>Can someone point me to a discussion of the connections between the spread of
>the feast of the Conception of the Virgin in the 13th and (especially) 14th
>centuries, and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception? Did acceptance of
>the feast into local liturgies and sermon collections _de sanctis_ generally
>imply acceptance of the doctrine?
The question of the IC of the Virgin has been roused by Eadmer in
the end of the 11th century (Tractatus de conceptione de BMV, in the spuria
of Anselm, P.L.), discussed in England by this time, and closed by a first
council of London.It is officialised by 1222, at the Council of Oxford. In
1328, 23 dioceses accept it
>I'm interested in this because the Dominican John Bromyard included
the feast
>of the Conception in the sanctorale cycle of one his model sermon collections
>(the Distinctiones). In selecting feasts for inclusion he generally follows
>the Dominican calendar, but adds feasts of local interest (he wrote in
>Hereford). The Conception was certainly not yet accepted by the Dominicans,
>and it seems not to have been celebrated in Hereford before Archbishop
>Mepham's statute of 1328 prescribed it for the whole province of Canterbury
>(see Cheney's article "Feast-days in Medieval England"), so this looks like a
>useful _terminus a quo_ for the Distinctiones.
If the IC has been discussed whith a great energy in France, whith
St Bernard, (ep. CIV), the cult spread widely and gently duringt the 13th
century, it became the "feste aux normands" and was the celebration of the
nation of Normands in the University of Paris (you can still find a cult of
the I.C. in the Saint Severin Church, near trhe Sorbonne. In England, the
things went easily : the IC cult was british first, as you can know by the
miracle of Helsin. Alexander Neckam, says :
Dum publice legerem, in theologia, vehemens eram assertor quod dies
Conceptionis celebrandus solemniter non esset . Unde...illo die publice
legere decreveram sicut in profectis diebus...morbo vexatus sum Oxonie
singulis annis illo die ut nullo modo susceptum officium Magisterii exsequi
valerem, sive id casus ageret sivi divina voluntas... viri prudentes...
diligenter hoc consideraverunt, me secreto corripientes eo quod impugnare
velle videbar celebrantes diem festum Conceptionis Beatć Marić Virginis.(A.
Neckam, Commentaire du Cantique des Cantiques, Ms Brit.Mus. Roy. 4D. XI, f
5v. Cite in Burridge « L’Immaculee Conception dans la theologie de
l’Angleterre medievale », Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique, t. XXXII, 1936,
p. 593, note 3. Burridge ajoute : « Dans la suite, Neckam nous raconte
comment la sainte Vierge elle-meme se chargea de le faire capituler ».
In France, nevertheless, the controversy will be harsh during the
14th century, and franciscans discussed the marial privilege against St
Thomas and dominicans (Cf the struggle whith John of Montson)
>In the sermon, moreover, Bromyard follows the Thomistic line, without being
>controversial about it: he implicitly denies the "immaculate" nature of the
>conception by placing the "sanctification" of Mary in the womb after her
>conception. In his _Summa predicancium_ Bromyard explicitly adopts the
>Thomist position that Mary was sanctified at her "animatio", and not earlier.
I think if was very difficult to be dominican AND english there, and
while the celebration was totally accepted in England. The position of your
sermoner seems to be a conjuring trick, being both "immaculationist" an
"thomist"
>Now, as the Lexikon des Mittelalters puts it, the feast of the Conception
>became an "Ideenfest" associated with the doctrine of the Immaculate
>Conception; but Mepham's statute does not mention this doctrine (he refers to
>it as the predestined conception).
One of the frequent biblic words concerning the IC are Sp "Ex
antiquis antequam terra fieret, necdum erant abissi et ego jam concepta
eram". It is one of the easiest ways to exempt the Virgin of the original
sin : she has been concepted "before", and St Paul objection falls by itself.
Would a Thomist preacher in the 1330s have
>felt himself immediately involved in doctrinal controversy when he preached on
>the feast of the Conception without preaching the doctrine of the Immaculate
>Conception, or would he and his audience have accepted that celebrating the
>feast did not imply accepting the doctrine? Is there evidence in other sermon
>collections?
I don't know anything of the english dominican predication of the
14th century. I think there was a very stright way for them to follow, in a
country where the previlege was fully accepted. The first english document
concerning an IC liturgy is the Ordinal of Exeter, just after 1340. If you
look at the situation in France, the 14th century begins nearly whith Duns
Scot's disputation, and finishes whith John of Montson. The dominicans were,
in Rouen, called the "huets", the hooted, even in the beginning of the 16th c.
>Peter Binkley
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>
Friendly, D.H.
Denis Hue
Universite de Rennes 2
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