ABSTRACT
First of all, Rupescissa refers to the occasion for the composition of the Vade mecum : as an answer to a request from the Franciscan father and physician Peter Périer, Rupescissa had promised to write about future events. He also addresses his work to Peter. 23 Thereby Rupescissa does not write as an Old Testament prophet directed by God, but rather as someone who possesses a special knowledge of the prophetic texts conferred on him by Christ; this enabled Rupescissa to understand impending events. 24 He could support his claims with unequivocal scriptural references, for only in this way could obstinate clerics be made to understand. 25 The self-conception that Christ imparted the intelligencia spiritus prophetalium scripturarum to Rupescissa is essential for him; this claim also can be found in other works by him. 26
In the present work, however, according to his own statement, Rupescissa only reports the events and dispenses with proofs, because he intends to be brief, has no opportunity to write in detail and, in addition, has already offered proof in numerous other works. 27 In his eyes, an especially impressive proof was his prophecy of the capture and imprisonment of King John of France, which he had demonstrated conclusively with passages from the Holy Scriptures to the
Bignami-Odier claims) in M 1 (see below, 84, no. 1.1.1.3) – which appears behind the Vade mecum ’s Explicit and contains no year date, but the information ‘ in die Iovis in crastino Remigii’ (i.e. Thursday, 2 October) and claims to be written on the mandate of pope Clemens VI – as proof that the work was copied by a papal scribe on 2 October 1356. Against this Lerner (cf. ibid., 40-41) points out that Clement VI died in 1352 so probably the reigning pope of the colophon is Innocent VI (1352-1362) and its correct original date 2 October 1360. But in the reign of Innocent VI († 12 September 1362) we fi nd 2 October as Thursday only in the year 1356 (twice in the reign of Clement VI: in 1345 and 1351). In 1360, 2 October was a Friday. So the day of the colophon in weekday, month and patron fi ts 1356 but not the named reigning pope. However, if we consider that Rupescissa reports in the Liber Ostensor IX.41 (530-531; see below, VM § 8, n. 40), the way he was humiliated in public at the end of his heresy process by William Court, the ‘White Cardinal’, and his books thrown on the fl oor, and this in Avignon on 10 August 1354 during the reign of Innocent VI, it seems improbable that a colophon written only two years later would not even hint at so signifi cant a curial shift in judging Rupescissa, whose book the pope now recommended, if one believes that the colophon relates to the Vade mecum and is accurate both in its date and in its statement on the pope’s mind, even if not on his name. Considering these problematic presumptions and also the fact that the colophon itself does not give any hint at the content of the Vade mecum or at Rupescissa at all, it seems very probable that the scribe of M 1 or his exemplar added the colophon erroneously – or willingly for its convenient formulations and without knowledge of the exact duration of Clement’s pontifi cate – out of a completely different context to underline the importance of Rupescissa’s message.
