Utrum Electuaria Solvant Ieiunium?

Thirteenth-Century Scholastics and Decretalists on Consuming Electuaries During Fasting

Abstract

Abstract
This article is dedicated to examining the views of selected 13th-century scholastics and decretalists on the consumption of sweet apothecary products, known in Latin as electuaria and referred to as electuaries in English scholarly literature, during fasting. The author discusses this issue based on an analysis of excerpts from the works of William of Auxerre (Summa aurea, also known as Summa in IV Sententiarum), Alexander of Hales (Summa Theologiae), Thomas Aquinas (Commentary on the Four Books of Sentences by Peter Lombard and Summa Theologiae), Innocent IV (Commentaria super libros quinque decretalium), and Henry of Susa (known as Hostiensis, Apparatus in Decretales). The views of these authors were largely consistent and can be summarized as affirming that the consumption of electuaries during fasting is permissible, provided they are not treated as confections. Each of these authors employed slightly different arguments to support their stance.

William of Auxerre noted that consuming medicinal preserves, while technically breaking the fast, does not result in the loss of merit, that is, the reward of eternal life. Alexander of Hales conducted a typological analysis of food products, categorizing them into four groups: medicines, proper food, medicinal foods, and food-like medicines. Electuaries were classified in the third group, and thus their consumption was permissible during fasting. St. Thomas Aquinas emphasized the quantitative factor and the role of taste as criteria for assessing the permissibility of consuming electuaries during fasting. Innocent IV and Henry of Susa (Hostiensis) highlighted the sole condition for consuming medicinal preserves during fasting: the presence of illness.

In conclusion, the author argues that the attention given by prominent representatives of contemporary theological and legal thought to the question of the permissibility of consuming electuaries—sweet apothecary products—during fasting reflected a response to the changing role of such products at the time. Previously treated as remedies for various ailments (mostly gastrointestinal), they were increasingly becoming confections consumed for pleasure and in excess. Consequently, their consumption during fasting, a time of self-mortification, posed a significant moral dilemma. In the unanimous opinion of both scholastics and decretalists, electuaries were classified as medicinal substances and, as such, could be consumed during fasting. As a result, this type of apothecary product, alongside confectes, became a staple of fasting menus by the late Middle Ages. Moreover, perceived as fasting-appropriate products, they gained increasing popularity, regardless of the medical context of the time or the views of 13th-century thinkers and decretalists.