But what was a “just and reasonable cause”? Albert the Great suggested that the cause moving the maker of an indulgence should be not private but public (non privata, sed publica). There are two types of public cause, he explains, which involve legitimate exigency (necessitas) and public advantage (utilitas) respectively.206 Examples of the former include the liberation of the Holy Land and perils which threaten the faith; of the latter, relieving poverty, hearing the word of God, and visiting relics. Bonaventure compares the spiritual treasury with the treasuries of earthly kings. We see in political matters and human affairs that a state’s resources are deployed for two main reasons: the glory of the prince and the good of the community or because of what is necessary for it, as when something strikes at the state, stipends and donations are produced in order that its soldiers may go out to fight. Similarly with the Church, there is a twofold cause for dispensing from the treasury. First, is the praise of God and His Saints, which is done through the construction and visitation of churches in their honor and the commemoration of their virtues in sermons. Second, the general good of the Church involves the defense of the Holy Land, the defense of the faith, the promotion of study, and suchlike. Bonaventure concludes that indulgences are appropriately directed to such ends.207 These points (and many others concerning penance and indulgences) are made in almost identical terms in the Alexandri summa—a reminder of the fact that this highly influential treatise was completed by Alexander’s pupils after his death.208 It is asserted that the place of Christ’s passion must not be bartered away to the infidels; the memory of the passion must not slip from the minds of the faithful. Indulgences may reasonably be made by a pope if the necessity of the Church requires it, and especially for the defense of the faith.209
A host of legalistic questions arose—and not just in the rarefied atmosphere of the Sentences commentaries and summae—concerning people who genuinely wanted to travel to places of pilgrimage but were unable to do so, through no fault of their own. For instance, if a crusader dies before he can take the journey across the sea, has he full forgiveness of sins? That all depends on the form of the papal letter, Aquinas explains. If “an indulgence is conceded to those taking the cross in aid of the Holy Land, a crusader has an indulgence at once, even if he dies before he takes the journey.” But if the letter specifies that an indulgence will be “given those who cross the sea, he who dies before he crosses lacks the cause of the indulgence” and hence does not benefit from it.210 Bonaventure wondered if a person who takes the cross, makes the vow and has the perfect intention of going overseas, obtains remission of all sins by dint of that alone, i.e., what is crucial being the intention rather than the act. His answer is that, according to the experts (periti) and despite what certain “vulgar preachers” say, such a person does not have a total indulgence. Indulgences are not given just because one wishes to do something; actual performance is also necessary. Only the penitent who combines both will enjoy the full indulgence, though Bonaventure concedes that one with the desire alone may gain great merit through his devotion.211
However, despite what the periti said, on numerous occasions the desire was taken for the deed. We have already noted how the Fourth Lateran Council had granted plenary indulgences to those who sent “suitable men” to Palestine at “their own expense” rather than going themselves.212 Furthermore, despite Pope Clement VI’s initial efforts to ensure that people actually went on pilgrimage to Rome to earn the benefits of the indulgences he had issued for the 1350 jubilee, he found it expedient to dispense with this in the case of Queen Elizabeth of Hungary.213 The same privilege was bestowed upon King Edward III of England, his wife, his mother, Edward prince of Wales, and Henry earl of Lancaster—not to mention the entire population of Mallorca. (Confusion was heaped upon confusion by the fact that the bull proclaiming the jubilee, Unigenitus, circulated in a forged version which offered far more generous terms than had the original.)214 The extravagant commutations of vows associated with the antipope, Clement VII, were mocked by Lollard writers, as in the caustic remark that a man might stay at home and get himself forty thousand years’ pardon by noon.215 In desperate need of money, Boniface IX recklessly offered indulgences ad instar, meaning that many minor (indeed some quite insignificant) shrines were allowed to dispense the indulgences of major ones; hence, as Jonathan Sumption says, “most Christians were able to win the [papal] Jubilee Indulgence of 1390 at churches within a few miles of their homes.”216
The schoolmen were engaged in a major effort of retrospective rationalization: indulgences had and were being issued, and their efficacy had to be maintained. The Universal Ruler of the Church is not believed to be fallible, declares Albert the Great, particularly with regard to those things which the whole Church receives and approves. Since he has ordered indulgences to be preached, they must be valid.217 Likewise, Aquinas is confident that “the universal Church cannot err”; if it approves and grants indulgences, it may be assumed that they must “have some value.”218 Everyone admits this, he continues, “for it would be blasphemy to say that the Church does anything in vain.” Above all else, the conviction that what God’s Church on earth unbinds is also released in heaven was consistently affirmed, the schoolmen being anxious to make the point that there was no risk of deception. Bonaventure attributes to “some” unnamed men of straw a dangerous distinction “between God’s tribunal and the Church’s tribunal” and the belief that “relaxations do not take place in, nor are they understood of, God’s tribunal, but only of the Church’s tribunal.”219 This opinion, says Bonaventure, is destructive of the very concept of relaxation, for if the earthly Church relaxes what God does not relax, it must be adjudged “a deception rather than a relaxation, and it must be called cruelty rather than piety, since by lessening the penance in this life it induces sufferings more severe in the life to come” (the pains of purgatory being more acute, according to common belief, than anything that one could experience in this life). The same point is made in almost identical terms in the fourth and final part of the Alexandri summa.220 Relaxatio cannot be made solely in the tribunal of the Church; God alleviates what the Church alleviates.
The shocking suggestion that indulgences might be some sort of pious fraud was also confronted. One of the “ancient opinions” concerning their use, Albert explains (though without naming authorities), is that they are not valid at all, and thus we are dealing with a well-intentioned deception of the type which a mother practices with her sons, which in the case of the Church induces its members to good actions, such as pilgrimages, almsgiving, hearing the word of God, and the like.221 Albert develops the exemplum of a caring mother who wants to encourage her children to walk, since this is good for their health. Thus she promises an apple as a reward for going on an expedition—which afterward is not given. But this comparison with a “children’s game”