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AUGUSTIN, AUGUSTINUS, AUGUSTYN, AUSTYN (saint). Aurelius Augustinus (A.D. 354-430) was born in Tagaste in Numidia (now called Souk Ahras, Algeria). His mother Monica was a devout Christian who prayed earnestly for his conversion; his father Patricius was a pagan. Augustine was first a Neo-Platonist, then a Manichaean, teaching rhetoric at Tagaste, then at Rome. When he moved to Milan, he came under St. Ambrose's influence. He became a Christian and was baptized in 387. In 391 he went to Hippo (Bone, Algeria), where he was ordained, and he became bishop of the city in 396. He died on 28 August 430, during the Vandal invasion of the city, at the age of seventy-six. In his Retractationes (Retractions) of 427 Augustine lists a total of ninety-three works. The most famous of these are Confessions (c. 397-400), describing his dissolute life, his emotional and psychological struggles, his religious conversion, and De civitate Dei or The City of God (413-426), written to answer the charge that the Christians caused the fall of the empire. He is one of the four greatest doctors of the Roman Catholic church, the others being Ambrose, Jerome, and Gregory the Great. Dante places him in the Celestial Rose, seated below St. Bernard and St. Francis, Par XXXII.35.

After his ordination at Hippo, Augustine established a monastery within the church confines. When he was consecrated bishop in 396, he had to leave the monastery. By the time of his death he had established many other monasteries for both men and women, which formed a rich heritage for the North African Church. The Rule of St. Augustine comes probably from Spain, written between the sixth and the eighth centuries. Its authenticity has not been established. The Augustinian Friars began canonically in the thirteenth century, but they trace their lineage to Augustine (NCE I: 1071-1072).

The Monk sees no reason to work with his hands as Austyn bids, Gen Prol 186-188; he does not give a "pulled hen" for the text that says that hunters are not holy men. St. Augustine, De civitate Dei (The City of God) XVI.4, defines the word "hunter" to mean "entrapper, persecutor, murderer of earthly creatures." A tradition grew up in medieval scriptural exegesis that, although fishermen had been holy (Peter, James, John, and Andrew), no hunters were holy. This tradition began with Aelfric's pastoral letters and the homilies of Wulfstan. The Decretals of Ivo of Chartres, a series of compilations written between 1140 and 1151, elaborate the tradition. Thus monks were required to abstain from hunting. Dame Prudence quotes from Augustine, Mel 1617, a quotation that has not been identified, and from his Sermon CCCLV.1 (PL 39: 1568), Mel 1643. Augustine is an authority on the doctrine of God's foreknowledge and man's free will, NPT 3241. Although Chaucer does not say that the monk in the Shipman's Tale is an Augustinian canon, he probably belongs to that order since he sends the merchant on his way with a blessing from the saint, ShipT 259. The Parson quotes Augustine's Sermon CCCLI.2 (PL 39: 1537), ParsT 97; Epistle CCLXV.8 (PL 33: 1089), ParsT 101; Augustine's Sermon IX.16 (PL 38: 87), ParsT 150; he quotes Pseudo-Augustine, Liber de vera et falsa poenitentia (The Book of True and False Penitence), IX.24 (PL 40: 1121), ParsT 303. ParsT 329-460 appears to be an Augustinian interpretation of the secret punishment of evil. The Parson quotes from Augustine's Sermon CCCLIII.1 (PL 39: 1561), ParsT 484, 678; from De civitate Dei (The City of God), XIV.15.2 (PL 41: 424), ParsT 535, 741; from Augustine, De bono coniugali (On the Good Marriage), 20-21 (PL 40: 387), ParsT 921; from Liber de vera et falsa poenitentia (The Book of True and False Penitence), X.25 (PL 40: 1122), ParsT 985, 1026. The following citations have not been identified: ParsT 230, 269, 368, 383, 630, 831, 844. The narrator points out, ironically, Augustine's "greet compassyoun" for Lucretia, LGW 1690-1691, but, in fact, Augustine emphasizes the inappropriateness of her suicide. In De civitate Dei (The City of God) I.18, Augustine devotes a section to the comparison of pagan virtue to Christian virtue with Lucretia's story as illustration.

Augustin/Augustyn are scribal variants influenced by pronunciation and appear in the prose works, Mel 1617, 1643; ParsT 97, 100, 150, 230, 269, 301, 368, 383, 484, 535, 630, 675, 678, 690, 740, 765, 830, 845, 920, 955, 985, 1020, 1025. Augustinus appears in a gloss, ParsT 750. The English form, Austyn, occurs in medial positions, Gen Prol 187, 188; ShipT 259; LGW 1690; it appears as a rhyming tag, PrP 441.


Peter R.L. Brown, Augustine of Hippo; A.L. Kellogg, "An Augustinian Interpretation of Chaucer's Pardoner." Speculum 26 (1951): 465-481; ibid., "St. Augustine and the Parson's Tale." Traditio 8 (1952): 424-430; R. Willard, "Chaucer's 'Text that seith that hunters ben nat hooly men.' " Studies in English (1947): 209-251.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.

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