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Fear in the Medical and Literary Imagination, Medieval to Modern pp 17–36Cite as

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Dreadful Health: Fear and ‘Sowle-hele’ in The Prickynge of Love

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Abstract

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries witnessed an increasing interest in the medical and psychological understanding of the emotions, not only regarding their nature and origin, but also their physiological and psychological impacts. Fear is usually seen in negative terms, as provoking illness. Yet, in advanced theological and religious texts, fear sheds this negative association to become a tool for healing the soul. This essay will explore the therapeutic function of fear. It will begin by analysing the theology of fear, and the nature of sin, before moving to consider how texts from the period understood dread as having a medical potential. Finally, it will consider a text deeply concerned with evoking the ‘medecynes’ of dread: The Prickynge of Love.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Carl Horstmann, ed., Mirror of St Edmund, in Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole, an English Father of the Church, and His Followers (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1895), 1:247.

  2. 2.

    For a full list of references see my “Purgative Reading in Richard Rolle’s Meditations on the Passion A,” The Mediaeval Journal 5, no. 2 (2015): 53–83; also Shelley Annette Reid, “The First Dispensation of Christ Is Medicinal: Augustine and Roman Medical Culture” (PhD diss., University of British Columbia, 2008), 206; Rudolph Arbesmann, “The Concept of ‘Christus Medicus’ in St. Augustine,” Traditio 10 (1954): 1–28; Thomas F. Martin, “Paul the Patient: Christus Medicus and the ‘Stimulus Carnis’ (2 Cor. 12:7): A Consideration of Augustine’s Medical Chrsitology,” Augustinian Studies 32, no. 2 (2001): 219–56. For the related concept of Christ as a surgeon, see Virgina Langum, “The Wounded Surgeon: Devotion, Compassion, and Metaphor in Medieval England,” in Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture, ed. Larissa Tracy and Kelly DeVries (Lieden: Brill, 2015), 269–90; and Karl Whittington, “Picturing Christ as Surgeon and Patient in British Library MS Sloane 1977,” Mediaevalia 35 (2014): 83–115.

  3. 3.

    Mirror of St Edmund, 247.

  4. 4.

    Peregrine Horden, “Religion as Medicine : Music in Medieval Hospitals,” in Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages, ed. Peter Biller and Joseph Ziegler (York: The University of York, 2001), 143.

  5. 5.

    Faith Wallis, ed., Medieval Medicine : A Reader (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 146.

  6. 6.

    Carole Rawcliffe, “The Concept of Health in Late Medieval Society,” in Le interazioni fra economia e ambiente biologico nell’Europa preindustriale secc. XIII–XVIII, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Florence: Florence University Press, 2010), 330.

  7. 7.

    On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa’s Translation of Bartholomeus Anglicus’s De Proprietatibus Rerum, ed. M. C. Seymour and Malcolm Andrew (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 1:349.

  8. 8.

    On the Properties of Things, 350.

  9. 9.

    On the Properties of Things, 161.

  10. 10.

    Mirko D. Grmek, Diseases in the Ancient Greek World, trans. Mireille Muellner and Leonard Muellner (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1989), 1.

  11. 11.

    Vivian Nutton, “God, Galen, and the Depaganization of Ancient Religion,” in Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages, ed. Peter Biller and Joseph Ziegler (York: York Medieval Press, 2001), 25; and Jessalynn Bird, “Medicine for Body and Soul: Jacques de Vitry’s Sermons to Hospitallers and Their Charges,” in Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages, ed. Peter Biller and Joseph Ziegler (York: York Medieval Press, 2001), 91–108.

  12. 12.

    Damien Boquet and Piroska Nagy, “Medieval Sciences of Emotions during the Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries: An Intellectual History,” Osiris 31, no. 1 (2016): 39.

  13. 13.

    “Medieval Sciences of Emotions,” 40.

  14. 14.

    Dag Hasse, De Anima in the Latin West: The Formation of a Peripatetic Philosophy of the Soul 1160–1300 (London: Warburg Institute, 2000), 47–48; Simo Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 232. His account becomes the dominant perspective on the emotions until the later stages of the Middle Ages when Aquinas’ summary of it become more popular, and is itself revised through the work of Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and John Buridan.

  15. 15.

    John of la Rochelle, Tractatus de divisione multiplici potentiarum animae: Textes philosophiques du moyen âge 11, ed. P. Michaud-Quantin (Paris: Vrin, 1964), 196. Latin texts reads: Qui quid IIII affectus anime omnium sunt vitiorum et virtutum principia ac communis materia. Cum ergo prudenter modeste, fortiter et iuste amor et odium instituuntur, in virtutes insurgunt, prudentiam scilicet, temperantiam, fortitudinem et iustitiam; que quasi origines ataque cardines sunt omnium virtutem, quia hec cum affectuose et virtuose in anima instituuntur, per odium mundi et sui perficit in amorem Dei et proximi, per contemptum temporalium et inferiorum crescit in desiderium eternorum et supernorum.

  16. 16.

    See Jeremiah 5:22; Isaiah 8:12–13, 11:2–3; Psalms 111:10; Proverbs 9:10, 28:14, 14:27; Job 28:28; 2 Corinthians 7:1.

  17. 17.

    See Clement of Alexandria’s Stromata in The Stromata or Miscellanies, ed. A. Robert and J. Donaldson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967), 2. 12.

  18. 18.

    St Basil, Regulae Fusius Tractatae in Patrologia cursus completus series Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne, vol. 3 (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1857–1905), cols. 889–1052; Gregory of Nazianzus, Adversus Iram, Patrologia cursus completus series Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne, vol. 37 (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1857–1905), cols. 813–51; Gregory of Nyssa: Life of Moses, ed. A. Malherbe, trans. E. Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 320.

  19. 19.

    Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV Libris Distinctae, 2 vols., Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, ed. Ian Brady, 3rd ed. (Grottaferrata: Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1971–1981), 3.34.4; 3.34.9.

  20. 20.

    Indeed, it is repeated by William Peraldus in his Summae virtutum ac vitiorum, 2 vols. (Antwerp: Philippus Nutius, 1571), 4. 1. 3. For an excellent engagement with the theology of fear in medieval culture, see Eric. J. Johnson, “‘In dryȝ dred and daunger’: The Tradition and Rhetoric of Fear in Cleanness and Patience” (PhD diss., University of York, 2000), 24.

  21. 21.

    Bonaventure, Commentaria in Quatuor Libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi, Opera Omnia, ed. R. P. Aloysii A Parma, vol. 3 (Collegium S. Bonaventurae: Quaracchi, 1882–1902), 34. As Bonaventure notes, ‘Timor enim aut est ex natura, aut ex libidine sive concupiscentia, aut ex gratia’, in Commentaria, 3:34. 2.

  22. 22.

    Commentaria, 3:34. 2.

  23. 23.

    Johnson, ‘In dryȝ dred and daunger,’ 35, 47.

  24. 24.

    Bonaventure, Commentaria, 3:34. 2: ‘sic timor servilis, cum quis timet incurrere aeterna tormenta, est ex amore aeternae salutis et beatitudinis’. The translation is from Johnson, ‘In dryȝ dred and daunger’, 55. Peter Lombard, Sententiae, 3:34. 5; Bonaventure, Commentaria, 3:34. 2: ‘obiectum magis principale’.

  25. 25.

    St Bernard of Clauirvaux, Sermones in Cantica Canticorum, in Patrologia cursus completus series Latina, ed. J. P. Migne, vol. 183 (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1844–1905), col. 976.

  26. 26.

    Margaret Connolly, ed., The Contemplations of the Drede and Love of God, Early English Text Society, Original Series, 303 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 9, ll. 50–56.

  27. 27.

    Middle English Dictionary, ‘waxen’ (v.). I use the online version of this resource. See https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=id&id=MED51942.

  28. 28.

    Contemplations of the Drede and Love of God, 8, ll. 2–3; 8, ll. 3–5.

  29. 29.

    Contemplations of the Drede and Love of God, 8, l. 10.

  30. 30.

    Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection, ed. Thomas H. Bestul (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000), 1, ll. 1556.

  31. 31.

    Phyllis Hodgson, ed., A Pistle of Preier, in Deonise Hid Divinite and Other Treatises on Contemplative Prayer Related to The Cloud of Unknowing, Early English Text Society, Original Series, 231 (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), 50, ll. 5–7.

  32. 32.

    A Pistle of Preier, 48, l. 7.

  33. 33.

    Harold Kane, ed., Prickynge of Love, 2 vols. (Slazburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik der Universität Salzburg, 1983), 1:90, ll. 6–13. Hereafter: Prickynge. Punctuation has been modernised.

  34. 34.

    W. Nelson Francis, ed., The Book of Vices and Virtues: A Fourteenth Century English Translation of The Somme le roi of Lorens d’Orléans, Early English Text Society, Original Series, 217 (London: Oxford University Press, 1945), 126, ll. 3–6.

  35. 35.

    Phyllis Hodgson, ed., Stodye of Wysdome, in Deonise Hid Divinite and Other Treatises on Contemplative Prayer Related to The Cloud of Unknowing, Early English Text Society, Original Series, 231 (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), 17, ll. 4–5.

  36. 36.

    Stodye of Wysdome, 17, ll. 8–9.

  37. 37.

    Stodye of Wysdome, 17, l. 10.

  38. 38.

    Stodye of Wysdome, 17, l. 12–18, l. 3.

  39. 39.

    Prickynge, 1:35, ll. 11–19.

  40. 40.

    The Latin text reads: Calix passionis amarus est, sed omnes morbos poenitus curat; calix passionis amarus est, sed prior eum bibit medicus, ne bibere dubitaret aegrotus’ from Serm Mai 19.2, in Miscellanea Agostiniana: Testi e Studi 1, ed. Germain Morin (Rome: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1930), 310. The translation is from Rudolph Arbesmann, “The Concept of ‘Christus Medicus,’” 15.

  41. 41.

    Prickynge, 1:35, ll. 9–10.

  42. 42.

    Prickynge, 1:37, ll. 4–10.

  43. 43.

    Prickynge, 1:35, l. 1; 37, ll. 17–8.

  44. 44.

    Prickynge, 1:44, ll. 5–7.

  45. 45.

    Middle English Dictionary, ‘licour’, (n.)—Senses 2 and 3. See https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=id&id=MED25429.

  46. 46.

    Prickynge, 1:38, l. 23–9, l. 7.

  47. 47.

    Prickynge, 1:39, ll. 2–3.

  48. 48.

    Prickynge, 1:39, ll. 15–25.

  49. 49.

    Prickynge, 1:38, ll. 3–9.

  50. 50.

    Prickynge, 1:90, ll. 6–12.

  51. 51.

    G. R. Morgan, “A Critical Edition of Caxton’s The Art and Craft to Know Well to Die, and Ars Moriendi Together with the Antecedent Manuscript Material” (PhD diss., University of Oxford, 1972), 33, ll. 8–13.

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  1. Lincoln College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Daniel McCann

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  1. Lincoln College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Daniel McCann

  2. Glasgow Centre for Population Health, Glasgow, UK

    Claire McKechnie-Mason

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McCann, D. (2018). Dreadful Health: Fear and ‘Sowle-hele’ in The Prickynge of Love. In: McCann, D., McKechnie-Mason, C. (eds) Fear in the Medical and Literary Imagination, Medieval to Modern. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55948-7_2

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