Heresy in Transition

Transforming Ideas of Heresy in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

John Christian Laursen, Cary J. Nederman, Ian Hunter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780754654285
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317122463
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The concept of heresy is deeply rooted in Christian European culture. The palpable increase in incidences of heresy in the Middle Ages may be said to directly relate to the Christianity's attempts to define orthodoxy and establish conformity at its centre, resulting in the sometimes forceful elimination of Christian sects. In the transition from medieval to early modern times, however, the perception of heresy underwent a profound transformation, ultimately leading to its decriminalization and the emergence of a pluralistic religious outlook. The essays in this volume offer readers a unique insight into this little-understood cultural shift. Half of the chapters investigate the manner in which the church and its attendant civil authorities defined and proscribed heresy, whilst the other half focus on the means by which early modern writers sought to supersede such definition and proscription. The result of these investigations is a multifaceted historical account of the construction and serial reconstruction of one of the key categories of European theological, juristic and political thought. The contributors explore the role of nationalism and linguistic identity in constructions of heresy, its analogies with treason and madness, the role of class and status in the responses to heresy. In doing so they provide fascinating insights into the roots of the historicization of heresy and the role of this historicization in the emergence of religious pluralism.

Chapter 1
Before the Coming of Popular Heresy: The Rhetoric of Heresy in English Historiography, c. 700-1154

Paul Antony Hayward

Introduction

It is the intention of this chapter to survey the ways in which heresy figures in historical works produced in a country which appears to have remained largely free of doctrinal conflict from the time when its peoples were first converted to Christianity until the fourteenth century. It will shed light on the functions that the rhetoric of heresy has played in medieval historiography prior to the coming of organised popular heresy. The country in question is England, and the texts that will be examined comprise historical works by Bede, Ælfric of Eynsham, John of Worcester, Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury. For the purpose of comparison attention will also be given to the certain works composed on the Continent — that is, to the works of Gregory of Tours, of Orderic Vitalis and to various vitae and miracula composed at the monastery of Bec.

1. Bede's Historia Ecclesiatica

Three doctrinal heresies figure in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica: Arianism, Pelagianism and Quartodecimanism. The rise of the 'Arian madness' (vaesania Arrii) in the fourth century and its corruption of the world to the point where it infected even as remote an island as Britain is briefly covered in book one.¹ Rather more attention is given to the rise of Pelagianism and to the efforts of the orthodox to refute this heresy, especially among the Britons: Bede refers to the alleged British origins of Pelagius himself and to the efforts of Augustine to refute the teachings of his apologist, Julianus of Campania;² moreover, he devotes some five chapters to the two anti-Pelagian missions of Germanus, bishop of Auxerre (d. 446), to Britain.³ The latter chapters are taken almost verbatim from the late fifth-century Life of Germanus by Constantius of Lyons.'⁴ The Quartodeciman heresy — that is, the heresy of celebrating Easter from the fourteenth day of the moon in the Hebrew month of Nisan on whatever day of the week on which it fell, even when it did not fall on a Sunday — figures in Bede's treatment of the divergences between the Irish and English Churches over the Easter question. Here he quotes at length Pope John IV's letter accusing the Irish of Pelagianism and of the Quartodeciman heresy.⁵ This letter implied that there were some Quartodeciman heretics in Ireland, but Bede's commentary suggests that this deviation was atypical. The practice was, he comments, only a recent aberration and the entire race was not implicated in it. He returns to this point several times, explicitly exculpating Aidan, the monks of Iona and later the bishops who consecrated Chad. However mistaken their methods of calculating the date of Easter, 'they did not always observe it on the fourteenth day of the moon, as some believe, but they celebrated it always on Sunday, just not in the proper week'.⁶

Such scrupulousness in the use of evidence implies a deep concern for historical accuracy, and there is certainly much about Bede's treatment of the theme which suggests a scholarly adherence to his model, Eusebius of Caesarea's Historia Ecclesiastica.⁷ In his preface Eusebius had listed heresy among his major themes: second (or third, depending how they are counted) among the chief matters to be covered were 'the names and dates of those who through a passion for innovation have wandered as far as possible from the truth, proclaiming themselves the founts of Knowledge falsely so called while mercilessly, like savage wolves, making havoc of Christ's flock'.⁸ For Eusebius heresy was a fundamental topic for the historian of the Church, in part because outbreaks of heresy had been obstacles to the fulfilment of God's plan for the advance of the true faith, but chiefly because heresies — the long-since refuted as well as the recent — were still tearing at the unity of the Church. They had to be identified and condemned in the strongest terms lest the faithful should succumb to them.⁹ Given that popular heresy was not a pressing issue in his milieu, Bede's interest in the issue is perhaps to be explained by his adherence to the generic format established by Eusebius, and there are indeed moments where his approach to heresy seems to echo Eusebius with almost mechanical precision. According to Eusebius the trait which has always distinguished heresy from orthodoxy has been novelty: the true Church, 'always remaining the same and unchanged', has been faced with a seemingly endless succession of challenges as 'one after another new heresies [have been] invented, the earlier ones constantly passing away and disappearing, in different ways at different times, into forms of every shape and character'.¹⁰ Thus, Bede regards heresy as an expression of a flippant desire for novelty: every 'foul heresy' poured into fourth-century Britain, he explains, because 'the [British] Isles always delight in hearing something new and hold firmly to no belief.¹¹

There is, however, a polemical edge to Bede's scholarship. As Walter Goffart has argued, the care evident in his account of the alleged Quartodecimanism of the Irish was driven by an urge to correct Stephen the Priest's vision of the recent past — a vision in which Archbishop Wilfrid had singlehandedly renewed the English Church's Roman orthodoxy and saved it from confusion.' In particular, it was Stephen who had 'falsely supposed' that Aidan and the Irish bishops who had consecrated Chad were Quartodecimans.¹³ Bede knew that here Stephen had gone too far, and this slip provided him with an opportunity to expose the Wilfridians' lack of respect for the many who besides themselves had made worthy contributions to the Christianisation of the English.

This is not the only polemical dimension in Bede's treatment of the issue of heresy. Just as Eusebius was concerned with conflicts over doctrine because these defined the boundaries of the true Church,¹⁴ so Bede deploys the rhetoric of heresy to establish a gratuitous contrast between the English Church and its most immediate competitor, the British Church. The orthodoxy of the English is celebrated above all in Bede's account of the Synod of Hatfield. This synod was part of the efforts of Pope Agatho (678-81) to halt to spread of the Monothelite heresy, which was then endemic in the Byzantine Empire. A survey of the beliefs of the various western Churches was one of his preliminary steps, and it was in obedience to this papal directive that Archbishop Theodore summoned the bishops, abbots and abbesses of England to attend a synod which was held in 679. Each was questioned as to whether they adhered to the faith as defined by the first five ecumenical councils — that is, by the council of Nicaea in 325, of Constantinople in 381, of Ephesus in 431, of Chalcedon in 451, and of Constantinople in 553. The synod duly found that none of them were heretics. Bede quotes at length from the records of the synod and notes with some pride that its fmdings were well-received when they were reported in Rome: 'The testimony of the English to the Catholic faith was carried to Rome and most gladly received by the pope and by all those who heard it or read it'.¹⁵ 'To Bede's evident gratification', as Henry Chadwick puts it, 'the decisions of the Council of Hatfield proved how meticulously orthodox the English Churches were'.¹⁶

It is true that Bede concedes that the British 'had no desire at all' to succumb to Pelagianism,¹⁷ but there is no doubting the sharp contrast he draws between the British weakness for doctrinal error and the steadfast orthodoxy of the English from their conversion. In his final sections of the Historia EccIesiastica, for example, Bede draws out a threefold comparison between the Irish who have lately been converted, through the agency of the English, to the correct form of Easter observance, the Britons who, 'incorrigible and hobbling along in their ways' (inueterati et claudicantes a semitis suis), persist in their errors, and the English who are now — that is, around 731 when he was writing — 'believers instructed in every aspect of the Catholic faith'.¹⁸ The heresies of the British were, for Bede, one of the many faults that caused their displacement by the English;¹⁹ but it is a testimony to his ingenuity that this discourse of ethnic self-justification (which can be seen as the obligatory jingoism of the society in which he operated)²⁰ is alligned with the cause of ecclesiastical reform.²¹ For a crucial point in Bede's account of the anti-Pelagian missions of Germanus is that the British succumbed to this heresy because they lacked the ability 'to refute by argument the subtleties of [this] evil doctrine'. It was a 'beneficent decision' that led them to seek the help of the 'Gallic bishops'.²² Thanks to the two bishops, Germanus and his companion Severus, 'the faith remained untainted in those parts for a very long time'.²³ Bede's lesson for his English readers, in short, is that their continuing freedom from heresy (and with it their possession of their lands in Britain) depends on the full and proper exercise of episcopal authority by competent bishops.²⁴

It is instructive at this point to compare Bede's use of the rhetoric of heresy with that found in the works of Gregory of Tours. Like Bede, Gregory invokes the menace of a heresy that had long ceased to be a living issue in his milieu – that is, in the Loire Valley of the 570s and 580s. The spectre of Arianism figures prominently in his Historiarum libri decem, even though, as Walter Goffart puts it, it would have been hard for 'normal Catholics of Gregory's generation to look around and regard Arianism as an active menace'.²⁵ Like Bede, he also invokes the menace of heresy in the service of episcopal authority. Indeed, it is tempting to argue that Bede derived his interest in the topic from reading Gregory as well as Eusebius. But whereas Bede utilises the rhetoric of heresy to demonstrate the need for an effective episcopate, Gregory turns it into a weapon of episcopal authority per se. Thus, in a telling passage he likens the fate of a man who had dared to diminish the power of a bishop of Clermont Ferrand to administer the properties of his church with that of Arius as reported by Rufinus in his Latin translation of Eusebius.²⁶ Like Arius, this man had also died while sitting on the toilet. There is no question, Gregory concludes, but that he 'was guilty of a crime no less than that of Arius, who likewise emptied his entrails into a latrine through his rear, because it cannot be accepted without heresy that in the Church one may disobey God's bishop, who has been entrusted with the task of pasturing the sheep, and that power may be usurped there by a man who has been entrusted with nothing by either God or man'.²⁷ Though both historians are concerned with enhancing episcopal authority, they differ over means and ends. Whereas Gregory would strengthen the episcopate by making opposition to episcopal authority itself a heresy, in Bede it is the ever-present danger of doctrinal heresy that requires the establishment of a stronger episcopate of a particular kind. Whereas Gregory is eager to extend the concept of heresy so that it can cove...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Series Editor's Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Before the Coming of Popular Heresy: The Rhetoric of Heresy in English Historiography, c. 700-1154
• 2 Heresy, Madness and Possession in the High Middle Ages
• 3 Accusations of Heresy and Error in the Twelfth-Century Schools: The Witness of Gerhoh of Reichersberg and Otto of Freising
• 4 William of Ockham and Conceptions of Heresy, c.1250-c.1350
• 5 A Heretic Hiding in Plain Sight: The Secret History of Marsiglio of Padua's Defensor Pacis in the Thought of Nicole Oresme
• 6 Seduced by the Theologians: Aeneas Sylvius and the Hussite Heretics
• 7 Heresy Hunting and Clerical Reform: William Warham, John Colet, and the Lollards of Kent, 1511-1512
• 8 Curtailing the Office of the Priest: Two Seventeenth2Century Views of the Causes and Functions of Heresy
• 9 Historicizing Heresy in the Early German Enlightenment: 'Orthodox' and 'Enthusiast' Variants
• 10 What is Impartiality? Arnold on Spinoza, Mosheim on Servetus
• 11 Thomasius on the Toleration of Heresy
• 12 Exporting Heresiology: Translations and Revisions of Pluquet's Dictionnaire des heresies
• 13 Radical Heretics, Martyrs, or Witnesses of Truth? The Albigenses in Ecclesiastical History and Literature (1550-1850)
• Index of names