Lerner Meister Eckhart's Specter - 14th c Bull in Agro Dominico & Inquisitorial Text of 1337

8/6/2019 Lerner Meister Eckhart's Specter - 14th c Bull in Agro Dominico & Inquisitorial Text of 1337

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MEISTER ECKHARTS SPECTER:FOURTEENTH-CENTURY USES OF

THE BULLIN AGRO DOMINICO

INCLUDING A NEWLY DISCOVERED

INQUISITORIAL TEXT OF 1337

Robert E. Lerner

T may be agreed that Meister Eckhart had no intention of transgressing the

faith. Whether a firm commitment to orthodoxy led him to combat the so-called heresy of the Free Spirit in Strassburg and Cologne, as some recent

studies have maintained, remains uncertain.1 But when he was charged with

heresy he insisted that he was an obedient son of the Church: he stood ready

to recant any of his teachings that might be judged erroneous, and since error

pertained to the intellect and heresy to the will he could not be a heretic be-

cause he had no will to be one.2 Nevertheless, many of Eckharts startling

theological formulations were taken by the highest authorities to be pernicious

and to present the danger of infecting others. This circumstance was long

dismissed because of a tradition of scholarship holding that when Pope John

XXII condemned twenty-six statements from Eckharts works in the bull In

agro dominico (1329), the pope was halfhearted. Supposedly John agreed to

the condemnation as a concession to the archbishop of Cologne, Henry ofVirneburg, who had initiated Eckharts trial. Supposedly the proof was that

Pope John ordered the publication ofIn agro dominico solely in Henrys ec-

clesiastical province of Cologne, as if he were according a personal favor. 3 In

I

The author wishes to express his appreciation to Bernard McGinn and an anonymous

reader forMediaeval Studies for numerous helpful suggestions and criticisms.1 Martina Wehrli-Johns, Mystik und Inquisition: Die Dominikaner und die sogenannte

Hresie des Freien Geistes, in Deutsche Mystik im abendlndischen Zusammenhang, Walter

Haug and Wolfram Schneider-Lastin (Tbingen, 2000), 22352, at 24351; Walter Senner,

Meister Eckhart in Kln, in Meister Eckhart: Lebensstationen,Redesituationen, ed. Klaus

Jacobi (Berlin, 1997), 20737; idem, Rhineland Dominicans, Meister Eckhart and the Sect of

the Free Spirit, in The Vocation of Service to God and Neighbour, ed. Joan Greatrex (Turn-

hout, 1998), 12133.2 Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart (New York, 2001), 15, 17,

citing the original documentation.3 The classic statement is Winfried Trusen, Der Prozess gegen Meister Eckhart(Pader-

Mediaeval Studies 70 (2008): 11534. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.


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116 R. E. LERNER

an article published in 1997 I showed this supposition to be false.4 Johns bull

was a formal constitution addressed to Christendom at large for the perpetual

memory of the matter. While the pope did command Henry of Virneburg to

publishIn agro dominico in his province, he said nothing about intending to

limit it there. In fact the Avignon chancery saw to the publication of the bull

in the province of Mainz, where it became lodged in an inquisitors manual

and where parts of it were translated into the vernacular for the purpose of

cautionary reading to the laity.

The present article will go further by showing that with high probabilityIn

agro dominico was published in still other ecclesiastical provinces beyond

Cologne and Mainz and unquestionably was widely known in northwestern

continental Europe. Most important, it proposes that the bull rivalled the con-

stitution Ad nostrum as a fourteenth-century weapon for use against real or

imagined heretics of the Free Spirit. It will first assemble a variety of cita-tions impressive for their number as well as their geographical breadth; then it

will introduce new evidence showing how In agro dominico was employed

not merely for polemics but for practical application in a hitherto unknown

inquisitorial trial. Information about that trial itself should additionally be of

interest to students of heresy and inquisition.5

I will begin with what appears to be the earliest evidence of circulation of

the bull, namely, in a work by Heinrich Suso, who drew on errors it cited in

his Little Book of the Truth ( Bchlein der Wahrheit). Susos treatise was

written in 1329, or 1330 at the latest, which means that it was composed very

soon after the formal issuance ofIn agro dominico in March 1329 and its dis-

patch dated 15 April 1329 to the Archbishop of Cologne for publication in his

province. When Suso drew on the bull he was residing far from Cologne aslector in the Dominican convent of Constance, in a diocese appertaining to the

province of Mainz. Hitherto it might have been supposed that Suso had gained

his copy ofIn agro dominico from a Dominican colleague in the province of

born, 1988). See also idem, Meister Eckhart vor seinen Richtern und Zensoren, in Meister

Eckhart, ed. Jacobi, 33552, at 350: Die Bulle ist nicht in der Christenheit verbreitet worden,

wie das bei wichtigen Dokumenten geschah. For references to numerous statements that ac-

cord with Trusens position, see Robert E. Lerner, New Evidence for the Condemnation of

Meister Eckhart, Speculum 72 (1997): 34766, at 347 nn. 12, 362 nn. 4950.4 Lerner, New Evidence, passim.5 In giving the English for passages from In agro dominico I will rely heavily, but not

invariably, on the translation by Bernard McGinn in Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn,eds., Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense (New

York, 1981), 7781. The best Latin edition is by M.-H. Laurent, Autour du procs de Matre

Eckhart,Divus Thomas (Piacenza) 39 (1936): 33148, 43047.


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MEISTER ECKHARTS SPECTER 117

Cologne on the assumption that it was published only there. But the recent

proof of publication in the province of Mainz makes direct availability in

Constance just as plausible an explanation.

As Eckharts disciple, Susos intention was by no means to tar his preceptor

with the papal opprobrium. To the contrary, chapter six ofThe Little Book of

the Truth takes the form of a dialogue between Susos persona (the disciple)

and a reprehensible nameless wild one, an adherent of the views of Free

Spirits. It is the wild one who offers positions he claims to have derived

from a great master (i.e., Eckhart) that echo tenets from In agro dominico

(articles 23, 24, 11, 12, and 22), and the disciple, Susos persona, who, in

refuting the wild one, implicitly is refuting misunderstandings promulgated

by the pope.6 As Bernard McGinn observes, there is a consensus that the

book [Bchlein der Wahrheit] was composed to defend Eckharts teachings

against his detractors,7

and in this context one can even say that Suso wasaiming to show that the pope himself did not properly understand Eckharts

teachings. Not surprisingly, then, Susos book itself was denounced as hereti-

cal in 1330 by fellow Dominicans (unfortunately details are lacking), appar-

ently leading to Susos loss of his lectorship in the Constance cloister.8

In sharp contrast to Suso, who wanted to imply that the errors ofIn agro

dominico were distortions of Eckharts actual teachings, two authors who re-

sided in the Augustinian priory of Groenendael, near Brussels, Jan van Leeu-

wen and Jan van Ruusbroec, saw them as exhibiting Eckharts doctrinal

irresponsibility. Short treatises by Jan van Leeuwen dating from the 1350s in-

dicate clearly that members of the Groenendael community had access to In

agro dominico. Not only do two of these works charge Eckhart with errors

that echo several tenets of the papal bull, but one of them, Van den tien ghe-boden gods, shows detailed knowledge of its contents. Here Jan refers to the

twenty-six errors that Eckhart openly preached against the Roman curia and

against the holy catholic Church, the number twenty-six corresponding ex-

actly to the number of articles branded as erroneous in In agro dominico,

aside from a final two to which objection existed; and in the same work he

closely approximates wording from the arenga to the papal bull, stating that

6 The standard edition is Karl Bihlmeyer, Heinrich Suso: Deutsche Schriften (Stuttgart,

1907; rpt. Frankfurt, 1961). Chapter six of theBchlein der Wahrheitis at 35257. Bihlmeyers

notes already observe the use of In agro dominico. Most recently, see Bernard McGinn, The

Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (New York, 2005), 571 n. 28: LBT 6 defends

Eckharts views on a number of the positions condemned in the papal bull. . . . It is difficult tothink that Suso chose these points without knowing of the text of the condemnation.7 McGinn,Harvest of Mysticism, 200.

8 Ibid., 19798.


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118 R. E. LERNER

Eckharts teachings offend the common people and cloud the light in

simple, good hearts.9

Two modern scholars already noticed Jan van Leeuwens evident knowl-

edge ofIn agro dominico. Theodor B. W. Kok, in a publication of 1973, took

the use of the bull as a reasonable inference but refrained from claiming full

proof because of the assumption, unquestioned when he wrote, that it had

been published only in the province of Cologne whereas the convent of

Groenendael lay in the ecclesiastical province of Reims.10 In 1999 Kurt Ruh

more boldly averred that Jan van Leeuwens evidence seriously affects the

widespread assumption that the bullIn agro dominico was hardly known be-

yond the ecclesiastical province of Cologne, for which it was expressly

meant.11 Had Ruh known my article of 1997 demonstrating that the bull had

been published in the province of Mainz he doubtless would have been yet

more assertive. Because the relevant evidence dates from the 1350s, it doesnot prove that In agro dominico was published in the province of Reims, for

ample time existed for it to have migrated to the Brussels region without

independent publication. Nevertheless, Jan van Leeuwens reference to the

twenty-six errors together with his close verbal borrowing virtually rules

out doubt that the bull was available to him and that it thus enjoyed broad

geographical circulation. To this one might add that the appearance in loca-

tions such as Constance and Groenendael highlights the absurdity of thinking

that John XXII could have meant that his constitution should not be noticed.

Jan van Leeuwens hostility to Eckhart was withering and unrelenting. In

Van den tien gheboden gods he assailed Eckhart as an enormous antichrist,

and in a single-mindedly vitriolic diatribe, Van Meester Eckaerts leere daer hi

in doelde, he termed him not only a devilish man but one who had as manytrue insights as a toad.12 Jans outrage stemmed from what he took to be Eck-

harts heretically pantheistic doctrine itself, and apparently even more from

9 See the passages from Van den tien gheboten gods cited in Th. B. W. Kok, Jan van

Leeuwen en zijn werkje tegen Eckhart, Ons Geestelijk Erf47 (1973): 12972, at 135. In the

same treatise Jan railed against Eckhart for teaching that we are not many sons, but just one

son, as Christ is, and that men are Gods son without difference or without creaturely dis-

tinction, echoingInagro dominico, tenets 11 and 12: see the passages cited by Kok, 134, and

R. A. Ubbink, De Receptie van Meister Eckhart in de Nederlanden gedurende de middeleeu-

wen (Amsterdam, 1978), 232. Kok, 133, cites from another treatise by Jan van Leeuwen, Van

vyferhande bruederscap, a passage that echoesInagro dominico, tenets 10 and 22.10

Kok, Jan van Leeuwen, 134.11 Kurt Ruh, Geschichte der abendlndischen Mystik: Vierter Band, Die niederlndische

Mystik des 14. bis 16. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1999), 115.12 Passages at Kok, Jan van Leeuwen, 135, 153, 156.


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his conviction that by openly preaching pantheistic errors Eckhart had in-

spired the pestiferous heresy of free spirits. As he wrote, before Eckharts

time no one knew of these awful free spirits nor of their false teachings which

all originate in the stupid doctrine he used to preach that we are not many sons

but one son, that is Christ [and that we are] Gods sons without difference and

without creaturely distinction.13 Jan did not need In agro dominico to arrive

at this conclusion, but the sentiment is related to the bulls arenga which be-

rates Eckhart for working to produce harmful thistles and poisonous thorn-

bushes. Jan van Leeuwen was not an inquisitor, but it is easy to imagine that

had he been one he might have usedIn agro dominicos articles as equipment

for examining accused heretics.

Since the text of In agro dominico was all but certainly available in

Groenendael, the probability is very strong that the great Netherlandish mystic

Jan van Ruusbroec had it before him when he wrote his last work, Van denXII Beghinen, in the same community between ca. 1365 and ca. 1380. Cer-

tainly at a point in the section of this treatise wherein he attacks excessive

mystical heresy he comes very close to a verbatim quotation. Namely, he cites

error 11 of the bull virtually word for word: all that God gave to our Lords

humanity, he has given to you, no less, and without exception. 14 Addition-

ally, in the section he adduces the papal bull less closely but still clearly

enough, paraphrasing error 11 in inveighing against the belief that I am one

with him, God and man, in every way: here I make no exception; for all that

God has given to him, he has given to me with him, and no less than to

him.15 Similarly Ruusbroec approximates error 10 in having an opponent

say, In the sacrament in which his body is elevated on the altar, I am being

elevated, and when his body is carried about, mine is being carried; and alsoin charging, you say . . . that Christs body is your body, for you fancy that

you are his flesh and blood, one with him; when his holy body is consecrated

13 Citation from Van den tien gheboten gods in Ubbink,De Receptie van Meister Eckhart,

232.14 Jan van Ruusbroec, Opera omnia 7A: Vanden XII beghinen, ed. M. M. Kors et al.,

CCCM 107A (Turnhout, 2000), 103 (=2a, 19091): al dat god gaf der menscheit ons heeren,

dat hevet hi u ghegheven, niet men, noch niet uutghenomen. (Here and elsewhere I follow the

editions facing-page English translation of Ruusbroecs Dutch with minor modifications.) The

Latin text of part of error 10 of In agro dominico runs Quidquid Deus pater dedit filio suo

unigenito in humana natura, hoc totum dedit mihi; hic nihil excipio. The match between the

Dutch and the Latin of the papal bull is so close that the modern editor of Ruusbroecs treatise,

M. M. Kors, does not hesitate to offerIn agro dominico as Ruusbroecs source (551).15 Ibid., 99 (=2a, 13033): Ende aldus ben ic een met hem, god ende mensche, in alre

wijs, ende hier en neemic niet uut. Want al dat hem god ghegheven heeft, dat hevet hi mi met

hem ghegheven ende niet min dan hem.


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120 R. E. LERNER

and elevated and carried about in the sacrament, you imagine that it is you

yourself.16

A noteworthy difference between the two Jans is that Ruusbroec never

mentions Eckhart by name. Whatever the reason, in the present context it is

only necessary to point out that the primary intention of both is to combat real

or perceived contemporary heretics. In this regard Ruusbroec is almost as vi-

tuperative as Jan van Leeuwen. He lambastes a fictional interlocutor as a

worthless knave and terms this characters claim to possess all that God

gave to Christ an out-and-out lie.17 Not only that, but Ruusbroec hurls fur-

ther invective by proclaiming, this is why you have no more desire nor wor-

ship for the body of our Lord, nor to see the holy sacrament, than a dog which

comes to Mass with his mistress. You are just as glad to look at the wall as at

the holy sacrament in the priests hand.18 It has been noted that Ruusbroecs

attack on heresy in Van den XII Beghinen was contemporaneous with cam-paigns directed against heretical beguines and beghards in Brabant.19 Thus

even without mentioning Eckharts name, Ruusbroec implicitly was taking

Eckharts incriminated teachings as a source of continuing dangerous error

just as Jan van Leeuwen had done so explicitly. We will now see that the

same attitude can be identified in the case of two actual inquisitors.

The first is the German Augustinian friar Jordan of Quedlinburg (ca. 1300

ca. 1370).20 A leading figure within his order, Jordan was conversant with

Meister Eckharts Commentary on John and wove passages and paraphrases

16 Ibid., 99101 (=2a, 14548): Inden sacramente daermen sinen lichame opheft in den

outaere, daer heftmen my, ende daermen sinen lichame draghet, daer draghtmen my. Want ic

ben met hem vleeschs ende bloet ende een persoen, diemen niet deilen en mach; 109 (=2a,23639): dat Cristus lichame uwen lichame si, want u dunct dat ghi sijt syn vleeschs ende sijn

bloet, een met hem; ende daer men sinen heiligen lichame consacreert ende opheft ende draghet

inden sacramente. soe dunct u dat ghi dar selve sijt. Cf. In agro dominico, error 10: Nos

transformamur totaliter in Deum et convertimur in eum; simili modo sicut in sacramento panis

convertitur in corpus Christi, sic ego convertor in eum quod ipse operator me suum esse unum,

non simile.17 Jan van Ruusbroec, Opera omnia 7A: Vanden XII beghinen, ed. Kors et al., 109 (=2a,

236): Noch meer segdi, onwerdich boeve; 1035 (=2a, 19192): Dit es ene grove loghene.18 Ibid., 109 (=2a, 23943): Ende hier omme en hebdi noch lost noch werdicheit ten

lichame ons heeren, noch dat heilige sacramente te siene, niet meer dan een hont die met sire

vrouwen te messen comt. Alsoe gherne siedi opde want als op dat heilighe sacrament ins

priesters hant.19 M. M. Kors, in Jan van Ruusbroec, Opera omnia 7: Vanden XII beghinen, Prolegomena,

CCCM 107 (Turnhout, 2000), 1718.20 For the best survey of his career and writings, see the entry by Adolar Zumkeller inDie

deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, 2d ed., 13 vols. (Berlin, 1977 ), 4:853

61.


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from it approvingly into his own writings.21 Yet he did not mention Eckharts

name when he did so, either because he was ignorant of it or, more likely, be-

cause he felt awkward about mentioning the name of a condemned author.

Certainly he knew the errors listed in In agro dominico and shared the senti-

ments of the condemnation in finding them abhorrent. Copious proof is found

in two of Jordans sermon collections: his Sermones de tempore and his Opus

postillarum.

The Sermones de tempore, more frequently known as Opus Jor (with a

touch of narcissism, Jordan entitled two of his sermon collections respectively

Opus Jorand Opus Dan), contains a sermon (number 51) that criticizes errors

of mystical religion. Here he argues against belief in union without distinc-

tion, as in the view that the soul can become so elevated and perfected that it

becomes totally transformed into God and so is made the son of God none

other than the only-begotten.22

This is a paraphrase of the substance of errorstwenty through twenty-two of In agro dominico. Then, in his criticism of

those who offer an analogy between such total union and the transformation

that takes places in the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jordan draws very closely

on the language of the papal decree. Opus Jorgives ponunt exemplum de

pane et corpore Christi dicentes sic: nos transformamur et convertimur in

Deum totaliter eo modo quo in sacramento panis convertitur in corpus

Christi, thereby manifestly employing error ten of In agro dominico: nos

transformamur totaliter in Deum et convertimur in eum, simili modo sicut in

sacramento panis convertitur in corpus Christi.23

Jeremiah Hackett has demonstrated the same trait of citing errors from In

agro dominico in Jordans Opus postillarum.24 Whereas Jordan states in one

21 See most recently Nadia Bray, Meister Eckhart e Dietrich di Freiberg nellOpus Iordi

Giordano di Quedlinburg, Giornale critico della filosofia italiana 83 (2004): 3752; and

Jeremiah Hackett, The Reception of Meister Eckhart: Mysticism, Philosophy and Theology in

Henry of Friemar (the Elder) and Jordanus of Quedlinburg, in Meister Eckhart in Erfurt, ed.

Andreas Speer and Lydia Wegener, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 32 (Berlin, 2005), 55486, at

57284.22Jordan von Quedlinburg: Opus postillarum . . . : De nativitate Domini; Opus Ior: Ser-

mones selecti de filiatione divina, ed. Nadia Bray (Hamburg, 2008), 121: et tunc immediate

coniungitur Deo et totaliter transformatur in Deum et sic fit Filius Dei, non alius, sed ille idem

unigenitus. The same passage is quoted in Robert E. Lerner, The Image of Mixed Liquids in

Late-Medieval Mystical Thought, Church History 40 (1971): 397411, at 404 n. 43.23 Jordan: Opus postillarum, ed. Bray, 122; and Lerner, Image, 404 n. 45; In agro domi-

nico: Laurent, Autour du procs, 438. In regard to both passages from the Opus Ior, Bray

notes parallels with passages from Eckharts Cologne trial but misses the parallels with tenetsfromIn agro dominico.24

Jeremiah Hackett, The Use of a Text Quotation from Meister Eckhart by Jordan of

Quedlinburg (Saxony) O.S.A., Proceedings of the PMR Conference 2 (1977): 97102


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122 R. E. LERNER

sermon that certain moderns have fallen into error in believing that the

Word lives in any just man excepting nothing, neither union nor sanctity,

article eleven ofIn agro dominico quotes Eckhart as saying all this he gave

to me: here I except nothing, neither union nor sanctity.25 In addition Jordan

complains in another sermon of certain mad ones among the moderns

who say that any just man is himself the same as the only-begotten son of

God, whom God the Father has generated eternally. Here Hackett notes ac-

curately that the source must be In agro dominico, no. 21: the noble man is

that only-begotten son of God, whom God the Father has generated eter-

nally.26 Removing any doubt regarding his use of the papal bull, Jordan

states in the first of the two sermons quoted that the modern errors he is at-

tacking were reproved as erroneous and heretical by Pope John XXII and

condemned by him.27

Jordan of Quedlinburgs concern with the theology of mystical union wasnot merely theoretical, for he was both a preacher and an inquisitor. In the

former capacity he wished to guard his audience against the errors of the

moderns, and in the latter he needed to determine whether any heretical

moderns were in his midst. In 1336, while he was theological lector in the

Augustinian convent of Magdeburg, he very likely participated in a trial of

beguines charged with heresy in that city.28 Around the same time he was

called to serve as episcopal inquisitor in Angermnde, a town in Brandenburg

where accused heretics were branded as Luciferans, that is, diabolical anti-

nomians.29 That being so, any dutiful inquisitor would have arrived with for-

mal documents most appropriate for examining them, one of which could

have been the recently issued In agro dominico. The fact that Jordan, then

Augustinian provincial of Saxony, was consulted in 1350 regarding the testi-

(Hackett cites the Opus Postillarum from the incunable edition: Strassburg, 1483). Trusen,Der

Prozess, 127, states that we know comparatively few references that display an exact knowl-

edge of the text of the bullIn agro dominico without mentioning any of them.25 Hackett, Use, 99, citing Jordan, Sermon 74: sic et habitat quolibet iusto nihil exci-

piendo, nec unionem nec sanctitatem; andIn agro dominico 11: Hic nihil excipio, nec unio-

nem nec sanctitatem. The same passage from Jordan is now cited in Opus Postillarum, ed.

Bray, 81.26

Hackett, Use, 100, citing Jordan, Sermon 73; see now Opus postillarum, ed. Bray, 69,

recognizing the parallel withIn agro dominico.27 Hackett, Use, 99, citing Jordan, Sermon 74; for the Latin text, see Hackett, Recep-

tion, 584 n. 26, or Bray, Opus postillarum, 81.28 For the evidence, see Robert E. Lerner, The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle

Ages (Berkeley, 1972), 52.29 Ibid., 2728.


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mony of a pertinacious heretic who had been tried in Erfurt30 shows that

determining about heresy was an occupational responsibility; accordingly it is

possible that he was engaged in other cases of which we are unaware.

If Jordan in fact utilizedIn agro dominico early in his career while he was

lector in Magdeburg, that would present the likelihood that the bull had been

published in the province of Magdeburg.31 More important is the point that

Jordan disapproves of Eckhart in connection with what is normally held to be

the heresy of the Free Spirit. Indeed, he was so obsessed with Free Spirit

errors that he wrote an entire treatise refuting them. We do not know the con-

tents because this work unfortunately is lost, but it is certain that Jordan en-

gaged with the complex of such errors in the sermons mentioned as well as in

others wherein he cited the foundational papal decree, Ad nostrum, directed

against malignant antinomian mystical heretics.32 Accordingly we have here

a firmly documented case of an inquisitor of the middle third of the fourteenthcentury who considered the two papal decrees to be part of the same package.

Two intervening citations ofIn agro dominico will serve as a transition to

my second inquisitor. I refer first to proof that Jordan of Quedlinburg was not

the only fourteenth-century individual who linked In agro dominico with Ad

nostrum. Namely, the same linkage appears in statutes that Gert Groot wrote

in 1379 for his newly founded house of the modern devout in Deventer.

(This town lay in the diocese of Utrecht, whose bishop, according to some,

was not supposed to have receivedIn agro dominico even though his diocese

appertained to the province of Cologne.33) In the statutes Groot explicitly re-

proves every point that was forbidden to beguines by the common counsel of

the Holy Church at Vienne as stands in the Clementines together with the

twenty-eight articles of Eckhart that the Holy Church opposed and con-

30

Ibid., 12830. In this case the heretic in question, Constantine of Arnhem, confessed to

errors that had no bearing on mysticism or antinomianism.31 The sermon collections are of no help in determining when Jordan first obtained the bull

because he could have used the bull long before writing his sermons; moreover, the completion

dates of the three collections prove nothing about when the individual sermons within them

may have been composed.32 For citations from Ad nostrum in the Opus postillarum and the Opus Ior, see Romana

Guarnieri, Il movimento del Libero Spirito, Archivio italiano per la storia della piet 4

(1965): 351708, at 444 with n. 2, 446 with n. 3, 449 with nn. 1, 2, 5, and 450 with n. 1.33 Cf. Trusen,Der Prozess, 127: Weder aus den ppstlichen Registern noch aus anderen

Unterlagen ist ersichtlich, dass Kopien an andere deutsche Bischfe als den Klner Metro-

politen . . . versandt worden sind. Granted that the quoted evidence does not prove the publi-cation of In agro dominico in Groots home diocese of Utrecht, it appears to make it likely.

One cannot tell whether Trusen knew this source, but the name Groot does not appear in his

index.


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124 R. E. LERNER

demned.34 In referring to points reproved at Vienne, Groot necessarily wasreferring to Ad nostrum rather than the vaguer sister document, Cum de qui-busdam mulieribus.

Also relevant is an entry concerning In agro dominico in the chronicle ofthe Westphalian Dominican, Heinrich of Herford, written before 1355.35 (Her-ford was located in the province of Cologne, but in the outlying diocese ofMinden, and thus about as far from the Metropolitan city as Groots dioceseof Deventer was in the other direction.) Heinrich misdated the document bytwo years (he placed its issue in 1327), but since he reported its contents withsubstantial accuracy, he still probably had a copy at his desk. Two points areof present interest. One is that Heinrich concealed the fact that the bull wasaimed at his Ordensbrder, Meister Eckhart, asserting instead that its targetwas beghards and beguines. On the basis of such an assumption the bull thus

could have been used in practice as an inquisitorial weapon against allegedfree spirits because for contemporary authorities beghards and free spiritswere interchangeable terms. Second, the fact that Heinrich was a Dominicanis noteworthy because his attention to In agro dominico raises the likelihoodthat the document was thought to be of interest to Dominicans in their capac-ity as inquisitorial guardians of the faith.

New evidence proves that at least one Dominican did take the step of usingIn agro dominico as a formularly in an inquisitorial trial. I refer to documen-tation concerning a trial that transpired in Metz in the 1330s. Although Itreated this case in some detail in my Heresy of the Free Spiritof 1972, I didnot refer there toIn agro dominico. Knowledge of the trial depends solely ona text that survives in a fifteenth-century manuscript. In 1890 it was published

by Ignaz von Dllinger,36 and students of heresy, myself included, thereafterassumed that Dllingers edition was trustworthy without going back to themanuscript. But the trust was unwarranted. The doyen of German heresystudies, Alexander Patschovsky, did check the manuscript and noted in a

34 Theo Klausmann, Die ltesten Satzungen der Devotio moderna, inKirchenreform vonunten, ed. Nikolaus Staubach (Frankfurt, 2004), 2443, at 40: 14: ienich punt, daer die

beghinen om verboeden siin in den ghemenen rade der heiligher kerken to Viennen; 15: als inClemencius staet; 16: achtentwintich articulen Eckards, die de heilighe kerke wederseghethevet ende verdoempt. The list reveals knowledge of the full text ofIn agro dominico, with itsreference to twenty-eight articles (the indiscriminate lumping together of all twenty-eight ascondemned is itself noteworthy since the bull itself makes distinctions about degrees ofheterodoxy among that number).

35

Henricus de Hervordia, Liber de rebus memorabilioribus sive Chronicon (Gttingen,1859), 24748.36 [J. J.] I. von Dllinger,Beitrge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, 2 vols. (Munich,

1890), 2:4036, editing Vienna, sterreichische Nationalbibliothek 4201, fol. 7rv.


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footnote of 1974 that Dllingers edition was both faulty and incomplete.37

Inexplicably Dllinger neglected to publish a substantial part and breathed no

word of his omission.

Returning to the manuscript one finds that the text, there entitled Tractatus

de beghardis, is remarkable for several reasons. Most of these are addressed

in a recent article by Courtney Kneupper.38 Suffice it here to say that the text

falls into two parts. The first and much longer part treats the tenets and prac-

tices of beghards of poverty who were examined in Metz in 1337 (Dllinger

misread this as 1334) by the bishop and a certain Dominican brother, Garinus,

who served as inquisitor. As Kneupper demonstrates, some or all of these

beghards of poverty were actually Beguins, that is, southern French adher-

ents of the doctrines of Petrus Iohannis Olivi who were victims of inquisito-

rial persecution in the 1320s. Although one would not have expected to find

Occitan Beguins in Metz, the first three tenets attributed to the beghards of poverty in the Tractatus are of a characteristically Spiritual Franciscan

complexion. In addition the fact that Occitan Beguins were put to death in

Metz is confirmed by an as yet unpublished fourteenth-century Beguin marty-

rology found in the baggage of Franciscan Spirituals who were seized in 1354

in Montpellier.39

Whereas the tenets and practices listed in the first part of the Tractatus de

beghardis are the subject of Kneuppers article, it is the second part, silently

omitted by Dllinger, that is relevant here.40 This proceeds to describe a

different species of beghard: those who call themselves of the free spirit.

According to the anonymous author who was in some way involved with the

37 Alexander Patschovsky, Strassburger Beginenverfolgungen im 14. Jahrhundert, Deutsches Archiv fr Erforschung des Mittelalters 30 (1974): 56198, at 117 n. 152:

Dllingers unvollstndige und beraus fehlerhafte Wiedergabe des Verhrsberichts. This is

reinforced in idem, Freiheit der Ketzer, in Die abendlndische Freiheit vom 10. zum 14.

Jahrhundert, ed. Johannes Fried, Vortrge und Forschungen 39 (Sigmaringen, 1991), 26586,

at 274 n. 44: [die] besonders fehlerhaft[e] und zudem fragmentarisch[e] Quellenausgabe von

Ignaz v. Dllinger. Horst Fuhrmann, Menschen und Meriten: Eine persnliche Portraitgalerie

(Munich, 2001), 169, quotes Charles Moliniers review (1894) of Dllingers Sektengeschichte:

the best chapters offer nothing new, the new ones nothing good.38 Courtney Kneupper, Reconsidering a Fourteenth-Century Heresy Trial in Metz: Be-

guins and Others,Franciscana 8 (2006): 187227.39

The martyrology was discovered by Alexander Patschovsky in a manuscript now in

Wolfenbttel. For an edition of an inferior copy, see Jaume de Puig i Oliver, Notes sobre el

manuscrit del Directorium inquisitorum de Nicolau Eimeric conservat a la Biblioteca de

lEscorial,Arxiu de textos catalans antics 19 (2000): 52560, at 53839. Fuller details on theBeguin martyrology are provided by Louisa A. Burnham, So Great a Light, So Great a Smoke:

The Beguin Heretics of Languedoc (Ithaca, N.Y., 2008), 82 n. 94.40 See the Appendix for an edition.


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126 R. E. LERNER

trial, these beghards had friendly contacts with the beghards of poverty but

nonetheless were distinct from them. To display the nature of their outrageous

beliefs the author presents a list of six errors confessed to by a heresiarch of

the free spirits named Gallenius de Tholosaa person hitherto unknown

to scholarship. Then he supplies two more errors held collectively by

beghards of the free spirit.

The two men who directed the proceedings are identifiable. The bishop of

Metz in 1337 was Admar de Monteil, who served in Metz from 1327 to

1361. Although Admar probably initiated the round-up of the accused, he

hardly need concern us because he does not seem to have taken an active role

in the trial. Identifying the inquisitor is more important. I believe he was cer-

tainly Garinus de Giaco, O.P., who was Dominican regent master in Paris in

133637.41 Several reasons underpin my assurance. No papal inquisitor enters

into question because none was deputized in this period for the ecclesiasticalprovince of Trier in which Metz was located.42 Looking for an acknowledged

theological expert, Bishop Admar might have turned to one of two roughly

equidistant centers of theological learning, Cologne and Paris. But a choice of

Cologne would seem improbable, not only because Paris had more prestige

but because Admar was Francophone and so were the accused. Thus a Do-

minican regent master in Paris would have been the best choice. Granted that

this is a hypothetical reconstruction, the document in fact refers to the in-

quisitor as a Dominican named Garinus, and Garinus de Giaco, the Parisian

regent, was the only theologically trained Dominican with the rare name of

Garinus known to be active anywhere in Europe in the 1330s.

What was the most likely document an inquisitor arriving from Paris in

1337 might have employed in prosecuting beghards? Doubtless the answeris the Council of Viennes decree Ad nostrum, published formally by John

XXII late in 1317.43Adnostrum was the definitive canonistic text listing the

errors of the malignant beghards in the Kingdom of Germany who

claimed to be endowed with the spirit of liberty. (Metz, although Franco-

phone, was technically located in the Kingdom of Germany.) Not surpris-

ingly, then, the treatise describing the trial in fact refers specifically to Ad

41 For basic data and further references, see Thomas Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis

Praedicatorum medii aevi, 4 vols. (Rome, 197093), 2:1011; 4: 91.42 Papal inquisitors were absent from Germany in the fourteenth century until the

appointment of John Schadland, O.P., in 1348. See Klaus-Bernward Springer, Dominican

Inquisition in the Archdiocese of Mainz (13481520), inPraedicatores inquisitores I: TheDominicans and the Medieval Inquisition (Rome, 2004), 31193, at 323.43

The text is in G. Alberigo, Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta (Bologna, 1973), 383

84.


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nostrum, stating at the outset of its second part that the beghards of the free

spirit had been combatted by the Council of Vienne in the decretal [found]

under the heading de hereticis,Ad nutum nostrum.

Looking further one can see that Ad nostrums error list was used in Metz

as part of an interrogatory. A breakthrough in the study of late-medieval her-

esy trials was made by Herbert Grundmann in a classic article of 1965. 44 The

great German scholar showed that inquisitors customarily employed error lists

to serve as questionnairesthe technical term was interrogatoriaregarding

beliefs. Furthermore, the use of such methods often resulted in putting words

into peoples mouths. One of Grundmanns telling examples was a trial held

in Eichsttt in 1381: after the accused confessed to being a free spirit he

parroted the errors ofAd nostrum one by one in language nearly identical to

that of the canonistic text.

We can observe a similar phenomenon in the present instance. Of the sixerrors admitted by Gallenius of Toulouse, the third was that a man can arrive

at such perfection that he is not obliged to obey God or any creature (Quod

homo potest pervenire ad talem perfectionem quod non tenetur obedire Deo

nec cuique creature). Corresponding to this is the first error listed in Ad

nostrum: a man in the present life is able to acquire such a grade of perfec-

tion that he is incapable of sin (Quod homo in vita presenti tantum et talem

perfectionis gradum potest acquirere quod reddetur penitus impeccabilis).Ad

nostrums first error, it is true, says nothing about obedience, but that arises

in error three: Quod illi qui sunt in predicto gradu perfectionis et spiritu

libertatis non sunt humane subiecti obedientie, nec ad aliqua precepta ecclesie

obligantur. Furthermore, almost exact correspondence in language and con-

tent appears in the case of Galleniuss error six andAd nostrums error seven:there is no sin in the carnal act (actus carnis non est peccatum) and the

carnal act is no sin (actus autem carnalis . . . peccatum non est). Whether

Gallenius really upheld the antinomian errors imputed to him is not my pres-

ent concern; all that I wish to show is that the language of his confession fol-

lows that of a papal bull.

Galleniuss fifth error at first appears eccentric, for it bears no relation to

the usual range of errors commonly imputed to free spirits. This is a state-

ment that in purgatory there is no corporeal fire (Quod in purgatorio non

est ignis corporeus). Whether or not this actually was Galleniuss own sen-

timent, the tenet as phrased in the Metz treatise again seems to derive from a

44 Herbert Grundmann, Ketzerverhre des Sptmittelalters als quellenkritisches Problem,

Deutsches Archiv fr Erforschung des Mittelalters 22 (1965): 51975; rpt. in idem,Ausgewlte

Aufstze, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 197678), 2:364416.


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128 R. E. LERNER

formulary. The source appears to be one of the thirteen articles condemned in1270 in Paris by Bishop tienne Tempier: that the separated soul after deathdoes not suffer from corporeal fire (quod anima post mortem separata nonpatitur ab igne corporeo).45 The Metz treatises repetition of the term cor-poreal fire itself induces suspicion regarding the phrasing, and the suspicionmounts upon awareness of a parallel case. Namely, in 1315 or 1316, a bookwritten by a physician, Riccardino of Pavia, was examined by two inquisitorsin Prague who determined that it contained many errors. Of these the first wasthat the soul separated from the body is not able to suffer from corporeal firein hell or in purgatory (Quod anima separata a corpore non potest pati abigne corporali in inferno neque in purgatorio).46 Because Riccardinos bookis lost we cannot tell if it contained such a position. But we do know that the books main inquisitorial censor, Walter, titular bishop of Sura, boasted of

having studied for years in Paris and Oxford and stated that sixteen of Riccar-dinos errors had been condemned by both universities.47 The probability thusseems strong that Walter referred to Bishop Tempiers condemned articlesduring the examination and borrowed language concerning the error of thelack of corporeal fire in purgatory. Since Gallenius of Toulouses examinerwas a Parisian theological master, the likelihood that he too was equippedwith Bishop Tempiers error list seems strong.

Galleniuss first error leads us into a different terrain. This states that thereis neither Father nor Son in God because he is one (Quod in Deo cum situnus, non pater, non filius). No such unitarianism can be found in theusual sources relating to the heresy of the Free Spirit, or, for that matter, inany condemned Parisian article. But the error does bear relation to a tenet in

the papal bull of 1329 condemning the errors of Meister Eckhart. Whereas theMetz treatise has Gallenius saying God is one (Deo sit unus), article 23 ofIn agro dominico quotes Eckhart as saying God is one in all ways (Deusest unus omnibus modis). Additional resemblance appears in the respectiveconclusions: Gallenius says lapidarily neither Father nor Son (non pater,

45 Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. H. Denifle and E. Chatelain, 4 vols. (Paris,188997), 1:487, no. 432, art. 8. A similar error appears in the Parisian condemnation of 1277;see ibid. 1:544, no. 473, art. 19: Quod anima separata nullo modo patitur ab igne.

46 Riccardinos case, and its ecclesiastical-political ramifications, is treated meticulously inAlexander Patschovsky, Die Anfnge einer stndigen Inquisition in Bhmen (Berlin, 1975),

3046. For the edition of the text describing the condemnation of Riccardinos book, ibid.,18590, at 187, art. 1. Patschovsky notes the verbal proximity to the condemnation of 1270.47 Ibid., 189: Quod Parisius et Oxonie per cancellarios dictarum universitatum . . . qui

ibidem diu studuimus . . . vidimus et legimus reprobatos.


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non filius), and article 23 has he who sees two or sees distinction does not

see God (qui enim duo videt vel distinctionem videt, deum non videt).

Galleniuss second error is a paradox: when God created man, there was

no God nor man (Quando Deus creavit hominem non erat Deus neque

homo). Granted that the correspondence here is less direct than in the previ-

ous case, a paradox concerning time and creation as listed in the papal bull of

1329 seems similar, for the first of Eckharts reproved tenets in the bull con-

cludes as soon as God existed, he created the world (quam cito Deus fuit,

tam cito mundum creavit). The two startling statements are not the same, but

they may have a family resemblance.

This leaves Galleniuss fourth error, which begins as if it were a free-

spirit phrase, yet ends differently: a man can arrive at such perfection that

he need not pray vocally but only by his mind (Homo ex quo pervenit ad

talem perfectionem non debet orare vocaliter sed solum mente). Althoughsilent prayer is not in the Free-Spirit canon, the superiority of interior to

external acts appears in the bull against Eckhart: God does not properly

command an exterior act (article 16), as well as Let us bring forth the fruit

not of exterior acts, which do not make us good, but of interior acts, which the

Father who stays in us makes and works (article 18). The merger of a free

spirit preamble with an Eckhartian sentiment in Galleniuss fourth error

seems particularly noteworthy.

Could Gallenius have worked out doctrines similar to those of Meister Eck-

hart by having read Eckharts works? One can safely exclude this possibility.

Gallenius de Tholosa came from Toulouse. Almost certainly he fled from

Languedoc together with Beguins and accordingly would have arrived in

Metz in the 1320s or 1330s during or soon after the persecution in his home-land. Furthermore he must have been a layman. (Late-medieval documents

about heresy are always careful to specify when an accused heretic is in or-

ders.) Both givens exclude the possibility that Gallenius had read Meister

Eckhart on his own. Eckharts Latin works had limited circulation and were

beyond the reach of a layman, not only practically but because of their scho-

lastic format and abstruse mode of discourse. The Meisters vernacular ser-

mons, it is true, circulated more widely, and some may have been available

directly or indirectly to the laity. But Gallenius of Toulouse could hardly have

known German. He would not have learned the language in Languedoc, and

even if he had resided in Metz for over a decade, Metz was a Francophone

city.

Since we have seen that the Dominican inquisitor used at least one papaldecree concerning heresy (Ad nostrum) as a formulary, the obvious explana-

tion for Galleniuss Eckhardism is that the inquisitor steered the examina-


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130 R. E. LERNER

tion by means of another recently issued papal decree, In agro dominico.

Moreover, while the errors extracted in the papal bull were indeed taken from

writings by Eckhart, nothing in any of his writings expands on them in ways

as to make it more probable that Gallenius read or learned of them than that

he was prompted with errors fromIn agro dominico by the inquisitor.48 Gari-

nuss presumption about the accuseds free spirit profile explains his action.

Whatever the accused may really have believed, Garinus evidently pegged

him, as shown not only by his use ofAd nostrum but by a direct statement

about Gallenius in the treatise: he was of the sect of those who term them-

selves of the free spirit. The fugitive from Toulouse must have been a co-

operative defendant. The treatise indicates that some of the beghards of

poverty were pertinacious and put to death, but nothing equivalent is said or

hinted about Gallenius. Thus he probably made a full confession, recanted,

and hence was spared from the flames. The fact that his three Eckhartianerrors are not exact repetitions of language from In agro dominico raises the

possibility that he might have voiced some thoughts in which he really be-

lieved, but he might equally well have been improvising to satisfy the re-

quirements of a full confession.

After reporting the case of Gallenius, the second part of the Metz treatise

refers to two other errors of the beghards of the free spirit without naming

any individuals who held them. The second of these constitutes high-potency

free-spirit outrageousness. The malignant beghards were said to have main-

tained that if anyone wills to kill, or fornicate, or steal, or perpetrate any

other crime, he does not sin in doing so; indeed, he would sin if he did not ful-

fill such a will because resisting such a will would be resisting God, from

whom such a will proceeds. Avoiding once more the issue of whether anyaccused heretics actually ever proposed such things, it remains clear that if

they were examined by means of leading questions, the inquisitor in this in-

stance could depend on prejudice without any need for drawing on formu-

laries.

The first extra tenet, however, is more properly theological. Supposedly

these heretics said that the human will is from God, and the act of the human

will is from God, from which they conclude that no act proceeding from the

human will can be evil because it is from God (Dicunt quod voluntas hu-

mana est a Deo et actus voluntatis humane est a Deo, ex consequenti con-

cludunt quod nullus actus ab humana voluntate procedens potest esse malus

48 This has been confirmed for me by Professor Loris Sturlese, one of the foremost living

experts on Eckhart, who agrees that Galleniuss errors as reported in the Metz treatise parallel

errors in the papal bull.


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quia a Deo est). Although this is antinomianism of a Free-Spirit com-

plexion, the specific language has no parallel in Ad nostrum, which lacks

language about wills. But In agro dominico again supplies the deficiency,

particularly with the tenets that the good man should will whatever God

wills and because God wills in some way for me to have sinned, I should

not will that I have not committed sins (article 14: Ipse [bonus homo] velit

quidquid Deus vult. Quia Deus vult aliquo modo me peccasse, nollem ego

quod ego peccata non commisissem). The first of the two additional errors in

the Metz treatise thus consists of a blend between Free-Spirit thought and

Eckhartian language.

As stated, no names are attached to the two additional errors. The treatise

simply reports that they emerged from confessions of those who were exam-

ined in the city of Metz. Accordingly we again face the difficulty of imagin-

ing that the first error derived from actual knowledge of Meister Eckhartsteachings. Others who were examined together with Gallenius of Toulouse as

beghards of the free spirit may not necessarily have fled with him from

Languedoc, but in that case they were most likely to have been natives of

Metz, where French was spoken. And if the accused were laity, as seems war-

ranted to assume, how would they otherwise have absorbed Eckhartian theo-

logical language regarding wills? The alternative that the terminology

depended on prompting fromIn agro dominico seems much more compelling.

All told, if one or two tenets offered by the Tractatus de beghardis resembled

tenets from the bull against Eckhart, that might perhaps be written off as coin-

cidence, but we have now seen that four of them did. Thus the conclusion

seems inescapable that the Dominican inquisitor had a copy of In agro

dominico at his disposal and used that bull together with Ad nostrum as tem-plates for conducting some of his examinations.

Where would Brother Garinus de Giaco have obtained copies of the two

texts? Assuming that he was Dominican regent master in Paris during the year

of the Metz trial it seems more likely that in travelling to a foreign city he

would have brought documents with him rather than counting on their avail-

ability on site. Moreover this inference is greatly strengthened if it is accepted

that Brother Garinus had the Parisian error list of 1270 at his disposal. Ac-

cording to this reconstruction, then,In agro dominico was available to a Pari-

sian theologian in 1337, either having been sent to Paris officially upon its

issuance in 1329 or else having been brought there by someone who appreci-

ated its import for the policing of doctrine.

In conclusion, if it is conceded that In agro dominico was used as a formu-lary in a Metz heresy trial of 1337, that is yet more proof that the bull was not

meant to be limited in its circulation to the province of Cologne. But the evi-


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132 R. E. LERNER

dence is of deeper significance in casting light on the negative reception of

Meister Eckharts teachings. Those scholars who attempted to minimize the

seriousness of the Avignon process against Eckhart and its outcome not only

discounted as formulaic the sharp language ofIn agro dominicos arenga anddisposition but neglected to mention the equally sharp words of Jacques

Fournier when evaluating the articles of accusation around 1328 in Avignon.

According to the man who would soon become Pope Benedict XII, two of the

articles, which then entered into the bull of condemnation verbatim (as

articles eleven and twelve) were respectively, false and heretical, and blas-

phemous and insane.49 In my article of 1997 I observed that those who were

familiar with the articles in the bull against Eckhart linked them with the

articles in Ad nostrum, the antinomian mystical errors imputed to Germanbeghards and beguines.50 I supported this statement with data showing that

all or parts of In agro dominico appeared in inquisitorial repositories fromthree different cities: Mainz, Strassburg, and Zurich. Evidently inquisitorswho wished to inform themselves about the nature of the threat of antinomian

mysticism believed that the bull against Eckhart could be regarded as a sup-

plement to the Clementine decree against the malignant men known as

beghards.

The evidence in this article shows that an identifiable inquisitor, Jordan of

Quedlinburg, active far to the east of the Rhineland, regarded the errors listed

in In agro dominico as linked with those listed in Ad nostrum. It shows toothat Gert Groot took the two sets of errors to be complementary. Most illumi-

natingly, hitherto unknown evidence from Metz shows that an inquisitor

moved beyond theory to practice, drawing on both bulls to examine beg-

hards. Even though this inquisitor belonged to Eckharts Dominican Order,he must have accepted In agro dominicos admonitions that the errors taughtby someone named Eckhart from Germany . . . [who] was led astray by the

Father of Lies were a clear and present danger to the faith. Eckhart himself

may well have been homo doctus et sanctus, but his specter was whispering toheresy hunters.

49 Josef Koch, Der Kardinal Jacques Fournier (Benedikt XII.) als Gutachter in theo-

logischen Prozessen, in Die Kirche und ihre mter und Stnde, ed. Wilhelm Corsten et al.(Cologne, 1960), 44152, at 451: hec sunt falsa et heretica; blasphemus et insanus. Jacques

also sneers at what became article 13 as apud omnes intelligentes dignum risu. These

pronouncements descend to us by means of quotations in a work of 1368 by Johannes

Hiltalingen of Basel: see now, in greater detail, Karl Heinz Witte, Die Rezeption der LehreMeister Eckharts durch Johannes Hiltalingen von Basel: Untersuchung und Textausgabe,

Recherches de thologie ancienne et mdivale 71 (2004): 30571.50 Lerner, New Evidence, 362.


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APPENDIX

Aliud genus beghardorum

A corrected version of the entire Tractatus de beghardis pertaining to the heresytrials in Metz of 1337, and aided by a transcription helpfully provided by AlexanderPatschovsky, appears in Kneupper, Reconsidering a Fourteenth-Century HeresyTrial (n. 38 above), 22327. Kneupper describes the manuscriptVienna, ster-reichische Nationalbibliothek 4201improving on the description of Carola Hocker,ed., Disputatio inter catholicum et paterinum hereticum (Florence, 2001), cxxiiicxxiv. Here I reproduce from fol. 7v the last paragraph of the first part of the treatise,which gives the name of the Dominican inquisitor and the date, as well as the entiresecond part. The non in pointed brackets (Galleniuss tenet 3) is required by thelogic of the sentence.

Isti articuli inventi fuerunt in examinatione beghardorum hereticorum combusto-rum in Meti per dominum episcopum Metensem et fratrem Garinum Ordinis Predica-torum inquisitorem heretice pravitatis anno Domini M3to 37.

Est aliud genus beghardorum, et isti nominant se de libertate spiritus, contra quosin concilio Vienensi facta est decretalis sub tytulo de hereticus ad nutum nostrum,et ibidem enumerantur et condempnantur viii errores. Et quantum coligitur ex con-fessionibus eorum qui fuerunt examinati in civitate Metensi fuit quidam nomine Gal-lenius de Tholosa. Hic fuit de secta eorum qui famant se de libertate spiritus. Et illetunc temporis latebat in Metis et erat maximus heresyarcha. Iste in angulis et latibulisinter alios errores asserebat que secuntur:

5

10

15

20

25

[1] Quod in Deo cum sit unus, non pater, non filius.

[2] Item quando Deus creavit hominem non erat Deus neque homo.[3] Item quod homo potest pervenire ad talem perfectionem quod non teneturobedire Deo nec cuique creature.

[4] Item homo ex quo pervenit ad talem perfectionem non debet orare vocaliter sedsolum mente, adducens illud ewangelii veri adoratores adorabunt patrem in spiritu etveritate [Jo 4:23].

[5] Item quod in purgatorio non est ignis corporeus.[6] Item quod actus carnis non est peccatum.

Item in confessionibus supradictis habetur quod beghardi de libertate spiritus fun-dunt plures errores suos ex tali mala radice quia dicunt quod voluntas humana est aDeo et actus voluntatis humane est a Deo, ex consequenti concludunt quod nullus ac-tus ab humana voluntate procedens potest esse malus quia a Deo est. Et inde est quod

ipsi dicunt quod si aliquis habet voluntatem occidendi aut fornicandi aut furandi sivequodcumque aliud facinus perpetrandi, ipse non peccat hoc faciendo immo peccaret sitalem voluntatem opere non compleret quia tali voluntati resistendo resisteret Deo aquo ipsa voluntas procedit.


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134 R. E. LERNER

Et notandum quod beghardi de paupertate et pechardi de libertate spiritus mutuo se

visitant et ad invicem frequenter colloquendum habent. Non tamen invenitur quod

unus alium accuset libenter nisi coactus. Explicit tractatus de erroribus [al. man.:

pechardorum].

30

Northwestern University.


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Lerner Meister Eckhart's Specter - 14th c Bull in Agro Dominico & Inquisitorial Text of 1337

Documents

Transcript of Lerner Meister Eckhart's Specter - 14th c Bull in Agro Dominico & Inquisitorial Text of 1337