Oculus Sacerdotis

Oculus Sacerdotis
Author(s)	William of Pagula
Country	Kingdom of England
Language	Latin
Subject(s)	theology, canon law
Publication date	between 1320 and 1326

The Oculus Sacerdotis was a 14th-century book by William of Pagula. Divided into three volumes written between 1320 and 1326, the book sought to be a comprehensive manual for parish priests, and covered the confessional, sacramental theology and preaching. Described as "deep, all-encompassing and quite encyclopaedic",^[1] sections of the book were in use up to the late Middle Ages, and approximately fifty copies are known still to exist in various libraries.

Contents and impact

The title Oculus Sacerdotis translates as "priest's eye",^[2] and refers to a theory put about in the book Oculus Moralis by Petrus Lacepiera that the different eyes on a human saw and represented different things - the right eye was the eye of morals and actions, the left of knowledge.^[3] The idea of a "priest's eye", therefore, is that the book should show the things that a priest needed to know. The titles of the three volumes were linked to this - the pars oculi dealing with the confessional, the dextera pars oculi, a manual of practical preaching and the sinistra pars oculi, a set of theological questions and answers.^[2] The volumes were written in reverse order, with sinistra pars oculi appearing first in 1320 and the pars oculi appearing in around 1326.^[2]

The book was initially considered to be repetitive and badly ordered,^[4] but more modern research has suggested that the books were meant to be repetitive, with each volume dealing with the same problem in a slightly different way.^[2] The dextera pars oculi was used as a handbook until the 16th century,^[5] and the entire book was republished in 1384 by John de Burgh as the pupilla oculi (pupil of the eye).^[2] The book is considered to have influenced almost all similar texts written within the next sixty years, but its lengthy prose meant that many of the parish priests it was meant to have helped could not actually read it.^[6] At least fifty copies are still known to exist in various libraries, despite the age of the book.^[5]

References

1. ^ Rubin (1992) p.89
2. ^ ^{a b c d e} Baker (1989) p.10
3. ^ Boyle (1955) p.83
4. ^ Boyle (1955) p.84
5. ^ ^{a b} Rubin (1992) p.90
6. ^ Hughes (1988) p.147

Bibliography

• Baker, John (1989). "Famous English canon lawyers - Part 2: William Poul (or Paull) D.Cn.L. (1332) Vicar of Winkfield, Berkshire". Ecclesiastical Law Journal (Ecclesiastical Law Society) 1 (4). ISSN 0956-618X. 
• Boyle, L. E. (1955). "The "Oculus Sacerdotis" and Some Other Works of William of Pagula". Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (Royal Historical Society) 5. ISSN 0960-1163. 
• Hughes, Jonathan (1988). Pastors and visionaries: religion and secular life in late medieval Yorkshire. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 0851154964. 
• Rubin, Miri (1992). Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521438055.