512 NOTES AND STUDIES

ROBERT GROSSETESTE ANDTRANSUBSTANTIATION

IN a recent issue of this journal (N.S. 27 [1976], pp. 381-90), KevinM. Purday published a short text from Trinity College, Cambridge,MS. B. 15. 20, cols. 519-20, which bears the inscription, 'DiffinicioEucaristie secundum sanctum Robertum episcopum Lincolniensem'.He accepted this attribution as genuine, and concluded from his examin-ation of the text of some eighty-six lines that Robert Grosseteste,bishop of Lincoln 1235-53, w a s o u t f s t eP w i t n t n e theory of Tran-substantiation which lately had been given official currency by theFourth Lateran Council in November 1215 when, in a definition of thebelief of the church, it noted (c. 1) that the body and blood of Christ weretruly contained in the Eucharist 'sub speciebus panis et vini , . . . trans-substantiatis pane in corpus et vino in sanguinem potestate divina . . . ' .

The point of this note is to suggest that Mr. Purday may have enteredtreacherous waters without an adequate lifebelt. First of all, the tran-scription of the ninety-six short lines is far from impeccable. Some ofthe mistakes are negligible, e.g. 'quidam non comedunt ova videlicetfratres' for 'quidam non comedunt ova sexta feria' (col. 520. 11-12),but I cannot but draw attention here to one substantial error at 520. 4,where 'Item queritur quando mutatur sine substantia panis ille incorpus' should read 'Item queritur quando mutatur sive substantiaturpanis ille in corpus'. ('Again it is asked whenprobably for 'quomodo*or 'how'that bread is changed or turned substantially into the bodyof Christ'.)

The correct reading 'mutatur sive substantiatur' is a far cry from'mutatur sine substantia'. The latter, of course, suggests that the author('Grosseteste') is saying that the bread is changed but not in substance,while the former shows that the change he has in mind is a substantialchange ('substantiatur'). Hence it is understandable that in 520. 6 and520. 20 he uses the terms 'substantial or sacramental change'.

Mr. Purday, luckily, did not base his conclusion that Grossetestewas not an adherent of Transubstantiation on his defective line 520. 4above. Instead, he relied on 520. 20-2, where the author writes, 'Sub-stantialis sive sacramentalis (mutatio) est miraculosa qui fit in corporeChristi in substantia panis non mutata'. Naturally, the words 'substan-tialis sive sacramentalis' here and earlier in 520. 6 give Mr. Purdaysome trouble, but he counters it by saying that 'Grosseteste' indeed'identifies sacramental with substantial change, but then goes on to saythat the change takes place without affecting the substance of thebread' (p. 386).

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NOTES AND STUDIES 513Surely there is something wrong here tooand this is my second

point. Above in the corrected line 520. 4 the author said that the breadwas changed or turned substantially into the body of Christ. Yet herehe says the opposite. Of course, if 'substantialis' in line 20 meansanything, then at least the substance of the body of Christ must be inthe bread. But what of the substance of the bread ?

Everything would be simple enough if 'qui fit in corpore Christi insubstantia panis non mutata' were to read 'in specie panis non mutata'.This at least would be consistent with what has gone before, e.g. in519. 14-15, 'Panis enim dicitur quia panis est in apparencia, hoc estextra', or in 519. 37-8, 'forma panis quod apparet exterius'. It alsohappens to be consistent with what comes immediately afterwards. Forthe author goes on at once after the sentence 'Substantialis sive sacra-mentalis . . .' (520. 20-2) to state (520. 22-3), 'Super hoc multiplex estoppinio. Quidam dicunt quod substantia panis mutatur'. He alreadyhas said that the body is in the bread and that the species is unchanged,so naturally he asks what has happened to the substance of the bread.

His answer is that some say that the substance of the bread is changed,but that the body of Christ hides there (in the outward 'shell' of bread)like ointment in a vase. For just as the vase is seen and the ointment not,so the bread is seen but the body of Christ is not (which is exactly whathe had said near the beginning at 519. 14-15). Mr. Purday takes thestatement about the vase as being 'Grosseteste's' and as in oppositionto the substantial change favoured by the 'Quidam'. But in fact it issimply a continuation of 'Some say that the substance of the bread ischanged'. If proof were needed that the similitude of the vase is anillustration of what is meant by substantial change, then one has onlyto look at the next lines (520. 24-5), where the author writes, 'Vas enimvidetur, unguentum non. Ita panis videtur, corpus Christi non', andthen goes on (520. 25-6) to note that 'all that remains of the bread istaste, smell and form''Notandum quod de pane remanet sapor odoret forma'. So the substance has gone, and only the accidents of thebread remain, which is precisely why a little later (520. 34-5) the authorcites the verse 'Panis mutatur specie remanente priore'.

In other words, whoever the author is of the text printed by Mr.Purday, he is a straight adherent of the theory of substantial change atthe consecration. Of course, if one takes lines 520. 20-2 on their own,as Mr. Purday takes them, then the case argued by Mr. Purday wouldbe plausible. But if one takes these lines, as in all scholarship oneshould, in the context of the whole eighty-six lines of text, then oneis forced to the conclusion that there may be scribal errors in lineswhich clearly are at variance with the rest of the text and with its

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514 NOTES AND STUDIESunabashed espousal of the theory of Transubstantiation. The presenceof 'qui' for an obvious 'que' is surely a warning that all is not well withlines 520. 20-2. May it not be, then, that 'in substantia panis nonmutata' should read 'in specie panis non mutata', and that 'spe' (specie)was misread as 'sba' (substantia)? Unless one wishes like Mr. Purdayto turn a blind eye to the general burden of the text, some reading suchas this is demanded.

It does not really matter whether the text printed by Mr. Purday isa genuine work of Robert Grosseteste or not (and I am inclined tothink that it is not, because of its scrappy character). What mattershere is that it is not at all what Mr. Purday claims it to be: an indicationthat 'English theology, dominated by the more Augustinian outlookfirst of Oxford and then of Cambridge as well, remained outside themainstream of Aristotelianism and retained a more eclectic approach'to the Eucharist than continental theology which, under 'the Aristotelianinfluence of Paris University', held for Transubstantiation as 'the onlyorthodox method of describing the Eucharistic change' (p. 386).

Leaving aside a version of the history of Aristotelianism in Englandwhich is wholly dependent upon Mr. Purday's understanding of the'Grosseteste' text which he prints, I may say that there is no evidenceof any reluctance in England to accept Transubstantiation as it wasformulated by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The synodalstatutes of bishops such as Richard Poore (1217X1219) and RobertBingham (1238 X 1244) of Salisbury, or those of an anonymous bishopin 1222X 1225, make no bones about repeating the well-known phraseon Transubstantiation from 4 Lateran, 'transsubstantiatis pane in corpuset vino in sanguinem potestate divina'.1 Nor, for that matter, does theircontemporary, Robert Grosseteste. In plain contradiction of all that Mr.Purday ascribes to him and to 'English theology', the bishop of Lincolnsaid in a sermon on the various grades of clerics:

Ad presbiterum autem pertinet sacramentum corporis et sanguinis dominiconficere, oraciones dicere et benedicere dona dei. Huius ordinis dignitasinenarrabili prefulget preeminencia. In verbis enim sacerdotis quibusconficitur sacramentum corporis et sanguinis Christi est virtus verborumque Christus protulit in cena quorum virtute panem et vinum in suumcorpus et sanguinem transsubstanciavit. Nee videtur mihi hec virtusverborum minor ea verbi virtute qua mundus ex nichilo factus est. Licet

1 Councils and Synods II, A.D. 1205-1313, ed. F. M. Powicke and C. R.

Cheney (Oxford, 1964), pp. 77-78 (Poore), 371 (Bingham), 143 (anon), e.g.Bingham: 'Quoniam celestis hostia viva et ipse scilicet unigenitus dei filmsoffertur pro nobis mambus sacerdotis in altari sub speciebus panis et vini,transsubstantiatis pane in corpus et vino in sanguinem potestate divina ministe-rio sacerdotis. . . .'

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NOTES AND STUDIES 515enim maius videatur de nichilo aliquid facere quam unum in aliud verterevel transsubstanciare, id tamen in quod in hoc sacramento transsubstan-ciantur panis et [MS. in] vinum, id est corpus et sanguis Christi, plusexcedit propter inseparabilem unicionem divinitati verbi universitatempure creature quam universitas creature pure superet nichilum.1

LEONARD E. BOYLE

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