No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2016
When Margery Kempe imagines each member of the Trinity sitting within the chamber of her soul on a cushion of an appropriate color, she uses familiar household furnishings to develop a metaphor that helps explain a complex theological concept, while at the same time creating the sense that these ideas are as natural and easy to accept as the objects from which the metaphor is constructed. Similarly, in an Easter sermon preached in 1431, her contemporary Nicholas Philip, a Franciscan friar of the convent in King's Lynn (Margery's hometown), uses household furnishings to prepare his listeners to receive the Eucharist at Easter. The sermon is built on the metaphor of the body as the house to which Christ has been invited for a feast, and, like Kempe's Trinity image, this house has furnishings — a carpet, a tapestry, a cushion, a seat cover — and the feast itself involves a variety of dishes along with music and entertaining guests. The sermon develops a multifaceted image that becomes a complete sensory experience, focusing not on the meaning of transubstantiation but on the communicant's proper disposition. While Nicholas Philip's Easter sermon may be unusual in using this imagery to shape an entire sermon, many late medieval Easter sermons preached in England employ such domestic imagery to elucidate for their audiences the significance of the Eucharist, the reception of which, for most of the laity living in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, took place only on Easter. In a process that can be called the domestication of the divine, such metaphors render this annual reception less distant and abstract, making an event with supernatural implications as natural and familiar as a dinner party. However, the rhetorical purpose of this domestication is not primarily to encourage feelings of comfort and easy familiarity with the theological underpinnings of the sacrament, but to promote virtue and responsibility in the recipient both in preparation for and following this event. Nicholas Philip's Easter sermon thus testifies to a homiletic concern of many late medieval English preachers as well as to the artistic license a preacher might take to effect that concern.
1 The Book of Margery Kempe , ed. Staley, Lynn (Kalamazoo, 1996), 198–99.Google Scholar
2 For information on this sermon and its manuscript, see below and n. 27. The sermon is edited as Appendix 2. Google Scholar
3 On the annual reception of communion, see Rubin, Miri, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1991), 64, 147–48.Google Scholar
4 Middle English Sermons Edited from British Museum MS. Royal 18 B. xxiii , ed. Ross, Woodburn O., EETS, o.s., 209 (London, 1960), Sermon 12, 131.Google Scholar
5 For the role of constructing mental “places” in the medieval art of memory, see Carruthers, Mary J., The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge, 1998), 14–16. For the role of architecture see ibid., 16–21. See also Rivers, Kimberly A., Preaching the Memory of Virtue and Vice: Memory, Images, and Preaching in the Late Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2010).Google Scholar
6 Powell, Susan, John Mirk's Festial: Edited from British Library MS Cotton Claudius A.II , vol. 1, EETS, o.s., 334 (Oxford, 2009), 114–17. For a discussion of Mirk's life and sermon collection, see Powell's introduction, xix–xliii, and Wenzel, Siegfried, Latin Sermon Collections from Later Medieval England: Orthodox Preaching in the Age of Wyclif (Cambridge, 2005), 58–65.Google Scholar
7 Powell, , John Mirk's Festial, 114.Google Scholar
8 Ibid., 115.Google Scholar
9 Ibid. Google Scholar
10 This sermon collection is extant in one manuscript, Hereford Cathedral Library, MS O.iii.5. The manuscript is described in Mynors, R. A. B. and Thomson, R. M., Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Hereford Cathedral Library (Woodbridge, 1993), 19–20. The collection has been discussed by Wenzel, , Latin Sermon Collections, 159–65, and inventoried on 461–65. See also Fletcher's, Alan J. discussion of the manuscript (which includes two edited sermons) in Late Medieval Popular Preaching in Britain and Ireland: Texts, Studies, and Interpretations, Sermo 5 (Turnhout, 2009), 109–44.Google Scholar
11 “Memoria et racio sunt quasi postes, et voluntas e[s]t superluminare quia sicut quamuis postes hostii domus auferantur ad huc si superluminare sit fixum firmiter in pariete supportans /parietem\ et mereuium domus non cadit. Set quando superluminare cadit homines fugierunt a domo quia tunc est signum ruine domus” (Hereford, Cathedral Library, MS O.iii.5, fol. 3vb). This is Sermon 2 of the collection. The complete sermon is on fols. 2rb–5ra .Google Scholar
12 “Certe ille qui est in mortali peccato vel in proposito redeundi ad mortale peccatum hoc sacramentum presumpserit sumere maius dedicus quantum in se est facit domino suo quam si dominum suum contentum in hoc venerabili sacramento in latrinam vilissimam proiceret” (ibid., fol. 4va).Google Scholar
13 This sermon has been translated by Wenzel, Siegfried ( Preaching in the Age of Chaucer: Selected Sermons in Translation, Medieval Texts in Translation [Washington, DC, 2008], 133–43). For a discussion of Felton as preacher and of his sermon collection, see Fletcher, Alan J., “‘Magnus predicator et deuotus’: A Profile of the Life, Work, and Influence of the Fifteenth-Century Oxford Preacher, John Felton,” Mediaeval Studies 53 (1991): 125–75; repr. in idem, Preaching, Politics and Poetry in Late-Medieval England (Dublin, 1998), 58–118. See also Wenzel, , Latin Sermon Collections, 54–57. For an inventory of Felton's sermon collection, based on Lincoln Cathedral MS 204, see ibid., 479–84.Google Scholar
14 Wenzel, , Preaching in the Age of Chaucer , 140.Google Scholar
15 Ibid. Google Scholar
16 Ibid., 141.Google Scholar
17 Ibid. Google Scholar
18 Ibid. Google Scholar
19 Rypon, Robert was trained at Oxford and served as subprior of Durham Priory for about two decades. His sermon collection is extant in one manuscript, BL, MS Harley 4894. For a discussion of this collection and Robert Rypon as preacher, see Wenzel, , Latin Sermon Collections , 66–73. The collection is inventoried on 587–93. I am currently working on an edition of Rypon's sermons.Google Scholar
20 See Leclercq, Jean, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture , trans. Misrahi, Catharine (New York, 1961), 73.Google Scholar
21 Dictum 97: “frequencia meditacionis … masticatum, et igne caritatis et tribulacionis assum, fugat omnem morbum qui solet provenire ex morsu detractorum.” The Dicta of Grosseteste, Robert are available via The Electronic Grosseteste , http://www.grosseteste.com/dicta.htm. They have been transcribed by Westermann, Edwin J. and Goering, Joseph, based on Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 798 (s.c. 2656). See Goering's explanation of this edition at http://www.grosseteste.com/dicta-source.htm.Google Scholar
22 “Christus in sua passione assus in igne maxime tribulacionis et doloris” (BL, MS Harley 4894, fol. 142v).Google Scholar
23 “Frumentum antequam fiat panis teritur inter molas, malaxatur cum manibus et digitis varie compressatur antequam formam panis acceperit et tandem ad assandum in furnum proicitur, ita eciam Christus panis terebatur inter molas quarum inferior fuit malicia Iudeorum quasi mola inferior fixa contra eum. Mola superior fuit sue malicie persecucio actualis; malaxacio eius fuerunt percuciones alaparum, flagellorum, coronacio spinarum, tincciones clauorum super crucem et sic in furnum ignem passionis et mortis missus et assus, plene factus est panis…. Masticetur iste panis et bene discernatur et in memoria habeatur et non dubium quin omnes morsus diaboli vacuabit” (ibid.).Google Scholar
24 It is also traditional. See Bynum, Caroline Walker, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, 1987), 48–51. Bynum quotes an early Easter hymn (fourth to sixth century) that evokes an image of Christ's body “roasted on the altar of the cross” (ibid., 49).Google Scholar
25 For this term, see Hodapp, William F., “Ritual and Performance in Richard Rolle's Passion Meditation B,” in Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality , ed. Suydam, Mary A. and Ziegler, Joanna E. (New York, 1999), 241–72, at 242.Google Scholar
26 Rypon apparently preached before a variety of audiences, often including the laity and/or secular clergy. His audience is occasionally named in a sermon but more often it is merely implied by his content and emphases. For the preaching activity of the monks of Durham, particularly Rypon's, see Harvey, Margaret, Lay Religious Life in Late Medieval Durham (Woodbridge, UK, 2006), 125–28.Google Scholar
27 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat.th.d.1 has been discussed by Owst, Gerald R., Preaching in Medieval England: An Introduction to Sermon Manuscripts of the Period c. 1350–1450 (Cambridge, 1926), 59 and passim; Wenzel, Siegfried, Macaronic Sermons: Bilingualism and Preaching in Late-Medieval England (Ann Arbor, 1994), 40–43, 165–73; Wenzel, , Latin Sermon Collections (n. 6 above), 95–99; and Fletcher, Alan J., “The Sermon Booklets of Friar Nicholas Philip,” in idem, Preaching, Politics and Poetry (n. 13 above), 41–57. The collection is inventoried in Wenzel, , Latin Sermon Collections (n. 6 above), 572–78. For a more detailed discussion of what one may be able to infer about Nicholas Philip from the manuscript associated with him, see the entry for him in van der Heijden, Maarten and Roest's, Bert online catalogue, “Franciscan Authors, 13th–18th Century: A Catalogue in Progress” [http://users.bart.nl/~roestb/franciscan/index.htm]. Van der Heijden, and Roest, use Fletcher's “Sermon Booklets” as their primary source.Google Scholar
28 Wenzel, , Latin Sermon Collections , 96.Google Scholar
29 Ibid. Google Scholar
30 Fletcher, , “Sermon Booklets,” 41.Google Scholar
31 Wenzel, , Latin Sermon Collections , 97.Google Scholar
32 Fletcher, , “Sermon Booklets,” 48.Google Scholar
33 Wenzel, , Latin Sermon Collections , 98.Google Scholar
34 For an edition of this Good Friday sermon, see Johnson, Holly, “A Fifteenth-Century Sermon Enacts the Seven Deadly Sins,” in Sin in Medieval and Early Modern Culture: The Tradition of the Seven Deadly Sins , ed. Newhauser, Richard G. and Ridyard, Susan J. (York, forthcoming).Google Scholar
35 Macaronic sermons in medieval England have been studied by Wenzel, , Macaronic Sermons ; Fletcher, Alan J., “‘Benedictus Qui Venit in Nomine Domini’: A Thirteenth-Century Sermon for Advent and the Macaronic Style in England,” Mediaeval Studies 56 (1994): 217–45; Fletcher, , Late Medieval Popular Preaching (n. 10 above); and Johnson, Holly, The Grammar of Good Friday: Macaronic Sermons of Late Medieval England, Sermo 8 (Turnhout, 2012).Google Scholar
36 See Wenzel, , Macaronic Sermons , 13–30.Google Scholar
37 Ibid., 25.Google Scholar
38 Ibid., 172.Google Scholar
39 For the function of verses in sermons, see Wenzel, Siegfried, Preachers, Poets and the Early English Lyric (Princeton, 1986); idem, Verses in Sermons: “Fasciculus Morum” and Its Middle English Poems (Cambridge, MA, 1978); and Fletcher, , Late Medieval Popular Preaching, 273–305. For the structural verses in Philip's, Nicholas Easter sermon, see Wenzel, , Preachers, Poets, 8–13 and 17–18.Google Scholar
40 On the use of the vernacular in preaching, see Leith Spencer, H., English Preaching in the Late Middle Ages (Oxford, 1993), 55–57.Google Scholar
41 For the relationship between oral delivery and the written form, see O'Mara, Veronica M. and Paul, Suzanne, A Repertorium of Middle English Prose Sermons , 4 vols., Sermo 1 (Turnhout, 2007), 1:xxvi–xxxiii. See also Wenzel, , Latin Sermon Collections, 3.Google Scholar
42 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat.th.d.1, fol. 173r.Google Scholar
43 See Appendix 1 for an outline of Qui custos est domini sui gloriabitur. Google Scholar
44 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat.th.d.1, fol. 173v.Google Scholar
45 “Quia nisi homo habuerit pulcram mansionem, cito appetit recedere de loco vbi est” (ibid.).Google Scholar
46 Ibid. Google Scholar
47 “Et bene spes comparatur to a cusschyn quia sicut homo dulciter requiescit quando super cussinum sedet, ita non dulciter quiescit anima nisi quando sperat peruenire ad id quod nec oculus vidit nec auris audit, et cetera” (ibid.).Google Scholar
48 Ibid. Google Scholar
49 Ibid. Google Scholar
50 “Nisi homo habeat fercula sufficiencia, cito recedet ab amico; sic et Christus a te nisi cibus suus bene et munde sit paratus” (ibid., fol. 174r).Google Scholar
51 “Set forte queris quomodo cibum suum parare debeas et qualem cibum desiderat. Respondeo et dico quod Christus multiformem cibum vult habere. Non enim carnes grossas vult, set in sewys delicatis multum delectatur” (ibid.).Google Scholar
52 Maumene is, according to the Middle English Dictionary (ed. Kurath, Hans et al. [Ann Arbor, 1956–2001]), a “dish composed of chopped or teased meat (usually chicken or capon), spices, and other ingredients.” The preacher apparently chose the dish for the name's association with the French “malmener,” meaning “to ill-treat, to lead astray,” not for its preparation or appearance. See the etymology for “may-menny” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Google Scholar
53 “Rys per primum intelligo resurreccionem a peccato; maumene per secundum contricionem de peccato; blanmanger per tercium considero contemplacionem supernorum; and a sarsine per quartum contemplacionem inferorum” (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat.th.d.1, fol. 174r).Google Scholar
54 Blancmange is a dish made of chopped chicken or fish boiled in rice using almond milk. It was associated with expensive feasts, as suggested here. For fifteenth-century recipes for its preparation, see Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books , ed. Austin, Thomas, EETS, o.s., 91 (London, 1888, repr. 1964), 21, 23–24, 85.Google Scholar
55 “Et bene sarsine horrorem in aspectu tamen gustum habet delectabilem et saporem bonum” (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat.th.d.1, fol. 174v). According to a fifteenth-century cookery book, a sarsine or sareson is a dish that involves almond milk, rice flour, and boiled pork or capon, or “Hennys smale y-grounde,” along with sugar and ginger. See Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, 19.Google Scholar
56 “Primum ergo ferculum quod facere oportet Christo ad hoc quod tecum maneat est ry3s, et per istos ry3s intelligo resurreccionem a peccato” (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat.th.d.1, fol. 174r).Google Scholar
57 “Primo accipe amigdala et excoria illa, deinde tere amigdala in mortariolo, eciam tempera cum aqua, et facta est. Moraliter per amigdala intendo opera tua, per ry3s, que sunt genera subtilia, intendo cogitaciones tuas. Accipe ergo amigdala, id est, opera tua, et excoria ista si quid peccati in eis est. Accipe eciam ry3s, id est, cogitaciones tuas, et si quid viciosum est, eice. Vtraque tere in mortariolo cordis tui cum pestello crucis Christi cogitando qualia pro te fecit. Et si cor tuum carnium sit, aquam infunde pro peccatis, et si sic feceris, ry3s habebis optimum cum quibus Christus libenter pascitur” (ibid.).Google Scholar
58 Ibid., fol. 174v.Google Scholar
59 “Nam qualiter aliqui lucrabantur, invenio sic quod aliqui patrum sanctorum vix vnciam panis commederunt propter ipsum, aliqui nec panem nec huiusmodi set solum cortices et radices, alii qui continue per triennium in eodem loco nec mouebant se nec pausabant lacrimis et ieiuniis et vigiliis semper insistentes sic, et alii propter ipsum sunt oculis priuati, alii capite truncati, alii intestinis exinterati vel euicerati, alii crucifixi et flagellati” (ibid.).Google Scholar
60 Ibid., fol. 175r.Google Scholar
61 “Primam habent mercatores de pauperibus quos decipiunt. Secundum est qualem habent domini cum seruis quos sibi subiciunt per seruitutem” (ibid.).Google Scholar
62 “Set queris qualem melodiam sibi facere debeas. Respondeo, accipe cor tuum tamquam instrumentum musicum, et id cum bona contricione et confessione tempera, et sic secure Deo clames” (ibid.).Google Scholar
63 A similar verse prayer concludes the Good Friday sermon immediately preceding this one. See Johnson, , “A Fifteenth-Century Sermon” (n. 34 above).Google Scholar
64 For more elaborate examples of the use of this metaphor, see Johnson, Holly, “God's Music-Making: The Cross-Harp Metaphor in Late-Medieval Preaching,” Medieval Perspectives 22 (2007 [2011]): 48–59.Google Scholar
65 The Book of Margery Kempe (n. 1 above), 173.Google Scholar
1 Qui custos … Prouerbiorum 27] Prov. 27:18 Google Scholar
2 suum venit] suum venit repeated Google Scholar
3 pugna] pungna Google Scholar
4 Delicie mee … hominum] Prov. 8:31 Google Scholar
5 infideles] fideles Google Scholar
6 homo] homine Google Scholar
7 mundus] munde Google Scholar
8 spiritualiter] sic, but may be a misreading of specialiter Google Scholar
9 extensam sicud] excensam istud Google Scholar
10 nec oculus … et cetera] cf. 1 Cor. 2:9 Google Scholar
11 He þat] þat written twice Google Scholar
12 habuerit] habuerint Google Scholar
13 Si] set Google Scholar
14 fatuus es … vnde venisti] The scribe skipped a line before recording these verses and so he has marked them for insertion in the proper place with the word hic Google Scholar
15 Finitur … ita] This is an apparent scribal error for the proverbial saying “Finita vita, finit amicus ita”. Google Scholar
16 Omnes qui … paciuntur] 2 Tim. 3:12 Google Scholar
17 horribus] horribus is preceded by horrobilibus Google Scholar
18 Ubi … est] An antiphon chanted during the Holy Thursday liturgy Google Scholar
19 Tercium patet … amicicia] The scribe has switched the second and third explanation Google Scholar
20 sit] i.e., scit Google Scholar
21 homine] appears to be an abbreviation for domino Google Scholar
22 multiples] i.e., multiplex Google Scholar