The Sermons of William Peraldus: An Appraisal

Description

The French Dominican William Peraldus or Guillaume Peyraut (died c. 1275), well known for his long 'summae' on the vices and virtues, also produced several cycles of sermons, of which two deal with the Epistle and the Gospel readings for the Sundays of the Church year. This study analyzes the latter in some detail and argues that, rather than collecting sermons he had preached earlier, Peraldus wrote these sermons systematically for the use of other preachers. The Epistle sermons for the first Sunday in Advent and the Gospel sermons for the third Sunday in Advent are presented in their original Latin text together with an English translation in order to demonstrate how Peraldus dealt with the biblical text as well as his moral concerns and his literary style. The selected texts are then compared with several other major cycles produced in France in Peraldus's time. Like his summae on the vices and the virtues, Peraldus's sermons became very popular in medieval Europe, as is witnessed by selective copying and citations that can be seen in a number of instances primarily from the sermon literature of later medieval England. One aspect of this popularity is the adaptation of his material into a genuine sermon, as it can be found in the sermons attributed to Repingdon, of which one is here examined in detail. Preface vii Abbreviations x A Note on References and Editorial Practices xi Chapter 1. Sermon Collections, Sermon Cycles 1 Chapter 2. The Epistle Sermons 9 Chapter 3. The Epistle Sermons – Style 21 Chapter 4. The Gospel Sermons 31 Chapter 5. Peraldus and his Contemporaries 39 Chapter 6. Popularity 57 Chapter 7. From Biblical Exegesis to Sermon 67 Chapter 8. Epilogue 75 Appendix A. Epistle Sermons 77 Appendix B. Gospel Sermons 83 Appendix C. The Epistle Sermons for the First Sunday in Advent – Text 91 Appendix D. The Epistle Sermons for the First Sunday in Advent – Translation 101 Appendix E. The Gospel Sermons for the Third Sunday in Advent – Text 115 Appendix F. The Gospel Sermons for the Third Sunday in Advent – Translation 133 Appendix G. Peraldus in the Sorbon Manuscripts 157 Appendix H. Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 233/199 159 Appendix I. Cambridge, St. John's College, MS C.12 163 Appendix J. Repingdon on 'Cum audisset' 177 Appendix K. The Redacted Sermon on 'Cum audisset' 193 Works Cited 203 Index of Manuscripts Cited 211 General Index 213 Tables Table 1: Repingdon, sermon 'Cum audisset' 68 Table 2: Redacted, two sermons on 'Cum audisset' 72