Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:26:54.925Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Sancte fidei omnino deiciar’: Ugolino dei Conti di Segni's Doubts and Jacques de Vitry's Intervention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2016

Jan Vandeburie
Jan Vandeburie*
Affiliation:
Università degli Studi Roma Tre
*
*Piazza Capri 20, 00141 Rome, Italy. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Thomas de Cantimpré, in his Supplementum to Jacques de Vitry's Vita of Marie d'Oignies, provides us with an account of how Cardinal Ugolino dei Conti di Segni, the future Pope Gregory IX, was struggling with his faith. At this decisive moment in Ugolino's career, the illustrious preacher and bishop of Acre, Jacques de Vitry, made an appearance at the curia. To combat Ugolino's doubt with a saintly intercession, Jacques presented him with the relic of Marie d'Oignies's finger, which he kept around his neck and which had protected him on several occasions. This well-known anecdote has not yet received any comprehensive attention and this essay seeks to analyse as well as contextualize the account of Jacques's intervention. By shedding light on the role of Marie d'Oignies and her finger relic and on the meaning of the ‘spirit of blasphemy’ plaguing Ugolino, I argue that the anecdote not only gives us a glimpse of the nature of the cardinal's spiritual concerns but also reflects Thomas's efforts to promote both Jacques de Vitry's influence on Gregory IX and the reputation of Marie d'Oignies.

Keywords

Jacques de VitryMarie d'OigniesThomas of CantimpréGregory IXRelics
Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 52: DOUBTING CHRISTIANITY: THE CHURCH AND DOUBT , June 2016 , pp. 87 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I wish to thank Brenda Bolton, Barbara Bombi, Frances Andrews and Anne-Laure Méril-Bellini delle Stelle for their kind help and invaluable suggestions. I also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

References

1 Decretales Gregorii IX 5.7, ‘De Haereticis’, ch. 1 (CICan. 2: 749).

2 Guillaume de Rennes was a Dominican canonist whose apparatus was copied with Peñafort's Summa in most manuscripts and considered to be of almost equal importance: see Kuttner, Stephan, ‘Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Summa de casibus poenitentiae des hl. Raymund von Penyafort’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Kanonistische Abteilung 39 (1953), 419–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 ‘[Q]ui per spiritum blasphemiae temptatur de fide cum dolore cordis et anxietate; cui, si bene pugnaverit, cedit ad profectum huius temptationis; cum nulla ei sit libido, id est, improba voluntas delectandi in creatura, sine qua nullum est actuale peccatum’: Jena, Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, MS El. f. 59, Raymundus de Peñafort, ‘Summa de Poenitentia et Matrimonio’, fol. 36r.

4 I use the Latin text of the most recent edition of the Vita of Marie d'Oignies: Iacobus de Vitriaco, Vita Marie de Oegnies & Thomas Cantipratensis, Supplementum, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, CChr.CM 252; for the meeting between Jacques and Ugolino, see ibid. 186–9. Translations of the Vita and the Supplementum by Margot H. King and Hugh B. Feiss respectively were published in Mulder-Bakker, Anneke B., ed., Mary of Oignies: Mother of Salvation (Turnhout, 2006), 39–165CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In 2014 a German translation of the Vita and the Supplementum was published: Das Leben der Maria von Oignies, transl. Iris Geyer, CChr.T 18.

5 See Bolton, Brenda M., ‘Mulieres Sanctae’, in Baker, Derek, ed., Sanctity and Secularity: The Church and the World, SCH 10 (Oxford, 1973), 77–93Google Scholar.

6 Some of the most significant recent contributions that deal with Jacques de Vitry and (the Vita of) Marie d'Oignies are Sandor, Monica, ‘Jacques de Vitry and the Spirituality of the “Mulieres sanctae”’, Vox Benedictina 5 (1988), 289–312Google Scholar; Calzà, Maria Grazia, Die Begine Maria von Oignies (†1213) in der hagiographischen Darstellung Jakobs von Vitry (†1240) (Würzburg, 2000)Google Scholar; Brenda M. Bolton, ‘Mary of Oignies: A Friend to the Saints’, in Mulder-Bakker, ed., Mary of Oignies, 199–220; Donnadieu, Jean, ‘Entre Sentiment et ambition. Les Réseaux de Jacques de Vitry au miroir du Supplementum ad Vitam Mariae Oignacensis de Thomas de Cantimpré’, in Carozzi, C. et al., eds, Vivre en société au Moyen Âge (Aix-en-Provence, 2008), 133–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; von der Osten-Sacken, Vera, Jakob von Vitrys ‘Vita Mariae Oigniacensis’. Zu Herkunft und Eigenart der ersten Beginen (Göttingen, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; delle Stelle, Anne-Laure Méril-Bellini, ‘L’Ecriture de l'amitié spirituelle dans l'œuvre hagiographique de Thomas de Cantimpré (1200–ca.1265/1270)’, Médiévales 64 (2013), 135–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also McDonnell, Ernest W.'s seminal The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture, with special emphasis on the Belgian Scene (New York, 1969), at 20–39Google Scholar.

7 Michel Lauwers, ‘Expérience béguinale et récit hagiographique: À Propos de la Vita Mariae Oigniacensis de Jacques de Vitry (vers 1215)’, Journal des savants (1989), 61–104.

8 Bolton, ‘Mary of Oignies’, 203; see also Brown, Jennifer N., ‘The Chaste Erotics of Marie d'Oignies and Jacques de Vitry’, Journal of the History of Sexuality 19 (2010), 74–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Thomas de Cantimpré, Supplementum 13 (CChr.CM 252, 184).

10 Ibid. 185–6.

11 The only extant finger relic of Marie d'Oignies is held in a phylactery crafted by Hugo d'Oignies's workshop (c.1230): Brussels, Musées royaux d'art et d'histoire, inv. no. 3673; Robert Didier and Jacques Toussaint, ‘Le Trésor des soeurs de Notre-Dame à Namur’, in eidem, eds, Autour de Hugo d'Oignies (Namur, 2003), 191–304, at 295–6.

12 Jacques de Vitry, Epistolae 1 (CChr.CM 171, 550).

13 Thomas de Cantimpré, Supplementum 18 (CChr.CM 252, 191–3).

14 Ibid. 15 (186).

15 McDonnell, Beguines, 34–6, 313–14; Grundmann, Herbert, Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter (Berlin, 1935), 172Google Scholar. See also Mens, Alcantara, ‘L’Ombrie italienne et l'Ombrie brabançonne. Deux courants religieux parallèles d'inspiration commune’, Études Franciscaines 17 (1968), 44–7Google Scholar.

16 Since Kaspar Elm coined the term ‘semi-religious’, the debate regarding the terminology for lay religious movements has been ongoing: Elm, Kaspar, ‘Vita regularis sine regula. Bedeutung, Rechtsstellung und Selbstverständnis des mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Semireligiosentums’, in Šmahel, František, ed., Häresie und vorzeitige Reformation im Spätmittelalter, Schriften des Historischen Kollegs Kolloquien 39 (Munich, 1998), 239–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the status quaestionis of the debate with regard to Marie d'Oignies and the Beguines, see Mulder-Bakker, ‘General Introduction’, in eadem, ed., Mary of Oignies, 18–24.

17 Brooke, Rosalind B., Early Franciscan Government: Elias to Bonaventure (Cambridge, 1959), 59–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Gemelli, Pia, ‘Giacomo da Vitry e le origini del movimento francescano’, Aevum 39 (1965), 474–95Google Scholar; Selge, Kurt Victor, ‘Franz von Assisi und Hugolino von Ostia’, in San Francesco nella ricerca storica degli ultimi ottanta anni. Convegno del Centro di studi sulla spiritualità medievale, 13–16 ottobre 1968 (Todi, 1971), 157–222Google Scholar.

18 Pressutti, P., ed., Regesta Honorii Papae III, 2 vols (Rome, 1888–95)Google Scholar, 1, no. 272.

19 Honorius III addressed a letter to Jacques on 6 March 1224, encouraging him not to give up the battle against Christ's enemies and to keep on preaching: Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Vat. Reg. 12, vol. 8, no. 322, fols 168r–v. On Jacques's doubts, see Vandeburie, Jan, ‘The Preacher and the Pope: Jacques de Vitry and Honorius III’, in Bird, J., ed., The Papacy, Religious Life, and the Crusade in the Early Thirteenth Century (Farnham, forthcoming 2016)Google Scholar.

20 Jacques did not resign as bishop of Acre in 1226, but only seems to have asked Honorius III to be released from his episcopal duties in the Holy Land, as he acted as auxiliary bishop in Liège (1226–9) and continued to be referred to as episcopo acconensis until he became cardinal-bishop of Tusculum in 1229: see Vandeburie, ‘The Preacher and the Pope’.

21 Thomas de Cantimpré, Supplementum 15 (CChr.CM 252, 186–9).

22 ‘Spiritus blasphemie adeo animam meam vexat et variis temptationum fluctibus obruit, et usque in desperationem cotidie fere detrudor’: ibid. 187.

23 Ibid. 187–9.

24 Thomas de Cantimpré, Vita Lutgardis, in Newman, Barbara, ed., Thomas of Cantimpré: The Collected Saints’ Lives, Medieval Women, Texts and Contexts 19 (Turnhout, 2008), 211–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 291.

25 Murray, Alexander C., ‘The Temptation of St Hugh of Grenoble’, in Intellectual Life in the Middle Ages: Essays presented to Margaret Gibson, ed. Smith, L. J. and Ward, B. (London, 1991), 81–101Google Scholar, at 97.

26 Such imagery is found, for instance, in: Strasbourg, Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire, MS 2929, fol. 119r, which shows the ‘spirit of blasphemy’ shooting a fiery arrow at Henry Suso.

27 Knox, Thomas F., ed., The Life of Blessed Henry Suso by Himself (London, 1865), 214–15Google Scholar.

28 Thomas de Cantimpré, Supplementum 15 (CChr.CM 252, 188–9).

29 Tyler, Jeffery J., ‘The Misery of Monks and the Laziness of the Laity: Overcoming the Sin of Acedia’, in Frömmigkeit – Theologie – Frömmigkeitstheologie: Contributions to European Church History. Festschrift für Berndt Hamm zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Litz, Gudrun, Munzert, Heidrun and Liebenberg, Rland (Leiden, 2005), 119–30Google Scholar; Rivas, Rubén A. Peretó, ‘Acedia y depresion. Entre pecado capital y desorden psiquiatrico’, in In umbra intelligentiae. Estudios en homenaje al Prof. Juan Cruz Cruz, ed. González, Ángel Luis and Zorroza, María Idoya (Pamplona, 2011), 655–66Google Scholar. van ‘t Spijker, Ineke, ‘Saints and Despair: Twelfth-Century Hagiography as “Intimate Biography”’, in Mulder-Bakker, Anneke B., ed., The Invention of Saintliness (London, 2002), 185–205Google Scholar, at 198–9, discusses the idea of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12: 31), a concept distinctly different from the ‘spirit of blasphemy’. Twelfth-century theologians saw blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as impenitence leading to despair: see Odo of Tournai, De blasphemia in Spiritum Sanctum (PL 160, cols 1111–18); Richard of St Victor, De Spiritu blasphemie (PL 196, cols 1185–92).

30 Ps. 90: 6 (Vulgate).

31 See also Newman, Barbara, ‘Possessed by the Spirit: Devout Women, Demoniacs, and the Apostolic Life in the Thirteenth Century’, Speculum 73 (1998), 733–70, at 740–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Ibid. 752. The shape of some reliquary pendants suggests they were ‘designed for intimate inspection in the palm of the hand and required the physical interaction of the owner to release [their] spiritual value’: Robinson, James, ‘From Altar to Amulet: Relics, Portability, and Devotion’, in Bagnoli, Martina et al., eds, Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe (Baltimore, MD, 2011), 111–16Google Scholar, at 114–15.

33 On the notion of Marie's sanctity and the canonization processes of the mulieres sanctae, see Lauwers, Michel, ‘Entre béguinisme et mysticisme. La Vie de Marie d'Oignies (†1213) de Jacques de Vitry, ou la définition d'une sainteté féminine au xiiie siècle’, Ons geestelijk erf 66 (1992), 46–70Google Scholar.

34 Jacques de Vitry, Vita 2.13 (CChr.CM 252, 163).

35 Thomas de Cantimpré, Supplementum 10 (CChr.CM 252, 180).

36 Jacques de Vitry, Vita 2.3 (CChr.CM 252, 113–14).

37 Ibid. 1.9 (CChr.CM 252, 76–9).

38 Thomas de Cantimpré, Supplementum 16 (CChr.CM 252, 189–90).

39 See also Alberzoni, Maria Pia, ‘Dalla domus del cardinale d'Ostia alla curia di Gregorio IX’, in Gregorio IX e gli ordini mendicanti (Assisi, 7–9 ottobre 2010), Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo (Spoleto, 2011), 73–122Google Scholar; Capitani, Ovidio, ‘Gregorio IX’, in Enciclopedia dei Papi, 3 vols (Rome, 2000), 2: 363–80Google Scholar.

40 Kempf, Friedrich, Regestum Innocentii III papae super negotio Romani imperii (Rome, 1947), no. 141, at 334–5Google Scholar; Maleczek, Werner, Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216. Die Kardinäle unter Coelestin III. und Innocenz III (Vienna, 1984), 129–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Alberzoni, Maria Pia, ‘Raniero da Ponza e la curia romana’, Florensia 11 (1997), 83–112Google Scholar.

42 ‘[C]onsolationes invenire non possum. . . . nisi quia ex multitudine iniquitatum mearum, que supergresse sunt caput meum’: Winkelmann, Eduard, ‘Analecta Heidelbergensia’, Archivio della Società Romana di storia patria 2 (1879), 361–7Google Scholar, at 363, 367. Maleczek also linked the spirituality of Ugolino to the influence of Raniero: Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 128.

43 Zimmermann, Heinrich, Die päpstliche Legation in der ersten Hälfte des 13. Jahrhunderts (Paderborn, 1913), 230Google Scholar.

44 Levi, Guido, Registri dei cardinali Ugolino d'Ostia e Ottaviani degli Ubaldini (Rome, 1890), 150–2Google Scholar.

45 Ibid. xvii, 126–7, 141.

46 Brem, Ernst, Papst Gregor IX bis zum Beginn seines Pontifikats (Heidelberg, 1911), 60Google Scholar; Sibilia, Salvatore, Gregorio IX (Milan, 1961), 51Google Scholar.

47 ‘[Q]uod tot peccatorum sum sarcina praegravatus et in tantum universae terrae Dominatorem offendi, quod non sum dignus electorum eius consortio aggregari et ab occupationibus terrenis avelli, nisi lacrymae et orationes tuae mihi veniam impetrent pro peccatis’: Analecta Franciscana, 3: Chronica XXIV generalium Ordinis Minorum cum pluribus appendicibus inter quas excellit hucusque ineditus Liber de laudibus S. Francisci Fr. Bernardi a Bessa (Quaracchi, 1897), 183; see also Esser, Kajetan, ‘Die Briefe Gregors IX. an die hl. Klara von Assisi’, Franziskanische Studien 35 (1953), 274–95Google Scholar, at 274.

48 Alberzoni, Maria Pia, Francescanesimo a Milano nel duecento (Milan, 1991), 209Google Scholar.

49 Maria Pia Alberzoni also noted that the letters reveal that the cardinal was often plagued by a profound spiritual despair: ‘Servus vestrum et ancillarum Christi omnium. Gregorio IX e la vita religiosa femminile’, FS 64 (2006), 145–78, at 164–5.

50 Jacques de Vitry, Epistolae 1 (CChr.CM 171, 553).

51 Thomas de Cantimpré, Supplementum 23 (CChr.CM 252, 201).

52 See also Newman, Barbara, ‘Devout Women and Demoniacs in the World of Thomas of Cantimpré’, in Dor, Juliet, Johnson, Lesley P. and Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn, eds, New Trends in Feminine Spirituality: The Holy Women of Liège and their Impact, Medieval Women, Texts and Contexts 2 (Turnhout, 1999), 35–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 André Vauchez, ‘Prosélytisme et action antihérétique en milieu féminin au xiiie siècle. La “Vie de Marie d'Oignies” (†1213) par Jacques de Vitry’, Problèmes d'histoire du christianisme 17 (1987), 95–110.

54 Thomas de Cantimpré, Supplementum 22 (CChr.CM 252, 197).

55 Jacques de Vitry, Epistolae 1 (CChr.CM 171, 553).

56 Thomas himself noted that he had selected some exempla among many cases of encounters with the spiritus blasphemiae: Thomas de Cantimpré, Supplementum 16 (CChr.CM 252, 190).

57 Ibid. Thomas paraphrases Heb. 4: 15. A few lines earlier, he compared Ugolino to St Peter, who also wrestled with doubts and temptation.

58 Jacques de Vitry, Epistolae 1 (CChr.CM 171, 550).

59 Jacques urged the reader to imitate the virtues of Marie, but did not commend her physical excesses. It is important to note that while Jacques used the subjunctive ‘eius virtutes imitemur’ (‘we should imitate’), his subsequent use of the infinitive ‘imitari non possumus’ (‘we cannot / are unable to imitate’) is in line with his emphasis on her special fervour: ‘Nec hoc dixerim ut excessum commendem, sed ut fervorem ostendam. . . . eius virtutes imitemur, opera vero virtutum eius sine privato privilegio imitari non possumus’: Jacques de Vitry, Vita 1.2 (CChr.CM 252, 58).

60 Some iconography depicts Marie as magistra, seemingly teaching the vita apostolica: e.g. Turin, Biblioteca Statale Universitaria, MS D.II.21, fol. 3r; Leuven, Maurits Sabbebibliotheek, Coll. Mechelen, Bibliotheek van het Grootseminarie, MS 20, fol. 72r.

61 On the relics of Marie, see also Bolton, Brenda M., ‘Spiegels van vroomheid: Relieken van Maria van Oignies’, in Monteiro, M. et al., eds, De Dynamiek van Religie en Cultuur. Geschiedenis van het Nederlands Katholicisme (Kampen, 1993), 124–37Google Scholar.

62 Merton, Thomas, ‘Saint Lutgarde: Nun of Aywières, Belgium’, Cistercian Studies Quarterly 35 (2000), 219–30Google Scholar.

63 ‘Nihil inquam, mihi ex tuo, Mater, corpore sufficere poterit, nisi manum aut caput habeam, quo tunc relevere toto orbatus’: Thomas de Cantimpré, Vita Lutgardis, 290.

64 Ibid. 291.

65 Albrici monachi Triumfontium, Chronicon (MGH S 23, 919).

66 The influence of Jacques on Gregory IX's decision-making certainly deserves further research. To date, the main research into Jacques's role as cardinal is a brief chapter in Funk, Philipp, Jakob von Vitry. Leben und Werke (Leipzig, 1909), 60–7Google Scholar.

67 Jacques de Vitry, Vita 2.2–8 (CChr.CM 252, 94–145).