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.
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]).
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?
Yours,
Carolyn
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