Rule about laughter

The Rule about laughter in the Benedictine abbey is a central point of conflict, representing the tension between monastic discipline and human nature, and between the fear of God and the liberating power of doubt. It is most explicitly articulated by the blind librarian Jorge of Burgos, who argues that Christ never laughed and that laughter is a sign of folly and a threat to faith, while William of Baskerville defends laughter as a rational and human act that can serve truth and confound the wicked. This debate is not merely theological but is directly linked to the mystery of the forbidden book—Aristotle's lost second book of the Poetics, which treats comedy and laughter as a means of purification—and to the series of murders that Jorge commits to suppress that book.

The Monastic Prohibition and Jorge's Doctrine

The Rule of Saint Benedict explicitly condemns laughter. During supper on the first day, the reader intones a passage from the Rule: "But vulgarities, nonsense, and jests we condemn to perpetual imprisonment, in every place, and we do not allow the disciple to open his mouth for speech of this sort." Jorge immediately reinforces this, citing John Chrysostom's assertion that "Christ never laughed." When William counters that laughter is proper to man, as theologians teach, Jorge retorts that the Son of Man could have laughed but it is not written that he did, quoting Petrus Cantor. Jorge's position is absolute: laughter foments doubt, and when one is in doubt, one must turn to authority. He declares that the fool who laughs says in his heart, "Deus non est." For Jorge, laughter is a weapon of the ignorant against the sole truth that should be known, a truth that has already been said once and for all.

William's Defense of Laughter as Reason and Medicine

William of Baskerville consistently argues for the value of laughter. He cites Quintilian, who says laughter is to be repressed in the panegyric but encouraged in many other cases, and Pliny the Younger, who wrote, "Sometimes I laugh, I jest, I play, because I am a man." William also invokes Hildebertus, who authorized a discreet hilarity, and John of Salisbury. He presents laughter as a good medicine, like baths, to treat humors and melancholy. More pointedly, he argues that laughter can be a suitable instrument to undermine false authority and confound the wicked, citing the story of Saint Maurus who ridiculed his pagan executioners. William even suggests that Christ himself used wit, as when he invited the Pharisees to cast the first stone or played on words with "Tu es petrus." This defense is not merely academic; it is a direct challenge to Jorge's grim, authoritarian vision of faith.

The Scriptorium Debate and the Forbidden Book

The conflict over laughter reaches its peak in the scriptorium during a debate about Adelmo of Otranto's marginal illustrations. Venantius of Salvemec, citing Aristotle, argues that witticisms and plays on words can be instruments to better reveal the truth. Jorge becomes enraged, and the discussion turns to Aristotle's Poetics. Venantius mentions that Aristotle dedicated a second book of the Poetics specifically to laughter, a book that has never been found and is perhaps lost forever. Jorge declares that if it had not been found, it was because Providence did not want futile things glorified. This debate directly foreshadows the central mystery: the lost book is the very one Jorge has hidden in the finis Africae, and he will murder to keep it from being read. The debate over laughter is thus a debate over the legitimacy of a whole mode of thought that Jorge considers diabolical.

The Thematic Significance: Laughter, Truth, and the Antichrist

In the final confrontation, Jorge reveals why he feared Aristotle's book on comedy so deeply. He argues that laughter is the peasant's entertainment, a diurnal pollution that releases humors and distracts from other ambitions. But if laughter were elevated to art and philosophy, it could teach men to free themselves from the fear of the Devil and of death. Jorge sees this as a diabolical reversal that would destroy the very foundation of the church's power, which is based on fear. William, in response, identifies Jorge himself as the true Devil—not the Prince of Matter, but the arrogance of the spirit, faith without a smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The novel ultimately suggests that the rule against laughter is a tool of intellectual and spiritual tyranny, and that the ability to laugh is essential to human freedom and the pursuit of truth. William's final, bitter reflection after the abbey's destruction—that the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from an insane passion for the truth—is a direct consequence of this conflict.