Gluttony and drunkenness in the early modern period: The humanists’ approach

Be sure, our father Adam and his wifeFor that same sin were driven from ParadiseTo labour and to woe. While Adam fastedHe was in Paradise, as I have read;But when he ate of the forbidden fruitUpon the tree, he was at once cast outInto the world of trouble, pain and sadness.We’ve cause to cry out against Gluttony! Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner’s Tale

Master E. S., Fantastic Alphabet : N (“Gluttony”)c. 1465

Hieronymus BoschAllegory of Gluttony and Lust(1490/1500)

Pieter Breughel the ElderGula(c. 1556/7)

In Flanders there was once a company Of youngsters wedded to such sin and follyAs gaming, dicing, brothels, and taverns,Where, night and day, with harps, lutes, and citherns,They spend their time in dicing and in dancing,Eating and drinking more than they can carry;And with these abominable excessesThey offer up the vilest sacrificesTo the devil in these temples of the devil.…Who are in fact the devil’s officers,Who light and blow the fire of lechery,Which is so close conjoined with gluttony.I take Holy Writ to be my witness,Lechery springs from wine and drunkenness.Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner’s Tale

When the belly is full to bursting with food and drink, debauchery knocks at the door.Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ

Gluttony: I am Gluttony. My parents are all dead, and the devil a penny they have left me but a bare pension, and that is thirty meals a day, and ten bevers – a small trifle to suffice nature. O, I come of a royal parentage. My grandfather was a gammon of bacon, my grandmother a hogshead of claret wine. My godfathers were these: Peter Pickle-herring and Martin Martlemas-beef. O, but my godmother, she was a jolly gentle-woman, and well beloved in every good town and city; her name was Mistress Margery March-beer. Now, Faustus, thou hast heard all my progeny, wilt thou bid me to supper?Faustus: No, I’ll see thee hanged. Thou wilt eat up all my victuals.Gluttony: Then the devil choke thee!Faustus: Choke thyself, glutton!

Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (A-text), 2.3

Humanism/Humanist

• “studia humanitatis” – 14th C: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, ethics, history

• “humanista”– 15th C: a teacher of the “studia humanitatis”– 16th C: a student of classical learning

• Peter Burke, in Goodman – MacKay (1990)– Humanism = the movement to recover, interpret and assimilate the

language, literature, learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome– Humanist = someone actively involved in this movement, whether as a

professional teacher, churchman, royal councillor, or whatever

“ad fontes”return to ancient Greek and Roman sources

recovery, interpretation and imitation of ancient Greek and Roman literature and thought

as a philological enterprise: - restoration of classical Latin- revival of Greek and Hebrew - “classical scholarship”, including the archaeological study of the physical remains of

antiquity- innovations in the fields of grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history and ethics

as an intellectual and cultural movement:- influence on Protestant and Catholic reformations - major force in fine arts - influence on popular culture and vernacular literature

15001400 1600

Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374)

Desiderius Erasmus (1469?-1536)

Erycius Puteanus (1574-1646)Petrus Nannius (1500-1557)

Thomas More (1478-1535)

Justus Lipsius (1547-1606)

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

Laetatur de reditu Francisci Aelii...Quid non pro reduci libens amicopersolvam? Puer, i, voca sodalesAlbinum Elisiumque Compatremqueet dulcem Altilium, bonum Marullum:ad coenam veniant, bibamus uncti,uncti, permadidi atque lippientes....Me tot pocula totque totque totque,tot me pocula iuverint bibentem,tot carchesia laverint madentem,quotquot di simul et deae biberuntad mensam Oceani patris vocati,aut quot, dum illa canit, senex Homerussiccavit calices, relevit obbas.Dulce est ob reducem madere amicum.

He rejoices at the Return of Franciscus Aelius...Now what would I not spend at the returnOf such a friend? Boy, go bid the comrades,Elisius, Albinus and CompaterAnd sweet Altilius and good MarullusTo come to dinner. Perfumed we shall drink,Perfumed, soaked through and bleary-eyed....I want cup upon cup upon cup,So many goblets for myself imbibing,So many beakers moistening meAs all the gods and godesses drank togetherCalled to the feast of father Oceanus,Or as many as, singing the while, old HomerChalices drank dry and flagons drained.When a friend comes home it's sweet to get good and soused.

Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, Baiae, I.10

Charles de Bovelles, Liber de sapiente ([Parisiis] : [ex officina Henrici Stephani], [1510])

To begin a meal with drinking is the hallmark of a drunkard who drinks not from need but from habit. Such a practice is not only morally degrading but also injurious to bodily health. ...Otherwise the wages of addiction to undiluted wine are decaying teeth, bloated cheeks, impaired eyesight, mental dulness – in short, premature old age. ...When someone boorishly presses you to drink, promise to reply when you have grown up. Erasmus, De civilitate

Antoon ClaessensBanquet(1574)

Petrus Nannius (Alkmaar, 1500 – Louvain, 1557)

Collegium Trilingue“In the history of intellectual and cultural development, very few institutes have played as glorious a part and have exercised as beneficient an influence as the Collegium Trilingue of Louvain University.”Henry De Vocht, History of the Foundation and the Rise of the Collegium Trilingue Lovaniense 1517-1550, I, p. 1

Quintus est (quem fere silentio praeterieram) Latinius Misoparthenus, et ipse quoque insignis eruditionis, et vividi ingenii; quod ipsum ne ad legittimos fructus ematurescat, convivia et perpotationes cum amatoribus faciunt … The fifth one (whom I almost forgot to mention) was Latinius Misogyn. He also possessed noteworthy erudition, and a lively mind; but this did not bring him any proper fruits since he joined the banquets and binge-drinking of the lovers ...

Petrus Nannius, Paralipomena Vergilii & De rebus inferorum

Hae sedes vacuae, ubi tantam incolarum solitudinem vides, Ludivaniensibus scholasticis deputatae sunt, qui aut ocio aut amoribus, aut aliis nequitiis tempus perdunt, ingenia situ obducunt. Fac igitur, inquit, ut eis ista vel publice renuncies, ne veniant in hunc locum poenarum; ac puto me iam implevisse fidem. You see these empty spaces, where there is so much room for inhabitants, which are reserved for the students of Louvain who waste their time with doing nothing and making love and other evil ways, and cover their talents with idleness. Make sure, he [i.e. Virgil] said, that you warn them of these things publicly, so that they do not come to this place of punishment; and I will feel that I have done my task. Petrus Nannius, Paralipomena Vergilii & De rebus inferorum

Video cementarios, lapicidas, segmentarios, quaternatores complures, quibus negocium datum fuit, ut lapides polirent, et ad normam quadrarent; sed, me miserum, illi saepe dum lapides caedunt se ipsi atrocissime vulnerabant, idque tanta insania, ut tunc manum, nunc aures, nunc pedes atque adeo ipsa capita detruncarent. … Quaerenti mihi quinam illi vesani et excordes essent, responsum est grassatores nocturnos esse, apud inferos dictos nycticoraces, qui ob publicam matulam, publicum scortum ad perniciem mutuam non raro depugnant. I saw several masons, stone cutters, cleavers and splitters, whose job it was to polish the stones and reduce them to the correct size. But, oh how terrible!, they frequently hurt themselves tremendously while they are chopping the stones, and with such insanity that they cut off now a hand, then their ears, then their feet, or even their heads. ... I asked who those insane and heartless people were, and was answered that they were prowlers of the night, who are called "nightravens" in the underworld because they frequently fight, to their mutual destruction, for a public pot, a public harlot.Petrus Nannius, Paralipomena Vergilii & De rebus inferorum

Justus Lipsius (Overijse, 1547 – Louvain, 1606)

Itane de potioribus et edonibus scire avetis? Et decore hoc poscitis? Ita, quia in schola etiam disserui in occasione, ut dicitis, et velletis rariora ista exempla in promptu habere, non ad imitandum, sed narrandum. Addam ego et detestandum, nam sic oportet. You desire to know about drinkers and eaters? And you demand this fittingly? That's true, because I have talked about this on occasion in school, as you say, and you now want to have some more rare examples at your disposal, not to imitate them, but to discuss them. I would also add: to loathe them, because that is the proper thing to do. Justus Lipsius, Epistolarum selectarum centuria miscellanea III , epist. 51

Sed qui plurimum hausit (ait Plutarchus*) Promachus quidam fuit, qui ad congios quattuor venit. ... Quod autem praemium? Talentum. Quod etiam? Mors, quae homini post triduum advenit, itemque aliis quadraginta et uni qui miselli super vires certarant.*Plutarch, Alexander, 70. Also in Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 10, 437b.Plutarch says that a certain Promachus, who managed four pitchers of three liters, drank the most of all. … What was his prize? A talent. What else? Death, which came to him after three days, as well as to forty-one others who, wretched creatures, had competed beyond their powers.Justus Lipsius, Epistolarum selectarum centuria miscellanea III , epist. 51

Quid Clodius Albinus Imperator? Is, Capitolino scribente*, tantum pomorum hausit quantum ratio humana non patitur. Nam et quingentas ficus passarias, quas Graeci callistruthias vocant, ieiunum comedisse. Cordus dicit et centum Persica campana et melones Ostienses decem, et uvarum Lavicanarum pondo viginti, et ficedulas centum, et ostrea quadringenta. Hem, hem! Dii talem terris avertite pestem.** Certe a nostris hortis, quos ille cum toto foro olitorio depascatur et vastet.* Scriptores Historiae Augustae [Capitolinus], Clodius Albinus, 11, 2-3.** Vergilius, Aeneid, 3, 620.What about emperor Clodius Albinus? According to Capitolinus, he ate so much fruit that it is impossible to comprehend. For he, when he was hungry, also ate five hundred dried raisin-wine figs, which the Greeks call "callistruthiae". Cordus says that he also ate one hundred peaches from Campania and ten Ostian melons, and twenty pounds of grapes from Labici and one hundred fig-peckers, and four hundred oysters. Well, well! May the gods remove such a pest from the earth. And certainly from our gardens because he consumes and destroys an entire grocery store.

Justus Lipsius, Epistolarum selectarum centuria miscellanea III , epist. 51

Erycius Puteanus (Venlo, 1574 – Louvain, 1646)

19 March 1608: Erycius Puteanus to Maximilianus Plouverius (KBR ms. 6523, f° 9)Sed de libello porro quid fiet? Recudere velim, priusquam alibi fiat, recensere et reformare, nequid vel oblique trahere ad se Antverpienses possint. … Sed o facinus! In curia Antverpiensi (ita audio, nec incerto rumore) exemplaria quaedam exusta sunt; et hoc defuit tantum, quod in auctorem pari furore non saevierint. … Non eo animo scripsisse me, ut Patriam, aut Antverpiam laederem, sed ut vitia dumtaxat accusarem.But what should be done about the booklet? I would like to reprint it, before it happens elsewhere, I would like to review it and change it, so that there is nothing left that the citizens of Antwerp can misunderstand as an attack against them … But what a crime! I hear, and it is not an untrustworthy rumour, that some copies have been burned in the Antwerp assembly and they are only a small step away from directing a similar fury against the author … I did not write this with the intention to offend my country or Antwerp, but simply to reproach vices.

16 March 1608: Erycius Puteanus to Nicolaus Damantius, Chancellor of Brabant(Ep. Att. missus secundi I, lviii):De luxu scripsi, et hoc primum velut crimen notatur; deinde edidi, et hoc secundum. … Mens mea fuit, communia aut plebeia paucorum vitia reprehendere, sobrietatem modestiamque inculcare; et in hanc metam tota illa Epistola directa. Hem! Crimen erit, pro virtute loqui? … O bone Deus, quo seculo vivimus, quo scribimus! Itane odium vitiorum profiteri non licebit? Quid reliquum est, nisi ut sacra quoque pulpita sileant, ut scholae claudantur, ut sapientia exulet?I have written about sumptuousness; and that is considered to be my first crime; afterwards I have published, and that would be my second crime. It was my intention to reproach the common and plebeian vices of a few and to stress sobriety and moderation; and that was the purpose of that famous Epistola. Alas! Will it be a crime to speak about virtue? … Good God, what world is this in which we live and write? Will it not be allowed to show disgust of vices? What is left then, but to silence the preachers, to close the schools, to ban wisdom?

1 July 1608: Erycius Puteanus to Cornelius Marcanus (ep. Att. prom. III, lvii):Mihi de luxu loqui, infaustum paene fuit. Sic vivitur. Comum sive Phagesiposia nunc edo. Somnium est, et per ludum saltem audeo Philosophari. Quia in orbe nostro non licet, apud Cimmerios, id est, apud eos qui nusquam sunt, luxum convivalem persequor. It proved almost unfortunate for me to speak about sumptuousness. But that is life. Now I publish the Comus sive Phagesiposia. It is a dream, and at least I dare to philosophize with a jest. Because it is forbidden to do this in our world, I pursue the sumptuousness of banquets with the Cimmerians, that is, with people who don't exist.