An Indulgence with William of Adam, Archbishop of Antivari and Author of How to Defeat the Saracens
Commentary
Michael Sanders and David Howes
Detail showing Saint Blaise, New York, Fordham University Library, MS 29
Introduction:
In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, popes and kings received a variety of treatises on how to recover the Holy Land from the Egyptian Mamluk sultanate. Among the most well-known treatises was William of Adam’s How to Defeat the Saracens. William was one of the few recovery authors to recognize the importance of Indian Ocean trade to the Egyptian economy and recommended that crusaders blockade the Gulf of Aden before retaking Jerusalem. [1] Nearly all scholarship about William has focused on his recovery treatise.
Yet besides his crusade writing, William also had an active ecclesiastical career. In fact, it was this career that allowed him to travel extensively in the East and develop his unique perspective on the crusades. Originally from southern France, William entered the Dominican Order and around 1305, began traveling throughout the Byzantine Empire, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Iran, India, and possibly Ethiopia.[2] He played an important role in the papacy’s reorganization of its Asian dioceses. Clement V had founded the province of Khanbalik (Peking), which encompassed all four Mongol khanates, in 1307. The extensive size of the province quickly proved unmanageable. To better facilitate missionary work in the Persian Ilkhanate and unify the Armenian Church with Rome, Pope John XXII founded the archdiocese of Sultanieh, which included Iran and possibly Ethiopia, the Indies, and parts of northern Asia.[3] The pope appointed William of Adam as one of the first six suffragan bishops of Sultanieh and charged him to take a pallium and bull to the Dominican Francis of Perugia, John’s choice for archbishop of the province. In 1322, John XXII transferred William from Sultanieh to the diocese of Smyrna in Asia Minor, and in October of that year, he appointed William as the second archbishop of Sultanieh. William left the Middle East in 1324, when he was reassigned to the archdiocese of Antivari on the eastern short of the Adriatic. Though mainly in Avignon after 1329, William retained his archiepiscopal title until his death c. 1338.[4]
Despite his dynamic career, William left very few records which can be ascribed to him with certainty. Marcellino da Civezza thought that he had written the Livre de l’Estat du grant caan at the behest of Pope John XXII in 1330 or 1334.[5] However, Moule also made a compelling case for John of Cori, William’s successor to the archdiocese of Sultanieh, as the author of the Livre de l’Estat.[6] Kohler argued that William penned a second recovery treatise, The Directory (Directorium ad passagium faciendum). Written around 1330, The Directory contained several similarities in language and content to How to Defeat the Saracens, and the two appeared in the same manuscripts.[7] Many scholars have agreed with Kohler.[8] Yet some maintained there was not enough proof to link William with The Directory definitively.[9] Delaville Le Roulx also noted striking differences between the two treatises, such as How to Defeat the Saracen’s emphasis on conquering Constantinople.[10] No consensus has yet been reached in this debate, but all agree intratextual evidence in The Directory indicates the author was a Dominican missionary in the East. In other words, if the author was not William of Adam, he was someone very similar to him.[11]
Aside from his crusade work(s), early modern Dominican historians attributed several liturgical works to William. Quétif and Echard claimed that William had devised offices for the feasts of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Sanctification of the Blessed Virgin, St. George the Martyr, and St. Ursula and the 11,000 virgins.[12] Yet Kohler contended that the two had never seen any evidence for this claim and doubted the attribution, as have most scholars since.[13] The Arbor caritatis, a theological treatise preserved in a fifteenth-century manuscript, as well as a sermon preached in Avignon on October 23, 1334, both described their author as a Dominican archbishop of Antivari. Most scholars deem this author was William of Adam.[14]
However, the only documents that explicitly listed the archbishop as one of their creators were collective indulgences. Kohler identified three in which William appeared; Fordham’s MS 29 was not one of them.[15] Indeed, we have not yet found a reference to MS 29 in modern scholarship and would welcome any further information about the manuscript or other collective indulgences sponsored by William. Scholarship about the archbishop rarely discusses this genre of source. Though at first glance formulaic and bland, collective indulgences offer details about religious practices, geography, architecture, and art. They provide a small window into the careers of bishops like William who left a sparse documentary trail or have been associated only with certain events. William of Adam was not just a crusade writer; he was a bishop. Fordham’s MS 29 sheds some light on his latter, lesser-analyzed role. To understand William and his contributions to the crusades fully, we must read both about William’s journeys in the East and his time in Europe—both How to Defeat the Saracens and MS 29.
Source Type:
Because multiple bishops issued it, MS 29 belongs to a distinct genre of sources known as “collective indulgences.” Bishops began granting indulgences in groups, rather than individually, in the late thirteenth century.[16] Though reasons for this trend remain obscure, the practice helped bishops skirt limitations on the size of indulgences they could offer. The Fourth Lateran Council decreed that bishops could not grant more than one year of indulgences for the dedication of a church, more than forty days for the anniversary of a dedication, and fewer than forty days for other matters.[17] Collective indulgences offered more than the usual forty-day indulgence, because each bishop listed in the document granted forty days or so. Like MS 29, most collective indulgences stated singuli nostrum, quadraginta dies indulgentiarum de iniunctis eis penitenciis misericorditer in domino relaxamus.[18]
Surprisingly, the issuers of collective indulgences rarely included the bishop of the diocese for which the indulgence pertained. Consequently, collective indulgences like MS 29 contained the proviso dum modo diocesani voluntas ad id accesserit et consensus.[19] Additionally, they often included a note of confirmation, usually dated several years after the indulgence, from the bishop of the targeted diocese. For example, MS 29 included a three-line note from James, the Bishop of Tarentaise, at the bottom of the manuscript. The bishop approved the indulgence in 1337, two years after it had first been written. Some scholars considered such notes crucial to the authenticity of the document, while others reckoned it weak support for a dubious ecclesiastical instrument.[20]
Dubious nor not, collective indulgences were popular, especially in the Holy Roman Empire.[21] Alexander Seibold estimated 4,000 were sent between 1281 and 1364.[22] Most came from bishops at the papal court. These churchmen started issuing collective indulgences to meet the needs of the pilgrims visiting Rome as a part of Boniface VIII’s Jubilee Year in 1300. Issuers were not cardinals; they were bishops from poor or distant dioceses in partibus infidelium.[23] They wanted financial support from the papacy for their dioceses or personal projects. Collective indulgences, or rather the fees garnered from them, were one of the ways they collected money.
William of Adam exemplified this type of bishop. He spent much of his ecclesiastical career in partibus infidelium, first as a member of the Dominican Order traveling throughout the eastern Mediterranean, second as a suffragan bishop of Sultanieh in the Iranian Ilkhanate, third as the bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor, and finally as the archbishop of Sultanieh. When not in the East, William spent most of his time at the papal court in Avignon. He promoted a crusade to Constantinople and then to Jerusalem through works like How to Defeat the Saracens. William argued that the conquest of Constantinople would provide the bases and supplies necessary to retake the Levant, and just as importantly, would end the Great Schism between the Latins and Greek Orthodox.[24] Though a fierce critic of the Byzantine emperor Andronicus Paleologos II, William seems to have been very worried about the Greek people.[25] He lamented their enslavement to the encroaching Turks, and saw the crusade as a means to their earthly and spiritual salvation.[26]
William’s concern for the Byzantine people was probably one of the main reasons Pope John XXII transferred him from the archbishopric of Sultanieh to the archdiocese of Antibari. Literally “across from Bari (Italy),” Antibari sat on the border between the Latin and Byzantine worlds.[27] Due to poor leadership over thirty years, the diocese had fallen into arrears and was poverty-stricken by the time William was assigned there. Consequently, he found it unbearable and left for Avignon in 1329, only five years after his appointment.[28] MS 29 was written after his return to the papal court in 1335 and was undoubtedly a means to fund William’s crusade lobbying. The bishop showed little interest in the local affairs of his diocese.[29]
Besides bishops like William who tried to fund ecclesiastical projects at Avignon, scholars have argued several churchmen participated in collective indulgences purely for profit.[30] These bishops usually came from dioceses that did not exist or used titles that were contested or had already been transferred to another cleric. Indeed, MS 29 included three such individuals—Ramon of Caffa, Bartholomew of Clofen, and Mathew of Balconen.[31] No records exist about the latter two bishops or their dioceses. The diocese of Caffa existed, but no Ramon was ever recorded as bishop there.[32] Again, collective indulgences could be a dubious business.
The profiteering came to an end, at least in Avignon, around 1364. As part of his reforms, Pope Urban V reissued a decree from his predecessor, Innocent VI, that ordered all curial prelates back to their dioceses. This decree seems to have stopped the main current of collective indulgences flowing from Avignon.[33] However, collective indulgences like MS 29 continued being issued into the modern era. Instead of bishops at the papal court, groups of cardinals and local bishops became the main authors.[34]
Physical Description:
Collective indulgences have often been called “affiches d’indulgence,” because unlike simple letters, these documents had several eye-catching characteristics.[35] MS 29 is no different. While admittedly not as ornate as the Crusader Bible or other illuminated manuscripts, MS 29’s dimensions, illustrations, and text clearly indicate that it was put on display. The indulgence’s size first catches the viewer’s eyes. The parchment measures approximately 505 x 730 mm, which makes it a little larger than average in comparison to the collective indulgences studied by Cheney, Zutshi, and Belin.[36] This size made MS 29 ideal for hanging, and in fact,
small holes at the top of the parchment were most likely caused from pins used to hang the manuscript. Seals would have hung from the holes at the bottom of the manuscript. None have survived, but some of the strings used to fasten them remain. The seals would not only have given the document credibility and authority but also added to its aesthetic.
The most decorative part of MS 29 is the historiated initial that begins the text. As with nearly all collective indulgences, this initial is the letter U which begins the phrase Universis Sancte Matris Ecclessia. Scribes often used this initial U to depict the bishops dispensing the indulgence, the patron saints of the churches receiving the indulgence, or the impetratores asking for the indulgence.[37] MS 29’s historiated initial contains six compartmentalized images that form two large illustrations. The top illustration includes a woman flanked by an angel and tonsured man kneeling in prayer. The dialogue from the angel confirms that the central image is the Virgin Mary, one of the patrons of the church in Tarentaise.[38] The angel, probably Gabriel, proclaims the opening line of the Hail Mary, Ave Maria gratia plena dominus te cum.
The central image in the bottom illustration is a decapitated man holding his head. Blood runs down from the apparently fresh wound on his neck. The man was clearly a bishop, since he wears a mitre on his head and holds a crozier in his left hand. The image most likely represents St. Blaise, the second patron saint of the church in Tarentaise. Considered one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, Blaise was a young Armenian bishop whom the emperor Licinius (r. 308-13) and prefect Agricolaus beheaded.[39] Unfortunately, the cephalophore (headless saint) cannot be definitively identified. In contrast to the illustration above, the flanking images do not offer any clues to confirm the bishop’s identity. The man standing on the right does not have any dialogue, while the dialogue from the group on the left is illegible. Red ink has bled into the dialogue scroll, and the letters have faded.
Indeed, much of the ink has faded on MS 29, and the document has been damaged either from improper storage or exposure to the elements when it was displayed.[40] MS 29 seems to have been folded at one point into a 140 mm square. Many of the folded corners now have holes and water damage. The top of the parchment has several tears probably from hanging. The manuscript was probably never very ornate. Many of the images were drawn in pencil, and other collective indulgences have more detailed and a larger number of illustrations.[41] Yet the historiated initial has always been prominent. It measures 215.9 by 196.85 mm and cuts into seven of the indulgences’ 22 lines. Considering its overall size as well, MS 29 was and remains an eye-catching document.
Another factor that makes MS 29 an effective display poster is its text. The first line, as in most collective indulgences, is in litterae elongatae—a decorative script with elongated shafts.[42] The line contains four large, ornate capitals (N, S, M, E). Regardless of one’s Latin literacy, these capitals and elongated script convey a sense of importance to viewers. The document would have been easily read by anyone who knew Latin in the Middle Ages. The script of the main text is a Gothic Rotunda.[43] Letters generally measure 63.5 mm tall by 69.85 mm wide. This large Gothic book hand is very legible and clear, especially since few abbreviations or complex grammatical structures were used.[44] Moreover, collective indulgences are very formulaic. Many of the exact same phrases, such as salutem in domino sempiternam, splendor paterne glorie, and cupienties igitur, can be found in each one.[45] Indeed, this standardization helped us transcribe the document in several places where damage had made the text illegible. If a medieval European had read one collective indulgence, he most likely could read them all.
The response from the bishop of Tarenatise at the bottom of the document is in a different script from the main text. It is a smaller Gothic cursive with more abbreviations. As discussed above, responses from the bishops of the dioceses where the collective indulgence pertained were common, but their language was not formulaic. In light of its differences from the main text, the response seems to have been written by a second scribe.[46] However, individual scribes could write in different scripts. If MS 29 was a copy of an original collective indulgence, the same scribe would have used two scripts to imitate the hand of the indulgence and the hand of the response.[47] Therefore, we must discuss manuscript tradition before we can determine the number of scribes who created MS 29.
The manuscripts of some collective indulgences clearly indicate if they are copies. In his analysis of the lactation vision of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Patrick Arabeyre utilized a collective indulgence which stated it was copied from a register that contained the text of the original indulgence.[48] Unfortunately, nothing in MS 29 definitively indicates whether or not it is a copy. Morgane Belin, following the advice of Fournier, suggested that copies would have cleaner text than originals.[49] Scribes often wrote collective indulgences and then filled in names and any other necessary changes when bishops needed the documents. However, the additions often did not fit neatly into the document. They could be too long and force the scribe to squeeze words together. Or they could be too short, and the indulgence would have blank spaces.[50] Historiated initials, especially after 1350, were usually left blank too.[51] Belin argued that copyists were more likely to render the external elements of a document, like its historiated initial, without any changes. However, they tended to fix spacing and other errors in the main text.[52]
MS 29 has some, but not many, spacing issues in the list of bishop’s names. The document has pretty regular spacing, except between Corbaviensis and episcopus on the fourth line. Also, on the fifth line, the scribe seems to have run out of room for Clonensis episcopus and squished the two words together. The latter nearly touches the following word, Salutem. However, the most peculiar parts of MS 29 are the bishops’ titles. As Delehaye first noted, scribes usually wrote titles once, after all churchmen of the same rank had been named.[53] In contrast, MS 29’s scribe did not list the titles for some ecclesiastics, including William of Adam who had the highest rank of all—archbishop. The other bishops had episcopus listed after each of their names.[54] A scribe in the papal chancery certainly would not have made this mistake. Yet most collective indulgences, although made in Rome or Avignon, were not created by chancery officials. Much like actors starting out in Hollywood, many scribes traveled to the papacy’s capital and waited for an opening in the chancery. Meanwhile, they made a living off of private business, like collective indulgences.[55] The scribes’ inexperience, especially when faced with little-known bishops from exotic lands, often resulted in oddly spelled names and grammatical errors.[56]
A copyist may or may not have been able to fix these errors. What makes us think MS 29 is an original document are these issues in addition to the peculiarity in the indulgence’s historiated initial. Behind St. Blaise, the scribe appears to have started another drawing of a bishop but then covered it with a large red circle. Perhaps the scribe had intended this indulgence for another church but then had to change it. Or the scribe made a mistake in his first drawing of St. Blaise and decided to start over again. Regardless, a copyist would most likely have fixed this error. Only the original document of this indulgence would have the image within the image, improper titles, and spacing issues. Therefore, we think MS 29 is an original document made by at least two scribes—the one who produced the main text and the other who wrote the bishop of Tarentaise’s response.
Provenance
MS 29’s online catalogue entry briefly listed the document’s owners back to 1903.[57] The manuscript’s provenance prior to that time remains largely a mystery, although a short description, written in modern French, on the back of the manuscript indicates that at one time it was kept in a French-speaking archive. New research, however, has revealed further details about the document’s twentieth-century owners. From 1903-1957, MS 29 belonged to St. Andrew on the Hudson, a Jesuit novitiate opened in 1903 in Hyde Park, near Poughkeepsie, NY.[58] In 1957, a little over a decade before the novitiate closed, MS 29 moved to the Mary D. Reiss Library at Loyola Seminary in Shrub Oak, New York.[59]
Though Loyola Seminary closed around 1970, MS 29 was not lost.[60] It moved, along with the rest of the Mary D. Reiss Library’s materials, to a space known as the Loyola Reference Library in the back of the Lowenstein Library at Fordham’s Lincoln Center. Due to the need for more classroom space at Lincoln Center, the ten-year lease for the Loyola Reference Library was not renewed, and MS 29, along with the other materials from Shrub Oak, moved to Murray-Weigel Hall at Rose Hill in late 1980. Theodore Cunnion, S.J., who had been the head librarian of the Mary D. Reiss Library and a librarian for the Loyola Reference Library, helped transfer the documents to Murray-Weigel Hall.[61] However, he never owned them, as past catalogers of Fordham’s Archives have written.[62]
Walsh Library opened in 1997 at Rose Hill, and Murray-Weigel Hall’s librarian Frank Jensen, S.J. recognized that MS 29 and other rare documents would be better stored in its climate-controlled facilities.[63] Consequently, Jensen had MS 29 and the other medieval documents, which had originally belonged to St. Andrew on the Hudson, moved in 1998 to the Archives and Special Collections Department in Walsh Library, where they remain to the present day.[64]
Notes on Transcription and Translation:
We would like to note some of our editorial decisions. Though the document had a good deal of punctuation, we decided to add modern punctuation to aid in translation. Our transcription kept the spelling used in the document, but we wanted to show the variability in the spelling of place names. Thus, our English translation of place names used variant Latin spellings, and the footnotes listed modern and any alternate place names. Information regarding dioceses’ locations and bishops’ reigns came from Conrad Eubel’s Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi.[65] We listed the dates of the many feast days mentioned in the document by consulting the calendar in a beautiful fifteenth-century Italian Book of Hours, also in Fordham’s Archives and Special Collections.[66] Since the calendar followed the Roman system of dating with kalends, nones, and ides, we provided both that date and the modern equivalent. The Roman multi-year calendar on the website “Some Notes on Medieval English Genealogy” was very helpful in checking our dates.[67]
Acknowledgements:
We want to thank several individuals at Fordham Library, namely Director Linda LoSchiavo, Director of the Electronic Information Center Michael Considine, Television Production Manager Matthew Schottenfeld, Head of Reference and Information Services Jane Suda, Reference and Digital Humanities Librarian Tierney Gleason, and Conservation Librarian Vivian Shen, for the use of their Archives and Special Collections as well as their assistance in digitizing this manuscript. We also want to thank Dr. Wolfgang P. Mueller, Dr. Nicholas Paul, and Dr. Richard Gyug for their help in translating and transcribing the document.
[1] Giles Constable, trans., How to Defeat the Saracens: Guillelmus Ade, Tractatus quomodo Sarraceni sunt expugnandi; Text and Translation with Notes (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2012), 96-117.
[2] Charles Kohler, “Introduction to De Modo Sarracenos Extirpandi,” in Recueil des historiens des Croisades, vol. 2: Documents arméniens (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1906), 178; Henri Omont, “Guillaume Adam, Missionnaire,” in Histoire Littéraire de la France, vol. 35, ed. Académie des inscriptions and belles-lettres (Paris: Kraus Reprint, 1921), 277-78; Jean Richard, “European Voyages in the Indian Ocean and Caspian Sea (12th-15th Centuries),” Iran 6 (1968): 48; J. R. S. Phillips The Medieval Expansion of Europe, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 99, 143.
[3] C. Raymond Beazley, The Dawn of Modern Geography, vol. 3: A History of Exploration and Geographical Science from the Middle of the Thirteenth to the Early Years of the Fifteenth Century (c. A.D. 1260-1420) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), 206-7; Phillips The Medieval Expansion of Europe, 88-90. The diocese was named after the new Ikhan capital that replaced Tabriz in 1307. Jean Richard, La papauté et les missions d’Orient au Moyen Âge (XIIIe-XIVe siècles) (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1977), 169-73. The founding of Sultanieh was also part of the rivalry between the Dominicans and Franciscans. The Little Brothers had sent several missionaries, such as John of Montecorvino, John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck, to China and were very influential in the diocese of Khanbalik. The Dominicans essentially wanted to mark the Middle East as their territory for missionary work, and thus maneuvered to have their convents choose the bishops and archbishops in the province of Sultanieh. In effect, the reorganization of Asia’s dioceses divided the continent between friars and preachers.
[4] Kholer, “Introduction,” 178-80, 183, 185-86, 188-89; Omont, “Guillaume Adam,” 278-80.
[5] Marcellino da Civezza, Storia universale delle missioni francescane, vol. 1 (Rome: Tipografia Tiberina, 1857), 65; Richard, La papauté et les missions d’Orient, 180-81 n. 40.
[6] A. C. Moule, Christians in China Before the Year 1550 (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2011), 249 and n. 8; Richard, La papauté et les missions d’Orient, 180-81 n. 40.
[7] Kohler, “Introduction,” 203-4; Charles Kohler, “Quel est l’auteur du Directorium ad passagium faciendum?” Revue de l’Orient Latin 12 (1911): 104-11; Constable, How to Defeat the Saracens, 5-7 and n. 26.
[8] Louis Bréhier, L’église et l’Orient au moyen âge: Les Croisades, 5th ed. (Paris: Lecoffre, 1928), 249; Paul Alphandéry, La Chrétienté et l’idée de croisade, vol. 2: Recommencements nécessaires (XIIe-XIIIe siècles), ed. Alphonse Dupront (Paris: A. Michel, 1959), 241, n. 2; Antony Leopold, How to Recover the Holy Land: The Crusade Proposals of the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 44.
[9] Omont, “Guillaume Adam,” 282-83.
[10] Joseph Delaville Le Roulx, La France en Orient au XIVe siècle: Expéditions du Maréchal Boucicaut, vol. 1 (Paris: E. Thorin, 1886), 70, 75, 94 n. 2.
[11] Constable, How to Defeat the Saracens, 7-8.
[12] James Quétif and James Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. 1 (Paris: Lutetiae, 1719), 537-38, 724.
[13] Kholer, “Introduction,” 203; Thomas Kaeppeli and Roger Aubert, “Guillaume Adam,” in Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques. vol 22, ed. Roger Aubert (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1988), cols. 833-35. http://apps.brepolis.net.avoserv2.library.fordham.edu/DHGE/test/Default2.aspx.
[14] Thomas Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, vol. 2: G-I (Rome: S. Sabinae, 1975); Constable, How to Defeat the Saracens, 2.
[15] Kholer, “Introduction,” 187 and notes 5, 6, and 7. The collective indulgences mentioned by Kohler was for the churches of Holy Savior in Venice and Saint Francis in Recanati as well as the church and hospital of Spello. New York, Fordham Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29, lines 7-8. MS 29 was written for a church of the Blesses Virgen and Saint Blaise in Savoy.
[16] Hippolyte Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” Analecta Bollandiana 44-46 (1926-28): 44.106; R. N. Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England: Passports to Paradise? (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007), 39.
[17] Patrick N. R. Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon in English Collections,” in Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy M. Owen, ed. M. J. Franklin and Christopher Harper-Bill (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995), 283.
[18] New York, Fordham Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29, line 17: “each of us [bishops] mercifully grants 40 days of indulgences from penances;” Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon,” 282; Christopher R. Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences from Avignon,” in The Papacy and England, 12th-14th Centuries: Historical and Legal Studies (London: Variorum Reprints, 1982), 355.
[19] New York, Fordham Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29, line 17-18: “provided that the will of the bishop [of the diocese in question] approves and consents to the indulgence;” Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon,” 283.
[20] Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 40; Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 357.
[21] Martin Roland and Andreas Zajic, “Les chartes médiévales enluminées dans les pays d’Europe centrale,” Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes 169, no. 1 (2011): 162; Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon,” 284.
[22] Alexander Seibold, Sammelindulgenzen: Ablassurkunden des Spätmittelalters und der Frühneuzeit (Köln: Böhlau, 2001), 105.
[23] Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon,” 290-92: “in the lands of the unbelievers”; Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” 45.323, 46.305-6; Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 356, 359-61.
[24] Constable, How to Defeat the Saracens, 66-69, 84-87.
[25] Constable, How to Defeat the Saracens, 90-95.
[26] Constable, How to Defeat the Saracens, 78-87.
[27] Kohler, “Introduction,” 185-86.
[28] Kohler, “Introduction,” 187.
[29] Kohler, “Introduction,” 189. Unfortunately, William’s absence left Antibari in even more dire straits. Ecclesiastical positions remained vacant, and financial privileges, which he was supposed to obtain from the papacy, never made it to the impoverished diocese. Pope John XXII largely ignored petitions to send William back, but Benedict XII dismissed him from Avignon and ordered him to return to Antibari in January 1337, after the bishop made a detour to Narbonne. The next extant record concerning William of Adam was his successor’s letter of appointment to Antibari, dated 1341. William died sometime between 1337 and 1341, but the exact time, or if he made it back to Antibari, remains unknown.
[30] Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon,” 290-92; Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 356, 359-61.
[31] New York, Fordham Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29, lines 2-4.
[32] See the notes for our translation of the indulgence for information about the diocese of Caffa.
[33] Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon,” 283-84; Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 361; Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 41.
[34] Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” 45. 326; Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 42.
[35] P.-F. Fournier, “Affiches d’indulgences manuscrites et imprimées es XIVe, XVe et XVIe siècles,” in Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 84 (1923): 116-60.
[36] Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 363-64, 369: 470 x 662 mm, 835 x 605 mm, 475 x 635 mm; Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences,” 286: 380 x 600 mm and 510 x 715 mm; Morgane Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences délivrées par des groups d’evêques en Avignon au 14e siècle: L’exemple de la charte peinte pour l’église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine à Tournai,” Archives et manuscrits précieux tournaisiens 3 (2009): 527/558 x 722/723 mm.
[37] Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” 46.287; Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences,” 288.
[38] New York, Fordham Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29, line 7-8. MS 29 offers an indulgence for anyone, confessed and penitent, who visits or donates to the capella beate marie virginis et sancti blasii, qui in villa festi tarentasiensis diocesis (chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Blaise, which is in a village of the sacred diocese of Tarentaise).
[39] D. Farmer, “Blaise,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 5th rev. ed., ed. David Hugh Farmer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), http://www.oxfordreference.com.avoserv2.library.fordham.edu/view/10.1093/ acref/9780199596607.001.0001/acref-9780199596607-e-205. The Fourteen Holy Helpers, also known as the Auxiliary Saints, included St. Blaise, St. Acacius, St. Barbara, St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Christopher, St. Cyricus, St. Denis, St. Erasmus, St. Eustace, St. George, St. Giles, St. Margaret of Antioch, St. Pantaleon, and St. Vitus. These saints garnered a reputation for their healing powers. Prior to his martyrdom, Blaise saved a boy from choking on a fish bone, and in return, the boy’s mother brought the bishop food and candles when the emperor imprisoned him. St. Blaise’s cult was strongest in the Rhineland between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, but even today, Catholics will attend mass on his feast day (February 3) to receive a blessing for healing which involves the placement of two candles on their throats.
[40] Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 49.
[41] Roland and Zajic, “Les chartes médiévales enluminées,” illus. 11-21 on pp. 232-36.
[42] Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences,” 288; Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 49; Joachim Bumke, Courtly Culture: Literature and Society in the High Middle Ages, trans. Thomas Dunlap (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 448.
[43] Franck, “MS Item 29,” http://ds.lib.berkeley.edu/MSItem29_3.
[44] Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 46-47.
[45] Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” 46.289-90; Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 358, 366; Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 45-46;
[46] Franck, “MS Item 29,” http://ds.lib.berkeley.edu/MSItem29_3. Indeed, MS 29’s cataloguer thought that it was written by two scribes.
[47] Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 50. Note, a copy does not necessarily mean a forgery. Collective indulgences were often copied for display, so the original could be kept safely in a local archive.
[48] Patrick Arabeyre, “La lactation de Saint Bernard à Châtillon-sur-Seine: Données et problèmes,” in Vies et légendes de Saint Bernard de Clairvaux: Création, Diffusion, Réception (XIIe-XXe siècles); Actes des Rencontres de Dijon, 7-8 juin (1991), ed. Patrick Arabeyre, Jacques Berlioz, Philippe Poirrier (Saint-Nicolas-lès-Cîteaux: Abbaye de Cîteaux, 1993), 179-80, 196 image 2.
[49] Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 48-49; P.-F. Fournier, “Affiches d’indulgences,” 116-60. Belin devised a chart listing several characteristics that could possibly indicate an indulgence was a copy. MS 29 has some but not all of them.
[50] Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences,” 292; Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 47.
[51] Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences,” 289. Zutshi speculated that so many scribes had died during the Black Death that it was difficult to find one who could properly execute the historiated initials.
[52] Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 49-50.
[53] Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” 46.291.
[54] New York, Fordham Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29, lines 2-4.
[55] Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 357-58.
[56] Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” 288-89, 291-95; Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 360, 362; Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 47.
[57] Morgan Kay Franck, “New York, Fordham University, Walsh Library, Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29,” Digital Scriptorium, last accessed January 22, 2019, http://ds.lib.berkeley.edu/MSItem29_3.
[58] Franck, “MS Item 29,” http://ds.lib.berkeley.edu/MSItem29_3; Arthur C. Bender, “A Brief History of the New York Province,” Society of Jesus, last accessed January 22, 2019, pp. 18-19, http://www.jesuitseast.org/Assets/ Publications/File/Province%20History%20with%20Cover.pdf.
[59] Jeff Levine, “Renowned Jesuit Philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Who Died 60 Years Ago, Is Buried at the CIA,” The Culinary Institute of America, posted April 9, 2015, https://www.ciachef.edu/pierre-teilhard-de-chardin-release/. The novitiate closed in 1968, and most of the property was sold to the Culinary Institute of America, which moved its campus from New Haven, CT to Hyde Park in 1970.
[60] Bender, “A Brief History of the New York Province,” 64.
[61] Cathy Maroney, “LC Library Move Slated,” The Ram, October 16, 1980, http://digital.library.fordham. edu/digital/collection/RAM/id/15037/.
[62] Franck, “MS Item 29,” http://ds.lib.berkeley.edu/MSItem29_3.
[63] Thomas J. Shelley, Fordham: A History of the Jesuit University of New York, 1841-2003 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), 243.
[64] The label on the box which contains MS 29 states that the documents were given “from Bro Jensen.” Other documents in the box, which we believe came from Shrub Oak, are MS 4, MS 22, MS 26, MS 27, and MS 29. MS 22 and 29 were definitely part of the same collection in the past, since MS 22 has the number 9 written on the back and MS 29 has 10. William P. Stoneman, “Fordham University Library’s MS 3: Private Collectors, Public Libraries, and Linked Data,” (lecture, Fordham University, New York, NY, February 11, 2019). Stoneman has convincingly argued that MS 3 also belongs to the same collection, but has not yet found any documentation to definitively prove the link. For more information about Jensen’s career, see his obituary, “Brother Frank Jensen, S.J.,” Catholic New York, July 26, 2012, https://www.cny.org/stories/brother-frank-jensen-sj,7862. Coincidentally, Jensen served as assistant prefect for the library at St. Andrew on Hudson (1957-1960 and 1963-1966) as well as assistant librarian at Loyola Seminary in Shrub Oak (1966-70). He undoubtedly helped move MS 29 to not only Walsh but also to Loyola and Lincoln Center.
[65] Conradum Eubel et al., Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi: Sive Summorum Pontificum, S.R.E. Cardinalium Ecclesiarum Antistitum, 9 vols. (Monasterii: Sumptibus et typis librariae Regensbergianae, 1913-2001), 1:543. Hereafter, all Eubel’s work will be abbreviated HCMA. All footnotes refer to the first volume, which covers the church hierarchy from 1198-1431.
[66] New York, Fordham University, MS 03, 1r-16v, http://digital.library.fordham.edu/digital/collection/ p17265coll5/id/744/rec/3.
[67] Chris Phillips, “Some Notes on Medieval English Genealogy,” last updated August 30, 2018, http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/cal/medcal.shtml.
In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, popes and kings received a variety of treatises on how to recover the Holy Land from the Egyptian Mamluk sultanate. Among the most well-known treatises was William of Adam’s How to Defeat the Saracens. William was one of the few recovery authors to recognize the importance of Indian Ocean trade to the Egyptian economy and recommended that crusaders blockade the Gulf of Aden before retaking Jerusalem. [1] Nearly all scholarship about William has focused on his recovery treatise.
Yet besides his crusade writing, William also had an active ecclesiastical career. In fact, it was this career that allowed him to travel extensively in the East and develop his unique perspective on the crusades. Originally from southern France, William entered the Dominican Order and around 1305, began traveling throughout the Byzantine Empire, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Iran, India, and possibly Ethiopia.[2] He played an important role in the papacy’s reorganization of its Asian dioceses. Clement V had founded the province of Khanbalik (Peking), which encompassed all four Mongol khanates, in 1307. The extensive size of the province quickly proved unmanageable. To better facilitate missionary work in the Persian Ilkhanate and unify the Armenian Church with Rome, Pope John XXII founded the archdiocese of Sultanieh, which included Iran and possibly Ethiopia, the Indies, and parts of northern Asia.[3] The pope appointed William of Adam as one of the first six suffragan bishops of Sultanieh and charged him to take a pallium and bull to the Dominican Francis of Perugia, John’s choice for archbishop of the province. In 1322, John XXII transferred William from Sultanieh to the diocese of Smyrna in Asia Minor, and in October of that year, he appointed William as the second archbishop of Sultanieh. William left the Middle East in 1324, when he was reassigned to the archdiocese of Antivari on the eastern short of the Adriatic. Though mainly in Avignon after 1329, William retained his archiepiscopal title until his death c. 1338.[4]
Despite his dynamic career, William left very few records which can be ascribed to him with certainty. Marcellino da Civezza thought that he had written the Livre de l’Estat du grant caan at the behest of Pope John XXII in 1330 or 1334.[5] However, Moule also made a compelling case for John of Cori, William’s successor to the archdiocese of Sultanieh, as the author of the Livre de l’Estat.[6] Kohler argued that William penned a second recovery treatise, The Directory (Directorium ad passagium faciendum). Written around 1330, The Directory contained several similarities in language and content to How to Defeat the Saracens, and the two appeared in the same manuscripts.[7] Many scholars have agreed with Kohler.[8] Yet some maintained there was not enough proof to link William with The Directory definitively.[9] Delaville Le Roulx also noted striking differences between the two treatises, such as How to Defeat the Saracen’s emphasis on conquering Constantinople.[10] No consensus has yet been reached in this debate, but all agree intratextual evidence in The Directory indicates the author was a Dominican missionary in the East. In other words, if the author was not William of Adam, he was someone very similar to him.[11]
Aside from his crusade work(s), early modern Dominican historians attributed several liturgical works to William. Quétif and Echard claimed that William had devised offices for the feasts of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Sanctification of the Blessed Virgin, St. George the Martyr, and St. Ursula and the 11,000 virgins.[12] Yet Kohler contended that the two had never seen any evidence for this claim and doubted the attribution, as have most scholars since.[13] The Arbor caritatis, a theological treatise preserved in a fifteenth-century manuscript, as well as a sermon preached in Avignon on October 23, 1334, both described their author as a Dominican archbishop of Antivari. Most scholars deem this author was William of Adam.[14]
However, the only documents that explicitly listed the archbishop as one of their creators were collective indulgences. Kohler identified three in which William appeared; Fordham’s MS 29 was not one of them.[15] Indeed, we have not yet found a reference to MS 29 in modern scholarship and would welcome any further information about the manuscript or other collective indulgences sponsored by William. Scholarship about the archbishop rarely discusses this genre of source. Though at first glance formulaic and bland, collective indulgences offer details about religious practices, geography, architecture, and art. They provide a small window into the careers of bishops like William who left a sparse documentary trail or have been associated only with certain events. William of Adam was not just a crusade writer; he was a bishop. Fordham’s MS 29 sheds some light on his latter, lesser-analyzed role. To understand William and his contributions to the crusades fully, we must read both about William’s journeys in the East and his time in Europe—both How to Defeat the Saracens and MS 29.
Source Type:
Because multiple bishops issued it, MS 29 belongs to a distinct genre of sources known as “collective indulgences.” Bishops began granting indulgences in groups, rather than individually, in the late thirteenth century.[16] Though reasons for this trend remain obscure, the practice helped bishops skirt limitations on the size of indulgences they could offer. The Fourth Lateran Council decreed that bishops could not grant more than one year of indulgences for the dedication of a church, more than forty days for the anniversary of a dedication, and fewer than forty days for other matters.[17] Collective indulgences offered more than the usual forty-day indulgence, because each bishop listed in the document granted forty days or so. Like MS 29, most collective indulgences stated singuli nostrum, quadraginta dies indulgentiarum de iniunctis eis penitenciis misericorditer in domino relaxamus.[18]
Surprisingly, the issuers of collective indulgences rarely included the bishop of the diocese for which the indulgence pertained. Consequently, collective indulgences like MS 29 contained the proviso dum modo diocesani voluntas ad id accesserit et consensus.[19] Additionally, they often included a note of confirmation, usually dated several years after the indulgence, from the bishop of the targeted diocese. For example, MS 29 included a three-line note from James, the Bishop of Tarentaise, at the bottom of the manuscript. The bishop approved the indulgence in 1337, two years after it had first been written. Some scholars considered such notes crucial to the authenticity of the document, while others reckoned it weak support for a dubious ecclesiastical instrument.[20]
Dubious nor not, collective indulgences were popular, especially in the Holy Roman Empire.[21] Alexander Seibold estimated 4,000 were sent between 1281 and 1364.[22] Most came from bishops at the papal court. These churchmen started issuing collective indulgences to meet the needs of the pilgrims visiting Rome as a part of Boniface VIII’s Jubilee Year in 1300. Issuers were not cardinals; they were bishops from poor or distant dioceses in partibus infidelium.[23] They wanted financial support from the papacy for their dioceses or personal projects. Collective indulgences, or rather the fees garnered from them, were one of the ways they collected money.
William of Adam exemplified this type of bishop. He spent much of his ecclesiastical career in partibus infidelium, first as a member of the Dominican Order traveling throughout the eastern Mediterranean, second as a suffragan bishop of Sultanieh in the Iranian Ilkhanate, third as the bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor, and finally as the archbishop of Sultanieh. When not in the East, William spent most of his time at the papal court in Avignon. He promoted a crusade to Constantinople and then to Jerusalem through works like How to Defeat the Saracens. William argued that the conquest of Constantinople would provide the bases and supplies necessary to retake the Levant, and just as importantly, would end the Great Schism between the Latins and Greek Orthodox.[24] Though a fierce critic of the Byzantine emperor Andronicus Paleologos II, William seems to have been very worried about the Greek people.[25] He lamented their enslavement to the encroaching Turks, and saw the crusade as a means to their earthly and spiritual salvation.[26]
William’s concern for the Byzantine people was probably one of the main reasons Pope John XXII transferred him from the archbishopric of Sultanieh to the archdiocese of Antibari. Literally “across from Bari (Italy),” Antibari sat on the border between the Latin and Byzantine worlds.[27] Due to poor leadership over thirty years, the diocese had fallen into arrears and was poverty-stricken by the time William was assigned there. Consequently, he found it unbearable and left for Avignon in 1329, only five years after his appointment.[28] MS 29 was written after his return to the papal court in 1335 and was undoubtedly a means to fund William’s crusade lobbying. The bishop showed little interest in the local affairs of his diocese.[29]
Besides bishops like William who tried to fund ecclesiastical projects at Avignon, scholars have argued several churchmen participated in collective indulgences purely for profit.[30] These bishops usually came from dioceses that did not exist or used titles that were contested or had already been transferred to another cleric. Indeed, MS 29 included three such individuals—Ramon of Caffa, Bartholomew of Clofen, and Mathew of Balconen.[31] No records exist about the latter two bishops or their dioceses. The diocese of Caffa existed, but no Ramon was ever recorded as bishop there.[32] Again, collective indulgences could be a dubious business.
The profiteering came to an end, at least in Avignon, around 1364. As part of his reforms, Pope Urban V reissued a decree from his predecessor, Innocent VI, that ordered all curial prelates back to their dioceses. This decree seems to have stopped the main current of collective indulgences flowing from Avignon.[33] However, collective indulgences like MS 29 continued being issued into the modern era. Instead of bishops at the papal court, groups of cardinals and local bishops became the main authors.[34]
Physical Description:
Collective indulgences have often been called “affiches d’indulgence,” because unlike simple letters, these documents had several eye-catching characteristics.[35] MS 29 is no different. While admittedly not as ornate as the Crusader Bible or other illuminated manuscripts, MS 29’s dimensions, illustrations, and text clearly indicate that it was put on display. The indulgence’s size first catches the viewer’s eyes. The parchment measures approximately 505 x 730 mm, which makes it a little larger than average in comparison to the collective indulgences studied by Cheney, Zutshi, and Belin.[36] This size made MS 29 ideal for hanging, and in fact,
small holes at the top of the parchment were most likely caused from pins used to hang the manuscript. Seals would have hung from the holes at the bottom of the manuscript. None have survived, but some of the strings used to fasten them remain. The seals would not only have given the document credibility and authority but also added to its aesthetic.
The most decorative part of MS 29 is the historiated initial that begins the text. As with nearly all collective indulgences, this initial is the letter U which begins the phrase Universis Sancte Matris Ecclessia. Scribes often used this initial U to depict the bishops dispensing the indulgence, the patron saints of the churches receiving the indulgence, or the impetratores asking for the indulgence.[37] MS 29’s historiated initial contains six compartmentalized images that form two large illustrations. The top illustration includes a woman flanked by an angel and tonsured man kneeling in prayer. The dialogue from the angel confirms that the central image is the Virgin Mary, one of the patrons of the church in Tarentaise.[38] The angel, probably Gabriel, proclaims the opening line of the Hail Mary, Ave Maria gratia plena dominus te cum.
The central image in the bottom illustration is a decapitated man holding his head. Blood runs down from the apparently fresh wound on his neck. The man was clearly a bishop, since he wears a mitre on his head and holds a crozier in his left hand. The image most likely represents St. Blaise, the second patron saint of the church in Tarentaise. Considered one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, Blaise was a young Armenian bishop whom the emperor Licinius (r. 308-13) and prefect Agricolaus beheaded.[39] Unfortunately, the cephalophore (headless saint) cannot be definitively identified. In contrast to the illustration above, the flanking images do not offer any clues to confirm the bishop’s identity. The man standing on the right does not have any dialogue, while the dialogue from the group on the left is illegible. Red ink has bled into the dialogue scroll, and the letters have faded.
Indeed, much of the ink has faded on MS 29, and the document has been damaged either from improper storage or exposure to the elements when it was displayed.[40] MS 29 seems to have been folded at one point into a 140 mm square. Many of the folded corners now have holes and water damage. The top of the parchment has several tears probably from hanging. The manuscript was probably never very ornate. Many of the images were drawn in pencil, and other collective indulgences have more detailed and a larger number of illustrations.[41] Yet the historiated initial has always been prominent. It measures 215.9 by 196.85 mm and cuts into seven of the indulgences’ 22 lines. Considering its overall size as well, MS 29 was and remains an eye-catching document.
Another factor that makes MS 29 an effective display poster is its text. The first line, as in most collective indulgences, is in litterae elongatae—a decorative script with elongated shafts.[42] The line contains four large, ornate capitals (N, S, M, E). Regardless of one’s Latin literacy, these capitals and elongated script convey a sense of importance to viewers. The document would have been easily read by anyone who knew Latin in the Middle Ages. The script of the main text is a Gothic Rotunda.[43] Letters generally measure 63.5 mm tall by 69.85 mm wide. This large Gothic book hand is very legible and clear, especially since few abbreviations or complex grammatical structures were used.[44] Moreover, collective indulgences are very formulaic. Many of the exact same phrases, such as salutem in domino sempiternam, splendor paterne glorie, and cupienties igitur, can be found in each one.[45] Indeed, this standardization helped us transcribe the document in several places where damage had made the text illegible. If a medieval European had read one collective indulgence, he most likely could read them all.
The response from the bishop of Tarenatise at the bottom of the document is in a different script from the main text. It is a smaller Gothic cursive with more abbreviations. As discussed above, responses from the bishops of the dioceses where the collective indulgence pertained were common, but their language was not formulaic. In light of its differences from the main text, the response seems to have been written by a second scribe.[46] However, individual scribes could write in different scripts. If MS 29 was a copy of an original collective indulgence, the same scribe would have used two scripts to imitate the hand of the indulgence and the hand of the response.[47] Therefore, we must discuss manuscript tradition before we can determine the number of scribes who created MS 29.
The manuscripts of some collective indulgences clearly indicate if they are copies. In his analysis of the lactation vision of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Patrick Arabeyre utilized a collective indulgence which stated it was copied from a register that contained the text of the original indulgence.[48] Unfortunately, nothing in MS 29 definitively indicates whether or not it is a copy. Morgane Belin, following the advice of Fournier, suggested that copies would have cleaner text than originals.[49] Scribes often wrote collective indulgences and then filled in names and any other necessary changes when bishops needed the documents. However, the additions often did not fit neatly into the document. They could be too long and force the scribe to squeeze words together. Or they could be too short, and the indulgence would have blank spaces.[50] Historiated initials, especially after 1350, were usually left blank too.[51] Belin argued that copyists were more likely to render the external elements of a document, like its historiated initial, without any changes. However, they tended to fix spacing and other errors in the main text.[52]
MS 29 has some, but not many, spacing issues in the list of bishop’s names. The document has pretty regular spacing, except between Corbaviensis and episcopus on the fourth line. Also, on the fifth line, the scribe seems to have run out of room for Clonensis episcopus and squished the two words together. The latter nearly touches the following word, Salutem. However, the most peculiar parts of MS 29 are the bishops’ titles. As Delehaye first noted, scribes usually wrote titles once, after all churchmen of the same rank had been named.[53] In contrast, MS 29’s scribe did not list the titles for some ecclesiastics, including William of Adam who had the highest rank of all—archbishop. The other bishops had episcopus listed after each of their names.[54] A scribe in the papal chancery certainly would not have made this mistake. Yet most collective indulgences, although made in Rome or Avignon, were not created by chancery officials. Much like actors starting out in Hollywood, many scribes traveled to the papacy’s capital and waited for an opening in the chancery. Meanwhile, they made a living off of private business, like collective indulgences.[55] The scribes’ inexperience, especially when faced with little-known bishops from exotic lands, often resulted in oddly spelled names and grammatical errors.[56]
A copyist may or may not have been able to fix these errors. What makes us think MS 29 is an original document are these issues in addition to the peculiarity in the indulgence’s historiated initial. Behind St. Blaise, the scribe appears to have started another drawing of a bishop but then covered it with a large red circle. Perhaps the scribe had intended this indulgence for another church but then had to change it. Or the scribe made a mistake in his first drawing of St. Blaise and decided to start over again. Regardless, a copyist would most likely have fixed this error. Only the original document of this indulgence would have the image within the image, improper titles, and spacing issues. Therefore, we think MS 29 is an original document made by at least two scribes—the one who produced the main text and the other who wrote the bishop of Tarentaise’s response.
Provenance
MS 29’s online catalogue entry briefly listed the document’s owners back to 1903.[57] The manuscript’s provenance prior to that time remains largely a mystery, although a short description, written in modern French, on the back of the manuscript indicates that at one time it was kept in a French-speaking archive. New research, however, has revealed further details about the document’s twentieth-century owners. From 1903-1957, MS 29 belonged to St. Andrew on the Hudson, a Jesuit novitiate opened in 1903 in Hyde Park, near Poughkeepsie, NY.[58] In 1957, a little over a decade before the novitiate closed, MS 29 moved to the Mary D. Reiss Library at Loyola Seminary in Shrub Oak, New York.[59]
Though Loyola Seminary closed around 1970, MS 29 was not lost.[60] It moved, along with the rest of the Mary D. Reiss Library’s materials, to a space known as the Loyola Reference Library in the back of the Lowenstein Library at Fordham’s Lincoln Center. Due to the need for more classroom space at Lincoln Center, the ten-year lease for the Loyola Reference Library was not renewed, and MS 29, along with the other materials from Shrub Oak, moved to Murray-Weigel Hall at Rose Hill in late 1980. Theodore Cunnion, S.J., who had been the head librarian of the Mary D. Reiss Library and a librarian for the Loyola Reference Library, helped transfer the documents to Murray-Weigel Hall.[61] However, he never owned them, as past catalogers of Fordham’s Archives have written.[62]
Walsh Library opened in 1997 at Rose Hill, and Murray-Weigel Hall’s librarian Frank Jensen, S.J. recognized that MS 29 and other rare documents would be better stored in its climate-controlled facilities.[63] Consequently, Jensen had MS 29 and the other medieval documents, which had originally belonged to St. Andrew on the Hudson, moved in 1998 to the Archives and Special Collections Department in Walsh Library, where they remain to the present day.[64]
Notes on Transcription and Translation:
We would like to note some of our editorial decisions. Though the document had a good deal of punctuation, we decided to add modern punctuation to aid in translation. Our transcription kept the spelling used in the document, but we wanted to show the variability in the spelling of place names. Thus, our English translation of place names used variant Latin spellings, and the footnotes listed modern and any alternate place names. Information regarding dioceses’ locations and bishops’ reigns came from Conrad Eubel’s Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi.[65] We listed the dates of the many feast days mentioned in the document by consulting the calendar in a beautiful fifteenth-century Italian Book of Hours, also in Fordham’s Archives and Special Collections.[66] Since the calendar followed the Roman system of dating with kalends, nones, and ides, we provided both that date and the modern equivalent. The Roman multi-year calendar on the website “Some Notes on Medieval English Genealogy” was very helpful in checking our dates.[67]
Acknowledgements:
We want to thank several individuals at Fordham Library, namely Director Linda LoSchiavo, Director of the Electronic Information Center Michael Considine, Television Production Manager Matthew Schottenfeld, Head of Reference and Information Services Jane Suda, Reference and Digital Humanities Librarian Tierney Gleason, and Conservation Librarian Vivian Shen, for the use of their Archives and Special Collections as well as their assistance in digitizing this manuscript. We also want to thank Dr. Wolfgang P. Mueller, Dr. Nicholas Paul, and Dr. Richard Gyug for their help in translating and transcribing the document.
[1] Giles Constable, trans., How to Defeat the Saracens: Guillelmus Ade, Tractatus quomodo Sarraceni sunt expugnandi; Text and Translation with Notes (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2012), 96-117.
[2] Charles Kohler, “Introduction to De Modo Sarracenos Extirpandi,” in Recueil des historiens des Croisades, vol. 2: Documents arméniens (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1906), 178; Henri Omont, “Guillaume Adam, Missionnaire,” in Histoire Littéraire de la France, vol. 35, ed. Académie des inscriptions and belles-lettres (Paris: Kraus Reprint, 1921), 277-78; Jean Richard, “European Voyages in the Indian Ocean and Caspian Sea (12th-15th Centuries),” Iran 6 (1968): 48; J. R. S. Phillips The Medieval Expansion of Europe, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 99, 143.
[3] C. Raymond Beazley, The Dawn of Modern Geography, vol. 3: A History of Exploration and Geographical Science from the Middle of the Thirteenth to the Early Years of the Fifteenth Century (c. A.D. 1260-1420) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), 206-7; Phillips The Medieval Expansion of Europe, 88-90. The diocese was named after the new Ikhan capital that replaced Tabriz in 1307. Jean Richard, La papauté et les missions d’Orient au Moyen Âge (XIIIe-XIVe siècles) (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1977), 169-73. The founding of Sultanieh was also part of the rivalry between the Dominicans and Franciscans. The Little Brothers had sent several missionaries, such as John of Montecorvino, John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck, to China and were very influential in the diocese of Khanbalik. The Dominicans essentially wanted to mark the Middle East as their territory for missionary work, and thus maneuvered to have their convents choose the bishops and archbishops in the province of Sultanieh. In effect, the reorganization of Asia’s dioceses divided the continent between friars and preachers.
[4] Kholer, “Introduction,” 178-80, 183, 185-86, 188-89; Omont, “Guillaume Adam,” 278-80.
[5] Marcellino da Civezza, Storia universale delle missioni francescane, vol. 1 (Rome: Tipografia Tiberina, 1857), 65; Richard, La papauté et les missions d’Orient, 180-81 n. 40.
[6] A. C. Moule, Christians in China Before the Year 1550 (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2011), 249 and n. 8; Richard, La papauté et les missions d’Orient, 180-81 n. 40.
[7] Kohler, “Introduction,” 203-4; Charles Kohler, “Quel est l’auteur du Directorium ad passagium faciendum?” Revue de l’Orient Latin 12 (1911): 104-11; Constable, How to Defeat the Saracens, 5-7 and n. 26.
[8] Louis Bréhier, L’église et l’Orient au moyen âge: Les Croisades, 5th ed. (Paris: Lecoffre, 1928), 249; Paul Alphandéry, La Chrétienté et l’idée de croisade, vol. 2: Recommencements nécessaires (XIIe-XIIIe siècles), ed. Alphonse Dupront (Paris: A. Michel, 1959), 241, n. 2; Antony Leopold, How to Recover the Holy Land: The Crusade Proposals of the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 44.
[9] Omont, “Guillaume Adam,” 282-83.
[10] Joseph Delaville Le Roulx, La France en Orient au XIVe siècle: Expéditions du Maréchal Boucicaut, vol. 1 (Paris: E. Thorin, 1886), 70, 75, 94 n. 2.
[11] Constable, How to Defeat the Saracens, 7-8.
[12] James Quétif and James Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. 1 (Paris: Lutetiae, 1719), 537-38, 724.
[13] Kholer, “Introduction,” 203; Thomas Kaeppeli and Roger Aubert, “Guillaume Adam,” in Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques. vol 22, ed. Roger Aubert (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1988), cols. 833-35. http://apps.brepolis.net.avoserv2.library.fordham.edu/DHGE/test/Default2.aspx.
[14] Thomas Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, vol. 2: G-I (Rome: S. Sabinae, 1975); Constable, How to Defeat the Saracens, 2.
[15] Kholer, “Introduction,” 187 and notes 5, 6, and 7. The collective indulgences mentioned by Kohler was for the churches of Holy Savior in Venice and Saint Francis in Recanati as well as the church and hospital of Spello. New York, Fordham Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29, lines 7-8. MS 29 was written for a church of the Blesses Virgen and Saint Blaise in Savoy.
[16] Hippolyte Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” Analecta Bollandiana 44-46 (1926-28): 44.106; R. N. Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England: Passports to Paradise? (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007), 39.
[17] Patrick N. R. Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon in English Collections,” in Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy M. Owen, ed. M. J. Franklin and Christopher Harper-Bill (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995), 283.
[18] New York, Fordham Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29, line 17: “each of us [bishops] mercifully grants 40 days of indulgences from penances;” Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon,” 282; Christopher R. Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences from Avignon,” in The Papacy and England, 12th-14th Centuries: Historical and Legal Studies (London: Variorum Reprints, 1982), 355.
[19] New York, Fordham Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29, line 17-18: “provided that the will of the bishop [of the diocese in question] approves and consents to the indulgence;” Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon,” 283.
[20] Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 40; Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 357.
[21] Martin Roland and Andreas Zajic, “Les chartes médiévales enluminées dans les pays d’Europe centrale,” Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes 169, no. 1 (2011): 162; Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon,” 284.
[22] Alexander Seibold, Sammelindulgenzen: Ablassurkunden des Spätmittelalters und der Frühneuzeit (Köln: Böhlau, 2001), 105.
[23] Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon,” 290-92: “in the lands of the unbelievers”; Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” 45.323, 46.305-6; Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 356, 359-61.
[24] Constable, How to Defeat the Saracens, 66-69, 84-87.
[25] Constable, How to Defeat the Saracens, 90-95.
[26] Constable, How to Defeat the Saracens, 78-87.
[27] Kohler, “Introduction,” 185-86.
[28] Kohler, “Introduction,” 187.
[29] Kohler, “Introduction,” 189. Unfortunately, William’s absence left Antibari in even more dire straits. Ecclesiastical positions remained vacant, and financial privileges, which he was supposed to obtain from the papacy, never made it to the impoverished diocese. Pope John XXII largely ignored petitions to send William back, but Benedict XII dismissed him from Avignon and ordered him to return to Antibari in January 1337, after the bishop made a detour to Narbonne. The next extant record concerning William of Adam was his successor’s letter of appointment to Antibari, dated 1341. William died sometime between 1337 and 1341, but the exact time, or if he made it back to Antibari, remains unknown.
[30] Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon,” 290-92; Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 356, 359-61.
[31] New York, Fordham Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29, lines 2-4.
[32] See the notes for our translation of the indulgence for information about the diocese of Caffa.
[33] Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon,” 283-84; Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 361; Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 41.
[34] Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” 45. 326; Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 42.
[35] P.-F. Fournier, “Affiches d’indulgences manuscrites et imprimées es XIVe, XVe et XVIe siècles,” in Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 84 (1923): 116-60.
[36] Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 363-64, 369: 470 x 662 mm, 835 x 605 mm, 475 x 635 mm; Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences,” 286: 380 x 600 mm and 510 x 715 mm; Morgane Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences délivrées par des groups d’evêques en Avignon au 14e siècle: L’exemple de la charte peinte pour l’église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine à Tournai,” Archives et manuscrits précieux tournaisiens 3 (2009): 527/558 x 722/723 mm.
[37] Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” 46.287; Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences,” 288.
[38] New York, Fordham Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29, line 7-8. MS 29 offers an indulgence for anyone, confessed and penitent, who visits or donates to the capella beate marie virginis et sancti blasii, qui in villa festi tarentasiensis diocesis (chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Blaise, which is in a village of the sacred diocese of Tarentaise).
[39] D. Farmer, “Blaise,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 5th rev. ed., ed. David Hugh Farmer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), http://www.oxfordreference.com.avoserv2.library.fordham.edu/view/10.1093/ acref/9780199596607.001.0001/acref-9780199596607-e-205. The Fourteen Holy Helpers, also known as the Auxiliary Saints, included St. Blaise, St. Acacius, St. Barbara, St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Christopher, St. Cyricus, St. Denis, St. Erasmus, St. Eustace, St. George, St. Giles, St. Margaret of Antioch, St. Pantaleon, and St. Vitus. These saints garnered a reputation for their healing powers. Prior to his martyrdom, Blaise saved a boy from choking on a fish bone, and in return, the boy’s mother brought the bishop food and candles when the emperor imprisoned him. St. Blaise’s cult was strongest in the Rhineland between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, but even today, Catholics will attend mass on his feast day (February 3) to receive a blessing for healing which involves the placement of two candles on their throats.
[40] Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 49.
[41] Roland and Zajic, “Les chartes médiévales enluminées,” illus. 11-21 on pp. 232-36.
[42] Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences,” 288; Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 49; Joachim Bumke, Courtly Culture: Literature and Society in the High Middle Ages, trans. Thomas Dunlap (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 448.
[43] Franck, “MS Item 29,” http://ds.lib.berkeley.edu/MSItem29_3.
[44] Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 46-47.
[45] Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” 46.289-90; Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 358, 366; Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 45-46;
[46] Franck, “MS Item 29,” http://ds.lib.berkeley.edu/MSItem29_3. Indeed, MS 29’s cataloguer thought that it was written by two scribes.
[47] Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 50. Note, a copy does not necessarily mean a forgery. Collective indulgences were often copied for display, so the original could be kept safely in a local archive.
[48] Patrick Arabeyre, “La lactation de Saint Bernard à Châtillon-sur-Seine: Données et problèmes,” in Vies et légendes de Saint Bernard de Clairvaux: Création, Diffusion, Réception (XIIe-XXe siècles); Actes des Rencontres de Dijon, 7-8 juin (1991), ed. Patrick Arabeyre, Jacques Berlioz, Philippe Poirrier (Saint-Nicolas-lès-Cîteaux: Abbaye de Cîteaux, 1993), 179-80, 196 image 2.
[49] Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 48-49; P.-F. Fournier, “Affiches d’indulgences,” 116-60. Belin devised a chart listing several characteristics that could possibly indicate an indulgence was a copy. MS 29 has some but not all of them.
[50] Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences,” 292; Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 47.
[51] Zutshi, “Collective Indulgences,” 289. Zutshi speculated that so many scribes had died during the Black Death that it was difficult to find one who could properly execute the historiated initials.
[52] Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 49-50.
[53] Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” 46.291.
[54] New York, Fordham Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29, lines 2-4.
[55] Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 357-58.
[56] Delehaye, “Les lettres d’indulgence collectives,” 288-89, 291-95; Cheney, “Illuminated Collective Indulgences,” 360, 362; Belin, “Les lettres collectives d’indulgences,” 47.
[57] Morgan Kay Franck, “New York, Fordham University, Walsh Library, Archives and Special Collections, MS Item 29,” Digital Scriptorium, last accessed January 22, 2019, http://ds.lib.berkeley.edu/MSItem29_3.
[58] Franck, “MS Item 29,” http://ds.lib.berkeley.edu/MSItem29_3; Arthur C. Bender, “A Brief History of the New York Province,” Society of Jesus, last accessed January 22, 2019, pp. 18-19, http://www.jesuitseast.org/Assets/ Publications/File/Province%20History%20with%20Cover.pdf.
[59] Jeff Levine, “Renowned Jesuit Philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Who Died 60 Years Ago, Is Buried at the CIA,” The Culinary Institute of America, posted April 9, 2015, https://www.ciachef.edu/pierre-teilhard-de-chardin-release/. The novitiate closed in 1968, and most of the property was sold to the Culinary Institute of America, which moved its campus from New Haven, CT to Hyde Park in 1970.
[60] Bender, “A Brief History of the New York Province,” 64.
[61] Cathy Maroney, “LC Library Move Slated,” The Ram, October 16, 1980, http://digital.library.fordham. edu/digital/collection/RAM/id/15037/.
[62] Franck, “MS Item 29,” http://ds.lib.berkeley.edu/MSItem29_3.
[63] Thomas J. Shelley, Fordham: A History of the Jesuit University of New York, 1841-2003 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), 243.
[64] The label on the box which contains MS 29 states that the documents were given “from Bro Jensen.” Other documents in the box, which we believe came from Shrub Oak, are MS 4, MS 22, MS 26, MS 27, and MS 29. MS 22 and 29 were definitely part of the same collection in the past, since MS 22 has the number 9 written on the back and MS 29 has 10. William P. Stoneman, “Fordham University Library’s MS 3: Private Collectors, Public Libraries, and Linked Data,” (lecture, Fordham University, New York, NY, February 11, 2019). Stoneman has convincingly argued that MS 3 also belongs to the same collection, but has not yet found any documentation to definitively prove the link. For more information about Jensen’s career, see his obituary, “Brother Frank Jensen, S.J.,” Catholic New York, July 26, 2012, https://www.cny.org/stories/brother-frank-jensen-sj,7862. Coincidentally, Jensen served as assistant prefect for the library at St. Andrew on Hudson (1957-1960 and 1963-1966) as well as assistant librarian at Loyola Seminary in Shrub Oak (1966-70). He undoubtedly helped move MS 29 to not only Walsh but also to Loyola and Lincoln Center.
[65] Conradum Eubel et al., Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi: Sive Summorum Pontificum, S.R.E. Cardinalium Ecclesiarum Antistitum, 9 vols. (Monasterii: Sumptibus et typis librariae Regensbergianae, 1913-2001), 1:543. Hereafter, all Eubel’s work will be abbreviated HCMA. All footnotes refer to the first volume, which covers the church hierarchy from 1198-1431.
[66] New York, Fordham University, MS 03, 1r-16v, http://digital.library.fordham.edu/digital/collection/ p17265coll5/id/744/rec/3.
[67] Chris Phillips, “Some Notes on Medieval English Genealogy,” last updated August 30, 2018, http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/cal/medcal.shtml.
References
[1] Giles Constable, trans., How to Defeat the Saracens: Guillelmus Ade, Tractatus quomodo Sarraceni sunt expugnandi; Text and Translation with Notes (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2012), 96-117.
[2] Charles Kohler, “Introduction to De Modo Sarracenos Extirpandi,” in Recueil des historiens des Croisades, vol. 2: Documents arméniens (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1906), 178; Henri Omont, “Guillaume Adam, Missionnaire,” in Histoire Littéraire de la France, vol. 35, ed. Académie des inscriptions and belles-lettres (Paris: Kraus Reprint, 1921), 277-78; Jean Richard, “European Voyages in the Indian Ocean and Caspian Sea (12th-15th Centuries),” Iran 6 (1968): 48; J. R. S. Phillips The Medieval Expansion of Europe, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 99, 143
[3] C. Raymond Beazley, The Dawn of Modern Geography, vol. 3: A History of Exploration and Geographical Science from the Middle of the Thirteenth to the Early Years of the Fifteenth Century (c. A.D. 1260-1420) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), 206-7; Phillips The Medieval Expansion of Europe, 88-90. The diocese was named after the new Ikhan capital that replaced Tabriz in 1307. Jean Richard, La papauté et les missions d’Orient au Moyen Âge (XIIIe-XIVe siècles) (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1977), 169-73. The founding of Sultanieh was also part of the rivalry between the Dominicans and Franciscans. The Little Brothers had sent several missionaries, such as John of Montecorvino, John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck, to China and were very influential in the diocese of Khanbalik. The Dominicans essentially wanted to mark the Middle East as their territory for missionary work, and thus maneuvered to have their convents choose the bishops and archbishops in the province of Sultanieh. In effect, the reorganization of Asia’s dioceses divided the continent between friars and preachers.