Unceasing Strife, Unending Fear: Jacques de Therines and the Freedom of the Church in the Age of the Last Capetians (review)

In this volume William Chester Jordan writes history in the mode of conducting a concerto for violin and orchestra. The soloist is the relatively unknown Cistercian monk Jacques de Thérines, who was a master of theology at Paris before becoming abbot of Chaalis in 1310 and of Pontigny in 1318 prior to his death in 1321. Jacques originated from Thérines in the Beauvaisis, attended the Cistercian Collège de Saint-Bernard by 1293, and was regent master of theology by 1305, in which capacity he was consulted by both king and pope. His principal writings consist of some forty quodlibetal questions that reported a biannual academic exercise in which the pros and cons of any question were publicly debated. Most of Jacques's quodlibets treated abstract, philo-theological issues such as the essence and existence of God, the hypostatic union or the beatific vision, all framed in Aristotelian terminology. Jordan certainly would not have chosen Jacques as soloist because of this abstruse repertory, but what caught the maestro's attention were rare questions of current political or social concern in the tradition of Pierre the Chanter a century earlier, who, incidentally, also originated from the Beauvaisis. It is remarkable that the Chanter's engaged approach to current issues was still alive in a Paris dominated by abstract Aristotelianism.

Three noteworthy questions appeared in 1306. As Philip the Fair was expelling the Jews from his kingdom, Jacques raised the question of its legitimacy and concluded that it was allowed, provided the measure was temporary and executed with deliberation. At the same time he queried whether the newly elected pope Clement V could remain temporarily at his archiepiscopal see of Bordeaux until Rome had been cleared of the heresy of Fra Dolcino. More important, he also defended the exempt status of the Templars on the eve of Philip the Fair's attack against the order. The following season he debated the question whether the pope could dissolve solemn oaths such as those taken by monks like the Templars. In particular he decided that the pontiff had the authority to discern the secrets of religious men at a time when the Templars had confessed to heinous crimes under severe torture. In 1308 the king himself consulted the masters of theology at Paris about his actions against the order, but this time Jacques joined his colleagues in defending the Templars for the liberty of the Church. Thereafter the popes relied heavily on the Parisian theologians for advice. In 1310 Clement V requested a judgment of the beguine Marguerite Porete's treatise, The Mirror of Simple Souls. When Jacques and twenty others condemned her propositions, she was burned at the stake. At the Council of Vienne in 1311 Jacques and his colleagues were summoned to reply to the virulent attack by Giles of Rome, archbishop of Bourges, on monastic exemptions that also involved the Templars. At the same time he was named to a commission to advise the pope on the definition of poverty, an issue that split the Franciscan order between the spirituals and the regulars. Finally, in 1316 Pope John XXII pointedly questioned the abbot of Chaalis and Simon, abbot of Pontigny, on how the Cistercian order could defend its highly exempt status and justify its insufficient contributions to the crusading tax. Jacques's vigorous defense of the order's privileges doubtlessly contributed to his elevation to the abbacy of Pontigny two years later.

These motifs are pertinent but dispersed. To connect and enhance them William Jordan conducts a masterful orchestration of historical context. From his past répertoire he evokes the crises of the reigns of Philip the Fair and his sons, the agonies of transferring the papacy from Rome to Avignon, the challenges facing the religious orders and the miseries of bad harvests...