Fallible Authors - Alastair Minnis The Middle Ages Series

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to renounce it.88 Wyclif’s De apostasia (usually dated 1379) does contain the view that the priest who is “foreknown” as eternally damned lacks the spiritual presence (modus essendi spiritualis) necessary to confect the sacramental presence (modus essendi sacramentalis); this and other passages from the same treatise also appear in the text known as Wyclif’s Confessio (usually dated 1381).89 On the other hand, elsewhere Wyclif asserts the (basically orthodox) view that the sacraments of a priest who is “foreknown” and living in moral sin are useful to his subjects.90 And yet, in a sermon of 1382 he suggests that “foreknown” priests administer beneficial sacraments only secundum quid (i.e., in a relative and therefore perhaps inadequate fashion).91 Even more daringly, in his De antichristo (1384) Wyclif says that there is nothing in the Bible to support the belief that God must assist every faithless prelate in consecrating the sacraments.92 Most radical of all is the statement in De Eucharistia that one mass may be despised and condemned by God while another is deemed meritorious; the host consecrated by the good priest, who best signifies Christ’s union with the Church, must be better than the host consecrated by the bad priest, who impedes that signification.93 Levy seeks to explain such apparent contradictions by positing a crucial development in Wyclif’s thought, a “discernible movement in the direction of Donatism” which was “closely linked to his rejection of the doctrine of transubstantiation.”94 “Perhaps scholars will have to be content to say that there were times when Wyclif had been orthodox, times when a Donatist, and other times still when he had walked a perilous path between.”95 While Wyclif was not constructing a position “he was prepared to defend obstinately,” Levy further suggests, nevertheless he was quite willing to engage in “provocative speculation.”96

      Many examples of such “provocative speculation” (on this as on so many other matters) may be found in Wyclif’s writings. One must suffice here, a passage from his Responsiones ad argumenta RadulW Strode, Strode having been a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, before 1360 and probably to be identified with the “philosophical Strode” who is one of the addressees of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (V.1856–57).97 Wyclif declares that the faithful who by true belief and love are members of Jesus Christ (who is the archpriest) are themselves sacerdotes, thanks to the spiritual oil of predestination. The implication is that in this respect they do not need to receive the material oil traditionally used in the ordination service. The officium of priest is often bestowed on those who are unfit for it, continues Wyclif, and it may be right for the true sons of God to perform that office, even though they may not have been consecrated by a bishop, and lack the priestly tonsure and the character (or sacred imprint) which ordination imposes. Now, while this certainly does not go so far as to say that the sacraments ministered by such unfit priests are useless or at least dubious, it does raise the specter of valid ministration by non-ordained individuals who derive their authority directly from God. Perhaps Wyclif rather enjoyed going so close to the brink of Donatism. Some of his followers may have gone over it.98

      Another Wycliffite doctrine which threatened to drive a wedge between authoritative officium and fallible office-holder was the theory of dominion.99 According to Wyclif, dominium meant divine right of possession: the right to hold power, whether spiritual or secular, depended on grace.100 No pope, bishop, or king had true dominion over his subordinates while he lived in a state of mortal sin.101 One of the 1382 Blackfriars propositions took the form, “if the pope is foreknown [to be damned eternally], and a bad man, and consequently a member of the devil, he has no power over Christ’s faithful.”102 By the same token, the status of the deviant priest, one who failed to “lyuen wel in clennesse in þouimaget & speche & dede & good ensample to þe peple,”103 was highly suspect, and the value of all his works questionable. The most crucial priestly office, according to Wyclif and his followers, was “trewe preching”: “riimaget preching of goddis word is þe moost worþy dede þat prestis don heere among men.”104 Therefore anything which interfered with it came in for the most stringent of criticism: “þis synne þat lettiþ þis gendrure crye to god to be a-vengid.”105 Traditionally, the mercenary preacher was to be tolerated; the office should be respected even if the office-holder cannot be. But according to Wyclif, such a man should be shunned by his congregation and be subject to punishment—by the secular authorities, if necessary. In De veritate sacrae scripturae, for example, it is argued that prelates who live an ungodly life forfeit their sacerdotal privileges.106 Similarly, John Purvey (reportedly) held that anyone holding the office of priest or bishop who did not set a good example in his life, incurred excommunication by God.107

      A particularly worrying implication of the abovementioned doctrines, as interpreted by at least some of Wyclif’s followers, was that personal righteousness transcended the boundaries and barriers of gender. If a woman is in a state of grace that is what empowers her rather than an official dispensation of the Church hierarchy; in such a state she has as much right to preach and to administer the sacraments as has a similarly disposed man. “Donatist (or near-Donatist) denials of the validity of the sacraments administered by unworthy priests led to claims for a lay ministry,” Margaret Aston has written, “and these in turn opened the way to further claims,” including the argument in favor of women priests.108 The Dominican inquisitor Bernard Gui (c. 1261–1331) complained of the Waldensians’ belief that “the consecration of the body and blood of Christ may be made by any just person, although he be a layman” (providing of course he was a member of the sect), adding that “they even believe the same thing concerning women.”109 Here, as in many other respects, the doctrinal trajectory of Lollardy may be said to parallel that of Waldensianism. But did Lollard women priests actually exist? This is a matter of modern scholarly debate, though the balance of opinion would seem to be against the hypothesis. Of course, a lot depends on what is meant by “priesthood” within a theology which devalues the sacraments (as traditionally understood) in general. It would seem that the theory had great potency and challenge even if the practice was minimal, particularly in view of the strength of the establishment’s response to the views of Walter Brut, a Welsh Lollard who dared to argue that women could preach and (at least in certain circumstances) administer the sacraments, including the sacrament of the altar. But there is a twist to this particular tale. As I demonstrate in Chapter 3, much of its theory was generated by the team of expert theologians recruited by John Trefnant, Bishop of Hereford, to refute Brut’s views; in the process of building up the Lollard’s views in order to knock them down, they canvassed opinions which were far more radical than anything that Brut himself had held, inasmuch as we can judge from the records of his trial.

      At any rate, the orthodox view persisted that a woman could not be a doctrix, auditrix, or praedicatrix (“teacheress, studentess, preacheress”) except in the most exceptional of circumstances; those bizarre Latin forms, coinages redolent of a tiresome academic humor, point to the monstrous nature of any such creature. Because of her natural and legal inferiority, and possession of the wrong type of body, woman could scarcely ever be an auctrix (“authoress”). The Wife of Bath’s Tale may be read as offering a tacit comment on this status quo. Therein a physically repellent old woman, her body disfigured by old age and the ravages of poverty, teaches quite irreproachable doctrine. If the female form is incapable of authoritative character-ization then it must be de-formed in order that its possessor may become an acceptable medium for the transmission of a high message.

      There is, of course, much more to Chaucer’s creation of the Wife of Bath, including a bold eroticism which owes much to Ovidian realizations of gender and sexuality. But Dame Alisoun cannot be contained within discourses which would serve to limit her potency, write her off as yet another Dipsas or duenna-figure whose expertise is confined to stereotypically female skills. So blatantly does she confound such expectations that another of Chaucer’s fictions, the Friar, is moved to advise her to leave authorities to preaching and to the schools of the clergy. In his view, her discourses of authority are unfitting in the mouth of

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