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NOTES AND STUDIES

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ROBERT GROSSETESTE AND

TRANSUBSTANTIATION
IN a recent issue of this journal (N.S. 27 [1976], pp. 381-90), Kevin
M. Purday published a short text from Trinity College, Cambridge,
MS. B. 15. 20, cols. 519-20, which bears the inscription, 'Diffinicio
Eucaristie secundum sanctum Robertum episcopum Lincolniensem'.
He accepted this attribution as genuine, and concluded from his examination of the text of some eighty-six lines that Robert Grosseteste,
bishop of Lincoln 1235-53, w a s o u t f s t e P w i t n t n e theory of Transubstantiation which lately had been given official currency by the
Fourth Lateran Council in November 1215 when, in a definition of the
belief of the church, it noted (c. 1) that the body and blood of Christ were
truly contained in the Eucharist 'sub speciebus panis et vini,... transsubstantiatis pane in corpus et vino in sanguinem potestate divina . ..'.
The point of this note is to suggest that Mr. Purday may have entered
treacherous waters without an adequate lifebelt. First of all, the transcription of the ninety-six short lines is far from impeccable. Some of
the mistakes are negligible, e.g. 'quidam non comedunt ova videlicet
fratres' for 'quidam non comedunt ova sexta feria' (col. 520. 11-12),
but I cannot but draw attention here to one substantial error at 520. 4,
where 'Item queritur quando mutatur sine substantia panis ille in
corpus' should read 'Item queritur quando mutatur sive substantiatur
panis ille in corpus'. ('Again it is asked whenprobably for 'quomodo*
or 'how'that bread is changed or turned substantially into the body
of Christ'.)
The correct reading 'mutatur sive substantiatur' is a far cry from
'mutatur sine substantia'. The latter, of course, suggests that the author
('Grosseteste') is saying that the bread is changed but not in substance,
while the former shows that the change he has in mind is a substantial
change ('substantiatur'). Hence it is understandable that in 520. 6 and
520. 20 he uses the terms 'substantial or sacramental change'.
Mr. Purday, luckily, did not base his conclusion that Grosseteste
was not an adherent of Transubstantiation on his defective line 520. 4
above. Instead, he relied on 520. 20-2, where the author writes, 'Substantialis sive sacramentalis (mutatio) est miraculosa qui fit in corpore
Christi in substantia panis non mutata'. Naturally, the words 'substantialis sive sacramentalis' here and earlier in 520. 6 give Mr. Purday
some trouble, but he counters it by saying that 'Grosseteste' indeed
'identifies sacramental with substantial change, but then goes on to say
that the change takes place without affecting the substance of the
bread' (p. 386).

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Surely there is something wrong here tooand this is my second

point. Above in the corrected line 520. 4 the author said that the bread
was changed or turned substantially into the body of Christ. Yet here
he says the opposite. Of course, if 'substantialis' in line 20 means
anything, then at least the substance of the body of Christ must be in
the bread. But what of the substance of the bread ?
Everything would be simple enough if 'qui fit in corpore Christi in
substantia panis non mutata' were to read 'in specie panis non mutata'.
This at least would be consistent with what has gone before, e.g. in
519. 14-15, 'Panis enim dicitur quia panis est in apparencia, hoc est
extra', or in 519. 37-8, 'forma panis quod apparet exterius'. It also
happens to be consistent with what comes immediately afterwards. For
the author goes on at once after the sentence 'Substantialis sive sacramentalis . . .' (520. 20-2) to state (520. 22-3), 'Super hoc multiplex est
oppinio. Quidam dicunt quod substantia panis mutatur'. He already
has said that the body is in the bread and that the species is unchanged,
so naturally he asks what has happened to the substance of the bread.
His answer is that some say that the substance of the bread is changed,
but that the body of Christ hides there (in the outward 'shell' of bread)
like ointment in a vase. For just as the vase is seen and the ointment not,
so the bread is seen but the body of Christ is not (which is exactly what
he had said near the beginning at 519. 14-15). Mr. Purday takes the
statement about the vase as being 'Grosseteste's' and as in opposition
to the substantial change favoured by the 'Quidam'. But in fact it is
simply a continuation of 'Some say that the substance of the bread is
changed'. If proof were needed that the similitude of the vase is an
illustration of what is meant by substantial change, then one has only
to look at the next lines (520. 24-5), where the author writes, 'Vas enim
videtur, unguentum non. Ita panis videtur, corpus Christi non', and
then goes on (520. 25-6) to note that 'all that remains of the bread is
taste, smell and form''Notandum quod de pane remanet sapor odor
et forma'. So the substance has gone, and only the accidents of the
bread remain, which is precisely why a little later (520. 34-5) the author
cites the verse 'Panis mutatur specie remanente priore'.
In other words, whoever the author is of the text printed by Mr.
Purday, he is a straight adherent of the theory of substantial change at
the consecration. Of course, if one takes lines 520. 20-2 on their own,
as Mr. Purday takes them, then the case argued by Mr. Purday would
be plausible. But if one takes these lines, as in all scholarship one
should, in the context of the whole eighty-six lines of text, then one
is forced to the conclusion that there may be scribal errors in lines
which clearly are at variance with the rest of the text and with its

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NOTES AND STUDIES

Ad presbiterum autem pertinet sacramentum corporis et sanguinis domini

conficere, oraciones dicere et benedicere dona dei. Huius ordinis dignitas
inenarrabili prefulget preeminencia. In verbis enim sacerdotis quibus
conficitur sacramentum corporis et sanguinis Christi est virtus verborum
que Christus protulit in cena quorum virtute panem et vinum in suum
corpus et sanguinem transsubstanciavit. Nee videtur mihi hec virtus
verborum minor ea verbi virtute qua mundus ex nichilo factus est. Licet
1
Councils and Synods II, A.D. 1205-1313, ed. F. M. Powicke and C. R.
Cheney (Oxford, 1964), pp. 77-78 (Poore), 371 (Bingham), 143 (anon), e.g.
Bingham: 'Quoniam celestis hostia viva et ipse scilicet unigenitus dei films
offertur pro nobis mambus sacerdotis in altari sub speciebus panis et vini,
transsubstantiatis pane in corpus et vino in sanguinem potestate divina ministerio sacerdotis. . . .'

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unabashed espousal of the theory of Transubstantiation. The presence

of 'qui' for an obvious 'que' is surely a warning that all is not well with
lines 520. 20-2. May it not be, then, that 'in substantia panis non
mutata' should read 'in specie panis non mutata', and that 'spe' (specie)
was misread as 'sba' (substantia)? Unless one wishes like Mr. Purday
to turn a blind eye to the general burden of the text, some reading such
as this is demanded.
It does not really matter whether the text printed by Mr. Purday is
a genuine work of Robert Grosseteste or not (and I am inclined to
think that it is not, because of its scrappy character). What matters
here is that it is not at all what Mr. Purday claims it to be: an indication
that 'English theology, dominated by the more Augustinian outlook
first of Oxford and then of Cambridge as well, remained outside the
mainstream of Aristotelianism and retained a more eclectic approach'
to the Eucharist than continental theology which, under 'the Aristotelian
influence of Paris University', held for Transubstantiation as 'the only
orthodox method of describing the Eucharistic change' (p. 386).
Leaving aside a version of the history of Aristotelianism in England
which is wholly dependent upon Mr. Purday's understanding of the
'Grosseteste' text which he prints, I may say that there is no evidence
of any reluctance in England to accept Transubstantiation as it was
formulated by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The synodal
statutes of bishops such as Richard Poore (1217X1219) and Robert
Bingham (1238 X 1244) of Salisbury, or those of an anonymous bishop
in 1222X 1225, make no bones about repeating the well-known phrase
on Transubstantiation from 4 Lateran, 'transsubstantiatis pane in corpus
et vino in sanguinem potestate divina'.1 Nor, for that matter, does their
contemporary, Robert Grosseteste. In plain contradiction of all that Mr.
Purday ascribes to him and to 'English theology', the bishop of Lincoln
said in a sermon on the various grades of clerics:

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515

enim maius videatur de nichilo aliquid facere quam unum in aliud vertere
vel transsubstanciare, id tamen in quod in hoc sacramento transsubstanciantur panis et [MS. in] vinum, id est corpus et sanguis Christi, plus
excedit propter inseparabilem unicionem divinitati verbi universitatem
pure creature quam universitas creature pure superet nichilum.1
LEONARD E. BOYLE

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