SOURCE: Trout, John M. “Alan and the Social Orders.” In The Voyage of Prudence: The World View of Alan of Lille, pp. 151-69. Washington D. C.: University Press of America, 1979.

[In the following essay, Trout examines Alan's writings and sermons in order to construct a picture of his views of social classes and professions.]

Master Alan lived in a feudal society. He was a contemporary of Bertrand de Born, Chrétien de Troyes, and Richard the Lion Hearted. Knights visited his classroom for instruction in chivalry.¹ We know that Alan's thought was not entirely taken up with Platonic form. In his Liber poenitentialis, Summa de arte praedicatoria, and even the Anticlaudianus he commented on the life going on beyond the lecture hall and cloister. In the final chapter of our study of Alan we shall examine these observations, which will finally bring us back to the passage from “Sermo ad somnolentes” with which we began.

The Anticlaudianus is, among other things, an epic of knightly adventure. It commences with a feud between Mother Nature and her arch-enemy, Alecto of Tartarus. Nature summons her vassals, the Virtues and the Liberal Arts for counsel on how to avoid destruction at the hands of Alecto and her barbarous hordes. They are threatening to reduce the holdings of Nature to chaos. Prudence is dispatched on a quest, not for a Holy Grail but for something almost as precious—a soul from the celestial throne room. Prudence endures perils and tests. Finally she arrives at the court of her lady's suzerain, God. She returns, quest fulfilled, and assists the other Virtues and the Liberal Arts in the physical, moral, and intellectual creation of their hero.

The scene shifts to another duchy, Tartarus. Alecto has summoned her vassals. In a parody of Mother Nature's address in Book I Alecto warns her sorry crew of Vices and Misfortunes that a dreadful fate awaits them—a world in which virtue is triumphant.² The Vices cry for war.³ Meantime, the perfect man is being armored. Off he goes to the front, the very model of a chivalric hero, surrounded by his comrades in arms, the Virtues.⁴ Battle is joined. Alecto orders in an infantry unit, followed by the first cavalry wave under cover of an arrow barrage. The hero counter-attacks, letting his sword do the talking. Undaunted by noise, swords, spears, and arrows, he charges straight towards Discord, the enemy commander for this assault. He unhorses Discord and chops off her head.⁵ There is panic among the Vices. They flee the field. The battle might have been over at that point had not Poverty led a daredevil charge of peasant irregulars armed with clubs, rocks, and clods of dirt.⁶ Poverty manages to knock off the hero's helmet, but her club cannot manage a death blow.⁷ The perfect man recovers and knocks Poverty to the ground. Instead of doing her in with his sword, which would be an honorable death, our hero smashes her face with his foot, then rides his horse over her.⁸ The other peasants retreat.

The heroic peasant assault has bought the mounted troops time to rally. With Discord dead, Infamy commands the new cavalry charge, but to no avail. As the beaten knights of Infamy speed to the rear, desparation sets in. The Volkssturm is called up—old soldiers in creaking rusty armor.⁹ Old Age runs up to the hero. He tries to pull his rusty sword from its sheath, but it's been in there so long he can barely pull it out. When he does finally loose his sword he discovers that he has forgotten how to land a blow.¹⁰ The hero contemptuously tells him to get off the battle field. Old Age and his pensioner brigade gratefully oblige.¹¹ The battle has been going on for some time now. Depression attacks the hero. He shakes off his battle fatigue just in time to beat a strategic withdrawal before the burning arrows of Venus.¹² Things have reached such a pass in the enemy camp that they are sending in the camp followers. To no avail. Like Galahad, our hero is immune to the fiery shafts of lust.

Who is left alive to fight? Excess sends in her forces, screaming in berserk fury. Imprudence lifts a huge boulder and tries to drop it on the hero, but drops it on herself instead.¹³ The hero fights on, unperturbed by the uproar. Now an emissary rides towards the hero to discuss a negotiated settlement. She really wants to stab him while he ponders the peace offer. The assassination attempt is no more fruitful than frontal assault.¹⁴ Avarice tries bribery. Her archers shower the Virtues with silver arrows. They hope the Virtues will stop fighting so that they can collect the priceless missiles.¹⁵ But Virtue cannot be bought. The fight rages on until the last foe of decency, Ignobility, flees trembling from the field. The divine man and his Virtues are triumphant.¹⁶

Alan has a grand time with his battle. It is significant? The struggle between the forces of Virtue and Vice as Alan describes it seems an improbable source of social comment. But there is more to this segment of the Anticlaudianus than a rousing battle in which the good knight prevails. The hero is indeed portrayed as something out of the Matter of Britain. He is moral, wise, valiant, immune to any tremor of lust or wavering of the will. King Arthur would have approved. This is a perfect knight. He represents what Alan thought a knight should be. What Alan thought of the real knights of his time is quite another matter.

Before we come to Alan on knights, let us work our way through the other ranks. The peasants make their first appearance at the marshalling of the hosts of Tartarus. The Vices have been clamoring for war at the top of their lungs. In the midst of all this commotion Poverty makes her quiet entrance:

But then Poverty, sprung from the lower classes, takes up arms. With downcast countenance and lowly bearing she comes forward with mournful gait. And yet, careless of her own life, undismayed by the blows of death, unshaken by fear, she rushes in. Selling her life in the midst of doom, she is the more daring, for want and poverty know no fear.¹⁷

With her are all the companions of the common folk: suffering, toil, thirst, hunger, famine, worry.¹⁸ This grim picture of the peasants silently and reluctantly coming forward to serve in a cause not their own, for they are misfortunes, not Vices, arouses not contempt but compassion. Alan says the forces of Poverty are more daring. More daring than whom? More daring, one might venture, than the Vices, mounted knights who reap all the glory. It is Poverty who is allowed the only strong blow for Tartarus. Her peasant hordes with their clubs and clods retrieve a lost battle for a while. Poverty nearly wins the battle for Alecto when she unhelms the hero. No Vice comes as close to triumph. The hero recovers. He cannot bear to give a peasant an honorable death. She dies trampled in the dust, giving up a life which had offered her little. How does Alan want us to react to this scene? Are we aristocrats who should applaud lower class impertinence given its just deserts? Alan seems to hold Poverty in high regard. Consider her appearance on the battle field:

Not a lesser, but a greater one rushes in fury to the fray—poverty. She isn't banging her sword or threatening war with her shiny weapon. She doesn't gleam in a cuirass or protect her sides with a shield or her face with a helmet. Instead of arms she carries a club, rough and knobby, unpolished, still showing its old appearance and shape. What she wants in weaponry she makes up for in spirit. Though she has few arms, she has lots of courage.¹⁹

Alan's portrayal of the brave peasant soldier in the Anticlaudianus leads us to examination of his other references to the poor. In his “Sermo contra Avaritiam” he makes this pointed observation: “Consider that saying of the philosopher ‘Happy poverty is a worthy thing.’ If it's happy, it's not real poverty.”²⁰ So much for the contented poor. Further along in the same sermon he offers this bit of advice to those who are poor, as well as to those who are not:

Oh how much to be sought is worthy poverty. Wealth prevents many people from doing good. Poverty is free. Poverty is certain. If you wish to serve God you should be poor, or at least act as if you were poor.²¹

On the subject of poverty and virtue, riches and vice, Alan offers this advice to confessors assigning penance:

You must consider too the status of the individual—whether the sinner is rich or not, noble or ignoble, for the rich and noble are nourished more delicately than others. Therefore they have greater opportunity to sin, and therefore they sin less than others. For example, suppose someone is poor. He works all day long till he is totally exhausted. Then he fornicates, although he has nothing compelling him to do so. He sins more than some rich man or noble who is lured into fornication by myriad temptations. On the other hand, might there be sins which a poor man is more easily drawn than a rich? For example: a poor man has greater motive to steal than does a rich man. Therefore a rich man sins more than a poor man if he should steal.²²

However the secular court might judge a poor man for a stolen loaf, Alan is not about to judge him harshly in the confessional. In his “Sermo de cruce Domini” he uses the fall of Jerusalem to preach a lesson about the rich and the poor. He pictures the Cross wandering through the world searching for a home. There is no home to be found among the rich, the powerful, the aristocratic. They are too sunk in sin to receive the Cross. Only among “Christ's poor” can it find rest.²³ In a sermon “Ad principes et judices” he asks: “What will your soul say to you then, oh prince, when the poor man judges you on the day of judgement, if you have ruled the world badly, if you have judged the poor unjustly?”²⁴ The soul of the prince will say nothing very kindly to the prince because:

Many kings are borne to the tomb with all the showiness of a funeral and their bodies are lowered into the sepulcher with a sort of feigned good humor. But their wretched spirits, surrounded by a horrible throng of demons, will be tortured miserably in Gehenna.²⁵

Alan is not a great one for Hellfire sermons. This is the only sermon in which he actually describes someone enduring the torments of the damned, and he wrote a great many sermons. He reserves the hospitality of Gehenna and its horrible demons for high-born abusers of the poor. From the Anticlaudianus we may conclude that Alan finds a certain nobility of spirit among the poor. In the Liber poenitentialis we find compassion for the sins to which men are driven by want, and in the sermons anger and contempt for their oppressors. There is more sympathy for the common man in the writing of Alan than that of contemporary romancers. There the poor, when they appear at all, are likely to be lecherous unwashed dwarves.

In the Liber poenitentialis Alan distinguishes between the poor on the one hand and the rich and noble on the other. While a nobleman was likely to be rich, it did not necessarily follow in the twelfth century that a rich man was noble. The portions of Alan's life we know center around two cities, Montpellier and Paris. What did he think of his fellow townsmen? He never took the trouble to catalogue the profusion of occupations by which his contemporaries were attempting to lift themselves from poverty. His friend Peter the Chanter did make such a catalogue. According to Peter farming and wine making are respectable pursuits. Cobblers and tanners are necessary. So are rough carpenters, dyers, and weavers who produce plain clothing. Painters are acceptable when they paint history and not frivolous subjects. Peter approves of people who make musical instruments too. On the other hand he dismisses as superfluous: goldsmiths, especially those who gild chairs and spurs; snippers and perforators of clothing; makers of whips and dice. Makers of chessmen, swordsmiths, and jesters are merely tolerable.²⁶

Alan has no words to spur gilders or jesters, but he does have a sermon for the bourgeoisie—“Contra avaritiam”. Some theologians smiled upon the businessman. Honorius Augustodunensis, for example, praises the merchant as a useful fellow: “You are the servants of all nations when, through the perils of rivers, the perils of bandits, the perils of the road, you bring people whatever they need.”²⁷ Alan's view is closer to that of Peter the Chanter. Peter calls merchants fornicators and crucifiers of Christ:

Merchants, whose sin is spread through the entire herd, as is said concerning Achor and the Corinthian fornicators; and the sin of several, or of an entire multitude, is attributed to individuals as the crucifixion of the Jews (was attributed) to the people of Jerusalem … He who excuses and exempts himself from sin, or from the guilt of a multitude, is like Pilate who, impure of conscience, washed his hands.²⁸

It is the greed of the merchant that disturbs Alan:

Hear what Charity says about you: “Oh man, why do you make yourself rich with the things your neighbor needs? Why do you hoard what could be given to the poor? Why do you feed to moths and worms those things which could nourish the poor? Would you like to be the very best sort of merchant, an outstanding money lender? Give away what you can't keep, so that you may pursue the things you really need. Give a little away and expect a hundred-fold return. Give it away—it isn't yours anyhow—and seek an eternal inheritance.”²⁹

As for most medieval churchmen, so for Alan money lending is the most offensive of bourgeois occupations. Here is Alan fuming about the neighborhood loan shark:

Listen to what your neighhbor says: “Oh man, why do you wrong me? Why do you compass my death? Why do you invent lies and plot crimes so that you can empty my wallet and swindle me out of my money? If you do me harm, there will be swift revenge. Before you deprive me of my money, you'll be deprived of your soul. If you wound me in body, you'll be wounded in mind first.”³⁰

What does Alan advise the money lender who comes into his confessional? Give it back. If the victims cannot be found, give it to the poor. However, in a comment on the penitence of userers Alan is moved to warn that restitution made with money stolen from someone else is unlikely to save a money lender's soul. Likewise, the children of money lenders are urged to give away their parents' ill-gotten gains, thereby freeing themselves from the temptations of wealth and the inheritance of ancestral sin.³¹

“Contra avaritiam” is primarily a sermon for money lenders. However, Alan has some startling things to say about other occupations. He objects to mining and over-enthusiastic farming.

Listen to what the elements, especially Mother Earth, have to say about you: “Why do you injure your mother? Why do violence to me, who produced you from my womb? Why abuse me with your plow so that you can make a hundred-fold profit? Why abuse your mother so that I vomit gold? Aren't the things I freely give you enough? Must you extort with violence? The time is coming when you will return whence you came, when I will fold you in my womb. I shall expose you to worms as you exposed me to buffets.”³²

Thus Master Alan speaks to us from the twelfth century on the penalties of environmental abuse. Not only does he disapprove of mining and over-enthusiastic farming. For reasons unclear Alan of Lille disapproves of sailing too:

Hear what the sea says about you: “Oh man, why do you furrow me with ships, beat me with oars, search my innards with nets? Is it any wonder I drown you and shipwreck you, if I assault you with tempests and all sorts of beatings?”³³

If simple miners and sailors risk vengeance from Earth and water, what fate lies in store for lawyers? Lawyers were no more popular in Alan's century than in our own or in antiquity as Peter the Chanter demonstrated when he placed them in an occupational category with professional boxers:

Antiquity loathed that species of man not just for his greed, but for the vileness of his occupation. Just as boxers, racers, public criers, and functionaries of that sort were wretched abject creatures, so were lawyers. No one became a lawyer, save as a remedy for poverty, so that he could claim to earn his living as a professional man.³⁴

As usual Alan avoided the vitriol of Peter. Law was a respectable occupation, in theory—somewhat like professional soldiering. If a lawyer were “armed with truth, highly discreet, fervent in his charity, and devoted to justice” he could be saved. He ought to take charity cases:

This is what it means to visit the unfortunate in prison: to undertake the defense of the oppressed. This is what it means to clothe the naked: to give legal aid to someone bereft of his inheritance; this is what it means to nourish the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to give medicine to the ill, to take in the traveller: to take as clients the utterly helpless. Whoever, therefore, takes up the defense of the poor is fulfilling every demand of charity.³⁵

Are the lawyers of Alan's acquaintance devoting their talents to the helpless and feeless?

Counsellor, why don't you defend needy widows? What does it cost you to use your education? What will you lose if you spend this treasure? It's a noble possession, but it's showing you up a miser. Use it before it slips away.³⁶

Evidently Alan's lawyers are neglecting their opportunities for self-sacrifice in the cause of the poor. Thus Alan on the middle class. He wags an admonitory finger at merchants and money lenders, miners and sailors, farmers and lawyers. It is of course the function of preachers to wag admonitory fingers. The one bourgeois profession of which Master Alan speaks frequently in admiring tones is the medical. It is physicians, not lawyers, whom he compares to Christ.³⁷ The Summa de arte praedicatoria contains no “Sermo ad physicos” in which he rages at doctors' fees. Save for his chastisement of medical students who neglect theology, Alan's words to doctors are kindly ones. He obviously thought well of the profession—so well that one is tempted once more to ask if the “doctor universalis” ever practiced medicine himself.

We rise in the social hierarchy and at last come to the knights. The hero of the Anticlaudianus is the ideal knight. He corresponds to the soldier Alan portrays in his “Sermo ad milites”:

The fleshly soldier lives in a camp, far from the arms of his wife, content with short rations, forever on guard, sheathed in armor, fighting the enemy, looking out for his comrades.³⁸

As the lawyer ought to defend widows and orphans, the soldier ought to guard his Church and country from harm. What he actually does is something quite opposite:

Soldiery was instituted for this purpose: to defend a country and protect the Church from the assaults of violent men. But now soldiers have become bandit chiefs, thieves. They do not soldier, they steal. Under the military appearance lurks the cruelty of a robber. These days they don't fight the enemy, they despoil the poor. Those who should seek shelter beneath the protecting shield of the army are pursued by its savage sword. Now they prostitute their military calling. They fight for money. They take up arms so they can steal. These aren't soldiers anymore. They are bandits and thieves. They are not our defenders but our invaders. They thrust their blade into the womb of Mother Church. The strength they should turn against the enemy they use against their own. They are either too lazy or too cowardly to fight the enemy. They rage with their swords among the unarmed servants of Christ.³⁹

Alan says the same thing, more circumspectly, to the knights who visited him in his classroom: If you want to be chivalrous stop stealing from the poor.⁴⁰ In “Sermo de sancto Cruce” the Cross finds no resting place among soldiers because they've all turned to banditry.⁴¹ Master Alan catches the spirit of the robber baron nicely in Alecto's harangue to the warrior Vices of Tartarus:

We'd be ashamed to obey the law. Behaving ourselves and asking nicely for things just isn't our style. Let strength replace law. Let virtue yield to violence. Let might sweep away legalism. Let arms raise the new order. Let its laws be written in blood!⁴²

But much to their surprise, the evil barons are defeated. They slink back into the shadows of Tartarus. Mother Nature ushers in a golden age under the administration of the divine man and the Virtues.⁴³

Alan's golden age is impeccably classical. The Earth returns to a pre-agrarian idyll, for she yields of her own free will everything that mankind requires. No longer need the soil be afflicted by plough or mattock.⁴⁴ Guarded by the armed camps of the Virtues, guided under the rule of law by Nature's hero, humanity enters an era of happiness. How closely this picture resembles the dawn Alan describes in “Sermo ad somnolentes”. Mankind no longer suffers from ignorance, for Nature's creatures instruct; no longer suffers from guilt, for vice has been conquered; no longer suffers from toil, for Earth yields a sufficiency.⁴⁵

Let us turn from this beguiling fantasy and ask ourselves if Master Alan has a coherent view of society. In most respects he is conventional. His social structure reaches from peasants at the bottom through merchants, lawyers, physicians, and money lenders of the middle class, to the knights, judges, and princes of the ruling class. For each order of secular society he has a criticism. On the whole, he paints a grim picture. However, on the one hand his view of the poor, especially in the Anticlaudianus, is tinged with sympathy. On the other hand, his view of the ruling class is distinctly unenthusiastic. His vision of a better world is one in which things will be better for those who labor. Nevertheless, Alan poses no challenge to the structures of authority. The bad prince will meet retribution not in this world but in Hell. Alan does not meditate the overthrow of unjust princes. He is firm in his repudiation of the Waldensian “muscipuli” who challenge the other great authority structure, the Church.

What sort of a picture does this give us of Master Alan? We see a short, brilliant little man of obscure origin—no powerful family, order, or political connection to support him—making a career for himself as a member of the intelligentsia of twelfth century France. To find a place for himself he must court the powerful. In his dedications he fawns on prospective patrons embarrassingly. One cannot help the suspicion, however, that when he refers to a subject as a “new Lucifer”, Master Alan is winking at us across the centuries, as he is winking at Peter the Chanter in his portrait.

Notes

1. Étienne de Bourbon, op. cit., pages 246, 370-371. See “I: The Worlds of Alan of Lille”, note 31.

2. Bossuat, Anticlaudianus VIII, pages 177-179, lines 160-217.

3. Ibid., page 179, lines 218-233.

4. Ibid., pages 182-183, lines 317-337.

5. Ibid. IX, pages 185-186, lines 1-52.

6. Ibid., page 186, lines 52-60.

7. Ibid., pages 186-187, lines 60-78.

8. Ibid., pages 187-188, lines 79-96.

9. Ibid., page 189, lines 149-183.

10. Ibid., page 190, lines 184-191.

11. Ibid., pages 190-191, lines 197-203.

12. Ibid., pages 191-193, lines 228-270.

13. Ibid., pages 193-194, lines 294-303.

14. Ibid., pages 194-195, lines 329-353.

15. Ibid., pages 195-196, lines 354-379.

16. Ibid., page 196, lines 380-386.

17. Ibid. VIII, pages 197-180, lines 234-239:

    “Post hos arma capit, humili de plebe creata
    Pauperies, facie deiecta, paupere cultu,Incessu tristi gradiens, sed prodiga uite;
    Non mortis concussa metu, non fracta timore
    Irruit et uendens in multo funere uitam,
    Plus audet, dum nescit inops pauperque timere.”

18. Ibid. VIII, page 180, lines 240-242:

    “It pedes innumera peditum uallata corona, Cuius in arma ruit plebee turba cohortis: Pena, Labor, Sitis, Esuries, Ieunia, Cure.”

19. Ibid. IX, page 186, lines 52-60:

    “Non minor ad pugnam sed maior surgit in iram
    Pauperies, non ense tonans, non fulgure teli
    Bella minans, nulla lorice ueste refulgens,
    Nec clipeo munita latus, nec casside uultus,
    Sed nodis uariis callosa, nec arte polita;
    Sed uultus ueteres retinens primamque figuram,
    Claua uicem gerit armorum, sed quod minus arma
    Dant, supplent animi, dat mens quod perdit in armis.”

20. Summa de arte praedicatoria, “Contra avaritiam”, PL 210, 124A:

    “Considera illud philosophi: ‘Honesta res est laeta paupertas.’ Illa vero non est paupertas si laeta.”

21. Ibid., 124C:

    “O quantum appetenda est honesta paupertas! Multis ad bene agendum obstiterunt divitiae! paupertas expedita est, secura est. Si vis servire Deo, aut pauper sis oportet, aut pauperi similis.”

22. Longère, op. cit. II, “Liber Primus, Cap. XV”, pages 30-31:

    “Considerandus etiam est personae status: utrum peccator dives sit vel non, utrum nobilis vel ignobilis. Divites enim et nobiles delicatius solent nutriri quam alii, et ideo majorem habent occasionem peccandi et ideo minus peccant quam alii. Verbi causa: si aliquis pauper, tota die laborans, totoque corpore defatigatus, moveatur ad concupiscentiam cum nihil eum imellat, magis peccat quam aliquis dives vel nobilis, qui variis delectationibus seductus a concupiscentia trahitur. E contra, considerandum est utrum ad aliquod peccatum magis cogatur pauper quam dives. Verbi cause: majorem causam impulsivam ad furtum habet pauper quam dives; unde, magis peccat dives si furetur quam pauper.”

23. D'Alverny, Alain de Lille: Textes inédits, page 283:

    “In prelatis ecclesie non potest hospitium habere, quia hospitata est ibi symonia; in militibus ei hospitium denegatur, ubi rapina hospitatur; in burgensibus ei hospitium non datur, ubi usura suum locauit tabernaculum; a mercatoribus relegatur, ubi mendacium dominatur; in plebeis locum non inuenit, ubi furtum suum hospitium collocauit. Ubi ergo hospitabitur Christus? In solis Christi pauperibus, de quibus dicitur: Beati pauperes spiritu, quoniam ipsorum est regnum celorum quod nobis prestare dignetur, etc.”

24. Summa de arte praedicatoria, “Ad principes et judices”, 188D:

    “Quid tibi tunc animus dictabit, o princeps terrae, cum pauper te judicabit in die judicii, si male rexeris orbem si injuste judicaveris pauperem.”

25. Ibid., 189A:

    “Multi reges cum honore funeris deducuntur ad tumulum, et corpora cum quodam superficiali felicitate deducuntur ad spulcrum, sed miserae animae horribili daemonum caterva vallatae cruciantur miserabiliter in gehenna.”

26. Peter the Chanter, Verbum abbreviatum, PL 205, 253BD.

27. Honorius Augustodunensis, Speculum Ecclesiae, “Ad mercatores”, PL 172, 865D.

28. Peter the Chanter, op. cit., 336D.

29. Summa de arte praedicatoria, “Contra avaritiam”, 124C:

    “Audi quid dicat contra te charitas! O homo, cur ditas te his quibus indiget proximus? Cur tibi approprias quae communicanda sunt pauperibus? cur cibas his tineas et vermes, quibus cibandi sunt pauperes? Vis esse mercator optimus, foenerator egregius, et prudens mercenarius? Da quae non potes retinere, ut consequaris ea quae non potes amittere, da modicum ut consequaris centuplum; da alienam possessionem, ut consequaris aeternam haereditatem.”

30. Ibid., 124C:

    “Audi quid contra te dicat proximus: O hom, cur mihi injuriaris, cur mihi pro meis mortem moliris? cum imponis falsa, et commentaris crimina, ut meam evacues bursam, ut emungas pecuniam? Si injuriaris mihi, vindicata de te sumetur in instanti; si me depraedaveris pecunia, prius te depraedaberis in anima; si me vulneres in corpore, prius vulneraberis in mente.”

    See also Longère, op. cit. II, “Liber secundus, Cap. X: “Qualis poenitentia debetur pro usura?”, pages 52-53:

    “Si vero confessus fuerit peccatum usurae, consulat ei sacerdos, ut ea quae per usuram rapuit restituat, si restituendi facultatem habeat. Aliter enim ei non est salus, quia ut ait Augustinus “Non datur venia, nisi restituantur ablata’. Si vero facultatem reddendi non habeat, voluntatem offerat, quia sufficit affectus, ubi deest effectus, his autem spiritualiter reddat quibus rapuit; si desunt, eorum proximis, si nec proximi inveniuntur, pauperibus eroget. Eleemosyna tamen de rapina facta, si super sint hi quibus rapuit, et eis reddere noluerit, non valet. ‘Qui enim de rapina sacrificium Deo offert’ ut ait Auctoritas, ‘idem est ac si victimet filium in conspectu Patris. Abominabilis nempe Deo, impiorum oblatio.’”

31. Longère, op. cit. II, “Liber secundus, Cap. X”, pages 52-53:

    “Filii usurariorum ad restituendas usuras ea sunt districtione cogendi, quia patres si viverent, cogerentur. Idipsum contra heredes extraneos credimus exercendum. Possessiones vero quae de usuris sunt comparatae debent vendi et et ipsarum pretia his a quibus usurae extortae sunt, restitui, ut sic, non solum a poena illa sed etiam a peccatis possint, quae per usurarum extorsionem incurrerant, liberari.”

32. Summa de arte praedicatoria, “Contra avaritiam”, 124D—125A:

    “Audi quid contra te dicant elementa, et maxime tellus, mater tua: Cur injuriaris matri tuae, cur infers violentiam mihi, quae de visceribus meis te produxi? Cur me vexas aratro, ut foenus reddam centuplum, cur vexas matrem ut evomam aurum? non sufficiunt ea quae tibi largior spontanea voluntate, nisi extorqueas violentia? veniet tempus quando proprias reverteris in ortus, quando te recipiam et in visceribus claudam; quando te exponam vermibus, qui me exposuisti verberibus.”

33. Ibid., 125A:

    “Audi quid contra te dicat mare: O homo, cur me sulcas navibus, remis verberas, scrutaris viscera retibus? Non mirum si te mergam, si naufragium inferam, si impugnem procellis et verberis variis.”

34. Peter the Chanter, op. cit., 160BC.

35. Summa de arte praedicatoria, “Ad oratores, seu aduocatos”, 187D:

    “Hoc est enim in carcere visitare miserum, oppresso in causa ferre patrocinium. Hoc est vestire nudum; nudato patrocinio, in causa ferre patrocinii subsidia; hoc est esurientem pascere, sitienti potum dare, medicinam largiri infirmo, peregrinum recipere, destitutum ab omni auxilio, ad patrocinandum in causa suscipere. Qui ergo in justa causa indigenti patrocinium praebet, omne opus misericordiae implet.”

36. Ibid., 187D:

    “Orator, cur defendere viduas in suis necessitatibus omittis? In tuae scientiae expositione nihil amittis, nihil in hujus thesauri largitione perdis. Haec est nobilis possessio, quae avarum dedignatur possessorem, cumque non publicatur, elabitur.”

37. See “I: The Worlds of Alan of Lille”, page 8-9.

38. Summa de arte praedicatoria, “Ad milites”, 186D:

    “Miles materialis habitat in castris, vacat ab amplexibus uxoris, tenuibus contentus est cibis, intentus vigiliis, vestitutus armis, resistens hostibus, providens suis commilitionibus. Talis debet esse quilibet homo in spiritu, qualis est materialis miles in actu.”

39. Ibid., 186CD:

    “Ad hoc specialiter instituti sunt milites, ut patriam suam defendant, et ut repellant ab Ecclesia violentorum injurias, sed jam milites facti sunt praedarii duces aliorum, facti sunt abigeri; nec jam exercent militiam, sed rapinam, et sub specie militis, assumant crudelitatem praedonis: nec tam militant in hostesl quam grassantur in pauperes; et quos debent tueri clypeo militaris muniminis, persequuntur gladio feritatis. Jam suum prostituunt militiam, militant ut lucrentur, arma capiunt ut praedentur. Jam non sunt milites, sed fures et raptores; non defensores, sed invasores. In viscera matris Ecclesiae accuunt gladios, et vim quam debent in hostes expendere expendunt in suos; hostes autem suos (aut torpore dejecti, aut timore perterriti) desistunt invadere, et in Christi famulos imbellas, cogunt gladios desaevire.”

40. See “I: The Worlds of Alan of Lille”, page 6.

41. D'Alverny, Alain de Lille: Textes inédits, page 283. Vide supra, note 23, for text.

42. Bossuat IX, page 178, lines 193-197:

    “Sed pudeat nos iura sequi, quas uiuere iuste
    Non decet, aut precibus uti. Pro legibus ergo
    Sumende uires, uis pro uirtute feratur. Nos pro iure decet assumere robur et armis
    Res dictare nouas et sanguine scribere leges.”

43. Ibid. IX, page 196, lines 384-390.

44. Ibid. IX, pages 196-197, lines 391-409:

    “In terris iam castra locant et regna merentur
    Uirtutes mundumque regunt, nec iam magis illis
    Astra placent sedesque poli quam terrenus orbis.
    Iam celo contendit humus, jam terra nitoremInduit ethereum, jam terram uestit Olimpus.
    Nec iam corrigitur rastro, nec uomere campus
    Leditur, aut curui deplorat uulnus aratri,
    Ut tellus auido, quamuis inuita, colono
    Pareat, et semen multo cum fenore reddat.
    Non arbor cultrum querit, non uinea falcem,
    Sed fructus dat sponte nouos et uota coloni
    Fertilitate premit. Spes uincitur ubere fructu,
    Gratis poma parit arbor, uitisque racemos,
    Et sine se natas miratur pampinus uuas.
    E tunicis egressa suis rosa purpurat ortos,
    Nec spinam matrem redolet, sed sponte creata
    Pullulat, atque nouos sine semine prodit in ortus.
    Sic flores alii rident uarioque colore
    Depingit terram florum primeua iuuentus.”

45. Summa de arte praedicatoria, “Ad somnolentes”, 196D-197A.