¹ An early version of this essay was read to the Oxford University Mediaeval Society in Hilary Term 1982. I am grateful for the scrutiny given that paper by my colleagues W. Lad Sessions and Harlan R. Beckley.Google Scholar

² Expositio interlinearis libri Job cap. 1 (PL 23.1409). Even when a blasphemer does speak in these exempla, like the knight of Caesarius of Heisterbach who angrily says of a gathering thunderstorm, ‘Ecce ubi iterum diabolus ascendit,’ writers do not explain why they consider the words blasphemous (Dialogus miraculorum [ed. J. Strange; Cologne 1851] I 192).Google Scholar

³ The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (edd. M. Andrew and R. Waldron; London 1978) 179; Geoffrey Chaucer, Works (ed. F. N. Robinson, 2nd ed.; London 1957) 150; R. Henryson, Poems (ed. D. Fox; Oxford 1981) 115.Google Scholar

⁴ Treason Against God: A History of the Offence of Blasphemy (New York 1981) xiv. Although this thesis appears in his introduction, it is argued at length on pp. 103–21. The one exception to Levy's principle in selecting sources is the Summa theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose distinctions between heresy and blasphemy Levy finds contrived. I have not attempted to argue systematically against Levy's thesis below, but where distinctions between heresy and blasphemy would help to elucidate the latter, I have registered them in the text and in footnotes.Google Scholar

⁵ Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation (Princeton 1977). The intent and use of the summae is debated by Tentler and L. Boyle in three essays printed in The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion (edd. C. Trinkaus and H. Oberman; Leiden 1974) 103–37.Google Scholar

⁶ By enjoining regular confession and preaching on morals, ecclesiastical laws, both papal and provincial, provided one impetus for writing and using these various types of pastoral literature. In England one statute, Canon 9 of the Lambeth Constitutiones of 1281, actually binds the priest to declare, as he expounds the Decalogue four times yearly, that the Second Commandment prohibits blasphemy (Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church [edd. F. M. Powicke and C. R. Cheney; Oxford 1964] II 902). S. Wenzel briefly discusses the various English statutes in ‘Virtues, Vices, and Popular Preaching,’ Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (1976) 29–30.Google Scholar

⁷ Since so many pastoral works are anonymous or are attributed to different authors in different manuscripts, this meant, in effect, examining all of those works which survive in English libraries except for ones which are attributed with certainty to Continental authors and occur in only a few manuscripts. (A confession: I did not track down, among the 250 or so potential sources, a very few unlikely ones lodged in outlying cathedral and public libraries.) To identify these sources, I relied chiefly on M. Bloomfield et al., Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices, 1100–1500 A.D. (Cambridge, Mass. 1979) and P. S. Joliffe, A Checklist of Middle English Prose Writings of Spiritual Guidance (Toronto 1974), supplementing the latter with general catechetical works cited by M. Bloomfield in The Seven Deadly Sins (East Lansing, Mich. 1952) and S. Wenzel in The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill 1967). Manuscript citations below begin with the incipits as given in Bloomfield and Joliffe; I have regarded the number of manuscripts they record as some indication of a work's popularity.Google Scholar

⁸ Toward Understanding Saint Thomas (trans. A. M. Landry and D. Hughes; Chicago 1964) 127.Google Scholar

⁹ These aphoristic sententiae, memorable as well as often repeated, may very well have been recalled and used by themselves in homiletic asides, in catechetical sessions, and in the confessional. Nevertheless, in the few sermons I have come across they are developed along the lines which the major treatises set down, just as are common metaphors, exempla, and Biblical passages. Indeed, these sermons, as I trust this study will demonstrate in passing, often quote extensively from the treatises.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Sin and Confession 51.Google Scholar

¹¹ While these citations do add the weight of authority to statements, they also serve to direct the reader to the originale, the whole work from which the sententiae are extracted. R. H. Rouse and A. A. Goddu note, in their study of how Gerald of Wales uses the Florilegium angelicum, that while eleventh- and twelfth-century writers clearly preferred the extract to the originale, in the next two centuries literate people began to recognize that the whole work should be read: ‘Gerald of Wales and the Florilegium angelicum,’ Speculum 52 (1977) 520.Google Scholar

¹² Tentler, , Sin and Confession XV. Wyclif's little exercise in etymology occurs in Tractatus de blasphemia (ed. M. H. Dziewicki; London 1893) 1.Google Scholar

¹³ Aquinas, Thomas, Summa theologiae XXXII (Blackfriars ed.; London 1975) 104. All passages quoted below are taken from this edition.Google Scholar

¹⁴ E.g., Nicholas of Ausimo, Supplementum summae pisanellae (inc.: Quoniam summa que magistratia [magistrata] seu pisanella vulgariter nuncupatur) (Venice 1474), unpaged but under Blasfemia. Tentler records the early publication history of these summae in Sin and Confession 106–7. Blasphemy is often presented as a sin to be confessed in the various formulae — often just schematized lists of sins — designed to direct priest and penitent as they work toward ‘a complete confession.’ For example, blasphemy is listed three times in a Middle English treatise (inc.: I counceile you to be sorie for Ʒoure synne & to aske god of heuene mercie) St. John's College Cambridge MS S.35 (257) fols. 2^r, 11^v, 32^v.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Provinciale seu constitutiones angliae (Oxford 1679) 55. An instance from each type of literature: treatise on the vices (inc.: Vidi mulierem sedentem supra bestiam… . Hec est bestia quam Iohannes vidit in spiritu, super quam sedens mulier) often entitled Tractates de vitiis and attributed to Henry of Frimaria, Bodleian MS Hamilton 30 fol. 122^v; manual for parish priests (inc.: Superbia virtuti humilitatis inimica contraria et primum vitium capitale, radix omnium) often entitled Lucerna conscientiae, Bodleian MS Bodl. 801 fol. 38^r; dictionary (inc.: Absolutio dicitur tripliciter, scilicet absolutio auctoritativa) often entitled Rosarium theologie, British Library MS Harl. 3226 fol. 23^r.Google Scholar

¹⁶ The authorship of the Summa is uncertain. It has been published in the twentieth century as Alexandri de Hales Summa theologica (4 vols.; Quaracchi 1924–48), and citations are to this modern text. This sententia appears in II–II inq. 3 tr. 3 sect. 2 q.11 c.1 (ed. cit. III 464). See also Albert the Great, Summa theologica II tr. 23 q.140 membr. 3 a.1 (Opera Omnia ed. S. Borgnet; XXXIII [Paris 1895] 474). The sententia is often attributed to Ambrose or Augustine, but I have been unable to locate even a faintly similar passage in either, given present indices. Differently worded versions of it appear in several works by writers roughly contemporaneous with the Summa fratris Alexandri: Guillaume Peyraut, Summa de viciis (inc.: Dicturi de singulis vitiis, cum oportunitas se offert, incipiemus a vitio gule) (Cologne 1479) fol. F₂ ^v; Hugh of St. Cher, Postilla in Textum bibliae, cum postilla domini Hugonis (Paris 1538) VI fol. 199^v.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Part VI fol 199^v.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Provinciale 55. This gloss also appears in the fifteenth-century treatise often entitled Speculum spiritualium (inc: Superbia nihil aliud est quam amor proprie excellencie, id est proprii honoris) (Paris 1510) fol. 43^v; a Middle English version is included in the treatise (inc.: Vnwilfully he deyethe. Þat. hathe. not lerned to deye) often entitled Disce mori, Bodleian MS Laud misc. 99 fol. 90^r. In all three versions the lack of grammatical parallelism (misericordiam, justitiam, ejus majestatem) makes it difficult to determine whether mercy and justice are divine qualities denied by the blasphemer (‘God is unjust’) or qualities he violates in uttering such ‘non-conformable’ statements about God (To remove something from God is to speak unjustly about him). Carpenter's illustrations of the first two species, probably written in the decade before Lyndwood's glosses, support the first reading by offering an expansive and unmistakably clear parallel to it, but this gloss remains, finally, an ambiguous piece of evidence.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Inc.: Omne peccatum, ut dicit beatus Augustinus Contra Faustum, est dictum vel factum vel concupitum contra legem Dei (Cologne 1485) fols. C_ii ^v–C_iii ^r. All subsequent references to Carpenter will appear in the text when possible.Google Scholar

²⁰ This clause comes from the g oss in the treatise often entitled Septuplum de septem mortalibus peccatis cum glossa iuris (inc.: Subiectivam tabulam fragilitatis humanae in mundi) University College Oxford MS 71 fol. 93^r. (The section on blasphemy in this text also occurs in the Septuplum of John Acton [inc.: Superbia radix vitiorum et initium omnis peccati] Caius College Cambridge MS 282/675 fols. 43^v–44^v.)Google Scholar

²¹ Summa fol. F₂ ^v. All subsequent references to the Summa will appear in the text when possible. A slightly abbreviated version of Peyraut's exposition of blasphemy appears in the tract (inc.: Nisi hoc vicium) entitled Liber de septem vitiis capitalibus, British Library MS Harl. 1207 fols. 152^r–153^v.Google Scholar

²² Quadragesimale tripartitum (Nuremberg 1481) 35 K.Google Scholar

²³ On Jesus ‘blasphemously’ forgiving sins: Herolt, John, Sermones discipuli (Strasbourg 1488) fol. D₂ ^r; John Wyclif, De blasphemia (ed. cit. 1). On the pardoners: the homily (inc.: Scitis que precepta dederim vobis) New College Oxford MS fol. 1^v.Google Scholar

²⁴ Coleman, J., English Literature in History, 1350–1400 (London 1981) 235.Google Scholar

²⁵ The exegetes, of course, did develop other short definitions, but after examining virtually all the commentaries on relevant Biblical passages printed in Migne's Patrologia latina, I can say that all except these two were short-lived or, at least, used infrequently. One sententia on blasphemy attributed to Jerome was revived not by the schoolmen but by the writers of manuals and short treatises on the sins: ‘Blasphemia que est verborum contra deum inordinata prolacio’ in the treatise (inc.: Primo videndum est quid sit peccatum secundo de nominibus) often entitled Summa vitiorum capitalium and attributed to Roger Sheepshead, Corpus Christi College Oxford MS 231 fol. 47^v. This is so general a statement that it is never used alone; it usually prefaces the sententia of Haymo below and the three species as the first in a series of increasingly specific definitions (e.g., in Carpenter, fol. k_iii ^v, or in the set of theological definitions beginning: Avaritia est amor immoderatus habendi bona temporalia, Peterhouse College Cambridge MS 236 fol. 8^r). I cannot unearth this sententia in Jerome's works, although he does use the verb proferre while discussing blasphemy in his commentary on Mt. 12.31–32 (PL 26.81).Google Scholar

²⁶ Biblia sacra cum Glossa interlineari, ordinaria … ad Eph. 4.31 (ed. Venice 1588; VI fol. 95^r). This definition is derived from Augustine's much-cited distinction between perjury and blasphemy: ‘… ideo autem peius est blasphemare quam peierare, quoniam peierando falsae rei adhibetur testis deus, blasphemando autem de ipso deo falsa dicuntur’ (Contra Mendacium 19.39 [CSEL 41.524]). Summa fratris Alexandri (ed. cit. III 464); Albert the Great, Summa (ed. cit. XXXIII 474).Google Scholar

²⁷ This definition is used by the commentator to gloss the verb blasphemare in Is. 1.4 (PL 116.719). The later medieval writers’ choice of this sententia may have been influenced by the Victorine Tractatus de spiritu blasphemiae, which places blasphemy among those sins which have to do ‘specialiter ad contumeliam divinam’ (PL 196.1188). Another sententia on blasphemy which focusses on insult sometimes appears in conjunction with this formula in pastoral literature: ‘Blasphemia est cum quadam probrosa irreligiositate conuiciorum iaculata in alterum malediciis’ (the encyclopedia entitled Omne bonum, British Library MS Royal 6.E.vi fol. 200^v).Google Scholar

²⁸ Aquinas’ statement that blasphemy involves derogatio divinae bonitatis is echoed, among many other places, in the Septuplum (fol. 92^v) and in the Lucerna conscientiae (fol. 38^r), where justice and power are listed as those attributes most commonly disparaged by the blasphemer. Wyclif's argument is made in Tractatus de mandatis divinis (edd. J. Loserth and F. D. Matthew [London 1922] 387).Google Scholar

²⁹ Diffamare in the Latin version of St. John Climacus’ Scala paradisi as it is included in the commentary of Denis the Carthusian, Opera omnia XXVIII (Montreuil and Tournay 1905) 319; infamare in the ninth-century Expositio in Matthaeum of Christianus Druthmarus (PL 106.1389).Google Scholar

³⁰ Inc.: Lingua congruit in duo opera naturae scilicet in gustum et in locucionem, Oriel College Oxford MS 20 fol. 174^v. All subsequent references to De lingua will appear in the text where possible. (A slightly abbreviated version of its chapter on blasphemy forms the entry for blasphemia in a series of theological distinctiones beginning: Accidia. Adversatur hominis salvatio, Cambridge University MS Ii. 1.30.)Google Scholar

³¹ As derogatio divinae bonitatis, blasphemy could be non-verbal, as well as verbal, although all the pastoral writers focus on the latter. Blasphemy, they all grant, can occur in the mind alone (blasphemia cordis), without spilling into speech (blasphemia oris). As such, blasphemous thoughts are often seen as a prelude to verbal blasphemy (Aquinas, Summa II–II.13.1; Speculum morale [inc.: In omnibus operibus tuis memorare nouissima tua …. Humanus genus tria incommoda per peccatum primi hominis incurrisse] [Venice 1493] fol. 202^v). Some writers add that blasphemy may also be committed in deed, following the ancient formula that one can sin in thought, word, and deed. Blasphemy, it is often said, can be committed in three ways: ‘male de domino sentire uel mala de eo proferre uel irreuerenter sacramenta tractare’ (Sheepshead, Summa fol. 47^v).Google Scholar

³² De blasphemia (ed. cit. 1).Google Scholar

³³ In this respect blasphemy differs from heresy in Aquinas’ thinking. The blasphemer falsifies in some way only God's moral nature or his stature, whereas the heretic promulgates a false opinion about any article of faith or a closely related position, like the resurrection from the dead (II–II.11.2). (For other Aquinan distinctions between heresy and blasphemy, see p. 158 below.) This is not, of course, a watertight distinction. A denial of some central doctrines could be seen as a reflection of God's moral qualities. So, William of Auvergne, the master of theology who became the archbishop of Paris in 1228, can argue that to deny the incarnation or passion of Christ is to blaspheme ‘contra Dei bonitatem’ because such a denial places limits on God's mercy and his largitas (Tractatus de fide et legibus in Opera omnia [Venice 1591] fol. B_i ^v). — Aquinas notwithstanding, some late medieval texts do not attempt to make any distinction between blasphemy and heresy. As in the patristic period and earlier Middle Ages (Levy, Treason 103–21), the term blasphemia is sometimes loosely used to stigmatize especially abhorrent heretical teaching about God himself (e.g., in John Capgraves’ Ye Solace of Pilgrimes [ed. C. A. Mills; Oxford 1911] 95). This loose usage may have been influenced by the very general definition of blasphemy in the much-copied and translated Somme le roi of Lorent d'Orléans (1270s), which in its brief passage on blasphemy shows no debt to the scholastics or to the similar ideas of Peyraut: ‘Blasphemye is a word, as seynt Austeyn seiþ, whan a man bileueþ or seiþ of God Þing Þat a man scholde not bileue ne holde ne seye, or whan a man ne bileueþ nouƷat he scholde holde’ (The Book of Vices and Virtues [ed. W. N. Francis, EETS os 217; London 1942] 67. This treatise is one of nine Middle English versions of the Somme). Following this definition, the heretic is listed as one type of person who commits such blasphemy. In contrast to this, heretical speech is never termed blasphemy in other treatises which deal with blasphemia; indeed, they often distinguish blasphemy from heresy as they expound the nature of the former (e.g., Peyraut, Summa fol. F₄ ^v). Heretical thoughts and writings, however, are called blasphemy in the Speculum morale (fol. 202^v) and in one discussion of blasphemy derived from it, an anonymous treatise on the virtues and vices (inc.: Dicturi de septem viciis primo dicemus de superbia) Caius College Cambridge MS 402/411 fol. 307^r. — This loose use of blasphemia to characterize heretical thoughts may also have been influenced by the practice of a few pastoral writers who ascribe blasphemia cordis to the spirit of blasphemy, a diabolical agent which tempts the resisting soul to disbelieve a ‘difficult’ doctrine like the incarnation or transubstantiation. This spirit of blasphemy may well be a residue of earlier Christian ideas about blasphemy, for it appears largely in exempla, some of which are extracted from early sources like the Vitae patrum (e.g., Peyraut, Summa fol. F₅ ^v). (Curiously, all of these exempla I have seen come from monastic life, unlike exempla on blasphemy in general. It is the solitary, the anchoress and the hermit, or it is the novice who is so tempted.) Material on this spirit of blasphemy is rarely incorporated into articles on blasphemia proper. Of my over 80 basic sources, only three do so: Peyraut's Summa (just one exemplum of blasphemia cordis), and a Middle English treatise on the virtues and vices beginning ‘frende ne sybbe who so byholdeth hys lothely lokys And hys outward countenaunce’ (which also contains only that exemplum), in British Library MS Add. 30944 fol. 136^r-v), and the Speculum spiritualium (fol. 43^v), while only two closely related catechetical treatises have separate chapters on the spirit of blasphemy itself: Disce mori (fols. 90^rff.) and Ignorancia sacerdotum (inc.: For as moche as after at. I. nameles had red e golden and famous glose) Bodleian MS eng. th. c.57 fols. 107^vff. Interestingly enough, these last three treatises also include the general definition of blasphemia from the Somme le roi in a section on the sins of the tongue lifted wholesale from the Somme or a Middle English version of it.Google Scholar

³⁴ Because blasphemy is committed directly against God's own person, it is placed by pastoral writers among the most serious kind of sins and, often, declared to be ‘quasi irremissibile.’ See De lingua fol. 174^v: and the summa (inc.: Quia ut ait sapiens) on the vices attributed to William of Paris, British Library MS Harl. 3823 fol. 198^v.Google Scholar

³⁵ De blasphemia (ed. cit. 1).Google Scholar

³⁶ Bodleian MS Eng. poet. d. 5 fol. 196^v.Google Scholar

³⁷ Dives & Pauper (London 1496) fols. f_vi ^v–f_vii ^r.Google Scholar

³⁸ Corpus iuris canonici (ed. Ae. Friedberg; Leipzig 1879) I col. 863.Google Scholar

³⁹ Toward Understanding Saint Thomas 140–41.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Speculum fols. 202^v–203^r. All subsequent references to the Speculum will appear in the text when possible. Besides this text, only an anonymous treatise on the virtues and vices derived from it treats abjuring God and giving oneself to the devil as types of blasphemous speech, although a few collections of exempla include instances of such utterances under the heading blasphemia. Neither the Speculum nor these collections make any attempts to explain how such speech constitutes blasphemy, although the anonymous treatise does claim that both abjuring God and returning oneself to the devil are blasphemy because they perversely lacerate the membra of Christ and treat lightly such benefits as the incarnation and the passion (Caius College Cambridge MS 402/411 fol. 308^r). Occasionally perjury is also said to be blasphemy, as when Carpenter claims that the perjurer takes God as his witness, thus making him false and taking away his divinity (Destructorium fol. k_ii ^v). Such arguments for perjury generally follow this practice of detecting in it one element of blasphemy as it is set forth in pastoral literature.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Praeceptorium (inc.: Audi, Israel, precepta Domini … in verbis propositis Spiritus sanctus circa diuina precepta tria tangit) Bodleian MS Laud misc. 12 fol. 16^r.Google Scholar

⁴² Inc.: Non assumes nomen Dei. Notandum quod in vanum vel frustra fieri dicitur, Bodleian MS Laud misc. 524 fols. 67^v–68^r. God's superiority as a being is also stressed in the Speculum morale, which describes God, as the object of blasphemy, with a string of superlatives: ‘… regi summo. et pontifici altissimo et nobilissimo patri potentissimo et eterno’ (fol. 204^r).Google Scholar

⁴³ Bodleian MS Hamilton 30 fol. 123^r.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Jacob's Well (ed. A. Brandeis, EETS os 115; London 1900) Part I 94.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ De casibus illustrium virorum (Paris 1520; rpt. Gainesville, Fla. 1962) 199.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Aquinas says much the same thing, although less precisely, as he comments on blasphemia in the list of vices in Col. 3.8 (Super epistolas S. Pauli lectura [ed. R. Cai, 8th ed.; Rome 1953] II 153). Cf. Summa fratris Alexandri (ed. cit. III 466).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Aquinas’ argument, for example, is quoted almost exactly by John of Freiburg in the treatise (inc.: Saluti animarum et proximorum utilitati secundum ordinis mei professionem fraterna caritate proficere cupiens) often entitled Summa confessorum (Lyon 1518) fol. 207^v; Astesanus of Asti in the summa (inc.: Bonorum laborum gloriosus est fructus. Nullus autem labor) Summa de casibus conscientiae, Bodleian MS Canon misc. 208 fol. 115^v; and the Speculum morale fol. 203^r; Septuplum fol. 93^v; De lingua fols. 174^v–175^r.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ I have traced this sententia back to a commentary attributed to Jerome, which uses it to gloss Isaiah 18.2 (PL 24.247).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Exempla (ed. T. F. Crane, Folklore Society 26; London 1890) 124.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ PL 196.1183. The Victorine treatise does not relate this longing to cast insults at God to the spirit of blasphemy which tempts believers to reject a particular doctrine in their thoughts (n. 33).Google Scholar

⁵¹ For example, John of Saxonia (England ?) in his Summa de vitiis et preceptis (inc.: Rogatus a fratribus quod eis formulam de confessionibus audendis traderem) Oriel College Oxford MS 38, fol. 13^v. The arguments of the Victorine treatise are followed with particular care by Johann Gritsch in his sermon on blasphemy (Quadragesimale tripartitum 35P) and are quoted with approval by the Summa fratris Alexandri in its often-cited quaestio on blasphemy (ed. cit. III 467).Google Scholar

⁵² Some pastoral works which quote from the Summa on detestatio: Carpenter's Destructorium fol. C_iii ^r, Septuplum fol. 93^r, Speculum morale fol. 203^r, Astesanus of Asti's Summa fols. 114^v–115^r.Google Scholar

⁵³ Isidore classified blasphemy as a daughter of pride in Quaestiones in vetus testamentum (PL 83.366–67), not in his scheme of the eight principal vices in the Differentia. Aquinas explains that blasphemy arises from pride because ‘initium superbiae hominis apositare a Deo; id est recedere a veneratione ejus est prima superbiae pars’ (II–II.158.8).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Antiochus appears in De lingua fol. 176^r, the proud clerk in The Alphabet of Tales (ed. M. M. Banks, EETS os 126; London 1904) part I 82–83.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Moralia 36.45 (PL 76.621). Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins 72–90.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Compendium in Opera omnia of Albert the Great (ed. cit. XXXIV 109). This sententia appears earlier in the Summa de vitiis of John of la Rochelle, who died in 1245 (inc.: Cum summa theologice discipline diuisa sit in duas partes, scilicet in fidem et mores) Bodleian MS Laud misc. 221 fol. 42^v, and later, among many other places, in Jean Gerson's Enumeratio peccatorum ab Alberto posita (Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux; IX [Paris 1973] 160).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ The discussion of anger and its filiae occurs on pp. 108–9 of the Compendium, the discussion of sin in general on pp. 92–97. Augustine's definition, drawn from several ancient writers, is given in Sermo 58 (PL 38.396) and De civitate Dei (CCL 48.2 438).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Anecdotes historiques légendes et apologues tirés de recueil inédit d’Étienne de Bourbon (ed. A. Lecoy de la Marche, Société de l'Histoire de France 57; Paris 1877) 341. This exemplum is also told to illustrate vengeance for a supposed injury inflicted by God in Henry of Frimaria's Tractatus (fol. 123^r).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Jacob's Well 79.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ This retelling of the exemplum comes from Caxton's Doctrinall of sapience (Westminster 1489) fol. E_vi ^r.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Although proprie dicta blasphemy which springs from this deep-seated aversion to God's nature is spoken against him alone, the schoolmen and pastoral writers agree that it can extenso nomine be spoken against the saints (especially the Virgin), the church and its prelates, and all created things. This extended sense of blasphemy has ample warrant in the Bible, where Israel and the early Christians are frequently blasphemed by their enemies (e.g., 2 Reg. 21.21; 2 Mach. 10.35; 1 Cor. 4.12 and 13). Blasphemy against the saints, late medieval writers reason, redounds against God, for he is the giver of sanctity, while blasphemy against any created thing redounds to God as its creator (Aquinas, II–II.13.1; Summa fratris Alexandri [ed. cit. III 464]; Bartholomew of Chaimis, Interrogatorium siue confessionale [Nuremberg 1482] fol. 47^r; De lingua fol. 174^v). So, collectors of exempla can routinely include anecdotes of blasphemy against the Virgin, and the much-used sententia defines blasphemy as ‘opprobrium Deo et sanctis illatum.’ Such blasphemy against the saints is also like blasphemy directly committed against God in that it is intended to defame them by falsely attributing evil to them (Omne bonum fol. 200^v). Naturally this extended sense of blasphemy was stretched yet further by people who wanted to portray themselves as innocent victims of malicious slander. James II of Scotland, for example, informed the Scottish Parliament in 1452 that rebels and rivals were attempting to ‘blaspheme’ him; cf. Nicholson, R., Scotland: The Late Middle Ages (The Edinburgh History of Scotland 2; Edinburgh 1974) 363.Google Scholar

⁶² Biblia sacra cum Glossa interlineari, ordinaria … ad Is. 37.37 (ed. Venice 1588; IV fol. 67^v). It is not surprising that the story of Sennacherib is so often recalled in expositions of blasphemy, for it is narrated at length three times in the Old Testament (4 Reg. 18 and 19; 2 Par. 32; Is. 37), while Sennacherib's blasphemy is cited twice later (Tob. 1.21; 1 Mach. 7.41).Google Scholar

⁶³ The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript 178–79, 180. P. Doob observes that the poet has made Nabugodenazor's punishment for blasphemy alone by dropping the traditional one year which intervened between his blasphemy and his madness, in her Nebuchadnezzar's Children: Conventions of Madness in Middle English Literature (New Haven 1974) 84.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the XIVth and XVth Centuries (London 1924) 146. The passage appears at the end of Huizinga's extended argument that extreme familiarity with holy things prompted people in the late Middle Ages to mix insolently the profane and the sacred in debauchery on pilgrimages, drunkenness at vigils, and the like (pp. 136–46).Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Eliot's apothegm on blasphemy, which has to do primarily with Byronic Satanism, appears in ‘Baudelaire,’ Selected Essays (3rd ed.; London 1972) 421. Aquinas defines infidelitas in II–II.10, while his contention that blasphemy is a vice opposed to faith runs throughout his quaestio on blasphemy (II–II.13). Among the works which echo this contention are the Summa of Astesanus of Asti (fol. 115^r) and the Speculum morale (fol. 203^r).Google Scholar