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Simon Alcok on Expanding the Sermon
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 August 2011
Extract
‘The foundation in the thirteenth century of the two great orders of Franciscans and Dominicans, the latter par excellence the ordo praedicatorum, gave an enormous impulse to preaching.’ It was largely responsible for the abundant production of sermons and arts of sermon-making in the centuries that follow. More than two hundred manuscripts of the period from 1200 to 1500 contain arts of preaching, artes praedicandi. Some have been traditionally associated with the names of certain great Churchmen and Schoolmen, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, Albert the Great; we have the names of nineteen authors in the thirteenth century, thirty-six in the fourteenth, twenty-seven in the fifteenth, and as many more manuscripts are anonymous. A glance at Professor Caplan's list of authors on pages 38, 39, of his Hand-List will show that the great majority of known authors were members of an Order.
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1941
References
1 T. F. Crane, The Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, London, 1890, p. xix.
2 Harry Caplan, Mediaeval Artes Praedicandi, a Hand-List, Ithaca, 1934, and A Supplementary Hand-List, 1936; Th.-M. Charland, O. P., Artes Praedicandi, Ottawa, 1936.
3 For published tracts, see Professor Caplan's Hand-List, pp. 36, 37, and Supplementary Hand-List, p. 27. Observe, that other than the tracts of Alain de Lille and Guibert de Nogent which are published by Migne in the Patrologia Latina, only six arts have been printed since the sixteenth century.
The following studies based on mediaeval arts of preaching should be consulted: A. Lecoy de la Marche, La Chaire Française au Moyen Age, Paris, 1886. Etienne Gilson, Michel Menot et la Technique du Sermon Médiéval, in Revue d'Histoire Franciscaine, July, 1925.
Harry Caplan, Invention in Some Mediaeval Tractates on Preaching, in Speculum, July, 1927.
The Four Senses of Scriptural Interpretation and the Médiaéval Theory of Preaching, in Speculum, July, 1929.
Classical Bhetoric and the Mediaeval Theory of Preaching, in Classical Philology, April, 1933.
4 RLSBH are described by Professor Harry Caplan in his Hand-List, Item No. 8. Father Charland, on p. 84 of his Artes Praedicandi, correctly includes M with the manuscripts of Alcok's treatise. He adds C to the list, and notes an incunabulum in Paris, Nat. Réserve 21342. I wrote at his suggestion to M. Charles de la Roncière in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and received information about Réserve D. 2134 (2), D. 2135 (2), D. 2136 (2), which are copies of an edition published in Cologne in 1476; and to Monsignor Auguste Pelzer, who called my attention to Stamp. Rossiano 718 in the Vatican Library; this I have used, calling it V.
5 Leland, John, Commentarli de scriptoribus Britannicis, Oxford, 1709Google Scholar, chap. 498.
6 Tanner, Thomas, Bishop of St. Asaph, Biblioteca Britannico-Hibernica, London, 1748, p. 24.Google Scholar
7 The History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin S. Mary at Lincoln. Collected by Robert Sanderson, 1641. Item 61 in Desiderata Curiosa by Francis Peck, London, 1779.Google Scholar
8 Richard of Thetford's tract may be found in A. Lecoy de la Marche, op. cit. The eight kinds of dilatatio are on pages 295, 296. For Antoninus see his Summae sacrae theologiae, Pars III, Tit. xviii, chaps. 3–6 (Venice, 1582, fols. 331–337v). Basevorn's tract is in Charland, op. cit., pp. 232–323. For St. Bonaventure, see his Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1882–1902), 9, pp. 8–21.Google Scholar
9 
These words are not to be found in Forcellini-DeVit, Totius Latinitatis Lexicon, in DuCange, Glossarium Manuale ad scriptores mediae et infimae Latinitatis, in Bulletin DuCange (through 12.2, 1938), in Baxter-Johnson, Mediaeval Latin Word-List, or in Thes. L. L. so far as it is available.
10 For ‘Henry of Hesse’ see Caplan, ‘“Henry of Hesse” on the art of preaching,’ in PMLA 48 (June, 1933), pp. 340–361. Caplan, ‘A Late Mediaeval Tractate on Preaching,’ in Studies in Rhetoric and Public Speaking in Honor of J. A. Winans, New York, 1925, pp. 61–90, gives a translation of the ‘Aquinas’-tract. For Basevorn see above, note 8; Waleys’ tract is also in Charland, op. cit., pp. 327–403.
11 Charland, op. cit., p. 397.
12 Mark 10. 52.
13 In place of the section Propter CM have a section as follows:
SICUT Divisio per hanc notam sicut. Te salvum fecit, scilicet Christus, sicut advocatus in curia pro amico suo prosequens fideliter, sicut mercator providus merci-monia sua de longinquis ad portum producens fideliter, sicut ortolanus vineam suam colit ut vinum producat largiter, sicut triumphator capta preda redit ad propria solemniter.
C adds the section Propter written in at the bottom of the page. See below, section Processus, p. 209, for the same material.
14 In cruce palma fuit, cedrus, cupressus, oliva, Datque pedem cedrus, truncum cupressus, oliva Dat capiti tabulam, praebat duo brachia palma.
De Sancta Cruce, Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, vol. 31, No. 80, p. 97 (saec. 15).
15 Luke 12. 12.
16 1 Cor. 1. 26, 8. 9, 10. 18, and elsewhere.
17 Matt. 11. 28.
18 Luke 2. 10.
19 Mark 5. 1.
20 Ps. 73. 23.
21 Joshua 1. 14, I Mace. 5. 32, 2 Esdras 4. 14, 2 Kings 10. 3.
22 Eph. 5. 15.
23 2 Sam. 15. 19.
24 H, which uses for the last of the three letters in abbreviation of the name Jesus the form S not C, completes the section as follows:
Tertio spem, que notatur per S et cetera. Nee immerito sit huiusmodi divisio per notationem litterarum; quoniam ait salvator, unum iota aut unus apex non preteribit a lege donee omnia fiant.
M demands four things, the last two of which are:
Tertio memoriam mortis et iudicii quod notatur per C habens tractum existens tibi et alium a te transequentem respiciens versus dexterum, idest iudicium et cetera. Quarto titulum supra sinistra et signat beatitudinis future ibi eternaliter regnaturus.