Description
Jacques de Vitry (b. ca. 1160, d. 1240) was one of the most famous preachers of the high Middle Ages. Born in northern France, he studied at the University of Paris, and in 1210 became a canon regular in the diocese of Liège. Jacques’s most popular collection, the Sermones vulgares vel ad status, contains sermons recorded in Latin but designed to be preached in the vulgar tongue to laypeople, and arranged according the social class and profession of the audience. The sermon transcribed and translated here appears in Jacques’s less popular collection—the Sermones dominicales et festivales. Less popular, because the sermons were preached to largely clerical, not necessarily elite, audiences, and because of the lack of the lively exempla (illustrative anecdotes) for which Jacques was well known. There is no modern edition of these sermons, and so they are rarely studied. The sermon was intended for the third Sunday of Lent.
Start Date
23-8-2016 1:00 PM
End Date
23-8-2016 2:00 PM
Location
Fordham University
Included in
Cultural History Commons, European History Commons, History of Religion Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Social History Commons
Emotions and Preaching
Fordham University
Jacques de Vitry (b. ca. 1160, d. 1240) was one of the most famous preachers of the high Middle Ages. Born in northern France, he studied at the University of Paris, and in 1210 became a canon regular in the diocese of Liège. Jacques’s most popular collection, the Sermones vulgares vel ad status, contains sermons recorded in Latin but designed to be preached in the vulgar tongue to laypeople, and arranged according the social class and profession of the audience. The sermon transcribed and translated here appears in Jacques’s less popular collection—the Sermones dominicales et festivales. Less popular, because the sermons were preached to largely clerical, not necessarily elite, audiences, and because of the lack of the lively exempla (illustrative anecdotes) for which Jacques was well known. There is no modern edition of these sermons, and so they are rarely studied. The sermon was intended for the third Sunday of Lent.