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Ernulf of Rochester and Early Anglo-Norman Canon Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Peter Cramer
Peter Cramer
Affiliation:
Wolfson College, Oxford
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Extract

Ernulf, bishop of Rochester, died aged eighty-four, on 15 March 1124. In the course of his life, he studied under Lanfranc and was a close friend of Anselm at Bec. One-time prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, his advice was apparently sought by the king; he became a much respected abbot of Peterborough; and, as bishop, he instigated the important collection of secular and ecclesiastical law, the Textus Roffensis. Of his own writing, only three letters survive: one to Anselm, pleading with him to return from exile; one to the monk Lambert of St-Bertin, answering four questions on the eucharist and a fifth concerning a passage from the prophet Joel; and the third to Walkelin of Winchester, dealing with the case of canon law which the two men had previously discussed. It is this last letter, appearing in the manuscripts with the title De incestis coniugiis, which makes of Ernulf something more than a shadow among the Anglo-Norman theologians and men of letters who came to England in the aftermath of conquest. It is in this letter-treatise that Ernulf emerges as an accomplished lawyer and juridical thinker, whose approach has departed radically from that of Lanfranc, his former teacher, and is closely comparable to the principles for legal judgement set down by Ivo of Chartres in the preface to his Decretum and Panormia. Ernulf's use of such methods, grounded in, and made possible by, the new systematic collections of canon law, helps to confirm what has already begun to be evident, that this systematic, deliberately and self-consciously rational, jurisprudence finds its way into England well before the dissemination of Gratian's Decretum in the mid-twelfth century.

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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , October 1989 , pp. 483 - 510
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

RS = Rolls Scries; BN = Bibliothèque Nationale; BMCL = Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law I would like to express gratitude to Dr Martin Brett, who suggested the subject in the first place, and offered every possible advice on the canonical collections; to Dr Paul Hyams and Mr John Hudson for helpful comments; and to Professor C. N. L. Brooke and Dr Margaret Gibson for constructive criticism saving me from some serious errors.

1 William of Malmesbury, De gestis pontificum anglorum libri quinque, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton (RS, 1920), 138Google Scholar, gives his age at death as eighty-four; for the date, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. and trans. Whitelock, D. et al., London 1961, 191.Google Scholar

2 The letter to Anselm is no. 310 in Schmitt, F. S. (ed.), Anselmi Canluarensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, 6 vols, Seckau-Rome-Edinburgh 1938–61, v. 233–5Google Scholar; letter to Lambert in D'Achcry, L., Spicilegium siue Collectio Veterum aliquot Scriptorum, Paris 1723, iii. 470–4Google Scholar; letter to Walkelin, ibid. 464–70; and PL clxiii. 1457–74. Here I have used Migne's edition. This canonical letter, De incestis coniugiis, is in BN, MS lat. 2446, fos 177ff.; the letter to Lambert is fos 187ff. of the same manuscript and is copied in BL, MS Roy. 7c. vii, fos 100ff.; and again in Bodl. Lib., Oxford, MS Bodley 569, fos 92V–101, where it follows Lanfranc's De corpore et sanguine Domini contra Berengarium; Guitmund's De corpore et sanguine Domini; and Anselm's De incarnatione uerbi. The two letters (to Lambert and Walkelin) are bound with the letters of Fulbert of Chartres, those of Hildebert of Lavardin, and a report of Council of Reims (1148), in Vat. Reg., MS lat 278: see Behrends, F., The Letters of Fulbert of Chartres, Oxford 1976, pp. xlvii–xlviiiGoogle Scholar; this is perhaps the book mentioned in a twelfth-century catalogue of the library at Bee: ‘in alio epistole Lanfranci. in eodem epistole Fulberti Carnotensis et Hildeberti Cenomanensis episcopi, in eodem liber Ernulfi de incestis coniugiis. item IIII quaestiones diuine solute ab eo.’ (See Becker, G., Catalogi Bibliothecarum Antiqui, Bonn 1885, 262Google Scholar.) On the letter to Lambert, see my ‘Ernulf of Rochester and the problems of resemblance’, in Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on St Anselm: St Anselm and St Augustine - Episcopi ad saecula, ed. Schnaubelt, J. C. et al., New York 1988, 143–63.Google Scholar

3 Cf. Brooke, Z. N., The English Church and the Papacy, from the Conquest to the Reign of John, Cambridge 1931Google Scholar; on the appearance in England of canonical methods and materials from Bologna and Paris after the 1150s, Kuttner, S. and Rathbone, E., ‘Anglo-Norman canonists of the twelfth century’, Traditio vii (1949–51), 279–358.Google Scholar

4 De geslis, 137–8.

5 Anselm, ep. lxxiv, Opera iii. 196

6 Anselm, ep. Ixiv, ibid. iii. 180–1.

7 Foulcoic (1020–90), a poet, was probably at Chartres shortly after Fulbert's death in 1028. Sec Clcrval, A., Les Ecoles de Chartres au Moyen Age (du Ve au XIe siècle), Paris 1895, 62Google Scholar and 80; on Fulbert and his school, see also Behrends, F., The Letters of Fulbert of Chartres, Oxford 1976, pp. xxviii ff.Google Scholar

8 ‘Ego quoque ex quo habitum sanctac conucrsationis sumpsistis…’: Anselm, ep. xxxviii, Opera iii. 148.

9 For Ernulf's arrival in Canterbury, sec below, n. 25; for the date of Anselm's ep. xxxviii see Schmitt's note, Opera iii. 148.

10 Lanfranc, Monastic Constitutions, ed. Knowles, M. D., London 1951, 104–6Google Scholar; on the question of Lanfranc's borrowings from the customs of Bec, see Knowles's remarks on pp. xii-xiii of his introduction; and Gibson, M., Lanfranc of Bec, Oxford 1978, 27.Google Scholar In the rules laid down by the Constitutions of Lanfranc, the postulant makes his wish known to the guest master and is then taken to talk with ‘the abbot or prior or any other spiritual brother to whom the task should fall’ (‘Loquatur cum co abbas, uel prior, uel aliquis spiritualis fratcr cui iniunctum fuerit’): ibid. 104; in the ceremony itself it is the abbot or ‘qui loco abbatis ordini praecst’: ibid. 105; Anselm might have had in mind either or both of these stages.

11 ‘Nam antequam fieret ista nunc usitata monachici propositi professio et sacratio. multa millia utriusque sexus hominum solo habitu se ipsius esse propositi profitentia eius celsitudinem et coronarti consecuta sunt. Et qui tune habitum sine ipsa professione et sacratione assumptum reiciebant, apostatae iudicabantur. Inexcusabilis ergo es, si deseris sanctum propositum, quod diu hahitu et conuersatione professa es, quamuis professioncm nunc usitatam non legeris et ab episcopo consecrata non fueris’: Anselm, ep. clxviii, Opera iv. 45. See on this, Wilmart, A., ‘La destinataire de la lettre de s. Anselme sur l'état et les voeux de religion’, Revue Bénédictine (1926), 331–4Google Scholar, where Gunnhilda is identified from a Brussels manuscript containing her name in the opening address.

12 Printed from Vat. Reg., MS lat. 499, fos 8–15v, in Porée, A. A., Histoire de l'Abbaye de Bec, 2 vols, Evreux 1901Google Scholar, i. 628–42, at p. 628.

13 Constitutions, 107. Profession could follow ‘Transactis plerisque diebus’; the Rule of Benedict requires a year, cap. lviii. 19–20.

14 Sec Engen, J. Van, Rupert of Deutz, 1984Google Scholar; and Hunt, R. W., The Schools and the Cloister, the Life and Writings of Alexander Nequam, 1157–1217, rev. edn Gibson, M., Oxford 1984.Google Scholar And for Abelard's view of monasticism as the philosophic life, see the argument against marriage put into the mouth of Heloisc in his Hisloria calamitatimi, ed. J. T. Mucklc, Mediaeval Studies xii (1950). 186ff.Google Scholar

15 On Lanfranc's background in law and grammar see Gibson, Lanfranc, chs i–iii; on Lanfranc as dialectician Southern, R. W., ‘Lanfranc of Bec and Berengar of Tours’, in Studies in Medieval History presented to F. M. Powicke, Oxford 1948, 27–48.Google Scholar

16 PL clxiii. 1474.

17 Robert of Torigny, Chronicle, ed. Delisle, L., Rouen 1872–3, s.a. 1117 (pp. 153–4)Google Scholar; see Sprandel, R., Ivo von Chartres und seine Stellung in der Kirchengeschichte, Stuttgart 1962, 7Google Scholar, in favour of Robert's accuracy; but see also the more sceptical discussion in Gibson, op. cit. 36–7, and 198 and n. 3, where she points out that Robert says Ivo was at Bee under Lanfranc in the first version of his chronicle (up to 1157), most of which would have been written at Bec (see preface in Delisle's edition, vol i. iii ff., esp. pp. x and liii–liv: Robert began work on his chronicle in about 1050 and was elected to Mont-St-Michel in 1054. On his life see ibid. vol. ii. i–xiii. On contacts between Bec and Beauvais see Gibson, op. cit. 36; and Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum 1066–1154, i, ed. Davis, H. W. C., Oxford 1913Google Scholar, no. 115a. Anselm as abbot of Bec and Ivo as abbot of St-Qucntin, Beauvais, are among those who put their name to a charter confirming the foundation of the basilica of St-Quentin in 1079; ‘Ivo's letter to Anselm is no. 40 in Leclercq, J. (ed.), Yves de Chartres, Correspondence i (1090–1098), Paris 1949, 162–5Google Scholar; Leclercq dates the letter to 1094–5.

18 Knowles, M. D., Brooke, C. N. L., V. C. M. London, The Heads of Religious Houses in England and Wales 940–1216, Cambridge 1972, 33Google Scholar n. 1. William of Malmesbury, De gestis, 183, puts him in St-Lucien, an obvious choice because of its antiquity, but Ivo of Chartres, a more reliable witness in this case, says he was at St-Symphorien. ep. lxxviii, PL clxii. 100.

19 Sprandel, Ivo von Chartres, 7–8.

20 Galtia Christiana ix, c. 818.

21 De gestis, 138.

22 Ivo, ep. lxxviii, PL clxii. 100.

23 See Anselm's letter to Ernulf advising him to leave only with the permission of his abbot, and to go only to a monastery where he could learn from others spiritually as well as have occasion to teach, ep. xxxviii, Opera iii. 148–9.

24 See the passage from the Vita s. Romanae uirginis, Recueuil des Historiens de France xiv, 29.

25 De gestis, 138. He is greeted, together with Gundulf, who was then at Canterbury in a letter from Anselm to Mauritius, ep. lxiv, Opera iii. 180–1; he cannot have been in Canterbury before 1070, when Lanfranc became archbishop.

26 Knowlcs el al., Heads, 33; Greenway, D., Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae ii (Monastic Cathedrals), London 1971, 8.Google Scholar There appears to have been a second Ernulfus who was chaplain to Bishop Gundulf at Rochester. See Anselm to Gundulf: ‘Saluto…domnum Ernulfum, capellanum ucstrum’: ep. cccxxx, Opera v. 264. Anselm mentions ‘domnus prior Ernulfus’, prior of Christ Church, earlier in the same letter. Gundulf's chaplain probably explains the reference to a prior of Rochester (from 1089 to 1093) called Ernulf in the fourteenth-century BL, MSS Roy. 5Di and ii; likewise L. Dclisle, Rouleaux des morts du IXe au XVe siècl, 203; Textus Ruffensis, ed. Hearnc, T., Oxford 1720, 195Google Scholar (‘Ernulfus’ witnesses oath of obedience made by Abbess Avitia of Mailing to Gundulf); Eadmer, Historia nonorum, ed. M. Rule (RS 1884), 192; and sec Smith, R. A. L., ‘The place of Gundulf in the Anglo-Norman Church’, EHR Iviii (1943), 252–72Google Scholar; Greenway, op. cit. 78; Knowlcs et al., op. cit. 63.

27 Anselm, ep. cccvii, Opera v. 229ff.

28 Anselm, ep. cccxxxii, ibid. 267–8: he assures the monks of Christ Church of Ernulf's monastic integrity.

29 Eadmer, Hist, nou., 159.

30 ‘Gemere uiduas, flerc sencs incommoda sua, eo quid cripiatur eis satis augusta, quam uix mcrentur, uictus sui portio. Rapi uirginales et illicito incestari concubitu…ad dedecus honcstati nostrac saccrdotes uxores ducere’: ep. cccx, Opera v. 234. Gilbert Crispin sent a verse-letter expressing similar sentiments, ep. ccclxvi, ibid. v. 309–10; and Gundulf must have felt the same (see ep. cccxxx, ibid. 262–4). In ep. ccclv Anselm consoles three monks from Christ Church who have asked him to return from exile, or at least to allow them to come to him in Lyon. The road is dangerous, he says, especially for monks; and they are to regard Ernulf as ‘quasi alterum me. Ad ilium quasi ad mc recurrite, illi uelut mihi uos credite, ilium sicut mc suscipite’: ibid. 295–6. For other letters from Anselm to Ernulf on the same matter see nos cccxi, cccxxxi, cccil, ccclvii, ccclxiv. Opera, passim.

31 Eadmer, op. cit. 160–3. This criticism of Anselm is taken up by Fröhlich, Walter, ‘Die bischöflichen Kollegen des hl. Erzbischofs Anselm von Canterbury’, Analecta Anselmiana i (1969), 223–67.Google Scholar Anselm's stance in 1097, it is shown, is novel, even revolutionary.

32 Urry, W., Canterbury under the Angevin Kings, London 1967, 387, charter 3.Google Scholar

33 Boase, T. S. R., English Art 1100–1216, Oxford 1953, 35–6Google Scholar; and sec generally 31–7. Boase attributes the plan of the new crypt and choir to Ernulf, its elaboration to Prior Conrad, his successor; for further details of these stages of building, Woodman, F., The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral, London 1981, 46ff.Google Scholar; see also Zarnecki, G., English Romanesque Sculpture 1066–1140, London 1951, 21, who dates the introduction of the chevron slightly later than Boase, c. 1110–15.Google Scholar

34 ‘Cantiae dejectam priorem partem ecclesiae, quam Lanfrancus aedificaucrat, adeo splendide reerexit, ut nichil tale possit in Anglia uideri in uitrearum fenestrarum luce, in marmorei pauimenti nitore, in diuersicoloribus picturis’: De gestis, 138.

35 Anselm tells Mauritius to read Virgil under Ernulf if he is not already doing so, ep. lxiv, Opera iii. 180–1.

36 ‘Flos, decor omnis abit - docti sapicntia stabit;/Ut firmamentum stabilis uigor est sapicntum:/Testis scriptura, quia permanet immoritura/Fama uiri clari nec morte potest uiolari./Id quoque testatur Daniel, quia perpetuatur/Gloria doctorum, laus et doctrina bonorum,/Qui uos iustitic, conformant arte sophic./Componunt mores nostros minuuntque labores:/Quomodo uiuendum, quid agendum, quid fugicndum/Sit, descripserunt, idiotas edocuerunt’: F. Liebermann (ed.), ‘Raginald von Canterbury’, Neues Archiv xiii (1888), 538 no. x. The theme is taken up again in no. xi (pp. 538–9): ‘Ergo refulgentes documentis, o sapicntes:/Vestrum quod sumus est, in uobis nostra salus est;/Quod sapimus, facimus, per uos bona uel mala scimus/… Miles…/Qui consolando miseros, egris medicando,/Omnibus equalis pater est, medicalis generalis’: ibid. 538–9. For the judge as doctor and healer, see below, n. 85. Nos viii-xiii are addressed to Ernulf; in xii and xiii, ibid. 539–40, Reginald sends Ernulf a copy of his long poem Malchus. For this poem, see Hunt's, R. W. note in Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies i (1943), 39–40.Google Scholar On Reginald's life and work, see Liebermann, art. cit. 519ff. On the group of monks surrounding Anselm at Canterbury, Southern, R. W., St Anselm and his Biographer, Cambridge 1963. 203–16Google Scholar; and idem. ‘St Anselm and his English pupils’, Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies i (1943), 3–34.Google Scholar

37 Whitelock, D. (ed.). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. London 1961, 181Google Scholar (E text); Chronicle of Ballie Abbey, ed. Searle, E., Oxford 1980, 116Google Scholar; Knowlcs et al., Heads 60.

38 The Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, cd. Mellows, W. T., London 1949, 90Google Scholar; Boase, English Art, 123.

39 Ibid. 88. The manor had been granted for one year by Abbot Matthew to his brother, Geoffrcy Ridel, who then refused to give it up; but. ‘after a claim against him before the king, he swore to return it. This he swore in the time of Ernulf.’ In the late 1120s it was taken from the abbey again and given by the king to one of his ‘Midland Creations’, Richard Basset, who was in fact Ridel's heir, King, E., Peterborough Abbey: 1086–1310. A study in the land market, London 1973, 19–20.Google Scholar

40 Hugh Candidus, 90.

41 Ibid. 96; cf. A-SC (E text), 184.

42 Hugh Candidus, 183–4, dated 15 Sept. 1114.

43 Richter, M., Canterbury Professions, Torquay 1973, p. lxxxiv.Google Scholar

44 Hist. nou., 225.

45 On Walkclin, ibid. 81–2.

46 For these events, ibid. 225 and 236; Greenway, Fasti, 75–6; Knowles et al., Heads, 60; cf. Richter, op. cit. p. lxxxiv. For a list of gifts supposedly made by Ernulf to the church at Rochester, see Flores historiarum, ed. H. R. Luard (RS 1890), ii. 45. The reference to Ernulf occurs only in the fourteenth-century Rochester manuscript of this disparate chronicle, BL, MS Cott. Nero D2. A rather different story is told by the author of the twelfth-century Vita Gundulfi: ‘Sed et hic Radulfus… Ernulfum uirum laude dignissimum, in scientia litterali et religione diu probatum, olim quidem priorem Cantuariensem sed tunc abbatem Burgensem, post se constituit episcopum. Qui omni fauore a suis receptus ipso die electionis suae dixit nobis: “Sciebam”, inquit, ‘fratres, ante paucos dies me licet indignum ad celsitudinem huius ordinis in proximo promouendum. Apparuit enim michi dormienti, cum adhuc essem in loco meo, pater Gundulfus, anulum magni ponderis michi offerens. Cunque ad grauedinem ipsius imbecillitas mea non sufficere uideretur, me ad onus eius stupidum et accipere renuentem increpauit, et post increpationem anulum me recipere coegit. Deinde non apparuit.” Haec ille. Nos autem, qui praesentes ab eo haec audiuimus, intelleximus postea non fantasticam esse illusionem quam uir sanctus in somnis uiderat, quia postmodum factus Rofensis pontifex eundem anulum recepii quem Gundulfus episcopus sed futuro episcopo dederat’: The Life of Gundulf Bishop of Rochester, Thomson, R. (ed.), Toronto 1977, 69–70.Google Scholar

47 Registrum Roffense, ed. Thorpe, J., London 1769, 120.Google Scholar

48 Boase, English Art, 60–3.

49 De gestis, 138; other references to Ernulf as bishop: Eadmer, Hist, nou., 291 and 294; A-SC, 189; Text. Roff., fos 197 and 213–14V; and cf. Brett, M.. The English Church under Henry I, London 1975, 167.Google Scholar

50 Sawyer, P. (ed.), Textus Roffensis, Rochester Cathedral Library MS A. 35, Copenhagen 1955Google Scholar and 1962, vii, xi; the Textus was also printed by Thomas Hearne in 1720. Cf. Brett, M.Whitelock, D., Brooke, C. N. L., Councils and Synods with other Documents Relating to the English Church, 2 vols, Oxford 1981, i/i. 54–6Google Scholar, 303, 811–13.

51 Textus Roffensis, 18.

52 On the favour shown Anglo-Saxon feasts and cults in Anselm's circle, Eadmer, Vita Ansehni, ed. Southern, R. W., Oxford 1972, 50ff., 51 n. 1. Liebermann makes exaggerated claims for Ernulf's direction of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle while at Peterborough, ‘Notes on the Textus Roffensis’, Archaeologia Cantiana (1898), n. 9. There is no proof of his involvement at Canterbury, and the E version of the Chronicle only arrived in Peterborough in about 1121, Whitclock, A-SC, p. xvi.Google Scholar

53 Leges Henrici Primi, ed. and trans. Downer, L. J., Oxford 1972Google Scholar; for the Quadripartitus, Liebermann, F., Gesetze der Angelsachsen, Halle 1898–1916, i. 529–46.Google Scholar Downer believes that the two compilations were by the same hand, op. cit. 23–8. For the coronation charter, see Councils and Synods i/ii. 652–5.

54 A work which describes this difficult balance with extraordinarily fine judgement is Jolliffc, J. E. A., Angevin Kingship, Oxford 1966Google Scholar, which deals with the phenomenon in a slightly later, and more developed, form.

55 Powicke, F. M. describes this ‘raising of consciousness’, referring to it as ‘the artifice of government’, Medieval England 1066–1485, Oxford 1969, 85ff.Google Scholar On the growth of judicial and administrative procedure, Caencgom, R. C. Van, Royal Writs in England from the Conquest to Glanvill (Seiden Society lxxvii, 1959).Google Scholar

56 See the issues raised by Hyams, Paul in his essay on ordeal, ‘Trial by ordeal: the key to proof in early common law’, in On the Laws and Customs of England: essays in honor of Samuel E. Thorne, ed. Arnold, M. S.Green, T. A.Scully, S. A. and White, S. D., Chapel Hill 1981, 90–126.Google Scholar

57 For this and what follows, Brooke, The English Church, 57ff., and appendix, 231, on the distribution of Lanfranc's Collection through the cathedral libraries. Cf. Fournicr, P., Revue Historique de Droit Français et Étranger 4th ser., xii (1933), 129–34Google Scholar, where Brooke's notes are published as addenda; see also Somervillc, R., ‘Lanfranc's Collection and Exeter’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research xlv (1972), 303–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on Exeter Cathedral Library, MS 3512, a twelfth-century copy of the Lanfranc Collection. On this subject generally, Fuhrmann, H.. Einfluss und Verbreitung der pseuduisidorischen Fälschungen in ihrem Auftauchen bis in die neuere Zeil (Schriften der MGH. xxiv, 1–3, Stuttgart 1972–4).Google Scholar

58 Brooke, The English Church, 82.

59 Ibid. 109–10; appendix V, 244–5, listing MSS of the Panormia in England during the first half of the twelfth century; on St John's College, Oxford, MS 125, a twelfth-century copy of the Panormia, but with books VII-VIII of Burchard's Decretum substituted for Panormia VII-VIII, 88–9. See also, on abridgements of Burchard in England, Brommer, P., ‘Kurzformen des Dekrets Bischofs von Worms’, Jahrbuch für Westdeutsche Landesgeschcht I (1975), 19–45Google Scholar, at pp. 26, 32–3, 35–6.

60 Walkclin died on 3 Jan. 1098, Florentii Wigorniensis Chronicon ex chronicis, ed. Thorpe, B., London 1854, i. 41Google Scholar; Greenway, Fasti, 85. It is possible that the discussion between Ernulf and Walkelin in Canterbury, which prompted the letter (see Ernulf's opening remarks, PL clxiii. 1457B), was during Walkclin's visit to Canterbury in 1097; Ernulf says Walkclin was there with the regii exequutores, who were ‘rendering to Cacsar what is Cacsar's and to God what is God's’. Eadmer also reports that Walkelin was at a meeting in Canterbury in 1097 to settle matters of friction between the Church and the secular power, Hist, nou., 81.

61 Brooke, op. cit. 72.

62 ‘Quaestio ergo erat “An uxor, a filio coniugis, non suo, adulterium passa, a thoro coniugis merito suo sit pontificali iudicio remouenda”’: PL clxiii. 1457.

63 On this subject in general, Duby, G., Medieval Marriage: two models from twelfth century France, Baltimore-London 1978Google Scholar; idem, Le Chevalier, la femme et le prêre, Paris 1981.Google Scholar For a lucid criticism of this over-simplified view, Moule, C., Entry into Marriage in the Late Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, c. 1090–1181, unpubl. PhD diss., Cambridge 1983, esp. pp. 37ff.Google Scholar, following the debate which went on within Ivo's mind over the relative importance of adultery and incest in the issue of separation. Rouche, M., ‘Des mariages païens au mariage chrétien: sacré et sacrement’, in Segni e Riti nella Chiesa Altomedievale Occidentale, Spoleto 1987, ii. 835–73Google Scholar, argues that the eleventh-and twelfth-century notion of spiritual purity in marriage was developed in response to the pagan idea of the purity of the blood prevalent among the Germanic nations in the sixth and seventh centuries. Sec also Goody, J., The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe, Cambridge 1983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64 See Helmholz, R. M., Marriage Litigation in Medieval England, Cambridge 1974, 187Google Scholar; many of the records, however, are no earlier than the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Cf. Pearson, F.S., ‘Records of the ruridecanal court of 1300’, in Collectanea of the Worcestershire Historical Society, ed. S. Hamilton, G., London 1912, pp. 69–80.Google Scholar

65 ‘Omnipotens Deus sua nos elementia benedicat et sensum in nobis sapicntiae salutaris infundat’: De synodo i-ii, in Die ‘Institutes of Polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical’, ed. Jost, K., Bern 1959. 210ff.Google Scholar; cf. Whitclock, D., ‘Wulfstan and the laws of Cnut’, EHR lxiii (1948), 433–52Google Scholar; idem, ‘Wulfstan's authorship of Cnut's laws’, EHR lxx (1955), 72–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66 Knowlcs quotes R. W. Chambers on ‘the…eloquence of Wulfstan, amazing in its vehemence, which reminds us of an Old Testament prophet ’: The Monastic Order in England, 64 n. 3.

67 On this distinction generally, Fournier, P., ‘Un tournant de l'histoire du droit’, Nouvelle Revue Historique de Droit Français et Étranger xli (1917). 129–80Google Scholar; Fournier, P. and Bras, G. Le, Histoire des collections canoniques en Occident depuis les Fausses Décrétales jusqu'au Décret de Gratien, 2 vols, Paris 1931–2Google Scholar; Fransen, G., Les Collections canoniques, Turnhout 1973.Google Scholar The sixth-century Gallican collection is edited by Mordek, K., Kirchenrecht und Reform im Frankreich, Berlin-New York 1975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Fournier's original view that the change to a genuinely hermencutic approach can be identified in a letter of 1088/9 from Urban II to Peter, bishop of Pistoia, and to the abbot of Vallombrosa, has been criticised by Stephen Kuttncr, who argues that Urban, in acting on the principle of dispensation, was within a tradition running back to Innocent I via Gregory VII and Leo I; and that the letter, as it is represented in the Collectio Britannica, besides being without innovation or influence on canonists, was itself partly a plagiarism from the Preface of Ivo of Chartres, Kuttncr, S., ‘Urban II and the doctrine of interpretation: a turning-point?’, Studia Gratiana xv (1972), 55–85.Google Scholar

68 See Harnack, A. von, Marcion, Das Evangelium dem fremden Gott, 2nd edn, Leipzig 1924.Google Scholar

69 For the argument that Alger prc-datcs Ivo, Häring, N. M., ‘A study in the sacramentology of Alger of Liege’, Mediaeval Studies xx (1958), 41–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar at pp. 41–2. On the date of Ivo's collections and the Preface, Fournier, P., ‘Les collections canoniques attribuées à Yves de Chartres’, Bibliothèque de l' École des Chartes Ivii (1896). 645–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Iviii (1898). 51–98, 384–405 (315–17 on the Preface), 410–44, 624–76. It is taken up in Fournier, P. and Bras, G. Le, Histoire des collections canoniques ii, Paris 1932. 55–114Google Scholar (105–8 on the Preface): here, it makes little difference whether the Preface was connected with the Decretum or the Panormia, since they were both compiled c. 1094–6.

70 On the origins of systematic law, see the authors cited in n. 67. above; on Anselm of Lucca, Collection in Thirteen Books, ed. Thancr, F., Innsbruck 1906Google Scholar and 1913; the edn goes only to bk XI/15. Gilchrist, J. T. has expressed doubt about the real effect of Gregory VII on the canonists, ‘The reception of Gregory VII into the canon law’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte lix (1973), 35–82.Google Scholar On the connection between canon law and theology, which has the widest implications for intellectual history, the classic is still Ghellinck, J. de, Le Mouvement théologique du XIIe siècle, 2nd edn.Bruges 1948Google Scholar; cf. Grabmann, M.. Die Geschichte der scholastischen Methode, 2 vols, Freiburg-im-Breisgau 1909–11, ii. 157–68Google Scholar; Häring, N. M., ‘The interaction between canon law and sacramental theology in the twelfth century’, Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Toronto 1972, ed. Kuttncr, S., Vatican City 1976, 483–93.Google Scholar See also Sprandel, Ivo von Chartres, 28–31. for the distinction which should be made between Ivo and later legal theory; Ivo lacks Abelard's methods of textual criticism.

71 Burchard cites the relevant canons from the councils of Mainz, Verberie, Tribur, Macon, and in the same order as Ernulf. Ivo has them in his Decretum, too, which, however, was composed only in c. 1094, and of which there is no trace of a manuscript in England before the twelfth century; the canons are given a different order by Ivo. Another possible source for Ernulf is the Tripartita (c. 1094), probably a preparatory compilation made by Ivo: there is a twelfth-century MS in Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (MS 455), in an English hand; see description in Fournier, ‘Collections canoniques’, 645ff.

72 A copy of Burchard is attested at Bee by two twelfth-century catalogues, Becker, G., Catalogi Bibliothecarum Antiqui, Bonn 1885, 200Google Scholar and 265. An eleventh-century manuscript of Burchard is in BL, Cott. Claud. Cvi; its connection with Canterbury is, however, doubtful. See Brooke, The English Church, 237; and Ker, N. R., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd edn, London 1964, 35.Google Scholar

73 The earliest Canterbury catalogue is a fragment of c. 1170 printed in facsimile by James, M. R., The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, Cambridge 1903, 7–12Google Scholar; but see the list of MSS illustrated at Christ Church in Dodwell, C. R., The Canterbury School of Illumination 1066–1200, Cambridge 1954, 120–3Google Scholar; tne list of books illustrated between 1070 and 1100 is made up entirely of patristic material (Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory), a fact which goes to confirm Ernulf's responsibility for the library in this period.

74 They are: (i) UL, Cambridge, MS I.i.4.19, of which the section on marriage is edited by Reinhardt, H. J. F., Die Ehelehre der Schule des Anselm von Laon, Munster 1974Google Scholar; (ii) Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 442 (sec James, M.R., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Cambridge 1910, ii. 355–6Google Scholar); (iii) Antwerp, Plantin Moretus mus. 144.

75 Reinhardt, op. cit. 4 n. 20, following Southern, St Anselm, 271; and Schmitt, F. S., review of Southern in Theologische Literaturzeitung xc (1965), 199–201.Google Scholar On Elmer's dates, Greenway, Fasti, 9.

76 Reinhardt, op. cit.

77 On this document, which has in it plenty of Carolingian material later than Egbert himself, Aronstam, R. A., ‘Recovering Hucarius: a historiographical study in early English canon law’ in BMCL, NS V (1975), 117–22Google Scholar; Aronstam suggests a vigorous revival of English canon law in the eleventh century in Exeter. On the “commonplace book’, Bethurum, D., ‘Archbishop Wulfstan's commonplace book’, Publications of the Medieval Language Association lvii (1942), 916–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Another document is informative about the state of canon law in England before the Conquest: Bodl. Lib., MS Bodl. 718 (English hand, tenth/eleventh century); this is a peculiar version of the Collection in Four Books, having instead of the first book the penitential of Egbert. On this connection, Bateson, M., ‘The supposed Latin Penitential of Egbert and the missing work of Halitgar of Cambrai’, EHR ix (1894), 320–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and for an abbreviated edition of this fourth book, Richter, A. L., Antiqua Canonum Collectio, Marburg 1844.Google ScholarGilchrist, J. T. has given the Collection in Four Books a new significance by arguing that it lies behind the Collection in 74 Titles rather than the other way round, as has always been supposed, ‘The Collection in Four Books (4L) - the source of the Collection in Seventy-four Titles (74T)?’, BMCL. NS xi (1981), 77–80.Google Scholar

78 Cf. Munier, C., Les Sources patristiques du droit de l'Église du viiie au xiie siècle, Mulhouse 1957.Google Scholar

79 ‘Ut ergo cuncta quac dicenda sunt perspicua luce clarcscant. primum ca quacstio. quam discuticndam arripio, in duas partes, id est, uestram et nostrani distributa disponitur, ut omni ambiguitate remota, quid nostra pars affirmet, quid uestra neget lector agnoscat. et quac affirmat, unde affirmet, quae negat, unde neget, coram positis rationibus indubitanter apparent’: Ernulf, De incestis coniugiis, PL clxiii. 1459A.

80 See above pp. 486 ff.: and Sprnndel. Ivo von Charlies. 7–8. Ivo's time at Bec is open to some doubt, see Gibson, Lanfranc. 36.

81 In a remarkably interesting article Stanislas Giet points out that the interpretation of the Synoptic passages on marriage and divorce to the effect that a man is obliged to send away his wife if he knows of her misconduct, is already present in the second-century Shepherd of Hermas (cap. xxix. 4–8); and that this rule, more rigorous than the Mosaic law which allows divorce and re-marriage, is perhaps derived in Hermas not from the Gospels but from the Essene asceticism of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Hermas, evidently like the Essencs, enjoins separation in cases of misconduct and forbids re-marriage, with the object of increasing as far as possible the occasion for repentance in the man and the woman, both of whom are affected by the promiscuity of the one, Gict, S., ‘Aux sources de la doctrine canonique du mariage’, Études d'histoire du droit canonique dédiées à G. Le Bras ii, Paris 1965, 1237–42.Google Scholar

82 Ivo's Preface is a short treatise on the equilibrium of mercy and justice. This equilibrium is the object of legal judgement: for example, ‘sed quid secundum rigorem, quid secundum modcrationcm, quid secundum iudicium, quid secundum misericordiam dicatur, diligenter attendat: quac intc se dissentire non senticbat, qui dicebat: “Misericordiam et iudicium cantabo te, Domine” [Ps. ci. I]; et alibi: “Uniuersae uiae Domini, misericordia et ueritas” [Ps xxv 10]. Habet enim omnis ecclesiastica disciplina principalitcr hanc intentionem, uel omnem aedificationem aduersus scientiam Christi se crigentem destruerc; uel acdificationcm Dei, fidei ueritatc, et morum honcstate constantcm construcrc; uel eamdem si contaminata fuerit, poenitentiae remediis cmundarc. Hujus aedificationis magistra est charitas, quae saluti proximorum consulens, id praccipit aliis fieri quod sibi quisque uult ab aliis impendi. Quicunque ergo ecclcsiasticus doctor regulas ita interpretatur aut moderatur, ut ad regnum charitatis cuncta quae docucrit uel exposuerit, referat, nec peccat, nec errat, cum saluti proximorum consulens, ad fincm sacris institutionibus debitum peruenire intendat’: PL clxi. 47–8. And see on the same theme Alger of Liège, De misericordia et iustitia, PL clxxx. 859–968.

83 Ivo, Preface, PL clxi. 51ff. ‘Maius est enim praeceptum quam permissum. Praeceptum usquequaque sanctum est. Permissum uero aliquando peccato non caret. Praeceptum est: “uxorem a uiro non discederc; quod si discesscrit, manere innuptam” [1 Cor. vii. 10]. Permissum est “Unusquisque habcat suam uxorem propter fornicationem: hoc autem secundum indulgcntiam dico, non secundum imperium” [I Cor. ii. 8]. Ubi indulgentia fuit, locus crat peccati. Quia ergo maius est praeceptum, minus permissum: ubi adest praeceptum, quiescat permissum’: Ernulf, De incestis, PL clxiii. 1472.

84 Ibid. 1473A.

85 Ivo, Preface, PL clxi. 48.

86 ‘Sed in his adhibenda est summa diligentia, et mundandus oculus cordis, quatenus in puniendo, uel parcendo, sanandis morbis charitas sincera subueniat, et nemo ibi uenalium medicorum more, quod suum est quaerat et propheticam illam reprehensionem incurrat: “Mortificabant animas quae non moriebantur. et uiuificabant animas quac non uiuebant” [Ezech. xiii. 19]’: ibid. The false judge is thus the false prophet or prophetess.

87 Ernulf, De incestis, PL clxiii. 1463C.

88 Ibid. 1460C.

89 ‘Foedus dico, coelitus mandatum, coniugibus datum, iure debito custodire debere. In cuius obseruantiae mandato, ideo edam excepta est causa fornicationis, ut intelligatur quia innocens nocentem dimittere potest causa fornicationis’: ibid. 1460D.

90 Ibid. 1461B.

91 Ibid. 1461; and 1469B-C, where the Council of Elvira is cited to show how serious is the danger of contamination of the husband by his wife's adultery: he is inuolutus.

92 ‘Id si quis antistes praeter regulam proprio fieri iuberet arbitrio, rem procul dubio nefandam praeciperet, ad ueritatem Euangelii minime incederet, imo a semita praedicationis cxccdcret’: ibid. 1461.

93 ‘Ea plane separatio non est attribuenda uirtuti humanae, sed iudicio Dei, ubi uiolenter nemo diuortium molitur, sed consilium Dei’: ibid. 1461C.

94 ‘Illud quippe diuina comparatum esse comprobatur, quod decreto Patrum uigore ecclesiasticae disciplinae, annosa consuetudine sancitum esse dignoscitur; nec quemquam perturbet si per Deum coniuncti a Deo dicantur separari, quasi Deo contra se sentiente, et consilii sui immutabilitatem mutabiliter agente’: ibid. 1461C–D.

95 Ibid. 1461D.

96 ‘Et prima quidem admonitio non intentat si quis post earn non eat, sed praemium sibi acquiesccntibus pollicetur… Indulgentia uero (quantum nobis uidetur) quia meliora non eligit, remedium quidem habet, non praemium; sed ab hoc si quis declinaucrit, meretur exitialc iudicium’: Ivo, Preface, PL clxi. 49.

97 Ibid. 49.

98 Duby, Le Chevalier, tells the story and interprets it as an episode in the growth of clerical control of values; cf. Daudet, P., L'Etablissement de ta compétence de l'Église en matière de divorce et consanguinité, Paris 1941, 56ff.; and Moule, Entry into Marriage, 1–47.Google Scholar

99 ‘Ex concilio Moguntino: “Si quis uiduam uxorem duxcrit, et postea cum filiastra fornicatus fuerit, seu cum duabus sororibus; aut si qua cum duobus fratribus, seu cum patre et filio. Si quis relictam fratris neptem, noucrcam. nurum, ronsobrinam, filiam auunculi, aut eius relictam, aut priuignam pollucrit, eos disiungi, et ulterius nunquam coniugio copulari praecipimus”’: Ernulf, De incestis, PL clxiii. 1462.

100 Ibid. 1463–4.

101 There is a retrospective rationality in Ernulf: he considers the past legislation of the Church to have been inspired by reason, ‘Qua ergo facilitate, qua fronte mandatum dominicum, intelleetu perspicuum, nemini ambiguum, ab hominibus est derogatum, aliud subrogatum? aut cuv ab Ecclesiae memorata exceptio est accepta, quac a Domino non est accepta? cur, inquam, nisi quia mandata Dei probe intellexerunt. pie susceperunt, sibi id licere limiter posse cognoucrunt, salua rcucrcntia canonicarum Scripturarum?’: ibid. 1463C. And he describes Paul as ‘apostolica prudentia prudenter intelligens’: ibid. 1459.

102 Ibid. 1465D.

103 A number of these problems are discussed by Alexander Murray. Reason and Society in the Middle Ages. Oxford 1978.

104 Cur Dem homo I/viii. Opera ii. 59; cf. Proslogion viii-xi. Opera i. 106–10.

105 Ernulf, De incestis, PL clxiii. 1464B.

106 Ibid. 1468C.

107 Ibid. 1468A; cf. Aristoteles latinus iii. 1–4, Analitica priora, ed. Minio-Paluello, L., Bruges-Paris 1962, 137–8Google Scholar(translatio Boelhii): ‘Enthymcma ergo est Syllogismus ex uerisimilibus uel signis…’.

108 See G. Constable, Letters and Letter-Collections, Turnhout 1976.

109 Ernulf, De incestis, PL clxiii. 1466.

110 Hunt, R. W., The History of Grammar in the Middle Ages: collected papers, ed., with intro. by Bursill-Hall, G. L., Amsterdam 1980CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. no. i. ‘Studies on Priscian I’; and see Gibson, M., ‘The early scholastic “Glosulc” of Priscian, “Institutioncs Gram-maticae”: the text and its influence’, Studi Medievali, 3rd ser. xx (1979), 235–54.Google Scholar

111 Kuttner, ‘Urban II’, 76.

112 McKcon, R., ‘Rhetoric in the Middle Ages’, Speculum xvii (1942), 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

113 This is a distinction made by Boethius and taken up, for example, by Fulbert of Chartres; see Behrends, The Letters of Fulbert of Chartres, p. xxvi.

114 ‘Vir bonus dicendi peritus’, taken up by Hermagoras, Cassiodorus and Alcuin among others, see McKeon, art. cit. 15 n. 1. Cf. John of Salisbury Enthelicus de dogmate philosophorum, ed. Petersen, C., Hamburg 1843Google Scholar, 1 lines 3–4, ‘Spiritus ille onus linguam mentemque gubernet,/Qui bona ucrba docet et pia uota facit… ‘.

115 Ernulf, De incestis, PL clxiii. 1464C.

116 Ibid. 1465B.

117 Abelard, Ethics, ed. Luscombe, D. E., Oxford 1971, 52–6.Google Scholar Ivo, debating with himself the difficult balance between consent in marriage, the infringement of the affinity rules and adultery, came to allow more latitude than Ernulf does here; see his letter mdlv, PL clxii. 159, where he recommends that a crusader return to his adulterous wife because of mitigating circumstances, and above all ‘pro conseruanda fide coniugii’ (cited by Moule, Entry into Marriage, 45).

118 ‘Quia ergo hoc genere concubitus eius operis auctorcs ad aetcrnam mortem creduntur peruenire, dum quae ore Dei ad Moysem facie ad faciem colloquentis minaciter prohibita sunt, non uercntur temerare, dum immobilitatem mandatorum scucritatc tonitruorum, ignium, nubium, fulminum, terribiliter testatam, renuunt custodire, cubare filium cum ea cum qua pater cubuit, aut patrem offendere in eam quam filius habuit, horrendum nefas esse dicitur, et intra summa seelera esse deputatur’: De incestis, PL clxiii. 1470B.

119 Ibid. 1468D, quoting Augustine, De sermone Domini in monte, xii. 36, PL xxxiv. 1247; cf. Col. iii. 5; Eph. v. 5; and the use in Hosea of adultery as a general metaphor for lack of faith.

120 Ernulf. De incestis, PL clxiii. 1470.

121 ‘Tanta praecepta a Christianis ueneranter obseruata, pro seruanda Christiana societate studiose imperata…’: ibid. 1471B. Compare the picture of Ernulf the judge in Reginald of Canterbury: ‘Vos orbem regitis; nil uos fugit; omnia scitis…’: Liebermann, ‘Raginald’, no. xi. 539).

122 On the significance of vow, sec Jacques Le Goff's essay on the sacred element in feudal vow, ‘Le rituel symbolique de la vassalité’, in idem, Pour un autre Moyen Age, Paris 1977, 349–420Google Scholar; on vow in the rite of marriage, Molin, J.-P. and Mutembe, P., Le Rituel du mariage en France du XIe au XVIe siècle, Paris 1974.Google Scholar

123 Daudet, L'Etablissement.

124 Gibson, Lanfranc, 177.