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138 Chapter 3
dialogue between a bishop and a layman who wants to take holy
orders:
bishop: Do you want to marry the Church, that is, do you want to take
holy orders?
layman: Ido.
bishop: Are you a ‘bigamist’, that is, have you married two wives in
succession?
layman: Ihave.
The bishop’s decision: ‘You have to be rejected—even if you had married
one wife who was not a virgin. For God the spouse of the Church had only
one human partner, who was a virgin, nor did he divide the word made
flesh into pieces’.
On the opposite side of the diagram are evil unions, described
as bonds, vincula, rather than matrimonia. They include the bond
between hell and the Devil, man and sin, heresies and the Devil,
etc. In these bonds there is no unity, but everything is division and
schism. They are associated with bigamy, which denotes division,
whereas the order of priesthood signifies unity: so the two cannot
come together in the same person. Hostiensis uses strong words,
though he makes it clear that he is not talking about the ethics of
‘bigamy’ but rather of its signification. Morals and symbolism are
distinct registers. Successive ‘bigamy’ is morally unimpeachable
and the problem is in the symbolic register.
In intellectual and cultural histories of the Middle Ages marriage
symbolism goes with mysticism and monastic theology rather
than with canon law (though the marriage symbolism of the episco-
‘dicere potest episcopus: “Vis desponsare ecclesiam?”, id est, “Vis ad ordines
promoveri?”. Responsio laici: “Volo”. Interrogatio episcopi: “Es tu bigamus?”, id
est, “Duxisti duas uxores successive?”. Responsio laici: “Duxi”. Determinatio episcopi:
“Repellendus es—etiam si unicam et corruptam uxorem carnalem duxisses.
Nam deus sponsus ecclesie non habuit, nisi unicam humanam, et virginem, nec
divisit verbum incarnatum in plures”’ (Hostiensis/Henricus de Segusio, Summa
aurea, fo.42RA).
‘In omnibus his vinculis vel ipsorum aliquo nulla unitas est, nulla firmitas,
nulla integritas: sed totum divisio, totum schisma, totum falsitas, totum corruptio,
et hoc per bigamiam representatur sive per bigamum qui divisus fuit sive corruptus
in matrimonio, sicut precedentes in vinculis infernalibus, sive diabolicis; sicut ergo
deus et diabolus in eundem subiectum simul, et semel, et eodem modo cadere non
possunt, quia nemo potest servire deo et mammone, sic bigamia, que divisionem
denotat, et ordo sacer, qui unitatem designat, in eundum subiectum simul et semel
congrue cadere non possunt’ (ibid., fo. 42VB).
‘Ergo bigami in vinea [read linea?] ista cadunt et per ipsam presentantur: non
quo ad vite meritum, sed quo ad ordinationis signaculum’ (ibid.).