What, then, of preaching the word of God, another major aspect of the priest’s ministry? This was not in and of itself a sacrament, but ordination was, and in the later Middle Ages the ordained priest had preaching as one of his crucial responsibilities and prerogatives. And here again the issue of whether the human agent was a mere instrument or something more important—and potentially more problematic—troubled the schoolmen. Is preaching while in a state of mortal sin itself a mortal sin? How much bearing on this issue has the fact that certain individuals are obliged to preach by dint of their priestly office? Or that, in one case, the preacher’s sins may be public knowledge to his congregation, while in another case they may be secret? Is it permissible for a priest to preach if his sinful state is concealed and private? If, however, his sin is public knowledge, then, irrespective of whether he is preaching ex officio or not, surely he sins mortally on account of the scandal he creates?
Some of the answers offered to such perplexing questions will be discussed below in Chapter 1. The Parisian theologian Henry of Ghent (d. 1293) will receive special attention, since his distinction between what might be termed “public” as opposed to “private” sin is one of the most elaborate of its kind.57 But his treatment of the problem did not meet with universal approval; in particular, he was criticized by the Carmelite theologian Gerard of Bologna (d. 1317),58 another figure whose views feature prominently in our first chapter. The very fact of such a lack of consensus may serve to indicate to us the somewhat tentative nature of scholastic speculation regarding the “non-public” (to use the safest term) ethics of the public man. Moreover, such disagreements mark (yet again) just how important it is to avoid anachronism in seeking to interpret what, in medieval terms, belongs to the “public” and “private” spheres. When medieval writers spoke of the performance of the officium praedicatoris as a public duty59 they had in mind matters relating to location (preaching as an activity conducted in church) and audience (preaching as a performance which was, in theory, open to all, whatever one’s status, sex, or ability, offering instruction of a kind which was necessary to help all Christians toward salvation). This contrasted with “private” or “extra” teaching in special circumstances, which could involve one-to-one instruction or addresses to small groups, and did not always require the services of an ordained priest.
Examples of “private” instruction included an abbess teaching her nuns, a layman instructing his wife or familiars in the rudiments of the faith, and a mother educating her children in like manner. These activities were confined within the supposedly “private,” domestic, or reserved (because removed from public view) spaces of family home or nunnery, with proper hierarchical relationships being maintained within each sphere. Women could teach other women or children; it was not permitted for them to teach mixed audiences which included men, due to the perils of sexually provocative female speech. Besides, so the argument ran, men would regard it as unseemly and shameful to be instructed by women. They lacked the authority to preach on account of their inferior subject-position; their bodies were blemished with natural weakness and impurity, and besides only the male form could image Christ sacramentally: hence the ordination of women was deemed to be impossible. Aristotle had described a woman as a “deformed male,” as already noted, and medieval medicine commonly held that male semen naturally tended to produce males, the female being procreated only through a hindrance of this process. For its part, medieval theology held that the sexus or gender of women was, in effect, a deficiency which constituted a categorical impediment to female ministry, as our discussion in Chapter 3 will attempt to explain. Even if a bishop attempted to ordain a woman, declared John Duns Scotus O.F.M. (c. 1265–c. 1308), the imprint or character would simply not work on her female body.60 Caroline Walker Bynum’s highly influential Holy Feast and Holy Fast suggests that, through passionate identification of their bodies with the crucified body of Christ, some exceptional Christian women sought, maybe even attained, a “quasisacerdotal” role.”61 But no matter how much suffering the consuming and consumed female body could achieve, the facts of its biological markers ensured that its possessor could get nowhere near the site of institutional clerical power and authority—the priesthood.
What about those female prophets referred to in the Bible? Did they not constitute a precedent and model for contemporary female preachers? The orthodox answers tended to emphasize that those (very special) women were given their gift for private rather than public instruction, and if men were taught thereby this was by a special dispensation, wherein divine grace did not respect sexual difference.62 Such answers will be discussed fully in Chapter 3, with reference to the contributions made by Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent, particularly since this material was drawn on by English theologians in their battle against Lollardy in the early 1390s. It was generally conceded that women can teach privately, in the sense of “familiarly conversing” with a few others (to follow Aquinas’s formulation),63 but not publicly, in church. Within their own religious houses, abbesses and prioresses can instruct their nuns and reprehend vices, explains Thomas of Chobham (c. 1158/68–c. 1233/36), who was appointed sub-dean of Salisbury sometime between October 1206 and circa 1208.64 But it is not licit for such women to expound holy Scripture by preaching. They can read from the Apostles and from legends of saints, and at their matins read from the Gospels. However, they are not allowed to put on sacred vestments or read from the Epistles or the Gospels at the celebration of the mass, on account of the impurity of their menses and because of the danger of concupiscence, for priests or other clerics upon seeing them would be inflamed with lust.
By the same token, a layman could teach his servants and family, but (unless specially licensed) not a gathering of all-comers in a public place, far beyond the walls of the house wherein he ruled as paterfamilias. Every good man should “preach” in his own home and in private places, to his family and neighbors, explains Thomas of Chobham. He may do this by recalling what he has heard in good sermons—thus, by reporting and repeating, he can expound holy Scripture. However, he most certainly may not expound holy Scripture in church or in other public places. Georges Duby is quite correct in saying that “the opposition between private life and public life is a matter not so much of place as of power,”65 but in view of the testimonies here quoted I myself would wish to emphasize the conjunction rather than the disjunction of place and power.
When the schoolmen spoke of the “secret” sins of priests they usually did not have in mind the notion of misdemeanors perpetrated within the boundaries of what we might call “personal” or “private” morality, but rather sins of which a priest’s congregation was ignorant. Of course, the schoolmen’s treatment of sins which are perpetrated in the very act of public teaching (including vainglory and flattery) as opposed to those which are not (including covetousness and lust) raises larger issues. But no-one actually said that it is worse for a preacher to be vainglorious than to be lecherous; neither does the notion of “privacy,” as invoked in attempts to defend President Clinton’s rights as a private individual and citizen, actually apply here. For if the lecherous behavior of a preacher were to become known, it would scandalize the members of his congregation, who would justifiably feel that he was failing to “practise what he preached.”66 And in the eyes of his superiors and ultimately of God a sinful priest was just as culpable for his “private” failings as for those committed in the exercise of his office. In short, here we are dealing largely with matters relating to public and private places, information and power, rather than to public and private life as envisaged in later centuries.
In public places, when a priest preached it was deemed crucial that he enjoyed the confidence of his audience. True, it could be (and often was) argued that his personal fallibility did not damage his authoritative message; there was widespread acceptance of the notion that a clever sinner could well make an excellent teacher. But that missed the crucial point, as developed in scholastic thought concerning the officium