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ABSTRACT
The French humanist and reformer Nicolas de Clamanges (ca. 1363/64-1437) wrote a blistering treatise against new feasts, De nouis festiuitatibus, which contrasts with his related sermon praising the holy innocents, De sanctis innocentibus. This contrast is ironic because their feast during the Christmas season had become the occasion for out-of-control celebrations known as the Feast of Fools, especially in Clamanges’ northern France. This essay uncovers and contextualizes his complaints within his style of reform: he uses the early church as a model, for instance, and launches into rhetorical flourishes, especially in the sermon. The essay also compares Clamanges’ positions with those of his classmate Jean Gerson (1363-1429) and their shared mentor at the University of Paris Pierre d’Ailly (1351-1420). All three hoped that good devotions come from good intentions, but both intention and devotion must be patrolled for superstition and excess.
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Notes
1 I am grateful to the librarians at Oxford’s Bodleian and Princeton Theological Seminary as well as to this journal’s peer reviewers for clarifying comments and questions. Thanks also to Kean University for release time as well as to Richard J. Serina, Jr. and Phillip H. Stump for research advice.
2 Harris, Sacred Folly, 1-24, 65-73; Dudley, “Natalis Innocentum,” 233-42.
3 Bellitto, “To Be Martha or Mary,” 71-85, and Nicolas de Clamanges, 11-32.
4 Hereafter H with folio number. A modern printed edition is unpublished: Bérier, Nicolas de Clamanges: Opuscules, hereafter B followed by volume, page, and line numbers. See also the flawed collection of letters and treatises: Lydius, Nicolai de Clemangiis. Opera Omnia, hereafter L followed by volume and page numbers. On Clamanges’ literal hand in this and other autograph manuscripts, see Ouy, “Manuscrits autographes d’humanistes,” 269–305 and pl. 1-3.
5 Glorieux, “Moeurs de Chrétienté,” 15-29.
6 The sermon is in Bérier’s edition, but not Lydius’. On dating the two texts, see Glorieux, “Moeurs de Chrétienté,” 16, and B xix, xxxii, 2:85:465-67, and 2:94:696-97.
7 On Gerson’s thinking on the gap between learned doctrine and faithful practice that was devout but might misstep, see Hobbins, “Gerson on Lay Devotion,” 55-61. For Gerson’s fight against superstition, see Bailey, Fearful Saints, Reasoned Follies, 127-44.
8 B2:69.3-74.139 (L 143-45; H 70r-72v); B2:103.957-61 (L 159; H 86r).
9 B2:74.155-75.161 (L 145-46; H 72v): 'Quis non videat quanto honestius quantoque salubrius esset festa, non colere quam hoc more colere? Cuius cor ita ratione alienatum, ita peruerso errore a vero deuim ut non intelligat minus malum esse in sanctorum solemnitatibus arare aut fodere serere aut metere, aut cetera rustica opera facere quam talibus horrendis obscenitatibus non celebritatem colere, sed prophanare?' On these other points, see B2:74.140-50; B2:75.161-65; B2:76.207-77.218 (L 145-47; H 72v-73v)
10 B2:80.309-82.371 (L 148-49; H 75r-77r).
11 B2:95.720-101.890 (L 155-59; H 82v-85r).
12 Glorieux, Jean Gerson: Oeuvres complètes, 7/1: 409-11; Dupin, Johannis Gersonii … Opera Omnia, 3:309-10.
13 Harris, Sacred Folly, 187-99.
14 Lieberman, “Les Sources joséphologiques”; McGuire, Jean Gerson, 235-39.
15 France, “Herod and the Children of Bethlehem,” 98-120; Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, 226-28, 613.
16 B2:160.32-161.51 (H 110r-v); B2:163.122-164.40 (H 111r).
17 B2:161.66-162.97 (H 110v); B2.173.385-175.422 (H 112v); B2:176.450-55 (H 112v).
18 For another example, see his 1411 letter to Gerson in which he has a personified France speak at some length to its princes, asking them for protection: Bellitto, “The Early Church,” 460-61.
19 B2:165.153-168.257 (H 111r-v); B2:172.345-173.374 (H 112v).
20 B2:159.4-160.28 (H 110r); B2:173.375-84 (H 112v). Josephus records that Herod had his three sons killed, but they were adult competitors, not innocent infants or toddlers: France, “Herod and the Children of Bethlehem,” 114-15.
21 B2:169.257-171.329 (H 111v-112r).
22 Mueller, Caesarius of Arles, 3:139 (Sermo 222.2); Rotelle, The Works of Saint Augustine, 80 (Sermo 199.2).
23 Mans, “The Early Latin Church Fathers,” 96-97; Ruth, “Salvete Flores Martyrum,” 373-93; Hayward, “Suffering and Innocence,” 67-80.
24 Bellitto, “The Early Church,” 453-66.
25 B2:77.219-78:269 (L 147; H 73v-74v).
26 B2:79.277-80 (L 148; H 74v): 'Verisimile etenim est sanctos in suis festiuitatibus pro illis qui eas digne colunt propensiores quodammodo esse ad intercedendum quam alio tempore, Christumque ad exaudiendas eorum intercessiones etiam procliuiorem.'
27 B2:79.287-95 (L 148; H : 74v): 'Quam possunt tales de sanctorum suffragio fiduciam habere, qui suos insanissimis vanitatibus, immundissimis sordibus, impiissimis debachationibus, sacrilegis execrationibus natales polluunt? Illos sane non pios adiutores sed infestissimos accusatores habere merentur. Nam que potest sancto fieri maior iniuria quam talibus suum natalem diem, quo celo est et paradiso inuectus, spurciciis dehonestando, qualibus sacrilege ritu solent a superstitiosis cultoribus demonia placari?'
28 B2:79.295-80:303 (L 148; H 74v-75r).
29 B2:100:870-75 (L 158; H 85r): 'Si antiquum sancti alicuius festum, solemnite semper in aliqua ecclesia ex eius primeua fundatione celebratum, ex libris et kalendis et ordinario deleretur, sanctique alterius, illi ecclesie eatenus ignoti, loco ac tempore illius propter aliquem questum pecuniarium surrogaretur solemnitas nonne maxima et apertissima priori illi sancto fieret iniuria?'
30 B2:102.920-936, esp. 933–36 (L 159; H 85v-86r): 'Si capitale est agri aut alterius possessionis temporalis terminos euellere alioque transferre, quanta debemus formidine metuere terminos agri dominici spiritualis transmutare?'
31 B2:80.303-9 (L 148; H 75r): '… si vim perniciose consuetudinis irrumpere non possent, festa potius ipsa, ne tantorum essent flagiciorum occasio abolerent; que prout saluti animarum congruere videtur, pro morum sunt ac temporum varietate vel a cultu relaxanda vel ad honestam arctius obseruantiam constringenda, ne longe plus male culta quam bene omissa noceant.'
32 B2:83.390-403, especially 398–403 (L 150; H 77r-v): 'Nonne vtilius est Dominici Corporis hostiam non suscipere quam indigne suscipere, illo etiam tempore quo quis ex Ecclesie instituto suscipere tenetur? Et quare non melius erit vel, ut rectius loquamur, minus malum festum diem in vinea operando non colere, quam indignissimis flagiciis aut facinoribus inquinare?'
33 Harris, Sacred Folly, 195-97; Glorieux, Jean Gerson: Oeuvres complètes, 7/2:1183; 6:112; 5:140-42.
34 B2.83.408-84.435, especially 430–35 (L 150; H 77v-78r): 'Si ergo vani aut dissoluti vanitatibus aut petulantiis in festiuitatibus insistunt, nunquid propterea destituende sunt festiuitates per Sanctam dudum Ecclesiam laudbilitier institute et solemni hactenus more celebrate, vel vtilis aliarum de nouo omittenda institutio quibus religiosa augeatur bonorum deuotio?'
35 B2.84:436-92:645 (L150-54; H 78r-80r). On Gerson’s comments about Auxerre and the Feast of Fools, see Harris, Sacred Folly, 187-99.
36 Harris, Sacred Folly, 206.
37 Bellitto, “A Christian Humanist’s Mirror,” 106-107. Clamanges’ texts concerning the countryside during the French civil war include a ca. 1408 letter to Gerson; another ca. 1411–1412 to Gérard Machet, Parisian theology master; an open letter to the French princes ca. 1411-1412; and a synthesizing treatise De lapsu et reparatione iustitiae sent to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, and composed in stages perhaps starting as early as 1407 but certainly concluded by March 1420.
38 B2:163.104-21 (H 110v-111r). Bérier interpets Clamanges as linking the infants’ deaths to the horror a mother feels when her adult children are killed in war, identifying for him an intent of the sermon to be a commentary on the French civil war: soldiers die because of a king’s order: “L’humaniste,” 125-26, 130.
39 B2:92.646-50 (L 154; H 81r): 'Iam vero, si ante oculos constituamus diras regni et totius Ecclesie clades, ruinas ac desolationes tam presentes quam insurgentes e vicinoque impendentes, quis tam festiuitatis agende importune auidus vt non videat ad festa instituenda nullum vunquam tempus magis ineptum?'
40 B2:101: 891-102:919 (L 158-59; H 84r-85v).
41 B2:92.662-94.719 (L 154-55; H 81v-82v).
42 Maillard-Luypaert, “Pierre d’Ailly,” 145-62.
43 Pascoe, Church and Reform, 93-94, 130-32. For the relevant passages in d’Ailly’s writings, see Miethke and Weinrich, Quellen zur Kirchenreform, 360-62, and Oakley, Political Thought, 333.
44 Stump, The Reforms, 160-61.
45 Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum … collectio, 28:340 (Decretales reformationis, 3.15.1).
46 Lavenia, “La lotta alle superstizioni”’ 163-81. On pre-Reformation complaints and then sixteenth-century attempts to reform and police them while preserving traditional teaching on the intercessory nature of saints—that is, maintaining devotion but removing superstition—see Caravale, L’orazione proibita.
47 Massa, Una cristianità, 147-69.
48 Giustiniani and Querini, Libellus, 164-65, 170-83, especially 176-77: 'Illud etiam forsitan Tibi placere non poterit, quod humana curisositas adinvenit. Nunc enim singulis Sanctis pro singulis infirmitatibus vota fiunt, quasi Sanctorum in Caelis distrubuta unicuique propria sint officia, et singulis singula humana membra tradita sint curanda; unde Dominus omnium creaturarum Pater, omnium infirmitatum solus curator minus invocari consuevit.'
49 On Erasmus’ criticism, including of the cult of saints, see Eire, War Against the Idols, 28-53.
50 Cameron, Enchanted Europe, 162-64.
51 Piper Heming, Protestants, 43-46.
52 Oakley, Political Thought, 250.
53 Tanner, Decrees, 2:774-76.
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Notes on contributors
Christopher M. Bellitto
Dr. Christopher M. Bellitto is Professor of History at Kean University in New Jersey, where he teaches courses in ancient and medieval history. A specialist in medieval and church history, his latest book is Humility: The Secret History of a Lost Virtue (Georgetown University Press, 2023). He has twice won grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been Visiting Scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary and a Fulbright Specialist in New Zealand and the Netherlands. He also serves as series Editor in Chief of Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition and Academic Editor at Large for Paulist Press.