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Somme des vices et vertus [Somme le roi]

Description

more modern English title: Book of Vices and Virtues

The Dominican friar Laurent d'Orléans, O.P., in his Somme le roi, whom the French king Philip III commissioned in 1279 (not long after St. Thomas's death in 1274), devised a sevenfold ranking of chastity (Part 3 "How Man Ought to Hate Pride", ¶¶ 6.34-6.43) :

The chastity of

  1. non-consecrated virgins
  2. unmarried repentant non-virgins
  3. marrieds
  4. widows
  5. consecrated virgins
  6. ordained priests
  7. the religious (monks, nuns)

(cf. St. Thomas's theefold categorization)

Friar Laurent, O.P., distinguishes the "7 degrees of the virtue of chastity" (¶¶ 6.26-6.33):

  1. clean conscience
  2. bridle the tongue ("keeping his mouth from villainous words")
  3. "keeping well the five wits [senses] of the body"
  4. subject the body/flesh to the spirit
  5. flee bad company and occasions of sin
  6. avoid idleness
  7. devout prayer and "orison"

from the "7 degrees/branches of the states of chastity" (¶¶ 6.34-6.43), the first list above.

Laurent d'Orléans, O.P., was Philip III's confessor.