Doctrinal debate and social control in the Carolingian age: the predestination controversy (840s–60s), in Early Medieval Europe, 25.1, 2017

Doctrinal debate and social control in the Carolingian age: the predestination controversy (840s–60s) WARREN PEZÉ This paper reconsiders the impact of public opinion on religious controversies in the Carolingian age. Doctrinal debate was by no means limited to the elite circles connected with royal and episcopal power. A wider constituency was involved, as is shown by the well-known controversy on double predestination (840s–60s). During this debate, monks, rural priests and lower clerics read, disputed and circulated treatises and booklets, and questioned the authority of their superiors. The reaction of the clerical elite to the extension of the sphere of debate was ambivalent. A wider discussion was discouraged by a discourse of self-restraint that emphasized the virtue of simplicitas, but also by disciplinary means. Yet dissent was not entirely stifled, so leading churchmen had to convince their subordinates while not officially acknowledging the latter as their equal discussion partners. This required complex strategies of communication, which only become visible by investigating all aspects of such doctrinal debates. Religious debate from late antiquity to scholasticism Scholarly interest in religious dialogue and debate in the Middle Ages has traditionally and understandably focused on the twelfth-century Renaissance, with the consequence that the early medieval period has been seen as a prehistory of scholastic disputatio. In this teleological perspective – best exemplified by Martin Grabmann’s pioneering Geschichte der scholastischen Methode – the main focus is on the few ‘founding fathers’ of the Frühscholastik: Gerbert of Aurillac, Anselm the Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) 85–101 © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 86 Warren Pezé Peripatetic, Peter Damian, and eventually Berengar of Tours and Anselm of Canterbury.1 At a much earlier period, one also encounters apparently open discussions, such as Gregory of Tours’s dialogues with Arians and a Jew, and the public debate between Catholics and Arians arbitrated by Reccared in 589.2 In between these two points, the Carolingian ‘black hole’ seems to have absorbed ‘proper’ theological debate.3 And yet, the theological and dialectical resources available at the time were largely the same as those at hand in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Criticism by Peter Damian or Manegold of Lautenbach against the use of logic in religious matters was not fundamentally different from Carolingian criticism directed at disciples of Martianus Capella, like John the Scot.4 The common explanation is that Carolingian society was both ruled by unsurpassable patristic authority and straitjacketed by hierarchy. This in turn precluded open-ended disputation as it had existed previously and would emerge again in the late eleventh century.5 An essential characteristic of a culture of debate is publicity, that is, the possibility to discuss religious matters before a broader audience without fearing possible condemnation. But under the Carolingians, it is argued, publicity could only be attained through patronage, which implied censura praevia, selfrestraint and preliminary correction.6 The diffusion of exegesis and theological treatises was a way of reasserting social positions through a series of topoi such as the humility of the writer and the demand for correction 1 2 3 4 5 6 M. Grabmann, Die Geschichte der scholastischen Methode, 1. Die scholatische Methode von ihren ersten Anfängen in der Väterliteratur bis zum Beginn des 12. Jahrhunderts, 2nd edn (Basel and Stuttgart, 1961), pp. 215–57. See now O. Weijers, ‘De la joute dialectique à la dispute scolastique’, Comptes-rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 143.2 (1999), pp. 509–18; eadem, In Search of the Truth. A History of Disputation Techniques from Antiquity to Early Modern Times, Studies on the Faculty of Arts, History and Influence 1 (Turnhout, 2013), pp. 71–98; A.J. Novikoff, The Medieval Culture of Disputation. Pedagogy, Practice, and Performance (Philadelphia, 2013). H.-W. Goetz, ‘La compétition entre catholiques et ariens en Gaule: les entretiens religieux (“Religionsgespräche”) de Grégoire de Tours’, in F. Bougard, R. Le Jan and T. Lienhard (eds), Agôn. La compétition, Ve–XIIe siècle, Haut Moyen Âge (HAMA) 17 (Turnhout, 2012), pp. 183–98. S. Gioanni, ‘Les joutes oratoires dans les textes latins (Ve–XIe siècles): du “bon usage” d’une technique antique dans les sociétés chrétiennes du haut Moyen Âge’, in Agôn. La compétition, pp. 199–220. M. Gibson, ‘The Continuity of Learning circa 850–circa 1050’, Viator 6 (1975), pp. 1–14; D.E. Luscombe, ‘Dialectic and Rhetoric in the Ninth and Twelfth Centuries: Continuity and Change’, in J. Fried (ed.), Dialektik und Rheotrik im früheren und hohen Mittelalter. Rezeption, Überlieferung und gesellschaftliche Wirkung antiker Gelehrsamkeit vornehmlich im 9. und 12. Jahrhundert, Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien 27 (Munich, 1997), pp. 1–20. L. Melve, Inventing the Public Sphere. The Public Debate during the Investiture Contest (c. 1030–1122), Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 154, 2 vols (Leiden, 2007), pp. 50–3; but see now also the more nuanced L. Melve, ‘“Even the very laymen are chattering about it”: The Politicization of Public Opinion, 800–1200’, Viator 44.1 (2013), pp. 25–48. S. Steckel, Kulturen des Lehrens im Früh- und Hochmittelalter: Autorität, Wissenskonzepte und Netzwerke von Gelehrten, Norm und Struktur 39 (Cologne, 2011), pp. 515–688. Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Doctrinal debate and social control in the Carolingian age 87 by the hierarchy. In this context, we can easily get the impression that knowledge was static and that no improvement could be made to what the Fathers had once achieved. Discussions beyond the control of the clerical hierarchy meant challenging the church. It is surely correct to assert that nothing strictly comparable to Socratic dialogue or scholastic disputatio took place in Carolingian courts and schools. But instead of measuring their practices by extrinsic standards, we should try to assess the logic of Carolingian debate culture itself. The Carolingian empire was an ecclesia governed by anointed rulers.7 Christian theology was at the foundations of this divinely sanctioned order that aimed at doctrinal correctness and unification.8 The Carolingians were not short of controversies, on issues such as Adoptianism, iconoclasm, the Eucharist, the nature of the soul, the beatific vision, and predestination. If these do not qualify as disputations in the scholastic sense, they were nonetheless discussed in councils and assemblies. Reaching a wide audience, they ‘affected their society’, as David Ganz put it.9 In this paper, I will explore what it actually meant that religious debate ‘affected society’. After some general observations on the relationship between debate, knowledge and power, I will take up the Carolingian controversy on double predestination (840s–60s) as a case study. Debate, publicity and social control under the Carolingians The first question to consider is how the different echelons of the clergy got involved in large-scale debates. Clerics were more than ever involved in the Carolingian polity, but they were a multi-layered group. At its highest level, the episcopate emerged, from the 820s, as a self-conscious leading group in the empire. It is not possible to isolate the cultural achievements of the so-called Carolingian Renaissance from the more general re-ordering of society. Religious knowledge was, among other things, a means of social control.10 To cite David Ganz once more: ‘At stake [with the Carolingian renewal of education] was control of the traditions that defined by whom, through what means, in what ways, and to what ends Christian society should be directed.’11 7 8 9 10 11 M. de Jong, ‘Ecclesia and the Early Medieval Polity’, in W. Pohl (ed.), Der Staat im frühen Mittelalter, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 11 (Vienna, 2006), pp. 113–32; eadem, The Penitential State. Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious (Cambridge, 2009). D. Ganz, ‘Theology and the Organisation of Thought’, in R. McKitterick (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 2: c.700–c.900 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 758–85. Ganz, ‘Theology and the Organisation of Thought’, p. 785. M.C. Ferrari, ‘Potere, pubblico e scrittura nella comunicazione letteraria dell’alto medioevo’, in Comunicare e significare nell’alto medioevo, Settimane 52.1 (Spoleto, 2005), pp. 575–604. D. Ganz, ‘Conclusion: Visions of Carolingian Education, Past, Present, and Future’, in R.E. Sullivan (ed.), ‘The Gentle Voices of Teachers’, Aspects of Learning in the Carolingian Age (Columbus, 1995), pp. 261–84, at p. 275. Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 88 Warren Pezé However, the diffusion of knowledge among the lower layers of the clergy was not cast in stone from the start, which gave rise to tensions. As Steffen Patzold has shown, the place of Carolingian bishops in society was already a matter of debate.12 Monks and clerics, especially when their instruction allowed them to play the role of experts, challenged the growth of episcopal power. Around 906, the monk Regino of Prüm stressed the dramatic lack of culture of the Lotharingian bishops who permitted Lothar II to divorce from Theutberga (860s).13 A few decades before, there was criticism of bad bishops in the exegesis of the monk Haimo of Auxerre (850s–60s).14 Even more outspoken was the reaction of the clerics of Laon to the bitter conflict regarding church property between their bishop Hincmar (858–79) and Charles the Bald. When arrested in May 869, Hincmar put his diocese under interdict, thus forbidding his clerics to perform the sacraments. They reacted by gathering a canonical collection, depicting themselves as ‘mishandled clerics’ and reasserting their prerogatives against their ‘criminal’, ‘sacrilegious’ and ‘seditious’ bishop.15 Therefore, doctrinal debate surely ‘affected society’, in the sense that doctrine – as in the case of the Eucharist or the Trinity – was the cornerstone of the Carolingian polity. But beyond that, the re-ordering of society affected the very nature of theological discussion: the participation of laymen, monks, clerics and bishops had to be renegotiated. In this process, lower clerics were by no means passive spectators. This is particularly true of monastic milieus. Monastic rules provided for specific time slots for religious talks (collatio, colloquium).16 Candidus of Fulda once complained that he had no one with whom to discuss his lectio.17 According to Hrabanus Maurus, beatific vision was discussed by monks over a drink.18 Monastic agitation triggered episcopal reaction: councils complained 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 S. Patzold, Episcopus. Wissen über Bischöfe im Frankreich des späten 8. bis frühen 10. Jahrhunderts, Mittelalter-Forschungen 25 (Ostfildern, 2008). MGH SRG 50, ed. F. Kurze (Hanover, 1890), pp. 81 and 83. See J. Contreni, ‘“By lions, bishops are meant: by wolves, priests”: History, Exegesis, and the Carolingian Church in Haimo of Auxerre’s Commentary on Ezechiel ’, Francia: Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte 29 (2002), pp. 29–56. See K. Zechiel-Eckes, Rebellische Kleriker? Eine unbekannte kanonistisch-patristische Polemik gegen Bischof Hinkmar von Laon in Cod. Paris, BNF, nouv. acq. lat. 1746, MGH Studien und Texte 49 (Hanover, 2009), pp. 31–54. J. Leclercq, ‘La récréation et le colloque dans la tradition monastique’, Revue d’ascétique et de mystique 43 (1967), pp. 1–20 and J. Fontaine, ‘Fins et moyens de l’enseignement ecclésiastique dans l’Espagne wisigothique’, La scuola nell’occidente latino dell’alto medioevo, Settimane 19 (Spoleto, 1972), pp. 145–202, at pp. 182–3. PL 105, col. 383. PL 112, col. 1262 (inter pocula). Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Doctrinal debate and social control in the Carolingian age 89 about monks disseminating ‘novelties’, ‘errors’, and ‘useless questions’.19 We are less informed about secular clerics, but there are hints, for instance, that Felix of Urgel chatted about the Trinity with clerics of the cathedral of Lyons, where he was held in custody.20 If debate on doctrine was not limited to a learned coterie, we have to figure out how the different layers of the clergy interacted, which in turn means focusing on how publicity was managed. Following the traditional view, as we saw, publicity was only possible through patronage. We get the general impression of a public sphere locked off by the elite. There is some truth to this, yet this picture lacks nuance. Publicity was also achieved with subversive means.21 Florus of Lyons (d. before 860), in particular, proved to be an expert in spreading libelli and fostering agitation during the controversies on the Eucharist (835–8) and predestination.22 He engaged a broader audience in those debates, which eventually forced Louis the Pious to dismiss Florus’s opponent Amalarius from Lyons. The main issue for the elite was indeed to enforce social control among the lower echelons of society and to prevent discussion from spreading; this is why Florus’s strategy was so efficient. How to reconcile this with the impression of a corseted debate culture? A possible answer, Sita Steckel argues, is that Florus was an exception: the dominant way to achieve publicity was still to submit to authorities.23 In saying so, Steckel relies heavily on the preface material, as she herself acknowledges. Prefaces, she says, are meticulously constructed sources and unequivocally reflect the dominant culture. In order to deconstruct this discourse, however, the relationship between the written sources and the practice of debate must be worked out – that is, how texts circulated, how they were read and annotated on a local scale.24 Rather than inverting Steckel’s picture of a debate culture ruled by authority and hierarchy, we should nuance it. Discussions of doctrine are also a way to contest power, as can be shown if one takes the texts in their entirety into account, including their manuscript transmission. 19 20 21 22 23 24 Die Konzilien der karolingischen Teilreiche 843–859, ed. W. Hartmann, MGH Concilia 3 (Hanover, 1984), pp. 100–1 (Meaux-Paris 845–6, c. 34) and pp. 228–9 (Pavia 850, c. 21). Agobardi Lugdunensis opera omnia, ed. L. van Acker, CCCM 52 (Turnhout, 1981), pp. 76–7. See Leidulf Melve’s considerations concerning the divorce case of Lothar II: ‘The Politicization of Public Opinion’, pp. 28–31. However, Melve fails to acknowledge the decisive impact of a broader public opinion on Carolingian theological controversies (p. 28). K. Zechiel-Eckes, Florus von Lyon als Kirchenpolitiker und Publizist, Forschungen zum Recht im Mittelalter 8 (Stuttgart, 1999). Steckel, Kulturen des Lehrens, p. 646. Steckel, Kulturen des Lehrens, pp. 520 and 597. Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 90 Warren Pezé The controversy on double predestination In this perspective, let us now turn to the controversy on double predestination.25 This controversy broke out with the preaching of the monk Gottschalk of Orbais in the 840s. According to Gottschalk, quoting Augustine in particular, there was both a predestination of the elect to heaven and of the wicked to death.26 This preaching triggered unrest and eventually led to Gottschalk’s condemnation at the councils of Mainz and Quierzy (848–9) under the supervision of Archbishops Hrabanus Maurus and Hincmar of Reims. But soon, many among the best Carolingian scholars stepped up in defence of Augustinian orthodoxy: Ratramnus of Corbie, Lupus of Ferrières, Prudentius of Troyes, Florus of Lyon. The conflict reached its peak when the council of Valence (855), in Lotharingia, condemned the second council of Quierzy (853). This earlier gathering had been summoned by Charles the Bald in order to banish double predestination from the West Frankish kingdom. The bishops of both kingdoms eventually met at Savonnières (859) but did not reach agreement. The quarrel slowly faded over the years and Gottschalk died in 868–9. With nine councils, dozens of treatises and letters, and all the Frankish kingdoms being involved, all over a period spanning more than twenty years, the controversy represents the climax of Carolingian doctrinal debate. It coincided and was connected with other discussions on the nature of the soul, the vision of God and the Trinity. Not only the elite and the king himself, but monks and lower clerics were actively involved.27 A discourse of exclusion emerged, which reflects the reaction of the leadership to the contestation of a divinely sanctioned social order. For the sake of conciseness, I will focus on strategies of communication inside clerical circles and leave aside the issue of lay participation. Access to discussion: simplices and docti As Richard Lim has argued, late antique ecclesiastical writers faced the problem of addressing both learned opponents and a popular audience. 25 26 27 The best synopsis is still D. Ganz, ‘The Debate on Predestination’, in M. Gibson and J. Nelson (eds), Charles the Bald. Court and Kingdom, (Aldershot, 1990), pp. 283–302. M.B. Gillis will be shortly publishing his Ph.D. dissertation: ‘Gottschalk of Orbais: A Study of Power and Spirituality in a Ninth Century Life’, University of Virginia (2009). So also will I: Le Virus de l’erreur. La controverse carolingienne sur la double prédestination : essai d’histoire sociale, HAMA 26 (Turnhout, 2017), forthcoming. G. Bonner, Freedom and Necessity. St. Augustine’s Teaching on Divine Power and Human Freedom (Washington, DC, 2007). Ganz, ‘The Debate on Predestination’, pp. 288–9 and ‘Theology and the Organisation of Thought’, p. 785; Gillis, ‘Gottschalk of Orbais’, pp. 279–361. Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Doctrinal debate and social control in the Carolingian age 91 They had to employ different styles and registers: the conventions of classical paideia on the one hand, the sermo humilis on the other.28 The same was true of Carolingian authors, who endeavoured to exclude their subordinates from participating in the debate, even if, depending on the situation and their strategy of communication, they might appeal to them.29 This complicated interaction needs to be clarified. In late antiquity, a discourse developed that distinguished between simplices, that is, the barely literate masses, and docti, learned men with a scholarly education.30 Under the Carolingians, this distinction had become ubiquitous. This was a set expression in pastoral care, but it also signalled that teaching and learning were embedded within networks of patronage.31 Most Carolingian learned texts were written by and for the clerical elite. Simplices, meant as a group, were not members of this elite: they could be either monks, rural priests or lower order clerics. Simplex and simplicitas are polysemic words.32 In a Christian context, their meaning is rooted in the pauperes spiritu of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew V.3); eventually, this developed into the sancta simplicitas embodied by Francis of Assisi. Simplicitas implies humility and sincerity in both behaviour and knowledge, with the result that learned and modest members of the elite could be labelled as ‘simple’ without contradiction.33 Yet in the early Middle Ages, simplices in plural could mean a functional distinction between those who might discuss and those who might not. It was an opposition like the one between potentes and pauperes, that is, those who had power and those who did not.34 Within the clergy, this discourse of exclusion was legitimated by the eternal reward promised to the pauperes spiritu. While docti would painstakingly investigate God’s nature, simplicitas was a safe way to salvation, provided that the simplices did not contest authority, and attuned their intellectual curiosity to their 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 R. Lim, ‘Christians, Dialogues and Patterns of Sociability in Late Antiquity’, in S. Goldhill (ed.), The End of Dialogue in Antiquity (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 151–72, at p. 167. The same is apparently true in the eleventh century: see Melve, ‘The Politicization of Public Opinion’, pp. 28–38, 44. Among many examples, see Gregory the Great, Regula pastoralis III.6 and III.39, ed. Bruno Judic, Sources chrétiennes 381–2 (Paris, 1992). Ferrari, ‘Potere, pubblico e scrittura’; S. Shimahara, Haymon d’Auxerre, exégète carolingien, HAMA 16 (Turnhout, 2013), pp. 109–10. P. Lehmann, ‘Die heilige Einfalt’, in P. Lehmann (ed.), Erforschung des Mittelalters, 3 vols (Stuttgart, 1960), III, pp. 213–24. Regino’s Chronicon describes Archbishop Theutgaud of Trier as an ignorant ‘simple man’ (ed. F. Kurze, MGH SRM 50 (Hanover, 1890), p. 81). By contrast, Liutbert of Mainz is called both simple and learned (p. 134). H.-W. Goetz, ‘Unterschichten im Gesellschaftsbild karolingischer Geschichtsschreiber und Hagiographen’, in A. Aurast, S. Elling, B. Freudenberg, A. Lutz and S. Patzold (eds), Vorstellungsgeschichte. Gesammelte Schriften zu Wahrenehmungen, Deutungen und Vorstellungen im Mittelalter (Bochum, 2007), pp. 117–34. Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 92 Warren Pezé social position. This discourse of the promotion of self-restraint was a powerful means of social control. Around 856, writing on the Trinity, Hincmar admonished his clerics: ‘Let no one arrogate to himself to know more than he should.’35 The overall intent of the ecclesiastical hierarchy was to mobilize the theme of simplicitas in order to deter subordinates from debating. Hincmar may serve as an example. His first treatise on predestination in 849 was dedicated to ‘the simples and the recluses’ of his diocese.36 This biblical and patristic collection was written in sermo simplex. It was, he said, unworthy of a skilled readership, but ‘sufficient’ for simple clerics.37 Your simplicity is loved by God, he said: do not corrupt it.38 If Gottschalk’s writings reached their church, they should abhor them – his lengthy warning sounds apotropaic: Reject them, repel them, dismiss them from your eyes, your mind, your ears, your hands, and even your place, repulse them from your presence and your group.39 In 846–7, Hrabanus had addressed the same warnings to Eberhard of Friuli, who hosted Gottschalk at his court. Gottschalk’s teaching was not wrong in itself, Hrabanus argued. It became wrong by discouraging simple folks from good deeds. A preacher, he admonished, was like a physician; were his cure too strong, it would kill the patient; the speech had to be adapted to the audience. Hrabanus eventually quoted Virgil: ‘Not all of us of us can do what they want’ (‘non omnia possumus omnes’: Bucolics 8, 83).40 To be sure, exclusion was not limited to a persuasive discourse of the kind just mentioned. In the course of the 850s, Hincmar mobilized every disciplinary means to contain discussion in his diocese on double predestination and the Trinity. Local praepositi (abbots, priors and school masters) were to make his authoritative responses, like the Ad simplices, known to their subordinates, whom they were to admonish, having investigated their opinions. Scholarly and pastoral functions would be 35 36 37 38 39 40 PL 125, col. 504: ‘Nemo ergo plus sibi arroget sapere quam oportet sapere.’ ‘Ad simplices et reclusos’; Hincmari Remensis epistolae, ed. E. Perels, MGH Epistolae 8 (Berlin, 1939), pp. 12–23 (excerpts); W. Gundlach, ‘Zwei Schriften des Erzbischofs Hincmars von Reims’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 10 (1889), pp. 258–310. MGH Epistolae 8, p. 16 (‘pro sufficientibus habetote’) and Gundlach, ‘Zwei Schriften’, p. 295 (‘sufficiat simplicitati vestrae’). MGH Epistolae 8, p. 16: ‘Vos autem, cum quibus divina sapientia pro sancta simplicitate vestra loquitur, sicut scriptum est: cum simplicibus sermocinatio eius . . .’ MGH Epistolae 8, p. 14: ‘Quorum exemplaria si, catholicae matris filii, in manus vestras pervenerint, reicite, repellite, conspuite et ab oculis et sensu, auribus quoque et manibus vestris, immo et ab habitatione vestra, non modo a praesentia et cohaesione vestra propellite.’ Epistolae karolini aevi 3, ed. E. Dümmler, MGH Epistolae 5 (Berlin, 1899), pp. 486–7. Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Doctrinal debate and social control in the Carolingian age 93 taken away from recalcitrants; if they persisted, they would be whipped and imprisoned.41 In 849, Hincmar added Gottschalk’s sentence of condemnation to his Ad simplices, explicitly to scare those under his authority.42 Guntbert, a monk in Hautvillers, was submitted to penance several times for corresponding with the rebellious monk.43 Theological debate and the contestation of authority Exclusion from discussing predestination, by means of persuasion and discipline, apparently did succeed: the controversy eventually faded, and the amount of written record on this issue decreased. However, does this decrease actually mean that the debate over predestination among the clergy came to an end? After the synod of Savonnières (859), the official, public debate was indeed over, and with it the production of treatises. Each kingdom was to enforce its doctrinal position within its borders.44 But this did not mean that the discussion stopped entirely. Still at the end of the 870s, in the definitive version of his Vita Remigii Hincmar of Reims included a long admonition against ‘the remnants of the predestinarians’ (praedestinatiani) and their ‘whisperings’, an unmistakable reference to latent, lingering protest.45 In 864, in a letter to Pope Nicholas, he similarly mentioned those predestinarians who hid their heresy for fear of Charles the Bald. Quoting from Psalm XXXII.7, ‘He gathered the waters of the sea together’, Hincmar’s interpretation was that ‘The bitter science of heresy constricts in its heart what it thinks in the kingdom of your son, the lord Charles, and doesn’t dare to say it aloud.’46 Some of these ‘heretics’ were, of course, members of the ecclesiastical elite competing for the king’s favour. They were also Hincmar’s opponents in the quarrels of the 860s, in particular in the attempted divorce of King Lothar II. Hincmar made a strong case against this divorce, thus upsetting his Lotharingian colleagues.47 These bishops summoned Hincmar to the synod of Metz in June 863 in order to reopen Gottschalk’s case.48 Most of them had been in Tusey three years earlier, 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 PL 125, cols 502–3, 505–6 and 508–9 (Hincmar deals here with both the trina deitas and predestination). MGH Epistolae 8, p. 23. MGH Epistolae 8, p. 194. The only exceptions to the ‘armistice’, apart from the synod of Metz (see below), being the intervention of Pope Nicholas I in 864 (MGH Epistolae 8, pp. 160–3). MGH SRM 3, ed. B Krusch (Hanover, 1896), pp. 280–5, at p. 284. Cf. Marie-Céline Isaia, Rémi de Reims, mémoire d’un saint, histoire d’une Église, Histoire religieuse de la France 35 (Paris, 2010), pp. 516–20 and 530. MGH Epistolae 8, p. 162: ‘Aqua enim maris sicut in utre congregata est, quia amara haereticorum scientia quicquid hodie in isto regno filii vestri domni Karoli pravum sentit in pectore comprimit et aperte dicere non praesumit.’ Jean Devisse, Hincmar archevêque de Reims, 845–882, 3 vols (Geneva, 1975), I, pp. 386–468. Cf. MGH Epistolae 8, p. 160. Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 94 Warren Pezé where, in other diplomatic circumstances, Gottschalk’s fate was not discussed. Apparently, in the political game of the early 860s, double predestination was still a card to play. But the opponents in question could also be lower clerics, as we learn from the case of the monk Guntbert, mentioned above, but also from an incidental remark by Hincmar. In 860, the archbishop’s notaries helped him shape his last De praedestinatione. Among them, Hincmar suspected, were Gottschalk’s supporters: he feared these clerics would falsify his text behind his back.49 In other words, there is some evidence, throughout the 860s and into the late 870s, that Gottschalk’s fate and double predestination were still a matter of debate, for the ecclesiastical leadership as well as for lower clerics. In his letter to Pope Nicholas in 864, Hincmar could not conceal that his dealings with Gottschalk were still being criticized: his enemies, he said, were ‘secretly gnawing at him like dogs’.50 When the condemned monk died in 868–9, the archbishop took the trouble to add a text to a copy of his De una deitate. There, Hincmar described the death of the heretic and the many chances he had given him to recant. Hincmar even inserted original documentation, namely his letter of instruction to the monks of Hautvillers in anticipation of Gottschalk’s death, including the confession that Gottschalk was to subscribe if he wanted to be readmitted to the communion of the Catholic church.51 Hincmar’s need to justify himself shows that, around 870, Gottschalk’s case was still a matter of bitter criticism. The very persistence of this particular debate shows that the discourse of exclusion was not taken for granted. Debate and the contestation of authority can barely be distinguished. This also transpires from Hrabanus Maurus’s reaction to criticism. In 850, Hincmar informed the archbishop of Mainz that many were suspecting him of having forged a quotation from Augustine. In his answer, Hrabanus’s impatience is discernible. He reluctantly revealed his source, but stated that he ‘[didn’t] want to dispute with them any more’, because ‘they pretend[ed] to be doctors of the law and [didn’t] know what they [were] talking about’ (cf. I Tim I.7).52 Hrabanus had already experienced such criticism in the past. He had complained about ‘know-it-alls’ (scioli) who accused him of flatly copying the Fathers without so much as a single independent thought.53 49 50 51 52 53 PL 125, col. 55: ‘si nacta occasione aliquis aemulus recta hinc eraserit et forte prava superinduxerit’. MGH Epistolae 8, p. 162: ‘Meam quoque exiguitatem et occulte canino dente corrodunt’. PL 125, cols 615–18. MGH Epistolae 5, p. 489: ‘nec etiam inde diutius contra eos disputare volo, quia volentes legis esse doctores, nesciunt quae loquuntur neque de quibus affirmant’. MGH Epistolae 5, p. 477 (preface of his commentary on Genesis and Jeremiah to Lothar). See M. de Jong, ‘From Scholastici to Scioli: Alcuin and the Formation of an Intellectual Élite’, in L.A.J.R. Houwen and A.A. McDonald (eds), Alcuin of York. Scholar at the Carolingian Court, Germania Latina 3 (Groningen, 1998), pp. 45–57. Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Doctrinal debate and social control in the Carolingian age 95 To Lupus he had also complained about ‘unskilled readers’ (fastidiosi) who could bring his work into disrepute or contempt.54 Gottschalk’s popularity among large segments of the lower clergy was considerable. As Matthew Gillis recently showed, Gottschalk developed and broadcasted, on the one hand, a doctrine of disobedience to ecclesiastical authority personified by Hincmar, who was lampooned as a potentiola, ‘potentate’. On the other, he circulated booklets (scedulae) and models of disputation, consisting of a series of questions and answers based on quotations from Scripture. As Gillis puts it, ‘he wanted his readers above all to debate’.55 Gottschalk’s method of discussing quotations in a dialogical way on the basis of scriptural citations was quite similar to the way in which late antique controversies were conducted. The impact of such propagandistic techniques becomes clear from Hrabanus’s statement that Gottschalk ‘did more harm in writing than in speaking’.56 Evidence of oral debate The challenge is, as always, to catch a glimpse of how such texts affected oral debates.57 In the case of double predestination, however, there is some evidence of this. In his Vita Remigii, when he admonished Gottschalk’s supporters, Hincmar gave a series of Bible verses used by the ‘predestinarians’ (Esther XIII.9; Psalm CXXXIV.6; Isaiah LIII.12; Matthew XX.28 and XXVI.28; Hebrews IX.28).58 It is possible to retrace the use of these scriptural quotations in the controversy. In 864, Hincmar reported to Pope Nicholas that Gottschalk used the combination Psalm CXXXIV.6 (‘Whatsoever the Lord hath pleased he hath done, in heaven, in earth, in the sea, and in the deeps’) and Esther XIII.9 (‘O Lord, for all things are in thy power, and there is none that can resist thy will’). Together, these quotations constitute a strong statement affirming God’s omnipotence. In 866, Hincmar reported the very same combination to Egilo of Sens, as an example of wrong interpretation of Scripture by Gottschalk.59 This 54 55 56 57 58 59 MGH Epistolae 5, p. 429. For fastidiosi as opposed to studiosi, see Isidore’s Expositiones mysticorum sacramentorum, PL 83, col. 207. Gillis, ‘Gottschalk of Orbais’, pp. 307–21 (quotation p. 313). Sources quoted are Oeuvres théologiques et grammaticales de Godescalc d’Orbais, ed. C. Lambot, Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense 20 (Louvain, 1945), pp. 96 (commentary on Romans XIII.1–2), 251 (appeal to debate at all cost), 229–31 and 238–9 (models of disputation). MGH Epistolae 5, p. 497. Gillis, ‘Gottschalk of Orbais’, p. 321. MGH SRM 3, pp. 282–3: ‘Sciendum est autem praedestinatianos assumpsisse ad argumentum sui erroris quaedam testimonia sanctae scripturae [. . .] Assumunt etiam idem predestinatiani ad suum mendatium adstruendum testimonia de scripturis . . .’ MGH Epistolae 8, p. 161 and 198: ‘Sed et male interpretando scripturam [. . .] iniquus deus [. . .] ab illo asseveratur.’ Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 96 Warren Pezé same twin quotation turns up in Prudentius’s letter to Hincmar as early as 849, which proves that it was used by those favouring double predestination. But we also find it in one of the models of disputation Gottschalk sent to his supporters: he presented the two passages as polemical tools against virtual opponents.60 The excerpts from Matthew and Isaiah mentioned in the Vita Remigii deal with the pro multis issue, that is, why is the Eucharist celebrated ‘for many’, and not ‘for all’, according to the Gospels? Were these ‘many’ predestined?61 For ordinary clergymen, this issue was vitally important. Hebrews IX.28 asserts that Christ suffered his Passion only once: it can change the meaning of Mass as well, and was quoted by Gottschalk in support of predestination.62 Furthermore, Hincmar mentions an argument by Florus of Lyons that he had also ‘heard’ in the mouth of Gottschalk’s supporters.63 The biblical verses on which Hincmar focused were closely connected with Gottschalk’s strategy of spreading debate among clerics.64 It seems therefore that the discourse on simplicitas was unsuccessful and that these ‘simple men’ – lower clerics – did discuss. The doctrinal debate about double predestination cannot be separated from a controversy about the nature of discussion itself, or more precisely about the social structuring of knowledge. The best evidence for the participation of lower clerics is the fact that the elite took the trouble to address them. Florus was not the only author with a strategy of communication directed at a broader audience. The small number of reputed theologians (Ratramnus, Florus, Prudentius and others) who represent the ‘learned controversy’ could not afford to only involve their skilled peers. Like late antique Fathers, they had to take into account their subordinates as well, whether they liked it or not. Given their grumblings about contentio, the useless ‘rivalry’, they did not like it.65 60 61 62 63 64 65 PL 115, col. 977; Oeuvres théologiques, ed. Lambot, p. 238: ‘Etsi non erubescunt illud quod dominus deus dixit Moysi [. . .], nec ad illud psalmistae: [Psalm CX.2, Psalm CXXXIV.6], erubescant saltem ad illud quod domino deo dixit sancta femina et ei nunc universa concorditer cantat ecclesia: [Esther XIII.9].’ See Lupus of Ferrières, Collectaneum de tribus quaestionibus, PL 119, cols 664–5. De corpore et sanguine Domini, in Oeuvres théologiques, ed. Lambot, p. 331. PL 125, col. 284: ‘quae a quibusdam de Gothescalci schola dyscola dici audivimus’. The reasoning which is alluded to here is Florus’s De tenenda immobiliter scripturae veritate, c. 13. To catch another glimpse of how scriptural verses were read and disputed during the controversy, see the notes by the Bern master: J. Marenbon, From the Circle of Alcuin to the School of Auxerre. Logic, Theology and Philosophy in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 105–7; J. Contreni, ‘The Irish in the Western Carolingian Empire’, in H. Löwe (ed.), Die Iren und Europa im früheren Mittelalter 2 (Stuttgart, 1982), pp. 758–99, at p. 768; and now G. Vocino’s article in I. van Renswoude and M. Teeuwen (eds), The Annotated Book. Early Medieval Practices of Reading and Writing, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy (forthcoming). PL 112, cols 1550–2; PL 125, cols 139, 274, 296–7; PL 119, cols 644, 646, 652; MGH Epistolae 5, p. 496; MGH Epistolae 8, pp. 47, 104, 160–2, etc. Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Doctrinal debate and social control in the Carolingian age 97 Hincmar’s public(s) As we saw above, in order to explore the actual audience of Carolingian polemical literature, more than the prefaces must be tackled, and the strategy of communication inside each treatise needs to be analysed. Then, the tension between two different audiences is noticeable. Hincmar offers a telling example.66 We will see, in the light of his strategy of communication, how he was forced to involve his lower clerics in the controversy, despite his initial misgivings. Forced to debate: the De una deitate Shortly after 856, Hincmar wrote the treatise De una et non trina deitate. A few years earlier, he had forbidden the clerics in his archdiocese to sing the hymn Sanctorum meritis inclyta gaudia, containing the expression trina deitas, fearing it was heretical. Ratramnus and Gottschalk stepped in to defend the hymn.67 The incentive for the treatise came from a scedula on the Trinity written by Gottschalk, addressed to all clerics (communiter) of the diocese of Reims. Gottschalk’s scedula had spread like wildfire, first among his own supporters, then among Hincmar’s, and eventually it reached Hincmar himself. At this point, the clerics who supported Hincmar not only insisted that he would respond by citing the church Fathers; they also demanded that he reproduce Gottschalk’s relevant passages. Their goal, Hincmar concluded, was to silence all those who agreed with Gottschalk. In the end, the clerics argued, with reference to Gregory the Great, that shepherds understand the divine lights better than their flock.68 This passage has three implications. First, the lower clerics in Hincmar’s diocese were split between Gottschalk’s supporters and opponents. As I mentioned earlier, Hincmar was suspicious that Gottschalk might have supporters among his own notaries.69 Second, Hincmar’s strategy in 849, namely to deter his clerics from discussing, reading and even touching Gottschalk’s books, failed to such an extent that his own clerics were now demanding him to reproduce Gottschalk’s text in the refutation. Obviously their aim was to check whether Hincmar answered correctly; the Reims clerics were thereby forcing their archbishop into a 66 67 68 69 For a recent overview, M.B. Gillis, ‘Heresy in the Flesh: Gottschalk of Orbais and the Predestination Controversy in the Archdiocese of Rheims’, in R. Stone and C. West (eds), Hincmar of Rheims, Life and work (Manchester, 2015), pp. 247–67. G.H. Tavard, Trina Deitas. The Controversy between Hincmar and Gottschalk (Milwaukee, 1986). PL 125, col. 475. Cf. Gregory, Homeliae in Evangelia VIII.1. See n. 49. Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 98 Warren Pezé fair debate with the ‘heretic’. The practice of quoting the opponent’s text in the refutation surely dates back to antiquity, when theological debate was a public practice and when the Donatist Cresconius, a layman and elementary school teacher, could without problems challenge Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, at the height of his fame. But in the 850s, Hincmar and his peers by no means wanted to revive such public debates, as we saw with regard to his Ad simplices. Last but not least, these clerics were now turning the discourse on simplicitas against him. As a bishop, it was Hincmar’s pastoral responsibility to eradicate heretical teaching, not merely by means of an authoritative response, but by actually convincing his readers. Thus, with hindsight, Hincmar pulled back a great deal. And yet he found a cunning way to avoid equality with Gottschalk, by framing the passages from the excommunicated monk’s scedulae with obeli, critical signs meaning both error and death, and his own responses with chresima, which signalled the truth, as Hincmar carefully explained in his preface.70 Addressing two different publics: the De praedestinatione In the last treatise of the controversy, the De praedestinatione written in 859–60, Hincmar was still torn between the elite circles and an audience drawn from lower clerical echelons. This treatise was dedicated to Charles the Bald by means of a preface, and the king was addressed in the second person inside the treatise.71 As an official pronouncement by a group of bishops, the book was the authoritative answer of the church of the West Frankish kingdom to the archdiocese of Lyons after the council of Savonnières (859), but it was not to be read here and at Charles’s court alone.72 Indeed, strategies of legitimation as evidenced in the preface do not exactly coincide with real communication. This situation is best explained with the notion of ‘two-tier politics of communication’, in the sense that the book was not addressed only to its explicit dedicatee.73 In order to unmask this strategy, particular attention must be paid to 70 71 72 73 See I. van Renswoude and E. Steinovà, ‘The Annotated Gottschalk: Symbolic Annotation and Control of Heterodoxy in the Carolingian Age’, in P. Chambert-Protat, J. Delmulle, W. Pezé and J.C. Thompson (eds), La controverse carolingienne sur la prédestination: histoire, textes, manuscrits, Collection des Études augustiniennes (forthcoming); and W. Pezé, ‘Hérésie, exclusion et anathème dans l’Occident carolingien (742–années 860)’, in G. Bührer-Thierry and S. Gioanni (eds), Exclure de la communauté chrétienne. Sens et pratiques sociales de l’anathème et de l’excommunication (IVe–XIIe siècle), Haut Moyen Âge (HAMA) 23 (Turnhout, 2015), pp. 175–96, at p. 193. PL 125, cols 211, 295 and 363. PL 125, col. 66. N. Staubach, ‘Sedulius Scottus und die Gedichte des Codex bernensis 363’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 20 (1986), pp. 549–99 (p. 567: ‘doppelbödige Informationspolitik’). Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Doctrinal debate and social control in the Carolingian age 99 shifters – grammatical units adjusting the text to a concrete context (‘here’, ‘you’, ‘yesterday’).74 First of all, Hincmar created a virtual space for debate with his opponents, in particular Bishop Ebbo of Grenoble, whom he accused of having forged the canons of the council of Valence of 855 and whom he directly addressed in the second person.75 Other opponents were taken to task in the third person with the subjunctive (‘let Gottschalk and his school pay attention to this . . .’).76 By contrast, Hincmar occasionally addressed Augustine as ‘you’ and thus created a virtual closeness with the saint.77 Hincmar certainly did not intend Gottschalk to read his work, but he thereby created a literary framework in which his readers could locate both himself and Gottschalk within the big picture of the controversy.78 But communication processes in the treatise go beyond such persuasive effects, and reflect a true shadow audience. Before the preface, Hincmar addressed a warning on falsifications to ‘all in whose hands this book may fall’. He apologized for possible errors, alleging that the notaries lacked the time to correct the drafts (scedulae); and, as we saw earlier in this paper, that hostile hands (read: notaries secretly supporting Gottschalk) might have falsified the text.79 Readers should correct it by themselves or send it back to Reims to have it collated with the authentic exemplar; if they wanted a full copy, they should make a written demand, for fear of clandestine copies.80 Obviously, neither Hincmar nor Charles had full control over the dissemination of this authoritative treatise. Hincmar had anticipated that his treatise would be read widely, as is clear from the broad and anonymous audience to which it was addressed. Those anonymous readers were, on the one hand, close to powerful networks: they were supposed to read other documents connected to the controversy.81 But on the other hand, simplices were also envisaged as a possible audience. Hincmar addressed readers in general (lectores) in third-person speech and subjunctive.82 They were meant to be ‘pious’, ‘devout’, ‘benevolent’: the discourse on simplicitas appears again 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 R. Jakobson, Shifters, Verbal Categories and the Russian Verb ([Cambridge, MA]: Harvard University, 1957), repr. in L.R. Waugh and M. Halle (eds), Russian and Slavic Grammar, Studies 1931–1981 (Berlin, 1984), pp. 41–58. PL 125, col. 203. PL 125, cols 147, 153, 165. PL 125, col. 150. Gottschalk does the same: Oeuvres théologiques, ed. Lambot, pp. 30, 32, 227. See PL 125, col. 613. É. Benvéniste, ‘L’appareil formel de l’énonciation’, in É. Benvéniste (ed.), Problèmes de linguistique générale 2 (Paris, 1974), pp. 79–88 (p. 85 : ‘cadre figuratif ’). See n. 49. PL 125, col. 55; MGH Epistolae 8, p. 68. PL 125, col. 368 (Prosper of Aquitaine); 369 (the canons of Valence and Hincmar’s first De praedestinatione). PL 125, cols 211, 381. Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 100 Warren Pezé (simpliciter, veraciter, benigne, simplici intentione).83 Hincmar’s book should be ‘sufficient’ for them, as the Ad simplices had been.84 That the archbishop anticipated that lower clerics would read his treatise is also clear from its structure. The De praedestinatione is the longest extant book written during the controversy and is clearly aimed at challenging the scholarly expertise of Hincmar’s opponents. The last chapter, however, is a long epilogus, explicitly meant to summarize the treatise ‘for the purpose of saving the time of readers and scribes’, in a manner suitable for simplices.85 Hincmar anticipated that his book would be copied and he prepared a compendium, just as Prudentius, a supporter of double predestination, had done in his recapitulatio totius operis, which circulated independently from his De praedestinatione adversus Johannem Scottum.86 Hincmar even created a drastically shortened two-page version in the form of a confession. In the only extant manuscript, this confession consists of excerpts from the De praedestinatione and is associated with the canons of Quierzy (853).87 Hincmar’s preface, isolated from the whole treatise, is thus misleading. The treatise was allegedly addressed to the king and the court circles. It was therefore meant to be a long and expert treatment of predestination, capable of challenging Prudentius or Florus. But we gather from Hincmar’s strategy of communication that the treatise was also intended for the lower clergy, even if these so-called simple clerics were to be approached with a great deal of discretion, for the reason that they were an audience de facto, but not de jure. The ultimate goal of the elite was still to exclude the lower clergy from the public sphere of debate, after having been forced, by the strategy of communication used by their opponents (Gottschalk, but also Florus), to address them. Conclusion Over the past few decades, discussions of the Habermasian concept of the public sphere have shown that high and late medieval princes and church leaders both reckoned with, and appealed to, a public opinion scattered 83 84 85 86 87 PL 125, cols 200, 214, 224, 226, 368–9. PL 125, col. 381: ‘Unde piis ista sufficient . . .’ Hincmar once addresses the reader in the second person, col. 164 (attende). PL 125, col. 418: ‘tandem epilogi more brevius ex praecedentibus pro legentium ac scribentium compendio quaedam colligere capitulatim curavimus ut simplicibus ita sint cognita quatenus sapientibus non sint onerosa’. The recapitulatio finds itself next to Prudentius’s own copy of his De praedestinatione, MS. Paris, BNF lat. 2445, but also in MS. Vatican, BAV, reg. lat. 91, fols 84–7; Hincmar makes mention of it as well (PL 125, cols 296–7). MS. Vatican, BAV, reg. lat. 191, fols 52–3. See W. Pezé, ‘Une confession inédite d’Hincmar sur la prédestination’, in La controverse carolingienne sur la prédestination (forthcoming). Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Doctrinal debate and social control in the Carolingian age 101 in ‘partial public spheres’ (Teilöffentlichkeiten) or ‘public spaces’ (öffentliche Räume), such as city halls, taverns, cloisters and markets.88 As we have seen, this is also true to some extent under the Carolingian empire, which created a vast sounding board for doctrinal as well as political issues, such as the divorce of Lothar II. There was definitely a lack of institutional space for theological discussion; past and present authorities were certainly ubiquitous. However, discussion did happen and was even widespread. The control of publicity by the hierarchy was an impediment to its blossoming and to its institutionalization, but there was nevertheless a scope for manoeuvre. How it turned into a more autonomous intellectual expertise in the twelfth century is another discussion, in which neither the Carolingian legacy should be neglected, nor its transformations in the eleventh century by the ‘founding fathers’ of the scholastic method. Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, SFB 923 bedrohte Ordnungen 88 R. Brandt, Enklaven – Exklaven. Zur literarischen Darstellung von Öffentlichkeit und Nichtöffentlichkeit im Mittelalter. Interpretationen, Motiv- und Terminologiestudien, Forschungen zur Geschichte der älteren deutschen Literatur 15 (Munich, 1993), pp. 303–12. Early Medieval Europe 2017 25 (1) © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd