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72 Chapter 1
them the being that comes from God. This is a good end. So procreation
must be good. Then comes the Aristotle citation, as with
Aldobrandino.
Servasanto uses a series of other arguments from nature, notably:
nothing made by nature is superfluous, so the sexual organs
must be there to be used (properly, of course). Nature provided for
reproduction, just as for nutrition; but if nutrition is good, so is
reproduction. It is a greater thing to conserve the species than the
individual; but nutrition preserves only the individual, reproduction
the species; so the sexual act of generation is more necessary
to the universe and not sinful.
All this has a relevance to the argument about the influence of
marriage symbolism. The positive rationale for marriage in preaching
converged with the symbolic message but will also have helped
to foster social attitudes in the public which could give a secure base
for the reception of the symbolism. The less that attitudes to marriage
were coloured by religious approval, the weaker the base for
religious marriage symbolism. Marriage would be a weaker symbol
of union with God for people who thought that marriage in the
normal human sense had nothing at all to do with their religion.
Conclusion
There is every reason to think that marriage symbolism became
a powerful force in the lay world through preaching, from the
thirteenth century on. The symbol of metaphor was intrinsically
powerful, at least for many of those who had the basic religious
beliefs and some positive experience of marriage.
Why did this not happen before the thirteenth century? The
simple answer seems to be that an adequate delivery system for
bringing marriage doctrine and marriage symbolism to the laity
had not been in place. There was some popular preaching, but the
Carolingian reforms had anticipated the preaching revolution of
the thirteenth century on a relatively minute scale. The total volume
of preaching material was very small in comparison with that
of the last three medieval centuries. In any case a high proportion
of ordinary priests were not well equipped educationally to make
e·ective use of Latin homiliaries or sermons even if they had them.
Furthermore, marriage symbolism seems to have played a relatively
insignificant role in what preaching there was. Though the verdict
Servasanto da Faenza: Document 1. 11. 5.