Translating Clergie: Status, Education, and Salvation in Thirteenth-Century Vernacular Texts by Claire M. Waters (review)

In the Romano-German pontifical compiled at Worcester under Wulfstan and his successors, the bishop is instructed to prostrate himself with fellow penitents during the recitation of the litany on Maundy Thursday, physically making him both their companion and intercessor in the ordo. Managing the postures of humility is one of the important sociologies of the regular life, as Rachel Fulton has argued, and abbots or bishops have a duty to enact these gestures for the community.

This episcopal gesture came to mind as I read Claire M. Waters' intriguing exploration of Anglo-French works of religious instruction. She argues that the relationship between master and disciple in these texts is grounded in a shared knowledge of their "common fate as mortal sinners" (p. 8), a stance that allows for an assimilation of their respective roles. Some of the texts central to Waters' argument include: Honorius Augustodunensis's Elucidarium. and Speculum Ecclesiae., William of Waddington's Manuel des pechiez, Robert of Gretham's Miroir, Pierre d'Abernon's Lumere as Lais, and Robert of Grosseteste's Chasteau d'Amour. The first chapter outlines the shift of exegetical authority from the master to disciple through the refashioning of the text as a mirror for both. Waters argues convincingly that the claims of humility and love that motivate this refashioning (such as those made by Pierre d'Abernon) should not be dismissed. The second chapter introduces the debate about lay access to knowledge (reaching back to some of the well-known disputes between Abelard and Bernard). This problem is especially relevant to teachings about death and the fate of the soul, which highlight the master's responsibility for his students' salvation and the students' responsibility for moral decision-making. The third chapter introduces the textual pivot of Waters' argument, the Anglo-French apocryphal gospel L'Évangile de Nicodème, with its elaboration on the Harrowing of Hell and on the good thief as the paradigmatic lay witness who understands Christ's significance. The fabliaux in chapter four are arguably the most challenging group of texts to integrate into an argument that turns on the lessons of the deathbed and the exemplar of the good thief. But Waters provides a thoughtful analysis of cleric-jongleurs whose "catechetical questioning" (appropriated by lay characters) is both a witty distillation of theology and a critique of the categories of saint and sinner. Chapter five on Marian miracles (primarily Gautier de Coinci's; and the Anglo-French miracles in BL Royal MS 20.B.XIV) undertakes the fullest critique of a clerical learnedness that is blind to the value in even the most rudimentary lay witness.

Waters suggests that the collaborative relationship between master and disciple in these Anglo-French texts is a counterpoint to the preaching on sin that aims to instill fear and guilt in the laity, an argument advanced by Jean Delumeau in Le péché et la peur. (1983). Waters may be right, and her careful analysis adds to the growing evidence on the sophistication of lay spirituality; yet it is not clear that she really advances her point by citing Delumeau generally. His arguments about the laity have been specifically challenged elsewhere. In the Afterword, Waters muddies the matter of the negative counterpoint further with a reference to R. I. Moore's Formation of a Persecuting Society. (1987).

While this study does not definitively answer the question Waters poses at the outset about whether the laity were seen to possess the qualities of Latin learning ("clergie") associated with their teachers, it amply demonstrates that clerics writing in Anglo-French saw their audiences as capable fellow travelers, able to parse complex doctrinal questions and deserving of respect for their spiritual insight and moral judgment. The volume is an important and welcome addition to the scholarship on religious instruction in the vernacular.