Johannes von Anneux. Ein Fürstenmahner und Mendikantengegner in der ersten Hälfte des 14. Jahrhunderts by Susanne Stracke-Neumann (review)

86BOOK REVIEWS Bitterly fought for nearly a decade, in three phases or trials, the process resulted in a paper victory for CastUe but a diplomatic and practical victory for Aragon, since the sentence in prudent fashion contained no provision for execution . The trial record, under the great lawyer popes Gregory LX and Innocent IV, has transcendental resonance for canon law scholars but is central as weU for Iberian history. Its interest for students of diplomatics and paleography is obvious . The author devotes some 160 pages to a meticulous general introduction, another 160 to analysis of the process itsetf, and 323 pages to the edition. The approach is closely focused and relentlessly analytical, including constant subdivisions and subtitles for both the edition and the study.WhUe that procedure clarifies the materials at the level of outline, paradoxicaUy it also obscures the narrative flow,becoming both a virtue ofthe work and the only point at which it faUs.That is a pity, since the trial record is a very human document, rising at times to hUarity as the legal shenanigans multiply. (Delaying tactics and lawyers' tricks were the only real hope for the Aragonese.) The narrative lack may be supphed from my Crusader Kingdom ofValencia,' done from previous incomplete editions. The edition by CasteU Maiques brings closure by the newly discovered episodes. It also stands as a model of exhaustive scholarship and editing, leaving no aspect of the trial uncovered, no Une of interpretation unopened, and no editorial task sUghted. Robert I. Burns, SJ. University ofCalifornia at Los Angeles Johannes von Anneux. Ein Fürstenmahner und Mendikantengegner in der ersten Hälfte des 14.Jahrhunderts. By Susanne Stracke-Neumann. (Mammendorf : Septem artes Verlag. 1996. Pp. xi, 349· DM 68,-.) Susanne Stacke-Neumann has used information and studies on John of Anneux , secular priest and theologian, to fit him into early fourteenth-century history . John of Anneux, born in southern Belgium around 1260, was serving as pastor ofSt.Amand-en-Révèle in 1326 when Pope John XXII aUowed him.whUe retaining his cure, to go to Paris for three years to teach. He died in Avignon soon after writing (December 7, 1328) his pamphlet against the Franciscans. Stracke-Neumann also Links up John ofAnneux with three other churchmen of his day, and in particular with Henry of Ghent, probably his teacher. In this way she evokes the world to which John belonged. Best of aU, with an edition of his extant writings (Code for Princes,Against the Mendicants, On Confessions), she sees that John gets a hearing. John of Anneux wrote his Code for Princes (Fürstenspiegel, De regimine principum) forWUUam III of Hennegau-HoUand. A Code for Princes explained '(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1967),Vol. I, chap. 14. BOOK REVIEWS87 and encouraged the proper conduct of office. Stracke-Neumann offers a useful review of the genre (pp. 50-59) as she locates and characterizes John's text. A good ruler needed good counsel, and John's De regimine announced his avaUabiUty , although his politics and economics had sUpped a bit behind the times. John's treatise on confessions fit into the campaign against the Franciscans.A pastor could not satisfy his duties toward his parishioners, and keep them properly in Une, and earn his keep, when Franciscans so easUy shrove his flock. John refers to his treatise on confessions when writing against the Franciscans, after observing that "the rulers and the wealthy who confess to the friars are worse than they used to be" (p. 233). John's Tractatus contra Fratres exudes the Ul wiU toward Franciscans peculiar to the court of Pope John XXII. John ofAnneux explains how the Church (the popes) approved the Franciscan rule (although undeserving), whereupon the friars rebeUed against the Church. He concludes that they should be punished . In her reading of John's anti-Franciscan treatise, Stracke-Neumann reviews Franciscan history from its origins (pp. 1 18ff). In this way she hopes to contextuaUze and explain his criticisms.The history which explains John's text, however , is the regrettable struggle between pope under John XXII and order with Michael of Cesena its minister. For John of Anneux wrote against the Franciscans toward the...