¹ I thank the staffs of the Rare Book Room of the Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania (especially Christine Ruggere), the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Department of Western Manuscripts of the British Library for access to early books and manuscripts; Siegfried Wenzel for bibliographical assistance and comments on a draft, as well as generous loans of microfilm; Peters, Edward M., Lynn Hollen Lees, and Karras, Christopher G. for comments on an earlier draft; Mazo, Robert M. for help with the statistics; an anonymous reader for very helpful comments on style as well as content; and Brown, Elizabeth A. R. for a patient but firm editorial guidance. The portion of the research carried out in the British Library was supported by grants from the American Philosophical Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities.Google Scholar

² Monastic or fraternal antifeminist diatribes may be directed against woman as metaphor for the world and the flesh in general, but as Joan Ferrante, Woman as Image in Medieval Literature (New York 1975) 1, argues, although women in literature ‘are symbols, aspects of philosophical and psychological problems that trouble the male world, … the embodiment of these forces and values in female figures is significant.’Google Scholar

³ On the genre, see Claude Bremond, Jacques Le Goff and Jean-Claude Schmitt, L'Exemplum (Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental 40; Turnhout 1982); Rhétorique et histoire: L'Exemplum’ et le modèle de comportement dans le discours antique et médiéval (Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, Moyen âge – temps modernes 92; Rome 1980); J.-Th. Welter, L'Exemplum dans la littérature religieuse et didactique du moyen survive, and evidence from sermons and other didactic works shows that authors did indeed rely on these collections.⁴ The use of handbooks meant that patterns in preaching developed: those who employed a particular sermon aid borrowed its interpretation of the Bible and the church's moral teaching. The same tales made the same points over and over again, and helped shape the way in which lay men and women thought about their world.⁵ The preachers who used them may or may not have reflected the popular view of gender, but they certainly helped constitute it.⁶ âge (Paris 1927); Joseph Herbert Mosher, The Exemplum in Early Religious and Didactic Literature of England (New York 1911). For exempla and the history of mentalities, see, e.g., Jacques Le Goff, Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages (trans. Patricia Ranum; New York 1988); Jean-Claude Schmitt, The Holy Greyhound: Guinefort, Healer of Children Since the Thirteenth Century (trans. Martin Thom; Cambridge 1983); Aron Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception (trans. János Bak, M. and Hollingsworth, Paul A.; Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture 14; Cambridge, 1988) 2, 8; Berlioz, J. and David, J.-M., ‘Introduction bibliographique,’ in Rhétorique et histoire 25–26; Geremek, B., ‘L’Exemplum et la circulation de la culture au moyen âge,’ in Rhétorique et histoire 153–79; Karras, R. M., ‘The Virgin and the Pregnant Abbess: Miracles and Gender in the Middle Ages,’ in Folk Life in the Middle Ages, ed. Peters, Edward M., special issue of Medieval Perspectives 3 (1988) 112–32. For a useful (although not unproblematic) index to exempla in published collections, see Tubach, Frederic C., Index exemplorum: A Handbook of Medieval Religious Tales (Folklore Fellows Communications 204; Helsinki 1969).Google Scholar

⁴ On the use of collections, see Siegfried Wenzel, Verses in Sermons: Fasciculus morum and Its Middle English Poems (Medieval Academy of America Publication 87; Cambridge, MA 1978) 41–46; Pfander, H., ‘The Medieval Friars and Some Alphabetical Source Books for Sermons,’ Medium Ævum 3 (1934) 19–29; C. von Nolcken, ‘Some Alphabetical Compendia and How Preachers Used Them in Fourteenth-Century England,’ Viator 12 (1981) 271–88; Gregg, J. Y., ‘The Exempla of “Jacob's Well”: A Study in the Transmission of Medieval Sermon Stories,’ Traditio 33 (1977) 359–80.Google Scholar

⁵ See Coleman, Janet, Medieval Readers and Writers 1350–1400 (New York 1981) 176–77; Wenzel, S., ‘Vices, Virtues, and Popular Preaching,’ in Medieval and Renaissance Studies: Proceedings of the Southeastern Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Summer, 1974 (ed. Randall, Dale B. J.; Durham, NC 1976) 49. D. L. D'Avray and Tausche, M., ‘Marriage Sermons in Ad Status Collections of the Central Middle Ages,’ Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 47 (1980) 71–119, use marriage sermons ‘not for their theological profundity but to discover what sort of ideas about marriage ordinary men and women were regularly exposed to’ (77). Hinnebusch, William A., The Early English Friars Preachers (Rome 1951) 305, warns aginst excessive reliance on exempla and urges examination of complete sermons; in the absence of a large body of surviving sermons actually preached to the laity, exempla and preaching aids known to have been used in composing sermons provide the best available alternative.Google Scholar

⁶ Owst, G. R. recognized this in Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge 1933) 377: ‘To the vast mass of the middle and lower orders … the pulpit … presented a picture of womanhood, ill-balanced, indeed, but sufficiently realistic and lively to appeal to the lay mind. Thus early there grew up in popular verse a traditional satire, half-comic, half-tragic … that stubbornly persists through the literature of following centuries to modern times.’Google Scholar

⁷ The work was once attributed to the anti-Wycliffite John of Bromyard, chancellor of Cambridge ca. 1383 (see Owst, G. R., Preaching in Medieval England: An Introduction to the Sermon Manuscripts of the Period c. 1350–1450 [Cambridge 1926] 68), but the Summa predicantium is now known to have been used by Bishop Sheppey of Rochester in 1354. Boyle, L. E., ‘The Date of the Summa praedicantium of John Bromyard,’ Speculum 48 (1973) 533–37, convincingly argues that it predates the Black Death.Google Scholar

⁸ Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 (Oxford 1957) I 278.Google Scholar

⁹ I have used the 1586 Venice edition and the Rochester Priory MS (London, British Library, MS Royal 7.E.iv, hereafter referred to as the Royal MS; microfilm kindly lent by Siegfried Wenzel), the most important of the surviving manuscripts. All citations are from the 1586 edition, except those found only in the MS. For a list of manuscripts and editions, see Welter, , L'Exemplum (n. 3 above) 334 nn. 92–93; on its popularity and use, see Owst, , Preaching (n. 7 above) 224. All translations are mine. I am currently preparing for publication an index to the exempla of the Summa. Google Scholar

¹⁰ Nolcken, Von, ‘Alphabetical Compendia’ (n. 4 above) 277–79; Jean Longère, La Prédication médiévale (Paris 1983) 127, and Coleman, Medieval Readers (n. 5 above) 179, describe the use of Bromyard's exempla in some sermons; see also Owst, Preaching (n. 7 above) 303–304, and Dennis Eugene Oross, John Bromyard, Medieval Sermon Encyclopedist (Ph.D. diss., St. Louis University, 1971) 100.Google Scholar

¹¹ By no means does it consist solely of exempla; under the divisions of each heading are biblical quotations, patristic and legal citations, and extended discussion in which the exempla are imbedded. Another tally of exempla might produce a slightly different number, since it is not always immediately apparent what should be counted. Many of the exempla are so designated in the margin, but some are not. In the Royal MS they are labeled ‘narrado’ instead of ‘exemplum.’ The Royal MS's designations differ from those in the printed text; some of the ‘exempla’ indicated in the margin of the printed text are actually similitudes or sententiae. I have included only those that are actually narratives. Jackson, T. R., ‘Die Kürze des Exemplums: Am Beispiel der “Elsässischen Predigten,”’ in Kleinere Erzählformen im Mittelalter (ed. Klaus Grubmüller, Peter Johnson, L., and Steinhoff, Hans-Hugo, Schriften der Universität-Gesamthochschule Paderborn, Reihe Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft 10; Paderborn 1988), 214, argues that the exemplum is not a narrative genre but rather a function; however, to avoid counting every allusion as an exemplum, it seems reasonable to distinguish between narrative and non-narrative. Bromyard identifies sources for only some of his exempla; the others he introduces with ‘sicut patet de quodam,’ ‘de quo fertur,’ or a similar phrase. Animal fables, generally indicated in the margin as ‘fabula’ instead of ‘exemplum,’ have been included if they are narratives and not just similitudes. The text numbers sections rather than individual exempla; I give these numbers in citations, but the numbers alone cannot identify an exemplum, because some sections contain more than one exemplum. The section numbers sometimes vary slightly between the printed edition and the Royal MS; I have cited them as they are found in the printed edition.Google Scholar

¹² Owst, , Preaching (n. 7 above) passim; Owst, Literature and Pulpit (n. 6 above) passim. Google Scholar

¹³ Brundage, James, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago 1987) 422 n. 26, and Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women 78–79, using Tubach's Index (n. 3 above), look at the total range of exempla; thus an exemplum that appears in only one collection, in a unique manuscript, would add as much to the count as an exemplum that appears in a dozen collections and scores of manuscripts. Without weighting for frequency of use, this approach reveals only the spectrum of ideas, not their relative popularity.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Henry Ansgar Kelly, Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer (Ithaca NY 1975) 44–45, discusses how exempla make points other than the main moral being illustrated.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Bynum, , Holy Feast and Holy Fast (n. 13 above) esp. 260–76, shows that the equation of woman with flesh, especially when drawn by women themselves, was not necessarily misogynist; in the exempla, however, the equation is with flesh as an evil, not with flesh as the humanity of Christ. See Crohns, Hjalmar, Legenden och medeltidens latinska predikan och ‘exempla’ i deras värdesättning av kvinnen (Helsinki 1915) 35, on women as symbols in sermons. For interpretationes in which a woman represents the soul (often corrupted), see Gesta Romanorum (ed. Hermann Oesterley; Berlin 1872) passim. Google Scholar

¹⁶ Goldberg, Harriet, ‘Sexual Humor in Misogynist Medieval Exempla,’ in Women in Hispanic Literature: Icons and Fallen Idols (ed. Beth Miller; Berkeley 1983), concludes that ‘these stories traditionally designated as antifeminist do not really reflect hostility toward women as much as a kind of amused disdain of their supposed victims’ (83). However, the hostility she sees as directed toward the male victims does not preclude hostility against the women as well.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea (ed. Th. Graesse; Dresden 1846), contains 47 female saints (not counting the 11,000 virgins), and 176 male.Google Scholar

¹⁸ D'Avray and Tausche, ‘Marriage Sermons’ (n. 5 above) 103–105, discuss the misogyny of Jacques de Vitry by categorizing images of women as positive or negative, but they recognize that some of the exempla are more complex and that his ‘attitude towards the female sex cannot be dismissed with a sweeping formula.’Google Scholar

¹⁹ Bromyard, John, Summa praedicantium (hereafter SP) (Venice 1586) s.v. homo h.1.16.Google Scholar

²⁰ Repentance creates another complication: if the point of the story is the conversion and salvation of a sinner, is the sinner virtuous or vicious? If the story presents the conversion as evidence of the miraculous power of God or a saint and does not focus on the sinner after her conversion, I have counted her as vicious (e.g., SP s.v. confessio c.6.44 [cf. Tubach, Index (n. 3 above) 2735, 1554], where the point is the efficacy of confession and not the virtue of the repentant sinner herself); if it focuses on the repentant sinner, rather than the miraculous results of confession, contrition, or penance, I have counted her twice, both as virtuous and as vicious (e.g., SP s.v. confessio c.6.47 [Tubach, Index 1189]). Exempla involving two women have also been counted twice. I thus count not exempla but the representations of virtuous and vicious women in them.Google Scholar

²¹ This does not necessarily mean that they are more vicious than their male counterparts; where a couple sins together, the woman may not be the instigator but is still counted as vicious. E.g., SP s.v. acquisitio a. 12.18 (a couple's son stricken ill because they have acquired a cow unjustly); s. v. adulterium a. 18.12 (Tubach, Index 4696) (vision of couple punished for lust).Google Scholar

²² Jacques de Vitry, The Exempla (ed. Thomas Frederick Crane; Nendeln 1967). The ratio of virtuous to vicious women is significantly different from Bromyard's at the 95 percent level, using a chi-square test, which means that there is only a 5 percent chance, statistically, that the difference is random.Google Scholar

²³ An Alphabet of Tales (ed. Mary Macleod Banks, EETS O. S. 126–27; London 1904–1905). The ratio of virtuous to vicious women is not significantly different from Bromyard's at the 95 percent level (using a chi-square test). In both these texts, a higher percentage of exempla includes female characters than is true of Bromyard's work.Google Scholar

²⁴ The ratios are not exactly comparable, since I have counted all female characters but only the main male characters. However, because the ratios agree so closely, if it were possible to make an exactly comparable count for both women and men, the ratios would probably not be significantly different.Google Scholar

²⁵ SP s.v. rapina r.1.17.Google Scholar

²⁶ E.g., , SP s.v. absolvendi a.7.19; s.v., rapina r.1.26 (Tubach, Index 2944), in both of which a wife sees a vision of her damned husband.Google Scholar

²⁷ In several cases, discussed below, poor widows are presented as likely victims of corrupt judges; their plight would apparently arouse greater sympathy in the audience and therefore greater outrage than if the judges deceived well-to-do men.Google Scholar

²⁸ SP s.v. discordia d.8.7. (Tubach, Index 3113).Google Scholar

²⁹ As specified in the Council of Lambeth in 1281: Powicke, F. M. and Cheney, C. R., eds., Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church (Oxford 1964) 2.900–905. This requirement encouraged the development of a voluminous literature on the sins: see Bloomfield, Morton W., The Seven Deadly Sins: An Introduction to the History of a Religious Concept, with Special Reference to Medieval English Literature (Michigan 1952).Google Scholar

³⁰ This study makes use not only of those exempla that Bromyard classifies under a particular sin, but also of those that he classes under some other topic, where it is possible to identify it clearly with one of the sins. The heading under which he includes each is noted. Even if the connection of females with a particular sin is not the point he wished to make with a particular narrative, that connection is still present and could have impressed the audience.Google Scholar

³¹ Quantitative analysis of a text can often be misleading, especially if the numbers involved are relatively small. The larger the portion of text under consideration, however, the greater the chance that the results of the comparison will be valid. The same is true of the analysis of the content of exempla presented here.Google Scholar

³² Any such classification, whether by a medieval or a modern author, is inevitably arbitrary. I have tried to err on the side of conservatism, and have classified under a particular sin only those exempla that a medieval preacher could easily have used to illustrate the sin. I will be happy to provide upon request a list of the exempla that I have categorized under each sin. Bromyard includes a large number of exempla under acquisitio that I have counted as avaritia. Some medieval authors distinguished acquisitio and avaritia, defining the latter as the retention of money. Some of the exempla that Bromyard lists under avaritia, however, involve the acquisition of wealth.Google Scholar

³³ SP s.v. acquisitio a.12.34 (cf. Tubach, Index 1512); s.v. avaritia a.27.55.Google Scholar

³⁴ The church had a material interest in preaching against avaritia: a great number of the exempla concern misers, surely in order to encourage almsgiving and donations to the church.Google Scholar

³⁵ The total number of males and females counted under each sin may be more than the total number of exempla illustrating that sin, because in some couples sin together (see also n. 20 above); for obvious reasons this is particularly true of lust. It may also be less than the total number of exempla dealing with the sin, because some exempla involve animals of indeterminate sex, or treat the sin without depicting any actual sinners (as with the demons above). The percentages are of the total number of sinners, not the total number of exempla. The numbers in this table differ from the totals for ‘vicious’ men and women because many vices cannot easily be classified under the seven deadly sins.Google Scholar

³⁶ Statistical significance in this case is once again such that there is only a five percent chance the difference is random. The statistical technique used in this instance tests the significance of a difference between two proportions.Google Scholar

³⁷ See Karras, R. M., ‘Holy Harlots: Prostitute Saints in Medieval Legend,’ Journal of the History of Sexuality 1 (1990) 32.Google ScholarPubMed

³⁸ A noblewoman is reluctant to give alms; a couple's son becomes ill because of his parents’ greed; a female wolf suffers for her husband's misdeeds because she has profited from them: SP s.v. amor a.20.8; s.v. acquisitio a. 12.18, a. 12.2.Google Scholar

³⁹ SP s.v. acquisitio a.12.17; Tubach, Index 3400 gives a more common variant (the monkey casts away the man's ill-gotten gains).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ SP s.v. acquisitio a.12.33.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Both in SP s.v. luxuria 1.7.35. Another concubine, who asks her lover for a dress, is told that he has already given her enough; she replies that it is all too little if she is to endure the pains of hell for him: SP s.v. poena p.8.25.Google Scholar

⁴² A wife takes away an expensive coverlet from her husband's deathbed, or wants to make his shroud out of cheap material, or fails to execute his will properly: SP s.v. executor e.8.13 (two exempla: Tubach, Index 4356 for one of them); e.8.17 (Tubach, Index 968 for a variant); s.v. societas s.10.10, Royal MS (n. 9 above) fol. 559 (not in the printed edition). The converse of this situation also appears: see, e.g., SP s.v. executor e.8.17, where a husband refuses to give anything for his wife's soul (Tubach, Index 5281). One tale implicitly attacks women's infidelity as well as their greed: a voice reveals to a man that after his death his wife will share all his goods with one of his servants: SP s.v. avaritia a.27.12. Another exemplum concerning a husband whose money goes to support his wife's second husband, SP s.v. avaritia a.27.13 (Tubach, Index 3879), emphasizes the first husband's miserliness and the vanity of riches rather than the wife's greed.Google Scholar

⁴³ SP s.v. Christus x.1.21; the good wife stands for the soul receiving the inheritance of Christ.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Goff, Le, Your Money or Your Life (n. 3 above), passim; see also John Baldwin, Masters, Princes, and Merchants (Princeton NJ 1970).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ In seven exempla (23 percent) women exhibit charity; in 23 (77 percent) men do so. Given the total ratio of virtuous women to virtuous men, women may thus seem disproportionately charitable, but the difference is only marginally significant statistically. In the standard opposition between virtues and vices, largitas, which does not appear in Bromyard's schema, is the opposite of avaritia. Google Scholar

⁴⁶ E.g., , SP s.v. acquisitio a.12.10, in which a wife persuades her husband to restore land that he unjustly took from the abbot of Clairvaux (Tubach, Index 17).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ SP s.v. hospitalitas h.4.2 (Tubach, Index 3020).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ A woman appears after her death and tells her confessor that she is damned despite all the alms she has given. SP s.v. confessio c.6.53 (see Tubach, Index 1188a for related exempla). For additional examples of feminine charity, see SP s.v. eleemosyna e.3.3, e.3.8, and e.3.13 (cf. Tubach, Index 1975, on the last).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ For Bromyard's attack on the harms of luxuria, see esp. SP s.v. luxuria 1.7.23–26; these remarks apply to both men and women.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ SP s.v. tentatio t.1.21 (Tubach, Index 2839); s.v. timor t.3.4; s.v. gloria g.2.14; s.v. tribulatio t.5.42 (Tubach, Index 1268); s.v. exemplum e.7.10.Google Scholar

⁵¹ SP s.v. adulterium a. 17.3: ‘et in hoc casu peius et crudelius est adulterium in muliere, quam in viro, et ipsa plus uituperatur, quia uir adulter non exhaeredat filios proprios, sed filios illius cum cuius peccat uxore, et plus est contra naturam crudelitatem exercere in proprios, quam in alienos.’ Although canon lawyers agreed that any married person who had sex outside of marriage was an adulterer, the meaning of the term in common use did vary: see my ‘The Legal Vocabulary of Illicit Sex in English Ecclesiastical Court Records,’ Journal of Medieval Latin 2 (1992). Bromyard's statement implies that for a man the harm in committing adultery is in having sex with someone else's wife, not in being unfaithful to his own. He does indicate elsewhere, however, that he considers any married man who engages in extramarital sex an adulterer, not just any man who engages in sex with a married woman: adultery occurs ‘quando una pars quae peccat est uinculo matrimonij alligata, uel ultraque’ (SP s.v. luxuria 1.7.2). This concurs with the official definition.Google Scholar

⁵² SP s.v. adulterium a.17.1 (Tubach, Index 4640); a.17.14 (Tubach, Index 4888); a. 17.9 (Tubach, Index 295). Bromyard also includes the common story of the serpent traced by St. Germanus to the tomb of an adulterer; other versions make it an adulteress, but Bromyard says simply ‘sepulcro cuiusdam frangentis matrimonium suum.’ SP s.v. adulterium a.17.13 (Tubach, Index 4252); a.17.12 (Tubach, Index 4696).Google Scholar

⁵³ SP s.v. filiatio f.5.18; see Tubach, , Index 1272 for variants.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ SP s.v. ebrietas e.1.3.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ As in SP s.v. damnatio d.1.15.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ E.g. SP s.v. luxuria 1.7.16 (Tubach 1265).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ He persuades his concubine, concerned about the punishment awaiting her in hell, to stay with him by arguing that he is a priest only when actually performing the sacraments: SP s.v. luxuria 1.7.49.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ E.g., London, British Library, MS Royal 7.D.1 fols. 132^v–135^v (twelve exempla concerning priests’ concubines); see Forte, S. L., ‘A Cambridge Dominican Collector of Exempla in the Thirteenth Century,’ Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 28 (1958) 115–48.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ SP s.v. bellum b.2.18; s.v. luxuria, 1.7.46 (two exempla: Tubach, Index 2440 for one, and Karras, ‘Holy Harlots’ [n. 37 above] 10–13, for the other, the tale of Paphnutius and Thaïs).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ One reveals her whereabouts to a knight who has come to ravish her from the convent; the Virgin Mary prevents another from leaving; a recluse on her deathbed lusts after a young man and, ashamed to confess it, dies damned: SP s.v. castitas c.3.6 (Tubach, Index 3497); s.v. maria m.3.1; s.v. poena p.8.22. In the second tale, also commonly found as a miracle of the Virgin, other versions specify that the nun wishes to leave in order to meet a man: Tubach, Index 536; Robert Guiette, La Légende de la sacristine (Bibliothèque de la revue de littérature comparée 43; Paris 1927).Google Scholar

⁶¹ SP s.v. luxuria 1.7.37 and 1.7.38; s.v. damnatio d.1.10.Google Scholar

⁶² SP s.v. religio r.5.29.Google Scholar

⁶³ SP s.v. luxuria 1.7.29 (Tubach, Index 4035). Bromyard draws the moral that having been forced is not an excuse for fornication.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ An emperor says that keeping his virginity is more important than winning battles; a man places a ring on the hand of a statue of the Virgin Mary but the ring breaks when he loses his virginity; a man who lives with his wife as a sister is able to perform miracles that a holy abbot cannot: SP s.v. bellum b.2.31; s.v. contritio c.5.23 (cf. Tubach, Index 5184a); s.v. labor 1.1.4 (Tubach, Index 1600).Google Scholar

⁶⁵ SP s.v. mors m.11.102; s.v. luxuria 1.7.44; see also s.v. tentatio t.1.28.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ SP s.v. amor a.20.11.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ One widow refuses to remarry because she will either marry a good husband and fear losing him as she did her first, or take a bad husband and not love him as she had her first; Marcia, the daughter of Cato, justifies her failure to remarry by replying that she never met any man who wanted her more than her goods; Melania explains the death of her husband and sons by saying that Christ wants all her love: SP s.v. matrimonium m.4.3 (Tubach, Index 3180); s.v. matrimonium m.4.7; s.v. mors m.11.5.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ SP s.v. matrimonium m.4.2.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ On canon law, see Brundage, , Law, Sex, and Christian Society (n. 13 above) 477. Bromyard gives only one exemplum criticizing a man's remarriage: SP s.v. dilectio d.9.27. Even then the message is ambiguous: his first wife's threat to haunt him can be read as a criticism of her selfishness rather than of his remarriage, but Bromyard compares her to God, who vexes man with adversity when angry with him for his vain worldly love.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ A number of exempla refer to the temptations of the flesh but not to sexuality in particular.Google Scholar

⁷¹ SP s.v. castitas c.3.6 and c.3.5 (Tubach, Index 3490 and 4744b).Google Scholar

⁷² Bromyard frequently cross-references luxuria and ornatus, and occasionally pulchritudo as well. The exempla dealing with excessive dress and ornament have been counted under neither luxuria nor superbia unless specific reference is made to the sin.Google Scholar

⁷³ For examples, see Owst, , Preaching (n. 7 above) 123 n. 170; idem, Literature and Pulpit (n. 6 above) 118, 390, 404; Crohns, Legenden (n. 15 above) 36–42; Morin, M. J., ‘John Waldeby, O.S.A., Preacher, with a Critical Edition of his Tract on the Ave Maria,’ Analecta Augustiniana 35 (1972) 24; Etienne de Bourbon, Anecdotes historiques, légendes, et apologues tirés du recueil inédit d’Étienne de Bourbon (ed. Lecoy, A. de la Marche; Paris 1877) 227–41; for the later tradition, Blench, J. W., Preaching in England in the Late Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (New York 1964) 241.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ SP s.v. honestas h.3.4. Exempla on this theme that refer to men or that do not specify gender include SP s.v. ornatus 0.7.14, 0.7.19 (Tubach, Index 1536), 0.7.11, o.7.4 (Tubach, Index 525), 0.7.19.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ SP s.v. ornatus 0.7.5 (Tubach, Index 2400; Owst, Preaching [n. 7 above] 217–18, discusses this exemplum in other collections); s.v. pulchritudo p.14.7 (cf. Tubach 3166).Google Scholar

⁷⁶ SP s.v. ornatus 0.7.15; s.v. ornatus o.7.7 (Tubach, Index 1660).Google Scholar

⁷⁷ SP s.v. luxuria 1.7.36; s.v. poena p.8.25.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ E.g., , Les XV. joies de la mariage, nos. 1 and 5 (ed. Jean Rychner; Geneva 1963) 8 and 40–48.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ SP s.v. acquisitio a. 12.33 (Tubach, Index 5050).Google Scholar

⁸⁰ SP s.v. audire a.26.15.Google Scholar

⁸¹ SP s.v. ornatus o.7.2.Google Scholar

⁸² SP s.v. pulchritudo p.14.5; s.v. luxuria 1.7.39 (cf. Tubach, Index 3030). The only exemplum that he presents in which self-mutilation is motivated by a wish to avoid tempting others involves a young man: SP s.v. pulchritudo p.14.4.Google Scholar

⁸³ SP s.v. luxuria 1.7.39.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ In one exemplum, a thief in a pact with the devil is told not to steal women's ornaments because these are the tools of the fight against God, but Bromyard does not directly blame women for the ornaments: SP s.v. ornatus o.7.9.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Fasciculus morum: A Fourteenth-Century Preacher's Handbook 7.17 (ed. and trans. Siegfried Wenzel; University Park 1989) 704–705.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ [Alexander Anglicus] Destructorium viciorum 3.4 (Paris 1497) fols. C2^r–C3^v. See Owst, G. R., The Destructorium viciorum of Alexander Carpenter (London 1952).Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Destructorium viciorum 6.69, fols. F4^r–F4^v.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ A Myrour to Lewde Men and Women: A Prose Version of the Speculum Vitae, ed. from B. L. MS Harley 45 (ed. Venetia Nelson; Heidelberg 1981) 164; BL MS Harleian 1197, fol. 1^v (treatise on the ten commandments); Robert of Brynne's ‘Handlyng Synne’ (ed. Furnivall, Frederick J., E.E.T.S. O.S. 119, 123; London 1901) 242, 280 (although Handlyng Synne takes great pains to point out [68] that ‘A gode womman ys mannys blys’); Jacob's Well (ed. Arthur Brandeis, E.E.T.S. O.S. 15; London 1900) 159; Dan Michel, Ayenbite of Inwyt (ed. Robert Morris and Pamela Gordon, E.E.T.S. O.S. 23; Oxford 1965) 47.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ In one she sends her daughter to the rector of a university with his laundry, dressing her seductively in the hopes of entrapping him; in another, a daughter, trying to decide whether to imitate her father's virtuous but unhappy life or her mother's sinful but enjoyable one, has a vision of her mother in hell: SP s.v. luxuria 1.7.25; s.v. bonitas b.4.11 (Tubach, Index 1450). In the third exemplum involving a daughter, the dying mother asks her daughter to sign her with the cross and set her on the road to the Holy Land: SP s.v. crux c.17.7 (Tubach, Index 3802).Google Scholar

⁹⁰ SP s.v. matrimonium m.4.11 and s.v. virtus v.6.7 (the same story in both places; Tubach, Index 1444); s.v. vocatio v.9.19.Google Scholar

⁹¹ SP s.v. eucharistia e.6.14 gives two relevant exempla. A man trapped in a mine survives because every day, as his wife has Mass said for him, food miraculously appears (Tubach, Index 3233); a prisoner finds his chains loosened when his wife, thinking him dead, has Masses said for his soul (Tubach, Index 926a). In another story, a woman's husband beats her when she counsels patience after he loses an eye; later the fact that he has but one eye saves his life: SP s.v. patientia p.1.11. The theme of the story is patience and not feminine virtue, but the woman emerges as the wise partner. See Tubach, , Index 1942, for variants. Another woman does penance for her husband, eventually spurring him to perform it himself: SP s.v. poenitentia p.7.17. Yet another woman, who has a vision of her husband burning in hell because of an unpaid debt, pays it: SP s.v. rapina r. 1.26. Another's good advice helps her husband in battle: SP s.v. vindicta v.5.6.Google Scholar

⁹² Although the chapter on matrimonium begins by noting the benefits of marriage, the exempla and discussion often underline those benefits by contrasting them with the evils of marriage: SP s.v. matrimonium m.4. 3–6. See Owst, , Literature and Pulpit (n. 6 above) 378, on Bromyard's discussion of matrimonium. The whole chapter on adulterium is cross-referenced to that on matrimonium. The only exemplum in outright praise of marriage comes under adulterium (a. 17.5), and even there the only thing in favor of marriage is that the devil opposes it. A couple who have lived in sin persuade a bishop to marry them despite the bonds of consanguinity that link them. As soon as they are married, the devil, hating marriage, makes them hate each other and seek a divorce.Google Scholar

⁹³ For examples in sermons, see Owst, , Literature and Pulpit (n. 6 above) 163; on the antifeminist tradition in English preaching, 378–404. For an English example of anti-matrimonial polemic, see John of Wales, Communiloquium (Augsburg 1475) 2.4.1–2.4.3; this is followed by far less detailed chapters on the good of marriage, and further discussion of the evils of women (3.1.2–3.1.5). Jenny Swanson, John of Wales: A Study of the Works and Ideas of a Thirteenth-Century Friar (Cambridge 1989) 114–18, 124–26, discusses this author's anti-matrimonial views.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Etienne de Bourbon (n. 73 above) 201–10. Étienne treats disobedient and quarrelsome wives under De peccato lingue; Bromyard has no comparable heading. A close analysis of Etienne would be extremely useful for comparative purposes, since Etienne, one of the most influential exemplists, was also one of Bromyard's sources. Lecoy de la Marche's edition gives only Etienne's exempla, although the work contains extensive expository text as well. For background on Etienne, see D. L. D'Avray, The Preaching of the Friars: Sermons Diffused from Paris Before 1300 (Oxford 1985) 67–69. For a particularly antifeminist group of exempla using Étienne as a major source, compiled by a thirteenth-century French Franciscan, see Welter, J.–Th., ‘Un recueil d'exempla du xiiie siècle,’ Études Franciscains 30 (1913) 646–65, 31 (1914) 194–213, 312–20.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ SP s.v. matrimonium m.4.6; see Tubach, , Index 5285. In other versions she falls in because she moves her chair too close to the bank, deliberately disobeying her husband. Another exemplum tells of a woman sent to the pillory, whose husband undergoes her punishment for her; she later reproaches him for having been so shamed: SP s.v. iuramentum i. 12.11. In another, a husband, told by a doctor that the hind portion of a fish is healthier to eat because it moves more, replies that his wife's tongue must be very healthy: SP s.v. loquutio 1.5.21.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ SP s.v. eucharistia e.6.36 (see Tubach, Index 2667). See also SP s.v. patientia p.1.10, for one exemplum in which a noblewoman deliberately keeps a quarrelsome maid in order to practice the virtue of patience (see Tubach, Index 3623), and another in which St. Elizabeth is pushed into the mud by a woman to whom she has been generous.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ In one popular exemplum, a priest who sees a demon busily writing on a scroll is told by the demon that he is noting down the words that women say during services; SP s.v. dedicatio d.4.9 (Tubach, Index 1630a; see Margaret Jennings, Tutivillus: The Literary Career of the Recording Demon [Studies in Philology, Texts and Studies 74; Chapel Hill NC 1977]).Google Scholar

⁹⁸ SP s.v. loquutio 1.5.21 (Tubach, Index 723).Google Scholar

⁹⁹ For examples in sermons of women's talkativeness, see Owst, , Literature and Pulpit (n. 6 above) 44; Crohns, Legenden (n. 15 above) 34.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ SP s.v. audire a.26.34 and a.26.40 (Tubach, Index 5018); s.v. loquutio, 1.5.29.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ E.g., Tubach, Index 60, 4919, 2708. See Lorçin, Marie-Therèse, Façons de sentir et de penser: Les fabliaux français (Paris 1979) 89–92; see also Goldberg, ‘Sexual Humor’ (n. 16 above) 67–83.Google Scholar

¹⁰² SP s.v. veritas v.1.2 (Tubach, Index 3868).Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Les contes moralises de Nicole Bozon, frère mineur (ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith and Paul Meyer; Paris 1889) 54; Mirk's Festial: A Collection of Homilies (ed. Theodor Erbe, EETS, E.S. 96; London 1905) 69. Bromyard uses this exemplum to make a point about truth: Zorobabel goes on to say that truth is the most powerful, because although a woman gives life, truth gives eternal life.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ SP s.v. filiatio f.5.8: two exempla, in one of which a mother curses her sons, in the other of which both parents curse them.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Her legitimate son, a priest, has the vision: SP s.v. adulterium a.17.14 (Tubach, Index 4888). A fifteenth-century collection of exempla (London, British Library, MS Harleian 1288, fol. 35^v) describes her punishment in more detail and connects it to adornment as well as to adultery. Sons may also appear to their mothers. In one exemplum a son is punished because of unpaid gambling debts until his mother pays them; he appears and says he has been released from torment: SP s.v. redditio r.3.7.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ SP s.v. mors m.11.138; s.v. filiatio f.5.21.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ SP s.v. poenitentia p.7.25; see also s.v. cogitatio c.10.16 (Tubach, Index 3392). Another son makes the poor his first priority by giving away his mother's grain; she objects, and when he prays, it is restored to her: SP eleemosynas s.v. e.3.14.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ SP s.v. ornatus 0.7.17. Bromyard does not attribute this tale to the Vitae patrum although other sources do so. See Tubach, , Index 3419.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ SP s.v. oratio 0.5.15; s.v. audire a.26.30.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ One, who says she does not want eternal life because she does not know what it will be like, dies the next day; another refuses to listen to a sermon because she knew that the preacher lied when he was a youth: SP s.v. gaudium g. 1.2; s.v. praedicator p.12.16. Ignorance can also cause physical harm. One woman uses ointment that has healed her hand on her husband's eyes, but it blinds him: SP s.v. poenitentia p.7.21 (cf. Tubach, Index 3252; the reference there should be Tab. Ex. 236, not 136). The point is that the remedy must be appropriate for the illness, but the exemplum illustrates this point by depicting harm caused by an ignorant woman.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ A woman condemned by King Philip when he is drunk says that she is going to appeal to Philip when he is sober; a widow prays for long life for an evil king because she fears worse if he dies; a matron who says that the host cannot be the real body and blood of Christ because she baked it herself is proved wrong when it miraculously turns to flesh; an old woman with a case pending in court, who has been told that she must grease the judge's palm, literally does so; SP s.v. ebrietas e.1.4 (cf. Tubach, Index 3736–37); s.v. furtum f.8.7 (Tubach, Index 1678, told of Dionysius Situlus); s.v. eucharistia e.6.26 (Tubach, Index 2643); s.v. iudices i.9.21, (Tubach, Index 2421). For the depiction of a woman as the stereotypical powerless litigant, see also SP s.v. rapina r. 1.17.Google Scholar

¹¹² SP s.v. rapina r.1.17.Google Scholar

¹¹³ Eighteen exempla show men as fools; women make up 22 percent of those whom Bromyard presents as ignorant or foolish, a significant difference from the fourteen percent total of vicious characters who are women.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ Even under this heading, Bromyard includes an exemplum which illustrates not witchcraft but the harm that comes from wifely disobedience. In it a woman who drinks from a cup her husband forbade her is poisoned: SP s.v. sortilegium s.11.15 (cf. Tubach, Index 5294).Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ See Bloch, R. H., ‘Medieval Misogyny,’ Representations 20 (1987) 1–24, on the notion of misogyny being ‘about’ something other than women.CrossRefGoogle Scholar