11. The cult of the marriage of Joseph and Mary: the shaping of doctrinal novelty in Jean Gerson’s Josephina (1414–17)

Isabel Iribarren

On 8 September 1416 Jean Gerson, then chancellor of Paris university, preached a sermon at the Council of Constance for the feast of the nativity of Mary, with the main objective of promoting the cult of her marriage with Joseph. Gerson was well aware of the undesirability of multiplying feast days – a subject of debate during the council – but insisted on the relevance of his proposition on ecclesiological grounds: ‘Why promote another feast? So that, through the merits of Mary and the intercession of the great and commanding influence of Joseph on his spouse, from whom Jesus the Christ is born, the Church be brought back to her unique and truthful spouse, the Supreme Pontiff, vicar of Christ’.¹ However, the novelty was not only liturgical: it was also doctrinal. Intent as he was on inciting popular devotion to St Joseph, Gerson advanced a series of doctrinal statements which would not earn a favourable reaction from the conciliar assembly. Indeed, the latter represented the very ‘institution’ the chancellor’s statements could seem to threaten: an established doctrinal tradition, as well as a set of existing liturgical practices which the Church promoted as normative and considered necessary for social order. Seeking to optimize the acceptability of his position, in the sermon Gerson adopts a threefold strategy, which is examined in what follows: he claims affinities with established doctrinal tradition; grafts the new cult onto existing liturgical practices; and argues for the possibility of a historical development of doctrinal truths which allows for the introduction of probabilistic arguments. All three approaches are finely intertwined in the Josephina, an epic poem of some 3,000 Latin hexameters composed by the chancellor between 1414 and 1417 during the Council of Constance.² This poem constitutes a prime example of how an individual’s intellectual project sought to earn acceptability through the instrumentalization of an established tradition and its doctrinal patrimony.

Before examining the relevant passages of the Josephina, let us dwell a little longer on the Constance sermon cited above, since it brings out the institutional setting in which the poem was composed. Deliberating on the privileges of Joseph and Mary, the chancellor raises the question of their royal lineage as descendants of the house of David. The question itself was not surprising. The evangelical text presents such genealogical records (Matthew I: 1–16; Luke III: 23–38) as a way to establish Jesus’ noble descent.³ Citing the opinion of Richard FitzRalph, however, Gerson raises the specific issue of royal succession through the female line in a way which seems to justify English claims to the French crown:

In September 1416, as he was preaching his sermon, Gerson seemed to underestimate the impact such statements would have at a politically delicate time: French defeat at Agincourt was still fresh in people’s minds and civil war raged in the royal capital. The question of St Joseph’s promotion was thereby precipitated into the centre of the Anglo-French conflict. Pre-empting probable critics, Gerson hastened to add that the royalty in question was not a temporal, but a spiritual one. Indeed, Joseph and Mary’s nobility lay in their moral qualities and religious piety.⁵ By preaching the magnanimity of the holy couple, the chancellor was hoping to encourage its imitation by the Parisian aristocracy at a time of internecine war. From this perspective he had, a few years earlier in November 1413, addressed a letter to Jean de Berry, uncle of Charles VI, seeking the duke’s support for the instauration of a solemn feast in honour of the marriage of Joseph and Mary. Of Orleanist allegiance like Gerson, the duke of Berry had also endured Burgundian violence during the Cabochien revolt in the aftermath of Louis of Orléans’s murder in 1407 by agents of John the Fearless. In his letter the chancellor claims that the fall of the Cabochiens was due to a miracle worked by St Joseph, whom he had promoted to the status of protector of the city of Paris alongside St Geneviève and St Denis in an earlier speech addressed to the king.⁶ A symbol of the union of God and his Church, the cult of the virginal marriage of Joseph and Mary was also intended to promote peace and unity within the kingdom.⁷

Gerson’s letter to Jean de Berry is not an isolated example. From a series of other letters written around the same period we know he committed himself thereafter to the double task of instituting a solemn feast in honour of the marriage of Joseph and Mary and of employing – in vain – his oratorial talents to condemn Jean Petit’s justification of tyrannicide and reopen the case against the duke of Burgundy.⁸ Not surprisingly, the Burgundian faction present at Constance looked for an opportunity to discredit the chancellor. Retaliations came without delay. A record (schedula) based on notes taken during Gerson’s sermon on behalf of Martin Porée, bishop of Arras and principal ambassador to John the Fearless, accused the chancellor of justifying royal succession through the female line in order to attract English favour.⁹ Other doctrinal blunders incriminating Gerson included the claim that Joseph, like John the Baptist, had been sanctified in utero. The chancellor was well aware of the unprecedented nature of such statements, as the sermon’s initial caveat testifies:

The choice of terms used in this programmatic passage will be commented on later. Other arguments advanced by Gerson to mitigate the effects of his doctrinal statements appeal to their ancestry: the idea that Joseph had been sanctified in utero appears already in an officio Jerosolymitano, a liturgical office probably in use among Carmelites in the thirteenth century.¹¹ He adds that such a belief is desirable on devotional grounds, for it encourages hope and devotion among parents of unborn children – even if ‘it has not been confirmed by any revelation’ and cannot be directly deduced from the scriptures. More revealingly, Gerson makes a doctrinal link between Mary’s privileges through her immaculate conception and the spiritual promotion of her husband.¹² Indeed, the cult of their virginal marriage, which he was so keen to encourage, depended on the doctrinal rehabilitation of the much-neglected figure of Joseph.

Gerson’s arguments in favour of Joseph’s sanctification in utero are somewhat reminiscent of St Bernard of Clairvaux’s famous remonstrance to the canons of Lyons on the subject of the immaculate conception of Mary. In order to promote the new feast day, the canons had appealed to the authority of a certain revelation in which, supposedly, the Virgin recommended the introduction of the new feast as a way to commemorate her parents, as prescribed by the fourth commandment (‘Honour thy father and thy mother’ (Exodus XX: 12)). Bernard had discarded such devotional claims, along with unproven revelations, as a possible justification for instituting a new feast day. Such arguments, he maintained, had not been proved by reason or attested by any ancient tradition (novam inducendo celebritatem, quam ritus Ecclesiae nescit, non probat ratio, non commendat antiqua traditio).¹³ In this light, Gerson’s own arguments read as an attempt to outwit Bernard’s critique. In an earlier sermon, preached in Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois on 8 December 1401, Gerson refers explicitly to the Cistercian’s reluctance concerning the instauration of the feast of the immaculate conception. Constructed on the famous verse from Daniel X11: 4 – ‘Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased’ – Gerson’s riposte is instructive with regard to his understanding of doctrinal development:

The allusion to Bernard’s conservatism – which Gerson otherwise shared to a large extent – reveals the real issue underlying the chancellor’s doctrinal innovations in the Constance sermon of 1416, for the central point of contention was not the use of Gerson’s propositions by his adversaries for political ends,¹⁶ but the acceptability of new religious beliefs and, more profoundly, the degree of latitude to be accorded to revealed truth. On what criteria of truth can the Church judge the acceptability of new objects of devotion? Is belief in them necessary for salvation in a way which would require the believer’s unwavering assent?¹⁷ In answer to these questions Gerson announced the composition of a brief treatise devoted to the normative classification of doctrinal discourse according to degrees of truth. A few months later, by the end of 1416, the Declaratio compendiosa quae veritates sint de necessitate salutis credendae laid down what could be rightly seen as the epistemological foundations and moral justification of doctrinal novelty according to Gerson.¹⁸¹⁹

The treatise establishes six degrees (gradus) of truth following a descending order of epistemic assent. The first three correspond respectively to orthodox doctrine as it is explicitly contained in the scriptures; as it is conveyed by the apostolic tradition; and the revelations received by certain individuals insofar as they have been confirmed by the scriptures or the Church. These truths, directly revealed by God, constitute the articles of faith and are therefore necessary for salvation. The following three degrees are logically deduced from the first and have only a probable status. The lowest of the three corresponds to truths which ‘nourish the feeling of charity and devotion of the pious heart’. Such truths result from an exercise of ‘estimation or pious belief ’ (existimatio vel pia credulitas) and escape the principle of bivalence of classical Aristotelian logic.¹⁹²⁰ Thus understood, pious truths are not required for salvation, but merely allowed by the Church.²⁰ Gerson’s argument is founded on an Aristotelian principle formulated in the Topics: ‘[N]othing prevents certain false things from being more probable than true ones, for if two contradictory statements cannot be simultaneously true, they can nevertheless be simultaneously probable’.²¹ Gerson concludes from this that ‘nothing prevents us from piously believing something false’ as long as we do not hold it with pertinacity. In other words, as Daniel Hobbins admirably put it, a pious belief is true if it is not entirely improbable: probability governs truth, thus leading Gerson to the notion of ‘probable truth’.²² In such cases the chancellor calls for the greatest prudence: if the doctrine in question is uncertain, it is advisable to doubt piously rather than to advance hasty conclusions.²³

The same principle governs Gerson’s attitude towards other cases of popular devotion, as can be seen in a famous letter he addressed in September 1426 to Jean Bassandi, provincial of the Celestines in Lyons. Bassandi had asked for the theologian’s expert opinion on the Arbor vitae crucifixae Iesu of the Franciscan Ubertino de Casale, a work which had presumably caused interest mixed with mistrust on the part of monks otherwise fond of devotional literature.²⁴ The chancellor, then in exile in Lyons, developed a detailed critique against certain Christological tenets contained in the work of the Franciscan. He accused Ubertino of temerity, which he attributed to a lack of discernment between truths which are necessary for salvation and consequently require firm assent by faith; and truths which hold a merely probable status and therefore proscribe bold assertions. Without logically resulting from the scriptures, such ‘pious propositions’ (propositiones de pietate fidei) serve to edify charity and devotion insofar as they do not contradict the sacred text. Together with hagiographical legends and the opinions of the doctors of the Church, ‘pious truths’ include:

As this passage reveals, the hierarchy of truths developed earlier in the Declaratio compendiosa underlies both Gerson’s criticism against Ubertino’s devotional audacity and his poetical composition of the Josephina. The connection between the two is not without importance. The growing interest in the character of St Joseph during the thirteenth century reached a climax in the fourteenth within Franciscan circles, in particular among the spirituals Peter John Olivi and Ubertino de Casale. Seeking to stress the importance of Christ’s earthly life, these theologians had enhanced by extension the role played by his earthly father – not without betraying a certain Joachimite tendency which did not further the reception of their writings among ecclesiastical authorities. Although Gerson was no exception, his attitude towards popular devotion was not unequivocal. Indeed, the Josephina borrows extensively from the Franciscan tradition of devotional literature, notably the pseudo-Bonaventuran Meditationes vitae Christi. Like the latter, it seeks to guide the believer through the reading of the Bible and its various meanings; convey its message concerning Christian life and moral conduct; and provide spiritual consolation through devout mediation on concrete representations of Christ’s childhood and passion.²⁶ From this perspective the Josephina could be read as an attempt to retrieve Franciscan devotion to St Joseph and channel it in favour of Church reform and political stability.

However, in attempting to reconstruct the story of the Holy Family through an exercise in biblical amplificatio, Gerson was skating on thin ice. A few verses of the Josephina testify to this:

Echoing Gerson’s caveat in the Constance sermon, these verses contain the main features of the chancellor’s ‘grammar of assent’ as stated in the Declaratio compendiosa: of merely probable status, the devotional amplificatio of the scriptural text is the result of conjectural arguments to which a minimum level of epistemic assent corresponds. Its principal aim is to foster the believer’s affection, thereby precluding doctrinal temerity and hasty assertions. The concept of poetry as a narrative founded on what might have happened rather than on what actually happened comes from Aristotle’s Poetics: ‘[T]he poet’s task is not to tell how things really happened but rather to tell what could have happened’. That is why, Aristotle proceeds, poetry is ‘more philosophical and of a loftier character than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history tells particular facts. By general truth I mean the sort of thing that a certain type of man will do or say either probably or necessarily’.²⁸ The term ‘philosophical’ employed by Aristotle to qualify poetry takes us back to the principle stated in his Topics, cited by Gerson in his Declaratio compendiosa, as we saw above: ‘[I]f two contradictory statements cannot be simultaneously true, they can nevertheless be simultaneously probable’. ‘If we deny this principle’ – Aristotle adds – ‘philosophy becomes impossible’.²⁹ Philosophy and poetics thus converge on the terrain of topical or conjectural reasoning as a mode of argumentation seeking credibility rather than certainty and as such eluding the scientific standards of evidence.

In this context conjectural reasoning represents a minimal criterion of certainty, serving to guarantee the acceptability of beliefs which, without contradicting the sacred texts, cannot be logically deduced from them. Conjecture thus becomes a truth-seeking tool when a superior level of certainty fails. Cicero’s definition of divination is not dissimilar: ‘[I]t is the art of those who, having learned old things by observation, seek new things by conjecture’.³⁰ Conjecture proceeds by correlations between unusual phenomena and analogous ones already known: in order to clarify the meaning of an unusual event, the interpreter relies on similar ones already attested in oral or written memory.³¹ Similarly, the Josephina intends to elaborate a plausible narrative from what is implicitly contained in the scriptures, with reference to recorded traditions of biblical history or hagiographical models. An emblematic example of this kind of extrapolation from biblical narrative is the episode of the flight to Egypt, in which Gerson the poet imagines that, upon arrival, Joseph would prudently have attempted to conceal the identity of his wife. He draws his inspiration from a passage in Genesis in which the same behaviour is attributed to Abraham during his stay in Egypt.³² These narrative mechanisms are not unusual in hagiographical literature, in which the deeds or features of one saint are often attributed to other saints. In the case of the Constance sermon, the doctrine that Joseph was sanctified in utero results from an extrapolation from the privilege granted to John the Baptist and traditionally accepted by the Church.

In an earlier treatise devoted to the spiritual promotion of St Joseph, the Considérations sur saint Joseph (1414), Gerson had defined the conjectural reasoning underlying devotional truths by the middle-French term religieuse estimation.³³ The choice of term is not arbitrary and takes us back to the Arab tradition of commentaries on the Aristotelian Organon. This tradition conceived rhetoric and poetics as part of logic, understood not as an ars sermocinalis (leading with language) but as an ars ratiocinativa (focusing on cognitive acts).³⁴ The result was a raising of the scientific standards of evidence, thus opening the way to the notion of a moral kind of argument distinct from demonstrative syllogism. In this context the use of the term aestimatio (estimation) to describe the type of cognitive act characteristic of poetry is recurrent in Latin commentaries of the Organon in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Based on a descending hierarchy of degrees of assent, Latin theologians ascribe necessary judgement to demonstrative reasoning; to opinion or belief ( opinio or fides), in which one of the terms of the contradiction outweighs the other; to dialectics; to suspicio (suspicion) of the conclusion to rhetoric; and, finally, to aestimatio, to the poetical construction of a plausible literary universe seeking to influence the behaviour of the audience.³⁵ Gerson’s use of the term aestimatio in the context of his promotion of St Joseph is indebted to this tradition and confirms the connection made previously between the principles governing his attitude towards lay devotion and his conception of religious poetry.

This analysis concludes with one last example of Gerson’s strategy to justify devotional novelty by grafting it onto an existing tradition through probable arguments. In its doctrinal reconstruction of Joseph, the Josephina insists on the providential importance of Joseph’s youthfulness. In order to exclude all suspicion of adultery by his pregnant wife (indeed, conception from an elderly man seemed improbable), a young Joseph was all the more likely to guarantee Jesus’ legitimate birth (dist. V, vv. 1524–5; and dist. IV, vv. 1300–4). Following an idea which harks back to Augustine and is rather present in medieval religious imagination, Gerson considers that Joseph’s role was crucial to deceiving the devil and thereby safeguarding the mystery of the incarnation.³⁶ In this respect he regrets the lasting influence of apocryphal accounts on iconographical representations of an old, slightly awkward Joseph, overshadowed by the imposing figures of Mary and the Child. According to the Paris chancellor, this tendency can only be explained by the fact that at that point in history the doctrine of Joseph’s own virginity was not sufficiently established in the minds of the faithful. Indeed, the apocryphal literature had conveyed the image of Joseph as an old widower at the time he married Mary as a way of dispelling suspicion of any carnal knowledge between the two spouses.³⁷ As Gerson sees it, then, apocryphal accounts correspond to an embryonic stage in the development of doctrine, just like Bernard’s position, alluded to earlier, regarding the immaculate conception of Mary. Governed by grace, the normative character of the new law requires gradual unfolding and adaptation in time, without thereby diminishing its perfect and definite character:³⁸ non subito totam se monstrat gratia mondo [the whole of grace does not manifest itself in a sudden way to the world] (dist. V, v. 1535). Convinced as they are now of the virginal nature of the union of Joseph and Mary – Gerson claims – the faithful are ready to embrace the new cult and see in Joseph the physically young, spiritually privileged spouse who corresponds to Mary’s sinless conception. A passage from the Considérations sur saint Joseph offers, as it were, Gerson’s final manifesto on doctrinal development:

An epic reconstruction of St Joseph’s gesta, the Josephina can also be seen in the light of the above analysis as a timely justification of new religious cults and, indeed, a far-reaching illustration of doctrinal boldness in the promotion of new institutional religious cults and beliefs.

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¹ ‘apud ecclesiasticos et de ecclesiasticis talia loquimur dum de celebritate virginalis conjugii Joseph cum Maria vel de ipsius felici transitu fieri solemnitatem exoptamus. Ad quid ita? Sane quatenus meritis, et intercessione tanti tamque potentis et imperiosi quodammodo patroni apud sponsam suam, de qua natus est Jesus qui vocatur Christus, reddatur Ecclesia unico viro vero et certo, Summo Pontifici sponso suo vice Christi’ (J. Gerson, ‘Jacob autem genuit’, in Oeuvres complètes de Jean Gerson, ed. P. Glorieux (10 vols, Paris, 1960–73), v. 344–62, at pp. 362, 365). The sermon is articulated around four subjects: ‘Collegamus tamen ex his principiis laudes utriusque, Joseph scilicet et Mariae … et hoc sub quadruplici consideratione fiat. Agetur in prima de nobilitatis origine Mariae et Joseph; agetur in altera de sanctificatione utriusque; agetur in tertia de fomitis repressione in utroque; agetur in quarta de multiplici nativitate Christi respectu Joseph et Mariae’ (v. 345). All translations are the author’s own unless otherwise stated.

² For a critical edition of the poem with a French translation, see Josephina. L’épopée de saint Joseph, ed. G. Matteo Roccati, trans. with introduction, notes and comments by I. Iribarren (2 vols, Paris, 2019). This chapter will refer to this edition.

³ See also the commentaries on these verses by Bernard of Clairvaux, Homiliae super ‘Missus est’ (In laudibus Virginis Matris), hom. 2, 16, in Sancti Bernardi opera (8 vols, Rome, 1957–77), iv. ed. J. Leclercq and H.–M. Rochais (Rome, 1966), p. 33, col. 70B; Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae Tertia pars, ed. P. Caramello (Turin, 1962), iii, q. 28, a. 1, ad 2; q. 31, a. 2, ad 1; Matthew of Acquasparta, De Annuntiat. B.V.M., in Matthaei ab Aquasparta, Sermones de B.M. Virgine, ed. C. Piana (Quaracchi, 1962), p. 52 (sermon 1); Peter John Olivi, Lectura super Mattheum, MS. Vat. lat. 1001, fo. 8c–d (ch. 1, quaestio praeliminaris), cited by A. Emmen, ‘Pierre de Jean Olivi, sa doctrine et son influence’, Cahiers de Joséphologie, xiv (1966), 209–70, at p. 251.

⁴ ‘Et an Jesus benedictus fructus ventris Mariae fuerit jure ponendus super sedem David et thronum ejus tamquam rex temporalis et specialis Judaeorum. Unde consequenter inquiritur ab aliquis si mulieri sexui, deficiente masculino apud reges jus successionis ad regnum debeat etiam jure divino et invariabili vel imprescriptibili competere. Quae disceptatio non parvam inter duo regna christianorum clarissima, Franciae et Anglia, vel fecit vel fovit controversiam, sicut ex opusculis hinc inde confectis sciri potest; quorum sententias omittere decrevimus pro praesenti’ (Gerson, Jacob autem genuit, v. 347). The chancellor was only repeating here what he had already stated in a previous treatise, Considérations sur saint Joseph, written in middle French around 1414 (Oeuvres complètes, vii, pt. 1, pp. 69–72, at p. 70). In his translation, with commentary, of Aristotle’s Politics, Nicole Oresme advanced the same argument, according to which it is illegitimate to invoke the genealogy of Jesus to justify the transmission of royalty through the female line, since His kingdom is not of this world (N. Oresme, Le livre de Politiques d’Aristote. Published from the Text of the Avranches Manuscript 223. With a Critical Introduction and Notes by Albert Douglas Menut (Philadelphia, Pa., 1970), p. 156. I wish to thank Serge Lusignan for bringing this source to my attention.

⁵ Gerson, Considérations sur saint Joseph, pp. 70–7; also Oeuvres complètes, ix. 479, § 12 (De nobilitate): ‘Nobilitas humana respiciens principaliter animam vel hominem ut homo est, magis attenditur a philosophis juxta illud: nobilitas sola est animum quae moribus ornat’. Cf. Ludolph of Saxony: ‘nihil de nostris vilitatibus erubescens; per ita proculdubio docens ut nos quoque nunquam de vitiis erubescamus parentum, sed unum illud queramus semper nobilitari propriarum honore virtutum. Non est omnino, non est nec de virtute nec de vitio parentum, aut laudandus aliquis aut culpandus; nemo inde vere aut obscurus, aut clarus est. Immo ut considerantius aliquid dicamus nescio quo magis ille respondet, qui ex parentibus a virtute prorsus alienus existens, ipse tamen fuerit de virtute mirabilis; nullus igitur in superbiam de gloria elevetur parentum, sed considerans progenitores Domini omnem evacuet et comprimat mentis tumorem et de solis virtutibus glorietur’ (Ludolphe Le Chartreux, Vita Jesu Christi ex Evangelio et approbatis ab ecclesia …, ed. L.-M. Rigollot (4 vols, Paris, 1870), i. 69).

⁶ See Gerson, Rex in sempiternum vive! (4 Sept. 1413), in Oeuvres complètes, vii, pt. 2. pp. 1005–30.

⁷ Gerson, letter to the duke of Berry, 23 Nov. 1413, in Oeuvres complètes, ii. 155–7. See M. Lieberman, ‘La lettre de Gerson au duc de Berry’, Cahiers de Joséphologie, ix (1961), 199–265. For Joseph as protector of the city, see Rex in sempiternum vive!, p. 1030. For other documents testifying to Gerson’s efforts to promote the new cult, see the letter to the universal Church (‘Office pour la fête de saint Joseph’) of Aug. 1413, in Oeuvres complètes, vii, pt. 1, pp. 55–60; and Bonne exhortation generale pour la feste de la Desponsacion de Nostre Dame (26 Sept. 1413), in Oeuvres complètes, vii, pt.1, pp. 11–15.

⁸ E.g., Veniat pax (1408), in Oeuvres complètes, vii, pt. 2, pp. 1100–23. In his Tractatus de nuptiis Christi et Ecclesiae (Nuptiae factae sunt), of 17–27 Jan. 1417 Gerson establishes a significant parallel between the errors of Jan Hus, harmful to clerics, and those of Jean Petit, harmful to secular princes (Oeuvres complètes, vi. 190–210, at pp. 208–10).

⁹ Martin Porée’s schedula is published in Ioannis Gersonii opera omnia, novo ordine digesta, et in V. tomos distribute, ed. E. du Pin (Anvers, 1706), v. 663B–D. Note, however, that in Oct. 1416, at Calais, John the Fearless recognized Henry V as legitimate heir to the crown of France. It was only in April 1417 that the incriminating schedula against Gerson was made public!

¹⁰ ‘Erit autem deductio nostra imitatrix sanctorum ac devotissimorum patrum qui ad commovendam piarum mentium devotionem dixerunt multa de sanctis et divinis quae et qualia, magis ex conjecturali quadam probabilitate quam ex fidei necessitate, tenenda sciebant. Sic eorum quae dicentur plurima volo posterius intelligi ita ut non tam quae facta sunt quam quae fieri potuisse pia quadam religiositate credi possunt, absque ulla assertionis temeritate et sine praejudicio sententiae sanioris referantur’ (Gerson, Jacob autem genuit, pp. 345–6) (my emphasis).

¹¹ On this subject, see M. Lieberman, ‘Les sources joséphologiques de Gerson et l’ “Office des Carmes”’, Cahiers de Joséphologie, x (1962), 17–57, 189–249 (with an edition of the office from the Tours MS. at pp. 198–220); ‘Pierre d’Ailly, Jean Gerson et le culte de saint Joseph I–III’, Cahiers de Joséphologie, xiii (1965), 227–72; xiv (1966), 273–314; xv (1967), 5–113; ‘Chronologie Gersonienne. IV: Gerson poète’, Romania, lxxvi (1955), 289–333; ‘La lettre de Gerson au duc de Berry’, Cahiers de Joséphologie, ix (1961), 199–265. See also I. N. Maegawa, ‘La doctrine de Jean Gerson sur saint Joseph’, Cahiers de Joséphologie, vii (1959), 181–94. For the officio Jerosolymitano mentioned by Gerson, see Oeuvres complètes, v. 349 (Jacob autem genuit, secunda consideratio); and the letter addressed to Dominique Petit, chanter of Chartres, on 7 Sept. 1416, in Oeuvres complètes, ii. 169. See also J. Dusserre, ‘Les origines de la dévotion à saint Joseph’, Cahiers de Joséphologie, i (1953), 1–60 and i.2 (1954), 61–86; B. P. McGuire, ‘When Jesus did the dishes: the transformation of late medieval spirituality’, in The Making of Christian Communities in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. M. F. Williams (London, 2005), pp. 131–52.

¹² ‘Maria de qua natus est Jesus sicut fuit in utero sanctificata priusquam nasceretur, ita de Joseph virginali viro suo pia probabilitate credi potest quamvis forte non omnino similiter. Potest forsan haec dissimilitudo notari in hoc quod Joseph post originale contractum sanctificatus est in utero baptismo flaminis sicut Joannes Baptista et aliorum plurimi. Sic enim in officio Jerosolymitano de Joseph composito continetur et ex praemisso quadruplici principio sequi videtur’ (Gerson, Jacob autem genuit, pp. 349–50).

¹³ ‘Sed profertur scriptum supernae, ut aiunt, revelationis, quasi et quivis non queat scriptum aeque producere, in quo Virgo videatur idipsum mandare et de parentibus suis, iuxta Domini mandatum dicentis: ‘Honora patrem tuum et matrem tuam’ [ Ex 20, 12]. Ipse mihi facile persuadeo scriptis talibus non moveri, quibus nec ratio suppeditare, nec certa invenitur favere auctoritas’ (Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistola 174 ad canonicos lugdunenses, de conceptione Mariae, in Sancti Bernardi opera omnia, ed. J. Leclercq, C. H. Talbot and H. M. Rochais (8 vols, Rome, 1974), vii. 391). On the subject of the immaculate conception, see M. Lamy, L’immaculée conception: étapes et enjeux d’une controverse au Moyen-Age (XIIe–XVe siècles) (Paris, 2000), pp. 52–3; also A. Wilmart, Auteurs, spirituels et textes dévots du Moyen Âge latin (Paris, 1932), pp. 202–4.

¹⁴ ‘Fallor si haec ipsa scriptura non loquitur: pertransibunt plurimi, et multiplex erit scientia. Sed haec eadem quae de abraham, moyse, prophetis et apostolis diximus, ex eiusdem scripturae uerbis, si possumus, ostendamus. Quis enim nesciat quia abraham cum deo locutus est? Et tamen ad moysen dominus dicit: ego sum deus abraham, et deus isaac, et deus iacob, et nomen meum adonai non indicaui eis? Ecce plus moysi quam abrahae innotuerat, qui illud de se moysi indicat quod se abrahae non indicasse narrabat. Sed uideamus si prophetae plus quam moyses diuinam scientiam apprehendere potuerunt. Certe psalmista dicit: quomodo dilexi legem tuam, domine? Tota die meditatio mea est. Atque subiungit: super omnes docentes me intellexi; quia testimonia tua meditatio mea est. Et iterum: super seniores intellexi’ (Gregorius Magnus, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam, ed. M. Adriaen (CCSL, cxlii, Turnhout, 1971), II, hom. 4, ll. 344–57).

¹⁵ ‘Le Saint Esperit revele aucunes foys a l’Eglise et aux docteurs darreniers aucunes veritez ou exposicions de la saincte Escripture lesquelles il n’a pas revelé a leurs predécesseurs. Ainsy le dit saint Gregoire super illo: Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit sciencia Domini, Daniel XII [4]. Moyse sceut plus que Abraham, les prophetes que Moyse, les apostres que les prophetes. Et les docteurs ont adjousté oultre les apostres. Si pouons dire que ceste verité que nostre Dame ne fut point conceue en pechié originel est de celles qui sont nouvellement revelees ou declairees, tant par miracles qui se lisent comme par plus grant partie de saincte Eglise qui ainsy le tient’ (Gerson, sermon Tota pulchra es [ Song of Songs IV: 7], in Oeuvres complètes, vii, pt. 2, pp. 1057–80, at p. 1076); and ‘Pour ce saint Bernart en l’espitre que il feist aux chanoines de Lyon [Epist. 174] les reprent, car trop hastivement ilz vouloyent celebrer la feste de ceste concepcion comme on devroit faire maintenant qui vouldroit faire la feste d’un saint non canonisé ou non acoustumé sans aucune autorité de l’Eglise romaine. Pour tant saint Bernart s’en raporte en la fin a ce que l’Eglise en vouldra ordonner. Mais maintenant autre chose est que du temps saint Bernart car a verité est plus esclaircie et se celebre la solennité presque universelement par toute l’Eglise rommaine et autre; par quoy il n’y a point de peril de conscience et de erreur coulpable ou de presumpcion celebrer ceste solennité mais trop plus a la non celebrer’ (Gerson, Tota pulchra es, p. 1077). The same verses of the Book of Daniel are also quoted in the same sense by Vincent de Beauvais in the Libellus totius operis apologeticus, prologue to the Speculum maius, edited as Préface au Speculum maius de Vincent de Beauvais: réfraction et diffraction, ed. S. Lusignan (Cahiers d’études médiévales, v, Montréal and Paris, 1979), p. 116.

¹⁶ They did not result, however, in any formal condemnation. For Gerson’s assertions regarding Mary’s queenship, see Jacob autem genuit, pp. 346–9; and Considérations sur saint Joseph, p. 70. See also Lieberman, ‘Pierre d’Ailly, Jean Gerson et le culte de saint Joseph, III’, esp. pp. 39–47.

¹⁷ ‘Est igitur quaestio si de necessitate fidei tenenda est veritas nostra consideratione secundae. Et hoc est investigare sub generali regula quae veritas est certa fide et de necessitate salutis, quae de sola probabilitate, quae de pietate fidei et quae sit impertinens’ (Gerson, Jacob autem genuit, p. 350).

¹⁸ J. Gerson, Declaratio compendiosa quae veritates sint de necessitate salutis credendae, in Oeuvres complètes, vi. 181–9.

¹⁹ See also Gerson, De vita spirituali animae (1402): ‘Distinxerunt itaque in simili doctores ante nos quod veritas aliqua est pure de fide, aliqua solum pertinens ad fidem quae dici potest de pietate fidei, aliqua impertinens quae dici potest apocrypha’ (Oeuvres complètes, iii. 137); Collectorium super Magnificat, tract. ix: ‘Probabilia sunt insuper plurima de et super hac beata beatarum, quae sunt potius accipienda de pietate devotionis quam de fidei necessitate vel temeritate assertionis, ubi non suppetit auctoritas Scripturae cogens aut ratio convincens’ (Oeuvres complètes, viii. 380); De examinatione doctrinarum: ‘Nihilominus attendendum est multiplicem esse doctrinarum per Ecclesiam seu Concilium vice sua, approbationem. Quaedam enim approbantur, ut certitudinaliter, vere, necessarioque credendae; quaedam, ut utiles ad moralem religiosamque doctrinam, sine mictione falsitatis noxiae; non tamen sunt sic ut credantur obligatorie; sed dicuntur sive nominantur de pietate fidei’ (Oeuvres complètes, ix. 459). See also Josephina, dist. II, vv. 747–50: ‘Sed nec te Virgo beata/Septenni toto cum vicinis siluisse | Crediderim, sed eas de lege sacra docuisse | Quae ventura forent et quae credenda tenerent’; dist. III, vv. 875–6: ‘Ex fas fuerit paucis deducere multa | Qualia non credi sed nec reprobare necesse’.

²⁰ ‘in sexto gradu … collocantur veritates illae quae tantummodo faciunt ad nutriendam vel fovendam devotionis religiosam pietatem, quae scilicet magis inducuntur ad inflammandum affectum quam ad instruendum intellectum, ubi pietas devota magis inspicitur quam veritas certa, ubi hoc unum reprobatur si adesset assertionis temeritas priusquam elucidaretur alio modo vel rationem certam ipsa veritas … Cadit existimatio vel pia credulitas non super veritate vel falsitate sed tantummodo super probabilitate vel apparentia … de talibus eligibilius est pie dubitare quam temere definire’ (Gerson, Declaratio compendiosa, pp. 184–5). Cf. also Religioso et bono viro, the letter addressed by Gerson to Jean Morel on the subject of the Vie d’Ermine de Reims (Paris, 1408?), in Oeuvres complètes, ii. 94–5; and De vita spirituali animae, pp. 137–41.

²¹ ‘Unde, sicut dicit Aristoteles, nihil refert quaedam falsa probabiliora esse quibusdam veris, ita nihil refert quaedam falsa pie credi … Sicut stat quodlibet contradictorium esse probabile et unum stat cum altero, non in veritate sed in probabilitate, sic diversis respectibus utrumque contradictorium credi potest cum fidei pietate dum tamen sit animus a pertinaci assertione alienus’ (Gerson, Declaratio compendiosa, p. 184); also ‘Didicisti quod duo contradictoria in veritate simul non stant, sed in probabilitate’ (Gerson, Collectorium super Magnificat, p. 480); and ‘Numquid non insania est concedere quod duo contradictoria sunt simul vera pro eodem instanti temporis licet non naturae’ (Ignem veni mittere, letter addressed by Gerson to a Franciscan (Lyons, 1426), in Oeuvres complètes ii. 277–8). For Aristotle, see Topics VI, in Hamesse, ‘Auctoritates Aristotelis’, p. 331; also Metaphysics IV, in Hamesse, ‘Auctoritates Aristotelis’, p. 124. The same principle was later incorporated by Gerson in his treatise in favour of Joan of Arc, composed on 18 May 1429, a few days after the lifting of the siege of Orleans and shortly before Gerson’s death. Intending to justify the pious belief in a politically controversial figure, the former chancellor claims that the probable nature of the reasons which lead us to believe in her are not contradicted either by evidence (apparentiae) or by the plausible conjectures (apparentiae seu verisimiles coniecturae) of the opposite party. The treatise is edited: D. Hobbins, ‘Jean Gerson’s authentic tract on Joan of Arc: Super facto puellae et credulitate sibi praestanda (14 May 1429)’, Mediaeval Stud., lxvii (2005), 99–155, at p. 146: ‘Praeseupponendum est in primis quod multa falsa sunt probabilia. Immo secundum Philosophum non refert quaedam falsa probabiliora esse quibusdam veris, usque adeo quod duo contradictoria simul stant in probabilitate licet non in veritate’.

²² Hobbins, ‘Jean Gerson’s authentic tract on Joan of Arc’, p. 116.

²³ ‘Cadit existimatio vel pia credulitas non super veritate vel falsitate sed tantummodo super probabilitate vel apparentia … de talibus eligibilius est pie dubitare quam temere definire’ (Gerson, Declaratio compendiosa, p. 185). See also the letter dated 1408 to Jean Morel, regarding the visions of Ermine de Reims (Oeuvres complètes, ii. 93–6, at p. 94).

²⁴ For an analysis of this letter, see I. Iribarren, ‘Jean Gerson, spiritual adviser to the Celestines’, in Autorität und Wahrheit. Kirchliche Vorstellungen, Normen und Verfahren (XIII. – XV. Jahrhundert), ed. G. L. Potestà (Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, lxxxiv, München, 2012), pp. 159–78.

²⁵ ‘Ceterum de opinione non temeraria sed probabili vel de pia credulitate, latius dici potest prout alibi [in Declaratio compendiosa] notavimus. Et hoc unum placet hic repetere quid sit pium credere aut quae propositiones de pietate fidei sunt censandae: omnes illae scilicet quae nec evidenter sequuntur ex contentis in sacra Scriptura, nec etiam patenter repugnant, et aedificant caritatem vel devotionem pii cordis temerarie nihil asserentis; tales sunt narrationes sanctorum Patrum, tales devotae recogitationes circa totum evangelii decursum erga Christum et matrem suam, considerando multa non explicita quemadmodum fieri potuerint, vel quid egerit Jesus cum Joseph et Maria ab initio usque ad mortem Joseph, qualiter processum est in Josephina carmine heroico’ (J. Gerson, De susceptione humanitatis Christi, in Oeuvres complètes, ii. 269). In the Collectorium super Magnificat, tract. xii, Gerson lends to Mary a similar description of the Josephina (Oeuvres complètes, viii. 528).

²⁶ E.g., Josephina, dist. VII, vv. 1894–6: ‘Deficit hic sensus, ratio stupet omneque mentis | Caligat lumen, dum te, vir, cernere tali | Conor in obsequio quid dicam nescio’. I. Fabre states that, ‘un principe popularisé par la devotio moderna consiste à s’imaginer présent à la scène méditée, car c’est en partant de scènes imaginées que l’on s’élève plus facilement au-delà même de la méditation, de telles images étant tenues d’emblée pour contingentes et provisoires. Le rôle de l’imagination chez Gerson repose sur l’idée d’une dynamique exemplaire censée accoutumer l’âme contemplative à saisir la présence du mystère à travers un tissu symbolique’ (I. Fabre, La doctrine du chant du cœur de Jean Gerson. Edition critique, traduction et commentaire du ‘Tractatus de canticis’ et du ‘Canticordum au pèlerin’ (Geneva, 2005), pp. 106–7).

²⁷ ‘Nil super ignotis igitur meditatio nostra | Affirmet temere, sola suffecerit uti | Coniecturarum thopica ratione modeste. | Ex scriptis inferre potest non scripta pio mens | Cum studio, sic certa fides incerta revelat | Qualia sunt acta vel que fieri potuere’ (Josephina, dist. III, vv. 855–60). See also the programmatic verses at the end of the Prologue: ‘favete | Nostraque sit, facite pietas accepta Camene, | Ancillans fidei, nulli preiudica vero, | Multa probabiliter suadens, temeraria nusquam, | Apta peregrinum cor sursum attollere celis’ (vv. 91–5).

²⁸ Aristotle, De arte poetica, ed. L. Minio-Paluello (Aristoteles Latinus, xxxiii, Brussels, 1968), ch. 9, 1451a36–10; also 1447a18–1448a27, 1448b4–23.

²⁹ Aristotle, Metaphysics IV, in Hamesse, ‘Auctoritates Aristoteli’, p. 124; quoted by Gerson in Declaratio compendiosa, pp. 184–5.

³⁰ ‘Est enim ars in eis qui novas res coniectura persequuntur, veteres observatione didicerunt’ (Cicero, De divinatione, ed. T. E. Page, E. Capps and W. H. D. Rouse, with English trans. by W. A. Falconer (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1927), p. 262 (I. xviii. 34)).

³¹ K. Park, ‘Observation in the margins, 500–1500’, in Histories of Scientific Observation, ed. L. Daston and E. Lunbeck (Chicago, Ill., 2011), pp. 15–44, at p. 18.

³² Josephina, dist. II, vv. 411–24. Cf. Genesis XII: 11–13.

³³ ‘Nous estudions prendre aucunes considerations particulieres selon probables raisons ou arguments, morals et topiques, comme appartient a tele matiere, et comme elle les peut souffrir et recevoir sans temeraire ou fole assertion; car en ce faisant, on edifie l’affection devote qui s’esmeut plus en considerations particulieres que universeles; et c’est ce que nous appelons en latin pietas fidei; nous le povons dire en francois: religieuse estimation … Et ceste consideration proffite a merveille pour entendre et concevoir … comment saincte Église use de leurs dis [des sains docteurs] en ses legendes et en ses chans’ (Gerson, Considérations sur saint Joseph, p. 65). Cf. Jacob autem genuit: ‘ religiosa studiositas plurima conquirere de castissima et sanctissima conversatione Joseph cum Maria, de confabulationibus suis divinissimis in loco peregrinationis suae super mysteriis nostrae redemptionis, super canticis ipsius Mariae, Zachariae et Simeonis; super his praeterea omnibus quae dicebantur de puero Jesu et quae videbantur in eo et quae revelabantur ab angelo; immo et quae felici experimento tu Maria didiceras’ (Jacob autem genuit, p. 353) (my emphasis).

³⁴ E.g., al-Fārābī, De scientiis, Al-Farabi über die Wissenschaften, ed. F. Schupp (Hamburg, 2005), ch. 5; also Aristotle, Rhetoric, ed. B. Schneider (Aristoteles Latinus, xxxi, pts 1–2, Turnhout, 1978), I.1, 1355a14–18; Boethius, De differentiis topicis, trans. and notes E. Stump (Ithaca, N.Y. and London, 1978), bk. IV. On this subject, see, among a vast literature: La rhétorique d’Aristote: traditions et commentaires de l’Antiquité au XVIIe siècle, ed. G. Dahan and I. Rosier-Catach (Paris, 1998); J. Franklin, The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability before Pascal (Baltimore, Md., 2001); K. Fredborg, ‘The scholastic teaching of rhetoric in the middle ages’, Cahiers l’Institut du moyen âge grec et latin, lv (1978), 85–105; P. O. Lewry, ‘Rhetoric at Paris and Oxford in the mid-thirteenth century’, Rhetorica, i (1983), 45–63; G. Dahan, ‘Les classifications du savoir aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles’, L’Enseignement philosophique, xl.4 (1990), 5–27; G. Dahan, ‘Notes et textes sur la poétique au moyen âge’, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge, xlvii (1980), 171–247; J. J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: a History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance (Berkeley, Calif., 1974); Medieval Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Medieval Rhetoric, ed. J. J. Murphy (Berkeley, Calif., 1978); K. Eden, ‘The rhetorical tradition and Augustinian hermeneutics in the De doctrina Christiana’, Rhetorica, viii (1990), 45–63; D. Black, ‘Traditions and transformations in the medieval approach to rhetoric and related linguistic arts’, in L’enseignement de la philosophie au XIIIe siècle: autour du ‘Guide de l’étudiant’ du ms. Ripoll 109, ed. C. Lafleur and J. Carrier (Turnhout, 1997), pp. 233–54; W. F. Boggess, ‘Aristotle’s “Poetics” in the fourteenth century’, in Stud. in Philology, lxvii (1970), 278–94; R. Copeland, ‘ Pathos and pastoralism: Aristotle’s Rhetoric in medieval England’, Speculum, lxxxix (2014), 96–127, esp. at pp. 96–100. I am very grateful to Mary Carruthers for her valuable comments and references on this subject.

³⁵ E.g., Thomas Aquinas, Expositio libri posteriorium, in Sancti Thomae de Aquino opera omnia, ed. Leonine (multiple vols, Rome and Paris 1882–; 1989), i. 2. (I, 1); Albert the Great, Super Ethica, in Natürliche Moral und philosophische Ethik bei Albertus Magnus, ed. J. Müller (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, Neue Folge, lix, Münster, 2001), pp. 325–58, at pp. 341–2 (I, 3).

³⁶ ‘Altera ratio [quod Joseph fuisse juvenem], fuit ad conservandam Mariae famam apud perfidos Judaeos et ad Incarnationis mysterium celandum demonibus; quae ratio cessasset prorsus si Joseph senex, frigidus et quasi maleficiatus palam apparuisset’ (Gerson, Jacob autem genuit, p. 353). For Augustine, see sermon 263, De ascensione Domini: muscipula diaboli, crux Domini, in Sancti Augustini Sermones post Maurinos reperti, Miscellanea Agostiniana, ed. G. Morin (2 vols, Rome, 1930), i. 508.

³⁷ ‘Vel ideo pingebatur senex ab initio nascentis Ecclesiae dum Mariae perpetua virginitas nondum ut modo radices fixerat in cordibus fidelium, ne suspicaretur carnale aliquid de Joseph et Maria’ (Gerson, Jacob autem genuit, p. 353).

³⁸ On this subject, see E. Marmursztejn, L’autorité des maîtres. Scolastique, normes et société au XIII e siècle (Paris, 2007), esp. pp. 85–7.

³⁹ ‘Et s’aucun dit que ce seroit introduire nouvelté en l’Eglise, qui sembleroit peril ou temerité, car c’est bien a savoir, dira aucun, que nos predecesseurs qui furent tant saints et saiges eussent pièca de leur temps ordonnee tele solennité se ce eust esté bien et convenablement fait, nous pouvons respondre que la providence de Dieu fait ses choses par saige ordonnance, l’une apres l’autre combien qu’elle les pourroit tout faire ensemble et nous le veons a nostre propos que les festes des sains et sainctes ont este successivement ordonnés et les verités de la foy successivement prachees. La feste de la Nativite Noster Dame fu faicte moult longtemps apres celle de son Assumption; puis on a fait nouvellement la feste de sa Conception et n’aguerez que la feste du saint sacrement fu instituee, et celel de sainte Anne, et ainsi de plusieurs telz cas; car Dieu veult bien que nostre devocion se torne puis en une chose puis en l’autre, mais que ce soit selond verité et bonne entencion, car sainte nouvelleté peut bien plaire sans reprehension’ (Gerson, Considerations sur saint Joseph, p. 71).