IN his treatise on civil lordship, written a few years before the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, Wyclif raises, incidentally, but in a particularly challenging way, the central problem of political philosophy. The problem is to work out a consistent idea of authority and subordination as reciprocal—in the biblically extreme terms of WycliPs formulation, a consistent idea of reciprocal lordship and servitude or mastery and slavery. It is unclear what part, if any, his brief discussion of reciprocity plays in the rest of Wyclif s thought. There are echoes, but nothing like the elaboration the idea might seem to deserve, and authoritative recent studies raise doubts even about the echoes. Still, if we are willing to interpret Wycliffian reciprocity for ourselves, the idea may prove a fruitful one.

Francisco Suarez devoted the opening chapter of his major work, De legibus ac Deo legislatore, to definitions of the words lex (law) and ius (right). In one sense, he wrote, ius could mean the same as lex, as in phrases like ius civile (civil law) or ius divinum (divine law). But there were other meanings too. In discussing them, Suarez quoted Isidore of Seville, ‘Ius is so called because it is just’, and Augustine, ‘What is done by right (iure) is done justly’—two texts that earlier had been incorporated into the medieval Corpus iuris canonici. According to this etymology, Suarez wrote, ius could mean ‘the just and fair’ or ‘what is prescribed by law’. Then Suarez presented a third, ‘strict’ definition.

Throughout the last quarter of the seventeenth century a spectre was haunting Europe, the spectre of Catholicism. The Savoyard invasion of the Vaudois, the accession of a catholic elector in the Palatinate, the ill-judged policies of James II in England, above all the revocation of the edict of Nantes in France, served to persuade protestants of the dangers besetting the reformation. The nine years war, therefore, could be looked on as a crusade, and William III as God’s instrument for the preservation of the Gospel, Ezechias Alterus, Europae totius tutelaris Pater, Hostium veritatis Flagellum. The peace which followed the treaty of Ryswick did not materially alter this view; refugees from France, Orange and Piedmont provided uncomfortable reminders that the Beast was not dead, but sleeping.

Twenty-two years ago the Historisches Jahrbuch published a review of recent studies of John of Salisbury. It was signed by H. Hohenleutner (1958) and it surveyed work done between 1948 and 1958. In that immediately post-war period there had appeared Daniel McGarry’s most useful translation into English of the Metalogicon (1955); Christopher Brooke had brought to completion an edition and translation of the early Letters of John of Salisbury covering the years 1153-61, and Marjope Chibnall had edited and translated with great success the Historia Pontificalis (1956). There had also appeared, apart from a number of short articles and chapters, Hans Liebeschütz’s book on John of Salisbury and medieval humanism and Helbling-Gloor’s study of John’s ideas concerning nature and superstition (1956).

Dans son Essor de la littérature latine au XIIè siècle, le père de Ghellinck écrivait: ‘sans avoir jamais professé dans une école, Jean de Salisbury est une des figures les plus représentatives du monde apparenté aux écoles dans la première moitié du XIIè siècle … C’est un agent de liaison entre l’école et le monde extra-scolaire’.

An interest in prophecy is a continuing theme of the writings of the Cambridge Platonist, Henry More (1614–87). In his earlier writings, the focus is on prophecy in general, particularly in relation to religious enthusiasm. He did not turn his attention to millenarianism until relatively late in his career, after he had established himself as a philosopher. From 1660 onwards, his writings are characterized by a deepening interest in biblical prophecy generally and in the Book of Revelation in particular. More first discusses biblical prophecy in print in his An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness (1660). His first systematic treatment of the topic appears in his Synopsis Propheticon which was appended to his Mystery of Iniquity (1664). Aspects of this discussion are elaborated in the fourth and fifth dialogues of his Divine Dialogues (1668), and in his An Exposition of the Seven Epistles to the Seven Churches (1669). He continued to defend his position in other works to the end of his life. As a millenarian, Henry More belongs within the general Protestant tradition which identifies Antichrist as the Pope, the Apocalypse being an ‘aenigmaticall, prefiguration and prediction of the Apostasy thereof [the church] into Antichristianism by the misguidance of the Church-men’. Furthermore, as Jan van den Berg has shown, Henry More was a disciple of the great English millenarian, Joseph Mede. He followed Mede’s synchronic reading of events described in the Apocalypse, that is he interpreted them not as one linear sequence but as a series of concurrent events. In large part More accepted Mede’s collation of the seals, trumpets, and vials with other events described. None the less, More did not agree with Mede on all points. Although the points on which he differed were small, he defended his view with tenacity, as can be seen from his discussion of prophecy with his life-long correspondent and erstwhile pupil, Lady Anne Conway (1630?–79).

The English chronicler, Roger of Howden, gives a particularly interesting contemporary insight into events in Rome in the last months of the pontificate of the sick and ailing nonagenarian Celestine III (1191-8). If he is to be believed, we have a description of the attempt by a wily old pope to extend his influence beyond the grave. The man he wanted to succeed him was John of S. Paolo, Cardinal Priest of S. Prisca whom ‘he loved for his wisdom, sanctity and justice beyond all the other cardinals.’ As proof of this love and respect, he had already allowed him to act in his own place, undertaking every duty save that of consecrating bishops. In an extraordinary offer, according to Roger of Howden, Celestine even went so far as to express his willingness to abdicate so that the cardinals could appoint John of S. Paolo before his death. All the cardinals, however, ‘with one voice, made answer that they would not be willing to elect him on such conditions and alleged that it was a thing unheard of for the Supreme Pontiff to abdicate.’ In attempting this, Celestine was making a far-reaching claim for papal sovereignty, prefiguring the later suggestion of Augustinus Triumphus, in the early fourteenth century, that the pope had a right to choose his own successor. It was unthinkable that the College of Cardinals in the last years of the twelfth century would so relinquish their right to vote. Any such designation by Celestine would have represented a direct challenge to the position of the cardinals as electors of the pope.

The churches know by intimate neighbourhood with the people in every part of Ireland the true aims of those who clamour for separation. They see the effects of so-called Nationalism on morals, on character, on society, on the rights of property, and not least, on Christian institutions. Their estimate of Home Rule is the product of many influences. Observation, experience, intuition, historical facts, and facts of daily life—all contribute their part toward that fulness of conviction which they alike own and maintain. Such a solidarity of opinion does not exist on any other public question.

In July 1565 Edmund Skeltpn, clerk, left to the curate of Egton to remain in the parish for ever a book called Postella Cassiodorus, a Catholicon, and a Latin Bible, works distincdy at odds with the Protestant ethos which the new generation of bishops was striving to introduce into the Elizabethan Church. This bequest in itself singles Skelton out from the usual run of priests serving in Yorkshire villages at this rime. In fact, until his prior surrendered the house on 31 August 1 1539 he had been a monk of Grosmont Priory, and then, at the Dissolution, at the age of thirty-six, with a pension of £36s. 8d, he had apparendy settled in the adjoining parish of Egton. In his will he also gave a gown, tippet, and hat to Nicholas Morley, almost certainly the former prior of Whitby Abbey, and 20d. and certain other unspecified books to a former fellow canon, Robert Holland. Both the books destined for Egton church and those intended for Robert Holland may once have formed part of Grosmont monastic library. Although the evidence can only be reassembled with difficulty, sufficient records have survived to suggest that a significant number of erstwhile monks and friars were similarly redistributing medieval books around Yorkshire in the generation after the Henrician Reformation. An examination of the religious known to have attended the two English universities in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, a survey of monastic schools and, in particular, an assessment of monastic libraries and books can together provide at least an impression of the state of learning within Yorkshire monasteries and friaries, and of the contribution they may still have been making to northern intellectual life at the close of the Middle Ages.

From about 1528 onward radical protestants of various kinds from the Low Countries began to seek refuge in England from the pressures of persecution in their homelands. Until the advent of Thomas More as chancellor, persecution in England was sporadic and rather lax. The royal authority had not hitherto been invoked, and the lollards were not commonly of the stuff of martyrs, which induced a certain complacency in the English bishops when faced with the challenges of nascent protestantism. After More’s brief tenure of office was over, persecution under royal auspices continued, but on a very much smaller scale than in the Netherlands, so that the incentive for radicals to come to England, either permanently or temporarily, remained. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them lived in London, Norwich and other towns of the south-east over the next twenty years. A few, like Jan Mattijs, were burned in England, others, like Anneke Jans, met the same fate on their return home, but many lived and worked peacefully, attracting remarkably little attention. Considering their numbers, and the radical nature of their views, they seem to have made only a very slight impact upon their adopted country. A few Englishmen, like that ‘Henry’ who turned up as the sponsor of the Bocholt meeting in 1536, embraced their ideas wholeheartedly, but for the most part the effect seems to have been extremely piecemeal and diffuse, producing a wide variety of individual eccentricities rather than anything in the nature of a coherent movement. However, the presence of these radicals and their English sympathisers has always served to confuse students of the reformation, not least by appearing to justify contemporary conservative attempts to discredit protestantism as a Tower of Babel.

In 1884, the American Historical Association was founded. Four years later, in 1888, the American Society of Church History came into being. The two events, the founding of the ASCH as well as of the AHA, belong to the larger saga of late nineteenth century professional formation. In field after field, amateur and patrician endeavours fell before what seemed a common strategy to consolidate, standardize, resource, institutionalize, and professionalize. The relation of the ASCH to the AHA is instructive. The two organizations shared much. Both drew significantly upon the idiom and structures of German historical scholarship. The guiding spirit of the AHA, Herbert Baxter Adams, plied his German training in a research seminar at Johns Hopkins whose methods and graduates swept historical efforts across the nation into the AHA orbit. His counterpart, Philip Schaff, conceived the ASCH in comparable instrumental and imperialistic terms. German-born, trained by Ferdinand Christian Baur and Johann A. W. Neander, Schaff put an indelible mark on the field of church history. The scholarship attests the leadership and legacy: a 13-volume American Church History Series (1893-7), his own 6-volume History of the Christian Church (1882-92), a 3-volumc Religious Encyclopaedia (1882-4), adapted from that of J.J. Hcrzog, the 3-volumc Creeds of Christendom (1877), and the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, the two series of which ran to 28 and 14 volumes (1886-9, 1890–1900).

In their excellent little book Scribes and Scholars Reynolds and Wilson comparejohn of Salisbury and William of Malmesbury as classicists. The fact that the two men have never before been so compared, and the fact that even Reynolds’s and Wilson’s account contains a good many errors, shows how much is yet to be learned about the humanistic scholarship of the twelfth century. William and John are comparable in a number of ways, but most particularly in their interest in Greco-Latin antiquity: it is central to their scholarship, it is a major preoccupation in their works, it provides a key (and if we add biblical and patristic antiquity as well, the key) to their thinking about their contemporary world.

Le platonisme florentin, et surtout le fameux discours de Pic de la Mirandole de dignitate hominis sont souvent considérés comme les manifestations primordiales de l’humanisme européen, pour peu que Ton accorde à ce dernier concept si controversé de par sa polysémie elle-même, le sens d’une philosophic ou, à tout le moins, d’une attitude mentale exaltant la grandeur ou la liberte de l’homme. La dignité de l’homme serait moins une valeur ajoutée a l’homme que l’expression même de son essence, ou sa définition spécifique: homo loquens, homo rationalis, zôon politicon, la notion de dignité subsumerait toutes les autres caractéristiques de l’homme, tant il est vrai que le don de la parole — qui distingue l’homme des animaux, capables seulement d’exprimer des sons (sonitus, mais non point voces ou verba) — la puissance de la raison — qui le distingue également des bêtes brutes, mues par l’instinct — ou encore la volonté de former avec ses semblables une communauté civile — si différente des rassemblements de hordes ou de troupeaux de bêtes — constituent des aspects ou des modalités de la dignitas.

It seems unnecessary to describe once again the importance of the famous tenth chapter of the second book of the Metalogicon. Many others have done so before me. It is not only the main source of our knowledge of the early years and education of John of Salisbury, but is of importance in any discussion of the school of Chartres. However, in spite of all the attention paid to it by many scholars, no consensus has been reached up to now about its structure and significance. The aim of this paper is to give a consistent interpretation of the text, and thus to show which conclusions drawn from it may be valid and which not.

Ecumenical networks are largely taken for granted by those whom they involve. The longer one is active in church life, particularly at national or international level, the more significant they become. The different layers of responsibility and the timespan involved in personal friendships are both integral to any understanding of them. Recent discussion within the WCC about the ‘reconfiguration of the ecumenical movement’ has raised once again the basis of representation in the council, a topic which goes back to some of the earliest discussions about its structure in the mid 1930s. The key issue is the tension between a relatively informal grouping, based on networks of people who already know one another, and a formal structure, based on the official representatives of the churches – which also assumes that its members will be churches rather than Christian associations of various kinds. It is a commonplace of ecumenical historiography that the formation of the WCC depended heavily on a pre-existing network of personal friends. But very often there is relatively little analysis of its nature. In fact, it is inherently difficult to analyse, because the official records give next to no information about it; better sources are letters and memoirs, notwithstanding any personal bias. Such bias may actually be key evidence. This paper uses the discussions about a future WCC in the 1930s as a focus for analysing the networks involved. The issue is well summed up in a letter from Henry van Dusen to William Temple in July 1938 about whether the proposed World Council should be exclusively composed of official church representatives. Van Dusen, who clearly felt personally threatened by this, pleaded for the inclusion of co-opted members, since without them ‘elements of vital importance for the Church’ would never find their way into the Council. The issue of how to secure sufficient women, young prople and the non-ordained has never gone away.

In 1364 a cause of divorce a vinculo was brought in a York court by a certain Edmund Dronesfeld against his reputed wife Margaret de Donbarr, on the grounds of her previous marriage in Scotland. The story unfolded by the witnesses, whose depositions are the only remaining record of the cause, is a strange one, which reflects the unsettled conditions of life on the border and in northern England during the long-drawn-out Scottish wars, and the further confusion introduced by the Black Death. The questions put by Edmund’s side were intended to prove that Margaret’s name was originally Agnes, that she had married in Scodand, eighteen years before, a man named William de Brighan, who was still alive, and that Edmund himself had not known this when he had ‘married’ her at Bedale six years later.

Nowhere were the doctrinal ambiguities of the English Church more evident than in its attitude to prayers for the dead. The problem had become evident well before 1549, in the policies of a king who claimed to be more Catholic than the Pope, but who not only dissolved monasteries, but also dismantled the shrines of the saints, and clearly threatened all intercessory foundations. The King’s Book of 1543, or A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christen Man had struck a delicate balance.

At the moment of Innocent Ill’s accession, the papacy faced both problems and opportunities in Italy, many of them the result of the unexpected death of the Emperor Henry VI in 1197 and the subsequent abeyance of imperial rule. The new pope at once showed his determination to realize the projects of his predecessors and to secure the position of the Holy See by establishing a papal governmental structure in central Italy and, in due course, by obtaining the election of an obedient and faithful emperor. These policies had repercussions on city-state regimes which had for many years now shown their own determination to achieve the most extensive authority possible, both within their walls and in their surrounding territories. Their quest for autonomy was often accompanied by measures hostile to the property and jurisdiction of the Church; it was sometimes also accompanied by the more or less overt toleration of heresy, even within the ranks of a city’s rulers. Attacks on clerical immunities, however, came to the papacy’s notice more frequently than instances of outright heresy, and Innocent at least was well aware how both anticlericalism and heresy proper were fuelled by the manifest inadequacies of the clergy.

Certain aspects of both major and minor political writings in later medieval Europe remain intrinsically puzzling. Michael Wilks, in his seminal work on the ‘Problem of Sovereignty’ in this period called the later medieval and early modern epochs an ‘age of confusion’. One problem may be summed up as (1) What difference did Aristotle make? Ullmann argued that Aristotle made it possible to construct a plausible case for ‘the ascending’ (that is, quasi-democratic) view of authority. In that case, as Wilks persistently enquires: Why did defenders of papal monarchy make such free, prolific use of Aristotle?