Popular Opinion in the Middle Ages

Charles W. Connell

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9783110432398
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

This book provides a needed overview of the scholarship on medieval public culture and popular movements such as the Peace of God, heresy, and the crusades and illustrates how a changing sense of the populus, the importance of publics and public opinion and public spheres was influential in the evolution of medieval cultures. Public opinion did play an important role, even in the Middle Ages; it did not wait until the era of modern history to do so.
Using modern research on such aspects of culture as textual communities, large and small publics, cults, crowds, rumor, malediction, gossip, dispute resolution and the European popular revolution, the author focuses on the Peace of God movement, the era of Church reform in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the rise and combat of heresy, the crusades, and the works of fourteenth-century political thinkers such as Marsiglio of Padua regarding the role of the populus as the basis for the analysis.
The pattern of changes reflected in this study argues that just as in the modern world the simplistic idea of "the public?" was a phantom. Instead there were publics large and small that were influential in shaping the cultures of the era under review.

Chapter 1
Constructing the Public, its Opinion and its Media of Influence

One of the well-worn clichés known to those who study the macro-history of Europe is that of the “rise of the people.”19 Though no longer approached simplistically or naively within a construct of Western history as one of progress, in fact, there is still much interest in how “the people” fared during any particular era of that long history. The period under review in this study (950–1350) has been regarded as one of the most dynamic and formative. Some refer to big chunks of that time as “revolutionary;” a period of “renaissance;” “the most important period of change in the medieval Church;” the European economic “take-off,” or even the very “making of Europe.” So surely one’s curiosity ought to be aroused about what happened to “the people” in this era. How did Europeans construct the elements of the growing population and assign them roles in society? What were the major issues of power and who were the contestants in that struggle? How did they perceive and try to influence one another? Were collective communities more important? And, if so, how did they shape their views of society and/or try to influence others to adopt those views? How did individuals operate in their private and public domains, and what role did various forms of communication play in making the views of individual and communities known to one another? Did “the people” come to have any real power in the political equation or did they remain in the shadows?

In this chapter, I begin the approach to such questions with reflections on how scholars have dealt with key concepts that are fundamental to the analysis of major medieval events that attracted the attention of large numbers of the populace, as well as the media of influence that were most prominent in the attempt to gain control of what is now being seen as a public sphere of political vitality.

The Public and Public Culture in the High Middle Ages

A common modern definition of the term “public” refers to it as “of or affecting the community of the people,” the roots of which can be traced to the Latin term populus as it was being reshaped by the Latin Church Fathers. Yet the term remained ambiguous, as it does today, and therefore difficult to translate in any one period of its use.20 In the medieval world, for example, did it refer to the literate elite, the clergy only, or a broad cross-section of society including both literate and non-literate laity and clergy? In Jerome (ca. 347–420) and Augustine (354–430) the term populus denoted a group with the simple characteristic of a “unity” derived either from law or “some sort of political responsibility,” thus retaining the political and juridical meanings of its use by the Romans.21 Augustine likely drew upon Scipio (ca. 236–183 B.C.E.), whose opinion that the populus as a “gathering united in fellowship by a common sense of right and a community of interest”22 was influential in shaping Augustine’s own view that the Christian populus embraced various social classes rather than only the “common people.”23 Although in the world of Charlemagne (742–814) the ambiguity remained, the shadow of the populus began to lengthen as was apparent in the case of episcopal elections as early as the Merovingian predecessors to the Carolingian dynasty. A bishop was to be elected in a tradition controlled by the king, the clergy of the diocese, and the aristocracy, but as Patrick Geary noted, “Just over the horizon would be found the populus […] who might on occasion be excited to play a role in a disputed succession. The possible titrations of this volatile mixture were as numerous as elections.”24 In a letter of Alcuin (ca. 740–804) to Charlemagne dated 798 the phrase vox populi, vox Dei first appeared. Alcuin cynically questioned the legitimacy of the “voice of the people” as being little more than the “shout of the crowd,” and not the voice of God.25Regardless, his disdainfully acknowledged awareness of the populus, or “crowd” as he referred to it, was perhaps a more nervous indication of its potential power than he cared to admit.

As we enter the period of time upon which we focus in this study, Gerbert of Aurilliac (ca. 946–1003; later Pope Sylvester II, r. 999–1003), like Alcuin before him, lashed out at the role of a mob in the election of an Archbishop of Reims in 991.26 In the early eleventh century, at least two views of the role of the populus emerged. Ademar of Chabannes (ca. 988–1034) expressed the need for human beings to work together “in concert with the saints and other supernatural patrons to solve their problems” and achieve the pax Dei via oaths taken within the social community.27 Andrew of Fleury (fl. ca. 1030s), while admitting a place for discussion of common problems, saw no role for the populus in solving them. Instead Andrew argued that action would result from “prayerful dedication of themselves to the saints which offered a solution.”28 Here, in both instances, we see emerging a sensitivity to the populus as a community with common problems. Neither Ademar nor Andrew seem to make a hierarchical distinction regarding who should be discussing issues or working together to achieve a solution to community-wide problems. Nor did Gratian, who, in his Decretum (ca. 1150), envisioned a twofold division among Christians, the clergy/religious on the one side and the lay on the other:

The other kind of Christians are the lay. For the Λαόϛ is the people. These [the lay] are allowed to possess temporal things. […] They are permitted to marry, till the earth, judge between man and man, litigate, place offerings on altars, pay tithes, and they can be saved thus [leading this form of life] so long as they have done good and avoided vices.29

For Gratian, the “lay” were the “people,” that is, all who are not clergy or religious, but he made no distinction as to rank or function in society.

By the late eleventh century it appears that the maxim vox populi, vox Dei moved in new directions and the populus was offered a more meaningful role if its voice was raised to support a program of ecclesiastical reform, or was in favor of a pope or a saint’s cult, or a crusade. As we will see in chapter five below, the diverse crowd of lay and clerical representatives assembled for the sermon of Pope Urban II at Clermont in 1095 was reported at its conclusion to have exclaimed Deus vult!—as though it were one voice of the people speaking in the voice of God. Still, some argue that the phrase was not clearly used in a political context until as late as 1327 when Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury (1313–1327), preached a sermon on the occasion of the deposition of Edward II (1307–1327).30 Various terms for the “people” and who is included in the construct appear regularly in the documentation of popular protest occurring in the fourteenth century in France, Flanders, and, Italy.31 For example, in Paris, the menu peuple (commoners, i. e., fullers, weavers, tavern-keepers, and many other workers) rioted against changes in currency and the rise of rents. In Tournais, it was parvis (little people), and, the commoners (communitas, that is, the weavers, the poor, the fullers and others) who conspired against the governors. In Flanders, the commoners (populares) were taxed and it caused “great rumblings.” In Italy, it appears that the term popoli (people) was both vague and fluctuating, especially before the 1280s. Early on, it seemed to refer to the urban population only and could single out artisans or anywhere between to merchants. By 1300, divisors appeared within the ranks. The term popolo is found in the chronicles and government documents that began to distinguish the popoli or artefici (craftsmen with guild status) from the popolani as a more privileged stratum of merchants. The latter were also often known as the popolani grassi (fat cats) to separate them from the popolo minuto, or disenfranchised workers who came mostly from the wool industry.32 In the more complex environments of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, for example, Christine de Pizan (1364–ca. 1430) divided the ‘people’ into two groups of “bourgeois and merchants” and “common,” with the latter being exemplified by craftsmen and laborers.33 The bourgeois and merchants might seem to be noble at times, but “le commun” or “simple” (“simple peuple” or “simple laboureurs”) normally referred only to craftsmen and laborers. Whether her observations reflected a recent or a long-standing usage is unclear, but it appears that she was attempting to achieve a clear categorization that reflected a sense of the importance of understanding the roles of the people.

Theoretical discussions of the legitimate role to be played by the populus began to appear by late-thirteenth century that opened up the sense of the public to include the common people. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) and John of Paris (1255–1306) examined the authority of the people, and in turn were succeeded in that pursuit by both Dante (ca. 1265–1321) and Marsilius of Padua (ca. 1275–ca. 1342). By the middle of the fourteenth century vox populi, vox Dei had more clearly assumed a political sense which was witnessed outside the philosophers’ realm in the political poetry of John Gower (ca. 1330–1408) and Thomas Hoccleve (ca. 1368–1426).34 We will return to the more philosophical and theological uses of the concept and the role of the populus in chapter seven below.

Around the turn of this century studies of the medieval popular religious behavior began to focus more on the varieties of that experience to shed light on the participants.35 Examples of those being most studied, and more relevant to this study, include saints’ cults; participation in public, collective liturgies; pilgrimage; and attendance at sermons. According to Gary Dickson, a neglected aspect has been that of what he terms “revivalism,” or collective religious enthusiasm, with the key aspect being that of “enthusiasm.” Dickson acknowledges the pioneering work on these various religious activities by scholars such as Grundmann, Alphandéry, Delaruelle, Manselli, and Reeves, but notes their lack of attention to revivalism per se.36 For him, the concept refers to “a pattern of behaviours embracing episodes of public, collective religious enthusiasm,” some of which involved conversion experiences or the promulgation of prophecy, and may or may not have been accompanied by reports of miracles.37 These phenomena often occurred in response to events or widespread social crises associated with disease, war, and famine.38 Sometimes they were initiated by the clergy, as in the preaching of moral reform or the crusades, or to promote the building of a new cathedral. They were “popular” because they “attracted adherents across the medieval social spectrum typified by that somewhat suspect phenomenon, the mixed crowd.”39

Another way in which the medieval world might find a common bond that cut across social or class distinctions, or even tried to mold them into a Christian faithful composed of both lay and secular elements, is found in transforming the simple populus to ‘populus Christianus.’ In other words, as ‘the Church’ defined its missions against the ‘others’ it struggled to create an identity—the Christian people as a community of Christians, the land of the Christians as ‘Christendom.’40 Even with this inference that the term populus refers to the Christian community inclusive of the common people, modern scholarship continues entangled within a debate over the question of the nature of medieval culture. Thirty years ago John Van Engen provided an overview of some of the most prominent work of the second half of the twentieth century that focused on the spread of ecclesiastical reform and the development of lay countercultural groups.41 The conflict has often centered on the issue of how great a distinction might be made between lay and clerical components, or the culture of the literate elite versus that of the non- or less literate in medieval society. Jacques Le Goff argued that there was a distinct religious culture among the ‘people,’ and he, along with Jean-Claude Schmitt offered that there were two distinct cultures, “one clerical and bookish, the other popular, oral and customary; the first accessible through traditional intellectual and spiritual categories, the second mainly through cultural anth...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Contents
• Chapter 1: Constructing the Public, its Opinion and its Media of Influence
• Chapter 2: The Peace of God and Growing Awareness of the “Public”
• Chapter 3: Investiture and Reform Appeal to the Populus
• Chapter 4: Heresy as the Public Challenge to Orthodoxy
• Chapter 5: Influence and Challenge: the Power of the Crusades in their Own Public Sphere
• Chapter 6: Broadening the Public Culture in the Later Middle Ages
• Chapter 7: Community, Representation, and the Populus in Practice and Theory
• Chapter 8: Conclusion
• Abbreviations
• Bibliography
• Index
• Endnotes