The Evangelical Rhetoric of Ramon Llull: Lay Learning and Piety in the Christian West Around 1300

289 Pages·1996·18.54 MB·English

by  Mark D. Johnston

The Evangelical Rhetoric of Ramon Llull
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The
Evangelical Rhetoric
of Ramon Llull
Lay Learning and Piety
in the Christian West around 1300
Mark D. Johnston
New York Oxford
Oxford University Press
1996
Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 1996 by Mark D. Johnston
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnston, Mark D. (Mark David), 1952--
The evangelical rhetoric of Ramon Llull : lay learning and piety
in the Christian West around 1300 / Mark D. Johnston.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-509005-5
1. Llull, Ramon, d. 1316.
2. Rhetoric, Medieval.
3. Spiritual life—Christianity—History of doctrines—Middle Ages, 600-1500.
I. Title. B765.L84J63 1995
189'.4—dc20 94-44362
1 35798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
illi quae vere "gratia" nominatur
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Acknowledgments
While studying in Barcelona as a graduate student during the fall of 1976, I had the
good fortune to discuss my plans for a doctoral dissertation on Ramon Llull with the
late Jordi Rubio i Balaguer, one of the most distinguished and beloved scholars of
Catalan literature in this century. I explained to him that I was interested broadly in
medieval literary and linguistic theory and wished to explore Llull's contribution to
this field, but that I certainly did not consider myself to be a Lullist exclusively. He
repeated my statement quietly to himself, perhaps wondering what kind of "Lullist"
I meant, and then laughed softly. Modern usage, I now realize, applies the term
"Lullist" both to fervent disciples and to scholars of Ramon Llull's work. I have often
wished that Dr. Rubio had lived long enough to see the results of my efforts, but his
response then suggested that he probably foresaw them anyway.
The doctoral dissertation that I eventually completed at Johns Hopkins in 1977,
"The Semblance of Significance: Language and Exemplarism in the Art of Ramon
Llull," proved to be merely the manifesto for a far vaster program of scholarly study.
Almost twenty years later I am still exploring Ramon Llull's contributions to the me-
dieval trivium of grammar, rhetoric, and logic. The Spiritual Logic of Ramon Llull,
published by Clarendon Press in 1987, surveys his logical doctrines. Various articles
examine aspects of his linguistic and literary ideas: "Affatus: Natural Science as
Moral Theology," Estudios Lulianos 30 (1990): 3-30, 139-59; "Ramon Llull's
Language of Contemplation and Action," Forum for Modern Language Studies 27
(1991): 100-112; and "Exemplary Reading in Ramon Llull's Libre de meravelles,"
Forum for Modern Language Studies 28 (1992): 235—50. Chapters 2 and 3 below
also deal broadly with elements of Llull's linguistic theories. Most of this book is de-
voted, as its title indicates, to detailed examination of Ramon Llull's theories of
eloquence. Two previously published essays offer provisional assessments of this
topic: "The Natural Rhetoric of Ramon Llull," in Proceedings of the Illinois
Medieval Association, vol. 3, edited by David Wagner et al. (DeKalb: Northern
viii Acknowledgments
Illinois University, 1986), 174-92; and "Sermon Theory as Devotional Literature:
The Rhetoric of Ramon Llull," in De ore domini: Preacher and Word in the Middle
Ages, edited by Thomas L. Amos, Eugene A. Green, and Beverly M. Kienzle, Studies
in Medieval Culture, no. 27 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute, 1989), 119-46.
These researches on Ramon Llull's proposals for the medieval arts of language have
allowed me to explore with felicitous results many other aspects of medieval and
Renaissance culture. Despite the range of these other investigations, I fear that I have
definitely become what I denied to Dr. Rubio, namely, a Lullist. Now that I have ful-
filled, at least provisionally, my original plan to study the Lullian arts of language,
I look forward to writing a new series of studies on Llull's role in the academic and
ecclesiastical institutions of his era.
None of my researches to date would ever have reached fruition were it not for
the assistance provided by Carol Ruyle and her staff in the Interlibrary Loan Office
of Milner Library at Illinois State University. Their efforts make it possible for fac-
ulty at a struggling public college to pursue advanced research on difficult topics such
as Ramon Llull. Stan Gutzman, the humanities librarian at Milner Library, has also
provided patient assistance with my reference queries and sympathetic responses to
my requests for unusual acquisitions in medieval studies. Early stages of my research
for this book benefited from the excellent facilities at the Main Library of the Uni-
versity of Iowa, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress, and the
Newberry Library in Chicago.
Ramon Llull remains an esoteric and little-understood figure in European intel-
lectual history. Specialists in medieval studies often know little more than his name
or his eccentric reputation. Even in Spain Llull is best known from apocryphal pious
legends. For English-speaking audiences, scholarly knowledge of Ramon Llull
would remain very limited indeed if Oxford University Press had not published the
only book-length critical and historical studies of Llull to appear in English during
the past fifty years. To Cynthia Read and the staff at the Oxford University Press of-
fices in New York I am very grateful for their acceptance and careful production of
this new volume. Two wonderfully unselfish colleagues, Phyllis Roberts and
SunHee Kim Gertz, performed the onerous favor of reading the original, very
lengthy manuscript. Their detailed recommendations greatly assisted my attempt to
make this study as appealing as possible to a wider range of readers in the world of
medieval studies.
Since Llull is such a difficult figure to understand, I appreciate deeply the inter-
est that my work has elicited in recent years from other scholars. Colleagues at the
University of Iowa, St. Bonaventure University, and the University of Texas at Austin
have kindly invited me to speak on Llull at their campuses. The organizers of ses-
sions at the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo have
frequently provided me with a forum to discuss my research in progress. I owe par-
ticular thanks to Larry Simon for repeatedly including me in panels on the history of
the Crown of Aragon. Various members of the International Society for the History
of Rhetoric—especially Martin Camargo, Jerry Murphy, Emil Polak, and John
Ward—have provided valuable guidance for my studies on the medieval arts of lan-
guage. The enthusiasm of Robert D. F. Pring-Mill, one of the most eminent modern
scholars of Llull's work, remains as gratifying now as when he read my first study
Acknowledgments ix
on Llull. Finally, many friends from diverse areas of medieval studies—among them
Tom Amos, John Bollweg, Tom Burman, Paul Gehl, George Greenia, Valerie
Lagorio, Richard Newhauser, and Donna Rogers—have made working on Ramon
Llull much more fun than I ever imagined it would be. And when it isn't, my wife,
a very postmodern medievalist, is always ready to say, "Look, maybe this would sell
better as a screenplay."