The Influence of Stephen Langton on the Idea of the Preacher in Humbert of Romans' De eruditione predicatorum and Hugh of St.-Cher's Postille on the Scriptures

The article is the text of a speech held at an International conference in Notre Dame (Ind., USA). Building on a consolidated trend of research (going back e.g. to Beryl Smalley) the paper tries to show that several themes found in the works of the first Dominicans, like Hugh of St.Cher and Humbert of Romans can be found also in the works of late-12th century secular masters, and ciefly in those of Stephen Langton. The demonstation starts by comparing the literary heritage of Stephen Langton and Hugh of St.Cher, and shows that both can be easily articulated according the threefold division of the theological studium in “lectio”, “disputatio”, and “praedicatio” put forwards by Peter the Chanter in his “Verbum abbreviatum”. The paper then examines Langton’s Commentary and Hugh’s “Postills” on the Book of Chronicles and the Book of Ruth. Both Langton and Hugh recognize in the famine which makes the historical set for the story of Ruth an image of the lacking of good preachers, which causes a dearth of the word of God, and take from this a good occasion to depict the model of the good preacher and of the appropriate ecclesiastical behaviour (e.g., against what seems to have been the current use, avoiding to appoint as prelates priests or monks who are too young). Langton also notes (on Ruth 3, 15) that a deep comprehension of the word of God is not the result of man’s intellectual effort, but rather a gift God gives to those prelates who have a saintly life and asks for it with humilty. Having gleaned these elements of the allegorical reading of the Bible, found in both Stephen and Hugh’s commentaries, the paper goes on showing that these elements are even more frequents in the works for preachers composed by Langton (“De diuersis”, “Distinctiones”) and by his pupil Nicolas of Tournai (“Compilatio”). In the closing part of the article it is shown that Humbert of Romans, writing his “De eruditione praedicatorum” just after the middle of the 13th century, does non follow in its development Langton’s method of associating biblical quotes out of memory, but prefers to put them within a more systematic frame. As a result, it seems clear that Langton occupies an intermediate place between a theology nourished by the meditation of the biblical text (which one could call “monastic theology”), and a more “scholastic” theology which makes broader use of intellectual categories, such as that which was developed in the university and in the “studia” of the mendicant orders.