The Carmelites and Antiquity: Mendicants and their Pasts in the Middle Ages

383 Pages·2002·1.48 MB·English

by  Andrew Jotischky

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The Carmelites and Antiquity
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The Carmelites and Antiquity
Mendicants and their Pasts
in the Middle Ages
ANDREW JOTISCHKY
1
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For
Christopher, Clementine,and Gabriel
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Preface
The evolution of the historical tradition of the foundation of the
Carmelite Order by Elijah,the specific context in which that tradition
developed,and its function both within the Carmelite profession and
in the wider framework of medieval historical writing,form the sub-
ject-matter of this book.My interest in the Carmelites emerged from
studying the religious life of the crusader states,in which they occupy a
unique place as the only contemplative order founded in the Latin
East.It quickly became apparent that an examination of the origins
and early history of the order was inseparable from the study of its his-
toriography.The Carmelites emerged as a group of regulated hermits
on Mt Carmel in the early years of the thirteenth century. When, a
generation later,they began to transplant themselves throughout Eur-
ope,they found that a detailed statement of their origins and function
was necessary in order to make headway in the competition for patron-
age from the laity and to attain acceptance from the Church’s hier-
archy.The evolution of the historical tradition thus coincided with the
new settlements in the West.This tradition offered a complex and de-
tailed narrative of the origins of the order,the identity and history of
its principal founding figures,and the place of the order within Chris-
tian history.
For the historian of crusading and of the religious life in the later
Middle Ages in general,the Carmelite tradition is compelling:it fills
gaps in the sources,makes connections between historical figures and
with other traditions,and supplies a narrative of the contemplative life
reaching back into antiquity.But it is at the same time deeply flawed in
its chronology,and bears the unmistakable stamp of later authors look-
ing back at historical events and at places that are only half-remem-
bered.The further one follows the Carmelite historical tradition,the
more the narrative and its inherent ecclesiology stimulate one’s general
thinking about medieval religious and historical sensibilities.If it is im-
possible to study the Carmelite Order without first grappling with its
legendary tradition,that tradition is none the less worthy of study in its
own right.
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viii Preface
The title of this book will probably remind many readers of Beryl
Smalley’s English Friars and Antiquity in the Early Fourteenth Century.My debt to
Miss Smalley’s work—both to her studies of individual friars and to the
general conception of her book—will be apparent throughout. But
whereas she was interested in ‘antiquity’largely in its specific sense of
the classical past and its heritage,I have used the term more generically
to signify ‘the past’,particularly the biblical and early Christian past.
Although this book is not intended to be a history of the Carmelite
Order in the Middle Ages,the opening chapter attempts to provide an
outline narrative of the origins and early history of the order as a gen-
eral background to readers who are not familiar with it.Chapter 2con-
siders the political and cultural context from which the Carmelite
historical tradition emerged in the late thirteenth century. I have
chosen the episode of the change of habit in 1287 as emblematic of
problems experienced within mendicant culture in general, and the
broad coverage of the issue in the second half of this chapter reflects a
desire to understand the Carmelite case within a wider context.The
earliest strictly datable Carmelite text (other than the rule itself) is the
subject of Chapter 3.Although the Ignea Sagittais not part of the main-
stream of the Carmelite historical tradition,the text itself and the con-
text in which it was written raise important questions about the
different ways in which Carmelites understood their profession and the
order’s traditions c.1270. Part of my argument, moreover, is that the
Ignea Sagittashould be seen as a distillation of twelfth-century reforming
monastic ideology,and in this sense it has a proper place in a study of
Carmelite historiography.In the following two chapters the outlines of
Carmelite historical narrative as it developed from the end of the thir-
teenth century to the end of the fourteenth are reconstructed and then
examined as affirmations of an emerging ecclesiology.The narrative is
expanded in Chapters 6 and 7 through an examination of the add-
itions to the corpus of Carmelite historical writing in the fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries.Chapter 8departs from the narrow focus on
Carmelite historiography to examine patterns in historical writing and
thinking expressed in the work of the three other mendicant orders in
the fourteenth century.I do not attempt here a comprehensive survey
of the development of historical traditions—Franciscan and Domin-
ican understandings of the past have already been the subject of many
important studies, and the Augustinian Hermits’ tradition certainly
deserves such detailed consideration—but rather try to isolate certain
preoccupations that bear comparison with the Carmelite examples
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already discussed. Finally, Chapter 9 attempts the impossible—an
examination of some of the principles that can be demonstrated to
have governed the way in which friars thought about the past, both
their own corporate past and its place within Christian history in gen-
eral.The huge literature on medieval historiography has been both a
guide and a burden,and I fear that many readers may find my discus-
sion in this chapter either too generalized or too specific or insuffi-
ciently informed by theoretical argument.I have tried throughout the
book to approach the subject from the texts themselves, to elucidate
them to a readership that is probably unfamiliar with many of them,
and to suggest how they,and the whole enterprise that underlay their
composition,can be understood as part of medieval religious culture.
Sins of omission there will always be;but I trust that other scholars will
complete the journey on which I have embarked.
In the course of this book I have benefited from the kindness of
many scholars. I would like to thank Professors Christopher Brooke,
Joanna Cannon,Giles Constable,Julian Gardner,and Bernard Ham-
ilton and Dr Patrick Zutshi for help on various points.My colleagues
Dr Alexander Grant and Dr Keith Stringer, and Fr Paul Chandler,
O.Carm.,have read all or parts of this book in manuscript and made
valuable suggestions.I am particularly grateful to Fr Richard Copsey,
O.Carm.,for his careful reading of the manuscript and for the many
suggestions he made that have saved me from serious errors or omis-
sions.Earlier versions of Chapters 2and 8were read to the Cultural
History Seminar series at the University of Lancaster in 1997and 1998,
and parts of Chapter 7to the ‘Byzantium in the North’symposium at
York in October 1999.I am grateful to the audiences of colleagues and
postgraduates whose comments helped me to see the Carmelites
through different eyes.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to the staff at various libraries: the
Bodleian Library,Cambridge University Library,the British Library,
and Lambeth Palace Library for help with the Bale manuscripts and
various rare editions; the John Rylands University Library of Man-
chester (and in particular the staff at Deansgate),and my own univer-
sity library at Lancaster. Thomas Townsend of the Norfolk and
Norwich Record Office also provided invaluable assistance.The final
stages of research and writing were made possible by the generous
award of research leave from the Arts and Humanities Research Board
in 1999/2000,which I acknowledge with thanks.Finally,my colleagues
in the Department of History at Lancaster deserve my sincere thanks