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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
Even though Chaucer the Pilgrim refers to ‘the povre Persoun of a toun’ as a ‘lerned man, a clerk,’ it is still surprising to hear the humble Parson discourse at length on one of the fine points of canon law. And yet, despite his own protestation of ignorance, the Parson devotes sixteen lines (654–79) of his discussion of Wrath to distinguishing between the many species and sub-species of corporeal and spiritual homicide. Upon closer examination of the passage itself, we are more inclined to take the Parson at his word. Where we are promised ‘foure maneres’ of homicide in deed, we get only three, while in place of the anticipated fourth category we find a discussion of the various forms of infanticide, contraception, and abortion. Although Chaucer rightly identifies these as types of homicide, they hardly comprise a major classification to rank alongside the other three ‘maneres.’ Further evidence of confusion in the passage is a textual problem, which involves the number of species of spiritual homicide. The manuscripts read, ‘spiritueel manslaughtre is in vj thynges’ (545) when, in fact, only three are named.
1 All quotations from Chaucer are from Robinson, F. N., ed., Works (2nd ed.; Boston 1957).Google Scholar
2 See Skeat, W. W., Works (Oxford 1894) V 463. Robinson agrees with Skeat in his note. More recently, Pratt and Fisher have actually emended the line to read ‘the’; Pratt, Robert A., ed., The Tales of Canterbury (Boston 1966); Fisher, John, ed., The Complete Poetry and Prose (New York 1977). For arguments against the emendation, see Johnson, Dudley, “‘Homicide” in the Parson's Tale,’ Publications of the Modern Language Association 57 (1942) 54–55.Google Scholar
3 Pars T 561, 565.Google Scholar
4 Pars T 567, 639–41.Google Scholar
5 Pars T 622–34. Despite the omission, the connection between chiding and homicide is quite explicit: ‘for trewely, but he be war, he may ful lightly quyken the fir of angre and of wratthe, which that he scholde quenche, and peraventure sleeth hym, which that he myghte chastise with benignitee. / For as seith Salomon, “The amyable tonge is the tree of lyf,” that is to seyn, of lyf espiritueel; and soothly, a deslavee tonge sleeth the spirites of hym that repreveth and eek of hym that is reproved’ (628–29).Google Scholar
6 See Johnson, 52. Johnson's, study filled in a caesura in Petersen's, Kate earlier study of the parallels between the Tale, Parson's and the Summa of Peraldus and Pennaforte; Petersen, The Sources of the Parson's Tale (Radcliffe College Monographs 12; Boston 1901). See also Dempster, G., ‘The Parson's Tale,’ in Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, edd. Bryan, W. F. and Dempster, G. (New York 1941) 723–60.Google Scholar
7 See Wenzel, Siegfried, ‘The Source of Chaucer's Seven Deadly Sins,’ Traditio 30 (1974) 351–78; and also an earlier article on the source for the Remedia, ‘The Source for the Remedia of the Parson's Tale,’ Traditio 27 (1971) 433–53.Google Scholar
8 On Raymond and his works, see von Schulte, J. F., Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts von Gratian bis auf die Gegenwart (Stuttgart 1877) II 408–13; Dietterle, Johannes, ‘Die Summae Confessorum,’ Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichle 24 (1903) 530–48; Kuttner, Stephan, Repertorium der Kanonistik, 1140–1234 (Vatican City 1937) 438–52; and Teetaert, A., ‘Raymond de Penyafort,’ DThC 13.2.1806–23.Google Scholar
9 The terms ‘corporeal’ and ‘spiritual’ were borrowed from the literature of the sins, where they were used to refer to two categories of sin. For the origins of this distinction, see Wenzel, Siegfried, The Sin of Sloth (Chapel Hill 1960) 168–170. Variants of the formula substituted ‘carnal’ (carnalia), and the Middle English ‘flesshly’ for corporeal and ‘gostly’ for spiritual.Google Scholar
10 de Pennaforte, Raymond, Summa de poenitentia et matrimonio cum glossis ioannis de friburgo (Rome 1603) 148; Bernard of Pavia, ‘Select Passages from the Works of Bracton and Azo,’ ed. Maitland, Frederic W., Selden Society 8 (London 1895) 228; Bracton, Henry, De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae, ed. Woodbine, George E. (Cambridge, Mass. 1968) II 340.Google Scholar
11 Raymond 148, Bernard 228, and Bracton 341 list these categories. For a discussion of the possible meanings of the species, particularly the rather confusing ‘defensione,’ see Maitland, F. W., ‘Select Passages from the Works of Bracton and Azo,’ Selden Society 8 (London 1895) 233–34.Google Scholar
12 Bernard, 227.Google Scholar
13 Bracton, 341.Google Scholar
14 Raymond, 148; Bernard, 229. The minister who condemns wickedness, like God, is motivated by just anger and is therefore exonerated: ‘Dei enim minister est, vindex in iram ei, qui male agit’ (Raymond 149).Google Scholar
15 Raymond 148.Google Scholar
16 Maitland, Frederic W. and Pollock, Frederick, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I (Boston 1895) II 475–76.Google Scholar
17 Green, Thomas A., ‘Societal Concepts of Criminal Liability for Homicide in Medieval England,’ Speculum 47 (1972) 691; also Pollock, and Maitland, II 466–67. For a general discussion of the early history of the English civil laws governing murder and manslaughter, see Pollock and Maitland II 460–88; Kaye, J. M., ‘Early History of Murder and Manslaughter,’ The Law Quarterly Review 83 (July and Oct. 1967) 365–95, 569–601; Holdsworth, William, A History of English Law (London 1934) III 310–16.Google Scholar
18 See Green, Thomas A., ‘The Jury and the English Law of Homicide, 1200–1600,’ Michigan Law Review 74 pt. 1 (1976) 414–99, for a discussion of the effect of actual court practices on homicide laws.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19 Holdsworth III 311.Google Scholar
20 De gloria et honore Filii Hominis super Matthaeum 5.21–22 (PL 168.1407).Google Scholar
21 Corpus iuris canonici, ed. Friedberg, Aemilius (Leipzig 1879; repr. Graz 1955) I 1164, where it is attributed to Augustine's Contra Faustum 19.Google Scholar
22 Bernard 227.Google Scholar
23 ‘Omnis iniquitas, et oppressio, et iniusticia, iudicium sanguinis est: et, licet gladio non occidas, voluntate tamen interficis’ Corpus iuris canonici I 1164, where it is attributed to St. Jerome.Google Scholar
24 For a current discussion of the thorny problem of the genre of the Parson's Tale, including a helpful bibliography of previous theories, see Patterson, Lee W., ‘The “Parson's Tale” and the Quitting of the “Canterbury Tales,”’ Traditio 34 (1978) 332–56. Professor Patterson numbers the Parson's Tale among the manuals intended exclusively for penitential use; furthermore, he finds it unique among its analogues in its narrowness of focus and philosophical approach to the problem of penance.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
25 In his prolegomena to Robert of Flamborough's Liber poenitentialis (Toronto 1971) 10–20, Francis, J. J. Firth argues that the role of the new canon law in the handbooks has been largely overlooked. Firth credits the new law with ‘beginning a kind of revolution’ by introducing ‘its technicalities and its precision’ into the penitentials (20). Siegfried Wenzel argues as well for the sweeping influence of the new law on the penitentials, maintaining ‘that from the eleventh century on canon law had a very profound influence on the theory and practice of penance,’ leading ‘to a more “casuistic” approach in penitential handbooks’ (The Sin of Sloth 71). Raymond of Pennaforte's Summa, like Robert of Flamborough's Liber poenitentialis, played a seminal role in bringing about these changes. Both manuals show such a distinct canonical bias that one might call them canonical rather than penitential manuals. Raymond addresses his ‘summulam’ in part to judicial issues: ‘ut quando Fratres Ordinis nostri, vel alii circa iudicium animarum in foro paenitentiali forsitan dubitaverint, per ipsius exercitum, tam in consiliis, quam in iudiciis, quaestiones ultas, & casus varios, ac difficiles, & perplexos valeant enodare’ (Raymond 1). In keeping with this thrust, his manual like Robert's is arranged around canonical issues: marriages, homicide, and impediments to orders. While this emphasis has shifted to penance and matters of faith in the vernacular penitential and catechetical manuals, canon law still holds its place.Google Scholar
26 In recognition of the need for this knowledge, a special licence of non-residence to read ‘in jure canonico’ was granted a clerk in the register of the Bishop of Worcester in order to broaden his education and aid him in the cure of souls. Marion Gibbs and Jane Lang, Bishops and Reform 1215–1272 (London 1934) 164.Google Scholar
27
I have examined the following treatises: Dan Michel, Ayenbite of Inwyt or, Remorse of Conscience, ed. R. Morris (EETS 23; London 1866); ∗
The Book of Vices and Virtues, A Fourteenth-Century English Translation of the Somme le Roi …, ed. Francis, W. N. (EETS 217; London 1942); The Lay Folk's Catechism, edd. Simmons, Th. F. and Nolloth, H. E. (EETS 118; London 1901); ∗
Myrc, John, Instructions for Parish Priests, ed. Peacock, Edward (EETS 31; London 1868); The Boke of Penance, in Cursor Mundi: A Northumbrian Poem of the Fourteenth Century, ed. Morris, R. (EETS 68; London 1878); Speculum Christiani, ed. Holmstedt, Gustaf (EETS 182; London 1933); ∗
Mannyng, Robert of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, ed. Furnivall, F. J. (EETS 119; London 1901); Speculum Gy de Warewyke, ed. Lea Morrill, Georgiana (EETS 75; London 1898); ∗
Jacob's Well: An English Treatise on the Cleansing of Man's Conscience, ed. Brandeis, A., Part I (EETS 115; London 1900) I; ∗John Wyclif, 
Ten Comaundementis in Select English Works, ed. Arnold, Th. (Oxford 1869) III. Those works marked with an asterisk contain a discussion of corporeal and spiritual homicide. Any findings are limited by the paucity of this sampling, which is in turn limited to the published manuals, comprising only a fraction of the known corpus.Google Scholar
28 Handlyng Synne 48.Google Scholar
29 Handlyng Synne 47.Google Scholar
30 Jacob's Well 93.Google Scholar
31
Pe Ten Comaundementis 86.Google Scholar
32 For comparison, see the discussions of homicide in Burchard of Worms, Decretum 19 (PL 140.951–56); Ivo of Chartres, Decretum 10 (PL 161.689–746); Ps.-Bede, Poenitentiale in Die Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche, ed. Wasserschleben, F. W. H. (Graz 1958) 265–67; Cummean, , Poenitentiale (Wasserschleben 478–80); Theodore, , Liber poenitentiale (Wasserschleben 569–610). For a translation and discussion of early penitentials, see McNeill, John T. and Gamer, Helena, Medieval Handbooks of Penance (New York 1956).Google Scholar
33 Jacob's Well 93.Google Scholar
34 The Book of Vices and Virtues 326.Google Scholar
35 Handlyng Synne 48–49. There is no parallel passage in the Manuel des pechiez, suggesting an English provenance for this passage. The problem of the relation of the Middle English to the Anglo-Norman discussions of homicide posed by Handlyng Synne once again raises the question of the source of the vernacular tradition. Moreover, if the French manuals evidence a similar laicization of the concepts, they too could have influenced Chaucer's treatment.Google Scholar
36 Councils & Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, edd. Powicke, F. M. and Cheney, C. R. (Oxford 1964) I 216–17; see also Bishops and Reform, 1215–1272 94–179, and Cheney, Christopher R., English Synodalia of the Thirteenth Century (London 1941).Google Scholar
37 Councils & Synods, II 902.Google Scholar
38 Handlyng Synne 48.Google Scholar
39 Instructions for Parish Priests 29.Google Scholar
40 Jacob's Well 93.Google Scholar
41
Pe Ten Comaundementis 87.Google Scholar
42 Johnson 56.Google Scholar
43
‘
Pe fyfte fote depthe of wose in wretthe is mansleyghter;
Pat is …
sif be
pe ony persone hath ben enpoysound, or ony chyld hath ben oppressyd, dystroyed, or slayne be drynkes or o
pere craftys’ (Jacob's Well 93).Google Scholar
44 Bracton 341.Google Scholar
45 Burchard of Worms, Decretum 19 (PL 140.951–53).Google Scholar
46 Corpus iuris canonici I 1163.Google Scholar
47 For a discussion of the various models including the ‘psychological rationale,’ which explains vice as a misdirection of the will, see Siegfried Wenzel, ‘The Seven Deadly Sins: Some Problems of Research,’ Speculum 43 (1968) 3–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
48 For a discussion of the basis for this distinction and the ensuing confusion of the two sequences, see Bloomfield, Morton W., The Seven Deadly Sins (East Lansing, Mich. 1952) 43–45. The scholastic model insisted on the separation of homicide, wrath, and hate, and therefore falls outside the purview of our study. Aquinas actually asks the question which is more grievous, anger or hatred, since both appear to have evil as their object (Summa theologica 2a2ae 158.4). The question does not interest us except as it serves to distinguish between the two. Homicide too is distinguished from wrath; indeed, it is treated in a completely different section of the Summa as a sin contrary to justice (2a2ae 64.1–8).Google Scholar
49 See Chadwick, O., John Cassian : A Study in Primitive Monasticism (Cambridge 1950).Google Scholar
50 Cassian, John, De institutis coenobiorum 8.1, ed. Michael Petschenig (CSEL 17; Vienna 1888) 151.Google Scholar
51 Cassian, Inst. 8.1 (151).Google Scholar
52 Maurus, Rabanus, De vitiis et virtutibus (PL 112.1376); Ps.-Hugh of St. Victor, De fructibus carnis et spiritus (PL 176.1000).Google Scholar
53 Moralia (PL 76.723).Google Scholar
54 Moralia (PL 76.724).Google Scholar
55 Moralia (PL 76.724–25).Google Scholar
56 Burchard of Worms, Decretum (PL 140.977). This list is a commonplace, repeated in part and in its entirety elsewhere. For example, see Maurus, Rabanus (PL 112.1376) and Ps.-Hugh of St. Victor (PL 176.1000), as in note 52 above.Google Scholar
57 Cassian, Inst. 8.20 (164).Google Scholar
58 Ibid. 163.Google Scholar
59 Ibid. 163–64.Google Scholar
60 In a discussion that is obviously indebted to the reform canonists, Hugh lists four modes of corporeal homicide: ‘Voluntarie, & hoc semper est mortale. Justitia, & hoc si fiat livore vindictae vel non amore justitiae, est mortale propter intentionem malam; alias si fiat se cundum leges, & ex amore justitiae, nec peccatum est, nec mortale. Item necessitate quae si est inevitabilis excusat. Item casu, & tunc si interfector vacabat rei licitae, & imposuit diligentiam quam debuit, non est ei imputandum; alias sic: Per hoc ergo quod dicit. Gl[ossa:] Qui ferra percutit, intelligit omne homicidium corporale quod est peccatum’; and five modes of spiritual homicide: ‘odiendo, detrahendo, malum consulendo, nocendo, victum subtrahendo.’ He says of the progression from hate to homicide, ‘Qui odit &c] intelligitur odium progressivum, unde semper sequitur mors spiritualis, & frequenter cum hec mors corporalis,’ but does not make the connection between hate and Wrath. Hugh of St. Cher, Opera omnia in universum Vetus et Novum Testamentum (Venice 1732) VII fol. 351r–v, on 1 John 3.15.Google Scholar
61 Biblia Sacra cum Glossa ordinaria (Antwerp 1617) 1398.Google Scholar
62 Wrath is mentioned in numerous other Biblical passages. Among these are Eccles. 7.10, Prov. 15.1, Matth. 7.3–5, James 1.19–20, Eph. 4.26. Although these passages are duly associated with wrath in the commentaries, the additional connection with either homicide or hate is not made, nor do the verses themselves function in the definitions of the sin in the same way as those discussed. Of the many biblical verses mentioning homicide, Exodus 20.13, ‘Non occides,’ proves the most interesting for our study, since several of the commentaries on this verse mention both spiritual and corporeal homicide, noting that the stricture applies to both. Bede, for example, says, ‘Non occides, id est, non odies fratrem tuum. Qui enim, inquit, odit fratrem suum, homicida est; iterum, Qui irascitur fratri suo, reus erit concilio.’ In Pentateuchum commentarii (PL 91.319). In speaking of the commandment in a commentary on Matt. 5.21–22, Denis the Carthusian argues that the prohibition must be extended to include all who hate as well: ‘In lege enim aperte prohibetur homicidium, quum dicitur, Non occides; sed lex non exponit perfecte quomodo intelligendum sit illud praeceptum. Propterea ego verum intellectum illius pando praecepti, et dico, quod omnis qui irascitur, id est, vindictam desiderat, seu nocumentum inferre proponit, reus est judicio.’ Denis the Carthusian, Opera omnia (Montreuil 1896–1913) XI 63. Vernacular manuals, following in this tradition, frequently contain discussions of corporeal and spiritual homicide under the Fifth Commandment, both in place of and in addition to discussions under the sin of wrath.Google Scholar
63 PL 110.113.Google Scholar
64 Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists (Cambridge, Mass. 1965) 214–16.Google Scholar
65 Noonan 216.Google Scholar
