who is in exactly the same state? If mortal sin isn’t repugnant to making indulgences, does it not follow that it isn’t repugnant to receiving them? So asks Thomas of Strasbourg, going on to reject this alarming inference with the aid of the imagery of flow and blockage which we already have illustrated from Albert the Great. Just as a dead body-part does not benefit from the life which flows from the other (living) members of the physical body, so mortal sin obstructs a man from receiving the benefits of an indulgence, which issue from the merits of the living head (Christ) and the living members (the saints) of the spiritual body which is the Church.248 That is to say, although a person in mortal sin may materially possess a major indulgence, he is far less disposed to receive its benefits than is the person who is without mortal sin. No remission of punishment can occur if culpa remains, as Richard of Middleton succinctly puts it, and since indulgences do not remit the culpa of those living in mortal sin, therefore none of their poena is remitted either.249
Honoring Becket: The Case for Canterbury
The relentless rationalism, the measured weighing of arguments pro and contra, of such discussion is in marked contrast to the muddle which faced churchmen in the world beyond the schools. Indulgences were multiplying with alarming frequency; every major shrine, hospital, or church wanted one or more.250 Of particular interest to Chaucerians is the controversy concerning the status of the plenary indulgence associated with the shrine of “the holy blissful martyr,” St. Thomas à Becket, at Canterbury, the objective of Chaucer’s pilgrims. A Latin treatise written shortly after the fifth Canterbury Jubilee (1420),251 perhaps by Richard Godmersham, argues that the indulgence granted by Honorius III on the occasion of the translation of the martyr (7 July 1220) was indeed a plenary one, valid each successive jubilee year.252 In fact, the evidence for this is very dubious. Godmersham (supposing for the moment that he is indeed the author we are dealing with) assumes that a forged bull of Honorius III (Quanto venerabilis martyr)is genuine, but even that document does not include a clear description of a plenary indulgence, and in any case such grants were still very rare at the beginning of the fourteenth century, when Boniface VIII granted one to those who visited the basilicas of Sts. Peter and Paul. True, in 1216 Honorius III was supposed to have given St. Francis a particularly valuable indulgence in respect of his church of the Portiuncula,253 and hence that pope might be expected to have shown similar generosity to St. Thomas à Becket’s shrine just a few years later. But, once again, the exact terms of the original bequest are a matter of scholarly controversy; the so-called Portiuncula indulgence is almost certainly a later elaboration of what—if anything— Honorius actually had given.254 No trace of such skepticism troubles the surface of Godmersham’s treatise: a robust defense of Canterbury’s honor is mounted, with the reader’s consent being demanded rather than invited.
General principles already familiar to us are applied to the specific case of Becket. His martyrdom acquired many supererogatory merits for the Church, constituting a major contribution to the spiritual treasury. Support for the Canterbury Jubilee is sought in the figures and significations of the Old Testament jubilees. But there is much ad hoc argument, which is remarkable for its aggression rather than its logic. Godmersham begins by affirming that the indulgence conceded to Becket’s shrine by Honorius III is not inferior to the crusade indulgence, as given by the previous pope, Innocent III.255 Furthermore, the Canterbury indulgence fulfils the conditions of validity laid down by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Sentences commentary.256 There it is explained that indulgences are indeed worth what they are said to be worth, providing that he who grants them has the requisite authority, that the recipient has charity, and that, as regards the cause, there is piety which includes the honor of God and the profit of one’s neighbor. All these conditions are met by the Canterbury indulgence, Godmersham asserts, and therefore it indeed has the efficacy which preachers profess, and which has been claimed for it on many occasions, five jubilees having elapsed without rejection of the belief that it is genuinely a plenary indulgence. Furthermore, affirmation of the value of this indulgence is a true and healthful thing to do. And since we are not dealing here with a matter of opinion or something which is deniable, it follows that anyone who argues the opposite is not a faithful Christian. Godmersham then goes so far as to say that the Canterbury indulgence derives from the authority of the Church on the same basis as does the Gospel; thus every faithful person should believe in this indulgence just as he believes in the most authoritative books of the Bible.
The plenitude of papal power is then invoked. The pope grants indulgences not in propria persona but rather in the person of Christ, from whom his power derives, as is intimated by the words of St. Paul: “I have pardoned, if I have pardoned any thing, for your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ” (II Corinthians 2:10). The Glossa ordinaria on this text explains that Paul’s pardons are as valid as if Christ Himself had done the deed. Therefore what Pope Honorius III conceded was given as if Christ had given it; for his part, the pope would not have dispensed this indulgence had not Christ first given His promise prophetically to the blessed martyr. While living in exile in France, Becket experienced a vision in which the Lord Jesus appeared to him and said, “Thomas, Thomas, my Church will be glorified in your blood.”257 This is to be understood as a prophetic promise,258 because He who is the sum of truth and cannot lie promised that His Church would be glorified, in the sense that it would be justified and given grace by the plenary remission of sins and the grace and merit mediated by the blood of the blessed martyr. And this is a great glory for the Church Triumphant. Presumably part of the point here is that, through Becket, Christ wished to glorify the Church Triumphant every bit as much as He wished to glorify the Church Militant. If one pope (Innocent III) could grant an indulgence which glorifies the latter, in promoting a crusade, then it seems utterly appropriate that his successor (Honorius III) should have granted an indulgence which glorifies the former.
From all these arguments it is abundantly clear, Godmersham concludes, that Pope Honorius III did not grant the aforesaid indulgence merely from himself alone (ex se) but rather from divine inspiration, and he prescribed that it be granted by the universal Church; thus a promise first made by Christ was gloriously implemented by the Pope. Honorius could therefore say with the Apostle Paul, “Yet not I” alone have given or conceded this plenary indulgence of sins, “but the grace of God with me” (cf. I Corinthians 15:10). The truth of the indulgence is therefore clear to all faithful believers—and those who attack it are sinning against the Holy Spirit, concerning which sin Christ inveighs in Matthew 12:32, “it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.” According to the doctors, to attack acknowledged truth is a sin against the Holy Spirit. The Canterbury indulgence is acknowledged truth because it has always been preached as Catholic truth, because it has consistently been authorized by the Church and never revoked, and because the universal Church has selected and made it law. Therefore anyone who attacks it attacks acknowledged truth and sins against the Holy Spirit. Such people have much to fear: the wrath of God will come upon them and they will go down alive to hell (cf. Psalm 77:31 and Numbers 16:30). Godmersham certainly thought of Wyclif’s followers in those terms:259 at one point he denounces those who are “infected with the execrable dogma of the carping Lollards.”260 More generally, here is a treatise which brooks no dissent, the tone of the discussion being very different from that found in the Sentences commentaries and summae which we have discussed above. Refusal to believe in the Canterbury pardon is not an option, its truth being placed on a par with that of Holy Writ and St. Thomas à Becket being afforded the same honor as God showed to Sts. Peter and Paul.
Maybe Godmersham’s vehemence is a reflex of insecurity. At least the literal truth of the matter was put out of contention by Pope Paul II, who declared unequivocally that a plenary indulgence was on offer during the jubilee year of 1420. One wonders what visitors to Canterbury in the previous jubilee year of 1370 thought they were getting; I see no reason to doubt that they expected a plenary indulgence. Certainly the 1370 jubilee was a highly successful one for the shrine,261 a fact which Chaucer may well have been aware of during the gestation of his Canterbury Tales. The issue of plenary indulgences apart, Canterbury did very well in respect of pardons
