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The Seven Deadly Sins: Some Problems of Research Author(s): Siegfried Wenzel Reviewed work(s): Source: Speculum, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Jan., 1968), pp. 1-22 Published by: Medieval Academy of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2854796 . Accessed: 21/03/2012 05:32
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SPECU A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES

Vol. XT,TTT JANUARY 1968 No. 1

'HE SEVEN DEADLY SINS: SOME PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH*

BYSIEGFRIED WENZEL

Bloomfield's study of the Seven Deadly Sins' undoubtedly holds the PROFESSOR position of authority on its subject. It proposes an explanation of the origins of the scheme and then follows its history from Greek and Latin patristic writers through the Middle Ages to Spenser, analyzing a large number of works and giving a full account of the scheme in Middle English literature. The book is a monument to vast learning and surprises its reader again and again, not only by the breadth of its coverage, but also by its attention to seemingly marginal matters, such as the topos of the castle of man's body or certain socio-historical implications of a given work, which often are stuck away in a footnote. Yet Bloomfield avowedly considered his book only an "introduction," a first attempt at a full history of the concept, which would hopefully lead to further investigations of this topic. At a time when mediaeval studies here and abroad entered a phase of unprecedented bloom, when hitherto hardly known texts were being edited in increasing numbers, when the work of such men as De Ghellinck, Chenu, Landgraf, Jean Leclercq, and many others became more widely known and began to bear fruit, it was indeed justified to think that the impetus given to the exploration of the Seven Deadly Sins would soon produce further results. The more astonishing is it to observe that since 1952 virtually no major study on the seven chief vices and closely related subjects has appeared. Whether this can be attributed to a disinclination to become interested in the Sins2 or to the feeling of dismay a would-be investigator may well experience in front of the deep and widely ranging
* I wish to express my gratitude to The Cooperative Program in the Humanities, of the University of North Carolina and Duke University, for a summer grant which has enabled me to write this paper; and to the American Council of Learned Societies for a Fellowship, with the help of which some of the material here used was collected. I am also grateful to Professor Bloomfield for various pieces of information and suggestions included here. 1 M. W. Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins. An Introduction to the History of a Religious Concept, with Special Referenceto MedievalEnglish Literature(East Lansing, Mich., 1952). 2 There is little evidence, however, that interest in the Seven Deadly Sins has waned among preachers and literati. Since 1952 at least seven non-scholarly books on the Sins have been published in the U. S. 1

The Seven Deadly Sins

scholarship of Bloomfield's book-the subject still demands further work. In the following pages, I should like to point out a number of aspects or areas which my own study of acedia has convinced me must and can be fruitfully explored. The account does not aim at comprehensiveness; certainly, other students of mediaeval thought and literature will be able to point out other desiderata. If it merely revives some interest in its subject, it will have fulfilled its purpose.
* * *

Perhaps least promising for new information on the history of the Deadly Sins is the study of their origins. Bloomfield dealt at length with the hypothesis that "the seven cardinal sins are the remnant of some Gnostic Soul Journey which existed probably in Egypt or Syria in the early Christian centuries" (p. 12), and sketched the pertinent background of various, admittedly broad and vague, beliefs and religious systems. In doing so, he had decided on the Soul Journey as the source of the concept, rather than the derivation from Stoic patterns of vices, which had been the rival theory before his book. Actually, a third position had been taken, which proposed to derive the eight chief vices from biblical texts and Alexandrian commentary, without denying possible influences from Gnosticism or Stoicism.3 Wherever the remote origins of the Sins may lie (and so far no new light has been shed on the problem), the fact remains that the earliest-known texts which speak of a series of vices (and which provide the exact ancestor to the Seven Deadly Sins) come from Evagrius Ponticus. The corpus of writings by this brilliant preacher who had withdrawn from Constantinople to the deserts southeast of Alexandria has only recently been established, after several textual studies especially by Muyldermans, Hausherr, and Guillaumont.4 Although the attribution of some relevant treatises to either Evagrius or Nilus is still undecided, the fact that Evagrius is "the father of the seven cardinal sins" (Bloomfield, p. 57) stands out with great certainty, since the "eight evil thoughts" can be found in other Evagrian works besides the two mentioned by Bloomfield.6 The real problem now seems to be where Evagrius got the scheme. Since nearly contemporary witnesses give no decisive information or are silent, the answer must be sought in a probing and comprehensive analysis of Evagrius' own writings and in his background. There is as yet no modern attempt to draw together the various pieces of information gained by studying the bewildering manuscript
8 I. Hausherr, "De doctrina spirituali Christianorum orientalium quaestiones et scripta. 3. L'origine de la th6orie orientale des huit p6ch6s capitaux," Orientalia Christiana, xxx (1933), 164-173. A. V6gtle, "Woher stammt das Schema der Hauptsiinden?" Theol. Quartalschrift,cxxII (1941), 217-237; summarized in "Achtlasterlehre," Reallexikonfir Antike und Christentum,I (Stuttgart, 1950), 75-76. 4 See the convenient article by Antoine and Claire Guillaumont, "'ivagre le Pontique," Diet. de Spiritualit6 ascetiqueet mystique,iv (Paris, 1961), 1731-44, with a good bibliography. 6 To Bloomfield's discussion of Evagrius should be added: (a) The Antirrheticus, extant only in Syriac. A collection of scriptural verses against each of the eight "evil thoughts." Edited with a modern Greek translation by W. Frankenberg, Abh. d. kgl. Ges. d. Wiss. zu Gottingen,philol.-hist. Kl., neue Folge, xmI.2 (Berlin, 1912), 472-545. (b) De octo spiritibus malitiae (PG LXXIX,1145-64), discussed by Bloomfield under Nilus (p. 60), is considered by Guillaumont as very probably by Evagrius.

The Seven Deadly Sins

tradition and the confused relations between Evagrius and Origen. But mostly, I think, a careful analysis of Evagrius' language and style would be desirable, from his use of a technical vocabulary with its Origenistic and perhaps Stoic elements to his adaptation of biblical phraseology. Apart from focussing on Evagrius himself, one should also study his immediate teachers, especially Macarius of Egypt, though here again the subject bristles with problems of attribution and manuscript tradition. Bloomfield suggested that "Evagrius' source is to be found in the Syriac works of St Ephraem the Syrian" (p. 60; p. 341, note 12; and p. 349, note 128), a suggestion based on a remark by Stelzenberger.6 Indeed, the texts collected and edited by Assemani (Rome, 1732-43) contain several references to, and lists of, the "eight evil thoughts"; but the authenticity of these texts is open to grave doubt,7 and any exploration of Ephraem in this respect depends on establishing the canon of his genuine writings.
* * *

We are in a much better position to advance our knowledge in dealing with the Latin Middle Ages. A major aspect of the history of the Seven Deadly Sins which has as yet not received sufficient attention is the scholastic analysis of the scheme. Bloomfield deliberately excluded "theology" from his study, which is a pity because the theological discussion about the scheme from approximately 1130 to 1275 is one of the most interesting phases in the history of the Sins. In that period all major Schoolmen had to come to terms with the question why there were seven, and why these particular chief vices. In answer they would develop a rationale (or sufficientia, as the technical term seems to have been),8 justifying the number and members of the series in more or less logical terms. These rationales reveal the characteristic demand made on scholastic theologians to give a rational justification for an element of traditional teaching and to incorporate this element into a larger, equally rational system. As one would expect, these tasks led to a number of different attempts which are rather interesting to watch in their historical development, and which can teach us much about the history of Scholasticism, its schools, even its nature. Moreover, there is a clear connection between such rationales and imaginative literature. In the following, I shall offer some notes for a fuller study of the history of these rationales.
6 J. Stelzenberger, Die BeziehungenderfriihchristlichenSittenlehrezur Ethik der Stoa (Munich, 1983), p. 898. 7 See A. Baumstark, Geschichte syrischen Literatur (Bonn, 1922), pp. 86 and 45. der 8 Bonaventure, In II Sent., d. 42, dub. iii (ed. Quaracchi, II, 978); Jean de la Rochelle, Summa de vitiis (MS Bodl. Laud. misc. 221, fol. lr); John of Wales, Summa justitiae (Brit. Mus. MS Harley 632, fol. 177v); Hugh Ripelin of Strassburg, Compendiumtheologicaeveritatis,II, 16 (in Albertus Magnus, Operaomnia, ed. Borgnet [Paris, 1895], xxxiv, 104), repeated by Jean Rigaud, Compendiumpauperis (ed. Paris, 1501, no. VIII.G), Ranulph Higden, Speculum curatorum,xix (MS Balliol 77, fol. 24r), and Jean Gerson, Compendium(Opera,ed. E. Dupin [Antwerp, 1706], II, 824). Suciffientia is also used for a similar rationale of other series by Simon de Hinton, Speculum iuniorum (Brit. Mus. MS Royal 9.A. xiv, fol. 138v); Jean de la Rochelle, Tractatus de divisione multiplici potentiarum animae (ed. P. Michaud-Quantin [Paris, 1964], pp. 149, 150, 188, 199); and by St Edmund Rich in Merure de Seinte Eglise (ed. H. W. Robbins, Lewisburg, 1925), chs. 10-19 ("sufficience").

The Seven Deadly Sins

Surveying the different rationales proposed by theologians like Hugh of St Victor, Jean de la Rochelle, Grosseteste, Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas one can distinguish at least three major "models": the concatenation, the psychological rationale, and (for lack of a better name) the cosmological or "symbolic" rationale. These three models do of course not give a full account of the variety of explanations offered by scholastic thinkers, but they will serve as a first approach. The concatenation develops the idea that all seven (or, originally, eight) chief vices are linked among themselves in a certain fashion and order. This idea already existed when the series of chief vices appeared in Latin literature. John Cassian, whose Instituta and Collationes introduced the teachings of the desert fathers to the West, states that six vices (gluttony, lechery, greed, wrath, sadness, and acedia) "are linked among themselves by a certain kinship and, so to speak, concatenation" (Coll. v, 10). This relationship he understands to be such that out of the abundance of the first vice springs the second, and so on. In other words, once a man is fully given to gluttony, he will fall prey to lechery, and then eventually pass on to greed and the following vices. Consequently, the monk who has withdrawn from the world in order to combat his vices and cultivate the virtues more earnestly will have to overcome the vices in precisely this order: first gluttony, then lechery, and so forth. Besides these six, the remaining two vices (vainglory and pride) are also connected in similar fashion, but they are not related to the other six. One does not become vainglorious when one is filled with acedia; on the contrary, vainglory and pride rise when one has overcome any or all of the six other vices.9 When Gregory the Great established a slightly different series of seven principalia vitia, he followed a similar idea of concatenating them. "Each of these vices is linked to the others by such kinship that one is brought forth (proferatur) from the other." The vainglorious mind languishes in envy of another man who could achieve equal honor and glory. Envy, however, produces an inner sore through which the mind loses it tranquillity and becomes angry. And so it progresses through anger, sadness, and greed to gluttony and lechery. The psychological connections between these vices are all-except for that between greed and gluttony-briefly but fittingly pointed out.10 Gregory's concatenation became commonplace among mediaeval theologians.1' It was still very much in currency in the twelfth century when Hugh of St Victor took it up, expanded it,12 and expressed the continuous downward progression of man's soul via the chief vices by
9 Coll. V, 10 (PL XLIX,621 f.; or ed. M. Petschenig, CSEL, xmII, pp. 129 ff). 10Moralia in Job, xxxi, 45, 89 (PL, LXXVI, f.). 621 11R. Wasselynck has recently studied the influence of Gregory's Moralia in Job in his dissertation (Lille, 1956) and two articles published in RTAM, xxix (1962), 5-32, and xxxi (1964), 5-81. Especially the latter article is largely concerned with the Gregorian series of capital vices in moral treatises to the ninth century, although it throws little new light on the history of the Sins. 12 Expositio in Abdiam (PL CLXXV, 401 f.). The authorship of this work is disputed, but the section referred to seems by Hugh. Apparently, the concatenation of the vices attracted Hugh's interest very much, for there are other series in his De area morali, III, 10 (PL 176:656 f.) and in Miscellanea, i, 178 (PL 177:569 f.).

The Seven Deadly Sins

means of various images,13which recur in works throughout the following century.14 Yet the concatenation did not enjoy much favor with the great Schoolmen. Linking the vices in such linear progression gave way to placing them in a network of logical relationships-a development which reminds one of the similar change in the treatment of faith and morals from the order of Heilsgeschichte(viz., the Creed) to an order based on logical principles derived from Aristotle.15The result of this shift was the second model, the psychological rationale. Its basis is the notion that "vice" means a corruption of the soul, and in order to arrive at seven chief vices one simply needed to find a logically satisfying division of "soul" or of something connected with the soul. This the Schoolmen set out to do with gusto. Yet the procedure was not a new one. Cassian had distributed a large number of vices among the three Platonic parts of the soul,16and in the eighth century Alcuin had given the following relation, in which the capital vices are considered as springing from the three parts if these are corrupted: fornicatio,philargyria; concupiscentia-gastrimargia, ira -tristitia, acedia; ratio -superbia, cenodoxia.17 This simple model appears in later works, even in vernacular treatises,18but since the vices belonging to each part of the soul are not distinguished except by name, further refinement and subdivision was called for. Such an attempt appears, for example, in Jean de la Rochelle's Summa de vitiis, where the three parts are further divided according to their function, so that each vice is the impediment of the right function of a particular activity in one of the three parts.19 In place of the Platonic three parts one can also find three or even all five of Aristotle's faculties of the soul. Alexander of Hales, for example, mentions a scheme in which the vices result from misdirection of three vires animae. For further subdivision Alexander adopts a second principle, that of the objects of the
13 Specifically: (a) The despoilingof man, in Summade sacramentisfidei, ii, xiii, 1 (PL 176:525), 2 De septenis, (PL cLxxv, 405 ff.); (b) the mindas a vesselwhich Exp.in Abd.(PL 175:402), quinque in loc. is spoiledand destroyed, Summa, cit. (525-526),Exp. in Abd.(402-403). 14 For example:A marginalnote in RichardWethershed's Summabrevis(Brit. Mus. MS Royal in 4.B.viii, fol. 228r;thirteenthc.); Jacquesde Vitry, Sermones Epist. et Ev. dom. (Antwerp,1575), justitiae,ii, 1 (Brit. Mus. MS Harley682, fol. 177v). The simpleidea p. 196;John of Wales,Summa the that one chiefvice givesrise to anothercan, of course,be foundin popularliteraturethroughout Tale. Parson's du and suchworksas the Mireour monde Chaucer's middleages,including moitiedu XIIJ 15 See, for example,H. Cloes,"Lasystematisation theologique pendantla premiere a de xxxiv (1958),277-329;orM.-D. Chenu,Introductionl'etude saint Thomas Lov., siecle,"Eph.theol. d'Aquin(Montreal,1950),p. 258. 16Coll.XXIV, 15 (PL XLIX, of 1806f.; Petschenig,p. 691). Cf. Gregory Nyssa, Epistolacanonica

17De animae 4 ratione, (PL ci, 640 f.). 18 In Aelfric's sermonon the Nativity; see Bloomfield, 112and note 52. p. 19MS Bodl. Laud.misc. 221, fol. 32v-33r. Also in Alexander Hales, Summatheologica, of II-II, q. 498 (ed. Quaracchi, 484). III,

(PG XLV, 223).

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will (bona), which we shall encounter again later. Thus the following scheme
emerges :20

Its object: Faculty of the soul: Vegetabilisfnutritiva ) inferius [generativa f = Sensibilis motiva exterius Rationalis interius,with respectto

Its misdirection resultsin: gula luxuria in prosperis [concupiscentia] in adversis [ira]

God

one'sneighbor invidia oneself acedia

superbia

This model, incidentally, is rejected by Alexander, as is also a second one identical with Jean de la Rochelle's. The model which Alexander finally adopts will be discussed below. A somewhat different conception from the models seen so far underlies the psychological rationales of the second half of the thirteenth century. Here the idea that vices are corruptions of the soul gives way to the more restricted notion that they are misdirections of our will. The principle occurs in Albertus Magnus (the vices are distinguished "in reference to the general principles which move the appetite"), where it, however, is not worked out in detail.21But Hugh Ripelin of Strassburg, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas all applied it in one form or another. Hugh Ripelin, in his very influential Compendiumtheologicaeveritatis, for example, begins with the principle "voluntas nostra deordinatur" and then divides the action of our will into its two chief movements: attraction (to good) and flight (from evil). The further division can best be seen in schematic form as
follows :22

Voluntasnostradeordinata: interius appetit non appetendum[bonum] exterius -vana gloria -avaritia -gula = [inferius delectabile - luxuria

rationalis -invidia secundumperversum irascibilis -ira ,refugitnon refugiendum, instinctum concupiscibilis -acedia One notices that besides various kinds of bona the three parts of the soul re-appear here as well, making this model a conglomeration of all the important principles adopted for dividing up the seven vices among functions of the soul. This model was also used by Bonaventure, in his Breviloquium,23 and was copied by later theologians and authors of pastoral handbooks.24
20 Loc. cit. p. 484.

21In II Sent.,d. 42, art. 6, ad 2 (ed. Borgnet,xxvii, 663).

104-105). (ed. 238). Breviloquium, 24It occurs,for example,in the contaminated version of Simon de Hinton's Summatheologica whichis printedamongthe-worksof Gerson(ed. cit., I, 824 f.), and in a marginal note to Ranulph curatorum MS Balliol 77, fol. 24r (late fourteenthc.), whereit is attributedto in Higden'sSpeculum "Thomasde veritatibus."

22 Compend. theol.verit.,III, 16 (ed. cit., xxxIv, 23 III, 9 cit., v,

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It is probably not too far-fetched to think that truly first-rate scholastic minds rejected such a conglomeration as unsatisfactory, for in the mature works of men like Bonaventure and Thomas one finds a certain amount of rational streamlining. The former's Commentaryon the Sentences is quite instructive. Bonaventure discusses three models, all based on the definition, "mortal sin [!] is a corruption or an inclination (pronitas) with respect to what nature inclines to because of its original corruption."25 the first model, this pronitas of the will (with its two In is further divided according to the will's object. In the second model, movements) it is divided according to the vires animae. Both models are rejected, and Bonaventure then proposes a third one in which "pronitas ad aliquod apparens bonum" is specified, first, by distinguishing between bonumof the spirit itself and bonum of the spirit in so far as it lives in the flesh; and second, by further considering various aspects (condicionesboni) of each, to which the seven vices correspond. In different fashion, Thomas Aquinas bases his model (in Prima secunon dae26) the way in which bona move the will. But he rejects the two movements of the will, attraction and flight (which he says are bothproper to each vice), and instead introduces two modes, direct and indirect, in which objects move the will. The further subdivision rests on the kinds of objects. One must point out that in Thomas' works there is some indecision about the rationale of the vices-not only among various treatises in which he discusses the subject,27but also within the respective article in Prima secundae itself.28It is as though Thomas did not care too much about nailing down the suficientia vitiorum to one model-an aspect which we shall exploit later. Before turning to the third major model, the cosmological, we might glance at some rationales which apparently do not follow the main stream of scholastic discussion but are close to the psychological models. First, some thinkers based their rationale on specific biblical utterances and derived the seven vices from there. Alexander of Hales, for example, in the rationale he finally adopted (see above) seemingly relies on I Thess. v 23 when he begins, "Man is, as it were, divided into three parts: spirit, soul, and body. Hence every act, by itself and in principle, occurs either in the spirit, or in the soul, or in the body."29The further distinction proceeds by the various goods proper to spiritus, animus, and corpus. Another biblical triad, that of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and pride of life (I John II 16), underlies the elaborate rationale appearing in Speculum conscientiae (or, animae), a work wrongly attributed to Bonaventure.30 Other theologians built their rationale on principles found in Augustine. The best case is that of William Peraldus, who has all vices spring from amor inorII Sent., d. 42, dub. iii (ed. cit., II, 978). Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 84, a. 4. 27 Besides the cited passage of Summa theologiae,also in In II Sent., d. 42, q. 2, a. 3; and De malo, q. 8, a. 1. 28 In I-II, q. 84, a. 4, resp., Thomas gives two different rationales for the first four of the seven vices. 29 Summa theol., II-II, q. 498 (ed. cit., III, 486-487). The same principle is used by Albertus Magnus, De Eucharistia, dist. III, tract. I, cap. i. par. 1 (ed. cit., xxxvIII, 248). 30 Ed. in Bonaventure's 623-645; see esp. 640 ff. Opera,vmII,
2f 25 In

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dinatus and then specifies them by distinguishing between love of good and love of evil, and various forms of love (too much, too little, etc., with further subdivision).3"I know of no other appearance of this interesting rationale except in Dante's Purgatorio.32 somewhat similar scheme based on inordinate love was A developed by Jean de la Rochelle,33while the possibility of deriving all vices (not only the seven capital ones) from amor and timor (or ultimately amor) was of course usually mentioned by the Schoolmen among the various possibilities for dividing up "vices" in general. The third major model, which I have called "cosmological" or "symbolic," develops the idea that "man is a septenary," that is, a composite of the three powers of the soul and the four elements of the body. Hence, deformitas of the three vires animae leads to pride, envy, and wrath, while the remaining vices are said to rise "according to" (juxta) the properties of single elements. to According [thenatureof] earth,whichis the lowest element, springsacediaand greed. who Acedia,becauseGreekmelanis terraor nigrumin Latin [!], whencethe malencolici, are very muchtroubledby acedia. [Thenfollowsa statementthat actuallyacediabelongs to both body and soul.] ... Greed [arisesaccording the natureof the earth] because to like the earth it is cold and dry; therefore,old men, in whomheat and humidityare lackto ing,areexceedingly greedy.... According the natureof fire,however,whichis the highest elementand is hot and dry, risesgluttony.... And according the nature of water to andair,whichareintermediate elements,riseslechery.34 I have found this peculiar rationale in treatises attributed to William Peraldus35 and to Grosseteste36and in the Liber de exemplis naturalibus by Servasanctus.37 One would like to know more about the curious connection of vices with elements and whether this connection is merely a figure of speech, or symbolic, or indeed causal, medico-pathological. Evidence for the latter would derive from the statement that "acedia is caused by the melancholy complexion of the flesh," found in some of these treatises.38On the other hand, the underlying conception that man
31

does appearin thirteenth-century manuscripts. 2 Cf. S. Wenzel,"Dante'sRationalefor the Seven XVII)," MLR, LX Deadly Sins (Purgatorio, Notice that this schemealso appearsin the (1965), 529-533, wherePeraldus'stext is reproduced. on commentary the DivineComedy Dante's son, PietroAlighieri. by
83See above, note 19.

Summa de vitiis, tract. VI (de superbia), pars i (ed. Antwerp, 1587, fol. 100-101). The rationale

34"luxta terramautem que est elementuminfimumnascituraccidia et avaritia. Accidia quia melangreceterra nigrum vel latine.Undemelancolici magissunt accidiosi.... Avaritiaquiasicut qui terra frigida est et sicca, sic avaritia. Unde senes in quibus deficit calor et humor maxime sunt avari.... Iuxta autem naturamignis qui est elementumsuppremum est caliduset siccus qui oriturgula.... Iuxta autem naturamaque et aeris que sunt elementaintermedia oriturluxuria." The treatise"Quoniam ait sapiens,"Brit. Mus. MS Harley3823,fol. 65v. ut
36See previous note.

Brit. Mus. MS Royal 8.A.x, fol. 56v. On the attribu36"Primovidendumest quid sit peccatum," tion of this work (?) to Grosseteste, S. H. Thomson,TheWritings Robert see Grosseteste, of Bishopof Lincoln, 1235-1253 (Cambridge, Engl., 1940), p. 268. It is ascribedto "GulielmusParisiensis" of WilliamPeraldus?) MS CorpusChristi,Oxford, in (William Auvergne? 231, fol. 38. 7 III, 21. MS Bodl. 332, fol. 230r. 88Thus in Servasanctus, loc. cit.

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is a septenary has a very strong flavor of the ontological symbolism so characteristic of the Middle Ages. This conception occurs in works by Augustine and Gregory, who both mentioned it in texts dealing with man's sinfulness.39Some penitentials of the thirteenth century (and perhaps earlier ones) used the same idea to justify penances of seven years' duration: "It is customary to say that for a mortal sin a penance of seven years must be imposed because man consists of body and soul. For man consists of four elements and his soul has three powers."40 Bernard of Clairvaux went further and specified the corruptions of all seven parts of man.4' It is, finally, the very interesting treatise on confession by Robert Grosseteste, "Deus est quo nihil melius cogitari potest,"42which may have been the bridge between the notion that man is a septenary and the identification of the seven parts with the Seven Deadly Sins which we observed above. After a brief introduction which stresses the need of confessing one's sins, Grosseteste states that the priest hearing shrift must diligently inquire about all possible sins of his penitent. This leads Grosseteste to a lengthy enumeration of the questions a confessor must ask, an enumeration essentially following the order of the seven virtues (i.e., three theological and four cardinal), wherein much space is given to other catechetical material in the appropriate places, such as, the articles of faith (under faith), the seven sacraments (articles of faith nos. 6-12), the seven chief vices (under charity, see below), and so on. Of special interest for us is the beginning of this enumeration, which we would expect to explain why Grosseteste adopts the order of the virtues for his treatise on confession. Grosseteste begins: to our According the saints, by transgressing first parentsstainedwith sin the entire human nature;they pollutedthe whole soul and the whole body. The soul is a unity which can be logicallyseparatedinto its parts, viz., the vegetative, the sensitive, and the rational. The human body is an integralunity [a compound?]whose parts are the four elementalproperties. to According these parts humannaturehas been corrupted.43 Grosseteste explains that in the Fall Eve corrupted the rational, sensitive, and vegetative parts by vices opposite to faith, hope, and charity, while Adam "brought injury to the whole bodily substance" by falling into injustice, weak39 Augustine, Sermo LI (PL xxxviII, 353 f.); Gregory, In VII psalmos poenit., prooem. in primum (PL LXXIX, 551). 40 Thomas of Chabham, Poenitentiale (written between 1213 and 1230; Brit. Mus. MS Royal 8.F.xiii, fol. 38r). Similarly in "Quedam summa magistri scerle de penitencia" (Inc. "Qui vult confiteri peccata ut inveniat graciam, querat sacerdotem"), MS Bodl. Laud. misc. 112, fol. 400r. I am not sure whether this is the same work as that listed by Glorieux, Repertoire,I, 341. 41 Sermo LXXIV de diversis (PL 183:695). Only the corruptions of the soul are chief vices (pride, vainglory, and envy), while the corruptiones of the body are curiositas, loquacitas, crudelitas, and voluptas,linked not only to the elements but also to corresponding parts of the body. 42For manuscripts, see S. H. Thomson, The Writings, p. 176, and M. W. Bloomfield, "Preliminary List," No. 272. My texts are taken from Brit. Mus. MS Royal 7.F.ii. 43"Primi ergo parentes nostri totam naturam humanam transgrediendo, ut dicunt sancti, peccato polluerunt, totam animam et totum corpus maculis infecerunt. Anima quidem totum ponibile est ad partes suas, que sunt: vegetabile, sensibile, rationale. Corpus quidem humanum totum integrale est cuius partes sunt qualitates quatuor elementares. Ergo secundum has partes corrupta remansit humana natura" (fol. 85v).

10

The Seven Deadly Sins

ness, imprudence, and immoderation (i.e., the opposites of the four cardinal virtues). Hence, Grosseteste concludes; to these seven vices that corrupthumannature are opposedthe seven virtues,to whichit behoovesus to cling if we want to cast off the old Adamand put on the new one [Eph.iv 2.24]. This idea is then briefly developed, and it is in this section that Grosseteste relates the four cardinal virtues to the four elements. The relation seems basically to be one of rhetorical comparison (e.g., "Moderation, which mortifies every illicit desire, is compared to coldness, which is proper to water"), yet physical causation by humors appears as well, as the passage on justice shows: and Justiceis of the natureof air. For air is very fluidand very communicable, thus gives of to eachwhat is his, that is, in so far as it pertainsto the conservation his being.Henceby is choler caused subtilitas,andbyblood, generosity. The fascinating problem of the connection between virtues and vices on one hand and physiology on the other is an area that needs much further study. I am convinced that research in the intellectual background of Grosseteste's work, as would be well as in the similar thought of William of Auvergne or John of Wales,44 very rewarding and would incidentally help to clear up the still unanswered question about the origin of the "amazing re-welding of Sins and planets" Bloomfield noticed in the thirteenth century (p. 234). I would not be astonished if through these works the connection of vices and planets that occurs, for example, in Templumdomini (attributed to Grosseteste) could be put on surer grounds than a vague survival of the Gnostic Soul Journey.
* * *

Looking back upon the three major models of a rationale for the vices, we notice that although only one model has been labeled "psychological," actually all three represent attempts to explain the seven vices on some psychological basis, to link the "head-sins" to human psychology, whether by analyzing the meaning of "corruption of the soul" or by integrating them into the mechanism of volition. But one cannot talk about scholastic psychology without paying close attention to the discussion of the virtues,45and any examination of scholastic rationales for the Seven Deadly Sins must be aware of concurrent analyses of the virtues as well. As a matter of fact, the Schoolmen very often entertained the possibility of establishing a logical basis for the vice scheme by means of opposing them (in one way or another) to the "classical" scheme of virtues, and many theologians actually contented themselves with explaining the capital vices in just such a way.46
of on information the influence Arabicmedicallore on men 44A surveywith rich bibliographical is Die der like Williamof Auvergneor Grosseteste given by H. Schipperges, Assimilation arabischen "Sudhoffs das durch lateinische Archiv,Beihefte,"in (Wiesbaden, Medizin Mittelalter, 1964). iv, 46Notice that as earlyas Plato the partsof the soul werelinkedto basicvirtues:Republic, 439442. 4 In the twelfthcenturythe capitalvices weresometimes derivedfrom,or at least relatedto, the from Cicero,Macrobius,Seneca, four cardinalvirtues,the latter being definedin terms borrowed morale authors.See, for example,the Florilegium OxoniApuleius'De Platone,and other"classical"

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Again, Grosseteste furnishes a good example, and we must return once more to his treatise to see how he eventually arrives at the chief vices. In discussing the third theological virtue, caritas, Grosseteste distinguishes between love of God and love of one's neighbor (fol. 88v). Then he asks how God should be loved, and in answer refers to Matt. xxII 37: "with all thy soul, and with all thy heart, and with all thy mind." These three terms (anima, cor, mens), he continues, stand for the sum total of our soul, that is, for the vires vegetabiles, sensibiles, and rationales, of which he gives a longer subdivision. Now, the right use of these faculties constitutes virtuous action, and Grosseteste establishes a list of seven virtutes47 which thus correspond to selected powers of the soul (89r). A little further on, he adds that "to these seven virtues are opposed seven vices" (ibid.), and lists actually fourteen, because of the Aristotelian principle that each "virtue" is the mean between two "vices." As the following table implies, all seven capital vices are meant to represent the lack (diminutio) of their respective virtue. vis animae: virtus: vitia: = "mens" anima humiliatio apprehensiva superbia hypocrisis rationalis passiva exultatio invidia pusillanimitas "cor"= anima irascibilis patientia ira negligentia sensibilis concupiscibilis largitas cupiditas prodigalitas motiva accidia curiositas occupatio "anima"= attractiva abstinentia gula evacuatio animavegetabilis continentia luxuria insensibilitas expulsiva This system is not absolutely foolproof, as the vices opposed to exultatio show.48
ense, Part One (ed. Ph. Delhaye, "Analecta mediaevalia Namurcensia," v [Louvain, 1955], 90-99); the Ysagoge in theologiam (ed. A. Landgraf, Ecrits th6ologiques de l'Ecole d'Abelard, "Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense," xiv [Louvain, 1934], 104-106); and possibly the Aphorismata philosophica by William of Doncaster (cf. M. Grabmann in Liberfloridus .. . Paul Lehmann zum 65. Geburtstag. . . gewidmet [St Ottilien, 1950], pp. 303-318. Although the famous Moralium dogma philosophorumdoes not discuss the seven vices, later revisions and expansions of this work apparently do; see H. Lio, "De abbreviatione litterali operis Moralium dogma philosophorum, quae in cod. Oxoniensi Bodl. Hatton 102 conservatur," AFH, XLIII (1950), 45-55. These earlier, "humanistic" attempts to explain the vices on the basis of the four cardinal virtues (instead of the Aristotelian virtues or faculties, as exemplified by Grosseteste in the following discussion) require further study in connection with the rationale of the chief vices and with the emergence of medieval moral philosophy. 47 These correspond to the second main series of chief virtues current in medieval thought: not the combination of cardinal and theological, but seven "remedial" virtues which replace in the soul the seven capital sins, or which must be practiced if one wants to overcome the capital vices. 48 Exultacio or jocunditas is defined as, "sympathy with what befalls another person" (in alterius successibus pia affectio: fol. 90r). Envy is "a feeling contrary to what befalls another person" and comes about when one experiences either joy at one's neighbor's evil fortune, or sadness at his good fortune (fol. 90v). Here the opposition between virtue and vice obviously consists in right vs. wrong reactions to one's neighbor's fortune. Pusillanimitas, then, is defined as, "the slack feeling (remissus affectus) about what befalls another man, which is neither glad about good things nor sad about evil ones." Thus the two vices opposed to exultacio are not lack and excess of a middle quality, but are "opposite" to it, one in kind, the other in degree. Actually, Grosseteste had mentioned that the vices may be opposed to the virtues in various fashions, of which the Aristotelian is only one (fol. 89r). The variety of "oppositions" was, of course, a much debated issue in scholastic discussions of this sort.

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But it is an interesting case of the scholastic desire to apply Aristotelian psychology to Christian teaching. In Grosseteste's scheme two Aristotelian elements, his vires animae and his notion of the golden mean, are firmly fused with three traditional Christian elements, the series of "remedial" virtues, the series of capital vices, and the preference for the basic number seven (instead of five or eleven).49 Though by no means as full-fledged an attempt to use Aristotle for Christian morals as that of his contemporary William of Auvergne, Grosseteste's scheme, in contrast to many theologians who only state the principle, at least applies the idea of the golden mean to all seven vices. The scholastic quest for a satisfying rationale of the capital vices thus leads us to the much larger topic of the relations between Christian theology and (Aristotelian) moral philosophy. It would be challenging to compare Grosseteste's attempt at fusing the two with similar endeavors made after 1250 or in the fourteenth century. Even more interesting is the question whether the capital vices were ever incorporated into a psychological or ethical system that remained fully Aristotelian. The commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics produced during the latter part of the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries provide much material as yet unstudied in this respect. Such an investigation should not only be attractive to historians of ideas or of mediaeval philosophy but also prove valuable to the student of literature. Suffice it to mention Dante's Inferno, Spenser's Faerie Queene, and Phineas Fletcher's Purple Island as examples of poems whose very structure posits the question of how theology and moral philosophy, with regard to the virtues and vices, were related. Such investigations would also reveal that the number of different schemes proposed by theologians and philosophers is surprisingly large, a fact not always reckoned with by literary critics who often limit themselves to Thomas Aquinas or Aristotle when they discuss the theological frame of a mediaeval or Renaissance poem. The recent studies by R. Tuve have brought much new light in this respect by showing, for example, that Spenser's conception of magnificence owes more to the Somme le roi than to the Nicomachean Ethics.50
* * *

Interesting though the examination of scholastic rationales may be, it is only a preface to the further question the student of the Middle Ages will want to raise: What significance did the Seven Deadly Sins really have in mediaeval culture? Were they among those key notions which opened up revealed truths, gave new insights into the meaning of life or the nature of man, or caused men to renounce the world, build cathedrals, and ride on crusades? And if they had any importance worth mentioning, precisely where did it lie? One soon realizes that the scheme served primarily a very practical purpose, that it did not so much furnish theoret49 In contrast, William of Auvergne, who also derives a system of vices from the virtues, arrives at a total of 61 vices, shrugging off the conventional number seven as "a matter for grammarians" (grammaticalia, p. 143). See De vitiis, 9, and De virtutibus,passim (Opera, Orleans and Paris, 1674); cf. note 57. 60 Allegorical Imagery. Some Medieval Books and their Posterity (Princeton, 1966). See also her two very important articles entitled "Notes on the Virtues and Vices," Journal of the Warburgand Courtauld Institutes, xxvI (1963), 964-303, and xxvii (1964), 42-72.

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ical insight into human behavior as provide a guide for a life directed toward moral perfection. This practical aspect is quite obvious in the earliest expositions of the scheme: in both Evagrius and Cassian the eight vices are the basic temptations that befall the monk; the monk must know their nature and their order Battle against (concatenation) in order to progress in his moral and spiritual life.51 these eight or seven enemies, which were seen under the figure of the Canaanite tribes of Deut. vii 1, against whom the people of Israel had to fight after it had left Egypt (the world) and crossed the Red Sea (baptism), constituted a major aspect of the militia Dei to which Benedictine monks committed themselves (see the prologue to Benedict's Regula). In this battle the analysis of the vices given by Cassian and Gregory would "bring attentive readers fruit of immense usefulness."52Further demonstration of the practical significance of the vices comes from the history of confession and penance. This sacrament, with its traditional three parts, was indeed for the majority of mediaeval Christians the way to the Heavenly Jerusalem.53Although much about the origin of private penance is still disputable, the main facts in its history are well known and clearly show the importance of the vice scheme. The capital vices are named in penitential handbooks from at least the seventh century on54and in a collection of commonplaces for missionary preaching from the beginning eighth century;55they gained further official recognition-in and outside the monastery-through various synodal decrees of the Carolingian period.56In the two centuries following the Fourth Lateran Council the capital vices or "deadly sins" were the most widely used scheme according to which a priest was taught to ask about the sins of his penitent, or a Christian, to examine his conscience. At the same time, the Seven Deadly Sins became one of the standard pieces of catechetical teaching which all pastors of souls were required to give at regular intervals. No doubt, in monastic and penitential and catechetical literature, as well as in its application in the daily lives of countless men and women, the capital vices had a continuing and overwhelming practical importance. But what about the more theoretical levels of philosophy and theology? Here, I
56The same practical purpose exists in Pythagorean and Stoic sin lists. Cf. A. Vogtle, Die Tugendund Lasterkatalogeim Neuen Testament (Miinster, 1936); "Achtlasterlehre," Reallexikonfur Antike und Christentum,I (Stuttgart, 1950), 76 ff.; and more recently, S. Wibbing, Die Tugend- und Lasterkatalogeim Neuen Testament und ihre Traditionsgeschichteunter besondererBeriicksichtigung der Qumram-Texte(Berlin, 1959), pp. 14-23. 62 Guibert of Nogent (d. 1121), Liber quo ordine sermofieri debeat(PL CLVI, 27). 56Thus Chaucer's Parson in the beginning of his Tale. Robert de Sorbon, in De tribus dietis, likewise says the way to Paradise has three dietae: contrition, confession, satisfaction (ed. F. Chambon, "Collect. de textes pour servir A l'6tude de l'histoire," Paris, 1902). The Scala coeli by Jean Gobius (d. 1350), an alphabetical compendium of moral matter with countless tales, shows a schema of the ascent to Heaven (fol. 2v) in which spiritual progress is divided into the three stages of the incipientes, proficientes,and perfecti.The "beginners" have to practice contrition, confession, and satisfaction (ed. 1485). 4The penitentials of Columban, Cummean (ca 650), Theodore (d. 690), Egbert (732-766), and the Poenitentiale Bigotianum (700-725). ' 65 Pirminius (710-724), Scarapsus (PL 89: 1036 and if.). 56 Capitulare of Theodulf of Orleans (ca 797; PL cv, 201 and 217), and the Councils of Rheims and of Chalons, both held in 818 (Mansi, xiv, 78 and 99).

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believe, some further investigation is needed to give us a more comprehensive picture. For one notices that some of the very best mediaeval minds apparently cared very little for the series of vices. Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine perhaps lived too early to have even known the Evagrian or Cassianic scheme. But Gregory, who is so important as the establisher of a new scheme, did not mention the series of vices outside the one passage where he introduced them. St Bernard, who certainly cannot be accused of neglecting his patristic heritage, never speaks of the seven capital vices. William of Auvergne, a very interesting thinker living at the beginning of the genuine flowering of scholasticism, sets no store by the traditional series.67And even Thomas Aquinas gives some indication of not being too interested in the by then "classical" scheme. He deals with it in his Commentary on the Sentences (as every Schoolman had to, of course), in his questions De malo, and in his general analysis of evil habitus, that is, vices and sins, in Prima secundae (where, as we already remarked, he shows some indecision about the details of the vices). But the great analysis of moral matter made in Secunda secundae, he chooses to base instead on the scheme of seven chief virtues, with the result that the scheme of vices is blown to pieces and its individual members float in isolation throughout the treatise. Further search for this kind of negative evidence would be helpful and might cast some light on the "dissatisfaction" with the sin scheme one observes in Wyclif and Reginald Pecock.58
* * *

But theology and moral philosophy are not the only intellectual areas where the importance of the seven vices should be further explored. To them one must add art and literature. As to pictorial representations of the sins, we still lack a thorough, comprehensive catalogue of extant material and its analysis. Available studies suggest that the Seven Deadly Sins (not to be confused with the personified vices of Prudentius' Psychomachia) were graphically represented rather late in the Middle Ages, and then less often than one would expect. Evidently, an iconographic tradition developed only around certain themes, works, or motifs, such as the Tree of Vices, the Etymachia of Matthias Farinator, Frere Lorens' Somme le roi, and Deguileville's Pelerinage de vie humaine.59 These subjects have been studied to some extent, but a good deal still remains to be done. One result of
57 In De tentationibuset resistentiis, for example, William declares: "Many people have divided the vices ... into seven because of the seven tribes which the Lord drove from the Promised Land so that He could lead the children of Israel into it. But these people talk ... as if faithlessness and heresy were no vices, or as if faith were not a virtue. Don't you accept their divisions!" (Opera, i, 295). Compare De vitiis, 9 (ibid., 283), and his weariness of septenaries shown in De virtutibus, 11 and if. (pp. 143, 145). Should one see the same disgust in John of Wales' Summa justitiae when he remarks, "Hiis[the concatenation as proposed by Hugh of St. Victor] concordat Anselmi [!] liber de quinque septenis supra modum et contrarationem effervens"(Brit. Mus. MS Harley 632, fol. 177v)? 58 Bloomfield, pp. 188 f. and 224 ff. 69 Apart from the basic studies by A. Katzenellenbogen, Allegories of the Vices and Virtues in Medieval Art (London, 1939), and by F. Saxl, "A Spiritual Encyclopedia of the Later Middle Ages," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, v (1942), 82-134 (on Matthias Farinator and the Tree of Vices), the following are valuable for further hints: E. G. Millar, An Illuminated Manuscript

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such studies can be confidently anticipated: The wealth of inconographic detail is much greater in literature than in pictorial representations. The sources of certain details in allegorical descriptions by such poets as Jean de le Mote, Deguileville, or Gower are not always clear, and it is theoretically possible that these writers learned from pictures or statues. Yet where sources can be found it becomes evident that in the overwhelming majority of cases allegorical poems-and pictorial representations of the vices-depend on literary models, mostly homiletic and catechetical. Here, too; seems to apply what has been said about poetry, that the word has primacy over representational art. How important, then, are the Seven Deadly Sins in mediaeval poetry? Bloomfield has discussed a large number and variety of mediaeval poems, from Dante to Dunbar, from didactic lyrics to Arthurian romances, and although further instances can be added, the fact is well established that the Seven Deadly Sins indeed appear in works of imaginative literature. By now it has become pointless to reiterate at length that the seven vices in a given poem follow a long tradition, that there were several original schemes, that the order of the vices was never definitely fixed, and so forth.60Instead, we should ask for what literary purpose the Deadly Sins were used. Their simplest function, beyond merely enriching the doctrinal content of a poem, would be to give it structure and form. This indeed is the case in a variety of works, from the very simple penitential lyrics to the most complex allegorical pilgrimages, including Dante's Purgatorio, where the Seven Deadly Sins provide a convenient order of progression. This structuring function has recently received some attention from students of the early Middle High German lyric.61With regard to allegorical pilgrimages, a study which fully explores the possibility of reading these works as poetic allegorizations of catechetical handbooks would be very desirable. One must further ask if the scheme of capital vices and its theological analysis ever gave the poet anything beyond the mere frame on which he could build a story. All agree that much of mediaeval literature presents a quest for some goal (Heaven, knowledge of Hell, the Grail, one's ere, the perfection of society, and so forth), undertaken in one form or another (religious pilgrimage, knightly aventure, dream vision). Could not a poet in picturing forth such a quest have occasionally relied on schemes of moral progression which his cloistered contemporaries found in their prescribed readings and were advised to follow? And further, could not, in such a case, the concatenation of vices as he found it in Cassian,
of "La Somme le Roi" attributedto the Parisian Miniaturist Honor6 (Roxburghe Club; Oxford, 1953); L. M. J. Delaiss6, "Les miniatures du Pelerinage de la vie humaine de Bruxelles et l'arch6ologie du livre," Scriptorium, x (1956), 233-250; R. Tuve, the works cited above (note 50); E. S. Greenhill, Die geistigen Voraussetzungen der Bilderreihe des "Speculum Virginum," "Beitrage Baeumker," xxxix.2 (Miinster, 1962), esp. pp. 78-99 (Tree of Vices). 60 See, for example, R. Ricard, "Les p6ches capitaux dans le Libro de Buen Amor," Les Lettres Romanes, xx (1966), 5-37. 61For example: V. Schupp. Septenar und Bauform. Studien zur "Auslegung des Vaterunsers," zu "De VII sigillis," und zum "Palastinalied" Walthersvon der Vogelweide("Philol. Studien u. Quellen," xxII; Berlin, 1964), with further literature.

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Gregory, and Hugh of St Victor have played an important role in determining the inner progression of his poem? It is fairly easy to show that at least in parts of Purgatorio Dante did use the idea of psychological concatenation, notably in the "false turn" towards worldly goods and sins of the flesh, vicariously experienced by the Pilgrim (or re-lived by him, if one wants to give the poem a more "personal" interpretation) in his dream of the Siren. But this concatenation is less clear in other allegorical pilgrimages to hell or heaven which are of less poetic magnitude, and here some further study would be valuable. Even less obvious, but conversely more provoking, is the question of the presence of such a scheme in secular literature, primarily the Arthurian romances. Professor W. T. H. Jackson62has tried to show that Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival falls, beginning with pride, through wrath and envy into tristitia and despair, and then rises, in similarly ordered fashion, from humility to charity. Jackson suggests that the order of Parzival's spiritual descent and ascent follows the arrangement found in contemporary representations of the Trees of Vices and of Virtues, and he quotes the Pseudo-Hugonian work De fructibus carnis et spiritus, although he refrains from claiming Wolfram's dependence on this particular treatise. The very attractive suggestion loses some of its force because Jackson is compelled, in several instances, to refer to the "companions" or branches of a capital vice rather than the capital sin itself - an interpretative method which once proved the downfall of a famous reading of the CanterburyTales in terms of the Seven Deadly Sins.63Nevertheless, this type of analysis should be carried further, and although the difficulties of such studies are compounded by the often obscure relations of a given poem to its sources and by the irksome problem of mediaeval symbolism/allegory,64 it should be possible eventually to obtain enough information to decide whether the masterpieces of mediaeval poetry make use of a precise theological pattern like the Seven Deadly Sins in order to motivate or structure their inner action, or whether, on the contrary, they are content with larger ideas, such as the opposition of cupiditas and caritas, of sin and redemption, of human instability due to man's life in the flesh and God's unfailing mercy, and so on. A special area for studying the importance of the vices in imaginative literature is the early English morality. General critical opinion sees the origins of these plays in so-called Pater-Noster plays (of which none is extant), and a few surviving records from York, Lincoln, and Beverley show that the Pater-Noster plays were concerned with the vices and virtues. Yet the actually preserved moralities have no connection with the Lord's Prayer, and of the six plays written before
T. H. Jackson, "The Progress of Parzival and the Trees of Virtue and Vice," Germanic Review,xxxlII (1958), 118-124. 63 On the other hand, it is perfectly possible that creative poets, while thinking of the Seven Deadly Sins, felt free to select only some appropriate aspects of the chief vices. See the remarks by Miss Tuve on Alanus' Anticlaudianus, in Journal of the Warburgand CourtauldInstitutes, xxvi (1963), 303. 64 For example, H. Schnyder, in his allegorical reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Bern, 1961), points out that 6n his lonesome journey Gawain has to fight "beasts, satyrs, and giants," of which exactly seven are enumerated. One can indeed see the seven capital vices in these opponents, although precise identification in several cases becomes a rather tortuous process (pp. 51-53).
62 W.

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150065 Even if one accepts the general only three include the Seven Deadly Sins.66 which seems to require the Seven Deadly Sins as a pass without which opinion, a play can hardly be admitted to the company of decent moralities, the genuine dramatic function of the Sins in these plays is not very outstanding. If it were not for the records concerning the Pater-Noster plays, a critic who examined the extant early moralities on the basis of existing texts would quickly be tempted to infer that much more important than the assault of the vices (or their fight against the virtues) is the attack of the Three Enemies on man. Not only do the Three Enemies appear in the three plays referred to (where they command the seven vices!), but in a fourth morality they are explicitly spoken of as the spiritual foes of Mankind, represented in this drama by various characters (without any reference to the Deadly Sins),67who are responsible for one half of the dramatic action, Mankind's fall. If contemporary critics could only dissociate themselves from the preconceived notion that a good English morality must contain the Seven Deadly Sins,68a more fruitful analysis of the genre would be possible and would reveal that as dramatic elements the Seven Deadly Sins are rather unimportant, and that the genuine "concern"69of these plays is with topics other than the vices, such as the dangers of "the world"70or man's instability and God's mercy.7' Besides examining their importance or non-importance for shaping the inner action of a literary work, we should ask if the seven capital vices had any influence on the development of characterization in mediaeval narrative. Even a cursory reading of Middle English literature introduces us to authors of religious manuals and works of devotion who were at great pains to create detailed and often very impressive "characters" of the vices. The Ancrene Riwle, the Handlyng Synne, and Jacob's Well contain not only abstract, systematic analyses of the sins, but also portrayals of such sinners as the flatterer, the slothful, and the proud. The tradition comes to full bloom in Piers Plowman and in Gower. Did it perhaps influence the character portraits of a less moral poet, such as Chaucer?
65I am including Everyman but not Medwall's Nature. 66 The Castle of Perseverance,Wisdom, and Mary Magdalene. 67 Mankind, ed. J. Q. Adams in Chief Pre-ShakespeareanDramas (Boston, 1924); esp. lines 875-881, p. 394. 68 As examples one may refer to the otherwise brilliant analysis of Everyman by T. F. Van Laan in PMLA, LXXVIII (1963), 465-475, which contains a, as I think, quite unnecessary tour-de-force to show the presence of the Seven Deadly Sins in the play (pp. 468-470). In his shorter account of "The English Moral Play Before 1500," published in Annuale Medievale, iv (1963), 5-22, A. Williams sees the Seven Deadly Sins in a passage of Mankind where they decidedly are not (p. 17). 69 I am using this term in the sense used and explained by D. R. Howard, The Three Temptations. MedievalMan in Search of the World (Princeton, 1966), pp. 31 ff. 70 In The Castle, the World and particularly his servant Avarice play a much more significant role than the other foes and sins, from the beginning of the play to the decisive temptation which leads to Mankind's second fall. Cf. J. W. McCutchan, "Covetousness in The Castle of Perseverance,"Univ. of Virginia Studies, iv (1951), 175-191. A similar emphasis on the false love of the World forms the main theme of Gower's Mirour de l'Omme. 71The theme of instability runs through the entire play Mankind. See the discussion in my book, The Sin of Sloth. Acedia in Medieval Thoughtand Literature (Chapel Hill, 1967), ch. VI.

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One begins to wonder when one realizes that the Scriptural quotation which Chaucer alludes to in finishing the indirect characterization of the "colerik" Reeve, at the end of the latter's Prologue I pray to God his [the Miller's]nekke mote to-breke; He kan wel in myn eye seen a stalke, But in his owenehe can nat seen a balkeis a standard accompaniment in descriptions of the Sin of Wrath. It would be ludicrous to suppose that Chaucer copied this detail from a specific handbook, but it is easy to see him at the end of a long tradition in which such details as the quoted Scriptural passage, together with numerous other biblical figures, similes, and even exempla, had gathered firmly around a given vice or character-type. These details, which may be summarized as the "iconography" of the Seven Deadly Sins, are found in a type of literature which is as yet hardly even canvassed yet promises to yield a rich harvest of background material for mediaeval literature in general. I am referring to pastoral literature, including sermons, books written for confession and for catechetical teaching, alphabetical handbooks for preachers, and collections of exempla, all of which contain long discussions of the sins. A generation ago, G. R. Owst called attention to the great influence of preaching on mediaeval English literature and offered a wealth of detail from extant sermons. Owst's works have been a huge success with literary critics, as a look at the index or notes to any half dozen books on Middle English literary subjects will quickly show. Yet we still do not have an account of preaching or of extant sermons from fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England that would approach even a modest standard of modern bibliography. Furthermore, Owst's main thesis about the close relation of literature to preaching should be extended to the pastoral literature mentioned above: Confessional and catechetical manuals are as important as sermons and encyclopedias for preachers.72 The literature under discussion, however, is vast - one of the very few areas where mediaeval English scholars need not constantly bewail lost riches - and at the moment an entirely uncharted territory. With regard to the vices, Bloomfield has done us great service in compiling a list of incipits of works that deal with this subject.73 To analyze these works in detail and to classify them in a
handy survey would be the next step.74 A forthcoming survey of pastoral litera72For demonstration referto the in of I shiftingpersonality the confession Sleuthe,in Piers Plowlines2081 if. man, B.V,400-448,and to the attack of the Seven Sins on the Castleof Perseverance, (ed. Furnivalland Pollard,EETS, ES, 91). Both passages(forwhichOwstand otherscouldgive no are handbooks dealt with in preciseparallelsin extant sermons)and their analoguesin confessional TheSin of Sloth,ch. VI. "A Preliminary List of Incipits of Latin Workson the Virtuesand Vices, 73 M. W. Bloomfield, and xi fourteenth, fifteenthcenturies,"Traditio, (1955),259-379.Professors mainlyof the thirteenth, D. Bloomfield, R. Howard,Father B.-G. Guyot, and Mrs. T. B. Kabealoare at presentediting a list muchmorecomplete whichit is hopedwill appearin the next few years. 74This workhas been doneauthoritatively exempla for collections J.-Th. Welter (Paris,1927), by but for the other genresmentionedthere is next to nothingof comprehensive scope. H. G. Pfander somereligious with specialregard the SevenDeadlySins,in JEGP, xxxv (1936), manuals to analyzed 245-253, and there are similarsurveysby E. J. Arnould(Paris,1940)and by D. W. Robertson,Jr

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ture in England between 1200 and 1400 by Father Leonard E. Boyle will probably further our knowledge in this field considerably. I have deliberately refrained from listing authors and titles of popular treatises on the Seven Deadly Sins which call for careful study and an edition. There are scores, and every mediaevalist can easily name his favorites. But there is one work which deserves to be singled out for its enormous influence in a variety of ways. The Summa de vitiis et virtutibusby William Peraldus, written in the second quarter of the thirteenth century, is a well-known title to critics of Middle English literature since it has been proposed as the (more or less) remote source of Chaucer's treatment of the Sins in the Parson's Tale. Yet the precise extent and modes of Peraldus' influence are quite unknown. Father Dondaine collected a long list of manuscripts containing both or either part of the Summa.75But we know next to nothing about abbreviations and re-moldings which appear to have sprung up soon after Peraldus finished his work. It is evident that the material Peraldus had gathered for the use of preachers in their work to persuade Christians to flee the vices and practice the virtues was soon taken up by other writers of manuals and encyclopaedias. For example, the peculiar progeny of sixteen species that belong to the sin of sloth - a progeny I would consider original with Peraldus - re-appears, during the following century, in a manual by a Franciscan bishop,76 in a long moral tract by another Franciscan and papal penitentiary,77 in an encyclopaedia by an English Cictercian,78 in Wyclif's to Trialogus,79and in the OttimoComento80 Dante's Divine Comedyas well as the Francesco da Buti;81and in the fifteenth century the same progcommentary by eny can be found in works by an English author,82 a Dutch Carthusian,83 a German preacher,84and an early printed Beichtbuchlein.85 Besides, an expanded form of Peraldus' progeny appears in Frere Lorens' Somme le roi, from where it
(Speculum, xxII [1947], 162-185; and his dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1945) concerning the Manuel des Phchesand its background. New ground has been broken by W. A. Pantin in his survey of religious literature contained in The English Churchin the FourteenthCentury (Cambridge, Engl., 1955), pp. 189-243. For similar works in late medieval German, see E. Weidenhiller, Untersuchungen zur deutschsprachigenkatechetischen Literatur des spdten Mittelalters, nach den Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek("Mtinchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Lit. des Mittelalters," 10; Munich, 1965). A very good survey of penitential literature is given by P. MichaudQuantin, Sommes de casuistique et manuels de confession au moyen age (XIIe-XVI6 siecle), "Analecta mediaevalia Namurcensia," xmII(Lille, 1962). 76 A. Dondaine, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum,xvII (1948), 193-197. 76Jean Rigaud, Compendiumpauperis (Paris, 1501), vmII.X. 77 Alvarus Pelagius, De planctu Ecclesiae (Venice, 1560), fol. 246 f. 78 Omnebonum, Brit. Mus. MS Royal 6.E.vi and vii, fol. 39r. 79 Trialogus, III, 16; ed. G. Lechler (Oxford, 1869), p. 183. 80 OttimoCommento(Pisa, 1828), ii, 297. 81 Francesco da Buti, Comentosopra la Divina Comedia,ed. C. Giannini (Pisa, 1858 ff.), I, 219. 82 Alexander Carpenter, Destructoriumvitiorum, v, 9 (Paris, 1516), fol. 186v. 83 Dionysius the Carthusian, Summa vitiorum et virtutum, I, 62; in Opera omnia, xxxIx (Tournais, 1910), 119. 84Meffreth, Hortulus reginae, "Sermo in dom. in medio Quadragesimae," (ed. 1487). 85 Beichtbichlein, printed Mainz, 1465. Ed. F. Falk, Zeitschr.f. kath. Theologie,xxxI (1908), 768769.

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penetrated into a large number of religious handbooks in Latin and vernacular languages.86 The wide-ranging influence of Peraldus' work on devotional and didactic literature could be further demonstrated by pursuing other aspects of his Summa which are quite characteristic of the method he uses in discussing the vices and virtues, such as citing reasons why man should detest a certain sin, or finding examples in all nature, from God down to the elements by which man should be incited to practice a virtue. But his Summa is even more important as a source book for the iconography of vices in imaginative literature and representational art. It was not the only source book of this type, of course, but it certainly is among the first modern scholars should consult. Although not necessarily original, the Summa gathers an enormous body of material to illustrate the vices: biblical quotations and exemplary figures, similes, classical "authorities," and even exempla. In demonstration, let me cite three details from descriptions of Sloth found in later poems. Barclay's Ship of Fools contains these lines: A slouthfullman is nere of that nature That if he lay besyde a fyre brennynge For to be brent:he ratherwolde endure Than take the payne hym selfe in any thynge For to relefeby rysyngeor mouynge.87 The image is part of a wide-spread tale (the three sons of a king who vie in laziness),88 alluded to by Peraldus under accidia89and very frequently re-told as a warning agains this sin. The figure of a person too lazy to rise from the side of a fire recurs, for example, in Jean de le Mote's Voie d'enfer90 and can be seen in pictorial illustrations.91Secondly, the description of Idleness in the first recension of Deguileville's Pelerinage de vie humaine (1330-32) includes this detail: "Qui une main (des)souz s'aisselle/Avoit," and an accompanying miniature indeed shows the damsel with her left hand under her right arm.92This detail comes from Prov. xxvI 15, "abscondit piger manum sub ascellam," which Peraldus included
The relations betweenPeraldus, Mireour monde, Lorens' the du le 86 and Somme roi still remain be to studied in greaterdetail, and full editions of all three works are bitterly needed. See E. Brayer, du "Contenu,structureet combinaisons Miroirdu mondeet de la Sommele roi," Romania,LXXIX le (1958), 1-38, 433-470. The Somme roi has been edited fromBrit. Mus. MS Royal 19.C.iiin two M.A. thesesby A. B. Tysor and E. H. Allen,Universityof North Carolina, 1949and 1951. 87Ed. R. Pynson,London,1509,fol. ccvi, verso. 88 Cf. Stith Thomson, W Motif-Index Folk-Literature, 111.1 ("Contestin laziness")or W 111.1.1 of ("Manlets legs burnin fireratherthan move them"). 89 Guilelmus Peraldus,Summade vitiis et virtutibus (Antwerp,1587), fol. 95r (underthe sub-sin "ignavia"). 90Jeande le Mote, La Voied'Enfer deParadis,ed. SisterM. A. Pety (Washington, C., 1940), et D. st. 88. 91 example:an engraving For fromthe Schoolof Fontainebleau (B.XVI), representing "Pigritia." I am gratefulto the Warburg to collection. Institute,London,for permission consultits photographic 92 Ed. J. J. Sttirzinger Club;London,1893),lines 6524-25. Cf. Deguileville'ssecond (Roxburghe ed. recension, A. Verard(Paris,1511),fol. XLIV, verso;and Lydgate, ThePilgrimage theLife of of Man, ed. F. J. Furnivall,EETS, ES, 77, 83, 92 (London,1899-1904),lines 11560-61.The relationof Idlenessto Slothis discussed TheSin of Sloth,ch. V. in

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in his discussion of accidia.93And finally, in the Divine Comedythe Blessed Virgin is praised as an example against Sloth because she "hastened quickly to the mountains" (Purg., xvIII, 100; cf. Luke I 39). Dante commentators tell us that the poet probably took the idea of systematically pitting aspects from the life of Mary against the Seven Deadly Sins from Conrad of Saxony's Speculum Beatae Mariae Virginis. But the Speculum makes no reference to Luke I 39. This detail, once more, can be found under accidia in Peraldus.94As these examples show, Peraldus did not invent these exemplary stories, nor was he necessarily the first to connect a Scriptural verse with a particular vice. But he was among the first who collected a vast amount of "iconographic" material, and certainly was immensely influential in this respect.
* * *

A final question of interest for the history of the Seven Deadly Sins is their fate after the Middle Ages. Although the scheme lived on in some catechisms, after the sixteenth century it no longer played an important role in analyses of human behavior or in church teaching. Apart from the effects of the Reformation and the Renaissance break with scholastic traditions that had relied on the authority of Gregory the Great, were there perhaps other causes, active already in late mediaeval thought, which contributed to the demise of the scheme? Bloomfield noticed several instances of "dissatisfaction" with the Seven Deadly Sins. Some of these cases certainly need revision,95but the fact remains that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries different approaches to the task the Seven Sins were expected to fulfill were made. These developments must be studied in depth. For example, a theological analysis of human behavior can be made not only in terms of the capital vices or the capital virtues, but also in terms of the particular duties of one's status. Sermons by Jacques de Vitry or Humbertus de Romanis and the penitential Summa by Henry of Ostia show that this was indeed done from the thirteenth century on,96and close inspection of a poem like Piers Plowman, which is deeply concerned with the morals of Christian society, reveals
93Ed. cit., fol. 95r (under "ignavia").
94 95

Ibid., fol 77v.

I have noticed the following: (a) The "dissatisfaction" apparent in Wyclif and Pecock is anticipated by William of Auvergne (first third of the thirteenth century) and other theologians, as I pointed out above. (b) The Latin verses printed by Bloomfield on p. 208 and said to be "possibly indicative of greater knowledge of Latin and of the rise of humanism" can be found in the Summa brevis of Richard of Wethershed, written ca 1220-1229 (Brit. Mus. MS Royal 4.B.viii, fol 227v). Richard and his master, William de Montibus, were extremely fond of writing mnemonic poetry of this sort. (c) Although I cannot indicate a precise ancestor to the passage in Speculum Christiani (Bloomfield, p. 187) where the vices are said to look like virtues, the idea itself occurred much earlier and was fairly popular. It was consistently applied to the seven capital vices in Hugh Ripelin's Compendium theologicaeveritatis (ec. cit., XXXIV, 105). Incidentally, the idea also appears in Ludus Coventriae(Play 26) and later interludes. 96 Cf. J. Le Goff, "Metier et profession d'apres les manuels de confesseurs au moyen age," in Menschen, "Miscellanea mediaevalia," III (Berlin, Beitrdgezum Berufsbewusstseindes mittelalterlichen 1964), 56 ff.

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a breakdown of the conventional distinction between the Sins97and a new orientation towards duties of the status. How original Langland was in this respect, and what analogous phenomena can be found in other societies than fourteenthcentury England, needs to be studied in detail. Also, such socio-moral genres as "The Nine Daughters of the Devil" or later developments of "De XII abusivis" call for thoroughgoing investigation, starting with a listing of pertinent manuscripts. At this point, one may wonder how fruitful the close historical study of individual sins would be. Evidently, all seven present interesting features of their own, while some of them gained preeminence in certain periods or social contexts. The rise of pride, for example, to its eminent position of "queen of all vices" has been attributed to the mediaeval ideal of ordo, whose realization of course was threatened by individual pride;98and envy has been called the besetting sin of rhetoricians during the high Middle Ages.99But besides acedia it is primarily avarice which calls for a detailed examination of its history, because of its changing importance and the radical shift in our attitudes towards it (or what in our civilization would appear as avarice to mediaeval eyes), which separates the Middle Ages from our world. The study by Yunck is valuable, though restricted to venality satire.100 Again, a thorough analysis of theological summae and, even more so, of handbooks for confession is very much in demand. In writing these pages, I am aware of having expressed, consciously or not, a certain amount of scepticism about the deeper significance of the Seven Deadly Sins in mediaeval literature and thought. Yet it is evident that this concept formed much more than a small momentary ripple on the surface of mediaeval culture. The mere fact of their presence in the works of Dante, Petrarch, Chaucer, and Langland speaks for itself. If the absence of scholarly studies on the Seven Deadly Sins since Bloomfield's work has perhaps been due to their lack of appeal and interest for modern man as a meaningful pattern in the analysis of human behavior, we should nonetheless realize that, besides presenting a fascinating phenomenon in themselves and in their history, the Sins furnish an extremely valuable springboard for explorations of the intellectual climate of a period or a given work of art, the relation between theology and contemporary social concerns, and even the nature of mediaeval allegory and symbolism.
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL
97 Particularly between Envy and Wrath, in the great confession scene of Passus V. 98 Bloomfield, p. 75.

99E. H. Kantorowicz, "An Autobiography of Guido Faba," in Selected Studies (Locust Valley, N.Y., 1965), p. 203, note 34. 100 A. Yunck, The Lineage of Lady Meed: the developmentof mediaeval venality satire (Notre J. Dame, Ind., 1963).