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MEDIEVAL-RELIGION  April 2013

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION April 2013

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Subject:

Re: Priests who become deacons?

From:

Christopher Crockett <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 5 Apr 2013 11:51:03 -0400

Content-Type:

text/plain

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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

From: "MAUREEN Tilley [Staff/Faculty [FCLC]]" <[log in to unmask]>

> Taking off from a recent post, I have a question for the cognoscenti of the
list. Here is the post with my concern highlighted:

>>[me] *"Guibert of Nogent assures us that Erlebald "had been in the
priesthood*, where he had distinguished himself, and was especially close to
me in friendship because of his abundant knowledge of scripture."

>> [156.619E]
>>*Fuit autem homo iste cum sacerdotio*, quo fulgebat, et in Scripturae
scientia copiosus, et mihi valde amicitia affinis....

> I am aware that in early Christianity men might move from one order to
another, anachronistically 'down' the hierarchical order, but I do not know
when the hierarchical order began to solidify as a one-way staircase.
Does the bolded quotation from ca. 1100 above mean that (1) a man who had been
a priest could at this late date become a deacon or does it mean that (2) he
was later not deacon but (mistakenly written) dean (*diaconus, decanus*)


Maureen, i know not from lower-level hierarchies (is that oxymoronic?), but
the answer to (2) definitely seems to be that it is a translator's mistake.

both the PL ed. (after d'Achery's) and the recent critical CC edition of
Guibert's Relics text by Huygens (kindly supplied by Herwig) agree with the
reading "decanus" here, NOT "diaconus". 

i may have more on this on the original string later, but your (2) is
definitely answerable in the Affirmative.

From: John Shinners <[log in to unmask]>

> I can’t see how a priest can be downgraded to a deacon (the 2nd highest
holy order) since priesthood, the last of the holy orders, was/is believed to
confer an “indelible character” on its bearer that could only be removed
by degradation. But wouldn’t degradation  mean a return to lay status, a
process conferred only for very serious offenses?  


being Clueless about this hierarchy business, i cited the PL Latin only to
buttress the English translation of the passage --which, of course, had the
exact opposite effect, as often happens with my posts here. 

this guy Erleboldus was *not* a "deacon" --he was (rather briefly) *the* Dean
at Cambrai.

i hope to communicate more on this later today.

>I think the new Penguin translator has been mislead by the old one 

that's an interesting idea, and takes (at least some of) the blame off the
present translators  --except that there is no "old" publication of the
translation of Guibert's treatise On Relics made (if i remember rightly) in
the '50s as someone's dissertation at CU (please check the last few pages of
the Introduction to see if i'm right, John).

but, the translator might well have looked at the '50s dissertation and been
led into the ditch by that.

say, come to think about it, weren't a lot of Catholic University
dissertations from that era published (at least in very small print runs)?

have to check WorldCat or the Library of Congress and see if it's listed
anywhere.

>in translating Erembald’s title “decanus” (which is what Migne gives)
as “deacon.”  Were he a deacon, one would expect “diaconus.” 

yes.

PL & Huygen's new ed. (which the recent translation used as its source) both
say "decanus."

>Unless 12th-century French is less strict about diaconus/decanus than
13th-century and onwards British sources that I know, 

no.

(i assume)

>or Guibert or his editors have had a “lapsus pennae,” Erembald is not a
deacon of Cambrai but some kind of dean.  

*the* Dean (who was *not* the head of the chapter at Cambrai), according to
the list in the GC.

> I searched through the new translation where he appears a few other times,
always as “deacon.”  I’m wagering this is a mistranslation, though I
could be wrong.


you'll not find a single sucker in the beautiful hills of Southern Indianer
who will put any money down on any other proposition, John, so you'll not be
getting rich on that particular wager.

as i said previously (on the original string), i came across another mistake
in this translation (in the _Monodies_, in the same volume) --which was of a
somewhat different sort, more a misunderstanding of what a certain term meant
and implied than a "mistranslation" like the "decanus" = "deacon" one (which
is, after all, perhaps nothing more than a sinners = shinners sort of error).

otherwise, in the few instances where i have checked (and considering my
definite lack of, shall we say, charitably, "facility" with Latin), the
translation looks pretty good to me --but i'd certainly welcome differing
opinions on that from more qualified folks on this list.

c

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