Constant J.Mews and AnttiIjas, eds. and trans.: Salome and the Kin of Jesus. The Treatises of Maurice of Kirkham and Herbert of Bosham. British Writers of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period 8. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2024; pp. cxxx +226.

The theories of two relatively obscure twelfth-century writers about the kin of Jesus might seem like a highly esoteric subject, but the publication of these treatises is very welcome for a number of reasons. Maurice of Kirkham and Herbert of Bosham contributed to a debate that is interesting in itself, and at the same time provides a fascinating window into the intellectual world of the later twelfth century. This edition and translation by Constant J. Mews and Antti Ijas, accompanied by a substantial introduction, provides us with the essential background to the issues and allows us to follow the debate in an accessible form. As explained in these treatises, the question of the kin of Jesus was a complex one that medieval commentators struggled to untangle. There are various biblical references to the brothers and sisters of Jesus, but little clarity as to how Jesus was related to them. Jerome argued that both the Virgin Mary and Joseph retained their virginity, and so certain theories emerged that concerned two putative sisters of the Virgin and their children. Central to these discussions were the gospel accounts of the women who watched the crucifixion from a distance. Mark identifies them as Mary of Magdala, Mary mother of James the Less and Joseph, and Salome; Matthew instead names Mary of Magdala, Mary mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee; John identifies the three women as Mary mother of Jesus, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary of Magdala. Salome presented special problems. The name does not decline, meaning that the end of the reference in Mark 15:40 could read “and Mary mother of James the Less and Joseph, and of Salome”, leading some to assume that Salome was a man. Incidentally, there is no connection here to the daughter of Herod II who demanded and received the head of John the Baptist. The gospel accounts do not name her, and her identification as Salome derives from Josephus' Antiquities. It was Haimo of Auxerre (d. c. 875) who first suggested that St Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, had two other daughters, each called Mary, by two other husbands. Anne and Joachim begat the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. When Joachim died, Anne married Cleophas, and they begat Mary “of Cleophas”, whose children were James the Less, the Lord's brother, and another Joseph. Upon Cleophas' death, Anne married a third man, named Salome, and had from him a third Mary. This Mary married Zebedee, and to them were born James the Great and John the Evangelist. Although Haimo subsequently revised his theories on the kin of Jesus, and his “trinubium hypothesis” was largely ignored in the following centuries, it was revived towards the end of the eleventh century, and spread widely in the twelfth. It was circulated in the form of prose and verse summaries and these summaries were accepted by no less a figure than Peter Lombard. In the aftermath of Peter's unexpected death in 1160, many of his teachings came under suspicion, and in 1170 these were condemned by papal edict. It is in the context of the new popularity of the trinubium hypothesis and the challenge to Peter Lombard's reputation that these treatises were written. Maurice, a canon and later prior of the Augustinian house of Kirkham in Yorkshire, publicly raised his concerns at a papal council, likely the council of Tours in 1163. He then wrote a short refutation of the erroneous genealogy of Jesus, followed after 1170 by a longer treatise addressed to Gilbert of Sempringham, along with a letter to Roger, archbishop of York, which includes an exchange of verses mocking the arguments of the “Salomites.” Herbert of Bosham, Thomas Becket's clerk and confidante and a Paris-educated master, took up the issue in a letter to Henry the Liberal, the learned count of Blois and Champagne. Whereas Maurice was highly critical of Peter Lombard, Herbert was Lombard's former pupil, and the arguments rehearsed in the letter to Henry and his revision of Peter Lombard's Great Gloss were part of a rearguard action to protect his master's legacy by correcting what he saw as isolated errors. These texts, all of which are edited here, bring us directly into the world of biblical scholarship in the 1160s and 1170s. In Maurice's longer treatise in particular, we see a scholar providing a detailed review of the controversy, quoting directly from the erroneous texts, and refuting them on the basis of authorities from Jerome to Hugh of St Victor. Key to Maurice's case was his careful reading of Hegesippus, as preserved in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. The better-connected Herbert had access to Origen's commentary on Matthew's gospel, which established that Salome was the mother of the sons of Zebedee. These texts are full of details about private and public discussions, the borrowing and lending of books, and the extensive and often overlapping networks through which their ideas were formed. Also significant is the fact that both writers had contacts with Jewish scholars, and considerable knowledge of Hebrew, which they used in the service of establishing the literal sense of scripture. Whereas much of the focus of these writings is on refuting the erroneous theory of a male Salome, the result is to throw light on those disciples who were not blood relatives of Jesus, and in particular on the role of female disciples. This is a complicated story, but one that is told well in the lengthy introduction, which addresses the controversy, the authors, and their sources. The edition and translation of the full texts, with helpful explanatory notes, provide us with both a comprehensive record of this particular controversy, and a vivid illustration of how biblical exegetes worked in the twelfth century.

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