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MARGINALIA

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SINS OF TONGUES, PAINS OF MEMBERS: SPEECH, DIVISION AND

SACRAMENT IN LATE MEDIEVAL EXEMPLA

Late medieval exempla teem with burned and chewed tongues, cleaved bodies,engorged genitals and rotting corpses. Designed both to engage and instruct, effectiveexempla 'removent taedium' and 'somnolentiam fugant'1 in the visceral details of thepains and sufferings of sinners. While exempla occur throughout the classical period andthe earlier Middle Ages, it is generally agreed that the genre changes around thethirteenth century.2 In translating abstract sins into compelling and memorable tales, thelate medieval exemplum reflects the proliferation of the mendicant orders and thewidening audience for instructive tales.

Many late medieval exempla concern peccata linguae, or sins of the tongue. Ascategorised by pastoral writers, peccata linguae include such sins as backbiting, lying,blasphemy and idle speech.3 In the pastoral tradition, this bad speech implicitly balancesthe priest's positive speech in administering the sacraments and instructing the laity.4This ambivalence is illustrated in the exemplum of the servant sent to buy the worst andbest meats. He returns with tongues to meet both categories.5 Given this duality, RobertMannyng sets out to balance his salvatory words against damning 'talys & rymys' and'troutale' in his confessional manual.6

Illustrations of negative and positive speech took on an obvious urgency with the FourthLateran Council and related synods. Lateran IV asserts the prominence of institutions,the Church and its priests, in administering the sacraments. Article 21, the omni utruisquesexus clause, requires Christians to perform auricular confession and to receive theEucharist once a year.7 The outpouring of penitential manuals, exempla, and compendiaof vices and virtues after Lateran IV reflects an impulse to categorise and define sins sothat they might be avoided. In this body of writing, peccata linguae either fall under theheadings of other sins; e.g., turpiloquium under lechery; form their own category; or withgluttony, constitute the sins of the mouth.8 Those guilty of these sins sufferdismemberment and other forms of bodily mutilation in late medieval exempla.

Owing to their didactic purpose and simple narrative structure, late medieval exempla areoften seen by modern critics as simple tools for generating fear and submission. AsJacques Le Goff writes, Le nouvel exemplum... est au service d'une rhétorique de lapeur'.9 In exempla concerning peccata linguae where backbiters chew their tongues intomorsels and demons cleave idle speakers in half, fear is likely an effect. However, thepunishments of the tales suggest a more sophisticated theological tradition than mereterror.

The punishments for these sins not only relate to pastoral writers' concerns for thesacraments of the Eucharist and Confession, but also draw upon medieval theories oflanguage inherited from Augustine.10 In sum, due to original sin, man is cut off from thewholeness of God's Word. This wholeness is restored by the Johannine 'Word madeflesh' and the hope of resurrection offered by the sacraments. However, sinners of the

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tongue suffer from literal dismemberment in exempla, signifying their spiritual separationfrom the body of Christ and the sacraments.

In order to unravel how language operates in a sacramental context, it is necessary toturn to Confessions, arguably the first penitential manual. Though ostensibly Augustine'sprivate communication with God, Confessions by its own theory of language and thatdeveloped in his other writings is anything but this. According to Augustine, mancommunicates with God internally without the diminution inevitable in the conversion ofthoughts and feelings into words.11 'Non opus est locutione, cum oramus, id estsonantibus uerbis.'12

Verbal exchange between men, however, is imperfect, because human speech istemporal and fragmentary. This is demonstrated in the physical act of hearing: 'Nosloquimur uerba uolantia et transeuntia; mox ut sonuerit ore tuo uerbum tuum, transit,peragit strepitum suum et transit in silentium.'13 Language is also partial in humanunderstanding. Once translated into words, thoughts must pass through the speaker'smouth and into the ears of listeners, being confused by various ambiguities such asconnotations formed by personal experience.14 The ontological, whole idea manconceives in his thoughts can never be expressed to another person. The individual isseparated from others by language.

Linguistic exile is punishment for original sin and Babel. In the beginning, humanity wasimbued with the wholeness of God's Word. However, the Fall created a fissure betweenGod and man, introducing the temporality of death.15 As original sin was precipitated by asin of the tongue (the Devil's lie to Eve), Augustine represents this fissure in terms oflanguage:

Quidquid per illam sentis, in parte est et ignoras totum, cuius hae partes suntsed siad totum comprehendendum esset idoneus sensus carnis tuae ac non et ipse inparte uniuersi accepisset pro tua poena iutstum modum, uelles ut transiret quidquidexistit in praesentia, ut magis tibi omnia placerent.16

Augustine compares this desire for totality to human language. Though we desire thewhole, we can only experience the part. 'Sonat et transit; uerberato aere aurem percutit,postea non erit.'17 With the introduction of death, language, too, becomes characterisedby temporality. Furthermore, as punishment for pride in the construction of Babel, menare divided from each other further by multiplicity of languages. Augustine interprets thisto mean not only separation of languages, but of sign from signifier.18 'Ita uoces oculisostenduntur, non per se ipsas, sed per signa quaedam sua.'19

Using this exegetical framework, Augustine traces his own spiritual development throughhis relationship to language in Confessions.20 The sins he commits as a vendorverborum results in his feeling divided and incomplete. God, in contrast, is whole andunified. 'Et conligens me a dispersione, in qua frustatim discissus sum, dum ab uno teauersus in multa euanui.'21 His miserable spiritual state is characterized by illness.Before his salvation, Augustine is literally and figuratively unwhole. 'Et ideo non beneualebat anima mea et ulcerosa proiciebat se foras...'22 God makes his body whole,suggesting the promise of the resurrection. 'Recreasti ergo me ab illa aegritudine etsalvum fecisti filium ancillae tuae tunc interim corpore, ut esset cui salutem meliorematque certiorem dares...' Nevertheless, Augustine struggles with what will be categorisedin the later Middle Ages a sin of the tongue, excusing sin, or defensio peccata. This actdivides himself from himself and from God: '...sed excusare me amabam et accusarenescio quid aliud, quod mecum esset et ego non essem. Verum autem totum ego eramet aduersus me impietas mea me diuiserat, et id erat peccatum insanabilius...'23 ForAugustine, unity signifies virtue and vice division.24

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The gap between God and man is healed in Christ as 'Verbum caro factum est.'25 Hedestroys death, the punishment for the Fall, through the promise of resurrection, andheals the division of languages, the punishment for Babel, through the institution of theChurch: '...humilitas Christi congregauit diuersitates linguarum. Iam quod illa turrisdissociauerat, ecclesia colligit.'26 For Augustine, Christ is 'the verbal and actualreconciliation of God and man.'27 Man secures resurrection through membership in theChurch and membership in Christ by partaking of the sacraments.

By dismemberment and conditions that destroy the body's wholeness, such as ulcers andleprosy, the punishments for sinners of the tongue literally depict Augustinian linguistictheory and mirror his feelings of division and unwholeness that he experienced for hisown sins of the tongue. Similarly for the pastoral writers, the Fall resulted in linguisticdivision. In the Northern Homily Cycle, for example, Adam is symbolically dismemberedfrom God through language: 'To here Goddes word his eres reft/ Goddes cumandmentwhan þat he left.'28 As well as evoking this original linguistic fall, the punishments metedout to sinners of the tongue in exempla also suggest their separation from the body of theChurch and of the sacraments. The dangers depicted of peccata linguae focus on theircorrupting influence as the impact of bad speech assumes a community, a body oflisteners. As man does not communicate to God through this medium, speech concernsman's relationship to other men, his corporeal community.

In this respect, one the most odious of the sins of the tongue is29 blasphemia.Blasphemers are punished with the destruction of the body. In the Alphabet of Tales, oneblasphemer is punished with leprous spots, another with a sword through his mouth andanother with an ulcer.30 Their punishments signify their disunity with God and their lack ofhope for resurrection. These ideas are given visceral power in the tale of the two'gossops' in the31 Alphabet of Tales. At a feast, two friends speculate on the eternal fateof their chicken dinner. One guesses that because he has chopped the bird into pieces ithas no hope of resurrection. The chicken, however, is reassembled and revivified beforetheir eyes. The sprinkles of pepper and mustard with which it was seasoned transforminto leprous spots on the two men as punishment for their blasphemy. In an interestinginverse to these exempla, a knight with one eye is restored when he defends Jesusagainst blasphemy.32

Blasphemy also impacts the body of Christ. In many exempla, false oaths 'dysmembreIhesu'33 Himself. Oath swearers are thought to lay sin upon Him by bringing Him as falsewitness. As explained in Fasciculus Morum, 'quia secundum Augustinum iurare est Deumtestem adducere, et quantum in illo est, magic gravat Deum et ledit inponendo sibimalum culpe quam Iudei Christum occidendo et inponendo malum pene.'34 Thus thetypical punishment for sinners of the tongue, dismemberment, is enacted on the body ofChrist. 'Whan a man seiþ it for wraþþe and for despytþat so vileynly to-draweþ andbrekeþ Goddis body, and so vileynly mysseyn Ihesu Crist and his holy modre'35 In thepopular exemplum of the bloody child, oath swearers recognize their sin in visions of adismembered Christ.36 In the version in Handlyng Synne, Mary presents her child to theswearer: 'Al to-drawe were þe þarmys/ Of handys, of fete, þe flessh of drawyn,/ Mouþe,y3en, & nose, were all to-knawyn,/ Bakke & sydes were al blody.'37 The verbal act ofblasphemy is given social importance in the physical destruction of the body of Christ, themeans to life everlasting for the community of believers.

In patristic theology and late medieval pastoralia, man becomes a member of the body ofthe Church and of Christ by participating in the sacraments. 'Est enim ecclesia corpuseiuscorpus ergo suum multis membris diuersa officia gerentibis, nodo unitatis et charitatistanquam sanitatis adstringit.'38 Bad limbs or members threaten the corporate body andmust be healed or amputated. Ideally, bad members, or bad tongues, are healed through

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the good speech of good members and the sacraments of the Church. As Ayenbite ofInwit explains, 'yef þe on leme is zik oþer y-wonded: alle þe oþre him helpeþ to þet he byheld. Ine þises we onderstondeþ þe uirtue of dom and of amendment. wiþ-oute huam þetbody of holy cherche ne may yleste. Vor þe leme uorroted ssolde ssende þe hole.'39 Ifchiding and teaching does not persuade the sinner to amend his ways, 'þanne behoueþcome þet zuord hit uor to dele oþer be manzinge oþer be hotinge out of contraye.'40 As alast resort, the Church must amputate the bad limb with the sword of excommunication.The sinner of the tongue is thus institutionally dismembered from the Church and itssacraments. Medieval excommunicates were excluded from benefits of the Eucharist,which included 'pardon of sins, spiritual union with Christ, and liberation from the devil.'41

Various forms of spiritual amendment by physical dismemberment are represented in latemedieval exempla. In the tale of Pope Silvinus, the reformed idolater serves as anexemplary member of the Church. When he realises his error, he amends himself bydismemberment.42 The holy man 'smyten of fro his body alle hys membrys, oon after an-oþer, wherwyth he had worschepyd þe feend.' Better to cut off the offending members inlife than be dismembered eternally from the body of Christ. Through his self-amendmentand confession, the pope is saved.

Others are warned with temporary dismemberment before death. In a story of Jacobusde Voragine, which was translated and printed by Caxton, Peter the Carter is struck bylightening after cursing his oxen. He is punished for his cursing with 'cruele tormentes'.The fire of the lightening 'brente the senewes and the flessh fro his thye, and the boneappered, and that the thye and legge fyll of.'43 However, Peter is able to amend himselfwhilst still alive. He prays to the Virgin and St. Hyppolitus, and his leg is 'restablysshe[d]'.However, the leg is not made completely 'hool' for one year, so that his example might be'publysshed', presumably for the good of the community.

The severity of these punishments reflects the perceived impact of bad speech on thecommunity. Speech posed harm to the physical and spiritual bodies of listeners andsubjects of speech. For example, speech is often listed under the sins of murder inpenitential literature. Under the fifth commandment, the author of Dives and Pauper,warns against murder of a fellow man committed through the agency of the tongue by'hunderynge & procurynge his deth... fauour3euyngbe... false witnesse-berynge...lesygis-makynge... bi diffamynge... backbytyng, for bacbyteris & wyckyd spekerys benmanquelleris...'44 Flattery is also considered manslaughter. The author of Dives andPauper cites Augustine in saying, 'þe tunge of þe flaterere doth more harm þan þe swerdof þe enmy pursuynge...'45 As A Myrour to Lewde Men and Wymmen explains, flattery isdangerous, because it impedes the process of amendment. If a man hides or glossesover the sins of his fellow, then he does not know to amend himself.46 That backbitersare guilty of two or three murders is a common axiom in pastoral writing.47 The compilerof Fasciculus Morum cites Augustine in attributing guilt to both the speaker and thelistener: 'qui, inquit, detrahit aut detrahentem libenter audit, quid horum dampnabiliorfuerit, non facile dixerim. Nam secundum Augustinum numquam esset detractor si nonesset auditor.'48

As these definitions suggest, those subject to punishment may have been pure in actionbut impure in speech. Their peccata linguae condemn them to eternal separation fromGod. In several versions of the dirty-talking nun and the quarrelsome maid, themispeakers are cleaved in half after life.49 While they were chaste in their actions, theirunchaste words led others into sin. In the exemplum found in the Middle English prosetranslation of Le Manuel de Pechiez, the nun is 'kyt in þe mydle wyth a swerd and þe toparti brend in þe fyr.' Thus, they suffer eternal separation of their own body and from thatof Christ. They will not be re-assembled and resurrected.

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In a system of aural penance, the words of clergy are given the most currency. The nunof the aforementioned exemplum is chastised especially for her religious role. 'For fylthein holy mowthe is sacrilege for soth. Prestre and clerkes of chirche, but religeous aboveal þyng, þey shculde kepe wel here tonges...' Instead 'al here lemes byth halwod toworschipe almy3hti God.' Verbal misbehaviour in priests is also punished. In preaching offalse miracles and idolatry, bad priests are portrayed as thieves of God's Word. 'And inþat þei withdrawyn Godys word & þe trewþe of Godis lawe þat longyth to men of holychyrche to techyn & þe peple to connyn & to knowyn & so deceyuyn þe people, in þat þeiben þeuys of Godis word.'50 Because of their threat to the community of believers andtheir hopes of salvation, which rest upon their words, they 'schul ben punchyd wol hardeof God for swyche þefte of Goddis word...'.51 Priests must only speak of what is'profytable and nedfull to þe soule' lest they poison their own tongues and 'envenomythoþir þat heryn hym.'52 In Festial, John Mirk writes of an Irish priest who is punished for'rybawdy and iapys þat turnyd men to lechery.'53 His punishment is a body full of'choynus as a erthyn.' The literal cracks in body represents his fissure from God's Word.

Due to the damning effects of delivering and hearing bad speech, man must constantlybe on guard: '...þe mouþ þet is mayster gate of þe castele of þe herte þet þe dyeuelasayleþ ase moche ase he may.'54 Pastoral literature urges men to stop up the gate ofthe mouth and ears. Openings allow the penetration and leaking of peccata linguae.What is pious and pure is whole and discrete. What is sinful is open and amorphous.Fasciculus Morum, for example, constructs an image of the mouth as prison: 'et ideo addesignandum quod bene deberet custodiri, posita est quasi in carcere et murus denciumante eam atque labia pro antemuralibus.'55 Likewise, the ears must be stopped up.'Stoppe þin eeren wiþ þornes and herken not þe wikked tonge.'56 The text continues torecall original sin and linguistic fall, 'þat is þe tonge of þe addre of helle þat þe euelspekere bereþ, þat enuenymeþ hym þat hereþ hem.'57 Peccata linguae and theirspeakers continue to be agents of the Devil, and man must guard closely against them.'A3ens suche tonges schal a man stoppe his eeren wiþ þe þornes þat God was corounedwiþ, bi remembraunce of þe passion of Ihesu Crist.'58

The guarding of one's mouth and ears is the individual's attempt toward bodily unity.Man's unity with God, lost due to original sin, is secured in the sacraments. In a passageon Lent, the author of Jacob's Well describes the unshriven congregant as 'dysfyguryd &dysformyd in alle þi gostly & bodyly membrys.'59 However, after forty days of penanceand the Eucharist taken at Easter, these limbs 'my3ten encresyn & reformyn a3en in-tohere ry3t schap be penaunce & grace.'60 The Devil works through speech to inhibit manfrom the sacraments and his hope of resurrection. One of the most insidious ways isthrough shame resulting in refusal to confess, a form of indiscreta taciturnitas. In a talefound in English versions of the Gesta Romanorum, a woman refuses to be shriven forshame of telling the priest a sin she committed in youth.61 The devil claims to keep herdismembered tongue in his purse. Overhearing the devil's claim, a priest seeks out thewoman and urges her to confess if not with words, with signs. Through the salvificspeech of the priest and the contrition of the woman's private communication with God,the woman is granted speech and she communicates her sin before the priest. No matterhow grievous the sin, man can be reformed in Christ through the power of confession.

He who is not a member of the Church does not participate in the sacraments and hasneither unity with the Church nor hope of eventual unity with God: 'In hac eccelsia qui nonest, nec modo accipit Spiritum sanctum. Praecisus enim et diuisus ab unitatemembrorum, quae unitas linguis omnium loquitur...'62 In this theological construction,nothing is to be feared more than disunity. 'Nihil enim sic debet formidare christianus,quam separari a corpore Christi.'63 Those who are cut off are antichrist. Just as illnessescaused by a sick humour, the body is relieved when they are vomited out: 'sic sunt in

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corpore Christi, quomodo humores mali. Quando evomuntur, tunc relevatur corpus: sic etmali quando exeunt, tunc Ecclesia relevatur.'64

The dismemberment of the sinner from the Church and the sacraments is gruesomelyenacted in the tale of the backbiting monk. As discussed above, pastoral writers thoughtof backbiting as manslaughter. The sins of the backbiter are further destructive in theirperversion of the system of penance. The backbiter does not speak directly and privatelyto the subject of his criticism. In the popular exemplum found in many Englishmanuscripts,65 the backbiting monk is punished, because 'leof he was his mouþ to spille/Of his felawes he space euer ille.' Meaning to kill, to cause the damnation or financialruin, or to distort, 'spille' connotes the murderous and linguistic aspect of backbiting. Forhis sin, the monk bites his flaming tongues into 'morselles' and eats it, evoking the fate ofthe backbiters of Revelation. Cut off from the body of Christ, the backbiter enacts his ownperverse ritual of the Eucharist. However, after eating the tongue, he vomits out hisloathsome member, like the antichrist of Augustine, and re-enacts the process. In oneversion of the tale, the listeners are exhorted to learn by his example. If a man sees hisfellow fall into sin, he should admonish him privately as pastoral literature advises. Thus'rihtful lymes of holi chirche' will they be in life and members of Heaven for eternity.66

This dual power of speech to save and to damn, to praise and to condemn, affirmed theneed for rigorous definitions of good speech and bad speech and the institutions thatmaintained them. Pastoral writing and late medieval exempla concerning peccata linguaedepict the impact of bad speech upon the community of listeners, the body of Church,and ultimately the fate of the speaker's resurrected or dismembered body. Drawing onboth pastoral concerns for the sacraments and Augustinian theories of language, thepunishments of the exempla warn against eternal corporal and corporatedismemberment.

V. E. Langum (MPhil), Magdalene College, Cambridge

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Works Consulted

Primary Sources

An Alphabet of Tales. Mary Macleod Banks, ed. 2 vols. rpt. as 1. EETS o.s. 126 and 127.London: Oxford University Press, 1904, 1905.

Augustine. Confessionum: Libri XIII. CCSL 27.

---. De Doctrina Christiana. CCSL 32.

---. De Magistro. CSEL 50.

---. In Iohannis Euangelium: tractatus CXXIV. CCSL 36.

Ayenbite of Inwyt or Remorse of Conscience. Pamela Gradon and Richard Morris, eds. 2vols EETS o.s. 23. London: Trubner, 1866; revised Oxford University Press, 1965-79.

The Book of Vices and Virtues. W. Nelson Francis, ed. EETS o.s. 217. London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1942.

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Ci Nous Dit: Recueil d'Exemples Moraux. Vol. 1. Grard Blangez, ed. Paris: Socit desAnciens Textes Franais, 1979.

Dives and Pauper. Priscilla Heath Barnum, ed. Vol. 1. 2 parts. EETS 275, 280. London:Oxford University Press, 1976 and 1980.

Fasciculus Morum. Siegfried Wenzel, ed. London: Pennsylvania State University Press,1989.

Jacob's Well. Arthur Brandeis, ed. EETS o.s. 115. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trbner,& Co., 1900.

London, British Library MS. Addit. 9066

London, British Library MS. Addit. 22283

London, British Library MS. Harl. 2391

'Latin Vulgate'. Mark Olsen, ed. The ARTFL Project. 21 December 2006

Mannyng, Robert. Robert of Brune's Handlyng Synne. Frederick J. Furnivall, ed. EETSo.s. 119, 123. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trbner, & Co, 1901.

Mirk, John. Mirk's Festial: A Collection of Homilies. Theodor Erbe, ed. EETS o.s. 96.London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trbner & Co., 1905.

A Myrour to Lewde Men and Wymmen. Venetia Nelson, ed. Middle English Texts 14.Heidelberg: Winter, 1981.

The Northern Homily Cycle: The Expanded Version in MSS Harley 4196 and CottonTiberius E vii III: From the Fifth to the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity. (Vol. 3) SaaraNevalinna, ed. Helsinki: La Socit Nophilologique de Helsinki, 1984.

Of Shrifte and Penance: The Middle English Prose Translation of Le Manuel des Pchs.Klaus Bitterling, ed. Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag C. Winter, 1998.

A Selection of Latin Stories From Manuscripts of the Thirteenth and FourteenthCenturies. Thomas Wright, ed. London: The Percy Society, 1842.

Voragine, Jacobus de. The Golden Legend. William Caxton, trans. F. S. Ellis, ed..London: Temple Classics, 1892. Reference Works

Hartug, Albert E., Ed. A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1500. Vol. 9. NewHaven, Conn.: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1993.

Herbert, J. A. Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the BritishMuseum. Vol. 3. London: Longmans, 1910.

Tubach, Frederic C. Index Exemplorum: A Handbook of Medieval Religious Tales.Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Akademia Scientarium Fennica, 1969.

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Blythe, Joan Heighes. 'Sins of the Tongue and Rhetorical Prudence in Piers Plowman.'Literature and Religion in the Later Middle Ages: Philological Studies in Honor of SiegriedWenzel. Richard G. Newhauser and John A. Alford, eds. Binghamton, NY: Medieval andRenaissance Texts and Studies, 1995. 119-142.

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Boitani, Piero. English Medieval Narrative in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.Joan Krakover Hall, trans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Boyle, Leonard. 'The Fourth Lateran Council and Manuals of Popular Theology.' ThePopular Literature of Medieval England. Thomas J. Heffernan, ed. Knoxville: University ofTennessee Press, 1985. 30-43.

Casagrande, Carla and Silvana Vecchio. I Peccati Della Lingua: Disciplina ed Etica dellaParola Nella Cultura Medievale. Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1987.

Cheney, C. R. English Synodalia of the Thirteenth Century. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1968.

Colish, Marcia L. The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968.

Craun, Edwin D. Lies, Slander, and Obscenity in Medieval English Literature: PastoralRhetoric and the Deviant Speaker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Jager, Eric. The Tempter's Voice: Language and the Fall in Medieval Literature. Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1993.

Lawton, David. Blasphemy. London: Simon & Schuster, 1993.

Le Goff, J. 'L'Exemplum et la Rhétorique de la Prédication aux XIIIè et XIVè siècles.'Retorica e Poetica tra I Secoli XII e XIV. Claudio Leonardi and Enrico Mensto, eds.Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1988. 3-29.

Lyons, John D. Exemplum: The Rhetoric of Example in Early Modern France and Italy.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Mosher, Joseph A. The Exemplum in the Early Religious and Didactic Literature ofEngland. New York: Columbia University Press, 1911.

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Shaw, Judith. 'The Influence of Canonical and Episcopal Reform on Popular Books ofInstruction.' The Popular Literature of Medieval England. Thomas J. Heffernan, ed.Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 1985. 44-60.

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Vance, Eugene. Mervelous Signals: Poetics and Sign Theory in the Middle Ages. Lincoln,Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 1986. Vodola, Elisabeth. Excommunication in theMiddle Ages. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986.

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NOTES

1. Jacques de Vitry qtd. in Le Goff (1988), 9.

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2. See, for example, Le Goff (1988), 3-12; Tubach (1962), 412ff.; Scanlon (1994), 65.

3. For a full study, see Casagrande and Vecchio (1987). For other literature dealing withpeccata linguae, see Blythe (1995), 119-42 and Craun (1997), 73-230.

4. The Vulgate offers a precedent for this binary conception of speech. Though a smallmember of' the body, the tongue is by its nature the most ambivalent. Through thetongue, man both praises God and curses men like Him. In James 3:10: 'ex ipso oreprocedit benedicto et maledicto'.

5. See Wright (1842), 42.

6. Handlyng Synne 46, 48.

7. Boyle (1983), 31 and Shaw (1985), 45.

8. For detailed account, see Craun (1997), 13-24. Latin names for peccata linguae aretaken from his list (15-16) drawn from Peyraut's Summa de vitiis, which includes the mostdetailed treatment of peccata linguae in an English manuscript.

9. Le Goff (1988), 10.

10. The validity of applying Augustine's ideas about language to pastoral literature isthoroughly justified in Craun (1997), 11ff. where he traces Augustinian theology in themajor pastoral writers on peccata linguae Other scholars have also argued thatAugustinian sign theory underpined medieval thinking on language; e.g., Colish (1968),8ff. and Vance (1986), 34ff. It is a reasonable extension, I believe, to apply these ideas toexempla.

11. Doctrina I.x.

12. Magistro I.2.

13. Iohannis XIV.7

14. Doctrina II.viii-xii.

15. For a full account of the Fall in medieval thought, see Jager (1993).

16. Confessiones IV.xi.17.

17. Iohannis XXXVII.4.

18. Vance (1986), 39.

19. Doctrina II.iv.5.

20. For alternative discussions of Augustine's autobiographical relationship to language,see Colish (1968), 22-81 and Vance (1986), 13-28.

21. Confessiones II.i.1.

22. Ibid. III.i.1.

23. Ibid. V.x.18.

24. Ibid. IV.xv.24.

25. John 1:14.

26. Iohannis VI.10.

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27. Colish (1968), 33.

28. The Northern Homily Cycle Vol. 3 66.

29. For an account of blasphemy in late Middle Ages, see Lawton (1993), 84-107.

30. Alphabet 82-4

31. Ibid. 83.

32. Blangez (1979), 159.

33. Handlyng 668.

34. Fasciculus 166.

35. Book of Vices and Virtues 67.

36. Some English versions are found in Fasciculus 166, Handlyng 689-760 and Festial113-4.

37. Handlyng 702-5.

38. Doctrina I.xvi.15.

39. Ayenbite 148.

40. Ibid. 148.

41. Vodola (1986), 59.

42. Jacob 31-2.

43. Golden Legend 724-5.

44. Dives and Pauper 1.

45. Ibid. 3.

46. Myrour 213.

47. See Dives 132, Myrour 212, 214.

48. Fasciculus 160.

49. Some English versions are found Jacob 232, 95; Handlyng 56-7; Festial 96-7;Alphabet 304-5; Shrifte 57.

50. Dives 134.

51. Dives 134.

52. Festial 191-2.

53. Ibid. 192.

54. Ayenbite 249.

55. Fasciculus 48.

56. Book of Vices 284.

57. Ibid. 284.

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58. Ibid. 284.

59. Jacob 31.

60. Ibid. 31.

61. BL MS. Addit. 9066 f.75v.

62. Iohannis XXXII.7.

63. Iohannis XXVII.6.

64. Tractates on Epistles III.4.

65. Some English versions are found BL MS. Addit. 22283 f.17v (Northern Homily Cycle);Fasciculus 162; Handlyng 3553-3628; BL MS. Harl. 2391 f.224r; Shrifte 70.

66. BL MS. Addit. 22283 f.17v.

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