In Augustine’s telling of the story of original sin, there was once a time in human history, at the dawn of time, when desires, sadness, hope, fear, pain, courage and compassion, but also melancholy, exaltation and desperation – that is almost all human feelings in their infinite range of degrees and nuances – did not yet exist. The only feelings known to man and woman were love, an ordered love by which they loved God for himself and other creatures as a function of God, and the immense and constant joy involved in enjoying what they loved, desired and possessed. With sin, a sin of pride, born from a desire for excellence in which humankind wanted to rule itself and deny its subordination to God, disordered love, perverse desire and, with it, hope, fear, pain, sadness and all the other feelings, were born.1
What had happened? Augustine had no doubt. Man and woman had been punished for their sin. Driven out of their earthly paradise, they experienced within themselves the disobedience they had shown to divine command: their will was weakened and they became unable to achieve what they wanted immediately and constantly. At that point, an excessive and disordered desire (concupiscentia) began to dominate the whole human soul and, in its most uncontrollable manifestation, carnal lust, which stimulates the reproductive organs, enslaved the soul to the body. If, before, man wanted to do only what he could do, now, after sin, he wanted what he could not do and suffered for what he did not want. He continued to feel joy, albeit always fleeting and often in vain. At the same time, he experienced new passions, hitherto unknown: the pain and sadness resulting from not being able to obtain or keep what he loved, the hope that this might be possible in the future and the continual fear that he would lose it. The passions, presented by Augustine as inclinations or expressions of a weak will, asserted themselves even when they were unwanted and were frequently conflicting, troubling the soul and the whole of people’s
In these pages of The City of God, the passions emerge as consequences of sin and full-blown diseases of the soul. However, in these same pages in which Augustine binds the emotions to man’s decayed nature – considering these to be evidence of his fragility – he also explains how this weakness can be turned into strength by emulating Christ, whose earthly life showed all human passions and redeemed humankind through his Passion. Testifying to the decayed state of sin-induced human nature, these same emotions, he argued, can be a powerful and indispensable tool for salvation if turned to a just cause. The pain of sin, hope in God’s forgiveness, fear of divine justice, anger at sinners and compassion for the suffering: these are all feelings through which man can achieve salvation and regain the emotional perfection lost via sin.3
This Augustine text, in which the passions are both signs of sin and a tool for salvation, can be seen as a first, founding act of an emotional education. Men and women were called to save their souls by knowing their passions, gauging their intensity and turning them in the right direction.4 Over the centuries which followed, ancient and new doctrines from the Byzantine East and the Muslim West reshaped the psychology and ethics of emotions.5 Other ways of conceiving and using the passions appeared alongside and, sometimes, in opposition to the one indicated by Augustine. From the twelfth century onwards in particular, court culture played an important part in the formation of models of emotional behaviour.6 Nevertheless, the bond through which
From this general starting point, I would like here to offer two examples of this emotional education for the purposes of salvation, attempting to highlight the psychological skills it required and, at the same time, generated, together with its ethical implications. For this I consider texts from the theological and pastoral tradition between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. These are all texts produced by members of the Church (mostly magistri theologiae working in schools and universities and mendicant friars engaged in pastoral action) who elaborated and proposed doctrines and models of behaviour necessary for a virtuous life and future happiness in which an important role was assigned to the discipline of affect. Most of these texts were written in Latin: some by clerics for other religious people to support them in their common path of spiritual perfection, others by theologians to make available a coherent doctrine based on Scripture to clerics and friars engaged in pastoral care, and still others by clerics and preachers for others like themselves who were to act as intermediaries between the clergy and the laity for the values and models proposed. A few texts, dating from the fourteenth century onwards, were written directly for the laity in the vernacular. At the centre of my research will therefore be the monks, theologians, clerics, and preachers, their texts, ideas, and collective effort to construct and propose to themselves and to the faithful, men and women, a regulated and virtuous use of affectivity.
1 Penance
The first of these examples relates to the context in which the emotional dynamics were applied for the purposes of salvation to a greater extent than
Contrition is a frequent subject of sometimes extremely detailed analyses throughout this literature. The fundamental point of these analyses consists in defining contrition as a specific type of sorrow not only because it focuses on a specific object, sin, but above all, because it is the result of the combined action of will, reason and sensibility.12 It is rational and voluntary pain: as pain, it is passion but as rational and voluntary it is action. On this point, the texts agree: if a text of canon law, such as the Summa de poenitentia by Raymond of Pennafort, limits itself to defining contrition in a rapid but nevertheless precise way, “sorrow for sins assumed with the aim of confession and amend,”13
This distinction between spiritual and emotional pain has been used in relation to a key issue in regard to sacramental repentance, namely the intensity and quality of pain. How much suffering is needed and of what sort if people are to be freed of their sins? It is by no means a banal question. On the one hand there was the idea that the pain one suffered for one’s sins must be greater than any other pain, because the good of which sin has deprived one is greater than all other goods, namely eternal salvation. Hence, the idea that repentance for a mortal sin must involve more suffering than the loss of all earthly goods, including the loss of an only-begotten son or young bridegroom.15 On the other hand, there was also an awareness of the weakness of
These discussions on the nature and intensity of contrition in no way imply that repentance was considered solely a matter of educating for the appropriate use of pain. It was much more than that. It was education in a whole emotional dynamic, because the pain associated with contrition was considered to be bound up with the feelings from which it derived, which co-existed in it and which it, in turn, generated. Contrition thus ushered in a complex and structured emotional system which acted as its architectural principle. When Abelard began his discourse on repentance with the argument that, if it is to be effective, contrition must derive from love of God and not fear of punishment, his is a twofold undertaking: he is imposing an emotional hierarchy on repentance (from love to pain) and asserting that this hierarchy is a conversion from an earlier one (from fear to pain).19
Over time, the penitential order of emotions becomes more and more articulated. The sums of penance never lack a chapter on the impediments to penance, specifically an emotional sequence encompassing the shame involved in confessing sins, fear of punishment, desire to avoid divine justice and desperation over the impossibility of forgiveness.20 Converted to a new end—just as Augustine taught—, all these emotions give rise to a new emotional order
It was not simply a matter of learning how to transition from one feeling to another but also of feeling more than one, sometimes conflicting, emotions at the same time. An example would be fear and hope, “the two millstones that grind the Christian to make Christ’s bread,” as in a frequently cited extract from Peter Lombard’s Commentary on Psalms.21
Another example is the co-existence of pain and joy. Considered in the literature on penance as a distinctive trait of true repentance and proof of the efficacy of the sacrament, in Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on the Sentences, coexistence became the occasion for a sophistical psychological analysis that anticipated his analysis of the Treatise on the Passions in his Summa theologiae. Although pain and joy are conflicting secundum genus – moving in opposite directions – they are not conflicting secundum speciem, for Aquinas, unless they relate to the same object (pain for one’s sins cannot co-exist with joy at one’s sins). If they relate to contrary or diverse objects, one could cause the other in accordance with the principle through which joy at presence implies sadness at absence as when the sorrow for sin coexists with the joy of the hope of forgiveness, of which it is the cause. Alternatively, joy and sorrow can coexist because one is the matter of the other, as in the case of the joy of experiencing the virtuous sadness for sin. But, however much they may co-exist, joy and pain cannot be equally intense and one will always be more perfectly intense than the other because, when the soul is occupied by one of these two emotions, it withdraws from the other and thus, in accordance with the various phases of penance, on occasions, pain will be more intense and, at others it will be hope in forgiveness, which is most intense.22
2
Another way in which men and women learn to get to know and make use of their feelings works in parallel with penance, as we have seen, and consists of prayer.23
The idea that feelings have an important part to play in prayer was widespread throughout the Middle Ages. For Augustine, prayer was an “exercise in desire,” a “continually excited and devoted heart beat” a cry to God “not with the clamour of the lips but the affections of the heart.”24 Augustine’s idea that it was the emotions which were the true words of prayer was pervasive across medieval culture. It was present with an especially powerful force in the twelfth century, when the practice of affective prayer was accepted in monastic and canonical circles, finding its most fortunate definition in the work of Hugh of Saint Victor. “Prayer,” Hugh wrote, “is none other than the devotion of the mind, that is conversion to God through pious and humble affection.”25
But, what emotions are marshalled in prayer? In what sequence do they appear? The attention paid by the prayer texts to the variety and sequence of the passions is noteworthy. Some examples: Hugh of Saint Victor proposed a series of nine distinct emotions organised into three groups in accordance with the meditation theme which gave rise to them. The first group was made up of emotions deriving from the memory of God’s compassion, namely love, admiration and joy, the second from the emotions deriving from a consideration of human misery, i.e. humility, sadness and fear, whilst the third comprised the emotions arising when the enemies of the soul come to mind, namely indignation, zeal, courage.27 If there does not seem to have been a fixed sequence in this list of emotions, we can nevertheless recognise in it a progression of intensity that culminated in the concupiscentia vehemens and the amor magnus of pura oratio, that is, what Hugh calls perfect prayer.28
In the fourteenth century, in La Mendicité spirituelle, Jean Gerson proposed a text on prayer written for a readership of devout women. This contained a list of twenty emotions culminating in love of God, the highest emotion which brought the soul into a closer and more familiar relationship with God, similar to that of a groom with his bride.30 Later, in his texts on the “song of the
But what kind of movements of the soul were involved in this multiplicity of emotions in those praying? Like the pain of contrition, the feelings involved in prayer are complex and elaborate psychological processes which mobilise various soul faculties, both inferior and superior, sensibility and reason. Hugh of Saint Victor describes the psychological process which triggers prayer very well: first an intellectual phase, an untiring inner meditation which generates an awareness (scientia) of one’s condition, and then an emotional phase, in that this self-knowledge leads to compunctio (inner pain at one’s sins) which thus generates the repudiation of inaction, devotion and, lastly, prayer.34
Yet the author who best defined the diverse nature of the emotions making up prayer was certainly Gerson. He distinguished between three types of
First, there are “animal” emotions, which Gerson saw as more closely bound up with the body because they arise from a sensitive knowledge or perception of good and evil. These were seen as dangerous, frequently evil, emotions because we struggle to control them via our reason or will. These emotions, strong and violent, constitute a simpliciter devota prayer, in which there is often no lack of tears. Gerson viewed this prayer, to which women seem to be particularly inclined, with a certain mistrust on the grounds that whilst it may seem fervent, just, holy and even sublime, it is, however, a prayer free of rational control.35 There are also “rational” emotions which consist of a movement of the will prompted by reason, which are considered good prayer. Lastly, there are the so-called “spiritual” emotions similar to, but distinct from, the other two, in which prayer is found in its pure and perfect form, what Gerson defines as the song of the heart capable of elevating man to God. These are emotions which derive from a divinely inspired scientia, intellectual understanding of moral principles ensured by a specific faculty of the soul, synderesis. These could vary in intensity in accordance with the corporeal complexion of individual human beings. However, if they were nurtured, shored up and protected, they were capable of bringing those praying to mystic union with God and also of guiding the other emotions, both rational but also animal, towards the ultimate goal, co-ordinating the three types of prayer into a single great concert.36
The crucial tool in this self-moving operation was words, and the words of the Holy Scriptures in particular, the most effective for moving, as Augustine taught.40 However, words are not enough to achieve this; some may not understand the meaning of certain Biblical passages, many others might become distracted and bored during the recitation of prayers, especially the Psalms. But above all, words are not enough because the outer word is in inself incapable and inadequate for expressing the inner affection, as Augustine, and many after him, would again argue. Sometimes gestures speak louder than words, as do certain body postures, moans, tears, sighs, sobs and cries, as Augustine
It is a process which was demonstrated very clearly and elegantly by Hugh of Saint Victor in his prayer treatise De virtute orandi, in reference to words but also applicable to the other outward signs of prayer emotion. For Hugh, the most effective prayer, the oratio pura, consisted of emotion so intense as to be impossible to express in words. However, this intense emotion, he explained, can be triggered in those who pray with words only. This apparent contradiction prompted him to set out a hierarchy of increasing perfection in prayer in which the greater the emotional fervour, the lesser the recourse to words. “Emotion,” wrote Hugh, “has this characteristic that the greater and more intense it is inwardly, the less it can be expressed in outward words” (per vocem).46 Thus, the more words foster emotional intensity, the less they are capable of expressing it. Hugh returned to the Augustinian theme of the inadequacy of the outward word to express inner passion and exemplified it in a series of cases in crescendo: from sentences articulated in propositions, a complete discourse in which one initially addresses God, to prayer entrusted to a single verb (such as respice, miserere, fac) or to a single noun (refugium meum, Deus meus), as in the case of perfect prayer, the oratio pura. However, the series
3 Conclusion
To conclude this analysis of education for the good use of the passions in penance and prayer between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, a few words on those who, although necessarily present in these pages, remain undefined, as are their thoughts and actions, i.e. the recipients of this extensive and detailed sentimental education. From the texts I have analysed, I cannot know whether, how and to what extent clerics, monks, friars and, above all, lay people shared the doctrines and models of affectivity that were proposed to them. This question can only be answered, as has been done in many studies in recent years, on a case-by-case basis, according to specific times, spaces and contexts and by resorting to textual traditions and sources (chronicles, narrative works, images) other than the theoretical and normative ones analysed here.
From my point of view, I can only propose a few hypotheses. It is difficult to imagine that all the penitents who approached the sacrament of penance in those centuries and all the believers who addressed their prayers to God experienced the complex emotional dynamic required of them with full awareness and participation. As far as penance is concerned, a certain distance must be kept between the theory and practice of the sacrament, in which a certain mechanicalness must often have prevailed. Doctrines such as that, mentioned earlier, of attritio sufficiens, which require little emotional involvement on the part of the penitent, may have legitimised and encouraged a mechanical application of the sacrament. In the case of prayer, it should be remembered that the texts frequently addressed especially such highly motivated believers as
However, if the success of the emotional education promoted by the Church must be verified in relation to specific moments and users, the wide dissemination of the literature produced over the centuries in support of this education is such, in terms of its breadth, duration and variety, as to suggest that the project was at least partially successful in responding to the needs of those, including lay people, to whom it was addressed. Indeed, when this is not the case, there remains the scope of an ambitious emotional education that claimed to teach everyone how to govern the passions by demanding that they learn to convert their entire emotional apparatus to a right end by establishing the succession and intensity of emotions and safeguarding the balance between different and conflicting emotions.
Augustine of Hippo, De civitate Dei, xiv: 10, eds. Bernard Dombart, Alphonse Kalb (Turnhout, 1955), p. 430.
Augustine, De civitate Dei, xiv: 15, pp. 437–39.
Augustine, De civitate Dei, xiv: 9, pp. 426–27; on Christ as the foundation and model of the good use of the passions for man, see also: Augustine, In Iohannis evangelium tractatus, cxxix, 60, 2, ed. Radbod Willems (Turnhout, 1954), p. 479.
For a broader analysis of Augustine’s theory of the passions, see: Carla Casagrande, “Agostino: passioni e salvezza,” in Passioni dell’anima. Teorie e usi degli affetti nella cultura medievale, eds. Carla Casagrande, Silvana Vecchio (Florence, 2015), pp. 19–41.
It is not possible here to go beyond this generic but necessary reminder of the plurality of emotional models present in a time span from the fourth to the fifteenth century. I will limit myself to recalling the influence that the main philosophical traditions (Platonism, Aristotelianism and Stoicism), already variously intertwined in the Augustinian pages recalled here, continued to exert on medieval thought. For the history of the theories on emotions, see: Richard Sorabji, Emotion and the Peace of Mind: from Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford, 2000); Simo Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (Oxford, 2004); Dominik Perler, Transformationen der Gefühle. Philosophische Emotionstheorien: 1270–1670 (Tübingen, 2011); Casagrande, Vecchio, Passioni dell’anima.
See: Damien Boquet, Piroska Nagy, Sensible Moyen Âge. Une histoire des émotions dans l’Occident médiéval (Paris, 2015), in particular pp. 151–86; see also: Damien Boquet, Piroska Nagy, eds., Politiques des émotions au Moyen Âge (Micrologus’ Library 34) (Florence, 2010). The court, understood as an ‘emotional community,’ has often been the subject of analysis, through the study of specific cases, in the works of Barbara H. Rosenwein. See, in this regard: Emotionals Communities in the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca-London, 2006) and Generations of Feelings. A History of Emotions, 600–1700 (Cambridge, Eng., 2016). See also: Bernard Andenmatten, Armand Jamme, Laurence Moulinier-Brogi, Marilyn Nicoud, eds., Passions et pulsions à la cour (Moyen Âge – Temps modernes) (Florence, 2015).
Roberto Rusconi, L’ordine dei peccati. La confessione tra Medioevo ed età moderna (Bologna, 2002), pp. 9–55 (chapter “La confessione dei peccati e il sacramento della penitenza negli ultimi secoli del Medioevo”); Robert Emmet McLaughlin, “Truth, Tradition and History: The Historiography of High/Late Medieval and Early Modern Penance,” in A New History of Penance, ed. Abigail Firey (Leiden-Boston, 2008), pp. 19–95.
“Concilium Lateranensis iv (1215),” in Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo, Giuseppe L. Dossetti, Perikles-P. Joannu, Claudio Leonardi, Paolo Prodi, (Bologna, 1991), p. 245 (cap. 21): “Once they have reached the age of discernment, all believers of both sexes must faithfully confess at least once a year, in private, all their sins to their priest.” (“Omnis utriusque sexus fidelis, postquam ad annos discretionis pervenerit, omnia sua solus peccata confiteatur fideliter, saltem semel in anno proprio sacerdoti”). See: Nicole Bériou, “Autour de Latran iv (1215): la naissance de la confession moderne et sa diffusion,” in Pratiques de la Confession. Des Pères du désert à Vatican ii, ed. Groupe de la Boussière (Paris, 1983), pp. 73–93. In the following pages, I refer only to the period between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but certainly the problem of the penitent’s emotional involvement was also present in the literature from previous centuries. See, for example: Karen Wagner, “‘Cum aliquis venerit ad sacerdotem’: Penitential Experience in the Central Middle-Ages,” in A New History of Penance, ed. Abigail Firey (Leiden-Boston, 2008), pp. 201–18, which particularly emphasises the problem of external manifestations of penitential emotionality. More in general, see Esther Cohen, The Modulated Scream. Pain in Medieval Culture (Chicago-London, 2009), pp. 28–32 (subchapter “Penitence as Pain”).
See, for example: William of Auvergne, De sacramento poenitentiae (Opera omnia, 1.2) (Paris, 1674, ed. anast. Frankfurt, 1963), p. 462: “We say, then, that contrition is the breaking and crushing, and the reduction, as it were, to dust of the old man.” (“Dicimus ergo quia contritio est confractio et comminutio et quasi pulverem redactio veteris hominis”).
Peter Abelard, Scito te ipsum, ed. Rainer M. Ilgner (Turnhout, 2001), p. 51: “But penance is properly called pain of soul over that in which he transgresses.” (“Penitentia autem proprie dicitur dolor animi super eo in quo deliquit”); p. 58: “With this groaning and brokenness of heart, which we call true penance, sin does not remain.” (“Cum hoc autem gemitu et contritione cordis, quam veram penitentiam dicimus, peccatum non permanet”). See: Paul Anciaux, La Théologie du Sacrement de Pénitence au xiie siècle (Leuven-Gembloux, 1949), pp. 176–86.
Leonard Boyle, “Summae confessorum,” in Les genres littéraires dans les sources théologiques et philosophiques médiévales. Actes du Colloque international de Louvain-la-Neuve 25–27 mai 1981, ed. Robert Bultot (Leuven, 1982), pp. 227–37; Joseph Goering, “The Internal Forum and the Literature of Penance and Confession,” Traditio 59 (2004), 175–227, in particular 208–26.
Here I summarise the results of the analysis carried out on the texts on penance between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Carla Casagrande, “Le emozioni e il sacramento della penitenza,” in La penitenza tra i e ii millennio. Per una comprensione delle origini della Penitenzieria Apostolica, eds. Manlio Soldi, Renata Salvarani (Vatican City, 2012), pp. 213–31; reprinted in: Casagrande, Vecchio, Passioni dell’anima, pp. 305–25.
“Dolor pro peccatis assumptus cum proposito confitenti et satisfaciendi.” Raymundus de Pennaforte, Summa de paenitentia, ed. Xaverio Ochoa, Aloisio Diez (Rome, 1976), p. 803.
See: Alfred Vanneste, “La théologie de la pénitence chez quelques maîtres parisiens de la première moitié du xiii siècle,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 28 (1952), 24–58, in particular 38–40. Here I limit myself to mentioning two of the most famous theologians of the century: Thomas Aquinas, Commentum in quartum librum Sententiarum, d. 17, q. 2, a. 1, qc. 2 ad 1m (Opera Omnia 7.b) (Parma, 1858), p. 783: “in contrition there is a double sorrow for sin. One in the sensitive faculty, which is the passion; and here it is not essentially contrition, as an act of virtue, but rather an effect of it […] There is another sorrow in the will, which is nothing other than the displeasure of some evil, as the affections of the will are named by the names of the passions […] and so contrition is sorrow by its essence, and is the act of the virtue of repentance.” (“in contritione est duplex dolor de peccato. Unus in parte sensitiva, qui passio est; et hic non est essentialiter contritio, prout est actus virtutis, sed magis effectus ipsius […]. Alius dolor est in voluntate, qui nihil aliud est quam displicentia alicujus mali, secundum quod affectus voluntatis nominatur per nomina passionum […] et sic contritio est dolor per essentiam, et est actus virtutis poenitentiae”); and Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, In iv librum Sententiarum, d. xvi, p. i, a. i, q. i (Opera Omnia iv) (Quaracchi, 1889), pp. 383–384: “sorrow has a twofold signification: dissent of the will and the consequent feeling; the former is the essence of contrition, the latter is its effect.” (“dolor dicitur dupliciter: uno modo ipse dissensus voluntatis, alio modo passio resultans in sentientem ex illo dissensu, per quam prorumpit homo in lachrymas; et ille dissensus est de essentia contritionis, sed illa passio est effectus eius”). In another passage, Bonaventure distinguishes a movement of the will in contrition, dolor per essentiam, from a passio which is instead defined as dolor per concomitantiam, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, In iv librum Sententiarum, d. xvi, p. i, a. i, q. ii, p. 386.
In both cases, the reference is scriptural: Jer. 6, 26: “morn with bitter wailing as for an only son” (“Luctum unigeniti fac tibi planctum amarum”) and Joel 1, 8: “sob like a virgin who is dressed in black clothes, given that she is sad because she has lost the young man she was going to marry.” (“Plange quasi virgo accincta sacco super virum pubertatis suae”).
See, for example, the disconsolate consideration of William of Auvergne: “Now a question arises about the sorrow of contrition and the other motions which we have mentioned, because in a few penitents they seem to be strong, vigorous, and powerful enough to crush the old man but in many others they are so weak that these penitents seem almost insensitive and even perverse and ridiculous; in them, the pain of the loss of a small temporal thing is so great and so sensitive, that it is almost inconsolable, when the pain for the loss of God and eternal inheritance, except in the few and rarest repentants, is almost insensitive. Further. For the loss of a carnal father, or of a brother, who does not see the inconsolable pains, and the screams, and the intolerable cries of men? For the loss of a spiritual father, God, and of a spiritual brother, that is, of himself, how light is the pain, how rare the tears, how easily they dry up?” (“Quod autem quaeritur de dolore contritionis, et aliis motibus quos nominavimus, quia in paucis poenitentibus videntur esse fortes, validique et potentes ad conterendum veterem hominem; in multis vero adeo debiles, ut pene insensibiles videantur, videntur etiam perversi et ridiculosi: tantus enim dolor est de amissione modicae rei temporalis, adeoque sensibilis, ut sit pene inconsolabilis; de amissione Dei et aeternae haereditatis, praeterquam in paucissimis rarisque poenitentibus, pene insensibilis est dolor. Amplius. Pro amissione patris carnalis, aut fratris, quis non videat dolores inconsolabiles, et ejulatus, et planctus intolerabiles hominum? Pro amissione patris spiritualis Dei, et fratris spiritualis, videlicet ipsius, quam levis sit dolor, quam rarae lachrymae, quam facile arescentes?”). William of Auvergne, De sacramento poenitentiae, p. 468.
Peter the Chanter, Summa de sacramentis et animae consiliis ii, ed. Jean Albert Dugauquier (Leuven-Lille, 1957), pp. 70–71: “It is said that there may well be a greater contrition in one than in another […] that majority of contrition may be either from charity or from pious ignorance, as it is said of the blessed Paula that she complained of minor sins as well as major ones […] or from a certain natural tenderness with which it happens some are more and quicker moved to tears than others, or to some compassion or compunction.” (“Dicimus quod bene potest esse maior contritio in uno quam in alio […] illa maioritas contritionis potest esse uel ex caritate, uel ex pia ignorantia, sicut dicitur de beata Paula quod minora peccata plangebat sicut maiora […] vel ex naturali quadam teneritudine qua accidit aliquos magis moveri et citius quam alios ad lacrimas vel ad compassionem aliquam, uel compuncionem”); William of Auvergne, De sacramento poenitentiae, p. 465: “some are hard and, so to speak, hard-hearted, that when they are struck by a great painful wound, they feel it for a short time.” (“quidam enim sunt duri, et ut ita dicam, spissi cordis, ut magno vulnere doloris percussi ad modicum illud sentient”).
Hyacinthe-François Dondaine, L’attrition suffisante (Paris, 1943); Pierre Adnés, “Pénitence, V. La doctrine médiévale du sacrement de la pénitence,” in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, Ascétique et Mystique, eds. Marcel Viller, Ferdinand Cavallera, Joseph de Guibert, André Rayez, André Derville, Aimé Solignac, 16 vols. (Paris, 1936–94): 12.1 (Paris, 1984) 970–80.
Abelard, Scito te ipsum, p. 58: “And this indeed is a fruitful penance for sin, since this sorrow and contrition of mind proceeds from the love of God, whom we regard as so kind, rather than from the fear of punishment.” (“Et hec quidem reuera fructuosa est penitencia peccati, cum hic dolor atque contricio animi ex amore dei, quem tam benignum attendimus, pocius quam ex timore penarum procedit”).
See, for example, Raymundus de Pennaforte, Summa de paenitentia, pp. 877–82, who lists four main impediments, pudor, timor, spes and desperatio, to which he adds “alleviation of one’s own guilt, consideration of the guilt of the ancestors, consideration of the multitude of transgressors, the habit of sinning, pride of heart, delight in sin.” (“levigatio propriae culpae, consideratio culpae maiorum, multitudinis deliquentium consideratio, consuetudo peccandi, superbia cordis, delectatio peccati”).
Peter Lombard, “Commentarium in Psalmos,” in Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, 221 vols. (Paris, 1854), 191:803: “These are the two millstones between which the Christian is ground in order to become the bread of Christ, namely hope and fear.” (“Haec sunt duae molae, inter quas molitur Christianus, ut fiat panis Christi, scilicet spes et timor”).
Thomas Aquinas, Commentum in quartum librum Sententiarum, lib. 4 d. 14 q. 1 a. 4 qc. 2 co., pp. 693–94.
The bibliography on prayer in the Middle Ages is very extensive; see: Jean Châtillon, “Prière au Moyen Âge,” in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, Ascétique et Mystique, eds. Marcel Viller, Ferdinand Cavallera, Joseph de Guibert, André Rayez, André Derville, Aimé Solignac, 16 vols. (Paris, 1936–94): 12.2 (Paris, 1986), pp. 2271–88; and the collective volume: Roy Hammerling, ed., A History of Prayer. The First to the Fifteenth Century (Leiden-Boston), 2008). On the affective dimension of prayer: Piroska Nagy, “Au-delà du Verbe. L’efficacité de la prière individuelle au Moyen Âge entre âme et corps,” in La prière en latin de l’Antiquité au xvie siècle. Formes, évolutions, significations, ed. Jean-François Cottier (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 441–71. On the art of prayer and in particular on the texts of Hugh of Saint Victor, William of Auvergne and Gunther of Paris, see: Giacomo Gambale, La lingua di fuoco. Dante e la filosofia del linguaggio (Rome, 2012), pp. 242–58.
Augustinus, “Epistula 130. 17,” in Epistulae, ed. Klaus-Detlev Daur (Turnhout, 2009), p. 225 (ccsl 31 B): “Our Lord and God does not want to know our will, which He cannot ignore, but to exercise our desire in prayers, by which we can receive what He is preparing to give.” (“dominus et deus noster non voluntatem nostram sibi velit innotescere, quam non potest ignorare, sed exerceri in orationibus desiderium nostrum, quo possimus capere, quod praeparat dare”); Augustinus, “Epistula 130. 20,” p. 227: “To pray much, on the other hand, is to knock with a continuous and devoted fervour of the heart the one to whom we address our prayer.” (“multum autem precari est ad eum, quem precamur, diuturna et pia cordis excitatione pulsare”); Eligius Dekkers, Johannes Fraipont, eds., Enarrationes in Psalmos, 141. 2 (Turnhout, 1956), pp. 2046–47: “The inner man, then, in whom Christ began to dwell by faith, cries out to the Lord with his voice, not in the noise of the lips, but in the emotion of the heart.” (“Homo ergo interior, in quo coepit habitare Christus per fidem, voce sua, non in strepitu labiorum, sed in affectu cordis clamet ad Dominum”).
Hugh of Saint Victor, De virtute orandi, in L’œuvre de Hugues de Saint-Victor, eds. Hugh Feiss, Patrice Sicard, Dominique Poirel, 2 vols. (Turnhout, 1997), 1:132: “Prayer, then, is nothing else than the devotion of the mind, that is, the conversion to God through a pious and humble affection.” (“Nihil ergo aliud est oratio quam mentis deuotio, id est, conuersio in Deum per pium et humilem affectum”).
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ii, ii, q. 83, a. 1: “Whether prayer is an act of the appetitive power” (“Utrum oratio sit actus appetitivae virtutis?”); ad 1m: “The Lord is said to hear the desire of the poor, either because desire is the cause of their petition, since a petition is like the interpreter of a desire, or in order to show how speedily they are heard, since no sooner do the poor desire something than God hears them before they put up a prayer.” (“desiderium pauperum dicitur dominus exaudire, vel quia desiderium est causa petendi, cum petitio sit quodammodo desiderii interpres. Vel hoc dicitur ad ostendendum exauditionis velocitatem, quia scilicet dum adhuc aliquid in desiderio pauperum est, Deus exaudit, antequam orationem proponant”); see also: Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ii, ii, q. 83 a. 12: “Whether prayer should be vocal?” (“Utrum oratio debeat esse vocalis”) where Thomas lists, among the reasons that justify oral prayer, the ability of words to excite the affection with which one rises to God.
Hugh of Saint Victor, De virtute orandi, pp. 152–54.
Hugh of Saint Victor, De virtute orandi, p. 156: “It must be known, however, that this characteristic of extending a single affection to the whole series is not present in all the psalms, but often the transition from one affection to another occurs according to the different ways in which the mind of the one praying is usually touched by affections.” (“Sciendum tamen est hanc proprietatem in omnibus psalmis non esse ut per totam seriem unus affectus extendatur, sed sepe de alio affectu transitus in alium, secundum quod mentes orantium diversis modis affici solent”); Hugh of Saint Victor, De virtute orandi, p. 136: “Pure prayer is when, from the abundance of devotion, the mind is so inflamed that when it has turned itself to God to beg Him, it forgets even its own request because of the greatness of His love, and while it is with the love of Him whom it sees, it ardently desires to enjoy itself, and desires to devote itself entirely to Him.” (“Pura oratio est quando ex abundantia devotionis mens ita accenditur ut cum se ad Deum postulatura converterit, pre amoris eius magnitudine etiam petitionis sue obliviscatur, et dum amore eius quem videt, perfrui vehementer concupiscit, totaque iam illi vacare desiderat”); regarding the “the pure prayer” (“pura oratio”), see: Dominique Poirel’s comment on the text (Hugh of Saint Victor, De virtute orandi, nº 32, p. 167) in which he recalls how the expression belongs to the monastic tradition; in fact it occurs in the Regula Benedicti (xx, 4) and is the subject of analysis in: Cassiano, Conlationes, 9, 3, ed. Eugène Pichery (Paris, 1958), pp. 41–43 where it is defined as a resolution of the mind in the contemplation of God.
William of Auvergne, Rhetorica divina, xxii–xxv (Opera Omnia 1) (Orléans-Paris, 1674; ed. anast. Frankfurt, 1963), pp. 362–65; about this work, see: Jean-Yves Tilliette, “Oraison et art oratoire: les sources et le propos de la ‘Rhetorica divina’,” in Autour de Guillaume d’Auvergne (+ 1249), eds. Franco Morenzoni, Jean-Yves Tilliette (Turnhout, 2005), pp. 203–15; see also the recent English translation: William of Auvergne, Rhetorica divina, seu ars oratoria eloquentiae divinae, ed. Roland J. Teske (Leuven, 2013).
Jean Gerson, La mendicité spirituelle, in Œuvres complètes, ed. Palémon Glorieux, 10 vols. (Paris, 1960–73), 7 (Paris.1966):238–40. The list of affections includes in order: “reverence and submission to God, fear or uncertainty or trembling, great humility, anguish and anxiety, languishing of the heart, great shame, hatred, sorrow, horror and contempt towards oneself, good anger and indignation (against sins), good jealousy, great compassion or pity, great admiration [for God], holy trust and hope, repentance, good despair, horror and loathing, holy desire or holy covetousness, sober joy and gladness and pleasure, jubilation and exultation, praise or blessing and glorification, thanksgiving, love towards God.” (“reverence et subieccion envers Dieu, paour ou doubtance ou fremeur, grant humilité, angoisse et anxieté, langueur de cuer, grande honte, haynne encintre soy meismes et desplaisance et abhominacion et detestation, bonne ire et indignation, bonne jalousie, compassion grande ou pitié, admiracion grande, saintte confiance et esperance, repentance, bonne desesperance, horreur et abhominacion, saint desir ou sainte convoitise, joye et leesse sobre et plaisance, loenges ou beneisson et glorification, regraciacion, amour envers Dieu”). On the role of prayer and affections in Gerson’s mystical theology, see: Carla Casagrande, Silvana Vecchio, “Les passions, la mystique, la prière. Affectivité et dévotion dans la pensée de Jean Gerson,” Revue Mabillon 24 (2013), 99–129; republished in: Casagrande, Vecchio, Passioni dell’anima, pp. 343–83, to which I refer for further bibliographical references.
Gerson, De canticis, ii, 3, 36–40, in Isabelle Fabre, La doctrine du chant du coeur de Jean Gerson. Édition critique, traduction et commentaire du ‘Tractatus de canticis’ et du ‘Canticordum au pèlerin’ (Geneva, 2005), pp. 441–42: “joy (happiness, enjoyment, joviality, hilarity, alacrity, liquefaction, failure, drunkenness, satiety, pleasure, union, exultation, jump, jubilation, applause, dance, thanksgiving, praise); hope = desire for good things to come (tendency, expectation, hunger, thirst, ardour, good boldness, good wrath, good zeal, yearning, good emulation, good sigh, good concupiscence); compassion (pity, mercy, commiseration, gentleness, meekness, kindness, liberality, munificence, charity); fear (escape, good despair, good laziness, good astonishment, admiration, good erubescence, good shame, horror, agony, trepidation, fear, abhorrence of sin, nausea of bad pleasure, good disgust, good weariness of this life, reverential fear); sadness (contrition, pain, good hatred, disgust, good envy, torment, moaning or groaning, wailing, roaring, howling, languishing.” (“gaudium (letitia, voluptas, iocunditas, hylaritas, alacritas, liquefactio, defectio, ebrietas, satietas, fruitio, unio, exsultatio, tripudium, iubilatio, plausus, saltatio, gratiarum actio, vox laudis); spes = desiderium boni futuri (tendentia, expectatio, esuries, sitis, ardor, audacia bona, ira bona, zelus bonus, anhelatio, emulatio bona, suspirium, concupiscentia bona); compassio (miseratio, misericordia, pietas, mititas, mansuetudo, benignitas, liberalitas, munificentia, elemosina); timor (fuga, desperatio bona, segnities bona, stupor bonus, admiratio, erubescentia bona, verecundia bona, horror, agonia, trepidatio, formido, abhominatio peccati, nausea voluptatis male, fastidium bonum, tedium bonum vite huius, timor reverentialis); tristicia (contritio, dolor, odium bonum, detestatio, invidia bona, cruciatus, torsio, planctus seu plangor, lamentum, rugitus, gemitus, ululatus, langor)”). For an almost similar list in vernacular French, see: Gerson, Canticordum au pèlerin, xxxix, 4–8, in Fabre, La doctrine du chant du cœur de Jean Gerson, pp. 509–10: “joy (happiness, enjoyment, joviality, hilarity, alacrity, liquefaction, failing for joy, drunkenness, satiety, transformation, dance, thanksgiving, praise, glorifying, magnifying, blessing); hope = desire (tendency, expectation, hunger, thirst, ardour, boldness, zeal, emulation, sigh, concupiscence); pity (mercy, commiseration, meekness or benevolence, gentleness, kindness, liberality, munificence, humanity, clemency, mercy); fear (escape, despair, laziness, astonishment, admiration, erubescence, shame, horror, rêverie, trepidation, fear, abhorrence, nausea, boredom, resiliency); sadness (contrition, pain, hatred, detestation, envy, torture, torment, complaint, moaning, roaring, wailing, languishing, howling” (“joye (leesse, volupté, jocundité, hillarité, alacrité, liquefaction, deffection par joye, ebrieté, sacieté, transformacion, saulter, regracier, loer, glorifier, magnifier, beneir); espoir = desir (tendance, expectacion, fain, soif, ardeur, hardiesse, jalousie, emulacion, souspire, concupiscence); pitié (miseracion, misericorde, mittité ou debonnaireté, mansuetude, benignité, liberalité, munificence, humanité, clemence, benivolence); paour (fuite, desperacion, paresse, espoentement, admiracion, erubescence, vergoingne, horreur, resverie, trepidacion, formidacion, abhominacion, nauseacion, ennuy, resilicion); tristesse (contricio, doleur, haine, detestacion, envie, cruciacion, torcion, plainte, lamentacion, rugissement, gemissemens, languer, ululacion”).
Gerson, Canticordum au pèlerin, xx, 4-xxiv, 4, in Fabre, La doctrine du chant du coeur de Jean Gerson, pp. 494–97.
Gerson, Canticordum au pèlerin, xlix.1-lxii, 1, in Fabre, La doctrine du chant du coeur de Jean Gerson, pp. 516–24.
Hugh of Saint Victor, De virtute orandi, p. 132: “Whoever has exercised his mind with such meditations before the time of prayer, comes to prayer neither improvident, perhaps, nor lukewarm. For constant meditation begets knowledge; knowledge, once acquired, dispels ignorance and gives birth to remorse; remorse, once begotten, banishes laziness and gives birth to devotion; devotion completes prayer.” (“Quisquis huiusmodi meditationibus ante orationis tempus animum suum exercuit, nec improvidus fortassis nec tepidus ad orationem venit. Meditatio namque assidua scientiam parit; scientia vero parta ignorantiam pellit et compunctionem parit; compunctio autem parta desidiam fugat et devotionem parit; devotio vero orationem perficit”).
Gerson’s mistrust of women’s more fervent and passionate prayer is based here, as in other passages, on one of the most enduring topoi of gender difference, that is the natural weakness of female rationality. On Gerson’s distrust (but also great attention) towards female religiosity and more generally on the complexity of his relationship with female devotion, see: Wendy Love Anderson, “Gerson’s Stance of Women,” in A Companion to Jean Gerson, ed. Brian Patrick McGuire, (Leiden-Boston, 2006), pp. 293–315.
Gerson, “A son frère, Lettre-traité ‘De orationis conditione atque sanctitate’,” in Œuvres Complètes, ed. Palémon Glorieux, 10 vols. (Paris, 1960–73), 2 (Paris, 1960): 196: “As prayer is concerned not only with knowledge but with affection, for that reason it is said that prayer is not a request of any kind, but a devout one; but since devotion is an affection, it is to be noted how many kinds of affections there are: one follows an act of pure intelligence, another follows a voluntary choice of will, the last is naturally rooted in sensual knowledge. The first affection makes prayer pure, the third makes it simply devout in the way that the devout person is said to be fervent; however, the second affection, the one that arises from a voluntary choice and that may be accompanied by sadness and bitterness that upset our sensibilities against our will, is sufficient.” (“Oratio sicut non solum in cognitione sed in affectione versatur, pro eo dicatur oratio esse petitio non qualiscumque sed devota; devotio autem cum sit affectio, est attendendum quot affectionum species: alia est quae sequitur actum purae intelligentiae, alia sequitur actum voluntatis elicitum, ultima vero in sensuali cognitione naturaliter radicatur. Affectio prima reddit orationem puram, tertia reddit eam simpliciter devotam pro eo ut dicatur devotus esse fervens; sufficit tamen affectio secunda ex voluntate electa consurgens, quae cum tristitiis et amaritudinibus nos invitos sensualiter inquietantibus stare potest”); the distinction of the passions from the different faculties of the soul also occurs in Gerson, De canticis, i, 2, 2–3, pp. 338–40; ii, 1, 18, p. 381 e ii, 1, 38–40, pp. 391-4; on Gerson’s distrust of women`s overly fervent prayers, see: Gerson, De canticis, ii, 1, 41–42, pp. 394–5: “Always consider the passions of the carnal heart more suspicious the more fervent they are; you will realise that they do not follow the restraint of reason however holy, pious, just, sublime they may appear; for, as is often the case, in them and beneath them the meridian demon is hidden. Consequently, those who are judged to be most pious in sorrow and tears, to which the female sex, being inclined, is said to be devoted, are not always more virtuous.” (“Passiones autem cordis carnalis habeto semper eo suspectiores quo ferventiores nec rationis frenum sequentes attenderis quantumcumque sancte, devote, iuste, sublimes appareant; quoniam latet in talibus aut sub talibus, ut sepe, demonium meridianum. Habetur consequenter quod non semper illi sunt virtuosiores qui iudicantur devotiores in compunctionibus et lacrimis, ad quas sexus femineus quia pronus est, cantatur esse devotus”). The threefold typology of the passions, taken up in these texts, is first formulated by Gerson in 1409 in his treatise De passionibus animae in Œuvres Complètes, ed. Palémon Glorieux, 10 vols. (Paris, 1960–73), 9 (L’œuvre doctrinale) (Paris, 1973): 1–25, composed in 1409, immediately after the Theologia mystica; see: Casagrande, Vecchio, “Les passions, la mystique, la prière.”
Ps 7:10.
Augustinus, “Epistola 130.18,” p. 225: “But therefore, at certain intervals of hours and times, we also ask God with words, to remind us of these signs of things, and to make known to ourselves how much we have advanced in this desire, and to encourage ourselves more actively to increase this.” (“Sed ideo per certa intervalla horarum et temporum etiam verbis rogamus deum, ut illis rerum signis nos ipsos admoneamus, quantumque in hoc desiderio profecerimus, nobis ipsis innotescamus et ad hoc augendum nos ipsos acrius excitemus”); Hugh of Saint Victor, De virtute orandi, p. 144: “Let them [the words of the prayer] demonstrate not that they reveal to God, as if He did not know them, our secrets, but that we, while expressing our inner desire outwardly, can be more inflamed to love by our own words. Therefore, devotion of the heart alone could have been sufficient for God, if prayer had not also been formed in the voice, namely to inflame the mind of the person praying to greater devotion.” (“Demonstrent [verba orantis] autem, non ut Deum occulta nostra quasi nescientem doceant, sed ut nos, dum internum nostrum desiderium foris loquimur, ex ipsis nostris verbis amplius ad amorem inflammemur. Sola igitur cordis devotio quantum ad Deum sufficere poterat, nisi ad hoc etiam in voce formaretur oratio, ut mentem orantis ad maiorem devotionem accendat”).
William of Auvergne, Rhetorica divina, ii, p. 338: “For the spiritual orator, by the prayer which he pours out before the most high God, does not intend to move Him, whom he knows undoubtedly to be the most immovable in the ultimate stability, but rather to move himself from the evil, which he is in, to good, or from good to better, which is to say, because he intends to make himself suitable by prayer that he may be granted what he intends to obtain.” (“Orator enim spiritualis oratione, quam coram Deo altissimo fundit, non intendit ipsum movere, quem scit indubitanter in ultimate stabilitatis immobilissimum, sed potius semetipsum a malo, in quo est, in bono vel a bono in melius, quod est dicere, quia intendit semetipsum facere idoneum per orationem ut ei concedatur quod impetrare intendit”).
Augustine highlights and shows several times the capacity of Scripture to arouse passions, see De doctrina christiana, iv, xx, 42–44, ed. Joseph Martin (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 32) (Turnhout,1962), pp. 148–51, where he cites passages from the Pauline epistles as examples of the elevated style capable of inducing passions; see also De civitate Dei, xiv, 9, p. 426, where he associates the good passions of the citizens of the City of God to the scriptural verses that provoked them, or again, a passage from the Enarrationes in Psalmos, 30, 2, p. 213, in which he encourages the faithful to identify with the psalmist’s passions: “And if the psalm prays, pray; and if it groans, groan; and if it is congratulated, rejoice; and if it hopes, hope; and if it is afraid, be afraid. For all that is written here is a mirror of us.” (“Et si orat psalmus, orate; et si gemit, gemite; et si gratulatur, gaudete; et si sperat, sperate; et si timet, timete. Omnia enim quae hic conscripta sunt, speculum nostrum sunt”).
Nagy, “Au-delà du verbe,” pp. 453–61.
William of Auvergne analyses the positions and gestures of prayer in detail; he considers prostrating one’s self on the ground, kneeling, opening and raising the hands, raising one’s eyes to heaven, positions of the body useful for making prayer more devout and firm; he believes, however, that everyone should adopt the position that helps them the most knowing well that too many genuflections can sometimes be more of an impediment than a help to prayer and that lying down on some support, for example a stool, on the left side is the best position to calm the body and leave the heart free to turn to God. Rhetorica divina, xxvi, Quaedam dispositiones juvantes orare volentem, p. 365.
William of Auvergne, Rhetorica divina, pp. 374–75 (chapter 26).
Gerson, La mendicité spirituelle, pp. 236–37: “And sometimes this (the prayer) is outward without resorting to voice: sometimes it shows itself in sighs, groans, weeping, tears, regrets, wringing of the hands, raising of the eyes, beating of the breast, ranting and wordless cries, as children and beasts do when they suffer.” (“Et ce fait cecy aucune foiz sans autre voys par dehors; aucune foiz se monstre par soupirs, gemissements, plaintes, larmes, regrez, en tordant ses mains, en levant ses yeulx, en batant son piz, en brays et cris sans parolez, comme li enffanz ou les bestes en leurs douleur”); see also: Gerson, “A son frère, Lettre-traité,” p. 193: “Finally, in addition to mental and vocal requests, all external signs instituted to signify a mental emotion or concept can be called requests in a certain way, even if improperly; this is the case with the sound or movement of the air made by bells or the collision of two beams with each other, as well as the various gestures of men, nods of the eye and other human signs.…” (“Denique praeter mentales et vocales petitiones possunt omnia signa extrinseca constituta ad significandum mentis affectum vel conceptum, dici quaedam petitiones, quamvis impropie, ut est sonus vel motus aeris factus per campanulas aut asserum collisiones ad invicem, ut sunt praeterea gestus hominum varii per nutus oculorum aut aliis signis humanis.”); See: Casagrande, Vecchio, “Les passions, la mystique, la prière,” pp. 118–19.
See above note 36.
Hugh of Saint Victor, De virtute orandi, p. 136: “For affection has this peculiarity, that the greater and more fervent it is within, the less it can be expressed externally by the voice.” (“Affectus enim hoc proprium habet, quod quanto maior et ferventior intus est, tanto minus foris per vocem explicari potest”).
Hugh of Saint Victor, De virtute orandi, p. 138: “Therefore, what one does with single words seems to belong to pure prayer […] so that pure prayer becomes more jubilant and draws nearer to God, arrives more quickly [to its goal], and more effectively obtains [what it asks for].” (“Illud igitur quod solis nominibus fit ad puram orationem pertinere videtur […] ita ut pura oratio magis in iubilum convertatur et appropinquet Deo, perveniat citius et efficacius obtineat”). On the jubilation in augustinian texts, see: Cecilia Panti, “‘Verbum cordis’ e ‘ministerium vocis’: il canto emozionale di Agostino e le visioni sonore di Ildegarda di Bingen,” in Harmonia mundi. Musica mondana e musica celeste tra Antichità e Medioevo, eds. Marta Cristiani, Cecilia Panti, Graziano Perillo (Florence, 2007), pp. 167–99, in particular pp. 181–89.