Abstract
The Liber Exemplorum, a collection of preachers’ tales, was compiled c.1275 by an English Franciscan working in Ireland, and is the earliest Franciscan example of its type. Out of 213 exempla which survive in this manuscript, some 26 of these are found in no other source, and are drawn either from the compiler’s own experience or from his having heard of them second hand; these often mention Irish place names and feature Irish Christians as the main protagonists. The collection was compiled some 60 years after the calling of the Fourth Lateran Council, whose decrees would significantly shape the lives of medieval Christians for centuries. This article examines the manner in which some of the principal concerns of Lateran IV appear prominently as themes in this collection of preachers’ tales, and, furthermore, how such tales played a crucial role in the popular dissemination of the reforms envisaged by the council fathers. The tales themselves also offer a unique window on popular religious practice and ideas, both real and imagined, in late-13th-century Ireland.
Highlights
November 2015 marked the 800th anniversary of one of the great councils of the Middle Ages, the Fourth Lateran Council, called by arguably the most powerful of medieval popes, InnocentIII, whose reign from 1198 to 1216 marked the culmination of one of the great reforming papacies.While well known for involving himself heavily in the dynastic politics of his day, intervening in disputes in Norway, Sweden, Bohemia and Hungary, not to mention succession crises concerningGerman emperors, Innocent was a church reformer at heart, and Lateran IV represents the realisation of many of his own reforming projects and ideals
Taking our cue from concerns expressed in some key decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council of
1215, we have seen how these have come to be expressed some 60 years later through the medium of exempla found in a Franciscan preaching manual produced in Ireland
Summary
November 2015 marked the 800th anniversary of one of the great councils of the Middle Ages, the Fourth Lateran Council, called by arguably the most powerful of medieval popes, Innocent. While there were numerous other concerns which constituted the Council’s 70 decrees (far more than those cited above), for the purposes of this article three principal areas are examined in the light of the Liber Exemplorum: first, an emphasis on the real, transubstantiated presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the proper disposal with which one should approach the sacrament; secondly, the necessity of receiving the Sacrament of Penance from one’s own priest once a year as a preparation for the reception of the Eucharist; and thirdly, the expectation of a higher standard of behaviour from clergy, which necessarily involved recounting examples of their contemporary shortcomings These three areas feature prominently in the stories related in the. Dunning’s point regarding a lack of sources for the implementation of the Council’s decrees, it is argued here that this exempla collection does afford us a window into a world of belief in 13th century Ireland that might otherwise be hidden from us and “since it can safely be assumed that the substance of some of the material in this exempla collection was, preached”, as Alan Fletcher reminds us, “onto things heard by medieval Irish audiences” (Fletcher 2001, p. 70)
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