The Cardinal’s Frogs: Constructing Animal Imagery in Two Fourteenth-Century Curial Sermons

ABSTRACT

Animals had a prominent place in the medieval symbolic imagination. A variety of sources, including scripture, classical and medieval naturalists, and bestiaries, helped to inform the construction of animal symbology and to establish what might be considered a canon regarding animal symbolism. Two preachers at the fourteenth-century Avignonese curia – Cardinal Pierre des Prés and the Dominican Pierre de Palme – made extensive use of animal imagery in their sermons, drawing on the established medieval ‘canon’ of such imagery while simultaneously demonstrating considerable originality, particularly in constructing moral interpretations of the animal images that they employed.

KEYWORDS:

• Preaching
• animal symbolism
• Avignon
• Cardinal Pierre des Prés
• Pierre de Palme
• O.P.

Notes on Contributor

Blake Beattie is chair of the History Department at the University of Louisville. His research interests include the Avignon papacy, thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy, and later medieval preaching. He is the author of Angelus Pacis: The Legation of Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, 1326–1334 (Brill, 2007), and, more recently, ‘John XXII and his Lawyer-Cardinals’, in Scrinium Friburgense: Papst Johannes XXII: Voraussetzungen und Wirkungen seines Pontifikats, ed. by H.-J. Schmidt and M. Rohde (De Gruyter, 2014), pp. 149–63, and ‘The Cardinals and Diplomacy in the Fourteenth Century’, in Kardinäle des Mittelalters und der frühen Renaissance, ed. by J. Dendorfer and R. Lützelschwab (Sismel, 2013), pp. 167–83.

Notes

1. ‘Rex invisibilis mundum, qui cernitur, egit / indicet ut per opus se opifex mirabile mirus’, The Oxford Book of Medieval Latin Verse, ed. by Frederic James Edward Raby (Oxford, 1956), pp. 154, no. 111.

2. See Joyce E. Salisbury, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (New York, 2010), esp. pp. 103–36; Pieter Buellens, ‘Like a Book Written by God’s Finger: Animals Showing the Path toward God’, in A Cultural History of Animals in the Medieval Age, ed. by Brigitte Resl, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Oxford, 2011), ii, 127–51.

3. Interest in the place of animals in medieval society, thought, and culture has increased significantly in the past two decades or so; see, among others, L’animal exemplaire au Moyen Âge (V^e – XV^e siècles), ed. by Jacques Berlioz and Marie Anne Polo de Beaulieu (Rennes, 1999); David Salter, Holy and Noble Beasts: Encounters with Animals in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, 2001); A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics, ed. by Paul Waldau and Kimberley Patton (New York, 2009); Kathleen Walker-Meikle, Medieval Pets (Woodbridge, 2012).

4. For bestiaries, see Bestiaires médiévaux: nouvelles perspectives sur les manuscrits et les traditions textuelles: communications présentées au XV^e Colloque de la Société Internationale Renardienne (Louvain-la-Neuve, 19–22.8.2003), ed. by Boudouin van den Abeele (Louvain-la-Neuve, 2005); Ronald Baxter, Bestiaries and their Users in the Middle Ages (Phoenix Hill, 1998); Willene B. Clark and Meradith T. McMunn, Beasts and Birds of the Middle Ages: The Bestiary and its Legacy (Philadelphia, 1989); Debra Hassig, Medieval Bestiaries: Text, Image, Ideology (Cambridge and New York, 1995); The Mark of the Beast: The Medieval Bestiary in Art, Life, and Literature, ed. by Debra Hassig, Garland Library of Medieval Literature, 22 (London, 1998); Florence McCullouch, Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries (Chapel Hill, 1960); Michel Pastoureau, Bestiaries du Moyen Âge (Paris, 2011); Franz Unterkircher, Tiere, Glaube, Aberglaube: die schönsten Miniaturen aus dem Bestiarium (Graz, 1986).

5. See Margaret J. Osler, Nature, God, and Human Understanding from the Middle Ages to Early Modern Europe. Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Science (Baltimore, 2010), pp. 24–26 and esp. pp. 132–45.

6. ‘ma non sì che paura non mi desse / la vista che m’apparve d’un leone. / Questi parea che contra me venisse / con la test’alta e con rabbiosa fame, / sì che parea che l’aere ne tremesse’, Inferno, i. xliv–xlviii.

7. See, for example, Barnabas Hughes, ‘The Antonian Zoo: Use of Animal and Human Traits in Medieval Sermons’, Homiletica, 37.1 (2012), 1–26 (for Anthony of Padua); Carolyn Muessig, ‘The Sermones Feriales et Communes of Jacques de Vitry: A Critical Edition of Sermons 10 and 11 on Animals, Part I’, Medieval Sermon Studies, 47 (2003), 33–37, and ‘Part II’, Medieval Sermon Studies, 48 (2004), 45–56.

8. See Deborah Joan McFarland, ‘Animal Lore and Medieval English Sermon Style’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Florida, 1980).

9. John Morson, ‘The English Cistercians and the Bestiary’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 39 (1956), 146–70.

10. See Willene B. Clark, The Second-Family Bestiary: Commentary, Art, Text and Translation (Woodbridge, 2006), pp. 94–96.

11. Patricia Stewart, ‘The Bestiary as a Source of Sermon Exempla: The Case of Paris, BnF lat. 15971’, in L’Humain e l’Animal dans la France médiévale (XII^e-XV^e s.), ed. by Irène Fabry-Teranchi and Anna Russakoff (Amsterdam, 2014), pp. 129–44.

12. That is, by various preachers, as opposed to the collected sermons of one particularly celebrated preacher (for example, Richard FitzRalph, archbishop of Armagh, or the future Pope Clement VI, Pierre Roger).

13. For the manuscript, see E. Olmos y Canalda, Catálogo descriptivo: Códices de la catedral de Valencia, 2nd edn (Valencia, 1943), p. 159; Thomas Kaeppeli, O.P., ‘Predigten am päpstlichen Hof von Avignon’, Archivum fratrum praedicatorum, 19 (1949), 388–92; Johann Baptist Schneyer, Geschichte der katholischen Predigt (Freiburg, 1969), p. 171; Blake Beattie, ‘A Book of the Schismatic Pope Benedict xiii? Clues to the Ownership of a Collection of Coram Papa Sermons’, Mediaeval Studies, 57 (1995), 345–56.

14. Only fifteen of the sermons include rubrics that identify their preachers and the venues in which the sermons were preached. All but two were delivered at Avignon, the exceptions being a Parisian sermon by Pierre Roger (the future Clement VI) of the 1320s (fols 213^va–20^rb) and, rather curiously, a sermon of St Augustine (de corporis et anime misera vita, fols 203^ra–04^va), which was certainly preached nowhere near papal Avignon! The stylistic and thematic conventions of the remaining sermons are generally consistent with those of the Avignonese curia, but one (fols 220^va–23^ra) has been identified as a sermon delivered by Pierre Roger at Paris in the 1320s, and it cannot be said with absolute certainty that all of the others are products of the papal court at Avignon.

15. Unfortunately, the rubric (Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 1^ra) does not provide the date. All of the dated curial sermons in Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215 were delivered between 1333 and 1346 (though they are not arranged chronologically), so the sermon likely took place within that time-frame, but des Prés’s forty-one-year cardinalate allows for a wide range of possibilities.

16. For the conspiracy and the trials, see Edmond Albe, Autour de Jean XXII. Hugues Géraud, évêque de Cahors. L’affaire des poisons et des envoûtements en 1317 (Cahors and Toulouse, 1904).

17. That is, without a title church – an indication, perhaps, of John XXII’s eagerness to have Pierre elevated to the cardinalate, even in the absence of an available titular church.

18. For Pierre des Prés, see Étienne Baluze, Vitae paparum Avenionensium, hoc est historia pontificum Romanorum qui in Gallia sederunt, ed. by Guillaume Mollat, 4 vols (Paris, 1914–22), ii, 245–49, and Ralf Lützelschwab, ‘Flectat cardinales ad velle suum?’ Clemens VI. und sein Kardinalskolleg. Ein Beitrag zur kurialen Politik in der Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts, Pariser Historische Studien, 80 (Munich, 2007), pp. 488–90.

19. See M. Dykmans, Le cérémonial papal, 4 vols (Brussels and Rome, 1977–85), ii (1981) 406, ll. 26–30. The ‘rule’ was not absolute, and the popes felt free to ignore it when it suited their purpose: Clement VI had the bishop of Grosseto, Angelo Cerretani, preach in his stead on the feast of St Stephen in 1344 (Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fols 123^va–31^va) and the bishop of Sigüenza, Gonzálo de Aguilar, on Laetare Sunday in 1346 (fols 195^ra–202^va).

20. The latter is apparently more correct, while the former is more familiar; see J. Quétif and J. Échard, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum recensiti, notisque historicis et criticis illustrati (Paris, 1719), pp. 614–16. For de Palme, see also Blake Beattie, ‘Dominican Dignitaries and Private Preaching at Papal Avignon Part I: The Sermon by Pierre de Palme (12 March 1340)’, Medieval Sermon Studies, 60 (2016), 21–36, esp. p. 23.

21. He was lector in sententiis there by 1322; see Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis sub auspiciis consilii generalis facultatum parisiensium, ed. by Heinrich Denifle and Emile Chatelain, 4 vols (Paris, 1891), ii, 242, no. 795, and 250, no. 805.

22. An encyclical of his relatively short term as Master reveals his firm commitment to the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, whose work he promoted to the point of prohibiting Dominican lectors from studying other doctrines. See Benedictus Maria Reichert, Litterae encyclicae magistrorum generalium ordinis praedicatorum ab anno 1233 usque ad annum 1378, Monumenta Ordinis Praedicatorum Historica, 5 (Rome and Stuttgart, 1900), pp. 274–79, no. 88.

23. Thomas Kaeppeli, O.P., Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, 4 vols (Rome, 1980), iii, 241–42.

24. For which, see M. Michèle Mulchahey, ‘First the Bow is Bent in Study’: Dominican Education before 1350 (Toronto, 1998), pp. 400–79.

25. Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, iii, 242–43.

26. See the rubric: ‘Sermo factus in domo domini Penestrinensis dominica II XL anno natiuitatis domini millesimo CCC^mo XL, per fratrem Petrum de Palude [sic], priorem prouincialem Francie ordinis predicatorum, magistrum in theologia’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 6^ra. The scribe has confused Pierre de Palme with the Dominican scholar Pierre de la Palu (c. 1275–1342), who was never provincial-prior of France.

27. Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fols 35^va–41^ra.

28. ‘Hospes enim uel hospitatus in hospicio, ubi male, parce et dure de uictualibus prouidetur, tale hospicium cito exit. Sic dyabolus cito exit hospicium abstinentis, nam ut supra alligatum est, hoc genus demoniorum non eicitur nisi in ieiunio et oratione. Nam secundum beatum Augustinum super Psalmum, “nisi quis porci more uixisset, numquam accepisset in eo dyabolus potestatem, ex quo patet quod demon abstinencium corda non libenter inhabitat, set ubi est crapula carnalis et porcina gulositas.” Vnde Mathei VIII^o capitulo: demones | rogabant Dominum: si eicis nos hinc, micte nos in porcos. Ergo cum abstinencia, sicut dicit in Psalmo, eiciantur de habitacionibus’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 40^va–b.

29. Though Talleyrand claims to be citing Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos, the material is apparently drawn from other authorities; see Beda Venerabilis, Opera exegetica: In Lucae euangelium expositio, 3, 7, ed. by David Hurst, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 120 (CCSL; Turnhout, 1960) p. 185, ll. 777–78, and In Marci euangelium expositio, 2, 5, op. cit., pp. 493–94, ll. 190–91; and Ambrosius Mediolanensis, Expositio euangelii secundum Lucam 6, 48, ed. by Marcus Adriaen, CCSL, 14 (Turnhout, 1957), p. 191, ll. 498–500.

30. ‘Bene igitur dicitur uox clamantis in deserto, uel potest desertum intelligi, si intelligamus de aduentu in mente cor hominis, quod quidem cor saltim multorum potest dici desertum, in quo sunt leones superbie, mures auaricie, porci luxurie, griffes iracundie, canes inuidie, asini pigricie, ursi gulositatis, uulpes dolositatis, milui rapacitatis. Vnde Ysaye XIII^o, requiescent ibi bestie; replebuntur domus eorum draconibus, et habitabunt ibi strucciones, et pilosi ibidem saltabunt, et respondebunt ibi, idest uox lamentabilis, ulule et syrene in delubriis uoluptatis’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 5^vb.

31. ‘Sed, pro dolor! Multi sunt hodie qui istam uocem non audiunt, ut superbi et elati, cupidi seu auari, et alii peccatores multi contra mandata sua et precepta facientes, de quibus potest intelligi illud primi Regum II^o: non audierint uocem, idest Christum, Patris. Vnde dubitandum est et timendum quod sequitur I Regum XII^o, si non audieritis uocem Domini, erit manus Domini super uos. Non sit, impii, non sit! Set secundum psalmistam, hodie si uocem eius audieritis, nolite obdurare corda uestra, nec aures uestras claudere, ad modum aspidis surde obturantis aures suas, que non audit uocem incantantium sapienter, Psalmo LVII^o. Audiamus igitur uocem istam summe uirtuosam. | Et ponuntur VII uirtutes in Psalmo XXVIII^o: uox Domini super aquas, idest super homines, qui fluunt et refluunt sicut aque, uel super aquas baptismi: Prouerbiorum VIII^o, legem ponit aquis etc. Nam uenti et mare obediunt ei, uox Domini in uirtute; uox Domini in magnificencia, facit enim magnifica. Vox Domini confrigentis cedros; glosa, “idest altos et superbos ipsos in sua potencia minuendo”. Vox Domini intercidentis flammam ignis, concupiscencie, idest luxurie et auaricie. Vox Domini concucientis desertum, idest desertos homines infructuosos et steriles. Vox Domini preparantis ceruos, idest Dei uiros spirituales et deuotos ad assequendum brauium et cursum laudabilem consummandum. Vnde cum habeamus uocem istam sic uirtutes conferentem, sic uitia extirpantem, sic in bonis operibus confirmantem, audiamus eam, ut sibi possumus dicere illud quod scribitur Cantici XII^o, uox turturis, idest Christi, audita est in terra nostra. Vbi potest euidenter percipi quod Dei Filius benedictus in isto aduentu fuit uox benignitatis, quia turturis, uox iocunditatis, quia audita, uox humilitatis, quia in terra nostra. Fuerit enim uox benignitatis, quod notatur per uocem turturis’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 2^ra–b.

32. ‘Turtur enim est auis benignissima, mundissima et castissima, que uocem habet gemebundam; nescit enim canta|re nisi gemendo. Reuera talis fuit Christus in hoc aduentu, quia uere fuit benignus, castus seu mundus, et per suam benignitatem et pietatem ad nos extitit flebilis <et> gemebundus. Nam legimus ipsum fuisse flebilem et gemebundum, et hoc propter nostram infirmitatem, quando fleuit super suscitacionem Lazari, Iohannis XI^o; secundo propter nostram societatem, quando fleuit super Iherusalem, Luce XIX^o; tertio propter nostram malignitatem, scilicet tempore passionis. Licet non hoc legatur in euangelio, tamen apostolus hoc uidetur dicere, et glosa hoc tenet ad Hebreos V^o, dans nobis exemplum quod quamdiu sumus in hac uita, semper debeamus gemere, suspirare et flere, tam pro peccatis commissis quam pro uirtutibus ommissis quam eciam pro bonis operibus pretermissis, ut sic dicamus, quasi columbe meditantes gememus, Ysaye LIX^o. Bene enim habet pectus saxeum et cor lapideum et animum ferreum, qui Christum cogitat pro nostris criminibus gemebundum, et ipse pro se et peccatis propriis plorare non potest. Non sic propheta in Psalmo: laboraui in gemitu meo; et iterum in Psalmo: procidamus et ploremus ante Dominum quoniam ipse fecit nos, ut sicut columbe et turturi assimilari possimus’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 2^ra–va.

33. The source is likely Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, lib. XII, cap. xi, (Cologne, 1483), sine pagina.

34. ‘Vnde de ista turture, scilicet Christo, dicitur Ieremie VIII^o, turtur et irundo et ciconia cognouerunt tempus ad|uentus sui. Turtur enim, que est auis munda, ut dictum est, est sicut anima Christi; yrundo, que est auis leuissima, est sicut diuinitas; siconia, que comedit uenenosa, est uelud caro sua: quasi tria, diuinitas, caro et anima simul in Christo iuncta’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 2^va–b.

35. ‘Ha, Deus! Talem uocem gemebundam non habent hodie multi, qui magis delectantur in clamoribus, risibus ac leticiis ac uoluptatibus huius mundi. Immo, quod est deterius, multi, licet a principio fuerint gemebundi, deuoti et religiosi, tamen postea, cum sint inpinguati et dilatati, idest in dignitatibus et diuiciis positi, uacant clamoribus, uoluptatibus et aliis uiciis. Et tales sunt similes ranis. Nam secundum Ysidorum, rana in principio est piscis mitis et suauis, qui totus uidetur esse capud et cauda, et pro tempore nascuntur sibi pedes, et cauda sibi cadit, et sic de pisce efficitur rana. Et ista quamdiu habet caudam non clamat, set amissa cauda statim clamat et uociferat. Et de istis ranis Sapientie XIX^o: pro piscibus eructauit fluuius ranarum multitudinem. Sic recte sunt multi qui in principio sunt pisces, | idest pii, religiosi eciam ac deuoti, nec reperitur in eis nisi capud et cauda, ut per capud intelligatur recta et debita intencio, per caudam mors, <idest> mortis seu finis memoria siue consideracio. Set pro tempore capud eorum dilatatur affeccionem terrenorum ac dignitatum et diuiciarum acquisitionem. Tandem ueniunt eis pedes diuersarum affectionum, ita quod de pisce in bestiam conuertuntur, maxime quia amictunt caudam, idest mortis memoriam, et tunc clamare incipiunt per inanem leticiam et ridere per uanitatem, detrahere per elacionem, derridere per arroganciam (quia pro certo ex quo homo perdit caudam, idest mortis memoriam, statim efficitur bestia totus auarus, luxuriosus uel aliis uiciis irretitus), inmemores illius sentencie: uhe, qui ridetis’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fols 2^vb–3^ra.

36. For the association of toads with death, see Peter Dinzelbacher, ‘Das Mittelalter’, in Mensch und Tier in der Geschichte Europas, ed. by Peter Dinzelbacher (Stuttgart, 2000), pp. 181–293 (p. 252); for the association with sexual sins, ibid., pp. 265–66, and the treatment by Bernard of Clairvaux in his Vita s. Malachiae, cap. xvii.41; S. Bernardi Opera, ed. by Jean Leclercq, Henri M. Rochais, and Charles H. Talbot, 9 vols (Rome, 1957–981963), iii (1963), 346–47.

37. ‘Ranae a garrulitate vocatae, eo quod circa genitales strepunt paludes, et sonos vocis inportunis clamoribus reddunt. Ex his quaedam aquaticae dicuntur, quaedam palustres, quaedam rubetae, ob id, quia in vepribus vivunt, grandiores cunctarum. Aliae calamites vocantur, quoniam inter arundines fruticesque vivunt, minimae omnium et viridissimae; mutae et sine voce sunt. Agredulae ranae parvae in sicco vel agris morantes; unde et nuncupatae. Negant quidam canes latrare, quibus in offa rana viva fuerit data’, Etymologiarum libri XX, lib. XII, cap. vi, 58–59; Patrologia Latina, 82, col. 458A.

38. ‘Et omnes pisces nutriunt pullos suos preter ranam […]. Quando autem primo in aqua formantur rane videntur totaliter esse caput cum quadam extremitate dependente admodum caude. Deinde dilatatur totaliter in ventrem sublata cauda crescunt ei pedes et in animal quadrupes transformatur’, De proprietatibus rerum, lib. XVIII, cap. lxxxix, s.p.

39. Even William declines to name Bartholomaeus, referring instead to his famous work: ‘Primo ergo serpens expellitur per odorem ui|nee fragrantis, ut dicit auctor de proprietatibus rerum [i.e., Bartholomaeus], quia odorem uinee florentis naturaliter odit’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 58^ra–b.

40. ‘Ha, Domini mei! Quot sunt hodie detractores, mendaces et oblocutores, qui non habent uocem mitigatiuam set conturbatiuam, non consolatiuam set contristatiuam, non excitatiuam sed prouocatiuam? Vnde, secundum quod naturales dicunt, aues que commedunt carnes crudas habent ut communiter uocem terribilem et deformem, sicut patet de coruo, qui habet uocem odibilem et clamosam, | cunctis auribus terribilem et exosam, qui et aquilam regem auium presumit aliquando suis horrendis clamoribus infestare. Sic uere isti detractores qui carnes crudas, idest uitam et famam aliorum, comedunt et dilacerant: Psalmo XXVI^o, dum appropiant super me nocentes ut edant carnes meas. Tales habent uocem terribilem et odiosam. Nam uere tales iniqui detractores et mendaces suis uocibus horridis et peruersis conturbant hodie totum mundum. Immo ipsas aquilas, idest reges et principes mundi, non formidant multipliciter diffamare et contra eos latrare’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 3^va–b.

41. Alanus de Insulis, De planctu naturae, xiv–xv, ed. by Nikolaus Häring, Studi Medievali, IIIa, ser. 19 (Spoleto, 1978), pp. 862, l. 96–865, l. 140), cited by Cardinals Pierre des Prés (Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 4^vb) and Gui de Boulogne (fols 181^vb–82^rb).

42. For example, Pierre des Prés: ‘And Bernard speaks beautifully concerning these things in a certain sermon: “The detractor,” he says, “if you are poor, will consider you vile and abject; if rich, ambitious and covetous; if agreeable, dissolute; if a preacher and learned man, a seeker of favour and worldly honour; if silent, useless; if you fast, a hypocrite; if you eat, a glutton”’ (Et de istis pulchre loquitur Bernardus in quodam sermone. ‘Detractor’ inquit, ‘si pauper es, uilem te reputat et abiectum; si diues, ambiciosum et cupidum; si affabilis, dissolutum; si predicator et doctor, fauoris et honoris seculi quesitorem; si tacens, inutilem; si ieiunas, hypocritam; si come|deris, uoratorem’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fols 3^vb–4^ra.

43. See note 29 above.

44. ‘Vnde de dissipacione substancie per luxuriam loquitur Augustinus libro de doctrina christiana dicens, ‘luxuria inimica est Deo, et inimica uirtutibus perdit omnem substanciam […] et ad presens uoluntatem absorbens, futuram paupertatem cogitari non sinit’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 182^vb.

45. ‘“In illum”, scilicet “locum quietis et securitatis, locum perpetue felicitatis, locum in quo non pertimescamus barbarum, nullum paciamur aduersarium, nullumque habeamus inimicum”, ut dicit Augustinus in libello de tempore barbarico’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 199^rb.

46. ‘Hanc debellacionem nunc nunciauit, et in parasceue ipsam perfecit, de cuius inuasione Augustinus introducit tartareas regiones, loquentes de eo, “numquam mundus ille, qui nobis subiectus semper fuit, semper que mortis tributa persoluit, numquam talem mortuum misit. Inuasor est iste, non debitor; effractor est, non peccator. Iudicem uidemus, non supplicantem; pugnare uenit, non succumbere; eripere, non | manere periit”’, Valencia, Bib. Cat. MS 215, fol. 199^ra–b.

47. ‘Corvus, sive corax nomen a sono gutturis habet, quod voce coracinet’, Etymologiarum libri XX, lib. XXII, cap. vii, 43: Patrologia Latina, 82 (Paris, 1878), col. 465A.

48. ‘et est auis clamosa et diuersas format voces. Solus enim inter aues lxiiii habet mutationes vocis, ut dicit Fulgentius’, De proprietatibus rerum, lib. XII, cap. xi, s.p.

49. ‘Illi namque, qui alternatis uicibus contemplatiue et actiue uacare tenentur, sunt prelati’, Beattie, ‘Dominican Dignitaries and Private Preaching at Papal Avignon Part I’, p. 23, ll. 21–22.

50. ‘Et hii proprie signantur per Petrum. Cum ratione officii fuit ex officio predicator, doctor ecclesie, prelatus et rector; cum eciam ratione interpretacionis nominis, unde non sine misterio fuit nomen eius mutatum quando datum est sibi – Iohannis 1^o, tu uocaberis Cephas, quod interpretatur Petrus – Petrus autem interpretatur “cognoscens” uel “dissoluens”, que omnia proprie prelato competent’, (Beattie, ‘Dominican Dignitaries and Private Preaching at Papal Avignon Part I’, p. 23, ll. 30–33).

51. ‘Quarto propter ea que supra dicta sunt, non est mirum si Christo inseparabiliter et inmobiliter coniungimur in affectu: occuli mei semper ad Dominum. Hoc docent nos animalia bruta: Iob 12, interroga iumenta et docebunt te. Elephas namque, quando inuenit her|bas dulces et bonas, supinus occulos erigit ad celum quasi gratias reddere uellet’, Beattie, ‘Dominican Dignitaries and Private Preaching at Papal Avignon Part I’, p. 32, ll. 425–28.

52. Debates over the identity of this fish continued into the twentieth century; see E.W. Gudger, ‘Aristotle’s Echeneis Not a Sucking Fish’, Science, 44, no. 1131 (1916), 316–18.

53. ‘Dicit philosophus, Ambrosius et Cassiodorus quod quidam piscis uix semipedalis unam nauem CCC^tum pedum arescat in mari. Iste piscis signat unum baretatorem, qui non est dignus quod haberet dimidium passum terre, set quod deberet esse suspensus in aere. Et tamen arescat unum magnum collegium uel unam personam magnam in scientia et in uita, sic quod in una curia per multa tempora detinetur’, Beattie, ‘Dominican Dignitaries and Private Preaching Part I’, p. 29, ll. 295–99.

54. Aristotle, Historia animalium, trans. by Arthur Leslie Peck, 3 vols (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1965), i, 123–25.

55. ‘sicut brevis pisiculus echeneis tanta facilitate memoratur navem ingentem sistere; ut quasi radicatam mari haerere videas, nec moveri. Aliquandiu enim immobilem servat. An et huic putas sine Creatoris munere tantum potuisse suppetere virtutis?’, Hexameron, lib. V, cap. x, 31; Patrologia Latina, 14 (Paris, 1866), col. 220B.

56. ‘Aut forte incumbente austro remigiisque iuuantibus meatus nauium echinais morsus inter undas liquidas alligauit’, Variarum libri XII, lib. I, xxxv. Magni Aurelii Cassiodori Senatoris Opera Omnia, pars I, ed. by Åke J. Fridh and James Werner Halporn, CCSL, 96 (Turnhout, 1973), p. 41, ll. 3–5. The translation is by John J. Savage, The Fathers of the Church. St Ambrose. Hexameron, Paradise, Cain and Abel (Washington, D.C., 1961), p. 186.

57. ‘Set echinais illis impedimentosa uenalitas est, concharum morsus insatiatia cupiditas, torpedo fraudulenta simulatio’, Variarum libri XII, lib. I, xxxv , p. 41, ll. 34–36.

58. Though Pliny treated sailors’ futile resistance to its power as an illustration of human vanity: ‘heu vanitas humana! cum rostra illa aere ferroque ad ictus armata semipedalis inhibere possit ac tenere devincta pisciculus’, Naturalis historia, lib. XXXII, cap. i; Pliny the Elder, Natural History: Book XXXII, ed. and trans. by W. Horace S. Jones, Loeb Classical Library, 418 (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1975), pp. 464–65.

59. Naturalis historia, lib. XXXII, cap. i; Pliny the Elder, Natural History: Book XXXII, pp. 464–65.

60. Etymologiarum libri XX, lib. XII, cap. xxxiv; Patrologia Latina, 82, col. 454B.

61. De proprietatibus rerum, lib. XIII, cap. xxvii, s.p.

62. ‘Tamen omnia haec pariterque eodem inpellentia unus ac parvus admodum pisciculus, echenais appellatus, in se tenet. ruant venti licet, saeviant procellae: imperat furori viresque tantas compescit et cogit stare navigia, quod non vincula ulla, non ancorae pondere inrevocabili iactae. infrenat impetus et domat mundi rabiem nullo suo labore, non renitendo aut alio modo quam adhaerendo. hoc tantulo satis est, contra tot impetus ut vetet ire navigia. sed armatae classes inponunt sibi turrium propugnacula, ut in mari quoque pugnetur velut e muris. heu vanitas humana, cum rostra illa aere ferroque ad ictus armata semipedalis inhibere possit ac tenere devincta pisciculus! fertur Actiaco Marte tenuisse praetoriam navem Antoni properantis circumire et exhortari suos, donec transiret in aliam, ideoque Caesariana classis impetu maiore protinus venit’, Naturalis historia, lib. XXXII, cap. i. The translation is based on The Natural History of Pliny, ed. by John Bostock and Henry Thomas Riley, 6 vols (London, 1855–57), vi, 2.

63. ‘Echeneis, parvus et semipedalis pisciculus nomen sumpsit, quod navem adhaerendo retineat. Ruant licet venti, et saeviant procellae, navis tamen, quasi radicata in mari stare videtur, nec moveri, non retinendo, sed tantummodo adhaerendo. Hunc Latini remorum appellaverunt, eo quod cogat stare navigia’, Etymologiarum libri XX, lib. XII, cap. xxxiv; Patrologia Latina, 82, col. 454B.

64. ‘Enchinus est piscis parvum vix semipedalis; ab herendo est dictus. Quamuis ei exigui corporis sit, maxime tamen est virtutis. Navem enim adherendo retinet, nam navis cui adheret, licet ruant venti, seviant procelle, quasi radicata stare in mari videtur, non moveri nec in retinendo sed tantummodo adherendo hunc Latini moron appellaverunt eo quod navigia stare compellat’, De proprietatibus rerum, lib. XIII, cap. xxvii, s.p.

65. ‘Modus autem quo talis procedere consueuit tangitur in figura Apocalypsis 16, ubi legitur quod Iohannes uidit de ore bestie exire spiritus tres inmundos, admodum ranarum. Bestia dicitur quasi “uastia”, quia unus talis uersipellis uastat bona illius cuius causam agitat, et bona illius cuius causam inpug|nat. Per hoc tres spiritus inmundi exeunt de ore suo, admodum ranarum. Rana est garrula, et talis garrulus et mentitor est, et de ore suo emictit tres spiritus inmundos. Primus est ueritatis occultacio et impugnacio et falsitatis defensio; secundus est cause inuolutio et eius prolongatio; tercius est calumpniacio et criminum falsa et subdola imposicio. Per istos tres spiritus inmundos baratatores plurimos bonos uiros detinent, et eorum causas subuertunt et faciunt inmortales; et ista sunt in conspectu omnis probi uiri detestanda’, Beattie, ‘Dominican Dignitaries and Private Preaching Part I’, p. 29, ll. 299–307.

66. Fifteenth-century popular preachers in France were fond of a quotation attributed to Pope Gregory the Great – himself trained in law – that grouped lawyers with ‘horse-sellers, liars, pimps, courtiers, and soldiers’ among the least reputable elements of society; see Larissa J. Taylor, Soldiers of Christ. Preaching in Late Medieval and Reformation France (Oxford, 1992), p. 148.