From Fear of Hell to Love of Christ: The Monastic Devotional Use of MS K.21 in the Library of St. John's College, Cambridge

Abstract

The St. John’s College, Cambridge manuscript K.21 contains a monastic calendar, twenty-four canticles, and 115 hymns rubricated for use in the Divine Office. Interrupting this Latin material is a lengthy illustrated narrative presenting the Passion of Christ and the final years of the Virgin Mary via 101 Anglo-Norman text passages and 103 painted miniatures. The ninety-six extant folios of K.21 likely constitute the final eight quires of an extended psalter. Despite its Anglo-Norman French content and image density, internal evidence connects the manuscript to St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury. This thesis builds upon the limited scholarly attention K.21 has received to date. It provides a limited reexamination of its dating, identifies sources acting on the illustrated narrative, and explores the possible devotional utility of the volume in a monastic context. Stemming from the work of Lucy Freeman Sandler and Paul Binski, I argue that the volume was created in England over two main phases of c.1275-c.1300 and c.1280-c.1310, most likely for an educated male Benedictine audience at St. Augustine’s Abbey proper. I suggest that the volume was likely intended for use in personal devotion, rather than as a practical aid to the Divine Office. It also serves as a fitting case study for the utility of non-punitive imagery in monastic devotion. The text of the illustrated narrative is identified as a combination of biblical and apocryphal material that draws on elements of contemporary French poetry and is unique in the surviving record. The narrative miniatures, which include five unique Marian scenes, are shown to convey themes independently of the text. This thesis explores how the texts and images of the K.21 narrative might have aided their Benedictine audience’s progression from acting out of fear of Hell to pure love of Christ, a goal prescribed in Chapter 7 of the Benedictine Rule. This chapter calls for spiritual ascent up the Ladder of Humility, beginning with proper fear of God and culminating in “that perfect love of God which casts out fear (1 John 4:18)” (RB 7:67). This overarching goal of monastic life was conceptualised by theologians, including Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas, as mystical union with God. As conveyed by Clairvaux in his Liber de diligendo deo (“On Loving God”), ascension to this greatest form of love for God could only be accomplished by building intimacy with God through meditation. Rather than serving as didactic material about the lives of Christ and the Virgin, it is likely that the K.21 illustrated narrative guided sustained meditation on Christ’s humanity, divinity, and union with God. By prompting meditation on these topics, the narrative could have helped a monastic reader-viewer deepen his understanding of Christ and build intimacy with Him, propelling him towards his spiritual end goal: a perfect love of God. The non-punitive character of the K.21 imagery may have also aided this progression. By focusing on the outcomes of good conduct and love of Christ, rather than the consequences of sin, the narrative had the capacity to help centre the minds of its audience on the benefits God could provide and the possibility of achieving union with Him, rather than drawing meditations towards fear of judgement, placed low on the Ladder of Humility. The non-punitive nature of the material transformed K.21 into a potentially useful aid to building the habit of hope. As discussed by Aquinas, this habit was key to opposing fear and avoiding despair (Summa Theologiae, Part 2, Questions 17, 129), a particular risk for monks climbing the Ladder of Humility. This study of the possible devotional utility of K.21 helps fill a gap in scholarship on one of the most influential abbeys in medieval England. The commissioning and/or reception of K.21 suggests the continued commitment of the Abbey to traditional monasticism at the turn of the fourteenth century, further negating the old paradigm of monastic decline. By discussing the potential utility of images, Anglo-Norman French, and prosified poetry in personal devotion at St. Augustine’s Abbey, this thesis sheds light on the relationship between Cantuarian Benedictines, tradition, and the world outside their cloister.