Society and the Supernatural: A Medieval Change
Author(s): Peter Brown
Source: Daedalus, Vol. 104, No. 2, Wisdom, Revelation, and Doubt: Perspectives on the First
Millennium B.C. (Spring, 1975), pp. 133-151
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences
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PETER
Society
BROWN
and the Supernatural:
A Medieval
Change
a collection
of studies on the social and intellectual
evolution of the
first millennium
B.C. a paper whose center of gravity lies to the modern
side of
A.D. seems to call for some justification. The prophetic message
the first millennium
and religious currents of the Hellenistic
of Zoroaster, the philosophical
age, the rise
and establishment
of the Christian church?such
themes might have seemed more
in the
apposite, either because
they were contemporary with the changes discussed
as
seen
in
be
could
later
other papers in this volume, or because,
time,
they
though
To add to
the direct sequels of such changes.
The logic of our common discussions
seemed to call for a different treatment.
These hinged on the problem of change: how can we meaningfully
analyze and
in
moral
environment
of
describe
the
social
and
profound
changes
long-dead
societies? Once the problem of change emerged as our common concern, it became
to Dsedalus
to contribute
less incumbent
yet another reliable account of yet one
more turning point in the formation of European culture. The opportunity
suddenly
itself to acknowledge
with gratitude debts incurred some time ago to a
presented
great tradition of scholarship and to branch out to learn yet more new things from
that great tradition. For, in this generation,
the study of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries A.D. has been the forcing ground for some of the best evocations
of the
of social and intellectual
to the student of any pre
processes
change available
industrial society. To read Marc Bloch's Feudal Society, Richard Southern's The
Making of the Middle Ages, M. D. Chenu's La th?ologie au XIIeme si?cle, and Colin
is to pluck with both hands a wealth of
The Discovery
of the Individual
on
the kinds of intimate, irreversible, and delicately
material,
brilliantly marshaled,
interrelated changes of which any pre-industrial
society may be capable.1
The small emergent world of Northwestern
Europe in the eleventh and twelfth
on which
this study must concentrate,
often strikes the student of the
centuries,
classical ancient world?and
the
student
of classical Greece and ancient
especially
own
to
concerns.
Israel?as
his
Here
also we find a stocktaking
strangely germane
a
and revaluation
of traditional
formed
intellectual
elite,
religion by
newly
Morris's
associated
above
all with
the Schools of Paris and with such great names as Peter
find a sharpening and a redistribution of roles in soci
in
the sudden emergence
of a new relationship be
ety, dramatically
pinpointed
tween clergy and laity in the time of the Investiture Contest (a contest connected with
the name of one great pope?Gregory
VII [1073-1085]?but
in reality a process as
as a change
and ineluctable
in the tide of Western
widespread
society).3 In the
course of the eleventh century the feudal knightly class emerges as a distinct
group,4
in the twelfth century, the facts of urban life and of a new-style mercantile
while,
Abelard
(ca. 1079-1142).2 We
133
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134
PETER
BROWN
in the
had come to stay, and were slowly but surely incorporated
professionalism
in forms of law and
medieval
find novel departures
image of society.5 We
the emergence
of written codes after centuries of customary, oral law,
organization:
the reception of Roman law at the Schools of Bologna,
and the codification
of the
canon law and theology of the Christian
church (in the Decretum
of Gr^tian, ca.
1140, and the Sentences of Peter the Lombard, ca. 1150).6 We have a singularly con
to found a new religious order on the basis of a written
attempt
in the case of the Cistercians
in 1098).7 In
(first founded
legislation,
in administration
numerable
novel ventures
and constant experimentation
in new
cover the face of Europe of the twelfth century.8 Fi
forms of social organization
nally, and most revealing of all for our purposes, we find a probing of niodes of self
vary from a revival of the tradition of religious autobiography
expression which
sequential
rationalized
to the totally novel departure of courtly love poetry
with St. Augustine
(Bernard de Ventadour was writing around 1145).9
are largely invisi
Like the foundations
of a great cathedral,
these achievements
ble to us because
they are so continuous with all subsequent masonry. Compared
with so solid and intimate a link between
ourselves and our own twelfth-century
associated
B.C. have the exhilarating but remote
of a far distant horizon.
to study
that we were not gathered
so, the claims of the period covered by
are both more modest and more cogent: we
past, the revolutions of the first millennium
air of a mountain
range seen on the edge
our discussions
made
plain
However,
or
to
hail
Achievement.
This
being
Progress
the eleventh and twelfth centuries A.D.
to know more about them. The state of culture and society that preceded
happen
B.C. is shadowy in the extreme com
the various revolutions of the first millennium
we
can
of
and circumstances
of the men of the
know
the
what
with
mentality
pared
not
to juxtapose two
to
It
A.D.
1000.
from
800
is,
therefore,
possible
merely
period
*
*
an
to
static studies?a
and
After'?but
reconstructed
Before'
exuberant
painfully
know this 'Before,' the state of Europe in the Dark Ages, with sufficient certainty to
hope to touch, or to point the way for others to touch, those levers that made possi
of the one state from the other. For a scholar possessed with in
ble the emergence
in the distant past but
satiable curiosity, not only for what changes have happened
to study the eleventh and twelfth cen
how change happens at all, the opportunity
is too good to be missed.
turies after Christ
at least,
Let us first describe the kinds of changes which, for the non-medievalist
a
of
cluster
around
the
boundaries
may be the most
redrawing
significant. They
between
the sacred and the profane. We begin in A.D. 1000, "in a world where
hitherto the sacred and profane had been almost inextricably mixed."10 One cannot
to a process of
resist the impression that a release of energy and creativity analogous
of the two spheres of the sacred
nuclear fission stemmed from the disengagement
two centuries. Take the best known example: the
and the profane in the succeeding
new demarcation
of the roles of the clergy and of the laity associated with the
benefit
of both parties. The clergy,
Investiture Contest
acted to the eventual
were
in reality more self-contained.
to
made
the
laity,
theoretically placed superior
A vast rise in their cultural standards and interests was made possible by the acute
sense of being able to "go it alone" as a professional
group with their own high
centuries
of
the
Middle
In
the
earlier
standards.
Ages, by contrast, a
professional
a
man
in
to one side
found
himself
either
have
monastery
encapsulated
might
gifted
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SOCIETY
AND
THE
135
SUPERNATURAL
of the human group, tied as a monk to the life of an honorary angel, or, if he were to
take his place within
the group, immobilized
by a network of obligations
ranging
over the whole
of
the
and
the
of great
sacred
sphere
profane. The biographies
for instance, reveal men who, though impressive
bishops in tenth-century Germany,
were forced to be jacks-of-all-trades
as pillars of the community,
and masters of
none.
The situation of the twelfth century, by contrast, is a world where gifted men
could find leisure, incentive, and personal resources to tackle more strictly delimited
tasks. The laity also, though technically made
inferior to the clergy, came to enjoy
the freedom
that came from a vast unpretentiousness.
Political power was in
was what government
wielded
without
Government
creasingly
religious trappings.
rulers, who
image of power,
could no longer claim to stand for an undifferentiated,
settled down to exercise what real power they actually
a more
a more
did:
rational,
literate,
and
a more
effective
manner.11
The
age
archetypal
in
possessed
that
began
with the penance of the Emperor Henry
IV before Gregory VII at Canossa
in 1077
ends in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries with a brittle but unanswer
a newly formed mystique
able assertion of purely secular values surrounding
of
a
code
of
love.
the
of
and
the
society,
chivalry
courtly
Throughout
disengagement
sacred from the profane opened up a whole middle
distance
of conflicting
op
for
human
the
talent
with
which
the
of
portunities
deployment
society
compared
of the early Middle Ages appears as singularly monochromatic.
These are the changes that characterize
the eleventh and twelfth centuries. We
will not touch on all of them. Instead, we must now take a narrow doorway into this
great hall and first examine one well-documented
paradigm case of the disengage
ment of the sacred from the profane as it took place in this period?the
case of the
to seize the wider
ordeal.12 In so doing, we will attempt
marshaled
implications
behind the phenomenon
that we are examining. For if ever there was an area where
the sacred penetrated
into the chinks of the profane and vice versa, it was in the
In and around A.D.
in the Baptistry
of Canterbury
1050, for instance,
was
same
it
in
the
to
both
of
be
water,
Cathedral,
possible,
great pool
baptized as a
Christian by the priest and, as a fully grown litigant, to undergo the ordeal of im
mersion
in water to discover the truth about issues in a purely secular law suit: "And
ordeal.
it could be converted
from its sacramental to its judicial function with the minimum
of disturbance."
"In all this confusion," writes Professor Southern with an eye to the
is something
barbaric."13 The withering
of the
future, "there
twelfth-century
ordeal in the course of the twelfth century has, therefore, been consistently
viewed
in terms of the clearing up of a "barbaric confusion."
Let us look at the process of the withering
of the ordeal. Ordeals had depended
on an easy passage between
the sacred and the profane. A case begun among
laymen in a trial in a lawcourt might find itself transferred to the solemn mise en
scene of a great church. The upshot of dramatic and often
cruel ac
desperately
tions?the
effect of a hot iron on the hand that could hold it for nine paces, of boil
a
ing water on the arm that had snatched an object from a cauldron, of whether
man sank (if innocent) or floated (if
a
in
of
the result of a
water,
pool
guilty)
duel?if
all these were surrounded by solemn prayers of blessing by the priest, they
would be held as the final decision of God on the rights and wrongs of the case. The
ordeal was a "controlled miracle"
to bear on the day-to-day
needs of the
brought
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136
PETER
BROWN
small issues such as debts, money,
and the ownership of cattle jostled
community:14
of witchcraft,
side by side with accusations
and assault in the
poisoning, murder,
in
in
town of
of
ordeals
the
late
twelfth
the
century
register
performed
Hungarian
over much
and Western
and a similar situation prevailed
of Northern
Varad,
Europe.15
is the profile of the ordeal as it was attacked
in the course of the twelfth
to pronounce
Lateran
the
Council
forbade
clerics
the liturgical
1215,
By
on
was
to
structure
of
which
the
whole
the
ordeal
held
depend. The clerical
blessing
critics of the late twelfth century had created a picture of the ordeal and of its un
scholars are still the direct heirs.16 To invoke a controlled
tenability of which modern
miracle by the ordeal in the course of a secular law suit was to "tempt God." This
was not only because the issues decided by the ordeal were often trivial and almost
to "tempt God" was also to abandon prematurely
the processes
invariably worldly:
of human proof and reason and to seek a certainty to which mere human beings
This
century.
were
not entitled
in such basically
trivial affairs. The presence of the ordeal in the
life of their age was explained away in terms that continue to be reiterated up to the
present
The
day.
ordeal,
they
said,
was
an
ancient
custom,
lower
vulgar,
class,
times merely as a concession by the church to the hard hearts of
of the ordeal, therefore, is hailed as one
barbarians.17 The withering
the Germanic
civilization
from the "tunnel" of the Germanic
of Western
feature of the emergence
Dark Ages and of the progress of rationality. "The essential steps had been taken in
an affair subject to human rules and depen
making human justice and government
of the nature of the
dent on the efficacy of human agents."18 A different description
will
ceremonies
and strategies of the ordeal,
therefore,
help us to look also for
and so to emerge with some tentative new con
different causes for its abandonment,
tolerated
in earlier
for a disengagement
clusions as to the preconditions
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and, perhaps,
of the sacred from the profane
in analogous
situations in other
societies.
the
and about our means of reconstructing
First, a remark about the evidence,
know what
We may
the evidence.
behind
and social situations
mentalities
crowning mercy of truth in human
everybody wants and has always wanted?the
affairs. The solemn blessings with which the ordeal begins make impressive reading:
on
Thou
who
lookest
of peace:
on the faith and prayers
of Thy
lover and author
God,
we pray Thee
look down
O
the
earth
supplicants,
and
causest
who
have
it to tremble,
the
brought
causes of their complaint to Thy judgment. Send forth Thy blessing on this iron glowing with
the
fire
evil-dealing
to dissolve
be
their
contentions
. . . that
by
its agency,
justice
should
shine
abroad
and
conquered.19
sons of Fulk de Morrillon
took the oath on holy relics before
When
the wicked
one
over
to
another and to walk round in
stumble
trial by battle,
they began
also solved
insoluble
circles?now
that was a good ordeal!20 Sherlock Holmes
a
reconstruct
to
a
which
basis
from
be
would
Yet
detective
novel
mysteries.
fragile
crime squad. Unlike
the detective novels,
and strategies of a modern
the mentality
It was a
ordeal
the
of
activities
of
Sherlock
unlike the
course,
Holmes,
happened.
in an
An unsuccessful
cruel moment.
dramatic and often a desperately
protagonist
in
ordeal by boiling water could not see his way to the cauldron and, when he plunged
his arm, felt the pain as if his very heart was burning.21 Bracton comments grimly that
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SOCIETY
AND
THE
137
SUPERNATURAL
a man's front teeth are a valuable asset to him, "they greatly help in winning
trials by
battle."22 There were moments
of heady triumph.23
of wild hope. A knight surrounded by suspicions of
There were also moments
to the ordeal by hot iron and was well and truly
had
rushed
adultery
"prematurely"
burned.24 As Marcel Proust said: "Quand on se voit au bord de l'ab?me et qu'il sem
ble que Dieu nous ait abandonn?, on n'h?site plus ? attendre de lui un miracle." The
records two hundred and seventeen cases between
1208
register of Varad in Hungary
and 1235 with a lapidary faith in the literal truth of the ceremony: "portato ferro com
busti sunt et suspensi; portato ferro pro terra ista justificatus est."25
The diversity and complexity
for the ordeal do not permit any
of the evidence
much
less
any explaining
away. Yet it is, I think, legitimate to
simple explanation,
look more closely into the ceremony
itself in order to decide, not what men hoped
for from ordeals but, more modestly,
to satisfy them about
what had continued
ordeals?what
needs led them to maintain
the ceremony as a satisfactory solution to
some difficulties,
it in the course of the twelfth century for
and then to abandon
means
other
of
proof.
We must begin with a clear
tury these are small face-to-face
idea of who is being satisfied. Up to the twelfth cen
groups. We are in a Europe of low overall popula
tion where human beings were still cramped into long-inhabited
settlements. These
in themselves, but they were isolated from
could be populous
settlements
enough
the others by stretches of woods and poor communications.26
The extended
kin
and defined by the
group is the primary unit of society, a fact studiously maintained
blood
feud. Safety and protection
still rested on coagulations
of kinsmen
and
in
intense
small,
dependents
groups.27 The coercive power of the state up to A.D.
is severely limited. The greatest explicit ideal of the early
1100 is weak. Literacy
one of peace and, above all, concord: this amounted
Middle Ages is a minimal
to
consensus
the maintenance
in a face-to-face
of a minimal
society built up of evenly
as an
balanced
In such a society the ordeal takes on its meaning
family groupings.
instrument of consensus
to contain disruptive
and as a theatrical device by which
conflict.
The
ordeal
was
slow.
mercifully
It allowed
room
for maneuver
and
for
the
evolu
tion of a situation. To call it a controlled miracle and to dismiss it as tempting God,
as late-twelfth-century
thinkers came to do, was to import into the ceremony
a
of the miracle. God might be believed
to speak in an
singularly brisk expectation
ordeal, but the human group took an unconscionably
long time letting Him get a
word in edgewise. For God is revealing "truth," not any specific fact. He was judging
the status of a person or of a group, whether
they and their claims were "pure" and
a piece of land really belonged
to a certain
"just."28 He was not deciding whether
claimant. What was at stake was the status in the community
of the groups that had
been brought into conflict. Exoneration
the true facts, it was victory:
in the ordeal was
not just the revelation
of
Having come together in that place and duly celebrated all the rituals in the manner of the
church, by the merits of St. Peter that the justice of the cause of St. Martin should be shown
forth,
the man
Yet, with
flict was
of
this
church
was
untouched,
without
a spot
of
red
from
the
iron.29
the ordeal, it was a victory carefully contained. For the spilling out of con
the curse of every early medieval
society. To take one example only:
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138
PETER
In March,
1134,
man
assembled
and
of his
every way
waves.30
the assassination
after
to receive
vassals,
a man's
but
also
action
the
of
was
of
BROWN
sub-Dean
of Orleans,
all the relatives
of the dead
of his accomplices
only of one of the murderers,
In
and forty persons.
of his kin"?in
all two hundred
in
his
successive
the
circle
of
kinsfolk
throughout
propagated
homage,
the "best
the
not
barrier between what was a dramatic
and
The ordeal placed a contraceptive
In the Chanson
the
violent action and its "successive
waves."
de Roland, when
in trial by battle, he is killed and the thirty kinsmen who
traitor Ganelon
is defeated
behind him are hanged in the Accursed Wood. That, for the writer of the
mobilized
\poem at least, was the last of it. A real life vendetta,
if unresolved
through trial by
battle, could drag on for years.31 Because of this, the battle of Fontenay,
fought in
For this battle had been so
841, had to be declared a indicium Dei retrospectively.
of the half-resolved
confrontation
involved in it
messy an affair, and the consequences
were so laden with rancor and the possibility
of vendetta
for the Frankish nobility,
that the bishops declared God had spoken, and that was to be the end to it.32
The very course of the ritual of the ordeal helped to contain conflict and to bring
to the ruffled feelings
about a resolution. The ceremony applied a discreet massage
is the slow and solemn
of the group. The most marked
feature of the ordeal
context. The
is taken out of its immediate
human conflict
processes
by which
man
can be ac
who
the
of
conflict?the
who
the
undertakes
ordeal,
representative
cuser or accused?is
shorn of all contact with the normal world.33 Shaved,
publicly
in a shirt, for three days his diet and his whole rhythm of life is that of a
priest not of a layman. He is solemnly blessed,
stripped of talismans and amulets
of
human
normal
conflict); he is liberally doused with holy
adjuncts
(the
purely
into a prototype
water and transformed by long prayers of benediction
of the an
in times of tribulation.34 He is no longer part of a
cient righteous man delivered
dressed
human
lawsuit. He is the spearhead of justice, but it is a spearhead carefully de
tached by long rituals from its haft, from the pressures of the groups ranged behind a
into under conditions where the human group
issue. The ordeal is entered
disputed
of the issue. It is not a
has usually reached deadlock. An ordeal is a tacit "de-fusing"
a
case
a
Dei
it
is
of
'to the judgment of
ad
iudicium
remitting
judgment by God;
to removing the keystone of the arch on which,
is an action tantamount
can be reached
Once
had
all
removed, a decision
hitherto,
pressures
converged.
of
For
and
without
face
side.
loss
either
quickly
by
by being brought to the judgment
of God, the case already stepped outside the pressures of human interest, and so its
resolution can be devoid of much of the odium of human responsibility.
to which
the ordeal was a spectaculum
Seen from the outside,
everyone
flocked.35 Quite apart from explicit beliefs on the nature and source of the final ver
It also had the role of a
dict, the ritual itself was reassuring and peace-creating.
a
ordeal was only one of
The
in
non-literate
demonstrative
society.
ceremony
largely
in the
a series of crucial legal transactions whose validity was derived exclusively,
a
a
fixative.
It
like
similar
ritual.36
was,
rituals,
declaratory
early Middle Ages, from
as scars, stand-up fights,
It attempted
gestures?such
by dramatic and memorable
of a small
make a lasting impression on the public memory
floating in water?to
to
was
to
be
known
the public memory
where
given
notoriously
community,
God.'
This
manipulation
be the motto
and to acts of selective oblivion.37 Verba volant, ordalia manent
of part of the function of this great ceremony.
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could
SOCIETY
AND
THE
SUPERNATURAL
139
The verdict of the ordeal, therefore, should not be seen in isolation. It is better
seen as the final precipitation
of a long-drawn-out
certainty. In
attempt to maximize
a
case
a
"A
decent
was
rule:
of
ordeal
the
[law] suit
this,
general
particular
merely
in
which
after
about
ended in an agreement,
many
discussions,
people
long
brought
and the
their lack of clear lines and sharp legal distinctions
had taken part. With
the favorite technique of
absence of hard-cut issues, they remind us of the palavers,
Hence
the flexibility surround
natives
of
Africa."38
the
settling legal disputes among
a
an
suit
of plate armor, the
Like
ordeal.
of
of
the
role
the
actual
participants
ing
ordeal may seem from the outside a single impregnable whole; but each piece of the
suit is so jointed as to allow an exceptional
Participants
degree of free movement.
and twenty did so at Varad.39 Others
had time to climb down: one hundred
"chickened
out" at different stages along the long ritual. Three days, for instance,
the hot iron and the opening of a
the moment
of holding
had to elapse between
the hand. This was too much for twelve subjects of the
sealed bandage surrounding
ordeal in Varad: sentiens se combustum
confugit ad ecclesiam.40 Fiction could toy
In Gottfried
in this freedom of maneuver.
involved
the
with
paradoxes
delightfully
from holding the hot
of Strassburg's romance, Tristan, the queen escapes unscathed
a
of
the
The
oath.
for
she
had
framed
iron,
parties behind the
maneuvering
specious
from side to side as to
form of the oath is laid bare in the account: "Thus a wrangle
what her oath should be. One man wished her ill, another well, as people do in such
matters." The queen got her oath, and "she was saved by her guile, and by the doc
and confirmed
tored oath that went flying up to God. . . .Thus it was made manifest
sleeve. He
to all the world that Christ in his great virtue is pliant as a wind-blown
. . "41
and
him
on, closely
falls into place and clings, whichever way you try
smoothly.
its parallels
blas? comment,
Gottfried's
though coming at a slightly later period, has
vast
a
bedrock
the
of
It
is
in the real life of the eleventh
tiny outcrop
century.
the
men
and
faced
super
of cunning with which medieval
manipulated
actually
natural in their affairs.42
in the ordeal that enabled the group, which had
There was a built-in flexibility
a degree of initiative quite con
to maintain
the main interest in reaching certainty,
an
to
For
lies at the heart of
the
ordeal.
of
the
trary
ambiguity
explicit
ideology
hot
has
the
The
hand
that
held
of
ordeal.
iron, the hand that had
every ceremony
into boiling water are solemnly
sealed and reopened again before
been plunged
witnesses
three days later. If the wound heals "normally," then the case is adjudged
decided: God has spoken in the most elemental way, by an assertion of the integrity
of a man's rights symbolized by the surviving integrity of his physical body in con
tact with extreme heat. But, after three days, the normal healing of such a burn is
on which the group concentrated
still ambiguous.43 The phenomenon
is, in fact, still
as a Rorschach test. Yet, paradoxically,
as open-ended
it is around precisely this am
biguous experience
The efficacy of
in the group.44 A
pool of water. The
whole church was
is crystallized.
that unanimity
the ordeal, therefore, remains a function of the strength of feeling
heretic in Soissons "floated like a stick" when put in the blessed
blessed water had well and truly rejected him. "At this sight the
filled with unbounded
joy. Their notoriety had brought together
no
one
sexes
that
of both
present could remember seeing one like
such an assembly
it before."45 It is in this excited way that the group of interested parties could stand
behind the ordeal. In a case involving their Norman king, in the very early twelfth
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140
PETER
BROWN
Saxon landowners
in Kent had the ordeal of
century, a group of down-at-the-heels
the hot iron inflicted on them in a matter of theft, "so that it was a piteous thing to
see it done." The
local group insisted, however,
tender-hearted
that they had
in
from
this
better
than
comment
condition
before.
The
of
the
emerged
king, William
is a tribute to this strange process of decision-making:
Rufus (1087-1100),
"What is
that? Is God a just judge? Damn whoever
thinks it! He will answer for this by my
can be folded this way and that as anyone
good judgement and not by God's?which
wants
it."46
Certain general conclusions might
follow from this examination
of the ordeal.
What we have found in the ordeal is not a body of men acting on specific beliefs
about the supernatural; we have found instead specific beliefs held in such a way as
to enable a body of men to act. The type of community
in pre
that was prevalent
in
form
of
found
this
of
the
sacred
and
Europe
particular
twelfth-century
mingling
some
an
to
its
solution
of
and
When
the
appropriate
type
problems.
profane
elegant
survives intact, the ordeal or avatars of the ordeal survive with it. The
of community
of the ordeal are largely irrelevant
growth of rationalism and clerical condemnation
to this process. In the thirteenth century, for instance, in Navarre
the ordeal of the
In Varad,
but
under
continued
cauldron
lay supervision.47
boiling
unchanged
were
In
factious
after
1215.48
the
Italian
these
ordeals continue
towns, though
long
law, avatars of the ordeal survived as a
forcing grounds of rationalism and of written
an
So we are dealing
remedy for the ills of
evenly balanced and fissile community.49
or
a
more
not with a strange custom inherited from
"barbaric" past
practiced among
of the European world. We are dealing with a total
the more "barbaric" members
solutions were applied. The role of the super
situation to which this and analogous
of the sacred and the profane that so strikes
natural in society?the
intermingling
world?is
scholars of the pre-twelfth-century
part of a style of life.
in other areas of life in terms of this
Let us examine the role of the supernatural
consensus
in relatively
and the pressure brought by consensus
style. The need for
are
see
this in the
small groups
the leitmotivs of much early medieval
religion. We
cult of the relics.50 For to vest what was intrinsically ambiguous with final authority
in the early centuries of the Middle
was part of a whole
style of decision-making
more
than a relic. It was a nameless bone,
could be
nondescript
Ages. Nothing
such
of death and the earth. Yet it is precisely
it cold undertones
carrying with
as
are
this
devotion
the focus of early medieval
bones
that
devotion,
especially
life of men. As with the ordeal, their very ambiguity was the
affected the public
secret of their power. They could be saturated with the values projected onto them
by the group. Even in the reception of a relic the human group holds the initiative.
or newly arrived pieces of dust only the
For among the many newly discovered
follow. It
can make up its mind which
is the holy dust.51 The rest would
be a churlish poor man indeed who resisted the healing powers of a relic
had been decided by the fasting of the whole cathedral chapter
authenticity
and bishop of his town for three days on end.
of the objec
the depository
Once vested in this way, the supernatural becomes
tified values of the group. The miracles of the saints are, in slower rhythm, as much
them as was
that recorded and remembered
the hard judgment of the community
in terms of the vengeance
of
any ordeal. The group explained notable misfortunes
with the judgment of the saint
the saints, and the threads linking any misfortune
group
would
whose
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AND
SOCIETY
THE
141
SUPERNATURAL
of the community.
Hence
the notoriously
passed through the moral accountancy
nature of so many of the miracles associated with local cult sites in the
matter-of-fact
early medieval
period. The miracles of Sainte Foye, to take one example only, from
the early eleventh
formed from
century in Southern France, are like a stalagmite,
the deposit of innumerable
little drops of the gossip and value judgments of a
region.52
sacred, therefore, was intimately connected with the life of the group on
At the same time, however,
level.
it was operative because it was thought of as
every
different
into which it penetrated.
from
the
human
world
It was all that the
radically
human community was not. The ritual of an ordeal made it a place where "there is
The
sanctity, chastity, truth, and victory, upright behavior, humility, goodness,
leniency,
the fullness of the law, and of the tmth and obedience of God"-53 very much, that is,
a place not fraught with the
ambiguity of a mere human law court. A king, at cer
tain moments
of his career, takes on a stance that defines him as not the normal
is the monk who is not technically
layman. The ideal of this society for centuries
sense of the intimacy and ad
human; he lives the life of angels.54 The tremendous
of the early medieval
jacency of the holy is one of the main characteristics
period.
Priests serving at the altar must, if they spit, spit to one side or behind them; for at
the altar the angels are standing.55 This non-human
in the midst of a society is
available to all, for all purposes. Though
the non-human
is sharply and dramatically
defined against the human, its application
is deeply unspecialized.
It penetrates
the
human
in any
community
variety
of
circumstances.
are dealing with the holy as an enabling device carefully (if unconsciously)
human conflicts. Hence attitudes
ground into a tool to resolve otherwise unbearable
are
to the ordeal. Early
to the holy in person-to-person
relations
strictly analogous
medieval
society coped with the problem of the sinner in its midst according to ex
a
same
rhythms as we have observed elsewhere.56 Penance had to maintain
actly the
as
man
made his peace with the community
element. A
quite
strong declaratory
much as with God, and the idea of the holy enabled him to do so without
losing face.
The penitent could step out of the human community by becoming a monk?that
is,
We
an honorary non-human,
by becoming
living the angelic life. If he did not step out
as
a
at
least mark himself off, either by penitential
exile or
monk, he could
forever,
by
ceremonies
penance
. . . and
let a man
as elaborate,
of a mighty
man
as
prolonged,
in tenth-century
and
as histrionic
England
was
as was
a sight
any
ordeal.57
to be
man
to shed tears from his eyes and bewail
let the powerful
try earnestly
as many
as he
feed
then
those
three days
of God's
poor
possibly
The
seen:
his
sins;
and
can.58
could
holy, being invisible, was sensed to be kinder than man. Reparation
be made to the saint for any insult. This was far from the case with visible human
struck Bernier with a chess board, Raoul de Cambrai offered to make
beings. Having
amends to him by going fourteen leagues on his knees with Bernier's saddle on his
head. Bernier would not accept even so crushing a self-abasement,
hence a deadly
vendetta.59 The saints, unlike Bernier, did not have this reputation
of refusing
Injustice to a fellow human being could be made good without
reparation.
losing
face through offering dramatic reparation to the angry saint rather than to the vic
tim. On a capital at St. Beno?t-sur-Loire,
a knight lies full length at the feet of St.
the man whom he had unjustly bound is standing with arms upraised
Benedict;
The
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PETER
142
BROWN
his chains having fallen from him. But it is not at the feet of his
captive that the knight has chosen to fall to ask forgiveness.60
wronged
If we are to enter into the type of change that was finally precipitated with great
rapidity in the twelfth century, though it had been prepared in the eleventh century
as far back as the
for instance, had harbingers
and in areas of religious devotion,
we
sacred and the
line
between
the
demarcation
the
should
look
tenth,
along
behind
him,
in terms of the objectified
the subjective
non-human
defined
against
profane,
human. This somehow changed subtly in these centuries of transition. For the situa
tion we have seen in the early centuries of the Middle Ages is one where the sacred
the objective
because
the borderline between
and the profane can be intermingled
at
is
in
blurred
human experience
and the subjective
every turn. To
deliberately
take up these examples in the cult of the saints, the squat gold and bejewelled
figure
of an objective
of Sainte Foye has all the impregnable majesty
force, acting in its
own initiative,
riven by subjective human doubt and
in the midst of a community
can
in
of
still
be
visited
which
discord. The statue,
Conques, was called the Maiestas
the saint.61 Throughout
The
in human
deficiencies
Europe
resources
similar
were
relics had
supplied
similar
the
by
power
impregnable
of
the
saints.
qualities:
They
were
great power houses in the fight against evil; they filled the gaps left in the structure of human
justice.62
relics were chosen because
they
were
supernatural world was built up of a model of in
Like any weak lord, the relic could be rebuked
tense person-to-person
relationships.
St. Benedict allowed his shrine to
by its vassals if it failed to give protection. When
be robbed, the custodian at St. Beno?t-sur-Loire beat the shrine with a stick, shouting
a strangely subjective
the remains of people. The
It was
objectivity.
For
I won't
"You sleepy head! If you don't care enough to protect your own bracelets,
care if people come in and steal the trousers off you next time."63 Like any rival lord,
the relic could be insulted by its opponents. Heaven
revenged the knight who, when
on
a
confronted with the image of Sainte Foye
plot of land placed there to defend
of the
threatened he had.64 The objectivity
to kick her?but
her rights, threatened
was
was
of
needs
It
the
was
not
the
skin deep. It
projection
impersonal.
supernatural
the
of
values
was
into
the subjective
thus sucked
of a group, and
group. The
vengeance
of
the
saints
was
the
visceral
reaction
of
a
small
community,
a reaction
subjectivity by being identified
placed beyond the frailty and discontinuity
recall.
in
that sense, subjectivity
with the saint; it was,
objectified beyond
a
as
of the shift to a different
in Northern
What happened
Europe
precondition
can
be quickly told.
the subjective and the objective
between
relationship
the situation we have described. The
Two great changes stand out in modifying
It would be wrong to
first is the more obscure. The group itself changes consistency.
as
The
Northern
think of pre-eleventh-century
uniformly underpopulated.
Europe
in by
dense population were hemmed
reverse may be true: patches of uncomfortably
of human
due to the
wasteland.
apart from purely physical overcrowding
Quite
of human relations" placed a
space available for farming, the "technology
and to retain the consensus of as large a body of
premium on the ability to mobilize
as possible. The twelfth century saw the relax
kinsmen, of allies, and of dependents
that had built up in long
inward
of
this
pressure.
Population
claustrophobic
ing
land. The compact
areas became more free to spill out into reclaimed
cultivated
intractable
limited
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SOCIETY
AND
THE
143
SUPERNATURAL
groups in towns and villages were dissolved by a leavening of horizontal
the immediate
family no longer needed to blend for safety into the wider
mobility;
mass of the kin.65 Such changes were slow and far from uniform, but in large parts
of Northern Europe they subtly removed the social pressure for envisaging
the role
we
terms
in
in
the
have described. The grow
of the supernatural
the human group
of a larger, more fluid group made less necessary the theatricality
ing impersonality
it dissolved
of local
the sharp memories
of an ordeal or of a public renunciation;
on
which the previous genre of miracles of
breaches of the accepted code of conduct
the saints had depended. Men who needed to care just that little bit less about their
of their life in a
neighbors no longer had to go through the more difficult maneuvers
human
rituals.
limelight of supernatural
such as the ordeal was a theatrical bid for
Second?and
ceremony
blatantly?a
a
consensus
in
society still so balanced as to make any other form of human agree
ment on insoluble issues seem to involve all participants
in a loss of face. The lay
state of the twelfth century was fast moving
away from such a consensual
image of
in this old-fashioned manner; he was
its role. The ruler was no longer a peacemaker
faced by superior coercive power, elaborate
the imposer of law and order. Wherever
for maximizing
devices
the consent of all interested parties around difficult or ex
for instance, law
away. In late-twelfth-century
plosive issues just withered
England,
may not have been notably more rational than was the ordeal; but it was trenchant
The gallows could speak for itself, without mystification.66
and it was authoritative.
The shift from consensus to authority is one of the most subtle shifts of all in the
It is, perhaps,
twelfth century.
the greatest
for the growth of
single precondition
In the late twelfth century, for instance, ecclesiastical
bodies throughout
rationality.
to obey leaders elected by a simple
that they could be expected
Europe decided
majority of their members.67 They acted in the faith that a decision reached in this
in
could yet carry an authority such as was inconceivable
highly artificial manner
a
of
earlier ages. Previously,
but
miracle
could
unanimity
divinely
inspired
nothing
cover up the all-too-naked
a
bishopric
In a
or
sense,
to
a
the
scrimmage
monastery.68
exercise
of
reason,
of interests
as
in any hotly
fostered
by
the
contested
intellectuals
election
and
to
the.
reformers of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, was the most blatant exercise of
authority of all. For appeal to reason in clerical controversy
invariably implied, at
to obey rapid and trenchant decisions?the
that time, that men could be expected
outcome
written
text. Previously
of syllogism,
the production
of an authoritative
their consent had had to be wooed and qualified by the slow, discreet molding
force
of appeals to ancient custom. The intuition of Professor Vernant has laid bare the
to abide by the rules of the city, which lies behind the
substratum of an agreement
to abide by the
faith of the early Greek philosophers
that men could be expected
laws of rational discourse.69 In the twelfth century, by contrast, in a society where
success than in
coercive
force had come to bear with greater hope of immediate
the shrill note of claims for the authority of reason is no discreet
previous centuries,
it sticks out like a crag in every controversy.
substratum:
The
concomitant
society was
of these changes in the structure
a dramatic
shift in the borderline
century
the objective. Briefly, the supernatural, which
source of the objectified
values of the group,
and expectations
of twelfth
between
the subjective and
had tended to be treated as the main
came to be regarded as the preserve
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PETER
144
BROWN
it became
of the exact opposite;
the preserve of intensely personal
par excellence
of
law, the exploitation
feeling. At the same time purely human actions?reasoning,
on an opacity, an impersonal objectivity,
nature?take
and a value of their own
which had been lacking in previous centuries. The capacity to juxtapose intensely
subjective feeling with a growing respect for the impersonal nature of much of the
world
and of human
the emotional and intellectual climate of many
the same age which has been
century. For example,
acclaimed
for the suddenness of its discovery of the individual also salvaged whole
law from the quicksands
of a legal system, which, by contrast to
systems of written
was
a cat's cradle of human
of Roman
the general maxims
jurisprudence,
same
saw
The
the
of
age
emergence
relationships.
significantly new attitudes to the
universe. Though
in being
view, it was "modern"
very different from any modern
no longer shot through with human
a
reference.
thunderstorm
had
Previously,
shown either the anger of God or the envy of demons,
both directed at human
of the thinkers
relations marks
of the twelfth
gave back to the universe a cer
speculations
beings. Twelfth-century
cosmological
tain opacity to human states of guilt, of anger, and of exultation;
its greatest and
were those that rendered to the cosmos a life of its
most profound
achievements
own. For the speculations of the twelfth-century
Platonists on issues such as the Soul
of the World,
reinforced at a slightly later period by the translation of Arabic scien
tific treatises, pointed
the way to a natural world which no longer was a mirror
of
tensions
the
of
the human community.70
image
of the role of the supernatural
Modification
itself might be suggested as the leit
motiv of the new sensibility that developed
in the course of the twelfth century. As
long as the supernatural was strenuously defined as that which was totally discon
tinuous with
the human group,
the individual could not but regard it as either
irrelevant to most occasions of his normal existence or as positively
crushing. Hence
in
West
in
the
the
eleventh and
the paradox of the development
of Christian
society
twelfth centuries.
From one point of view here we have a society that came to accept a far more
in terms of the varying degrees of
clearly defined hierarchy,
explicitly designated
contact with the supernatural. The priest was superior to the layman because he
handled
the holy and the layman did not. Yet, in order for this claim to be made
with conviction,
the holy itself came to be far more strictly delimited. The cliff face
the
of an ill-defined notion of the holy is cut down to size, in order to become
at
into
climbed
elite
the
block
from
which
the
clerical
least)
(in theory
mounting
saddle of Western
society. A whole century of sacramental theology and of constant
on
nature of the Eucharist
The ma
lies behind this development.71
the
speculation
a
is
sacraments
it
is
but
and
delimited
focused
of
the
majesty
jesty
by
heightened;
closer definition of the nature of sacrament. The same Lateran Council of 1215 that
of transub
in the ordeal sanctioned
the doctrine
forbade clerical participation
were
no longer
a
sum
in
two
shift
stantiation. The
decrees
up
Laymen
mentality.
out
shine
for their
allowed to expect that the untold majesty of God might any day
a
of bread and
the transmutation
in
benefit
lawsuit; but if they went to Church,
wine into Christ's body was certain to happen. As Braque has said: "We lower our
find it hard to
rationalist would
For an out-and-out
call it progress."
aims?and
with the
in
its
for
advances
"rationality"
square accounts of a century acclaimed
miracle
literature
that sprouted
around
the doctrine
of transubstantiation.72
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THE
AND
SOCIETY
SUPERNATURAL
145
it may be easier to follow the way in which
While
the public definition of the
it is difficult to resist the impression
relation of the sacred to the profane changed,
in changing
views of the in
that this modification
had an important equivalent
dividual's own capacity for experience. The early medieval
definition of the super
as strict a disjunctive
as possible between
natural had hinged on a need to maintain
the / and the not-I. The sort of ritual behavior
that we have examined
throughout
men
this study reflects the extreme difficulty
that early medieval
to
their
minds
and
this
fact
fellows.
their
changing
communicating
in
of life, from litigation to penance,
the consequences
of disruption
and of loss of face for the individual were almost
and of humiliation
in
experienced
In every aspect
the community
too crushing to
admit any but the most melodramatic
for wrongs done
changes of tack. Reparations
to be decently
screened behind a supernatural d?cor.
A character molded
and strengthened
by less dramatic but more frequent doses
of regret is very much a discovery of the confessional
literature of the late eleventh
a
and twelfth centuries.73 The period dominated
theory labeled Con
by
penitential
on the topic of how much an individual can
tritionism is a period of experiment
had
constantly
good by himself, without
looking over his shoulder at a group to
a
in
acts
whether
of
face-to-face
ritual
penance or by similar melodramatic
placate,
to the invisible majesty
of reparation
of the local saint. The development
of con
in the twelfth century.
fessional literature is one of the spearheads of self-awareness
make
came to be considered expiation enough. The
intimate shame of self-revelation
sense of professional
role of shame was all the more
relevant to an age whose
had created a particularly
achievement
brittle fa?ade of self-regard in knights and
clerics alike.74 One need only think of the lurking horror of hidden illness in so many
Romances
in order to appreciate
of the late twelfth century
this.75 The man who
more
more
to
more
often
confessed
father-confessors
shame in so do
experienced
ing, and was therefore more certain of expiation.76 Now it was possible to canalize
The
these bitter feelings of shame into an intimate, non-communal
to a
relationship
In the course of his lifetime a man could live through stages of con
father-confessor.
flicting emotion without being subject to so drastic a pressure as to opt heavily for
the one or the other. A flood of tears in a knight became an incongruity
that could
it need no longer be a breach with his past behavior so sharp and so
be tolerated;
as to be acted out only in the decent
or in
shelter of a monastery,
humiliating
far
removed
from the group that knew him.
regions
for sin, of course, was what concerned
clerics; but love concerned
Regret
of states.77 For love made
knights. And love was an equally
incongruous mixture
brave men tremble; love made them weep like women or like monks. Love led the
lover to actions and to states of feeling that bore no obvious
relation to his im
mediate duties to his fellow men. Love took him into a strange country, where relief
of obligation
and the gaining of a sense of happiness had nothing whatever
to do
with scrupulous attention
to the reciprocities
of the life of the group:
Ses.peccat
E
ses
pris penedensa,
tort
fait
quir
perdo,
E trais de r?en gen do
E
ai dira
E
gaug
benvolensa,
entier
de
plorar,
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PETER
146
E d'amor
E
sui arditz
BROWN
doussa
per
sabor,
paor
(Piere Vidal, XXVIII)
of love
the permissible
incongruities
poets, as we know, explored
Twelfth-century
a new toy. Yet sober father
with all the glee of children who have discovered
confessors were not above toying with the paradoxes of regret in the same almost
into the ear of his horse?78
euphoric way: Could a man make his act of contrition
as it
of transcendence
Last of all, we come to the hallmark of a sensibility
culture. The supernatural
itself comes to be defined gradually
affected medieval
a growing
conviction
all the more
but with
and tentatively,
strong for being
as an upward extension
of the individual.
The
largely unwitting,
becomes an awareness of the individual's own potentiality,
salvaged by
and illusions of the natural world. Angels wither
above the ambiguities
mind and in the art of the twelfth century79?ancient
symbols of the
are
human.
of
the
idealized
They are
rapidly replaced by symbols
they
supernatural
being raised
away in the
non-human,
replaced by
the figure of the Virgin. In the growth of the legends of the Virgin, for instance, we
invisible
seeks from the supernatural
the individual
have entered a world where
most
most
most
is
all
that
with
tender,
pure,
unambivalently
good in
companionship
his own imagination. The Virgin, for instance, has no relics. There is nothing as am
bivalent about her as dead flesh and bone; what she leaves to men are pure, celestial
She is owned by
of her presence.
of her milk, her shawl, memories
tokens?drops
a saint like
no locality. Compared
with
the Virgin of twelfth-century
devotion,
on
the borders of a dis
Sainte Foye, with her glittering
image placed menacingly
or
in order to quell a brawl in the
carried "at the charge"
puted plot of land80
at Conques,
could not be said to represent so tender a por
cloister at the monastery
tion of the soul.81
then
Sainte Foye, whose miracles were first written by an outsider from Chartres,
in 1020, has the interest of being a transitional
by a local, a monk of Conques,
from
figure. Like Mary, she is a beautiful virgin.82 The many miracles of deliverance
a
so
not
of
horror
feudal
of the truly Gothick
dungeon?are
prison?reminders
not
"like
the
as
from
those of previous centuries. Chains do
dramatic
prisoners
slip
in
the knight,
She prompts
broken glass." She is, rather, a figure of inspiration.
use
enters
into
to
human
of
his
luck.83
She
make
dreams,
ingenuity and
purely
as a source of good
the high adventures of the local aristocracy without melodrama,
a
in
moments
and
of
of
reference
dreams, brainwaves,
point
good fortune. Yet Sainte
a
of anger and of
concentrate
of
those unmodified
remained
feelings
Foye
more to do in
sense
a
had
of
She
still
that go with
justice.
community's
vengeance
life than be perfect. She was the heavy voice of the group.84
The Virgin, in a rising flood of miracles associated with her from the first decade
She had come to
of the twelfth century, was on the other side of a watershed.85
these inner resources
stand for the inner resources of the individual. Occasionally
are explicitly pitted against the group. Whole
cycles of miracles dwell lovingly on the
and inner dispositions.
hiatus between outer appearances
Society might bury a for
nicating monk in unhallowed
ground; but a lily growing from the mouth of the corpse
the monk had always said his Ave
showed
that, on his way to his inamorata,
of divine justice suspended and of
of the Virgin are miracles
Maria.86 The miracles
human rigor exposed as mistaken.
unmodified
They introduce an air of ambiguity
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SOCIETY
AND
THE
147
SUPERNATURAL
into human affairs, such as the hard certainties of the group had not previously been
to permit. Miracles
of justice give way to miracles of inspiration, of individual
visions of sweetness,
and snatches of heavenly music: "Let others think
guidance,
"I would prefer a single vision of
of Malmesbury,
what they like/' wrote William
her to all the world, or to any miracle whatever."87
The supernatural has become what Renan said it was: "The way in which the
in human affairs." The definition comes with all the cer
its appearance
ideal makes
able
It has been the purpose of this paper to
European.
tainty of a post-twelfth-century
took
of the role of the supernatural
show how this sharpening
and delimitation
devices of living in small groups had to be
place, and how many of the well-tried
a concept
so finely whittled
or neglected
could
before
overruled,
weakened,
and a tendency to delimit what is above man to a
Increased impersonality
emerge.
the recipe for human
fragile extension of his own good intentions are not necessarily
move
so
to
into
modern
fast
Not
the
wished
age. A twelfth
happiness.
everybody
a
century knight, crippled by a stroke, first thought that it was just his bad luck?not
reassuring
thought for one facing the numb horror of partial paralysis. Then he
that he had
dreamt that he was slapped in the face by the Virgin and reminded
was
on
to make
The
able
of
the
local
the
monastery.
knight
poached
fishing rights
in the ancient
in the ancient manner,
the Virgin
reparation
having experienced
manner.88 Here we have a man who drew back, in dreams at least, from a world
to
main themes of human history?threatened
where both suffering and guilt?two
break the mercifully
precise bounds of a face-to-face world. Perhaps the later history
of the Middle Ages and of the Reformation
(as seen by some scholars) might provide
a sober epilogue entitled "Risks of Transcendance";
if in a very different
the twelfth century,
idiom,
but then, it is in the form set by
that we still run these particular
risks.*
*
While
wider
own
Ward,
cited
is to D
first debt
my
of scholars
range
dalus,
views
of wider
in offering
to me the unparallelled
of learning from a
opportunity
I owe no small protection
from my
than I had thought possible,
to Benedicta
to Patrick Wormald,
in Oxford?to
Dr. Paul Hyams,
for error to my friends
capacity
and to the careful criticism of Dr. Sabine MacCormack.
I was directly
to which
indebted.
only those works
In these
footnotes,
I have
on every
occasion
References
1
Marc
Bloch,
the Middle
R. W.
Southern,
3
Chenu,
Ages
op.
(London:
4
G. Duby,
1968),
of
op.
pp.
Penguin
1973); M. D.
the Individual
cit.,
Books,
5]
de
origines
and / laid nella
(Milan,
1968),
(London,
(London,
th?ologie
The Making
1961); R. W. Southern,
of
au XIIhme si?cle (Paris, 1957); and Colin
1972).
170-218.
pp.
and R. W.
252-273,
"Les
739-761,
Medioevali,
cit.,
trans. L. A. Manyon,
La
Chenu,
Society,
(London,
The Discovery
Morris,
2
Feudal
Ages
1970),
pp.
Southern,
34-44.
Western
la chevalerie,"
Settimane
"societas Christiana"
dei
pp.
Society
di Studio
secoli
and
sull'Alto
the Church
Medio
xi. e xii. [Miscellanea
in the Middle
15:2
Evo,
del Centro
(Spoleto,
di Studi
453-454.
6
Princes
and Merchants:
The
Chenu,
esp. p. 241; John W. Baldwin, Masters,
op. cit., pp. 225-51,
Social
Views
the
Peter
Chanter
and His
and Lester
K.
Circle
Princeton,
1970),
(2 vols.;
of
in Latin
Goes
Avarice:
"Pride
Before
Social
and
the Vices
Little,
Christendom,"
Change
American
76:1 (1971), 16-49.
Historical
Review,
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
PETER BROWN
148
6
Charles
Meridan
7
H. Haskins,
Books,
R. W.
10
Marc
Bloch,
11
R. W.
ford,
1970),
cit.,
op.
Cities
the Church,
(Princeton,
cit.,
op.
1919).
107.
p.
Southern, Western
pp. 51-58.
and
Society
Saint
Southern,
14
P. Rousset,
241: "L'ordalie
the Church,
and His
Anselm
en la justice
croyance
le miracle,
l'exige
"La
York:
255-259.
pp.
op. cit., pp. 38-42,
12
H. Nottarp,
Gottesurteilstudien
1956); P. Browe, De
(Munich,
is a good collection
"Le jugement
of texts. See also M. Szeftel,
4 (1948), 263-299.
du droit oriental,
Archives
d'histoire
13
R. W.
1927; New
Mass.,
64-120.
pp.
cit.,
op.
and
Society
Medieval
Pirenne,
9
C. Morris,
Century
of the Twelfth
(Cambridge,
and Marc Bloch,
op. cit., pp. 109-120.
193-223,
Western
Southern,
8
Henri
Renaissance
The
pp.
1957),
suppose
immanente
comme
p. 265.
1963),
f?odale,"
preuve
(Ox
(2 vols.; Rome,
1932-1933)
dans le droit russe ancien,"
de pieu
? l'?poque
la seule
Humanism
...
ordaliis
(Cambridge,
Biographer
and Medieval
capable
Le Moyen
Age,
d'ouvrir
les yeux
54
(1948),
sur le bon
droit."
15
Registrum
Az
Varadiense:
id?renbe
ed. J. Kak?csonyi
and S.
Lajstrom,
Fuzesvaspr?ba
de Varad. Un monument
judiciare du debut du
Registre
et ?tranger,
de droit fran?ais
32 (1954), 527-562.
V?radi
szedatt
1903): see I. Zajtay,
Borovszky
(Budapest,
revue historique
XIIl?me
si?cle," Nouvelle
"Le
16
John W.
of 1215 Against Ordeals,"
for the Canon
"The Intellectual
Baldwin,
Preparation
Speculum,
critics of the ordeal,
of ninth-century
the writings
I have excluded
from consideration
(1961), 613-636.
as these appear
to me
to reflect a totally different
climate.
social and intellectual
36
17
ad. C.II
ed. F. V. Schulte,
of Tournai,
Summa,
Stephen
iuris canonici,
ed. T. A. Reimanus
of Blois, Speculum
Stephen
. . . , vol. II, no. 99, p. 77, and no. 104, pp. 79-80
daliis
resp.
18
R. W.
19
Reg.
20
A.
Varad.,
op.
examples
r?le
191.
23
Cf.
24
a modem
Varad.,
no.
27
Marc
28
Justus
Bloch,
PL CLXII,
cit.,
25,
p.
140;
29
G. F?jer,
Codex
Man
Oracle,"
"for the public
30
Marc
Bloch,
op.
176; no.
p.
170 and
in Browe,
de geste
(Paris,
and XIII
182, p. 219
Ordeal
210;
also
Centuries
by Sasswood
in Browe,
De
p. 48, n. 1:
1946),
(Oxford,
(London,
1955),
Ordaliis
. . . , vol.
244-247.
pp.
II, no. 91.
respv
111:1 (Buda, 1826), p. 105. Cf.
Hungariae,
and P. M. Kaberry
ed. M. Douglas
(London,
a validation
as a trial."
is as much
p.
and
pp. 66-71,
and
123-142.
pp.
ritual
172; and
De Or
126-128,
pp.
1926),
et la vie des campagnes
dans l'occident m?di?val
(Paris, 1962),
en Picardie,
1 (Paris-Louvain,
les hommes
1968), 206-207.
Diplomaticus
in Africa,
cit.,
pp.
also
p. 97.
of the priest to the participant
See Reg. Varad., p. 151 for the final questions
sum.
lustus sum. Mundus?
Mundus
ab hoc crimine de quo accusaris?
Poison
249:
op.
of Society
205, Migne,
et
and
477.
in E. Warner,
62,
les chansons
in the XII
example
26
G. Duby, L'?conomie
Robert Fossier, La Terre
cit.,
op.
Ages,
dans
I (1843),
d'Anjou,
African
Ep.
the Middle
surnaturel
The Obligations
Ivo of Chartres,
25
Reg.
du
Archives
In A. L. Poole,
of
23,
(1837),
150.
p.
Le
P. Marchegay,
22
cit.,
on p.
J. Dickman,
further
21
The Making
Southern,
5.7,
of the ordeal:
J. Vansina,
1969),
130.
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pp.
"The
Prater,
es
Bushong
at p.
245-260;
AND
SOCIETY
THE
31
Cf. W?dukind,
Rerum Gestarum
Saxonicarum,
at Steel
in 938 in order
dered a trial by combat
property
Indicium
Belli.
f?r Kulturgeschichte,
5]
33
Cf.
Cram,
art.
Vansina,
34
Well
37
Marc
Bloch,
38
R. C.
van Caenegem,
de
art.
cit.,
pp.
*f Zajtay,
art.
cit.,
p. 547.
42
E.g.,
a higher
von
541
and
the rivals of the Monks
43
Petrus
233 AB,
by water.
(London,
1966),
pp.
to Glanvill
the Conquest
from
27:3
Annales,
(1972),
and 523
70-71.
(London,
1959),
p. 42.
546.
Pelican
(London:
abbreviatum,
for diverging
Ibid.,
J. Sondeheimer
of Angers had kept
op. cit., p. 474.
Marchegay,
Verbum
Cantor,
le haut moyen-age,"
pendant
in England
Tristan
Strassburg,
temperature!
des
[Beiheft
in Angers.
for the ordeal
452-462,
pp.
trans.,
History,
Royal Writs
39
Zajtay,
41
Gottfried
cit.,
op.
la propri?t?
Rural
French
Mittelalter
p. 457.
cit.,
op.
im deutschen
des Krieges
and 46.
pp. 37, 42,
p. 249.
cit.,
36
A. Gurevifc, "La Notion
547 and 532-536.
ordeal
I or
II, 10 (MGH in usu Schoi),
p. 73 and 74. Otto
to avoid a public debate
the nobles over a
among
Zum Rechtscharakter
(1955),
in Marchegay,
described
35
Marchegay,
44
149
dispute.
32
K.-G.
Archiv
SUPERNATURAL
on
1960),
their opponents
78, Migne,
chap.
opinions
Books,
until
talking
the cauldron
boiled
to
239A.
PL, CCV,
a man
to which
the extent
247-248.
pp.
was
held
to sink or float
in the
45
in J. F.
De Vita Sua, III, 17, Migne,
of Nogent,
Guibert
PL, CLVI, 952; transi, by C. C S. Bland
in Medieval
in
France
Benton,
ed., Self and Society
(New York, 1970), p. 214. Cf. the case at Halberstadt
1214: Gustav
Urkundenbuch
des Hochstifts
I, 1883, no. 260: quo viso omnis
Schmidt,
Halberstadt,
as a form of group-consensus,
For acclamation
multitudo
laudes Deo concinens.
acclamabat,
praesentium
see E. Peterson,
eTs 0??s,1926,
pp. 181-195.
46
Eadmer,
47
Fuero
Historia
de Navarra,
general
48
Zajtay,
art
Geschichtsforschung,
PL,
5, 3, c.
18.
412.
CLIX,
zur Geschichte
Forschungen
"Zum
von Florenz
im fr?heren
Reliquienwesen
60 (1952), 60-89.
(Berlin,
Brown,
52
Liber
Miraculorum
"Relics
de
and
Status
S?nete
Fidis,
l'histoire,
Germaniae
vol.
21]
in the Age
ed. A.
(Paris,
Hist?rica,
of Gregory
f?r
on trial by battle
?sterreichische
Bouillet
48, Migne,
Le p?cheur
PL,
Formulae,
LXXXVIII,
et la p?nitence
de
[Collection
ed.
Zeumer,
Textes
pour
servir
d l'?tude
et
p. 639.
The History
J. W. F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland,
of English
"It is not as a specially holy person, but as a propertyless
and
knows
the monk."
Magistri,
to appear.
of Tours,"
1897).
443.
66
C. Vogel,
texts.
p. 315,
Institut
Mittelalter,"
54
55
Regula
1900),
Mitteilungen,
51
Peter
53
Monumenta
Migne,
p. 560.
cit.,
49
Robert Davidsohn,
in San Gimignano.
50
H.
Fichtenau,
l'enseignement
Novorum,
Law
specially
(re-issue, Cambridge,
1968). p.
obedient
person that the law
1009.
au moyen-age
(Paris,
1969)
is a most
illuminating
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collection
of
PETER BROWN
150
57
E.g.,
Letter
58
Vogel,
op.
of Paulinus
cit.,
59
S. Fidis,
I, 16, p. 52.
62
R. W.
Southern,
The Making
S. Benedicti,
miraculis
64
Mirac.
S. Fidis
65Fossier,
La Terre
et
la litt?rature
the Middle
of
26, Migne,
PL,
m?di?vale
fran?aise
(Geneva,
la soci?t?
cit.,
op.
Ages,
199-200.
1967), pp.
des
religieuse
xie et
xiie
137.
p.
929-930.
CXXIV,
op.
. . . , op.
les hommes
for most
1970)
66
A. L. Poole,
twelfth
181-186.
XCIX,
I, 11, p. 40-41.
(London,
ritual.
Symbols
ment
of
PL,
Migne,
des
la?cs dans
"L'iconographie
christiana,"
pi. V, illustr. 13.
61
Mirac.
63
De
dans
du repentir
Labaude-Mailfort,
laici nella "societas
/
si?cles,"
to Haistulph,
(d. 802)
126.
p.
Le motif
J.-C. Payen,
60
Yvonne
of Aquilia
p. 79: "The
cit.,
cit.,
illuminating
I, pp.
suggestions
was
of ordeals
system
cf. Mary
272-273,
290-291;
on the social preconditions
concerned
with
Cosmic
Douglas,
for the abandon
the proletariat"
in the
late
century.
67
L. Moulin,
"Sanior
490-517.
et maior
revue
Nouvelle
pars,"
historique
de droit fran?ais
et ?tranger,
31
(1953),
368-394;
68
"Die Einstimmigkeit
in den Wahlen
im Reiche Ottos
E.g., A. Nitschke,
?sterreichische
70 (1962), 29-59, esp. 39
Geschichtsforschung,
Mitteilungen,
69
J.-P. Vernant,
70
Chenu,
71
E.g.,
72
Payen,
Die
op.
cit.,
See Mirac.
76
Vogel,
H.
op.
the positive
78
Vogel,
79
Chenu,
"societas
80
Mirac.
81
82
cit.,
(Bonn,
diu
alte.
1970),
pp.
III, 7, p.
de
1966),
pp.
la nature
(Louvain,
f?r
303-304.
se charge
d'une
densit?
inouie."
Rolle
in der
deutschen
1971).
(Breslau,
1938).
139
Der
Superbia-Gedanke
on a growing
104-114,
for an earlier
und
seine
evaluation
positive
of pride.
example.
169.
p.
in der
bei
hochmittelalterlichen
den
franz?sischen
role of melancholy
in courtly
pp.
Lyrikern
Literatur
des
Frankreichs
(Frankfurt,
Sp?tmittelalters
(Bonn,
1966);
1967),
pp.
and
93
literature.
28-31.
III,
IV, 16, p. 203.
Ibid.,
I, 1, p.
14, p.
10 and
ibid.,
Ill,
4, p.
ibid.,
Ill,
17, p.
"La Culture
religieuse
des
la?cs en France,"
/ laici nella
153.
IV, 8, p.
190.
133.
156.
I am particularly
to "William
indebted
by P. N. Carter, Merton
College,
translated
"la notion
des Mittelalters
cf. E. Delaruelle,
op. cit., 52-61;
. . .,
christiana"
p. 551.
S. Fidis
(Paris,
et B?r?nger
Wunder
?bermuot
Ibid.,
83
E.g.,
84
E.g.,
85
op.
p. 30:
Lanfranc
77
L. Pollmann,
Die Liebe
Die Melancholie
Heger,
134, on
les Grecs
Institut
passim.
S. Fidis,
cit.,
chez
esp.
eucharistischen
74
Hempel,
Wolfgang
Literatur
des Mittelalters
75
19-51,
pp.
J. de M?ntelos,
P. Bowe,
73
cit.,
op.
C.
et Pen?ee
Mythe
des Grossen,"
ff.
of Malmesbury.
Miracles
of the Virgin
Oxford
Doctoral
Oxford,
unpublished
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Mary,"
edited
Thesis,
1959.
and
SOCIETY AND THE SUPERNATURAL 151
86
87
"William
Ibid.,
88
Guilbert
of Malmesbury
. . . ,"
ibid.,
p. 418.
p. 348.
of Nogent,
III,
18, Migne,
PL, CLVI,
954A.
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