The School Sermon Exported: The Case of Pelagius Parvus

"The School Sermon Exported: The Case of Pelagius Parvus." Most studies of medieval preaching have naturally concentrated on well-known individuals and on the leading centers for the dissemination of sermon collections, like Paris. Important as these studies are, it remains unclear how the school sermon style, developed in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, was used outside the intellectual centers of Europe. This article is a case study of the sermons of one provincial preacher, Pelagius Parvus, a Portuguese Dominican who flourished in the 1240s. It seeks to show that even in a comparatively remote part of Europe, Pelagius was well aware of the latest developments in sermon design. He organizes his sermons in the fashion recommended by the thirteenth-century artes praedicandi, and he relies on the same types of reference tools that were available to preachers in other areas. While he is sometimes critical of the content of the learning at the schools, he uses the school-sermon style to make his sermons both more effective and easier to write.