servant. When a vassal recognizes a benefit, he also commits himself
to approve the duties that pertain to the bond. At the same time,
Bonaventure uses this event for moral and personal applications.
Bonaventure uses the verbagnoscoand the nounagnitioless often
thanrecognoscoandrecognitio.^119 Cognosco(as well asscireand
nosse) is his preferred verb for knowing. While Bonaventure shares
the new features of this verb present in Aquinas to some extent, his
use ofrecognitioandrecognosconevertheless remains fragmentary.
We can conclude that the new normative features of this terminology
are present in the later thirteenth century, but it is Aquinas rather
than Bonaventure who consciously employs them in his theology.
This being said, we need to add that Bonaventure takes over the
feudal language of commendation, employing it frequently to
describe the bond between God and elected saints like Mary or
St Stephen.^120 He also describes the God-given virtues of St Francis
of Assisi in these terms. Francis is commended for his deep humility
as well as the virtues that manifest the divine election. He is also
commended through his love of God and neighbourly love. It is
essential that humility, virtue, and love all be given by God so that
the commendation is not personal praise but a manifestation of the
bond between God and God’s servant.^121 Obviously, this metaphor-
ical dimension of commendation already has a considerable distance
from its feudal background. For our study, the important issue is not
feudalism but the heteronomous constitution of the identity that is
constituted in such laudatory religious speech. The recognition of a
religious saint emerges through the commendation given by the Lord,
as 2 Cor. 10:18 points out.
As the works of both Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure continue
to be extremely influential through the late medieval and early mod-
ern period, they have obvious significance for the history of the
concept and conceptions of religious recognition. At the same time,
their impact is not found in issues that historians are most familiar
with. For instance, later Franciscan discussions of poverty and per-
sonal property could be argued to form part of this history. However,
the existing discussions seem to proceed along different paths. While
(^119) LLTdatabase: agnit 12 times, agnosc 21; recognit 24, recognosc 26.
(^120) Mary:Serm. de div.vol. 2, sermo 50, par. 1, p. 654. Stephen:Serm. de div.vol. 1,
sermo 5, par. 3, pp. 121–2.
(^121) Serm. de div.vol. 2, sermo 57, par. 2, p. 751.
78 Recognition and Religion