De causa Dei: Savile to the reader (Lectori)
Thomas Bradwardine, De causa Dei contra Pelagium (1344). English translation: Wroot Press, CC BY-NC 4.0; machine-learning use permitted with attribution (https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/rights/).
Source: Henry Savile's edition, London 1618; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/front/lectori/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

[prelims]
TO THE READER.

[prelims]
As I set out to say a few words in preface about the author, the first thing that meets me is his Name. In our old books it is written in various ways: Thomas de Bradwardina and de Bredewardina, which is the form constantly written in the Public Records. Foreigners, almost all of them, bend the name, for the sake of euphony, as I suppose, and call him Brauardinus. Gerson, in book 3 of his On the Spiritual Life, has Bragwardinus; the author of the Catalogue of Witnesses and Gesner have Branduardinus. In John Bacon (or Baconthorpe, as others prefer), on the Sentences 4, Distinction 1, Question 4, fol. 86 of the Venice edition of 1527, he is called Bradinkardin. That is the printer's shameful error, not Bacon's own. Bacon was […] [n1] Bradwardine, since both set out from the same hive, namely Merton College, and so could not have been ignorant of the correct spelling of his companion's name.

As to the place of his birth, I once thought he was born at Bradwardin, castle and village. That castle stands, as our most learned and painstaking Camden attests, on the bank of the river Wye, some miles above Hereford. But I was called back from this not improbable view by Bradwardine's own express words, book 3, chapter 22, p. 559 of this edition, where he hints, not obscurely as it seems to me, that he came from Chichester. The words are: "By a similar reasoning, whatever I now write at Oxford, my father would write at Chichester, because he begot me writing; indeed my grandfather and great-grandfather, etc." So Bale and the author of the British Antiquities seem not to have strayed far from the mark when they assert that he was born at Hartfield in the diocese of Chichester; on what authorities, or moved by what arguments, I do not know. For me, at any rate, those words of the author will carry more weight until others bring forward something more certain. Meanwhile it seems likely to me that his forebears were born at the castle or village of Bradwardin and took their surname from it, for themselves and also for descendants moving elsewhere (which is very common among our countrymen). Perhaps one of these Bradwardines, settled thus in a new home at Chichester, handed that name, already held and now hereditary, on to his son Thomas, this man of ours.

In what year he was born I would not assert for certain, since the beginnings of great men are often obscure although their ends are very well known. But since it is established that he was Proctor of the University of Oxford in 1325, I would believe him born about the year of the Lord 1290, in the middle of the reign of King Edward I.

After finishing his boyhood studies he was admitted to Merton College at Oxford in the time of Edward II, and there he was Proctor of the University, as I said. For so I found it written in the Catalogue of the Chancellors and Proctors of that same University: "A.D. 1325. William de Alburwike, Chancellor of Oxford, and Richard de Kamshall, his Commissary; Proctors William de Harington and Thomas de Bradwardina." In that University, at a more mature age, in the time, as I think, of Robert Trenge the Warden, he reached, says Bale in his first edition (which some think was copied entirely from Leland), "such growth of learning that he was appointed master of the highest faculty, and finally supreme Chancellor" (on which point may I be permitted, with the good leave of Bale and Leland, […] [n2]); "in which office," he says, "he so conducted himself that he earned great praise from all."

In this literary career he drew a solid Philosophy from the fountains of Aristotle and Plato. But his industry shone above all in the Mathematical arts and in Theology. In Mathematics he so excelled that that age perhaps produced no equal. Witness the astronomical tables, carefully drawn up, of the equations of the planets and of the conjunctions and oppositions of the luminaries, which I have by me, copied out by hand with great diligence in a fairly thick volume. Witness the little book on the proportions of velocities; another on speculative Arithmetic; another on speculative Geometry (which book Vives praises in book 4 of On Handing On the Disciplines), all printed long ago at Paris.

In Theology, however, the palm is carried off (for he wrote very many other works in every kind of discipline, if we believe Bale, which I have not treated), easily carried off, I say, by this book, which we now publish from six manuscripts against the perfidy of the Pelagians, a heresy which in every age, as experience teaches, springs up again in the Church. He composed and wove it for the most part out of his Oxford lectures (as he himself says in the proem); at the request of his fellows of Merton he polished it and brought it out into the light when he was Chancellor of London [n3].

[…] [n4] is the one I have put at the head, in almost all the manuscripts I have seen. In the book of New College, Oxford, however, the title is: "Summa of the Profound Doctor on the cause of God against the Pelagians, and on the power of causes, the power of God, cause of causes." In the Vatican Library it is much the same: "Summa of the Profound Doctor Thomas Bradwardine on the cause of God against the Pelagians, and on the power of God, cause of causes."

As soon as this book was published it was received with such applause from all the Doctors that it was copied out in almost all the libraries of Europe. Gerson, as to a well-known author, often refers to him in his books On the Spiritual Life; so does Gregory of Rimini on Sentences 2, fol. 96, col. 3, and fol. 114, cols. 2 and 3. I say nothing of Pico of Volterra and Cassander, or of the author of the Catalogue of Witnesses (who poured the whole preface of this book into his own compilation), or, among more recent writers, of Lutius, Perkins and others, although the book still lay hidden in the mould and dust of the libraries.

For we must not pass over here in silence Geoffrey Chaucer, a near contemporary of those times, prince of our poets, a man of keen judgment and not only of charming wit, who did not pass over this countryman of ours, Thomas, in silence. Chaucer was no mean master of philosophy and theology, and had, as it seems, read through these labours of the Archbishop of Canterbury, then newly issued. In his usual way, weaving jests together with serious matter, in a certain Canterbury tale he touches in passing on the arduous question of God's foreknowledge and the contingency of things. He counts Bradwardine alongside Augustine, as one of those who, in sifting this difficult controversy, "sifted the flour right down to the bran" (so familiarly and elegantly does our man put it), that is, brought up the truth sunk in the depths [n5]. Let us bring him before the public, if you please (and the old English plainness, even of style, does please), dressed in his own comic shoe.

[prelims]
But to return to our Bradwardine. The surname "Profound" was either imposed by the Pope, as stands in the ancient Merton register , or received by the common vote of the Doctors throughout the Christian world. It so prevailed in his case that Bradwardine is no less known as the Profound Doctor than Scotus as the Subtle Doctor, or Aquinas as the Angelic Doctor. [n6]

And so that the character of this book may be better known to the Reader, it will not be out of place to give a few forewarnings. First, our Thomas, being a supreme Mathematician, as appears from what precedes, did not depart from his art even in treating theological matters. He was therefore the first, so far as I know, and the only one, to attempt this way in theology: to weave the theological matter on a mathematical thread. He sets down first two hypotheses, as principles; from these he demonstrates each nearest consequence and draws corollaries, with proofs also fetched from Euclid; and then from the hypotheses and what has already been demonstrated he attaches everything else in an unbroken series to the end of the work. Hence it happens that his conclusions may perhaps seem to someone fetched from too far up. But if in the lemmas and propositions he could not always attain […] [n7] that mathematical [rigour], let the reader remember that this is not to be charged to the author but to the subject-matter he treats. For, as the Philosopher most rightly teaches, […] [n8]

There is another thing which may perhaps somewhat offend delicate ears: the citation of certain apocryphal books, or plainly […] [n9]. Such are Aristotle's Secret of Secrets, the Cow of Plato, Ovid's little book On the Old Woman, the Poemander of Hermes, and other such rubbish. But this must surely be pardoned to the great virtues of our Bradwardine and to the times themselves, since that age was the least critical of all. Add that he himself more than once calls the credibility of those books into doubt. If anyone has so much leisure from his own affairs as to examine the passages cited from the Fathers here and there and correct them from the sources, and to throw light on the passages taken from Aristotle and Plato, either by adding the Greek or by setting beside them some other, rather more tolerable translation, he will have done our Bradwardine a good and useful service and will earn great gratitude from his studious readers. But let that task be the care of those who will edit this work afresh. It is enough for me, now that my age is growing heavy [n10], that I have not begrudged to posterity Bradwardine as we found him in the written codices, and in the best faith.

Now to touch briefly on his civil and public life. He discharged the office of Proctor in the University of Oxford and (if we believe Bale) administered with great praise the dignity of supreme Chancellor there; he then professed theology at Oxford for a good many years. After that he attached himself to Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, easily the most learned man of that age and a singular patron of all learned men, who, as he himself testifies of himself in a little book published by him, entitled Philobiblon, was carried away beyond restraint by a mad love of collecting books from every quarter, as that age allowed. In his household, then, as I said, Bradwardine lived for some time, together with seven others who came almost all from the fellowship of Merton, men of the greatest talent and learning. On this matter it will be worth hearing the words of the history of Durham, most worthy of record for more than one reason. "Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, always had many clerics in his company. Among them were Thomas Bradwardine, afterwards Bishop of Canterbury; Richard Fitzralph, afterwards Archbishop of Armagh; Walter Burley, John Maudit, Robert Holcot, Richard Kilvington (also called Kilmington), all Doctors in Theology; Richard Bentworth, afterwards Bishop of London; and Walter Segrave, afterwards Bishop of Chichester. [n11] And every day at table he used to have a lecture, unless perhaps he was prevented by the arrival of great men; and every day after dinner a disputation with the clerics named above, unless a greater cause prevented."

Our Bradwardine was then made Chancellor of London (which perhaps gave Bale the occasion for his error). He was a man of such integrity and innocence that he hardly and with difficulty allowed a canonry of Lincoln to be added to this far from rich benefice. At this time he was chosen by Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, to be confessor to King Edward III, not only for his learning but much more for the sanctity of his character and life. He was the king's constant companion in the French war, which was waged with the great resources of two most powerful kings, with such great spirit, and with such great variety of events, matters inclining for the most part to the English side. In it he both tempered the king's spirits, grown fierce with victories, and checked the insolence of the soldiery, by sermons often delivered before the army with such prudence and gentleness of speech that there were not lacking among the writers of those times some who thought that Edward's famous victories should be credited rather to this man's holiness and virtues than to anyone's courage or prudence.

After Stratford's death the monks of Canterbury postulated our Thomas as Archbishop, but the postulation was in vain, since King Edward refused to let such a man leave his company. But John Offord was proclaimed and died at once; and when the Monks had postulated Bradwardine in a second election, the King assenting, and the Pope [n12] too, he was declared Archbishop with the greatest consent of all ranks, without canvassing and with no one opposing, which was rare in those days. He was consecrated at Avignon in the church of the Friars Minor. There, since he did not sufficiently know the ways of the Curia, being a man who had been busy from his early years in the Schools and in camps, he was laughed at by those spruce hangers-on of the Court, though not without [n13] the indignation of grave and modest men, so that […] [n14]

After his consecration he returned home, had his temporalities restored to him, and did fealty to the King in the usual way, as is established from the Records of 22 August in the 23rd year of Edward III, 1349. Not many weeks afterwards he died at Lambeth in the following October, the ceremonies of enthronement not yet completed: a man most worthy of a longer life, whether we look to uprightness of character or to learning, singular for that age.

NOTES

1. The keyed text has a gap here (`cum fuerit ⟨gap⟩ Bradwardino`). No page image was available to me in this pass, so the gap has not been checked against the print and I translate around it. The sense evidently requires something like "a close associate of". The same applies to every gap flagged below (note 2, note 4, note 7, note 8, note 9, note 14), and to the unmarked space at note 12; all need checking against the image.
2. Gap after bona cum Balaei et Lelandi venia. The sentence probably announces a disagreement with Bale and Leland over the Chancellorship, which Savile rejects in prelims ¶3 ("which perhaps gave Bale the occasion for his error"). The missing verb is not recovered.
3. Cancellarius Londinensis: the chancellor of St Paul's cathedral, London, not a university office.
4. Gap before est ea, quam praeposui: evidently a noun such as "the title" or "the inscription". The following sentence confirms the sense: the title is the one placed at the head of this edition. The quotation marks at the start of the lines in the keyed text are the print's marginal quotation marks.
5. Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale (Canterbury Tales, VII 3240–42): "I ne kan nat bulte it to the bren / As kan the holy doctour Augustyn, / Or Boece, or the Bishop Bradwardyn." Savile renders "bulte it to the bren" (sift the flour to the bran) as farinam usque ad furfures. The Chaucer passage was apparently printed on the following page. Socco suo indutum is a theatrical image: the soccus is the low shoe of comedy, as opposed to the tragic buskin, so "in his own comic shoe", in his own homely dress.
6. The margin note belongs to the register mentioned here. It is keyed as a variant, but it offers no alternative reading; it is a marginal testimony in the form of a quotation from the Merton register, and I have translated it as such. It does not alter the main text.
7. Gap in non semper ⟨gap⟩ illam Mathematicam. I supply "attain" and "[rigour]" from the sense only; the keyed text breaks off before the infinitive.
8. The sentence is broken off at the gap, after "the Philosopher most rightly teaches". The reference is evidently to Aristotle's doctrine that precision is not to be sought equally in every subject (Ethics I.3), and the omitted text is probably a Greek quotation (see the convention on the 34 Greek omissions). Not recovered.
9. Gap in aut plane ⟨gap⟩: something like "spurious". The pseudepigrapha named are: Secretum secretorum (pseudo-Aristotle); the Liber vaccae ("Cow of Plato"); De vetula (pseudo-Ovid); and the Hermetic Poemander.
10. Hac ingrauescente aetate: read as Savile's own advancing age ("now that my age is growing heavy"), the commonest sense of ingravescere aetate.
11. Spellings normalized to the usual English forms (Savile has Fitzraufe, Burly, Manduit, Kilwington, Seagraue). The list is quoted from the Durham history, so the titles are the history's, not Savile's. It gives "Bishop of Canterbury" for Bradwardine, although he died Archbishop-elect and consecrated.
12. Keyed Papa que , shows an unmarked space before the comma; a word (a verb of consent or approval) may have dropped out. I translate "the Pope too" for the evident sense. Unchecked against the image.
13. The keyed text reads non tamen siue stomacho. Siue cannot be construed here. The evident sense requires sine, "not without", and I translate so. If the print also has siue, it is a misprint in the 1618 edition (rule 10); to be checked against the image.
14. Gap after vt at the end of the sentence. The result clause is not recovered; presumably it described the outcome or Bradwardine's reaction to the mockery.