Historical Context
In the twelfth century, the papacy became interested in controlling vernacular expressions of religion, in particular cults of saints that were non-canonised under their approval (Hamilton 1986, 126). Members of the Dominican Order were licensed as inquisitors to crack down on heresies in an attempt to regularise worship and centralize papal authority (Lawrence 2015, 224-40). Etienne de Bourbon was one of these inquisitors (Berlioz 2005).
He was born in Belleville-sur-Saône in Beaujolais in the late 12th century and studied in Paris where he joined the Dominican convent of Lyon in 1236. In c.1250 he would retire to Lyon and begin to write the Tractatus, drawing on his personal experiences as an inquisitor as well as experiences from fellow clergy and laity, and anecdotes from authorities such as saints’ vitae and histories (Berlioz 2005). This work would be “one of the earliest compilations of edifying anecdotes… based on real life instances” which would be used to help preachers create sermons (Schmitt 2009, 2; Rist 2018, 205). Etienne in particular was concerned with “heretical depravity” and “offensive superstitions,” befitting his occupation as an inquisitor (Rist 2018, 206).
As Rebecca Rist asserts, Etienne’s reason for writing the Tractatus and, in turn, the Liber Pantheon, was to create a “fear of eternal damnation” in readers, to show the path to salvation, and to avoid vices. Clearly, Etienne wanted to uphold the papacy’s initiative at this time (Rist 2018, 205).
Exempla collections were a pivotal part of the papacy’s crackdown on superstition as they helped give a sense of standardisation on what did and did not count as heresy. Oftentimes, these types of texts were the first place preachers would look for help in their sermons (Rist 2018, 192-4). As Sarah Lamm asserts, the Tractatus “is one of the largest preaching aids known” and was highly popular (Lamm 2009, 303). The Tractatus was a source for many other religious manuscripts in the following centuries such as the Liber de dono timor is, another exempla collection compiled by Humbert de Romans who was Etienne’s prior (Winkler 2005, 233). Etienne’s work was so highly valued that in the fourteenth century, fellow inquisitor Bernard Gui used much of Tractatus in his own manual for inquisitors (Lamm 2009, 304). Recently, a fragment was found in Copenhagen of a potential Danish translation of the Tractatus, showing just how large a range and influence Etienne’s work had (Adams 2019, 6-20).