The Name of the Rose
Third Day: Nones (pp. 196-209)
The preceding study page is Second Day: Nones
(pp. 187-95).
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Address questions or comments to Professor Anderson.
"But Thomas is different from Bonaventure (p. 197): [Mike Almony comments]
Thomas is
fat whle Bonaventure
is thin, and it may even be that Hugh is bad while Francis is
good, and Adelamr is
phlegmatic while Agilulf is
bilious....." (page 197).
When I first read this passage, I had marginalia that referenced Italo
Calvino's The Nonexistent Knight because of the name Agilulf. And
then I realized by the context, that William of Baskerville is referencing
some of the great Saints of the Medieval Period.
I found a really great website, other than the Catholic Encyclopedia
that references the names of Saints. It is the Catholic Online: Saints
& Angels Website. I have hyperlinked the names presented in the passage
to reference this particular site and give insight to these saints who are
good, bad, phlegmatic, and bilious.
"Thomas is fat" (p. 197): St. Thomas Aquinas was
so obese that after he had died in an upper room, it took several
men, with great difficulty, to carry his body downstairs
and out of the house.
In medieval iconography, the thinness of thin saints, like Bonaventure,
is a symbol of their commitment to ideals of poverty.
"Imagine a river...which flows for miles and miles between strong
embankments" (p. 198) [comments Roger Raber] This is a parable that William uses to
attempt to explain how the various "branches of heresy and the movements of
renewal" detract from a once singular vision held by both church and society.
The idea of a point of seeming clarity pushed forward (toward its outcome),
eventually wandering from a single path and forming several fragmented paths, is used in
parable form by both Borges and Kafka.
Borges writes in The Library of Babel that
men "disputed in narrow corridors," and "strangled each other on the divine
stairways" in an attempt to ascend and vindicate their actions. Man, in an
attempt to answer questions or explain answers already provided, fell into disagreement
over the path leading to God. Borges claims that various factions fragmented, opting
to forge a new route leading through the labyrinth. One source for both Eco and
Borges concerning references to Babel as parable is Kafka. Kafka wrote four
parables that discuss the tower of Babel. In The City Coat of Arms,
Kafka describes the preparation required in the building of the tower. A city would
be built to provide for the tradesmen and laborers that would work on the tower.
With every group wanting "the finest quarters for itself", disputes arose
leading to "bloody conflicts." From these disputes, fresh conflicts would
be born until a prophesied day would come "when the city would be destroyed..."
Kafka's parable, The Tower of Babel,
states "If it had been possible to build the tower of Babel without ascending it, the
work would have been permitted. All three authors display man as the constant.
It is he who strays outside of the river's banks in Eco. It is he who
scratches and claws his brother while ascending the library stairs in Borges.
Finally, it is he who, according to Kafka, who projects the bleakest vision of all,
is mired in petty grievances and self indulgence before work on the tower has even begun.
a story about King Mark" (p. 201): Gottfried von
Strassburg's Tristan, an early 13th-century German
romance.
"You have a clear conception of the people of God"
(p. 200) This passage alludes to two medieval religio-political concepts:
the populus Dei ("people of God"), and the idea of
the "three estates" as the basis for society. The "people of
God" in Christian times are the Christians, but in Old Testament
times had been the Hebrews, the "chosen people" of God.
The "three estates" were the oratores ("pray-ers", the
clergy), the bellatores (warriors), and the laboratores
(workers), idealized by the plowman. [Joe Motta writes]
During his explanation of the sources of heresy, William discusses with
Adso the traditional
division of the population into three categories: the flock (laborers
and peasants), the shepherds
(clerics), and the dogs (secular powers—the emperor or king and his
knights and warriors).
This three-part division of the populace is typical of Medieval Estates
literature, which sought
to analyze society, and its ills, in terms of hierarchy, social
function, and morality. The aim of
such literature was to enumerate the various “estates”—the classes or
professions of
society—with the object of showing how far each class fall short of the
ideal to which it should
conform. The simplest division of society was into three estates: those
who fight, those who
pray, and those who work. Social problems arise when the members of the
various estates fail
to perform their proper function or attempt to encroach upon the
function of one or more of the
other estates.
William and Adso appear to agree with this analysis of society to a
certain degree when they
assert that “[t]he shepherds fight with the dogs, because each covets
the rights of the other.” (p.
201). The debate over the poverty of Christ is really a debate about
the proper relationship
between the church and the state, each of which would like to exercise
both secular and
spiritual authority. As a result of this conflict, the proper order of
society is not maintained and
the flock becomes a victim of violence and heresy.
Although William finds the estates tradition to be a useful analogy for
describing the conflict
between the Pope and the Emperor, he would not accept the ultimate
premise upon which the
estates tradition rests. To fully endorse the concept of estates, one
would have to believe that
there were a divine order to the world and that each individual is
ordained a specific place in
that order by the will of God. Thus, for a laborer to seek to become a
member of another class
would be violation of the divine order. William, however, does not
believe in a divine order
and explicitly says so on page 492. For William, the concept of estates
is simply a useful
instrument that is employed only for the purpose of illustrating his
point about the conflict
between the Church and secular authorities. Once his analogy has been
made, the estates model
is to be discarded. "The only truths that are useful are instruments to
be thrown away." (p.492).
"The simple grasp a truth that is perhaps truer than
that of the doctors of the church" (p. 202): [Rebecca
Papakonstanti comments] The Wise Fool has been an important figure throughout the history of
literature. Although seemingly mad, the Fool unwittingly utters pieces of
wisdom and often crucial information. This is often the case in The Name of
the Rose. The gibberish of Salvatore leads to the solving of the Finis
Africae mystery. Adso's dream, which appears to be a series of nonsense,
turns out to be the key to solving the mystery of the manuscript. William
explains this phenomenon in a lesson to Adso. He says, "The simple have
something more than do learned doctors, who often become lost in heir search
for broad, general laws. The simple have a sense of the individual, but this
sense, in itself, is not enough. The simple grasp a truth of their own,
perhaps truer than that of the doctors of the church, but then they destroy
it in unthinking actions" (202). This seems to be a reference to Foucault,
who says in Madness and Civilization, "knowledge…loses its way in the dust
of books and in idle debate" (25). Sometimes, it takes an outsider (a Fool),
to see the truth because those who seek it often become too involved to see
the obvious.
Reference: Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization. Random House, Inc:
New York, 1965
"William of Occam, who is now in Avignon" (p. 206):
William of Occam was imprisoned by the Pope in Avignon from
1323 to 1327 or possibly as late as May 1328, when he
escaped and fled to Germany. Thus, in November 1327, the
time of The Name of the Rose, it is possible that
William of Occam was in prison in Avignon.
The next study page is
Third Day:Vespers
(pp. 210-20)