1. Gluttony and drunkenness in the early modern period: The humanists’ approach

2. Be sure, our father Adam and his wife
For that same sin were driven from Paradise
To labour and to woe. While Adam fasted
He was in Paradise, as I have read;
But when he ate of the forbidden fruit
Upon the tree, he was at once cast out
Into the world of trouble, pain and sadness.
We’ve cause to cry out against Gluttony!
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner’s Tale

3. Master E. S., Fantastic Alphabet : N (“Gluttony”)
c. 1465

4. Hieronymus
Bosch
Allegory of Gluttony
and Lust
(1490/1500)

5. Pieter Breughel the Elder
Gula
(c. 1556/7)

6. In Flanders there was once a company
Of youngsters wedded to such sin and folly
As gaming, dicing, brothels, and taverns,
Where, night and day, with harps, lutes, and citherns,
They spend their time in dicing and in dancing,
Eating and drinking more than they can carry;
And with these abominable excesses
They offer up the vilest sacrifices
To the devil in these temples of the devil.
…
Who are in fact the devil’s officers,
Who light and blow the fire of lechery,
Which is so close conjoined with gluttony.
I take Holy Writ to be my witness,
Lechery springs from wine and drunkenness.
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner’s Tale
When the belly is full to bursting with food and drink,
debauchery knocks at the door.
Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ

7. Gluttony: I am Gluttony. My parents are all dead,
and the devil a penny they have left me but a bare
pension, and that is thirty meals a day, and ten
bevers – a small trifle to suffice nature. O, I come of a
royal parentage. My grandfather was a gammon of
bacon, my grandmother a hogshead of claret wine.
My godfathers were these: Peter Pickle-herring and
Martin Martlemas-beef. O, but my godmother, she
was a jolly gentle-woman, and well beloved in every
good town and city; her name was Mistress Margery
March-beer. Now, Faustus, thou hast heard all my
progeny, wilt thou bid me to supper?
Faustus: No, I’ll see thee hanged. Thou wilt eat up
all my victuals.
Gluttony: Then the devil choke thee!
Faustus: Choke thyself, glutton!
Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (A-text), 2.3

8. Humanism/Humanist
• “studia humanitatis”
– 14th C: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, ethics, history
• “humanista”
– 15th C: a teacher of the “studia humanitatis”
– 16th C: a student of classical learning
• Peter Burke, in Goodman – MacKay (1990)
– Humanism = the movement to recover, interpret and assimilate the
language, literature, learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome
– Humanist = someone actively involved in this movement, whether as a
professional teacher, churchman, royal councillor, or whatever

9. “ad fontes”
return to ancient Greek and Roman sources
⇒ recovery, interpretation and imitation of ancient Greek and Roman literature and
thought
⇒ as a philological enterprise:
- restoration of classical Latin
- revival of Greek and Hebrew
- “classical scholarship”, including the archaeological study of the physical remains of
antiquity
- innovations in the fields of grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history and ethics
⇒ as an intellectual and cultural movement:
- influence on Protestant and Catholic reformations
- major force in fine arts
- influence on popular culture and vernacular literature

10. Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374)
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
Thomas More (1478-1535)
Desiderius Erasmus (1469?-1536)
1400 1500 1600
Justus Lipsius (1547-1606)
Petrus Nannius (1500-1557) Erycius Puteanus (1574-1646)

11. Laetatur de reditu Francisci Aelii He rejoices at the Return of Franciscus Aelius
... ...
Quid non pro reduci libens amico Now what would I not spend at the return
persolvam? Puer, i, voca sodales Of such a friend? Boy, go bid the comrades,
Albinum Elisiumque Compatremque Elisius, Albinus and Compater
et dulcem Altilium, bonum Marullum: And sweet Altilius and good Marullus
ad coenam veniant, bibamus uncti, To come to dinner. Perfumed we shall drink,
uncti, permadidi atque lippientes. Perfumed, soaked through and bleary-eyed.
... ...
Me tot pocula totque totque totque, I want cup upon cup upon cup,
tot me pocula iuverint bibentem, So many goblets for myself imbibing,
tot carchesia laverint madentem, So many beakers moistening me
quotquot di simul et deae biberunt As all the gods and godesses drank together
ad mensam Oceani patris vocati, Called to the feast of father Oceanus,
aut quot, dum illa canit, senex Homerus Or as many as, singing the while, old Homer
siccavit calices, relevit obbas. Chalices drank dry and flagons drained.
Dulce est ob reducem madere amicum. When a friend comes home it's sweet to get
good and soused.
Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, Baiae, I.10

12. Charles de Bovelles, Liber de sapiente ([Parisiis] : [ex officina Henrici Stephani], [1510])

13. To begin a meal with drinking is
the hallmark of a drunkard who
drinks not from need but from
habit. Such a practice is not only
morally degrading but also
injurious to bodily health. ...
Otherwise the wages of addiction
to undiluted wine are decaying
teeth, bloated cheeks, impaired
eyesight, mental dulness – in short,
premature old age. ...
When someone boorishly presses
you to drink, promise to reply
when you have grown up.
Erasmus, De civilitate

14. Antoon
Claessens
Banquet
(1574)

15. Petrus Nannius
(Alkmaar, 1500 – Louvain, 1557)

16. Collegium Trilingue
“In the history of intellectual and
cultural development, very few
institutes have played as glorious a
part and have exercised as
beneficient an influence as the
Collegium Trilingue of Louvain
University.”
Henry De Vocht, History of the Foundation and the Rise
of the Collegium Trilingue Lovaniense 1517-1550, I, p. 1

17. Quintus est (quem fere silentio
praeterieram) Latinius Misoparthenus, et
ipse quoque insignis eruditionis, et vividi
ingenii; quod ipsum ne ad legittimos
fructus ematurescat, convivia et
perpotationes cum amatoribus faciunt …
The fifth one (whom I almost forgot to
mention) was Latinius Misogyn. He also
possessed noteworthy erudition, and a
lively mind; but this did not bring him any
proper fruits since he joined the banquets
and binge-drinking of the lovers ...
Petrus Nannius,
Paralipomena Vergilii & De rebus inferorum

18. Hae sedes vacuae, ubi tantam incolarum
solitudinem vides, Ludivaniensibus
scholasticis deputatae sunt, qui aut ocio aut
amoribus, aut aliis nequitiis tempus perdunt,
ingenia situ obducunt. Fac igitur, inquit, ut eis
ista vel publice renuncies, ne veniant in hunc
locum poenarum; ac puto me iam implevisse
fidem.
You see these empty spaces, where there
is so much room for inhabitants, which
are reserved for the students of Louvain
who waste their time with doing nothing
and making love and other evil ways, and
cover their talents with idleness. Make
sure, he [i.e. Virgil] said, that you warn
them of these things publicly, so that
they do not come to this place of
punishment; and I will feel that I have
done my task.
Petrus Nannius, Paralipomena Vergilii & De
rebus inferorum

19. Video cementarios, lapicidas, segmentarios, quaternatores complures,
quibus negocium datum fuit, ut lapides polirent, et ad normam
quadrarent; sed, me miserum, illi saepe dum lapides caedunt se ipsi
atrocissime vulnerabant, idque tanta insania, ut tunc manum, nunc
aures, nunc pedes atque adeo ipsa capita detruncarent. … Quaerenti
mihi quinam illi vesani et excordes essent, responsum est grassatores
nocturnos esse, apud inferos dictos nycticoraces, qui ob publicam
matulam, publicum scortum ad perniciem mutuam non raro
depugnant.
I saw several masons, stone cutters, cleavers and
splitters, whose job it was to polish the stones and
reduce them to the correct size. But, oh how terrible!,
they frequently hurt themselves tremendously while
they are chopping the stones, and with such insanity
that they cut off now a hand, then their ears, then their
feet, or even their heads. ... I asked who those insane
and heartless people were, and was answered that
they were prowlers of the night, who are called
"nightravens" in the underworld because they
frequently fight, to their mutual destruction, for a
public pot, a public harlot.
Petrus Nannius, Paralipomena Vergilii & De rebus inferorum

20. Justus Lipsius
(Overijse, 1547 – Louvain, 1606)

21. Itane de potioribus et edonibus scire avetis? Et
decore hoc poscitis? Ita, quia in schola etiam
disserui in occasione, ut dicitis, et velletis
rariora ista exempla in promptu habere, non ad
imitandum, sed narrandum. Addam ego et
detestandum, nam sic oportet.
You desire to know about drinkers
and eaters? And you demand this
fittingly? That's true, because I have
talked about this on occasion in
school, as you say, and you now want
to have some more rare examples at
your disposal, not to imitate them,
but to discuss them. I would also add:
to loathe them, because that is the
proper thing to do.
Justus Lipsius, Epistolarum selectarum centuria
miscellanea III , epist. 51

22. Sed qui plurimum hausit (ait Plutarchus*) Promachus
quidam fuit, qui ad congios quattuor venit. ... Quod
autem praemium? Talentum. Quod etiam? Mors, quae
homini post triduum advenit, itemque aliis quadraginta
et uni qui miselli super vires certarant.
*Plutarch, Alexander, 70. Also in Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 10,
437b.
Plutarch says that a certain Promachus,
who managed four pitchers of three liters,
drank the most of all. … What was his prize?
A talent. What else? Death, which came to
him after three days, as well as to forty-one
others who, wretched creatures, had
competed beyond their powers.
Justus Lipsius, Epistolarum selectarum centuria
miscellanea III , epist. 51

23. Quid Clodius Albinus Imperator? Is, Capitolino scribente*, tantum pomorum hausit quantum ratio
humana non patitur. Nam et quingentas ficus passarias, quas Graeci callistruthias vocant, ieiunum
comedisse. Cordus dicit et centum Persica campana et melones Ostienses decem, et uvarum
Lavicanarum pondo viginti, et ficedulas centum, et ostrea quadringenta. Hem, hem! Dii talem terris
avertite pestem.** Certe a nostris hortis, quos ille cum toto foro olitorio depascatur et vastet.
* Scriptores Historiae Augustae [Capitolinus], Clodius Albinus, 11, 2-3.
** Vergilius, Aeneid, 3, 620.
What about emperor Clodius Albinus? According to Capitolinus, he ate so
much fruit that it is impossible to comprehend. For he, when he was hungry,
also ate five hundred dried raisin-wine figs, which the Greeks call
"callistruthiae". Cordus says that he also ate one hundred peaches from
Campania and ten Ostian melons, and twenty pounds of grapes from Labici
and one hundred fig-peckers, and four hundred oysters. Well, well! May the
gods remove such a pest from the earth. And certainly from our gardens
because he consumes and destroys an entire grocery store.
Justus Lipsius, Epistolarum selectarum centuria miscellanea III , epist. 51

24. Erycius Puteanus
(Venlo, 1574 – Louvain, 1646)

25. 19 March 1608: Erycius Puteanus to Maximilianus Plouverius
(KBR ms. 6523, f° 9)
Sed de libello porro quid fiet? Recudere velim, priusquam alibi fiat,
recensere et reformare, nequid vel oblique trahere ad se
Antverpienses possint. … Sed o facinus! In curia Antverpiensi (ita
audio, nec incerto rumore) exemplaria quaedam exusta sunt; et
hoc defuit tantum, quod in auctorem pari furore non saevierint. …
Non eo animo scripsisse me, ut Patriam, aut Antverpiam laederem,
sed ut vitia dumtaxat accusarem.
But what should be done about the booklet? I would like to reprint
it, before it happens elsewhere, I would like to review it and change
it, so that there is nothing left that the citizens of Antwerp can
misunderstand as an attack against them … But what a crime! I
hear, and it is not an untrustworthy rumour, that some copies have
been burned in the Antwerp assembly and they are only a small
step away from directing a similar fury against the author … I did
not write this with the intention to offend my country or Antwerp,
but simply to reproach vices.

26. 16 March 1608: Erycius Puteanus to Nicolaus Damantius, Chancellor of Brabant
(Ep. Att. missus secundi I, lviii):
De luxu scripsi, et hoc primum velut crimen notatur; deinde edidi, et hoc
secundum. … Mens mea fuit, communia aut plebeia paucorum vitia
reprehendere, sobrietatem modestiamque inculcare; et in hanc metam tota
illa Epistola directa. Hem! Crimen erit, pro virtute loqui? … O bone Deus, quo
seculo vivimus, quo scribimus! Itane odium vitiorum profiteri non licebit?
Quid reliquum est, nisi ut sacra quoque pulpita sileant, ut scholae claudantur,
ut sapientia exulet?
I have written about sumptuousness; and that is considered to be my first
crime; afterwards I have published, and that would be my second crime. It
was my intention to reproach the common and plebeian vices of a few and to
stress sobriety and moderation; and that was the purpose of that famous
Epistola. Alas! Will it be a crime to speak about virtue? … Good God, what
world is this in which we live and write? Will it not be allowed to show disgust
of vices? What is left then, but to silence the preachers, to close the schools, to
ban wisdom?

27. 1 July 1608: Erycius Puteanus to Cornelius
Marcanus
(ep. Att. prom. III, lvii):
Mihi de luxu loqui, infaustum paene fuit. Sic
vivitur. Comum sive Phagesiposia nunc edo.
Somnium est, et per ludum saltem audeo
Philosophari. Quia in orbe nostro non licet, apud
Cimmerios, id est, apud eos qui nusquam sunt,
luxum convivalem persequor.
It proved almost unfortunate for me to speak
about sumptuousness. But that is life. Now I
publish the Comus sive Phagesiposia. It is a
dream, and at least I dare to philosophize with a
jest. Because it is forbidden to do this in our
world, I pursue the sumptuousness of banquets
with the Cimmerians, that is, with people who
don't exist.