The case against appropriation; the sixth argument: the captive knight; Ambrose on the church’s gold

First, by this: that the churchecclesia: church of the clergyclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric lived thus without propertyexproprietarii / exproprietarie: the propertyless / without property by the ordinanceordinacio; ordinancia: ordinance; of the sacrament, ordination of Christ and the apostles up to the caesarean endowmentdotacio: endowment; and even to this day that life remains in the more religious clerics, and I declared above that this manner of lifeconversacio: manner of life is more authenticautenticus / autenticacio: authentic / authentication, more meritorious and more secure. Second, from this: that it is the case, to the threat of the destruction of the kingdomregnum: kingdom, that the multitude of clerics superabounds, as the Apostle teaches, 1 Corinthians 12, in the example of the human body, that it would be too monstrous if the whole, the half or the third were an eye.¹ Since, therefore, everything useful for the government of the commonwealth is, according to Augustine, On Christian Doctrine II, at the end, to be found in scripture, it seems that a rule can be founded in scripture according to which there should be clergy in proportion among the people; nor will a man find a rule more rightly directive than by ministering to the clergy according to the form which the primitive church instituted, and by assigninglimitare; limites: to assign (an office); limits them the office which it then bore.² Therefore this would be agreeable to reason. For if in the old testament, when the priestssacerdos / presbiter: priest / presbyter and Levites were burdened unbearably with the handling of beasts for victims, they were limited to that threefold portion (as I said above, chapter 13), much more in the time of the law of grace, when the clergy, relieved of the burdens of the law, ought to be poorer, and the people is readier to relieve [them].³ Third, it is argued from the forestalling of manifold troublesinconveniencia; inconveniens: CONTEXTUAL: an absurdity (in argument) · troubles, ill consequences (in affairs), which would in this way be removed. First, I say, so great a multitude would not aspire to the priesthood more from affection for the world than for the priestly ministry. Second, there would not be so much simoniac traffic, nor so much contention and fox-like alliance, as now; and these disturb kingdoms very greatly. Third, the secular armbrachium seculare: the secular arm would not be so much necessitated to fight 373for the goods of fortune as now, both because on the one side the totality of temporal lordshipdominium: lordship would satisfy [it], and also because a clergy living apostolically would mitigate their tyranny.⁴ Fourth, because secularsecclesia laycalis / secularis: the lay church / the secular church would thus be more disposed to bestow almselemosina: alms in a more ordered way on the more worthy, and the hiding-places of the frowarddiscoli: froward, which today are hidden "in the clothing of sheep", would lie more open. Fifth, because the alms assigned to the clergy for distribution to the poor would be distributed more equitably in a lay hand. Let the watchmanspeculator: watchman note, I say, first, the goods of the kingdom devolved to the dead handmanus mortua: the dead hand; let him note, second, the withdrawal of a part of them proportional to the number and the life of the proctorsprocurator; procuratrix: proctor of the poor; and let him note, third, how the residue is spent. For it is said that the pilgrim friars and other needy people receive as much alms from outsiders as from them.⁵ Sixth, because, if seculars occupied those goods now imprisoned as their own (as is fitting), the land would be more fruitful, more abounding in beasts and other goods of fortune, and more populous for the defence of the kingdom and the increase of the christian army. For so it happened before the said endowment, and a probable reason, taken from the fact with its circumstances, bears witness to it. For God does not pour out the rain-water unevenly in torrents, but makes the rain distil drop by drop and as dew for the nourishment of what springs from the earth, teaching us by this beyond doubt to disperse all kinds of our goods prudently, without respect of persons; and so (if I am not mistaken) this renunciation of propertyexpropriacio: renunciation of property would rouse the devotion of the people, would prepare [it] for perpetual alms to the clergy of Christ, and consequently would turn to a notable increase in the relief of the poor.⁶ Hence, that the churches and revenuesreditus: revenue(s) of the kingdom are thus appropriated to colleges, the error of the appropriationappropriare; appropriacio: to appropriate; appropriation of churches to abbeys has done it; for by this the rectors and their clerics were taken away who would increase 374the universities and the learning of our kingdom, because the churches were either divided or faithlessly distributed to the kinsmen and household of clerical patronspatronus: patron; so that, unless God had left us seed in the foundation of colleges by licence of the kings of England, we should have been as Sodom as to learning. Yet it would be better that every collegiate apt for the rule of souls should have a church which is now appropriated to a monastery, and should duly minister to it spiritual food and the sacraments.⁷ For then the kingdom would prosper in bodily and spiritual things, and our university would grow both in number and in virtue; in sign of which, before the cataclysm of such appropriation there were sixty thousand scholars in Oxford, where today there are not three.⁸ The university also grows more today through presbyterssacerdos / presbiter: priest / presbyter hired at will than it grows through perpetual chantries; nor would it need to have so many privilegesprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging from the king, were it not that, because of the default of priests and the supplanting of the privileges of laymen by clerics, laymen are exceedingly hostile to them through their feeling of the injury. And formerly, before the endowment of the church, when catholic truths flourished in it, this teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence was not heretical. Indeed (if I am not mistaken) it would make for the amendment of the church, and for the establishment of the kingdom, and for the profit of every membermembrum: member of the church, living as well as dead, that, provision being made for every cleric according to his order of necessary 375nourishment and covering, this conclusion should be put into practicepractizare: to put into practice gradually and providently.⁹

Sixth, it is argued, assuming that princes and temporal lordstemporales domini: temporal lords lawfully and without sin sell their lands and tenements to churchmen and their successors in perpetuity: therefore, with stronger reason, they would confer temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods on them in perpetuity. And the assumptionassumptum: the assumption is proved by supposing that some secular lord is set in extreme necessity, as are our knightsmilicia; milites: knighthood; knights captured by enemies in parts overseas, and that the said lord has nothing with which to redeem himself except by alienating his manor in perpetuity; and with this I suppose that there is no one who will buy the said manor except our college or another like it: then the given college is bound to relieve the said knight, placed in extreme necessity, and this under pain of mortal sin; now it cannot relieve him unless it buys the manor from him; therefore in the case it is bound, under pain of mortal sin, to buy his manor from the said knight in perpetuity.¹⁰

This case would be too difficult for me, nor do I see any colourcolor (non est color): colour (a plausible ground) how it would be possible, unless perhaps the said college had been so chained by the lord of this world with the indissoluble bonds of the mammon of iniquity that, from a hardening necessarily damnable, it could not mercifully relieve the said knight, but must needs damnably despoil him of his paternal inheritance. But I would neither willingly admit that case nor altogether exclude other relief for the knight; for such a college, if it existed, would be supremely diabolical, because (as is implied) it could not relieve the said knight by alms but only by sacrilege; and truly God could not save such a college by his absolute power.¹¹

The knight ought therefore to go to the lord of the land and tell him the conditions of such a college; and the whole kingdom would be bound to expel such a poisonous college and, with the goods which such a legion would occupy, if they are alms, to relieve the knight.¹² And it is clear that this could be done lawfully, from the saying of blessed Ambrose placed in the decrees, [Causa] 12, q. 2, Aurum: "The church has gold," he says, "not to keep but to lay out, and to bring help in necessities. What need is there to guard what is of no help? Are we ignorant how much gold and silver the Assyrians carried off from the temple of the Lord? Does not a priest do better to melt it down for the sustenance of the poor, if other supplies are lacking, than that a sacrilegious enemy should defile and carry it off? Will not the Lord say: Why did you suffer so many needy to die of hunger? And certainly you had gold, with which you might have ministered sustenance. Why were so many captives led away into trade and, not redeemed, slain by the enemy? It had been better that you kept the vessels of the living than those of metals. To these things no answer could be brought. For what would you say: I feared lest the temple of God should lack its adornment? The sacraments," he says, "do not seek gold, nor do things please by gold which are not bought with gold. The adornment of sacred things is the redemption of captives; and truly those are precious vessels which redeem souls from death. That is the true treasure of the Lord which works what his blood has worked."¹³

From these words of this most holy doctor and of the decree it seems, first, that it is lawful for the king, in a time of manifold necessity, to take away not only the superfluous jewels of his clergy but