The Flower of the Commandments of God

The Floure of the Commandementes of God

1521·Early Modern English·585 pages PDF (616MB) Source

The Floure of the Commaundementes of God is an English translation of the French La fleur des commandements de Dieu, an anonymous late-medieval compilation of moral and devotional teaching organized around the Ten Commandments and illustrated with edifying exempla. The English version (traditionally ascribed to the translator Andrew Chertsey) was printed by Wynkyn de Worde; this is the 1521 edition.

Author

Anonymous

Anonymus

Readings

Of Simony, Which God Forbids

Of Symony That God Defendeth

A chapter from The Floure of the Commandementes of God, the English translation (first printed 1510, traditionally ascribed to the translator Andrew Chertsey) of the French Fleur des commandements de Dieu, giving a complete popular treatise on simony. It opens with the scholastic definition — Simonia est studiosa voluntas emendi vel vendendi spirituale vel spirituali annexum — and the three modes of simoniacal exchange (the gift of the hand, of the tongue, and of service), then surveys simony in benefices, resignations, and pensions. It turns to the great scriptural exempla: Simon Magus and Peter's rebuke, and Gehazi and the leprosy that clung to him for taking Naaman's gifts. It closes by condemning the simony of advocates who sell their pleading and of clerks who sell the gospel and the sacraments, and by commending penance and almsdeeds as the remedy for those who have sinned by simony.

Anonymous·1510·Early Modern English·The Commandments: Of Simony·fol. 78va–82rb