Within Christian tradition, complaints about abuses within society and religious practice tend to recur in every generation. Yet particular periods generate more acute moments of anxiety which leave their mark in the written record. The chronological distribution of surviving manuscripts of the De XII abusiuis saeculi suggests that after an initial surge of interest in this text on the continent in the ninth century, there was a period of relative decline in the tenth century, followed by a multiplication of copies in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. One could argue that this simply reflects a broader explosion in scribal activity during this period. In this chapter, however, I shall explore how DDAS provided a stimulus for a renewal of interest in religious life. Two categories in particular were missing from its list: those in religious life and those holding positions of responsibility within religious life. I shall explore how DDAS, which had circulated for many centuries within a monastic milieu, would find a new lease on life in the twelfth century in communities of canons regular, committed to the Rule of Augustine.

DDAS makes no explicit reference to monks, abbots, or clerics. While it does have an important chapter about a negligent bishop, its failure to make explicit reference to the way of life of a monk or an abbot would provoke Hugh of Fouilloy (c. 1100–c. 1174) to compose a quite different treatise, De duodecim abusionibus claustri [DDAC], with which it is often confused. Hugh certainly knew DDAS, identifying it as a work of Augustine when he mentions its discussion of an old man without religion.

The De XII abusiuis saeculi attracted readers throughout the medieval period. Over four hundred manuscripts survive from between the eighth and sixteenth centuries containing either its complete text, excerpts, or simply a list of its numbering of twelve abuses of the age. Between the ninth and eleventh centuries, it circulated mostly under the name of Cyprian of Carthage (d. c. 251), while its attribution to Augustine of Hippo (d. c. 431) became more frequent between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. In the late fifteenth century, DDAS was printed under both names. Its popularity across the medieval period makes its influence complicated to track. In 1909, Siegmund Hellmann relied mostly on ninth- or tenth-century manuscripts in which DDAS was attributed to Cyprian for his critical edition. In 1988, Aidan Breen argued that a better text was preserved in what he called ‘Class 1’ manuscripts, most from the twelfth century, in which it was often attributed to Augustine, than in those Class 2 and 3 MSS, in which it was assigned to Cyprian. What can we learn from the textual transmission of DDAS about both the original context of its composition and the varying ways in which its authority was asserted? Sketching out the various phases of interest in DDAS, studied in more detail in other chapters in this volume, enables us to map out larger questions about the evolving notions of ‘abuse’ and ‘injustice’ in the medieval period. A case can be made for relating phases of interest in the work to periods of crisis in political or religious life.

This translation updates that offered by Aidan Breen in his 1988 PhD thesis alongside his critical edition of DDAS, supplemented by reference to the most reliable manuscripts (in particular U Cambridge, CUL Ii.1.41). The layout of individual sentences reflects the use of end-rhyme to define phrases within these sentences (except where scriptural passages are being cited). Sentences are often written as couplets, although sometimes they are longer for rhetorical effect. Direct citations from scripture are identified within notes, as are allusions to scripture and other sources. Inevitably, translation into English can never capture the full nuance of the Latin, as with the terms iustitia (righteousness as well as justice) and uirtus (strength as well as virtue), here rendered as moral strength. The signs < > refer to rubrics not in the original Latin text.

<Prologue>

• 1. A wise man without good works

• 2. An old man without religion

• 3. A youth without obedience

• 4. A rich man without almsgiving

• 5. A woman without modesty

• 6. A lord without moral strength

• 7. A contentious Christian

• 8. A proud pauper

• 9. An unjust king

• 10. A negligent bishop

• 11. Common folk without discipline

• 12. A people without law

Thus, justice is suffocated. These are the twelve abuses of the age through which the wheel of the age, if one is within it, is deceived and without any impeding support of justice, is propelled into the darkness of hell through the just judgement of God.

<1. A wise man without good works>

• 1. Firstly, if a wise man and preacher is without good works, he neglects to carry out in actions what he teaches in words; hearers despise acting on the sayings of teaching when they perceive that the actions of a preacher do not match a preacher's words.

• 2. ‘The authority of one giving instruction never becomes effective unless he fixes onto the heart of a listener by effective action’, especially when the teacher himself, if he has fallen into the love of vice,

• disdains applying to his wounds the medicine of another teacher.

• 3. Hence the Lord himself in the Gospel, wishing to give instruction in both teaching and good works, warned the disciples to exercise such caution, saying:

• For if the salt has lost its savour,

• with what shall it be salted?

Failures in justice within the body politic are a common theme in medieval writing. In this volume, we take as our principal point of departure a short but relatively little studied treatise on this subject written in Ireland in around the mid-seventh century and known as the De XII abusiuis saeculi or The Twelve Abuses of the Age. It offers a critique of various kinds of behaviour, as manifested by various groups in society, based on injunctions from scripture. Its prologue succinctly articulates these moral lapses in a list that was itself widely copied and stimulated many adaptations between the late eighth and sixteenth centuries:

It is not easy to decide how to translate these words. Virtus can mean both virtue and strength; iniquus evokes a sense not just of being morally bad, but of being inequitable or unfair, but these translations are perhaps not as strong as unjust. Iustitia, when evoked in a biblical context, is sometimes rendered as righteousness in a global moral sense. The prologue to DDAS reveals its centrality to the work as a whole. The question must be asked, however, what iustitia means in this work.

The goal of monastic life is first of all to identify with Christ, through separating oneself from the world. In the Latin West, monks tended to avoid the abstract term theologia to describe their teaching. When Peter Abelard (d. 1142) first used Theologia as the title of a monograph explaining why God could be described as a Trinity of persons, Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) was shocked by his use of the term, mockingly referring to it as his Stultilogia (“Stupidology”). He followed Augustine’s (d. 430) understanding of the term as pagan discourse about the gods or divinity. Only in the thirteenth century did theologia come to be more widely used (or, in the eyes of purists, misused) to embrace teaching about Christ, the Church, and ethics, as well as about God. Yet Bernard himself formulated a monastic perspective on Christian teaching that both rivalled and complemented what was being taught in non-monastic schools. Monastic teaching tended to be hermeneutic rather than systematic in character.

Little is known for certain about how British and Irish monks understood the role of liturgy in the early middle ages, prior to the imposition of reforms in the time of Charlemagne (768–814). Precious insight can be gained, however, through examining two treatises that might seem at first sight to be very different from each other. One is the Vita Samsonis (VIS), remarkable for its recollection of a saint remembered as travelling initially from south Wales to Ireland and back, and then, via Cornwall, to Brittany. Dated to either the late seventh or the mid-eighth century, it presents Samson as a bishop who attached great importance to his liturgical duties in a tradition that went back to the apostles. The other is the Ratio de cursus or Explanation about the Liturgies, written perhaps in the mid-eighth century to defend the apostolic authority of both Irish and Gallican liturgies as of equal validity alongside the liturgies of the East, of Milan, and (mentioned only briefly) of those who followed the Rule of Benedict. While Bede portrayed Irish monks as narrowly traditionalist in their way of calculating the date of Easter, the Life of Samson and the Explanation about the Liturgies identify early British and Irish liturgical practices as deriving from apostolic authority. Comparing these two texts allows us how to see how both British and Irish monks understood their traditions prior to the imposition of Roman liturgical practice in the mid-eighth century and consolidation during the age of Charlemagne. Comparing the Life with the Ratio also enables us to assess the extent to which the Life of Samson records memories going back to the sixth century, transmitted by an unidentified nephew of Samson's cousin Enoch, and projects concerns of a later generation onto the age of Samson.

The Vita Samsonis

Of particular significance in the Vita Samsonis is its account of how, prior to being consecrated a bishop by Dubricius and two other British bishops, Samson had a vision of three martyrs, Peter, James, and John, each with an episcopal crown.