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ABSTRACT
This article investigates the long history of language training and missionary preaching in the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) from the early training of Domingo de Caleruega, the Order’s founder, to the short-lived “language schools” in the mid-thirteenth century. It demonstrates that attitudes about language acquisition and training in the Order were shaped by the multilingual backgrounds of many of its early members, especially Domingo, which fostered value-positive attitudes toward learning languages – especially Arabic and Hebrew. These attitudes were codified in the early Order’s General Chapters, were supported vigorously by both the Order’s leadership and contemporary Church figures, and were part of a broader missionary vocation within the Order. The article demonstrates that the missionising of the early Dominicans was shaped by Domingo’s own example, amplifiing and institutionalising it, showing how the early Order’s ideas about language as a barrier to conversion developed and they crafted strategies to overcome it.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Jordan of Saxony, “Libellus de Principiis Ordinis Praedicatorum”, in Monumenta Ordinis Praedicatorum Historica, volume XVI, ed. Angelus Walz (Rome: Institutum Ordinis Praedicatorum Historicum, 1938), p. 74: “ubicumque versaretur sive in via cum sociis aut in domo cum hospite reliquaque familia, aut inter magnates et principes et prelatos, semper edificatoriis affluebat sermonibus”.
2 Many such stories are examined in detail below but, for the sake of example, see Jordan’s own reflection on his recruitment and how a clever turn of phrase at first confused him: ibid., 61.
3 Leonard Boyle, “The Death of St Dominic in 1221: An Anniversary Note”, Doctrine and Life 21 (1971): 438.
4 The scholarship that ascribes attributes to the long twelfth century is legion, but several pieces that strike as strong contrasts to the reputation Domingo garners here are: Collin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual, 1050–1200 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); R.I. Moore, The First European Revolution, c. 970–1215 (New York: Wiley, 2000); C.H. Haskins, The Twelfth Century Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927); Thomas Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).
5 The date of Dominic’s birth has been well-established by Tugwell, working from Dietrich von Apolda’s testimony, and Adeline Rucquoi and I have validated his hypothesis: Simon Tugwell, “Notes on the Life of St Dominic: IV”, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 67 (1997): 27–59; Adeline Rucquoi, Dominicus Hispanus: Ochocientos años de la Orden de Predicadores (Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y León, 2016), pp. 10–11, 22, 27, 35; eadem, Dominicus Hispanus: Saint Dominique avant la fondation de l’ordre des Prêcheurs. Saint Dominic before the Foundation of the Order of Preachers (Montpellier: Centre d’Études Historiques de Fanjeaux, 2023), pp. 21, 24, 29, 143–4, 146, 147; Kyle C. Lincoln, “A Canon from Castile: The Early Life of St. Dominic of Osma (1170/4–1207)”, Master’s Thesis, Saint Louis University, 2012, pp. 70–84.
6 “in hispaniae partibus villa, quae dicitur calaroga, oxomensis diocesis, anno dominicae incarnationis mclxx fuit vir unus.” Apolda, col. 566D; Tugwell, “Notes: IV”, 27–59; Jordan of Saxony, “Libellus”, 28.
7 For recent reappraisals of the “repoblación” narrative and its obsolescence, see Julio Escalona and Iñaki Martín Viso, “The Life and Death of an Historiographical Folly: The Early Medieval Depopulation and Repopulation of the Duero Basin”, in Beyond the Reconquista: New Directions in the History of Medieval Iberia (711-1085), eds. Simon Barton and Robert Portass (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 21–51.
8 The best recent studies on the Mozarabic communities are those by Cyrille Aillet and Diego Olstein: Cyrille Aillet, Les Mozarabes: Christianisme, Islamisation et Arabisation en Péninsule Ibérique (IXe–XIIe Siècle). Preface by Gabriel Martinez-Gros (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2010); Diego Olstein, La era mozárabe: Los mozárabes de Toledo (siglos XII y XIII) en la historiografía, las fuentes y la historia (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2006).
9 Kyle C. Lincoln, “Because His Mother was a Saracen: Pope Alexander III and the Case of Miguel de San Nicolás of Toledo (with Two New Letters from the Archivo Catedralicio de Toledo)”, Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistiche 107 (2021): 359–67.
10 We have elsewhere argued that these “histories from the middle” may be the best way forward for revising the history of the Kingdom of Castile, given the paucity of sources that might otherwise provide a “history from below”: Kyle C. Lincoln, “About Three Clerics and towards a ‘History from the Middle’ for Medieval Castile: Miguel de San Nicolás of Toledo, Gíl of Cuenca, and Lanfranco di Palacio of Palencia”, Journal of Religious History 46/1 (2022): 220–42.
11 Adam Kosto, “Reconquest, Renaissance, and the Histories of Iberia, ca. 1000-1200”, in European Transformations: The Long Twelfth Century, eds. John Van Engen and Thomas F.X. Noble (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), pp. 93–117; Susan Guijarro Gonzalez, “Estudiantes, universidades y cabildos catedralicios en las diócesis castellanas durante la baja edad media”, Edades: Revista de Historia 4 (1998): 39–55. See also below, note 12.
12 Guijarro González, “Estudiantes”; eadem, “Las escuelas y la formación del clero de las catedrales en las diócesis castellano-leonesas (siglos xi al xv)”, in La enseñanza en la edad media: X Semana de Estudios Medievales, Nájera 1999, eds. José Angel García de Cortázar y Ruiz de Aguirre, Francisco Javier García Turza and José Ignacio de la Iglesia Duarte (Logroño: Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, 2000), pp. 61–95; Maria Helena de Cruz Coelho, Hermenegildo Fernandes and Herminia Vasconcelos Vilar, “O studium medieval português: Singularidades de um caso periférico”, Studia Historica: Historica Medieval 36/2 (2018): 83–115;
13 Jordan of Saxony, “Libellus”, 28.
14 Adeline Rucquoi, “La double vie de l'université de Palencia (c.1180–c.1250)”, Studia Gratiana 29 (1998): 723–48.
15 Albrecht Classen, “Multilingualism in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age: The Literary-Historical Evidence”, Neophilologus 97 (2013): 134–8; Antonio Zaldivar, “Emphasizing Urgency in the Romance: An Example of Strategic Codeswitching in the Crown of Aragon’s Thirteenth-Century Royal Chancery”, in Authority and Spectacle in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia: Studies in Honor of Teofilo F. Ruiz, eds. Yuen-Gen Liang and Jarbel Rodriguez (New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 73–83.
16 Alfonso Garcia-Gallo, “Los Fueros de Toledo”, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español 45 (1975): 407–38.
17 Kyle C. Lincoln, A Constellation of Authority: The Castilian Church and Secular Clergy, c.1150–1225 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2023), pp. 69–84.
18 Damian J. Smith, “The Iberian Legations of Cardinal Hyacinth Bobone”, in Pope Celestine III: Diplomat and Pastor, eds. John Doran and Damian Smith (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 84–114.
19 Ibid.
20 Kyle C. Lincoln, “‘Holding the Place of the Lord Pope Celestine’: The Legations of Gregory, Cardinal-Deacon of Sant’Angelo (1192–4 & 1196–7)”, Anuario de la Historia de la Iglesia 24 (2014): 471–500
21 On the Treaty of Tordehumos, which satisfied one of Celestine’s major goals for the Peninsula, and its negotiation by Gregory, see ibid., 486–9
22 Papsturkunden in Spanien. III. Kastilien: Vorarbeiten zur HIspania (Iberia) Pontificia, eds. Daniel Berger and Klaus Herbers (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), pp. 500–1.
23 Rucquoi, Dominicus Hispanus, 39–93.
24 Jarl Gallén, “Les voyages de S. Dominique au Denmark: Essai de datation”, in Xenia medii aevi historiam illustrantia oblata Thomae Kaeppeli O.P., eds. Raymond Creytens and Pius Künzle (Rome: Edizione di Storia e Litteratura, 1978), pt. 1: 73–84; Kyle C. Lincoln, “‘Ad Marchias Daciae’: Revisiting the Gallén Thesis about the Mission of Diego d’Acebo to the Court of Orlamünde with Respect to the Castilian Evidence”, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, N.S. 8 (2023): pages forthcoming.
25 The manuscripts in the O-stemma (which were used by the Acta Sanctorum) read “Saracenorum” and those of the W1- W2- and E-stemma (deriving, respectively, from Wurzburg codices and from a printed edition by Echard), read “Cumanorum”. Jordan of Saxony, “Libellus”, 35, note.z, note. a’. For more on the question, see the scholarship in the next note.
26 Tugwell, “Notes: VI”, 33–8, esp. 35, where he notes “Dominic cannot have made a definite decision to go both to the Cumans and to the Saracens, and no reason is given for the supposition that it was actually to the former that he was intending to go”. Tugwell later notes, ibid., 37, that Domingo is consistently mentioned as wanting to preach to “Saracens” rather than “Cumans”, the latter being Diego’s special vocation rather than Domingo’s.
27 Later pontiffs still took an interest in Iberian affairs, as Peter Linehan, Damian Smith and Joseph O’Callaghan have long and often demonstrated, but they were perhaps less focused on the Iberian question than Celestine despite still paying some attention to Iberian matters: Peter Linehan, History and the Historians of Medieval Spain, (New York: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1993), 245–312; idem, The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 1–19, 322–34; Joseph O’Callaghan, Crusade and Reconquest in Medieval Spain, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 50–98; Damian J. Smith, Innocent III and the Crown of Aragon: The Limits of Papal Authority, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004),191–212.
28 The early part of Domingo’s mission has received a recent narration by Rucquoi: Adeline Rucquoi, Dominicus Hispanus, 93–110.
29 Martín Alvira Cabrer and Pascal Buresi, “‘Alphonse, par la grâce de Dieu, Roi de Castille et de Tolède, Seigneur de Gascogne’: Quelque remarques à propos des relations entre Castillans et Aquitains au début du XIIIe siècle”, in Aquitaine-Espagne (VIIIe–XIII siècle), ed. Phillippe Sénac (Poitiers: Universite de Poitiers, 2001), pp. 219–32; Jose Manuel Cerda Costabal, “La dot gasconne d’Aliénor d’Angleterre: Entre royaume de Castille, royaume de France et royaume d’Angleterre”, Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 54 (2011): 225–42; Jose Manuel Cerda Costabal, “Leonor Plantagenet y la consolidación castellana en el reinado de Alfonso VIII”, Anuario de Estudios Medievales 42/2 (2012): 629–52.
30 The number of the early convents was certainly small, but the proliferation of gifts to the foundations suggests that they grew rapidly in both the number of converts and in their endowments. There are more than 50 such gifts that predate IV Lateran; see Vladimir Koudelka and Raymundo Loenertz, Monumenta diplomatica S. Dominici (Rome: Institutum Historicum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 1966), pp. 13–58.
31 Domingo’s letters about two such heretics have survived: ibid., 16–18, 61.
32 The emergence of regional dialects seems to have been mostly complete by the middle of the twelfth century, arriving at distinct enough forms to render them different dialects of regionally-shaped vernaculars, but also in part still undergoing an enormous process of development. For a brief survey of the emergence of regional vernaculars, see Colin Smith, “The Vernacular”, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, volume V: c.1198–1300, ed. David Abulafia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 71–83.
33 See, for example, Guillaume de Tudela and Anonymous, La Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise, ed. Eugène Martin-Chabot [Les Classiques de l’Histoire de France au Moyen Age, volume XIII] (Paris: Société d’Edition “Les Belles Lettres”, 1976); Cantar de Mio Cid, ed. Alberto Montaner (Barcelona: Critica, 1993); Alfonso X, Cantigas de Santa Maria, ed. Walter Mettman, volumes I–III (Coimbra: Universidade da Coimbra, 1964).
34 Antonio Sánchez Jiménez, “Catalan and Occitan Troubadours at the Court of Alfonso VIII”, La Coronica 22/2 (2004): 101–20; Rucquoi, Dominicus Hispanus, 46, quoting Lincoln, “Canon from Castile”, pp. 74–5.
35 Domingo’s enthusiasm for Cassian is first noted by Jordan, but fits broadly into the spirit of the age, especially among the more apostolically minded and monastic reformers; see Jordan of Saxony, “Libellus”, 32–3; Andrew Jotischky, “Monastic Reform and the Geography of Christendom: Experience, Observation and Inference”, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series 22 (2012): 57–74.
36 See, for example, Jordan of Saxony, “Libellus”, 41–2; Petrus Ferrandi, Petri Ferrandi Legenda Sancti Dominici, ed. Simon Tugwell (Rome: Angelicum University Press, 2015), pp. 291–2.
37 Jordan of Saxony, “Libellus”, 38.
38 Constantine of Orvieto, “Legenda Sancti Dominici”, in Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica, volume XVI, ed. D. H.-C. Scheeben (Rome: Institutum Historicum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 1935), 263-352 at p. 316.
39 On Palencia’s double foundations in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, see Adeline Rucquoi, “La double vie de l‘université de Palencia (c.1180–c.1250)”, Studia Gratiana 29 (1998): 733–6. For the role of the “School of Toledo” as a major attractant for scholars from beyond the Pyrenees, see Marietta Gargatagli, “La historia de la escuela de traductores de Toledo”, Quaderns: Revista de Traducció 4 (1999): 9–13; Eloy Benito Ruano, “Ámbito y ambiente de la ‘Escuela de traductores’ de Toledo”, Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Serie III, Historia Medieval 13 (2000): 13–28.
40 On the projects of Marc of Toledo, see Carlos de Ayala Martinez, Ibn Tumart, el arzobispo Jiménez de Rada y la “cuestión sobre dios” (Madrid: La Ergastula Ediciones, 2017); Thomas Burman, “Tafsīr and Translation: Traditional Arabic Qurʾān Exegesis and the Latin Qurʾāns of Robert of Ketton and Mark of Toledo”, Speculum 73/3 (1998): 703–32.
41 Ayala Martinez, Ibn Tumart, 47–61
42 Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, eds. M. Bouquet et al., volumes I–XXIV (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale and others, 1738–1904), XIX: 250–4. “de tribus pestilentium hominum et inimicorum ecclesiae sanctae suae, videlicet orientalibus schismaticis, occidentalibus haereticis, meridionalibus Sarracenis”.
43 On Francis’s ill-conceived embassy to the sultan’s court, its contemporary impact, and its long cultural afterlife, see John Tolan, St Francis and the Sultan: The Curious History of a Christian–Muslim Encounter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
44 Ibid., 271.
45 Christie Fengler Stephany, “The Meeting of Saints Francis and Dominic”, Franciscan Studies 47 (1987): 218–33
46 The early growth of the Order of Friars Minor has been examined carefully by a number of excellent scholars, including Michael Robson, The Franciscans in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), pp. 10–107; Andre Vauchez, Francis of Assisi: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Saint, trans. Michael F. Cusato (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), pp. 3–136; John Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order: From its Origins to the Year 1517 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), pp. 1–176.
47 On the broader impact of Lateran IV and the prohibition on the Dominicans in the context of other orders’ growth, see Gert Melville, “The Institutionalization of Religious Orders (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries)”, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, eds. Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 790–1.
48 Constitutiones Ordinis Fratrum Predicatorum in the appendices to Antoninus Hendrik Thomas, De outdst Constituties van de Dominicanen: Voorgeschiedenis, Tekst, Bronnen, Onstaan en Ontwikkeling (1215-1237) (Louvain: Bureel van de R.H.E. Universiteitsbibliotheek, 1965). For a more formal treatment of the elaboration of these constitutional texts, see Gert Melville, “The Dominican Constitutiones”, in A Companion to Medieval Rules and Customaries, ed. Krijn Pansters (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 253–81.
49 Acta capitulorum generalium Ordinis Praedicatorum, volume I: Ab anno 1220 usque ad annum 1303, ed. Benedictus Maria Reichert [Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historia, volume III] (Rome, Stuttgart: Typographia Polyglotta, 1898), p. 2.
50 Koudelka and Loenertz, Monumenta diplomatica, 16–8, 52–3; Tugwell, “Notes: II”, 57–94.
51 Reichert, Acta capitulorum generalium I (Valenciennes 1259), 9. “Monemus quod in omnibus provinciis et conventibus fratres linguas addiscant illorum. quibus sunt propinqui”.
52 On Domingo’s presiding over the first General Chapter and his influence, see William A. Hinnebusch, History of Dominican Order, volume I: Origins and Growth to 1500 (New York: Alba, 1966), 80–95.
53 “Acta Canonizationis S. Dominici”, ed. R. P. Walz, in Monumenta Ordinis Praedicatorum Historica, volume XVI, ed. M.-H. Laurent (Rome: Institutum Historicum O.P., 1935), pp. 89–194.
54 Ibid., 177–8, 179, 180, 182–3.
55 Ibid., 149–50, 165–6.
56 Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. and trans. Norman Tanner, volumes I–II (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990), I: 239.
57 The didactic quality of the Libellus has been suggested by Tugwell, in his introduction to a translation of the text, as well as by his own preface; see On the Beginnings of the Order of Preachers: The Libellus of Jordan of Saxony, trans. Simon Tugwell (Chicago, IL: Parable, 1982); see Jordan of Saxony, “Libellus”, 25–6.
58 Jordan records the story of his own recruitment in his Libellus: Jordan of Saxony, “Libellus”, 57–8.
59 Reichert, Acta capitulorum generalium, 2; confirmed by Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, volume I: Origins and Growth, 103.
60 Reichert, Acta capitulorum generalium, 2: “Anno domini mccxxii celebratum fit tercium capitulum generale Parisius. In quo capitulo electus fuit in magistrum ordinis frater Iordanis Theutonicus verus Israelita, qui tunc erat prior provincie Lombardie”.
61 It is telling that, of the two locations where canonisation investigations took place, one was in Toulouse, where Domingo’s mission had its longest imprint, and the other was in Bologna, where he died and set up much of the Order’s infrastructure: “Acta Canonizationis S. Dominici.
62 Reichert, Acta capitulorum generalium, 3: “in quo capitulo viii prefatis provinciis per beatum Dominicum institutis iiii fuerunt superaddite sciliect Polonia, Dacia, Grecia et Terra sancta”. It is worth noting that, as Jonathan Rubin has argued, the study of languages, especially Arabic, in the Dominican province of the Holy Land seems to have become a key element of their efforts in the region; see Jonathan Rubin, “The Beginnings of the Study of Foreign Languages in the Dominican Order: Regulation, Implementation, and Impact”, in Making and Breaking the Rules: Discussion, Implementation, and Consequences of Dominican Legislation, ed. Cornelia Linde (London: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 253–72, esp. 254–6.
63 The traditional full biographies of Ramon de Penyafort are each nearly a century old; see Thomas M. Schwertner, Saint Raymond of Pennafort of the Order of Friars Preachers (Milwaukee, WI: Bruce Publishing Company, 1935); Ferran Valls i Taberner, Sant Ramon de Penyafort (1929), 2nd edition (Barcelona: La Formiga d’Or, 1994). For a more recent account of his life and of the influence the multicultural world of medieval Iberia had on the career of Ramon de Penyafort, see Damian Smith, “Ramon de Penyafort and His Influence”, in The Friars and Their Influence in Medieval Spain, ed. Francisco García-Serrano (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), pp. 45–60.
64 For a brief, but careful and well-documented, background of these schools, see Alfonso Maierù, “Dominican studia in Spain”, in Philosophy and Theology in the Studia of the Religious Orders and at the Papal and Royal Courts: Acts of the XVth Annual Colloquium of the Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale University of Notre Dame, 8–10 October 2008, eds. Kent Emery Jr., William J. Courtenay and Stephen M. Metzger (Turnhout: Brepolis, 2012), pp. 16–20.
65 Ramon Penyafort’s missionary efforts and the Dominican studia linguarum feature prominently in historical discussions of, as Robert Burns termed it, “the thirteenth-century dream of conversion”. See R.I. Burns, “Christian-Islamic Confrontation in the West: The Thirteenth-Century Dream of Conversion”, American Historical Review 76/5 (1971): 1386–434.
66 This letter is translated in full in Robin Vose, Dominicans, Muslims, and Jews in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 217–18.
67 In this manner, we respectfully differ from Vose’s presentation of the challenge posed by the Cuman/Saracen question in Dominican hagiography and the various canonisation witnesses; see ibid., Dominicans, Muslims, and Jews, 38–9.
68 Célestin Douais, Acta capitulorum provincialium ordinis fratrum praedicatorum (Toulouse: Imprimerie et Librairie É. Privat, 1894), vol. 1, 612–3. “Volentes satisfacere mandato Magistri et attendentes utilitatem negotii in praesenti et maxime in futurum, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti, assignamus ad studium arabicum, iniungentes eis in remissionem peccatorum suorum, auctoritate Magistri et nostra, et mandamus eis in virtute obedientiae, fr. Arnaldum de Guardia, fr. Petrum de Cadireta, fr. Raymundum Martini, fr. Petrum Aré, fr. Petrum de Priteo, fr. Petrum de Sancto Felice, fr. Diacum Stephani, fr. Petrum de Canellis. Predictum autem fr. Arnaldum assignamus aliis in praelatum. Numerum autem duodenarium complebimus quantocius poterimus, Deo dante”.
69 For more detail on the location debate see Vose, Dominicans, Muslims, and Jews, 106–7.
70 Alfonso de Castilla (future Alfonso X the Wise; r. 1252–1284) agreed with Ibn Hud al-Dawla the vassalage of the city in 1243 through the Treaty of Alcaraz, incorporating it into the Crown of Castile in the form of a protectorate; see Juan Torres Fontes, “Del tratado de Alcaraz al de Almizra: De la tenencia al señorio (1243–1244)”, Miscelánea Medieval Murciana 19/20 (1995/1996): 279–302.
71 James I of Aragon conquered the island, 1229–1230; see Joseph O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), pp. 105–8.
72 Rubin, “Beginnings of the Study”, 254–6.
73 James mentions him as one of two friars that had come from Tunis, in the context of major reorganisations of regional power, suggesting that his opinion on the matter, which is elided in James’s recollection, was valued intelligence on contemporary Tunis, where the language schools appear to have been based: James I, The Book of Deeds of James I of Aragon: A Translation of the Medieval Catalan Llibre dels Fets, trans. Damian J. Smith and Helena Buffery (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), p. 342, ss. 490.
74 By Burman’s estimation, the use of “Arab” as a synonym for “philosopher” speaks to the qualitative sense of medieval Christian intellectuals that not only had Arabic-language philosophers become the greatest scholars of philosophy in the period but that this credibility made educated Muslims the pinnacles of philosophy in a manner that elided their religious identity into a philosophical-ethnic hybrid, rather than an outgrowth of their faith; see Thomas E. Burman, “Polemic, Philology, and Ambivalence: Reading the Qur’ān in Latin Christendom”, Journal of Islamic Studies 15/2 (2004): 181–209, p. 186.
75 Petri Marsilii: Opera Omnia. Liber Gestorum, Episcola ad Abdalla, ed. Antoni Biosca Bas (Turnhout: Brepolis, 2014), pp. 393–4. “Erat Frater iste dignus memoria, frater Raimundus Martini, persona multum dotata, clericus multum sufficiens in Latino, philosophus in Arabico, magnus rabbinus et magister in Hebraico et in lingua Caldaica multum doctus”.
76 Amy C. Boland, “Paris and the Pugio: Ramon Martí’s Connections to Scholastic Controversy and Dominican Theology in the Pugio Fidei”, PhD. Diss., Saint Louis University, 2019, pp. 7–45.
77 On the early Dominican studium generale’s history in Paris, see Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, II: 37–4; Marian Michèle Mulchahey, “First the Bow Is Bent in Study--”: Dominican Education Before 1350 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998), pp. 20–54. For the conflicts between the secular and mendicant masters in Paris, see Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, II: 71–98; Ian P. Wei, Intellectual Culture in Medieval Paris: Theologians and the University, c.1100–1330 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 161–9. About the general discord that surrounded the university in Paris and the internecine unrest thereby generated, consult Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, II: 71–98; Marian Michèle Mulchahey, “First the Bow”, 351–99.
78 Douais, Acta capitulorum provincialium (Spain, Toledo 1250), 612–3.
79 Jordan of Saxony, “Libellus”, 35–6; Wei, Intellectual, 87–169.
80 It is worthy of note that Hinnebusch’s general history of the Order of Preachers makes intellectual preparation a hallmark of their recruitment and it is clear that part of the goal was to counter the intellectual arguments made by heretical movements; see Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, II: 3–98.
81 Litterae encyclicae magistrorum generalium Ordinis praedicatorum ab anno 1233 usque ad annum 1376, ed. Benedictus Maria Reichert (Rome: Typographia Polyglotta S. C. Propaganda Fide1900), pp. 18–9.
82 Reichert, Litterae encyclicae, 40. “In Yspaniis partibus fratres, qui iam multis annis inter Saracenos in arabico studuerunt, non solum laudabiliter in lingua proficiunt, sed quod est laudabilius, ipsis Saracenis ad salutem cedit cohabitacio eorumdem, ut patet in pluribus qui iam baptismi graciam susceperunt.”
83 Reichert, Acta capitulorum generalium I (Valenciennes 1259), 98. “Iniungimus priori provinciali Hyspanie. quod ipse ordinet aliquod studium ad addiscendam linguam arabicam. in conventu Barchiononensi. vel alibi. et ibidem collocet fratres aliquos. de quibus speretur. quod ex huiusmodi studio possint proficere ad animarum salutem. Quicumque autem et de quacumque provincia. voluerit addiscere linguam arabicam; scribat hoc magistro ».
84 The Dominican General Chapter records are fairly complete, but only rarely do they mention the specific activities of individual provinces. The medieval acta for the Provinces of Spain and Aragon are very fragmentary. For the Province of Spain, only 11 yearly meetings are recorded between 1241 and 1299. The annual provincial chapter acta for the Province of Aragon (established in 1298) survive at a similar rate – only 15 annual records are extant from the province’'s first half century. That amounts to only 26 years that provide glimpses into the activities of the Order in Spain between 1241 and 1350.
85 Textual ambiguities make it difficult to trust the exact list of friars assigned to the task, but certainly more than five and as many as eight were assigned. On the exact enumeration and the names of these, see: Boland, “Paris and the Pugio”, 312–3.
86 Douais, Acta capitulorum provincialium (Spain, Estrella 1281), 625–6. “Conventui Barchinonensi, fr. Bernardum de Valle, fr. Petrum de Vincolis, fr. Jacobum de Molendinis, fr. Dominicum Marchesii, fr. Johannem Mazo, fr. Arnaldum de Eviza. Ad studium ebraicum, fr. Jacobum de Gradibus, fr. Sancium de Boleia, fr. Rm Fabri eiusdem conventus, fr. Nicholaum Segobiensem, et fr. Raymundus Martini legat eis. Item, fr. Jacobum de Angalaria, et fr. Guillelmum de Traverseriis,fr. Jacobum de Villa, et fr. Berengarium de Spapipiol. […] Conventui Valentino, fr. Bernardum de Rivosicco pro doctore, fr. Raymundum de Fontova, fr. Bernardum de RipulIo, fr. Bernardum Calderer. Item, ad studium arabicum fr. Petrum Terterii, fr. Natalem, fr. Martimum de Serriono de eodem conventu; item, fr. Johannem Serranum de conventu Cordubensi, fr. Garciam Arcii, et fr. Johannem de Podio ventoso qui legat eis; fr. Petrum Augerii, fr. Andream de Fraga, fr. Simonem Jordanis. Item, fr. Petrum de Savila conversum”.
87 Reichert, Acta capitulorum generalium, 263. “Item. In eadem provincia [Hispania] fratribus de nacione Cathalonie unam ponendam in Zativa, ubi volumus et ordinamus quod semper sit studium in hebraico et in arabico”. This studium was active for over two decades, from 1291 until at least 1312.
88 Celestino Schiaparelli, Vocabulista in Arabico: Pubblicato per la prima volta sopra un codice della Biblioteca Riccardiana Di Firenze (Florence: Tipografia Dei Successor Le Monnier, 1871).
89 The Latin tends toward the Spanish Romance vernacular, with particular Castilian and Catalan influences. The Arabic is not classical Qurʾānic Arabic, but an Andalusian dialect, peppered with Mozarab terms and North African Berberisms. For a detailed linguistic study of the dialects in the Vocabulista, see David A. Griffin, Los mozarabismos del “Vocabulista” atribuído a Ramon Martí (Madrid: Imprenta y Editorial Maestre, 1961).
90 يَا مَنِ اسمُهُ رَمُندُ وَلَقبُهُ مَرتِين – “ya man ismuhu ramundu wa-laqbuhu martin”. The Arabic words used are ism (“personal name”) for Ramon, and laqab for Martí. This Arabic text, and Sciaparelli’s Italian translation, can be found in Schiaparelli, Vocabulista in arabico, xvi.
91 Adolfo Robles Sierra, “Actas de los Capítulos Provinciales de la Provincia Dominicana de Aragón, correspondientes a los años 1302, 1303, 1304 y 1307”, Escritos del Vedat 20 (1990): 237–85, p. 255. The provincial chapter held at Valencia in 1303 records an example of their use of local Arabic speakers as teachers: “Ordinamus insuper et mandamus Priori Xativensi, quod conducat, et habeat unum Iudeum, qui etiam in Arabicum sit instructus, vel aliquem Sarracenum, ut simil cum dicto fratre Petro legat ibi”.
92 These preliminary observations are based on the first 1,000 entries in the Latin to Arabic section of the wordlist.
93 The general and provincial acta show a regular number of apt friars were sent to study, but usually only for a few years before being recalled to their home convents, gaining a solid introduction, or conversational familiarity with Arabic. It was not unusual for the Dominicans to recall the students from their various studia after only a few years. This is in keeping with other Dominican educational practices – the students sent to the studia generalia to study advanced theology in university cities like Paris rarely stayed long enough to finish a full degree course, just enough to satisfy their practical purposes.
94 Reichert, Acta capitulorum generalium I (Valenciennes 1259), 9. “Monemus quod in omnibus provinciis et conventibus fratres linguas addiscant illorum. quibus sunt propinqui”.
95 This activity is found in 50% of the provincial acta from 1250 to 1312: 3/6 of the extant years from the Spanish province (1250, 1257, 1281), 3/6 of the extant years from Aragon (1303, 1304, 1312).
96 Mulchahey, “First the Bow”, ix.