[In the following review, Bird praises Ilse Schöndorfer's book on Jacques, particularly her attempt to provide a comprehensive study of Jacques's views, but criticizes the author for insufficiently considering the context of his works.]

Many historians have mined James of Vitry's historical and homiletic works for colorful anecdotes while ignoring the moral imperatives which informed his descriptions. His jeremiadic decrial of contemporary abuses and sanguine hopes for the possibility of reform through a renewed priesthood and religious orders and novel forms of quasi-regular and regular religious life, including the mendicants, beguines and crusaders, were dismissed as the ravings of a zealot. Yet he was not a marginal or idiosyncratic figure. An influential reform preacher and recruiter for the crusade, bishop of Acre, auxiliary bishop of Liège (1227-1229), and cardinal-bishop of Tusculum (1229-1240) under Gregory IX, James' vision actively shaped local and papal policies. Schöndorfer [in Orient und Okzident nach den Hauptwerken des Jakob von Vitry, Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang, 1997] continues the work of McDonnell, Hinnebusch, Cannuyer and Huygens, who stressed James' influence upon the secular church, religious orders and the laity at large and his value as an individualistic and clear-sighted historian. She also reverses the former piecemeal approach to James' work by exploring his personal and exceptional vision of the eastern and western worlds described in his histories, homilies and letters. This examination of the inner logic of James' æuvre is long overdue. A coherent monograph was needed to summarize and integrate decades of amendments to the foundations laid by Zachter, Zarncke and Funk. Schöndorfer's book is also symptomatic of the revived interest in James of Vitry, manifested in a recently published French translation of the Historia Occidentalis, projected English translations of the same, his Historia Orientalis and letters, and the heroic efforts of a consortium of scholars producing scholarly editions of James' sermons¹.

However, Schöndorfer' work suffers from a number of flaws. If, as she suggests, her goal is to present a holistic picture of James' world-view, his work ought to have been more thoroughly contextualized. In particular, the histories' audience, purpose and impact (both intended and actual) ought to have been addressed. Despite her mastery of a voluminous literature on James' histories, letters, and the Vita of Mary of Oignies, Schöndorfer relies on fragmentary editions of his sermones ad status and exempla and on outdated work on James' education and acquaintances. Of the influential circle of reformers of which James was a part, only Oliver of Paderborn is given a thorough treatment, perhaps because his writings overlap extensively with James' historical æuvre. This lacuna prevents Schöndorfer from making a strong case for James' influence, both within his lifetime and upon posterity. For as James Baldwin, Stephen Ferruolo, and Jean Longère have shown, James and Oliver were but two members of an entire circle of moral theologians and reformers educated by Peter the Chanter, including men such as Robert of Courson and Stephen Langton, as well as a host of lesser masters who, in their employment as canons and scolastici of various cathedral schools in northern Europe, formed friendship and reform networks with a host of sympathetic bishops, Cistercians, and houses of canons regular. These men not only outlines their reform program in their theological writings, which ranged from theoretical summae to handbooks meant to be eventually disseminated to the parish priest, but also implemented their schemes as papal judge delegates, legates, and crusade preachers. For example, Robert of Courson and Stephen Langton summoned provincial councils which served as testing grounds for the legislation of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), while other Paris-educated bishops in England and France implemented this ecumenical council's measures in diocesan synods and provincial councils. Their goal was the reform of the secular clergy and monastic orders, the extension of a quasi-regular lifestyle to the laity at large, and the extirpation of vices which infected both orders, including simony, sexual sins, heresy, usury and rapine. James and other Paris masters did not merely describe society and decry its flaws, but shaped it. Amicable relations with likeminded reformers and their positions as Paris masters ensured that their writings enjoyed a wide circulation. Their living example and written opinions also influenced the mendicant orders, particularly after the latters' ranks filled with university masters in the second and third decades of the thirteenth century.

Schöndorfer, following Schrieber, does describe James' flexible definition of religious life and his base criteria for the praise and critique of various orders in the Historia Occidentalis. However, by neglecting to investigate James' sources for information on the religious orders and the ideals which informed his appraisal of their spiritual health and function, she misses the opportunity to examine James' personal involvement in the reformation of the religious orders, including the legislation outlined above, and attempts to enforce various reforms during the pontificates of Innocent III, Honorius III and Gregory IX. In fact, Fourth Lateran's statutes stipulating episcopal visitation for non-exempt monasteries and internal visitation and self-convened general chapters for exempt orders (modelled after Cistercian practice) led James to praise provisions for internal reform in his descriptions of various forms of religious life. Similarly, Fourth Lateran's canon mandating the adoption of an established rule by new orders may explain why James did not formally include the mulierae sanctae in his history; as informal groupings of devout religious under the guidance of the local bishop they were safe from the structures of an imposed rule.

James' attitude toward the religious orders was remarkably similar to that of the future Gregory IX, Hugolino, who as a cardinal had become the protector of the Franciscans and Dominicans. Both men were concerned with reconciling each monastic order's internal mission with its role on the church at large. The ranking of orders in James' history is also symptomatic of the twelfth-century shift in the conception of the vita apostolica. While earlier monastic orders had portrayed themselves as followers of Christ's disciples through their stability, prayer, and possessions in common, now the mendicants and other newer orders stressed a literal imitation of the apostles' preaching. This conceptual revolution led to other pressing questions. How could the various elements of monastic life (obedience, chastity, stability, contemplation, poverty, and manual labor) be harmonized with ministry of the laity? As a Paris master intent upon amending the lack of pastoral care provided by the secular church hierarchy, James hailed Fulk of Neuilly as the living realization of the Paris reformer's goal, the dissemination of the fruits of their study to the laity. This hope was reflected in James' instructions for secular canons, priests, and bishops in his history and sermons. However, he also recognized the limitations binding a reformer who was also a secular cleric, perhaps working in isolation. Together with Innocent III and Hugolino, he saw religious orders, with their internal cohesion and resources, as potential task forces for supplementing the inadequate pastoral care afforded by the secular clergy, even if that meant sacrificing or compromising the orders' original identity and goals. This imperative leads him to silence critiques of active orders in his history which were voiced in his letters to his friends and in sermons addressed to specific orders. For example, his history acknowledges the dilemmas which arose from the Praemonstratensians' and Cistercians' involvement in the Cura mulierum, but his friendships with reformers in the Cistercian order led him to praise them for their preaching and work with women religious. However, in his later sermons to Cistercians, he recognizes their unease at reconciling an active role with their heremitical tradition of stability, withdrawal from the world, and contemplation and so focuses on the latter. This new apostolic ideal also informs his esteem for the new rules of the friars and the Humiliati, whose stress upon mendicancy, itinerancy and poverty solved many of problems which had dogged the older orders by ensuring that the salvation of the self was compatible with the salvation of others. Nonetheless, despite James' approbation of the novel practices of the Franciscans in his history, he still harbored some reservations as to whether their primary emphasis upon mendicancy and poverty would hamper the education and seasoning necessary for the hazardous occupation of preacher, although he reserved these for sermons to that order and his letters.

James' network of acquaintances also shaped his praises and critiques of religious orders. These men were often responsible for reforming individual orders as papally appointed visitors and judge delegates, and in testing and promoving the general reform legislation embodied in the Fourth Lateran council. For example, James' rating of the various reformed and unreformed branches of the Benedictine ordre derived from Cistercian polemic which stressed the necessity of following the unflossed Rule of Saint Benedict and embracing manual labor. Similarly, his choice of specific houses as examples of virtuous monastic life and his knowledge of various orders stemmed from his network of acquaintances. For example, his knowledge of the Grandmontine conflict was most likely derived from Robert of Courson's personal involvement in the case as legate, while his praise of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes in Soissons may have originated from Fulk of Neuilly's sojourn there during councils held in preparation for the Fourth Crusade. His eulogy of the canons of St. Victor sprung from his identity as a canon regular and his longstanding friendship with the monks there, particularly their abbot, Jean the Teuton, and he may have been personally acquainted with the founder of order of the Trinity, the Paris master John of Malta. His perception of the friars and the Humiliati was colored by his experience of the similar ideals of the beguine movement in Flanders and the Paris masters' portrait of the ideal preacher who would be equipped with voluntary poverty, itinerancy and most crucually, learning, which explains his reservations on the Franciscans' lack of a novitiate.

James critiques also extended to the laity. Following Alberto Forni, Schöndorfer portrays James as moral sociologist investigating the social functions each group ought to fulfill. Although she laudably cross-references James' descriptions of some religious orders with his sermons to nuns, canons regular, Franciscans, and military orders, her dependance upon the narrow range of sermons printed in Pitra's edition hinders her admirable effort to compare James' appraisal of society at large in his history with his more specific messages to specific religious and social orders in his sermons; relatively marginal groups such as sailors are treated in detail while other major groups represented in less accessible sermons are overlooked. While it is perhaps unreasonable to suggest that Schöndorfer ought to have studied those sermons represented only by the manuscript tradition, Pitra's edition has been supplemented by Longre's editions of many of the sermons to nuns, canons, monks, and servants; Touati and Berliou's publication of the sermons to lepers; an article on James' sermons to the married by Tausch and d'Avray; and Mandonnet's discussion of a sermon to various types of canons regular, including the Dominicans. Similarly, her detailed analysis of James' message to some groups is hampered by her cryptic explanation of James' background as a reformer and Paris master. For example, when describing James' treatment of women, she claims that he lapses into a dichotic portrayal of them as either whore or saint, yet goes on to delineate how he presents marriage as a positive blessing rather than simply a remedy for fornication, and his encouragement of the beguine phenomenon as a means by which married, widowed and single women, not just virgins, could indulge in religious practices previously reserved to nuns while living in the world. While noting James' glorification of artisans' and farmers' manual labor, she fails to see that this forms his central charge against advocates, physicians, and merchants—that their work involves deception and negligible physical labor and so they are earning money by doing nothing.

Similarly, when describing James' critique of prelates and pseudo-preachers, she claims that his denunciation of the former's abuses is merely his retaliation for their criticism of the beguines. A reading of Baldwin would have shown that James loathed corrupt prelates and pseudo-preachers because they vitiated the instruments by which the West could be renewed, and were detracting from the work of his own cicle of reformers. In contrast, her Treatment of James' attitude toward learning is much surer. She neatly sums up the contemporary debates over the application of dialectic to theology and the teaching of the libri naturales in Paris, although her discussion would have benefitted from recent research on the Amalricians in Paris, the circle of Peter the Chanter, and the latter's close relationship with Cistercian and Victorine circles. For example, although she notes James of Vitry's list of good masters in Paris, she neglects to explain that they were personal acquaintance of James who were involved with him in subordinating the study of theology to fruitful work in pastoral care and reform rather than a dangerous and potentially heretical dialectical quest for subtleties.

Schöndorfer's discussion of James' Historia Orientalis and letters is much more controlled, particularly her nuanced elucidation of the tangled historical debates over the historial identity of the mythical Priester John, the extent of James' and Oliver's knowledge of Islam, and their conception of the relation between crusade and conversion. Drawing upon the work of Funk and Zacher, she also illustrates how James presents a puzzling and typically medieval mixture of lore on exotic peoples, animals, minerals and plants. However, while noting that James' prologue to the Historia Orientalis claims that he wrote it to confirm faith, inform morals, confute infidels, confound impious men and encourage the praise and imitation of good men, she does not explain how these aims tinge James' entire portrait of the East. James seems to have written this section for ecclesiastics who needed material for crusade recruiting, and as a geographical and political guide for making a pilgrimage in the holy land, avoiding the pitfalls of past crusades, and dealing with the internecine political struggles and varied peoples there (who as Schöndorfer notes, were to be viewed both as putative allies and as potential sources for contamination of orthodox belief). To this end, James describes each of the eastern christian sects and the various Westerners living in the holy land in terms of their military capability while equipping the reader with a summation of their errors in theology and church rite, providing him with the materials and argumentation needed to defend crusaders against the lires of Islam and others foreign sects, which could have served a secondary function as material for proselytization. James' and Oliver's attitude toward the Eastern Christians and Islam was largely determined by their experiences as anti-heretical preachers in the West, something which many historians have overlooked. Similarly, Schöndorfer omits James' account of the first settlers' reclamation of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, the foundation or renewal of religious houses, and the cleansing of holy sites, which James provides as the eastern parallel to the hopes furnished by monastic and ecclesiastical renewal in the West. The earnest crusader and pilgrim was the only hope for the renovation of the East. The crusade, as a temporary quasi-regular option, enabled the laity to participate in the spiritual renewal of themselves, the East and the West, although like any other form of religious life, the ‘middle way’ could prove an invitation to excess, as the number of criminous pilgrims and crusaders dwelling in the holy land illustrated.

Just as Bernard of Clairvaux's De laude novae militiae and pilgrim guides included spiritual glosses to the holy sites and wonders pilgrims would see, so that their physical journey to Jerusalem could be matched by a spiritual journey, so James seems to have envisioned the Historia Orientalis as materia predicabilis for use in crusade recruiting and in general preaching to the laity, who were more impressed by the marvelous animals, stones, peoples and places of the East (and of the West) than by everyday events. To this end, he provides the historical exempla embedded in his account of the crusades, and the largely unglossed descriptions of the wonders of the East. As his work was didactic and edificatory by nature, whether or not these marvels actually existed matters little, as Schöndorfer illustrates. However, she does not indicate the incredible popularity of James' Historia Orientalis, which was translated into the vernacular, a popularity which stemmed largely from its compact account of the holy land and the crusades, which was used by future planners and preachers, including Humbert of Romans and Marino Sanudo, not only as raw material for recruiting sermons but for the actual plotting of proposed crusading expeditions. The section on natural curiosities was also used by the Dominican Thomas of Cantimpré for his Liber de natura rerum, which was meant explicitly as a preaching guide. The genre which we narrowly define as history was meant to be multipurpose. Schöndorfer implicitly recognizes this by her comparison of the criticisms voiced in the history with James' sermons, but simplifies the generic complexity of the Historia Occidentalis by omitting James' treatment of the laity and secular clergy as religious forms of life and the pastoral manual he appends.

In conclusion, if Schöndorfer had invested less time in relativity issues such as St. Patrick's Purgatory, the Assassins, and Priester John, she could have provided a greater contemporary contextualization of James' work, and could have considered the influence he exerted on posterity. She nonetheless compresses a staggering amount of information into a relatively slim volume, which is usefully arranged so that the reader intent upon finding out James' views on a particular topic can do so readily. Her book should prove valuable to university students studying medieval history and is a much-welcomed addition to the literature on James of Vitry.

Notes

1. Jean Longère is editing the sermones ad status and has already published several in various articles. Carolyn Muessig is working on an edition of James' sermones feriales et communes for the Corpus Christianorum (Brepols). She, Monica Sandor, and George Ferzoco are editing James' sermones de sanctis; substantial extracts will appear in a book which Muessig is publishing with Peregrina Press. Gaston Duchet-Suchaux has recently published a French translation of the Historia Orientalis with an introduction and notes by Jean Longère, while Margot King has published an English translation of his life of Mary of Oignies and is planning a reprint of Aubrey Stewart's translation of the Historia Orientalis for Peregrina Press. I am producing English translations of the Historia Occidentalis and the letters for Liverpool University Press and Peregrina Press respectively. Monica Sandor's monograph on James' popular preaching is currently in press; R. B. Huygens is completing an updated edition of James' letters.