Chapter 4 - The Library of Iberian Resources Online

More documents

Recommendations

Info

since 'nichil in ecclesiis observabatur', and provides for the annual renewal of chrism by the parish priests. (116) The Paris statutes constantly obtrude, but there are some passages in the Summa which, as far as that source is concerned, do seem to be original. The list of penances in the section De Penitentia and the quotation from the Fourth Lateran Council via John of Abbeville ; (117) the description of the sacrament of Matrimony involving Pedro and [76] Berta; (118) certain passages on the Mass ; (119) the liturgical instructions appended to the section De vita et honestate clerico rum ; (120) and the instructions regarding ordination: (121) for these Eudes de Sully offers no precedent. Were they, though, of Pedro de Albalat's own invention? Or did he derive them from some other contemporary source? There were many in circulation, and the question which immediately poses itself is whether the most celebrated of them all, Raymond of Peñafort's Summa de Poenitentia, is the missing link or one of the missing links. Certainly the same severely practical aim inspires both Summae, Raymond's and Pedro's. Both were compiled for the instruction of the clergy in the parish, and particularly in the parish confessional, rather than in the schools. (122) Pedro chose the same tag from St Jerome to preface his piece on Penance as did Raymond. (123) The friars are accorded special honour by Pedro and recommended as confessors. (124) And Raymond is known to have been at hand when Pedro's Summa was promulgated at Barcelona in 1241 and to have co-operated with the archbishop on the inquisitorial manual. For all this, though -- and, in truth, it does not amount to very much -- it cannot reasonably be maintained that the archbishop's Summa must have been inspired by Raymond, except in the sense that Pedro and Raymond breathed the same air and shared the same pastoral concern. Apart from the passages on penance, Raymundian literature offers no obvious source for those few sections of the Summa which depart from Pedro's normal authority. (125) It is just possible that [77] one of the verse Summulae, based on Raymond's work and in circulation by about the middle of the century, provided some of the material for the eucharistic section. (126) But it is highly implausible when the man himself was there, and furthermore, it is both pointless to speculate and graceless to imply that the archbishop -- Master Pedro -- was incapable of stringing together a series of fairly commonplace sentences without assistance, simply because he was surrounded by such a wealth of talent. What is both certain and important is that the archbishop was a friend of the canonist of and the Order, and that he sympathised with those developments in pastoral theology which, in the case of confession, considered the merits and personality the sinner when it came to imposing a penance upon him. (127) For this approach, with its attention to possibilitas and associated concepts, was what distinguished Pedro de Albalat from the morality of the market-place enshrined in the old penitentials which Raymond of Peñafort, although fully aware of the difficulties involved, was in favour of abandoning. (128) Not that the Dominicans enjoyed a monopoly of this spirit of emancipation from the letter that killeth. (129) Still it was the Dominicans, rather than the well-scrubbed Cistercians, who were Pedro's main props -- as may be seen by passing from the hazardous thickets of amateur textual criticism into the sunlit and more productive pastures of hard fact. [78] By 1248 the province of Tarragona had five Dominican bishops, four of whom were closely associated with the convent of Santa Catalina at Barcelona, Raymond of Peñafort's base and the powerhouse of the Aragonese Church. (130) The year 1243, in which Pedro de Centelles was installed as bishop of Barcelona, saw also the death of the bishop of Vich, Bernardo Calvó, whose removal from the scene marked the end of an epoch. Though his personal sanctity was not in question, Bishop Bernardo had proved rather too other-worldly for the rough and tumble of a Catalan diocese, remaining so much of a Cistercian that he refused to make a will 'cum simus monachus', (131) and presiding with his high principles intact over the financial shipwreck of his see. In July 1242 the archbishop had gone
ail for him when he had been unable to raise a thousand solidi in payment of the papal quinta. (132) He was succeeded by Bernardo de Mur, archdeacon of Tremp in the church of Urgel, a man who had studied at Bologna and who followed the example of Pedro de Centelles by becoming a Dominican, apparently soon after his election. (133) The neighbouring see of Gerona was the third to receive a Dominican bishop when in December 1245 the chapter chose Berenguer de Castelbisbal, the prior of Santa Catalina, who twice already had come within touching distance of a bishopric -- as caretaker of Valencia before the dust had settled there in 1238, and as the beaten candidate at Barcelona in 1241. (134) [79] He was King Jaime's confessor, and in the year after his election he became something of a celebrity when he allowed his tongue to wag too freely and the king caused it to be cut out. (135) It is not known whether the archbishop was active in the promotion of the bishops of Vich and Gerona, but the capitular choice can hardly have displeased him, for when, in 1248, he was twice presented with an opportunity of appointing suffragans, a Dominican received the palm on each occasion. At Lérida, with the assistance of Raymond of Peñafort, he nominated Guillermo de Barberá, prior of Santa Catalina, to succeed his own successor. That was in March. (136) And seven months later when, on the translation of Arnaldo de Peralta to Zaragoza, the chapter of Valencia entrusted the appointment of a successor to him and two of their canons, stipulating that if it were to be an outsider then they must confine their choice to a short-list of nine, at the head of which was the archbishop's brother, Andrés de Albalat, Andrés it was who was selected. (137) The promotion of Dominicans to these five sees reflected the extraordinary vitality of the Order. They were working wonders on the frontier. (138) It also provided a basis for further expansion. Berenguer of Gerona followed the archbishop's example by founding a convent in his own episcopal city. (139) But it was as pastoral bishops, as heads of reform, that the friars contributed most. At Barcelona a diocesan synod was held even before the election of Pedro de Centelles had been confirmed. On the feast of St Luke 1242 -- the first anniversary of the archbishop's synod -- the archdeacon issued a set of constitutions concerned mainly with annual confession and the detection of heresy. (140) Encouraging though this activity was, however, it was as nothing in comparison with that of Pedro de Centelles who in March 1244, within five months of his induction by the archbishop, [80] held a synod which dealt with the whole gamut of reform, and ordered the parochial clergy to secure copies of the statutes of John of Abbeville and of the archbishop and to have learnt them by the following June. In January 1245 he issued another lengthy set of synodal statutes in the same vein, and published new legislation of his own which dealt with a great variety of issues, amongst which were markets, pimps and prostitutes -- particularly those who plied for hire in the streets, who were given eight days to pack their bags and leave. (141) Clerici concubinarii received short shrift, as was consistent, and were reminded of the legate's penalties -- suspension and excommunication. (142) The same old problem engaged the attention of Bishop Guillermo of Lérida, though in his diocese a system of fines was introduced. (143) At Vich Bernardo de Mur concentrated upon liturgical matters, (144) and at Valencia Bishop Andrés managed to combine his activity in the royal chancery with his pastoral role by summoning various synods at which he waged a relentless if losing battle against clerics who drank more than was good for them, wore outrageous clothes, bequeathed church property to their children and grew their hair so that it covered their ears. (145) If, alone, Berenguer of Gerona failed to distinguish himself in one way or another, allowance must be made for him as a victim of royal persecution which (as he at least appears to have thought) coveted more of him than just his tongue. (146) [81] At the Council of Lérida in 1229 John of Abbeville had ruled that the annual provincial council be held three weeks after Easter, on Jubilate Sunday, and the diocesan synod on the feast of St Luke, 18 October. (147) In general this rule was observed. But as regards the synod its inflexibility was a severe
Page 1 and 2: THE LIBRARY OF IBERIAN RESOURCES ON
Page 3 and 4: about him for which no certain answ
Page 5 and 6: in the novella plantatio, (53) ther
Page 7 and 8: 1208 King Pedro II praised their 'a
Page 9: Albalat referred in 1258. For a whi
Page 13 and 14: monastery of San Cugat del Vallés:
Page 15 and 16: 45. Ibid. 86. Cf. Lér. c. 24-6 for
Page 17 and 18: 86. Raimundo died at Lyons in 1247,
Page 19 and 20: 118. Summa, Fo. 129rb. 119. Fos. 12
Page 21: 150. Forma de sancta sinodo celebra

Chapter 4 - The Library of Iberian Resources Online

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?