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PAGANISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

THREAT AND FASCINATION

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 MEDIAEVALIA LOVANIENSIA

Editorial board
Geert Claassens (Leuven)
Hans Cools (Leuven)
Pieter De Leemans (Leuven)
Brian Patrick McGuire (Roskilde)
Baudouin Van den Abeele (Louvain-la-Neuve)

SERIES I / STUDIA XLIII

KU LEUVEN
INSTITUTE FOR MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES
LEUVEN (BELGIUM)

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 PAGANISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES
THREAT AND FASCINATION

Edited by

Carlos STEEL
John MARENBON
Werner VERBEKE

LEUVEN UNIVERSITY PRESS

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 2012 Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain / Universitaire Pers
Leuven, Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven/Louvain (Belgium)

All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of this
publication may be multiplied, saved in an automated data file or made public in any way
whatsoever without the express prior written consent of the publishers.

ISBN 978 90 5867 933 8

D/2012/1869/75
NUR: 684-694

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 CONTENTS

Introduction IX

Ludo MILIS
The Spooky Heritage of Ancient Paganisms 1
Carlos STEEL
De-paganizing Philosophy 19
John MARENBON
A Problem of Paganism 39
Henryk ANZULEWICZ
Albertus Magnus ber die philosophi theologizantes und die
natrlichen Voraussetzungen postmortaler Glckseligkeit:
Versuch einer Bestandsaufname 55
Marc-Andr WAGNER
Le cheval dans les croyances germaniques entre paganisme
et christianisme 85
Brigitte MEIJNS
Martyrs, Relics and Holy Places: The Christianization of the
Countryside in the Archdiocese of Rheims during the Merov-
ingian Period 109
Edina BOZOKY
Paganisme et culte des reliques: le topos du sang vivifiant la
vgtation 139
Rob MEENS
Thunder over Lyon: Agobard, the tempestarii and Christianity 157
Robrecht LIEVENS
The pagan Dirc van Delf 167
Stefano PITTALUGA
Callimaco Esperiente e il paganesimo 195
Anna AKASOY
Paganism and Islam: Medieval Arabic Literature on Religions
in West Africa 207
Index 239

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 Hermes Trismegistus lamenting the destruction of Egyptian Religion
La Haye, Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum, Ms. 10 A 11, fol. 392 ro
La Haye, Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum

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 John MARENBON

A PROBLEM OF PAGANISM

No figure epitomizes what I once called The Problem of Paganism

so well as Virgil. Not, of course, the real Virgil, but Dantes Virgil, his
guide through Hell and part of Purgatory. Dantes admiration for Virgil
is almost unlimited, as his first greeting of him makes evident:
Or se tu quel Virgilio e quella fonte
che spandi di parlar s largo fiume?,
rispuosio lui con vergognosa fronte.
O de li altri poeti onore e lume,
vagliami l lungo studio e l grande amore
che m ha fatto cercar lo tuo volume.
Tu se lo mio maestro e l mio autore,
tu se solo colui da cu io tolsi
lo bello stilo che m ha fatto onore.
[Are you then that Virgil, that font from which so wide a stream of speech
pours forth?, I replied to him with shame on my brow. O honour and light
of other poets, may the long study and great love which made me search
through your book serve me well. You are my master and my author. You
are the one from whom I have taken the beautiful style that has brought me
honour. Dante Inferno I, 81-7]

But, as we discover when he starts to explain why he will not be

Dantes guide for the final parts of his journey, Virgil is not in heaven:
quello imperador che l s regna,
perchi fu ribellante a la sua legge,
non vuol che n sua citt per me si vegna.
[The emperor who reigns up there because I was a rebel to his law does
not want his city to be entered by me. Dante, Inferno I, 124-6]

Dante assigns Virgil and other distinguished and virtuous pagans to

the edge of Hell, the limbo inferni. Although the impression of their
moated castle and their manner is a dignified and attractive one:

giugnemmo in prato di fresca verdura.
Genti veran con occhi tardi e gravi,
di grande autorit ne lor sembianti:
parlavan rado, con voci soavi.

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 40 J. MARENBON

[We came to a meadow of fresh grass. There were people with slow, seri-
ous eyes, great authority in their faces. They spoke rarely, with sweet
voices. Dante, Inferno IV, 111-4]

sadness runs through the description because, as Virgil tells Dante, he

and his fellows live (eternally) in desire without hope (sanza speme
vivemo in disio, l. 42). Virgil makes it clear that he and the other souls
in limbo have not sinned, but they are damned because they lacked faith.1
Some scholars have tried to show that, although faith depends on divine
grace, Virgils failure to benefit from grace and reach faith can be traced
to some sort of personal fault, a sin of omission that he might in some
sense have avoided.2 Others have suggested, rather implausibly, that per-
haps Dante does not rule out final salvation for Virgil.3 But, more plau-
sibly, it was the very fact that he could find nothing genuinely to blame
in Virgil, but felt unable, given the constraints of Christian doctrine as
understood in his time, to count him among the saved, that led Dante to
make a striking theological innovation.4 Limbo had been introduced by
the Church Fathers as place of painless eternal punishment for unbap-
tized children, and it was also where the Old Testament patriarchs had
waited from their deaths until they were taken to heaven when Christ
harrowed Hell after his Crucifixion. Dante seems to have been the first
person to make it a permanent home for virtuous pagans, especially poets
and philosophers.5

1. Inferno IV, 34-8: ei non peccaro; e selli hanno mercedi/non basta, perch non
ebber battesmo,/ch porta de la fede che tu credi;/ e se furon dinanzi al cristianesmo,/
non adorar debitamente a Dio ; Purgatorio VII, 7-8: e per null altro rio/ lo ciel
perdei, che per non avere f.
2. This was the view of a number of commentators and scholars (cf. A. A. Ianucci,
Limbo: the emptiness of time, Studi danteschi, 52, 1979-80, 80). In a subtle and quali-
fied form it is adopted at the end of Kenelm Fosters nuanced study of the whole issue in
The Two Dantes (Berkeley and Los Angeles; University of California Press, 1977): see
pp. 249-52, and, although he would not use the phrase sin of omission, the same under-
lying view is held by C. OConnell Baur in Dantes Hermeneutics of Salvation. Passages
to freedom in the Divine Comedy (Toronto, Buffalo and London; University of Toronto
Press, 2007, 172 244. Baur gives a very full survey of the different alternative approaches
to Virgil and his damnation.
3. See M. Allan, Does Dante hope for Virgils Salvation, Modern Languages Notes,
104 (1989), 193-205; and the critical exchange that followed between T. Bartolini and
him: Modern Languages Notes, 105 (1990), 138-49; cf. Baur, Dantes Hermeneutics,
195-9.
4. Ianucci, Limbo, advances this type of view, though stressing the tragic nature of
Virgils fate.
5. On the theological novelty of Dantes idea, see especially G. Padoans Il Limbo
dantesca as reprinted with bibliographical additions in his Il pio Enea, lempio Ulisse.
Tradizione classica e intendimento medievale in Dante (Ravenna: Longo, 1977), 103-24.

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 A PROBLEM OF PAGANISM 41

The tension which forced Dante into this perhaps rather unhappy com-
promise is a striking example of what, at one stage in thinking about the
issue, I called The Problem of Paganism. It is one form, particular to
medieval Christendom, of a general problem about how to regard other
religions and ways of life, the problem of other faiths a problem that
has always faced, and still faces, any reflective believer in a religion that
makes the exclusive claims characteristic of Christianity. Christianity
makes exclusive and universal claims, based on a historical revelation,
and they have the most serious consequences with regard to a persons
supposed destiny after death. Whereas ancient Romans, could readily
accept new Gods into their pantheon, the Christian God is a jealous one.
His adherents must be loyal to him alone, and they must accept his teach-
ing as the ultimate truth about the origins and purpose of the universe
and the goals of human life. Some of these truths can be known by rea-
son and experience, but almost all Christians have considered that there
are some truths known to humans only through a historical revelation.6
Moreover, the message of Christianity is universal, and so is the claim it
makes for adherence. Failure to heed it has eschatological consequences
of a hardly imaginable severity: an eternity of torture in place of the pos-
sibility of an eternal heavenly life of complete happiness.
From these elements, the following problem emerged in the Latin-
based culture of medieval Western Christendom: Many people are not,
and have not been Christians. During a whole, long historical period
from the earliest times up until the life of Christ Christianity was una-
vailable to anyone, at least in an obvious and explicit way. Since then,
there have been many parts of the world where, for long periods, Chris-
tianity was unknown; and many parts of the world where, although
Christianity is known, other religions so dominate that very few people
become Christians. On the face of it, then, the large numbers (indeed, the

On the normal medieval theology of limbo, see A. Carpin, Il limbo nella teologia medi-
evale (Bologna; ESD, 2006).
6. Some of these characteristics of Christianity also belong to Judaism and Islam,
though clearly not all: Judaism, for instance, does not claim to be a universal religion.
Moreover, a feature that distinguishes the medieval Islamic and Jewish traditions of phi-
losophy is that they contain, as a very important strand, adopted by some thinkers, the idea
that a philosophical understanding of the universe, gained through reason, is the fullest
and most correct one, and divine revelation serves a more practical, political purpose,
providing clear laws for the whole of society and teaching truths in a less precise, but
more easily graspable metaphorical manner. Christian thinkers could hardly follow such
an approach, given the centrality of doctrines which many would consider mysteries not
even open to rational understanding, let alone rational discovery.

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 42 J. MARENBON

great majority) of people, now and in the past, who were or are not
Christians, must be considered to be living in alienation from the true
God, not knowing or rejecting the revealed truths they need to under-
stand their world and live well, and heading for eternal punishment. Yet
this view implies a sharp moral and intellectual distinction between
Christian and non-Christian societies and individuals which goes against
all the evidence: non-Christian societies and individuals are not, overall,
obviously and grossly more evil and ignorant than Christian ones. More-
over, this view apparently implies that God, whom Christians hold to be
perfectly good, will condemn many people to eternal punishment,
because of when or where they happened to have been born.
The specific form of problem, found within medieval Latin Christian
culture has three further, distinctive features: the rarity of the problem,
its difficulty, and its special links with literature and philosophy. The
first two are closely linked. Nowadays, the problem I have just articu-
lated is a central concern for most Christians. But, as such, it has been
so thoroughly accommodated within accepted doctrine that it is no longer
a problematic concern on the theoretical level. It is widely and accepted,
in the various Churches, that non-Christians can live excellent lives,
achieve a high degree of understanding of themselves and their world,
and be saved.7 By contrast, most medieval Christians, even thinkers and
writers, were either unconcerned with non-Christians or hostile to them.
But for those medieval intellectuals it touched a small number, but
including some of the outstanding figures of the epoch, such as Abelard
and Dante this Problem of Paganism had the character of a dilemma.
Although the lines of Christian doctrine were not rigid, they certainly did
not allow for the easy acceptance of non-Christian excellence common
today. The Problem of Paganism, then, placed a difficult choice before
medieval writers: either to be bolder (sometimes dangerously bolder)
than their contemporaries in adapting theological teaching, or else to
arrive at a judgement of non-Christians and their achievements at odds
with their ordinary moral intuitions and assessment of the evidence. Had
the only non-Christians they knew been of their own time, it is perhaps
unlikely that even a small group of medieval Christians would have

7. F.A. Sullivan, Salvation outside the Church? Tracing the History of the Catholic
Response (London; Chapman, 1992), traces how the contemporary Catholic was reached,
going back to the beginnings of Christianity. His broad but learned survey complements,
but does not replace for the period before the twentieth century the old, but still standard
work by L. Capran, Le Problme du salut des infidles. Essai historique, 2nd edn.
(Toulouse; Grande Sminaire, 1934).

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 A PROBLEM OF PAGANISM 43

faced up to such unpalatable alternatives. It was the fact that the great
writers and philosophers of Greece and Rome were pagans which meant
that, at least for some of the most cultivated and thoughtful medieval
intellectuals, there was a Problem of Paganism to be confronted, and
which linked the problem so closely to literary and philosophical
concerns.
Medieval literature and thought was the heir of Greek and Roman
antiquity. The authorities in philosophy were Plato and Aristotle; the
models for poetry were Latin writers such as Virgil and Ovid. The most
common attitude was to make use of these writings, without reflecting
explicitly on the fact that their authors were pagans. But, for the think-
ers willing to face the problem, there were occasions and contexts
where the fundamental difference in belief that separated them from
the classical writers they revered were all too obvious. How could
these authors, whom they so admired, have been so thoroughly mis-
taken in every important matter of understanding and behaviour as the
exclusive claims of Christian truth would, at first sight, suggest? The
question was made far sharper by the belief, held by many medieval
thinkers, that the great ancient philosophers and even some of the clas-
sical authors were, though pagans, monotheists, worshippers of the one
true God.
As my comments will have indicated, the Problem of Paganism I have
in mind is posed in a particularly sharp way by the question of the post-
mortem destiny of (apparently) virtuous pagans. The Problem itself,
though, is wider than this particular question. Indeed, it is not so much
the belief itself as to whether they are sent to Hell or reach Heaven that
matters as the judgement on their lives that lies behind it. If, as monothe-
ists, educated ancient pagans were in some sense worshippers of the true
God, how accurate was their grasp of him? Were their virtues real or, as
Augustine notoriously argued, merely apparent?
The following pages are designed to give the flavour of the medieval
discussions of this problem and to indicate some of the issues it raises.
They will also show how this problem, which is in the broad sense a
philosophical one and can involve the intricacies of medieval scholastic
theology, receives some of its subtlest discussions in vernacular poetry
rather than Latin university texts: exploring it invites us to re-think the
boundaries of what we describe as medieval philosophy and medieval
literature. As the title and my first sentence make clear, the problem
sketched here is a medieval problem about paganism: there are other,
more or less closely related problems for example, the questions,

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 44 J. MARENBON

explored by a number of authors in this volume, relating to the survival

of paganism in Europe in the earlier Middle Ages, and to the conversion
of the various pagan tribes; and those raised by the encounters in the
later Middle Ages with real pagan cultures, among the Mongols, in
the East and among the American Indians. The Problem of Paganism
must be understood as a family resemblance of problems; the concern
here is with one important aspect of just one member of that family.
A good place to begin is again with Dante, and his treatment of a
much luckier pagan than Virgil, the Emperor Trajan. The figure of Tra-
jan will allow us both to make comparisons within Dante, and to move
backwards to Abelard in the twelfth century, and forwards to the Lang-
land and Wyclif at the end of the fourteenth century. Trajan presents the
problems linked to paganism in an especially sharp form, because he
lived after Christianity had been widely preached; in some accounts
he is even named as a persecutor of Christians. And yet, as I shall
explain, he had a reputation for justice and is the central character in a
strange but long-lived legend.8
It is Trajan who is being talked about in the following passage from
the Paradiso:
Regnum celorum volenza pate
da caldo amore e da viva speranza,
che vince la divina volontate:
non a guisa che lomo a lom sobranza,
ma vince lei perch vuole esser vinta,
e, vinta, vince con sua beninanza.
La prima vita del ciglio e la quinta
ti fa maravigliar, perch ne vedi
la regon de li angeli dipinta.
Di corpi suoi non uscir, come credi,
Gentili, ma Cristiani, in ferma fede
quel di passuri e quel di passi piedi.
Ch luna de lo nferno, u non si riede
gi mai a buon voler, torn a lossa;
e ci di viva spene fu mercede:

8. The Trajan Gregory story in the Middle Ages has been discussed by a number of
scholars. The range of G. Paris, La Lgende de Trajan, Bibliothque de lcole des
hautes tudes, Sciences philolologiques et historiques, 35 (Paris; Vieweg, 1878), 261-98
has not been surpassed. More recent studies include P. Gradon, Trajanus Redivivus:
another look at Trajan in Piers Plowman, in Middle English Studies presented to Norman
Davis in Honour of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. D. Gray and E. G. Stanley (Oxford;
Oxford University press, 1983), 93 114 and G. Whatley, The Uses of Hagiography: the
legend of Pope Gregory and the Emperor Trajan in the Middle Ages, Viator, 15 (1984),
25-63.

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 A PROBLEM OF PAGANISM 45

di viva spene, che mise la possa

ne prieghi fatti a Dio per suscitarla,
s che potesse sua voglia esser mossa.
Lanima glorosa onde si parla,
tornata ne la carne, in che fu poco,
credette in lui che pota aiutarla;
e credendo saccese in tanto foco
di vero amor, cha la morte seconda
fu degna di venire a questo gioco.
[The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence from hot love and living hope
which defeat the divine will, not in the way that one human overcomes
another, but they defeat it because it wishes to be defeated, and defeated, it
is victorious with its benevolence./100/ You are amazed to see the first and
the fifth of the living souls which make up the eyebrow adorning the region
of the angels adorned with them. /103/ They did not, as you believe, leave
their bodies as Gentiles, but as Christians, in firm faith, this one in the feet
that would suffer and that in the feet that had suffered. /106/ One of them
[Trajan] returned to his bones from Hell, from where no one ever returns to
be able to will well, and that was the reward /109/ of living hope, which
gave the power to the prayers offered to God to raise it, so that Trajans will
could be moved. /112/ When the glorious soul of which we are speaking
had returned to the flesh, in which it spent a short time, it believed in him
that he could help it, /115/ and, believing, became enflamed in such a fire
of true love that, at its second death, it was worthy to come to this joy.
Paradiso XX, 94-117]

Dante is amazed (ll.101-2) that Trajan is among the blessed, because

he was a pagan emperor and one who lived after the time of Christ.
But, it is explained, he did not die a Gentile, but a Christian (l. 104).
Lines 106 117, rather allusively explain how. Trajan benefited from the
living hope of Pope Gregory, which made his prayers for the salvation
of the long dead Emperors soul effective. But there is no question of
Trajans having simply been promoted from hell to heaven. The prayers
bring it about that Trajan is revivified (l. 113); in his brief moments of
new life, his will is able to be moved (l. 111); he believes in God and
becomes so enflamed with true love of him that he dies in a state of char-
ity and so is saved.
It is a very odd story, and it has old roots. The earliest life of Pope
Gregory the Great was written between about 704 and 714 by a monk of
Whitby. This anonymous author laboured under two sorts of ignorance.
The first, that he in fact knew almost nothing about the events of
Gregorys life, was hardly a disadvantage, since truth was not the aim
of hagiography. But his ignorance of even basic theology would have
long and serious consequences. He had picked up some rumour it must

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 46 J. MARENBON

have existed independently from him, since it is found in an independent

Greek tradition9 that Gregory had prayed for the salvation of the soul
of the Emperor Trajan, who had died several centuries earlier. As he
puts it:
Some of our people say that the Romans tell of the soul of Trajan the
Emperor comforted (refrigeratam) or baptized by St Gregorys tears
something marvellous to tell and to hear. But let no one be surprised when
we say baptized. For no one will ever see God without baptism the third
sort of which is by tears. 10

The monk then explains why Gregory thought so well of Trajan. He

had been told the story of how Trajan, about to set off for war, was
approached by a poor widow who had not been paid compensation by
the killers of her son. After hesitating initially, Trajan there and then
ensured that justice was done and the widow given her money. Trajan
was thus acting in according with Christs teaching, Judge the orphan
and defend the widow and come and reason with me. The hagiographer
continues
[Gregory] did not know what should be done to comfort his soul, and,
entering St Peters, he wept floods of tears, in his usual manner, until he
won the divine revelation that it had been granted, since he had never pre-
sumed this for any other pagan.11

From the theological point of view, there is almost everything wrong

with this story. The third sort of baptism, by tears, seems to be this
writers invention. No one can be baptized who is already in hell, and
Christian doctrine teaches both that condemnation to hell is final (the
only souls released from hell were those of the Old Testament prophets
and patriarchs at the time of the Crucifixion), and that there should be no

9. An account of the miracle is found in Greek in a work On Those who have Died in
the Faith (Patrologia Graeca 95, 247-78, at 262D-3A) mistakenly attributed to John of
Damascus and probably from the ninth century or earlier. According to this account,
Gregory poured out prayers for the forgiveness of the faults of Trajan and soon heard a
voice telling him his prayers had been granted.
10. The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby, ed.
B. Colgrave (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1985), 126 (Chapter 29): Quidam
quoque de nostris dicunt narratum a Romanis, sancti Gregorii lacrimis animam Traiani
imperatoris refrigeratam vel baptizatam, quod est dictu mirabile et auditu. Quod autem
eum dicimus babtizatum, neminem moveat: nemo enim sine babtismo Deum videbit
umquam: cuius tertium genus est lacrimae
11. Ibid., 128: ad refrigerium animae eius quid implendo nesciebat, ingrediens ad
sanctum Petrum solita direxit lacrimarum fluenta usque promeruit sibi divinitus revelatum
fuisse exauditum, atque ut numquam de altero illud praesumpsisset pagano.

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 A PROBLEM OF PAGANISM 47

prayers said for those who are damned. But in this account, the saintly
Gregory is supposed, not only to have sinned by praying for the salvation
of a damned soul, but to have been rewarded by having his prayer
answered. The discussion of this episode by theologians and writers over
the next seven centuries is occupied above all by trying to tidy up the
doctrinal mess left by this rather feckless monk. That Trajan had been
saved was taken as given. The question was how it could have happened,
given the constraints of Christian doctrine.
The rather strange explanation Dante gives involves the resuscitation
of Trajan, who in his brief second earthly life believes that God can help
him and is enflamed in such a fire of true love that he dies, for the sec-
ond time, in a state of grace. The story has the effect of removing the
challenge to orthodox Christian teaching which the legend of Trajans
salvation posed. By supposing the miracle of his resuscitation,
Trajans place in heaven can be explained uncontroversially, since he
died, for the second time, as a Christian in a state of grace. This explana-
tion was widely current in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Aqui-
nas favours it, as does Albert the Great, and it is one of the explanations
given in Jacob of Voragines very popular Legenda aurea (Chapter 46).12
Dante gives this common account his own twist, but it is a subtle one.
When the thirteenth and fourteenth-century scholastic theologians men-
tion Trajan, they are interested solely in the fact that he was sent to Hell
but, ultimately, was saved. They do not usually refer to the details of the
legend which make it clear that he was unusually virtuous: they are con-
cerned not with Trajans justice (some, indeed, such as Durandus of
St Pourain, portray him as rather evil13), but with divine justice; they
wish to show that God does not change his mind even if he seems to do
so, to consider the relationship between prayer and predestination, and
whether prayers can help those in Hell. So, for instance, after proposing
the brought-back-to-life-again version of the story, Aquinas writes:
Thus also it appears in all those who were miraculously raised from the
dead, of whom it is clear that many were idolaters and had been damned.
For about them all it needs similarly to be said that they had not been

12. Aquinas looks at the story in detail only in his commentary on the Sentences (I d.
43, q. 2, a. 2, ad 5); his reference to it in De veritate (q. 6, a. 6 ad 4) is brief and the
discussion in the Summa theologiae (supplem. q. 71, a. 5, ad 5) occurs in the section
compiled by his followers and merely repeats what is said in the Sentences commentary.
For Albert, see his late (1270) Summa theologiae I, tr. xi, q. 77.
13. See his Commentary on the Sentences IV. D. 45, q. 2 (ed. Venice, 1571, ff. 405v-
6v). He explains that Trajan had put many martyrs painfully to death.

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 48 J. MARENBON

finally placed in Hell, but <they were there> according to the present jus-
tice with regard to their own merits, but according to superior causes, by
which it was foreseen that they would be recalled to life, they were to be
placed differently.14

It is part of Aquinass point here that Trajan and the others were not
worthy to be saved because of their personal merits: they are not in any
sense examples of just pagans.
Dantes emphasis is different. He is clearly identified as an example
of someone who died as a pagan and yet has been saved, and a telling of
the Trajan and the widow story in the Purgatorio (X, 73-93) has identi-
fied him as virtuous.15 Yet the connection between his virtue and his
salvation seems to be left deliberately tenuous. There is no cross-refer-
ence back to the widow story in the Paradiso. There is a brief reference
forward, to Trajans salvation, in the Purgatorio passage, but its phrasing
is striking: Trajan is the Roman ruler whose worth moved Gregory to
his great victory (del roman principato, il cui valore/ mosse Gregorio a
la sua gran vittoria: Purgatorio X, 74-5). This comment, like the longer
version of the story in the Paradiso, makes very clear the limits of
a pagans own ability gain salvation.16 Trajan owes it to his virtuous
behaviour towards the widow that the story of this deed moved Gregory
to intercede for him; although, in interceding successfully, Gregory was
not, in fact, changing Gods mind or defeating him. Dante is in effect
proposing that, while virtue is a necessary condition for some means to
be found whereby a pagan ends by being saved, it is very far from being
a sufficient condition. Trajan was not merely just; he was exceptionally
lucky. The same point emerges from the presentation of the figure with
whom he is twinned by Dante. Ripheus is a minor character in the
Aeneid, but Virgil describes his as iustissimus, and it is clearly this com-
ment that led Dante to include him in Paradise. But Ripheuss devotion

14. Commentary on Sentences I, d. 45, qu. 2, a. 2, ad 5.

15. In his discussion of Dante (Uses of Hagiography, 43-50), Whatley draws well
this contrast between Dantes just Trajan and the usual view of the theologians, but in my
view he over-emphasizes the extent to which Trajans salvation is due to his personal
merits and ties it to an unlikely reading of the Commedia (p. 48) in which good pagans
such as Virgil will finally go to heaven.
16. Whately (Uses of Hagiography, 44-5) considers that by mentioning Trajan first
here, and by not mentioning Gregory by name in the Paradiso passage, Dante is empha-
sizing in a humanist spirit the importance of Trajans moral worth and the small part
played by Gregory. Yet the Purgatorio passage does talk of Gregorys great victory, not
Trajans, and the passage in Paradiso makes it clear that only through Gregorys prayers
and the living hope that accompanied them could Trajan be saved.

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 A PROBLEM OF PAGANISM 49

to justice, is presented as a result of the mystery of grace that is so

impenetrable that no created thing ever sees through to its beginning
(grazia che da s profonda/ fontana stilla, che mai creatura /non pinse
locchio infino a la prima onda , Paradiso XX, 118-20) a grace
which eventually leads to an internal revelation that makes of Ripheus
a Christian before Christ, in a manner that accords with Augustines
teaching in the City of God.17
Dantes underlying attitude becomes especially clear in a passage
from the previous canto of the Purgatorio. There he poses the direct
question about the salvation of someone who, in Christian times, has
never had the chance to hear of Christ, and so far as reason can gauge,
lives a sinless life:
Un uom nasce a la riva
de lIndo, e quivi non chi ragioni
di Cristo n chi legga n chi scriva;
e tutti suoi voleri e atti buoni
sono, quanto ragione umana vede,
sanza peccato in vita o sermoni.
Muore non battezzato e sanza fede:
ov questa giustizia chel condanna?
ov la colpa sua, se ei non crede?
[A person is born on the banks of the Indus, and there is nobody there who
speaks or teaches or writes about Christ; and all his volitions and acts are
good, so far as human reason sees he is without sin in his life or speech.
He dies unbaptized and without faith: where is this justice that condemns
him? Where is his guiltif he does not believe? Paradiso XIX, 70-8)

Dante brings out rhetorically the obvious reaction that it would be

unjust to condemn him, but he goes on to reject it emphatically:
Or tu chi se, che vuo sedere a scranna,
per giudicar di lungi mille miglia
con la veduta corta duna spanna.
[Who are you, then, who wants to take the judges chair to judge what is
thousand of miles away, when your vision stretches no further than a hands
length? Paradiso XIX, 79-81]

And he continues, lambasting human ignorance and presumption and

concluding that in so far as so far as something is consonant with the
first will (of God), it is just (Cotanto giusto quanto a lei consuona, l.
88) If, then, God condemns the good but unbelieving Indian, then it is

17. See City of God XVIII, 47, and cf. his Letter 102 and Capran, Le Salut, 130-1.

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 50 J. MARENBON

just, merely because God has made that choice. Humans who judge oth-
erwise are merely showing their short-sightedness.
The character of this passage is brought out by comparison with two
passages that deal with a similar situation. One was written by Thomas
Aquinas only a few decades before:
If anyone brought up in this way [in the forests among the brute animals]
were to follow the guidance of his natural reason in seeking good and flee-
ing evil, it should be held most certainly that God would reveal to him
those things which are necessary to be believed, either through internal
inspiration or by sending someone to preach to him, as he sent Peter to
Cornelius.18

In the body of the quaestio in which this passage answers an objec-

tion, Aquinas has argued that, after the coming of Christ, it is necessary
for everyone to have explicit knowledge, not of all the articles of the
faith, but about the Trinity and the Incarnation. It is this knowledge,
which could not be gained by reason alone, which he considers would be
specially revealed to the person in question.
More than a century before, in the 1130s, answering a series of ques-
tions directed to him by Heloise, Peter Abelard had written that
it accords with piety and reason that we should judge that whoever,
recognizing by natural law that God is the creator and recompenser of all
things, cling to him with such zeal that they strive in no way to offend him
through consent, which is what sin is properly called, are not at all to be
damned. We consider that, before the end of such a persons life, what he
or she needs to be taught for salvation will be revealed either through inspi-
ration or through someone sent to instruct about these things, as we read
was done with Cornelius about faith in Christ and receiving baptism.19

Abelard believed that (at all times, not just after the coming of Christ),
explicit knowledge of Christ was necessary in order to be saved, but he
makes clear here that all who are invincibly ignorant of the faith and who

18. De veritate, q. 14, a. 11, ad.1: Si enim aliquis taliter nutritus, ductum rationis
naturalis sequeretur in appetitu boni et fuga mali, certissime est tenendum, quod Deus ei
vel per internam inspirationem revelaret ea quae sunt necessaria ad credendum, vel
aliquem fidei predicatorem ad eum dirigeret, sicut misit Petrum ad Cornelium, Act. X.
19. Problemata Heloissa 13 (Patrologia Latina 178, 696A: Pietati quippe atque
rationi convenit, ut quicumque lege naturali creatorem omnium ac remuneratorem Deum
recognoscentes, tanto illi zelo adhaerent, ut per consensum, qui proprie peccatum dicitur,
eum nitantur nequaquam offendere, tales arbitremur minime damnandos esse: et quae
illum ad salutem necessum est addiscere, ante vitae terminum a Deo revelari sive per
inspirationem, sive per aliquem directum quo de his instruatur, sicut in Cornelio factum
esse legimus de fide Christi ac perceptione baptismi.

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 A PROBLEM OF PAGANISM 51

follow natural law as best they can will have this necessary knowledge
communicated to them.20 Dantes view is far harsher not just than
Abelards, but even than Aquinass (in this case very similar) view.
The comparison can be extended, because in a work he wrote about
eight years earlier than this passage, the Theologia Christiana, Abelard
discusses the salvation of Trajan. Abelard was working against a context
rather different from Dantes. The story of Trajans resuscitation had not
yet been invented, and Abelards source for the legend was, not the
Whitby life, but the attempt by John the Deacon, late in the ninth cen-
tury, to bring some theological order to the anonymous hagiographers
comments.21 John tries to remove the scandal of Gregorys praying for
Trajans soul Gregory who himself had written that we should not pray
for dead pagans and unbelievers by fixing on the fact that the anony-
mous life claims only that Gregory wept. More important, he argues that
there is no reason to believe that Trajans soul was actually released from
Hell, but merely that it was spared the torments there a reading sup-
ported by some details of the anonymous account, but not by others (not,
for instance, by the idea of baptism by tears). Abelard may seem to
follow John closely, since he quotes the same verse from the Gospel of
John about the necessity of baptism and puts forward the same idea of
Trajan not going to heaven. But in fact Abelard marks out his own,
rather different position. He does not at all try to pretend that Gregory
only wept: it was because of the insistence of his prayers as well as the
abundance of his weeping that the miracles occurred. And, whereas John
rejects as entirely incredible the idea that Trajan was released from
Hell, Abelard confines himself to saying that
we are not thereby compelled to believe that his soul was allowed into
heaven, in case perhaps we might go against the words of Truth, in which
it is said: Unless a person is reborn out of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter the Kingdom of God.

Indeed, introducing the story, Abelard is happy to accept that, at least

according to the saints life, Trajan was plucked out not merely from
the tortures of Hell but from the place of punishment.
As any reader of Book II of the Theologia Christiana will confirm,
Abelard takes a golden view there of the world of ancient Greece and
Rome and its virtuous pagan rulers and philosophers. Trajan presents

20. On Abelards requirement of explicit faith for salvation, see J. Marenbon, The
Philosophy of Peter Abelard (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1997), 328-9.
21. Vita S. Gregorii, Patrologia Latina 75, 104B-105C.

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 52 J. MARENBON

a very difficult case for him, because Abelard rejects the possibility of
salvation by implicit faith. (Abelard thinks so because of his theory
of Christs work: only by knowing the example of Christs sacrifice of
his life to save his fellow humans can a person learn the altruism neces-
sary, on Abelards theory, in order to be saved). All who are saved must,
therefore, through revelation or inner inspiration, know about Christ and
his Passion. It is implausible that Trajan, a decided pagan at a time when
Christianity was starting to flourish, should have had knowledge and
yet even for him Abelard wants to suggest at least the possibility of sal-
vation (against John the Deacons dogmatic rejection of it). In the sim-
pler case of the philosophers who lived before the coming of Christ and
the spread of Christianity, Abelard is insistent that they were Christians
avant la lettre. For him, a Virgil conceived as Dante saw him would
have been admitted without any problem to heaven.
Dante elaborated the idea of limbo in order to soften the edges of the
gloomy picture he felt compelled to give of how the pagans he honoured
would fare in the ultimate, divinely appointed scheme of things. But the
comparison with an author writing two centuries earlier immediately
raises the question of why Dante, given his devotion to antiquity, could
not solve this problem so easily as Abelard had done. Part of the answer
may be that Dante found in the apparent unfairness of Virgils fate a
genuine lesson, missed he would think by Abelard, about the incommen-
surability of human and divine justice. But even such an awareness of
incommensurability would itself testify to a wider change of attitudes
between the twelfth and the fourteenth century, which led in general to
a hardening of attitudes towards the possibility that good pagans were
saved.22
Why did this change take place? I have no definite answer, and per-
haps it is not a question that admits of one. But two different lines of
thought may help to explain what happen. The first calls attention to the
parallels between the attitudes to ancient pagans and those towards vari-
ous groups that were in some sense marginalized or regarded as other by
medieval Christian society, such as Jews, lepers and homosexuals. There
is a definite move in these other, more immediate and practical cases,
towards harsher treatment in the course of the twelfth, thirteenth and

22. A now classic presentation of the hardening of attitudes to excluded groups is

found in R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society. Power and deviance in
Western Europe, 950-1250 (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.; Blackwell, 1987).

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 A PROBLEM OF PAGANISM 53

fourteenth centuries, which seems to parallel the changing attitudes

towards ancient pagans.
The second line of approach looks, not to the outside world of social
relations, but to the developments in philosophy and theology. One result
of Latin thinkers increasingly greater familiarity with Aristotle in the
course of the thirteenth century was the realization that, even though
the ancient philosophers were henotheists, their God, Aristotles espe-
cially, was far more distant from the Christian God than had been sus-
pected. One of the main forces behind the 1277 condemnations was this
new awareness. And, of course, in view of this distance, it was no longer
easy to regard the ancient philosophers as proto-Christians, in Abelards
manner.23 If they were to go to heaven, their salvation could be achieved
only at the cost of a far more radical break with orthodox Christian doc-
trine than Dante would contemplate. Arguably, a very few fourteenth-
century writers were willing to go this far, and one of them develops his
thoughts in connection with none other than Trajan. He is the late four-
teenth-century Middle English poet, William Langland.
It is not, of course, the fact that in Piers Plowman Trajan is saved that
marks out its author, since that was taken for granted from the mid-
thirteenth century onwards. But Langland, unlike almost all the theolo-
gians, and unlike Dante, he does not introduce the idea of a resuscitation
although it is likely that he would have read of the idea in the Legenda
aurea.24 Trajan is saved because of his justice and not, Langland explic-
itly says, because Gregory prayed for him:
Nought through preiere of a pope but for his pure truth
Was that Sarsen saued, as Seint Gregorie bereth witnesse.

The point is emphasized a little later when the figure Ymaginatif, talk-
ing about Trajan, cites a verse from one of the Psalms, salvabitur vix
iustus in die iudicii (Hardly will the just person be saved on the Day of
Judgement) and argues, with impeccable logic that, if the just person is
hardly saved then he is, indeed, saved (ergo salvabitur). A Biblical
remark intended to point to the severity of Gods judgement is thus
turned, by taking it utterly literally, into a warrant that a persons justice

23. In Medieval Philosophy: an historical and philosophical introduction (London

and New York; Routledge, 2007), 266-71, I try to give, in broad terms, an indication of
the effects of the 1277 condemnations and the shift in mood among the university theolo-
gians. For bibliography, see ibid., p. 377.
24. Langland refers (B-text, XI, 161) to the legenda sanctorum as his source, probably
meaning to indicate the Legenda aurea.

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 54 J. MARENBON

will ensure his or her ultimate salvation. The interpretation of Piers

Plowman, and this episode in especial, is disputed, and some readers
would see Langland as more in line with what I take to be the predomi-
nant harsh later medieval approach to ancient pagans.25 But whichever
interpretation is correct, the poem certainly presents a highly reflective
discussion of Trajan as an example of a just pagan and, along with the
Commedia Divina, illustrates the point that some of the keenest medieval
examinations of the problems posed by paganism are found in writing
we would classify as literature rather than theology or philosophy.

25. The discussion of Trajans salvation is found in B-Text, Passus XI, 140-70, Passus
XII, 210-11, 268-94; C-Text Passus XII, 73-94, Passus XIV, 199-271. For a different
reading (along with bibliography), see A. J. Minnis (Looking for a Sign in Essays in
Ricardian Literature in honour of J. A. Burrow, ed. A. J. Minnis, C. C. Morse and
T. Turville-Petre (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1997), 142-78 at pp. 150-69, where
he cautions against the semi-pelagian reading that places emphasis on Trajans merits in
saving him he considers Langlands attitude to Trajan to be close to that which I have
suggested as Dantes. But Minnis perhaps underestimates the importance of Langlands
decision to leave out the resuscitation story.

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 INDEX
Abbo of Fleury
Vita S. Eadmundi: 143, 144
Absolom, biblical figure: 174
Abubacer, Arabic philosopher: 63
Acdestis, pagan god: 152
Acharius, bishop of Noyon-Tournai:
114
Achilles, Greek hero: 171
Acta Philippi: 155
Acta SS. Bertarii et Ataleni: 147
Adhils, Swedish king: 93
Ado of Vienne, archbishop: 121
Adonis, pagan god: 153, 155
Agobard, archbishop of Lyon
Liber contra insulsam vulgi opinio-
nem de grandine et tonitruis: 157-
166
grip af Nregskonunga sogum: 92
ahl al-dhimma (concept of -): 217,
229, 237, 238
Ahmad Baba
Miraj al-uud: 233, 234
Amad ibn Abd al-amad al-Khazraji
al-Anari al-Qurubi: 215
Ajax, Greek mythological figure:
153
Akhbar al-zaman wa-man abadahu
l-idthan (History of the Ages and
Those whom Events have Annihi-
lated): 225, 228, 230
Alain de Lille: 170
Al-Andalus (Spain): 219
Al-Bakri
Kitab al-masalik wal-mamalik
(The Book of the Highways and
Kingdoms): 225, 229, 230, 232
Albert the Great
De anima: 62, 66, 76, 79, 80
De bono: 56, 57, 83
De caelo et mundo: 62, 66, 73
De causa et processu universitatis a
prima causa: 63, 64, 66, 70, 74, 76
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De causis proprietatum elemento-
rum: 60
De corpore Domini: 63
De generatione et corruptione: 74
De homine: 65, 73, 77
De intellectu et intelligibili: 82
De IV coaequaevis: 64, 73, 77
De natura boni: 56
De natura loci: 58
De principiis motus processivi:
62
De resurrectione: 61
De vegetabilibus: 63
De XV problematibus: 63, 80
Liber de natura et origine animae:
59, 60, 63, 74, 75, 77-80, 82
Metaphysica: 63-68, 75, 82
Meteora: 61, 66, 67, 74
Mineralia: 67
Physica: 61-63, 70-72, 76
Quaestio de dotibus sanctorum in
patria: 77
I Sent.: 65
II Sent.: 64
IV Sent.: 61
Summa theologiae: 47, 65, 78,
81-83
Super Dionysii Epistulas: 59
Super Dionysium De caelesti hier-
archia: 57
Super Dionysium De divinis
nominibis: 57, 58, 63
Super Ethica: 57, 61, 63, 77, 78,
83
Super Isaiam: 56-58
Super Matthaeum: 56, 57, 59
Super Porphyrium De V univer-
salibus: 76
Albertanus of Brescia
De amore et dilectione Dei: 172
Al-Biruni, Muslim scholar: 215, 221
Albrecht of Bavaria, duke: 167, 174
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 240
Al-Dimashqi
Nukhbat al-dar fi ajaib al-barr
wal-bar (Chosen Passages of
Time regarding the Marvels of
Land and Sea): 227, 228
Alexander the Great: 171, 175-177,
180-181, 220
Alexander of Hales, theologian: 61
Algazel, Persian philosopher: 70, 75,
78
Al-Hamdani
ifat Jazirat al-Arab (Description
of the Arabian Peninsula): 222-
226
Al-Idrisi: 217, 221, 222, 226, 229
Nuzhat al-mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-
afaq (The Book of pleasant Jour-
neys into foraway Lands): 226
Al-Juwayni, Muslim scholar: 217
Al-Maghili, Muslim scholar: 231,
234, 237
Al-Mamun, Muslim ruler: 214
Almohads (The -): 219, 236, 237
Almoravids (The -): 219, 236
Al-Muhallabi, Muslim scholar: 230
Al-Muahhar ibn ahir al-Maqdisi
Kitab al-bad wal-tarikh (Book on
Creation and History): 224
Al-Qazwini, Muslim scholar: 215
Ambrose of Milan: 168, 169
Epistulae: 141
Amiens (France): 114, 121, 127, 128,
131
Amphusus (Pseudo-): 176, 177
amulets: 10, 11, 16
Anaximander, Greek philosopher: 61
Angelrammus, abbot of St.-Riquier
Relatio S. Richarii: 150
Ansbert of Rouen, saint: 149, 156
Anselm of Canterbury: 72
De conceptu virginale: 73
Antichrist: 168
Antonius of Bergen op Zoom, copyist:
178
Apollo: 119
Arabia: 226
Arbeo of Freising
Vita S. Corbiniani: 142
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INDEX
Vita Haimhrammi episcopi: 145, 146
Aristippus, Greek philosopher: 197
Aristotle: 28, 35-37, 43, 53, 60, 64-66,
67, 70, 71, 75, 76, 81, 169, 170,
174, 175, 178, 214, 215
Aristotle (Pseudo -): 25
Arna (non-Muslim population): 229
Arnobius
Adversus nationes: 152, 153
Arnold of Lige, author of exempla:
176
Arras (France): 114, 138
Artold, archbishop of Rheims: 129
Aser, pagan god: 92
Asia: 213
Askia Muammad I, emperor: 232,
234, 237
Assuerus, biblical figure: 171
Atalenus, martyr: 147
Athena: 28
Atrebati (The -): 114
Attalus, stoic philosopher: 61, 63
Attis, Greek mythological figure: 152,
155
Audoenus of Rouen
Vita S. Eligii: 132-134, 136, 137
Augustine: VII, 8, 10, 11, 13, 17, 26,
32, 33, 35-37, 43, 72, 73, 82, 174
Confessiones: 25, 31
De civitate Dei: VII, 27, 29, 31,
49, 193
De doctrina Christiana: 24
De vera religione: 27-30, 36
Augustus, emperor: 171
Aunacharius, bishop of Auxerre: 120,
127
Aurelius, martyr: 154
Aureus, saint: 154
Auxerre (France): 128, 149
Averroes: 63, 76, 77, 78, 171
Avicenna: 63, 76, 78
Awdaghost (oasis town): 226, 237
Awrangzeb, muslim ruler: 217
Baldr, pagan god:87
Bartholomew, apostle: 155
Bartola, saint: 149, 150
Bassari (The -): 232
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 INDEX
Baudilus, martyr: 145
Bavay (France): 111, 114
Bazoches-sur-Vesle (France): 123,
126, 127, 129, 130, 137
Beauvais (France): 15, 114, 122-124,
126-128, 130-132, 134-137
Beccadelli, Antonio
Hermaphroditus: 201
Bede the Venerable
Historia ecclesiastica gentis
Anglorum: 145
Bellovaci (The -): 122
Berber (The people)): 223, 224, 235
Bernard of Clairvaux: 174
Bernard of Clairvaux (Pseudo-)
Epistula de cura rei familiaris:
192
Bertaire, martyr: 147, 156
Bertulf of Flanders: 14
Bianco, Giovanni (ambassador of
Milan): 202
Boethius
Consolatio Philosophiae: 33-35
Bonaventure: 169
Centiloquium: 171
Bori (rituals of -): 228
Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-afa):
212, 213
Buddha (The life of -): 216
Buddhists: 209
Buja (The -): 231, 232
Buonaccorsi, Filippo vide Callima-
chus Esperiens
Burchard of Worms
Corrector sive Medicus: 5, 11, 16
Caecina, philosopher: 61, 63
Caecus, Appius Claudius (Roman pol-
itician): 170, 177, 179
Cain: see Ham
Calceopulo, Atanasio (pontifical dele-
gate): 198
Callimachus Esperiens, Philippus:
195-205
Carmina: 204
De peregrinationibus: 199
Epigrammata: 201-204
Fanietum: 203, 204
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241
Quaestio de daemonibus: 200
Quaestio de peccato: 200
Praefatio in Somniarum Leonis
Tusci philosophi: 200, 201
Vita Gregorii Sanocei: 199, 200
Cambrai (France): 114, 138
Cambyses II, king: 175
Campano, Settimuleio (member of the
Academy of Rome): 201
canonicum (ecclesiastical tax): 159,
161, 162, 164, 166
Carthage: 171
Casmir IV Jagiellon: 200
Cassel (battle of -): 15
Cato: 175, 184
Catullus (Gaius Lutatius): 201, 204
Celsus, Greek philosopher: 21
Chlons-sur-Marne (France): 114
Chanson des Quatre fils Aymon (La):
108
Charlemagne: 90, 108, 144, 162
Charles the Bald, emperor: 130
chefera (stateless non-Muslim peo-
ple): 232
Childeric I, king: 89
Christians: 19-23, 30, 31
- in relation to Muslims: 209-212,
214, 215, 217-219, 228, 229, 231,
234, 236, 238
Cibele, Greek mythological figure:
152
Cicero, Marcus Tullius: 64, 66, 67,
169, 171
De Inventione: 171
De natura deorum: 70
De officiis: 169
Somnium Scipionis: 57, 181
Clemens of Alexandria: 19, 20, 26
Stromata: 20
Clementia, countess of Flanders: 12
Clovis, king: 89, 142
Collectio Vetus Gallica: 162
Coloman of Melk, saint: 139, 140,
154, 156
Columba, saint: 136
Condulmer (Glauco), Lucio (member
of the Academy of Rome): 201
Corbie (Abbey of -): 119, 124
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 242 INDEX
Corbinian, saint: 142
Crispinianus, saint: 117, 119, 120,
122, 124, 127, 131, 132, 134,
135
Crispinus, saint: 117, 119, 120, 122,
124, 127, 131, 132, 134, 135
Cupid, pagan god: 183
Cyparissus, mythological figure: 153
Dagobert, king: 114, 154
dakakir (idols): 229
Damascius, philosopher: 26
Damdam (land of -): 230
Dante Alighieri
La divina commedia: 39-42, 44,
45, 47-49, 51-54,
David, biblical king: 174, 186, 191
Declamationes Senece moralizate:
178
demons: 31, 34
Denys, saint: 134
De partibus Saxoniae: 90, 108
De Rossi (De Rubeis), Agostino
(ambassador of Milan): 197
De S. Aureo et sociis: 154
Descriptio qualiter Karolus magnus
clavum et coronam domini a Con-
stantinopoli Aquisgrani detulerit:
144
Desiderius, martyr: 142, 147
Diana, Roman goddess: 119
Die geesten of geschiedenis van
Romen: 180
Dietsce Doctrinale: 172, 173
Dietsche Cathoen: 171
Diogenes Laertius, Greek biographer:
175
Dionysius the Areopagite: 25, 26, 65
Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse: 171
Dirc van Delf
Tafel van den kersten ghelove:
167-194
Disier, saint: 147, 156
Disticha Catonis: 181, 187
Drogo
Vita Godeliph: 14
Durandus of St.-Pourain, theologian:
47
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dusi: 164
Edda: 87
Edmund, king: 142, 143, 156
Egypt: 217, 218, 220
Eligius of Noyon, saint: 119, 132-137
Emmeram, martyr: 145, 146, 156
Emo, abbot of Bloemhof
Chronicon abbatum in Werum: 1,
2
Empedocles, philosopher: 72
Enigmata Aristotelis moralizata: 178
Epaone (Council of -): 125
Epicurus, Greek philosopher: 32, 33,
197, 200, 201
Essouk (Mali): 226
Ethiopians (The -): 222
Eulalia of Merida, martyr: 145
Eusebia, noble woman: 131, 133
Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea: 155
Evermarus of Tongres, saint: 146-147,
156
Exemplaer (Dat Boec -): 172
falconry (treatise on -): 207
Fasciculus morum: 183
Felix of Nola, saint: 141, 155
Ferdinand II, king of Naples: 196, 198
Feuillen, saint: 156
Firmicus Maternus, Julius (Latin
writer): 155
Firmin of Amiens, saint: 148
Fismes (France): 123, 128, 129, 137
Flodoard
Annales: 129
Capitula in synodo: 129
Historia ecclesiae Remenis: 118,
119, 123, 129, 130
Florus of Lyon, ecclesiastical writer:
121
Foillan, saint: 142
Folcuin, bishop of Throuanne: 98
fortune-telling: 7-9, 10, 11, 13, 15
Francheschini (Asclepiade), Marco
(member of the academy of
Rome): 201
Franois (matre), illuminator: VII
Frederic, emperor (Pseudo-): 192
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 INDEX
Freia, Norse pagan goddess: 16
Freyr, Norse pagan god: 87, 95
Frontinus, Julius (Roman scholar):
176
Fulgentius, Fabius Planciades: 180,
183, 185-188
De ornatu orbis: 177, 179, 185,
186, 189, 190
Mythologiae: 179, 190
Fuscianus, martyr: 118-120, 122, 124-
127, 132, 134
Fylgja, Norse mythological figure:
86
Galbert of Bruges
De multro, traditione, et occisione
gloriosi Karoli comitis Flandri-
arum: 15
Gall, saint: 95
Gao (Mali): 237
Genesius of Arles, martyr: 144
Genesius of Bigorre, martyr: 144, 145
Genevive, saint: 89, 136
Gentianus, martyr: 118, 122, 126
Gerard Leeu, Dutch printer: 180
Germanus, saint: 136
Gervasius, martyr: 141
Gesta pontificum Cameracensium:
138
Gesta romanorum: 174-176, 180, 181,
183-186, 188-193
Ghana: 219, 220, 227, 232
Ghent (Blandinium): 149, 156
Gobir (Nigeria): 235
Godelieve, saint: 14
Gomez Eannes de Azurara
Chronica do Descobrimento e
Conquista de Guin (Chronicle of
the Discovery and Conquest of
Guinea): 207, 208
Gonzaga, Francesco, cardenal: 202,
203
Gotland (Sweden): 86
Gratian
Decretum Gratiani: 7, 8, 10, 11,
13
Greek legacy (in Islam): 214, 215,
220, 222, 224, 230
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Gregory VII, pope: 163, 164
Registrum: 163
Gregory the Great, pope: 45-48, 51,
53, 73, 91, 174, 182
Dialogi: 142
Gregory of Nyssa: 26
Contra Iulianum: 141
Gregory of Sanok (Leopoldus Grego-
rius), bishop: 199
Gregory of Tours: 109, 122, 127
De gloria confessorum: 143, 148,
154
De gloria martyrum: 120, 143-
145
Historia Francorum: 120
Libri historiarum: 120
Gryse, Nicolaus (preacher): 96
Gudbrand of Norway: 1
Guibert of Nogent
De vita sua: 6, 7, 11, 15, 16
Haakon the Good, king: 92
Habakkuk, biblical prophet: 174
Hauza (-land): 219, 228, 229
Hggeby (Stele of -): 96
Ham (The Curse of -): 208, 233
Hamburg (Germany): 97
amid al-Din al-Kirmani
Raat al-aql (The Repose of the
Intellect): 223
Hariulf
Chronicon Centulensis abbatiae
seu Sancti Richarii: 150, 151
Harold, king of Denmark: 164
Hartlieb, Johann
Das Buch aller verbotenen Knste:
102
haruspicy: 7, 8, 11
Helinand of Froidmont
De bono regimine principis: 175
Hellequin (the compagny of -): 6
hemaones: 164
Herculanus, martyr: 142
heresy: 33
Herman of Tournai
Liber de restauratione monasterii
Sancti Martini Tornacensis: 12,
135
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 244
Hermes, pagan god: 218
Hermes Trismegistus, pagan god: VII,
63, 67, 69, 76
Hesiod, ancient Greek poet: 60, 61,
63, 64, 66, 68, 78
Hildegard of Bingen, mystic: 9
Hillinus
Miracula S. Foillani: 142
Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims: 129
Hindus (The -): 209, 210, 216, 217,
227
Hippocrates, Greek physician: 215
Homer: 62
Hordain (Northern France): 97
Hornhausen (Stele of -): 106, 107
horse (the): 10, 85-103
Hrabanus Maurus
De rerum naturis: 95, 96
Hugh, abbot of Saint-Quentin: 131
Hugh Capet, king: 150
Hugh Ripelin of Strasbourg
Compendium theologiae veritatis:
171, 192
Humbert of Romans, Master General
of the dominicans: 176
Hyacinth, Greek mythological figure:
152
Iamblichus
De mysteriis: 22
Ibn Arabi, Andalusian Sufi: 217, 233
Ibn Baua, Muslim explorer: 221,
226
Ibn Falan, Muslim explorer: 225,
227, 231
Ibn awqal
Kitab urat al-ar (The Face of the
Earth): 226, 227
Ibn Khaldun, Muslim scholar: 233
Ibn Rushd
Fal al-maqal (Decisive Treatise):
218
Ibn Said
Kitab bas al-ar fi l-ul wal-ar
(The Book of the Extension of the
Land on Longitudes and Lati-
tudes): 230
Ibn Waa al-Qurubi: 213, 235
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INDEX
Icarus, Greek mythological figure:
171
Imagines Fulgentii moralisatae: 178,
180, 184
immisores tempestatum: 159
India: 215-217, 220, 231
Innocent III, pope: 1, 9
Iraq: 218
Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon: 162
Irmino, abbot of Saint-Germain-des-
Prs: 162
Isaak Israli, philosopher: 63
Isidore of Seville: 7, 184, 185, 187
Isis, Egyptian goddess: 152
Islam: 41, 62, 207-238
Iakhri
Kitab al-masalik wal-mamalik
(Book of the Highways and King-
doms): 231, 232
Jacob, the patriarch: 186
Jacob van Maerlant
Alexanders Yeesten: 171
Spiegel Historiael: 171, 172
Jacobus de Voragine
Legenda aurea: 47, 53, 95
Sermones: 176
Jahiliyya (concept of -): 226, 230,
234, 235, 237, 238
Jan van Boendale
Lekenspiegel: 173
Jan van Ruusbroec, Flemish mystic: 9
Jan-i Janan, Muslim writer: 216, 217
Jean Gobi: 176
Scala caeli: 95
Jehan Mansel, Burgundian chronicler:
176
Jeremiah, biblical prophet: 191
Jerome
Epistulae: 23
Jesus Christ: 19, 26, 29, 31, 32, 35,
155, 168, 174, 186, 197, 209-212
Jews (The -): 41, 52, 62, 57, 209-212,
214, 217, 219, 236-238
Johannes Scotus Eriugena
De predestinatione: 35, 36
Periphyseson: 36
John of Damascus (Pseudo-): 46
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John of Wales (Johannes Valensis):
193
Breviloquium de virtutibus
antiquorum principum et philoso-
phorum: 172, 173
John Ridevall
Fulgentius metaforalis: 179, 182,
193
Yamigines Fulgentii: 190
John the Deacon
Vita s. Gregorii: 51, 52
Jonathan, biblical figure: 186
Joscelin, bishop of Soissons: 129
Joseph (biblical): 218
Julian the Apostate, emperor: 22, 23
Julianus, martyr: 126, 136
Jupiter: 16, 119, 190, 224
Justianian, emperor: 24
Justin, martyr: 19
Justine, martyr: 154
Justus of Beauvais, martyr: 118-122,
124, 126-128
Kafir (unbelievers): 207
Kitab al-istibar: 220, 226, 229, 230-
232
Kitab al-shifa bi-tarif uquq
al-Muafa (Healing by the Recog-
nition of the Rights of the chosen
One): 239
Konkomba (stateless etnic group):
232
Koran: 209-212, 216, 217, 224, 225,
234, 237
Kristnisage: 92
kuhhan (soothsayers): 231
kufr (unbelief): 209-212, 231, 233,
234, 237, 238
Kugha (town of -): 220, 227
Lactantius
Divinarum institutionum libri VII:
30
Lambert of Ardres
Historia comitum Ghisnensium: 15
Lamlam (The -): 230
Laon (France): 114
Laurent of Amalfi
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Vita S. Zenobii: 148
Leidrad, bishop of Lyon: 162
Leo IX, pope: 6, 7, 12
Leto, Pomponio: 201
Defensio in carceribus: 196
Lex Salica: 11, 12
Liber de causis: 25, 70, 72, 75
Livy (Titus Livius): 184, 185, 190
Lolianus, martyr: 136
Louis the Pious, emperor: 157, 165
Luc, evangelist: 5
Lucianus, martyr: 118, 119, 121, 122,
124, 126, 127, 131, 132, 134-136
Lucius, saint: 136
Lupus, bishop of Soissons: 130
Lyon (France): 157-166
Ma(v)ones: 164
Macra, martyr: 118-123, 129
Macrobius, Ambrosius Theodosius
In Somnium Scipionis: 171, 181
Saturnalia: 181
Madasa (The -): 230
Maffeus, Augustus: 202
magic: 14, 15, 98-101, 158-164
(wheather magicians), 209, 234
Magonia (land of -): 159, 160, 162,
164, 165
Magusoi (Magi): 59
Maguzawa (non-Muslim population):
228, 229
Mahdi Ubayd Allah: 230
Maheshvara (Shiva), supreme god:
216
Mahmud of Ghazn, ruler of the
Ghaznavid empire: 217
Maimonides
Dux neutrorum: 63
Majus (Zoroastrians): 227-229
Majusiyya (local religious traditions):
227, 229
Malal (land of -): 225
Malastesta, Sigismondo (Italian con-
dotiero): 196
Mali: 226
Marcel, saint: 15, 135
Marciocurius (Manius Currius), roman
patrician: 176
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 246 INDEX
Marinus
Vita Procli: 22
Marrasio, Giovanni
Angelinetum: 203
Mars, Roman god: 16, 223
Marsilio Ficino, humanist philoso-
pher: 37, 200
Martialis, Marcus Valerius (Latin
poet): 201
Martin, archbishop of Tours: 149, 156
Martin of Braga
De quatuor virtutibus cardinalibus
(Formula honestae vitae): 172
Martyrologium Hieronymianum: 120,
121, 127
Mary, the Blessed Virgin: 181, 191
Mason, J.P., archbishop of Lyon: 157,
166
Masudi
Muruj al-dhahab (Meadows of
Gold): 223
Maugis, romance hero: 108
Maurinus, royal cantor: 133
Maximianus, martyr: 136
Maximus Confessor, theologian: 26
Mecca: 211, 226
Mecklenburg (Germany): 96
Medardus, bishop: 122
Memphis (Egypt): 218
Mercury, Roman god: 119
Michael Scotus
Metaphysica: 63
Michol, biblical figure: 186, 191
Milan (Italy): 141
Mithra, pagan god: 151
Monelli, Antonio: 197
Moses (biblical): 73, 173, 197, 217
Muhammad: 197, 213, 217, 224
Mnster in Westfalen (Germany): 97
Mushrikun: 211, 212
Muslims: 207-238
Naomi biblical figure: 186
Narcissus, Greek mythological figure:
152
Nazaire, martyr: 141
Nero, emperor: 174
Nervii (The -): 114
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Nicholas IV, pope: 196
Nicholas, saint: 96
Nicholas Trevet, Anglo-Norman
chronicler: 193
Niger: 219, 234
Njls saga: 100
Noah, biblical figure: 208
Notitia dignitatum: 116
Noyon (France): 114, 122, 132, 134,
136
Nubians (The -): 222
Numenius, Greek philosopher: 26
nyk(u)r (a horselike creation): 86
Odin, pagan god: 87
Odo of Beauvais: 130
Passio S. Luciani, Maximiani
atque Iuliani: 118
Odo of Cluny (Pseudo -)
De reversione beati Martini a Bur-
gundia: 149
Ogier dAnglure
Le saint voyage Jrusalem: 144
Olaf Haraldsson, king of Norway: 1-3
Olaf Helgi, king: 02
Olaf Tryggvason, king: 92
Old Gelasian Sacramentary: 163
Omer, bishop of Throuanne: 114
On Those who have Died in the Faith:
46
Origin, theologian: 26
Osiris, Egyptian god: 152
Oswald, king of Northumbria: 145,
146, 156
Oswy (Oswiu), king: 146
Otto of Freising, chronicler: 172
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Nasa): 43, 61,
62, 204, 205
Metamorphoses: 152, 153
Paris (France): 110, 126, 136
Paschasius Radbertus
De passione SS. Rufuni et Valerii:
117, 123, 126
Passio S. Cholomanni: 139, 140
Passio SS. Crispini et Crispiani: 117,
119, 120, 122, 124, 127, 131, 132,
134, 135
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 INDEX
Passio SS. Desiderii et Reginfridi mar-
tyrum Alsegaudiensium: 142, 147
Passio et inventio S. Fusciani: 118-
120, 122, 124-127, 132, 134
Passio S. Iusti: 118-122, 124, 126-128
Passio S. Iustini: 118
Passio S. Luciani: 118, 119, 121, 122,
124, 126, 127, 131, 132, 134-136
Passio et translatio S. Macrae: 118-
123, 129
Passio S. Piati: 132, 134-136
Passio et inventio S. Quintini: 117-
128, 131-136, 142
Passio SS. Rufini et Valerii: 117, 118,
120, 122-127, 130, 131, 134, 135
Passio et inventio SS. Victorici et Fus-
ciani: 118-120, 122, 124, 125, 134
Patrizi, Agostino (papal adviser): 197,
201
Paul, apostle: 174
Paul II, pope: 195-198, 202
Paulinus of Nola
Carmina: 141, 143, 145, 154, 155
Vita Ambrosii: 141
Pausanias, Greek geographer: 153
penitentiaria (Penitential books): 8,
10, 11, 162, 163
Persians (The -): 218
Peter Abaelard: 42, 44
Problemata Heloissa: 50, 51
Theologia Christiana: 51-53
Peter, bishop of Beauvais: 130
Petrach, Francesco (Italian scholar and
poet): 172
Petrus Alphonsi, Jewish-Christian
scholar: 176
Petrus de Chambly, canon: 121
Petrus of Cluny
De miraculis libri duo: 6
Philipp the Chancellor, theologian: 61
Philipp II, king of Macedon: 175
Philoponus, philosopher: 34
Philosophi theologantes: 60-81
Phoebus, pagan god: 152
Piatus, martyr: 132, 134-136
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni
(Renaissance philosopher): 200,
203
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Pietro de Crescenzi, writer on agri-
culture: 171
Pirminus
Scarapsus: 164
Pisces (constellation of -): 224
Platina: see Sacchi
Plato: 19, 20-37, 43, 62-67, 69, 76-78,
81, 171, 174
Phaedo: 31
Timaeus: 34
Plinius the Elder
Historia naturalis: 151
Plotinus, philosopher: 21, 25, 26, 35
Plutarch, Greek historian: 152
Politracum: 174
Pomponius Laetus, Julius: see Leto
Pontano, Giovanni
Parthenopeus sive Amores: 203, 204
Porphyry, philosopher: 21, 25, 27, 31,
76, 155
Proclus, philosopher: 22, 25, 26, 32,
34, 35
Propertius, Latin poet: 204, 205
Protasius, martyr: 141
Prussians (The -): 90
Ptolemy
Tetrabiblos: 222-224, 230
Pyramus and Thisbe, Roman mytho-
logical figures: 153
Pythagoras, philosopher and mathe-
matician: 173-175, 177-179
Qai Iya: 233, 234
Qara Khitai (people of -): 217
Quintinus, martyr: 117-122, 124-128,
131-136, 142, 156
Raetobarii (The -): 116
Rashid al-Din
Jami al-tawarikh (Compendium
of Chronicles): 216
Raul de Presles, medieval French
translator: VII
Reginald of Coldingham
Vita S. Oswaldi regis et martyris:
146
Reginfrid of Danmark, martyr: 142,
147
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 248 INDEX
Registrum Gregorii: 163
Regulus (Rieul), bishop of Senlis:
142, 156
Regulus, martyr: 135
Rehoboham, biblical king: 174
Remigius, archbishop of Rheims: 114,
130
Rheims (France): 114, 123, 126, 128,
129
Rheims (archdiocese of ): 111-138
Richildis, countess of Flanders: 15
Rictiovarus (Cycle of -): 116, 117,
119, 121, 124, 127, 128, 132, 133,
136, 137
Rictiovarus, Roman persecutor: 116-
119, 125
Riculfus, bishop of Soissons: 130
Riquier (Richarius), saint: 150, 156,
64, 165
Robert Friso: 15
Robert Holcot: 177-194
Moralizationum historiarum liber
(Moralitates sive Allegoriae histo-
riarum): 177-186, 189, 190, 193-
194
Super libros sapientiae: 178, 179
Ymagines Fulgentii moralizate:
178, 180, 184
Robert, count of Flanders: 12
Romanus, archdeacon: 129
Rome (Academy of -): 195-201
Romulus: 181
Rufina, martyr: 127
Rufinus, martyr: 117, 118, 120, 122-
127, 130, 131, 134, 135
Rus (people of -): 227, 231
Ruth, biblical figure: 186
Sabians (The -): 209, 214
Sacchi (Platina), Bartolomeo: 196, 201
De falso et vero bono: 198
Epistolae: 195
Sacramentarium Gelasianum: 163
saara (sorcerers): 229, 234
aid al-Andalusi
abaqat al-umam (Book of the
Categories of the Nations): 222,
223
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Sains-en-Amienois (France): 122,
126, 127, 131, 132, 137
Saint-Crpin-le-Grand (abbey of ):
131
Saint-Fuscien (abbey of -): 122, 131,
132
Saint-Just-en-Chausse (France): 122,
123, 124, 128-130, 137
Saint-Quentin (France): 121-123, 126-
128, 131, 134-137
Salimbene di Adam
Chronica: 8, 9
anghana (Senegal): 229
anhaja (people of -): 230
sapientes gentilium: 56, 81
Saturn: 119
Saul, biblical king: 186
Sauve (Salvius), bishop of Amiens:
148
Scipio the African, Roman statesman:
171
Scorpio (constellation of -): 223
Seclin (France): 132, 134-137
Seir (rite of -): 99
Seneca: 171, 174, 175, 178, 184
Declamationes: 178
Epistulae: 154
Quaestiones naturales: 61
Seneca (Pseudo -): 172
Senegal: 219
Senlis (France): 114, 121, 122
Sermo de adventu sanctorum Wan-
dregisili, Ansberti et Vulframni in
Blandinium: 149
Severinus, saint: 136
Severus, saint: 148, 154
Sforza, Galeazzo Maria, duke of
Milan: 197, 202
Shafii
Risala: 209
Shahrastani (The -): 221
Sheba, Queen of -: 168
shirk (idolatry): 210-211, 237, 238
Siccambria (Frankish region of -): 164
Sigrdrfuml: 87
snakes (worship of -): 230, 231
Snorri Sturluson
Heimskringla: 1-3, 92, 93
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 INDEX
Spain: 219, 234,
Socrates: 19, 28, 64, 66, 69, 176, 214
Soissons (France): 114, 120-124, 127-
132, 134-137
Solignac (France): 136
Solomon, biblical king: 168, 174, 190
Songhay, state of -: 219, 233, 234
soothsayers: 7, 231, 234
Speculum laicorum: 176
Stephan of Bourbon, author of exem-
pla: 176
Sturla rarson, saga writer: 91,92
Sudan: 225, 227, 229-231
Sufism: 215-218
Sybil (oracular seeress): 9
Syrianus, Greek philosopher: 22
Tacitus, Publius Cornelius
Germania: 87, 93
Tadmakka (medieval town in Mali):
226
Tajuwa (people of -): 229
ariq ibn Ziyad: 213
Tedaldi, Jacopo (adviser of Moham-
med II): 199
tempestarii: 157-166
Tertullian
Apologeticus pro Christianis: 155
Theodosius, emperor: 177, 179-181
Throuanne (diocese of -): 138
Thietmar of Merseburg
Chronicon: 140
Thisbe, Roman mythological figure:
153
Thomas Aquinas: 169, 178, 179
De veritate: 47, 50, 51
Sententiae: 47, 48
Summa Theologiae: 14, 47
Thomas Waleys, theologian: 193
Thor, pagan god: 16
Titus, emperor: 171
Toledo: 9 (necromancer of -), 215
Tongres (Belgium): 146, 188
Toscano, Leone
Oneirocriticon Achmetis: 200, 201
Tournai (Belgium): 114, 132, 135,
138
Trajan, emperor: 44-48, 51-54, 174
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rndheimr (Norweg): 92
Trier (Germany): 101-105
ulr (magicians): 98
Turks (The -): 223, 224
Ugolini, Francesco: 199
Ugolini, Niccol: 199
Ulrich Molitor, legal scholar: 101
Ulrich Richental
Chronik des Konzils von Konstanz:
93, 94
Umayyads (land of the -): 224
Usuard
Martyrologium: 121, 135
Uthman dan Fodio
Al-Farq bayna wilayat ahl al-islam
wa-bayna wilayat ahl al-kufr (On
the Difference between the Gov-
ernments of the Muslims and the
Governments of the Unbelievers):
235, 236
Vaderboec (Vitae Patrum): 168
Vafrudnisml: 86, 87
Valerius, martyr: 117, 118, 120, 122-
127, 130, 131, 134, 135, 150, 156
Valerius Maximus, author of historical
anecdotes: 175, 176, 178, 184
Valla, Lorenzo: 196
Elegantiae linguae Latinae: 198
Varro, Marcus Terentius (Roman
scholar): 28, 31, 184, 188
vatnakest(u)r: 86
Vatnsdoelasaga: 86
Vedastus, saint: 114
Vegetius (Publius Flavius Vegetius
Renatus), Roman scholar: 171,
176
Velleius Paterculus, Marcus
Historia romana: 176
Venus, Roman goddess: 16, 119, 153,
223
Vermand (France): 114, 121, 122,
124-126, 128, 131, 134, 135
Veronica, saint: 5
Victoricus, martyr: 118-120, 122,
125-127,134, 135
Victricius of Rouen
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 250
De laude sanctorum: 141
Vikings (The -): 106, 227, 228
Vincentius of Beauvais
Speculum historiale: 171, 172, 189
Virgil (P. Virgilius Maro): 39, 43
Aeneid: 48, 49
Vita S. Corbiniani: 142
Vita S. Eligii: vide Audoenus
Vita et passio S. Evermari: 146-147
Vita S. Gregorii: 45, 46, 51, 52
Vita S. Reguli: 142
Vita S. Richarii: 164, 165
Vita S. Salvii: 148, 149
Vita S. Zenobii: 148
Vlva (pagan Norse shaman): 99, 100
Walafrid Strabo
Vita S. Galli: 95
Wandregisel, saint: 149, 156
West Africa: 207-238
Widukind, Saxon leader: 108
Wilhelm VI, count of Holland: 167,
192
William Langland
Piers Plowman: 53, 54
Reprint from "Paganism in the Middle Ages" - ISBN 978 90 5867 933 8 - Leuven University Press, 2013
95923_ML_XLIII_14_Index.indd 250
INDEX
William of Auxerre, theologian: 61
William of Conches
Moralium dogma philosophorum:
168, 175
witchcraft: 86, 99-105
Wodan, pagan god: 87, 95, 96, 106
Wulfram, saint: 149, 156
Wycliff, John: 44
Xenocrates, Greek philosopher: 31
Xerxes I of Persia: 171, 175, 176
Yaqut
Mujam al-buldan (Dictionary of
the Countries): 226, 231
Yeavering (Great Britain): 91
Zafqu (nation of -): 230
Zaghawa (kingdom of -): 231
Zaghawa (The -): 227, 228
Zanj (The -): 222-224, 231, 232
Zenobe of Florence, saint: 142, 148
Zeus: 28
Zoroastrianism: 209, 227-229, 237
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