a problem of paganism

Reprint from "Paganism in the Middle Ages" - ISBN 978 90 5867 933 8 - © Leuven University Press, 2013

PAGANISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

THREAT AND FASCINATION

95923_ML_XLIII_01_Voorwerk.indd I95923_ML_XLIII_01_Voorwerk.indd I 28/01/13 08:1428/01/13 08:14


M E D I A E V A L I A L O V A N I E N S I A

Editorial board

Geert Claassens (Leuven)Hans Cools (Leuven)

Pieter De Leemans (Leuven)Brian Patrick McGuire (Roskilde)

Baudouin Van den Abeele (Louvain-la-Neuve)

SERIES I / STUDIA XLIII

KU LEUVENINSTITUTE FOR MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES

LEUVEN (BELGIUM)

95923_ML_XLIII_01_Voorwerk.indd II95923_ML_XLIII_01_Voorwerk.indd II 28/01/13 08:1428/01/13 08:14


PAGANISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

THREAT AND FASCINATION

Edited by

Carlos STEELJohn MARENBONWerner VERBEKE

LEUVEN UNIVERSITY PRESS

95923_ML_XLIII_01_Voorwerk.indd III95923_ML_XLIII_01_Voorwerk.indd III 28/01/13 08:1428/01/13 08:14


© 2012 Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain / Universitaire Pers Leuven, Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven/Louvain (Belgium)

All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of this publication may be multiplied, saved in an automated data file or made public in any way whatsoever without the express prior written consent of the publishers.

ISBN 978 90 5867 933 8D/2012/1869/75NUR: 684-694

95923_ML_XLIII_01_Voorwerk.indd IV95923_ML_XLIII_01_Voorwerk.indd IV 28/01/13 08:1428/01/13 08:14


CONTENTS

Introduction IX

Ludo MILIS

The Spooky Heritage of Ancient Paganisms 1

Carlos STEEL

De-paganizing Philosophy 19

John MARENBON

A Problem of Paganism 39

Henryk ANZULEWICZ

Albertus Magnus über die philosophi theologizantes und die natürlichen Voraussetzungen postmortaler Glückseligkeit:Versuch einer Bestandsaufname 55

Marc-André WAGNER

Le cheval dans les croyances germaniques entre paganismeet christianisme 85

Brigitte MEIJNS

Martyrs, Relics and Holy Places: The Christianization of the Countryside in the Archdiocese of Rheims during the Merov-ingian Period 109

Edina BOZOKY

Paganisme et culte des reliques: le topos du sang vivifiant lavégétation 139

Rob MEENS

Thunder over Lyon: Agobard, the tempestarii and Christianity 157

Robrecht LIEVENS

The ‘pagan’ Dirc van Delf 167

Stefano PITTALUGA

Callimaco Esperiente e il paganesimo 195

Anna AKASOY

Paganism and Islam: Medieval Arabic Literature on Religionsin West Africa 207

Index 239

95923_ML_XLIII_01_Voorwerk.indd V95923_ML_XLIII_01_Voorwerk.indd V 28/01/13 08:1428/01/13 08:14


Hermes Trismegistus lamenting the destruction of Egyptian ReligionLa Haye, Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum, Ms. 10 A 11, fol. 392 ro

© La Haye, Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum

95923_ML_XLIII_01_Voorwerk.indd VI95923_ML_XLIII_01_Voorwerk.indd VI 28/01/13 08:1428/01/13 08:14


John MARENBON

A PROBLEM OF PAGANISM

No figure epitomizes what I once called ‘The Problem of Paganism’ so well as Virgil. Not, of course, the real Virgil, but Dante’s Virgil, his guide through Hell and part of Purgatory. Dante’s admiration for Virgil is almost unlimited, as his first greeting of him makes evident:

‘Or se’ tu quel Virgilio e quella fonteche spandi di parlar sì largo fiume?’,rispuos’io lui con vergognosa fronte.‘O de li altri poeti onore e lume,vagliami ‘l lungo studio e ‘l grande amoreche m’ ha fatto cercar lo tuo volume.Tu se’ lo mio maestro e ‘l mio autore,tu se’ solo colui da cu’ io tolsilo bello stilo che m’ ha fatto onore.’

[‘Are you then that Virgil, that font from which so wide a stream of speech pours forth?’, I replied to him with shame on my brow. ‘O honour and light of other poets, may the long study and great love which made me search through your book serve me well. You are my master and my author. You are the one from whom I have taken the beautiful style that has brought me honour.’ Dante Inferno I, 81-7]

But, as we discover when he starts to explain why he will not be Dante’s guide for the final parts of his journey, Virgil is not in heaven:

quello imperador che là sù regna,perch’i’ fu’ ribellante a la sua legge,non vuol che ‘n sua città per me si vegna.

[The emperor who reigns up there – because I was a rebel to his law – does not want his city to be entered by me. Dante, Inferno I, 124-6]

Dante assigns Virgil and other distinguished and virtuous pagans to the edge of Hell, the limbo inferni. Although the impression of their moated castle and their manner is a dignified and attractive one:

…giugnemmo in prato di fresca verdura.Genti v’eran con occhi tardi e gravi,di grande autorità ne’ lor sembianti:parlavan rado, con voci soavi.

95923_ML_XLIII_05_Marenbon.indd 3995923_ML_XLIII_05_Marenbon.indd 39 28/01/13 08:1628/01/13 08:16


40 J. MARENBON

[We came to a meadow of fresh grass. There were people with slow, seri-ous eyes, great authority in their faces. They spoke rarely, with sweet voices. Dante, Inferno IV, 111-4]

sadness runs through the description because, as Virgil tells Dante, he and his fellows live (eternally) ‘in desire without hope’ (sanza speme vivemo in disio, l. 42). Virgil makes it clear that he and the other souls in limbo have not sinned, but they are damned because they lacked faith.1 Some scholars have tried to show that, although faith depends on divine grace, Virgil’s failure to benefit from grace and reach faith can be traced to some sort of personal fault, a sin of omission that he might in some sense have avoided.2 Others have suggested, rather implausibly, that per-haps Dante does not rule out final salvation for Virgil.3 But, more plau-sibly, it was the very fact that he could find nothing genuinely to blame in Virgil, but felt unable, given the constraints of Christian doctrine as understood in his time, to count him among the saved, that led Dante to make a striking theological innovation.4 Limbo had been introduced by the Church Fathers as place of painless eternal punishment for unbap-tized children, and it was also where the Old Testament patriarchs had waited from their deaths until they were taken to heaven when Christ ‘harrowed’ Hell after his Crucifixion. Dante seems to have been the first person to make it a permanent home for virtuous pagans, especially poets and philosophers.5

1. Inferno IV, 34-8: ‘… ei non peccaro; e s’elli hanno mercedi/non basta, perché non ebber battesmo,/ch’è porta de la fede che tu credi;/ e se furon dinanzi al cristianesmo,/ non adorar debitamente a Dio …’; Purgatorio VII, 7-8: ‘… e per null’ altro rio/ lo ciel perdei, che per non avere fè.’

2. This was the view of a number of commentators and scholars (cf. A. A. Ianucci, ‘Limbo: the emptiness of time’, Studi danteschi, 52, 1979-80, 80). In a subtle and quali-fied form it is adopted at the end of Kenelm Foster’s nuanced study of the whole issue in The Two Dantes (Berkeley and Los Angeles; University of California Press, 1977): see pp. 249-52, and, although he would not use the phrase ‘sin of omission’, the same under-lying view is held by C. O’Connell Baur in Dante’s Hermeneutics of Salvation. Passages to freedom in the Divine Comedy (Toronto, Buffalo and London; University of Toronto Press, 2007, 172 – 244. Baur gives a very full survey of the different alternative approaches to Virgil and his damnation.

3. See M. Allan, ‘Does Dante hope for Virgil’s Salvation’, Modern Languages Notes, 104 (1989), 193-205; and the critical exchange that followed between T. Bartolini and him: Modern Languages Notes, 105 (1990), 138-49; cf. Baur, Dante’s Hermeneutics, 195-9.

4. Ianucci, ‘Limbo’, advances this type of view, though stressing the ‘tragic’ nature of Virgil’s fate.

5. On the theological novelty of Dante’s idea, see especially G. Padoan’s ‘Il Limbo dantesca’ as reprinted with bibliographical additions in his Il pio Enea, l’empio Ulisse. Tradizione classica e intendimento medievale in Dante (Ravenna: Longo, 1977), 103-24.



A PROBLEM OF PAGANISM 41

The tension which forced Dante into this perhaps rather unhappy com-promise is a striking example of what, at one stage in thinking about the issue, I called ‘The Problem of Paganism’. It is one form, particular to medieval Christendom, of a general problem about how to regard other religions and ways of life, the problem of other faiths – a problem that has always faced, and still faces, any reflective believer in a religion that makes the exclusive claims characteristic of Christianity. Christianity makes exclusive and universal claims, based on a historical revelation, and they have the most serious consequences with regard to a person’s supposed destiny after death. Whereas ancient Romans, could readily accept new Gods into their pantheon, the Christian God is a jealous one. His adherents must be loyal to him alone, and they must accept his teach-ing as the ultimate truth about the origins and purpose of the universe and the goals of human life. Some of these truths can be known by rea-son and experience, but almost all Christians have considered that there are some truths known to humans only through a historical revelation.6 Moreover, the message of Christianity is universal, and so is the claim it makes for adherence. Failure to heed it has eschatological consequences of a hardly imaginable severity: an eternity of torture in place of the pos-sibility of an eternal heavenly life of complete happiness.

From these elements, the following problem emerged in the Latin-based culture of medieval Western Christendom: – Many people are not, and have not been Christians. During a whole, long historical period – from the earliest times up until the life of Christ – Christianity was una-vailable to anyone, at least in an obvious and explicit way. Since then, there have been many parts of the world where, for long periods, Chris-tianity was unknown; and many parts of the world where, although Christianity is known, other religions so dominate that very few people become Christians. On the face of it, then, the large numbers (indeed, the

On the normal medieval theology of limbo, see A. Carpin, Il limbo nella teologia medi-evale (Bologna; ESD, 2006).

6. Some of these characteristics of Christianity also belong to Judaism and Islam, though clearly not all: Judaism, for instance, does not claim to be a universal religion. Moreover, a feature that distinguishes the medieval Islamic and Jewish traditions of phi-losophy is that they contain, as a very important strand, adopted by some thinkers, the idea that a philosophical understanding of the universe, gained through reason, is the fullest and most correct one, and divine revelation serves a more practical, political purpose, providing clear laws for the whole of society and teaching truths in a less precise, but more easily graspable metaphorical manner. Christian thinkers could hardly follow such an approach, given the centrality of doctrines which many would consider mysteries – not even open to rational understanding, let alone rational discovery.



42 J. MARENBON

great majority) of people, now and in the past, who were or are not Christians, must be considered to be living in alienation from the true God, not knowing or rejecting the revealed truths they need to under-stand their world and live well, and heading for eternal punishment. Yet this view implies a sharp moral and intellectual distinction between Christian and non-Christian societies and individuals which goes against all the evidence: non-Christian societies and individuals are not, overall, obviously and grossly more evil and ignorant than Christian ones. More-over, this view apparently implies that God, whom Christians hold to be perfectly good, will condemn many people to eternal punishment, because of when or where they happened to have been born.

The specific form of problem, found within medieval Latin Christian culture has three further, distinctive features: the rarity of the problem, its difficulty, and its special links with literature and philosophy. The first two are closely linked. Nowadays, the problem I have just articu-lated is a central concern for most Christians. But, as such, it has been so thoroughly accommodated within accepted doctrine that it is no longer a problematic concern on the theoretical level. It is widely and accepted, in the various Churches, that non-Christians can live excellent lives, achieve a high degree of understanding of themselves and their world, and be saved.7 By contrast, most medieval Christians, even thinkers and writers, were either unconcerned with non-Christians or hostile to them. But for those medieval intellectuals it touched – a small number, but including some of the outstanding figures of the epoch, such as Abelard and Dante – this Problem of Paganism had the character of a dilemma. Although the lines of Christian doctrine were not rigid, they certainly did not allow for the easy acceptance of non-Christian excellence common today. The Problem of Paganism, then, placed a difficult choice before medieval writers: either to be bolder (sometimes dangerously bolder) than their contemporaries in adapting theological teaching, or else to arrive at a judgement of non-Christians and their achievements at odds with their ordinary moral intuitions and assessment of the evidence. Had the only non-Christians they knew been of their own time, it is perhaps unlikely that even a small group of medieval Christians would have

7. F.A. Sullivan, Salvation outside the Church? Tracing the History of the Catholic Response (London; Chapman, 1992), traces how the contemporary Catholic was reached, going back to the beginnings of Christianity. His broad but learned survey complements, but does not replace for the period before the twentieth century the old, but still standard work by L. Capéran, Le Problème du salut des infidèles. Essai historique, 2nd edn. ( Toulouse; Grande Séminaire, 1934).




faced up to such unpalatable alternatives. It was the fact that the great writers and philosophers of Greece and Rome were pagans which meant that, at least for some of the most cultivated and thoughtful medieval intellectuals, there was a Problem of Paganism to be confronted, and which linked the problem so closely to literary and philosophical concerns.

Medieval literature and thought was the heir of Greek and Roman antiquity. The authorities in philosophy were Plato and Aristotle; the models for poetry were Latin writers such as Virgil and Ovid. The most common attitude was to make use of these writings, without reflecting explicitly on the fact that their authors were pagans. But, for the think-ers willing to face the problem, there were occasions and contexts where the fundamental difference in belief that separated them from the classical writers they revered were all too obvious. How could these authors, whom they so admired, have been so thoroughly mis-taken in every important matter of understanding and behaviour as the exclusive claims of Christian truth would, at first sight, suggest? The question was made far sharper by the belief, held by many medieval thinkers, that the great ancient philosophers and even some of the clas-sical authors were, though pagans, monotheists, worshippers of the one true God.

As my comments will have indicated, the Problem of Paganism I have in mind is posed in a particularly sharp way by the question of the post-mortem destiny of (apparently) virtuous pagans. The Problem itself, though, is wider than this particular question. Indeed, it is not so much the belief itself as to whether they are sent to Hell or reach Heaven that matters as the judgement on their lives that lies behind it. If, as monothe-ists, educated ancient pagans were in some sense worshippers of the true God, how accurate was their grasp of him? Were their virtues real or, as Augustine notoriously argued, merely apparent?

The following pages are designed to give the flavour of the medieval discussions of this problem and to indicate some of the issues it raises. They will also show how this problem, which is in the broad sense a philosophical one and can involve the intricacies of medieval scholastic theology, receives some of its subtlest discussions in vernacular poetry rather than Latin university texts: exploring it invites us to re-think the boundaries of what we describe as ‘medieval philosophy’ and ‘medieval literature’. As the title and my first sentence make clear, the problem sketched here is a medieval problem about paganism: there are other, more or less closely related problems – for example, the questions,



44 J. MARENBON

explored by a number of authors in this volume, relating to the survival of paganism in Europe in the earlier Middle Ages, and to the conversion of the various pagan tribes; and those raised by the encounters in the later Middle Ages with real pagan cultures, among the Mongols, in the East and among the American Indians. The Problem of Paganism must be understood as a family resemblance of problems; the concern here is with one important aspect of just one member of that family.

A good place to begin is again with Dante, and his treatment of a much luckier pagan than Virgil, the Emperor Trajan. The figure of Tra-jan will allow us both to make comparisons within Dante, and to move backwards to Abelard in the twelfth century, and forwards to the Lang-land and Wyclif at the end of the fourteenth century. Trajan presents the problems linked to paganism in an especially sharp form, because he lived after Christianity had been widely preached; in some accounts he is even named as a persecutor of Christians. And yet, as I shall explain, he had a reputation for justice and is the central character in a strange but long-lived legend.8

It is Trajan who is being talked about in the following passage from the Paradiso:

Regnum celorum vïolenza pateda caldo amore e da viva speranza,che vince la divina volontate:non a guisa che l’omo a l’om sobranza,ma vince lei perché vuole esser vinta,e, vinta, vince con sua beninanza.La prima vita del ciglio e la quintati fa maravigliar, perché ne vedila regïon de li angeli dipinta.D’i corpi suoi non uscir, come credi,Gentili, ma Cristiani, in ferma fedequel d’i passuri e quel d’i passi piedi.Ché l’una de lo ‘nferno, u’ non si riedegià mai a buon voler, tornò a l’ossa;e ciò di viva spene fu mercede:

8. The Trajan – Gregory story in the Middle Ages has been discussed by a number of scholars. The range of G. Paris, ‘La Légende de Trajan’, Bibliothèque de l’École des hautes études, Sciences philolologiques et historiques, 35 (Paris; Vieweg, 1878), 261-98 has not been surpassed. More recent studies include P. Gradon, ‘Trajanus Redivivus: another look at Trajan in Piers Plowman’, in Middle English Studies presented to Norman Davis in Honour of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. D. Gray and E. G. Stanley (Oxford; Oxford University press, 1983), 93 – 114 and G. Whatley, ‘The Uses of Hagiography: the legend of Pope Gregory and the Emperor Trajan in the Middle Ages’, Viator, 15 (1984), 25-63.




di viva spene, che mise la possane’ prieghi fatti a Dio per suscitarla,sì che potesse sua voglia esser mossa.L’anima glorïosa onde si parla,tornata ne la carne, in che fu poco,credette in lui che potëa aiutarla;e credendo s’accese in tanto focodi vero amor, ch’a la morte secondafu degna di venire a questo gioco.

[The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence from hot love and living hope which defeat the divine will, not in the way that one human overcomes another, but they defeat it because it wishes to be defeated, and defeated, it is victorious with its benevolence./100/ You are amazed to see the first and the fifth of the living souls which make up the eyebrow adorning the region of the angels adorned with them. /103/ They did not, as you believe, leave their bodies as Gentiles, but as Christians, in firm faith, this one in the feet that would suffer and that in the feet that had suffered. /106/ One of them [Trajan] returned to his bones from Hell, from where no one ever returns to be able to will well, and that was the reward /109/ of living hope, which gave the power to the prayers offered to God to raise it, so that Trajan’s will could be moved. /112/ When the glorious soul of which we are speaking had returned to the flesh, in which it spent a short time, it believed in him that he could help it, /115/ and, believing, became enflamed in such a fire of true love that, at its second death, it was worthy to come to this joy. Paradiso XX, 94-117]

Dante is amazed (ll.101-2) that Trajan is among the blessed, because he was a pagan emperor – and one who lived after the time of Christ. But, it is explained, he did not die a Gentile, but a Christian (l. 104). Lines 106 – 117, rather allusively explain how. Trajan benefited from the ‘living hope’ of Pope Gregory, which made his prayers for the salvation of the long dead Emperor’s soul effective. But there is no question of Trajan’s having simply been promoted from hell to heaven. The prayers bring it about that Trajan is revivified (l. 113); in his brief moments of new life, his will is able to be moved (l. 111); he believes in God and becomes so enflamed with true love of him that he dies in a state of char-ity and so is saved.

It is a very odd story, and it has old roots. The earliest life of Pope Gregory the Great was written between about 704 and 714 by a monk of Whitby. This anonymous author laboured under two sorts of ignorance. The first, that he in fact knew almost nothing about the events of Gregory’s life, was hardly a disadvantage, since truth was not the aim of hagiography. But his ignorance of even basic theology would have long and serious consequences. He had picked up some rumour – it must



46 J. MARENBON

have existed independently from him, since it is found in an independent Greek tradition9 – that Gregory had prayed for the salvation of the soul of the Emperor Trajan, who had died several centuries earlier. As he puts it:

Some of our people say that the Romans tell of the soul of Trajan the Emperor comforted (refrigeratam) or baptized by St Gregory’s tears – something marvellous to tell and to hear. But let no one be surprised when we say ‘baptized’. For no one will ever see God without baptism – the third sort of which is by tears. …10

The monk then explains why Gregory thought so well of Trajan. He had been told the story of how Trajan, about to set off for war, was approached by a poor widow who had not been paid compensation by the killers of her son. After hesitating initially, Trajan there and then ensured that justice was done and the widow given her money. Trajan was thus acting in according with Christ’s teaching, ‘Judge the orphan and defend the widow and come and reason with me’. The hagiographer continues

… [Gregory] did not know what should be done to comfort his soul, and, entering St Peter’s, he wept floods of tears, in his usual manner, until he won the divine revelation that it had been granted, since he had never pre-sumed this for any other pagan.11

From the theological point of view, there is almost everything wrong with this story. The third sort of baptism, by tears, seems to be this writer’s invention. No one can be baptized who is already in hell, and Christian doctrine teaches both that condemnation to hell is final (the only souls released from hell were those of the Old Testament prophets and patriarchs at the time of the Crucifixion), and that there should be no

9. An account of the miracle is found in Greek in a work On Those who have Died in the Faith (Patrologia Graeca 95, 247-78, at 262D-3A) mistakenly attributed to John of Damascus and probably from the ninth century or earlier. According to this account, Gregory ‘poured out prayers for the forgiveness of the faults of Trajan’ and soon heard a voice telling him his prayers had been granted.

10. The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby, ed. B. Colgrave (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1985), 126 (Chapter 29): ‘Quidam quoque de nostris dicunt narratum a Romanis, sancti Gregorii lacrimis animam Traiani imperatoris refrigeratam vel baptizatam, quod est dictu mirabile et auditu. Quod autem eum dicimus babtizatum, neminem moveat: nemo enim sine babtismo Deum videbit umquam: cuius tertium genus est lacrimae …’

11. Ibid., 128: ‘… ad refrigerium animae eius quid implendo nesciebat, ingrediens ad sanctum Petrum solita direxit lacrimarum fluenta usque promeruit sibi divinitus revelatum fuisse exauditum, atque ut numquam de altero illud praesumpsisset pagano.’




prayers said for those who are damned. But in this account, the saintly Gregory is supposed, not only to have sinned by praying for the salvation of a damned soul, but to have been rewarded by having his prayer answered. The discussion of this episode by theologians and writers over the next seven centuries is occupied above all by trying to tidy up the doctrinal mess left by this rather feckless monk. That Trajan had been saved was taken as given. The question was how it could have happened, given the constraints of Christian doctrine.

The rather strange explanation Dante gives involves the resuscitation of Trajan, who in his brief second earthly life believes that God can help him and is ‘enflamed in such a fire of true love’ that he dies, for the sec-ond time, in a state of grace. The story has the effect of removing the challenge to orthodox Christian teaching which the legend of Trajan’s salvation posed. By supposing the miracle of his resuscitation, Trajan’s place in heaven can be explained uncontroversially, since he died, for the second time, as a Christian in a state of grace. This explana-tion was widely current in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Aqui-nas favours it, as does Albert the Great, and it is one of the explanations given in Jacob of Voragine’s very popular Legenda aurea (Chapter 46).12

Dante gives this common account his own twist, but it is a subtle one. When the thirteenth and fourteenth-century scholastic theologians men-tion Trajan, they are interested solely in the fact that he was sent to Hell but, ultimately, was saved. They do not usually refer to the details of the legend which make it clear that he was unusually virtuous: they are con-cerned not with Trajan’s justice (some, indeed, such as Durandus of St Pourçain, portray him as rather evil13), but with divine justice; they wish to show that God does not change his mind even if he seems to do so, to consider the relationship between prayer and predestination, and whether prayers can help those in Hell. So, for instance, after proposing the brought-back-to-life-again version of the story, Aquinas writes:

Thus also it appears in all those who were miraculously raised from the dead, of whom it is clear that many were idolaters and had been damned. For about them all it needs similarly to be said that they had not been

12. Aquinas looks at the story in detail only in his commentary on the Sentences (I d. 43, q. 2, a. 2, ad 5); his reference to it in De veritate (q. 6, a. 6 ad 4) is brief and the discussion in the Summa theologiae (supplem. q. 71, a. 5, ad 5) occurs in the section compiled by his followers and merely repeats what is said in the Sentences commentary. For Albert, see his late (1270) Summa theologiae I, tr. xi, q. 77.

13. See his Commentary on the Sentences IV. D. 45, q. 2 (ed. Venice, 1571, ff. 405v-6v). He explains that Trajan had put many martyrs painfully to death.



48 J. MARENBON

finally placed in Hell, but <they were there> according to the present jus-tice with regard to their own merits, but according to superior causes, by which it was foreseen that they would be recalled to life, they were to be placed differently.14

It is part of Aquinas’s point here that Trajan and the others were not worthy to be saved because of their personal merits: they are not in any sense examples of just pagans.

Dante’s emphasis is different. He is clearly identified as an example of someone who died as a pagan and yet has been saved, and a telling of the Trajan and the widow story in the Purgatorio (X, 73-93) has identi-fied him as virtuous.15 Yet the connection between his virtue and his salvation seems to be left deliberately tenuous. There is no cross-refer-ence back to the widow story in the Paradiso. There is a brief reference forward, to Trajan’s salvation, in the Purgatorio passage, but its phrasing is striking: Trajan is the Roman ruler ‘whose worth moved Gregory to his great victory’ (del roman principato, il cui valore/ mosse Gregorio a la sua gran vittoria: Purgatorio X, 74-5). This comment, like the longer version of the story in the Paradiso, makes very clear the limits of a pagan’s own ability gain salvation.16 Trajan owes it to his virtuous behaviour towards the widow that the story of this deed moved Gregory to intercede for him; although, in interceding successfully, Gregory was not, in fact, changing God’s mind or defeating him. Dante is in effect proposing that, while virtue is a necessary condition for some means to be found whereby a pagan ends by being saved, it is very far from being a sufficient condition. Trajan was not merely just; he was exceptionally lucky. The same point emerges from the presentation of the figure with whom he is twinned by Dante. Ripheus is a minor character in the Aeneid, but Virgil describes his as iustissimus, and it is clearly this com-ment that led Dante to include him in Paradise. But Ripheus’s devotion

14. Commentary on Sentences I, d. 45, qu. 2, a. 2, ad 5. 15. In his discussion of Dante (‘Uses of Hagiography’, 43-50), Whatley draws well

this contrast between Dante’s just Trajan and the usual view of the theologians, but in my view he over-emphasizes the extent to which Trajan’s salvation is due to his personal merits and ties it to an unlikely reading of the Commedia (p. 48) in which good pagans such as Virgil will finally go to heaven.

16. Whately (‘Uses of Hagiography’, 44-5) considers that by mentioning Trajan first here, and by not mentioning Gregory by name in the Paradiso passage, Dante is empha-sizing in a ‘humanist spirit’ the importance of Trajan’s moral worth and the small part played by Gregory. Yet the Purgatorio passage does talk of Gregory’s great victory, not Trajan’s, and the passage in Paradiso makes it clear that only through Gregory’s prayers and the living hope that accompanied them could Trajan be saved.




to justice, is presented as a result of the mystery of grace that is so impenetrable that no created thing ever sees through to its beginning (grazia che da sì profonda/ fontana stilla, che mai creatura /non pinse l’occhio infino a la prima onda …, Paradiso XX, 118-20) – a grace which eventually leads to an internal revelation that makes of Ripheus a Christian before Christ, in a manner that accords with Augustine’s teaching in the City of God.17

Dante’s underlying attitude becomes especially clear in a passage from the previous canto of the Purgatorio. There he poses the direct question about the salvation of someone who, in Christian times, has never had the chance to hear of Christ, and so far as reason can gauge, lives a sinless life:

‘Un uom nasce a la rivade l’Indo, e quivi non è chi ragionidi Cristo né chi legga né chi scriva;e tutti suoi voleri e atti buonisono, quanto ragione umana vede,sanza peccato in vita o sermoni.Muore non battezzato e sanza fede:ov’è questa giustizia che’l condanna?ov’è la colpa sua, se ei non crede?’

[A person is born on the banks of the Indus, and there is nobody there who speaks or teaches or writes about Christ; and all his volitions and acts are good, so far as human reason sees – he is without sin in his life or speech. He dies unbaptized and without faith: where is this justice that condemns him? Where is his guiltif he does not believe? Paradiso XIX, 70-8)

Dante brings out rhetorically the obvious reaction that it would be unjust to condemn him, but he goes on to reject it emphatically:

Or tu chi se’, che vuo’ sedere a scranna,per giudicar di lungi mille migliacon la veduta corta d’una spanna.

[Who are you, then, who wants to take the judge’s chair to judge what is thousand of miles away, when your vision stretches no further than a hand’s length? Paradiso XIX, 79-81]

And he continues, lambasting human ignorance and presumption and concluding that in so far as so far as something is consonant with the ‘first will’ (of God), it is just (Cotanto è giusto quanto a lei consuona, l. 88) If, then, God condemns the good but unbelieving Indian, then it is

17. See City of God XVIII, 47, and cf. his Letter 102 and Capéran, Le Salut, 130-1.



50 J. MARENBON

just, merely because God has made that choice. Humans who judge oth-erwise are merely showing their short-sightedness.

The character of this passage is brought out by comparison with two passages that deal with a similar situation. One was written by Thomas Aquinas only a few decades before:

If anyone brought up in this way [in the forests among the brute animals] were to follow the guidance of his natural reason in seeking good and flee-ing evil, it should be held most certainly that God would reveal to him those things which are necessary to be believed, either through internal inspiration or by sending someone to preach to him, as he sent Peter to Cornelius.18

In the body of the quaestio in which this passage answers an objec-tion, Aquinas has argued that, after the coming of Christ, it is necessary for everyone to have explicit knowledge, not of all the articles of the faith, but about the Trinity and the Incarnation. It is this knowledge, which could not be gained by reason alone, which he considers would be specially revealed to the person in question.

More than a century before, in the 1130s, answering a series of ques-tions directed to him by Heloise, Peter Abelard had written that

… it accords with piety and reason that we should judge that whoever, recognizing by natural law that God is the creator and recompenser of all things, cling to him with such zeal that they strive in no way to offend him through consent, which is what sin is properly called, are not at all to be damned. We consider that, before the end of such a person’s life, what he or she needs to be taught for salvation will be revealed either through inspi-ration or through someone sent to instruct about these things, as we read was done with Cornelius about faith in Christ and receiving baptism.19

Abelard believed that (at all times, not just after the coming of Christ), explicit knowledge of Christ was necessary in order to be saved, but he makes clear here that all who are invincibly ignorant of the faith and who

18. De veritate, q. 14, a. 11, ad.1: ‘Si enim aliquis taliter nutritus, ductum rationis naturalis sequeretur in appetitu boni et fuga mali, certissime est tenendum, quod Deus ei vel per internam inspirationem revelaret ea quae sunt necessaria ad credendum, vel aliquem fidei predicatorem ad eum dirigeret, sicut misit Petrum ad Cornelium, Act. X.’

19. Problemata Heloissa 13 (Patrologia Latina 178, 696A: ‘Pietati quippe atque rationi convenit, ut quicumque lege naturali creatorem omnium ac remuneratorem Deum recognoscentes, tanto illi zelo adhaerent, ut per consensum, qui proprie peccatum dicitur, eum nitantur nequaquam offendere, tales arbitremur minime damnandos esse: et quae illum ad salutem necessum est addiscere, ante vitae terminum a Deo revelari sive per inspirationem, sive per aliquem directum quo de his instruatur, sicut in Cornelio factum esse legimus de fide Christi ac perceptione baptismi.’




follow natural law as best they can will have this necessary knowledge communicated to them.20 Dante’s view is far harsher not just than Abelard’s, but even than Aquinas’s (in this case very similar) view.

The comparison can be extended, because in a work he wrote about eight years earlier than this passage, the Theologia Christiana, Abelard discusses the salvation of Trajan. Abelard was working against a context rather different from Dante’s. The story of Trajan’s resuscitation had not yet been invented, and Abelard’s source for the legend was, not the Whitby life, but the attempt by John the Deacon, late in the ninth cen-tury, to bring some theological order to the anonymous hagiographer’s comments.21 John tries to remove the scandal of Gregory’s praying for Trajan’s soul – Gregory who himself had written that we should not pray for dead pagans and unbelievers – by fixing on the fact that the anony-mous life claims only that Gregory wept. More important, he argues that there is no reason to believe that Trajan’s soul was actually released from Hell, but merely that it was spared the torments there – a reading sup-ported by some details of the anonymous account, but not by others (not, for instance, by the idea of ‘baptism by tears’). Abelard may seem to follow John closely, since he quotes the same verse from the Gospel of John about the necessity of baptism and puts forward the same idea of Trajan not going to heaven. But in fact Abelard marks out his own, rather different position. He does not at all try to pretend that Gregory only wept: it was because of the insistence of his prayers as well as the abundance of his weeping that the miracles occurred. And, whereas John rejects as ‘entirely incredible’ the idea that Trajan was released from Hell, Abelard confines himself to saying that

we are not thereby compelled to believe that his soul was allowed into heaven, in case perhaps we might go against the words of Truth, in which it is said: ‘Unless a person is reborn out of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.’

Indeed, introducing the story, Abelard is happy to accept that, at least according to the saint’s life, Trajan was ‘plucked out’ not merely from the tortures of Hell but from the ‘place of punishment.’

As any reader of Book II of the Theologia Christiana will confirm, Abelard takes a golden view there of the world of ancient Greece and Rome and its virtuous pagan rulers and philosophers. Trajan presents

20. On Abelard’s requirement of explicit faith for salvation, see J. Marenbon, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1997), 328-9.

21. Vita S. Gregorii, Patrologia Latina 75, 104B-105C.



52 J. MARENBON

a very difficult case for him, because Abelard rejects the possibility of salvation by implicit faith. (Abelard thinks so because of his theory of Christ’s work: only by knowing the example of Christ’s sacrifice of his life to save his fellow humans can a person learn the altruism neces-sary, on Abelard’s theory, in order to be saved). All who are saved must, therefore, through revelation or inner inspiration, know about Christ and his Passion. It is implausible that Trajan, a decided pagan at a time when Christianity was starting to flourish, should have had knowledge – and yet even for him Abelard wants to suggest at least the possibility of sal-vation (against John the Deacon’s dogmatic rejection of it). In the sim-pler case of the philosophers who lived before the coming of Christ and the spread of Christianity, Abelard is insistent that they were Christians avant la lettre. For him, a Virgil conceived as Dante saw him would have been admitted without any problem to heaven.

Dante elaborated the idea of limbo in order to soften the edges of the gloomy picture he felt compelled to give of how the pagans he honoured would fare in the ultimate, divinely appointed scheme of things. But the comparison with an author writing two centuries earlier immediately raises the question of why Dante, given his devotion to antiquity, could not solve this problem so easily as Abelard had done. Part of the answer may be that Dante found in the apparent unfairness of Virgil’s fate a genuine lesson, missed he would think by Abelard, about the incommen-surability of human and divine justice. But even such an awareness of incommensurability would itself testify to a wider change of attitudes between the twelfth and the fourteenth century, which led in general to a hardening of attitudes towards the possibility that good pagans were saved.22

Why did this change take place? I have no definite answer, and per-haps it is not a question that admits of one. But two different lines of thought may help to explain what happen. The first calls attention to the parallels between the attitudes to ancient pagans and those towards vari-ous groups that were in some sense marginalized or regarded as other by medieval Christian society, such as Jews, lepers and homosexuals. There is a definite move in these other, more immediate and practical cases, towards harsher treatment in the course of the twelfth, thirteenth and

22. A now classic presentation of the hardening of attitudes to excluded groups is found in R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society. Power and deviance in Western Europe, 950-1250 (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.; Blackwell, 1987).




fourteenth centuries, which seems to parallel the changing attitudes towards ancient pagans.

The second line of approach looks, not to the outside world of social relations, but to the developments in philosophy and theology. One result of Latin thinkers’ increasingly greater familiarity with Aristotle in the course of the thirteenth century was the realization that, even though the ancient philosophers were henotheists, their God, Aristotle’s espe-cially, was far more distant from the Christian God than had been sus-pected. One of the main forces behind the 1277 condemnations was this new awareness. And, of course, in view of this distance, it was no longer easy to regard the ancient philosophers as proto-Christians, in Abelard’s manner.23 If they were to go to heaven, their salvation could be achieved only at the cost of a far more radical break with orthodox Christian doc-trine than Dante would contemplate. Arguably, a very few fourteenth-century writers were willing to go this far, and one of them develops his thoughts in connection with none other than Trajan. He is the late four-teenth-century Middle English poet, William Langland.

It is not, of course, the fact that in Piers Plowman Trajan is saved that marks out its author, since that was taken for granted from the mid-thirteenth century onwards. But Langland, unlike almost all the theolo-gians, and unlike Dante, he does not introduce the idea of a resuscitation although it is likely that he would have read of the idea in the Legenda aurea.24 Trajan is saved because of his justice and not, Langland explic-itly says, because Gregory prayed for him:

Nought through preiere of a pope but for his pure truthWas that Sarsen saued, as Seint Gregorie bereth witnesse.

The point is emphasized a little later when the figure Ymaginatif, talk-ing about Trajan, cites a verse from one of the Psalms, salvabitur vix iustus in die iudicii (‘Hardly will the just person be saved on the Day of Judgement’) and argues, with impeccable logic that, if the just person is hardly saved then he is, indeed, saved (ergo – salvabitur). A Biblical remark intended to point to the severity of God’s judgement is thus turned, by taking it utterly literally, into a warrant that a person’s justice

23. In Medieval Philosophy: an historical and philosophical introduction (London and New York; Routledge, 2007), 266-71, I try to give, in broad terms, an indication of the effects of the 1277 condemnations and the shift in mood among the university theolo-gians. For bibliography, see ibid., p. 377.

24. Langland refers (B-text, XI, 161) to the legenda sanctorum as his source, probably meaning to indicate the Legenda aurea.



54 J. MARENBON

will ensure his or her ultimate salvation. The interpretation of Piers Plowman, and this episode in especial, is disputed, and some readers would see Langland as more in line with what I take to be the predomi-nant harsh later medieval approach to ancient pagans.25 But whichever interpretation is correct, the poem certainly presents a highly reflective discussion of Trajan as an example of a just pagan and, along with the Commedia Divina, illustrates the point that some of the keenest medieval examinations of the problems posed by paganism are found in writing we would classify as literature rather than theology or philosophy.

25. The discussion of Trajan’s salvation is found in B-Text, Passus XI, 140-70, Passus XII, 210-11, 268-94; C-Text Passus XII, 73-94, Passus XIV, 199-271. For a different reading (along with bibliography), see A. J. Minnis (‘Looking for a Sign’ in Essays in Ricardian Literature in honour of J. A. Burrow, ed. A. J. Minnis, C. C. Morse and T. Turville-Petre (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1997), 142-78 at pp. 150-69, where he cautions against the ‘semi-pelagian’ reading that places emphasis on Trajan’s merits in saving him – he considers Langland’s attitude to Trajan to be close to that which I have suggested as Dante’s. But Minnis perhaps underestimates the importance of Langland’s decision to leave out the resuscitation story.



Abbo of Fleury Vita S. Eadmundi: 143, 144Absolom, biblical figure: 174Abubacer, Arabic philosopher: 63Acdestis, pagan god: 152Acharius, bishop of Noyon-Tournai:

114Achilles, Greek hero: 171Acta Philippi: 155Acta SS. Bertarii et Ataleni: 147Adhils, Swedish king: 93Ado of Vienne, archbishop: 121Adonis, pagan god: 153, 155Agobard, archbishop of Lyon Liber contra insulsam vulgi opinio-

nem de grandine et tonitruis: 157-166

Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sogum: 92ahl al-dhimma (concept of -): 217,

229, 237, 238 Ahmad Baba Mi¨raj al-∑u¨ud: 233, 234 AÌmad ibn ¨Abd al-∑amad al-Khazraji

al-AnÒari al-Qur†ubi: 215Ajax, Greek mythological figure:

153Akhbar al-zaman wa-man abadahu

’l-Ìidthan (History of the Ages and Those whom Events have Annihi-lated): 225, 228, 230

Alain de Lille: 170Al-Andalus (Spain): 219Al-Bakri Kitab al-masalik wa’l-mamalik

(The Book of the Highways and Kingdoms): 225, 229, 230, 232

Albert the Great De anima: 62, 66, 76, 79, 80 De bono: 56, 57, 83 De caelo et mundo: 62, 66, 73 De causa et processu universitatis a

prima causa: 63, 64, 66, 70, 74, 76

De causis proprietatum elemento-rum: 60

De corpore Domini: 63 De generatione et corruptione: 74 De homine: 65, 73, 77 De intellectu et intelligibili: 82 De IV coaequaevis: 64, 73, 77 De natura boni: 56 De natura loci: 58 De principiis motus processivi:

62 De resurrectione: 61 De vegetabilibus: 63 De XV problematibus: 63, 80 Liber de natura et origine animae:

59, 60, 63, 74, 75, 77-80, 82 Metaphysica: 63-68, 75, 82 Meteora: 61, 66, 67, 74 Mineralia: 67 Physica: 61-63, 70-72, 76 Quaestio de dotibus sanctorum in

patria: 77 I Sent.: 65 II Sent.: 64 IV Sent.: 61 Summa theologiae: 47, 65, 78,

81-83 Super Dionysii Epistulas: 59 Super Dionysium De caelesti hier-

archia: 57 Super Dionysium De divinis

nominibis: 57, 58, 63 Super Ethica: 57, 61, 63, 77, 78,

83 Super Isaiam: 56-58 Super Matthaeum: 56, 57, 59 Super Porphyrium De V univer-

salibus: 76Albertanus of Brescia De amore et dilectione Dei: 172Al-Biruni, Muslim scholar: 215, 221Albrecht of Bavaria, duke: 167, 174

INDEX

95923_ML_XLIII_14_Index.indd 23995923_ML_XLIII_14_Index.indd 239 28/01/13 08:2328/01/13 08:23


240 INDEX

Al-Dimashqi Nukhbat al-daÌr fi ‘aja’ib al-barr

wa’l-baÌr (Chosen Passages of Time regarding the Marvels of Land and Sea): 227, 228

Alexander the Great: 171, 175-177, 180-181, 220

Alexander of Hales, theologian: 61Algazel, Persian philosopher: 70, 75,

78Al-Hamdani ∑ifat Jazirat al-¨Arab (Description

of the Arabian Peninsula): 222-226

Al-Idrisi: 217, 221, 222, 226, 229 Nuzhat al-mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq (The Book of pleasant Jour-neys into foraway Lands): 226

Al-Juwayni, Muslim scholar: 217Al-Maghili, Muslim scholar: 231,

234, 237Al-Maˆmun, Muslim ruler: 214Almohads (The -): 219, 236, 237Almoravids (The -): 219, 236Al-Muhallabi, Muslim scholar: 230Al-Mu†ahhar ibn ™ahir al-Maqdisi Kitab al-badˆ wa’l-tarikh (Book on

Creation and History): 224Al-Qazwini, Muslim scholar: 215Ambrose of Milan: 168, 169 Epistulae: 141Amiens (France): 114, 121, 127, 128,

131Amphusus (Pseudo-): 176, 177 amulets: 10, 11, 16Anaximander, Greek philosopher: 61Angelrammus, abbot of St.-Riquier Relatio S. Richarii: 150Ansbert of Rouen, saint: 149, 156Anselm of Canterbury: 72 De conceptu virginale: 73Antichrist: 168Antonius of Bergen op Zoom, copyist:

178Apollo: 119Arabia: 226Arbeo of Freising Vita S. Corbiniani: 142

Vita Haimhrammi episcopi: 145, 146Aristippus, Greek philosopher: 197Aristotle: 28, 35-37, 43, 53, 60, 64-66,

67, 70, 71, 75, 76, 81, 169, 170, 174, 175, 178, 214, 215

Aristotle (Pseudo -): 25Arna (non-Muslim population): 229Arnobius Adversus nationes: 152, 153Arnold of Liège, author of exempla:

176Arras (France): 114, 138Artold, archbishop of Rheims: 129Aser, pagan god: 92Asia: 213Askia MuÌammad I, emperor: 232,

234, 237Assuerus, biblical figure: 171Atalenus, martyr: 147Athena: 28Atrebati (The -): 114Attalus, stoic philosopher: 61, 63Attis, Greek mythological figure: 152,

155Audoenus of Rouen Vita S. Eligii: 132-134, 136, 137Augustine: VII, 8, 10, 11, 13, 17, 26,

32, 33, 35-37, 43, 72, 73, 82, 174 Confessiones: 25, 31 De civitate Dei: VII, 27, 29, 31,

49, 193 De doctrina Christiana: 24 De vera religione: 27-30, 36Augustus, emperor: 171Aunacharius, bishop of Auxerre: 120,

127Aurelius, martyr: 154Aureus, saint: 154Auxerre (France): 128, 149Averroes: 63, 76, 77, 78, 171Avicenna: 63, 76, 78Awdaghost (oasis town): 226, 237Awrangzeb, muslim ruler: 217

Baldr, pagan god:87Bartholomew, apostle: 155Bartola, saint: 149, 150Bassari (The -): 232



INDEX 241

Baudilus, martyr: 145Bavay (France): 111, 114Bazoches-sur-Vesle (France): 123,

126, 127, 129, 130, 137Beauvais (France): 15, 114, 122-124,

126-128, 130-132, 134-137Beccadelli, Antonio Hermaphroditus: 201Bede the Venerable Historia ecclesiastica gentis

Anglorum: 145Bellovaci (The -): 122Berber (The – people)): 223, 224, 235Bernard of Clairvaux: 174Bernard of Clairvaux (Pseudo-) Epistula de cura rei familiaris:

192Bertaire, martyr: 147, 156Bertulf of Flanders: 14Bianco, Giovanni (ambassador of

Milan): 202Boethius Consolatio Philosophiae: 33-35Bonaventure: 169 Centiloquium: 171Bori (rituals of -): 228Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Òafaˆ):

212, 213Buddha (The life of -): 216Buddhists: 209Buja (The -): 231, 232Buonaccorsi, Filippo vide Callima-

chus EsperiensBurchard of Worms Corrector sive Medicus: 5, 11, 16

Caecina, philosopher: 61, 63 Caecus, Appius Claudius (Roman pol-

itician): 170, 177, 179Cain: see HamCalceopulo, Atanasio (pontifical dele-

gate): 198Callimachus Esperiens, Philippus:

195-205 Carmina: 204 De peregrinationibus: 199 Epigrammata: 201-204 Fanietum: 203, 204

Quaestio de daemonibus: 200 Quaestio de peccato: 200 Praefatio in Somniarum Leonis

Tusci philosophi: 200, 201 Vita Gregorii Sanocei: 199, 200Cambrai (France): 114, 138Cambyses II, king: 175Campano, Settimuleio (member of the

Academy of Rome): 201canonicum (ecclesiastical tax): 159,

161, 162, 164, 166Carthage: 171Casmir IV Jagiellon: 200Cassel (battle of -): 15Cato: 175, 184Catullus (Gaius Lutatius): 201, 204Celsus, Greek philosopher: 21Châlons-sur-Marne (France): 114Chanson des Quatre fils Aymon (La):

108Charlemagne: 90, 108, 144, 162Charles the Bald, emperor: 130chefera (stateless non-Muslim peo-

ple): 232Childeric I, king: 89Christians: 19-23, 30, 31- in relation to Muslims: 209-212,

214, 215, 217-219, 228, 229, 231, 234, 236, 238

Cibele, Greek mythological figure: 152

Cicero, Marcus Tullius: 64, 66, 67, 169, 171

De Inventione: 171 De natura deorum: 70 De officiis: 169 Somnium Scipionis: 57, 181Clemens of Alexandria: 19, 20, 26 Stromata: 20Clementia, countess of Flanders: 12Clovis, king: 89, 142Collectio Vetus Gallica: 162Coloman of Melk, saint: 139, 140,

154, 156Columba, saint: 136Condulmer (Glauco), Lucio (member

of the Academy of Rome): 201Corbie (Abbey of -): 119, 124



242 INDEX

Corbinian, saint: 142Crispinianus, saint: 117, 119, 120,

122, 124, 127, 131, 132, 134,135

Crispinus, saint: 117, 119, 120, 122, 124, 127, 131, 132, 134, 135

Cupid, pagan god: 183Cyparissus, mythological figure: 153

Dagobert, king: 114, 154dakakir (idols): 229Damascius, philosopher: 26Damdam (land of -): 230Dante Alighieri La divina commedia: 39-42, 44,

45, 47-49, 51-54,David, biblical king: 174, 186, 191Declamationes Senece moralizate:

178demons: 31, 34Denys, saint: 134 De partibus Saxoniae: 90, 108De Rossi (De Rubeis), Agostino

(ambassador of Milan): 197De S. Aureo et sociis: 154Descriptio qualiter Karolus magnus

clavum et coronam domini a Con-stantinopoli Aquisgrani detulerit: 144

Desiderius, martyr: 142, 147Diana, Roman goddess: 119Die geesten of geschiedenis van

Romen: 180Dietsce Doctrinale: 172, 173Dietsche Cathoen: 171Diogenes Laertius, Greek biographer:

175Dionysius the Areopagite: 25, 26, 65Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse: 171Dirc van Delf Tafel van den kersten ghelove:

167-194 Disier, saint: 147, 156Disticha Catonis: 181, 187Drogo Vita Godeliph: 14Durandus of St.-Pourçain, theologian:

47

dusi: 164

Edda: 87Edmund, king: 142, 143, 156Egypt: 217, 218, 220Eligius of Noyon, saint: 119, 132-137Emmeram, martyr: 145, 146, 156Emo, abbot of Bloemhof Chronicon abbatum in Werum: 1,

2Empedocles, philosopher: 72Enigmata Aristotelis moralizata: 178Epaone (Council of -): 125Epicurus, Greek philosopher: 32, 33,

197, 200, 201Essouk (Mali): 226Ethiopians (The -): 222Eulalia of Merida, martyr: 145Eusebia, noble woman: 131, 133Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea: 155Evermarus of Tongres, saint: 146-147,

156Exemplaer (Dat Boec -): 172

falconry (treatise on -): 207Fasciculus morum: 183Felix of Nola, saint: 141, 155Ferdinand II, king of Naples: 196, 198Feuillen, saint: 156Firmicus Maternus, Julius (Latin

writer): 155Firmin of Amiens, saint: 148Fismes (France): 123, 128, 129, 137Flodoard Annales: 129 Capitula in synodo…: 129 Historia ecclesiae Remenis: 118,

119, 123, 129, 130Florus of Lyon, ecclesiastical writer:

121Foillan, saint: 142Folcuin, bishop of Thérouanne: 98fortune-telling: 7-9, 10, 11, 13, 15Francheschini (Asclepiade), Marco

(member of the academy of Rome): 201

François (maître), illuminator: VIIFrederic, emperor (Pseudo-): 192



INDEX 243

Freia, Norse pagan goddess: 16Freyr, Norse pagan god: 87, 95Frontinus, Julius (Roman scholar):

176Fulgentius, Fabius Planciades: 180,

183, 185-188 De ornatu orbis: 177, 179, 185,

186, 189, 190 Mythologiae: 179, 190Fuscianus, martyr: 118-120, 122, 124-

127, 132, 134Fylgja, Norse mythological figure:

86

Galbert of Bruges De multro, traditione, et occisione

gloriosi Karoli comitis Flandri-arum: 15

Gall, saint: 95Gao (Mali): 237Genesius of Arles, martyr: 144Genesius of Bigorre, martyr: 144, 145Geneviève, saint: 89, 136Gentianus, martyr: 118, 122, 126Gerard Leeu, Dutch printer: 180Germanus, saint: 136Gervasius, martyr: 141Gesta pontificum Cameracensium:

138Gesta romanorum: 174-176, 180, 181,

183-186, 188-193Ghana: 219, 220, 227, 232Ghent (Blandinium): 149, 156Gobir (Nigeria): 235Godelieve, saint: 14Gomez Eannes de Azurara Chronica do Descobrimento e

Conquista de Guiné (Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea): 207, 208

Gonzaga, Francesco, cardenal: 202, 203

Gotland (Sweden): 86Gratian Decretum Gratiani: 7, 8, 10, 11,

13Greek legacy (in Islam): 214, 215,

220, 222, 224, 230

Gregory VII, pope: 163, 164 Registrum: 163Gregory the Great, pope: 45-48, 51,

53, 73, 91, 174, 182 Dialogi: 142Gregory of Nyssa: 26 Contra Iulianum: 141Gregory of Sanok (Leopoldus Grego-

rius), bishop: 199Gregory of Tours: 109, 122, 127 De gloria confessorum: 143, 148,

154 De gloria martyrum: 120, 143-

145 Historia Francorum: 120 Libri historiarum: 120Gryse, Nicolaus (preacher): 96Gudbrand of Norway: 1Guibert of Nogent De vita sua: 6, 7, 11, 15, 16

Haakon the Good, king: 92Habakkuk, biblical prophet: 174Hauza (-land): 219, 228, 229Häggeby (Stele of -): 96Ham (The Curse of -): 208, 233Hamburg (Germany): 97Îamid al-Din al-Kirmani RaÌat al-¨aql (The Repose of the

Intellect): 223Hariulf Chronicon Centulensis abbatiae

seu Sancti Richarii: 150, 151Harold, king of Denmark: 164Hartlieb, Johann Das Buch aller verbotenen Künste:

102haruspicy: 7, 8, 11Helinand of Froidmont De bono regimine principis: 175Hellequin (the compagny of -): 6hemaones: 164Herculanus, martyr: 142heresy: 33Herman of Tournai Liber de restauratione monasterii

Sancti Martini Tornacensis: 12, 135



244 INDEX

Hermes, pagan god: 218Hermes Trismegistus, pagan god: VII,

63, 67, 69, 76Hesiod, ancient Greek poet: 60, 61,

63, 64, 66, 68, 78Hildegard of Bingen, mystic: 9Hillinus Miracula S. Foillani: 142Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims: 129Hindus (The -): 209, 210, 216, 217,

227Hippocrates, Greek physician: 215Homer: 62Hordain (Northern France): 97Hornhausen (Stele of -): 106, 107horse (the): 10, 85-103Hrabanus Maurus De rerum naturis: 95, 96Hugh, abbot of Saint-Quentin: 131Hugh Capet, king: 150Hugh Ripelin of Strasbourg Compendium theologiae veritatis:

171, 192Humbert of Romans, Master General

of the dominicans: 176Hyacinth, Greek mythological figure:

152

Iamblichus De mysteriis: 22Ibn Ärabi, Andalusian Sufi: 217, 233Ibn Ba††u†a, Muslim explorer: 221,

226Ibn Fa∂lan, Muslim explorer: 225,

227, 231 Ibn Îawqal Kitab Òurat al-ar∂ (The Face of the

Earth): 226, 227Ibn Khaldun, Muslim scholar: 233Ibn Rushd FaÒl al-maqal (Decisive Treatise):

218Ibn Saïd Kitab bas† al-ar∂ fi ’l-†ul wa’l-är∂

(The Book of the Extension of the Land on Longitudes and Lati-tudes): 230

Ibn Wa∂∂aÌ al-Qur†ubi: 213, 235

Icarus, Greek mythological figure: 171

Imagines Fulgentii moralisatae: 178, 180, 184

immisores tempestatum: 159India: 215-217, 220, 231Innocent III, pope: 1, 9Iraq: 218Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon: 162Irmino, abbot of Saint-Germain-des-

Prés: 162Isaak Israëli, philosopher: 63Isidore of Seville: 7, 184, 185, 187Isis, Egyptian goddess: 152Islam: 41, 62, 207-238IÒ†akhri Kitab al-masalik wa’l-mamalik

(Book of the Highways and King-doms): 231, 232

Jacob, the patriarch: 186Jacob van Maerlant Alexanders Yeesten: 171 Spiegel Historiael: 171, 172Jacobus de Voragine Legenda aurea: 47, 53, 95 Sermones: 176Jahiliyya (concept of -): 226, 230,

234, 235, 237, 238Jan van Boendale Lekenspiegel: 173Jan van Ruusbroec, Flemish mystic: 9Jan-i Janan, Muslim writer: 216, 217Jean Gobi: 176 Scala caeli: 95Jehan Mansel, Burgundian chronicler:

176Jeremiah, biblical prophet: 191Jerome Epistulae: 23Jesus Christ: 19, 26, 29, 31, 32, 35,

155, 168, 174, 186, 197, 209-212Jews (The -): 41, 52, 62, 57, 209-212,

214, 217, 219, 236-238Johannes Scotus Eriugena De predestinatione: 35, 36 Periphyseson: 36John of Damascus (Pseudo-): 46



INDEX 245

John of Wales (Johannes Valensis): 193

Breviloquium de virtutibus antiquorum principum et philoso-phorum: 172, 173

John Ridevall Fulgentius metaforalis: 179, 182,

193 Yamigines Fulgentii: 190 John the Deacon Vita s. Gregorii: 51, 52Jonathan, biblical figure: 186Joscelin, bishop of Soissons: 129Joseph (biblical): 218Julian the Apostate, emperor: 22, 23Julianus, martyr: 126, 136Jupiter: 16, 119, 190, 224Justianian, emperor: 24Justin, martyr: 19Justine, martyr: 154Justus of Beauvais, martyr: 118-122,

124, 126-128

Kafir (unbelievers): 207Kitab al-istibÒar: 220, 226, 229, 230-

232Kitab al-shifaˆ bi-ta¨rif Ìuquq

al-MuÒ†afa (Healing by the Recog-nition of the Rights of the chosen One): 239

Konkomba (stateless etnic group): 232

Koran: 209-212, 216, 217, 224, 225, 234, 237

Kristnisage: 92kuhhan (soothsayers): 231 kufr (unbelief): 209-212, 231, 233,

234, 237, 238 Kugha (town of -): 220, 227

Lactantius Divinarum institutionum libri VII:

30Lambert of Ardres Historia comitum Ghisnensium: 15Lamlam (The -): 230Laon (France): 114Laurent of Amalfi

Vita S. Zenobii: 148Leidrad, bishop of Lyon: 162Leo IX, pope: 6, 7, 12Leto, Pomponio: 201 Defensio in carceribus: 196Lex Salica: 11, 12Liber de causis: 25, 70, 72, 75Livy (Titus Livius): 184, 185, 190Lolianus, martyr: 136Louis the Pious, emperor: 157, 165Luc, evangelist: 5Lucianus, martyr: 118, 119, 121, 122,

124, 126, 127, 131, 132, 134-136Lucius, saint: 136Lupus, bishop of Soissons: 130Lyon (France): 157-166

Ma(v)ones: 164Macra, martyr: 118-123, 129Macrobius, Ambrosius Theodosius In Somnium Scipionis: 171, 181 Saturnalia: 181Madasa (The -): 230Maffeus, Augustus: 202magic: 14, 15, 98-101, 158-164

(wheather magicians), 209, 234 Magonia (land of -): 159, 160, 162,

164, 165Magusoi (Magi): 59 Maguzawa (non-Muslim population):

228, 229Mahdi ‘Ubayd Allah: 230Maheshvara (Shiva), supreme god:

216Mahmud of Ghazná, ruler of the

Ghaznavid empire: 217Maimonides Dux neutrorum: 63Majus (Zoroastrians): 227-229Majusiyya (local religious traditions):

227, 229Malal (land of -): 225Malastesta, Sigismondo (Italian con-

dotiero): 196Mali: 226Marcel, saint: 15, 135Marciocurius (Manius Currius), roman

patrician: 176



246 INDEX

Marinus Vita Procli: 22Marrasio, Giovanni Angelinetum: 203Mars, Roman god: 16, 223Marsilio Ficino, humanist philoso-

pher: 37, 200Martialis, Marcus Valerius (Latin

poet): 201Martin, archbishop of Tours: 149, 156Martin of Braga De quatuor virtutibus cardinalibus

(Formula honestae vitae): 172Martyrologium Hieronymianum: 120,

121, 127Mary, the Blessed Virgin: 181, 191Mason, J.P., archbishop of Lyon: 157,

166Mas¨udi Muruj al-dhahab (Meadows of

Gold): 223Maugis, romance hero: 108Maurinus, royal cantor: 133Maximianus, martyr: 136Maximus Confessor, theologian: 26Mecca: 211, 226Mecklenburg (Germany): 96Medardus, bishop: 122Memphis (Egypt): 218Mercury, Roman god: 119Michael Scotus Metaphysica: 63Michol, biblical figure: 186, 191Milan (Italy): 141Mithra, pagan god: 151Monelli, Antonio: 197Moses (biblical): 73, 173, 197, 217Muhammad: 197, 213, 217, 224Münster in Westfalen (Germany): 97Mushrikun: 211, 212Muslims: 207-238

Naomi biblical figure: 186Narcissus, Greek mythological figure:

152Nazaire, martyr: 141Nero, emperor: 174Nervii (The -): 114

Nicholas IV, pope: 196Nicholas, saint: 96Nicholas Trevet, Anglo-Norman

chronicler: 193Niger: 219, 234Njáls saga: 100Noah, biblical figure: 208Notitia dignitatum: 116Noyon (France): 114, 122, 132, 134,

136Nubians (The -): 222Numenius, Greek philosopher: 26nyk(u)r (a horselike creation): 86

Odin, pagan god: 87Odo of Beauvais: 130 Passio S. Luciani, Maximiani

atque Iuliani: 118Odo of Cluny (Pseudo -) De reversione beati Martini a Bur-

gundia: 149Ogier d’Anglure Le saint voyage à Jérusalem: 144Olaf Haraldsson, king of Norway: 1-3Olaf Helgi, king: 02Olaf Tryggvason, king: 92Old Gelasian Sacramentary: 163Omer, bishop of Thérouanne: 114On Those who have Died in the Faith:

46Origin, theologian: 26Osiris, Egyptian god: 152Oswald, king of Northumbria: 145,

146, 156Oswy (Oswiu), king: 146Otto of Freising, chronicler: 172Ovid (Publius Ovidius Nasa): 43, 61,

62, 204, 205 Metamorphoses: 152, 153

Paris (France): 110, 126, 136Paschasius Radbertus De passione SS. Rufuni et Valerii:

117, 123, 126Passio S. Cholomanni: 139, 140Passio SS. Crispini et Crispiani: 117,

119, 120, 122, 124, 127, 131, 132, 134, 135



INDEX 247

Passio SS. Desiderii et Reginfridi mar-tyrum Alsegaudiensium: 142, 147

Passio et inventio S. Fusciani: 118-120, 122, 124-127, 132, 134

Passio S. Iusti: 118-122, 124, 126-128Passio S. Iustini: 118Passio S. Luciani: 118, 119, 121, 122,

124, 126, 127, 131, 132, 134-136Passio et translatio S. Macrae: 118-

123, 129Passio S. Piati: 132, 134-136Passio et inventio S. Quintini: 117-

128, 131-136, 142Passio SS. Rufini et Valerii: 117, 118,

120, 122-127, 130, 131, 134, 135 Passio et inventio SS. Victorici et Fus-

ciani: 118-120, 122, 124, 125, 134Patrizi, Agostino (papal adviser): 197,

201Paul, apostle: 174Paul II, pope: 195-198, 202Paulinus of Nola Carmina: 141, 143, 145, 154, 155 Vita Ambrosii: 141Pausanias, Greek geographer: 153penitentiaria (Penitential books): 8,

10, 11, 162, 163Persians (The -): 218Peter Abaelard: 42, 44 Problemata Heloissa: 50, 51 Theologia Christiana: 51-53 Peter, bishop of Beauvais: 130Petrach, Francesco (Italian scholar and

poet): 172Petrus Alphonsi, Jewish-Christian

scholar: 176Petrus de Chambly, canon: 121Petrus of Cluny De miraculis libri duo: 6Philipp the Chancellor, theologian: 61Philipp II, king of Macedon: 175Philoponus, philosopher: 34Philosophi theologantes: 60-81Phoebus, pagan god: 152Piatus, martyr: 132, 134-136Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni

(Renaissance philosopher): 200, 203

Pietro de’ Crescenzi, writer on agri-culture: 171

Pirminus Scarapsus: 164Pisces (constellation of -): 224Platina: see SacchiPlato: 19, 20-37, 43, 62-67, 69, 76-78,

81, 171, 174 Phaedo: 31 Timaeus: 34Plinius the Elder Historia naturalis: 151Plotinus, philosopher: 21, 25, 26, 35Plutarch, Greek historian: 152Politracum: 174Pomponius Laetus, Julius: see LetoPontano, Giovanni Parthenopeus sive Amores: 203, 204Porphyry, philosopher: 21, 25, 27, 31,

76, 155Proclus, philosopher: 22, 25, 26, 32,

34, 35Propertius, Latin poet: 204, 205Protasius, martyr: 141Prussians (The -): 90Ptolemy Tetrabiblos: 222-224, 230Pyramus and Thisbe, Roman mytho-

logical figures: 153Pythagoras, philosopher and mathe-

matician: 173-175, 177-179

Qa∂i ¨Iya∂: 233, 234Qara Khitai (people of -): 217 Quintinus, martyr: 117-122, 124-128,

131-136, 142, 156

Raetobarii (The -): 116Rashid al-Din Jami¨ al-tawarikh (Compendium

of Chronicles): 216Raul de Presles, medieval French

translator: VIIReginald of Coldingham Vita S. Oswaldi regis et martyris:

146Reginfrid of Danmark, martyr: 142,

147



248 INDEX

Registrum Gregorii: 163Regulus (Rieul), bishop of Senlis:

142, 156Regulus, martyr: 135Rehoboham, biblical king: 174Remigius, archbishop of Rheims: 114,

130Rheims (France): 114, 123, 126, 128,

129Rheims (archdiocese of – ): 111-138Richildis, countess of Flanders: 15Rictiovarus (Cycle of -): 116, 117,

119, 121, 124, 127, 128, 132, 133, 136, 137

Rictiovarus, Roman persecutor: 116-119, 125

Riculfus, bishop of Soissons: 130Riquier (Richarius), saint: 150, 156,

64, 165Robert Friso: 15Robert Holcot: 177-194 Moralizationum historiarum liber

(Moralitates sive Allegoriae histo-riarum): 177-186, 189, 190, 193-194

Super libros sapientiae: 178, 179 Ymagines Fulgentii moralizate:

178, 180, 184Robert, count of Flanders: 12Romanus, archdeacon: 129Rome (Academy of -): 195-201Romulus: 181Rufina, martyr: 127Rufinus, martyr: 117, 118, 120, 122-

127, 130, 131, 134, 135Rus (people of -): 227, 231Ruth, biblical figure: 186

Sabians (The -): 209, 214Sacchi (Platina), Bartolomeo: 196, 201 De falso et vero bono: 198 Epistolae: 195Sacramentarium Gelasianum: 163saÌara (sorcerers): 229, 234∑a¨id al-Andalusi ™abaqat al-umam (Book of the

Categories of the Nations): 222, 223

Sains-en-Amienois (France): 122, 126, 127, 131, 132, 137

Saint-Crépin-le-Grand (abbey of – ): 131

Saint-Fuscien (abbey of -): 122, 131, 132

Saint-Just-en-Chaussée (France): 122, 123, 124, 128-130, 137

Saint-Quentin (France): 121-123, 126-128, 131, 134-137

Salimbene di Adam Chronica: 8, 9∑anghana (Senegal): 229∑anhaja (people of -): 230sapientes gentilium: 56, 81Saturn: 119Saul, biblical king: 186Sauve (Salvius), bishop of Amiens:

148Scipio the African, Roman statesman:

171Scorpio (constellation of -): 223Seclin (France): 132, 134-137Seiör (rite of -): 99Seneca: 171, 174, 175, 178, 184 Declamationes: 178 Epistulae: 154 Quaestiones naturales: 61Seneca (Pseudo -): 172Senegal: 219Senlis (France): 114, 121, 122Sermo de adventu sanctorum Wan-

dregisili, Ansberti et Vulframni in Blandinium: 149

Severinus, saint: 136Severus, saint: 148, 154Sforza, Galeazzo Maria, duke of

Milan: 197, 202Shafi¨i Risala: 209 Shahrastani (The -): 221 Sheba, Queen of -: 168shirk (idolatry): 210-211, 237, 238Siccambria (Frankish region of -): 164Sigrdrífumál: 87snakes (worship of -): 230, 231Snorri Sturluson Heimskringla: 1-3, 92, 93



INDEX 249

Spain: 219, 234, Socrates: 19, 28, 64, 66, 69, 176, 214Soissons (France): 114, 120-124, 127-

132, 134-137Solignac (France): 136Solomon, biblical king: 168, 174, 190 Songhay, state of -: 219, 233, 234soothsayers: 7, 231, 234Speculum laicorum: 176Stephan of Bourbon, author of exem-

pla: 176Sturla ≠ór∂arson, saga writer: 91,92Sudan: 225, 227, 229-231Sufism: 215-218Sybil (oracular seeress): 9Syrianus, Greek philosopher: 22

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius Germania: 87, 93Tadmakka (medieval town in Mali):

226 Tajuwa (people of -): 229™ariq ibn Ziyad: 213Tedaldi, Jacopo (adviser of Moham-

med II): 199tempestarii: 157-166Tertullian Apologeticus pro Christianis: 155Theodosius, emperor: 177, 179-181Thérouanne (diocese of -): 138Thietmar of Merseburg Chronicon: 140Thisbe, Roman mythological figure:

153Thomas Aquinas: 169, 178, 179 De veritate: 47, 50, 51 Sententiae: 47, 48 Summa Theologiae: 14, 47Thomas Waleys, theologian: 193Thor, pagan god: 16Titus, emperor: 171Toledo: 9 (necromancer of -), 215Tongres (Belgium): 146, 188Toscano, Leone Oneirocriticon Achmetis: 200, 201Tournai (Belgium): 114, 132, 135,

138Trajan, emperor: 44-48, 51-54, 174

≠rándheimr (Norweg): 92Trier (Germany): 101-105≠ulr (magicians): 98Turks (The -): 223, 224

Ugolini, Francesco: 199Ugolini, Niccolò: 199Ulrich Molitor, legal scholar: 101Ulrich Richental Chronik des Konzils von Konstanz:

93, 94Umayyads (land of the -): 224Usuard Martyrologium: 121, 135¨Uthman dan Fodio Al-Farq bayna wilayat ahl al-islam

wa-bayna wilayat ahl al-kufr (On the Difference between the Gov-ernments of the Muslims and the Governments of the Unbelievers): 235, 236

Vaderboec (Vitae Patrum): 168 Vaf∫rudnismál: 86, 87Valerius, martyr: 117, 118, 120, 122-

127, 130, 131, 134, 135, 150, 156Valerius Maximus, author of historical

anecdotes: 175, 176, 178, 184Valla, Lorenzo: 196 Elegantiae linguae Latinae: 198Varro, Marcus Terentius (Roman

scholar): 28, 31, 184, 188vatnakest(u)r: 86Vatnsdoelasaga: 86Vedastus, saint: 114Vegetius (Publius Flavius Vegetius

Renatus), Roman scholar: 171, 176

Velleius Paterculus, Marcus Historia romana: 176Venus, Roman goddess: 16, 119, 153,

223Vermand (France): 114, 121, 122,

124-126, 128, 131, 134, 135Veronica, saint: 5Victoricus, martyr: 118-120, 122,

125-127,134, 135Victricius of Rouen



250 INDEX

De laude sanctorum: 141Vikings (The -): 106, 227, 228Vincentius of Beauvais Speculum historiale: 171, 172, 189Virgil (P. Virgilius Maro): 39, 43 Aeneid: 48, 49Vita S. Corbiniani: 142Vita S. Eligii: vide AudoenusVita et passio S. Evermari: 146-147Vita S. Gregorii: 45, 46, 51, 52Vita S. Reguli: 142Vita S. Richarii: 164, 165Vita S. Salvii: 148, 149Vita S. Zenobii: 148 Völva (pagan Norse shaman): 99, 100

Walafrid Strabo Vita S. Galli: 95Wandregisel, saint: 149, 156West Africa: 207-238Widukind, Saxon leader: 108Wilhelm VI, count of Holland: 167,

192William Langland Piers Plowman: 53, 54

William of Auxerre, theologian: 61William of Conches Moralium dogma philosophorum:

168, 175witchcraft: 86, 99-105Wodan, pagan god: 87, 95, 96, 106Wulfram, saint: 149, 156Wycliff, John: 44

Xenocrates, Greek philosopher: 31Xerxes I of Persia: 171, 175, 176

Yaqut Mu¨jam al-buldan (Dictionary of

the Countries): 226, 231Yeavering (Great Britain): 91

Zafqu (nation of -): 230Zaghawa (kingdom of -): 231Zaghawa (The -): 227, 228 Zanj (The -): 222-224, 231, 232Zenobe of Florence, saint: 142, 148Zeus: 28Zoroastrianism: 209, 227-229, 237



a problem of paganism

Documents

middle ages isbn

indd i95923

indd ii95923

indd iii95923

indd iv95923

indd v95923

indd vi95923

middle agesthreat