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Thomas of Hales, O.F.M.: His Life and Works

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Sarah M. Horrall
Sarah M. Horrall*
Affiliation:
The University of Ottawa
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Extract

Thomas of Hales has long been recognized as the author of a fine Middle English lyric, the ‘Luue Ron.’ He is also known to have written a sermon (or meditation) in Anglo-Norman, and a few manuscripts of a Latin life of the Virgin, Vita Sancte Marie, have also been attributed to him. Modern accounts of his life depend almost entirely on an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography.

Type
Articles
Information
Traditio , Volume 42 , 1986 , pp. 287 - 298
Copyright
Copyright © The Fordham University Press 

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References

1 For an edition of this see English Lyrics of the Thirteenth Century, ed. Brown, Carleton (Oxford 1932), no. 43, pp. 68–74. See also Early Middle English Texts , edd. Dickins, Bruce and Wilson, R. M. (3rd impr. rev.; London 1956) 104–9.Google Scholar

2 Ed. Dominica Legge, M., ‘The Anglo-Norman Sermon of Thomas of Hales,’ Modern Language Review 30 (1935) 212–18.Google Scholar

3 See especially Doucet, Victorin, ‘Maîtres franciscains de Paris: Supplément au Répertoire des maîtres en théologie de Paris au xiiie siècle de M. le Chan. P. Glorieux,’ Archivum Franciscanum historicum 27 (1934) 536–37. The present author has edited the Middle English translation of the Vita with a transcription of the Latin text from MS Oxford, Bodl. Hatton 102. See The Lyf of Oure Lady: The ME Translation of Thomas of Hales' Vita Sancte Marie (Middle English Texts 17; Heidelberg, 1985).Google Scholar

4 Dictionary of National Biography (London 1890) XXIV 36.Google Scholar

5 Hill, Betty, ‘The “Luue-Ron” and Thomas de Hales,’ Modern Language Review 59 (1964) 321–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Monumenta Franciscana, Letter 227, ed. Brewer, J. S. (London 1858) I 395–96; Letter 75, p. 181. These were noted by Kingsford.Google Scholar

7 Hill 326–27.Google Scholar

8 MSS PBV. For an explanation of the sigla see below, n. 31.Google Scholar

9 de Turrecremata, Frater Joannes, Tractatus de veritate conceptionis Beatissimae Virginis 4.30 (Oxford 1869) 342.Google Scholar

10 de Alva, Pedro y Astorga, , Radii solis (Lou vain 1666) 785, suggests that Torquemada took his information from a tract by an anonymous Dominican, which Alva y Astorga quotes at some length. I have not been able to identify or locate this tract.Google Scholar

11 See my edition for further information on manuscripts and their classification.Google Scholar

12 Bandellus, Vincentius, Disputatio solemnis de conceptione Beatae Virginis (Barcelona 1502) fol. 46v .Google Scholar

13 de Barletta, Gabriel, Sermones de Sanctis eximij sacre theologie magistri Gabrielis Barleta 14 (Brescia 1521) fol. 54v .Google Scholar

14 Bale, John, Scriptorum illustrium Maioris Brytanniae … catalogus 5.49 (Basel 1557) 416, and Illustrium Maioris Britanniae scriptorum … catalogus ([Cologne?] 1548) fol. 140. There is no entry for Thomas in Bale's notebook. See Poole, Reginald Lane, ed., Index Britanniae scriptorum: John Bale's Index of British and Other Writers (Oxford 1902).Google Scholar

15 Goff, Frederick R., Incunabula in American Libraries (3rd ed.; New York 1964) item P-537. The work referred to is anonymous, but has the title De Beate Uirginis conceptione ducentorum & sexdecim Sancte Matris Ecclesie doctorum vera tuta et tenenda sententia. The entry on Thomas of Hales is on fol. 20v .Google Scholar

16 The only differences are the insertion of eiusdem after parisiensis, and of originali after peccato. Pez, Bernardus and Hueber, Philibertus, Thesaurus anecdotorum novissimus (Vienna 1729) VI, ‘Codex diplomatico-historico-epistolaris,’ 323, also quote Bandellus.Google Scholar

17 Willot, Henricus, Athenae orthodoxorum sodalitii Franciscani (Liège 1598) 332. Albertus Fabricius, Jo., Bibliotheca Latina mediae et infimae aetatis (Pettau 1754) VI 235, copies Willot, although he also takes information from Pez and Hueber who follow Torquemada. See above, n. 16. So too, probably, does Antonius Possevinus, Apparatus sacer ad scriptores Veteris & Novi Testamenti (Cologne 1608) II 486.Google Scholar

18 Pitseus, Ioannes, Relationum historicarum de rebus Anglicis (Paris 1619) I 442. In spite of Pits's reference to Willot here, the date is Bale's. Cf. Waddingus, Lucas, Scriptores Ordinis Minorum (1650; rpt. Rome 1906) 216; Sbaralea, Joannes Hyacinthus, Supplementum et castigatio ad scriptores trium ordinum S. Francisci a Waddingo aliisve descriptos (Rome 1936) IV 129. Tanner, Thomas, Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica (1748; rpt. Tucson 1963), bases his entry on Bale, Pits, and Wadding.Google Scholar

19 Fuller, Thomas, The History of the Worthies of England (1662; rev. ed. Nichols, John, London 1811) I 384.Google Scholar

20 de Alva, Petrus et Astorga, , Militia immaculatae conceptionis Virginis Mariae (1663; rpt. Brussels 1965) col. 1437.Google Scholar

21 Ibid, cols. 1238–39. See the description of the manuscript in Coens, Mauritius, ‘Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum Latinorum archivi historici civitatis Coloniensis,’ Analecta Bollandiana 61 (1943) 140–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 de Alva, Petrus et Astorga, , Sol veritatis (Madrid 1660) 102–4.Google Scholar

23 de Alva, Petrus et Astorga, , Radii solis (Louvain 1666) 784–87.Google Scholar

24 Quétif, Jacobus and Échard, Jacobus, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum (Paris 1719) I 490. The work was noticed here because one of the manuscripts in which it appears (Paris, BN lat. 18,324) is a collection of saints' lives copied by a Dominican.Google Scholar

25 Johannes a Sancto Antonio quotes Quétif and Échard's description of the Marmoutier manuscript and suggests it might have been written by ‘Thomas ille Plebanus,’ mentioned by Alva, y Astorga, in Militia 1446. See Bibliotheca universa Franciscana (Madrid 1733) III 124.Google Scholar

26 See above, note 4.Google Scholar

27 Fol. 260r .Google Scholar

28 Hill, Betty, ‘The History of Jesus College, Oxford MS 29,’ Medium Ævum 32 (1963) 204. The poem itself seems earlier to have been written on a roll, as the recipient is urged to ‘vntrende’ (unroll) the work.Google Scholar

29 Legge, , ‘Anglo-Norman Sermon’ 213–14.Google Scholar

30 Coxe, H. O., Catalogus codicum MSS qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur (Oxford 1852) II 65–66.Google Scholar

31 The MSS and their sigla are as follows: Google Scholar

32 Doucet 536–37 refers to this MS as ‘Mayence, Bibliothèque de la ville 608.’ This is the old mark of the Mainz Charterhouse. I am grateful to Dr. Darapsky of the Stadtbibliothek for tracking down the correct MS for me.Google Scholar

33 ‘Thomas, Frater,’ PV; Aquinas, Thomas, B; ‘ Anglicus, Frater Thomas,’ X.Google Scholar

34 Schneyer, Johannes Baptist, Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 43; Münster 1973) V 630.Google Scholar

35 The manuscript has been inadequately described. It contains a series of liturgical sermons in Latin, including some addressed especially to contemplatives, which Coxe neglected to list, but only the Anglo-Norman sermon is in any way linked with Thomas.Google Scholar

36 See Rouse, Richard H. and Rouse, Mary A., Preachers, Florilegia and Sermons (Toronto 1979).Google Scholar

37 Cf. Mildner, Francis M., ‘The Oxford Theologians of the Thirteenth Century and the Immaculate Conception,’ Marianum 2 (1940) 284–306.Google Scholar

38 On this work and its English translations see especially Salter, Elizabeth, Nicholas Love's ‘Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ’ (Analecta Cartusiana 10; Salzburg 1974).Google Scholar

39 Kingsford, C. L., The Grey Friars of London (British Society of Franciscan Studies 6; Aberdeen 1915) 21–22.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., especially 4, 17–18, 30. It may be significant that the London house was also a favourite burial place of Italian merchants. Manuscripts of Thomas' work which are now lost could have reached Italy through such a connection. See also Betty Hill's suggestion that the Adam de Maddol who went through Rimini in 1268 could be the same friar who grew up with Thomas in Hereford. Hill 329.Google Scholar

41 Dominica Legge, M., ‘St. Edmund's “Merure de Seinte Eglise,”’ Modern Language Review 23 (1928) 475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Vita Marie 71/3–4, Sermon 216/15.Google Scholar

43 See above.Google Scholar

44 See Vincent, Hugues and Abel, F.-M., Jérusalem (Paris 1926) II fasc. 4 674–79, and Hollis, Christopher and Brownrigg, Ronald, Holy Places (New York 1969) 184.Google Scholar

45 Legge, , ‘Hales,’ 212. See 217/35.Google Scholar