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LEIBNIZ
LEIBNIZ
Protestant Theologian

Irena Backus

1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Backus, Irena Dorota, 1950–
Leibniz : protestant theologian / Irena Backus.
pages cm
ISBN 978–0–19–989184–9 (hardback)—ISBN 978–0–19–989185–6 (ebook)
1. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716. 2. Religion and
philosophy. 3. Theology—History—17th century. 4. Theology—History—
18th century. I. Title.
B2598.B28 2014
193—dc23
2014001191

987654321
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
CONTENTS

Abbreviations vii

Introduction 1

PA RT I : Eucharist and Substance

1. Transubstantiation and the Problem of Real Presence 9

2. Negotiations with the Reformed and the Problem of Real Presence 29

PA RT I I : Predestination and Necessity

3. Predestination 57
4. Necessity 96
5. Leibniz and Augustine 126

PA RT I I I : Leibniz, the Historian of the Sacred

6. Leibniz’s Concept of Historia Sacra 155

7. History, Apocalyptic Prophecy, Early Heresies: Leibniz,
Newton, Grotius 179
Concluding Remarks 205

Appendix 213
Notes 237
Bibliography 299
Index 311
A B B R E V I AT I O N S

A G. W. Leibniz, Sämtliche, Schriften und Briefe (Series I: cor-

respondence; Series II: philosophical correspondence; Series
III: mathematical and scientific writings; Series IV: political
writings; Series V: historical and linguistic writings; Series
VI: philosophical writings; Series VII: mathematical writ-
ings; Series VIII: medical and technological writings), ed.
Berlin-Brandenburgische and Göttingen Akademie der
Wissenschaften (Darmstadt and Berlin: Akademie Verlag,
1923–continuing).
AT René Descartes, Oeuvres, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery,
12 vols. (Paris: Cerf, 1897–1913).
BJHP British Journal of the History of Philosophy (1984–continuing).
CA Confessio Augustana (The Augsburg Confession). Reliable
English text on http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Augsburg-
Confessionx5984.html (accessed November 27, 2013).
CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, 99 vols.
(1886–continuing).
CSM René Descartes, Philosophical Writings of Descartes, ed.
J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch, 2 vols.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984–1985).
Gerhardt G. W. Leibniz, Philosophische Schriften, ed. C. I. Gerhardt,
7 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1875–1890).
Grua G. W. Leibniz. Textes inédits d’après les manuscrits de la
Bibliothèque provinciale de Hanovre, ed. Gaston Grua, 2 vols.
(Paris: PUF, 1948, reprinted 1998).
v i i i   
• Abbreviations

KV Daniel Ernst Jablonski, Kurtze Vorstellung der Einigkeit und des

Unterscheides im Glauben beyder Evangelischen so genandten
Lutherischen und Reformirten Kirchen . . ., ed. H. Rudolph, in
M. Fontius, H. Rudolph and G. Smith (eds.), Labora diligenter
(Stuttgart: Steiner, 1999), 128–164.
N.E. G. W. Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais.
SG “Scholium generale,” in Isaac Newton, The Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy, trans. by A. Motte, 387–393
(London: Benjamin Motte, 1729).
T G. W. Leibniz, Essais de théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la lib-
erté de l’homme et l’origine du mal, ed. Jacques Brunschwig
(Paris: Garnier Flammarion, 1969).
UB 1, UB 2 G. W. Leibniz with G. Molanus, Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken,
in A IV, 7.
LEIBNIZ
INTRODUCTION

The aim of this book is to throw a different and new light on

Leibniz as theologian and religious thinker. Studies in the past
have tended to focus either on Leibniz as a sort of forerunner of
the modern ecumenical movement or on his dealings with the
Catholic Church, forgetting or simply ignoring the extent to which
he was involved in negotiations with the Calvinists or at least one
sort of Calvinism. The present work, which was sparked off partly
by the publication of Leibniz’s Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken,1 writ-
ten jointly with the Lutheran abbot of Loccum, Gerhard Wolter
Molanus, around 1698, aims primarily to investigate Leibniz’s view
of the Calvinist Church, taking this document as a point of depar-
ture. As I explain in Chapters 1 and 2, Leibniz as privy counsellor to
the duchy of Hannover took an active part in the negotiations for
confessional union between the Lutherans of Hannover and the
Calvinists (or, the Reformed) of Brandenburg. Like most irenical
projects of the 17th century, these negotiations were stillborn.
However, the documents they gave rise to are of great historical
importance, as they give us a unique insight into Leibniz’s own
basically Lutheran convictions and also into the ways in which his
philosophy and his theology coincide.
Let me say from the outset that the question of whether Leibniz’s
philosophy took the shape it did because of his religious convic-
tions and theology or the other way a round has been the object of
some discussion recently, especially since the appearance of Christia
Mercer’s study, Leibniz’s Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development
in 2002. The present study considers the question as inappropriate
as the question of whether Isaac Newton’s religious writings con-
stitute “the other Newton.” My sole ambition in fact is to show the
coexistence of theology and philosophy in Leibniz and to see how
the two come together. I should say that I am not a philosopher
and that the public I have in view consists primarily of historians of
2   
• Leibniz

ideas, theologians, and historians of religion from graduate students upwards.

Although I have read with much profit the work of present-day Anglo-Saxon
philosophers who have written extensively on Leibniz’s philosophy of reli-
gion, such as Robert Merrihew Adams, Robert Sleigh, Mark Kulstad, Michael
Murray, Daniel Garber, Jonathan Bennett, Michael Griffin, Nicholas Jolley
and, first and foremost, Maria Rosa Antognazza, it is not my intention to enter
into competition with any of them. My method is that of a religious historian
and so can be summed up as reconstructing as accurately as possible Leibniz’s
thought and intellectual context, paying particular attention to the historical
links between the questions he asks and those asked by his contemporaries,
both theologians and philosophers. The resulting Leibniz thus is very much
a “Leibniz in context.” This approach has the possible advantage of pointing
to both Leibniz’s insertion in his period and the originality of his theological
projects.
I have focused on Christian theology and have deliberately omitted
Leibniz’s pronouncements on other religions, which could form an object of
a future study. The scope of this book is further limited by its concentration
on Leibniz’s doctrines of substance and the eucharist on the one hand and
predestination and necessity on the other hand. The chapters on Leibniz as
historian of the sacred, which include his view of prophecy, are intended as
a complement to this, insofar as the historical works of Leibniz’s contempo-
raries, such as Newton, show us how theology works itself out through his-
tory. Does the same apply to Leibniz? Is he a church historian, a historian
of theology or a historian of the sacred without any orientation other than
fundamentally Christian? These are some of the questions I try to answer in
the last part of the present study.
This is not the first book on Leibniz as theologian. The endeavors to
study his religious thought go back to 1869 and the pioneering study of Alois
Pichler on The Theology of Leibniz.3 Although a remarkable achievement for
its time, Pichler’s work could not do better than be founded on sources avail-
able then, when Leibniz’s copious letters and writings could be consulted in
scattered publications and collections. Many more Leibniz papers and works
that remained unpublished in his lifetime have come to light since then; some
of them have been published either in the authoritative Akademie-Ausgabe,
which will include all of Leibniz’s letters and writings in due course, or in
other partial collections in many languages. I might single out here the bilin-
gual Yale Leibniz as well as editions by French scholars, some of these as ven-
erable as Gaston Grua’s G. W. Leibniz. Textes inédits d’après les manuscrits de
la Bibliothèque provinciale de Hanovre.3 To these we may add texts in Spanish
 Introduction •   
3

translation still in the early stages.4 There has also been some new literature on
the religious aspects of Leibniz’s thought which has attracted the attention of
philosophers and theologians. Some of the more significant studies are men-
tioned in the footnotes and bibliography of the present work. However, these
studies tend to take the form of articles. There has not been an authoritative
monograph on Leibniz as theologian since the works of Pichler and Baruzi
(which I shall discuss in the paragraphs that follow). The only scholar who has
dealt with Leibniz’s negotiations with the Reformed in any detail has been
Claire Rösler, whose doctoral dissertation5 has not been published in its origi-
nal form; instead, the author has recently published a very comprehensive
collection of the most relevant texts in French translation.6
Problems of access to sources in 1869 aside, Pichler’s work only partly sat-
isfies the requirements of the modern reader, seeing as, on the author’s own
admission, it was written with a view to providing a reply to the confessional
issues of his time. Inevitably therefore, while Pichler makes some statements
that are still very relevant, such as commending Leibniz’s theology as a prod-
uct of an original and open mind, he does not go far enough and does not
pinpoint the nature of this originality.7 At the same time, Pichler’s slant of
Leibniz’s thought to contemporary needs of the mid-19th century means that
he takes a very wide view, often with no sources to support it. Thus, his por-
trayal of the Lutheran–Calvinist union negotiations as being founded on and
suffering from Lutheran overly strict adherence to liturgical and doctrinal for-
mulae on the one hand and Calvinist “purism,” which made them mistrustful
of the early church tradition, on the other hand, cannot be borne out by any
sources and is simply an expression of the author’s own theological stance and
nineteenth-century confessional issues.8 Moreover, Pichler separates Leibniz’s
theology and places it in a category apart from his philosophical, mathemati-
cal, and scientific endeavors.
Similar merits and defects characterize the two classic studies by the
French philosopher Jean Baruzi, Leibniz (1909) and Leibniz et l’organisation
religieuse de la terre (1907; hereafter Leibniz et l'organization) although by
Baruzi’s time Leibniz editions had progressed and more sources were avail-
able. Curiously, despite this, his Leibniz et l’organisation devotes no more
than twelve pages to the Lutheran–Calvinist negotiations (353–365), while
laying very heavy stress on Leibniz’s negotiations with the Catholic Church.
This means inevitably that Baruzi views Leibniz as a precursor to the modern
ecumenical movement, one that had a global program for the one church on
earth that would to some extent mirror the Catholic Church. In fact, if we
read all the relevant sources, the picture that emerges is far more piecemeal
4   
• Leibniz

and fragmented, so much that we have to contest Baruzi’s identification

of both Calvinists and Lutherans as “Protestants,” without any distinction
between them. Although both confessions are indeed protestant, they also
need to be distinguished, as otherwise there would have been no object to
their negotiations for union under a single doctrinal and confessional banner.
The present work in fact also uses “protestant” as a general term in the title
but distinguishes very carefully between the two subsets in the text. Some
other statements and conclusions by Baruzi are also surprising to the modern
reader, one of those being his attribution of Leibniz’s irenicism to the fact
that he initially encountered Christian religion “not in violent discussions
but in peaceful transmission via books,”9 given that one glance at Leibniz’s
correspondence shows us that he was acutely aware of religious differences
since the Reformation, on the one hand, and very concerned with the bitter
confessional conflicts that they had given rise to, on the other hand. Indeed,
it would be more than legitimate to view his struggles for religious union as
so many attempts to remove or lessen the aftereffects of the sixteenth-century
theological Reformation. Moreover, Baruzi frequently refers to Leibniz’s
“religious tolerance” without defining its specificity.10 Even more surprising
is his statement that Leibniz “did not seek a dogmatic unity as much as he
sought a practical unification of Christians separated by dogma.”11 In fact,
we are in a position to show now that Leibniz was not primarily interested
in either a practical unification or in dogmatic unification but that he envis-
aged a unification based on his philosophy particularly as regards the issues
of eucharist and predestination (the latter of which in fact does not surface
in his negotiations with the Roman Catholic Church). Finally, Baruzi insists
throughout Leibniz et l’organisation that the philosopher’s irenicism was
influenced by his exposure to mysticism. That may well have some truth in
it, but Leibniz’s letter on mysticism from about 1687–1695 suggests at most
only an implicit link between the two, whereas Leibniz tends to identify
mystical thought with his own concept of God as the all-powerful, all-benev-
olent mind.12 How far Leibniz’s mystical readings influenced his endeavors
to unify the Christian confessions must remain a matter for speculation until
some concrete evidence comes to light.
That being said, the importance of both Pichler’s and Baruzi’s contribu-
tions to the study of the religious and theological Leibniz cannot be denied.
My primary object, as stated, is not to replace either but rather to complement
both, without any particular theological or confessional slant. My decision to
focus the present study on Leibniz’s negotiations with the Calvinists, while
not ignoring Roman Catholicism, is motivated first by the recent publication
 Introduction •   
5

of the two versions of the Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken and of some second-

ary literature connected with it; second, by the relative neglect that Leibniz
as Lutheran thinker and theologian has suffered from, especially in Great
Britain and the United States; and third, by a wish to treat Leibniz more from
the religious-historical angle and to examine his place in both the religious
and philosophical context of his age.
As can be seen from the table of contents, I have not adopted the global
approach favored by Pichler and Baruzi. This work is divided into three parts,
each consisting of two chapters. Part I deals with Leibniz’s theory of sub-
stance and the eucharist, Part II with his notions of predestination and neces-
sity and Part III with his views on history and prophecy. In all cases, Leibniz
is situated carefully in the theological and philosophical context of his era.
The choice of topics has been dictated partly by the fact that the issues of the
eucharist and predestination were the prime subject of disagreement between
Lutherans and Calvinists at the time and partly by the fact that these two
topics tie in closely with the 17th-century debates on substance and necessity.
The section on Leibniz as historian of the sacred is included here to enable
me to show how Leibniz, as opposed to Newton in particular, views sacred
history and the place of God in it. It is meant to fill in the gap left by various
recent studies on Leibniz as historian, as can be seen from Chapter 6. Thus,
without making undue claims, this work hopes to throws light on the role of
God in Leibniz’s thought, so correcting the extreme positions of “Leibniz the
great ecumenical theologian,” “Leibniz the scientist and mathematician but
not a theologian” and “Leibniz the vehemently pro-Catholic Lutheran,” often
adopted with regard to him.
Throughout this work I have benefited from generous help and advice
offered by individuals and institutions. My thanks go to the editors of sec-
tion IV (Leibniz’s Political Writings) of the Akademie-Ausgabe, and espe-
cially to Wenchao Li and Hartmut Rudolph, who have been more than
generous in pointing me to the right material and who spared no efforts
in answering my questions. Thanks also to Maria Rosa Antognazza, who
encouraged me in the project in so far as her overloaded schedule could per-
mit. I also owe my gratitude to Dr. Claire Rösler, whose contagious enthu-
siasm inspired me to work on Leibniz in the first place and to Paul Rateau,
in whose seminars on Leibniz at the University of Paris I (Sorbonne) I had
the privilege of presenting a part of what became Chapter 3 and of receiv-
ing many helpful comments. I should also like to take this opportunity to
thank my husband Guy Backus, who has had to bear with me during the
five years it took to put this book together. Among the institutions which
6   
• Leibniz

were of assistance I should like to single out the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Bibliothek in Hannover, whose staff showed exemplary courtesy and help-
fulness. Parts of Chapters 2, 3, and 5 were initially published as articles in
a much shorter form and have been considerably expanded and modified
since then. Chapter 5, moreover, in its initial shorter form, supported a
different line of argument to which I no longer subscribe.13 I should like
to thank respectively the Franz Steiner Verlag, The Leibniz Review, and the
Augustinian Studies for their gracious permission to reprint such material
as I took from these previous publications.
I E U C H A R I S T A N D S U B S TA N C E
1 T R A N S U B S TA N T I AT I O N A N D
THE PROBLEM OF REAL PRESENCE

It is by now well known that Leibniz first developed his concept of

substance1 as a being which has a principle of action within itself
around 1668.2 He argues then that all action of a body is a motion.
This, in turn, led him to think that, as no body contains in itself
the principle of motion, a body could not by itself constitute a
substance and so individual substance must be a mind. Moreover,
reacting to Descartes’ formulation of laws of motion, he put for-
ward the idea of a nonextended, simple, indestructible entity. He
called these monads from 1696 onward, although he employed the
word monas in a mathematical context as early as his Leipzig period
(prior to 1666). Each monad, as we know, represents an individual
microcosm mirroring the universe in varying degrees of perfec-
tion and developing independently of all the others with action
constituting their sole common feature. This doctrine finds its full
expression in the Monadologie of 1714. In Leibniz’s view there is an
infinite series of monads ranging from the completely active to the
almost inert. Their proper activity is perception or mirroring of the
universe in various degrees of perfection according to their degree
of activity or inertia. Every body is a colony of monads with various
degrees of activity, and the human being is therefore a part of the
normal activity of mirroring, albeit much more active or spiritual
than, for example, a stone, whose monad is practically inert.
The object of this chapter is to examine the relationship between
Leibniz’s position on religion and substance when he argued for the
doctrine of transubstantiation in the Lutheran–Roman Catholic
dialogue. In the chapter that follows I shall examine his position
on the eucharistic presence and substance in the attempts at the
Lutheran–Calvinist dialogue that he led in 1697–1699 (alongside
Gerhard Wolter Molanus)3 on behalf of the Elector of Hannover,
1 0   
•  E u c h a r i s t and Substance

Ernst August, with the Calvinist Brandenburg, and, more especially, Daniel
Ernst Jablonski.
Also in the second chapter, I propose to examine Leibniz’s use of sixteenth-
century sources in the 1697–1699 projects, and, more particularly, his con-
certed effort to integrate Calvin’s vision of substance with his own. Leibniz
refers to Calvin very extensively in connection with the issue of the eucha-
rist, which he considered important, although, like the other disputed issues
(christology, baptism, confession, repentance and predestination), not touch-
ing on the foundations of faith.4 The article on the eucharist is thus an excep-
tion in its unequivocal appeal to Calvin. This is important when we consider
that the eucharist was thought by both protagonists, Leibniz and Jablonski,
to be the largest obstacle to the union, and that Jablonski in his comments
on Article 10 of the Augsburg Confession (devoted to this subject) refers to
Zwingli and Oecolampadius as representatives of the Reformed position. He
does not so much as mention Calvin. Moreover, judging by Leibniz’s letter to
Gerhard Wolter Molanus dated January 13, 1699, Leibniz himself was entirely
responsible for the section of the Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken (hereafter UB 1
and UB 2) dealing with the eucharist,5 without the aid of Molanus or Johann
Fabricius.6
This section thus divides naturally into two chapters of which the shorter
first chapter deals with substance and the Roman Catholic doctrine of tran-
substantiation, and the longer second chapter with the concept of real or sub-
stantial presence in the eucharist in the context of Leibniz’s negotiations with
the Reformed.
As is well known, throughout his union negotiations with the Catholic
and Protestant theologians, Leibniz adhered to the real presence of Christ’s
body in the eucharist, although he rarely used the actual term “real pres-
ence.” As we shall have occasion to see, he often likes to talk about Christ’s
substance or essence being present. I shall begin by briefly summarizing the
meaning of these terms to Leibniz, focusing on his middle period (1685–ca.
1700) when his doctrines of real presence and transubstantiation receive their
fullest formulation. I shall compare this to Leibniz’s early pronouncements
on the question. The terms “essence” and “substance” are not synonymous
for Leibniz. “Essence” means either the characteristic quality of something or
that which makes a thing what it is and guarantees it remaining what it is. In
other words, it is the entelechy or primitive active principle in anything and is
separable from all other secondary powers.7 He takes “substance” usually to
mean “a being endowed with primitive powers for acting and suffering,” with
 Transubstantiation •   
11

the active principle (mind or soul) as its substantial form. Now the essence
of a body consists in this substantial form but also in matter, which corre-
sponds to the primitive passive principle. There are two types of “substance”
in Leibniz’s vocabulary: either “simple substance” or monad, which is defined
by its active principle and its counterpart, the passive principle (i.e., its
capacity to act and suffer, both principles being unextended); or “corporeal
substance,” which concerns only living beings and, unlike the monad, has
extension, although not as its defining characteristic, given that Leibniz views
extension as a purely temporary attribute or accident. A body of a substance,
taken without its active principle that serves as unifying element, is merely an
aggregate, for it consists of other smaller substances, each with its own active
and passive principle and its own bundle of secondary matter. Leibniz draws
a distinction between substance and the smaller substances of a body, which
include extension. As he argues in 1693, for something to be extended means
for it to have parts that bear a spatial relation to one another. Therefore there
must first be a substance x for its extended parts to arise.8 A corporeal sub-
stance is a term Leibniz usually applies to a soul endowed with a body from
about the 1680s onward.
As Robert Adams pointed out in 1994, Leibniz at certain stages of his
career links corporeal substantiality with unity. This new concern can be con-
sidered partly or largely due to his desire to contribute to the late seventeenth-
century debate on whether Cartesianism allowed for a more than accidental
unity of human body and soul.9 Hence his concept of corporeal substance
seems to act as a sort of extraneous addition to his ontology and so has some-
times puzzled recent scholars.10 This aporia (if indeed it is one) in Leibniz’s
thinking on substance and the specificity of his ideas not just on substance
but also on the related concepts of form, matter and extension is brought out
in his correspondence with Arnaud from the years 1686–1690 where he dis-
cusses, among other things, the issue of substantial unity as decisive in answer-
ing the question of whether there are corporeal substances. In a letter dating
from November 28/December 8, 1686, Leibniz says:

I reply that in my view our body as such, taken without the soul, in
other words, the cadaver, cannot be called a substance, except improp-
erly, rather like a machine or a pile of stones, which are entities by
aggregation only, for regular or irregular arrangement does nothing for
substantial unity. In any case the last Lateran Council declares that the
soul is truly the substantial form of our body.11
1 2   
•  E u c h a r i s t and Substance

In his last letter to Arnaud of March 23, 1690, he says:

A body is an aggregate of substances and is not a substance strictly speak-

ing. Therefore it is necessary for there to be everywhere in the body indi-
visible, ingenerable and incorruptible substances which have something
like a soul. These substances have always been and will always be united
to organic bodies which are susceptible to change in different ways.12

In other words, a body is an aggregate consisting of the divisible matter and

the indivisible spiritual components. If the extension of matter is viewed
apart from these indivisible components, it is no more than a phenomenon, as
Leibniz says in another, earlier letter to Arnaud, dating from April 30, 1687:

You object, Sir, that it may well be of the body’s essence not to have real
unity, but then it is of the body’s essence to be a phenomenon, deprived
of all reality rather like a regulated dream for even phenomena such as
the rainbow or a pile of stones would be completely imaginary if they
were not composed of beings that do not have a real unity.13

Leibniz thus explains what it is for a body to be a phenomenon. Envisaging a

coherent aggregate such as a rainbow or a pile of stones, he argues that what
gives it its coherence and reality is its perceiving components that happen to
be joined up to one another, producing extension. However, although these
many spiritual components stop the body from being a merely illusory phe-
nomenon, they do not make it into a corporeal substance but organize it into
an aggregate or a well-founded phenomenon, which is one that can be ana-
lyzed by science. The same goes for any individual. It is an aggregate of monads,
each with its own bundle of secondary matter. In order to become a corporeal
substance, in other words, something that is truly one, a body requires must
be united with the substantial form or the soul. The union of body and soul
then guarantees it being a corporeal substance. This is why Leibniz applies
the concept of corporeal substance to living organic bodies such as animals
and especially humans.14 There is no real contradiction between Leibniz’s
phenomenalism and his notion of a corporeal substance. The latter functions
simply as an addition to the monadology, and applies only to living bodies.
As to Leibniz’s more specific motives for insisting on the substantial form and
the corporeal substance, there are many possible answers. For our purposes,
the most interesting one is given by Leibniz himself in his letter to Arnaud of
November 28/December 8, 1686, already cited above:
 Transubstantiation •   
13

The rational soul is created only at the time of the formation of its
body, being entirely different from the other souls known to us because
it is capable of thought and imitates divine Nature in a smaller size.15

In his draft of an earlier letter, Leibniz had already admitted this special sta-
tus of the human soul and had also granted that animals too may have souls,
although these do not survive the death of the body but die with it. He
declared himself unwilling to grant the status of a substance to the human or
animal body taken apart from the soul. Indeed he declares:

I would say that the cadaver or a block of marble are perhaps unified
per aggregationem just like a pile of stones and are not substances. We
may say as much of the sun, the earth and machines. With the excep-
tion of man [body and soul] there is no body of which I can say with
certainty that it is a substance rather than an aggregate of several sub-
stances or maybe a phenomenon.16

The correspondence with Arnaud also contains some further important

information on Leibniz’s concept of primary and secondary matter, extension
and body, in those years. I follow Adams here according to whom Leibniz in
his middle period considers primary matter to be as indivisible and as unex-
tended as the substantial form and thus an internal aspect of an unextended
perceiving substance.17 The primary matter is the primitive force of suffering
and resisting, complementing the primitive active force that is the soul or the
substantial form of each indivisible component, as I stated above. Extension
thus, as Leibniz points out in an undated sketch of a letter to Arnaud (ca.
1686/1687), is not to be identified with corporeal substance, for it is simply
an attribute “which cannot constitute an accomplished being for it is simply
an expression of its present state and not in any way of the past or future,
unlike the concept of substance.”18 Secondary matter is also a phenomenon
considered in itself, for it is the body (or cadaver) of a corporeal substance; in
other words, an aggregate of smaller corporeal substances, each of which has
its own substantial form (the soul) uniting its own secondary matter.19
All this has important consequences for Leibniz’s conception of Christ’s
real presence in the eucharist, especially in his middle years, and for his inter-
pretation of what it means for one space-occupying aggregate to transubstanti-
ate into another. This aspect of his thought is not touched on by either Daniel
Garber or Robert Adams, the two modern scholars who have gone into the most
1 4   
•  E u c h a r i s t and Substance

detail regarding Leibniz’s notions of form, substance matter and extension.20

Let us summarize the basic relevant terminology. For Leibniz, any substance
is defined by its perceiving substantial form (the monad) or the principle of
action. Its counterpart is primary matter or the capacity to suffer. The corpo-
real substance is the union of body and soul in living beings. The body does
not have substantial status, as it is an aggregate of smaller corporeal substances.
Extension is an accidental quality of a substance and means simply that the sub-
stance has parts that bear a spatial relationship to one another at a certain time.
The alteration of the extension or configuration of these parts does not fun-
damentally alter the substance, which is why Leibniz remains totally opposed
to Descartes’ definition of substance as that which is extended. How do these
fundamental concepts of Leibniz’s ontology come together in his pronounce-
ments of what it is for Christ’s body to be substantially or really present in the
eucharistic elements? And what does it mean to Leibniz to say that something
transubstantiates? Finally, can Christ’s body be really present without the ele-
ments transubstantiating? We might add here that religious motives and the
need to acknowledge the special status of the human in relation to God obvi-
ously played a prominent part in Leibniz’s decision to add the concept of the
“corporeal substance” to that of the monad. Although the perceiving soul or
the monad is the only simple substance applicable to all individuals and sets
of individuals, the soul has a special status in humans by virtue of its origins,
which are simultaneous with those of the body. The union produces a corpo-
real substance. Very early on in his career Leibniz had already determined on
the distinction between the form (i.e., the soul) and matter (i.e., the body) and
on the soul or the perceiving part as the active principle in all bodies. The issue
of the special status of the human soul or of the essential unity of living beings,
however, did not surface then, as shown by his letter to Jakobus Thomasius of
April 30, 1668, on the occasion of Leibniz’s own first and only critical edition
of the text of Nizolius’s treatise, De veris principiis et de vera ratione philoso-
phandi (On the true principles and the true method of practicing philosophy):

I say therefore that the form is the principle of movement in its body
and that the body itself is the principle of movement in another body,
but the first principle of movement is the form really abstracted from
matter (which is also the efficient form), that is the mind. That is why
freedom and spontaneity apply to minds only.21

The idea of the soul as the living principle finds its fullest expression in the
Monadologie of 1714, which does not postulate the corporeal substance and
where Leibniz says that the body belonging to the monad, taken together
 Transubstantiation •   
15

with its entelechy or soul, forms a living being (un vivant) and not a cor-
poreal substance. He makes no mention of the union of the body and the
soul either.22 Monads are present in Leibniz’s thought earlier than corporeal
substances. They are also more fundamental to Leibniz’s ontology than the
corporeal substance. However, both concepts, that of the monad and that of
corporeal substance, are based on the notion that the only real activity comes
from the mind. His letter to Nicolas Rémond dating from 1714 echoes and
reinforces the Monadologie:

But when I researched the ultimate causes of Mechanism and the actual
laws of motion, I was very surprised to see that it was impossible to dis-
cover them from Mathematics and that one had to return to Metaphysics.
This is what brought me to the entelechies and away from matter to form
and this is how I finally came to understand, after several corrections and
articulations of my ideas that the monads or simple substances are the
only true substances and that material things are only phenomena, albeit
well-founded and well-held together ones.23

On turning to the practically contemporary correspondence between Leibniz

and Barthélemy des Bosses, we see that Leibniz finally confirms that the corpo-
real substance is no more than an addition to monadology. In the well-known
letter of February 15, 1712,24 he says that if one is to argue that the corporeal
substance is something real, just as a line is real over and above its points, then
it is a unifier added to the monads by God and that from the union of the
passive powers of the monads there arises primary matter required for diffu-
sion and resistance. From the union of the monadic entelechies, on the other
hand, there arises a substantial form but one which will be destroyed with the
cessation of the union unless it is miraculously preserved by God. Leibniz has
moved from the position he defended in the late 1680s in his letters to Arnaud
arguing that in humans the soul is the substantial form that is united to the
body and that gives the human individual its unity. At that stage, as we noted,
he thought that “the rational soul is created only at the time of the formation
of its body, being entirely different from the other souls known to us because
it is capable of thought and imitates divine Nature in a smaller size.” In 1712,
he still argues that the human soul is a substance, but it is a simple, unchanging
substance, quite independent of the unity of the human. What is the use of a
corporeal substance then? In the same letter to des Bosses, Leibniz notes:

However such a [substantial] form then will not be a soul, which is

a simple and indivisible substance. And this form just like matter is
1 6   
•  E u c h a r i s t and Substance

in perpetual flux, since in fact no point can be designated in matter

that preserves the same place for more than a moment and does not
move away from neighboring points, however close. But the soul in its
changes persists as the same with the same subject remaining, which is
not the case in the corporeal substance. Therefore we must say one of
two things. Either bodies are mere phenomena and so extension also
will be only a phenomenon and monads alone will be real although
there will be a union by the operation of the perceiving soul on the
phenomenon. Or, if faith drives us to corporeal substances, this sub-
stance consists in the reality of union, which adds something absolute
(and therefore substantial) albeit impermanent to the things unified.25

This modified conception of union of soul and body and the corporeal sub-
stance allows Leibniz to argue that transubstantiation occurs through God’s
miraculous exchange of one substance for another (body of bread and wine for
body and blood of Christ) while the monads are left intact. Thus the substantial
bond or the vinculum substantiale is necessary for the substantiality and unity
of corporeal substance. He describes it as a bond that binds together monads
that make one organic body and which can be detached by God from one par-
ticular dominant group of monads and attached to another—a description that
is intended to account for transubstantiation.26 The bond is itself a substantial
thing, but not a monad. Leibniz no longer defends the unique nature of the real
unity of the human as he did when he argued that the corporeal substance, an
outcome of the union of body and soul, involves the monads in some sense by
imposing a further unity on an aggregate. In the letter to des Bosses, the soul
remains a simple substance and is not included in the construction of a miracu-
lous, temporary union which now involves the primary matter and entelechies.
Leibniz thus appears to view the change of substance in transubstantiation as
a change of envelope while its contents remain the same. Thus Leibniz’s solu-
tion to the question of transubstantiation in his correspondence with des Bosses
does not really touch on the reality of change of one substance into another
with the accidents remaining untouched. He turns the problem so that the
reality of the presence of Christ’s body and blood is relegated to the periph-
ery. What this doctrine implies is that the reality of the spiritual or monadic
presence of Christ in the eucharist remains untouched through the temporary
exchange of the substantial envelope with the latter accounting for the change
of the extensional accidents of bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood.
Des Bosses was quick to spot this and considered Leibniz’s view contrary to the
orthodox Catholic teaching on transubstantiation.
 Transubstantiation •   
17

However, his correspondence with the French Jesuit is not the crucial
place where Leibniz broaches the question of the reality of Christ’s presence
in the eucharist and transubstantiation. The issue of the eucharist was capi-
tal in all of Leibniz’s attempts for union between the Roman Catholic and
Lutheran churches. It was equally vital if the negotiations for union between
the Lutheran and Calvinist churches of Hannover and Brandenburg of
1697–1704 were to have any real chance of success, as we shall see.
I now turn my attention to an analysis of the reality of Christ’s presence in
the eucharist in Leibniz’s successive pronouncements on transubstantiation
in De transubstantiatione (On transubstantiation) of 1668 (hereafter Trans.)
and the Examen religionis christianae (Examination of the Christian religion)
or Systema theologicum (The Christian System, hereafter Ex.) of 1686.27 In
Chapter 2, I will give attention to the section on the eucharist elaborated
by Leibniz (with little, if any, help of Molanus) in the two versions of the
UB, a document with a view to union between the Hannover Lutherans and
Brandenburg Calvinists elaborated around 1698 in response to Daniel Ernst
Jablonski’s Kurtze Vorstellung.28 In each case, my analysis will focus, broadly
speaking, on Leibniz’s view of corporeal substance in relation to transubstan-
tiation and on his definition of what it is for Christ to be really present in
the sacrament. Is it the presence of Christ’s mind or his active principle that
determines the change that takes place in the elements during the ritual that
guarantees the reality of the Savior’s presence or do the material and extended
elements also play a role? This examination will, I hope, throw some light
on the importance of real eucharistic presence in Leibniz’s thought and thus
contribute to our understanding of the links between Leibniz’s metaphysics
and his religious thought.

De transubstantiatione
With the exception of André Robinet’s 1986 work29 that establishes the link
between Leibniz’s “phenomenalization” of the body and his view of transub-
stantiation, the only recent scholar to have thoroughly examined Leibniz’s
fragment De transubstantiatione of 1668 is Christia Mercer. She notes that
the fragment constitutes a response to the mechanistic thesis of Thomas
White (1593–1676).30 In his critical notes on White31 dating from the same
year, Leibniz is particularly opposed to the mechanistic view that the sub-
stance of Christ is diffused through all his bodily parts and that it is some-
how to be identified with his material, extended body. White, like Descartes
1 8   
•  E u c h a r i s t and Substance

in his letter to Mesland of February 9, 1645,32 in fact envisages transubstan-

tiation as a parallel to the human metabolism of food whereby the substance
of the food is converted into the substance of the human body. In Leibniz’s
view, the body of Christ is not the substance of Christ but an accident so
that the conversion of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of
the body and blood of Christ means that the substance of Christ, which is
his soul, theoretically need not be affected. Nonetheless, it is affected, as in
order to be the body of Christ, as opposed to just an unnamed cadaver or the
body of anyone else, the body needs to have the principle of Christ’s action,
which implies the association of his soul. In other words, Christ through
God’s operation associates his soul to the elements at the moment of conver-
sion that coincides with their consecration. The transubstantiation therefore
takes place at the level of the soul. Bread and wine lose their natural principle
of action, which is God, the ultimate mover of all, and acquire the active
principle of Christ. Leibniz posits the substantial form already in 1668 but
he does not yet formulate his idea of the corporeal substance. What does
play a prominent part in De transubstantiatione is, first, action as the iden-
tifying characteristic of Christ; second, Leibniz’s attempt to harmonize his
own conception of substance with the Aristotelian notion; and, third, his
emphasis on multipresence which suggests that he aims to show a funda-
mental similarity between the Lutheran and the Catholic doctrines of real
presence. It is quite plain throughout that the only real presence that matters
to Leibniz at this stage is the presence of Christ’s soul in the ritual and in the
elements. Transubstantiation in the strict Aristotelian sense is thus limited
to the mind of Christ, as God operates the switch between his mind qua ulti-
mate mover and the mind of Christ, while the latter’s body or cadaver and its
mass and extension remain, as it were, unconcerned.
Leibniz thus begins Trans. by stating that what needs to be demonstrated
is, first, that bread (and wine) sheds its own substance and acquires the sub-
stance of Christ’s body (and blood); second, that the latter is the same in
number as Christ’s glorified body and can be in several places; third, that
only the appearance or the accidents of bread and wine is what remains in
the consecrated elements; and, fourth, that the substance of Christ’s body is
present wherever the species of the consecrated bread and wine are present.33
In other words, Leibniz takes it for granted that substance here means the
spiritual or perceiving element in any individual, the latter being understood
in the sense of an aggregate of substantial forms each with its own parcel
of secondary matter. He also tacitly harmonizes the Lutheran doctrine of
multipresence with the Catholic teaching on transubstantiation so as to keep
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 How Sir Richard Neuill Earle of
Warwicke, and his brother Iohn, Lord
Marquise Montacute, through their too
much boldnesse were slaine at
Barnet, the 14 of Aprill, Anno 1471.
[1118]

1.

Among the heauy heape of happy knightes,

Whome fortune stald vpon her staylesse stage,
Oft hoyst on hie, oft pight in wretched plights,
Behold mee, Baldwine, a per se of my age,
Lord Richard Neuill, earle by maryage
Of Warwicke duchy, of Sarum by discent,
Which erst my father through his mariage hent.

2.

Wouldst thou beholde false fortune in her kinde?

Note well my selfe, so shalt thou see her naked:
Full faire before, but too too foule behinde,
Most drowsy still whan most shee seemes awaked:
My fame and shame her shift full oft hath shaked,
By enterchaunge, alow, and vp aloft,
The lysard like, that chaungeth hew full oft.

3.

For while the duke of Yorke in life remaynde,

Mine vncle deare, I was his happy hand:
In all attempts my purpose I attaynde,
Though king, and queene, and most lordes of the land,
With all their power did often mee withstand:
For God gaue fortune, and my good behauiour
Did from their prince steale mee the people’s fauour.

4.

So that through mee in fieldes right manly fought,

By force myne vncle tooke king Henry twise:
As for my cosin Edward I so[1119] wrought,
When both our siers were slaine through rash aduice,
That hee atchiefde his father’s enterprise:
For into Scotland king and queene wee chased,
By meane whereof the kingdome hee embraced.

5.

Which after hee had enioyed[1120] in quiet peace,

(For shortly after was king Henry take,
And put in prison)[1121] his power to encrease,
I went to Fraunce and match[1122] him with a make
The French kinge’s daughter, whome hee did forsake:
For while with paine I brought this sute to passe,
Hee to a widdowe rashely wedded was.

6.

This made the French king shrewdly to mistrust,

That all my treaties had but ill pretence,
And when I sawe my king so bent to lust,
That with his fayth hee past not to dispence,
Which is a prince’s honour’s chiefe defence:
I could not rest till I had found a meane
To mend his misse, or els to marre him cleane.
 7.

[Wherefore] I mee allied[1123] with his brother George,

Incensing him his brother to maligne,
Through many a tale I did against him forge:
So that through power that wee from[1124] Calais bring
And found at home, wee frayed so the king,
That hee did flie to[1125] Freseland ward amayne,
Whereby king Henry had the crowne againe.

8.

Than put wee th’earle[1126] of Worcester to death,

King Edward’s friend, a man to foule[1127] defamed:
And in the while came Edward into breath:
For with the duke of Burgoine so hee framed,
That with the power that hee to him had named,
Unlooked for hee came to England streight,
And got to Yorke, and tooke the towne by sleight.

9.

And after through the sufferaunce of my brother,

Which like a beast occasion fouly lost,
Hee came to London safe with many other,
And tooke the towne to good king Henrie’s cost:
Who was through him from post to piller tost,
Till th’earle[1128] of Oxforde, I, and other more,
Assembled power his freedome to restore.

10.

Whereof king Edward warned came with speede,

And camped with his hoast in Barnet towne,
Where wee right fearce encountred him in deed
On Easter day, right earely, on the downe:
There many a man was slaine and stricken downe,
 On eyther side, and neither part did gaine,
Till that I and my brother both were slaine.[1129]

11.

For wee to hart[1130] our ouermatched men,

Forsooke our steedes, and in the thickest throng
Ran preacing forth on foote, and fought so then
That downe wee draue them were they neuer[1131] so
strong:
But ere this lucke[1132] had lasted very long
With nomber and force wee were so fouly cloyed,[1133]
And rescue faylde, that quite wee were destroyed.

12.

Now tell mee, Baldwine, hast thou heard or read

Of any man that did as I haue done?
That in his time so many armies led,
And victory at euery voyage won?
Hast thou euer[1134] heard of subiect vnder sonne,
That plaast and baast his soueraignes[1135] so oft
By enterchaunge, now low, and than aloft?

13.

Perchaunce thou thinkst my doinges were not such

As I and other doe affirme they were:
And in thy minde I see thou musest much
What meanes I vsde, that should mee so prefer:
Wherein, because I will thou shalt not erre,
The truth of all I will at large recyte,
The short is this: I was no hypocrite.

14.

I neuer did nor sayd saue what I ment,

The common weale was still my chiefest care:
To priuate gayne or glory was I neuer bent,[1136]
I neuer past[1137] vpon delicious fare:
Of needefull food my bourd was neuer bare,
No creditour did curse mee day by day,
I vsed playnnesse, euer pitch and pay.

15.

I heard poore[1138] souldiers and poore workemen whine

Because theyr dutyes were not truely[1139] payde:
Agayne I saw how people did repine
At those through whom theyr payment was[1140] delayde:
And proofe did oft assure (as scripture sayd)
That God doth wreke the wretched people’s greues,
I saw the polls cut of fro polling theues.

16.

This made mee alway iustly for to deale,

Which whan the people playnly vnderstoode,
Because they saw mee mynd the common weale,
They still endeuoured how to doe mee good,
Ready to spend theyr substaunce, life, and bloud,
In any cause where to I did them moue:
For sure they were it was for theyr behoue.

17.

And so it was: for when the realme decayed

By such as good king Henry sore abused,
To mend the state I gaue his enemies ayde:
But when king Edward sinfull prankes still vsed,
And would not mend, I likewise him refused,
And holp Henry, better[1141] of the twayne,
And in his quarell (iust I thinke) was slayne.
 18.

And therefore, Baldwine, teach by proofe of mee,

That such as couet people’s loue to get,
Must see theyr workes and wordes in all agree,
Liue liberally and keepe them out of det,
On common welth[1142] let all theyr care be set:
For vpright dealing, dets payd, poore sustayned,
Is meane whereby all heartes are throwly gayned.[1143]
 [As soone as the earle had ended this admonition: “Sure,”
sayd[1144] one, “I thinke the earle of Warwicke (although hee were a
glorious man) hath sayd no more of himselfe then what is true. For if
hee had not had notable good vertues, or vertuous qualities, and
vsed laudable meanes in his trade of life, the people would neuer
haue loued him as they did: but God be with him, and send his soule
rest, for sure his body neuer had any. And although he dyed, yet ciuil
warres ceased not. For immediately after his death came queene
Margaret with a power out of Fraunce, bringing with her her yong
son prince Edward: and with such friends as she found here, gaue
king Edward a battayl at Tewkesbury, where both she and her son
were taken prisoners with Eadmund duke of Somerset her chiefe
captayne: whose son lord Iohn, and the earle of Deuonshyre were
slayn in fight,[1145] and the duke himselfe with diuers other
immediately beheaded. Whose infortunes are worthy to be
remembred, chiefly prince Edward’s, whome the king for speaking
trueth cruelly stroke with his gauntlet, and his brethren
tyrannously[1146] murdered. But seing the time so far spent, I will
passe them ouer, and with them Fauconbridge that ioly rouer
beheaded at Southampton: whose commotion made in Kent, was
cause of sely Henrye’s destruction. And seing king Henry himselfe
was cause of the destruction of many noble princes, being of all
other most infortunate himselfe, I will declare what I haue noted in
his vnlucky life: who wounded in prison with a dagger, may lament
his wretchednesse in maner following.”]
How King Henry the sixte, a vertuous
Prince, was, after many other
miseries, cruelly murdered in the
Tower of London, the 22 of May, Anno
1471.[1147]
1.

If euer woefull wight had cause to rue his state,

Or by his ruefull plight to moue men mone his fate,
My piteous plaint may please my mishap to reherse,
Whereof the least most lightely heard, the hardest hart
may perce.

2.

What hart so hard can heare of innocence opprest

By fraud in worldly goods, but melteth in the brest?
Whan guiltlesse men bee spoilde, imprisoned for their
owne,
Who waileth not their wretched case to whom the case is
knowen?

3.

The lyon licks[1148] the sores of seely wounded shepe,

The dead man’s corse may[1149] cause the crocodile to
wepe,
The waues that waste the rocks refresh the rotten redes,
Such ruth the wrack of innocence in cruell creatures
bredes.

4.

What hart is then so hard but will for pity blede,

To heare so cruell lucke so cleare a life succede?
To see a seely soule with wo and sorrow sounst,[1150]
A king depriude, in prison pent, to death with daggers
dounst.[1151]

5.

Would God the day of birth had brought me to my bere,

Then had I neuer felt the chaunge of fortune’s chere:
Would God the graue had gript me in her greedy
woumbe,
Whan crown in cradle made me king with oyle of holy
thoumbe.

6.

Would God the rufull tombe had bene my royall throne,

So should no kingly charge haue made me make my
mone:
O that my soule had flowen to heauen with the ioy,
Whan one sort cryed, God saue the king, another, Viue le
Roy.

7.

So had I not bene washt in waues of worldly wo,

My minde to quiet bent, had not bene tossed so:
My frendes had ben aliue: my subiects not opprest:[1152]
But death, or cruell destiny, denied me this rest.

8.
Alas, what should we count the cause of wretches cares,
The starres do stirre them vp, astronomy declares:
Our[1153] humours, sayth the leache, the double true
deuines
To th’[1154] will of God, or ill of man, the doubtfull cause
assignes.

9.

Such doltish heades as dreame that all things driue by

haps,
Count lacke of former care for cause of after claps,
Attributing to man a power fro God bereft,
Abusing vs, and robbing him, through their most wicked
theft.

10.

But God doth guyde the world, and euery hap by skill,
Our wit, and willing power, are payzed by his will:
What wit most wisely wardes, and will most deadly vrkes,
Though all our powre would presse it downe, doth dash
our warest workes.

11.

Than desteny, our sinne, God’s will, or else his wreake,

Doe worke our wretched woes, for humours be too
weake,
Except wee take them so, as they prouoke to sinne,
For through our lust by humours fed all vicious deedes
beginne.

12.

So sinne and they be one, both working like effect,

And cause the wrath of God to wreake the soule infect,
Thus wrath and wreake deuine, man’s sinnes and
humours ill,
Concurre in one, though in a sort, ech doth a course
fulfill.

13.

If likewise such as say the welkin fortune warkes,

Take fortune for our fate and starres thereof the markes,
Then desteny with fate and God’s will all bee one:
But if they meane it otherwise, skath causers skies be
none.

14.

Thus of our heauy haps, chiefe causes bee but twayne,

Whereon the rest depend, and vnder put remayne:
The chiefe the will deuine, calde desteny and fate,
The other sinne, through humour’s holpe, which God
doth highly hate.

15.

The first apoynteth payne for good men’s exercise,

The second doth deserue due punishment for vice:
This witnesseth the wrath, and that the loue of God,
The good for loue, the bad for sinne, God beateth with
his rod.

16.

Although my sondry sinnes doe place mee with the

worst,
My haps yet cause mee hope to bee among the fyrst:
The eye that searcheth all and seeth euery thought,
Is iudge how sore I hated sinne, and after vertue sought.

17.
The solace of my soule my chiefest pleasure was,
Of worldly pomp, of fame, or game, I did not passe:
My kingdomes nor my crowne I prised not a crum:
In heauen were my riches heapt, to which I sought to
com.

18.

Yet were my sorrowes such as neuer man had like,

So diuers stormes at once, so often did mee strike:
But why, God knowes, not I, except it were for this,
To shewe by paterne of a prince, how brittle honour is.

19.

Our kingdomes are but cares, our state deuoide of stay,

Our riches ready snares, to hasten our decay:
Our pleasures priuy prickes, our vices to prouoke,
Our pompe a pumpe, our fame a flame, our power a
smouldring smoke.

20.

I speake not but by proofe, and that may many rue,

My life doth cry it out, my death doth try it true:
Whereof I will in brefe rehearse the[1155] heauy hap,
That, Baldwine, in his woefull warpe, my wretchednes
may wrap.

21.

In Windsore borne I was, and bare my father’s name,

Who wonne by warre all Fraunce to his eternall fame,
And left to mee the crowne, to bee receiued in peace
Through mariage made with Charles his heyre, vpon his
life’s decease.

22.
Which shortly did ensue, yet died my father furst,
And both the[1156] realmes were mine, ere I a yeare were
nurst:
Which as they fell too soone, so faded they as fast:
For Charles, and Edward, got them both or forty yeares
were past.

23.

This Charles was eldest sonne of Charles my father in

lawe,
To whome as heire of Fraunce, the Frenchmen did them
draw,
But Edward was the heire of Richard duke of Yorke,
The heyre of Roger Mortimer, slaine by the kerne of
Korke.

24.

Before I came to age Charles had recouered Fraunce,

And kild my men of warre, so happy was his chaunce:
And through a mad contract I made with Raynerd’s
daughter
I gaue and lost all Normandy, the cause of many a
slaughter.

25.

First of mine vncle Humfrey, abhorring sore this act,

Because I thereby brake a better precontract:
Than of the flattering duke that first the mariage made,
The iust rewarde of such as dare theyr princes ill
perswade.

26.

And I poore sely wretch abode the brunt of all,

My mariadge lust so sweete was mixt with bitter gall:
My wife was wise and good, had she ben rightly sought,
But our vnlawfull getting it, may make a good thing
nought.

27.

Wherefore warne men beware how they iust promise

breake,
Least proofe of paynfull plagues do cause them wayle
the wreake,
Aduise well ere they graunt, but what they graunt
performe:
For God will plague all doublenes although we feele no
worme.

28.

I falsly borne in hand, beleued I did well,

But all thinges bee not true that learned men doe tell:
My clergy sayd a prince was to no promise bound,
Whose wordes to be no gospell tho, I to my griefe haue
found.

29.

For after mariage ioynde queene Margaret and mee,

For one mishap afore, I dayly met with three:
Of Normandy and Fraunce, Charles got away my
crowne,
The duke of Yorke and other sought at home to put mee
downe.

30.

Bellona rang the bell at home and all abroade,

With whose mishaps amayne fell fortune did mee lode:
In Fraunce I lost my forts, at home the foughten field,
My kinred slayn, my friendes opprest, my selfe enforst to
yeeld.

31.

Duke Richard tooke mee twise, and forste mee to resine

My crowne and titles, due vnto my father’s lyne:
And kept mee as a warde, did all thinges as him list,
Till that[1157] my wife through bloudy sword had tane me
from[1158] his fist.

32.

But though we[1159] slew the duke my sorrowes did not

slake,
But like to Hydrae’s head still more and more awake:
For Edward, through the ayde of Warwicke and his
brother,
From one field draue mee to the Scots, and toke me in
another.

33.

Then went my friendes to wracke, for Edward ware the

crowne,
From[1160] which for nine yeares space his pryson held
me downe:
Yet thence through Warwicke’s worke I was agayne
releast,
And Edward driuen fro the realme, to seeke his friendes
by east.

34.

But what preuayleth paine, or prouidence of man,

To help him to good hap, whom destiny doth ban?
Who moyleth to remoue the rocke out of the mud,
Shall myre himselfe, and hardly scape the swelling of the
flud.

35.

This all my friendes haue founde, and I haue felt it so,

Ordaynd to be the touch of wretchednes and woe:
For ere I had a yeare possest my seat agayne,
I lost both it and liberty, my helpers all were slaine.

36.

For Edward first by stelth, and sith by gathred strength,

Arriude, and got to Yorke and London at the length:
Tooke mee and tyed mee vp, yet Warwicke was so stout,
Hee came with power to Barnet fielde, in hope to helpe
mee out:

37.

And there, alas, was slaine, with many a worthy knight:

O Lord, that euer such lucke should hap in helping right:
Last came my wife and sonne, that long lay in exile,
Defied the king, and fought a fielde, I may bewaile the
while.

38.

For there mine onely sonne, not thirteene yeares of age,

Was tane, and murdered straight by Edward in his rage:
And shortly I my selfe, to stint all furder strife,
Stabde with his brother’s bloudy blade in prison lost my
life.

39.

Lo, here the heauy haps which happened mee by heape,

See here the pleasaunt fruites that many princes reape,
The painefull plagues of those that breake theyr lawfull
bandes,
Their meede which may and will not saue their friendes
fro bloudy handes.

40.

God graunt my woefull haps, too greeuous to rehearce,

May teach all states to knowe, howe deepely daungers
pearce,
How fraile all honours are, how brittle worldly blisse,
That warned through my fearefull fate, they feare to doe
amisse.[1161]
 [This tragedy ended, another sayd: “Either you or king Henry are
a good philosopher, so narowly to argue the causes of misfortunes?
but there is nothing to experience which taught, or might teach the
king this lesson. But to proceede in our matter, I finde mention here,
shortly after the death of this king, of a duke of Excester found dead
in the sea betweene Douer and Calais, but what hee was, or by what
aduenture hee died, maister Fabian hath not shewed, and maister
Hall hath ouerskipped him: so that except wee be friendlier vnto him,
hee is like to be double drowned, both in sea, and in the gulfe of
forgetfulnes.” About this matter was much talke, but because one
tooke vpon him to seeke out that story, that charge was committed to
him. And to bee occupied in the meane while, I haue found the story
of one drowned likewise, and that so notably, though priuely, that all
the world knew of it: wherefore I sayd: “Because night approacheth,
and that wee will lose no time, yee shall heare what I haue noted
concerning the duke of Clarence, king Edward’s brother, who all to
bee washed in wine, may bewayle his infortune after this maner.”]
How George Plantagenet, third sonne
of the Duke of Yorke, was by his
brother King Edward wrongfully
imprisoned, and by his brother
Richard miserably murdered the 11 of
Jan. An. 1478.[1162]
1.

The foule is fowle, men say, that files the nest:

Which makes me loth to speke now, might I chuse,
But seyng time vnburdened hath her brest,
And fame blowne vp the blast of all abuse,
My silence rather might my life accuse
Than shroude our shame, though fayne I would it so,
For truth will out, although the world say no.

2.

And therefore, Baldwine, hartely I[1163] thee beseche

To pause a while vpon my heauy playnt,
And vnneth though[1164] I vtter speedy speche,
No fault of wit nor folly makes[1165] mee faynt:
No heady drinkes haue gieuen my tongue attaint
Through quaffing craft: yet wine my witts confound,
Not of which I dranke,[1166] but wherein I drownd.[1167]

3.
What prince I am, although I neede not shewe,
Because my wine betrayes mee by the smell:
For neuer creature was[1168] soust in Bacchus dew
To death, but I, through fortune’s rigour fell:
Yet that thou maist my story better tell,
I will declare as briefly as I may,
My welth, my woe, and causers of decay.

4.

The famous house surnamde Plantagenet,

Whereat dame fortune frowardly did frowne,
While Bolenbroke vniustly sought to set
His lord king Richard quite beside the crowne,
Though many a day it wanted due renowne,
God so preserved[1169] by prouidence and grace,
That lawfull heyres did neuer fayle the race.

5.

For Lionell, king Edwarde’s eldest childe,[1170]

Both eame[1171] and heyr to Richard yssulesse,
Begot a daughter Phillip, whom[1172] vndefilde[1173]
The earle of March espousde, and God did blesse
With fruite assinde the kingdom to possesse:
I meane syr Roger Mortimer, whose heyre,
The earle of Cambridge, maried Anne the fayre.

6.

This earle of Cambridge, Richard clept by name,

Was sonne to Edmund Langley duke of Yorke:
Which Edmund was fift brother to the same
Duke Lionell, that all this lyne doth korke:
Of which two howses ioyned in a forke,
My father Richard, prince Plantagenet,
True duke of Yorke, was lawfull heyr beget.