Maybe Godmersham’s vehemence is a reflex of insecurity. At least the literal truth of the matter was put out of contention by Pope Paul II, who declared unequivocally that a plenary indulgence was on offer during the jubilee year of 1420. One wonders what visitors to Canterbury in the previous jubilee year of 1370 thought they were getting; I see no reason to doubt that they expected a plenary indulgence. Certainly the 1370 jubilee was a highly successful one for the shrine,261 a fact which Chaucer may well have been aware of during the gestation of his Canterbury Tales. The issue of plenary indulgences apart, Canterbury did very well in respect of pardons of shorter duration, receiving awards from Nicholas IV in 1291, John XXII in 1328, and Boniface IX in 1395. The real-life equivalents of Chaucer’s creations would, one may presume, have returned home well satisfied with their spiritual acquisitions.
But, to be sure, voices were raised in protest against what was becoming an inflationary spiral, fed by the proliferation of indulgences and the increasingly generous terms which they offered—or were supposed to offer.262 The most vociferous protest known to me figures in Simon of Cremona’s Disputationes de indulgentiis (c. 1380).263 Arriving in Cremona from Paris, Simon was astonished to discover that a nearby church was offering on Ascension Day an indulgence a pena et a culpa. There was no written evidence that such an indulgence was granted by the papacy—and in any case, Simon says, Rome’s plenary indulgences simply do not go that far. He argues that anyone who absolves a pena et culpa incurs instant sentence of excommunication, and that this is an appropriate punishment for anyone who publishes an “indiscreet indulgence”264 which justifies such practice. Indulgentiae indiscretae have no papal privilege or any other legal justification to support them; anyone who publicizes them is foolhardy and presumptuous, and sins gravely and mortally: indeed, they are speaking against the Holy Spirit. Simon goes so far as to label those who stubbornly believe and pronounce such a dogma as heretics—for heresy involves two things, an error in reasoning and a stubbornness of will, blatant deviation from the truth (a veritate deviare).265
Simon’s adversaries protest that the pope knows full well that Franciscans preach the existence of an indulgence a pena et a culpa at St. Francis’s Portiuncula church near Assisi; because the supreme pontif has not said anything against the practice he tacitly is condoning it. Thus a clear precedent exists for the similar claim made concerning the Cremona church of St. John of the Desert. Simon replies that many things are tolerated which, were they subjected to strict legal examination, would not be countenanced. He identifies several ways in which something may be said to be “permitted,” the last of which is relevant here: something illicit may be allowed in order to avoid a more serious illegality (thus, adultery may be “permitted” so that murder is avoided). But this most certainly does not mean that the lesser evil is approved in any way. In accordance with this type of “permission,” Simon concludes, many things are patiently tolerated. Simon does not spell out what, in the case of the Portiuncula indulgence, the greater evil actually is, but we may assume that he has in mind the scandal that would ensue if the pope were to do anything other than “patiently tolerate” the Franciscan claim. He is, however, anxious to make abundantly clear that the pope is in no way lending his approval or allowing his approval to be assumed. If the pope were to name me “Bishop of Cremona” this would not actually make me the Bishop of Cremona, Simon remarks; due legal process must be observed in making such an appointment. By the same token, when the pope hears about a certain indulgence being offered in Assisi, and is silent, that does not constitute approval of the indulgence, particularly since “the pope says” is a lot more efficacious than “being silent,” and the latter is here the case.
Bartholomew of Mainard put forward the dubious argument that a certain kind of deception can have pious advantages: if one were to say, “go to a certain place because you will find a hundred florins and, on going there, the person finds only ten”—well, is that not still a good outcome, albeit not as good as expected? (Here one may recall the arguments relating to the “mother’s promise” exemplum, as deployed by Albert, Aquinas, and Bonaventure; cf. p. 83 above.) Simon will have none of it. There is no piety here but rather cruel deception; by such practice the authority of the keys of the Church is brought into contempt. You don’t make people good by lying to them. Master Dominic O.Carm. opposed Simon with the argument that something which is not prohibited seems to be permissible, inferring that the Assisi indulgence (and presumably the Cremona indulgence also) falls into this category. Publica fama does not doubt that such an indulgence is on offer. The logic here is false, Simon retorts; that is the sort of argument the Jews make when they defend usury. On the contrary, such an indulgence is implicitly prohibited everywhere and anywhere, given canon law’s warning, with the threat of eternal curse, against its publication (publicatio). Only indulgences with impeccable credentials should be “published”—and those impeccable credentials do not include any reference to absolution a pena et a culpa. Dominic’s point about public fame is dismissed with the argument that such fame exists only among those who are deceived and ignorant, and not among people of understanding. Would that it had been so simple. Simon’s own record shows that certain Franciscans were preaching a Portiuncula indulgence a pena et a culpa,266 and of course his Franciscan opponents in the three Cremona debates were keen to uphold the honor of their order. Simon’s elitist disdain for the deceptos et ignorantes cannot mask the extent of the deception and ignorance concerning indulgences which permeated Western Christendom in his day.
Returning to the English scene, one attempt to keep the terms of indulgences “discreet” and appropriate may be taken as representative. Archbishop John Pecham’s Lambeth conference (1278) decreed that, “since it has been decided that prelates, to whom the mystical treasury is entrusted, should not exceed the number of forty days in conferring indulgences, lest the keys of the Church be contemned,” those who preach or expound those indulgences should do so as accurately as possible, not bringing disgrace on the indulgence-makers by “pouring out in their preachings more indulgences than the bishops do, lest those who are subject to those keys cause them to be held in slight esteem.”267 The fundamental concern here is the appropriate and accurate communication of the scope of a given indulgence, with special reference to the limit of forty days’ remission from purgatorial punishment (as described above, p. 86). William Lyndwood’s fifteenth-century commentary on this canon brings out well the difficulties which could ensue. The indulgence granted by a bishop applies only to those under his jurisdiction. But if an archbishop and his subordinate bishop were both to grant forty days of indulgence, would whoever was under the bishop’s jurisdiction gain eighty days’ release in total (forty from the archbishop and forty from the bishop), whereas a person under a different bishop but under the same provincial would gain only forty days? Lyndwood quotes this as the opinion of Hostiensis (Henry of Segusio; d. 1271), then cites a contrary view—one and the same indulgence cannot exceed forty days, no matter how many people grant it. Furthermore: if all the bishops in a province granted an indulgence, along with their archbishop, it would follow that each of them gave forty days and the archbishop also gave forty days, which would result in anyone in the province having the option of gaining eighty days of indulgence. This, believes Lyndwood, is against the literal understanding of the relevant canon laws. He proceeds to consider the results of successive granting of one and the same