Ford, Jack; (2025) Perception and Affectivity in Twelfth-Century Cistercian and Victorine De anima Treatises. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis offers the first systematic examination of the theories of perception and affectivity in treatises De anima (‘On the Soul’) written by individuals of two pan-European reforming religious communities in the twelfth century: the monks of the Cistercian Order and the canons regular of the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Paris. Affectivity, emotional states directed at God, human beings and objects, was a key doctrine among Cistercian and Victorine theologians. For both groups, the emotions were essential to the human activities of loving/willing and thinking. Libri de anima explain the structure of the soul and the body; in these texts perceptions from the bodily senses (sensus) are inextricably connected to the will’s powers of affectivity (affectus) and the intellect’s capacity of understanding (intellectus). They are an underexplored source for understanding the wider anthropological visions of love constructed by these two religious groups because the cultivation of monastic/canonical discipline and virtue is conceived by these treatises as the ordered relationship between body and soul. These psychological texts were significant to these communities, I argue, since they were not simply theoretical but complemented daily practices of cultivating friendships, meditation, and contemplating God. In making this argument, this thesis first contextualises the De anima genre and psychological treatises. Part one ‘Between Theory and Practice: Ordering Reason and Love in Cistercian and Victorine Experience’, intervenes into a historical debate that has considered the Cistercians and Victorines as proponents of radically different Christian worldviews or ‘anthropologies’. Cistercian and Victorine authors, I claim, saw affectivity (affectus) and understanding (intellectus) as two complementary powers of the soul required for acquiring lasting habits of virtue necessary for the love and contemplation of God. I argue this first by outlining the psychological schemas in De anima treatises and spiritual writings produced by these groups, and then showing how understandings of this psychology was not purely a theoretical exercise but was explicitly designed for practical application – to aid Cistercian and Victorine monks and canons in developing virtuous ways of thinking, feeling and acting in their communities and in society. Part 2, ‘Image and Likeness’, develops the argument of part 1 by offering a further analysis of how Cistercian and Victorine psychological writing explore the theological consequences of the soul’s creation in the image and likeness of God. This fundamental doctrine of Christian doctrine initially appears unimportant, yet in chapter 4 I argue that Cistercian and Victorine authors, especially, drew on this passage in Genesis to understand the soul’s powers of intellectus and affectus. These two capacities are understood as made to the image and likeness of God, and subsequently became corrupted following original sin. Cistercian and Victorine image and likeness theology, I argue, was a key part of the anthropological views of both groups, and is significant because it helped to crystallise the importance of cultivating both thinking and feeling in Cistercian and Victorine practices. Chapter 5 then extends this shared conceptions of the soul as made in the image and likeness to explore how the soul undergoes spiritual change during experiences of perception, emotion and cognition. With their focus on how the senses and imagination mediate the processes of body and soul, De anima treatises reveal the permeability of man’s outer and inner self. In the process both groups, I suggest, utilise understandings of physical sense perception as a form of assimilation as a model for their understandings of spiritual perception. This analogy enables Cistercian and Victorine authors to depict the act of the divine union as the soul changed into the image and likeness of God through its affectivity and intellect. Part 3 of this thesis is entitled ‘Affectivity, Self-Knowledge and Practice’. Chapter 6 provides a much-needed investigation of the reception of the phrase ‘know yourself’ within Cistercian and Victorine spiritual literature aimed at promoting self-examination. For both Cistercians and Victorines, this involves fostering a dialogue between the soul and the ‘self’, as it did for Augustine, as well as cultivating the affective response of humility in reaction to original sin and God’s grace for mankind. Chapter 7, however, explores the different usages of this theme within De anima treatises themselves. I suggest that each community placed their own distinctive spin on communicating this theme. For the Cistercians, self-knowledge is tied up with symbolism derived from the cosmos and the Song of Songs. Victorine self-knowledge is more philosophical in nature, with self love considered to be the corresponding action to the canonical mission to love thy neighbour. I conclude by arguing that, in some cases, De anima treatises and spiritual writings on psychology should not be considered solely as individual texts but rather as a part of a wider corpus of writings that indicated a programme of spiritual reform. In this programme, the knowledge of the soul offered by a De anima treatise often constituted the first step of the individual’s ethical and spiritual conversion.

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