
gender categories both in The Roaring Girl and in her life. The fictional Moll 's
sex/gender ambiguity is explored through three distinct sexual identities
(prostitute, hermaphrodite, bisexual ideal) and is further complicated through
her heroic personation. Ultimately, the playwrights replace negative social
readings of Moll's sexuality with a positive ideal, albeit an incomplete one.
When the real Moll appeared on stage, she not only usurped the male actor's
prerogative, she also rejected her fictional rehabilitation. Through her overtly
sexual language, her cross-gendered performance, and her transvestite cos-
tume, she recuperated transgression as social signifier.

homas Dekker and Thomas Middleton' s The Roaring Girl has received its
share of attention in the ongoing academic discourse on cross-dressed females
in the Renaissance transvestite theater. The play differs from most of its
contemporaries, however, in that it features a hermaphroditically attired
heroine drastically unlike the romanticized disquised-as-a-boy female leads of
romantic comedy; moreover, the characterization of Moll Cutpurse in the play
is complicated by the actual Moll Cutpurse, who tested and crossed the
boundaries of the male theater by appearing on stage as herself — a cross-
dressed virago — at the Fortune playhouse following a performance of the very
play that featured her as character.^

Christened Mary Frith, Moll Cutpurse, as her portrait on the frontispiece
of the printed version of The Roaring Gj>/^ testifies, consciously inverted and/

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 1 (1995) /S

6 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

or rejected traditional gender signifiers in her apparel: her cropped hair, her
pipe smoking, her drawn sword, and her French slops mark her for notice, not
for transvestite "passing." Neither in the fictive London of Dekker and
Middleton's play nor in the actual London of the early seventeenth century
does Moll's costume generally serve as a disguise.^ In fact, despite the
frontispiece depiction (which portrays her in trousers), both the play and an
extant arrest record for Moll describe her propensity to combine male and
female attire. On January 27, 161 1/12, The London Correction Book records
various charges against Moll and recounts her previous arrest cind conviction
for apearing on the stage of the Fortune "about 3 quarters of a yeare since." The
current charges against Moll include one for cross-dressing: "she was since
vpon Christmas day at night taken in Powles Church w'*' her peticoate tucked
vp about her in the fashion of a man w* a mans cloake on her to the great
scandall of diu[er]s p[er]sons who vnderstood the same & to the disgrace of all
womanhood.""* The court "reads" Moll's appearance as lewd and immodest
and so questions her regarding prostitution and procurement: she was "pressed
to declare whether she had not byn dishonest of her body & hath not also
drawne other women to lewdnes by her p[er]swasion." But, despite having
"voluntarily confessed" to other charges equally serious (like blasphemy,
public drunkenness, and cutting purses), Moll "absolutely denied y' she was
chargeable w^ eyther of these imputac[i]ons." "Diuers understood" that she
was not a man, but the court really had no term for what she was, so it
reinscribed her behavior in terms that corresponded to the established cultural
binary of gender. As a compromised female, Moll is assumed a prostitute.

Similar to the actual Moll's appearance at St. Paul's, the character Moll
first appears in The Roaring Girl hermaphroditically attired: Enter Mol in a
freese lerkin and a blacke saueguard (2.1.155).^ (A safeguard is a kind of
overskirt, designed primarily to protect the outer skirt from dirt when women
go riding; the jerkin, of course, is a man's jacket). Although clearly costumed
female from the waist down, Moll is "male" from the waist up, and she further
compromises her female identity in the play by equipping herself with
traditionally male and symbolically phallic objects — a tobacco pipe and a
short sword. These are the "signs" of Moll that the other characters in the play
as well as the larger audience must attempt to "read."

And readings have been plentiful and various. Mary Beth Rose (re)places
The Roaring Girl into one of its historical contexts — the early seventeenth-
century debate on female cross-dressing — and concludes that the transvestite
heroine, despite her sympathetic treatment by Dekker and Middleton, cannot

Susan E. Krantz / The Sexual Identities of Moll Cutpurse / 7

be absorbed into Jacobean social and sexual hierarchies.^ Viviana Comensoli
points to the inadequacies of the other marriages in the play to help clarify the
apparent dichotomy between Moll's conventional views and her unconven-
tional behavior.^ Both Jo Miller, in "Women and the Market in The Roaring
Girl,'' and Jean Howard, in "Crossdressing, the Theatre, and Gender Struggle
in Early Modem England," see the play as being more successfully transgres-
sive: for Miller, Moll successfully demonstrates the flaws in the system of
exchange that markets women; for Howard, Moll represents a significant
reversal of authority in a play in which "the resistance to patriarchy and its
marriage customs is clear and sweeping."^ Stephen Orgel also considers
Moll's character in terms of the marriage market, an institution he believes
Dekker and Middleton reconfigure on stage to accommodate the mannish
female: in the world of the play, "acting like a man is clearly better than acting
like a woman, both more attractive and . . . more likely to lead to an honourable
marriage."^ A similar but more radical reading is offered by Jonathan DoUimore:
"the female transvestite of the early seventeenth century positively disrupts
[the binarism of gender] by usurping the master side of the opposition" and thus
"represents a subversive reinscription within, rather than a transcendence of,
an existing order."^° Howard's latest study examines sexual desire and anxiety
in the play and finds Moll's often contradictory representation signifying both
female desire and male homoeroticism.^^ Together, Orgel, Howard and
Dollimore compellingly redirect critical investigation of the sex / gender
tensions in the play.^^ Earlier readings of The Roaring Girl as transvestite text
not only reinscribed (and therefore reaffirmed, even if negatively) the binarism
of gender — male and female, they also minimized the significance of
transgression by accepting the cross-dressed woman as normal and arguing the
desirability of cultural reform that incorporates and empowers the outsider: the
transvestite female is, after all, simply a female who wants the independence
and/or privileges of the male. But even the more recent readings, while
recognizing the power of the female transvestite on stage as transvestite,
present the power as subversive rather than oppositional or alternative and
locate it within the relatively safe limits of the culture — a culture that allows
boys to cross-dress on stage and to "double-cross" when playing female cross-
dressers — and, further, they minimize the theatrical normalizing of the stage
transvestite. If the female transvestite, as Dollimore argues, "usurps the master
side of the opposition," and so "positively disrupts" the binarism of gender,
why does this positive transgression result in the recuperation of cultural
"normalcy" — in the celebration of heterosexual marriage that makes sexual-

8 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

ity and reproduction essential to the definition of gender identity? And why
does a positively reinscribed culture view with derision the transvestite
transgression of the actual Moll on stage and imprison her for it?'^

These questions are further complicated in The Roaring Girl because the
transvestite heroine herself does not marry at the end of the play, although her
agency is key to the marriage that takes place; in fact, the social unacceptability
of her potential marriage allows for the comic duping of Sir Alexander (the
father who acts as the traditional block to the lovers) and his subsequent
reconciliation with his son Sebastian. Further, the hero Moll undergoes no
dramatic change in the play; like Prospero, she choreographs rather than
participates in the action. Her delight in cross-dressing is the most prominent
element of a constant personality — a self-fashioned sexual enigma. She
neither assumes nor doffs her hermaphroditic/ transvestite costume (although
she frequently changes clothes) in the course of the play; instead, her figure
dramatically exemplifies a category crisis by insisting that the gender catego-
ries — the comfortable binarism of male/female — are insufficient.

But is there a "third term" we can call Moll? What alternatives do Dekker
and Middleton suggest to the London court's reinscription of the actual Moll
as prostitute? And will recuperating those altematives reveal or conceal Moll
Cutpurse — either the character or the person? Finally, do the playwrights
locate Moll within or without the cultural binary or gender?

The play, in fact, is obsessed with ways to read Moll's sexual identity; as
I noted earlier, the character is completely static in terms of either internal or
external conflict. Instead Moll gains dramatic complexity through the inter-
play of at least three different sexual identities and through the character's
refusal to identify herself in sexual terms. To the characters in the play, she is
sometimes female, her sexuality determined by the polarizing discourse which
places her at either extreme on the spectrum of heterosexuality — whore or
virgin.^'* Sometimes she is identified as "monster," the physical hermaphrodite
whose sexual indeterminancy implies threatening bisexual power. '^ Moll, on
the other hand, displays the familiar attributes of the dramatic hero — physical
prowess, a noble spirit, and a moral certitude — that succeed only because she
removes herself from questions of sexual identity. In addition, the playwrights
infuse the character with an almost mystical power that transforms the
hermaphrodite from a social threat into an ideal of transcendence, a coincidentia
oppositoruniy expressed through the completeness achieved by combining the
idea of female and male into one being. •*'

Because her hermaphroditic costume calls public attention to herself,

Susan E. Krantz / The Sexual Identities of Moll Cutpurse / 9

some characters echo the London court's misreading of the actual Moll and
assume that the fictional Moll is sexually promiscuous. Thus, Mistress
Openwork suspects Moll to be one of her husband's whores. And the stupidly
macho servant Trapdoor mistakenly assumes that sex can and will usurp class
— that the power of his penis can turn his mistress into his servant: "when her
breeches are off, shee shall follow me," he tells Sir Alexander (1.2.226). But
the longest and most in-depth misreading of Moll as whore involves the gallant
Laxton, a somewhat sexually ambiguous character himself. Named to suggest
the impotence of the castrato (lack stone [s]), Laxton proves lecherous but
sexually ineffective throughout the play. At his very first meeting with Moll,
he boldly propositions her with the promise of money. But even before
speaking with her, he reads her "manly spirit" in terms of purchased female
favors and consequent reproduction:

Lax. Hart I would giue but too much money to be nibling with that wench
... me thinkes a braue Captaine might get all his souldiers vpon her ... if
hee could come on, and come off quicke enough.

(2.1.166-71)

And, at his first opportunity, he believes he enjoins her to a sexual contract:

Lax. . . . prethee, sweete plumpe Mol, when shall thou and I go out a towne
together.

Moll What to do there.

Lax. Nothing but bee merry and lye together . . . Nay but appoint the place
then, there's ten Angels in faire gold MoU you see I do not trifle with you."

(2.1.245-60)

Although the play clearly and forcefully denies any merit to Laxton' s
reading of Moll as prostitute and posits as fact her chastity, it does not place
her among womankind; rather it places her as champion of women and chastity
— a cross-dressed Diana (or a Venus Armata) who punishes men for their
mistreatment of women. Cloaked and armed, she confronts Laxton and draws:

In thee I defye all men, their worst hates.
And their best flatteries, all their golden witchcrafts,
With which they intangle the poore spirits of fooles.
Distressed needlewomen and trade-fallne wiues.
Fish that must needs bite, or themselues be bitten,

Tis the best fish he takes: but why good fisherman,

10 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Am I thought meate for you, that neuer yet
Had angling rod cast towards me? cause youl'e say
I'me giuen to sport, F me often mery, iest.
Had mirth no kindred in the world but lust?

0 shame take all her friends then: but how ere
Thou and the baser world censure my life,

He send 'em word by thee, and write so much

Vpon thy breast, cause thou shalt bear't in mind.

Tell them 'twere base to yeeld where I have conquer' d.

1 scome to prostitute my selfe to a man,
I that can prostitute a man to mee.

(3.1.88-108)

Almost every commentator of the play quotes this forceful oration to demon-
strate Moll's social consciousness of the shared female experience of sexual
exploitation as well as her championing of greater power and freedom for
women in society. ^^ However, Moll makes it perfectly clear that, although she
feels sympathy for the exploited female and indeed will champion her cause
(just as she champions other causes later in the play), she is not among those
she describes. Subject neither to the economic nor the social forces that cause
women to compromise their sexual standards, Moll certainly is not subject to
male flattery. In beating Laxton, she proclaims herself above the baser world
— the world of prostitution and other male-female sexual assignations -^ the
world that misunderstands her, but she offers no convincing alternate reading
for herself. In fact, she misreads Laxton — he did not assume her a loose
woman because of her mirth, nor did she arouse his lust with jesting. He read
the outward signs: "I must look for a shag ruff, a freeze ierkin, a short sword,
and a safeguard, or I get none" (3.1.31-32). And she further complicates our
reading of her by usurping the male prerogative of hiring a prostitute — a
prerogative that she has just excoriated — again insisting that her life and her
morals are unrelated to those of other women.

Not everyone in the play assumes that Moll's hermaphroditic attire
signifies female wantoness. Some read the visual metaphor of cross-dressing
literally and so categorize Moll as the "third" sex, the physical hermaphrodite.
Viola in Twelfth Night uses the physical hermaphrodite as metaphor to
describe the imperfection of her transformation into Caesario — a "man" with
the heart and stomach of a woman — when she calls herself "poor monster"
(2.3.34). But for Viola the metaphor remains a private observation, since her
outward transformation into a man is quite successful. For Moll, the vehicle of

Susan E. Krantz / The Sexual Identities of Moll Cutpurse / 11

the metaphor is public and dramatically realized — the hermaphroditic
costume that defines Moll has too much substance, is too real, for some
characters to translate it into anything but the sexually aberrant and physically
deformed monster. Thus Sir Alexander describes Moll to his cronies in much
the same way that an outraged and bewildered Phillip Stubbes describes
women in men's apparel in his Anatomie of Abuses (1583): "Wherefore these
Women may not improperly be called Hermaphroditic that is. Monsters of
bothe kindes, halfe women, half men."^^ Sir Alexander literalizes the metaphor
of the cross-dressed female as monster even further by describing her physical
formation in the womb and the resulting deformities after her birth.

Alex. A creature . . . nature hath brought forth
To mocke the sex of woman. — It is a thing
One knowes not how to name, her birth began
Ere she was all made. Tis woman more then man,
Man more then woman, and (which to none can hap)
The Sunne giues her two shadowes to one shape;
Nay more, let this strange thing, walke, stand or sit.
No blazing starre drawes more eyes after it.

Davy. A Monster, tis some Monster.

(1.2.130-38)

Sir Alexander' s image is reminiscent of the rough woodcuts of monstrous
births that preface so many ballads of the times. Later, Sir Alexander reveals
further his anxiety over Moll's sexual identity. He calls her "codpice daugh-
ter," and speculates that her codpiece performs its appropriate function of
calling attention to what it conceals — male genitals: "will he marry a monster
with two trinckets?" (2.2.72-73). Alternately, Sir Alexander's anxiety over
what is below Moll's waist is revealed in terms of another monster: "This
wench we speake of, straies so from her kind, / Nature repents she made her.
Tis a Mermaid" (1.2.214-15).^^

The possibility of Moll's physical hermaphroditism also attracts the
curiosity of other characters in the play. Mistress Gallipot and Laxton briefly
review Moll's trans vestite and hermaphroditic reputation throughout London:

Mrs. G. Some will not sticke to say shees a man and some both man and
woman.

Lax. That were excellent, she might first cuckold the husband and then make
him do as much for the wife.

(2.1.186-89)

12 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Laxton' s joke is revealing for it maintains the hermaphrodite as sexual monster
while recuperating the gender binary of male and female. Randolph Trumbach
points out that in the seventeenth century the paradigm that related sex to
gender was "three biological sexes — man, woman, and hermaphrodite'* —
but only two genders, male and female.^^ His point is reiterated by Stephen
Greenblatt who notes in his discussion of Jacques Duval in Shakespearean
Negotiations that the sexual prodigy reaffirms the "normal":

Discourse on hermaphroditism and discourse on normal sexuality and
childbirth do not conflict for Duval; on the contrary, they are the same
discourse, for the knowledge that enables one to understand the monstrous
conjuction in one individual of the male and female sexes is the identical
knowledge that enables one to understand the normal experience of sexual
pleasure and the generation of healthy offspring."^^

Ultimately, the monster is a social outcast with no gender identity of its own
— readable only in terms "normal," the hermaphrodite is at best an unfortunate
abnormality. Historically, the sexual abnormality was also normalized so-
cially. The courts assigned a gender, either male or female, to the hermaphro-
dite "according to the preponderance of the sexual organs."^^

The term monster then serves as insult, but cannot function as gender
identifier in this play, because it disallows the possibility of positive transfer-
ence from the literal to the metaphoric — from essentializing genitalia and/or
sexual intercourse to symbolizing gender indeterminancy as a self-fashioned
construct. If Moll is not a literal hermaphrodite, and the play's conclusion
shows Sir Alexander apologizing for misreading Moll, then her hermaphro-
ditic costume indicates something else — either a transgressive desire or a
transcendent symbol. Like her insistence that she is different from other
women, this something else is not easily understood by the "normal" charac-
ters in the play. Greenblatt may be correct in his claims that the real monster
in early modem Europe serves to rein scribe the normal person; however, the
self-fashioned monster depends on an aesthetics of perversion or transcend-
ence that remains inexplicable to the normal person.

Dekker and Middleton choose the aesthetics of transcendence and depend
on the other significant cultural identity of the hermaphrodite in Renaissance
Europe — the neoplatonic ideal of bisexual oneness that intellectualizes
hermaphroditic self-sufficiency — for a positive reading of their sexually
ambiguous character. Edgar Wind comments on the pervasiveness of the ideal:
"Among French humanists of the sixteenth century L' androgyne de Platon

Susan E. Krantz / The Sexual Identities of Moll Cutpurse / 13

became so acceptable an image for the universal man that a painter could apply
it without impropriety to Francis F' (213-14).^^ This ideal is also the "faire
Hermaphrodite'' of Spenser's Fairie Queene (3.12.46a). Consider Spenser's
bisexual Venus in Book IV:^"*

The cause why she was couered with a vele,
Was hard to know, for that her Priests the same
From peoples knowledge labour' d to concele.
But sooth it was not sure for womanish shame,
Nor any blemish, which the worke mote blame;
But for, they say, she had both kinds in one.
Both male and female, both vnder one name:
She syre and mother in herself alone,
Begets and eke conceiues, ne needeth other none.

(4.10.41)"

Although Spenser specifies that Venus' s veil covers both kinds of sexual
organs, in actuality he removes sexuality from his Venus. Self-sufficient, she
is socially asexual. Renaissance Platonists intellectualized Venus in other
combined forms. Clearly, the Hermes-Aphrodite union produces
Hermaphroditus, who during the Renaissance can be elaborated either through
the O vidian portrayal as physical monster, or through one of the alternate
portrayals as symbol of harmony .^^ In addition, the armed Venus who takes on
the guise and the role of her opposite, Diana, also finds considerable play in
Spenser and in the cult of Elizabeth, both before and after the queen's death.
One of the most powerful elaborations of that cult reveals the manly female,
the armed queen at Tilbury, a sixteenth-century Venus Armata. Even though
the most famous picture celebrating Queen Elizabeth as heroic virago is a
Stuart creation by Thomas Cecil (1625), poets 2ind ballad-makers from 1588
on record the queen visiting her troops and equipped with the accoutrements
of war.^^ A 1603 engraving by Crispin Van de Passe after a portrait by Issac
Oliver, uses as gloss a pun on Virgil's description of the Venus/Diana figure
from the Aeneid: "Virginis os habitumque geris, divina virago."^^ I am not
suggesting that Dekker and Middleton turned a notorious underworld figure
into a goddess or an allegorical queen of England. What I am suggesting is that
they used a pervasive intellectual symbol — the hermaphroditic ideaF^ — to
avoid socio-sexual issues that could not be resolved positively and without
irony in terms of city comedy and had no place in romantic comedy. And
because a positive cultural reading of the heroic virago existed in contempo-
rary literature and political ideology through the poetic elaboration of mytho-

14 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

logical figures, Moll's cross-dressing could be normalized into the outward
sign of a noble and courageous spirit. Thus, Moll's hermaphroditic costume
becomes the symbol of transcendence.

In the prologue to the printed version, Middleton begins the mythic
reconstruction of Moll Cutpurse. He confesses that this play avoids issues not
suited for a "modest assembly" — that the play consciously transforms the
social and sexual transgressiveness of the actual Moll into other terms:

worse things I must needs confesse the world ha' s taxt her for, then has beene
written of her; but 'tis the excellency of a Writer to leaue things better than
he finds 'em .... we rather wish in such discoueries, where reputation lies
bleeding, a slackenesse of truth, then fulnesse of slander,

("To the Comick Play-readers," 11.18-28)

He also supplies the mythological premise for those other terms, the hermaph-
roditic neo-platonic third term: ''Venus being a woman passes through the play
in doublet and breeches" (11.13-14).^° This hermaphroditically costumed
Venus is reminiscent of Spenser's bisexual Venus who "needeth other none."
We learn from Moll herself that she is "man enough for a woman" and likes
"to lye aboth sides ath bed [her]self." The character's own terms of sexuality
are terms of self-sufficiency. The woman Moll is man enough for is Moll; the
man Moll is woman enough for is also Moll. By sleeping alone, she lies on both
sides of the bed, and "needeth other none."

The Prologus continues the introduction of Moll as transcendent by
contrasting her with other roaring girls in and around London: "None of these
Roaring Girles is ours; shee flies / With wings more lofty" (11. 25-26). And,
throughout the play, references to Moll's bravery, courage and noble spirit are
defined in terms of her costume. Trapdoor tells Sir Alexander, for instance, that
Moll will visit his son in "a shirt of male" (3.3.18 and 20), punning of course
on her man's apparel as armor. And in his very next line, he alludes to Virgil's
Venus Armata, the Venus in breeches who assumes the guise of Diana, when
he refers to her as the Moon — the most commonplace symbol of Diana. At
other times, the cross-dressed Moll is called "braue Captaine male and female"
(3.3.170), is compared to a soldier (2.1), is complimented for her "heroicke
spirit and masculine womanhood" (2.1.32). All of these references, despite
their comic context, depend on the "divine virago" subtext.^ ^

Moll's character depends on other intellectual and mythological combi-
nations that Renaissance writers manipulated in their attempts to define the
unusual, both real and ideal. As a Cutpurse by reputation, Moll herself brings

Susan E. Krantz / The Sexual Identities of Moll Cutpurse / 15

up the connection to Mercury when describing another of that tribe who uses
a wand or walking stick to lift rings from a goldsmith's stall. She call his stick
a caduceus, the symbol of Mercury, god of thieves, father of Hermaphroditus,
and companion to Venus. Mercury as god of thieves is such a commonplace
that for many Moll's reference to the caduceus operates as a synecdoche.
Moreover, the combination of Venus and Mercury as astrological influences
on the character of a female underworld figure is readily apparent. The
biographer of the actual Moll, writing shortly after her death, admits that he
does not know the month of her birth; nonetheless, he proceeds with confi-
dence to outline her horoscope as ''Mercury in conjunction with, or rather in
the house of Venus at her Nativity":

This Flanet Mercury you must know ... is of a Thievish, Cheating, Deceitful

Influence For the other of Venus, most Men and Women know without

teaching what are her properties. She hath dominion over all Whores, Bauds,
Pimps, &c. and joined with Mercury over all Trapanners and Hectors."^^

The astrological reading — Renaissance substitute for sociology and
psychology — seems ready-made to explain the actual Moll Cutpurse; but
Dekker and Middleton's Moll Cutpurse demands a less transgressive inscrip-
tion. From Mercury/Hermes she seems to inherit eloquence, craftiness without
deceitfiilness, and musical ability. And, just as she was recreated as a chaste
Venus/ Aphrodite in her heroic championing of women against Laxton, so her
character inverts the negative aspects of Mercury: Hermes traded his lute for
the caduceus; the stage Moll retains her viol while the thief carries the
caduceus. And rather than the conjunction of Mercury and Venus constructing
Moll negatively as an entrapper of innocents or a bully, the same qualities are
reinscribed positively, so that she recognizes and exposes the thief and the
blusterer. It must be emphasized, however, that she accomplishes these good
deeds because she is the child of Venus and Mercury. She entraps the entrapper
and bullies the bully. So she trips up the braggart Trapdoor, and later entraps him
into exposing himself as a counterfeit, just as she entraps the cutpurse in her midst.
In dramatic terms, the trickster of city comedy acquires an ethical dimension.

At every opportunity, the playwrights displace the negative social read-
ings of Moll and replace them with the positive ideal. By privileging the
intellectual reading of Moll as symbolic hermaphroditic ideal over the social/
sexual readings of Moll as whore or monster, the playwrights deemphasize
questions of sexuality. As Middleton insisted in the Preface, it is the "excel-
lency of the writer to leave things better than he finds 'em," and where he and

16 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Dekker found Moll's character defined in terms of sexual binaries — male or
female, normal or monster — they left the transcendent synthesis.

But this identity of Moll remains only one of several. It is in the interplay
of all these identities that the character Moll is socially rehabilitated for an
audience already familiar with the actual Moll through her scandalous reputa-
tion. Yet the rehabilitation is in itself complicated and problematic, and
Middleton calls attention to its incompleteness or insufficiency in the epilogue,
knowing that the character "Cannot pay full [the audience's] expectation"
(1.34). Perhaps as Dawson argues, by leaving questions of gender unresolved,
the playwrights demonstrate their "awareness that theatrical images are a
matter of exchange and that what is evoked in the theater is a fluctuating,
unstable currency."^^ Perhaps the several readings reveal instead the problems
of combining the genres of city comedy and romantic comedy, and unlike Ben
Jonson's Epicoene, taking both of them seriously. What is clear by the end of
the play is that Moll is not threatening to the culture — that, when she has the
most power, she uses it to support conventional social values, not to disrupt
them. Should we read this as a plea for greater social tolerance, or as an
avoidance of confronting issues of social difference, or as another instance of
dominance containing its opposition? In one sense, by making Moll transcend-
ent the playwrights have begged the question: the character does not need or
desire incorporation into a society that she herself terms the baser world; nor
can she transgress against a society she is above. Like the monster hermaph-
rodite who is reinscibed in terms of the male and female gender binary and, by
becoming socially normalized, loses his/her identity as a third sex, the
metaphoric hermaphrodite Moll Cutpurse loses her social identity as a third
gender by becoming intellectualized into the ideal synthesis.

Ultimately, the characterization of Moll Cutpurse in The Roaring Girl
may do more to conceal the actual Moll than it does to reveal her. However,
the actual Moll, as the playwrights promised, appeared on stage at the Fortune
following a performance of The Roaring Girl and provided one more reading
of the character by serving as visual comparison and verbal commentary. She
appeared cross-dressed, "in mans appareil & in her boote & v/th a sword by her
side," and she usurped the male actors' prerogative by performing for the
audience. Again, the London Correction Book captures the impropriety: "And
[she] sat there vppon the stage in the publique viewe of all the people there
p[rese]nte in mans appareil & playd vppon her lute & sange a songe." Even more
scandalous was her unrehearsed behavior; she made "imodest & lascivious
speaches" and invited those curious and prurient in the audience to her lodgings

Susan E. Krantz / The Sexual Identities of Moll Cutpurse / 17

where, she promised, she would expose herself to prove her female sexuality.^
The actions of the real Moll Cutpurse reject her fictional rehabilitation as
either a supporter of conventional societal values or as a non-threatening
androgynous ideal. By offering to prove her sex as female, she, like those who
call her monster, again essentializes genitalia, but she forces the audience to
juxtapose her normal sex organs with her "abnormal," transgressive appear-
ance and behavior. The real Moll recuperates transgression as social signifier
and uses it to define her gender identity. Dekker and Middleton may have
intended to advocate an increased social liberality when they chose to depict
Moll as hero in their play; but, if they did, they mistakenly assumed that the
marginalized would want to be incorporated into the center. The real Moll
accentuates her marginal status and uses it instead to decenter society. Society,
of course, retaliated, and Moll was sent to serve a short sentence in Bridewell.
But we know the story of her actions because she repeated the transgression —
appearing about three-quarters of a year later at St. Paul's with her "petticoate
tucked vp . . . in the fashion of a man." Arrested again, Moll's actions reveal
the real significance of the transvestite/hermaphroditic costume — to disrupt
society and to challenge its categories, and, by so doing, to offer itself as a
transgressive aesthetic that creates the terms by which it must be read.

University of New Orleans
Notes

1 . Anthony Dawson has most recently considered the relationship between the stage Moll and
the actual Moll in "Mistress Hie & Haec: Representations of Moll Frith," SEU 33 (1993):
385-404. Dawson believes that the antithetical views offered of the character Moll as
virtuous and the actual Moll as disreputable serve to demonstrate "how the theater may
intervene in the cultural arena, participating in a contest for the power to fabricate cultural
meanings" (398).

2. P. A. Mulholland in 'The Date of The Roaring Girl" Review of English Studies, n.s. 28
(1977): 18-31, believes the frontispiece represents an actual likeness. Whether it does or not,
it certainly reflects the conspicuousness of Moll's appearance. The frontispiece is reprinted
in The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, ed. Fredson Bowers (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1958) at the beginning of The Roaring Girl in volume 3.

3. Mary Beth Rose in 1984 was the first to note that female cross-dressing in the play was
unusual because it was not done for the purpose of disguise. Her article, "Women in Men's
Clothing: Apparel and Social Stability in The Roaring Girl," ELR 14 (1984): 367-91, is
reprinted in chapter 2 of her book. The Expense of Spirit: Love and Sexuality in English
Renaissance Drama (Ithaca and Lx)ndon: Cornell University Press, 1988). References in
this article are to the book.

18 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

4. The original charges against Moll, *'Ojficium Domini contra Mariam FFrith" can be found
in the Consistory of London Correction Book for November 1 6 1 1 to October 1613 (ref DL/
€7310, fol. 19-20), housed in the Greater Lx)ndon Record Office, County Hall, Lx)ndon. A
complete and restored transcript can be found in Mulholland, "The Date of The Roaring
Girl" p. 3 1 , and in Appendix E of his edition of the play (P. A. Mulholland, éd.. The Roaring
Girl, by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker [Manchester: University of Manchester
Press, 1 987). All references to the charges are to Mulholland' s transcript in "The Date of The
Roaring Girl."

5. Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton, "The Roaring Girl," in The Dramatic Works of
Thomas Dekker, ed. Fredson Bowers, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1958) [1]-112. All subsequent references are to this edition. See also Cyrus Hoy, "The
Roaring Girl," in Introductions, Notes, and Commentaries to Texts in "The Dramatic Works
of Thomas Dekker, " vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 23.

6. Rose, pp. 90-91.

7. Viviana Comensoli, "Play-Making, Domestic Conduct, and the Multiple Plot in The
Roaring Girl," SEL, 27 (1987): 260-62.

8. Jean Howard, "Crosdressing, the Theatre, and Gender Struggle in Early Modem England,"
Shakespeare Quarterly, 39 (1988): 439; Jo Miller, "Women and the Market in The Roaring
Girl," Renaissance and Reformation, n.s. 14 (1990): 1 1-24.

9. Stephen Orgel, "The Subtexts of The Roaring Girl, " in Erotic Politics: Desire on the
Renaissance Stage, ed. Susan Zimmerman (New York and London: Routledge, 1 992), p. 24.

10. Jonathan Dollimore, Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1991), p. 297.

1 1 . Jean Howard, "Sex and Social Conflict: The Erotics of The Roaring Girl," in Erotic Politics:
Desire on the Renaissance Stage (New York and Lx)ndon: Routledge, 1992), pp. 170-90.

1 2. Although it devotes little time directly to Moll Cutpurse, Maijorie Garber' s Vested Interests:
Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York and Lx)ndon: Routledge, 1992), also
provides insight into cultural constructions of transvestism and contributes notably to recent
critical response to the play.

13. Mulholland, "Date," p. 31.

14. For a good overview of the virgin/whore, saint/sinner duality in early modem discourse, see
Rose, chap. 1.

15. As John Friedman in The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought (Cambridge and
Lx)ndon: Harvard University Press, 1981), Stephen Greenblatt in Shakespearean Negotia-
tions: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England (Oxford: Clarendon,
1 988), and others have rightly noted, in Medieval and Renaissance thought the term monster
did not always carry the same negative connotations it does today. I choose to use it here
because it was the most commonly used term to describe the hermaphrodite at the time of
the play, and because in that particular case of physical abnormality, the negative connota-
tions often pertained then as now.

Susan E. Krantz / The Sexual Identities of Moll Cutpurse / 19

1 6. See Stevie Davies' introduction to The Feminine Reclaimed: The Idea of Woman in Spenser,
Shakespeare, and Milton (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1986) for a good
discussion on coincidentia oppositorum.

17. See especially Rose, pp. 81-82 and Howard, "Crossdressing," pp. 437-38.

1 8. Phillip Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses (1583), The English Experience, no. 489 (Amsterdam:
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1972), F[5'].

19. Sir Alexander might very well have used mermaid here because he envisions the hermaph-
roditic Moll as male on top in this instance. Since the reference appears before he thinks to
tell Trapdoor that she wears breeches sometimes, chances are that he is thinking of her in
a hermaphroditic costume much Uke the one she first wears — a jerkin and safeguard. But
the hermaphrodite as mermaid/monster works either way. Compare Richard Niccols, The
Furies (London, 1614). STC18512:

T'is strange to see a Mermaid, you will say,
Yet not so strange, as that I saw to day.
One part of that which 'bove the waters rise,
Is woman, th' other fish, or fishers Hes.
One part of this was man or I mistook. ...
The head is mans, I iudge by hat and haire.
And by the band and doublet it doth weare,
The bodie should be mans, what doth it need?
Had it a codpiece, 'twere a man indeed.

([A6'-A6^])

20. Randolph Trumbach, "London's Sapphists: From Three Sexes to Four Genders in the
Making of Modem Culture," in Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity,
eds. Julia Epstein and Kristina Staub (New York and London: Routledge, 1991), p. 113.

21. Greenblatt, p. 77.

22. The legal practice of normalizing the sex of a hermaphrodite as either male or female
according to the more pronounced of the sexual characteristics originated in England during
the thirteenth century (Fleta, Bk.I,chap. 5; qtd. in G[eorge] G[ordon] Coulton, A Medieval
Panorama [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939], p. 138n). Sir Edward Coke
reaffirmed the practice in The first part of the Institute of the lawes of England: or a
Commnentarie vpon Littleton (London, 1 628) 3,a. Coke's commentary is quoted in the OED
under hermaphrodite.

23. Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (London: Faber and Faber, 1958; 2nd ed.
' revised. New York: Norton, 1968), pp. 213-14. Raymond B. Waddington in 'The Bisexual

Portrait of Francis I: Fontainbleau, Castiglione, and the Tone of Courtly Mythology," in
Playing with Gender: A Renaissance Pursuit, eds. Jean Brink, Maryanne C. Horowitz, and
Allison P. Coudert (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1 99 1 ) takes issue with
Wind's contention of propriety although he does accept the pervasiveness of the Platonic
androgyne in art. Waddington translates the legend attached to the portrait that emplifies the
trancendence of the king as hermaphrodite: "your great king surpasses Nature" because
Mars, Minerva, Diana, Mercury, and Amor all join in one person (99-101).

20 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

24. Spenser's use of the Platonic hermaphrodite is well documented. See especially Stevie
Davies (note 14); Donald Cheney, "Spenser's Hermaphrodite and the 1 590 Fairie Queene"
PMLA, 87 (1972): 192-200; A. R. Crillo, 'The Fair Hermaphrodite: Love-Union in the
Poetry of Donne and Spenser," SEL, 9 (1969): 81-95; and Lauren Silberman, "The
Hermaphrodite and the Metamorphisis of Spenserian Allegory," ELR, 17 (1987): 207-23.

25. Edmund Spenser, The Fairie Queene, ed. Thomas P. Roche, Jr. (New York: Penquin, 1978).

26. See Lauren Silberman, "Mythographic Transformations of Ovid's Hermaphrodite," Six-
teenth-Century Journal, 19 (1988): 643-52.

27. See Gabriele Jackson, "Topical Ideology: Witches, Amazons, and Shakespeare's Joan of
Arc," ELR, 18 (1988): 55-56; Susan Frye in 'The Myth of Elizabeth at Tilbury," Sixteenth-
Century Journal, 23 (1992): 95-1 15, argues the mythic, non-factual nature of the cross-
dressed Queen at Tilbury. Her article also reprints the Thomas Cecil portrait of the queen
on horseback. The original is housed in the Ashmolean Museum. Regardless of the date of
certain pictorial representations, however, Elizabethans were familiar with Queen Elizabeth
as heroic virago. Jackson has shared her work in progress with me that explores the heroic
virago theme in Renaissance texts and convincingly places Elizabeth in that tradition.

28. Virgil' s line reads ,"gerens os que habitum virginis, et arme Spartanae virginis" (Aeneid, Bk
I, 315). A copy of the engraving can be found in Margery Corbett and Michael Norton,
Engraving in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: A Descriptive Catalog
with Introductions, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), pp. 282-83.

29. For a good overview of works that incorporate the hermaphroditic ideal, see Linda
Woodbridge, Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of Woman-
kind, 7540-7620 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984), pp. 140-41. lam
indebted to Stevie Davies' readings of the ideal in The Feminine Reclaimed. (See note 14).
Also important in establishing the nature of the ideal is Marie Delcourt in Hermaphrodite:
Myths and Rites of the Bisexual Figure in Classical Antiguity, trans. Jennifier Nicholson
(French edition, 1956; London: Studio Books, 1961),

30. Dawson claims that "Moll is no Venus" because "her chastity remains well protected by her
own skillful maneuvers" (397); however, the Venus Armata figure accommodates his
objections.

31. The references also imply another mythic constructon of the heroic virago, the Amazon.
Although the term amazon is not used in the play, it is interesting to note that Moll teaches
Sir Alexander the lesson of the vanity of wealth, the same lesson the Amazons taught
Alexander the Great. Friedman retells the story of Alexander and the Amazons (p. 170).

32. The Life and Death of Mrs. Mary Frith, Commonly Called Mol Cutpurse (London, 1662)
pp. 10-11.

33. Dawson, p. 402.

34. See Mulholland' s reprint of the charges, p. 3 1 .

Du ''conseil des muetz" au

"taire parlier": Le langage du

geste chez Rabelais et

Montaigne

GUYLAINE
FONTAINE

Résumé: Cet article traite de la réflexion renaissante sur le langage gestuel
telle que cette réflexion s * articule dans les textes de Rabelais et Montaigne.
Ces oeuvres apparaissent en effet comme de précieuses balises de la période
1540-1580 où se serait manifesté, selon des études récentes, un tournant
'* empirique " dans la réflexion langagière, amenant les penseurs à délaisser
la problématique de V origine pour s'intéresser davantage à la question de
l 'universalité du langage, et ainsi au langage non verbal. Les textes montaignien
et rabelaisien, qui comportent de nombreux passages apologiques du geste
comme acte de communication, seront ici étudiés en parallèle, en suivant les
trois axes principaux de la sémiotique gestuelle de la Renaissance, soit l 'étude
du langage non verbal des enfants, des sourds-muets et des animaux.

E'I silentio ancor suole
Haver prieghi e parole.'

(Torquato Tasso, Aminte)

Si, fermé à notre langage, tu n'entends pas nos raisons, à défaut de la voix,
parle-nous en gestes barbares.

(Eschyle, Agamemnon)

Avant-propos

réoccupation certes privilégiée de notre modernité, la "question du langage"
devait subir le sort qui guette invariablement les dadas récurrents de la pensée,
soit celui d'une cristallisation antithétique: d'un côté, les Cratylistes, tenants
inconditionnels de la motivation et, de l'autre, les nominalistes, défenseurs

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 1 (1995) /21

22 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

convaincus de l'arbitraire/ Animé par la volonté de libérer la réflexion
langagière des liens réducteurs de la dichotomie, Henri Meschonnic signait en
1984 un court essai au titre évocateur de "La Nature dans la voix,"^ où il
proposait une réconciliation des contraires à travers la perspective d'un
langage en acte: "C'est en prenant le langage, empiriquement, comme une
historicité des sujets qui se parlent, qu'on peut à la fois tenir tout l'arbitraire
et toute la motivation. Loin de s'opposer, ils sont solidaires, étant une même
subjectivité individuelle-collective.'"*

C'est dans cette voie tracée par Meschonnic que nous voulons inscrire
notre étude du gestuel où le langage sera envisagé d' abord dans sa nature d' acte
de communication, plutôt que dans sa problématique "originelle." Le choix de
cette perspective se présente d'ailleurs comme une sorte de retour aux sources,
puisque l'on peut constater un moment de transformation semblable dans la
pensée renaissante sur le sujet langagier, "évolution" qui se serait produite,
selon M.-L. Dumonet, durant la période 1540-1580 où l'intérêt pour "le
modèle hébreu [comme langue originelle] laisse place à une recherche des
catégories du discours qui, au-delà de la diversité, se reconstituent autour
d'une recherche d'universalité, à défaut d'unité originelle ou typologique."^

Or, cette attention nouvelle au caractère universel du langage amène peu
à peu les penseurs à multiplier les traités et les théories sur le langage non
verbal, et plus particulièrement sur la question du geste. Du traité de Laurent
Joubert "Question vulgaire. Quel langage parleroit un enfant qui n'auroit
jamais ouï parler?" à Jean-Baptiste délia Porta (1563) qui s'intéresse aux
gestes codés, en passant par les divers "manuels sportifs"^ qui décrivent la
gestuelle propre à chaque discipline: manuels d'escrime (F. Altoni,
"Monomachia ovvero Arte di Schema," 1536; Camillo Agrippa, Trattato di
scienza d'arme, 1553), jeux de paume (A. Scaino, Trattato del giuoco délia
palla. . . , 1 555), etc., la réflexion sur le geste est florissante durant cette période.
Ces divers auteurs puisent d'ailleurs abondamment dans la pensée antique qui
avait déjà amorcé cette réflexion sur le gestuel selon trois points de vue
principaux^: celui de Lucrèce qui suggérait l'antériorité du geste sur la parole:
"comme nous voyons l'enfant amené, par son incapacité même de s'exprimer
avec la langue, à recourir au geste qui lui fait désigner du doigt les objets
présents" {De natura rerum, V); celui d'Épicure, qui recoupe le premier en
proposant une explication socio-biologique à l'origine du langage: "d'après
Epicure, le corps est excité à parler"; enfin, le point de vue de Quintilien, qui
s'intéresse au gestuel par souci rhétorique (Institution oratoire, IX, 3). Les

Guylaine Fontaine / Du "conseil des muetz" au "taire parlier" / 23

positions de ces trois auteurs traversent ainsi la pensée renaissante sur le geste,
et nous en retrouvons des traces particulièrement significatives dans les
pensées de Rabelais et de Montaigne, tous deux promoteurs du langage en acte,
et dont les textes constituent en quelque sorte des balises pour cette période
(1540-1580), l'un ouvrant et l'autre fermant ce tournant "empirique" de la
réflexion sur le langage à la Renaissance.

Rabelais et Montaigne: les voix du corps

Du "Trinch" de la Dive Bouteille jusqu'au "nous sommes nés pour agir" (I,
XX, 89 A), ou de r"estre consiste en mouvement et action (H, viii, 386C) jusqu'au
''Fay ce que vouldras"^ qui préside à la destinée de Thélème, un même éloge du
faire se dessine. Par lui, les pensées rabelaisiennes et montaigniennes inscrivent
l'humaine nature dans un principe agissant, motivé lui-même par le souci d'une
éthique de l'utile.^ Au mouvement purement spéculatif, Rabelais et Montaigne
opposeraient donc l'action réelle, la participation proprement corporelle.

Cette reconnaissance d'une supériorité de l'agir est entre autres percepti-
ble dans les positions de nos deux auteurs sur le sujet de l'éducation. Cette
attitude traverse tout le chapitre "De l'Institution des enfans," et est à la source
de la vertu pédagogique que Montaigne attribue aux voyages:

A cette cause, le commerce des hommes y est merveilleusement propre, et
la visite des pays estrangers, [. . .] pour en raporter principalement les
humeurs de ces nations et leurs façons, Qii^oux frotter et limer nostre cervelle
contre celle d'autruy.

(I, xxvi, 153 A)

L'éloge des voyages repose ici sur une valorisation du déplacement proprement
physique en tant que mouvement vers une rencontre concrète, palpable de
l'autre. À cet égard, il convient aussi de se rappeler l'évocation que fait
l'essayiste des avantages d'un véritable tête-à-tête sur une communication à
distance par le livre:

S'il y a quelque personne, quelque bonne compaignie aux champs, en la
ville, en France ou ailleurs, resseante ou voyagere, à qui mes humeurs soient
bonnes, de qui mes humeurs me soient bonnes, il n'est que de siffler en
paume, je leur iray fournir des essays en cher et en os.

(III, V, 844B)

C'est dans une perspective similaire que la première éducation sophistique
de Gargantua axée sur la lecture et l'écriture,'^ trouve sa contrepartie exacte
dans la discipline de Ponocrates, marquée, elle, par une participation corporelle

24 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

intense, jeux, discussions à table, chant, pratique d'instruments de musique, etc.:

[. . .] galentement se exercens les corps comme ilz avoient les ames
auparavant exercé [. . .] Au commencement du repas estoit leue quelque
histoire plaisante des anciennes prouesses, jusques à ce qu'il eust prins son
vin. Lors [. . .] commencoient à diviser joyeusement ensemble.

(G, XXin, 89-90)

Du coeur de ces derniers exemples, on peut voir surgir une préoccupation
essentielle pour une action privilégiée: l'acte de communication. La lecture de
l'oeuvre rabelaisienne comme invitation à une sorte de banquet perpétuel
atteste de la haute estime en laquelle Rabelais semble tenir l'acte d'échange
authentique que peut permettre l'alliage des joies du langage et des plaisirs de
la table. ^' Chez Montaigne, le "communiquer" joue également un rôle primor-
dial et constitue même le fondement de toute véritable jouissance: "Nul plaisir
n'a goust pour moy sans communication. Il ne me vient pas seulement une
gaillarde pensée en l'ame qu'il ne me fâche de l'avoir produite seul, et n'ayant
à qui l'offrir" (III, ix, 986B). Ainsi associé au plaisir de l'acte de communica-
tion, et antérieurement à l'utilité des actions, le langage revêt ici un caractère
nettement pragmatique qui implique la nécessité d'un mouvement vers l' autre. '^
C'est par ce biais qu'il convient le mieux, nous semble-t-il, d'envisager toute
problématique langagière dans ces deux oeuvres.

Les réflexions rabelaisienne et montaignienne sur le langage relèveraient
ainsi de ce qu' on peut appeler une "sémiotique incarnée,"*^ ce que Marie-Luce
Demonet nomme "langage motivé,"'"* c'est-à-dire une perspective qui suppose
que la question de l'origine du langage n'est plus considérée comme "simple
nomination adamique,"*^ mais bien comme "acte de communication."'^ Or, si
Montaigne et Rabelais tendent à soutenir l'arbitraire du langage et remettent
en question la possibilité d'un lien naturel entre les noms et la vérité des choses,
c'est essentiellement pour mettre en doute l'efficacité communicative du
processus langagier. Les passages les plus connus sur ce propos'^ méritent
encore d'être cités pour bien les replacer dans la perspective qui nous intéresse.
Celui du chapitre "De la gloire," d'abord:

Il y a le nom et la chose: le nom, c'est une voix qui remerque et signifie la
chose; le nom, ce n'est pas une partie de la chose ny de la substance, c'est
une piece estrangere joincte à la chose, et hors d'elle.

(n,xvi,618A)

La position contre le logocentrisme apparaît des plus claires; en outre, cette
réflexion vient conforter et expliciter celle qui l'avait précédée (dans
r "Apologie") sur la naturalité et la nécessité de la parole: "Quant au parler, il

Guylaine Fontaine / Du "conseil des muetz" au "taire parlier" / 25

est certain que, s'il n'est pas naturel, il n'est pas nécessaire" (II, xii, 458 A). Par
ailleurs, nous trouvons à ce sujet chez Rabelais la très connue déclaration de
Pantagruel au chapitre XIX du Tiers Livre: "C'est abus, dire que nous ayons
langaige naturel. Les langaiges sont par institutions arbitraires et convenences
des peuples; les voix (comme disent les dialecticiens), ne signifient naturellement,
mais à plaisir" (7L, XIX, 480). Il n'est d'ailleurs pas insignifiant que cette
affirmation de Pantagruel se situe justement dans le chapitre "Du conseil des
muetz," car ce langage des muets tire sa valeur de la constatation d'un certain échec
de l'efficacité communicative du langage articulé — verbal ou écrit — :

J'ai leu qu'on temps passé les plus véritables et sceurs oracles n'estoient
ceulx que par escript on bailloit, ou par parolle on proferoit. Mainctes foys
y ont faict erreur ceulx voyre qui estoient estimez fins et ingénieux, tant à
cause des amphibologies, equivocques et obscuritez des motz, que la
briefveté des sentences; pourtant, feut Apollo, dieu de vaticination, surnommé
Ao^tfaç. Ceulx que l'on exposait par gestes et par signes estoient les plus
véritables et certains estimez.

(TL, XIX, 479)

Par sa référence au surnom d'Apollon, AoÇlfaç qui signifie "oblique" et qui
avait été attribué au dieu grec à cause de l'ambiguïté de ses oracles, Pantagruel
soutient que le langage articulé est équivoque, "amphibologique" et "obscur,"
par opposition au geste qui atteint au "véritable" et au "certain."

Ce débat sur les positions de Montaigne et de Rabelais au sujet du langage
nous intéresse principalement ici dans la mesure où l'on pourrait admettre que
la manifestation dans leurs pensées respectives d'une espèce de désillusion face
au pouvoir des mots retire vraisemblablement beaucoup à leur prédilection pour
le faire, pour l'action, qui a servi de point de départ à notre étude. Il apparaît ainsi
que la combinaison de ces deux attitudes concourt à mener nos penseurs à
s'intéresser, presque naturellement, au pouvoir du langage du corps: le geste.

Cette accentuation de la valeur de communication du langage ressortit
d'abord au courant du conceptualisme où le langage doit avant tout permettre
l'émission et la réception des conceptions. C'est dans cette perspective que
Montaigne peut affirmer: "Je veux que les choses surmontent, et qu'elles
remplissent de façon l'imagination de celuy qui escoute, qu'il n'aye aucune
souvenance des mots" (I, xxvi, 171A).'^ Le conceptualisme envisage l'acte
langagier comme une performance de transmission du sens, c'est-à-dire
comme la production orientée (entendons vers l'autre) de signes extérieurs —
palpables, sensibles, manifestes aux sens — , signes dont le rôle principal est
d'agir comme révélateurs de la conception intérieure: sous cet angle, l'acte de

26 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

langage suppose la participation physique, corporelle, à la fois d'un émetteur
et d'un récepteur. Claude Blum explicite cette idée à partir de la négation de
l'épiphanie du sens: "Si le *signe' n'a pas de rapport d'existence à la chose, les
significations qu'il communique prennent 'forme' en passant par le corps et
l'esprit de celui qui les émet et de celui qui les reçoit." Il convient de rappeler ici
l'idée de iangage motivé' chez Marie-Luce Demonet dont "le point de départ [.
. .] est la sensation."'^ Ainsi, dans "Question doubteuse: le langage," Demonet
établit un parallèle entre les "conceptions" et ces "affects" ou "passions" qui, selon
certaines théories, auraient pu présider à la naissance du langage:

Les fameuses conceptions [. . .] ressemblent fort aux 'passions' de J.-J.
Rousseau dans L'essai sur V origine des langues: Toutes les passions
rapprochent les hommes que la nécessité de chercher à vivre force à se fuir.
Ce n'est ni la faim, ni la soif, mais l'amour, la haine, la pitié, la colère, qui
leur ont arraché les premières voix.' Expression qui implique la présence
d'un autre, d'un interlocuteur?^

Ici encore, la "corporéité" et la "présence" occupent le premier plan et
nous ramènent au langage gestuel qui apparaît d'ailleurs le plus souvent
comme le médium privilégié de l'expression des affects, donc plus réel, et qui
ainsi épouse mieux la condition "merveilleusement corporelle" de l'homme.^'
En effet, le geste est toujours un énoncé directionnel qui implique nécessairement
et dans un rapport d' immédiateté et de concrétude la présence d'un interlocuteur,
d'un récepteur: le geste est "pure énonciation," nous dit encore Marie-Luce
Demonet, car "le prédicat gestuel ne représente pas un objet, il ne renvoie pas
à un nom. Il est l'équivalent (irréductible) d'une phrase dont le groupe sujet est
l'émetteur, dans sa présence."^^ Le langage gestuel est donc, par définition
même, producteur d'une communication directe et instantanée. Le geste
apparaîtra ainsi comme le plus sûr garant des préoccupations essentielles de
Montaigne et de Rabelais, à savoir la mise en oeuvre d'une éthique de l'agir
à travers la réalisation concrète d'une véritable activité communicative.

Le traitement du langage gestuel par Montaigne et par Rabelais recoupe
les trois topoi des études consacrées au langage non verbal à la Renaissance,
soit le langage enfantin, la comparaison avec les animaux et l'observation des
sourds-muets,^^ lieux de réflexion qui se nourrissent les uns les autres dans de
multiples recoupements.

Le mot "enfant," rappelons-le, viendrait du latin infans signifiant "qui ne
parle pas." Or, depuis l'Antiquité, les théories se sont multipliées sur la
question du caractère inné ou acquis du langage chez l'homme. Pour appuyer
la thèse de l' inné, la plupart des penseurs ont recours à une même légende, celle

Guylaine Fontaine / Du "conseil des muetz" au "taire parlier" / 27

du "Roi Psammetic." Rabelais la rapporte par la bouche de Panurge lorsque ce
dernier s'oppose à Pantagruel qui laisse entendre que quelqu'un qui n'aurait
jamais entendu parler ne pourrait parler lui-même; ce propos de Pantagruel, qui
vise à illustrer la thèse du langage comme acquis, est mis en doute par Panurge:

Si vray feust que l'homme ne parlast qui n'eust ouy parler, je vous menerois
à logicalement inférer une proposition bien abhorrente et paradoxe. [. . .] Vous
doncques ne croyez ce qu'escript Hérodote des deux enfans guardez dedans
une case par le vouloir de Psammetic, roy des AEgyptiens, et nourriz en
perpétuelle silence, les quelz après certain temps prononcèrent ceste parole:
Becus, laquelle, en langue Phrygienne, signifie pain?

(7L, XIX, 479-480)

Mais Pantagruel revient à la charge par l'affirmation relative à l'arbitraire du
langage citée plus haut (TL, XIX, 480), réfutant ainsi la thèse de l'inné.
Montaigne rapporte également la légende de Psammetic, mais en ne la citant
pas de manière aussi explicite, et en soutenant, quant à lui, le caractère inné de
l'habileté de langage comme moyen de communication:

Toutefois, je croy qu'un enfant qu'on auroit nourry en pleine solitude,
esloigné de tout commerce (qui seroit un essay mal aisé à faire), auroit
quelque espèce de parolle pour exprimer ses conceptions, et n'est pas
croyable que nature nous ait refusé ce moyen qu'elle a donné à plusieurs
autres animaux.

(n,xii,458A)

Comme on le voit, Montaigne se garde bien d'identifier cette "parolle" à une
langue particulière qui, par cet argument, se verrait attribuer le statut de langue
originelle (comme la langue phrygienne dans la légende de Psammetic);
Montaigne préfère identifier la parole innée à une sorte de langage primitif qui
s'apparenterait au langage des animaux, lesquels posséderaient donc aussi,
selon lui, cette aptitude innée au langage, ou plus justement à l'acte
communicatif:

[. . .] nous découvrons [. . .] que entre elles il y a une pleine et entière
communication et qu'elles s 'entr' entendent [. . .] Aux bestes mesmes qui
n'ont pas de voix, par la société d'offices que nous voyons entre elles, nous
argumentons aisément quelque autre moyen de communication:

Non alia longé ratione atque ipsa videtur
Protrahere ad gestum pueros infantia linguae.

(H, xii, 453A)

Ici encore, le langage enfantin et celui des animaux se rejoignent par une même
inaptitude au langage articulé, faiblesse qui permet le développement du

28 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

langage universel du geste.

Cette question de la comparaison avec les animaux est abondamment
traitée par Montaigne dans 1' "Apologie" où il adopte le point de vue augustinien,
point de vue traditionnel sur la question, à savoir le mythe de Babel comme
infériorité du langage de l'homme par rapport à celui des bêtes, qui traverse ces
barrières par son caractère plus naturel et donc davantage universel: "Un
ancien père dit que nous sommes mieux en la compagnie d'un chien cognu
qu'en celle d'un homme duquel le langage nous est inconnu. Ut extemus
alieno non sit hominis vice*' (I, ix, 37B).^^ Montaigne va même plus loin en
reconnaissant que le langage animal — mi-voix, mi-geste — représente une
sorte de "parler": car qu'est-ce autre chose que parler, cette faculté que nous
leur voyons de se plaindre, de se resjouyr, de s'entr'appeler au secours, se
convier à l'amour, comme ils font par l'usage de leur voix" (II, xii, 458 A)? Ici
toutefois, Montaigne s'en tient à l'expression des "affects" (niveau instinctif
auquel se limitait nécessairement, selon Aristote, le langage animal). Mais,
immédiatement, il fait un pas de plus. Ce "parler" des bêtes constitue une
communication véritable qui appartiendrait, dès lors, non plus à l'ordre de
l'instinct, mais se situerait plutôt à un niveau d'intentionnalité en tous points
comparable aux gestes volontaires des hommes :^^ "Comment ne parleroient
elles entr' elles? elles parlent bien à nous, et nous à elles. En combien de sortes
parlons-nous à nos chiens? et ils nous respondent (II, xii, 45 8A). Comporterpents
qui rejoignent ceux que présupposaient les verbes performatifs attribués aussi
aux animaux quelques pages auparavant dans les Essais: "Elles nous flattent,
nous menassent et nous requièrent," actions qui d'ailleurs appellent toutes une
réponse, invitant à une interaction réelle, à une réciprocité de l' acte communicatif
et du plaisir qui s'y rattache, comme dans cette courte scène des jeux de
Montaigne avec sa chatte: "[C] Quand je me joue à ma chatte, qui sçait si elle
passe son temps de moy plus que je ne fay d'elle. [D] Nous nous entretenons
de singeries réciproques" (II, xii, 452).

Le langage animal disposant donc d'un statut privilégié face au langage
humain, la capacité humaine de communication avec les bêtes est perçue
conune une qualité exceptionnelle qui confère une supériorité aux hommes qui
en jouissent et la pratiquent: "Platon, en sa peinture de l'aage doré sous
Saturne, compte entre les principaux advantages de l'homme de lors la
communication qu'il avoit avec les bestes" (II, xii, 452C). Chez Rabelais, on
trouve un exemple de cette supériorité en la personne de "messere Gaster,
premier maistre es ars du monde," dont l'une des manifestations de son
immense pouvoir se traduit justement par la communication tout à fait

Guylaine Fontaine / Du "conseil des muetz" au "taire parlier" / 29

privilégiée qu'il entretient avec les animaux:

Mesme es animans brutaulx il apprend ars desniées de Nature. Les corbeaulx,
les gays [. . .] il rend poètes; les pies il faict poëtrides, et leurs aprent
languaige humain proférer, parler, chanter. [. . .] Les aigles, gerfaulx, [. . .]
oizeaux peregrins [. . .] il domesticque et apprivoise [...]. Les elephans, les
lyons [. . .] il faict danser, baller, voltiger, combattre, nager, soy cacher,
aporter ce qu'il veult, prendre ce qu'il veult ....

(j2^, LVn, 210-211)

Ce don se trouve renforcé par l'un des principaux traits de la nature même du
"maistre es ars," laquelle ressemble davantage à celle des animaux qu'à celle
des autres hommes, puisque Gaster ne "parle que par signes." Sourd-muet,
messere Gaster nous apparaît même comme une sorte de représentant idéal de
la force du langage non verbal, puisque les trois topoi des langages animal,
enfantin et des sourds-muets convergent en sa personne. Analysons un peu
plus avant le portrait qu'en trace Alcofribas Nasier:

Et comme les AEgyptiens disoient Harpocras, Dieu de silence, en grec
nommé Sigalion, estre astomé, c'est à dire sans bouche, ainsi Gaster sans
aureilles feut créé; comme en Candie le simulachre de Juppiter estoit sans
aureilles. Il ne parle que par signes. Mais à ces signes tout le monde obeist
plus soubdain qu'aux edictz des Praeteurs, et mandemens des Roys. [. . .]
Vous dictez que au rugissement du lyon toutes bestes loing à l'entour
frémissent, tant que estre peult sa voye ouye.

Gaster, né sans oreilles, est assimilé au dieu Harpocras-Sigalion, né sans
bouche. L'identité de Harpocras comporte des éléments des plus significatifs
pour notre propos. Comme le mentionne Rabelais, il s'agit d'un dieu égyptien,
"Har-Pekhrad" — ce qui signifie "Horus l'enfant — : ce dieu figurait l'un des
aspects d' Horus, soit Horus dans son enfance, et était représenté par un enfant
suçant son doigt. La bouche sert donc essentiellement ici à combler le besoin
vital de se nourrir et n'est donc pas disponible pour la profération d'une parole,
ce qui équivaut à son absence, selon l'interprétation de Rabelais.

Quant à Sigalion, il est la récupération du dieu Harpocras par les Grecs et
les Romains qui en ont fait le dieu du silence ou dieu muet ("Sigalion" vient
de "sigh", racine qui signifie "silence, mutisme"). Le topos du langage animal,
quant à lui, apparaît dans la comparaison entre la voix de Gaster et le
rugissement du lion, qui se trouve renforcée par un second rapprochement
entre les effets produits par la voix du "maistre es ars": "tout le ciel tremble,
toute la terre tremble," et le "frémissement" des bêtes au cri du roi des animaux.
Le langage non verbal est en quelque sorte investi de la puissance de Gaster

30 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

("En quelques compaignies qu'il soit, discepter ne fault de supériorité et
praeference: toujours va davant [. . .] Pour le servir tout le monde est empesché,
. . . (QL, LVn, 210); ainsi, en associant le "parler par signes" à Gaster, Rabelais
semble accorder à ce langage un véritable statut privilégié. Le narrateur
souligne clairement la supériorité de l'efficacité des signes de Gaster qui
provoquent une réaction plus prompte et plus franche que le langage articulé
— "editz" et "mandemens" — d'hommes pourtant également en position de
pouvoir: "Praeteurs" et "Roys." D'autres passages traitant de l'efficience du
langage des sourds-muets viennent appuyer cette idée chez Rabelais: entre autres,
cette anecdote, rapportée par Pantagruel au sujet de Tyridates, "roy de Arménie,"
qui lors d' une visite à Rome se vit accorder par l' empereur Néron de se choisir lui-
même un présent parmi ce qui lui plairait le plus dans cette ville:

[. . ,] Il demanda seulement un joueur de farces, lequel il avoit veu on theatre,
et, ne entendent ce qu'il disoit, entendoit ce qu'il exprimoit par signes et
gesticulations; alléguant que soubs sa domination GSioïent peuples de divers
languaiges, pour es quelz respondre et parler luy convenoit user de plusieurs
truchemens: il seul à tous suffiroit.

(r/, XIX, 480-481)

Montaigne s'inspire lui aussi de l'exemple des muets pour préparer son
éloge de "l'éloquence efficace" du geste:^^ "nos muets disputent, argumentent
et content des histoires par signes [. . .] J'en ay vu de si soupples et formez à
cela, qu'à la vérité il ne leur manquoit rien à la perfection de se faire entendre"
(n, xii, 454 A). Après quoi, Montaigne nous parle du langage des yeux (des
amoureux), pour se lancer dans une enumeration qu' on a dite parfois homérique,
parfois rabelaisienne, et qui s' amorce par le fameux "Quoy des mains?" (II, xii,
454C): enumeration de verbes d'action qui tous, encore une fois, impliquent
un acte de communication, une interaction avec autrui ("requérons, promettons,
appelions, congédions"), autant de verbes performatifs qui constituent l'essentiel
de cette liste. Puis, Montaigne met fin à cet élan par une espèce de profession
de foi dans le langage gestuel: "Il n'est mouvement qui ne parle et un langage
intelligible sans discipline et un langage publique: qui faict, voyant la variété
et usage distingué des autres, que cestuy cy doibt plus tost estre jugé le propre
de l'humaine nature" (II, xii, 454C).

D nous faut alors insister sur l'expression "sans discipline" qui nous amène
à traiter de la rhétorique et de la méfiance de Rabelais et de Montaigne à son égard,
méfiance qui apparaît comme une autre motivation dans leur prédilection pour le
langage du geste. Dans le chapitre "De l'institution des enfans," Montaigne nous
met en garde contre cette traîtresse des conceptions: "L'éloquence fait injure aux

Guylaine Fontaine / Du "conseil des muetz" au "taire parlier" / 31

choses, qui nous destoume à soy" (I, xxvi, 172C); ou encore, "Et de combien est
le langage faux moins sociable que le silence" (I, ix, 37B). Ainsi, la diversité des
langues du mythe babélien ne préoccupe par l'essayiste autant que le "masque et
fard" des "escholes de la parlerie" (IQ, viii, 927B). Il privilégie donc ce qu'il
appelle avec originalité le "taire parlier" (H, xii, 454B):

[B] Un ambassadeur de la ville d' Abdere, après avoir longuement parlé au
Roy Agis de Sparte, luy demanda: Et bien, Sire, quelle responce veux-tu que
je rapporte à nos citoyens? — Que je t'ay laissé dire tout ce que tu as voulu,
et tant que tu as voulu, sans jamais dire mot. Voilà pas un taire parlier et bien
intelligible?

(H, xii, 454B)

Le langage gestuel qui intéresse Montaigne sera celui qui est le plus naturel,
le plus "vrai." C'est pourquoi à la fm de l'énumération d'actions trouvée dans
r"Apologie," l'essayiste prend bien soin d'établir une distinction entre deux
catégories de gestes:

Je laisse à part ce que particulièrement la nécessité en apprend soudain à
ceux qui en ont besoing et les alphabets des doigts et grammaires en gestes,
et les sciences qui ne s'exercent et expriment que par iceux, et les nations que
Pline dit n'avoir point d'autre langue.

(II, xii, 454)

Montaigne s'arrête ici sur le fait qu'il existe certains langages gestuels aussi
codés que l'est le langage de la rhétorique,^^ et qui perdent, de ce fait, leur
valeur de langage "naturels."^^ Rabelais démontrera la même volonté de
présever au geste son caractère le plus pur possible; c'est de cette volonté que
procède le conseil de Pantagruel à Panurge sur la consultation d'un muet:
"Pourtant vous fault choisir un mut sourd de nature, affin que ses gestes et
signes vous soient naïvement propheticques, non faincts, fardez, ne affectez"
iJL, XIX, 481). Par ce biais, Nazdecabre s'oppose directement à Thaumaste
(P, XVIII et XIX) dont le nom — qui en hébreu signifie "maître du signe" —
annonce déjà un personnage d'une habileté sophistiquée, "grand clerc" qui
apparaît évidemment comme une sorte de rhétoricien du geste. En effet, sa
performance gestuelle est explicitement présentée comme une argumentation:
le titre annonce "l'Angloys qui arguoit par signe." La prestation est donc
nécessairement réglée selon les exigences du genre, ici le débat, règles dont
Thaumaste avait pourt2int signifié vouloir se libérer.^^

Un autre exemple vient appuyer cette hypothèse qui, selon le texte
rabelaisien, opposerait la concrétude du geste au "vent de la rhétorique," soit
cette scène du Tiers Livre où le "fol" Triboullet offre une réponse des plus

32 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

concrètes et des plus corporelles à Texposé tout "en parolles rhétoriques et
élégantes" (TL, XLV, 588) de Panurge:

Davant qu'il eust achevé, Triboullet luy bailla un grand coup de poing entre
les deux espaules, luy rendirt en main la bouteille, le nazardoit avecques la
vessie de porc, et pour toute response luy dist, branslant bien fort la teste:
"Par Dieu, Dieu, fol enraigé, guare moine! cornemuse de Buzançay!"

(7L, XLV, 588-589)

À l'élégance des paroles de Panurge, Triboullet répond par le geste brut, n'y
ajoutant qu'une verbalisation minimale, qui restera d'ailleurs énigmatique et
incompréhensible à son interlocuteur. Mais, alors que la rhétorique produit ses
effets en n' interpelant de façon discriminatoire — et cela presque
pernicieusement — qu'une seule partie du corps, qu'un seul sens de chacun des
interlocuteurs, soit l'ouïe^^ du côté du récepteur, et la parole du côté de
l'émetteur, le geste, quant à lui, s'inscrit dans une corporéité plus homogène,
plus généralisée, et qui semble plus naturelle, comme c'est le cas dans cette
scène avec le fou. Ainsi, on remarque que les gestes de Triboullet sont à ce
point directionnels qu'ils impliquent même un contact physique entre l'émetteur
et le récepteur des signes. Triboullet engage son corps tout entier dans sa
réponse pour échanger physiquement avec Panurge, ce qui oblige ce dernier
à réagir, lui aussi, corporellement. Le geste de Triboullet qui consiste à
"prendre en main la bouteille" nécessite de Panurge qu'il la "prenne en main"
à son tour: il y a réciprocité réelle, interaction complète. Or, c'est justement à
ce signe que Panurge portera la plus grande considération, lui attribuant un
"plus hault sens" essentiel: "Voy cy bien un aultre poinct, lequel ne considérez;
est toutesfoys le neu de la matière. Il m'a rendu en main la bouteille. Cela, que
signifie? Qu'est-ce à dire?" (7L, XLVn, 593); et Panurge y verra un (r)appel à la
quête du mot de la Dive Bouteille: "l'unicque non lunaticque Triboullet, me
remect à la bouteille" (TL, XLVn, 594). Invitation différée au 'Trinch," acte de
communication par excellence. Car le mot de la Dive Bouteille est un geste.

Épilogue

Ces diverses considérations nous invitent à tenter une énième interprétation
des chapitres LV et LVI du Quart Livre, dits "Des paroles gelées,"^"* où nous
croyons percevoir une autre apologie du geste par Rabelais.

Ce phénomène de "gens parlant en l'air," de "voix diverses en l'air"
pourrait être interprété comme retirant au "vent de la rhétorique," et renverrait
donc à cette idée de l'inutilité du langage verbal que nous avons développée

Guylaine Fontaine / Du "conseil des muetz" au "taire parlier" / 33

ci-avant. De plus, durant tout le premier chapitre, ces paroles ne sont
qu'entendues; jamais on ne les voit, ni ne les touche. C'est donc le sens de
l'ouïe qui y est presque exclusivement sollicité, comme dans la rhétorique. Et,
comme nous l'avions également remarqué à propos toujours de cet art de
r éloquence, la puissance du "verbe" qui frappe l' oreille peut produire de fortes
impressions sur la "créance" de l'homme, sujet, nous disait Montaigne, à être
mené par les oreilles. Ici, les auditeurs de l'événement se montrent d'abord
inquiets, puis véritablement effrayés, Panurge cédant même à une certaine
panique; leur effroi augmente proportionnellement à l'intensité avec laquelle
les voix sonnent aux oreilles des compagnons, ce qui coïncide d'ailleurs avec
un plus grand effort de leur part pour ouïr ces paroles: "Plus persévérions
escoutant, plus discernions les voix, jusques à entendre motz entiers. Ce que
nous effraya grandement" (QL, LV, 203).

Or, le deuxième chapitre s'ouvre sur l'explication informée du pilote qui
amène une certaine accalmie à bord: "Seigneur, de rien ne vous effrayez."
Cependant, la meilleure façon de rassurer tous et chacun est de rendre ces
paroles visibles: "Par Dieu, dist Panurge, je l'en croy. Mais en pourrions nous
veoir quelq'une. Me soub vient avoir leu que, l'orée de la montaigne en laquelle
Moses receut la loy des Juifz, le peuple voyait les voix sensiblement" (QL,
LVI, 206). Requête à laquelle Pantagruel répond immédiatement: "Tenez,
tenez, [. . .] voyez en cy qui encore ne sont dégelées," sonnant ainsi le début
d'une multiplication d'actes divers qui contribueront à mettre les auditeurs en
contact physique plus étroit avec le phénomène.

Pantagruel prend les paroles gelées à "plenes mains" et les jette sur le pont.
C'est d'abord une fête pour les yeux qui peuvent se réjouir dans la contempla-
tion de la richesse des couleurs qui s 'offrent à eux: "et sembloient dragée perlée
de diverses couleurs. Nous y veismes des motz de gueule, des motz de sinople,
des motz de azur, des motz de sable, des motz dorez" {QL, LVI, 206). Et, très
vite, les compagnons répondant au geste de Pantagruel prennent à leur tour les
voix, les manipulent à leur gré, les touchent à plaisir. Or, ce geste du maniement
des voix provoque leur dégel, les rendant à nouveau audibles: "Les quelz, estre
quelque peu eschauffez entre nos mains, fondoient comme neiges, et les oyons
realement, mais ne les entendions, car c'estoit languaige barbare" (QL, LVI,
206). Mais plus encore que le simple fait de les rendre à leur état sonore, c'est
une souplesse essentielle que leur confère le contact des mains, leur permettant
de vivre d'un nouveau souffle dans une forme neuve: "[. . .] Puys en ouysmes
d'aultres grosses, et rendoient son en dégelant, les unes comme de tabours et
fifres, les aultres comme de clerons et trompettes. Croyez que nous eusmes du

34 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

passetemps beaucoup" (QL, LVI, 207). Les mains des compagnons pétrissent
les voix à la manière de Pygmalion qui anime Galatée:

Tentatum mollescit ebur, positoque rigore
Subsedit digitis^^

On assiste dès lors à un déploiement, à une explosion ludique des voix à
travers les multiples interprétations des "actes de paroles" divers que Pantagruel
se plaît à passer en revue en réponse aux requêtes de Panurge qui veut encore
et encore qu'on lui donne de ces voix:

Pantagruel luy respondit que donner parolles estoit acte des amoureux.
Vendez m'en doncques, disoit Panurge. — C'est acte de advocatz, respondit
Pantagruel, vendre parolles. Je vous vendroys plus tost silence et plus
chèrement, ^^ ainsi que quelques foys la vendit Demosthenes, nioyennant son
argentangine {QL, LVI, 207).

Puis, lorsque le narrateur dit vouloir conserver quelques paroles gelées
"dedans de Thuille," Pantagruel l'en empêche: "disant estre follie faire reserve
de ce dont jamais l'on a faulte et que tous jours on a en main, comme sont motz
de gueule entre tous bons et joyeulx Pantagruelistes (QL, LVI, 207-208),
soulignant ainsi que ces voix ne prennent leur sens que dans l' agir, dans le geste
"que tous jours on a en main," et dans l' acte de communication "entre tous bons
et joyeulx Pantagruelistes." Enfin, comme pour illustrer concrètement ces
derniers propos, le narrateur nous fait assister à ce qu'on pourrait appeler une
petite "prise de mot" entre Panurge et Frère Jean:

Là, Panurge fascha quelque peu Frère Jan et le feist entrer en resverie, car
il le vous print au mot sus l'instant qu'il ne s'en doutoit mie, et Frère Jan
menassa de l'en faire repentir [. . .] et, advenent qu'il feust marié, le prendre
aux cornes comme un veau, puysqu'il l'avoit prins au mot comme un home"
{QL, LVI, 208).

Dispute, dont l'argument final sera, bien sûr, un geste: "Panurge luy feist la
babou, en signe de derision". . .

Université McGill
Notes

1. "Le silence même sait prier et se faire entendre," cité par Montaigne dans les Essais, éd.
Pierre Villey (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1988), II, xii, 454A. Désormais, les
références aux Essais suivront immédiatement chacune des citations. Elles comporteront
les indications du livre, du chapitre, de la page et de la couche du texte. À moins d' indications
contraires, c'est nous qui soulignons.

Guylaine Fontaine / Du "conseil des muetz" au "taire parlier" / 35

2. La réflexion sur le langage à la Renaissance n'échappe pas à cette tendance, ce que Richard
Waswo déplore ajuste titre dans son ouvrage Language and Meaning in the Renaissance
(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1987). "[We have] to recognize in these discussions
the persistence of false oppositions that echo back to the Renaissance and beyond: ancient
versus modern, words versus matter, aesthetic appreciation versus historical knowledge.
[. . .] The perception of difference, by which we know all things, is mistaken for antagonism:
the ancient is only knowable in terms of the modem, and vice versa. Words do not exclude
the 'matter' they are often said to express, they bring that 'matter' into consciousness" (pp.
299-3(X)). Cet ouvrage s'inscrit dans une suite d'importantes études qui ont fait le point, ces
dernières années, sur la question du langage dans la pensée renaissante: Claude-Gilbert
Dubois, Mythe et langage au seizième siècle (Bordeaux, Ducros, 1 970); Barbara C. Bowen,
Words and the Man in French Renaissance Literature (Lexington, French Forum, 1983);
et enfin, l'étude la plus récente, et sans aucun doute la plus complète, celle de Marie-Luce
Demonet, Les voix du signe. Nature et origine du langage à la Renaissance (1480-1580)
(Paris, Honoré Champion, 1992).

3. "Avant-propos" de la réédition du Dictionnaire raisonné des onomatopées françaises de
Charles Nodier (Maurezin, Trans-Europ-Repress, 1984 [1868]), 13-104.

4. Henri Meschonnic, loc. cit., p. 47. Cf. Wilhem von Humboldt: "Historiquement nous
n'avons jamais affaire qu'avec l'homme réellement en train de parler," Ueber die
Verschiedenheit des menschilichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige
Entwicklung des Menschengesschlechts, Werke (Stuttgart, Cottasche Buchhandlung, 1 963),
t. 3, p. 415.

5. Claude-Gilbert Dubois, compte rendu de Marie-Luce Demonet, Les voix du signe . . ., dans
Renaissance et Réforme, XVIII, 1 (1994), p. 87.

6. Cf. John McClelland, "Le corps et ses signes: aspects de la sémiotique gestuelle à la
Renaissance," dans Le corps à la Renaissance. Actes du XXX' colloque de Tours [2-11
juillet] 1987, sous la dir. de Jean Céard, Marie-Madeleine Fontaine et Jean-Claude Margolin
(Paris, Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1990), 267-278.

7. Sur toute cette question des sources antiques de la réflexion sur le geste, et sur leurs
influences dans le traitement du geste à la Renaissance, cf. Marie-Luce Demonet, Les voix
du signe, 487-536, ainsi que l'article du même auteur: "Du désir de nommer ou le rôle du
corps dans la première nomination et la place de la conception épicurienne du langage au
XVP siècle," dans Le corps à la Renaissance, 253-266.

8. François Rabelais, Gargantua, chapitre LVII, dans Oeuvres complètes, 1. 1 (Paris, Classiques
Gamier, 1962), p. 203. Désormais, les références à l'oeuvre de Rabelais suivront
immédiatement les citations; elles comporteront les indications du livre, du chapitre et de
la page.

9. Cf. à ce sujet Diane Desrosiers-Bonin, Rabelais et l'humanisme civil, chapitre 3, "L'agir:
un impératif éthique" (Genève, Droz, 1992), 128-141. Diane Desrosiers-Bonin y rappelle
que la critique de Gargantua à l'endroit des moines ressortit à une éthique, puisqu'il ne
méprise véritablement qu'un seul trait des moines, soit leur inactivité: "ils n'exercent
aucune activité utile et profitable"; son fils Pantagmel posera le même regard sur la conduite
des Gastrolâtres: ils sont "ocieux, rien ne faisans, poinct ne travaillant, poys et charge inutile

36 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

de la terre" (QL, LVIII, 738). Chez Montaigne, cette éthique de l'agir et de l'utile est
perceptible en maints lieux de sa réflexion, notamment dans le chapitre "De l'institution des
enfants," où l'essayiste conclut que "le guain de nostre étude, c'est en estre devenu meilleur
et plus sage" (I, xxvi, 152C).

10. Cf Michel Jeanneret: "L'autorité des maîtres scolastiques de Gargantua tient à la pratique
mécanique de l'écriture et de la lecture: régime abstrait et stérile où l'enfant, privé de
dialogue, s'englue et 'en devenoit fou, niays, tout resveux et rassoté'", "Rabelais et
Montaigne: l'écriture comme parole," L'Esprit Créateur, XVI, 4 (1976), p. 89.

11. Cf MichelJeanneret, loc. cit: "c'est autour d'une table, dans l'abondance d'un banquet, que
l'échange oral s'accomplit le plus pleinement" (p. 90).

12. Cf Richard Waswo, Op. cit.: "As Montaigne perceived, the endless glossing of books by
books, the whole history of interpretation, demonstrates that language is neither a garment
nor a pipeline, but an activity. The use of words collectively and individually constitutes
their meanings, which must therefore be constructed by speakers and texts and recon-
structed by listeners and readers. No better analogy for the semantic transaction has yet
been offered than Montaigne's tennis game, in which victory — making sense — is always
possible but never guaranteed and never permanent" (pp. 292-293).

1 3. J'emprunte cette expression signifiante à Claude Blum qui l'emploie à propos de Montaigne
et la définit en ces termes: "[cette sémiotique] inclut dans le mouvement de sa représentation
tous les développements concernant l'expérience et les sens, signes aussi des choses": "Les
Essais de Montaigne: les signes, la politique, la religion," Columbia Montaigne Conference
Papers (Lexington, French Forum, 1981), p. 16.

14. Marie-Luce Demonet, Les voix du signe, p. 293.

15. Cf Richard Waswo, Op. cit., pp. 285 et 288.

16. Cf. l'article de Marie-Luce Demonet-Launay, "Question doubteuse: le langage," B.S.A.M. ,
6' série, 15-16 (1983), p. 13.

17. Les avis des critiques sont très partagés à cet égard; le débat est richissime et nous ne citerons
ici que quelques positions représentatives des tendances générales sur ce sujet. Cf entre
autres, H.-H. Ehrlich, Montaigne: la critique et le langage (Paris, Klincksieck, 1972), p. 72;
Jean Paris, Rabelais au futur (Paris, Seuil, 1970), pp. 95 ssq.; Gérard Defaux, Marot,
Rabelais, Montaigne, l'écriture comme présence (Pans/GQnbve,Chsimpion/S\a.tkme, 1987)
et Marie-Luce Demonet, Les voix du signe, p. 576, et "Si les signes vous fâchent . . .":
inference naturelle et sciences des signes à la Renaissance," L'Humanisme, la Réforme et
la Renaissance, 20, no 38 (1994). Nous renvoyons également à d'autres études plus
spécifiques sur le sujet, d'abord chez Rabelais: Albert Chesneau, "Un point de sémiologie
pantagruélique: problèmes et valeur du langage par signes selon Rabelais," Bulletin des
Jeunes Romanistes, 17 (1970), 35-43; François Rigolot, "Cratylisme et Pantagruélisme:
Rabelais et le statut du signe," Études Rabelaisiennes, XIII, CXLIV ( 1 976), 115-132; Pierre
Goumarre, "Rabelais entre le signe et le symbole," Les Amis de Rabelais et de La Devinière,
IV, 4 (1985), 127-131; Michelle Huchon, "Variations rabelaisiennes sur l'imposition du
nom," Prose et prosateurs de la Renaissance (Paris, 1988), 93-100; et Michel Jeanneret,
"Rabelais, les monstres et l'interprétation des signes (Quart Livre 18-42), Writing the

Guylaine Fontaine / Du "conseil des muetz" au "taire parlier" / 37

Renaissance: Essays on Sixteenth-Century French Literature in Honor of Floyd Gray, soys
la dir. de Raymond C. La Charité (Lexington, French Forum, 1992), 65-76. Enfin, chez
Montaigne: Antoine Compagnon, Nous, Michel de Montaigne (Paris, Seuil, 1980); François
Rigolot, "Le langage des Essais, référentiel ou mimologique?," CAIEF, 33 ( 1 98 1 ), 1 9-34; Zoé
Samaras, "Montaigne et Platon: la philosophie du langage," Montaigne, penseur et philosophe
(1588-1988), sous la direction de Claude Blum (Paris, Champion, 1990), 31-43; et Marie-
Luce Demonet-Launay, "Le 'corps aëree de la voix'", BA.S.M., 21-22 (1990), 59-68.

18. Claude Blum explique à ce sujet la pensée de Montaigne qui est "aux antipodes d'une
attitude nominaliste; en soutenant l'arbitraire des signes puis en rattachant la production des
signifiés à l' esprit de l' homme, et à son corps, Montaigne emprunte au [. . .] conceptualisme."
loc. cit., p. 17.

19. Marie-Luce Demonet, Les voix du signe, p. 293.

20. Marie-Luce Demonet, "Question doubteuse," p. 13.

21. Cf. Demonet à propos de Montaigne: "Il y a incompatibiUté totale entre la théorie
traditionnelle de l' imposition des noms (que ce soit immédiatement par Dieu ou médiatement » ,
par les hommes) et l'observation du mouvement du monde et des hommes. Il faut donc qu 'il
existe un signe qui soit en relation de cohérence avec la réalité, sans prétendre l 'imiter, qui
vienne d'elle et de l'homme: c'est le geste. [. . .] À la question ontologique du langage
Montaigne répond par la paléontologie: au commencement était le geste" ("Question
doubteuse," p. 30).

22. Marie-Luce Demonet-Launay, "Les mains du texte ou le dernier geste de Montaigne,"
Nouvelle Revue du Seizième Siècle, 7 (1989), p. 69.

23. Cf. Demonet, Les voix du signe, p. 487.

24. "C'est à peu près de la même manière que l'on voit les enfants conduits au langage des gestes
par l'impuissance de leur langue" (Lucrèce, V, 1029).

25. "En sorte que pour l'homme un étranger n'est pas un homme" (Pline, Histoire naturelle, VII,
1).

26. Eva Kushner ("Gesture in the Work of Rabelais," /?enû!W5anc^e//?e/brwe,X, 1 [1986], 67-
77) fait une interprétation semblable du célèbre passage du Prologue de Gargantua où
Rabelais décrit le comportement de ce "chien rencontrant quelque os medullare" (G, p. 7).

27. Nous empruntons cette expression à Géralde Nakam qui signait, en 1991, un petit article
haut en image au titre tout simple: "Études de mains (La main dans les Essais)," dans L 'esprit
et la lettre. Mélanges offerts à Jules Brody, sous la dir. de Louis van Delft (Tubingen, Gunter
Narr Verlag, 1991). L'article est repris dans Montaigne. La manière et la matière (Paris,
KHncksieck, 1991).

28. Géralde Nakam a répertorié "quarante-sept actions pour les mains, vingt-et-une expressions
pour la tête" {Montaigne. La manière et la matière, p. 195). Cf. également Demonet, "Les
mains du texte."

29. Cf. QL, LXIII, 233-234.

38 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

30. À cet égard, nous nous dissocions de l'interprétation de Géralde Nakam selon laquelle
"Montaigne conclu[t] avec enthousiasme sur 'les alphabets des doigts et grammaires en
gestes' qui en remontreraient à la plus savante des linguistiques" {Montaigne. La manière
et la matière, p. 1 96). Nous entérinons plutôt la lecture de Montaigne faite par Demonet: "Le
'je laisse à part' par lequel il renvoie "les alphabets des doigts et grammaires en gestes" n'est
pas une simple prétention, mais une exclusion de tout langage gestuel codé" ("Les mains
du texte," p. 67).

31. La rhétorique elle-même, dans sa quatrième partie {actio), procède justement à une
codification des gestes et de la contenance de l'orateur; il est également intéressant de
rappeler que cette partie de l'art de l'éloquence était nommée par les Grecs: imÔKpiaiç, ce
qui signifîait à la fois, "action de jouer un rôle, un personnage, jeu de l'acteur, action
oratoire" et au figuré "rôle, faux semblant, hypocrisie."

32. "Je ne veulx disputer pro et contra, comme font ces sotz sophistes [. . .] semblablement, je
ne veulx disputer en la manière des académiques par déclamation [. . .] mais je veulx disputer
par signes seulement" {P, XVIII, 257).

33. Pensons à Messere Gaster, qui du fait de n'avoir pas d'oreilles semble justement protégé
contre ce vent de la rhétorique: "A luy on ne peut rien faire croyre, rien remonstrer, rien
persuader. Il ne oyt poinct" {QL, LVII, 209). Montaigne avait aussi remarqué ce pouvoir de
l'oralité: "D'autant plus que l'ame est plus vuide et sans contrepoids, elle se baisse plus
facilement souz la charge de la premiere persuasion. [A] Voilà pourquoy les enfans, le
vulgaire, les femmes et les malades sont plus subjects à estre menezpar les oreilles'' (I, xxvii,
178).

34. Sur ce débat avivé, cf. Jean Guiton, "Le mythe des paroles gelées (Rabelais, Quart Livre,
LV-LVI)," Romanic eview, XXXI, 1 (1940), 3-15; Verdun L. Saulnier, "Le silence de
Rabelais et le mythe des paroles gelées," dans François Rabelais. Ouvrage publié pour le
quatrième centenaire de sa mort, 1553-1953 (Genève/Lille, Droz/Giard, 1953), 233-247;
Jean- Yves Pouilloux, "Notes sur deux chapitres du Quart Livre, LV-LVI," Littérature, 5
(1972), 88-94; Michel Jeanneret, "Les paroles dégelées: Rabelais {Quart Livre, 48-65),"
Littérature, 17 (1975), 14-30, et du même auteur, "Quand la fable se met à table: nourriture
et structure narrative dans le Quart Livre," Poétique, 54 (1983), 163-180; André Toumon,
"De l'interprétation des 'motz de gueule.' Note sur les chapitre LV-LVI du Quart Livre du
Pantagruel." dans Hommage à François Meyer (Aix-en-Provence, Publications de
l'Université de Provence, 1983), 145-153; et GErard Defaux, "À propos de paroles gelées
et dégelées {Quart Livre, 55-56): 'plus hault sens' ou 'lectures plurielles'", dans Rabelais 's
Incomparable Book. Essays on his Art, sous la dir. de Raymond C. La Charité (Lexington,
French Forum, 1986), 155-177, article repris sous le titre "Vers une définition
del 'herméneutique rabelaisienne: Pantagruel, l'esprit, la lettre et les paroles gelées," Études
Rabelaisiennes, XXI, CCXXV, 327-337.

35. C'est Montaigne qui cite ce passage: "Il touche l'ivoire qui, perdant sa dureté, s'amollit et
cède sous ses doigts" (Ovide, Métamorphoses, x, 283). Cf Essais, II, vii, 402.

36. Nous sera-t-il permis de voir à nouveau dans cette mention de la valeur du silence la
condamnation de la rhétorique (des avocats du moins) et, par ricochet, un nouvel éloge du
geste?

Celebrations held in Siena
during the Government of

the Nine

GORDON

MORAN

MICHAEL

MALLORY

Summary: In fourteenth-century Siena the government of the Nine functioned
very much within alliances with the leading Guelf powers. This article studies
celebrations of Guelf victories in Siena, as depicted in the famous castle cycle
of the Palazzo Pubblico and described in the writings of Benvoglienti.

arious Sienese sources, including chronicles, archival documents, and
manuscripts, record celebrations in Siena for military victories during the
government of the Nine (1287-1355). Some of these victory celebrations
conmiemorate specific Sienese successes in expanding control and jurisdic-
tion over the surrounding countryside. Such expansion, begun long before the
Nine came to power, tended to provide a degree of military and economic
security to the City of Siena itself.

Although Siena is often thought of as a Ghibelline city — perhaps to a large
degree because of the famous victory over the Florentines at Monteperti in 1260
— the government of the Nine functioned within Guelf constitutions and within
alliances with the leading Guelf powers of the time. This situation has led,
understandably, to comments about the ideological nature of Sienese Guelfism as
compared to its pragmatic nature, and also compared to Florentine Guelfism. For
example, the foremost historian of the Nine, William Bowsky, writes: "Sienese
involvements with the taglie were practical and pragmatic, not ideological.
Guelfism did not contain the political magic in Siena that it did in Florence . . .
Sienese Guelfism was of more recent vintage and more dubious heritage. Siena's
glories dated from an epoch of Ghibelline mle. . ."* He further writes:

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 1 (1995) /39

40 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Guelfism in the Siena of the Nine, then, was not a major issue. On the whole,
the government trod Hghtly in this area and thus was not hkely to be
stampeded into foolish courses of action 'after loud beating of the Guelf
drums,' or to send huge contingents into the taglie for purely ideological
considerations.^

On the other hand, Bowsky also states: "Great noble families such as the
Tolomei, Malavolti, and Salimbeni converted to Guelfism, largely so as to
maintain their international banking and commercial positions."^

In fact, this historical condition of a relatively brusque and somewhat
abrupt "conversion" to Guelfism on the part of the Sienese, in contrast to the
long, firmly established tradition of Guelfism in Florence, might well have led,
at least temporarily, to a situation of ideological ambivalence. Furthermore,
Siena was not a major political or military power, but instead, an entity within
a larger framework of more powerful forces. In such a case, there might well
have been an awareness among the Sienese under the Nine that the present
alliances with the pope and an Angevin king might change back again to
renewed alliance with an emperor (as actually happened in 1355). Such a
situation might have augmented ideological ambivalence.

Perhaps an example of ideological ambivalence might be found in the
meaning and contents of the inscriptions on the famous Maesîà painted in the
Siena Palazzo Pubblico. According to Benvoglienti, Siena might once have
been in a position of "submission" to the Angevins: "La città di Siena era sotto
la protezione del Re di Napoli se non sottoposta nel 1276 perché il Podestà di
Siena si dice podestà per grazie di Dio e del Re.""* In fact, the "giglio" of the
Angevins is depicted throughout the decoration of part of the baldachin in the
fresco of the Palazzo Pubblico Maestà in Siena. But how does the presence of
this apparent Angevin heraldry fit in with the provisions in the Sienese Statuti
that indicated an aversion to coats of arms being painted in public buildings,
or on public fountains or gates? Were the painted "gigli" in effect an imposition
that was reluctantly accepted by the Sienese, particularly in view of the role of
the Madonna in protecting Siena at the battle of Monteperti?^ In this regard,
could certain parts of the Maestà inscription be a not so subtle message against
the Angevins' trying to pry into, and gain control of, too much of Siena's
autonomy as a free commune? For instance, in the line "L'angelichi fiorecti
rose e gigli," could the words "angelichi" and "gigli" refer to the Angevins?
Certainly an iconographical reference is not lacking. And who does ". . . chi
per proprio stato disprezza me e la mia terra inganna" refer to?^

At this point, a question might be raised as to whether it is really possible,

Gordon Moran & Michael Mallory / Celebrations held in Siena / 41

after all, to separate — in a clear manner — strong alliances of a pragmatic and
diplomatic nature from ideological purity, or to determine how great successes
in banking and commercial ventures might have colored the ideological leanings
of the recently "converted" Sienese noble families. Perhaps the ideological make-
up of the Sienese leaders during the government of the Nine wavered between the
parameters of practical necessity — if not opportunism — on one hand, and wistful
and nostalgic looking back to the good old days of the Monteperti era on the other
hand. Within this situation there was also the "ideological" desire to maintain
Siena as an autonomous city state, allied with, but not subjugated to, other powers.
How much was ideology tempered by opportunism if the Guelf alliances were the
most effective means, during a particular time, to attain submission and control of
important castles in the Sienese contadol

Whatever the elusive answers may be to these questions regarding
ideology, the political and military commitments of the government of the
Nine to the Guelf powers were strong. Ghibellines could not be members of the
Nine, nor hold office. Ghibellines were also described as enemies of Siena.
Siena also took part in military pacts which entailed providing Guelf military
forces composed of troops and supplies from various Guelf cities. Guelf
military victories were marked by celebrations in Siena.

It is interesting to note that celebrations in Siena to honor Guelf victories
included those victories that resulted in an expansion of Siena's jurisdiction
over castles in the Sienese countryside. Although the castles depicted in the
famous castle cycle in the Siena Palazzo Pubblico were apparently limited to
those that swore submission to Siena, celebrations were also held in Siena for
Guelf victories that took place far beyond Sienese territory.

It seems that the celebrations themselves included presenting a green robe
or toga to the persons who brought news of the victories, and also included
illuminations of the towers of the Palazzo Pubblico, Palazzo del Podestà, the
church tower of the Duomo, etc. Sienese chronicles report some of these
victory celebrations, exemplified by the following description for the year
1306: E Sanesi ferô gran festa del la sopradetta vettoria e furo vestii piu di X
messi dal comune, che recoro le novelle."^

Perhaps an even richer source for Guelf victory celebrations is found
among the unpublished manuscripts of Benvoglienti. His research is based on
archival documents, some of which are lost or no longer exist (a situation
which makes part of his research all the more important). A selection from
Benvoglienti serves to illustrate how Siena celebrated Guelf military victories
that took place in cities far away from Sienese territory.

42 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

(1305) Si fece allegrizza per il fatto di Pistoia.

Si pagano 1 8 denari per ciascuno a quattro persone, le quale fecero Fanone
sopra il Campanile della Chiesa maggiore per cagione della vittoria della
citta di Pistoia.

(1310) Si paga il valore di una gonella che fu dato al messo che areco la
nuova che il Comune di Bologna hebbe Docia.

(1310) Si pagano lire 7. 1 3 .6 in una robba che fu dato a uno, che venne di
Bologna con la novella di Ferrara.

(1310) Si pagano 8 soldi a quattro huomini che stetterô nella torre de
Mignanelli a far falo della novella che vennero che quelli di Todi furono
sconfitti.

(1311) Si pagano lire 6 e soldi 22 per due gonelle fomite et un cappuccio
ad arme del Comune di Siena, che furono date al messo che da Bologna recô
la nuova di Piacenza.

(1311) Si pagano lire 6.6.6 due gonelle a due messe, uno de quali recô le
novelle di Padova, e I'altro le novelle della sconfitta di Spoleto.

Si danno 4 soldi a due huomini che facesse falo della sconfitta delli Spoletini.

Si pagano lire 8 per una robba fomita cioe gonella, guamaccia, e capuccio
fomiti al arme del Comune di Siena, la quale robbe si diede al messo che da
Perugia recô la nuova della sconfitta de Ghibellini di Spoleto.

(1314) Si pagano lire 7.8 per due gonnelle date a due messe, che portarono
nuove da Ancona come i Ghibellini erano stati sconfitti.

(1318) fii fatto falo per le buone nuove di Genova.*

In his article, Joseph Polzer suggested that some of the castles depicted in
the famous castle cycle in the Siena Palazzo Pubblico were painted in time for
a sort of official unveiling during the victory celebrations that marked their
conquests: ". . . the Sienese government intended to have these conquered
towns depicted even before the cessation of hostilities. There could have been
but one purpose intended: that these frescoes should have been ready for
display at the celebration of the triumph."^ There seems to be no doubt that the
paintings of newly acquired castles were part of the commemoration of the
conquests (or acquisitions, in some cases) of these castles, but the evidence
suggests to us that Polzer' s hypothesis does not hold up regarding the relative
timing of events. Simone Martini was paid for painting the castles of Arcidosso
and Castel del Piano together about four months after Arcidosso surrendered,
while Benvoglienti points out that the Sienese government paid for "Panne

Gordon Moran & Michael Mallory / Celebrations held in Siena / 43

verde" for the persons who brought news of the victory over the "Conti di S.
Fiore" in 1331.*^ Simone Martini was paid for painting Montemassi and
Sassoforte together in 1330. Montemassi, however, surrendered to Siena in
August 1328, and Benvoglienti notes that in 1328, "Si fece falo . . . per
I'acquisto di Montemassi."^*

In a discussion of Sienese political pictorial art, Bowsky expressed
sadness that we no longer see all the paintings commissioned by the Nine: "It
is sad that we do not have even descriptions of others of the palazzo pictures,
long since destroyed. . ."^^ At about the same time that these words of Bowsky
were being printed, one of the paintings from the castle cycle (perhaps
Arcidosso, painted by Simone Martini in 1331, even though the castle is
"officially" recognized as representing Giuncarico) was being uncovered,
setting off another "celebration" in Siena and the art world in honor of its
"reconquest" and "unveiling" by the restorers. Further discoveries of paintings
in this famous cycle seem possible, if not probable or inevitable, some time in
the future. Max Seidel, a member of the official commission appointed by the
mayor of Siena to study the fresco depicting a castle that was uncovered in
1980-1981, has written (in the official report) that another fresco surely
("sicuramente") exists beneath part of the famous Guido Riccio fresco.*^ And,
more recently, Alexandra Miletta writes that technical tests conducted by
Maurizio Seracini indicate that other paintings exist on the adjacent wall,
presently hidden beneath the scenes representing the Battle of Val di Chiana
and the Battle ofPoggio Impériale. ^^

The eventual rediscovery of some of the painted castles in the Palazzo
Pubblico could lead to what some scholars might regard as the "discovery of
the century" in art history. Such a discovery could, in turn, touch off in Siena
(and throughout the world of art history and medieval studies) celebrations that
greatly exceed even those that took place after those same castles were
conquered by the government of the Nine in Siena in the fourteenth century.'^

Florence, Italy & The City University of New York
Notes

1 . W. Bowsky. A Medieval Italian Commune (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1 98 1 ),
pp. 170-171.

2. W. Bowsky. p. 173.

3. W. Bowsky, p. 35.

4. Biblioteca Communale di Siena, ms. C. V.4 (U. Benvoglienti. Miscellanea), p. 1 .

44 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

5. Archivio di Stato di Siena, Statuti, 26 (1337-1355), p. 71: "Nulla arma possint dipingi in
aliquo palatio ut porta vel fonte . . ." This provision was basically a repetition of that of an
earlier Statuto: Archivio di Stato di Siena, Statuti, 8 (1291-1329), p. 16. In light of this
provision restricting the painting of coat-of-arms, one might ask: What in the world is the
glaringly large coat-of-arms of a branch of the Fogliani family doing on the famous
equestrian portrait known as Guido Riccio? Doesn' t this aspect seem anachronistic? Cf also
Mario Ascheri. // Giomale dell Arte, November 1988, p. 70.

6. W. Bowsky (p. 286) translates the pertinent passages of the Maestà inscriptions as follows:
"The angelic flowers of roses and lilies with which the heavenly field is adorned do not
delight me more than good counsel (i buoni consigli). But sometimes I see one who, for his
own advantage, despises me and deceives my land. . ."

7. Cronache Senesi, ed. by A. Lisini and F. Jacometti (1939), p. 293.

8. Biblioteca Communale di Siena, ms. C.V.4 (U. Benvoglienti. Miscellanea), pp. 121, 126,
131, 142, 155.

9. J. Polzer. "Simone Martini's Guidoriccio Fresco: The Polemic Concerning its Origin
Reviewed, and the Fresco Considered as Serving the Military Triumph of a Tuscan
Commune," RACAR 1-2 (1987), p. 29.

10. J. Polzer, p. 29, notes 78, 79, 80, 81; Biblioteca Communale di Siena, ms. C.V.4 (U.
Benvoglienti. Miscellanea), p. 180.

11. Bibhioteca Communale di Siena, ms. C.V.4 (U. Benvoglienti. Miscellanea), p. 174.

12. W. Bowsky, p. 291, note 97.

13. M. Seidel. "'Castnim pingatur in palatio': Ricerche storiche e iconografiche sui castelli
dipinti nel Palazzo Pubblico di Siena," Prospettiva, January 1982, p. 34, note 36.

14. A. Miletta. "Guidoriccio da Fogliano at the Siege of Montemassi: The Controversy over the
Simone Martini Autorship and the Technical Evidence for a Post- 1330 Dating of the
Fresco," Dissertation, University of Syracuse, 1988, pp. 11-12.

15. Guelf victory celebrations continued after 1333. Within the time span ca. 1333- 1351, Guido
Riccio da Fogliano is well-documented as being allied with, and working (i.e. fighting) for,
one of the most powerful Ghibelline families in Italy, the della Scala of Verona. It is difficult
to imagine Guido Riccio' s equestrian portrait being displayed in full glory (the way it is
today in the Siena Palazzo Pubblico) in the Council Hall of the Sienese government of the
Nine in the midst of the Guelf victory celebrations that were taking place in Siena during
the years 1333-1351.

Figuring Justice: Imperial

Ideology and the Discourse

of Colonialism in Book V of

The Faerie Queene and A

View of the Present State of

Ireland

WALTER S. H.
LIM

Summary: Edmund Spenser is a vocal spokesman for the colonization of
Ireland. In A View of the Present State of Ireland, he provides one of the most
sustained imperialist articulations in Elizabethan England. And in Book V of
The Faerie Queene, he promulgates a vision of justice that is necessary for
containing individual and social dissent, as well as for consolidating monar-
chical authority. Spenser wants a similar form of relentless justice applied to
controlling the recalcitrant Irish, hut discovers that his implacable imperialist
policy stands in direct opposition to Queen Elizabeth 's own.

n Book V of The Faerie Queene,^ Spenser allegorizes the mechanisms by
which justice is exercised and enacted in civil society. The presiding genius in
this Book is Astraca, the goddess of justice who is also the mythological
embodiment of Elizabeth Tudor. Astraca has been responsible for educating
Artegall, the man who will sire the line leading to Queen Elizabeth and the
image Britomart encounters in a magic mirror in Book III. When Astraca fled
from the world* s corruption, she left behind her groom Talus to serve Artegall.
Artegall's and Talus' task is to ensure that justice is not violated in the world
Astraca left behind. Book V shows Artegall progressing ritually through a
series of adventures, meting out justice on the bodies of the unjust. In
allegorizing the workings of Justitia, Spenser meditates on its relationship to
dementia. What place does mercy have in the dispensation of justice? Book
V recognizes that mercy is an important component in any consideration of
justice, but it ultimately supports the use of the sword as a necessary condition

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 1 (1995) /45

46 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

for preserving social and civil order. Spenser's Talus represents the executive
power of Justitia unmediated by dementia. The harsh enactment and exercise
of power is needed to correct the lawlessness of characters like Pollente and
Munera who abuse power and wealth, and by the giant who advocates a false
mean between truth and falsehood.

Spenser's conception of justice expressed in Book V can be read as a
poeticization of the vision of justice given in A View of the Present State of
Ireland? Taking the form of a dialogue between two men, A View was most
probably composed in 1596, the year in which the second installment of The
Faerie Queene was entered on the Stationers' Register. Central to Book V and
A View is how the meting out of justice is tied directly to legitimizing the
monarch's authority. Spenser is never completely at ease with the concept and
implications of mercy, finding in it the source of much of the troubles plaguing
English society and the Ireland England wishes to colonize. While paying lip
service to the laudable virtue of the Queene' s mercy, he criticizes, for example,
her half-hearted endorsement of actions that will effectively control the state
of lawlessness in neighbouring Ireland. Therefore, the exercise of justice
necessary for social stability and order is, for Spenser, central also to the project
of English imperialism and colonialism. Spenser is the unabashed apologist for
the use of force to order and consolidate England's imperium.

Spenser's preoccupation with the relationship between justice and mercy
as aspects of imperial authority is expressed cogently in the allegorization of
Mercilla' s judgment in Duessa in Book V of The Faerie Queene, and it would
be appropriate for us to begin our discussion by recapitulating some of the
salient features of this relationship. Spenser's portrayal of the iconic Mercilla
is first and foremost encomiastic; England is described as a "happie land"
(V.ix.30) that has enjoyed the fruits of a peaceful reign; in Mercilla' s court,
"the name of warre" is never spoken, "ioyous peace and quietnesse" reigns,
and judgments are meted out (V.ix.24). This pax anglicana is disrupted by
Duessa, whose treachery involves nothing less than the attempt to dethrone a
monarch and subvert England's ordered realm. A transparent allegory of the
trial of Mary Queen of Scots, this episode impresses upon its reader that even
though Mercilla/Elizabeth embodies the princely virtue of mercy, the demands
of justice must be met for the good of the commonwealth to prevail. The
monarch must dispense justice to protect the security of the state.

Walter S. H. Lim / Figuring Justice / 47

One recalls the Mercilla/Duessa allegory when Spenser invokes Elizabeth
as "Her sacred Majesty" who is "by nature full of mercy and clemency" (p.
105) in A View of the Present State of Ireland. In A View, Spenser's Irenius
provides at length an account of the Queen's mercy:

I wish that there be a general proclamation made, that whatsoever outlaws
will freely come in and submit themselves to Her Majesty ' s mercy shall have
liberty so to do, where they shall either find that grace they desire or return
again in safety; upon which it is likely that so many as survive will come in
to sue for grace, of which who so are thought meet for subjection and fit to
be brought to good may be received or else all of them, for I think that all will
be but a very few, upon condition and assurance that they will submit
themselves absolutely to Her Majesty's ordinance for them, by which they
shall be assured of life and liberty and be only tied to such conditions as shall
be thought by her meet, for containing them ever after in due obedience.

(pp. 122-123)

The reference to Elizabeth's mercy, like Spenser's allegorical representation
of Mercilla, is encomiastic. This praise does not, however, exempt Elizabeth
from blame in recalling Lord Grey from Ireland because of his harsh regime.
Spenser's A View inscribes an indirect critique in its defense of Lord Grey.
Irenius portrays Grey as a gentle and temperate man who resorted to violence
in Ireland only because"the necessity of that present state of things enforced
him to" (p. 106). Lord Grey had no choice but to check the calamity that
followed in the wake of the Desmond Rebellion and to punish the Spaniards
at Smerwick who "were only adventurers, that came to seek fortune abroad and
serve in wars" (p. 108).^

Another allusion to Elizabeth' s recall of Lord Grey de Wilton from Ireland
is found in Book V, canto xii, of The Faerie Queene. In praising the former
governor' s role in breaking the force of the rebellious Fitzgeralds of Desmond,
Spenser writes about the part played by justice in reforming "that ragged
common-weale" (V.xii.26) of Ireland. In this last canto of Book V, justice is
shown to operate beyond the confines of England. In Ireland, where people
"vsed to rob and steale, / Or did rebell gainst lawfull gouemment" (V.xii.26),
Talus "did inflict most grieuous punishment" (V.xii.26). Spenser's techno-
logical version of God's omniscience, the Talus who "could reueale / All
hidden crimes" (V.xii.26), is recalled. Artegall is also compelled to return to
the Court. Spenser allegorizes his understanding and defence of Grey's
administration in Ireland by depicting Artegall battling against and killing
Grantorto (whose name suggests "great wrong"), freeing Irena from tyranny

48 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

and imprisonment, rescued by Artegall, Irena, whose name etymologically
means "peace," enjoys only a short lease of joy. Spenser points to envy to
explain the unpopular response to Grey's administration in Ireland. Envy's
"nature is to grieue, and grudge at all, / That euer she sees doen pray s- worthily"
(V.xii.31). Like Milton's self-consuming Sin, Spenser's Envy "feedes on her
owne law vnnaturall, / And of her owne foule entrayles makes her meat"
(V.xii.31). Significantly, Envy's close ally is Detraction, who primarily
"waeue[s] false tales and leasings bad, / To throw amongst the good, which
others had disprad" (V.xii.36). In the logic of Spenser's allegory. Lord Grey
is the victim of envy , backbiting, and slander. His task, like Artegall' s, is to free
peace from the clutches of tyranny. He "sorely punished with heauie payne"
(V.xii.25) the people who were involved in tyrannizing Irena; and he was
preoccupied with the task of dispensing "true lustice" (V.xii.26) and the
question of "How to reforme that ragged common-weale" (V.xii.26). Unfor-
tunately, that task remains incomplete and the Blatant Beast with "his hundred
tongues" (V.xii.41), Envy and Detraction's very own pet, significantly sur-
vives to escape even Calidore's clutches in Book VI and to roam the world
striking terror at the conclusion of Spenser's epic poem."^ When the mecha-
nisms of colonial administration and justice are withdrawn, anarchy logically
ensues.

In portraying Artegall' s recall, Spenser reveals his feelings that Grey had
been unfairly treated by Elizabeth. In A View Spenser criticizes the people who
accuse Grey of being "a bloody man" (p. 106) and of treating the Irish as "no
more th2in dogs" (p. 106). This criticism is implicitly aimed at the Queen
herself. Strategically placing Eudoxius' account of the criticisms levelled
against Grey after the description of the devastation and famine caused by the
Desmond Wars, Spenser argues that "the necessity of that present state of
things enforced him to that violence" (p. 106). Spenser shared Ludovick
Bryskett's view that Grey's "lustice is a terror to the wicked, and a comforte
vnto the good, whose sinceritie very envie it self cannott touche, and whose
wisdome might, in the oppinion of the wysest that consider his proceedinges,
goveme a whole Empyre."^ His portrayal of the relationship between justice
and the establishment of civil order links Book V to A View of the Present State
of Ireland. In the latter text, bringing about civil order cannot be extricated
from the cause of British imperialism. Stanza 26 of Book V, canto xii shows
Talus in Ireland. The force of justice required for the smooth functioning of
society also serves to disseminate the immeasurable benefits of culture and
civilization to a savage people. In stanza 39 of Book V, canto xi, Spenser refers

Walter S. H. Lim / Figuring Justice / 49

to Ireland as "the saluage Hands." And in A View Irenius proposes different
ways to tame the savage Irish.

Arguably, the most devastating critique of Elizabeth's recall of Grey and
of those opposed to his actions in Ireland is found toward the conclusion of A
View. There Irenius offers a passionate defence for the right of the Lord Deputy
to possess "more ample and absolute" (p. 168) authority. Set against the
historical and political context of Grey's removal from Ireland, Spenser's
portrayal of Elizabeth's mercy possesses both positive and negative
significations. The exercise of mercy shows the monarch tempering the
otherwise cold justice of the law. But it also suggests the Queen does not fully
appreciate the hard reality of controlling a rebellious and intransigent people
like the Irish.

In A View, Spenser's portrayal of Elizabeth's mercy is mediated by the
presence of a political world in which the Queen is not shaping events with
sufficient determination and veracity.^ He suggests that Elizabeth does not
understand the difficulty of administering an Ireland that is culturally back-
ward and vehemently hostile toward the English. In reading Spenser's views
on the Irish question, it is important that we do not confuse his politics with one
that is dominant in the Elizabethan court. In fact, Elizabeth did not share
Spenser's desire to bring a recalcitrant Ireland to heel through brutal means.
Indeed, in 1 582, she accepted Grey ' s repeated requests for resignation from his
duties in Ireland because she did not support his reputedly severe and harsh
governance there. On a larger scale, there is also the Queen's ineffective
protection of the Protestant Church' s interests abroad.^ Immediately following
the Mercilla-Duessa episode, Spenser proceeds to allegorize the regaining of
Antwerp (V.x.38-39) and the defeat of Catholicism in Arthur's killing of
Geryoneo. This allegory in cantos x and xi rewrites the facts of the Netherlands
campaign. Spenser allegorizes Leicester' s Calvinist expedition as a triumph of
Protestant honour. When the Queen sent Leicester with an army of 7,000 men
to assist the provinces after Antwerp's fall to the Spanish forces appeared
imminent, he arrived too late to prevent the catastrophe from taking place.
Spenser believed Elizabeth had failed to intervene decisively and free the Low
Countries from oppression by Catholic Spain. That the Queen did not give her
uncompromising support to combat the threat posed by Catholic Spain and the
Habsburg powers in Europe proved scandalous to the militant Protestants.
Like Leicester, Walsingham, and Sidney, Spenser was drawn to the larger
international concerns of the reformed religion. And like Essex, he would like
to have seen Elizabeth pursue a more interventionist and militant foreign

50 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

polocy. Instead he saw, as Ralegh did, that Elizabeth "did all by halves,"'' and
her defence of the Netherlands was as inconclusive as her subjugation of
Ireland. Confronted with these frustrations, Spenser wrote Book V to express
his own version of history. Arthur's defeat of Geryoneo, therefore, can be read
in terms of Spenser's recuperation of the narrative history through an alterna-
tive poetic narrative. What could not be achieved in history can be experienced
vicariously through allegory. If Spenser's rewriting of history redeems its
failures, it also identifies the Queen as the source of those failures.

Spenser's disappointment with Elizabeth's handling of England's foreign
policy registers itself in an epic text whose ostensible design is to celebrate the
Virgin Queen. The different aspects of Elizabeth's glory are figured in such
symbolic identities as Una, Belphoebe, Britomart, Mercilla, and Gloriana. But
even as Spenser's multiple mirrours refer to the positive figurations of the
Queen's royal identity, they also point to demonic variations of those figura-
tions. Doublings proliferate in Spenser's romance narrative — Lucifera and
the Faerie Queene, Malecasta and Britomart, Radigund and Britomart. The
presence of these demonic variations means that the Queen can never remove
from her gaze patterns of what the royal court could degenerate into. If
Elizabeth, for example, finds Gloriana set before her as a mirror of majesty , she
cannot help but look at the demonic counterpart of that majesty fugured in
Lucifera. Even though it is a poem of praise to Elizabeth, The Faerie Queene
extends its educative function as mirrour and ensample to the Queen. Enco-
mium is given in a narrative that also relegates blame and delivers warnings.

Spenser's poetic and political vision then possesses an internationalist
dimension, linked to and endorsed by his belief in England's role as protector
of the Protestant Church's interests abroad. At different moments throughout
The Faerie Queene, Spenser calls attention to Elizabeth's failure to protect
these interests. Viewing himself as the English Virgil writing in praise of the
Elizabethan Golden Age, Spenser finds he cannot simply celebrate the idea of
national greatness, if a central requirement in consolidating that greatness —
the expansion of an overseas empire — is lacking in some way. That is why
he links imperial authority and English greatness to the expansion of the
empire. The métonymie relationship Spenser sets up between Elizabeth's
power and the expansion of the English imperium creates an epic of praise even
as it situates the threats posed to the consolidation of the imperium. It is
important once again to recognize that Spenser's views on empire building do
not coincide with Elizabeth's at different points. There is in reality no unified
Elizabethan world picture defining England's intemational ambitions in the

Walter S. H. Lim / Figuring Justice / 51

latter half of the sixteenth century. Indeed it is highly probable that the conflicts
existing between Spenser's and the court's views on the Irish question brought
about a censorship that led to the printing of A View only in 1633, well over
three decades after its most likely date of composition in 1596.^

As an epic romance, The Faerie Queene is directly linked by Spenser to
the design and ambitions of empire building. In choosing the specific mode of
the Arthurian romance, Spenser affirms England's greatness by conflating its
contemporary "sundry place" (II.Proem.4) with its "famous antique history"
(Il.Proem.l). Despite his recognition that the creation of this poem may be
viewed by readers as "th'aboundance of an idle braine" (Il.Proem.l) eind
"painted forgery" (Il.Proem.l), Spenser defends his creative efforts by point-
ing out that the imagination can exert a powerful influence over material
reality. England, Spenser's argument implies, can be "that happy land of
Faery" (H. Proem. 1) even though, of course, no one has yet seen it. Not to have
seen something does not negate its existence. Not to have seen "Faeryland"
does not mean England is not the great realm of legend and history, just as not
to have heard of Peru, the Amazon, and Virginia does not mean these places
do not exist. For it was only as late as 1540 that the Amazon was first sailed
and 1584 that Sir Walter Ralegh, Spenser's intimate friend, presented to
Elizabeth those lands he had discovered in North America. The Proem to
Spenser's Legend of Temperance is not a defence of the substantive nature of
the imagination, its ability to translate fictions into reality, but a specific
exhortation for England to recognize that there is an empire out there in the
larger world waiting to be carved out. The imagination, in other words, has a
utilitarian function. "Faeryland," as Maureen Quilligan puts it, "is located in
the place of the questing human imagination, a peculiar Renaissance creature
that does not [. . .] confine its quests to mental realms alone but sallies out to
seek new continents. "^° Spenser locates England's colonial interests at the
point in which the world of the imagination intersects with reality. In the
twenty-second stanza of Book IV, canto xi, he exhorts the British to follow
Ralegh's urgings to colonize in South America. Ralegh's "The Discovery of
the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana" (1596) asserts that wealth
can be obtained in the Americas, if only England recognizes the urgent need
to enter into and compete for land in which the Spaniards and the French have
already made incursions.^ •

In spite of the anxieties he betrays in responding to Elizabeth's foreign
policy and the ways in which she conducts affairs at court, Spenser cannot
ultimately free himself from the imperial ideology to which he subscribes and

52 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

in which he is inscribed. His criticisms of the Queen are made to serve the
interests of advancing the Protestant cause and increasing England' s territorial
boundaries. The justice that Spenser celebrates when it works to protect the
security of the state and to crush crime and rebellion legitimizes and consoli-
dates the monarch's authority. Administering God's law on earth, the prince
cannot be touched by the law. Francis Bacon shares Spenser's understanding
of monarchical authority when he writes: "Let judges also remember that
Solomon's throne was supported by lions on both sides: let them be lions, but
yet lions under the throne, being circumspect that they do not check or oppose
any points of sovereignty."'^ Accepting implicitly the royalist premise that the
monarch is God's anointed on earth and the custodian of justice in time,
Spenser subscribes wholly to the homily. Concerning Good Order, and
Obedience to Rulers and Magistrates (1547), which identifies rulers and
magistrates as the guardians of civil order:

Take away Kings, Princes, Rulers, Magistrates, Judges and such estates of
GODS order, no man shall ride or goe by the high way unrobbed, no man
shall sleep in his owne house or bedde unkilled, no man shall keepe his wife,
children, and possession in quietnesse, all things shall bee common, and
there must needes follow all mischiefe, and utter destruction both of soules,
bodies, goodes, and common wealthes.^^

This homily endorses a hierarchical view of human society with its macrocos-
mic correspondence in the universe, telling the common people that supporting
the authority of their ruler protects them from crimes committed against their
bodies, properties, and souls. In this hierarchical society, the subject always
remains the possession of the monarch.

That Spenser makes explicit his recognition that the poet operating in
society can never be freed from his subject position enforces the status of his
epic poem as a gift made by a loyal servant to his Queen even as it destabilizes
the monarch- subject relationship. For any suggestion that textual production
is enabled by pressures exerted from without has the effect of compromising
the constructions of poetic praise. One obvious reminder of the poet's
relationship to the world of court politics is given in Spenser's allegorical
representation of the nailing of the poet Bonfont' s tongue to a post in Mercilla' s
court. This painful example jostles the otherwise cohesive allegorical frame-
work of Mercilla' s grand court and her just reign. If acknowledging the poet's
subject position ratifies the hierarchical conception of society, it also disrupts
encomium by suggesting that poetic praise is given under the conditions of

Walter S. H. Lim / Figuring Justice / 53

censorship, surveillance, and control.

In an instance of deep historical irony, Spenser's depiction of the royal
monopoly of the authorial voice materializes in James VF s demand that he be
punished for allegorizing Mary Queen of Scots as Duessa in the Mercilla/
Duessa episode. This demand can be read as James' attempt to rewrite the
narrative of history by making Elizabeth disavow symbolically her support for
and approval of Queen Mary's execution. If the Queen should punish Spenser
as he demanded, he would obtain the symbolic affirmation that he enjoyed the
privileges of sovereignty; James could then extrapolate from this concession
that Elizabeth supported him as her successor to the English throne.'"^ James'
response to Spenser's allegory clearly shows that ownership of the poetic text
does not belong solely to its author; the text can serve as a pawn in the contest
of power between monarchs. Like all other subjects in society, the poet is
conceptualized here as possession, one that compromises encomium and
identifies the social conditions and political pressures that enable and shape
textual productions.

Spenser's preoccupation with power and its social articulations is ex-
pressed even further in the episodes of Artegall' s encounter with Pollente and
Talus' with Munera. Here royal possession assumes the form of a physical sign
imprinted on the body of the subject. In canto ii, Spenser significantly
describes Artegall as the knight "Who now to perils great for iustice sake
proceedes" (V.ii.l). Following his encounter with Sanglier, Artegall meets
Pollente at the start of canto ii. Alluding to the monopoly patents granted to
corporations, Pollente, whose name means "powerful" in Italian and puns on
the word "poll" (tax), is Spenser's allegorical sign for the abuse of political
power. Pollente extorts from both rich and poor travellers who wish to cross
over his bridge. Artegall' s encounter with Pollente ends in the latter' s decapi-
tation, an account Spenser describes in vivid and graphic detail:

But Artegall pursewd him still so neare,

With bright Chrysaor in his cruell hand,

That as his head he gan a litle reare

Aboue the brincke, to tread vpon the land,

He smote it off, that tumbling on the strand

It bit the earth for very fell despight,

And gnashed with his teeth, as if he band

High God, whose goodnesse he despaired quight.

Or curst the hand, which did that vengeance on him dight.

His corps was carried downe along the Lee,

54 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Whose waters with his filthy bloud it stayned:

But his blasphemous head, that all might see,

He pitcht vpon a pole on high ordayned;

Where many years it afterwards remayned,

To be a mirrour to all mighty men,

In whose right hands great power is contayned.

That none of them the feeble ouerren.

But alwaies doe their powre within iust compassé pen.

(V.xii.18-19)

Of particular interest in Spenser's description of Pollente's execution is the
example Artegall makes of Pollente. Artegall fixes Pollente's head on a pole
for all to see. There this head, Spenser tells us, remained for many years to serve
as "a mirrour to all mighty men." The mirrour which reflects the true state of
nature is also Spenser' s synonym for example. Defending Lord Grey ' s regime
in A View of the Present State of Ireland, Spenser's Irenius explains the
importance of setting up examples to instil fear into those inclined to become
rebels. Lord Grey "spared not the heads and principals of any mischievous
practice or rebellion, but showed sharp judgement on them, chiefly, for
ensample sake, that all the meaner sort, which also were then generally infected
with that evil might by terror thereof be reclaimed and saved, if it were
possible" (p. 107; italics mine). In Book V, Artegall exhibits the ghastly
spectacle of Pollente's head as "mirrour" and "ensample." His act finds its
political and social analogy in the power the prince exercises over the body of
the subject.

Spenser's depiction of Pollente's punishment points to a discursive field
in which the manufacturing of body parts is loaded with heavy symbolism.
Directly linked to the capital crime of treason, spectacles of dismemberment
were designed to remind the citizenry of their subject position in the body
politic and to serve as grisly warnings. Thomas Wyatt' s plans to overthrow the
government of Catholic Queen Mary, for example, resulted in his imprison-
ment, torture, beheading, disembowelment, and quartering; the different parts
of Wyatt' s quartered body were displayed in gibbets in various parts of
London. In the Stuart period, an indirect attack on the Caroline court and its
theatricals lost William Prynne both his ears.'^ Curt Breight summarizes the
pervasiveness of mutilation as punishment and symbolism in Renaissance
England:

Although there were more executions for treason in the 1530s than in the
whole of Elizabeth's reign, discursive productions of treason — arrest,

Walter S. H. Lim / Figuring Justice / 55

trials, executions, displays, pamphlets, sermons — pervaded the sociopolitical
environment of the entire second half of Elizabeth's reign and the first few
years of James's government. In this sense the overall numbers are less
important than the regularity of and the attendant discourse about treason
cases after 1580 — i.e. the almost annual parade of demonized conspirators
to the scaffold, frequently preceded and/or followed by ideological disputes
between the regimes' s apologists and its opponents.*^

London Bridge frequently displayed body parts, exhibits promoted by the
royal court to create paranoia and undermine dissent. It was always useful to
produce traitors for almost yearly executions; this ritual helped to strengthen
the prince' s literal and symbolic authority. Enabling the mechanisms of justice
to function in civil society, the legalistic, martial, and technological Talus in
Book V of The Faerie Queene significantly forms what James Nohmberg
describes as "the whole police power of surveillance, investigation, detection,
apprehension, arrest, arraignment, and punishment."*^

Spenser' s response to the authority the monarch holds over the body of the
subject may complicate the narrative of his encomiastic performance in The
Faerie Queene, but it never translates at any point into anti-royalist rhetoric.
The recognition that the poet must negotiate carefully the potentially explosive
minefield of court politics does not detract from his implicit faith in an
inviolable royalist ideology. When Spenser reveals his disagreement with the
Queen's handling of foreign policy, for example, he does not interrogate the
Queen's authority; rather, he wants to contribute toward building up the
English imperium, which can only be attained through a more distinctly
interventionist foreign policy. The terror wielded by the monarch to crush
dissent and procure compliance is a principle understood by Spenser as central
to the creation auid consolidation of social order. Significantly, Spenser's
Irenius advocates terror as a means of procuring discipline. In envisaging an
Ireland with no expressive form of idleness, Irenius, for example, W2ints all
stragglers who roam aimlessly to be picked up by the sheriff. He wants this
straggler to be punished with stocks for a first offence and with whipping for
a second. Should a straggler be apprehended a third time, he is given "the
bitterness of the martial law" (p. 160). Meted out by the marshall, this martial
law, which can involve the death penalty, will "work that terror in the hearts"
(p. 160) of loafers that mere whipping fails to accomplish. The terror of death
serves as an efficient deterrent; but capital punishment fulfills the more
practical and utilitarian purpose of ensuring that the jails are not packed to
overflowing.

56 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

That justice makes spectacles and examples of the bodies of the con-
demned is not confined to the Pollente episode. Munera, Pollente's daughter,
is also subjected to the same fate. When Talus starts battering down the gate
of Munera' s castle, she attempts to appease him by bribing him with bags of
gold. Talus cannot be bought with riches and, representing a justice that
penetrates all the secret places (V.ii.25), he discovers Munera hiding "Vnder
an heape of gold" (V.ii.25). Once again Spenser describes graphically Talus'
violent treatment of Munera:

Yet for no pity would he change the course

Of lustice, which in Talus hand did lye;

Who rudely hayld her forth without remorse,

Still holding vp her suppliant hands on hye,

And kneeling at his feete submissiuely.

But he her suppliant hands, those hands of gold.

And eke her feete, those feete of siluer trye.

Which sought vnrighteousness, and iustice sold,

Chopt off, and nayld on high, that all might them behold.

(V.ii.26)

Where Artegall has just a few moments earlier fixed Pollente' s head on a pole
to serve as a lesson, Talus now nails Munera' s dismembered limbs "on high,
that all might them behold" (V.ii.26). Recalling for the reader Artegall' s
action. Talus' treatment of Munera symbolizes an important aspect of the
prince' s demonstration, wielding, and exercise of power. Spenser conceptual-
izes justice as imperial virtue, grounding its significance in the governance of
the body politic. In canto iv, for example, Talus, "that great vpon groome," is
described as Artegall' s (or justice' s) "gard and gouemment" (V.iv.3). Spenser' s
use of the word "gouemment" to describe Talus links the executive force of
justice to rulership. Significantly, he refers to "the right hand of lustice" as
"powre" (V.iv. 1 ). Justice must "be perform' d with dreadlesse might" (V.iv. 1 ). ^^
Because the monarch is the originary source of justice in civil society, "it
is capital crime to devise or purpose the death of the king" (p. 21). The
indisputable head of the body politic, the monarch is not subject to laws. In A
View, Spenser's Irenius says that it is "in the power of the prince, to change all
the laws and make new" (p. 141). We encounter a radically different tenor in
Milton's figurations of justice. For the republican and antiroyalist Milton, an
inverse relationship governs monarch and subject. The king holds his position
in society only so long as he fulfills his God-given function and ensures the
subjects' welfare. Subject to law, the monarch who betrays the people whio

Walter S. H. Lim / Figuring Justice / 57

delegated power to him to protect "the Common good of . . . all"^^ must be
brought to justice. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates equates justice with
the Sword of God" {Yale III, 193); Milton writes:

((

be he King, or Tyrant, or Emperour, the Sword of Justice is above him, in
whose hand soever is found sufficient power to avenge the effusion, and so
great a deluge of innocent blood. For if all human power to execute, not
accidentally but intendedly, the wrath of God upon evil doers without
exception, be of God; then that power, whether ordinary, or if that faile,
extraordinary so executing tht intent of God, is lawfull, and not to be resisted.

(Ka/e III, 197-198)

Unlike Milton who, in equating justice with the sword of God, argues for the
subject's right and obligation to dethrone the tyrant, Spenser puts the sword of
justice in the monarch' s hand. In A View, he links "the nature of treason" to "the
royal estate or person of the prince" (p. 35); "practising with [the prince's]
enemies to the derogation and danger of his crown and dignity" (p. 35)
constitutes treason. Spenser's politics cannot accomodate Milton's contrac-
tual model of kingship.

In interpreting the expression of Spenser's colonial views in his writings,
we often fmd ourselves aligning with one of two general positions: Spenser is
the preeminent English poet of empire,^° or he is responding realistically to the
threat posed by Irish rebelliousness and intransigence. I now wish to relate the
colonial theme in Spenser to the contradictions encountered in his definition
of the colonialist project and also to views held on the subjection of Ireland
supported by the Elizabethan court. Arguably, a major force disrupting
Spenser's attempt to produce a powerfully coherent blueprint for the coloni-
zation of Ireland is the absence of a sustained and consensual court ideology
concerning the Irish question.

Spenser's A View begins by providing an exposé of the degenerate state
of Ireland and a critique of Elizabeth's "soft" attitude toward its control and
subjection. Spenser argues that because the state of Ireland is beyond any hope
of recovery, it must be salvaged through the logical project of colonization.
The Irish lack of coherent system of laws which is the foundation of all civil
societies and do not even possess a definable ethnic identity . Spenser' s Irenius
begins his dialogue with Eudoxius by asserting that the Irish do not understand
the basic nature and function of laws, and have never learnt obedience to them.

58 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

If laws serve to restore and secure order in society, a people without laws have
no access to the benefits provided by a legal institution. Even the task of
imposing good and sound laws in Ireland is doomed to failure for a society that
cannot understand their significance. Once Irenius has established that laws
are central to any civilized society and culture, Ireland, with its absence of a
coherent legal system, is immediately categorized as uncivilized.

Spenser's Irish are not only barbaric and uncivilized, they do not possess
an identifiable ethnic or national identity. The origins of the people who have
come to be known as the Irish are lost as a result of different ethnic interactions.
Spenser's Irenius gives an elaborate exposé of the impurity of the Irish race.
Tracing their ancestry to the Scythians (whom Spenser equates with the Scots),
the Irish have intermingled racially with the Spaniards, Gauls, Britons, and
Saixons. The interminglings that took place between English and Irish did not
result in improving the Irish. Instead they led to the assimilation of English
families of high station into Irish life and culture. Adopting Irish ways, these
English families became barbaric. Spenser negates Irish identity when he
suggests that there is no such thing as a Celtic speaking people. In order to
reinforce this absence of identity, Spenser proceeds to argue that there is no
such character as a real Spaniard. If the Spaniard is ethnically indistinct, then
the ineluctable logic follows that the condition of ethnic impurity is exacer-
bated for the Irish who intermingled freely with the Spaniards in the early
history of Ireland. The Spaniards are portrayed as the most bastardized race in
history.

Ireland' s uncivilized, anarchic, and nationally indistinct state is a thematic
constant in both Spenser' s A View and The Faerie Queene. In the "Mutabilitie
Cantos," for example, the ambition of the titaness Mutability to control the
gods in addition to her dominion over the world leads to a gathering of the gods
in council. Nature is invited to hear and adjudicate Mutability's plea on Arlo
Hill, a setting which refers to Galtymore, the highest peak in the mountain
range near Spenser' s home Kilcoman in County Cork. The reference to Ireland
in Colin Clout's digressive tale about Arlo is significant because it enacts the
myth of lost glory and degeneration. Ireland is a society caught irreversibly in
a state of chronic regression. Canto vi, stanza 38, accepts that "IRELAND
flourished in fame" for her learning throughout Northern Europe for the sixth
to the ninth century; that was when Cynthia/Diana, the virgin goddess of the
hunt, frolicked and played unhampered on the grounds of Arlo. When the
voyeuristic Faunus views Diana naked at her bath with the help of Molanna,
he is punished. But even worse than the retribution visited on Faunus is Diana' s

Walter S. H. Lim / Figuring Justice / 59

decision to abandon her old haunt, a departure that brings "an heauy haplesse
curse" (Mutabilitie.vi.55) upon the place. Because of this curse, Ireland is
filled with wolves and thieves up to this day. Combining the Ovidian stories
of Actaeon and Diana, Calisto's punishment, and Alpheus* love for Arethusa,
Spenser's mythologizing of Diana's departure from Arlo reduces Ireland to a
cultural wasteland. Spenser does the reverse of what a celebrant of British
greatness like Alexander Pope will do years later when, in celebrating the
Peace of Utrecht, he portrays Windsor Forest as the hunting ground of
monarchs as well as a haven of the Muses. The presence of the Muses
establishes not only the forest's timelessness, but its possession of a cultural
heritage as great as that of classical Greece or Rome. In his "Mutabilitie
Cantos," Spenser tells us that Ireland lost that heritage a long time ago.

If Ireland cannot be recuperated in any way, then it might be well for a
civilizing power to consider the possibility of recreating the entire realm of
Ireland anew. There is much discussion of this re-creation in A View, one that
can be described as the Machiavellian fantasy of founding a new society ex
nihilo. In examining the lives of Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, and Theseus,
Machiavelli writes in The Prince: "And examining their deeds and their lives,
one can see that they received nothing from fortune except the opportunity,
which gave them the material they could mould into whatever form they
desired."^^ In the last chapter, he stresses: "no other thing brings a new man on
the rise such honour as the new laws and the new institutions discovered by
him."^^ In The Discourses, Machiavelli writes that anyone who proposes to set
up "una potestà assoluta" must renovate everything; men who steer a middle
course face the grave danger of losing their authority {Discourses 1.26-26).^^
Articulating an anti-Machiavellian perspective, Spenser's Eudoxius finds all
forms of radical innovation perilous (p. 94). In contrast, Irenius advocates the
complete overhauling of Irish society because "it is vain to prescribe laws
where no man careth for keeping them, nor feareth the danger for breaking
them" (p. 94). He wants "all the realm . . . first to be reformed and laws . . .
afterward to be made, for keeping and continuing it in that reformed estate" (p.
94). Finding that Ireland is a state that progresses from evil to greater evil,
Irenius calls first for a transformation of human nature. Once this transforma-
tion is effected, a system of laws can then be introduced.

While Eudoxius and Irenius have spoken at length on the importance of
laws to civilized society, their responses to how and when these laws are to be
introduced differ. Eudoxius cannot conceive of the beginnings of anew society
apart from erecting laws and ordinances. Irenius advocates first using the

60 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

sword to eradicate those evils that make the erection of good laws and
ordinances extremely difficult to start with. He defends the use of the sword:
"for all those evils must first be cut away with a strong hand before any good
can be planted, like as the corrupt branches and the unwholesome boughs are
first to be pruned, and the foul moss cleansed or scraped away, before the tree
can bring forth any good fruit" (p. 95). Later in the text, the proposal to clean
up the filth in Ireland is replaced by the staggering statement:

For the English, having been trained up always in the English government,
will hardly be enured unto any other, and the Irish will better be drawn to the
English than the English to the Irish government. Therefore, since we cannot
now apply laws fit to the people, as in the first institution of commonwealths
it ought to be, we will apply the people and fit them to the laws, as it most
conveniently may be.

(pp. 141-142)

Because the Irish are completely intransigent, no effort should be wasted on
civilizing them. Put simply, England should use whatever means it has in its
disposal to force the Irish to conform to its laws and accept whatever plans it
has for that society.

The exercise of violence as an intrinsic aspect of colonial policy is
advocated in A View even though a dialogue is formally instigated to discuss
its viability and morality. The dialogue set up between Irenius and Eudoxius
creates the effect of a fruitful discussion taking place, even though the reader
is fiiUy aware that Irenius' voice is Spenser's. Predictably, Spenser makes
Eudoxius question Irenius' assertion that use of the sword is necessary to
England's colonization of Ireland: "Is not the sword the most violent redress
that may be used for any evil" (p. 95)? Articulating the Spenserian perspective,
Irenius argues that the use of military might is impressive when no other
remedy is available for reforming the evils of Ireland. Force and violence
occupy an important place in Irenius' schemes for the subjugation of Ireland.
Irenius, for example, imposes a twenty-day limit for the Irish rebels to
surrender, a period of grace not extended to the rebel leaders. He wants to kill
the ringleaders and their followers who do not capitulate at the right moment.

Even as Spenser's A View supports a colonial policy that makes use of
force in Ireland, it fmds itself unable to carry out that program to its logical
conclusion. The inability of the text to sustain its relentless imperial logic
stems from particular anxieties, such as the sudden need to ensure that reader
sensibility is not harassed as well as the simple incapacity to conceptualize a
systematic program of annihilation. For schemes of the magnitude and

Walter S. H. Lim / Figuring Justice / 61

sensitivity Spenser articulates and propagates cannot exist independent of
reactions generated in the Elizabethan court. One of the most interesting
moments in the text in which a trenchantly argued position gets radically
revised is Irenius' re-writing of the literal meaning of force:

for by the sword which I named I do not mean the cutting off of all that nation
with the sword, which far be it from me that ever I should think so
desperately or wish so uncharitably, but by the sword I mean the royal power
of the prince, which ought to stretch itself forth in her chief strength, to the
redressing and cutting off of those evils which I before blamed, and not of
the people which are evil; for evil people by good ordinance and government
may be made good, but the evil that is of itself evil will never become good.

(p. 95)

Here we find that literal signification is suddenly forced into a metaphorical
framework, a backpaddling that suggests that Spenser felt the need to deal with
the ethics of his proposition or to accomodate a court audience which might be
averse to such violent schemes.^"*

The colonial energies of Spenser' s text cannot be questioned, but too often
these energies are read and interpreted as a reflection of policies endorsed by
the court. Elizabeth's court is divided in its responses to the colonization of
Ireland. The tensions one finds in Spenser's A View can be attributed to
pressures exerted on the production of the text by opposing views found in the
court. Ludovick Bryskett had identified Lord Grey as the embodiment of
justice required to salvage a lawless Ireland. Then Sir Walter Ralegh, in
conjunction with Lord Burghley, drew up a plan to confiscate 4,000 acres of
Munster and distribute this land to English tenants, on the basis of Rdegh's
proposals for settlement in the New World.^^ The colonial ambitions shared by
Burghley, Ralegh, Bryskett, and Spenser were not accepted by everyone. It is
worth remembering that Spenser's A View was written in response to Queen
Elizabeth's vacillating and placatory policies in dealing with the Irish ques-
tion.

In general, Elizabeth's attitude toward Ireland was more defensive than
aggressive. Elizabeth simply wanted to ensure that Ireland would not become
a jumping off point by her enemies.^^ Renwick comments on the permanent
strategic problem posed by Ireland:

England was at war with Spain, and the flanks of England rest beyond the
narrow seas, in the Low Countries and in Ireland. Nobody has ever wanted
Ireland very badly, but no English government could feel secure while the
long western seaboard was open to invasion from across St. George's

62 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Channel, and every foreign enemy — Scots, Spanish, French, German —
has attempted to open that flank.

(p. 181)

Not liking wars, Elizabeth was also never keen on spending vast sums of
money. It is especially significant, for example, that England never occupied
any territory claimed by Spain after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1 588.
England had the resources to win victories, but Elizabeth recognized that she
did not possess the financial means required to retain any conquest. The
Spanish and Portuguese possessions still remained intact when James I made
peace with Spain in 1604. The reluctance to ransack her coffers for money to
be spent on wars also influenced Elizabeth' s attitude toward Ireland. The revolt
that smouldered for several years in Munster with James Fitzmaurice
Fitzgerald's rebellion was made possible because Elizabeth could not afford
a major expedition. Only after Ireland threatened to become independent with
assistance from King Philip of Spain, who sent money and even another
armada to support the cause of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, did Elizabeth
dispatch the Earl of Essex to Ireland with about 20,000 men. Before commis-
sioning Essex to remove the threat posed by Tyrone, Elizabeth had already
spent one million pounds on Ireland.^^ And Essex, to Elizabeth's tremendous
anger, lost nearly 300,000£ in his march about Ireland to subdue Tyrone. That
the expenses of the Irish war proved to be a great embarrassment for Elizabeth
is evidenced in a letter she wrote to Henry IV, the French monarch, in
December 1 600, pressing him to pay back the money she lent him for his wars.
Shortly after in January 1601, she sent him another letter once again pressing
for repayment of the French debt.^'

One would expect that, in his efforts to convince the Queen and her court
that the complete subjugation of Ireland provides the most viable answer to the
Irish question, Spenser would have taken the opportunity to play up anti-
Catholic feelings in A View; he had, after all, attacked Catholicism quite openly
in The Faerie Queene. Interestingly enough, unlike The Faerie Queene, A
View relegates the religious question to the background. Even though A View
uses the word "reformation" in referring to the schemes it propagates for
reconstituting Ireland, invoking invariably the cultural antagonisms existing
between Protestantism and Catholicism registered so trenchantly in The
Faerie Queene, it does not work with the strict theological significations of the
term. In A View, the word "reformation" signifies in a primary secular sense.
If all of Ireland, as Spenser writes, including its poets who are the traditional
custodians of culture and values, is caught up in the disastrous love for "lewd

Walter S. H. Lim / Figuring Justice / 63

liberty* (p. 74), then a "thorough reformation of that realm" (p. 75) is needed.
Spenser's A View is more concerned with ordering secular affairs than
with religious and theological ones. This particular emphasis announces the
overtly political dimensions of the text and its status as a blueprint for the
English colonization of Ireland. Even the important and sensitive issue of
religion is not allowed to intrude into and detract from the imperial project of
subjugating Ireland. Irenius declares: "Little have I to say of religion, both
because the parts thereof be not many, itself being but one, and myself have not
been much conversant in that calling, but as lightly passing by I have seen or
heard" (p. 84). He repeats himself toward the end of A View:

For religion little have I to say myself, being (as I said) not professed therein,
and itself being but one, so as there is but one way therein, for that which is true
only is and the rest are not at all; yet in planting of religion thus much is needful
to be observed, that it be not sought forcibly to be impressed into them with
terror and sharp penalties, as now is the manner, but rather delivered and
intimated with mildness and gentleness, so as it may not be hated before it be
understood, and their professors despised and rejected.

(p. 161)

Irenius argues that salvaging a diseased body must precede saving a diseased
soul. The metaphor of cleansing the diseased body of Ireland runs through
Spenser' s text. England is figured as a physician; and any recuperation of Irish
society involves first excising the original body. Reforming the soul of Ireland
can only follow after the complete dismantling of the social body. Because
Irenius is much more concerned with overhauling the entire social fabric of
Irish society, he can only respond to the subject of its religion in remarkably
general terms.

In addition to "reformation," the word "liberty" also functions in A View
as a pejorative term. Anticipating Matthew Arnold's critique of those who
favor and practise the liberty of doing as one likes, Spenser applies the term to
the rampant lawlessness ravaging Irish society. The Irish love for "liberty" (or
"libertinism"), Spenser writes, extends into their literary expressions. While
celebrating what is good and virtuous in their lays, the Irish poets sing in praise
of boldness and lawlessness.

The authority Irenius assumes in speaking about Ireland and its history
derives from the vantage point of the colonialist articulating from a position of
privilege and superiority. Invoking Herodotus, Spenser's Irenius depicts
himself as a historian, traveller, anthropologist, and commentator of culture.
All these identities are defined from a colonialist perspective: there is, most

64 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

importantly, no attempt made by Irenius to render an accurate portrayal of Irish
culture. Irenius does not pretend to be a careful handler of his sources. He
confesses to Eudoxius that because the Irish chronicles cannot be relied upon
to yield an accurate portrayal of historical truth, his reading of Irish history
involves a rewriting of his sources:

but unto them [the writings of the bards and chroniclers] besides I add my
own reading and out of them both together with comparison of times,
likeness of manners and customs, affinity of words and names, properties of
natures and uses, resemblances of rites and ceremonies, monuments of
churches and tombs, and many other like circumstances, I do gather a
likelihood of truth; not certainly affirming anything, but by conferring of
times, languages, monuments and suchlike, I do hunt out a probability of
things which I leave unto your judgement to believe or refuse.

(p. 39)

Irenius' bold declaration that he has no compunction whatsoever rewriting
Irish history highlights the openly imperialist thrust of Spenser' s text. It is clear
that he does not want to compromise his position concerning England's
legitimate subjugation of Ireland.

Throughout most of A View, Irenius presents the picture of a rebellious and
intransigent Irish to persuade the English that it is necessary to bring them
under tight control. This theme cannot, however, sustain itself without inter-
ruption. Toward the end of A View, for example, the portrait of the Irish, who
must be made to fit an English system of laws is softened. The Irish can be made
to "become somewhat more civil" (p. 1 5 1 ). The focus of criticism now falls on the
English-Irish, that detested product of intermingling. And yet, in spite of the fact
that Irenius has spoken so much about the potential and actual evils of mingling,
the English-Irish interactions appear to be an option Spenser must entertain:

And therefore, since Ireland is full of her own nation that may not be rooted
out, and somewhat stored with English already and more to be, I think it best
by an union of manners and conformity of minds, to bring them to be one
people, and to put away the dislikeful concept both of the one and the other,
which will be by no means better than by this intermingling of them, that
neither all the Irish may dwell together, nor all the English, but by translating
of them, and scattering them in small numbers amongst the English, not only
to bring them by daily conversation unto better liking of each other, but also
to make both of them less able to hurt.

(p. 153)

Eudoxius' response to Irenius vision repeats what the latter has been saying
throughout much of the dialogue, that the Irish and the English can never merge

Walter S. H. Lim / Figuring Justice / 65

without producing disastrous results. His reiteration of Irenius' political
position is especially ironic as Spenser's spokesman for Irish colonization now
produces a counter-narrative that undermines the thrust of his own general
discourse. The shift in Irenius' position provides an instance of how the desire
to create a new society ex nihilo, following the lines of Machiavelli's deep
fantasies, runs aground when confronted with the economic reality of obtain-
ing support for and actualizing the colonial enterprise. Spenser is forced to
recognize that it is difficult to sustain the view that Irish nature is completely
impervious to acculturation just as it is impossible to realize the fantasy of
recreating a new Ireland out of nothing.

One of the most vocal expressions of Spenser's forced recognition that
any colonial project must work with existing structures is found toward the
conclusion of A View, where the use of military force to compel submission is
replaced by a program of ordering the work patterns of the Irish and improving
the shambled lay-out of the land. The earlier emphasis on violence is mitigated
as the text now focuses on domestic life and geographical planning. At this
point, the reader must interpret the nature of the shift. Has Spenser discovered
that he is unable to push his program of military action in Ireland to its logical
conclusion? Or does this shift represent yet another strategy in the overall
thrust of the narrative toward procuring absolute control over Ireland? The
answer is found in an interweaving of these two possibilities, for Spenser's
inability to sustain his program of militaristic intervention means he has to
produce an alternative program, one which does not in this case erase the English
ability to enact surveillance and control. Irenius advocates promoting the practice
of husbandry because he believes this would help to civilize the Irish; he also
speaks as a humanist when advancing the importance of education:

in every country or barony [the Irish] should keep another able schoolmaster,
which should instruct them in grammar and in the principles of sciences, to
whom they should be compelled to send their youth to be disciplined,
whereby they will in short time grow up to that civil conversation, that both
the children will loathe the former rudeness in which they were bred, and
also their parents will, even by ensample of their young children, perceive
the foulness of their own brutish behaviour compared to theirs, for learning
hath that wonderful power of itself that it can soften and temper the most
stem and savage nature.

(pp. 158-159)

Education fosters discipline, which is necessary to break the Irish love of
"liberty", translated by Irenius as "licentiousness" (p. 152). The project of

66 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

civilizing a savage people through education cannot be separated from
Spenser' s preoccupation with the need to install a network of surveillance and
control in Ireland. Once garrisons are put in place, securing the presence of a
military machine to fall back on in times of rebellion and violent unrest, then
discipline can be exercised by redefining the geography and infrastructure of
the land. Irenius propagates clearing pathways through woods, building
market towns by the highways, repairing ruined churches, and erecting
schoolhouses. Clearing pathways in the woods controls the activities of
robbers; setting up watch stations along the straits obstructs rebel movements;
erecting market towns promotes greater civility. The difference between
having the presence of a military machine and procuring control of the
infrastructure of a land is the difference between the open expression and
concealed exercise of power.^^ Spenser knows that power is exercised most
effectively when the body of the individual is controlled by documentation and
made subject of analysis. In Spenser's England, as we have seen, this power
is expressed symbolically in the spectacular rituals of torture and execution.
As a blueprint for the colonization of Ireland, A View of the Present State
of Ireland performs the rhetorical function of arguing for an imperialistic
English foreign policy, but it does so by criticizing openly as well as indirectly
opposition encountered in the court. It supports the actions and practices of
Lord Grey, and concludes its polemic by calling for greater autonomy for the
Lord Deputy to carry out his duties in Ireland. Exclusive right should be given
to the Lord Deputy to exercise power when "present occasions" (p. 168)
demand it. Without giving him "more ample and absolute" (p. 168) power,
Ireland's reformation cannot be carried through to its conclusion. Irenius
argues that time is an important factor that must be contended with in
governing and administrating a hostile land. It is not always "possible fr the
council here [in England] to direct a governor there [in Ireland] who shall be
forced oftentimes to follow the necessity of present occasions and to take the
sudden advantage of time, which being once left will not be recovered" (p.
168). Invoking Machiavelli's animadversions on Livy in The Discourses (11,
35),^^ Spenser outlines the repercussions of interfering with the Lord Deputy's
duties — possible defeat for the colonial administration. Significantly, the
Machiavellian context Spenser invokes is the context of war. Livy had written
that apart from the power to initiate fresh wars and confirm peace treatises, the
Roman Senate gives to its consuls, dictators, and army commanders full
discretionary powers. Wars are won or lost depending on the degree of
discretionary powers enjoyed by the commanders. The force of the analogy is

Walter S. H. Lim / Figuring Justice / 67

powerful enough. Grey's need to control the anarchy in Ireland is no different
from operating under conditions of war. The court may have men who possess
considerable experience in matters of governance and war, but they do not
operate directly in the field of action. To be in this field is to be placed in the
position of having to make snap judgments in response to circumstantial
exigencies. The luxury of waiting for orders to filter down from above after
lengthy deliberations does not exist.

In Book V of The Faerie Queene and in A View of the Present State of
Ireland, Spenser's conception of justice is tied up immediately with the
establishment of civil order and the expansion of the empire. When he
associates Elizabeth's mercy with an antique past,^^ or when he contrasts it
with the ideality of an interventionist foreign policy, Spenser wants the Queen
to recognize that England's expansionist ambitions are essential for creating
a powerful monarchy. That is why the exercise of martial force is central to
Spenser's figurations of justice: only force can quell rebellion and ensure
obedience. For Spenser, justice is also exercised by putting in place a well-
defined system of surveillance and control. Book V and A View reveal how
such strategies are well understood by the monarch who instills fear, under-
mines dissent, and procures consent. These strategies operate in England, and
they are also proposed by Spenser for enabling English colonial rule in Ireland.
When Spenser addresses the subject of civil order and social stability in The
Faerie Queene, he never separates their enforcement from a consideration of
the consolidation of the English imperium. When he writes about enacting the
demands of justice to secure this order and stability, he wants to extend that
justice to control an intransigent Ireland. In Spenser's writings and political
thought, justice functions as a synonym for power in its raw and highly
polished forms.^^

National University of Singapore
Notes

1 . Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ed. Thomas P. Roche, Jr. (Lx)ndon: Penguin Books,
1978, rpt. 1987). All citations of the text are to this edition.

2. Edmund Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland, ed. W. L. Renwick (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1970). All citations of the text are to this edition.

68 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

3 . For a sympathetic view of Grey ' s massacre of the troops who had surrendered at Smerwick,
cf. Renwick's commentary, pp. 185-187.

4. Readers have responded to the unfinished state of The Faerie Queene in different ways.
Balachandra Rajan argues that as an "unfinished" poem, The Faerie Queene' s resistance to
closure is signature of its particular ontological identity. Rajan' s mystification of the poem
by giving it a life of its own is not convincing, but his summary and reading of editorial
features and decisions in the 1590, 1596, and 1609 versions of the poem provide useful
information on the history of its publication and development. Cf The Form of the
Unfinished: English Poetics from Spenser to Pound (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1985), 44-84. Patricia Parker relates the poem's incomplete state to the digressive mode of
Spenserian allegory in Inescapable Romance: Studies in the Poetics of a Mode (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 54-1 13. Making use of poststructuralist notions of
deferral, Patricia Parker argues that this mode constitutes a form of the medieval and
Renaissance concept of dilatatio. Spenser achieves "dilation" in his romance narrative
through repetition and doubling, where fragments of one episode proliferate into others.

5. Quoted by Renwick, p. 213.

6. We are led to wonder whether a similar disappointment is registered in the Mercilla/Duessa
episode, when Spenser appears to associate Elizabeth's mercy with the virtue of a bygone
age. Spenser's suggestion that mercy is displaced at the present time compromises
encomium in this episode. For a detailed analysis of this disruption of encomiastic praise,
cf especially Thomas H. Cain, Praise in "The Faerie Queene" (Lincoln, University of
Nebraska Press, 1978), pp. 144-145. Cain's Praise provides a useful study of Spenser's
ambiguous celebration of Elizabeth in The Faerie Queene.

7. For a cogent and powerful reading of the politics of Spenser's allegory in Book V of The
Faerie Queene, cf David Norbrook, Poetry and Politics in the English Renaissance
(Lx)ndon: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), pp. 109-313. In his study, Norbrook also
addresses, in much more balanced fashion, the interests of recent feminist, poststructuralist,
and new historicist criticism — gender politics, textual ambiguities, Enghsh imperialism.

8. Cited in Norbrook, Poetry and Politics in the English Renaissance, p. 117.

9. Other reasons have been offered to explain the censorship of Spenser's A View. Jonathan
Goldberg argues that Spenser's Machiavellian analysis of Ireland reveals the darker side of
a political and cultural discourse that had defined itself through the language of eternity and
myths of chivalry. Cf. Jonathan Goldberg, James I and the Politics of Literature: Jonson,
Shakespeare, Donne, and their Contemporaries (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1989), p. 9. Clark Hulse suggests that Spenser's perception that the Anglo-Irish posed a
major obstacle to his vision of Irish colonization, aimed fundamentally at subjection and not
reconciliation, was in direct conflict with Elizabeth's own view. The Queen herself had
counted on the Anglo-Irish to reconcile the cultures of England and Ireland. Cf. Clark Hulse,
"Spenser, Bacon, and the Myth of Power," in The Historical Renaissance: New Essays on
Tudor and Stuart Literature and Culture, ed. Heather Dubrow and Richard Strier (Chicago
and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988), pp. 329-330.

1 0. Maureen Quilligan, Milton 's Spenser: The Politics of Reading (Ithaca and London: Cornell
University Press, 1983), p. 68.

Walter S. H. Lim / Figuring Justice / 69

11. Sir Walter Ralegh, Selected Writings, éd. Gerald Hammond (Manchester: Carcenet Press,
1984), pp. 76-123.

12. Francis Bacon, The Essays, ed. John Pitcher (London: Penguin Books, 1985): cf. "Of
Judicature," p. 225.

13. Certaine Sermons or Homilies Appointed to be Read in Churches in the Time ofQueene
Elizabeth I (1547-1571), introd. M. E. Rickey and T. B. Stroup (Gainesville: Scholars
Facsimiles and Reprints, 1968), p. 69.

14. Jonathan Goldberg puts it this way: "James's complaint to Elizabeth is extraordinary
because the poet's words have become the mediating terms in the struggle for power
between the two monarchs — James continually wanting assurances that his mother's
treason did not bar his way to the English throne, Elizabeth recalcitrantly withholding her
wishes for a successor": cf. James I and the Politics of Literature, p. 2. Goldberg discusses
at some length James' response to the Mercilla/Duessa episode and Spenser's representa-
tion of power in Book V and A View (pp. 1-17).

1 5. For a study of the relationship between ritual dismemberment as theater and the hermeneutics
of censorship, cf. Annabel Patterson, Censorship and Interpretation: The Conditions of
Writing and Reading in Early Modem England (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1984), especially pp. 52-127.

1 6. Curt Breight, "Treason doth Never Prosper' : The Tempest and the Discourse of Treason,"
Shakespeare Quarterly, 41 (1990), p. 4.

17. James Nohmberg, The Analogy of "The Faerie Queene" (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1976), p. 410. For a more elaborate reading of Talus' relationship to power and law,
cf. Jane Aptekar, Icons of Justice: Iconography and Thematic Imagery in Book V of "The
Faerie Queene" (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1969), pp. 108-124.

1 8. For a discussion of the use of force and fraud in the Machiavellian prince' s exercise of justice
and law, cf. Aptekar, Icons of Justice, pp. 108-124. Aptekar also provides an interesting
account of how the emblem of the crocodile in Book V highlights justice as an ambivalent
principle, cf. pp. 87-107.

19. John Milton, Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. Don Wolfe & al. 8 vols. (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1953-1982), 3:202. All references to Milton's prose works
are to this edition and will subsequently be designated as Yale.

20. This position is succinctly articulated by Stephen Greenblatt in Renaissance Self-Fashion-
ing: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980),
pp. 157-192.

21 . Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa (Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 21.

22. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 86.

23. Machiavelli, The Discourses, trans. Leslie J. Walker and ed. Bernard Crick (London:
Penguin Books, 1970), pp. 175-177.

70 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

24. Too often, readers of A View find Spenser's endorsement of England's use of the sword to
subdue the Irish consistent and uncompromising throughout the text. In a recent study, for
example, Andrew Hadfield, in "Spenser, Ireland, and Sixteenth-Century Political Theory,"
Modem Language Review, 89 (1994), argues that "'The royal power of the prince' is what
makes the metaphor of the sword possible; it stands as the master trope, free from the
contingent nature of other analogies and representations. The 'sword' must reassert its right
to rule Ireland and clear the ground for the legal reform which cannot take place without its
effective sanction" (p. 5). This view misses out on important fissures in Spenser's text,
fissures that draw our attention not only to the difficulties encountered in articulating a
coherent colonialist program, but also to the presence of an extra-textual court politics which
A View must engage.

25. Roger Lockier, Tudor and Stuart Britain 1471-1714 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964),
p. 160.

26. Ibid., 1^. 159.
21. Ibid., ^. 160.

28. Christopher Hibbert, The Virgin Queene: Elizabeth I, Genius of the Golden Age (New York:
Addison-Wesley, 1991), p. 238.

29. Translations of the French letters written by Elizabeth are found in Elizabeth I, The Letters
of Queen Elizabeth, ed. G. B. Harrison (London: Cassell, 1935), pp. 280-283.

30. Interestingly, Spenser understood well before Michel Foucault that discipline can be
enacted by the State through different social institutions. In Discipline and Punish: The
Birth of the Prison (trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Random House, 1977), Foucault writes
about how the architectures of the camp, hospital, and school have served to facilitate
surveillance and exercise control in the interests of the State. According to Foucault,
discipline is "the specific technique of a power that regards individuals both as subjects and
instruments of its exercise" (p. 170). Foucault also argues that control over detail generates
real power: "A meticulous observation of detail, and at the same time a political awareness
of these small things, for the control and use of men, emerge through the classical age
bearing with them a whole set of techniques, a whole corpus of methods and knowledge,
descriptions, plans and data" (p. 141). Institutions like schools and hospitals make possible
the description, anatomy, documentation, and hence control and domination of the indi-
vidual.

31. Machiavelli, The Discourses, pp. 381-382.

32. Cf. note 6 above.

33. This essay first suggested itself to me when I participated in Professor Richard Strier' s
Summer Seminar of the (U.S.) National Endowment for the Humanities — "Renaissance
and Reformation in Tudor-Stuart England" — at the University of Chicago in 199 1 . 1 must
express my debt to Professor Strier who introduced me to the politics of Spenser's A View,
and whose generous sharing of ideas gave me much needed material for writing the essay.

Book Reviews
Comptes rendus

John W. O'Malley. The First Jesuits. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1993. Pp. xiv, 457.

This is a book for people who think they know the Society of Jesus. From the sixteenth
century onward, many Catholics found its name presumptuous, its theology suspect,
and its methods Machiavellian. Protestants could be freer in their invective, and
attacked the Jesuits with relish as the pre-eminent Counter-Reformation force: an
order sprung fully armed from the head of the Tridentine Zeus, wielding specious logic
and slippery ethics, blindly obedient to the papal antichrist, and all too threateningly
successful in its missionary activities . Secular histories offered a reheated protestantism
without denominational peculiarities, sure of the bigotry of all religious zealots and
happy to demonstrate undiscriminating objectivity by consigning both Ignatius and
Calvin to the same ash heap. The Jesuits responded with in-house hagiographies whose
uncritical and iiimioderate praise for the Society and its members seemed only to
confirm the worst suspicions of the critics. The invective has cooled, but the stereotype
Ungers. To adopt John Bossy's terminology, the Jesuits are often assumed to be models
of the world-oriented, obedience-ordered, clerically-directed "Christianity Trans-
lated" that replaces the more conmiunitarian, sacramental, and lay-oriented "Tradi-
tional Christianity" of the pre-Reformation period. But are they?

John O' Malley does not directly engage the Society ' s historical or current critics,
but his analysis of its history to 1565 demonstrates how wrong much of our confident
stereotyping is. The first Jesuits were in many ways the exponents of "Traditional
Christianity" who were hardly aware of how Christianity was being Translated around
and within them. O'Malley's careful explication of the resulting paradoxes and
contradictions gives a more nuanced view of the Society and, like William Bouwsma's
John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait (19SS), forces us to introduce uncertainty,
tension, and moderation into our image of sixteenth-century religious reformers.

O' Malley aims to understand the first Jesuits as they understood themselves,
recapturing their "way of proceeding" from early documents, and determining how

72 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

their response to the situations they found themselves in shaped the evolution of both
their ministry and their self-perception. The first part of the book deals with their work
(preaching, worship, charity, and education), and the second with their culture or context
(contemporary intellectual movements, relations to the Church, institutional evolution).
Ministry and self-perception evolved in four general phases. The first, to 1540, was the
period of gestation when the companions first banded together around the Spiritual
Exercises and a conmiitment to missions. In the second phase, from 1540 to 1548, the
Jesuits moved more deliberately into itinerant preaching and institutional charity. They
saw themselves as catalysts for lay piety, preaching, lecturing, catechizing, and fostering
charitable confi^atemities that worked with orphans, debtors, prostitutes and other
marginalized groups. Their emphasis on "spiritual consolation" animated and united
these activities, and led them to avoid hierarchical entanglements as much as possible.

The third phase, from 1548 to 1559, was the most critical and controversial. By
choice, necessity, and circumstance, an institutional identity began to supplant the
charismatic movement. With the printing of the Spiritual Exercises (hitherto available
only in manuscript), and the clarification of administrative procedures in the Consti-
tutions, the character of the Society became more fixed. Lines of obedience became
more definite as Ignatius and his secretary carried vast, detailed correspondence with
far-flung individuals and houses. Ecclesiastical opposition stiffened with the Paris
Theological Faculty's formal condemnation of the Society in 1554, and the election
of the largely hostile Giampietro Carafa as Pope Paul IV in 1555. External threats
received internal echoes after Ignatius died in 1556, triggering a two-year crisis over
whether the direction he had taken would be maintained, or if the Society itself could
survive. Perhaps most significantly, this was also the period in which the Jesuits
opened their first schools for the public (Messina, 1548) and for their own members
(Collegio Romano, 1551; Collegio Germanico, 1552). O'Malley offers an excellent
description of these institutions and their curriculum, and demonstrates how they
gradually became the tail that wagged the dog, profoundly shaping Jesuit ministry,
communal life, and self-definition.

The fourth phase, from 1559 to 1565, was a period of confirmation and
consolidation. Paul IV died, Paris cooled its opposition, Ignatius' successor was
elected, and the Constitutions were confirmed. The schools and foreign missions
multiplied. As the Catholic Church moved into a Counter-Reformation mode, the
Society followed, and its changing shape opened up contradictions and paradoxes. It
supported Trent, but adamantly abstained from episcopacy and pastorates that were the
chief agencies of Tridentine reform. It condemned Erasmus, but promoted his religious
and cultural ideals in the schools. It embraced scolasticism, but promoted a mystical
theology. It adopted an increasingly authoritarian approach, but modified this with
appreciation for individual charisma, inner inspiration, and Aristotelian moderation.

Through examination of these and other paradoxes, O'Malley offers a counter-
point to the stereotype of Jesuit dogmatism and blind obedience. The first Jesuits
practised a flexibility bom of a mystical spirituality and pastoral theology. Their

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 73

conviction that God deals directly with believers, "heart to heart," led them to orient
spiritual consolation to concrete situations rather than abstract doctrines, and pre-
vented them from absolutizing the ecclesiastical institutions that they defended.
Predictably, this conviction also led them into trouble with Catholics who found their
approach too Erasmic, Lutheran, or opportunistic. By the end of the century, these
convictions, born in Bossy's Traditional Christianity, were being Translated, and the
Society with it. Seeking to preserve peace and avoid controversy, the Society became
more cautious and conventional; it moved towards the stereotype which historians
later associated with it, and which they often projected back to its origins. One could
wish that O'Malley would have examined this process in more detail, but his analysis
of the Jesuit "style," and his emphasis on seeing that style as constituting Jesuit
"substance," clarifies both how the first Jesuits differed from their successors, and why
their mutation — or Translation — was inevitable.

NICHOLAS TERPSTRA, University ofRegina

Galileo Galilei, Le messager des étoiles, traduit et présenté par Femand
Hallyn. Paris, Seuil, 1992.

Jamais observations et découvertes astronomiques n'auront eu une portée aussi
révolutionnaire que celles effectuées par Galilée durant les quelques mois de l'hiver
1609-1610. Braquant sa lunette sur les cieux, il allait résoudre la Voie Lactée en une
myriade d'étoiles individuelles, voir les irrégularités de la surface lunaire, et, surtout,
découvrir les "planètes médicéennes," les quatre satellites de Jupiter.

"La Lune est comme la Terre," nous dit son traducteur: elle est aussi imparfaite
que la Terre, elle est de même matière que la Terre et elle a perdu le privilège de la
sphéricité parfaite qui seule convient à la perfection des astres. Mais aussi,
stratégiquement, pour rendre tolerable l'abandon du géocentrisme, "la Terre est
comme la Lune," elle est, elle aussi, un corps céleste, de même dignité que les autres,
de même vertu que les autres: vue de l'espace, ou vue de la Lune, la Terre est lumineuse
puisqu'elle est la cause de cette lumière cendrée dont s'illumine la Lune en ses
premiers jours. Et les satellites de Jupiter montrent que ni la Terre, ni même le soleil
ne sont les centres absolus du monde, puisque Jupiter également a sa couronne de
planètes.

C'est tout cela qu'annonce Galilée en son Sidereus Nuncius, soit qu'il se soit fait
lui-même le "Messager des étoiles," soit qu' il se soit borné à transmettre leur message:
les deux traductions sont possibles.

Le récit de ces découvertes révolutionnaires forme un mince volume de 56 pages
qui se lit aisément en une soirée, et le lecteur d'aujourd'hui se sent encore emporté par
l'enthousiasme de Galilée, qui voyait un monde nouveau s'ouvrir devant lui. Le style

74 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

est à la hauteur des révélations proposées: style sublime au sens de la tradition
rhétorique, propre à élever l'esprit, propre aussi à l'inciter à dépasser les limites
naturelles de la perception. Ce style, pour autant, n'est jamais emphatique, et il
convainc parce qu' il communique effectivement l'émerveillement ressenti par Galilée.
Cela est particulièrement vrai pour le récit des observations cruciales, effectuées
durant les nuits de janvier-février, alors que Galilée découvrit ces étoiles nouvelles qui
accompagnaient Jupiter, qu' il prit d' abord pour des fixes, mais en lesquelles, nuit après
nuit, l'évidence des observations le força à reconnaître les propres satellites de Jupiter.
Le style, ici, est tout empreint d'une sobriété grandiose: simple compte rendu
d'observations minutieuses, d'autant plus convaincant que le lecteur suit pas à pas la
genèse, dans l'esprit de Galilée, de la nouvelle hypothèse. Le 7 janvier il vit pour la
première fois l'alignement de trois étoiles, deux à gauche, l'une à droite de la planète.
Le lendemain, "nescio quo Fato ductus," ce fut, dit-il, par hasard qu' il dirigea sa lunette
vers Jupiter: à son étonnement, les trois petites étoiles s'alignaient toutes à gauche.
Aussi comprend-on son impatience à attendre la nuit suivante — et le lecteur partage
la déception de Galilée car, le 9 janvier, "de tous côtés le ciel était couvert de nuages."
Et ce ne fut que le 13 janvier que, pour la première fois, les quatre satellites s'offraient,
ensemble, à son regard.

Derrière tout cela, il y avait la lunette, dont Galilée aurait bien aimé pouvoir
revendiquer l'invention. Il en avait entendu parler une première fois en mai ou juin
1609, et, prétend-il, il aurait réussi par lui-même à en reconstruire un exemplaire à
partir des minces renseignements qu'il avait pu en obtenir. Il n'en dit pas plus, se
réservant pour plus tard d'exposer "la théorie complète de cet instrument." Cette
théorie ne viendra jamais, et l'ébauche qu' il en donne dans le Messager ne pouvait que
le conduire vers une impasse. En effet, Galilée décrit le fonctionnement de sa lunette
en supposant que les rayons lumineux sont émis par l'oeil de l'observateur. Or, si tel
était le cas, la réfraction due à l'objectif devrait nécessairement avoir l'effet inverse de
celui que Galilée en attendait: exactement comme s'il faisait ses observations "par le
gros bout de la lunette." Mais plus étonnant encore est le diagramme dont Galilée
accompagne son explication, qui montre clairement, conrnie il fallait s'y attendre, que
si les rayons visuels étaient émis par l'oeil et non par l'objet, l'objet serait vu dans la
lunette sous un angle moindre que ne le voit l'oeil nu.

Notons que, selon ce que Galilée lui-même en dit, le pouvoir séparateur de sa
lunette aurait été de "une ou deux minutes." Le traducteur, suite à E. Namer, qu'il cite,
et en se fondant sur "les distances proposées dans la suite du texte" croit légitime de
corriger minute en seconde. Voilà qui est extrêmement peu probable. Sauf pour une
distance angulaire de "30 minutes," mentionnée en page 151, qui doit manifestement
être corrigée en autant de secondes, conmie le signale le traducteur en sa note 54, les
mesures sont données par Galilée lui-même en minutes et en secondes, ce qui ne laisse
guère de place à la confusion. D'autre part, on peut exclure que la lunette de Galilée,
pour un diamètre d'objectif ne dépassant pas 3 cm. et un grossisement de 30x, ait pu
séparer mieux que 5 sec. d'arc, ce qui serait la valeur théorique pour un instrument de

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 75

qualité optique frôlant la perfection. Ce n'était certainement pas le cas de celui de
Galilée qui, en février 161 1, ne réussit pas à distinguer les anneaux de Saturne, mais
imagina que le corps de la planète était muni d'excroissances latérales ou que deux
petites planètes étaient accolées à la grande. Une lunette capable de séparer un arc
d'une ou deux secondes devrait permettre, avec grossissement suffisant, de voir très
nettement, non pas un, mais deux anneaux distincts.

Fernand Hallyn, qui signe cette traduction, s 'est déjà signalé par plusieurs articles
et ouvrages traitant des différents aspects de la rhétorique au temps de la Renaissance.
Comme on pouvait donc s'y attendre, sa traduction, intégrale et non partielle comme
celle de E. Namer, est heureuse: claire et précise, littéraire et fidèle. C'est bien
pourquoi la lecture de ce très grand texte de l'histoire des sciences transmet encore
aujourd'hui quelque chose de l'émotion sublime que 1' "inventeur" des planètes
médicéennes a ressentie.

De nombreuses notes et remarques accompagnent le texte et donnent l' information
requise à sa bonne compréhension, tandis qu'une excellente introduction en donne les
différents "moments." Défilent ainsi une histoire de la lunette, situant son invention
entre "le travail de l'artisan" et "l'oeovre magique;" une présentation du texte
proprement dit et du paratexte qui l'enveloppe, avec une attention spéciale sur les
ressorts rhétoriques qui y sont mis à l'oeuvre. On y trouve, évidenmient aussi, une
analyse de l' impact des découvertes galiléennes, des résistances et refus auxquels elles
se heurtèrent, et des objections de principe qui furent élevées contre l'usage même de
la lunette qui, disait-on, élargissait artificiellement le champ de notre expérience. Un
bon "glossaire" facilite la lecture du texte; on regrette cependant le manque d'index
et de bibliographie.

Et finalement, on donnera une note toute spéciale à la présentation matérielle de
l'ouvrage, particulièrement soignée, tant du point de vue esthétique que de sa
maniabilité et de la lisibilité du texte et du soin exceptionnel donné à la mise en page:
c'est un beau livre. Les notes, qui apparaissent en marge et non en bas de page, sont
"à portée de l'oeil," facilitant encore la lecture d'un texte en soi fascinant. Avec cette
nouvelle collection Sources du savoir, les Éditions du Seuil veulent remettre en
circulation les textes fondamentaux du savoir scientifique. Cet ouvrage, un des
premiers titres de la collection, témoigne pleinement de l'intérêt de l'entreprise, et
augure bien de sa réussite.

LOUIS VALCKE, Université de Sherbrooke

76 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Martin Wamke. The Court Artist: On the Ancestry of the Modem Artist.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xx, 299.

David Howarth, ed. Art and Patronage in the Caroline Courts. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xvii, 303.

The study of the history of court art provides an important contribution to our
understanding of the conditioning of artists through social institutions. Courts were vital
in shaping artistic self-understanding and encouraging uniqueness. The two books
discussed here deal with the subject of court art in very different ways. While Wamke
traces the history of court artists in an encyclopedic manner from the early Middle Ages
to the early nineteenth century, Howarth, on the other hand, follows the pattern of a
festsschrift, selecting essays by various scholars who focus on the era of Van Dyck.

Martin Wamke, a professor of art history at the University of Hamburg, originally
published this book in 1985 in German, calling it a pre-history of the modem artist.
This publication is part of the series "Ideas in Context" which has as its goal both a
contextual and an interdisciplinary approach to historical phenomena. Wamke' s book
originated in the mid 1960s as an examination of the court of Mantua. However, it
continued to grow in scope and format until it almost overwhelmed him, as he
confesses in the preface.

Although it is well organized into four parts and 23 smaller sections, readers have
to work patiently through the vast amount of information. At times, almost half the
page is set in smaller print, composed in quasi-footnote style with quotes and
references in Italian, French and Spanish (but not German), and there are additional
footnotes at the bottom of most pages. Wamke admits that his wish to publish this book
without any illustrations was "somewhat eccentric"; but when one considers the
number of artists, works and places mentioned, this wish becomes less eccentric while
remaining unusual. One cannot help but wish Wamke had approached his material in
a less democratic way, highlighting some artists in greater depth, and providing an
occasional interpretation, rather than accumulating so many details. But, apparently,
interpretation was not the intention of the book.

While one admires Wamke' s diligence, one can also find cause for some
reservation: events such as the granting of gifts and titles are recounted chronologi-
cally, and yet these facts are insufficiendy contextualized due to the brevity of the
discussion. For example, the same title or gift for an artist may have very different
cultural implications depending on where it was conferred (such as Bohemia or
England) or when (such as the Middle Ages or the Baroque). Thus, facts are stated
without sufficient allowance for changed political and societal circumstances.

The most valuable theme emerging from this wealth of information is the
perspective of the uniqueness, self-confidence and public importance of the court
artist. This status was not the result of the cultural climate of early Renaissance city
states, as has been previously believed, but was much rather a direct outcome of the

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 77

artist's prestige at the courts of early modern Europe. This status was, however, bought
at the price of obligations, limitations and frustrations encountered at court which
would stand in the way of full artistic freedom and emancipation.

The most reflective and philosophical part of the book is the conclusion which
makes allowance for "A look back in anger," as Warnke calls the conclusion (pp. 243-
259), since a court artist's life was fraught with psychological bondage, political
propaganda, moral acquiescence and spiritual conformity. Nevertheless, what the
modern artist has "inherited from the court artist," Warnke observes, is "a radical claim
to freedom and the right to realize his potential as he chooses." In this way, artists
"retained their former consciousness of a higher destiny for the arts," while the history
of the court artist is actually "the history of their suffering."

Here we find the perpetuation of the myth of the heroic male artist as tragic, lonely
and exceptional. One can raise doubts concerning this generalization. Is the court artist
syndrome the qualifying mark of artistic genius in the European tradition? What about
artists that do not fit this pattern of having been forged in the conflict and crisis of court
life, such as Brueghel or Rembrandt? Was their self-understanding less developed
because they lived and worked in a middle class environment? And where are all the
women artists of these past centuries? Only a few of them (such as Sophonisba
Anguisciola and Angelica Kauffinann) are briefly mentioned, while many others, who
were influential court artists (such as Artemisia Gentileschi or Elizabeth Vigée-
Lebrun) are missing from the pages of this huge, and yet incomplete, undertaking.

The 14 essays collected in Art and Patronage in the Caroline Courts were written
in honour of Sir Oliver Millar, a foremost authority on English seventeenth-century art.
Half of the essays focus on painting, especially on portraiture connected with Van
Dyck, but also on artists such as Lely and Kneller. Two essays discuss architectural
aspects (especially Inigo Jones), another one concerns itself with tomb sculpture, while
two others are concerned with etching and with manuscripts about artistic techniques.
These diverse studies are the result of a collaboration of British, American, and Canadian
museum curators as well as scholars of art, history and literature; the essays are aptly
edited by David Howarth, an art historian at the University of Edinburgh.

Patronage took various and unexpected forms during this crucial time in the
history of England, when foreign artists were more likely to be welcomed by princely
collectors than by local artists. While both Holbein and Van Dyck were highly
favoured at court because of their unequalled skills in portraiture (which was essential
to the monarchy), they were at the same time bitterly opposed by the so-called
"Painters-Stainers Company" (p. 32) which saw its livelihood threatened by these
intruders. The documentation of this London-based company allows valuable insight
into an otherwise little known cultural and political aspect of society during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The most fascinating essay of the book, as far as women's issues are concerned,
is the discussion of "The Great Picture of Lady Anne Clifford" (pp. 202-219), a
triptych attributed to Jan van Belcamp. The author of the essay, Graham Parry, traces

78 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

with great sensitivity and precision the details of this unique visual document of 1 646.
In its carefiil arrangement of portraiture and still life the work reveals not only Lady
Anne's prominent ancestry but also her fine education and strength of character as
suggested by the kinds of books depicted in the background. She commissioned this
work in order to celebrate her victory concerning her inheritance in a law suit which
began when she was 15 and ended when she was in her fifties.

The book features 77 black-and-white illustrations, the only colour plates serving
as dust cover. The front cover depicts the young courtier, playwright and patron
Thomas Killigrew with his brother-in-law, both in the state of mourning and melan-
choly. This and other works are interpreted by Malcolm Rogers in a fine essay which
provides valuable insight into the life of one of the most intriguing and controversial
contemporaries of Van Dyck.

ILSE E. FRffiSEN, Wilfrid Laurier University

Camille Wells Slights. Shakespeare* s Comic Commonwealths. Toronto, Buf-
falo and London: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Pp. viii, 290.

The title of Slights' book suggests plurality of consideration, but the volume embarks
upon a more singular exercise, exploring "how the ten comedies from The Comedy of
Errors through Twelfth Night represent the problems and satisfactions of people living
together in an ordered commonwealth" (p. 4). This notion of an unproblematically
posited "commonwealth" undermines attempts throughout the book to engage and
accommodate a variety of critical approaches and cultural interpretations. And yet
Slights is clearly familiar with recent critical trends, as indicated by her full bibliog-
raphy and variety of analytical gestures. She might have exchanged more fully with
recent criticism or asserted more fully her own defining methodology. After all, it
seems rather late in the day to be challenging the "traditional view" that Shakespeare's
early comedies are simply romantic excursions into the experience of love. Having
detected, however, a "relative neglect of the social dimensions of the comedies" (p. 4),
Slights issues just such a challenge. She proposes to go beyond the "festive" comedy
approach of C. L. Barber and the "green world" comedy approach of Northrop Frye
— derived as they are. Slights claims, from psychological models — to examine the
social nature of Shakespeare's early comedies. And yet most recent critical responses
to Shakespearean comedy, including issue-oriented studies of gender, race, class, or
history, anthropological rite or carnivalesque celebration, take some measure of the
social dimensions involved.

On the question of critical approach. Slights is content with suave irony: 'These

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 79

post-structuralist times provide us with no consensus about the purpose of the critical
endeavour or the nature of the literary text except, perhaps, that there are no stable,
unmediated texts and no disinterested, non-ideological criticism" (p. 6). She explains
her own methodology as follows: "I draw ideas and insights from formalists, new and
old historicists, feminists, sociologists, historians, and cultural anthropologists, for I
believe that erecting barriers between post-structuralist theory and humanist scholar-
ship is counterproductive" (p. 6). Her refusal of barriers is admirable. But critics more
rigidified or more self-conscious than Slights will see the book either as widely
informed or loosely generalized in terms of organizational context.

The book organizes two chapters apiece — each chapter deals with a specific play
— under a broadly suggestive rubric: The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the
Shrew appear under "Belonging"; The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Love 's Labour's
Lost explore "Cultural Values and the Values of Culture"; A Midsummer Night's
Dream and The Merchant of Venice comprise Part Three, "Change and Continuity;"
Part Four, "Court and Country," involves The Merry Wives of Windsor and Much Ado
About Nothing; and Part Five details "Renewal and Reciprocity" in As You Like It and
Twelfth Night. Six of the chapters appeared previously in respected literary journals,
four of them with titles unchanged. The chapters themselves have been revised lightly
in the interests of comparison, book-length consensus, and accommodation of recent
scholarship.

Historicist, feminist, and other post-modern approaches are touched upon but de-
emphasized in favour of old-style critical discussion, discussion that leads the reader
sensibly through the plays in terms of language, action, character and theme. The
readings presented are well-informed, conscious of contemporary culture, and often
shrewd in their grasp of particular dramatic detail. Slights is a gifted writer and incisive
reader. But her readings are strictly consensus readings of otherwise problematic
comic dreams, dramas of comic distortion, discord, and moment-to-moment fracture,
that often resist and reconfigure comfortable interpretations. Comic "conventions" are
appealed to at key points where they might just as easily be questioned, and "happy
endings" are consistently insisted upon. Plot and circumstance are often rehearsed,
while problems of gender, class, and politics are touched upon but elided with a view
to the reinforcement of optimistic liberal society and its consensus value, as in the
following examples: "Kate's transformation from despised shrew to happily married
woman suggests that civilisation depends on people with critical attitude towards it"
(p. 50). "The Christians essentially force Shy lock to do what he ought to do voluntarily :
provide for his daughter" (p. 146). "The narrative patterns of The Merry Wives draw
heavily on the conventions of the pastoral tradition and dramatize its assumption that
outside the pressures and rigidities of sophisticated society people can achieve
harmony with their environment" (p. 168-9).

Admittedly, three plucked passages do not a critique make, and there is much to
admire in Slights' attempt to work with a loosely-conceived theory of social generosity
and responsibility within these disparate plays. But after some 235 pages of discussion

80 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

— the best of which is contained in the nature versus nurture argument of the chapter
on As You Like It and the minor-key Bakhtinian response to Much Ado About Nothing
— Slights draws to a close with decidedly mixed messages, stating: "While I agree that
they grind no polemic axes, I have tried to demonstrate that the ten plays discussed in
this book offer acute commentary on social situations and behaviour" (p. 236). They
certainly do offer such commentary, but Slights asserts agreement too easily. Despite
her scruple on the topic, polemic axes have been ground throughout. Slights even
itemizes a few of them on the same page: "In the process of dramatizing the integration
of marginal figures into an Italian city state. The Taming of the Shrew portrays
contemporary English marriage customs, while Love's Labour's Lost examines the
dynamics of courtly factionalism and the political implications of changing educa-
tional patterns. Geographical and chronological distance allow The Merchant of
Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, and As You Like It to explore such indigenous
institutions as nascent capitalism, colonialism, and primogeniture'* (p. 236). I only
wish Slights had ground her polemical axes more, had considered Shakespeare's
comic commonwealths as political and problematic as well as social and ordered.

Traditional in method, Shakespeare's Comic Commonwealths presents itself
with a point to make about social consensus in the early comedies. To Slights, these
plays represent imagined social communities finally triumphant over dissention
through reasserted social homogeneousness. Not all will agree with such accommo-
dation. The book itself is handsomely designed and printed, although the surname of
the late A. Bartlett Giamatti is misprinted in the three places where it appears. Written
in a lively style by a scholar who obviously loves her material and who brings
intelligent but safe associations to bear upon her interpretations, Shakespeare 's Comic
Commonwealths will be of informative benefit alike for graduate students and first-
time readers of Shakespearean comedy.

RICK BOWERS, University of Alberta

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 81

J. M. De Bujanda, Ugo Rozzo, Peter G. Bietenholz, Paul F. Grendler et Claude
Sutto. Index de Rome 1590, 1593, 1596, avec étude des Index de Parme 1580
et de Munich 1582. Sherbrooke, Centre d'Études de la Renaissance, 1 994. Vol.
IX, Pp. 1 172.

Paul VI abolit l'Index en 1965. Trois ans plus tard, lors des événements de mai 1968
à Paris, je relevai par hasard sur un mur de l'Odéon le graffiti suivant: "Il est interdit
d'interdire," lequel est devenu depuis lors un banal proverbe en certains milieux. Notre
époque n'est pas à un paradoxe près. Fait aussi digne de remarque, le premier Index
fut celui de la Sorbonne ou de l'Université de Paris (1544), le deuxième, de
l'Université de Louvain (1546), le troisième de l'Inquisition portugaise (1547), le
quatrième de Venise (1549), le cinquième de l'Inquisition espagnole (1551), le
sizième de Venise et Milan (1554) et le septième de Rome (1557).

À vrai dire, de 1544 à la fin du seizième siècle, on compte 34 Index ainsi répartis:
Parme (1), Munich (1), Venise (2 en 5 ans), Anvers (3 en 3 ans), Louvain (3 en 12 ans),
Inquisition espagnole (5 en 33 ans), Rome (6 en 41 ans), Paris (6 en 12 ans). Inquisition
portugaise (7 en 50 ans). Tous ont déjà été étudiés, sauf les Index de Parme (1580), de
Munich (1582) et de Rome (1590, 1593, 1596), qui font l'objet du vol. IX de la série
dont il est ici question. Un dizième volume de cette collection reste à paraître sous le
titre de "Thesaurus de la littérature interdite au XVP siècle." Ainsi se terminera la série
des Index du seizième siècle.

Les cinq auteurs de ce volumineux compendium relié de 1 172 pages sont des
spécialistes bien connus. Le préfacier fait plus que remercier, comme il convient, qui
de droit dans les pages 1 1 - 14 (le comité de rédaction, les quatre assistants, entre autres).
Il fait aussi le tour du sujet, parle de l'origine de la Congrégation de l'Index, tient
l'Index de Parme (1580) pour le plus représentatif, regrette, raisons éditoriales
obligent, d'avoir omis plus d'une donnée importante relative aux condamnations,
voire de n' avoir pu consulter les Archives du Saint-Office et de 1 ' ancienne Congrégation
de l'Index. Par bonheur, l'équipe eut accès à la riche documentation de la Bibliothèque
du Vatican dont le préfet est un Canadien, le père Leonard E. Boyle. Le lecteur ferait
bien de lire aussi (p. 15) les "Principes et Normes" qui suivent la préface.

Il suffit de jeter un coup d'oeil sur la table des matières, détaillée et bien aérée,
pour saisir d'emblée l'esprit méthodique qui a présidé à la composition de l'ouvrage.
La présentation des trois Index de Parme, de Munich et de Rome, due respectivement
à Ugo Rozzo, Peter G. Bietenholz, Paul F. Grendler et J. M. De Bujanda, comporte trois
parties distinctes: introduction historique, étude du contenu, analyse des condamnations.
Les notes abondantes sont renvoyées en bas de page, ce qui en facilite grandement la
lecture. Le plus étoffé des Index est sans doute celui de Rome dont l'introduction
historique (pp. 269-309) a pour auteur Paul F. Grendler, tandis que l'étude du contenu (pp.
310-740) est l'oeuvre de J. M. De Bujanda. Tell est la matière des 740 premières pages.

Suivent le "Texte des Index" (pp. 741-978), la "Table des auteurs et des ouvrages
condamnés et expurgés" (pp. 779-1052), la "Table des imprimeurs et des libraires" par
lieux d'activité (pp. 1053-1074), la bibliographie (pp. 1075-1112), l'index des

82 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

bibliothèques citées (pp. 1115-1 120), l'index général des noms de personnes et des
ouvrages condamnés comme anonymes (pp. 1121-1 172). Les 200 dernières pages ne
manqueront pas d'intéresser tout particulièrement les bibliophiles, bibliothécaires,
historiens des mentalités et religions, théologiens catholiques et protestants, philosophes
et sociologues; ils ont beaucoup de pain sur la planche!

Le lecteur moderne, avide d'explications et obsédé, non sans raison, par le respect
des droits et de la liberté de la personne — la brutalité et l'esclavage sous toutes ses
formes sont loin d' être disparus de la planète — aura tôt fait de constater, en parcourant
ce volume, l' absence de discussion raisonnée des interdictions d' écrits dangereux pour
la foi et les moeurs. Grégoire XIII justifie ainsi la censure: "ut Christi fidèles intelligant
quos libros tute légère possint et a quibus abstinere debeant" (p. 261), sans préciser
toutefois l'adverbe ''tute" sans danger. Mais pareille imprécision crevait alors les
yeux. Nous sommes non pas au vingtième, mais au seizième siècle, qui est celui de la
Réforme et de la Contre-Réforme, de la rivalité entre le pouvoir territorial des papes
et celui des empereurs et des rois; l'Index possède alors une dimension européenne.
Il interdisait, parmi beaucoup d'autres, les éléments suivants dans les textes imprimés:
affirmations de caractère païen, propos contraires aux bonnes moeurs, épithètes
élogieuses à l'égard de Luther, Calvin et alii, emplois d'expressions chères aux
hérétiques, attaques contre les rites ecclésiastiques, etc. Le lecteur trouvera d'autres
chefs d'interdiction dans réintroduction historique" et 1' "Étude du contenu." Il pourra se
consoler ou se rassurer un tantinet en lisant la phrase suivante: "Après la promulgation de
l'Index romain en 1 559 et de celui du Concile de Trente en 1564, mais surtout à partir de
la création, en mars 1571, de la Congrégation de l'Index, les ordinaires et inquisiteurs
diocésains ne peuvent, de fait plutôt que de droit, légiférer en la matière" (p. 22).

Le droit de censure, une fois centralisé à Rome, avait chance d'être plus respecté,
de créer une certaine uniformité dans les décrets ou de les rendre moins aléatoires, de
lutter plus efficacement contre les erreurs de la Réforme et de mettre les catholiques
en garde contre les réformateurs qui expurgeaient ou traduisaient à l'envi surtout le
Nouveau Testament et certains textes des Pères de l'Église. Loin de se limiter à la
défense de la foi et de veiller aux bonnes moeurs, l'Index se piquait, à l'aurore du
classicisme, de purifier la littérature. Or, dans ce domaine, nécessité faisant loi, il n'y
allait pas de main morte, par exemple, en remplaçant César, Cicéron, Horace, Pline le
Jeune et Virgile par des auteurs aussi insignifiants et médiocre tels que Bembo,
Prudentius, Sadolet et Sammazaro (p. 190). La Congrégation de l'Index prétendait
purifier les ouvrages littéraires jusque-là publiés en langue vemaculaire (pp. 275-279)
qui passaient pour corrompus ou corrupteurs. Par bonheur. Clément Vil (p. 285)
réduisit radicalement la liste de pareils ouvrages dans l'Index de Rome ( 1 596). On doit
reconnaître, cependant, que Rome, en agissant aussi fermement, répondait du tac au
tac aux attaques de ses adversaires, les imprimeurs et les libraires d'Espagne et d' Italie,
d'Angleterre et de France, d'Allemagne ou du Portugal, de Suisse et des Pays-Bas qui
faisaient flèche de tout bois pour répandre leurs livres quand ils ne se livraient pas à
des actes de piraterie, les droits d'auteurs étant alors inconnus. Venise alla même
jusqu' àprésenter de fortes objections contre l'Index au gouvernement de laRépubUque.

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 83

Et r on vint à un modus vivendi avec le Saint-Siège alors que les chrétiens, faisant front
commun, avaient abouti à la victoire de Lépante sur les Turcs en 1571.

Cet ouvrage, on 1 ' aura constaté par ce qui précède, ne manque ni d' intérêt historique,
littéraire et sociologique, ni de haute valeur scientifique. Le lecteur ne manquera pas alors
de remplir plusieurs feuillets de notes: de relever, par exemple, la *Table" on ne peut plus
indispensable, des correspondances de l'Index de Parme (1580) avec les titres de Turin,
de Naples et les Index de Rome ( 1 590 et 1 596); ou encore la présentation exemplaire des
noms des auteurs et des titres des ouvrages condamnés, tous numérotés et en caractères
gras, lareproduction remarquablement nette des Index provenant surtout de laBibliothèque
du Vatican, puis de la Folger Shakespeare Library et de la Menno Simons Historical
Library de Harrisburg en Pennsylvanie.

Le volume IX fait donc honneur tout ensemble à l'équipe qui a pris l'initiative et
assuré 1 ' entreprise au Centre d ' Études de la Renaissance de 1 ' Université de Sherbrooke
et aux presses Métrolitho-Sherbrooke. Il n'aurait jamais pu paraître sans le double
concours de l'Université de Sherbrooke et du Conseil de recherches en sciences
humaines du Canada.

MAURICE LEBEL, Université Laval

Tina Krontiris. Oppositional Voices: Women as Writers and Translators of
Literature in the English Renaissance. London and New York: Routledge,
1992. Pp. X, 182.

Charlotte F. Otten, ed. English Women* s Voices, 1540-1700. Miami: Florida
International University Press, 1992. Pp. xvi, 421.

Oppositional Voices explores the conditions of possibility for literary production by
Englishwomen in the Renaissance and the strategies they employ to oppose dominant
ideologies about gender. In a world inhospitable to women's writing and publication,
what circumstances, Tina Krontiris asks, enabled a handful of women to succeed in
producing secular literature? Krontiris reviews familiar barriers to women's accom-
plishment: theories and cultural practices reinforcing male superiority and female
subordination, constraining women's sexual behaviour and verbal expression, re-
stricting their access to business or the public sphere. Nonetheless, she argues,
ideological and cultural formations are never monolithic. In general terms, both
religion and humanism encompassed contradictions which opened spaces of opportu-
nity for women. The Reformation may have reinforced a woman's subordinate
position in relation to a husband but it permitted her speech in devotion to God;
humanist thought may have regarded women as inferior by nature, but it encouraged
improvement through education. Particular circumstances, such as service in an

84 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

aristocratic household, may have given middle-class writers like Isabella Whitney and
Margaret Tyler access to books and learning. Aristocratic birth could both enable and
constrain: on one hand, court life might have promoted the verbal skills of women like
Mary Herbert and Mary Wroth through expectations of polite conversation; on the
other hand, economic pressures on aristocratic marriage might mean marriage partners
and future circumstances dictated by fathers and relatives. Suggestive as this book is,
about what enabled literary production of six unusual women, the speculations are
nonetheless limited by the few facts available or discussed. Who knows, for example,
what life experiences other than the unelaborated fact of her ex-servant status might
have encouraged Margaret Tyler to write?

In reading their works, Krontiris focuses on the women writers' strategies for
voicing feminist opposition to dominant ideologies. What the women writers criticize, for
the most part, are oppressive norms in male-female relations. Krontiris finds both Tyler,
in her translation of A Mirrour of Princely Doughtiest and Knighthood, and Elizabeth
Chair, in her History of King Edward II, critical of the double standard that treats a
woman's adultery more harshly than her partner's. Translating Antome, Mary Herbert is
said to interrogate conventional ideas about women's role, by undermining her mature
heroine's maternal identity and celebrating her sexual side. Mary Wroth interrogates
patriarchal practices whereby women are victimized in relationships: her romance
heroines in Urania find themselves forced into undesired marriages by tyrannical fathers
or made to suffer intense unhappiness by inconstant lovers. Of the six writers Krontiris
discusses, only Margaret Tyler is said to take the routs of direct critique: in her preface
to A Mirrour, she anticipates objections against female authorship in general and her
"man-like" choice of subject matter in particular, and she constructs counter-arguments.

Interesting as this proto-feminism is, Krontiris' s decision to highlight the oppositional
character of the writings sometimes makes for unconvincing arguments, especially when
she explains their indirect strategies for ideological critique. For example, when she
presents the writers' sympathetic depiction of female characters like Cleopatra, Mariam,
Queen Isabel and Pamphilia as a key strategy for foregrounding their oppositional
attitudes, one wonders if the sympathetic treatment of female characters like Shake-
speare's Cleopatra, Webster's Duchess of Malfi, or Spenser's Britomart should also be
read as exhibiting strongly "oppositional" tendencies. The book's argument gets confus-
ing when the deployment of "conduct-book commonplaces on feminine virtues" (p. 35)
or even of "contemporary dominant ideology" itself (p. 43) is paradoxically identified as
an indirect writing strategy adopted by writers opposing dominant ideology.

Isolating the motive of opposition from the outset turns out to be a little
misleading, and the book's real accomplishment pulls against its title. What Krontiris
brings most strongly into focus is what muted the opposition in the women writer's
voices — how basic motives like gaining a hearing and social survival made for
appropriation of conventional forms and accommodation to conventional attitudes.
Krontiris does an excellent job of showing how strongly oriented these women were
towards the anticipated reception of their writings and what a significant role expected

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 85

response played in shaping what they produced. *To control response and pre-empt
criticism," (p. 30) Isabella Whitney apologizes for her preoccupation with non-
religious books and Mary Herbert for the "inferiority" of her part in translating the
Psalms; Herbert limits and effaces her own artistic self-assertion through her patron-
age of others; Elizabeth Chair offers sympathy for disadvantaged male characters to
balance her sympathy for rebellious Mariam; and Mary Wroth endorses narrow ideas
about respectable behaviour for women as she works out her critique of men's
behaviour to women. Overall, the book illuminates the complex situations and
contradictory motives of the women writers, and it provides a good basic introduction
to literary women's achievement in ejirly modem England.

The announced promise of English Women 's Voices is to uncover "the lives of
women whose voices were buried for centuries under a heap of male writing" (p. xv):
their voices will "pierce the consciousness of the twentieth-century reader, who will
undoubtedly recognize affinities and shared concerns" (p. xiv). Many readers will
bring a scepticism shaped by post-modem theory or simply by previous disappoint-
ments to such claims about presenting the actuality of women' s lives or the immediacy
of women's voices. But Otten's anthology of non-literary writings, organized by
themes relevant to early modem women's lives, does not disappoint. In the first
gatherings, one hears the voices of women in extreme situations — suffering sexual
and psychological abuse, enduring prison for strongly held and boldly stated religious
convictions, or petitioning, often in the face of male ridicule of their efforts, for peace
or religious purity or economic stability. Even silenced voices find expression. When
Dr. John Lamb rapes eleven-year-old Joan Seager and infects her with venereal
disease, leaving her mother Elizabeth "not able to tell me... she could say no more, her
grief was so great," (p. 30) we hear their neighbour Mabel Swinnerton, raising her
voice to confront the man with his outrage and to testify against him. The vivid detail
in her testimony captures not only the burdensome theft of language from the victims
but also the trifling evasion of the confronted rapist's answer: "he railed upon my Lord
of Windsor grievously, with many base words, and said, he did more good deeds in a
week, than my Lord of Windsor did in a year" (p. 31). Indeed, the interplay of voices
within these accounts is often striking: in Anna Trapnel's account of her Bridewell
imprisonment, for example, she converses as familiarly with the Lord as she does with
the courteous prison matron. Trapnel's and other forceful voices of women preaching
and prophesying support Otten's and Krontiris' s shared view that religious conviction
could overrule prohibitions against women's self-assertive discourse.

Otten's selections on health scare, on love and marriage, and on childbirth and
sickness offer access to the daily lives of women: to Lady Margaret Hoby's routines
in caring for the hurt and injured in her community; to Mary Boyle Rich's meditations
in overcoming her "aversion to marriage" (p. 160) and choosing, in despite of her kind
father's concerns, to marry a "younger brother;" to Alice Thornton's history of her
pregnancies, which, Otten suggests, constructs "a distinctly female identity" by its
intertwining of "the clinical with the biblical" (p. 225).

86 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Otten's anthology brings together a remarkable range of women's writing. It offers
insight into women's differences deriving from class, religious outlook, and life choices
as well as into their common concerns. With littie duplication of materials easily available
elsewhere, with selections long enough and sufficiently contextualized to make for
meaningftil engagement, this volume is invaluable to teachers and researchers.

A. LYNNE MAGNUSSON, University of Waterloo

La bibliothèque de Du Bartas, études par James Dauphiné, index par Marie-
Luce Demonet et Gilles Proust. Paris, Champion, 1994.

Publié r année où La Sepmaine figurait au progranmie de 1 ' agrégation, La bibliothèque
de Du Bartas n'est pourtant pas un livre de circonstances. C'est plutôt la synthèse des
nombreuses études sur le "docte gascon" qui ont vu le jour depuis une dizaine d' années
(les travaux de James Dauphiné lui-même, d'Yvonne Bellenger, de Jan Miemowski,
ou encore les deux colloques de 1988 et de 1990) ou antérieures (par exemple, les
recherches de Marcel Raymond).

L'ouvrage se compose de deux parties inégales: la première comporte six études
de James Dauphiné, la deuxième, plus importante en nombre de pages, trois index et
une liste des mots à la rime.

Dans le chapitre I, "De la situation," James Dauphiné commence par situer La
Sepmaine par rapport aux Hymnes de Ronsard et au Microcosme de Scève: elle entend
enseigner en rejetant la fable, en recourant à la compilation et se recommande surtout
par le topos du livre du monde. Puis l'auteur met en avant le caractère épique de
l'oeuvre qui, magnifiant Dieu, ne saurait se réduire à ses seuls aspects encyclopédiques
et scientifiques. D'où une revalorisation de la description. Deux points sont encore
abordés. D' abord, le succès de La Sepmaine dont la réception est analysée à la lumière
des commentaires de S. Goulart et P. Thé venin. Ensuite, la reprise du thème rassurant
de Vharmonia mundi: le "livre-bibliothèque" contient le livre de la nature et "la
bibliothèque des livres divins" (p. 31).

Le chapitre II, "De la rhétorique," utilise le Brief Advertissement de Du Bartas
pour réfuter le jugement négatif de Du Perron. Ainsi, Vinventio, certes tributaire de la
Genèse et de la tradition hexamérale, se caractérise par le choix du sens littéral et par
la digression dans le commentaire. Si la dispositio ne semble procéder selon "aucune
règle établie," il en allait déjà ainsi dans les hexamera. Dans ses réflexions et ses
digressions, "la célébration de la Parole s'accompagne du culte de la beauté" (p. 18).
Quant à Velocutio, très vivement attaquée, elle vise la clarté et la correction, malgré
les exemples "beis" et la répétition de clichés apologétiques. Ainsi Du Bartas tente de
réconcilier beauté du Logos et encyclopédie. Contrairement aux penseurs médiévaux,

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 87

il a recours à un allégorisme minimal qui, toutefois, donne à T oeuvre sa cohérence. La
Sepmaine entend restituer le livre du monde: les "correspondances" sont nombreuses
et, par la contemplation des beautés de l'univers, on est conduit à Dieu. Ce sont donc
le sens littéral et la description qui sont privilégiés. Enfin, le sujet chrétien entraîne
"une marche vers le sublime" (p. 23) dans la mesure où tout s'organise en fonction du
divin. Bref, s'il ne la définit pas. Du Bartas illustre une "rhétorique chrétienne."

Le chapitre suivant, "De l' esthétique," pose le problème du baroque, du maniérisme,
du néo-classicisme ou du néo-académisme de La Sepmaine. Baroque, le poème le
serait pas la dynamique que lui donne le dénombrement. En fait, 1' enumeration est
d'abord une preuve théologique, comme elle l'était déjà chez Thomas d' Aquin. Quant
aux métaphores, elles se trouvent au centre de la stratégie bartasienne qui ambitionne,
dans un récit et non plus dans un commentaire, de traduire de façon plausible les
premiers instants de l'univers. Elles ne relèvent donc pas du baroque. La singularité
de La Sepmaine réside dans la transposition sur le plan divin du labeur du poète
assimilé à celui de l'architecte. James Dauphiné conclut sur ce point en écrivant que
"s'il y a un baroque bartasien il est toujours récupéré par un mode de discours de type
ontologique" (p. 35). Pour juger du maniérisme de l'oeuvre, l'auteur reprend les
analyses de Marcel Raymond: il résulterait du décalage entre les principes (de
composition littéraire, de finalité théologique) et le foisonnement d'images "donnant
à cette même oeuvre une cohérence d'une autre nature" (p. 37). En particulier, La
Sepmaine propose une "constante transgression" qui met en cause les règles qui la
fondent. D'autre part, l'oeuvre comporte bon nombre de renvois intérieurs,
d'interventions du poète-peintre, autre Dieu, qui s'intéresse aux significations. Chez
Du Bartas, le maniérisme viserait à mettre en relief les effets de la parole de Dieu.

Quand, en écrivain classique, il justifie sa démarche. Du Bartas fait implicitement
référence à Quintilien, à Cicéron, à la Pléiade et il souligne ainsi l'unité de son poème.
Pour James Dauphiné, les preuves de son néo-classicisme, voire de son néo-académisme,
sont à chercher dans le traitement neuf qu'il fait subir aux images prises aux hexamera
et dans l' intégration d' un vocabulaire pourtant inhabituel à "la peau commune" (p. 43),
ou encore des histoires mythologiques à l'économie de l'argumentation.

Dans le chapitre IV, "De l'érudition," l'association culture-littérature au seizième
siècle est d'abord rappelée: "la connaissance, ... au même titre que la poésie, favorise
l'accès à l'intelligible beauté" (p. 47). Pour Du Bartas, l'érudition scientifique qui
constitue les fondations du "palais" de La Sepmaine, permet de remonter le temps et
de se rapprocher ainsi de Dieu. Toutefois, plus qu'un érudit. Du Bartas est un
vulgarisateur de génie qui rend compte de la tradition médiévale et de (médiocres)
textes contemporains hostiles à Copernic. La Sepmaine est donc un livre-bibliothèque
que Goulart complétera de ses remarques. Mais toujours "l'encyclopédie et l'érudition
sont comprises, embrassées par la théologie" (p. 54). Les connaissances viennent
confirmer les vérités de la Genèse et la dignitas hominis.

"De la religion" (le chapitre V) montre que Du Bartas n'est pas un métaphysicien
et qu'il préfère contempler les merveilles de la nature en conservant la structure et les

88 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

thèmes de la Genèse. Ce spectacle des beautés de l'univers aboutit à "une connaissance
de l'invisible" (p. 59) et à une célébration du Très-Haut. Telle est la singularité d'un
auteur qui, dans l'ensemble, se refuse à "esplucher" mystères et dogmes, ce que
montrent clairement l' angélologie ou le traitement du repos divin au septième jour. Ne
sont retenues que les formulations assez neutres pour être acceptées par un vaste
public. Ce choix de la théologie naturelle entraîne une utilisation importante de la
description et du catalogue pour prouver, mieux qu'avec la raison, la puissance de
Dieu. Mais un risque existe: celui de voir ce "texte-miroir" qu'est La Sepmaine tendre
vers une lecture panthéiste de l'univers.

Le dernier chapitre, "De la bibliothèque," s'attache évidemment au topos du livre
du monde que le poète interprète au sens littéral. Les nombreux exemples "sont autant
de lettres ou de mots de ce que serait l'écriture divine" (p. 68). Du Bartas nomme,
"presque à la manière de Dieu," le monde que le verbe divin a fait naître. Mais la
réception de La Sepmaine indique qu'en son temps le sens théologique passe parfois
au second plan et que l'on retient surtout son aspect encyclopédique. En fait, La
Sepmaine est un "détour" vers la théologie. Car le poème revient à la Genèse, instaure
un "ordre qui [lui] donne les signes d'une sacralisation" (p. 71). Du Bartas considère
que le livre est le monde et La Sepmaine une bibliothèque: tous deux ont des plans
similaires. Du Bartas part du concret (le livre) pour arriver "à un modèle théorique et
théologique, expression de toute parole non-entendue: le livre du monde" (p. 72). Le
poète dit ce que Dieu tait, il organise et ordonne la variété de la création. La
combinatoire des sept jours est proche de celle qu'utilisait, à partir de l'alphabet,
Raban Maur dans son Aile goriae in universam sacram scripturam. L' histoire intérieure
de La Sepmaine témoigne du passage du mythe biblique du livre à l'organisation de
la bibliothèque idéale: c'est là sa modernité.

Synthétique est l'adjectif qui s'impose à la lecture de ce recueil d'études. C'est
là leur qualité essentielle: le lecteur saisit la spécificité de la poésie bartasienne. On
peut regretter parfois la rapidité de certaines démonstrations ou le nombre restreint de
citations. Mais en 70 pages, il n'était guère possible d'être plus explicite. Il suffira de
se reporter aux études détaillées que James Dauphiné cite en notes (en particulier les
siennes) pour trouver des développements plus nourris. Ces notes renvoient également
à des auteurs contemporains de Du Bartas, comme Louis Parent ou Guillaume
Guéroult. Cette remarquable connaissance d'oeuvres que la postérité n'a guère
retenues permet à James Dauphiné de dégager l'originalité de La Sepmaine.

Les trois Index émanent du laboratoire EQUIL XVI de Clermont-Ferrand. Ils
pourront être utiles aux chercheurs, mais on peut regretter qu'ils se limitent aux trois
journées (I, IV et Vil) qui figuraient au programme de l'agrégation. Le bref "index
hiérarchique" offre la liste des mots les plus fréquents, classés par fréquence décroissante.
Les plus intéressants (par exemple, corps, ciel, terre) sont détaillés dans le copieux
"index général" (de à jusque Zodiaque). L"'index onomastique" classe les noms
propres par ordre alphabétique, de Achab à Zeuxe.

JEAN-CLAUDE TERNAUX, Université de Reims

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 89

Daniel Javitch. Proclaiming a Classic: The Canonization of Orlando Furioso.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. Pp. x, 205.

In this excellent study Daniel Javitch aims to investigate how the Orlando Furioso
"first entered the European poetic canon" (p. 3). The author claims that canonicity "is
a cultural production rather than something that literary works innately possess" (p. 3);
he, therefore, is not interested in ascertaining which intrinsic aspects of the poem
"facilitated" or "invited some of the processes of canonization" (p. 4) which can be
detected through the several early commentaries and critical responses. His concern
lies mainly "with the reception and the perception of the poem in the sixteenth
century," and the efforts made by scholars of the time "to establish that the Furioso
either descended from or was the modern equivalent of the canonical epics of
antiquity" (p. 4).

In the first chapter the author examines the vast success of the poem among
sixteenth-century audiences. Such success is confirmed by various factors; first, it had
a very large number of editions, which "between 1521 and 1584 . . . embodied virtually
every one of the particular typographical physiognomies that Venetian publishers had
devised for the different kinds of readers who made up their market" (pp. 13-14).
Second, the Furioso was present in libraries such as those of Florentine merchants,
where chivalric literature was most certainly not very popular. Finally it was used as
a textbook in school curricula. Javitch relates this success to two major factors: on one
hand, the Furioso "was perceived to best fill the need for a modern equivalent of the
canonical epics of antiquity at a time when such a need was felt with particular
intensity" (pp. 14-15). On the other hand, it solicited a large response among the
learned and the scholars. According to Javitch, "one needed only consider the relative
absence of discussion concerning the Innamorato [that is, the work by Boiardo which
Ariosto was continuing, whose fortune quickly declined toward the middle of the
century] ... to realize how much the ongoing popularity and reputation of the Furioso
had to do with the critical attention it was given" (p. 19).

Some objections could be raised concerning these points. As for the first, it is clear
that the need for a specific literary work was often felt at various times and in different
cultural environments. Nevertheless, such a work was not invented or created when it
did not exist. To remain within the boundaries of the Italian literary tradition, one can
think of the need for a great tragedy and a great playwright which was felt from the end
of the seventeenth century through the eighteenth; notwithstanding the large number
of authors who produced tragedies in those times, none of them enjoyed a substantial
popularity and a unique reputation until a great poet such as Vittorio Alfieri started
writing in the last decades of the 1800s.

As for the second, it is unlikely that the "critical attention" given to the Furioso
conditioned the tastes and choices of middle class and courtly readers. Florentine
merchants would hardly have been interested in the poem just because there was so
much discussion about it among the learned. At the same time, some efforts to canonize

90 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

in a similar way the Morgante by Luigi Pulci or the Innamorato were made, but were
not successful. Consequently, it seems clear that the success of a specific work at a
given time has to do mostly with the intrinsic aspects of the work, not with external
factors. Again, one may think of the success of other works at different times (such as
the Gerusalemme Liberata by Tasso or the Adone by Marino) to realize that success
is conditioned by characteristics of the work itself. Also, as happened with the poem
by Marino, such success does not necessarily last forever. The writings of Ariosto are
a case in point. In conclusion, when sixteenth-century culture canonized the Furioso
rather than other poems (such as the Italia liberata dai Goti by Trissino, which could
much more easily be assimilated to the canonical epics of antiquity), it did so because
the work was very successful among all kinds of readers; the Furioso did not, on the
contrary, become popular because that culture had canonized it.

Such objections do not limit in any way the value of the main body of Javitch's
research, which is an accurate and thorough analysis of sixteenth-century learned
commentaries on the Furioso. The reader has the opportunity to peruse the critical
responses the poem elicited from both its supporters and opponents. Javitch must be
credited also for signalling changes in attitude toward the poem because of external
factors which interfered on various occasions with the reactions of its cultured
audience; namely, the diffusion of Aristotle's Poetics, the publication of Tasso's
Liberata, the issue of the relations between ancient classical literatures and modem
Italian poetry, and so on. As a final result, contemporary Ariosto scholars can find in
this penetrating research a complete and informative survey of sixteenth-century
criticism on the Furioso and the ways in which that criticism influenced the history of
the poem's editions after Ariosto published its final version in 1532.

Among the many facts brought to light by the author, one should mention at least
the chapter on John Harington's English translation of the poem, published in 1591
preceded by a "Briefe Apologie." At first glance, the presence of such a chapter may
seem rather odd in a book which deals with Italian sixteenth-century criticism on the
Furioso. On the contrary, it is very much to the point: Javitch shows the extent to which
the English translator was conditioned by that criticism. Not only did he make the
obvious effort to present the poem as a modem cleissic in his introductory remarks and
commentaries, but he also felt obliged to modify the original in his translation
whenever he thought that Ariosto' s lines and images would be inadequate in relation
to the ideal he was trying to offer his readers.

Contemporary Ariosto studies will profit highly from Javitch' s book. Any future
research on the reception of the Furioso in the Cinquecento will be indebted to this
work, which will stand as a model for any similar survey of other masterpieces of
Westem civilization.

ANTONIO FRANCESCHETTI, University of Toronto

Announcements
Annonces

Spanish and Hispanic-American Arcliival Sciences

The Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies announces its Summer Institute
in the Spanish and Hispanic- American Archival Sciences, from June 24 to August 2,
1996. The institute will provide training in the reading of manuscripts from the
hispanic tradition. The course will be conducted in Spanish by Prof. Consuelo Varela.
For more information, please contact the Center for Renaissance Studies, Newberry
Library, 60 West Walton Street, Chicago, Illinois 60610-3380, USA.

Visiting Humanities Fellowships

Applications are invited for Visiting Humanities Fellowships, tenable at the Univer-
sity of Windsor (Canada) in the 1996-1997 academic year. Scholars with research
projects in traditional humanities disciplines or in theoretical, historical or philosophi-
cal aspects of the sciences, social sciences, and arts, are invited to apply. Please write
to Prof. Jacqueline Murray, Humanities Research Group, University of Windsor, 401
Sunset Avenue, Windsor, Ontario N9B 3P4.

Société Canadienne d'Études de la Renaissance

Le prochain congrès annuel de la Société Canadienne d'Études de la Renaissance aura
lieu du 26 au 28 mai 1996 à l'Université Brock, St. Catharines (Ontario). Parmi les
sujets traités, il faut noter: l'oeuvre de Clément Marot; l'analyse des humeurs et du
discours médico-littéraire; Thomas d' Aquin et la Renaissance; Descartes et la Renais-
sance; Spenser et les liaisons continentales; représentations iconographiques de la
France. Pour de plus amples renseignements, veuillez écrire à Elizabeth Sauer,
Department of English, Brock University, St. Catharines (Ontario) L2S 3A1.

92 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies

The Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies will hold its next conference from May
26 to 28, 1996 at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario. There will be sessions on
several topics: Clément Marot; The humours and the medico-literary discourse;
Thomas Aquinas and the Renaissance; Descartes and the Renaissance; Spenser and
continental connections; Iconographie representations of France. For more informa-
tion on the conference, please contact Prof. Elizabeth Sauer, Department of English,
Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario L2S 3A1.

La femme lettrée à la Renaissance

Un colloque intemationnal portera en mars 1996 sur le thème de la femme lettrée à la
Renaissance. Il se tiendra à l'Institut interuniversitaire pour l'étude de la Renaissance
à Bruxelles. Pour de plus amples renseignements, veuillez écrire au Prof. Michel
Bastiaesen, Institut interuniversitaire pour l'étude de la Renaissance, Université Libre
de Bruxelles, Boulevard de la Plaine, 2, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgique.

Critical Approaches to English Prose Fiction

The Barnabe Riche Society sponsors an international conference on the subject of
comparative critical approaches to English prose fiction (1520-1640). The conference
will be held May 9-11, 1997 at Carleton University, Ottawa. For information on the
conference, please write to Prof. Douglas Wurtele, Department of English, Carleton
University, Ottawa, Ontario KIS 5B6.

Le Beau au temps de la Renaissance

La revue Carrefour vient de publier un numéro spécial sur les catégories du Beau à
l'époque de la Renaissance. Ce numéro spécial est dirigé par le prof. Donald Beecher.
La revue Carrefour est disponible à l'adresse suivante: Département de Philosophie,
Université d'Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario KIN 6N5.

Renaissance Group of Waterloo-Guelph

Prof. Marianne Micros is now the coordinator of the Waterloo-Guelph Renaissance
Group. The Group organizes lectures and other events in the South Central Ontario
area. For more information, please contact Prof. Marianne Micros, Department of
English, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario NIG 2W1. E-mail:
mmicros @ uoguelph.ca.

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 93

The Greco-Roman Rhetorical Tradition

*The Greco-Roman Rhetorical Tradition: Alterations, Adaptations, Alternatives" is
the theme of the Eleventh Biennial Conference of the International Society for the
History of Rhetoric, to be held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, July 22-26, 1997. For
information, please write to Prof. Judith Rice Henderson, Department of English, 9
Campus Drive, University of Saskatchewan, Saslatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5. E-
mail: HENDRSNJ@duke.usask.ca.

Recent Books
Livres récents

Reid Barbour. Deciphering Elizabethan Fiction. Newark: Delaware University Press,
1993.

Robert D. Cottrell, La grammaire du silence: Une lecture de la poésie de Marguerite
de Navarre. Paris, Honoré Champion, 1995.

Diane Desrosiers-Bonin. Rabelais et l'humanisme civil. Genève, Droz, 1992.

Richard L. Harris, éd. A Chorus of Grammars. The Correspondence ofgeorge Hickes
and his Collaborators on the "Thesaurus linguarum septentrionalium" . Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1992.

Jonathan Haynes. The Social Relations in Jonson's Theater. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992.

Maynard Mack. Everybody's Shakespeare. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1993.

Daniel Martin, ed. Montaigne and the gods: The Mythological Key to the "Essays".
Amherst, MA: Hestia Press, 1993.

Walter D. Mignolo. The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality &
Colonization. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.

David Lee Miller & Alexander Dunlop, eds. Approaches to Teaching Spenser 's Faerie
Queene. New York: Modem Language Association, 1994.

Richard Mulcaster. Positions Concerning the Training Up of Children, ed. William
Barker. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.

96 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Robert M. Schuler. Francis Bacon and Scientific Poetry. Philadelphia: American
Philosophical Society, 1992.

Valerie Traub. Desire and Anxiety: Circulations of Sexuality in Shakespearean
Drama. New York: Routledge, 1993.

Paul W. White. Reformation Biblical Drama in England New York and Lx)ndon:
Garland, 1992.

Linda Woodbridge. The Scythe of Saturn: Shakespeare and Magical Thinking. Urbana
and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994.

Margarita Zamora. Reading Columbus. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1993.

Adrianus Hofferus (1589-1644): Drie Opstellen over Hofferus' ambtelijke loopbaan,
godsdienstige positie en literaire betekenis. Amsterdam: Stichting Neeriandistiek
Vrij Universiteit & Stichting der Nadere Reformatie, 1993.

Belgica Typographica, 1541-1660. Nieuwkoop, De Graaf, 1994.

La problématiquue du sujet chez Montaigne, sous la dir. d'Eva Kushner. Paris, Honoré
Champion, 1995.

Scheming Papists and Lutheran Fools: Five Reformation Satires, ed. Erika Rummel.
New York: Fordham University Press, 1993.

The editor welcomes submissions on any aspect of the Renaissance and the Reformation
period. Manuscripts in duplicate should be sent to the editorial office:

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VOLUME XIX NUMBER

SPRING 1995

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AND REFORMATION

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CONTENTS / SOMMAIRE

EDITORIAL

ARTICLES

Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous in Sixteenth-Century

Huguenot Thought

by Moshe Sluhovsky

The Development of Hispanitas in Spanish Sixteenth-Century Versions of

the Fall of Numancia

by Rachel Schmidt

Silvestro de Prierio and the Pomponazzi Affair

by Michael Tavuzzi

To Warn Proud Cities": A Topical Reference in Milton's "Airy Knights"

Simile {Paradise Lost 2533-8)

by John Leonard

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS

A. C. Fiorato. La cité heureuse: V utopie de la Renaissance à l'âge baroque

recensé par Claude-Gilbert Dubois

Christopher Hodgkins. Authority, Church and Society in George Herbert

reviewed by Mary Arshagouni Papazian

Cynthia Skenazi. Maurice Scève et la pensée chrétienne; A Scève Celebra-
tion: Délie 1544-1994, sous la dir. de Jerry Nash
recensé par François Rouget
78

Alistair Hamilton. Heresy and Mysticism in Sixteenth-Century Spain: The
Alumbrados; Henry Kramen. The Phoenix and the Flame: Catalonia and

the Counter Reformation

reviewed by Robert R. Ellis

Logique et littérature à la Renaissance, sous la dir. de Marie-Luce

Demonet-Launay et André Toumon
recensé par Jean-Claude Margolin

Alexander Dalzell. The Collected Work of Erasmus

reviewed by Hilmar Pabel

Allen G. Debus. The French Paracelsians: The Chemical Challenge to
Medical and Scientific Tradition in Early Modem France

reviewed by Eva Kushner
88

David R. Carlson. English Humanist Books: Writers and Patrons, Manu-
scripts and Prints, 1475-1525; Mary Thomas Crane. Framing Authority:
Sayings, Self and Society in Sixteenth-Century England
reviewed by Samuel Glen Wong

ANNOUNCEMENTS/ANNONCES

RECENT BOOKS/LIVRES RÉCENTS

EDITORIAL

S'il y a une image qui semble traverser
une bonne part de ce numéro de Renais-
sance et Réforme, c'est celle du miracle.
Bien sûr, on nous dira tout de suite que la
publication même de notre revue, par ces
temps difficiles, tient à elle seule du mira-
cle ! Mais il s ' agit plutôt de la permanence
du miraculeux à travers presque tous les
écrits de l'Europe ancienne. Dans un ar-
ticle sur les premiers textes calvinistes en
France, par exemple, Moshe Sluhovsky
démontre combien la notion de miracle
n'a jamais pu quitter le discours des
réformateurs, tant elle faisait partie à la
fois de leur rhétorique et de leurs
croyances. D' un autre côté, John Leonard
analyse un bref passage de Milton,
s' attardant à la métaphore des armées
célestes dont on dit encore au début du
dix-septième siècle qu'elles peuvent être
observées par temps clair, haut dans le
ciel. Dans tout cela, ce sont des
mécanismes de réappropriation qui sont
à l'oeuvre, comme dans les textes
espagnols que nous propose Rachel
Schmidt et les échanges acerbes entre
ecclésiastiques italiens qu'analyse
Michael Tavuzzi. Ce numéro de Renais-
sance et Réforme s'attache à poursuivre
les marques de la curieuse persistence du
passé dans l'interprétation de l'Histoire.

The concept of the miraculous is prob-
ably the most important site in this issue
of Renaissance and Reformation. Of
course, it strikes us that the very survival
of this journal in our difficult times is
somewhat miraculous in itself! Here,
however, we are concerned by the perma-
nence of the concept of miracle through-
out early modern European texts. In his
article on early Calvinist literature in
France, Moshe Sluhovsky demonstrates
how the concept of miracle remains a
familiar topos in Huguenot thinking, even
in Calvin's writings. John Leonard gives
a sharp look at a very brief passage in
Milton's Para^we Lost, in order to study
the image of celestial armies. Many were
those in the seventeenth century who had
observed such airy armies at night in the
bright sky. Yet, underlying the discourse
of this period we can see that mechanisms
of appropriation and transformation are
at work; for instance, in the succession of
Spanish texts examined by Rachel
Schmidt, or in the acrimonious pamphlets
of Italian ecclesiastics studied by Michael
Tavuzzi. In this issue of the journal we
are searching for signs of the persistence
of the past in our constant reinterpreta-
tion of history.

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 2 (1995) /3

Calvinist Miracles and the
Concept of the Miraculous in
Sixteenth-Century Huguenot

Thought

MOSHE
SLUHOVSKY

Summary: This paper is a study of French Calvinism as a language. It was
a language which employed the signifiers and the signs of the traditional
Christian culture. There was persistent usages of key Catholic words in the
theology of early Huguenot believers, regardless of their level of education or
commitment to the cause. In an attempt to follow one such word ( ''miracle ":
miracula or mirabilia), a large number of texts are examined, including
Calvin 's own writings, the Histoire ecclésiastique, Simon Goulart ' s Mémoires
de V estât de France sous Charles Neufîesme, and the personal diary of an
anonymous believer in the provincial town of Millau.

Sixteenth-century Calvinism was shaped through controversy and confron
tation, persecutions and sacrifices. Conversion to the new belief system
meant sanctification, namely being turned around by God's grace and making
a total commitment to one's new life. Acceptance of Calvin's teaching
involved a rejection of established religions and social norms and behaviours,
such as the veneration of saints, the adaptation of a new mode of everyday
conduct, and adherence to new ceremonial and ritualistic religious practices.
Calvinism, in other words, was more than what Jean Calvin wrote. For the
followers of the Genevan theologian, far from being merely a theological
interpretation of Scripture, Calvinism meant a way of life, a moral system, and
a distinct culture. To be sure, Calvinism was never a monolithic cultural
system. Dutch, Scottish, German and French followers developed different
interpretations of Calvin's theology and distinct Calvinist traditions (and the
discussion that follows deals only with the French variance). Yet, all shared a

Renaissance and Reforniation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 2 (1995) /5

6 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

core of religious ideas — including a common rejection of late medieval
Catholicism and a new scriptural interpretation of the Bible, based on Calvin's
exegeses.'

From the definition of French Calvinism as a cultural system follows also
a definition of French Calvinism as a language.^ It was a language which
employed the signifiers and signs of the traditional language: its characters
were Latin, its vocabulary both French and Latin. But during the religious
conflicts of the second half of the sixteenth century, the ancient characters and
words were deployed in a new setting, within a polemic context, to combat
another language (and culture) which used the same signs and vocabulary.
Furthermore, the entire Calvinist enterprise was grounded on careful rereadings
of sanctified texts, and on "purification" of these texts from alleged misinter-
pretations. Indeed, Calvin and his followers were fully cognizant of their uses
of words whose meanings had been obscured by Catholic misreadings, and of
their need to redefine the exact relations between signifiers and signifieds.
Hence, the fact that both linguistic systems — "the Calvinist idiom" and "the
Catholic idiom" — used the same characters, presented Calvin and his
followers in France and Geneva with a unique challenge. Their new language
was constructed through the adaptation of the signifiers of a rival culture and
system of belief to represent new signifieds.^ But first generation French
Calvinists, the people who both invented and used the new language, had been
brought up on the old faith and language. They themselves inhabited the world
of the Catholic language, and shared its discursive system and its prescribed
uses of signifiers. Consequently, Huguenots had to adjust themselves to the
new meanings which were attributed in their new language to the old words.
This challenge was shared by all partisans of the new culture, theologians as
well as peasants, intellectuals as well as ordinary people.

In this paper I argue that there were persistent usages of key Catholic
words in the theology and cosmology of the early Huguenot believers regard-
less of their level of education or commitment to the cause. As we shall see,
prior cultural and linguistic traditions unavoidably influenced Huguenots*
sensibilities and the ways they interpreted their world. While Calvinist
theology did, indeed, present a linguistic anti-system to the Catholic system,
the rupture from traditional usage of words was more difficult than has usually
been assumed by historians of Calvinism. The continuity of linguistic usages
indicates a continuity of epistemological perceptions.

One of the major theological and linguistic differences between the old
and the new languages was the use of the words "m/racw/a" (miracle) and

Moshe Sluhovsky / Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous / 7

''mirabilia'' (marvel). According to common knowledge, Protestant theology
dismissed the reliability of post-Biblical miracles and argued the cessation of
miracles by the time of the apostles. Comparing Catholic priests to Egyptian
magicians, Calvin himself attributed all contemporary miracles to "sheer
delusions of Satan.""* Calvinists were especially hostile to the Catholic belief
in the power of miracle workers (known previously, in the Catholic system, as
saints) to perform miracles, and considered it idolatrous of living people to
believe that prayers should be directed to anyone but Christ. They vehemently
attacked Catholic prognosticators and divines, whose blood was fair game,
"punissable par tout droit divin et humain."^ Astrologers they regarded as
sorcerers, and their art as a diabolic superstition.^ This hostility to "supersti-
tion" implied a new theology of the natural order, which did not deny God's
unique position above the natural order, but nevertheless categorically rejected
astrology, prognostication, and other means of divination. This natural theol-
ogy argued that God dictated an order in the universe, an order that is complete
and does not leave space for unorderly occurrences. But creation continues to
be subjected to God's care, which sometimes necessitate direct interventions
by God. Thus, for example, the fact that the water of the seas gathered together
and created a dwelling place for human kind, or the fact that the sea does not
flood the earth, are "illustrious miracle" and "beyond nature," and prove God' s
power over nature as well as his providence.^ While events in the world may
appear to us fortuitous, they, in fact, take place within and according to God's
plan.^

Following Calvin's theological writings, recent historiography has ar-
gued that the Calvinists regarded nature as a divine plan, which cannot and
should not be changed through human interventions. When historical evidence
has shown the persistence of pre-Reformation so-called "superstitious" beliefs
and practices among Calvinists, its existence was explained as representing the
gap between "learned" and "popular" Calvinisms. The Calvinisation of the
common believer was a slow process, it has been argued, but the Calvinist
authorities succeeded at the end of the process to eradicate the reliance on, and
belief in, the supernatural.^ Fierce opposition to miracles notwithstanding, the
word "miracle" appears time and time again in Calvinist writings, starting with
Calvin himself. Its use by first-generation Reformers has not received much
attention from either Calvinist theologians or historians of Calvinist religios-
ity. Bernard Vogler summarized sixteenth-century Protestants' attitude to
contemporary miracles as a "categorical rejection." D.P. Walker, however,
presented a more nuanced view, and showed the difficulties Protestants

8 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

encountered in articulating their doctrine of the cessation of miracles.'^ The
following reading of first generation Huguenots' discussions of miracles
follows the latter. The rejection of contemporary miracles in theological
writings was tempered by a spiritual need to encounter divine signs which
would demonstrate the realization of God's plan for the universe and the role
of the Calvinist doctrine within this program. While Calvin himself was careful
to delineate the difference between his concept of the miraculous from the
Catholic understanding of this concept, for some of his followers the distinc-
tion was less clear. (In fact, even Calvin himself, as we shall see, employed the
word "miracle" in its traditional use.) As Calvin stated in the Institutes of the
Christian Religion, Catholics demanded from the Reformers to prove them-
selves in miracles, signs and wonders. '• Challenged by their Catholic adver-
saries, Calvinists of all level of theological education and training sometimes
did make use of miraculous events for religious propaganda. While in their
theological writings they rejected the persistence of miracles, in their linguistic
usage they maintained a pre-Reformation reliance on miracles to claim the
validity of their religious message.

The Calvinist ambivalence toward miracles and other supernatural occur-
rences is found in a wide array of texts: theological treatises and polemical
writings; diaries and poems written by CdWimsisJait divers and the "official"
history of French Calvinism. In an attempt to trace cultural or linguistic
common usages of words, I have examined a large number of varied texts, from
Calvin's own writings to the journal of an anonymous Provençal diarist. The
following discussion represents a sample of sixteenth-century French Calvin-
ist writings. The treatment of these texts is segmented, and concentrates on the
semantic occurrences of key words such as "miracle," "marvels," "provi-
dence," and their synonyms in dispersed Huguenot writings. The selection
pays less attention to the differences among the authors and the types of
writings, though such differences were, of course, very important. It is my
argument that the cosmology and theology of the Huguenots were created and
experienced through the "totality" of the uses of specific linguistic expres-
sions. It was through a "thesaurus" of new meanings to existing words that
Calvinism both explained and understood itself. This "thesaurus" was not
limited to the theological writings of Jean Calvin, but was eclectic. By
compiling the occurrences of key words in early Huguenot writings, we can
better understand early Calvinism as a lived experience and not just a theology.
Finally, it is through this eclecticism that the Calvinist notion of the miraculous
is best explained.

Moshe Sluhovsky / Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous / 9

Calvin on Miracles

Despite the fact that events called miracula were so closely woven into the
texture of Christian experience, thought about miracles remained fixed through-
out the Middle Ages, following the arguments first laid down by saint
Augustine, and it was to Augustine that Calvin turned in his discussion of the
natural order and creation. Augustine argued that there was only one miracle,
that of creation, and within this miracle God planted all the possibilities for the
future, including the two corollaries of His incarnation and the Resurrection of
Christ.'^ "God himself has created all that is wonderful in this world, the great
miracles as well as the minor marvels . . . and he has included them all in that
unique wonder, the miracle of miracles, the World itself." ^^ But Augustine
went on to explain that human beings were so accustomed to the "natural
miracles" that they needed to be provoked to reverence by unusual manifes-
tations of God's power. Therefore God created "events," hidden within the
natural order of things, and included within the original creation, which at
times cause "miracles" that seem to be contrary to nature but are, in fact,
inherent in it.^"^ The difference between "natural" and "miraculous" events is
therefore not an ontological but a psychological one. It is humankind's
understanding which creates the separation and gives meaning to a wide scope
of miracles such as mirabilia, miracula, signa, monstra and prodigia,^^ all of
which are not subject to the usual ways in which Providence acts within nature,
but are nevertheless parts of the original plan of creation and therefore subject
to the laws of God. The wonders are caused in the human understanding of the
order of things; they are miraculous from the beholder's point of view, but
natural from God's perspective. Thus, the marvellous and the rarity that
provoke our amazement signify order, not disorder. In their extreme, they
manifest nature's diversity, and remind us that all of nature is a marvel. ^*^

Calvin followed the Augustinian teaching. He developed his theology of
miracles during the eucharistie controversy with Lutheran theologians over the
nature of the Eucharist, itself a controversy on the separation of the signified
and signifier.'^ A total rejection of the reality of "signs," "marks," and
"miracles" was, of course, impossible in a religion based upon three miracu-
lous divine interventions in the universe. Indeed, Calvin himself argued that
"many miracles are subsumed" in the Eucharist.'^ The centrality of the
Eucharist, however, should not distract us from other revelatory modes
through which God was believed to show his concern for his people, aspects
which Calvin never tired of emphasizing. Nature itself, "the most beautiful

10 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

theater of the world," is a wonder (mirificam, signa), Calvin stated. ^^ The
rotation of the heavens, for example, is "such a miracle that we should be
ravished in astonishment by it."^^ In this cosmology, the supernatural does not
exist as a separate category. Rather, it is encompassed by the natural, as all
signs and events are part of the divine plan. God is manifested not only in nature
as a whole, but also shows itself in "particular events."^' Furthermore, God
"often deliberately changes the laws of nature so that we may know that what
he really confers is exclusively determined by his will."^^

Calvin, like Augustine before him, widened the concept of the miraculous
to include in it the entire universe, which, in its splendor, is a continuous
miracle. Both theologians share the same Christian cosmology which recog-
nizes no boundary between "natural" and "miraculous" events. The "miracu-
lous" is, ontologically speaking, as natural as the "natural," and the "natural"
is as "miraculous" as the "supernatural." God's secret plan is hidden from us,
but well planned and governs all. Any sign which seems to us to be miraculous
is in fact as premeditated as any other sign, and it is only our shortcomings
which prevent us from realizing it.^^ Signs and events are in and of themselves
not miraculous. The miracle occurs not in nature, but in human spiritual
understanding, and is depended on our ability to grasp it, on faith.

Accordingly, God's providence continues to manifest itself. Calvin
rejected wonder-workers and traditional "technical" miracles, but not miracles
per se: ''we [i.e. the new Church] are not entirely lacking in miracles, and these
very certain and not subject to mockery."^"* These miracles, however, could only
be understood through the spirit. Their recognition as miracles is limited to the
elect, to members of the "vera ecclesia," the people who benefit from God' s grace.
Only they grasp the cosmic significance of particular signs and events. Their
reading of signs reveals that God proves his mighty power through his acts in
support of his people. Every event which strengthens the Calvinist church reveals
the divine plan, and as such it is a "miracle" and a "sign." These new miracles were
as visual to the Calvinist believer as supernatural miracles (the traditional
miracles) were to contemporaries, but the "new" miracles were not as extravagant
and sensational as medieval miracles. Their visibility was mediated through
belief. One system of miracles — visually-marvellous events — whose miracu-
lous nature was self evident, was replaced by another one, in which faith mediated
the event and its nndraculousness.

Thus, the Reformed Church is both the object which is signified by the
miracles, and that which signifies — which determines whether an event is
miraculous. The fortifying of the Calvinist Church reveals the miraculous plan of

Moshe Sluhovsky / Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous / 11

Providence at the same time that it testifies to the truthfulness of Calvinist
theology. Providence still performs miracles, but no longer through the mediation
of individual saints but through the advancement of the True Church.

During the colloquium at Poissy in 1561, Théodore de Bèze summarized
for his listeners the main points of the Huguenots' presupposition on miracles.
His presentation, which was the only systematic exposition of the Calvinist
theology of the miraculous, repeated the main arguments which we have
encountered in Calvin's writings: In the new stage in history miracles were no
longer necessary to confirm ecclesiastical authority, de Bèze explained. The
mere fact that the same men who had burned Reformers during the previous
years had since adopted the new religion was in itself a new sign, which
testified to the truth of Calvinism.^^

The Natural as Miraculous

In both Calvin's and de Bèze' s writings, the rejection of miracles was
supplemented by a need to "retain a sense of assurance in the midst of historical
change,"^^ and to decipher contemporary events, first and foremost the
growing popularity of the Reformed Church, as miraculous. The detection of
the hand of God in historical events was, of course, part of biblical and
medieval historiographies. In this Christian tradition history itself was viewed
as a revelation, and the study of chronology is based on theological and
ideological presupposition. It reveals the logic of the relations between God,
the World, and the Reformed Church. ^^

The authors of the Histoire ecclésiastique, the sixteenth-century history
of the progress of the Reformed Church, inherited and elaborated this Chris-
tian-Calvinist tradition. For them, too, miracles were a natural part of the
historical records, and were primarily meant to be edifying. The title "Histoire
ecclésiastique" locates the text within a specific historiographical tradition.
Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica), Bede (Historia ecclesiastica gentis
Anglorum) and Hugh of Fleury (Historia ecclesiastica), among others, had
used this title previously in their chronicles of the divine revelation through
history. In this genre of historical writing, an emphasis was placed on a wide
range of mira and prodigia rather than on miracles of saints. Brief stories,
curious events, and especially mira of signs and omens supplied the writers of
these histories with the same kind of testimonies for the progress of salvation
that the miracles of the saints supplied the authors of the Lives of Saints
[vitae].^^

12 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

"Etant arrivé le temps que Dieu avoit ordonné pour retirer ses esleus hors
des superstitions survenues peu à peu en l'Eglise Romaine," declared the
editor(s) in the introduction to the official Calvinist history of their origins,
"Dieu commença de faire retentir sa voix à Orleans, Burges & Tholose."^^ A
new historical age started in which God interferes directly in the world to
support his people against the powers of Satan. To the traditional medieval
periodization of the law into three periods, namely that of natural law, of
Scripture, and of grace, the author seems to add a fourth, the apocalyptic stage,
familiar from late medieval writings such as Joachim of Fiore's eschatological
prophecies.^" This was a historical period of a just judgement and vengeance
against the enemies of God and the elect, and a time of victory as a religious
act, every obstacle was treated as another example of the devil's resourceful-
ness, and every success was regarded as God's will. While Calvinists did not
share the acute sense of the End which has recently been attributed to Luther
and to first-generation Lutherans,^' similar eschatological tensions and expec-
tations were apparent in Calvinist historical writings of the sixteenth century.
Calvinist authors turned to signs, miracles, and supernatural occurrences, to
find in them the guarantees that theirs was the only correct interpretation of the
divine plan. History, indeed, supplied them with clear manifestations that
divine actions brought salvation to Calvinists and punishment on the Catho-
lics. These divine interventions were repeatedly described in the Histoire
ecclésiastique as "miracle" and "miraculous."

One example was the fate of two Huguenot soldiers who were wounded
during the battle of Dreux (December 1562). "Après mille estranges adven-
tures," they managed to escape from the battlefield to their nearby village of
Dreux and from there to Paris and finally to Orléans, where they were cured.
The one showed his healed wound as testimony of a "vray miracle de Dieu''
The other, who was hit by a bullet in his loins, was cured so quickly that within
three weeks he could once again ride his horse.^^ More impressive is the story
of the famous physician Pierre Solery of Aurillac. A bullet crossed his body
from one thigh to the other; more bullets entered his shoulders and his chest;
another bullet penetrated his kidney and two more lodged in his forehead.
Though almost dead, the man did not lose his faith in divine intervention. God
sent him assistance in the form of one of Solery' s sons, a child of only eight,
who carried his father to a nearby village. But Solery' s hardships did not end
there. The villagers did not want to help him, and he had to continue wandering.
But not for long, because "Dieu lui présenta au mesme instant un autre de ses
enfants, aagé d'environ dix ans, par lequel souslevé d'autre costé. Dieu voulut

Moshe Sluhovsky / Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous / 13

qu'il eust asses de force pour arriver en un autre village." The familial drama
came to an end with the father's complete cure within a few weeks. In this
drama, the author summarized, "Dieu monstra miraculeusement que la vie des
siens est en sa main & non point en celle des hommes."^^

A miraculous salvation also awaited the Huguenot woman from Saint-
Clément-de-Craon, who was thrown into the Poum river afer being tortured in
a thousand different ways. "Mais le Seigneur voulait monstrer à l'oeil que nos
jours ne sont en la main d'autre que de luy, poussa ceste pauvre femme ainsi
vielle & caduque droit à l'autre bord de la riviere . . . le jour suivant D/^w^f un
autre miracle à l'endroit de ceste pauvre femme," and saved her from the cruel
treatment she received at the hands of the Catholics who found her on the
shores of the river.^"* ''Un grand miracle de Dieu'' also occurred during the
martyrdom of Jean Brugère from the village of Formal in the Auvergne.
Throughout his execution, while he was "attaché à une chaîne de fer," this
martyr continued to preach the teaching of the Reformed Church, and even the
inquisitor Ory himself regretted the sentence, left the martyr "à demy bruslé,"
and took to the road to inform other people of this amazing event.^^

The enemies of the Faith were punished by God in numerous prodigious
and miraculous ways. Catholic judges who executed Huguenots died soon
after the trial, usually a horrible death. This was the lot of Jean André, "un petit
libraire du Palais," and a member of the Confraternity of the Bearers of the
Reliquary of Sainte-Geneviève in Paris, who died of a stroke without even
having time to confess for his spying on Calvinists.^^ The same happened to
Jean Craneguin, "un ancien avocat," whom God punished with "une maladie
de phrenesie merveilleusement estrange" which caused him to see everything
that was shown to him as serpents. ^^ The Parisian capitaine du quartier Garget
was attacked by a "fievre chaude, courut publiquement par les rues, blasphémant
& invoquant les Diables ... & ainsi mourut insensé & furieux dont ses
compagnons ne se faisoient que rire."^^ Insanity also manifested the just
judgement of God in the death of judge Florent Pamjaon, who strangled
himself to put an end to his torments. God's retribution sometimes resembled
the punishment the judges themselves had afflicted on the Huguenots. The
judge and conj^/Z/^rLaubespin, who was the first to order martyrs' tongues cut
out before their execution in order to prevent them from testifying the truth of
their religion, was punished on his own tongue. Insects took over his body and
settled in his throat, preventing him from eating or drinking. In order to force
him to eat, his relatives had to "bridle" his tongue. Tormented and "bailloné,"
he died in the same torture that he himself had perfected.^'

14 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Deaths of kings acquired special importance in the Calvinist view of
history. Two French kings died in the years 1559-1560, and it was difficult to
regard this as pure coincidence. In 1559, Henri 11 died as a result of "le Juste
Judgement de Dieu." The following year God "cures the maladies of France"
by the death of François II."^ The Calvinist poet Jean de la Taille was quick to
describe the deaths as "m2irvellous miracles":

Ces faits divins, ces merveilleux miracles
Roys insensez, malins, sourds, impudens
Vous font scavoir qu'en ces piteux spectacles
Il faut mourrir ou devenir prudens.'*'

And a Calvinist diarist from Millau (Cévennes) explained that

En despict de ces deuls. Dieu feiist recogneii per toute la Guaule. Et [Henri
n] moreiit T an 1 560, que fust un miracle. Et après ledict Henric, succéda son
fils François, lequel fist de plus grans cruautés contre l'Esglise que son diet
feu père et moreùst cest année mesmes, que fust un miracle évidant, car
moreiist d'une apostume à l'orelle, sens trever remède.'*^

Similarly, the premature death of Charles IX, 14 years later, indicated "qu'il
estoibt mort cruellement, d'un flux de sang, tant des partie aultes que baces,
dénotant par sela comme pleusieurs avoient profétisé que: qui de sang vit, de
sang mort, comme chescun le saict bien.'"*^

The theologians from Geneva who edited the Histoire ecclésiastique and
the provincial diary-keeper both kept track of the realization of the Providen-
tial plan to establish the city of God on earth. Both wrote down, in d' Aubigné's
words, every "accident which helps the realization of the doctrine.'"^ The
authors of the Histoire ecclésiastique, the committed poet and the humble
believer all shared the same eschatological hopes and excitement. Their
reading of history was determined by their study of supporting signs of nature.
They needed visual proofs of their faith, and found them in testimonies which
followed the biblical law, "Wherever hurt is done, you shall give life for life,
eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, bum for bum, bmise
for bmise, wound for wound" (Exodus, 21 :23-5). While the cause of death in
some of these cases could have been attributed to natural causes, its meaning
for the Calvinist believer was clear: Providence supports its elect in different
ways, and even a presumably natural death is, in fact, a sign of the divine
justice. Similarly, even the iconoclasm in some churches in France and the
Netherlands in the 1560s was not an act of man but of God. The Calvinist
protector Condé, indeed, felt sorry for the destmction of churches, but

Moshe Sluhovsky / Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous / 15

explained "que cela ne pou voit estre imputé qu'à un secret mouvement de
Dieu.'"*^ In breaking images, as Phyllis Mack Crew explained, "the iconoclasts
in both countries were demonstrating in the most irrefutable and dramatic way
possible ... the superiority of the Reformers' miraculous powers, since the
ministers were able to commit such scandalous actions against the Church and
remain unpunished.'"*^ The blending of the natural and the miraculous in these
cases points out the new meaning the Reformers ascribed to the concept of
"miracle": direct divine interventions in the world in a manner that contra-
dicted the orderly functioning of the universe, but gives visual support to the
claim that Calvinism itself is the greatest miracle of this historical stage.

The Miraculous as Natural

Brilliant, open-minded, creative and controversial, Simon Goulart is one of the
more colorful among the sober theologians of Geneva. Goulart was bom in
Senlis in 1543, and moved to Geneva in 1566, soon after his conversion. Five
years after his arrival in the city he was already pastor of the municipal parish
of Saint-Gervais, and married to the 15-year-old daughter of Nicolas Picot, a
respectable bourgeois of the city and member of the city council, the Deux-
Cents. Several years later Goulart became a member of the Compagnie de
pasteurs. In 1604 he was elected president of the Compagnie, and until 1612,
when he resigned, Goulart was "le veritable chef du pouvoir spirituel.'"*^ A
close friend of Théodore de Bèze and Jean Crespin, he participated in the
editing of both the Histoire ecclésiastique and the Histoire des Martyrs, and
his name appears among the translators of the Genevan Bible of 1588. He
translated works of Seneca, Plutarch, Wier, Calvin, Beza, and François
Hotman into French, and found time to compose two monumental histories of
events in France in the second half of the sixteenth century: Mémoires de
r Estât de France sous Charles Neufiesme (1578) and Mémoires de la ligue
(1587-1590), along with more than 70 other works and translations."*^

In the first decade of the seventeenth century, Goulart published, in
Protestant Geneva and ultra-Catholic Paris simultaneously (!), a collection of
thousands of "admirable" events which attracted his attention. The collection
presents a complex interplay of the natural and the miraculous."*^ Goulart
published whatever he could lay his hands on. Catholic as well as Protestant
polemical pamphlets, /a/rJ/ver^ and medical treatises, legal cases and occur-
rences of apparitions. His taste for the bizarre surpassed both his interest in
theological controversies and his political and religious loyalties. Goulart

16 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

seldom edited his sources, even when they offered a doctrinal position which
contradicted his own confessionalism. In fact, it is not easy to tell from the
collection whether the editor was a Calvinist, a Catholic, or a Copt, or whether
he was a Frenchman, an Italian, or a subject of the Sultan. All of these religions,
cultures, and countries appear side by side in the collection.

In his stories, Goulart did not shy away from morals that were theologi-
cally-contested. He included in his collection two cases of resurrection of the
dead, in which Egyptian Copts who had been assassinated by their Muslim
enemies come back to life.^" At another point he wrote that he was ashamed of
"offending the eye or the ear of the honest and devoted reader," and therefore
refrained from describing words of abuse by an idolatrous man from Clavennes,
directed against the name of God and the "bienheureuse vierge Marie."^*
Clearly, Goulart spent little time editing and "Calvinizing" his sources. He, in
fact, praised himself for not changing "nearly anything" in the stories he
collected.^^ But in light of what we know of the period, his accuracy and
tolerance are surprising. We would not expect to fmd a member of the
Company of Pastors so offended by blasphemous words against the Virgin,
neither recalling a miraculous resurrection at the very same time that the ability
to resurrect was employed by the Catholics to prove the truthfulness of their
doctrine against the Calvinists, and was denied firmly by the latter.^^

Even when Goulart did edit his sources, he used neutral terms. He
mentioned on two different occasions two of the Popes' offsprings, a unique
opportunity for a Calvinist author to attack the Babylonian fornication of the
Catholic Church. Both times Goulart did not add any cynical remark to the
idiomatic expression "fils du Pape," as might have been expected from the co-
editor of the Histoire des Martyrs. ^^

What can account for Goulart' s apparent indifference to the religious
controversies of his time? In the numerous dedications to his brother and in the
forewords to the reader which introduced each of the volumes, Goulart
elaborated his view on the place of the natural and the supernatural in the
universe, 2md added a layer to our understanding of the Calvinist concept of
miracles. "Je les appelle Admirables, à cause que les raisons d'une grand part
d'icelles sont fort eslongnees de mon apprehension & qu 'il y a du miracle, ce
me semble''^^ He recorded in his collection tales of a monstrous birth, a
horrible murder, a military victory or a blessed healing, because they all
happened due to God' s will. God willed them because he wanted us to meditate
about the lessons these events teach, and to honor him for all his works. The
bizarre and the rare (strange cases of idolatry or a chapter on the prodigious

Moshe Sluhovsky / Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous / 17

appetite of women) testified to the variety of God's interventions in the
worid.^^ Whatever shows us the divine order also manifests how difficult it is
for human beings to understand God's actions. Whatever causes us to believe
in him and to fear him is a miracle, "et voila tout de Thomme."^^

The divine plan manifested itself in prodigies and in external signs, which
were part of nature, and which together revealed the essence of this plan. Each
year, according to Goulart, more unusual events occurred in the world. There
have been more plagues, more wars and more times of famine in the sixteenth-
century than ever before, and 35 times during the century apparitions have
appeared in the sky. The meaning of each event for itself is hidden from us, but
they all were significant, as they were all signs of the just judgement of God
who punished the sins of the world. All these occurrences were like the
blowing of the trumpets which announce the end of day s^^ The miraculous, the
outstanding, and the bizarre, were all contextualized by Goulart within a
natural divine order. "In a diversity of ways His grace manifests itself for those
who should pay him back."^^

Goulart' s book enjoyed an immense popularity. Within 20 years it was
published in 16 editions in four different languages (French, English, German,
and Dutch). According to the book' s natural theology, there exists an objective
divine order, which does not correspond to the subjective human understand-
ing of the order of things but rather imposes its laws on human disorder. God' s
active presence in the universe is manifested and narrated through marvellous
events which show his grace and his revenge. In compiling the stories, Goulart
himself participated in the theological enterprise of bearing witness to the
divine order. Human nature, as Augustine and Calvin argued, is weak, and
demands continuous affirmation of the divine. Goulart' s collection supplied
this need. The narration made occurrences meaningful. It rendered them
miraculous, and therefore natural; natural, and therefore miraculous.

Supernatural Miracles

One of the characteristics of the Calvinist miracles which we have examined
so far was their "subjective" nature. The death of a French king or a Huguenot
military victory were miracles only in the eyes of Calvinist spectators. As we
have seen, no boundary was drawn in Calvinist theology between the natural
and the miraculous. By widening the concept of the miraculous to encompass
the entire universe, Calvinist theologians and believers blended the miraculous
with the natural, and argued for the crucial role of faith as a mediation between

18 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

the signified and the signifiers. Direct correlation between sign and meaning
did not exist, and the two had to be negotiated through the Spirit, which
rendered them meaning.

Nevertheless, in a few incidents Huguenot authors recorded "objective"
miracles, namely events when the miraculous nature of signs was beyond
dispute. For heuristic reasons, and based on the pattern they all follow, we
could name them "biblical miracles." In the biblical miracle, as in all Calvinist
miracles, it is God himself who performs the supernatural events. Unlike most
Calvinist miracles, however, these are unique in their "objective" visibility:
these are divine interventions which can be seen and understood by all to be
miraculous. Through these miracles even the non-Calvinist could and should
be convinced that God supports the Huguenots against the Catholics.

Towards the end of June, 1558, a group of "ceux de la religion" made their
way back from a nightly secret prayer in the fields near Bondes, not far from
Blois. At about eleven o'clock at night, a great flame appeared in the sky above
them and advanced in front of them to the city, shedding light on the way. Both
Calvinist and Catholic citizens of the city verified this divine sign.^ On Easter
day 1562, the Calvinist preacher Pierre Viret was preaching in Toulouse when
suddenly, an hour after he started his sermon, three suns appeared in the sky,
creating an arch. A Calvinist from the nearby town of Millau described the
three suns: "feiirent veiis trois soleills en plein gom. Tun près de l'autre, de
plusieurs colurs. Bien est verai que la coleur rouge supéroit sus toutes autres
coleurs; verai est que la un de touts estoit tout roge, colur de sang."^* The
phenomenon of "triple parhelia" was noted a number of times during the
sixteenth century. It was a common sign in late medieval and early modem
apocalyptic wonder-books, usually taken as a warning and as a fearful sign.
French historian Florimond de Raemond regarded it as a clear sign of the
coming of heresy .^^ The appearance of the three suns was therefore followed
by expressions of terror. But a medieval tradition also related the appearance
of three suns to the birth of Christ and the beginning of a New Age.^^ The
appearance of the sign in Toulouse was thus open for contradictory interpre-
tations. As it turned out, the triple parhelia in this case was a sign for a coming
disaster. In the same month there was a massacre of Calvinists at Vassy and the
civil war broke out.^ Similarly, during the assault on Calvinists in Lyon, in
April 1574, big drops of pure blood rained on the city, and public opinion
realized that '*que s'estoibt un miracle, perce que dens ladite ville avoient
respendu beaucoup de sang ignosent des gens de la Religion. "^^ Finally, in
1575, a comet, "toute rouge comme de sang," appeared in the sky on two

Moshe Sluhovsky / Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous / 19

different occasions, maybe signifying the blood of the martyrs.^

Keeping in mind Calvin's fierce attack of astrology and astrologers, and
the opposition to prognosticators in the Histoire ecclésiastique^'^, the direct
appeal to astrological evidence testifies to the growing need of these compilers
to use divine signs to support their cause. The timing of these astrological
references coincided with large scale persecutions of Huguenots, with the
outbreak of the first civil war in France, and with the major military defeat at
Vassy. The most outstanding miracle of this sort took place in 1573 during the
siege of La Rochelle, and is recalled by Goulart, d' Aubigné, and the Calvinist
of Millau. "Sur la grande nécessité des Rochelois, le havre fut rempli d'une
monstrueuse quantité de sourdons et de pétoncles, ce qu'on n'avoit jamais veu
en ce lieu et dont les Réformés ont encore les tableaux en leurs maisons, pour
mémoire, comme d'un miracle .''^^ This "marvel," as d' Aubigné calls the event,
drew the attention of other Calvinist chroniclers, and its fame reached even the
provincial Huguenot of Millau, whose enthusiastic description of the "miracu-
lous event" [''choses miraculeuses''] was filled with exaggerations and mag-
nifications. When the people within the walls started to die of starvation, God
sent them a huge quantity offish which had never before been seen in the area.

Feiist-il cuict à la paoële ou aus charbons ou en quelque sorte que feùst, voire
tout cru et fust-il sens sel, lequel avoict un guost admirable, lequel peisson
estoibt bon sens pein aussi bien que en pein; vous assurant que ce peisson
feiist un grant solagement à tout le peuple, lequel Ton apeloit du sardon,
auquel l'on n'avoict iamais plus veii en ce lieu là, sinon per la mer, mais
n'estoit pas si beau ni de tel guost.^^

This lovely dish, a mixture of biblical manna, the miracle of the fish and
the loaves, and the delicacies of Provençal cuisine, serves to emphasize the
unique character of the supernatural miracles in Calvinist theology. The
centrality of the Bible in Calvinist theology was correlated with a return to the
use of biblical criteria and images in conducting religious life and in perceiving
religious phenomena. The true Church, identified by its return to the purified
biblical belief, was supported by biblical miracles. Instead of saints, healers
and relics, it was equipped with a cloud of fire, with an arch in the sky, and with
manna. God's covenants with Noah, with Moses, and with David were all
renewed in this new covenant with the Calvinist. As Goulart stated at the
concluding remarks of his Mémoires de V Estât de France sous Charles
Neufiesme: "Les miracles les plus remarquables que Dieu a fait en la conser-
vation des siens en plusieurs milliers d'années, ont esté par luy renouvelez à
l'endroit de ceux de la Religion en l'espace de quelques mois."^" Furthermore,

20 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

in their usage of the terms "miracle" and "miraculous" in connection with these
events, Calvinist authors reappropriated the condemned and much maligned
role of Catholic prognosticators and divines.

As these examples make clear, the overlap of the natural and the miracu-
lous in first-generation Huguenot thought did not entirely erase the existence
of contemporary miracles. Nor was the survival of what has been termed
"popular" or "superstitious" beliefs among Calvinist believers only the result
of a persistence of pre-Reformation traditions. Rather, it was a part of the
blending of the miraculous and the natural in Calvinist cosmology. The
Genevan theologians Beza, Crespin, Viret and Goulart; the poet d'Aubigné;
and the humble believer from the provincial town of Millau, who collects
pamphlets and rumours and recorded them in his journal — all shared a belief
in a permanent action of Providence in the universe. All looked for visual
proofs as testimonies of this action, and all celebrated miraculous events that
testified that their cosmology and theology were correct. They all shared a
language and culture that concurrently rejected and endorsed miraculous
interventions in the world. The Calvinist interpretation of history as a provi-
dential act, as a continuous revelation, was shared by all Calvinists (and in fact,
by all Christians), and was articulated originally by Calvin himself The return
to this Pentateuchal perception of God, and the renewal of this and other
patristic traditions, all added up to the creation of a sacred theatre of the
universe in which the sacred and the desecrated, the divine and the diabolical,
the Calvinist and the Catholic fought the last battle. Victory belonged to the
Calvinist, and specific signs within this setting demonstrated it. In deciphering
the meaning of these signs, and rendering them miraculous, the Calvinist
reintroduced the miraculous into God's natural plan. More importantly, they
located the Calvinist Church itself as the major miracle in the divine plan.

Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Notes

I thank Natalie Z. Davis, Mordechai Feingold, Bryant Simon and the referee for this journal
for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

1. On the varieties of Calvinisms see Menna Prestwich, éd., International Calvinism, 1541-
1715 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985).

2. I am following J.M. Lotman and B. Uspensky's definition of culture as "a system of signs"
in their "On the Semiotic Mechanism of Culture," New Literary History 9:2 (1978), p. 21 1 .
Cf. Lotman' s "The Poetics of Everyday Behavior in Russian Eighteenth Century Culture"

Moshe Sluhovsky / Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous / 21

in Ann Shukman (éd.). The Semantics of Russian Culture (Ann Arbor: Department of Slavic
Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, 1984), p. 231. Denis Crouzet has
recently used a similar image, and discussed Catholicism and Calvinism as "two texts." Les
guerriers de Dieu. La violence au temps des troubles de religion (Seyssel: Champ Vallon,
1990), vol. l,p. 102.

3. S. UUman, Semantics: An Introduction to the Science of Meaning (Oxford: Blackwell,
1973), ch. 3. Ullman's definition follows Ferdinand de Saussure' s distinction between
langue and parole. See Course in General Linguistics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966).

4. "Merae sunt satanae illusiones." Jean Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion ( 1 559), éd.
by J.T. McNeill, tr. by F.L. Battles, 2 vols. [Philadelphia: Library of Christian Classics,
1960), I, "Prefatory Address to King Francis," pp. 17-18 [cited below as Inst.]; loannis
Calvini Opera quae supersunt omnia, eds. W. Baum, E. Cunitz and E. Reuss. (Brunswick,
1863-1900), vol. 2, col. 17 [hereafter CO].

5 . [Théodore de Bèze] , Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réformées au royaumes de France,
eds. W. Baum and E. Cunitz, 3 vols. (Paris, 1883-89), III, p. 51 [hereafter Hw. Ecc.].

6. Jehan Calvin, Traicté ou advertissement contre l'Astrologie, qu'on appelle judiciaire et
autres curiositez qui régnent aujourd'hui au monde (Geneva, 1549), pp. 4-9.

7. For a detailed discussion of Calvin' s theology of the Natural Order see Susan E. Schreiner,
The Theater of his Glory. Nature and the Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin
(Durham, NC: Labyrinth Press, 1991), pp. 7-37.

8. Inst. 1, 16:9 (p. 20S).

9. There is no systematic study of popular Calvinism, but see anecdotal evidence in J. Estèbe
and B. Vogler, "La genèse d'une société protestante: étude comparée de quelques registres
consistoriaux languedociens et palatins vers 16(X)," Annales E.S.C, 31 (1976), pp. 372-3;
W.H. Monter, "The Consistory of Geneva, 1559-1569" Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et
Renaissance, 38 (1976), pp. 480-1; P. Joutard, "Protestantisme populaire et univers
magique: le cas cévenol," Le monde alpin et rhodanien, 5 (1977), pp. 145-171 ; J. Garrison-
Estèbe, Protestants du midi, 1 559-1 598 (Toulouse: Privât, 1980), pp. 142-7.

10. B. Vogler, "La Réforme et le concept de miracle au XVP"* siècle," Revue du l'histoire de
la spiritualité, 48 ( 1 972), p. 1 45 ; D. P. Walker, "The Cessation of Miracles" in Hermeticism
and the Renaissance. Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modem Europe, eds.
Ingrid Merkel and Allen G. Debus. (Washington, London and Toronto: Folger Shakespeare
Library, 1988), pp. 111-124.

11. Inst. "Prefatory Address to King Frances," p. 16; CO, II: 15.

1 2. Saint Augustine, City of God, tr. by H. Bettenson (Hammonds worth: Penguin Books, 1972),
22.8, p. 1034.

13. /fcfV/.,21.9,p.985.

14. /^iV/., 22.8, pp. 1033-1047.

15. /WJ., 21.8, p. 982.

22 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

16. On the concept of the marvel in the Renaissance see Jean Céard, La nature et les prodiges.
L'insolite au XVl' siècle en France (Geneva: Droz, 1977); idem, "The Crisis of the Science
of Monsters" in Humanism in Crisis. The Decline of the French Renaissance, ed. Philippe
Desan. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), pp. 181-205. On the marvellous
in Lutheran theology see Robin Bruce Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis. Apocalypticism in the
Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988).

17. See Bernard Cottret, "Pour une sémiotique de la réfoime" Annales E.S.C., 39:2 (1984), pp.
265-285.

18. Inst. IV: 17:24 (p. 1390): CO 11:1023: "In his paucis verbis qui non sentit multa subesse
miracula, plus quam stupidus est."

19. Inst. 1:5:2 (pp. 53-54); CO, 11:42.

20. "Commentary on Psalms 1 04" CO XXXII:94; quoted and translated in William J. Bouwsma,
John Calvin. A Sixteenth Century Portrait (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1988), p. 166. Cf. "Commentary on Psalms 22" CO XXXI:226 on childbirth as a miracle.
Sec aiso Inst. 1:14:21 (p. 181); CO 2:133: "For there are as many miracles of divine power,
as many tokens of goodness, and as many proofs of wisdom, as there are kinds of things in
the universe, indeed, as there are things wither great or small." Cf. Dewey J. Hoitenga, Faith
and Reason from Plato to Plantinga: An Introduction to Reformed Epistemology (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. 150-157.

21. Inst. I: 16:7, (p. 205.); CO 11:150: "particulares eventus." Cf Inst. 1:13:13, (p. 136): "How
plainly and clearly is His deity shown in miracles." CO II: 100: "In miraculis autem quam
perspicue luculenteque apparet."

22. "Commentary on Genesis 48," CO, XXIII:585.

23. -Sermon 12 on the Harmony of the Three Gospels' CO XL VI: 141; "Sermon 12 on
Deuteronomy 2" CO XXVI:25. Richard Stauffer, Dieu, la création et la Providence dans
la prédication de Calvin (Berne, Francfort and Las Vegas: Peter Lang, 1978), pp. 261-275.

24. Inst. "Prefatory Address to King Frances," p. 17; CO 11:17: "miracula ergo nobis minime
desunt, eaque certa nee cauillis obnoxia."

25. His. Ecc. I, pp. 643-644.

26. I have borrowed the term from R.B. Barnes, Prophecy, p. 114.

27. C.-G. Dubois, La conception de l'histoire en France au XVI* siècle, 1560-1610 (Paris: A.-
G.Nizet, 1977), pp. 40-41.

28. B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1982), pp. 201-213.

29. His. Ecc. \, pp. 1,8-9, 17.

30. A. Funkenstein, "Periodization and Self-Understanding in the Middle Ages and Early
Modem Times," Medievalia et Humanistica, 5 ( 1 974), pp. 1 0- 1 1 . Other divisions of history
into distinct periods were also common in this period. See Barnes, pp. 103-115. The
following discussion was influenced by Barnes' discussion of Lutheran eschatology.

Moshe Sluhovsky / Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous / 23

31. Barnes, Prophecy, Paola Zambelli, éd., "Astrologi hallucinati" : Stars and the End of the
World in Luther's Time (berlin and New York: W. de Gruyter, 1986); Heiko A. Oberman,
Luther: Man between God and the Devil (New Haven and London: Yale University Press,
1989).

32. //w. fee. II, p. 312.

33. Ibid., II, 565-566.

34. Ibid. , II, 672-3. Was it the same woman who was saved twice by employing the "miraculous
force and wisdom God had provided her with"? See p. 679.

35. /few., I, p. 73.

36. Ibid., I, p. 72.

37. Ibid., I, pp. 76-1.
3S.Ibid.,ll,p.597.

39. Ibid., I, pp. 41 1-412, Additional examples of "la miséricorde de Dieu" appear in His. Ecc.
I, pp. 83, 102, 335-7; II, 494, 504, 5 16, and 5 1 8. See also Jean Crespin, Histoire de martyrs
persécutez et mis à mort pour la vérité de l'évangile (Geneva, 1619), éd. Daniel Benoît, 3
vols. (Toulouse, 1885) , vol. I, pp. 363-4; III, p. 712; Mémoires de Condé, 6 vols. (London,
1743-45), pp. 591-4. The Protestant poet Agrippa d'Aubigné recorded the story of Jean-
Marie Trombaut, a judge from Piémont, whose nose was eaten by a wolf because he had
ordered a pastor's nose cut off. Agrippa d'Aubigné Histoire universelle. Book II, ch. 11,8
vols. (Geneva: Droz, 198 1 ), vol. 1 , p. 243. See there pp. 239-243, for a list of other "biblical"
punishments. Finally, compare to d'Aubigné' s "Vengeances," part four of Les Tragiques,
vv. 769-1 132, in Oeuvres (Paris: Pléiade, 1966), pp. 206-214.

40. Hist. Ecc. I, 269, 375.

41 . 'Tombeau du Roy Françoys II" in J. Pineauz, La poésie des Protestants de langue française
du premier synode national jusqu 'à la proclamation del'éditde Nantes (1559-1598) (Paris:
Klincksieck, 1971),p. 24.

42. Mémoires d'un Calviniste de Millau, éd. J.-L. Rigal, Archives historiques du Rouergue II
(Rodez: Carrère, 1911), p. 472. And see Ibid., p. 12, the diarist's description of François II's
death: "Notés que en ces temps ci, le roy [François II] fasoipt de grans persécutions et
exécutions contre seus de la Religion ... et s'il heiise vescu davantage ou que Dieu ne lui
eiist reteneii la bride, il ne heiisse laissé homme de la Religion sus la terre . . . Car Dieu ne
put soufrir telles choses: incontinant [Dieju lui manda son héraut de sa justicie que [lui
envoya] une apostumme en une aurelle qui i avoict doleurs intollérables; lequel Roi moreiit,
le sixiesme jom du mois de désambre, 1560."

43. Ibid., p. 304.

44. Agrippa d'Aubigné, Histoire universelle, vol. 1, p. 243.

45. His. Ecc. II, p. 74. Crespin, Histoire de Martyrs, III, 521: "Jugement merveilleux &
providence de Dieu"; p. 522: "c'a esté le doigt & la puissance de Dieu qui a fait ceci."

24 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

46. P. Mack Crew, Calvinist Preaching and Iconodasm in the Netherlands, 1544-1569
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 26-7.

47. Leonard Chester Jones, Simon Goulart, 1543-1628 (Geneva and Paris: Georg/Champion,
1917), p. 248. This is still the only biography of Goulart, but see Robert M. Kingdon, Myths
about the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacres, 1572-1576 (Cambridge, MA, and Lx)ndon:
Harvard University Press, 1988), for a discussion of Goulart's Mémoires de V estât de
France sous Charles IX.

48. A detailed bibliography of Goulart's 75 (!) works appears in Jones, pp. 553-650.

49. The collection has not enjoyed much attention from scholars. There is a short discussion of
it in Rudolf Schenda, "Die franzosische Prodigienliteratur in des Zweiten Halfte des 16.
Jahrhunderts," Miinchner Romanistische Arbeiten XVI (1961), pp. 84-9.

50. Simon Goulart, Histoires admirables et mémorables de notre temps. Recueillies de
plesieurs Autheurs, Mémoires & Avis de divers endroits (Paris, 1707), p. 34.

51. /^iW., pp. 25-6.

52. Ibid, p. 3, "Adertissement au lecteur."

53. H. Platelle, Les Chrétiens face au miracle. Lille au XVI' siècle (Paris: Cerf, 1968), pp. 48-
70; M. Bemos, "Réflexions sur un miracle àrAnnonciaded'Aix-en-Provence,"Awiû/e5 Jm
Midi, 82, (1970), pp. 5-20.

54. Simon Goulart, Thresor d'histoires admirables et mémorables de nostre temps, 2 vols.
(Geneva, 1620), II, pp. 894 and 938. Goulart's source is Francesco Guicciardini's Storia
d'Italia, book I, ch. 3 and book VI, ch. 4 (Turin: Einaudi, 1971), vol. 1, pp. 20-21 & 554-
555.

55. Histoires, p. 3; cf. Thresor, vol. 1, p. 4 (Italics added).

56. Histoires, pp. 8-26; 47-56.

57. Ibid., p. 3.

58. /^iV/., pp. 81-2.

59. Thresor, vol. 2, p. 557.

60. His. Ecc, I, p. 175.

61. Calviniste de Millau, p. 39.

62. Florimond de Raemond, Histoire de la naissance, progrez et décadence de l 'Hérésie de ce
siècle divisée en huit livres (Paris, 1605), book I, ch. 2, fol. 7. For additional examples see
Ottavia Niccoli, Prophesy and People in Renaissance Italy (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1990), pp. 185-188.

63. According to Niccoli, the prodigy was part of the repertory of exempla of late medieval
preaching; Ibid., p. 186, note 49. Barnes, pp. 82-93, discusses its appearance in Lutheran
wonder-books. On articles by Krzysztof Pomian and John D. North in P. Zambelli (éd.),
"Astrology hallucinati" , pp. 29-100.

Moshe Sluhovsky / Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous / 25

64. His. Ecc, III, pp. 163-4.

65. Calviniste de Millau, p. 299.

66. Ibid., pp. 349-50.

67. See n. 4-5 above.

68. D' Aubigné, Histoire universelle, book V, ch. 1 1, p. 35; cf. Goulart, Mémoires de l' estât de
France sous Charles Neufiesme, vol. 2 (Middlebourg, 1578), II, pp. 293v-294r: "II ne faut
passer sous silence la prouision de viures que Dieu leur fournit lors que les munitions
ordinaries commencèrent à défaillir, c'est asauoir numbre infini de menus poissons qui se
venoient comme rendre à la merci de ces assièges."

69. Calviniste de Millau, pp. 265-6.

70. Goulart, Mémoires, p. 783.

The Development of

Hispanitas in Spanish

Sixteenth-Century Versions

of the Fall of Numancia

RACHEL
SCHMIDT

Summary: The story of the Celtiberian town of Numancia and its fall in 133
B.C., as seen in the writings of Livy, Plutarch and others, was a well-
established topos in sixteenth-century Spain. The accounts of the bravery of the
Numantians in defending their besieged city formed the basis for hispanitas, the
gradual construction of a Spanish national identity. This paper examines the
circulation of the tale ofNumancia in four writers of the period: Antonio Guevara,
Ambrosio de Morales, Fernando de Herrera, and Miguel de Cervantes.

After decades of intermittent battle with the Romans and months of a final
siege organized by Scipio Africanus (thereafter Numantinus), the
Celtiberian town ofNumancia, located near what is now Soria, fell in 1 33 B.C.
Although prisoners were taken, ancient and early modem writers alike praised
the once prosperous community of 8,000 inhabitants for choosing to destroy
itself rather than yield its people and riches to its conquerors. The various tales
illustrating the bravery and daring of the few Numantians (3,000-4,000 men)
against the many Romans (as many as 50,000 troops) earned the city fame and
respect already in ancient times, as seen in the writings of Livy, Plutarch and
many others. • In spite of reports of cannibalism and the homicide of some
members of Numancia, in all these accounts the valor and sacrifice of the
Celtiberians stand in contrast to the cowardice and decadence of the Romans.
Only Scipio merits praise among the Romans in this ignominious tale, for he
alone evinces the military strength of will and character necessary to discipline
his lascivious and timid troops and subjugate the fierce barbarians. In an ironic
twist of fate recognized by the Roman historians, the barbarous Numantians,
unlike their unworthy conquerors, achieve fame by representing Roman

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 2 (1995) 111

28 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

imperial values in their willingness to die for ih&ir patria}

By the sixteenth century, the tale of Numancia circulated throughout
Spain in the writings of Antonio Guevara, Ambrosio de Morales, Fernando de
Herrera, and Miguel de Cervantes as an example of the conflict between
individual and conmiunal interests, particularly with respect to the valor and
bravery of the Spanish people conceived of as hispanitas. Antonio Guevara,
the Bishop of Mondonedo and Charles V's official chronicler, recounted the
tale in the first volume of his Epistolasfamiliares (1539) as a moral exemplum
unrelated to any specific characterization of national character. For Guevara,
the city's antagonist, the Roman commander Scipio, stood out as a bad
example of the evil effects of obstinacy in a man of war, which resulted in
barbaric reactions by the Numantians. It was left to Ambrosio de Morales, a
historian in the court of Philip II, to depict the city of Numancia as the
protagonist of the account in his continuation of Florian Ocampo*s Coronica
general de Espana (1574), an officially sanctioned history of Spain. Morales'
narration exemplified the use of the tale to describe a Spanish character, or
"natural" in his own words, in order to promulgate a national identity based
upon the military values of bravery, self-sacrifice, and virile strength, under-
mined only by a propensity to divisiveness. The Sevillian poet Fernando de
Herrera revealed in off-hand allusions to the tale in his commentaries on the
poetry of Garcilaso de la Vega (1580) the extent to which these values
pervaded his concept of literary value. The poet, like the Numantian, served his
patria through the defense of its fama. Yet Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra, a
man of arms and letters, cast light upon the intellectual contradictions and
tensions implicit in the application of the Numantian example to sixteenth-
century Spain in his dramatic representation of the episode. La Numancia.
When placed within the historical narrative of an Iberia perceived as a
continuous community from pre-Roman times to the sixteenth century, the
Numancia tale clearly provided teleological justification for the Hapsburgian
unification of the peninsula and imperial undertakings in Italy. Yet, as the
tensions of Cervantes' play revealed, the Roman values of patriotic service to
the empire never comfortably aligned with the values of a nation that also
proclaimed itself the defender of Catholic orthodoxy.

Guevara's Account: The Moral of the Story

In Letter 5 of his first book of the Epistolas familiares, Antonio de Guevara
relates the siege and fall of Numancia in reply to an argument between Alonso
Manrique, Archbishop of Se villa, and Antonio Manrique, Duke of Najera,

Rachel Schmidt / The Development of Hispanitas 1 29

concerning the site of the Celtiberian town. Although Guevara correcty asserts
it to have been near modem Soria, the settling of the dispute merely provides
him with an excuse to recount the entire story as a moralistic tale. Scolding the
two noblemen for having entered so stubbornly into the dispute, he reprimands
them for having violated the dignity of their own status as hidalgos. For this
sixteenth-century Spaniard, the social caste of the noble is still that of the
warrior. "Al caballero que es animoso, esforçado y valeroso, nunca se le ha de
encender la colera, si no fuere en desenvainando la espada, porque muy
poquitas veces sale esforçado el caballero que es muy parlero."^ The warrior
is a man of action, not words, who, unlike the philosopher, cannot indulge in
anger or dispute because his weapon, the sword, could cause unjust bloodshed.

For Guevara, the tale of Numancia is essentially that of Scipio's uncom-
promising obstinacy and the violent havoc it brings about in the Celtiberian
community. The Numantians remain undifferentiated and unnamed, a collec-
tive that lived in a society unblemished by commerce and greed, which would
have served to introduce distinction among them. The blacksmith was the
city's only official, and even in war the community acted as one. Tradesmen
and skilled craftspeople were not allowed to reside in the city in order that the
inhabitants would remain self-sufficient, each household providing for all its
own needs. The resulting communal ethos discouraged personal gains and
encouraged the defense of the city-state. In his description of the Numantians,
Guevara implies that even honor was a communal rather than personal
concern: "de hazienda eran poco cobdiciosos, y de honra muy ambiciosos.""*
Clearly, Numancia represents a Utopia, in which the interests of the group and
the individual coincide to create a self-sufficient community . As such, Numancia
fulfills the Medieval ideal of the city-state (albeit stripped of its mercantilist
dimension), which, "in a world that was very fragmented and dangerous, these
havens of human intercourse, peaceful activities and relative abundance
seemed models of *good government' [and] inspired the enthusiastic adher-
ence of their citizens and inhabitants."^

In Guevara's account of the fall of the unified city, Scipio stands out
against the backdrop of the Roman imperial army as a lone distinguished
individual. Like the Roman historians, Guevara presents the commander as the
catalyst for the dénouement of the decades-long standoff. He repeats the Latin
reports of Scipio' s cleansing of the Roman encampment and restoration of
military disciplines. But Guevara also emphasizes the military leader's refusal
to engage the Numantians in open battle. Scipio repeatedly responds to pleas
from both his own officers and the besieged inhabitants themselves that "[e]s

30 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

tan fortunada Numancia . . . que se ha de acabar, mas no esperar que se ha de
veneer."^ The Roman general recognizes the city as invincible, and chooses to
fmish them off rather than defeat them, a decision which could appear rational
in the light of the Numantians' success in earlier skirmishes with the Roman
army. In an anecdote found to my knowledge only in Guevara's account,
however, Scipio's stubborn refusal to quit the siege and return to Rome is
explained by the prophesy of a necromancer: ". . . al salir de Roma le habîa
dicho un sacerdote nigromântico que no desmayase ni se retirase de aquella
conquista, dado caso que pasasen inmensos peligros en ella, porque los dioses
tenian determinada que el fm de la fortunada Numancia habîa de ser el
principio de toda su gloria."^ Thus, the community's defeat becomes inti-
mately linked to the individual commander's glory. Numantian communal
honor is to be sacrificed for Scipio's personal gain.

The Roman's stubborn ambition for individual glory sets into motion the
degradation of Numancia into cannibalism and homicide. Guevara does not
flinch from repeating the ancient reports of cannibalism of Roman soldiers by
the Celtiberians, but rather explains this "cosa monstruosa" as a result of the
extreme hunger caused by the siege. Both the Numantians and Romans are
subsequently dehumanized into predator and prey.

Cosa monstruosa fué entonces de ver, como lo es agora de oir, que ansi
andaban los numantinos cada dia a caça de romanos, como los caçadores a
oxeo de conejos, y tan sin asco comian y bebian de la came y sangre de los •
enemigos, como si fueran espaldas y lomos de cameros. Grandisimo era el
dano que cada dia rescebia el consul Scipiôn en aquel cerco, porque los
numantinos, allende de que como fieros animales andaban en los romanos
encamiçados, peleaban ya, no como enemigos, sino como desesperados.*

Scipio's obstinacy, then, causes the dehumanization of the proud Numantians,
converted into desperate animals, and the destruction of his own troops,
transformed into rabbits, the enemies ' fodder. The final plea for Scipio to desist
comes from the Numantians, who beg for an honorable battle. Speaking as a
group, they appeal to the Roman commander's thirst for glory, ". . . tapiamos
como nos tienes tapiados no es mas de un buen ardid de guerra; mas si nos
vencieses en batalla seria parati una inmortal gloria."^ Their collective suicide
follows, a "cosa espantable," depriving Scipio of loot or prisoners. In a final
statement Scipio, overwhelmed by sadness, repeats the fortune of Numancia
— that it would be ended, but never defeated.

Guevara's account of the historical event is, in fact, an exemplary tale of
the destructive impact of greed, obstinacy, and envy, perceived as individual

Rachel Schmidt / The Development of Hispanitas I2>\

faults, on the honor of a community. Whereas the destruction of Numancia
does earn glory for Scipio, it is a glory tainted by dishonor to Rome. According
to Guevara, all the historians claim that Rome never suffered such an affront
or lost so many troops as in the conquest of Numancia. The explanation
provided for this dishonor is that "todas las otras guerras iban fiindadas sobre
alguna injuria, excepto la de Numancia, que fué de pura envidia."^^ The envy
to which Guevara refers, of course, is Scipio' s ambition for the fame and glory
enjoyed by Numancia. As recounted by Guevara, the tale of the fall of
Numancia becomes the story of the moral downfall of Scipio, and serves as a
negative example of the destructive power of stubbornness and ambition for
personal glory in a man of war. The reference to the dispute between the two
nobles concerning the site of Numancia functions, then, as a frame for the
moralizing tale, a technique common to Medieval prose, seen, for example, in
Don Juan Manuel's El Conde Lucanor. Significantly, Guevara does not
attribute the injustice suffered by the Celtiberians to Roman imperial interests,
but personalizes the error in Scipio' s individual character flaws of obstinacy
and envy.^' Nonetheless, he does highlight both the communal honor of
Numancia and its final triumph, expressed ironically through Scipio, who
acknowledges the community's invincibility. It is left to Ambrosio de Mo-
rales, another court historian, to develop Numancia' s resistance into a tale
illustrating Spanish national honor.

Morales' Account: "Our" Numantians

Although the story of Numancia had already appeared in Antonio Guevara's
Epistolas familiares and was known to a more popular audience through
romances, the account that appears to have been definitive for both Herrera and
Cervantes comes from Ambrosio de Morales' continuation of the Coronica
general de Espaha, an officially sanctioned history of Spain started by Florian
Ocampo.'^ As such. Morales' presentation of the clash between the Romans
and the Celtiberians at the end of the second century B.C. reflects many
interests of sixteenth-century Hapsburg Spain, in particular those surrounding
Iberian unification and imperial expansion. The sense of a Spanish pa/r/a that
contributes to and is strengthened by these changes serves as a foundation for
Morales' historiographical undertaking to continue Florian Ocampo's history
of Spain. As José Antonio Maravall has shown, in the thirteenth century both
Castilian and Aragonese historians began to conceive of Spain as "unaentidad
humana asentada en un territorio que la define y caracteriza y a la cual le sucede

32 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

algo en comùn, toda una historia propria."'^ Thus, the concept of Spain as the
collective of Iberian inhabitants had already developed in the late Middle
Ages. As John Elliott has observed, the use of the word patria became ever
more widespread in the sixteenth century, promulgated by the humanistic
study of Greece and Rome as political models, and a new interest in the
historical heritage and legal constitutions of states which combined to foster
a sense of a community broader than one's hometown."* Accordingly, in
sixteenth-century Spain, Ambrosio de Morales could claim the Numantian
episode as a founding moment in the history of his patria replete with the tones
and weight of mythology.

Morales' unquestioned identification of the Numantians as Spaniards is
probably the most significant of his interpretive stances. The opening sentence
of the eighth book of the history announces unequivocally that: "[l]lega ya aquf
la Historia de Espafia a lo mas alto de gloria y fama que en estos tiempos pudo
subir: pues se ha de comenzar a escribir la guerra de los Romanos con nuestros
Numantinos. . ."'^ Temporal distance and cultural difference are obviated as
Morales stakes claim to Numancia for his Spanish history. Nor should we
suspect that Morales was unaware of the historical conflation he was undertak-
ing in his identification of a Celtiberian city-state with the nation Spain, itself
only bom at the end of the fifteenth century when Ferdinand and Isabella united
their reigns and defeated the Moorish kingdom of Granada. The historian uses
the terms "Celtiberia" and "Celtiberos" when he writes of other communities
on the peninsula, but never with reference to Numancia. At times he does apply
the term "Espanol" to these other towns and peoples, but always with his own
concept of a generalized Spanish character in mind. For example, he contrasts
the ingenuousness of Palencians, duped by enemy claims that their city had
been overrun, with the deceitfulness of the Romans. ^^ Thus, Morales begins to
compile a list of attributes of the Spanish character, in this case that of fatefully
innocent sincerity, which are best exemplified by Numancia.

This identification of the Spanish nation with the earlier inhabitants of
Iberia, despite the complete discontinuity of religion, language, and society
between the two cultures, should not be seen as either naive or manipulative.
Rather, Morales bases this historical conflation on the medieval Latin concept
of universitas, "a conjunct or collection in one body of a plurality of persons,"
that confer legislative power, imperium, on their government.'^ Universitas
itself arose from the Roman legal concept of lex regia, which established "the
imprescriptible right of the Roman people to confer the imperium and all power
on the Prince." '^ The community existed legally as an entity which itself

Rachel Schmidt / The Development of Hispanitas 1 33

bestowed legitimacy on a given government, and persisted regardless of
specific political affiliations in given historical epochs. In the Middle Ages
jurists began to acknowledge the rex legia of various peoples since Rome itself
had fallen, and thus the trans latio imperii became a legal reality. In turn, the
community represented by universitas expanded temporally to include all
inhabitants of a given place throughout time, in our case Iberia, and enjoyed
the sempiternal quality of the Church and the Roman empire. According to
Kantorowicz, this attribution of a timeless quality to a community creates a
third, legally recognized being which, immaterial and unchanging, repre-
sented the community through all time as a distinct species which expressed
itself in the individual.*^ Thus, if one, like Morales, recognizes Spain as a
sempiternal universitas, one can speak of hispanitas, or Spanishness, a
character which is at once generic to all Spaniards and present in individuals.

The Numantians, therefore, as members of the Spanish universitas,
represent the Spanish character at its finest. According to Morales' represen-
tation of the Numantians, hispanitas encompasses valor, competitiveness, and
a fierce love of liberty. During a day of festivity before Scipio's siege, a
Numantian father, "con respecto y pensamiento de verdadero Espanol y
Numantino," demanded that two young men competing for his daughter bring
back the right hand of a Roman to win hers.^^ The two young men, "encendidos
con el amor y competencia," rushed out to do so, only to find that the Roman
troops had already fled from fear by cover of night.^' Thus, a small domestic
episode illustrates the essential qualities of "los nuestros" which made possible
resistance against Rome. Nor is this essentially brave and fierce hispanitas
restricted to the males. Writing of the Galician resistance to Junius Brutus,
Morales notes that the women fought alongside the men, "[p] orque siempre el
esfuerzo Espanol, no era solo de los hombres, sino que también se hallaba
muestra notable de él en las mujeres."^^ The overriding character oi hispanitas
erases any differentiation between private and public conduct, or the behavior
of women and men. Morales points out that the "Portugueses de Braga" also
brought their women to battle, who, when they were taken captive, killed
themselves and their children, rather than see them taken captive.^^ A prec-
edent was set for the infanticide practiced in Numancia as an expression of this
love of liberty — and done so by Lusitanians, who are clearly perceived by
Morales as part of the universitas in question.^"* The collective suicide of
Numancia was not, then, an aberration, a transient madness, or a sin, but the
fulfillment of Spanish character when faced by the loss of liberty.

Nonetheless, hispanitas as conceived by Morales has a darker face which

34 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

also contributes to the fall of Numancia — the love of contention and disunity.
Morales asserts that not only did other Iberians fail to come to the aid of
Numancia, but that many sent troops to the Romans, "[p] orque siempre parece
que no podian ser vencidos los Espanoles, sin que Espanoles ayudasen a
vencerlos/'^^ Writing of the betrayal of Malia by its own citizens to Pompey,
the historian exclaims with a tone of exasperation:

^C6mo habiamos de veneer los Espanoles a los Romanos, siendo nosotros
mismos los que procurabamos nuestra destruicion? Nuestras discordias y
particulares enemistades, y aquella inclinacion natural de todos los Espanoles
a ver novedades, cansandose de estar siempre en un ser, aunque sea muy
bueno, nos hacia la guerra, y nos quitaba de las manos la victoria de todos
los Romanos, que sin duda la alcanzaramos con union y concordia.^^

The self-destruction of Numancia, abandoned by its fellow Iberi2ms, repre-
sents in miniature the entire self-destruction of Hispania, fatally weakened by
its own divisiveness. The ser, the timeless identity of the universitas, falls
victim to the other side of its natural, as the individual Spaniards seek novelty
and discord. Thus, Spain lost what would have been its finest prize, victory
over the Romans.

Central to Morales' daring assertion that the Iberians could have defeated
the Roman armies of such superlative generals as Pompey and Scipio Africanus
are accounts related by various ancient historians of the fear inspired by the
Numantians among the Roman troops. Morales generally uses his ancient
sources to reinforce his vision of the Spanish natural, the hispanitas. In this
case, the classical writers attest to the great valor of the Spaniards as warriors,
who instill fear in the Roman troops. He quotes Lucius Horns, who reported
that there was no Roman soldier who dared to hope for victory upon hearing
or seeing a Numantian. Without advising the reader of his ruse. Morales also
elaborates upon the words of Paulus Orosius, who stated that no Roman soldier
could stand firm, considering himself defeated if he saw an "Espanol.'*^^ That
the Roman historians, clearly seen by Morales as involved in a nationalistic
historiographical undertaking akin to his own, would denounce the cowardice
of their own army to praise the bravery of their enemies is irrefutable proof of
Numancia's glory and Spain's capacity for valor.

Y Lucio Floro, historiador natural de Roma, acabando asi de contar el fin que
tuvo esta inclita ciudad, la célébra tanto, que dice estas mismas palabras. Diô
buen testimonio de la gloria y esclarecido valor de Numancia, y de su gran
esfuerzo, y de su dichosisima suerte entre tantos maies y miserias, el haber
mantenido tantos anos la fe con sus aliados, y el haber sufrido tanto tiempo,

Rachel Schmidt / The Development of Hispanitas I 35

y resistido al Pueblo Romano, que guerreaba con las fuerzas de todo el
universo.^*

Morales uses the Roman historian's words to provide a portrait of the most
illustrious virtues of Spain as seen through the lens of Numancia — valor,
strength, loyalty, perserverance despite suffering, and unending resistance to
invasion. As Herrero Garcia has shown, many of these same characteristics,
such as sobriety, valor, excellence, and mutual censure, became commonplaces
of Spanish identity by the seventeenth century .^^

By the same token, an ancient source also verifies Spain's weakness, its
tendency toward disunity. Morales ends his account of Numancia by citing the
words of Strabon, who wrote with respect to the invasion of Iberia by the
Carthaginians and Tyrians that the inhabitants would have been invincible, if
they had been united among themselves in their defense. As Morales adds,
"esto mismo que dice Strabon de estas dos naciones, se puede muy bien
extender a la entrada de los Romanos en Espana."^^ Morales also quotes an
anecdote reported by Paulus Orosius, which sums up best the moral of the story
of Numancia within a sixteenth-century nationalistic history. An old man,
when asked by Scipio about the Numantian's invincibility, responded: "Con
la Concordia se mantuvo, y con la discordia perecio. Que tanto como esto puede
destruiry asolarunadesconformidad."^' Morales has, however, put words into
the fourth-century historian's mouth, who stated simply: "Concordia invicta,
discordia exitio fuit." Paulus Orosius then proceeded to note that the Romans
took this as an example of what was taking place in their own city at the time
due to the Gracchian insurrection.^^ Morales uses a similar tactic, of course, as
one can easily infer that the dictum applies equally well to sixteenth-century
Spain, but he voices his elaboration on the destructive power of disunity
through the more authoritative mouth of an ancient source. Morales' two acts
of "extending" the didactic message concerning Spain's vulnerability due to
divisiveness, the one stated as he applies Strabon' s words to the Roman
invasion, the other fudged as he speaks through Paulus Orosius, surely invite
the sixteenth-century reader to appreciate the unification of Spain achieved by
Ferdinand and Isabella.^^

Herrera's Numancia: The Defense of Spanish Culture

The concept of a Spanish universitas and a subsequent hispanitas revealed in
Morales' account of the fall of Numancia enters into the defense of sixteenth-
century Spanish poetry and culture contained within the poet Herrera's

36 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

commentaries on the works of Garcilaso de la Vega. In a gloss to a description
of an "osado espafiol y sobrado," who demands battle against the Turks
(Eglogue II, V. 1539-1540), Herrera states that he wishes to digress here upon
the ancient custom of the Italians, "inherited from the Romans," of vituperat-
ing against Spaniards.^'* The poet's rage springs from the disparaging com-
ments on Spanish culture made by Italians such as Bembo, Sabélico and the
Marquis of Pescara. For Herrera, the dispute reeks of a family feud. ''iQué
razon permite que llamen Bembo y Sabélico bârbaros a los espanoles, siendo
de una religion, de unas letras y casi de una lengua?"^^ Herrera, of course, puts
forth the proposition that "nunca faltan ni faltaron en Espana hombres doctos
y de singular erudicion y elocuencia por todas las edades."^^ Nonetheless, in
the very next sentence he begins to proclaim his nation's military glory. Thus,
the poet enters into a very long digression composed of rhetorical questions
championing the cause of Spain by highlighting the nation's heroes and
valorous achievements.

Implicit in Herrera' s harangue is the identification of Italy with Rome as
one universitas and Spain with Roman Iberia as another. His complaint against
Italy rests largely on the occupation of Iberia by Rome, which he perceives to
have been of particular disadvantage to the peninsula since no other province
gave so many riches and great men to the empire and received so little
recognition.^^ Of course, Numancia serves as the example par excellence of the
mistreatment of these early Spaniards, an example which was recorded by the
historians. Herrera describes the inferiority of the city, unprotected by walls
and towers, small in size and numbers, and thus emphasizes the glory of their
resistance. He echoes the words of Scipio in Guevara's account as he proclaims
that the city succeeded: "[n]o fue vencida Numancia, sino muerta; no rota, sino
acabada."^^ Whereas Scipio, the victor over Carthage, cannot overcome
Numancia, hunger, steel, poison, fire, and their own hands do, "sin que bastase
fuerza contraria para presumir esta honra."^^ Significantly, Herrera perceives
the collective suicide of Numancia as an act which protects the city's honor,
for he himself uses the case to defend the honor of Spanish culture.

Thus, the valor of the Celtiberians, lauded at the beginning of the outburst,
is proof of Spanish bravery equal to that of Cortes, el Duque de Alba, and the
other military leaders of the sixteenth century with whose examples Herrera
concludes his argument. In his descriptions of the various heroes of Christian
times, Herrera couples valor with faith and piety, as he praises the "valor. . .,
fe y piedad" of Teodosius, the "fortaleza y piedad" of Conde Femân Gonzalez,
and the "ânimo y fe" of Don Diego Ordonez."^ The Spanish hispanitas expands

Rachel Schmidt / The Development of Hispanitas 1 37

to combine valor with religious fervor and constancy. In this manner, Herrera' s
defense of his nation, which he concludes with the rather grudging admission
that Spain has not lacked heroes, but writers to memorialize them, demon-
strates how the Numancia account operates within the sixteenth-century
conception of Spain as the defender of Catholic orthodoxy and an imperial
power. The city that chose suicide rather than enslavement represents the
fierce, uncompromising strength of warriors, defeated ultimately not by the
enemy but by their fellow Iberians' s inability to join forces with them.
"^Pudiera Roma domar las rebeldes cervices de aquellos antiguos espanoles,
horridos y féroces en la guerra, si quisieran conservar su libertad juntamente?'"*^
Now that the same ferocity is wed to piety and the peninsula is reunited, great
things await the empire, already signalled for Herrera by the conquest of the
Americas and the war with France. The poet Herrera joins in the imperial
enterprise through his participation in the belated passing of letters, translatio
studii, to the peninsula. As he concludes his revindication of his nation, in itself
a miniature history of Spain, he writes: "[p]ues sabemos que no faltaron a
Espana en algun tiempo varones heroicos; faltaron escritores cuerdos y sabios
que los dedicasen con inmortal estilo a la etemidad de la memoria.'"*^

Cervantes' Numancia: The interplay of Justice and Honor

Cervantes' early play La Numancia (ca. 1581-1585) commemorates in litera-
ture such national heroes, yet by so doing also demonstrates the difficult
compromises with the actual material of the incident made by those who use
the episode as an example of hispanitas. Critics have struggled with the
obvious praise of the Spanish Hapsburg empire. J. B. Avalle-Arce argues that
the play represents renovatio imperii, the renewal of the Roman empire, in
sixteenth-century Spain through the subjugation of Rome.'*^ On the other hand,
Stanislav Zimic contends that the play rejects the Roman model as evil in favor
of a new concept of empire based on concord and peace ."^ Marie Laffranque,
in contrast, has argued that the sixteenth-century public, as well as Cervantes
himself, would have identified with both the Romans and the Numantians.^^
Turning now to Cervantes' La Numancia, I seek to show that the play reveals
the contradictions inherent within the conceptual relationship between Rome
and Numancia from the perspective of sixteenth-century Spain that complicate
such issues as the transferral and imitation of the Roman empire.

As Ramon Menéndez Pidal observes, the Roman empire did serve as the
model for the ideal society in early modern Europe. "Hacer de todos los

38 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

hombres una familia, unidos por los dios, por la cultura, por el comercio, por
los matrimonios y la sangre, fué la gran mision del imperio romano, ensalzada
por los paganos desde Plinio hasta Galo Namaciano y por los cristianos a partir
de los espanoles Prudencio y Orosio y del africano San Agustin.""*^ Thus, the
leaders of Hapsburg Spain, including both Charles V and Philip II, saw
themselves as the new emperors. As Laffranque has noted, the Hapsburgs
themselves encouraged their subjects to draw the parallel between their house
and the emperors of Rome, as seen in the iconography of their residence in
Innsbruck/^ Nevertheless, their concept of empire, as expressed by such
advisors as Mota, was transformed by the Medieval understanding of universitas
cristiana, a transcendent community which encompasses all of Christianity
and forms the basis for the Holy Roman Empire/^ Spain's relationship to
Rome became essentially ambivalent — on the one hand, Roman political
values were to be imitated, but, on the other hand, transformed by Christian
values and used to further the divine empire on earth.

Cervantes captures this ambivalence in his Numancia in an unwillingness
to depict either the Romans or the Iberians as morally good or evil."*^ Scipio is
an ambivalent character, as seen from Orosius on, for he embodies the values
of the good soldier and leader in spite of his hard indifference to the pleas of
the trapped Numantians.^" Cervantes' characterization of the Roman as a
fierce, unyielding warrior parallels the image of hispanitas epitomized by the
Numantians, in which the honor of the patria is proved by valorous action
(1.65-80).^^ At the beginning of the play, Scipio' s ire against the Numantians
is fueled not by personal ambition, as in the case of Guevara's Scipio, but rather
by the same ambition motivating the Celtiberians, the desire to protect the
name and fame of the patria. As he harangues his troops, "^Paréceos, hijos, que
es gentil hazana/que tiemble del romano nombre el mundo/y que vosotros
solos en Espaiia/le aniquiléis y echéis en el profundo?" (1.81-84). Scipio
repeatedly links Roman national honor to deeds of war and the respected name
of the empire, thus setting a standard for the good soldier, disinterested in
personal gain, that he himself represents in Cervantes' play as a model leader.
The Numantians demonstrate a parallel sense of communal honor in their own
dedication to the invincible name of their community, and are praised reluc-
tantly at the end by the Roman for their exemplification of the classical dictum,
pro patria mori. The Roman invader cannot be simply viewed as evil, for his
values have passed on, slightly transformed, to become the foundation for the
emergent European nationalisms. Indeed, his empire has passed to the con-
quered land now turned conqueror.

Rachel Schmidt / The Development of Hispanitas 1 39

By the same token, the Numantians, although epitomizing the values of
love of nation and bravery, are not exemplars of Christian virtues, but rather
Roman Stoic virtues." To commit suicide in order to escape from slavery as
a prisoner of war, viewed positively by the Romans, was roundly condemned
by saint Augustine, who proposes as a classical example of virtue the defeated
military hero Regulus, who allowed himself to be humbled as a captive.^^
Christian narrators of the tale were thus forced to recast Numancia's self-
destruction within a religious paradigm in order to "purify" the act. Augus-
tine's disciple, Paulus Orosius, attempted to purify his praise of the Numantians
by endowing them with the Christian virtues of faith and justice perceived as
mercy, as well as strength, from whom the Romans could have learned a
lesson.^"^ The key episode for this interpretation of the encounter between the
Romans and the Numantians concerns Mancinus, a Roman captain who had
agreed to a secret peace pact with the Numantians, only to be left naked outside
the gates of the enemy city as punishment decreed by the Roman Senate for
having agreed to a dishonorable treaty. Morales quotes the ancient account:
"Habiase de hacer prueba de misericordia: harto buen testimonio dieron los
Numantinos de ella, dando primero la vida a todo el ejército de sus enemigos,
y después no executando en Mancino la pena, a que aun los suyos le
condenaban."^^ Cervantes omits the incident, perhaps in favor of a more
unified temporal structure for his play, but in so doing sacrifices proof of the
Numantian misericordia.

Cervantes, on the other hand, focuses on the dismemberment of the
corporate body of Spain instead of the preservation of the individual body of
Mancinus in an effort to present the episode within the conceptual framework
of justice rather than mercy. Elements of Guevara's and Morales' representa-
tions of the fall of the Celtiberian city enter into Cervantes' drama to indict
Scipio for his stubborn refusal to respond to the Numantian pleas for honorable
battle and the Iberians for their disunity. Despite his positive portrayal of
Scipio as the valorous and disciplined warrior defending his patria, Cervantes
does share with Guevara his vision of the military commander's unseemly
obstinacy. In the first act Scipio rejects the Numantian' s offer of peace to him
in recognition of his warrior virtues as an act of arrogance. In the second act
he rejects their offer for open battle in an exchange that echoes Guevara's
characterization of the Celtiberians as desperate animals and the Roman troops
as their prey. After his troops continue to suffer losses, Scipio turns his rage
against the enemy, dehumanizing the Numantians into wild beasts: "Bestias
sois, y por tales encerradas/os tengo donde habéis de ser domadas" (11. 1191-

40 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

2). In response, the Numantian spokesman denounces the Romans as "cobardes"
(n.l206) and "liebres en pieles fieras disfrazados" (11.1229).

The dehumanization of Numancia parallels the dismemberment of Spain
personified as the matria. Appearing at the end of the first act crowned with
towers and carrying a castle in her hand, she is the figure of Spain conflated
with Castilla, reciting her sad history of disembowelment by the Phoenicians
and Greeks in search of her riches (1.361-368).^^ Her occupation by the
Romans is itself the result of the disunity of her own people: "Y ansi con sus
discordias convidaron/los barbaros de pechos codiciosos/a venir a entregarse
en mis riquezas,/usando en mi y en ellos mil cruezas" (1.381-384). Thus,
Cervantes incorporates the universitas linking Numantia to Hapsburgian
Spain already seen in Morales' account, and inflicts upon her maternal body
the wounds of division. As in Morales' tale, the ultimate cause of the self-
destruction of Numancia lies with Spain itself, having laid the motherland open
to invasion because of the discord between its own members. The individual
culpability of the warrior Scipio cedes before the communal fault of Iberia
understood as the Spanish universitas.

With a twist of dramatic justice, the case for the rectification of the
Numantian' s self-destruction and the restoration of the matria' s honor rests
with the sixteenth-century Spaniards. The river Duero, a male personification,
responds to her cries, addressing her as "Madre querida, Espana" (1.441), and
prophesying the triumphs to come. Embodying Christian misericordia,. six-
teenth-century Spaniards will exercise mercy toward Rome, as Charles V's
imperial troop spare the ancient city ' s inhabitants in the sack of Rome of 1 527:
"y también vendra tiempo en que se mire/estar blandiendo el espanol cuchillo/
sobre el cuello romano, y que respire/solo por la bondad de su caudillo" (1.489-
492). Accordingly, the Hapsburg empire does not only enjoy the turn of fortune
foreseen by the Duero, in which the vanquished will be victors, but also earns
the translatio imperii through its Christian conduct of empire. Thus, virtue
counterbadances destiny, and casts a Christian teleology onto the transfer of
imperial power to Spain. By the same token, she herself will be made whole
again. The Duero prophesies both the christianization of Sp2dn through the
forced conversion of Moors and Jews and expulsion of resisters by Ferdinand
and Isabella (1.503), and the unification of Portugal with Spain in 1580 by
Philip II (1.517-520). Spain, significantly conceived of here as matria, will
once again enjoy honor as a whole and united Christian universitas.

The conflation of national honor with personal honor manifested in the
figure of Spain as a violated woman represents the merging of individual with

Rachel Schmidt / The Development of Hispanitas / 41

communal interests, the conflict at the base of sixteenth-century Spanish
accounts of Scipio' s siege of Numancia. The only moral code that would allow
the suicide and fratricide of the city other than the concept oïpro patria mori
is the honor code, so predominant in the comedia. Unlike the historians, who
view the willingness of the women to die as either evidence of their love of
country or their love for their husbands, Cervantes presents their pleas for
death as attempts to avoid dishonor through being raped upon capture (11. 1 293-
1302). Teogenes consecrates his act of infanticide by calling on the spilled
blood of honor (III.2 140-2 143). And so the blood of families spilt by fathers
and husbands to protect personal honor replaces the blood of soldiers to be
spared by Scipio on the battlefield in defense of the national honor. By the same
token, Cervantes figures the universitas Spain as the raped woman, invaded
and dishonored by the many barbarians, taking advantage of the disunity
between her children. Thus, private and public honor intersect in Cervantes'
version of the fall of Numancia. Like Guevara's account, Cervantes' play
highlights the destructive power of individual interest in contrast to the
strength of the community. Like Morales, he reinforces the sixteenth-century
conception of unyielding hispanitas weakened only by internal division. Just
as Herrera ends his discussion of the Numancia episode with a cry for writers
and artists to defend the national honor, Cervantes ends his play with the heroic
cry of the small boy Bariato, dying for the patria. Yet, in the figure of the
dishonored matria, the play also renders ambiguous the relationship of Spain
to Rome as the inheritor of its oppressor's imperial ambitions and ideology.

University of Calgary

Notes

1. J. M. Blazquez and A. Tovar, Historia de la Espana romana (Madrid: Alianza, 1982) pp.
72-77.

2. For a discussion of the Catholic appropriation of the classical dictum pro patria mori to the
work of Christian martyrdom, which kept the value alive in the Middle Ages to be reasserted
in terms of the state by Renaissance humanists, see Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King 's Two
Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1957), pp. 232-249.

3. Antonio de Guevara, Libro primero de las epistolas familiares, ed. José Maria de Cossfo
(Madrid: Biblioteca Selecta de Clâsicos Espanoles, 1952) p. 38.

4. Ibid., p. 41.

5. Yves-Marie Bercé, Revolt and Revolution in Early Modem Europe: An Essay on the History
of Political Violence, trans. Joseph Bergin (New York: St. Martin's E^ess, 1987), p. 39.

42 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

6. Guevara, p. 43.

7. Ibid., pp. 44-45.

8. Ibid., p. U.

9. Ibid., p. 45.

10. Ibid., p. 47.

11. In a well-known excerpt from his work Libro dureo de Marco Aurelio (published in pirate
editions in 1528), "El villano del Danubio," Guevara does criticize the Roman empire
through the mouthpiece of a German peasant for having greedily stolen the goods of others,
and hypocritically asserting that these conquered peoples needed the Roman rule of
civilization (Biblioteca de autores espanoles. Vol. 65. Madrid: Atlas, 1953) pp. 160-166.
This same sage predicts that the gods will eventually turn the tables on the Romans, who will
then suffer for their unjust deeds (162). Nonetheless, Guevara does not articulate the just
reversal of Rome's fortune in the sixteenth century when faced by Spanish troops in his
account of the Numancia episode.

1 2. Helmut Koenigsberger has described Ocampo' s narration of the history of Celtiberian Spain
as "a nationalistic historical fantasy" in his article "Spain," in National Consciousness,
History, and Political Culture in Early-Modem Europe, ed. Orest Ranum (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1975), pp. 144-172).

13. José Antonio Maravall, El concepto de Espaha en la Edad Media, 2d. ed. (Madrid: Instituto
de Estudios Politicos, 1964), p. 48.

14. J. H. Elliott, Spain and Its World 1500- 1 700. Selected Essays, (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1989), pp. 103-106. As he describes the community understood as the patria, it "was
founded on history, law and achievement, on the sharing of certain common experiences and
certain common patterns of life and behaviour. As such, it was an ideal — indeed an
idealized — entity, already perfect in itself . . . The highest obligation incumbent upon its
members was ... to ensure that in due course it should be transmitted intact to their
successors" (p. 106).

15. Ambrosio de Morales, Coronica general de Espana, vol. 4, (Madrid: 1791), p. 1.
\6.Ibid.,p.\^.

17. Kantorowicz, p. 304.

\S. Ibid, p. 294.

19. "For between the generic communitas or universitas on the one hand, and the individual and
material community of Bologna composed of mutable citizens and perishable buildings on
the other hand, an entity which was immaterial and invariable, though not devoid of
individuation, which existed (as it were) in some perpetual aevum, and which appropriately
might have been called Bononitas or 'Bolognity ,' had the lawyers not preferred to talk about
the corporate universitas — that is, the juristic person or personified community — of
Bologna. Nevertheless, that corporate, if incorporeal, Bononitas represented, like the
angels, species and individuation at the same time" {Ibid., p. 303).

Rachel Schmidt / The Development of Hispanitas 1 43

20. Morales, p. 13.

21. Ibid.,^. 14.

22. Ibid., p. 20.
23. /^fW.,p21.

24. The unification of Portugal with Spain had been a continuous goal of the Hapsburgs
throughout the century (see Manuel Fernandez Alvarez, Politica mundial de Carlos V y
Felipe II (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificos, 1966), pp. 252-253.
Precedence for the self-destruction of an entire city is also set by the Vaceos, as mentioned
briefly by Livy, which Morales describes as yet another "brava hazana, de las que (como
muchas veces en esta historia hemos visto) usaban los Espanoles en sus desesperaciones"
(35).

25. Morales, p. 39.

26. Ibid, p. 7.

27. "Lucio Floro dice que no habia soldado Romano que osase esperar, en oyendo una voz de
un Numantino, o en viéndole venir. Paulo Orosio cuenta, que estaba la fuerza Romana tan
embotada, que no sabia soldado ninguno, afirmar los pies para no huir, ni asegurar el ânimo
para esperar. Luego que vefa el Romano al Espanol, se tenia por vencido, y en solo huir le
parecia que estaba su remedio: que estas son las palabras de aquel autor" (Morales, p. 27).
It is important to note that Morales has elaborated upon Paulus Orosius' quote, which itself
reads simply: "namque ubi copia pugnandi facta est, exercitus Romanus oppressus impetu
Numantinorum terga conuertit" {Historiarum adversum paganos libri septem. In Paulo
Orosio: su vida y sus obras, éd. Casimiro Torres Rodriguez (Santiago de Compostela:
Fundaciôn Pedro Barrie de la Maza Conde de Fenosa, 1985), p. 412.

28. Morales, p. 45.

29. Miguel Herrero Garcia, Ideas de los espanoles delsiglo XVII, (Madrid: Gredos, 1966), pp.
59-66, 95-96.

30. Morales, p. 49.

31. Ibid, p. 4S.

32. Torres Rodriguez, p. 416.

33. The unification of the kingdoms of Castille and Aragon and the forced conversion of Jews
and Moslems that formed the basis of the creation of a Spanish nation by Ferdinand and
Isabella did not meet with universal approval or take place peacefully. Most salient are the
Comunero uprisings in Castille in the 1 520s and the various Morisco revolts. For an analysis
that sees as a subtext for Cervantes' Numancia the siege of the Moriscos in Alpujarras by
Don Juan de Austria (1570), see Alfredo Hermenegildo, La Numancia de Cervantes
(Madrid: Biblioteca de Critica Literaria, 1976), pp. 46-74.

34. Herrera himself admits that his tirade against the Italians is a digression. "Quiero discurrir
aqui un poco, apârtandome del intento, pues se haofrecido ocasiôn. Porque no se que ànimos
se puedan hallar tan pacientes que toleren los oprobios y denuestos con que vituperan a los

44 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

espanoles los escritores de Italia. Antigua costumbre es suya, y heredada de los romanos,
alabarcon grandes exceso las haza±as de su gente . . ." (Fernando de Herrera, "Comentarios
de Fernando de Herrera" in Garcilaso y sus comentaristas, ed. Antonio Gallego Morell
(Madrid: Credos, 1972, p. 552).

35. Herrera, p. 552.

36. Ibid., pp. 552-553.

37. "Y asi volveré de principio a la antigua queja que tiene Espana, no comun a la queja de las
otras provincias sujetas al imperio de Roma, porque ninguna fue mas tratada y conocida,
ninguna mas ocupada en la milica romana, ninguna mas provechosa, o en riquezas, o en
hombres belicosos y ejercitados en la guerra, y ninguna (si conviene decirse asQ mas
ignorada de los historiadores romanos, que pasan sus hechos en tanto silencio que parece
que nunca tuvieron noticia de ella, o que nunca cri6 ânimos valerosos y merecedores de
gloria" (Herrera, p. 553).

38. Herrera, p. 553.
39. /^it/., pp. 553-554.

40. Ibid., p. 554.

41. Ibid., p. 553.

42. Ibid, p. 555.

43. J. B. Avalle-Arce, Nuevos deslindes cervantinos (Barcelona: Ariel, 1975), pp. 249-256.
Quotes from the play come from Miguel de Saavedra Cervantes, "La Numancia." Diez
Comedias del Sigh de Oro, eds. José Martel and Hymen Alpem, 2d. ed. (Prospect Heights,
IL: Waveland Press, 1968).

44. Stanislav Zimic, "Vision politica y moral de Cervantes en 'Numancia,' "Amzfe5 cervantinos, 1 8
(1979-80), 107-150.

45. Marie Laffranque, "De l'histoire au mythe: à propos du 'siège de Numance' de Cervantes,"
Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Étranger, 92 (1967), p. 284.

46. Ramôn Menéndez Pidal, Idea imperial de Carlos V, 5th ed. (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1963),
p. 12.

47. Laffranque, p. 278.

48. Menéndez Pidal, pp. 18, 28-29.

49. As Joaquin Casalduero {Sentido y forma del teatro de Cervantes, Madrid: Credos, 1967,
p. 281) and Edward H. Friedman {The Unifying Concept: Approaches to the Structures of
Cervantes' Comedias (York, SC: Spanish Literature Publications, 1981, p. 58) have
observed, the tale centers around pagan values such as fame and resolves the issue of the
pagan practices by neutralizing their representation with the thematic presentation of the
Christian concept of life in death. I do not believe that the pre-Christian setting or the
possible thematic content frees the playwright or the public from wrestling with such loaded
moral issues as suicide and lack of mercy, not to mention the more lurid depictions of
communication with the dead, invocation of spirits, and references to cannibalism.

Rachel Schmidt / The Development of Hispanitas 1 45

50. As Angelo J. DiSalvo points out, Don Quijote in his instructions to Sancho Panza concerning
just government warns against corruption and self-interest (p. 55), and asserts that the role
of the soldier is more important than that of the man of the letters in preserving the peace
(p. 56), yet also recommends "the tempering of justice with compassion" ("Spanish Guide
to Princes and the Political Theories in Don Quijote," Cervantes, 9: 1 (Spring 1989), pp. 54-
56). Although it is always dangerous to consider Don Quijote' s words an expression of
Cervantes' thought, this description of the good and bad behavior in the man of war does
ahgn with the ambivalent character of Scipio, who is uncorrupted and selfless in his service
to Rome, but also fails to act compassionately. According to Laffranque, the traditionally
positive view of Scipio as a disinterested commander originates in particular with Polybius
(pp. 276-7), whose work on military strategy served as textbooks for Renaissance officers
(p. 283).

5 1 . Jean Canavaggio has argued successfully that Cervantes has drawn most of his material for
the play from Morales' s account due to the coincidence of episodes (p. 40) and the
inaccessibility of these episodes from the ancient sources in the vernacular in the sixteenth-
century. Cf Cervantes dramaturge: un théâtre à naître, (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1977), pp. 40, 77). As Hermenegildo points out (p. 29), I also believe that Cervantes
had read Guevara's account.

52. Avalle-Arce, p. 104.

53. Augustine, The City of God, Trans. Marcus Dods (New York: Hafner, 1948), p. 35.

54. Paulus Orosius, pp. 406-407.

55. "Y pregunto yo a los Romanos: ^por que entregaron asi a Mancino: pues que estando el
exército todo a punto de ser muerto sin remedio, el le diô la vida con los conciertos de buena
confederaciôn, y sacô a salvo tantos millares de Romanos: y estando todas las fuerzas de su
tierra en pehgro de ser destruidas, las conservé enteras para tiempo de mejor oportunidad?"
(Paulus Orosius, p. 25) Thus, Paulus Orosius continues his rhetorical interrogation of the
Romans. As a follower of Augustine, Paulus Orosius' s entire Historiarum adversum
paganos libri septem represents a defense of Christianity from the detractors who blamed
it for weakening the Roman empire, leading to the barbarian invasions. His rhetorical stance,
then, is to show how the Roman empire was weakened by its own pagan values (p. 63). Thus,
the virtue of the Numantians stands in contrast to the hard-hearted cruelty of the Romans.

56. Although it would be impossible to sustain that Cervantes himself was aware of the irony,
the identity of Spain as Castille in the allegorical figure highlights the fictive character of
the universitas as an entity immaterial and sempiternal but legally real based on the notion
of the "perpetual 'identity despite change' of a community" (Kantorowicz, p. 302). Since
the Iberia this figure purports to depict was and is varied and discontinuous, the creator of
the figure is forced to choose one image, in this case that of the currently dominant Castille.
Perhaps discord and division within an universitas are inevitable because that entity
purports to stand for varied communities.

Silvestro da Prierio and the
Pomponazzi Affair

MICHAEL
TAVUZZI

Summary: The Italian Dominican friar Silvestro Mazzolini da Prierio (1456-
1527), known as Prierias, served as Master of the Sacred Palace during the
pontificates of Leo X, Adrian Viand Clement VIL He is chiefly rememberedfor
his involvement in the cases of Luther and Reuchlin and an epistolary
exchange with Erasmus. In this paper it is argued that he also played an
important role in the Pomponazzi affair. Furthermore, Prierias ' intervention
largely explains Bartolomeo Spina's own polemics against both Pomponazzi
and Cajetan.

The sequence of events which constituted the famous "Pomponazzi Affair"
is well known. ^ On the 19th of December 1513, the fifth Lateran Council
issued a decree condemning the Averroistic interpretation of Aristotle's De
anima which had affirmed the unicity of the human intellect (both passive and
active) and the mortality of the individual human soul. The decree also
prescribed that thereafter even teachers of philosophy who dealt with the
matter were bound to present and defend the traditional Christian doctrine. It
was because of the latter proviso that Thomas de Vio Cajetan, at the time not
yet a cardinal but attending the Council as Dominican Master General, voted
against the decree. Cajetan believed that this ordination blurred the distinction
between philosophy and theology and threatened the autonomy proper to the
natural philosopher.

In 1516 Pietro Pomponazzi, a professor of philosophy in the Faculty of
Arts of the University of Bologna, published a treatise entitled De immortalitate
animae. Pomponazzi claimed that the composition of this work was provoked

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48 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

by the question of whether the position of saint Thomas on the immortality of
the soul corresponded to that of Aristotle. This question seems to have been
posed to him by one of his students, the Dominican friar Girolamo Natali da
Ragusa. In his treatise Pomponazzi followed the position of Alexander of
Aphrodisias and argued that the authentic teaching of Aristotle was that the
individual human soul is of its essential nature mortal. Pomponazzi was
immediately attacked for holding this position by several philosophers and
theologians including Ambrogio Fiandino and Gaspare Contarini. He was
attacked as well by Vincenzo Colzado da Vicenza, to mention just one of the
several Dominicans who entered the fray in its early stages. Pomponazzi
responded to these attacks by composing in 1 5 17 and publishing early in 1 5 1 8
a further tract entitled Apologia. At this point and possibly at the request of Leo
X, the famous Agostino Nifo intervened and composed the de immortalitate
animae lihellus. Pomponazzi sought to reply to Nifo' s attack by writing a third
treatise, the Defensorium.

On the 1 3th of June 1518 Leo X demanded a retraction from Pomponazzi,
but nothing came of this because of a swift intervention in Pomponazzi' s
favour by Cardinal Pietro Bembo. Nonetheless, when a little later Pomponazzi
tried to publish the Defensorium the Inquisitor in Bologna refused permission
since the work was not accompanied by the refutation of mortality required by
the ordinations of the Fifth Lateran Council. But it seems that Pomponazzi was
either unwilling or simply felt unable, if he were to remain coherent, to write
such a refutation himself. Instead Pomponazzi chose to write a highly compli-
mentary letter to Crisostomo lavelli da Casale, the regent master of the
Dominican studium générale in Bologna, asking him to write an appropriate
theological refutation of his position which could complement the text of the
Defensorium and thereby render possible its publication. lavelli replied to
Pomponazzi with a letter accepting the task, and in his Solutiones he published
a concise, point by point refutation of Pomponazzi' s position. This arrange-
ment seems to have satisfied Church authorities. Vovcv^on^zTÏ s Defensorium
was published together with the Solutiones in 1519 and again in 1525.

lavelli later published two further works in which he dealt with the matter
of the immortality of the soul. In 1534, he published the Quaestiones in III De
anima and in 1536 the Indeficientia animae humanae. In the second of these
works lavelli gave an account of the entire affair, reproducing Pomponazzi' s
letter to him and indeed recapitulating the entire Renaissance debate on the
complex question of the immortality of the soul. He also examined the
controversial interpretations of the Aristotelian text which had been proposed.

Michael Tavuzzi / Silvestro da Prierio and the Pomponazzi Affair / 49

In both works lavelli did not hesitate to criticize Cajetan and to identify him
as the ultimate source of the errors of Pomponazzi. lavelli pointed out that
Cajetan had himself argued, in his commentary on Aristotle's De anima
completed in 1509 and published in 1510, that Aristotle had not taught the
doctrine of the immortality of the soul.

***

lavelli was not the first to link Pomponazzi and Cajetan and to impute to
Cajetan the responsibility for the supposed errors of Pomponazzi. This had
already been done openly by another Dominican, Bartolomeo Spina da Pisa.
His attack on both Cajetan and Pomponazzi took the form of three tracts written
during the second half of 1 5 1 8 : the PropugnaculumAristotelis de immortalitate
animae contra Thomam Caietanum, a critique of Cajetan' s conmientary on
Aristotle's De anima; the Tutela veritatis de immortalitatis animae contra
Petrum Pomponatium mantuanus, directed against Pomponazzi' s De
immortalitate animae; and the Flagellum in Apologiam Paretti, a response to
Pomponazzi' s Apo/og/a.^

What motivated Spina' s attack against both Cajetan and Pomponazzi?
Scholars who have dealt with this question have hitherto answered it in terms
of vague references to either Spina's conservative and reactionary tempera-
ment or his aggressive and mischievous personality. Gilson, while not propos-
ing an alternative explanation, has added a word of caution: "Nous sommes
trop loin des événements pour juger en connaissance de cause."^

Spina himself justified his attack by vaunting his love for truth and
expressing a concern for those who were likely to be harmed by the pernicious
theses advocated by his two antagonists. He also protested his extreme
reluctance at attacking Cajetan whom he had praised less than a year earlier in
the preface to his 1517 edition of Cajetan' s commentary on Aquinas' Summa
Theologiae, Ila-IIae.

Spina's attack against Cajetan provoked an immediate reaction from his
religious superiors. Though written in 1518, Spina's three tracts were only
finally printed on the 10th of September 1519. A little less than two months
later, on the 24th of October 1519, Francesco Silvestri da Ferrara, who was then
Vicar General of the Observant Congregation of Lombardy of which Spina
was a member, sharply reprimanded him for having written against Cajetan
and for having published his tracts without first obtaining his permission. The
copies of Spina's publication were confiscated."*

50 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

But it was not Spina's argument against Cajetan that Spina's superior
found objectionable. After all, Francesco Silvestri himself had criticized the
position of Cajetan in his Commentaria on aquinas' Summa contra Gentiles
published only In 1524, but already completed by 1517. But he had done so
in a courteous manner, never naming Cajetan and employing the conventional
formula "nonnulli Thomistae."^ It was the personal and bellicose nature of
Spina's attack on cajetan that Francesco Silvestri seems to have deemed
offensive.

Nonetheless, even in the short run, the incident did no harm whatsoever
to Spina's further career. He continued as conventual lector in the convent of
San Domenico in Modena and as vicar of the Inquisitor in Modena and Ferrara,
Antonio Beccari da Ferrara. Not long afterwards he was appointed bachelor of
the Sentences for the academic years 1524-1525 and 1525-1526 in the
Dominican studium générale in Bologna. In the academic years 1530-1531
and 1532=1533, he served as regent master while spending the intervening
year as assistant to the Dominican Master General Paolo Butigella. Later he
held the titular office of Provincial of the Holy Land, and from 1536 he filled
the chair of theology in via Thomae in the University of Padua. In 1545 he was
appointed Master of the Sacred Palace by Paul IE. At the time of his death in
1546 Spina enjoyed a considerable reputation as a theologian and was one of
the major personages of the opening session of the Council of Trent.

But Spina's spectacular later career must not make us lose sight of his
modest status when he first launched his polemics against Cajetan and
Pomponazzi in 1 5 1 8 . At the time Spina held only the minor post of conventual
lector in the convent of San Domenico di Castello in Venice and did not even
have a university degree in theology. He was not a particularly significant
person nor could he have possibly believed that he could directly attack
Cajetan with impunity on the basis of his own standing. In addition, despite
Francesco Silvestri' s immediate intervention Spina's further advancement
was in no way impeded. With these circumstances in mind, one can only be
perplexed. Can the audacity of Spina's attack against Cajetan be explained
solely by vague references to his "conservatism," or to his aggressive person-
ality, or even to the noble reasons which he himself explicitly adduces? Could
it be that when Spina attacked Cajetan in 1518 he did so without hesitation
because he was in fact acting on behalf of a more powerful person who, at least
for the sake of decorum, could scarcely attack a cardinal openly?

I suggest that the answer to this question is to be found in a passage of the
Flagellum. Spina's response to Pomponazzi' s Apologia. In this passage Spina

Michael Tavuzzi / Silvestro da Prierio and the Pomponazzi Affair / 51

reacts furiously against a passage of the Apologia in which, at least according
to Spina, Pomponazzi had attempted to bolster his case by claiming that the
Master of the Sacred Palace was sympathetic to his position. In effect, in this
passage of the Apologia, Pomponazzi had said that he had tried to discover
whether the Master of the Sacred Palace had written against him as had been
claimed by some Dominicans in Bologna. The result of this had been that
Pomponazzi had been assured by a Dominican arriving in Bologna from Rome
that the Master of the Sacred Palace had not written against him. He had been
informed, nonetheless, that the Master of the Sacred Palace might have written
against "some (Dominican) confrere" who had also argued that Aristotle held
the opinion that the human soul was mortal.^

It is important to notice that this passage by Pomponazzi preceded Spina' s
literary intervention inm the whole affair and that it is not so innocuous as
might appear at first sight. The reference to "some (Dominican) confrere" who,
like Pomponazzi, held the opinion that Aristotle had not taught the immortality
of the soul and against whom the Master of the Sacred Palace might perhaps
have written, can only be a reference to Cardinal Cajetan. Pomponazzi' s rather
ironic reference to "some (Dominican) confrere" is both mocking and pro-
vocative. What Pomponazzi is really saying is that, despite all the threats made
by the Bolognese Dominicans, the Master of the Sacred Palace was not in the
position to move against him because he could not do so without implicating
Cajetan as well.

In his reply to this passage Spina accuses Pomponazzi of lying about the
attitude of the Master of the Sacred Palace. He praises him and stresses both
his learning and his zeal for the faith. He claims that the Master of the Sacred
Palace had not moved against Pomponazzi only because "many" held a similar
position and not because he was sympathetic to it. Spina claims that in fact the
Master of the Sacred Palace abhorred Pomponazzi' s writings and that
Pomponazzi could discover this for himself if he examined the Master of the
Sacred Palace's works. ^

Two points here deserve our attention. Spina's reference to the "many"
who held a similar position and thereby made it impossible for the Master of
the Sacred Palace to proceed against Pomponazzi coincides with the allusionto
"some (Dominican) confrere" made by Pomponazzi. There can be no doubt
about the identity of the single referent of these two expressions. There was at
that time no Dominican other than Cardinal Cajetan who defended a position
in any way similar to Pomponazzi' s. Spina's employment in his response to
Pomponazzi of the more inclusive "many" just shows that Pomponazzi' s jibe

52 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

had hit the mark. Second, in the passage Spina refers to the Master of the Sacred
Palace as "my special teacher"^ and speaks of the opinions and works of the
Master of the Sacred Palace as something with which he was intimately
acquainted.

***

The Master of the Sacred Palace in question was the Dominican friar Silvestro
Mazzolini da Prierio (1456-1527) who held the office from the second half of
the pontificate of Leo X, through that of Adrian VI and into the first half of that
of Clement VII.^ Silvestro Mazzolini, who was usually called "Prierias," is
known to historians chiefly for his participation in the Roman juridical
processes against Reuchlin and Luther and for his epistolary exchange with
Erasmus. His life as a whole, however, has not been adequately studied, and
his many works have not received the attention that they deserve. It is not
surprising therefore that his involvement in the Pomponazzi affair has been
generally overlooked by scholars. ^^ Nonetheless, an awareness of the role
played by Prierias provides a valuable insight into the hidden dynamics of the
affair and largely explains Spina's intervention.

Prierias entered the Dominican Order in the convent of San Domenico in
Savona in 1471 . He completed his initial theological studies in the Dominican
studium générale in Bologna where he was a student of Pietro Maldura da
Bergamo (+1482) and Dominic of Flanders (+1479). His fellow students at the
time included Girolamo Savonarola and Paolo Barbo da Soncino (+1495).
After some years of apostolic work Prierias returned to the Bolognese studium
and a studens formalis in 1487 and once again counted Savonarola among his
peers. During the academic year 1489-1490 he held the post of master of
students and taught logic and astronomy. He served as biblical bachelor from
1491 to 1493. After a further period of apostolic work he exercised the office
of bachelor of the Sentences and graduated as a Master of Theology of the
University of Bologna in 1498. He held the post of regent master in the
Bolognese studium from 1499 to 1502. In that same year Prierias was
appointed regent master in the studium of the convent of Santi Giovanni e
Paolo in Venice. He refused this post to accept a call to the chair of metaphysics
in via Thomae in the University of Padua, but he was not confirmed in the
position. He subsequently served as prior of Dominican convents in Milan,
Verona and Genoa. In 1508 Prierias was elected Vicar General of the
Observant Congregation of Lombardy for a biennium and was appointed

Michael Tavuzzi / Silvestro da Prierio and the Pomponazzi Affair / 53

inquisitor in Brescia and Crema. From 1510 to 1512 he held concurrently the
offices of prior of the convent of San Domenico in Bologna and of regent
master in its studium. In 1512 he was appointed inquisitor in Milan and Lodi
and played an important role in the opposition to the conciliabulum of Pisa-
Milan. He further served as prior of Dominican convents in Cremona and
Venice until his appointment as professor at the University of Rome and
Master of the Sacred Palace in December of 1515. He died during the Sack of
Rome in 1527.

Spina not only knew Prierias but was also particularly close to him. Spina
had not always been a member of the Observant Congregation of Lombardy.
When he transferred to that congregation from the Roman-Tuscan Congrega-
tion in 1509 he was received by Prierias who was then its Vicar General. Spina
subsequently studied in the Dominican studium generate in Bologna during
the academic years 1510-1511 and 1511-1512 when Prierias was serving both
as prior of the convent of San Domenico and as regent master of the studium.
When Spina attacked Cajetan and Pomponazzi he was a member of the convent
of San Domenico di Castello in Venice where Prierias had been prior before
he was appointed Master of the Sacred Palace by Leo X in December 1515.
Prierias had been responsible for Spina' s assignation to that convent on the 1 st
of January 1515^' and probably also for his appointment as its theological
lector. Finally, when Spina's three tracts were published in 1519 they were
dedicated to Cardinal Domenico Grimani (1451-1523). Grimani, a convinced
Thomist, was Prierias' great patron in Rome and had influenced Leo X's
decision to appoint him Master of the Sacred Palace and a professor of theology
at the Sapienza.

Prierias was also close to Spina. There are, as far as I have been able to
discover, three explicit references to Spina in Prierias' works the earliest in the
Conflatum exS. T/ioma, a thematic anthology of Aquinas' works accompanied
by a commentary by Prierias. The Conflatum was projected as a great work
which, if it had been completed, would have rivalled in scope the classic
commentaries of Cajetan on the Summa Theologiae and of Francesco Silvestri
on the Summa contra Gentiles. The fact that it was not completed was largely
due to interruptions such as those caused by the case of Martin Luther and
Prierias' subsequent preoccupation with the "sect of the witches" and espe-
cially to the poor health that debilitated Prierias during the last years of his life.
Prierias tells us that he completed about half the work, corresponding more or
less to the materia;l dealt with by Aquinas in the la and the la-IIae of the Summa
Theologiae. ^^ Furthermore, of the completed parts of the Conflatum only a

54 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

small portion was actually printed. The section published in the first volume
printed in Perugia in 1519 covers the material treated by Aquinas in the first
45 questions of the Prima pars.

The other completed but never printed parts of the Conflatum included
Prierias' commentary on the discussion of the intellective soul presented by
Aquinas in the second half of the Prima pars. In his commentary Prierias had
dealt explicitly with the problem of the immortality of the soul. It is important
to note that these "unpublished" parts of the Conflatum were certainly in
circulation in manuscript form and presumably readily available.'^ They seem
to have circulated even long after Prierias' death as they are occasionally cited
by later theologians such as Mattia Gibboni da Aquario (+1591).''^ The
Genoese Dominican historian Giovanni Maria Borzino (+1696) mentions that
in his life the manuscript of the second volume of the Conflatum was still in the
library of the convent of San Domenico in Bologna.'^ It was to these never
printed parts of the Conflatum that Spina referred when he spoke of the works
of Prierias that Pomponazzi ought to have consulted before daring to speak
about the attitude of the Master of the Sacred Palace.

The first volume of the Conflatum is supplemented by a letter of the reader
in which Prierias presents an inventory of his previous works. It is in this
context that we find his first explicit reference to Spina. Prierias tells us that he
had entrusted to Spina the task of revising some of his very early works such
as the Compendium dialecticae which had been published in Venice in 1496.
Prierias refers to Spina as his "beloved and very erudite disciple."'^

Prierias' two other explicit references to Spina are of much greater
importance because they occur within a lengthy discussion of the issue of the
immortality of the soul. This discussion is presented in his De Strigimagarum
Daemonumque Mirandis, Libri Très, first published in Rome in 1521 ^^ but, as
indicated in the work's conclusion, completed on the 20th of November
1520.'^ This work is an inquisitorial handbook concerned with the procedure
to be followed in suspected cases of witchcraft and is largely derived from the
Malleus Maleflcarum by Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer (Institor).
Perhaps the only really original parts of the work are the third, fourth and fifth
chapters of the first book. In these preliminary chapters Prierias deals in turn
with the issues of the immateriality and subsistence of the human soul, its
immortality and the authentic opinion of Aristotle on the matter. In the fifth
chapter Prierias refers expressly to the case of Pomponazzi and it is precisely
in this context that he mentions Spina. This extremely interesting material has
not been noticed by any of the scholars who have previously dealt with the

Michael Tavuzzi / Silvestro da Prierio and the Pomponazzi Affair / 55

Pomponazzi affair. ^^

Prierias' attitude to Pomponazzi is uncompromising. After accusing him
of having distorted his words in the Apologia he tells of his reaction on reading
Pomponazzi' s De immortalitate animae and of his conviction as to the harm
that the work was likely to do. He praises the Venetian Senate for having
consigned the work to the flames, an example which he insists should have
been followed everywhere. He praises his "most erudite and beloved son and
disciple, Spina, for having refuted the position of Pomponazzi and stresses that
he had himself already written against "that kind of position" even before
Pomponazzi had composed the De immortalitate animae}^ He concludes the
fifth chapter by reiterating his claim that he had written on these matters even
before Pomponazzi and his conviction that the position of Pomponazzi had
been successfully refuted by Spina and by another of his former students,
Girolamo Fomari da Pavia.^^

This material from the De Strigimagarum warrants several remarks. First,
since the De Strigimagarum was completed by the 20th of November 1520,
these opening chapters of the first book must have been written at the same time
or just a little after Spina's reprimand from Francesco Silvestri. Thus when
Spina was himself attacked for his polemics against Pomponazzi and Cajetan
— and defending Prierias — Prierias stood fully behind him.

Second, the point-by-point similarities between the passage on Pomponazzi
in Prierias' De Strigimagarum and the passage from Spina's Flagellum
discussed above are too striking to be coincidental. They both contain
expressions of anger at Pomponazzi' s attempt to manipulate Prierias' inaction
for his own interests. They both insist on Prierias' reaction of disgust and
concern for the simple, which had been provoked by Pomponazzi' s De
immortalitate animae. They both refer to Prierias' opposition to positions
similar to that of Pomponazzi held by others. They both stress that Prierias'
authentic position can easily be discovered by reading his works. It is
unfortunate that these works, the completed but not printed parts of the
Conflatum, seem to be no longer extant. It would be pertinent to compare the
arguments employed by Prierias against Cajetan with the arguments employed
by Spina against Cajetan and Pomponazzi.

Third, Prierias' observation that Pomponazzi' s work should not be
entitled "On the Immortality of the Soul" but "On the Mortality of the Soul"
is also found in the opening paragraph of Spina's Tutela veritatisP-

Did Prierias have Spina's works open in front of him while writing this
passage of the De Strigimagarum or had Spina's tracts been simply an echo of

56 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Prierias' words to begin with? Either way, one can hardly doubt that there must
have been some kind of understanding between the two men, and the motive
force behind Spina's attack on Cajetan and Pomponazzi is evident. It was not
a matter, in the first place at least, of either an entrenched conservatism or of
a naturally polemical disposition. Spina was simply acting on Prierias' behalf
in a conflict in which Prierias himself could not become openly involved.

The overall scenario is clear. Prierias had been opposed to the position of
Cajetan since 1510 when it had first been proposed in the commentary on
Aristotle's De anina. Sometime during the years between 1510 and 1515
Prierias wrote against Cajetan in those parts of the Conflatum which would
never be printed. Prierias probably did not mention Cajetan by name but
employed some conventional expression such as "nonnulli Thomistae" or
"quidam modemi." Indeed the first volume of the Conflatum printed in 1519
abounds with criticism of Cajetan on many diverse speculative issues. This is
so much the case that one cannot but wonder whether the primary intent of
Prierias' commentary in the Conflatum was not the refutation of Cajetan's
particular interpretation of the doctrine of Aquinas. Yet Cajetan is never
mentioned by name except for a single instance rich in philosophical implica-
tions.^^ Nevertheless the identity of the referent of Prierias' critical remarks is
clear as they usually focus on direct citations from Cajetan's commentary on
the Summa Theologiae.

When in his capacity as Master of the Sacred Palace and inquisitor and
book censor in Rome Prierias examined Pomponazzi' s De immortalitate
animae in 1516 he must have looked upon it, correctly or otherwise, as the
result of the influence of Cajetan. Yet, precisely because Cajetan was then
Master General he could not go so far as to condemn the book outright.

What must really have provoked Prierias' anger was Pomponazzi' s
attempt in the Apologia, completed on the 23rd of November 1517 and
published early in 1518, to manipulate his reticence so as to cast him as a
sympathizer. Prierias must also have found especially irritating Pomponazzi' s
obvious reference to Cajetan and his implicit reference to Prierias' consequent
impotence. Pomponazzi' s remarks were particularly cutting in the light of
Cajetan's elevation to the cardinalate which had taken place in July 1517. At
that point Prierias is likely to have exerted his influence as Master of the Sacred
Palace so as to induce Leo X to demand the retraction which was called for in
June 1518 and which brought the entire "Pomponazzi affair" to a climax.
Pomponazzi, however, was able to defuse the matter by securing the interven-
tion of Cardinal Pietro Bembo.

Michael Tavuzzi / Silvestro da Prierio and the Pomponazzi Affair / 57

It was precisely at this point, sometime toward the beginning of 1518 and
at a time when Prierias' chances of taking radical steps against Pomponazzi
must have seemed slim indeed, that Spina began to compose the three tracts
which were published in 1519. But did Prierias propose the attack on Cajetan
and Pomponazzi to Spina or was it Spina himself, convinced that Prierias
would approve and indeed defend him if need be, who took the initiative? If
we are to believe Spina the latter would seem to be the case.^"^ This might just
be a classic case of protesting too much. Whatever the case, when Spina
attacked Cajetan and Pomponazzi it was surely on Prierias' behalf and Prierias
is likely to have known about it and supported him.

***

The aim of this paper has been to show the previously unnoticed but important
role played by Silvestro da Prierio in the Pomponazzi affair, and thereby to
account for the hitherto unexplained intervention by Bartolomeo Spina. But it
has also cast some light on an instance of conflict between Silvestro da Prierio
and Thomas de Vio Cajetan.

The relationship between these two eminent sixteenth-century ecclesias-
tics was a long-standing one and much remains to be studied. Their first contact
went back to 1488 when Prierias was already a renowned preacher and was
about to begin teaching logic in the Dominican studium générale in Bologna.
At the time Cajetan was a young student of 1 9, brilliant but feeble, who had just
been sent to Bologna from the unreformed Dominican province of the
Kingdom of Naples to follow the course in artium. After a few months Cajetan
left Bologna because of poor health and settled back into the easy conventuality
of his house in Gaeta. When he was well enough to recommence his studies he
did so in the studium of the unreformed convent of Sant' Agostino in Padua.
The relationship between the two did not end in fact until the Sack of Rome in
1527, the occasion of Prierias' death and of Cajetan' s greatest humiliation. It
was a relationship which involved periods of intense cooperation and periods
of conflict and rivalry between two Dominican friars who represented two
different conceptions of religious life and who were the principal advocates of
two competing Thomistic schools. This complex matter in itself deserves
further study.

Pontificia Università San Tommaso, Rome

58 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Notes

1. See particularly: F. Fiorentino, Pietro Pomponazzi. Studi storici sulla scuola bolognese e
padovana del secolo XVI (Florence, 1 868), 1 56-241 ; E. Verga, "L'immortalità deH'anima
nel pensiero del Card. Gaetano," Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica, XXVII (1935), suppl.
21-46; M.-H. Laurent, "Introduction. Le Commentaire de Cajétan sur le De anima" in
Thomas de Vio Cardinalis Caietanis, Scriptaphilosophica, éd. P. I. Coquelle (Rome, 1938),
I, vii-liii; C. Giacon, La seconda scolastica, I-III (Milan, 1944-1951), 1, 53-90; É. Gilson,
"Autour de Pomponazzi. Problématique de l'immortalité de l'âme en Italie au début du XVP
siècle," Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age, XXXVI (1961), 163-
279, and "L' affaire de l' immortalité de l' âme à Venise au début du XVP siècle," Umanesimo
europeo e umanesimo veneziano, éd. V. Branca (Florence, 1963), 31-61; G. Di Napoli,
L'immortalità dell'anima nel rinascimento (Turin, 1963), 179-338; M. L. Pine, Pietro
Pomponazzi: Radical Philosopher of the Renaissance (Padua, 1986), 124-234.

2. Spina' s three tracts were completed in 1 5 1 8. They were published in 1 5 1 9 as part of a wider
collection entitled Opulscula [sic] édita per fratrem Bartholomeum de Spina pisanum
ordinis predicatorum . . . Venetijs, per Gregorium de Gregoriis, 1519 die X mensis
septembris.

3. E. Gilson, art. cit. (1961), p. 196. The reservation is repeated in art. cit. (1963), p. 43.

4. "1519, die 24 Octobris. — Ego fr. Hieronymus de Laude, prior Bononiensis, de communi
consilio patrum discretorum dicti conventus, misi ad librorum venditorem qui habebat
quosdam libros impressos Venetiis contra. Rev.mum D. Card. S. Sixti: De immortalitate
animae humanae, et feci omnes quotquot habere potui, deferri in conventus sub deposito,
et scripsi manu propria fratri Bartholomeo Pisano, auctori predicti libri, praecipiens ei in
virtute sanctae obedientiae, nee aliquem librum qui in sua esset potestate cum illo titulo
contra Thomam Caietanum et Peretum, vendere vel publicare auderet, nisi expressam in
scriptis ostenderet se habere licentiam a rev.do vicario generali etc. Ipse rescripsit manu
propria inter cetera, quod libellum contra Thomam Caietanum imprimi fecerat sine licentia
et scitu rev.di vicarii congregationis Lombardiae, et de industria id fecerat, ne Rev.mus
Cardinalis praedictus causam haberet indignationis contra congregationem, sed tantum
contra ipsum fratrem Bartholomeum, qui dixit se zelo Dei et pro salute studentium tale opus
edere voluisse. Postquam rev.dus vicarius, scilicet magister Franciscus de Ferrara id scivit,
acriter reprehendit ipsum fratrem Bartholomeum, tunc lectorem Mutinensem. Ego idem fr.
Hieronymus scripsi Rev.mo Cardinali S. Sixti quod Pater vicarius congregationis non
cencessit licentiam fratri Bartholomeo Pisano publicandi hbrum praedictum." Lib. cons,
conv. Bon., f. 36Av, cited by R. Creytens, "Les vicaires généraux de la congrégation O.P.
de Lombardie," Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, XXXII (1962), Pp. 256-257.

5. In Summam contra Gentiles, II, c. 79, n. 8.

6. "Diu etiam et per litteras et per amicos curavi: habere quedam tractatum viri eminentissimi
Magistri Silvestri de Prierio sacri palatii apostolici magistri: quem quidam ex eiusdem
ordinis fratribus: adversus nos composuisse rettulerunt. Verum eum proximus his diebus:
Magister loannes de Augusta frater eiusdem ordinis ex urbe rediens: ad nos se contulisset
retulit: Magistrum Silvestrum nihil adversus nos scripsisse quamquam forsan scripsisset

Michael Tavuzzi / Silvestro da Prierio and the Pomponazzi Affair / 59

adversus quedam confratrem: asserentem Arist. sentira animos esse mortales." Apologia,
Bononiae 1518, II, Car. XXIIIr, b.

7. "Audes et intermiscere mendacia sicut supra de magistro Vincentio Vincentin, sic in
presenti loco de Magistro sacri pallatii viro doctissimo, integerrimo ac fidei zelantissimo
preceptore meo singularissimo. Licet enim librum ut hereticum non damnaverit propter hoc
quod contineat demonstrative non posse probari animam esse immortalem vel philosophus
hoc non tenere et huiusmodi, que a multis opinata sunt. Non tamen librum commendavit,
in hoc quod astruis demonstrative probari oppositum per rationes naturales quas induxisti,
et hoc esse simplicité et absolute verum: illud vero esse dehramentum et principiis
philosophi repugnans, et quod illud praedicarunt legumlatores fuisse deceptores. Hec et alia
plura extrema damnatione digna, quibus Hber ille tuus refertus est non commendavit
Magister sacri pallatii: immo abhorruit. Quodcertaexperireris, si suaprincipahterinteresset.
Sed de his satis." Flagellum, f K. IVv, a.

8. É. Gilson, art. cit. ( 1 963), p. 38, has mistakenly read Spina' s "preceptore meo singularissimo"
as referring to Vincenzo Colzado.

9. The only attempt at a biography of Prierias remains F. Michalski, De Silvestri Prieratis Ord.
Praed. Magistri Sacri Palatii (MCCCCLVI-MDXXVIII). Vita et Scriptis (Miinster, 1892).
I hope to complete a monograph a=on Prierias in the near future in which the biographical
details concerning both Prierias and Spina introduced in this paper will be documented.

1 0. For example, the most recent account of the affair has only two passing references to Prierias
which seem to make of "the Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace, Silvestro Mazzolini" and
"Silvestris de Prierias, a theologian in the court of Leo X" two different persons (see M. L.
Pine, Op.cit., p. 126).

11. "Anno MDXIV. More Veneto [= 15151 die I. Januarii. Ego Fr. Silvester de Prierio Prior
proposui Ven. PP. an vellent habere in filium sui Conventus P. Fr. Bartholomaeum de Pisis,
et responderunt ut infra. In primis Ego idem Prior sum valde contentus etc." Liber
consiliorum conventus S. Dominici de Castello, cited by F. Comelio, Ecclesiae Venetae
Antiquis Monumentis (Venetiis, 1749), VII, p. 325.

12. "Conflatum vero ipsum ex Divo Thoma propter sui vastitatem, neodum plene expletum est:
sed quantum ad textum quidem, totum perfeci uniformiter: excepto eo quod secundum
secundi ne magnitudo eius excresceret in immensum, edidi quasi per modum epithomatis:
sic tamen quod nullum verbum s. Thomae mutatum est, et nullum verbum doctrinalem
omissum: et forte hec pars ceteris gratior erit. Commentaria autem nostra in Conflatum,
expleta sunt quo ad primum volumen plene: quo ad secondum idest primum secundi expleta
sunt ex parte Magna, sed non plene: quia inde me invitum Martinus avulsit: cito vero ea deo
favente explebo: sed quantum ad secundum secundi et tertium sive ultimum volumen puto
commentandam relinquam alicui discipulorum meorum: nisi beatissimus dominus noster
Leo sua bonitate qua me semper est prosequutus reddat religioni: ubi iam a prelaturis
immunis et quietus omnia brevi tempore explerem. Quod si deo et domino nostro beatissimo
faventibus effecere iam lentissimus mortem obibo." Conflatum (Perusiae, 1519), I, f 299v.

13. The manuscript circulation of these unprinted parts of the Conflatum is evident from the
references to this work in contemporary chronicles. See the entries on Prierias in Alberto de

60 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Castello's Chronica Brevissima, second edition of 1516, published by R. Creytens, "Les
écrivains dominicains dans la chronique d'Albert de Castello," Archivum Fratrum
Praedicatorum, XXX (1960), pp. 298, 300; and in Leandro Alberti, De viris illustribus
Ordinis Praedicatorum (Bononiae, 1517), f 140v.

14. Francisci Silvestri Ferrariensis. . . Quaestiones luculentissimae in très libros De Anima.
Cum additionibus as easdem. ..R.P. F. Matthiae Aquarij. . . (Venetiis, 1601), pp. 109, 138.

15. G. M. Borzino, Memoria Domenicana Genovesi, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Cod. Vat.
Ut. 9451, f 109 V.

16. "Deinde de textum dialectice, qui quoniam prima fronte quaedam subtiliora perse fert,
lectores deterret: cum tamen dilectus et eruditissimus discipulus meus Bartholomeus
Pisanus. . ." Conflatum, I, f 299v.

17. Impressum Rome per Antonium Bladis de Asula: die XXIV Septembris. Anno D.
MCCCCCXXI. I cite the edition, Romae, In aedibus Po[puli] Ro[mani] MDLXXV.

18. De Strigimagarum, p. 262.

19. For example, G. Di Napoli in his account of the affair (see op. cit., p. 298) remarks:
"Neir Apologia II (42) il Pomponazzi ricorda tra i contradittori i domenicani Vincenzo
Colzade da Vicenza e Silvestro Prierias . . . dell'uno e dell'altro noi non possediama scritti
riguardo al problema dell' immortalité."

20. "Et si mei non est instituti, quid de immortalitate nostri animi senserit philosophorum
sapientissimus Aristoteles afferre, quippe qui non humana authoritate probare cupio quod
sentio: incidenter tamen de sententia et opinione Arist. in re hoc cogor rationem habere, quo
me ipsum ab ijs quae mihi falso et leviter (idest me non audito) verbo aut scripto Petrus
Pomponatius in Apologetico sup imposuit, expurgem: quod scilicet viso suo libro quem de
immortalitate (imo de moratalitate) animae cudit, subriserim et probarim. Haec enim falso
et leviter dicuntur: quin potius eo viso, ingemui ac dolui, quod ita catholica fides in
parvulorum entibus per christianos elidatur, et enervetur, et erroribus innumeris sit occasio
data, quod iam experientia docet: et si meum fuisset, in librum per ignes, Venetorum
exemplo, animadvertissem. Illustrissimos autem dominos Venetos potius laudavi, et
miratus sum, quod nulla habita ratione amicitie ad Perretum Venetijs id effecerunt, quod
unique faciendum erat, tantum scilicet scelus flammis ultricibus expiasse. Quamquam vero
copiosissime luculenter et eruditissime, dilectus et filius, et discipulus Bartho. Pissanus
ordi. Praedi. eiusmodi opinionem confutarit, adducam tamen et ego quae quondam in
Commentaris primi voluminis nostri conflati contra eiusmodi opinionem, antequam scri beret
Perretus, compendiose edideram, etsi nee in hanc diem propalata sint." De Strigimagarum,
p. 19.

21 . "At Perretum respondi minime, quia de his ante eum scripseram: nunc vero respondere non
oportet: quia per Fratrem Hieronymum Fornarium Bachalarium, et per Fratrem
Bartholomaeum Pisanum fundamenta eius eversa sunt." De Strigimagarum, p. 42.

22. "Castiga igitur propositum: et hunc qui libello huic tuo proprius est prepone titulum, petri
pomponatii mantuani tractatus de moratalitate anime intellective." Tutela veritatis, f. D Illr,
a.

Michael Tavuzzi / Silvestro da Prierio and the Pomponazzi Affair / 61

23. ". . .quidam dicunt idest caieta. quod [St, Thomas] ademit sibi omnem viam concordie cum
doctrina arist. iuxta suam expositionem: quia tenet arist. putasse animas intellectivas
immortales: et numeratas secundum numerum corporum: et constat arist. tenuisse
generationem etemam: ex quibus manifeste sequitur animas humanas esse actu infinitas:
quod hie decemitur impossibile: hec ille: qui ex his vult habere quod oportet s. tho. aut
negare aristotelem: aut dicere animas rationales de mente eius esse mortales: de quo infra
erit sermo. Sed ego dico primo aristotelem erasse in etemitate generationis: et consequenter
eum negare non solum non inconvenit: sed est necesse: non solum secundum fidem, sed
philosophice loquendo. . ." Conflatum, I, f. 48v.

24. "Non potui ultra resistere spiritui sancto aut zelo animarum et veritatis frenum imponere, qui
solus (deus testis est) me impulsit ad scribendum." This statement is in the letter A J lectorem
at the end of the Flagellum.

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'To Warn Proud Cities": a

Topical Reference in Milton's

"Airy Knights" Simile

{Paradise Lost n.53 1-8)

JOHN
LEONARD

Summary: In Paradise Lost 11.53 1-8 modem editors often see an allusion to
Josephus' account of armies appearing in the sky shortly before the fall of
Jerusalem. In fact, reports of spectral soldiers and aerial battles were quite
common in seventeenth-century English pamphlets, such as Mirabilis Annus
and Five Strange Wonders. Airy apparitions do not seem to have held much
fascination for Milton. But this does not mean that he could not exploit their
popular appeal and their political symbolism in Paradise Lost.

escribing the devils' wargames in Hell, Milton has recourse to an unusual
simile:

As when to warn proud cities war appears

Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush

To battle in the clouds, before each van

Prick forth the airy knights, and couch their spears

Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms

From either end of heaven the welkin burns. (11.53 1-8)'

Modem editors see an allusion to Josephus' account of armies appearing in the
sky shortly before the fall of Jerusalem.^ Such an allusion is plausible and I
shall return to it. But Patrick Hume, the earliest editor of Paradise Lost, saw
a more topical reference:

These Warlike Apparitions may be well supposed sent to forewarn Proud
and Luxurious Cities, they being seldom fancied to appear, but in disastrous
Times, and eminent Dangers; our own Stories afford us some of these
fîghting Phaenomena about the time of our Civil Wars.^

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 2 (1995) /63

64 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Following Hume' s hint, I have found reports of airy battles in 1 640, 1 642-3, 1 648,
1659, 1660, 1661 and 1662. By placing Milton's "airy knights" simile in the
context of these prodigies, I hope to bring out some of its political resonance.

The apparition of 1640 is distant from Paradise Lost, but has a special
claim on our attention since it is mentioned by Milton's nephew, Edward
Phillips. In his The Reign of King Charles (1660), Phillips reports that in "the
Sixteenth Year" of the reign of Charles I, "many Sights were seen in the Ayre,
as Armies fighting one against the other, all looked on as sad Presages of the
ensuing Broyls.'"^ Phillips is writing from a Royalist perspective, but the
connection with his uncle is fortified by the preceding paragraph, where he
refers to an eclipse of the sun that had occurred on the day of Prince Charles'
birth (29 May 1630). Milton may covertly allude to this event in the following
simile describing Satan's faded glory:

his form had yet not lost
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined, and the excess
Of glory obscured: as when the sun new risen
Looks through the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon
In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs. ( 1 .59 1 -99)

John Toland tells us that the royal licenser found "imaginary Treason" in these
lines.^ He adds that the licenser made several "other frivolous Exceptions" to
Paradise Lost. Toland does not say what these were, but Phillips' citing of aerial
battles alongside the eclipse as "sad Presages" of Civil War opens the possibility
that Milton's "airy knights" simile was one of the other objectionable passages.
The apparitions of 1642-3 occurred a few weeks after the battle of
Edgehill. They are described in two pamphlets, both published in January
1643. The first bears the gripping title: "A great wonder in Heaven: Shewing
the laic Apparitions and Prodigious noyses of War and Battails seen on Edge-
Hill near Keynton in Northampton-shire ^^ This pamphlet tells how spectral
soldiers had been seen fighting above "the very place" where the Earl of Essex
had obtained "a glorious victory over the Cavaliers" (p. 4). The battle of
Edgehill (actually a marginal Royalist victory) had been fought on 23 October
1642. The first apparition occurred on the Saturday before Christmas, "be-
tween twelve and one of the clock in the morning" (p. 4). Certain "Shepherds,
and other countrey-men and travellers" were amazed to hear "first the sound

John Leonard / "To Warn Proud Cities" / 65

of Drums a far off, and the noyse of Soulders, as it were, giving out their last
groanes." Terrified, they turned to flee,

but then on the sudden . . . appeared in the ayre the same incorporeall
souldiers that made those clamours, and inmiediately with Ensignes displayed
Drums beating, Musquets going off. Cannons discharged, Horses neyghing,
which also to these men were visible, the alarum or entrance to this game of
death was strucke up, one Army which gave the first charge, having the
Kings colours, and the other the Parliaments . . . and so pell mell to it they
went (p. 5).

At first it seemed that the King's party would prevail, but "after some three
houres fight, that Army which carryed the Kings colours withdrew, or rather
appeared to flie; the other remaining, as it were. Masters of the field" (p. 5).
Lest we be in doubt as to the vision' s meaning, the pamphleteer informs us that
the Earl of Essex had been fighting "in the defence of the Kingdomes lawes and
libertie" (p. 4). The second pamphlet appeared four days later and is called
"The New Yeares Wonder. Being a most certaine and true Relation of the
disturbed inhabitants of Kenton."^ This pamphlet agrees in almost all details
with "A great wonder," but it is even more partisan in its conclusions,
expressing the wish that King Charles put aside his "eveill councelares" (p. 8).
These pamphlets are unlikely to have exercised a direct influence on Paradise
Lost, but they did much to set the tone for subsequent prodigies.

Five Strange Wonders in the North and est of England was published in
1659 when Milton was at work on Paradise Lost. Two of the five wonders are
relevant to Milton's simile. In one vision, two fiery pillars appeared "at Noon-
day over Marston Moor . . . and between these two Pillars intervened several
armed Troops and Companies in Battail array." The two pillars, appearing at
opposite ends of the sky, offer a particularly suggestive context for Milton's
line: "From either end of heaven the welkin bums." After a doubtful conflict,
"the Northern Army vanquished the Southern Army: which being doen, the
two Pillars vanquished [sic]."^ The anonymous pamphleteer comments:

What this portends, no man can conjecture aright: but it may be supposed,
the two Pillars represent his Highness and the Parliament, and the Northern
Army the Forces of this Common wealth, vanquishing their Enemy, and
maugre the Designs of all Forreign and Popish Confederates. Who need not
in the least be feared, if the mutual closings and claspings of redintegrate
affections and endearments be insisted upon between the Supream Authority
and People, and each member of this Common-wealth, to return to his duty
and proper station, and firmly to unite together, for the recovery of our long-
lost Liberties, and dear-eam'd Priviledges (p. 5).

66 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

The reference to the Lord Protector ("his Highness") suggests that the
pamphlet was written before Richard Cromwell's abdication in May 1659.'
The two armies are of course distinct from the two pillars, which are (or ought
to be) supportive of a common cause. But there is a note of warning in the
appeal to "redintegrate affections." The pamphleteer is aware that divisions
within the Commonwealth are likely to benefit the Royalist cause.

The note of warning is still stronger in the report of a second combat that
took place over Newmarket-Heath. The pamphleteer tells how "many hundred
Spectators" heard the "dreadful noise of Drums beating, and Trumpets
sounding, though no armies were at first visible.'

Yet no sooner had the sound passed away, but immediately they began to
discern several Warlike Troops and Companions, arraying themselves in
Battalia; and after some pickering [skirmishing], and vollies presented
between several Parties, as it were Forlorn Hopes, the two main Bodies
joyned Battel, disputing very puisantly, and with great vigour. During this
Engagement, there seemed to be an extraordinary Light, and glittering of
Swords, and Men in Armour, which continued for the space of half an hour;
and then the one seemed to vanquish the other, taking their pursuit towards
the City of London (p. 6).

The pamphleteer does not identify the combatants on this occasion, and no
Civil War battle had occurred at Newmarket Heath. The place had been in the
headlines in June 1647, when Joyce conducted the king from Holmby to his
home at Newmarket, and when the army had mustered there before marching
on London. But who vanquished whom? Perhaps we shouldn't expect chrono-
logical precision from a writer on apparitions. But it is ominous that London
should be threatened. The pamphleteer tells us that the battle was followed by
"sundry great Claps" of thunder, "from an Angry God, even like unto an
Enemies Warning-Piece" (p. 6). One is reminded of Milton's words "to warn
proud cities." Between October 1659 and April 1660 Milton offered repeated
warnings of his own against the Restoration. After 29 May 1660 the time for
such warnings was over. When armies next appeared in the sky they were
perceived not as a warning against the Restoration, but as a portent of the
punishment that was sure to follow it.

Mirabilis Annus, or The Year of Prodigies and Wonders was published
anonymously in 1661 . The opening illustration (fig. 1) is representative of the
kind of prodigy the pamphlet reports. Blazing stars, inverted steeples, and
flying swords are typical fare. The pamphlet also reports many incidents of
armies fighting in the sky between 1660 and 1661. The second illustration in

John Leonard / "To Warn Proud Cities" / 67

the second column depicts a scene much like that reported in Five Strange
Wonders: two armies encountering each other between two fiery pillars. An
apparition of "two armies" fighting "in the air at London-bridge'' on 21 March
1660 ought to have prevented the king's return, but didn't, so repeat perform-
ances were scheduled for Surrey and Yorkshire in May 1660 and Kent and
Cornwall in June 1661. Mirabilis Annus Secundus; or, The second Year of
Prodigies ( 1 662) added more airy combats in Sussex (July 1 662) and Upingham
in Rutland (October 1662).^^ Mirabilis Annus informs us that such apparitions
most often portend "wars and commotions" and "usually for signifie some
remarkable changes and revolutions.'' These "bode much misery and calamity
to the prophane and wicked part of the World," but "very much good to the
Sober and Religious part of the World." As an instance of 'the prophane," the
pamphleteer cites Belshazzar. But Belshazzar is a thinly disguised Charles II:

God by a prodigie doth sharply reprove the debauchery of this King and his
Concubines, with the rest of his Associates, and thereby also declares the
sudden period and determination of his Kingdom.

But amongst the Hellish rout of prophane and ungodly men, let especially
the Oppressors and Persecutors of the True Church look to themselves,
when the hand of the Lord in strange Signes and Wonders is lifted up among
them; for then let them know assuredly that the day of their Calamity is at
hand (sig A4'').

This kind of talk naturally drew the attention of King Charles' censor, Roger
L' Estrange. ^^ L' Estrange methodically tracked down those responsible for
printing Mirabilis Annus, though its authorship remained a mystery. Giles
Calvert, Thomas Creake, and George Thresher (already in prison for earlier
publications) were implicated in the printing, as was Francis Smith, who was
arrested "with copies of Mirabilis Annus under his cloak."^^ Elizabeth Calvert,
who saw the book through the press, was apprehended in October 1661.
Richard Greaves conjectures that the Congregationalist George Cockayne and
the Particular Baptist Henry Dan vers were the likeliest authors. L' Estrange did
not soon forget Mirabilis Annus. In Considerations and Proposals in Order to
the Regulation of the Press (1663), he cites the above-quoted paragraph
alongside the title page of Milton's Tenure of Kings and Magistrates as
examples of the kind of outrage that had to be suppressed.

All of this may seem to have brought us a long way from the allusion to
Josephus noted by Milton's modem editors. But Mirabilis Annus repeatedly
cites Josephus and draws an explicit parallel between Jerusalem and London.
Immediately after describing an aerial combat at Smitham's Bottom, near

68 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Croydon, in which "two distinct Armies" were seen "engaging and pushing
one against the other," the author comments:

Prodigies like to this have at several times happened in many places, and the
Events have been alwayes very signal and remarkable.

Thus did God forewarn the J ewes of the destruction of themselves, their
City and Temple which was effected not long after by Titus Vespasian (p.
16).

Since L'Estrange's role as censor brought him into contact with both Milton
and Mirabilis Annus, I cite his translation of Josephus:

on the twenty first of the month Artemissius, there appear' d a Vision so
uncommon, that I should not dare to relate it, were there not several Eye-
witnesses yet alive that can attest the truth of it. A little before the Sun went
down, there were seen here and there up and down in the Air, Chariots and
Men in Armour that spread all over the Country, and hover' d in the Clouds
round about the City.'^

For the author of Mirabilis Annus, this precedent implies a parallel between the
Jews who rejected Christ and the English who rejected liberty. But the radical
pamphleteer is not content to take bitter satisfaction in the implied condemna-
tion of English backsliders. He goes on to cite other cases where such
apparitions signalled a divine call to arms. Apparently, ''Armies were often
seen in the Heavens'' in the Netherlands in 1568, shortly before the Prince of
Orange intervened on behalf of the Protestants. Aerial battles similarly
foretold two Swedish victories in the Thirty Years War. The pamphleteer also
mentions the apparition of 1640, citing Phillips directly. Finally, he gives
another example from 1648 — this time presaging Cromwell's defeat of the
Duke of Hamilton:

The coming in and the total defeating of Duke Hambletons Army, Anno
1 648 . was clearly portended by the appearance in the Heavens of a Southern
and NortemA rmy in Yorkshire, and the Nortern A rmies being beaten by the
other. The Truth whereof many yet live can testify (p. 16).

This tradition of cloudy combat as a prelude to earthly tumults gives Mirabilis
Annus a radical rather than a resigned tone. Mirabilis Annus Secundus cites
Josephus with hope as well as dread:

The Jews (says he further in the close of the same chap.) interpreted some of
the Signs as they pleased, and at others they laughed, till by the ruin of their
Country, and their own woful overthrow, their iniquity appeared. So, if we
seriously reflect upon the present humour and temper of the generality of the

John Leonard / "To Warn Proud Cities" / 69

People in England at this day, how little credit and regard is given by them
to the Signs of the Time . ..we have sufficient ground to expect, that our fear
is coming as Desolation, and our Destruction as a Whirlwind,
(sig A2v)

L' Estrange might answer that the wish was father to the thought.

Clearly, spectral visions were very much "in the air" when Milton wrote
Paradise Lost. But what was Milton's attitude to them? The Readie & Easie
Way shows no interest in portents of constitutional change — but it would
hardly have served Milton's interests to draw attention to such prodigies on the
eve of the Restoration that he was trying to avert. In The History of Britain
Milton notes that "fiery Dragons, with other impressions in the air" were
"judg'd to foresignifie" the Danish invasions.'"^ The comment is nevertheless
perfunctory and Milton offers no opinion of his own on the likelihood of such
events. In Of Reformation he had been frankly dismissive:

Let the Astrologer be dismay' d at the portentous blaze of comets, and
impressions in the aire as foretelling troubles and changes to states: I shall
beleeve there cannot be a more illboding signe to a Nation {God turne the
Omen from us) then when the Inhabitants, to avoid insufferable grievances
at home, are inforc'd by heaps to forsake their native Country. ^^

All things considered, airy apparitions do not seem to have held much fascination
for Milton. But this does not mean that he could not exploit popular interest in them
when writing Paradise Lost. A contemporary reader familiar with pamphlets such
as Mirabilis Annus and Five Strange Wonders would have easily recognized in
Milton's "airy knights" a glancing allusion to the Civil Wars and the Restoration.
The simile implies Milton's pride in the English Revolution and his bittemess at
those who had betrayed it. The implied parallel between the backsliding peoples
of London and Jerusalem would not have been lost on L'Estrange and his fellow
licensers. Years later, when the Revolution of 1 688 caused a reversal in L' Estrange' s
own fortunes, he was forced to support himself by translating Josephus. When he
came to that passage about airy combatants appearing over the cities of Judaea,
L'Estrange most likely remembered Mirabilis Annus and Mirabilis Annus
Secundus. It is tempting to think that he may also have recalled Milton's
subversive simile and its implied hope that the disillusioned subjects of the Stuart
kings might happen to move new broils.

University of Western Ontario

70 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Notes

This essay emerged from my research at the Huntington Library while preparing an edition
of Milton's Complete Poems for the Penguin English Poets series. My work at the
Huntington was made possible by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada; to the Council and to the Huntington I extend my sincere thanks. I also
thank the Huntington for giving me permission to reproduce the illustration from Mirabilis
Annus.

1 . The Poems of John Milton, ed. John Carey and Alastair Fowler (London: Longmans, 1 968).
All quotations of Milton's poetry are from this edition.

2. Flavius Josephus, Bellum ludaicum 6.5.3.

3. P[atrick] H[ume], Annotations on Milton 's Paradise Lost (1695), p. 70.

4. Sir Richard Baker, A Chronicle of the Kings of England, From the time of the Romans
Govemement Unto the Death of King James. Whereunto is now added in this Third Edition,
the Reign of King Charles, I (London, 1660). The Reign of King Charles (pp. 457-506) is
by Edward Phillips (see pp. 493-4).

5. Helen Darbishire, éd.. The Early Lives of Milton (London, 1932), 180. In the context of
treason, "imaginary" meant more than just "fancied." "Imaginary treason" was a legal term
in which "imagine" preserved the sense it had in Law French: "plot" or "scheme." Thus the
Statute of Treasons defines treason as "quant homme fait compasser ou ymaginer la mort
nostre seigneur le roi, ma dame, sa compaigne, ou de lour fitz primer et heir" (25 Edward
III, st. 5, c. 2). This Statute has never been repealed. For further discussion of Milton's
eclipse simile, see B. A. Wright's letter to the TLS, 20 June 1929. See also Christopher
UWUMilton and the English Revolution (London: Faber, 1977), p. 405 and John
LeonaidJ\faming in Paradise (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), pp. 111-15.

6. B.M. Thomason Tracts. E.85 (41). Published 23 January 1643 (New Style). See also the
chapter "Of Apparitions" in Peter Young, Edgehill 1642: the Campaign and the Battle
(Kineton: Roundwood Press, 1967), pp. 162-6.

7. B.M. Thomason Tracts. E.86 (23). 27 January 1643.

8. "The Five Strange Wonders in the North and West of England" (London, 1659), p. 5.

9. This dating is uncertain, however, since the title-page of Five Strange Wonders refers to
"this present summer." There were several abortive Royalist risings in England in August
1659. That of Sir George Booth was crushed by Lambert near Northwich on August 19.

10. Mirabilis Annus 14-15, 25, 3S. Mirabilis Annus Secundus, 3, 24-5.

11. L' Estrange was not the same licenser who later objected to Paradise Lost. William Riley
Parker identifies that licenser as Thomas Tomkyns. See Milton: A Biography, 2 vols.
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), 1.600. L' Estrange' s experience with Mirabilis Annus may
nevertheless have made Tomkyns especially suspicious of prodigies and wonders in
Paradise Lost. L' Estrange had recently answered the first edition of Milton's Readie &
Easie Way (February 1660) with No Blinde Guides (April 1660).

John Leonard / "To Warn Proud Cities" / 71

12. Richard Greaves, Deliver us from Evil: the Radical Underground in Britain, 1660-1663
(Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 213.

13. Roger L'Estrange, The Wars of the Jews (London, 1702; 3rd edn. 1717), p. 153.

14. Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. Don M. Wolfe et. al., 8 vols. (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1953-82), vol. 5, part 1, p. 244.

15. Complete Prose Works, 1. 585,

Book Reviews
Comptes rendus

La cité heureuse: l'utopie italienne de la Renaissance à l'Age baroque, sous
la direction de Adelin Charles Fiorato, textes traduits de l'italien par P.
Abbrugiati, A. C. Fiorato, H. Giovanetti, C. Paul. Paris: Quai voltaire - Édima,
1992. Pp. 320.

L'objet de cette utile publication est de fournir aux lecteurs francophones, sous forme
panoramique, un éventail varié de textes d'inspiration utopique, publiés par des
auteurs italiens entre 1548 (date de la traduction italienne de V Utopie de More) et 1625
(date des discours utopiques de Ludovico Zuccolo.

Cette anthologie de textes, qui fait suite à une introduction consistante d'A. C.
Fiorato (pp. 7-49) et à une note explicative des traducteurs (pp. 50-51), comprend un
extrait del Mondi d'Anton Francesco Doni, dialogue entre le Sage et le Fou (pp. 53-
7 1 ), un fragment de La cité heureuse de Francesco Patrizi (pp. 73- 1 02), la "république
imaginaire" incluse dans les Dialogues de l 'Infini de Ludovico Agistini (pp. 104- 151),
La cité du soleil de Tommaso Campanella (pp. 143-204), et deux textes de Ludovico
Zuccolo, "le Belluzzi ou la cité heureuse," et "le Porto ou la République d'Evandria"
(pp. 205-261). L'anthologie est complétée par quelques textes significatifs d'artistes
(Alberti, Filarete, Vinci), un extrait du Mundus novus d' Amerigo Vespucci, du
Discours sur la première Décade de Tite-Live de Machiavel, et deux textes versifiés
(un extrait de la Jérusalem délivrée du Tasse, dans sa traduction française en vers de
1595, et une poésie anonyme sur le pays de Cocagne). Chaque texte est précédé d'une
notice biographique et littéraire sur les auteurs. Un tableau chronologique et une
bibliographie complètent l'ouvrage (pp. 307-315). Le lecteur peut ainsi parcourir du
regard un paysage idéologique et culturel et apprécier des variations de conception et
d'écriture, que se sont efforcé de préserver les traducteurs. Il a également en main un guide
ou un mode d'emploi développé par l'introduction, les notes explicatives et les annexes.

L' intérêt porté à l' utopie s' est développé au cours du vingtième siècle, notamment
dans le sillage des événements de 1968, en même temps que s'est constituée une
nouvelle manière de l'envisager, dans les voies tracées par quelques promoteurs (dont

74 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Emst Bloch et Herbert Marcuse), comme témoignage d'une aspiration vitale de la
conscience et d'une expérimentation de l'imaginaire, plutôt que comme modèle
sociologique dont la dénonciation avait été faite par Karl Marx . Cet intérêt s' est reporté
sur les créations du seizième siècle qui a vu, avec l' Utopie de Thomas More, le projet
de république se constituer en genre littéraire (l'ouvrage, dans sa version originale
latine a vu le jour en 1516). La production qui a suivi a donné lieu à des études
d'ensemble sur l'utopie au seizième siècle, comme les actes du colloque de Bruxelles
de 1961 et les articles de la Revue Analytique de Littérature Française (1970). La
production italienne a fait l'objet spécifiquement d'analyses de la part de C. Battista,
C. Curcio, A. Tenenti et L. Firpo. Une exportation hors des frontières linguistiques et
territoriales de sa naissance s'imposait, pour marquer son rôle dans le concert européen
des rêves utopiques. A travers les textes retenus, on retrouve l'influence des modèles
communs venus de l'Antiquité, comme La République de Platon et La Constitution
d'Athènes d' Ansioie. Moins caractéristiques (sauf pour Doni) apparaissent l'influence
lucianique et les images de géographie imaginaire cultivées par le Moyen Âge (dont
l'influence est sensible chez Rabelais). Le modèle qui informe l'écriture est, d'une
manière générale, celui du code juridique, civil, pénal et militaire. Son austérité est
tempérée par la forme du dialogue, qui permet d'aérer par des ruptures la continuité
de l'exposé. Un ton généralement sérieux porte les marques de la Contre-Réforme et
d'une période de reconstruction intellectuelle autour de quelques repères abstraits que
l'on veut sûrs intellectuellement, à défaut d'être crédibles politiquement.

Si le modèle républicain est attesté, c'est un esprit unitaire et uniformisateur qui fait
prioritairement valoir ses droits. L'organisation de l'espace se ressent des principes qui,
derrière Vitruve, ont inspiré l'architecture et l'urbanisme de la Renaissance (les textes de
Filarete et d' Alberti, cités comme documents supplémentaires, prennent ainsi toute leur
valeur). Le modèle mathématique, instituant une géométrie de la proportion et de la
symétrie, renforce son caractère de centralisation, créant un espace fermé et hiérarchisé
par rapport au point de convergence et de recoupement central. L'exemple le plus abrupt
de cette orientation est La Cité du Soleil. Cette organisation mathématique de l'espace
entre en résonance avec des principes de rationalité abstraite appliqués au domaine social
et politique. Les sociétés de nulle part s'érigent en forme pyramidale ou circulaire, qui
attirent magnétiquement en elles, en toute naïveté, des forces de dislocation et
d'effervescence perçues comme contraires à la nature parce qu'elles sont contraires à cet
ordre. Les régimes de monarchie absolue apparaissent ainsi conrnie les héritiers légitimes,
historiquement réalisés, de ces vues géométriques de l'esprit.

Le rêve mathématisé de la cité heureuse ne constitue toutefois qu'une des formes
possibles de l'aspiration au bonheur: le bonheur est ici dépendant d'un ordre, et l'ordre
a pour objet principal de vouloir exorciser l'angoisse du chaos et du retour à l'informel.
Pour rendre compte de ce qui se passe dans les esprits du temps, vivant dans les cités
réelles, il faudrait adjoindre à ce monument de clarté les ombres qu'il secrète en
prétendant les éliminer: à côté du rêve technocratique, promoteur de l'unité et de la
symétrie, le rêve bucolique, qui propose une harmonie fondée sur un imaginaire

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 75

biologique (la Nature-Mère) et émotionnel (un retour à un état d'innocence restaurée):
l'utopie écologique dessine en contrepoint, avec ses Arcadies et ses paradis agrestes,
le double féminin de l'utopie technologique, urbaine et collectiviste. S'opposant enfin
à la fois à la vie heureuse de style bucolique et à la cité heureuse de type collectiviste,
il y a aussi l'utopie ironique, tonique, décapante — le rire de Démocrite et de Diogène
— qui alimente les textes satiriques, manifestant que la conscience ne saurait se
dissoudre dans aucune de ces constructions: c'est le rôle des paradoxes qui manifestent
par la négation et l'inversion qu'une place reste toujours libre pour de nouvelles
productions. Il est vrai que l'utopie porte aussi cette marque d'être, lorsqu'elle ne se
prend pas à son jeu, un regard ironique porté sur le réel.

Cet ouvrage met opportunément à la portée du lecteur de nouvelles nourritures
pour mieux comprendre un type de pensée et de discours qui, contrairement à ce qu'on
croit généralement, ne s'évapore pas en fumée, dans la substance dont sont formés les
rêves, mais s'inscrit aussi en consistance idéologique et en réalisation historique, avec
toutes les métamorphoses liées aux aléas et aux effets pervers que suppose le passage
de la cité de papier à la cité des hommes.

CLAUDE-GILBERT DUBOIS, Université de Bordeaux

Christopher Hodgkins. Authority, Church, and Society in George Herbert:
Return to the Middle Way. Columbia and London: University of Missouri
Press, 1993. Pp. xii, 23 L

Christopher Hodgkins' informative study of George Herbert's "middle way" offers
students of late Renaissance England a thorough, lucid, and subtle analysis of
Herbert's place in the complex religious, political, and social world of early seven-
teenth-century England. The book effectively relates Herbert's thought to the Eliza-
bethan Settlement reconciling Calvinist doctrine with Episcopalian church structure
and liturgical practice (the "Old Conformity"), to the absolutist high-church Anglicanism
imposed by Archbishop Laud (the "New Conformity"), and to the issues involved in
the Civil War between Puritans and the Crown. It ends with an essay on "Herbert and
the Church in Society," which deals with Herbert's practical understanding of the role
and responsibilities of the parish priest within the church structure. The work as a
whole provides important insights for understanding Herbert and his milieu, and
background for any informed reading of his well-known lyric poetry.

Drawing on the work of church historians, literary critics, and writers contempo-
rary with Herbert, Hodgkins carefully locates Herbert's stance in the shifting political,
religious, and social disputes of his day. Specifically, Hodgkins defines Herbert as a

76 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

believer in the true "middle way," a via media characterized by the Elizabethan
Settlement rather than (as often mistakenly understood) midway between Geneva and
Rome. The Elizabethan Settlement brought peace between the contending parties by
combining essential Protestant theology with the structure and liturgical practices of
the established church and the monarchy.

As Hodgkins explains, "Old Conformists" of Herbert's type shared with Puritans
the same base in Luthero-Calvinist biblicism, but they built (or wished to build)
differently in matters of ecclesiastical policy" (p. 3). Hodgkins further elucidates his
point: "My fundamental claim is that as the gap widened between Puritan 'Non-
conformists' and William Laud's 'New Conformists,' Herbert walked the increas-
ingly lonely way of the Elizabethan 'Old Conformists.' To be painfully precise: in the
conflict between Arminian [free-will] absolutist high-church Episcopalians (New
Conformists), Herbert kept to the 'middle way' of his boyhood church, as a Calvinist
nonabsolutist lower-church Episcopalian (Old Conformist)." Hodgkins goes on to
say, "He [Herbert] emphasized God's loving, unconditional, irresistible grace. . .; he
preferred a powerful but constitutionally limited monarchy and episcopacy; he
preached and ministered in the authoritative plain and practical style of the moderate
Puritans, passing important spiritual responsibility onto laymen; and he advocated
simple, scriptural intelligibility in liturgy, church architecture and poetry" (p. 11).

In short, Hodgkins defines Herbert as an Episcopalian Calvinist: one who
believed with Calvin and the Puritans in the Fundamentals of Protestant theology, but
who also embraced with minor reservation the social, ecclesiastical, and political
hierarchy that characterized Stuart England. Moreover, Hodgkins reminds us, the real
break from the "Old Conformity" came with the radical reforms of Archbishop
William Laud and his Arminian party in the 1620s, and not with the later Puritan
rebellion in mid-century. To support his argument, Hodgkins instructively parallels
Herbert both with well-known Puritans such as William Perkins, Richard Baxter and
John Bunyan and well-known Anglicans like Richard Hooker and John Donne.
Hodgkins also opposes Herbert in fundamental ways to the High Anglicanism of
Archbishop Laud and Lancelot Andrewes. Had Hodgkins chosen to delve more fully
into the ideas of Donne, he might have recognized more clearly that Donne, along with
Herbert, was also a believer in the "true middle way."

Hodgkins' detailed discussion of Herbert and Herbert's view of the true "middle
way" is followed by an analysis of Herbert' a views on the limits of secular power and
authority, the rhetorical strategies used by pastor and poet, the significance of externals
in worship, and questions of "plainness and practicality" — particularly as represented
in Herbert' s poem on topics such as church liturgy, architecture, vestments, and music.

Finally, Hodgkins discusses Herbert's practical understanding of the role of the
parson in English society, particularly in terms of the parson's powers and responsi-
bilities, a discussion that nicely reconciles the ambitious young Herbert with the
mature Herbert's tranquil life as parish priest in rural Bemerton. Hodgkins reminds us
that Herbert did not in fact withdraw from the world, as scholars have often thought.

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 77

but rather believed, correctly or not, that he was engaged in an attempt to fundamen-
tally reform the English church from its roots. The book concludes with a brief
epilogue that speculates on Herbert's possible reaction, had he lived, to the forces
unleashed by the Civil War between the Puritans and the Crown which broke out
following his death. Hodgkins attempts this by drawing a parallel with the thought and
experience of Thomas Fuller, Herbert's younger contemporary, who lived through the
war — admired and despised equally by both sides — in a precarious obscurity.

Hodgkins purposely does not provide a systematic reading of Herbert's corpus,
but rather deals only with those works which elucidate Herbert's theological thinking.
These include lyrics from The Temple, such as "The British Church," "Lent," and "The
Priesthood," as well as prose passages from The Countrey Parson and other, lesser
known, works. Hodgkins rightly understands that we should not confuse lyric poems
with expositions on theology. He also realizes that Herbert uses poetry to "dramatize
and realize in lyric form the confusions and resolutions that doctrine often works on
the believer" (p. 4). Hodgkins' interesting approach allows him to offer fresh, detailed,
and nuanced readings of less-known Herbert poems as well as of many of Herbert's
more well-known lyrics from The Temple. While Hodgkins' analysis of Herbert's
poems is sophisticated and subde, the reader would have benefitted from a reprinting
of each poem at the outset of the chapter devoted to its explication.

Hodgkins does an admirable job drawing out the religious, political, and social
subtleties of seventeenth-century England as they affected Herbert and his thought.
Moreover, Hodgkins has provided a welcome and important corrective to earlier
studies of Herbert's religious views. He correctly presents a Herbert far more in tune
with the complexities of his age than traditional scholarship has realized. Hodgkins
does not attempt a systematic reading of Herbert's best-known poetry; nevertheless,
his work is essential background reading for anyone interested in Herbert. It is an
important study of the complex interrelationship between religion and politics in the
years preceding the English Civil War.

MARY ARSHAGOUNI PAPAZIAN, Oakland University

78 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Cynthia Skenazi. Maurice Scève et la pensée chrétienne. Travaux d' Humanisme
et Renaissance 264, Genève, Droz, 1992, Pp. 156.

A Scève Celebration. Délie 1544-1994, sous la dir. de Jerry Nash. Saratoga/
Stanford: Anma Libri/Department of French & Italian, Stanford University,
1994, Pp. 189.

Depuis sa première édition en 1544, \sl Délie de Maurice Scève n'aura cessé de piquer
la curiosité des lecteurs, suscitant une profusion d'analyses et de commentaires
érudits. Ces dernières années, la critique universitaire a fait avancer la connaissance
d'une oeuvre essentielle du lyrisme de la Renaissance lyonnaise, que les travaux de V.-
L. Saulnier avaient entamée. Depuis, bien du chemin a été parcouru, mais IsiDélie offre
toujours autant de résistance à l'appréhension de son ordre caché.

Parmi les récentes contributions, il convient de signaler la lecture lacanienne de
Nancy Frelick (Délie as Other, 1 994) et celle de Cynthia Skenazi qui situe la Délie dans
une perspective évangélique: ". . . de la Délie au Microcosme, le poète lyonnais fait le
récit d'une aventure spirituelle qui s'intègre dans un contexte christocentrique
profondément marqué par la lecture de saint Paul" (p. 9).

S 'appuyant sur une solide documentation, Cynthia Skenazi aborde le canzoniere
français dans une perspective éthique placée sous l'égide d'Érasme et de Budé. Dans
le premier chapitre ("La conversation"), elle retrace les étapes du "renouveau spirituel"
dont rend compte l'expérience amoureuse. Au terme de Délie, le dizain final coincide
avec le huitain liminaire et le récapitule "pour former un tout indissoluble qui a une
signification rédemptrice" (p. 4 1 ). Dans le même éclairage, Skenazi réévalue la notion
de persévérance ("L'évertuement") pour lui conférer une dimension eschatologique
qu'elle décrit au moyen de l'intertexte érasmien (cf. V Enchiridion Militis Christianï).
Elle montre aussi que cette notion, constante dans l'univers poétique de Scève, sous-
jacente dans Délie, informe la représentation de l' Histoire dans le Microcisme ( 1 562).
"La coincidence des contraires" est une autre force dynamique qui sous-tend l' expérience
scévienne. Si le jeu des oppositions, des contraires (amour charnel/amour spirituel. .
.), n'est pas propre au recueil de Scève, en revanche la concordia discors est originale
en ce qu'elle "inscrit la représentation du désir scévien dans le contexte spirituel de son
époque" (p. 84). Dans le chapitre suivant, Skenazi met en valeur la mise en jeu
politique de Délie et s'interroge sur les correspondances établies entre l'écriture du
désir et les références historiques. Enfin, elle retrace la recherche du poète qui, selon
elle, "se fonde sur les trois vertus théologales que les épîtres de saint Paul ne cessent
de louer" (p. 1 23). Une bibliographie complète l'ouvrage, auquel il aurait été utile sans
doute d'y adjoindre un index des noms. Au total, on trouvera dans cette belle étude une
lecture, attentive à l'oeuvre de Scève, qui se distingue par un souci de clarté dans la
démonstration.

On retrouve cette clarté d'analyse dans la contribution que ce même critique

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 79

apporte à la commémoration de Scève, orchestrée par Jerry Nash. Cynthia Skenazi
revient sur les rapports harmoniques du recueil ("L'harmonie dans la Délie: musique
et poésie") en indiquant l' influences des thèses de Marsile Ficin sur la pensée de Scève
et les effets mélodiques auxquels concourent les dizains. La dimension musicale du
recueil intéresse aussi les analyses d' Edwin Duval ("From the chanson parisienne to
Scève' s French canzoniere: lyric form and logical structure of the Dizain"). Celui-ci
étudie minutieusement les structures du dizain (en particulier, les effets de césure
strophique) et en arrive à la conclusion que Scève avait organisé ses dizains de manière
à être mis en musique et à correspondre au modèle de la chanson parisienne (césure
en 4/6). Pour leur part, R. et V. La Charité ("A sa Délie: the Text of the Text"), Hope
Glidden ("Maulx tant extremes: homophonic strategies in Scève' s Délie''), et Nancy
Frelick ("Looking for Délie through the Labyrinth of Signs") abordent la question de
l'obscurité scévienne, de la part de mystère qui entoure cette oeuvre et cette femme,
par le biais de l'homophonie. L'onomastique, les jeux de mots sont autant de moyens
pour dérouter le lecteur et l'inviter à chercher dans le recueil une pluralité de sens. De
son côté, François Rigolot ("Cinq paroles intelligibles, à propos de Scève l'obscur")
dresse le bilan de la réception critique et pose la question de l' interprétation é vangélique
du recueil, en soulignant que la recherche de l'expression obscure semblerait "en
contradiction avec l' idéal d' une appréhension directe de la simplicité évangélique" (p.
58). À partir de la lecture que Scève a faite de la traduction du Nouveau Testament par
Lefèvre d'Étaples, Rigolot replace le "désir obsessionnel de concision dans le cadre
du discours paulinien sur l'intelligibilité" (p. 61). Gérard Defaux ("L'intertexte
marotique de la Délie: M. Scève et 'ferme amour'") et J. DellaNeva ("Image and
(Un)likeness: mirroring Other Texts in Scève' s Délié") apportent des éléments
nouveaux sur l'intertextualité à l'oeuvre dans le recueil. Le premier, à partir du dizain
17, souligne l'influence décisive de Marot; la seconde revient sur le pétrarquisme de
Scève. Dans un tout autre domaine, Tom Conley et Yvonne Bellenger s' intéressent aux
dimensions spatio-temporelles de la Délie Le premier ("Scève cosmographe") trace
les lignes qui parcourent l'oeuvre en mettant en perspective le sens et la lettre, le texte
et l'image; quant à Y. Bellenger ("Le temps et les jours dans la Délie''), elle souligne
que "Scève montre le temps en mouvement" (p. 1 83) et que "le jour est devenu une pure
métaphore de la dame" (p. 179). Gisèle Mathieu-Castellani ("Scève: l'infinitif, la loi,
le devenir") procède à l'étude de la langue scévienne pour définir les nuances d'une
écriture qui semblerait s'épuiser dans la nomination de son objet. Enfin, Jerry Nash,
maître d'oeuvre de cette mouture, dans une perspective herméneutique, réévalue la
poétique du désir ("Desires in Délie. A Study in Hermeneutics").

Le lecteur trouvera sans doute dans ce volume, regroupant 1 3 contributions fort
diverses d'Europe et d'Amérique et d'un intérêt parfois inégal, des repères qui
baliseront son exploration de Délie, cet "objet de plus haute vertu.'

»»

FRANÇOIS ROUGET, University of Toronto

80 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Alastair Hamilton. Heresy and Mysticism in Sixteenth-Century Spain: The
Alumbrados. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1992. Pp. iv,
156.

Henry Kamen. The Phoenix and the Flame: Catalonia and the Counter
Reformation. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993. Pp. xiv,
527.

Heresy and Mysticism in Sixteenth-Century Spain: The Alumbrados is the first compre-
hensive historical survey in English of alumbradismo, a heresy which flourished in Spain
during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. Alastair Hamilton traces the develop-
ment of alumbradismo, irom its initial clash with the Inquisition of Toledo in the 1520s,
to the trials of the alumbrados in Llerena in the 1580s and those of Seville in the 1620s.
He bases his study on the writings of various religious figures of the period, and in the case
of the earliest alumbrados, who left behind no formal compilation of their beliefs, on
letters written in their defense and statements made by witnesses at their trials.

Hamilton locates the origins of alumbradismo in heterodox movements of the
Christian Middle Ages as well as in the late fifteenth-century Franciscan practice of
recogimiento, the gathering up of the soul to God. In certain segments of the clergy and
laity, and significantly among a high proportion of women, recogimiento led to a more
radical form of prayer known as dejamiento, the abandoning of the soul to God.
Though the distinction between recogimiento and dejamiento was never definitively
established, the dejados claimed to be filled with a divine light (hence the designation
alumbrado) and to achieve a passive union with God. Its practitioners not only
advocated complete passivity, but considered themselves free from moral law. They
were thus charged with antinomianism. The alumbrados of Llerena and Seville,
moreover, allegedly engaged in mystical extravagance, imposture, and licentiousness.

Many alumbrados were of conversa origin, and the earliest were denounced as
Judaizers. Their beliefs, however, had virtually nothing in common with Judaism, and
the Inquisition soon came to realize that it was confronted with a new heresy. Although
the first cases coincided with the rise of Lutheranism, the inquisitors of the 1520s were
still unapprised of the subtleties of Lutheran theology, and did not consider
alumbradismo a manifestation of Protestantism. In reality the early alumbrados shared
more in common with evangelical Catholics than with Protestants, and following the
appearance of Lutheran communities in Valladolid and Seville in the 1550s, the
differences between the two became apparent. In the course of the sixteenth century,
alumbradismo was imputed to several leading religious figures, including Ignatius
Loyola, Teresa of Avila, and John of the Cross. But by the last decades of the century,
it was increasingly regarded as religious imposture. In fact no one ever chose to
identify him or herself as an alumbrado/a, and the term was strictly one of accusation.

In the late seventeenth century the quietism of Miguel de Molinos (which shared
tenets with alumbradismo) emerged as the primary heresy of the Catholic world, and

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 81

as Hamilton writes at the end of his book, "the essentially Spanish heresy of the 'poor
little women and the ignorant' gradually faded away" (p. 128). Although it is not within
the scope of this study, much more could be said about the role of women within
alumbradismo, and how its interiorized spirituality provided a space outside of the male-
dominated ecclesiastical hierarchy for both women and men. On the whole. Heresy and
Mysticism in Sixteenth-Century Spain is a significan contribution to Spanish historiography,
both for its elucidation of the beliefs of alumbrados and for its clarification of the
interconnectedness of the various religious movements of the time.

In contrast to Heresy and Mysticism in Sixteenth-Century Spain, which for the
most part remains focused on the dynamics of religion itself, the Phoenix and the
Flame: Catalonia and the Counter Reformation assesses the repercussions of the
Counter Reformation on Catalonia through a social history of a small, pre-industrial
community, Mediona, and by extension the larger Mediterranean region of which it
was a part. In the extraordinarily rich and provocative study, Henry Kamen raises
fundamental questions regarding the relationship of the Catalan Church to popular
religion and culture. He rejects the claim of Church writers of the period that the
Counter Reformation was a continuation and reaffirmation of traditional religious
practices, arguing instead that significan changes occurred in the liturgy as well as in
the social and personal lives of the laity.

The Phoenix and the Flame fills a lacuna in Spanish historiography insofar as there
exists no social history of Catalonia, nor even a general history of the Catalan Church. In
reconstructing Counter-Reformation Catalan society, Kamen relies on archival docu-
ments, printed books of the period, and sources relating to traditional culture and folklore.
He judiciously uses only those Castillian-language works read in Catalonia during the
Counter Reformation, and approaches with caution studies in folklore based on modem
observations of the customs of rural Catalonia. Among the myriad of subjects analyzed
are religious festivals and songs, book trading and printing processes, developments in
sermonology, the debate over the Catalan language, and the rise of the Jesuits.

According to Kamen, pre-Tridentine Catalan Catholicism was largely non-clerical
and non-sacramental, tied to agrarian rituals and community needs. While religion in
Catalonia remained grounded in the community throughout the early modem period, in
post-Tridentine society the sacraments became the comerstone of Catholic spirituality.
As a result of the increased emphasis on penance and communion, the priests came to play
a more integral role in the lives of the people. It was in matrimony, however, that the
Counter Reformation had the greatest impact on Catalans and Spaniards.

During the medieval period most marriages occurred outside the Church, and
though since the tenth century a religious ceremony had been obligatory, by the early
sixteenth century the majority of marriages were still "clandestine." As a consequence
of the Counter reformation, marriage ceased to be regarded as a natural or human
contract, and became first and foremost a sacrament. The upshot, according to Kamen,
is that an unchanging Catholic morality never existed. Despite the insistence of
religious writers of the period, Catholic morality was in a process of continual

82 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

development. What is striking is that in articulating its ethical stance the Counter-
Reformation Church, and ultimately the State, found it necessary to intrude in the most
intimate aspects of private life.

In The Phoenix and the Flame Kamen exposes numerous historical misconcep-
tions about early modern Catalonia and the Church. He demonstrates that the
Inquisition was not a primary instrument of the Catalan Counter Reformation, and that
throughout its 300-year history it intervened in only ten percent of the towns and
villages of the region. Change, moreover, was slow, and even in the late seventeenth
century areas in Catalonia and elsewhere in Spain were described as "Indies" requiring
further Christianization. Based on the example of Catalonia, Kamen concludes that the
Counter Reformation did not make Spain a militant nation bent on imposing orthodoxy
on the rest of Europe nor a fortress closed to the outside world. This picture of the
country is bound to raise considerable discussion and lead to further inquiry. Without
doubt. The Phoenix and the Flame will come to be seen as a watershed in the
historiography of the early modem period.

ROBERT RICHMOND ELLIS, Occidental College

Logique et littérature à la Renaissance. Actes du Colloque de la Baume-les-
Aix, Université de Provence, 6-18 septembre 1991, sous la direction deMarie-
Luce Demonet-Launay et André Toumon. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1 994. Pp.

252.

Félicitons tous d'abord les responsables de cette rencontre méditerranéenne: c'est en
effet la première fois, à ma connaissance, que les deux termes de "logique" et de
"littérature" étaient associés pour qu'ils favorisent les seiziémistes, invités à projeter
un regard neuf sur certaines productions de la Renaissance. Le terme de logique ayant
été pris par les uns au sens large (comprenant la rhétorique et ses figures), par les autres
en un sens plus étroit (la logique que nous appelons aujourd'hui formelle), on a pu
étudier l'antithèse dans la Délie de Maurice Scève (Françoise Charpentier), l'origine
du mot "maxime" (Francis Goyet), le lieu commun chez Melanchton (Kees Meerhoff)
ou r"art des opposés" chez Bovelles (Jean-Claude Margolin). Une notion, qui n'est
pas d'ordre spécifiquement logique, comme Vacedia, "autour de laquelle" médite
Yves Pouilloux, trouve son emploi dans une lecture assez neuve de Bovelles, et
notamment de ses deux traités, le De Sapiente et le De Nihilo. V acedia, selon Bovelles
et toute une tradition chrétienne, est le pire des péchés par lequel l'homme succombe

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 83

au néant et finit par s' identifier à lui. L' homme est devenu déraisonnable dans sa raison
même. Or le renversement des valeurs opéré par saint Paul et par le De Nihilo ne veut-
il pas que l'homme, l'ascète, soit déraisonnable, pour atteindre ce "vide parfait" où
Dieu occuperait toute la place?

Plus directement attaché à la logique formelle qui prend toute sa place dans L'Art
des opposés, Jean-Claude Margolin entreprend une exégèse de ce texte, en en
soulignant l'influence néo-pythagoricienne et cusaine.

Un auteur, assez peu connu, même des seiziémistes, est ce Philippe Canaye,
auteur de L'organe, c'est-à-dire l'instrument du discours, inspiré, bien entendu, de
VOrganon d'Aristote, dont Marie-Luce Demonet étudie à la fois la filiation à travers
la "logique française" de la seconde moitié du seizième siècle (Scaliger, Périon,
Grouchy, Antoine Gouvea) et même les contradictions inhérentes à ce discours
persuasif: les difficultés rencontrées par Canaye pour établir une jonction entre le
syllogisme hypothétique et le syllogisme analytique montrent combien "le prosélyte
a intérêt à ce que s'estompe la différence entre le catégorique et le probable en matière
religieuse." En effet, la foi ne peut se limiter au vraisemblable.

C'est à une logique de la différence dans les traités d'histoire de la fin de la
Renaissance que fait appel Philippe Desan, à partir de Bodin, de Loys Le Roy, de La
Popelinière, pour conclure que le relativisme historique est le résultat logique de
l'entreprise comparatiste de l'historien.

De la logique de la différence, on passe à celle du probable avec Sandra Vulcan,
qui nous propose une étude comparative de devis de VHeptaméron et d'un dialogue
du seizième siècle (ce dialogue étant une sottie évangélique proche de V Inquisiteur,
ou du Trop, Prou, Peu, Moins de Marguerite de Navarre). Si la démarche rationnelle
des devis, qui part de l'incertain, aboutit à un probable plus certain au terme d'un
cheminement complexe vers la vérité, la sottie comprend trois étapes, où l' argumentation
est constituée de deux positions antithétiques sur le mode de la controverse.

Une étude très fouillée d'un sonnet italien de Domenico Venerio entraîne Pierre
Lusson sur la voie complexe, ouverte par le Centre de Poétique Comparée, pour établir
toute une série de corrélations, le 'squelette rythmique" du sonnet. La physionomie du
vers avec ses coupures syntaxiques, ses récurrences phoniques, la nature des "peignes"
et autres considérations graphiques et numérologiques qui permettent peut-être
d'analyser plus finement ou "scientifiquement" la structure du poème, . . . mais qui
n'aident pas à son appréciation esthétique!

Gilles Polizzi , grand connaisseur du songe de Poliphile et de Béroalde de verville,
étudie ce qu'il appelle r"espace conceptuel dans la fiction de la Renaissance: étude
fine et bien documentée, mais qui se rattache davantage à la textologie qu' à une analyse
des rapports entre logique et littérature. En revanche, Francis Goyet est au coeur de la
problématique tirée des deux termes mêmes du thème proposé pour le colloque, en
étudiant l'origine logique du mot "maxime." Nous avons, en effet, assez souvent
oublié que ce mot, que nous prenons au sens de sentence, adage ou proverbe, a en fait

84 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

une origine très logique, puisqu'il vient du latin juridique, maxima {sententià) et, plus
haut encore, du concept de maxima propositio, inventé par Boèce. Il est donc au
fondement de la logique médiévale. Celle-ci ne s 'arrêtant pas en 1500, c'est à une
rigoureuse excursion dialectique, qui nous conduit jusqu'à la fin du dix-huitième
siècle (et même au-delà), que nous invite pour notre grande satisfaction intellectuelle
l'auteur de ce texte.

Entre le langage, la littérature et la logique, non seulement les ponts sont d'un
usage qui nous est devenu familier, mais ils nous font aussi accéder à des mines
littéraires d'une extraordinaire richesse, comme le montre la communication de Jan
Miernowski, qui nous fait tout d'abord connaître Jean Demons, sieur d'Héricourt, qui
démontre, dans la lignée de Passerat, l'existence d'une "quintessence tirée du quart de
rien et de ses dépendances contenant les préceptes de la saincte Magie et devote
invocation." Au début, on dirait du Raymond Devos. Par la suite, le commentateur de
Demons, mettant de l'ordre dans le fouillis de ses idées, étudie les trois approches de
l'opposition fondamentale (logique et métaphysique) de Dieu et du Néant: la magie,
l'allégorie et l'apophasie.

Les autres conununications de ce précieux recueil ne sont pas moins originales
que celles que nous avons brièvement caractérisées. Mais la place nous manquant pour
leur accorder leur dû, que les auteurs nous pardonnent de les mentionner seulement,
avec leurs titres: Pierre Lardet ("Appareil théorique et lecture des auteurs chez J.-C.
Scaliger"), Michel Liddle ("logiques, grammaires, grammairiens et littérature"),
Yves Délègue ("La digression ou l'oralité dans l'écriture"), Catherine Demure
("L' Utopie de Thomas More: entre logique et chronologie, l'enjeu du sens"), et André
Tournon, l'un de nos meilleurs montaignistes contemporains, et auteur, par ailleurs,
d'une édition du Moyen de parvenir do, Béroalde de Verville ("Le maniement logique
de l'illogisme, de Montaigne à Verville").

Un index des noms et des notions complète fort heureusement cet ensemble de
16 articles-communications, sans oublier la présentation générale de Marie-Luce
Demonet ("Du bizarre à V assurection'') et l'épilogue, confié à Terence Cave, qui a
laissé le dernier mot à Montaigne, qui oscille, selon lui, "entre la joie capiteuse de
l'aventure sceptique, qui mène on ne sait où, et un profond besoin d'ordre, d'une
mesure commune."

JEAN-CLAUDE MARGOLIN, Université de Tours

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 85

Collected Works of Erasmus, Volume II: The Correspondence of Erasmus:
Letters 1535 to 1557 (1525), translated by Alexander Dalzell, annotated by
Charles G. Nauert, Jr. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto
Press, 1994. Pp. xxiv, 476.

Collected Works of Erasmus, Volume 56: Annotations on Romans, edited by
Robert D. Sider, translated and annotated by John B. Payne, Albert Rabil, Jr.,
Robert D. Sider, and Warren S. Smith, Jr. Toronto, Buffalo and London:
University of Toronto Press, 1994. Pp. xviii, 480.

These two recent offerings from the Collected Works of Erasmus (CWE) bring forth
treasures old and new from the University of Toronto Press's enterprise of producing
English translations of the works of the famous Renaissance humanist. CWE 1 1 ,
containing all the extant letters which Erasmus wrote and received in 1525, continues
the long-standing project of publishing and annotating his correspondence. CWE 56
marks a new venture in the scholarly editing of Erasmus' works, for it makes available
for the first time a modern English scholarly edition of one part of the greatest
monument to Erasmus' biblical scholarship, the Annotations on the New Testament.
This volume, comprising Erasmus' notes on Paul's Epistle to the Romans, is the first
to appear in a series of ten volumes (CWE 51-60) to be devoted to the Annotations.
Previously, the Annotations were only accessible in their original editions and in
volume 6 of Leclerc's 1703 edition of Erasmus' Opera Omnia. More recently, Anne
Reeve and Michael A. Screech have produced facsimiles of the final 1535 edition,
noting the changes Erasmus made in the four earlier editions of 1 5 1 6, 1 5 1 9, 1 522, and
1527.

In his preface to CWE 1 1 Charles Nauert points out that during 1525 "Erasmus
sat uneasily at Basel, apparently not even venturing outside the city to make the sort
of social calls he hasd made to Porrentruy and Besançon in the spring of 1524" (p. xi).
While he suffered from the wrenching pain of kidney stones, thousands of peasants
were in armed revolt against princes and cites in Germany and Switzerland. From time
to time he mentions the peasant uprisings and laments the resulting gruesome
bloodshed.

Erasmus, however, was far more troubled by attacks on his own theological
reputation. He repeatedly lashed out at the stupidity of his Catholic critics, who were
eager to denounce him as a heretic. In particular, Pierre Cousturier (Petrus Sutor), a
Carthusian monk who had studied theology at the Sirbonne, provoked Erasmus' wrath
in 1525 by openly condemning all new translations of the Bible, including Erasmus'
revision of the Vulgate. In Noël Béda, syndic of the Faculty of Theology in Paris,
Erasmus had a much more formidable opponent than Cousturier. Béda and rasmus
began corresponding in 1525. Their letters represent the initial skirmishes in the
sharpening theological conflict between Erasmus and the Paris theologians.

86 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Erasmus had to contend with more than simply his CathoHc critics. He was wary
of the opinions of Basel's Reform leaders, especially those of Johannes Oecolampadius
and Conradus Pellicanus. Ten years earlier both men had been his colleagues in
biblical and patristic scholarship; now they were claiming that he shared their
Sacramentarian views on the Eucharist. Erasmus was impressed by Oecolampadius'
arguments but promised Michel Boudet, Bishop of Langres, that he would publish a
refutation of his Eucharistie doctrine. Although Erasmus never kept his promise, his
adherence to the Catholic belief in the Real Presence lay behind his angry rejection of
Pellicanus' friendship.

The letters of CWE 1 1 show Erasmus' preoccupation with his poor health and his
sensitivity to theological conflict into which Catholics and Protestants seemed to be
dragging him. These letters, however, also reveal a more complete picture of the life
of the scholar who did not let his worries about the adverse effect of religious strife on
the study of humane letters interfere with his efforts at continuing old acquaintances
and pursuing new contacts among like-minded humanists. To his old friend, the
Niimberg humanist Willibald Pirckheimer, he dedicated his edition of John Chrisostom' s
De officio sacerdotis, and he asked Pirckheimer to relay his greetings to Albrecht
Diirer. In 1525 Erasmus tried to begin a friendship with Marguerite d' Angoulême, the
famous patron of French humanists and evangelicals and the sister of King Francis I,
but, as Nauert surmises, she never took up Erasmus' offer of friendship "apparently
because she thought his approach to religion too rationalistic and too little sensitive to
the need of grace" (p. 285). Erasmus had greater success in cultivating friendships and
patronage in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland. Erasmus' letter to Andrzej Krzycki,
the Bishop of Przemsyl, drew an enthusiastic response in which Krzycki, after
declaring his "undying affection and devotion" (p. 388) for Erasmus, invited him to
visit Poland.

In his first letter to Béda Erasmus announced that he was preparing a fourth
edition of his New Testament, which he eventually published in 1527. His New
Testament consisted of three parts: the Greek text, his revision of the Vulgate Latin
translation, and most importantly, from the standpoint of his own scholarship and of
the interests of modem research, the Annotations. The translators of CWE 56 state that
they "have attempted to render the Latin as literally as English prose will allow" (p.
xv). Each note begins with the reference to the relevant passage in Romans (chapter
and verse), with Erasmus' revision in Latin and in English translation of the Vulgate,
and with the original Vulgate text in Latin and in English. Then follows Erasmus'
explanation. Most of these explanations are very brief, but some turn into short essays.

CWE 56 is more than a mere translation, however. It is an exceptional work of
scholarship. Just as Erasmus' notes embody his biblical erudition, so too the notes in
CWE 56 to each of Erasmus' notes display the painstakingly thorough research of the
annotators. The exact references to Erasmus' patristic sources and to the works of the
scholastic theologians whom he cites are especially valuable since Erasmus rarely

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 87

provides these references himself. The annotators also point out the changes — usually
amplifications — that Erasmus incorporated into the expanding editions of his notes
and present the necessary historical and theological context of the many exegetical
problems Erasmus raises and attempts to answer.

ThQ Annotations on Romans allow us an impressive and detailed view of Erasmus
the consummate philologist, who concludes one of his notes: "For my part, I am
striving in this exposition to ascertain especially those things which contribute to a
sound reading" (p. 202). He points out both the elegance and ambiguities of the original
Greek text, compares variant readings in Latin and Greek codices as well as in the
commentaries of the Church Fathers, and discusses the shades of meanings of Greek
and Latin words. He constantly takes the Vulgate translator to task for his errors in
grammar and translation, although on a rare occasion he can write that "the Translator
has conveyed the sense well" (p. 176). Not surprisingly, Erasmus chides scholastic
theologians, including Thomas Aquinas, for their misinterpretations. While he usually
has good things to say about the philological judgments of Lorenzo Valla, whose
Annotations on the New Testament he discovered and published in 1 505, he occasion-
ally registers his disagreement with his humanist counterpart in France, Jacques
Lefèvre d'Étaples. Again and again Erasmus enlists the Church Fathers as his allies
when justifying his translations. His favourites are Origen, Ambrosiaster, Chrysostom,
and Theophylact, whom he mentions more frequently than Jerome and Augustine.

At times philology can lead to theological apologetics and homiletic or moraliz-
ing statements. In the note on Romans 5: 12 (pp. 139-151), the longest discussion in
the Annotations on Romans, the correct translation of a Greek preposition lies at the
heart of Erasmus' insistence against his detractors that this particular passage cannot
be used to justify the doctrine of original sin. Other philological considerations
develop into rebukes of his fellow Christians for their many vices and superstitions.

Both CWE 1 1 and 56 present excellent, readable translations of Erasmus' Latin.
They will facilitate scholarly research and give non-specialists the opportunity to
discover and understand more thoroughly the life and work of Erasmus as the leading
scholar of the Northern Renaissance.

HILMAR M. PABEL, Simon Fraser University

88 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Allen G. Debus. The French Paracelsians: The Chemical Challenge to
Medical and Scientific Tradition in Early Modem France. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1991. Pp. 247.

A specialist of the Paracelsian tradition, Allen G. Debus has followed it throughout
Europe in works such as The Chemical Philosophy: Paracelsian Science and Medicine
in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1977) and Man and Nature in the
Renaissance (1987), as well as papers concerning Spain, Portugal and even the
Ottoman Empire. His latest work examines the history of Paracelsianism in France, where
it played a particularly complex and prolonged part in the evolution of chemistry. At the
beginning of the sixteenth century, Arabic medical texts were being replaced by Galenic
translations, humanism's contribution to medicine, along with the Corpus Hermeticum,
which stressed the relatedness of macrocosm and microcosm in the unity of the universe,
a view also held by Paracelsus (1493- 1 54 1 ) himself. By the middle of the century a strong
disagreement erupted between the followers of Paracelsus, who considered themselves
as innovators, and the French medical establishment, notably the Faculty of Medicine of
the University of Paris, which held fast to the Galenic tradition. Debus examines the entire
mass of textual evidence, which stems from many French and Swiss cities in addition to
Paris, and spreads well into the eighteenth century.

Two complementary aspects of the history of Paracelsianism are discussed by
Debus in conjunction with each other: the scientific aspect which shows an important
phase of the indirect, indeed tortuous process whereby chemistry became a medical
science, and finally a science in its own right; and the political and institutional
struggles which constantly opposes the Paracelsians to established authority in matters
of medical theory as well as practice.

This double inquiry means that throughout the book the author presents to the
reader valuable information about many Paracelsian thinkers and practitioners with
their intellectual commonalities, but also their individual stories of obstinate resistance
in the name of their own vision of the truth. But he also relates the paradoxical story
of an intellectual movement, the consequences of which, in the end, contributed to the
scientific revolution, although initially it was, if anything, "counter-revolutionary;"
and it is this story which in our view constitutes the kernel of originality of this book.

The Galenists and the Paracelsians disagreed, first of all, about the nature of the
cosmos; the former continued to rely on the Aristotelian system, and more particularly
on the four elements in nature (corresponding to the four humours in human body). The
Paracelsians saw God as the Creator of both the macrocosm and the microcosm;
knowledge of the organic is therefore linked to that of the inorganic. The same principles
underlie all reality — they are sulphur, mercury and salt — and alchemy is the science
which gives access to these. On a more practical level, the Galenists continued to prescribe
medicinal plants; the Paracelsians practised distillation, attempted to obtain transmuta-
tion of metals, and prescribed metals and minerals as remedies, including aurumpotabile
and antimony, which was considered poisonous by the French authorities.

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 89

The controversies were endless because there was little, if any, common ground
between the two sets of beliefs. Each side claimed dramatic cures; each accused the
other side of killing patients. On the Paracelsian side, knowledge of chemical
phenomena that were potentially useful to medicine was slowly gaining ground; but
it was almost always accompanied, and therefore impeded, by the complete displays
of Paracelsian dogma, including belief in physiognomy and chiromancy. Such was,
among many others, the case of Roch Le Bailliff, sieur de la Rivière, who pointed to
cures by chemists of such diseases as leprosy, dropsy, paralysis, and gout. He became
"médecin ordinaire" to Henry III, tried his hand at describing the plague, and human
anatomy. The Faculty of Medicine of Paris managed to halt his medical practice and
his lectures. During his trial he did not adhere to chemical problems but took every
opportunity to defend the Paracelsian philosophy. Others, such as Claude Dariot
(1533-1594), denied that there was any fundamental conflict between thought of
Paracelsus and that of Hippocrates and Galen; and concentrated (in his Treatise on the
Preparation of Medicines) on describing practical chemical techniques and actual
chemical procedures for the Paracelsian preparations. But he too claimed that the
medical benefits of chemistry were inseparable from the principles of alchemy.

And so, the dialogue of the deaf is extended into the seventeenth century, when
alchemical treatises continue to be translated and published in abundance. Marin
Mersenne ( 1 588- 1648) attempts to break the deadlock in a Cartesian way, by affirming
the mathematical basis of all natural phenomena, and therefore the necessity to
understand the proportions among all components of chemical bodies. This would
amount to stripping alchemy of its "religious overtones and mystical analogies" (p.
73); also, to extending the mathematical treatment to all substances. It was Guy de la
Brosse, founder of the Jardin des Plantes research institution, who most cogently
advocated the pharmaceutical use of both metallic and botanical substances. Chemistry
became widely taught, but was still excluded from the curriculum of the Paris Faculty of
Medicine. The cure of Louis XTV (1658) with vin émétique led to the acceptance of
antimony as a remedy. At this point, chemistry still had an instrumental status within
medicine. Its next conquest, pioneered by Jean Baptiste van Helmont (1579-1644) was
that of physiology: the human body itself is the locus of transmutations and its processes
are subject to quantification. But van Helmont also held views (e.g. about the existence
of a universal medicine) which in the end identified him with the Paracelsian philosophy.

Increasingly, however, chemistry would be taught as an experimental science, along
with (or despite) lip service to the Paracelsian world view; it would gradually establish
itself as a system for explaining physiological processes, first in contradistinction to
medical mechanism, though at times, as in the work of Vieussens ( 1 635- 1 7 1 5) on blood,
in combination with it. The Paracelsian tradition would survive during the Age of
Enlightenment as a separate phenomenon, less and less related to the specifically
chemical developments to which, as Debus well demonstrates, it had given rise along the
way.

EVA KUSHNER, University of Toronto

90 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

David R. Carlson. English Humanist Books: Writers and Patrons, Manuscript
and Print, 1475-1525. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press,
1993. Pp. X, 275.

Mary Thomas Crane. Framing Authority: Sayings, Self, and Society in
Sixteenth-Century England. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Pp.
x,281.

Both these books share what has become in recent years a prevailing desire to
humanize the humanists, as it were: to remind us that humanists did not live by
Ciceronian sententiae alone, but required bread and were obliged to develop elaborate
strategies of salesmanship in order to secure it. While this unromantic vision of the
humanists has always existed — it was first expressed by contemporaries who felt their
own social and political franchise endangered — the work of Anthony Grafton and
Lisa Jardine, in particular, has provided a fresh impetus to see Renaissance humanism
in all its glorious confusion of mixed motives, uncertain results, and scrappy oppor-
tunism. Yet neither of the books under review proposes a mere subversion of humanist
activity. Rather, both authors complicate the essential tools of the working humanist:
the carefully crafted volumes presented to actual or potential patrons; the printed texts
that spread an author's fame; the commonplace books that represented years of
gathering and framing (seeming mundane techniques that Mary Thomas Crane
transforms into something rich and strange). However different their approaches and
concerns, Carlson and Crane are immersed in the physical materials of humanist
endeavour and it is their concern with "matter" — in more than one sense — that
enriches and problematizes their critical projects.

English Humanist Books is "a book about books: why they were made the way
they were and how they were used" (p. 1) in the crucial period when print and
humanism were beginning to transform the cultural landscape of Europe. For Carlson,
the various fabrications of the humanist text illuminate the relations between the hired
intellectual and his masters. The elaborations of its physical form — inexpensive
manuscripts intended for private circulation, deluxe presentation manuscripts, the
range of printed texts and the curious hybrids where print and manuscript mimicked
each other — serve as a graded scale on which to construct a sociology of humanist
exchange. In this system, social inequities complicated scholarly ones and Carlson
explores the ways in which these seekers of employment tried, with varying success,
to exploit a patron's sometimes whimsical need to follow intellectual fashion and to
engage in acts of conspicuous consumption. For the humanist a well-timed and well-
wrought textual gift could be a crucial investment. Since patrons favoured richly
appointed manuscripts, there was the inherent risk of any speculative market, but
courting a patron empty-handed was simply a non-starter.

Carlson proceeds by means of a series of case studies. Relatively obscure figures
like Filippo Alberici, who presented a lovely manuscript to Henry VII that demon-

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 91

strated his skills as poet and translator but failed to gain him a position, stand side by
side with such titans as More or Erasmus whose collaboration on the Epigrammata of
1518, Carlson argues, marked a vital chapter in More' s own hterary self-fashioning.
Whatever their fame, these figures — which also include Pietro Carmeliano, Bernard
André, Robert Whittington, and William Lily — are bound together by metaphysical
imperative and material means: the need to cast themselves as attractive public figures
worthy of preferment; and dependence on the fluid physis of book as first gambit in the
patronal negotiation.

Carlson is at his best in discriminating the complex material significances of the
book. While he builds on an abundance of prior work in this area, his anatomy of the
manufacture and the immediate fate of particular books has the always appealing
freshness of specificity : even a humanist as ephemeral as Alberici flickers to life as we
watch his suit fail and, through a few well-chosen illustrations, feel his palpable
gesture towards an indifferent monarch. Moreover, by grounding a good part of his
reading in the court of Henry VII, Carlson revises a scholarly bias that privileges the
court of his son.

Yet if English Humanist Books succeeds in making its readers aware of how
certain material objects embodied a humanist's ambitions and in refining our view of
an earlier Henrician court, it finally fails in making books or courts sufficiently
problematical entities. For all its impressive particularity, the argument is virtually
innocent of the kinds of theorizing about the nature of the book, the innovation of print,
and the complexities of court mobility that have made these topics so vital in recent
years. This is not a plea for theory as such, but a "book about books" that has more than
antiquarian interest yet fails to engage theoretical problems of author and text seems,
in these days, curiously incomplete. The very materiality of these humanist books, so
carefully read by Carlson on one level, surely demands a more self-consciously
theorized analysis of their status as aristocratic ornament or collection along the lines
of recent work by Patricia Fumerton and Susan Stewart. On a broader scale, some
attempt to consider the book as a conceptual entity — as Jesse Gellrich undertook to
do for the Middle Ages — would have been welcome. This book succeeds in binding
humanists to their writings in a viscerally satisfying way: as subjects defined largely
by objects with a real look, feel, and smell; yet it also raises tantalizing questions of
how such objects as these are to be understood apart from their seductive material
forms.

If Carlson declines to theorize the objects of his investigation — whether books
or their humanist authors — Mary Thomas Crane, in Framing Authority, immediately
engages the question of theory . Indeed, her study is informed by an impassioned desire
to prove that English humanism "possessed greater theoretical sophistication, mani-
fested a more complex and problematized ideological stance . . . than has generally
been recognized" (p. 7). Yet she also appreciates the difficulty of applying theory to
early Renaissance writing and offers her work as a temperate model: "it has neverthe-
less seemed possible, particularly at this historical moment, to achieve some measure

92 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

of internal distantiation, to stand as it were between the theoretical systems of our age
and the previous one in order to see, however partially, our common past" (p. 11).
Borrowing from a host of theoretical sources, while never losing sight of "the English
Renaissance in all its otherness" (p. 199), Crane negotiates between different worlds
of discursive theory with unfailing delicacy.

Crane proposes to rethink the place and problem of the commonplace, or "saying"
(the neutral term she favours over adage, aphorism, sentence, etc.), in early Renais-
sance England: what were the implications of the humanist obsession with the
"gathering" and "framing" of such sayings? For Crane, these common practices imply
a theory of reading that envisioned texts like the Aeneid, not as the brilliant narrative
wholes we modem cherish, but as networks of pithy moral fragments to be culled,
collected, and imbibed. Crane reconsiders humanist pedagogy and the fruits of that
schooling in the commonplace books themselves to prove her point. Armed with this
definition of the humanist reader as a kind of elite hunter-gatherer, she suggests that
this self-effacing, communal mode of reading — self-effacing as readers become
repositories of discretely generated texts; communal as prospective humanists gather
what will become the wisdom of the tribe — subverts the ideal of individualized
authorship that has abided in the modem period and against which the various
postmodern deconstructions of the Author have been undertaken.

The result of mapping the techniques and ideology of the saying — a journey that
leads through logic and rhetoric handbooks as well as commonplace books — is a
bifurcated vision of Renaissance authorship that divides along lines of class and
culture: a humanist ideal of the author as scholarly conduit, civil advisor, and model
of reticent selfhood; an aristocratic ideal of the author as freely self-determined,
distinctly individualized, a model of emotional, personalized expression. This broad
dichotomy does little justice to the care and insight with which Crane constmcts her
meticulous scheme of early Renaissance authorship; and, while such radically op-
posed definitions are important to her analysis, it is the dialectic between them that
truly concerns her. Having erected a model of the Renaissance writer sensitive to the
specific nature of texts, to differences in class, and to the vexed problem of selfhood,
she proceeds to detail its implications for a variety of texts from the documents that
were the ammunition in the Grammarians' War to Sidney ' s Defense SindAstrophil and
Stella; and even to trace its influence on William Cecil, Lord Burghley, in whom the
ideals of humanist and aristocratic ideology were merged — to the frustration of those
who sought his favour. In these various figures. Crane considers how the humanist
project "shaped the discursive practices of the period" (p. 115).

While all the readings in Framing Authority illuminate familiar as well as
unfamiliar texts from a fresh perspective — a few pages on More' s Utopia, for
example, manage to shift the standard terms of the debate over that work — two
extended readings stand out. Crane breathes new life into the "drab age" poetic
miscellanies that always fall into the cracks of classroom lecture and literary history.
Rather than seek for the seeming poetic pearls among largely sententious and

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 93

depersonalized verse, Crane celebrates the sententiousness of the sixteenth-century
miscellany, revives its humanist roots, and restores something of its original ideologi-
cal complexity and cultural richness. Her consideration of Sidney enhances his
aesthetic and social liminality, read in the shadow of Lord Burghley, Astrophil and
Stella comes into focus as a political project in which "Sidney uses a quasi-fictional
love affair in order both to rebel against Burghley and to forge a version of the
aristocratic self that contains, but is not contained by, the humanist ethical frame" (p.
190).

Much of the force oi Framing Authority lies in its author's brilliantly successful
attempt to recuperate, not only a series of texts, but the very fragments of the textual
past that constitute their substance. By investing the saying with a new kind of
interpretative weight — by seeing in humble sententiousness a theory of composition,
an ideology of selfhood, and a subtle politics of authorship — Crane also effects a
complex canonical revision: obscure texts are revalued and familiar texts newly
esteemed. Moreover, and not the least of her accomplishments. Crane offers an elegant
corrective to the work of Stephen Greenblatt and Thomas Greene: complicating the
terms of sixteenth-century self-fashioning by clarifying the humanist concept of the
"socially constituted subject" (p. 6); and re-asserting a form of Renaissance imitatio
largely decried in The Light in Troy. It is a measure of her book that it can engage these
influential arguments with a complementary subtlety and richness. In Crane, the
humanist enterprise, much criticized and even demeaned in recent years, reassumes its
seminal status; less as a pedagogical project, political program, or cultural reawaken-
ing (though doubtless it was all these), than as a crucial framework for the forging of
the modern subject.

SAMUEL GLEN WONG, Simon Fraser University

Announcements
Annonces

Spanish and Hispanic-American Archival Sciences

Visiting Humanities Fellowships

Société Canadienne d'Études de la Renaissance

Le prochain congrès annuel de la Société Canadienne d'Études de la Renaissance aura
lieu du 26 au 28 mai 1996 à l'Université Brock, St. Catharines (Ontario). Pour de plus
amples renseignements, veuillez écrire à Elizabeth Sauer, Department of English,
Brock University, St. Catharines (Ontario) L2S 3A1.

Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies

The Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies will hold its next conference from May
26 to 28, 1996 at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario. For more information on
the conference, please contact Prof. Elizabeth Sauer, Department of English, Brock
University, St. Catharines, Ontario L2S 3A1.

96 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Critical Approaches to English Prose Fiction

The Barnabe Riche Society sponsors an international conference on the subject of
comparative critical approaches to English prose fiction ( 1 520- 1 640). The conference
will be held May 9-11, 1997 at Carleton University, Ottawa. For information on the
conference, please write to Prof. Douglas Wurtele, Department of English, Carleton
University, Ottawa, Ontario KIS 5B6.

Le Beau au temps de la Renaissance

The Greco-Roman Rhetorical Tradition

"The Greco-Roman Rhetorical Tradition: Alterations, Adaptations, Alternatives" is
the theme of the Eleventh Biennial Conference of the International Society for the
History of Rhetoric, to be held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, July 22-26, 1997. For
information, please write to Prof. Judith Rice Henderson, Department of English, 9
Campus Drive, University of Saskatchewan, Saslatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5. E-
mail: HENDRSNJ@duke.usask.ca.

The Faerie Queene in the World

An international symposium on "The Faerie Queene in the World, 1596-1996'' is to
be held at Yale University on 27-28 September 1996. For more information, please
write to: Prof. Elizabeth Fowler, Department of English, Yale University, P.O. Box
208302, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8302, USA.

The Iconic Page

"The Iconic Page in Manuscript, Print, and Digital Culture" is the title of a conference
to be held on 11-12 October 1996 at the University of Michigan. For information,
please contact: Prof. George Bomstein or Theresa Tinckle, Department of English,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1045, USA. E-mail:
iconic:page @ umich.edu.

Montaigne et l'imprimé

La revue Montaigne Studies annonce la parution d'un numéro spécial intitulé
"Montaigne in Print, 1 595- 1 995 ," sous la direction de Philippe Desan, Tilde Sankovitch
et Ullrich Langer. Le prix unitaire de ce numéro est de 18$ US. Pour de plus amples
renseignements sur ce numéro: Montaigne Studies, University of Chicago, 1050 East
59th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.

Recent Books
Livres récents

Katherine O. Acheson, éd. The Diary of Anne Clifford, 1616-1619: A Critical Edition.
New York: Garland, 1995.

Raymond A. Anselment. The Realms of Apollo: Literature and Healing in Seven-
teenth-Century England. Newark: University of Delaware Press/ London: Associ-
ated University Presses, 1995.

Frank Ardolino. Apocalypse and Armada in Kyd's Spanish Tragedy. Kirksville,
Missouri: Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, 1995.

Bryan Crockett. The Play of Paradox: Stage and Sermon in Renaissance England.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994.

Normand Doiron. U art de voyager: le déplacement à l'époque classique. Sainte-Foy/
Paris: Presses de l'Université Laval/Klincksieck, 1995.

William E. Engel. Mapping Mortality: The Persistence of Memory and Melancholy in
Early Modem England. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995.

Desiderius Erasmus. Collected works 50: Paraphrase on Acts, ed. John J. Bateman,
trans. Robert D. Sider. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.

Claire Farago, ed. Reframing the Renaissance: Visual Culture in Europe and Latin
America, 1450-1650. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Alison Findlay. Illegitimate power: Bastards in Renaissance Drama. Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1995.

98 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

W. Th. M. Frijhoff & M. Spies, eds. Drukkers, boekverkopers en lezers in Nederland
tijdens de Republiek. The Hague: SDU Uitgevers, 1995.

Carol F. Hefferman. The Melancholy Muse: Chaucer, Shakespeare and Early Medi-
cine. Ithaca: Duquesne University Press, 1995.

Craig A. Monson. Disembodied Voices: Music and Culture in an Early Modem Italian
Convent. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Steven Mullaney. The Place of the Stage: License, Play, and Power in Renaissance
England. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.

Daniel Murphy. Comenius: A Critical Reassessment of his Life and Work. Dublin:
Irish Academic Press, 1995.

Paul R. Rovang. Refashioning "Knights and Ladies Deeds": The Intertextuality of
Spenser's Faerie Queene and Malory's Morte Darthur. Cranbury: Farleigh
Dickinson University Press, 1995.

The editor welcomes submissions on any aspect of the Renaissance and the Reformation
period. Manuscripts in duplicate should be sent to the editorial office:

Renaissance and Reformation
Department of French Studies
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario N1G2W1
CANADA

Submissions in English or in French are refereed. Please follow the MLA Handbook, with
endnotes. Copyright remains the property of individual contributors, but permission to
reprint in whole or in part must be obtained from the editor.

The journal does not accept unsolicited reviews. However, those interested in reviewing
books should contact the Book Review Editor.

* * *

La revue sollicite des manuscrits sur tous les aspects de la Renaissance et de la Réforme.
Les manuscrits en deux exemplaires doivent être postés à l'adresse suivante:

Renaissance et Réforme
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Guelph (Ontario) N1G2W1
CANADA

Les textes en français ou en anglais seront soumis à l'évaluation externe. Veuillez vous
conformer aux conventions textuelles habituelles, avec l'appareil de notes à la fin de votre
texte. Les droits d'auteur sont la propriété des collaborateurs et collaboratrices; cependant,
pour toute reproduction en tout ou en partie, on doit obtenir la permission du directeur.

La revue sollicite ses propres comptes rendus. Si vous désirez rédiger des comptes rendus,
veuillez communiquer directement avec le responsable de la rubrique des livres.

OLUME XIX NUMBER

SUMMER 1995

RENAISSANCE

REFORMATION

RENAISSANCE

V'uÂ.M

^éi\

VOLUME XIX

r^>'

'î^ h

NUMERO

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme is published quarterly (February, May,
August, and November); paraît quatre fois Tan (février, mai, août, et novembre).

Renaissance (CSRS / SCER)

Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference (PNWRC)

Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium (TRRC)

Victoria University Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies (CRRS)

Directeur / Editor

François Paré (University of Guelph)

Directrice Adjointe

Diane Desrosiers-Bonin (Université McGill)

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READINGiOOM

Social Sciences

New Series, Vol. XIX, No. 3
Old Series, Vol. XXXI, No. 3

1995

Nouvelle Série, Vol XIX, No. 3
Ancienne Série, Vol. XXXI, No. 3

CONTENTS / SOMMAIRE

EDITORIAL

ARTICLES

The English Enchiridion Militis Christiani in the Seve
Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries
by Douglas H. Parker
5

Observations on Milton's Accents
by John K. Hale

Le dialogue de l'auteur et du lecteur dans La Sepmaine

de Du Bartas

par François Roudaut

The Obedience due to Princes": Absolutism in Pseudo-Martyr

by Phebe Jensen
63

Christianisme, métaphysique et épistémologie chez Marsile Ficin

par Yvan Morin
63

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS

Ernest Sullivan 11. The Influence of John Donne: His Uncollected

Seventeenth Century Printed Verse;

Anthony Raspa, ed. John Donne: Pseudo-Martyr

reviewed by Judith Scherer Herz

Richard Mulcaster. Positions Concerning the Training Up of Children,

edited by William Barker
reviewed by Kenneth J. E. Graham

Daniel Martin. Montaigne and the gods
reviewed by Cathleen M. Bauschatz

André Turcat. Etienne Jamet alias Esteban Jamete, sculpteur français
de la Renaissance en Espagne condamné par V Inquisition

recensé par Bertrand Jestaz
86

Linda Woodbridge. The Scythe of Saturn: Shakespeare

and Magical Thinking

reviewed by Graham Roebuck

ANNOUNCEMENTS/ANNONCES

RECENT BOOKS/LIVRES RÉCENTS

EDITORIAL

Voilà déjà quelques années que nous
nous sommes remis à l'étude attentive
du discours religieux à là Renaissance.
Durant ses premières années de publi-
cation, il semblait que Renaissance et
Réforme, par son titre, chevauchait
deux langages incompatibles. C'était,
pour inverser le titre d'un ouvrage
connu de Jean Lemaire de Belges, la
discorde de deux langages. D'un côté,
il y avait les poètes rhétoriqueurs, les
dramaturges, les pamphlétaires; de
l'autre, il y avait les commentateurs
religieux et les réformateurs. Certains
écrits renaissants souffraient ainsi
d'une lecture schizophrénique: ainsi en
était-il des oeuvres de John Donne, d'E-
rasme, de Pic de la Mirandole, de Mar-
guerite de Navarre, de John Milton,
entre autres. Le présent numéro de Re-
naissance et Réforme permet de mieux
saisir la pertinence du discours reli-
gieux à la Renaissance. Chez Du Bar-
tas, il est le chemin d'une
contemplation de l'origine. Chez
Donne, une manière de se positionner
par rapport aux autorités civiles. Chez
Ficin, le christianisme trinitaire ne peut
être dissocié du néoplatonisme. Chez
Érasme, il est la base civilisatrice qui doit
conditionner le nouveau pouvoir civil. Et
chez Milton, une véritable vision intégrée
du discours poétique. Et chez tous ces
écrivains une profonde assimilation des
tensions et des elucidations suscitées par
la réflexion religieuse.

For a number of years, the complexity of
the reUgious discourse in the Renaissance
has been the object of a renewed interest.
When Renaissance and Reformation first
appeared in the early 1970s, it seemed that
the two fields of investigation suggested
by the title of the journal were incompati-
ble. It was, to parody the title of Jean
Lemaire de Belges' s famous book, a
story of discordance between two "lan-
guages." On the one hand, one could find
the rhetoricians and poets, the drama-
tists, the pamphleteers; on the other, con-
fined in their own preoccupations with
salvation, the reformers and the mystics.
Many Renaissance texts fell victim to
our schizophrenia: so it was with John
Donne, Erasmus, Pico della Mirandola,
Marguerite de Navarre, John Milton,
among many. This issue of Renaissance
and Reformation allows us to understand
the pertinence of religious knowledge in
Renaissance thought. For Du Bartas, re-
ligion is a pathway towards a true contem-
plation of origin. For Donne, religious
discourse is a way of positioning the polit-
ical self. For Ficino, it is impossible to
dissociate Christianity and neoplatonism.
For Erasmus, the Bible is the civilizing
force behind the socio-political order. And
for Milton, the christian narrative leads to
an integrated vision of poetry. In all these
writers there is undoubtedly a profound
assimilation of the tensions and insights
produced by religious thought.

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 3 (1995) /3

The English Enchiridion

Militis Christiani in the

Seventeenth, Eighteenth,

and Nineteenth Centuries

DOUGLAS H.
PARKER

Summary: Following earlier articles in Renaissance and Reformation and
Erasmus in English, this paper examines the fate of Erasmus' s Enchiridion
Militis Christiani in three late editions published in the seventeenth, eigh-
teenth, and nineteenth centuries. Again in 1686, 1752, and 1816, Erasmus's
work was called upon to support Catholic and Protestant convictions alike.

In 1971 and again in 1973, I published in Erasmus in English and
Renaissance and Reformation respectively, two articles in which I
outlined the fate of the English translations oŒxdiSmyxs' s Enchiridion Militis
Christiani} In the Erasmus in English article I showed how the first English
translation of this work, published initially in 1533, became, over the course
of some 40 years,^ a convenient propagandistic tool to enhance the various
shades of Protestant and non-conformist belief. This interesting — and in
some senses disquieting — metamorphosis of one of Erasmus's most im-
portant works came about largely through selective and deliberate changes
made to the original English translation, a translation which was itself quite
faithful to the content and spirit of Erasmus's Latin text.^ As I examined the
eight editions of this first translation published between 1538 and 1576
where substantive changes were evident, it became clear that major editorial
decisions had been taken to ensure that the English translation was truly
reflecting — perhaps even helping to advance and propagate — signifîcant
changes in the political-religious context of the times.

In the Renaissance and Reformation article, I examined two other
sixteenth-century English editions of the Enchiridion, the first. Miles
Coverdale's 1545 abridgement of the first English translation; the second,

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 3 (1995) /5

6 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

another translation preceded by an inflammatory preface written by the
Puritan preacher John Gough and published in 1561. In short, like the
editions of the first translation published between 1538 and 1576, these two
other sixteenth-century editions are remarkable for the liberties they took
with the content, orientation, and spirit of Erasmus's original text. Once
again, "selective editing" and/or propagandistic prefaces tumed the Enchi-
ridion into a work designed to support divisive religious ideas that Erasmus
— that tireless champion of Christian unity — could never have supported
or endorsed.

In this article, I intend to bring to a conclusion this study on the fate of
the English Enchiridion Militis Christiani by examining three further edi-
tions published in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century respec-
tively. What one notices is that Erasmus's work — in an age well before
anyone much cared about either the ethics of publishing or copyright —
continues to be called upon to support various shades of religious conviction
as it finds itself time and again at the mercy of latter-day Procrusteans.

The political and religious events of the 1680s were to bring the English
Enchiridion back into the Roman Catholic arena for the first time perhaps
since the second edition of the first translation was published in February
1534, some months before the Acts of Succession and Supremacy. James
II's accession to the English throne in 1685 following the death of his
Protestant brother Charles 11, was to initiate a religious controversy of no
small proportions culminating in the revolution of 1688. James was well
aware of England's hard fought struggle over the years to extirpate from its
soil the Roman Catholic religion and to institutionalize Protestantism, and
his adherence to the Church of Rome made his position as Catholic king over
a Protestant country tenuous at best. His first speech to both Houses on 28
May 1685 indicates both his awareness of the problem and his attempts to
demonstrate his tolerance towards the state religion to which he could not
personally subscribe:

What I said to my Privy Council at my first coming there, I am desirous
to renew to you; wherein I freely declare my Opinion concerning the
Principles of the Church of England, whose Members have shown them-
selves so eminently Loyal in the worst of Times, in Defence of my Father,
and Support of my Brother, of Blessed Memory, that I will always take
care to Support and Defend it. I will make it my Endeavour to preserve
the Government, both in Church and State, as it is by Law Established.'*

Douglas H. Parker / The English Enchiridion Militis Christiani 1 1

James's attempts to maintain and support the Church of England while
at the same time professing personal allegiance to its enemy the Pope is again
evident in another address delivered on 4 April 1687. The title of the
declaration — His Majesties Declaration to all His Loving Subjects for
Liberty of Conscience^ — indicates his view towards religious tolerance.
Doubtless he hoped that his magnanimous gesture would be returned in kind
by his subjects. However, it was only a matter of time before this delicate
balancing act on the King's part would fail. A number of things contributed
to James's downfall. First was the vigorous anti-papal publication campaign
occurring both before and during James's reign. Protestants were aware of
the coming succession of a Catholic king and the presses were busy attempt-
ing to head off the anomaly. Statements like the following were by no means
uncommon:

All that you have now at stake, a King that is an Idolater makes his people
like himself (as the many examples in the Old Testament will sufficiently
illustrate) so that whosoever is for a Popish King, let their pretences be
never so specious, is for Popery. And the Idolatry (which some miscall
Religion) now exercised in old Rome, and the Laws of the Realm
(whereby our liberties and properties are fenced and maintained) are
inconsistent; the same hour your Religion is altered (which a Popish King
[if ever God shall be pleased to punish us with such] will certainly effect)
the same day the whole Law will be destroyed, and the English Nation
will be reduced thereby to absolute slavery, under the most malicious
Enemy it hath, furnished with a revengeful mind, which nothing but
Slavery, Ruin and an Ocean of English Blood can satisfie.^

Another contributing factor resulting in the revolution of 1688 was
James's own actions and policies as King. While ostensibly upholding
religious liberty and deploring, for example, Louis XIV' s persecution of the
Huguenots in France, James, through his policies, indicated his own true
colours. Devoted to religious liberty for all, James, nevertheless, decided a
great deal of this liberty in favour of Roman Catholics. He abolished those
laws which prevented Catholics from attending their own services or forced
them to attend Anglican services.^ In addition, a good many government
officials and ministers were dismissed from office and replaced by those who
shared James's Catholicism. E.N. Williams states that "Under James the king
twisted the law in order to pack the administration and the armed forces with
his Roman Catholic followers."^ Most disturbing must have been a renewed
incursion of monastic orders in the very capitad itself. Throughout the early

8 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

days of the Reformation, monasticism was generally reviled not only by the
extreme reformers, but also by many moderates intent on purging the church
of its more obvious abuses. As a result and throughout the entire period of
reform, it became an easy target to shoot at. To see it being potentially
re-bom from its own quite cold ashes under the auspices of the king himself
must have been particularly galling to those who regarded it with fear and
hatred. David Ogg states:

Another form of penetration was seen in the large number of new religious
establishments set up in London, to the horror of the populace. The
Franciscans had their head-quarters in Lincoln's Inn Fields; the Carmel-
ites had their convent in the city; the Benedictines were established in St.
James's Palace, in the Savoy the Jesuits had a church and a school.^

By way of summary, Maurice Ashley adds:

In the light of these measures it was natural that during the second half of
1686 the conviction should grow among the subjects of King James that
their monarch was plotting to impose his own religious views upon all of
them.^<^

Not to be discounted or undervalued in any study of the reasons for James's
eventual downfall is the question of fear, panic, and superstition amongst
the general populace. Most historians are agreed that James did too little to
prevent his own kingly demise. However, to this must be added those
unmeasurable factors such as ingrained beliefs based on rumour, superstition
and fear that play such a large part in human action and behaviour. In
discussing some of the reasons for James's downfall Richard Boyer states
that *The fear of Popery was very real to the Englishman of 1680. There
was, perhaps, nowhere in Europe during the last quarter of the seventeenth
century a group of people comparable, for boundless credulity, to the London
populace."*' And as an example of this credulity Keith Thomas tells us that
"James II was rumoured to have a magical hat, which would reveal the
identity of those who plotted against him, and a Popish necromancer, who
could control the winds and sink William of Orange's fleet."'^

The 1686 Translation

The prevalent view among Protestants that James, in a not so subtle way,
was re-introducing Catholicism into the country must have seemed fright-
eningly real since it was fortified with further evidence from the printing

Douglas H. Parker / The English Enchiridion Militis Christiani 1 9

presses. The King' s permission was given for the printing of Roman Catholic
books designed obviously for propaganda use and also to serve as a defence
against the numerous anti-papal tracts printed at this time.^^ Doubtless, the
translation of the Enchiridion during the height of the conflict was meant to
support and strengthen James's cause. The translator of the work is not
known but it was printed in 1686 for William Rogers and entitled A Manual
for a Christian Soldier}^ From the imprimatur at the beginning of the work
— signed C. Alston, 3 August 1686 — it is clear that the work was given
Roman Catholic sanction. An interesting item in this edition is Rogers'
advertisement at the end of the translation. Two entries here indicate the
nature of the conflict raging at the time. They read: The Doctrines and
Practices of the Church of Rome truly Represented; in Answer to a Book
Intituled, A Papist Misrepresented and Represented', and An Answer to a
Discourse Intituled, Papists protesting against Protestant Popery; being a
Vindication of Papists not Misrepresented by Protestants.

This translation of the Enchiridion presents very few serious difficul-
ties. Because the work was meant to support the King's Catholic faith and
his adherence to the Church of Rome, the translator's task was a simple one:
he need only remain faithful to the original Latin text. The only major
excisions are the original's side-notes. Stylistically, this seventeenth-century
translation is in a much more comprehensible and less convoluted idiom than
the translation of 1533. Its sentence structure is compact and devoid of the
numerous circumlocutions and doublings often found in the first translation.
For example in 1533 we read the following in the prefatory letter:

Notwithstandynge yet haue I very gladly, and wyllyngly accomplysshed
thy desyre, partly bicause thou art so great a frende of myne / partly also
bycause thou requyrest so charitable thynges.

The 1686 edition renders the same passage as follows:

However I cannot but readily comply with one that is so dear to me, and
also makes so pious a request.

Many things may have attracted James and his supporters to this work
but we can be sure that political survival must have come close to the top of
the list. His public life was in jeopardy and he needed the support of the
entire populace if he were to remain on the English throne. Hence it was
necessary to assuage Protestant anxieties about his religion. Over the years
many false encrustations of belief about he Catholic Church had turned that
institution into a monstrous and fearful enormity in the eyes of those who

10 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

opposed it.*^ One need only be aware of a work like Samuel Harsnett's A
Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures to understand how the written
word was capable of creating apprehension and panic through a mixture of
truth and fantasy. ^^ The Enchiridion^ written largely before the onset of
religious mud-slinging, presented the ideals of Christianity within a Catholic
context in their purest light. If James were to show his people that he was
aware of these ideals as well as their perversion, he need only return to
Erasmus's work. Moreover, the King's declared views on liberty of con-
science and tolerance found support in Erasmus's attitudes towards Christian
unity and peace and his hatred of war among Christians for religion's sake.
Erasmus's delineation of the duties of the Christian prince would have given
support to James's own rule. The King must have hoped that the publication
of a work outlining his duties and obligations to the people would make the
public think, by a process of association, that the responsibilities discussed
by Erasmus were ones that he as a responsible ruler would support and put
in practice. Further rumour and ignorance might be dispelled through an
awareness of the true Catholic's attitude towards ceremonies. The Enchiridion
places the latter in a pejorative light when they are divorced from inner piety
and practised for their own sake. Finally, the Enchiridion's rehance on the
authority of the Bible and the Fathers of the Church would have reminded the
Protestant reader of his own belief in the scriptures as the sole source of
authority. Ideally, this latter point might have helped convince the sceptical of
the close bond linking an enUghtened Roman CathoUcism with Protestantism.
In conclusion, James and those who supported him must have thought
that the publication of the Enchiridion at this time would contribute to his
image and strengthen his position as Catholic king over a Protestant country.
The enlightened and purified Catholicism that the work outlined was meant
to destroy, or at least question, the exaggerated conclusions about the Roman
Church that had become so much a part of the Protestant view of Catholi-
cism. Ideally, James would be seen as the discriminating Catholic ruler,
aware of his Church's pitfalls, but also aware of its pristine purity, its
emphasis on tolerance, its adherence to basic Christian principles and its
compatibility — or, at least, its potential to peacefully co-exist — with other
Christian creeds.

John Spier's Translation

In 1752 John Spier's English translation of the Enchiridion appeared under
the title The Christian's Manual, Being a Translation from the Enchiridion

Douglas H. Parker / The English Enchiridion Militis Christiani /Il

Militis Christiani of Erasmus P Nothing is known of Spier's life and activ-
ities, but from the contents of his preface to the translation it is clear that he
was a supporter of the established English Church. By far the most revealing
part of this translation is the preface which establishes Spier's reasons for
translating the work and corroborates my theory that the English Enchirid-
ion, from the sixteenth-century onwards, was work for the moment designed
to advance particular causes and beliefs, many of which, in and of them-
selves, were incompatible with each other. Spier's translation is called on to
support the cause of Protestant unity in England just as, less than one hundred
years earlier, the same work was used to defend James IF s Catholicism.

Spier's preface opens with a brief outline of the history and popularity
of the Enchiridion. This is followed by an analysis of the merits of the work.
Spier states:

The usefulness of this work appears more fully, in that it is calculated to
promote solid piety, and universal benevolence. For its design is not to
undermine one Christian Church, and to build up another on its ruins, more
to our own fancies: not to correct seeming errors in our Liberty, but real
faults in our lives; not to be bitter against this or that sect of men, but to
be kindly affectioned to all. . .

Two important elements which set the stage for much that is to follow are
apparent in this excerpt. First, Spier recognizes that the Enchiridion's
importance lies primarily in its ethical approach to Christianity and its
emphasis on the inculcation of piety and charity. Secondly, Spier points out
that the work was never intended to be destructive, or through its criticisms,
support the abolition of "one Christian Church" for another. Erasmus, we
can be sure, would have agree whole-heartedly with this analysis, but,
ironically, where Erasmus called for unity through judicious reform in the
Roman Catholic Church, Spier uses the Enchiridion to make his appeal for
unity among the numerous Christian sects of the Protestant establishment
under George II.

Spier then discusses at some length the fifth rule of the Enchiridion on
the development of the inner life and the ascent from things visible to things
invisible. He states:

Our Author, in his fifth Rule, dwells very long upon the vices and
superstitions of the Monks his contemporaries, and launches out far in an
extempore invective against them. . . And it is no wonder that a man of so
deep a penetration as Erasmus was, should see and expose the absurdity
of their false pretences in religion. . . And though it cannot I think be denied

Ill Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

that he himself (such was his preference of peace and charity to all other
considerations) remained in the Conmiunion, though not in the corrup-
tions of the Church of Rome; yet it is highly probable that his works,
whether serious or otherwise, set the grand props and bulwarks of Popery,
the Monks and other religious Orders, in so bad a light, as necessarily
paved the way to a Reformation.

From this excerpt it is clear that Spier regards Erasmus's works as at least
provocations to the Reformation, even though he sees Erasmus as not
deliberately intending this to happen and remaining within the fold of the
Catholic Church himself. Further, Spier obviously regards the fifth rule on
the development of the inner spiritual life as the core of the work and uses
Erasmus's attacks on the abuses of monasticism to warn his own brethren
of such practices. For Spier, the members of the Reformed Church should
be grateful that they have returned to the original purity of Christianity.
Happily, Erasmus's attacks on monasticism in the Enchiridion have shown
them the pitfalls to avoid:

The uses that may be made of this part of the Enchiridion, to wit, his invective
against the Monks of those days, by the members of the reformed Church,
are many and various. And the most obvious is this, that we may learn from
thence to entertain a just sense of our happiness in being incorporated into
that Church, which has long since renounced these superstitious rites, that he
condemns and set us free from the tyranny of Popery.

After this long preface, in which the usefulness of the work for the
Reformed Church is made clear, Spier launches into his principal reason for
translating the Enchiridion. He states:

And in fact, do we not see the temper of one Sect of Christigins to be visibly
soured, and as much set against their brethren of the Reformation, as
against that very Church from which they both reformed.

Spier's concern here is with the sectarianism that had made itself apparent
in the English Protestant Church. From the information we possess, Spier
had just cause in fearing the growing importance of sectarian groups in
England. According to Vann, London had 29 different religious sects in 1641
and in 1646 there were 199 sects in England.*^ Spier outlines the nature of
these fractures by stating that although the Enchiridion helped to purge
superstition and abuse from one church, "yet... even among Protestants
themselves there are still some footsteps of superstition apparent, which
cannot it seems be entirely rooted out of man's nature." Spier's concern is

Douglas H. Parker / The English Enchiridion Militis Christiani / 13

with the threat to Protestant unity in England and the extirpation of those
forces which were standing in the way of that unity. He uses the Enchiridion
to show that past superstitions brought to light by Erasmus are still in
existence in the Reformed Church and are contributing to a general weakness
in the structure of the institution. Finally he makes his complaint more
specific by singling out two of the strongest non-conformist groups in
England at the time. The first of these is the Methodists. He states:

The founder of this Sect, not long since paved the way to his new
institution by seeming extraordinary acts of devotion: such as rising to
sing Psalms in night, whilst other slept; kneeling in Church at a time
perhaps when others stood; fasting, whilst they eat; and praying, whilst
they were joined in company. Such practices as these, I say laid the first
foundation of Methodism: which if followed without ostentation and
hypocrisy. . . may become, it is true, excellent means of keeping our bodies
in subjection. But if he that eateth not, condemneth him that eateth, and
bodily exercises such as these, are made the very soul and substance of
Religion; they then draw men aside like a false bias from the main scope
of the Christian faith. . .

The founder to whom Spier refers is, of course, John Wesley. The reaction
against Methodism in England in the eighteenth century assumed consider-
able strength and importance. Green's Bibliography of Anti-Methodist Lit-
erature in the Eighteenth-Century lists 606 anti-Methodist tracts published
during this period. ^^ The movement represented a real threat to the estab-
lished church. In many eyes its doctrinal stance of "justification by faith,
assurance, and perfection made Methodism in terms of the title of one of the
satires, a plain and easy road to the land of bliss."^^ Methodism also
denigrated good works and offended the Church of England by attacking its
priests. As Spier suggests, many regarded it as a form of religious hypocrisy
and looked upon its adherents as people who practised religion for their own
selfish ends. Others were afraid of religious wars, and still other saw
Methodism as a return to Roman Catholicism.^* The strong feelings against
this religious sect even in the late nineteenth century can be seen by
examining some of the running-titles of an anti-Methodist work entitled,
Methodism, A Part of the Great Christian Apostacy?^ Defamatory titles such
as the following appear throughout: "The Pharisee's View of Sin," "Money
Religion," "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing," "He Blasphemes God," "One
With the Apostacy," "Spiritual Pride," "His Pharisee's Cloak," "The
Scriptures Crucified," "A Blasphemer of the Spirit," and "At Prayer With

14 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

The Devil." Spier's rhetoric in his preface to the Enchiridion is not as
extreme as that of the running- titles, but it is obvious from his inclusion of
this sect in the preface that he regarded it with some fear and saw the
Enchiridion as a convenient tool with which to confront Methodism and
point to its dangers as a subversive sect undermining the established church.
The second group that Spier singles out for special comment are the
Quakers

whose inconsistencies with themselves in one or two particulars is very
remarkable. For since Christianity consists not in the outward habilements
of the body, but in the inward frame of the mind; does it not seem strange,
that a number of men professing so spiritual a Religion. . . should
nevertheless distinguish themselves by a superstitious uniform in dress
and a language peculiar to themselves.

It is interesting to note that, as regards Quakerism, Spier's basis of attack is
linked to Erasmus's criticisms on the unimportance of externals and in
particular on Erasmus's attacks on monasticism's undue emphasis on garb.
For Spier, the Quakers, with their "superstitious uniform in dress": are the
latter day equivalent of monks.

The history of the Quaker movement in England has been dealt with
sufficiently in other works. ^^ It is perhaps enough to say that this sect wielded
a good deal of power in eighteenth-century England and did much to
contribute to the lack of unity within the Church of England. Apart from
complex theological and doctrinal differences with the established church,
the Quakers also demonstrated a strong anti-social and anti-cultural element
in their creed. As well as sartorial peculiarities and the use of the words
"thee" and "thou," the Quakers called the days of the week and months of
the year by number, refused to take oaths, and pay tithes. Combined with
this anti-establishment stance, the Quakers showed a sense of superiority
about their own religious convictions which must have annoyed many within
the established church. The Quaker, Isaac Pennington, articulated this view
in terms of religious evolutionary development with Quakerism at the
pinnacle. After the abolition of the pope, the devil

tempted aside in Episcopacy; when that would hold no longer, then into
Presbytery: when that would not serve, into Independency: when that will not
keep quiet, but still there are searching further, into Anabaptism: if that will
not do, into a way of Seeking and Waiting: if this will not satisfy, they shall
have high notions, yea most pleasant notions concerning the Spirit, and
concerning the Life, if they will but be satisfied without the life.^'*

Douglas H. Parker / The English Enchiridion Militis Chrisîiani / 15

After singling out these two strong non-conformist groups Spier closes his
preface with a statement that shows his hope that the Enchiridion will call
all back together into one religious body: "From these, and the like misap-
prehensions, from commonly received opinions and vulgar errors in religion,
our Author calls us back, giving us right notions of things and inflaming our
hearts with virtuous sentiments." Undoubtedly, Erasmus would have been
surprised to discover that his Enchiridion was being called upon to assist the
Reformed Church in purging itself of rampant sectarianism since, when he
wrote the work, there was no Reformed Church to say nothing of the
existence of either Methodism or Quakerism. However, Spier, among others,
was able to take from the Enchiridion what it seemed to offer in support of
his cause by creating a new context for Erasmus's common sense guide to
Christian living. Even though historical contexts and situations change,
common sense — or at least Erasmus's brand of it as it applies to Christian
belief and as it is found in his Enchiridion — remains universal and
immutable, or so many seemed to thing at least if once can judge from the
various causes it was called on to support.

The actual translation of the text of the Enchiridion is not generally
noteworthy for variations from the original. As might be expected, many
references to the Roman Church are excised, but this is as far as Spier goes
in altering the work. However, he introduces two footnotes into the work
which are of some importance to this discussion. One of these shows his
inoffensive and non-militant character while the other demonstrates his firm
Protestant convictions. In the fifth rule of the Enchiridion Spier deletes a
long passage which is principally concerned with the proper way of reading
the spirit of the Scriptures; the section deleted is filled with references to the
Bible and classical authors. Spier's feeling for the common reader causes
him to remove this difficult section with the following covering footnote:
"The Translator has omitted a long passage here, that is in the Original, which
he supposed would be rather prejudicial than useful to thç Persons for whom
this Translation was intended; namely, the plain, well-meaning, and illiterate
Readers."

The second note is of more significance primarily because it shows
Spier's attitude towards the Reformation that had occurred over 200 years
earlier. In rule four, Erasmus questions the need for the practice of the
invocation of saints. He points out that different saints are invoked in
different nations to effect desired ends "so that Paule dothe the same thyng
among the frensshe men, that Hieron dothe with our countrey men the

16 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

almayns. . ." Spier, the man who can see only the good of the Reformation
movement, feels compelled to qualify this statement about the Dutch (i.e.,
"almayns") by adding the following footnote: "The Author wrote before the
Dutch reformed," thereby suggesting that German and Holland's papal ties
were the only cause of their superstitious practices.^^

The overall impression given by this edition of the Enchiridion is that
the translator saw in Erasmus's delineation of superstitions and abuses in the
Roman Church a valuable lesson for the rampant sectarianism of his own
day. Spier, and perhaps many others who shared his belief in the absolute
primacy of the Church of England, would probably not have agreed with
Voltaire when he stated that "If there were only one religion in England one
would have to fear despotism; if there were two, they would cut each other's
throats; but they have thirty, and live happy and in peace."^^ Like Erasmus
before him. Spier's primary concern was with Christian unity, although in
Spier's case this call for unity, with Erasmus as the unwilling Protestant
herald, was updated to serve the need of the post-Reformation Church of
England.

Crowther's Edition

In 1 8 1 6 Philip Wyatt Crowther' s edition of the Enchiridion appeared entitled
The Christian Manual Compiled from the Enchiridion Militis Christiani of
Erasmus?'^ No biographical material seems to be available on Crowther. The
Dictionary of National Biography lists three Crowthers, two of whom are
related to each other as uncle and nephew. The former, Jonathon Crowther
(1760-1824), was a Methodist preacher, and his nephew, also Jonathon
(1794-1856), was a Wesleyan minister. Philip Crowther may have been a
relative of these two men; the vehemence of his attacks on Roman Catholi-
cism in his edition of the Enchiridion labels him as violently anti-papal and
the inspiration for this edition may have come from a family supportive of
the Methodist ministry. Crowther's edition is dedicated to the daughter of
George II, the Princess Royal Augusta Sophia, who is described as a woman
outstanding for her "Exalted Piety and Philanthropy." Following this dedi-
cation is a preface which is interesting for the information it gives about the
motivation and source for this edition. Crowther states:

Charmed with the pious zeal and benevolence displayed in the Enchirid-
ion, and convinced of its salutary power, I offer a new edition. Solicitude
for the diffusion of such exalted sentiments overcame my objections to

Douglas H. Parker / The English Enchiridion Militis Christiani / 17

the task. I have availed myself of a former translation of the Enchiridion,
but not without attempting to do greater justice to the manly and persua-
sive eloquence of Erasmus. Some passages of the original are omitted and
others altered, to render the work more generally beneficial.

Like many before him, Crowther recognizes certain elements in the Enchi-
ridion which make the work compatible with much of Protestant belief and
sentiment. But to say only this is to ignore the final sentence of this excerpt
whose full meaning only becomes apparent after a reading of the text itself.
Crowther' s strong anti-papal bias is shown both through his omission of
most passages in the original which refer to the Roman Church and also in
his insertion into the text of extremely long notes and "Comments on Several
Fatal Errors in Religion and Morality." These latter comments on Roman
Catholicism are, in Crowther' s eyes, what make his work "More generally
beneficial." To read the text is to realize that Crowther' s seemingly innocu-
ous statement "more generally beneficial" really means more Protestant and
anti-papal.

The "former translation" referred to by Crowther is Spier's edition of
1752. If Crowther was, in fact, connected with the Methodist ministry it is
ironic that he would use Spier's translation, since one of Spier's reasons for
producing his edition of the Enchiridion was to point to the dangers of
sectarianism, especially Methodism and Quakerism. Except for a few minor
stylistic changes and omissions and words and phrases, the Crowther text is
almost entirely based on Spier' s. A passage from chapter two of both editions
clearly shows this. In the Spier text we read:

One principal of a Christian in this spiritual warfare is, to be perfectly well
acquainted with the number and strength of the enemy, and with what
weapons he may be most advantageously attacked and subdued. He is like
wise to keep them in readiness upon occasion, lest he be surprized in a
naked and defenceless state.

Crowther makes only three minor alterations to this passage:

One principal of a Christian in this spiritual warfare is, to be perfectly well
acquainted with the number and strength of the enemy, and with what
weapons he may be most advantageously attacked and subdued. He is
likely to keep them in readiness lest he be surprised in a defenceless state.

A long section of biographical detail entitled "Some Account of Erasmus,
His Reception in England, and Correspondence" follows Crowther' s pref-
ace. This, in turn, is followed by the heavily annotated text of the Enchirid-

18 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

ion. Crowther's notes to the text are of two types: the first is the normal
factual and scholarly note which lists sources for particular passages in the
text. By far the most important note is the second type which is prejudiced
and subjective and is used by Crowther to colour the text with a strong
Protestant bias. Apart from their vehement attacks on Roman Catholicism,
the most outstanding characteristic of these notes is their length. Often a note
runs for two pages or more and leaves only enough space for two or three
lines of text at the top of the page. A good example of this can be seen in
that section of the text where Erasmus discusses auricular confession.
Erasmus's intentions were not to denigrate the practice of confession p^r 5^,
but only to show that true repentance was a thing of the heart and not the
mouth. Crowther takes this opportunity to attack auricular confession and
much more besides by quoting from Samuel Clarke:^^

The Church of Rome by their doctrines concerning confession and abso-
lution, concerning contrition and superstitious penances, indulgences, and
the power of the keys, have greatly confounded the doctrine of the gospel,
concerning the forgiveness of sins, with corruptions introduced merely by
the vanity and ambition of man; for the text on which they ground their
pretended power doth plainly mean not to appoint man to sit in God's seat
of judgment, but to authorize them from God to preach and to assure unto
man the terms and conditions on which alone their sins shall be forgiven
them.

Among the Protestants also the error is no less dangerous, if confessing
their sins continually to God, as the Romanists do to the priests, they return
again to the practice of them, as having been absolved in course. . . Clarke
Expos, of the Catech. p. 135.

The Church of Rome to the two sacraments of our Lord's institution, has,
without any authority, added five: 1 . Confirmation, which is not at all another
sacrament, but merely a circumstance or appendage of baptism. . . 2. Penance,
which is nothing but an arbitrary discipline imposed wholly and solely by
mere human authority. 3. Extreme unction, which is an absurd superstition
built upon a gross misinterpretation of a single passage in St. James's
Epistle. . . 4. Ordination, which is not a sacrament, but merely a designa-
tion of certain particular persons to a particular office. 5. Matrimony. . .
Clarke Expos, of the Catech. p. 283.

In his notes, Crowther' s attacks on Roman Catholic doctrine and practices
(and, one assumes, on conservative Protestantism which often took its lead

Douglas H. Parker / The English Enchiridion Miîitis Christiani / 19

from Roman Catholicism) are lengthy and seemingly relentless. Here is
Crowther on the greed of Catholicism; his examples are perhaps as amusing
to present day readers as they are indicative of his strong anti-papal stance.
He states:

To display the infamy and rapacity of the Church of Rome, I have
extracted from A. Egane's Book a few specimens of the prices of Abso-
lutions and Dispensations.

Page 10. A layman having murdered a priest shall be pardoned for

6 2 0
He that kills a bishop, or any other
prelate must pay 36 9 0

Page 1 1 . For murdering a layman, the dispensation
is 3 2 4

Page 15. An absolution, or other dispensation for
irregularity, is 5 13 0

And if there be a general absolution for all sins,
it is 8 19 0

Page 16. Dispensation of an oath, or contract

7 2 3

Page 18. Dispensation for doing contrary to the
New Testament, the ordinary tax hereof
is 12 16 16

Crowther concludes this example of the ludicrous linking of the economic
and the spiritual with a statement of ironic disdain, "Here we see the
comparative value of a priest and a layman!"

The work abounds in heavily weighted commentary of this kind. One
further example of Crowther' s strong anti-papal attitude is apparent in that
section of the work where Erasmus questions the invocation of saints and
points out much of the superstition attached to the practice. Not content to
allow the text to explain itself, Crowther feels compelled to add:

Deluded Papists, attend to the admonition of St. Paul. How clearly is your
lamentable state foretold. How opposite to the pure precepts of the gospel
is your religion! and the pride of popes and priests to the humility of Christ
and St. Peter.

Crowther' s edition of the Enchiridion, like the others we have seen in
this survey, demonstrates the suitability of the work for Catholicism and

20 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

various hues of Protestantism as well. It is, of course, highly doubtful
whether Erasmus would have approved of the many uses made of his work
by opposing forces in religious struggles since the Reformation. Further, it
is ironic that a work originally designed as handbook for all Christian solders
should be gradually transformed into a weapon used by some Christians
against others.

Laurentian University

Notes

1. "The English Enchiridion Militis Christiani and Reformation Politics" Erasmus in En-
glish, 5 (1972), 16-21; "Religious Polemics and Two Sixteenth-Century Editions of
Erasmus's Enchiridion Militis Christiani, 1545 and 1561" Renaissance and Reformation,
ix, 3 (1973), 94-107.

2. For the exact dates of publication, in the sixteenth century of this first English translation
see E.J. Devereux Renaissance English Translations of Erasmus: A Bibliography to 1700
(Toronto, Buffalo, London 1983), pp. 104-116.

3. O'Donnell compares the English translation and the Latin text (pp. xxxix-xlv) and
concludes that "the English translator is remarkably faithful to the content and intention
of the Latin Enchiridion" (p. xliii). Erasmus. Enchiridion Militis Christiani: An English
Version, ed. Anne M. O'Donnell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981).

4. Royal tracts in Two Parts. . . of His Sacred Majesty. Upon Extraordinary Occasions Both
before, as since his Petering out of England. Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in
England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America and of English Books Printed in
Other Countries 1641-1700, 2nd. éd., compiled by Donald Wing, vol. 2 (New York:
Modem Language Association of America, 1982), J384.

5. Wing, vol. 2, J384.

6. Wing, 2nd ed, vol . 1 ( 1 972) , A 1 3 1 . An Abstract of the Contents of Several Letters Relating
to the Management of Affairs with Rome, By the D. of Y. and Others.

7. Maurice Ashley. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1966). p. 56.

8. E.N. Williams. The Ancien Régime in Europe: Government and Society in the Major States
1648-1789 (Bodley Head, 1970; rpt. Harmonds worth: Pelican Books, 1988), p. 492.

9. David Ogg. England in the Reign of James II and William III (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1955), p. 168.

10. Ashley, p. 65.

Douglas H. Parker / The English Enchiridion Militis Christiani / 21

11. Richard Boyer. English Declarations of Indulgence 1687 and 1688 (The Hague / Paris:
Mouton, 1968), pp. 5-6.

12. Keith Thomas. Religion and the Decline of Magic (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1971; rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), p. 645.

13. Ashley, p. 64; Ogg, p. 168.

14. Wing, vol. 2, E3205A.

15. Under "pope" Wing Hsts over 20 anti-papal tracts published between 1670-89.

1 6. A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland and Ireland and of English
Books Printed Abroad, 2nd. éd., eds. W.A. Jackson, R.S. Ferguson, K. Pantzer, vol. 1
(London: The Bibliographical Society, 1986).

17. British Museum, 1482.aa.23.

1 8. Richard T. Vann. The Social Development of English Quakerism 1655-1755 (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 7.

19. As quoted in Albert Lyles. Methodism Mocked: The Satiric Reaction to Methodism in the
Eighteenth Century (London: The Epworth Press, 1960), p. 15.

20. Lyles, p. 26.

21. Lyles, p. 18.

22. T.W. Christie. Methodism, a Part of the Great Christian Apostasy (London, 1881).

23. Vann op civ, Wilham C. Braithwaite. The Beginnings of Quakerism, 2nd éd., revised by
Henry J. Cadbury (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961); Hugh Barbour. The
Quakers in Puritan England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1964);
Hugh Barbour, J. Wilham Frost. The Quakers (New York, London: Greenwood Press,
1988); Barry Reay. The Quakers and the English Revolution (London: Temple Smith,
1985); for a contemporary view of Quakerism see the writings of its founder The Journal
of George Foxe 2 vols ed Norman Penny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911).

24. Isaac Pennington. A Brief History of the State of the Church Since the Days of the Apostles
with the Living Seal to It. The quoted passage is reprinted in Vann, pp 26-27.

25. See Alice Carter. The English Church in Amsterdam in the Seventeenth Century (Amster-
dam, 1964), especially part I: "The Church as an Institution."

26. As quoted in Williams, p. 507.

27. British Museum, 4378.i. 11.

28. Samuel Clarke (1675-1729), divine and metaphysician. See Dictionary of National
Biography.

Observations on Milton's

Accents

JOHN K.
HALE

Summary: Milton's diacritics in six languages, though mostly typical of his
time, allow some inferences about his language attainments and scholarship.
For Latin verse, he uses accents to disambiguate rhythm or meaning. For
Greek scholarship, he is punctilious. Italian authors are culture to him,
French ones merely data. His Hebrew accents suggest neither a theological
fundamentalist nor a textual conservative. His English verse ones reflect
both etymology and rhythm, but where these part company he gives priority
to rhythm.

Though the topic is a small one, these observations draw together infor-
mation which is either new or widely dispersed. They ask how, and for
what purposes, Milton employed accents as diacritical marks. They assess
how far he used them accurately, consistently, conventionally or unusually.
In so doing, they build up a sense of his practice (in microcosm) of his
languages and scholarship. They also prompt a few inferences about his
proof-reading and other matters.

The findings are presented in the order in which he learnt his languages,
namely Latin, Greek, French, Italian and Hebrew.^ Because the accidentals
of printed work are mostly put there by printers, I keep as far as possible to
the evidence of holographs. As there exists more of such evidence for his
Latin than for his other languages (except English, which in the present
context is a special case), most time is given to his Latin — whose accents,
too, are the least generally understood.

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 3 (1995) /23

24 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Latin Accents: Humanist Practice and Its Decline

The Latin accents of Renaissance humanism,^ though their names and
diacritical marks were based on Greek ones, do not (like those) primarily
assist pronunciation. Granted, the Roman apex over a vowel indicated
geminatio ( = doubling, that is, lengthening) of that vowel. Thus Quintilian
mentions it as distinguishing ablative singular long -a,^ and the usage was
revived among humanists as circumflex (mensâ, as nowadays we use ma-
cron). Nevertheless, apex does not indicate where stress falls. The Roman
apex system had disappeared before the humanists, whose system — or
rather, systems — works differently.

Grave, for instance, has not the force of apex (nor that of grave in
French or Italian), because it does not differentiate sound at all, but instead
meaning. Typically, it appears on adverbs or other indéclinables which are
homographs of declined forms (inflections); so verd = "but" or "in truth,"
particle or adverb, whereas plain vero is the inflected form, ablative or dative
of verus or verum. By a curious extension of this differentiating practice a
final grave was placed on indéclinables even where (since no homograph
existed) there was no need to differentiate. Grave was used on the preposi-
tions à and è, not to distinguish them from homographs but to keep them
separate from words preceding and following.

Circumflex appeared less often than grave. Besides being used to
distinguish inflections having long vowels from their homographs having
short ones (as mensâ / mensa, mentioned above), the other chief function of
circumflex was to indicate contraction (as amasse for amavisse).

Acute was used mostly to mark suffixes like -que, -ne, -ve, though it
had implications — somewhat vague — for pronunciation. This practice
served mainly to distinguish the enclitic forms from homograph inflections:
thus imaginatione ( = "imagination?", nominative with suffix) from im-
aginatione (ablative singular), or quoque ( = "and whither," with suffixed -
que) from quoque ( = "also"). This acute could be placed in various positions
— on the q of - que^ for example, or be a grave instead.

Performing a different function, acute might appear on the first vowel
of a pair if the pair was not a diphthong: Muséum, and commonly with Greek
loan-words. It might be supported, for total clarity, by diairesis: Hyperion.
(Diairesis had exactly its modem function). The value of this usage for
poetry, to establish scansion in ambiguous instances, is clear and we shall
return to it.

John K. Hale / Observations on Milton's Accents / 25

Most of these usages disappeared in the course of the eighteenth
century as the number of people communicating in Latin dwindled, while
those who did so communicate were scholars who despised this use of
crutches. But contrariwise, in the two preceding centuries accents guided the
common reader of Latin through its lengthy periodic sentences. Being only
guides, the accents do not appear every time they might, nor with total
consistency (any more than with road signs now): something was left to the
reader.

Milton's Handwritten Latin Accents

Milton's earliest handwritten Latin illustrates several of these humanist
practices. In the prose theme "Mane citus lege" ("Get up early in the
morning"), based on Lyly's Grammar and dating from his time at St. Paul's
School,"* grave occurs most often, some thirteen times. It occurs on indéclin-
ables having homographs and on the preposition è\ but also on adverbs
lacking homographs (radicitùs). Humanist fluctuation too occurs, as when
in the first three lines we read sane and quàm but Mane and minus. Circum-
flex is placed on final - a, ablative singular. Acute does not occur, but there
is no occasion for it.

In the verses attached to the theme, however, the practice differs.
Neither "Surge, age, surge" nor "Ignavus satrapam" has any accentuation.
This is despite occasions when it would be expected of a humanist: he writes
luxuriatque, not luxuriàtque (or alternatives like luxuriâtqué) , and
castraque, not castraque. While one cannot confidently assign a reason for
this more than humanist fluctuation, I would infer from the presence of
corrections to scansion and style in the elegiacs that Milton's attention was
directed elsewhere, to matters of greater substance than accents. By the same
token, the fullness and orthodoxy of accentuation in the prose theme suggest
two things: he felt more at ease with prose composition at the time; or the
prose stands nearer to fair copy than the verses do; or most likely, both.

The next Latin accents of any quantity would be those of entries in the
Commonplace Book, but for three difficulties: (i) some entries may or may
not be by Milton, (ii) entries span a number of years, and (iii) some entries
are not personal summary but quotation or a mixture, so that accents may be
those of edition annotated. Instead, therefore, I take three letters from his
thirties: to the humanist scholar Holstenius (1639); to Bodley's Librarian
Rouse (early 1647); and to his Florentine friend Dati (April 1647).

26 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

The letter to Holstenius (30 March 1639), the Vatican Librarian, has
been excellently discussed by Joseph Bottkol.^ His collation of the Vatican
manuscript with Brabazon Aylmer's edition of Epistolarum Familiarum
Liber Unas (1674) demonstrates Milton at his most careful with accents.
That is, as part of "quite plainly putting forward his best Latin and Greek,
consciously addressing a great scholar in the language of scholars" (p. 626),
Milton deploys the humanist accents fully, with almost total accuracy, and
consistently. Some examples will show how, and especially where his usage
contrasts with the printed accidentals.

Profectd potiùs (line 22) has no accent in 1674, and exemplifies the
generally much fuller use of grave for the indeclinable form of a homograph
pairing. The younger Milton's care stands out when one compares the
handwritten circumflexes of ilia bihliothecâ nisi impetraîâ prius veniâ (line
32) with the mixture in the printed ilia Bibliotheca nisi impetratâ veniâ. This
care leads him into one odd place: by placing grave on penè (line 16) he
anxiously distinguishes the adverb meaning "almost" from the unseemly
ablative oï penis (which his very scruple made me notice). He could have
simply written paene. Nonetheless, when he writes dignumque adeo visum
quicum velis (line 26) several signs of his intelligence and mettle are
disclosed together. First, he does not place acute on the enclitic of
dignumque, because having no homograph the word is self-explanatory.
Secondly, though, he places grave on aded (adverb) to distinguish it from
adeo (verb). Thirdly, the circumflex on quîcum ensures that the unusual
ablative (all genders) of the relative pronoun qui with suffix - cum is
recognized by his reader. We, in turn, can recognize the care he lavished on
the writing-out: he places circumflex above the dot above the - / -; a little
awkwardly, too, but meaning must prevail over calligraphy.^

Elsewhere, perhaps, calligraphy receives its due, since a further reason
why acute is absent from dignumque may be that otherwise the phrase would
become overfull of accents (so let only the semantically more important be
read). The pleasure of reading the letter in manuscript is, in fact, not only
considerable but heightened by the rhythms and economy of the accentua-
tion. I surmise that no more than errors would mere pedantic fullness of
accents impress so eminent a humanist.

The accents of Milton's letter to Rouse eight years later make a
different impression. For one thing, by "letter," is meant both the brief
covering letter in prose and the verse-letter or Ode "Ad Rousium," because
the latter — even if it is not in Milton's own hand — was certainly meant as

John K. Hale / Observations on Milton's Accents / 27

a fair copy and overseen by him.'' The prose letter, in Milton's own hand,
resembles the Holstenius letter in having suffixed - que both with and without
acute. The fact that now no graves adorn the indéclinables which lack
homographs, whereas the earlier letter included Cum (line 37) and/<?rè (line
45), may indicate a diminishing use of grave.

What stands out, in any case, is the careful diairesis of Rouse's name.
Every time it occurs, whether in the prose or the ode, it is Rousius, Rousium,
and so on. Milton wanted it to have two vowels in his Latin. Clearly, he
wanted that sound to reverberate through his purpose-built (and very eccen-
tric) Latin Pindaric-CatuUan metres. So this time, and for the first time so
far, his diacritic marking has a phonetic intention.

There may be others here, if (though only if) the accents of the ode
manuscript were Milton's own or seen and approved by him. At the risk of
circularity, I maintain so, for this manuscript was like the letter to Holstenius,
designed to impress a scholarly notable. I notice, then, the careful acutes on
names borrowed from Greek, to separate those vowels from the following
ones (Phinéam, Pegaséo, both at line 36); diaireses on names (Ion, at 56 and
60, Creiisa at 60); and the acutes on teréris (line 42) and legéris (line 70),
to indicate future (not present) indicative form. All these usages, and espe-
cially the last, have the interest for us that while like many of the humanist
accents they explain the meaning and grammatical function they are used
more decisively to guide the reader as to sound, the startling prosody. Rouse
is meant to read this aloud, so as to hear (prominently among the rest of it)
the sound of his own name in Milton's Latin. The poet wanted his little 7>m
d'esprit to be appreciated, and accents made a part of the guidance he gave
to that end.^

The third Latin letter, to Carlo Dati, dated 21 April, 1647, adds a few
points.^ First, it confirms that Milton did not place grave above the preposi-
tion à { = "from" or "by"), though the printer in 1674 did so, and though
Milton did place grave above the other preposition, é ("out of). This may
help disputes about authorship in some other connection: it is surely striking
that for every other use of grave we find more in the manuscript than in the
book. And, secondly, Milton places a careful circumflex for contraction
above rescissent ( = rescivissent) and liherâsti ( = liberavistï).

What, then, do the differences between manuscript and print indicate?
That the printers cared less for accuracy, or used fewer accents? That Milton,
when old and blind, cared less about accents than formerly, or could not

28 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

impose his own scruples? That there is some truth in all four inferences we
shall see from later instances, in other tongues.'®

Greek Accents and Milton's Greek Poems

Greek accents indicate pronunciation, more than is true of the Renaissance
practice for Latin. For instance, they always indicate stress, which the Latin
accents never did. The system was worked out, once and for all, by Aris-
tophanes of Byzantium (c. 200 B. C), to teach correct pronunciation of
Greek to foreigners and perhaps to aid his generation's editing of the archaic
Greek of Homer.

The accents comprise acute, circumflex, and grave. Acute divides into:
oxytone ("sharp-toned," acute on a word's final syllable); paroxytone (acute
on penultimate), and proparoxytone (acute on antepenultimate). Circumflex
divides into perispomenon ("drawn around," marking a final syllable as long
by nature), while properispomenon does the same for a long penultimate.
Oxytone is reversed into barytone ("deep-toned"), where an accented word
follows. Other diacritics comprise breathings and diairesis. "Rough" breath-
ings distinguish initial aspirate from other initial vowels, which accordingly
receive "smooth" breathings. Diairesis seems to have been a matter of taste
historically. To reiterate, these accents have prevailed ever since Aristoph-
anes of Byzantium, and to omit or mismanage them was in Milton's day, as
now, a solecism.

Did Milton, then, penetrate such solecisms? That prose theme from his
schooldays contains some Greek. Its accents are full and almost entirely
correct. (He places one or two diacritics on the wrong vowel of a diphthong,
and omits diairesis to guide scansion on a line he quotes from Homer). He
is full again in the accents of the Greek of the Commonplace Book, and in
his manuscript letters: fullness matters for Greek, as these accents, unlike
those Latin ones, include no element of the optional. And Milton is accurate
in the main.'' In his marginalia to Greek texts (for his own eyes only, not
those of a learned recipient who is to be impressed) Milton keeps the same
general standards of fullness and accuracy.

In that case, however, the presence of incorrect accents in his Greek
verses as published requires explanation. Whereas Bumey, Landor and
others rebuked Milton, '^ a different inference would be that he did not
superintend or proof-read his Greek for Poems, 1645; and that he could not
(being blind) ensure that they would be set right for Poems, 1673. Evidence
for this view includes the fact that not even when making the engraver of his

John K. Hale / Observations on Milton's Accents / 29

portrait for 1645, William Marshall, engrave self- satirizing Greek verses
below the offending portrait did Milton insist on the accidentals being
correct, since at least two errors occur there. ^^ Further evidence comes from
1673 where attempts were made to correct the errors of 1645 (though they
produced new errors).*"^ Thus the Greek accents indicate a Milton who did
not strain to produce blameless diacritics in 1645, but tried (and failed) in
his blindness to set them right later, perhaps as part of his whole self-pre-
sentation to posterity in a run of publications later on in his life. A degree of
scholarly self-respect, at any rate, was involved in the correcting of Greek
accents.

Diacritics in Milton's French, Italian, and Hebrew

Milton's French accents can be sampled in the Commonplace Book. Al-
though they are fewer than the same words would carry in modem French,
they work as normally for printed French books in his time. Thus we find se
réservèrent, without grave; and no acutes on elire, election, and héré-
ditaire}^ It seems that French practice at this period was less regularized
than Italian, and that Milton takes it as he finds it — not being all that
interested, perhaps, in French or its accents.

On the other hand, he admired and composed in Italian. He was
punctilious with graves in Commonplace Book entries. As for his poems in
Italian, their accents are in general fuller and better in 1645 than in 1673.
John Purves even thought that Milton wanted to "provide some guide to
pronunciation, for not only are the usual verbal accents inserted (è, dira, faro,
pud — puo, however, in sonnet V,2 — , but natia, soléa, ridéa are similarly
marked."^ ^ If this view were right, it would have two important conse-
quences. First, for the present inquiry it would mean that Milton took a closer
interest in the accents of his Italian than of his Greek poems. And secondly,
it would suggest that he took a close interest in the printing of 1645 — closer
than for 1673 — a finding opposite to ours above.

Certainly this is one place where the small matter of accentuation which
we are pursuing impinges on larger bibliographical questions. But the
evidence is more conflicting than Purves allows. If Milton was giving
guidance, it is odd that he did not carry it through into proof-reading (one
puà is 2ipuo despite the implied care) and had lost interest altogether by 1 673.
The acute on the short, poetic form of the Italian imperfect {ridéa, and so
on) was a usage of English printings of Italian, not of contemporary Italian
usage, and can be seen in seventeenth-century London printings of Dante or

30 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Ariosto. Indeed, in 1645 itself, it is found in one of the commendatory pieces,
hence not by Milton himself — on natio}'^

More general considerations may contribute now. Granted that an
interest in Italian accents may concern the sound of the verse of a still
currently spoken language, and that guidance might be needed for the
pronouncing of this stiff and démodé pastiche, ^^ Greek accents too were
designed for pronunciation and Milton would know this; and correctness was
no less de rigueur for their audience. The dull truth seems to be that even
though Milton was as passionate in his love of Italian as of Greek, he was
merely luckier with his Italian in 1645 than he was with Greek. "Luck," here,
means the luck of the printing house; and luck moved a little the other way
in 1673.

I have found no examples of Milton's handwritten Hebrew, but we do
have some evidence of how he interpreted Hebrew's (numerous and complex)
diacritical marks. He certainly knew the importance of the vocalizations or
pointings, those indicators of vowels which sit under, over, inside, or after the
consonant which begins the phoneme, in a language which for centuries wrote
down only its consonants. In his translation of Psalm 88.15 Milton writes a

note on the pointing: " +and shake / With terror sent from thee" is glossed "

+Heb. Prae concuss ione.'' The gloss means "shaking," = "as you, God, shake
me." As one editor writes, "Milton has enlisted an homonymous root ... to
help him understand a difficult line."^^ For "»li 3p (minno'ar) he is proposing
">îi^îp (nfno'ar), a putative pual from the root n'r, to shake. But no extraordi-
nary scholarship is involved. Every reader of the Hebrew Bible has to decide
things like this because they inhere in a consonantal text, in fact have in some
ways been made harder not easier whenever the Masoretes added their
conjectural vocalizing to a difficult or ambiguous reading. Milton is a normal,
scrupulous reader of the pointing, because pointing is vital to understanding
yet often crucially uncertain.

Milton's Accents in English

Modem English employs accents solely for loan-words, but in the Trinity
Manuscript we see Milton using accents on English words in ways trans-
ferred from their normal use on Latin ones: acute, circumflex, diairesis (but
not grave). Chaeronéa, Ligéas, and Alphéus have the acute which those
Greek loan-words would have in Milton's Latin. In Thon the circumflex
signifies long vowel, as is made clear when elsewhere he writes the word as

John K. Hale / Observations on Milton's Accents / 31

Thone. A careful diairesis makes sure that vowels when sounded do not join
up into diphthong, so spoiling the rhythm and metre: Druids (Lycidas, 53).^®

But why accentuate words written for his own eyes (and ears) alone?
Was the habit of accenting so engrained? Or was the Trinity Manuscript
meant as a copy to send for a printing of his English poems, hence carrying
marks for printers to use to guide readers? The latter idea cannot be fully
right, not so much because the actual printings of Lycidas and the other
poems do not carry these accents as because other evidence from the
manuscript proves the habit was indeed engrained. He marks with equal care
some of the names in his (prose) listing of possible subjects for an epic: Saul
Autoda'ictes, Elisaeus Hydrochoos, Elisaeus Adorodocétos (p. 34). The
accentuation preserves that of their Greek originals, for accuracy's sake —
though perhaps also (since these were names for a projected poem) for
rhythm's sake.

Though one cannot by the nature of the entries be sure if these list-name
accents define pronunciation as well as provenance, a more intriguing
instance occurs back in the writing of Masque 61 A\

By scaly Triton's winding shell,

And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell,

By Leucothea's lovely hands,

And her son that rules the strands ... (p. 24)

If the Greek etymologizing habit was so engrained, how comes it that
Leucothea has no acute on -the -1 Either Milton has omitted his own usual
practice or we have an indication of how he heard this line — as trochaic in
seven syllables, rather than iambic in eight. The line does effect the transition
from iambics preceding it to a trocheee following. I surmise that Milton's
pen paused over - the - to accent it, then moved on as he heard or felt a coming
metrical change. In short, whereas normally his English accents reflected
etymology and sound alike, in a few cases they parted company and he gave
the priority to sound.

It would be instructive to look out for more such. Simpler instances
would include diaireses in names without any clear inherited vocalization
— GorloiSy perhaps. Analogies from other poets come to mind here. Without
anachronistically invoking the "strange moon-marks" of Hopkins' poems in
manuscript, let me adduce Milton's contemporary Edward Benlowes.^^
Benlowes, unlike Milton, took enormous pains to get all the Latin accents
right for his bilingual poem Theophila. He not only applied but extended the
humanist use of circumflex to indicate a Latin contraction: in presentation

32 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

copies he himself puts in circumflex over - th - of father and - r - of Spirit
to show that these words are monosyllabic. Even though Benlowes* method
and the degree of insistence are eccentric, their purpose recalls some of the
Milton instances in that getting it to sound right becomes the absolute
priority. My own exploration has shown some parallels, for example, the
sounding of Rouse as RoUsius, and there may be more.

Conclusions

A variation in Milton's attitude to each language, and in his use of it, is
indicated by his diacritic practice. He selects and adapts from the humanist
Latin system, whereas he obeys the Greek one as binding. This may corre-
spond with his usage of the two languages: Latin was familiar, like an old
glove, but Greek was treasure; one was for praxis, the other for theoria.
Possibly a similar inference about Italian and French can be hazarded: on
the strength of his care with Italian accents, together with the much greater
number of Italian than French entries in the Commonplace Book, can we
infer that Italian represented culture — indeed Renaissance — whereas
French represented no more than data?

Certainly Milton knew and practised some of his languages more, and
better, than others. His emendation to the Hebrew of Psalm 88 is no
wondrous emendation, just an unattractive and uneconomical guess — far
inferior to the best emendation to the Greek text of Euripides. On the other
hand, it is interesting that Milton felt no inhibition whatever about interpre-
ting the sacred text and even emending its received form. He was neither a
theological fundamentalist nor a textual conservative.

In the main Milton takes the accent system of each language as he found
it. He seems to make less use of the humanist Latin one in private than when
needing to impress the recipient of a letter — a practice not insincere but a
matter of self-respect (and hence verging on calligraphy). This self-respect
can be glimpsed in the spasmodic attempts to have his accents printed
correctly or as he wished, though he is not obsessive about it.

In the last resort, the English accents may prove the most revealing.
First, they show his Greek and Latin interacting with each other to influence
his English practice with names. This interactiveness is a microcosm of his
imagination at work, since words, phrases and whole allusions come to him
in his best poems by a not essentially different intersecting of his foreign
languages within his hospitable English. And secondly, at just a few points
he uses accents phonetically, not as normally in conjunction with scholarly

John K. Hale / Observations on Milton's Accents / 33

accuracy but for sound alone. If more such can be found, my prolonged
attention to such a minimalist topic as accents will have had value.

University ofOtago

Notes

1 . The order is established by Milton's statement in "Ad Patrem," 78-85. For the text of the
passage see The Poems of John Milton, ed. John Carey and Alastair Fowler (Lx)ndon:
Longmans, 1968), pp. 151-152. This edition of the poems, cited as "Carey," is used
throughout unless otherwise cited.

2. This is not the only system of Latin accents, but is the main one studied here. For the
others, being various ancient and medieval systems and an irrelevant Graecizing system
of the Renaissance itself, see Piet Steenbakkers, "Accent-Marks in Neo-Latin," in Rhoda
Schnur, gen. ed. Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Hajhiensis: Proceedings of the Eight Inter-
national Congress of Neo-Latin Studies (Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts
and Studies, 1994), 925-934. I am in debt to correspondence with Dr. Steenbakkers
throughout this section.

3. Quintihan, Institutio Oratorio, 1.7. 2-3, on geminatio, and see Steenbakkers, section 3.2.

4. I have used the Camden Society edition, A Common-Place Book of John Milton and A
Latin Essay and Latin Verses Presumed to Be by Milton, ed. Alfred J. Horwood (1877),
together with a photocopy of the original held by the Harry T. Ransome Library,
Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin.

5. Joseph McG. Bottkol, "The Holograph of Milton's Letter to Holstenius," PMLA, 68
(1953), 617-627.

6. Oxford Latin Dictionary, ed. P. G. W. Glare (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 1548;
Bottkol, 621 (transcription), 622 (collation), and Plate 1 opposite 622.

7. For the letter I have used a photocopy kindly supplied by the Bodleian Library. For the
ode I have used a facsimile and transcript in Harris F. Fletcher, ed. Milton 's Complete
Poetical Works in Photographic Facsimile (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1943),
4 vols., vol. 4. Fletcher (4.456) is non-committal on whether the ode ms. is in Milton's
own hand, though most scholars have thought so. It suffices here that the ms. has the same
distinctive accenting of "Rousius" as Milton's prose letter, and that he must have
scrutinized the ms. even if he did not write it.

8. Similar purposes emerge if one looks at the same accentuation usages in the printed texts
of the poems (1645 and 1673): Eléo and Elegia ("Elegia Sexta," 26 and 49); Eoo and
Philyrëius ("Elegia Tertia," 34, and "Elegia Quarta," 27); Parère fatis ("In Obitum
Procancellarii Medici," 1). Whose was the purpose, Milton's or his printer's? The more
unusual and phonetic the purpose, the more Hkely to be Milton's. I am sure at least of the
last example. Parère, where not only would the sense go wrong if we did not identify the

34 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

verb form as from pareo ( = I obey) at once, but also the unusual iambic metre (unusual
because coming amongst so many other metres) would be missed — and the poem would
sound wrong. The concern for sound in a Latin poem seems best ascribed to the poet
himself.

9. See The Familiar Letters of John Milton, tr. David Masson and ed. Donald Lemen Clark,
in The Works of John Milton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931-1938), 18
vols, 12.44-50.

10. Bottkol (ibid.) notes a grave before enclitic (which ought to be acute there) at line 45 of
the Holstenius letter. Similarly a very occasional error or misplacing of accent can be
found among the marginalia to Euripides and Lycophron.

12. A summary account is given, with full reff , by Douglas Bush in A Variorum Commentary
on the Poems of John Milton (General Editor, Merritt Y. Hughes), vol. 1: The Latin and
Greek Poems, ed. Douglas Bush (London: Routledge, 1970), pp. 255-256.

13. Phaies, not Phaieis (omission of iota subscript); autophues, without any accent.

14. Carey, p. 229, summarizes the situation respecting Milton* s longest Greek poem, the
version in Homeric hexameters of Psalm 1 14.

15. The examples are from p. 186, but other entries and the practice of French printed books
of the seventeenth century concur. I have used the rare autotype facsimile of the Common-
place Book: A Common-Place Book of J. Milton. Reproduced by the Autotype Process
from the Original Manuscript in the Possession of Sir Frederick J. U. Graham . . . with
an Introduction by A. J. Horwood (London: Privately printed, 1876).

1 6. John Purves, in The Poetical Works of John Milton, ed. Helen Darbishire, 2 vols. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1955), II, xv.

17. In the ode by Antonio Francini, line 38, Fletcher, 4.218.

18. It is démodé pastiche because it uses words and idioms and senses from 200 years of
Italian sonneteers, finishing with those of the sixteenth century: it is an Italian too eclectic,
synchronic, and passé to convince Italian ears. I have discussed these matters in "The
Audiences of Milton's Italian Verses," Renaissance Studies. 8, 1 (1994), 76-88.

1 9. John Milton, Complete English Poems, Of Education, Aeropagitica, ed. Gordon Campbell
(London: J. M. Dent, 1990), p. 129.

.20. The Trinity ms. is cited from John Milton, Poems Reproduced in Facsimile from the
Manuscript in Trinity College, Cambridge. With a Transcript (Menston: The Scholar
Press, 1970). The accented words mentioned occur thus: Chaeronéa, p. 9 (Sonnet 'To the
Lady Margaret Ley," hne 7), Ligéas, p. 24 (Masque, line 880), Alphéus, p. 31 (Lycidas,
line 132), Thon, p. 22 (Masque, line 675), nut Thone, p. 20 (Masque, line 674); Druids,
p. 29 (Lycidas, line 53).

21. All details are from Harold Jenkins, Edward Benlowes: Biography of a Minor Poet
(London: University of London/The Athlone Press, 1952), app. UI.

Le dialogue de l'auteur et

du lecteur dans La

Sepmaine de Du Bartas

FRANÇOIS
ROUDAUT

pour Laura et John McClelland

Résumé: Dans cet article, il s* agit avant tout d'attirer l'attention sur les
mécanismes dialogiques qui animent tout le projet de Du Bartas dans La
Sepmaine. Le narrateur de ce récit de la Création est mu par un profond
désir de convaincre, défaire connaître, d'amener le lecteur à une expérience
contemplative. Mais les coruiitions du dialogue sont brouillées, ambiguës,
sans quoi le désir de connaître par la médiation d'un autre ne subsisterait
pas. Le dialogue entre l'auteur et le lecteur conduit à l'accomplissement de
leur mutuelle humanité dans le souvenir de l'origine.

Lorsque Du Bartas publie son poème en 1578, il s'inscrit dans une longue
tradition. En premier lieu, celle des commentaires de la Genèse, parti-
culièrement nombreux entre 1550 et 1650. Ensuite, celle de la littérature des
Hexaemera, c'est-à-dire des exégèses portant sur les six jours de la Création:
les oeuvres les plus connues sont celles de saint Ambroise, de saint Grégoire
de Naziance, de saint Grégoire de Nysse et de saint Basile pour lequel
Érasme écrit en 1532 une préface élogieuse. Enfin, celle du poème cosmo-
logique dont Lucrèce peut être tenu pour le père et qui connaît une grande
postérité au seizième siècle: citons pour mémoire les Hymni naturales de
Manille, 1' Urania de Pontano, le Microcosme de Scève et le Premier des
Météores de Baïf.^

La Sepmaine a rencontré, dès sa parution, un énorme succès, et parmi
tous les lecteurs, il y en a un qui semble particulièrement pertinent: François
Feu- Ardent (1541-1610), un célèbre cordelier qui fut du parti de la Ligue et

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 3 (1995) /35

36 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

écrivit de très nombreux traités contre les calvinistes ainsi que des commen-
taires à quelques livres saints. Il a pris le temps de lire avec attention le poème
de Du Bartas, d*en louer les beautés et, de manière générale, l'orthodoxie.
Mais bien évidemment d'en remarquer aussi ce qui lui apparaît comme des
graves errements: ainsi en est-il, par exemple, de l'emploi de l'adjectif
"triple-une" dans lequel Feu- Ardent voit une scandaleuse division de l'indi-
visible Essence divine, et un retour des conceptions trinitaires en honneur
chez les calvinistes.^

Une attention si soutenue à un texte qui ne se présente pas, au premier
chef, comme un traité de théologie, laisse penser qu'il y a dans La Sepmaine
une sorte de provocation au dialogue de l'auteur et du lecteur. Un dialogue
dans lequel la séduction, la tromperie, la surprise jouent tour à tour leur
partie. L'oeuvre implique des questions que le lecteur doit mettre en lumière
pour comprendre les réponses qui lui sont proposées. On ne reviendra pas,
après la remarquable étude de Jan Miemowski,^ sur les différents strata-
gèmes employés par Du Bartas pour charmer (delectaré) le lecteur et lui
enseigner (doceré) une histoire qu'il connaît déjà. Comme on le sait. Du
Bartas entend dire non le vraisemblable, mais le vrai. Il fonde avant tout son
oeuvre sur le refus du mensonge poétique des païens. C'est là introduire le
lecteur dans le vieux débat (dont Origène est la figure principale) sur le
fameux "style inculte" de la Bible. Saint Jérôme avait déjà proclamé dans
une de ses Lettres (53,8) que David, l'auteur des Psaumes, était "notre
Simonide, notre Pindare, notre Alcée, ou même notre Catulle"; ce que Calvin
reprendra. Car la Bible possède une éloquence propre, "alteram quamdam
eloquentiam suam," dit saint Augustin dans son De Doctrina Christiana (IV,
7, 10). Du Bartas se trouve devant une sorte de dilemme: rendre compte du
texte sacré et de son message sans en copier les procédés. Une nouvelle
rhétorique doit être mise en place. On pourrait brièvement la défmir en
reprenant ce que Quintilien, dans son Institution oratoire (Vni, 3, 83), dit
de l'emphase: "donner à entendre au-delà de ce que les seuls mots expri-
ment." C'est là en effet la nécessité à laquelle se trouve confronté Du Bartas
lorsqu'il fait le récit des premiers moments de la création: exprimer l'inex-
primable, montrer l'excès du signifié sur le signifiant et tenter de choisir
plutôt l'expression que la signification. Un tel travail requiert la mise en
place d'un dialogue de l'auteur et du lecteur.

Dès le début de l'oeuvre, le lecteur est guidé avec rigueur dans les
dédales des subtilités théologiques, grâce en particulier aux nombreuses
interventions d'un auteur qui prend diverses figures: poète, peintre, pro-

François Roudaut / Le dialogue dans La Sepmaine de Du Bartas / 37

phète, témoin de la création du monde. Une de ces interventions est très
importante. En introduction à son récit de la création du monde, Du Bartas
dit ceci:

Ainsi donc, esclairé par la foy, je desire

Les textes plus sacrez de ces Pancartes lire:

Et depuis son enfance, en ces aages divers.

Pour mieux contempler Dieu, contempler l'univers

(I, V. 175-178).

On a souligné le fait que la lecture du monde passe par la foi. Mais il faut
remarquer combien l'expression du désir (séparé du reste du vers par la
virgule et placé à la rime) occupe une place essentielle. Il ne s'agit pas pour
Du Bartas, en effet, d'une nécessité, ni même d'un devoir, mais seulement
d'un élan totalement subjectif d'un individu, élan dû à une agitation inquiète
de l'âme qui ne parviendra à la possession de l'objet que par la médiation
d'un agent extérieur. Rien ne contraint le narrateur à faire ce récit sinon un
désir de lucidité, de clarté dans la contemplation ("pour mieux contempler
Dieu") à laquelle, avant l'oeuvre, il s'adonne déjà. C'est donc à un travail
de rationalisation de la contemplation qu'il convie le lecteur dans un mouve-
ment d'ouverture qui offre par là même un code de lecture du texte. Il y aura
rationalisation, mais pour aboutir à une vision comme mystique de la
contemplation.

Yvonne Bellenger a publié, il y a quelques années, un article intitulé
"Du Bartas et son lecteur," dans lequel elle analyse les emplois de "je" et de
"tu," et montre l'importance accordée par Du Bartas au personnage du
lecteur."^ Elle cite ce bref passage du septième jour:

Sied- toy donq, ô lecteur, sied toy donc près de moy,
Discours en mes discours, voy tout ce que je voy.

(v. 441-442)

C'est en attachant la plus grande importance à ces vers que je voudrais relire
ici non pas l'ensemble de La Sepmaine^ mais un passage du premier jour qui
me paraît illustrer cet appel de Du Bartas à la mise en place d'un "discours"
sur des "discours." Après avoir mis en valeur l'importance du travail de
réflexion d'ordre rationnel qui est demandé, il sera possible de montrer
comment Du Bartas contraint le lecteur à prendre un chemin qui, par bien
des aspects, s'apparente à celui de la mystique. On a souvent parlé du
caractère ludique et combinatoire de La Sepmaine. Il n'exclut pas un grand

38 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

sérieux. Et François Feu- Ardent ne s'y était pas trompé, qui lisait La
Sepmaine avec une extrême attention.

Dieu a créé le monde à partir du néant {ex nihilo) que Du Bartas appelle
le "rien" (v. 193 en particulier). De "l'infini d'un rien" (v. 99) procède la
matière; ce sera la matière première, pure indétermination, état informe et,
comme tel, impossible à définir autrement que par des oxymores.^

Les vers 223 à 236 du premier jour exposent l'état du "rien" avant la
création de la matière et décrivent le monde dans son état premier:

Ce premier monde estoit une forme sans forme,

Une pile confuse, un meslange difforme,
225 D'abismes un abisme, un corps mal compassé.

Un Chaos de chaos, un tas mal entassé:

Où tous les elemens se logeoyent pesle-mesle:

Où le liquide avoit avec le sec querelle.

Le rond avec l'aigu, le froid avec le chaud,
230 Le dur avec le mol, le bas avec le haut,

L'amer avec le doux: bref durant ceste guerre

La terre estoit au ciel et le ciel en la terre.

La terre, l'air, le feu se tenoyent dans la mer:

La mer, le feu, la terre estoyent logez dans l'air,
235 L'air, la mer, et le feu dans la terre; et la terre

Chez l'air, le feu, la mer. [...].

Ce passage est naturellement fondé sur le verset suivant de la Genèse (I, 2):
"Terra autem erat inanis et vacua, et tenebrae erant super faciem abyssi, et
Spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas." L'ensemble du texte de Du Bartas est
le développement de ces quelques mots. Conune le rappelle Albert-Marie
Schmidt dans La poésie scientifique en France au XV7^ siècle, le tableau du
chaos est, à l'époque, un véritable exercice de style: Clément Marot, Guil-
laume des Autels, Jacques Peletier s'y essaient tour à tour. Mais Du Bartas
ne paraît pas vouloir se situer dans la lignée de ses prédécesseurs. Ses choix
sont plus complexes. Le lecteur remarque bien vite derrière certaines
formules ("une forme sans forme," "D'abismes un abisme") la présence de
saint Augustin dont V Advertis sèment mentionne l'influence considérable.^
C'est en effet dans Les Confessions (XII, III, 3) que le saint, donnant son
interprétation de ce verset de la Genèse, emploie l'expression "Profunditas
abyssi" et conclut son paragraphe par la phrase suivante: "non tamen omnino
nihil: erat quaedam informitas sine ulla specie": "ce n'était pas cependant le

François Roudaut / Le dialogue dans La Sepmaine de Du Bartas / 39

néant absolu; c'était une sorte d"infonnité' sans aucune apparence."^ Cette
attention portée au "désordre" originel par saint Augustin est
particulièrement intéressante pour Du Bartas. Car la citation du verset qui
ouvre le paragraphe est la suivante: "terra erat invisibilis et incomposita."
Saint Augustin s'est sans doute servi non pas de la Vulgate mais de Tltala,^
une version qu'il préfère parce qu'il la trouve plus proche de celle des
Septante. En insistant sur le désordre, Du Bartas s'éloigne donc de la Vulgate
et ancre son texte dans une tradition avant tout patristique (et comme telle
parfaitement suivie par Calvin). Du passage de saint Augustin, Du Bartas
retient principalement les expressions susceptibles de frapper le lecteur et
laisse de côté l'interrogation sur le lieu de la lumière et les adresses à Dieu.
Le dialogue que Du Bartas engage avec son lecteur est donc déjà, à ce
moment d'appréhension du texte, un dialogue ambigu. L'auteur oriente son
texte vers saint Augustin, et marque sa différence en ne prenant pas l'élément
essentiel qu'est l'adresse à la divinité. Car il s'agit bien des Confessions et
non de La Cité de Dieu: le livre XII se présente comme une méditation sur
les premiers versets de la Genèse. Mais une méditation qui ne cesse de
réclamer le dialogue, qui ne peut se construire que par le dialogue. Dialogue
avec un Dieu présent, mais qui ne répond pas, pas plus que ne répond le
lecteur présent qui lit le texte de La Sepmaine.

Relisons ce que dit saint Augustin au début de ce livre:

Mon coeur se donne bien du mal, Seigneur, dans le dénuement de ma vie
présente, quand les paroles de ta sainte Écriture frappent à sa porte. Et si
l'indigence de l'intelligence humaine est très souvent riche en discours,
c'est que la richesse parle plus que la découverte, la demande est plus
longue que l'obtention, et la main qui frappe plus laborieuse que celle qui
reçoit.

L'oxymore ("l'indigence de l'intelligence humaine est très souvent riche en
discours") exprime le fondement même de la démarche de saint Augustin:
la recherche du sens de l'écriture, devant quelqu'un, ici devant Dieu. C'est
peut-être là ce que veut dire Du Bartas à son lecteur lorsqu'il fait ce "détour"
par saint Augustin. Le texte de Du Bartas ne cesse en effet de poser des
questions au lecteur et contraint ce dernier à donner des réponses dont la
validité se vérifiera au fil du texte. On dira qu'il s'agit là du fonctionnement
de tout texte. Certes, mais il semble que le poème de Du Bartas provoque un
véritable dialogue avec le lecteur. Les questions que pose saint Augustin (sur
le lieu de la lumière, par exemple) sont celles que doit se poser le lecteur de
La Sepmaine^ lui qui reçoit de Du Bartas un enseignement. Enseigner, c'est

40 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

en effet ce que dit saint Augustin lorsqu'il s'adresse à Dieu: "docuisti me"
est répété à deux reprises. Enseigner, c'est-à-dire participer à un dialogue, à
une relation d'échange d'où la vérité doit sortir. Il ne s'agit pas pour Du
Bartas d'asséner un discours d'autorité.

Il y a une autre conclusion que l'on peut tirer de cette relation au texte
augustinien. Saint Augustin emploie le terme species que l'on traduit par
"forme," tout en sachant qu'il signifie aussi "apparence," "figure," "beauté"
(il est voisin du terme platonicien sCôoç). Ce que Du Bartas veut faire
comprendre à son lecteur, c'est que les vers que celui-ci vient de lire ne
portent pas principalement sur la formation du monde, sur sa mise en ordre,
mais sur sa mise "en beauté." Le lecteur devra juger de la conformité de la
beauté du texte à celle du monde.

Le désir de dialogue (le désir car il "désire" écrire) se poursuit par la
présence d'une autre tradition connexe. Au vers 225, les expressions "D'a-
bismes un abisme" et "Un Chaos de chaos" doivent surprendre le lecteur par
leur étrangeté et lui rappeler la voix des prophètes. Il ne s'agit certes pas à
proprement parler de "génitifs hébraïques" (qu'il convient d'appeler plus
justement "expressions géniti vales"). Cependant, de telles formules retien-
nent quelque chose de la puissance contenue dans les expressions hébraïques
mettant en valeur la qualification du nom: on connaît le fameux "vase
d'élection" {y as electionis) utilisé à propos de saint Paul dans les Actes des
Apôtres (IX, 15). L'expression ainsi obtenue possède une force beaucoup
plus grande que ne le laisse supposer la formulation française: "vase d'élec-
tion" signifie en effet un vase dont l'essence même réside dans son choix
par Dieu. C'est là renvoyer à un absolu. Du Bartas reprend en partie cette
tournure et la complexifie en parlant d'un abîme dont l'essence même ne
serait qu'abîme, d'un chaos qui serait à l'infini un chaos, une sorte de pureté
de chaos. Un tel choix marque la volonté de dépasser le modèle augustinien
dans l'indicible, dans l'expression d'un au-delà de toute catégorie logique.

Il serait sans doute facile au poète de poursuivre ainsi dans la même
veine et de faire se succéder ce type de locutions. Le texte finirait par acquérir
une certaine rigueur dans l'illogisme, si l'on peut dire. Du Bartas entend ne
pas laisser s'installer le lecteur dans cet ordre et intercale des remarques
d'une plus grande banalité: "un tas mal entassé," par exemple, qui laisse
penser à une possibilité de conception du chaos. Mais cette dernière expres-
sion vient en fait d'une troisième origine: le vers 8 du premier livre des
Métamorphoses d'Ovide. Après le christianisme et le judaïsme, voici le
paganisme. Les Métamorphoses (I, 15-20) reparaissent en arrière-plan des

François Roudaut / Le dialogue dans La Sepmaine de Du Bartas / 41

vers 228 et suivants. Du Bartas, cependant, les suit de loin car son dévelop-
pement est bien plus complexe. En effet, il mêle la théorie des quatre
humeurs (sec, humide, froid, chaud) et les deux catégories sensibles ("dur,"
"mol") énoncées par Ovide (v. 20) à des déterminations d'ordre géométrique
("rond," "aigu") et spatial ("haut," "bas"). En outre, il met en place dans les
vers 233 à 236 un système de combinaisons qui n'est pas équilibré: si la mer,
l'air et la terre contiennent les trois autres éléments, en revanche, le feu n'en
contient aucun; cette quatrième séquence attendue est remplacée par un
nouveau système dans lequel se trouve comme récapitulée la position de la
terre par rapport aux trois autres éléments. Le dialogue se poursuit dans une
orientation différente que l'on pourrait qualifier de méta-poétique, dans la
mesure où ce déséquilibre oblige le lecteur à s'interroger sur le texte qu'il
vient de lire, c'est-à-dire à tenter de donner un sens, non pas à ce qui est
décrit, mais à la description elle-même.

Ainsi, cet ecphrasis est symptomatique d'une relation avec le lecteur
qui n'est nullement stable et dont le fondement n'est pas l'amour de la
contemplation. Il n'y a pas ici d'admiration semblable à celle qu'exprime
Adam dans La Seconde Semaine!^ On se trouve en effet dans le cas de
l'impossibilité d'une participation mimétique, impossibilité qu'accentuent
les permanents effets de retard, ces dilationes sermonis, comme les appelle
Vives (dans son De ratione dicendi, 1532) ou Érasme (dans son De duplici
copia verborum ac rerum, 1521). Cela a pour conséquence de déséquilibrer
le lecteur, c'est-à-dire de le forcer à réagir, à participer à un dialogue. Il n'est
certes pas apostrophé violemment comme aux vers 31 et suivants:

Prophane, qui t'enquiers, quel important afaire
Peut l'esprit et les mains de ce Dieu solitaire
Occuper si longtemps? [...].

Dans ce passage, les interrogations se poursuivent pendant quelques vers
encore jusqu'à ce que Du Bartas dévoile cet interlocuteur, ce "prophane"
que tout lecteur pouvait prendre comme une image de lui-même: il
l'interpelle en l'appelant "blasphémateur" (v. 37). Cet averroïste qui posait
des questions impies ne saurait être le lecteur, présupposé bon chrétien. Le
dialogue paraissait refusé dans ces vers, mais pour apparaître à un autre
niveau. Car ce n'est pas dans ces apostrophes que réside le lecteur avec lequel
Du Bartas entend avancer. À moins que l'on ne souligne l'étonnante variété
des lecteurs invoqués par Du Bartas, et que l'on ne conclue, par conséquent,
en raison de la multiplicité de tous ces visages, à l'imposibilité d'un dialogue.

42 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

On pourrait dire que, dans le passage analysé précédemment, Du Bartas
refuse V accumulation cette convenance du discours avec un public supposé.
Il y a plutôt mise en place d'une elocutio monstruosa, pour employer
l'expression utilisée par Calvin quand il veut qualifier, dans son commen-
taire au De dementia de Sénèque, le style illaboratus du philosophe. Une
abondance, en effet, qui se marque dans la profusion des métaphores, des
comparaisons avec pour but non pas de ramener l'univers à des proportions
humaines par l'usage d'expressions fameuses comme les "celestes chan-
delles" (I, V. 116) pour signifier les étoiles ou la "torche sainte" (I, v. 483)
pour désigner le soleil, mais au contraire d'indiquer la radicale insuffisance
du comparant par rapport au comparé, c'est-à-dire de refuser une quelconque
représentation de la réalité au profit d'un discours "didascalique," d'un
discours par conséquent de "distinction" des divers éléments du monde et
de mise en lumière des relations qu'ils tissent. Un tel projet ne peut se
concevoir que par la mise en place d'un dialogue avec le lecteur, c'est-à-dire
avec quelqu'un qui accomplisse le texte, qui aille plus loin que lui dans les
directions qu'il se contente d'indiquer. L'esthétique de l'entassement, de la
compilation {farrago) que l'on a pu déceler chez Du Bartas ne doit donc pas
amener à conclure à une nature purement combinatoire du texte. Ce qui
compte avant tout — c'est sans doute un truisme que de le dire — c'est
l'ordre dans lequel le texte se déroule lors de la lecture, non pas pour marquer
seulement son habileté, sa compétence dans tel ou tel domaine, mais surtout
pour conduire le lecteur de déception (au sens latin de tromperie) en décep-
tion, et l'obliger ainsi à le concevoir, lui le texte, comme la voix d'un auteur,
c'est-à-dire comme un instrument de ce que l'on appelle un colloque spiri-
tuel, une conversation sacrée.

La multiplicité des sources évoquées dans le passage analysé précé-
demment implique une question de la part de l'auteur: que dire face à une
telle profusion, à une telle complexité de fils qui s'entrecroisent et qui ^
contraignent l'auteur à se réfugier finalement dans le champ du possible? Le
but du dialogue est d'éviter toute univocité du texte au profit d'une nouvelle
attitude exégétique. De ce point de vue, les divers rappels et annonces que
l'on peut déceler dans le premier jour sont la marque d'une méthode, d'un
savoir qui se cherche. Une telle orientation suppose que soit demandé au
lecteur un effort moral. Il doit prendre conscience de la nécessité d'un devoir
exégétique, présenté par l'image de la digestion:

L'homme que Dieu munit d'une brave asseurance
Semble au bon estomac, qui soudain ne s' offence

François Roudaut / Le dialogue dans La Sepmaine de Du Bartas / 43

Pour l'excès plus léger, ains change pomptement
Toute sorte de mets en parfaict aliment

(VII, V. 355-358)

Il est ici question de la manducation, cette activité qui consiste à mâcher, à
ruminer tout au long de la journée quelque parole divine de manière à
maintenir un dialogue constant avec Dieu. Le texte propose une pratique
proche de celle de la lectio divina: tendre son esprit, dans la prière, à la seule
compréhension de l'Écriture.'^ Il s'agit de suivre la division tripartite de la
vie spirituelle (cogitatio, meditatio, contemplatio) telle qu'elle a été diffusée
par les écrits de Gerson en particulier. '^ Le dernier vers cité souligne
combien il est nécessaire de changer le texte, de le transformer en une
nourriture non pas d'un goût délicieux mais d'un pouvoir grandement
nutritif: un "parfaict aliment." Ainsi le dialogue avec le lecteur est-il la
reprise du dialogue que le poète a tenté avec la divinité afin de faire sortir la
moelle de l'os:

Il [Dieu] veut que là dedans le ministre fidèle
De l'os des saincts écrits arrache la mouelle.

(VII, v. 403-404)

La médiation que représente la lecture sert de point de convergence à des
images qui, combinées, doivent proposer une essence unique. Si le dialogue
paraît "brouillé," c'est parce que l'accès au sens ne saurait être immédiat, et
que nous devons, comme le dit saint Paul (I Cor., Xin,12) voir confusément
comme en énigme et dans un miroir pour voir ensuite face à face. La
Sepmaine n'est pas une oeuvre d'art au sens où l'entend Platon lorsqu'il
expose dans le Livre X de Z/z République (597 ssq.) le paradigme des trois
lits. Le discours à l'oeuvre dans le poème n'est pas le rêve d'un autre, le
produit d'une quelconque délégation de parole. La lecture est finalement à
l'image de la création: une construction progressive. Et dans le monde que
présente Du Bartas chacun des éléments acquiert peu à peu ses qualités
propres. Au départ,

L'Air estoit sans clarté, la flamme sans ardeur,
Sans fermeté la terre, et l'onde sans froideur.

(I, V. 249-250)

On assiste ensuite à un déploiement du monde. De même que "l'univers
déploie les siècles que Dieu avait comme repliés en lui lors de cette première
création" — c'est là une pensée augustinienne*^ — , de même le lecteur doit
accomplir ce travail de déploiement, d'explication du sens, ou des sens qui,

44 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

en se mêlant les uns aux autres, construisent le monde des paroles à l'image
du monde des choses. Le chaos n'est pas un état d' indistinction dans lequel
le discours n'aurait pas de lieu ni même dans lequel il viendrait se dissoudre;
c'est un procès vers un ordre, un dynamisme interne à la matière, comme le
dit saint Augustin dans les Confessions (XII, VI, 6). C'est-à-dire que le
travail du lecteur consiste à effectuer un retour à l'origine de la construction
du texte, à ses fondements mêmes: restitutio in pristinum statum. Ou
déploiement du présent: il s'agit dans la lecture du texte, dans la découverte
des différentes sources, de "creuser" le présent, de le "déployer" puisque le
passé et le futur s'y trouvent contenus.'^ Au septième jour, Du Bartas déclare:

L'Esprit est sans esprit, s'il ne sçait discourir (v. 329).

Cette réflexion peut s'appliquer moins à l'auteur de La Sepmaine qu'à son
lecteur. Du Bartas lui renvoie en effet l'une des questions fondamentales
qu'il pose dans son vaste commentaire du récit mosaïque: comment
s'autoriser à mêler sa voix à celle d'une parole tenue pour fondatrice,
comment remplir les ellipses du récit biblique? Ce sont des questions que le
lecteur doit transformer ainsi: comment comprendre — enserrer — le texte
bartasien? Ce passage sur le monde avant le chaos constitué par la matière
n'est pas proprement lisible; et pourtant le lecteur devra (par désir peut-être)
le lire, c'est-à-dire en donner un discours.

Il faut que le regard de l'esprit crée des formes. Celles que les gravures
effectuées par Thomas de Leu pour la grande édition de 1611 nous donnent
ne sont pas "réalistes": ce Dieu qui plane ainsi sur le monde indique par là
même qu'il est signe d'autre chose. Et le travail que doit faire le lecteur est
celui de l'abstraction, de la transformation de son regard en contemplation.
Mais de quoi? De son humanité, à travers des schemes qui ne peuvent être
hérités que de textes. On retrouve ici la définition même de la mimesis,
représentation d'une représentation. Le dialogue de l'auteur et du lecteur a
pour but l'accomplissement de leur mutuelle humanité, La mimesis, comme
on le sait, abstrait, schématise, réduit le souvenir à ses schemes essentiels.
Le dialogue a comme enjeu le souvenir d'un lieu d'origine. Le travail de la
lecture est un exercice métaphysique. Le dévoilement progressif du sens par
le lecteur doit être mis en relation avec le dévoilement de l'ultime vérité qui
se fait jour dans le déroulement même de l'histoire. Le lecteur joue ainsi un
rôle essentiel par rapport à l'auteur: sans lui, il ne saurait y avoir de texte
puisque celui-ci n'a de sens qu'orienté, en fonction de la lecture qui en sera
faite et qui sera la préfiguration du dévoilement universel du sens, l'apoca-

François Roudaut / Le dialogue dans La Sepmaine de Du Bartas / 45

lypse. Le dialogue a pour fonction de permettre à "rhorrible discord" dont
parle Pontus de Tyard dans le Solitaire premier d'être "transmué en douce
symphonie." ^^

Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier

Notes

1. Dans l'optique qui nous occupe ici, il ne saurait être question de faire référence aux
oeuvres ultérieures qui peuvent se réclamer de La Sepmaine: celles de Miles de Norry
(1583), Guillaume Le Chevalier (1584), Joseph du Chesne (1587), puis au dix-septième
siècle Christophle de Gamon (1609), Jean d'Escorbiac (1613), Alexandre de Rivière
(1619) et, on ne saurait l'oublier, Charles Perrault, l'auteur en 1692 de La Création du
Monde.

2. Dans sa Semaine premiere des Dialogues, auxquels sont examinez et confutez cent
soixante et quatorze erreurs des Calvinistes, partie contre la tres-saincte Trinité et unité
de Dieu, partie contre chacune des trois personnes en particulier (Paris, Sebastien et
Robert NiveUe, 1589), f. 281*».

3. Dialectique et connaissance dans La Sepmaine de Du Bartas (Genève, Droz, 1992).

4. Dans Du Bartas poète encyclopédique du XVI' siècle, sous la direction de James Dauphiné
(Lyon, La Manufacture, 1988); revu et corrigé dans Yvonne Bellenger, Du Bartas et ses
divines Semaines (Paris, SEDES, 1993), 219-235.

5. Comme le dit saint Augustin, Les Confessions, Xn, VI, trad. É. Tréhorel et G. Bouissou
(Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1962), p. 353: "Si l'on pouvait la dire 'un néant qui est
quelque chose' [hihil aliquid] et 'un être qui est un non-être [est non est], voilà ce que je
dirais d'elle."

6. (Lausanne, Éditions Rencontre, 1970), p. 51.

7. Traduction d'É. Tréhorel et G. Bouissou, vol. 14, p. 349.

8. 'H ôè Y^l flv àôpaToç Kal àKaxaCTKeûaCTTOÇ.

9. "Eden," v. 296: "Il commence à admirer"; 309, 313,317: "Il admire tantost." L'admiration
sera également exprimée (avec une naïveté sans doute feinte) au troisième jour de La
Sepmaine, v. 715-718, lors du récit de la création des plantes.

10. Origène, Lettre à Grégoire, 4: "car il est absolument nécessaire de prier pour comprendre
les choses divines" (cité par J. Rousse, s.v. "Lectio divina," Dictionnaire de spiritualité
ascétique et mystique, col. 473). Saint Augustin prie pour obtenir Y intellectus fidei: voir
en particulier Les Confessions, XI-XIII.

11. Tractatus de mystica theologia, éd. A. Combes (Rome, Thesaurus Mundi, 1957), quarta
pars, cons. XXI-XXV, p. 51 ssq.

46 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

12. La Genèse au sens littéral, V, XX, 41, traduction de P. Agaësse et A. Solignac (Paris,
Desclée de Brouwer, 1972), p. 433.

13. Nicolas de Cues, La Docte Ignorance, II, 3; Ed. Argent. I, 33. Du Bartas l'a sans doute
lu dans l'édition de Lefèvre d'Étaples (1514).

14. Édition Silvio Baridon (Genève/Lille, Droz/Giard, 1950), p. 19.

''The Obedience due to

Princes": Absolutism in

Pseudo-Martyr

PHEBE

JENSEN

Summary: This paper attempts to tease out the contemporary political
resonances found in John Donne 's Pseudo-Martyr. While it is true that
Pseudo-Martyr aligns itself with absolutism, it does so in a very complex
and ambivalent manner, rejecting political patriarchalism and adopting a
moderate sense of the obedience due to the monarch.

Was John Donne an absolutist? The difficulty of answering this question
comes not only from Donne's often remarked ideological slipperi-
ness.^ It is also the result of complex contemporary definitions of absolutism,
a term whose subtleties were long hidden by vague uses of the term "divine
right of kings." As Margaret Judson pointed out many years ago, early
seventeenth-century Englishmen had no trouble believing at once that God
sanctioned kingly power and that kings were legally accountable to their
people.^ It was equally possible for common-law advocates such as Sir
Edward Coke to insist that regal power is divinely authorized. Absolutism
existed on a spectrum, from radical formulations that demanded complete
obedience even to evil monarchs, to moderate beliefs in the balance between
monarch's prerogative and subject's liberties; any account of Donne's
absolutism must situate him along this graduated line.

To further complicate the picture, early Stuart absolutism (like all
political philosophies) did not float benignly above the political fray. Rather,
absolutism and its counter-arguments were formulated in various political,
legal, and cultural crucibles. For Donne studies, the Gunpowder Plot and
ensuing Oath of Allegiance controversy are particularly important events in
this theoretical history. Not only was Stuart absolutism widely articulated

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 3 (1995) /47

48 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

— and legitimated — during the Oath of Allegiance debate, but this event
first coaxed John Donne into print, with the 1610 publication of Pseudo-
Martyr. The book has been interpreted as a relatively derivative statement
of allegiance to absolutism, one of great symbolic importance to the Donne
myth because in it the author publicly rejects a Catholic political position to
support the Protestant King.^ But not only does Pseudo-Martyr align itself
with moderate absolutism; the book also stresses the continuities between
Catholic/Protestant political positions as much as it insists on their differ-
ences."* It is in this way only a partially obedient text, and one which suggests
reservations toward the secular authority it supposedly defends.^

The Oath of Allegiance and the Origins of Political Authority

The Oath of Allegiance was the legal expression of overwhelming anti-Cath-
olic sentiment that followed the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605.
Instituted in response to the apparently real threat to the King's life, the Oath
asked its takers to denounce the Pope's alleged power "to depose the King.
. . or to discharge any [English] subjects of their allegiance to his Majesty. .
. or to offer any violence or hurt to his Majesty's royal person, state or
govemment, or to any of his Majesty's subjects within his Majesty's domin-
ions."^ In the passage "most misliked by many Catholickes in England" the
Oath also made takers swear

that I do from my heart abhor, detest and abjure as impious and heretical
this damnable doctrine and position that princes which be excommuni-
cated and deprived by the Pope may be deposed or murdered by their
subjects or any other whatsoever.^

Cardinal Bellarmine, the most famous of Catholic polemicists, may well
have been thinking of this passage when he claimed that the Oath is "so
craftily composed, that no man can. . . make profession of his Civill
subiection, but he must bee constrained perfidiously to denie the Primacie
of the Apostolicke Sea."^ Denouncing the Pope as "heretical," in other
words, could not be tolerated by the Catholic church.

Catholics insisted that the Oath struck at the heart of the Roman
Church; King James and his polemical adherents claimed it simply distin-
guished between spiritual and temporal jurisdictions, allowing freedom of
conscience as long as Catholics swore civil loyalty to the King.^ The central
theoretic2d issue was whether the Pope had the "deposing power" in temporal
affairs, and even if he did — as Bellarmine and others claimed, though their

Phebe Jensen / "The Obedience due to Princes" / 49

opponents never conceded — how it could legitimately be implemented,
through tyrranicide, invasion, or coordinated rebellion. It was in arguing this
point that Catholic polemicists produced a number of theoretical by-products
which influenced contemporary conceptions of political authority. To make
their opposite points. Catholics and Anglicans involved in the Oath of
Allegiance debates, including Donne, argued for very different understand-
ings of the nature and origins of political society.

In order to claim the Pope's deposing power. Catholic controversialists
had adopted the belief that the final authority for temporal power resided in
"the people." Working from the Thomistic theory of natural law coupled
with an Aristotelian belief in the initial liberty of man,^® Catholic political
writers argued that people in some mythical past had decided the form of
their temporal government by consulting natural law — that is, by "reading"
the Godly blue-print for good behavior installed inside each human being.
They then gave up their individual sovereignty, pooling it in a central
government which might be democratic, oligarchic, or monarchical. Which-
ever of these kinds of government was chosen, political authority in the state
not only originated, but continued to depend upon, the continued sanction
of the subject.^ ^ In Bellarmine's words (quoted here by one of his polemical
opponents, who found the sentiments they expressed appalling):

Secular or civil power. . . is instituted by men. It is in the people unless
they bestow it on a prince. It depends upon the consent of the multitude
to ordain over themselves a king, or consul, or other magistrate; and if
there be a lawful cause, the multitude may change the kingdom into an
aristocracy or democracy. ^^

That the multitude had continued access to the "secular or civil power"
which they originally delegated was most notoriously argued in Robert
Parson's A Conference on the Next Succession to the Crown of England,
published in 1594 under the pseudonym Robert Dolman. ^^ Parsons/Dolman
argue that "[t]he approval of the people is of its very nature given condition-
ally; that is, it is a contract entered into by ruler and subjects"; as a result,
monarchical power is "not absolute but delegated. . ." (1:73). If the monarch
rules "according to the law of the land and the advice of the councilors" then
he is due all "Duty, Reverence, Love and Obedience"; if he does not, "so yet
retaineth still the Commonwealth her Authority, not only to restrain the
Prince if he be exorbitant, but also chasten and remove him, upon due and
weighty considerations. . ." (1.29). The profound similarity between Dol-
man/Parson's ideas, Protestant resistance theories and the English common

50 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

law tradition is suggested by the fact that in 1648 the Conference was
partially republished, its original authorship concealed, as Severall Speeches
delivered at a Conference concerning the Power of Parliament, to proceed
against their King for Misgovernment. ^^

Despite — or perhaps because of — this similarity, the Conference was
considered deeply seditious. Because a belief in the law of nature, discernible
by each individual, seemed to lead inevitably to the conclusion that political
power was instituted from below, anti-absolutist natural law theories posed
a tremendous theoretical challenge for absolutism. The most resounding
response to this challenge was the definition of sovereignty in Jean Bodin's
Les six Livres de la République, widely available in Latin and French after
1576 and in English after 1606.^^ Bodin defines sovereignty as the central
kernel of political power that exists in every organized government. Al-
though the form of government is determined by the will of the people,
operating as best they can according to their perception of natural law
imperatives, the power or "sovereignty" has its source in God alone. Once
the people have created the form of government, God "will infuse this Soule
of power into it," as Donne, who as we will see is deeply influenced by Bodin,
describes the process in Pseudo-Martyr}^ Since only the form and not the
power originates in the people, it can never be taken back, as Dolman and
Bellarmine would have it.

The Dolman/Parsons brand of republicanism and the Bodinian re-
sponse came to their radically different conclusions from a shared under-
standing of the origins of political authority. Catholic political polemic
suggested that, since through natural law temporal governmental power
originated in each individual man's "Nature and Reason," then the good of
the subject remained the central site of sovereignty in the state. By contrast,
in separating the abstraction "sovereignty" from the material form of gov-
ernment, a certain strand of Bodinian-derived absolutism argued that despite
its formal origin in the people, political power could never be rescinded.

But another brand of early modem absolutism rejected entirely the idea
that government originated when previously free citizens banded together.
Robert Filmer' s Patriarcha, part of which may have been composed during
the Oath controversy years, is the most complete elaboration of this theory
in England. '^ Filmer praises some late sixteenth and early seventeenth
century absolutists for having "bravely vindicated the right of kings in most
points" (p. 3). But he rejects their acquiescence to the idea of originally
consensual government, complaining that all these thinkers, "when they

Phebe Jensen / "The Obedience due to Princes" / 51

come to the argument drawn from the natural liberty and equality of man-
kind, do with one consent admit it for a truth unquestionable, not so much
as once denying or opposing it" (p. 3). If the "first erroneous principle" of
man's "natural liberty" were challenged, Filmer suggests, then "the whole
fabric of this vast engine of popular sedition would drop down of itself (p.

3).

Political patriarchalism was an attempt to get around that "first errone-
ous principle" simply by pressing hard on the common-sense observation
that people are bom, not free, but into families. By Filmer' s logic, the initial
subjection of children to parents meant that original liberty was not a
principle of natural law. As a result, there was no theoretical need "for such
imaginary pactions between kings and their people as many dream of (p.
7). By insisting that "the subjection of children is the only fountain of all
regal authority, by the ordination of God himself," patriarchalism attacks the
"perilous conclusion," put forward both by Jesuits and "some over zealous
favourers of the Geneva discipline" (p. 3) that the multitude has the right "to
punish or deprive the prince if he transgress the laws of the kingdom" (p. 3).

Patriarchalism was a particularly extreme form of absolutism for
several reasons. Since in this theoretical system "there were kings long
before there were any laws," political patriarchalism put monarchs squarely
above positive law, "[f]or as kingly power is by the law of God, so it hath
no inferior law to limit it. The father of a family governs by no other law
than by his own will, not by the laws or wills of his sons or servants (p. 35).
Patriarchalism also claimed a particularly extreme degree of obedience from
subjects, partly as the result of the associative and emotional power of the
father/king analogy. James I, who may or may not have had patriarchalist
sympathies himself, certainly exploited the rhetoric in The Trew Law of Free
Monarchies when he argued the absurdity of rebellion by describing the
hypothetical case of rebellious children:

consider. . . whether upon any pretext whatsoever, it wil not be thought
monstrous and unnaturall to his sons, to rise up against [their father], to
control him at their appetite, and when they thinke good to sley him, or to
cut him off, and to adopt to themselves any other they please in his roome:
Or can any pretence of wickednes or rigor on his part be a just excuse for
his children to put hand into him?*''

The only resistance against monarchs/fathers allowable in the patriarchal
system is flight.

52 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

In response to the Oath of Allegiance controversy patriarchalism first
began to be heard in the cultural rhetoric of early modem England. The
Ecclesiastical Canons of 1606, authored in large part as a response to the
Gunpowder plot, clearly derived kingly from fatherly power, arguing that
Adam's

power and authority. . . although we only term it fatherly power (potestas
patria)', yet, being well considered how far it did reach, we may truly say
that it was in a sort royal power (potestas regia)\ as now, in a right and
true construction, royal power {potestas regia) may be called fatherly
power {potestas patria) .^'^

And one of the official Crown respondents to Catholic Oath of Allegiance
polemic, Lancelot Andrewes, similarly makes the characteristic logical
move of patriarchalism — from the historical assertion that fathers were the
first monarchs, to an ontological conclusion that royal power was the same
thing as fatherly power — in this sermon, preached before the King on
August 5, 1610, describing the Genesis patriarchs:

Patriarchs were not always to govern God's people; but Kings, in ages
following, were to succeed in their places. . . both in the right of their
fatherhood and rule of their government, as fathers of their countries and
governors of their commonwealths. . . So that two things we gain here: 1.
ThdXjus regium cometh out of jus patrium, "the King's right" from "the
father's," and both hold by one commandment. . ?^^

It is to these dueling theories of the origins of political authority that
the beginning of Chapter 6 of Pseudo-Martyr refers:

There hath not beene a busier disquisition, nor subject to more perplexitie,
then to finde out the first originall roote, and Source, which they call
Primogeniun subiectum, that may be so capable of Power and Jurisdic-
tion, and so invested with it immediately from God, that it can transferre
and propagate it, or let it passe and naturally derive it-selfe into those
formes of Govemement, by which mankind is continued and preserved. .
.(p. 130).

Donne's own position on this question aligns him with Bodinian theories of
natural-law absolutism. Using the characteristic "imprinting" imagery,
Donne claims that by consulting inner, God-given instructions men will learn
that they should "be subject to a power immediately infus'd" from God (p.
131).

Phebe Jensen / "The Obedience due to Princes" / 53

In keeping with Bodin's argument, Donne clearly rejects the method-
ology of political patriarchalism when he scoffs at attempts "to seeke out,
how they which are presumed to have transferr'd this power into [the King],
had their Authoritie, and how much they gave, and how much they retained"
(p. 1 31). Such efforts to legitimate political authority by tracing it historically
yield little,

For in this Discoverie none of them ever went farther, than to Families',
In which, they say, Parents and Masters had Jurisdiction over Children,
and Servants, and these Families concurr'd to the making of Townes, and
transferr'd their power into some Governor over them all (p. 131).

Anticipating John Locke's more complete evisceration of patriarchalism in
Two Treatises of Government, Donne points up its obvious logical shortcom-
ings. What about savages, which "never rais'd Families" (p. 131)? What
about men exiled from their kingdoms to form new ones outside established
government (pp. 131-2)? If these existed, as they demonstrably did, it would
collapse patriarchalism' s claim that secular power grows out of paternal
dominion — and with that collapse would fall absolutism more generally.
Further, given Donne's Bodinian definition of sovereignty, even if fathers
did originally possess this power they could not pass it along to their sons,
since it always remains with God. It is "a cloudie and muddie search," Donne
tells us, "to offer to trace to the first roote of Jurisdiction, since it growes
not in man" (p. 132). Associations between fatherly and kingly authority can
only be understood as "examples and illustrations, not Rootes and
Fountaines, from which Regall power doth essentially proceede" (p. 132).
More subtly, Donne attacks a central patriarchalist contention by
reshuffling its terms in this complicated metaphor:

For God inanimates every State with one power, as every man with one
soule: when therefore people concurre in the desire of such a King, they
cannot contract, nor limitte his power: no more then parents can condition
with God, or preclude or withdraw any facultie from that Soule, which
God hath infused into the body, which they prepared, and presented to
him (p. 133).

Donne here supports the absolutist contention that the "people" cannot limit
the power of the King with the assertion that this is "no more" allowable than
parents are allowed to "withdraw any facultie" from the souls of their
children. Parents cannot, in this comparison, destroy (or otherwise change)
the form of their own children, once the soul has been "infused." Donne here

54 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

disagrees with the central patriarch alist assertion that parents have powers
of life and death over their children, associating that claim, complexly, with
consent theory. Just as theorists of popular sovereignty claimed that the
people could rescind political authority from monarchs, so, Donne suggests,
patriarchalists believe parents can rescind the child "which they prepared"
from God. In this way Donne discredits patriarchalism by associating it with
ideas of popular sovereignty and denying its usefulness to main- stream
absolutism.

^^[B]linde and stupid obedience"

Pseudo-Martyr rejects political patriarchalism, adopting instead a relatively
moderate sense of the obedience due an absolutist monarch. But other
passages in this text suggest an ambivalent attitude toward even the limited
sense of monarchical authority proposed here. We can see this ambivalence
in Donne's treatment of the difficult question at the heart of the Oath
controversy: how to rank the two authorities, temporal and spiritual, in this
not atypical post-reformation crisis. In a letter to Henry Goodyer written
before the composition of Pseudo-Martyr Donne identifies the paradox he
found at the heart of this particular problem, a paradox only partially
suppressed from his own subsequent contributions to the Oath of Allegiance
literature:

In the main point in question, I think truly there is a perplexity. . . and both
sides may be in justice and innocence; and the wounds which they inflict
upon the adverse part are all se defendendo: for, clearly, our State cannot
be safe without the Oath. . . And, as clearly, the supremacy which the
Roman Church pretend were diminished, if it were limited; and will as ill
abide that, or disputation, as the prerogative of temporal kings, who being
the only judges of their prerogative, why may not Roman bishops. . . be
good witnesses of their own supremacy, which is now so much im-
pugned?^'

The un solvable problem in the debate is one which Donne, with his relent-
lessly analogical turn of mind, could not help but see: Catholic attempts to
impugn the authority of the English royalty weakened the concept of suprem-
acy on which the Catholic hierarchy itself depended; absolutist theory could
strengthen the power of the Pope. Of course, writers had been trying to
distinguish between Papal and princely authority for centuries; the question
was handled continually not only in Reformation polemic (where it is

Phebe Jensen / "The Obedience due to Princes" / 55

central) but in earlier disputes about the relative powers of Church and
Empire.22 For Donne, the problem as it was formulated in early 17th century
England remained unsolved. It is suggested with some directness in Chapter
IX of Pseudo-Martyr:

We may bee bold to say, that there is much iniquity, and many degrees of
Tyranny, in establishing so absolute and transcendent a spiritual Monar-
chy, by them, who abhorre Monarchy so much, that. . . they allow no other
Christian Monarchy upon Earth, so pure and absolute, but that it must
confesse some subjection and dependencie (p. 179).

Donne implies here that the "absolute" Papal Monarchy must, for
consistency's sake, admit the authority of other monarchies; he tactfully
leaves out the obverse side of the argument, that secular absolutism supports
broad Papal powers. By insisting on the shared use of the word "monarchy"
— indistinguishable in the two spheres, temporal and spiritual — Pseudo-
Martyr here stresses the self-defeating nature of its own argument.

This problem is also evident, more implicitly, when Donne tries to
locate "the first originall roote" of power in Chapter Six (p. 166). Donne
begins considering this question by tracing the original theoretical "roote"
of standard responses, locating them first in the Roman Church' s claim "That
that Monarchall forme, and that Hiérarchie, which they have, was instituted
immediately from God'' (p. 130). In order to match the "Dignities" of the
Catholic Church, "[m]any wise and iealous Advocates of Secular Authoritie.
. . have said the same of Re g all power and Jurisdiction" (p. ISO).^^ In this
intellectual geneology, divine-right theories are traced to the Catholic claim
that, as the direct heir of saint Peter, the institutional hierarchy was mandated
directly by Christ. Whatever the accuracy of this statement,^"^ the claim that
divine right theory originated in Catholicism connects the two kinds of
"monarchy," spiritual and secular, and casts a pall on Protestant absolutism
by rooting it in Catholic arguments for the power of the Pope.

Pseudo-Martyr^ as we have seen, replaces the belief in God's direct
authorization of princely power with a scenario derived from natural law.
God is the source of "the Soule of power" in secular government, though He
does not determine specific governmental form. This theory, however,
proves also to originate within orthodox Catholic claims for Papal authority:

[T]hat which a Jésuite said of the Pope, That the Election doth onely
present him to God, wee say also of a King; That whatsoever it be, that
prepares him, and makes his Person capable of Regall Jurisdiction, that

56 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

onely presents him to God, who then inanimates him with this Supremacy
immediately from himselfe. . . (p. 131).

As with the direct divine right explanation earlier rejected, this definition
inevitably strengthens the Papal position which it mirrors: if the King
receives his sovereignty by having it infused into him by God, so, theoreti-
cally, could Papal power be so authorized. The opening passages of this
chapter, then, have highlighted the interrelatedness of papal and monarchical
superiority.

A parallel ambivalence to absolutist authority becomes clear in
Donne's treatment of the chapter's ostensible subject: "A comparison of the
Obedience due to Princes, with the severall obediences required and exhib-
ited in the Romane Churche'' (p. 130). Despite this advertisement, ''the
Obedience due to Princes'' is defined only vaguely. Donne stresses the
purpose^ rather than the nature, of that secular obedience, making clear that
obedience is not a virtue in itself but only a means to achieve the final goal
of secular government: to allow subjects to 'Hive peaceably and religiously
(p. 132). On the other side of the obedience equation is monarchical sover-
eignty, also limited and justified by the ultimate good of the commonwealth;
sovereignty is simply "a power to use all those meanes, which conduce to
those endes"" (p. 133). So subjects' obedience — and monarchical authority
— is limited to the spheres, wide though they may be, of "Peace, and. . .
Religion'':

for power and subjection are so Relative, as since the King commaunds
in all things conducing to our Peaceable and Religious being, wee must
obey in all those. This therefore is our first Originary, naturall, and
Congenite obedience, to obey the Prince. . . (p. 134).

The ringing tones which proclaim this obedience are tempered by surround-
ing qualifications.

And rather than further define the scope of secular obedience the text
digresses here into a critique of the mindless allegiance demanded by certain
orders within Roman Catholicism. The church has "extolled and magnified"
obedience so that it demands from its priestly adherents

an inconsiderate & undiscoursed and. . . an Indiscreete surrendring of
themselves, which professe any of the rules of Religion, to the command
of their Prelate and Superior; by which, like the uncleane beasts, They
swallow, and never chaw the cudde (p. 134).

Phebe Jensen / "The Obedience due to Princes" / 57

This bestial image marks an abrupt tonal change: the measured, scholarly
persona of the chapter's opening paragraphs is transformed into a satirist,
who describes with apparent relish the grotesque absurdities of Catholic
humility. Who can sympathize with ''Friar Ruffin: who. . . out of his humility,
desired that he might stinke when he was dead, and that he might be eaten
with dogges" (p. 136). "Who would wish 5. Henrie the Dane any health, that
had seene him, When wormes crawled out of a corrupted Ulcer in his Knee,
put them in againeT (p. 136)? Donne seems particularly amused by inci-
dents in which the orders of a superior are taken with absurd literalness:

Was it due and necessary obedience, when desirous to be instructed in that
point of Predestination, and his Superiour turning to a place in S. Augus-
tine, and bidding him read there, being come to the end of the page, but
not of the sentence, he durst not turne over the leafe, because he was bid
to read there (p. 135)?

And the idiocy of such extreme humility is illustrated by Gonzaga, who
''desir'd to speake in publicke, because hee had an ungracious and ridicu-
lous imperfection in pronouncing the letter R. . ."; who would not put on
boots when he was cold, or avoid the plague; and who said, "at the newes of
his Fathers death. . . that nowe nothing hindered him from saying, OUR
FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN; As if it had troubled his conscience,
to say so before" (p. 136).

As the above excerpts illustrate, Pseudo-Martyr's digressive explora-
tion of "obedience" has a rhetorical energy absent from the preceding
theoretical passages on the origins of political power. The narrator himself
seems carried away by interest in his topic: "though it seeme scarce worthy
of any further discourse," he says, "yet I cannot deny my selfe the recreation
of survaying some examples of this blinde and stupid obedience, and false
humility" (p. 134); he continues in this "further discourse" for five additional
pages. 2^ There is a political reason for ridiculing such extremes of obedience,
as Anthony Raspa points out, since by the time of Pseudo-Martyr the tightly
controlled Jesuitical organization had become a powerful "political instru-
ment against the power of European secular rulers."^^ But even so, Pseudo-
Martyr seems oddly energetic in its critique of obedience. Donne's distaste
for "Indiscreete" obeisance registers in the reader much more powerfully
than the assertion, repeated with the linguistic power of a platitude through-
out Chapter Six, that all allegiances "are subordinate to that naturall Obedi-
ence to your Prince, as Soveraigne controller of all" (p. 137).

58 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

The closest Pseudo -Martyr comes to presenting a positive definition
of obedience is in a curiously Utopian depiction of early monastic society,
worth quoting here at length. Abbeys were at first "not all Chappell but
Schooles of Sciences" in which "strict obedience" was only latterly imposed
to maintain order in the face of tremendous institutional growth:

. . . because they were great confluences of men of divers Nations,
Dispositions, Breedings, Ages, and Employments, and they could be tied
together in no knot so strongly, nor meete in any one Center so concur-
rently, and uniformely, as in the Obedience to one Superior; And what
this Obedience was, and how farre it extended: Aquinas, who understood
it well, hath well express 'd. That they are bound to Obey only in those
things which may belong to their Regular conversation. And this use and
office, that obedience which is exhibited in our Colledges, fulfills and
satisfies, without any of these unnatural, childish, stupid, mimique, often
scandalous, and sometimes rebeUious singularities (p. 138).

Donne here praises the limited nature of obedience demanded in early
Abbeys, much as he had earlier stressed the limits of secular obedience.
Absolute obedience is necessary "only in those things which may belong to
[the inhabitants'] Regular conversation," just as Donne earlier claimed that
in a temporal commonwealth obedience was necessary only in "all things
conducing to our Peaceable and Religious being" (134). Further, this pas-
sage focuses not on the power of the "one Superior," but on the consensual
origin of obedience, imposed only in the pursuit of a greater good which
would redound on the entire community: for monks to be able to "meete in.
. . one Center so concurrently." Missing in this positive image of a well-or-
dered society is any reference to the divine sanction of the "one Superior"
which would preclude any re-organization from below. The ideal common-
wealth is an intellectual brotherhood, most similar to "that obedience which
is exhibited in our Colledges" where every member's limitations are bal-
anced by his rights, and the scope of obedience remains surprisingly narrow.
Finally, the "childish, stupid" obedience of other Catholic hierarchies is
itself, oddly though suggestively, described here as potentially "rebellious."
Again, as in the description of obedience in the temporal sphere, by empha-
sizing the purpose and limitations of obedience Donne weakens the absolut-
ist message.

Despite this impression, Pseudo-Martyr's attack on Catholic under-
standings of obedience is, in at least one sense, compatible with official
Jacobean policy. The Oath of Allegiance was designed to separate moderate

Phebe Jensen / "The Obedience due to Princes" / 59

English Catholics from more radical, mostly Jesuitical contingents. This
strategy had been in place since the 1590s, when Archbishop Bancroft
offered a modicum of shelter and support to a group of anti- Jesuit secular
priests who objected to the drastic rhetoric and radically destabilizing actions
of the English Jesuit mission-^*^ Known subsequently as the Appellants, this
group pushed for more moderate policies toward the English monarchy; the
Allen-Parsons party was their nemesis.

The creation of the Appellant party resulted from the Pope's appoint-
ment of an "arch-priest" named Blackwell to oversee Catholic operations in
England. In what Arnold Pritchard calls "the most obnoxious feature" of
Blackwell's appointment, he was ordered to clear all important matters with
Henry Garnet, the head of the Jesuit mission to England, "while Garnet was
placed under no corresponding obligation to consult Blackwell" (p. 122). In
the paper war set off by Blackwell's mandate. Cardinal Parsons insisted on
the absolute obedience due to the church hierarchy, to the extent that verbal
questioning of Papal decisions could be seen as subversive. The sometime-
defender of republicanism in the Conference to the Next Succession now
claimed absolutism as his own: "[0]ur spiritual superiors are most of all
other men to be respected by us, yea before angels themselves. . . for that
these men's authority is known evidently to be from God, which in angels
is not."2^ In response to Parson's image "of the divine will descending
through the church hierarchy," dissenters among the Appellants "usually
portray a church run by rules and regulations independent of the will of any
of its members; their view is essentially legalistic and, one can sometimes
say, constitutionalist."^^

The attack on obedience in Pseudo-Martyr echoes in a number of ways
Appellant problems with Papal authority. But even though Donne's engage-
ment with this debate aligns him with the larger royal "divide and conquer"
strategy, it also puts him right back in the middle of the problem identified
in the Goodyer letter. For by siding with the Appellants, Donne supports a
relatively conditional view of authority, as they did — one inevitably
applicable to the "monarchy" of England as well as the "monarchy" of the
Pope. Since Donne has already drawn attention to the parallels between royal
and papal authority, this attack on obedience becomes obliquely applicable
to secular obedience too.

Of course, for all these subtle internal contradictions, Pseudo-Martyr
certainly performed its purpose: it got its author the attention of the King,
and led, however indirectly, to preferment, fame, and relative fortune. The

60 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

book has little in it that could have been offensive to main-stream absolutist
thought. But its tensions and ambivalences should make us leery of ascribing
too great a reverence for authority even to the now-emerging Dr. Donne. As
Pseudo-Martyr stresses continuities between Catholic and Protestant polit-
ical thought, so it should alert us to continuities between the Donne of the
Songs and Sonnets and Donne, the accomplished scholar and future Dean of
Saint Paul's. Pseudo-Martyr's awareness that terms from one side of an
opposition so easily slide into their counter principle is oddly reminiscent of
the metaphorical mechanics of much of Donne's poetry, in which, for
example, theological doctrine is deployed to analyze love relationships, and
conversely, faith is figured erotically . Pseudo-Martyr also reveals an ambiv-
alence toward authority reminiscent of the speaker in "The Sunne Rising,"
who claims of his lover, "She is all states, and all princes, I, / Nothing else
is." While these lines at once destroy the prerogative of the King seen idly
off to the hunt in stanza one, they seem simultaneously to elevate princely
prerogative by expanding it to an almost cosmic status. Finally, Pseudo-Mar-
tyr suggests that Donne's life-long involvement with Catholic doctrine and
controversy shaped not only his spiritual and psychological constitution, but
his political attitudes as well.

Utah State University

Notes

1 . See John Carey. Jofm Donne: Life, Mind and Art (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1981); Arthur
Marotti, John Donne, Coterie Poet (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1986); David
Norbrook, "The Monarchy of Wit and the Republic of Letters" in Soliciting Interpretation,
ed. Elizabeth D. Harvey and Katharine Eisaman Maus (Chicago: University of Chicago,
1990), 3-36, and Annabel Patterson, "Quod oportet versus quod convenit: John Donne,
Kingsman?" in Reading Between the Lines (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1993), pp.
160-209.

2. The Crisis of the Constitution: An Essay in Constitutionalist and Political Thought in
England, 1603-45 (New York: Octagon Books, 1964 [1949]).

3. On the intersection of Donne's private and public motives in writing Pseudo-Martyr see
Anthony Raspa's introduction to his recent edition (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-
Queens University Press, 1993), pp. xxxviii-hv; Raspa's essay is also the best general
introduction to the work.

Phebe Jensen / "The Obedience due to Princes" / 61

4. A quality noted of the book's theological content by Raspa in "Time, History and
Typology in John Donne's Pseudo-Martyr, '' Renaissance and Reformation, 11 (1987),
175-183.

5. Debora Shuger comes to very different conclusions about Donne's absolutism in Habits
of Thought in the English Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990);
her analysis is focused, however, on the sermons instead of Pseudo-Martyr.

6. The text of the oath is from J.P. Kenyon. The Stuart Constitution (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1966), p. 459.

7. The complaint is from the Catholic Archpriest Blackwell (administrative head of CathoHcs
in England), qtd. in Charles Mcllwain, ed. The Political Works of James I (New York:
Russell & Russell, 1965), p. lix, n. 3.

8. The text is from King James' own "Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance" (Mcllwain, 83)
in which Bellarmine is quoted extensively.

9. See Mcllwain's discussion of the controversy in his introduction (pp. xlix-lxxx); see also
J.H.M. Salmon. "Catholic Resistance theory, Ultramontanism, and the Royalist Response,
1580-1620," in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, ed. J.H. Bums (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 219-253, especially pp. 247-253.

10. On the amalgamation of various philosophical traditions in these arguments, see Richard
Tuck, Philosophy and Government, 1572-1651 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1993), especially pp. 137-146 and 260-265.

11. See on resistance theories generally Quentin Skinner. The Foundations of Modem
Political Thought, 2 volumes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), II: 191-
238 and II: 302-348; and J.P. Sommerville. Politics and Ideology in England 1603-1640
(London: Longman, 1986), pp. 69-77.

12. Quoted by Robert Filmer, in his Patriarchia, in Patriarchia and Other Writings, ed.
Johann P. Sommerville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 5-6.

13. A Conference to the Next Succession of the Crown of England, 2 volumes (London, 1594).
Though this work pre-dated the Oath controversy it was often cited in those debates to
prove the inevitably seditious nature of Cathohc political thought.

14. Mcllwain, pp. xcii-xciv.

15. The 1606 edition (tr. Richard Knowles) has been reprinted in facsimile as The Six Bookes
of a Commonweale, ed. Kenneth Douglas McRae (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1962). On Bodin's concept of sovereignty, see McRae, Introduction, A 1 3-A22; Julian H.
Franklin. Jean Bodin and the Rise of Absolutist Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1973), passim; and Skinner, II, pp. 284-301.

16. P. 131. This and subsequent references are to the 1993 Raspa edition (see above, n.3).

17. On controversy over dating this work, see Sommerville' s introductory essay to his edition,
'The Date of Filmer's Patriarcha" (p. xxxii-xxxiv). See also Richard Tuck, "A New Date

62 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

for Filmer' s Patriarchal The Historical Journal, 29, 1 ( 1 986), pp. 1 83- 1 86: "The authors
dealt with, and in many ways the issues. . . belong to the period between 1606 and 1614
when James I was in conflict with his Catholic opponents over the Oath of Allegiance"
(p. 185).

18. Mcllwain, p. 65.

19. Ninety -Six Sermons by the Right Honourable and Reverend Father in God, Lancelot
Andrewes (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1 841 ; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1967), 4, p. 48.

20. Quoted in Somerville, p. 30.

21. From Edmund Gosse. The Life and Letters of John Donne Dean of St. Paul's (London,
1899; rpt. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1959).

22. Three of the contemporary and medieval disputes which "touched directly on the defini-
tion of secular and spiritual powers" (p. xxiii) constitute a lion's share of Donne's
references in Pseudo-Martyr, as Raspa suggests in his "Introduction": "the conflict
between Paul V and the state of Venice. . . the simmering quarrel between the Spanish
crown and the papacy. . . [and] the now historic twelfth-century quarrel between Pope
Saint Gregory VII and the German Emperor Henry IV over lay investiture" (pp. xxiii-iv).

23. This question of theoretical geneology is slightly different than the problem of the
chronology of the development of secular and religious societies; on that issue, Donne
"argued that the existence of the spiritual state originated from an already existing temporal
state" (Raspa, p. xlviii).

24. In fact, the theory that monarchs received direct authorization from God probably
originates, at least in the sixteenth century, with Luther, who "could scarcely be more
explicit in acknowledging that all political authority is derived from God" (Skinner 11, p.
15). The Thomist revival. Skinner suggests, is largely a response to this heresy (II, pp.
136-73).

25. Five pages, that is, in the original 1610 text. See the facsimile edition, reprinted with an
introduction by Francis Jacques Sypher (Delmar, New York: Scholars' Facsimiles &
Reprints, 1974).

26. Thomas S. Clancy. Papist Pamphleteers (Chicago: Loyala University Press, 1964), pp.
79-87; also Arnold Pritchard, Catholic Loyalism in Elizabethan England (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1979), pp. 120-174.

27. A Briefe Apology or Defence of the Catholic Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 204-4b; quoted in
Pritchard, p. 131.

28. Pritchard, pp. 133-134.

Christianisme, métaphysique

et épistémologie
chez Marsile Ficin

YVAN
MORIN

Résumé: Ficin centre la hiérarchie universelle sur l'homme, au sens d'une
âme raisonnable. Métaphysiquement, la description substantialiste qu'en
donne Kristeller ne semble pas pouvoir se comprendre sans l'apport héno-
logique des hypostases et la transformation chrétienne de cet apport. Cas-
sirer, Allen, Lohr et Bréhier permettent de mieux y cerner le rôle de l'amour
et de la vie. Certains changements épistémologiques découlent de cette
transformation métaphysique. Le rapport de Ficin à Descartes est éclairé.

Marsile Ficin a vécu de 1433 à 1499. Il est né près de Florence et sa vie s'est
trouvée marquée par celle de la famille des Médicis. En effet, en 1462, Come
de Médicis a mis ses manuscrits grecs à sa disposition et Ta fait bénéficier
de sa villa à Careggi où Ficin a dirigé une Académie platonicienne à laquelle
Laurent de Médicis prendra part. Cependant,

Ficino had been selected for this position, not only because of his previous
associations with the house of the Medici, but also because of his extensive
training in both Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy, his sympathy with
the revival of Platonism against the monopoly of Aristotelianism, and his
thorough understanding of the problems involved in that revival.'

Selon Raymond Marcel,^ Ficin a rédigé la Théologie platonicienne
immédiatement après avoir achevé son Commentaire sur le Banquet de
Platon en 1469.^ De fait, il s'agit d'une recherche ayant duré dix ans et ayant
conduit à la rédaction de 18 livres pendant une période de cinq ans. Ainsi,
Ficin a commencé sa recherche vers 1458 et a rédigé l'ouvrage de 1469 à
1474. L'oeuvre elle-même n'a été imprimée qu'en 1482. Pendant ce temps,
Ficin a été ordonné prêtre en 1473, ce qui met en lumière l'importance du

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 3 (1995) /63

64 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

christianisme pour lui et l'impact éventuel de celui-ci sur son oeuvre.^ Or,
Ficin est considéré comme un représentant important du renouveau
néoplatonicien, ne serait-ce que par ses traductions et commentaires de
Platon et Plotin, les premiers dont le courant humaniste et, finalement,
l'Europe elle-même a bénéficié. La traduction latine des oeuvres de Platon,
commencée en 1463, est complétée en 1477 et imprimée en 1484. Quant aux
oeuvres de Plotin, la période de la traduction s'étend de 1484 à 1486 et la
publication survient en 1492. En 1489, Ficin est accusé de pratiquer la magie
à cause de la tendance mystique de sa philosophie, mais il est sauvé par des
amis influents des conséquences habituelles d'un tel délit. Finalement, avec
l'expulsion des Médicis hors de Florence en 1494, Ficin a dû se retirer.

Gardons à l'esprit ce bref résumé de la vie de Ficin: le mécénat des
Médicis, le christianisme de Ficin, sa connaissance d'auteurs chrétiens
comme Augustin et Thomas d' Aquin et sa contribution au renouveau plato-
nicien, à rencontre de l'emprise de l'aristotélisme. Et, dans cette perspec-
tive, demandons-nous quel peut être, dans son oeuvre, le rapport entre le
christianisme, la doctrine néoplatonicienne des hypostases et l'idée de sub-
stance, que l'on retrouvait chez les Grecs de l'Antiquité, mais qui a reçu un
développement particulièrement important dans l'aristotélico-thomisme.
Plus spécifiquement, interrogeons-nous sur le sens qu'il faut accorder à la
hiérarchie universelle, telle qu'elle se trouve centrée sur l'âme par laquelle
l'homme se définit chez Ficin.

Christianisme et métaphysique

Dans la Théologie platonicienne, Ficin définit l'homme par l'âme raisonn-
able et situe celle-ci au centre de la hiérarchie universelle, entre Dieu et le
monde, tout en faisant intervenir l'intelligibilité angélique entre l'âme et
Dieu, de même que la qualité entre l'âme et le monde. Kristeller émet, à ce
sujet, le commentaire suivant: "The scheme of the five substances presup-
poses the central position of the soul, and it was constructed by Ficino for
the purpose of making the soul appear the accurate centre of a comprehensive
ontological hierarchy."^ Or, s'il est difficile de contester le fait que la
hiérarchie universelle présuppose la position centrale de l'âme, il est moins
évident que cette hiérarchie s'énonce principalement en termes de sub-
stances plutôt que d'hypostases. Pour savoir si l'interprétation de la
hiérarchie universelle en termes d'hypostases prévaut sur l'interprétation qui
s'énonce par des termes substantiels, en particulier en ce qui concerne le

Yvan Morin / Christianisme, métaphysique et épistémologie chez Marsile Ficin / 65

rapport entre l'âme et Dieu, je propose d'interroger une oeuvre antérieure à
la Théologie platonicienne: le Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon. Il
s'agit de mettre en évidence non seulement le processus par lequel la
nouvelle hiérarchie universelle s'élabore, en faisant découler les substances
des hypostases, mais aussi la transformation chrétienne du dynamisme
hénologique qui y préside.

Le Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon se compose de sept discours
qui, comme l'indique le titre de l'ouvrage, s'inspirent du Banquet de Platon.
Les discours ont été initialement attribués par tirage au sort, de telle sorte
que chaque orateur pouvait reprendre et commenter l'intervention de l'un
des sept personnages de Platon. Dans tous les cas, il s'agit de faire l'éloge
de l'amour. Cependant, ce n'est pas seulement Platon qui inspire Ficin. En
effet, r ouvrage est dédié à Jean Cavalcanti et cette dédicace précise que Ficin
cherche, par là, à lui rendre ce qui lui appartient.^ Tel est l'esprit général de
l'ouvrage: l'amour, essentiellement divin, manifeste sa vie étemelle, par
l'intermédiaire des hommes, dans les choses mortelles. Dès les deux pre-
miers discours, Ficin donne une définition de l'Amour par le désir de la
Beauté, puis une définition de cette Beauté par le cercle que l'Amour
accomplit en allant du bien au bien (selon Pseudo-Denys). En effet. Dieu est
essentiellement bon et par la Beauté, cette Bonté "engendre l'Amour, c'est-
à-dire le désir d'elle-même,"'' de telle sorte que

ce seul et même cercle qui va de Dieu au monde et du monde à Dieu porte
trois noms: Beauté, en tant qu'il prend naissance et attire en Dieu, Amour,
en tant qu'il passe dans le monde et le ravit, Plaisir, en tant qu'il revient
à son auteur et l'unit à son oeuvre.*

Ficin nous laisse ainsi déjà entrevoir la triple perspective du cercle entre Dieu
et le monde: Beauté-Amour-Plaisir. Or, Dieu, au sens de l'Un-Bien,
s'exprime selon le rapport entre la Beauté intérieure, par laquelle la Bonté
(ou le Bien) initie le triple mouvement de son rapport au monde, et la Beauté
extérieure, d'où sont issues les quatre hypostases qui s'ajoutent à l'Un. En
effet, la Beauté (intérieure) ne nous introduit pas seulement au mouvement
trinitaire de Dieu vers le monde, mais, comme Beauté (extérieure), elle
indique aussi l'émergence du cercle global, de la circonférence initiale qui
se différencie en quatre cercles: "l'intelligence, l'âme, la nature et la
matière."^ En reliant Dieu et ces quatre cercles par le Beau, nous recon-
naissons déjà la hiérarchie universelle au sens ficinien. Surtout, nous
apercevons le rapport global entre la multiplicité (des cercles) et l'unité
(divine), antérieurement à toute considération de l'être qui s'y différencie

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selon ce qui est substantiellement lié à lui-même, au sein d'une telle
hiérarchie ontologique explicite. Cependant, c'est seulement au niveau des
quatre cercles de la Beauté qu'il est question de l'émanation hénologique
conmie telle, puisque c'est seulement alors que chaque hypostase englobe
la suivante et peut la ramener en elle-même. Avant cette linéarité, il y a le
rapport entre le Bien, qui est l'existence suréminente de Dieu, et le Beau,
qui en est un acte (CBP, 152). Or, le rapport entre le Bien et le Beau, c'est
le rapport respectif entre une beauté cachée et une beauté qui la manifeste
par des signes, c'est-à-dire entre une perfection intérieure et une perfection
extérieure (CBP, 179-180).

De plus, la Bonté divine, en produisant par amour, donne aussi la vie
et s'identifie à l'Un.^® Par ce lien privilégié de l'Un à la vie, plutôt qu'à
l'intelligence, il devient évident que l'amour, défini comme désir de Beauté
(CBP, 142), est bien le passage de Dieu dans le monde, par les signes de sa
manifestation, et le ravissement de ce monde par Dieu, par le renvoi de ces
signes à Dieu alors qu'il s'y épanouit. Cette théodicée de l'art permet donc
à l'homme de trouver, par l'amour, le maître et le guide des arts, l'auteur et
le conservateur de toutes choses (CBP, 163-164). Enfin, l'amour est aussi
la condition du plaisir, en tant qu'il y a retour du monde à son auteur et
l'union de celui-ci à son oeuvre.

C'est dans cette triple perspective du cercle entre Dieu et le monde.
Beauté- Amour-Plaisir, que les hypostases prennent place,^^ selon le rapport
entre la Bonté divine et la Beauté, c'est-à-dire selon l'acte et la forme {CBPy
147). Ainsi, un cercle trinitaire, d'inspiration chrétienne, ^^ intervient au sein
même de l'Un et transforme profondément l'émanation hénologique, autant
par l'intervention d'une cause, affectant la forme que peut prendre la
hiérarchie universelle, que par le privilège accordé à l'amour plutôt qu'à
l'intelligence. En effet, selon l'acte, le rayon de la Beauté (et les quatre
cercles qui en découlent) tourne autour de Dieu en s'en éloignant et en étant
appelé à y revenir d'une chute d'autant plus grande que l'éloignement est
prononcé. En ce sens, la Beauté produit quatre expressions se manifestant
en quatre cercles:

un tel rayon reproduit en eux toutes ces espèces de choses que nous avons
coutume d'appeler idées, quand elles sont dans l'intelligence, raisons,
quand elles sont dans l'âme, semences, quand elles sont dans la nature et
formes, quand elles sont dans la matière.'^

Le Beau est ce rayon qui émane de Dieu et "pénètre en tout" (omnia
penetrans, CBO, 152). De même, selon la forme, la comparaison entre les

Yvan Morin / Christianisme, métaphysique et épistémologie chez Marsile Ficin / 67

différents types de Beauté, celle de Dieu, celle de Tange, celle de Tâme, celle
du corps, permet d'assurer qu'il est question d'hypostases et non de sub-
stances. "La comparaison qui existe entre les quatre degrés d'être se retrouve
identique entre leurs formes;"^'* la beauté de l'âme surgit de celle du corps
en enlevant à la forme corporelle le poids de la matière et les limites du lieu
pour garder le reste; la beauté de l'ange surgit lorsqu'est retirée la marche
du temps et retenue la multiplicité; la beauté de Dieu apparaît avec l'unité
lorsqu'on supprime la multiplicité. En somme, contrairement à l'âme dans
ses rapports avec le corps.

Jamais Dieu ne s'abuse au point d'aimer l'ombre de sa beauté dans le
corps et de négliger sa propre et vraie beauté, pas plus que l'ange n'est
captivé par la beauté de l'âme qui est son ombre au point que, retenu par
son ombre, il abandonne sa propre figure'^

C'est donc la même comparaison qui sous-tend l'altérité des degrés
hiérarchiques entre eux et, déjà, ceux-ci ne s'affirment ontologiquement que
par l'établissement amoureux de "l'union véritable de la substance à elle-
même"'^ et non par la seule affirmation formelle de ces substances par
l'intelligence.

La Théologie platonicienne n'est pas moins explicite sur ce sujet.
"Dans la vie présente, l'amour humain pour Dieu l'emporte sur la connais-
sance humaine, parce que personne ne connaît véritablement Dieu."'^ C'est
par l'amour et non par la contemplation que l'âme devient divine, alors
même qu'il s'agit de se connaître soi-même pour connaître Dieu.'^ Or,
l'amour ne se satisfait pas de la connaissance humaine, qui est limitée dès
sa création. Par contre, la religion, qui consiste en cet amour, apparaît comme
étant "plus éloignée de l'erreur que toutes les autres sciences humaines et
elle l'est d'autant plus qu'elle nous unit plus étroitement à Dieu, souveraine
vérité."*^ Dans l'amour, c'est donc la définition de la spécificité humaine
par la religion que formule Ficin. De même, Ficin rattache aussi la connais-
sance humaine à la souveraine vérité de Dieu à laquelle cette religion nous
donne accès, en apparaissant elle-même comme une science humaine. Cas-
sirer a vu juste sur ce point, en remarquant que la réciprocité du rapport entre
l'âme et Dieu semble se fonder sur "la doctrine de l'éros, qui est le pivot
véritable de la psychologie de Ficin" et qui fait appel, chez lui, à sa "théorie
de la volonté humaine plutôt que celle de la connaissance. "^^

Cependant, il faut aussi tenir compte du fait que Veros, l'amour
platonique, "est fort différent de l'amour de Dieu (caritas) que l'Évangile
met au sommet des vertus"^' et qui se fonde, au sein des rapports humains,

68 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

dans l'hétérogénéité du prochain par rapport à celui qui Taime. Aimer Dieu
pour devenir soi-même Dieu, lors du rapport au Dieu-Un, et aimer Dieu en
r homme, ce n'est ni aimer Dieu tel qu'il se fait homme, ni aimer cet homme
pour lui-même. Ainsi, même si le mot "charité" (cariîas) se trouve dans le
texte de Ficin, il reste à s'interroger sur le rapport ficinien entre l'usage de
celui-ci et l'usage du mot "idée": "quiconque ici-bas se consacre à Dieu par
charité se retrouvera finalement en Dieu, car il retournera à son idée grâce
à laquelle il fut créé."^^ Cette idée est-elle celle d'un Dieu personnel, à la
façon d'Augustin, ou celle d'un Dieu-Un, à la façon néo-platonicienne? En
optant pour une création de l'âme par Dieu plutôt que par l'ange, c'est-à-dire
par l'intelligible, Ficin opte, au moins en partie, pour le message chrétien
(TP, T.l, L. 5, 203). L'âme ne peut plus émaner de l'intelligence, comme
dans le néoplatonisme, bien qu'il faille aussi considérer que Ficin identifie
l'intelligible à l'Ange, d'inspiration chrétienne. En ce sens, l'intelligible
(l'Ange) voit son importance s' amoindrir. ^^

Par contre, c'est bien au centre d'une hiérarchie néoplatonicienne
modifiée que Ficin situe l'âme et qu'il tente de proposer aux théologiens
chrétiens une différenciation de l'âme en trois degrés: l'âme du monde, l'âme
des sphères et l'âme de chacun des êtres vivants contenus dans chacune des
sphères (TP, T.l, L. 4, en particulier 165). Le rapport entre le christianisme
et le néoplatonisme est donc complexe. En effet, si l'homme, c'est râme,^'^
cette âme doit aimer Dieu, en se consacrant à lui par charité, afin de se
retrouver en lui en retournant à l'idée par laquelle elle fut créée, de telle sorte
qu'en aimant Dieu l'âme s'aime elle-même: "un homme réel et l'idée
d'homme, c'est la même chose."^^ Il est donc question d'un amour indirect
de soi, puisqu'il passe par la médiation de l'amour de Dieu (où se trouve
l'idée de soi), et, surtout, par la médiation de l'engendrement d'un tel amour
indirect de soi. En effet, en aimant Dieu en tout, donc aussi en nous-mêmes,
nous pouvons finalement tout aimer en Dieu, et obtenir un tel amour indirect
de soi. L'homme commence à partager avec Dieu le pouvoir de création de
ce dernier, du fait qu'il peut au moins recréer ce que celui-ci crée, à
commencer par le rapport qu'il est possible d'entretenir avec soi-même et,
par là, avec le monde. Ainsi, la définition initiale de la Beauté, comme désir
de Beauté {CBP, 42), est bien devenue, par l'amour des hommes, "un désir
d'engendrer dans le beau pour entretenir une vie étemelle dans les choses
mortelles."^^ C'est cette double dimension indirecte et immanente de l'a-
mour qui s'énonce dynamiquement: "God became man so that man might
become God."^^ Par conséquent, le cercle allant de Dieu au monde et du

Yvan Morin / Christianisme, métaphysique et épistémologie chez Marsile Ficin / 69

monde à Dieu se trouve centré sur Thomme.^^ C'est ce qu'explique la
Théologie platonicienne, en situant, dès le premier livre, l'âme au centre de
la hiérarchie universelle.

De plus, l'examen de la Théologie platonicienne fait apparaître que
Ficin intellectualise la volonté, du fait de l'antériorité de l'intellect sur elle;
il ramène aussi la volonté à la vie de l'âme, car l'intellect, sous-tendant cette
volonté, est lui-même renvoyé à l'antériorité de la vie {TP, T. 2, L. 9, 46).
Dans cette vie de l' âme, la volonté divine s'exprime par un amour intellectuel
(TP, T. 1, L. 2, 112) et, en retour, l'âme s'unit à Dieu par l'amour au lieu de
s'en séparer par la connaissance {TP, T. 2, L. 14, 292). En effet, l'âme se
définit essentiellement par la vie: "une vie qui comprend en raisonnant et
qui anime le corps dans le temps. "^^ C'est par l'intellect que l'âme comprend,
c'est-à-dire qu'elle est informée par Dieu, pendant qu'elle raisonne. C'est
par l'union de la vie de l'âme au Dieu- Un que l'âme raisonne, en prenant
l'intellect comme partie et limite supérieure de cette raison, et qu'elle s'unit
au corps, par sa partie vitale qui donne une limite inférieure à la raison, mais
en regard de la bonté divine. Si l'âme veut le bien. Dieu veut la bonté même
de ce qui est bien: "appelons Unité, le principe. Vérité, la raison du principe,
enfin Bonté, l'amour du principe raisonnable."^® Tout semble se présenter
comme un développement linéaire (Unité, Vérité, Bonté) et faire différem-
ment appel à l'âme: comme vie informée par l'Un auquel elle s'unit, comme
raison placée sous l'intellect dans l'aperception de la vie, comme amour par
lequel s'exprime la volonté s'adressant au Bien. Pourtant, il s'agit d'un
cercle où l'origine et la fin coincident, par l'intégration de l'Unité et de la
Bonté, et l'emportent sur la connaissance, sa recherche intellectuelle de la
vérité et sa problématique de l'être. En effet, la fin et l'origine se confondent
dans l'énoncé du principe et par l'amour de ce principe, tout comme le
caractère raisonnable initialement déposé dans l'âme raisonnable revient au
principe qui l'y dépose. Ainsi, alors même qu'il chante les louanges du
thomisme, dont il est question pendant tout le Livre 2 de la Théologie
platonicienne, Ficin déplace les enjeux. Le principe dont il parle, c'est l'Un
et non pas l'Être. De plus, il n'est question de l'être que par la vérité qui le
donne, cette vérité désignant la raison du principe et non le principe lui-
même.

Cependant, le néoplatonisme n'en sort pas indemne non plus. En effet,
comme le fait remarquer Kristeller, "Ficino's concept of God contains the
essential attributes both of the Plotinian One and of the Plotinian mind."^^
Par contre, ce que Kristeller oublie, c'est que cet Un est intégré à la Bonté,

70 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

d'où un autre principe et sa limite: la contemplation intellectuelle est insuf-
fisante.-^^ Surtout, il néglige le rapport entre la vie (de l'âme) et T Un-Bon
qui caractérise le rapport spécifique que Ficin établit entre Tâme et Dieu.
Par contre, l'intelligence plotinienne (mens) se trouve intégrée à la fois à
Dieu et à l'âme, d'où, dans ce dernier cas, l'importance nouvelle accordée
à l'intellect dans l'âme. Or, l'intelligence plotinienne reste statique, alors
que, chez Ficin, elle est contrainte de tenir compte de son rapport au
dynamisme inhérent à la vie, c'est-à-dire à la mobilité inhérente à l'âme, par
la raison mise en elle par Dieu.

L'épistémologie

La principale idée de Dieu, c'est celle de l'ordre (7P, T. 1, L. 2, 109),
intégrant la multiplicité^^ et, dans la mesure où l'intellect humain commence
à saisir l'ordre, l'âme commence à comprendre son mouvement au sein de
cet ordre alors qu'elle raisonne et, ainsi, aborde successivement ce qui est
simultané en l'idée divine de l'ordre. Il est important de remarquer le
parallèle anthropologique entre la métaphysique (Dieu, Intelligibilité
angélique. Âme, Qualité, Corps) et l'épistémologie qui correspond à cette
métaphysique et qui se met rationnellement en place avec la Théologie
platonicienne: 1) Intellect permettant de se connaître soi-même à la façon
de Dieu, qui a mis la raison des choses en l'âme par son idée de l'ordre de
ces choses; 2) Raison qui apparaît comme partie intermédiaire de l'âme, alors
que celle-ci est informée de cet ordre des choses par son intellect; 3) Raison
comme centre propre par lequel l'âme se meut (vit) et unit ces choses en
dominant cet ordre (TP, T. 2, L. 13, 230 et 276); 4) Raison débordant en
irrationalité (7P, T. 1, L. 5, 208), alors que celle-ci génère les qualités (lors
de l'union de l'âme au corps et l'exercice passif de la raison par la fantaisie);
5) Vie énonçant le réel engagement ontologique de l'âme à l'égard du corps
(TP, T. 3, L. 15, 67), alors qu'elle est intellectuellement informée par Dieu
en raisonnant ainsi. En ce sens, ce n'est pas l'âme qui devient identique à sa
propre mens,^^ alors que l'intelligibilité angélique cesse d'être un être
objectif pour devenir un état subjectif. C'est plutôt l'âme qui s'approprie son
mouvement, essentiellement rationnel, dans son rapport subjectif à l' Unité-
Bonté. Par contre, cet état subjectif n'implique pas une subjectivité définie
par une âme réellement pensante à laquelle il serait possible de rattacher cet
état subjectif et ses transformations. Aussi, la raison reste subordonnée à
l'intellect afin de rendre compte de l'ordre comme principale idée de Dieu.

Yvan Morin / Christianisme, mét^hysique et épistémologie chez Marsile Ficin / 71

D'où l'absence d'un ordre des raisons qui, s'il parvient à exister, ne peut que
dépendre paradoxalement de l'ordre des choses. Pourtant, il est dorénavant
évident que la métaphysique, en se trouvant centrée sur l'âme, est intime-
ment reliée à l' épistémologie mise en oeuvre par la raison qui, en cette âme,
correspond à cette métaphysique. Cependant, c'est bien la raison qui évolue
au gré de l'âme et non l'inverse. En ce sens, l'état subjectif, dont il est
question ici, est celui de l'âme avant d'être celui de la raison. De même, la
vie a préséance sur l'intellect, lorsqu'il est aussi question de définir le rapport
que l'âme entretient avec elle-même par sa raison.

L'âme pourrait donc s'identifier à son intellect, puisque celui-ci est mis
en évidence lors de la disparition éventuelle de l'ange; mais elle ne le fait
pas. En effet, la raison demeure le centre de l'âme et elle reste subordonnée
à l'intellect, sans que le rapport entre l'âme et la raison, de même que celui
entre la vie et l'intellect, s'inversent au profit du second terme de ces deux
rapports. Par conséquent, l'âme ne peut s'identifier à la pensée et à l'orien-
tation intellectuelle de celle-ci. De même, l' intellect ne peut pas se renommer
"entendement," comme le propose l'usage modeme.^^ Dès lors, le poids
métaphysique de l'ordre des choses s'impose à l'orientation épistémologi-
que de l'ordre des raisons, dans le rapport vitaliste de l'âme à l' Un-Bien, où,
seulement, se forme le lien substantiel de tout être à lui-même, cet être
devenant alors accessible à la connaissance et à la recherche de la vérité. Si
l'âme s'identifiait réellement à l'orientation intellectuelle de sa pensée,
comme chez Descartes, la vie de l'âme se trouverait aussi rompue, de telle
sorte que la vie ne relèverait plus de l'âme, mais du corps, mécaniquement
interprété par l'automatisme du mouvement.

Conclusion

Ficin choisit l' Un-Bien et, par lui, il choisit aussi une raison située au sein
d'une âme que cet Un-Bien informe intellectuellement en lui donnant la vie;
Descartes choisira l'Etre et le Vrai et, par eux, il choisira aussi un ordre des
raisons qui est enclos dans les limites d'un entendement propre à une âme
pensante. Or, comme le fait remarquer Dubarle, la tradition philosophique
ancienne pense le rapport entre la raison et l'intellect en donnant le pas à
l'intellect, tandis que l'usage moderne tend à remplacer le mot latin in-
tellectus par le mot "entendement" et, par là, à donner le pas à la raison sur
l'entendement.^^ Ficin semble appartenir à la philosophie ancienne, en autant
qu'il subordonne la raison à l'intellect. Par contre, en même temps, la raison

72 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

acquiert, chez lui, une dimension nouvelle qui la rapproche de la position
moderne: elle se trouve au centre de l'âme qui, elle-même, se trouve au centre
de la hiérarchie universelle. Le moteur de cette hiérarchie est l'intégration
de l'Un et du Bien, par une trinité chrétienne y insufflant littéralement la vie,
au sens causal du terme. Car l'amour divin du Bien envers lui-même y est
essentiellement un pouvoir humain de vivification, par lequel l'âme, par son
intellect, est informée de cet amour divin, alors qu'elle raisonne et anime le
corps dans le temps. C'est une telle vie, déjà humaine, que Descartes pourra
exclure hors de l'âme, dorénavant identifiée à la pensée, afin de la lier au
corps. L'humanité même de l'homme glissera alors de sa vie à sa pensée et
trouvera sa formalisation spirituelle à laquelle nous identifions si facilement,
peut-être trop facilement, le début de la modernité et l'instauration de la
subjectivité qui y préside. Car l'enchaînement des états de cette subjectivité
s'exprime de façon bien différente selon ce que l'orientation spirituelle du
rapport entre la vie et la pensée nous permet d'apercevoir du rapport
anthropologique entre l'âme et la raison, par lequel la modernité s'inaugure
de Ficin à Descartes. ^^

Université Laurentienne
Notes

1. Jayne A. M. Reynolds Sears, "Introduction," dans Marsilio Ficino's Commentary on
Plato's Symposium (Columbia: University of Missouri, 1944), pp. 16-17. Ensuite, Sears
présente sa traduction de la seconde version du Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon,
probablement écrite par Ficin entre octobre 1474 et mars 1475.

2. Marsile Ficin, Théologie platonicienne, texte critique établi et traduit par Raymond Marcel
(Paris, Les Belles Lettres), tome 1, page 17 (indiquée TP ci-après dans le texte). Aussi:
Marsile Ficin, Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon, texte du manuscrit autographe
présenté et traduit par Raymond Marcel (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1956). (Indiquée CBP
ci-après dans le texte).

3. Ce dernier ouvrage s'intitulait De Amore. Écrit en 1469, il ne fut imprimé qu'en 1484,
c'est-à-dire deux ans après l'impression de la Théologie platonicienne. D'où l'importance
de l'analyse de Marcel qui tente de retracer le lien historique réel entre les deux oeuvres
quant à leur ordre de rédaction.

4. À ce sujet, voir F. Vemet, "Ficin, Marsile," dans Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, t.
5, deuxième partie (Paris, Letouzey et Ané, 1913), pp. 2277-2291. Tempérant certains
jugements qui ont été portés contre Ficin, Vemet admet que le "culte" de Ficin pour Platon
fut excessif sans y voir, cependant, un paganisme déguisé ou qui s'ignore. Vemet va même

Yvan Morin / Christianisme, métaphysique et épistémologie chez Marsile Ficin / 73

jusqu'à qualifier Ficin d"'humaniste chrétien," du fait qu'il a travaillé à "dissocier
l'antiquité et le paganisme" (p. 2290).

5. Paul Oskar Kristeller, The Philosophy ofMarsilio Ficino (New York, Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 1943), p. 400.

6. Cette dimension humaine à la base de la réflexion ficinienne préside au rapport entre le
christianisme et la métaphysique. Pour s'en rendre compte, il suffit de rapprocher cette
dédicace du contenu de l'oeuvre en question: "celui qui aime meurt," "l'amour est une
mort volontaire," "l' âme de l'amant n'est pas en elle-même. Si elle n'est pas en elle-même,
elle ne vit pas non plus en elle-même et ce qui ne vit pas est mort. Voilà pourquoi
quiconque aime est mort à lui-même. Mais vit-il au moins dans un autre? Assurément
{CBP, 156). On comprendra alors le sens de la réciprocité, afin de ne pas laisser celui qui
aime pour mort, et l'importance de la présente dédicace. Cependant, on comprendra que
la subjectivité soit difficile à discerner, chez Ficin, puisqu'elle suit le chemin inverse de
celle qu'énoncera Descartes, en s'affirmant en lui-même et en se donnant accès à ce qui
lui est extérieur qu'à travers lui-même, par ses idées représentatives. Ici, Ficin ne peut
accéder à sa propre subjectivité qu'à partir de l'autre avec lequel il est en relation et dans
lequel il dépose initialement son âme. Et, réciproquement, par la dédicace, il rend à
Cavalcanti la vie de son âme. En somme, la subjectivité n'est pas du tout dissociée de
l'altérité mise en oeuvre par le réseau des relations humaines.

7. "Divino vero hec speties in omnibus amorem, hoc est, sui desiderium procreavit" (CfiP,
146).

8. "Circulus itaque unus et idem a deo in mundum, a mundo in deum, tribus nominibus
nuncupatur. Prout in deo incipit et allicit, pulchritudo; prout in mundum transiens ipsum
rapit, amor; prout in auctorem remeans ipsi suum opus coniungit, voluptas" {CBP, 146).

9. "mens, anima, natura, materia" {CBP, 147).

10. Ces deux opérations sont respectivement et successivement l'oeuvre des cinquième et
sixième discours.

11. Les hypostases ne relevant plus immédiatement d'un pur processus d'émanation, il
devient possible de penser que l'ensemble de la hiérarchie universelle peut se modifier
selon l'idée que l'homme en trouve en Dieu. Ce qui se dessine, chez Ficin, comme l'a
fait remarquer Allen, c'est la différence entre les deux trinités, néoplatonicienne (Un,
Intelligence, Âme) et chrétienne (Père, Fils, Esprit-Saint). Or, l'énigme d'une triade
chrétienne cachée dans la triade néoplatonicienne aurait pour contexte "the prime hypo-
stasis alone" et serait causale. Voir Michael J. B. Allen, "Marsilio Ficino on Plato, the
Neoplatonists and the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity," Renaissance Quarterly, Zl
(1984), p. 580. Voir aussi Charles H. Lohr, "Metaphysics," dans The Cambridge History
of Renaissance Philosophy, sous la direction générale de Charles B. Schmidt (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1988), 537-638. Cependant, Lohr, en partant de la même
distinction entre les deux triades, les utilise en sens inverse d'Allen. Aussi, il nous permet
d'apercevoir l'orientation sensible qui en découle et qui en exprime le dynamisme:

74 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

"Ficino does not devaluate finite being as Neoplatonic metaphysics does." "God's
relationship to things is not subject to the determinism imphed by emanation, but is
contingent on his love of the world." C'est pourquoi, dans la Théologie platonicienne,
l'âme, en se faisant raisonnable, devient aussi le centre de la hiérarchie universelle, autant
par l'information intellectuelle de cette raison par Dieu, alors que l'âme raisonnable
chemine vers Lui, que par la production hénologique de la qualité à travers laquelle elle
anime le corps et y annonce son engagement ontologique envers celui-ci. En plus
d'identifier l'Un et l'Intelligence, ccfntrairement à Plotin qui les distingue, Ficm remet
donc aussi en question l'exclusion de la qualité hors du processus hénologique et le simple
engagement de l'âme envers le corps par un reflet d'elle-même.

12. Distinguons nettement l'inspiration chrétienne et sa manifestation hénologique à travers
et par la médiation des trois Grâces, même s'il n'est pas possible de rendre compte de
l'une sans la situer relativement à l'autre. L'inspiration chrétienne est procurée par la
trinité chrétienne comme telle et est indiquée à la note précédente. Par contre, sa
manifestation s'effectue à travers l'acte commençant par la Beauté et se poursuivant par
l'Amour et le Plaisir pour constituer les trois Grâces (d'inspiration païenne). À travers
celles-ci l'émanation néoplatonicienne est transformée et peut être effectivement centrée
sur l'âme dans la Théologie platonicienne, par la production hénologique de la qualité
complétant la différenciation initiale de l'acte divin, qu'est la Beauté, en quatre cercles.
En somme, la trinité chrétienne n'existe qu'en l'Un, la vie en découle, tout en étant tirée
de l'amour se trouvant au coeur des trois Grâces, et le processus hénologique s'y trouve
entièrement centré sur l'âme ainsi définie par sa vie, autant par la remontée intellectuelle
de l'âme se hvrant à son raisonnement pour atteindre la cause essentiellement divine de
l'acte présidant à son existence, que par l'instauration de la qualité annonçant l'engage-
ment ontologique de l'âme envers le corps et répondant, entre l'âme et le monde, à la
position intermédiaire que l'intelligibilité angélique est supposée occuper entre Dieu et
l'âme. D'où, à travers la traction de l'intelligible vers l'intelligence divine l'ordonnant et
de la qualité vers le corps, la mise en évidence métaphysique de Dieu, de l'Âme et du
Corps et, à travers la réponse du sensible à l'intelligible, une quête de la vie étemelle dans
la vie présente. Cette métaphysique produit donc un nouveau traitement épistémologique
possible.

13. "Huiusmodi radius omnes rerum omnium speties in quatuor ilhs effingit. Speties illas in
mente ideas, in anima rationes, in natura semina, in materia formas apellare solemus"
{CBP, 149).

14. "Eadem vero inter quatuor hec et eorum formas est comparatio" {CBP, 233).

15. "Deus numquam ita decipitur ut sue spetiei umbram in angelo amet quidem, propriam sui
ac veram negligat pulchritudinem. Nequie angélus usque adeo capitur anime spetie, que
ipsius est veram negligat pulchritudinem. Nequie angélus usque adeo capitur anime
spetie, que ipsius est umbra, ut sui umbra détendus, figuram propriam deserat" (CBP,
234). Dans la Théologie platonicienne, ce rapport différencié entre les ombres se transpose
en un rapport lumineux différencié, par lequel le niveau supérieur se réfléchit dans le
miroir que constitue le niveau inférieur émanant de lui. En effet, le rapport de l'artisan au

Yvan Morin / Christianisme, métaphysique et épistémologie chez Marsile Ficin / 75

miroir est double: produit de ses mains, il est aussi le support individué du reflet qu'il
trouve de lui-même en cette oeuvre. Alors, le Beau fait non seulement place à l'Amour,
mais Ficin tente aussi de personnaliser cet Amour en s' inspirant d'Augustin, de telle sorte
que l'âme s'unit à Dieu, dont elle tient sa vie et qui capte le reflet qu'il se donne
intellectuellement à lui-même par elle. À l'échelle de l'univers. Dieu est comme un soleil
invisible s'individuant dans un soleil visible qui, en retour, lui donne le reflet de lui-même.
Cependant, ce soleil invisible ne s'y reflète intellectuellement que parce qu'il s'y mani-
feste volontairement comme en une oeuvre l'individuant par la vie qu'il lui communique.
L'Un néoplatonicien se voit alors transformé par cette vie inhérente à l'Un ficinien.

16. "vera substanUae ipsius unione coniungit" (TP, T. 2, L. 12, 165).

17. "in hac vita humanus amor in Deum humanae praestat cognitioni, quia Deum nemo vere
cognoscit, vere autem amant illi Deum quoquomodo cognitum, qui spemunt omnia
propter ipsum" (TP, T. 2, L. 14, 291).

1 8. " 'nosce te ipsum' id potissimum admonere, ut quicumque Deum optât agnoscere, seipsum
ante cognoscat" (TP, T. 1, L. 1, 35-36). De fait, l'âme est intelligente et non pas
intelligible. C'est ce qui marque sa différence par rapport à l'ange et la relie à la cause
plutôt qu'à la forme (Voir TP, T. 2, L. 10, 113).

19. "Quae tanto est a falso alienior quam caeter hominum studia, quanto propinquius Deo
summae veritati nos copulat" (TP, T. 2, L. 12, 292).

20. Ernst Cassirer, Individu et cosmos dans la philosophie de la Renaissance, trad. Pierre
Quillet (Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1983), p. 168.

21. Emile Bréhier, Histoire de la philosophie, 4ème édition, vol. 1 (Paris, Presses Universi-
taires de France, 1987), p. 670.

22. "Et quisquis hoc in tempore sese deo caritate devoverit, se denique recuperabit in Deo.
Nempe ad suam, per quam creatus est, redibit ideam" (CBP, 239).

23. Voir Michael J. B. Allen, "The Absent Angel in Ficino's Philosophy," Journal of the
History of Ideas, 36 (1975), pp. 219-220. Cependant, il ne faudrait pas oublier que
Kristeller (Op. cit., 168) a ouvert la voie en mettant en évidence l'identification que le
Dieu ficinien opère entre l'Un plotinien et l'intelligence plotinienne. Or, cette identifica-
tion n'a de sens que par son contexte et que si on tient compte de ses conditions de
possibilité; le don de vie caractérisant cette pensée (ou intelligence), alors distinguée
d'une pensée pure, et le dynamisme que cette vie insuffle à l' idée d' ordre, celle-ci pouvant
alors non seulement rendre compte de la hiérarchie universelle, mais s'y produire en
véhiculant l'idée de la cause engendrant cet univers et son ordre. En effet, même si
l'intelligence, comme connaissance de l'ordre de l'univers, vaut mieux que cet ordre, la
valeur de cette intelligence se détermine par sa relation à ce à quoi elle s'adresse, à savoir
l'intelligible, en particulier l'idée d'ordre mise en oeuvre par la hiérarchie universelle.

24. CBP, 170. Dans la Théologie platonicienne, l'homme sera aussi la raison, cette raison
n'existant que vivante et que dans un vivant. La vie produite par l'Un, dans le Commen-

76 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

taire sur le Banquet de Platon, est alors explicitement intégrée à l'âme, alors qu'elle se
rapporte à elle-même par sa raison. La conception théologique de l'homme conduit donc
à une conception métaphysique et épistémologique de l'humain.

25. "verus autem homo et idea hominis idem" {CBP, 239).

26. "Cupido generationis in pulchro, ad servandam vitam mortalibus in rebus perpetuam"
(CBP, 224).

27. Lohr, Art. cit., p. 571.

28. Dans la troisième méditation, Descartes se démarquera de cette position en formant toutes
ses idées, outre celle qu'il a de lui-même, par le mélange de ses idées de Dieu et du corps.
Ici, Ficin, comme homme, prend place entre Dieu et le monde, au lieu de les garder à
distance et d'en mélanger les idées en lui-même. La raison fondamentale de cette
différence réside dans le fait que Ficin choisit l'amour et non la connaissance, afin d'unir
l'intelligence à Dieu au lieu de l'en séparer. Ainsi, l'âme cherche à devenir divine en
s'unissant à Dieu par l'amour, au lieu de chercher Dieu en se purifiant comme âme par
la connaissance. Or, si l'amour de Dieu ne comporte pas de mauvais usage de l'intelli-
gence, contrairement à la connaissance de Dieu (TP, T. 2, L. 14, 291), il n'incite pas non
plus Ficin à faire du questionnement sur l'usage de l'inteUigence un élément central de
sa problématique. Cependant, Ficin s'interrogera tout de même de façon plus spécifique
sur l'intelligence dans Quaestiones quinque de mente.

29. "Vita et intelligens discurrendo, et corpus vivificans tempore" {TP, T. 1, L. 3, 142).

30. "Unitatem vocato principium, Veritatem principii rationem, Bonitatem denique principii
rationalis amorem" {TP, T. 1, L. 2, 82).

31. Kristeller, Op. ci/., p. 168.

32. Ficin est explicite: "animus non ex eo quod Deum considérât, sed ex eo quod amat, fit
divinus" {TP, T. 2, L. 14, 291).

33. Allen oublie cette médiation de l'idée de l'ordre lorsqu'il parle de la dissolution de l'ange
et de son devenir conmie idée de l'intelligence divine. Voir. Allen, Art. cit., 1975, p. 229.

34. Voir /few/., pp. 219-220.

35. Dominique Dubarle et André Doz, Logique et dialectique (Paris, Larousse, 1972), p. 35.

36. Ibid.

37. Ceci ne veut pas dire que Ficin est moderne, mais qu'il y a des éléments modernes chez
lui, dans la mesure où la modemité, définie par l'établissement du rapport que l'homme
entretient avec lui-même, s'esquisse initialement par un rapport entre l'âme et la raison.
D'où la possibilité d'une comparaison entre les oeuvres métaphysiques de Ficin et de
Descartes. De même, l'esprit est alors pris par une tension entre la vie et la pensée, non
plus en alternance historique entre différents auteurs, comme Bemard Groethuysen l'a
fait voir en arrêtant à l'époque renaissante son Anthropologie philosophique (Paris,
Gallimard, 1980 [1954]). Cette tension apparaît chez chaque auteur: Ficin, puis Descartes,

Yvan Morin / Christianisme, métaphysique et épistémologie chez Marsile Ficin / 77

dont le doute ne s'inaugure que par rapport à sa vie, en particuHer aux enseignements
qu'il a reçus pendant son enfance. En ce sens, on pourrait y apercevoir un premier pas
vers le remplacement du rapport métaphysique entre le corps et l'âme par le rapport, chez
Kant, entre la matière et l'esprit.

Book Reviews
Comptes rendus

Ernest Sullivan II. The Influence of John Donne: His Uncollected Seven-
teenth Century Printed Verse. Columbia: University of Missouri Press,
1993.

Anthony Raspa, ed. John Donne: Pseudo-Martyr, Montreal: McGill-
Queen's University Press, 1993.

The two books under review provide invaluable materials for both the Donne
scholar and the student of seventeenth century intellectual history. In The Influence
of John Donne, Ernest Sullivan does precisely what his title and subtitle promise.
He offers a comprehensive and meticulously described bibliography of all printed
instances of Donne's poetry throughout the seventeenth century (including transla-
tions and adaptations) in publications other than the seven editions and issues of the
collected Poems published between 1633 and 1669. And he provides an extensive
discussion of the significance of the texts he has assembled and in considerable
measure discovered. He identifies the range and extent of Donne's readership and
influence, and offers suggestive speculation on reading practices and the uses of
poetry throughout the century.

Sullivan has located and analyzed a very large number of uncollected printings
of Donne's verse, demonstrating that 38 of his poems were introduced in this fashion
to a print audience (an audience quite different from the coterie audience amongst
whom his poetry originally circulated in manuscript). Further, he has substantially
increased the identification of uncollected titles (83 in place of 46) and editions (239
from 65). His findings effectively refute two generally accepted notions concerning
Donne's reputation — that few of his poems saw print in his lifetime and that what
popularity he did have had diminished rapidly by the Restoration. From Thomas
Dekker's A Knight's Conjuring (1601), where two lines of "The Storme" are quoted,
to Mary de la Rivière Manley ' s Letters ( 1 696) where a line from "The Will" appears,
Donne, Sullivan argues, was a continuous presence through the century.

He is able both to name 59 known readers of Donne's poetry (largely but not
exclusively other writers) and to identify an entirely new and unsuspected reader-

80 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

ship (described as "functionally illiterate" although the term is never adequately
defined). In texts such as The Philosophers Banquet, or The Academy of Compte-
mentSy or The Marrow of Complements, handbooks and manuals including advice
on topics and styles of conversation and letter writing, Donne regularly turns up
with illustrative lines or model sentiments or phrasing. He also appears, frequently
unacknowledged, in the work of other writers. Sullivan sketches this material in
fascinating detail. What is missing from this discussion, however, is a full consid-
eration of the relation of a Donne text to its place of publication. He remarks that
overall the selections constitute a list not unlike one a twentieth-century reader
might put together, but he does not account for frequency of citation. The Anniver-
saries, for example, appear often. What principles of taste or understanding might
have been operative? Nonetheless, the argument is entirely original, and constitutes
an important intervention in the cultural history of the period.

Finally from the bibliographic point of view, the work is extremely valuable
as an aid in dating and establishing Donne's texts, insofar as a citation can offer a
terminus ad quern as well as a source of variant readings. The main body of the book
consists of chonologically arranged descriptive bibliographies of all works contain-
ing some Donne verse (whole or in part), followed by sections describing works
containing translations, adaptations and dubia. There is a chronology of printings
and two indexes.

Anthony Raspa*s edition of Donne's Pseudo-Martyr (1610) offers a richly
detailed historical and theological context for a difficult text, hitherto only available
in a 1974 facsimile edition. The organizing insight of his informative introduction
to this treatise whose rhetorical purpose was to convince English Catholics to take
the Oath of Allegiance, is the epigrammatic statement, "Donne writes as a canonist
in order not to be a canonist." Raspa shows how Donne defends his argumentss in
terms of Catholic canon law but shifts the grounds to "The Protestant 'dictate of
conscience' and its associated law of nature" (p. xxxi). Tliis point is developed in
terms of Donne's complex personal religious history as the great-great-nephew of
Thomas More and as the nephew of the Jesuits Elias and Jasper Hey wood, who by
this period was not only a convert, but a propagandist and apologist for the English
Church {Ignatius his Conclave was published the following year). But the personal
forms only a small part of the multiple contexts adduced. These touch on contem-
porary debates over martyrdom; the relation between secular and spiritual powers,
seen through Paul V's excommunication of the Doge of Venice in 1606, as well as
in two earlier controversies between the papacy and secular rulers; the events
surrounding the Gunpowder plot and hence the passing of the Oath of Allegiance;
James' defence of the Oath (Triplici Nodo) as well as Catholic rebuttals (Robert
Parsons, 1608); Donne's legal training, and more.

Raspa argues that throughout the text Donne is trying to convince himself that
his religious convictions are settled, hence Donne's emphasis on the continuity of
Christian history. From this perspective, Pseudo-Martyr advances a complex legal

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 81

case, arguing simultaneously on behalf of James and of his English-Catholic
subjects. Thus "secular and spiritual powers could be legitimately united in the
ruler. . . [but he] separated for his subjects to the benefit of both" (p. xlix).

All of these arguments are developed in the "Introduction" and supported in
great detailn in the extensive "Commentary" that follows the text. The notes identify
and explain the marginalia as well as many of the references in the text. The textual
apparatus also includes useful information concerning the extant copies of the 1610
edition (many more than the STC lists). There is also an illuminating discussion of
the roles of Stansby and Burre (printer and bookseller for Pseudo- Martyr) in the
field of religious controversy.

Given the clearly painstaking research that went into preparing this edition,
and its obvious value for students of Donne and of Renaissance religious history, it
is perhaps churlish of me to raise objections, but I do have a few demurrals both
small and not so small. A small one concerns the inference that Donne had no
Hebrew in his repertoire of languages, a traditional position that has been largely
discredited. More serious, though, is the lack of an adequate context for Pseudo-
Martyr in Donne's writing overall — its relation to the Satires, for example,
especially "Satire III"; to the prose letters; to the flurry of publication in the years
1610 to 1612. Further, there has been considerable recent scholarship on Donne as
casuist, recusant, polemicist, but very little of this (or any other Donne scholarship)
appears in these pages. Why did Donne write this tract? The question is only very
obliquely addressed.

My greatest hesitation, however, concerns the text itself. I do not understand
the logic behind the decision to correct some punctuation, capitalization and
typography silently. Either the text is an accurate transcription or it is not. There
are as well certain apparent errors that these principles of emendation do not account
for. I did a spot check on the opening pages against the microfilm of the Huntingdon
Library copy and found to my dismay a number of inexplicable errors. On the title
page Pseudo-Martyr is missing its hyphen, and a comma follows instead of a period.
The page offers itself as if it were a diplomatic transcription of the original, but the
line breaks of the biblical texts are not followed. In the Table of Contents there are
several small errors (Chap. VI: "wherein" for "wherin"; Chap. X: "cited by those
authors" for "cyted by those authours"; p. 9, 1. 17: omission of a bracket before
"since." None of these is serious in the sense of Donne's 1629 sermon on the text
"Nothing is to be neglected as little," where he points out the heretical implications
of the accidental addition of an "i" (homoiousion instead of homoousion). But are
there other errors? A text of this sort should have (nearly) none. Still I do admire
the great learning displayed everywhere in this volume, only wishing that it had
acknowledged the work of others beside Carey and Bald.

JUDITH SCHERER HERZ, Concordia University

82 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Richard Mulcaster. Positions Concerning the Training Up of Children,
edited by William Barker. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press,
1994. Pp. Ixxxvi, 521.

Richard Mulcaster has not lacked admirers. Best known for his defence of public
education in Positions (1581), he has been called "the greatest Elizabethan school-
master," "the Father of English Pedagogy," and a "pivotal figure in the history of
Anglo-American education." Despite several reprints and abridgements, however,
he has lacked an authoritative modern edition. William Barker's splendid edition
admirably fills this lack.

Barker's introduction includes a summary of Mulcaster' s most important ideas
that places them in historical context, an essay on his style, a short biography, and
a bibliographic essay. The text itself is a "lightly modified old-spelling edition" (p.
Ixxxiii) reflecting a thorough examination of the textual evidence. Following the
text are a list of textual notes and variants, a lengthy commentary, bibliographies
of Mulcaster' s writings and of the works cited in Barker's introduction and com-
mentary, and a very full index. In all, the apparatus slightly outweighs the text.

In his introduction, Barker argues that Mulcaster' s most significant position is
that "uniformity and the pre-eminence of the state lie at the heart of any educational
theory" (p. xv). A staunch monarchist, Mulcaster saw all learning as serving the
public good, and argued that gentlemen should receive essentially the same state-
authorized education as commoners. Barker offers no new insights into the "great
shift in schooling" (p. xxix) in which Mulcaster participates, but summarizes
Mulcaster' s relation to it. Barker also contextualizes a number of significant
features of Positions, including Mulcaster' s relative avoidance in it of religion, his
Aristotelian conception of the relation of body and soul, his (limited) defence of
women's education, and his championing of the teaching profession.

The greatest contribution of Barker's introduction, however, is his discussion
of Mulcaster's lengthy consideration of physical education. These chapters, which
comprise fully one- quarter of Positions and which are omitted from Richard
DeMolen's 1971 edition, may be the part of the book holding the most interest
today. Following his earliest article. Barker resurrects Mulcaster's use of Girolamo
Mercuriale' s De arte gymnastica, an influence discovered by George Schmid in
1892 and apparently forgotten. Barker's rediscovery should invite further study of
this curious expression of early modem attitudes towards the body.

One of Barker's chief aims is to rehabilitate Mulcaster's reputation as a
rhetorician and stylist. He argues that Mulcaster's intention in writing Positions is
to use the techniques of deliberative rhetoric to gain his audience's support for his
solutions to educational problems. He also helpfully explains the tension between
persuasion and badgering in the work as a product of Mulcaster's attempt to write
for a mixed audience, one including the court, educational specialists, the generally
learned, and the unlearned. Barker's study demonstrates that Mulcaster was a
painfully self-conscious stylist, but falls short of establishing that he was a good

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 83

one. Barker never confronts an apparent contradiction between the difficulty that
he, Mulcaster, and many other readers acknowledge in Mulcaster's style, and the
playfulness that Barker wishes to claim for it. Instead, he implies that there is no
contradiction, claiming that the "overall effect" of Mulcaster's style "is one of
relentless playfulness, strenuousness, and willed energy" (p. liv). Perhaps, play can
be hard, after all. But play and deliberateness are also a potentially unstable blend,
and I would like to see a stronger argument that Mulcaster overcomes this potential.
Barker goes on to locte Mulcaster's rhythmic, highly figured, and elaborately
balanced periods in a late sixteenth-century flowering of Ciceronianism that in-
cluded Roger Ascham, Richard Rainolds, Gabriel Harvey, and John Lyly. Aside
from a suggestion that such rhetorical display is appropriate to a counsellor of state,
however. Barker does not probe the significance of this movement or justify his
claim that Mulcaster's "stylistic method expresses a politics of education" (p. vii).
(G. K. Hunter's John Lyly: The Humanist as Courtier might have been a good
starting point here). Indeed, Barker's very different argument that "in his rhetoric
[Mulcaster] shows himself to be a moralist, not a politician" [p. xlviii]) seems much
more convincing. Still, Barker's thorough and informed study of the rhetoric of
Positions should accomplish his goal of establishing Mulcaster's work as a serious
object of rhetorical study.

Barker is at his encyclopedic best in the commentary. Many of his annotations
gloss unusual vocabulary, and several offer corrections to the OED. Many others
are miniature essays identifying sources, pointing out stylistic devices, and eluci-
dating key concepts. Barker's commentary on Mulcaster's use of the word
"méthode" may serve as an example. He begins by citing Thomas Wilson's
definition of method in The Rule of Reason (pp. 311-312). He then sketches the
word's polyvalence, noting both that it may denote "a highly complex area of
philosophy, concerned with problems of language and epistemology," and that for
some during the Renaissance it "became synonymous with 'simplification'" [. . .]
"and in an age of popular instruction a philosophically respectable theory of
simplification was bound to be quickly embraced and used to its fullest advantage."
He next gives examples of schematically structured manuals of learning, before
referring to the scholarly works of Neal Gilbert, Wilbur S. Howell, and Walter Ong.
He notes that Thomas Nashe associated Mulcaster with Peter Ramus, although
Mulcaster is not notably a Ramist (in the introduction Barker concedes that
Mulcaster's section on sports uses "a branching method to set out its argument" [p.
xxxv]). Finally, Barker explains that Mulcaster's idea of method is primarily
rhetorical, relying on persuasive arguments to support his "positions." The range of
learning displayed in the commentary is truly impressive, but, as I hope this example
shows, it is Barker's ability to distill the essence of often complex scholarly
traditions and debates into brief explanations that distinguishes this commentary,
giving it a value that far surpasses its immediate purpose.

84 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

In his thirty-seventh chapter, Mulcaster considers "the meanes to restraine the
overflowing multitude of scholers" (p. 145). In a time of too few positions for too many
scholars, and of too many books for too few library dollars, his remarks should be noted
by those who control graduate school admissions and library acquisitions. However,
William Barker and his edition of Positions — clearly a labour of love — deserve to
be part of the flood. Though at $80 (the University of Toronto Press charges the same
in Canadian and American dollars!) it will strain more than a few budgets, this is a
significant work of scholarship that merits inclusion in every university hbrary.

KENNETH J. E. GRAHAM, New Mexico State University

Daniel Martin, ed. Montaigne and the Gods: The Mythological Key to the
"Essays. " Amherst, MA: Hestia Press, 1993. Pp. 279.

Daniel Martin's Montaigne and the Gods represents the proceedings of an interna-
tional colloquium held in Amherst, Massachusetts, to commemorate the 400th
anniversary of Montaigne's death in 1592. Readers of Martin's earlier work will
not be surprised to learn that the essays in this collection continue to develop his
earlier theory that Montaigne arranged his chapters in a particular order, for specific
reasons. In this volume, the contributors strive to support Martin's view that the
order is largely determined by the affiliation of groups of essays with Greco-Roman
divinities, so that, for example, I, 26, "De l'institution des enfans," is associated
with Diana, as one of seven chapters, I, 26 to I, 32, dedicated to that deity. Thus this
book, like all Martin's earlier work, runs radically counter to the main stream of
traditional Montaigne studies, exemplified by Pierre Villey and later by Donald
Frame, which sought to date the essays chronologically, and to explain their subject
matter by speculation as to what Montaigne was reading at the time that he
composed each one. In this earlier view, the philosophical stages, "Stoic,"
"Sceptic," and "Epicurean," were suggested to explain the supposed "evolution" in
Montaigne's thought. Martin, on the contrary, believes that Montaigne planned the
order of the essays from the outset, filing chapters under particular gods, by subject,
theme or motif. Thus he sees a visual organization to the book, similar to the
frequently cited "memory theater" which has been explicated by Frances Yates; or
to a gallery of paintings, arranged in a particular order, which only becomes
apparent when seen as a whole.

The studies in the collection vary in length and methodology, but all attempt
to elucidate Martin's theory about the order of the Essais, with varying degrees of
success. The book is structured around a series of deities: Ceres, Mercury, Venus,
Bacchus, Minerva, Diana and Apollo. These are not the only gods found in
Montaigne's work, according to the editor, but they are the ones selected for
treatment by the participants in the conference. The most successful essays in the

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 85

collection do use the mnemonic system, but then try to go beyond it to say something
more about Montaigne, mythology, Renaissance preoccupations, etc.

Tilde Sankovitch's essay on Ceres in I: 6-10, for example, focuses on the
mother-daughter relationship in these chapters, and establishes a parallel between
Ceres' search for her daughter and Montaigne's search for himself. Under the sign of
Mercury (I: 11-15), Peter Sokolowski's short essay argues persuasively for
Montaigne's preoccupation with a balance between public and private life, as a
characteristic of the god of the threshold. In the section on Venus, Sue Farquhar's soHd
essay on chapters 1: 21-25 probes the relationship between Venus and trade/commerce
in the Renaissance. While not using the mythological scheme, Randolph Runyan's
essay finds astonishing parallels between I: 21-25 and I: 33-37, mainly of a styUstic
nature, which support the idea that there are paired chapters in the Essais.

Several chapters of the book address the presence of Bacchus in the Essais.
Robert Henkel's essay is noteworthy for its honesty in admitting the problems we
encounter in trying to attribute specific characteristics to the Greek gods, and for
his excellent conclusion which tries to suggest the larger significance of this kind
of study (focusing attention on the "minor" essays, for example), as many of the
authors in the volume do not do. William Engel's essay on Bacchus in II: 33-37 is,
likewise, one of the best in the collection, as is Elizabeth Caron's, which works
more closely with the text than some.

Rounding out the volume is an interesting essay on Pallas Athena in I: 38-42,
by Mary Rowan; and several on the presence of Diana, particularly Marc- André
Wiesmann's ingenious study of I: 26. Finally, the collection ends with John
Northnagle's contribution on "Apollo the Anchor" (I: 53-57), which adds a note of
scepticism on the question of whether or not Montaigne actually believed in the
gods, but which concludes that for Montaigne, Apollo was useful as an anchor, in
several senses of the word.

There are numerous illustrations throughout the book, added by the editor, largely
of sixteenth-century engravings representing the gods. This emphasis on the visual is
one of the positive contributions of the volume. Certainly these essays are imaginative,
and suggest aspects of the Essais which may have been overlooked in the past.

On the other hand, some of the chapters in the collection are overly schematic, and
come close to sophistry in their attempts to make the theory "fit" in essays where the
relevance of a particular god is indeed hard to see. Still, sceptics need to read the volume
before dismissing the theory completely, since many of its essays are quite persuasive.

Montaigne and the Gods is obviously a testimonial to the respect and gratitude
which a group of scholars feel toward Professor Martin, who has made a major
contribution to Montaigne studies in North America, though his conferences,
publications, and especially through the founding in 1988 of the journal Montaigne
Studies (now edited by Philippe Desan at the University of Chicago), which
continue to publish strong scholarship on the essayist, regardless of the approach.

CATHLEEN M. BAUSCHATZ, University of Maine

86 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

André Turcat. Etienne Jamet alias Esteban Jamete, sculpteur français de la
Renaissance en Espagne condamné par l'Inquisition. Paris, Picard, 1994.
Pp. 388, illustrations.

Etienne Jamet fait partie de ces sculpteurs français de la Renaissance qui ont fait
toute leur carrière en Espagne sans laisser aucune trace en France. On dispose sur
lui d'une documentation exceptionnellement riche du fait qu'il fut en 1557 soumis
à une enquête de l'Inquisition. On sait ainsi qu'il était né à Orléans vers 1516, qu'il
était arrivé en Espagne dès 1535, et on connaît toutes les étapes de sa carrière avec
les principaux ouvrages qu'il effectua jusqu'en 1557. Il fut d'abord très mobile,
taillant de simples médaillons dans des cours de palais comme à Medina del Campo
et Valladolid (1535) ou Leôn (1537); il s'arrêta plus longuement à Tolède entre
1537 et 1539 pour travailler à la cathédrale et en particulier partager avec Vigarny
Texécution des stalles du choeur, puis passa un an à Chinchilla sur le chantier du
chevet de l'église Santa Maria (1540); il descendit ensuite à Ubeda, où il put
s'illustrer dans des ouvrages majeurs, les portails et la sacristie de l'église du
Salvador (1541-1543), puis il poussa jusqu'à Seville, où il participa au décor de
V Ayuntamiento (1544); en 1545, le hasard d'une commande l'appela dans la
médiocre ville de Cuenca, où d'autres conmiandes allaient le retenir pendant 12 ans,
puis sa condamnation par l'Inquisition le fixer définitivement; il y exécuta notam-
ment dans la cathédrale un portail intérieur auquel son nom est resté associé, Varco
de Jamete. Il mourut à Cuenca le 5 août 1565, mais ses dernières années à partir de
sa condamnation nous sont beaucoup moins bien connues; il semble d'ailleurs
qu'elles aient été moins productives, l'artiste restant sans doute marqué par
l'épreuve morale et la torture physique.

L'essentiel des pièces du procès avait été publié en Espagne dès 1933, mais le
sculpteur n'en avait pas reçu plus d'attention pour autant des historiens de l'art.
André Turcat a eu la bonne idée de repartir de ce document essentiel pour lui
consacrer une véritable monographie. Suivant donc les indications fournies par
Jamet lui-même, il est allé chercher dans toutes les villes où il s'était arrêté les
documents qui confirment et précisent ses dires, et les ouvrages qui peuvent y
correspondre. La moisson a été copieuse, et Turcat nous offre donc dans une
première partie proprement historique la reconstitution de l'activité de l'artiste,
dans la seconde l'étude de son art. Il y joint une riche illustration, entièrement
originale, qui est généralement bonne en dépit d'un format trop réduit, et qui de
toute façon est infiniment précieuse, vu la pauvreté générale des publications dans
ce domaine. Il fournit enfin un gros appendice documentaire (pp. 324-383), qui
nous donne entre autres la traduction de dix marchés concernant l'artiste à Cuenca
et de l'essentiel du procès de 1557. Disons tout de suite que là réside la seule
véritable faiblesse de cet ouvrage. Je ne doute pas de l'excellence des traductions
de l'auteur, ni des services qu'elles rendront à tous ceux qui comme moi ne
maîtrisent pas l'espagnol de la Renaissance, mais des documents si précieux
demandaient à être à la fois édités dans la langue originale et traduits ensuite. Ainsi

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 87

les chercheurs auraient pu à la fois contrôler l'exactitude des traductions (on le
souhaiterait particulièrement lorsque l'auteur lui-même nous fait part de sa per-
plexité) et se référer directement aux originaux pour y puiser les citations utiles.

On a déjà compris que l'absence des originaux constitue une faiblesse juste-
ment parce que le livre est un ouvrage important et sérieux, qui traite d'un artiste
notable, mais injustement négligé jusqu'à présent et qui apporte maint renseigne-
ment précieux sur les monuments concernés, sur la sculpture en Espagne dans le
deuxième tiers du siècle ou encore sur la mentalité d'un artiste de ce niveau et sur
le milieu dans lequel il vivait à Cuenca. L'étude historique est méthodique, pru-
dente, et me paraît tout à fait fiable. C'est la partie consacrée à "l'art de Jamet" qui
peut susciter parfois des questions ou des réserves. D'abord, elle traite plus d'ico-
nographie que de style. L'auteur s'est donné beaucoup de peine pour chercher un
sujet et un sens à toutes les figures ou même aux frises décoratives, sans pouvoir
toujours trouver une solution ou emporter la conviction. Je ne suis pas certain que
dans le domaine de la sculpture décorative la recherche soit toujours justifiée. Les
résultats en tout cas sont inégaux. Autant il me paraît louable d'identifier un relief
à l'entrée de la sacristie d'Ubeda comme une représentation de la Vision d'Auguste
à l'Ara Coeli, autant il me semble arbitraire de voir dans un buste en médaillon très
générique (fig. 127) un portrait de Francisco de los Cobos et d'en conclure que son
pendant doit être celui de son épouse.

D'autre part, la définition du style personnel de Jamet et l'identification de ses
sources restent encore des problèmes. L'auteur a fait une découverte précieuse en
identifiant certaines plaquettes de Moderno comme les modèles de reliefs des
Travaux d'Hercule à la façade d'Ubeda. Je ne peux donc le suivre lorsqu'il y perçoit
une influence de Michel- Ange qu'il suppose transmise par Manchuca. C'est bien
le style de Moderno qui s'affirme ici, et le recours à de tels modèles n'a rien de
surprenant pour un homme issu de la vallée de la Loire. Je suis frappé en revanche
par le caractère michelangelesque des figures d'apôtres ciselées sur l'orfroi de la
chape de l'évêque de Calahorra (fig. 59-64) — poses en torsion, drapés souples,
bras musculeux — où l'auteur penche à voir une influence des Juste. Lui-même
pourtant reconnaît sur toute l'oeuvre une influence diffuse de Michel- Ange qui
oblige à classer le sculpteur parmi les maniéristes. On aimerait comprendre par
quels cheminements elle a pu s'exercer. Malheureusement un certain nombre de
statues — saint Pierre, saint Paul (fig. 225-226), Ecce homo (fig. 272) — ou de
grandes figures de relief — groupes d'Annonciation ou d'Adoration — ne sont
guère analysées du fait probablement que leur situation en rend l'appréciation et la
photographie peu commodes. L'artiste reste donc difficile à situer entre la France,
l'Italie et l'Espagne. Il y a incontestablement un aspect très français dans son style,
mais il y a aussi de forts accents de maniérisme italien qui s'y mêlent. Faut-il
supposer un voyage de Jamet en Italie, ou croire à l'influence d'ouvrages ou
d'artistes italiens qu'il aurait connus en Espagne même? Cette seconde hypothèse

88 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

serait à creuser, en gardant à l'esprit que les modèles italiens de l'Espagne venaient
essentiellement de Naples ou de Gênes.

Il serait malséant de reprocher à André Turcat de n'avoir pu apporter une
réponse définitive à des problèmes aussi complexes. Il était assurément trop tôt pour
le tenter. Mais par la riche documentation qu'il apporte, son ouvrage permet
désormais de les poser, et il restera indispensable pour quiconque voudra tenter de
les résoudre.

BERTRAND JESTAZ

Linda Woodbridge. The Scythe of Saturn: Shakespeare and Magical Think-
ing. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994. Pp. vi, 390.

In 1984 — an age ago — Philip K. Bock's Shakespeare and Elizabethan Culture:
An Anthropological View applied anthropological methods to the texts, cautioning
that selection of facts and levels of abstraction can distort history, and warning us
to recognize our antagonisms to Renaissance sensibility. Woodbridge cites anthro-
pological observations from numerous cultures to place together a cultural backdrop
against which Shakespeare will not be "our contemporary." Whereas Bock, and
Kirby Farrell in his 1975 Shakespeare's Creation — both are glancingly cited by
Woodbridge — , approve the magic of Shakespeare's creativity, Woodbridge,
denying that he could transcend his cultural limitations, situates Shakespeare in
"magical thinking," produced when Renaissance rationalism drove medieval mag-
ical structures into the unconscious (p. 5). For Bock and Farrell the art "which stirs
us to wonder" (Farrell, p. 4) is not diminished by Shakespeare's use of "magical
thinking." Woodbridge separates this concept from "conscious magical belief (p.
12) by invoking Freud and followers. Nothing is said of the aristocratic and learned
magicians with whom Shakespeare probably was acquainted. Were they all too
conscious? Woodbridge describes "magical thinking" as "like a concrete wall that
remains standing after the forms into which it has been poured — true magical belief
— have been knocked away" (p. 13); as "steel girders holding up the very edifice
of [Shakespeare's] plays" (p. 20); "mental girders that structured the mind of the
age" (p. 82), and so on.

A chapter canvassing theoretical positions to be subsequently deployed seems
designed to display eclectic even-handedness, sharing Foucault' s wariness of
"totalitarian theories" (p. 41). The concept of steady progress toward rational
modernity — Whig history — seems to be balanced by a theory of historical
oscillation (p. 36). But this merely holds us "in false gaze," for the book's slant is
contemporary cultural-moralism: moderns rout ancients. Sir James Fraser {The
Golden Bough) is the most notable scapegoat. Guilty of "butterfly collecting"
methods (p. 18), he is also condescending (p. 94), dubious (pp. 133, 153) and

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 89

embarrassingly ethnocentric (p. 14); an elderly authority lacking solid theory (p.
91), and a contributor to "colonial paternalism" (p. 14).

Woodbridge proposes to "tease out" (passim) deep, unconscious mental
structures, and enunciate their principles. Striking insights achieved when
Woodbridge closely reads Shakespeare contrast with passages which wonder at
the art of the deep theorists. One instance may serve for many: "A binary image
of Rome, almost Levi-Straussian in its precise mirror inversion, haunted the
European imagination for a thousand years" (p. 48). Often the theorists are
centre-stage, while Shakespeare, off-stage, writes as well as he can validating
them. The patchwork of cultural studies' sources frequently produces only porten-
tous or banal pronouncements. There is a triumphant tone, for example, when a
linguist's findings are said to "dovetail" with anthropological theory: our bodies
"are three-dimensional containers into which we put certain things (food, water,
air) and out of which other things emerge (food and water wastes, air, blood, etc.)"
(p. 47).

Representations of the body are "perhaps the most prominent strain in
recent literary study" (p. 17). A significant portion of The Scythe of Saturn
treats body/society analogies as sites of much submerged magical thinking.
Thus Shakespeare's England is concerned with preventing penetration and
pollution of its body. As the nation is a body, so it follows that it also has a
psyche — mostly dysfunctional. Obsession is ubiquitous in Shakespeare's
mentality: obsessed with "sexually besieged wives" (p. 71), with "endangered
chastity" (p. 67), etc. The early modern period, obsessed by many things
(actually common concerns anytime), is, finally, "age obsessed" (p. 274).
Shakespeare's England is paranoid with a "palisading" mentality to guard
against penetration, which, under James I' s pacific inclinations, becomes a
colonizing mentality disguised by the pacific term "plantation." Colonizing —
rape of the virgin — is severely condemned.

The body-orifice-rape-pollution concepts applied to historical events and
geographical entities yield stimulating insights, allowing the reader to feel that
disparate, recalcitrant matters have been brought into focus. Yet this cultural-his-
toricist treatment, inherently judgemental of the past in terms of a modern liberal
agenda, must be at odds with the account that historians would typically offer. For
instance, a palisading obsession fuelled by magical rites to ward off penetration
and pollution is viewed in an historian's causal account as a rational national
defense policy against real military, ideological and economic enemies. Deep
structures or fanciful generalisations? There may be no mediation possible be-
tween these viewpoints, but it would be useful to turn again to Sir Karl Popper on
historical analysis and inference by analogy in The Poverty of Historicism.

An important part of the historical collision Woodbridge maps is the growing
ascendancy of rationalism within religious belief and practice. Given a "culture
dominated by . . . religion" (p. 286), the is remarkably little said about religion,

90 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

especially as conscious thought. REligion is assimilated to magic, as is theology,
pictured here as continuous with magic. Magical beliefs may be incoherent, but
that is "no worse than the systematically unified structure of unempirical illusions
that is Christian theology" (p. 39). That this is ahistorical could be argued from
Eamon Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars (1992), which shows Renaissance
theologians meticulously distinguishing between lay Christians applying sacra-
mentals (including charms and incantations) to this-worldly concerns, and pagan-
ism and magic. The early modern world took seriously distinctions which
Woodbridge elides. Being unsympathetic to the claims of religion is fair enough
— the author's prerogative — so long as the early modems' own engagement with
these claims (including rejection, by some forward wits) is not discounted.
Woodbridge' s Shakespeare cares much more for the legacy of Rome than scripture
and Christian doctrine. Valuable insights are offered this way, such as the notion
of James I's Augustan ideology. Jacobean "officiai ideology" (p. 73) is, however,
more complex, for James cultivated his image as both a David and a Solomon to
his people. Nor was Jacobean ideology simply pacifist: Prince Henry's court
exuded Protestant bellicosity.

Among the new readings Woodbridge presents is Measure for Measure in
terms of saturnalia. The "world-upside-down" topos adds invigorating new under-
standing of struggles between youth and age, liberty and repression. But seeing
the play only in satumalian terms renders invisible the great religious question
with which Shakespeare engages: the tension between the demands of Christianity
and ineluctible imperatives of law and polity. That the play probes the question,
"Can there be a 'Christian' polity?" is signalled powerfully in its language.
Woodbridge' s saturnalian account, highlighting sexual repression, concludes that
the play's strategy "backfires" and that the moral chaos of its ending may be
permanent. Taking Shakespeare's grasp of the religious-political dilemma, how-
ever, allows one to see why such a conclusion is not the whole truth.

Treatments of specific passages are often as exhilarating as the "bricolage"
(p. 41) of academic opinion is dull. Among the best is the account of "evil eye"
magic in Othello, demonstrating also the play's metaphorical richness. The dis-
cussion of fertility /sterility associations and the regenerative power of dismember-
ment in Titus Andronic us really does display the deeper structures of a play whose
surface is strewn with puzzles. A fine treatment of deer-slaying in As You Like It
reveals a subtle and complex debate, as does the discussion of Realpolitik in
tension with magic ritual framework in Richard II.

This is a longer book than necessary. The final chapter "Owning up to Magic,"
perhaps a camivalesque inversion, imputes magical thinking to the modern world
as a pretext for castigating, as in a charivari, disapproved contemporary politics.
This rébarbative exercise should have been omitted. The idea is much better
realised in Lewis Lapham's "Elfland," in a recent Harper's. The proff-reading
leaves also much to be desired: there are errors of fact and grammar. The writing

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 91

often seems provisional and cluttered with jargon. Pity that a book on Shakespeare
and magic should be charmlessly written.

GRAHAM ROEBUCK, McMaster University

Announcements
Annonces

Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly

To celebrate its 20th anniversary Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly invites
submissions on any theoretical, generic, historical, or cultural aspect of lifewriting.
Especially welcome are articles which extend beyond the Anglo-American literary
corridor. For more information, please contact Craig Howes, Department of En-
glish, University of Hawai'i at Mânoa, Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822, USA. E-mail:
biograph@hawaii.edu.

World Shakespeare Bibliography

The World Shakespeare Bibliography is now available on CD-ROM, in a version
edited by James L. Harner, and available at Cambridge University Press. For more
information, please contact Professor Harner at the Department of English, Texas
A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843^227, USA.

The Greco-Roman Rhetorical Tradition

"The Greco-Roman Rhetorical Tradition: Alterations, Adaptations, Alternatives"
is the theme of the Eleventh Biennial Conference of the International Society for
the History of Rhetoric, to be held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, July 22-26, 1997.
For information, please write to Prof. Judith Rice Henderson, Department of
English, 9 Campus Drive, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
S7N 3A5. E-mail: HENDRSNJ@duke.usask.ca.

Le Moyen Français

Colloque international sur le Moyen Français: Néologie et création verbale, 7-8
octobre 1996, Université McGill, Montréal. Pour de plus amples renseignements,
prière d'écrire au Prof. G. Di Stefano, Département de Langue et Littérature
françaises. Université McGill, 3460, rue McTavish, Montréal, Québec H3A 1X9.

94 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Hamlet East and West

''Hamlet: East and West" is the theme of an international conference to be held in
Gdansk, Poland, 27-30 September 1996. For more information on the programme,
please write to Prof. Jerzy Limon, Theatrum Gedanense, Kolodziejska 9, 80834
Gdansk, POLAND.

Performance: Modern and Postmodern

The journal Theatre Survey invites essays concerning how twentieth-century per-
formances have put the "classics" into play: place of the written text, cultural work
on canonical texts, appropriation of ancient cultural practices. Please contact: Prof.
Gary Jay Williams, Department of Drama, Catholic University of America, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20064, USA.

Baroque: Art et Nature

Colloque intemationnal et pluridisciplinaire sur le discours dans l'Europe d'ancien
régime: littératures nationales, théologie, musique, pédagogie, histoire de l'art. Le
colloque se tiendra du 30 juillet au 2 août 1997 à la Herzog August Bibliothek,
Wolfenbiittel, Allemagne. Prière de communiquer avec le Prof. Martin Bûcher,
Herzog August Bibliothek, postfach 1364, 38299 Wolfenbuttel, ALLEMAGNE.

Women Writers in the Colonial Period

"The Golden Age and Women Writers of the Colonial Period" is the general theme
of a conference to be held at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, 10-12
October 1996. For more information: Prof. Valerie Hegstrom Oakey, Department
of Spanish and Portuguese, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602, USA.

Recent Books
Livres récents

Anne-Marie Cocula. Etienne de la Boétie. Bordeaux, Sud-Ouest, 1995.

Claude-Gilbert Dubois. Le baroque en France et en Europe. Paris, Presses Uni-
versitaires de France, 1995.

Lisa Ferraro Parmelee. Good News from Fraunce: French Anti- League Propaganda
in Late Elizabethan England. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1996.
Pp. 204.

Alois Gerlo and Rudolf De Smet, eds. Mamixi Epistulae IIL Brussels: University
Press, 1996. Pp. 329.

Luce Giard. Les Jésuites à la Renaissance: système éducatif et production du savoir.
Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1995.

David Gunby, David Carnegie and Antony Hammond, eds. The Works of John
Webster^ Vol.1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Michael Murrin. History and Warfare in Renaissance Epie. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1995.

O Muraile, Nollaig. The Celebrated Antiquary Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh (c.
1600-1671): His Lineage, Life and Learning. Dublin: An Sagart, 1995.

Petrarch's Songbook: Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta, a Verse Translation by James
Wyatt Cook. Binghamton: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1995.

Erika Rummel. The Humanist-Scholastic Debate in the Renaissance and Reforma-
tion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Daniel Russell. Emblematic Structures in renaissance French Culture. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1995.

James Shapiro. Shakespeare and the Jews. New York: Columbia University Press,
1995.

96 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Andrew Small. Essays in Self-Potraiture: A Comparison of Technique in the
Self-Portraits of Montaigne and Rembrandt. New York: Peter Lang, 1996, Pp.
147.

Edward W. Tayler. Donne's Idea of a Woman: Structure and Meaning in The
Anniversaries. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Pp. 190.

Bruce Tolley. Pastors and Parishioners in Wurttemberg During the Late Reforma-
tion. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995.

Bernard Wicht. L'idée de milice et le modèle suisse dans la pensée de Machiavel.
Lausanne, L'Âge d'Honmie, 1995.

The editor welcomes submissions on any aspect of the Renaissance and the Reformation
period. Manuscripts in duplicate should be sent to the editorial office:

Renaissance and Reformation
Department of French Studies
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario NIG 2W1
CANADA

The journal does not accept unsolicited reviews. However, those interested in reviewing
books should contact the Book Review Editor.

La revue sollicite des manuscrits sur tous les aspects de la Renaissance et de la Réforme.
Les manuscrits en deux exemplaires doivent être postés à l'adresse suivante:

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VOLUME XIX NUMBER

FALL 1995

RENAISSANCE

AND REFORMATION

RENAISSANCE

VOLUME XIX NUMÉRO 4 AUTOMNE 199 5

Renaissance and Reformation/ Renaissance et Réforme is published quarterly (February, May,
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New Series, Vol. XIX, No. 4 Nouvelle Série, Vol. XIX, No 4

Old Series, Vol. XXXI, No. 4 1995 Ancienne Série, Vol. XXXI, No 4

CONTENTS / SOMMAIRE

EDITORIAL

ARTICLES

Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique. L'utilisation de r"allegacion"

à des fms morales: l'exemple des Métamorphoses d'Ovide

par Jean-Claude Moisan et Sabrina Vervacke

A New Set of Spectacles: The Assembly's Annotations, 1645-1657

by Dean George Lampros
33

"Deir Sisters": The Letters of John Knox to Anne Vaughan Lok

by Susan M. Felch
47

"A Plott to have his nose and eares cutt of: Schoppe as Seen by the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury
by Winfried Schleiner
69

BOOK REVffiWS/COMPTES RENDUS

Langage et vérité. Études offertes à Jean-Claude Margolin par ses
collègues, ses collaborateurs, ses élèves et ses amis, sous la direction de

Jean Céard

recensé par Peter G. Bietenholz

Michael Bath. Speaking Pictures: English Emblem Books and Renaissance
Culture', Elizabeth See Watson. Achille Bocchi and the Emblem Book as

Symbolic Form

reviewed by Anthony Raspa

Diane Desrosiers-Bonin. Rabelais et l'humanisme civil

recensé par André Toumon

John R. Roberts, ed. New Perspectives on the Seventeenth Century

Religious Lyric

reviewed by Margo Swiss

Jean-Paul Barbier. Ma bibliothèque poétique: Ceux de la Pléiade

recensé par Jean Braybrook
99

liro Kajanto. The Tragic Mission of Bishop Paul Juusten to

Tsar Ivan the Terrible
reviewed by Raymond A. Mentzer

101

ANNOUNCEMENTS/ANNONCES

103

EDITORIAL

Voilà des années bien difficiles sur
le plan budgétaire. Il n'est pas utile de
faire la litanie des griefs qui s' accumulent
dans les milieux de la recherche au
Canada. On a souvent l'impression
d'avoir besoin à portée de la main du
double passeport qu'évoquait dans un
poème récent Carole David {Estuaire,
79, 1995): un passeport "pour les jours
tranquilles, l'autre pour jouer les héros."
Blottis dans nos bureaux, nous jouons
tous et toutes les héros solitaires, menant
la barque à bout de bras. Il faut dire,
pourtant, que dans le domaine des études
de la Renaissance, les résultats sont moins
accablants. Les associations se renouvellent
très vite en ce moment: on peut compter
sur un bon nombre de plus jeunes
chercheurs dont on retrouve souvent les
excellents textes dans nos pages. C'est le
cas notamment à la Société Canadienne
d'Études de la Renaissance. Et la revue
elle-même, avec l'appui renouvelé du
Conseil de Recherche en Sciences
Humaines du Canada, est assurée de son
développement pour encore quelques
années. Il est donc possible heureusement
d'oeuvrer sur l'avenir. En terminant,
toutes nos excuses à notre collaborateur
Graham Roebuck pour les erreurs
typographiques oubliées dans son compte
rendu du dernier numéro.

These are difficult budgetary years.
There is no use really to evoke the litany
of grievances which are now part of the
research scene in Canada. It often seems
that one needs to survive the double pass-
port which Quebec poet Carole David
alluded to in a recent poem {Estuaire, 79,
1 995): one for quiet days, and another for
days of heroism. Cuddled and unsung in
our offices, with our quiet resolution to
go on, we are all solitary heroes. In Ren-
aissance Studies, it turns out that the
present situation is very encouraging.
Scholarly associations get the necessary
membership renewal, and can count on
younger academics whose texts you may
find in these pages. The Canadian Soci-
ety for Renaissance Studies is in that
respect doing very well. Having just ob-
tained renewed support from the Social
Science and Humanities Research Coun-
cil of Canada, the Renaissance and Ref-
ormation can count on a few more years
of interesting development. With this in
mind, the future looks more workable,
less vulnerable. In closing, we wish to
apologize to our colleague Graham
Roebuck whose review in our last issue
contained some typographical errors (in-
cluding one on the word "proof-read-
ing"!).

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 4 (1995) /3

Lecture allégorique et lecture

emblématique: l'utilisation

de "rallegacion" à des fins

morales; l'exemple des

Métamorphoses d'Ovide

JEAN-CLAUDE

MOISAN

SABRINA

VERVACKE

Résumé: Le grand, dans VArchiloge Sophie, donne à "l'allegacion" deux
finalités: embellir le langage et inciter à la vertu. Pour ce faire, il s 'ingéniera
à fixer le sens moral profond que recèlent les fictions des Métamorphoses
d'Ovide en les rangeant sous des catégories commodes et faciles d'utilisation
pour qui veut s 'en servir à des fins argumentatives ( "Fausseté, " ** Luxure ". . .),
avec, bien sûr, un très court sommaire de la fiction qui justifie la morale qu'il en
tire. En donnant ainsi valeur d'exemples aux fictions des Métamorphoses,
dans la partie de son livre qui traite de la rhétorique, en donnant donc à
"l'allegacion " la valeur de l'exemplum, dont le but est également de convaincre
ou d'embellir le discours. Le grand s'inscrit dans une tradition de lecture,
héritée de Bersurius, qui marquera non seulement les Ovides moralises, mais
aussi les traductions et commentaires des Métamorphoses, au moins jusqu 'au
milieu du XVIe siècle.

Au second livre de VArchiloge Sophie^ — "lequel parle des VII ars et
généralement de toutes sciences"^ et plus particulièrement de
"RETHORIQUE" —, Jacques Legrand traite de l'"allegacion."3 Cette figure,
présentée sous un titre évocateur ("De allegacion par la quele tout langage se
pare") est ainsi défmie:

Allegacion est le droit parement de toute rhétorique et de toute poetrie, et
puet estre nommée la souveraine couleur, car par elle tout langage se
demonstre meilleur, plus souverain et plus auctentique.

Si dois savoir que allegacion n'est autre chose nemais a son propos
aucunes hystoires ou aucunes fictions alleguier ou appliquier, mais ce faire
nul ne puet s'il n'a veu pluseurs hystoires ou pluseurs fictions [...]. Et pour

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 4 ( 1 995) /5

6 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

tant se tu les veulz en ton langage alleguier tu dois considérer le propos
duquel tu parles, et selon le propos tu regarderas les branches des figures qui
s'ensuivent et prenras les hystoires appartenantes a ton propos, des quelles
pareras ton langage. Et pour mieux cecy entendre nous povons donner
exemple en cas que ton propos seroit a parler d'orgueil et a le reprouver [.
. .]. Et de fait tu trouveras es figures qui s'ensuivent branches contenans
orgueil es quelles sont touchées en brief les hystoires des orgueilleux [...].
Et pour tant en parlant d'orgueil tu pues ainsi dire: avise toy homme que ne
soies aosé de présumer de toy et ne vueilles cuidier que tu soies chose de
grant value; advise les hauîtains orgueilleux a quoy sont devenus ! Lucifer
cheut du ciel par orgueil très misérablement, et Nabuchodonosor par sa
presompcion de son royaume fut desrnis et en beste muez. Aman le très
présomptueux au gibet fut pendu ou quel vouloit les justes condampner, et
Pheton, le quel vouloit le ciel mener et gouverner, fut destitué; et le filz de
Dedalus noyé, et Narcisus aussi. Si doit homme par telz exemples son fait
aviser, et ne doit riens ou monde présumer: car orgueil veult cheoir, et a la
fin doit par raison trebuchier ^

L'auteur fait suivre ce texte de deux séries de "branches," les unes tirées
des Métamorphoses d' Ovide telles que Bersuire les a adaptées dans le livre XV
de son Reducîorium morale, l'Ovidius moralizatus, les autres de la Bible. Et
il les présente de la façon suivante: "Si s'ensuivent les figures contenans en
brief ficcions et histoires en la manière dessus dicte,"^ pour les Métamorphoses;
et pour la Bible: "Cy après s'ensuivent les hystoires plus essenciales de la Bible
prouffitables pour dicter selon les propos qui aviennent, comme il est dessus
dit."^ Ce rapprochement entre les deux textes témoigne sans doute d'une
tradition qui se concrétisera en 1493 par la désignation de Bible des poètes'^
pour l'une des versions d'Ovide qui sera à l' origine de celle du Grand Olympe. *
Alors que pour la Bible, Legrand regroupe ses "allegacions" selon un ordre
alphabétique des figures exemplaires assez fidèlement suivi, pour les
Métamorphoses, en revanche, il regroupe les fictions par livres, les faisant
précéder de "branches" tirées du Libellas de formis figuris et imaginibus
deorum, qui sert d'introduction à VOvidius moralizatus.

Cette contextualisation nous aide à mieux comprendre le sens du texte de
Legrand, surtout lorsque l'on sait que Bade lui-même, au début du seizième
siècle, alors qu'il rééditait VOvidius moralizatus,^ voyait cette œuvre comme
"un instrument de première main où le prédicateur pouvait tirer la substance
de son sermon": '°

Opus uidelicet ipsum predicatoribus i. diuini uerbi declamatoribus sane
quam utile futurum: siue quod eiusmodi my thicis illecebris mortalium animi

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique / 7

facilius et tenacius irretiantur ut sic admissus circum praecordia ludat:
ridensque uerum dicat .

Cette citation rejoint deux des affirmations de Legrand sur les Métamorphoses:
selon lui, on emploiera l'^allegacion" [. . .] se [on] les veulzen [notre] langage
alleguier" et "des quelles parer[ons notre] langage." L'"allegacion" est donc
une figure par laquelle on cite un exemplum, comme T affirme Legrand lui-
même à la fin du texte qui ouvre cet article: "Si doit homme par telz exemples
son fait aviser. . ."'^

Gilles Declercq rappelle que "[. . .] chez Aristote, l'exemple, analogue
rhétorique de l'induction, est comme l'enthymème 'un principe de
raisonnement' (II, 20, 1393 a, 22)."^^ C'est que cette figure fait partie de
l'argumentation deliberative et, dans le cas plus particulier qui nous occupe,
elle doit servir à convaincre quelqu'un à adopter une conduite ou le dissuader
de le faire. Pour Aristote, toujours selon Declercq:

[. . .] l'exemple s' apparenterait davantage aux preuves subjectives, car son
évidence se fonde surtout sur \q pouvoir sensoriel de l'image; il se combine
donc aisément à la mobilisation oratoire des passions (à la différence de
Tenthymème qui risquerait en pareil cas "de refroidir le discours," [Rhét.,
in, 17, 1418 a]). D'un moindre degré technique, plus apte à l'éloquence
publique, l'exemple convient fort à la délibération tournée vers l'avenir et
la prise de décision; l'exemple jouant alors le rôle d'un modèle d'action
puisé dans le passé. ^'^

Aristote écrit en effet: "Lorsque tu veux produire un effet pathétique, n'emploie
pas d'en thy même." '^ Quintilien,'^ outre l'utilité de Yexemplum "pour orner le
discours," affirmera qu'il est l' argument "le plus efficace" ("potentissimum").
Affirmation reprise par de nombreux auteurs dont Averroès selon qui
r"Exemplum in Rhetorica magis persuadet, quam enthymema."'^

C'est que proposer une conduite personnelle (que l'on veuille persuader
ou dissuader quelqu'un de faire quelque chose), qui est le propre du sermon,
tient également du genre délibératif et a quelque chose de la "harengue"
qu' Aristote juge "plus difficile" que le plaidoyer, car, dit-il, "dans le premier
cas, on s'occupe de l'avenir, et dans le second du passé."'^ L'exemple
historique en s' appuyant "très précisément sur le lieu de la possibilité et de la
réalité"'^ ouvre donc, pour ainsi dire, la porte de l'accessible. Le raisonnement
sous-jacent à cette utilisation est le suivant: "Le plus souvent, l'avenir
ressemble au passé."^^ Quant à "l'argumentation fabulaire, [elle met] en
relation d'analogie deux séries d'objets, de personnes, ou d'événements."^'

8 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

L* exemplum repose en effet, selon Quintilien^^ sur un rapport de similitude, totale
ou partielle, que T on établit entre deux situations ou deux conduites, que ce rapport
joue sur un lien de ressemblance absolue ("simile"), ou sur un lien de dissimilitude
("dissimile"), ou sur un lien d'opposition ("contrarium"). Ce rapport de similitude
peut aussi s'établir "du plus au moins ou du moins au plus." Ces catégories de
Quintilien seront reprises par les rhéteurs au seizième siècle; en témoignent les
citations du Thesaurus Rheîoricae, aux folios 51v° et suivants.

À la limite, peu importe donc que les modèles proposés soient des êtres
d'histoire, donc plus près d'un certain réel, ou des êtres tirés des "hystoires plus
essenciales de la Bible," ou des personnages issus des fictions, l'important est
de proposer des conduites que l'on pourra imiter totalement, ou partiellement,
que r on devra ne pas suivre, que l'on essaiera de dépasser ou du moins que l' on
essaiera d'atteindre. Et même si Quintilien^^ attribuait aux exemples tirés des
"légendes poétiques" "moins de force probatoire," ils sont toujours
recommandés, particulièrement les exemples tirés des fables ovidiennes dont
la valeur morale a été très hâtivement et très universellement reconnue.

Les prologues des éditions vemaculaires des Métamorphoses sont à ce
sujet assez évocateurs. Ainsi, l'auteur de Y Ovide moralisé en v^r5,^'* justifie
son travail de la manière suivante:

Se l'escripture ne me ment.

Tout est pour nostre enseignement

Quanqu'il a es livres escript,

Soit bon ou mal li escript.

Qui bien y vaudroit prendre esgart,

Li maulx y est que l'en s'en gart,

Li biens pour ce que l'en le face [...]"

Le traducteur de V Ovide moralisé en prosé^^ reprend un discours justificatif
identique, qui amplifie le propos précédent et l'explicite.

Selon que dit monseigneur Saint Pol apostre, les Escriptures sont escriptes
à nostre doctrine et pour nostre enseignement, [...]. Es Escriptures doncques
sont contenuz et trouvez les biens pour les retenir et faire, et les maulx aussi
declairez pour les fouyr et délaisser. Si sommes nous grandement tenuz à
ceulz qui par leurs estudes et beaulx escriptz ont enluminé les entendements
des hommes. Et pour ce que ou dit volume de Metamorphose sont escriptes
de moult plaisans choses, lesquelles ont esté et sont saigement exposées et
moralisées à la bonne edification et doctrine de ceulx qui l' ont ve^ et verront,
je me suis occupé à translater et exposer de latin en rime françoise les fables
du dit volume selon que je les puis entendre.[. . .] Et combien que l'on les

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique / 9

nomme fables et que aucuns les dient mensongieres, toutes voies icelles bien
entendues selon ce qu'elles seront cy après exposées on y trouvera de grans
vérités et mouralitez prouffitables assavoir, ja soit ce qu'elles soient
enveloppées et couvertes subtillement soubz fictions, dont je ne pense pas
et aussi ne pourroie je pas assez en explicquer tous les granz secretz qui y
sont.^^

Le rapprochement entre la Bible et les Métamorphoses est encore une fois
affirmé. Il est encore plus évident, dans la Bible des poètes, où l'on retrouve
une formulation presque semblable à celle de Legrand.

Combien que les fictions de aucuns vulgaires soient reputtees choses
vaines et fabulatoires ausquelles ne fault adiouster aucune foy. Si nest il pas
pourtant raisonnable que du tout on les regecte / car comme par experience
nous voyons la saincte escripture en plusieurs lieux est veu user de similitudes
et fables ainsi comme au livre des roys est recite la fable du roy des arbres.
En Ezechiel de laigle qui fait importer la moelle du cèdre. Nostre seigneur
aussi faisant en la terre ses predications selon le témoignage des ces
evangelistes est veu user en plusieurs lieux de similitudes parabolicques et
parolles faictes. Non pas pour vouloir induyre son peuple a croire la fiction
/ Mais pour plus facillement leur donner a en entendre la vérité soubz celle
fiction enclose. Vray est aussi que iamais de poète ou orateur de haulte
eloquence ne fust bonnement prize fable qui ne fust exemplaire ou couverte
de aucune vérité parquoy les saiges et grans clercz ne les ont point regectees
mais délies ont tire allegoricquement / morallement hystoriallement ou
reallement aucunes veritez moult prouffitables. [. . .] EtqueOvydeSalomeuse
que si grant poète fut que son livre par anthonomasie et excellence est
appellee la bible des poètes. Na assemble point les fictions et fables qui y ne
sont quelles ne fussent reduictes a aucunes ventes ainsi comme bien apparaît
en son livre [. . .] Oultre plus lestude des anciens poètes et orateurs estoit de
solicitement couvrir les hy stoires et choses qui reallement ilz scavoient estre
vrayes soubz fables et fictions parquoy Lucan est mieulx dit hystoriographe
que poète. [. . .] Parquoy tirer vérité de fable et poeticque fiction est
prouffitable. Et ce doit faire tout homme saige pour induire luy et les aultres
a sapience / et vertus et bonnes meurs ainsi que moyennant layde du sainct
esperit mon intention est de faire en lexposition des fables ce present livre.^*

Le second prologue du Grand Olympe n'échappe pas à la règle. Y est
également affirmée l'utilité des fictions, et particulièrement celles d'Ovide:

Poésie mere de subtilité et ioyeuse invention soubz une couverte de fable
elegante a si vrayement exprime la doctrine moralle & humanité que si
lentendement du liseur nest du tout efface par ignorance / il en tirera

10 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

honnestes enseignemens & manière de bien vivre: car ce nest que pure
philosophie latente / a laquelle sainct Augustin au ii. de la doctrine Chrétienne/
prohibe faire allegories/ comme assez délie mesmes allegorisant. Parquoy
en ce grand Olympe sont obmises en gardant le naturel de Lautheur tant que
faire cest peu/ ainsi que chascun est tenu.^*^

Dans Ovid in Renaissance France. . .,^^ Ann Moss rappelle les arguments
de Regius et d'Erasme sur T utilité des fables d'Ovide; ce dernier en effet, dans
le De Copia, tire des leçons morales des fables d' Icare, de Phaéton, de Marsyas,
d'Hercule, de Midas, de Circé et d'Ulysse et il affirme de plus qu'elles ont pour
rôles de plaire, de convaincre et même de pratiquer la copia: "[. . .] pleraque
soient adhiberi non solum ad fidem faciendam, verumetiam ad omandam rem,
ad illustradam, ad augendam, ad locupletandam."^' Regius, quant à lui,
signale, dans sa préface au duc de François de Gonzague,^^ la valeur exemplaire
des fables ovidiennes en citant lui aussi les fictions de Lycaon, de Deucalion
et Pyrrha, de Daphne, de Phaéton. Point de vue qui sera repris par Habert qui,
comme on le sait, traduit Regius dans sa Dédicace au Roi en tête de sa
traduction des Métamorphoses et dont voici un extrait significatif:

Quand il escrit que la belle Daphne

Fut conuertie en Laurier nouueau né,

Ne veut il pas par ce propos comprendre

Qu'elle vouloit virginité défendre,

Et que l'honneur des vierges florissant

Semble au Laurier tousiours reuerdissant?

Quand il depainct l'ignorance & abus

De Phaéton enfant du Dieu Phoebus

Qui de son père eut le gouuernement

Du chariot, pour vn iour seulement.

Et qu'il ne sçeut le régir par droicture

Dont il mourut par cruelle aduenture,

N'est ce pas là monstrer apertement

Que pour nourrir trop délicatement

Enfans, & grand liberté leur permettre.

On ne les peut en plus grand danger mettre?''

Sabinus et Aneau, dans des textes assez proches, rappellent eux aussi, à la
suite de Melanchthon, le caractère édifiant des fables, à la condition bien sûr que
1 ' on soit capable de soulever le voile et de les interpréter correctement. Savoir lever
"la couverte de fable elegante" pour y découvrir le sens caché, qui n'est pas que
moral ou incitatif d'une conduite, bien sûr;'"* savoir, de plus, "saigement"
l'exposer au profit de tous, soit par une réflexion moralisante, soit par une

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique /Il

traduction nettement orientée, voilà qui rendra ces textes profitables à tous.
Rien d'étonnant alors que, dans la présentation des Métamorphoses, aussi
bien dans les adaptations, les traductions ou les éditions latines. Ton ait eu
tendance, au moins jusque vers les années 1 540, à mettre en évidence les fables
ou des bribes de fables afin de mieux isoler le commentaire et de donner ainsi
aux Métamorphoses le caractère d'un recueil d'exempla. C'est évident pour
Bersuire et Legrand. Evencio Beltran a donné un exemple de cette technique

dans la préface de son édition de VArchiloge ^^ Il faut cependant savoir que

Bersuire donne un semblant de continuité à son texte, alors que Legrand isole,
sur un fichier, la vertu à suivre ou le vice à éviter. Défilent alors sous nos yeux
des vedettes matières qu' illustre un court sommaire, au sens narratologique du
terme, pouvant faire alors office d'exemplum. Il est bien évident que, dans le
cas de ces deux auteurs, les éléments qui sont retenus sont soigneusement
choisis en vue de démontrer la thèse; car, puisque l' intention est de convaincre,
il faut bien que le récit garde un aspect argumentatif .^^

Archiloge Sophie

Ovidius Moralizatus

Janglerie

Phebus mua le corbeau de blanc en noir,
et le fist message de tous les maulx pour
tant qu'il lui dénonça le mesfait de
Coronides s'amie.^^

Orgueil

Pheton voulut le ciel gouverner contre la
monicion de Phebus son père, mais il ne
sceut gouverner, et pour tant il cheut.^'

Folie

Pheton, par son mauvais gouvernement,
fist les rivieres seichier, les estoilles
enflamber, les Ethiopiens ennoircir, et
pour tant fut en la mer gecté/'

Cornus quondam fuit auis albissima et
pulcherrima quae soli erat potissime
dedicata: tandem ab ipso sole mutata est
in nigrum colorem. Cujus rei causa fuit
ista. [S'ensuit un sommaire plus détaillé
du mythe.] Et ipsum coruum de albo in
nigrum mutauit: et ut de cetero esset lator
malorum rumorum perpetuo condemnauit.^

Phaeton filius Jouis juuenis quasi inuito
pâtre accepit regimen.*''

Cum phaeton filius solis cumim patris:
et equos eius flammigeros sibi commissos
nesciret regere totus mundus . . .*^

Legrand retient les éléments du récit qui lui semblent justifier le sens de
sa vedette. Le rapport entre le récit et la conduite à tenir est donc implicite;

12 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

r allégorie est latente/^ C'est au narrataire, simple lecteur ou prédicateur, à
expliciter ce lien soit pour sa conduite personnelle, soit pour la conduite qu*il
proposera aux autres. Si Bersuire a servi de point de départ, sa méthode
d'allégorisation n'est que suggérée et non utilisée.

S'ils adaptent ou traduisent librement le texte d'Ovide, les deux Ovide(s)
Moralisé(s) et la Bible des poètes adoptent la même attitude que Bersuire en
mettant en évidence l'utilité des mythes par leur insertion entre deux autres
éléments de discours. Si bien que l'on peut décomposer la transposition
complète d'un mythe en trois parties:

Étape n°l: l'annonce du
récit.

Étape n°2: narration -
développement = le récit
traduit.

Étape n°3: conclusion =
le ou les vrais sens à donner
à la fable.

Celle-ci se fait au moyen
d'un sous-titre qui comporte
généralement des guides de
lecture du récit qui suit.

La traduction d'un récit est
souvent le lieu de l'insertion
de commentaires et
d'énoncés qui tout comme
les sous-titres proposent une
lecture particulière du mythe.

Exposition du récit selon
les vérités que l'on y a
trouvées, (historiques,
morales, physiques, etc.)

Placé en position centrale, le récit traduit sert donc d'argument ou d'exemple
pour la démonstration finale.

Si le texte du Grand Olympe présente un aspect différent,"*^ il cherche
toujours à poser le récit ovidien comme représentatif d'une situation ou d'une
conduite à rechercher ou à éviter. Le discours de chaque mythe s'articule dans
ce cas en deux étapes:

Étape n°l: l'annonce du récit
Le sous-titre, de la même manière que
celui que l'on retrouve dans les éditions
moralisées, propose souvent une lecture
du récit qu'il préface.

Étape n°2: le développement et la conclusion.
Le récit traduit est constamment remodelé
en vue de correspondre à la lecture que le
traducteur en propose, lecture bien
souvent moralisante.

Et, même si dans cette oeuvre les commentaires hors-texte allégorisants ont
disparu, l'utilité morale que l'on reconnaît aux mythes ovidiens n'a pas

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique / 13

changé. Témoin, le traitement particulier réservé au mythe du corbeau (livre
II des Métamorphoses).

Afin de saisir au mieux le type de "vérité morale" que les traducteurs vont
greffer à ce récit, il nous est apparu nécessaire de donner tout d'abord un bref
résumé du texte original. Chez Ovide, l'histoire se lit donc comme ceci: la fable
est introduite par une comparaison antithétique entre la beauté du plumage des
paons (récemment orné des yeux d'Argus) et la laideur de celui du corbeau. Le
narrateur précise, qu'autrefois, le plumage du corbeau était pourtant d'une
blancheur admirable: c'est donc l'explication de cette métamorphose qu'il se
propose de nous livrer ici. L'apparition de ce plumage noir est due à un excès
de bavardage: "Sa langue le perdit, sa langue loquace fut cause que sa couleur,
jadis blanche est aujourd'hui le contraire du blanc. '"^^ Immédiatement suit le
récit de Coronis et de son infidélité. Le corbeau ayant surpris l'adultère, "ce
dénonciateur inexorable [s'envole] vers son maître'"*^ Phébus afin de lui
apprendre son infortune. Il est aussitôt rejoint dans son vol par la corneille qui,
ayant appris le motif de sa démarche, tente de l'en dissuader en racontant son
propre exemple : "Mon châtiment [dit-elle] peut apprendre aux oiseaux à ne pas
se compromettre par leur babil.'"*^ Malgré l'éloquence du discours qui suit, le
corbeau rejette les conseils de la corneille et dénonce l'infidélité de Coronis.
Phébus tue sa maîtresse infidèle, pour s'en repentir aussitôt amèrement.
Emporté par le chagrin, il maudit son acte irréfléchi et, dans la foulée, maudit
le corbeau qu'il punira à la fin du récit en muant son plumage de blanc en noir.
Le bien-fondé de ce châtiment n'est pas conmienté outre mesure: à son
habitude, Ovide laisse au lecteur le soin de juger par lui-même."*^

Il n'en va pas de même dans V Ovide Moralisé en prose et dans la Bible
des Poètes: la fiction doit éclairer "l'entendement humain" et le mythe du
corbeau doit être utile et "prouffitable" aux narrataires. Le récit devient donc
un exemple type des méfaits de la "janglerie."

Si nous reprenons l'organisation du discours définie précédemment et que
nous r appliquons au texte de l' Ovide Moralisé en prose, nous retrouvons donc
en annonce le sous-titre suivant: "Autre fable de Coronis la belle dont Phébus
fut en amour, et comme le corbeau par sa janglerie fut mué de blanc en noir."*'
Par l'étroite association du itirat janglerie et de la métamorphose, le traducteur
nous propose visiblement une lecture du type "délit et châtiment" où la
janglerie apparaît d'emblée comme un acte reprehensible puisqu'il entraîne
une dégradation de blanc en noir. Le récit, tel qu'il est traduit par le narrateur,
est donc un récit de punition.

La Bible des Poètes propose le même type d'entrée en matière quoique
légèrement moins expressif. Le récit est introduit ici par les annonces:

14 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

"Comment Phébus par le rapport du corbeau occyst sa mye Coronis;"^^
"Comment Coronis devint Corneille et pourquoi;"^' "Comment Phébus mua
le corbeau de blanc en noir [. . .]."^^ Les sous-titres exposent l'orientation que
le traducteur souhaite donner à la fable du Corbeau, tout en retraçant un bref
programme narratif des différentes étapes de ce récit (la préoccupation
moralisatrice est ici doublée par des préoccupations de cohérence narrative, de
succession du discours). La présentation du récit est semblable à celle de
V Ovide Moralisé en prose: dans le premier sous-titre, le bavardage du Corbeau
est associé à la mort de Coronis, un "rapport" est donc source d'un événement
funeste, lâjanglerie a donc des conséquences néfastes: le bavardage est perçu
comme nuisible et constitue une source de problèmes.

Le sous-titre du Grand Olympe ne laisse place, quant à lui, à aucune
équivoque possible. Au moyen d'un plaisant jeu de mot, nous apprenons que
le récit qui suit explique comment "Par janglerie le corbeau neust oncques
depuis son corps beau."^^ De même que dans V Ovide Moralisé en prose,
l'annonce du discours qui va suivre en présente déjà la teneur: la fable est un
récit de punition et la métamorphose sanctionne la. janglerie. Avant même
d'entamer sa lecture du texte traduit, le lecteur est donc averti de certaines
directives d' interprétation, de guides de lecture que le récit va étayer. Car celui-
ci a également valeur de démonstration: en observant les modifications
apportées par les traducteurs au texte original, on constate que la fable est
désormais le lieu d'une abondante glose moralisatrice.

C'est ainsi que le traducteur de V Ovide Moralisé en prose commence sa
narraîio par une affirmation assez explicite: "[le corbeau] cheiit en icelle
mutation par janglerie T^^ Ce premier énoncé reprend sensiblement le contenu
du sous-titre. Le délit et le châtiment sont clairement exposés et la métamorphose
est perçue comme une sanction: la fable est donc encore une fois annoncée
comme un récit de punition. ^^ Plus éloquent encore, le recours à des lieux
communs ou à des sentences. Le traducteur insère ainsi dans le discours de la
corneille les deux mises en garde suivantes: "Trop tost vient a la porte qui
malles nouvelles y apporte" et, un peu plus loin, "toutes choses, posé que
véritables feiissent, ne estoient pas bonne à dire et que mieulx vault secret celer
que tout ce qu'on scait reveler." En d'autres termes, le corbeau va donc être
châtié pour son ignorance: il ne sait pas que se taire est parfois bon.

Le recours à ces vérités communément admises permet de faire de la
matière ainsi traitée un argument de force, une exposition éloquente des périls
encourus par l'excès de parole. Les événements relatés dans la fable sont
constamment mis en interaction avec des valeurs généralement admises: le

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique / 15

proverbe illustre le texte traduit et la matière débattue dans la fable illustre à
son tour les lieux communs. Le traducteur de V Ovide Moralisé en prose ne se
contente cependant pas de ces ajouts: la conclusion du récit fait également
l'objet de nouvelles modifications.

Mais le corbin, qui se attendoit d'avoir quelque grant prouffit pour avoir
porté à son maistre les maulvaises nouvelles de s'amye, fut frustré de son
attente, car en lieu de guerdon Phebus lui mua la blancheur de ses plumes
en couleur noire et si le mis hors de son service.^^

Le service intéressé du corbeau est, comme on peut désormais s'y attendre,
assez sévèrement reçu. L'ensemble du récit répond aux éléments que nous avions
dégagés dans le sous-titre: la. janglerie, le rapport par intérêt^^ de "maulvaises
nouvelles" appelle une sévère sanction. . . L'amplification de cette sanction amène
d'ailleurs un nouvel élément extrêmement intéressant. Ovide précisciit bien que
Phébus transformait le plumage du corbeau, mais ne faisait aucune allusion à son
exil. Dans la traduction, le châtiment du jangleur se décompose donc en deux
temps: la perte ou dégradation d'un état premier (métamorphose) puis le
bannissement (Phébus chasse le corbeau de son service).

Les récits de la Bible des Poètes et du Grand Olympe peuvent ici être
traités conjointement. L'étroite filiation de ces deux textes donne en effet
naissance à un récit identique pour ce qui concerne les extraits que nous
citerons. Dès la première modification, il apparaît que lorsqu'il s'agit de
présenter la jonglerie comme un acte reprehensible, le récit de ces deux
versions ne cède en rien à l'éloquence des modifications relevées dans l' Ovide
Moralisé. Au tout début de la narration, les traducteurs recourent à la figure de
la geminatio pour nous présenter le délit et le châtiment du corbeau : "le corbeau
qui [. . .] avoit este blanc /[...] par sa jonglerie et rapport maulvais et par son
non-scavoir devint noir [. . .]."^^ D'entrée, on présente le corbeau comme
coupable de bavardage excessif, de mauvaises intentions et d ' une impardonnable
ignorance. Trois idées évoquées dans le récit de V Ovide Moralisé en prose que
l'on retrouve ici en toutes lettres. Démarche également identique à celle de
r Ovide Moralisé en prose en ce qui concerne la valeur démonstrative du récit
traduit: la narration rappelle déjà la moralisation contenue dans les sous-titres
de ces deux traductions (la jonglerie entraîne des effets néfastes et appelle une
punition). La jonglerie du corbeau devient d'autant plus reprehensible lorsque
l'on apprend que ce dernier appartient à Coronis (au lieu de Phébus dans le
texte latin) et qu'il aime "priveement Phébus."^ En plus d'être rapporteur, le
corbeau est parjure, traître et intéressé. Morale qui sera renforcée par le recours aux

16 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

proverbes. C'est ainsi que le discours de la Corneille sera appuyé des deux
sentences suivantes: "tousiours [. . .] vient trop tost qui malles nouvelles apporte"^'
et, un peu plus loin, "toute vente ne est pas bonne à dire."^^ Lorsque Phébus se
repent d'avoir tué Coronis, il ne sait à qui s'en prendre "fors au corbel qui les
maulvaises nouvelles luy avoit apportez."^^ Le jangleur voit donc son entourage
se retourner contre lui. Et le mythe s'achève sur une conclusion toute aussi
éloquente que celle de V Ovide Moralisé en prose:

Le corbeau qui mérite et guerdon attendoit de Phebus pour la nouvelle que
apportée luy avoit fut par son courroux déchusse de luy et en signe de
douleurluy mua ses blanches plumes en noires. Et oncques depuis ny fut veu
blanc corbeau ^

À l'exil et la dégradation du plumage, les traducteurs ajoutent le nouvel
élément: corbeau = signe de douleur, annonciateur de mauvaises nouvelles. La
janglerie du corbeau est donc un délit très grave puisque, pour l'éternité, elle
fait de lui l'annonciateur des mauvaises nouvelles et plus particulièrement des
nouvelles funestes. Les traducteurs n'hésitent donc pas, pour appuyer leur
démonstration, à jouer sur les registres du lieu commun et du symbole (corbeau
= oiseau de mauvais augure dont le plumage noir rappelle le deuil). . .

Dans la traduction du Grand Olympe, la démonstration s'achève sur cette
conclusion pour le moins significative. En revanche, pour les éditions moralisées,
si le texte traduit répond aux guides de lecture ébauchés dans le sous-titre, il
nous prépare également aux "vérités moult prouffitables" exposées cette fois-
ci sans "le couvert de la fable," dans les allégories.

Ainsi, pour le traducteur de V Ovide Moralisé en prose^^ le mythe du
corbeau illustre deux grandes vérités. Dans une allégorie qu' il présente comme
historique, Phébus tient le rôle d'un "jouvencel" réputé, aimant à la folie une
belle dame nommée Coronis. Le corbeau tient, quant à lui, le rôle d'un
serviteur qui "estoit grant flatteur et mal parlier et cuida bien par sa janglerie
avoir de son maistre grand guerdon." Ainsi que l'annonçait la conclusion du
récit le corbeau agissait par appât du gain. Cette première allégorie s'achève
sur une délectable conclusion qui stipule:

[. . .] que nul ne doit jamais d'autruy mesdire ne deflateurs s 'acointer, dont
maintes gens ont esté deceiiz. Car flateurs et mal rapporteurs sont pires que
larrons, qui n'en emportent que les biens, mais les autres emblent la bonne
renommée d'autruy qui ne se peut mie condignement restituer, Et par telz
mauldiz rapporteurs on été mains bons hommes mis à mort et diffamez
contre vérité. Et par le corbeau [. . .] nous est signifié que nul ne doit semer
matière de haine là ou il doit avoir amour. Et telz sont en dissencion qui puis

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique / 17

retournent en grant amour, dont ceulx qui y ont mis division sont par après
haiz et mauvouluz de toutes pars et non sans cause.

La janglerie est associée à la médisance. Le traducteur met en garde ses
lecteurs contre ce vice et leur déconseille même "de flateurs s'acointer." Ainsi,
même si le récit traduit ne faisait pas allusion au bannissement du corbeau,
r allégorie développe déjà l'idée d'un exil à infliger aux rapporteurs.

La seconde allégorie ("Sentence moralle") que nous propose l' Ovide Moralisé
en prose est anagogique: Phébus y représente la "sapience divine" et son geste
meurtrier à la suite de la dénonciation du corbeau est en fait la représentation de
Dieu qui châtie "la creature humaine qui s'accointe d'un estrangier, en méprisant
la bonne amour de son créateur." Les regrets de Coronis amènent au pardon divin
puisqu'en autorisant la naissance fabuleuse d'Esculape, Dieu sauve "le bon
fruict." Quant au corbeau, c'est en fait l'incarnation du Diable, "qui tousjours est
en aguet pour nous espier et accuser de noz péchiez," lui qui

souloit estre blanc et beau, mais par sa presumptueuse janglerie il devint noir
et si en fut bany de la maison et hors de la grace de Dieu son Créateur et
tresbuchié au parfont d'enfer en pardurable dampnacion.^^

Le traducteur de la Bible des Poètes propose une unique interprétation du
sujet.^^ Semblablement à l'allégorie de V Ovide Moralisé en prose, cette
conclusion présente Phébus comme un jeune "damoiseau" très épris d'une
belle demoiselle nommée Coronis. Le corbeau est toujours le serviteur flateur
et "lozangeur." Et la sanction du "jangleur" provient du fait qu'après le meurtre
de Coronis, Phébus "hayt moult le serf qui samye avoyt accusée et par sa
janglerie occire lavoit fait. Pourquoy il le bouta hors de son service et de sa
grace. Celluy fainct la fable estre mue de blanc en noir car comme dist le
psalmiste Vir lingosus non diligetur in terra / Cest a dire que Ihomme raporteur
et playdeur ne sera honnore ne ayme en terre." Reprise de ce que nous pouvons
désormais appeler un lieu commun: la janglerie ou médisance est un vice
hautement reprehensible qu'il faut éviter et il ne faut accorder aucun crédit à
ceux qui la pratiquent, d'où l'idée commune aux trois versions de chasser les
médisants.

On le voit, dans les éditions moralisées, le traitement réservé à la fable du
corbeau équivaut à la partie démonstrative d'un long discours dissuasif. Le
récit s'insère dans un cadre narratif qui propose une lecture exemplaire du
mythe: le sous-titre, qui associait déjà le délit dt janglerie à la métamorphose
dégradante du plumage, trouve de nombreux échos dans la glose qui amplifie
la nairration et l'ensemble est parachevé par le sens "réel" que l'on donne dans

18/ Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

les allégories. Le texte du Grand Olympe, bien qu'exempt d'allégories, offre
une démonstration tout aussi éloquente. En effet, "si lentendement du liseur
nest du tout effacé par ignorance," l'insertion de sentences proverbiales, le
recours à la geminatio et l'amplification de la finale du récit permettent
aisément de tirer de cette fable "honnestes enseignemens & manière de bien
vivre."^^ Semblablement à r"allegacion" que proposait Jacques Legrand, ces
trois textes dénoncent une grave faute et emploient la fable, ainsi traduite et
présentée, comme un instrument de démonstration.

Cette narratio est moins débridée dans la traduction de Marot.^^ Deux
passages méritent toutefois que l'on s'y arrête:

Marot Ovide

Certes ma peine, et ma punition Mea poena uolucres

Doibt estre exemple et admonition, Admonuisse potest ne uoce pericula quaerant.

À tous Oiseaux de quelconque plumage, (v. 564-565)

De ne chercher par leur langue dommage.

(II, V. 1047-1050)

[. . .]

Et le Corbeau, qui, pour avoir vray dit, Sperantemque sibi non falsae praemia linguae

Pensoit avoir recompense et credit, Inter aues albas uetuit consistere coruum.

Il condemna d'une colère grande, (v. 63 1 -632)

Des blancz Oyseaulx, n' estre plus de la bande.
(II, V. 1165-1168)

Dans le premier extrait, Marot insiste, grâce à la figure de la geminatio, sur la
punition et surtout sur la valeur exemplaire du récit de la corneille (il traduit
"admonuisse" par "exemple et admonition"). Le deuxième passage est
intéressant pour la mention de la grande colère de Phébus qui explique la
punition que celui-ci inflige au corbeau. Passage qui est glosé dans l'édition de
1556 par la manchette suivante d'Aneau: "Rapporteurs ne sont receuz entre
gens de bien,"^^ lieu commun, on l'a vu, que l'on retrouve énoncé dans toutes
les éditions moralisées. Il en est un autre qui reprend en toutes lettres ou
presque une idée déjà exprimée dans l' Ovide moralisé en prose et dans la Bible
des poètes, "Recompense à labeur de malle nouvelle."^' Ou cette manchette,
écho de Bersuire et des traducteurs de la Bible des poètes et du Grand Olympe,
qui se lit comme suit: "Corbeau est oyseau de mauvais rapport."^^ Enfin, cette
autre: "De triste nouvelle, triste recompense."^^ Aneau veut donc lui aussi

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique / 19

guider le lecteur par ces annotations en marge d'un texte qui, malgré sa fidélité
plus grande au texte latin que celui des éditions françaises antérieures, n'en
imprime pas moins sa marque personnelle.

Une réflexion tout aussi intéressante pourrait être faite sur le thème de la
jangleresse, employé très clairement au sens de "celle qui trompe," et suscité
par le mythe d'Écho où l'on répète les mêmes lieux-communs de Bersuire à
Aneau. Par exemple, l'une des lectures est de présenter la complaisance
d'Écho envers les débordements de Jupiter de la façon suivante, chez Aneau:
"Maquerelles sontgrandesjangleresses"^'*etde susciter chez Legrand l'en-tête
suivant: "Maquerellerie."^^ Bien sûr, la glose d' Aneau a son originalité et
déborde de la seule allégorie morale, mais il est quand même évident que les
manchettes, que l'on vient de citer, et d' autres, que l'on pourrait ajouter, jouent
à peu près le même rôle que les sous-titres des éditions antérieures ou que les
vedettes-matières de Legrand. Est-ce pour cela qu'on a pu dire de ces gloses
qu'elles "relev[aient] beaucoup plus de l'emblématique que du simple résumé
référentiel"?^^ Remarque intéressante quand l'on sait que l'édition d' Aneau
renferme des vignettes, véritable illustration narrative détaillée du récit qui se
déroule sous nos yeux. Certaines manchettes pourraient alors, à tour de rôle,
faire office de "sur-titre" à une vignette illustrant une tranche du texte narratif,
d' autres serviraient de complément moralisant au récit sélectionné. Et l'édition
d' Aneau s'approcherait alors d'un recueil d'emblèmes.

Car il est bien évident que, pour nous, le texte emblématique est aussi un
texte argumentatif à valeur hautement moralisante et qui a des affinités avec
les textes que nous venons d'étudier. Il est vrai qu'avec le temps la vignette a
fini par jouer un rôle important, mais il ne faut pas oublier que les premiers
emblèmes d' Alciat ne reposaient que sur du texte.^^ Après tout l'Image, même
si elle est importante, a très souvent comme objectif de renforcer un récit de
type rhétorique dont les éléments ne sont retenus que pour leur valeur
argumentative. Le "sur-titre," au-dessus de la vignette, joue le rôle de bien des
sous-titres dans les éditions françaises antérieures des Métamorphoses ou
encore de ce que nous avons appelé les vedettes-matières de VArchiloge
Sophie. Enfin la morale, que l'on tire du récit narré ou illustré, est une incitation
à imiter une conduite ou à s'en détourner.

Un exemple particulièrement éloquent est celui de l'interprétation du
mythe de Narcisse, dont on retrouve des lectures presque équivalentes, non
seulement dans les traductions des Métamorphoses, mais aussi dans
ï Imagination poétique^^ d' Aneau. Si l'on compare les textes, on remarque de
troublantes similitudes:

20 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Metamorphoses'^
(manchettes)

Imagination Poétique

Admiration amour et
estime de soi mesme

La Fonttaine du mircmr périlleux.

Amour de soy mesme.

Narcis ayant sa beauté veuè en l'eau:
FAUX guider, et Fut amoureux de soy, tant se vit beau.

oultrecuydance de soy. Et desprisant tous autres, nul n' ay ma

Fors que soy mesme, et en soy s'enflamma
Mescognoissanœ de soy D'ond peu à peu languissant, destre ainsi
mesme cause vaine Sans jouyssance aimant: devint transi.

CiOiRE. Tant qu'en perdant sentiment par stupeur

Fondit du tout: et ftit changé en fleur.
Stupeur et faulte de sens O jeunes gens, de là vous retirez.
jusque a la mort, par Et en telle eau jamais ne vous mirez.

Celle Fontaine est l'amour de soy mesme,

Où qui se mire: autre que soy il n'ayme.

De soy pourtant cognoissance n'ayant

Tant qu'à la fin en devient au néant.

amour de soy mesmes et
oultrecuydance.

Archiloge Sophie^

Orgueil

Narcisus desprisoit pour sa
beauté toutes pucelleset
nimphes, mais Echo
l'ensuivoit pour son amour
avoir, mais il la fuioit; et
finalement lassé, il but en la
fontaine, en la quelle, voiant
son ombre, fut si ravi de sa
beauté que il péri, et son
corps fut mué en fleur, et
son ame descendi en enfer.

Que les manchettes des Métamorphoses rejoignent le texte narré et le
commentaire de V Imagination. . ., rien que de très normal. Après tout Aneau
est l'auteur des deux textes et il utilise dans les deux cas la même vignette. Déjà
le rapprochement avec V Archiloge montre que la tradition allégorique a bonne
durée et que toute cette interprétation remonte à Bersuire. Rien d'étonnant que
l'on retrouve alors des échos de cette tradition dans l' Ovide moralisé en prose:

Car quant Narcisus fut aagé de vingt et ung ans, il devint tant orgueilleux,
fier et oultrecuidé pour sa beauté excellente qu'il ne daigna onques amer
autre personne que soy mesme.*^

De Narcisus devant nommé fut la bonne renommée si grande pour sa beauté,
mais il en fut si orgueilleux et fier qu'il en perdit fmablement sa vie et la
bonne grace du monde.*^

Mais long temps après il se vit et s'en orgueillit pour sa beaulté, dont mal luy
advint comme avez oy, et comme communément il avient aux orgueilleux
pour leur orgeuil, car il desprisa tout le monde en soy prisant trop chierement.
Et pour ce qu'il se vit et s'amusa follement au mirouer de la dite fontaine il
y fut pugny de son dit orgueil et en morut, et puis fut son corps mué en fleur.*^

Les textes de la Bible des poètes et du Grand Olympe reprennent également la
même thématique, soit par des modifications légères au texte d' Ovide, soit par des
ajouts.

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique / 21

Plusieurs dames et damoiselles laymerent par amour / mais si fier et si
orgueilleux estoit que nulles nen daigna aymer.*^

La se sceut amours de luy venger qui tant lavoit despite par son orgueil et par
son oultrecuidance.*^

Narcisus pour sa beaulte senorgueillit tellement quil luy sembloit que au
monde navoit son pareil. Il en hayt hommes et femmes et luymesmes trop
ayma et se trahyt par le miroir de la fontaine de ce monde ou tant mira sa
vaine beaulte que la mort luy vint [. . .].*^

Des exemples nombreux de concordance entre la lecture allégorique morale et
ce que Ton appelle la littérature emblématique de plusieurs mythes pourraient
être apportés en preuves de ce que l'on avance ici: la fable des Géants qui
exploite le thème que "Dieu résiste aux orgueilleux"; celle de Lycaon qui
tourne autour du thème de l'iniquité et du brigandage; celle de Mercure et
d'Argus qui suscite l'image du flatteur; celle de Phaéton qui permet de
développer, entre autres, soit le thème de l'orgueil ou celui de la responsabilité
patemelle^^ ou d'illustrer le proverbe suivant: "Moyen estât est le plus seur"^^
ou celui-ci: "Qui plus hault monte qu'il ne doibt, plus bas descend qu'il ne
vouldroit"^" et que l'on utilisera également pour allégoriser le mythe de
Dédale. Et l'on pourrait continuer à satiété.

On le voit donc, fondamentalement la lecture emblématique n'apporte
rien de plus que la lecture allégorique sur le plan de la moralisation, que le point
de départ soit la traduction appuyée d'un récit, par exemple celui d'Ovide, ou
que ce récit soit la création de l'emblématiste. Ainsi Aneau réutilise l'une des
interprétations du mythe du corbeau, la médisance, à propos d'une autre
vignette et d'un autre récit, celui d'oiseaux charognards se repaissant de la
chair de soldats tués au combat.^' Cet emblème intitulé "Les mesdisans après
la mort" s'achève comme suit:

TELZ noirs oyseaux, de malheureux destins,
Les ennemys dénotent clandestins.
Qui à la mort des gens vertueux bayent:
Affm que d'eux ja defunctz la robe ayent.
Et ceux lesquelz craignoient en leur vivant:
Apres la mort ilz les vont poursuy vant,
Par motz picquans de blame, et calomnie,
De mesdisance, injure, et villainie.
Et avant tout, leurs parolles premieres
Ostent d'honneur (s' ilz peuvent) les lumières.

22 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Et il n'est guère étonnant que dans ces deux types de discours, lorsqu'ils sont
de type argumentatif, Ton retrouve la sentence, sous la forme de proverbes très
répandus, soit qu'elle vienne renforcer Vexemplum dans l'allégorie, soit
qu'elle soit au cœur même du processus emblématique.^^ C'est que la sentence
tient de l'enthymème. Declercq,^^ Aristote à l'appui, la décrit comme un
"enthymème condensé" et qui "combine avec efficacité les trois composantes
de l'argumentation: la démonstration logique du syllogisme; la séduction
idéologique d'une proposition doxale; V attraction psychologique d'un énoncé
clair et généralisateur." Dans le cas où, bien sûr, quel que soit le type de
discours retenu (allégorique ou emblématique), le but soit de convaincre. Car
l'écriture emblématique déborde, elle aussi, du cadre restreint de l'allégorie
morale. Drysdall affirme avec raison: "Trompé peut-être par les préoccupations
morales et utilitaires d'Aneau et de Migneault, on a trop souvent décrit les
emblèmes d' Alciat comme s'ils étaient tous moralisants et de portée générale.
Si beaucoup le sont en effet, il faudrait cependant faire une plus large part aux
emblèmes personnels et occasionnels, à l'élément de plaisanterie et de satire,
de jeu et de topicalité."^"* Sans compter qu'un examen des autres oeuvres
emblématiques d'Aneau (Imagination et Decades) permettrait de constater
qu'il utilise les autres types de lectures, que celles-ci soient historique ou
physique. Mais alors on aurait quitté le discours de conviction pour un discours
explicatif, dont on pourrait également montrer les liens étroits qu'il entretient,
dans ses thèmes et dans sa facture, avec la facture et les thèmes de la littérature
allégorique traditionnelle.

Université Laval

Annexe I

Corrozet:

Ne nourrir les enfantz trop délicatement., f°. 01v° sq: "Le père qui trop l'enfant flate, /
Nourriture trop delicate, / Liberté, & sote doctrine, / Sont cause que l'enfant mal fine." Suit
la fable exemplum: "Du Singe & de ses enfans." Fable LXXXXVIII (f° 02r°): Tout ainsi
font les parentz imprudentz / Qui ayment trop leurs enfantz sans mesure, / Par tel amour
tumbent en accidentz, / Perdent l'esprit, & gastent leur nature: / Car leur baillant trop doulce
nourriture / Et les tenir trop chers & trop aymez, / Tumbent en mal dont ilz sont diffamez,
/ La vie est folle, & la fin est maulvaise, / Mais telz parentz doivent estre blasmez / Quand
telle fin procède de telle aise."^'

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique / 23

La Perrière:

EMBLEME XLVII "Le Père doibt chastier ses enfans quand il est temps," f° b6v°: "SI fort
le singe embrasse ses petiz/ Quen embrassant il leur livre la mort:/ Aulcuns pères on si sotz
appetiz / A leurs enfans, que grand malheur en sort:/ Par les chérir de foie amour trop fort/
Dissimuler, souffrir leur insolence,/ Advient que quand ilz sont sortis denfance/ Se font
punir de maulx incorrigibles./ Lors nest pas temps que Ion leur crye & tence/ Quand ilz sont
cheuz en accidens terribles."^

Habert:

Quand il escrit l'ignorance et abus
De Phaeton, enfant du dieu Phebus,
Qui de son père eut le gouvernement
Du chariot, pour un jour seulement
Et qu'il ne sceut le régir par mesure,
Dont il mourut par cruelle torture.
N'est ce pas le monstrer évidemment
Que pour aimer enfants trop doulcement
Et pour trop grande liberté leur permettre
On ne les peult en plus de danger mettre?^

Aneau (Decades):

Trop grand amour faict perdre les enfants (P B8v°).^*

Sabinus:

Praeter haec, duo sunt in hac fabula loci morales, obseruatione digni [...]. Alter docet, non
esse seruanda illa promissa, quae non sunt his ipsis utilia quibus promittuntur: cuius loci
et Cicero meminit lib. 3 Officiorum his uerbis: Sol Phaethonti se facturum esse dixit
quicquid optasset. Optauit ut in currum patris colleretur: sublatus est, atque insanus
antequam constitit, ictu fulminis conflagrauit. Quanto melius fuerat in hoc promissum
patris non esse seruatum (f° C7v°).^

Paradin:

"Caecus amor prolis" , p. 226: "[Pline] Le singe , naturellement ayme tant, & est tant fol
de ses petis, qu'en les embrassant & acolant, les estreint si fort, que souvent les opresse,
& tue. Et ainsi fait comme plusieurs pères, qui amignardent tant, & sont tant douillets, &
tendres pour leurs enfans, qu'en fin n'en font chose qui vaille."'""

Proverbia Gallicana:

P. 32 r°: "Père doulx & piteux fait ses enfans malheureux & paresseux. / Blanda patrum
segnes facit indulgentia natos."'"'

24 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Annexe II

Bible des poètes:

F° clr°B: "Et le tiers [conseil] quilz [princes] se tenissent au meillieu du chariot et au
meillieu de la voye / et ne déclinassent ne adextre ne a senestre ne aussi allassent trop hault
/ affin quilz ne despleussent a Dieu par leur orgueil ne trop bas affin que par pusalinimite
ne donnassent aulcune occasion de rompre de hayne a leurs subgectz."'*^

Beroalde de la Fœlicité humaine:

F° XXIIII r°: "Aussi (disent Platon au cinquiesme de la republique, & au tiers des loix
Hésiode) la moictié est plus utille & salubre que trop, & trop peu, qui sont tous deux
nuysibles & dommageable [sic]." Aussi, f. XL v°: "Horace dit que vertu est le meillieu des
vices réduit & séparé d'une part & d'aultre, c'est à dire n'estre trop hardy ne trop couart,
ne trop liberal, ne trop chiche ne trop soubdain ne trop lent, & ainsi des aultres, brief, c'est
garder le moyen & se gouverner moyennement en toutes choses & affaires. Ce que les bien
heureux tiennent & observent." [En manchette vis-à-vis le texte: Les bien heureux gardent
le moyen]. '^

Guéroult:

P. 63, emblème 25: "Enquerirne faut plus que le sens humain ne peut porter " : "Ne trop
ne peu: le moyen est louable. / Car souvent choit qui veut monter trop haut, / Pource
enquérir par vain savoir ne faut: / Les hauts secretz dont l'homme n'est capable."'^

Les vies . . . des 7 Sages de Grèce:

Les dictz de Pythacus, f. 36 v°: "Ne quid nimis. / Ne peu ne trop doit este ta mesure. / Prens
le moyen, qui plus longuement dure. / Il y a moyen en toutes choses, aux extremitez
desquelles ne consiste droit ny vertu. Peu et trop sont deux extremitez vitieuses: mais
moyen & vertu se tiennent toujours au mylieu. Ce qui a esté bien descrit souz la fable de
Phaethon, conducteur du Char du Soleil: auquel Phaethon fut commandé, que pour faire
seure conduite du char & des cheveaux il n'allast ne hault ne bas: ains cheminast par le
mylieu du ciel. Lequel commandement il n'observa, dont mal luy en print En tous nos
affaires suy vons le mylieu, qui fait les hommes bien heureux: & ne faisons rien dequoy on
puisse dire qu'il y ayt default, ou excès."'"*

Proverbia Gallicana:

P. 46 r°: "Vertu gist au milieu. / Virtus in medio constat honesta loco."*"

Claude de Seyssel:

P Ivii r°: ''Des enseignemens qui sont contenuz en ce livre I De toutes les bonnes choses
du monde/ le moyen est le meilleur/ bien vivre/ et moyenner ses despens."'"^

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique / 25

Annexe III

Proverbes:

P. 296: "Qui plus haut monte qu'il ne doit / De plus haut chiet qu'il ne voldroit."'"*

Corrozet — Hécatomgraphie:

"Le maulvais eslevé, & le bon humilié" , p. 33: Mais le maulvais de haut voler s'efforce,
/ Honneur prétend & grand authorité, é Par vaine gloire & par témérité, / En présumant plus
de soy grandement / que ne le comprend le sien entendement. / Il entreprend les choses
difficiles, é Qu'à son advis il trouve bien faciles, / Et se veult faire obeyr comme maistre
[. . .]." Et plus explicitement, "Faire tout par moyen." , p. 132-133: "Emblème: Qui trop
s 'exalte, trop se prise, I Qui trop s 'abaisse, il se desprise, I Mais celluy qui veult faire bien,
I II se gouverne par moyen. [. . .] Que si tu veulx à bon port arriver, / Il ne te fault vers le
ciel eslever. /[...] Mais si tu vas ne hault ne bas, adoncques / La voye est seure, & sans
danger quelzconques[. . .]."'**'

Corrozet — Fables d'Ésope:

"Ne se glorifier du bien d'aultruy." , f° E4v° sq. , voir surtout la finale de la fable "Du Geay
& des Paons" . Fable. XXIX.(E5r°): "Mais qui ensuyt ses hbertez/ Sans prudence & discret
conseil, / Et se faict aux plus grands pareil / Par son orgueil, souvent advient / Que pauvre
& souffreteux devient, / Car la raison ne permect point / Que qui plus hault qu'il ne doit
monte, / Soit long temps vivant en ce poinct / Sans qu'il recognoisse sa honte.""'*

La Perrière — Theatre des bons engins (s.d.):

Emblème xxiii "Par trop cuyder & espérer Ihomme est deceu" , f° a8v°: "Le sot Pescheur,
cuydant prendre une perche,/ Soubz ses fiUetz attrape ung Scorpion:/ Le sot joueur, royne
& roy matter cerche/ Qui pour tout metz nempoigne quung pion:/ Assez cuyda le vaillant
Scipiony Quand pour le Roy tua son serviteur./ Le cuyder faict souvent Ihomme menteur:/
Tel bas descend qui cuyde monter hault./ Somme, jamais Ihomme qui ayme honneury Ne
doibt cuyder par trop plus quil ne fault.""'

Aneau-Alciat:

"Icar filz de Dedal volant trop hault avec plumes colées de cire, laquelle fondue pour trop
approcher du soleil, ces aeles déplumées tomba en mer [. . .] car. Qui plus hault monte qu'il
ne doibt, / Plus bas descend qu'il ne vouldroit" (Comm. d' Aneau, p. 126)."^

Les vies . . . des 7 Sages de Grèce:

Les ditz des sages (suite des ditz des 7) f° 110 r°: "Les ditz des bons & sages notables /
Ramentevoir souvent sont profitables. /[. . .] Qui trop hault monte tresbas chet bien
souvent."'"

26 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Proverbia Gallicana:

F°. 39 r°: "Qui plus hault monte qu'il ne doibt, / De plus haut chet qu'il ne vouldroit.""*

Proverbes anciens flamengs et François:

P. 55: "Qui plus haut monte, qu'il ne doibt, de plus haut chet, qu'il ne vouidroit." Et, p. 1 36:
"Qui plus haut monte qu'il ne doibt, plus bas descend qu'il ne voudroit.""'

Notes

1. Jacques Legrand, Archiloge Sophie et Livre des Bonnes Meurs, édition critique avec
introduction, notes et index par Evencio Beltran, (Paris, Honoré Champion 1986).

2. Ibid., p. 58 sqq. En fait, Legrand ne traitera que de quatre arts: grammaire, dialectique,
rhétorique et mathématique.

3. Ibid., p. 156.

4. Ibid., p. 156 sqq.

5. Ibid., p. 157.

6. Ibid., p. in.

7. La Bible des poètes de metamorphoze (Paris, Antoine Vérard, 1493).

8. Le grand Olympe des histoires poétiques du prince de poésie Ovide Naso en sa Metamor-
phose, (Lyon, Denys de Harsy pour Romain Morin, 1532).

9. En 1509, 1511, 1515 et 1521.

1 0. Voir à ce sujet: Pierre Maréchaux, "Le Poème et ses marges. Herméneutique, Rhétorique
et Didactique dans les commentaires des Métamorphoses d'Ovide de la fin du Moyen- Age
à l'aube de l'époque classique," Thèse de doctorat d'état, Paris IV Sorbonne, Collège de
France, 1993, p. 50. AnnMoss, Ovid in Renaissance France: A Survey of the Latin Editions
of Ovid Printed in France before 1600 (Londres, The Warburg Institute, 1982) p. 25 sq.

11. 1509,PAiv°.

12. Poirion, Daniel, "L'Épanouissement d'un Style: Le gothique littéraire à la fin du Moyen
Age" dans la Littérature française aux XlVe et XVe siècles, Heidelberg, 1988, p. 37:
"Jacques Legrand fournit lui-même un modèle ou plutôt un système de l'ornement,
découpant les Métamorphoses d'Ovide en exemples moraux; suit un compendium
d'exemples bibliques, les hystoires plus essenciales de la bible pour dicter selon les propos
qui conviennent. C'est ce qu'il appelle Y allegacion, c'est-à-dire la citation d'un exemple."

13. L 'Art d'Argumenter. Structures rhétoriques et littéraires (Paris, Éditions Universitaires,
1992) p. 108.

14. Ibid., p. 107.

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique / 27

1 5. Rhétorique, texte établi et traduit par Médéric Dufour et André Wartelle, annoté par André
Wartelle (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1973) t. 3, 1418 a.

1 6. Institution oratoire, texte traduit et établi par Jean Cousin (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1 976)
V, xi, 6.

17. Dans Bernardus loannes Baptistae, Thesaurus rhetoricae in quoi insunt omnes
praeceptionnes. . . (Venetiis, apud haeredes Melchioris Sessae, 1599).

18. Rhétorique, m, X,H\Sa.

19. L'Art d'argumenter. . ., p. 108.

20. Ibid.

21. L'Art d'argumenter. . ., p. 110.

22. Institution. . ., V, xi, 6-7.

23. Institution. . ., V, xi, 17.

24. Ovide Moralisé. Poème du commencement du quatorzième siècle, publié par C. de Boer
(Amsterdam, Hans R. Wohlwend, 1984, réimpression du texte de 1915).

25. Ibid.,t.l,\.l'l.

26. Ovide Moralisé en prose. Texte du quinzième siècle, édition critique par C. de
Boer,(Amsterdam, North Holland Publishing Compagny, 1954).

27. Ibid., p. 43.

28. Édition de 1 53 1 , Paris, Phihppe Le Noir, P a ii r°.

29. Édition de 1539, Paris, Amoul Langellier, livre VI, T i v**.

30. P. 30.

31. LB93C.

32. P. Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphoseos libri quindecim, cum commentariis Raphaelis Regiis
(Paris, Basilae per Joan, Hervagium, MDXLIII).

33. François Habert, Six livres de la Metamorphose, Paris, 1549, p. 7.

34. Selon les auteurs, les fables recouvrent quatre ou trois lectures possibles.

35. P. 15 sq.

36. N'est-ce-pas le rôle qu'avait la narratio en rhétorique? Quintilien la définit ainsi: "La
narration: l'exposition persuasive d'une chose faite ou prétendue faite ("Narratio est rei
factae utilis ad persuadendum expositio" Institution. . ., IV, ii, 31)." Traduction de Jean
Cousin dans Études sur Quintilien. Contribution à la recherche des sources de l 'institution
oratoire (Amsterdam, P. Schippers, 1967), p. 232 [réimpression de l'édition Boivin & Cie
Éditeurs, Paris, 1935].

37. P. 161.

28 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

38. Pxxviir".

39. P. 160.

40. F°xxxiiiv°.

41. P. 160.

42. Pxxiiiir°.

43. Notion du "prouffi table" des fictions traduites. Voir à ce sujet le prologue du livre VI du
Grand Olympe cité précédemment.

44. Cette traduction nous est livrée sans allégories hors-texte.

45. Traduction établie par Georges Lafaye, Les Métamorphoses d'Ovide (Paris, Les Belles
Lettres, 1966) p. 55. Traduction des vers 540-541: "Lingua fuit damno; lingua faciente
loquaci, / Qui color albus erat nunc est contrarius albo."

46. /^iW., traduction des vers 546-547: "[. . .] non exorabilis index/ Ad dominumtendebat iter.**

47. Ibid. , p. 56, traduction des vers 564-565 : "Mea poena volucres / Admonuisse potest ne voce
pericula quaerant."

48. Voir par exemple le traitement réservé au mythe de Phaéthon. L'écart entre texte latin et
l'interprétation données par les textes traduits est particulièrement sensible dans l'épitaphe
qui clôt la fable. Alors qu'Ovide signale l'ambition et la louable témérité de Phaéthon, les
traducteurs des éditions moralisées ne retiennent dans cet épitaphe que le "fol orgueil" du
fils de Phébus. . .

49. Ovide Moralisé en prose, t. 1, p. 93. Nous soulignons.

50. Édition de 1531, livre II, Pxviv°.

51. Ibid., f°x\i\°.

52. Ibid.,f°x\UT\

53. Édition de 1539, livre II, f° XXX r°.

54. P. 93. Nous soulignons.

55. Nous pouvons ici signaler que, dans les traductions moralisées, l'on retrouve le terme
"cheùt" dans chaque récit de métamorphose que l'on associe à un grave déht. Voir à ce sujet
l'exemple de Phaéthon, celui d'Icare, de Narcisse, etc.

56. P. 93.

57. P. 95.

58. Le corbeau "se attendoit quelque grant prouffit."

59. Bible des poètes, f° xvi \° et Grand Olympe, f° xxx v°.

60. Ibid.

61. Ibid.

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique / 29

62. Ibid.

63. Bible des poètes, f° xvii r° et Grand Olympe, f° xxxii r°.

64. Ibid. De même, au livre IV, l'association de la couleur noire et de la douleur sera reprise
dans le mythe de Pyrasme et Thisbé et au sixième livre (mythe de Progné et de Philomèle),
le corbeau sera associé à d'autres oiseaux en "sigifiance de dueil et de tristesse."

65. Allégories aux p. 95-96.

66. P. 96.

67. Allégorie au f° xvii r° et xvii v°.

68. Prologue du livre VI, II, f° i v°.

69. Trois premiers livres de la Metamorphose d'Ovide (Lyon, Rouillé, 1556).

70. Ibid., p. 159.

71. Id.

72. Ibid.,p. 150.

73. Ibid.,p. \51.

74. Ibid., p. 22%.

75. P. 165.

76. Françoise Bardon, "Les Métamorphoses d'Ovide et l'expression emblématique," dans
Latomus, Revue d'études latines XXXV, (1976), p. 88.

77. Marie-Luce Demonet, Voix du signe: nature et origine du langage à la Renaissance (1480-
1580) (Paris, Champion, 1992), qui affirme (p. 397), Balavoine et Saunders à l'appui, que
"l'emblème est [. . .] d' abord une épigramme, que les succès d'éditions ont fait accompagner
d'illustrations" (p. 397).

78. Imagination poétique, traduicte en vers François des Latins, et Grecz, par l 'auteur mesme
d'iceux (Lyon, Bonhomme, 1552).

79. P.231sqq.

80. P. 66.

81. P. 165.

82. P. 122.

83. P. 123.

84. P. 125.

85. La Bible. . ., fo xxviii r° et le Grand Olympe, f° xlviii r°.

86. La Bible. . ., f° xxix r° et le Grand Olympe, f° xlix v°.

87. La Bible. . .. livre III, P xxx r°.

30 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

88. Voir à ce sujet l'annexe I.

89. Manchette de la p. 109 dans Aneau, voir annexe II.

90. Manchette de la p. 126 dans Aneau, voir annexe III.

91. Imagination..., p. 7 \ sq.

92. Voir les annexes I, II, III.

93. P. 104. Nous soulignons.

94. Denis L. Drysdall, "Alciat et l'emblème," dans Le Modèle à la Renaissance, études réunies
et présentées par C. Balavoine, J. Lafond, P. Laurens (Paris, Vrin, 1986), p. 178.

95. Gilles Corrozet, Les Fables du tresancien Esope Phrigien premièrement escriptes en
Graec, & depuis mises en Rithme Françoise (Paris, Denys Janot, 1542).

96. Guillaume La Perrière, Le Theatre des bons engins, auquel sont contenus cent Emblèmes
moraulx (Lyon, Jean de Tournes, 1545).

97. François Habert, Six livres de la Metamorphose, Paris, 1549, P a iii v°-a iiii r**.

98. Barthélémy Aneau, Decades de la description, forme, et vertu naturelle des animaulx, tant
raisonnables, que brutz (Lyon, Balthazar Amoullet, 1549).

99. Georgius Sabinus, Fabularum Ovidii interpretatio tradita in Academia Regiomontana
(Witebergae, ex officina haeredum G. Rhaw, 1555).

100. Claude Paradin, Devises héroïques (Lyon, Jean de Tournes et Guil. Gazeau, 1557).

101 . Proverbia gallicana secundum ordinemAlphabetireposita, &abIoarmeAEgidioNuceriensi
Latinis versiculis traducta, correcta & aucta par H. Sussannœum., Secunda aedition,
prima longé castigatior. Parisiis, Apud Haeredes Mauricij à Porta, in clauso Brunello, ad
D. Claudij insigne, 1558.

102. La Bible des Poètes de Ovide Methamorphose. Translatée de latin enfrancoys. Nouvellement
(Paris, Philippe le Noir, 1531).

1 03 . Beroalde de la Fœlicité humaine, traduict de Latin en Françoys [par Calvy de la Fontaine]
(Paris, Denys Janot, 1543).

104. Guillaume Guéroult, Le Premier livre des emblèmes (Lyon, Balthazar Amoullet, 1550).

105. Les Vies et motz dorez des sept sages de Grèce: Ensemble le Miroerde Prudence. Le tout
mis en Françoys, avec une brieve, & familière exposition sur chacune autorité & sentence.
(Paris, Estienne Groulleau, 1554).

106. Proverbia gallicana. . ., 1558.

107. Claude de Seyssel, Senecque des motz Dorez des quatre vertus Cardinalles de latin
translate enfrancoys reveu et corrige nouvellement oultre les précédentes impressions,
(Paris, Denis Janot, s.d.).

108. Schulze-Busacker, Elisabeth, Proverbes et expressions proverbiales dans la littérature
narrative du Moyen Age français (Genève, Slatkine, 1988).

J.-C. Moisan et S. Vervacke / Lecture allégorique et lecture emblématique / 31

109. Gilles Corrozet, Hécatomgraphie (Paris, Denys Janot, 1540).

110. Gilles Corrozet, Les Fables du tresancien Esope. . ., 1542.

111. Guillaume La Perrière, le Theatre des bons engins. . ., 1545.

112. Emblèmes d'Alciat, de nouveau Translatez en François vers pour vers jouxte les Latins.
Ordonnez en lieux communs, avec briefves expositions, et Figures nouvelles appropriées
aux derniers Emblèmes, traduction et commentaire de Barthélémy Aneau (Lyon, Rouillé,
1549).

113. Les Vies et motz dorez des sept sages de Grèce. . ., 1554.

114. Proverbia gallicana. . ., 1558.

115. Proverbes anciens flamengs &françois correspondants de sentence les uns aux autres,
(Anvers, Plantin, 1568).

A New Set of Spectacles:
The Assembly 's Annotations,

1645-1657

DEAN GEORGE
LAMPROS

Summary: With the collapse of press censorship that followed the impeach-
ment of William Laud in the Fall of 1640, a group of London printers took
advantage of their new-found freedom and encouraged the House of Commons
to convene an assembly of divines whose sole task was to revise the notes
located within the margins of the Geneva Bible. The new annotations, it was
agreed, were to be affixed to the margins of the Authorized Version, which
would subsequently be sold as an annotated Bible. London 's newly liberated
presses, however, produced a flood of Bibles, and the price of Bibles naturally
fell. Such market conditions meant that an annotated Bible, more costly to
produce, would be rendered unmarketable. Fortuitously, the men assembled
to compose the new annotations came up with a set far too lengthy to be
confined to the margins of the Authorized Version. The resulting commentary,
which was published in 1645 as a separate volume, proved to be a marketable
alternative.

When the Authorized Version of the Bible made its debut in 161 1, the
reading public's reaction to the new translation was hardly a positive
one. Its margins contained no textual commentary, the very feature that had
made the Geneva Bible the popular favorite in England for three-quarters of
a century. The vast majority of England's literate persons, it seems, preferred
an annotated Bible over a Bible with bare margins. As a result, during the reign
of James I and for most of his son's reign, the Geneva Bible held its own against
what was a newer and, arguably, a better translation. Long after its printing was
banned in 1616, it remained the Bible used in most English-speaking house-

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 4 ( 1 995) /33

34 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

holds. The King and many of the bishops, on the other hand, viewed the Geneva
Bible and its anti-authoritarian marginal notes with a great deal of suspicion.

When during the primacy of William Laud numerous obstacles were
placed in the way of procuring a new copy of the Geneva Bible, its distribution
quite naturally began to wane. Laud's impeachment in the fall of 1640,
however, was immediately followed by the collapse of press censorship. One
might expect that under the auspices of a free press, the Geneva Bible would
have experienced something of a revival. It did not. Such a revival was
impossible, moreover, because English printers chose not to reissue the
esteemed text from their presses. Considering how in the fall of 1640,
conditions seemed ripe for its resurgence, it is indeed difficult to understand
why the Geneva Bible was not immediately reprinted in England. My purpose,
therefore, is to attempt to explain why this should have happened.

In November 1640, faced with a financial crisis and a Scottish uprising,
Charles I summoned the parliament that would eventually topple him from his
throne. Having been hastily dismissed eleven years earlier for its progressive,
reform-minded politics, parliament was determined to take full advantage of
the King' s political and financial weakness and force him to accept the changes
he had at one time possessed the power to resist. One of the new parliament's
first acts was to put an end to the censorship which had banned many of
England' s best loved books. ^ Few books were cherished more than the Geneva
Bible. In 1640, moreover, almost an entire generation had passed since the
Geneva Bible had been printed in England.

The work of exiled EngUsh Protestants residing in Geneva during the bloody
reign of Mary Tudor (1553-1558), the Geneva Bible made its debut in 1560 and
was an immediate success. It owed its appeal to the clarity of its prose, the
conditions under which it was produced, and the men who produced it. By far its
most important asset, however, was its marginal commentary "upon all the hard
places." We can quite reasonably attribute the Geneva Bible's immense popular-
ity to its exegetical notes, which were, in John Eadie's assessment, "lucid,
dogmatic, and practical, presenting such aspects of truth and duty as were then all
but universally prized."^ For almost a century the Geneva Bible remained the
preferred household Bible for English-speaking Protestants.^ The Bishops' Bible
( 1 568) offered little competition, and even the Authorized Version of 1 6 1 1 did not
immediately supplant the Geneva Bible as the most popular text. Between 1575
and 1616 successive editions of the Geneva Bible were introduced yearly. More
than 60 editions of the Geneva Bible appeared after 1611 alone. In that very year,
in fact, it was issued in folio by the King's printer.

Dean George Lampros / A New Set of Spectacles / 35

Although the vast majority of the literate public found in the Geneva
Bible's marginalia an edifying and valuable scriptural "aid," its notes were not
loved by all. They raised more than a few eyebrows among the bishops. James
I despised them because of what he perceived to be their seditious content. The
King made no secret of his hostility toward the Geneva Bible when at the
Hampton Court Conference in 1604 he declared, "I profess I could never yet
see a Bible well translated in English; but I think that, of all, that of Geneva is
the worst." His orders for the Authorized Version mandated that

no marginal notes should be added, having found in them which are annexed
to the Geneva translation (which he saw in a Bible given him be an English
Lady) some notes very partial, untrue, seditious, and savoring too much of
dangerous, and traiterous conceits. As for example. Exodus 1.19, where the
marginal note alloweth disobedience to Kings. And 2 Chronicles 15.16, the
note taxeth Asa for deposing his mother, only, and not killing her.

In his opposition to exegetical tools, James was adamant. The sixth of his
fifteen rules "to be observed in the translation of the Bible" mandated that "no
marginal notes at all. . . be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew
and Greek words." As a result, the Authorized Version contained no textual
commentary. The reading public, however, had grown accustomed to having
at their disposal scriptural aids for both private study and devotions and
therefore continued to use the Geneva Bible at home. Still, the controversiality
of its notes had won the Geneva Bible many enemies, some of whom occupied
powerful positions. Backed by a King ever anxious to counter the Geneva
Bible's influence, William Laud eventually succeeded in his attempt to
prevent its printing in England. In 1616 the Geneva Bible was added to a
growing list of banned books, after which it had to be imported from Holland.
By 1630 even its importation had been forbidden. The demand for the Geneva
Bible was so great, however, that booksellers risked harsh penalties by
smuggling copies into England."* Dutch printers cooperated by assigning a
false date of 1599 to the title page, so it would appear as though the smuggled
copies had been produced in England prior to the ban.

With the collapse of press censorship in November 1 640 and the "printing
explosion"^ that followed, many literate persons in England undoubtedly
expected that the Geneva Bible would once again be printed on English soil.
While it is clear that having to smuggle copies of the Geneva Bible over from
Amsterdam had to some extent impeded its circulation, it is equally clear that
the inconvenience incurred had done nothing to diminish the Geneva Bible's
immense popularity, especially among dissenters. The fact that a copy of the

36 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Geneva Bible was such a difficult item to obtain had probably boosted its
popularity.^ In 1 640, to be sure, popular demand for scriptural aids was greater
than ever. For the first time in almost a quarter of a century, English printers
were free to issue fresh copies of the Geneva Bible to meet the ever-present
demand for the esteemed text. Oddly enough, they did not. In fact, the Geneva
Bible was never again printed in England.

Why, with the presses freed and the monopoly of Bible-printing at an end,^
did London stationers choose not to reprint the Geneva Bible? Presumably,
copies were still being imported from Holland, but it is difficult to understand
why the Geneva Bible would continue to be imported when it could much more
easily have been produced at home. After 1644, moreover, copies could no
longer be imported from the Continent because it had ceased being printed
there as well. Prima facie, the decision of English printers not to reissue a
known bestseller such as the Geneva Bible appears to have been a foolish one.
That the Geneva Bible was no longer printed anywhere after 1644 might
suggest that by mid-century the demand for scriptural aids had subsided.
English printers, however, felt that this was not the case at all.

By 1640 when demand for the Geneva Bible was ostensibly at its highest
point ever, a group of London printers was at that moment petitioning the
House of Commons for the license to have exegetical notes added to the
margins of the Authorized Version. Initially, the printers had contemplated
simply attaching the old Geneva notes to the Authorized Version. Later it was
decided that it would be better if the Geneva notes were revised first. The
license was granted, and a committee of divines was convened by the House
of Commons. Despite the public's unfavorable reaction to the Authorized
Version, it had for more than 30 years resisted the imposition of a commentary
upon its margins. Finally, when the nation was on the brink of civil war, the
presses had been freed from the pressures of Laudianism, and Charles I was no
longer in a position to regulate their output,

hence were diverse of the stationers and printers of London induced to
petition the Committee of the Honorable House of Commons, for license to
print the Geneva notes upon the Bible, or that some notes might be fitted to
the new translation: which was accordingly granted, with an order for review
and correction of those of the Geneva edition, by leaving out such of them
as there was cause to dislike, by clearing those that were doubtful, and by
[revising] those as were defective. . . For which purpose letters were directed
to [the divines] from the Chair of the Committee for Religion, and personal
invitations to others, to undertake and divide the task.*

Dean George Lampros / A New Set of Spectacles / 37

The divines soon discovered, however, that the margins of the text were
too confining, and it was agreed that the new annotations should constitute a
separate volume. What began, in other words, as a project to revise the Geneva
notes in order that they might be updated and made to match the text of the
Authorized Version ended up as a commentary so lengthy and so detailed that
it could no longer be confined to the margins of the text.

In 1645 England witnessed the premier appearance of a Bible commen-
tary that was designed to be purchased separately as a companion to the
Authorized Version. The Annotations Upon all the Books of the Old and New
Testament, or the Assembly's Annotations, were originally contained in one
volume. Successive editions were enlarged to make up two volumes, pub-
lished in 1654 and again in 1657. Thus, the literate public's demand for
exegetical tools did not abate, but rather was satisfied by the emergence of a
completely new set of annotations expected to take the place of the old Geneva
notes.

Thus, by choosing not to reprint the Geneva Bible, London stationers were
not ignoring consumer demand. They simply recognized that there were many
different ways of satisfying that demand. Having considered their options they
chose what they believed would best satisfy the reading public's demand for
scriptural aids. Ultimately, their decision not to reprint the Geneva Bible, but
rather to petition for a license to affix a commentary to the margins of the
Authorized Version reflects their resourcefulness as well as their own peculiar
assessment of market conditions.

"The people," the Preface to the Assembly's Annotations explained,
"complained that they could not see into the sense of Scripture, so well as
formerly they did by the Geneva Bible, because their spectacles of annotations
were not fitted to the understanding of the new text, nor any other supplied in
their stead."^ The absence of exegetical notes was, according to the divines, the
principal flaw that the reading public had found in the Authorized Version.
Surely, the printers also understood this. As with James F s hostile reaction to
the Geneva Bible, in which "it was not so much the translation as the
accessories that he objected to,"'° the reading public's unenthusiastic response
to the Authorized Version was, the printers and divines realized, not so much
a criticism of the translation itself as it was a criticism of its lack of accessories.
In most other respects the Authorized Version was regarded as the work of
good, qualified scholars, some of whom were good Puritans as well.'' It was
not so unpopular as to be unmarketable. On the contrary, with some important
modifications, not to the text itself but to its margins, the Authorized Version

38 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

could, the printers believed, satisfy the reading public, just as the Geneva Bible
had once done. In other words, their petition to have notes fitted to the
Authorized Version, instead of relying upon a proven bestseller, demonstrates
their confidence in the Authorized Version's marketability.

Furthermore, by petitioning to have annotations added to the margins of
the Authorized Version, the printers were, in fact, taking part in a century-long
debate between the reading public, on one side, and the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities, on the other, over the role of scriptural aids and exegetical tools.
While they had virtually no say as to which translation was used in the pulpit,
the vast majority of literate persons had shown their preference for an
annotated Bible. Time and again, they chose for themselves and for their
households a Bible equipped with explanatory notes to guide them through the
text. The authorities, on the other hand, for reasons of their own, sought by
various measures to deprive the reading public of scriptural aids. The Geneva
Bible, as we have seen, was vigorously opposed by the King and many
members of the higher clergy. Furthermore, the King refused to permit any sort
of exegetical tool in the translations he sanctioned.

Without notes the church's official translation never became the popular
favorite. As early as 1539 when the Great Bible became the church's first
official "vernacular" Bible, a significant portion of the reading public pre-
ferred the annotated Mâtth&v/ Bible (1537) for home use. Similarly, when the
church adopted the Bishops' Bible as its official translation in 1568, the
Geneva Bible had already established itself as the household Bible of choice.
Although the Authorized Version became the church's official translation in
1611, it was not widely used in the home until after the middle of the
seventeenth century. The reading public had become accustomed to scriptural
aids, and no translation could ever be expected to achieve widespread circu-
lation as a book for the home unless accompanied by a commentary of some
sort. Opting for annotations affixed to the church's official translation would
rectify the problematic situation of having for public use a different Bible than
the one used privately by a majority of the reading public at home. Here was
a chance for the printers to promote national unity by fostering a situation in
which the Bible of the church and the household Bible of the people were one
and the same.

With the license to revise the Geneva notes granted, the assembled divines
were faced with the issue of how best to perform the task set before them.
"First," they explained.

Dean George Lampros / A New Set of Spectacles / 39

as we had no thoughts of such a service, until by Authority we were called
unto it, so since we have accepted of it, we have thought of nothing so much,
as how we might discharge it, with best advantage to the glory of God, and
the instruction of his people, and therefore we have put ourselves to much
more pains (for many months) in consulting with many more authors, in
several languages, then at first we thought of, that ... we might bring in such
observations, as might not only serve to edify the ordinary reader, but might
likewise gratify our brethren of the ministry, at least such among them, as
have not the means to purchase, or leisure to peruse so many books as (by
order of the Committee) we were furnished withall, for the finishing of the
work committed to our hands. '^

As they endeavored to shed light upon the Scriptures, the divines considered
both what the people wanted as well as what was the people needed for their
spiritual nourishment. Their goal, we must remember, was not simply to cater to
public opinion, but to offer at the same time a truly edifying exegetical companion
to the Bible. Ultimately, their work was simplified because that is exactly what the
people had demanded from the beginning. Thus, the only way to fulfill their
commission and satisfy popular demand was to provide a commentary that was
faithful to the hallowed truths of the Calvinistic Reformation.

The Assembly 's Annotations arose under the auspices of the Long Parlia-
ment (1640-1653), which later authorized the composition of such master-
pieces as the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) and Catechisms (1648).
In fact, of the eight learned divines who labored to produce the annotations, at
least six — William Gouge, Thomas Gattaker, John Ley, Francis Taylor,
Daniel Featly, and one Mr. Reading — later served on the Westminster
Assembly. The annotations, as a result, were the product of some of the best
Reformed minds in England, as their content well attests.

The Calvinistic tone of the notes is unmistakable. They set forth, as did the
Geneva notes before them, the Reformed doctrines of human depravity, free
grace, and unconditional election.

All whom [God] elected shall believe in Christ and obey the Gospel (John
7.37).

God by his election framed a new body out of mankind in opposition to the
first, whose head was Adam, in whom they all did sin and die, and ordained
Christ to be their head, that in him, all might be gathered and made partakers
of him by his grace, life and glory; so also hath he accomplished this counsel
of his in time, dispensing all his graces unto his chosen by Christ in his sacred
communion. . . . Election or choice here is taken for the eternal decree of

40 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

election, which is of certain men in time drawn out of the common lump of
corrupt mankind (Ephesians 1 .4).

Christ is the meritorious, grace the efficient and faith the instrumental cause
of our justification and salvation: grace and faith stand one with another, to
which these two are [both] contrary to [being] saved by ourselves and our
works. And because it might be objected that faith is our work, and
consequently that if we are justified by faith we are justified by works, the
Apostle immediately addeth that though this faith be in us, yet it is not of us;
that is, not from the power of nature, but that it is merely the gift of God
(Ephesians 2.8).

We are God's workmanship, both in respect to our first creation and in
respect of our regeneration, which is a second creation: ... for he speaketh
not of us as we were by nature, but as new creatures in Christ by grace
(Ephesians 2.10).

On the subject of foreknowledge, the divines explained that "those whom God
foreknew" in Romans 8.29 refers to "those whom [God] marked out as it were
out of all other men in the world, and set his affection upon." Foreknowledge,
they argued, is actually synonymous with "preordination, or foreappointment"
(I Peter 1 .2). Moreover, the "election of grace" in Romans 1 1 .5, they posited,
refers to the act "not whereby men choose grace, but whereby God chooseth
us of his grace and goodness."

The new annotations were in many ways reminiscent of the old Geneva, notes
in both their content and, at times, their wording. In some instances, the divines
had chosen to quote Lawrence Tomson's notes on the New Testament verbatim:

God is most free, and cannot be taxed with injustice, though he cast brighter
beams of his favor upon one than another; for although he chose and
predestined to salvation them that are not yet bom, without any respect of
worthiness; yet he bringeth not the chosen to their appointed end, but by the
means of his mercy, which is a cause next under predestination: Now mercy
presupposes misery, and misery, sin, and a voluntary corruption of mankind,
and this corruption presupposeth a pure and perfect creation. Moreover,
mercy is shown by degrees, to wit, by calling by faith to justification and
sanctification, so that at length we come to glorification. Now all these
things ordinarily following the purpose of God, do clearly prove, that he can
by no means seem unjust in loving and saving his (Romans 9.15).

God did not choose us because we were, or otherwise would have been holy;
but to the end that we should be holy, being clothed with Christ' s righteousness
through faith (Ephesians 1 .4).

Dean George Lampros / A New Set of Spectacles / 41

Since the annotations were originally intended to be contained within the
margins of the Authorized Version, it was expected that they would be quite brief.
In the end, the laboring divines deemed this to be a burdensome and unnecessary
requirement and they decided that the annotations should be more substantial than
the Geneva notes. As they explained in the Preface to the 1645 edition:

Though we hold the Geneva annotations to be in the main points of religion,
sound and orthodox in doctrine, and guilty of no error, . . . (and taking them
for such as for those times wherein they were made, were very worthy of
praise for their profitable use, for then they were the best that were extant in
English) we conceive for ourselves, that we shall better discharge the trust
reposed in us, and do more answerably to the intention of those who set us
on work, and better satisfy the expectation of such others as set observant
eyes upon our assiduous and sociable pursuance of the service imposed on
us, if (being as repairers of buildings to rip into an old house) we rather took
it quite down, and built a new one, [rather] than patched it up, with here and
there a new piece of our own putting in, which would not be decently suitable
to the other parts, nor any way answerable, either in measure or manner of
structure, to such a model . . . some apprehensive men have already
prefigured to our performance.'^

The Preface to the third edition (1657) reveals more still:

These Annotations were at first intended, as those before in the Geneva
Version, for marginal notes only affixed to the text. To which purpose, in the
directions then delivered unto us, it was required that they should be much
of the same size with them. . . Our endeavor was to be as brief and concise
as well we might, and we were therefore constrained ... to let pass many
things not unworthy otherwise of due observation and large discussion, that
our notes, having only a narrow by-place assigned them on the outside of the
leaf, might not in undue and undecent manner so enlarge their quarter, as to
encroach beyond just proportion upon the spaces that were to be reserved for
the text. Hence it came to pass, when the work came abroad, that diverse
notes seemed not so full nor so clear, . . . while "endeavor and brevity bred,"
as usual, "some obscurity": and much was missed by many, . . . which well
might, and would have been the greatest part of it inserted, had the lists and
limits prescribed us afforded room with any fitness to receive it. . .
Afterwards upon some second thoughts and further consideration, it seemed
good unto those, who had put us upon this work, to alter their course at first
propounded and to publish the Annotations apart by themselves; the grounds
of that former limitation and confinement both of us and them being now
removed; some of those, who having gone far beyond the bounds formerly
fixed, had by mutual advice and agreement resolved to abridge, were then
requested to lay that labor aside, and to let their parts go entire as they were.'*

42 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

The resulting notes were far more comprehensive than even those attached to
later editions of the Geneva Bible. '^ No longer confined to the margins, the new
commentary was naturally able to cover more of the Scriptures. More detailed,
however, could also mean more cumbersome, and the divines hoped that the
new annotations would achieve widespread circulation.

Ultimately, as the divines sought to create a scriptural aid that would both
edify and satisfy the reading public, they identified even more options than the
printers. The printers were confident that an annotated Authorized Version
could satisfy popular demand for scriptural aids. Still, they were at first
convinced that an annotated Bible was their only option. The divines, on the
other hand, seem to have felt that an annotated Bible was not the only
acceptable or marketable alternative. Moreover, the quality of their annota-
tions eventually convinced the printers that the reading public would accept a
parallel commentary in lieu of a marginal commentary.

One might argue, of course, that the divines were more concerned with the
glory of God and the edification of the saints than they were with marketability.
Ultimately, however, the decision to issue the new annotations as a separate
volume was a wise one from a marketing point of view. In truth, the annotations
were more marketable as a separate volume. Great as the demand for exegeti-
cal tools was, an annotated Bible, more expensive because it was naturally
more costly to produce, could not be expected to compete with the numerous
cheap Bibles that flooded the market in 1640 once the monopoly of Bible-
printing ended. '^ Annotated Bibles, however popular, would inevitably be
priced out of the market. ^^ A separate commentary, on the other hand, could be
expected to do quite well. While "unofficial guides to interpretation of the
Bible, Biblical dictionaries and concordances, versifications of Scripture,
were published in significant numbers,"'^ a concise yet scholarly Bible
commentary (printed in English), such as the Assembly's Annotations, at the
time of its initial appearance was one of a kind.

Not surprisingly, the Assembly's Annotations were received with enthu-
siasm as soon as they appeared. The Preface to Matthew VooXq' s Annotations
on the Holy Bible (1685) testifies to their popularity. "About the year 1640,"
the writer tells us,

some deliberations were taken for the composing and printing other English
notes (the old Geneva notes not so well fitting our new and more correct
translation of the Bible). These were at first intended to be so short, that they
might be printed together with our Bibles in folio or quarto. But those divines
who were engaged in it found this would not answer their end; it being not

Dean George Lampros / A New Set of Spectacles / 43

possible by so short notes to give people any tolerable light into the whole
text; yet they so contracted their work, that it was all dispatched in one
volume; which though it were at first greedily bought up, yet we cannot say
it gave so general a satisfaction (by reason of the shortness of it) as was
desired and expected. So as upon the second edition it came forth quite a new
thing, making two just volumes. This was so acceptable to the world, that
within sixteen years ^^ it was ready for a third edition, with some further
enlargements.^^

Several things are revealed here. First of all, we are told that the reading public
readily accepted the new notes despite the fact that they did not appear as
marginalia. In fact, it would be safe to say that the notes succeeded precisely
because they were not confined to the margins. The laboring divines seem to
have realized that literate English Protestants were hungry for an exegesis of
the Scriptures both more detailed and more comprehensive than marginal
notes could provide. The notes' marketability, in other words, was not at all
compromised by the fact that they had to be purchased as a separate volume.
On the contrary, the notes sold quickly, we are told. Within less than a decade,
moreover, the reading public was ready for an expanded version of the notes,
which was issued as two volumes in 1654. The second edition was so
successful that only three years later in 1 657 the notes were once again updated
and enlarged.

Clearly, it was their lengthiness that had rendered the later editions of the
notes even more popular than the first edition. So comprehensive, in fact, was
the third edition that it was marketed as "an entire Commentary on the Sacred
Scripture: The like never before published in English." While neither the
Geneva notes nor the first two editions of the new notes had aimed at covering
the whole Bible, the third edition, the divines argued, "may not unduly be
deemed An entire Commentary upon the whole Body of the Bible; . . . such (it
may with good warrant be averred) as hath not at any time appeared in our
Language before."^' The final edition of the annotations became the closest
thing to a comprehensive Bible commentary that English readers had yet seen.
While other commentaries had preceded it, they were not detailed enough to
be deemed truly comprehensive. For example, although the annotations of the
Italian reformer John Diodati had been translated into English and appeared in
print in 1641 , they did not cover all of the Scriptures. There were, the divines
explained, "many Chapters which Diodati hath either wholly passed over
without any Note at all, or only here, and there made a . . . short Note." In those
same areas neglected by Diodati, however, the divines boasted to have "made

44 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

many learned and useful Annotations: And . . . fully cleared sundry difficulties,
which Diodati hath passed over in silence, or professed that. This difficulty is
not to be resolved ''^^ Certainly there were other foreign-language commentar-
ies that had not yet been translated into English. Thus, it was not until 1 657 that
the reading public had the option of purchasing an English commentary that
could legitimately claim to cover the entire Bible. Over a quarter of a century
elapsed before Matthew Poole's annotations appeared on the market.

When the Assembly's Annotations made their debut 350 years ago, they
were the first of their kind. For the very first time there existed in English a
scholarly commentary, both detailed and Reformed, to accompany the Author-
ized Version. The printers and the laboring divines had succeeded in producing
an exceedingly marketable alternative to the annotated Bible, and many more
would follow the path that they had boldly forged. Although the printers' initial
reaction to the breakdown of press censorship had been to petition for license
to issue the Authorized Version as an annotated Bible, extensive marginalia
would certainly have made it more costly and therefore less likely to capture
the market from the flood of cheap Bibles that appeared after 1640. A separate
commentary, on the other hand, was a much wiser choice, and the first step in
that direction was taken when the laboring divines disregarded their instructions
and produced a much lengthier commentary than the printers had initially
envisioned. It is, of course, impossible to tell whether the divines, in an astute
assessment of market conditions, had foreseen that the collapse of the monopoly
would render an annotated Bible unmarketable or had by sheer inadvertence gone
beyond the prescribed limits. In the end, it was the printers who decided to alter
their previous course and issue the annotations as a separate volume. While they
could have requested that the divines go back and abridge their work, they chose
instead to accept the lengthy annotations as they were.

The Assembly 's Annotations responded to the reading public' s hunger for
a commentary to accompany the text of the Authorized Version. The fact that
they met with immediate success demonstrates that the demand for scriptural
aids was as great in 1645 as it had been in 1560 when the Geneva Bible first
appeared on the market. Moreover, the successful marketing of a set of
annotations of use only to those who owned or planned to purchase a copy of
the Authorized Version suggests that whatever ambivalence the reading public
had once felt towards the new translation had been overcome. As far as literate
English Protestants were concerned, the Authorized Version's major flaw had
been corrected. At long last, they had a set of spectacles with which they could
look into the text of the Authorized Version with the same satisfaction and

Dean George Lampros / A New Set of Spectacles / 45

understanding they had previously felt only with the Geneva Bible. Shortly
after the new annotations became available for public consumption, the
Authorized Version gradually began to displace the Geneva Bible as the most
popular household Bible. However, the Authorized Version that by mid-
century had superseded the Geneva Bible was not the same Bible that James
I had commissioned. While the actual text remained untouched, the way in
which it was read and interpreted had been irreversibly altered. After 1645 the
Authorized Version was seen by a great many people through the spectacles
of the new annotations. A text, after all, means whatever its readers say it
means, and the meanings attached to the text were bound to be affected by the
new interpretive apparatus provided by the Assembly ' s Annotations. What had
not changed, of course, was the market for scriptural aids. The reading public
had remained steadfast in their demand for spectacles to accompany the
Authorized Version, and their resolve ultimately outlived the forces that had
tried so hard to suppress it.^^

Boston University
Notes

1. On the subject of censorship in Stuart England, see Christopher Hill's The Century of
Revolution, 1603-1714 (New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1961), pp. 96-100.

2. John Eadie, The English Bible (London: Macmillan, 1 876), 2: 15.

3. See Brooke Foss Westcott, A General View of the History of the English Bible (Lx)ndon:
Macmillan, 1 868), p. 96; William Lowther Clarke, Concise Bible Commentary (New York:
Macmillan, 1952), p. 330; Derek Hirst, Authority and Conflict: England, 1603-1658
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 78.

4. Christopher Hill mentions that "[in] 1632 a man was imprisoned for importing Geneva
Bibles" — e.g. The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution (New York:
Penguin Press, 1993), p. 58.

5. Christopher Hill, A Nation of Change and Novelty: Radical Politics, Religion and Literature
in Seventeenth-Century England (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 219.

6. Also, it should be noted that it was less expensive. Between 1616 and 1640 a copy of the
Geneva Bible, though imported, sold for less than a copy of the Authorized Version, which,
because of the monopoly of Bible-printing, was a costly item.

7. Hill, The English Bible . . ., pp. 65-66.

8. Annotations Upon all the Books of the Old and New Testaments; Wherein The text is
Explained, Doubts Resolved, Scriptures Paralleled, and Various Readings Observed. By
the Joynt-Labour of Certain Learned Divines, thereunto appointed, and therein employed
(1645), Preface. Hereafter cited as \h& Assembly's Annotations.

46 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

9. Ibid.

1 0. F.F. Bruce, The History of the Bible in English, 3d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press,
1970), p. 97.

11. In his discussion of the Authorized Version, Christopher Hill mentions that "Puritans
divines played a large part in the work alongside members of the hierarchy" — e.g. Century
of Revolution, p. 97.

12. Assembly's Annotations, Preface.

13. Ibid.

14. Assembly's Annotations (1657), vol. 1, Preface.

15. One historian reminds us that "by the end of the sixteenth century the Geneva Bible had
become far different from the 1 560 edition. Tomson' s notes on the New Testament in 1 576,
the two Calvinistic catechisms added in 1568 and 1579, and the Junius notes to Revelation
that appeared in editions from 1599 on — all reinforced the Calvinistic tone of the Geneva
Bible." See Lloyd E. Berry's introduction to The Geneva Bible: A Facsimile of the 1560
Edition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), p. 16. Needless to say, these
changes also added significandy to the length of the marginal notes.

16. Hill, The English Bible, pp. 65-66.

17. When in 1649 and again in 1679, a special edition of the Authorized Version was printed
with the old Geneva notes, it failed to attract consumer attention. See Eadie's The English
Bible, 2:37.

1 8. Hill, The English Bible, p. 52.

19. Clearly, the writer is referring to the Assembly' s Annotations, yet he errs in claiming that 16
years had elapsed between the first and the third edition, when in reality only 12 years had
passed. Perhaps, he refers to the time between the printers' petition, which he places around
1640, and the issuing of the third edition in 1657, which would make approximately 16
years.

20. Matthew Poole, Annotations on the Holy Bible (1685), vol. 2, Preface.

21. Assembly's Annotations (1657), vol. 1, Preface.

22. Ibid.

23. An earlier slightly different version of this article was publihed in Cromwelliana (July
1994), 7-23.

"Deir Sister": The Letters

of John Knox to
Anne Vaughan Lok

SUSAN M.
FELCH

Summary: Anne Vaughan Lok was a prominent supporter of the protestant
cause and an active participant in the early reformed communities of the mid-
sixteenth century. Although recent scholarship on Anne Lok seems to indicate
that she may have felt hindered by her own gender and overly dependent on
male reformers, a close study of the epistolary exchange between Lok and John
Knox reveals the presence of a strong woman, whom Knox often consulted,
whom he persistently invited to Geneva, and whom he often considered as an
equal.

Anne Vaughan Lok Dering Prowse, a member of the sixteenth century
London merchant class, published during her lifetime a small but
significant body of literary works including translations of sermons by John
Calvin and Jean Taffm, two dedicatory epistles, and a sonnet sequence on
Psalm 5 L ' As increasing attention is paid to her life and her writings, the Anne
Lok who emerges is revealed as a prominent, active, and articulate member of
the English reformed community.

Unlike many women writers of the sixteenth century, quite a lot is known
about Anne Lok as Patrick Collinson demonstrated in his classic biographical
article of 1 965 .^ Lok was probably bom in the early 1 530s to Stephen Vaughan,
a London mercer and later the crown financial agent in Antwerp, and Margaret
(or Margery) Guinet, silkwoman to Anne Boleyn while she was Queen.^
Vaughan apparently spent a great deal of time on the Continent and when
Margaret died on September 16,1 544, he exerted considerable effort in finding
a wife suitable to manage his household and his three children, Anne, Jane, and

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 4 ( 1 995) /47

48 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Stephen, who "wanting a mother and lacking the presence of a father, may soon
tumble into many displeasures"/ His second marriage, licensed on April 27,
1546, was to Margery Brinklow, widow of another London mercer, Henry
Brinklow, who had written a strongly Protestant pamphlet, The Complaint of
Roderyck Mors. Shephen Vaughan himself, commenting on his second wife,
paraphrased Proverbs 31 : "riches is the gift of God, but an honest woman that
fearest God is above all riches."^

Although we know very little about the personal relationships and
domestic atmosphere in the Vaughan household, young Anne was certainly
heir to a rich cultural, political, and spiritual heritage. Whatever the religious
disposition of Margaret Guinet, Stephen Vaughan complimented her as "witty
and housewifely" and her position in the Queen's household would have both
required and bestowed a certain social rank superior to that enjoyed by many
merchant families.^ Anne's stepmother added to the household her own
connections with the nonconformist community in London. Stephen Vaughan,
too, was embroiled in protestant causes. In 1 530 he was engaged by Henry VIII
to convince William Tyndale to return to England under safe conduct.
Vaughan' s appreciation for Tyndale, however, exceeded that of the King's,
and he was forced to abandon the attempt at reconciliation. Although he
repudiated being either a Lutheran or "Tyndalin," yet he wrote to Cromwell in
1531 that "I have the holy scripture, given to me by Christ's church, and that
is a learning sufficient for me, infallible and taught by Christ."^ While Vaughan
remained a loyal agent of Henry VIII, he retained his protestant sympathies,
even petitioning Cromwell on behalf of the Merchant Adventurers to spare
Tyndale' s life during his imprisonment for heresy in 1535-1536, "on the legal
grounds that the arrest of Tyndale at the English House in Antwerp had violated
the rights of immunity enjoyed by the company."^ Although further evidence
of Vaughan' s direct involvement with radical protestantism is sketchy, his
marriage to Margery Brinklow and later their employment for Anne of a tutor
who was suspected of religious heresy, suggest a strong commitment to the
new religion.^ Young Anne Vaughan, therefore, was apparently raised in a
family with substantial fmancial and political connections and one which was
sympathetically inclined not just toward protestantism but toward the more
radical reformers.

It is unclear to what extent her first husband, Henry Lok, another mercer
whose father. Sir William-Locke, had also been part of the court of Henry VIII,
participated in the London nonconformist community. Nevertheless, during
the winter of 1552-1553, the Scottish reformer John Knox apparently stayed

Susan M. Felch / "Deir Sister" / 49

with the Loks and the family of Henry Lok' s half sister, Rose Hickman, before
fleeing to the Continent upon the accession of Mary. On May 8, 1557, Anne,
along with her two children and a maid, also arrived in Geneva where she
stayed until early 1559. By June of that year she was back in London and
reunited with her husband who died sometime before 1573. Probably in 1573
Lok married Edward Bering, a younger preacher who was examined for his
religious views by the Star Chamber in 1573 and silenced by Queen Eliza-
beth's command in December of that same year. In a Christmas Eve letter to
his brother, Dering reports gratefully that Anne had escaped detention, again
suggesting her intimate involvement in the nonconformist community.'^
Dering died on June 26, 1576 of tuberculosis and by 1583 Lok had married
Richard Prowse of Exeter, a man of considerable prominence. Christopher
Goodman, a friend from Geneva and one of Knox's closest associates,
preached a controversial sermon in Exeter in 1583 and CoUinson suggests that
he probably came to the cathedral through the efforts of Anne Lok.^^

As this brief account suggests, it seems that Anne Lok, as an adult,
enthusiastically embraced the religious community of her childhood and
actively supported the protestant cause both in England and abroad. Her
religious commitment is certainly pronounced in her published works which
are devoted to promoting a vital spiritual life. Although the scholarship on her
writings is still scanty, attention has recently been focused on three elements
in the dedications and sonnets.'^ First, of course, is the insistently protestant
tone of her work. Second is the rhetorical skill which she demonstrates. But,
third is an emphasis on Lok' s frustration with her restricted role within the
nonconformist community. On the basis of a comment in Lok' s dedication to
the Countess of Warwick, namely that "great things by reason of my sex, I may
not doo, and that which I may, I ought to doo," Margaret Hannay argues that
Lok was clearly frustrated at the gender restrictions under which she lived and
worked.'^ Hannay emphasizes the word may which she takes to have the force
of "not permitted to" rather than "unable to" which would be conveyed by the
word can. From this linguistic distinction, Hannay argues that Lok was
frustrated by her limited role, and was, therefore, forced to contribute merely
her small basket of stones rather than a more weighty offering. Furthermore,
Hannay claims that this sentence indicates that writing was "the only political
work" a protestant woman was permitted to do.'^

While it is certainly possible that Lok may have felt constrained by her
gender, this sentence in the dedication is the only indication of her alleged
frustration. Besides a lack of corroborating material, there exists a body of

50 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

positive evidence which suggests that Lok enjoyed a prominent, active, and,
indeed, relatively unrestricted role within the nonconformist community. This
broader context, which has been largely overlooked, consists of the fourteen
letters she received from John Knox.'^ The Knox-Lok correspondence is
rendered somewhat problematic by the loss of all the original documents.
Lok' s letters to Knox have not survived in any form, which means that we have
only one side of their conversation. Knox's letters to Lok, however, are
preserved in two seventeenth-century transcriptions.

In 1583, John Field, apparently without permission, published a sermon
by John Knox on Matthew 4 which he obtained from Lok.'^ In the dedicatory
epistle addressed to "the vertuous and my very godly friend, Mrs. Anne Prouze
of Exeter," Field urged her to share other Knoxian memorabilia with the
church at large. Whether she succumbed to this plea and submitted her letters
to Field or whether they later found their way to England through her son,
Henry, or another source, is unknown. ^^ Whatever the transmission history, the
first three letters are preserved in a 1603 manuscript transcription of Knox's
writings which is presently in the library of Edinburgh University.

The remaining eleven letters were apparently made available to David
Calderwood (1575-1650) who transcribed them into his unpublished six
volumes of manuscripts on the history of the Scottish Church. These manu-
scripts include a mid-sized version which was used as the copy text for The
History of the Kirk in Scotland published by the Wodrow Society in 1842-49;
a longer, less ordered version; and a smaller compilation which was published
in folio in 1 678. By the mid-nineteenth century, when David Laing came to edit
the still standard Works of Knox, he was unable to locate any of the original
letters to Lok. He reproduced the first three letters from the 1603 transcript but
was forced to reconstruct the remaining letters from Calderwood' s manu-
scripts. Although Laing insists that "Calderwood' s fidelity in transcribing the
documents inserted in his History, has never been called in question," the
nature of the transmission — from the original letters, to transcriptions and
excerpts in Calderwood, to Laing' s collation — leaves the exact composition
and date of any individual letter open to scrutiny. Nevertheless, I will be using
the texts given by Laing as constituting the closest approximation to the
originals. These letters demonstrate that Lok was a very active member of the
nonconformist community and filled a prominent role within it.'*

The first letter, apparently written from Geneva, offers a joint address "to
Mistress Locke and Mistress Hickman," the women who had offered hospital-
ity to Knox during a recent sojourn in London, and is full of Knox's warm

Susan M. Felch / "Deir Sister" / 51

memories of these two friends. ^^ They were, Knox says, especially kind to him,
"with a speciall care over me, as the mother useth to be over hir naturall chyld,"
with the result that he, in return, took them into his confidence (Works, 4:220).
In particular, he felt compelled "to be mair plane in suche matteris as efter hath
cum to pass, then ever I was to any" (Works, 4:220). The "suche matteris"
appear to be Knox's prediction that life in England for true Protestants would
shortly become much more difficult, a prophecy fulfilled with the Marian
persecution. Throughout this letter, Knox continues to remember and com-
ment upon the close ties he sustained with both Lok and Hickman: they are
most dear to him of all in London; with no one else he "was so familiar" (Works,
4:220); he is assured of their "constant love and cair" (Works, 4:221).

Indeed, this affection motivates the main thrust of the letter, which is to
urge Lok and Hickman to leave London and join him in Geneva. Knox presses
his request as he both reminds them of his prophecy of imminent persecution
and warns them of the dangers of succumbing to idolatry if they remain in a
country which is perilous to their spiritual health. At the same time, he
recognizes the physical difficulties of such a move and remains confident that
God can protect them in the midst of the wicked English generation just as He
did Lot in Sodom.

The most intriguing aspect of Knox's appeal is the way he addresses
married women rather than their husbands. As he begins, Knox acknowledges
that any move must be congruent with the wishes of the dominant male
presence in the household so that they should flee the present idolatry only "by
the consall and discretioun of those that God hath apoyntit to your heidis (your
husbandis I meane)" (Works, 4:219). Having made this concession, however,
Knox urges a more primary commitment, that of obedience to and trust in God.
So, having just suggested that they follow the counsel of their husbands, Knox
nevertheless encourages them to actively pursue an endeavour which it is not
clear their "heads" will approve: "Dispyse not my consall, deir Sisteris,
howbeit at this present it appeirs hardlie to be followit. God sail prepair ane
easie way, sa that his godlie will be preferit unto yours" (Works, 4:219). By the
end of the letter Knox is even more insistent. As he reminds them of the
"horribill plagues" that come upon idolaters, Knox directs them to "call first
for grace by Jesus to follow that whilk is acceptabill in his syght, and thairefter
communicat with your faithfull husbandis" (Works, 4:221), which, while it
does not exclude the husbands from decision m2iking, clearly subordinates
them to a secondary role. The women are first to prepare themselves for
imminent exile and then tell their husbands what they have decided to do.^°

52 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

What is clear from this letter is that, for these protestant women and for
their spiritual mentor, godliness, particularly that expression of godliness
which involves an active rejection of idolatry, is the prime directive. All other
considerations, including appropriate structures of authority (for instance, that
husbands are the heads of their wives), are ultimately subordinate to this great
requirement. It is also clear that godliness is gender inclusive. Although a
nodding recognition is given to the special problems that women may encoun-
ter in their pursuit of godliness, Knox obviously expects that Lok and Hickman
will continue to oppose idolatry and actively pursue God's will, even if that
means abandoning their comfortable homes. Moreover, he firmly expresses
his confidence in their character: "God grant ye remane in the same mynd that
then I found yow, whilk was, that ye litill regardit the rest of the warld, or yit
the love of your contrey , in respect of that lyfe to cum; and that ye rather wald
leif possessionis and freindis nor that ye suld admit idolâtrie" {Works, 4:220).
Whatever restrictions may arise from being female, these are swallowed up in
the larger demand to flee idolatry.^^

In the interim, Lok apparently wrote Knox a brief letter in which she
mentioned some of her spiritual troubles, expressed her desire to see him again,
and asked about the disposition of her Bible which was in the possession of a
James Young. The remark about spiritual troubles raises the issue of the
relationship between Protestant women and various reformers. On the basis of
numerous letters, such as those between Elizabeth Bowes and Knox or
between Edward Dering (Lok' s second husband) and Mary Hone wood,
Collinson and others have suggested that, for many women, these intense
personal exchanges took the place of the relationship in the old church between
penitent and father confessor.^^ Rather condescendingly, Collinson also notes
that "in a society of arranged marriages, in which the wives nevertheless had
leisure to cultivate religious neuroses and sufficient freedom to move outside
the household, it is not to be wondered at if an intimate friendship with some
physician of the soul was not seldom the result."^^ Yet it seems quite inaccurate
to characterize Lok' s friendship with Knox as overly dependent. If anything,
the dependency, at least emotionally, seems to flow in the opposite direction.
To be sure, any analysis is irreparably handicapped by the fact that we have
only one side of this conversation. But, although Knox here, and in a later letter,
responds to her spiritual troubles sympathetically, his comments are brief and
directed toward encouraging her to trust what she already knows. In this
second letter (but the first addressed to Lok alone) dated November 19, 1556,
Knox reminds Lok to wrestle with God as Jacob did with the angel, and

Susan M. Felch / "Deir Sister" / 53

reassures her "that ye ar not destitut of his Halie Spreit, for it floweth and giveth
witnes of it self in your grevous complaynt and emist prayer" (Works, 4:237).
At the same time, Knox is most effusive in this letter about his affection
for Lok and, indeed, his emotional dependence upon her:

Deir Sister, yf I suld exprès the thrist and langoure whilk I haif had for your
presence, I suld appeir to pass measure. To haif sene yow in prosperitie it wes
to me, no dout, comfortabill, but now yf it sail pleas God that I suld sie yow
in theis most dolorous dayis, my comfort suld be dubled, for in prosperitie
in the middis of mirth, my hart quaikit for the sorrowis to cum; and sum tymis
I sobbit, feiring what suld becum of yow. . . Yea, I weip and rejoise in
remembrance of yow; but that wold evanische by the comfort of your
presence, whilk I assure yow is so deir to me, that gif the charge of this litill
flok heir [Knox was a minister in Geneva], gatherit together in Christis
name, did not impeid me, my presence suld prevent my letter (Works,
4:238).

Such warmth might seem to imply an erotic if not an explicitly sexual
relationship were it not for the fact that it is immediately followed by greetings
from his mother-in-law and wife.^"* Apparently Lok responded to this letter
indicating that the situation was somewhat improved in London and that her
husband objected to their leaving for Geneva.

The third letter from Knox to Lok, dated December 9, 1556 and accom-
panied by the sermon on Matthew 4 which was later published in 1 583, is brief.
The newly married Knox apologizes for his hurriedness due to the pressing
cares of his "domesticall charge" to which he is unaccustomed, and "the
administratioun of publick thingis aperteaning to the pure flok heir assemblit
in Chrystis n^mc'' (Works, 4:239).^^ Nevertheless, Knox once again presses his
request that Lok join him in Geneva, "the maist perfyt schoole of Chryst that
ever was in the erth since the dayis of the Apostillis" although he recognizes
that she is currently unable to do so (Works, 4:240-41). She is, he notes,
impeded both "be impyre of your heid" and also by "so gud occasioun as God
hath now offirit yow to remane whair ye ar," but he is still moved "to desyre
your presence, yea, and the presence of all sic as unfeanedlie feir God" (Works,
4:240-41).

We do not know how Lok managed either to convince or to defy her
husband and leave London, but the Livre des Anglois, a record of the English
exiles in Geneva, notes that "Anne Locke, Harrie her sonne, and Anne her
daughter, and Katherine her maide," arrived in Geneva May 8, 1557; within
four days, "Anne, the daughter of Anne Locke, and of Harry Locke, her

54 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

husband" is recorded as dead (9; 1 7). It is possible that Henry Lok, Sr. may have
accompanied his family to the Continent, perhaps staying at Frankfurt while
they travelled on to Geneva, but more likely he stayed in London during
Mary's reign. ^^

Despite the personal cost, however, Lok remained at Geneva for the next
1 8 months with the colony of exiled English, worshipping at the church where
Knox was a minister and continuing her close connection with him. While we
have no contemporary record of this period, Lok apparently used the time to
translate the sermons of John Calvin which were published in 1560 and also
to write the sonnet sequence on Psalm 5 1 which she appended to that volume.

These initial three letters from Knox to Lok before her arrival in Geneva,
however, reveal two important aspects of Anne Lok' s life and character. First,
she obviously was an active member of the London reformational group that
supported Edward VI and which later felt the brunt of Mary's persecution.
Whatever we may not know of her, we must certainly admit that her religious
commitment was intellectually, ethically and emotionally central to her being.
Second, although Lok' s position in the Protestant community was clearly
gendered in some respects — for instance, Knox refers to her husband as her
head and also employs maternal, nurturing images to describe her in the first
letter — in other ways her role appears unaffected by her sex. Both Knox and
Lok clearly expected that her loyalty to God would take precedence over all
other claims on her affection. This intense religious motivation, then, suggests
that the primary category for analyzing Lok' s own writing should be spiritu-
ality rather than gender.

The correspondence between Knox and Lok resumed in 1559, after Knox
had left Geneva on January 7 to return to Scotland, confirms Lok' s intense
involvement in religious issues, including those of a public nature. Lok
apparently wrote to Knox on February 7, 1559 concerning the appropriateness
of sacraments administered according to the second edition of the Book of
Common Prayer. Specifically, she wished Knox's advice on the issue of
accompanying friends to church in order to witness baptisms or to participate
in the Lord's Supper. The nonconformists in general, and Knox in particular,
were considerably exercised over what they considered the remnants of papish
superstition in the English liturgy which included, among other practices, the
chanting of the Commandments and Creed and kneeling at communion. Since
the English-speaking Genevan church used a simple liturgy designed by Knox
himself, it is unlikely that Lok' s questions referred to Switzerland. Probably
she wrote, either from Frankfurt regarding the situation there, or in anticipation

Susan M. Felch / "Deir Sister" / 55

of her return to England where she faced the choice of attending a compro-
mised church or eschewing fellowship with an organized group of belie vers. ^^

In his response of April 6 1 559, Knox mentions that he did not receive her
letter until March 1 7, nearly six weeks after she had sent it, probably to reassure
her that he was not ignoring her concerns. Not surprisingly, given his previous
encounters with the Prayer Book and his general animosity toward any form
of idolatry, Knox strongly encourages Lok not to attend services where, he
believes, ceremonies outweigh worship and the sacraments are unattended by
preaching. What is of greatest interest, however, is the way in which he
proceeds with his argument. First, Knox acknowledges that his opinions will
seem "extreme and rigorous" (Works 6: 1 1). Such a frank admission, of course,
carries the rhetorical effect of making dogmatic views seem more palatable by
attributing them to an honestly self-aware speaker. Second, however, Knox
appeals to Lok' s own wisdom and insight in making her decision. Although the
force of his conclusion, "Now, Sister, if with good conscience yow may
communicat with that which, in effect, is no sacrament, and if yow may honour
him, as Christ's minister, who is but a bastard, yea Christ's plaine enemie als
oft as he cometh there, to fmd favour of him, be judge yourself {Works 6: 14),
may seem to mitigate the conditional nature of the "if (who after all would
want to listen to an enemy of Christ?), the sentiment of self-determination is
still present. And elsewhere he does, more generously, return the decision to
her: "God grant yow his Holie Spirit rightlie to judge" {Works 6:14). Third,
Knox assumes that Lok is earnestly seeking a godly solution to a difficult
problem as she steers her way between the sins of omission (neglecting church
attendance) and commission (supporting idolatry). Thus, he can frame his
response as advice rather than command, although, in line with his triumphalist
vision, he clearly thinks it inconceivable that two people who share the Spirit
of God will disagree on what he believes is the clear instruction of Scripture.

This letter, however, does not merely address Lok as a spiritual equal; it
also seeks her approbation. The tone of the entire missive is clearly defensive,
stemming perhaps from the accusation, implied in later letters, that some felt
his return to Scotland was driven more by personal and national concerns than
by concerns for the kingdom of God, but even more by the almost universal
rejection of his tract, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous
Regiment of Women. In light of the criticism he had recently encountered,
Knox in this and subsequent letters is eager not merely to inform Lok on the
progress of the Scottish reformation but also to enlist her approval and
sympathy. Nowhere is this bid for support stronger than in his opening remarks

56 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

where he expresses his dependency in a particularly open and vulnerable
manner. Knox insists that he is loyal to his friends, but, more importantly, he
gives the reason for this loyalty, namely that he needs them more, perhaps, than
they need him: "Of nature I am churlish, and in conditions different from many:
Yet one thing I ashame not to affirme, that familiaritie once throughlie
contracted was never yet brocken on my default. The cause may be that I have
rather need of all then that any hath need of me" {Works, 6: 11).

There are at least two ways of viewing this letter in terms of understanding
Lok's position within the community of nonconformists. On the one hand,
Knox's firm words of advice and the enlisting of Lok within the circle of
personal supporters might seem to confine her to a more private domestic
sphere, particularly appropriate for women. ^^ On the other hand, the letter is
surprisingly ungendered. Knox's theological advice is similar to that ad-
dressed to men or to the church at lairge, and, as I have already noted, he does
ultimately recommit the matter to her conscience. Furthermore, Knox's need
for close associates extended to male as well as female comrades and, as
subsequent letters bear out, he looked to Lok not just for emotional support but
also for practical aid, including raising funds.

The next extant letter, dated May 3, 1559, is short and simply assures his
"dear Sister" that he has arrived in Edinburgh, that he has no time to
communicate other news to her and that he needs her prayers as he prepares to
do battle for the soul of Scotland. In light of his comment to "[a]dvertise my
brother, Mr. Goodman, of my estate, as in my other letter sent unto yow from
Diep I willed yow" (Works 6:21), we may assume that at least one letter,
written either before or after April 6, is missing since in the April 6 letter he
specifically omits greetings to particular individuals: "No man will I salute in
commendation speciallie, although I bear good will to all that unfrainedlie
professe Christ Jesus" (Works 6:14).^'

The next letter, dated June 23, 1559, is an exuberant account of Knox's
early adventures in Scotland. Writing that his dear Sister might "know the
successe of Christ's Evangell" Knox is frequently the hero of his own tale and
his triumphalist vision of God's will working its way in the world against
idolatry is fully vindicated by the events in Edinburgh (Works 6:21-26).^°

By this time Lok was apparently at home in London and Knox asks her to
do a number of favors. She is to distribute his letter, both to London friends and
to those still remaining in Geneva, thus squelching any slanders about the
course of events in Scotland. He also asks her to contact Christopher Goodman
and Knox's mother-in-law and wife, requesting them to proceed to Scotland.

Susan M. Felch / "Deir Sister" / 57

Finally, Knox commits to Lok the bearer of the letter, "a poore man unknowen
in the countrie, to whome, I beseeche you, shew reasonable favour and kindnes
tuiching his merchandise, and the just selling therof ' (Works 6:27).

All of these requests, from the assumption that Lok can communicate with
far-flung colleagues to Knox ' s confidence that she is in a position to help a poor
merchant financially, reveal that Lok played an important role within the
nonconformist community. The role of intermediary is confirmed in the next
letter, written just a few days later which responds to her letter of June 16 and
continues Knox's defense of the troubles in Scotland, reiterating that the
reformers are not seeking civil war, but only "the reformatioun of religioun,
and suppressing of idolâtrie" (Works 6:30).^^ Knox includes a presumably
more detailed account of the events in an enclosed letter to Adam Haliday,
which he says she should first open and read and then deliver. The briefness
of his missive to her is explained by the sudden availability of a messenger who
is eager to leave.

Although these letters are mostly full of news about the Scottish rebellion,
the personal element is not neglected. Sometime prior to September, Lok wrote
to Knox at midnight about a spiritual battle. In his response on September 2,
1559, Knox's advice is pointed and brief. She should continue her struggle,
knowing that others are also engaged in the same battle and thus being "content
to enter under mercie, to forsake your self, and to drinke of His fulnesse, in
whome onlie consisteth the justice acceptable to his Father" (Works 6:79).
While Knox admits that this may sound terse, "It may appeare to you that I
speeke nothing to purpose" (Works 6:79), he implies that her spiritual character
is such that a brief reminder will stir her on to the appropriate action: "Fight,
and fruict sail succeid, albeit not such as we wold, yit such as sail witnesse that
we are not voide of the spirit of the Lord Jesus, who onlie is our justice,
sanctificatioun, and holines" (Works 6:79). In this letter he also updates Lok
on the news from Scotland, indicating that a longer version had been sent to Mr.
Wood who had been asked "to communicate the same with you, and with other
brethrein of Geneva" (Works 6:78). He explains that the pressure of time
prevents his writing individual letters about the progress of the reformation,
but he remains interested in responding to her personal trials.

This letter once again fails to distinguish between Lok and Knox's male
friends on the basis of gender. It may be Lok, or Haliday or Wood who receives
the first hand information about the progress of the reformation in Scotland.
Each, however, is expected to be the purveyor of the good news to fellow
believers in London and on the Continent. Second, Knox's terse military

58 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

imagery in response to Lok*s spiritual struggles, suggesting a certain "Buck
up" mentality, admits no quarter to female weakness or religious susceptibil-
ity. Third, Knox feels free to criticize Lok and Wood equally for their failure
to get Christopher Goodman safely to Scotland, although his disappointment
does not prevent him from requiring their further assistance. "We laike
labourers, alas! and yee and Mr. Wood have deceaved me, who according to
my requeist and expectatioun, hath not advertised my brother, Mr. Gudman.
. . I beseike you to inquire, and to cause him repaire to me with all diligence
that is possible" (Works 6:78).32

Lok, in the meantime, had written at least one letter to Knox which
miscarried in delivery. Her March 23rd missive from Frankfurt, apparently
again about the questions of church attendance since she, at the time, had not
heard from him (cf. the April 6 letter from Diep which responded to her queried
of February 7) did not reach him until September 13. She also sent her
questions via a letter from his wife, which he received on September 20, 1559.
To both requests, he answered in the letter of October 15, 1559, repeating his
advice to abstain from church services since "we ought not to justifie with our
presence such a mingle mangle as now is commaunded in your kirks" (Works
6:83). Knox accepts Lok' s evaluation of the moral dilemma, namely that if she
does not attend services she may be accused, or even be guilty, of sinful
negligence but that if she does attend, she may unwittingly be promoting
idolatry. He reassures her, however, that when, as in her case, the principle is
clearly stated, she can refuse to attend with a clear conscience and without
worrying about the effect of her testimony on others. This letter is somewhat
more moderate than the April 6 missive, with Knox indicating that he cannot
pronounce on each issue of the Book of Common Prayer as he has not examined
the new edition. He confidently reassigns the problem to her own judgement
and discretion, however, reminding her that "oft ye have heard of my mouth,
that in the Lord' s actioun nothing ought to be used that the Lord Jesus hath not
sanctified, nather by precept nor by practise" (Works 6:84). Furthermore, he
wishes that she not merely remain unbound to the Book of Common Prayer, but
also to his own words. Scripture and conscience are sufficient guides for her
spiritual growth. In an amazingly strong and clear statement of self-determi-
nation Knox writes:

And, therefore, Sister, as I will not be a snare to your conscience, to bind me
ather to my words, ahter yit to my worke, farther than I prove by evident
Scripture, so darre I not counsell you to doe that thing which my self as no
wise minded to doe. Stronger reasoun have I none to give unto you, nather

Susan M. Felch / "Deir Sister" / 59

yit to assure my owne conscinece, when I disassent from the multitude, than
is the precept of my God, thus commanding not Israel onlie, but the whole
kirks of the Gentiles. . . Nather my penne, nather yit my presence, can
prescribe unto you how faire yee are addebted to expone your self to
daungers for these imperfectiouns in religioun which ye cannot remédie; but
yee, directing your heart to advance God's glorie, sail be instructed by his
Holie Spirit how farre yee may condescend, and how farre ye are bound to
abstaine {Works 6:84).

Knox's admission that Lok may not be able to remedy every imperfection in
the church is mirrored by his own sense of impending difficulties. Thus his
triumphalism takes on a more chastened tone as he predicts a forthcoming
plague on the afflicted flock and concludes that it is better to sigh and complain
before God so that one is forced to run to Jesus than to succumb to "the opinioun
of vertue that puffeth up our pride" {Works 6:85). It is possible to read in these
sentiments a warning of the confidence Knox had expressed in June when he
first returned to Scotland.

Lok' s position as central clearing house and intermediary is again noted
in this letter as Knox asks to be remembered to a number of people and also
requests that she send on letters to Geneva (which he then adds in a postscript
that he was unable to finish) as well as another letter "to Deepe, to William
Guthrie, frome my Wife" {Works, 6:85).

The letter of November 18, 1559 continues Knox's chastened mood. He
again writes to counteract the rumors she may have heard and to assure his
"deare Sister. . . that our espérance is yit good in our God" {Works 6:100).
Apparently in a previous letter, not extant, he had written to her, or perhaps to
a group of people including Lok, asking her to raise money for the cause in
Scotland. Now he reiterates this request for money that will "keepe souldiours
and our companie togither" {Works 6:101), adding that he trusts Lok to believe
that he is suing on behalf of the gospel, not for his own or his country's sake:
"I cannot weill write to anie other, becaus the actioun may seem to appertaine
to my countrie onlie. But becaus I trust yee suspect me not of avarice, I am bold
to say to you, that if we perishe in this our interprise, the limits of Londoun will
be straiter than they are now, within few yeeres" {Works 6:101). This request
reveals not only Knox's confidence in Lok' s personal friendship, but the
evident position, both morally and financially, that she held among the London
reformers. He was evidently confident that she could at least address the
appropriate people for the not inconsiderable sums of money needed to pay
soldiers and conduct the business of rebellion (or as Knox preferred to consider

60 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

it, defense). Lok's position is further strengthened when we consider Knox's
other letter of November 18 (Works 6:98-100). On the same day, Knox wrote
to William Cecil asking him to send without further delay the money and men
England had promised. During this pressing crisis, Knox took the time to write
to the two people he thought could help him most — William Cecil, already
on his way to becoming the most powerful man in England, and Anne Lok. In
addition to the financial support which he hopes she can raise from other
sources, he asks for more personal supplies for himself, namely Calvin's
commentary on Isaiah and the revised Institutes or "anie other [books] that be
new and profitable" adding that he "will provide that yee sail receave the prices
upoun your advertisment" (Works 6:101).

Lok's response must have been disappointing to Knox. On November 28
she wrote that she had either been unable or unwilling to raise the necessary
funds and exhorted him to wait on God' s providence and pray rather than fight.
On December 2, she reported the alarm raised by a fire in a nearby lodging,
repeated that neither those of high or low degree were willing to support the
soldiers in Scotland, and asked him to respond to the doubts which she had
raised in an earlier letter. Apparently, once again, letters had miscarried, as
Knox apologises that she has "not receaved my Answere" and noted that his
wife, much distracted by the difficulties in Scotland, is unable to find the "first
extract" (presumably a copy) of his previous response (Works, 6:104). This
letter sounds a discouraged note as Knox indicates that his current situation is
worse than what he experienced as a French galley slave in 1547-49. Yet, at
the same time, this letter is remarkable for its tone of mutuality as Knox both
accepts Lok's rebuke and exhortation (although he still wishes for material
assistance) and returns his attention to God as the only source of comfort in her
own difficulties. Her advice, he admits is "godlie and truelie" (Works 6:103)
and while he does not condemn her spiritual questioning, he does not think that
she "greatlie need[s]" his answers, for "God [will] make your self participant
of the same comfort which ye write unto me" (Works 6:103).

Knox's only letter to Lok in 1560, written on February 4, recapitulates
many of the themes of his earlier epistles. He writes "[l]est that sinister rumours
should trouble you above measure, dear Sister" (Works 6:107) and gives
somewhat more encouraging news of the events in Scotland: "We have had
wonderful experience of God's mercifull providence; and, for my owne part,
I were more than unthankfull, if I sould not confesse that God hath heard the
sobs of my wretched heart, and hath not deceaved me of that little sparkle of
hope which his Holy Spirit did kindle and foster in my heart" (Works 6: 108).

Susan M. Felch / "Deir Sister" / 61

He repeats his request for books and suggests that he will again ask her to raise
money on his behalf: "I must be bold over your liberalitie not onlie in that [i.e.,
purchasing books], but in greater things as I sail need" {Works 6:108). He
concludes by asking her to give a letter to Coverdale and to salute various
acquaintances, including, for the first time in their correspondence, her
husband (V^or/:5 6:108).

After this letter, the correspondence sputters to a halt, the remaining two
missives being both brief and tantalizing. Nineteen months after his previous
letter, on October 2, 1561 , Knox wrote a brief note in which he thanks Lok for
a "token" which she sent without a letter. Although Knox acknowledges some
"impediment" which apparently prevented her writing, he cannot help but
complain that "if yow understood the varietie of my tentations, I doubt not but
yee would have written somewhat" (Works 6: 129). It is tempting to speculate
what the impediment was and suggestions range from the romantic (Henry Lok
forbid further correspondence), to the theological (Lok herself had begun to
lose confidence in Knox, perhaps over the issue of spiritual versus physical
warfare), to the mundane (the token was sent via a messenger who had to leave
on a moment' s notice). There is, however, simply no evidence to explain either
the impediment which prevented Lok' s writing in October or the drought of
correspondence in 1560-61 following the nearly monthly epistles of 1559.^^ It
is certainly possible that some letters have been lost, as is implied by Knox's
comment in this letter that he had previously sent to Lok a copy of the Scottish
Confession of Faith in unbound quires. Apparently, he had not heard whether or
not she received this gift. Knox' s tone, however, is clearly discouraged as he writes
of wanting to die and defends himself against implied charges of negligence: "If
yow, or anie other thinke that I, or anie other preacher within this realme, may
amend such enormiteis yee are deceaved; for we have discharged our consciences,
but remédie there appeareth none, unless we would arme the hands of the people
in whome abideth yitt some sparkes of God's feare" (Works 6:130).

The final letter, dated May 1562, is probably only an extract as it does not
include any of the expected salutations or concluding personal comments. As
with most of the letters from Scotland, Knox writes so that Lok will not be
troubled by any rumors she may hear and, as in the previous letter, the
prevailing tone is discouragement: "God hath further humbled me since that
day which men call Good Fryday, than ever I hath beene in my life" (Works
6:140). The correspondence ends abruptly as Knox concludes that more
trouble is doubtless brewing, "for suspicion once kindled, is not easie to be
quenched" (Works 6:141).

62 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

While these letters reveal a strong and mutual friendship between Knox
and Lok, of equal interest is what they reveal about Lok herself and what
insight they provide into her own writings. Although the materials are
admittedly sparse, the portrait of Anne Lok which emerges is intriguing and
complex. It seems clear from this correspondence that Lok was a strong
woman, dedicated to the Protestant cause and actively loyal to it throughout her
life. As John Field complimented her in 1583, she was "no young schoUer" in
the school of Christ (A3r). Her intense devotion, as revealed by her dedicatory
epistles and sonnet sequence and as suggested by the letters, was matched by
a practical concern to promote the kingdom of Christ through such actions as
travelling to Geneva and remaining there despite the death of her daughter,
acting as an intermediary for Knox, attempting to raise funds for the reforma-
tion of Scotland, and exhorting Knox on the importance of prayer and trust.
There is no suggestion either that she disagreed with Knox's theology, which
forbid women to rule in the home, church, or government, or that she allowed
this prohibition to curtail her progress in the school of Christ. Nor can Lok' s
role easily be dismissed as one restricted to a private, domestic sphere. Her
financial help to the "poor merchant" who bore Knox's letter, and her attempts
to raise money for the Scottish reformation, as well as the publication of her
books, all point to a more active public role.

It is particularly interesting to note that this strong portrait of Lok emerges
from letters written by the protestant male most likely designated a misogynist.
It is certainly true that Knox, and presumably Lok, believed firmly in a
gendered hierarchical structure. As Elaine Beilin pointed out,

to ask whether sixteenth-century women writers were feminists is to ask an
anachronistic question. These writers, in keeping with their era, devoted
themselves to regenerating the image of women in the familiar terms of their
own culture, not imagining or advocating a different society in which all
women might change their ordained feminine nature for equality with men
or public power.^'*

Yet, the evidence of the letters, whose rhetoric is remarkably ungendered,
suggests that while hierarchical distinctions were recognized, they were not
necessarily seen as coercive. It is doubtful that impermissibility necessarily led
to frustration, particularly when, as in the case of Anne Lok, other data suggests
that she maintained a strong role within her community and a mutual friendship
with one of its key leaders. ^^ The sentence which troubles Hannay, "great
things by reason of my sex, I may not doo, and that which I may, I ought to doo"
can also be read with an emphasis on the final active verb, "that which I may.

Susan M. Felch / "Deir Sister" / 63

I ought to doo," as an expression of the active agency which Lok apparently
pursued throughout her life.^^

Thus, read from within her own community of faith, an expression of
"what I may not doo" can be seen as a simple recognition of difference, as part
of the dominant modesty topos employed by both male and female writers, or
as a graceful introduction to her own continuing effort to support the reformed
movement in England. As Beilin points out, "Beyond the dedicatory expres-
sions of humility common to writers of both sexes, Locke does not apologize
for her literary efforts. Perhaps a conviction that she was a part of God's
Providence overcame any doubts she may have felt as a female author."^^
Certainly Lok' s correspondence with Knox helps us understand not only her
fervent religious commitment, but her prominent, active, and, indeed, unre-
stricted role within the nonconformist community.

Calvin College
Notes

1 . Sermons of John Calvin, upon the Songe that Ezechias made after he had bene sicke, and
afflicted by the hand of God, conteyned in the 38. Chapiter ofEsay (STC 4450 London,
1560) includes a dedication to Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk, the translation of four
sermons from Isaiah 38, and the sonnet sequence. The sonnets are prefaced by the comment
that Lok, or perhaps the printer, added them, "not as parcell of maister Caluines worke, but
for that it well agreeth with the same argument, and was deliuered me by my frend with
whom I knew I might be so bolde to vse «fe publishe it as pleased me." Earlier scholars such
as Patrick CoUinson suggested that the "frend" was John Knox, but Margaret Hannay , based
on the congruence of language between the dedication and the sonnets, has argued that the
poems were written by Lok; see Patrick Collinson, Godly People: Essays on English
Protestantism and Puritanism (London: Hambledon Press, 1983), p. 280, and Margaret P.
Hannay, "'Unlock my lipps': the Miserere mei Deus of Anne Vaughan Lok and Mary
Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke," in Jean R. Brink, éd.. Privileging Gender in Early
Modern £ng /an J (Kirks ville, MO: Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, 1993, p. 21 . Other
authorships are also possible, however, since the Marian exiles in Geneva included several
pubHshed poets such as William Kethe and William Whittingham. Nevertheless, at this
point it seems appropriate to include the sonnets within Lok' s oeuvre. Lok' s translation of
Jean Taffm' s Of the Markes of the Children of God, and of their Comforts in Affliction (STC
23652 London, 1 590) begins with a dedication to the Countess of Warwick, continues with
the translation of Taffm' s Des Marques des enfants de Dieu et des consolations en leurs
afflictions, and concludes with a 124 line poem entitled "The necessitie and benefite of
affliction." The popularity of this book is attested to by the extant copies which were
published in 1590, 1591, 1597, 1599, 1608, 1609, 1615 and 1624.

2. That article, originally published in Studies in Church History 2 (1965): 258-72, has
subsequently been republished in Godly People: Essays on English Protestantism and

64 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Puritanism, pp. 273-87. Collinson's account and W. C. Richardson's monograph on
Stephen Vaughan provide the major secondary sources for Lok' s biography as summarized
here: see W. C. Richardson, Stephen Vaughan, Financial Agent of Henry VIII. A Study of
Financial Relations with the Low Countries (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Studies, 1953). Brief notices are made of Lx)k in a number of surveys of sixteenth century
women including D. M. Stenton's The English Woman in History (New York: Schocken
Books, 1977), p. 136; Kathy Lynn Emerson's Wives and Daughters: The Women of
Sixteenth Century England (Troy, NY: Whitson, 1984), pp. 230-31, and Elaine Beilin's
Redeeming Eve: Woman Writers of the English Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1987). Lewis Lupton, who also pubhshed a facsimile of the British Museum's
copy of Sermons of John Calvin, includes information about Lok in his A History of the
Geneva Bible (London: The Ohve Tree, 1972-1977), 2:9-41; 4: 19-24. Entries on Lok also
appear in An Encyclopedia of British Women Writers, ed. Paul Schlueter and June Schlueter
(New York: Garland, 1988), p. 297, and in The Feminist Companion to Literature in
English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Virginia Blain, Patricia
Clements and Isobel Grundy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990).

3. W. C. Richardson, Op. cit., pp. 15, 20.

4. Quoted in W. C. Richardson, Op. cit., p. 21.

5. Quoted in W. C. Richardson, Op. cit., p. 22.

6. W. C. Richardson, Op. cit., p. 85, note 26,

7. Quoted in W. C. Richardson, Op. cit., p. 27.

8. W. C. Richardson, Op. cit., p. 34.

9. W. C. Richardson, Op. cit., p. 85, note 27.

10. Patrick Collinson, Godly People: Essays on English Protestantism and Puritanism, p. 285.
n.Ibid.

12. Roland Greene in Post-Petrarchism: Origins and Innovations of the Western Lyric
Sequence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 129, and Michael R. G. Spiller
in The Development of the Sonnet: An Introduction (London & New York: Routledge,
1992), pp. 92-93) briefly note Lok' s contribution to the sonnet form. Susanne Woods ("The
Body Penitent: A 1560 Calvinist Sonnet Sequence," ANQ, 5 [1992], 137-140) draws
attention to the skilful deployment of poetic devices as well as Lok's "vigorous attention to
the body" (p. 138) while Margaret Hannay discusses the similarities between Lok and Mary
Sidney Herbert in "'Unlock my lipps'..." Less attention has been paid to the dedicatory
epistles, although Hannay includes a brief discussion along with her transcription of the
dedication to the Countess of Warwick in "Strengthning the walles of lerusalm: Anne
Vaughan Lok's Dedication to the Countess of Warwick," AA^g, 5 (1992), 71-75.

13. Margaret P. Hannay, "'Strengthning the walls of lerusalme'", p. 72.

14. Margaret P. Hannay, '"Unlock my lipps'", p. 34.

15. Knox biographers, of course, primarily view the letters for what they reveal about the
reformer, but, incidently, they also conmient on the character of Anne Lok. Edwin Muir, true

Susan M. Felch / "Deir Sister" / 65

to his cranky spirit, demotes Lok to one of Knox's "circle of admiring women" {John Knox:
Portrait of a Calvinist [London: Jonathan Cape, 1929], p. 48) and the "most maternal of all
his women friends" (p. 95). Marjorie Bowen sees her as "emotional, dissatisfied, seeking
in religion an outlet for an eager vanity, a love of drama, of excitement": The Life of John
Knox (London: Watts & Co., 1940), p. 52. Jasper Ridley, however, regards Lok as "a very
gifted and enterprising woman" whose 1590 translation of Taffm shows "traces of Knox's
spirit" {John Knox [New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968], pp.247-48). From
the side of the female correspondents, more attention has been paid to Elizabeth Bowes,
Knox's mother-in-law than Lok, although Christine Newman and A. Daniel Frankforter do
look briefly at the letters to Lok; see Christine M. Newman, "The Reformation and Elizabeth
Bowes: A Study of a Sixteenth-Century Gentlewoman," in W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood,
Women in the Church (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1 990), 307-324, and A. Daniel Frankforter,
"Elizabeth Bowes and John Knox: A Woman and Reformation Theology," Church History,
56 ( 1 987), 333-347. Collinson summarizes the content of the letters in his biographical essay
on Lok but does not consider them in detail.

16. A notable and Comfortable exposition ofM. lohn Knoxes, upon the Fourth of Matthew,
concerning the tentations of Christ: First had in the publique Church, and then afterwards
written for the comfort of certain private friends, but now published in print for the benefite
of all thatfeare God (STC 1 5068 London, 1 583).

17. David Laing suggests that the letters may have been returned to Scotland by one of the
reformers, James Carmichael, John Davidson, or James Meville, who spent some time in
exile in England during 1 584, or by Lok' s son, Henry Lok, during one of his visits to the court
of James VI (John Knox, The Works of John Knox, ed. David Laing, 6 vols. [Edinburgh:
Thomas George Stevenson, 1846-1864], 6:7).

1 8. Part of the difficulty of Lok scholarship in the past has been identifying the boundaries of
her work. Her contemporaries doubtless associated the Anne Lok of the Knox letters, the
A.L. of the 1560 translations, the Anne Prouze from whom Fields obtained the Matthew 4
sermon and the A. Prowse who translated Of the markes as all being the same person. But,
Laing was unsure of the relationship between Lok and Prowse, and as late as 1957, D. M.
Stenton could write of Anne Prowse that "nothing seems to be known" about her: cf. D. M.
Stenton, The English Woman in History (New York: Schocken Books, 1977), p. 1 36. Laing
does tentatively suggest that Lok and Prowse may be the same person, although he does not
strongly press the claim (Knox, Works, 4:239-40, footnote 3).

19. Although the letter is undated, Laing assigns it to 1556 (Knox, Works, A.lll).

20. Knox probably did not see any conflict in this final bit of advice. At least during this stage
of his life, he embraced a triumphalist approach to the ethical life in which he assumed that,
despite difficulties, the right would ultimately and inevitably prevail. Thus Knox confi-
dently concludes that "than sail God, I dout not, conduct your futsteppis, and derect your
consallis to his glorie: So be it" {Works, 4:221).

21. Knox's rhetoric is not without its complications. He creates a psychological receptivity on
the part of his listeners by presenting himself as a tortured soul in need of consolation and
approval. At the same time, his rhetorical stance and allusions consistently align him with
the exalted status of a biblical author. It is not that he explicitly claims divine authority for

66 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

his pronouncements — in fact, he frequently distances his own life and words from the
authoritative Word of God. But, in fact, the constant biblical echoes and the way in which
he places his own ideas, requests and even requirements alongside the biblical injunctions
gives them an authority which is heightened, rather than diminished, by his appeal to his
reader's own integrity. If they are truly God's children, as he knows them to be, then they
will be able to judge God's will appropriately. And that will, he implies, is none other than
his own judgement. Nevertheless, despite this high view of his own opinions, Knox
persistently shifts the burden of decision making back onto his female correspondents as he
expresses his confidence in their own sanctified judgement.

22. Collinson, p. 275; Robert Louis Stevenson, "John Knox and his Relations to Women,"
Macmillans Magazine, September and October 1875, reprinted in Familiar Studies of Men
and Books: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, III, 1906-1907, p. 269.

23. Collinson, p. 276. Recently A. Daniel Frankforter has challenged the notion of spiritual
hypochondria with regard to the Bowes-Knox correspondence, arguing that Bowes pressed
Knox both spiritually and intellectually to consider the more difficult aspects of reformed
doctrine, particularly the relationship of election and free will ("Elizabeth Bowes and John
Knox," 333-347).

24. Robert Louis Stevenson seems to have been the first to suggest that Lok was "the woman
he loved best," although he did not imply any sexual impropriety in the relationship ("John
Knox and his Relations to Women," p. 280). The effusive sentiment, however, is not
confined to Lok or even to his other female correspondents. Knox could also be warmly
affectionate towards his male colleagues, as when, for instance, he tells Thomas Upcher that
"yf I can not ease any part of your greif ..yit I prais my God I can lament and mume with
my brother tormentit" {Works 4:242).

25. In the Calderwood manuscripts, the transcription at the head of the letter reads, 'To Mr.
Locke" {Works 4:239, footnote 2).

26. As difficult as it is to trace Anne Lok' s life, it is even more difficult to learn much about her
first husband. The more generous scholars suggest that he was equally committed to the
reformation cause, perhaps even journeying with Anne from London but then attending to his
business interests elsewhere on the continent (Charles Huttar, "Anne Vaughan Locke," in An
encyclopedia of British Women Writers, p. 287; Lord Eustace Percy, John Knox (London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1937), p. 246. Anne's return to Henry after the Genevan exile and her
inscription to him on the flyleaf of her first book, "Henrici Lock ex dona Annae, uxoris suae,
1559," indicates that the marriage remained intact despite the separation. Jasper Ridley insists
that unlike Elizabeth Bowes, Knox's mother-in-law, who did break with her husband in order
to follow her conscience, "Henry Locke was a Protestant, and though he felt unable to leave
England himself, he obviously had no objection to the departure of his wife and fanuly" (p.
247). Other scholars assume that Henry Lok was a nominal protestant at best, and that Anne
essentially deserted him for her religious commitments (Collinson 280).

27. Knox himself had been forced to leave Frankfurt on March 27, 1555 after a dispute with
Richard Cox and others over the Book of Common Prayer (Ridley, p. 210).

28. Susan Wabuda in "Shunamites and Nurses of the English Reformation: The activities of
Mary Glover, Niece of Hugh Latimer," in Women in the Church, ed. W. J. Sheils and Diana

Susan M. Felch / "Deir Sister" / 67

Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1 990) argues the important role of women, often called "nurses,"
who provided hospitality for reformed preachers.

29. It is possible that a letter written between January 7 and February 7 miscarried, since Knox
may be responding in the April 6 letter to Lx)k's complaint that he has ignored her. That
missing letter, containing information about his situation from the time of leaving Geneva
to arriving in Diep, would then have been a general letter intended not only for Lx)k but for
her fellow exiles in Geneva. In subsequent letters, as I shall note, general information about
Knox's activities is assumed to be common property, to be shared by all those interested in
his fate.

30. For instance, the Bishop of St. Andrews who ordered Knox not to preach and threatened his
life, is casually dismissed for "that boast did little affray me" and the learned doctors are "als
dumbe as their idols" in the presence of the mighty reformer (Works 6:25).

31. Laing gives the date as June 25 which Ridley corrects to June 29 (Works 6:30; Ridley, p.
350).

32. Goodman did eventually arrive in Scotland in August 1559 (Ridley, ibid.).

33. Laing suggests, on the basis of an August 19, 1569 letter to an unknown correspondent in
England, that Knox had simply been too depressed to continue his extensive letter writing.
In that missive, Knox comments that in the last seven years he has "negligentlie pretermitted
all office of humanitie toward you," explaining, but not excusing himself: "For albeit I have
beene tossed with manie stormes, all the time before expressed, yit might I have gratified
you and others faithfull, with some remembrance of my estate, if that this my churlish nature,
for the most part oppressed with melancholic, had not stayed tongue and penne from doing
of their duetie" (Knox, Wbr^, 6:566).

34. Elaine Beilin. Redeeming Eve: Women Writers of the English Renaissance, p. xvii.

35. As Hilda Smith argues, modem feminists, that is, "individuals who viewed women as a
sociological group whose social and political position linked them together more surely that
their physical or psychological natures" and who wanted to change the sexual balance of
power did not appear until the second half of the seventeenth century: Reason 's Disciples:
Seventeenth-Century English Feminists (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), p. 4.

36. The problem here is the choice of a hermeneutic position. I would suggest that a broader
consideration of cultural theory may help to generate a useful critical paradigm. In 1954,
linguist Kenneth Pike coined the terms emic and etic to refer to the differences between an
insider's view of language (or behaviour) and the external perspective assumed by an
analyst. Although etic descriptions may be pragmatically useful particularly during the
initial stages of analysis. Pike argued for the goal of emic description, an interior structuring
which values idiosyncrasies, "irregularities" and "blurring of borders" without assigning a
judgmental etic designation such as inconsistency. As Pike himself noted, "People of one
nation (or class of society, etc.) may sometimes appear to one another to be 'illogical' or
'stupid' or 'incomprehensible' simply because the observer is over a long period of time
taking an alien standpoint from which to view their activity, instead of seeking to learn the
emic patterns of overt and covert behaviour" (Language in relation to a Unified Theory of
the Structure of Human Behavior, 2nd. ed. [The Hague: Mouton, 1971], p. 51). Since 1954,

68 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

the terms emic and etic have become important in a number of disciplines (see Ernies and
Etics: The Insider/Outsider Debate, edited by Thomas N. Headland, Kenneth L. Pike and
Marvin Harris [Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1990]). The application to literary
theory is, I think, apparent. Without denying the power that our own theoretical paradigms
play in the interpretation of texts, we can, nevertheless, understand those paradigms merely
as etic constructions. While we may not be able to re-inhabit the emic world of a past time
and culture, we can nevertheless try to map its contours with the same descriptive respect
that ethno-linguists and anthropologists extend to contemporary oral cultures. Such emic
analysis, for instance, can at least describe the dynamic of hierarchal submission and
spiritual equality which defined a viable Protestant culture without necessarily forcing those
values into a more famihar etic pattern of ideology, subversion, and containment. Recent
examinations of the relationship between concepts of gender hierarchy and gender equality
in the sixteenth century have, in fact, seen these terms as necessarily opposed and, therefore,
as requiring resolution. For instance, as Mary Beth Rose notes, "Although Protestant
discourse raises. . . challenges to established hierarchies of gender and power in courtship
and marriage, it rarely resolves or even acknowledges them; indeed it is clear that the
authors, busily constructing a new ideology of private life, for the most part fail to recognize
the potential conflicts they have articulated": "Where are the Mothers in Shakespeare?
Options for Gender Representation in the English Renaissance," Shakespeare Quarterly, 42
(1991), p. 298. 1 would suggest that another theoretical paradigm might see these concepts
as complementary rather than contradictory.

37. Beihn, p. 63.

"A Plott to have his nose and
eares cutt of: Schoppe as
Seen by the Archbishop of

Canterbury

WINFRIED
SCHLEINER

Summary: That Caspar Schoppe, author of several stinging publications
against James I, was brutally attacked in a Madrid street in 1614 has often
been dismissed as the victim's larmoyant exaggeration of a mere licking,
although Schoppe claimed that it was an attempt on his life. But there is a letter
written from Madrid to the Archbishop of Canterbury speaking of the episode
as a planned attempt to cut off Schoppe 's nose and ears. While some modem
bibliographies still point to Schoppe as the author of Corona Regia (1615),
possibly the most stinging satire ever written against King James, the attribu-
tion now seems questionable.

In 1990 I published an essay dealing with the veiled, ambiguous, and
sometimes equivocating language in the political tension field between the
Catholic league in its formation and King James I of England, who had
aspirations to be the rallying point and leader of all European Protestants.^ My
main focus was the early theologico-political career of Caspar Schoppe, his
acknowledged and unacknowledged verbal attacks on the English King, and
the responses he got, some of which were verbal, while others came allegedly
as verberations. I say "allegedly" because there has been a long tradition of
pooh-poohing the severe beating that he claimed to have received in a Madrid
street at the behest of the English ambassador.

There are three general areas where, stimulated by serendipitous finds, my
thinking about the complex of problems I broached then has evolved: one
relates to insights from a few only recently published or still unpublished
letters by an English contemporary who was in most matters extraordinarily
well informed, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury. Without entertaining

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XIX, 4 (1995) /69

70 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Ranke's illusionary aim of finding out "wie es wirklich gewesen," the
perspective from the English center of intelligence (and possibly even of
power) on certain events like the encounter in a Madrid street is instructive and
was absent from my previous essay on Schoppe. The second is the search for
the author of Corona Regia (in most library catalogues and bibliographies still
ascribed to Schoppe), a search to my mind not entirely resolved, although the
attribution to Schoppe now appears highly questionable. The third area
concerns the larger context of political use of homophobia in Corona Regia,
for this work remains to my knowledge the first one to charge the English King
in print with preferences that were then called sodomitical and that we now call
homoerotic.

Another Perspective on the Beating in Madrid

In my original essay, I had given a brief account of the big book (of 566
pages) with which Schoppe in 161 1 started to wage his pro-Catholic campaign
against the King. In it Schoppe had ridiculed James's pretensions at becoming
the leading politician and theologian of the Reformed churches, that is, their
"ecclesiasticus," by maliciously pointing at one of James's emissaries' failed
attempts at punning in Latin. Rather than rendering his intended witty double
meaning of the English sentence "An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie
abroad for the good of his country," Henry Wotton, the English ambassador,
had jotted down in a friendship album a Latin version that was neither punning
nor witty: Legatus est Vir bonus, peregre missus ad mentiendum Reipub.
causa. While the King reportedly was incensed by the gaffe of his legatus, the
anecdote about the supposedly self-incriminating definition of an English
ambassador is only a minor needling element of the frontal attack of Schoppe' s
Ecclesiasticus — if the book was condemned and publicly burned by the
Parliament of Paris (and also by the English Parliament), it was for Schoppe' s
conception of kingship.

The episode assumes, however, a pivotal role in Schoppe' s Legatus Latro.
Hoc est: Definitio legati Calviniani (Ingolstadt, 1614). As indicated by the
title, the word legatus here negatively instances an ideologeme of religio-
political discourse, that of the truthful (lying, fictionalizing) purveyor of
meanings. Legatus comes to denote the paid emissary of a duplicitous and
nefarious power. For in this work, Schoppe reports again the failed attempt of
Wotton, the legatus Calvinianus, to be witty, this time together with Wotton' s
attempt at defending himself from Schoppe' s charge of duplicity. Trium-

Winfried Schleiner / "A Plott to have his nose and eares cutt of ' / 71

phantly Schoppe quotes Wotton's defense that the definition of the legatus as
a liar is to some extent universal (catholica), since legatus can be understood
a latere (from the side). To this punning justification, Schoppe now adds his
own false etymology or pseudo figura etymologica of legatus latro {latro
originally meant "mercenary"). In the rest of the book, Schoppe tells a rather
exciting tale of how he became a victim of another ambassasor/mercenary or
ambassador/gangster (which is also contained in latro) of the English King. He
says that one night as he was staying in Madrid he was warned of impending
danger because of the "deadly hate of the English ambassador" (de capitali
odio Legati Anglicani, p. 28), and shortly afterwards, on March 21, 1614, was
indeed waylaid by a couple of men hired by the English ambassador. Sir John
Digby. They beat him and, as Schoppe puts it, he escaped with no worse than
a minor wound in his side only because a pad of paper warded off the knife.
Although Legatus Latro was published under a pseudonym, Schoppe by
that publication not only risked triggering the wrath of the English authorities
further but also publicized his beating. Was he well advised to make his
"shame" public? It is true that originally I had only reactions from the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the event, but the second is in fact
historicizing and speaks about response in the seventeenth century. Here they
are:

Es ist kein Zweifel, dass Scioppius ... die Erzahlung dieser Sache, die sich
den 21sten Marz 1614 zutrug, nicht sollte vergrossert haben. Die ganze
Sache endigte sich vermuthlich mit einigen Streichen, die das geringste
waren, dass [sic] er verdiente; denn es scheint, dass er sich nicht viel daran
gekehret habe.^

II se mit aussi à bafouer Jacques 1er, roi d'Angleterre, dans plusieurs libelles,
qui sont peut-être les plus satiriques et les plus venimeux qui existent dans
aucune langue; aussi ne se plaignit-on pas trop, lorsque, se trouvant en 1614
à Madrid, il fut bâtonné par les gens de lord Digby, ambassadeur d' Angleterre.^

To these reactions, I now add that of George Abbot, Archbishop of
Canterbury. On April 20, 1614, i.e. just barely a month after the incident in
Madrid (of March 21), Abbot communicated to the royal agent William
Trumbull in Brussels among other news the following:

Sr. John Digby is here out of Spaine for a time, but before his comming over,
there fell out a pritty accident. Scioppius, who formerly published a booke
against the king, was at Madrid, and there wrote another villainous pamphlet,
termed by him Holofernes, which he gave out in written copies being much

72 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

derogatory to the power of his majesty. The English Embassadour hearing
of it, layd a plott to have his nose and eares cutt of, but they missed of on
opportunity diverse times. At last a brother of sir Everard Digbies mett him
and thinking to strike off his nose, hitt him onely a greate cutt on the face,
and some of his company trodde him and spurned him, till he made shift to
tumble into an entry. The Popes Nuntio there and the privy Counsell heard
of it, said at first, that they could not protect him, his abuse was so vile to the
kinge: yet some said, the example might not be suffered, and the rather
because he is a counsellour to the Emperour. But since that time the
Inquisition hath so faire prevayled, that a letter is come to the Spanish
Embassadour here, that hee should complaine to our kinge: yet under hand
here is a letter from the Duke of Lerma, that the other is but for forme, and
no man should trouble himselfe about it.^

Although Abbot did not agree with King James on all matters of ecclesiastical
policy and religious practice (the famous divorce case of the Earl of Essex and
Lady Francis, from which the author of Corona Regia was to get some mileage,
comes to mind), the Archbishop's letter is of course that of one insider to the
English power structure to another insider, namely a paid agent. Every
evaluative word to describe Schoppe's work (villainous, abuse) reveals
Abbot's partiality, while his description of the attack as "pritty accident"
shows both his amusement and a sense of gratification that the beating Schoppe
received was the least punishment he deserved. At the same time the letter also
indicates that the attackers went after Schoppe repeatedly. The end of the
passage suggests that the Pope's nuntio only reluctantly protected Schoppe,
the insulter of majesty ("his abuse was so vile to the Kinge") and that the
diplomatic démarche through the Spanish ambassador is "but for forme."
While extremely partial, Abbot's account confirms the views of the eight-
eenth- and ninetenth-century historians quoted before in all but one respect: the
insider report indicates that the attackers wanted to shame Schoppe not just by
giving him a licking, but by mutilating him.

The Archbishop's Speculation about Corona Regia

Given the length of the arm of English monarchical authority and the
possibility of collusion even among seemingly hostile monarchies against
someone whose "abuse was so vile" to kings, it is not surprising perhaps that
the author of Corona Regia left out his name entirely. The title page proclaims
this to be the work of the great classicist and Catholic theologian Isaac
Casaubon (whom King James had called to England to defend the English

Winfiried Schleiner / "A Plott to have his nose and eares cutt of / 73

church) and also says, falsely of course, that the little book was published in
London by the royal printer John Bill (161 5). As I have said before in my essay,
the book pretends to be Casaubon' s praise of King James, but almost instantly
becomes transparent as a mock panegyric or satiric praise. It was fathered upon
Casaubon because he (whom Schoppe elsewhere called one of James's
mercenaries) had written elaborate praises of the wise and devout King James,
e.g. to the Protestant Philippe Momay Du Plessis — such letters were then
usually published to promote James's pretensions to becoming the unifier of
all Protestants. Now Isaac Casaubon had just died in 1614; so the author of
Corona Regia added another fiction: that the book consisted of fragments of
an unfinished work by the deceased and that these fragments were put together
by someone calling himself Euphormio. This had the additional benefit of
explaining why the piece was perhaps a little ragged — indeed, the author now
and then inserts ellipses to indicate that some fragments are missing. The mock
praise was so stinging that a reward was offered for the discovery of the author,
which was claimed (as Mark Pattison reports) as late as 1639 by a Brussels
book seller. (Apparently Mark Pattison believed that the claimant revealed the
author to be Schoppe).^

After publication of Corona Regia speculation about its author and
detective work set in immediately, and the Archbishop of Canterbury seems
to have been at the center of that activity. In fact his correspondent Trumbull
had supplied the copy of the book that was shown to the King at Newmarket,
where the King no doubt indulged in his favorite pastime, hunting. The
Archbishop's letter to Trumbull of February 15, 1615, of which I quote about
two thirds (most of the rest is illegible, sometimes because words are crossed
out) speaks of evidence that a particular printer at Louvain or another at
Antwerp might have printed "the wicked Pamphlett called Corona Regia," and
finally expresses Abbot's hunch that John Barclay, author of the satire
Euphormionis Lusinini Satyricon (and later of the famous roman à clef
Argents) was its author; finally he mentions "Erucius Puto," i.e. Erycius
Puteanus (1574-1646), but admits that he has not made up his mind about the
Belgian as a possible author. The longish passage I quote is interesting because
of the detective energy it reveals, of which details relating to the print shop are
an index. Just as striking are hints that the Archbishop's language to Trumbull
is coded, for we actually never hear why the pamphlet is so wicked — there is
not a word about its contents. Its wickedness is understood and possibly not
mentioned because it is unmentionable.

74 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Having received two letters from you since your departure, I returne you this
answere to the most material pointe contained in them. His Majesty together
with mr. Secretary and my L. Bishop of Bath, being all at new-markitt, and
having seene the little booke sent from you, grow to a greate resolution that
Flavius of Lovaine was the printer of the wicked Pamphlett called Corona
Regia. I in the meane time knowing that Artificers are to bee believed in their
owne art, gave order to a Stationer and some Compositors for the Presse, that
they should compare the letters of that wicked booke with the other of
Flavius which you lately sent unto mee. They returne mee this answere, that
if the likelyhood or identity of letters were an argument to discover the
printing of the book in such or such a place then might Corona Regia as well
bee printed in London or Paris or Leyden as at Lovaine: because when stamps
for printing are made at Cullen, at Antwerp, or at Paris, they are brought from
thence and carry ed into severall Countries, so that you shall have printing upon
one and the same sorte of letters in specie to be out of severall shoppes in the
same Citty, and out of severall houses in severall Countries.

Their iudgment therefore is out of their Art, that Hieronymus Verdussius
of Antwerpe is the man that printed the Corona Regia. Two general reasons
they give of it: one, because hee is a greate dependant upon the Jésuites, and
a person whom they do use in many affaires. But they yeeld a special reason
which they hold to be a plenary satisfaction for that their opinion. And that
is, that in every Printing house of any reputation there bee certaine greate and
Capitall letters which are purposely for that Printer cutt in wood, and
adornde with flowers and knotts, so that no such like in any other mans
shoppe is to be found. If then you shall looke upon the greate P which
beginneth the Epistle of Euphormio in the Corona Regia, and shall compare
it with the P which is to be found in a booke in folio printed by Verdussius,
which is called Opus Chronographicum Petri Opmeeri, you will discover the
absolute and exact agreement of the one with the other. This P is to be found
in the very next page after the Epistle dedicatory of that booke, and wee have
tryed with a Compass the quantity of both, which is square at the least three
quarters of an inche, and wee find no difference to a hayre breadth. And your
eyewill tell you, that whereas the flowers and devises of the knott are full of
operosity and curiosity, there is not the least tie in the one of those letters,
which is not accurately to be found in the other. I have by letter signified
these thinges to the king at New-markett, and have advertised withall that I
would write purposely to you reconfirming the same. So that I am persuaded
that if you apply your dilligence and carefulnes of serche unto Verdussius
you will truly start the hare there.

Now I do certainly finde that Barclay with his family bee gone to Rome,
and that by means of Cardinall Bellarmine he is recommended to the Pope.
I am strenthened in my first opinion that whosoever was the penner, Barclay

Winfried Schleiner / "A Plott to have his nose and eares cutt of / 75

was the suggester of the matter of the booke. For besides all other reasons
it is now very evident that before he went out of England his peace was made
at Rome, and that he departed hence upon an assumed resolution thereof. To
which période before he could attaine, hee must make some proof of his true
disloyaltye to our kinge, which he did by the instruction he gave for that
Treatise. By which meanes the Jésuites to whom doubtlesse he applyeth
himselfe, did imbarke him irreconcilably to the king, besides the despite
which they intended to his majesty. And you shall find that he will proove
either covertly or with open face as he shall be directed a viper unto our
Soveraigne [who] if he offended in any thinge, it was in [cherishing?] with
a forlorne snake who now hisseth against his Patrone and Benefactour. But
I trust I will teache us heere how we put any confidence in one of the Popes
brood, howsoever out of politicke reasons they seem to mince their Popery.
I do not yet send my iudgment concerning Erucius Puto because I am not
ready for it, but I have one in worke about it and by my next peradventure
you shall shall heare further. . .

A letter dated 17 months later, June 17, 161 6, shows that Abbot now believes
that Puteanus was the author, but that Barclay "was a suggestor of the greater part
of the matter," again a coded and obfuscating manner of reference to the book's
content. It is well known that King James eventually sent a special envoy. Sir John
Bennet, to the continent to request the punishment of Puteanus, who protested his
innocence. As Théophile Simarput it, "grâce àde puissantes protections, Puteanus
fut sauvé et Bennet se retira sans avoir réussi auprès de T Archiduc."^ Like Schoppe
earlier in Madrid, Puteanus escaped by the skin of his teeth, for two Englishmen
traveled to Louvain to avenge the King. As Ian Philip puts it, **unfortunately they
got confused by all those strange foreign names and beat up the wrong man."^ This
was in April 1617; almost a year earlier (in June 1616), the Archbishop Abbot
initiates the suspicions about Puteanus thus:

. . . But now concerning that book of Corona Regia, I rest fully satisfied that
it was hatched in the Archduke's Countries. And I am verily of the opinion
that it was digested by the pen of Puteanus, howsoever hee make declarations
and protestations to the contrary. But I cannot be removed from that conceit
that Barkley was a suggestor of the greatest part of the matter, which
peradventure might be helped with a symbole of the Jésuites of Lovayne.
When Parsons offered the matter, and Creswell brought the style, and
perhaps some other Jésuite might alter a few wordes, and thereupon both
Parsons and Creswell did thinke themselves safe, when Parsons for his part
and Creswell for his part did protest, that they were not the Authoures of that
booke. I could give you more such examples. . .

76 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

This letter proves what I argued several years ago, if further proof is necessary,
namely that equivocation was on the minds of the English thoughout the years
of conflict with Caspar Schoppe. It also shows the Archbishop consistent in
pointing to Barclay for "the greatest part of the matter," as he puts it here, or
for "the matter and sense of the booke," as he will put it in a letter to Trumbull
exactly a year later (June 1617); he was led to Barclay by the use of the
Barclayan name Euphormio.^ In my earlier essay also I had noted that name,
but interpreted it differently, for I had surmised that with the name "Euphormio"
the author wanted to lampoon Barclay. (The King had particularly liked the
first part of the Satyricon, since it praised him). If Schoppe was the author, he
had ironically embedded in Corona Regia his own name (together with that of
Bellarmine and Becanus) in a sentence in which the sycophantic speaker
recommends that the King "prudently" imitate the whale if attacked by "some
Bellarmine, Becanus, or Schoppe" and just spout forth words indiscriminately
(pp. 86-87). Of this was a self-reference, it effectively covered his tracks, although
among hundreds of pages of diplomatic correspondence (with many dozens
containing speculations about the book's authorship), twice in these early years
after publication the hunch is indeed expressed that Schoppe might be the author.
The earliest is by Jean Thymon in a letter of October 20, 1615, to Trumbull:

At the last fair in Frankfort there was published a highly offensive small
book entitled Corona Regia. It is a libel or satire at the expense of the King
of England. Two Jesuits on their way back from Antwerp on 14 October
were reading it on the boat and fulsomely praising its style, language and
subject matter. About the same day, the French Ambassador read the work,
and his criticism was summed up in these words: the book is very good. In
the opinion of some, the author is Scoppus [sic]. I have not seen it yet.^

In January 1616, John Luntius, also writing to Trumbull, surmises: "I am
convinced that the author is Scopius."*^

Of course to this day, the question who supplied the author (whoever he
may have been) with "the matter and sense of the booke" has not been
answered, and it is possible that the Archbishop was pointing to the correct
source. Clearly he assumes that "matter and sense" were not in the public
domain at the time, particularly on the continent, and since he is very close to
the subject, it may be wise to take his hunches seriously. He returns to the
subject in his letter of June 1617:

... It is no new thing that Barclay should be thought to have a fmger in the
Corona Regia, for from the beginning, I ever told the kinge, that howsoever

Winfried Schleiner / "A Plott to have his nose and eares cutt of / 77

another man might be the composer of that pamphlet, yet the matter and
sense of the booke did come from Barclay. And if you list to looke over such
letters as I wrote unto you about that time, you will fmde some reasons
alleged by mee to that purpose. I know Barclay had greate emulation at
Casaubon, and thought that hee was observed by him: I found him discontented
with his entertainment, which was a great deale too good for him: I
discovered him to be inquisitive of all passages that belonged unto the kinge:
I know him a greate observer of the kinges words and actions every dinner
and supper: I found he had made away his pension and so ment to be gone,
and speedily indeed after his departure hence hee was mett with his wife and
Children going toward Rome. It is true that hee went to sea about the end of
October or beginning of November, but he went away in hast, making
certainly the more speed, because he had discovered that some of the bookes
were come forth. My letter came to Dover on the Sunday, when hee had
taken shipping but the Friday night before, which had stayed him in England
if he had not bene departed. One suspicion I had that his part was therein, was
because of the Euphormio in the Epistle of the Corona Regia, the like
whereof Barclay had used in one of his other bookes. By all which it may
well stand togither that the matter of the booke came from Barclay, although
the phrase and publication did come from Puteanus. Neither am I moved
against this, because the Jésuites do sweare that it is not the worke of that
Pedant: for besides equivocation in generall which they very much [affect],
I know it to bee an ordinary thing with them, that where one bringeth the
matter or [purpose] of it and another the forme or phrase, they will both
desperately deny the treatise to be theirs. . .

Of the Jacobeidos and the Commentary upon Corona Regia I would be
glad to heare further when you understand more.

The depiction of Barclay as "inquisitive of all passages that belonged unto the
kinge" and "a great observer of the kinges words and actions every dinner and
supper" show the Archbishop himself as watchful, concerned, and suspicious
about what a visitor may carry away from the King's dining hall. That Barclay
"had great emulation at Casaubon" and "thought that hee was observed by
him" would be an index of the intense competition at court. Barclay's
precipitous departure, finally, and the Archbishop' s failed attempt to keep him
from leaving (apparently in order to question him about Corona Regia) show
the precarious position of a writer/courtier.

I cannot shed any light on the last sentence I quoted from Abbot, in which
he asks for more information about "the Jacobeidos and the Commentary upon
Corona Regia." Half a year later, the Archbishop returns to the subject (letter
to Trumbull of December 19, 1617):

78 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

I have heard much of the Jacobeidos, and the Speeche hath runne upon it for
a y eere now last past, but I have scene nothing of it, and do much suspect that
there is only a title-page and no booke; but that put out to make a buzze and
noyse in the world. For to my knowledge the principall Jésuites in England
do contest with those beyond the seas, that there should bee no bookes
published which give iust offense to the State. Other pamphletts are daily
putt out and wee meete with many packs of them, so that the printers
adventuring in that kinde is but a hazard. . .

It is true that Barclay hath published a booke dedicated to the Pope. He
hath some short and earnest denyall, that his hand was not in Corona Regia.
But it is nothing else but equivocation, and wee are more certainly advertised
out of Italy, that Barclay suggested the matter and Puteanus penned the
booke.

I would be most interested in seeing the "Jacobeidos," even if only a title page,
and would be even more eager to lay my hands on "the Commentary" on
Corona Regia mentioned in this letter; therefore I close this section by
appropriating the Archbishop's words addressed to Trumbull and re-directing
them to my readers: "Of the Jacobeidos and the Commentary upon Corona
Regia I would be glad to heare further when you understand more."

Schoppe and Homophobia

As we saw, the Archbishop's epistolary language concerning the topic of
allegations of homoeroticism in the King is coded, or else the topic is deleted.
In general, the diplomatic mail refers to Corona Regia by such words as "the
highly offensive small book," the "mischievous book," "the book" or "the
book that interests you," "the infamous libel written against His Majesty," and
"the infamous libell." Deletion of the unmentionable continues, incidentally,
when at the end of the century Christi2in Thomasius reprints what he calls this
"most abominable book" (scelestissimus libellus) in order to make public, as
he puts it, the infamy of people against kings and princes. * ' While Corona regia
has a full range of biting parody, including the speaker's tongue-in-cheek
praise of royal simulation and deceit (simulare etfingere Regium est, p. 13),
I have little doubt that "the matter and sense of the booke" which, according
to Abbot's surmise, was supplied by Barclay, concerns the King's comport-
ment with his male favorites, i.e. allegations that he was homoerotic. Even
when (in the letter quoted last) Abbot suspects that of the "Jacobeidos" there
exists nothing more than a title page on account of his reassuring knowledge

Winfiried Schleiner / "A Plott to have his nose and eares cutt of / 79

that "the principall Jésuites in England do contest with those beyond the seas,
that there should bee no bookes published which give offense to the State," the
offense he may primarily be thinking of is the charge of sodomy.

The speaker of Corona Regia talks at length about the young male
favorites that James had sought and showered with highest honors, such as the
handsome Robert Carr: "I would praise the fortune of the young man, if your
humanity (humanitas) had not outdone me" (p. 92). The author recounts how
the young man was made Viscount of Rochester, then Earl of Somerset, then
''Magnus Cubicularius tuus" ("your Knight of the Bedchamber" — in this
context an ambiguous title). Next was a youth of incomparabilis forma,
Georges Villiers, "introduced by the Queen herself into your chamber, where
he was the same day made both knight and a Cubiculo and received from the
royal treasury a pension of 10,000 florins per year" (p. 92). The author has
Casaubon, the world-renowned classicist turned theologian, say unctuously to
the King: "Christ's word was ' Sinite parvulos venire adme' You call the boys,
particularly handsome ones, to you and appreciate in them gifts and wonders"
of nature" (p. 105).

We may ask whether such a charge was common in the period. Was
homophobia used commonly in polemic among humanists and against King
James? The answer to the second part of the question is negative, response to
the first is more complex. Corona Regia appears to be the first work in which
the charge against King James is made in print. The few indications we have
of a homophobic reaction against the King are usually of a later date and
recollections written down long after the fact. Of course, there is a tradition of
using the charge of sodomy in Reformational controversy against an adver-
sary.^^ From the Catholic side it was made against Calvin and his successor in
Geneva, Théodore de Bèze (incidentally by the same person, Jérôme Bolsec,
a convert to Protestantism). For a number of reasons, the charge, which may
be said to be more deeply integrated into Protestant self-validation, is more
frequent from the Protestant side against Catholics: these have to do with
Protestant opposition to the celibacy of priests, the justification and validation
of secularizing church property (therefore frequent repetition of reports
alleging particular secular practices in convents and monasteries), and the general
polemic depiction of Rome as the modem Babylon: in Protestant propaganda
particular popes and particular "Papists" (e.g. Pope Paul Ill's son Aloysio and
Giovanni della Casa) are almost invariably presented as sodomites.

On the Catholic side, the homophobic slur as a political weapon, however,
is comparatively rare. The transparently fraudulent reports on Calvin and Bèze

80 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

must have been an embarassment to Catholics for quite some time — until we
get to Caspar Schoppe, who renewed them. In my earlier attempt at under-
standing this humanist uncivilized by the humanities (as Adrien Baillet called
him at the end of the seventeenth century),'^ I presented Corona Regia as a
reaction of the weak who had been physically beaten in Madrid and forced into
the role of knave. There seemed to be other signs of Schoppe' s victimization:
Mario D' Addio reports that the English ambassador managed to bribe a friend
of Schoppe*s, who made off with many documents relating to Schoppe' s
diplomatic mission in Spain.'"* In the light of the "inside information" I
assembled on the Madrid assault, Schoppe' s complaints in Legatus Latro and
elsewhere that there were other attempts on his life may not be exaggerated.
In the heat of controversy, his ancestry had been questioned, his father
ridiculed (as a gravedigger), and his brother-in-law accused of sodomy in the
sense of bestiality, i.e. of having intercourse with a cow.'^ Writing under the
name of Tarraeus Hebius, the Protestant Caspar Barthius had in his epigrams
addressed James I as sacerPrinceps, praising him for ejecting the Jesuits, but
had showered pages and volumes of abuse on Schoppe, including his
"Panegyricus Scioppi," of which I will cite only a sample. (The piece
associates Schoppe with the Jesuits, of whom Schoppe later became a sharp
critic).

Nidor Loiolae, Scioppe, salve

Risus Scaligeri, Scioppe, salve
Ludus Causaboni [sic], Scioppe, salve

Heinsi prostibulum, Scioppe, salve
Germanorum odium, Scioppe, salve
Europae opprobrium, Scioppe, salve. '^

In a dream, Barthius imagined Schoppe as a monster with the sign "Beware of
dog" written on his forehead.'^

While it seemed credible to me earlier that the homophobic strain in
Corona Regia, if it was Schoppe' s work, was a reaction against such abuse, I
now must report that the attribution of the book to Schoppe was seriously
challenged by the late Ian Philip in 1970, who came upon some information
(communicated by the same English agent Trumbull to London in 1624) that
neither Puteanus nor Schoppe was the author of Corona Regia, but a young
student of Louvain, Cornelius Breda (who had gone off to the wars and had
been killed in Bohemia).'^ However, in 1988, the editor of one of the recent

Winfried Schleiner / "A Plott to have his nose and eares cutt of ' / 81

volumes of the Trumbull papers to appear (for 1614-1616) still considered
Schoppe to be the author of Corona Regia. (The sixth volume containing
papers from September 1616 to December 1618, which has just appeared in
late 1995, does not alter the attribution made in the introduction of volume
five). Had this editor, who in his introduction talked at some length about
Trumbull's detective efforts, which dominate significant sections of the
documents published in the volume, not yet advanced to the year 1623 in his
reading of the Trumbull papers (which represent an enormous amount of
material)? But in 1993 Sonja P. Anderson, who after the original editor's
retirement had brought volumes five and six to completion, published a very
informative essay on Trumbull in which she writes about Trumbull' s preoccu-
pation with detecting the author of Corona Regia and even describes the
investigative breakthrough that came with seizing the printer Flavius in the
early 1620s.'^ In spite of evidence of intimate familarity with the relevant
documents, she said nothing about the attribution to Breda. Was the informa-
tion supplied by the English agent after all these years, that some rather
unknown Cornelius Breda was the author, considered too pat and unworthy of
belief ?^^ Of course Gerhard Diinnhaupt's Schoppe bibliography of 1991 also
still lists Schoppe as the author.^ ^

The English agent William Trumbull's investigation was one of the most
detailed and expensive ever conducted to determine the author of the book. The
accounts in his papers, recently acquired by the British Library, record the
rewards or bribes he doled out:^^ for 1 6 1 8- 1 624 alone, the items he lists amount
to over £765 — this includes £100 for the printer Flavius and over £10 for
someone called "John Perier" or "John Periet," who is probably no other than
the Jean Desperriet who many years later in a letter to the King was to claim
that Trumbull had promised to pay him a rather staggering amount of money
as a reward for identifying the author, but that Trumbull had failed to do so (see
my endnote 5). All that detective work led not to Schoppe but to Cornelius
Breda as the author or one of the authors of Corona Regia.

The extensive material now in the Public Records Office and at the British
Library includes a confession of 15 February 1621 by the printer Flavius
(elicited by years of persecution and eventually also the above-mentioned
bribe of £100 from Trumbull) which recounts in detail the secretive measures
taken to print the book: how Flavius was first contacted by Puteanus and then
introduced to a cleric called Nicolaus Damseau; how the galleys were hung up
to dry not in his printshop, but in a private bedroom; who read proof; and how
the book was distributed. Puteanus retained five copies, of which one was

82 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

given to the physician (Thomas) Fienus or Feyens — which gave rise to or
confirmed the suspicion that Puteanus was the author. (According to Flavius and
his own testimony, Puteanus had not authored the book). In a postscript, Flavius
confirms this confession, written in his hand and in Latin, as true and retracts
another, written a few months later (27 July 1621), as false, fictitious, and
extorted.^^ Breda is not mentioned. However the same group of documents
includes a detailed report, apparently from Trumbull, beginning with the follow-
ing sentence announcing findings of some consequence and finality: "After manie
restless endeavours, not without much hazard and great expense, in finding out the
Authors of that damnable Libel called Corona Regia, Mr. Trumbull his Majestic' s
Agent at Bruxelles hath made these discoveries followinge" (SP 77/17, fol. 176).
While the report goes over some of the same ground as Flavius' confession,
determining the roles of the accessories, one sentence points to Breda, although
not quite as unambiguously as Ian Philip would lead us to believe:

Other proofs make it appear that the Libel was written in his house [i.e. the
house of Remaclee Roberti] by Pluvier [crossed out] Cornelius Breda, then
a young student at Louen, afterwards a soldier, and slayne in the warres, and
by Pluvier, Secretarie to the Co[u]nt Christophero of Eastfrizeland. . . (SP
77/17, fol. 176).

Apart from the fact that some part of the authorship is here assigned to Pluvier,
one wonders what "the other proofs" are. Ian Philip, who may have seen
supporting proof he does not indicate or cite, was persuaded beyond a doubt,
and the editors of the Short Title Catalogue have followed his lead. I reserve
my judgment until all of the Trumbull papers become available to inspection.^"*
While Ian Philip was more certain than I can be (on the basis of the
documents in the Public Records Office and poor-quality Library of Congress
microfilms of the Trumbull papers [now in the British Library] available to
me} that Schoppe was not the author, there is no doubt that earlier authors felt
that the homophobic attack in Corona Regia was consistent with features of
Schoppe' s works. Schoppe' s authorship seemed so credible because on the
Catholic side he was one of few authors to engage in homophobic attacks.
Thus, as I explained in an essay on the political function of homophobic slurs
in the period, Schoppe renewed the polemical and unquestionably fraudulent
charge that Calvin was a pederast in his book refuting Philip de Momay's anti-
papal charges.^^ By contrast Léonard Coqueau, author of the "official" page-
by-page refutation of Momay, passes over in silence Momay's anecdotes of
philandering popes and does not make any homophobic countercharges.

Winfried Schleiner / "A Plott to have his nose and eares cutt of / 83

But to charge royalty with sodomy was still another matter; that could be
seen as an act of insurrection or rebellion against all royalty. This possibly
explains not only the feverish activity with which the English all over Northern
Europe pursued, not to say, hounded, both Flavius (whom they rightly
suspected to be the printer) and Flavius' s wife (an activity in which Henry
Wotton participated), but also their expectation that the Belgians vigorously
prosecute Puteanus and the printer. From the distance of the centuries, it may
seem grotesque that the Archduke's seeming lack of enthusiasm in detecting
and prosecuting the makers of the "little book" almost became a casus belli.
On March 30, 1616, Sir Ralph Win wood writes to William Trumbull:

The Queen has learned of the unworthy attitude in your part of the world
towards His Majesty in the matter of Corona Regia, and observing how
sensitive he is to the slight upon his personal honour and the dignity of his
Crown and how determined he is not to tolerate it, she is most desirous of
preserving the amicable relations between the two countries. She has
therefore written two letters, one in her own hand to the Infanta, and the other
to Monsieur Boischot who promised at his leave-taking to do all in his power
to render His Majesty a notable service in the redressing of this particular
grievance. I do not need to encourage you to prosecute what these letters,
herewith enclosed, set out to achieve.^^

In a letter written about four months later, i.e. after the Archduke's death,
Trumbull writes back to Winwood that he has not made much progress in his
case against Puteanus and Flavius. He reports how the news of the failed
marriage negotiations between Prince Charles and the Infanta is received in
this country dominated by Spain, as well as the rumor and concern that now the
Princess Christine of France might be sought for a spouse. Then he adds:

What has made greater impact on them here, however, is the news of the
seizure of a Dunkirk ship in the Downs by one of His Majesty's own ships,
and it is feared that this may lead to reprisals and recriminations. Some are
inclined to suspect that this is His Majesty's way of showing his resentment
at the reluctance of the Archdukes to punish the authors and printers of
Corona Regia.^^

Perhaps it was in Trumbull's interest to exaggerate the impact of the affair and
of his diplomatic démarches, but the threats contained in the previously quoted
letter give his report some credibility.

Later writers (after Barthius) realize that Corona Regia was one of few
works to break something like an iron-clad law of decorum not to charge
royalty with sodomy. Without specifically saying so, these writers noticed its

84 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

author roused the dogs of homophobia against a prince. This seems to be the
unstated reason why, as we saw earlier, La nouvelle biographie générale
(1864) calls Schoppe's books directed against James I "peut-être les plus
satiriques et plus venimeux qui existent en aucune langue." Zedlers Universal-
Lexicon (1743), the largest encyclopedia ever to appear in German, lists the
works Schoppe wrote against the King of England, but not Corona Regia,
although the inclusion of "Isaac Casaubon" among Schoppe' s pseudonyms is
proof that the authorship of that work is attributed to Schoppe. This important
reference work seems to be following the detailed investigative work by the far
from impartial writer on Schoppe, Eugenius Lavanda (i.e. Melchior Inchofer),
who had observed that Schoppe had planted his snake-eggs under the names
of innocent people, but Lavanda had failed to identify the snake's poison.^^
Thus Zedler's listing in the Schoppe entry of the pseudonym Isaac Casaubon
but not giving the title, Corona Regia, is not the result of uncertainty or
scholarly caution about the attribution to Schoppe, but equivalent to withhold-
ing information considered harmful, i.e. censorship. Sodomy, as we may
paraphrase, may always have been unmentionable, but allegations of sodomy
in royalty needed to be deleted.

Although Schoppe' s Ecclesiasticus was burned publicly in Paris and
London for other reasons and although some publications to which Schoppe
put his name were so much a thorn in the English King's side that the English
tried to cut off his nose, one may wonder how much the general belief on the
Continent that he had written Corona Regia blackened Schoppe' s reputation
in later centuries.

University of California, Davis

Notes

1. "Scioppius' Pen Against the English King's Sword: The Political Function of Ambiguity
and Anonymity in Early Seventeenth-Century Literature." Renaissance and Reformation,
26 (1990), 271-284.

2. Johan Peter Niceron, Nachrichten von den Begebenheiten and Schriften beriimter Gelehrten
(Halle, 1759), Teil 19, p. 308.

3. Nouvelle bibliographie générale (Paris, 1864): "Schopp" entry.

4. George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury to William Trumbull. Trumbull Msss. Vol. 1,
piece 13. Cambridge 194, Downshire Papers; LC Microfilm 041/Camb 194/1/13. I am
deeply grateful to Malcolm Smuts for having pointed me to these letters. The "serendipitous
find" mentioned above is really his. This letter and some others I quote (but not all) are
printed in the fifth volume by the Historical Manuscripts Commission: Report on the

Winfried Schleiner / "A Plott to have his nose and eares cutt of / 85

Manuscripts of the Marquess ofDownshire, vol. v, Papers of William Trumbull the elder,
Sept. 1614-Aug. 1616, ed. G. Dyfnallt Owen (London: Stationary Office, 1988). For the
letter quoted, see also the version in Papers of Trumbull the Elder, vol. IV, ed. A. B. Hinds
(London: Stationary Office, 1940), p. 380. 1 also used vol. VI, Papers of William Trumbull
the Elder, Sept. 1616-Dec. 1616, ed. G. Dyfnallt Owen and Sonia P. Anderson (London:
Stationary Office, 1995), although it appeared after this essay was written.

5. See Mark Pattison, Isaac Casaubon (2nd Edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), p. 483;
and Calendar ofClar. State Papers, I, 195. While Pattison makes it seem as if the letter in
the S. P. identifies Schoppe as the author, this is actually not so (see Ms. Clarendon 1 8, item
1358, in the Bodleian Library). The letter writer, Jean Desperriet, is asking for money for
previously identifying the author, whom he does not name in this letter. Cf my speculation
below whether Jean Desperriet is the John Perier or John Periet to whom Trumbull paid £10.

6. Simar, Étude surErycius Puteanus (Louvain: Bureau du Recueil, 1909), p. 14. A footnote
on that page refers to Simar' s "prochain article sur Casaubon et Puteanus dans la Revue
d'histoire ecclésiastique,'' an article I would be very interested in seeing, but which I have
been unable to find.

7. Ian Philip, Dragon's Teeth: The Crown Versus the Press in England in the XVII Century
(Claremont, CA: Honnold Library Society, 1970), p. 20.

8. Barclay had designated himself by that name, as is indicated by the title of Euphormionis
Lusinini Satyricon. See also the glossary of names in Euphormionis Lusinini Satyricon,
translated by David A. Fleming, S.M. (Nieuwkoop: DeGraaf, 1973), p. 366. The translator' s
introduction (pp. xii-xiii) has an interesting discussion of the work's reception by King
James.

9. Papers of William Trumbull the Elder, vol. V, no. 712 (p. 353).

10. Papers of William Trumbull the Elder, vol. V, no. 850 (p. 41 1).

11. Christian Thomasius, Historia sapientiae et stultitiae (Halle, 1693), p. 123.

1 2. For literature on the subject, see my essay " 'That Matter Which Ought Not To Be Heard Of :
Homophobic Slurs in Renaissance Cultural Politics," Journal of Homosexuality, 26 ( 1 994),
41-75; and also "Burton's Use of Praeteritio in Discussing Same-Sex Relationships,"
Renaissance Discourses on Desire, eds. C. J. Summers and T. L. Pebworth (Columbia and
London: University of Missouri Press, 1993), 159-178.

13. Adrien Baillet, Des enfans devenus célèbres par leurs études ou par leurs écrits (Paris,
1 688), p. 245: "Une belle description que l'on feroit de la Vie du fameux Caspar Scioppius,
seroit peut-être la peinture la plus bizarre que l'on pust faire d'un sçavant Barbare que la
Science auroit rendu plus fier et plus farouche que la Nature ne l'auroit produit en naissant.
Il faut avouer que les Humanitez et Belles Lettres qui ont coutume de former et de polir les
Esprits bien nez avoient eu peu de vertu pour ci vihser ou seulement humaniser le sien." But
Baillet' s charge is broad and unspecific.

14. D' Addio, Il pensiero politico di Gaspare Scioppio e il Machiavellismo delSeicento (Milan:
Giuffrè, 1962), p. 118.

86 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

15. See Vita et parentes Schoppi, added to Daniel Heinsius, Hercules tuamfidem (Lugd. Bat.,
1608), p. 129 and p. 131.

16. Tarraeus Hebius, i.e. Caspar Barthius, Scioppius excellens. In laudem eius & sociorumpro
Josepho Scaligero & omnibus probis Epigrammatum libri HI (Hanover, 1612); II, no. 5 (p.
48) addresses James I; II; II, no. 85 (p. 92) for "Panegyricus Scioppi."

17. Tarraeus Hebius, i.e. Caspar Barthius, Cave Canem. De vita, moribus, rebus gestis,
divinitate Gasparis Scioppii Apostatae satyricon (Hanover, 1612), p. 12.

18. Ian Philip, Dragon's Teeth, p. 21. The revised STC has accepted this attribution. I am
grateful to Ms. Katherine F. Pantzer for calling my attention to Ian Philip's limited
distribution publication.

19. Sonia P. Anderson, "The Elder Trumbull: A Bibliographical Sketch," The British Library
Journal, 19 (1993), 115-132. See particularly p. 123.

20. In a personal letter to me (of 3 October 1994), Ms. Anderson wrote that she had not known
of the attribution to Breda, but that she "had come to be increasingly uneasy about Schoppe
(who seemed too far removed from the action)."

21. Gerhardt Dunnhaupt, "Schoppe, Gasper," Personalbibliographien zu den Drucken des
Barock, 2nd. edition (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1991), vol. 5, p. 3753, item 45.

22. This is in LC microfilm 041/Camb 218 (Trumbull Msss.; vol. V, Minutes of Letters 1623-
1625), no. 75.

23. State Papers 111X1, fos 1 63- 1 66. 1 am grateful to the Public Record Office for supplying me
photocopies.

24. Unfortunately publication of another volume of the Trumbull papers is not planned, the
quahty of the LC microfilms (made during World War II) is poor, and the collection recently
acquired by the British government and deposited at the British Library is currently subject
to a program of preservation treatment prior to incorporation and cataloguing.

25. Schleiner, "'That Matter Which Ought Not To Be Heard Of: Homophobic Slurs in
Renaissance Cultural Politics," p. 63.

26. Papers of William Trumbull the Elder, vol. V, no. 969 (p. 460).

27. Papers of William Trumbull the Elder, vol. V, no. 1 158 (p. 548).

28. Eugenius Lavanda, Grammaticus palaephatius sive nugivendus. Hoc est. In très
consultationibus Gaspari Scioppi De ratione studiorum scholia et notationes (n. p., 1639),
p. 18.

Book Reviews
Comptes rendus

Langage et vérité. Études offertes à Jean-Claude Margolin par ses collègues,
ses collaborateurs, ses élèves et ses amis, sous la direction de Jean Céard.
Genève, Droz, 1993. Pp. 308.

In 1 968, when Jean-Claude Margolin' s essay on Erasme et la vérité was published for
the first time, the author did probably not anticipate what a central role the questions
he addressed would play in academic debates during the last quarter of the twentieth
century. Erasmus was for ever aware of the endless potential of the written expression
to capture, modify, enhance, exaggerate, colour or falsify the truth of the matter to be
stated. Truthfulness to him was always challenging and sometimes dangerous, both for
the author and the audience. This festschrift presented to Jean-Claude Margolin in the
year of his seventieth birthday aptly reflects the multiple efforts made in recent decades
to understand the complexities of the relationship between res and repraesentatio by
students of philosophy, rhetoric, linguistics, literary criticism, history, art history and
jurisprudence. It is true that not all of the 27 contributors, all but one of them writing
in French, have chosen to address this central theme; if they had, the book would
inadequately reflect the multitude of stimuli that are owed the scholar it wishes to
honour. Like Margolin himself has done so often, some of his friends and disciples
present topics in the fields of bibliography, biography and general Renaissance
culture. The central theme, however, is given sufficient prominence for the book to be
used as a resource in the study of that topic.

The most remarkable part of this volume surely is the introductory bibliography
of Margolin's own publications, comprised of no less than 304 entries. It would be
much longer still, if book reviews had been included. This stunning contribution to
Renaissance studies, marked by unfailing lucidity and elegance of style, was achieved
by a scholar who never shunned administrative positions and coordinating work in
international academic organizations. Philosophy was the field he represented and
taught for 30 years at France's Centre d'Études Supérieures de la Renaissance in
Tours. The range of his philosophical studies, however, was by no means restricted to

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a single period. The problems encountered in his work on the Renaissance led him
logically to thinkers of subsequent ages, such as Leibniz and even his own teacher,
Gaston Bachelard. Moreover, his intellectual curiosity rendered Margolin particularly
qualified to study Renaissance scholars that were active in a variety of fields, such as
Charles de Bovelles and Girolamo Cardano. He also wrote on travel in the Renaissance
and the history of eyeglasses, to mention only a very few topics. First and last, however,
Margolin has always been, and will continue to be, an Erasmus scholar. His profound
understanding and appreciation of Erasmus may well be based on a certain natural
affinity. It has found expression in monographs, topical essays as well as editions and
translations of Erasmus' writings. His recent volume Érasme, précepteur de l'Europe
is ample proof that his devotion to Erasmus and Erasmianism has not diminished and
that we may expect many more insights in the years to come.

PETER G. BIETENHOLZ, University of Saskatchewan

Michael Bath. Speaking Pictures: English Emblem Books and Renaissance
Culture. London & New York: Longman, 1994.

Elizabeth See Watson. Achille Bocchi and the Emblem Book as Symbolic
Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

These two vastly different books contribute greatly to sharpen our awareness of
European emblem literature and its Renaissance and modem theories. They add
nothing factually new to the canon of the emblem and of Renaissance culture, but they
go far in developing our sensitivity to the implications of emblem history. Bath's
Speaking Pictures attempts to awaken us to a semiotic and hence a contemporary
appreciation of the English emblem by placing it in the cultural context of Renaissance
signs. Consequently, his book throws a wide net out over a considerable number of
authors, artistic traditions and publications in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
These include the emblem, the impresa and the devise (which of these was which, and
how, was a burning issue) and also, among others, the terminology of topoi, energeia
and loci communes of traditional and Ramist logic, the enseignas of tournaments and
of personal and royal state heraldry, Counter-Reformation Catholic and Reformed
Protestant techniques of meditation, certain concepts of current philosophico-my stical
systems like the Book of Creatures and Egyptian hieroglyphics, and translations of
Italian books of emblem theory like Giovio's Dialogo of 1555. Watson's Achille
Bocchi has the much narrower and more controlled function of introducing the man,
his emblematic work and his theory of symbols to modem readers who have ignored
his place in the stream of European and, by implication, of English literature. Watson's

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 89

work unveils for us a prominent sixteenth-century Italian literary figure who deserves
his rightful place.

Speaking Pictures is haunted by its method. Semiotics is the art of finding
interrelationships between symbols and the things they signify. When the things
signified are as diverse as emblems, devises and impresas, and when the definitions
of these as genres are as contradictory from European country to country and decade
to decade, and among authors in any one place at a single moment as they are in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the art of finding their semiotic referentiality
becomes obtuse. The use of semiotics and of its vocabulary of referents and inter-
referentiality in Speaking Pictures is caught up in the very argument about the nature
of the emblem that it is meant to settle. Because of this, Bath's study confuses as it
clarifies, much as does Rosemund Tuve's Elizabethan and Metaphysical Imagery of
1947. This is not to say that Speaking Pictures is an irrelevant book, but that it is in fact
the opposite to this because of the extraordinary mass of material that Bath draws upon .
Also, like Tuve's study, Speaking Pictures will be in circulation authoritatively for a
long time.

The modern sensibility that adheres to semiotics holds necessarily, if not
avowedly, that its theory of signs, referents and signifieds is a system of metaphysics.
The signs tell us as signs why and how the things that they signify, are. When applied
to Renaissance literature as in Speaking Pictures, semiotics comes to replace the
Judaeo-Christian/Graeco-Roman amalgam of philosophical ideas that then consti-
tuted current views of existence. Speaking Pictures may even attribute certain
characteristics of metaphysics (the study of being and essence) to epistemology (the
study of how do I know that I know). One suspects that Bath's book fuses the former
into the latter a number of times, particularly on page 241. Several references to
Augustine's so-called semiotics, which ignore the relationship between his dense
philosophical and theological ideas and his understanding of signs, do not make the
existence of a system of Renaissance semiotics more credible. Nevertheless, the
separate chapters of Speaking Pictures and their clearly delineated parts, lead us
magisterially forward through the history of the emblem in England. First, there are
the emblematists Thomas Palmer (unpublished) and Geoffrey Whitney (published) in
the sixteenth century. Soon, we arrive at the book's pivotal Chapter 6 on "The
philosophy of Symbols" covering Samuel Daniel's, Abraham Fraunce's and Thomas
Blount's criticism.

The strength of Speaking Pictures is its central argument "that emblems are
agglomerations of topoi, a bricolage of received ideas" (p. 108), not put together
haphazardly but with referential design. Bath writes, "the English emblem was an
untidy body of signifying practices," and he concludes that "To write its history . . .
what we ought to do is to try to identify some of the competing norms of signification
which seem to have gone into its make up" (p. 75). From this, there follows his
"definition of the normative model . . . that the emblem presents us with an epigram
which resolves the enigmatic relationship between motto and picture by appealing to

90 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

received meanings which its images have in established iconographie systems of
Western culture" (p. 74). The reader may feel that ultimately this definition does not
rest necessarily on a semiotic understanding of the emblem or of its background. The
definition might also be based on the methods of ancient and new historical criticism
that Bath uses to support his arguments.

As a work of new historical literary criticism, Speaking Pictures can be extremely
enlightening. Its description of Henry Peacham*s A/m^rva Britanna as a picture of the
court of the crown prince Henry, "as the moral and cultural powerhouse of a flourishing
Commonwealth" (p. 90), transforms our understanding of this emblem book of 1612.
Elsewhere, Bath's analysis of the Jesuit Henry Hawkins' Partheneia Sacra of 1633 is
written from the heart and it is a truly fine explication of several of the most touching
passages of this slighted English work. Bath is right to argue that there are poetic
reaches in Partheneia Sacra that attain the heights of the best religious verse of
Metaphysical poets like Donne, Crashaw and Southwell. By contrast to the new
historical criticism of passages on Peacham and Hawkins, the concluding chapter of
Speaking Pictures argues on semiotic grounds that emblem literature continued to be
produced in England after its traditionally held closing date of 1700, up to and
including the nineteenth century. As the Renaissance culture that gave birth to emblem
literature and that is at the basis of the argument of Speaking Pictures had ceased to
exist by 1700, one has to believe in semiotics to accept that the practice of emblems
persisted beyond that date.

As for Elizabeth See Watson's book, with its concentration on the life, times and
writings of one man, we are dealing with a work of an old-fashioned order. Achille
Bocchi and the Emblem Book as Symbolic Form goes to show that solidity is still an
active element in scholarship even if, as it stands, the book will not spark a revolution.
Watson's elegant clarity reminds us that style remains a prerequisite of human literary
culture in spite of the invading pressure of the audio- visual, the mass-media and the
computer. It is refreshing to be made to remember that human discipline has something
constant. Watson's first two brief biographical chapters on Bocchi and on the origins
of his personal culture are brilliantly readable. She ferrets out the ordinary facts
concerning a distinguished minor Bolognese patrician and displays them in the
daylight of Renaissance humanism. Her chapters recreate our sparse knowledge of an
obscure life in its immediate historical context and manage to give this life back its
original vitality. Bocchi, who was bom and spent practically all his life and died in
Bologna, lived from 1488 to 1562. These were momentous years in the development
of Italian and Western civilizations, during which for a time Bocchi's city lay under
the double-edged influence of the political power and cultural patronage of Julius II
and later of Julius III. Bocchi was the son, grandson, cousin, brother and father of
humanists, his first job may have been that of an improvvisatore or song-poet, a kind
of troubadour of the upper mind and the Renaissance upper class, and a little later he
became for almost half a century a teacher in the Faculty of Rhetoric at the "Studi" or
University of Bologna, a centre of world thought. His Symbolicae Quaestiones on,

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 91

about and with emblems, came out in 1555 at almost the end of his full, distinguished,
if still somewhat obscure career, as a kind of retrospective volume on everything
cultural from poetry to architecture that he had endeavoured to achieve.

As the author of the Symbolicae Quaestiones, Bocchi belongs to the group of
Italian theorists like Poliziano, Scaliger, Bembo and Donatus whom Bernard Weinberg
collected in his History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance of 1961 . It is
no accident that Watson has recourse to Weinberg in her first chapter (p. 7). That is to
say, nothing that Bocchi said or thought was the final word on the subject of emblems,
philosophy, theology, verse, architecture or education. And yet, if he had not spoken,
the period's cultural background would lack one of its sustaining pillars that helped
others to make the definitive statement that eluded him. Bocchi is important because
it is not only history's universal geniuses that make their times memorable.

Bocchi' s Symbolicae Quaestiones came off the printing press of his own
Bolognese literary academy. Watson stresses Bocchi' s greater freedom than Alciato's
in employing verse in his emblems (p. 69) and his reliance on poetic theory in his use
of hidden truth in images and mottoes (pp. 84-85). She develops a concept of impresa
based on the equivalence of painting and poetry (p. 86) far alien to Bath's view in
Speaking Pictures, and she concludes that there existed literary origins for both the
emblem and the symbol and hence for their relationship in emblem literature (p. 88).
But ultimately, in Bocchi, Watson conceives of the goal of the emblem as "the
specification of the relationships between poetry and painting" (p. 95). Her later
chapters explore the history of the emblem and the symbol among Italian authors. This
survey of a multitude of writers, the density of its references and its examination of a
large number of individual emblems, will remind the reader of the investigation of
genre, epigrams and rhetorical terms in Bath's study of the English emblem, and the
reader may wish once more, in spite of himself, to escape into Rosemary Freeman's
English Emblem Books for a rest.

ANTHONY RASPA, Université Laval

92 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Diane Desrosiers-Bonin. Rabelais et V humanisme civil. Genève, Droz, 1992.
Pp. 268.

"Normalement, les considérations morales ne s'appliquent pas au monde de la farce,"
a écrit M. A. Screech avec une remarquable pertinence (Rabelais, 1992). Diane
Desrosiers-Bonin respecte ce principe: prenant pour objet "l'éthique, au coeur de
l'humanisme civil" (titre du chapitre 1), elle fait en sorte que le roman de Rabelais n'ait
vraiment plus rien d'une farce. Pour austère qu'elle paraisse, l'entreprise serait
légitime si elle avait pour effet de mettre en lumière des significations insoupçonnées,
qui éclaireraient à leur tour la gaîté de l'oeuvre — comme ont su le faire, entre autres,
Edwin Duval, Thomas Greene ou Michel Jeanneret; et l'on croit que Diane Desrosiers-
Bonin s'oriente dans cette direction lorsqu'elle déclare son dessein d'étudier "la
dynamique textuelle ou les stratégies d'écriture par lesquelles [l'éthique] est mise en
oeuvre" (p. 26), avec pour but non pas "d'inscrire Rabelais dans une filiation
philosophique [. . .] mais bien de voir comment l'éthique s'actualise dans ses textes"
tp. 29). Cet espoir est d'abord encouragé par la singularité du découpage. Certes, un
premier chapitre, après avoir rappelé la tripartition de l'éthique entre conduite
individuelle, relations familiales et vie sociale (p. 22), esquisse un petit traité de la
connaissance de soi, de la raison, de la vertu, de la liberté, du bien, des passions, du mal,
de l'ataraxie et du service civique, pour conclure que "Rabelais n'innovait pas" (p. 52);
mais tout rebondit sur les dernières lignes, où est annoncé le projet essentiel: "voir quel
traitement Rabelais réserve à ces "communs devis," comment il les actualise dans son
oeuvre, quelle vitalité nouvelle il leur insuffle, avec pour plan de "montrer comment
l'éthique du pantagruélisme s'édifie notamment à travers les motifs du vin, du prince
et du diable" (p. 52, nous soulignons). Tels sont, de fait, les titres des trois chapitres
entre lesquels est réparti tout le reste de l'ouvrage; ce qui fait prévoir une dialectique
insolite, affranchie enfin des banalités conscientieusement recensées, avec maintes
références, tout au long des 50 premières pages. Mais la suite ne confirme guère ces
espérances de lecteur impatient.

Le vin: il se trouve partout, avec d'autant plus de facilité que Diane Desrosiers-
Bonin a "rangé sous ce motif les contenants du vin [. . .] et leur contenu ("eaw et autres
liquides" — p. 54, nous soulignons) ainsi que les festins, la soif et l'altération; si bien
qu'elle pense pouvoir généraliser des remarques d'A. Gendre et de J. Larmat en
affirmant que le "vin" ponctue "le début et la fin de chaque séquence diégétique." Cette
structure serait "particulièrement évidente dans le Quart Livre" (p. 56): au lecteur de
la trouver à Médamothi, chez les Ennasins, chez Quaresme-Prenant, près du Physetère,
chez les Andouilles, en Papefiguière. . . Plus convaincante est la configuration décelée
dans le Pantagruel et le Gargantua: ici un géant qui abreuve tout le monde, contre un
Picrochole qui ne boit jamais; là un géant qui altère tout le monde, contre des Dipsodes
qui s'enivrent à mort. Mais ce schéma intéressant reste inexploité, et l'éthique reprend
vite le dessus grâce à une distinction entre "bons et mauvais buveurs" (p. 72), qui
permet de réprouver symétriquement ceux qui ne boivent pas, ou boivent de l'eau, et

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 93

ceux qui boivent trop, pour privilégier la juste mesure de ceux qui boivent "modérément,"
et de leur propre chef (p. 74); on rangera parmi les "mauvais buveurs" les insatiables
Dipsodes, mais aussi Janotus et les Chicanous, que Ton fait boire; quant aux
Papimanes, ils sont mauvais buveurs parce que leur vin n'est pas bon (p. 77), en dépit
du texte. Conmie les géants, le narrateur et les lecteurs, ses commensaux, sont de "bons
buveurs," modérés; on en oublie l'inépuisable tonneau du prologue du Tiers Livre, et
surtout les Bien Ivres du Gargantua (à une allusion près, p. 98, qui ne fait pas état de
leur ivresse): peu présentables, ils brouilleraient la taxinomie, de même que Pantagruel
se saoulant avec Thaumaste "jusques à dire: D'où venez- vous?". . . Ces omissions sont
significatives: au lieu de chercher à comprendre la logique du motif, on la conforme
à une axiologie du juste milieu qui lui est étrangère; le traité de morale initial joue le
rôle de lit de Procruste, sur lequel le texte est retaillé. De même pour la notion capitale
d'altération, étudiée pp. 99-107. Tant qu'elle se présente dans le cadre d'une
thérapeutique physique et morale, où l'organisme "altéré" est ramené à son équilibre
humoral par la boisson qui le "désaltère," tout va bien, et l'analyse, si elle n'innove
guère, est correcte. Mais comment expliquer que le bon Pantagruel "altère" ses
partenaires? Réponse à la page 101 : "il leur donne soif, mais son intervention consiste
également à les rendre autres, à les ramener à leur nature originelle, état dont ils se
sont éloignés'' Cette surprenante explication, au prix d'une contradiction avec son
propre contexte (voir p. 105 l'idée opposée) permet d'évacuer la notion de désir (bien
mise en lumière pourtant par un article de Greene cité dans la bibliographie), aussi
difficile à intégrer à l'orthodoxie que celle d'ivresse.

Le thème du prince se prête mieux à l'exégèse moralisante, au prix de quelques
retouches toutefois. A propos de l'éducation, l'allègre description des jeunes années
de Gargantua est écartée d'un revers de main, avec les travaux de ceux qui en ont
montré les aspects positifs: "Nous ne pouvons consentir à cette lecture moderne. . ."
(p. 1 1 In.) — l'adjectif tient lieu de réfutation, et aucune autre raison né sera fournie
pour jeter dans le même sac à déchets proverbes à l'envers, nourrices cajoleuses,
chevaux de bois et torche-culs. Ce genre de censure est évidemment superflu au sujet
de l'éducation selon Ponocrates, dont traitent abondamment les pages suivantes, en
insistant sur ses finalités pratiques; les propos conduisent à des considérations assez
pertinentes sur l'absence de contrainte dans les études du géant, conclues par l'idée
originale que les petits automates qu'il fabrique symbolisent son autonomie (p. 1 19).
Après cela, le lecteur est invité à découvrir que Picrochole agit tout autrement que les
bons princes, qu'il est irréfléchi, violent, que ses soldats déferlent en désordre, etc.; en
regard sont célébrées la modération, la pondération et la mesure de Gargantua et des
siens. De Frère Jan cognant et fonçant à corps perdu n'est évidemment retenu que le
courage, puis l'énergie; est cité (p. 130) l'éloge qu'en fait Gargantua, mais amputé du
correctif moins édifiant qu'y ajoute le moine sur ses activités de braconnier et de
buveur. L'ayant ainsi assagi, Desrosiers-Bonin constate son rôle dans le projet
Thélémite (pp. 132-133); et ce n'est pas un petit mérite, si l'on songe aux ineptes
démentis opposés par Morçay et ses émules à la narration même de Rabelais. Toutes

94 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

les foudres, en revanche, s'abattent sur Panurge, décrit à partir de la p. 142 comme un
"tyran," avec pour caution un contresens qui lui attribue les propriétés de sa puce (p.
143), puis une formule de réprobation citée à la page 144 sans que Ton puisse deviner
que le passage dont elle est extraite, dans le texte, la désavoue. Suit la sévère liste de
ses défauts: il est hypocrite, mauvais ménager, mauvais (futur) mari, mauvais vassal
et soldat, et en plus menteur: faut-il vraiment le croire quand il raconte ses aventures
chez les Turcs (p. 146)? Puis un parcours de consultations du Tiers Livre montrera que
ses réactions sont toujours aberrantes; on note au passage une bizarre exégèse du
second distique de la Sibylle (p. 149), et une interprétation curieusement "éthique" des
conseils de Frère Jan, "confirmée par l'emploi du mot nourrice" (p. 152); à la même
page, une expression ("F. Jan soulève la possibilité. . .") donnerait à croire que la
commentatrice, trop préoccupée de devoirs civiques (pp. 147, 148, 149, 151), ne s'est
pas rendu compte que le problème de Panurge, depuis le début de son enquête, est de
savoir s'il ne sera pas cocu; on hésite à lui imputer une aussi gigantesque erreur, mais
ses propos risquent de la suggérer à un lecteur trop docile. Le réquisitoire continue au
paragraphe suivant ("l'esclavage de Panurge"): colère, confusion, égarement, lâcheté,
inertie. . ., ces deux derniers traits opposant Panurge à Frère Jan plutôt qu'à Pantagruel
— retenons cette dernière remarque (p. 164), parfaitement juste; le reste ne fait
qu'exacerber des verdicts déjà prononcés par M. A. Screech, G. Defaux et autres
membres du Grand Tribunal.

Le diable, ou plutôt les diables, occupent le dernier chapitre. Les "cafards et
calomniateurs," Picrochole et ses soldats, le prieur de Seuillé et ses moines sont des
diables; Gymnaste et Frère Jan aussi, pour leurs adversaires (pp. 173-178). Panurge,
chez Raminagrobis, assimile les parasites aux moines et les moines aux diables (pp.
179-184): ses rapprochements sont justes, mais il a quand même tort (p. 184); diable
entre tous, moine et mauvaise bête lui-même (pp. 185-194), il pourrait être un
transfuge de l'enfer: "sa duplicité n'est-elle pas le propre du Grand Imposteur" (p.
195)? Le propos s'affme à partir de la page 197, une fois admis que pour décrire les
"configurations de ce motif des diables, il faut "prendre en considération le contexte
textuel dans lequel elles s' insèrent": les "pauvres diables" de Chicanous sont infernaux,
Frère Jan qui les "bat en diable" est un bon diable, et ce même qualificatif échangé entre
lui et Panurge ne tire pas à conséquence pour l'un et condamne l'autre (p. 198): les bons
sont bons, les méchants sont méchants. Enfin, une fois admis que les diables exercent
leur malfaisance dans les trois domaines de l'éthique (p. 199), viennent les anges et les
bons démons des traditions antiques que Rabelais combinerait dans la figure du petit
angelot Eudémon (p. 206) avant de les assimiler aux héros et aux sages rois (p. 210);
le dernier paragraphe oppose "le roi-soleil et les anges de lumière," parangons des
gouvernants vertueux, aux "diables, ministres du mal" (p. 212). Épilogue: désormais,
tout est clair. Le conteur a bien expliqué à ses lecteurs la différence entre le bien et le
mal et l'ouvrage peut se conclure sur l'image emblématique qui résume ses intentions
édifiantes: Diogène roulant son tonneau. Car le prologue du Tiers Livre ^ il faut le
savoir, donnait une leçon de civisme: "loin d' ignorer l'engagement de ses compatriotes,

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 95

de fuir les dangers [. . .] ou de se réfugier dans une tour d'ivoire, Diogène fait son effort
de guerre" (p. 2 1 5), et pas question d'y soupçonner la moindre trace d' ironie. Sont cités
en note et péremptoirement récusés tous ceux qui ont eu cette insigne légèreté. En
classe d'éthique, on ne plaisante pas.

En effet, il n'y a pas lieu de plaisanter. Cet ouvrage composé avec soin et très
abondamment documenté (car on trouve dans ses notes des aperçus de tout ce qui s'est
écrit sur Rabelais depuis quelque 50 ans) suit en toute bonne foi des ornières déjà
profondément creusées au cours des dernières décennies, où risque de s'enliser la
critique rabelaisienne. On y reconnaît le parti-pris de tout ramener a une axiologie que
Rabelais agrée, sans doute, mais à titre de système de repères, etpour pousser beaucoup
plus loin ses investigations éthiques grâce aux paradoxes et aux fantaisies, aux "belles
billevesées" qui lui permettent d'en dépasser les cadres — et qui ne sont jamais
interrogées ici. On y reconnaît aussi un autre parti-pris, qui fausse bien plus gravement
la visée: la manie déjuger et de sanctionner, de "départager les personnages en deux
clans" (p. 213). À l'égard des forces hostiles, cette démarcation est justifiée, comme
le "Cy n'entrez pas. . ." de Thélème; à l'intérieur du groupe des pantagruéliens, elle
est désastreuse: elle fait oublier tout simplement l'am///^ qui soude ce groupe, y inspire
le rire et la moquerie fraternelle', méconnaître en un mot le panîagruélisme. En
reprenant à son compte les condamnations sans appel prononcées par M. A. Screech
et ses disciples contre le compagnon de Pantagruel, "lequel il aima toute sa vie" (titre
du chapitre IX), en les aggravant même avec une ardeur de néophyte, Diane Desrosiers-
Bonin présente une version de r"humanisme civil" bien accréditée peut-être auprès
d'un grand nombre de seiziémistes, mais radicalement étrangère à l'esprit du roman
de Rabelais — et à son éthique plus encore qu'à ses aspects ludiques. C'est donmiage.

ANDRÉ TOURNON, Université de Provence

96 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

John R. Roberts, ed. New Perspectives on the Seventeenth-Century English
Religious Lyric. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1994.
Pp. viii, 335.

No period in English literary history offers a more generous and varied array of
religious poetry than the seventeenth century. Approaches to the religious lyric in
particular were as diverse as cultural ethos, denomination, and personality would
allow. This collection of twelve original essays edited by John Roberts verifies the
extraordinary breadth of religious experience articulated by notable poets of the lyric
form: Marvell, Herbert, Herrick, Vaughan, Donne, Milton, and Crashaw. Roberts's
introduction advances some salient questions concerning its subject: ". . . is the
religious lyric truly a distinct genre . . . What do we mean by 'religious' in this context?
... Is our understanding of 'religious' too narrow and restricted? ... To what extent
did the religious lyric participate in, and how was it shaped by, the political, social,
theological and cultural contexts in which it was written?" (p. 2).

Helen Wilcox's lead essay, '"Curious Frame': The Seventeenth-Century Reli-
gious Lyric as Genre," addresses the issues of genre definition by evocatively using
Marvell's "The Coronet" as an epigraph for her study. The "curious frame" of which
Marvell writes is analogous to the poet's artifact that, woven to crown his Lord, would
at best "crown [his] feet, that could not crown [his] head." Wilcox's invocation of
Marvell's analogue serves as an epigraph for the whole volume. This enigmatic
Christian paradox informs the process of lyric making and the brilliantly resourceful,
frustrating, and heroic efforts of human beings intent upon composing poetry to and
about God. Wilcox provides clear and practicable delineations for the religious lyric:
its being verbal incarnation, often in form of a speaking picture, emblematic in
function, and having a discrete text which frequently defers to a larger collection,
hence transcending its own specificity. Yet as Wilcox concludes: "Although the lyrics
in themselves surprise the reader and transcend some of the normal limitations of the
familiar, they can only ever, as Marvell concludes, achieve their spiritual goal — to
'crown' the 'feet' of Christ — by being trampled upon. Real transcendence, the
implication is, comes through sacrifice" (p. 26).

The book as a whole exemplifies the creative potential of this spiritual inversion.
Achsah Guibbory's "Enlarging the Limits of the Religious Lyric" treats Herrick' s
Hesperides and argues for his understanding of "religious" as a more "inclusive" and
"holistic" concept (p. 31). Guibbory shows how Herrick' s poems blur the distinctions
between the domains of body and spirit. Such an expansive reading of Herrick,
engaged as he is in the struggle between Puritan strictures and Anglican Incarnation,
is to be welcomed. Claude J. Summers's essay, "Herrick, Vaughan and the Poetry of
Anglican Survivalism," continues the re-interpretation of Herrick' s work, with the
application of what Summers calls the "hermeneutics of suffering" (p. 68). Summers
argues convincingly for a possible influence of Noble Numbers (1647/48) upon
Vaughan's later volume. Silex Scintillans (1650 and 1655). For example. Summers

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 97

notes that Hemck's "The Widdowes teares" (N-123) and Vaughan's "The British
Church" (SS) are both laments, each portraying Anglicanism as a brutalized woman;
in Herrick's poem she is "a dead widow," in Vaughan's "a ravished bride" (p. 48).
Though composed and published before the execution of Charles I, Noble Numbers
nevertheless anticipates Vaughan's more frequently noted grief in Silex Scintillans.
Moreover, both volumes, argues Summers, "emphasize and are significantly shaped
by a felt experience of marginalization and persecution" (p. 49). The emphasis which
Summers places upon Herrick's response to "the dolorous state of affairs in England
in the late 1640's" (p. 62) also offers a useful perspective on the preoccupation with
"godly sorrow" or "teares," so prevalent in England throughout the late sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries.

Michael C. Schoenfeldt's new historicist essay, "The Poetry of Supplication:
Toward a Cultural Poetics of the Religious Lyric," re-contextualizes the works of
various poets, each grappling with self and circumstances in a radically revolutionary
England. Schoenfeldt's interpretations — of Donne's "spiritual hypochondria" and
"social precariousness" (p. 85), Herbert's struggling sense that even the private is
public, Vaughan's "hermeticism cultivated in deliberate opposition to the social" (p.
96), and Herrick's imagination of God as "informed ultimately by a kind of via
negative' (p. 99) — all align (though methodologically different) with Stella Revard' s
intriguing reading of Milton in "Christ and Apollo in the Seventeenth-Century
Religious Lyric." In the culminating section of her study, we glimpse Milton's via
negativa, as he daringly exorcizes Charles I' s alter ego (Phoebus Apollo) from his
Nativity Ode of 1629.

Continuing the theme of spiritual struggle, Anthony Low's reading of "John
Donne: The Holy Ghost is Amorous in His Metaphors'" portrays impressively
Donne's gender agon as he strives toward union with God. As "both an insistently
masculine seeker after mistresses or truths and the necessarily feminine and passive
recipient of God's love," Donne is beset by "conflicting roles" (p. 207). Three of the
poet's most startling accommodations are, in one case, the altering of God's sex from
male to female, in another, his envisaging ofa.''ménage à trois" among Christ, himself,
and the Church, and the most famous of all these in "Batter My Heart," his proposition
of divine rape. Donne's poetry, like that of other poets in this collection, amply
illustrates how generative spiritual combat can actually be to the process of writing
religious lyrics. R. V. Young, Jr.' s "Donne, Herbert, and the Postmodern Muse"
demonstrates the wide range of lyrical strategies adopted by poets working amid the
social, religious, and political controversies of their time. According to Young, this
process is parallel to the current quest for ultimate signification within theoretical
circles. In effect, then, seventeenth-century poets themselves were engaged in an
activity anticipatory of their postmodern critics. As Young argues, both parties address
essentially the same issue: "the capacity of the speaking self to define its identity in
meaningful utterance and the relationship between words of its discourse and an
absolute source of significance" (p. 1 87). Like the deconstructionist, writes Young, the

98 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

devotional poet attacks the facile notion of absolutes, what Young calls, "the secular
humanist's illusion of self-sufficiency" (p. 187).

No such illusions rest between the covers of this volume, neither among the poets
themselves, nor the scholars who critique them, both attentive to the complex and
humanly irresolvable concerns of living in or writing about the seventeenth century.
Though less evidently engaged with the social problems which frequently inspire
religious poetry in the period, Judith Dundas's and Christopher Hodgkins's studies of
rhetorical motives in poetic texts nicely complement Young's argument. '"AH Things
are Bigge with Jest': Wit as a Means of Grace," with Dundas's captivating vision of
the poet's rhetorical "play before the Lord" (p. 142, and "'Showing Holy' : Herbert and
the Rhetoric of Sanctity," with Hodgkins's use of The Countrey Parson as a gloss on
Herbert's poetic intent to "profoundly subvert the language of conventional piety" (p.
229), both offer the reader postmodern concerns though approached from traditional
perspectives.

Dundas's essay especially, like Paul Stan wood' s "Liturgy, Worship, and the Sons
of Light," offers an antidote to the spiritual tensions which prevail throughout the
volume. Stan wood' s provision of various connections between sermons, devotional
works, and certain Prayer Book liturgies and the poetry of Southwell, Alabaster,
Donne, Herbert, and Milton, in its turn, looks ahead to the concerns of Eugene R.
Cunnar's "Opening the Religious Lyric: Crashaw's Ritual, Liminal, and Visual
Wounds." Cunnar attends in particular to the liturgies and theology of Christ's
wounds, read in conjunction with Victor Turner' s theory of liminality in ritual process.
This resourceful study serves as a fitting final essay for the volume and attests to the
applicability of a variety of critical tools to seventeenth-century texts; intertextual
application of theological and liturgical documents, biographical data, historical
evidence, and theoretical material together provide a substantially enriched reading of
Crashaw's work.

Last, but by no means least, I would commend Louis L. Martz's retrospective
account in "The Poetry of Meditation: Searching the Memory." As the critic who so
thoroughly pioneered the territory of the seventeenth-century lyric, Martz's recount-
ing of the origins, intentions, and method of his widely influential book, here re-
defined as a work of "New Critical Historicism," is valuable. For all engaged in critical
discourse of the seventeenth century, Martz's research has been seminal. His re-
contextualizing of his major contribution is itself formative to the present and future
process of scholarship in the area. Finally, what should also be of considerable use to
researchers is John Roberts's 48-page "The Seventeenth-Century English Religious
Lyric: A Selective Bibliography of Modern Criticism (1952-1990)," the concluding
contribution in this collection.

In company with a number of valuable books on seventeenth-century poetry to
appear in recent years, Roberts's collection securely establishes the religious lyric as
a highly efficacious form used by all major poets of the period. With its own generic
integrity, the religious lyric served its poets well as a vehicle infinitely flexible to their

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 99

aesthetic and spiritual claims. This sophisticated genre encapsulates the interior and
cultural life of the seventeenth century, riddled with contradictions, paradoxes, and
ironies not far from those of our own time. As several of the contributors have
suggested, the relevance of this study to late twentieth-century readers significantly
exceeds the academic. In reading New Perspectives on the Seventeenth-Century
English Religious Lyric, we can affirm its editor's prefatory remark: "as we approach
the twenty-first century, these poets continue to attract some of the best minds
currently engaged in literary study" (p. 1).

MARGO SWISS. York University

Jean-Paul Barbier. Ma bibliothèque poétique. Troisième partie: Ceux de la
Pléiade. Avec un tableau chronologique des oeuvres de Joachim du Bellay.
Genève, Droz, 1994. Pp. 588.

Avec l'aide de son bibliothécaire Thierry Dubois, Jean-Paul Barbier décrit dans cet
imposant volume sa collection de recueils de poésie produits par les membres de la
Pléiade (sauf Ronsard, à qui la deuxième partie de cette Bibliothèque, parue en 1990,
était consacrée). Son introduction contient des remarques intéressantes sur Dorât et le
Collège de Coqueret — remarques qui tiennent compte des recherches récentes de
Madeleine Jùrgens et de Michel Simonin — et examine "la guerre contre l'ignorance"
ainsi que la politique française en Italie sous Henri H, qui sert d'arrière-plan à bien des
textes de du Bellay. Est reproduit ensuite le chapitre 6 du Livre VII des Recherches de
la France d'Etienne Pasquier, qui traite de la Pléiade. L'inventaire proprement dit est
divisé en sections correspondant aux auteurs: Jacques Peletier, Joachim du Bellay,
Pontus de Tyard, Jean- Antoine de Baïf, Guillaume des Autels, Etienne Jodelle, Jean
de la Peruse, Remy Belleau et Jean Dorât. Chaque section est précédée d'une notice
biographique. La section traitant de du Bellay est la plus longue, puisque non moins
de 37 volumes de ce poète sont en la possession de Jean-Paul Barbier — y compris la
Deffence et Illustration de 1549 en reliure d'époque.

La description matérielle des volumes est méticuleuse, comprenant toujours une
reproduction photographique de la page de titre et, fréquemment, des illustrations qui
mettent en valeur d'autres aspects du recueil en question. Il y a également neuf belles
photographies en couleur permettant d'apprécier la qualité de la reliure d'un petit
échantillon des livres décrits. Sont notés pour chaque volume le format, l'emploi des
caractères italiques ou romains, le foliotage et la pagination éventuelle, le contenu
(relevé avec beaucoup de précision), le nombre de vers à la page pleine, la reliure, et
d'autres particularités. L'exactitude de la transcription rendra service à tous les
chercheurs. Le relevé des variantes d'une édition à l'autre peut être fascinant, comme
dans le cas de Tyard.

100 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Jean-Paul Barbier explique dans son avant-propos que les commentaires
accompagnant la description matérielle des volumes procèdent essentiellement de la
compilation, ayant été rédigés au fil de ses lectures sous forme de fiches. Il ne faudrait
pas y chercher une critique littéraire originale. On y trouve cependant beaucoup de
remarques personnelles provenant de quelqu'un qui lit attentivement les livres qu'il
collectionne. Ces remarques constituent un des charmes de cet ouvrage. Nous
apprenons, entre autres, que Barbier n'aime pas particulièrement les Divers jeux
rustiques de du Bellay (sauf r"Hymne de la Surdité"), ni X^sAntiquitezàn même poète,
ni les Amours et Nouveaux eschanges des pierres précieuses de Belleau. Nous
l'entendons critiquer les faiseurs de catalogues de vente (p. 288).

De nombreuses notes biographiques concernent les dédicataires de pièces et les
auteurs de poèmes liminaires et se limitent normalement à ce qui se trouve dans les
ouvrages de référence facilement accessibles. À l'occasion ces notes sont cependant
plus détaillées: sur Girolamo délia Rovere, par exemple, nous avons droit à presque
une page (p. 115) basée sur les recherches de Richard Cooper. La note 277, sur
François de Toumon, s'étend sur deux pages. Jean-Paul Barbier semble quelquefois
s'être trompé: ainsi dans la note 509 (p. 432), il identifie avec le célèbre jurisconsulte
le "seigneur de Fontenay, François Hotman" auquel Belleau dédie son "Églogue sur
la guerison d'amour"; mais A. Eckhardt a montré dans Remy Belleau, sa vie, sa
"Bergerie" (1917 et 1969, p. 107) qu'il s'agit du trésorier de l'épargne sous Henri III.
Barbier a pourtant consulté l'ouvrage d'Eckhardt.

C'est Thierry Dubois qui a préparé le tableau chronologique des oeuvres
poétiques de du Bellay, dans lequel les diverses éditions sont soigneusement décrites.
Cet outil important aidera à apprécier les modalités de la diffusion des écrits du poète.

En fin de volume se trouvent une table alphabétique des incipit des pièces
françaises, suivie d'une autre pour les vers latins; une bibliographie extensive des
sources du commentaire de Barbier; un index nominum; une courte liste de devises; et
un index rerum. On regrettera peut-être l'absence d'index séparés (topographique et
alphabétique) consacrés aux imprimeurs-libraires; mais devant la richesse de la
documentation de ce tome, il ne faut pas ergoter sur des vétilles.

Ce beau livre fournira des renseignements précieux aux bibliophiles, à tous ceux
qui s'intéressent à la Pléiade, et également à ces historiens de la littérature française
qui commencent à s'interroger sur les collectionneurs eux-mêmes, sur leurs goûts et
sur le rôle essentiel qu'ils jouent dans la conservation de notre patrimoine intellectuel.

JEAN BRAYBROOK, Birkbeck College, Londres

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus / 101

liro Kajanto. The Tragic Mission of Bishop Paul Juusten to Tsar Ivan the
Terrible. The Itinerary of the Delegation to Moscow Translated, with Intro-
duction and Commentary. Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Series
B, Tome 276. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1995. Pp. 122.

Paul Juusten, Lutheran Bishop of Turku (Abo) in Finland, led an ill-fated diplomatic
mission to Moscow in 1 569- 1 572. Acting under instructions from the Swedish crown,
which ruled Finland during the early modern period, the delegation sought to resolve
ongoing tensions between King John in of Sweden and Tsar Ivan the Terrible of
Russia. While Juusten and those who accompanied him achieved litde in a political
sense and suffered enormously at Russian hands, the bishop did keep a detailed
account of the journey. On the face of it, Juusten' s /rmerary, a thoughtful Latin diary,
offers exceptional insight into Russian culture and everyday life. liro Kajanto, in
presenting this important document, partitions the exercise into three interrelated
components: afacsimileeditionofthe/^merary» ^11 accompanying English translation,
and a careful if brief commentary on the historical and literary circumstances
surrounding its composition.

The manuscript of Juusten' s diary, which he presented to the King upon his return
to Sweden, was small, consisting of 19 folios arranged in quarto. Although the
document soon disappeared into royal archives, an antiquarian unearthed it by the
early 1770s and deposited the journal with the library at the University of Turku. A
fierce fire, which swept through Turku in 1827 subsequently destroyed the original
manuscript. Fortunately, the University librarian had published the work in 1775 and
it is this late eighteenth-century edition that Kajanto reproduces. The reprinted Latin
text, along with a few eighteenth-century German noted at the end, runs to 37 pages.
Besides making this earlier version of the Itinerary available, Kajanto also makes it
accessible to a wider audience with his fine English translation. Altogether, the
publication project should be a significant addition to our understanding of the age and
will surely serve as a useful aid for students of sixteenth-century Russian history.

The introductory notes and commentary are, in some ways, as illuminating as the
Latin text and English translation. Kajanto is especially adept at using the material to
explore early modem Finnish high culture and the place of Renaissance Humanism.
Juusten, born about the time Martin Luther issued the famous Ninety-Five Theses,
belonged to the generation that formed an intellectual bridge between Germany and
Scandinavia. As a young man destined for an ecclesiastic career, he studied at the
University of Wittenberg for three years beginning in 1543. Luther and his initial
followers clearly moulded the new Protestant religious position of the future Bishop
of Turku. Kajanto, for his psirt, has far greater interest in the Humanist influence of
Philip Melanchthon. Though unable to establish an explicit link between the two men,
he argues that Juusten' s educational formation at Wittenberg necessarily reflects
Melanchthon' s ideas about the Humanist curriculum.

102 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

In keeping with this perspective, perhaps the strongest feature of this volume is
its close study of Juusten's Latin and whether he deserves the appellation "humanist."
Kajanto, who has written extensively on classical civilisation and its Renaissance
revival, methodically examines the bishop's Latin syntax, grammatical constructions,
vocabulary, style, and even the dating system. The conclusions are mixed. Juusten was
probably not a Humanist in the full Renaissance meaning of the term. On the other
hand, he was quite familiar with classical literature and the influences are obvious in
his prose. The language is clear and correct; it generally avoids the obscurity, which
marked medieval Finnish Latin. Juusten, according to his modern editor, belonged to
the new age.

Still, scholars whose primary interest is the Itinerary's contribution to our
knowledge of Russian society will be disappointed. Kajanto undoubtedly makes a
fresh and original contribution in publishing Juusten's diary, but he fails to asses the
extent to which the bishop's observations disclose the world around Ivan the Terrible.
Discussion never moves beyond a sketchy outline of the Swedish-Russian quarrel.
This reader, at any rate, was curious about the wider significance of the Finnish
diplomat's remarks. What importance do modern historians ascribe to them? Is there
a strong Scandinavian bias? How do Juusten's comments square with what we know
from Russian sources? And so forth. Kajanto might have said a good deal more about
the Russian tsar, his government, and the people over whom he ruled. These criticisms,
however, go to editorial decisions about focus and emphasis rather than substance. In
the end, Kajanto' s precise presentation of the Latin Itinerary and handy English
rendering make the volume a model for future editorial projects.

RAYMOND A. MENTZER, Montana State University

Announcements
Annonces

Augustine's City of God in the Renaissance

The University of British Columbia will host an interdisciplinary symposium on the
subject of "History, Apocalypse and the Secular Imagination: Augustine's City of
God, its Precursors and Sequels," 18-20 September 1997. Proposals for papers are
invited. Please contact Prof. Mark Vessey, Department of English, University of
British Columbia, 397 - 1873 East Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T IZl. E-
mail: mvessey@unixg.ubc.ca.

Baroque: Art et Nature

Confraternity Studies

The Society for Confraternity Studies will be sponsoring sessions at the Sixteenth
Century Studies Conference in Atlanta, USA, October 23-25, 1997. Papers are invited
on the following subjects: Religious Orders and Confraternities, Confraternities as
Patrons of the Arts, Open Topics. For further information, please contact Prof.
Nicholas Terpstra, Luther College, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan S4S
ORl. E-mail: terpstra® max .cc.uregina.ca.

104 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

Ancient Theatre

Renaissance scholars may be interested in some aspects of a forthcoming conference
entitled "Crossing the Stages: The Production, Performance and Reception of Ancient
Theater," to be held at the University of Saskatchewan, 23-26 October 1997. The
conference will focus in part on the translation of ancient drama and its modern
reception. For more information, please write to Prof. John Porter, Department of
Classics, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5. E-mail:
porterj @duke.usask.ca.

The Court of Kassel (1592-1627)

The Weserrenaissance-Museum Schloss-Brake in cooperation with the Staatliche
Museen Kassel sponsor the eight symposium on the subject of the Court of Kassel in
the Reign of Moritz the Learned, on 7-9 October 1996 in Lemgo, Germany. Using a
variety of theoretical positions about court culture, the question of the unity of art and
science according to the theories of Moritz the Learned will be discussed. For more
information, please contact: Dr. Heiner Borggrefe, Forschungsprojekt/Institut fiir
Architektur-, Kunst-, und Kulturgeschichte am Weserrenaissance-Museum Schloss
Brake, postfach 820, 32638 Lemgo, GERMANY. Fax: 05261/945050.

Visiting Humanities Fellowships 1997-1998

Applications are invited for Visiting Humanities Fellowships, tenable at the Univer-
sity of Windsor in the 1997-1998 academic year. Scholars with research projects in
traditional humanities disciplines or in theoretical, historical or philosophical aspects
of the sciences, social sciences, arts and professional studies are invited to apply.
Applicants must hold a doctorate or equivalent. Letters of application should be
addressed to: Prof. Jacqueline Murray, Humanities Research Group, University of
Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, Ontario N9B 3P4. E-mail:
hrgmail @ u windsor.ca.

The Greco-Roman Rhetorical Tradition

*The Greco-Roman Rhetorical Tradition: Alterations, Adaptations, Alternatives'* is
the theme of the Eleventh Biennial Conference of the International Society for the
History of Rhetoric, to be held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, July 22-26, 1997. For
information, please write to Prof. Judith Rice Henderson, Department of English, 9
Campus Drive, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 3A5. E-
mail: HENDRSNJ@duke.usask.ca.

Announcements / Annonces / 105

Modern Language Association Prizes

The Committee on Honors and Awards of the Modem Language Association of
America invites scholars to compete for its various annual prizes, including the Aldo
and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Studies, and the MLA Prize
for Independent Scholars. Regulations for the various prizes are available at the MLA
Head Office, 10 Astor Place, New York, New York 10003-6981, USA. E-mail:
awards@mla.org.

Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association

Papers on any subjects from Charlemagne to Charles li are invited, with particular
emphasis on international and intercultural aspects. The meeting of the RMMRA will
be held May 15-18, 1997 at the Banff Conference Centre in Banff, Alberta. Address
inquiries and proposals to Prof. Jean Maclntyre, Department of English, University of
Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E5. E-mail: jean.macintyre@ualberta.ca.

Qmadian Society for '^gnaissance Studies
Société (hnadicnne (C^tudes de la*^naissmicc

S.C.E.R.

1976-1996

L^.o.K-.o.

Pour marquer son vingtième To celebrate its twentieth anniver-
anniversaire, la Société met sur pied un sary , the Society inaugurates an

CONCOURS ANNUEL

delà

MEILLEURE COMMUNICATION
ÉTUDL\NTE

du programme du congrès

ANNUAL COMPETITION

for the

BEST STUDENT
PAPER

in the Conference programme

Sur recommandation d'un comité de
trois membres, la Société remettra à
l'auteur:

• un billet pour le banquet et

• un certificat d'excellence
désigné comme

PRIX ERASME

On the advice of a three-member com-
mittee, the Society will present the
author with:

• a banquet ticket

• a certificate of excellence
called

ERASMUS PRIZE

À l'unanimité, le jury a décerné

le PRIX ERASME 1996

Madame MARIE-CLAUDE MALENFANT

Université de Clermont-Ferrand

pour sa communication

"La fantaisie et la nature des femmes

dans VHeptaméron de Marguerite de Navarre"

The editor welcomes submissions on any aspect of the Renaissance and the Reformation
period. Manuscripts in duplicate should be sent to the editorial office:

Renaissance and Reformation
Department of French Studies
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario NIG 2W1
CANADA

The journal does not accept unsolicited reviews. However, those interested in reviewing
books should contact the Book Review Editor.

* * *

La revue sollicite des manuscrits sur tous les aspects de la Renaissance et de la Réforme.
Les manuscrits en deux exemplaires doivent être postés à l'adresse suivante:

Renaissance et Réforme
Département d'études françaises
Université de Guelph
Guelph (Ontario) N1G2W1
CANADA

Les textes en français ou en anglais seront soumis à l'évaluation externe. Veuillez vous
conformer aux conventions textuelles habituelles, avec l'appareil de notes à la fin de votre
texte. Les droits d'auteur sont la propriété des collaborateurs et collaboratrices; cependant,
pour toute reproduction en tout ou en partie, on doit obtenir la permission du directeur.

La revue sollicite ses propres comptes rendus. Si vous désirez rédiger des comptes rendus,
veuillez communiquer directement avec le responsable de la rubrique des hvres.

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