Learning to Die in London, 1380-1540. Amy Appleford
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of focus on the specifically spiritual jurisdiction of the paterfamilias, whose exercise of a “fadris love to his meyne [household],” through teaching, admonishment, discipline, and encouragement, obliges him, according to How lordis and housbondemen schulden teche goddis commaundementis, to carry out not only “þe office of holy chirche” within his jurisdiction (“in his hous”) but “on sum maner [in some sense] a bischopes office.”108 Several of the household miscellanies in which Visitation E appears provide materials for a householder to utilize in his “benevolent rule” over dependents, as he instructs, guides, and shapes himself, his godly familia, and even his tenants and day laborers.109 The inclusion of the work in these books thus serves to extend the householder’s spiritual governance to the edge of the lives of his dependents, providing the encouragement and knowledge needed to supplement the parish priest’s ministry at the deathbed.
The instructional program retained in whole or part in most of the compilations that contain Visitation E is Pecham’s Syllabus, which in addition to the works of mercy required priests and parishioners to know the articles of faith, the commandments of old and new law, the seven sacraments, the four cardinal and three theological virtues, and their antagonists, the seven deadly sins.110 In some Visitation E books, the reformist orientation of these catechetical clusters toward enabling lay teaching and learning is especially clear. Cambridge University Library MS Nn.4.12 (c. 1400), for example, is made up almost wholly of texts expanding the basic Syllabus materials: the so-called Wycliffite expositions of the Pater Noster, Ave Maria,111 and Apostles Creed; a commentary on the Ten Commandments; Visitation E; and a number of other works that crisscross through the items on Pecham’s Syllabus several times.112 These texts not only provide the information the reader needs to be saved, they also argue for the duty of laypeople both to teach one another the same truths and to hold the church to its own, sober pastoral responsibilities: “Oure beleve [Creed] techis us þat God ordeyned hyt [it] al, and bad [commanded] þat men schuld cun [memorize] hyt, and teche yt to oþer. And ȝif prelatys faylyn in þis, Christ seyde þat stonys schulde cry (Luke 19:40); and secler [secular] lordys schuld, in defawte [absence] of prelaytis, lerne and preche þe law of God in here modyr tonge,” states the Apostles Creed commentary, encapsulating one of the programs of the manuscript as a whole.113 In University College 97, Visitation E again appears with a full set of expositions of the items in Pecham’s Syllabus, this time along with the less widely known text on the two commandments of the new law, Diliges Dominum Deum Tuum, which instructs readers to “kepe and teche the comaundementȝ of God,” in part by providing “holy conseillyng and techyng” to sinful neighbors in need.114 Both books seek to expand the spiritual duties of lay people to include what is, in effect, pastoral teaching. The presence of Visitation E among these works is a further symptom of the reformist orientation of both.115
Indeed, Visitation E appears with these catechetical items so regularly that it appears to have attained the status of an indispensable instructional text. London, British Library Royal MS 17.A.xxvi, for example, groups the works with a further set of expositions of Syllabus items, some of them in their Wycliffite versions, then expands its program by adding the Middle English version of the Anglo-Norman Apocalypse, with prologue and commentary, and the Early Version Wycliffite Bible translation of John’s Gospel.116 In the bulky Oxford, Bodleian Library Laud Miscellaneous MS 210, Visitation E again appears with a cluster of mostly Wycliffite catechetical items, along with the vigorously reformist and affective Book to a Mother, which encourages lay participation in certain areas of pastoral care, such as correcting the sins of others, in the context of a highly ambitious program of lay asceticism.117
Visitation E is not a casual addition to these more complex collections. On the contrary, it shares in the wider rhetoric and goals of its textual companions. For example, the Wycliffite tract on excommunication, “þe grete sentence of curs expounded,” found in London, Westminster School MS 3, with all the Wycliffite catechetical items mentioned above, describes the profitableness of “confession maad to trewe prestis”—with “contricioun for synnes before done” and “good life and keeping Goddis hestis and werkis of mercy … after”—in much the same terms as Visitation E.118 A commentary on Psalm 26, found uniquely in the same book, also echoes Visitation E’s lament for the loss of “Goddis lawe” in the current “wrecchindes of þis world,” deploring the “worldly wrecchis, ful of pride, ypocrisye, and covetise,” who “wenne [hope] to stoppe … goddis lawe,” prophesying that “al þe persecucioun and sclaundre þat comeþ to goddis trewe servauntis schal turne hem to good, as holy writt seiþ.”119 Treatises on the Ten Commandments in several manuscripts offer helpful context for one of the work’s theologically self-conscious moments, when the dying person, while gazing at “a cros or ymage made wiþ mannys hondes,” as the Ordo enjoins, is directed to “sey or thinke in thyin herte: ‘I woot wel þou art not god, but ymaad aftir hym, to make men have þe moore mynde of hym after whom þou art ymagid.’”120 Although Visitation E is here immediately drawing on Visitation A, which is itself indebted to Baudri’s De visitacione infirmorum,121 it seems that in this milieu, even at the point of death, idolatry is a potentially dangerous breach of “Goddes lawe.”
So integral is Visitation E to these compilations, indeed, that one passage of the work is directly taken over by the prologue to the Wycliffite Ten Commandments in the version found in the large early fifteenth-century compilation, London, British Library Harley MS 2398:
[Visitation E; italicized passages from Visitation A] ffor every day a man neigheth his deeth neer and nee. ffor the moore a man in this lyf wexith [grows] in dayes and ȝeres, the moore he unwexith [diminishes]. For, as seyntes seyn: þe firste day in the whiche a man is born is þe firste day of his deth. ffor every day he is diynge while he is in this lyf. And therfore seith þe gospelle: “Awake, for þou wost never whiche hour god is to come” (Matthew 24:42), in thi ȝouthe or in thi myddel age or in thi laste dayes, or prevyliche [secretly] or openliche. And therfore loke þat þou be alwey redy! For it is semeliche [appropriate] þat þe servant abyde þe lord, and not the lord his servaunt. And nameliche whan greet haste is, he is worthi blame þat is unredy. But grettere haste no man redith of, than schalle be in þe comynge of Crist.
[Harley 2398: italicized passaged from Visitation E] For everych day a man neyȝep to his deþ, nere and nere. For þe more a man in his lyfe wexeþ in dayes & ȝeres, þe more he unwexeþ. For, as seyntes seggeþ: “þe furste day in þe weke þat a man is ybore is þe furste day of his deþ. For everyche day he is deyng whyle he is in þis lyf.” And þerfore seyþ þe Gospel: “Awake, for þou wost never whiche [h]oure God is to come”: whether in þy ȝonge age, other in þy myddel age, other in þy laste days; or pryveliche, other openlyche. And þerfore looke þou beo alwey bysy in his servys. And þenne, what tyme ever he come, þou mayst beo to hym redy. For it is semeliche þat servant abyde þe lorde, and nouȝt þe lord his servant. & namelyche, whanne gret hast ys, he is worþy blame þat is þenne unredy. Bot gretter hast no man redeþ of þan schal beo in comynge of Crist. And þus þou mayst wel y-knowe þat it is lytel ynow to kepe continuelliche Godes hestes to make a goed ende.122
Appropriately borrowed from the end of the first exhortation of Visitation E, where the speaker turns from the dying person to the attendants, with the words “and this is not oonliche to telle to syke men, but eke to hoole men,” in its new context this passage understands death preparation as a central part of the Christian life in a society directed by the Ten Commandments. Although no other copy of the Wycliffite Ten Commandments contains this prologue, its appearance here is again suggestive of how integral to reformist pastoral thought both Visitation E itself and the practice of sickbed visitation the work outlines in such detail had become.
Several of the books containing Visitation E offer insight as to the kind of audience that might be concerned to reflect on and practice the expanded spiritual role accorded to lay lords and householders, but it is again Harley 2398 that offers the most suggestive set of textual and social contexts for the work.