Sin in Medieval and Early Modern Culture: The Tradition of the Seven Deadly Sins

360 Pages·2012·10.03 MB·English

by  Richard G. Newhauser

SininMedCulture_PPC 25/07/2012 11:36 Page 2
MS
I
ON
T D I
he tradition of the seven deadly sins played a considerable role EN
in western culture, even after the supposed turning-point of the R
M
Protestant Reformation, as the essays collected here demonstrate. N
The first part of the book addresses such topics as the problem of acedia E
C
D
in Carolingian monasticism; the development of medieval thought on
U
I
arrogance; the blending of tradition and innovation in Aquinas’s
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conceptualization of the sins; the treatment of sin in the pastoral contexts TV
of the early Middle English Vices and Virtuesand a fifteenth-century UA
sermon from England; the political uses of the deadly sins in the court RL

sermons of Jean Gerson; and the continuing usefulness of the tradition in EA
early modern England. In the second part, the role of the tradition in N
literature and the arts is considered. Essays look at representations of the D
sins in French music of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries; in Dante’s
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Purgatorio; in a work by Michel Beheim in pre-Reformation Germany;
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and in a 1533 play by the German Lutheran writer Hans Sachs. New R
interpretations are offered of Gower’s ‘Tale of Constance’ and Bosch’s L
Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins. As a whole, the book significantly Y
enhances our understanding of the multiple uses and meanings of the sins
tradition, not only in medieval culture but also in the transition from the
medieval to the early modern period.
N
RICHARD G. NEWHAUSERis Professor of English and Medieval Studies, E
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Arizona State University, Tempe.
H
SUSAN J. RIDYARDis Professor of History and Director of the Sewanee
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Medieval Colloquium, The University of the South, Sewanee. U
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CONTRIBUTORS:Richard G. Newhauser, James B. Williams, Kiril Petkov, E
Cate Gunn, Eileen C. Sweeney, Holly Johnson, Nancy McLoughlin, R

Anne Walters Robinson, Peter S. Hawkins, Carol Jamison, a
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Henry Luttikhuizen, William C. McDonald, Kathleen Crowther. d
R
Cover illustration: The Sin of Envy, from Ulrich of Lilienfeld (?), Conflictus
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‘In Campo Mundi’: Budapest, Kegyesrendi Központi Könyvtár MS CX.2, fol. 250v D
(anno 1413). Photo: Richard G. Newhauser. Reproduced with permission of the Y
Kegyesrendi Központi Könyvtár, Budapest. A
R
D SIN IN MEDIEVAL AND

(
e EARLY MODERN CULTURE
YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS d
s
)
The Tradition of the Seven Deadly Sins
BOYDELL & BREWERLtd
YORK
PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and Edited by RICHARD G. NEWHAUSER
668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US) MEDIEVAL
and SUSAN J. RIDYARD
www.boydellandbrewer.com PRESS
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Sin in Medieval and Early Modern Culture
The Tradition of the Seven Deadly Sins
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YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS
York Medieval Press is published by the University of York’s Centre for Medi-
eval Studies in association with Boydell & Brewer Limited. Our objective is the
promotion of innovative scholarship and fresh criticism on medieval culture.
We have a special commitment to interdisciplinary study, in line with the Cen-
tre’s belief that the future of Medieval Studies lies in those areas in which its
major constituent disciplines at once inform and challenge each other.
Editorial Board (2012):
Professor Peter Biller (Dept of History): General Editor
Dr T. Ayers (Dept of History of Art)
Dr J. W. Binns (Dept of English and Related Literature)
Professor Helen Fulton (Dept of English and Related Literature)
Dr K. F. Giles (Dept of Archaeology)
Professor Christopher Norton (Dept of History of Art)
Professor W. M. Ormrod (Dept of History)
Professor J. G. Wogan-Browne (English Faculty, Fordham University)
Consultant on Manuscript Publications:
Professor Linne Mooney (Dept of English and Related Literature)
All enquiries of an editorial kind, including suggestions for monographs and
essay collections, should be addressed to: The Academic Editor, York Medi-
eval Press, University of York, Centre for Medieval Studies, The King’s Manor,
York, YO1 7EP (E-mail: [email protected]).
Publications of York Medieval Press are listed at the back of this volume.
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Sin in Medieval and
Early Modern Culture
The Tradition of the Seven Deadly Sins
Edited by
Richard G. Newhauser and Susan J. Ridyard
YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS
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© Contributors 2012
Index © Meg Davies, Fellow of the Society of Indexers
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation
no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,
transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner
First published 2012
A York Medieval Press publication
in association with The Boydell Press
an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9 Woodbridge Suffolk IP12 3DF UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA
website: www.boydellandbrewer.com
and with the
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
ISBN 978 1 903153 41 3
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Papers used by Boydell & Brewer Ltd are natural, recyclable products
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CONTENTS
List of Figures and Plates vii
List of Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
List of Abbreviations xiv
Introduction 1
Richard G. Newhauser
I. the sins in religious, intellectual and pastoral contexts
1. Working for Reform: Acedia, Benedict of Aniane and the
Transformation of Working Culture in Carolingian Monasticism 19
James B. Williams
2. The Cultural Career of a ‘Minor’ Vice: Arrogance in the
Medieval Treatise on Sin 43
Kiril Petkov
3. Vices and Virtues: A Reassessment of Manuscript Stowe 34 65
Cate Gunn
4. Aquinas on the Seven Deadly Sins: Tradition and Innovation 85
Eileen C. Sweeney
5. A Fifteenth-Century Sermon Enacts the Seven Deadly Sins 107
Holly Johnson
6. The Deadly Sins and Contemplative Politics:
Gerson’s Ordering of the Personal and Political Realms 132
Nancy McLoughlin
7. ‘These Seaven Devils’: The Capital Vices on the Way to Modernity 157
Richard G. Newhauser
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II. the sins in the musical, literary and visual arts
8. The Seven Deadly Sins in Medieval Music 191
Anne Walters Robertson
9. The Religion of the Mountain: Handling Sin in Dante’s Purgatorio 223
Peter S. Hawkins
10. John Gower’s Shaping of ‘The Tale of Constance’
as an Exemplum contra Envy 239
Carol Jamison
11. Through Boschian Eyes: An Interpretation of the Prado
Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins 261
Henry Luttikhuizen
12. Singing Sin: Michel Beheim’s ‘Little Book of the Seven Deadly Sins’,
a German Pre-Reformation Religious Text for the Laity 282
William C. McDonald
13. Raising Cain: Vice, Virtue and Social Order
in the German Reformation 304
Kathleen Crowther
Index 321
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FIGURES AND PLATES
Fig. 4.1 The Placement of the Seven Capital Vices (and their
Offspring) in ST 2a 2ae 102
Fig. 4.2 Correlation of Virtues, Gifts and Beatitudes in ST 2a 2ae and
Vices, Virtues, Gifts and Beatitudes in Hugh of St Victor 106
Plate 7.1 ‘The platt of The Secound parte of the
Seuen Deadlie Sinns’: London, Dulwich College MS XIX. 177
Plate 7.2 The Sin of Pride, from John Goddard,
The Seaven deadly Sins. 184
Music Ex. 8.1 Philip the Chancellor’s Conductus Veritas equitas (st. 1–3) 196
Music Ex. 8.2 Philip the Chancellor’s Conductus Vitia virtutibus (st. 1–5) 200
Music Ex. 8.3 Motet Floret / Florens / Neuma (opening) 204
Text 8.1 The Sins in the Floret Motet, compared with
Gregory the Great 207
Text 8.2 Prose Carnalitas luxuria from the Roman de Fauvel 211
Text 8.3 Motet Facilius a nobis/Alieni boni/Imperfecte canite
from the Roman de Fauvel 212
Text 8.4 Machaut’s Motet 9 216
Plate 11.1 Hieronymus Bosch and Workshop (?), Tabletop of the
Seven Deadly Sins, c. 1510. Museo del Prado, Madrid 260
Plate 11.2 Sloth. Detail from Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins 265
Plate 11.3 Lust. Detail from Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins 267
Plate 11.4 Pride. Detail from Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins 268
Plate 11.5 Envy. Detail from Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins 271
Plate 11.6 Hieronymus Bosch, The Field has Eyes, the Forest has Ears,
c. 1500. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen Preußischer
Kulturbesitz, Berlin 279
vii
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CONTRIBUTORS
Kathleen Crowther is Associate Professor in the History of Science Depart-
ment at the University of Oklahoma. Her first book, Adam and Eve in the Pro­
testant Reformation (Cambridge, 2010), explores the importance of stories about
Adam and Eve in sixteenth-century German Lutheran areas and analyzes
their place in the construction of Lutheran culture and identity. She has also
published articles on Adam and Eve and Lutheran culture in Isis and Renais­
sance Quarterly, and has an essay forthcoming in ‘Wading Lambs and Swimming
Elephants’: The Bible for the Laity and Theologians in the Medieval and Early Modern
Era, ed. W. François and A. den Hollander (Leuven). She is currently working
on a book about vice, virtue and social ethics in Protestant culture. E-mail:
[email protected].
Cate Gunn teaches in the Literature, Film and Theatre Department of the
University of Essex. Her publications include Ancrene Wisse: From Pastoral
Literature to Vernacular Spirituality (Cardiff, 2008); the edited volume Texts and
Traditions of Medieval Pastoral Care: Essays in Honour of Bella Millett (York, 2009)
(with C. Innes-Parker), to which she also contributed an essay on ‘Middle
English Versions and Audiences of Edmund of Abingdon’s Speculum religioso­
rum’; and articles on Ancrene Wisse. She is now researching more widely in the
field of pastoral literature and is planning to do further research on Edmund
of Abingdon’s Speculum religiosorum, in particular its translation for lay and
female readerships. She is at present preparing a paper on Vices and Virtues and
the afterlife. E-mail: [email protected].
Peter S. Hawkins is Professor of Religion and Literature at Yale Divinity
School, where he also teaches in Yale College’s Directed Studies Program. His
recent publications include Dante: A Brief History (Malden, 2006); Undiscovered
Country: Imagining the World to Come (New York, 2009); and the edited volume
Medieval Readings of Romans (New York, 2007) (with W. S. Campbell and B.
Schildgen). He is currently working on essays on the Psalms and poetry for
The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms, ed. W. P. Brown (New York and Oxford);
and on medieval lay religion for Dante in Context, ed. L. Pertile and Z. Baranski
(Cambridge). E-mail: [email protected].
Carol Parrish Jamison is Professor of Medieval Literature and Linguistics at
Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia, where she teaches
courses including Chaucer, Early English Literature, Arthurian Literature, and
History of the English Language. Recent publications include ‘The New Seven
Deadly Sins’, in Defining Medievalism(s) II, ed. K. Fugelso (Cambridge, 2009);
ix
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