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Bigamy 137
elevated to the priesthood, since the woman did not divide her flesh into
more than one part, and he did not do so either.
So symbolism solves a concrete case. Here the image works causally.
Above all, a case like this is a symptom of how much in earnest
intellectuals such as Innocent III were about marriage symbolism.
This case will turn up again in the context of consummation.
Hostiensis and the ‘Tree of Bigamy’
Apart from its immediate practical e·ects, this decretal of Innocent
III is important for the history of ‘bigamy’ because it gave rise
to an astonishingly elaborate visual and conceptual structure in the
Golden Summa (Summa aurea) of Hostiensis, perhaps the greatest
of the medieval canon lawyers. This is the ‘Tree of Bigamy’, which
is accompanied by a lengthy textual commentary. Diagram and
commentary have been thoroughly studied by Hermann Schadt,
who perceived their interest for art history, so that they need not delay
us here, but they are a remarkable monument to legal marriage
symbolism. On the right hand side of the diagram (heraldically
speaking, or the left-hand side as one looks at it) are all the good
marriages. Most are symbolic but one is the marriage of Adam
and Eve. Hostiensis has human marriage in mind. He says it is
one of the seven sacraments of the Church and the greatest in
its signification (and he gives other reasons for the greatness and
goodness of marriage). So the literal base of the symbol is secured,
but symbolic marriages dominate diagram and commentary,
examples being the marriage of God and the Virgin Mary
and that of Peter with the Church (ibid., fo. 42RA–B). In the section
or cellula on the marriage of the Son of God with the Church
the rationale of the bigamy rule is spelt out: no one can marry the
Church unless he is similar to his spouse. We are treated to a
Schadt, ‘Die Arbores bigamiae als heilsgeschichtliche Schemata’.
‘In secunda cellula ita scribitur matrimonium Ade et Eve in paradiso contractum.
Hoc est unum de vii sacramentis ecclesie, quod est maius et dignius aliis quo
ad significationem. Cum enim omnia alia sacramenta precedat, merito aliqua [read
alia?] sequentia per ipsum habent significari non e contra. Hoc enim quod non est,
significarenonposset...Notaigiturquodhocsacramentuminmagnaveneratione
haberi debet, tum ratione autoris, qui ipsum instituit, scilicet dei’ (and so on with
other reasons) (Hostiensis/Henricus de Segusio, Summa aurea (Lyons, 1548 edn.),
fo. 41VB; I have used BL C 66 K 7). Note that the Summa is a di·erent work from
the Lectura, used extensively in the previous chapter.
‘nullus potest desponsare ecclesiam, nisi sit similis sponso suo’ (ibid., fo. 42RA);
cf. Schadt, ‘Die Arbores bigamiae als heilsgeschichtliche Schemata’, 134.