His commentary on Wisdom made Holcot hugely famous.
By Dr. Cornelia Linde
Professor of History
Universität Greifswald
The Dominican Robert Holcot (d. 1349) was one of the foremost theologians of his time. Witty, razor-sharp and challenging, his writings provide insight not just into the medieval lecture halls but also into modes of influence and interaction between individual and institutional thought. Holcot’s discussion of suitable confessors in his Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, the focus of this chapter, provides an eloquent example of how an individual thinker introduced institutional thought, in this case that of the Dominican order, into a different institutional context, that is, the university’s, and thereby spread one institution’s ideas beyond its borders by propagating it through another institution.1
Robert Holcot spent his entire life in England. After joining the Dominican order, probably at Northampton, Holcot was sent to Oxford as a student around 1326, where he lectured on Peter Lombard’s Sentences in 1331 to 1333.2 He was appointed regent master of theology at the university between 1336 and 1338.3 Between 1338 and 1340 Holcot, who was one of the ‘classicizing friars’ studied by Beryl Smalley, established a close connection to the household of Richard Bury, bishop of Durham, through which he gained more access to classical literature.4 Holcot then lectured on the Book of Wisdom for two years, possibly as regent master at Cambridge, between 1340 and 1343. His commentary on Wisdom made Holcot hugely famous and survives in over 100 manuscripts and several early printed editions.5 In 1343 he returned to Northampton and over the next five years was regularly granted licences to hear confessions. He is said to have died of the Black Death while caring for the sick in 1349.6
His commentary on the Sentences was Holcot’s earliest work, composed in the years 1331 to 1333 and re-worked a few years later during his regency.7 In keeping with the fashion at Oxford at the time, Holcot commented not on the entire text of the Sentences but instead tackled select issues derived from the text by formulating and answering specific questions (quaestiones).8 Question 5 in book 4 addressed a problem close to the heart of the Dominican order: ‘Whether a penitent who has confessed his sins to a priest who has a general licence to hear confessions but who is not his own priest has to confess the same sins again to his own priest [proprio sacerdoti]’.9 The issue raised by Holcot had its origins in two interconnected developments dating back more than 100 years to the early thirteenth century: the Fourth Lateran Council’s call for annual confession and the rise of the mendicant orders. Holcot’s discussion in his quaestio revolves entirely around the interpretation of canon 21 issued by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, better known under its incipit, Omnis utriusque sexus: ‘Every one of the faithful of both sexes [Omnis utriusque sexus fidelis] after reaching the age of discretion should at least once a year faithfully confess alone all their sins to their own priest [proprio sacerdoti]’.10 The crucial words in the Latin text are the final two, proprio sacerdoti, as it is on these two words and their interpretation that most debates about Omnis utriusque sexus hinge. A common – but by no means unchallenged – interpretation, both in the middle ages and also in modern scholarly literature, is that one’s own (proprius) priest is one’s parish priest. Such a definition would imply that each believer had to confess to his or her parish priest once a year. Since a parish priest can never be a mendicant, this interpretation of proprius sacerdos threatened to deprive the mendicants of substantial income and influence as well as sense of purpose. Up until Holcot’s time, however, the definition of what role mendicants were allowed to play in the framework of pastoral care, which the Dominicans in particular regarded as part of their order’s raison d’être, changed with almost every pope and was debated ever more hotly by seculars and mendicants.11 Unsurprisingly, then, Holcot’s discussion revolved around the correct interpretation of the phrase ‘proprius sacerdos’.
The phrasing itself of the quaestio promises a powerful contribution to the continuing debate over the status of licensed mendicants as confessors, for it alludes to the key question of whether licensed mendicants can be truly suitable and acceptable confessors, or whether confession is only fully valid when made to one’s parish priest. For Holcot, the fact that there was even a discussion about whether or not one has to confess to one’s parish priest once a year rested upon a misguided interpretation of the canon.12 Holcot, predictably, rejected the interpretation of proprius sacerdos in Omnis utriusque sexus as referring to one’s parish priest. Instead, by arguing for a more nuanced interpretation of proprius sacerdos, he defended the legitimacy of licensed mendicants as fully acceptable confessors.
At the beginning of his quaestio Holcot acknowledges that, according to Omnis utriusque sexus, once a year each member of the Church has to confess to his or her priest. Since it could be argued that a friar preacher or a friar minor is not one’s own priest, proprius sacerdos, one would technically have to confess the same sins again to one’s parish priest even if one had previously confessed to a licensed mendicant.13 However, this, in Holcot’s view, would be interpreting the relevant passage too narrowly; and he provides six reasons to show why Omnis utriusque sexus was never intended in this way. These six reasons refer directly to the trial against the secular cleric John of Pouilly, which took place only a decade before Holcot composed his commentary on the Sentences.
The trial against John of Pouilly, a master of theology at Paris, had its roots in the ever-changing papal legislation on hearing confession. Already in 1254 Innocent IV had drastically curtailed the friars’ right to hear confession in the bull Etsi animarum. Innocent died later the same year and was succeeded by Alexander IV, the former cardinal protector of the Franciscan order. Not entirely impartial in his attitude, Alexander rescinded Etsi animarum the following year. A major milestone was the bull Ad fructus uberes issued by Pope Martin IV on 13 December 1281. In it he granted the mendicants the right to hear confessions independent of the wishes or consent of local priests or bishops. As this had harsh consequences for parish priests, the secular clergy soon demanded that those who confessed their sins to mendicants should then have to confess once more to their parish priest, thus calling for double confession. The seculars also argued that Ad fructus uberes, like other pro-mendicant bulls concerning this topic, disrupted the order of the Church.14
The mendicant privilege of hearing confession was again restricted in 1300, when Boniface VIII published Super cathedram, which revised the existing legislation in favour of the seculars. While the seculars applauded this bull, it aroused the ire of the mendicants, as it restricted their earlier rights to preach in parish churches and hear confession. Now only friars who had been granted a special licence by the local bishop were allowed to hear confession and only in the narrowly defined region for which they had obtained the licence. In addition, they had to share their income from, for instance, performing funerals with the local parish priests.15 The mendicants were thus put on a tight leash by Boniface.
Boniface, however, died in 1303 and was succeeded in office by Niccolò Boccasini, the former master general of the Dominican order, who took the papal name of Benedict XI. In 1304 Benedict XI revoked Super cathedram and issued the bull Inter cunctas, in which he gave even greater rights to the mendicants than they had held before. In addition to legitimizing confessions made to any mendicant without the need of consent from the local bishop or parish priest, the bull also addressed the question of double confession and explicitly spelt out that re-confessing to one’s parish priest was not necessary after previous confession to a mendicant. Nevertheless, despite denying the necessity of double confession, Benedict still recommended a repeat confession to the parish priest.16
Unsurprisingly, the seculars were now outraged and alarmed. Yet Benedict’s papacy was short-lived, lasting not even ten months. His successor was Clement V, who convened the Council of Vienne where, under pressure from prelates, he called for the revocation of Inter cunctas and the reinstatement of Super cathedram, a demand he articulated in the decree Dudum on 6 May 1312.17 Clement’s death in April 1314, before Dudum had been debated by the council, proved to be a cruel twist of fate as this meant that its legal status remained debatable. It was not until late in 1317 that Clement’s successor, John XXII, who was elected after more than two years of sede vacante, officially promulgated the council’s decrees.18
It was probably unavoidable that in these three years, from 1314 to 1317, seculars would draw on Dudum in an attempt to assert their position. Most prominent among them was John of Pouilly, who in his quodlibetal questions actively propagated the validity of Dudum and thus the reinstatement of Super cathedram. Furthermore, John did not limit his activities to the university world, buteven managed to convince a local synod to return officially to the rules laid out in Super cathedram. Unsurprisingly, John’s activities stirred both Franciscans and Dominicans into action: they fiercely attacked the secular party, and especially John of Pouilly, for several years to come.19
The criticism levelled by John against the mendicants became so extreme that in 1318 he was finally summoned to appear at the papal court in Avignon before Pope John XXII. The trial lasted for three years and ended with his condemnation on 24 June 1321, when three of his propositions regarding confession were condemned in the bull Vas electionis.20 The condemned propositions were: first, that those who have confessed to friars with a licence to hear confession have to re-confess their sins to their own priest; second, that while Omnis utriusque sexus is in force, neither the pope nor, for that matter, God can decide that parishioners do not have to confess to their own priests, that is their parish priests, once a year; third, neither the pope nor God can assign power to hear confession, so that somebody who has confessed to someone with a licence to hear confession has to re-confess to their parish priest.21 After his condemnation in 1321, a remorseful John of Pouilly recanted his views in a lecture hall before 300 people.22 Andrew Larsen has argued that despite this public revocation, John’s ideas remained popular among those who opposed the mendicants.23 Yet the memory of his condemnation was also kept alive by the mendicants themselves: even the title of Holcot’s quaestio echoes in large part the first proposition condemned in Vas electionis.
Ten years after the condemnation, Holcot drew on John of Pouilly’s defeat to support his order’s institutional standpoint. As a Dominican, Holcot gloated over the secular cleric’s failure to curtail the role of the friars in hearing confession.24 In his account of the proceedings against John, Holcot claims that the secular master had presented his teachings before the pope and cardinals with the explicit request that they be judged.25 According to Holcot, John, who had strongly opposed any encroachment upon what he saw as the parish priests’ prerogatives with regard to hearing confession, had thus had the audacity to approach the pope himself, but had rightly been put in his place by the papal court. John of Pouilly’s alleged request to be judged, however, seems to have been an invention by Holcot, as there is no evidence for this boldness in Vas electionis.26 In all likelihood, then, Holcot embellished the story to make his case even more strongly, by ridiculing what he perceived to be the absurdity of John’s position.
Holcot summarizes the papal decision propagated in Vas electionis: the pope, he writes, had decreed that the very opposite of John’s condemned propositions was true; namely first, that nobody had to confess to his parish priest if they had confessed to a friar who held a licence to hear confession; second, that even with Omnis utriusque sexus in force, the pope can decree that annual confession to one’s priest is not obligatory; and, third, that the pope can assign general licences to hear confessions and that those who have confessed to someone with such a licence do not need to re-confess to their parish priest.27 All these decisions by John XXII were, of course, very much in favour of the mendicants, strengthening their role within the Church. By referring to the case of John of Pouilly and the resulting papal decision, Holcot makes it clear that the view that licensed mendicants could be fully acceptable confessors was not just correct, but had also only recently been confirmed by the (current) pope, hence putting this position beyond question.28 He rebuts John of Pouilly’s standpoint that the parish priests’ right to hear confessions comes directly from God rather than from the papacy. A prerogative, Holcot notes, can only be taken away if it existed in the first place. In this instance, however, parish priests had held no prerogative. Also, higher-ranking prelates can commission others to provide the cure of souls for the believers under their jurisdiction. For instance, if the pope sends a legate who represents him to England, this legate should rank above parish priests as he is sent by the pope himself – who, after all, is the proprius sacerdos of all Christianity. Consequently, certain proprii sacerdotes, for instance the pope and bishops, can rightfully pass this status on to others.29 The argument that not exclusively parish priests, but also priests further up in the hierarchy were proprii sacerdotesis crucial and goes back to a time before Holcot. It denies ultimate power and control to the parish priests and reassigns it to persons such as bishops, who hold the authority to delegate the right to hear confessions to other priests and thus to mendicants. This notion, and especially the aspect that the pope as head of the Catholic hierarchy is by office proprius sacerdos to all Catholics and can therefore rightfully distribute the power of absolution, came to be repeated again and again by mendicant interpreters of Omnis utriusque sexus.30
Holcot’s six arguments against the narrow interpretation of the proprius sacerdos of Omnis utriusque sexus as parish priest are as follows.31 First, such an interpretation implies that even someone who had confessed to the pope or his confessor would then still have to confess again to his parish priest, which as far as Holcot is concerned is plain silly (fatuum) and wrong. Second, contrary to what is claimed by John of Pouilly, there is no way the pope could possibly lose his jurisdiction over and ability to absolve others as he is the representative of Christ on earth. Third, if one wanted to confess to a priest who is not one’s own priest, one’s own priest, according to a later passage in Omnis utriusque sexus, has to give his consent. That the consent has to be granted by the parish priest, however, is not specified and thus the proprii sacerdotes could also be priests other than parish priests. If, however, the term proprius sacerdos in this passage was supposed to refer exclusively to parish priests, this would entail that only they, and thus not even the pope, could commission other priests to hear confession, which would be absurd.32
Fourth, Holcot insists, it is possible wantonly to misinterpret the text, which is precisely what happens if the meaning of proprius sacerdos is limited to ‘parish priest’. If one interpreted the first three words of the canon, Omnis utriusque sexus, similarly narrowly, it could be argued that this decree refers exclusively to hermaphrodites,33 which, while conceivable, would be a frivolous interpretation. Taking the literal understanding to the other extreme, the canon’s opening words could be understood as referring to absolutely everybody. In this case, each and every human being, including the pope, bishops, as well as their legates, would have to confess to a lowly parish priest, which, once again, would be absurd. Hence, the canon must not be interpreted literally but has to be approached with flexibility.
The fifth argument against an exclusive understanding of proprius sacerdos as parish priest is based on the ever-potent argument of consuetudo (custom). Holcot points out that it is a long-established practice that people other than parish priests hear confession: bishops appoint confessors who can absolve everyone in their diocese. Similarly, the pope appoints the head of the apostolic penitentiary for the absolution of sins. These well-established alternative confessors would, however, be irreconcilable with John of Pouilly’s misguided views. The importance of consuetudo also crops up elsewhere in the quaestio. It is customary, Holcot notes, that in all kingdoms both clerics and lay people confess to those who have been commissioned with the power to absolve – that is, not just parish priests – without then confessing the same sins again. Kings, bishops and noblemen are in the habit of confessing their sins to friars minor and friars preacher who have received licence from the pope or bishops and, therefore, surely their right to hear confessions must not be questioned. Finally, Holcot concludes, it is noteworthy that the wording of Omnis utriusque sexus explicitly speaks of the proprius sacerdos and not the presbyter parochialis (parish priest). Had the intention been to codify the necessity of confession to one’s parish priest, that could have easily been achieved by simply specifying it in the canon. The fact that this was not done means there was never an intention to refer only to parish priests.
Having thus dismissed John of Pouilly’s interpretation of Omnis utriusque sexus, Holcot then expounds what he regards as the correct interpretation of proprius sacerdos. To start with, the pope is by default the proprius sacerdos of every Catholic, just as a bishop is the proprius sacerdos of everybody in his diocese.34 Consequently, annual confession to the pope or one’s bishop fulfils the demand of Omnis utriusque sexus and does not require additional confession to a parish priest. In addition, those who receive permission to hear confession either from the pope or from a bishop, as is the case for licensed friars preacher and friars minor, also count as proprii sacerdotes: their commission automatically removes any status of their being alieni [aliens] and instead they become communes [common to the local community], so part of the local community, and thus proprii sacerdotes.35 With this broader definition of proprius sacerdos, Holcot removes any doubt that confessing to a licensed mendicant might not satisfy canon 21 of Lateran IV.
The history of the Dominican interpretation of Omnis utriusque sexus remains to be written, for Robert Holcot was by no means the first Dominican to dwell at length on the question of what confessing to one’s proprius sacerdos means. A century earlier Albert the Great, who is quoted by Holcot,36 had addressed the same problem. In his early De sacramentis, probably composed before he was sent to Paris, Albert remarks that there are different routes towards becoming a proprius sacerdos, including by means of being granted the privilege of hearing confession.37 Albert addressed the same problem again in his Super Sententias, composed at Paris between 1241 and 1245. There he discussed whether a believer has to confess to his or her own priest, or whether confession to any priest – and thus also to a priest who is not one’s parish priest – is valid. In his discussion, Albert stressed the concept, later repeated by Holcot, that the pope is at the top of the Catholic hierarchy and can therefore grant the power of absolution.38
Changes in the Dominican approaches to and interpretations of Omnis utriusque sexus can already be found in these two works by Albert the Great: his later commentary on the Sentences is far more polemical, outspoken and detailed than his earlier De sacramentis. This is quite probably due to the radical change in intellectual sphere which came with his move from Germany to Paris. In his later work he attacks the alleged failings of secular clergymen, pointing out that many parish priests know nothing or next to nothing about the cure of souls, while others are so rotten that they themselves pose a threat to their flock. Others again simply cannot be bothered to hear confession or are constantly absent from their parishes. While a believer would, in these cases, still have the option of confessing to his bishop or even the pope as his own priest, these options, Albert notes, were simply not accessible to most people. Things were thus not looking bright for the average sinner’s soul. Luckily, however, as Albert points out, the negligence of pastors was counterbalanced by specially appointed preachers and confessors. The populace could thus, after all, not merely confess, but confess to a worthy priest. Albert here brings into the discussion a point raised in Omnis utriusque sexus, namely that the sacrament of penance can be administered by another priest if the proprius sacerdos has given his permission.39 These specially appointed preachers and confessors were obviously understood to be mendicants, although this is not spelt out by Albert.
Still, Albert insists that confessing to one’s proprius sacerdos is preferable to confessing to a specially appointed priest; and that one’s own priest should be the person to turn to even when a legitimate alternative would be available. Should a penitent nevertheless turn to an alternative confessor, this confessor may administer the sacrament, yet should still encourage that confession to the parish priest follow as quickly as possible. In fact, the licensed confessors should exhort the faithful to confess to their parish priests in the first place. Thus, despite all his criticism of the secular clergy, Albert regards confession to one’s own priest – be it one’s parish priest, one’s bishop, or the pope – as preferable to confessing to a licensed mendicant. This insistence might seem odd for a mendicant, yet Albert explains his stance with the comment that this approach is necessary to uphold the order of the Church.40 For him, confession to one’s own priest constitutes the proper implementation of Omnis utriusque sexus. Confession to someone else, and hence to a commissioned mendicant, is only legitimate in very special circumstances and by no means to be encouraged.
This, of course, is contrary to Holcot’s later standpoint, yet Holcot finds a neat solution to this apparent Dominican dilemma in John XXII’s Extravagantes: in Holcot’s opinion, the pope had advanced the view that licensed confessors should encourage the faithful to re-confess to their priest, not for the sake of the validity of the sacrament but for the sake of obligation, because the sinner had confessed to somebody to whom he was not bound.41 Re-confession to one’s parish priest was thus not a matter of salvation, but more a question of appropriate behaviour.
The other Dominican quoted by Holcot is, unsurprisingly, Thomas Aquinas. Thomas, whose writings became official Dominican teaching not long after his death in 1274, started his lectures on the Sentences at Paris in September 1252.42 In his commentary on the Lombard’s work, Aquinas concludes that for the sacrament of penance it is essential that the priest serving as confessor hold jurisdiction over the believer. Whether one’s own priest is a suitable confessor is not up to the believer to decide. Instead, this decision lies with the superior prelate.43 By definition, every parishioner has more than one proprius sacerdos: his parish priest, his bishop and the pope, all of whom may rightfully commission additional confessors for the faithful under their jurisdiction. Those commissioned by the bishop or the pope rank higher in the hierarchy than the parish priest. While it is sufficient to confess to someone who has been commissioned as a confessor, Aquinas, like Albert and unlike Holcot, nevertheless advises that the penitent should re-confess to his own priest and that his confessor should urge him to do so. Still, even if the penitent refuses to do so, he should be absolved from his sins.44 Thus, while Aquinas regards commissioned confessors, who included commissioned mendicants, as suitable, he nevertheless insists on the importance of confession to one’s proprius sacerdos – be it the parish priest, the local bishop or the pope – even though re-confession was not necessary for salvation.
Holcot repeats Aquinas’s conclusion that any commissioned priest, by power of his rank, can absolve from sin.45 Aquinas had also raised another point adopted by Holcot: namely, that certain people, such as bishops, do not have a proprius sacerdos to whom to confess. In this matter Holcot gives an even broader definition than Aquinas by arguing that the meaning of proprius sacerdos must be expanded to include other legitimate confessors, such as licensed mendicants, penitentiaries and legates.46
Judging from the three examples of Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas and Robert Holcot, the Dominican interpretation of proprius sacerdos in Omnis utriusque sexus underwent considerable change in the course of one century. It shifted to an increasingly wide understanding of the phrase, comprising a range of possible confessors; and re-confession to one’s parish priest, while initially encouraged, was no longer regarded as necessary by Holcot. Similarly, the references to friars, both implicit and explicit, increase significantly. Initially, Albert does not mention friars explicitly in this context and even covert references are rare, even though he must, of course, have had the position of mendicants in mind in his discussion. This lack of explicit comment may well be due to the fact that Albert first commented on the Sentences in Germany around 1240, before the well-known secular-mendicant clashes and before the friars were widely regarded as serious competition by parish priests. Holcot, on the other hand, refers to mendicants explicitly and repeatedly.
Certainly, by the time Holcot was writing circumstances had changed considerably from the situation faced by Albert when he composed De sacramentis, when there was apparently neither strong competition nor serious conflict regarding the hearing of confession; and even from the more inflamed situation Aquinas encountered at Paris when he gave his lectures on the Sentences. Yet neither Albert nor Aquinas was as polemical and outspoken about the role of licensed mendicants as confessors as Holcot was to be less than a century later.
The reception and interpretation of Omnis utriusque sexus and the subsequent history of confession are still in need of further exploration. It is, of course, not possible to make valid pronouncements about intellectual developments and traditions on the basis of just three Dominican commentators on the Sentences. Whether the view of any of the three authors can be regarded as representative for their order as a whole in their respective eras can, for now, only be speculated. It is worth noting, however, that the Franciscans seemed considerably less preoccupied with the interpretational intricacies of Omnis utriusque sexus. Bonaventure discusses the question of whether believers may confess to somebody more discreet than their own priest and whether they then still have to confess to their own priest. William of Ockham, however, whose works Holcot knew, did not devote a quaestio to this matter in his commentary on the Sentences.47 Similarly, the subject is not raised in the commentary on the Sentences by the Franciscan Walter Chatton, written sometime between 1321 and 1323 (that is, just at the time of John of Pouilly’s condemnation in Vas electionis).48 This, too, is a tiny sample, so it might turn out that Franciscans devoted just as much attention to the question as Dominicans. However, on first inspection it would seem that the topic of confession, in particular with regard to the role of mendicants and the question of the correct interpretation of Omnis utriusque sexus, was more of a concern to Dominicans than to Franciscans.
When Holcot was writing in the early 1330s, the question of the legitimacy of mendicant confessors had seemingly been put to rest over a decade earlier. Yet if it had been resolved by the papacy and was at that time no longer a hot topic, why did he lecture his students on this subject for so long and with so much verve and detail? Holcot’s account, at times polemical and even melodramatic, may have been influenced by, or even had its origin in, particular sets of circumstances. The most likely cause for his involvement with the issue is that papal legislation on the topic had been constantly changing since the mid thirteenth century, almost from one pope to the next. The Dominicans must thus have been well aware that the situation as it was under John XXII would not necessarily remain unchanged. In fact, the numerous bulls issued and controversies conducted on the topic in the course of the previous decades strongly suggested the matter was not permanently settled. By issuing a strong argument for the legitimacy of licensed mendicant confessors, Holcot defends his order’s necessity and legitimacy. Additionally, Holcot’s interest in the question may be hinting at a problem or dispute specific to England, or even more locally to the Lincoln diocese or Oxford, concerning the validity of licensed mendicants as confessors. Slotemaker and Witt have shown that the question of who makes an acceptable confessor in England was relevant well past the middle of the fourteenth century; the registers of John Grandisson (bishop of Exeter, d. 1369) record numerous clashes with unlicensed mendicant confessors.49 It has, however, not proved possible to find any traces of debate or controversy with regard to licensed mendicant confessors.50
What promised to be another potential explanation similarly turned out to be a dead-end. At the same time as Holcot was lecturing on the Sentences, another important theologian-in-the-making was teaching at Oxford: Richard FitzRalph, famous for his hostile attacks on the mendicants in the 1350s, was regent master in theology in 1331/32,51 exactly the same period as Holcot’s lectures on the Sentences. Yet while his later clashes with the mendicants are well known, his anti-mendicant streak cannot be traced back to the 1330s. In fact, FitzRalph was rather well-disposed towards the mendicants earlier in his life.52
It appears we must conclude, then, that the discussion, or rather the fierce defence, of the legitimacy of licensed mendicants as confessors within the Church was an intra-institutional topic especially close to the heart of the Dominican order, the urgency of which was driven by the fear and suspicion that, through pressure by seculars, papal legislation could change once again to the detriment of the mendicants. It may have been for this reason that Holcot expounded on the subject in detail in his lectures on the Sentences.53
Joseph Goering has argued that the most important development for the history of penitential thought in the later middle ages was the creation of schools and universities.54 Goering also insists that ‘it would be a mistake … to think of these scholastic jurists and theologians as being primarily concerned with settling arguments about dogma or with determining fine points of doctrine’. Instead, he emphasizes their role as teachers who introduced their students to the tradition of theology they represented.55 From a twenty-first century perspective, it is easy to lose sight of this original function of many medieval commentaries. Holcot’s text originated in the classroom and was primarily intended to teach the next generation of theologians, not just Dominicans but other mendicants and seculars, too. Like many medieval theologians, he frequently wove references and discussions of contemporary events into his commentaries.56 In the case discussed in this chapter he took the opportunity not just to provide mendicant students with concrete arguments which defended the role of licensed mendicants as valid confessors, but also to expose secular students to the Dominican reasoning concerning this topic.
While Holcot’s commentary on the Sentences may have been of far less importance than his biblical commentaries,57 it nevertheless contains strong, well-argued views which he sought to impart to his students as well as his readers.58 The vast problems arising from Omnis utriusque sexus in intellectual circles were due to a phrase, proprio sacerdoti, which proved to be open to numerous interpretations.59 To defend the friars’ position, and to influence his audience, Holcot used the institutional and intellectual framework provided by the Dominican order and its connection to the university of Oxford. He exploited his lectures on the Sentences, which were compulsory for anyone pursuing a degree in theology, to disseminate distinctly Dominican ideas to a wider audience, composed not just of friars preacher or mendicants.60 In the schools, he thus disseminated his order’s viewpoints on an issue which was relevant to the entire Church and of great importance to the friars preacher. Holcot did so with a decidedly pro-mendicant bent, thereby spreading his order’s position beyond its institutional borders. As an individual thinker and theologian, he thus instrumentalized his affiliation with one institution – namely the university – to uphold and propagate the privileges of another institution – that is, the Dominican order.
Endnotes
- See also the introduction to this volume.
- For Holcot’s life and works, see J. T. Slotemaker and J. C. Witt, Robert Holcot (Great Medieval Thinkers, Oxford, 2016), pp. 1–12. Slotemaker and Witt offer improved biographical information compared to that provided in the ground-breaking article by B. Smalley, ‘Robert Holcot O.P.’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, xxvi (1956), 5–97, at pp. 7–8.
- Slotemaker and Witt, Robert Holcot, p. 2; F. Hoffmann, Die theologische Methode des Oxforder Dominikanerlehrers Robert Holcot (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters. Neue Folge, v, Münster, 1971), p. 1; and Smalley, ‘Robert Holcot’, p. 8, date his inceptio to 1334 and 1332, respectively.
- Slotemaker and Witt, Robert Holcot, pp. 2–3. On Holcot’s use of the classics, see B. Smalley, English Friars and Antiquity in the Early Fourteenth Century (Oxford, 1960), pp. 133–202.
- Slotemaker and Witt noted that the evidence for Holcot’s regency at Cambridge stands on shaky ground (Robert Holcot, pp. 3–4); cf. Smalley, ‘Robert Holcot’, pp. 20–1. For the immediate success of Holcot’s Wisdom commentary, see J. C. Wey, ‘The Sermo finalis of Robert Holcot’, Mediaeval Stud., xi (1949), 219–24, at p. 219. Wey observed correctly that rather than lacking seriousness, the Sermo finalis is a sign of ‘the lighter side of university life which is both traditional and natural to students of all ages who are sane enough to possess a sense of humour’ (p. 219). See Slotemaker and Witt for the large number of manuscripts and incunabula (Robert Holcot, p. 10).
- Smalley concluded her article on Holcot with the remark that upon Holcot’s death, ‘the future of theology in England lay with grimmer, narrower men’ (Smalley, ‘Robert Holcot’, p. 97).
- Slotemaker and Witt, Robert Holcot, p. 3. Smalley dated the reworking to 1336 (‘Robert Holcot’, p. 7).
- For this format, see Slotemaker and Witt, Robert Holcot, pp. 5–6.
- R. Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones (Lyons, 1497; used: London, British Library, IB.41933), sig. a ir–o vr, at sig. n iiivb. For a very brief discussion of this quaestio, and an outline of Holcot’s views on confession in general, see Slotemaker and Witt, Robert Holcot, pp. 111–18.
- Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. N. P. Tanner S.J. (2 vols, Washington, 1990), i. Nicaea I to Lateran V, pp. 245–245*. Translation slightly adapted from M. C. Mansfield, The Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth-Century France (Ithaca, N.Y., 1995), p. 66. The text of Omnis utriusque sexus, only the beginning of which is quoted here, spread widely and rapidly after its publication. It was integrated into synodal statutes and was commented on and discussed by canonists and theologians alike (N. Bériou, ‘Autour de Latran IV (1215): la naissance de la confession moderne et sa diffusion’, in Pratiques de la confession. Des Pères du désert à Vatican II. Quinze études d’histoire (Paris, 1983), pp. 73–93, at p. 80).
- See Bériou, ‘Autour de Latran IV’. Bériou particularly stressed the role of Odo of Sully and Stephen Langton in implementing regular confession and promoting greater attention to the sacraments (p. 75). Peter Biller pointed out ‘that this great text, Omnis utriusque sexus, was not legislating in a vacuum. Rather, it was making something uniform out of the norms and practices of various regions, and universalising this for the Church as a whole’ (P. Biller, ‘Confession in the middle ages: introduction’, in Handling Sin: Confession in the Middle Ages, ed. P. Biller and A. J. Minnis (York Studies in Medieval Theology, ii, Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 1–33, at p. 8). For the non-innovative character of Omnis utriusque sexus, see also Bériou, ‘Autour de Latran IV’, p. 80. For a broad study of the history of penance, see T. N. Tentler, Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation (Princeton, N. J., 1977).
- Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. n ivra:‘In ista questione oritur tota difficultas pro maiori parte de illo capitulo de penitentia et remissionibus Omnis utriusque sexus’.
- Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones,sig. n iiivb: ‘Sed talis audiens ex commissione, sicut sunt predicatores et minores ab antiquo, non est proprius sacerdos, ergo non obstante confessione facta tali tenetur eadem peccata numero iterum confiteri proprio sacerdoti’.
- J. Dunbabin, A Hound of God: Pierre de la Palud and the Fourteenth-Century Church (Oxford, 1991), p. 57. The bulls have been published in H. Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum. Kompendium der Glaubensbekenntnisse und kirchlichen Lehrentscheidungen. Lateinisch – Deutsch, ed. P. Hünermann (44th edn, Freiburg, 2014).
- J. Koch, ‘Der Prozeß gegen den Magister Johannes de Polliaco und seine Vorgeschichte (1312–1321)’, in J. Koch, Kleine Schriften (2 vols, Rome, 1973), ii. 387–422, at p. 388; Dunbabin, Hound of God, pp. 57–8.
- A. Migliavacca, La ‘Confessione frequente di devozione’. Studio teologico-giuridico sul periodo fra i Codici del 1917 e del 1983 (Rome, 1997), p. 231; Dunbabin, Hound of God, p. 58.
- Dunbabin, Hound of God, p. 58; Koch, ‘Prozeß gegen den Magister Johannes de Polliaco’, pp. 388–9; S. Menache, Clement V (Cambridge, 1998), p. 291. For an edition of Dudum, see Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, i. 365–9.
- Dunbabin, Hound of God, p. 58. For the question of the validity of Dudum before its promulgation by John XXII, see alsoKoch, ‘Prozeß gegen den Magister Johannes de Polliaco’, p. 389.
- Dunbabin, Hound of God, pp. 58–9; Koch, ‘Prozeß gegen den Magister Johannes de Polliaco’, p. 389. The main protagonist on the Dominican side and John of Pouilly’s main opponent was the Paris master Peter de Palude (Dunbabin, Hound of God, p. 59). For a study of the controversy between John of Pouilly and the Dominican Peter de Palude on the topic, see J. G. Sikes,‘John de Pouilli and Peter de la Palu’, Eng. Hist. Rev., xlix (1934), 219–40.
- R. Zeyen, Die theologische Disputation des Johannes de Polliaco zur kirchlichen Verfassung (Frankfurt am Main, 1976), p. 33.
- The text of the bull is published in Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, ed. H. Denifle and E. Chatelain (4 vols, Paris, 1889–99), ii. 243–4 (#798): ‘Primo: Confessi fratribus habentibus licentiam generalem audiendi confessiones tenentur eadem peccata que confessi fuerant iterum confiteri proprio sacerdoti. Secundo, quod stante statuto Omnis utriusque sexus, edito in Concilio generali Romano, pontifex non potest facere quod parrochiani non teneantur confiteri omnia peccata sua semel in anno proprio sacerdoti quem dicit esse parrochialem curatum, immo nec Deus posset hoc facere, quia, ut dicebat, implicat contradictionem. Tertio, quod papa non potest dare generalem potestatem audiendi confessiones, immo nec Deus quin confessus habenti generalem licentiam teneatur eadem iterum confiteri suo proprio sacerdoti, quem dicit esse, ut premittitur, parrochialem curatum’. Koch pointed out that the three condemned propositions were taken from John of Pouilly’s Responsiones (Koch, ‘Prozeß gegen den Magister Johannes de Polliaco’, p. 409). For the uncertainty about the legal situation after the issuing of Vas electionis, see K. Walsh, ‘Archbishop Fitzralph and the friars at the papal court in Avignon, 1357–60’, Traditio, xxxi (1975), 223–45, at p. 236.
- Zeyen, Theologische Disputation, p. 33.
- A. E. Larsen, The School of Heretics: Academic Condemnation at the University of Oxford, 1277–1409 (Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, xl, Leiden, 2011), p. 95.
- Holcot quotes the condemned propositions from Vas electionis: ‘Unum sciendum est quod anno domini MCCCXXVI [sic] magister quidam Parisiensis dictus Johannes de Poliaco sacre theologie professor errores tres qui subscribuntur et docuit et tenuit in scolis sicut in sacra institutione domini Johannis XXII que sic incipit “Vas electionis et cetera” etiam plenius continetur’ (Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. n iiiir).
- ‘Hic tamen magister licet predictos articulos defendisset et publice docuisset et sic posse defendere diceret, quando apparuit coram papa et cardinalibus, asseruit se velle in premissis quod sedes apostolica diffiniret. Unde multis sibi disputationibus assignatis tam in consistorio quam seorsum illos articulos publice reuocauit dicens rationibus factis in contrarium se respondere non scire’ (Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. n ivr).
- Nor is it mentioned by scholars who have written about the trial, such as Koch.
- ‘Nam in constitutione papa determinauit quod iste tres propositiones sunt vere. Primo quod nullus confessus fratribus habentibus generalem licentiam audiendi confessionem tenetur iterum eadem pecccata confiteri proprio sacerdoti plus quam si alias fuisset sacerdoti proprio eadem peccata confessus teneretur iterum. Secundo quod stante constitutione Omnis Utriusque Sexus et cetera Romanus pontifex potest facere quod parochianus non tenetur omnia sua peccata semel in anno confiteri proprio sacerdoti. Tertio quod papa potest dare generalem licentiam audiendi confessionem et quod confessus habenti huiusmodi licentiam non tenetur eadem peccata confiteri proprio sacerdoti’ (Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. n ivr).
- John XXII died in Dec. 1334, so after Holcot had finished his lectures on the Sentences. References to John XXII in this section of his commentary give no indication that he is deceased, so Holcot may well not have updated this part of the text during his regency a few years later.
- ‘Dicunt doctores quod sibi non sit preiudicium quia nunquam sit preiudicium alicui nisi ei substrahantur quod sibi est in favore, indultum sed potestas iurisdictionis non est curato indulta in favore persone sed in utilitatem plebis et honorem Dei. Et ideo si superioribus prelatis videtur expedire ad salutem plebis et honorem Dei possunt post modum committere aliis a prelatis inferioribus iurisdictionem in subditos eorum et sine preiudicio eorundem, ut si papa faceret unum simplicem sacerdotem legatum in Anglia in nullo preiudicaret episcopis nec inferioribus prelatis’ (Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. n vr). For more on the status of proprius sacerdos, see below.
- The idea goes back to the time of the Fourth Lateran Council (Sikes, ‘John de Pouilli and Peter de la Palu’,p. 219).
- Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. n ivrb–vb.
- On this point, see Slotemaker and Witt, Robert Holcot, p. 117.
- W. A. Pantin noted the incident of the Dominican Richard Helmslay, who when preaching at Newcastle in 1379/1380 put forward the same over-interpretation of ‘omnis utriusque sexus’as referring to hermaphrodites as part of an attack on the secular clergy. The incident was reported to the papacy and Helmslay, who became known as Frater Ricardus utriusque sexus, recanted. It stands to reason that Helmslay had derived this interpretation from Holcot (W. A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1955), pp. 164–5.
- ‘Primo modo papa est proprius sacerdos cuiuslibet catholici, et episcopus cuiuslibet catholici existentis in eius episcopatu’ (Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. n ivvb).
- ‘Illi vero qui habent commissionem a papa immediate vel ab episcopis localibus sicut modo est de fratribus predicatoribus et minoribus sunt proprii sacerdotes primo modo quia non alieni sed communes’ (Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. n ivvb).
- See, e.g., Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. nvva: ‘Albertus distinguit de proprio sacerdote id est presbytero parochiali quia vel est pastor sicut rector perpetuus vel vicarius vel est tantum sacerdos conductus’.
- Albertus Magnus, De sacramentis, ed. A. Ohlmeyer, in Albertus Magnus, Opera omnia (31 vols to date, Münster, 1951–), xxvi. 1–170, at pp. 106–7 (Tract. VI, De paenitentia, pars 2, q. 2, a. 15). For Albert’s departure to Paris around 1240, see I. M. Resnick, ‘Albert the Great: biographical introduction’, in A Companion to Albert the Great: Theology, Philosophy, and the Sciences, ed. I. M. Resnick (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, Leiden, 2013), pp. 1–11, at p. 6. For a summary of Albert’s view on the sacrament of penance, see H. Lauer, Die Moraltheologie Alberts des Großen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer Beziehungen zur Lehre des hl. Thomas (Freiburg i. Br., 1911), pp. 308–31. C. Rigo argues that De sacramentis was composed between the late 1130s and 1141, while Albert was still in Germany (C. Rigo, ‘Zur Redaktionsfrage der Frühschriften des Albertus Magnus’, in Albertus Magnus und die Anfänge der Aristoteles-Rezeption im lateinischen Mittelalter/Albertus Magnus and the Beginnings of the Medieval Reception of Aristotle in the Latin West, ed. L. Honnefelder et al. (Münster, 2005), pp. 325–74, at p. 360).
- Albert the Great, Commentarii in quartum librum Sententiarum (Dist. I–XXII), in Albertus Magnus, Opera omnia, ed. E. C. A. Borgnet (38 vols, Paris, 1890–9),xxix. 724 (IV.17.40). For Holcot see above.
- For this paragraph, cf. Lauer, Die Moraltheologie Alberts des Großen, pp. 325–6; Albertus Magnus, Opera omnia, ed. Borgnet, xxix. 724 (Commentarii in quartum librum Sententiarum, IV.17.40, 42, 44). The relevant passage from Omnis utriusque sexus reads: ‘Si quis autem alieno sacerdoti voluerit iusta de causa sua confiteri peccata, licentiam prius postulet et obtineat a proprio sacerdote, cum aliter ille ipsum non possit absolvere vel ligare’ (Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, i. 245).
- For this paragraph cf. Lauer, Die Moraltheologie Alberts des Großen, pp. 326–8.
- ‘Sed contra predicta videntur esse quedam que ponit Iohannes monachus [i.e., John XXII] … Movet dubitationem an confessus fratri teneatur confiteri iterum proprio sacerdoti, et respondet innuitive quod sic. Hoc tamen “non est ex necessitate sacramenti sed ex obligatione” tantummodo. Loquitur in secunda persona ad confirmationem, “qui voluntarie ad fratrem accessisti”, et vult dicere quod licet talis parochianus confessus fuerit fratri, tamen non liberatur a dicta constitutione Omnis utriusque sexus, quia “relicto patre spirituali cui fuit astrictus” voluntarie ivit ad illum cui non fuit astrictus. Et ad hanc conclusionem quod scilicet confessus fratri remitti debeat ad curatum et similiter iterato confiteri arguit multipliciter’ (Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. n vva).
- J.-P. Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans. R. Royal,i. The Person and His Work (rev. edn, Washington, D.C., 2005), p. 37.
- Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis, IV.17.3.3.4 <http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/snp4016.html> [accessed 20 July 2018].
- Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis, IV.17.3.3.5.
- ‘Hic dicit [sc. Thomas] duas conclusiones. Prima est quod quilibet sacerdos potestate ordinis regulariter potest a quolibet peccato absolvere. Secunda est quod licet omnis sacerdos habeat potestatem ordinis non tamen habet potestatem iurisdictionis exercitii nisi in subditos’ (Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. n vvb).
- ‘Sic ergo videtur dicendum quod quicunque subditus presbyteroparochiali potest licite confiteri istis subscriptis: Domino pape in quo est plenitudo iurisdictionis in omnes catholicos; eius penitentiario generali; item eius penitentiariis generalibus; item episcopo dyocesano; item cuilibet habenti commissionem a sedem apostolicam vel a dyocesano vel a presbytero quia quilibet istorum potest dare licentiam super subditos parochialis presbyteri, videlicet papa, episcopus, et curatus’ (Holcot, Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. n vra).
- Bonaventure, Opera omnia (10 vols, Ad Claras Aquas, 1882–1902), iv. 452–55 (Commentaria in quatuor libros Sententiarum, IV.17.3.1.2: ‘Utrum contra voluntatem proprii sacerdotis liceat poenitenti confiteri alii discretiori, an teneatur confiteri proprio sacerdoti’); William of Ockham, Quaestiones et decisiones in IV libros Sententiarum, cum centilogio theologico (Lyons, 1495).
- W. Chatton, Reportatio super Sententias, ed. J. C. Wey and G. J. Etzkorn (4 vols, Toronto, 2002–5).
- Slotemaker and Witt, Robert Holcot, p. 115. While these clashes were not about mendicants with a licence to hear confession, which according to Holcot would make them proprii sacerdotes, but about unlicensed mendicants, they nevertheless illustrate the ongoing concerns surrounding the topic of confession. Slotemaker and Witt pointed out that in the next question debated in his Sentences commentary, Holcot insisted on the necessity of commission for mendicants. In his view, unlicensed mendicants did not count as proprii sacerdotes (Robert Holcot, p. 116).
- Several Dominicans received licence to hear confession in the Lincoln diocese in the decade preceding the composition of Holcot’s commentary on the Sentences: on 10 July 1321 Simon de London was granted licence to hear confession; on 27 Feb. 1332 Richard de Farle was licensed to hear confession in the archdeaconry of Oxford; in 1332 Holcot himself received licence to hear confession in the diocese of Lincoln. A few years later, on 5 March 1337, Philip Lavenham was licensed to hear confession in Bedford and Buckingham.
- K. Walsh, A Fourteenth-Century Scholar and Primate: Richard FitzRalph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh (Oxford, 1981), p. 36. For a brief summary of FitzRalph’s engagement with mendicants in the 1350s, see Larsen, School of Heretics, pp. 96–8.
- Walsh has pointed out that Holcot engages intensively with FitzRalph’s commentary on the Sentences (A Fourteenth-Century Scholar, p. 37). Yet, in all likelihood it did not contribute to Holcot’s discussion of Omnis utriusque sexus: FitzRalph devoted only one or perhaps two questions to bk. IV; the surviving question deals with the eucharist (M. W. Dunne, ‘Accidents without a subject: Richard FitzRalph’s question on the eucharist from his Lectura on the Sentences’, in Richard FitzRalph. His Life, Times and Thought, ed. M. W. Dunne and S. Nolan (Dublin, 2013), pp. 11–29, at p. 11.
- This is confirmed by Holcot himself: ‘Sacrosancta romana ecclesia ius et auctoritatem canonibus impartitur sed non eis alligatur’ (Super quattuor libros Sententiarum questiones, sig. n vira).
- J. Goering, ‘The scholastic turn (1100–1500): penitential theology and law in the schools’, in A New History of Penance, ed. A. Firey (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, xiv, Leiden, 2008), pp. 219–37, at p. 219.
- Goering, ‘The scholastic turn’, p. 219.
- E.g., in his commentary on Wisdom, Holcot comments on the controversy on the Beatific Vision under John XXII; and in his commentary on Amos he ridicules the Carmelites and Austin Friars (Smalley, ‘Robert Holcot’, pp. 19–20 and 85–7).
- See Walsh, A Fourteenth-Century Scholar, p. 35; for a critical view of Holcot’s commentary on the Sentences, see A. Maier, ‘Diskussionen über das aktuell Unendliche in der ersten Hälfte des 14. Jahrhunderts’, in A. Maier, Ausgehendes Mittelalter. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Geistesgeschichte des 14. Jahrhunderts (3 vols, Rome, 1964–77), i. 41–86, at pp. 81–2.
- In addition, Holcot refers frequently to aspects of canon law rather than questions concerning strictly theology, which reflect the more practical bent to his work. This tendency supports Goering’s view that there was a close co-operation between the two faculties of law and theology throughout the middle ages (Goering, ‘The scholastic turn’, pp. 228–9).
- See also Dunbabin, Hound of God, p. 57.
- For the popularity of the mendicant schools, see I. W. Frank, Hausstudium und Universitätsstudium der Wiener Dominikaner bis 1500 (Archiv für österreichische Geschichte, cxxvii, Vienna, 1968), p. 57, where he quotes Roger Bacon, Compendium studii philosophie, in Roger Bacon, Opera quaedam hactenus inedita, i, ed. J. S. Brewer (London, 1859), p. 428.
Chapter 10 (235-252) from Social and Intellectual Networking in the Early Middle Ages, edited by Michael J. Kelly and K. Patrick Fazioli (Punctum Books, 05.02.2023), published by OAPEN under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.