The medievals broke down their
society into three classes: laborantes,
pugnantes, et orantes — those who work, those who fight, and those who pray.
The laborantes, ‘those who work’, encompass chiefly farmers, labourers,
and artisans. Merchants, traders, and bankers presumably have to fit in here,
although I suspect that this scheme did not seriously take them into account.
Pugnantes, ‘those who fight’, are the political class, the aristocrats: kings,
dukes, lords, knights, squires. It is worth noting here one of the great
changes that has transformed politics in the modern period. In the middle ages,
the rulers of nations were primarily military men. The title rex itself, which came to mean ‘king’,
at the end of the Roman period referred to the chief of a unit of troops drawn
from the Germanic nations bordering the Empire. So the Rex Francorum was the Leader of the Frankish Battalion in the Roman
military system. In the disintegration of the Empire the reges assumed leadership of the military defence of the Roman
provinces, and so came eventually to be the rulers of these territories. The
point is that the medieval political class, and the position of greatest
worldly prestige, is primarily military; whereas in our society the political
class and positions of greatest prestige are primarily intellectual,
bureaucratic, or economic. In our day the military is a position of relatively
low prestige.
The class I want to focus on is the
orantes, ‘those who pray’. This is
the clerical class: the priests, bishops, cardinals, and the pope, as well as
the many monks, nuns, and friars. However, this class covers much more ground
than is suggested by defining them as those who pray. Certainly the medievals
may have considered prayer their most valuable and important social function.
But in fact the ‘clerks’ (from clericus,
‘clergyman’) were responsible for practically all intellectual work. Clerks
were the administrators, the teachers, the philosophers, the scientists, the
writers, the theologians, the scholars, the lawyers... This began to change
toward the end of the medieval period, especially in very wealthy, socially
mobile places like Italy—from the fourteenth century many lawyers were laymen,
and many of the great Renaissance scholars and writers were laymen. But
overwhelmingly, in the middle ages it was clerks who did the brain work.
It is interesting to consider, with
this in mind, the nature of the lay vocation. Clearly, in the middle ages, the
lay vocation primarily meant being a man of action. It centred in the use of
physical strength and the manipulation of the natural world—either through
work, or through violence. In intellectual matters the job of the layman was to
be obedient to the clerks, who could read and who were educated in the various
fields of knowledge. The vocation of the clergy was to guide and rule the rest
of society, not only in religion, but in all intellectual matters.
This is no longer the case. In
fact, the laity are now required by the circumstances of our time to take up a
vocation of intellectual leadership in most fields. The vast majority of administrators,
teachers, philosophers, scientists, writers, scholars, lawyers, even perhaps
theologians, are lay. You may not often hear me say that the Church should
adapt to the modern world—but here is a case where I will say it. Brain work is
now primarily the vocation of the laity, and it is they who must lead the
clerks in most fields.
Although this may seem obvious, and
maybe like it does not need to be stated, I think this is actually a difficult
and painful transition for the Church to make. Consider the diminution it
demands of the clerical vocation. Priests and bishops can no longer consider
themselves authorities in intellectual matters as such. Yet they still are
obliged, by their succession to the Apostolic authority, to be rulers in
religion. How does this play out in practice? It is actually difficult to see
how it would work! at least without frequent conflict and toes being stepped
on. Particularly in the Catholic Church, whose teachings and traditions are so
entwined not only with theology but with philosophy, history, and law as well
(one might add literature, science, economics, and on and on).
Hence it appears to be a constant
temptation to clerics, in the modern period, to continue their medieval role as
teachers in manifold intellectual fields. One sees this in economics: the pope,
or the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, or a group of nuns, issue
pronouncements on economic matters and expect to be held as authorities.
Actually, this is not your job anymore! You clerks must look to lay economists
and be their pupils. But that is hard to do, even for men of good will; it
requires humility, and also a good grasp of the boundaries of one’s
jurisdiction and competence—which is not always easy to know!
The Church has a long memory.
Bishops and other clerks pronouncing upon intellectual matters outside their
competence—perhaps this is the memory of the middle ages, still alive though
the world has changed.
This consideration of the medieval
period also shows that the nature of the lay vocation is not immutable. It is
not a given. Nor is the clerical vocation. They depend on the circumstances of
the time and the society in which the Church lives. So although it is true to
say that matters like economics fall to the lay vocation, it is a historically
contingent truth, and not one arrived at through the necessary nature of the
laity itself. This might change. It is conceivable that, one day, clerks could
be the ones who do most of the physical labour, and then the lay vocation would
be primarily intellectual.
And it makes you wonder: if all these
are historically contingent, then what is the real essence of the lay vocation?
