WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

mis-presentation, does not affect his “naturam” ‘nature.’ However, only Eugene argues that the
“adventu Christi” ‘the coming of Christ’ (and hence the act of representation) maintains this
exclusive representation by purifying mankind’s image and maintaining a direct representation
of God’s love.
Creator omnium wants to have its cake and eat it too. It states that autonomy is given
freely by the Creator regardless of actions, but it also implies that only Christ’s sacrifice
maintains this liberty. As such, Eugene’s Creator is not a defense of humanity’s universal
equality but an indictment of a particular type of metaphoric speech—that of dissimulation and
distortion. And it is dissimulation which Eugene blames as the cause of the slavery suffered by
the Canarians:
Nonnulli christani, quod dolenter referimus, diversis confictis coloribus et captatis occasionibus,
ad prefatas insulas, cum eorum navigiis, manu armata, incedentes, plures inibi, eciam iuxta
ipsorum simplicitatem incaute raptos, utriusque sexus homines, nonnullos iam tunc baptismatis
unda renatos et alios ex eis, sub spe ac pollicitacione quod eos vellent sacramento baptismatis
insignire, eciam quandoque fraudulenter et deceptorie securitatis fide promissa et non servata,
secum captivos eciam ad partes cismarinas duxerunt.
Some Christians (sorrowfully we repeat this), having fashioned many colors and having seized
opportunities, marching to the aforesaid islands with their ships by means of an armed band, led to
schismatic parts from there many captives of either sex, which were taken shamefully heedlessly
of their simplicity, some even then reborn by the water of baptism and others from these under the
hope and promise that the Christians wished to mark them by the sacrament of baptism, still often
having been deceptively and fraudulently promised and not preserved the faith of security. 113
The Pope “dolenter referimus” ‘sorrowfully repeats’ the actions done by the “diversis confictis
coloribus” ‘diverse fictional dissimulations’ of some Christians without distorting their deeds by
amplification or paraphrasing them by indirect reference. Eugene, after all, does not want to fall
into the same sin as these pirates who, taking the name of Christ to mean something which it was
not (namely as a metaphor for slavery and not freedom), enslaved the inhabitants of the Islands
despite giving them an oath of security.
113 Ibid. 5.121.
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