disposyng,” by which a man disposes himself by “verey contricion for to lose his oune bondes of synne.”151 These ideas in themselves are quite orthodox,152 but in the Rosarium in particular and in Lollard theology in general great emphasis is placed on the direct relationship between the absolving God and the contrite man, with the dispositive role of the priest (“trewe schewyng of Godis absolucion goyng afore”)153 either being downplayed or dispensed with entirely. Anti-sacerdotal trends loom large in lists of heretical propositions attributed to Wyclif and his followers. For example, the 1382 Blackfriars council condemned the view that “if a man be truly contrite, all exterior confession is superfluous for him or useless,”154 while in 1430 Hawisia Moone recanted the belief that “confession shuld be maad oonly to God and to noon oþer prest, for no prest hath poar to remitte synne ne to assoile a man of ony synne.”155 Richard Wyche (who was arrested by the bishop of Durham c. 1402) believed that if confession is necessary one should not approach a vicious priest, but instead find a discreet confessor who is living a good life. If you confess fully to him, you will be absolved as fully as if St. Peter himself had descended from heaven to perform the absolution!156 Even more memorably, John Sprat (in 1472) preferred to confess to a tree rather than to a priest.157
Hawisia Moone was one among many Wycliffites who rejected the priestly power of the keys outright; however, Lollardy being (so to speak) a very broad church, one need not be surprised at the basically orthodox definition of the two keys in the Rosarium theologie, which in this respect remains true to Peter Lombard. They are described as being “of konnyng and of pouer,”158 the first denoting the priestly authority to interrogate the penitent and thus gain knowledge of the facts of the case, and the second, the authority to grant or refuse absolution. Another understanding of the keys, however, had come to prominence in the thirteenth century, namely, the distinction between the power of order (i.e., power exercised in regard to priestly ministry) and the power of jurisdiction. Aquinas explains that the key of order “reaches to heaven itself directly, by remitting sin and thus removing the obstacles to the entrance into heaven.” And priests alone have this key. The key of jurisdiction, by contrast, may be exercised by those who are not ordained priests, for example, by archdeacons and bishops elect (i.e., who have not yet received holy orders).159 Women, Aquinas continues, cannot have either key, because “woman is in a state of subjection” (cf. I Timothy 2:11, Titus 2:5), and therefore “she can have no spiritual jurisdiction” since, as Aristotle also says, “it is a corruption of public life (corruptio urbanitatis) when the government comes into the hands of a woman [Ethics viii].” In sum, all priests, no matter how good or bad their personal lives, possess the power of the keys, while no woman, no matter how good, can have it. What, then, of abbesses, who seem to exercise some sort of spiritual power over their subordinates? Somewhat awkwardly, Aquinas adds a rider to the effect that a certain—very limited—use of the keys may be allowed to women in that position, “such as the right to correct other women who are under them, on account of the danger that might threaten if men were to dwell under the same roof.”160 The prospect of the priestly character being imprinted on a woman was, of course, quite unacceptable within the orthodox late-medieval theology of ordo; a woman’s body was deemed incapable of receiving such a mark of distinction.161
The key of ordo, then, was the key of ministry, as “conferred on priests when by being anointed they receive power from God.”162 And “the power of orders” was established for “the dispensation of the sacraments.”163 The key of jurisdiction functioned differently, and was put to other uses: in particular, it constituted the authority for the issue of indulgences, or “pardons” as they were popularly called in English. Indulgentiae autem facere pertinet ad clavem iurisdictionis, non autem ad clavem ordinis, to quote William Lyndwood (c. 1375–1446),164 Bishop of St. Davids and right-hand man of Archbishop Chichele in his proceedings against the Lollards.
Since the sacramental forgiveness of sin was believed to extend both to the guilt and to the (potential) eternal punishment thereof in hell, it followed that the Church could also free the penitent from the lesser, “temporal” or temporary punishment (i.e., punishment in this life—as imposed by the priest following confession—and also in purgatory, where sinners were incarcerated for a fixed and finite term).165 An extra-sacramental means of doing this was devised, in the form of indulgences, the term indulgentia deriving from the Latin verb indulgeo, meaning to be kind or tender: hence indulgences were favors dispensed to the spiritually needy. The pope or bishop who “made” indulgences—the verb facere being commonly used in this context, as is concedere, meaning “to grant”—acted not in any personal manner, but in his official capacity as having jurisdiction within the Church. In other words, he was authorized by his possession of the key of jurisdiction; technically, he did not have to possess the other key (the key of ordo) to perform this specific action, which was not a sacrament and therefore did not require ordination and the priestly character on the part of its maker.
Since Christ left the Church the power to forgive sins (through penance) the power of granting indulgences may be deemed a logical inference. But it was a deeply problematic one—difficult to explain even in the most distinguished schools of medieval theology, and impossible to communicate with sufficient clarity to the public at large (assuming, of course, that those who “published” or preached the terms of references of pardons actually wanted their audiences to know the whole truth). Conflict between the spiritual and the material economies was rife, the depth of confusion extraordinary. Such were the conditions in which the real-life models of Chaucer’s Pardoner thrived.
III. MAKING INDULGENCES: SPIRITUAL AND MATERIAL ECONOMIES
An indulgence may be understood as the remission—or, better, the payment by others—of a sinner’s debt of punishment (poena) for sins already forgiven through the sacrament of penance, wherein moral guilt (culpa) was removed. An indulgence, then, was concerned solely with the satisfaction due for the requisite penitential punishment.166 The debt was paid out of the Church’s vast spiritual treasury, as filled superabundantly with the merits of Christ and His Saints.167 This may be seen as a development from the Church’s belief in the Communion of Saints and the unity of Christians within Christ’s mystical body. The principle of vicarious satisfaction goes back to the early Church;168 the practice of saying masses to help the souls of sinners pass the more quickly through purgatorial fires was also of long standing. From the eleventh century onward, however, we have clear evidence of indulgences being granted as remissions in whole or in part of the penance which a priest would normally have imposed—or which he already had imposed—following a person’s confession of his or her sins.169 Thus, indulgences were believed to alleviate the “temporal” punishments which the sinner would have to undergo whether in this life or in the next—that is, in purgatory (where time existed also).170 Their power certainly did not extend to the eternal punishments of hell. The “birth” of purgatory171 was utterly essential for the growth of the theology of indulgences.
A sinner could give alms for some charitable work, such as the building and/or upkeep of a hospital, school, or church; in return he or she would receive an indulgence. Indulgences were also granted to those who went on certain approved pilgrimages, visited important churches—or, indeed, served in Palestine in one of the campaigns to recover the Holy Land for Christianity. At the Council of Clermont (1095) it was proclaimed that anyone who had “set forth for the liberation of the Church of God in Jerusalem” who was motivated by “devotion alone, and not for the purpose of gaining honours and wealth” was to have that journey “reckoned in place of all penance.”172 Urban II exhorted bishops to preach this project to their congregations with eloquence and enthusiasm, thereby ensuring a good supply of “battlers for God’s people”—but he emphasized the importance of confession and true repentance for gaining “speedy pardon from Christ.”173 The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 extended this indulgence, granting full pardon of sins—i.e., a plenary indulgence, meaning a release from all poena174—
