The Portable Medieval Reader

by James Bruce Ross

  ’Tis by means of this perceptible image that I purpose to uplift you, my most loving brethren, by a certain devotional exercise, unto mystical Theology, premising three things that be serviceable thereunto.

  In the first place, I think, it should be presupposed that there is nothing which seemeth proper to the gaze of the icon of God which doth not more really exist in the veritable gaze of God Himself. For God, who is the very summit of all perfection, and greater than can be conceived, is called Theos from this very fact that He beholdeth all things. Wherefore, if the countenance portrayed in a picture can seem to look upon each and all at one and the same time, this faculty (since it is the perfection of seeing) must no less really pertain unto the reality than it doth apparently unto the icon or appearance. For if the sight of one man is keener than that of another among us, if one will with difficulty distinguish objects near him, while another can make out those at a distance, if one perceive an object slowly, the other more quickly—there is no doubt but that Absolute Sight, whence all sight springeth, surpasseth in keenness, in speed, and in strength the sight of all who actually see and who can become capable of sight....

  Approach thee now, brother contemplative, unto the icon of God, and place thyself first to the east thereof, then to the south, and finally to the west. Then, because its glance regardeth thee alike in each position, and leaveth thee not whithersoever thou goest, a questioning will arise in thee and thou wilt stir it up, saying: Lord, in this image of Thee I now behold Thy providence by a certain experience of sense. For if Thou leavest not me, who am the vilest of men, never and to none wilt Thou be lacking. For Thou art present to all and to each, even as to those same, all and each, is present the Being without whom they cannot exist. For Thou, the Absolute Being of all, art as entirely present to all as though Thou hadst no care for any other. And this be-falleth because there is none that doth not prefer its own being to all others, and its own mode of being to that of all others, and so defendeth its own being as that it would rather allow the being of all others to go to perdition than its own. Even so, Thou, Lord, dost regard every living thing in such wise that none of them can conceive that Thou hast any other care but that it alone should exist, in the best mode possible to it, and that each thinketh all other existing things exist for the sole purpose of serving this end, namely, the best state of him whom Thou beholdest.

  Thou dost not, Lord, permit me to conceive by any imagining whatsoever that Thou, Lord, lovest aught else more than me; since Thy regard leaveth not me, me only. And, since where the eye is, there is love, I prove by experience that Thou lovest me because Thine eyes are so attentively upon me, Thy poor little servant. Lord, Thy glance is love. And just as Thy gaze beholdeth me so attentively that it never turneth aside from me, even so is it with Thy love. And since ’tis deathless, it abideth ever with me, and Thy love, Lord, is naught else but Thy very Self, who lovest me. Hence Thou art ever with me, Lord; Thou desertest me not, Lord; on all sides Thou guardest me, for that Thou takest most diligent care for me. Thy Being, Lord, letteth not go of my being. I exist in that measure in which Thou art with me, and, since Thy look is Thy being, I am because Thou dost look at me, and if Thou didst turn Thy glance from me I should cease to be.

  But I know that Thy glance is that supreme Goodness which cannot fail to communicate itself to all able to receive it. Thou, therefore, canst never let me go so long as I am able to receive Thee. Wherefore it behooveth me to make myself, in so far as I can, ever more able to receive Thee. But I know that the capacity which maketh union possible is naught else save likeness. And incapacity springeth from lack of likeness. If, therefore, I have rendered myself by all possible means like unto Thy goodness, then, according to the degree of that likeness, I shall be capable of the truth.

  Lord, Thou hast given me my being, of such a nature that it can make itself continuously more able to receive Thy grace and goodness. And this power, which I have of Thee, wherein I possess a living image of Thine almighty power, is free will. By this I can either enlarge or restrict my capacity for Thy grace. The enlarging is by conformity with Thee, when I strive to be good because Thou art good, to be just because Thou art just, to be merciful because Thou art merciful; when all my endeavour is turned toward Thee because all Thy endeavour is turned toward me; when I look unto Thee alone with all my attention, nor ever turn aside the eyes of my mind, because. Thou dost enfold me with Thy constant regard; when I direct my love toward Thee alone because Thou, who art Love’s self, hast turned Thee toward me alone. And what, Lord, is my life, save that embrace wherein Thy delightsome sweetness doth so lovingly enfold me? I love my life supremely because Thou art my life’s sweetness.

  Now I behold as in a mirror, in an icon, in a riddle, life eternal, for that is naught other than that blessed regard wherewith Thou never ceasest most lovingly to behold me, yea, even the secret places of my soul. With Thee, to behold is to give life; ‘tis unceasingly to impart sweetest love of Thee; ’tis to inflame me to love of Thee by love’s imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feeding to kindle my yearnings, and by kindling to make me drink of the dew of gladness, and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to make it increase and endure. ‘Tis to cause me to share Thine immortality, to endow me with the glory imperishable of Thy heavenly and most high and most mighty kingdom; ’tis to make me partaker of that inheritance which is only of Thy Son, to stablish me in possession of eternal bliss. There is the source of all delights that can be desired; not only can naught better be thought out by men and angels, but naught better can exist in any mode of being! For it is the absolute maximum of every rational desire, than which a greater cannot be.

  From The Vision of God, trans. E. Gurney-Salter (London: Dent, 1928).

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The editors wish to thank the following publishers and agents for their kind permission to reprint in this volume excerpts from the books listed below:

  The American-Scandinavian Foundation, New York, The King’s Mirror, translated by L. M. Larson.

  Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., New York, The First Century of Italian Humanism by Ferdinand Schevill, copyright 1928 by Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.; and The Statesman’s Book of John of Salisbury translated by John Dickinson, coyright 1927 by Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.

  Edward Arnold & Co., London, I Saw the World by Walther von der Vogelweide, translated by Ian G. Colvin.

  Ernest Benn, Limited, London, the poem by Aniar MacConglinne from Bards of the Gael and Gall, by G. Sigerson.

  Curtis Brown, Ltd., New York, and Helen Waddell, Mediaeval Latin Lyrics, translated by Helen Waddell.

  Burns, Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., London, Summa contra Gentiles by Saint Thomas Aquinas, translated by the English Dominican Fathers.

  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Social Life in Britain, edited by G. G. Coulton.

  Jonathan Cape, Limited, London, The Book of Margery Kempe, translated by W. Butler-Bowdon; The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, translated by Edward MacCurdy; and The Autobiography of Giraldus Cambrensis, translated by H. E. Butler.

  Chatto & Windus, London, The Babees’ Book, edited by E. Rickert; The Book of the Duke of True Lovers by Christine de Pisan, translated by Alice Kemp-Welch; Philobiblon by Richard de Bury, translated by E. C. Thomas; and Couriers’ Trifles by Walter Map, translated by F. Tupper and M. B. Ogle.

  The Clarendon Press, Oxford, The Great Revolt of 1381 by C. Oman; and The Battle of Poitiers by Geoffrey le Baker, edited by Sir E. M. Thompson.

  Columbia University Press, New York, Chronicle of the Slavs by Helmold, priest of Bosau, translated by Francis Joseph Tschan, copyright 1935 by Columbia University Press; An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades, Memoirs of Usāmah ibn-Murshid, translated by Philip K. Hitti, copyright 1929 by Columbia University Press; De profectione Ludovici VII in orientem by Odo of Deuil. translated by Virginia Gingerick Berry, copyright 1948 by Columbia University Press; A History of Deeds Done
Beyond the Seas by William, Archbishop of Tyre, translated by Emily Atwater Babcock and A. C. Krey, copyright 1943 by Columbia University Press; The Two Cities by Otto, Bishop of Freising, translated by Charles Christopher Mierow, copyright 1928 by Columbia University Press; The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus, translated by John Jay Parry, copyright 1941 by Columbia University Press; and University Records and Life in the Middle Ages, edited by Lynn Thorndike, copyright 1944 by Columbia University Press.

  Constable and Company, Ltd., London, Mediaeval Latin Lyrics, translated by Helen Waddell; and The Chronicles of Giovanni Villani, translated by Rose E. Selfe and edited by P. H. Wicksteed.

  J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., London, Tales from Sacchetti, translated by M. G. Steegman; The Vision of God by Nicholas of Cusa, translated by E. Gurney-Salter; the poems by Jacopone da Todi, translated by Mrs. T. Beck, from Jacopone da Todi by E. Underhill; Romance of the Rose, translated by F. S. Ellis; and Memoirs of the Crusades, translated by Sir Frank Thomas Marzials.

  The Devin-Adair Company, New York, The Book of Margery Kempe, translated by W. Butler-Bowdon.

  Hakluyt Society, London, Chronicle of Muntaner, translated by Lady Goodenough; Journey of William of Rubruck, edited by William Woodville Rockhill; Cathay and the Way Thither, edited by H. Yule, revised by H. Cordier; and Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea by Gomes de Azurara, translated by C. R. Beazley and E. Prestage.

  Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Humanism and Tyranny: Studies in the Italian Trecento by Ephraim Emerton, copyright 1925 by Harvard University Press.

  Malcolm Letts, London, The Diary of Jörg von Ehingen, translated by Malcolm Letts.

  The Macmillan Company, New York, The Modern Reader’s Chaucer, edited by John S. P. Tatlock and Percy MacKaye, copyright 1912 by The Macmillan Company; Readings in Political Philosophy, revised edition, edited by F. W. Coker, copyright 1938 by The Macmillan Company; and Courtiers’ Trifles by Walter Map, translated by F. Tupper and M. B. Ogle.

  Oxford University Press, London, Chronicle by Adam of Usk, translated by Sir E. M. Thompson; and Early Medieval French Lyrics, translated by Claude Colleer Abbott.

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, Petrarch, The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters, translated by J. H. Robinson and H. W. Rolfe.

  Reynal & Hitchcock, New York, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, translated by Edward MacCurdy.

  Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., London, The Alexiad of Princess AnnaComnena, translated by E. Dawes; The Unconquered Knight by Diaz de Gámez, translated by J. Evans; The Goodman of Paris, translated by E. Power; and Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Johannes Herolt, translated by C. C. S. Bland.

  Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, Selections from Medieval Philosophers, edited and translated by Richard McKeon.

  Sheed and Ward, Inc., and H. W. Wells, New York, The Vision of Piers Plowman, translated by H. W. Wells.

  Smith College, Northampton, Mass., “The Commentaries of Pius II,” translated by Florence Gragg, with notes by Leona Gabel, published in Smith College Studies in History.

  Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Cincinnati, The Jew inthe MedievalWorld by Dr. Jacob R. Marcus.

  University of California Press, Berkeley, The Battle of the Seven Arts by Henri d’Andeli, and Morale Scholarium by John of Garland, both translated by L. J. Paetow, in the Memoirs of the University of California series.

  University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, John of Salisbury’s Frivolities of Courtiers, translated by J. B. Pike, copyright 1938 by the University of Minnesota.

  University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, translated by R. B. Burke, copyright 1928 by University of Pennsylvania Press.

  Yale University Press, New Haven, The Craftsman’s Handbook by Cennino Cennini, translated by D. V. Thompson.