On Fri, 6 Dec 1996, CA. Muessig wrote:

> Dear Jessalynn,
> 
> I think that Jacques de Vitry was a pragmatist in regard to pastoral care.
> Thus, considering it was relatively difficult to mobilise a well-trained
> group of secular prelates as preachers against the Cathars, he saw nothing
> wrong with Cistercians taking on this role. Moreover, it was actively
> commissioned by Innocent III as well as by his predecessors and
> successors. The Cistercians had been among the first to go to the Midi to
> debate with the Cathars. However, Jacques de Vitry may have perceived
> monastic preaching in parishes in northern France and Belgium with less
> enthusiasm since that is where he began his preaching career as an
> Augustinian canon. Nonetheless, his primary concern was with the education
> of potential preachers. In his sermons that I am familiar with, he never
> indicates explicitly that secular prelates should be preferred over monks.
> But in general by the twelfth-century it was preferred that a preacher be
> a priest since sermons were often meant to lead the hearer to confession,
> and only someone with sacerdotal authority could grant absolution. But
> this would not exclude all monks from preaching and then hearing
> confession since some monks were ordained.

	Good point.  In fact, James' generation of reformers, as they 
were mostly secular prelates, lacked the organization monastic orders 
such as the Cistercians.  This caused problems when it came to handing 
down their legacy.  James does not seem to have been opposed to preaching 
by monks in principle, but if I remember correctly, his sermons to 
Cistercians focus almost exlusively on their activities in the cloister, 
with nary a mention of pastoral duties other than 'preaching' through the 
example of an upright life.  The point about confession is highly 
pertinent, as one of the primary goals of crusade preaching was to get 
people to 'convert to the Lord' and make confession in order for them to 
benefit properly from the crusade indulgence.  But then, you get 
Cistercians such as abbot Guy of Vaux-de-Cernay and Gunther of Pairis' 
abbot preaching the fourth crusade, and in Guy's case, the Albigensian 
crusade as well. 
 
> Throughout his *Sermones feriales et communes* [ie a group of 25 model
> sermons to be used by preachers], Jacques de Vitry invites the preacher to
> get out there and teach. In fact he says that preachers 'should be the
> books of the laity'. In this sense, the model preacher according to 
> J d V is one who is a well trained pastoral leader who may happen to be
> a monk or a secular prelate. (It is interesting to note that of the 5
> extant manuscripts of the *Sermones feriales et communes*, two belonged to
> monastic houses - Cistercian and Carthusian, the other three belong to the
> Crosiers [canons regular who adopted the Rule of St Augustine]).

	Ideally, it seems that the preacher should be a secular prelate 
according to James, but perhaps this was because he was targetting the 
secular clergy as the focus for reform and a renovated source of pastoral 
care.  However, he seems to have been cognizant, as a canon regular, of 
the power of having an order of preachers, as he hails the DOminicans as 
canons regular and indicates that both they and the OFMs are the new hope 
for spiritual renewal and pastoral care.  Was this because he realized 
that the new spiritual demands created in part by his group's insistence 
upon pastoral care could not possibly be met by the secular clergy?  If 
so, he was prescient indeed.  
 
> Having said that, there were indeed problems between canon regulars and
> monks related to 'pastoral territory' in the twelfth century. If you have
> not already read it, you might find Caroline Walker Bynum's 'The
> Spirituality of Regular Canons', in *Jesus as Mother*, 1982, pp. 22-58, of
> some interest. She addresses the nature of 'spiritual' conflicts that
> existed between secular priests and monks in the late twelfth century -
> the issue of who had the right to preach was one of the central conflicts,
> or more precisely, who was in charge of the *cura animarum*. Jessalynn you
> are more familiar with the *Sermones ad status* than I, does Jacques de
> Vitry indicate some hint of this 'regular canon vs. monastic preaching
> conflict' in his sermons to monks in his *ad status* collection?

	Ashamed to admit that haven't read the article, but will 
definitely try to get ahold of it.  The whole authority question was a 
loaded one, particularly in crusade preaching, where many of the most 
famous and charismatic crusade preachers had rather iffy commissions.  
For example, there is the whole question of who began to preach the First 
crusade, Peter the Hermit or Urban II.  Or, for that matter, was the 
guiding force of the second crusade Bernard or Eugenius III?  James 
himself seems worried about his own commission in Ep.I, where he gets the 
authority to preach wherever he will, but not the legatine authority to 
back up the privileges he is offering the crusaders.  
	The regular canon/secular priest/monk controversy over who has the 
rights to pastoral care is a mirey one, and James seems to waver at 
points.  I'll run back and check the sermons for some particularly juicy 
quotes, as there are lots of them.  However, the question facing James in 
his Historia Occidentalis is how to characterize the monastic orders as 
separate from lay orders in society and others such as the friars.  What 
is special about, say, the Cistercian mission which makes them unlike any 
other order?  In defining the spectrum of monastic practice, he may have 
sought to reduce the practice of the order to the RUle, ironically 
defending their original   purpose while intellectually negating actual 
developments such as their involvement in preaching.  However, you are 
certainly right in that he would rather have a Cistercian preaching than no 
one.  

Best regards,


Jessalynn Bird


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