The Plague and The Clergy

The Black Death, estimated to have killed up to one-third of Europeans from 1347-1351, caused changes in society that we cannot imagine. Some of those changes wind up on record, however. Consider, for instance, important positions in government or the church.

The first Archbishop of Canterbury was St. Augustine* (died c.604), who was sent by Pope Gregory I to bring Christianity to Kent in 597. The office is even referred to sometimes as "The Chair of Augustine." Gregory's proposed methods for missions was discussed here. The position became the most important Christian post in England, and candidates for it—chosen by election from their peers or appointed by the king (which led to many conflicts over the years)—had to travel to be confirmed personally by the Pope.

During the plague years, maintaining the office was difficult. John de Stratford, who became Archbishop in 1333, died of the plague in 1348. The election for his successor created a conflict: the canons voted for Thomas Bradwardine, while Edward III wanted them to choose his Chancellor, John de Ufford. The king's choice was grudgingly accepted, de Ufford was declared by the pope to be the new Archbishop, but he died before he could be consecrated back in Canterbury. So Thomas Bradwardine got his chance after all. Bradwardine made the trip to Avignon to be confirmed by Pope Clement VI, but died in Rochester of the plague on his way back to London. He had officially been Archbishop for only 40 days. Fortunately, the next candidate, Simon Islip—the fourth archbishop in 16 months—was confirmed in December of 1349 and lasted for 17 years.

Islip had his work cut out for him, however. As Archbishop following the plague, he was faced with the problem of too few priests in the country. Priests were demanding greater stipends for their work, to which the normally frugal Islip objected both personally and professionally. He worked to regulate their fees, and increased the pace of finding more priests to fill parishes and other posts. Despite his efforts, many in the years to follow would comment on the unhappy change in the post-plague quality of priests, claiming that quantity prevailed over quality in the selection of new clergy.

Although the plague returned at regular intervals, its effects were never as radical as the first time through the population. Islip survived these further outbreaks, but suffered from a stroke in 1363; he spent the last three years of his Archbishopric debilitated while subordinates kept things running. Before he became ill, he did manage to resolve a long-standing dispute between the positions of Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York, but that's a tale for another day.

*Note: Not the same as the earlier Augustine of Hippo.

Doctor Profundus

I have written about the Oxford Calculators, four men at Oxford University in the second quarter of the 14th century who made great strides in science and philosophy by treating things like heat and light as if they were quantifiable, even though they did not have ways to measure them. They engaged in "thought experiments" and used mathematics to determine the validity of their points. They were not always right in the end, but they were meticulous in their approach. One of the four was so esteemed that he was called Doctor Profundus, the "Profound Doctor."

Thomas Bradwardine (c.1290-1349) had a reputation as a precocious student at Balliol College. We know he was there by 1321, and later took a doctor of divinity degree. A gifted scholar and theologian, he wrote theories on the Liar Paradox and other logical "insolubles." The Liar Paradox is the statement "I am a liar." For it to be true, the speaker must be a liar; but if it is a true statement then the speaker is not lying. Resolving with logic how such statements can be understood had been tackled for centuries. Bradwardine's work Insolubilia presented complex solutions for puzzles/statements like this.

Like many university men of his day, Bradwardine followed an ecclesiastical career path. After serving as chancellor of the university, he became chancellor of the diocese of London and Dean of St.Paul's. He was also chosen to be chaplain and confessor to Edward III (mentioned in this blog numerous times), celebrating victory masses after campaigns of the Hundred Years War and being entrusted with diplomatic missions. The only time he did not have Edward's support was when John Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, died. Bradwardine was elected archbishop by the canons of Canterbury, but Edward opposed the choice, preferring his own chancellor at the time, John de Ufford. When de Ufford died of the Black Death (this was in 1349), Edward allowed Bradwardine to assume the position. Bradwardine had to travel to Pope Clement VI in Avignon for confirmation. but on his return, he succumbed to the Black Death on 26 August. He had been archbishop for 40 days.

That career would not have secured his place in history, however, even with his work attacking the Pelagian heresy. As one of the Oxford Calculators, he developed the "mean speed" theorem and the Law of Falling Bodies before Galileo. He studied "star polygons" (how regular polygons "tile" or fit together in patterns) before Kepler. He developed mnemonic techniques to improve mental abilities, explaining them in De Memoria Artificiali (On Artificial Memory).

One of his theories involved the vacuum of space. Aristotle felt that a vacuum needed a container, because an open space would automatically become filled by matter outside that space flowing into it. Therefore, according to Aristotle, no vacuum could exist above the world, because there was no container beyond the world to maintain the vacuum. Bradwardine was not satisfied with this. The infinity of space was a hot topic in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. His De causa Dei (On the Causes of God) argued that God Himself was infinite, and therefore space beyond our world extended infinitely. (This was different from suggesting that God created separately a space that was infinite.) He also suggested that this infinity could include other worlds that God could create and rule over.