Crossing Boundaries at Medieval Universities (Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance)

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Crossing Boundaries at Medieval Universities

Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Editors

William J. Courtenay (Madison) Jürgen Miethke (Heidelberg) Frank Rexroth (Göttingen) Jacques Verger (Paris) Advisory Board

Jeremy Catto (Oxford) Daniel Hobbins (Columbus) Roberto Lambertini (Macerata) VOLUME 36

Crossing Boundaries at Medieval Universities Edited by

Spencer E. Young

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Crossing boundaries at medieval universities / edited by Spencer E. Young. p. cm. -- (Education and society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance ; v. 36) Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-19215-7 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Universities and colleges-Europe--History. 2. Education, Medieval. 3. Middle Ages. I. Young, Spencer E. LA177.C88 2011 378.4’0902--dc22 2010040040

ISSN 0926-6070 ISBN 978 90 04 19215 7 Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

CONTENTS Abbreviations ............................................................................................ vii Introduction .................................................................................................1 Spencer E. Young I. Philosophical and Theological Boundaries Crossing Philosophical Boundaries c. 1150–c. 1250...............................9 David Luscombe Scholastic Theology at Paris around 1200 ............................................. 29 Marcia L. Colish Reshaping the Genre: Literary Trends in Philosophical Theology in the Fourteenth Century ................................................. 51 Chris Schabel Nominalism in Cologne: The Student Notebook of the Dominican Servatius Fanckel with an edition of a disputatio vacantialis held on July 14, 1480 “Utrum in deo uno simplicissimo sit trium personarum realis distinctio” .................... 85 Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen Cognitive Theory and the Relation between the Scholastic and Mystical Modes of Theology: Why Denys the Carthusian Outlawed Durandus of Saint-Pourçain ........................................... 145 Kent Emery, Jr. II. Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries A Skewed View: The Achievement of Late Medieval Science and Philosophy as seen from the Renaissance ............................... 177 John E. Murdoch Medicine and Arts in Thirteenth-Century Paris ................................ 189 Michael R. McVaugh Medicine and Theology ......................................................................... 213 Danielle Jacquart Lex naturalis and Ius naturale .............................................................227 Kenneth Pennington

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When the Devil Went to Law School: Canon Law and Theology in the Fourteenth Century ............................................... 255 Karl Shoemaker Antichrist Goes to the University: The De victoria Christi contra Antichristum of Hugo de Novocastro, OFM (1315/1319) ............ 277 Robert E. Lerner III. Town and Gown The University of Heidelberg and the Jews: Founding and Financing the Needs of a New University....................................... 317 Jürgen Miethke List of Contributors ................................................................................ 341 Index Nominum ..................................................................................... 343 Index Locorum ....................................................................................... 350

ABBREVIATIONS AHDLMA

Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge BPM Bulletin de Philosophie Médiévale CCCM Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina CIMAGL Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin CUP Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, eds. Heinrich Denifle and Émile Chatelain, 4 vols. (Paris, 1889–97) MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica PL Patrologia Latina RSPT Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques RTAM / RTPM Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale / Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales

INTRODUCTION Spencer E. Young Medievalists are accustomed to dealing with the concept of boundaries, both real and imagined. Boundaries between reason and faith; between orthodoxy and heresy; among oratores, bellatores and laborares, to name only a few, can enable the recognition of important conceptual distinctions that existed within medieval society. This notion is particularly relevant to the study of medieval universities, where a multitude of boundaries were present. Institutional boundaries between faculties; intellectual boundaries between disciplines; social boundaries between town and gown, and others, were frequently established at the universities and by their members in an ongoing effort to delineate the contours of intellectual and social life at this nascent institutional form. Yet such divides were not insurmountable. Students and teachers often spent time in more than one faculty throughout their career and many even did so simultaneously, as they served as regent masters in arts while pursuing their studies in one of the higher faculties of law, medicine and theology. Scholars in one field frequently drew upon the expertise, or standard texts of another, and communicated their crossing of disciplinary boundaries via the scholastic habit of citing authorities.1 Students both quarreled and co-operated with the inhabitants of university towns, among whom they lived, and from whom they rented rooms, purchased ale, and solicited sexual favors. Boundaries were made to be crossed. The essays in this volume all deal with various types of boundaries at medieval universities and the extent to which they were, and in some cases were not, crossed. The first section of papers deals with various aspects of the relationship between philosophy and theology at several points along the late medieval chronological continuum. David Luscombe and Marcia Colish explore the status of these respective

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These citations could be either precise or general. For instance, a theologian might reveal his interest in canon law by referring to a specific passage in Gratian’s Decretum or indicate his awareness of consensus medical theory more generally by merely acknowledging “physici dicunt.”

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disciplines around the year 1200, just as the university as an institution was beginning to take shape in Bologna, Paris and Oxford. Luscombe examines transitions in the arts curriculum taking place from 1150 to 1250 (though he notes that changes were already afoot in the early twelfth century), tracing the de-emphasis of the traditional seven liberal arts and the development of other new classifications (such as the division into natural, moral and metaphysical philosophies) that corresponded to the increasingly philosophical character of the arts program in northern universities. This also gives him occasion to look at the impact of Aristotle’s libri naturales on both philosophy and theology, as well as the relationship between intellectual activity inside and outside the schools. On the other side, Colish’s paper reinforces the provisional and preliminary nature of our understanding of theology around 1200 through a comprehensive review of the primary and secondary literature. Emphasizing the variety of scholastic settings, career opportunities, pedagogical patterns and genre contributions of these theologians, she identifies the multitude of possibilities available to theologians and consequent difficulties for categorizing neatly scholastic theology of this period. Moreover, as she explains, not all theologians understood their task in similar ways, and while modern scholars have tended to emphasize the innovative features of scholastic theology, the continued use of the rather pedestrian Gloss of the PseudoPeter of Poitiers well into the fourteenth century illustrates the continuing presence within universities of an element that did not wish to occupy the theological avant garde. Taken together, the papers by Chris Schabel and Maarten Hoenen highlight the intellectual vitality that resulted from widespread interdisciplinarity, contrasted with the debilitating effects of intellectual atomization. Schabel’s essay is a quantitative analysis of works and authors of “philosophical theology” over the latter half of the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. Based upon such an analysis, he offers an important re-thinking of the periodization of scholasticism, suggesting that the zenith of scholasticism was, in fact, the first quarter of the fourteenth century rather than the middle of the thirteenth. In contrast to earlier and later periods, Schabel demonstrates that in the first quarter of the fourteenth century we see more orders contributing, more numerous and lengthier quodlibetal questions, and the greatest variety of scholastic literary categories. Shortly thereafter, however, we begin to see a decline in scholastic literary production, due to such factors as the Black Death, the Hundred Years War, the parochialization

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of universities and the sheer exhaustion of scholasticism. The effects of this decline on intellectual discourse are further manifested in Hoenen’s essay and edition which focuses on a disputatio vacantialis held in 1480 between Realists and Nominalists as it was recorded in the notebook of Servatius Fanckel, a Dominican student at the University of Cologne. Hoenen’s contribution especially underscores the negative effect created by boundaries between the via antiqua and the via moderna in a late medieval university where debates became less and less fruitful as common ground for argument between the two had all but disappeared. The final paper in the section is Kent Emery, Jr.’s look at Denys the Carthusian’s Sentences commentary, and its treatment of the work of Durand of St. Pourçain in particular. Emery uses Denys’s commentary as a vehicle for exploring the boundaries between philosophy and theology, and, more precisely, between the scholastic and mystical modes of theology. Tracking Denys’s prolific citation of a wide range of authorities also enables further insights on the narrowing conception of the task of scholastic theology in the later Middle Ages as it became bound more specifically to the institution of the university itself than to the longer Christian tradition of wisdom that was more apt to include the voices of church fathers, monks and saints. As the second set of essays, by John Murdoch, Michael McVaugh, Danielle Jacquart, Ken Pennington, Karl Shoemaker and Robert Lerner, makes clear, the crossing of disciplinary and genre boundaries was unevenly appreciated by medieval scholars themselves and by those who read their work. Murdoch takes to task those Renaissance figures who heaped opprobrium upon the fourteenth-century authors of sophismata and limit-decision literature, by pointing out their failure to appreciate the creative and at times brilliant interdisciplinary character of these genres which showcased the merits of applying the principles of logic to natural philosophy. As the papers by McVaugh and Jacquart suggest, the arts offered more profitable exchanges with medicine than did theology, something that is perhaps reflected in medical faculty statutes offering partial dispensation of study to those students who already possessed an arts degree. Through a comparison of the non-arts master Gérard de Berry’s commentary on the Viaticum with the Compendium medicinae authored by the probably arts-trained Gilbertus Anglicus, McVaugh shows that a background in the arts allowed for greater classificatory precision and a more sophisticated approach to the philosophical

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underpinnings of medical issues, yet without detracting from the primary, pragmatic purpose of medical inquiry: to know what heals. Jacquart, on the other hand, reports that, with few exceptions, medical masters avoided dealing with theological issues: ubi incipit theologus, ibi desinit medicus. Moreover, while medicine could sometimes nourish theological debates, theologians routinely set boundaries between the two disciplines and occasionally even criticized the physicians’ inability to deal with “spiritual diseases.” The well-documented rivalry between practitioners of law and theology did not prevent frequent boundary crossings, though as Pennington’s paper on the distinctions between ius and lex in discussions of natural law shows, these could be problematic when done without the requisite level of expertise. Focusing especially on Thomas Aquinas’s mistaken favouring of lex over ius, especially in his earlier writings, Pennington argues that the Angelic Doctor’s errors have impoverished the conversation on natural law to the present day. On the other hand, Shoemaker reads the fascinating though previously marginalized Processus Sathanae literary genre as a means of reconciling the competing aspirations of theology and canon law to the status of scientia scientiarum. This literature depicting a trial in the court of heaven over the legal title to the human race enabled canon lawyers to present a coherent theology of redemption that also reflected the experience and concerns of their own discipline. While it did not alleviate all tensions between the two disciplines, the Processus Sathanae did advocate for giving an important role to spiritual truth within the legal process. This genre also crossed the literary boundary that normally separated legal from theological texts. Lerner’s paper on Hugo de Novocastro further illustrates the crossing of literary boundaries by showing how this early fourteenth-century university master re-packaged conventional ideas on the Antichrist in highly original ways, including the application of scholastic rigor to prophetic eschatology, a subject previous scholastic authors had studiously avoided. Hugo’s treatise also placed him in a curious position at the intersection of the great controversy within the Franciscan order between Spirituals and Conventuals. While the ideas presented in his treatise on Antichrist indicate several important affinities with the Spirituals, he nevertheless positioned himself alongside their persecutor, Michael of Cesena, after his university career. Lerner’s reconstruction of Hugo’s geographical background, academic cursus, and dating of this treatise on Antichrist is also valuable in its own right.

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The volume concludes with Jürgen Miethke’s look at the darker side of the University of Heidelberg’s successful growth. Although the late fourteenth century saw a proliferation of university foundations, only those that managed to secure sufficient local support were able to flourish, demonstrating the frequently artificial character of the boundary separating town from gown. As Miethke shows, the University of Heidelberg managed to gain local stability when it capitalized upon the misfortunes of the local Jewish population by accepting Prince Ruprecht II’s bequest of the houses and synagogues seized from the Jews upon their expulsion from Heidelberg. In return for princely support, the university offered the benefits of new knowledge and an authoritative voice in the effort to eliminate deviance. These essays were first delivered at a conference entitled “Crossing Boundaries at Medieval Universities: Intellectual Moments, Academic Disciplines and Societal Conflict” held at the University of WisconsinMadison on May 16–17, 2008 in recognition and celebration of William J. Courtenay’s retirement from teaching.2 Throughout a prolific career, Professor Courtenay has been at the forefront of a reconsideration of the richness and complexities of late medieval thought, once considered to be a period of intellectual dissolution or decay. In one way or another, the essays contained herein all profit from, and reflect the merits of, the approach that he has taken and the kinds of questions that he has asked about the intellectual and educational histories of late medieval Europe. A special thanks is owed to the Anonymous Fund at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for helping to finance the conference and to all the conference participants who engaged in a series of stimulating discussions over the course of those two days. I would also like to thank Brill, and the editors of its series Education and Society in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, for publishing this volume. Editor’s Note: I am sad to report that John Murdoch passed away just as this volume was in the final stage of preparation. I am grateful to include his essay in this volume and am sorry he was not able to see its completion. I pay tribute here to his memory and all the excellent work he did on the history of medieval science.

2 For a review of this conference, see my report in BPM 50 (2008), 333–40. Of the contributors to the conference, only Robert Lerner’s paper is different from what was presented at Madison.

I. Philosophical and Theological Boundaries

CROSSING PHILOSOPHICAL BOUNDARIES C. 1150–C. 1250 David Luscombe Many of the developments that took place in philosophical learning and teaching from the second half of the twelfth century into the next are familiar in outline. Works written in Greek, Hebrew and Arabic entered the world of Latin Christendom on waves of translations. The pursuit of philosophy and science brought English scholars to Toledo, Palermo and Salerno, Italians to Constantinople and, like German and English students, to Paris. Schools of thought that can be identified during the twelfth century died out. Universities emerged and faculties too with declared programmes of study, along with some academic self-governance. The arrival of the new Aristotle presented new challenges to Christian beliefs. Less familiar and less clear are the interactions between changing priorities in philosophical learning and teaching and the material and cultural contexts in which such learning and teaching were pursued. Both philosophical and institutional boundaries were repeatedly drawn, shifted and crossed. As if shedding a chrysalis, the trivium and the quadrivium ended an old life or started a new one, with new arts, new books and new curricula. Old logic was joined or displaced by new, ancient by modern. The three philosophies – moral, metaphysical and natural – installed themselves. It is instructive to look closely at the fluidities that there were. Trivium and quadrivium In principle, the seven liberal arts were interdependent but the trivium considered as a whole may to some extent have become fictional,1 and the quadrivium certainly fell apart.2 A monument had been raised to 1 Sten Ebbesen and Irène Rosier-Catach, “Le trivium à la Faculté des arts,” in L’Enseignement des disciplines à la Faculté des arts (Paris et Oxford, XIIIe–XVe siècles). Actes du colloque international, eds. Olga Weijers and Louis Holtz, Studia artistarum 4 (Brepols, 1997), pp. 97–128. 2 Guy Beaujouan, “The Transformation of the Quadrivium,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, eds. Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable with Carol D. Lanham (Oxford, 1982), pp. 463–87.

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all the arts by Thierry of Chartres in his Eptateuchon but it lacked balance and proportion.3 William of Conches maintained that a student should proceed through the study of grammar and dialectic and rhetoric to the study of philosophy in the following stages: arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy – but he was optimistic.4 Yet within the trivium it was scarcely possible to confine study to any one art and exclude one or both of the others. William of Champeaux got embroiled in disputes over Porphyry’s introduction to logic while lecturing on rhetoric.5 Peter Abelard discussed rhetorical topics found in Cicero’s De inventione in the course of his glosses on Boethius’s De Differentiis Topicis.6 Peter Helias, a grammarian, taught rhetoric to the young John of Salisbury.7 At Paris logic and grammar were tightly connected but references to rhetorical teaching in dialectical treatises became rarer after the introduction of further works by Aristotle on logic towards the middle of the 12th century.8 In some ways rhetoric may seem to have become their poor relation, at least in northern Europe, as fewer 3 In the prologue to his Eptateuchon, Thierry of Chartres wrote that there were two instruments of philosophy: understanding and its expression. Understanding is lit up by the quadrivium; expression is given to this by the trivium. More than two-thirds of the contents of the collection are devoted to the sources of the trivium, especially grammar. The prologue has been edited by Edouard Jeauneau in Mediaeval Studies 16 (1954), 171–5; repr. in Jeauneau, “Lectio philosophorum”; Recherches sur l’École de Chartres (Amsterdam, 1973), pp. 87–91. 4 William of Conches, De philosophia mundi 4.41, PL 172:100. The sequence of grammar, rhetoric, dialectic was the one received from antiquity and found in, for example, Victorinus. Hugh of St Victor placed rhetoric after grammar and before dialectic in his Epitome in philosophiam in Hugonis de Sancto Victore opera propaedeutica. Practica geometriae, De grammatica, Epitome Dindimi in philosophiam…., ed. Roger Baron, Publications in Mediaeval Studies. The University of Notre Dame 20 (Notre Dame, 1966), pp. 205 and n. 48, pp. 242–44. See also A. Van de Vyver, “Les étapes du développement philosophique du haut moyen âge,” Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 8 (1929), 425–52. 5 Peter Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. J. Monfrin (Paris, 1978), pp. 65–66. For William’s writings on rhetoric see Karen Margareta Fredborg, “The Commentaries on Cicero’s De inventione and Rhetorica ad Herennium by William of Champeaux,” CIMAGL 17 (1976), 1–39. 6 Super Topica Glossae, in Pietro Abelardo. Scritti Filosofici, ed. Mario Dal Pra (Milan, 1954; 2nd ed., Florence, 1969), pp. 205–330. See Karen Margareta Fredborg, “Abelard on Rhetoric,” in Rhetoric and Renewal in the Latin West, 1100–1540. Essays in Honour of John O. Ward, eds. Constant J. Mews, Cary J. Nederman, Rodney M. Thomson, Disputatio 2 (Turnhout, 2003), pp. 55–80. 7 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon 2.10, ed. J. B. Hall with the assistance of K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, CCCM 98 (Turnhout, 1991); see Karen Margareta Fredborg, “Peter Helias on rhetoric,” CIMAGL 13 (1974), 31–41. 8 For references to rhetorical teaching in dialectical treatises in the early twelfth century see Karen Margareta Fredborg, “Rhetoric and Dialectic,” in The Rhetoric of Cicero in its Medieval and Early Renaissance Commentary Tradition, eds. Virginia

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commentaries were written on the De inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium and, remaining literal, they did not develop the quaestio form.9 With the arrival of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, this art perhaps moved closer to the study of ethics and politics.10 But De inventione and Ad Herennium never disappeared from view.11 Somehow the trivium held up and, in spite of continual evolution, remained recognizable. Some masters in the twelfth century introduced significant changes, but divergent views were developed of its purpose, and repeated criticisms were expressed of its value. The changes included a reorganization of the study of grammar so that it no longer focussed so much on the study of the textbooks of Donatus and Priscian as on the study of syntax, prose, meter and rhyme.12 William of Conches had expressed dissatisfaction with Priscian as a guide to teaching syntax.13 Alexander of Villedieu in his Doctrinale (1199) revised Priscian, who had used classical examples, by giving, as

Cox and John Ward, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 2 (Leiden, 2006), pp. 165–92. 9 Fredborg, “Rhetoric and Dialectic,” pp. 168, 179–80. 10 Ebbesen and Rosier-Catach, “Le trivium,” pp. 104–05. 11 Martin Camargo has shown that the classical treatises on rhetoric continued to be consulted, “Latin Composition Textbooks and Ad Herennium Glossing: the Missing Link?,” in The Rhetoric of Cicero (as in n. 8), pp. 267–88; John O.Ward, in “Rhetoric in the Faculty of Arts,” in L’Enseignement des disciplines (as in n. 1), pp. 147–71, notes that the introductions to philosophy and the examination manuals that survive from the first three quarters of the thirteenth century also show that the Rhetorica ad Herennium retained a firm place in the teaching of classical rhetorical theory; the fact that, at neither Paris nor Oxford, university statutes made little or no mention of rhetoric does not prove that it was not taught there, only that it was not required. But Ward also writes that by the thirteenth century, although more rhetoric was taught in northern schools than we know about, classical rhetorical theory had become confined to a token status. See also idem, “The Medieval and early Renaissance Study of Cicero’s De Inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium: Commentaries and Texts,” in The Rhetoric of Cicero, pp. 3–75, here 50–3. And in thirteenth-century Italy, according to Virginia Cox, “Ciceronian Rhetoric in Late Medieval Italy,” in The Rhetoric of Cicero, pp. 109– 43, here 110–11, study of Ciceronian rhetoric “appears to have occupied a relatively marginal place within Latin culture,” being squeezed out by the ars dictaminis (see below, p. 12, n. 19), although the vernacular reading public by the 1260s was showing a flourishing interest in translations. 12 Richard William Hunt, “Studies on Priscian in the Twelfth Century I. Petrus Helias and his Predecessors,” in The History of Grammar in the Middle Ages. Collected Papers, ed. G. L. Bursill-Hall, Amsterdam Studies in the History of Linguistic Science, Series III, Volume 5 (Amsterdam, 1980), pp. 18–21. The first treatises on Latin syntax date from the second half of the twelfth century; R. W. Hunt, “Studies on Priscian II,” in The History of Grammar, pp. 73–77. 13 William of Conches, Glosses on Priscian, ed. Charles Thurot, Notices et extraits de divers manuscrits latins pour servir à l’histoire des doctrines grammaticales au moyen âge (Paris, 1868), p. 17.

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did his imitator Everard of Béthune in Graecismus,14 a systematic introduction in verse to the Latin language.15 New manuals were provided by Osbern of Gloucester (c. 1148)16 and by Huguccio of Pisa (c. 1200).17 This was practical grammar, the platform on which was to be based, in the late thirteenth century, the pursuit by the Modistae of speculative or theoretical grammar.18 Practical instruction in the art of letter writing (dictamen) was developed in Italy in the eleventh century in both monasteries and schools.19 Exchanges of beautifully written Latin letters are a shining feature in the conduct of many notable personal relationships during the twelfth century; they rested on the careful education given in schools where rhetoric as well as grammar was taught and where manuals were written such as at Bologna and in the Loire valley. A number of arts were tapered or crystallized or shortened in form by the writing of new, specialized treatises designed to meet special needs such as that of being a notary or a poet, a preacher or a disputant; these had become, in effect, free-standing arts.20 By complementing the old books of rhetoric, the new textbooks lessened the need for new commentaries.21

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Johannes Wrobel, ed., Eberhardi Bethuniensis Graecismus (Breslau, 1887). Dietrich Reichling, ed., Das Doctrinale des Alexander de Villa-Dei (Berlin, 1893). 16 Osbern of Gloucester, Panormia sive Liber derivationum, ed. Angelo Mai, Classici auctores e Vaticanis codicibus 8 (Rome, 1836); Claudianus Osbern, Derivazioni, ed. P. Brusdaghi et al. Biblioteca di Medioevo latino 16, 2 (Spoleto, 1996). Prologue: Georg Goetz, ed., Corpus glossariorum latinorum 1 (Leipzig, 1888), pp. 196–215; dedicatory letter: Richard William Hunt, ed., “The ‘Lost’ Preface to the Liber derivationum,” Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies 4 (1958), 267–82. 17 Enzo Cecchini and Guido Arbizzoni et al., eds., Uguccione da Pisa, Derivationes, 2 vols., Edizione nazionale dei testi mediolatini, Series I, 6 (Florence, 2004). 18 See Anne Grondeux, Le Graecismus d’Evrard de Béthune à travers ses gloses. Entre grammaire positive et grammaire spéculative du XIIe au XVe siècle, Studia artistarum 8 (Turnhout, 2001); Jan Pinborg, “Speculative grammar,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy. From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism 1100–1600, eds. Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, Jan Pinborg and Eleonore Stump (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 254–69. 19 Martin Camargo, Ars dictaminis, ars dictandi, Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental 60 (Turnhout, 1991); James Jerome Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages. A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance (Berkeley, 1974); idem, Medieval Rhetoric. A Select Bibliography, Toronto Medieval Bibliographies 3 (Toronto, 1971). 20 David Luscombe, “Trivium, quadrivium and the organisation of schools,” in L’Europa dei secoli XI e XII fra novità e tradizione : sviluppi di una cultura, Miscellanea del Centro di Studi Medioevali 12 (Milan, 1989), pp. 81–100, here 92–94. 21 See Margaret Jennings, “Medieval Thematic Preaching: A Ciceronian Second Coming,” and Gian Carlo Alessio, “The Rhetorical Juvenilia of Cicero and the Artes Dictaminis,” in The Rhetoric of Cicero (as in n. 8), pp. 312–34 and 335–64. 15


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More radical were those who wished to do away with the traditional framework of the liberal arts in favour of a new structure. Hugh of St. Victor broke with it in books one to three of his Didascalicon, written in the late 1120s. Here he divided philosophy into four parts: theoretical, ordered to truth and including the quadrivium, practical, which is moral philosophy and ordered to virtue, mechanical, ordered to the occupations of this life, and logical, ordered to the knowledge necessary for correct speaking and clear argument, the arts of discourse.22 Hugh absorbed the arts of the trivium into logic and the arts of the quadrivium as well as physics and theology into theoretical philosophy.23 Towards the middle of the twelfth century or later “Gundissalinus,” in his De scientiis, adapted The Enumeration of the Sciences of Al-Fārābi.24 Divergent views about the purpose and value of being taught the arts were held in different parts of Europe. Studies of northern European

22 Hugh of St Victor, Didascalicon, ed. Charles Henry Buttimer, Didascalicon, de studio legendi : A Critical Text, The Catholic University of America: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin 10 (Washington, D.C., 1939); Jerome Taylor, trans., The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor. A Medieval Guide to the Arts. Records of Civilisation. Sources and Studies 64 (New York, 1961). The four divisions of philosophy were resumed by Hugh in his Epitome Dindimi in philosophiam, ed. R. Baron in Traditio 11 (1955), 91–148. The mechanical part was dropped in Hugh’s Commentary on The Celestial Hierarchy, PL 175:927AB. 23 Alan of Lille adopted Hugh’s scheme, at least in his Regulae theologicae, PL 210:621A. See also Dominique Poirel, “Alain de Lille, héritier de l’école de Saint-Victor,” in Alain de Lille. Le Docteur universel. Philosophie, théologie et littérature au XIIe siècle, eds. Jean-Luc Solère, Anca Vasiliu and Alain Galonnier, Rencontres de philosophie médiévale 12 (Turnhout, 2005), pp. 65–67; diagram at p. 66; also Jean Jolivet, “Remarques sur les Regulae theologicae d’Alain de Lille,” in Alain de Lille, Gautier de Châtillon, Jakemart Giélée et leurs temps: actes du colloque de Lille, octobre 1978, eds. Henri Roussel and François Suard (Lille, 1980), pp. 83–99. 24 Fārābī, De scientiis: compilación a base principalmente de la [Maqālah fī iḥṣā’ al-‘ulūm] de al-Fārābī/Domingo Gundisalvo, Latin trans. ed. Manuel Alonso Alonso. Escuelas de Estudios Arabes de Madrid y Granada (Madrid, 1954). Al-Fārābi arranged the Aristotelian works of natural science in the following order: the world, heaven, generation, meteors, minerals, plants, animals; the translation of his Enumeration of the Sciences by Gerard of Cremona has been edited by Angel González Palencia, Al-Fārābi, Catálogo de las ciencias, 2nd ed. (Madrid, 1953). In De divisione philosophiae, “Gundissalinus” provides further classifications of the sciences based on, among others, Avicenna, Algazel, Boethius and Aristotle; ed. L. Baur in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters 4. 2–3 (Munster, 1903). See on this Jean Jolivet, “The Arabic Inheritance” in A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. Peter Dronke (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 113–48 , here 134–38. A. Rucquoi has suggested that “Gundissalinus” was in fact two persons, one a translator and the other a philosopher who was a near contemporary, “Gundisalvus ou Dominicus Gundisalvi?,” BPM 41 (1999), 85–106.

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church schools in the age of Fulbert of Chartres and Bernard of Chartres have presented a picture of Latin being taught within a round of daily prayer and chant and with an emphasis on the moral lessons found in the literary auctores.25 Such is not the picture offered by Robert Black of the civic schools of Italy.26 There grammar was taught for philological reasons without an ethical purpose, with little attention given to logic and with a decline in the direct study of the auctores, that is, of rhetoric. There were also threats but opportunities as well. When John of Salisbury drew his portrait of Cornificius, the model of a teacher who spurned logic, despised eloquence and sent his pupils on to Salerno and Montpellier to study medicine and make a fortune, he depicted a current, widespread discontent and expressed a serious anxiety felt by many about it. Applied or vocational study appeared to some to threaten a liberal education.27 Yet around the year 1200 teachers of the arts were apparently numerous. In the statutes promulgated by Robert of Courson in Paris in 1215 the needs of the arts schools are predominant.28 Stephen Ferruolo may have been right to maintain that the earliest universities came into being because teachers of the arts feared the growth of a more vocational or professional emphasis in the training given in the schools, and so clustered together, closed ranks and developed a corporate spirit.29 A less defensive approach would be to say that arts masters in Paris saw and seized an opportunity: the teaching of the trivium had been reorganized and, had he been alive in 1215, John of Salisbury would have been pleased by the range of books prescribed for study in the arts. Far more than the trivium, the quadrivium was transformed and broke up, especially with the arrival of Aristotle’s writings on natural

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Philippe Delhaye, “Grammatica et Ethica au XIIe siècle,” RTAM 25 (1958), 59–110. 26 Robert Black, Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy. Tradition and Innovation in Latin Schools from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge, 2001). Fundamental for thirteenth-century England is Tony Hunt, Teaching and Learning Latin in thirteenth-century England, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1991). For elementary schools and grammar schools in medieval England see also Nicholas Orme, English Schools in the Middle Ages (London, 1973). 27 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon 1.2–6; 4.25. 28 Jacques Verger, “La Faculté des arts: le cadre institutionnel,” in L’Enseignement des disciplines (as in n. 1), pp. 17–42, here 17–20. 29 Stephen C. Ferruolo, The Origins of the University. The Schools of Paris and their Critics, 1100–1215 (Stanford, 1985).


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philosophy.30 Music especially was a practical discipline which could always be taught in church schools and presumably minstrels learned from each other without the support of arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. On the other hand, sweeping changes were introduced in the study of the planets and the stars as a result of the writings of Hermann of Carinthia, Peter Alfonsi (who may have been one of the physicians serving king Henry I), and others who had studied Arabian works on astronomy and astrology, and as a result of the treatises written on the astrolabe by Raymond of Marseille, Adelard of Bath and John of Seville. Geometry too was transformed by the discovery and successive translations of the Elements of Euclid. But to what kinds of schools – if, in some cases, any at all – did the frequently wandering students and translators of Arabic works - Gerard of Cremona (1114–87), Hermann, Peter, Raymond, Adelard or John - belong? Who were their patrons? Outside the schools The translators into Latin of works written in Greek were seldom schoolmen. Burgundio of Pisa was a wealthy lawyer and diplomat who looked for books when he was in Constantinople on business in 1136 and again from 1168 to 1171.31 The books he translated were books of psychology, land economy, Roman law, theology and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics32 as well as Aristotle’s De generatione et

30 Guy Beaujouan, “The Transformation of the Quadrivium” (as in n. 2), pp. 463–87. 31 Peter Classen, Burgundio von Pisa. Richter, Gesandter, Übersetzer, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philos.-hist. Klasse 4 (1974). 32 Ethica Nicomachea. Translatio antiquissima lib. II–III sive ‘Ethica Vetus’ et Translationis antiquioris quae supersunt sive ‘Ethica nova’, ‘Hoferiana’, ‘Borghesiana’, ed. René Antoine Gauthier (Leiden, 1972). According to Fernand Bossier, “L’élaboration du vocabulaire philosophique chez Burgundio de Pise,” in Aux origines du lexique philosophique européen. L’influence de la Latinitas, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse (Louvainla-Neuve, 1997), pp. 81–116, Burgundio’s translations comprise Ethica vetus II–III, Ethica nova I, Hoferiana (excerpts) II–VIII, Borghesiana VII–VIII. Bossier later restated his findings: Burgundio’s translation of the Ethics was complete by 1150; he began by translating Books II–III (Ethica vetus) and then translated Book I, revised his translation of Books II–III, and translated Books IV–X (Ethica nova); see his “La terminologie de l’activité intellectuelle chez Burgundio de Pise,” in L’élaboration du vocabulaire philosophique au moyen âge, eds. Jacqueline Hamesse and Carlos Steel, Rencontres de philosophie médiévale 8 (Turnhout, 2000), pp. 221–40, here 221.

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corruptione.33 Henry Aristippus († 1162), archdeacon of Catania and the translator out of Greek of Plato’s Phaedo and Meno, as well as of Book 4 of Aristotle’s Meteora, was for a time a minister in the Norman royal court under William I, king of Sicily.34 Guglielmo Cavallo has shown that Greek books circulated widely in Calabria and Sicily; Constantinople was not the only source of supply.35 Along with Greek medical works the Aristotelian corpus of works on natural philosophy circulated and could be read there in Greek and in Arabic.36 But what is it that distinguishes the translators, who usually worked outside scholastic centres, from those who brought the new translations into use in such centres? How and where was knowledge of hitherto unfamiliar texts disseminated, and how did they enter into teaching? Little is known about this,37 and schools seem often tangential to the process. In his Metalogicon (1159) John of Salisbury used the new translations of Aristotle’s Prior Analytics, Topics and Sophistici elenchi and two new translations of the Posterior Analytics, those of James of Venice and of John the Saracen.38 He did not make his career as a teacher but as an official working for two archbishops of Canterbury and with time to write about a programme of studies. At about the same time, between 1157 and 1169, at the monastery of Mont 33 De generatione et corruptione. Translatio vetus, ed. Joanna Judycka (Leiden 1986). See also J. Otte, “Burgundio of Pisa: Translator of the Greco-Latin Version of Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione, translatio vetus,” in The Commentary Tradition on Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione: Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern, eds. J.M.M.H. Thijssen and H.A.G. Braakhuis (Turnhout, 1999), pp. 79–86; Richard J. Durling, “The Anonymous Translation of Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione (Translatio vetus),” Traditio 49 (1994), pp. 320–30; and Bossier, “L’élaboration du vocabulaire philosophique chez Burgundio de Pise.” 34 Plato, Meno, interprete Henrico Aristippo, eds. Victor Kordeuter and Carlotta Labowsky; idem, Phaedo, interprete Henrico Aristippo, ed. Lorenzo Minio-Paluello, Corpus Platonicum Medii Aevi 1–2 (London, 1940–50). 35 Guglielmo Cavallo, “La trasmissione scritta della cultura greca antica in Calabria e in Sicilia tra i secoli X–XV. Consistenza, tipologia, fruizione,” Scrittura e Civiltà 4 (1980), 154–246; idem, “La circolazione dei testi greci nell’Europa dell’alto medioevo,” in Rencontres de cultures dans la philosophie médiévale. Traductions et traducteurs de l’antiquité tardive au XIVe siècle, eds. Jacqueline Hamesse and Marta Fattori, Rencontres de philosophie médiévale 1 (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1990), pp. 47–64. 36 Piero Morpurgo, “L’ingresso dell’Aristotele latino a Salerno,” in Rencontres de cultures, pp. 273–300, here 292–94. 37 Some information is given by Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny, “Translations and Translators,” in Renaissance and Renewal (as in n. 2), pp. 421–62, here 457–59. 38 See John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, index auctorum, p. 187. For the two translations of the Posterior Analytics, see Edouard Jeauneau, “Jean de Salisbury et la lecture des philosophes,” in The World of John of Salisbury, ed. Michael Wilks, Studies in Church History. Subsidia 3 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 77–108, here 103–08.


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Saint-Michel, Robert of Torigny, abbot from 1154 to 1186, mentioned translations of Aristotle’s logical works made by James of Venice.39 And “it is,” according to Charles Burnett, “from Mont Saint-Michel that the earliest manuscripts of (Aristotle’s) De generatione et corruptione, Ethica vetus and nova, Metaphysics, Physics, De intelligentia, De anima and De memoria come (now Avranches, Bibliothèque municipale, MSS 221 and 232).”40 Burnett traced the arrival in England of the same works as are found in the Mont Saint-Michel manuscripts. They found their way not to the schools of Northampton but to the monastery of St. Albans between 1200 and 1250.41 Alexander Nequam (1157–1217) knew some of these works and he did teach in schools. After studying the arts on the Petit-Pont in Paris c. 1175–82,42 he later taught in grammar schools in England in Dunstable and at St. Albans, then at Oxford in the 1190s. But Daniel of Morley, whose Philosophia (written between 1175 and 1187) contains the fruits of his reading of Aristotle’s natural philosophy in Toledo,43 is not known to have been attached to a school. And likewise the activities of some English scientists in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, including Alfred of Shareshill (Staffordshire), who in later life was a canon of Lichfield cathedral (also in Staffordshire), and Roger of Hereford, do not seem to be devoted to fashioning a curriculum for teaching. The earliest evidence that Charles Burnett could find of the use in schools in England of the corpus vetustius of Aristotle’s works of natural

39 Robert of Torigny, Chronicon 114 (PL 160:443–4): “Iacobus clericus de Venetia transtulit de Greco in Latinum quosdam libros Aristotilis et commentatus est – scilicet Topica, Analiticos Priores et Posteriores et Elencos, quamvis antiquior translatio super eosdem libros haberetur.” Lorenzo Minio-Paluello, “Iacobus Veneticus Grecus: Canonist and Translator of Aristotle,” Traditio 8 (1952), 265–304; repr. in his Opuscula: The Latin Aristotle (Amsterdam, 1972), pp. 189–228, showed that, of these works, James translated the Posterior Analytics and the Sophistici Elenchi. 40 Charles Burnett, “The Introduction of Aristotle’s Natural Philosophy into Great Britain: A Preliminary Survey of the Manuscript Evidence,” in Aristotle in Britain during the Middle Ages, ed. John Marenbon, Rencontres de Philosophie Médiévale 5 (Turnhout, 1996), pp. 21–50, here 25. 41 Burnett, “The Introduction,” pp. 26–33. 42 Richard William Hunt, The Schools and the Cloister. The Life and Writings of Alexander Nequam (1157–1217), ed. and revised by Margaret Gibson (Oxford, 1984), ch. 1; R. W. Southern, “From Schools to University,” in The History of the University of Oxford I: The Early Oxford Schools, ed. J. I. Catto assisted by Ralph Evans (Oxford, 1984), pp. 22–25. 43 Burnett, “The Introduction,” pp. 31–3; Theodore Silverstein, “Daniel of Morley, English Cosmogonist and Student of Arabic Science” Mediaeval Studies 10 (1948), 176–96.

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philosophy – that is, the corpus which contained some works translated out of Arabic that were to be replaced by Greek-Latin translations in the later corpus recentius – is in the writings of Adam of Buckfield who became a master of arts in Oxford before 1243.44 Well before then the “new logic” and also Aristotle’s De anima were taught at Oxford: it is possible that Edmund of Abingdon lectured there on the Sophistici elenchi and one Master Hugh on the Posterior analytics in the first decade of the thirteenth century.45 John Blund also lectured there on the De anima before his election (which fell through) as archbishop of Canterbury in 1232.46 At Paris, too, some of Aristotle’s natural philosophy, including the Physics, had started to be taught before 1210 when the first condemnation was issued. But the interval between the making of translations of these works and their introduction into the schoolroom seems long. As has been mentioned, the Prior and Posterior Analytics, the Topics and the Elenchi had been translated before 1159. The De anima had been translated by James of Venice who was active in the second quarter of the twelfth century.47 Aristotle’s Metaphysics and all his writings on natural philosophy (except De animalibus) had been translated into Latin before the end of the twelfth century but they only became influential when translations of the commentaries written in Arabic by Averroes became available – from at least 1225 in the case of Paris.48 As for the Nicomachean Ethics, the translatio antiquissima of the Ethica vetus, made by Burgundio of Pisa and comprising only Books II and III, attracted the interest of medical men in Salerno shortly after 1150.49 This translation was revised by Burgundio 44 Burnett, “The Introduction,” pp. 35–44. On the contents of this corpus see James A. Weisheipl, “Science in the Thirteenth Century,” in The History of the University of Oxford I, pp. 435–69, here 438–39. 45 Weisheipl, “Science in the Thirteenth Century,” p. 437. 46 John Blund, Tractatus de anima, eds. D.A.Callus and R.W.Hunt, Auctores britannici medii aevi 2 (London, 1970). This edition will soon be re-issued with an English translation by Michael Dunne. 47 See the references to John of Salisbury and Robert of Torigny at pp. 16–17, nn. 38–39 above. Also Bernard G. Dod, “Aristoteles latinus,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy (as in n. 18), pp. 45–79 (with a summary Table on pp. 74–9), and d’Alverny, “Translations and Translators,” pp. 421–62. 48 René Antoine Gauthier, “Notes sur les débuts (1225–1240) du premier ‘Averroïsme’, ” RSPT 66 (1982), 321–74. Before Gauthier published this study, 1230 seemed to be the earliest time when Averroes’s works began to be used in Paris; R. de Vaux, “La première entrée d’Averroës chez les latins,” RSPT 22 (1933), 193–245. 49 Danielle Jacquart, “Aristotelian Thought in Salerno,” in A History of TwelfthCentury Western Philosophy (as in n. 24), pp. 407–28, here 409. Morpurgo, “L’Ingresso dell’Aristotele,” pp. 285–86.


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(translatio imperfecta) but early attestations of its use are rare. They first occur in legal, scientific and theological contexts, although not before the second decade of the thirteenth century.50 Burgundio went on to translate the rest of the Nicomachean Ethics (translatio perfecta) but this circulated less widely.51 Hermannus Alemannus, who translated Arabic texts in Toledo for many years before 1266, has been credited with an Arabic-Latin translation of the Ethics,52 but it was the translation out of Greek made in Lincoln by bishop Robert Grosseteste and his helpers that made a strong impact in universities.53 Famously, Henry Aristippus’s translation of Plato’s Phaedo and Meno gained no known attention before Petrarch. Tracing the earliest stages in Grosseteste’s career is problematic. Southern kept Grosseteste up to the mid-1220s not in a university but in provincial centers in England, especially Hereford, supporting himself as an administrative official in the household of a prominent ecclesiastic and enjoying a freedom that no master in a great school could do.54 Grosseteste was thus able to draw upon an English tradition of scientific thought, centered in the areas of Bath, Worcester, Malvern and Hereford, reaching back to the work of Adelard of Bath from the early twelfth century, and continuing with the work of Daniel of Morley and Alfred of Shareshill who were nearly his contemporaries and all of whom promoted the study of the subjects of natural philosophy in the light of the new translations. Grosseteste was employed by William de Vere, bishop of Hereford from 1194 until 1198, and there is a Hereford “imprint” on what Grosseteste wrote about chronology and the calendar, astronomy and astrology. Thereafter Grosseteste, having “completed the greater part of his scientific thinking and writing” turned to “teaching and writing on the Bible and studying the Fathers.”55 Where

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René Antoine Gauthier, Ethica Nicomachea Praefatio, in Aristoteles latinus 26, 1–3, fasc. 1 (Leiden, 1974), pp. lvi–lvii. 51 Bossier, “L’élaboration du vocabulaire philosophique.” David Luscombe, “Ethics in the Early Thirteenth Century,” in Albertus Magnus und die Anfänge der AristotelesRezeption im lateinischen Mittelalter: Von Richardus Rufus bis zu Franciscus de Mayronis, ed. Ludger Honnefelder et al., Subsidia Albertina 1 (Münster, 2005), pp. 657–83, here 660–62. 52 Anna A. Akasoy and Alexander Fidora, “Hermannus Alemannus und die Alia Translatio der Nikomachischen Ethik,” BPM 44 (2002), pp. 79–93. 53 Luscombe, “Ethics in the Early Thirteenth Century,” pp. 669–71. 54 R.W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1986), pp. 59–70. 55 Southern, Robert Grosseteste, p. 70.

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he was to be found between the mid-1220s and 1234, when he is known to have been in Oxford, has, however, caused debate. Southern’s own finding was that this decade is “fairly securely documented:” “we can be sure that a large part of his time in these years was spent in Oxford,” first as “a theological lecturer in the secular schools of the university” and also for a time as chancellor, then as lecturer to the community of Franciscans in Oxford.56 Critics, on the other hand, have argued that Grosseteste studied in Paris in the 1220s where he was one of the first to gain knowledge of the works of Averroes and also had opportunities to study natural philosophy, where he formed a close friendship with Master William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 to 1249, and earlier a canon of Notre Dame, who witnessed the conveyance in Paris in 1224 of a house owned by Grosseteste.57 Inside the schools There are serious gaps in our knowledge of who-taught-what-andwhere after Abelard, Adam of the Petit-Pont and Alberic ceased teaching logic in Paris. But in his Entheticus John of Salisbury writes about some schools of logic in his time, in particular the Parvipontani and the Melidunenses. John was not an admirer of the Parvipontani. He caricatured as a member of the school one who boasted to have made discoveries which, in fact, the ancients had already made but about which dear youth did not know.58 John, who had been taught by both

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Southern, Robert Grosseteste, pp. 70–75. Joseph Goering, “When and Where did Grosseteste Study Theology?,” in Robert Grosseteste: New Perspectives on his Thought and Scholarship, ed. James McEvoy, Instrumenta Patristica 27 (Turnhout, 1995), pp. 17–51; N.M. Schulman, “Husband, Father, Bishop? Grosseteste in Paris,” Speculum 72 (1997), 330–46; Steven Marrone, “The Philosophy of Nature in the Early Thirteenth Century,” in Albertus Magnus (as in n. 51), pp. 115–57; Cecilia Panti, “Robert Grosseteste’s Early Cosmology,” in Editing Robert Grosseteste: papers given at the thirty-sixth annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, 3–4 November 2000, eds. Evelyn A. Mackie and Joseph Goering (Toronto, 2003), pp. 135–66. Southern restated his position in “Intellectual Development and Local Environment: The Case of Robert Grosseteste,” in Essays in Honor of Edward B. King, eds. Robert G. Benson and Eric W. Naylor (Sewanee, Tennessee, 1991), pp. 1–22, and in his Robert Grosseteste. The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe, 2nd. ed. (Oxford, 1992), especially pp. xvii–lxvi. 58 John of Salisbury, Entheticus maior vv. 49–52 in John of Salisbury’s Entheticus Maior and Minor, ed. Jan van Laarhoven, 3 vols., Studien und Texte zur Geistesgechichte des Mittelalters 17 (Leiden, 1987), 1:109: “Incola sum modici pontis, novus auctor in arte,/dum prius inventum glorior esse meum:/quod docuere senes, nec novit amica 57


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Abelard and Alberic,59 the latter a critic of Abelard,60 wrote of logicians who corrected the errors of Abelard and thought themselves to be more learned than Alberic but who had lost the approval of the school of Melun (parum redolet Melidunum).61 They were likely to have been found in Paris where John had studied.62 The Fons philosophiae of Godfrey of St. Victor, a poem written in 1178, gives a picture of these and other controversies in the Paris schools which, when Godfrey had been a student, probably some time before 1155, had excited the crowds on the Mont Sainte-Geneviève. Godfrey surveys the different sects, the Porretani, the Albricani, the Parvipontani or Adamiti, and the Robertini or Melidunenses or turbe robertine who were no longer at Melun but on the Mont: herent saxi vertice turbe robertine.63 De Rijk found an anonymous treatise, which he called the Ars meliduna, which is a product of the group of logicians whom contemporary authors named Melidunenses, or followers of Robert of Melun, who had perhaps taken over the mantle of Abelard after his departure from the Mont Sainte-Geneviève in the later 1130s.64 In this treatise, which was written between 1154 and 1180, terms and propositions are the focus, not the contents of the logical works and commentaries of Aristotle and Boethius, although the Topica is of key interest. Ancient logic had started to be re-thought. Following the lead of Martin

iuventus,/pectoris inventum iuro fuisse mei!” See also Lambertus Marie de Rijk, Logica modernorum. A Contribution to the History of Early Terminist Logic, 2 vols. (Assen, 1962–7), 2.1:279, 288–90. 59 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon 1.5.13; 2.10.5; 2.17.22–3; 3.1.6 and 75; 3.4.35; 3.6.21 and 24 (Abelard); 2.10.10 and 13 (Alberic). 60 De Rijk, Logica modernorum, 1:620; John Marenbon, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 52–53. 61 John of Salisbury, Entheticus, vv. 55–7: “Iste loquax dicaxque parum redolet Melidunum./Creditur Albrico doctior iste suo./Corrigit errores verbosus hic Abaelardi,” cited in de Rijk, Logica modernorum, 2.1:288. 62 De Rijk, Logica modernorum, 2.1:288. 63 Godefroy de Saint-Victor, Fons philosophiae v. 269, ed. Pierre Michaud-Quantin, Analecta mediaevalia Namurcensia 8 (Namur, 1956), p. 44. See also De Rijk, Logica modernorum, 2.1:282, 288. Missing from Godfrey’s list are the nominales and the reales, the Nominalists and Realists of the twelfth century, on whom, as well as on the other schools and on the sources which mention them, see the excellent list drawn up by Iwakuma Yukio and Sten Ebbesen, “Logico-Theological Schools from the Second Half of the 12th Century: a List of Sources,” Vivarium 30 (1992), 173–210. On the disappearance of the nominales, see Iwakuma Yukio, “Twelfth-Century Nominales. The Posthumous School of Peter Abelard,” Vivarium 30 (1992), 97–110, here 105–06. 64 De Rijk, Logica modernorum, 2.1:264–390. De Rijk’s discussion (at pp. 282–86) of the Melidunenses also includes an examination of references to the secta Meliduna contained in the British Library MS Royal 2 D XXX.

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Grabmann, who sought out manuscripts containing the teaching of logic in Paris between the death of Abelard and the arrival in Paris of Petrus Hispanus c. 1240,65 de Rijk edited a series of texts which revealed the early history of terminist logic, the logica modernorum, which had its origin in twelfth-century logical and grammatical theories which were developed especially in Paris.66 While Aristotle always remained the pre-eminent authority in logic, scholars began to extend his work by exploring new elements grouped together under the title De proprietatibus terminorum. And they did so long before Peter of Spain wrote his Summulae logicales or before William of Sherwood († after 1277) wrote his Introductiones in logicam. Its roots in the twelfth century were, first, the study, inspired by Aristotle’s Sophistici Elenchi, of fallacies which illustrate different types of supposition, and, secondly, the study of supposition itself in the Latin language and its grammar which led, through the study of appellation and copulation, to the study of the properties of terms and thence to the development of terminist logic. One of de Rijk’s important findings was that the Melidunenses were more successful than the Parvipontani – the followers of Adam of the Petit-Pont67 – in renewing the study of logic.68 H. A. G. Braakhuis put and answered the question of where the teaching of modern logic could have taken place, given that in Paris the statutes prescribed the study in the faculty of arts of only ancient logic and never of modern logic. Modern logic included the study of syncategorems (words like adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions that can only be used in association with another word or words), insolubles (like the liar paradox: “what I am now saying is false”), sophisms (specious and fallacious arguments) and obligations (often rules

65 Martin Grabmann, Bearbeitungen und Auslegungen der aristotelischen Logik aus der Zeit von Peter Abaelard bis Petrus Hispanus. Mitteilungen aus Handschriften deutscher Bibliotheken, Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Jg. 1937, Phil.-hist. Klasse (Berlin, 1937); Kommentare zur aristotelischen Logik aus dem 12. und 13. Jahrhundert in MS. Lat. Fol. 624 der Preussischen Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. Ein Beitrag zur Abaelardforschung. Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Jg. 1938, Phil.-hist. Klasse 18 (Berlin, 1938). 66 De Rijk, Logica modernorum, 2.2. 67 Lorenzo Minio-Paluello, “The Ars disserendi of Adam of Balsham Parvipontanus,” Medieval and Renaissance Studies 3 (1954), 116–69; Adam of Balsham Parvipontanus, Adam Balsamiensis Parvipontani, Ars disserendi (dialectica Alexandri), ed. Lorenzo Minio-Paluello, Twelfth Century Logic, Texts and Studies 1 (Rome, 1956); de Rijk, Logica modernorum, 1:62–81, 545–605; Raymond Klibansky, “Balsham, Adam of,” in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 68 De Rijk, Logica modernorum, 2.1:279, 287–90.


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to be followed in disputations). Braakhuis found that the leading authors of treatises on modern logic did not work in universities,69 and furthermore that modern logic was typically taught as exercises for young boys in preparatory schools.70 But it could also have been taught as a supplement to statutory requirements in universities and given a place there in the practice of disputations. Condemnations and statutes The guardians of the orthodoxy of teaching given within schools and universities were kept busy in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries as they had been earlier and were to continue to be after the mid-thirteenth century. During the twelfth century not only the deployment of dialectic in theology but also the explorations into Platonism, the commentaries of Gilbert of Poitiers on the opuscula sacra of Boethius, and the debates over Christology attracted criticism from masters such as Alberic and Lotulph of the cathedral school of Rheims as well as Peter Lombard and John of Cornwall, from Cistercian monks such as William of St. Thierry and Bernard of Clairvaux, from regular canons such as Hugh of St. Victor, Gerhoh of Reichersberg and Walter of St. Victor, and from popes such as Innocent II and Alexander III. One suspect, Master David of Dinant, is still perhaps a rather underestimated transmitter and interpreter of Aristotelian natural philosophy, especially as regards the study of medicine and anatomy in the Latin west as early as the end of the twelfth century.71 He studied Aristotle’s writings in Greek and in Greece and he clarified their meaning in his Quaternuli which are fragmentary.72 Possibly, too, he 69 H.A.G. Braakhuis, “Logica modernorum as a discipline at the Faculty of Arts of Paris in the Thirteenth Century,” in L’Enseignement des disciplines (as in n. 1), pp. 129–45, here 136. Peter of Spain wrote in northern Spain or southern France, Lambert of Auxerre in the court of the kings of Navarre; Willliam of Sherwood did not write in Paris. 70 Braakhuis, “Logica modernorum,” pp. 129–45. Braakhuis’s study was based on a coursebook on the modern logic found in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 11412 which seems to show that modern logic was taught in Paris between 1230 and 1250. 71 Enzo Maccagnolo, “David of Dinant and the Beginnings of Aristotelianism in Paris,” trans. Jonathan Hunt, in A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy (as in n. 24), pp. 429–42. 72 Marian Kurdziałek, ed., “Davidis de Dinanto quaternulorum fragmenta,” Studia mediewistyczne 3 (Warsaw, 1963).

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developed these activities in the arts faculty as a master in the University of Paris, but this is not certain. He did not depend on the commentaries of Averroes which were not yet available in translation. Along with a condemnation of the pantheistic teachings of the Amalricians or followers of Amalric of Bène († 1206), the burning of David’s notebooks was ordered at a synod held in Paris in 1210 under the presidency of the archbishop of Sens who was Master Peter of Corbeil. This condemnation also prohibited lectures, whether public or private, using Aristotle’s writings on natural philosophy or commentaries on them.73 The teaching of Aristotle’s writings on natural philosophy and also on metaphysics was further prohibited by the papal legate, Cardinal Robert of Courson, in 1215 along with the teachings of Amalric and of a certain Maurice of Spain.74 This ban, which applied only to Paris, was renewed in 122875 and in 123176 by Pope Gregory IX, but in 1231 the ban was made temporary pending a review and correction of these writings. The statute or privilege promulgated by the papal legate, cardinal Robert of Courson, in August 1215 laid down rules for the teachers of arts in Paris and specified the books that could be taught on dies festivi or ferias: Non legant in festivis diebus nisi philosophos et rhetoricas, et quadruvialia, et barbarismum, et ethicam, si placet, et quartum topichorum. Non legantur libri Aristotelis de methafisica et de naturali philosophia nec summe de eisdem…77

As Georg Wieland has pointed out, the statute reveals the persistence of the traditions of the twelfth century in which in northern Europe ethics were an appendage to the study of the arts, especially grammar and rhetoric.78 Whereas Aristotle’s metaphysics and natural philosophy

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CUP, 1:70, no.11. CUP, 1:78–9, no. 20. 75 CUP, 1:114–5, no. 59. 76 CUP, 1:136–9, no. 79. 77 CUP, 1:78–9, no. 20. By philosophos is meant perhaps Boethius and the author of the Timaeus, according to Claude Lafleur, Quatre Introductions à la Philosophie au XIIIe siècle. Textes critiques et étude historique, Université de Montréal. Publications de l’Institut d’études médiévales 23 (Montreal, 1988), pp. 129, n. 30, 150, n. 103. By barbarismum is meant Book 3 of the Ars maior of the grammarian Donatus. By ethicam is meant the Ethica vetus, for the Ethica nova was still unknown in northern Europe. 78 Georg Wieland, Ethica – scientia practica. Die Anfänge der philosophischen Ethik im 13. Jahrhundert. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie im Mittelalter. Neue Folge 21 (Münster, 1981), p. 35; David Luscombe, “Ethics in the Early Thirteenth Century,” p. 663. 74


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remained excluded, the Ethica vetus was allowed, possibly because of Robert’s own interest in it, for of all the masters of theology in Paris around the year 1200 he was the one who had displayed the most interest in its contents.79 The masters of arts in Paris responded to Robert’s statute by promoting the study of the Ethics. The (now well-studied) introductions to philosophy and their guides for students – there survive about 30 such texts from the years between 1230 and 1270, mostly anonymous – are richly informative about subjects of study, teaching, examinations, choices of books and ways in which books were read.80 In the anonymous compendium contained in the Barcelona MS Ripoll 109, which seems to have been written in Paris between 1230 and 1240 by a master in the faculty of arts, less than 6 pages in the printed edition concern metaphysics and physics but 15 concern moral philosophy and the Ethica.81 No contradiction is found by the writer between Aristotelian and Christian ideas of happiness about which he writes: “Happiness occurs after death just as the author (Aristotle) proves here…(happiness) properly belongs by nature to the soul alone and not to the body.”82 As regards the quadrivium, the rubicon was crossed when the old quadrivium could not accommodate Aristotle’s books on natural philosophy.83 The thirteenth-century introductions to philosophy and the student’s guide show that geometry and music, and, to a lesser extent, arithmetic and astronomy remained subjects of study.84 But behind the 79 Luscombe, “Ethics in the Early Thirteenth Century,” pp. 662–63, citing John W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants. The Social Views of Peter the Chanter & His Circle, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1970), 1:56. 80 Lafleur, Quatre Introductions à la Philosophie. 81 Claude Lafleur and Joanne Carrier, Le « Guide de l’étudiant » d’un maître anonyme de la Faculté des Arts de Paris au XIII siècle. Édition critique provisoire du ms. Barcelona, Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó, Ripoll 109, ff. 134–158, Publications du Laboratoire de Philosophie ancienne et médiévale de la Faculté de Philosophie de l’Université Laval 1 (Quebec, 1992), pp. 33–34, 47–50, 53–67. Lafleur and Carrier, eds., L’enseignement de la philosophie au XIIIe siècle. Autour du « Guide de l’étudiant » du ms. Ripoll 109, Studia Artistarum 5 (Turnhout, 1997). 82 Anthony J. Celano, “The Finis Hominis in the Thirteenth-Century Commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics,” AHDLMA 53 (1986), pp. 23–53, here 27–28. The fullest study of thirteenth-century commentaries on the Ethics is by Wieland, Ethica – scientia practica. 83 Charles H.Lohr, “The new Aristotle and « science » in the Paris Arts Faculty (1255),” in L’Enseignement des disciplines (as in n. 1), pp. 251–69; James A. Weisheipl, “Science in the Thirteenth Century,” in The History of the University of Oxford I, pp. 435–70. 84 Guy Beaujouan, “Le quadrivium et la Faculté des arts,” in L’Enseignement des disciplines, pp. 185–94, here 189–91.

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statute issued in the University of Paris in 1255 lay an intention to superimpose upon traditional instruction in the trivium, and more recent instruction with the aid of the Ethics, instruction in natural philosophy and in psychology. Instruction in natural philosophy required the reading of Aristotle’s books on physics, heaven and earth, meteorites and causation. Instruction concerning the soul required knowledge of the sensitive soul as found in the De animalibus, of the rational soul as it appears in the De anima, of the vegetable soul as presented in the pseudo-Aristotelian work, De plantis; and it also required instruction in those human and animal processes by which the body acts on the soul through the senses (De sensu et sensato), in sleep and waking (De somno et vigilia), dying and living (De morte et vita).85 And there was also the Metaphysics to contend with. In addition, the arrival of Grosseteste’s complete translation of the Ethica Nicomachea about 1246/7 transformed the study of moral philosophy. The statute of 1255 was not particularly innovative since commentators and compilers in the 1240s and 1250s had already worked out a systematic arrangement of Aristotle’s natural philosophy and psychology. In this they were guided by the availability of translations, made by (among others) Michael Scot, of the commentaries of Averroes who in this period – that is, before 1255 and from about 122586 – became an uncontroversial and hugely exploited guide to a vast, encyclopedic and new resource of knowledge and demonstration. Around the year 1200 the interest shown in Aristotle’s Ethics by Parisian theologians had been almost zero. Peter the Chanter, who died in 1198, cited the Ethics only once within his large Summa in

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CUP, 1:277–9, no. 246: “Anno Domini MCCL quarto. Noverint universi, quod nos omnes et singuli magistri artium…statuimus et ordinavimus, quod omnes et singuli magistri nostrae facultatis imposterum libros…absolvere…teneantur: Veterem logicam, videlicet librum Porphyrii, Praedicamentorum, Perihermenias, Divisionum et Topicorum Boethii, excepto quarto…Priscianum minorem et maiorem, Topica et Elenchos, Priora et Posteriora…Ethicas quantum ad IV libros…Tres parvos libros, videlicet Sex principia, Barbarismum, Priscianum De accentu…Physicam Aristotelis, Metaphysicam cum quarto…librum De anima…librum De generatione…librum De causis…librum De sensu et sensato…librum De somno et vigilia…librum De plantis…librum De memoria et reminiscentia…librum De differentia spiritus et animae… librum De morte et vita…” 86 See note 48 above. Also, Weisheipl, “Science in the Thirteenth Century,” pp. 439–40, who noted that at Oxford the libri naturales were available before the middle of the thirteenth century, found that not all required study but the Physics and De anima were required. On the requirements given in the Oxford statute of 1268 see J.M. Fletcher, “The Faculty of Arts,” in The History of the University of Oxford I, pp. 376.


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which are found all kinds of quotations from all manner of writers and works. But the statute of 1215, as has been mentioned, groups the Ethics with the arts of the trivium and the quadrivium. And very shortly afterwards, between 1220 and 1225, we find the Ethics crossing the boundary between arts and theology in definitive manner. Alexander of Hales, in his Gloss on the Four Books of Sentences, freely drew from a wide range of writings of Aristotle, including his Ethics which provided him with stacks of quotable material which illuminated not only such topics as virtue, habit and happiness but also properly theological subjects such as penance, grace, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and charity. The same is true for other contemporary Parisian theologians, especially William of Auxerre and Philip the Chancellor.87 Ludger Honnefelder has called the period from the late twelfth century to 1250 the “incubation period” for the study of Aristotle’s philosophy beyond his logic.88 Translations of (especially) Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Ethics, Physics and Soul had begun to be used in teaching along with Averroes’s Commentaries. By the middle of the thirteenth century at university level the content of the arts course no longer could be equated, even fictionally, to the seven liberal arts. In northern universities it had a strongly philosophical character and other classifications had been developed, including the three philosophies, natural, moral and metaphysical.89

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Luscombe, “Ethics in the Early Thirteenth Century,” pp. 663–64. The “Inkubationszeit” or “Latenzphase,” Ludger Honnefelder, “Die Anfänge der Aristoteles-Rezeption im lateinischen Mittelalter: Zur Einführung in die Thematik,” in Albertus Magnus (as in n. 51), pp. 11–23, here 13. 89 See Gordon Leff, “The Trivium and the Three Philosophies,” in Universities in the Middle Ages, ed. Hilde De Ridder-Symoens, A History of the University in Europe 1 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 307–36. 88

SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY AT PARIS AROUND 1200 Marcia L. Colish Our knowledge of Parisian scholastic theology around 1200 is uneven. Many works of contemporary masters still await edition. The dates of those securely attributed are often debated. And details of some of the masters’ lives are elusive. At the same time, research in this field of late, if not equally focused on all aspects of the subject, has expanded and has challenged older verities. Given this state of flux, and the gaps remaining, it is no surprise that few current scholars have hazarded an overview.1 Ideally, before proposing one, it would be desirable to read all the works surviving from this period so as to chart patterns of development and to assess whether the topics engaging current scholarly interest are truly representative. Here, we will have to settle for the studies eliciting recent attention. Surveying the present state of play highlights what we know, and also what we do not know, about the theologians and how they viewed and practiced their profession. As is often noted, King Philip II’s charter of 1200 recognized, and privileged, a University of Paris already in being, whose faculty of theology became the jewel in its crown. Legislation soon followed specifying the status of masters, and curricular benchmarks and standards for academic degrees. It is far less clear whether such norms existed in the last quarter of the twelfth century, and if so, when and how they emerged. In theology, our one datum from that period is Stephen Langton’s inception sermon as master in 1180.2 For Nancy Spatz,

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I would like to thank Riccardo Quinto for bibliographical suggestions and helpful discussion of the issues in this paper. The best recent survey is Riccardo Quinto, “La teologia dei maestri di Parigi e la prima scuola domenicana,” in L’Origine dell’Ordine dei Predicatori e l’Università di Bologna=Divus Thomas 44 (2006), 81–104. 2 For the text, see Phyllis B. Roberts, ed., Selected Sermons of Stephen Langton (Toronto, 1980), pp. 17–34; on his preaching more generally, see eadem, Stephanus de Lingua-Tonnante: Studies in the Sermons of Stephen Langton (Toronto, 1968). The sermon is also cited, with discussion, by Nancy Katherine Spatz, “Principia: A Study and Edition of Inception Speeches Delivered before the Faculty of Theology at the University of Paris, ca. 1180–1286,” Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1992, pp. i, 50–59, 60, 77, 79, 157, 163, 166–67, 170–71, and 176–78.

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this speech documents the action of a guild of theologians at Paris, signaling Langton’s fulfillment of academic requirements and promoting him to the magisterium, a right distinct from the license to teach granted by the bishop’s chancellor.3 Alternatively, Jean Longère holds that the bishop’s chancellor alone possessed that right, not only at Notre Dame but over masters teaching anywhere in Paris, since the abbey of Ste. Geneviève underwent a reform in 1147–48 ending its earlier laissez-faire licensing policy. The only other, would-be, intervention Longère finds is Pope Alexander III’s admonitions to masters who offered bribes for a license, and chancellors who accepted them.4 In any case, itself an example of scholastic praedicatio, Langton’s inception speech refers specifically to the lectio and disputatio also incumbent on theologians. But it does not indicate that mastership entitled him to teach any differently than he had before 1180. The lack of an acknowledged or prescribed sequence of theological studies in this period is evident in the curriculum vitae and oeuvre of Paris masters however they acquired their magisterium, even accepting the problem of dating their works. Peter of Poitiers, who taught at Notre Dame from 1169 before ending his career as chancellor (1193– 1205), launched his pedagogy in ca. 1173 with a five-volume sentence collection. The last example of that genre, it sought to rectify what he found lacking in Peter Lombard’s Sentences. Peter of Poitiers united all the Lombard’s ethical themes in a single book and omitted holy orders from his treatise on the sacraments, assigning it to the canonists. These innovations failed to take root, but his focus on dubitabilia did. His other works, on the genealogy of Christ, on the Acts of the Apostles, and biblical distinctiones, date to the 1180s and 1190s, while no date is assigned to his allegory on the tabernacle of Moses.5 For Peter of Poitiers, biblical exegesis clearly post-dated the work of systematic theology. 3 Nancy K. Spatz, “Evidence of Inception Ceremonies in the Twelfth-Century Schools of Paris,” History of Universities 13 (1994), 3–19, at 4, 6–7, and 10–13. 4 Jean Longère, Oeuvres oratoires des maîtres parisiens au XIIe siècle: Étude historique et doctrinale, 2 vols. (Paris, 1975), 1:18–19. Alexander’s bull Quanto gallicam of the early 1170s, evidently ineffective, was followed by a similar injunction at Lateran III in 1179; see Stephen C. Ferruolo, The Origins of the University: The Schools of Paris and Their Critics, 1100–1215 (Stanford, 1985), pp. 228, 234, and 291–93. 5 Philip S. Moore, The Writings of Peter of Poitiers: Master of Theology and Chancellor of Paris (1193–1205) (Notre Dame, 1936), pp. 5–8, 12, 16–17, 27, 36, 39–41, 54, 56, and 78–144; Philip S. Moore and Marthe Dulong, eds., Sententiae Petri Pictaviensis, 2 vols. (Notre Dame, 1961), 1:vi.

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Much less is known about Peter of Capua (†1214) as a theologian than as a prelate, since he is far better documented after 1193, when he became a cardinal and papal legate, including delegation to the ill-fated Fourth Crusade. Our Peter of Capua, not to be confused with a nephew with the same name (†1242), who also studied in Paris and ended his career as a cardinal, was born in Amalfi before 1160 to Landolfo, a noble of Lombard extraction from the principality of Capua. After initial studies in his native city, he went to Paris, probably in the early 1180s, where he became a disciple of Peter of Poitiers and then a master of theology in turn. During his Paris days, Peter of Capua wrote both a systematic work, a Summa theologiae dedicated to Walter, archbishop of Palermo (1170–90), most likely in the late 1180s, and an Alphabetum in arte serminocinandi, an exegetical handbook for preachers in the genre of biblical distinctiones, which he began before 1193 but finished after he had left the schools. Peter of Capua’s Summa is less a systematic exposition of theology than a collection of debates and quaestiones organized under Lombardian headings. It cites biblical and patristic authorities sparingly, basically as a jumping-off point for the arguments Peter develops. He focuses on the clarification of theological language and on the application of current grammatical and logical teaching on fallaciae, sophismata, and instantiae to selected topics. His goal is to frame and evaluate in precise technical terms and propositional forms both the positions he criticizes and his own solutions. Peter of Capua knows, and appeals to, the twelfth-century opinio Nominalium on the consignification of verbs in tenses other than the present, using it expressly in treating the doctrine of God’s knowledge.6 6 Werner Maleczek, Petrus Capuanus: Kardinal, Legat am vierten Kreutzzug, Theologe (†1214), Publikation des historischen Instituts beim österreichischen Kulturinstitut in Rom 1/8 (Vienna, 1988), pp. 73–75 and 231–47. For clarification of the difference between Peter of Capua uncle and Peter of Capua nephew and the ascription of the Summa to the former, see Alfonso C. Chacon, “Sobre la autoría de la ‘Summa theologiae’ de Cardenal Pedro de Capua,” in Hispania Christiana: Estudios en honor del Prof. Dr. José Orlandis Rovira en su septuagesimo aniversario, eds. Josep-Ignasi Saranyana and Eloy Tejero (Pamplona, 1988), pp. 379–87. On Peter of Capua’s life and works, see Carlo Pioppi, “Teologia e politica in un cardinale del tempo d’Innocenzo III: L’opera di Pietro Capuano,” Annales theologici 29 (2006), 127–47, here 139–47. Portions of the text of the Summa illustrating the themes treated are provided by idem, “Il peccato originale e il sinus Abrahae nella Summa vetustissima veterum di Pietro Capuano,” ibid. 18 (2004), 373–423; idem, “La creazione e lo stato di giustizia originale nella ‘Summa vetustissima veterum’ di Pietro Capuano,” in Dar razón de la esperanza: Homenaje al Prof. Dr. Luis Illanes, ed. Tomás Triga (Pamplona, 2004), pp. 441–54. Pioppi edits and discusses the first twenty-four quaestiones of Book 1 of the Summa in idem, ed., La dottrina sui nomi essentiali di Dio nella Summa theologiae di Pietro

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In comparison with Peter of Poitiers and Peter of Capua, whose pedagogy, as noted, included biblical exegesis and aids to preaching as well as fundamental doctrine, Simon of Tournai (ca. 1130–ca. 1216) had fewer strings to his bow. After studying with Odo of Soissons and gaining the patronage of Stephen of Tournai, then abbot of Ste. Geneviève (1176–92), Simon of Tournai produced no known biblical or homiletic works. He began his career with the Institutiones in sacram paginem, an abbreviation of the Lombard’s Sentences in quaestio form (1170/75), followed by numerous disputationes in which he criticized many Lombardian positions. The manuscripts of the disputationes, however, present them in no particular order. It is not clear if this phenomenon reflects Simon’s pedagogy or the accidents of redaction and transmission. Simon did seek to organize some of his disputationes into a Summa but died before completing it.7 There are also scholastic theologians in our target period whose shifts from one kind of teaching to another reflect not only the lack of an agreed-on curriculum or curricular sequence in theological education but also career shifts that moved their pedagogy from Paris to a non-scholastic setting. Prepositinus of Cremona, Stephen Langton, and Alan of Lille are in this group. We have no information on the early life and education of Prepositinus (ca. 1140/50–1210) or on how he acquired his unusual name. Prepositionus was a high-profile theologian at Paris when, in 1195, he was installed as scholasticus at the cathedral school of Mainz. He presumably became a canon of that cathedral, since he joined other officers of the chapter in witnessing four charters in 1196. He remained at Mainz until 1203, when his obstructionism in the disputed election of Archbishop Sigfrid earned him a personal rebuke from Pope Innocent III. Prepositinus’s whereabouts for the Capuano: Edizione critica delle quaestiones I–XXIV, Dissertationes, Università della Santa Croce, Series theologica 14 (Rome, 2004). On Peter’s use of the contemporary nominalist argument, see ibid. qq. 5, 17, 18, and 22 at pp. 170, 260–61, 267–69, and 338–39, with Pioppi’s commentary at pp. 59–60, 490, 542–44, 547, and 585. He criticizes the earlier findings of William J. Courtenay, “Peter of Capua as a Nominalist,” Vivarium 30 (1992), 157–72, although the difference between the two scholars is minimal. 7 Joseph Warichez, ed., Les Disputationes de Simon de Tournai (Louvain, 1932), pp. x–xli. For references in this text to the earlier Institutiones, see ibid., pp. 212, 213, and 215. The Institutiones, prefaced by a discussion of theological language, interlards the treatment of the sacraments with questions on the liturgy, not picked up in the Distinctiones. See Richard Heinzmann, Die “Institutiones in sacram paginam” des Simon von Tournai: Einleitung und Quästionverzeichnis (Munich, 1967), at p. 10 for the dating.


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next three years are unknown. But he resurfaced in Paris, as chancellor, from 1206 until his retirement in 1209, a year before his death. Of the works authentically his, only one dates to Prepositinus’s preMainz Paris years, his Summa theologica. His collection of biblical distinctiones is undated. He composed his other works, a Summa super Psalterium and a Summa de officiis–the latter on the canonical hours– in 1196/98 at Mainz. These works of the late 1190s reflect a decidedly non-scholastic pedagogy.8 Prepositinus’s move to Mainz to conduct it is mystifying, as is the chapter’s decision to appoint a Paris master as 8 On the dating and authenticating of Prepositinus’s works, see James A. Corbett, ed., Praepositini Cremonensis Tractatus de officiis (Notre Dame, 1969), pp. xii–xvi. Corbett supersedes previous assessments and is more accurate than some later ones, such as those of Giuseppe Angelini, L’Ortodossia e la grammatica: Analisi di struttura e deduzione storica della teologia trinitaria di Prepositino (Rome, 1972), pp. 1–3 and Philip D. Jamieson, “Prepositinus of Cremona’s Understanding of the Divine and Human Natures of Christ,” Ph.D. dissertation, Boston College, 1993, ch. 1. Further details on why the Summa de poenitentia should not be attributed to Prepositinus are provided by Joseph Goering, “Christ in Dominican Catechesis: The Articles of Faith,” in Christ among the Medieval Dominicans: The Representation of Christ in Texts and Images of the Order of Preachers, eds. Kent Emery, Jr. and Joseph Wawrykow (Notre Dame, 1998), pp. 127–38, here 127. The term praepositus, of which praepositinus would be a diminutive, had several meanings in this period. It designated the prior or chief executive officer of a cathedral chapter, and also a master’s chief teaching assistant. On the latter point, Simon of Tournai served as praepositus in scholas to Odo of Soissons, and the text of Simon’s Disputationes as we have it derives from the reportationes of his own praepositus, Gerard; see Warichez, ed., Les Disputationes, pp. xiv–xv and xlv. Adam of St. Asaph also described himself as the former prepositus of Peter Lombard in his effort to set Alexander III and his curia straight on his master’s Christology in the face of erroneous reports about it; on this, see Marcia L. Colish, Peter Lombard, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1994), 1:432–33. Also, the term praepositus negotiatorum was applied to the prefect of an urban market, appointed by the bishop or secular ruler who authorized the market, in tenth-and eleventh-century Rhineland cities such as Cologne. See Henry Mayr-Harting, Church and Cosmos in Early Ottonian Germany: The View from Cologne (Oxford, 2007), p. 171. Ninth-century Bobbio documents cite a praepositus or prepositus as a representative acting legally for the abbey in charters and court cases, or as an administrator of abbey property, whether this person was a monk, a lay brother, or an employee of the abbey; see Michael Richter, Bobbio in the Early Middle Ages: The Abiding Legacy of Columbanus (Dublin, 2008), pp. 107, 110, 122, 123, 126 and plate 6. For Isidore of Seville, Sententiae 3.35, 3.36, ed. Pierre Cazier, CCSL 111 (Turnhout, 1998), pp. 276–77, a praepositus was a secular cleric charged with teaching and preaching to the laity. Still earlier, as noted by Pat Southern, The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History (Santa Barbara, 2006), pp. 118, 256–7, 260 and 339, a praepositus was an army officer with a temporary command, one in charge of a frontier unit or a bodyguard for a provincial governor, or a middle-ranking commander leading cavalry, infantry, or non-Roman troops under a senior officer. As Thomas N. Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of Government (Princeton, 2009), notes repeatedly, this term denotes someone acting as another’s deputized authority; see his glossary, at p. 585, and the references in his index under the term “provost,” at p. 668.

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scholasticus. In contrast with practice in England and Capetian France, cathedral chapters in Germany at this time neither fostered nor rewarded scholastic theological study. They recruited not adults with academic expertise but aristocratic child oblates, relatives of their own canons. The duty of their scholasticus was to ground these boys in the liberal arts, along Ottonian lines.9 This Mainz episode in Prepositinus’s career, odd in its own right, does not seem to have tarnished his professional repute in the eyes of his scholastic colleagues when he returned to Paris in 1206. Another noteworthy career shift, if one involving a less dramatic change in the master’s audience, occurred in the life of Stephen Langton (1150/55–1228), leaving aside his later role as an ecclesiastical statesman. Langton was already a renowned teacher at Paris before his inception as a master in 1180. In 1206 he was called to Rome and made a cardinal. When Innocent III sought to resolve a disputed election to the archbishopric of Canterbury by elevating Langton to the see in 1207, King John refused to accept him. Langton remained in exile at the abbey of Pontigny until John was forced to relent in 1213. Once in England, Langton played an important part in the rebellion against John and the negotiations leading to Magna Carta. While he continued to preach as archbishop, his teaching career ended effectively in 1207.10

9 Julia Barrow, “Education and the Recruitment of Cathedral Canons in England and Germany, 1100–1225,” Viator 20 (1989), 117–38, here 120–29; see also Rodney Thomson, “The Place of Germany in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance,” in Manuscripts and Monastic Culture: Reform and Renewal in Twelfth-Century Germany, ed. Alison I. Beach (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 19–42, here 37–38. On German cathedral schools more generally, see C. Stephen Jaeger, The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950–1200 (Philadelphia, 1994). Documents referring to Prepositinus’s situation at Mainz include his official appointment as scholaster on 3 January 1195; his appearance in the witness list under that title in four 1196 charters, two dating between 20 June and 18 November 1196 and the other two not dated more precisely; Innocent III’s letter of 10 April 1203 to Magister Prepositinus, scholasticus of Mainz, chastising him for his opposition to Sigfrid’s election as archbishop and giving him one month to back down on pain of losing his benefices; and, signaling Prepositinus’s departure from Mainz, a letter of Innocent to Sigfrid of 2 December 1203, recommending as the new scholasticus one Simon, a cleric in the household of the bishop of Praeneste, Innocent’s legate in Germany and a staunch supporter of his ruling on the disputed election. See Johann Friedrich Böhmer, Regesten zur Geschichte der mainzer Erzbschöfe, ed. Cornelius Will, 2 vols. (Innsbruck, 1886; repr. Aalen, 1966), 2:97, 102, 103, 104, 105, 129–30, and 131. 10 For the dates of Langton’s theological works, see Riccardo Quinto, Doctor Nominatissimus: Stefano Langton (†1228) e la tradizione delle sue opere (Münster, 1994), as corrected in idem, “Stefano Langton e la teologia dei maestri secolari di Parigi tra XII e XIII secolo,” Archa Verbi 5 (2008), 122–44; idem, “La constitution du texte des


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At Paris, Langton taught and wrote in two modes at the same time, not sequentially. As an exegete, he commented on all the books of the Bible, on Peter Lombard’s Magna glossatura, and, in two rescensions, on Peter Comestor’s Historia scholastica. Simultaneously, he produced many quaestiones on theological topics, drawn from the Lombard’s theology, supporting, elaborating, or revising it with new language, distinctions, and examples. Although redacted between ca. 1200 and 1206, these quaestiones reflect his teaching in the 1180s and 1190s. Langton epitomized some of his quaestiones in a Summa at the end of his Paris period. This is not an inclusive work of systematic theology but a highly selective anthology, accenting the Trinity and Christology, where the problem of theological language is paramount. Another segment of Langton’s Paris oeuvre deals with ethics, preaching, penance, and other pastoral issues. Last in line is his commentary on the Sentences, produced in Rome in 1206–07 at the instance of the Roman clergy, although it is unclear where in the city and whom he taught. His petitioners seem to have requested lectures in this genre in order to get Quaestiones theologiae d’Étienne Langton,” in Étienne Langton (†1228): Prédicateur, bibliste et théologien, eds. Louis-Jacques Bataillon et al. (Turnhout, forthcoming); and idem, “Stephen Langton (1150/55–1228),” in Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, vol. 2, ed. Philipp W. Rosemann (Leiden, 2010), pp. 35–57, here 39–49; on the relationship between Langton’s oral teaching and his Summa, see idem, “Dalla discussione in aula alla Summa quaestionum theologicae di Stefano Langton,” Rivista di storia della filosofia, 64 (2009), 383–98. My thanks to Prof. Quinto for prepublication copies of these papers, the third of which gives the best account of Langton’s Sentences commentary. For Langton’s preaching, see Phyllis B. Roberts, “Stephen Langton and St. Catherine of Alexandria: A Paris Master’s Sermon on the Patron Saint of Scholars,” Manuscripta 20 (1976), 96–104; eadem, Stephanus de Lingua-Tonnante; and eadem, ed., Selected Sermons. For Langton on ethics, penance, and other aspects of pastoral care, see Riccardo Quinto, “The Influence of Stephen Langton on the Idea of a Preacher in the De eruditione praedicatorum of Humbert of Romans and the Postille of Hugh of St. Cher,” in Christ among the Medieval Dominicans (as in n. 8), pp. 49–91; idem, “Stephen Langton: Theology and Literature of Pastoral Care,” in “In principio erat Verbum”: Mélanges offerts en hommage à Paul Tombeur par des anciens étudiants à l’occasion de son émeritat, ed. Benoît-Michel Tock (Turnhout, 2005), pp. 301–55. For more on Langton’s exegesis, see Mark J. Clark, “The Commentaries on Peter Comestor’s Historia scholastica of Stephen Langton, Pseudo-Langton, and Hugh of St. Cher,” Sacris Erudiri 44 (2005), 301–446, here 302–22, arguing, at 320–21, that the second version of the commentary was designed for more advanced students. For the relationship between Langton’s Quaestiones and his Summa, see Sten Ebbesen and Lars Boje Mortensen, eds., “A Partial Edition of Stephen Langton’s Summa and Quaestiones with Parallels from Andrew Sunensen’s Hexaemeron,” CIMAGL 49 (1985), 25–244. Other aspects of Langton’s work are considered by contributors to the symposium published as Étienne Langton, as above; a detailed description of which is provided by Martin Morard, “Étienne Langton (†1228), prédicateur, bibliste et théologien,” BPM 49 (2007), 256–71.

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a quick fix on the latest trends in Paris, although it had never occurred to Langton himself, while there, to use this format, as other scholastics were doing.11 Langton did not complete his Sentences commentary, not getting much beyond baptism in Book 4. This fact reflects his abrupt departure from Rome in 1207, since his earlier work contains a welldeveloped theology of the sacraments. Completely absent from his oeuvre as a whole is any clear principle for sequencing the various modes of theology which he taught. The Paris scholastic in this period with the most wide-ranging oeuvre, whose diverse approaches to theology are not merely a function of a career shift, is Alan of Lille (1120/28–1203). Jean Châtillon describes him as the most representative scholastic of his day,12 a judgment hard to sustain. For Alan wrote in a far broader variety of genres than his scholastic compeers and put his personal stamp on them, including the invention and use of his own neologisms. His elaborate philosophical poems, De planctu naturae and Anticlaudianus, proved to be the swansongs of that scholastic genre. Their meaning has long been debated by literary scholars.13 Alan’s other main works, both in Paris and the Midi, where he moved in 1180 to combat heretics and non-Christians, are also controversial. There is no consensus on whether he proposed an overall program of theological study and, if so, what it was. Alan’s Paris curriculum is idiosyncratic, compared with those of contemporary masters. He began with a work on ethics, De virtutibus, de vitiis, et de donis Spiritus Sancti (1155/65) and a commentary on the Lord’s Prayer (1169/73).14 In the same period (1168/76) he wrote De 11 Marcia L. Colish, “From the Sentence Collection to the Sentence Commentary and the Summa: Parisian Scholastic Theology, 1130–1215,” in Manuels, programmes de cours et techniques d’enseignement dans les universités médiévales, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1994), pp. 9–29, repr. in eadem, Studies in Scholasticism (Aldershot, 2006), no. XII. 12 Jean Châtillon, “La méthode théologique d’Alain de Lille,” in Alain de Lille, Gautier de Châtillon, Jakemart Giélée et leur temps, eds. Henri Roussel and François Suard (Lille, 1980), pp. 47–60, at p. 47. 13 Good recent introductions to these debates can be found in Barbara Newman, God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 2003), pp. 51–87, and 291–327; Willemien Otten, From Paradise to Paradigm: A Study of Twelfth-Century Humanism (Leiden, 2004), pp. 32–38, 42–44, 71–82, 219–21, 231–37, 250, 261–68, 272–73, and 275–86; Eileen C. Sweeney, Logic, Theology, and Poetry in Boethius, Abelard, and Alan of Lille: Words in the Absence of Things (New York, 2006), pp. 127–29, and 157–75. 14 Odon Lottin, ed., “Le traité d’Alain de Lille sur les vertus, les vices, et les dons du Saint-Esprit,” in idem, Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, 6 vols. (Louvain/ Gembloux, 1948–60), 6:45–92; Nikolaus M. Häring, ed., “A Commentary on the Our Father by Alan of Lille,” Analecta Cisterciensia 31 (1975), 149–57.


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planctu.15 Between either 1155/65 or 1170/80, he authored two quite different systematic theologies. The more conventional in format is his Summa quoniam homines. While topics in the second, the Regulae caelestis iuris, also follow the Lombardian scheme, this work is an axiomatic theology in the tradition of Boethius and Gilbert of Poitiers.16 Where Alan taught in Paris remains open. Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny and Alain de Libera think it was at Ste. Geneviève. But, if Longère is correct, that community no longer granted licenses to teach ad lib in the third quarter of the twelfth century.17 Alan’s deep familiarity with projects connected with the school of Chartres is recognized, although whether he prepared for his Paris magisterium at Chartres itself is less clear. The claim that Alan was an English monk who studied at St. Victor has been aired, but with minimal acceptance.18 While Alan may have begun his Anticlaudianus at Paris, he finished it between 1180 and 1200 during his Midi period.19 Much of his agenda there involved the reclothing of traditional preaching against Cathars, Jews, and Muslims in the garb of Paris scholasticism, with the support of figures prominent in that region or enterprise.20 Alan dedicated his 15 Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny, Alain de Lille: Texts inédits, avec introduction sur sa vie et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1965), pp. 33–34. 16 Ibid., pp. 60–64 and 66–68, for discussions of datings previous to hers; see also Nikolaus M. Häring, ed., “Magister Alanus de Insulis Regula caelestis iuris,” AHDLMA 48 (1981), 97–226. 17 D’Alverny, Alain de Lille, p. 20; Alain de Libera, “Logique et théologie dans la Summa ‘quoniam homines’ d’Alain de Lille,” in Gilbert de Poitiers et ses contemporains: Aux origines de la logica modernorum, eds. Jean Jolivet and Alain de Libera (Naples, 1987), pp. 437–67, at p. 437. Cf. Longère, Oeuvres oratoires, 1:18–19. 18 A Chartrain education is proposed by d’Alverny, Alain de Lille, pp. 20–21; eadem, “Alain de Lille et la theologia,” in L’Homme devant Dieu: Mélanges offerts à père Henri De Lubac, 3 vols. (Paris, 1969), 2:111–20. See, most recently on this issue, Michel Lemoine, “Alain de Lille et l’école de Chartres,” in Alain de Lille, le docteur universel: Philosophie, théologie, et littérature au XIIe siècle, eds. Jean-Luc Solère et al. (Turnhout, 2005), pp. 47–58. The most recent defender of the English monk thesis is Françoise Hudry, “Mais qui était donc Alain de Lille?” in ibid., pp. 107–24. 19 D’Alverny, Alain de Lille, pp. 33–34. 20 On these works, their goals, and their dedications, see, for the De fide catholica and Distinctiones, Joseph H. Pearson, “The Anti-Jewish Polemic of Alan of Lille,” in Alain de Lille, le docteur universel (as in n. 18), pp. 83–106; on the Distinctiones, see also Louis-Jean Bataillon, “Les instruments du travail des prédicateurs au XIIIe siècle,” in idem, Culture et travail intellectuel dans l’Occident médiévale (Paris, 1981), pp. 197–209; idem, “Intermédiares entre les traités de morale pratique et les sermons: Les distinctiones bibliques alphabétiques,” in Les genres littéraires des sources théologiques et philosophiques médiévales, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse (Louvain, 1982), pp. 213–26, repr. in idem, La prédication au XIIIe siècle en France et Italie (Aldershot, 1993), nos. IV and VI; Mark Zier, “Preaching by Distinction: Peter Comestor and the Communication of the Gospels,” Ephemerides Liturgicae 105 (1991), 301–29; idem, “Sermons of the Twelfth-Century Schoolmasters and Canons,” in The Sermon, ed. Beverly Mayne

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De fide catholica, with sections on these three non-Christians groups, to Count William VIII of Montpellier (1179–1202). Alan’s Distinctiones dictionum theologicarum, unlike other alphabetical biblical glossaries of the day, has a polemical tint; Alan dedicated it to Ermengaud, abbot of St. Gilles (1174–92). This abbey, on the road to Compostella, had embraced the Cluniac observance and had been the site of anti-heresy activity since the early twelfth century. Alan joined Stephen Langton in shifting attention from the penitent to the formation of the confessor in his Liber poenitentialis, dedicated to Henry of Sully, archbishop of Bourges (1183–99), a Cistercian before his elevation. It was this order that Alan joined when he retired from his teaching in the Midi, wherever and to whomever he presented it. Occasions and dates of other works attributed to Alan remain opaque or disputed. A Song of Songs commentary written at the request of a prior of Cluny and dedicated to him may be Alan’s.21 He is the accepted author of two commentaries on the creeds,22 possibly conceived as elementary adjuncts to his more specialized polemics. The context and audience of Alan’s homiletic works are controverted. D’Alverny and Mark Zier think his sermons were delivered to litterati but Alberto Bertola demurs, contrasting the more speculative approach he finds in Alan’s Distinctiones, which he assigns to Paris, with the practical moral bent of his sermons.23 A few brief soundings of the Kienzle, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental 81/83 (Turnhout, 2000), pp. 325–62, here 327. Cf. Alberto Bertola, “La tecnica della predicazione in due sermoni di Alano di Lilla,” Studi medievali 27/2 (1986), 617–22, who thinks the Distinctiones dates to Alan’s Paris period. On the Liber poenitentialis, see Louis-Jean Bataillon, “Alain de Lille, théologien de la pénitence,” in Alain de Lille, Gautier de Châtillon (as in n. 12), pp. 101–71. 21 D’Alverny, Alain de Lille, pp. 73–75. 22 Nikolaus M. Häring, ed., “A Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed by Alan of Lille,” Analecta Cisterciensia 30 (1974), 7–46; idem, ed., “A Commentary on the Creed of the Mass by Alan of Lille,” Analecta Cisterciensia 30 (1974), 281–303. These works appear to forecast early thirteenth-century works on the articles of faith as a genre, on which, see Joseph Goering, “Christ in Dominican Catechesis,” in Christ among the Medieval Dominicans (as in n. 8), pp. 127–38. 23 D’Alverny, Alain de Lille, pp. 104–51; Zier, “Sermons,” p. 326; cf. Bertola, “La tecnica,” pp. 622–35. Without entering that debate, Marianne G. Briscoe, Artes praedicandi, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental 61 (Turnhout, 1992), pp. 20–28, 55–56, 60, 67, and 75, dates that work to 1200, which would place it in Alan’s Midi period, and sees it as providing a model for later mendicant preaching manuals. Scholars have noted that scholastic masters could and did adjust their preaching strategies to diverse hearers. See, on Stephen Langton, Roberts, Stephanus de LinguaTonnante, pp. 20–21, 46–52, 100–17, 123–30, and 132–33; eadem, ed., Selected Sermons, pp. 3–5, and 7; eadem, “Archbishop Stephen Langton and His Preaching on Thomas


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Distinctiones, under the letter A, however, suggest Alan’s unusual handling of this genre. He ignores the literal meaning of words in the Bible, moving directly to their moral or allegorical senses. His entry adulescentia makes no reference to a status or a natural stage in human development, nor does aer denote a physical element. The former refers proprie to immaturity in the faith and the latter, equivocally, to the habitation of demons and their temptations, or to the subtle intelligence of the prophets, or to divine sublimity. Alan gives detailed attention not just to nouns and verbs but even to prepositions such as ad, which, he notes, has multiple meanings whether physical, spatial, intellectual, affective, or final.24 He sees no need to package this report in the technical language of scholastic semantic theory. Sharp distinctions between his aids to preachers and his actual preaching may thus be overdrawn. Another undated work of Alan that raises questions about his overall project is the Rhythmus de Incarnatione et septem artibus. Here Alan offers an extremely flat-footed treatment of the artes. He shows no interest in their possible interrelations or philosophical implications. In the verse on arithmetic, he raises the problem of the one and the many only to drop it with a dull thud. Geometry teaches us only how to measure fields and lands. Given the banality of this account, it is perhaps no accident to find him ending each verse with the same dismissive refrain: In hac Verbi/stupet omnis regula.25 The whole question of Alan’s view of the application of the artes to theology has provoked disagreement, since multiple answers can be documented in his oeuvre. D’Alverny notes that diverse options find support in both his early and later works, whether in Paris or the Midi. These disjunctions simply indicate that Alan was an irrepressibly curious spirit, eager to experiment.26 But Gillian Evans finds a definite

Becket in 1220,” in De ore domini: Preacher and Word in the Middle Ages, eds. Thomas Amos et al. (Kalamazoo, 1989), pp. 75–92; and, more generally, Longère, Oeuvres oratoires, 1:255–74 and 279–410; Louis-Jean Bataillon, “Prédication des séculiers aux laïcs au XIIIe siècle,” RSPT 74 (1990), 457–65, repr. in idem, La prédication (as in n. 20), no. XIII; idem, “Early Scholastic and Mendicant Preaching as Exegesis of Scripture,” in Ad litteram: Authoritative Texts and Their Medieval Readers, eds. Mark D. Jordan and Kent Emery, Jr. (Notre Dame, 1992), pp. 165–98. 24 Alan of Lille, Liber in distinctionibus dictionum theologicalium, sv. ad, adulescentia, aer, PL 210:692B-D, 693B-C, 694A-B. 25 An edition and commentary are provided by d’Alverny, “Alain de Lille et la theologia,” pp. 123–28. 26 Ibid., pp. 11–28; eadem, Alain de Lille, p. 29.

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program in Alan. It starts with the artes as handmaids of theology. Then follows speculative or systematic theology, leading finally to practical theology, including apologetics, biblical exegesis, and homiletics. This proposal ignores the order in which Alan wrote his datable works. And, while Evans thinks that his objective was the deification of human knowledge, she concedes that passing enthusiasms and a short attention span distracted him from reaching his goal.27 Giulio D’Onofrio expands on the deification thesis. As he reads Alan, the hierarchized artes move upward, embrace and transcend negative theology, and attain their divine destination.28 While also flagging the Neoplatonic dimension of Alan’s thought, de Libera accents one art alone, logic, as the theme uniting it. But, he argues, Alan out-Gilberts Gilbert of Poitiers, positing an unbridgeable gulf between the categories that work in naturalibus and those applicable to God.29 Other interpreters shift attention to mathematics, making the Regulae Alan’s key work. For Jean Châtillon, geometry, if allied with grammar, is Alan’s model for a deductive science of theology based on self-evident principles that yield demonstrable conclusions. He elides Alan’s statements on the limitations of the artes in theology and the fact that his axioms include revealed truths and the dicta of patristic authorities.30 It is less mathematics per se than the axiomatic approach which Andreas Niederberger accents. He sees Alan targeting colleagues who overemphasize the verbal artes in theology. Anticipating Aristotle on the derivation of subaltern sciences from higher sciences, Alan argues that theology also draws probative conclusions from axiomatic givens. At the same time, Niederberger notes that Alan rejects the idea that sub-theological sciences descend hierarchically from theological meta-rules, or that a reductio artium ad theologiam is possible; none of the artes, mathematics included, get us to God or to the certitudes of faith.31 Pressing Niederberger’s interpretation further, Carlo Chiurco thinks that Alan actually uses the Posterior Analytics, available in Latin 27 Gillian R. Evans, Alan of Lille: The Frontiers of Theology in the Later Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1983). 28 Giulio D’Onofrio, “Alano di Lilla e la teologia,” in Alain de Lille, le docteur universel (as in n. 18), pp. 289–337. 29 De Libera, “Logique et théologie,” pp. 437–56. 30 Châtillon, “La méthode théologique,” pp. 52–57. 31 Andreas Niederberger, “Von der Unmöglichkeit des ‘translatio’: Zur Bestimmung von Philosophie und Theologie als ‘scientia’ bei Alanus ab Insulis,” in “Scientia” und “Disciplina”: Wissenschaftspraxis im 12. Jahrhundert, eds. Rainer Berndt et al. (Berlin, 2002), pp. 187–208.


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since ca. 1150, although in application to theology alone.32 But, in a lateral move, Christian Trottmann cites Augustine as the source for some of Alan’s mathematical arguments, and the principle that they are analogous, not probative.33 The most exhaustive and critical analysis of Alan as axiomatic theologian comes from Mechthild Dreyer, who gives him low marks in comparison with a similar effort, the Ars fidei (1187/91) of Nicholas of Amiens.34 In her view, both authors may anticipate the Posterior Analytics, but their source is Boethius’s De Hebdomadibus. Alan muddies the waters of this tradition by trying to fold Sprachlogik into it, which Nicholas avoids. Both seek a rationally accessible foundation for natural theology in mathematics. But the entire project fails, since these axiomatic theologians provide no scope for contingency in the creation, for the order of grace, or for the historical nature of Christian redemption. Jean-Luc Solère adds that emanation from the Neoplatonic One does not square either with Euclid’s mos geometricus or with Aristotle’s hierarchy of the sciences. Marginal in antiquity, except for works of Proclus not available in Latin before the fifteenth century, in Solère’s view the axiomatic method afforded no real purchase in a medieval theological culture whose données were those of revealed faith.35 The most recent effort to find a general interpretation of Alan’s theology, by Eileen Sweeney, reverts to the verbal artes.36 For her, Alan’s mixed signals on this subject are quite deliberate. Indeed, they are a major part of his project. He fights fire with fire, in her terms. He aims to show that neither any discipline in the artes, nor the artes collectively, yields a language apposite to the divine reality. Alan writes in manifold theological genres in order to show that they all fall short. 32 Carlo Chiurco, “Tra la teoresi e la prassi: Una possibile interpretazione della teologia in Alano di Lilla,” in Alain de Lille, le docteur universel (as in n. 18), pp. 339–68. 33 Christian Trottmann, “Unitas, aequalitas, conexio: Alain de Lille dans la tradition des analogies trinitaires mathématiques,” in Alain de Lille, le docteur universel (as in n. 18), pp. 401–27. 34 Mechthild Dreyer, ed., Nikolaus von Amiens, Ars fidei: Ein Beispielwerk axiomatischer Methode (Münster, 1993); eadem, More mathematicorum: Rezeption und Transformation der antiken Gestalten wissenschaftlichen Wissens im 12. Jahrhundert (Münster, 1996), pp. 142–70; eadem, “… ‘rationibus … malitiam impugnare’: Zur Theologiekonzeption des Nikolaus von Amiens,” in “Scientia” und “Disciplina” (as in n. 31), pp. 223–34. 35 Jean-Luc Solère, “L’ordre axiomatique comme modèle d’écriture philosophique dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge,” Revue d’histoire des sciences 56/2 (2003), 323–45. 36 Sweeney, Logic, Theology, and Poetry, ch. 3.

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Sweeney’s bold claim, underscoring semantic ambivalence and the intrinsic limits of theological writing as such as the central message of Alan’s oeuvre, does not, in the event, give a fully inclusive account of it. While she discusses the Regulae, the Summa, the Distinctiones, the De planctu and the Anticlaudianus, as developing Alan’s scheme in a cumulative order, she omits his apologetic, ethical, homiletic, and pastoral works. It is not clear that her thesis can accommodate them. The problem of Alan of Lille suggests, if not microcosmically, the larger problem of generalizing about the theological enterprise in Paris around 1200. Practitioners lacked a formal or collective agreement on what the theological curriculum should include, the order in which students should be taught, and the genres of theological literature which masters should produce. Even when using similar genres, masters in this period often handled them differently. Nor is it clear how they demonstrated the competence entitling them be masters, and to whom, and whether doing so qualified them to teach different subjects, or students at a more advanced level. There is no evidence that there were required courses that had to be offered if a master took a temporary, or permanent, leave of absence. Previous modes of categorizing masters, as speculative or practical, exegetical or systematic, preachers or semantic theorists, and the like, have proved to be inadequate.37 Nor can we fully delineate scholastic theology in Paris around 1200 from the standpoint of the development of doctrine. Despite Jaroslav 37

Most notably, the classification of “moral-biblical,” “Porretan,” and “Lombardian” masters derived from Martin Grabmann and popularized a generation ago by John Baldwin, Masters, Princes, and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and His Circle, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1970) and amplified with respect to political ethicists by Philippe Buc, L’Ambiguïté du livre: Prince, pouvoir, et peuple dans les commentaires de la Bible au moyen âge (Paris, 1999), has been modified from two directions. That the Chanter also applied technical semantic analysis to contradictions in the biblical text has been demonstrated in detail by Luisa Valente, “Phantasia contrarietatis”: Contradizzioni scrittuali, discorso teologico e arti del linguaggio nel De tropis loquendi di Pietro Cantore (†1197) (Florence, 1997). At the same time, speculative theologians were also concerned with practical ethics, preaching and penance, already noted by Longère, Oeuvres oratoires, 1:155–74; and most recently by Quinto, “La teologia dei maestri secolari,” 84–94. Illustrative of how a speculative theologian adapted his teaching to a liturgical text, and a non-speculative audience, is Prepositinus, De officiis, 2.109–111, at pp. 184–88. Without adverting to the technical language of the schools, which he certainly knew how to use, he advises his students in Mainz not to worry about the differential meanings of mulieres in different Gospel accounts of the women present at the tomb of the resurrected Christ. He advises them not to sweat the small stuff but to focus on two points: the angelic witness giving heavenly warrant of the resurrection, and the fact that it is Mary Magdalene who brings the news to the apostles.


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Pelikan’s sweeping survey of consensus theology and Walter Principe’s monumental investigation of early thirteenth-century Christology, most recent research in this area has focused on topics less broad and deep. The results have been piecemeal. Most scholars now address topics in scholastic theology around 1200 in their own right, their template no longer those themes with a pay-off in Thomas Aquinas. The base lines tend to be the positions of particular twelfth-century masters and how they were appropriated, criticized, or misinterpreted in the immediate sequel. Peter Abelard’s influence was the early bird, followed by that of Gilbert of Poitiers and, more recently, Peter Lombard. The one theologian from our target period itself whose legacy is now receiving careful study is Stephen Langton.38 An aspect of scholastic 38 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 3: The Growth of Medieval Theology (600–1300) (Chicago, 1978); Walter Principe, The Theology of the Hypostatic Union in the Early Thirteenth Century, 4 vols. (Toronto, 1963–75). On Abelardians, see David E. Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard: The Influence of Abelard’s Thought in the Early Scholastic Period (Cambridge, 1969); on Porretans, see Lauge Olaf Nielsen, Theology and Philosophy in the Twelfth Century: A Study of Gilbert Porreta’s Thinking and the Theological Exposition of the Doctrine of the Incarnation during the Period 1130–1180 (Leiden, 1982); Marcia L. Colish, “Early Porretan Theology,” RTAM 46 (1989), 58–79, repr. in eadem, Studies in Scholasticism (as in n. 11), no. V. On the Lombard’s positive influence, see Marcia L. Colish, “The Development of Lombardian Theology, 1160–1215,” in Centres of Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East, eds. Jan Willem Drijvers and Alasdair A. MacDonald (Leiden, 1995), pp. 207–16, repr. in eadem, Studies in Scholasticism, no. XIII; on departures from and criticism of the Lombard, see Marcia L. Colish, “Early Scholastic Angelology,” RTAM 62 (1995), 80–109, repr. in eadem, Studies in Scholasticism, no. XIV; Aage Rydstrøm-Poulsen, The Gracious God: Gratia in Augustine and the Twelfth Century (Copenhagen, 2002); Philipp W. Rosemann, “Fraterna dilectio est Deus: Peter Lombard’s Thesis on Charity as the Holy Spirit,” in Amor amicitiae: On the Love That Is Friendship. Essays in Medieval Thought and Beyond in Honor of the Rev. Professor James McEvoy, eds. Thomas A. F. Kelly and Philipp Rosemann (Louvain, 2004), pp. 409–36. On medieval misreading of the Lombard’s Christology and its perpetuation in modern scholarship, see Nielsen, Theology and Philosophy, pp. 243–361; idem, “Logic and the Hypostatic Union: Two Late Twelfth-Century Responses to the Papal Condemnation of 1177,” in Medieval Analyses in Language and Cognition, eds. Sten Ebbesen and Russell Friedman (Copenhagen, 1999), pp. 251–79; Lauge Olaf Nielsen and Sten Ebbesen, “Texts Illustrating the Debate about Christology in the Wake of Alexander III’s 1177 Condemnation,” CIMAGL 66 (1996), 217–51; on how that misconstruction arose, see Marcia L. Colish, “Christological Nihilianism in the Second Half of the Twelfth Century,” RTAM 63 (1996), 146–55, repr. in eadem, Studies in Scholasticism, no. XV, not cited by Neilsen but noted in his discussion of Walter of St. Victor’s critique of the Lombard by Pietro B. Rossi, “Contra Lombardum: Reazioni alla cristologia di Pietro Lombardo,” in Pietro Lombardo, Atti del XLIII Convegno storico internazionale, Todi, 8–10 ottobre 2006, ed. Enrico Menestò (Spoleto, 2007), pp. 123–91. On Langton’s influence, see Riccardo Quinto, ed., “Die Quaestiones des Stephen Langton über die Gottesfurcht,” CIMAGL 62 (1992), 77–165; idem, “The Influence of Stephen Langton,” pp. 41–91; idem, “Hugh of St.-Cher’s Use of Stephen

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doctrine still in its infancy is its interface with popular religious culture. Gary Macy’s demonstration that percolation up as well as trickle down shaped attitudes toward the Eucharist in the late twelfth century can be amplified with a datum from Peter the Chanter, who warmly supports the veracity of bleeding host miracles.39 On another issue, William of Auxerre states that the sufferings of the damned can be mitigated by the devotions of the living, citing as his authority Prepositinus, who cites as his own authority the legend of St. Brendan, importing a new wrinkle into that much-embroidered tale.40 If the crop yielding these few gleanings proves more abundant, we may be able to fill out a doctrinal profile of Paris scholasticism around 1200 that is now quite sketchy. While early scholastic biblical exegesis remains relatively underinvestigated, the one aspect of this picture that has recently drawn the most scholarly attention is the theologians’ semantic theories. Their Langton,” in Medieval Analyses in Language and Cognition, pp. 281–300; idem, “Le commentaire des Sentences d’Hugues de Saint-Cher et la littérature théologique de son temps,” in Hugues de Saint-Cher (†1263): Bibliste et théologien, eds. Louis-Jean Bataillon et al. (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 299–324; idem, “Stephen Langton: Theology and Literature of Pastoral Care,” pp. 301–55; idem, “Stefano Langton e la teologia dei maestri secolari,” 122–42. 39 Gary Macy, Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period: A Study of the Salvific Function of the Sacrament According to the Theologians, ca. 1080–ca. 1220 (Oxford, 1984); Peter the Chanter, Summa de sacramentis et animae consiliis 69, Analecta Mediaevalia Namurcensia 4/7/11/16/21, ed. Jean-Albert Dugauquier, 3 vols. in 5 (Louvain, 1954–67), 1:179–80. 40 William of Auxerre, Summa aurea 4.18.4.1.1, ed. Jean Ribailler, 5 vols. (Paris/ Grottaferrata, 1980–87), 4:526–39. On this text, which does not appear in any of Propositinus’s known works and may represent his oral teaching, see Artur Michael Landgraf, “Die Linderung der Höllenstrafen nach der Lehre der Frühscholastik,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 60 (1936), 299–370, repr. in idem, Dogmengeschichte der Frühscholastik, 4 vols. in 8 (Regensburg, 1952–56), 4/2:255–350. Cf. Daniel Edward Pilarczyk, ed., Praepositini Cancellari de sacramentis et novissimis (Summa theologicae pars quarta) (Rome, 1964), pp. 114–16. On the Brendan legend, see Marcia L. Colish, “The Virtuous Pagan: Dante and the Christian Tradition,” in The Unbounded Community: Papers in Christian Ecumenism in Honor of Jaroslav Pelikan, eds. William Caferro and Duncan G. Fisher (New York, 1996), pp. 44–46, 63–64, 78–80, and 88, repr. with corrections in eadem, The Fathers and Beyond: Church Fathers between Ancient and Medieval Thought (Aldershot, 2008), no. XVII, at pp. 2–4 and 25–26; Clara Strijbosch, The Seafaring Saint: Sources and Analogues of the Twelfth-Century Voyage of Saint Brendan, trans. Thea Summerfield (Dublin, 2000). None of the contributors to Glyn Burgess and Clara Strijbosch, eds., The Brendan Legend: Texts and Versions (Leiden, 2006) mention Prepositinus or William of Auxerre. But Carsten Wollin, “The Navigatio Sancti Brendani and Two of Its Twelfth-Century Palimpsests: The Brendan Poems by Benedict and Walter of Châtillon,” ibid., pp. 281–313 notes, at pp. 294–96, that Walter’s Latin poem on Brendan was commissioned by Pope Alexander III, suggesting the overlap between elite and popular culture on this figure.


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appeals to this aspect of the verbal artes, appreciated since the days of Landgraf and Chenu,41 used to annoy students of medieval philosophy, eager to assert their discipline’s independence. Their subject, they insisted, stood on its own two feet and was not a mere ancilla theologiae. The late 1980s witnessed a notable turnaround. Leading experts on medieval philosophy now announced, as a new agenda, that scholastic theology was a benefactor of Sprachlogik and not just its beneficiary. By 2006, they could present this position as a non-threatening commonplace.42 Of late, the scholar who has done the most to document this development in our target period is Luisa Valente.43 And, a

41 Artur Michael Landgraf, “Nominalismus in den theologischen Werken der zweiten Hälfte des zwölften Jarhunderts,” Traditio 1 (1943), 183–210; Marie-Dominque Chenu, La théologie au douzième siècle (Paris, 1957), pp. 90–109. 42 See, for twelfth-century theologians, Sten Ebbesen, “The Semantics of the Trinity according to Stephen Langton and Andrew Sunensen,” in Gilbert de Poitiers et ses contemporains (as in n. 17), pp. 401–35; de Libera, “Logique et théologie,” ibid., pp. 467–69; de Libera is joined by other scholars writing mostly on thirteenth- and fourteenth-century theology in Vestigia, Imagines, Verba: Semiotics and Logic in Medieval Theological Texts (XIIth–XIVth Century), ed. Constantino Marmo (Turnhout, 1997); see, more recently, Simo Knuuttila, “How Theological Problems Influenced the Development of Logic,” in “Ad ingenii acuitionem”: Studies in Honor of Alfonso Maierù, eds. Stefano Caroti et al. (Louvain-la-Neuve, 2006), pp. 183–98. 43 Luisa Valente, “Langage et théologie pendant la seconde moitié du XIIe siècle,” in Sprachtheorien in Spätantike und Mittelalter, ed. Sten Ebbesen (Tübingen, 1995), pp. 33–54; eadem, “Fallaciae et théologie pendant la seconde moitié du XIIe siècle,” in Medieval Analyses in Logic and Cognition (as in n. 38), pp. 207–36; eadem, “Iustus et misericors: L’usage théologique des notions de consignificatio et connotatio dans la seconde moitié du XIIe siècle,” in Vestigia, Imagines, Verba (as in n. 42), pp. 37–59; eadem, “‘Cum non sit intelligibilis, nec ergo significabilis’: Modi significandi, intelligendi et essendi nella teologia del XII secolo,” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 11 (2000), 133–94; eadem, “‘Talia sunt subiecta qualia praedicata permittunt’: Le principe d’approche contextuelle et sa genèse dans la théologie du XIIe siècle,” in La tradition médiévale des Categories (XIIe-XVe siècle), eds. Joël Biard and Irène Rosier-Catach (Louvain-la-Neuve, 2003), pp. 289–311; eadem, “Logica e teologia trinitaria in Pietro Lombardo e nel trattato porretano Summa Zwettlensis,” in Pietro Lombardo (as in n. 38), pp. 33–49; eadem, “Scholastic Theology in the 12th Century Latin West: Tractatus ‘invisibilia dei’,” in What Is Theology in the Middle Ages? Religious Cultures of Europe (11th-15th Centuries) as Reflected in Their Self-Understanding, Archa Verbi, subsidia 1, ed. Mikolaj Olszewski (Münster, 2007), pp. 59–84. Valente has also treated theologians’ contributions to the language of metaphysics in this period; see eadem, “Illa quae ‘transcendunt generalissima’: Elementi per una storia latina dei termini transcendentali (XII secolo),” in Metaphysica-sapientia-scientia divina: Soggeto e statuto della filosofia prima nel medioevo, ed. Pasquale Porro=Quaestio 5 (2005), 217– 39; eadem, “‘Ens, unum, bonum’: Elementi per una storia di transcendentali in Boezio e nella tradizione boeziana del XII secolo,” in “Ad ingenii acuitionem” (as in n. 42), pp. 483–545; eadem, “Names That Can Be Said of Everything: Porphyrian Tradition and Transcendental Terms in Twelfth-Century Logic,” Vivarium 45 (2007), 298–310. Most recently, see eadem, Logique et theologie: Les écoles parisiennes entre

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finding that has emerged in this new research is that, while the logica nova was indeed available in Latin and while some scholastic theologians made use of the doctrine of the fallaciae, most of the contributions they made to semantic theory in the late twelfth century stemmed from the logica vetus and its para-Aristotelian amplifications.44 From this perspective, even apparent outliers like Alan of Lille can be brought to the table: His assertion of the radical equivocity of theological and non-theological language emerges as the flip side of Prepositinus’s equally radical assertion of the univocity of theological and nontheological language, drawn from the same fund of sources.45 Another recent approach seeking to grasp how Parisian scholastics around 1200 understood their task has been to study their prologues. Prologues to their biblical exegesis and sermon collections have been surveyed, if from a largely formal perspective.46 For systematic theology, it is the prologues to their Sentences commentaries that have drawn

1150 et 1220 (Paris, 2008), at pp. 159–72 for theologians’ use of logic and semantics and at pp. 11–16, 273–93 for their contributions to these fields; her highest marks go to the Porretans and to Stephen Langton. Other scholars contributing to this reappraisal of logic and semantics as enriched by theology include Stephen F. Brown, “Medieval Supposition Theory in Its Theological Context,” Medieval Philosophy & Theology 3 (1993), 121–57, here 121–24, 127, and 135; Riccardo Quinto, “Trivium e teologia: L’organizzazione scolastica nella seconda metà del secolo dodicesimo e i maestri della sacra pagina,” in Storia della teologia nel medioevo, ed. Giulio D’Onofrio, 3 vols. (Casale Monferrato, 1996), 2:435–68; John Wei, “Divine Simplicity and Predestination in the Second Half of the Twelfth Century,” RTAM 73 (2006), 137–68; Alessandro Ghisalberti, “Auctoritas e inquisitio veritatis: Pietro Lombardo e l’evoluzione della teologia nel XII secolo,” in Pietro Lombardo, (as in n. 38), pp. 1–22, here 4–5; Constantino Marmo, “Segno e immagine nelle Sententiae di Pietro Lombardo,” in ibid., pp. 51–88, here 67–72 and 75–88. 44 Ebbesen and Mortensen, “A Partial Edition,” pp. 28–29; Quinto, “Trivium et teologia,” pp. 443–45; Valente, “Fallaciae et théologie,” pp. 207–36; eadem, “‘Cum non sit intelligibilis’,” p. 182; eadem, “Scholastic Theology,” pp. 59–84; Wei, “Divine Simplicity,” pp. 137–68. 45 Noted by Châtillon, “La méthode théologique,” pp. 55–56; and developed in detail with extensive bibliography by Luisa Valente, “Alain de Lille et Prévostin de Cremone sur l’equivocité du langage théologique,” in Alain de Lille, le docteur universel, (as in n. 18), pp. 364–400. 46 Nicole Beriou, “Les prologues de receuils de sermons latins du XIIe au XV siècle,” in Les prologues médiévaux: Actes du colloque international organisé par l’Academia Belgica et l’Ecole française de Rome avec le concours de la FIDEM [fédération internationale des instituts d’études médiévales], Rome, 26–28 mars 1998, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse (Turnhout, 2000), pp. 395–426; Gilbert Dahan, “Les prologues des commentaires bibliques (XIIe-XIVe siècle),” in ibid., pp. 427–70; Barbara Faes de Mottoni, “I prologhi dei commentari al vangelo di Luca di Giovanni della Rochelle e di Bonaventura,” in ibid., pp. 471–513; for prologues with the gleaner topos, see Gillian R. Evans, “Crumbs, Gleanings and Fragments: An Exegetical Topos,” RTAM 50 (1983), 242–45.


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attention. These studies provide useful, if limited, insights. For our target period, the fullest discussion is by Nancy Spatz. She considers the prologues of Peter Comestor, the Pseudo-Peter of Poitiers Gloss, Hugh of St. Cher, two unpublished commentators of the early thirteenth century, and Albert the Great. After treating their use of the accessus ad auctores and its modifications, she moves to their characterizations of the Lombard’s address to theology by way of advertising their own.47 As Spatz notes, Comestor’s prologue (1160/65) adds an elaborate biblical analogy not found in the Lombard, one with a long reach, based on the account in Exodus of the Israelites confronted by the ascent of Mt. Sinai. Granted a special divine revelation, Moses reached the mountaintop. But this is a privilege given only to Moses and later to Christ’s apostles; it does not remain a current option. Today, we must respect the boundaries set by the church fathers. We should not imitate the other Israelites. Some, like Parisian students demoralized by the magnitude of the patristic legacy, approached the ascent but then withdrew. They remind Comestor of academics who spurn the difficulties of theology and turn to less daunting fields, such as law and the natural sciences. Other Israelites, whom he compares with the academically lazy, did not even attempt the ascent. Only the blasphemers sought–and seek–to transgress the patristic boundaries. With the Lombard, Comestor concludes, we should reprove the latter and assist the former two groups. Comestor then shifts his metaphor. The patristic legacy is an impenetrable forest, through which the Lombard blazed a trail. Thus, as Spatz points out, despite his injunction regarding the patristic boundaries, Comestor recognizes, and approves, the Lombard’s project of pruning and editing the fathers’ sententiae. He is, indeed, more open to this aspect of the Lombard’s work than the author of the Pseudo-Peter of Poitiers Gloss (1160/70 for the first version), who emphasizes the strictures of Comestor’s prologue even though he recognizes the need to refute false doctrine.48 Spatz’s early thirteenth-century commentators accent other points. Hugh of St. Cher (ca. 1230) repeats much of Comestor’s prologue verbatim. But unlike Christian Trottmann, Spatz does not dismiss Hugh’s approach to theology as primitive. For, after distinguishing between 47 Nancy Spatz, “Approaches and Attitudes to a New Theological Textbook: The Sentences of Peter Lombard,” in The Intellectual Climate of the Early University: Essays in Honor of Otto Gründler, ed. Nancy van Deusen (Kalamazoo, 1997), pp. 27–52. 48 Ibid., pp. 33–37.

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biblical and patristic authority, Hugh gently subverts both. Regarding the boundaries set by the fathers, he states, we indeed often make our own determinations. We should not do so with biblical authors, as a rule–that is, unless we have an obvious reason for doing so. This assertion Hugh presents as both legitimate and consistent with the Lombard’s practice.49 The Franciscan Anonymous whose prologue is preserved in Vatican lat. 691 (1230/40) presents the Lombard, and himself, as military contractors, arming their brethren for offensive and defensive warfare against enemies of the faith.50 The contemporary Anonymous of Vatican lat. 2186 distinguishes between the truths of the faith, to which the intellect is moved by syllogistic demonstration, and the ethical truths to which the will is moved by example, parable, exhortation, threat, and miracle, as in the Bible. He presents the Lombard, and himself, as following the path of logic, a position largely reprised by Albert the Great.51 The most striking omission in Spatz’s study is the Lombard’s own prologue, as a base line for those of his successors. Notably, while he makes biblical allusions, he does not describe sacra pagina as his assignment.52 The one area of doctrine that he mentions specifically is the sacraments. His goal, he states, is to use reason to illuminate the truth, placing its light on a lamp-stand, so as to refute blasphemy, false piety, and error and to encourage the diffident and lazy. This, like the subjection of the will to reason, is a struggle he puts in military terms. The fathers contribute richly to the arsenal. He will not transgress their boundaries or espouse profane novelties. But he will apply intelligence to the vast morass of the patristic witness, selecting from it those testimonies to the truth that he finds most apposite. He will seek a moderate path, but will not shirk responsibility for his own solutions to debated matters, although, like the paupercula who donates her widow’s mite to the Lord’s treasury, he professes his intellectual penury, and asserts that he has assumed the burden only at the instance of his brethren. 49 Ibid., pp. 37–38; cf. Christian Trottmann, “Sur les premiers prologues théologiques dominicains du XIIIe siècle,” in Les prologues médiévaux (as in n. 46), pp. 515–33, here 520. 50 Spatz, “Approaches and Attitudes,” pp. 38–39; she prints the text at p. 50 n. 57. 51 Ibid., pp. 39–40; she prints the text of the Anonymous at p. 51 n. 58 after Jeanne Bignami-Odier, “Le manuscrit Vatican latin 2186,” AHDLMA 12 (1937), 133–66, here 147–48. 52 Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV libros distinctae 3rd rev. ed., ed. Ignatius C. Brady, 2 vols. (Grottaferrata, 1971–81), 1:3–4; trans. Giulio Silano, Peter Lombard, Sentences, Bk. 1 (Toronto, 2007), pp. 3–5.


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What we see here, and what has been recognized by Alessandro Ghisalberti, is the Lombard’s intention to enter the thick of the fray and to select, evaluate, and critique authorities according to his own judgment.53 What we also see here is a string of rhetorical topoi, found as well in many other scholastic prologues. They are the natural habitat of the modest author, who confesses his inadequacy and the diffidence with which he takes up his pen, his reverence for established authorities, his desire merely to clarify the data of Holy Scripture and to reinforce the teachings of the fathers, his avoidance of profanes novitates unlike some people he could name, and so on. This sort of captatio benevolentiae should not be taken literally but must be recognized for what it is, and judged in the light of what a scholastic actually does in the body of his text, how he walks the walk, and not just how he talks the prefatory talk. This fact has certainly been noticed, by scholars writing before Spatz.54 If her study does not pick up the glove, neither does the most recent account of prologues to Sentences commentaries, by Philipp Rosemann, who also appears unaware of Spatz’s work.55 For our target

53 Ghisalberti, “Auctoritas e inquisitio veritatis in Pietro Lombardo,” pp. 7–17. On the approach to authorities in the Lombard and others in the first half of the twelfth century, see Marcia L. Colish, “Authority and Interpretation in Scholastic Theology,” in Religious Identity and the Problem of Historical Foundation: The Foundational Character of Authoritative Sources in the History of Christianity and Judaism, eds. Judith Frishman et al. (Leiden, 2004), pp. 369–86; eadem, “Peter Lombard as an Exegete of St. Paul,” in Ad litteram (as in n. 23), pp. 71–92, repr. in eadem, Studies in Scholasticism (as in n. 11), nos. II and IX. 54 Chenu, La théologie au douzième siècle, pp. 386–98; Edward M. Peters, “Transgressing the Limits Set by the Fathers: Authority and Impious Exegesis in Medieval Thought,” in Christendom and Its Discontents: Exclusion, Persecution, and Rebellion, 1000–1500, eds. Scott L. Waugh and Peter D. Diehl (Cambridge, Eng., 1996), pp. 338–77, at pp. 353–54. 55 Philipp W. Rosemann, The Story of a Great Medieval Book: Peter Lombard’s Sentences (Peterborough, Ont., 2007), pp. 26–70 for scholastics prior to the 1250s; his translation of most of the prologue from the first version of the Pseudo-Peter of Poitiers Gloss, based on one of the three earliest and complete manuscripts of it, Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale VII, c.14, fol. 2v, is at pp. 41–46. Cf. the treatment of the Lombard in idem, Peter Lombard (Oxford, 2004) and idem, “Sacra pagina or scientia divina? Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, and the Nature of the Theological Project,” International Journal for Philosophy and Theology 4 (2004), 284–300. In the lastmentioned citation, the comparison works to the advantage of Aquinas, whom the author also treats as a model for scientific theology that meets Heidegger’s standards. The prologue of Peter of Capua’s Summa, pp. 87–89, shows how baroque the multiplication of addenda to the Lombard and Comestor had become by the end of the twelfth century, as well as the swift incorporation in this context, as a cliché, of Bernard of Chartres’s dictum about dwarfs on the shoulders of giants.

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period, Rosemann’s coverage is narrower, and oddly selective. He dismisses the Lombard, very little of whose prologue he treats, as a traditional practitioner of theology as sacra pagina. Comestor appears only as cited by the Pseudo-Peter of Poitiers Gloss. Stephen Langton, who wrote no prologue to his Sentences commentary, gets a hearing, but the general prologue to the commentary of Alexander of Hales (ca. 1225/30) does not. From there Rosemann moves on to Bonaventure, Aquinas and later medieval scholastics. In their own ways, both Spatz and Rosemann leave open the question of how much these prologues, from the Lombard’s on up, really tell us about the nature of Parisian scholastic theology around 1200; for prologues, to summae as well as to Sentences commentaries, rehearse the standard prefatory clichés, and then some, however innovative they actually are. Mention of the Pseudo-Peter of Poitiers Gloss in these discussions of prologues raises yet another, final, question about our understanding of this chapter in the history of scholastic theology. Four versions of this gloss were produced between the death of the Lombard and the first quarter of the thirteenth century. Evidence from the marginalia in the manuscripts, and other sources, shows that it remained in use as a teaching text into the fourteenth century. Its shelf life is initially baffling. For it is a good, gray, conservative gloss. It draws no new distinctions, shies away from technical applications of the artes, and makes no effort to use the commentary as a source for disputationes or as a platform for the author’s own solutions. It simply seeks to explain what the Lombard said.56 This text appears to have been passé even when it was first written. Its durable appeal, like the variety, flexibility, and lack of organization of Parisian theology during its life span, invites us to rethink our notion of scholasticism around 1200. As historians, we tend to focus on innovation. We seek to explain development and change. We have been most engaged by the scholastic theologians who pushed back the frontiers of their discipline. Yet, as this gloss reveals, some masters and students did not want to occupy the avant garde. As we seek to grasp the range of substantive and methodological options available in Parisian scholastic theology around 1200, this phenomenon, too, needs to be written into the script.

56 Marcia L. Colish, “The Pseudo-Peter of Poitiers Gloss,” in Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (as in n. 10), pp. 1–33.

RESHAPING THE GENRE: LITERARY TRENDS IN PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY Chris Schabel More than any other living scholar, William J. Courtenay has investigated the shape of education in the fourteenth century: who studied or taught and where, what they did and wrote, and how things changed over time. In theology, he has contributed to our knowledge of the changing importance and nature of Sentences commentaries, the decline of written quodlibeta, the specifics of the educational systems of the mendicant orders, the precise make-up of the theological faculties of the universities, new doctrinal themes, and so on. Traditionally, except for the physical sciences and logic, the fourteenth century has been seen as a period of intellectual decline, especially in philosophical theology. This judgment is mainly qualitative, however, and therefore subjective, at least for the period before the Black Death. Courtenay himself might take issue with it, especially since it depends in part on post-medieval developments and the backgrounds and motivations of the individuals who pioneered the study of medieval thought.1 Thus 1

For the whole question of fourteenth-century thought, see now William J. Courtenay, Changing Approaches to Fourteenth-Century Thought, The Etienne Gilson Series 29 (Toronto, 2007). One can find the traditional view, for example, in the entry on “Scholasticism” by William Turner in the online Catholic Encyclopedia (1912): “With Duns Scotus, a genius of the first order, but not of the constructive type, begins the critical phase of Scholasticism. Even before his time, the Franciscan and the Dominican currents had set out in divergent directions. It was his keen and unrelenting search for the weak points in Thomistic philosophy that irritated and wounded susceptibilities among the followers of St. Thomas, and brought about the spirit of partisanship which did so much to dissipate the energy of Scholasticism in the fourteenth century. The recrudescence of Averroism in the schools, the excessive cultivation of formalism and subtlety, the growth of artificial and even barbarous terminology, and the neglect of the study of nature and of history contributed to the same result. Ockham’s Nominalism and Durandus’s attempt to ‘simplify’ Scholastic philosophy did not have the effect which their authors intended. ‘The glory and power of scholasticism faded into the warmth and brightness of mysticism,’ and Gerson, Thomas à Kempis, and Eckhart are more representative of what the Christian Church was actually thinking in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries than are the Thomists, Scotists, and Ockhamists of that period, who frittered away much valuable time in the discussion of highly technical questions which arose within the

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the present paper leaves the qualitative issue aside and investigates to what degree the traditional view of fourteenth-century decline is supported quantitatively. This study takes the extant literature of the fourteenth century, as well as the decades just before 1300, and categorizes this material according to genre, identity of the authors, and date (and to a lesser extent place) of composition, attempting to include information on the size of texts and their popularity in terms of surviving manuscript witnesses. A variety of sources have been employed, usually incomplete or out-of-date, sometimes functioning in parallel with others and other times overlapping: Glorieux’s repertory of Parisian masters down to 1320 and his volumes on quodlibeta, along with the recent Brill book on the subject;2 Stegmüller’s repertory of Sentences commentaries, Doucet’s supplement, and the corresponding Brill project;3 Kaeppeli’s four volumes on Dominican authors, Roest and van der Heijden’s website on Franciscan authors, the writings of Xiberta on the Carmelites and Trapp and Zumkeller on the Augustinian Hermits, and Thomas Sullivan’s works on the theology of the monks and canons regular;4 and

schools and possess little interest except for adepts in Scholastic subtlety.” One can still find the main elements of this view in such basic works as Judith M. Bennett and Charles Warren Hollister, Medieval Europe. A Short History, 10th ed. (New York, 2006), pp. 380–81. 2 Palémon Glorieux, La littérature quodlibétique de 1260 à 1320, 2 vols. (Kain, 1925 and Paris, 1935); Palémon Glorieux, Répertoire des maîtres en théologie de Paris au XIIIe siècle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1933–34); Christopher Schabel, ed., Theological Quodlibeta in the Middle Ages, 2 vols., Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 1/7 (Leiden, 2006–07). 3 Friedrich Stegmüller, Repertorium commentariorum in Sententias Petri Lombardi, 2 vols. (Würzburg, 1947); Victorin Doucet, Commentaires sur les Sentences: supplément au répertoire de M. Frédéric Stegmuller (Florence, 1954); G.R. Evans, ed., Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, vol. 1 (Leiden, 2002); Philipp Rosemann, ed., Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, vol. 2 (Leiden, 2010). 4 Thomas Kaeppeli, ed., Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, 4 vols. (Rome, 1978–93); Bert Roest and Maarten van der Heijden, Franciscan Authors, 13th–18th Century: http://users.bart.nl/∼roestb/franciscan; Bartolomé María Xiberta y Roqueta, De scriptoribus scholasticis saeculi XIV ex ordine Carmelitarum (Louvain, 1931); Bartolomé María Xiberta y Roqueta, Guiu Terrena, Carmelita de Perpinyà (Barcelona, 1932); Damasus Trapp, “Augustinian Theology of the 14th Century. Notes on Editions, Marginalia, Opinions and Book-Lore,” Augustiniana 6 (1956), 146–274; Adolar Zumkeller, “Die Augustinerschule des Mittelalters: Vertreter und philosophischtheologische Lehre,” Analecta Augustiniana 27 (1964), 167–262; Thomas Sullivan, “The Quodlibeta of the Canons Regular and the Monks,” in Theological Quodlibeta (as in n. 2), 2:359–99.

literary trends in philosophical theology

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finally Steven Livesey’s database for commentators on the Sentences.5 Refining these sources would be an endless process, but they provide a good picture of general trends. Just glancing at these compendia proves that the amount of material is truly immense. Livesey’s database counts well over 10,000 texts by theologians who commented on the Sentences. For the purposes of testing the image of decline in philosophical theology, however, this present evaluation focuses on the written products of theological lectures and disputations at the universities and mendicant studia. Thus the most popular genre, indicated by the 2500 sermons in the database, which is just a fraction of what can be found in Schneyer’s huge repertory,6 is excluded from consideration, although sermons sometimes do contain important doctrinal pronouncements and even arguments. Likewise, the 1500 letters, the 1000-plus Aristotelian commentaries,7 confessional manuals, liturgical works, medical writings, poems, logical treatises, translations, speeches, and other genres that do not pertain to both theological instruction and philosophical theology do not come into play here. Also excluded is the genre with the second highest number in the database, Biblical commentaries, with almost 2,200 entries, although these were often the products of university teaching. The reason is that, even though scriptural commentaries do treat issues in philosophical theology, that is not their main purpose and not their primary content. Thus Stegmüller’s great repertory of such commentaries has been ignored here.8 Even with all of these related genres cut out, we are still left with an amazing number and array of texts. During periods of crisis or controversy, theologians wrote treatises related to philosophical theology either of their own accord or at papal or royal request. In the early fourteenth century we find many treatises De potestate papae, and from

5 http://www.ou.edu/class/med-sci/Commbase.htm. Described in Steven John Livesey, “Lombardus Electronicus: A Biographical Database of Medieval Commentaries on Peter Lombard’s Sentences,” in Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences, vol. 1 (as in n. 3), pp. 1–23. 6 Johannes Baptist Schneyer, Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters, für die Zeit von 1150–1350, 11 vols., Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters. Texte und Untersuchungen, Bd. 43 (Münster, 1969–90). 7 On these, see Charles H. Lohr, “Medieval Latin Aristotle Commentaries,” Traditio 23 (1967), 314–413; 24 (1968), 194–245; 26 (1970), 135–216; 27 (1971), 251–351; 28 (1972), 281–396; 29 (1973), 93–197; 30 (1974), 119–44; BPM 14 (1972), 116–26. 8 Friedrich Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, 5 vols. (Madrid, 1940–55).

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Pope John XXII’s pontificate in particular survive numerous writings of varying lengths on Franciscan poverty, the resulting battle between the order and the pope, the beatific vision, and the processes against such figures as William of Ockham.9 Toward the end of the century the Great Schism was accompanied by an increase in works on ecclesiology.10 Throughout the century, but more prominently in some years than in others, theologians expressed their opinions on the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary.11 The sometimes ephemeral nature of this literature, however, makes it difficult to use to describe longterm trends. We are left with, on the one hand, Sentences commentaries, usually stemming from lectures given by bachelors of theology (along with associated principia and lectures connected to the promotion to master, that is, vesperies and aula determinations), and, on the other hand, various genres primarily from the pens of masters of theology: summae in theology; quodlibeta; quaestiones disputatae and quaestiones ordinariae (listed separately in Livesey’s database, a separation discussed below).12 The results of the quantitative analysis of these genres are striking. In terms of numbers, the first quarter of the fourteenth century is the apogee of medieval philosophical theology. Afterwards, however, a general decline does set in, except that the temporary rise of Oxford in the second quarter of the century helps offset this decrease. By the

9 On the writings pertaining to these issues, see Anneliese Maier, Ausgehendes Mittelalters. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Geistesgeschichte des 14. Jahrhunderts, vol. 3 (Rome, 1977), pp. 319–590, esp. “Schriften, Daten, und Personen aus dem Visio-Streit under Johann XXII.,” pp. 543–90; Louis Duval-Arnoud, “Les Conseils remis à Jean XXII sur le problème de la pauvreté du Christ et des apôtres (MS. BAV Vat. lat. 3740),” Miscellanea Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae, vol. 3 (Rome, 1989), pp. 121–201; Jürgen Miethke, De potestate papae: Die päpstliche Amtskompetenz im Widerstreit der politischen Theorie von Thomas von Aquin bis Wilhelm von Ockham, Spätmittelalter und Reformation; neue Reihe 16 (Tübingen, 2000). 10 See R.N. Swanson, Universities, Academics and the Great Schism, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought 3.12 (Cambridge, 1979). 11 See, for example, the texts (except for that of Peter of Candia, which is from his Sentences commentary) and commentary in Tractatus quatuor de immaculata conceptione B. Mariae Virginis (Quaracchi, 1954). 12 Many works discuss these genres. See Gordon Leff, Paris and Oxford Universities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York, 1968), pp. 160–77 and 182–84; and, for the bachelors, William J. Courtenay, “The Course of Studies in the Faculty of Theology at Paris in the Fourteenth Century,” in ‘Ad Ingenii Acuitionem’. Studies in Honour of Alfonso Maierù, eds. Stefano Caroti et al. (Louvain-la-Neuve, 2006), pp. 67–92.


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Black Death the numbers reach a low point, from which they never recover in the fourteenth century. In the conclusion to this paper an attempt will be made to explain these phenomena and to respond to potential methodological objections. New and Old Participants One fact immediately seems to contradict the view of fourteenthcentury decline: certain orders that in the thirteenth century did not produce many, if any, authors from whom we have major surviving works participated much more actively in the intellectual life of theological faculties in the fourteenth century, to judge solely on the basis of tracts that have come down to us. The Augustinian Hermits produced one giant in the thirteenth century in Giles of Rome, but the theological works of all other important Augustinian theologians date from just before 1300 and afterwards. Giles himself was active after 1300, writing De ecclesiastica potestate and his Ordinatio on Book II of the Sentences. Aside from Giles, James of Viterbo’s works – an expositio literalis on the Sentences in one manuscript, four Quodlibeta, and his many Quaestiones de divinis praedicamentis – date to the 1290s and all other Augustinians wrote after the 1300 threshold.13 The Carmelites produced no writings in philosophical theology at all until the fourteenth century. The impact on theology of two of the four large mendicant orders, then, practically begins in 1300. Writings from monks, too, come almost exclusively after 1300. With the notable exception of the works of the Cistercian Guy of l’Aumône, whose Sentences commentary and brief Summa and quodlibetal questions, all dating between 1245 and 1275, survive precariously in single witnesses, we have a derivative Sentences commentary, probably from 13 There are many lists of Giles’s works; see Roberto Lambertini, “Giles of Rome,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (2004 edition): http://plato .stanford.edu/entries/giles/. For James of Viterbo, see the editions of Eelcko Ypma, ed., Jacobi de Viterbio, OESA, Disputatio prima de Quolibet (Würzburg, 1968); Disputatio secunda de quolibet (Würzburg, 1969); Disputatio tertia de quolibet (Würzburg, 1973); Disputatio quarta de quolibet (Würzburg, 1975); Quaestiones de divinis praedicamentis I-X (Rome, 1983); Quaestiones de divinis praedicamentis XI–XVII (Rome, 1986); idem, “Jacobi de Viterbio, OESA, Quaestiones de divinis praedicamentis. Quaestiones XVIII–XXVI,” Augustiniana 38 (1988), 67–98; 39 (1989), 154–85; 42 (1992), 351–78; 44 (1994), 177–208; 45 (1995), 299–318; 46 (1996), 147–76 and 339–69; 48 (1998), 131–63; 49 (1999), 323–66. The Sentences commentary is in Siena, Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati G.V.15.

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the 1290s, from the Cistercian Humbert of Preuilly, but all other Cistercian and all Benedictine commentaries that we have are from the fourteenth century or later. Of the canons regular, in the 1280s Servais of Guez of Mont-Saint-Eloi produced many brief quodlibetal questions that survive in one manuscript and one witness preserves the short Quodlibet of the Augustinian canon James of Aaleus, while from the 1290s we have a single sizeable anonymous disputed question on the Filioque from a master of the Val-des-Ecoliers as well as two short quodlibetal questions, each in one witness. Beyond these, however, we possess mere fragments collected in a manuscript of Nicholas of Bar-le-Duc. Although the canons regular made little difference in the fourteenth century either, Cistercians and Benedictines were an important part of theology after 1300.14 If there are “new” groups active in fourteenth-century theology, was there a decline in the participation of the “old” groups that dominated the latter half of the thirteenth century, above all the Dominicans and Franciscans, but also the secular theologians? For the seculars, it depends on how one looks at it. Most secular theologians who left us major writings in this period were active at Paris, so we may take Glorieux’s repertory of Parisian masters down to 1320 as representative.15 Glorieux lists an impressive number of secular theologians, a vast number of texts, and many manuscripts for Paris in the latter half of the thirteenth century. Yet if one looks closely, most of these theologians produced nothing at all in philosophical theology that has come down to us. Only fifteen have left any lasting trace, but of those fifteen, we know the thoughts of five solely because of fragments in Nicholas of Bar-le-Duc’s collection of texts in Paris, BnF lat. 15850, mostly from the 1290s, but Sylvain Piron has dated some to after 1300.16 Five other authors have between a single disputed question in one witness, in the case of Peter of Joigny, to a short quodlibet in two manuscripts, for Berthaud of Saint-Denys. Thus only the remaining five secular theologians at Paris in the latter half of the thirteenth century made a significant mark. From 1260 to 1280, we have just Ranulph of Houblonnière’s two quodlibeta extant in only one witness and the

14

See Sullivan, “The Quodlibeta of the Canons Regular and the Monks.” For the following, in addition to what is noted, see entries in Glorieux, Répertoire des maîtres, and chapters in Schabel, Theological Quodlibeta. 16 Sylvain Piron, “Nicholas of Bar’s Collection,” in Theological Quodlibeta (as in n. 2), 2:333–43. 15


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admittedly substantial works of Gerard of Abbeville: no less than twenty quodlibeta, two full sets and other assorted quaestiones disputatae, and a major polemical work. Aside from the polemical work’s five manuscripts, however, the others survive in one, two, or three witnesses only. Between 1280 and 1300 we have a large number of texts in an abundance of manuscripts, but this is due to Henry of Ghent and Godfrey of Fontaines – who was still active after 1300. The only other significant secular is Nicholas du Pressoir, whose surviving works from the 1270s through the 1290s include three short quodlibeta in one manuscript and seven sets of quaestiones disputatae, but also in only one codex. The works of Henry and Godfrey are certainly more important than those of all the other secular theologians from the second half of the thirteenth century combined, but they probably even exceed the writings of the others in total bulk. Thus they need to be treated as anomalies to a certain extent. Besides the fourteenth-century works of Godfrey and the six very popular quodlibeta of Peter of Auvergne, whose activities as theologian straddled the centuries, Glorieux listed a dozen Parisan secular theologians from after 1300 who have left pertinent texts behind, more than for 1260–80 or 1280–1300. True, no one approaches the stature of Henry and Godfrey, and five of the twelve appear only in the notebook of Prosper of Reggio Emilia in Vat. lat. 1086,17 but several of the remaining seculars in 1300–20 are rather impressive. John of Pouilly has left us five or six huge quodlibeta from 1306/7–12 in four complete witnesses, and another manuscript contains a different redaction of the first three disputations. Pouilly is also responsible for a substantial set of Quaestiones ordinariae de scientia Dei in up to three redactions, in four manuscripts, at least one large set of Quaestiones disputatae de virtutibus, in two manuscripts and perhaps in two redactions, and a great number of other quaestiones disputatae in one witness.18 It would take at least eight large volumes to publish just one redaction of Pouilly’s theological questions from his period as Parisian master.

17 William J. Courtenay, “Reflections on Vat. Lat. 1086 and Prosper of Reggio Emilia, O.E.S.A.,” in Theological Quodlibeta (as in n. 2), 2:345–57, as well as specific theologians or orders elsewhere in the volume. 18 The non-quodlibetal material will be described in Christopher Schabel, “The Quaestiones ordinariae de scientia Dei of Jean de Pouilly” (forthcoming), but see Nöel Valois’s entry on Jean de Pouilly in Histoire littéraire de la France 34 (1914), 220–81.

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Pouilly was not alone: Thomas of Bailly has six surviving quodlibeta in two manuscripts. Radulphus Brito and Henry of Harclay actually left complete books of their Sentences commentaries, the first from secular theologians – Harclay’s was very important, leaving aside his substantial Quaestiones ordinariae, which are from Oxford.19 Francis Caracciolo, university chancellor, has two surviving quodlibeta in one manuscript. Thomas Wylton’s role in Parisian theology in the 1310s is much greater than Glorieux’s listing of his single – albeit large – Quodlibet and assorted quaestiones disputatae would indicate.20 Moreover, with the passing of time, we have found more material, at least fragmentary, from these and other Parisian seculars from the first two decades of the fourteenth century. There is really no decline after 1300. Aside from Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Giles of Rome, the most influential and prolific authors of works in philosophical theology in the latter half of the thirteenth century were Franciscans and Dominicans. The two main mendicant orders continued to dominate after the year 1300, and to an extent our quantitative evaluation of fourteenth-century philosophical theology will depend on trends within these two orders of mendicants. For now, a simple list of the great Friars Minor and Preacher from the first third of the fourteenth century, in terms of output, surviving manuscripts, and impact, will suffice to show that in 1300 their zenith was still to come: John Duns Scotus, Alexander of Alessandria, Robert Cowton, Nicholas of Lyra, James of Ascoli, Hugh of Novocastro, William of Alnwick, Peter Auriol, William of Ockham, Landulph Caracciolo, Francis of Marchia, Francis of Meyronnes, Walter Chatton, Adam Wodeham, John of Rodington, Gerard Odonis, and Nicholas Bonet for the Franciscans; James of Metz, Hervaeus Natalis, Durand of St Pourçain, Peter of Palude, John of Naples, and Robert Holcot for the Dominicans, besides those active 19 For the Sentences commentary, see now William Duba, Russell L. Friedman, and Christopher Schabel, “Henry of Harclay and Aufredo Gonteri Brito,” in Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences, vol. 2 (as in n. 3), pp. 263–368; for the Quaestiones ordinariae, see Henry of Harclay, Ordinary Questions, 2 vols., ed. Mark G. Henninger and trans. Raymond Edwards and Mark G. Henninger, Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi 17–18 (Oxford, 2008). 20 On Wylton’s assorted questions, see Stephen D. Dumont, “New Questions by Thomas Wylton,” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 9 (1998), 341– 79; Lauge O. Nielsen, “The Debate between Peter Auriol and Thomas Wylton on Theology and Virtue,” Vivarium 38.1 (2000), 35–98; and Cecilia Trifogli, “The Quodlibet of Thomas Wylton,” in Theological Quodlibeta (as in n. 2), 2:231–66.


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both before and after 1300 and a host of other authors from both orders who were by no means insignificant. Disappearing Genres I: Quodlibeta If the question concerns the decades on either side of the 1300 divide, therefore, the fourteenth century represents a rise and not a fall in numbers of authors and works in philosophical theology and a great rise in the number of religious orders participating. But there were changes throughout the fourteenth century, in overall numbers, within each order, and with respect to genres. One of the most striking changes is the disappearance of written theological quodlibeta. We now have a fairly clear statistical picture of this trend, or rather event, since it seems to have happened rather suddenly. Throughout the first third of the fourteenth century theologians continued to produce written quodlibeta based on disputations at the University of Paris, especially at the mendicant studia there, and to a lesser extent Oxford, other mendicant studia, and the papal curia. In the second third the well dries up almost completely, and in the third we hardly hear hints of the existence of written quodlibeta. The following table charts the numbers of authors and quodlibeta (not including Dominican ‘anti-quodlibeta’ written against previous texts21) by decade from 1296 to 1335, at times making educated guesses for the dates (not including the collections in Assisi 158 – except for one set –; Paris, BNF lat. 15850; and Vat. lat. 108622). The table demonstrates two things: first, quodlibetal production does not decline after 1300, but actually rises and then remains steady until about 1325. Of the 142 quodlibeta surviving outside compendia from the last four decades of the genre’s life, the Dominicans were responsible for 53, the Franciscans 29, the seculars 27, the Carmelites 17, and the Augustinians 11, the others being negligible. The high numbers for the Dominicans are partly due to the output of Hervaeus Natalis and John of Naples, but it should be noted that most individual

21 On these, see Russell L. Friedman, “Dominican Quodlibetal Literature, ca. 1260– 1330,” in Theological Quodlibeta (as in n. 2), 2:401–91. 22 On these, see respectively A.G. Little and F. Pelster, Oxford Theology and Theologians, c. A.D. 1282–1302, Oxford Historical Society. Publications, v. 96 (Oxford 1934), pp. 3–132; Piron, “Nicholas of Bar’s Collection,” and Courtenay, “Reflections on Vat. Lat. 1086 and Prosper of Reggio Emilia, O.E.S.A.”

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Table I: Surviving Quodlibeta 1296–1335 (authors/quodlibeta) Order/Years 1296–1305 1306–1315 1316–1325 1326–1335 Total texts Franciscans Dominicans Augustinians Carmelites Seculars Monks Canons Reg. Total

3/5 4/9+anti 1/1 1/1 4/16 1/1 1/1 15/34+anti

4/7 5/16+anti 5/5 4/11 5/10 1/1 0/0 24/50+anti

6/13 5/20 2/3 3/4 1/1 2/2 0/0 19/43

4/4 4/8 2/2 1/1 0/0 0/0 0/0 11/15

29 53 11 17 27 4 1 142

quodlibeta from the fourteenth century were larger, often much larger, than those of the thirteenth century, and so the Franciscan production was actually quite impressive. John Duns Scotus produced only one, but judging from what has been printed, a critical edition of this lone Quodlibet – found in 62 manuscripts – will probably not even fit into one volume. Compare Aquinas’s twelve efforts, published in 427 pages divided into two volumes. Likewise, Peter Auriol’s Quodlibet, extant in eleven witnesses plus fragments, will most likely require two volumes, while the great secular theologian Godfrey of Fontaines’s Quodlibeta were published on average three per (admittedly large) volume. Contrast this with fourteenth-century seculars John of Pouilly, whose five or six Quodlibeta from 1306/7–12 will occupy one volume each, or Thomas Wylton, whose single Quodlibet of 1315 needs a good 400 pages, even in its truncated form. From the thirteenth century, Peter Olivi’s five disputations needed only one volume, as did Vital du Four’s three, John Pecham’s four, Roger Marston’s four, and Thomas of Sutton’s four. The rule is not universal, of course: Ockham’s seven Quodlibeta fit into two volumes, Bailly’s six into one, Durand’s three Avignon Quodlibeta into one volume, and John of Naples’s thirteen efforts might need only three or four volumes, while Henry of Ghent’s Quodlibeta are published one per volume – averaging a little over 250 pages each. Generally, however, it seems true to say that the quodlibeta from the fourteenth century are bigger than their thirteenth-century counterparts, a factor of two being a rather conservative estimate. The 228 folios


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of Guy Terrena’s six Quodlibeta, for example, would take up over 3000 pages in Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales, an average of 500 pages each, while Peter of Tarentaise’s Quodlibet needed only 34 pages in the same journal.23 The second thing the table shows is that there is a noticeable decline after 1325, but at 1335 the break is rather sharp, almost down to zero. The secular quodlibeta had already trailed off sharply after 1315, so the mendicants kept the genre alive for the last two decades. Why this occurred will be discussed in the conclusion. Disappearing Genres II: Quaestiones disputatae The second major genre of theological literature stemming from the teaching activities of, primarily, masters of theology is that of quaestiones disputatae. Because this vague term actually includes two subgenres, some clarification is required, the starting point for which is Carlos Bazàn’s essay in the 1985 volume on disputed questions.24 Basically, the theory is that a disputatio ordinaria, from which a quaestio ordinaria derives, was a public exercise of a master. In addition, a master also held private disputations in his own school. The products of both disputations were termed quaestiones disputatae.25 Unfortunately, the lack of a more precise term for the private disputations entails that, while we can be reasonably sure that questions labelled or referred to as “ordinary” are from ordinary disputations, in many cases it is impossible to determine whether a given set of questions simply called disputatae stems from private or public disputations. 23 These calculations are based on previous analyses and editions, either cited or published in various chapters in Schabel, Theological Quodlibeta, in volume 1 by Kevin White (Aquinas), Girard J. Etzkorn (Pecham, Marston); Pasquale Porro (Henry), John F. Wippel (Godfrey), Sylvain Piron (Olivi, Vital); in volume 2 by Timothy B. Noone and H. Francie Roberts (Scotus), Cecilia Trifogli (Wylton), Ludwig Hödl (Pouilly), Lauge Olaf Nielsen (Auriol), Russell L. Friedman (Dominicans: Hervaeus, John of Naples, Sutton, Durand, Tarentaise), Christopher Schabel and William J. Courtenay (Bailly, Carmelites, Terrena, Augustinians), William O. Duba (Franciscans) and Rondo Keele (Ockham). 24 Bernardo C. Bazàn, “Les questions disputées, principalement dans les facultés de théologie,” in Bernardo C. Bazàn, John F. Wippel, Gérard Fransen, Danielle Jacquart, Les questions disputées et les questions quodlibétiques dans les facultés de théologie, de droit et de médecine, Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental; fasc. 44–5 (Turnhout, 1985), pp. 21–149. 25 Bazàn, “Les questions disputées,” pp. 40–41, 50, 57, and passim.

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The ordinary disputation, and hence the ordinary question, is more important than a private one. We can say a few things about the subgenre, with the caveat that we are often applying statutes from the later fourteenth century to the period before 1335. The ordinary disputation was a solemn university exercise in which students from other schools could participate actively, although the master determined the content. The disputation took place on two separate occasions, first the dispute of the opponens and respondens and then the master’s determination. There is disagreement about whether such disputations were held every Saturday or every two weeks, or whether one disputation took place over two Saturdays and a new one began every two weeks. Since there were so few times available for such disputations, the masters had to rotate. Although there was an obligation to hold ordinary disputations, we do not know the specific requirements, so perhaps one per academic year was sufficient, allowing some masters to hold several. Moreover, non-regent masters were eligible to conduct them as well, if they found an open time. Just as public quodlibetal disputations were held during Advent and Lent when normal teaching was suspended, ordinary disputations also required the suspension of regular classes. As Bazàn relates, the master needed the faculty’s authorization for the disputation, he had to find an open disputable day, he would announce the topic, and he requested the participation of bachelors from other schools.26 The limited availability of disputable days as compared to the private theological disputations within a master’s school or convent means that some of the great sets of disputed questions from the thirteenth century must have been from private sessions, the other sub-genre. For example, Thomas Aquinas’s questions De veritate and De anima could not have been disputed publicly within the time the disputations were conducted. In addition, although Bazàn’s evidence often comes from Thomas Aquinas, whose questions are relatively early and often unrepresentative examples, it is clear that the unit of each ordinary disputation was one single question, so the average ordinary question is probably going to be longer than the average privately disputed one. Small sets of ordinary questions, therefore, may be quite bulky and may have been composed based on disputations that took place over several years. This is clear from the fourteenth-century examples given

26

Bazàn, “Les questions disputées,” pp. 41, 59–62, 70–76, 136–37.


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below. In addition, the presence of a respondens or opponens from another school will indicate that it is an ordinary question. 27 But while this helps identify most of the material in collections such as those in Assisi 158 or Worcester Q 99 as either quodlibetal or ordinary, most of the time we are in the dark. The issue needs more study, because whether a set of questions is the product of a private or a public disputation is historically significant. Let us turn to specifics and begin with the Carmelites. Of the Carmelites who have left us quodlibeta, quaestiones ordinariae survive from Gerard of Bologna and Guy Terrena, while Robert Walsingham cites his own Ordinary Questions in his Quodlibeta. There is no indication that the prolific Baconthorpe produced any ordinary questions, however, nor did Sibert of Beek. We only have Peter Swanington’s Oxford Quodlibet from ca. 1300 by chance, nothing else being identifiable from that author, and the summaries of questions by Simon of Corbie in Vat. lat. 1086 do not identify their nature. Some questions were ascribed to Paul of Perugia, but probably in error.28 Afterwards, there is no indication that Carmelites produced any kind of disputed question in theology. So the earliest Carmelite masters at both Paris and Oxford, active from ca. 1305 to ca. 1318, all composed ordinary questions, but afterwards no one else did. In the sixteenth century, John Bale ascribed many writings to Robert Walsingham, but interestingly none of them were quaestiones disputatae, but only two sets of Quaestiones ordinariae, various quodlibeta, Quaestiones solemnes, Quaestiones vesperiales, and a Sentences commentary of some sort. Nothing survives but two Quodlibeta, but as mentioned above he cited his own Quaestiones ordinariae, numbering them individually and describing them in the past and in the future tense in his Quodlibeta, meaning that they were held when he was regent master, there was a plan, and they were not conducted all at once, but over an extended period of time.29 Gerard of Bologna’s Quaestiones ordinariae actually survive. As in the case of Walsingham, these were contemporary with his Quodlibeta, and no so-called quaestiones disputatae are ascribed to him at all. There are thirteen sizeable Ordinary questions in all, in three main witnesses, totalling some 25 27

Bazàn, “Les questions disputées,” pp. 76–85, 127. Xiberta, De scriptoribus, pp. 24, n. 3, and 289; Schabel, “Carmelite Quodlibeta,” pp. 514–17, for Simon’s questions, and pp. 495–500, for Swanington’s Quodlibet. 29 Xiberta, De scriptoribus, pp. 115–18. 28

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to 30 folios in the witnesses. Their common theme is theological habits or virtues.30 Guy Terrena has a set of twelve Quaestiones ordinariae de Verbo surviving in two Florentine manuscripts plus fragments. As is clear, like Gerard’s, Guy’s set also has a common theme, is extensive, 35 and 48 folios in the manuscripts, and is identified clearly in the witnesses as Quaestiones ordinariae, although one manuscript adds that they were “disputatae et determinatae Parisius.” Guy also penned a set of thirteen lengthy questions, occupying 35 folios of a single witness. These are described on the top of the first folio as “quaestiones disputatae a reverendo magistro Guidone,” “Questions disputed by reverend Master Guy.” Stretching this, Xiberta labelled them Quaestiones disputatae, although Guy never employed the term himself. Yet Xiberta found that on at least one occasion Guy refers to one of these questions thus: “in quadam quaestione quam ordinarie disputavi,” so it is quite possible that these thirteen questions were also quaestiones ordinariae. Finally, Vat. lat. 901 contains ten folios of other questions that Xiberta did not label.31 In sum, Carmelite masters routinely conducted public ordinary disputations down to the 1310s, after which none survive or are even recorded. The number of these ordinary questions was relatively small, but the questions themselves were substantial. We cannot be certain that any of the surviving Carmelite questions stems from private disputations, and in any case the vague term quaestiones disputatae is not employed. One can say something similar for the Augustinian Hermits. Giles of Rome wrote many sets of theological questions, four sets on angels, for example, but Glorieux labels none of them as either ordinary or disputed. Two folios of one manuscript contain “quaestiones disputatae in capitulo Paduano,” but even here the term “disputatae” is used to describe the occasion, not a specific genre. James of Viterbo also composed many questions: his massive Quaestiones de divinis praedicamentis have survived and have been substantially published, but whether they should be called “ordinary” or simply “disputed” is

30

Xiberta, De scriptoribus, pp. 80–82, 87. Xiberta, Guiu Terrena, pp. 38–44, 50–55, 271–73. Xiberta saw little difference between Guy’s two sets of questions, except that the set of thirteen questions lacked a clear unifying theme – although it must be said that subgroups of the questions do share subject matters. 31


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unclear. He also left seven questions De Verbo in one manuscript. Various Augustinian theologians composed magisterial questions afterwards, some of which survive. Alexander of San Elpidio is known to have written quaestiones ordinariae, but they have not been found. John of Lana left ten Quaestiones extraordinariae in one manuscript, while Quaestiones ordinariae are attributed to James of Pamiers. After around 1330, however, Augustinian questions in theology are connected to the Sentences of Peter Lombard or to promotion procedures, not ordinary disputations.32 Monks and canons have left us practically nothing from the early fourteenth century, but the secular theologians are again instructive. For seculars in the last half of the thirteenth century, disputed questions widely construed were much less significant than quodlibeta. Between 1260 and Henry of Ghent the only secular master to utilize the genre extensively was Gerard of Abbeville, who has left three sets of “disputed questions.” Afterwards we have only the production of the giants, Henry of Ghent and Godfrey of Fontaines. Henry’s Summa of Quaestiones ordinariae is much more important than Godfrey’s forays in the genre, but three of Godfrey’s Ordinary questions have been published with the Quodlibeta and there are various “disputed questions,” many of them edited, although what phrase the manuscripts use to describe them as “disputed” I do not know.33 Given that only three secular masters produced an important amount of non-quodlibetal disputed questions before 1300, one cannot say that the genre declined thereafter. Ignoring the fragments, John of Pouilly was disputing his Quaestiones ordinariae de scientia Dei over a long period, concurrently with his Quodlibeta, in 1307–1312. This set survives in as many as three different redactions, with ten to fourteen questions, each redaction amounting to a full volume of text. Presumably later in the decade, Pouilly composed a great number of questions on theological virtues and habits and other matters, described

32 Besides entries in Glorieux’s Répertoire and Ypma’s editions of James of Viterbo’s Quaestiones de divinis praedicamentis cited above n. 13, see Zumkeller, “Die Augustinerschule,” pp. 199, 205–06, 210, and Christopher Schabel and William J. Courtenay, “Augustinian Quodlibeta after Giles of Rome,” in Theological Quodlibeta (as in n. 2), 2:545–68, here 552–53 and 556. 33 The critical edition of Henry’s Summa is being published by Leuven University Press. For Godfrey’s texts, see John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey of Fontaines. A Study in Late Thirteenth-Century Philosophy (Washington, DC, 1981), pp. xxx–xxxiii.

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vaguely in the main manuscript as “quaestiones disputatae ab eodem,” that is, “questions disputed by” John of Pouilly.34 Thomas Wylton left various theological questions as well, and in Oxford Henry of Harclay was responsible for 29 substantial Quaestiones ordinariae that have recently been published and translated.35 After the middle of the 1310s, there is nothing. Once again the pattern is similar: we have sets of questions labelled Quaestiones ordinariae before and after 1300, assorted questions of a vague nature that were “disputed,” and after around 1315 we see no more of this genre from secular masters. It is more difficult to speak of the Franciscans, because of the numbers and the incomplete nature of the on-line repertory of Franciscan authors.36 The Franciscan Order has been very active in publishing quaestiones disputatae from their thirteenth-century masters, delaying the publication of critical editions of Sentences commentaries and works from the fourteenth century. The common element in these published collections of questions is that they are entitled quaestiones disputatae, not quaestiones ordinariae. From the 1250s to the 1270s, we have sets of “disputed questions” from a half-dozen Franciscans, as many as five sets per author, usually ranging in size between 50 and 100 printed pages. Three other Franciscans of these decades produced substantial numbers of questions that probably also stem from theological disputations. From the 1270s it appears that these sets grew in size, and Matthew of Aquasparta’s dozen sets of Quaestiones disputatae, averaging 200 pages each, fill six volumes. From 1280 to 1300 eight Franciscans wrote disputed questions that survive, in addition to volumes of questions from Peter John Olivi – besides those connected with the Sentences of Peter Lombard – that could be considered part of the genre. These sets usually range between 100 printed pages and one separate volume. So from the mid-1250s down to 1300 we see a steady stream of Franciscan disputed questions, from Paris, Oxford, and elsewhere, one might add, that appear to have grown in size with time. Only once is the term quaestiones ordinariae employed, for the three volumes of Ordinary Questions of Peter of Falco from after 1281, when he was at the Franciscan convent in Barcelona.37

34

See my forthcoming study cited above, n. 18. For Wylton and Harclay, see above, nn. 20 and 19 above respectively. 36 Roest and van der Heijden, Franciscan Authors, 13th–18th Century. 37 For Falco at Barcelona, see Jill R. Webster, Els menorets. The Franciscans in the Realms of Aragon from St. Francis to the Black Death (Toronto, 1993), p. 372. 35


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The on-line repertory lists only four Franciscan authors of “quaestiones disputatae” in the fourteenth century, along with a few others who wrote vague “theological questions.” Richard Connington’s seven questions from Oxford, 1305–10, are called “Quaestiones ordinariae,” and they probably amount to about 100 pages of text.38 Active around the same time at Paris, Alexander of Alessandria has left perhaps a volume worth of “Quaestiones disputatae,” and around 1320 William of Alnwick in Bologna wrote some Quaestiones disputatae de esse intelligibili, which together with some quodlibetal questions make up a published volume. Often merely identifying the discipline is difficult: Alnwick’s questions are rather philosophical, and Peter Thomae’s substantial Quaestiones de ente from Barcelona in the 1320s are not overly theological either. To this short list we can add the name of James of Ascoli, five of whose Quaestiones ordinariae on divine cognition from ca. 1310 have come down to us.39 In addition, a decade or so later Aufredo Gonteri Brito composed various ordinary and disputed questions, of which two long Quaestiones ordinariae de conceptibus transcendentibus that survive are probably his.40 Conversely, William of Nottingham’s six questions on the Eucharist from around 1313 and Robert Halifax’s large “Quaestio theologiae” 38 See Victorin Doucet, “L’oeuvre scolastique de Richard de Conington, O.F.M.,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 29 (1936), 396–442, here 417–24. Wouter Goris, Absolute Beginners. Der mittelalterliche Beitrag zu einem Ausgang vom Unbedingten (Leiden, 2007), pp. 257–270, edits Conington’s Quaestio ordinaria 1. 39 In, for example, Cambridge, University Library 1231: “Utrum notitia actualis omnium divinorum ad intra praesupponatur in Deo Patre productioni Verbi passivae” (fols. 112rb–115va); “Utrum in productione Verbi divini actus memoriae paternae praesupponatur actui suae intelligentiae” (fols. 115va–120ra); “Utrum productioni passivae Verbi divini in Patre notitia actualis per modum principii alicuius actus productivi presupponatur” (fols. 120ra–124vb); “Utrum notitia actualis creaturae praesupponatur in Deo notitiae habituali eiusdem” (fols. 124vb–127rb); “Utrum notitia actualis quam habuit Deus de creatura posuerit ipsam ab aeterno in aliquo esse creato” (fols. 127rb– 131rb). Explicit at fol. 131rb: “Expliciunt quaestiones ordinariae Jacobi de Aesculo.” The five questions, labeled Quaestiones ordinariae, are also in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 1012, fols. 60va–66va. Vat. lat. 1012 also contains other questions supposedly by James. For a question list and analysis of Vat. lat. 1012, see Duba, “Continental Franciscan Quodlibeta,” pp. 592–93 and 640–49. 40 Christopher Schabel and Garrett R. Smith, “The Franciscan Studium in Barcelona in the Early Fourteenth Century,” in Kent Emery, Jr. and William J. Courtenay, eds., Philosophy and Theology at the Studia of the Religious Orders and the Papal Court (Turnhout, forthcoming), attempts to strengthen the tentative attribution of Stephen D. Dumont, “The Scotist of Vat. lat. 869,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 81 (1988), 254–83, here 281–83. The questions are edited in Stephen D. Dumont, “The Univocity of the Concept of Being in the Fourteenth Century: III. An Early Scotist,” Mediaeval Studies 51 (1989), 1–129, here 39–129.

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from around 1340, both in England, and Meyronnes’s Parisian questions on the Pater Noster from the 1320s may not be “disputed” at all. John of Walsham’s “Quaestiones disputatae” from ca. 1365, in 18 folios of one manuscript, are “divided into several conclusions,” we are told, which suggests that they are not the product of a disputation. Other questions from the latter half of the century are directed at Wyclif, such as those of William of Woodford and Robert Alyngton. Once again we find that the magisterial genre of theological disputed questions disappears after 1320, in this particular case having gone into a decline after 1300. The term “Ordinary questions” shows up only four times. Does this mean that the Franciscan disputed questions were mostly private, given the high numbers of scholars within the school? Kaeppeli’s repertory of medieval Dominican authors makes it easier to deal with the Friars Preacher, although the distinction between ordinary questions and other disputed questions is not always made clear.41 It seems, however, that the same pattern is observed as with the Franciscans. Thomas Aquinas left few genres untried, producing several series of quaestiones disputatae of varying sizes from the late 1250s to his death, including the important 29 questions De veritate and ten questions De potentia Dei. Otherwise, the genre is not as popular as one might suppose. Let us compare the two decades on either side of 1300. From 1280 to 1300 we have two very substantial and popular sets of disputed questions from Bernard de Trilia from the 1280s, his 20 questions De cognitione animae coniunctae corpori and his thirteen De cognitione animae separatae, while the critical edition of Thomas of Sutton’s Quaestiones ordinariae from the last couple of decades of the thirteenth century required more than 900 pages of text. Sutton’s questions are the only Dominican ones for this period explicitly labelled “ordinariae” in Kaeppeli’s repertory. Less impressive, but still notable, the famous Assisi 158 and also manuscript 196 of that collection contain quaestiones disputatae by Hugh of Sneyth, from Oxford in the 1280s, and Richard Knapwell’s disputed questions De Verbo, from the same time and place, also survive in two manuscripts, some 16 folios of text. Most other groups, however, contain one or two questions of imprecise nature, usually in one manuscript. In the 1290s Dietrich of Freiburg composed five questions that take up 250 pages of text, but whether they are strictly speaking magisterial

41

See Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, for the below.


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quaestiones disputatae is unclear. All in all, two authors with very large collections, two with small ones, some assorted individual cases, and Dietrich. The picture from 1300 to 1320 does not look much different. In the late 1300s and 1310s, Hervaeus Natalis authored seven thematic sets of between five and nine questions, in addition to a question on the procession of the Holy Spirit and a “Quaestio disputata de peccato originali,” surviving on average in six witnesses in close to 150 manuscript folios total. Presumably much of this is from disputations; at least P.T. Stella has shown via Hervaeus’s self-citations in his Quodlibeta that his nine questions de cognitione Primi Principii were his Quaestiones ordinariae, disputed while regent master.42 Following Hervaeus, John of Naples used the genre in the 1310s and 1320s, producing 42 “quaestiones variae” that were “disputed at Paris,” according to the early modern edition, where they take up over 400 large format pages. Only six are also extant in manuscript form. Besides these two giant collections, we have five “quaestiones disputatae” each from Bernard of Auvergne ca. 1300 and Nicholas of Trivet ca. 1310, each set occupying six folios of a single witness. In the mid-1310s Durand of St Pourçain, in addition to his vesperies and quaestio in aula, also has five questions De habitibus taking up about six folios – but in five manuscripts – although it is not explicit that they are “disputed.”43 John Picard of Lichtenberg is responsible for 38 questions “disputed at Cologne” around 1303. They take up 32 folios in the sole manuscript, but the first question, “Utrum theologia sit scientia,” suggests that they may be quaestiones in Sententias. The remaining examples are of little significance, except for some disputed questions from Nicholas of Stratton, William of Macclesfield, and others from around 1300 that survive by luck in a

42

Prospero T. Stella, “A proposito di Pietro da Palude (In I Sent., d. 43, q. 1): La questione inedita ‘Utrum Deum esse infinitum in perfectione et vigore possit efficaci ratione probari’ di Erveo Natalis,” Salesianum 22 (1960), 245–325, here 250–53. See also J.T. Mannath, “Harvey of Nedellec’s Proofs for the Existence of God: ‘De cognitione Primi Principii, qq. III–IV’,” Salesianum 31 (1969), 46–112, based on his unpublished PhD thesis, which includes an edition of four of the questions, and Patrizia Conforti, “Hervé de Nédellec et les questions ordinaires De cognitione primi principii,” Révue thomiste 97 (1997), 63–82. 43 See Prospero T. Stella, “Le ‘Quaestiones de libero arbitrio’ di Durando da S. Porciano,” Salesianum 24 (1962), 450–524; Durand of Saint Pourçain, Tractatus de habitibus (q. 1–q. 3), ed. Takeshira Takada (Kyoto, 1963); Durandi de S. Porciano, O.P. Tractatus de habitibus, quaestio quarta (De subiectis habituum), ed. Joseph Koch (Münster, 1930).

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collection in Worcester Q 99.44 If a Benedictine compiled the manuscript, does this entail that the contents consist of ordinary questions from sessions open to the public? In truth the genre was important for few Dominicans, then, but it did play a role in the order up until the 1320s. Afterwards we have the familiar picture of decline. In the late 1320s, Peter of Parma authored a magisterial question, surviving in one manuscript but 13 folios in length, Utrum aliquis possit perfecte esse beatus supposito quod non videret actum suum, and Durand of Aureliac wrote one short quaestio on time, perhaps not even theological. Then we wait until after the Black Death. The only impressive collection of questions are the sixteen by John of Dambach, from Strasbourg in 1357. They survive in a dozen witnesses, over 100 folios in length, but the title, “De culpa et gratia,” does not indicate whether they fit into the category of disputed questions in philosophical theology – probably not. Some very brief questions from Robert Pynk, from Oxford ca. 1350, remain in one witness, one question on the latitudes or degrees of species from Henry of Cervo, from Cologne around 1363, survives in two codices, we have one question from Peter Correger from Majorca in the 1370s, and finally Vincent Ferrar has one question “de unitate universali” in one manuscript, probably from the 1390s. We need a separate study of this genre, with a repertory of disputed questions (as Glorieux himself planned to compile), which questions should be read through for additional clues to help us determine the precise nature of each set and the extent of the two sub-genres. The following chart of authors and sets of disputed questions is thus more hypothetical than the previous one, and it is impossible at this stage to count private and public disputations separately. Note that Hervaeus Natalis’s production has been split into two periods. It is clear, then, that the two genres the great masters most often employed in the latter half of the thirteenth and the first decades of the fourteenth century, questions from ordinary, private, and quodlibetal disputations, almost completely disappeared in the course of the fourteenth century. This is widely known to be the case for quodlibeta, which died out in the mid-1330s, but it needs to be pointed out that the virtual disappearance of written theological quodlibeta was actually

44 On this manuscript, see Little and Pelster, Oxford Theology and Theologians, pp. 219–362.


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Table II: Surviving Sets of Quaestiones disputatae 1296–1335 (authors/sets) Order/Years

1296–1305 1306–1315 1316–1325 1326–1335 Total

Franciscans Dominicans Augustinians Carmelites Seculars Monks Canons Reg. Total

4/4 6/6 1/1 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 11/11

4/4 2/5 0/0 2/3 2/2 0/0 0/0 10/14

2/2 3/5 1/1 1/1 2/2 0/0 0/0 9/11

0/0 1/1 1/1 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 2/2

10 17 3 4 4 0 0 38

preceded by the demise of the quaestio ordinaria a decade or so before. Any explanation for the fall of the quodlibet must take into account the similar fate of the ordinary question just a few years earlier. If the quodlibet had been in a sense suppressed, as has been traditionally supposed,45 it could not have been because of its specific nature, since the same thing happened to all disputed questions. It would have had to have been an attack on all theological disputation. That this in no way occurred is proven in two ways: first, the oral exercise of theological disputation, both quodlibetal and ordinary, continued to exist, as statutes of 1366 make explicit, but as is also shown by the references to and even occasional survival of quodlibeta from after 1335. From the Dominicans alone, we have citations of Quodlibeta II and III of Burchard of Weisensee from around 1340 and the survival of Quodlibeta IV and VI (and perhaps II) of Herman or Hartmannus de Augusta from midcentury.46 Indeed, the mid-1400s witnessed a great ‘Quodlibetal revival’ 45 See surveys of the theories in Jacqueline Hamesse, “Theological Quaestiones quodlibetales,” in Theological Quodlibeta (as in n. 2), 1:17–48, here 38–48; and William J. Courtenay, “Postscript: The Demise of Quodlibetal Literature,” in Theological Quodlibeta, 2:693–99. 46 Courtenay, “Postscript.” From Hartmannus of Augusta, a Dominican teaching in his order’s Cologne convent in the 1350s, we have his Quodlibeta IV and VI in Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellonska 748: Maria Kowalczyk, “Hartmanus de Augusta,” Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum 3 (1959), 25–26; Zofia Włodek, “Hermann d’Augsbourg et ses ‘Quaestiones de quodlibet’ dans le ms. BJ 748,” Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum 6 (1960), 3–50. The anonymous Quodlibet II in manuscript 1276 of the same library (fols. 113va–122vb) is probably also Hartmannus’s: Christopher Schabel, “The Commentary on the Sentences by Landulphus Caracciolus, OFM,” BPM 51 (2009), 145–219, here 170–72.

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in Germanic lands, which continued to the end of the century.47 Likewise, since explicitly labeled quaestiones ordinariae were much rarer than quodlibeta anyway, the stray theological questions from after the 1320s may often be ordinary questions, or at least disputed. The second proof is more interesting: William Courtenay is charting the rise of principial debates as part of the duties of sententiarii.48 Right when ordinary questions fade, around 1320, we have the rise of the principium where bachelors engaged in heated public debate before beginning their lectures on each of the Four Books of the Sentences. Principia thus, in a sense, replaced the magisterial genres as the forum for the written records of oral disputations, and they remained popular down to the end of the fourteenth century. This in turn was part of the continuation of another trend: the dominance of the Sentences commentary itself. Glorieux, with his emphasis on magisterial genres in philosophical theology, ended his repertory of Parisian masters around 1320. But theology did not end in 1320, and it is to the Sentences commentary that we must now turn. Continuing Dominance: Sentences Commentaries The Sentences commentary became virtually the only major genre in philosophical theology after the disappearance of written quodlibeta and disputed questions. This does not mean, however, that the Sentences commentary rose to compensate for the loss of the more properly magisterial genres. In the first third of the fourteenth century, the period for which we still have numerous surviving quodlibeta and sets of disputed questions, we have at least substantial fragments of Sentences commentaries from well over 50 named theologians – not to mention the fact that at least sixteen of them left us more than one redaction. This is more than twice as many Sentences commentaries as we have from the last third of the thirteenth century. Combined with quodlibeta and disputed questions, which did not see a decline until the 1320s, the first quarter of the fourteenth century was the zenith of 47 See the fascinating information in Ludger Meier, “Les disputes quodlibétiques en dehors des universités,” Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 53 (1958), 401–42. For the English term “Quodlibetal revival,” see Sylvain Piron, “Franciscan Quodlibeta in Southern Studia and at Paris, 1280–1300,” in Theological Quodlibeta, 2:403–38, here 435, n. 105. For other late-fifteenth century examples, see Courtenay, “Postscript.” 48 Courtenay, Changing Approaches to Fourteenth-Century Thought, pp. 28–36.


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scholasticism in terms of numbers of extant works. A score of these Sentences commentaries – all from Franciscans and Dominicans – are huge texts on all four books surviving in numerous manuscripts, often retaining a readership into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and beyond.49 About 60% are Parisian, and one third are from England, mostly Oxford, the remainder being Franciscan commentaries from other studia, although some Parisian Franciscans and Dominicans also produced non-Parisian versions of their commentaries. It is difficult to be certain, but we probably have over a dozen commentaries from outside the universities. These proportions do not indicate a great change from the previous period. What is striking is the dominance of the Franciscans: half of the commentaries come from this order. There is also a rise in Augustinian and secular commentaries, with a couple from Benedictines and Carmelites. Between 1334 and 1342, we still have ten commentaries, but the big change is that only one is Parisian and not one is Dominican, if we assign Holcot’s to the period up to 1333. Oxford – especially the Franciscan convent – was in the midst of its golden age, which had begun in the late 1320s. Still, these Oxford commentaries were generally less comprehensive in their attempt to cover the Lombard’s text, asking fewer questions. Although the questions were often large, the overall size of the commentaries was decreasing.50 While Oxford thrived, Paris went to sleep, comparatively speaking, only to reawaken

49 For what follows, see Xiberta, De scriptoribus; Stegmüller, Repertorium commentariorum in Sententias; Doucet, Commentaires sur les Sentences; Trapp, “Augustinian Theology”; Zumkeller, “Die Augustinerschule”; and Evans, Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences, especially the survey chapters by Russell L. Friedman, “The Sentences Commentary, 1250–1320. General Trends, the Impact of the Religious Orders, and the Test Case of Predestination,” pp. 41–128; Christopher Schabel, “Parisian Commentaries from Peter Auriol to Gregory of Rimini, and the Problem of Predestination,” pp. 221– 65; Raymond Edwards, “Themes and Personalities in Sentence Commentaries at Oxford in the 1330s,” pp. 379–93; Paul J.J.M. Bakker and Christopher Schabel, “Sentences Commentaries of the Later Fourteenth Century,” pp. 425–64. See also Courtenay, Changing Approaches, pp. 19–28. For fourteenth-century England, see also William J. Courtenay, Adam Wodeham: An Introduction to His Life and Writings (Leiden, 1978) and Schools and Scholars in Fourteenth-Century England (Princeton, 1987). For the late fourteenth century, see also Paul J.J.M. Bakker, La raison et le miracle. Les doctrine eucharistiques (c. 1250 – c. 1400), vol. 2 (Nijmegen, 1999). 50 On this, besides the works of William J. Courtenay just cited, see now Olli Hallamaa, Science in Theology. Studies in the Interaction between Late Medieval Natural Philosophy, Logic, and Theology (Helsinki, 2005), with an over 200—page edition of just three of the five questions of Roger Roseth’s Sentences commentary, on pp. 63–288.

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with Gregory of Rimini. The short period from 1343 to the Black Death saw a slight decline at Oxford, with only two commentaries, one secular and one Carmelite, and the reawakening of Paris, but not according to the former patterns. There were still no Dominican commentaries, it is true, but neither do we have Franciscan examples. The six Parisian commentaries we possess are assigned as follows: three to Augustinians, two to Cistercians, and one to a Carmelite. Only half of these covered all four books, but it should be said that, as far as what remains is concerned, earlier Augustinian commentaries rarely did so before anyway. Moreover, the Augustinian commentaries were both popular and influential, as had been several of the Oxford commentaries from the previous period. Before the Black Death, then, we have about 75 surviving Sentences commentaries in various states, a great number of them large, popular, and influential. After the Black Death down to 1400, we have about 50. Below is a rough overall table of the quarter centuries from 1250 to 1400. Obviously the problem of what constitutes a commentary cannot be solved satisfactorily, and the table only counts one commentary per author. Within the post-1350 groupings we have some rather interesting configurations. Both main mendicant orders contribute only nine commentaries, by my count, but only two postdate the beginning of the Great Schism, the Franciscan Peter of Candia’s Parisian effort from 1378–79/80 and the Dominican Nicholas Biceps’s text from Prague ca. 1385. Thus each order posted respectable numbers from the Black Death to the Great Schism. Candia’s was large and extremely popular, a major commentary, and John of Ripa’s giant commentary on Book I from the 1350s was also significant, but none of the Dominican efforts

Table III: Sentences Commentaries by Quarter Century, 1250–1400 Order/Years

OFM

OP

Other

Total

1250–1275 1275–1300 1300–1325 1325–1350 1350–1375 1375–1400 Total

5 9 20 12 8 1 55

7 6 6 5 7 2 33

1 2 13 16 12 17 61

13 17 39 33 27 20 149


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was very widely read, except perhaps for Nicholas Biceps’s commentary, which survives in four witnesses. The Augustinians continued to be strong in the period before the Great Schism, with eight commentaries. The Carmelites, who had only three commentaries before the Black Death, two in the last five years before the Plague, had one more before the Schism, while the Cistercians, whose first significant texts were produced in the 1340s, composed three surviving commentaries between 1365 and 1371, those by James of Eltville and Conrad of Ebrach being rather popular. The Benedictines, from whom we have parts of four commentaries between 1320 and 1340, have none for the remainder of the century, but after a quarter of a century’s absence, the seculars produced two important texts in the mid-1370s, those of Pierre d’Ailly and Henry of Langenstein.51 In terms of number, then, the 30 securely attributed commentaries from the 1350s to the Great Schism are quite respectable, a decline, yes, but not so precipitous a drop from the previous period as one might expect. It was noted above that the distribution of commentaries among groups was already much more even in the 1340s, and this trend continued after 1350. Likewise, before the Black Death Paris dominated, followed by Oxford, with a few from mendicant studia elsewhere. After 1350 until the Great Schism the Franciscan, Augustinian, Cistercian, Carmelite, and secular examples still come from Paris, except for one Franciscan commentary from the Strasbourg convent and the Augustinian John Klenkok’s Oxford commentary. There are two changes: first, Klenkok’s work is the only Oxford example, a striking decline in the English university’s vitality. Second, although the Dominicans recover from their previous absence, only one Dominican commentary has been tied to Paris, none to Oxford, while the others are from the Magdeburg, Cologne, Erfurt, Florence, Bologna, and Cambridge convents. Thus between Bernard Lombardi’s commentary in the 1320s to Gerard of Buren’s brief commentary on all four books from 1376, surviving in 32 folios in one manuscript, we have no Parisian Dominican commentary. Although Gerard read the Sentences at Paris in 1376, his commentary may not be Parisian, in which case Bernard’s would be the last surviving Parisian commentary the order produced in the fourteenth century! Their absence in Paris 51 On Ailly’s commentary, see now Monica Calma, “Pierre d’Ailly: Le commentaire sur les Sentences de Pierre Lombard,” BPM 49 (2007), 139–94, with important new information. Langenstein’s commentary may be a later reworking.

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after 1389 as a result of the quarrel over the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary apparently made no difference, since no Parisian Dominican wrote any major theological work in the half century previous to this!52 It has been pointed out many times that the commentaries after the Black Death resemble previous Oxford examples in that they are smaller and ask a greatly reduced number of questions, straying more and more from Peter Lombard’s text and focusing on the material from Book I. The reduction of the number of questions is notable in many examples, but in others it is not so much the case. The important commentaries of the Augustinian John Hiltalinger and the secular Marsilius of Inghen, for example, still asked a large number of questions and followed the order of the original.53 Hiltalinger and others still introduced their discussion by explaining how Peter Lombard divided his text. In addition, generally fewer questions did not mean small commentaries. Pierre d’Ailly’s still occupies about 200 folios, Henry of Langenstein’s commentary on Book I alone about 140 folios, James of Eltville’s ca. 250 folios on average, Nicholas Biceps’s 220 folios, and so on. Even in the case of those who asked only a few questions, it has been shown that the new structure can be a disguise. Let us take the most popular commentary of the latter half of the century as an example, that of Peter of Candia.54 Besides the four principia, Candia asks only eleven questions in total, 6, 3, 1, and 1 for Books I-IV respectively. These eleven questions take up almost 300 folios in the most famous manuscript, Vat. lat. 1081, which would probably need about 2000 pages in a critical edition. Candia’s commentary certainly reflects the focus on Book I and the relative neglect of Books II-IV, especially III and IV, which is a noticeable trend after the first three decades of the fourteenth century, although, again, there are exceptions. It should be stressed, however, that each of Candia’s questions is divided into three articles that are presented in the form of separate questions altogether, so in fact there are 33 questions. Moreover, these roughly correspond 52 On the immaculate conception controversy, see Bernard Guenée, Between Church and State. The Lives of Four French Prelates in the Late Middle Ages, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago, 1991), pp. 159–69. 53 For Marsilius, see Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen, “The Commentary on the Sentences of Marsilius of Inghen,” in Evans, Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences, pp. 465–503. The Hiltalinger edition is nearing completion. 54 The following based on the on-line edition of Petrus de Candia, Ordinatio in quattuor libros Sententiarum, eds. Paul J.J.M. Bakker, Stephen F. Brown, William O. Duba, Rondo Keele, Severin Kitanov, Andreas Kringos, and Christopher Schabel (2004-): http://www.ucy.ac.cy/isa/Candia/index.htm


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to the positioning of the topics in Lombard’s textbook. For example, the final question 6 for Book I, which has been edited, asks “whether the divine essense has distinct knowledge of every level of really or possibly existing thing,” and is subdivided into separate questions on divine knowledge, divine foreknowledge, and the relationship between God’s knowledge and the human will, all topics traditionally treated at the end of Book I. Question 6 as a whole would require 250 pages in a critical edition, and the so-called “article 2” on future contingents is by itself over 100 pages long. So there is definitely a tendency to focus on specific issues and treat them exhaustively. The Carmelite John Brammart, lecturing at Paris just after Candia, uses 44 folios on divine foreknowledge, and a few years later a confrere, Walter (of Bamberg?), takes up 40 folios for the same issue.55 One must not think that these generalizations are anything but that, however, since there are always exceptions and the Sentences commentaries of this era still present a wide variety of types and approaches. One of these approaches somewhat reduces the philosophical interest in these texts: the practice of copying the texts of previous authors in one’s own commentary, either basing oneself primarily on one author or, more frequently, cutting and pasting from several. To an extent the practice was prevalent among the more minor authors of the later thirteenth and, especially, the early fourteenth century, but in the period after the Black Death even some of the major commentaries are “guilty” of this. Not all texts have been analyzed carefully yet, but one can say that at least four of the Augustinian commentaries, all three of the Cistercian commentaries, and even Pierre d’Ailly’s work exhibit this tendency to varying degrees – copying earlier Augustinians mostly – and no doubt there are other examples.56 This remained the case during the final phase of the fourteenth century and beyond, since many theologians who taught theology at the new University of Vienna in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries wrote more or less the same thing, based on earlier texts, especially those by Henry Totting of Oyta and Henry of Langenstein. Besides the Vienna school, the seculars Conrad of Soltau and Menso of 55

Xiberta, De scriptoribus, pp. 423 and 464. See Trapp, “Augustinian Theology”; Bakker and Schabel, “Sentences Commentaries of the Later Fourteenth Century”; Christopher Schabel, “Haec ille: Citation, Quotation, and Plagiarism in 14th Century Scholasticism,” in The Origins of European Scholarship. The Cyprus Millenium Conference, ed. Ioannis Taifacos (Stuttgart, 2006), pp. 163–75. 56

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Beckhusen both followed the Augustinian Thomas of Strasbourg, while John of Waes copied from the Augustinian Alphonsus Vargas of Toledo.57 Even some of those who did not, like Peter of Candia, approached theology somewhat as an historian. As was said, a characteristic of the years after the beginning of the Great Schism in 1378 is the absence of Franciscans and Dominicans, who had only one Sentences commentary each early on, those of Candia and Nicholas Biceps respectively. There were only two more Augustinian commentaries, the principia, prologue, and abbreviation of Book I of Augustine Favaroni, and the Book III of Michael of Rimini,58 and there were no more Cistercian examples. The Carmelites produced the two mentioned above by Brammart and Walter.59 In all, the religious orders were responsible for just six Sentences commentaries from 1378 to 1400, half of them from the first three years. By contrast, the secular theologians wrote at least eleven, just about equaling their total from the first 78 years of the century. Overall, there was a great decline, with only about seventeen texts, but the seculars flourished. It is not difficult to find part of the explanation: the new universities of central Europe received migrating scholars from Paris during the Schism. Thus Paris is joined by Prague, Vienna, Heidelberg, and perhaps Cologne as places hosting secular theologians who authored surviving Sentences commentaries. On average these late fourteenthcentury commentaries occupy 200 folios, some as many as 350, in the case of the popular although very derivative Quaestiones communes of Nicholas of Dinkelsbühl from Vienna in 1398. Some of these were widely read, such as those of Conrad of Soltau, with about 30 witnesses, and Henry Totting of Oyta, whose Quaestiones commentary survives in roughly 20 codices.60 The table below charts the numbers of Sentences commentaries by decade (except for 1336–1349) and by group (one commentary per author): 57 On this, besides Bakker, La raison et le miracle II and Christopher Schabel, Theology at Paris 1316–1345. Peter Auriol and the Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents (Aldershot, 2000), pp. 300–02, see Michael H. Shank, ‘Unless You Believe You Shall Not Understand.’ Logic, University, and Society in Late Medieval Vienna (Princeton, 1988), pp. 117–22. 58 Zumkeller, “Die Augustinerschule,” pp. 236–40. 59 Xiberta, De scriptoribus, pp. 418–23 and 462–64. 60 The SIEPM colloquium of 2009 held in Nijmegen shed much new light on Sentences commentaries after 1350, and we will learn more from the 2011 colloquium in Poland, on the impact of the old universities on the new universities of Central and Eastern Europe.


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Table IV: Surviving Sentences Commentaries by Decade, 1296–1399 Order/Years OFM OP Secular OESA OCarm OCist OSB Total 1296–1305 1306–1315 1316–1325 1326–1335 1336–1349 1350s 1360s 1370s 1380s 1390s Total

4 6 12 5 7 5 2 2 0 0 43

3 1 4 2 0 1 5 4 0 2 2 0 3 0 3 2 1 5 0 6 21 23

1 2 2 2 3 2 3 3 2 0 20

0 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 1 1 6

1 0 0 0 2 0 2 1 0 0 6

1 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 4

11 14 18 16 17* 9 11 11 9 7 123

* The decade 1336–1345 produced 14 commentaries.

The chart does not indicate the places where these commentaries were produced, the main anomalies being the dominance of Oxford in the 1330s and the genre’s diaspora in the latter half of the century, especially during the Great Schism. Other Works Before we conclude our necessarily imperfect analysis, we need to take into account the various summae and other major works in philosophical theology that do not fit into the above categories. The mostly polemical treatises written for specific occasions, such as the apostolic poverty controversy or the beatific vision dispute, have already been mentioned. Without going into detail, these writings taken together support the above findings: most of these separate works were composed in the first third of the fourteenth century, but some come from the 1340s and a few were also written in the last third, when the quarrel over the immaculate conception was resumed and the Schism provoked the drawing up of ecclesiological tracts. Contrary to the impression one gets from focusing on Thomas Aquinas, the summa genre was never very important during the great age of university scholasticism from 1250 to the Black Death. In the 1310s the Carmelite Gerard of Bologna attempted a Summa theologiae, but he was not able to complete his massive book before his death in 1317. Gerard’s confrere Guy Terrena managed the more modest task of finishing his Summa de

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haeresibus in 1342, late in his life.61 The seculars Thomas Bradwardine and Richard Fitzralph wrote major summae in the 1340s, focusing on questions connected with predestination and the doctrines of Eastern Christians respectively; each survives in many manuscripts and was printed in the early modern period.62 One might mention the Carmelite John Baconthorpe’s commentaries on major works of Anselm and, especially, Augustine.63 From the Dominicans we have Rainier Jordan of Pisa’s extremely popular Pantheologia, Berengar of Langora’s Lumen animae, Armand of Belvézer’s widely copied Tractatus de declaratione difficilium dictionum in theology, and Arnald of Prato’s Compendium theologiae, all from the first half, or even third, of the century, although not hard-hitting philosophical theology by leading Friars Preacher.64 The Franciscans did produce one important work in philosophical theology, the Theologia naturalis of Nicholas Bonet from the early 1330s; this had a wide medieval readership and was printed early on.65 The Augustinian Augustine of Ancona (a.k.a. Augustinus Triumphus) wrote some works related to philosophical theology in the early fourteenth century, for example his Theoremata de Spiritu Sancto.66 These few works only reinforce the

61 Bartolomé María Xiberta y Roqueta, “De Summa Theologiae magistri Gerardi Bononiensis ex Ordine Carmelitarum,” Analecta Ordinis Carmelitarum 5 (1923), 3–54; idem, Guiu Terrena, pp. 76–78. Guy’s Summa de haeresibus was printed in Paris in 1528 and in Cologne in 1631, while Gerard’s Summa is mostly unedited, but see Paul de Vooght, Les sources de la doctrine chrétienne d’après les théologiens du XIV e siècle et du début du XV e avec le texte intégral des XII premières questions de la Summa inédite de Gérard de Bologne († 1317) (Versailles, 1954), pp. 269–483; Bartolomé María Xiberta y Roqueta, “Magistri Gerardi Bononiensis, O.Carm., Quaestio de Dei cognoscibilitate (Summa Theologica, q. 13),” in Medioevo et Rinascimento. Studi in Honore di Bruno Nardi (Florence, 1955), pp. 829–70; Christopher Schabel, “Early Carmelites between Giants: Questions on Future Contingents by Gerard of Bologna and Guy Terrena,” RTPM 70.1 (2003), 139–205 (q. 25, a. 7, on pp. 170–86); Marie-Bruno (Hubert) Borde, OCD, “Gérard de Bologne O. Carm. († 1317): sa conception de la théologie et de la puissance de Dieu,” Ph.D. dissertation, Paris IV, 2005, with a new and exhaustive survey of Gerard’s life and writings and an edition of aa. 1–6 of q. 35 of the Summa, on pp. 438–502. 62 Thomas Bradwardinus, De causa Dei, contra Pelagium, et de virtute causarum, ad suos Mertonenses, libri tres (London, 1618); Ricardus Radulphi, Summa de questionibus Armenorum (Paris, 1511). 63 Xiberta, De scriptoribus, pp. 189–90. 64 References in Kaeppeli, ed., Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum. 65 Printed as Habes Nicholai Bonetti viri perspicacissimi quattuor volumina: Metaphysicam videlicet, naturalem phylosphiam, praedicamenta, necnon theologiam naturalem (Venice, 1505). 66 Zumkeller, “Die Augustinerschule,” pp. 199–200.


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general impression from quodlibeta, ordinary questions, and Sentences commentaries: the early fourteenth century was statistically the high point in medieval theology. Conclusion Before stating any tentative conclusions, first let us have a look at a table of major works in philosophical theology for the fourteenth century. In order to avoid significant anomalies, the table assigns one work per genre per author, so that Hervaeus Natalis’s Quodlibeta count as one, as do Scotus’s Sentences commentaries. Included are Sentences commentaries, quodlibeta, sets of disputed questions, some Dominican anti-literature, and six of the main miscellaneous works. Before continuing, let me dissolve an objection to the methodology adopted in this paper, that the data presented here are skewed by the accidents of survival. First, some of the participants in the conference on which this volume is based asserted that there are accidents reducing the number of surviving manuscripts, in particular the destruction wrought by the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England, the Reformation there and elsewhere, and later suppressions. Given that these events took place over a century after the end of the period in question, however, it does not appear that any one medieval phase was privileged over any other by the agents of destruction in the sixteenth century and afterwards. It is more likely that works from a certain Table V: Major Surviving Works in Philosophical Theology, 1296–1399 Order/Years OFM OP Seculars OESA OCarm Other Total 1296–1305 1306–1315 1316–1325 1326–1335 1336–1349 1350s 1360s 1370s 1380s 1390s Total

11 14 20 10 7 5 2 2 0 0 71

14 12 8 10 0 3 3 3 1 0 54

5 9 4 4 4 0 0 2 5 6 39

3 7 5 5 3 2 3 3 2 0 33

1 6 6 1 3 0 1 0 1 1 20

4 1 4 0 3 0 2 1 0 0 15

38 49 47 30 20 10 11 11 9 7 232

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geographical area, say England, suffered more, but this does not affect the chronological aspect to any great degree. On the other hand, works from the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with the proliferation of universities, perhaps did not circulate as widely and in the same numbers as before because of this scholarly diaspora. One could claim that the greater numbers of authors should have compensated, but even if we accept the argument of the objection, it does not contradict the conclusion: de facto this later period did not produce the same number of popular and influential works in philosophical theology. An anonymous reader for this volume added that there are also accidents that encourage the production and survival of works and manuscripts. As mentioned above, Pope John XXII was a great patron of theologians and frequently sought their opinions on doctrinal matters, meaning that he supported or incited the copying and composition of the works of philosophical theology produced just before and during his reign, 1316–34. John’s successors down to the Black Death, Benedict XII and Clement VI, were both promoted to master of theology in the same years. All three popes built up the papal library’s holdings in philosophical theology, at a time when the papal bureaucracy was developing the spoils system whereby the papacy confiscated a portion or all of the movable property of clerics who died at the curia or of papal nuncios and legates and other prelates who went the way of all flesh as far afield as Cyprus: these spoils included books.67 In fact neither the present holdings of the Vatican Library nor even those of the main libraries in the French capital account for a large portion of the surviving manuscripts of the works discussed above. Yet to the extent that Pope John XXII’s encouragement of literary production in philosophical theology is a factor influencing the data of the present study, this only reinforces the conclusion that this period was a particularly intense and exciting time in intellectual history. Several observations can be made here, but two are most important. First, given that the number of magisterial works did not decline in the first decades of the fourteenth century as compared to the last decades 67 Brill’s reader also pointed out that the shift to paper from more durable parchment may have played a role, although the cheaper material could have allowed for more books. William Courtenay himself has perhaps done more than anyone else for our understanding of the relationship between patronage and scholarship in the early fourteenth century, while I owe my knowledge of the financial workings of the Avignon papacy to Jean Richard, currently completing Bullarium Cyprium, vol. III. Lettres papales concernant la Chypre, 1316–1378 (Nicosia, forthcoming).


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of the thirteenth, while Sentences commentaries greatly increased in number, the result is that, in terms of simple bulk, the first quarter of the fourteenth century is clearly the zenith of medieval scholasticism. Table V does not even take into account the much greater number of religious orders involved, the frequency of multiple redactions of texts, the higher number of surviving manuscripts, the larger size of the texts, the fact that the Sentences commentaries of the era very frequently covered all four books, and the numerous smaller treatises on topical issues such as apostolic poverty, the beatific vision, the immaculate conception, papal power, and specific doctrinal investigations. Again, these last were most prevalent in the reign of John XXII, and his encouragement, the reaction to Scotus, and the interest generated by the maverick works of Durand, Auriol, and Ockham took scholastic philosophical theology to the apogee of its development in quantitative terms. The second observation is that a general decline begins to be noticeable after 1325, increases in the 1330s – indeed only offset by the brief glory years of Oxford – and reaches a low point at the Black Death, never to rise again in the fourteenth century. The decline is only partly attributable to the disappearance of magisterial genres, which began in the 1320s, because it is also felt with Sentences commentaries two decades later, sooner if we consider Oxford in the 1330s an anomaly. Again, the decline is even more precipitous than the chart indicates, since it does not include the separate treatises just mentioned, it does not take into account how many commentaries on all four books survive as opposed to just one, for example, it disregards the widespread practice of what we now call plagiarism, and it ignores the fact that, after 1350, the diffusion and relative parochialization of scholarship with the rise of new universities, especially during the Great Schism, further sapped the vitality of philosophical theology. As interesting as the latter half of the century may be, the decline is striking. Why did this happen? Since Sentences commentaries reached their pre-1400 peak of popularity while magisterial genres were still strong, only to decline afterwards in both size and numbers, it does not seem to make sense to say that a major factor in the disappearance of written quodlibeta, for example, is that masters were focusing their energies on Sentences commentaries. Since all three major genres declined, including ordinary questions, the frivolous nature of quodlibetal questions does not seem to be an important factor in that genre’s disappearance. Since separate treatises were most prevalent when the

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magisterial genres were still in vogue, neither does the tendency to turn reportationes of disputations into treatises seem to have played a big role. The oral disputation did continue, so it has been said that bachelors increasingly took over and masters were unconcerned about producing a redaction. This may describe what happened, but does not explain why. In order to save all the phenomena, we no doubt have to take a number of factors into account. The reduction of the length of Sentences lectures from two years to one around 1320 must have stolen valuable time from maturing theologians, while their quick advancement in their orders, in the secular clergy, or in papal service further made scholarship difficult. These factors were not new, but they seem to have been more prevalent after 1320. The reaction to John XXII’s papacy under Benedict XII and the latter’s reforms may have had a negative effect on philosophical theology. The Hundred Years’ War could not have helped the exchange of ideas. The Black Death itself, despite claims to the contrary, must have dealt a severe blow to intellectual activity. The new universities may have provided more opportunities, but each audience was smaller and more parochial and, perhaps, at first, it was more unlikely that a Sentences commentary, for example, would survive under such circumstances, even from a weakened University of Paris. Finally, the attitude of Jean Gerson and others at the end of the century may indicate that scholastic philosophical theology had become intellectually exhausted.

NOMINALISM IN COLOGNE: THE STUDENT NOTEBOOK OF THE DOMINICAN SERVATIUS FANCKEL WITH AN EDITION OF A DISPUTATIO VACANTIALIS HELD ON JULY 14, 1480 “UTRUM IN DEO UNO SIMPLICISSIMO SIT TRIUM PERSONARUM REALIS DISTINCTIO” Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen 1.1 Student Notebooks As is apparent from the statutes of the universities and the study programs of the religious orders, disputations played a crucial role in the academic life of the late-medieval and early modern period. Some disputations took place on a daily basis in the different colleges or bursae attached to the university (disputationes nocturnae), others weekly during the summer recess from academic courses (disputationes vacantiales). Also, disputations were held at special academic occasions, for example when the bachelor opened his lectures on Peter Lombard’s Sentences (principia), when he applied for his license (disputatio de forma) or when the licentiate acquired his doctor’s degree (vesperiae and aulae).1 1 Particularly instructive here are the statutes of the arts faculty and the theological faculty of the University of Cologne, which provide many details on the different kinds of disputations. See Franz J. von Bianco, Die alte Universität Köln und die spätern Gelehrten-Schulen dieser Stadt, vol. 1/1: Die alte Universität Köln (Cologne, 1856), Appendices, pp. 34–50 (Theological Faculty), and pp. 59–73 (Arts Faculty); and Franz Gescher, “Die Statuten der theologischen Fakultät an der alten Universität Köln,” in Festschrift zur Erinnerung an die Gründung der alten Universität Köln im Jahre 1388 (Cologne, 1938), pp. 43–108. As for the religious orders, the importance of the disputation is underscored by the rules issued at the Dominican General Chapter held in Rome 1501, in: Acta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Praedicatorum IV: 1501–1553, ed. Benedictus M. Reichert, Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica 9 (Rome, 1901), pp. 4–17, esp. p. 15: “(…) nullus de cetero promoveatur ad baccalaureatum seu ad legendum sentencias pro forma et gradu magisterii, nisi in aliquo studio generali per tres annos studuerit et in disputacionibus et circulorum frequencia exercitatus fuerit (…).” For further information, with extensive bibliographical references, see Mariken Teeuwen, The Vocabulary of Intellectual Life in the Middle Ages, Études sur le vocabulaire intellectuel du moyen âge 10 (Turnhout, 2003), p. 440 (index II s.v. “Disputatio”-“Disputationes Sorbonicae”).

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Each of these disputations had its own participants and public audience. The principia were each scheduled on a single day, the one after the other, with no other classes or academic obligations, so that all members of the faculty could attend. Also the disputationes vacantiales, the aulae and the vesperiae were open to a wide academic public, unlike the disputationes nocturnae, which as a rule took place only within the limited circle of the inhabitants of a college or bursa.2 Students had to attend these disputations and maintained notes on how often they visited each kind of disputation, to comply with the conditions for earning their degrees. Several early printed editions survived with hand written notes on their pages, distinguishing the different disputations and indicating with vertical bars the total number of visits for each disputation.3 Other students kept special notebooks in which they recorded the arguments put forward during the different disputations—sometimes over a period of many years covering their career from student to master—presumably to have a stock of arguments which would assist them in preparing for the disputations in which they had to act as an opponent or respondent.4 2 See the sources mentioned in the preceding footnote. For information about the daily practiced disputatio nocturna, see, for example, The Mediaeval Statutes of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, eds. Hugo Ott and John M. Fletcher, Texts and Studies in the History of Mediaeval Education 10 (Notre Dame, 1964), p. 119, n. 48: “Statuit arcium facultas atque ordinavit ut quilibet conventorum in qualibet via per diem habeat unam disputationem pro omnibus suppositis, baccalaureis et scolaribus, per integram horam durantem (…).” 3 A good example is an edition of the Expositio Petri Tartareti super textu logices Aristotelis, printed in Lyon by Claude Davost shortly after 1500, and preserved in the University Library of Freiburg. The top of the title page reads: “Complevi disputationes magistrorum 14, baccalaurii 15, bursales 5.” The first two numbers are represented by vertical bars, whereas the last is written as “iiiii.” 4 That producing arguments was difficult for young students who had to act as opponent is documented in the preface of the Promptuarium argumentorum, written to help the students preparing for disputations and printed several times in Cologne. Here the anonymous author explains that he has published the treatise because the students were not able to make up the arguments themselves and therefore needed a booklet that provided them. See Promptuarium argumentorum, Cologne 1496, fol. Aiiv: “(…) libellus (…) ad novellorum scholarium in logicis exercitium collectus, quorum saepius audivi lachromosas petitiones pro argumentis ut opponendi tempore satisfacerent magistrorum praeceptis.” For further information on this treatise (often wrongly attributed to Heymericus de Campo on the authority of Martin Grabmann, Mittelalterliches Geistesleben. Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Scholastik und Mystik, 3 vols. (München, 1926–1956), 2:382, who provides no proof however), see my “Late Medieval Schools of Thought in the Mirror of University Textbooks. The Promptuarium Argumentorum (Cologne 1492),” in Philosophy and Learning. Universities in the Middle Ages, eds. Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen, J.H. Josef Schneider and Georg Wieland,

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A number of these notebooks have been preserved in manuscript form and their collectors identified. Most prominent are the notebooks of two Dominicans, Georg Schwartz and Servatius Fanckel, both compiled in Cologne in the second half of the fifteenth century. Some notebooks were designed very carefully, distinguishing between different kinds of disputations and indicating the dates of the disputations as well as the names of the presiding master, of the respondent and of the opponents, as is the case with the notebook of Servatius Fanckel. Others were less carefully made and just give a summary of the different arguments.5 Bearing in mind the ubiquity of the disputation in academic life, it is without doubt that the notebooks documenting university debates provide an important source of information, not only for understanding which items were at stake, but also for localizing and dating academic discussions and for attributing opinions to individuals, something which is much more difficult when using commentaries on

Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 6 (Leiden, 1995), pp. 329–69. A similar anynomous treatise, also printed in Cologne as an aid for the young students who had to participate in the disputations held in their bursa, was the Thesaurus sophismatum (Cologne, 1495). The title page reads: “(…) iuxta disputativum processum magistrorum bursae Montis, singulis secundis, quartis et sextis feriis quamdiutissime observatum ad profectum neophitorum inibi studentium lucubratissime collectus.” For information on this treatise see Ernst Voulliéme, Der Buchdruck Kölns bis zum Ende des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts (Bonn, 1903; repr. Düsseldorf, 1978), pp. 487–88, n. 1135; and Carl von Prantl, Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1855–1870; repr. Graz, 1955), 4:225. 5 The notebook of Servatius Fanckel is extensively discussed in Gabriel M. Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen und Promotionen an der Universität Köln im ausgehenden 15. Jahrhundert, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland 21 (Leipzig, 1926); and that of Georg Schwartz in my “Tradition and Renewal. The Philosophical Setting of Fifteenth-Century Christology. Heymericus de Campo, Nicolaus Cusanus, and the Cologne Quaestiones Vacantiales (1465),” in Christ among the Medieval Dominicans. Representations of Christ in the Texts and Images of the Order of Preachers, eds. Kent Emery, Jr., and Joseph P. Wawrykow (Notre Dame, 1998), pp. 462–92, with a partial edition on pp. 481–85. Other notebooks, such as those by Johannes Bremis, Augustine of Weilheim, and of a bachelor called Simon are treated in Michael H. Shank, Unless You Believe, You Shall Not Understand. Logic, University and Society in Late Medieval Vienna (Princeton, 1988), pp. 205–19 (Johannes Bremis); and Christoph Flüeler, “Teaching Ethics at the University of Vienna. The Making of a Commentary at the Faculty of Arts (A Case Study),” in Virtue Ethics in the Middle Ages. Commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, 1200–1500, ed. István Bejczy (Leiden, 2008), pp. 277–346 (Augustine of Weilheim, Simon). References to further notebooks from within the Dominican and Franciscan order are given by Gabriel M. Löhr, Die Kölner Dominikanerschule vom 14. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert (Cologne, 1948), pp. 75–76.

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Aristotle or Peter Lombard.6 Of course, the arguments preserved in these notebooks are abbreviated and schematized and therefore sometimes difficult to understand, even if one is familiar with the background of the debates. In this respect the notebooks are inferior to the often well structured arguments presented in the commentaries. But where the opinions discussed in these commentaries cannot always be easily identified or attributed (the author can take them from unknown sources), with the information provided by the notebooks the situation is different. As a rule, the owners indicated when and where a specific disputation took place and sometimes even meticulously supplied the names of the students and masters whose arguments were reported, occasionally adding important biographical details.7 Since some notebooks record a large number of disputations held at one place, the information provided there helps to establish the intellectual profile of an academic community. This is especially so when these notebooks cover a considerable period of time, as is the case with those of Georg Schwartz and Servatius Fanckel. These notebooks, for example, allow a scholar to see in detail how the Cologne debates developed from the 1460s to the 1480s and what the crucial topics of debate were. Also, they can show why and when a certain issue became a point of contention and divided the students and masters.8 In this paper, using the notebook of Servatius Fanckel, I will focus on one such topic, which I think is of considerable historical importance for our understanding of the so-called Wegestreit, that is the debate be tween Nominalists and Realists, as it sheds light on the role of Aristotle within this dispute as well as on the late-medieval reception of Ockham.9 6 The astonishing insights that the study of notebooks can provide is persuasively demonstrated by the article of Christoph Flüeler mentioned in the preceding footnote. 7 Dates are provided in the notebook of Georg Schwartz. The anonymous notebook preserved in Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, O. III. 45, gives dates and names of the respondents (see Gabriel M. Löhr, Die Teutonia im 15. Jahrhundert. Studien und Texte vornehmlich zur Geschichte ihrer Reform, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens 19 [Leipzig, 1924], pp. 167–71, where parts of this notebook are edited). Servatius Fanckel noted not only dates and names of respondents, but also of opponents, and thus is of special significance. 8 In his study of the notebook of Servatius Fanckel, Gabriel M. Löhr observed the importance of such issues as the Immaculate Conception, indulgences, and the relationship between Pope and Council. See Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, p. 22. Löhr concentrated less on the use of Aristotle within theology or the Wegestreit, even if he mentions these items occasionally. 9 On the late-medieval Wegestreit, see my “Via Antiqua and Via Moderna in the Fifteenth Century. Doctrinal, Institutional and Political Factors in the Wegestreit,”


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At stake here was a question traditionally dealt with in the commentaries on the Book I of the Sentences, namely what property or properties distinguished the three persons of the Divine Trinity.10 As the notebook of Servatius Fanckel shows, it was on this occasion that the Realists took a stand against the views of the Nominalist Johannes Alen. The Realists were not willing to accept his reading of Aristotle, and being completely unable to follow his references to Ockham, provide a detailed example of the late-medieval Wegestreit on the spot. To delineate the background of this debate, a few words on the role of Aristotle in the Wegestreit and on the position of the University of Cologne are necessary. 1.2 Aristotle and the Wegestreit As is well-known, in the fifteenth century several philosophers and theologians were of the opinion that Aristotle’s philosophy was the best tool to defend matters of faith. Prominently, this view was held at the beginning of the century by the Parisian Albertist Johannes de Nova Domo.11 Later on the Thomist, Lambertus de Monte, put forward the same belief in his famous Salvatio Aristotelis published in Cologne in 1498, and this position became the central topic at the University of in The Medieval Heritage in Early Modern Metaphysics and Modal Theory, 1400–1700, eds. Russell L. Friedman and Lauge O. Nielsen (Dordrecht, 2003), pp. 9–36 (contains a bibliography), and with special information concerning Cologne, Götz-Rüdiger Tewes, Die Bursen der Kölner Artisten-Fakultät bis zur Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts, Studien zur Geschichte der Universität zu Köln 13 (Cologne, 1993), pp. 279–394. 10 As a rule, in the late-medieval period this question was dealt with when commenting on the twenty-sixth distinction of the First Book of the Lombard’s Sentences. See, for example, Johannes Capreolus, Defensiones theologiae divi Thomae Aquinatis 1.26.1.1, ed. Ceslaus Paban and Thomas Pègues (Tours, 1900; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1967), pp. 214–35, and Denys the Carthusian, In IV libros Sententiarum 1.26.1–4, Opera omnia 20 (Tournai, 1902), pp. 199–227. Thomas addressed the same issue in his Summa theologiae 1.40.2, Opera omnia 4 (Rome, 1888), pp. 413–14. By the time Servatius made his notes, Thomas’s Summa was commented upon regularly and used as a starting point for disputations. For example, Servatius’s notebook contains a disputation on the Summa. See Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, pp. 40–41, n. 27. 11 See Luca Bianchi, Censure et Liberté Intellectuelle à l’Université de Paris (XIIIe– XIVe Siècles) (Paris, 1999), p. 162. Bianchi discusses a passage from Johannes’s Commentum aureum. Another telling statement can be found in the preface to Johannes’s Tractatus de esse et essentia, edited in Gilles G. Meersseman, Geschichte des Albertismus I: Die Pariser Anfänge des Kölner Albertismus (Paris, 1993), p. 92: “Ad hoc enim cuilibet fideli data est licentia philosophandi, potissime in via peripatheticorum, in qua inter coeteras philosophias minor est recepta contradictio, necnon maior conformitas ad veritatem nostrae religionis.”

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Ingolstadt in the attacks of the Realists against the Nominalists towards the end of the century.12 It was especially the Albertists and Thomists who took this stand. They saw themselves backed by the writings of their most important authorities, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. These two Dominicans not only had commented on the writings of Aristotle, it was argued, but also used his writings in their theological treatises. It was this latter state of affairs that was highlighted by the Albertists and Thomists in Cologne to endorse what they called the “indissolubilis connexio” between philosophy and theology.13 However, their view did not remain undisputed. It was the Nominalists who had a different opinion, referring here to the writings of William of Ockham, Adam Wodeham, John Buridan and Marsilius of Inghen.14 These authors showed another understanding of Aristot le, the Nominalists claimed, which led to the opposite conclusion, namely that the philosophy of Aristotle went against Christian faith at crucial points. This was not only the case with such classic issues as the eternity of the world and the immortality of the human soul, but also with those of divine foreknowledge and divine omnipotence.15 For the Nominalists of the fifteenth century, therefore, it was not necessary, or even helpful, 12 See Hans G. Senger, “Was geht Lambert von Heerenberg die Seligkeit des Aristoteles an?,” in Studien zur mittelalterlichen Geistesgeschichte und ihren Quellen, ed. Albert Zimmermann, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 15 (Berlin, 1982), pp. 293–311; and Franz Ehrle, Der Sentenzenkommentar des Peter von Candia des Pisaner Papstes Alexanders V. Ein Beitrag zur Scheidung der Schulen in der Scholastik des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts und zur Geschichte des Wegestreits, Franziskanische Studien Beiheft 9 (Münster, 1925), p. 334 (edition of texts from the University of Ingolstadt): “Ex quibus clare patet, quanto doctrina aliqua et singularum scientiarum doctrine fidei et sacre scripture (…) est conformior tanto est perfectior et magis approbanda. Hinc est quod doctrina Aristotelis dictis aliorum philosophorum prefertur.” 13 Ehrle, Der Sentenzenkommentar des Peter von Candia, p. 284 (edition of texts from the University of Cologne). For comments see Zénon Kaluza, “Les étapes d’une controverse. Les nominalistes et les réalistes parisiens de 1339 à 1482,” in La controverse religieuse et ses formes, ed. Alain Le Boulluec (Paris, 1995), pp. 297–317, esp. p. 314. 14 These names appear among the Nominalists in the documents edited in Ehrle, Der Sentenzenkommentar des Peter von Candia, pp. 282 and 284 (Cologne), pp. 313 and 323 (Paris), p. 329 (Ingolstadt). 15 See Olaf Pluta, Kritiker der Unsterblichkeitsdoktrin in Mittelalter und Renaissance, Bochumer Studien zur Philosophie 7 (Amsterdam, 1986), esp. pp. 41 and 85; Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen, “Marsilius von Inghen in der Geistesgeschichte des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts,” in Philosophie und Theologie des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Marsilius von Inghen und das Denken seiner Zeit, eds. Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen and Paul J.J.M. Bakker (Leiden, 2000), pp. 21–45, esp. pp. 35–42, and Henrik Wels, Aristotelisches Wissen und Glauben im 15. Jahrhundert. Ein anonymer Kommentar zum Pariser Verurteilungsdekret von 1277 aus dem Umfeld des Johannes de Nova Domo, Bochumer Studien zur Philosophie 41 (Amsterdam, 2004), pp. cxxxvii–cxxxviii and clv-clvi.


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to defend the authority of Aristotle when discussing theological issues. The Heidelberg theologian Marsilius of Inghen had set a good example here, they argued, by using Aristotle in his commentary on the Sentences whenever functional, but putting him aside as insufficient as soon as the truth of faith forced him to do so. At the end of the fifteenth century, this attitude was still appreciated as perhaps the best model for those defending the via moderna, not only among Nominalists but also for Humanists like Jacobus Wimpfeling.16 As a consequence, Nominalists in the fifteenth century were much less keen on reading and explaining Aristotle in such a way that his views were compatible with the Christian faith on all points. This provoked a sharp reaction from the side of the Albertists and Thomists, who were anxious that the educational program of the Arts Faculty, which was founded on the writings of Aristotle, would no longer provide a stable foundation for the study of theology. Telling in this respect is a document produced by the theologian Johannes of Adorff at the University of Ingolstadt in which he listed over several pages all of those items where the Nominalist reading of Aristotle was in conflict with faith and thus provoked heresies.17 1.3 The University of Cologne It was at the University of Cologne that the issue came to a head. In the already mentioned Salvatio Aristotelis, Lambertus de Monte underscored that there were no points whatsoever where Aristotle was 16 See Marsilius von Inghen. Gedenkschrift 1499 zum einhundertsten Todestag des Gründungsrektors der Universität Heidelberg, eds. Dorothea Walz and Reinhard Düchting, Lateinische Literatur im deutschen Südwesten 1 (Heidelberg, 2008), esp. pp. 35–46. 17 This document is edited in Ehrle, Der Sentenzenkommentar des Peter von Candia, pp. 338–42. The list bears the following rubric, ibid., p. 338: “Infra notantur positiones et dicta (…), que videntur contrariare dictis sanctorum patrum et discrepare ab his, que tenet ecclesia katholica.” Unfortunately, the manuscipt (Munich, Universitätsbibliothek, 2o Cod. ms. 482) has been lost. See Die lateinischen mittelalterlichen Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek München. Die Handschriften aus der Filioreihe, eds. Natalia Daniel, Gerhard Schott and Peter Zahn, Universitätsbibliothek München. Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek München 5 (Wiesbaden, 1979), p. 60. On the Wegestreit in Ingolstadt see my “Secundum vocem concordare, sensu tamen discrepare. Der Streit um die Deutung des Aristoteles an der Universität Ingolstadt im späten 15. und frühen 16. Jahrhundert,” in Politischer Aristotelismus und Religion in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, eds. Alexander Fidora, Johannes Fried, Matthias Lutz-Bachmann and Luise Schorn-Schütte, Wissenskultur und gesellschaftlicher Wandel 23 (Berlin, 2007), pp. 67–87.

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contrary to the faith. It was for that reason, he argued, that the Roman Church had erected philosophical faculties at the universities and that the writings of Aristotle were taught there. He still went one step further and claimed that the principles of the Aristotelian philosophy were in no way opposed to those of the faith. For him, as well as for other Realists, therefore, it went without saying that one could retain the ideas of Aristotle even in those doctrines that were not addressed in his writings, and could not have been discussed there, since they were dependent on the Christian revelation, such as the Trinity.18 In such an intellectual environment it is only natural that there was almost no place for a reading of Aristotle as practiced by the Nominalists. Now indeed, in the second half of the fifteenth century, the number of Nominalists at Cologne was minimal. This, however, had been different in the past. In the late fourteenth century the tradition of John Buridan was followed at Cologne. By 1414 the masters of the Arts Faculty still showed themselves to be very critical towards a reading of Aristotle as practiced by some Thomists, who were expelled from Paris because of their view on the Immaculate Conception and had made their way to Cologne.19 Already in 1425, however, the 18 See Lambertus de Monte, Quaestio magistralis ostendens quid dici possit de salvatione Aristotelis (Cologne, 1498), fol. Birb: “Sicut autem supra in parte et infra Deo dante patebit: Aristoteles in nullo doctrinae aut legi Christi contrariatur, immo est ei per omnia conformis. Et ideo sancta Romana Ecclesia et sancti patres instituerunt studia universalia philosophiae in quibus studiis luce clarius apparet omnia studia christianorum in philosophia eligere doctrinam Aristotelis tanquam conformem sacrae Scripturae ac dictis sanctorum.” Biographical details on Lambertus are provided by Tewes, Die Bursen der Kölner Artisten-Fakultät, p. 34. As to the complex history of the promotion of Aristotle by the Roman Church in the early years of the Parisian university—to which Lambertus may have been referring to first and foremost, as Paris was the alma mater of all other universities—see Luca Bianchi, “Aristotle as a Captive Bride. Notes on Gregory IX’s Attitude towards Aristotelianism,” in Albertus Magnus and the Beginnings of the Medieval Reception of Aristotle in the Latin West, eds. Ludger Honnefelder et al., Subsidia Albertina 1 (Münster, 2005), pp. 777–91, with a critical discussion of the views of Grabmann and Van Steenberghen. 19 See Anton G. Weiler, Heinrich von Gorkum (†). Seine Stellung in der Philosophie und der Theologie des Spätmittelalters (Hilversum, 1962), pp. 56–58, and Tewes, Die Bursen der Kölner Artisten-Fakultät, pp. 279–96, and pp. 348–50. Remarkably, between 1334 and 1348 the Sentences commentary of Adam Wodeham was read in Cologne, most likely in the Franciscan convent, which shows an early interest in authors that were later to be considered as Nominalist, even before the founding of the university. See William J. Courtenay, Adam Wodeham. An Introduction to His Life and Writings, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 21 (Leiden, 1978), pp. 213–22. As to the debates about the Immaculate Conception and the position of the Thomists, see William A. Hinnebusch, The History of the Dominican Order, 2 vols. (New York, 1966–1973), 2:171–80.


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Thomists had gained the upper hand, being supported by the Albertist Heymericus de Campo, a student of Johannes de Nova Domo, who was famous for his attacks on Nominalism. In the time to come, the Albertists and Thomists kept their predominance and even reinforced it, making Cologne into a stronghold of Realism.20 In the second half of the fifteenth century, many German universities officially institutionalized both Nominalism and Realism by introducing separate programs of study for both philosophical schools, as for example in Heidelberg (1452), Tübingen (1477) and Freiburg (1487). But in Cologne things were different. There was no such official Nominalist program alongside that of the Realists.21 Revealing in this respect is also the publication program of the printers who were linked to the university. Cologne was one of the most important centers for the publication of schoolbooks with famous printers such as Ulrich Zell, Johannes Koelhoff and Henricus Quentell. All of the schoolbooks published in Cologne in the fifteenth century, however, were written by either Albertists or Thomists. Not a single textbook had a Nominalist signature.22 Besides the many schoolbooks, mostly commentaries on Peter of Spain or Aristotle, the works of Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great were also printed in large quantities. In Cologne Nominalist works by authors such as William of Ockham, John Buridan and Marsilius of Inghen, however,

20

This predominance is underscored by the university’s reaction in 1425 to a letter of the Prince Electors, in which the latter urged the university to follow the tradition of John Buridan and Marsilius of Inghen. In its reply, sealed by all the four faculties, the university argued that it is the tradition of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas rather than that of John Buridan and Marsilius of Inghen which is the best guarantee of a good education. This letter has survived in both Latin and German versions. See Ehrle, Der Sentenzenkommentar des Peters von Candia, pp. 281–309 (edition of the document), and Tewes, Die Bursen der Kölner Artisten-Fakultät, pp. 367–75. 21 Information on the viae at the different universities in the German Empire is provided by Astrik L. Gabriel, “Via Antiqua and Via Moderna and the Migration of Paris Students and Masters to the German Universities in the Fifteenth Century,” in Antiqui und Moderni. Traditionsbewußtsein und Fortschrittsbewußtsein im späten Mittelalter, ed. Albert Zimmermann, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 9 (Berlin, 1974), pp. 439–83. In Cologne, there existed a Nominalist bursa until the 1440s. After that date there is no longer evidence of such an institution. See Tewes, Die Bursen der Kölner Artisten-Fakultät, p. 296. 22 For an almost exhaustive record of incunabula printed in Cologne, see Voulliéme, Der Buckdruck Kölns, with a helpful chronological listing of all of the publications of the printers on pp. xcv–cxxxiv and with new materials provided by Severin Corsten in the “Nachwort” (1978), ibid., pp. 544–52.

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did not leave the press. The focus of the printers was exclusively on Albertism and Thomism, thus reflecting the intellectual setting of the university.23 Taking a closer look at these schoolbooks by Albertists and Thomists, it is striking that they seldom refer to Nominalist authors or theories. There is no real debate with Nominalism, at least not in the books that were written in Cologne.24 Slightly different is the situation with those schoolbooks that were printed in Cologne, but written elsewhere, as is the case with the commentaries on Aristotle by the Parisian Master Johannes Versor. But then again, there are only a few references, mostly concerning standard debates such as those concerning the nature of universals.25 The modern reader of these schoolbooks gets the impression that for the Masters in Cologne, Nominalism was not a serious partner for intellectual exchange. Significant here is the position of Heymericus de Campo, who shaped Albertism in Cologne. As he argued in his Tractatus problematicus, authors like John Buridan and Marsilius of Inghen had excluded themselves from the Aristotelian tradition by defending Ockham’s Nominalism, which in Heymericus’s eyes was just 23

It was not unusual that printers matriculated at the university, as was the case with Ulrich Zell. See Voulliéme, Der Buckdruck Kölns, p. iii. For information on printing in Cologne, see Severin Corsten, Studien zum Kölner Frühdruck, Kölner Arbeiten zum Bibliotheks- und Dokumentationswesen 7 (Cologne, 1985); and idem, Untersuchungen zum Buch- und Bibliothekswesen, Arbeiten und Bibliographien zum Buch- und Bibliothekswesen 5 (Frankfurt am Main, 1988). 24 In the earlier mentioned Thesaurus sophismatum, for example, the position of the Nominalists is mentioned only on four occasions. See Thesaurus sophismatum, ed. 1495, fols. Biiir, Biiiiv, Diir and Diiir. The subject of this treatise was the so-called Parva logicalia, which were dealt with differently by Nominalists and Realists, so one could expect far more discussion here. Generally, the Realists commented upon the Parva logicalia as contained in the Tractatus or Summulae of Peter of Spain (this was the case in Cologne, as is clear from the Thesaurus sophismatum), whereas the Nominalists used the Parva logicalia of Marsilius of Inghen or of any other Nominalist author (see, for example, The Mediaeval Statutes of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, eds. Ott and Fletcher, p. 40, n. 4: “Parva Logicalia magistri Marsilii.” This quotation is taken from the earliest statutes, written in 1463 when only the via moderna was followed in Freiburg). 25 See, for example, Johannes Versor, Quaestiones super totam veterem artem Aristotelis (Cologne 1494; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1967), fol. [aviii]vb: “Secunda opinio fuit quorundam qui vocantur nominales qui nunc moderni dicuntur, qui dixerunt universalia totum suum esse habere in intellectu (…).” For Versor’s intellectual profile see Pepijn Rutten, “Secundum Processum et Mentem Versoris. John Versor and His Relation to the Schools of Thought Reconsidered,” Vivarium 43 (2005), 292– 336. More than thirty incunabula were printed under the name of Johannes Versor in Cologne.


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a malicious corruption of Aristotle.26 This treatise, written at Cologne in 1422 or 1423, first dealt with Nominalism in an introductory prologue, which in the manuscripts bears the title Contra Modernos. Here Heymericus showed that because of their philosophical views Nominalists were unable to do science as Aristotle had defined it. Then he moved to the body of his treatise, which was exclusively focused on the debates between Albertists and Thomists and on their reading of Aristotle.27 These two groups he called the followers of the “antiquorum peritia” and the “principales huius temporis philosophiae defensores,” no longer mentioning the Nominalists.28 Since most texts written in Cologne are not engaged in a detailed discussion with Nominalism, it is difficult to get explicit information on how the Albertists and Thomists positioned themselves against Nominalism as it was defended in the second half of the fifteenth century at several other universities in the German Empire, such as

26 Heymericus de Campo, Tractatus problematicus (Cologne, 1496), fol. aiiiv: “Et ut omnia dicam: taliter dicentes (sc. the Nominalists, MH) non sunt professores peripateticae veritatis cuius archidoctor fuit et princeps Aristoteles, sed sunt (…) sequentes (…) Occanicam discoliam cum collegiis suis, scilicet Buridano et Marsilio, qui Occam anglicus fuit aemulator paternarum traditionum et non insecutor Aristotelis.” As Pepijn Rutten, “Contra Occanicam Discoliam Modernorum. The So-Called De Universali Reali and the Dissemination of Albertist Polemics against the Via Moderna,” BPM 45 (2003), 131–65, has shown, this refutation of Nominalism is authentic and not an adaptation of a treatise attributed to Johannes de Nova Domo. He corrects the view of Anton G. Weiler, “Un traité de Jean de Nova Domo sur les Universaux,” Vivarium 6 (1968), 108–54, who argued that Heymeric in Contra Modernos had reworked a treatise of his master Johannes de Nova Domo, a view which was uncritically accepted by many reseachers, including myself. 27 For a discussion of the Tractatus, see Gilles G. Meersseman, Geschichte des Albertismus II: Die ersten Kölner Kontroversen (Rome, 1935), pp. 23–60. According to Meersseman, Heymericus wrote his treatise about 1424–1425. However, two manuscripts of the Tractatus date from an earlier time, namely 1423 (Schlägl, Stiftsbibliothek [O. Praem.], Cpl. 168, and Strasbourg, Bibliothèque universitaire et régionale, Ms. 55 [Latin 53]), which means that the treatise was written no later than 1423, perhaps already in 1422, when Heymericus arrived in Cologne. I owe this dating to Pepijn Rutten (Nijmegen), who is preparing a critical edition of the Tractatus problematicus in which the manuscripts and their owners will be discussed. For a list of manuscripts see Rutten, “Contra Occanicam Discoliam Modernorum,” pp. 162–63. 28 Heymericus de Campo, Tractatus problematicus, fol. aiir and fol. hiiir. An echo of his considering the Nominalists only pseudo-philosophers can be found in the Thesaurus sophismatum, where the anonymous author reminds the reader of the fact that the Nominalists (moderni) have a supposition theory which differs from that of the Realists (antiqui), calling the Realists those who rightly philosophize. See Thesaurus sophismatum, ed. 1495, fol. Biiiiv: “Moderni circa terminorum suppositiones discrepant in quinque punctis a recte philosophantibus antiquis.”

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Vienna or Erfurt. It is here that the notebook of Servatius Fanckel is of assistance. As is apparent from this notebook, among the many Albertists and Thomists there was at least one Nominalist present in the Convent of the Dominicans in Cologne between the late 1470s and early 1480s, namely Johannes Alen. Fanckel labeled him as “modernus,” most likely because Johannes Alen had received his education at the University of Erfurt, which by then was an important center of Nominalism.29 Remarkably, according to a student manual written in the 1480s, the so-called Latinum ydeoma, the Realists were not allowed to teach in Erfurt.30 Erfurt therefore was the Nominalist counterpart of Cologne, where Realism had the upper hand. Why Johannes Alen came to Cologne remains unclear. In any case, it was not just a temporary visit. He participated at least once as respondent in a disputatio vacantialis, which as a rule was only open to regular bachelors of theology.31 The case of Johannes Alen is important because here we see that it was not only the various interpretations of Aristotle which caused such excitement among his colleagues in Cologne, but also, and perhaps even more, the fact that for him Aristotle was not a necessary tool for doing theology and for clarifying the mysteries of faith, such as the

29 See Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, p. 28: “mgr Johannes Alen, modernus.” As is clear from the student registers, Johannes Alen matriculated at Cologne in 1465 as a student of theology with a Master’s degree from Erfurt. See Hermann Keussen, Die Matrikel der Universität Köln 1389 bis 1559, 3 vols., Publikationen der Gesellschaft für rheinische Geschichtskunde 8 (Bonn, 1892–1931), 1:556, no. 306.43: “Joh. Ryppe de Aylen, m. art. Erf. (…), theol. (…).” On Nominalism in Erfurt, see Götz-Rüdiger Tewes, “Die Erfurter Nominalisten und ihre thomistischen Widersacher in Köln, Leipzig und Wittenberg. Ein Beitrag zum deutschen Humanismus am Vorabend der Reformation,” in Die Bibliotheca Amploniana. Ihre Bedeutung im Spannungsfeld von Aristotelismus, Nominalismus und Humanismus, ed. Andreas Speer, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 23 (Berlin, 1995), pp. 447–88. Probably, the remark in Fanckel’s notebook on fol. 21v: “Quidam magister arcium, modernus, baccalareus biblicus” is referring to Johannes Alen as well. If so, he was already active as a respondent in a disputatio vacantialis in 1476. 30 See Gerhard Streckenbach, “Paulus Niavis Latinum ydeoma pro novellis studentibus. Ein Gesprächsbüchlein aus dem letzten Viertel des 15. Jahrhunderts II,” in Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 7 (1972), pp. 187–251, esp. p. 208: “(…) colunt viam modernorum (sc. in Erfurt, MH), antiquos si qui sunt non admittunt neque ipsis concessum est aut legere aut exercere.” 31 This disputation is edited in the Appendix below, pp. 128–44. In the same year (1480) Johannes Alen also acted as an opponent at a disputatio vacantialis and as a responsio formalis pro forma. See Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, p. 61, n. 95 and p. 117, n. 233.


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Trinity. His critics accused him of departing from what they thought were the principles of Aristotle’s philosophy: “Dixit eum negare omnia fundamenta Aristotelis.” Alen, for his part, was in no way negatively affected by these attacks. For him, understanding the Trinity was beyond human reason. He argued against his opponents that it was not necessary to follow Aristotle here, but only the Christian faith: “Plura hic oportet dicere que intellectus non capit.”32 During the debate many other issues were touched upon as well. Considering the views defended by Alen, a significant observation can be made. A substantial number of his positions were similar to those highlighted as typical of Nominalism in the writings of late-medieval Realists.33 This is not without importance. These writings were very polemical, so that for the modern reader it remains unclear to which degree these statements were actually defended by Nominalists or just made up for the sake of the argument, as for example John Wyclif did in his debate with the mysterious “doctores signorum.”34 The notebook of Servatius Fanckel, however, makes clear that here this is not the case and that these statements, at least a significant number of them, were indeed held by fifteenth-century Nominalists. Before entering into an analysis of the debate, it is first necessary to have a closer look at the notebook of Servatius Fanckel and the genre of the disputatio vacantialis. Following this discussion I will turn to the philosophical and theological side of the debate, first by discussing Johannes Alen’s position and that of his Albertist and Thomist opponents and sketching his profile as a Nominalist, and second by working out the doctrinal antagonisms between Albertism, Thomism, and Nominalism in Cologne. Finally, I will draw a few conclusions that will bring these various aspects together. Attached to this article is an edition of the relevant disputatio vacantialis. The genre of the notebook is such that the arguments of the participants are only briefly reported, which sometimes makes it difficult to locate the arguments historically and to understand them. For that reason, a number of explanatory footnotes have been added to the edition.

32

These quotations are taken from the edition below, p. 138 and p. 141. For details see section 2.4 below. 34 See William J. Courtenay, Ockham and Ockhamism. Studies in the Dissemination and Impact of His Thought, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 99 (Leiden, 2008), p. 379. 33

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maarten j.f.m. hoenen 2.1 Servatius Fanckel and his Notebook

Servatius Fanckel’s notebook survived in manuscript Frankfurt, Stadt und Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. Praed. 102.35 The manuscript contains 176 written folios having notes of more than 250 disputations, many of them held in the Dominican Convent at Cologne in the period between 1475 and 1488.36 Servatius entered the Convent in 1467 and began studying theology in 1475, the year in which he also recorded the first disputation. He was for the first time actively engaged as an opponent in a disputation in 1478. Six years later, in 1484, he earned his bachelor’s degree in theology. From 1488 onwards he was prior of the Convent, where he remained until his death in 1508. It was in his first year as prior that he stopped recording the disputations.37 Besides the reports of the disputations, the notebook also contains lists with the names of the doctors and bachelors that were active in Cologne.38 Servatius Fanckel noted for example the names of the masters who delivered the ordinary lectures in 1484, the first year that he was a bachelor, as well as those of all the bachelors of theology between 1475 and 1480.39 On one of these lists he also identified

35 For a description of the manuscript see Die Handschriften des Dominikanerklosters und des Leonardstifts in Frankfurt am Main, ed. Gerhardt Powitz, Kataloge der Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main 2/1 (Frankfurt, 1968), pp. 236–37. 36 A detailed list with all the titles and dates of the disputations as given in the notebook has been assembled in Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, pp. 34–120. The disputations held in the Dominican Convent were open to the public, and members of different faculties participated. See, for example, Löhr, ibid., p. 61, n. 97 and p. 63, n. 102, where Fanckel reports the intervention of a bachelor from the Medical Faculty. Also in the disputation edited below, several seculars and members of different religious orders acted as opponents. 37 For Fanckel’s biography (partly based on information provided by Fanckel himself in his notebook), see Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, pp. 1–3. See also Jacques Quétif and Jacques Echard, Scriptores ordinis Praedicatorum recensiti, 2 vols. (Paris, 1719; repr. New York, 1959), 1:904–05. Since he died in 1508, he is not included in Thomas Kaeppeli and Emilio Panella, Scriptores ordinis Praedicatorum medii aevi, 4 vols. (Rome, 1970–93). 38 These lists are published with extensive comments in Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, pp. 23–32. 39 According to the Statutes (Bianco, Die alte Universität Köln, p. 40), as a bachelor of theology Fanckel had to respond to questions of each of the masters (regentes) who delivered ordinary lectures. It is for that reason that he noted their names in 1484.


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himself as the compiler of the notebook: “Frater Seruatius Fanckel, ordinis Predicatorum, thomista, collector huius libelli. 1484.”40 These lists are of considerable importance because they contain invaluable prosopographical information. In many cases Fanckel added to the names information concerning the student’s or master’s academic vita.41 Also, he noted the doctrinal affiliation of the doctors and bachelors. As is apparent from the quotation given above, he considered himself a Thomist. Others were labeled as “albertista”, “scotista”, “aegidianus”, or “modernus” as in the case of Johannes Alen. Besides the disputations and the lists of names, the notebook contains a systematic index of all disputations and some small extracts from the statutes of the theological faculty, mentioning the oaths that students of theology had to take when they started commenting on the Bible and the Sentences.42 There were no further items added to the manuscript. There is, for example, no inclusion of philosophical or theological treatises nor of extracts thereof. Fanckel devoted his notebook exclusively to the collection of disputations to which only some personal and practical information was added.43 The largest part of the notebook is covered by disputationes vacantiales. These disputations were held every Friday during the academic summer recess. They were especially important for bachelors of theology, since they had to act as a respondent at least once in their tenure as a bachelor.44 In addition to the disputationes vacantiales three other forms of disputations are recorded: (1) disputations which students of theology, who came from other universities, had to participate in to be accepted as a bachelor, (2) responsiones pro prima and secunda forma 40

Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, p. 31. See for example Löhr, ibid., p. 30: “mgr Andreas Schirmer de Franconia, thomista, Doctor factus est anno 1486 in Quadragesima.” 42 For the index see Löhr, ibid., p. 33. Fanckel noted the index on blanks left throughout the first pages of the manuscript. It is therefore divided into six sections (Frankfurt, Stadt und Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. Praed. 102, fol. 2v, fol. 3r, fol. 4r, fol. 5v, fol. 6v, fol. 8v). The extracts from the statutes are on the first flyleaf of the manuscript, which is not foliated. See Bianco, Die alte Universität Köln, pp. 43–44. 43 In contrast, the notebook of Johannes Bremis discussed in Shank, Unless You Believe, contains extracts from different theological treatises, mostly commentaries on the Sentences. 44 See Bianco, Die alte Universität Köln, pp. 36 and 37: “Item ordinamus quod in vacacionibus magnis fiant disputationes (…) singulis sextis feriis de mane. (…) nec licenciabitur quis in Theologica facultate qui in vacacionibus sic non responderit, saltem semel.” 41

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which were necessary to be recognized as a licentiate, and (3) the vesperiae and aulae with which the licentiate finished his studies and acquired the doctor’s degree.45 The manuscript was written by a single hand, namely that of Servatius Fanckel, even if this hand uses different styles of writing, as we will see below.46 Yet, it is not clear when exactly Fanckel recorded the information in his notebook. It is certain that at least some small notes were added later on, as is the case with biographical updates to some persons’ names already listed, for example that the person had died.47 More important, however, is the question at what time Fanckel entered the reports of the disputations in his notebook. As can be concluded from their placement in the manuscript, in all probability he did not write them down during the actual debates but shortly thereafter. Generally, the disputations are noted in chronological order, where one disputation follows upon the other. Occasionally, however, there are blanks between the disputations. Sometimes these blanks are completely empty.48 Sometimes only the disputation’s title with the socalled materiae (see below) are given.49 If he had written down the disputations in the manuscript immediately and on the spot, he would have continued writing and these blanks would be difficult to explain. Obviously, therefore, during the debates Fanckel used provisional sheets, which he then copied only later into his notebook, generally before the next disputation took place, as is clear from the chronological order of the notes. From time to time he was unable to do this and left a blank space, to record the information later, and copied the notes concerning the latest disputation somewhat further on in the manuscript. As is clear from the actual state of the manuscript, he did not always fill these blank spaces. Now, the fact that Fanckel always at least tried to supply information on the latest disputation he attended allows for the conclusion that there must have been only a short span of time 45 See Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, p. 41, n. 29: “pro temptamine ad baccalariatum”; p. 80, n. 176: “pro admissione ad bibliam”; pp. 85–98: “vesperia” “aulae doctorales”; and pp. 99–120: “responsiones formales.” 46 See also Die Handschriften des Dominikanerklosters, ed. Powitz, p. 236. 47 This is the case with the “obiit” on Frankfurt, Stadt und Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. Praed. 102, fol. 24r, which was added to the name of Georgius Roth at a later date. Roth died in Freiburg in 1490. See Adolf Poinsignon, “Das Prediger-Kloster zu Freiburg im Breisgau,” Freiburger Diözesan Archiv 16 (1883), pp. 1–48, esp. p. 22. See also Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, p. 4. 48 See, for example, Frankfurt, Stadt und Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. Praed. 102, fol. 13r-v and 17v. 49 Ibid., fol. 9r and 15r.


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between the actual disputation and the report in the manuscript.50 In the case of the disputationes vacantiales this was not more than one week. Therefore, even if it the manuscript itself was not written during the disputations, it must still be taken seriously as a testimony to the debates being chronologically very close to the actual disputations. 2.2 Disputationes vacantiales As was stated above, the majority of disputations recorded in the notebook are disputationes vacantiales. The question that is the particular subject of this paper belongs to this genre. Disputationes vacantiales were held each week between June 28 and September 15.51 This means that there were about ten such disputations per year. This is confirmed by the number of reports in Servatius Fanckel’s notebook. The only exceptions were the years 1483 and 1484, when Fanckel recorded only three and four disputations respectively, a reduction which may have been due to the plague, as suggested by Gabriel M. Löhr.52 As indicated by the statutes of Cologne the disputationes vacantiales were presided over by a so-called prior vacantialis, who had to have a master’s degree from the Arts Faculty and at the same time was a student of theology without being a member of a religious order. As a rule they were a bachelor or bachelor formatus, which means that most priors were already engaged in reading the Sentences of Peter Lombard.53 For each year there was only one prior vacantialis. He was

50 This was also the conclusion of Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, p. 4, who was the first to study the manuscript in detail. 51 For the dating of the academic summer recess in Cologne, where the academic calender of Paris was followed, see Bianco, Die alte Universität Köln, p. 36: “Item ordinamus quod vacaciones magne estivales sint iuxta ritum Parisiensis Studii, a vigilia Apostolorum Petri et Pauli (29 June, MH) usque ad crastinum Exaltationis sancte Crucis inclusive (14 September, MH).” Because of its focus on the arts faculty, in the otherwise very informative work of Olga Weijers, La disputatio dans les Facultés des arts au moyen âge, Studia artistarum 10 (Turnhout, 2002), there is no mention of the disputationes vacantiales. Information on these disputations is also lacking in Teeuwen, The Vocabulary of Intellectual Life. 52 Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, p. 18. As medieval and early modern chronicles show, in the years 1483 and 1484 there was a plague not only in Cologne, but also in other German cities. See Die Chroniken der deutschen Städte vom 14. bis ins 16. Jahrhundert, vol. 10 (Leipzig, 1872), pp. 369–70; vol. 23 (Leipzig, 1894), p. 43; vol. 36 (Stuttgart, 1931), p. 146. 53 Bianco, Die alte Universität Köln, p. 37: “(…) sit presidens Magister in Artibus secularis et saltem studens in Theologia.” The condition of the degree of bachelor formatus is on p. 40.

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also responsible for the subject of the disputations, which were normally chosen according to the order of the Sentences, that is first the status of theology was dealt with, then the Trinity, then the divine attributes, then creation and so forth.54 As is clear from Servatius’s notebook the respondent answered his question by making a complex syllogism of three arguments, each containing three propositions. Each set of three propositions dealt with a specific part of the question, again in syllogistic form. The last set then gave the answer to the question as a whole. Each set of propositions was called a materia. A similar format was also used in the other kinds of disputations recorded by Fanckel. Since it can also be found elsewhere, it seems to be characteristic of late-medieval disputations.55 In the manuscript, the question itself and the materiae were written in a larger and more careful hand, to distinguish them from the actual disputation that was noted down in a much smaller form.56 What is absent from the notebook are the arguments that were given by the respondent to defend his materiae. It is not clear why Servatius Fanckel did not report them. In the notes of the other disputations, these arguments do not appear either, with only one exception, which allows one to see how they were organized.57 In this case they proceeded according to the standard scholastic model of putting forward authorities and rational arguments. As is apparent from this example, the different propositions that constituted the materiae were divided into separate parts, as was done with the title, each of which was treated individually. In the disputations recorded by Fanckel, time and again there are references to these missing arguments. This makes it difficult, at times, to understand what the opponent is exactly pointing at. 54 The subject order of Lombard’s Sententiae is treated in Philipp W. Rosemann, Peter Lombard (Oxford, 2004), esp. pp. 54–70. 55 A comparable format was used e.g. for the responsio formalis pro secunda forma. However, in the example transcribed by Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, pp. 99–100, there is only mention of the first and the second materiae. On the other hand, Heymericus de Campo, in his commentary on the Sentences, basically used the system of the three materiae. See my “Academic Theology in the Fifteenth Century. The Sentences Commentary of Heymericus de Campo († 1460),” in Chemins de la pensée médiévale, ed. Paul J.J.M. Bakker, Textes et études du moyen âge 20 (Turnhout, 2002), pp. 513–59, esp. pp. 539–54 (edition). 56 This is also the case in the notebook of Georg Schwartz. See, for example, the notebook’s picture in Christ among the Medieval Dominicans, plate 71 (Eichstätt, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. st 688, fol. 263r). 57 See Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, pp. 100–05.


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After the respondent had presented his arguments, the actual debate started. The first person to oppose was the prior vacantialis, who tested the intellectual flexibility of the respondent by asking him a whole range of small questions touching upon the different aspects of the materiae put forward in the argument, often without a clear systemic line of reasoning. In the notebook these questions end with the remark added by Fanckel “huc prior.”58 Then the licentiates and the doctors opposed, followed by the bachelors and the students. The former, however, did not have to wait their turn but could intervene whenever they thought appropriate, as is also the case in our disputation.59 In many cases, especially with the disputations from the period between 1477 and 1485, Fanckel noted the names of the respondents and opponents in the margin of his notebook. Thus he gave modern research a unique instrument to identify these objections, an instrument which will be employed throughout this paper.60 The disputation under consideration was held on July 14, 1480.61 Henry of Cologne acted as prior vacantialis, a Thomist according to the notes of Servatius Fanckel. Among the opponents were the Albertists Conradus de Campis and Gerald of Harderwijck, the latter of which was to become the author of many schoolbooks printed in Cologne, as well as the Thomists Theodor of Susteren and Servatius Fanckel himself.62 Striking is a note which Fanckel added in the margin at the beginning of the disputation, which says that the Nominalist Johannes Alen had put forward views that were unusual and that therefore he had been brushed off by his opponents: “Magister Johannes Alen, modernus, qui posuit Colonie inconsueta et bene scobatus fuit.” Which views 58

See below, p. 135 note 30. Jacobus Sprenger, who was a Master, intervened during the opposition of the prior vacantialis Henry of Cologne. 60 As far as our disputation is concerned, these names are given in the titles of the edition below. Löhr listed a considerable amount of names mentioned in the notebook in his study, which is indexed in Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, pp. 121–23. 61 There is no explicit date mentioned in the manuscript. However, our disputation was the second of the series of disputationes vacantiales delivered in 1480, the first and the third of which were dated. The first disputation was held on July 7, the third on July 21 (Frankfurt, Stadt und Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. Praed. 102, fol. 80r and 82r). This allows for a secure dating of our disputation on the Friday in between, that is July 14, 1480. 62 For the schoolbooks published under the name of Gerald of Harderwijck, see Voulliéme, Der Buchdruck Kölns, pp. 194–201, nn. 438–46. These were commentaries on Aristotle’s logical and physical works, as well as on Peter of Spain’s Summulae. 59

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were uncommon for the bachelors and masters in Cologne, and how they responded, will become clear if we now turn to the content of the disputation. 2.3 The Divine Trinity Throughout the disputation the issue at stake was the question of whether in the one and undivided divine nature there exist three divine persons that are really distinct. In the background here is a tenet of Christian faith that states that the divine nature is one and that the divine persons are distinguished from each other.63 This provoked the problem of how to distinguish the three persons of the Trinity, if the divine nature is indeed undivided. In the course of time, several answers to this question were given. John Duns Scotus reported four different views on this point, which were also mentioned by William of Ockham, Adam Wodeham, and Gabriel Biel, thus giving testimony to the complexity of the issue.64 Earlier, Thomas Aquinas brought up two 63 See, for example, the Pseudo-Athanasianum Quicumque, the creed which was mostly referred to in the late-medieval period when discussing trinitarian issues, in Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, eds. Heinrich Denzinger and Peter Hünermann, 41st ed. (Freiburg, 2007), p. 51, n. 75: “Fides autem catholica haec est, ut unum Deum in Trinitate, et Trinitatem in unitate veneremur, neque confundentes personas, neque substantiam separantes: alia est enim persona Patris, alia [persona] Filii, alia [persona] Spiritus Sancti (…).” Important also were the declarations of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), ibid., p. 357, n. 800: “Haec sancta Trinitas, secundum communem essentiam individua, et secundum personales proprietates discreta (…),” and the Council of Florence (1442), ibid, p. 461, n. 1330: “Patrem non esse Filium aut Spiritum Sanctum; Filium non esse Patrem aut Spiritum Sanctum; Spiritum Sanctum non esse Patrem aut Filium (…).” For a discussion of latemedieval trinitarian views, see Michael Schmaus, Der Liber propugnatorius der Thomas Anglicus und die Lehrunterschiede zwischen Thomas von Aquin und Duns Scotus, 2. Teil: Die trinitarischen Lehrdifferenzen, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosopie und Theologie des Mittelalters 29/1 (Münster, 1930); Hester G. Gelber, Logic and the Trinity. A Clash of Values in Scholastic Thought, 1300–1335, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1974; and Russell L. Friedman, In principio erat verbum. The Incorporation of Philosophical Psychology into Trinitarian Theology, 1250–1325, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Iowa, 1997. 64 John Duns Scotus, Lectura in librum primum Sententiarum 1.26.un., Opera omnia 17 (Vatican City, 1966), pp. 318–41, esp. p. 318: “In ista quaestione sunt quattuor modi dicendi.” See also William of Ockham, Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum. Ordinatio 1.26.1, ed. Girardus I. Etzkorn and Franciscus E. Kelly, Opera theologica 4 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1979), pp. 143–53; Adam Wodeham, Lectura secunda in librum primum Sententiarum 1.26.1, § 2, vol. 3, ed. Rega Wood and Gedeon Gál (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1990), pp. 414–18; Gabriel Biel, Collectorium circa quattuor libros Sententiarum 1.26.1.1, vol. 1, ed. Wilfridus Werbeck and Udo Hofmann (Tübingen, 1973), pp. 526–29.


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different opinions, one of which he labeled as insufficient. That was the view according to which the distinction between the three persons is not primarily grounded in the relations between the persons but in the distinction between the so-called origines or processiones originis.65 Thomas Aquinas criticized this view as untenable in his De potentia: “Haec opinio non videtur convenienter posse stare,” and even more clearly in his Summa theologiae: “Hoc non potest stare.”66 His main argument was that a distinction between things, in this case the divine persons, must primarily be related to something that is inherent to these persons and not to something that precedes them, as the origins do. For him, then, it was not so much the origines, but the so-called relationes, the relations between the persons, that accounted for their distinction.67 To do so, these relations needed to have a special property. They had to be in opposition to each other, Thomas claimed, because only oppositions are able to really distinguish non-material things. Since there are three divine persons, of which the Son was generated by the Father, and the Holy Ghost by both the Father and the Son, four such relations were necessary, namely that from the Father to the Son (paternitas) and its opposite, that of the Son to the Father (filiatio), as well as that from the Father and the Son to the Holy Spirit (spiratio activa) and its opposite, that of the Holy Ghost to the Father and the Son (spiratio passiva).68 If we now turn to the position of Johannes Alen, it is noteworthy that he defended a view which accepted the origines as equally essential to articulating the distinction between the divine persons as the 65 Thomas Aquinas, De potentia 8.3, ed. Paulus M. Pession (Rome, 1953), pp. 220– 21: “(…) circa hoc sunt duae opiniones: quarum prima est, quod relationes in divinis non constituunt hypostases, nec distinguunt (…). Et ideo ponit haec opinio, quod hypostases in divinis constituantur origine (…) et quod relatio paternitatis et filiationis secundum intellectum consequatur ad constitutionem et distinctionem personarum (…). Sed haec opinio non videtur convenienter posse stare.” See also his Scriptum super libros Sententiarum 1.26.2.2, vol. 1, ed. Pierre Mandonnet (Paris, 1929), pp. 633– 34, and his Summa theologiae 1.40.2, ed. 1888, p. 413. 66 See the references in footnote 65 above. 67 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1.40.2, ed. 1888, p. 413 : “(…) ad hoc quod aliqua duo distincta intelligantur, necesse est eorum distinctionem intelligi per aliquid intrinsecum utrique (…). Unde melius dicitur quod personae seu hypostases distinguantur relationibus, quam per originem.” 68 Ibid. 1.36.2, p. 377: “Relationes autem personas distinguere non possunt, nisi secundum quod sunt oppositae.” For a discussion of Thomas’s view, see Gilles Emery, La Trinité Créatrice. Trinité et création dans les commentaires aux Sentences de Thomas d’Aquin et de ses précurseurs Albert le Grand et Bonaventure, Bibliothèque Thomiste 47 (Paris, 1995), pp. 445–54.

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relations and thus contradicted Thomas Aquinas with his stress on the primacy of the relations. This is all the more striking as the prior vacantialis was a Thomist, namely Henry of Cologne. In the third materia of his response, Johannes Alen stated that the two processiones originis account for the fact that in God there are several distinct real relations: “Due originis processiones monstrant in diuinis plures esse realiter differentes relationes.” These two processions cause the real relations, which in their turn produce the real distinction between the divine persons. For Alen, therefore, not only the relations, but also the origines constitute the distinction.69 Before discussing the disapproval voiced by the opponents participating at the disputation, first it is important to realize that Johannes Alen not only accepted something as fundamental to the distinction that was rejected as being such by Thomas, namely the origines, but more importantly, that the view he put forward had been held by Ockham.70 To be sure, that Alen departed from Thomas would not necessarily have aroused much disturbance among the opponents as it actually did. Among the participants there were not only Thomists but also Albertists, and ever since Heymericus had published his Tractatus problematicus, highlighting the differences between Thomists and Albertists, the Thomists were used to criticism of their saintly Master, even in Cologne.71 Furthermore, Thomas had said himself that the origines were in some way responsible for the distinction between the divine persons, even if not principally (prius et principalius). So there was an easy way to settle the matter and find a common ground, if the disputants had wanted to.72 Much more delicate and provocative, however, was the fact that Alen defended Ockham’s position, who on that occasion had called Thomas’s solution absolutely wrong and contradictory.73 Ockham’s criticism was a direct consequence of his Nominalist interpretation of Aristotle. For 69

See the three propositions of the third materia in the Appendix below, p. 130. William of Ockham, Scriptum 1.26.2, ed. Etzkorn and Kelly, p. 176: “(…) tam origo quam relatio constituit et distinguit personas.” 71 Although Heymericus’s criticism was fundamental, he never explicitly said that Thomas was wrong, but only that his way of arguing was not as convincing as that of Albert the Great. See, for example, his Tractatus problematicus, ed. 1496, fol. [Iiir]: “Non enim sum tam petulans ut audeam asserere alicubi sanctum Thomam simpliciter errasse (…) sed verisimilius puto veritatem eius in multis indigere correctione piae moderationis, eo quod sententia sua in superficie verborum non continet tantam probabilitatem sicut sententia doctoris mei domini Alberti Magni.” 72 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1.40.2, ed. 1888, p. 413. 73 William of Ockham, Scriptum 1.26.2, ed. Etzkorn and Kelly, p. 169: “In ista opinio [namely, that of Thomas Aquinas] dicuntur multa falsa et sibi invicem repugnantia. 70


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him, the origines and the relations were the same, as far as their being was concerned. In his view, therefore, it was contradictory to deny that the origines constituted the differences between the divine persons, if at the same time it was said that the relations do.74 Thomas, for that matter, had distinguished between different modes of signifying. Both the origines and the relations play a role as being constitutive of the divine persons, he said, but for human understanding the relations are more fundamental.75 Here again Ockham was harsh in his criticism of Thomas. Modes of signifying concern only words and thoughts, but not things, whereas here the distinction between things, namely the divine persons, is at stake. Therefore, if it is argued that the relations constitute the persons, it follows that the origines must also constitute the persons. Denying this would imply a contradiction, Ockham claimed.76 In all likelihood, the theologians in Cologne were familiar with Ockham’s attack on Thomas, as in the late fifteenth century Ockham’s Sentences commentary was commented upon at several universities in the German Empire such as Tübingen and Freiburg. It must be assumed, therefore, that the opponents recognized the background of Alen’s position and thus reacted accordingly.77 2.3.1 Aristotle and the Trinity Alen defended Ockham’s view in his third materia, identifying the origines and the relations, which constitute the divine persons. Primum quod dicit quod personae non constituuntur per origines, est simpliciter falsum.” 74 Ibid. 75 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1.40.2, ed. 1888, p. 413: “Inveniuntur autem in divinis personis duo secundum quae differunt: scilicet origo, et relatio. Quae quidem quamvis re non differant, differunt tamen secundum modum significandi (…).” 76 William of Ockham, Scriptum 1.26.2, eds. Etzkorn and Kelly, p. 173: “Ex praedictis patet esse manifeste falsum quod iste (sc. Thomas, MH) frequenter dicit quod duo sunt in Deo, scilicet origo et relatio, quae licet in Deo idem sínt secundum rem, differunt tamen ratione et modo significandi. Quia illa relatio, quae est eadem realiter cum origine, nullo modo differt modo significandi nec ratione ab origine illa cum qua est eadem realiter. Quia illa quae differunt secundum modum significandi, non sunt nisi signa, quae non sunt idem realiter. Unde illa origo, quae Deus est, nullum modum significandi habet, et ideo modus significandi nihil facit ad hoc quod ipsa constituat vel non constituat.” And ibid., p. 169: “(…) quando aliqua sunt idem omnibus modis, et unum vere praedicatur de reliquo, si unum constituit, et reliquum constituit.” 77 Gabriel Biel, in his Collectorium circa quattuor libros Sententiarum, highlighted this criticism. See Collectorium 1.26.2, eds. Werbeck and Hofmann, p. 543: “Doctor [namely, Ockham] in hac quaestione primum recitat et impugnat opinionem beati

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He again made the same point in his answer to the Albertist Gerald of Harderwijck. On that occasion he claimed that a relation cannot be distinguished from its bearer, even in the case of the Trinity. In the further course of the disputation, in his reply to the Thomist Walter of Dordrecht, he went even further, saying that the relations are identical with the three persons, and these again with the divine essence, as Ockham had also maintained.78 With Alen’s claim that the relations do not differ from their bearers, the disputation came to its most controversial point. It was also here that Alen’s loyalty to Aristotle was addressed. The Albertist Gerald of Harderwijck tried to force Alen into a contradiction by arguing that if the relations were identical with the persons, there would be only three relations. But these three relations would imply that there were six persons, as every relation has two extremes. In his reply, Alen kept to his original position that the relation and its bearer were really the same by claiming that there is no real distinction between the categories, thus revealing his conception of the status of the Aristotelian categories.79 Gerald of Harderwijck then confronted Alen with the argument that there are ten categories which are all really distinct from each other. Among these there is one category of substance and another of relation. Therefore relations cannot be identified with their bearers, the substances, without contradiction, he argued.80 Alen replied to this attack with an answer traditionally given by many who denied the real distinction between all categories, namely that Aristotle himself had predicated two different categories of one and the same thing and that therefore they cannot be really distinct Thomae I q. 40 art. 2 tenentis quod (…) personae constituunt et distinguuntur non per origines, sed per relationes (…).” 78 See Appendix below, p. 136–137 (reply to Gerald of Harderwijck) and p. 143 (reply to Walter of Dordrecht): “Quattuor relationes sunt tres res, que sunt persone, sicut tres persone sunt una res, que est essentia.” In his commentary on the Sentences, Ockham underscored that notwithstanding their differences, these relations are really the same as the one and undivided divine essence. See William of Ockham, Scriptum 1.26.1, eds. Etzkorn and Kelly, p. 153. This passage is quoted in full in the Appendix below, p. 137 note 38. 79 See Appendix below, p. 137: “Negauit iste [namely, Johannes Alen] distinctionem predicamentorum realem.” Again, the same view was held by Ockham, Expositio in librum Praedicamentorum Aristotelis 10, ed. Gedeon Gál, Opera philosophica 2 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1978), p. 229. For a full quotation of this passage see the Appendix below, p. 137 note 39. 80 See Appendix below, p. 137: “Contra: Sunt decem entia realia primo diuersa.”


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according to his opinion.81 Gerald then responded by referring to the notion of immediate propositions, a concept used by Aristotle in his Posterior analytics to designate propositions for which there are no other prior propositions and which therefore can be used as principles of demonstration. In such propositions the predicate is necessarily affirmed or denied of the subject, without the intervention of a middle term. Therefore their truth can immediately be affirmed. According to Gerald, the proposition p “No substance is a quantity” provides an example here. Alen, however, refused to accept this and claimed that the proposition p is immediate only under special conditions, namely when taken with reduplication of the subject (cum reduplicatione), that is, when p is understood as “No substance as substance is a quantity.” Alen here again defended a view put forward by Ockham. In his Summa logicae the Venerable Inceptor had said that when dealing with immediate propositions Aristotle did not maintain that the proposition p is an immediate one, notwithstanding the reading of some interpreters.82 Thus two different readings of Aristotle were opposed here. With his understanding that a relation does not differ from its bearer, Alen delivered an answer to the disputed question from a Nominalist perspective. His opponents, however, did not accept this point of view. According to them it would lead to the absurdity that there were not three persons, but only two, four or six, which obviously contradicted the Christian faith. According to Fanckel’s notes, the controversy ended with Alen denying the foundations of Aristotle’s philosophy: “Dixit eum negare omnia fundamenta Aristotelis.” If this account is true, Alen would have rejected the entirety of Aristotle. This however is not very plausible and not in accordance with the rest of the disputation. Possibly Alen had argued that he did not accept the foundations which Gerald of Harderwijck considered to be Aristotle’s, without implying

81

Ibid., p. 138: “Dicit [namely, Johannes Alen] quod non, quia dicit Aristoteles quod actio sit passio.” See again William of Ockham, Expositio in librum Praedicamentorum 16, ed. Gál, p. 298: “(…) non est intentio Philosophi ponere ista sex praedicamenta importare res distinctas ab aliis rebus absolutis. De actione et passione patet, nam secundum principia Philosophi (…).” 82 See Appendix below, p. 138 note 42, and Aristotle, Analytica posteriora 1.2, 72a8. See also William of Ockham, Summa logicae 3–3.9, eds. Philotheus Boehner, Gedeon Gál and Stephanus Brown, Opera philosophica 1 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1974), p. 630. This last passage is quoted in full in the Appendix below.

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that he himself departed from Aristotle. This is all the more probable, since Ockham and other Nominalists regarded the position defended here by Alen as the correct reading of Aristotle, criticizing such interpretations as given by Gerald of Harderwijck.83 Fanckel’s report that Alen had denied the Aristotelian principles, therefore, rather reflects that he refused to accept the viewpoint of his Thomist and Albertist opponents. Since in Cologne the Nominalists were a minority, it was only natural that the Realists considered their view on Aristotle as the only sensible reading. 2.4 Alen as a Nominalist By holding the above position, Alen clearly revealed himself to be an adherent of Ockham. He also mentioned his name at one occasion during the dispute. Besides Ockham and Durandus, no further authorities were quoted by him.84 Alen also followed Ockham on other points. For example this was the case in his debate with the Thomist Theodor of Susteren, who also questioned Alen’s view that the origines would account for the distinctions between the persons and asked what then

83 See William of Ockham, Expositio in librum Praedicamentorum Prooemium, ed. Gál, p. 136: “Et ignorantia istius intentionis Aristotelis in hoc libro [namely, the Categories] facit multos modernos [Ockham is referring here to some of his contemporaries. This meaning of “moderni” should be distinguished from the later meaning of “moderni” as “nominales” or “terministae,” as used in the quotation from Bartholomaeus of Usingen further on in this footnote] errare, credentes hic multa dicta pro rebus, quae tamen pro solis vocibus – et proportionaliter pro intentionibus seu conceptibus in anima – vult intelligi.” See also ibid, cap. 7, pp. 157–61, and Bartholomaeus of Usingen, Quaestio de quiditate quantitatis continae in disputatione de quolibet Erffordie A.D. 1497 determinata, ed. Hans-Ulrich Wöhler, in Bochumer philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter 6 (2001), pp. 137–95, esp. p. 184: “ (…) antiqui supponunt predicamenta esse res et concludunt decem esse re generalissime differentes (…). Sed illud dictum antiquorum non est necessarium nec videtur habere rationem sufficientem. Ideo scola moderna alia via incedit dicens predicamenta esse signa rerum. (…) Ad confirmationem dicitur, quod Philosophus ponit novem predicamenta accidentium, que ideo vocantur accidentalia, quia sunt termini accidentaliter connotantes, non quia sunt novem res accidentales generalissime et realiter distincte (…).” 84 Judging from the subject, the reference to Durandus (see Appendix below, p. 139) is a reference to his commentary on the Sentences. In the late-medieval period, this commentary was often used as a textbook by theologians. Marsilius of Inghen, for example, borrowed many distinctions from Durandus. See Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen, Manuel Santos Noya and Manfred Schulze, “Einleitung,” in Marsilius of Inghen, Quaestiones super quattuor libros Sententiarum, ed. Manuel Santos Noya, 2 vols., Studies in the History of Christian Thought 87–8 (Leiden, 2000), 1:xxix–xxx and 300 (index auctorum).


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caused the distinction between the origines.85 Although Theodor did not refer to Thomas Aquinas, it was probably Thomas’s view that nonmaterial things can only be distinguished by opposites which was in the background here. Thomas had argued that the distinction between the divine persons could not be grounded in the divine essence from which they proceed, since the divine essence is completely undivided. Nor could it be explained by the distinction between the divine attributes, as this distinction is not real but only rational, being caused by the human mind. Therefore only the relations of opposition remained as a sufficient explanation.86 Again, Alen’s reply was resolute. For him, it was absolutely no problem that different things proceed from a principle that is one and undivided. Exactly the same view was held by Ockham in his commentary on the Sentences.87 Alen also followed Ockham in his reply to the opposition of Godfrey of Groningen, who like some of his colleagues touched upon the question regarding how different persons can proceed from something that was undivided.88 Alen responded that when dealing with the Trinity, there are many things that transcend human understanding, something which Ockham had underscored by pointing out that natural reason cannot prove that there are three divine persons.89 Alen thus conveyed to his opponents the image of a Nominalist, who in the footsteps of Ockham did not permit human reason, or Aristotle, to stipulate which trinitarian views had to be adhered to, but only faith itself. As said, Alen mentioned Ockham on only one occasion. At this point in the debate the discussion was not on the Trinity itself but on the divine attributes, touched upon by him in his second materia. 85

See Appendix below, p. 140. Thomas Aquinas, De potentia 8.1, ed. Pession, p. 214; and ibid. 8.3, p. 220. For Thomas’s argument that the distinction between the divine attributes was only rational, see Summa theologiae 1.13.4, ed. 1888, pp. 144–45. 87 William of Ockham, Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum. Ordinatio 1.2.1, eds. Stephanus Brown and Gedeon Gál, Opera theologica 2 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1970), p. 34. This passage is quoted in full in the Appendix below, p. 141 note 54. 88 See Appendix below, p. 141. 89 William of Ockham, Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum. Ordinatio 1.9.1, ed. Girardus I. Etzkorn, Opera theologica 3 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1977), p. 275; and ibid. 1.10.1, p. 328. According to Gabriel Biel, this view was held by many theologians, who in the fifteenth century were labelled as Nominalists. See his Collectorium 1.10.1.1, eds. Werbeck and Hofmann, p. 354: “Verum est alius modus loquendi Occam, Gregorii, Oyta, Cameracensis, Adam, Holcot etc., tenentium omnes dictas conclusiones sola fidei auctoritate et non propter rationes ad eas factas (…).” 86

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In the discussion Alen defended a view put forward by Ockham in his Quodlibeta, when the Venerable Inceptor no longer held the opinion that universals are objects of human thinking, but thought them to be qualities of the intellectual soul. This particular view had direct consequences for the theory of the divine attributes, which Ockham understood to be either the perfections of the divine nature itself, or the concepts used by man to speak about these perfections.90 In the first case, the attributes were identical with the divine nature, implying no distinction whatsoever. But in the second case things were different. In his Quodlibeta Ockham had argued that concepts were real qualities of the human soul and that every distinction between real things was considered as a real distinction, thus the distinction between the “conceptual” attributes was a real distinction too.91 In his reply to the arguments of Henry of Cologne, the prior vacantialis, Alen defended exactly this view. He argued that the rational distinction between the attributes is the same as the real distinction between different rational concepts used to refer to the same thing, namely the divine nature: “Distinctio rationis non est aliud nisi realis diuersitas rationum eandem rem significantium.”92 Fankel added to this note “Dicit ‘Ockham’,” indicating that Alen had referred to Ockham here. Alen did so, we can assume, because this view was difficult to understand for Thomists and Albertists, who did not accept that concepts were real or had real being.93 That this was indeed the case becomes clear from the remainder of the dispute. The Albertist Conradus de Campis immediately reacted with the remark that this was not the right way to speak about the divine attributes. It is impossible, he said, that there is a real distinction between concepts that refer to one and the same thing.

90 For this distinction see William of Ockham, Scriptum 1.2.2, eds. Brown and Gál, p. 61. 91 William of Ockham, Quodlibeta septem 3.2, ed. Joseph C. Wey, Opera theologica 9 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1980), p. 211. Again, see also Gabriel Biel, Collectorium 1.2.2.2, eds. Werbeck and Hofmann, p. 150: “Si vero conceptus sunt qualitates animae, distinguuntur [namely, the attributes] realiter tam inter se quam a divina essentia.” Biel attributes a similar opinion to Henry of Oyta and Gregory of Rimini. 92 See Appendix, p. 135. 93 According to Johannes Parreut, who was a master at the University of Ingolstadt in the late fifteenth century, the Realists attributed real being only to extra-mental things, a view which he denied. See his Exercitata veteris artis, Ingolstadt 1492, fol. Svv: “(…) ens proprie dictum non vocatur ens extra animam tantum sicut antiqui volunt (…).” See also Johannes Gerson, in a letter from December 7, 1426 in Oeuvres Complètes, ed. Palémon Glorieux, 10 vols. (Paris, 1960–1974), 2:276–80, n. 58, esp. p. 279: “Tradunt nonnulli, unde mirandum videtur, quod conceptus et entia rationis non sunt vere res nec entia (…).”


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A real distinction can only exist between real things.94 Obviously, he had not understood the point made by Alen. For Alen there are real things involved here, namely the different human concepts. The real distinction for Alen is on the level of human thinking, not on that of the divine essence. Again, Fankel’s notes show that Alen’s Ockhamist view caused confusion and disturbance among his colleagues in Cologne.95 By the fifteenth century, when Alen was active at the University of Cologne, the Nominalist tradition had been influenced by authors such as Robert Holcot, Gregory of Rimini, John Buridan and Marsilius of Inghen.96 He therefore not only stayed within the limits set by Ockham but also went further in significant ways. This is apparent from his view, articulated during the debate, that the term “God” falls under a genus.97 Ockham had denied this. He remained within the lines drawn by Thomas and Duns Scotus, although he was not convinced by the power of their arguments.98 But the later Nominalists no longer found Ockham’s position attractive. In the fifteenth century the notion that God was a generic term, and as such fell under the category of substance, was a commonly held view of the Nominalists.99 94

See Appendix, p. 136. As is apparent from the Dialectica of the Johannes Eck, the view that concepts had real being was a standard Nominalist tenet at the time. See Johannes Eck, Aristotelis Stragyrite Dialectica (Augsburg, 1517), fol. 14rb-va. 96 This is apparent from the authorities quoted in Nominalist schoolbooks. A telling exemple is Johannes Eck, Bursa Pavonis. Logices exercitamenta (Strasbourg, 1507), which was used at the University of Freiburg and in which, next to Ockham, all the authors mentioned were abundantly quoted. Remarkably, although this treatise was a logic textbook, there were many references to theological works, such as the commentaries on the Sentences of Ockham, Gregory of Rimini and Marsilius of Inghen. Ockham’s Quodlibeta were also referred to. For further details on Johannes Eck and his Nominalism, see Arno Seifert, Logik zwischen Scholastik und Humanismus. Das Kommentarwerk Johann Ecks, Humanistische Bibliothek 1/31 (München, 1978), esp. pp. 58–73. 97 See Appendix below, p. 130–31. 98 William of Ockham, Scriptum 1.8.1, ed. Etzkorn, p. 177: “(…) dico quod Deus non est in genere. Hoc tamen difficile est probare.” Ockham said that the arguments to this effect put forward by Thomas Aquinas were contradictory and absolutely wrong. See ibid., p. 158: “Quidquid sit de conclusione, istae rationes [namely, those of Thomas Aquinas] nihil valent. Primo ergo ostendo quod contradicat sibi ipsi; secundo, quod rationes accipiunt multa falsa.” 99 See the anonymously extended version of Heymericus de Campo’s Contra Modernos, as edited in Rutten, “Contra Occanicam Discoliam Modernorum,” p. 165: “(…) Deus ponatur in praedicamento substantiae, sicut plures immo breviter omnes terministae vel nominales opinantur.” Notably, Gabriel Biel departed from Ockham on this point as well. See his Collectorium 1.8.1, eds. Werbeck and Hofmann, p. 305: “Sed quamvis Auctor [namely William of Ockham] hanc conclusionen teneat cum aliis [namely, that God does not fall under a genus or predicate], tamen oppositum videtur multo probabilius, ut satis late ostendit Gregorius de Arimino (…).” 95

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Also regarding other points, Alen defended notions that—according to late-medieval doxography, especially as produced by Realists— belonged to the standard Nominalist contentions. The synopsis on pp. 115–18 below juxtaposes a number of the views voiced by Alen in this disputation with two lists composed by Realists at the University of Ingolstadt towards the end of the fifteenth century. The first anonymous list entitled Differentie inter Realistas et Modernos recorded those points at which the Nominalist reading of Aristotle departed from that of the Realists. The second one is compiled by Johannes of Adorff, and was referred to earlier in this article.100 This second list reveals which Nominalist claims, from the Realists’ perspective, were considered to entail theological difficulties, not only concerning the Trinity, but also Creation and Christology. The first list corresponds with the position of Alen on five points, the second list corresponds on all eight points. From these matches it becomes clear that even if Alen would not have mentioned Ockham, the Realists in Cologne would immediately have recognized him as a straightforward Nominalist holding views that were not only contrary to their interpretation of Aristotle but also a clear source of theological errors.101 2.5 The Debates between the Schools Having worked out the Nominalist profile of Johannes Alen, the dynamics between the different schools of thought as displayed in the

100 The first list follows the different works of the Corpus Aristotelicum and is edited in Ehrle, Der Sentenzenkommentar des Peter von Candia, pp. 334–38. To give an impression of the meticulousness with which the list was composed: concerning the Three Books of De anima twenty-eight differences were noted. With the other books of Aristotle the numbers are similar. For information on the second list, the manuscript and the historical background, see fotenote 17 above. 101 Such lists were not exceptional. In his Contra Modernos, Heymericus de Campo organized a similar list of dissensions, mentioning some of the same views as in the Differentie inter Realistas et Modernos. This list was extended in the anonymous adaptation of Contra Modernos, edited in Rutten, “Contra Occanicam discoliam,” pp. 164– 65, esp. p. 165. The first flyleaf of the copy of Florentis Diel, Modernorum summulae logicales (Speyer, 1489), as preserved in Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, contains a handwritten list entitled Errores notabiles logicae nominalis. This list was probably composed by Nikolaus A. Granius (1569–1631), whose name is in a similar hand on the titlepage. From 1611 onwards Granius taught at the Arts Faculty of Helmstedt, see Die Universität Greifswald in der Bildungslandschaft des Ostseeraums, eds. Dirk Alvermann et al. (Münster, 2007), p. 206. If this attribution is correct, the Realists’ attacks againt the Nominalists continued well into the modern period.

Anonymous list composed at Ingolstadt listing the Nominalist readings of Aristotle that were considered to be wrong, edited in Ehrle, Der Sentenzenkommentar des Peter von Candia, pp. 334–38. • Tenent enim Nominales quod (…) creatura subsistens sit suum esse. (pp. 337–38)

Views defended by the Nominalist Johannes Alen in his disputatio vacantialis and attacked by his Realist opponents. The disputatio is edited in the Appendix below.

• In nullis rebus inter esse et essentiam est realis differentia. (p. 129)

Differentie inter Realistas et Modernos

Vtrum in deo uno simplicissimo sit trium personarum realis distinctio

Positiones et dicta (…), que videntur contrariare dictis sanctorum patrum et discrepare ab his, que tenet ecclesia katholica List composed by Johannes of Adorff showing that the philosophical views of the Nominalists contradicted the views of the catholic church, edited in Ehrle, Der Sentenzenkommentar des Peter von Candia, pp. 338–42. • Tenet ecclesia quod natura angeli potest esse et non esse et quod est in potentia ad esse, quod concedere non possunt distinguentes essentiam ab esse. (p. 339) • Tenet (sc. ecclesia, MH) quod celum et terra a Deo in esse processerunt, cui contradicunt dicentes, quod essentia ab esse non distinguitur. (p. 339) • Tenet (sc. ecclesia, MH) quod omnia creata indigent a Deo conservari in esse, quod non esset, si essent ipsum esse. (p. 339)

nominalism in cologne 115

• Substantia dicitur uniuoce de substantia creata et increata. (p. 132)

• Deus est in genere. (p. 130)

• In nullis rebus inter naturam et • Tenent enim Nominales quod suppositum est realis differentia. in rebus materialibus non (p. 129) differt secundum rem natura et suppositum. (p. 337) • Tenet ecclesia quod in Christo sunt due nature et unum suppositum (…), cui veritati contrariantur non distinguentes realiter naturam a supposito. (pp. 339–40) • Tenet ecclesia quod in Deo perfectiones omnium rerum reperiuntur (…) cui renituntur, qui eum in genere predicabili ponere non dedignantur. (p. 339) • Tenet ecclesia katholica quod natura divina est una numero in tribus personis, cui contrariantur qui Deum dicunt esse speciem aut universale. (pp. 338–39) • Tenet (sc. ecclesia, MH) quod Deus sit actus purus (…) cui contrariantur, qui Deum in predicamento ponunt. (p. 339) • Tenet (sc. ecclesia, MH) quod omnes perfectiones creaturarum sunt in Deo, quod dicere non possunt, qui concedunt, quod nomina a perfectionibus imposita univoce de Deo et creatura predicantur. (p. 339)

116 maarten j.f.m. hoenen

• Principaliter discrepant (sc. Nominales, MH) a doctrina Realium in phisicalibus et ponunt (…) quod quantitas non sit distincta a substantia realiter. (p. 336)

• Item circa predicamentum relationis, aliis modernis ponentibus quod non sit extra animam nec a suo fundamento distinctum, aliis vero oppositum tenentibus cum Aristotele quod sit ens reale; quod predicamentum nisi quis sane intelligat, cum loquitur de distinctione divinarum personarum, sicut cecus de coloribus, saltem fundamentaliter et secundum doctrinam theologicam, quod notandum est. (p. 336)

• Quantitas discreta non est distincta a re quanta. (p. 134)

• Relatio non distinguitur a suo fundamento. (p. 136)

• Tenet (sc. ecclesia, MH) quod post Christi nativitatem Christus mortuus sit, secundum quantitatem non secundum substantiam, cui oviant non distinguentes inter substantiam et quantitatem. (p. 340) • Tenet ecclesia quod in sacramento eucharistie sit quantitas vel divisio (lege dimensio, MH) panis sine substantia panis, quod salvare non possunt non distinguentes quantitatem a substantia. (p. 341) • Tenet quoque ecclesia, quod incarnatio filii Dei temporalis, a matre fluens, fuit transiens, sed filiatio, que est relatio supereterna tali generationi fundata est perpetuo manens, cui adversantur dicentes, quod relatio a fundamento realiter non distinguatur. (p. 340) nominalism in cologne 117

• Quatuor relationes sunt tres res, que sunt persone, sicut tres persone sunt una res, que est essentia. (p. 143)

• Distinctio predicamentorum non est realis. (p. 139)

• Principaliter discrepant (sc. Nominales, MH) a doctrina Aristotelis et Realium doctorum circa librum predicamentorum Aristotelis. (p. 335)

• Tenet (sc. ecclesia, MH) quod vi verborum convertitur substantia in substantiam, non quantitas in quantitatem, nec qualitas in qualitatem, quod non salvant predicamenta confundentes. (p. 341) • Tenet ecclesia quod divine persone relationibus distinguuntur, cui contrariari videntur, qui relationem a sua substantia non distinguunt. (p. 338)

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disputation deserves consideration, as striking observations can be made at this point. First of all, it was especially the Albertists, not the Thomists, who attacked Johannes Alen, even if Alen himself did not reject the views of Albert the Great but rather those of Thomas Aquinas. Thus, there seems to be some incongruity here.102 Also, Servatius Fanckel noted on several occasions “non soluit” to indicate that Johannes Alen was not able to answer the arguments of his opponents.103 In some cases, however, he actually provided an answer, contrary to what Fanckel’s report suggests. The best example here is the debate with the Albertist Conradus de Campis concerning the divine attributes discussed earlier, the latter arguing that it is impossible that there is a real distinction between different concepts of one and the same thing. Fanckel did not report any answer by Alen, but just noted “non soluit.” This is surprising however, as just prior, in his final answer to the prior vacantialis, Johannes Alen explained the theory behind his belief, arguing that the content of a concept can have rational being, but that a concept itself, as a quality of the soul, has real being. Therefore, real distinctions between concepts are possible for him. That Conradus de Campis began his question with “impossible est,” shows that he did not understood Alen’s answer to the prior vacantialis.104 Indeed, according to the principles of Conradus de Campis, it is impossible that there be a real distinction between concepts. But the answer is completely different if one accepts Ockham’s view proposed in the Quodlibeta. Therefore, in all probability Conradus de Campis misunderstood Alen’s answer to his question and consequently considered it unsatisfactory. This then caused Servatius Fanckel, who shared the same Realist convictions as Conradus de Campis, to simply record “non soluit” without reporting Alen’s response. As is clear for the example just given, examining these and similar remarkable irregularities within the text can help to better understand the debates between the late-medieval 102 It needs to be noted, however, that Albert and Thomas shared the same view on the issue that was at stake during the disputation. See Albert the Great, Summa theologiae sive de mirabili scientia Dei 1.1.9.38, eds. Dionysius Siedler, Wilhelm Kübel and Hans G. Vogels, Opera omnia 34/1 (Münster, 1978), p. 289. This similarity was common knowledge in the fifteenth century, as can be deduced from the works of Denys the Carthusian, who explicitly mentioned the agreement between Thomas and Albert on this point. See his In IV libros Sententiarum 1.26.2, (as in n. 10), p. 209: “At vero de hac re Albertus non scribit diffuse, sed introductis ad utramque partem motivis respondet (…). Ex quibus verbis elicitur, quod positio Thomae concordat Alberto.” 103 See the Appendix below, p. 136 and pp. 138–39. 104 See the Appendix below, p. 136.

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schools of thought. Therefore it is important to discuss the information provided by the dispute in further detail. 2.5.1 Nominalism and Albertism Besides the prior vacantialis, who was a Thomist, there were three Albertists active as opponents: Conradus de Campis, Gerald of Harderwijck, and Godfrey of Groningen, as well as three Thomists: Theodor of Susteren, Walter of Dordrecht, and Servatius Fanckel. Furthermore, there were two additional opponents: Antonius and an Augustinian monk, whose doctrinal affiliation is not clear. When one compares the total number of Albertists and Thomists with the division of the two schools among the total number of bachelors and masters listed in Servatius Fanckel’s notebook, the presence of three Albertists over against three Thomists is striking. To be sure, the Albertists were an important school in Cologne, with its own bursa, the so-called Bursa Laurentiana.105 But as has already been noticed by Gabriel M. Löhr, the majority of all bachelors and masters were labeled as “thomista” by Fanckel. This applied to all those who were members of a religious order, as well to all the rest.106 Therefore, one would expect that in the disputation under consideration the Thomists would outnumber the Albertists. But that is not the case. That the Albertists were strongly present needs an explanation. As it seems, this was not just a coincidence. The Albertists were not only the first to criticize Johannes Alen, but also the most foundational, focusing on Alen’s use of Aristotle. As said before, the first to oppose in a disputatio vacantialis were the licentiates and doctors. In our case this was the Albertist Conradus de Campis. All of the remaining opponents were bachelors, as far as can be determined on the basis of Fanckel’s notes. The first bachelor who entered into the dispute was an Albertist, namely Gerald of Harderwijck. His opposition was the most critical, as it was here that Fanckel reported that Alen had denied the principles of Aristotle. Obviously, it was the Albertists in particular who felt challenged by

105 On the Bursa Laurentiana and its Masters, see Tewes, Die Bursen der Kölner Artisten-Fakultät, pp. 47–73. For a map locating the Bursa Laurentiana, see Hermann Keussen, Die alte Universität Köln. Grundzüge ihrer Verfassung und Geschichte (Cologne, 1934), pp. 64–65. As is clear from this map, the Bursa Laurentiana was situated much farther away from the Dominican Convent than the Thomistic Bursa Montana, itself located next to the convent right across the street. 106 See Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, p. 16.


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Alen’s Nominalism. This fits with the broader picture of the debates between the schools in fifteenth-century Cologne. Heymericus de Campo, in the first part of his Tractatus problematicus, attacked the Nominalists, arguing that their reading of Aristotle was inconsistent and not in line with the traditional view, the sententia peripateticorum, as we have seen. In the second half of the fifteenth century, the Tractatus problematicus still attracted attention in the German Empire, as is testified by its manuscript tradition and its printing in 1496.107 On the other hand, the Thomists were not as opposed to the Nominalists as were the Albertists. Some Thomists in Cologne defended views which at least to a certain extent resembled those of the Nominalists, not only in the field of logic, but also on issues as put forward by Johannes Alen during the debate, such as the idea that God is a generic term. As the Promptuarium argumentorum shows, Thomists and Albertists were divided on this point, the former group holding the view that God indeed belongs to a genus, whereas the latter denied this.108 This anonymous treatise was highly successful, printed three times in Cologne in the 1490s. Therefore we can safely assume that it referred to opinions that were actually defended by Thomists and Albertists at the time.109 107 In addition, in 1456 Gerardus de Monte remarked that the Tractatus was widely used, which he deplored, because in his mind the treatise gave the wrong picture of the views of Albert and Thomas Aquinas. It was for this reason that he published a response, the Tractatus concordans. See my “Commont lire les grand maîtres? Gérard de Monte, Heymeric de Campo et la question de l’accord entre Albert le Grand et Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue Thomiste 108 (2008), 105–30, esp. 114–16. 108 To understand the following quotation, the reader has to know that in this treatise the Albertists are represented by a student called Lilius, the Thomists by Spineus. Promptuarium argumentorum, ed. 1496, fol. [Jviiv]: “Quibus expeditis ponit Lilius istam conclusionem ‘Deus non est in aliquo predicamento’. Contra hoc sic opponit Spineus. Arguitur: Deus est in aliquo praedicamento. Ergo conclusio minus vera (…).” Predicaments were also called “genera.” (See e.g. Thomas Aquinas, De ente et essentia, Opera omnia 43 [Rome, 1976], p. 369: “(…) ens per se dupliciter dicitur: uno modo quod diuiditur per decem genera, alio modo quod significat propositionum ueritatem.”) It is for this reason that the question whether God falls under a genus is sometimes labelled whether God falls under a predicament or category (praedicamentum). For some striking parallels in the field of logic, see Henk A.G. Braakhuis, “Heymeric van de Velde (a Campo), denker op een kruispunt van wegen. De logische kwestie uit zijn Problemata inter Albertum Magnum et Sanctum Thomam,” Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 75 (1983), 13–24, esp. pp. 18–20, and my “Late Medieval Schools of Thought,” p. 352. 109 To be sure, in the fifteenth century a number of major defenders of Thomas such as Johannes Capreolus and Petrus Nigri did not maintain the position defended by Spineus. Capreolus and Nigri, who followed Capreolus on this point, argued against the view of Gregory of Rimini. See Johannes Capreolus, Defensiones theologiae divi Thomae Aquinatis 1.8.2, eds. Ceslaus Paban and Thomas Pègues (Tours, 1900; repr.

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2.5.2 Nominalism and Thomism That it was particularly the Albertists who wanted to settle scores with the Nominalists like Johannes Alen did not mean that Alen’s own critique was particularly directed toward the views of Albertists. As said, it is striking that Alen defended those views of Ockham, where the latter had attacked Thomas Aquinas. Obviously, his main intention was to strike at the Thomists, not the Albertists. This is not only the case in the debates over the Trinity, but also concerning the issue of whether or not God is a generic term. Here again Ockham explicitly argued against Thomas Aquinas, saying that Thomas contradicted himself and that his argument contained many things that were untrue.110 The resemblance in the way Ockham portrayed Thomas’s position in those cases indicates that Alen intentionally looked for such issues, trying to provoke the Thomists by defending those Nominalist views that presented themselves as solutions to apparent contradictions in the works of Thomas Aquinas. In the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, a number of Thomists tried to defend Thomas Aquinas against such attacks. Examples are Johannes Capreolus’s Defensiones and Petrus Nigri’s Clypeus Thomistarum.111 These works were highly appreciated among Thomists. Having defended his beliefs, Alen thus demonstrated to his colleagues that he did not accept these Thomistic defenses of Thomas Aquinas but retained the anti-Thomism voiced by Ockham. Summarizing these observations, the following picture emerges: it was especially the Albertists that reacted to the Nominalist views of Johannes Alen, whereas Johannes himself was much more concerned with the Thomists. Taking into consideration that in Cologne the Thomists were the dominant party, Alen had indeed chosen the right environment to articulate his criticism of Thomas. 2.5.3 Incommensurate Discourses To paint a clear picture of the nature of the debates between the schools, it is necessary to return once more to the case where Servatius Fanckel Frankfurt am Main, 1967), pp. 331–63, and Petrus Nigri, Clypeus Thomistarum (Venice, 1487; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1967), fol. [v6]ra-x1va. 110 See footnote 98 above. 111 Petrus Nigri mentioned the Nominalist criticism explicitly in his introduction. See his Clypeus Thomistarum, ed. 1967, fol. a2v: “Afferam deinde nonnullos litterarum fama atque scientiae praestantissimos viros (…) terministas ac nominales, quorum omnium in Thomam opiniones argumenta contrarietates destruere, solvere, confutare est hoc in opere propositi mei.”


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noted “non soluit” to indicate that Alen was not able to give a satisfactory response. This phrase is recorded three times in the record. In another but similar situation Fanckel wrote that Alen could not escape the argument: “Non euasit istud argumentum.” In one case the question was posed by a Thomist, in the other three cases it was Albertists. As said, it is not always easy to determine the exact nature of the “non soluit,” as it is possible that it reflects a misunderstanding on the part of Servatius Fanckel rather than Alen’s inability to respond. This was probably the case with the debate over the divine attributes referred to earlier. If we now have a closer look at the other occurrences, the situation seems to be similar. In two instances the problems at stake were of unmistakably Nominalist origin, namely, again, Alen’s view that God is a generic term, and his contention that there is no real distinction between the categories.112 These were such standard Nominalist views that it is almost unthinkable that Alen would have been unable to answer the objections of his opponents. Rather, it seems that the opponents were in no way satisfied with Alen’s response. Taking into consideration that in three out of four cases it was debates with Albertists who were much more hostile towards the Nominalists than the Thomists, it seems rather natural that the opponents were unwilling to understand the response and therefore called it inadequate. Obviously in the debate between Alen and his Albertist and Thomist opponents, two worlds clashed and were unable to find common ground. In his Tractatus problematicus, after having underscored that the Nominalists were no followers of Aristotle, Heymericus invoked a passage from Aristotle’s Physics saying that there can be no debate between those who do not agree on basic principles, pointing here to the Nominalists. This passage from the Physics became a key word in the Wegestreit, especially in the memorable form in which it was abbreviated in the Auctoritates Aristotelis: “Contra negantem principia non est disputandum.”113 Students noted this motto on the books they used

112 See the table above. Furthermore, Petrus Nigri attributes to the Nominalists the view that the ten categories mentioned by Aristotle are only names used to denote concepts in the mind unequivocally. See his Clypeus Thomistarum, ed. 1967, fol. S2vb: “Prima opinio est modernorum, quod liber Praedicamentorum est de decem terminis qui secundum suos modos significandi incomplexos generalissimos adinvicem distinctos et formaliter non coincidentes significant decem primas intentiones.” He opposes this view to the received view at his time, the “opinio communis scholae.” See ibid., fol. S3ra. 113 Heymericus de Campo, Tractatus problematicus, ed. 1496, fol. [aiiiv]: “(…) solum disputationem praesentem assumpsi contra illos qui mecum conveniunt in veritate

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in the classroom.114 The disputation under consideration here provides a good example of such a debate, especially because Servatius Fanckel explicitly reported that the participants did not agree on what the principles of Aristotle were. The repeated notes “non soluit” point in the same direction, as well as the comment that Alen’s statements were regarded as “inconsueta.” The weight of a long and steady Realist tradition that had excluded Nominalism made it almost completely impossible for bachelors and masters in Cologne to enter into a serious debate with Johannes Alen. That for Fanckel the debate was a clear victory of Albertism and Thomism over Nominalism, saying that Alen was “bene scobatus,” is therefore to be considered as a statement colored by his Realism, rather than a remark provoked by the intellectual potential of the respondent. 3. Conclusion In the famous Chronicle of the Holy City of Cologne, published by Johannes Koelhoff in 1499, Cologne was praised as having the most renowned Theological Faculty: “Zo Collen in Duitschlant is die hoechste ind beste schoil in der hilligen gotlicher schrift.” Similar to Mother Mary, it is argued, who after the death of her Son Jesus was the master and teacher of all the Apostles, who then went out in the world to preach and teach everywhere, so now Cologne is the leading institution in the spreading and teaching of Christian faith.115 This reputation was explained by the fact that both Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great had taught in Cologne and that their teachings were accepted not only in Cologne itself, but also by all other schools and

Aristotelis, quia cum aliis in scientia Aristotelis disputare recusamus.” See Aristotle, Physics 1.1, 184b25–185a2; and Les Auctoritates Aristotelis. Un florilège médiéval. Étude historique et édition critique, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse, Philosophes Médiévaux 17 (Louvain, 1974), p. 140 (2, 6): “Contra negantem principia non est disputandum.” 114 See the copy of Petrus Tartaretus, Expositio in Summulas Petri Hispani (Basel, 1514), as preserved in the University Library of Freiburg. The maxim was written prominently on the title page in the words of the Auctoritates Aristotelis. Next to this saying, another motto that played a crucial role in the Wegestreit was noted, namely “Non est ponenda pluralitas sine necessitate.” In the fifteenth century, this was regarded as one of the fundamental principles of Nominalism. See Bartholomaeus of Usingen, Quaestio de quiditate quantitatis continae, ed. Wöhler, p. 168: “(…) est commune fundamentum vie moderne, quo utuntur moderni contra antiquos, scilicet quod non sit ponenda pluralitas sine necessitate (…).” 115 Die Cronica van der hilliger stat van Coellen, in Die Chroniken der deutschen Städte vom 14. bis ins 16. Jahrhundert (as in n. 52), 13:289.


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universities.116 Koelhoff ’s Chronicle is especially copious concerning the relationship between Cologne and Albert the Great. It not only brings parts of Albert’s biography to light, underscoring his political achievements to restore peace in Cologne after the strife between the city and archbishop Engelbert II, but also mentions day-to-day facts such that on the night of October 7, 1434, during a heavy storm, the beech tree planted by Albert the Great in front of the church was uprooted and fell down, together with many others.117 Against the background of Koelhoff ’s Chronicle it once again becomes clear why the Thomists and Albertists were so upset by Johannes Alen’s Nominalist views. The theologians in Cologne considered themselves to be the most important defenders of Christian faith, standing in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great, who had both used Aristotle on a large scale in their theological writings. William of Ockham and his followers departed from this tradition. Therefore, the idea among the Bachelors and Masters in Cologne was that Ockham’s views needed to be ignored, or severely attacked in cases when they were defended. Johannes Alen, being so audacious as to adhere to the teachings of the Venerable Inceptor, and even frankly mentioning his name, naturally provoked a heavy rebuttal by his opponents, none of whom were willing to accept his understanding of Aristotle or his views on the Trinity. That it was especially the Albertists who became active in the debate, can be explained not only by their adherence to Heymericus de Campo, but also by the fact that the holy city of Cologne had a special affiliation with Albert the Great, as the Chronicle made manifest. The Albertists therefore may have felt themselves to be the first to eradicate errors and reinstate harmony among the students, so as to keep alive the holy reputation of the city and its theological faculty, which was so directly linked with the deeds of their master. And how was it with the Thomists? From a modern point of view, dominated by the Neo-Scholastic stress on the unity of the thomistic 116 Ibid., p. 289 and p. 464: “Zom 19. is dat ein groisse und hoiche wirdichheit, dat in der hilliger stat Coellen gewoint ind geleret haven die groisten lichter der hilliger kirchen, der leire sonderlich ind intgemein nu in allen universiteten ind hohen schoilen uisgesait ind vermannichfeldiget wirt, as sin Albertus Magnus bischof zu Regensburch, under dem selven sent Thomas van Aquinen geleiret hait zu Coellen.” 117 Ibid., pp. 123, 463, 530–31, and 633–38. On the role of Albert the Great in the conflict between the city and Engelbert II, see Hugo Stehkämper, “Albertus Magnus und politisch auswegslose Situationen in Köln,” in Albertus Magnus zum Gedenken nach 800 Jahren. Neue Zugänge, Aspekte und Perspektiven, eds. Walter Senner et al. (Berlin, 2001), pp. 359–73.

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system, it might seem strange, but in the fifteenth century there was no unity among the Thomists, not even among the Thomists in Cologne. Partially, this was caused by the difficulty of how to interpret the writings of Thomas Aquinas, which at many points seemed to contradict each other. In the famous Etymologiae seu Concordantiae conclusionum Thomae Aquinatis in quibus videtur sibi contradicere composed by Peter of Bergamo, 200 contradictions were listed and solved. This treatise was printed in Cologne in 1480 – the same year that our disputation took place. It was used by Thomists, as is clear from the manuscript Cologne, Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln, G.B.F. 200, which contains in its final part, alongside works of Gerardus de Monte in which he criticized Heymericus de Campo, also a copy of Peter of Bergamo’s Etymologiae as well as Gerardus’s own Decisionum sancti Thomae concordantiae, a similar treatise discussing forty-seven alleged contradictions.118 For the Nominalists, who were looking for reasons to demonstrate that Realism was wrong and contradictory, Thomism therefore was a much better target than Albertism. Seen from this perspective, it is only natural that Johannes Alen directs his attack especially on the position of Thomas, looking for those passages which Ockham had already labeled as contradictory.119 That Johannes Alen referred to Ockham is not self-evident, even if Ockham was among the traditional authors considered as the fathers of Nominalism. At most universities where the via moderna was taught, the works of John Buridan and Marsilius of Inghen were used, not those of Ockham. Only towards the end of the century was there a growing interest in the writings of the Venerable Inceptor himself. Exemplary here is a development at the University of Freiburg. In 1470 the masters of the theological faculty urged their colleagues at the Arts

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See Voulliéme, Der Buckdruck Kölns, p. 404, n. 912 and Gerardus de Monte, Decisionum s. Thomae concordantiae, ed. Gilles G. Meersseman (Rome, 1934), with a description of the manuscript on pp. 16–19. An expanded version of Petrus de Bergamo’s work compiled by Ambrosius de Alemania contained 1200 contradictions. It was edited together with the Tabula Aurea in Venice in 1497 and later. The edition of 1773 was reprinted in Florence in 1982 under the title of Concordantiae textuum discordantium divi Thomae Aquinatis. 119 Also in Ingolstadt, the Nominalists highlighted that among the Thomists there was much discussion about the right interpretation of Thomas, referring here to a visit of Peter Schwartz, the autor of the Clypeus Thomistarum, to Ingolstadt. During this visit Peter had argued that the masters in Ingolstadt misunderstood Thomas. See Ehrle, Der Sentenzenkommentar des Peter von Candia, p. 332: “(…) eos dixit [namely, Peter Schwartz] non intelligere scripta Thome.”


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Faculty to read the works of Aristotle according to the commentaries of John Buridan and Marsilius of Inghen, without mentioning Ockham. Towards the end of the century, however, the name of Ockham appears more and more in the official documents of both the Faculties of Arts and of Theology. In the former, the via moderna is entitled “via Ockham” and in the latter Ockham’s Sentences commentary was commented upon regularly.120 In Johannes Eck’s Bursa Pavonis, Ockham is among the authors most frequently quoted, even with the reverential addition of “doctor noster” to his name.121 Johannes Alen fits within this general pattern of a growing interest for the Venerable Inceptor himself, which gradually overshadowed the traditional sympathy for his followers John Buridan, Marsilius of Inghen and Gregory of Rimini, even if the latter has also left his footprint on Alen’s arguments, as was shown earlier.122 It was the details from Servatius Fankel’s notebook which enabled the meticulous portrayal of the above situation. Especially when dealing with a period which is extremely complex because of the debates between the different schools of thought, the disapproval of scholastic thinking inside and outside the universities and the upcoming reformation with its criticism of Aristotle, such documents help to discover and delineate the battle lines between the different parties involved. Even if in recent scholarship promising steps have been taken by Michael Shank and Christoph Flüeler, most of these notebooks still remain unstudied. It is therefore time that these sources gain a regular place at the desks of the researchers of late-medieval thought and be reckoned among the necessary means for better understanding the debates behind the positions referred to in the traditional commentaries on Aristotle or Peter Lombard.123

120 For more details see my “Philosophie und Theologie im 15. Jahrhundert. Die Universität Freiburg und der Wegestreit,” in Von der hohen Schule zur Universität der Neuzeit, eds. Dieter Mertens and Heribert Smolinsky, 550 Jahre Albert-LudwigsUniversität Freiburg 2 (Freiburg, 2007), pp. 67–91. 121 Johannes Eck, Bursa Pavonis. Logices exercitamenta, ed. 1507, fol. Biv, fol. Biiv, fol. Ciir. 122 Remarkably, Eck uses the epithet of “venerabilis inceptor” time and again in his Bursa Pavonis. See, for example, ibid., fol. Biiiv, fol. [Cvr], fol. Eiiir. 123 I would like thank John Slotemaker, Friederike Schmiga, and the anonymous reader for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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maarten j.f.m. hoenen APPENDIX

This appendix offers a complete edition of the disputatio vacantialis, held on the 14th of July 1480 at Cologne, in which the Nominalist Johannes Alen acted as a respondent. As far as we know, this disputation is only recorded in the notebook of Servatius Fanckel, preserved in the manuscript Frankfurt, Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, MS. Praed. 102.1 The disputation is on fol. 81r-82r and bears the number “lxxxvij.” Incomplete sentences are completed by myself according to their immediate context. These additions are identified by pointed brackets. Punctuation is in accordance with modern usage and intended to help the reader understanding the sometimes very brief arguments. The answers given by Johannes Alen and the views attributed to him are underlined. The sources referred to in the text are identified in the footnotes, and the implicit sources are noted. If helpful, the relevant passages from these sources are quoted in full. When appropriate, short comments in the footnotes elucidate the arguments put foward by Alen and his opponents. For further information on the form, the content, and the historical significance of the disputation, the reader is referred to the preceding article. Abbreviations used: add. = addidit in marg. = in margine ms. = manuscript = words supplied by the editor […] = words that should be deleted

1 The manuscript is decribed in Die Handschriften des Dominikanerklosters und des Leonardstifts in Frankfurt am Main, ed. Gerhardt Powitz, Kataloge der Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main 2/1 (Frankfurt, 1968), pp. 236–37.


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VTRUM IN DEO UNO SIMPLICISSIMO SIT TRIUM PERSONARUM REALIS DISTINCTIO Magister Johannes Alen, modernus, qui posuit Colonie inconsueta, et bene scobatus fuit.1

Pluralitas tum summorum bonorum, tum infinitorum, tum omnipotentum diuersorum, tum causarum primarum et ultimarum est impossibilis. Deus est summum bonum, infinitum, omnipotens, in genere cause efficientis et finalis alpha et o<mega>. Ob id impossibile est plures esse deos et per consequens tantum unus est deus. <Secunda materia de simplicitate dei> In nullis rebus inter esse et essentiam, naturam et suppositum est realis differentia.2

1 magister … fuit] in marg. In what follows there is no explicit explanation of which “inconsueta” are being referred to here. However, on the basis of the discussion and information provided in the study above we can infer that the following theses were called into question by the opponents: “deus est in genere,” “substantia dicitur uniuoce de substantia creata et increata,” “ens dicitur uniuoce de substantia et accidente,” “quantitas discreta non est distincta a re quanta,” “numerus non distinguitur a re numerata,” “distinctio rationis non est aliud nisi realis diuersitas diuersarum rationum eandem rem significantium,” “relatio non distinguitur a suo fundamento,” “distinctio predicamentorum non est realis,” “ab uno principio possunt procedere plures emanationes,” “quatuor relationes sunt tres res, que sunt persone, sicut tres persone sunt una res, que est essentia.” 2 The opinion which Johannes defended here—according to which there is never (in nullis rebus) a real difference between being and essence and between nature and person, not even in corporeal creatures—was labelled nominalist at the end of the 15th century. Cf. Franz Ehrle, Der Sentenzenkommentar des Peter von Candia des Pisaner Papstes Alexanders V. Ein Beitrag zur Scheidung der Schulen in der Scholastik des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts und zur Geschichte des Wegestreits, Franziskanische Studien Beiheft 9 (Münster, 1925), p. 337: “Tenent enim Nominales quod in rebus materialibus non differt secundum rem natura et suppositum. Item quod quid est non differt ab eo cuius est. Item tenent quod creatura subsistens sit suum esse.”

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Deus existens in genere omnis compositionis realis expers: esse et essentie, nature et suppositi, substantie et accidentis, forme et materie. Igitur deus est simplicissimus, nichilominus omnium attributalium perfectionum fecundissimus. (fol. 81v) Tertia materia <de reali distinctione trium personarum> Due originis processiones monstrant in diuinis plures esse realiter differentes relationes. Has in creaturis uti in deo esse fundamentum personarum, notiones et proprietates personales omni consonum est ueritati. Igitur proprietates relatiue personas constituentes efficiunt quod in diuinis est trium personarum realis distinctio. Arguitur.4 Non est summum malum, ergo non est summum bonum, 1 Celi: ‘Si unum contrariorum etc.’5 Dicit quod non opponuntur contrarie, sed priuatiue. Contra. Bonum et malum sunt genera. Priuatio est non ens. Ergo malum, cum sit genus, non potest esse priuatio. Dicit quod priuatio aliquid ponit ut subiectum, ut iniustum priuat actum, sed relinquit aptitudinem. Alia est priuatio que nichil ponit, ut cecitas, surditas. Contra. Omnis priuatio hoc ponit, scilicet subiectum, quia hec est differentia inter oppositionem contradictoriam et priuatiuam, quia ibi est unum extremum simpliciter non ens; inter priuatiue opposita non est ita. Ergo. Dicit quod contradictionis extremum nichil est, sed extremum priuatiuum ponit subiectum et aptitudinem, sed priuat actum. 3 Fanckel provides the following details about Henry of Cologne in his notebook on fol. 24r: “Magister Hinricus de Colonia. Huius uidi licencias. Thomista.” Cf. also Die Matrikel der Universität Köln 1389 bis 1559, vol. I: 1389–1466, ed. Hermann Keussen, (Bonn, 1892), p. 548 (304, 45): “Heinr Jonge de Colonia; art.” For the activities of the prior vacantialis, see p. 101–103 above. 4 Cf. above “ Pluralitas tum summorum bonorum (…).” 5 Aristotle, De caelo et mundo 2.3, 286a23–25; and Les Auctoritates Aristotelis. Un florilège médiéval. Étude historique et édition critique, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse, Philosophes Médiévaux 17 (Louvain, 1974), p. 163 (3, 51): “Si unum contrariorum est in natura et reliquum est in natura, eadem est materia contrariorum.”


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Contra. Priuatio non suscipit magis et minus nisi per ordinem ad habitum. Unde arguitur: Sicut opponitur malum bono, sic magis malum magis bono6 etc. Sic summum bonum opponitur summo malo. Dicit magister Sprenger quod summo bono, quod est extra genus, non opponitur malum in genere. Sed fuit contra istum <sc. Johannem>, qui posuit ipsum deum in genere.8 Et uidetur quod non euasit istud argumentum. Arguitur.9 Quicquid est summum bonum, est bonum per essentiam. Sed omne quod est bonum, est bonum per essentiam. Ergo sunt plura summa bona. Dicit quod nichil est bonum per essentiam nisi summum.

6

bono] malo ms. Fanckel provides the following information about Jacobus Sprenger on the third flyleaf of his notebook: “Hee inquam aule celebrate sunt, aula (…) magistri Jacobi Sprenger de Basilea, ordinis Predicatorum, tunc prioris (sc. “ordinis eiusdem conuentus Coloniensis”, see ibid., fol. 146v, MH), thomiste.” Further information about him can be found in Gabriel M. Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen und Promotionen an der Universität Köln im ausgehenden 15. Jahrhundert, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland 21 (Leipzig, 1926), p. 24, n. 1. On the aula magistralis, see Franz Gescher, “Die Statuten der theologischen Fakultät an der alten Universität Köln,” in Festschrift zur Erinnerung an die Gründung der alten Universität Köln im Jahre 1388 (Cologne, 1938), pp. 43–108, esp. pp. 103–04. 8 Cf. above “ Deus existens in genere (…).” For more information on the background of Johannes’s position here, see pp. 113 and 121 above. When comparing this with the works of Ockham, whom Johannes treats as an authority in this discussion, an interesting observation can be made. In his commentary on the Sentences, Ockham criticizes those arguments which Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus used in order to prove that God cannot be subsumed under a genus. For Ockham, it is impossible to give any such proof. See William of Ockham, Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum. Ordinatio 1.8.1, ed. Girardus I. Etzkorn, Opera theologica 3 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1977), p. 180: “(…) dico quod non potest per rationem sufficienter probari Deum non esse in genere, quia nec per simplicitatem Dei, sicut ostensum est, nec per necessitatem Dei. (…) Nec etiam potest sufficienter probari per infinitatem Dei.” Notwithstanding this impossibility, Ockham sticks to the common doctrine that God does not belong to any genus at all. See ibid., p. 156: “In ista quaestione communiter tenetur quod Deus non est in genere (…).”; and ibid., p. 177: “(…) dico quod Deus non est in genere.” Johannes Alen, by arguing that God falls under a genus, goes one step beyond Ockham. His approach shows that he was influenced by authors like Robert Holcot and Gregory of Rimini. 9 Cf. above “ Deus est summum bonum (…).” 7

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Arguitur.10 Quod est hic et non alibi, non est ubique. Sic: Quod est hoc et non aliud, non est infinitum. Sed deus secundum uos [deus] est in genere.11 Quod est in genere uno, non habet aliorum generum perfectiones. Si autem habeat omnium generum perfectiones,12 erit transcendens <et infinitum et ergo non erit in genere>. Dicit quod aliquid est in genere dupliciter. Uno modo loycaliter. Et sic est aliquid in genere, quia significat suum subiectum sub modo unius predicamenti et non alterius. Sic ‘deus’, licet habeat omnium rerum perfectiones, tamen significat suum subiectum per modum substantie et non aliorum predicamentorum.13 Metaphysicaliter autem ponitur res in predicamento et sic etiam deus est in predicamento, quia est substantia et terminus significat substantiam. Ergo est in predicamento substantie.14 Utrum substantia sit uniuocum ad substantiam creatam et increatam. Dicit quod sic.15 Et similiter ens dicitur uniuoce de substantia et accidente. Contra. Non est eadem ratio entis ‘per se’ et ‘in alio’. 10

Cf. above “ Deus est (…) infinitum.” Cf. above “ Deus existens in genere (…).” 12 Cf. above “ Igitur deus est (…) omnium attributalium perfectionum fecundissimus.” 13 The argument concentrates on the term “God,” and refers to God in the manner of a substance. In this case the specification “substance” does not refer to the thing itself but to the term which refers to the thing. See William of Ockham, Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum. Ordinatio 1.2.4, eds. Stephanus Brown and Gedeon Gál, Opera theologia 2 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1970), p. 132: “(…) potest dici ad intentionem Philosophi et Commentatoris in VII Metaphysicae, in diversis locis, quod frequenter accipiant substantiam pro nomine et termino significante substantiam.” 14 Here the focus is on God himself. In his commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge Ockham mentions several meanings of belonging-to-a-genus. One of these meanings is identical with what Johannes Alen is referring to here. See William of Ockham, Expositio in librum Porphyrii de praedicabilibus 2, ed. Ernestus A. Moody, Opera philosophica 2 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1978), p. 37: “(…) aliquid esse in genere potest intelligi dupliciter: uno modo ut sit aliqua vera res contenta sub illo genere et quam illud genus significat et cuius essentiam illud genus exprimit et declarat (…).” 15 Here Johannes can again rely on Ockham’s arguments. Cf. Ockham, Scriptum 1.2.9, eds. Brown and Gál, p. 306: “(…) dico quod Deo et creaturae est aliquid commune univocum.” 11


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Dicit: ‘Per <se>’ dicit circumstantiam cause formalis. Sic etiam accidens est per se. Si autem dicat circumstantiam cause materialis, sic accidens est in alio.16 Queritur, que est eadem ratio, quare substantia et accidens dicuntur ens. Dicit quod est cognoscibilis17 et potest exprimi. Et substantia est ens et accidens est ens.18 Arguitur.19 Quicquid est in genere est compositum ex genere et differentia, ex actu et potentia. Dicit quod hoc intelligitur de substantiis materialibus et non de immaterialibus. Contra. Angelus est compositus ex genere et differentia. Utrum illa compositio sit in natura angeli uel non. Si sit simplex in natura, que est differentia inter simplicitatem dei et angeli? Dicit quod est simplex angeli natura et similiter deus. Sed deus non est componibilis, sed angelus est componibilis. Item angelus compositus ex substantia et accidente. Deus non. Contra.20 Si angelus est componibilis, ergo est compositus in sua natura ex substantia et accidente, quia componibilis est accidens, que est de natura angeli secundum uos. Dicit quod non est compositio.21

16 It is true for both substance and accident that they are what they are by themselves (per se): namely substance or accident. In this respect, according to Johannes, it is possible to speak of univocity. However, when it is taken into account that accidents exist in something else (in alio), which is not true for substances, then univocity does not obtain. 17 cognoscibilis] the word is written in a fold and is therefore difficult to read. 18 For Johannes, a thing can be determined as a being whenever it can be known or named. 19 Cf. above “ Deus existens in genere (…).” 20 Here the prior vacantialis is trying to reduce Johannes’s argument to a contradiction by contrasting the second statement that by nature an angel is “componibilis” with the first statement that the angel’s nature is “simplex” and thus undivided. 21 Johannes distinguishes between “componibilis” and “compositio.” The fact that angels by their very nature have the ability to be conjoined with other things does not imply that angels themselves are composed of their nature on the one hand and the property of being able to be conjoined with other things on the other.

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Contra. <Sic> non ponit22 <positio respondentis> maiorem simplicitatem in deo quam in angelo nisi per respectum ad extra.23 Arguitur de trinitate.24 ‘Quod ponitur in numeris etc. <est numeratum a numeris distinctis a numerato>.’ Dicit quod quantitas discreta <sc. trium personarum> non est accidens in deo et dicit consequenter quod quantitas discreta non est distincta a re quanta.25 Queritur. Quare albedo distinguitur a re alba et non numerus a re numerata? Dicit quod ideo, quia sic non posset producere duas res, quia semper essent tres res, quia numerus distinctus a rebus.26 Contra. Idem dicitur de albedine, quia sic non posset tantum duos homines albos, quia albedo distinguitur a re alba. Arguitur. Ubicumque est mensura, ibi est distinctio mensure a rebus numeratis. Sed in deo sunt tres et mensurantur trinitate. Ergo illa mensura distinguitur a rebus. Dicit quod nichil superaddit aliquid reale in deo, immo nec in rebus, sed bene aliquid in mente numerantis.27

22

ponit] ponitur ms. The counter-argument makes manifest how Johannes’s position should be understood: the notion that angels are “simplex” by nature implies that angels are undivided, just as God, but in addition they are also dependent on something else, namely an external cause. This latter aspect does not hold true for God. The qualification “per respectum ad extra” here signifies the dependency on the part of the angels. 24 Cf. above “ Due originis processiones (…).” 25 According to Ockham, discrete quantities or discrete numbers are identical with the things quantified or numbered. Thus, Johannes follows Ockham at this point. See William of Ockham, Expositio in librum Praedicamentorum Aristotelis 10, ed. Gedeon Gál, Opera philosophica 2 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1978), pp. 212–15, esp. p. 215: “Ex praedictis satis patet quod non est verum nec intentio Philosophi ponere quantitatem esse aliquam rem absolutam et per se unam et totaliter distinctam ab aliis rebus (…).” See also the reference to Ockham in the following footnote. 26 Johannes’s argument goes as follows: If numbers were different from the things counted, it would be impossible to produce only two things. Then in order to produce two things the number “two” has to be produced as well, which means that three things would have been produced. Ockham uses a similar argument with respect to the Trinity. See William of Ockham, Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum. Ordinatio 1.24.2, eds. Girardus I. Etzkorn and Franciscus E. Kelly, Opera theologica 4 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1979), pp. 96–111, esp. p. 96: “Et ostendo quod numerus non est aliqua res una absoluta per se in genere distincta realiter a rebus numeratis.” 27 Johannes is holding a position here that was expounded by Ockham in a discussion of Thomas Aquinas’s views. See Ockham, Scriptum 1.24.2, eds. Etzkorn and Kelly, pp. 120–21: “Non quod numerus sit aliquod accidens reale inhaerens Deo, sed tantum 23


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Arguitur.28 Per duas processiones non possunt procedere nisi due nature. Sed in deo non procedit nisi una natura <sc. trium personarum>. Ergo non sunt due processiones in deo.29 Arguitur.30 Summum bonum est cui nichil deest boni. Sed sunt multa diuersa bona. Si illa sint in deo, deus erit compositus. Dicit quod omnes perfectiones sint in deo, tantum ratione distincte. Et dicit quod distinctio rationis non est aliud nisi realis diuersitas diuersarum rationum eandem rem significantium. Dicit ‘Ockham’.31

est aliquis conceptus significans quod in Deo sunt Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus (…). Et sic intelligenda est opinio Magistri (sc. Petri Lombardi, MH) quod tales termini numerales non ponunt aliquid in Deo, hoc est, non significant aliquid adveniens Deo sicut accidens advenit suo subiecto (…).” It should be noted that the prior vacantialis, Henry of Cologne—who is countering Johannes’s arguments here—was a Thomist. 28 Cf. above “ Due originis processiones (…).” 29 Here the prior vacantialis is trying to show that the undivided divine nature (una natura) can produce only one and not two different processions (processiones) and hence only one person. The polysemy of the word “procession” is crucial to his argument. According to the specifications of Lateran IV (1215) the concept of procession refers to the process of the Holy Spirit only. See Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, ed. Heinrich Denzinger and Peter Hünermann, 41st edition (Freiburg, 2007), p. 357 (n. 800): “Pater generans, Filius nascens, et Spiritus Sanctus procedens.” Similar statements can be found in the Decretum pro Iacobitis (1442), ibid., p. 460 (n. 1330): “Sacrosancta Romana Ecclesia (…) firmiter credit (…) Patrem ingenitum, Filium ex Patre genitum, Spiritum Sanctum ex Patre et Filio procedentem.” In the works of the theologians, however, the concept is used in a much broader sense referring to both the production of the Son as well as of the Holy Spirit. See for instance Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1.27.3, Opera omnia 4 (Rome, 1888), p. 311: “Unde et praeter processionem verbi, ponitur alia processio in divinis, quae est processio amoris.” In his objection to this, the prior vacantialis contrasts the broad meaning (due orginis processiones) that Johannes is using in the third materia with the narrow one. Johannes’s answer has not come down to us. He could have countered this with one of Ockham’s doctrines, which he will use later on, stating that one single cause can produce different things. See the reference in footnote 52 below. 30 arguitur] huc prior add. in marg. Cf. above “ Deus est summum bonum (…).” 31 In Ockham’s view, the divine attributes are names or concepts that are used by man in order to attribute to God a specific perfection. If the being of these concepts is specified as a conceptual being, the differences between them are conceptual. If the being of these concepts is regarded as real being, the differences between them are real. Cf. Ockham, Scriptum 1.2.2, eds. Brown and Gál, p. 66: “Si conceptus sint tantum entia rationis, tunc illa attributa distinguuntur inter se sola ratione, quia sunt plura entia rationis (…). Si autem conceptus sint aliqua entia realia, sicut aliqui ponunt quod sunt quaedam qualitates mentis, tunc attributa distinguuntur realiter inter se et ab essentia divina (…).” In his Scriptum, Ockham decides in favour of the first position: The attributes are distinct “sola ratione.” In a later work of his, the Quodlibeta septem, however, he takes the position that they are qualities of the human soul and therefore distinct not only by reason but also by reality. See William of Ockham, Quodlibeta

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Contra. Impossibile est, arguit Campis, quod sit diuersitas realis inter rationes tantum unius rei, quia realis relatio non potest fundari nisi in fundamentis realibus. Sed tales non sunt rationes rei. Non soluit.33 (fol. 82r) Arguitur contra hoc quod dicitur quod relatio non distinguatur a suo fundamento.35 septem 3.2, ed. Joseph C. Wey, Opera theologica 9 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1980), pp. 209–10: “(…) nomina diversa distinguuntur ratione quando habent diversas definitiones. Ex quo patet quod sic distingui ratione possunt etiam illa quae distinguuntur realiter, quia nomina diversa distinguuntur realiter et etiam ratione.” And ibid., p. 211: “(…) dico quod attributa divina sive nomina attributalia sunt diversa realiter et similiter ratione.” Johannes’s reference to Ockham refers to the arguments that the Venerabilis Inceptor defends in the Quodlibeta septem. 32 On the third flyleaf of his notebook Servatius Fanckel mentions Conradus de Campis as one of the masters who celebrated their aula magistralis and classifies him as an Albertist: “(…) aula (…) magistri Conradi de Campis, albertiste.” A similar remark is found on fol. 146v: “(…) magister noster Conradus de Campis, albertista.” Further biographical information about him can be found in Götz-Rüdiger Tewes, Die Bursen der Kölner Artisten-Fakultät bis zur Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts, Studien zur Geschichte der Universität zu Köln 13, Cologne 1993, index s.v. “Conradus Vorn de Campis.” 33 According to this remark by Servatius Fanckel, Johannes Alen was not capable of addressing the criticism of Conradus de Campis. But this is highly unlikely given that Johannes had already refuted this objection in the preceding answer to the arguments of the prior vacantialis. There, Johannes had argued that the attributes should be understood as concepts (rationes) in the human mind which refer to the one divine essence (significantes eandem rem). Since all these concepts, being qualities of the human soul, have their foundation in the soul, and since the human soul is something real, the concepts and therefore the attributes are real as well. Consequently they are really distinct from each other (realis diuersitas diuersarum rationum). It seems that Conradus de Campis did not understand this view of Johannes’s, which was based on Ockham, so that the discussion ended in mutual confusion. Servatius Fanckel, who seems to have shared Conradus de Campis’s view, was apparently led by this to the conclusion that Johannes could not defend his position (non soluit). 34 albertiste] Harderwic add. in marg. Gerald of Harderwijck received his degree in the arts under Conradus de Campis, who opposed in the present discussion just before Gerald. On the relationship between the two, see Tewes, Die Bursen der Kölner ArtistenFakultät, pp. 62–63. Gerald, too, was an Albertist. Servatius Fanckel comments on Gerald in his notebook on fol. 24r: “Magister Gerardus Harderwic, albertista. Hunc uidi licenciatum.” 35 It is unclear whether Johannes put forward this view during the preceding discussion about the attributes or even earlier with respect to the Trinity, just as he will do (again) later on. It is certain, however, that he is following in Ockham’s footsteps once more. According to Ockham a relation is identical with its relata. He attributes this position to Aristotle and the Holy Fathers such as Augustine. See Ockham, Expositio


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Arguitur. Quecumque possunt separari etc. <sunt alia et alia et non idem re>. Sic est de relatione et suo fundamento. Arguitur.36 Si relationes sint reales in diuinis: uel erit una, due uel tres. Non una, quia relatio una habet tantum duo extrema et sic erunt due persone. Non due, quia ille requirunt quatuor extrema et sic eunt quatuor persone etc.37 Assumpsit de relatione et de fundamento etc. .38 Negauit iste distinctionem predicamentorum realem.39 Contra. Sunt decem entia realia primo diuersa.40

in librum Praedicamentorum Aristotelis 9, ed. Gál, p. 199: “(…) sequitur, secundum intentionem Aristotelis, quod relatio non est alia res ab absolutis.” And Ockham, Quodlibeta septem 4.28, ed. Wey, p. 444: “(…) certum est quod non repugnat dictis suis (sc. Augustini, MH) nec aliorum Sanctorum dicere quod relatio non sit alia res a fundamento (…).” 36 Cf. above “: “(…) in diuinis plures esse realiter differentes relationes.” 37 Johannes seems to have claimed (in his answer to the foregoing question, which is not recorded by Fanckel, however) that with respect to the thing itself the “relationes reales” are identical with the three persons. The opponent is now trying to show that this could not possibly be the case. The view that there are only three “relationes reales,” because there are only three divine persons, goes back to Ockham. See Ockham, Scriptum 1.11.2, ed. Etzkorn, p. 372: “(…) dico quod personae distinguuntur per relationes disparatas realiter distinctas, nec ex hoc sequitur quod sunt quattuor supposita in divinis, quia non sunt quattuor relationes in divinis realiter distinctae.” 38 Here, Johannes is not talking about the foundation of the person, but about the foundation of the relation (relatio). In his reply to the Thomist Walter of Dordrecht (Wolterus de Dordraco) later on, Johannes will emphasize that the relations are identical with the divine essence: “Quatuor relationes sunt tres res, que sunt persone, sicut tres persone sunt una res, que est essentia.” On the basis of this assumption Gerald of Harderwijck’s argument does not apply. Ockham, too, regards the divine essence as the foundation for the relation. Cf. Ockham, Scriptum 1.12.1, ed. Etzkorn, p. 376: “(…) fundamentum spirationis activa est unicum, puta divina essentia (…).” According to the specifications of Lateran IV, the divine essence is absolutely undivided. See Enchiridion symbolorum, ed. Denzinger and Hünermann, p. 357 (n. 800): “(…) tres quidem personae, sed una essentia, substantia seu natura simplex omnino.” Arguing from this supposition, Johannes is in the position to claim that the relations are not in any way different from their foundation. See also Ockham, Scriptum 1.26.1, eds. Etzkorn and Kelly, p. 153: “(…) potest sustineri quod sunt tres relationes realiter differentes, et tamen quod una essentia sit realiter illae tres relationes (…).” 39 In accordance with the preceding answers Johannes denies that all categories are really distinct. Ockham, too, disputed that there is a real distinction between all categories. Cf. his Expositio in librum Praedicamentorum Aristotelis 10, ed. Gál, p. 229: “(…) dico quod a parte rei praedicamenta non sunt distincta.” 40 According to this argument, real being is principally divided among the ten Aristotelian categories.

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Dicit quod non, quia dicit Aristoteles quod actio sit passio.41 Contra. Ista est immediata: ‘Nulla substantia est quantitas’, ergo sua opposita est falsa immediate.42 Dicit cum reduplicatione.43 Alias est falsa, quia aliqua quantitas est substantia. Contra. Ponit ibi tres propositiones: ‘Nullus homo <est> animal’, ‘Nullum corporeum est incorporeum’, ‘Nulla substantia est quantitas’. Sed ista est uera immediata: ‘Nullum corporeum est incorporeum’. Ergo et alia. Non soluit. Assumpsit aliud, quia dixit eum negare omnia fundamenta Aristotelis.44 Relatio presupponit personam. Ergo non constituit personam, quia paternitas sequitur generare, generare presupponit suppositum. Ergo relatio non constituit. 41 See Aristotle, Physics 3.3, 202b20–21; and Les Auctoritates Aristotelis, ed. Hamesse, p. 148 (2, 101): “Actio et passio sunt unus motus et in passo sicut in subjecto.” 42 An immediate proposition is a proposition which cannot be inferred from any other proposition. See Aristotle, Posterior Analytics 1.2, 72a8. As is clear from Ockham’s Summa logicae, some contemporaries believed that the proposition “Nulla substantia est quantitas” was used by Aristotle as an example of an immediate proposition. Ockham rejects this interpretation. See his Summa logicae 3–3.9, eds. Philotheus Boehner, Gedeon Gál and Stephanus Brown, Opera philosophica 1 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1974), p. 630: “Et si dicatur quod secundum Philosophum, I Posteriorum, haec est immediata ‘nulla substantia est quantitas’ (…) dicendum quod Aristoteles falso allegatur in illo passu, quia non facit ibidem mentionem nec de substantia nec de quantitate (…).” The remark a few lines down that Johannes denied Aristotle’s premises (dixit eum negare omnia fundamenta Aristotelis) indicates that Gerald of Harderwijck was among the followers of those who considered this proposition to be one of Aristotle’s examples. 43 In a reduplicative proposition (propositio reduplicativa) the subject is linked with a further specification in addition to the predicate. For instance: “Human beings insofar as they are human beings are endowed with sense organs.” The proposition “Nulla substantia est quantitas” inferred by the opponent can be reformulated as a reduplicative in the following way: “Nulla substantia inquantum substantia est quantitas.” Ockham discusses the reduplicative proposition in his Summa logicae 2.16, eds. Boehner, Gál and Brown, pp. 289–96. 44 Since Johannes (along with Ockham) argues in favour of a different interpretation of Aristotle the Albertist Gerald of Harderwijck seems to have interpreted Johannes’s explanation in such a way that it must have seemed to him as if Johannes denied the foundations of Aristotelian philosophy, whereas Johannes only rejected those doctrines which Gerald himself regarded as foundational. Just as in the discussion with the Albertist Conradus de Campis the debate resulted in a principal confusion, which led Fanckel to the conclusion that Johannes could not respond to his opponent. 45 Cf. above “ Igitur proprietates relatiue personas constituentes (…).” As can be seen from the third materia, those relations that are really distinct (relationes realiter differentes) constitute, according to Johannes, the real difference (realis distinctio) between the three divine persons. Ockham held a similar view on this matter.


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Dicit quod relatio secundum ‘esse in’ in ordine ad ‘esse ad’ constituit personas.46 Qua relatione constituitur persona patris? Dicit paternitate et generatione. Contra. Illa presupponit suppositum constitutum. Non soluit. Arguitur.48 Per nullam causam uel rationem cogimur ponere rationes uel perfectiones attributales. Non ratione causalitatis, quia ad hoc sufficit ratio ydealis. Non formaliter. Item non eminentie, quia potest causare calorem sol, non tamen est formaliter calidus. Bonum argumentum non bene retineri. Uide Durandum.49 Item. Quomodo distinguantur ratione? Arguit Durandus fortiter de illa distinctione .50 Cf. Ockham, Scriptum 1.12.1, ed. Etzkorn, p. 376: “(…) quaelibet relatio divina quae a qualibet relatione divina realiter distinguitur, constituit suppositum distinctum.” 46 As can be seen from the reply to the next question, in the case of the Father the “esse in” of the relation refers to the “paternitas” whereas the “esse ad” to the “generatio filii.” By analogy, in the case of the Son the “esse in” would refer to the “filiatio” and the “esse ad” to the “genitum ex patre.” 47 thomiste] Susteren add. in marg. Fanckel provides the following piece of information about Theodor of Susteren on fol. 24r of his notebook: “Frater Theodericus Susteren, ordinis fratrum Predicatorum, thomista. Huius uidi licentias et doctoratum 1484.” Further information about him can be found in Löhr, Die theologischen Disputationen, p. 25 (footnote 8). 48 Cf. above “ Igitur deus est (…) omnium attributalium perfectionum fecundissimus.” 49 With the remark “a good argument that has not been held back well” Johannes implies that the argumentation used by the Thomist Theodor of Susteren fits exactly what he himself wants to show and is therefore to his own advantage. But since his opponents were obviously determined to give him a hard time it would have been better if Theodor had not come up with this argument because he, Johannes, could now defend himself with Durandus. Durandus discussed the doctrine of the divine attributes at the beginning of his commentary on the Sentences. See Durandus de S. Pourçain, In Sententias commentariorum libri IIII, 1.2.2 (Venice, 1571; repr. Ridgewood, New Jersey, 1964), fol. 17rb–19vb. 50 Durandus criticised the view that the divine attributes could be distinguished without reference to creation. According to him, the differences between the attributes are grounded in factual differences between created perfections, which then are predicated by man of the one and undivided God. Consequently, for Durandus the divine attributes are rationally distinguished by the human mind (ratione distincta) having at the same time a real foundation in creation (fundamentum in re creata). See Durandus, ibid., fol. 18vb: “Alia est opinio, quae mihi videtur verior, scilicet quod distinctio attributorum secundum rationem non potest sumi nisi per comparationem ad aliquam realem diversitatem actu existentem in creaturis, vel possibilem. Quod probatur

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Arguitur.51 Si processiones distinguantur: uel ex parte principiorum uel terminorum. Non principiorum, quia illa est diuina essentia et intellectus uel uoluntas, que distinguuntur ratione. Non ex parte terminorum, quia illi sunt posteriores processionibus. Dicit quod distinctio est sumenda ex actionibus intellectus et uoluntatis cum respectu ad terminum processionum.52 Contra. Nichil idem est sui distinctiuum. Sed actus intellectus et uoluntatis est processio. Dicit quod distinguuntur seipsis et una <processio, sc. actus uoluntatis> presupponit aliam <sc. actus intellectus>.53

primo sic. Differentia rationis, nisi sit falsa et vana, licet sit completive ab intellectu, oportet tamen quod habeat fundamentum in re. Sed differentia attributorum secundum rationem non potest habere sufficiens fundamentum in natura divina absolute accepta, nisi comparetur ad realem diversitatem quae in creaturis est vel esse potest. Ergo differentia attributorum secundum rationem non potest vere sumi nisi per comparationem ad creaturas.” 51 Cf. above “ Due originis processiones (…).” 52 Johannes’s claim here that the difference between the processions is based on the activities of the divine intellect and will (insofar as these activities are related to the persons) does not imply that for him intellect and will are distinct principles prior to the processions. Later on in the discussion with Theodor of Susteren, he emphasises that both processions (plures emanationes) can be produced by the one divine essence (ab uno principio). Thereby, Johannes again takes a position which can be traced back to Ockham. Ockham, too, believed that the difference between the processions need not to be explained by separate principles, which are prior to the processions. Instead, it is the essence itself that can produce different processions. See Ockham, Scriptum 1.2.1, eds. Brown and Gál, pp. 35–36: “(…) non oportet propter istam diversitatem ponere talem distinctionem inter principia elicitiva, quia (…) idem totaliter indistinctum re et ratione potest esse principium naturale respectu unius et principium liberum respectu alterius (…).” Nevertheless, it is possible, according to Ockham, to link these processions with the divine intellect and will, insofar as the intellect and the will refer to the divine essence in different ways. See ibid., p. 35: “(…) metaphorice loquendo et large potest aliquo modo concedi quod una persona producitur per modum naturae sive intellectus, et alia per modum voluntatis sive libertatis. Et hoc sic intelligendo quod intellectus et voluntas uno modo, prout usitantur a Sanctis, connotant actum generandi et actum spirandi, ita quod intellectus dicit ipsam divinam essentiam elicitivam actus generandi, et voluntas dicit ipsam divinam essentiam elicitivam actus spirandi.” 53 If the two processions are produced by the one undivided divine essence, then the difference between the two can only be expressed by saying that one of them is referred to as intellect and the other one as will. As has been shown by his reference to Durandus, Johannes postulates that the difference between the divine attributes does not lie in God, but in the human mind, which makes statements about God on the basis of differences within creation. In accordance with this, the priority of the intellect before the will indicated here has to be regarded as a purely conceptual priority. Similar ideas can be found in Ockham, Scriptum 1.2.1, eds. Brown and Gál, p. 34: “Ultra dico quod non est talis ordo, ita quod unum realiter sit propinquius essentiae quam aliud; unum tamen potest nobis esse prius notum praedicari de Deo vel de pronomine demonstrante Deum quam aliud; et ad hoc sufficit distinctio talis conceptuum.”


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Contra. Non potest dici: Quia sunt origines, ergo [non] distinguantur per seipsas. Item. Non est distinctio ex parte principiorum, quia principia distinguuntur tantum ratione. Dicit quod ab uno principio possunt procedere plures emanationes.54 Item. Non ex parte terminorum, quia termini non differunt specie. Ergo processiones non distinguuntur specie. Hoc enim uidetur derogare simplicitati nature. Arguitur.56 Ubi est reperire aliquid et aliquid, non est simpliciter simplex. Sed sic est in personis.57 Ergo. Dicit quod quando reperitur aliquid et aliquid absolutum et absolutum, est compositum. Sed non quando est absolutum et respectiuum. Et hoc respectiuum secundum ‘esse in’ in respectu ad ‘esse ad’ constituit unionem.58 Contra. ‘Esse ad’ presupponit personam constitutam. Ergo non constituit, quia relatio presupponit terminum. Dicit quod plura hic oportet dicere que intellectus non capit.59 54

This claim goes back to the Venerabilis Inceptor as well. Cf. Ockham, Scriptum 1.2.1, eds. Brown and Gál, p. 34: “(…) dico quod distinctio emanationum divinarum non praesupponit distinctionem principiorum elicitivorum, nec ex natura rei, nec distinctionem rationis; sed sicut videmus in creaturis quod idem principium totaliter est principium elicitivum diversorum, ita est in divinis.” 55 albertiste] Baccalarius Pastor add. in marg. He is identical with the Godfrey of Groningen, mentioned several times by Fanckel and identified by him as pastor and bachelor of theology. See for instance the beginning of the first disputatio vacantialis of the preceding year (1479), in Fanckel’s notebook on fol. 63v: “Questio prima disputata in uacantiis Colonie altera uisitationis uirginis gloriose anno domini 1479 per uenerandum uirum in artibus magistrum sacre theologie baccalarium pastorem Groningensem (…).” In the list of bachelors drawn up by Fanckel on ibid., fol. 24r Godfrey of Groningen is called “albertista.” There Fanckel refers also to the mentioned disputatio vacantialis of the year 1479. See ibid., fol. 24r: “Magister Godefridus de Groningen pastor ibidem in una ecclesiarum. Sub eo respondi in uacantiis anno 1479. Albertista.” 56 Cf. above “ Igitur deus est simplicissimus (…).” 57 Here, the opponent asks whether the difference between essence and person endangers the absolute unity of God. 58 Johannes considers the divine essence as something absolute (absolutum), that is, as something that exists by itself. The persons on the other hand are regarded as relative beings (respectiva), since they are constituted by the relations of being in (esse in) and being related to (esse ad). 59 Ockham, too, had emphasised on several occasions that the Trinity as taught by faith cannot be argued for by natural reason. Cf. Ockham, Scriptum 1.9.1, ed.

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Arguitur.61 Processiones iste non distinguuntur, quia nec ex parte principiorum, nec terminorum. Dicit ex utroque.62 Contra. Sicut intellectus necessitatur a uero, sic uoluntas a summo bono. Sicut ergo generatio filii est necessaria,63 sic etiam spiratio spiritus sancti erit necessaria.64 Dicit: non est necessaria necessitate coactionis, sed immutabilitatis. Arguitur.66 In diuinis sunt quatuor reales relationes subsistentes. Ergo quatuor persone, quia persona non est aliud nisi relatio subsistens diuina. Dicit quod relatio ut relatio non distinguit nec constituit, sed ut proprietas.67 Contra. Relatio habet duo, scilicet ‘esse in’, et secundum illud <sc. ‘esse in’> transit in diuinam naturam et ergo secundum ‘esse ad’ constituit etc.

Etzkorn, p. 275: “(…) per nullam rationem naturalem potest probari esse plures personas in divinis.” Also ibid. 1.10.1, p. 328: “(…) sola fide tenetur quod tantum sunt duae personae productae et una non-producta, et ideo trinitas personarum sola fide tenetur.” 60 Anthonii] Anthonius add. in marg. He is identical with “Anthonius, pastor (…) sancti Pauli” mentioned among the bachelors by Fanckel in his notebook on fol. 25r. 61 Cf. above “ Due originis processiones (…).” 62 The remark “ex utroque” can be understood more fully in the light of a statement made by Johannes in the discussion with Theodor of Susteren, where he emphasised that the processions are both characterised by a twofold relation that distinguishes one from the other: “distinctio est sumenda ex actionibus intellectus et uoluntatis cum respectu ad terminum processionum.” 63 necessaria] naturalis ms. 64 necessaria] naturalis ms. 65 thomiste] Wolterus add. in marg. He is to be identified with “Wolterus de Dordraco, thomista” whom Fanckel lists as one of the bachelors in his notebook on fol. 24r. He should not to be confused with Wolterus Hinrici de Dordraco who matriculated at the University of Cologne in 1504. For further details about the latter, see Tewes, Die Bursen, p. 91. 66 Cf. above “ (…) in diuinis est trium personarum realis distinctio.” 67 The properties (proprietates) of the divine persons also concern those characteristics which are not relative. Therefore the properties of the Father include not only “paternitas” and “communis spiratio,” which express his relation to the Son and the Holy Spirit, but also “ingenitum.”


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Dicit secundum utrumque.68 Arguitur.69 Quatuor sunt relationes in diuinis. Ergo quatuor persone. Dicit negando consequentiam, quia non tenet in diuinis.70 Contra. Multiplicato inferiori oportet superiora multiplicari. Dicit. Quatuor relationes sunt tres res, que sunt persone, sicut tres persone sunt una res, que est essentia. Non enim ille quatuor relationes habent oppositionem.71 Arguitur. De quibuscumque uerificantur contradictoria, realiter distinguuntur aut formaliter. Sed de essentia diuina et persona uerificantur contradictoria. Ergo. Maior probatur, quam admisit. Minor probatur, quia essentia communicatur, persona non communicatur etc. Dicit quod illa non sunt realia contradictoria, quia contradictio est inter rem et rem, qualia non sunt ‘communicari’ et ‘non communicari’.73 68 According to Johannes, the person is constituted by both aspects of the relation (esse in and esse ad) as he had already emphasised in the discussion with Gerald of Harderwijck and Godfrey of Groningen. 69 Cf. above “ (…) in diuinis est trium personarum realis distinctio.” 70 Here, Johannes is following the tradition according to which “spiratio activa” is regarded as a relation of its own. Since, however, “spiratio activa” is in reality not distinct from “paternitas” or “filiatio,” it is not endowed with its own person, in contrast to the other relations. 71 The relations are factually identical with the divine persons and the divine essence. But since the divine essence is undivided, the relations as such do not make up a real opposition. Hence the relations differ from one another only through themselves and through the fact that they constitute the divine persons as three real persons. Here, Johannes defends, against his Thomistic opponent, a doctrine which Ockham had already expounded in his criticism of Thomas Aquinas. Cf. Ockham, Scriptum 1.11.2, ed. Etzkorn, pp. 362–67, esp. p. 366. 72 Augustinensis] Augustinensis add. in marg. The opponent in question here seems to be an unknown Augustinian bachelor, who had already participated as an opponent in the preceding disputatio vacantialis. See Fanckel’s notebook on fol. 81r (in marg.): “quidam baccalarius formatus ordinis Augustiniensis alterius uniuersitatis.” He also appears in the following disputatio vacantialis of the same year. See ibid., fol. 82v: “Contra. Dicit Augustinensis quod (…).” 73 The term “communicari” refers to the divine essence, which, being undivided, is communicated to the three persons. The term “non communicari” denotes those characteristics through which the persons are distinguished from one another. This terminology reflects the specifications of Lateran IV. See Enchiridion symbolorum, eds. Denzinger and Hünermann, p. 357 (n. 800): “Haec sancta Trinitas, secundum communem essentiam individua, et secundum personales proprietates discreta.” Each divine person is completely identical with the one divine essence. This is why the two expressions, “communicari” and “non communicari,” cannot represent different things (res et res), as Johannes tries to show.

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Item potest negari maior, quia distinctio rationis sufficit fundare contradictionem.74 Contra. Actus essentialis non conuenit essentie nisi mediante persona. Ergo nec actus notionalis conuenit essentie. Dicit. Uerum est ratione essentie. Sed bene ratione persone. Unde. Argui ego quod spiritus sanctus adhuc distinguitur a patre, si non procedet76 ab eo77.78

74 Johannes seems to regard the concepts of “communicari” et “non communicari” as names that, according to Ockham’s teachings, are rationally distinct when their meaning differs (see footnote 31 above). 75 Fanckel calls himself a Thomist on fol. 26v of his notebook: “Frater Seruatius Fanckel, ordinis Predicatorum, thomista, collector huius libelli.” 76 procedet] distinguitur ms. 77 argui … eo] in marg. 78 Servatius Fanckel’s question (which is strangely enough noted in the margin) recalls the famous debate regarding whether the Holy Spirit would differ from the Son if the former would not proceed from the latter. A negative answer was given by Thomas, who was criticised by Ockham in this matter. Cf. Ockham, Scriptum 1.11.2, ed. Etzkorn, pp. 362–72. Fanckel speaks of the Father instead of the Son, but, the problem remains the same, namely what causes the distinction between the divine persons. Already at the end of the thirteenth century, this issue divided the minds of the theologians. See Antoine Dondaine, “Un catalogue de dissensions doctrinales entre les Maîtres Parisiens de la fin du XIIIe siècle,” RTAM 10 (1938), pp. 374–94, esp. 388–89: “Utrum Filius distingueretur a Spiritu Sancto si non procederet ab ipso? Dicunt Minores et Henricus quod sic. (…) Sed Thomas tenet contrarium.” It is unclear why Fanckel, who considers himself as a Thomist, defends Ockham’s position (since this would most certainly have been Johannes’s position as well). Did he attempt to trick Johannes into affirming this thesis, hoping that Johannes would subsequently be critiqued by his opponents?

COGNITIVE THEORY AND THE RELATION BETWEEN THE SCHOLASTIC AND MYSTICAL MODES OF THEOLOGY: WHY DENYS THE CARTHUSIAN OUTLAWED DURANDUS OF SAINT-POURÇAIN Kent Emery, Jr. Denys the Carthusian (1402–1471), the most prolific writer of the Middle Ages, spent nearly all of his life in a provincial Charterhouse in Roermond, where he composed his huge corpus of writings.1 When he first sought entrance among the Carthusians he was too young, and so the Prior sent him to study at the University of Cologne, where he achieved the degree of Master of Arts in 1423 or 1424 (he incepted under the Master Guillelmus de Breda, with whom many years later he engaged in a bitter dispute over simony). By his own testimony, at Cologne Denys studied in the via Thomae, in what later was called the Bursa Montana. He may still have been in Cologne when Heymericus de Campo arrived there and established the via Alberti (later the Bursa Laurentiana), whose proponents (following Heymericus) opposed the doctrine of Albert the Great to that of Thomas Aquinas on crucial metaphysical and noetic questions. In matters of scholastic theology, Thomas remained Denys’s Doctor ordinarius throughout his career, but already in the 1430s Denys had come to oppose some of Thomas’s most salient teachings (for example, on the distinction between esse et essentia, the need to revert to phantasms in every act of cognition, the cognition of separate substances), adopting arguments against Thomas similar to those of the Albertists at Cologne, with whom he evidently corresponded. At Cologne, Denys did not, properly speaking, study theology, and he entered the Charterhouse at Roermond as soon as he had achieved his degree in the arts. But it was a peculiar feature of the 1 For Denys’s writings in their manuscript transmission, see Kent Emery, Jr., Dionysii Cartusiensis Opera selecta: Prolegomena. Bibliotheca manuscripta 1A-1B: Studia bibliographica, 2 vols., CCCM 121–121a (Turnhout, 1991; henceforward cited as BM 1A or 1B). I shall cite Denys’s writings from the modern printed edition: Doctoris ecstatici D. Dionysii Cartusiani Opera omnia, cura et labore monachorum sacri ordinis Cartusiensis, 42 in 44 vols. (Montreuil-sur-Mer-Tournai-Parkminster 1896–1935; henceforward cited as Op. om.).

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secular masters who taught in the viae antiquae at Cologne that they professedly taught philosophy via the theological Summae and commentaries of Thomas, Albert and other thirteenth-century theologians. The “modern” doctors, or nominales, who had prevailed at Cologne as at other German universities before the arrival of the Thomists and Albertists, protested strenuously against this novel practice, but to no avail. They pointed out further that by engaging young students in the thought of Albert and Thomas the “ancient” Masters would entangle them necessarily in the thought of such infidels as Avicenna and Averroes, and thereby would endanger their faith.2 The thought of Denys himself, who recently has been called a “Christian Averroist,”3 proves that the old-fashioned fourteenth-century doctors or “moderns” were justified in their pious concerns. By a delightful “cunning of reason,” the highly metaphysical and “realistic” style of thinking that supposedly had been put to rest by the Condemnation of 1277 and by the “terminist” turn in the fourteenth century roared back with a vengeance at Cologne and elsewhere in the fifteenth century. As befits a Carthusian monk, Denys’s goal was contemplation of God insofar as that is achievable in this life. According to Denys, all study and intellectual activity is ordered and reduced to contemplation or theologia mystica. Accordingly, for him the leading authority in theology was not some scholastic doctor but Dionysius the Areopagite, or “theologicissimus Dionysius… Princeps theologorum quoque philosophus magnus.” One should note that Denys was the only medieval 2 For Denys’s education at Cologne and the cross-currents of thought during his time there, see P. Teeuwen, Dionysius de Karthuizer en de philosophisch-theologische stroomingen aan de keulsche universiteit, Historische Bibliotheek van Godsdienstwetenschappen (Brussels, 1938); Kent Emery, Jr., “Sapientissimus Aristoteles and Theologicissimus Dionysius: The Reading of Aristotle and the Understanding of Nature in Denys the Carthusian,” in Mensch und Natur im Mittelalter, eds. Andreas Speer and Albert Zimmermann, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 21.2 (Berlin, 1992), pp. 572–606, esp 573–76; repr. in idem, Monastic, Scholastic and Mystical Theologies from the Later Middle Ages (Aldershot, 1996; henceforward cited as MSMT), no. VII; and BM 1A, pp. 15–18. My fullest analysis of Denys’s life, his education at the University of Cologne, and treatment of his criticism of some doctrines of Thomas Aquinas in his earliest writings, is now Kent Emery, Jr., “Denys the Carthusian: The World of Thought Comes to Roermond,” in Carthusian Worlds: Contemporary Approaches to the Carthusians and their Heritage, eds. P.J.A. Nissen and Krijn Pansters, Medieval Church Studies (Turnhout, forthcoming). 3 Alessandro Palazzo, “La fortuna di Averroè presso Dionigi il Certosino,” in the Actes du XIV e Symposium de la Société Internationale de la Philosophie Médiévale, Genève, 4–6 octobre 2006, eds. Alain de Libera and Joël Lonfat, Rencontres de philosophie médiévale (Turnhout, forthcoming).

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Latin thinker besides Albert the Great to comment on every writing in the Dionysian corpus.4 The teachings of Dionysius served Denys as a standard whereby to measure and evaluate the authenticity of any scholastic doctrine. Adapting the schematic trope of the “modes of theology,” which derived originally from the Dionysian writings (symbolic, intelligible or scholastic, and mystical theologies) and which had a long career in the later Middle Ages that has not been studied adequately, Denys ordered all intellectual activity and his own writings according to a threefold order of wisdom: a natural wisdom naturally acquired, or philosophy; a supernatural wisdom naturally acquired, or scholastic theology; a supernatural wisdom supernaturally bestowed, identical with the highest degree of the supernatural gift of wisdom, or mystical theology.5 As this schema implies, Denys sought hierarchically to reconcile philosophical speculation and scholastic theology with mystical theology. The continuity of these modes of theology is sealed by Denys’s highly intellectual interpretation of Dionysius’s theologia mystica and mystical union of the mind with God. Denys’s stringently “intellectualist” interpretation of mystical theology and contemplation justified his enormous reading among the pagan and infidel philosophers and the scholastic theologians but it ran athwart the institutional and religious culture wherein he lived as a monk, which was pervaded by the piety of the Devotio moderna (which Denys 4 Kent Emery, Jr., “A Complete Reception of the Latin Corpus Dionysiacum: The Commentaries of Denys the Carthusian,” in Die Dionysius-Rezeption im Mittelalter. Internationales Kolloquium vom 8. bis 11. April 1999 (S.I.E.P.M.), eds. Tzotcho Boiardjiev, Georgi Kapriev and Andreas Speer, Rencontres de philosophie médiévale 9 (Turnhout, 2000), pp. 197–247; idem, “Denys the Carthusian, Interpreter of Dionysius the Areopagite,” in Le Pseudo-Denys à la Renaissance, eds. Stéphane Toussaint and Christian Trottmann, Le savoir de Mantice (Paris, forthcoming). 5 I have discussed Denys’s threefold order of wisdom in many essays: Kent Emery, Jr., “Twofold Wisdom and Contemplation in Denys of Ryckel (Dionysius Cartusiensis, 1402–1471),” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 18 (1988), 99–134; repr. in K. Emery, MSMT, no. VI); idem, “Denys the Carthusian and the Doxography of Scholastic Theology,” in Ad litteram: Authoritative Texts and their Medieval Readers, ed. Mark D. Jordan and Kent Emery, Jr., (Notre Dame, 1992), pp. 327–59, here 328–30; repr. in K. Emery, MSMT, no. IX; idem, “The Image of God Deep in the Mind: The Continuity of Human Cognition according to Henry of Ghent,” in Nach der Verurteilung von 1277: Philosophie und Theologie an der Universität von Paris in letzen Viertel des 13. Jahrhunderts. Studien und Texte, eds. Jan A. Aertsen, Kent Emery, Jr. and Andreas Speer, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 28 (Berlin, 2000), pp. 59–124, here 92–95; idem, “Denys the Carthusian on the Cognition of Divine Attributes and the Principal Name of God: A propos the Unity of a Philosophical Experience,” in Die Logik des Transzendentalen. Festschrift für Jan A. Aertsen zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Martin Pickavé, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 30 (Berlin, 2003), pp. 454–83.

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himself promoted—in its place) and which indulged a purely affective understanding of mystical theology that rendered it radically disjunctive with the scholastic theology of the schools. Not surprisingly, Denys was at least twice disciplined by his superiors for his “curiosity” and inappropriate intellectual interests.6 Remarkably, Denys wrote massive commentaries on the Sentences, treating the full complement of questions in each Book and thereby reversing the trend of commentaries on the Sentences that pertained in the universities in the fourteenth century.7 Denys’s commentaries, however, were not written to fulfill any academic requirement but were a private enterprise in which he was occupied throughout his life. First of all, these commentaries served Denys as a storehouse of materials, which he recycled throughout his other writings;8 intrinsically, they were intended to lay a foundation in the realm of discursive rationality for the higher intellectual cognitions of mystical theology. For that reason, as we shall see, Denys scrutinized the opinions of the scholastic doctors with an eye to their potency (or inertness) in respect of mystical contemplation. On each question of the Sentences, Denys disposes, abbreviates or recites verbatim the resolutions of a wide-array of thirteenth-century doctors, from William of Auxerre to the great masters reigning at the end of the century. Like the followers of the via antiqua in general and the via Alberti in particular, on principle Denys excluded from consideration the reasonings of nominales of the fourteenth century. “One cannot dispute with those with whom one disagrees on first principles.” Echoing a trope of the Parisian originator of the Albertist school, Johannes de Nova Domo, Denys observes that the nominales cannot get beyond terms and concepts to realities outside the mind, and for that reason “they are philosophers in name only.” Moreover, “Science is about universals,” as Aristotle says; those who deny the reality of universals and argue that they are merely artifacts of human ratiocination cannot make any claims to actual knowledge

6 For Denys’s disputes with his Prior and censure by the Carthusian General Chapter, see Kent Emery, Jr., “Denys the Carthusian: The World of Thought Comes to Roermond,” forthcoming. 7 In general, fourteenth-century masters who commented on the Sentences treated selected questions extensively, but did not comment on the full range of questions in all four Books. 8 BM 1A, 25–26; K. Emery, “Denys the Carthusian and the Doxography of Scholastic Theology,” p. 331 and passim.

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(that is, according to Denys’s Peripatetic and Platonic criteria for knowledge). There are occasional exceptions to Denys’s general rule. When, for example, he finds it necessary to align everything he can find against the formal distinction of Duns Scotus, Denys adduces the arguments of several nominales, including Ockham and Gregory of Rimini, which he rummaged from Peter of Candia’s encyclopedia of fourteenth-century theology.9 On each question, Denys strives to discover a consensus among the doctors that underlies their surface differences. At the outer edge, both chronologically and intellectually, of Denys’s array of scholastic doctors are John Duns Scotus and Durandus of Saint-Pourçain, who typically serve as dialectical foils to the consensus of the other thirteenth-century doctors and to Denys’s own solutions. Scotus was included by Denys because at Cologne and elsewhere he was counted, rightly, among the reales (or followers of the via realium).10 Denys’s inclusion of Durandus is more problematic; I surmise that he chose to recite Durandus’s opinions on the authority of Jean Gerson, who listed Durandus, along with Alexander of Hales, Albert, Bonaventure, Thomas and Henry of Ghent, among the “more pure and solid” doctors.11 One should note that Durandus shares the same ontology with William of Ockham and the other nominales whom Denys otherwise rejected: only singulars exist outside the mind. Whereas Ockham developed a spectacular and novel conceptual logic, which, we can see in retrospect, follows ineluctably from that ontology, Durandus did not, and his arguments are cast in more conventional (vis-à-vis the thirteenth century) logical terms. Moreover, both Durandus and the nominales share a fundamental noetic principle, once thought novel, with none other than Thomas Aquinas: the necessary recourse to 9 See K. Emery, “Denys the Carthusian and the Doxography of Scholastic Theology,” pp. 334–36, 346–47. Concerning the criticisms of Johannes de Nova Domo (Jan van Nieuwenhuyze) and the Albertists against fourteenth-century nominales, and the criticisms of Jean Gerson against the terministae, both of which influenced Denys, see Zenon Kałuża, Les querelles doctrinales à Paris: Nominalistes et réalistes aux confins du XIV eet du XV e siècles, Quodlibet 2 (Bergamo, 1988), pp. 13–86, 92–120; see also Teeuwen, Dionysius de Kathuizer, pp. 60–99. 10 Teeuwen, Dionysius de Karthuizer, pp. 49–56. 11 Jean Gerson, “Aux Messieurs de Navarre, Bruges, 29 avril 1400,” in Oeuvres Complètes, ed. Palémon Glorieux, 10 vols. (Paris, 1960), 2:30–35, here 2:33. On this letter, see Kałuża, Les querelles, p. 33; see also Daniel Hobbins, Authorship and Publicity Before Print: Jean Gerson and the Transformation of Late Medieval Learning, The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia, 2009), pp. 32–38.

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phantasms in every act of cognition.12 Denys repeatedly and severely criticized Thomas on this doctrine, which not only jeopardizes the key doctrine of the immortality of the separated soul but also disallows any participated cognition of separated substances, the purely intelligible illuminations testified to by the saints, and the unmediated cognitive union with God sine imaginibus in mystical theology, as taught authoritatively by the Princeps theologorum, Dionysius the Areopagite.13 Altogether, Denys’s writings in effect present a “medieval history of medieval theology,” which embraces the “most noble” Platonic and Peripatetic philosophers, the fathers, the contemplative monks, the scholastic doctors of the thirteenth century, the piety of the Devout and the teachings and records of the late-medieval adepts of mystical theology. Although he excludes the “nominalist” theologians of the fourteenth century, he identifies the motivae (underlying assumptions and driving principles) of their historical deviance. By situating Duns Scotus and Durandus at the far outer margin of a long-unfolding theological development (see his Prologue to his Sentential commentaries),14 and remarking their methodological and conceptual novelties in respect of the thirteenth-century scholastic doctors, which cause them sometimes to fall outside the parameters of legitimate theological discourse, Denys locates the precise point in the Parisian tradition, at the turn of the century, when theology, if only for a season, embarked on a “new way” (or “new ways”). In sum, I would argue that Denys provides the most comprehensive exposition of the retrospective analysis of those thinkers in the fifteenth century who bore the name antiqui.

12

For Durandus’s noetic doctrines, his theory of universals and his philosophic doctrines concerning being, see the excellent summary and notes in Etienne Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York, 1955), pp. 473–76, 774– 77 (notes), esp. 475–76. 13 I have treated Denys’s various criticisms of Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of the necessary recourse to phantasms in every act of knowledge in several essays; see, for example, K. Emery, “Twofold Wisdom,” 123; idem, “Sapientissimus Aristoteles and Theologicissimus Dionysius,” pp. 579–90; idem, “Denys the Carthusian and the Doxography of Scholastic Theology,” pp. 347–48; idem, “A Complete Reception of the Corpus Dionysiacum,” pp. 229–31; idem, “Denys the Carthusian: The World of Thought Comes to Roermond,” forthcoming. 14 For the place of Peter Lombard and his scholastic successors in the the thirteenth century within the long tradition of Christian wisdom, see Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. Proœm., in Op. om., 19: 35–37. Significantly, while Denys cites the names of several of his favorite thirteenth-century scholastic doctors, he does not here mention Durandus or Duns Scotus.

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In order to establish the continuity of cognition from philosophical knowledge to the beatific vision, Denys must prove, scholastice, (1) that the theology of wayfarers is a science, more certain than any human science can be; (2) that theology is a speculative not an affective or practical science; (3) that its subject is God himself, the divine essence, as is the case in mystical contemplation and in the beatific vision, and (4) that the virtue of faith is a cognitive virtue, a light to the intellect, an inchoatio visionis, which can be strengthened and increased in this life by further supernatural illuminations. We turn now to three questions wherein Denys dialectically encounters Durandus on these precise issues. ***** Whether sacred doctrine or theology is a science? In general, Denys’s treatment of the first preliminary question to his commentary on the Sentences follows the pattern of his treatment of questions in the commentary proper.15 At the beginning he formulates ten objections against the proposition that theology is a science, far more than customary, and at the end he responds to each one of them. Moreover, in his preliminary questions he recites and comments upon the resolutions of fewer doctors than he customarily does in the questions of the commentary proper. In this question he reports the solutions of Alexander of Hales, Thomas Aquinas, Richard of Middleton (Menneville?),16 Giles of Rome and Duns Scotus, omitting the solutions of other doctors whom he regularly reports (for example, Peter of Tarentaise, Albert the Great, Ulrich of Strassburg, Bonaventure and Henry of Ghent). The greater part of the question is devoted to a recitation of the arguments of Durandus of Saint-Pourçain, and to his own response to Durandus’s arguments. Objections: The objections to the scientific status of theology as posed by Denys revolve around two poles: (1) the failure of sacred

15

Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev. 1, in Op. om., 19:58B-67A’. Sylvain Piron, “Franciscan Ouodlibeta in Southern Studia and at Paris,” in Theological Quodlibeta in the Middle Ages I: The Thirteenth Century, ed. Christopher Schabel, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 1 (Leiden, 2006), pp. 403– 38, here 417, asserts that Richard’s vernacular name “certainly” was Richard de Menneville. 16

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doctrine to meet Aristotelian epistemic criteria of scientific knowledge, i.e., of evidence and demonstrability, and (2) the inadequacy of the primary source of Christian theology, sacred Scripture, as a medium for transcendent wisdom. The first point bespeaks the narrowly contextual, historically contingent foundation of the question, which arose and became poignant in the thirteenth century, when theologians encountered Aristotle’s writings in full. Indeed, by Denys’s time, not least because of its narrow contextualization, the question had lost its urgency for many theologians.17 Even so, formally speaking, the question strikes at the foundation of Christian claims of the superiority of its divine revelation to the attainments of ancient philosophic wisdom in general. This is especially evident in respect of the second pole of objections concerning the inadequacy of the Scriptures as a medium of transcendent wisdom. The objections posed by Denys may be summarized as follows. Theology is a wisdom (as Alexander of Hales argues); but wisdom and science are distinct intellectual habits, as Aristotle teaches in the Sixth Book of the Ethics (ob.1). Moreover, as Aristotle teaches in the Posterior Analytics, science proceeds from first principles or “dignities” that are per se notae, and all science may be reduced to such principles, whereas theology proceeds from the articles of faith, which are not so knowable and for the most part are incomprehensible (obs. 4, 9). Further, according to a commonly accepted maxim, teachings are received in three modes, as opinion or faith or science; sacred doctrine concerns those things that are worthy of belief and therefore falls under the term faith, above opinion but below those things that are knowable and comprehensible, which are the subject of science. Again, the certitude of principles is greater than that of the conclusions that depend on them, but the certitude of the articles of faith is less even than the knowledge of the Scriptures from which they derive, which as Hugh of Saint-Victor says, is the subject of faith, above opinion but below science (obs. 5–6, 8). The criteria of science are likewise invidious in respect of the sacred Scriptures. As Aristotle teaches in the Posterior Analytics and elsewhere, science concerns those realities that are universal, necessary and

17

Concerning the history of this question and the eventual decline of its importance, see the surveys of Jean Leclercq, OSB, “La théologie comme science d’après la littérature quoldlibétique,” RTAM 11 (1939), 351–74; Robert Guelluy, Philosophie et théologie chez Guillaume d’Ockham, (Louvain, 1947), pp. 25–76; Paul Tihon, SJ, Foi et théologie selon Godefroid de Fontaines, (Paris, 1966), pp. 31–49, 95–154.

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cannot be otherwise than they are, not contingent and variable. Sacred Scripture, on the other hand, for the most part treats historical, contingent human affairs and the particular deeds and actions of certain persons, as is evident in Genesis and other books of the Old Testament, as well as in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles (obs. 2–3). Finally, the doctrine contained in the Scriptures is divided into Old and New laws. A law, however, is not a science, but promulgates precepts for practical action (ob. 10).18 One should note that the key arguments articulated in these objections are arguments employed by Durandus of Saint-Pourçain, though neither here nor in his responses to the objections does Denys cite Durandus’s name. Denys will recite Durandus’s arguments concerning theology’s failure to meet the scientific criteria of the Posterior Analytics. In a comment that Denys does not recite, Durandus expresses his understanding of the nature of sacred Scripture, which is fully in accord with his view that theology is essentially no different from the habit of faith and the subject of which is “God as the savior under the reason of his salvific activity on behalf of mankind”: “It is the human, meritorious act that holy Scripture considers primarily and principally,” Durandus says; “from the beginning of Genesis until the end of the Apocalypse, in all of the Bible, it is principally a question of precepts for acting well, of examples furnished by the historical books, of counsels transmitted by the sapiential books, of the rewards promised in the prophetic books, and so it is the same throughout the New Testament.” Elsewhere Durandus remarks that “it would be very astonishing that theology is not practical, for it is evident to whoever considers the Scriptures from beginning to end that for every column of Scripture in which there is some pure object of speculation at question there are fifty more folios that treat purely practical realities.”19 The Scriptures, in

18

Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1, in Op. om., 19:58B-D’. See the important article by Gilles Emery, OP, “Dieu, la foi et la théologie chez Durand de Saint-Pourçain,” Revue thomiste 99 (1999), 650–99, esp. 680–86. Cf. Durandus of St. Pourçain, In Prol. Sent. 5.10 and In Prol. Sent. 6.22, in D. Durandi a Sancto Porciano…in Petri Lombardi Sententias Theologicas Commentariorum libri IIII, 2 vols., (Venice, 1571; repr. Ridgewood, New Jersey, 1964), 1:fols. 9rb, 11vb. Cf. Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev. 2: “An theologia sit scientia speculativa, an potius practica,” in Op. om., 19:67B’-74D’; Durandus at 69D-A’, 72C-D’. Interestingly, on this question Denys adduces Durandus against those who argue that theology is an affective science and does not recite Durandus’s arguments that theology is only a practical science. Here Denys reserves his criticisms for Scotus’s arguments that theology is only practical. 19

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other words, yield almost nothing concerning the divine essence, upon which the blessed will gaze, its operations, or the structure of the universe, but rather present a jumble of moral precepts, examples and sayings which by following man might acquire merit before God. Durandus’s opinion, one should note, is shared exactly by Thomas Jefferson and, it would seem, by many modern biblical critics. Recitations: Although he severely criticized some of Thomas Aquinas’s fundamental metaphysical and noetic doctrines, throughout his career Denys nonetheless regarded Thomas as the leading authority in scholastic theology, repeating often that he was the only scholastic theologian who had ever been canonized. Normally, in each question of the Sentences, Denys expounds Thomas’s solutions in his commentary on the Sentences, in the Summa theologiae, and where apposite, in the Summa contra gentiles. Thus it is noteworthy that in this question he sketches only briefly Thomas’s teaching that the theology of wayfarers is a subalternated science in respect of the science of the Blessed, who know the first principles of sacred doctrine evidently and per se in the light of glory.20 This is so, I think, for “deep reasons” to which I shall allude at the end of my essay. Significantly, Denys reports more extensively Richard of Middleton’s finely pointed presentation of the theory of subalternation, which grounds it in the cognition of God himself, which presumes a theory of divine illumination and which alludes to the possibility of extraordinary cognitions in this life, which generates a definition of theology as a “certain” deductive science, and which sees a natural adumbration of the divine science in the contemplative theologia or philosophia divina of the philosophers. As the science of music assents to principles it receives from arithmetic and the science of perspective to principles it receives from geometry, Richard says, so the theologian assents to principles received from God himself, to whom the principles of theological science are per se nota. As Augustine says (De civitate Dei 2), concerning invisible realities that are remote from our senses, it is necessary for us to believe those things that the Apostles and Prophets learned through the incorporeal light and which the comprehensores now gaze upon immediately. From this it follows not only that theology is a science simpliciter (in itself), but that wayfarers who presuppose

20 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev. 1 in Op. om., 19:59C–D; cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae Ia q.1.

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in faith the principles of this doctrine are able to know with certainty the necessary connection of the conclusions deduced from its principles. It is true that, according to “the common law,” in this life we cannot possess the full reason of this divine science as we can acquire certain knowledge of the first principles of any human science to which another is subalternated. This fact, however, does not derogate the nobility of theology but increases it, by reason of the “altitude” of the matters that it treats, which wholly transcend our natural cognition. For those realities that by nature are the most-knowable, actual, perfect and separated are to us the least knowable, before which our intellects stand as a bat before the light of mid-day, as Aristotle says, and as Avicenna confirms when he says that “our intellects are unable to apprehend the most subtle realities because they exceed our grasp.”21 The terms of Richard’s argument, moreover, enable Denys to bring Duns Scotus into the consensus of the doctors. As Scotus states, scientific cognition is proportionate to its object as it is in itself (secundum se), and thus science may be defined as “a certain cognition of things that are necessary, had by means of knowledge of their cause and the evidence of the object itself, and through application of the cause to its effect.” This principle and this definition yield a threefold distinction pertaining to theology. Simpliciter, as it is in itself, theology is a certain and necessary science in the divine intellect. Likewise, the theology of the Blessed is a science, inasmuch as they receive its first principles from God himself as their efficient cause. Only imperfectly may the theology of wayfarers, who must arrive at its first principles inductively by means of discursive ratiocination, be called a science. There is this fundamental difference between theology in se and as it is apprehended by us: Much of revealed theology concerns contingent realities (for example, the creation of the world and the Incarnation), and no intellect is able to understand contingent realities as necessary unless it errs. Implicitly criticizing Thomas, Scotus remarks that it thus means nothing to say that God understands contingencies as necessary. The distinction between divine and human intellects should be defined otherwise. The necessity required for human science pertains to the object known, not to the habitus of the mind, for what the human mind 21 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1 in Op. om., 19:59D-D’; cf. Richard of Middleton, Super Prol. Sent. 2, in Clarissimi theologi Magistri Ricardi de Mediavilla… Super qvatuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi quaestiones subtillissimae, 4 vols, (Brescia, 1591; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1963), 1:fol. 5ra-b.

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knows today it can forget tomorrow, even if what it knew is a necessary reality. The necessity pertaining to divine science, however, is the necessity that belongs to the divine intellect, not to the object, and it is in that respect that God knows contingencies with certainty. With the help of one of Scotus’s followers who clarifies his Master’s “obscure words,” Denys interprets Scotus’s distinction between theologia in se and theologia in nobis as preserving the scientific character of the latter in a derivative and participatory sense.22 In this question, however, he does not address Scotus’s denial of a special divine illumination of theological verities, which otherwise, in Denys’s mind, would seem to be required for the coherence of the doctrine of subalternation. In later questions, moreover, Denys examines in more detail Scotus’s arguments concerning the way in which theology can be called a science and finds much to criticize.23 Durandus of Saint-Pourçain: The harmony among the doctors that Denys strives to establish is utterly disrupted by the dissonant voice of Durandus of Saint-Pourçain, to whose opinions, as I said, Denys devotes most of his anxious attention in the question. Reporting the third redaction of Durandus’s Sentential commentary,24 Denys first recites his distinctions among “theology” understood as identical with the habit of the virtue of faith; “declarative theology,” or the acquired habit whereby what is contained in the Scriptures is explained by reference to principles more known to us;25 and “deductive theology,” or the 22

Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1, in Op. om., 19:60A-B’; Denys does not name the follower of Scotus who clarifies the master’s distinction between theologia in se and theologia in nobis (60A’-B’). Interestingly, Denys here closely abbreviates Scotus’s Lectura in librum primum Sententiarum Prol. 3.1, in Doctoris subtilis et mariani Ioannis Duns Scoti…Opera omnia, 22 vols., (Vatican City, 1950- ), 16:40–41. Denys knew that there were several different lecturae of Scotus on the Sentences; see Denys the Carthusian, In II Sent. 18.2, in Op. om. 22:181D. 23 See Denys’s sharp criticisms of Scotus in In I Sent. praev.2, in Op. om., 19:71C72C; and In III Sent. 24.unica, in Op. om., 23:425A-428D’. 24 On the multiple redactions of Durandus’s commentaries on the Sentences, see now Thomas Jeschke, Fiorella Retucci, Guy Guldentops and Andreas Speer, “Durandus von St. Pourçain und sein Sentenzenkommentar: Eine kritische Edition der A- und B-Redaktion,” BPM 51 (2009), 113–43. The third redaction (C) of Durandus’s commentary is printed in the Venetian edition of 1571. A searchable, corrected version of Book I of the 1571 edition is now available at: www.thomasinstitut.uni-koeln.de/ forschung/durandus 25 See Stephen F. Brown, “Declarative Theology after Durandus: Its Re-Presentation and Defense by Peter Aureoli,” in Philosophical Debates at Paris in the Early Fourteenth Century, eds. Stephen F. Brown, Thomas Dewender and Theo Kobusch, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 102 (Leiden, 2009), pp. 401–21, esp. 401–12.

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habit whereby certain conclusions are drawn from the articles of faith known to us by means of authority. According to the first definition, in order for theology to be called a “science” one must needs say that faith and science are the same thing, which is a contradiction. According to the second definition, one must needs ask whether one may hold the same thing by faith and by science; this can be so only concerning those things that are evident and demonstrable to human minds, which most of the articles of faith are not. (If, for example, the creation of the world should be known by demonstration, it would no longer be an object of faith.) According to the third definition, one must needs ask whether from the articles of faith one may conclude demonstratively anything that is truly known. This cannot be, for from evident principles demonstrative science deduces true conclusions that cannot be otherwise than they are, and the conclusions of any deduction cannot be more certain or necessary than the principles from which they are drawn. But the articles of faith are only believed on authority, not known, and so all conclusions drawn from them are merely believable.26 Nor can wayfarers be certain that the articles of faith are true because they are revealed or uttered to them by God, who cannot lie or be deceived, according to the principle that the truth of such statements derives from the infallibility of the one who speaks them. But to know that God himself has declared the articles of faith, one would need either to see the divine Word in itself, and then he would be a comprehensor and not a wayfarer, or he would need to hear them in a sound formed in some created substance, as sounds similar to meaningful words (similes vocibus significativis) are formed in the air. Such sounds, however, can be formed by demons, so that it can never be evident to the wayfarer that the articles of faith are uttered by God. And even if it were evident that God had declared the articles of faith in general, it would not be evident that he had proclaimed any one of them in particular.27 Denys’s first response: As they stand in Denys’s report, Durandus’s arguments would seem not only to undermine any theory of theology as a science but the credibility of divine revelation itself as

26

Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1, in Op. om., 19:60B’-61C’; cf. Durandus of St. Pourçain, In Prol. Sent. 2.6–12, 20–25, 38–40, ed. 1571, 1:fols. 2va-b, 3ra-va, 4rb-va. 27 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1, in Op. om., 19:61D-C’. I cannot find this argument of Durandus as recited by Denys in the 1571 edition of Durandus’s commentary.

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communicated in the sacred Scriptures, for all could have been transmitted through the agency of demons, as far as any wayfarer could know! How Durandus prevents this inference, I shall report presently. In his first response, Denys emphasizes the credulity among the faithful that Durandus’s arguments require. We would be light-headed if we should believe things that exceed all reason and are contrary to all sense and experience unless we knew certainly that the true God is the prover, teacher and witness of them all. It is impossible to believe, moreover, that the good God, under threat of eternal damnation, would require such credulity on our part without his showing manifestly and sufficiently to us that he is the author of what must be believed. Moreover, nothing is more certain than that God (who is the truth itself) cannot lie, so that when it is established that it is he who has said something, it is most certain that the teaching is most true).28 The question is, then, the evidence for God’s authorship of the divine revelation to men. To establish that point, Denys resorts at great length to the old patristic argument from miracles that only God could perform, which in respect of divine revelation serve as “arguments” and evidence that authenticate the teaching of Moses and the Prophets, the Apostles and after them the saints, and which they and Christ himself adduce as guarantors of the truths they preach and confess. Denys confirms his own arguments by reference to the Summa de fide et legibus by William of Auvergne, the Summa de virtutibus (by William Peraldus) on the virtue of faith, Thomas’s Summa contra gentiles, and a generous quotation from the De Trinitate of Richard of Saint-Victor.29 Facing more squarely the noetic challenge posed by Durandus are those arguments Denys articulates that pertain to the intrinsic supernatural order of cognition, testified to in the Scriptures and in the tradition of the saints and the teaching of mystical theology. Without seeing the Word of God itself as comprehensores we may yet know most-certainly that the articles of faith come from God by way of divine “illustration, apparition and internal allocution,” known either in the imaginative and intellective powers of the soul together, as the Prophets commonly experienced in the revelations given to them by angels (as “divine Dionysius” attests), or in the intellective power alone 28

Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. q. praev. 1, in Op. om. 19:61C’-D’. Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. q. praev. 1, in Op. om. 19:62C-63C, 63B’-D’; cf. Richard of St. Victor, De Trinitate 1.2, in Richard de Saint-Victor: La Trinité, ed. and trans. Gaston Salet, SJ, Sources chrétiennes 63 (Paris, 1959), pp. 66–68. 29

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without any sensible sound, as were the anagogic illuminations experienced by David (II Kings 23:2,4) and the interior allocutions and illustrations enjoyed in the visions of mystical theology, in rapture and in ecstasy. The holy Prophets (and Apostles) surely knew certainly that they were divinely inspired, and although Satan can transfigure himself into an angel of light, holy men through the gift of discernment of spirits (concerning which Denys wrote a separate treatise) are able to know when a good angel appears and speaks to them, and thus may know when they receive divine revelations from God.30 Denys will amplify these arguments in response to a second part of Durandus’s argument. Finally, in his first response Denys argues that Durandus’s distinctions concerning the meaning of the term “theology,” upon which his whole opinion depends, collapse under scrutiny. First, it is evident that the virtue of faith and the knowledge of the Scriptures are not the same thing but distinct habits, for there are many simple faithful (idiotae) and illiterate who possess the virtue of faith without knowing much of what is contained in the Scriptures. Conversely, there are pagans and infidels such as Porphyry and Avicenna who know the contents of Scripture but who lack the virtue of faith, just as Christians may know what is contained in the Koran (upon which Denys wrote a commentary) without believing a word of it. Secondly, the ability to declare, defend and persuade the faith cannot be separated from knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures. Moreover, the natural knowledge that one brings to bear in expounding the Scriptures cannot be separated neatly from them, for as Jerome says, the Book of Isaias virtually contains all of the truths knowable in philosophy, in physics, ethics and theory; a fortiori this pertains to the Scriptures as a whole. Thirdly, the ability to deduce conclusions from the principles of faith largely “coincides” with the knowledge of Scriptures and the ability to expound them.31 A faith that seeks understanding, in short, is one in all of its aspects.

30

Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1, in Op. om., 19:61D’-63D. Denys’s treatise De discretione spirituum is printed in Op. om., 40:261–319. 31 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1, in Op. om., 19:63D’-64A’. Denys’s commentary and polemic against the Koran, Contra perfidiam Mahometi libri quatuor, written at the request of Nicholas of Cusa, is printed in Op. om., 36:231–442; Denys systematized the matter from his commentary in Dialogus disputationis inter Christianum et Sarracenum de lege Christi et contra perfidiam nequissimi Mahometi, in Op. om., 36:443–500.

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The theological lumen medium: Denys next recites Durandus’s arguments against the notion of a special illumination and evidence of supernatural truths, reserved for some theologians, as taught by Henry of Ghent and his followers.32 There is an opinion, Durandus says, which holds that although the principles of science must be evident and not merely believed, nonetheless theology (based on the articles of faith) is a science. For the articles of faith, from which theology proceeds as from first principles, are truly understood not in the light of faith, because in that light they are only believed, but in a certain intermediate light between the light of faith and the light of glory. Thus, conclusions properly deduced from the articles of faith, which are presupposed, may be known truly. As Augustine says, “He was the true light: the light for believing is one thing, the light for understanding is another thing. The uncreated light illumines man in a twofold light: the light of faith nourishes the little ones or the imperfect as milk; the light of wisdom feeds the more able as solid food.” Those who maintain such a twofold light, Durandus says, prove it in this way. God is much less deficient in providing necessities than is nature. But it is necessary to defend the faith against the errors of heretics and infidels. Therefore God provides for the Church in such a way that there are always those who are able to defend the faith. They cannot do so simply through the light of faith, by which we simply believe; therefore a clearer light is required by wayfarers, by which some are illumined in order to defend the faith. That in such light articles of faith are able to be understood is proved by Isaias: “If you will not believe, you will not understand” (Is 7:9 Sept.). Moreover, they say that evidence is likewise twofold, namely the evidence of vision and the evidence of intelligence. By means of the evidence of vision realities are nakedly and immediately cognized or seen; by means of the evidence of intelligence a thing that is not present is yet apprehended through a distinct (abstract) reason. A rustic who looks directly at the eclipse of the sun has the evidence of vision; an astrologer who knows an eclipse through reasoning but does not look at or see the eclipse has the evidence of intelligence. This latter kind of

32 See Raymond Macken, “L’illumination divine concernant les vérités révélés chez Henri de Gand,” Journal philosophique: Bulletin du Centre de Recherche Saint Thomas d’Aquin 5 (1985), 261–71; Christian Trottmann, Théologie et noétique au XIIIesiècle: A la recherche d’un statut, Etudes de Philosophie Médiévale 78 (Paris, 1999), pp. 177–85; K. Emery, “The Image of God Deep in the Mind,” pp. 112–23.

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evidence, Durandus remarks, they claim does not contradict the virtue of faith.33 Resuming arguments that Godfrey of Fontaines directed against Henry of Ghent,34 Durandus responds that such a light seems to be a fiction, because it would either be infused in all students of theology, and they would thus all be equal in their abilities, or it would only be infused in some. The first is not true, because all do not perceive in themselves such evidence for those things that are believed, and it is irrational to say that it is only infused in some, because all students of theology would be equally disposed to such a light and there would be no reason why they did not receive it. That such a light cannot stand with faith is proved because as they themselves admit, obscurity and lack of evidence are part of the very meaning of the term faith. Thus the socalled evidence of intelligence cannot stand with the virtue of faith.35 Durandus, in other words, does not admit any supernatural illumination of divine realities beyond the simple light of faith shared by all believers; nor does he admit any form of cognitive certitude, quia if not propter quid, concerning the first principles of theology, which would allow, the articles of faith once presupposed, certain deductions to be drawn from them. On the question of certitude in respect of faith, Denys will attack Durandus in another question (In III Sent. d.25 q. unica), about which I shall speak presently. Interestingly, although throughout the rest of his commentary Denys quotes extensively from Henry’s Quodlibeta, at this point he does not seem to know or does not see the need to identify the author of the doctrine which Durandus opposes. Nor does Denys need to refer to Henry in order to defend the reality of a special illumination of theological verities. It is common doctrine among the saints and scholastic

33 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1, in Op. om., 19:64A’-65A; cf. Durandus of St. Pourçain, In Prol. Sent. 2, ed. 1571, 1:fols. 5va–6vb. For Henry of Ghent’s teaching, which Durandus attacks, see especially Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet XII 2 in Henrici de Gandavo Opera omnia, ed. J. Decorte (Leuven, 1987), 16:14–27; idem, Summa 13.2–7, in Summae quaestionum ordinarium theologi…Henrici a Gandavo 1, ed. I. Badio Ascensio (Paris, 1520; repr. St. Bonaventure, New York, 1953), fols. 91r–97v. 34 See Stephen F. Brown, “The Medieval Background to the Abstractive vs. Intuitive Cognition Distinction,” in Geistesleben im 13. Jahrhundert, eds. Jan A. Aertsen and Andreas Speer, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 27 (Berlin, 2000), pp. 79–90. Cf. Godfrey of Fontaines, Quodlibet VIII 7, in Le huitième Quodlibet de Godefroid de Fontaines, ed. Jean Hoffmans, Les Philosophes Belges 4.1 (Louvain, 1924), pp. 69–82. 35 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1, in Op. om., 19:65A-C.

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doctors, Denys points out, that all those who stand in sanctifying grace and charity also share in some degree in the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Among those gifts is the gift of understanding (intellectus) whereby in some manner the truths of faith are penetrated, clarified and understood. “Hence as heroic men who are perfect in charity through the gift of wisdom which they have in the highest degree are, as it were, counsellors and secretaries of God and his familiar friends” (Alan of Lille, Jan van Ruusbroec),36 “standing in a certain contact with the Sun of uncreated Wisdom, and who through a supernatural, internal and copious taste know and savor those divine things that must be believed, and judge them well and certainly through a conformity and connaturality of their affections with them, so by the gift of understanding in its perfect degree with which they are adorned they mostclearly, most-certainly and most-subtly understand those things which are of faith, their connection and order, and the supernatural rationality of Catholic truth.”37 Commonly, Denys adds, such friends are all those who assiduously experience mystical theology. Nor is this illumination given alone to those who study theology or to the ingenious, but to those who are advanced in purity of heart and charity. One of those was Brother Giles, the companion of Francis, who did not wish to say “I believe in God” but rather “I know God,” and most of all, the seraphic Francis himself.38 One should not construe Denys’s examples as commending simple piety above understanding, for everywhere in his writings he teaches the priority of the intellect among the faculties of the soul, which measures love in the will in every order of nature and grace, and he refutes every interpretation of mystical theology that gives priority to the affections. Indeed, Denys’s examples here are rather cunning, for it was Franciscan masters especially who argued the greater nobility of the will in relation to the intellect. In any event, for Denys Brother Giles’s convenient dictum signifies the restless desire for truth which is the natural motion of the human mind, perfected by a faith that unceasingly seeks understanding. Denys confirms his arguments with texts from the sacred Scriptures, Leo the Great, Richard of Saint-Victor, and with an exposition of a text

36 Cf. Denys the Carthusian, De contemplatione 3.23, in Op. om., 41:285B-286B. The metaphor “consiliarii et secretarii Dei, et familiares eius amici” (Op. om. 19: 65D) may derive from Alan of Lille, De planctu naturae, PL 210:450D. 37 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1, in Op. om., 19:65C-A’. 38 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev. 1, in Op. om., 19:65B’-C’.

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from Job (26:32–33) by “Saint Bernard,” that is, William of SaintThierry, which suggests that to certain elect souls God grants a transient vision of the light of his divine essence.39 Moreover, against Durandus’s dichotomous logic he argues the necessity of a light intermediate between faith and vision by appealing to the hierarchical principle (of Aristotle and Dionysius) that one does not move from one extreme or contrary to another except through a middle term. Finally, he answers Durandus’s argument that understanding evacuates faith by alluding to the Virgin Mary, who without doubt knew that she conceived the Son of God, and to the Apostles and Prophets, who knew certainly that they were divinely inspired, and who yet did not lack the merit of faith. A short text from Thomas, distinguishing between reason that is antecedent to faith, which diminishes its merit, and reason that follows faith, which does not, concludes Denys’s argument.40 ***** The Authority of Scripture and the Object of Faith Denys’s preliminary question concerning the scientific status of theology is inextricably linked with another long, magnificently constructed question in his commentary on the third Book of the Sentences: “Whether the object of faith is only what is unknown?” (In III Sent. d.24 q. unica).41 In that question he recites at length Henry of Ghent’s arguments for the lumen medium and for the knowability of the articles of faith in four quodlibetal questions.42 Although Denys disagrees with Henry’s argument that by the application of natural reasons some conclusions deduced from the articles of faith may be demonstrated, he expounds and defends the reality of a theological lumen medium, 39 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev. 1, in Op. om., 19:65C’-66B; cf. William of St. Thierry, Epistola ad Fratres de Monte Dei 3.268–71, in Guillaume de Saint-Thierry: Lettre aux frères du Mont-Dieu (Lettre d’or), ed. and trans. Jean Déchanet, OSB, Sources chrétiennes 223 (Paris, 1975), pp. 358–61. 40 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1, in Op. om., 19:66C-B’. 41 Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent. 24.unica, in Op. om., 23:415B-428D’. 42 In In III Sent. 24.unica, Denys recites in order (Op. om., 23:422A-423A, 423C-A’, 423A’-D’, 423D’–424D’) from Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet VIII 14, in Quodlibeta Magistri Henrici Goethals a Gandavo doctoris Solemnis, ed. I. Badio Ascensio, 2 vols. (Paris, 1518; repr. Louvain, 1961), 2:fols. 324vH-325rK; idem, Quodlibet X 11, in Henrici de Gandavo Opera omnia (as in n. 33), ed. R. Macken,14:272–73; Quodlibet XII 3, ed. Decorte, 16:27–28, and Quodlibet XII 2, ed. Decorte, 16:14–18.

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this time against the “mocking” criticisms of Duns Scotus, which, he remarks, do not exhibit much “subtlety.”43 In response Denys again refers to the cognitive gifts of the Holy Spirit and adduces abundant authorities, notably Augustine and “de hac luce contemplator ille altissimus, divinissimus, sacratissimus et theologicissimus Dionysius,” as well as Bernard, William of Saint-Thierry, Bonaventure, Jan van Ruusbroec and the philosophers Plato and Aristotle.44 In this question Durandus of Saint-Pourçain also figures prominently as an opponent, bluntly applying the criterion of evidence to the primary source of theological knowledge, the sacred Scriptures. Under faith, Durandus notes, fall many complex propositions, which in turn supply the reasons for believing other propositions. Thus we believe that God is one and three, that the Son is incarnate, etc., because the Bible, which we believe to be divinely inspired, tells us so. But we believe that the Scriptures are revealed by God because we believe that the Church which approves them is ruled by the Holy Spirit. Thus from beginning to end the first of all the items of faith and the reason for believing all the others is the belief that the Holy Spirit rules the Church.45 Denys acknowledges that Durandus’s remarks concerning the Church’s determination and authorization of the canonical Scriptures are catholice dicta, but he must respond to the challenge posed by Durandus’s argument against the intrinsic, objective intelligibility of divine revelation. As many scriptural texts themselves declare, he says, the sacred Scriptures hold their authority not from men or the Church but directly, truly and immediately from God, on whose infallible and invariable truth they depend. Indeed, we neither know nor believe that the Church is ruled by the Holy Spirit except on the authority of Scripture. In sum, the truth, certitude and authority of the Scriptures derive from God himself, vere causaliter et existentialiter.46 Denys refers

43

Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent. 24.unica, in Op. om., 23:425A-426A’. Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent. 24.unica, in Op. om., 23:424D426A’. On this section of the argument, see Kent Emery, Jr., “Theology as a Science: The Teaching of Denys of Ryckel (Dionysius Cartusiensis, 1402–1471),” in Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval Theology 3. Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Medieval Philosophy (S.I.E.P.M.), Helsinki 24–29 August 1987, eds. R. Työrinoja, Anja Ankeri Lehtinen and Dagfinn Føllesdal, Annals of the Finnish Society for Missiology and Ecumenics 55 (Helsinki, 1990), pp. 377–88, esp. 384–88; repr. in MSMT, no. VIII). 45 Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent. 24.unica, in Op. om., 23:420A’-D’; cf. Durandus of St. Pourçain, In III Sent. 24.1.8–9, ed. 1571, 2:fol. 257ra. See also Durandus, In Prol. Sent. 1.49, ed. 1571, 1:fol. 5rb, and In III Sent. 23.7.12, ed. 1571, 2:fol. 255va-b. 46 Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent. 24.unica, in Op. om., 23:420D’-421C. 44

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to another work, De auctoritate generalis concilii et potestate summi Pontificis, where he quotes the same text by Durandus, makes the same response, and shows the consequences that some (including Gerson) drew from Durandus’s argument: that the authority of the Church is greater than the authority of Scripture, and that one should appeal more to the authority of the Church than to the authority of the Scripture.47 One wonders whether it was not such arguments that made Durandus a favorite at the Papal Court of John XXII?48 Since Durandus argues that the very images of the Scriptures could have been fabricated by demons, what choice did he have but to recommend willing obedience on matters of faith to the positive authority of the Church and its duly-appointed officials? Moreover, according to Durandus’s critical epistemology one cannot have knowledge of things that are not immediately present to the senses, as the invisible God and the now risen Christ are not, or which are not propositionally demonstrable and evident to human reason. Thus, could we be certain that something was evidently said by God, faith would become unnecessary and we would know scientifically that what he said was true, since we do know by most-certain reason that God cannot lie or be deceived.49 In short, the mind’s uncertainty about the origin of the truths expressed in the Scriptures is necessary in order to preserve the meaning of faith. Denys replies that if Christians cannot be certain that the Catholic faith and the evangelical law were really promulgated and confirmed by God himself, they would not be able with certainty and without doubt to believe, confess and affirm that that faith and law are true, divine and salvific. And if what Durandus argues is true, it would follow that the Apostles and Prophets did not have faith, for they knew certainly that God had spoken to them through internal inspiration and through the holy angels, who since they are confirmed in good through the infusion of the Holy Spirit themselves can neither lie nor be deceived. Nor would Paul, who knew certainly that he had been rapt to the third heaven, where he heard immediately the unutterable words of God, have had faith, nor would have the Virgin Mary, who knew certainly that the angel had spoken to her and that she had conceived 47 Denys the Carthusian, De auctoritate generalis concilii et potestate summi Pontificis 1.13, in Op. om., 36:549A-A’. 48 Joseph Koch, Durandus de S. Porciano O.P. Forschungen zum Streit um Thomas von Aquin zu beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters. Texte und Untersuchungen 26 (Münster, 1927), pp. 395–436. 49 Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent. 24.unica, in Op. om., 23:421C.

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the Son of God through the Holy Spirit. Likewise, all the faithful— especially those who have faith supported by reasons and who receive it in the intelligence of a purified mind—are certain that their faith has been infused by God. Even though they are certain that what they believe comes from God, however, they do not know its truths scientifically, with the “certitude of evidence,” for the truths of faith are incomprehensible to human minds in this condition and present life.50 ***** Faith and Certitude From this last exchange between them, it is clear that the opposition between Durandus and Denys revolves around the vexed question of “certitude.” The only cognitive “certitude” that Durandus admits is that pertaining to propositions self-evident to human reason or to conclusions validly deduced from such propositions. Denys, on the contrary, argues that although the truths of faith cannot be evident to the human mind according to the criteria and capacity of natural human reason, because they have a being and intelligibility beyond its comprehension, nevertheless, precisely because they are imparted by that which is truth and intelligibility itself, one may have a certainty quia about them, that is, a certainty that they are true. Concerning certainty Denys again confronts Durandus directly in another question in Book III of the Sentences (d.25 q. unica): “Whether the certitude of faith is greater than the certitude of science, in respect either of their habits or their acts?”51 Denys observes that the doctors commonly respond to this question with a twofold distinction. Some, like Thomas Aquinas, Peter of Tarentaise and Richard of Middleton, posit a certitude ex parte obiecti or ex parte causae certitudinis or secundum se. According to this kind of certitude, the certitude of faith is greater than the certitude of reason, for it is founded in divine authority and uncreated truth, which transcends our capacity. Correspondingly, they posit a certitude ex 50 Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent. 24.unica, in Op. om., 23:421D-D’. Durandus argued that whatever Paul’s experience, he could have remembered it only in some confused, imaginative way; see In I Prol. Sent. 3.4, 11, 19, ed. 1571, 1:fols. 7ra, 7va, 8ra. 51 Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent. 25.unica, in Op. om., 23:441C-443B’.

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parte subiecti or in relation to us, in respect of which the certitude of science is greater than the certitude of faith, since it concerns realities proportionate with the capacity of our minds and which thus are known more evidently by them. Other doctors such as Alexander and Bonaventure posit another distinction, between the “certitude of evidence” and the “certitude of adherence.” Denys says that these two pairs of distinctions coincide (coincidunt) and are one, since the “certitude of adherence” that pertains to faith corresponds with the certitude ex parte obiecti and the “certitude of evidence” corresponds with certitude ex parte subiecti.52 As we have seen, Durandus identifies theology essentially with the habit of the virtue of faith. The distinction between certitude from the “part of the object” and from the “part of the subject” may hold generally in respect of things known and things believed, Durandus says, but it does not pertain to the habits and acts of a knowing agent. A habit is a disposition for having or acquiring something and its act is its perfection in respect of an object; thus an act or habit is said to be more certain only quoad nos, although an act or habit can be said to be more “noble” in terms of the nobility of the object alone. Aristotle, however, distinguishes between the nobility of a science that derives from the nobility of its object and the nobility of a science that derives from its certitude, which would not be the case if the certitude of science and the nobility that derives from its object were the same thing. Thus, the certitude of an act or habit cannot derive from the certitude of its object in itself, but is strictly relative to the knowing agent. A habit, indeed, is simply a mode of being in the agent, although it exists in our mind in respect of an object known.53 Thus, as Durandus argues in another question, because they are modes of being and are not res absolutae, the habits of virtues, like the habit of faith, “superadd” nothing to the being of the subject.54 This argument, Denys rejoins, is the product of a “false imagination,” for it presumes that a habit is only a mode of being in the subject and not something real (quid reale). Something real in the subject is necessary for producing a real action. The intellective power is unable to proceed either in the act of believing or in actual 52

Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent. 25.unica, in Op. om., 23:441C-B’. Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent. 25.unica, in Op. om., 23:441B’-D’); cf. Durandus of St. Pourçain, In III Sent. 23.7.8, ed. 1571, 2:fol. 255rb-va. 54 See Denys’s report of Durandus in In III Sent. 23.1: “An indigeamus superadditis virtutum habitibus”, in Op. om. 23:399C-402D; Durandus at 402C-D); cf. Durandus of St. Pourçain, In III Sent. 23.5, ed. 1571, 2:fol. 254ra-va. 53

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intellection unless it is mediated by a real habit of faith or a real habit of science. For Denys, like Henry of Ghent before him,55 the greater “certitude of evidence” provided by the science of theology in comparison with human sciences derives from its illumined participation in the divine essence, that which alone is evident in itself. For Durandus, on the contrary, because the relation between the believer or knower and the object known, in this case God, is only secundum dici and not secundum esse, the believer and knower cannot really partake the certitude in se of the most-noble object, God.56 We return to the first lessons of philosophy in the schools, to the Isagoge. Do the categories differ secundum rem or are they distinguished by reason alone? Does the category of relation bespeak something real in the extra-mental order of being, or is it a mere ens rationis conceived for predication? The different positions taken by Durandus and Denys on this fundamental philosophical question will have huge consequences for other theological questions pertaining to the Trinity and the divine attributes. Those who disagree on first principles cannot dispute. The disputes between Denys and Durandus are, it turns out, disputes between incommensurate rationalities.57 Because in his mind the only certitude relevant to this question is that in respect of the habits and acts of the knowing human agent, Durandus eviscerates the distinction and relation between the “certitude of adherence” and the “certitude of evidence.” The “certitude of adherence,” he argues, is in reality an empty term, inasmuch as certitude cannot stand with falsehood and it is well-known that heretics display a “firmness of adherence.” But even if we should admit such a term, it is clear anyway that one adheres more firmly to that from which it is more difficult to withdraw; it is more difficult for a man to withdraw from science, if he truly knows something and knows himself to be knowing, than it is to withdraw from faith. Moreover, we are more certain about things that are not mixed with doubt. Science, however, cannot be mixed with doubt or it would not be science, and faith is mixed with doubt or it would not be faith.58 Adducing Aristotle 55

See Emery, “The Image of God Deep in the Mind,” pp. 117–20. Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent. 25.unica, in Op. om., 23:442A’-B’. 57 See the essay in this volume by Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen, “Nominalism in Cologne: The Student Notebook of the Dominican Servatius Fanckel, with an edition of a disputatio vacantialis held on July 14, 1480 ‘Utrum in deo uno simplicissimo sit trium personarum realis distinctio’.” 58 Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent. 25.unica, in Op. om., 23:441B’–442C); cf. Durandus of St. Pourçain, In III Sent. 23.7.7, 10, ed. 1571, 2:fol. 255rb-va. 56

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and “all of the Peripatetics,” Denys again appeals to the objective order of being. In fact, we cannot have science strictly speaking about material, corruptible singulars, on account of their variation and incertitude; thus all certitude depends on, and derives from, the invariableness of the being of the object secundum se, as Boethius says: “science concerns those things that have incommutable substance.” Moreover, faith excludes ambiguity, doubt and incertitude far more than science, since the truths of faith are made known by a supernatural light which yields far more certainty than the mind’s natural light, which is frequently deceived. Finally, it is far more difficult to withdraw from faith than it is from the conclusions of reason, as is easily proved by the fact that the martyrs suffer the most-bitter deaths for faith, not for science.59 In his treatment of the question and in his response, Denys clearly wishes to preserve the conception of faith as a virtue pertaining to the intellect, a supernatural light that is an inchoatio visionis for wayfarers, and begins a movement towards the ultimate cognition of the divine essence, and even in this life shares proportionately in the necessity and hence certitude of the eternal divine being. Durandus’s remark that heretics exhibit a firm “certitude of adherence,” in turn, is instructive. Durandus effectively, if not formally, transfers the virtue of faith, which has little cognitive value, from the intellect to the will. Faith then is a will-to-believe, in particular, a willingness to obey the teachings of a proper authority, that is, the Church. In this light, one can better understand the crisis Durandus underwent when near the end of his life he was compelled to confront a Pope teaching heresy, his old patron John XXII.60 ***** Responses to Objections: The Scientific Intelligibility of Sacred Scripture In his preliminary question concerning the scientific status of theology, the most interesting of Denys’s responses to initial objections

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Denys the Carthusian, In III Sent.25.unica, in Op. om., 23:442C-443B. Durandus composed a treatise attacking John XXII’s “heretical” teaching on the Beatific Vision; the treatise is edited by Giuseppe Cremascoli in “Il Libellus de visione Dei di Durando di S, Porziano,” Studi medievali (serie terzi) 25 (1984), 393–442; for an analysis of the treatise, see Christian Trottmann, La vision béatifique des disputes scolastiques à sa définition par Benoît XII, Bibliothèque des Ecoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 289 (Rome, 1995), pp. 592–601. 60

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pertain to the “scientific” intelligibility of sacred Scripture. Here, we have suggested, Denys again responds to Durandus, who says that “to know” Scriptures is to know materially what is in them, just as one may know what is in the books of Aristotle. As Alexander of Hales and Richard of Middleton teach, Denys says, particular human deeds and acts are recorded in Scripture not as they are singulars but as they signify mysteries and generally instruct human behavior (for example, the slaughter of Abel as a figure of the Passion of Christ). Moreover, Denys adds, particulars are recorded in Scripture insofar as God’s providence, mercy, justice and omnipotence shine through them. In this way, one may note, the meaning of the Scriptures may be elevated to the intelligible theology of Dionysius’s De divinis nominibus. Further, insofar as the singulars recorded in Scripture are already done and past, they share in a certain necessity and yield certain knowledge.61 (To understand this argument one ought to consult Denys’s “antinominalist” treatment of the question “Whether whatever God knew once he knows and will know always?”62). Again, human science properly concerns universals. Universals however are fourfold: by predication, by exemplification, by signification (as Jacob’s marriages to Lia and Rachel signify his just occupation in the active and contemplative lives), and by causality (as God is the universal cause of creation and Christ the universal cause of reparation). The Scriptures evince all of these kinds of universals.63 In other words, the letter of Scripture bears a scientific character insofar as it records past deeds, which partake a certain necessity. One’s understanding of the Scriptures rises to the proper, universal level of science, however, when one interprets them typologically, according to their allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. This Jerome and Augustine needed to learn when they first encountered the inelegant and incoherent jumble of particulars recorded in the sacred books; likewise Anselm taught that one must penetrate the “beautiful pictures” in the Scriptures to the intelligible concordances that they signify.64 61 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1. 2,7, in Op. om., 19:66D’-67A, 67C’-D’. Denys refers to arguments by Richard of Middleton, In I Sent. 3.4.4, ed. 1591, 1:6a, 7a, and in the Summa Halensis Introductorius.1.1–2.1–2, in Doctoris irrefragabilis Alexandri de Hales…Summa theologica, 4 vols. (Quaracchi, 1924–48), 1:1–3. 62 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. 41.4, in Op. om., 20:551B-555A’. 63 Denys the Carthusian, In I Sent. praev.1.3, in Op. om., 19:67B’. 64 Anselm of Canterbury, Cur Deus Homo 4, in S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archepiscopi Opera omnia, ed. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt, 6 vols. (Edinburgh, 1946), 2:51–52.

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Conclusion Denys the Carthusian’s dialectical, historical account of scholastic theology indicates that from Henry of Ghent and Godfrey of Fontaines onward, and notably among the early fourteenth-century theologians who responded to, or developed, their teachings, the old question of the relation between faith and reason shifted to a focus on the cognitive status of faith and the theology that flows from it. And even though Denys intended to re-establish the model of theology devised by the great thirteenth-century antiqui, he was compelled to address the problematic that arose after them. Henry of Ghent’s and Denys’s differing accounts of the cognitive status of faith and theology, strengthened and expanded by further perfective supernatural illuminations, presuppose a metaphysical doctrine of participation, and accordingly a certain isomorphy between the orders of being and the orders of knowing. Durandus’s dismissive response to Henry’s positing of a lumen medium, borrowed from Godfrey, wherein he says that he sees no evidence of such illumination in the faculty of theology, bespeaks a new, institutionally-bound conception of the study of theology. For Durandus, for whom the only criterion of certain knowledge is Aristotle’s demonstrative reasoning, theological explanations or “declarations” can never achieve anything more than probability and a semblance of reasonableness. Some readers might be alarmed that in a Sentential commentary Denys adduces testimonies to cognitive illuminations in Scripture, by the fathers, the monks and the saints as a vital element in his argumentation. Godfrey, and Durandus after him, dismissed such authorities as inappropriate for discussion in the Faculty of Theology. The difference on this point between Denys, on the one hand, and Godfrey and Durandus, on the other, indicates another sea-shift that evidently occurred in the early fourteenth century at Paris: a change in the conception of the task of theology. In their Summas and commentaries, Bonaventure, Thomas and Henry conceived the task of theology as one that would reconcile authoritative voices from throughout the long tradition of Christian wisdom, and of supporting those that expressed the truths of faith most aptly. Duns Scotus for one puts forward a new model, whereby the task of theology would seem to be to depart from, and respond to, the opinions of recent and contemporary masters in

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the Faculty of Theology. Indeed, Denys observes that Scotus is accustomed to follow, criticize and begin all of his arguments with Henry of Ghent before all others, even though for a thousand years before Henry older thinkers, not only among the faithful but also the pure philosophers themselves, had induced the same arguments.65 Jeremy Catto in turn observes that Scotus’s knowledge of the fathers and of scholastic theologians before Henry of Ghent and Godfrey of Fontaines “was patchy to say the least,” and that Scotus often borrowed his authorities from Henry’s writings.66 Durandus’s opinion of the authority of the fathers is explicitly yet more radical. Concerning the use of patristic authorities he says: “In matters concerning faith, we ought to give our consent to the authority of sacred Scripture more than to the authority of any human reasoning, for the divine knowledge that the holy Scriptures express surpasses human knowledge more than human reason surpasses that of beasts. And anyone who would renounce his own reason for the sake of some human authority falls into the irrationality of beasts.”67 In advancing his opinion that the beatific vision would be postponed until after the resurrection of the body and the Day of Judgment, Pope John XXII relied on dossiers of texts extracted from the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux. In response, Durandus simply dismisses the saint’s authority, remarking that Bernard has little authority in matters of dispute but only when he speaks about prayer and devotion; his interpretations of Scripture, moreover, are mainly mystical and moral, and have no place in rigorous disputes about doctrine; thus, the authority of Bernard is misplaced and has been surpassed in modern theological discourse.68 For Durandus, theology is the preserve of certified experts who reason about the data contained in Scripture and in documents of ecclesiastical authority; its purpose is to promote the teaching of an authoritative institution; there is no intrinsic connection between this activity and the sanctification of the one who 65

Denys the Carthusian, In II Sent. 1.4, in Op. om. 21:80D-81A. J.I. Catto, “Theology and Theologians 12220–1320,” in The History of the University of Oxford I: The Early Oxford Schools, ed. J. I. Catto assisted by Ralph Evans (Oxford, 1984), pp. 471–517, at 508–9. 67 Durandus of St. Pourçain, Praefatio in quattuor libros Sententiarum 12, ed. 1571, 1:fol. 1vb. On Durandus’s attitude towards the Scriptures and towards the fathers, and his actual use of their writings, see Paul de Vooght, OSB, Les sources de la doctrine chrétienne d’après les théologiens du XIV e siècle et du debut du XV eavec le texte intégral des XII premières questions de la Summa de Gérard de Bologne (†1317) (Paris, 1954), pp. 63–75. 68 Trottmann, La vision béatifique, pp. 600–1. 66

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performs it. Denys surely had Durandus as one example in mind when, following arguments of Henry of Ghent, he defined the mode of scholastic theology as a “grace given for the benefit of others” that can be practiced, unlike mystical theology, by one who is not in a state of sanctifying grace and hence in a state of mortal sin.69 Stephen Brown has pointed out that Durandus, like Godfrey before him, reduces Thomas Aquinas’s distinction between knowledge and faith to its logical conclusion, ironically to the dismemberment of Thomas’s own theory of theology as a subalternated science.70 In light of Durandus’s telling criticism of Thomas’s rather rhetorical conception, Denys in response could not simply repeat and attempt to shoreup Thomas’s arguments. That is why, I think, he relied more on Richard of Middleton and Henry of Ghent, whose doctrines of divine illumination could establish the participative contact between the vision of the blessed and the faith of wayfarers. There is perhaps another reason why Denys does not linger on Thomas’s own theory of subalternation. Whenever he encounters it, Denys severely criticizes Thomas’s famous doctrine that in every act of knowing the mind must revert to phantasms. This doctrine, Denys judges, locks human minds in the circuit of sense, jeopardizes philosophical demonstrations of the immortality of the soul, contradicts the express teachings of “altissimus, divinissimus, sacratissimus et theologicissimus Dionysius,” denies the contemplative cognitions recorded by the saints, and establishes a radical discontinuity between the understandings of wayfarers and the vision of the Blessed, and thereby undermines Thomas’s own theory of the scientific character of theology.71 Though Durandus criticized Thomas on many things, he embraced Thomas’s doctrine of phantasms and made it the foundation of his own noetic theories. In Denys’s mind, Thomas’s doctrine is a Pandora’s Box; among the first demons released was none other than Thomas’s Dominican confrère, durus Durandus.72

69

See K. Emery, “The Image of God Deep in the Mind,” pp. 92–95 (Henry and Denys), and the treatments of Denys’s threefold order of wisdom, cited in n. 5, above. 70 Brown, “Declarative Theology after Durandus,” pp. 406–12; idem, “The Medieval Background,” pp. 80–82. 71 See n. 13, above. 72 From the inscription on Durandus’s tombstone: “Durus Durandus iacet hic sub marmure duro,/ An sit salvandus ergo nescio, nec quoque curo”; quoted in Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, p. 474.

II. Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries

A SKEWED VIEW: THE ACHIEVEMENT OF LATE MEDIEVAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY AS SEEN FROM THE RENAISSANCE John E. Murdoch† It is of course not true to say that all sixteenth-century scholars looked down upon the accomplishments of the fourteenth century; some approved and tried to extend them. On the other hand, many expressed their disdain about them. Among the latter were two tolerably important Renaissance figures. Coluccio Salutati complained of the demise of the “knowledge of things”; we should not, he went on, “always toil among the extremes and ambiguities of significations and suppositions.”1 And Agostino Nifo was more forcibly dismissive in calling fourteenth-practitioners of this ilk “babblers” (blatterones) and “stutterers” (balbutiri), and seals his derision with a term Cicero used for pettifogging lawyers, captiunculatores. Another term of contempt Nifo uses is “Sorticulae,” referring to those who formulate sophisms having to do with “Sortes” (which was in these contexts Socrates), some of which we will be sampling below. All of these derisive terms are used again and again, not only in Nifo’s Expositio on the Physics, but also in his commentary on Aristotle’s De generatione and beyond. They provided, as it were, a major part of Nifo’s armentarium against the accursed recentiores.2 1 As translated from Salutati’s Epistolario in Rita Guerlac, Juan Luis Vives Against the Pseudodialecticians: A Humanist Attack on Medieval Logic: The Attack on the Pseudialecticians and On dialectic, Book III, V, VI, VII, from The Causes of the Corruption of the Arts, with an Appendix or Related Passages by Thomas More: The Texts, Synthese Historical Library 18 (Dordecht, 1979), p. 15. 2 Agostino Nifo, Expositio super VIII libros De physico auditu (Venice, 1569), pp. 40–41: “Multae aliae rationes hinc inde fiunt, et etiam hinc inde defenduntur positiones quas hic brevitatis causa omitto. Qui enim curiosus est, potest illa in libris nostrorum recentiorum legere; sat mihi sit tangere pollentiores. Fiunt etiam a captiunculatoribus captiuncularii infinite casus, qui cum philosophiam non sapient, omittantur etiam…Captiunculatores omnes tenet activas non per maximum inclusive terminari, sed exclusive, quod est minimum quod non…Propter haec sequitur talem rem rei corruptibilis potentiam terminari maximo tempore exclusive, quod Sorticulae vocant minimum ultra quod non…Post haec restat videre quid Anaxagoras ipse sua in ipsius fictione voluit balbutiri…” (The context is, of course, the discussion of minima naturalia in Book I of the Physics.) Such terms are also found in Nifo’s Dialectica

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What Nifo and others were basically complaining about was the late-medieval penchant to interpret Aristotle by an over-reliance on logical analysis. The time-frame of the rise and centrality of this analysis ran from the last years of the thirteenth century (though there may have been rumblings before), clearly had its floruit in the following century, and thereafter petered out, though remnants can still be seen even in the sixteenth century. The hallmark of this analysis of Aristotelian concepts and problems focused on propositions (which were, it was decided, the objects of knowledge) and terms within these propositions. Frequently this approach to Aristotle carried with it a nominalist or particularist ontology (the most influential practitioners here being William of Ockham and John Buridan), but such propositional analysis could be applied by others of different philosophical persuasions (for example, Walter Burley). The source for this new logical analysis was not primarily Aristotle’s own logical works, but additions to this Aristotelian base, additions which already had large parts of their development in the twelfth century. More than that, because there had been more experience in appreciating and working in the logic of Aristotle plus these new additions, medieval philosophers in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had a philosophical maturity in these matters that in many cases surpassed that which they had in other areas. So it is hardly a surprise that one finds logic being applied to other non-logical problems and concepts.3 To return to the additions made to Aristotle’s writings in logic, it should be noted that almost all of them were influential upon the ludicra (Venice, 1521) according to E.J. Ashworth, “Agostino Nifo’s Reinterpretation of Medieval Logic,” Rivista critica di storia della filosofia 21 (1976), 355–74, here 358. 3 More modern, indeed contemporary, complaints about this logical analysis, is found among various reviewers of Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, Jan Pinborg and Eleonore Stump, eds., The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100–1600 (Cambridge, 1982), who decried the numbers of chapters devoted to logic topics. In reply it should be pointed out that this was reflective of actual preoccupations at that time, not to speak of some of these preoccupations being rather philosophically brilliant ones. This is reflected in the fact that a recent slim volume by Graham Priest, Logic. A Very Short Introduction, Very Short Introductions 29 (Oxford, 2000), in a brief section on the history of logic, draws a three-fold division: Antiquity from 400 BCE– 200BCE, where the “actors” were Aristotle’s syllogistic, the Megarians and the Stoics and the development of propositional logic; secondly, the Latin Middle Ages from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries; thirdly, after its medieval phase “logic largely stagnated till the second half of the nineteenth century,” with the likes of Frege and Russell, though a slight nod is given to Leibniz.

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general interpretation of Aristotle in the fourteenth century. Included in these additions was the doctrine of consequentiae,4 new developments in modal5 and epistemic logic6 (which dealt with inferential contexts governed by verbs of knowing, believing and doubting) and even deontic logic7 (of norms and of the logic of the will), and a flurry of so-called “exercise” treatises (such as sophismata, insolubilia, and obligationes).8 In terms of importance, easily the most far-reaching of these additions was the theory of supposition.9 This had to do with what a term or word (excluding mere logical operators) stood for (supponit pro) in a proposition or sentence. As such, supposition furnished a theory of reference or, if you like, elicited the semantics of a term considered contextually.10 The result was an appeal made to logical and semantic notions in providing the analytical tools to do the arguing for and about Aristotle’s contentions in natural philosophy (and in metaphysics and ethics as well), not so much to shape or frame arguments already over and done with. The representatives of this logical or propositional analysis frequently showed awareness of the value, even the necessity, of what they were doing: the ignorance of logic, Ockham maintained, caused many

4 See, inter alia, Ernest A. Moody, Truth and Consequence in Mediaeval Logic (Amsterdam, 1953). 5 See Simo Knuuttila, Modalities in Medieval Philosophy (London, 1993). 6 See Ivan Boh, Epistemic Logic in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1993). 7 See Risto Hilpinen, Deontic Logic: Introductory and Systematic Readings (Dordrecht, 1971); and Knuuttila, Modalities (as in n. 5), pp. 182–96. 8 See Stephen Read, ed., Sophisms in Medieval Logic and Grammar: Acts of the Ninth European Symposium for Medieval Logic and Semantics, held at St. Andrews, June 1990, Nijhoff International Philosophy Series 48 (Dordrecht, 1993). 9 See Moody, Truth and Consequence, pp. 13–29. In passing, it is worth noting that Agostino Nifo felt that the theory of supposition was non-Peripatetic. See E.J. Ashworth, “Traditional Logic,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, eds. Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard Kessler and Jill Kraye (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 143–72, here 168. 10 A nice example of using supposition theory and logical analysis occurs at the very beginning of Ockham’s commentary on Aristotle’s Categories. See William of Ockham, Expositio in librum Praedicamentorum Aristotelis Prooemium, ed. Gedeon Gál, Opera philosophica 2 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1978), p. 136: “Verumtamen non obstante Philosophus in isto libro tractet de vocibus, tractat tamen simul cum hoc de rebus; hoc est, propositiones multas ponit accidentaliter in quibus termini non pro nominibus, sed pro rebus supponunt…Et ignorantia istius intentionis Aristotelis in hoc libro facit multos modernos errare; credentes hic multa dicta pro rebus, quae tamen pro solis vocibus – proportionaliter pro intentionibus seu conceptibus in anima – vult intelligi.”

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who were not sufficiently exercitati in it to fall into error, give false interpretations and consimilia puerilia in natural philosophy, in metaphysics, and even in theology.11 Similarly, at Paris, John Buridan laid unnecessary controversies at the door of a defective knowledge of logic.12 If you object that this approach failed to give an adequate account of what things really were (and not a few Renaissance scholars felt that it so failed), Ockham had a ready answer: Ah, yes, you want to speak only of things, but this is not possible unless you do it mediantibus vocibus vel conceptibus vel aliis signis.13 What Ockham and others were recommending was that this logical or propositional analysis, in effect, amounted to looking at science or scientific knowledge (which was made up of propositions and their terms) rather than looking directly at scientific matters. Another way of expressing what was being advised was part of a familiar distinction between exponible and explaining propositions (exponibiles and exponentes). In any number of places where Aristotle discusses such and such an object or concept in natural philosophy, we often find his meaning expressed in terms of exponible propositions where a multiplicity of explaining (exponentes) propositions are held to be the most satisfactory way to capture Aristotle’s intentions. For example (which is not expressly in Aristotle but intimately involved, as we shall see, in significant things he does say), let the exponible proposition be “Socrates begins to exist” (Sortes incipit esse), where incipit is the exponible term accounting for the exponible proposition; it could 11 William of Ockham, Expositio in libros Physicorum Aristotelis 3.13, ed. Vladimirus Richter, Opera philosophica 4 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1985), pp. 560–61: “Verumtamen aliquando Philosophus ponit unam pro alia [scil. one of the two different propositions specified in the foregoing text], non curans multum de verbis et supponens quod addiscentes istam scientiam prius sunt sufficienter exercitati in logica per quam sciant discernere inter propositiones et advertere quando una ponitur pro alia et quando non, quod tamen multi moderni ignorant. Et ideo quia frequenter audiunt alias scientias antequam perfecte sciant logicam, multas opiniones erroneas inveniunt et imponunt multa Aristoteli et aliis philosophis, quorum contraria ex intentione demonstrant.” 12 Johannes Buridanus, Super decem libros Ethicorum (Paris, 1513; repr. Frankfurt, 1968), fol. 122v: “Et credo quod tanta fuit orta controversa inter opinantes ex defectu logice…” 13 William of Ockham, Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum. Ordinatio 1.2.1, eds. Stephanus Brown and Gedeon Gál, Opera theologica 2 (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1970), p. 47: “Si dicas: nolo loqui de vocibus sed tantum de rebus, dico quod quamvis velis loqui tantum de rebus, tamen hoc non est possible nisi mediantibus vocibus vel conceptibus vel aliis signis.”

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be reduced to the exponentes “Socrates is now” and “Socrates was not previously” (Sortes nunc est; Sortes prius non fuit). This is, of course, a most elementary example; others, which were much more complex usually exercised the late medieval mind, as we shall shortly see. Of course, this type of propositional analysis was not that of Aristotle, and it was incumbent on those who practiced it to realize that it was not. As far as I know, Ockham is the only one to speak to this issue extensively. Aristotle spoke, he maintains, with brevitas sermonis, which means that he did not intend to use the multiple propositions which extensively brought out what he really meant or intended (shades of propositiones exponibiles and their matching exponentes).14 Yet given all of the foregoing talk about logical and propositional analysis, I now wish to speak about one of the most philosophically interesting and intriguing accomplishments of the fourteenth century.15 I refer here, not to the overall logical analysis of Aristotle’s natural philosophy in general, but to separate treatises which grew out of separate parts, indeed separate chapters, of his natural philosophy. I have in mind, first of all, late medieval tracts De primo et ultimo instanti and the related works De incipit et desinit (which had evolved from Aristotle’s Physics, Book VI, ch. 5 and Book VIII, ch. 8)

14

William of Ockham, Expositio in libros Physicorum 3.13, ed. Richter, p. 544: “Quando ‘esse’ praedicatur de alico importante successionem, requiruntur multae propositiones tanquam exponentes quarum aliqua erit de praeterito, aliqua de praesenti, aliqua de futuro et aliqua negative. Et sub tali sensu conceduntur tales propositiones: ‘divisio lineae est infinita’, ‘linea potest dividi in infinitum’, quae aequivalent talibus: ‘linea est divisa’ vel ‘potest dividi’ et ‘post cuiuscumque partis divisionem potest alia pars dividi’. Sed contra hoc videtur quod Philosophus non loquitur hic de propositionibus sed de re, dicens quod res potest dividi in infinitum; dicendum quod frequenter Philosophus ponit actus signatos loco actuum exercitorum et e converso; et non minus est realis, quia actus signatus et actus exercitus sibi correspondens convertuntur, et ideo non inconvenienter ponit unum loco alterius. Et ideo quando dicit Philosophus quod multipliciter est ‘esse’ et quod aliquid est in actu et aliquid in potentia et huiusmodi, intelligit actus signatos pro actibus exercitis, est brevitas sermonis, et eadem est causa quare loco propositionum exponentium ponitur una sola cuius sunt illae exponentes.” The distinction of actus signatus vs. actus excercitus is, for example, the following: the actus signatus is one that refers to predication as in the proposition “animal praedicatur de homine,” while the corresponding actus excercitus has to do with presence of the verb “est,” and not only signfies that one thing is predicated of another (here, “animal” of “homo”), but effectively asserts (exercet) that predication in the proposition “homo est animal.” 15 As a parenthesis, it is worth noting that almost all who practiced the new logical analysis of Aristotle also wrote separate treatises on logic itself: Walter Burley, William of Ockham, John Buridan, Albert of Saxony, Marsilius of Inghen, Paul of Venice, and all but one of the so-called Oxford calculators.

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and treatises De maximo et minimo (which had their origin in De caelo, Book I, ch. 11). These treatises all had to do, one way or another, with the ascription of limits: limits to changes or motions, limits to instantaneous events (like Socrates coming into existence or changing from not-white to white) measured with respect to continuous time, or, alternatively, limits of Socrates’s power to lift a given weight (was he there limited by a maximum weight he could lift or a minimum weight he could not lift?). Treatises or chapters in other works dealing with such things have been rightly termed limit decision literature. In this regard, one should mention separate works De primo et ultimo instanti by Walter Burley,16 John of Holland, Appolinaris Offredi, and others, and extensive chapters treating these matters in works by Paul of Venice, Peter of Mantua, etc.17 When it comes to the related treatises De incipit et desinit, there are again separate works by Thomas Bradwardine,18 and others, together with a most important chapter in William Heytesbury’s Regule solvendi sophismata. There are numerous treatises De maximo et minimo, one circulating separately from its home in Roger Rosetus’s theological Commentaria sententiarum. Once again we have especially significant chapters in Heytesbury and Richard Swineshead’s Liber calculationum.19 It is these two last scholars that, among others, Leonardo Bruni charged with belonging to the detested “barbari brittani,” a collection of natural philosophers quorum etiam nomina perhorresco.20 Relative to questions de maximo et minimo, the sixteenth-century Jesuit Benedictus Pereira clearly did not like the logical analysis applied to this problem since he found it “excessively obscure and horrid.”21 His

16 Burley’s is by far the most popular treatise on the subject. It has been edited, somewhat imperfectly, by Herman and Charlotte Shapiro in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 47 (1965), 157–73. 17 For these scholars see the fundamental work of Curtis Wilson, William Heytesbury: Mediaeval Logic and the Rise of Mathematical Physics, University of Wisconsin Publications in Medieval Science 3 (Madison, WI, 1956), passim. 18 Lauge Olaf Nielsen, ed., “Thomas Bradwardine’s Treatise on ‘incipit’ and ‘desinit’. Edition and Introduction,” CIMAGL 42 (1982), 1–83. 19 Again, see the references to these names Wilson, William Heytesbury. 20 Leonardo Bruni, “Dialogi ad Petrum Paulum Histrum,” in Prosatori Latini del Quattrocento, ed. Eugenio Garin, La Letteratura italiana, storia e testi 13 (Milan, 1952), p. 58. 21 Benedictus Pererius, De communibus omnium rerum naturalium principis et affectionibus Libri XV (Venice, 1586), p. 381.

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near contemporary Juan Vives satirized the same subject: “Water is required for baptism, and for baptism water is required. Should the minimal amount of water required be administered or the minimum which is not required? The maximum which is required or the maximum which is not required?” and so on. Vives also devotes his barbs against incipit et desinit: “When at breakfast I take a second bite, or even when I have the first between my teeth, I cannot say, ‘I begin my breakfast’ (incipio prandere), because an infinite number of instants have flowed by.”22 Clearly all these Renaissance scholars had no appreciation of the objects of their complaints, neither the authors nor their works. Equally clearly some few Renaissance scholars did. They are largely those who at the beginning of the sixteenth century studied with the Scot John Major at the College of Montaigu in Paris. Notable in this regard are the Physicae perscrutationes of Ludovicus Coronel23 and the Expositio of Aristotle’s Physics by Juan Celaya, cum quaestionibus secundum triplicem viam beati Thomae, realium et nominalium.24 Setting these few scholars aside (as well as the Portuguese Alvarus Thomas25), the true appreciation in the Renaissance of the bulk of the limit decision literature was quite minimal. On the other hand, the treatises and chapters constituting this literature were most original and quite brilliant. The problem here consisted in the appropriate limits to be ascribed to changing quantities and qualities and to changing powers and resistances. Behind and intimately involved in this problem were three basic assumptions made by Aristotle. (1) All continua (be they magnitudes, times or motions) are infinitely divisible. (Sometimes this is directly stated, sometimes implied: e.g., in any time there can be motion; every mobile can move either faster or

22 As translated (together with 1520 Latin text) by Rita Guerlac, Juan Luis Vives (as in n. 1), pp. 82–85, 138–39. 23 Luis Coronel, Physicae perscrutationes (Paris, post 1511). 24 Juan Celaya, Expositio in octo libros physicorum Aristotelis, cum quaestionibus eiusdem secundum triplicem viam beati Thomae, realium et nominalium (Paris, 1517). 25 See Edith Sylla, “Alvarus Thomas and the Role of Logic and Calculations in Sixteenth Century Natural Philosophy,” in Studies in Medieval Natural Philosophy, ed. Stefano Caroti, Biblioteca di Nuncia. Studi e testi 1 (Florence, 1989), pp. 257–98; and eadem, “Mathematics in the Liber de triplici motu of Alvarus Thomas of Lisbon,” in The Practice of Mathematics in Portugal: papers from the international meeting held at Óbidos, 16–18 November 2000, eds. Luis Saraiva and Henrique Laitão (Coimbra, 2004), pp. 109–61.

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slower; spaces traversed are proportional to times of traversal, etc.) (2) Continua are such that their parts have common limits (ultima sunt unum). (3) There is a distinction between becoming and having become ( fieri vs factum esse, moveri vs motum esse, etc.). Now, given that a continuous process or motion has earlier and later parts (no matter how small a part we take), we are obviously concerned with some kind of sequence or ordered set or ordered something or other (a successivum in scholastic terms). Ask now how these three Aristotelian assumptions come to grips with this order or sequence. (1) The infinite divisibility is basically concerned with “betweenness” in this order. (2) Ultima sunt unum (Physics, Book VI, ch.1) is not concerned with the order itself, but with the extremities of continua (or parts of continua). (3) Order is involved in the sense that fieri implies a previous factum esse and vice versa. (see Physics, Book VI, ch. 6). We are now in a position to address ourselves to the two chapters of the Physics (Book VI, ch. 5 and Book VIII, ch. 8) behind the medieval limit decision literature. Here Aristotle broaches the problem of order within a continuous change, that is to say the problem of whether there is a first in a given continuous change, (in Aristotle’s words, “the primary when in which something has changed” Physics: 235b32) and, by implication, whether there is a last. These passages are absolutely crucial to the medieval literature de primo et ultimo instanti which goes much beyond what Aristotle says here. Before going to the medieval phase, we should see a number of things about Aristotle’s decisions concerning this problem of a “first” in any continuous change. (1) There is no first at the beginning of a change, but (2) there is a first containing the completion of a process of change (sharpened by the medievals to a first in which the mobile in question is no longer changing). These two points are covered in Physics, Book VI, ch. 5. Point (3) is found in Physics, Book VIII, ch. 8 where Aristotle treats of two temporally consecutive contradictory states (white/not white) within a continuous time. He then realized problems he has with his ultima sunt unum assumption, since something cannot be both white and not white in the same instant joining the two parts of time constituting their common ultima; the thing in question must be either white or not white at that common instant. Given this in Aristotle as a starting point, what did the medieval scholastics do with this material and where did they do it? Certainly in questions and commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics (especially fourteenth-century ones) and, more importantly, in separate treatises

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like Walter Burley’s most popular De primo et ultimo instanti.26 Within the medieval limit decision literature, this work represented the high point of the physical phase of the problems to which it addressed itself. Here we find, on the one hand, a division into the kinds of things relevant to first and last instants: res permanentes and res successivae. On the other hand, there was a division of what is true of these things at these first and last instants, phrased in terms of being or not-being (esse/non esse) or being such and such or not-being such and such (again expressed in terms of esse such and such and non esse such and such). Yet in speaking about the existence or non-existence of first and last instants, we have been speaking de re, speaking directly about the things suffering the ascription of limits and about the limits themselves as things. (We would now say we have been speaking in the object language.) Alternatively, once limit decision problems were comfortably installed in their new logical, incipit-desinit, home, the procedure of solving such problems shifted; it was a procedure that consisted, basically, in speaking about the relevant limit decisions propositionally. That is to say, the elements of one’s analysis were incipit and desinit as terms and the propositions embodying these terms (the propositions, of course, expressing or signifying the limit decision in question of what obtained de re). In place of asking, for example, whether Socrates’s being white was limited at its beginning by the existence of a first instant of his being white, one simply analyzed the proposition “Socrates begins to be white” (Sortes incipit esse albus). We have here shifted to the logical phase of this limit decision literature.27 Furthermore, this logical or propositional analysis was frequently put in the context of sophismata. Here we have to do with a sophisma functioning as a counter-intuitive example falling under a given theory or rule derived from logic or natural philosophy or some other discipline. The sophisma I shall concentrate upon comes from William

26

See above, n. 16. There is incipit-desinit literature all the way back to the twelfth century, some of it not dealing at all with first and last instants. When it does first deal with them, we often only have incipit-desinit “juxtaposed” with de primo et ultimo instanti. For this phase of the relevant literature, see Norman Kretzmann, “Incipit/Desinit,” in Motion and Time, Space and Matter: Interrelations in the History of Philosophy and Science, eds. Peter K. Machamer and Robert G. Turnbull (Columbus, 1976), pp. 101–36. In the fourteenth century the logical and physical phases become integrated with one another. 27

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Heytesbury; it had to do with rules about “beginning” and “ending” (and hence about incipit et desinit).28 The usual procedure was to cite the sophisma itself first and the (object language) casus involving its solution second, but I shall reverse the order. The casus stipulates that Socrates has a size of one-foot, Plato of two-feet, and through the same hour each of them grows uniformly (Socrates twice as fast as Plato, it turns out), but at the last instant of that hour both of them perish; further, let three-feet be the smallest size that neither of them will reach.29 Now the sophisma itself; “(a) Socrates will be of just such a size as Plato will be and (b) he is not of just such a size as Plato will be and (c) yet he neither begins to nor will begin to be of just such a size as Plato will be.”30 Now the first thing to note is something Heytesbury himself does not bring out. It is that (c) is an exponible proposition involving the terms incipit and incipiet which, in effect, make it exponible. But (a) and (b) are corresponding exponentes propositions, the former future affirmative, the latter present negative. In such a situation, Heytesbury has a rule according to which a present negative proposition – here (b) – joined to a future affirmative proposition – here (a) – for the truth of which there is required some instant at which it will be true, then a beginning with respect to the future follows. On the other hand, if that same future affirmative proposition does not require an instant for its truth, but an interval of time, then it is not necessary that a beginning of the sort follows, which is, of course, just what (c) says.31

28 See Wilson, William Heytesbury (as in n. 17), p. 47. See also John E. Murdoch, “Propostional Analysis in Fourteenth-Century Natural Philosophy: A Case Study,” Synthese 40 (1979), 117–46. 29 William Heytesbury, Regule solvendi sophismata (Venice, 1494), fol. 23v: “Posito quod Sortes sit tantum pedalis quantitatis, Plato vero bipedalis, et quod uterque illorum uniformiter augmentetur per eandem horam quousque neutrum illorum erit, et quod tripedulis quantitas sit minima quantitas quam non uterque illorum habebit.” 30 William Heytesbury, Regule, fol. 23v: “Sequitur quod Sortes erit tantus quantus erit Plato et quod ipse non est tantus quantus erit Plato, quia ipse non est bipedalis, et tamen nec incipit nec incipiet esse tantus, et cetera.” The examples I have given from his Regule represent, one could maintain, something of a high point in logical and propositional analysis, especially in the sophismatic tradition. Yet such analyses can be met everywhere in the fourteenth century. All philosophy, not merely natural philosophy, and even theology witnessed (for good or ill) their application. 31 William Heytesbury, Regule, fol. 24r-24v: “Circa quod tanquam regula est tenendum vel notandum quod affirmative de preterito vel futuro cui annectitur negative de presenti, quam ad hoc quod vera fuerit requiritur pro aliquo instanti vera fore de presenti (preterito MS) aut futuro, sequitur inceptio; eam quoque que instans taliter non requirit, sed tempus, non oportet inceptionem huiusmodi ullam sequi.”

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A glance back at the casus shows why this is so. The future affirmative (a) clearly does not require that it will be true at some instant, since both Socrates and Plato cease to exist at the last instant of the hour (when they would have been of three-feet). On the other hand, the same future affirmative (a) is true for a time interval, namely, throughout the hour save for its last instant; and this is why the exponible proposition (c) involving beginning does not follow. All proceeds propositionally and the problematic terms (incipit, incipiet) some of these propositions contain. And this is why we have to do with the logical phase involving limit decisions. In many sophismata, “Sortes” was Socrates’s name, where he (either alone or in conjunction with Plato or another) does such and such, knows this or that, and so on. Reflecting on such sophismata, we have seen Agostino Nifo again complaining about such sorticulae, using this diminutive noun to imply there is little of value going on there. We must not, however, go along with the likes of Nifo and regard sophismata and the limit decision literature as playing worthless logical games. Nor must we say that the logical phase of this literature is merely logic; it clearly has to do with the application of logic and logical conceptions to natural philosophy. What is more, Heytesbury’s Mertonian colleague Richard Swineshead distinguishes (what amounts to for us) convergent from divergent infinite series, but he specifically refers what he is so doing is involved with sophismata.32 Along the same lines, we might be tempted to say that what Heytesbury meant in the foregoing sophismata by a future affirmative that is verifiable for an interval of time was the convergent series of instants in time that is extrinsically limited by at least upper bound, vs. a future affirmative that is verifiable for an instant corresponding to a closed series of instants. For us, this might be true; but it would be horribly anachronistic. Surely Heytesbury was part and parcel of the intellectual movements of his time, particularly in England. Thus, toward the end of this chapter on incipit et desinit in his Regule, he has the following to say: “However, what an instant is in nature and how one instant continuously is after another is a totally different story. Many false fictions arise from one’s manner of speaking of an instant, time, or motion due to brevity [of speech] and the wish to express more easily a mental

32

Richard Swineshead, Liber calculationum 2 (Padua, 1477).

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concept, because in nature there is no thing that is an instant as instant nor time as time or motion as motion.” Here he was clearly following the nominalist footsteps of Ockham who had similar things to say about instants and the like (and even about brevitas sermonis). But he goes on: “Similarly, nothing is Socrates insofar as he is a white man nor anything that is Plato insofar as he is about to dispute tomorrow nor as he is bound to respond today: Such things are irrelevant to that being proposed. Therefore, to the last [objection] where it was proposed that many things begin to be and even will begin and cease to be of which none will be in an instant, one replies by denying that proposition according to the common mode of speech, because everything which is, whether time or motion or even an instant, is in an instant insofar as it is instantaneously measured by an instant.”33 It must be said that Heytesbury was quite aware of what he was doing and what he had done. I wish to conclude with the judgment not of an historian, but of a philosopher who knew his philosophical history, especially the medieval phase: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. It is not sure that he read Heytesbury to any extent, but he did know Richard Swineshead. He even had a scribe copy the Venice 1520 edition of Swineshead’s Liber calculationum for his personal perusal. He characterized its author as one who began de faire le Mathematicien dans le scolastique.34 Not that he admired all medieval scholastics; there were some who were in many cases polluted with ineptitude. Later, fourteenth-century medievals, like Swineshead were more to his taste. In general, he had a special admiration for the nominalists whom he felt were omnium inter scholasticas profundissima. 33 William Heytesbury, Regule, fol. 26r: “Quid autem instans sit in rerum natura et qualiter continue sit aliud instans et aliud, longe est alterius perscrutationis; et multa figmenta falsa admittit modus loquendi hominis de instanti, tempore, et motu propter breviloquium et mentis conceptum facilius exprimendum, quia in rerum natura non est aliquid quod est instans ut instans nec tempus ut tempus aut motus ut motus, sicut nihil est Sortes prout ipse est homo albus, nec aliquid est Plato prout ipse est disputaturus cras aut prout ipse debet hodie respondere. Sed ista sunt impertinentia proposito. Et ideo ad ultimum quod ibidem propositum fuerat, scilicet quod multa incipiunt esse et incipient et desinent esse quorum nullum erit in instanti, dicitur negando illam propositionem iuxta communem modum loquendi, quia omne quod est, est in instanti eo quod illud instantanee mensurat instans, sive tempus vel motus aut etiam instans. 34 From “Projet et Essais pour arriver à quelque certitude pour finir une bonne partie des disputes et pour avancer l’art d’inventer,” (ca. 1686), as in Louis Couturat, Opuscules et Fragments inédits de Leibniz, extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque royale de Hanovre (Paris, 1903), p. 177.

MEDICINE AND ARTS IN THIRTEENTH-CENTURY PARIS Michael R. McVaugh Here in the United States our system of medical education presumes a definite interrelationship between medicine and the liberal arts. The first major step towards it was taken when the Johns Hopkins Medical School was founded, in 1889: at a time when many medical schools required only a high-school education “or its equivalent,” at Hopkins admission was premised, in part, on a four-year college education and a bachelor’s degree. Other schools followed suit, and the famous Flexner Report, in 1910, ensured that this would henceforth be the norm. We now take for granted that medical education is a graduate program, a kind of école de deuxième cycle, that builds on the knowledge gained in an undergraduate career, and the undergraduate courses taken by a pre-med student are a matter of intense concern as he tries to anticipate what medical admissions committees will want to see on his record. The same kind of structural relationship seems to have become increasingly common in the later fourteenth century before it was formally established (at Paris, at least) by Pope Martin V in 1426,1 but it would be premature to imagine that the same kind of intellectual dependence lay behind it, that medieval medical masters were requiring the equivalent of training in organic chemistry from the disciples they accepted. What I want to do here is to consider the relation between arts and medicine, not in the later years when it was moving towards the state in which it was fixed by Martin V, but in the first century or so of university medical education, roughly between 1220 and 1330; I will be looking specifically at two schools where arts and medicine existed in separate faculties, Paris and Montpellier. It is a period for which we have comparatively little direct institutional evidence, and I freely (and I hope disarmingly) concede at the outset that I will

1 For the context of the pope’s action, see Danielle Jacquart, La médecine médiévale dans le cadre parisien (Paris, 1998), pp. 132–33. The papal document is in CUP, 4:454 (not “545,” as given by a typographical error in Jacquart, p. 132), no. 2274.

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inevitably be offering large quantities of inference and speculation; but perhaps the very freedom of these speculations will help suggest other pieces of evidence that will challenge or confirm them. Let me begin by presenting a few scraps at least of hard evidence, four excerpts from university documents of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries: (1) From the first revision of the statutes of the medical faculty at Montpellier, January 1240: “no master shall present any student [for the license] who has not studied medicine at Montpellier or some other notable place for at least three and a half years, unless he was a master of arts at Paris or some other notable place, in which case he can be presented after two and a half years of study.”2 (2) From the first statutes of the medical faculty at Paris, dating from the early 1270s: “the time of study necessary [for the license] is five and a half years if the applicant is a master or a licentiate in arts, or six years if he is not a master or licentiate.”3 (3) From the second revision of the statutes of the Montpellier medical faculty, September 1309: “[licentiates] will be required to have studied medicine in this faculty for five years if they have been satisfactory masters of arts at some famous place, otherwise for six years, computing a[n academic] year as eight months.”4 The same statement is made in the third great revision of the faculty’s statutes in 1340, this time with Paris specified as fulfilling the prerequisite (“nisi Magister fuerit in Artibus Parisius vel in alio Studio famoso”).5 (4) From a letter from Pope John XXII to the bishop of Paris, 1331 (paraphrased): “from time immemorial it has been the practice in the faculty of medicine at Paris that someone must study medicine there for thirtyfour months if he is licentiatus in artibus (or for thirty-six if he is not) before he can be admitted to teach; and he must have had fifty-six months

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Alexandre Germain, Cartulaire de l’université de Montpellier, 2 vols. (Montpellier, 1890–1912), 1:187 (of Jan. 1240): “Nullus magister presentet aliquem, nisi ille audierit medicina in Montepessulano vel in alio loco famoso ad minus per tres annos et dimidium, nisi idem fuerit magister in artibus Parisius vel in alio loco famoso; et talis possit post duos annos et dimidium presentari.” 3 CUP, 1:517, no. 453, of 1270–74: “Tempus auditionis quod debet audivisse per quinque annos cum dimidio si rexerit in artibus vel licentiatus fuerit, vel per sex si non rexerit vel licentiatus fuerit.” 4 Germain, Cartulaire, 1:220 (of Sept. 1309): “Ac in locis famosis quinque annis, si in artibus magistri existant ydonei, alioquin per sex annos, pro quolibet anno octo duntaxat mensibus computatis, ejusdem facultatem audiverint medicine.” 5 Ibid., 1:357.

medicine and arts in thirteenth-century paris

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of study if he is licentiatus in artibus, or sixty months if he is not, before he can be examined for the license in medicine.”6

I do not believe that anyone has ever brought these statements together and reflected on their collective implications, and I want to do just that as a jumping-off point for a discussion of the relation between medicine and the arts in the first hundred years or so of the European university.7 To begin with, notice that the first two statements both come astonishingly early in the documented history of their respective faculties. Is it really likely that in this short time the two schools came independently to the idea that an arts degree ought to be considered as equivalent to part of a course of medical study, or is it more likely that one school was following the lead of the other? Notice too that what we might call the measure of equivalence is very different: at Montpellier in 1240 an arts formation dispenses a student from nearly a third of the medical course, while at Paris in 1270 the fraction is only a twelfth; when Montpellier revises its statutes, in 1309, it has reduced the artists’ dispensation to one sixth of the course. Does this mean that Paris required more of its students, or that medical study made fewer demands on students in 1240 than it did in 1270? I am mildly suspicious of the former answer, but in any case the latter is certainly true. The ars medicine, the collection of short texts that had been assembled by 1200 as the basis for medical education (including Galen’s Tegni, Hippocrates’s Aphorisms, Prognostics, and Regimen acutorum, and a few other practical treatises), was the basis for teaching by Montpellier masters at mid-century—the 1240 statutes do not list required texts, but surviving Montpellier commentaries show what

6 CUP, 2:379, no. 933, of 22 June 1331: “A tempore et per tempus cujus contrarii memoria hominum non existit, licentiati in artibus facultatem eandem trigintaquatuor, non licentiati vero triginta sex mensibus in Parisiensi studio teneantur audire, priusquam ad legendum in dicta facultate quomodolibet admittantur … et debeant in dicto studio, si in eisdem artibus licentiati existant, quinquaginta sex, et si non licentiati, sexaginta menses in facultate prefata, priusquam ad examen et magistratus licentiam admittantur.” 7 Pearl Kibre, “Arts and Medicine in the Universities in the Later Middle Ages,” in Les universités à la fin du Moyen Age: Actes du Congrès International de Louvain, 26–30 Mai 1975, eds. Jacques Paquet and Jozef Isewijn (Louvain, 1978), pp. 213–27, is primarily concerned with the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and focuses on the relevance of arts to medicine rather than on the possibility that it was a formal prerequisite.

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was taught there—and it was the core of the curriculum formally defined for Paris students in the 1270s. However, in the mid-thirteenth century, Galen’s commentaries on those Hippocratic treatises became an additional focus of attention, the ars became an ars commentata,8 and a student at either school would have been expected to have much more to say on a passage from the Prognostics in 1270 than thirty years before. But why should fulfilling the requirements of the liberal-arts course be supposed to reduce in any degree at all the time necessary to master the ars medicine, commented or not? Certainly mastering the content of the arts course—at Paris in 1252, it included the logical and grammatical works of the trivium and the De anima9—would not on the face of things contribute to this end: the Topics and the Prior Analytics would not be on the final examination in medicine. I would propose that the answer lies instead in the methods and techniques that would have been assimilated by any graduate in the arts, and that this is the explanation for the curious distinction mentioned by the bishop of Paris in my fourth passage above. He makes it clear there that traditionally the reduction in time of medical study enjoyed by a Paris licentiate in arts was not subtracted all in a lump: instead, his prior training allowed him to take two months off his study for the bachelor’s degree, and then another two months off his study for the license. I suggest that this is because any bachelor, in arts or medicine, has to develop a mastery of one set of skills involved in the discipline of studying a text, a licentiate a somewhat different set. As a bachelor-to-be you learn how to identify and formulate questions about a text and you observe masters in their determinations; as a licentiate-to-be you are beginning to teach and also to determine in your own right, under the guidance of your master. These are distinct techniques that will be just as applicable to studying and teaching Galen’s commentary on the Aphorisms as to studying De anima, and the medical masters in 1240 and 1270 are acknowledging to arts graduates, in effect, that to some degree they are better equipped for medical study and will need less technical preparation than someone who has had no training in how to study a text. It was to the students’ advantage since it made their medical education less expensive, because shorter, but it was to the 8 Cornelius O’Boyle, The Art of Medicine: Medical Teaching at the University of Paris, 1250–1400 (Leiden, 1998). 9 CUP, 1:227–30, no. 201, of 1252.


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masters’ advantage too, I imagine, because encouraging the presence of arts students meant that their disciples would tend to be older and would not need as much basic instruction in methods; they would be quicker to appreciate the point of the teaching and to identify problems for themselves, of more help sooner in disputations, and quite simply more fun to teach. But this raises a new question, it seems to me. When the Montpellier medical faculty finally received its revised statutes in January 1240 (the regulations seem previously to have been the subject of discord among the masters),10 they can have included this concession to arts graduates only because significant numbers of arts graduates had already been presenting themselves for medical education.11 It cannot have been meant to make medical education attractive to students who were not yet in arts, who had yet to enter the pipeline, as it were, but instead to finished products of an arts faculty. Where had all these arts graduates been coming from in the 1230s? They were probably not coming from Montpellier itself. There were certainly individual arts schools in the city before this date, but there was no institutional framework for their teaching: that came into being only in 1242, when the bishop of Maguelonne promulgated statutes for a newly established faculty of arts, following the medical model—and indeed I find it tempting to wonder whether the much more powerful medical faculty might tacitly have encouraged an act that might in a decade or so improve its own intake. In any case, in the 1230s the only plausible source of these students was, as indeed the 1240 statutes hint, “Paris (or some other notable place).”12 10 Jacques Verger, “Les statuts de l’université de médecine de Montpellier,” in L’Université de médecine de Montpellier et son rayonnement (XIIIe–XVe siècles), ed. Daniel Le Blévec (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 14–28, here 17. 11 André Gouron, “Signification et portée de la bulle du 26 Octobre 1289,” L’Université de Montpellier : ses maîtres et ses étudiants depuis sept siècles, 1289–1989: actes du 61e congrès de la Fédération historique du Languedoc méditerranéen et du Roussillon, colloque historique tenu à la Faculté de médecine de Montpellier les 23 et 24 octobre 1989 (Montpellier, 1995), pp. 11–26, here 18–19, mentions the concession but does not reflect on it; Jacques Verger, “Locus Montispessulani, aptus valde pro studio: Montpellier parmi les universités médiévales,” ibid., pp. 27–36, does not call attention to it. Verger, “Les statuts,” pp. 20–21, discusses the relation between arts and medicine in the fourteenth century, but not, I think, the implications of the 1240 provision; he also believes there was never a cohesive “university of arts and medicine” at Montpellier as there was at Bologna and Padua. 12 André Gouron, “Deux universités pour une ville,” in Histoire de Montpellier, ed. Gérard Cholvy (Toulouse, 1984), pp. 103–25, here 109–10, comments on the unimportance of arts teaching at Montpellier, remarking that “les artistes se révèlent si

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It is well known that at the beginning of the 1230s there had in fact been a flood of arts masters and students leaving Paris.13 The trigger had been an attack by the Paris police on rioting students in March 1229; the university saw this as a violation of their autonomy as clerics, and stopped classes, many of its members going elsewhere to teach or study. They did not begin to come back until Gregory IX issued the bull Parens scientiarum that guaranteed the university’s independence, and they did not come back all at once; indeed, the pace of their return is still unsure. It is also well known that part of what had been in the background in the 1220s was the prohibition of the study of Aristotle’s physical books by the artists; this prohibition Pope Gregory chose to leave in place in 1231, even though the ability to study the natural sciences freely seems to have been thought of as an incentive that could attract masters of arts away from Paris—the new University of Toulouse had made the enticement explicit.14 I suspect—I said that I would be speculating—that under these circumstances Montpellier proved particularly attractive to many in the dispersion: its faculty of medicine had obtained papal certification in 1220, and medicine there was consolidating its status as an intellectual discipline and not merely an empirical art. Its study of the ars medicine encompassed natural knowledge as well as practical medicine, and moreover medical masters in the 1230s were beginning to recognize the enormous synthetic explanatory power of Avicenna’s Canon, and were starting to integrate that work’s elaborate theoretical structures into commentaries on their basic curriculum. If Paris arts masters had arrived in Montpellier in the 1230s, proposing to offer their subject there, they could well have

rarement dans les sources locales, que l’on peut se demander si l’enseignement a connu quelque réalité, au moins jusqu’en 1369.” Perhaps it is worth mentioning that when Nicholas IV formally established a studium generale at Montpellier out of the preexisting faculties, he referred, somewhat equivocally, to the master’s examinations that were now to be given “in jure canonico et civili, necnon et in medicina et artibus.” (Germain, Cartulaire, 1:211, no. 20) Is it conceivable that here a nearly moribund arts is situated under the wing of the dominant medical faculty? 13 A convenient and well-documented account of events is in Gordon Leff, Paris and Oxford Universities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York, 1968), pp. 31–32. 14 CUP, 1:129–31, no. 72, of 1229. In the light of the speculation that follows, it is perhaps worth remarking that this document speaks of the study of medicine and that of natural philosophy in virtually the same breath: “[Hic] medici predicant Galienum. Libros naturales, qui fuerant Parisius prohibiti, poterunt illic audire qui volunt nature sinum medullitus perscrutari.”


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found the intellectual atmosphere of a new subject, medicine, liberating and exciting. And just how new a subject was it to them anyway? I may as well risk going even further into speculation. I think that it is worth reflecting here on the curious fact that in May 1231, as he was attempting to settle some of the consequences of the great dispersion (Parens scientiarum had been issued just three weeks before), Gregory IX conceded that— these are his words—the magistri artium et phisice facultatis who had left Paris to teach in other cities (he mentioned specifically only Angers and Orléans), who had been licensed by their fellows but not examined by the Parisian chancellor, would not need to be examined on their return to the capital.15 To be sure, the word phisica was a fluid one in the first half of the thirteenth century, meaning sometimes medicine and sometimes (increasingly, as time went on) natural philosophy. One historian has supposed that in this phrase Gregory was assimilating masters of natural philosophy to those of the liberal arts in a common institutional framework, the faculty of arts16—and yet just three weeks earlier, in Parens scientiarum, Gregory had required the Parisian chancellor to examine “de phisicis … et artistis ac aliis … magistros” in good faith,17 and here historians have always assumed that by “phisici” he meant “physicians.” It is surely the case that Gregory meant “medicine” in his subsequent letter as well, which suggests that medical masters might have been assimilated to the arts faculty in Paris at the time of the dispersion of 1229.18 If so, it is all the easier to understand why, in the dispersion, members of that faculty, arts as well as medical masters and students, might have ended up in Montpellier just as well as in Orléans or Angers; all the easier to understand why the Montpellier 15

CUP, 1:144–45, no. 89, of 5 May 1231. O’Boyle, Art of Medicine, p. 17: “it is clear that the pope is using the term physica to refer to natural philosophy and not to medicine.” Yet he goes on to concede that a document of 1213 means medicine when it speaks of Parisian physica. 17 CUP, 1:137, no. 79, of 13 April 1231. 18 Vern L. Bullough, “The Medieval Medical University at Paris,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 31 (1957), 197–217, here 199, has shed doubt on the implication that medicine might at first have fallen within the arts faculty, citing CUP, 1:75–76, no. 16, to show that licensing procedures for the two were different in 1213. Yet it is worth noting that Henri d’Andeli writing c. 1230 included the “Parvipontani” among the Paris medical teachers of the day—might not that again link medical masters to the artists on the Petit-Pont? In The Development of Medicine as a Profession (Basel, 1966), p. 69 n. 59, Bullough refers to Gregory’s letter as the first “record of a formal organization with masters and students in medicine” in Paris—here, however, he does not comment on the apparent presence of arts masters in the same organization. 16

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masters in 1240 formalized their concession to “masters of arts at Paris or some other notable place.” If the exiled medical men were in no hurry to return to Paris, and only gradually drifted back, it would not be surprising that after the dispersion there was no further hint of an association of arts and medicine there, and that it is not until the mid1260s that we see any real evidence of an independent medical faculty’s activity at Paris—a faculty which wrote Montpellier’s 1240 innovation on dispensation for an arts education into its new statutes shortly thereafter.19 These last reflections are all utterly speculative, as I warned you they would be; I admit it cheerfully. Ignore them, by all means. We can leave aside the matter of motivation and still agree, I hope, that the evidence shows that students (and therefore masters) in the thirteenth-century medical faculties of Montpellier and Paris included both men who had received previous training in the liberal arts and those who had not; and furthermore that those faculties felt that arts training was an advantage to a medical student and were prepared to make concessions to those with such training.20 I cannot think that large numbers were involved at this early stage, certainly not once the flurry of dispersed Paris artists (if I am right) had passed. Danielle Jacquart has pointed out that even by the 1320s only two out of a sample of fourteen Paris medical students advancing to the license were termed “magister,” implying their prior acquisition of the arts degree (though some of the remaining dozen may still have had some arts training, of course, even the license, before moving to medicine).21 The earliest such figure I can identify with certainty is the Catalan Pere Gavet, who was offered the chair of medicine at the new University of Lérida in 1311 but quickly moved to Barcelona and established himself there, dying in 1354. Gavet emphasizes his dual training in public documents, calling himself “Parisius licentiatus in septem artibus et in 19

See below, pp. 204–11. Bullough, “Medical University,” p. 201, offers no evidence for the assertion that while not all Paris medical students in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were masters of arts, the majority were, because they found the degree advantageous, and that in any case all had to have had some previous training in the arts. Ten years later, in The Development of Medicine, p. 69 n. 61, he went further and stated that a bachelor of medicine at Paris had to have taken an MA degree, but his evidence for this is the two documents (2) and (4) I quoted at the beginning, which make it clear that the MA was not required of all students. 21 Jacquart, La médecine médiévale, p. 132, citing CUP, 2:250, 274, 282, 290–91, and 322, nos. 804, 826, 839, 852, and 889. 20


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scientia medicine professor”;22 his evident pride in the distinction may be evidence that it was still a rarity. Nevertheless, the proportion of arts-trained students would grow until Martin V made the training a requirement in the fifteenth century. ***** If medical masters at thirteenth-century Montpellier and Paris were of two kinds, then, as the evidence implies, some with arts training and some without, did it make any difference to the subject as it evolved? Did arts training affect the way in which thirteenth-century masters thought, and taught? Again the evidence is thin, arguably nonexistent; I have just said that I cannot identify a medical master with certain arts training before the fourteenth century. Instead, we have to look at academic medical writings of the thirteenth century and work backward, speculatively: do they have anything to tell us about their authors’ background? It is difficult, especially since there are not many such writings, and most of them cannot be fitted to a time and place with any assurance. Let us see, however, what can be done with two important if still somewhat enigmatic writers. The first of these is not too problematic: this is Gérard de Berry (or Bourges), the author of a commentary on the Viaticum attributed by Latin authors to Constantine the African (it was actually Constantine’s translation of a work by Ibn al-Jazzār), who calls himself professione medicus in the introduction to his work, which he says was prepared “a sociis rogatus Parisius”; he seems deliberately to distance himself from the medicine of Montpellier.23 The earliest dated manuscript of this work purports to have been copied in 1236/7, while the text itself contains three quotations from Aristotle’s De animalibus, which became available in its Latin translation by Michael Scot only after 1220.24 So we can perhaps tentatively view Gérard 22 Michael McVaugh, Medicine before the Plague (Cambridge, Eng., 1993), p. 85 n. 61. 23 Breviarium Constantini dictum Viaticum cum expositione Gerardi Bututi (Venice, 1505), fol. 89va. (Hereafter cited as Viaticum.) 24 The manuscript—Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, MS D.iii.6—is described by Mary Frances Wack, Lovesickness in the Middle Ages: The Viaticum and Its Commentaries (Philadelphia, 1990), p. 195, who quotes the explicit as stating that the work was “parisius in studio compillata” and that the copyist finished his task “M.CCXXXVJ die veneris. viii. kalendis martis” (= 22 February).

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as teaching medicine at Paris around the time of the university’s dispersal.25 My second figure is somewhat more difficult to locate in time or place. He is the famous Gilbertus Anglicus, Gilbert the Englishman, whose Compendium medicine earned a place in Chaucer; besides the Compendium, perhaps the first Latin medical encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, Gilbert has left us an earlier production, a commentary on the treatise On urines composed by Giles of Corbeil about 1200. The commentary suggests an academic career, but does not hint at where it was. We can bracket the period of his activity, however: Gilbert, like Gérard, knows De animalibus, so he was writing after 1220, and the earliest dated manuscript of his Compendium was copied in 1271. Here are two likely witnesses to the intellectual activity of the medical world that was institutionalizing in the second quarter of the thirteenth century: what do their works have to tell us about the relationship of the arts with medicine at that moment? The fact that each man knew and drew from De animalibus suggests a first approach to the problem. What use, more generally, did each make of the Aristotelian corpus? The older logic, of course, was already an established part of the arts curriculum at the beginning of the thirteenth century, but Aristotle’s naturalistic writings did not really receive much study in arts faculties at Oxford and Paris until the 1230s and 1240s. Do our authors show any familiarity with either of these bodies of writing? Gérard de Berry does not. His three citations of De animalibus are his only references to Aristotle in the body of his commentary; for authority he quotes exclusively from medical texts, the constituents of the ars medicine—Tegni, Aphorisms, Prognostics, Regimen acutorum—and Constantine’s translations of Isaac and the Pantegni. Not even in the introduction to his work, where he discusses the relation of theoretical to practical knowledge in medicine, the relation of the general to the particular, does Aristotle put in the appearance that might reasonably be expected, and there is no hint that Gérard has been exposed systematically to the trivium. Gilbert the Englishman presents a very different picture. His commentary on Urines has a dozen or so rather general references to 25

Wack, Lovesickness, pp. 52–54, proposed that Gérard composed his work in the period 1180–1200, but did not recognize the problem posed to this dating by his quotations from De animalibus. She acknowledged that her proposed date would make his use of Avicenna’s Canon “relatively early”; in fact, it would make it astonishingly early, for European use of the Canon seems really to have begun only in the 1230s.


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Aristotle, among which I have been able to identify passages in the Posterior Analytics, Meteorology, and De somno et vigilia; his much more broadly based Compendium refers the reader specifically to Topics (fols. 126vb, 175rb); Sophistici Elenchi (fol. 144va); Predicamenta (fol. 144ra); Ethics (fol. 158ra); Physics (fol. 157va); De generatione et corruptione (fol. 244ra); Meteorologica (fol. 5ra); De anima (fols. 127va, 256ra); and De animalibus (fols. 248ra, 284rb).26 Gilbert knows and uses the whole range of the Aristotelian corpus. There may be no trace of a formal liberal arts background in Gérard’s writing, but Gilbert’s familiarity with Aristotelian learning certainly suggests that he has had training in the arts. And one of his other authorities is particularly interesting, for in his Urines-commentary he four times reveals his acquaintance with Averroes’s commentaries on Aristotle, a familiarity that is more likely to have been gained as an artist in Paris, it seems to me, than anywhere else. The inference from his Urines-commentary that Gilbert had received a Parisian arts training of course says nothing about where the commentary itself was composed. We know that both the Viaticum and Giles’s Urines were often copied together with the ars medicine in thirteenth-century Paris, and there is direct evidence of their place in teaching there in the last part of the century: the statutes of 1270–1274 specify that the Viaticum must have been heard twice in ordinary lectures by every bachelor before he took the license, and they add that “Giles’s verses [on urines] are not de forma”—not required, but nevertheless, it would seem, an elective.27 So it is not impossible that this same practice obtained at Paris in the first part of the century as well, and that Gilbert’s commentary grew out of medical studies there—but of course it could also perfectly well have been the practice at early Montpellier, where there is no direct evidence at all of the courses required in the thirteenth century. Again: Gilbert refers in his Urinescommentary several times to an earlier commentary by him on the Fourth Book of Aristotle’s Meteorology. This may be another testimony to his medical education, not to his arts formation. A century later, in 1350, it was made explicit that the only nonmedical books that might 26 I have been able to study Gilbert’s Urines-commentary by virtue of the generosity of E. Ruth Harvey, who has shared with me her draft edition of the work. My references to the Compendium are to the folios in Gilbertus Anglicus, Compendium medicine (Lyons, 1510). (Hereafter cited as Compendium.) 27 CUP, 1:517, no. 453, of 1270–1274: “Versus Egidii non sunt de forma.” See also Jacquart, La médecine médiévale, p. 163.

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be taught in the Paris medical faculty were Aristotle’s De animalibus and the Fourth Book of his Meteorology. Once more, if this reflects a long-standing Parisian practice, it would fit nicely with Gilbert’s close knowledge of both works early in his career; but fourteenth-century Montpellier had a somewhat similar regulation.28 In the end we can really do no more than say that Gilbert’s Urines-commentary shows a familiarity with medical texts that could have been part of a bachelor’s medical education at Paris in the second quarter of the thirteenth century, but that, as probably the work of a young medical master, it may just as well have been written out in Montpellier as at Paris. But Gilbert’s great Compendium medicine is a little easier to place. Here I will only summarize what I have recently argued elsewhere, that the work was almost certainly finished at Montpellier in the 1250s, perhaps as late as 1260.29 It engages closely with a number of issues in medical theory that we know were of great interest to mid-century teachers at the school, such as the nature of medicinal degree, and the character of the moistures responsible for human life; it manifests a knowledge of the new alchemical medicine of Rhazes that was beginning to attract many physicians in the 1250s; and it makes references to individuals and commentaries that are specific to Montpellier. And in the light of this conclusion it is tempting to see Gilbert the Englishman as representative of the men with a Paris arts training who had ended up in Montpellier’s medical faculty by 1240 or so. Still, for our present purposes it matters less where he obtained that training than what difference it made to his medical teaching. One way to approach this is by comparing the medical teaching of Gilbert with that of Gérard de Berry, who I have argued is likely to have been a roughly contemporary Paris medical master without an arts formation. Though the parallel is not perfect, Gilbert’s Compendium seems to bear at least some comparison with Gérard’s commentary on the Viaticum. Gérard’s work follows its base text in providing a general survey of pathology and therapeutics, from head to foot; Gilbert has planned his text along broadly the same lines, and they therefore are 28 Jacquart, La médecine médiévale, p. 171, who interprets the source document as referring to teaching by masters; Bullough, “Medical University,” p. 203, assumed that it referred to bachelors. 29 Michael McVaugh, “Who Was Gilbert the Englishman?,” in The Study of Medieval Manuscripts of England: Festschrift in Honor of Richard W. Pfaff, eds. George Hardin Brown and Linda Ehrsam Voigts, Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 35 (Turnhout, 2010), pp. 295–324.


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discussing the same topics. So let us ask, if we sample a few common elements in both, how do the books compare in detail? Perhaps the first point worth making is that Gilbert, who of course knew perfectly well what it was to write in the commentary-form, chose not to do so (unlike Gérard) when he decided to write a general survey of medicine. Since he did not have to follow the structure of an earlier work, he was free to organize his Compendium as he chose, and it is striking that the first and longest book of its seven is devoted to an account of fevers, and that his head-to-toe system begins with Book Two; “Constantine,” and so Gérard, put an account of fevers off until the end of his work. The Salernitan authors of the previous century, too, had often placed fevers at the beginning of their surveys of practica, and Gilbert may simply have been following their model.30 Yet historians have often commented on how different, how “scholastic,” Gilbert’s book on fevers is from the rest of the Compendium, and I wonder whether that might not be because it was the most important to him; he began with it, and he took pains to develop it as he thought best. This meant drawing careful distinctions between different febrile entities. Gérard discussed ephemeral, causon, tertian, synochal, quartan, and quotidian fevers; Gilbert broke these down into numerous subspecies. This Gilbertian taste for analysis is apparent in other respects. Gérard explains briefly that the cause of quartan fever is melancholy, either the natural humor or the unnatural forms created by the adustion of any of the four humors, and leaves it at that. Gilbert says the true quartan (vera quartana) is caused by natural melancholy; he says nothing about unnatural forms. Instead, he deliberately raises dubia: how can a natural humor be the cause of a disease, something against nature? His discussion leads him into an account of fever as genus and quartan as species, a species whose differentia is material rather than formal.31 Another area of medicine that seems particularly to have fascinated Gilbert was ophthalmology, with which his Third Book begins. Here again he offers a longer list of conditions than Gérard, and this time what is particularly noticeable about the subject is his much deeper interest in the scientific details of the anatomy and physiology of sight, normal as well as pathological. Once more his discussion leads him

30 31

I owe this observation to Professor Monica Green. Viaticum, fol. 178r-v; Compendium, fol. 46rb-va.

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into nonclinical questions: is vision an intromissive or extromissive process? does color exist at night? why do objects in water seem closer than those in air?32 It is not just the terminology, it is the interest in pursuing philosophical issues about the nature of life and disease that here sets Gilbert apart from Gérard, although in more clinical respects their accounts are not so very far removed. Even when the topic is an illness that does not seem to carry special interest for Gilbert, he brings his distinctive orientation into his discussion. In dealing with the nature of ptisis or consumption, for example, Gérard simply restates “Constantine’s” account of the various things that can cause the illness, treating all its manifestations as comparable. In contrast, Gilbert distinguishes between the various forms of the disease, most of which are “non vera” and are caused by a generalized consumption of the body’s moisture; vera ptisis is a condition triggered specifically by an abscess in the lung which weakens its inhalation of air to cool the heart, and the body therefore overheats and its moisture is consumed. Yet Gilbert’s interest in definition and physical theory does not substitute for a clinical interest in the disease, for while Gérard is content merely to refer his reader to Constantine’s list of remedies, Gilbert gives a much longer discussion of treatments, one evidently drawn from a wide range of written sources (including the Viaticum, though he does not identify any of them), as well, it may be, as from his own awareness of current practice: “novissimum autem consilium est cauterium in furcula pectoris.”33 The recurrent features that characterize Gilbert’s medical discussions and distinguish him from Gérard—his interest in definition, in classification, and in detailed physical models for physiological and pathological processes—are certainly not inconsistent with what I have argued was his probable prior training in the arts. The connection might have been even more suggestive if I had opted to look at discussions that chose explicitly to refer to Aristotle to certify their conclusions—the Topics, say, or the De anima—but up to now I have avoided such passages in order to make the case that Gilbert’s approach reveals a general pattern of thought, independent of what specific authorities say. Let me now turn to one of these more overtly

32 Compendium, fols. 126v–129v; and see Henry E. Handerson, Gilbertus Anglicus (Cleveland, 1918), pp. 33–34. 33 Viaticum, fols. 121v–122r; Compendium, fols. 196r–197v.


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“Aristotelian” passages, one that is to me perhaps the most intriguing and revealing portion of the whole Compendium, its long chapter on dropsy.34 Dropsy, Gilbert began, again quoting the Viaticum, was caused by a defect in the liver’s (mutable) virtus; the causal role of the liver in this disease, though not perhaps the mechanism of its action, was a medical truism. This mention of virtus gave him the opportunity to suddenly launch into a long digression that took him far away from pathology or clinical medicine into an elaborate theoretical examination of the underpinnings of physiology as he understood it: from an exploration of virtus in general, its nature and varieties, on to an account of the nature of anima and its forms, back to a more detailed account of the operation of virtutes naturales, and finally to a study of the nature of change or motion in general. Only then does he drag himself back to clinical medicine and the cause of dropsy. What he seems to have been trying to do in this long digression is deliberately to unify the ways in which arts and medical masters understand their shared fundamental concepts, and he marshals authorities carefully on both sides: for arts, Aristotle over and over, sometimes pinned down to a particular work—Topics, Categories, On generation, Meteorology, De anima—but also the De sex principiis and Avicenna’s Sufficientia; for medicine, Avicenna’s Canon, Johannitius, Constantine, Galen’s Tegni, and Haly [Abbas]. The general impression given by his exposition is that of an arts master trying to bring physicians up to his level, not the reverse—as when, preparing to discuss anima, he implies the deficiencies of his audience by saying, rather sharply, “quia ignorantia parit verecundiam et stoliditas paupertatem”35 before laying out a simple but extensive outline that would be appropriate, it seems to me, to the early years of arts training. Here we see very clearly just what the arts program had to offer medicine: a broad philosophical foundation for its medical entities—in this particular case, two of its res naturales, virtus and operatio. And yet—and this is what I find particularly striking about the chapter as a whole—Gilbert may have been eager to use his earlier arts training to educate his new colleagues, but he was also willing to subordinate it when necessary to the very different goals of the discipline

34 35

Compendium, fols. 241r–256v. Ibid., fol. 243va.

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they all now shared. Eventually, as I say, Gilbert returns to dropsy and its cause, saying that some (aliqui) believe that the liver depends on the heart and that it is therefore a defect in cardiac virtus that causes the disease. These men have a variety of reasons to back them up, he admits, and they can even quote Aristotle to make their point definitively: principium omnium virtutum est cor. But here Gilbert makes his new disciplinary priorities clear: This statement is far removed from what physicians believe, and therefore Aristotle’s opinion leads physicians into error, since he is speaking of philosophical truth [secundum veritatem] but physicians of what the senses reveal, and for them this way is better. Disregarding veritas does no harm to the physician, for the route to healing is revealed through the senses.36

To treat the heart rather than the liver, based on Aristotle’s reasoning, however valid, would be bad for the patient. I find this statement quite remarkable, coming from Gilbert at this point in his discussion. Philosophy, he has just been saying, as expounded by Aristotle, can give medicine a grounding in truth that it has not been able to gain on its own; and yet, he declares here, philosophical truth is not a completely satisfactory basis for medicine. Physicians do not need to know the truth, they need to know what heals, and veritas can sometimes stand in the way of that goal. Evidently the infusion of arts content and methods into mid-thirteenth century medicine, even the entry of former arts masters into the subject, did not weaken the conviction of academic physicians that the character and aims of their subject were distinct and independent. ***** Despite the papal concession of 1231, the letter of Gregory IX meant to induce the medical masters to return to Paris after the great dispersion, there is no evidence of an academic medical community there for

36 Compendium, fol. 248rb, modified by the text in Bruges, Bibliothèque de la ville, MS 469, fol. 163va-b: “Sed ista dictio valde remota est a sententiis medicorum, eo quod sententia Aristotelis facit medicos errare, eo quod ipse loquitur secundum veritatem, medici secundum manifestationem in sensu, in quibus autem via est maior. Veritatis autem occultatio non nocet medico, cum via secundum manifestationem pateat curationis.” In the printed edition the italicized words are replaced by “communibus autem maior via.” Neither wording seems entirely clear.


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twenty years. When in the 1250s medicine is again found mentioned as among the subjects studied at the school, it is still not in terms that would prove that it had more than a nominal and fitful presence there.37 Only in the 1260s are there suddenly a number of hints that a revitalized medical teaching was at last beginning to establish itself in Paris alongside the arts. The commentary on Aristotle’s De animalibus by Gérard du Breuil can be dated to the years 1260–64, and may have been written at Paris. It has a decidedly medical orientation, using medical sources and raising medical questions as it does; Danielle Jacquart has suggested that it may reflect the teaching of a medical faculty,38 and certainly the De animalibus was lectured on by Parisian physicians in subsequent years. Again, a copy of what is apparently the earliest medical work composed by the late thirteenth-century Paris master Jean de Saint-Amand († 1303), his Areolae, was being annotated in 1270 at Montpellier; if he drew it up in Paris, it would seem to imply he was studying there in the 1260s and to confirm the fact of communication between the two schools at this time.39 Definite proof 37

A letter from Blanche of Castile in June 1251, ordering that “universi studentes Parisius tam magistri quam scolares in theologia, decretis, medicina, artibus et grammatica” swear to keep the peace in the city (CUP, 1:223, no. 197), seems to me to prove nothing about the restoration of a medical faculty there; even if medical instruction had not yet revived, she would scarcely want to leave the subject out of a comprehensive list. Similarly the letter of the university in CUP, 1:252, no. 230, February 1254, would have rhetorical motives for stressing that its protest against the mendicants was broadly based “in quatuor facultates, videlicet theologiam, jurisperitiam, medicinam, necnon rationalem, naturalem, moralem philosophiam quasi in iiiior paradysi flumina distributus,” even if medicine was still only marginally present there. It is perhaps not surprising that “dans ces conditions, des historiens actuels sont amenés à postuler … une quasi-absence de l’enseignement médical parisien avant les statutes de 1270–1274”; this opinion is from Jacquart, La médecine médiévale, p. 22. 38 Tamara Goldstein, “Gérard du Breuil et la zoologie aristotélicienne au XIIIe siècle,” Ecole nationale des Chartes, positions de thèses (Paris, 1969), pp. 61–68; cited in Ernest Wickersheimer, Dictionnaire biographique des médecins en France au moyen âge, rev. ed., 3 vols. (Geneva, 1979), vol. 3 (ed. Danielle Jacquart), p. 84. 39 Saint-Amand’s most serious modern student, Walton Schalick, has concluded that much of his activity took place in the 1290s because his two most important works, the Areolae and a commentary on the Antidotarium Nicolai, make regular references to “Serapion,” and the Liber aggregatus attributed to “Serapion” was translated by Simon of Genoa about 1290; see Walton Orvyl Schalick III, “Add One Part Pharmacy to One Part Surgery and One Part Medicine: Jean de Saint-Amand and the Development of Medical Pharmacology in Thirteenth-Century Paris,” Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1997. However, if we pursue Saint-Amand’s references closely, we find that he is quoting from another work by a “Serapion,” the Breviarium, which was translated in the twelfth century by Gerard of Cremona, and this opens up the dating of Saint-Amand’s career once more. There is therefore no reason to doubt that the Areolae (and Saint-Amand’s medical formation) could go back to the 1260s. Schalick

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that some kind of academic community of physicians had been restored to Paris finally comes in July 1267, when a certain Petrus Limovicensis (Pierre de Limoges) is found witnessing a document as “decanus magistrorum Parisius regentium in physica”; three years later the same Petrus, “tunc decano,” asserted the faculty’s authority over the license against dissident students and masters.40 And in the following year, 1271, under a new dean, the masters launched a period of intense legislative activity: for four years they were kept busy defining the curriculum and the responsibilities of students and masters, as though they had become newly aware of a corporate identity requiring a formal institutional structure.41 The remarkable dynamism of the faculty after 1265 or so is the more striking given the silence of the sources for the previous thirty years, and is at least not inconsistent with the possibility of an accelerating return to Paris after a dispersion to other centers at the beginning of the 1230s. Historians have been divided over whether the Pierre de Limoges who was dean of the faculty in 1267–70 is the “Petrus Limovicensis” who is known to have pursued theology, entered the Sorbonne, and become a canon of Evreux, dying in 1306, but on balance it seems likely that he was, for among the books left by the theological Pierre to his college were several medical codices whose contents suggest the Paris medicine of the 1260s and 1270s.42 One of these (now Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16166) contains the De animalibus commentary of Gérard du Breuil; another (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16192) includes Saint-Amand’s Areolae, and a third (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 15362) holds a version of Saint-Amand’s gloss on the Antidotarium Nicolai, probably has established that Saint-Amand was made a canon of Tournai in 1281, and from then until his death in 1303 he is to be found virtually every year engaged in official business for the chapter—as cellarer (1283) and master of the fabric (1296), and provost (1298). It is logical to imagine Saint-Amand’s period of magistral teaching at Paris as occupying the 1270s, in the years after his own initial training (somewhere) and before his involvement in the affairs of the Tournai chapter. 40 CUP, 1:468, no. 416, of 7 July 1267; and 1:488, no. 433, of 1270. 41 Ibid., 1:488–90, no. 434, of 1271; 1:502, no. 444, of 1272; and 1:515–18, nos. 451– 56, of 1270–74. 42 In her article later in this volume Danielle Jacquart expresses the same opinion. A convenient summary of the debate by early authorities over Pierre’s identity can be found in Lynn Thorndike, “Peter of Limoges on the Comet of 1299,” Isis 36 (1945), 3–6, here 3. The list of his manuscripts that came to the Bibliothèque nationale from the Sorbonne is given in Léopold Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque impériale, 3 vols. (Paris, 1868–81), 2:167–69.


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composed at Paris in the 1270s. That last manuscript also contains a copy of the Tacuinum sanitatis by ibn Butlān, whose interest for Paris masters of this period is confirmed by Jean of Saint-Amand’s commentary on the same work.43 For our purposes, the most interesting of these medical volumes, today Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16194, contains Gilbertus Anglicus’s Compendium medicine, bequeathed to the college only fifty years or so after it was composed; on the last leaf (fol. 195v) is written “iste liber ist pauperum magistrorum de Sorbona ex legato M. Petri de limovicis quondam socii domus huius.” A revealing sign of its academic use is the marginal notes that show it to have been copied in pecie from an exemplar. It is well known that the pecia system allowed the Paris masters in every faculty to ensure that a standardized text of a work of particular value to their students could be rapidly reproduced from an exemplar, and to find that the Paris stationers were publishing Gilbert in pecie—two exemplars of the work have actually been identified, one complete and one fragmentary (in Cambrai and Warsaw, respectively)44—is therefore a clear indication of its importance to the faculty, even though it does not tell us specifically how it might have been used. Unfortunately we are not particularly well informed about the books from which late thirteenth-century Paris masters drew their teaching. The statutes of 1270–74 make the ars medicine the foundation of Parisian medical study (as we have seen was earlier the case at Montpellier), together probably with the Viaticum and the Antidotarium

43 Other medical manuscripts owned by Pierre de Limoges are Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 15972, containing Macer and the “aphorismi Damasceni”; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16184, containing the Liber aggregatus of Serapion; and Paris, Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, MS 125, which has been shown to contain works of Galen annotated by Pierre (see the article by Jacquart, below), including De elementis, De complexionibus, De simplicibus, De malicia complexionis diverse, De iuvamentis membrorum, De ingenio sanitatis, De morbo et accidenti, De interioribus, De criticis diebus, De crisi, and others. 44 A complete exemplar was identified in Cambrai, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 909 (805), by Jean Destrez [and Marie-Dominique Chenu], “Exemplaria universitaires des XIIIe et XIVe siècles,” Scriptorium 7 (1953), 72, 74. A fragmentary one in Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, MS III.8069, has been described by Giovanna Murano, “Frammenti di un « Exemplar » nella Biblioteka Narodowa di Varsavia (MS III. 8069),” Scriptorium 55 (2001), 294–98. Murano there attributed to Destrez the recognition that BnF, MS lat. 16194 was a peciated copy of the work, but I have not been able to identify the basis for this attribution. Destrez did not make it in his Scriptorium article or, as far as I can see, in his earlier La pecia dans les manuscrits universitaires (Paris, 1935). Murano has noted that the Paris manuscript is based on an exemplar very similar to the Warsaw copy.

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Nicolai).45 Jean de Saint-Amand’s Revocativum memorie, assembled apparently in the late 1290s, seems to show that a number of works of Galen and perhaps portions of Avicenna’s Canon were also the subjects of magisterial lectures at Paris.46 But there is no independent evidence to show us exactly what role the Compendium may have played in studies there. So perhaps this copy of the Compendium may have just as much to tell us about its owner, Pierre de Limoges, as it does about the faculty. We know tantalizingly little about Pierre’s early career; just enough, in fact, to encourage me to return to mildly extravagant speculation. A Pierre de Limoges appears first in Paris in 1260, listening to and taking down the sermons of Robert de Sorbonne, but we know nothing concrete about his academic status at that moment.47 A mere seven years later, as we have seen, a Pierre de Limoges was dean of the revived medical faculty. It is no wonder that some historians have found it difficult to equate the theological Pierre with the medical one, but his books seem to establish that they are identical. And if we now accept that they are in fact the same man, it is highly likely that Pierre’s formal training in medicine must have antedated his attendance at Robert de Sorbonne’s sermons, and that it can only have taken place, of course, at Montpellier or at Paris—if indeed there was an active faculty at Paris in the 1250s. We have to imagine a young scholar with a lively interest in medicine and science, an interest he clearly maintained all his life,48 45

Jacquart, La médecine médiévale, pp. 162–63. Schalick (“Add One Part Pharmacy,” p. 288) points out that Saint-Amand refers to himself in the proemium to the work as praepositus of Sainte-Waudru of Mons, an office that he received in 1298, though Schalick leaves open the possibility that the body of the Revocativum might have been assembled at a different date. 47 Reports of sermons given by Robert in 1260–61 are among those assembled by Pierre in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 15971, while other Paris sermons from the years 1261–64 can be found in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16482; both these manuscripts (as well as many others) were bequeathed to the Sorbonne by Pierre along with the medical books mentioned above. It has long been assumed that Pierre himself was present at all these sermons and was their rapporteur, but Nicole Bériou has now determined that the latter manuscript was compiled by Raoul de Châteauroux and later given to Pierre; see her L’avènement des maîtres de la Parole, 2 vols. (Paris, 1998), 1:13 n. 47. She does, however, still accept that Robert’s sermons of 1260–61, delivered in the university setting, were taken down by Pierre himself (ibid., 1:125–27). It was these reportationes that led Palémon Glorieux to conclude that “dès 1262, on le trouve à Paris, maitre ès-arts, pour le moins” (see his Répertoire des maîtres en théologie de Paris au XIIIe siècle, 2 vols. [Paris, 1933–34], 1364); but they do not testify directly to the character of Pierre’s earlier academic history. 48 Thorndike, “Peter of Limoges,” shows that he was still an active observer of the heavens at the end of the 1290s. 46


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who nevertheless became drawn to theology in the Paris of the 1260s and gradually changed his career goals as he was teaching medicine over the next decade.49 Might we not imagine—I continue happily to build on thin air—that Peter had been formed at Montpellier (not a great deal farther from Limoges than is Paris, after all) but, perhaps like other masters, had been attracted to Paris by 1260, bringing with him a copy of his erstwhile colleague Gilbert’s much-admired Compendium, and had induced the Paris stationers to publish it in pecie for his students, even as he progressed on to theology? It is worth noting that the Paris manuscript was copied evenly, with no gaps, so that its scribe must have had uninterrupted access to the exemplar;50 and that it was then collated by an annotator whose corrections and additions were subsequently sent to be entered by the original scribe.51 We know nothing at all about the Parisian production of medical works in pecie, and we can only surmise how the process might have worked by using the much-better studied production of theological texts as a model. Could Pierre have turned over his original copy to be prepared in a version in pecie; received back his original together with a duplicate of the newly rewritten text for his own use; and then checked the new version against his original and noted the occasional errors in 49 The last direct testimony to Pierre’s activity in the medical faculty is from 1270. Yet there are certainly hints that he maintained his interest in medicine well after that point, for in the present-day Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat.15362 he had a copy of his presumed colleague Jean de Saint-Amand’s gloss on the Antidotarium Nicolai, a work probably (as we have seen) composed in the 1270s, as well as of Avicenna’s treatise De viribus cordis in the Latin translation of Arnau de Vilanova, a translation which is not likely to have been finished before 1280. 50 On this inference see Destrez, La pecia, p. 36. 51 A nice example can be found on fol. 144rb of Paris BnF, MS lat. 16194, where three marginal corrections made by the main scribe can be seen; of the original notes by the annotator made for the scribe’s guidance, two were scratched out after the correction was made, but the third remains. I have not had the opportunity to determine whether the annotator’s hand is that of Pierre, but it would be well worth doing and perhaps not difficult, for a number of studies of his handwriting have already been made: see, for example, Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny, “Avicenna Latinus: Supplementum,” AHDLMA 39 (1972), 321–41, here 338 (and references there). I have argued elsewhere (in the article cited in n. 29 above) that Gilbert’s Compendium was originally published with the author’s last-minute additions entered into the margins; I have discussed ten of these passages and have shown that in copies of the Compendium they are sometimes still found in the margin but have also sometimes been inserted into the text proper by a subsequent scribe. In the case of Pierre de Limoges’s manuscript, each of the first five of these passages is copied at the bottom of a leaf, but the second five have been incorporated smoothly into the text. The pecia-exemplar must have presented the same appearance, and the scribe of our manuscript clearly understood the marginal additions to be integral to the work in that form, for he left them so.

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the margin of the former, which he returned to the stationer so that the corrections might be made on his exemplar as well? Analogues to a number of these stages can be identified, for example, in the publication of some of Thomas Aquinas’s works. It ought perhaps to be noted that if Pierre did present the Compendium to be copied for peciaproduction in the 1260s, it would have been at a very early stage in the evolution of the system, before many of its features became standardized and institutionalized.52 At all events, this sequence would be consistent with the little evidence we have, although of course it remains mere speculation—yet it might some day receive a little more solidity if the pecia-exemplars I have mentioned turn out to incorporate the marginal corrections entered in the Paris manuscript.53 Whatever scenario we choose to imagine to account for these details, it is clear that some element or elements in the resurgent Paris medical faculty of the later thirteenth century believed that Gilbert’s Compendium was a book that their students would find useful and that needed to be made easily available. And this means that Paris medicine had changed forever since the days of Gérard de Berry, forty or fifty years before. Somehow during those undocumented years the Parisian masters had come to accept that the best medical writing and teaching arose out of a knowledgeable application of an arts training, and Aristotle, to medicine. They may have brought the recognition with them from a temporary exile in Montpellier, but equally well there may have been no such exile, and a continuous if invisible Paris tradition may have arrived at the conviction on its own by a process we will never understand. Either way, the pecia-exemplars of the Compendium show that the arts have carried the day in Paris medicine. There are other signs of the change to be seen, of course. Danielle Jacquart pointed out some years ago that although Pierre de Limoges was calling himself decanus magistrorum in physica in the 1260s, the new legislation of the early 1270s referred always to medici and medicina. 52 Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, “The Book Trade at the University of Paris, ca. 1250–ca. 1350,” in La production du livre universitaire au moyen âge: exemplar et pecia, eds. Louis J. Bataillon, Bertrand G. Guyot, Richard H. Rouse (Paris, 1988), pp. 41–114. Here, among other things, the authors discuss the gradual development of the system (pp. 44–47); give examples of authorial presentation of a work to a stationer for reproduction, and of the routine correction of exemplars (pp. 71–75); and suggest that the production of medical works in pecie may have been a specialized operation by a stationer whom scholars have not yet identified (p. 76). 53 In fact, Murano happens already to have noticed (“Frammenti,” p. 298) that the scribe’s correction of ve(n)to to vo(m)itu in the Paris manuscript is indeed written simply vomitu in the Warsaw exemplar.


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She has seen in this verbal shift from “physica” to “medicina” a sign of Paris’s transition from a community in which medicine’s status as a partly theoretical discipline still needed to be defended, to one in which that status could confidently be taken for granted,54 and certainly that new status would have been supported by grounding it in the arts. Or we might adduce Saint-Amand’s occasional citation of Aristotle as a medical authority on a level with Galen and Hippocrates in his Revocativum.55 However it had happened, by the last decades of the thirteenth century Paris had joined Montpellier in agreeing that the best medicine was constructed on a foundation of the liberal arts. For most of my career I have been studying the writings of Arnau de Vilanova, who taught medicine at Montpellier in the last decade of the thirteenth century and whose teachings remained influential there and indeed elsewhere for another century at least. Arnau was by far the most prolific writer in the school’s history, and the sheer quantity of his medical works makes it easy to think of him as a sport, as a kind of “world-historical” medical master—all the easier since so little is yet understood of thirteenth-century medical thought before him. But I have gradually come to recognize that the distinctive features of his medicine were already becoming apparent in medicine thirty years before, and can be seen plainly emerging in Gilbert the Englishman’s Compendium: Arnau’s deployment of Aristotelian thought in De humido radicali, his appeal to elaborate physical models early in his career in De amore heroico, his explicit use of the teachings of the quadrivium in his Aphorismi de gradibus—and also his insistence on the autonomy of medicine from philosophy in his earliest Montpellier work, De intentione medicorum. Arnau had learned his medicine at Montpellier thirty years before he came back there to teach; he was a student there at just about the time (if I am right) that Gilbert the Englishman was winding up his own career there. Whether Arnau also had received arts training we do not know, and it is perfectly possible that he had not. But we can now appreciate that, even so, academic medical training was already in his school days beginning to take on certain features of the culture of the liberal arts, even if it did not yield to them entirely. 54

Jacquart, La médecine médiévale, p. 20. For example, in the Concordanciae that are a part of that work, in explaining what potentia means for medicine, Saint-Amand draws not just on Galen but on Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics—together, in the latter case, with Averroes’s commentary on the work! See Julius Leopold Pagel, Die Concordanciae des Johannes de Sancto Amando (Berlin, 1894), pp. 245–46. 55

MEDICINE AND THEOLOGY Danielle Jacquart In 1363, the very year Guy de Chauliac finished his famous Chirurgia Magna in Avignon, Martin de Saint-Gille, also in Avignon, finished his Livre des Amphorismes, a more modest book which nevertheless had the original feature of being written in French.1 In his preface, Martin de Saint-Gille mentioned Guy de Chauliac, whose collationes he had attended, as well as the barber and papal sergeant Roberto da Senigallia, to whom he dedicated his work. In this same preface, he presented himself as master of arts and medicine from the University of Paris, and as having studied theology “for a long time,” a discipline which he was about “to read,” that is to begin to teach, probably as “biblical bachelor.”2 This was the first stage at which, after having attended lessons during five or seven years, students of theology were allowed to start commenting on the Old and the New Testaments. No university records mention Martin de Saint-Gille’s name, but that is not exceptional for this period of time, and there is no reason to doubt his assertions. Despite his choice to write in French, Martin’s commentary on Hippocrates’s Aphorisms reveals a serious university background. Martin mentioned his medical Parisian teachers, Pierre Chauchat and Jean de Coucy, both well-known regent masters and occasionally deans of the Faculty of Medicine between 1330 and 1360.3 It is thus likely that 1 Germaine Lafeuille, Les Amphorismes Ypocras de Martin de Saint-Gille, Travaux d’humanisme et Renaissance 9 (Geneva, 1954); eadem, Les commentaires de Martin de Saint-Gille sur les Amphorismes Ypocras, Travaux d’humanisme et Renaissance 66 (Geneva, 1964); Danielle Jacquart, “Hippocrate en français, Le Livre des Amphorismes de Martin de Saint-Gille (1362–1363),” in Les voies de la science grecque, Etudes sur la transmission des textes de l’Antiquité au dix-neuvième siècle, ed. Danielle Jacquart, Hautes études médiévales et modernes 78 (Geneva, 1997), pp. 241–329. 2 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 24246, fol. 4v: “Le nom du translatant est Martin de Saint-Gille, en ars et en medicine maistre et de long temps estudiant en theologie et prest de lire en ladicte faculté, qui ses degrez esdictes sciences, combien que non digne, a receu ou tres sollempnelle et tres resplendissant estude de Paris.” See Jacquart, “Hippocrate,” p. 306. 3 On these masters, see Ernest Wickersheimer, Dictionnaire biographique des médecins en France au Moyen Age, Hautes études médiévales et modernes 34/1–2 (Paris, 1936; repr. Geneva, 1979), pp. 387–88, 625–26; and Danielle Jacquart, Supplément, Hautes études médiévales et modernes 35 (Geneva, 1979), p. 152.

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he actually obtained his medical and arts degrees, and we may trust him when he claims that he was studying theology. From Martin’s words, it is not possible to ascertain whether he began his studies in theology during or after his medical studies. According to William Courtenay, who found fifteen Parisian cases from the fourteenth century, “in every case where it can be determined, attending lectures in theology (a fourteen-year course of study) began before the completion of the degree in medicine. Rather than a choice made after several years of medical regency, it appears to have been part of a plan developed before or during the years of medical study.”4 Martin de Saint-Gille was among the thirty cases of double degrees (in medicine and theology) during the second half of the fourteenth century that I had been able to count, almost three decades ago, on the basis of the data provided by Ernest Wickersheimer’s Dictionnaire. The second half of the fourteenth century was doubtless the period when these double degrees were the most frequent; I was able to count nineteen cases in the first half of the fourteenth century, and only eleven in the first half of the fifteenth.5 It is hard to detect the specific reasons for this relatively high number in the second half of the fourteenth century. The presence in Avignon of the papal court (with French popes) might have played an important part. This period of the Avignon papacy marked a kind of inflation of the canonical prebends accorded to medical University masters. Compared to what the sources provided for the second half of the thirteenth century, the number of prebended physicians, in France, increased considerably, quadrupling during the first half of the fourteenth century. On the contrary, from the second half of the fourteenth century to the first half of the fifteenth, the number was reduced by half. Since medical practice at the papal court seems to have been more open to Montpellier masters than to Parisian ones, the latter may have viewed theological studies as a better way to gain the favor, if not of the pope, then at least of an influential cardinal.6 Besides Martin de Saint-Gille, who spent some time in Avignon, we might also mention Gaufridus le Marec, who joined the entourage

4 William J. Courtenay, “Curers of Body and Soul: Medical Doctors as Theologians,” in Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages, eds. Peter Biller and Joseph Ziegler, York Studies in Medieval Theology 3 (York, 2001), pp. 69–75, here 72. 5 Danielle Jacquart, Le milieu médical en France du XIIe au XV e siècle, Hautes études médiévales et modernes 46 (Geneva, 1981), p. 393, no. 34. 6 Ibid., p. 188, 377, no. 11 and p. 387, no. 23.

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of the cardinal-bishop Pierre Gros and later became bishop of Quimper.7 But when the attraction of the Avignon papal court ceased, the increasing concern of the Faculty of Medicine for the training of professional physicians, as well as the attraction of royal and aristocratic courts, no longer favored this kind of double curriculum. If we look at the first reliable list provided by the records, which gives the names of thirty-one regent masters for the academic year 1395–1396, we find that four regents studied theology.8 Martin Gazel had begun these studies before becoming bachelor in medicine. He was regent in medicine by 1385 and was ordained a priest in 1387. It is unknown whether or not he pursued his theological studies further, but his regency in medicine lasted for twenty-four years and he was also a physician of king Charles VI. Jean Voignon was called “bachelor in theology” in 1403; dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1387 and in 1397; he was ordained a priest in 1398 and his regency then came to an end. It was perhaps around this time that he began his studies in theology, though this did not prevent him from practicing medicine, particularly at the courts of the duke of Burgundy and of the king of France. As for Jean Richardi and Jean Parvi, both seem to have shifted from medicine to theology; nevertheless, the former attended a meeting of the Faculty of Medicine without being a regent master in 1420.9 From these few, scarce cases, no consistent pattern emerges, and we may imagine a range of individual motivations. A general comment may nevertheless be put forward: at the end of the Middle Ages, at Paris, pursuing medical studies was not incompatible with a theological curriculum; moreover, the priesthood was compatible with medical practice, and even with medical teaching, since some masters obtained dispensations in order to remain regent after being ordained. At the same time, the number of married regents was regularly increasing until the reform of cardinal Guillaume d’Estouteville in 1452, which allowed University professors to be married.10 From this time forward, the link between ecclesiastical careers and medical practice or

7

Courtenay, “Curers of Body,” p. 75; Wickersheimer, Dictionnaire, p. 179. Ernest Wickersheimer, Commentaires de la Faculté de médecine de l’Université de Paris (1395–1516) (Paris, 1915), pp. 2–3. 9 On these masters, see Wickersheimer, Dictionnaire, pp. 460, 472, 541 and Jacquart, Supplément, pp. 177, 190. See also Bernard Guenée, La folie de Charles VI, Roi Bien-Aimé (Paris, 2004), pp. 103–38; Danielle Jacquart, La médecine médiévale dans le cadre parisien, XIV e-XV e siècles (Paris, 1998), pp. 146–61. 10 Ibid., pp. 158–59. 8

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teaching became increasingly tenuous; the number of double degrees in medicine and theology decreased in the same manner. Let us now return to the beginning of medical teaching in Paris, during the thirteenth century. The first known dean of the Faculty of Medicine, mentioned in 1267 as decanus magistrorum Parisius regentium in physica and in 1268 as medicorum decanus, was named Pierre de Limoges. He was dean again in 1270.11 Whether or not this dean is also the famous astronomer and author of a Tractatus moralis de oculo, copyist, annotator and collector of books named Pierre de Limoges, is a matter of debate among historians.12 This latter Pierre de Limoges was Robert de Sorbonne’s friend, and belonged to the newly founded college of Sorbonne. He died in 1306, and the obituary of the Sorbonne alluded to him in the following terms: “Obiit magister Petrus de Lemovicis, quondam socius domus, canonicus Ebroicensis, qui refutavit duos episcopatus et bis prebendam Parisiensem, baccalarius in theologia, magnus astronomus.” The fact that this obituary did not mention his medical degrees is often put forward by historians in order to deny that he should be identified with the dean of physicians. But as Nicole Bériou has shown, this obituary is not entirely reliable, since Pierre de Limoges was not only a bachelor, but also received his master’s degree in theology.13 Moreover, the fact that anatomical and medical information is sparse in the Tractatus moralis de oculo does not preclude us from identifying its author with the dean of physicians, for in the Tractatus Pierre de Limoges was mainly interested in the new science of perspectiva, relying heavily on Roger Bacon, without naming him.14 In favor of the identification, it can be added that the theologian possessed and annotated a few medical manuscripts himself. Among these medical manuscripts, it is worth mentioning one in particular, which is now kept at the Sorbonne Library (Paris, Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, MS 125), and which provides an important collection of Galenic works. It was copied in Paris during the second half of the 11

Ibid., p. 20. Richard Newhauser, “Nature’s moral eye: Peter of Limoges’Tractatus moralis de oculo,” in Man and Nature in the Middle Ages, eds. Susan J. Ridyard and Robert G. Benson, Sewanee Mediaeval Studies 6 (Sewanee, TN, 1995), pp. 125–36; Madeleine Mabille, “Pierre de Limoges copiste de manuscrits,” Scriptorium 20 (1970), 45–57. 13 Nicole Bériou, “Pierre de Limoges et la fin des temps,” Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome 98 (1986), 65–107. 14 Jeremiah Hackett, “The Reception of Roger Bacon in the 13th century and in the Early Modern Period,” in Lumière et vision dans les sciences et dans les arts, de l’Antiquité au XVIIIe siècle, eds. Michel Hochmann and Danielle Jacquart, Hautes Etudes mediévales et modernes 97 (Geneva, 2010), pp. 149–62. 12


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thirteenth century, and as Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny has shown, the hand of Pierre de Limoges is recognizable in an ancient foliotation and in few marginalia.15 The Galenic works copied and annotated in this manuscript are quite technical and would have discouraged a mere “amateur” in medicine. The identification could also shed light on a strange statement of the Sorbonne obituary, according to which the theologian Pierre de Limoges had declined the offer of two episcopates. If no ecclesiastical rule had really prevented Pierre de Limoges from practicing medicine, teaching it at university would certainly have been less compatible with a bishopric. ***** Even if he should not be identified with the dean of physicians from 1267–1270, the master of theology Pierre de Limoges provides us with an interesting case, which allows me to shift to another part of my paper, dealing with the relationship between medical science and theology. A master in theology also very interested in astronomy, astrology and optics, Pierre de Limoges was one of several theologians during the second half of the thirteenth century and at the beginning of the fourteenth who were interested in medicine. Yet historians have usually viewed the relationship between medicine and theology as antagonistic. Indeed, the rejection by most historians of the identification of Pierre de Limoges, socius of the college of Sorbonne, with the dean of physicians probably owes more to this presumed antagonism than to a lack of documentary evidence. It is true that, in many issues, medical concerns could conflict with theological requirements. This possible conflict stood among the main reasons for a theologian to be aware of the medical explanations of bodily functioning and human behaviors. But after it was admitted that the search for bodily health was not contradictory to the salvation of the soul (a theme much debated in works with a spiritual purpose), ecclesiastical authorities might have taken some advantage from the settlement of a more strictly regulated medical science and practice. Coming back to previous 15

Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny, “Pietro d’Abano traducteur de Galien,” Medioevo 11(1985), 19–64, here 29, repr. in eadem, La transmission des textes philosophiques et scientifiques au Moyen Age, ed. Charles Burnett (Aldershot, 1994), no. XIII; eadem, “Marc de Tolède,” in Estudios sobre Alfonso VI y la reconquista de Toledo, 4 vols., Serie Histórica 4–5 (Toledo, 1989), 3:25–59, here 40, repr. in eadem, La connaissance de l’Islam dans l’Occident médiéval (Aldershot, 1994), no. VII.

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medieval centuries, the topic of sexual behaviors may serve as an example. During the period preceding Constantine the African’s translations, a dichotomy existed between a literature written for moral and didactic purposes and the chaotic medical material, even though most of the copies of medical texts were made by pious monkish hands. No medical doxa on sexual matters could be found and a single manuscript could contain both a saint’s life, or any other kind of religious text, and, without further explanation or justification, medical advice on such issues as increasing sexual pleasure, avoiding conception, or inducing abortion.16 In contrast to such chaos, which sometimes provided advice strongly at odds with Christian rules, Constantine the African’s De coitu, despite the fact that it was intended to promote the bodily health of individuals, framed its advice so as to make it more or less compatible with theological requirements, even those which deviated from the strict religious rules. The very beginning of De coitu — which was to be quoted very often in the following centuries — clearly set the adequate framework: in order for animal species to survive on earth, God allowed that the sexual act would give rise to great pleasure.17 Since Constantine the African mentioned animals in general, and not humans, medical lore could develop without taking into account the question of the salvation of the soul, which was outside of the medical field. In any event, the medical ideal of moderation did not stray too far from Christian ethics. The body of authoritative texts constituted through Latin translations from Greek and Arabic was able to provide University medicine with doctrines which could abide with theology, at the expense of some caution from the part of physicians, and of some clarification when necessary from the part of theologians. Already during the

16 Danielle Jacquart, “Sexualité et maladie durant le haut Moyen Age,” in Comportamenti e immaginario della sessualità nell’alto Medievo, Settimane di studio della Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo 53 (Spoleto, 2006), pp. 323–46. 17 E. Montero Cartelle, Constantini Liber de coitu, El tratado de andrologia de Constantino el Africano (Santiago de Compostela, 1983), p. 76: “Creator volens animalium genus firmiter ac stabiliter permanere et non perire, per coitum illud ac per generationem disposuit renovari, ut renovatum interitum ex toto non haberet. Ideoque complasmavit animalibus naturalia membra que ad hoc opus apta forent et propria, eisque tam mirabilem virtutem et amabilem delectationem inseruit ut nullum sit animalium quod non pernimium delectetur coitu. Nam si animalia coitum odirent, animalium genus pro certo periret.”


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twelfth century, William of Saint-Thierry had judged it necessary to provide this kind of clarification. In his De natura corporis et animae he integrated the new medical information provided by Constantine the African’s translations, while indicating how to understand them in an orthodox way. At the time of William of Saint-Thierry, it was the medical notion of spiritus which a theologian needed to clarify.18 Recent scholarship has uncovered new evidence for the introduction of medical knowledge into theological debates, primarily during the second half of the thirteenth century and the first half of the fourteenth. When analyzing the title of some quodlibets by John of Naples, a Dominican theologian trained at Bologna who taught mainly in Naples but also served as regent master at Paris from 1315–1317, Peter Biller came to the conclusion that: There is intense interest in the body in John’s questions, in the body seen from many angles, and this is what we would expect from an academic theologian of his time. There is the body in such fundamental theological themes as the incarnation, the Eucharist and the resurrection. There is attention to the constitution of the body as it had been presented to theologians in natural philosophy, in Aristotle’s De animalibus treatises (and Avicenna’s epitome of these, his De animalibus), and in the principal works of learned medicine that had been translated from Arabic, in the first place Avicenna’s Liber canonis medicinae. There is the spiritual status of the virgin body, and also the moral theology and canon law of the married body. In varying proportions we would find these in many theologians of the later thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.19

Many topics dealt with in this kind of theological work pertained as much to natural philosophy as to medicine. Questions on generation, on the vital principle, and on nutrition were also raised by reading Aristotle’s works as medical texts, sometimes with some discrepancies between both categories, for instance relative to female seed or to the role played by the heart in sensation. A close distinction between natural philosophy and medicine is sometimes difficult to make and usually somewhat artificial. Nevertheless, a few topics pertained more particularly to the kind of knowledge drawn from medical writings, such as the notions of complexion (or temperament) or of radical moisture. 18 William of St. Thierry, De natura corporis et animae, ed. Michel Lemoine (Paris, 1988). 19 Peter Biller, “John of Naples, Quodlibets and Medieval Theological Concern with the Body,” in Medieval Theology and the Natural Body, eds. Peter Biller and A.J. Minnis, York Studies in Medieval Theology 1 (York, 1997), pp. 3–12, here 9.

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Joseph Ziegler’s studies are revealing in this respect.20 In one of his articles, he exemplified how the commentaries on Peter Lombard’s Sentences could be fruitful as far as the study of the relationship between medicine and theology was concerned, because they provided a historical source that covered a long period of time. Investigating commentaries on Book two, distinction nineteen of the Sentences, dealing with Adam’s immortality and the state of his body before the Fall, Joseph Ziegler noted after thorough analyses that “whilst the natural emphasis was marginal until c. 1200, thirteenth-century theologians seem to have been increasingly attracted to the natural causation of Adam’s immortality, without denying the important role of grace. The rudimentary beginning of the medical concepts into the discussion of the State of Innocence can be detected as early as the beginning of the twelfth century. But it was in the second third of the thirteenth century that medical theory was fully introduced into these debates.”21 By the end of the thirteenth century, a medicalized story of the State of Innocence emerged, focusing on three main themes: Adam’s balanced complexion, the causes of death according to physicians, and the recourse to the concepts of radical and nutrimental moistures in order to explain the efficacy of the tree of life. And, in this context, as Joseph Ziegler put it, “some theologians were happy to show off in their debates their knowledge of other concepts taken from medical theory.”22 Of course, not all theologians took into account medical explanations to the same extent, and in any case they had to clarify their use of such concepts. In the current state of research, it is hard to discern whether the extent of this kind of recourse depended on university or religious affiliations. Joseph Ziegler noted an apparent “English connection,” but he also stressed that the Englishmen who lingered on medical topics had spent time in Paris either for study or for teaching. He also noted a wider interest in medicine on the part of Franciscans than from Dominicans. In this context, the case of Thomas Aquinas is rather special and nonrepresentative. Thomas did not seem at first to have had much direct information when relying on medical writings.23 Indeed, he was more 20 Joseph Ziegler, “Ut dicunt medici: Medical Knowledge and Theological Debates in the Second Half of the Thirteenth Century,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 73 (1999), pp. 208–37; idem, “Medicine and Immortality in Terrestrial Paradise,” in Religion and Medicine (as in n. 4), pp. 201–42. 21 Ibid., p. 232. 22 Ibid., p. 227. 23 Mark D. Jordan, “The Disappearance of Galen in Thirteenth-Century Philosophy and Theology,” in Mensch und Natur im Mittelalter, eds. Albert Zimmermann and


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concerned about fixing limits and his work provided physicians with a kind of normative framework. On such topics as the link between mind and body, natural causes of mental disorders and their classification, and natural causes of sexual deviance, the Summa theologica fixed clear normative distinctions. It has to be recalled that Thomas also wrote a De motu cordis, the main purpose of which was to contradict Alfred of Sareshel’s mechanistic views of the movement of the heart and to assert the role of the soul.24 Most recent studies deal with the end of the thirteenth century and the first half of the fourteenth. Could the same kind of recourse to medical concepts be noted for the later period of the Middle Ages? It is difficult to answer this question, but some indications point to a kind of shift. Whatever the later evolution might have been, there is no doubt that the period from the 1250s to the middle of the fourteenth century was marked by a wide diffusion of medical concepts. The dissemination of Avicenna’s Canon played an important part in this process. At the beginning of its Latin diffusion, it was mainly quoted by non-physicians, Robert Grosseteste and Adam of Cremona being among the first authors to quote it.25 From the twelfth century, medical teaching had been viewed by many medieval scholars as complementing natural philosophy. This was probably no longer the case by the fourteenth century, when medical teaching had become more and more involved with the training of practitioners. In the thirteenth century medicine was a kind of “new” and successful science, and resorting to it in theological debates could fulfil two purposes: first, to update traditional explanations of the supernatural with a new scientific approach by tracing more precisely the limit between “natural” and “supernatural”; and, second, to fix the intellectual boundaries of this “new” science according to theological requirements. Andreas Speer, 2 vols. Miscellanea Medievalia 21/2 (Berlin, 1992), 2:703–713; idem, “Medicine and Natural Philosophy,” in Thomas von Aquin : Werk und Wirkung im Licht neuerer Forschungen, ed. Albert Zimmermann, Miscellanea Medievalia 19 (Berlin, 1988), pp. 233–46; idem, The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (Chicago, 1997), pp. 114–35. 24 Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, 50 vols. (Rome, 1976), 43:92–131; Eugenia Paschetto, “La natura del moto in base al De motu cordis di S. Tommaso,” in Thomas von Aquin (as in n. 23), pp. 247–60. 25 Danielle Jacquart, “La réception du Canon d’Avicenne: comparaison entre Montpellier et Paris aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles,” in Histoire de l’école médicale de Montpellier, Actes du 110e congrès national des sociétés savantes (Paris, 1985), pp. 69–77; Joel Chandelier, “La réception du Canon d’Avicenne, Médecine arabe et milieu universitaire en Italie avant la Peste Noire,” Thèse de doctorat d’histoire, Paris, Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes, 2007, pp. 34–40.

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As for physicians, in their own works, with the exception of some audacious transgressors, like Pietro d’Abano, or in a quite different manner, Arnald of Villanova, they avoided dealing with theological issues, and they tried to expand their field without crossing too far beyond the authorized limits. Parisian university masters liked to repeat one sentence drawn from Aristotle’s On sense and sensation : ubi desinit physicus, incipit medicus. By repeating this sentence, they intended to distinguish their field from that of the natural philosopher while indicating the continuity between both.26 In a kind of paraphrase of this sentence, I would suggest that in the Middle Ages ubi incipit theologus, ibi desinit medicus. It is not possible in this paper to provide a lengthy development of this theme and I will recall only the main topics on which medieval physicians had to restrain the possibilities offered by medical explanations. The crucial point was, of course, the link between mind and body. Inheriting from Galen and Arabic galenism a wide range of medical explanations of mental disorders, as well as a physiological system able to take into account psychological states, physicians had carefully to leave the upper level of human soul, i.e. reason and free will, out of any bodily determinism. It was not an easy thing to do, even if they could find in Avicenna (in his Canon and his De anima) a subtle hierarchy of inner senses which, while excluding reasoning itself, could provide a chain of causations. Medical treatment of mental disorders had to gain its legitimacy. The theologian William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 until his death in 1249—that is, at the time of the university crisis and of the interdiction of Aristotle’s natural philosophy—testified incidentally to this problematic insertion of mental diseases within the medical field. In his De universo, he did not condemn it (he probably thought that it was irreversible), but he criticized the physicians’ deficiency relatively to “spiritual diseases.” They resorted to pharmaceutical treatment, whereas in his views music would have been a better therapy.27 They were too ignorant of musical harmonies to be able to apply this kind of treatment. This critical remark is particularly interesting, since it shows that at William of Auvergne’s time medicine had gained legitimacy, even in the treatment 26

Jacquart, La médecine médiévale, p. 20. Béatrice Delaurenti, La puissance des mots, « Virtus verborum », Débats doctrinaux sur le pouvoir des incantations au Moyen Age (Paris, 2007), p. 228. 27


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of mental disorders, and that the only way for a theologian to limit its power was to criticize the efficiency of its practitioners. Mental disorders and, more generally, the status of reasoning were not the only topics which led physicians to fix the limits of their science. If the notions of complexion and of radical moisture appeared so frequently in theological debates, one of the reasons was that they had to be understood properly and that physicians had to be cautious when using them. As for complexion, theologians needed to avoid both extending the concept too much towards a psychological determinism and postulating the possibility of modifying radically the innate features given at birth to each individual. Reasonably enough, the most widespread medical doctrine stated that an innate complexion could only be improved, and not radically changed. As for radical moisture, the most widespread medical doctrine stated that it could not be artificially renewed, but only preserved.28 By this statement, university physicians avoided pretending to be able to lengthen the duration of a particular individual’s life, the length of which being fixed by God. Of course, all this was much debated by physicians and, besides the most reasonable assumptions which did not conflict with theological requirements, there were sometimes transgressions or, at least, subtle argumentations leaving place for ambiguity. Either by conviction or by caution, university physicians managed to maintain their doctrine’s compatibility with theology. In this respect, it is striking that, apart from the eventual resort to astrology, medicine was not greatly involved in the Parisian condemnations of 1277. Only four articles could be related to physicians’ views: “That rapture and visions occur only through a natural process;” “That pleasure during sexual acts does not impede the action and the use of intellect;” “That perfect abstinence corrupts the virtue and the species;” “That sin against nature, as an abuse during sexual intercourse, is not against the nature of the individual, although it is against the nature of the species.”29 But physicians also avoided radical transgressions on sexual matters. For instance, with the exception of Pietro d’Abano they did 28 Nancy G. Siraisi, Taddeo Alderotti and his Pupils, Two generations of Italian medical learning (Princeton, 1981), pp. 258–61; Chiara Crisciani, “Aspetti del dibattito sull’umido radicale nella cultura del tardo Medioevo (secoli XIII–XV),” in Actes de la « II Trobada internacional d’estudis sobre Arnau de Vilanova », ed. Josep Perarnau (Barcelona, 2005), pp. 333–80. 29 Articles 33, 166, 169, 172 in David Piché, La condamnation parisienne de 1277: nouvelle édition du texte latin : traduction, introduction et commentaires (Paris, 1999).

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not linger much on homosexual behavior, and did not try to find any physiological causation for it.30 Thomas Aquinas had paved the way, putting homosexuality radically on the soul’s responsibility, denying any natural cause and classifying it as a moral perversion. In his Summa contra Gentiles Thomas had also taken care of refuting at length Galen’s statement according to which “complexion was the soul.” He knew this Galenic statement indirectly through Nemesius of Emesa, who reported it in his De natura hominis. Very few medical authors took this statement into account, inasmuch as the Galenic work in which it was put forward as a hypothesis was not translated into Latin before the first half of the fourteenth century. Despite his endeavor to find it in the works he knew, Pietro d’Abano did not succeed.31 At a more general, and at least rhetorical level, university physicians had two main authoritative arguments which allowed them to keep God at a distance: first, the famous verses of Ecclesiasticus 38 which seemed to consider medicine as created by God’s will for the benefit of human beings; second, Avicenna’s Canon which stated firmly that physicians had not to deal with the primary cause. When the Black Death in 1348 reintroduced the link between disease and divine punishment, this question was cautiously left to “theologians” and physicians claimed that they had to deal only with the secondary causes. In their Compendium de epidemia, the Parisian masters significantly referred to the verses of Ecclesiasticus 38, which legitimated the resort to physicians, immediately after having stated that, of course, they did not deny that epidemics could come from God’s will.32 The question of God’s absolute power had not been a major concern for physicians, at least until Niccoló da Reggio’s translation of Galen’s On the usefulness of the parts of the body. In this matter a footnote needs to be added to a previous paper, in which I dealt with Galen’s

30 Joan Cadden, “ ‘Nothing Natural Is Shameful’: Vestiges of a Debate about Sex and Science in a Group of Late-Medieval Manuscripts,” Speculum 76 (2001), 66–89; eadem, “Sciences/Silences: The Natures and Languages of ‘Sodomy’ in Peter of Abano’s Problemata Commentary,” in Constructing Medieval Sexuality, eds. Karma Lochrie, Peggy McCracken and James A. Schultz, Medieval Cultures 11 (Minneapolis-London, 1997), pp. 40–57. 31 Michael R. McVaugh, “Moments of Inflection : The Careers of Arnau de Vilanova,” in Religion and Medicine (as in n. 4), pp. 53–66. 32 H. Emile Rébouis, Etude historique et critique sur la peste (Paris, 1888), p. 92; Jon Arrizabalaga, “Facing the Black Death: Perceptions and Reactions of University Medical Practitioners,” in Practical medicine from Salerno to the Black Death, eds., Luis García-Ballester et al. (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 237–88.


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famous statement according to which Moses was wrong when he claimed that God could act against natural processes. I quoted a variant reading of the Latin translation of this passage (On the usefulness of the parts of the body, XII.14), in which the word vere replaced the word nature.33 This variant reading made Galenic words compatible with the doctrine of God’s absolute power, as it developed after the Parisian condemnations of 1277: God’s actions could be contrary to the course of nature, but not to logic. I pointed out that in ms Vatican latin 2380, the only one available, the text of Niccoló’s translation gives the right reading of nature. But at that time I had not yet seen the manuscript myself. When I was able to see it, I discovered that in the margin some reader had put the word heresis. Thus Niccoló da Reggio’s translations introduced some Galenic assumptions which could embarrass physicians: in That the faculties of the soul follow the temperaments of the body, they could find that “complexion was the soul,” and in On the usefulness of the parts of the body that “God could not act against nature.” To determine what impact these statements had on both physicians and theologians will require further research, but from the part of the former, at this stage of my own research I have found mainly arguments ex silentio, or auto-censorship.34 Even if the relationship between medicine and theology at the end of the Middle Ages has not been studied as much as for the thirteenth century, we have some indications that the theologians’ concerns, at least in some contexts, had changed. In particular, the question of demoniac interventions had again become a major concern. As both Béatrice Delaurenti, in her book on incantations, and Maaike van der Lugt, on the specific topic of incubus, have shown, naturalistic explanations of what could be considered as demoniac interventions needed to be restricted. More than on sexual matters or on the lengthening of life, it was then on supernatural interventions that physicians had to be cautious.35 In his De erroribus circa artem magicam, called in one

33 Danielle Jacquart, “Moses, Galen and Jacques Despars: Religious Orthodoxy as a Path to Unorthodox Medical Views,” in Religion and Medicine (as in n. 4), pp. 35–45, here 36–38. 34 On the reception of Niccoló’s translations, see Michael R. McVaugh, “Niccoló da Reggio’s translations of Galen and their reception in France,” Early Science and Medicine 11 (2006), 275–301. 35 Delaurenti, La puissance des mots; Maaike van der Lugt, “The Incubus in Scholastic Debate: Medicine, Theology and Popular Belief,” in Religion and Medicine (as in n. 4), pp. 174–200.

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manuscript Haranga pro licentiandis in medicina, Jean Gerson condemned the therapeutic uses of incantations. In principle, university physicians were not concerned with this condemnation since incantations were not part of Galenic therapeutics. But, Jean Gerson also condemned explicitly the belief, very often put forward by physicians, according to which incantations could act on the patient’s imagination, and consequently could favor his or her cure.36 In parallel to this theological hardening, physicians in the first half of the fifteenth century stressed in their own writings the difficulty that they had in having to impose natural explanations or treatments in some situations, faced as they were on one hand with popular beliefs or presumed sorcerers, and on the other hand with theologians’ demonology.37 Even if at some stage of their mutual development, medicine might have nourished theological debates with new arguments, it did not preclude that the main purpose of theologians, when they dealt with medicine, was to fix boundaries and to clarify what could be misinterpreted.

36

Delaurenti, La puissance des mots, pp. 495–96. Danielle Jacquart, “Le regard d’un médecin sur son temps: Jacques Despars (1380?–1458),” Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des chartes 138 (1980), 35–86, repr. In Danielle Jacquart, La science médicale occidentale entre deux renaissances, XII e s.-XV e s. (Brookfield, Vermont., 1997), no. XIV; Maaike van der Lugt, Le ver, le démon et la Vierge, Les théories médiévales de la génération extraordinaire (Paris, 2004), pp. 327–36. 37

LEX NATURALIS AND IUS NATURALE Kenneth Pennington After the air attacks of September 11, 2001 the United States government decided to fortify all public government buildings and spaces of importance in Washington, D.C. that might be targets of future attacks. The expenditures for these projects ran to millions of dollars and included the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. These extensive fortifications were inspired by widespread fear at all levels of the American government that extreme measures were needed to protect themselves and government buildings. This culture of fear quickly became an accepted part of American political discourse. Fear was no longer cowardly; it became a badge of courage. Streets around government buildings were closed. Streets that remained open were provided with retractable barriers. A security cordon around the White House was greatly expanded. The public was denied entrance to the grand staircase on the West side of the Capitol buildings. Armed police were placed on every corner of Capitol Hill twenty-four hours a day. To secure perimeters metal bollards were placed around buildings and public spaces at a cost of $10,000 each. They could not protect against air attacks or suicide bombers — only truck and car bombs — but that fact did not deter the frenzy of construction that still continues. Thousands of bollards were put in place. The directors of every government agency stumbled over one another to arrange that their spaces be surrounded by these symbols of fear. The question that every director in Washington must have asked themselves again and again was “How could their buildings be bereft of these symbols that made a public statement of their importance?” Even the coal burning steam plant on Capitol Hill — the worst source of pollution in Washington — was fortified.1 The bollards around the Supreme Court were the only ones decorated with a Latin word: Lex. Why did the judges choose lex and not ius for those protective fences?

1 Since my home is two blocks away from the steam plant I have mixed feelings about efforts to guarantee its continued existence.

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To answer that question we have to go back to the Renaissance of law in the twelfth century. Ius and lex were terms of Roman law. The first jurist to examine lex and ius in detail was named Gratian who taught canon law in Bologna. In the first half of the twelfth century he compiled a Tractatus de legibus with which he introduced his students to law. He explored the different meanings of ius and lex for the first time in European jurisprudence. Gratian began his Tractatus with a statement that would remain a standard statement for centuries: The Human Race is ruled by two things: namely, natural ius and mos. The ius of nature is what is contained in the lex and the Gospel. By it, each person is commanded to do to others what he wants done to himself and is prohibited from inflicting on others what he does not want done to himself. This indeed is the lex and the prophets.2

Gratian recognized two major elements of human law: ius and mos. He connected ius with natural law and lex with the Old and New Testaments. Human lex did not enter into his discussion — yet. To understand Gratian’s awkward introduction one must remember that legislative institutions were just beginning to appear in twelfth-century society; custom regulated society not leges. If Gratian had written his introduction a century later he very likely might have written: “Humanum genus duobus regitur, naturali uidelicet et positivo iure.”3 But the canonists had not yet invented the term “ius positivum.” To define “ius naturae” he relied on Matthew 7:12. Ius commands each person to render unto others what each person would want others to render unto her — the Golden Rule. Gratian patterned his thought and borrowed his terminology from texts that he found in Justinian’s Digest. There he found a statement by the ancient jurist Gaius who also defined the law that governed human society: All peoples who are ruled by lex and mos partly use their own ius and partly the ius that is common to all men. The ius that each nation has 2 Gratian, Decretum D.1 d.a.c.1, ed. Emil Friedberg (Leipzig, 1879, repr. Graz, 1959): “Humanum genus duobus regitur, naturali uidelicet iure et moribus. Ius naturae est, quod in lege et euangelio continetur, quo quisque iubetur alii facere, quod sibi uult fieri, et prohibetur alii inferre, quod sibi nolit fieri. Unde Christus in euangelio: ‘Omnia quecunque uultis ut faciant uobis homines, et uos eadem facite illis. Haec est enim lex et prophetae.’ [Matthew 7:12, cf. Luke 6:31].” 3 Stephan Kuttner, “Sur les origines du terme ‘droit positif ’,” Revue historique du droit français et étranger 15 (1936), 728–40. See also John Marenbon, “Abelard’s Concept of Natural Law,” in Mensch und Natur im Mittelalter, eds. Albert Zimmermann and Andreas Speer, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 21 (Berlin, 1991), pp. 609–21.

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constituted for itself is called the ius civile; almost as if it were a ius proprium of that city. What, however, the natural reason of men establish and is used by all men equally, is called the ius gentium, almost as if all human beings use that ius.4

Gaius began with lex but quickly switched his terminology to ius. Ius can be common to all men, but ius also governs each city. This ius proprium is also called ius civile. The ius gentium that is common to all men is established by human reason. Gaius’s statement is followed by an excerpt from Ulpian, which was the Roman version of the Golden Rule and gives another meaning to ius:5 “Justice is the constant and perpetual will of giving everyone their ius.” Ulpian implicitly pointed out that ius also means right and that justice can be defined by rendering everyone their proper rights. He continued by observing that there were three precepts of ius, to live honestly, not to injure other people, and to render everyone their ius.6 The Roman jurist Paul discussed the equivocal meanings of ius immediately after Ulpian’s text: The term ius can be used in several ways. In one way ius means what is always equitable and good, as ius naturale. In another way what is in the interest of all or of many in a state (civitas), such as the ius civile… Yet another meaning of ius is to describe the place in which ius is vindicated, the name having been given by him who renders ius on the place where he does it. We can know where that place is by wherever the praetor decides to exercise his jurisdiction, preserving the majesty of his authority and respecting the mos of our ancestors. That place is correctly called ius.7

4 Justinian, Digest 1.1.9, ed. Alan Watson (Philadelphia, 1985): “Gaius 1 inst. Omnes populi, qui legibus et moribus reguntur, partim suo proprio, partim communi omnium hominum iure utuntur. Nam quod quisque populus ipse sibi ius constituit, id ipsius proprium civitatis est vocaturque ius civile, quasi ius proprium ipsius civitatis: quod vero naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit, id apud omnes peraeque custoditur vocaturque ius gentium, quasi quo iure omnes gentes utuntur.” 5 Digest 1.1.10pr.: “Ulpianus 1 reg. Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuendi.” 6 Digest 1.1.10.1: “Ulpianus 1 reg. Iuris praecepta sunt haec: honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere.” Ulpian’s maxims were later incorporated by Justinian’s commission in the Institutes 1.1.1 and 1.1.3. 7 Digest 1.1.11: “Paulus 14 ad sab. Ius pluribus modis dicitur: uno modo, cum id quod semper aequum ac bonum est ius dicitur, ut est ius naturale. Altero modo, quod omnibus aut pluribus in quaque civitate utile est, ut est ius civile … Alia significatione ius dicitur locus in quo ius redditur, appellatione collata ab eo quod fit in eo ubi fit. Quem locum determinare hoc modo possumus: ubicumque praetor salva maiestate imperii sui salvoque more maiorum ius dicere constituit, is locus recte ius appellatur.”

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Paul’s definition is interesting and important for two reasons. First, he gave ius a meaning that connects it with equity and equity’s handmaiden, justice. Particularly important is the emphasis that he gave to the meaning of ius naturale. It could have its literal meaning, natural right, but it also meant all actions that are equitable and good. Paul’s definition would have a rich Nachleben in the jurisprudence of the ius commune.8 Second, he calls upon a very old tradition in Roman law that defined ius as the place where justice was rendered.9 Gratian and the jurists had these texts of Roman law to draw upon for their ideas about ius and lex, but Gratian exploited another source, Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies, for much of his thinking about the two terms. Isidore discussed law in Book Five of his great encyclopedia, but his ideas about law did not enter into the Western legal tradition until Gratian. In the first version of his Decretum that has been preserved in the manuscript tradition, Gratian did not analyze “law” for his students. Later, probably in the early 1130s, he drafted a Tractatus de legibus that he placed at the beginning of his text.10 In choosing to compile a treatise on laws Gratian imitated the organization that he knew from Justinian’s Digest and radically changed the way in which canonical collections had been previously arranged. His focus on the concepts of law as an introduction to canon law was adopted by all subsequent canonical collections.11 There is, however, a puzzle. Gratian could have turned to Roman law as the main source of his treatise on laws. He did not. Instead he drew upon the great encyclopedic work of the last of the Latin Church 8 Rudolf Weigand has given ample evidence of the rich tradition in juristic thought that linked ius naturale with equity in Die Naturrechtslehre der Legisten und Dekretisten von Irnerius bis Accursius und von Gratian bis Johannes Teutonicus, Münchener theologische Studien 3, Kanonistische Abteilung 26 (Munich, 1967). For example, the gloss by Martinus to Inst. 1.1: “Ius autem sic diffinitur ‘ars boni et equi.’ Hec diffinitio et iuri naturali, gentium et ciuili competit. Ius enim naturale cum sit constitutio diuine uoluntatis, potest dici ars boni et equi (p. 32).” 9 The Law of the Twelve Tables began “In ius vocando” that undoubtedly shaped this definition of ius. 10 See Gratian, The Treatise on Laws (Decretum DD. 1–20) with the Ordinary Gloss, trans. Augustine Thompson and James Gordley, with an Introduction by Katherine Christensen, Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law 2 (Washington, D.C., 1993). My conclusions about the evolution of Gratian’s text are not universally accepted. For further information see notes 31 and 32 below. 11 See my remarks on the organization of later decretal collections in The History of Canon Law in the Classical Period, 1140–1234: From Gratian to the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX, eds. K. Pennington and Wilfried Hartmann, History of Medieval Canon Law (Washington, D.C., 2008), pp. 296–98.


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Fathers, Isidore of Seville. As I have already mentioned, Gratian could not have found Isidore’s texts in earlier canonical collections; he must have directly used the Etymologies.12 For the theme of this paper and for the development of Western jurisprudence, we are lucky that he did. Gratian placed Isidore’s most significant text on ius naturale on the first page of his Decretum.13 Isidore’s definitions of ius naturale inspired jurists for centuries. But before Gratian turned to ius naturale he defined the most common form of law in his own times, custom. He incorporated a text of Isidore in which a contrast was drawn between ius, mos, and lex: Consuetudo is a sort of ius established by mos and recognized as lex when lex is lacking. It does not matter whether it is confirmed by writing or by reason, since reason also supports lex. Furthermore, if lex is determined by reason, then lex will be all that reason has already confirmed—all, at least, that is congruent with religion, consistent with discipline, and helpful for salvation. Consuetudo is so called because it is in common use.14

Custom was related to ius when grounded in mos and could be recognized as lex when there was no lex. Reason was the fundamental core principle of custom and lex. Early glossators on Gratian’s Decretum were careful to point out that custom did not have to be in writing, but lex was lex because it was written. Gratian underlined the written character of lex by citing Isidore in the only place in his Tractatus where he offered a definition of lex: Lex is a species of ius; lex is a written constitution. Fifty years later Huguccio, the greatest canonist of the age, commented:

12 Gratian generally took his material from other canonical collections. In some cases, however, he mined other sources and in some cases went to original works; see an example in Titus Lenherr, “Langssame Annäherung an Gratians Exemplar der Moralia in Job,” Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 28 (2008), 71–95. 13 Decretum D.1 c.7. On Gratian’s use of Isidore see Jean Gaudemet, “La doctrine des sources du droit dans le Décret de Gratien,” Revue de droit canonitque 1 (1951), 5–31, here 11–27 and the more general treatment in Stanley Chodorow, Christian Political Theory and Chruch Politics in the Mid-Twelfth Century: The Ecclesiology of Gratian’s Decretum (Berkeley, 1972), pp. 96–111. 14 Decretum D.1 c.5: Isidore, Etymologies Book 5 c.3: “Consuetudo autem est ius quoddam moribus institutum, quod pro lege suscipitur, cum deficit lex. Nec differt, an scriptura, an ratione consistat, quoniam et legem ratio commendat. Porro si ratione lex constat, lex erit omne, iam quod ratione constiterit, dumtaxat quod religioni congruat, quod disciplinae conueniat, quod saluti proficiat. Vocatur autem consuetudo, quia in communi est usu.”

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kenneth pennington Lex commands what is just and prohibits the contrary. Lex is so named because it binds, or because it is read as writing, or because it legitimately functions by rewarding those who observe it and punishes those who transgress its rules.15

Huguccio defined lex as a prohibition imposed on human beings. It limits human behavior. He believed that lex came from “ligare — to bind.” Consequently, lex remained true to its etymological origins. At the end of the twelfth century the Roman jurist Azo expanded on the meaning of lex in his Summa on Justinian’s Codex: Lex is sometimes defined narrowly and sometimes broadly. An example of a narrow definition is when a statute of the Roman people is called a lex… A lex is the common opinion of men who are learned in the law… Lex is broadly defined when it is used to describe all reasonable statutes. Whence lex is a sacred command, ordering honesty and prohibiting the contrary. Consequently it is the rule that governs just and unjust people.16

It is important to notice that the jurists never attributed the rich penumbras17 of meanings to lex that they did to ius. Lex was a plebian hod carrier of the law; ius was a term rich in resonances. Ius reminded the jurists constantly of the transcendental significance of a legal system. It existed not just to establish right and wrong and to punish the wicked. It was the source of justice, equity, and rights. The jurists created a penumbra for lex that was concentrated not only on what was reasonable but also on consent. Gratian was the first jurist in the European tradition who connected lex and consent. In a 15 Huguccio (ca. 1190), Summa decretorum, 1: Distinctiones I–XX D.1 c.3 s.v., ed. Oldřich Přerovský, Monumenta iuris canonici, Series A, 6 (Vatican City, 2006), p. 25: “Lex est constitutio scripta: iustum precipiens et contrarium prohibens, ut xxiii. q.iiii. Si ecclesia (C.23 q.4 c.42). Lex dicitur quia ligat, uel quia legatur utpote scripta, uel quia legitime agat dum sui obseruatores remunerat et transgressores plectit et mulctat, ut infra di. iii. Omnis et d.iiii. Facte (D.3 c.4 and D.4 c.1).” 16 Azo (ca. 1200–1220), Summa Codicis, De legibus et constitutionibus principis Cod. 1.14, Aschaffenburg Stiftsbibliothek Perg. 15, fol. 4v, (Lyon, 1564) fol. 8r: “Lex autem ponitur quandoque stricte quandoque large, ut cum ponitur stricte pro statuto populi Romani et lex est hoc quod dicitur … Lex est commune praeceptum virorum prudentium consultum … Quandoque ponitur pro rationabili large omni statuto. Vnde et dicitur lex est sanctio sancta, iubens honesta prohibens contraria. Et ita regula est iustorum et iniustorum, ut dicitur in translatione greci, ut ff. eodem l.ii (Dig. 1.3.2).” 17 “Penumbra” is a term that has evolved in American constitutional law to mean concepts that are attached to a specific rule or term or norm. Justice William O. Douglas famously used the term in this sense in the American Supreme Court decision, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510 (1965).


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famous passage he declared that leges are established when they are promulgated, but that they are valid when they are approved by the mos of those who use the leges.18 In contrast, from early on, the penumbras of ius were justice, equity, and the common good. An anonymous jurist in the early twelfth century graphically illustrates this point. In a gloss to Justinian’s Codex he described the relationship between ius and justice: Justice and ius are in effect the same or ought to be the same. Whatever justice wants, ius strives to follow. It happens that sometimes … ius is not in concord with justice. When this occurs justice or equity interprets that, if ius openly departs from equity, we may ignore the authority of ius and follow equity.19

Equity and justice belong in the realm of ius; no jurist would have thought about lex in the same way. This fact is illustrated by the way in which the jurists talked about the hierarchy of laws. They talked about ius divinum, ius naturale, and ius gentium. These were not leges; they were iura. For the later jurists Ulpian’s and Gratian’s definition of justice dominated their thought. Justice was the will to respect the ius of others. It was a platitude in the legal tradition. The platitude led them to consider other definitions that did not focus on ius. The most prevalent of these was a definition of justice that focused on a social contract. The idea that justice must not only be connected with ius/rights but also with the common good can be traced back to Cicero. Many Christian thinkers followed this stoical line of thought.20 However, as we have seen, the ancient Roman jurists did not connect either justice or ius with the common good. That changed in the twelfth century. One of

18 Decretum D.4 d.p.c.3: “Leges instituuntur, cum promulgantur, firmantur, cum moribus utentium approbantur. Sicut enim moribus utentium in contrarium nonnullae leges hodie abrogatae sunt, ita moribus utentium ipsae leges confirmantur.” 19 Anonymous Jurist (ca. 1130?), to Cod. 1.13.2 s.v. Que religiosa mente, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 4517, fol. 18r: (Bottom margin); Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 1427, fol. 22r (next to Cod. 1.12.6.6–9): “Iustitia et ius in effectu idem sunt uel esse deberent. Quid enim iustitia uult, idem et ius persequi studet. Accidit tamen ut quandoque. … ab ea dissonet . Quod cum fit iustitia ipsa siue equitas sic interpretatur ut siquid ius ab equitate aperte dissonet eius omissa auctoritate equitatem sequamur.” 20 Stephan Kuttner, “A Forgotten Definition of Justice,” Mélanges Gérard Fransen, Studia Gratiana 20 (Rome, 1976), 76–110; repr. in The History of Ideas and Doctrines of Canon Law in the Middle Ages (London, 1980), p. 76: “habitus animi communi utilitate conservata, suam cuique tribuens dignitatem,” Cicero, De inventione 2.53.160.

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the first jurists to write a gloss on Gratian’s introductory definition of law and ius naturale, Paucapalea, undoubtedly influenced by theological thought, defined Gratian’s “each person is commanded to do to others what he wants done to himself and is prohibited from inflicting on others what he does not want done to himself ” as justice. And “justice,” he went on, “is the tacit contract of nature discovered to help many people.”21 Early glosses to the Decretum repeated Paucapalea’s connection of ius naturale and justice.22 Abelard seems to have been one of the first theologians to make the connection between justice and the common good. Referring to the theological and the legal traditions, he declared: The philosophers define justice as the habitus of the mind to render to every person what is his as long as the common good is preserved.23 Justinian defined this concept in his definition when he would say, “Justice is the constant and perpetual will,” etc. “His” can refer to the receiver as well as to the giver. If it refers to the receiver then ought to be regulated by the preservation of the common good. Justice refers to the common good in all matters.24

Gratian shaped his first dictum that introduced the Decretum from the theological and the legal traditions. He made a key connection between the two that has gone unnoticed. The theological tradition had long connected the Golden Rule with natural law. The juridical tradition did not. One of the first who connected the Golden Rule with natural

21 Paucapalea (ca. 1145–1150), Summa, ed. Johann F. von Schulte (Giessen, 1890), p. 4: “Iustitia est nature tacita conventio in adiutorium multorum inventa.” See Kuttner, “A Forgotten Definition of Justice,” p. 80. 22 For example, Cologne, Dombibliothek, MS. 128, fol. 10v: “Iustitia est tacita conuentio nature in adiutorum multorum inuenta” in a marginal gloss opposite Gratian’s first dictum. 23 See Kuttner, “A Forgotten Definition of Justice” for the lineage of this concept of justice. 24 Peter Abelard, Sententie magistri Petri Abaelardi, eds. David Luscombe et al., CCCM 14 (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 134–35: “Iustitiam uero sic definiunt philosophi: Iustitia est habitus animi [om. Bu] reddens unicuique quod suum est, communi utilitate seruata. Hoc idem Iustinianus sua diffinitione notauit cum diceret sic[sic diceret tr. Bu]: Iustitia est constans et perpetua uoluntas, etc. … ‘Suum’ potest referri tam ad accipientem quam ad tribuentem. Si ad accipientem referatur, tunc determinandum est communi utilitate seruata. Iustitie siquidem est omnia ad communem utilitatem referre.” It is not certain that this text is Abelard’s. It had been attributed to a certain Hermannus; see Luscombe’s introduction to his edition, pp. 10*–12*. The text is the same as in PL 178:1750–51 and Sandro Buzzetti’s edition (Bu), Sententie magistri Petri Abelardi (Sententie Hermanni), Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università di Milano 31 (Florence, 1983), p. 145.


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law was Gaudentius of Brescia.25 Prosper of Aquitaine linked the Golden Rule to natural law in his commentary on the Psalms.26 Haimo of Halberstadt († 853) declared in two sermons and his biblical commentaries that natural law consisted of two precepts: “Do unto others…” and “What you do not want done to yourself, you should not do to others (cf. Tobias 4:16). Whatever the law and the prophets will ordain can be comprehended within these two precepts.”27 Remigius of Auxerre († 980) rehearsed the tradition in his commentary on Genesis.28 In the late eleventh and early twelfth century Rupert of Deutz († 1129– 1130) declared that natural law is written in the hearts of men and its expression was the Golden Rule.29 Hugh of St. Victor († 1141), whose work Gratian might have known, and Honorius Augustodunensis († 1156) repeated the tradition. The Golden Rule was a precept and command of natural law.30 When Gratian proclaimed at the beginning of his Decretum that natural law was based on the Lex and the Gospels and that the Golden Rule was the Lex and the Prophets, he drew upon a long theological

25 Gaudentius Brixiensis († ca. 410) Sermo 10, PL 20:917: “Naturalis lex est illa qua gentes legem litterae non habentes, naturaliter ea quae legis sunt (Rom. 2), faciunt; quia rationabilis animae humanae natura, ut creatorem suum sentiat, ut proximum non laedat, ut non faciat quod pati non vult, naturali quadam lege intelligit; unde inexcusabilis est omnis homo qui vel auctorem suum negat; vel facit malum quod per legem naturae non ignorat esse malum.” 26 PL 51:354, to Psalm 118:119: “sed omnem hominum teneri lege naturae ut quod pati non vult, sciat alii non esse faciendum.” 27 PL 118:536: “‘Quaecumque vultis ut faciunt vobis homines, et vos eadem facite illis.’ Ista est lex naturalis, quae in duobus consistit praeceptis, et in his duabus sententiis tota lex pendet et prophetae. Et hoc est unum quod tibi dicitur: ‘Quaecumque vultis ut faciunt vobis homines’ et aliud est quod alibi dicitur ‘Quod tibi non vis fieri, alii ne feceris.’ Quia quidquid lex et prophetae latius describunt in his duobus praeceptis breviter est comprehensum.” See also PL 118:237; 116:830; 116:889; 116:430. 28 PL 131:98, Genesis 24:25: “Rebecca apud se esse dicit lex est naturalis quam sancta ecclesia antequam ad Christum veniret, habebat, qua dicitur ‘Quaecumque vultis ut faciunt vobis homines, eadem et vos facite illis.’ Ergo per hanc legem naturae praeparabatur ingressus legi evangelicae.” 29 Rupert of Deutz, Super Matthaeum, PL 168:1407: “Saltem per legem naturalem quae in cordibus scripta est, quae est hujiusmodi: ‘Quod tibi non vis fieri, alii nec feceris’.” Also PL 169:1304 and 170:474. 30 Hugh of St. Victor, De sacramentis, PL 176:38–39: “lex naturalis… unum tantum praeceptum in corde hominis posuit: ‘Quod tibi vis, id aliis feceris; quod tibi non vis, aliis ne faceris’.” PL 175:659–60: “Sub lege naturali duo praecepta fuerunt, tria sacramenta. Duo praecepta: ‘Quod tibi non vis, alii ne faceris’ et ‘Quaecumque vultis ut faciunt vobis homines, eadem et vos facite illis’.” Also PL 177:668. Honorius Augustodunensis, Speculum ecclesiae, PL 172:919: “Homini de pardyso ejecto inditur lex naturalis: ‘Quod tibi non vis, alii ne feceris’.” Also, PL 172:362.

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tradition. He also incorporated the two traditional theological definitions of the Golden Rule: “One should do to others what one would have others do to you,” and “You should not do to others what you should not want done to you.” These two precepts, one positive and the other negative, were very similar to Ulpian’s definition of ius that I quoted earlier.31 Gratian, however, combined the Roman law and the theological traditions in a way that would be of fundamental importance for the future. He joined traditions and named them not lex naturalis but ius naturale. His change of vocabulary enabled later jurists to incorporate the rich penumbras of meaning for ius, which as we have seen, were completely lacking in the definitions of lex. Gratian added his Tractatus de legibus to a later stage of his Decretum. Recently scholars have vigorously debated the chronology of Gratian’s work.32 Some scholars have placed his teaching activity in Bologna to the late 1130’s or the early 1140’s.33 Others have argued for a much earlier date.34 Whatever the date of Gratian’s Tractatus de legibus his linking of ius naturale to the Golden Role must be seen in the context of the acceptance of ius into the language and thought of jurists outside the schools.

31 Digest 1.1.10.1: “Ulpianus 1 reg. Iuris praecepta sunt haec: honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere.” 32 I have reviewed this discussion and the literature in “The Birth of the ‘Ius commune’: King Roger II’s Legislation,” Rivista internazionale di diritto comune 17 (2006), 23–60 and “‘The Big Bang’: Roman Law in the Early Twelfth-Century,” Rivista internazionale di diritto comune 18 (2007), 44–70. 33 Anders Winroth has given a summary of recent scholarship on Gratian in “Recent Work on the Making of Gratian’s Decretum,” Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 26 (2004– 2006), 1–29, with a complete bibliography to 2006. See especially Winroth’s two essays defending a later date for the teaching of Roman and canon law, “The Teaching of Law in the Twelfth Century,” in Law and Learning in the Middle Ages, eds. Helle Vogt and Mia Münster-Swendsen (Copenhagen, 2006), pp. 41–62 and “Neither Free nor Slave: Theology and Law in Gratian’s Thoughts on the Definition of Marriage and Unfree Persons,” in Medieval Foundations of the Western Legal Tradition: A Tribute to Kenneth Pennington, eds. Mary E. Sommar and Wolfgang P. Müller (Washington, D.C., 2006), pp. 97–109. 34 Carlos Larrainzar, “El borrador del la ‘Concordia’ de Graziano: Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek MS 673 (= Sg),” Ius ecclesiae: Rivista internazionale di diritto canonico 9 (1999), 593–666; Kenneth Pennington, “Gratian, Causa 19, and the Birth of Canonical Jurisprudence,” in La cultura giuridico-canonica medioevale: Premesse per un dialogo ecumenico, eds. Enrique de León and Nicolàs Álvarez, Pontificia Università della Santa Croce, Monografie Giuridiche 22 (Milan, 2003), pp. 215–36 and in an expanded version in “Panta rei”: Studi dedicati a Manlio Bellomo, 5 vols., ed. Orazio Condorelli (Rome, 2004), 4:339–55; Atria Larson, “The Evolution of Gratian’s Tractatus de penitentia,” Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 26 (2004–2006), 59–123.


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At about the same time that Gratian was drafting his Tractatus de legibus the Roman jurisprudence of ius began to enter the language of papal letters in the 1130s. This citation is not surprising. The papal curia began to cite Roman law in papal decretals during the 1120s.35 The arengae of a letter from May 2, 1132 quotes either the text of the Institutes or the Digest: Quemadmodum iuris praecepta seruantibus expedit alterum non laedere, ita etiam conuenit suum ius unicuique tribuere.

In 1139 another letter of Innocent II contained a slight variation of the same formula: Quemadmodum iuris precepta servantibus expedit, alterum non ledere, ita etiam eis imminent, ius suum unicuique tribuere.36

There is an intriguing variation of this Innocentian arenga that Philip Caesar printed from a damaged, now lost manuscript. It is probably dated 1133. He presented the damaged text as follows: Quemadmodum - - - - - - - alterum non laedere; ita nimirum - - - - - - - - - - -37

35 See my essay in Robert Somerville’s Festschrift, “Roman Law at the Papal Curia in the Early Twelfth Century” that will be published in 2010 by Catholic University of America Press. Papal letters of the 1120s and 1130s are a good source for gaging the growing influence of Roman jurisprudence on canon law; another example from the pontificate of Innocent II is a letter from 1138/1139, in Julius von Pflugk-Harttung, Acta pontificum inedita, 2: Urkunden der Päpste vom Jahre c. 97 bis zum Jahre 1197 (Stuttgart 1884), p. 308, no. 346, in which a passage from the Dig. 9.2.51.2 is cited; for the future of this passage in the Ius commune see Pennington, “Innocent III and the Ius commune,” Grundlagen des Rechts: Festschrift für Peter Landau zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Richard Helmholz, Paul Mikat, Jörg Müller, Michael Stolleis, Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Görres-Gesellschaft NF 91 (Paderborn, 2000), pp. 349–66; Cf: Günter Jerouschek, “‘Ne crimina remaneant impunita’: Auf daß Verbrechen nicht ungestraft bleiben: Überlegungen zur Begründung öffentlicher Strafverfolgung im Mittelalter,” Zeitschrift der Savingy-Stiftung für Rechtgeschichte, Kan. Abt. 89 (2003), 323–37; Lotte Kéry “Canon Law and Criminal Law: Results of a New Study,” Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Washington, D.C., MIC, Series C Subsidia 13 (Vatican City, 2007), 407–21 at 414 n. 17. 36 Anders Winroth, “Roman Law at the Papal Curia in the Early Twelfth Century,” Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 28 (2008), 145–51, here 151 was the first to cite these two letters. They are JL 7568 and JL 8063 and are printed in Johannes Ramackers, Papsturkunden in Frankreich, 6: Orléanais, Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 3rd series 41 (Göttingen, 1958), pp. 101–02, n. 45 and Pflugk-Harttung, Acta pontificum inedita, 2:307–08, no. 345. 37 Philipp Caesar, Triapostolatus septemtrionis: Vita et gesta sancti VVillehadi, sancti Ansgarii, sancti Rimberti trium principalium Ecclesiæ Bremensis episcoporum,

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Caesar provided a conjectural text for the lacunae: Quemadmodum iuris naturalis est alterum non laedere, ita nimirum nostri officii laesum adiuvare.38

How did Caesar arrive at what he called his “conjectura?” He did not think that the space after “Quemadmodum” was large enough to accommodate “iuris praecepta seruantibus expedit,” so he conjectured that “iuris naturalis est” was the text he could not read. It is a puzzle why he did not emend the text to “iuris praecepta est” unless he had some indication that “praecepta iuris est” was impossible.39 Not only did it fit the text perfectly, but, as we have seen, it would have imitated what was a usage in Innocent’s Curia. Caesar transcribed the words that he could see clearly but never stated that he could not see any letters in the lacunae. In fact he states the contrary: At the beginning were extremely stained and rubbed, so that no one would be able to read them clearly. Nevertheless, whatever I myself have added; those things which could be clearly read I have faithfully written down; from which conjectures had to be made from or about the remaining .40

Caesar must have seen enough letters or the shadowy shapes of letters to make the emendation “nimirum nostri officii laesum adiuvare” because it is a unique formulation for a papal arenga during Innocent II’s pontificate. Indeed, it cannot be found in any other extant twelfthcentury papal letter. The only twelfth-century papal formulas containing the word “nimirum,” which Caesar could have read if he had done the research, were completely different from his conjectured text.41 septentrionis Apostolorum, hactenus desiderata: Ex peruetusto & autentico Hamburgensis ecclesiæ codice M.S. in lucem publicam producta (Coloniæ Agrippinæ, 1642), pp. 200–01 (available on the web at http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/∼db/0004/ bsb00044301/images/) 38 Ibid., p. 249. 39 Winroth’s idea (“Roman Law in the Papal Curia” 151) that Caesar was influenced by Gratian’s text seems unlikely. The words that Caesar could see would lead him to a text based on Roman law. Gratian never used the Roman law language “alterum non laedere.” 40 Caesar, Triapostolatus septemtrionis, pp. 246–47: “ita imprimis extrema maculata et detrita erant, ut plane a nemine legi possent. Ne tamen quicquam de meo adderem, ea quae distincte legi potuerunt fideliter exscriptsi; ex quibus de reliquis iam coniectura facienda est.” Winroth leaves out Caesar’s crucial last sentence “ex quibus — facienda est” from his discussion of the text. 41 For example, PL 179:207: “salva nimirum beati Petri proprietate et apostolicae sedis debita reverential;” PL 179:276: “Qui nimirum nostra fultus auctoritate, quod postulatur indulgeat;” PL 179:307: “salva nimirum diocesani episcopi canonica justitia et reverentia.”


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If my hypothesis has any merit that Caesar constructed “ita nimirum nostri officii laesum adiuvare” on the basis of some evidence of what he could see, it may mean that his reading of “iuris naturalis est” was also based on something more than a blind guess. However, unless the manuscript that Caesar transcribed is found, my conjecture that “iuris naturalis” was an informed reading can only be speculation. Accordingly, Anders Winroth is right to argue that, contrary to my earlier conclusions, the letter cannot be used to demonstrate a definite connection between Gratian’s formulation of “ius naturale” and the papal curia.42 These letters are, nevertheless, further certain evidence that the teaching of Roman and canon law in Bologna must have already been in full swing by the late 1120s and early 1130s and that Roman law jurisprudence was beginning to shape the work and thought of the papal curial officials. We have seen that until the twelfth century the theologians always used the term lex naturalis. In the thirteenth century they gradually began to incorporate Gratian’s and the jurists’ change from lex naturalis to ius naturale into their thought. We can trace the slow penetration of the term ius naturale into theological thought in Thomas Aquinas’s works. In his early works, especially his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (ca. 1256), Aquinas discussed natural law in depth but never used the term ius naturale, only lex naturalis.43 When Aquinas discussed natural law in his Summa theologiae (ca. 1265–1272), he vacillated in his terminology between ius naturale and lex naturalis.44 As far as I can see he used the two terms interchangeably, and he never drew upon the rich jurisprudential discussions of the meanings of “ius.” Other evidence points to Thomas’s having turned to and his becoming familiar with the legal tradition only in his later works. He cited Gratian’s Decretum seven times in his Commentary on the Sentences and 81 times in his Summa theologiae. It is not that Thomas was unaware or uninterested in law in his early writings. He cited papal decretals 32 times in his Commentary on the Sentences. I suspect that

42

As I had done in an earlier version of this essay that appeared in The Jurist 68 (2008), 569–91; see Winroth, “Roman Law at the Papal Curia,” 149–51. 43 Peter Lombard also used only lex naturalis when he discussed natural law. If Thomas had known Gratian’s introductory remarks he might have connected the Golden Rule with natural law when he commented on Lombard’s Sentences in Book 3, dist. 36–37, but he did not. 44 According to the word count in the Corpus Thomisticum he used lex naturalis more than ius naturale.

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Thomas’s own Tractatus de legibus forced him to confront Gratian’s Tractatus as he was writing about law in his Summa theologiae.45 Much of the debate about Aquinas’s thought on natural law has focused on his ideas about rights and whether his theory of natural law was compatible with the idea of subjective rights.46 Brian Tierney has argued that Aquinas had no theory of subjective natural rights, although Thomas did recognize that ius could mean right and that right could be a human facultas.47 Aquinas frequently used the term facultas to describe a person’s right and power to act.48 He only rarely substituted the term ius for facultas.49 This fact is, I think, some support for Tierney’s argument that Thomas did not normally think of ius as a right or power and did not have a theory of subjective rights. As Tierney has written, for Aquinas “ius was primarily a thing (rem), something existing in external nature.”50 I would like, however, to make a slightly different argument from the concerns of Tierney, Finnis, and others. As I have shown, Thomas came to the concept of ius naturale late, and he never fully grappled with the full implications of how Gratian and his successors thought of natural law as a set of precepts as well as a set of rules or laws. As far as I can tell, Aquinas did not know the theological tradition that Gratian drew upon when he attributed the Golden Rule to natural law. He only seems to have cited the Golden Rule in his later works, the Summa

45 I have gleaned all these statistics here and elsewhere in this paper from the Index Thomisticum on the web: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/it/index.age 46 There is a clear presentation of the issues by Brian Tierney, John M. Finnis, and Michael P. Zuckert in The Review of Politics 64 (2002), 389–420. 47 Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law and Church Law 1150–1625, Emory University Studies in Law and Religion 5 (Atlanta, 1997), pp. 22–27 and passim. Tierney’s discussion of Suarez’ thought, pp. 301–15, illuminates the difference between later thinkers and Aquinas. 48 Many examples can be found in Thomas’s works: Facultas rebellandi, nubendi, vendendi, implendi, dimittendi, petendi, docendi, praedicandi, peccandi, coeundi, et alia. The jurists also used facultas as an equivalent of ius. 49 Finnis points out several instances in which Thomas used ius instead of facultas; but these exceptions are so few that they prove the rule that he did not normally associate ius with the concept of the right or power to do something. See John Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory, Founders of Modern Political and Social Thought (Oxford, 1998), pp. 134–35. It is not by chance that when Thomas does use ius it is almost always when he is drawing upon canonistic thought (marriage, tithes, property). On the other hand, Finnis makes a point in these pages with which I am in full agreement: Thomas did not distinguish between lex and ius and used the terms interchangeably. 50 Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights, p. 23.


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theologiae and his Commentary on Matthew. In these later works Thomas never called the Golden Rule a precept of natural law. Most importantly I think that Thomas’s discussion of natural law was dominated by his language. For him natural law was lex naturalis, not ius naturale. I believe that his language shaped his thought. It would go far beyond the scope of this paper to prove conclusively (or to disprove) the points that I have made in the previous paragraphs. All of Thomas’s use of lex naturalis and ius naturale would have to be examined and compared in contextual and chronological order. For purposes of the argument in this paper let me here just give a couple of examples of Thomas’s discussion of ius naturale when he defined the term in question 94. Thomas confronted natural law and Gratian’s definition of natural law directly in his Tractatus de legibus.51 He began question 94 by discussing naturalis lex as a habitus. He had already connected habitus to lex naturalis in his Commentary on the Sentences.52 In doing so Thomas drew upon recent theological thinking about natural law. As we have seen, since Cicero, justice had been described as a habitus in theology and law, but natural law was never connected with habitus until the thirteenth century. Alexander of Hales and Albertus Magnus had connected lex naturalis with habitus, and Thomas shaped his definition of lex naturalis around their opinions.53 Gratian’s definition of ius naturale that he had taken from Isidore of Seville did not fit into Thomas’s scheme of definitions. But it was such a well-known text by the time Thomas wrote that he had to deal with it. He sidled up to Gratian belatedly when he asked whether the lex naturae was the same for all human beings in article 4 of question 94 and quoted Gratian’s statement that ius naturale is what is contained in the Old and New Testaments. But since, he noted, these Judeo-Christian texts are not accepted by everyone, lex naturalis is not common to all 51

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1–2.94. Thomas Aquinas, Super Sententiis 2.24.2.4.5: “Praeterea, Damascenus dicit, quod conscientia est lex intellectus nostri. Sed lex intellectus est ipsa lex naturalis, quae est habitus principiorum iuris. Ergo videtur quod conscientia sit habitus, et non actus.” Ibid. 2.24.2.4: “Quandoque vero dicitur habitus, quo quis disponitur ad consciendum; et secundum hoc ipsa lex naturalis et habitus rationis consuevit dici conscientia. Quidam etiam dicunt, quod conscientia quandoque potentiam nominat; sed hoc nimis extraneum est, et improprie dictum: quod patet, si diligenter omnes potentiae animae inspiciantur.” 53 See Michael Bertram Crowe, The Changing Profile of the Natural Law (The Hague, 1977), p. 157 and, more generally, his discussion on pp. 136–66. 52

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people.54 He put forward several counterarguments, including the text of Isidore of Seville that Gratian included at Distinction 1, canon 7.55 Thomas resolved the contradiction that he had posed by relying on Aristotle, not the jurists. Those rules to which people are “naturally” inclined through reason pertain to natural law.56 He was not comfortable or, perhaps it is more accurate to say, sympathetic with Gratian’s approach to natural law. The entire text of Isidore that Gratian included in his discussion of natural law listed a series of precepts to illustrate his assertion that natural law was based on the Golden Rule: Natural law is common to all nations. It has its origins in nature not in any constitution. Examples of natural law are the union of men and women, the procreation and raising of children, the common possessions of all persons, the equal liberty of all persons, the acquisition of things that are taken from the heavens, earth, or sea, the return of property or money that has been deposited or entrusted. This also includes the right to repel violence with force. These things and similar are never unjust but are natural and equitable.57

Isidore/Gratian’s list of precepts was not one of leges. The list is a set of human relationships having their origins in nature (instinctu naturae). All of these relationships are encompassed by rights and duties. Men and women have the right and the duty to mate. Men and women have the right and the duty to raise children. Children have the right to be raised, and the duty to honor their parents.58 Isidore/Gratian turned to 54

Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1-2.94.4.1: “Ad quartum sic proceditur. Videtur quod lex naturae non sit una apud omnes. Dicitur enim in decretis, dist. I, quod ius naturale est quod in lege et in Evangelio continetur. Sed hoc non est commune omnibus, quia, ut dicitur Rom. X, non omnes obediunt Evangelio. Ergo lex naturalis non est una apud omnes.” 55 Ibid., 1-2.94.4.s.c: “Sed contra est quod Isidorus dicit, in libro Etymol., ius naturale est commune omnium nationum.” Editors and translators cite this text as coming from Isidore’s Etymologies (which it does), but Thomas took it from Gratian. 56 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1-2.94.4.co.: “Respondeo dicendum quod, sicut supra dictum est, ad legem naturae pertinent ea ad quae homo naturaliter inclinatur; inter quae homini proprium est ut inclinetur ad agendum secundum rationem. Ad rationem autem pertinet ex communibus ad propria procedere, ut patet ex I Physic.” 57 Gratian, Decretum D.1 c.7: “Ius naturale est commune omnium nationum, eo quod ubique instinctu nature, non constitutione aliqua habetur, ut viri et femine conjunctio, liberorum successio et educatio, communis omnium possessio et omnium una libertas, acquisitio eorum, quae celo, terra marique capiuntur; item deposite rei vel commendate pecuniae restitutio, violentie per vim repulsio. Nam hoc, aut si quid huic simile est, nunquam injustum, sed naturale equumque habetur.” 58 This right and duty were already embedded in Roman testamentary law. Children could not be disinherited unless they committed certain serious crimes. Later, the


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Roman law to describe other precepts. People have the right to claim ownership of res nullius and the right of self defense. As I have emphasized earlier, this text was the most important one on natural law in Gratian’s Decretum. In it Isidore had declared that ius naturale was common to all nations. The canonists quickly glossed “nations” as all persons who had been born, “nascentium.”59 Ius naturale was, they argued, not only common to all groups of people but that ius was common to all human beings. And if we remember Paul’s definition of ius naturale, the jurists would have translated the phrase into English — if that were possible — as “What is good and equitable is a right of every person who has been born.” Thomas, however, did not read the text as the jurists did. For the jurists Isidore’s text was a list of rights and duties. Consequently, Thomas stumbled when he confronted “the return of property or money that has been deposited or entrusted” in Gratian/Isidore’s text. Modern readers have not always understood that Thomas was reading Isidore in Gratian and not Isidore divorced from its place in the Decretum. Thomas almost certainly understood that returning a deposit was a common norm of natural law because it was in accord with reason. This idea had a long tradition. Thomas always emphasized that reason was central to legitimizing the norms of natural law. However, he must have asked himself, how could the Roman law contract of deposit and commodatum be a general norm of natural law? After all, there were exceptions. Thomas did not understand that Gratian expected Isidore’s text to be interpreted through the prism of his opening statement on natural law. Instead, Thomas approached the text literally. Is it a norm of natural law that a gratuitous contract of

canonists developed the right of children to be nurtured and supported; on both issues see Charles J. Reid, Jr. Power over the Body, Equality in the Family: Rights and Domestic Relations in Medieval Canon Law, Emory University Studies in Law and Religion (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2004), pp. 82–93 and pp. 165–205 and passim. For the English common law context, see Richard Helmholz, The Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s, The Oxford History of the Laws of England 1 (Oxford, 2004), pp. 244, 256, 377, 425–26, 560–61. 59 The earliest gloss that I know is an interlinear gloss in Cologne, Dombibliothek 127, fol. 9r: D.1 c.7 s.v. nationum “idest nascentium.” The idea became mainstream when Huguccio glossed the text, s.v. omnium nationum: “idest omnium nascentium, idest animalium.” Summa decretorum, 1: Distinctiones I–XX, (as in n. 14), p. 31. See also Weigand, Die Naturrechtslehre, passim.

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deposit or commodatum should always be fulfilled?60 The obvious answer to his literal question is no: It is right and true that all things should be done according to reason. From this principle it follows as an almost inevitable conclusion that deposits must be returned. And indeed this is true in many cases. But it can happen that in a case it might be damaging and consequently would be irrational if a deposit was returned. For example if someone would use the deposit to wage war against his homeland. can be deficient as one descends into particular cases. Consider if it were said that deposits must be returned with a stipulation or in another manner with particular conditions attached. In that case the many more reasons can arise that would make it not right to either return or keep the deposit.61

Thomas loses his grip on the legal rules governing the contract of deposit at the end. Cautiones or conditiones could not be attached to the deposit because the contracts of deposit and commodatum would then lose their unilateral and gratuitous nature. Nonetheless, it is clear, and that is the main point, Thomas thought of this section of Gratian/ Isidore’s text more as a lex — that is the rules of positive Roman law governing these contracts than as Gratian meant it to be: an example of the precept or the principle ius suum cuique tribuere. Of course, Thomas is correct that natural law must conform to what is reasonable. And, of course, Gratian and the jurists did not hold that the Roman law of deposit was founded on natural law. They understood, as Thomas himself argued in other parts of his Summa theologica, that even fundamental principles of natural law, like human liberty, were subject to exceptions. Gratian certainly and Isidore possibly were thinking of deposit and commodatum as the manifestation of the foundational principle of ius naturale in this area of law: do unto others as other would do unto you. The depositor or lender had to depend on the depositary’s or

60 On the Roman law of deposit, see Reinhard Zimmermann, The Law of Obligations: Roman Foundations of the Civilian Tradition (Oxford, 1996), pp. 205–20. 61 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1-2.94.4.co.: “Apud omnes enim hoc rectum est et verum, ut secundum rationem agatur. Ex hoc autem principio sequitur quasi conclusio propria, quod deposita sint reddenda. Et hoc quidem ut in pluribus verum est, sed potest in aliquo casu contingere quod sit damnosum, et per consequens irrationabile, si deposita reddantur; puta si aliquis petat ad impugnandam patriam. Et hoc tanto magis invenitur deficere, quanto magis ad particularia descenditur, puta si dicatur quod deposita sunt reddenda cum tali cautione, vel tali modo, quanto enim plures conditiones particulares apponuntur, tanto pluribus modis poterit deficere, ut non sit rectum vel in reddendo vel in non reddendo.”


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borrower’s honor to return the property. The exceptions to the rule that deposits must be returned that Thomas sensibly proposed would not have posed difficulties for Gratian or Isidore. Both would have cheerfully endorsed Thomas’s exceptions to the rules governing deposit: If returning a deposit resulted in harm to others or to herself, then it should not be returned. Consequently, the Golden Rule had great moral and ethical force in gratuitous contracts and not in others that had consideration (do ut des) and conditions attached to them. That is why Gratian and Isidore chose these contracts for their illustration of a fundamental precept of natural law. Thomas did not see Gratian’s principle. He analyzed the contract of depositum and commodatum in positivistic terms. His first argument would have been persuasive to Gratian and the jurists: if the return of the property resulted in damage to the common good and was unreasonable, it should not be returned. The jurists, however, understood Gratian’s point. If Thomas had read Huguccio’s gloss on Isidore’s text he might have seen gratuitous contracts in a different light. Huguccio made Gratian’s point exactly in his gloss to Isidore’s text at the end of the twelfth century: “The return of property or money that has been deposited or entrusted”: This by right (ius) or evangelical command, in which anyone is ordered to do unto others what he wishes to be done to him, and anyone is prohibited from doing unto others what she would not wish to be done to her. Reason and the judgment of reason approve restitution of that which was deposited with me or was entrusted to me.62

Huguccio and the canonists saw that Gratian was using Isidore to give an illustration of a precept. He was not claiming that the Roman contracts of deposit and commodatum were in some sense an absolute principle of natural law. Rather, they were an illustration of a precept of natural law. My main point here is that Thomas did not appreciate or perhaps know the distinction between lex and ius in medieval jurisprudence and the penumbras of meanings that encircled each term. If he had, I have no doubt that he would have adjusted his terminology and not used lex naturalis and ius naturale interchangeably. As we shall see, 62 Huguccio, Summa decretorum, D.1.c.7, s.v. item deposite: “Hoc de iure uel precepto euangelico, quo quis iubetur alii facere quod sibi uult fieri et prohibetur alii facere quod sibi non uult fieri. Ratio etiam et iudicium rationis approbat id restituendum fore quod apud me est depositum uel michi est commodatum.”

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the ambiguity of his terminology infiltrated theological and legal thought for centuries.63 The consequences of this ambiguity would require a much more profound study than this essay. When Thomas came back to Gratian at the end of article 4 of question 94, he returned to the question of whether all law contained in the Old and New Testament constituted natural law. The question that he posed in the beginning of the question is, to a certain extent, specious. No jurist or theologian ever claimed that all the precepts in the JudeoChristian texts were tenets of natural law. Thomas conceded that he had constructed a straw man that did not reflect Gratian’s text accurately. He concluded: It must be said to the original question that Gratian’s comment ought not be understood that almost all law contained in the Old and New Testament are laws of nature, since many things there are “above nature.”64 But whatever constitutes natural law is fully contained there. Consequently, Gratian said immediately, as an example and as a clarification, “The ius of nature is what is contained in the lex and the Gospel. By it, each person is commanded to do to others what she wants done to herself.”65

Thomas’s summary of Gratian’s meaning is correct. What he did not understand is how Gratian’s conception of natural law as a precept that could be expressed by the Golden Rule of the Judeo-Christian and Roman legal traditions was linked with Isidore of Seville’s text in D.1 c.7. Thomas may not have understood Gratian, but his commentary on natural law in his Summa theologiae became a touchstone for all later discussions in theology and law. In part, this was because the later canonists did not write commentaries on Gratian’s Decretum and his Tractatus de legibus. Consequently, the jurists frequently turned to Thomas and the theological tradition. The only commentary on Gratian that circulated widely in the later Middle Ages was Guido de Baysio’s Rosarium that he finished around 1300. Guido was, as far 63 I speak narrowly about his understanding of natural law jurisprudence. As I have indicated earlier, Thomas cited Gratian and decretals frequently in his works. 64 I am not sure I understand what Thomas means by “supra naturam.” 65 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1-2.94.4.ad 1: “Ad primum ergo dicendum quod verbum illud non est sic intelligendum quasi omnia quae in lege et in Evangelio continentur, sint de lege naturae, cum multa tradantur ibi supra naturam, sed quia ea quae sunt de lege naturae, plenarie ibi traduntur. Unde cum dixisset Gratianus quod ius naturale est quod in lege et in Evangelio continetur, statim, exemplificando, subiunxit, quo quisque iubetur alii facere quod sibi vult fieri.”


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as we know, the first canonist to use Thomas commentary on natural law.66 Nicholaus de Tudeschis (Panormitanus) wrote one of the only detailed commentaries on the first few chapters of Gratian’s Tractatus de legibus in the late Middle Ages. He dealt with Thomas and Gratian in his discussion of natural law.67 Although his extensive commentary seems not to have circulated widely and was not generally known, it is a good example of how important Thomas’s discussion of natural law had become by the middle of the fifteenth century. At the beginning of his commentary Panormitanus quoted Thomas’s definition of natural law that had become lapidary: “natural law (lex naturalis) is nothing other than the impression of divine illumination on us. Consequently, lex naturalis is every rational creature’s participation in the lex eternal.”68 He expanded upon Thomas’s definition using his language and terminology. In spite of the legal tradition that eschewed the term lex naturalis, Panormitanus repeatedly adopted Thomas’s terminology.69 Thomas had stated that the first principle of 66

Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights, p. 27. Orazio Condorelli, “La dottrina delle fonti del diritto nel Commentario del Panormitano sulla Distinctio prima del Decretum,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Kanonistische Abteilung 91 (2005), 299–354; his Commentary was discovered by Antony Black; see Kenneth Pennington, “Nicholaus de Tudeschis (Panormitanus),” in Niccolò Tedeschi (Abbas Panormitanus) e i suoi Commentaria in Decretales, ed. Orazio Condorelli (Rome, 2000), pp. 9–36, here p. 16. Also published on CD Rom with Panormitanus’s Commentary: Nicholaus de Tudeschis (Abbas Panormitanus) Commentaria in Decretales Gregorii IX et in Clementinas Epistolas, Edizioni Informatiche (Rome, 2000). 68 Panormitanus, Lucca, Biblioteca Capitolare Feliniana, 160, fol. 253rb, D.1 c.1 (Omnes leges): “Nota ex isto textu quod omnes leges distinguuntur in duas species dumtaxat, aut enim sunt divine aut humane. Et nota quod divine constant natura, humane vero moribus. Ex quibus infero ad duo. Et primo quod lex naturalis potest dici divina: non enim humana, ergo divina. Et quod dici posset divina patet per illud verbum ‘natura’. Hinc dicit beatus Thomas in prima secunde q. xcia articulo ii. (1–2 q.91 a.2) quod naturalis lex nihil aliud est quam impressio divini luminis in nobis, unde secundum eundem lex naturalis est participatio legis eterne in rationali creatura.” Condorelli prints the excerpts from Panormitanus’s text that I have used (with a few of my own additions from the Lucca manuscript) in his essay “La dottrina.” 69 Ibid., fol. 253rb–253va: “Ego tamen puto quod lex naturalis non proprie comprehendatur sub lege divina, licet participet de lege eterna, que est summa ratio in Deo existens, ut notat beatus Thomas in prima secunde q. xci. ar. i. (1–2 q.91 a.1; rectius 1–2 q.93 a.1). Et clarius idem beatus Thomas attingens hanc materiam xci.b dis. ar. ii. (1–2 q.91 a.2) in parte preall. dicit quod, cum omnia, que divine providentie subduntur, a lege eterna regulentur et mensurentur, manifestum est quod omnes participent aliqualiter legem eternam, in quantum scilicet ex impressione eius habent inclinationes in proprios actus et fines. Inter cetera autem, etiam rationalis creatura excellentior quodammodo divine providentie subiacet, in quantum et ipsa sit providentie 67

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law, and therefore of natural law, was the necessity to do good and avoid evil. Guido de Baysio had incorporated Thomas’s text into his definition at the end of the thirteenth century but obscured Thomas’s influence by attributing the text to Laurentius Hispanus († 1248). Panormitanus corrected him and changed Thomas’s text in a small but significant way. It was the first principle of the law (lex) of nature to do good and avoid evil.70 When Panormitanus reached Gratian’s central text on natural law at D.1 c.7, his terminology began to become unstable. As we have seen when he wrote about natural law drawing upon Thomas’s Summa theologiae, he adopted Thomas’s lex naturalis consistently. When he began to discuss Isidore’s text, however, he began to vacillate in his terminology: Note that there is only one lex naturalis for all people, and therefore all people have one natural instinct. … Note that lex naturalis is stamped naturally on the hearts of people … Note the nine examples of ius naturale that are placed here in the text. Do not think that naturale is restricted to these examples or that lex naturalis can be defined through them. Many other examples might be given.71

particeps sibi ipsi et aliis providens, unde et in ipsa participatur ratio eterna, per quam homo naturalem habet inclinationem ad debitum actum et finem, et talis participatio legis eterne in tali creatura lex naturalis dicitur secundum eum, quod est bene notandum. Et sic videtur quod lex naturalis non sit proprie ius divinum sed participatio legis eterne. Ad idem facit c. Quo iure viii. dist. (D.8 c.1) ubi textus dicit quod ius divinum in divinis scripturis habetur, lex autem naturalis non continetur in aliqua constitutione, ut patet ex precedenti et probatur infra ead. dist. Ius naturale (D.1 c.7), ubi dicitur quod naturale ius non habetur constitutione aliqua, sed instinctu nature, id est naturali inspiratione seu inclinatione.” 70 Ibid., fol. 257vb: “Sed adverte quod ista dicta Archidyaconi que attribuit Laurentio sunt ad literam beati Thome in prima secunde dis. xciv. articulo ii. ad aliud tamen effectum quam queratur hic. Ibi enim beatus Thomas format questionem an lex naturalis contineat unum preceptum an plura. Et tandem videtur concludere quod multa sunt legis nature precepta in se ipsis, omnia tamen communicant in una radice, scilicet ad unum primum preceptum. Primum autem preceptum legis nature est per eum quod bonum est faciendum et prosequendum et malum vitandum. Et super hoc fundantur omnia alia precepta legis nature, ut scilicet omnia facienda vel vitanda pertineant ad precepta legis nature, que ratio practica naturaliter apprehendit esse bona humana.” Thomas had written in 1-2.94.2.co. “Hoc est ergo primum praeceptum legis, quod bonum est faciendum et prosequendum, et malum vitandum. Et super hoc fundantur omnia alia praecepta legis naturae, ut scilicet omnia illa facienda vel vitanda pertineant ad praecepta legis naturae …” 71 Ibid., fol. 261r: “Nota quod unica est lex naturalis omnibus hominibus, et sic omnes habent unum instinctum naturale. … Nota quod lex naturalis est in cordibus hominum naturaliter impressa. … Nota novem exempla iuris naturalis que ponuntur hic in textu. Non enim intelligas quod naturale restringatur ad ista exempla, vel quod per ista lex naturalis diffiniatur. Nam multa alia exempla poni possunt.”


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As he analyzed Isidore’s list of examples of natural law, he reverted completely to the language of the jurists: Among other examples note that the coupling of men and women is a norm of ius naturale, as the gloss notes, in so far as he says that, if this text is understood as the coupling of bodies then it ought to be understood as being a norm of ius naturale deriving from sensuality. If, however, it is understood as a coupling of souls, then the norm is just as ius naturale derived from reason.72

Panormitanus used Thomas’s terminology, mixed in with the jurists’ ius naturale, and did not seem to object to or perhaps even to have noticed his unstable terminology for describing natural law. Panormitanus’s mixing of juristic and theological terminology was not typical of the jurists—although theologians, as far as I can see, adopted Thomas’s lex naturalis by the early modern period.73 For example, Francisco Suárez († 1617) used lex naturalis almost exclusively when writing about natural law in his comprehensive treatise on law — except when he turned to juristic thought.74 But Aquinas formed the bedrock of his discussion. Yet Suárez was far from a positivist. In the debate about who was and who was not an advocate of natural subjective rights most scholars have agreed that Suárez had a clear doctrine of rights.75 Manuel González Téllez († 1649) wrote one of the last extended canonistic discussions of natural law that was framed by the medieval jurisprudential tradition in the preface to his commentary on the Decretals of Gregory IX.76 Like Panormitanus, Téllez used and cited 72 Ibid., fol. 261r: “Et inter cetera exempla nota quod maris et femine coniunctio est de iure naturali, et in hoc notat glosa I (D.1 c.7 s.v. coniunctio) in quantum dicit quod, si intelligatur in hoc textu de coniunctione corporum, tunc debet intelligi de iure naturali ex sensualitate proveniente; si autem de coniunctione animorum, tunc quasi ius naturale ex ratione proveniens.” 73 In order to justify this generalization the use of lex naturalis and ius naturale would have to be examined in all the major jurists and theologians of the late medieval and early modern periods ? which is far beyond the scope of this essay. 74 The most convenient edition of his work is Francisco Suárez, De legibus, 3 (II 1–12): De lege naturali, eds. L. Pereña, and V. Abril, with E. Elorduy, C. Villanueva, and P. Suñer et al., Corpus hispanorum de pace 13 (Madrid, 1974) and De legibus, 4 (II 13–20): De iure gentium, eds. L. Pereña, E. Elorduy, V. Abril C. Villanueva and P. Suñer et al., Corpus hispanorum de pace 14 (Madrid, 1973) and the other volumes in this series. 75 Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights, pp. 301–15. 76 On Tellez, see Kenneth Pennington, “Sovereignty and Rights in Medieval and Early Modern Jurisprudence: Law and Norms without a State,” in Rethinking the State in the Age of Globalisation: Catholic Thought and Contemporary Political Theory, eds.

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Thomas Aquinas extensively.77 Only once, however, when discussing Thomas and natural law, did he slip into Thomas’s terminology.78 What is particularly striking is that Téllez wrote about natural law primarily in terms of praecepta (precepts or maxims) not in terms of leges. The most fundamental of these norms, wrote Téllez, was that human beings should and can distinguish between good and evil.79 For the remainder of these norms he turned to the jurisprudential tradition. Human beings should live honestly and should not injure their neighbors.80 Lastly, to give each person his ius in contracts, restitutions, and payments of debts, whose rendering may be assigned to reason and natural equity.81 All of these norms, Téllez concluded by turning back to Gratian’s dictum at the beginning of the Decretum, can be found in the divine wisdom of Christ’s admonition found in Matthew, chapter 7, “Do unto others as you would others do unto you.”82 I should emphasize at this point that this essay could be an outline of what would be a splendid book on the legal and theological evolution of thought on natural law in the Western tradition. The later medieval and early modern jurists and theologians that I have not examined in this essay—which are many—might provide surprising

Heinz-Gerhard Justenhoven and James Turner, Politik: Forschung und Wissenschaft 10 (Münster, 2003), pp. 117–41, here 126–36 and in Roman Law as Formative of Modern Legal Systems: Studies in Honour of Wiesław Litewski, eds. Janusz. Sondel, Jaroslaw Reszczyñski, and P. Ściślicki, 2 vols. (Kraków, 2003), 2:25–36. 77 Emanuelis Gonzalez Tellez, Commentaria in quinque libros decretalium, 5 vols. (Venice, 1766), 1:3–6. 78 Ibid., 1:3: “Priori modo natura rationalis fundamentum est legis naturalis; posteriori vero modo est ipsa lex naturalis, quae humanae voluntati praecipit, vel prohibet, quod agendum est, ut docent D. Thomas 1.2 q.94 art. 1 et 2.” 79 Ibid., 1:5: “Primum et communissimum praeceptum est secundum eundem Angelicum Praeceptorem (Saint Thomas) … ‘Bonum faciendum’ et per contrarium ‘Malum Vitandum’.” 80 Ibid., 1:5: “Praecepta huius iuris a consultis indicata, non alia in effectu sunt quam quae recensentur in l. Iustitia 10 § 1 ff. de iustitia et iure (Dig. 1.3.10.1), § Iurispraecepta Inst. eodem titulo (Inst. 1.1)… Honeste vivere continent decentiam naturalem erga se, tam famae quam corporis intuitu… Alterum non laedere proximum, est iustitiae, quae est ad alios; ergo contra naturalem rationem est alterum damno afficere uel in rebus per furtum vel in vita aut persona per vulnus illatum… Unde deducit Florentinus nefas esse hominum homini insidari.” 81 Ibid., 1:5: “Postremum est ius suum cuique tribuere, quod ad pactiones, restitutiones, et solutiones rerum debitarum proprie spectat, quarum implementum merito rationi, et aequitati naturali assignatur sive attribuitur.” 82 Ibid., 1:5: “Haec omnia praecepta respectu omnium hominum hoc uno clausit divina sapientia Christi Domini apud Matth. 7: ‘Omnia quaecumque vultis, ut faciunt vobis homines, et vos facite illis. Haec est enim lex et propheta’.”


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twists, turns, and corrections to the generalizations that I have put forward in this essay. The book would be well worth writing. The issues are still very much with us today. We very much have to agree upon conceptions and definitions of “What is good and equitable” to which all human beings and nations can pledge their allegiance. When Pope Benedict XVI addressed the participants of the International Congress on Natural Moral Law in Rome on February 12, 2007 he talked about natural law: The capacity to see the laws of material being makes us incapable of seeing the ethical message contained in being, a message that tradition calls lex naturalis, natural moral law… From it flow the other more particular principles that regulate ethical justice on the rights and duties of everyone. So does the principle of respect for human life from its conception to its natural end, because this good of life is not man’s property but the free gift of God. Besides this is the duty to seek the truth as the necessary presupposition of every authentic personal maturation. Another fundamental application of the subject is freedom. Human freedom is always a freedom shared with others. It is clear that the harmony of freedom can be found only in what is common to all: the truth of the human being, the fundamental message of being itself, exactly the lex naturalis. And how can we not mention, on the one hand, the demand of justice that manifests itself in giving unicuique suum and, on the other, the expectation of solidarity that nourishes in everyone, especially if they are poor, the hope of the help of the more fortunate?83

83 The entire text reads: “La capacità di vedere le leggi dell’essere materiale ci rende incapaci di vedere il messaggio etico contenuto nell’essere, messaggio chiamato dalla tradizione lex naturalis, legge morale naturale… Proprio alla luce di queste constatazioni che appare in tutta la sua urgenza la necessità di riflettere sul tema della legge naturale e di ritrovare la sua verità comune a tutti gli uomini. Tale legge, a cui accenna anche l’apostolo Paolo (cfr Rm 2:14–15), è scritta nel cuore dell’uomo ed è, di conseguenza, anche oggi non semplicemente inaccessibile. Questa legge ha come suo primo e generalissimo principio quello di ‘fare il bene ed evitare il male.’ È, questa, una verità la cui evidenza si impone immediatamente a ciascuno. Da essa scaturiscono gli altri principi più particolari, che regolano il giudizio etico sui diritti e sui doveri di ciascuno. Tale è il principio del rispetto per la vita umana dal suo concepimento fino al suo termine naturale, non essendo questo bene della vita proprietà dell’uomo ma dono gratuito di Dio. Tale è pure il dovere di cercare la verità, presupposto necessario di ogni autentica maturazione della persona. Altra fondamentale istanza del soggetto è la libertà. Tenendo conto, tuttavia, del fatto che la libertà umana è sempre una libertà condivisa con gli altri, è chiaro che l’armonia delle libertà può essere trovata solo in ciò che è comune a tutti: la verità dell’essere umano, il messaggio fondamentale dell’essere stesso, la lex naturalis appunto. E come non menzionare, da una parte, l’esigenza di giustizia che si manifesta nel dare unicuique suum e, dall’altra, l’attesa di solidarietà che alimenta in ciascuno, specialmente se disagiato, la speranza di un aiuto da parte di chi ha avuto una sorte migliore?” It can be found on the Vatican website at:

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Unwittingly, Benedict separated and confused the two traditions that we have been examining. His terminology obfuscates issues that should be clear and precise. What are “particular principles”: laws, rights, or principles? The jurists made no distinction between ius naturale and justice and equity, and, as we have seen, an important aspect of justice was preserving the common good. More significantly, when Benedict thought about what constituted an example of lex naturalis, which he calls a principle, he proposed a universal lex: the respect for and preservation of human life from conception to its natural end. Thomas Aquinas might have found fault with this principle or lex in the same way that he objected to gratuitous contracts being called general principles of natural law. Do not human reason and human ideas of justice find ways to end lives between conception and death, he might ask? The death penalty and the killing fields of war are two examples that he would certainly have cited. As Thomas pointed out, how can something be called a principle of natural law if there are generally held exceptions to it?84 What Benedict overlooks is his Church’s own jurisprudence. It is what every jurist, even the pagan Roman jurists, had understood for centuries: ius embodies justice and ius naturale in its purest form contains equity, justice, and reason in its DNA. It did not contain a set of leges. I would argue that the shift in terminology and thought that we have followed has impoverished natural law thought. Modern jurists’, theologians’, and the Holy Father’s understanding of ius naturale has changed dramatically. Where medieval and early modern jurists thought of ius naturale as a set of precepts, rights, and duties

http://212.77.1.245/news_services/bulletin/news/19718.php?index=19718&po _date=12.02.2007&lang=it The translation is based on: http://www.vatican.va/holy _father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2007/february/documents/hf_benxvi_spe_20070212 _pul_en.htm 84 Another example of how language can shape thought is Thomas Hobbes’s attempt to distinguish between ius naturale and lex naturalis. See Thomas Hobbes, (1588– 1679), Leviathan 1.14 (London, 1968), p. 189: “The Right Of Nature, which Writers commonly call Jus Naturale, is the Liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himselfe, for preservation of his own Nature … A Law Of Nature, (Lex Naturalis), is a Precept, or generall Rule, found out by Reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and to omit, that, by which he thinketh it may be best preserved. For though they that speak of this subject, use to confound Jus and Lex, Right and Law; yet they ought to be distinguished; because Right consisteth in liberty to do, or to forbear; Whereas Law determineth and bindeth to one of them: so that Law and Right differ as much as Obligation and Liberty, which in one and the same matter are inconsistent.”


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encapsulated in ius, modern thinkers have embraced positivistic sets of rules, prohibitions, and norms, shaped and fashioned according to each of their belief systems, that are and always have been the defining feature of lex. Human beings may never agree on universal rules of a lex naturalis, but they might agree on universal precepts of a ius naturale. Finally, to answer the question that I posed at the beginning of this essay: why were the bollards surrounding the Supreme Court provided with the word Lex? The answer is undoubtedly: ignorantia iuris.

WHEN THE DEVIL WENT TO LAW SCHOOL: CANON LAW AND THEOLOGY IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY Karl Shoemaker Discussions of medieval canon law are rarely framed in terms of “crossing boundaries” – the interdisciplinary theme that guides this collection of essays in honor of William J. Courtenay and the medieval conference held in Madison, Wisconsin that prompted it. Rather, the emergence and development of medieval canon law, both as an increasingly discrete mode of intellectual inquiry within medieval universities and as an increasingly well-regulated profession in medieval Europe, is typically a story in which the boundaries separating canon law from other disciplines are described, and often re-inscribed. The close identity between canon law and theology that marked the period before the first half of the twelfth century is generally recognized, as is the fact that some medieval scholars took degrees in both law and theology in the later centuries, but the dominant historical narratives applied to medieval canon law have tended to stress its insularity and autonomy – tracing “a process of emancipation” from theology that was accomplished early on.1 There are perhaps good reasons for this tendency, not the least of which is the highly technical character of canon law processes and sources. The insularity and autonomy of canon law, however, also contributed to its other traditional descriptive – harmony. The Decretum, the standard marker of the inception of canon law’s classical age, was an attempt, made explicit in its long title, to harmonize a discordant mass of authoritative texts into a coherent body.2 As Stefan Kuttner taught us in his classic Harmony from Dissonance, twelfth-century canonists confronted dissonance at several levels and sought to harmonize not only the welter of legal authorities that they had inherited from 1 The phrase is from G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes, “Exponents of Sovereignty: Canonists as Seen by Theologians in the Late Middle Ages,” in The Church and Sovereignty c.590–1918 Essays in Honour of Michael Wilks, ed. Diana Wood, Studies in Church History, Subsidia 9 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 299–312, here 302. 2 Gratian’s text, commonly known as the Decretum, is entitled Concordia discordantium canonum.

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posterity, but also to reform and renovate ecclesiastical institutions and the mystical body of the Church itself.3 Brian Tierney offered one measure of their success: “To sketch in outline the growth of the Corpus iuris canonici from the appearance of Gratian’s Decretum to the outbreak of the Great Schism, is, in effect, to record the process by which the Church became a body politic, subject to one head and manifesting an external unity of organization.”4 As historians have noticed, however, the “harmonious” successes of the canonists – successes that partially account for the bounded character of histories of medieval canon law – contributed to certain dissonances as well. Almost from the beginning, dissonance can be heard between canonists and theologians regarding their respective roles within the mystical body. In a famous passage of De consideratione, composed around 1148 and perhaps within a decade after the appearance of the Decretum, Bernard of Clairvaux asked his former student, Bernard of Pisa, who by then had been elected Pope Eugene III (1145–53): Therefore, when do we pray? When do we teach the people? When do we edify the Church? When do we meditate on the Law? However, everyday in the [papal] palace they make such a noise of the laws, but of Justinian, not of the Lord.5

Bernard of Clairvaux’s remark put in sharp contrast the pious understanding of “Law” claimed by twelfth-century theologians and pastors and the crass understanding of “laws” attributed to canon lawyers. In Bernard’s view, the “Lex domini immaculata” converts souls, while the leges preoccupying canonists, which “are not so much laws as strife and scoffing, subvert judgment.”6 Bernard marveled that the pope, “a pastor and bishop of souls,” could tolerate the lawyers and their accompanying litigious prattle that beset him daily.7 Whatever it was that allowed 3 Stefan Kuttner, Harmony from Dissonance: An Interpretation of Medieval Canon Law (Latrobe, Pennsylvania, 1961). 4 Brian Tierney, Foundations of Conciliar Theory: The Contribution of the Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism (Cambridge, 1955), pp. 13–14. 5 Bernard of Clairvaux, De consideratione 1.4 in Opera, eds. J. Leclercq and H.M. Rochais (Rome, 1963), vol. 3, p. 399 [PL 182:732–3]: “Denique quando oramus? quando docemus populos? quando aedificamus Ecclesiam? quando meditamur in lege? Et quidem quotidie perstrepunt in palatio leges, sed Justiniani, non Domini.” 6 Ibid.,: “Nam certe lex Domini immaculata, convertens animas. Hae autem non tam leges, quam lites sunt et cavillationes, subvertentes judicium.” The phrase “lex Domini immaculata” is a reference to Psalms 18:8. 7 Ibid.,: “Tu ergo, pastor et episcopus animarum, qua mente, obsecro, sustines coram tu semper silere illam, garrire istas?”

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Eugene III to endure such noisy distractions, twelfth-century students of law (and medicine) had offered their own pithy, if irreverent, answer to why they chose law over theology or the arts: Dat Galienus opes et sanctio Justiniana ex aliis paleas, ex istis collige grana.8 [Galen and Justinian’s law grant riches. from the others you will gather chaff, from these you will gather grain.]

Even so, the criticism that preoccupation with law distracted from more worthy matters only increased in the thirteenth century, becoming a veritable commonplace for those who stressed the theological and pastoral role of the Church over its administrative and juridical tasks.9 Albert the Great, in the midst of doctrinal disputes concerning the sacraments, remarked that canonists do not know how to solve objections; they only know how to make them.10 Roger Bacon, echoing the complaints of Bernard of Clairvaux, charged canon lawyers with having corrupted the Church by smuggling the pernicious Roman law into the papal curia. He longed for the good old days: “At one time the Roman curia was ruled by God’s wisdom, but now it is ruined by legal pronouncements derived from lay emperors.” Furthermore, it grated on Bacon that the jurists who accomplished this corruption were “more highly praised than a master of theology,” regardless of their skill or learning.11 Aquinas famously chastised professors of theology who scoured the “little glosses of the jurists” for authority when they ought to turn their attention to divine rather than human judgment.12 Dante similarly lamented that study of the Gospels and the great doctors suffered while the margins of the decretals were

8 Stefan Kuttner, “Dat Galienus opes et sanctio Justiniana,” in Linguistic and Literary Studies in Honor of Helmut A. Hatzfeld, ed. Alessandro S. Crisafulli (Washington, D.C., 1964), pp. 236–46. 9 See Meyjes, “Exponents of Sovereignty,” p. 312. 10 Albertus Magnus, Commentarium in libros Sententiarum IV, d. 27, 21; G. de Lagarde, La naissance de l’esprit laïque au déclin du moyen age, (fasc. 2) (Paris, 1958), p. 333, n. 84. 11 Roger Bacon, Compendium Studii Theologicae, ed. Hastings Rashdall (Aberdeen, 1911; repr. 1966); See also George de Lagarde, La Naissance de L’esprit Laique au Declin du Moyen age, 2 vols. (Paris, 1934) 2:142; Translated in G.G. Coulton, ed., Life in the Middle Ages, 4 vols. (New York, 1910), 2:55–62. 12 Thomas Aquinas, Questiones quodlibetales IX 9: “Inconsum et deresibile videtur, quad sacrae doctrinae professores iuristarum glossulas in auctoritatem inducunt vel de eis disceptent, cum plus sit assentiendum divino iudicio quam humano.” See also Walter Ullmann, Medieval Papalism: The Political Theories of the Medieval Canonists (London, 1949), p. 47.

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full of scribbles.13 If professors of theology were thought to pay canon law texts undue attention, professors of canon law were perceived as laughably misguided. In the late fourteenth century, Pierre d’Ailly scathingly remarked that a certain canon law professor approached the decretals as if they were divine Scripture and venerated them as such.14 To pettifoggery and venality, then, d’Ailly was willing to add blasphemy. Meanwhile, men of letters could be much less discrete when heaping opprobrium on lawyers: Quid de causidico possum tibi dicere? Dici Debet enim similis vel par vili meretrici, Immo vilior est, quia, si meretrix locat anum, Hic vendit linguam, quod plus reor est prophanum Cum sit enim lingua membrum preciosius ano.15 [What can I say about a lawyer? He should be called a base whore. However, he is more base, since, if a whore leases her ass A lawyer sells his tongue, which I deem more profane, Because the tongue is a more valued member than the ass.]

***** At any rate, tensions between theology and canon law seem to have emerged simultaneously with the growth of the new universities, which, by the early thirteenth century, had dedicated faculties for the study of canon law.16 The persistent criticisms leveled against lawyers did nothing to slow the frequency with which students chose to take 13 The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, ed. and trans. J.D. Sinclair, 3 vols. rev. ed. (London, 1948), Paradiso, canto ix, ln. 133–5 (p. 138). In canto xii of the Paradiso (lns. 82–3) reading canon law is equated with love of the world, and St. Dominic is praised because he eschewed it. 14 Pierre d’Ailly, Prologus super lectura Sententiarum. The quoted text appears in Jean Gerson. Opera omnia, ed. Louis E. Dupin. 5 vols. (Antwerp, 1706), 2:614b–15c:“Sed reperio iterum in hac scola quosdam iuriscanonici professores, qui etiam suas decretales epistolas quasi divinas scripturas accipiunt et eas taliter venerantur …” 15 Les Lamentations de Matheolus et le livre de leesce, ed. Van Hamel (Paris, 1892) 1:283, lns. 4579–84. See James Brundage, “Vultures, Whores and Hypocrites: Images of Lawyers in Medieval Literature,” Roman Legal Tradition 1 (2002), 56–103. 16 Yves M.J. Congar, “Un témoignage de désaccords entre canonistes et théologiens,” in Études d’histoire du droit canonique: dédiées à Gabriel le Bras, 2 vols. (Paris, 1965) pp. 861–84; Joseph de Ghellinck, “Magister Vacarius; Un jurist théologien peu aimable pour le canonists,” Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France 44 (1943), 173–78.


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degrees in canon law.17 To the contrary, the study of canon law thrived in the thirteenth century, emerging from what James Brundage has termed a “proto-professional” period, which he located between 1150 and 1190, into a full blown profession in the thirteenth century. In the “proto-professional” period, acquisition of expertise in canon law was neither a distinctive nor terminal vocation and canonists did not yet enjoy a monopoly on advising and representing clients in ecclesiastical courts, though canon law learning seems to have been an effective tool for career advancement in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.18 By the late twelfth century and thereafter, however, canon law had reached a stage of development in which elite practitioners could dedicate their working lives to its practice and scholarship. Canon lawyers in this era typically earned university degrees in law, sometimes in both canon and civil law, and the successful ones could look forward to a relatively structured career path that included university study, a period of teaching, service as an advocate or counselor and, perhaps, an appointment in ecclesiastical administration.19 By the thirteenth century, such appointments might even culminate in election as pope. The professionalization of canon law, as well as its emergence as an autonomous discipline in the universities, was an important aspect of the sharp competition between theologians and canonists for ecclesiastical appointments. By the early fourteenth century, the perception that canonists were winning a disproportionate number of preferments from the papal curia was widespread. Marsilius of Padua certainly thought so, and scornfully at that.20 It seems that episodic counter movements in favor of theologians were noticed. Stephen of Kettleburg, a theologian, wrote a letter to his friend to tell him that: 17 Alan B. Cobban, “Theology and Law in the Medieval Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library of Manchester 65 (1982), pp. 57–77; See D. N. Lepine, “The Origins and Careers of the Canons of Exeter Cathedral, 13001455,” in Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England: the proceedings of the conference held at Strawberry Hill, Easter,1989, ed. C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1991), pp. 87–120 18 James Brundage, “The Rise of Professional Canonists and the Development of the Ius Commune,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (KA) 81 (1995), 26–63, here 31; Colin Morris, “From Synod to Consistory: The Bishops’ Courts in England, 1150–1250,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 22 (1971), 115–23. 19 Brundage, “The Rise of Professional Canonists,” 44–5. 20 Marsilius of Padua, Defensor pacis, ed. C. W. Previte-Orton (Cambridge, 1928), 371.

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karl shoemaker The situation at the curia these days has changed, in that our Lord the supreme Pontiff [John XXII] has shifted wholly and completely his special affection, which heretofore he directed towards jurists thinking them the wise ones, to theologians – and especially to masters in sacra pagina. … Our Lord the Pope liberally provides them with great honors and prebends, and depending on varying conditions some he elevates to episcopal dignity and others to archiepiscopal sees.21

By the middle of the fourteenth century, however, canonists appear to have regained a favored position in terms of papal provisions.22 Although clear institutional and professional lines divided canonists from theologians, it is also important to acknowledge the extent to which scholars on both sides of the divide sometimes crossed the boundary. Pierre de la Palud, an early fourteenth-century Dominican theologian, employed canon law authorities in his commentaries on the Sentences.23 Guido Terrini and his student, John Baconthorpe, were both theologians who employed canon law authorities in their defenses of John XXII and Benedict XII against the Michaelists and Marsilius of Padua. While it is instructive that Baconthorpe relied heavily on William of Pagula’s Summa summarum, a text aimed specifically at non-experts in canon law, for his citations to canon law authorities, and that canon law was a particularly fertile field for proponents of strong papal power, these instances still suggest wide room for interplay between the two disciplines.24 Historians have also shown that on matters such as marriage, simony, and papal power, medieval theologians and canonists were at least aware when adherents of the other

21

Translated in Francis E. Kelley, “Ockham: Avignon, Before and After,” From Ockham to Wyclif, eds. Anne Hudson and Michael Wilks, (Oxford, 1987), p. 7; See also W.A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Notre Dame, 1963), 16. 22 Jacques Verger, “Le recruitement géographique des universités francaises au début du XVe siècle d’apres les suppliques de 1403,” Mélanges d’Archeologie et d’Histoire de l’école francaise de Rome 82 (1970); repr. in Les universités français au Moyen Age (New York, 1995), pp. 122–173; Eric Goddard, “Norman Scholars at the University of Paris in the Later Middle Ages: A Study of Educational Institutions, Demographic Representation, and Political Engagement, c. 1360-c. 1430,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2009, esp. chapter 3. 23 Pierre de la Palud, Quartus Sententiarum Liber (Paris, 1514). Takashi Shogimen notes that Palud’s text was widely circulated in manuscript form and was among the earliest theological works to be printed in his “The Relationship between Theology and Canon Law: Another Context of Political Thought in the Early Fourteenth Century,” Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999), 417–431, here 420. 24 Shogimen, “The Relationship between Theology and Canon Law,” 424–25; Walter Ullmann, Medieval Papalism: The Political Theories of the Medieval Canonists. As Shogimen notes on p. 425, Terreni was critical towards canon law on questions of papal infallibility.


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discipline held a relevant (or contrary) position.25 Likewise, Hostiensis, one of the most esteemed canonists of the thirteenth century and a cardinal, also wrote a short theological treatise on the Credo.26 Despite these instances of interchange between theology and canon law, though, theological opinion was decidedly condescending towards canon law and canon lawyers. According to St. Bonaventure, a thirteenth-century theologian and cardinal who had studied theology at Paris, canon law could only say quia, but theology provided the propter quid.27 Here, Bonaventure employed Aristotelian criteria pertaining to the hierarchy of sciences. Just as mathematics was superior to physics because mathematics provided the principles that were the starting point for the physician, he explained, theology provided the how and why that was necessarily prior to the work of canonists. Theology, therefore, was the scientia superior. The status of the relationship between canon law and theology was pressing enough that theologians could pose the question whether canonists or theologians were better equipped to govern the Church.28 The responses given again and again in the fourteenth century by theologians like William of Ockham, Pierre d’Ailly, and Jean Gerson, to name only the leading lights, vigorously asserted the primacy and authority of theology over canon law. Of these, the most sustained engagement with the question of the relationship between theology and canon law was the first part of Ockham’s Dialogus, which provided the blueprint for subsequent scholastic critiques of canon law.29 Ockham’s dialogue between a student 25

On papal power, see Ullmann, Medieval Papalism: The Political Theories of the Medieval Canonists (London, 1949) as well as the discussion by William J. Courtenay in Capacity and Volition: A History of the Distinction of Absolute and Ordained Power (Bergamo, 1990) pp. 92–103; on questions of sex within marriage, see James Gordley, “Ardo quarens intellectum: Sex within Marriage according to the Canon Lawyers and Theologians of the 12th and 13th Centuries,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (KA) 83 (1997), 305–332; on simony, see William J. Courtenay and Karl B. Shoemaker, “The Tears of Nicholas: Simony and Perjury by a Parisian Master of Theology in the Fourteenth Century,” Speculum 83 (2008), 603–628. 26 Jean Longère, “L’enseignement du Credo: conciles, synodes et canonistes médiévaux jusqu’au XIIIe siècle,” Sacris Erudiri 32 (1991), 309–341. 27 Bonaventure, Commentarium in libros Sententiarum IV, in Opera omnia, 10 vols. (Quaracchi, 1883-1902), 4:488. 28 For a view of the question in the early modern period, see R. James Long, “Utrum iurista vel theologus plus proficiat ad regimen ecclesiae: A Questio Disputata of Francis Caraccioli,” Mediaeval Studies 30 (1968), 134–62. 29 William of Ockham, Dialogus, eds. and trans. John Kilcullen, George Knysh, Volker Leppin, John Scott, Jan Ballweg (Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi, 2008), published online: http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/dialogus/ockdial.html

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and a master examined a range of contemporary issues, including the power to define heresy, theological errors that Ockham attributed to Pope John XXII (whom Ockham once characterized as a “quarrelsome lawyer completely without theological learning”30), as well as the limits of papal and imperial power. Ockham’s detailed attention to the Church’s powers in regard to heresy prompted him to discuss the position of canon law vis-à-vis theology because controversy existed as to whether canonists or theologians were better able to define which beliefs where heretical and which were orthodox. Before stating the case for theologians, Ockham’s master articulated the case in favor of the canonists in a series of propositions that hinged on who held the power to determine theological truth from heresy. First, since determination of theological truth and heretical error requires some approving authority, one could claim that it pertains more to canonists than to theologians since canonists are experts in proving and disproving things. Second, since the authority of the Church is paramount in determining matters of faith, and canon law is a science produced through the authority of the Church, canon law is better able to decide what is heretical. Third, stated the master, some argue that since the pope is the author of the creed of the faith, and the pope is the author of the science of the canonists, canonists possess a knowledge of the creed that allows them to determine more ably whether some belief violates orthodoxy.31 One may well wonder whether Ockham put the canonists’ best foot forward, but these are the claims for superiority that he attributed to them. Whereas Ockham’s master cast the position favoring canonists in terms of auctoritas, he made the case for theologians in terms of their superior scientia. First, Ockham stated, whatever the canonists know that allows them to recognize heresy was first learned from theology. Furthermore, a particular belief might be in contradiction with canon law, yet if it is not contrary to theology it is not heresy. Hence, canon law, as a subset of theology, was inferior in matters pertaining to the definition of heresy. Moreover, explained the master, even canon law recognized that theology is the knowledge that pertains most to the sacred scriptures and is therefore the science better able to discern heresy from orthodoxy. Theology’s superiority to canon law was also 30 William of Ockham, Tractatus Contra Benedictum, in Guillelmi de Ockham Opera Politica, ed. H. S. Offler, 4 vols. (Manchester, 1956), 3:213. 31 William of Ockham, Dialogus 1.1.


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deduced from the fact that sacred scripture, the special purview of theology, could not be added to or subtracted from whereas aspects of canon law were subject to changing context and circumstances. But Ockham was willing to go even farther. Not only was theology the superior science, but theologians could also claim a knowledge of the meaning of canon law texts that was more profound than that of the canonists. After all, the master asked, what was canon law but a collection of scriptural texts, theological writings, the commands of ecclesiastical councils and imperial statutes? These were matters on which theologians could claim an expertise superior to the canonists. Perhaps, the master allowed, purely positive rules governing court procedures or rules that did not pertain to strictly moral matters – that is, rules that could change with changing circumstances – were better understood by canonists, but these were inferior matters and of little interest to theologians.32 As an example, the master referred to a theologian (perhaps referring to Robert Grosseteste33), who, despite being completely ignorant of the laws and legal process, was reputed to have defended himself successfully by reason and theology alone against accusations leveled against him in the papal consistory.34 The close attention to the matter paid by Ockham was undoubtedly prompted in part by the favoritism that the papacy had displayed toward canonists and their prominent role in doctrinal inquiries in the early fourteenth century. But Ockham was also responding directly to claims that canonists themselves had been making since the thirteenth century that their discipline gave them special purchase over theology. According to Hostiensis (as reported by d’Ailly): Haec scientia vere potest scientia scientiarum nuncupari. Nam si bene intelligatur, per eam tam temporalia quam spiritualia regi possunt.35 [Canon law indeed can be called the science of sciences. For if it is well understood, through it the temporal as well as the spiritual [realms] can be ruled.]

32

Ibid. See David Luscombe, “William of Ockham and the Michaelists on Robert Grosseteste and Denis the Areopagite,” in The Medieval Church: Universities, Heresy and the Religious Life, eds. Peter Biller and Barrie Dobson (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1999). 34 William of Ockham, Dialogus 1. 9. 35 D’Ailly, Utrum indoctus in iure divino possit iusta praeesse in Gersoni Opera Omnia, 5 vols. (Antwerp, 1706), 5:655 a-b. 33

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The term scientia scientiarum was a purposeful elevation of canon law above theology in the scholastic hierarchy of knowledge. Without dismissing the hubris of his assertion, it is worth noting that Hostiensis had some authority for his position. The first paragraph of Justinian’s Digest had called jurists and judges “priests of justice” because “we worship justice and profess the knowledge of what is good and fair.”36 Medieval jurists (both Romanists and canonists) did not fail to elaborate on this association.37 For example, Accursius read the priesthood of jurists to mean that those wanting to become lawyers did not need to study theology, because theology is already found within the law.38 The tractatus de legibus in Gratian’s Decretum had also taught canon lawyers that their discipline required knowledge of human laws and divine law, and invited the inference, contested mightily by Ockham, that mastery of canon law encompassed mastery of theology as well.39 Guido de Baysio, himself an influential fourteenth-century canonist, remarked that some canonists believed that canon law was an older discipline than theology, having been founded at the creation of the world, and hence superior to theology. This assertion is perhaps related to the canon lawyers’ claim that the ex officio inquisitorial processes that they had been modeling since the early thirteenth century had already existed when God, without the necessity of a formal accusation, questioned Adam about the fruit and punished him for his crime.40 Aspects of the theological account of the enmity between God and the devil also gave the canonists grounds for their claim to priority. For example, Hugh of St. Victor, in a dialogue he constructed between God and the devil, imagined that God concurred when the devil pointed out that although God could act through his power to save

36

D.1.1.1. See also Ulrich von Lübtow, “De iustitia et iure,” Zeitschrift der SavignyStiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (RA) 66 (1948), 458–465. 37 Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957), pp. 120–1. 38 Glossa ordinaria ad Dig. 1.1.10 “Sed numquid secundum hoc oportet quod quicumque vult iurisprudens vel iurisconsultus esse, debeat theologiam legere? Respondeo, non; nam omnia in corpore iuris inveniuntur.” 39 Decretum, D. 21, c. 1. “Nam maiorum haec erat consuetudo, ut rex esset etiam sacerdos et pontifex. Unde et Romani Imperatores pontifices dicebantur.” This was a passage that the civilian jurists, such as Azo, did not overlook. See Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, pp. 125–7. 40 See Ken Pennington, “Law, Criminal Procedure,” Dictionary of the Middle Ages: Supplement 1 (New York, 2004), pp. 309–320.


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humankind, he ought to act through his justice. Hugh was following St. Augustine, who had made a similar assertion in his De trinitate: It was agreeable to God that in freeing man from the power of the devil, the devil should be vanquished not by power but by justice.41

Augustine’s account appears to have been rooted in a version of the ransom theory of salvation, which held that by virtue of original sin the devil held a rightful dominion over mankind that was only broken when Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross paid our ransom. As a matter of scholastic theology, it is generally held that the ransom theory of salvation was put to rest by Anselm, whose treatise Cur Deus Homo had taught that satisfaction for original sin was a matter between God and man alone, and did not concern any presumed proprietary rights belonging to the devil. It may be, as R.W. Southern has argued, that Anselm settled the matter of the devil’s rights as far as medieval theologians were concerned, but divine justice and the devil’s legal standing remained an issue for medieval jurists.42 Bracton, the famous thirteenth-century English legal writer, translated the problem of the tension between God’s justice and his power into political terms. The king, he asserted, should be bound by the law because Christ had overcome the devil, “not by strength of power, but by the maxim of justice.”43 But the implications were not only political. The centrality of divine justice in the economy of salvation also raised other associations for medieval canonists, who would have taken to heart the juridical implications of the Pauline language of salvation as a “justification.”44 From this perspective, the pretensions of the canonists begin to take a different shape. Canon law, they could claim, was not merely the specialized, but subservient, knowledge necessary for ordering the processes by which the Church was administered on earth. It also entailed the knowledge of justitia, understood both as an attribute of divinity 41 PL 42:1027: “Placuit Deo, ut propter eruendum hominem de diaboli potestate, non potentia diabolus, justicia vinceretur.” 42 R.W. Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 207–210, and his earlier The Making of the Middle Ages (London, 1953), pp. 223–25. 43 Henry de Bracton, De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae, fol. 5b, ed. G. E. Woodbine, 4 vols. (New Haven, 1915), 2:33; See Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, p. 156. 44 See, above all, Stephan Kuttner, “A Forgotten Definition of Justice,” Mélanges Gérard Fransen (Studia Gratiana 20; Rome, 1976), pp. 76-110; repr. in Kuttner, The History of Ideas and Doctrines of Canon Law in the Middle Ages (London, 1980), pp. 75–109.

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and as “the state of man ‘justified’ before God.”45 After all, the entire scope of human history, from original sin until the last judgment could be understood in juridical terms, as canonists were well aware. It may have been considerations such as these that lay behind William Durantis’s quip that even the devil would receive due process if he asked for his case to be heard.46 ***** A fascinating effort to reconcile the rival claims of theology and canon law, and one that took Durantis’s remark about the legal process due to the devil rather seriously, is contained in an anonymous manuscript tradition that emerged in the middle of the fourteenth century. The text imagined that Hell had selected a demon learned in the law and sent him to the court of heaven in order to sue for legal title to the human race. The text also set the human salvation story within an explicitly juridical context and presented the Virgin Mary, who served as the legal representative for the human race in the suit, and a demon, who served as Hell’s advocate, engaged in sophisticated and detailed legal argumentation over the ultimate fate of humanity. Both advocates relied heavily on Roman and canon law authorities, though at certain points the Bible was also cited. Christ served as judge in the case. The text itself may be said to have crossed certain boundaries. The basic narrative structure of the lawsuit was lifted directly from the Maskeroen chapter of Jacob van Maerlant’s late thirteenth-century Dutch text Boek van Merline (c. 1260), which in turn had borrowed liberally from Robert de Boron’s slightly earlier Merline.47 In these texts, which belonged to the Arthurian literary tradition, the devil’s lawsuit was presented as Hell’s response to the harrowing accomplished by Christ after his crucifixion and before his resurrection, in which the Old Testament elect were forcibly liberated from captivity in Hell. Van Maerlant’s text circulated widely, and was even translated into other 45

Ibid., 78. William Durantis, Speculum iuris (Basel, 1574) de inquisitione (p. 42): “… et etiam diabolo, si in iudicio adesset, non negaretur.” See also Ken Pennington, “Due Process, Community, and the Prince in the Evolution of the Ordo iudiciarius,” Revista internazionale di diritto comune 9 (1998), 9–47. 47 See Merlin: A Case Book, eds. Peter Goodrich and Raymond H. Thompson (New York, 2003), pp. 1–104; Jacob von Maerlant, Historie van den Grale und Boek van Merline, ed. Timothy Sodmann (1980). 46


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vernacular languages.48 At some point in the first half of the fourteenth century, however, an unknown person rendered van Maerlant’s text into Latin, set it within the procedural framework required by Romancanon law, and supplied the various legal and theological assertions within the text with citations to relevant legal authorities. The citations inserted into the trial narrative are of uneven reliability, and may have been part of student exercises within a fourteenth-century Italian law school. Copies of the lawsuit circulated widely, identifiable in two distinct manuscript recensions, and were printed several times in the latefifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries. Surprisingly, only scant legal-historical attention has been paid to this record of the devil’s litigiousness. The text is not altogether unknown to scholars, but it has been significantly understudied. Earlier generations of legal historians, including such luminaries as Friedrich Karl von Savigny (1779–1861) and Sir Paul Vinogradoff (1854–1925), mentioned various versions of the lawsuit between Mary and the devil in their surveys of medieval legal literature, but dismissed them as curiosities. Savigny found the depiction of sacred subjects frivolous, bordering on sacrilege; Vinogradoff simply found the text “curious.”49 J. Neville Figgis considered the text a “jeu d’esprit,” but was rather dismissive.50 Even scholars who refused to dismiss the text as a mere bad

48 See J.P. Wickersham Crawford, “The Catalon Mascaron and an Episode in Jacob van Maerlant’s Merlijn,” Publications of the Modern Language Association 26 (1911), 31–50; Willem Gerritsen, “Jacob Van Maerlant and Geoffrey of Monmouth,” in An Authurian Tapestry: essays in memory of Lewis Thorpe (Glasgow, 1981), pp. 368–388. Representations of Mary or Christ engaged in a dispute or lawsuit with the devil were immensely popular, and many vernacular versions appeared in the late Middle Ages. See, for example, Frederick Roediger, Contrasti Antichi: Christo e Satana (Florence, 1887); L’Advocacie Notre-Dame, ou Le Vierge Marie plaidant contre le diable (Paris, 1855); “Mascarón” in Colección de Documento inéditos del Archivo general de la Corona de Aragon, ed. D. Próspero de Bofarull y Mascaro, vol. 13. (1853). 49 Friedrich Von Savigny, Geschichte des Römischen Rechts im Mittelalter. Bd. 6. Das vierzehnte und funfzehnte Jahrhundert. (Heidelberg, 1831), p. 160: “Der Rechstreit zwischen der Jungfrau Maria und Teufel betrifft das Heil des Menschengeschlechts, und soll dazu dienen, den ganzen Gang des Prozesses an einem erdichteten Beyspiel anschaulich zu machen. In der That aber erscheint diese Arbeit, den Frevel an heiligen Gegenständen ungerechnet, als ein pedantischer, breit durchgeführter Spass.” Paul Vinogradoff, Roman Law in Medieval Europe, 2nd ed, (Oxford, 1929), pp. 129–30 (though he appears to have confused the Processus Sathanae and the slightly later Belial tradition). On the Belial tradition see Norbert Ott, Rechtspraxis und Heilsgeschichte: zu Überieferung, Ikonographie, und Gebrauchssituation des deutschen Belial (Munich, 1983). 50 J. Neville Figgis, “Bartolus and the Development of European Political Ideas,” in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, New Series, 19 (1905), 147–168, here 164.

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joke or sacrilege asserted that it belonged more properly to the antiquarian study of the “dogmatic tradition of the ancient Church” rather than to the study of canon law or theology proper.51 The possibility that Bartolus, the great fourteenth-century jurist, had actually composed one version of the devil’s lawsuit prompted occasional but unsustained interest from legal historians.52 For the most part, however, legal historians have stayed away from the text. After all, Savigny and others of his generation gave good reason to avoid these texts. In addition to flirting with sacrilege, these texts also contained the “preposterous” image of a woman (Mary) serving in the role of lawyer. Perhaps worst of all, the outcome of the case did not turn solely on rational legal argumentation – the give and take of reasons and responses – but also upon the courtroom tears of an emotionally overwrought woman, who also happened to be the mother of the judge. ***** Provoked by the Christ’s harrowing of hell, a council of hellish leaders sent a learned demon, named Mascaron (alternatively, Ascaron, or Mascheron), to heaven in order to sue for the return of humankind to the power of hell.53 Approaching the heavenly throne, the demon said: “O Creator of everything, you are justice. I am the procurator of all

51 Roderich Stintzing, Geschichte der populären Literatur des römisch-kanonischen Rechts in Deutschland am Ende des fünfzehnten und im Anfang des Sechszehnten Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1867). 52 Robert Jacquin, “Le Proces de Satan,” in Bartolo da Sassoferato: Studi e documenti per VI centenario, 2 vols. (Milan, 1962); Jacquin’s view attributing authorship to Bartolus appears to be partially adopted by Scott L. Taylor in “Reason, Rhetoric, and Redemption: The Teaching of Law and the Planctus Mariae in the Late Middle Ages,” in Medieval Education, eds., Ronald B. Begley and Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. (Fordham, 2005), pp. 68–81. Bartolus’s authorship is highly doubtful, despite the occasional attribution to him of authorship of the Processus Sathanae. The printed versions appear to confuse two distinct manuscript traditions, one of which may be dated to 1311 (three years before Bartolus birth). Nonetheless, perhaps because a version of the Processus Sathane appears in a Bolognese manuscript that contains a number of texts of Bartolus (as well as some consilia of Baldus de Ubaldis) the association was an easy one for early printers to make. 53 In what follows, I will be relying on an incunable and two manuscripts of the Processus Sathanae. All quoted texts are to my own translations taken from an incunable text printed by Gunther Zainer under the title Processus Iudiciarius, (Hereinafter, “Processus (Zainer)”) (Augsburg, 1473). A printed edition of the text, attributed to Bartolus, is the Tractatus Iudiciorum: Processus Sathanae contra genus humanum (Johan Petit, Paris, 1510). I am currently at work on a monograph that examines


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iniquitous hell. In recognition of justice, let it be agreeable to you to hear me.”54 Immediately assuming a judicial role, Christ responded by saying: “If you are a procurator, show a mandatum.” The mandatum (procuratorium, in some mss.) Christ requested was necessary to show that Mascaron was authorized to speak on behalf of hell’s interests, and the manuscripts give citations to the legal authorities supporting this requirement.55 The demon, however, was reluctant to show the document, explaining that he wanted to inform Christ “on a very serious point which concerns the interest of all hell.”56 But Christ answered sharply, “I have known you from before and your cunning. Do not inform me when the other party is not present.57 Promptly show your mandatum, or promptly leave the forum.” Fearing that Christ would dismiss him, the demon showed his writ of procuration. After establishing that the writ contained no calumny, Christ permitted the demon to proceed. At this point, the demon gave the first indication of the substance of hell’s complaint: I and others in whose name I act have for a long time been in peaceful possession, tormenting, torturing, and adjudging humankind in hell. But recently, without any legal process, we have been deprived of our possession. … Therefore let it be agreeable to you to call humankind to come before you on a certain day in order to respond to me.58

Through this legal process, the demon hoped that Christ would “restore to us fully and freely possession of all souls that are heaven, earth and purgatory, and the souls which will follow, both that have been born and which will be born.”59 Cast this way, the demon was preparing the the historical, legal and theological contexts of the text, as well as editions of the text in its two prominent variations. 54 Processus (Zainer), fol. 1, “O creator omnium ubique iusticia es. Ego sum procurator totius infernalis nequitie. Placeat tibi in agnitione iusticiae me audire.” 55 Processus (Zainer). In this case: Dig. 16.3.31; X 1.6.8; and Clem. 1.3.3. The parallel citation to Justinian and either the Decretum or Decretals is typical in these manuscripts. 56 Processus (Zainer), fol. 1. 57 Fol. 1. Here the text cited CJ 3.11.2 and Decretum, dist. 97, c.3. 58 Processus (Zainer) Fol. 1–2, “Ego et alii quorum nomine ego ago per infinita tempora et per totum fuissemus in pacifica possessione tormentandi cruciciandi et iusticiandi genus humanum … nunc de novo iure iuris ordine non servato … parte non vocata contra legem … quare placeat tibi vocare genus humanum ad veniendum certa die coram te mihi procuratori responsurum.” Giving citations to CJ 8.4.6; X 2.13.5; Dig. 43.24.5. 59 Processus (Zainer), fol. 2.

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ground to request a summary restoration of property in which hell claimed a proprietary right. The next step was to schedule a day on which the matter could be heard. Christ responded to the demon’s complaint by saying “I have heard you. Let the matter of the day for the trial be discussed.” The demon was anxious to start the proceedings, stating, “The cause requires speed. Let the party [humankind] be summoned to appear tomorrow.”60 Christ, however, was not amenable to this request, pointedly reminding the demon that the distance between heaven and hell (a distance “you measured when you were falling”) was too great to require humankind to appear the very next day. Instead, Christ assigned “Good Friday, the day on which I was crucified” as the day on which humankind should appear to litigate the matter.61 On this point, the demon displayed his legal learning, refusing to accept the day because it was a day of religious observance and offering Roman law and canon law authorities for his position.62 Christ’s response was direct: “I have founded the laws. I dispose it thus.”63 Although Bracton, writing on the English common law, had read the cosmic conflict between Christ and the devil as an argument for the submission of earthly kings to earthly law,64 Christ’s claim to be the founder of laws was read differently in the canon law tradition. As William Courtenay has shown, some canon lawyers transplanted the theological language of divine power (potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata) to the realm of papal power and attributed to the pope the power to act outside the law.65 In fact, some canonists held the view

60 Processus (Zainer), fol. 2. Since the early modern period, commentators aware of this text have noted that the demon’s request that humankind be summoned seems to be procedurally improper. Given that human souls were the despoiled property that hell wished to recover, Christ, the one who actually seized the souls, should have been summoned. Instead, Christ is presented as the judge and humankind is made to respond to the suit. 61 Processus (Zainer), fol. 2. 62 Processus (Zainer), fol. 2. A citation was given to CJ 3.12.6 and X 2.9.5. 63 Processus (Zainer), fol. 2. In a variant manuscript tradition, Christ says “Nos jura condimus et auctoritatem damus juribus et non juribus nobis.” [We founded and give authority to the laws, they do not give authority to us.] See a printed edition of the variant text in Ina Friedlaender, “Processus Satanae Contra Genus Humanum: Ein Förbisedd Litterär Text I En Formulärbok Från Vadstena Kloster,” Archivistica et Mediaevistica Ernesto Nygren Oblata (Stockholm, 1956), pp. 123–157, here 144. 64 See Bracton, De legibus fol. 5b, 2:33; and the discussion by Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, p. 156. 65 Courtenay, Capacity and Volition, p. 93–94.


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that the pope, like God, was only bound by the law by his own benevolence, not necessity. Hostiensis, for example, argued that the pope could suspend the ordinary operation of the law on account of ratio status ecclesiae.66 Whether or not canonists thought that the pope could claim this divine power (and some thought he could), Christ as judge was made to assert an unqualified power to circumvent the rules of legal process. After Good Friday was designated as the day for humankind to appear and the lawsuit to proceed, Archangel Gabriel was commanded to summon humankind. In the meantime, Mascaron returned to hell somewhat anxious about the lawsuit. Lucifer, however, was quite confident, saying to his demon-lawyer: “Fear not. Christ has said that he himself is justice. … If he is indeed justice we will prevail or we will reprove him out of his own mouth.”67

On the appointed day, the demon returned to the court of heaven and waited impatiently to be heard. No one appeared on behalf of humankind. Seeing this, the demon asked for a document showing that humankind had failed to appear on the appointed day. But Christ was unwilling to grant such a document, replying instead that it was within his power as a judge to proceed by strict justice or equity. Invoking equity (and not his raw authority as he had concerning Good Friday), Christ granted humankind an additional day to appear and answer the summons.68 At this point, we learn that the Virgin Mary has been following these events and has resolved to serve as an advocate on behalf of humankind. When Mary appeared the next morning, the demon was invited to open his lawsuit. He began: “O unbending justice, O truth without fallacy, O way without error. Listen to my misfortune, and let not flesh or blood move you.”69 The demon then made a procedural objection: Those assembled here know that a judgment consists in three persons: namely, the judge, the accuser, and the accused. I see the judge. My citatorium proves that I am the accuser. I do not, however, see the accused and without the accused there can be no judgment.70 66 Hostiensis, Lectura in quinque decretalium Gregorianarum libros, ad 5.31.8 (Venice, 1581). 67 Processus (Zainer), fol. 3. 68 Processus (Zainer), fol. 4. 69 Processus (Zainer), fol. 5. 70 Processus (Zainer), fol. 5.

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Turning to the Judge, Mary replied: “It is not so, My Son, I am here and prepared for the defense of humankind.”71 Realizing that Mary intended to serve as an advocate against him, Mascaron made two objections. First, he complained, “She is your mother … she is easily able to pull her son to her part.”72 Second, “she is a woman. The laws which are divinely promulgated prohibit women to be advocates.” Mary, however, was ready with a response. First, she argued, “while I am your mother … I have been summoned to judgment … Where are the laws that prevent an accused party of whatever condition to take the office of defense in order to act pro se?” Mary then remarked, “Even if I were an excommunicant, I would be heard if I had been summoned.”73 Moreover, she argued, it is not true that women cannot ever serve as advocates. On behalf of miserable persons, widows, minors, orphans and married persons, women were permitted to appear in court.74 “Who,” she asked, “are more miserable than those in the world that this clever one fraudulently petitions to be reduced to his service?” Convinced by these arguments, Christ admitted Mary to the office of advocate.75 The demon resumed his case, but ruefully noted, “I have an opponent now and I regret it well enough since I am now anxious that my cause will be imperiled by her.” “It is well known to everyone” announced the demon, “that hell has been in full and peaceful possession of the souls of the dead since before any memory runs to the contrary. Since we have been unlawfully despoiled, we may petition for restitution.” Therefore, he asked to be fully restored to possession of human souls before proceeding with the suit. To support this proposition, the demon cited to relevant provisions of Justinian’s Digest and Codex, as well as the Liber Extra.76 Mary responded by citing provisions of Roman and canon law holding that restitution was only available to litigants who could prove that they originally had possession in good faith, not by fraud, force, or stealth.77 As Mary explained, Mascaron and his associates in hell have never had lawful possession of human souls. Although the demons in hell had been for some time tormenting the souls of the dead, they did not acquire any possessory rights by doing so. As an 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

Processus (Zainer), fol. 5. Processus (Zainer), fol. 5. Here the text offered X 2.28.36 and 50 as support. Processus (Zainer), fol. 5 giving citation to Nov. 109.1, X 2.1.7, X 5.7.13 sect. 5. Processus (Zainer), fol. 5, giving reference to Dig. 3.1.1, and C. 3, q. 7, d.a.c. 1. Processus (Zainer), fols. 5–6. Processus (Zainer), fol. 6. Dig. 6.1.24, CJ 9.12.2, and X 2.10.4 Processus (Zainer), fol. 6. She cited C. 10, q. 3, c.6 and CJ 2.6.


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example, Mary quipped that a donkey gained no possessory rights in the straw given it by its owner.78 To these arguments, Mary also added a theological claim. The Old Testament prophets had long ago foretold that the Son of God would liberate his people, hence the despoliation of hell was foreordained by God and was not actionable at law. Christ sided with Mary and denied to the demon his claim for restitution before the final resolution of the case. Undaunted, the demon changed tactics. Abandoning his claim for restitution, he strode forward, presented the Bible, and began to read from Genesis concerning Adam’s disobedience in the garden. Mascaron argued that the violation of divine command accomplished by Adam and Eve was imputable to the entire human race. To this, Mary countered by claiming that Adam and Eve sinned at the urging of the serpent by whom Eve was deceived into disobeying God. As a party complicit in the crime, argued Mary, Hell could not now bring an accusation against another for the same crime.79 But Mascaron had a response ready. Relying on the logic of the inquisitorial procedures that canonists had developed in the early thirteenth century, the demon explained that when a delictum is perpetrated notoriously, a judge should proceed ex officio and punish it even if there is no accuser.80 Hence, the obligation to proceed against humankind fell to Christ as judge, regardless of whether the devil was complicit in original sin or not. This argument struck a cord, and Mary’s response was dramatic. Fearing that the judge would proceed ex officio, Mary stopped relying on provisions of Roman-canon law and instead: In an effusion of tears and cutting her vestments to the knees, Mary said ‘Son, here is the womb which carried you and the breasts which you sucked. There is the one who had you stoned and crucified and now he implores your office.’ 81

Seeing his mother’s “womanly weeping,” Christ refused the demon’s petition that he act ex officio. The demon bitterly replied: “Flesh and blood have denied me, not celestial justice. I predicted rightly that it would be hard for me to have the mother of the judge against me.”82 From the perspective of medieval canonists and theologians, the demon’s remark betrayed ignorance of an important attribute of Mary’s 78 79 80 81 82

Processus (Zainer), fol. 8. The text cited to Dig. 42.2.24. Processus (Zainer), fols. 8-9. Citing to X 2.20.10. Processus (Zainer), fol. 9. CJ 9.2.7, C. 2, q. 1, c. 17, X 2.24.7. Processus (Zainer), fol. 10. Processus (Zainer), fol. 10.

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tears. For both theology and canon law placed heavy stress on the spiritual efficacy of tears. Tears were not merely an attribute of the body, they were also a profound and necessary medium for intercession and spiritual renewal.83 Thwarted in his attempts to get restitution, and unable to persuade Christ to proceed against humankind through an ex officio criminal proceeding, Mascaron changed tactics once again. A good judge, he said, will find a way to settle a lawsuit by dividing the object in dispute fairly between the two parties. The demon then suggested that hell be able to retain the wicked part of humankind, and Mary could keep the righteous. Mascaron was confident that his part would be larger, comparing the righteous portion of humankind to a small seed in a bushel basket. To this, Mary replied, that the decision the “demon asks for, he already has … Do you not recall the Good Friday on which you hung upon the cross?”84 By recalling Christ’s substitutionary punishment on the cross, Mary cast the matter as a res iudicata, a matter that had already been decided and a matter that could not be litigated again. The demon continued his arguments, offering now to a mixture of theological and jurisprudential principles. He began first with an example. “When the angels sinned they were condemned without a remedy. Yet it is unacceptable that God would be a respecter of persons.”85 Since God punished the fallen angels with eternal punishments, humankind should receive the same. Mary responded to this argument by drawing a distinction. When the angels fell they did so despite the fact that they had no spiritual infirmities or weaknesses. “They sinned out of deliberate malignity.”86 This, argued Mary, made the crime of the fallen angels worse, and deserving of eternal punishment. According to the demon, however, the differences weighed in favor of the fallen angels. Humankind was given an explicit command not to eat of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The fallen angels, on the other hand, were never given any explicit command. This made mankind’s sin worse than that of the fallen angels. Mary replied by again emphasizing that while mankind was beset by certain frailties on account of being flesh and blood, the angels that sinned had perfect knowledge of what was lawful and they rebelled 83 On the theological aspects of tears in the Middle Ages, see Piroska Nagy, La don des larmes au Moyen Âge (Paris, 2000); on the legal aspects, see Courtenay and Shoemaker, “The Tears of Nicholas.” 84 Processus (Zainer), fols. 11–12. 85 Processus (Zainer), fol. 12. 86 Processus (Zainer), fols. 12–13.


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anyway. This made the angels’ sin worse than mankind’s and therefore more deserving of punishment. Further, said Mary, only a portion of the angels fell. Those that did not sin are still able to fulfill the tasks for which they were created. But with humankind it was otherwise. All men are beset by sin, and if they were all punished, then God’s plan for mankind would be thwarted, and the creation of mankind would have been in vain. Then, circling back to the point she had already made, Mary reminded Christ of his own redemptive work on the cross. This seemed to be the tipping point. The demon was ejected from heaven, and the chorus of angels rejoiced in the salvation of humankind.87 ***** The Processus Sathanae did not, of course, resolve the intellectual and professional tensions that had existed between theologians and canonists since the twelfth century. The text did, however, suggest that the theology of Christian redemption could be coherently presented through the processes of the canon law, and that the devil’s one-sided understanding of law was the result of an engagement with law that was blind to its spiritual content and purpose. The Processus Sathanae also crossed the boundaries that normally separated literary traditions from legal and theological ones. It addressed human salvation in a manner that also implicated the relationship between Christ (and his vicar on earth, the pope) and the law, framing the matter within the theological and jurisprudential issues of the late medieval world. The devils’ lawsuit also provided a framework within which the shedding of tears might be transformed from an apparently passive and impotent sign of suffering to an affirmative, powerful, legally efficacious act. All of it depended on a world of seamless intelligibility that linked spiritual truth and legal processes, whether human or divine. It also depended on a world that was granted reason and historical purpose by a presumed loving deity susceptible to being moved by tears and capable of dissolving rules of law in favor of countervailing imperatives. Whatever squabbles divided canonists and theologians, the devil’s lawsuit provided the medium by which the troublesome relationship between justice and grace, and law and power, was given one explanation in the fourteenth century.

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ANTICHRIST GOES TO THE UNIVERSITY: THE DE VICTORIA CHRISTI CONTRA ANTICHRISTUM OF HUGO DE NOVOCASTRO, OFM (1315/1319) Robert E. Lerner Although the eminent professor of medieval history at the Sorbonne and director of the French National Archives, Charles-Victor Langlois (1863–1929), was known for being a misanthrope, it appears as if he did have some sense of humor. In his account of the early-fourteenth-century Franciscan theologian, Hugo de Novocastro, written for the weighty Histoire littéraire de la France, Langlois juxtaposed the views of two “Bartholomews” concerning Hugo’s Antichrist tract, De victoria Christi contra Antichristum. Whereas Bartholomew of Pisa, OFM, writing toward the end of the fourteenth century, deemed this work to be a “most beautiful treatise” (tractatus pulcherrimus), Barthélemy Hauréau, writing toward the end of the nineteenth century, dismissed it as “an entirely insignificant work, full of nonsense.” To this Langlois added wryly: “the fact that these two judgments are entirely contradictory will surprise no one.”1 Not surprising either is the fact that Langlois placed himself in Hauréau’s camp by dismissing Hugo’s work as thoroughly unoriginal. The following article will take a different view. Bluntly stated, Hauréau and Langlois had no notion of what they were talking about because their indifference to varieties of * In 1975 Professor Robert E. Kaske of Cornell University generously sent me a copy of his copy of the incunabulum edition of Hugo de Novocastro’s De victoria Christi contra Antichristum held by the Library of Congress. I have used this for my research for more than thirty-five years, and now use it for a sustained study of the work. With this in mind, I dedicate the present article to the memory of Bob Kaske. 1 “C.L.” (= Charles-Victor Langlois), “Hugues de Novo castro, Frère mineur,” Histoire littéraire de la France 26 (1927), 342–49, here 346. Langlois earlier published the identical article in English: “Hugo de Novocastro or de Castronovo, Frater Minor,” in Essays in Medieval History Presented to Thomas Frederick Tout, ed. A.G. Little and F.M. Powicke (Manchester, 1925), pp. 269–75. (Here I will cite only the French version.) The characterization of Langlois as “misanthrope à l’âme solitaire et troublée” is by Charles Samaran in Receuil des travaux historiques de Ferdinand Lot, 3 vols., Hautes études médiévales et modernes 4/9/19 (Paris and Geneva, 1968–73), 1:24. The same Langlois dismissed Marguerite Porete’s defender, Guiard of Cressonessart, as one who had “sans doute la tête un peu derangée”: see his “Marguerite Porete,” Revue historique 54 (1894), 295–99.

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religious engagement led to their incapacity to estimate a work such as Hugo de Novocastro’s Antichrist treatise. We will see that Langlois could not even have read very much of it. Virtually unstudied until now, the work is original in its genre, distinctive in its stance toward events of the future, intriguing for the questions it raises about the author’s Franciscan commitments, and, not least, appropriate for consideration in a volume concerning the “crossing of boundaries at medieval universities.” 1. Hugo’s Nationality A persistent tradition makes Hugo de Novocastro an Englishman. Here is Umberto Eco having Hugo speak as a character in The Name of the Rose: “‘I wouldn’t call it an election, but an imposition!’ one man at the table cried, a man I later heard them call Hugh of Newcastle, whose accent was similar to my master’s.”2 Eco was pleased to present Hugo as an English compatriot of “William of Baskerville,” himself a stand-in for William of Ockham, because that helped develop the novelist’s conceit that there existed a band of English Franciscan anti-papists, who also were budding empiricists. Moreover, Eco may possibly have known that Hugo was an early Scotist (he termed Duns Scotus “magister quem sequor”3), making the notion that he was British seem all the more satisfying. It is astonishing to see how a supposed biographical datum lacking any foundation can become stuck in the literature. The originator of the assumption that Hugo came from Newcastle in northern England was the sixteenth-century bibliographer, John Bale, who merely relied on his own instinct.4 And yet Bale’s identification was appropriated by 2

Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose, trans. William Weaver (San Diego, 1983), p. 291. Weaver gives “Hugh of Newcastle” for Eco’s original “Ugo da Novocastro,” a liberty justified by Eco’s “dall’accento affine a quello del mio maestro”: Il nome della rosa (Milan, 1980), p. 294. 3 Leo Amorós, “Hugo von Novo Castro O.F.M. und sein Kommentar zum ersten Buch der Sentenzen,” Franziskanische Studien 20 (1933), 177–221, here 185. 4 Johannes Baleus, Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytannie … catalogus, 2 vols. (Basel, 1557–59), 1:352: “Hugo de Novo castro, Dunelmensis quoque ditionis alumnus. … Iste tamen in eius Sodomae medio, aliqud ad salutem videbatur ex opera quod scripsit De Victoria Christi contra Antichristum.” Elsewhere Bale notes that a copy of Hugo’s De Victoria Christi contra Antichristum was in the library of Queen’s College Oxford (but now lost): see John Bale, Index Britanniae scriptorum, eds. Reginald Lane Poole and Mary Bateson (Oxford, 1902), p. 172. Bale’s fixation on English authorship

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the influential Irish Franciscan bibliographer, Luke Wadding,5 and thence reiterated uncritically until the worthy Langlois himself purveyed it. (Langlois did concede that Hugo, although coming from England, spent his mature career in Paris and hence belonged in the lists of the Histoire littéraire de la France.6) Even though two Franciscan scholars subsequently discredited the English toponymic, the recentlypublished Oxford Dictionary of National Biography bears an entry for “Newcastle, Hugh” making this author a Franciscan who “probably entered the order at Newcastle, Northumberland.”7 And yet there is not a scrap of evidence to support Bale’s patriotic choice of place name. Langlois verged on recognizing this when he observed that Léopold Delisle, “whose slightest hints are worthy of consideration,” termed our author “Hugues de Châteauneuf.”8 (Apparently Langlois inferred that the all but infallible Delisle would have known the traditional attribution and hence would not have chosen “Châteauneuf ” over “Newcastle” without warrant.) In fact the toponymic “Novumcastrum” or “Castrumnovum” (the two were used for Hugo interchangeably in the contemporary documentation) could stand for a bewildering number of alternatives to Newcastle including Neufchâtel, Neuchâtel, Châteauneuf, Castelnuovo, Neuburg, and Neuenburg.9 Moreover, the plethora of choices is increased by the fact that several of these names themselves refer to several different places. The two scholars who hitherto have gone the furthest in reviewing issues pertaining to Hugo’s career, Leo Amorós, OFM (1933) and Valens Heynck, OFM (1961), both recognized the lack of evidence connecting Hugo with England.10 Instead both opted for judging the

can be seen from his alternative identifications of the author as either Grosseteste or Roger Bacon: ibid, pp. 378, 478. 5 Lucas Waddingus (Luke Wadding), Annales Minorum 6 (Rome, 1733), 137, 396. 6 Langlois, “Hugues de Novo Castro,” p. 342. Langlois speculated that Hugo might have gone to Paris in the train of Duns Scotus, on the assumption that any early Scotist was likely to have been British. 7 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). It would be superfluous to list the many others authors, early and late, who reproduce “Newcastle.” 8 Langlois, “Hugues de Novo Castro,” p. 342, n. 2. 9 An example of the instability of the Novumcastrum attached to Hugo’s Christian name is that he appears as “Hugo de Novocastro” in the first manifesto of Perugia in the copy made by Nicolaus Minorita (see n. 22 below), but as “Hugo de Castronovo” in a fourteenth-century copy of the same text in Mainz, Stadtbibliothek, MS 151, fol. 193r. 10 Amorós, “Hugo”; Valens Heynck, “Der Skotist Hugo de Novo Castro, OFM,” Franziskanische Studien 43 (1961), 244–70.

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Novumcastrum in question to be Neufchâteau in Lorraine on the grounds that this Neufchâteau housed a Franciscan cloister. Amorós also provided a detail he noticed from Hugo’s commentary on the Sentences: at one point the author states that “Deus” in Latin is perhaps not synonymous with “Goth in Teutonico.” From this Amorós concluded that Hugo’s knowledge of a German word strengthened the Lorraine hypothesis because Neufchâteau in Lorraine was sufficiently near to German-speaking territory.11 Amorós was unaware of another passage in the Sentences commentary that might also be offered as pointing in a German direction. Here Hugo refers to the greater ease Romans living in the proximity of indulgence basilicas have than those travelling from Germany for gaining indulgences.12 And yet I doubt that these two snippets – use of a single obvious German word and the offering of Germany as a random example – can lead us very far in themselves. Fortunately, I can offer new knowledge on this subject that I believe brings us much further: without doubt Hugo belonged to the Franciscan province of France. This can be ascertained from two independent sources. An explicit for Hugo’s Antichrist treatise in a fifteenth-century Parisian manuscript (library of the Sorbonne) reads: “compilatus et completus a venerabili et religioso viro illuminato … Hugone de Novo Castro, ordinis minorum fratrum, de provincia Francie”; and a passage from a fourteenth-century Franciscan devotional text independently gives “fr. Hugonis de Novo Castro, provincie Frantie, magistri in sacra pagina.”13 Hugo’s membership in the French Franciscan province almost certainly excludes a presumption that he was German (or English) and leaves us with two possibilities for the identification of “Novum Castrum,” either Neufchâteau in Wallonia (medieval Duchy of Luxembourg) or Neufchâteau in Lorraine. Either choice appears sustainable. Neufchâteau in Wallonia has the advantage of fitting the “German” hypothesis better than Neufchâteau in Lorraine because it is much closer to the language border. On the other hand, Neufchâteau

11

Amorós, “Hugo,” pp. 178–79. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Chigi B. VI. 96, fol. 78rb: “quia tunc tantum valerent indulgentie Rome venienti de domo sua propinqua quantum venienti de Alemania.” This passage was called to my attention by a cataloguer’s hand (18th century?) that introduces the Chigi manuscript. 13 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16393, fol. 134r. (My thanks to Professsor Elizabeth A.R. Brown who located this explicit for me.) Cesare Cenci, Biblioteca manuscripta ad Sacrum Conventum Assisiensem (Assisi, 1981), p. 381. 12


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in Lorraine was the only Novum Castrum in the French province that had a Franciscan cloister, and Hugo might well have been named for the cloister rather than for his place of birth. An apposite case was offered by Heynck, even without knowledge of the evidence proving Hugo’s membership in the province of France, when he observed that another fourteenth-century Franciscan author, Andreas de Novo Castro, was designated in an explicit as “prov. Franc., cust. Lothringie, et conventus Novi Castri.”14 Ultimately the choice seems of little moment so long as we know that Hugo belonged to the French province, a fact that impinges on his academic curriculum vitae. 2. Hugo’s Career Although nothing is known of the activity of Hugo de Novocastro before he appears as a theological bachelor at the University of Paris (I will continue to refer to him with the Latin form of his name in order to avoid confusion), the research of our jubilar, William Courtenay, points to the near certainty that before following the advanced theological course Hugo had already qualified for a Franciscan lectorship in a separate program of study and then served as lector in a Franciscan provincial cloister, with perhaps some additional administrative duties.15 Thus, assuming that Hugo fits the standard model, he was no tyro when he began his second round of theological studies meant to culminate in a doctorate, but rather already a well-trained scholar, well into his thirties, and chosen for the exalted honor of the most advanced theological curriculum by his proven merits. This point is worth remembering in regard to Hugo’s decision to write on Antichrist theology in the midst of his advanced position.

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Heynck, “Der Skotist,” p. 266. William J. Courtenay, “The Instructional Programme of the Mendicant Convents at Paris in the Early Fourteenth Century,” in The Medieval Church: Universities, Heresy and the Religious Life. Essays in Honour of Gordon Leff, eds. Peter Biller and Barrie Dobson (St. Edmund’s, Suffolk, 1999), pp. 77–92, here p. 84: “[A] closer look at the candidates selected to read the Sentences at Paris in the early fourteenth century shows that they were rarely if ever chosen from among those who had just completed the lectorate. They were rather chosen from those who had several years – usually many years – post-lectorate experience in teaching and administration at the provincial level.” See also Courtenay, Changing Approaches to Fourteenth-Century Thought (Toronto, 2007), p. 28. 15

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Once Hugo appears as Parisian theological bachelor in the second decade of the fourteenth century we are on relatively secure ground. What follows is a recreation of his cursus, based on assorted scraps of information that have never before been placed in a row. Although Amorós provided the wide latitude of 1307 to 1317 for the composition of Hugo’s Sentences commentary, one can be more precise. The greatest help in this regard is offered by William Courtenay in a discussion of the “notebook” of Prosper of Reggio Emilia, OESA. While teaching theology in Paris, Prosper referred to a number of contemporary theologians in the prologue and first distinction of his Sentences commentary; additionally in a “notebook” bound with the foregoing he compiled a set of questions that likewise included the names of such contemporaries. As Courtenay has persuasively argued, the Sentences commentary dates from 1314–1315, and the notebook from 1314, or not much later.16 Fortunately for those seeking information about Hugo de Novocastro, Prosper’s two writings refer to a “Hugo,” which all but certainly means our man.17 Assuming that he would not have been mentioned in such a context before he had become sententiarius, I place one year of his reading the Sentences in 1314–1315. Any earlier would be difficult given what we know about his subsequent mastership, and on the same reckoning from the mastership I would tentatively add a second year for Hugo as sententiarius in 1315–1316.18 (Peter Auriol would have followed in the two academic years from 1316 to 1318.) Certainly a firm terminus ante quem for Hugo’s commentary on the Sentence is established by the fact that it was drawn on

16 William J. Courtenay, “Reflections on Vat. Lat. 1086 and Prosper of Reggio Emilia, O.E.S.A,” in Theological Quodlibeta in the Middle Ages: The Fourteenth Century, ed. Christopher Schabel (Leiden, 2007), pp. 345–57. 17 Ibid., pp. 356–57; as Professor Courtenay informs me in a personal communication, “OFM” is not given in the manuscript. As I have also learned from Professor Courtenay, Prosper in these contexts refers to “M[agister]Hugo.” This however does not mean that Hugo de Novocastro was already a doctor of theology in 1314/15. Rather he might have gained a master of arts before he joined the Franciscan Order, or the marginalia, which are the only places where the name and title is given, could have been added to the text by Prosper “after 1318 [and] possibly in the early 1320s.” 18 Heynck, “Der Skotist,” p. 250, places a citation by Peter Auriol that Heynck understands to be taken from the Third Book of Hugo’s Sentences commentary “vor 1314/16.” But I do not see how it can be established which of the two men borrowed from the other, and even if Heynck is correct, by my reckoning Hugo could still have been finished composing his Sentences commentary before the terminal date for Auriol’s presumed borrowing.


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by Landulf Caracciolo, OFM in writing his own Commentary of 1318–1319.19 My assumption of a second year as sententiarius derives from the near certainty that Hugo became Franciscan regent master in 1320. Assuming that Hugo incepted in 1320, that would provide the usual four years between 1316 and 1320 for him to have been baccalarius formatus. The date of 1320 itself is established by the facts that the regency of Peter Auriol OFM lasted from 1318 until 1320,20 and that Hugo was mentioned as “doctor solemnis,” “doctor modernis,” and “magister” in the Fourth Book of Pierre Roger’s Sentences commentary, with the first reference dating from the principium Roger read on 21 January 1321.21 Judging from two well-known documents in which Hugo’s name appears, he, like Auriol, held his regency for two years. These documents are the Michaelist “letters of Perugia” defending apostolic poverty, issued at the General Chapter of the Franciscan Order, and dated respectively 4 June and 7 June, 1322. In the first Hugo is termed “magister in sacra pagina” and appears in fifth place, following the Minister General and three provincial ministers.22 Since he is followed by two others who are listed as theological bachelors, it is

19 Heynck, “Der Skotist,” pp. 350–52. The widely assumed terminus of 1317, as in Langlois, “Hugues de Novo Castro,” p. 343, was demolished by Heynck (p. 247). The eighteenth-century Franciscan bibliographer, J.H. Sbaralea, read a date in a manuscript explicit as “CCCXVII,” but Heynck, who tracked down the manuscript, found that it actually reads “CCCXLVII.” 20 Lauge Olaf Nielson, “The Quodlibet of Peter Auriol,” in Theological Quodlibeta (as in n. 16), pp. 267–331, here 267. 21 I advance here in certain details beyond Heynck, “Der Skotist,” p. 246. See instead Jeanne Barbet, François de Meyronnes – Pierre Roger, Disputation (1320–1321) (Paris, 1961), pp. 30–31, 79, 165 showing that while “Magister Hugo” appears only as an identification in a margin at one point in Roger’s Sentences commentary, Roger refers explicitly in his text to “unum exemplum magistri Hugonis” in another. For the reference to a “doctor solemnis” identified in a margin as “… Hugonem” in Roger’s principium of 21 January 1321, see Anneliese Maier, “Der literarische Nachlass des Petrus Rogerii,” repr. in Maier, Ausgehendes Mittelalter; gesammelte Aufsätze zur Geistesgeschichte des 14. Jahrhunderts, 3 vols. (Rome, 1964–77), 2:265, n. 18. 22 For the texts see Nicolaus Minorita, Chronica, ed. Gedeon Gál and David Flood (St. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1996), pp. 67–70, 71–82. Modern scholarship has widely assumed that the “Nicolaus, minister provincie Francie” who appears in both documents from Perugia is the famous Franciscan theologian and exegete Nicholas of Lyra; on this basis the inference is made that Nicholas was prior provincial of the Franciscan province of France from “ca. 1319 to 1324.” Nevertheless, the Nicholas in these documents cannot be Nicholas of Lyra because this Nicholas was “sacre theologice baccalarius” whereas Nicholas of Lyra had received his theological doctorate before April 1310 (trial of Marguerite Porete). The mistake was made a century ago by Henri

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clear that Hugo’s high placement derived from his position as Parisian regent. Similarly, in the second document he follows the same three provincial ministers and precedes William of Alnwick, a master, but not then a regent master. Apparently Hugo’s successor as regent was Franciscus Mayronis, who was made Parisian regent by a directive of the pope in May 1323. If so, since Mayronis came from the Franciscan province of Provence, that would offer a satisfying completion of the three year rule: Auriol – province of Aquitaine; Hugo – province of France; Mayronis – province of Provence. Hugo’s last documented appearance is in Perugia in 1322. Perhaps he subsequently became a doctor of canon law, but this seems doubtful. The earliest references to a second doctoral degree of which I am aware appear in incipits to central-European copies of his Antichrist treatise dating from the first quarter of the fifteenth century: “incipit tractatus de victoria Christi contra Antichristum magistri Hugonis de Novo Castro, sacre theologie et decretorum doctoris Parisiensis.”23 Given the lack (so far as I know) of any earlier supporting evidence (a fourteenth-century copy has him only as “sacre theologie doctor”24) Labrosse and then endlessly repeated. See Labrosse, “Sources de la biographie de Nicolas de Lyre,” Études franciscaines 16 (1906), 382–404, here 392–93, and “Biographie de Nicolas de Lyre (suite),” Études franciscaines 17 (1907), 593–608, here 596–600. Labrosse acknowledges that the document of 4 June terms this Nicholas a bachelor but falsely reports that he is termed a master in that of 7 June. In addition, he reports that a necrology from the Parisian nunnery of Longchamp makes Nicholas of Lyra “menistre des frères mineurs en France” in 1319, admitting that the expression is ambiguous and not acknowledging (or perhaps not knowing) that Paris, Archives nationales, L 1027 no. 22, the contemporary obituary, does not contain any such report; instead it is found only in Bibliothèque nationale de France MS fr. 11662, a necrology begun in 1446. (I am grateful to Sean Field for this information about the Longchamp necrologies.) The point is evidently of significance for Nicholas of Lyra scholarship; it is also significant here because it shows that Hugo was placed ahead of Nicholas, minister of France, on the grounds of his academic rank rather than his office within the order. 23 The identical incipit appears in Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS 26026 (olim II 454540), fols. 86r–121v, from the Hungarian convent of Györ: see Franz Lackner, Kurzinventar der an die Österreichische Nationalbibliothek abgetretenen mittelalterlichen Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Wien (http://www.ksbm.oeaw .ac.at/k4_8950.htm); and Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, MS 6099, fols. 249ra– 284va, and MS 6111, fols. 204ra–239vb, both from Görlitz: see Catalogus codicum medii aevi manuscriptorum qui in Bibliotheca Universitatis Wratislaviensis asservantur, signa 6055–6124 comprehendens, eds. Stanislaw Kadzielski and Wojciech Mrozowicz (Wrocław, 1998), pp. 157, 196–97. The same incipit appears in the incunabulum of 1471, and, according to Amorós, “Hugo,” p. 181, n. 18, in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 18779 (Tegernsee), which, having been copied in 1473 must have followed the incunabulum. 24 Erlangen, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 284, fol. 203r.


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I prefer to suppose that the second doctoral title for Hugo sprang from the imagination of some non-French, fifteenth-century scribe. Rather Hugo probably died soon after his Parisian theological regency because having arrived at such eminence he probably would not then have disappeared from documentary sight. At any rate, he must have died in Paris, for according to Bartholomew of Pisa he was buried in the Parisian Franciscan convent.25 Hugo’s contemporary recognition as an important theologian is marked by the fact that at least twenty six manuscripts containing one or more books of his Sentences commentary are known to survive.26 He also gained the honorific, “doctor scholasticus,” and his reputation as a prominent disciple of Duns Scotus earned him a place among ten doctors surrounding Scotus’s tomb in the mausoleum constructed for Scotus in the Franciscan cloister of Cologne in 1513.27 3. The Date of Hugo’s Treatise on Antichrist Published references to Hugo’s treatise, De victoria Christi contra Antichristum customarily date it to 1319. Accepting this year, Eugenio Randi has gone so far as to say that the treatise is the only work of Hugo’s that we can date with precision.28 But 1319 is incorrect. Hugo surely wrote De victoria Christi contra Antichristum in 1315 and merely added two chapters to it in 1319.29 How could scholars have been misled? The answer is clear. Two passages leap out from the most accessible version, the incunable of 1471: “Fluxerunt autem modo, scilicet tempore hoc quo factus est ille libellus, a nativitate Christi Mccc et decem et novem anni” (II, 26), and “… a tempore quo hic tractatus editum est, videlicet ab anno Mcccxix” (II, 26, end).30 Nevertheless, all those who have dated the treatise to

25 Bartholomeus de Pisis, De conformitate vitae B. P. Francisco ad vitam Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, Analecta Franciscana 4 (Quaracchi, 1906), p. 544. 26 Heynck, “Der Skotist,” p. 258. 27 Franz Ehrle, Die Ehrentitel der scholastischen Lehrer des Mittelalters (Munich, 1919), p. 47. G.M. Abate, “La tomba del Ven. Giovanni Duns Scoto nella chiesa di S. Francesco a Colonia,” Miscellanea Francescana 45 (1945), 29–79, here 56. 28 Eugenio Randi, Il sovrano e l’orologiaio (Florence, 1985), p. 127. 29 I first noted the correct date of composition without the extensive proofs that follow here in Robert E. Lerner, The Powers of Prophecy (Berkeley, 1983), p. 56, n. 36. 30 I will customarily cite passages in Hugo’s Antichrist treatise by book and chapter, quoting from the unfoliated incunable: Hugo de Novocastro, De victoria Christi contra Antichristum (Nuremberg, 1471; repr. Hain, 1993).

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1319 cannot have read it attentively because four other passages contradict the two just quoted. In the same chapter where the author gives 1319 as the annus presens he also reckons thirty-three years between the date when he is writing and 1348 (II, 26: “nec restat de isto centenario … nisi tringinta tres anni”), and in the immediately following chapter he twice refers to a difference of five years between the date of composition and 1320 (II, 27: “hec autem dicit quod adhuc restant de tempore sexti signaculi quinque anni et totum tempus septimi signaculi quinque anni”; “ita quod dicit ipsum venturum infra quinque annos”). All three instances point to 1315 instead of 1319, and the earlier date is confirmed by a reference to the last reigning pope having died in 1314 (II, 28: “ab ultimo pontifice qui obit anno Domini MCCCxiiii”). To add to the confusion, two previously unnoticed dating indices within the incunable confirm the annus presens of 1319 initially noted. First, in discussing the chronologies in the treatise De semine scripturarum Hugo builds on its dating of the twenty-first century since the founding of Rome to 1248 to observe that seventy-one years have passed in that century, with twenty-nine still to remain (II, 26: “sumus autem sub xxi centenario de quo transierunt lxxi, et restant xxix anni”). And second, assuming that De semine scripturarum foretells the Last Judgment to transpire in 1548, he states that two hundred and twentynine years remain until then (II, 26: “usque ad iudicium sunt adhuc CCxxix”). So now we have a tie in dating indices – four for 1319 as the date of composition and four for 1315. We can begin to arrive at a conclusion by noting evidence reported by Cesare Cenci concerning a copy of the De victoria Christi contra Antichristum made in a Franciscan cloister in the Abruzzi in 1448 from a fourteenth-century German exemplar. In contrast to the incunable, this opens: “Incipit libellus de victoria Christi contra Antichristum, secundum fr. Hugonem de Novo Castro, ord. Min., anno D. 1315°.”31 A possible objection that the scribe derived his date from one of the references to 1315 found in the incunable cannot stand because according to Cenci this copy also gives “a tempore libelli editi fluxerunt anni 1315” at the point where the incunable gives “fluxerunt a nativitate Christi Mccc et decem et novem anni.” Clearly the scribe of

31 Cesare Cenci, Manoscritti francescani della Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli (Florence, 1971), p. 67, referring to L’Aquila, Archivio di Stato, MS S. 58.


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the antigraph of this copy was working from an exemplar that did not carry the date of 1319 at a crucial point.32 Although I have not been able to check the L’Aquila copy in order to check all its internal datings, I have examined another manuscript that must be allied to it. Vatican Barberini lat. 489 is a fifteenth-century copy of De victoria Christi contra Antichristum (lacking a modern published description) which has readings showing that it belongs to a line of transmission independent from that of the printed version of 1471.33 Of immediate relevance here is that it offers uniform textual datings of 1315 without internal contradiction. All the passages in the incunable that point to composition in 1315 are present in the Barberini manuscript. And where the incunable in Book Two, chapter 26 twice gives “Mccc et decem et novem anni,” the Barberini manuscript gives “mille trecenti et xv anni” in the first instance34 and lacks any corresponding passage in the second. Furthermore it has implicit datings of 1315 in the two passages where the incunable’s implicit datings yield 1319.35 Otherwise, the major difference between the manuscript and the printed edition is that the former ends at a point two chapters earlier than the latter. The Barberini manuscript (f. 68r) ends there with a doxology “… nos liberet qui est benedictus in secula seculorum, amen,” whereas roughly the same doxology appears in the incunable but is followed by two more chapters. The conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing is obvious: Hugo wrote and published a treatise on Antichrist in 1315; then, in 1319, he published a “second edition” which contained two more chapters. The confusion of dates in the second edition arose from a certain degree of carelessness. Remembering that he had offered 1315 as the annus presens in the first version, Hugo altered three of the passages in which 32 Extracts from Hugo’s treatise in Mainz, Stadtbibliothek, MS 151, fols. 14r–18r begin “Nota quod magister Hugo dictus de novo castro … scripsit unum sollempnem tractatum de victoria Christi contra Antichristum, scilicet anno domini MoCCCoxvo ante electionem pape, videlicet Iohannis xxii.” But in this case the dating to 1315 clearly comes from the passage about the papal interregnum that is also present in the incunabulum, as can be seen from fol. 18r. 33 Unfortunately I have been unable to gain any information about the provenance of this manuscript. The text is written in a “hybrida-currens” script used in Germany in the second half of the fifteenth century. (My thanks to Dr. Karl Ubl, Tübingen, for this information, as well as to Dott. Paolo Vian for arranging to send me a photocopy of this manuscript at a time when the Vatican Library was closed for repairs.) 34 Vat. Barb. lat. 489, fol. 59v. 35 Ibid., fol. 60v: “sumus autem sub xxi centenario de quo transierunt sexaginta et vii anni, et restant xxxiii [MS:xxii]”; “usque ad iudicium sunt adhuc ccti et xxxiii anni.”

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this appeared in order to conform to the new annus presens of 1319 and added a fourth passage giving the new date. But he forgot to fix four passages where the date of 1315 was implicit, and consequently these travelled into the second edition, where they were retained by the Nuremberg printer and ignored by the numerous modern scholars who felt obliged to date Hugo’s treatise but not necessarily to read it. 4. Crossing Boundaries at the University of Paris Josep Perarnau places Hugo’s De victoria Christi contra Antichristum in the context of five scholastic compositions written between 1300 and 1313 that raise the question of whether it is possible to determine the time of Antichrist’s coming and the end of the world.36 But Perarnau’s classification is not quite right. The five compositions he mentions – by Peter of Auvergne, John of Paris, OP, Nicholas of Lyra, OFM, Gui Terrena, O. Carm., and Henry of Harclay – were all responding to Arnald of Villanova’s calculations intended to prove that Antichrist’s advent would occur in 1376, or at least within the fourteenth century.37 36 Josep Perarnau i Espelt, “El text primitiu del De mysterio cymbalorum ecclesiae d’Arnau de Vilanova,” Arxiu de textos catalans antics 7/8 (1988–89), 7–169, here 133 (and giving the incorrect date of composition of 1319 without cognizance of my correction as n. 29). In a later publication Perarnau taxes Manfred Gerwing for omitting Hugo from the database of treatises written in clear response to Arnald of Villanova: Josep Perarnau i Espelt, “Sobre l’estructura global del De tempore adventus Antichrisi d’Arnau de Vilanova,” Arxiu de textos catalans antics 20 (2001), 561–74, here 567, n. 21. 37 The first four are edited by Perarnau, “Guiu Terrena critica Arnau de Vilanova,” Arxiu de textos catalans antics 7/8 (1988–89), 171–222; the fifth by Franz Pelster, “Die Quaestio Heinrichs von Harclay über die zweite Ankunft Christi und die Erwartung des baldigen Weltendes zu Anfang des XIV Jahrhunderts,” Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà 1 (1951), 25–82. Perarnau’s edition of Peter of Auvergne is in need of expansion and revision; moreover Perarnau is unaware of a another relevant questio by Peter determined in the Advent season of 1300 (hence in response to the controversy provoked by Arnald of Villanova) that inquires whether one may believe a good angel who reports on the time of the coming of Antichrist: see Schabel, Theological Quodlibeta (as in n. 16), p. 119. (Peter concludes that a good angel always tells the truth, but can only know of the coming of Antichrist supernaturally; my thanks to Chris Schabel for letting me see his unpublished transcription of this text.) Recently I have discovered a sixth work provoked by arguments of Arnald of Villanova on the coming of Antichrist; this was written in June 1302, with the greatest likelihood by a Barcelonan Dominican. (I am planning further research on this treatise.) The directly polemical writings against Arnald between 1302 and 1304 by the Catalan Dominicans Bernat de Puigcercos, Joan Vigoros, and Martin d’Ateca, have not been retrieved; for bibliography regarding Arnald’s responses to them see Jaume Mensa i Valls, Arnau de Vilanova, espiritual: guia bibliogràfica (Barcelona, 1994), pp. 149–53.


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But Hugo does not debate with Arnald: he neither mentions Arnald’s name nor alludes to him indirectly. Conclusive is the fact that even though Hugo considers a different approach to the “coming of Antichrist” question, he ignores all of Arnald’s arguments, and most egregiously Arnald’s equation of days for years in decoding a prophecy about the “abomination of desolation” in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 12: 11–12). Thus Hugo surely did not have Arnald on his mind when he wrote his De victoria Christi in 1315, and probably had not read him. So why then did he decide to write an extensive treatise on Antichrist? His decision is unusual if we bear in mind that in 1315 he all but certainly was a Parisian baccalarius sententiarus. As Courtenay’s work has shown, theological treatises, as opposed to commentaries on the Sentences, were seldom produced by Parisian theologians at this stage of their careers.38 In the present context, John of Paris’s De Antichristo et eius temporibus of 1300 provides an exception, given that John, like Hugo after him, was a Parisian mendicant theologian who had not yet arrived at the mastership. But John was writing in direct response to a cause célèbre created by Arnald of Villanova’s “temerity,” and John was also an exception in writing his even more noted De regia potestate et papali two or three years later. Hugo de Novocastro’s De victoria Christi, however, was in no conventional sense topical. To be clear, 1315 was too early for anyone to be writing about Antichrist because of controversies surrounding the prophetic thought of Peter Olivi. When Olivi’s enemies prepared a bill of indictment against him in 1311 at the time of the Council of Vienne, eschatology came last – as David Burr remarks, “almost as an afterthought.”39 And even then the issue was Olivi’s supposedly “false and fantastic prophecies concerning the Church,” and his allegedly calling the Church the great whore of the Apocalypse, rather than anything specifically connected with Antichrist’s advent. Moreover, Clement V’s two bulls of 1312, meant to address issues surrounding the internal Franciscan disputes, do not make the slightest reference to Olivi’s apocalyptic expectations.40 1315, then, was a year of lull before the storm created two years later, once Jacques Duèse became Pope John XXII. 38

Courtenay, Changing Approaches, pp. 27–28. David Burr, The Persecution of Peter Olivi, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s. vol. 66, part 5 (Philadelphia, 1976), p. 75. 40 David Burr, Olivi’s Peaceable Kingdom (Philadelphia, 1993), p. 201. 39

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Further evidence that Hugo de Novocastro was not a controversialist comes from his mode of discourse, namely encyclopedic compilation. Whereas four of the five works surrounding the Arnald controversy were quodlibetal questions, and the fifth a treatise devoted to resolving a question (John of Paris’s on the time of Antichrist’s coming), Hugo’s intention in writing De victoria Christi contra Antichristum was to gather all basic data about Antichrist and the End and hence provide a handbook. This makes his enterprise noteworthy, for in writing a handbook on Antichrist Hugo, as Hauréau and Langlois were unable to recognize, was an innovator. At a stage in his career when he was a theological bachelor on a trajectory directed toward the mastership he decided to write a treatise on a subject that had never before been encompassed in treatise format. To appreciate the novelty it should be noted that the subject of prophetic eschatology was excluded from Peter Lombard’s Sentences. As Marcia Colish reports, although the Lombard unavoidably treated Antichrist in his glosses on Saint Paul’s epistles, “he ignores the Antichrist altogether” in his Book of Sentences.41 Consequently, the subject was not broached in the long succession of scholastic Sentences commentaries. Reginald of Piperno’s Supplementum to Thomas’s Summa also omits Antichrist, and even St. Bonaventure excluded any consideration of prophetic eschatology from his Breviloquium. (Bonaventure’s case is particularly illustrative because the Breviloquium was meant to be a short guide to theology written while the author was on the faculty of the University of Paris; Bonaventure of course did care greatly about prophetic eschatology, as can be seen from his Collationes super Hexäemeron written when he was Franciscan Minister General.) All told, before Hugo de Novocastro began his work, no freestanding treatise about Antichrist was available. One might ask, “what about Adso’s De ortu et tempore Antichristi?” But this tenth-century monastic work was so short (roughly seven or eight pages) and so disorganized that it could scarcely count as a serviceable reference work.42 (If Hugo knew it, he did not deign to mention it.) We come closer to methodical treatment of issues concerning Antichrist and the Judgment with three Latin works written around the middle of the thirteenth century. One is a constituent part of a 41

Marcia L. Colish, Peter Lombard, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1994), 2:714. Adso Dervensis, De ortu et tempore Antichristi, ed. D. Verhelst, CCCM 45 (Turnholt, 1976). 42


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compilation treating heretics, Antichrist, and Jews, put together by an unidentified South German Dominican about 1260 known as the Passauer Anonymous.43 More likely than not the author of the Antichrist section was himself a Dominican who worked shortly before 1260. Compared to Adso, he made vast strides in the direction of thoroughness and coherence (we are in the thirteenth century), but nevertheless he offered a narrative consisting of passages pieced together primarily from the Bible and glosses rather than a consideration of issues in an analytical mode. Similar narrative orderliness yet lack of analytical presentation obtains for the Dominican Hugo Ripelin of Strassburg’s treatment of Antichrist and the Judgment in his Compendium theologice veritatis (1265/68).44 As for the Antichrist section in Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum Historiale, completed by 1256/59, this is merely a brief “biography” of Antichrist, cobbled together without an original sentence mainly from the Glossa ordinaria, Peter Lombard’s “magna glossatura” on the Pauline Epistles, and the Historia scholastica of Peter Comestor.45 None of these works arose from a university milieu and the first two could hardly have been known to Hugo. Whether he even had ever waded through Vincent of Beauvais’s vast Speculum to become aware of the Antichrist section seems unlikely; at least Vincent’s traces are not locatable in Hugo’s treatise. I propose, then, that the answer to the question of why Hugo de Novocastro wrote an exhaustive Antichrist treatise in 1315 is that he wished to produce a useful reference work written in a rigorous analytical manner on a still untreated topic. Apparently no one asked him to write it, for he offered no prefatory letter. Instead the treatise opens with an impersonal statement of purpose, addressed universally. Hugo clearly thought the topic was important and clearly thought there was a ready audience for it or else he would not have wasted his time writing his treatise in the midst of his obligatory university occupations. 43 Alexander Patschovsky, Der Passauer Anonymus: Ein Sammelwerk über Ketzer, Juden, Antichrist aus der Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1968). A summary of the Antichrist section is at pp. 157–68. 44 On Ripelin one may still refer to Georg Boner, “Über den Dominikanertheologen Hugo von Strassburg,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 24 (1954), 269–86. Ripelin’s extraordinarily popular Compendium was variously fathered on St. Thomas, Albertus Magnus, and St. Bonaventure. The Antichrist section of Book VII, “On the Last Times,” may be found in B. Alberti Magni … Opera omnia, ed. A. Borgnet, 38 vols. (Paris, 1890–5), 34:241–45. 45 See the summary and evaluation in Martin Haeusler, Das Ende der Geschichte in der mittelalterlichen Weltchronistik (Cologne, 1980), pp. 86–92.

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If this is granted, there is some intellectual climate change here, for presumably had one asked Peter Lombard or Thomas Aquinas to write an Antichrist treatise, their answer would have been “stuff and nonsense.” Put another way, if we were to give Hugo de Novocastro’s De victoria Christi a modern subtitle it might be “Antichrist Comes to the Latin Quarter.” Was Hugo correct in believing that contemporaries would see a need for his work? Certainly the De victoria Christi contra Antichristum gained considerable popularity in the two centuries after it was written. At present I count twenty-seven extant manuscript copies of either version (the second edition greatly predominates),46 seven lost copies, two copies of extracts, and the printed version published in Nuremberg in 1471. One copy contains a note observing that part of the work could be used for a sermon.47 The geographical incidence is thickest in central Europe but extends to England, France, Italy, Catalonia, and Majorca. Given the wide popularity of the work it is not surprising that it was mined for citations by other writers.48 5. The De victoria Christi contra Antichristum: its Contents and Originality While the idea of writing a scholastic Antichrist treatise was original, Hugo avowedly sought no originality in content. He evoked his principle of restraint with his opening quotation from Amos, “non sum propheta”: he was “no prophet” and had no intention of asserting anything 46 For a census of surviving manuscripts, lost ones and copies of extracts, see appendix below. 47 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS theol. lat. fol. 658, fol. 344r, bottom margin: “Ista materia applicabilis est ad epistulam dominice ultime ante Christi nativitatem in adventu pro sermone.” 48 Dietrich von Arneveld, OFM, Silentium contra prophecias prophetarum Saxonie (written in 1389), in Paderborn, Erzbischöfliche Akademische Bibliothek, MS Ba. 5, item 6, fol. 39ra (within entire MS) or p. 37a (within given treatise): “Hugo de Novocastro in libro de victoria Christi contra Antichristum ubi sic dicit” [then citing in extenso a passage from II, 17]; Jacobus Molerius, OFM, Tractatus de Antichristo (written between 1418 and 1437), in Marseilles, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 187, fol. 63v: “… magister Hugo de Castro Novo in tractatu quem fecit de Antichristo”; [Johannes von Paltz, OESA], Questio determinata in quodlibeto studii Erffordensis anno 1486 (Memmingen [c. 1487]), recto of last folio: “dicit Hugo Parisiensis in tractatu suo de victoria Christi contra Antichristum, parte secunda, capitulo primo” (von Paltz was drawing on the incunabulum of Nuremberg, 1471 for his toponymic: “Magister Hugo de Novo Castro, sacre theologie et decretorum doctoris Parisiensis”).


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that was not found in canonical scripture or the expositions of the saints.49 Accordingly, he drew on a conventional array of authorities: Scripture, the Gloss, Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory, Cassiodorus, Isidore, Bede, Bernard (his letter to Geoffrey of Chartres), (Pseudo) Chrysostom, Josephus, and, somewhat less predictably, Origen and John Damascene. The name that might at first appear to be exceptional is “Methodius” because today this author is known as “Pseudo-Methodius” and recognized to have been a seventh-century Mesopotamian eschatological propagandist flying under false colors. But for Hugo he was “Methodius the martyr” and as valid a saint as any other. Bartholomew of Pisa would have been justified in calling De victoria Christi contra Antichristum “a most beautiful treatise” from the point of view of organization and scope. It is divided into two ample books, the first dealing with Antichrist’s name, parentage, birth, and terrible reign; the second with the coming of Enoch and Elijah, Christ’s ultimate victory, and the ensuing Last Judgment. Topics and subtopics are broken down into chapters for easy reading and quick reference. To follow Hugo chapter by chapter would be otiose, but several objections can be lodged against his protestations of offering “nothing but the facts.” One is that he certainly adjudicated numerous contested issues on the basis of his own university-bred skills. It is not my purpose to pursue him instance by instance in this regard; suffice it to offer two examples. An initial problem regarding Antichrist’s biography concerned where he would be born. According to Saint Jerome and the Glossa ordinaria, it would be “Babylon” (in Hugo’s day this would have been taken to be Cairo), but “Saint Methodius” expected him to be born in “Chorosaim” and raised in “Bethsaida.” How could anyone be born in Egypt and in Palestine at the same time? For Hugo (I, 4) the problem was resolved by resorting to a two-fold meaning for the word “born”: as Christ was “born” (viz. conceived) in Nazareth, and came into the world in Bethlehem, so Antichrist (hideously mimicking Christ in all things) would be “born” (viz. conceived) in Chorosaim 49 Richard Kenneth Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle Ages (Seattle, 1981), p. 78, accepts Hugo’s protestation (on which more below) that he was offering nothing original, and adds that “as a result of this lack of originality, the Tractatus is a useful summary of late medieval expectations of Antichrist, although not an exciting work in itself.” Emmerson’s consequent use of Hugo’s work as a repository of standard Antichrist lore is largely acceptable, but, as will be seen, I believe that the procedure is not invariably applicable and I demur about a “lack of excitement.”

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but come into the world in Babylon. A similar puzzle was whether Antichrist would be slain by Christ or by Saint Michael, for II Thessalonians 2:8 states “then shall that wicked one be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth,” whereas the Gloss on the same passage (following Haimo of Auxerre) states that Antichrist will be slain by the Archangel. But Hugo found this “controversy” easy enough to resolve: Antichrist would be slain by Christ’s order but that order would be carried out by Michael.50 In both cases we can observe the mentality of a Parisian theologian. When the author recognizes that the sources present discrepancies he confronts and resolves them with scholastic aplomb. My second objection to Hugo’s “lack of originality” pose is that he foretells a set of events that will transpire before Antichrist’s advent (I, 10). The scenario itself is not original: Hugo acknowledges his debt to the prophecies of Pseudo-Methodius. Nevertheless, his introduction of these prophecies in an Antichrist treatise extends beyond the call of duty, for events coming before Antichrist need not have been deemed part of Antichrist’s history, and indeed are not found in the Passauer Anonymous, or Hugo Ripelin. In contrast, Hugo de Novocastro gratuitously presents himself as a committed “Pseudo-Methodian.” The Church would soon be terribly persecuted by “Ishmaelites,” understood by both Hugo and his source to be Saracens. The Lord would then display his mercy by sending a great Christian king to triumph over these enemies, whereupon “the Christian kingdom [would be] exalted above all others.” For Hugo, as for Pseudo-Methodius, “peace and great tranquillity [would reign] over the earth such as had never been seen before and would never be seen after.” Yet then would come a terrible new onslaught by the hostile lost ten tribes, to be followed immediately by the reign of Antichrist.51 That Hugo here not only exceeds his mandate, but is expressing his own point of view, can be 50 For the contradiction in the sources, Emmerson, Antichrist, p. 103; for Hugo’s resolution II, 8: “sed ista controversia faciliter tollitur quia a Cristo occidetur imperative sed a Michaele executive.” 51 The Pseudo-Methodian section is in I, 10: “Predixit autem Beatus Methodius generalium persecutionem ecclesie per Ysmahelitas qui sarracenos se nominant. … Et post tribulaciones ecclesie que erunt a filiis Ysmahel … surget autem rex Christianorum … et erit regnum Christianorum exaltatum super omnia regna. … Et erit pax et tranquillitas magna super terram qualis numquam fuit antea nec erit postea.” For the corresponding passages in the original source see Otto Prinz, “Eine frühe abendländische Aktualisierung der lateinischen Übersetzung des PseudoMethodius,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 41 (1985), 1–23, here


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seen from the fact that Vincent of Beauvais does include some PseudoMethodian material as part of his larger review of “history” before the coming of Antichrist but omits the predictions of a wondrous time of peace under the great Christian king.52 At least Pseudo-Methodius was in Hugo’s eyes a patristic authority who could be cited licitly word for word. But in treating events after the destruction of Antichrist Hugo violated his “lack of originality” principle most egregiously. I refer to a juncture in Book Two where he tells of different ways of foretelling “fifteen signs preceding the Last Judgment.” A set of “fifteen signs,” attributed (spuriously) to Saint Jerome, were listed frequently by medieval writers when they came to treating the Judgment itself.53 One even meets the “fifteen signs” standing in manuscripts independently. Hugo knew them well, and cited fully two closely related versions (II, xi). But then he stated that these both depended on “Jewish tradition,” whereas a different enumeration of fifteen signs preceding the Judgment could be established according to “evangelical truth.” Actually, no sustained list of fifteen eschatological signs exists in the New Testament, but Hugo nevertheless proposed that fifteen such could be located there, albeit in a scattered matter (sparsim).54 So far as I know, no group of “evangelical” fifteen signs quite different than the received “Jewish” fifteen had ever been listed before Hugo of Novocastro. Moreover, viewing the new set of signs makes it clear that Hugo’s motive was to expatiate on a wondrous time of peace after Antichrist. Whereas the received fifteen “Jewish” signs were all signs of woe—seas rising, birds wailing, comets flashing—Hugo’s first two were wondrous. According to him a final reconquest of the Holy Land would transpire before the Judgment and then would follow the preaching of the Gospel throughout the entire world (II, 12–14).55 In both regards, even

14. (The recension of Pseudo-Methodius edited by Prinz and drawn on by Hugo was more widely circulated in the high and late Middle Ages than the original Latin translation from the Greek edited by W.J. Aerts and G.A.A. Kortekaas [Louvain, 1998].) 52 Haeusler, Das Ende der Geschichte, p. 78. 53 William W. Heist, The Fifteen Signs Before Doomsday (East Lansing, Michigan, 1952); Haeusler, Das Ende der Geschichte, p. 91. 54 II, 12: “Sicut in traditione Hebraica signa quindecim precedent iudicium, sic et secundum veritatem evangelicam xv signa adventum districti iudicis Christi debent precedere que sparsim in scripturis novi testamenti predicuntur.” 55 II, 12: “Et erit primum ultima recuperatio terre sancte; secundum completa predicatio evangelii Christi.”

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though Hugo was interpreting passages in Scripture, he was violating his practice of saying only that which had already been said by approved authority. Thus he argued originally that Christ’s prediction to the Samaritan woman that “the hour would come when she would not worship in Jerusalem” (John 4:21) and Christ’s statement in Luke (21:24) that “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” both referred to the final conquest of the Holy Land and the final conversion of the Jews. Similarly, he glossed Christ’s prediction that “the gospel of God will be preached in all the world” (Matth. 24:14) as referring to the wondrous “second sign” to come before the Judgment. Allowing that Hugo’s remaining thirteen signs were all dolorous, by introducing the first two he was making his own contribution to an up-to-date, progressive-minded eschatological position. In the chapter immediately preceding his treatment of the various enumerations of fifteen signs before Antichrist and the End he laid out the exegesis of Daniel 12 as communicated in the Glossa ordinaria to the effect that there would be a surplus of at least forty-five days between the death of Antichrist and the Judgment designed for the “refreshment of the saints” and that the length of remaining time after that was “entirely unknown.”56 As I have shown previously, the proposition that the time after Antichrist would see not only “refreshment of the saints” but the universal triumph of the faith had become a theological commonplace since the twelfth century.57 Hence to that extent Hugo was not innovating. But to downplay the exclusively horrific “fifteen signs” as discountable Jewish tradition and replace them with two “evangelical” ones that looked forward to uplifting marvels before the End was an assertive intrusion into the recounting of a standard repertoire. Taking this together with Hugo’s gratuitous recounting of Pseudo-Methodius’s uplifting events before Antichrist we can see that while protesting a commitment to the “mere compilation” principle, the author fully subverted it by unfolding an appreciably millenaristic scenario of last things.

56 II, 10: “Dies quietis et pacis post mortem Antichristi xlv superioribus adiciuntur ad refrigerium sanctorum. … Quando autem post dominus sit venturus, scilicet ad iudicium, penitus ignoratur.” 57 Robert E. Lerner, “Refreshment of the Saints: The Time After Antichrist as a Station for Earthly Progress in Medieval Thought,” Traditio 32 (1976), 97–144.


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6. Hugo’s Consideration of Three “Conjectures” For the student of eschatological prophecy, the richest part of De victoria Christi contra Antichristum comes toward the end. Asking whether the time of Christ’s Second Coming can be known with certainty, Hugo responds de rigueur in the negative: neither the day nor the hour can be known (cf. Matth. 24: 36), nor even the month, the year, or the century (II, 24). Yet rather than leaving matters at that, he proceeds to ask whether it is at all useful to advance conjectures on the subject. To this, rather surprisingly, he answers in the affirmative: granted the urgency of distinguishing between what is certain and infallible, and what is open to doubt (a Parisian theologian to the hilt, Hugo here draws an analogy with future contingents), it is useful for the health of souls to seek to know the time of Antichrist’s advent and the coming of Christ to judgment. Hugo’s position can be measured against those of the university theologians who expressed themselves on the same subject in the context of the Arnald of Villanova controversy. Of the four who come into consideration (Nicholas of Lyra’s quodlibetal question does not treat the usefulness of predictions of the last days) only the Dominican John of Paris, writing in 1300, took Hugo’s view that attempting to determine last things by “probability or conjecture” was licit.58 In sharp opposition came the secular theologian Peter of Auvergne, writing in 1300, who maintained that it simply was not useful to know such things, as well as the secular Henry of Harclay, writing in 1313, who pronounced that the Lord wanted everyone to know the time of his first coming but prohibited inquiry into the time of his second coming.59 The likelihood that Hugo knew any of the works just mentioned is remote, for there are no echoes in his treatise of the first two, and it seems extremely improbable that he knew a questio of Henry of Harclay which was determined in Oxford. But there is a good chance (a probable 58

Pelster, “Die Quaestio Heinrichs von Harclay,” p. 40, with n. 2. Peter, as Perarnau, “Guiu Terrena,” pp. 214–15: “dicendum est ad questionem quod scire tempus determinatum adventus Antichristi non expedit simpliciter fidelibus”; Henry, as Pelster, “Die Quaestio Heinrichs von Harclay,” p. 60: “ergo similiter adventus Christi secundus non sequitur quia primum adventum voluit constare quantum ad tempus certum, sed non de secundo, immo dixit esse ignotum et prohibit inquirere… Cum dicitur quod utile esset scire adventum Antichristi ut homines per hoc reducerentur ad bonum: argumentum est ad oppositum…magis necessarium est finem mundi esse incertum ut caveatur malam futurum.” 59

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conjecture) that Hugo was present in the Parisian university audience in 1313 when the Carmelite Gui Terrena offered his solution of the question “whether it is possible to determine the time of Antichrist by knowledge of sacred scripture.” And Gui’s position in a nutshell was: “[to say] that [knowledge of] the time of Antichrist is expedient is expressly against the teaching of the saints.”60 Although the likelihood is considerable that Hugo de Novocastro heard Gui Terrena inveigh against seeking to know “the time of Antichrist,” he probably did not intend to be answering Terrena directly in his treatise of 1315, for the two offer different repertoires of authority for their respective positions, Terrena’s being ignored by Hugo. Still, one might wonder whether Hugo was not taking a conscious “Franciscan” stance in this matter, since, even allowing for the Dominican John of Paris’s tolerant position of 1300, it was the Franciscans of this period who were most open to prophetic conjecture. (Regarding Hugo’s plausibly “Franciscan” stance in matters prophetic I will have more to say below.) Hugo’s commitment to the value of inquiring into the time of last things is demonstrated by the fact that he immediately exhibited two relevant “conjectures”: the Pseudo-Joachite treatise De semine scripturarum, and the prophetic reckonings of “Brother Columbinus.” His respective considerations of these in separate chapters provide valuable evidence for tracing the fortunes of both texts. Because a thorough monographic study of De semine scripturarum remains outstanding, it is not possible to know how the text that Hugo read in 1315 fits into the history of the work’s circulation. So far as I can determine, Hugo was the earliest reader in Paris, but that does not make him a true pioneer because the treatise was known and studied by Alexander of Roes (1281), Arnald of Villanova (c. 1292), Peter Olivi (1298), and Henry of Harclay (1315).61 All these authors attributed the work mistakenly to 60 Perarnau, “Guiu Terrena,” p. 196: “Quod dicunt quod tempus Antichristi est expediens est expresse contra doctrinam sanctorum.” 61 The earliest author known to have cited the work was Roger Bacon: see E. Randolph Daniel, “Roger Bacon and the De seminibus scripturarum,” Mediaeval Studies 34 (1972), 462–67. For Alexander, Beatrice Hirsch-Reich, “Alexander von Roes Stellung zu den Prophetien unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Traktates ‘De semine scripturarum’ in der ‘Noticia seculi’,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung,” 67 (1959), 306–16; for Arnald, Arnaldi de Villanova opera theologica omnia, III: Introductio in librum De semine scripturarum, ed. Josep Perarnau (Barcelona, 2004) (Arnald also cited the work in his De mysteriis cymbalorum ecclesie of 1301: see Perarnau, “El text primitiu del De mysterio cymbalorum,” p. 147, l.


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Joachim of Fiore, although the alert Henry of Harclay did notice that the reckoning system in De semine scripturarum differed from that of Joachim’s Concordia. As for Hugo, he accepted the attribution to “Abbot Joachim” without qualms (II, 26). And, he aligned himself with Alexander, Arnald, and Olivi in showing himself to be very favorable to the predictive system of the De semine scripturarum, in contrast to Henry of Harclay, who sneered at it. The second “conjecture” to which he devoted much attention (II, 27) was a set of reckonings attributed (spuriously) to Eusebius of Caesaria and a certain religious by the name of “Brother Columbinus.” (I will call it here the Columbinus prophecy for the sake of convenience.) Elizabeth Brown and I treated the early life of this prophecy in an article of 1989. We concluded that it first appeared in continental Europe during the first decade of the fourteenth century and that two of the earliest witnesses were French, one from Lorraine and one copied into the Capetian royal registers.62 Hugo’s version is much closer to the latter, but is not a match, indicating that at least two different copies of the prophecy had made their way to Paris by his day. Comparison with the register version, datable to roughly 1306, shows that Hugo’s presentation omitted a vexing detail. In the register version (implicitly confirmed by the Lorraine copy) the Columbinus prophecy foretold that Antichrist would appear to preach in Jerusalem at the end of 1316, but this is absent in Hugo’s otherwise close paraphrase. Evidently either he or a copyist before him decided that predicting something so specific for so close a date was too perilous for comfort. Whether or not it was Hugo who boggled at that specificity, he was still extremely credulous in lavishing serious attention on the Columbinus prophecy. “Brother Columbinus” posited a sequence of seven

571—this citation may have helped to give the treatise some notoriety); for Olivi, provisionally, Raoul Manselli, “La religiosità d’Arnaldo da Villanova,” Bulletino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo 62 (1951), 1–100, here 13–14; for Henry of Harclay, Pelster, “Die Quaestio Heinrichs von Harclay,” pp. 73–74. The work was also known thoroughly by the Barcelona Dominican, writing in 1302, to whom I refer in n. 37 (this author exceptionally did not attribute the work to Joachim of Fiore) and appears in an abbreviated form in Assisi, Sacro Convento, MS 442, fol. 185r–v with the date 1312. 62 Elizabeth A.R. Brown and Robert E. Lerner, “On the Origins and Import of the Columbinus Prophecy,” Traditio 45 (1989–90), 219–56. See also Kathryn Kerby-Fulton and E. Randolph Daniel, “English Joachimism, 1300–1500: The Columbinus Prophecy,” in Il profetismo gioachimita tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento, ed. Gian Luca Potestà (Genoa, 1991), pp. 313–50.

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periods, each of 220 years, extending from the Incarnation to the Judgment. According to this reckoning the sixth age was to end in 1320, to be followed by the seventh, a “Sabbath” period of 220 years to endure until the End. Not only did this mean that a wondrous earthly Sabbath was only five years away, but it meant that Antichrist was already at work in the world (the prophecy specifies that tribulations would begin in 1287) and that he would reign openly three and a half years before his destruction in 1320.63 (This explains the original reference to the appearance of Antichrist in Jerusalem in 1316.) Thus the system was “apocalyptic” in the sense of positing a great war between Antichrist and Christ as fully imminent, and one is taken aback in finding such apocalypticism being taken seriously by a putatively sober Parisian bachelor of the Sentences. The one point that did trouble Hugo was that “Columbinus’s” reckonings dictated that an earthly Sabbath of “peace and tranquillity” would last for so long a time as 220 years. In this regard Hugo proved to be a traditionalist, finding that the period was too long.64 When he reflected on which of the two “conjectures,” De semine scripturarum or the reckonings of “Brother Columbinus,” might be preferred, he noted that their respective dates for the End were strikingly close: 1548 and 1540. But for him the system of De semine scripturarum had to be preferred because received exegesis militated against Columbinus in positing that the length of the time between Antichrist and the End, however uncertain, was likely to be short. Given that De semine scripturarum stipulated a hundred-year earthly Sabbath against “Columbinus’s” 220 years, De semine scripturarum was preferable! Once more it hardly seems as if we are reading the work of a hard-headed Parisian theologian. Whereas Hugo devoted complete chapters to the two prophetic “conjectures” just treated, he introduced the evidence of a third contemporary prophetic work more briefly. Toward the end of a chapter 63 In choosing the date 1287 “Columbinus” follows the common contemporary assumption that Antichrist would parody Christ by living for thirty years until his open advent three and a half years before his death, which according to Columbinus was to happen in 1320. For evidence of this assumption, see Brown and Lerner, “On the Origins,” p. 225, n. 23. Hugo himself independently posits a three-and-a-half-year term for Antichrist’s open reign (I, 34). 64 On resistance to a lengthy Sabbath after the death of Antichrist and its gradual erosion in the fourteenth century, see Robert E. Lerner, “The Medieval Return to the Thousand-Year Sabbath,” in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, eds. Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (Ithaca, N.Y., 1992), pp. 51–71.


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(II, 28) in which he asked whether St. Paul’s “falling away” before the coming of “the son of perdition” (II Thess. 2:3) could apply to a collapse of obedience to the Roman Church, he wondered when such a “falling away” might occur. And that led him to introduce the evidence of another conjectural witness, a set of illustrated prophecies alluding to a series of fifteen popes – some past and some still to come – known to modern scholars from its incipit as the Genus nequam series. Hugo is an important witness to the early circulation of this series. Making its earliest known appearance in western Europe toward the beginning of the fourteenth century, the series had currency in France in the second decade of the century. The seven earliest retrieved manuscripts date from roughly 1295 to roughly 1320, and two of these are Parisian: an illuminated manuscript, datable to c. 1314, and a copy of the texts without illustrations found in the French royal registers, datable to shortly before Philip the Fair’s death in late November 1314.65 Hugo is therefore a fourth witness to early circulation in Paris (the third being his exemplar, which was definitely neither of the two copies just mentioned). In fact, his matter of course reference to “the little book in which the Roman pontiffs are described in figures” makes it probable that the work was still more widely circulated inasmuch as it reveals an assumption that his audience would easily recognize his allusion. Most likely interest in Genus nequam in the French royal capital in the period around 1314/1315 derived from a desire to gain insight into the person of the coming pope during a time of papal interregnum. (Clement V died in April 1314 to be succeeded by John XXII in August 1316.) Hugo’s account of the pope prophecies provides insights into their nature as well as into the pattern of their early circulation. In its 65 Martha H. Fleming, ed., The Late Medieval Pope Prophecies: The “Genus nequam” Group, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 204 (Tempe, Arizona, 1999). Fleming considers nine manuscripts in her database, but I exclude here the latest of them, Yale, Marston 225 and Vat. lat. 3819. The illuminated manuscript I mention is Monreale, Biblioteca communale, MS XXV.F.17, with interrelated evidence (as Fleming, 80) pointing to Parisian origins. A facsimile edition of this manuscript is now available: Vaticinia Pontificum: Dal Codice XXV F16 [sic: for F17], ed. Fabio Troncarelli (Bari, 2007). For the dating of the French register copy, see Fleming, The Late Medieval Pope Prophecies, pp. 78–79. Fleming reports Hugo’s text at p. 2, n. 6. It may be added that Hugo was referring to the standard “continental” version of the prophecies because of his specification that there were to be only seven popes following the recently deceased Clement V; in the standard version there were fifteen units beginning with Nicholas III, making Clement V the eighth in succession, with seven more popes remaining.

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standard illuminated form the Genus nequam series displays one pope (or an image standing for a papal reign) per page with accompanying remarks, mostly cryptic, describing the pope in question. Some of the retrieved manuscripts give the impression that the last five units were meant to be read as pertaining to the activities of a single messianic pope, but this reading is contradicted by Hugo who clearly counts each unit as standing for a separate pope.66 Noteworthy too is the fact that for him the last pope in the series will “renounce the crown of pontifical rank,” that is, his tiara.67 In fact, illuminations from the “continental group” of the prophecies do show a final pope setting down a tiara, and they make the implicit criticism of papal grandeur even clearer by leaving him bare-headed and tonsured.68 The ultimate point of the Genus nequam prophecies in the format known to Hugo was that the advent of Antichrist was not far distant: there would be fourteen popes after Nicholas III (1277–1280), and the last was to be succeeded by the embodiment of evil. To leave no doubt about that reading, most of the retrieved manuscripts depict a figure evidently meant to be Antichrist standing next to or following the last pope; the two retrieved Parisian copies have a text identifying this figure as “corona superbie.” Did Hugo himself accept the reliability of Genus nequam? Consistent with his position regarding “conjectures,” he protests that “I do not know whatever [may be] true in these dicta and judge it better left to divine knowledge.”69 Yet the fact that he was willing to consider the Genus nequam prophecies in a scientific treatise written when he was a baccalarius sententiarus must place him in the ranks of the “prophecy-friendly.”

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Fleming, The Late Medieval Pope Prophecies, p. 36, with n. 19. II, 28: “[U]sque ad nudum pontificem renuentemque coronam dignitatis pontificalis.” Marjorie Reeves was the first to have called attention to Hugo’s treatment of the Genus nequam prophecies: see Reeves, “Some Popular Prophecies from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries,” in Popular Belief and Practice, eds. G.J. Cuming and Derek Baker, Studies in Church History 8 (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 107–34, here p. 116. But Reeves misdates Hugo’s treatise (despite the reference to the papal vacancy after Clement V), and she mistranslates “renuentem coronam” as “who would renew the dignity of the papacy.” 68 See for example, the Lunel manuscript copy, reproduced in Fleming, The Late Medieval Pope Prophecies, p. 184. The last pope is also tonsured in two slightly later manuscripts: Yale University, Marston 225 and Vat. lat 3819. In the Monreale manuscript (as n. 65) he is just bareheaded. 69 II, 28: “Quid autem verum sit in dictis illis ignoro et totum divine scientie melius iudico relinquendum.” 67


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6. Hugo de Novocastro: Spiritual Franciscan? This brings me to the question of whether an elective affinity existed between a “prophecy-friendly” attitude and Hugo’s identity as a Franciscan. Hugo’s reference to Genus nequam may already point in the direction of pronounced Franciscan sympathies because manuscripts closest to the one he knew exalt Celestine V, revered particularly by Spiritual Franciscans: the illuminated Parisian manuscript closest in date to Hugo’s Antichrist treatise terms the fourth pope after Nicholas III “pius papa,” and shows him with a Franciscan cord.70 Most intriguing is the chapter in Hugo’s treatise (II, 29) following the one in which he treats the pope prophecies. Here he asks “whether the persecution of the poverty of Christ will be a clear sign of the advent of Antichrist?” According to him, “[some] say that when the poor in Christ and professors of evangelical poverty are held in contempt by all those who embrace the riches of the world that will be a sign of the advent of the pestiferous one and the consummation of the ages.” These people also maintain that the sign is already “at the door” (cf. Matthew 24:33) for poverty is “already deemed much better to be repudiated than esteemed, and the status of having possessions and swimming in wealth is preferred to the status of poverty.”71 Hugo then declares that the identity of the persecuted evangelical poor is sufficiently clear: “for truly they will be most of all the adherents [professores] of the evangelical order that from their founding renounced all temporalities for the sake of Christ and chose to pride themselves only in penury.”72 Then he proceeds coyly to say that he leaves unspoken the name of this profession “not without cause.” Nevertheless the order is known for its special devotion to the Virgin Mary (called by Hugo “speculum castitatis”)

70 Robert E. Lerner, “On the Origins of the Earliest Latin Pope Prophecies,” in Fälschungen im Mittelalter, MGH, Schriften, 33: V (Hannover, 1988), pp. 611–35, here p. 629. 71 II, 29: “Signum igitur adventus pestiferi et consumationis seculi, ut isti aiunt, erit cum pauperes Christi professores evangelice paupertatis odio habebuntur ab omnibus qui mundi divicias amplexantur, quod signum in ianuis esse existimant cum iam non paupertas diligatur sed valde [incunab: velut] repudianda iudicetur ac status posessiones habentium et natancium in diviciis paupertatis statui proponatur.” 72 II, 29: “Quid autem sunt illi viri pauperes evangelici in quibus signum hoc potissime conplebitur satis clare videtur. Nempe illi potissime erunt evangelici ordinis professores qui a sui institutione omnia propter Christum temporalia renuunt et eligunt [incunab: leigunt] in sola penuria gloriari.”

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and marked from its earliest foundation by its special devotion to poverty.73 Although Hugo is careful here to avoid speaking in his own voice, “those who say” are clearly Spiritual Franciscans, and his decision to pass along their views without criticism can easily be taken as a token of sympathy.74 Several decades earlier the Spiritual standard-bearer, Peter Olivi, had first intimated that the persecution of “the poor in Christ” would be a sign of the coming of Antichrist. Olivi proposed that one of the “temptations” presaging Antichrist would be the disparagement of the upholders of the “highest poverty,” and that “nothing prepares the way for the final Antichrist more than the destruction of the highest poverty.”75 One is even tempted to wonder whether Hugo may have known Olivi’s central Questio de altissima paupertate, from which the first passage derives, for this alludes in the same context to “Christ’s victory” over Antichrist, language similar to the title of his own treatise.76 In the early years of the fourteenth century, the Franciscan “poor in Christ” were indeed intermittently persecuted, sometimes brutally, by

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II, 29: “Licet igitur hec professio, quam non sine causa subticeo, specialiter sibi vendicet speculum castitatis ut notum est per se specialiter, tamen in suo primordiali fundamento in paupertatis scilicet titulo gloriari re et mente studeat quia in titulo paupertatis datum est sibi signum in quo promittitur sibi premium iuxta illud Beati pauperes spiritu quoniam ipsorum est regnum celorum [Matth. 5:3].” 74 The only modern scholar of whom I am aware who reads Hugo for his idea content is Morton Bloomfield: see his Piers Plowman as a Fourteenth-Century Apocalypse (New Brunswick, N.J., 1964), p. 96. Nevertheless, Bloomfield’s view that “like a good Spiritual [Hugo] takes as the surest sign of the coming of Antichrist the persecution of those who follow the poverty of Christ,” needs to be qualified with the recognition that Hugo does not say that he is speaking for himself. (Bloomfield also misreads Hugo’s account of De semine scripturarum in regard to the date of the “Final Judgment.”) 75 Olivi’s Questio de altissima paupertate (c. 1279) (=Questio de perfectione evangelica, #8), edited in Johannes Schlageter, Das Heil der Armen und das Verderben der Reichen: Petrus Johannis Olivi OFM, Die Frage nach der höchsten Armut (Werl, 1989), p. 152: “Si quis autem huius tentationis principales articulos inspiceret, inveniret eos iam in mundo seminatos, et quod unus de principalibus est vilipensio altissime paupertatis” (I am grateful to Sylvain Piron for sending me to this work); David Burr and David Flood, “Peter Olivi on Poverty and Revenue, Franciscan Studies 40 (1980), 18–58, here 47 (quoting Olivi’s Questio de perfectione evangelica, #16 of c. 1281/82): “nihil ita parat viam Antichristo novissimo sicut destructio altissime paupertatis.” 76 Schlageter, ed., Das Heil der Armen, p. 153: “victoria, quam fuerit pugna et victoria Christi…sic pugna quam Christus per se solus fecit, maior est pugna illa quam per sua membra facturus est contra Antichristum.” Schlageter shows that Olivi’s questio travelled in Franciscan circles in the early fourteenth century, as for example as in Assisi, Sacro convento, MS 677 (Schlageter, p. 56).


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the majority in the Order.77 Inevitably, this led some among Olivi’s Spiritual followers to wonder whether Antichrist was coming soon. In 1305 Ubertino da Casale viewed the papal antagonists of the Spirituals, Boniface VIII and Benedict XI, as personifications of the “mystic Antichrist,” who would be followed by the open Antichrist in short order.78 Between 1312 and 1316 a lull intervened in the strife between Spirituals and Conventuals, brought about mainly by the calming effects of Clement V’s bull Exivi de paradiso. When Hugo wrote his De victoria Christi he therefore had little need to be concerned about appearing to take sides in a fratricidal war. For this reason he may have felt emboldened to insert a gratuitous chapter on a possible link between the persecution of those who “choose to pride themselves only in penury” and the coming of the Son of Perdition. If it is conceded that the chapter shows partiality for “special devotion to poverty” and weighed together with Hugo’s willingness to allow the possible truth of non-scriptural prophecies, he begins to seem more and more like a Spiritual “fellow traveller.” 7. The Second Edition Four years later the situation was entirely different from what it had been in 1315. By then the Spirituals were being bitterly persecuted, with the full power of the papacy being ranged against them. In 1318 four unyielding Spiritual friars had been publicly burned in Marseilles; in 1319, at least six lay spirituals (Beguins) were publicly burned in Narbonne and Capestang.79 During the last week of May 1319, the general chapter of the Franciscan order, meeting in Marseilles, proscribed all the writings of Olivi on the advice of “twelve masters and bachelors of the Sacred Page.”80 Although these masters and bachelors are not named in the only relevant surviving source, the likelihood is strong

77 David Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans (University Park, Pennsylvania, 2001), pp. 88–94. 78 Gian Luca Potestà, Storia ed escatologia in Ubertino da Casale (Milan, 1980), pp. 161–64. 79 Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans, pp. 204–206; Louisa A. Burnham, So Great a Light, So Great a Smoke: The Beguin Heretics of Languedoc (Ithaca, New York, 2008), p. 189. 80 Leo Amorós, “Series condemnationum et processum contra doctrinam et sequaces Petri Ioannis Olivi,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 24 (1931), 495–512, here 509.

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that Hugo de Novocastro was one of them, for the most prestigious theologians were the Parisian ones, and Hugo at that time was a very senior Parisian theological bachelor. Although the time of year in 1319 when Hugo prepared his second edition of De victoria Christi contra Antichristum is unknown, whether he prepared it before or after the Marseilles chapter he surely knew that the possible persecution of the “professors of evangelical poverty” was now in full swing. Hugo’s decision to issue a second edition of De victoria Christi contra Antichristum in 1319 thus presents several puzzles. For one, even though he revised the first edition slightly to the extent of adjusting some dates, he not only let stand his paraphrase of “Columbinus’s” calculations that Antichrist would come in 1316 and be defeated in 1320, but he let stand the entire chapter about “the persecution of the poverty of Christ” being a possible sign of the advent of Antichrist. Can it be that he was now more convinced than ever that he was living in apocalyptic times? (If he was indeed one of the censors of Olivi in May 1319, his hand might perhaps have been forced.) Further speculation about the second edition of De victoria Christi contra Antichristum arises from its additions to the first. We have seen that the first edition ended with a doxology: “qui est benedictus in secula seculorum, amen.” But in 1319 Hugo added two chapters after the “amen.” The first of these (II, 35) reemphasized a point he had already made sufficiently: that the treatise was taken from “the garden of Holy Scripture” and the “originalia” of the saints. Although there were many more sayings of the saints he could have added, he ignored “certain apocryphal prophecies having no authority.” These might perhaps have some apparent probability but could also be false.81 This protestation of course was not quite true because Hugo had retailed non-canonical calculations concerning last times of De semine scripturarum and “Brother Columbinus,” as well as taking some account of the Genus nequam prophecies in his first edition. Nevertheless, he went on to say that an example of the sort of apocryphal prophecy he ignored programmatically was one that followed in the next chapter. And then he devoted nearly all of his final chapter to citing in full a prophecy that 81 II, 35: “Ceteras prophetias quasdam apocrifas non habentes auctoritatem de futuris in proximo imminente adventu antichristi in hoc opera non curavi, cum auctoritatem non habeant nec forte apparentem probabilitatem sed forte fictitiam falsitatem.”


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had first appeared in a treatise by Arnald of Villanova, albeit without mentioning his source. This is not the place to pause for an extended discussion of the prophecy “Ve mundo in centum annis” that Arnald had included in his treatise De mysterio cymbalorum ecclesie, written in 1301.82 Suffice it to say that he did not offer it in his own voice but attributed it to “an almost illiterate man, who breathed entirely for the exaltation of the faith.” Although the main point of the prophecy is sufficiently clear from its title, “woe to the world in one hundred years,” and although an enumeration of retributions to be meted out to all regions of Christian Europe before the advent of Antichrist at the end of the “hundred years” is also evident, much of the text is impenetrable because of the prophecy’s esoteric vocabulary, tortuous syntax, and bizarre emblems. (For example, broken bridges, nests of wild asses, and a king who gulps down the menstruations of his bride.) A mark of the prophecy’s opacity is that most of its language was interpreted differently by two midfourteenth-century commentators, Gentile of Foligno, OESA, and John of Rupescissa, OFM.83 Whether even Arnald of Villanova himself understood the meaning of every line is a debatable point. After Hugo completed his verbatim citation, he offered three criticisms that could be launched against the “Ve mundo” prophecy. First, not only was the author unknown but no evidence had been offered to show that he was divinely inspired. (Hugo here referred to the “law” on this matter, by which he probably meant Innocent III’s Cum ex iniuncto [X 5.7.12].) Second, his was a recent vision, and the time of prophecy had ceased.84 (Implicitly the three “conjectures” he had already treated had not claimed to be prophetic visions.) And third, the strangeness of 82

Perarnau, “El text primitiu,” pp. 102–103. For the former see Matthias Kaup and Robert E. Lerner, “Gentile of Foligno Interprets the Prophecy ‘Woe to the World,’” Traditio 56 (2001), 149–211. Rupescissa’s commentary, Breviloquium de oneribus orbis, lacks a modern edition. 84 This position appears in a work by Augustinus Triumphus, OESA of 1310. See Pierangela Giglione, “Il ‘Tractatus contra divinatores et sompniatores’ di Agostino d’Ancona,” Analecta Augustiniana 48 (1985), 7–111, at 62: “[quando] fides catholica non erat confirmata, Deus multa per sompnia et aliis modis suis fidelibus revelavit et per eos multa miracula demonstravit; sed nunc quod veritas Evangelii est plene revelata et declarata … videmus quia Deus destitit ab operatione miraculorum.” On this author’s career, see Jürgen Miethke, De potestate papae (Tübingen, 2000), p. 171, where we learn that Augustinus was a direct contemporary of Hugo’s on the Parisian theological faculty; he was probably Augustinian regent master in 1313/1314. Hence the possibility of his influence on this passage is not to be excluded. 83

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the prophecy’s language created a presumption that it was a human fiction rather than a divine revelation because humble language resonates more in the soul.85 Accordingly, Hugo avowed that he had excluded prophecies such as this one from the treatise he had previously written, and all the more because by dwelling on them he might have instilled weariness in the reader. Yet immediately thereafter he neutralized these disavowals by expressing the enormous qualification that since the Lord might be pleased to reveal his will through the mouth of an ass he, Hugo, did not judge it impossible that the divine will might be revealed in the present case. And then he concluded his treatise with the very same safety clause employed by Arnald of Villanova in regard to the same prophecy: “I let the doctors, however, determine what is to be believed.”86 Although Hugo listed three strong theoretical reasons as to why “Ve mundo” might be ignored, he was silent about a practical one: that he had found it in a work by the highly controversial Arnald of Villanova. In 1300 and 1301 Arnald had been publicly condemned, respectively in Paris and Rome, for the “temerity” expressed in his first Antichrist treatise.87 Thereafter he was frequently under attack by Dominicans, condemned posthumously for heresy by a theological commission in Tarragona in 1316, and accused of plotting the poisoning of Pope Benedict XI in a trial of the Franciscan Spiritual, Bernard Délicieux, held in Carcassonne in the autumn of 1319.88 Hugo surely knew that he 85

II, 36: “Tum tercio quia stilus huius prophetie, cum sit curiosus, revelationem divinam non sapit, que sine curiositate verborum humiliter sonat in animo, unde stilus magis redolere videtur fictione humanam quam revelationem divinam.” 86 Hugo: “Doctoribus tamen relinquo determinandum si sint credenda”; Arnald (as n. 61, p. 103, l. 989–90): “Deo et doctoribus relinquo determinandum an sint credenda.” 87 A recent summary (with one dating mistake irrelevant here) is Josep Perarnau i Espelt, “Sobra la primera crisi entorn el De adventu Antichristi d’Arnau de Vilanova,” Arxiu de textos catalans antics 20 (2001), 349–402. In June of 1303 one of the charges of Philip the Fair’s mouthpiece, Guillaume de Plaisians, against Boniface VIII was that a book “containing or smacking of heresy,” which had been “reproved, condemned, and burned” by the bishop of Paris and the Parisian theological faculty, was “similarly reproved, condemned, and burned” by Pope Boniface: Jean Coste, Boniface VIII en procès: Articles d’accusation et dépositions des témoins (1303–1311) (Rome, 1995), pp. 146–47. (The book “with the same faults” was the very one from which Hugo borrowed in 1319.) 88 For the attack of the Dominicans, Mensa i Valls (n. 37 above); the sentence of condemnation of 1316 is edited in Francesco Santi, “Gli ‘Scripta spiritualia’ di Arnau de Vilanova,” Studi medievali 3rd series, 26:2 for 1985 (1986), 977–1014, at 1006–1010; the charge of poisoning is treated by Alan Friedlander, Processus Bernardi Delitiosi: The Trial of Fr. Bernard Délicieux, 3 September – 8 December 1319 (Philadelphia, 1996), pp. 39–45.


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was using Arnald’s treatise, De mysterio cymbalis ecclesie, as his source for “Ve mundo,” for he lifted words from Arnald’s preamble to the prophecy as well as his final safety clause. Nor can there be much doubt as to where Hugo had found the treatise, for Arnald had sent a copy of the work to the Parisian Franciscans late in 1301.89 Admittedly, it is difficult to account for the purpose of Hugo’s two additional chapters. If we assume for the sake of argument that he had been criticized for including too many conjectures in his first edition, then he had the option of preparing a second edition without them. Yet now he was serving pepper sauce after a dish with mustard by citing the complete text of a “conjectural prophecy” more open to criticism than the conjectural reckonings he previously had only paraphrased rather than quoted. Thus it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he presented “Ve mundo” less to disarm criticism than to exhibit a prophecy he wanted others to read. Doing this did not mean taking a stance in the controversy over the Spirituals because the prophecy had no specifically “Spiritual” content. Yet drawing on a treatise by Arnald of Villanova in 1319 even without naming the author was risky because others might easily have recognized the source,90 and Arnald was notorious in 1319 not only for his controversial views on the coming of Antichrist but for having been an ally of the Spirituals. Moreover, while “Ve mundo” had no specifically “Spiritual” content, it did warn truculently of the advent of Antichrist before the end of the fourteenth century, a warning that coincided with Spiritual Franciscan expectations. Recognition that Hugo de Novocastro’s treatise on Antichrist ended with the verbatim citation of one of the most arbitrary and obscure prophecies imaginable, allows us to see most clearly that Hugo’s selfproclaimed dedication to eschatology as cut and dried was deceptive. Without doubt he was conscientious in his determination to assemble the most pertinent canonical data on last things in an orderly and encyclopedic fashion. But he diverged from reporting and occasionally resolving the contradictions in the established data when he aired several non-canonical “conjectures” with studied neutrality and reported

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Kaup and Lerner, “Gentile of Foligno,” p. 156, nn. 19, 20. Late in 1301 Arnald had circulated his De cymbalis ecclesie far and wide. See Joaquín Carreras Artau, “Del epistolario espiritual de Arnaldo de Vilanova,” Estudios Franciscanos 49 (1948), 79–94, 391–406. Gentile of Foligno was explicit in stating that his knowledge of “Ve mundo” came from a copy he had made as a student in Paris of Arnald of Villanova’s De cymbalis ecclesie; see Kaup and Lerner, “Gentile of Foligno,” pp. 188–89. 90

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without censure a prediction about the persecution of Franciscan Spirituals that approximated the language of Peter Olivi. Hugo may have deserved the honorific doctor scholasticus on the grounds of his Scotist Sentences commentary, but his De victoria Christi contra Antichristum is at best a tractatus scholasticus with a difference.91 Three more observations remain. First, the “scientific” quality of the treatise was still sufficiently great for it to be held by the library of the Sorbonne.92 Moreover, it was chosen by a Parisian stationer to be rented out as a “pecia” manuscript, allowing Parisian students to make copies of the work on their own, presumably to add to their collections of basic theological books.93 Second, whatever Hugo’s real opinions about the Spirituals, nothing stopped his steady advancement to the Parisian mastership, the apex of Franciscan theological recognition. (“Ve mundo” included an imprecation against the “nest of Aristotle,” easily glossed as the University of Paris,94 but whether Hugo noticed that cannot be told.) And third, whether or not he was in Marseilles in 1319, he surely was in Perugia in 1322, working harmoniously with the Franciscan General Michael of Cesena, one of the major instigators of the campaign then at its height to obliterate the Spirituals. Ironically, the statements on the poverty of Christ and the Apostles that Hugh endorsed at Perugia could well have been expressed by the Spirituals themselves. Still, the latter were being harried and burned in 1322 in ever greater numbers and the author who just recently had allowed that such persecutions might be considered a sign of the coming of Antichrist was merely looking on.

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The controversial nature of Hugo’s addition of the “Ve mundo” prophecy in his second edition is made clear by the fact that a fourteenth-century scribe in the Austrian canonry of Klosterneuburg terminated his copy at a point in the penultimate chapter before the author states that he is adding this prophecy. (See appendix.) 92 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16393. 93 Assisi, Sacro Convento, MS 46, fols. 184va–193vb is a pecia manuscript. It was made before 1381 and originated with great likelihood in Paris. 94 See Mainz, Stadtbibliothek MS 151, fol. 17r (extracts from De victoria Christi contra Antichristum): “Nydus etiam Aristotelis, id est Parisius,” followed by Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, A V 39, fol. 140v: “Nidus etiam Aristotelis Parisius.”


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APPENDIX Manuscripts of the De victoria Christi contra Antichristum The most recent census was Heynck, “Der Skotist Hugo von Novo Castro,” 261, which listed twelve extant copies. As can be seen, the present total is much larger, and future research will doubtless make it larger still. In what follows I rely all but exclusively on manuscript catalogues of varying quality. An initial asterisk indicates a certain or likely copy of the first edition; the explicit “…si sint credenda” indicates that the copy is of the second edition. When I indicate “from incunabulum” I draw that conclusion from a date after 1471 and the presence of Nicholas of Cusa’s Coniectura de ultimis diebus following De victoria Christi, which is the same sequence of the two texts in the Nuremberg incunabulum of 1471. The list shows an evident predominance of manuscripts from central Europe which may have something to do with a regional taste for Antichrist material. Incipit: Non sum propheta nec filius prophete. Humilis ille propheta Amos considerans… *L’Aquila, Archivio di Stato, MS S. 58, fols. 179ra–198vb. Prov.: S. Angelo de Ocre (O.F.M.); year 1448 (antigraph from year 1337, made by “frater Iohannes Haimburgensis” [perhaps the Franciscan cloister of Haynburg, near Vienna]). First edition, as fol. 196ra: “a tempore libelli editi fluxerunt anni 1315.” Assisi, Sacro Convento, MS 46, fols. 184va–193vb. Prov.: Paris (?), then Sacro Convento (O.F.M.); before 1381, French hand. A pecia manuscript. Incomplete: breaks off with space remaining in column in the midst of what is II, 15 in the incunabulum version (here=II, 14 owing to a miscalculation concerning the beginning of the Second Book). Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS theol. lat. fol. 658, fols. 344r–346r. Prov.: Originally owned by a canon of Legnica/Liegnitz [Lower Silesia]; year c. 1472 (but not copied from incunabulum); incomplete. *Durham, University Library, Bishop Cosin’s Library, MS V. II. 5, item 12. Prov.: ?; 14c. According to the catalogue of the Surtees Society (no. 7, 1838): “sunt capita 35 in libro 1, 34 in secundo.” The number of chapters in the Second Book indicate with great likelihood that this is the first edition. Erlangen, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 284, fols. 203r–232v. Prov.: Heilsbronn (O. Cist.); 14c. “…si sint credenda.” Frankfurt, Universitätsbibliothek, MS Barth. 119, fols. 15ra–53ra. Prov.: Frankfurt, Bartholomaeusstift; 14c (3rd quarter). “…si sint credenda.” Gdansk, Biblioteka Akademii Nauk (formerly Danzig, Stadtbibliothek), MS 1955, fols. 144r–167v. Prov.: region of Franconia or Thuringia, perhaps owned by a parish priest; year 1459. Gniezno, Biblioteka Kapitulna, MS 42, fols. 223r–232r. Prov.: collection of a parish priest in the region of Poznań; before 1452. Göttweig, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 447 (olim 247), fols. 1r–66v. Prov.: Göttweig (O.S.B.); year 1406.

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Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, MS theol. 1534, fols. 1r–77v. Prov.: parish church of S. Markus, Butzbach (Hesse); 15c (c. 1460). Klosterneuburg, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 306, fols. 284v-324r. Prov.: Mauerbach (Carthusians); 14c. Ends at II, 35: “sed forte fictitiam falsitatum.” Melk, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 452 (olim 33 [A 39]), fols. 181r–220r. Prov.: Melk (O.S.B.); year 1459. “…si sint credenda.” Melk, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 1561 (olim 68 [B 33]), pp. [sic] 32–216. Prov.: Melk (O.S.B.); year 1463. “…si sint credenda.” Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS clm 18779, fols. 7r–70r. Prov.: Tegernsee (O.S.B.); year 1473. Perhaps taken from incunabulum, but not followed in MS by Nicholas of Cusa, Coniectura. Newcastle, Public Library, 091.01173 (olim Phillipps MS 749), fols. 77r–127v. Prov.: Germany, perhaps Cologne region; year 1475. From incunabulum. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16393, fols. 134r–209v. Prov.: Sorbonne; year c. 1447. “…si sint credenda.” Prague, Knihovna Metropolitani Kapituli, MS 1040 (G. XLVI), fols. 148r–176v. Prov.: Prague, Metropolitan Chapter; 14c. Salzburg, Stiftsbibliothek Sankt Peter, MS b.VI.36, fols. 1r–37v. Prov.: Sankt Peter (O.S.B.); year 1475. Perhaps taken from incunabulum, but not followed in MS by Nicholas of Cusa, Coniectura. *Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Barb. lat. 489 (only work in manuscript). Prov.: Germany?; third quarter 15c. Vienna, Dominikanerkonvent, MS 108, fols. 151r–200r. Prov.: Vienna Dominicans; 15c. From incunabulum. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. cvp 3119, fols. 96r–134r. Prov.:? 15c. Not from incunabulum. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS cvp 3496, fols. 13r–64r. Prov.: ?; 15c. “… an sint credenda.” Not from incunabulum. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS cvp 4143, fols. 1r–30v (mutilated at beginning). Prov.: ?; 15c. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS cvp 5134, 10 fols. Prov.: ?; 15c. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS cvp 26026 (olim Vienna, Universitätsbibliothek II 454540), fols. 86r–121v. Prov.: Györ (Hungary: halfway between Budapest and Vienna); 15c (first quarter). Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, MS 6099, fols. 249ra–284va. Prov.: Johann Eberlein, student at Erfurt and Leipzig (1417), thence Franciscan convent, Görlitz; 15c (first quarter). “…si sint credenda.” Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, MS 6111, fols. 204r–239v. Prov.: Johann Goschitz (testament of 1439), thence Franciscan convent, Görlitz; 15c (first quarter). “…si sint credenda.”

Extracts Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, MS A V 39, fols. 139v–140v. Prov.: Basel Carthusians, drawing directly or indirectly on extracts from Mainz manuscript, as below; 15c (first quarter). Mainz, Stadtbibliothek, MS I 151, fols. 14r–18r. Prov.: Mainz Carthusians; year 1407.

Manuscripts No Longer Extant Admont, Stiftsbibliothek: on list of manuscripts donated by a notary in 1376. See P.J. Wichner, “Zwei Bücherverzeichnisse des 14. Jahrhunderts in der Admont Stiftsbibliothek,” Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen Beiheft 4 (1889), 516.


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Haynburg, Austria (?) 1337: Franciscan cloister: See Aquila manuscript, as above. Murbach (O.S.B. Alsace). See Bernard de Montfaucon, Bibliothecarum manuscriptorum nova, 2 vols. (Paris, 1739), 2:1177: “De victoria Christi contra Antichristum per Fratrem Hugonem de bono [sic] Castro”; parchment: lost in pillaging of French Revolution. Oxford, Merton College. See John Bale, Index Britanniae scriptorum, ed. Reginald Lane Poole and Mary Bateson (Oxford, 1902), p. 378 (with ascription to Grossesteste). Oxford, Queen’s College. See Bale, Index Britanniae scriptorium, p. 172. Valencia. Post-mortem inventory of books owned by Francesc Eiximenis, 1409. See Jacques Monfrin, “La bibliothèque de Francesc Eiximenis (1409),” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 29 (1967), 447–87, here 460 (the article is reprinted in Estudis sobre Francesc Eiximenis, 1: Studia Bibliographica [Girona, 1991]; and the same information appears in Daniel Williman, ed., Bibliothèques ecclesiastiques au temps de la papauté d’Avignon, 2 vols. [Paris, 1980–2001], 1:293): “Item un alter libre de paper … intitulat Tractatus de Antichristo Hugonis de Castronovo, qui commence Adventum Elie et Enoch…” (The incipit is actually the opening of Book II.) Valdemossa (Majorca). List of books belonging to prior of Charterhouse, formerly a monk of the Charterhouse of Portaceli, Valencia, 1402. See Jocelyn Hillgarth, Readers and Books in Majorca, 2 vols. (Paris, 1991), 2:320: “Item, aliud librum in papiro scriptum, in quo est Victoria Jhesu Christi contra Antichristum…”

III. Town and Gown

THE UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG AND THE JEWS: FOUNDING AND FINANCING THE NEEDS OF A NEW UNIVERSITY Jürgen Miethke Founding a university in the later Middle Ages was a difficult task. Yet the main problem did not lie in knowing how an institution of higher learning might look. Since the thirteenth century, there had been sufficient models in the prestigious universities of Bologna, Paris and Oxford, which could be imitated and ameliorated in the planning of a new institution in a new location. Moreover, the act of founding an institution was not at all unusual in those times, as acts of foundation in imitation of the successful models of the ancient studia ex consuetudine had been enacted since the thirteenth century; indeed, almost since the time these universities had begun. Bologna, Paris and Oxford had all formed their structures in the early thirteenth century; the first studia ex privilegio, which were founded by a charter of foundation came into being in the third decade of the thirteenth century: 1222 (Padua), 1224 (Naples), and 1229 (Toulouse), to mention only those foundations which have survived. The studia ex consuetudine and these studia ex privilegio were almost equal in age, and they were not treated differently during the medieval period with regard to the degrees they conferred or the reputation they held. Neither the medieval Holy Roman Empire nor the Roman king erected any studium or universitas north of the Alps before the middle of the fourteenth century. There were enough opportunities for intellectual adventures on the part of German clerics and young noblemen, who hurried to Paris or to the universities of the northern part of Italy (Reichsitalien). It was only the then still-disputed king of the Romans Charles IV, elected in 1346 in opposition to the Roman emperor Louis the Bavarian, who managed to start a university in Prague in 1347/1348,

* This essay is published as it was pronounced at the conference in Madison, Wisconsin. Only the most necessary notes are added. A stylistic overview of the English has kindly been done by Eric Goddard, Spencer Young and William Courtenay. But of course all failures and slips in thought or expression must rest on my account.

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(though it really came to life only some years or decades later).1 But this foundation provided (so to speak) an impetus to the competitive efforts of different German princes and towns in bringing universities to life. The neighboring regions were also stimulated in this race. By the end of the fourteenth century there were several different universities founded in central Europe: in Vienna (1365/1384), Kraków (1363/1364–1397/1400), Heidelberg (1385/1386), Cologne (1388), and Erfurt (1382/1392), to name only those which were most highly reputed. There was, it seems, a whole “wave” of foundations which considerably condensed the network of universities in Europe. This is a story of success – of successfully developing a model of higher learning and adjusting it to developing needs. The foundation of universities seems to be a matter of politics, which could be considered almost as a normal instrument of governmental decisions. But if we look a little more carefully into the matter we can detect a more complicated history. The founding of a new university was by no means an instant success; it required a great deal of management and constant nurturing in order to make the original intentions a successful reality. We cannot dwell here in abstract terms on the presuppositions of the founding of universities in fourteenth-century Europe. Rather, I will here examine my own university, Heidelberg, presently the oldest university in Germany, founded in 1385/1386. We celebrated the sixhundredth anniversary of this university some twenty years ago with a huge series of festivities. Many papers were written on the history of this site of higher education. But today I want to look specifically at the needs which were not so easy to meet when the venture of establishing a new university was first embarked upon. We know the time and place of this final decision. Marsilius of Inghen, a Parisian professor in the Faculty of Arts and the main counsellor of the prince Elector of the Palatinate throughout the entire 1 See Peter Moraw, “Prag. Die älteste Universität in Mitteleuropa,” in Stätten des Geistes, ed. Alexander Demandt (Cologne, 1999), pp. 127–46; now slightly reworked in Moraw, Gesammelte Beiträge zur deutschen und europäischen Universitätsgeschichte, Strukturen – Personen – Entwicklungen, Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 31 (Leiden, 2008), pp. 79–100, esp. pp. 87–92 (look, for instance, also at pp. 121–22). More optimistic in respect to the first decades of the university of Prague is František Šmahel, “Die Anfänge der Prager Universität, Kritische Reflexionen zum Jubiläum eines ‘nationalen Monuments’, ” Historica SN 3–4 (1996–1997), 7–50, now: Šmahel, Die Prager Universität im Mittelalter/The Charles University in the Middle Ages, Gesammelte Aufsätze, Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 28 (Leiden, 2007), pp. 3–50, esp. pp. 22–30.

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process of founding the University of Heidelberg, left a short report, based on his memory, some months after the events in question.2 This report is by no means a complete story. It is meant as an ideal normative report of the conditions under which a new university was founded, written down in the rector’s book (Amtsbuch) to fix in memory the important facts and, especially, the important decisions that would impact university affairs in the future.3 Here, we are told that the Count Palatine Ruprecht I had assembled his council in the castle of Wersau (a no longer extant castle near Mannheim) in order to decide what to do with the privilege presented by a special papal legate, a scribe of the papal court named Petrus de Coppa,4 which was secured at a high cost in Genoa at the papal court of the “Roman” pope Urban VI some months before.5 Here we learn that in the eyes of Marsilius and, obviously, in the eyes of the prince Palatinate as well, the reception of the papal privilege did not yet mean that the final decision regarding the founding of the University of Heidelberg had been made. The count and his staff still had to decide what to do in Heidelberg. We do not know who was

2 Acta universitatis Heidelbergensis, 1 (simul Acta facultatis iuridicae, 1) = Die Rektorbücher der Universität Heidelberg, 1 (1386–1410), ed. Jürgen Miethke, curantibus Heiner Lutzmann, Hermann Weisert, vol. 2, curante Heiner Lutzmann, Libri actorum Universitatis Heidelbergensis / Die Amtsbücher der Universität Heidelberg, A 1–2 (Heidelberg, 1986–1999; resp. 2001–2003), 1:146–49, nos. 72–73. 3 Ibid, 1:146–47: “Ut modus incepcionis dicti studii universis posteris innotescat utque statuta que incepta et acta sunt pro eius bono regimine et ad que tenenda constringuntur et constringentur magistri presentes pariter et futuri in quacumque facultate fuerint magistrati, insuper scolares ea sub compendio presenti libro duxi inscribenda, ne forte per ignoranciam eorum aliquis ipsis vel alicui ex eis contravenire presumat …” 4 Frank Rexroth, Deutsche Universitätsstiftungen von Prag bis Köln, Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 34 (Cologne, 1992), p. 174, note 6. 5 The so-called founding charter (1385 oct. 23), printed in: Urkundenbuch der Universität Heidelberg, ed. Eduard Winkelmann, 1: Urkunden; 2: Regesten (Heidelberg 1886), pp. 3–4, no. 2; separately, too, ed. Jürgen Miethke, “Heidelberg 1385/86,” in Charters of Foundation and Early Documents of the Universities of the COIMBRAGroup, eds. Jos. M. M. Hermans and Marc Nelissen (Groningen, 1994), pp. 38, 99–100; and the second, revised edition (Leuven, 2005), pp. 56–57, 126. The function of such charters has been studied in Jürgen Miethke, “Päpstliche Universitätsgründungsprivilegien und der Begriff eines Studium generale im Römisch-Deutschen Reich des 14. Jahrhunderts,” in Zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik, Studien zur deutschen Universitätsgeschichte, Festschrift für Eike Wolgast zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Armin Kohnle, Frank Engehausen (Stuttgart, 2001), pp. 1–10 [repr. in: Miethke, Studieren an mittelalterlichen Universitäten: Chancen und Risiken. Gesammelte Aufsätze, Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 19 (Leiden, 2004), pp. 1–12].

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present at the assembly of Wersau. Nor do we know what arguments were used in favor of or against the foundation of the university. We are only informed that the council at this moment gave the green light to all necessary acts, which were then followed step-by-step. First, Marsilius was nominated as the special delegate of the count to oversee all necessary acts, receiving a lavish remuneration in personal income from Palatinate taxes (herbesture) on the city of Heidelberg.6 The successor of the Count Palatine Ruprecht I, his nephew Ruprecht II, would later succinctly describe in his final testament the efforts of his predecessor: “a university in our city Heidelberg, which our uncle duke Ruprecht I of blessed memory has acquired by great entreaty from our Holy Father the pope and the Apostolic See in Rome and has upheld it with great expense and much labor and has bequeathed it to us.”7 Indeed, the oldest administrative books of the new university are filled with records of special activities, which the count and the professors undertook in order to consolidate the internal vitality of the new university and to help the community of scholars to live together peacefully in the city along with the citizens, who were not accustomed to the new, youthful group of scholars.8 They presented the new institution to the public in the medieval form of privileges. Let us take a brief look at some of these activities, without claiming to be comprehensive. First there were the six privileges, which were obviously formulated by Marsilius of Inghen himself (perhaps together with some other professors) and which were issued on October 1, 1386.9 These were the first official documents which would later be held in high esteem throughout almost the whole history of the university to come.

6

Urkundenbuch (as in n. 5) 1:4–5, no. 3. Urkundenbuch 1:61–62, no. 39 [1395 July 13]: “das studium und schule zu heidelberg in unßer statt, das unser vetter hertzog Ruprecht der alte seliger gedächtnus von unserm heiligen Vatter dem papst und dem stul von rom mit großer bitt erworben und mit großer kost und arbeit bisher gehalten und auf unß gebracht hat.” 8 See also the overview by Matthias Nuding, “Die Universität, der Hof und die Stadt um die Wende zum 15. Jahrhundert: Fragen an die ältesten Heidelberger Rektoratsakten,” Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 146 [NF 107] (1998), 197–248. 9 The university could receive them only a whole week later in October; see Urkundenbuch (as in n. 5), 1:5–13, nos. 4–9; and again (one failing) in Acta (as in n. 2), 1:33–44, nos. 5–9. See especially Rexroth, Deutsche Universitätsstiftungen (as in n. 4), pp. 197–207. For the most important one also Jürgen Miethke, “Die Urkunde Ruprechts I. im Kontext der Heidelberger Universitätsgründung,” in Eine neue Gründungsurkunde für die Universität Heidelberg, ed. Werner Moritz, Archiv und Museum der Universität Heidelberg. Schriften 8 (Heidelberg, 2005), pp. 9–23. 7


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They were lost (with one exception) only at the end of the Second World War in 1945. Here, the legal framework of the university was laid down, in very close imitation of the circumstances fitted to the University of Paris, although the tiny city of Heidelberg, which at that time only had about 3,000 to 5,000 inhabitants, was not at all similar to that late medieval European metropolis. But the labor of the men in charge of getting the university to work and bring it to life remained conspicuous. Immediately after getting the privileges from the Count Palatine, the university commenced its lectures with a ceremonial feast a fortnight after the masters and students had obtained the privileges (October 19). We do not know how many students took part in the lectures given by two arts masters and one theologian, but we have to reckon it was a very small number of participants. Only four weeks later, the university succeeded in consolidating its community by electing the rector and freeing itself from the direction of the count’s deputy. This relatively long interval is explained by the unfortunate fact that the masters had to wait for the arrival of a third magister artium before being able to celebrate the election. This was necessary because, in obvious similarity to the Parisian customs, only the Masters of Arts were allowed to elect the rector for the university, and in accordance with the Roman Law practice: tres faciunt collegium,10 i.e. the numeric minimum of an acting community had to be fulfilled before being allowed to perform elections. Significantly enough, there was – besides the three indispensable arts masters – one theologian present at the election, who was present in Heidelberg; but he was acting, so to speak, as an add-on, and was allowed to participate without establishing a precedent for the future. Obviously he was badly needed to fill out the appearance of the small group of electors. Besides, the result of the elections could not be of any surprise: Marsilius of Inghen, the count’s special clerk, was now elected to become the first rector of the university.11 The one who had 10

Dig. 50.16.85. For more on Marsilius, see Dagmar Drüll, ed., Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon, 1386–1651 (Heidelberg, 2002), pp. 373a–374b; Jürgen Miethke, “Marsilius von Inghen als Rektor der Universität Heidelberg,” in Marsilius of Inghen, Acts of the International Marsilius of Inghen Symposium, eds. Henri A. G. Braakhuis, Maarten J. F. M. Hoenen, Artistarium, Suppl. 7 (Nijmegen, 1992), pp. 13–37. On Marsilius and his work see esp. Stanisław Wielgus, ed., Marsilius von Inghen, Werk aund Wirkung, Akten des 2. Internationalen Marsilius-von-Inghen-Kongresses (Lublin, 1993); and Maarten J. F. M. Hoenen and Paul J.J.M. Bakker, eds., Philosophie und Theologie des ausgehenden Mittelalters, Marsilius von Inghen und das Denken seiner Zeit (Leiden, 2000). 11

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directed all efforts in the foundation process could now continue this activity in his new dignity. This may underline the predominantly symbolic character of these elections. There were different means of strengthening the young institution, beginning with different kinds of written records for future memory – the rector started a list of matriculants, where in the first year of the existence of the university more than 500 persons were noted down and paid their matriculation fees. In addition, the rector began to write down all interesting or singular events as well as the forms of special letters, oaths or similar items in a special book. Therefore, we do know something about the actors. The creation of an individual seal for the university, which was requested by the newly elected rector together with his electors, was immediately ordered by the count Palatine himself on November 18, only one day after the election of Marsilius of Inghen as rector.12 The seal as symbol of legal autonomy was the final cornerstone of the basic legal equipment of the institution. It does not seem that it was casually recorded by Marsilius because he continued to give attention to the special signs of the university’s dignity. For instance, when he was elected about one year later to his second rectorate in December 1387, he allocated the rest of the money collected by several rectors for different purposes, especially for the first rotulus of supplications for the papal court and for a heavy mace for the whole university,13 a piece of goldsmith’s craft whose basic structure remains to this day.14 Marsilius also founded the archive of the university at this time, when in February he ordered a chest as a container for the privileges of the university at his own expense. He writes happily that he

12

Acta 1:149–50, no. 74. For general reflections on the importance and use of seals in medieval society see Gabriela Signori (unter Mitarbeit von Gabriel StoukalovPogodin), ed., Das Siegel. Gebrauch und Bedeutung (Darmstadt, 2007), see here especially Frank Rexroth, “Die universitären Schwurgenossenschaften und das Recht, ein Siegel zu führen, ” pp. 75–80. 13 Acta 1:169, no. 98: “virgam communem universitatis (…), que virga deaurata facta est et soluta ponderans in argento quinque marcas cum dimidia et mediam unciam, ascendens in universo computando medium florenum datum famulis pro bibalibus ad 56 florenos graves Renenses et duos solidos denariorum Argentinensium.” See generally also Jürgen Miethke, “Die Zepter der mittelalterlichen Universität als Audruck ihrer Verfassungsstruktur,” in Mittelalterliche Universitätszepter, Meisterwerke europäischer Goldschmiedekunst der Gotik, ed. Johann Michael Fritz (Heidelberg, 1986), pp. 5–10. 14 See, most recently, J. M. Fritz, “Heidelberg,” Mittelalterliche Universitätszepter, pp. 16–17, no. 1, who argues convincingly by stylistic criteria for this early date of fabrication against the older literature.


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succeeded in getting the seal of the city of Heidelberg in addition to the seals of the three Wittelsbach counts Palatinate on the most important foundation charter and placed the mace into the official care of each rector.15 For ameliorating the financial status of the university masters the university soon decided to take over the method of supplication for ecclesiastical benefices at the papal court. This process was complicated somewhat by the Great Schism because it was supposed to be done only to the papal curia of the Roman obedience, which had the steady support of the Count Palatinate in those days. A rotulus was sent almost immediately after the foundation of the university.16 But this seemingly steady progress was not at all uniform. The political circumstances of the time impinged upon the life of university scholars as they did upon the citizens of Heidelberg. This became clear through many difficult circumstances. First, there was the dramatic situation of the church during the Great Schism, which had begun in 1378 and had, by this time, lasted for almost a decade. Heidelberg belonged to the “Urbanist” obedience, whereas Paris stood together with the French king and his court on the side of Clement VII, who had not only taken his residence in Avignon (after having tried in vain to repel Urban from Italy by military force) but was a near relative of the Valois family. The foundation of the Heidelberg university received a remarkable impetus from the Schism; it might not have come into being if there had not been German masters of Arts and Theology, who derived their income from German ecclesiastical benefices (i.e. mostly from “Urbanist” churches), and could not therefore stay in Clementist Paris without losing their fragile chances for preferment. These problems brought to Heidelberg not only Marsilius of Inghen himself but also some other Paris-trained individuals, all of whom participated in these stormy beginnings. But the challenge of joining the right side in the schism controversy lasted well beyond the first steps of 15

Acta 1:172–3, no. 103. Acta 1:12–14, no. 2: Nov. 19, 1389; cf. ibidem, 181, no. 118. For the “system” of rotulus supplications see William J. Courtenay, ed., Rotuli Parisienses, Supplications to the Pope from the University of Paris, Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 14 (Leiden, 2002), pp. 1–25; and idem, “John XXII and the University of Paris,” in La vie culturelle, intellectuelle et scientifique à la cour des papes d’Avignon, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse,Textes et études du moyen âge 28 (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 236–54. For the Heidelberg rotulus see Jürg Schmutz, “Erfolg oder Mißerfolg? Die Supplikenrotuli der Universitäten Köln und Heidelberg, 1389–1425 als Instrumente der Studienfinanzierung,” Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 23 (1996), 145–67. 16

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the university. Marsilius himself noted in his second rectorate (which lasted from December 1387 to March 138817) that during the rectorate of his second predecessor, Johannes Berswort from Dortmund,18 the university had decided, seemingly after intensive debates, post plures congregationes (as it is verbally indicated), that in Heidelberg a distinction should be made between the graduates of Paris in respect to the schism: from all the badly needed masters and licentiates coming up from Paris to the newly founded higher school in Heidelberg, they did not want to admit any master or licentiate who had won his graduation with “Antichancellors or fictive chancellors, who had been nominated by the authority of the Antipope.”19 This massive setting aside of the famous licentia ubique docendi, which had adorned the ancient Alma mater of Paris for at least a century, was further topped by the attempt to get official papal consent for this procedure. When cardinal Philip of Alençon arrived as a papal legate in Heidelberg,20 in order to sign the first rotulus of supplications for benefices for the masters and to send a letter of recommendation for the rotulus (which was already on its way with the ambassador of the university),21 he was begged, again after intensive debates in several official congregations by the university,22 that the pope should declare by patent letters that the chancellor of Paris, who had received his office from the antipope, did not have the competence to confer degrees in any faculty. All those men graduated by him were not to be acknowledged as having graduated. The papal legate was to make sure that nobody of the Urbanist obedience could 17 A chronological list of Heidelberg rectors is in Hermann Weisert, Dagmar Drüll, Eva Kritzer, eds., Rektoren – Dekane – Prorektoren – Kanzler – Vizekanzler – Kaufmännische Direktoren des Klinikums der Universität Heidelberg, 1386–2006 (Heidelberg, 2007), here p. 1. The election is noticed in Acta 1:168, no. 96. The next election is not noted down in the Acta, but look at the Urkundenbuch (as in n. 5) 2:5, no. 40 [citing an entrance of June 21, 1388 on the balancing statement of Marsilius, noted down in Gustav Toepke, ed., Die Matrikel der Uiniversität Heidelberg, 7 vols. (Heidelberg, 1884), 1:27. 18 Elected in June 1387, Acta 1:162, no. 88. On him see Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon (as in n. 11), p. 279b. Obviously Berswort did not continue to write notes into the original “Rektorbuch”; Marsilius made up for this when succeeding him, as is clear from the wording of the entrance! 19 Acta 1:167, no. 93: “…in dicta rectoria plures vocati magistri de universitate Parisiensi nobis advenerunt licenciati sub anthicancellariis vel pretensis cancellariis auctoritate antipape vel sibi adherentibus Parisius…” 20 Acta 1:168, no. 96. See Gerhard Ritter, Die Heidelberger Universität im Mittelalter (1386–1508), Ein Stück deutscher Geschichte (Heidelberg, 1936; repr. Heidelberg 1986), pp. 261–62. 21 Acta 1:169, no. 98. 22 Acta 1:171–72, no. 102.


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attend the University of Paris, in order not to give support to the antipope, whose authority might be strengthened by such graduations. But, unfortunately, Marsilius had to note a short time later that all the labors and costs invested in formal letters to the pope and his curia remained fruitless, because the legate did not want to pursue this bold attempt to rid from the Urbanist obedience the competition of the members of one of the oldest universities of Europe by the stroke of a pen and thereby supplant, so to speak, the old university of Paris by the new foundation of Heidelberg. Very soon the Heidelberg masters had to encounter a new dramatic danger. Once again, we know this from Marsilius of Inghen who noted it twice in the book of matriculations. First, under the title of the immatriculations of his new rectorate where, after having added no less than 16 names of students for the last rector Berthold Suderdick, he had noted (and I translate): “Having not yet reached the middle of his rectorate, the rector, together with master Hartlevus de Marka and Dietrich (Kerkering) of Monastery and almost all the students, left Heidelberg because of the disease and the feuds of the time, while only a few remained. And in his place was substituted master Marsilius of Inghen.”23 (He then continued to note the matriculations of only two names for the rest of the three-month period.) Afterward, he noted in the margin of the same page: “Attention! Here is noted the departure of the rector together with almost all the students because of the disease and the feuds and because of the foundation of the University of Cologne.”24 Obviously the bulk of these travelers made up their mind to leave the difficulties of Heidelberg, when relatively nearby Cologne – then the biggest city of Germany – decided to open a new university of its own. The framework of favorable economic conditions at Cologne was attractive for all masters and students, especially if they came from cities and villages in the neighborhood of Cologne. The list of refugees alone is telling enough: besides the acting rector of Heidelberg, the arts scholar Berthold Suderdick from Osnabrück,25 Marsilius of Inghen

23 Toepke, Matrikel (as in n. 17), 1:34: “Item citra medium rectorie recedente rectore propter epidemiam et guerras et una secum magistris Hartlevo de Marka et Theoderico de Monasterio et fere simul omnibus scholaribus, paucis in comparatione demptis. Substitutus fuit magister Marsilius de Inghen, et intitulati sunt sub eo in parte eiusdem rectorie sequentis…” 24 Ibid: “Attende hic recessum rectoris propter epydemiam et guerras et fere omnium scolarium et erectionem studii Coloniensis.” 25 Drüll, Gelehrtenlexikon (as in n. 11), p. 40a-b.

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specifically named Hartlevus de Marka26 who later on became the first rector of the University of Cologne and also Dietrich of Monastery.27 Along with them, Johann Berswort of Dortmund, who had held the third of the three-month rectorates of Heidelberg only one year before, departed a short time later.28 It seems significant for the crisis of Heidelberg, that during the following year one other pillar of the early foundation history of Heidelberg followed his colleagues to Cologne: Reginald of Aulne, who had started his theological lectures on the very first day of official lectures at Heidelberg.29 We cannot dwell on a prosopographical research here. We shall neither look at graduation in Paris or Prague nor to the homelands of the refugees from Heidelberg to the metropolis of Cologne, which were mostly situated nearer to the latter.30 This fact seems to be far more important than the place of graduation as a motive for their migration. In any case, the statistically low influx of matriculations, after the high numbers of matriculations in the very first year of the university, was extremely evident in Heidelberg. Marsilius of Inghen could only welcome five matriculating students in almost half a year (five months), whereas in the six weeks before there had been 16; in the three months before that (still in the beginning of the spring term) we find no fewer than 103 immatriculations, and in summer 1388 there were still 57 individuals.31

26 Erich Meuthen, Kölner Universitätsgeschichte, vol. I: Die Alte Universität, Kölner Universitätsgeschichte 1 (Cologne, 1988), pp. 57–58 with 466, notes 53–54. For his connections with Marsilius of Inghen, see Jürgen Miethke, “Autograph des Heidelberger Gründungsrektors Marsilius von Inghen: Lectura in Matheum,” in Bibliotheca Palatina, eds., Elmar Mittler, Walter Berschin, et al., Katalog zur Ausstellung, Textband (Heidelberg, 1986), col. 43–45; Dorothea Walz, “Marsilius von Inghen als Schreiber und Büchersammler,” in Marsilius von Inghen, Werk und Wirkung, Akten des II. Internationalen Marsilius-von-Inghen-Kongresses, ed. Stanisław Wielgus (Lublin, 1993), pp. 31–71, esp. pp. 35–36. 27 Drüll, Gelehrtenlexikon, pp. 123b–124a. 28 Drüll, Gelehrtenlexikon, pp. 279b. 29 Drüll, Gelehrtenlexikon, pp. 466b–467a. 30 Some indications of this are in Rainer Christoph Schwinges, Deutsche Universitätsbesucher im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert, Studien zur Sozialgeschichte des Alten Reiches, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte Mainz, Abteilung Universalgeschichte 123 / Beiträge zur Sozial- und Verfassungsgeschichte des Alten Reiches 6 (Stuttgart, 1986), pp. 231–34. 31 Rector Heinrich of Angern (starting 19.3.1388) immatriculated 103 persons, rector Dietmar Schwerte (starting 23. 6. 1388) immatriculated 57: see Toepke, Matrikel (as in n. 17), 1:28–32 and 1:32–33. For these two rectors see Drüll, Gelehrtenlexikon, p. 210a-b; resp. pp. 118b–119a.


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The diminishing enrollment of new students was dramatic. We cannot rule out that the causes cited by Marsilius had a significant impact; namely, disease and guerrae (specifically those wars that the count Palatinate and princely allies fought against the towns and cities in the southwest of Germany).32 Certainly these feuds were disruptive for the inhabitants of Heidelberg and for those connected to the university. Living in a smaller town also meant that the problem was felt more intensively. It was even perhaps a miracle that Marsilius of Inghen, who had a prebend in Cologne of his own,33 stayed in Heidelberg and upheld the standards of university life against all unfavorable circumstances. Almost by himself, he continued to make the notes in the “Rektorbuch”,34 continued the list of matriculations (also taking care to supplement the inscriptions omitted by Berthold Suderdick, the refugee to Cologne35), and seems to have been busy providing the university with a new and more solid financial base. This was possible because of special circumstances, especially the succession of a new reigning prince in Heidelberg. Ruprecht I,36 the founder of the university, had died on the 19th of February 1390, at the age of 81 years. His nephew and successor, Ruprecht II,37 was already 65 years old at this time. Ruprecht II was principally a military talent, and he had earned by his ruthless determination the nickname “Ruprecht the Hard (der Harte).” He had taken his subordinate position under his uncle unassumingly until coming into his own 32 The so-called “war of the cities” (Städtekrieg) was briefly described by Meinrad Schaab, Geschichte der Kurpfalz, vol. 1: Mittelalter, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1995); see also Ludwig Häusser, Geschichte der Rheinischen Pfalz nach ihren politischen, kirchlichen und literarischen Verhältnissen, 2 vols. (Heidelberg, 1856; repr. Speyer, 1978), 1:1179–84. 33 Rexroth, Universitätsstiftungen (as in n. 4), p. 192. The university of Heidelberg knew this well: see Toepke, Matrikel, 1:636; he is named in the memorial notice in the Calendar of the Arts faculty: “Marsilius de Inghen canonicus sancti Andree Coloniensis et thesaurarius, fundator huius studij et initiator, in sacra theologia docctor egregius hic primus formatus …” 34 This is evident from the overview of the authors of the entrances in a table drawn by Matthias Nuding in: Acta 1:630–34; see also the list of notes by Marsilius, ibidem, 1:651. 35 Toepke, Matrikel, 1:29 (note 17), 32 (note 2), 34 (note 4). 36 Schaab, Geschichte der Kurpfalz (as in n. 32), 1:91–122; also see the essay by Jürgen Miethke, “Ruprecht I., der Gründer der Universität Heidelberg,” in Die Sechshundertjahrfeier der Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, ed. Eike Wolgast (Heidelberg, 1987), pp. 147–56. 37 Still informative is the article by Jakob Wille,“Ruprecht II., Pfalzgraf bei Rhein,” Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 29 (1889), 737–740; now see also Volker Rödel, “Ruprecht II,” Neue deutsche Biographie 22 (2005), 289–90.

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reign. He generally continued the lines of politics which his predecessor had drawn, but he was eager to do something of his own for the university, whose foundation charter he had sealed together with his uncle and his own son, who would succeed him in 1398. He tried in several respects to find enduring solutions for persistent problems. For the university this was a favorable and fortunate situation. Obviously, Marsilius was using every opportunity to stabilize the financial conditions of normal university life. Hardly three months after his accession to government, Ruprecht II and Marsilius helped to execute the testament of Conrad of Gelnhausen,38 who had been the prepositus of the cathedral of Worms and therewith the first chancellor of the university. Without any doubt, Conrad had been one of the leading figures of church politics of the Palatinate. He died on April 13th (1390) and had left almost all of his belongings to the university, including his admirable collection of books and manuscripts. Conrad had stipulated in his last will that his generous gift would be valid only if a collegium artistarum for 12 masters of arts would be constructed within two years, and he had carefully appointed as executors of his testament (besides others) the prince Ruprecht II himself and Marsilius of Inghen.39 We hear that this donation aimed ad erectionem collegii ad instar collegii Corbone Parisius.40 Whereas this seems to have been somewhat presumptuous, the executors indeed bought the necessary areas within the city less than four weeks after the death of the testator.41 And finally, in 1393 (June 24),

38 Drüll, Gelehrtenlexikon, pp. 91b–92b; for his connexions to Bologna see Jürg Schmutz, Juristen für das Reich, Die deutschen Rechtsstudenten an der Universität Bologna, 1265–1425, Veröffentlichungen der Gesellschaft für Universitäts- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte 2 (Basel, 2000), pp. 181 and 389. 39 A register of these mss. is noted down (already 1396) in: Toepke, Matrikel, 1:655–65, and later on (together with books from other sources) in the Rektorbuch, see Acta 1:466–513, nos. 453–69. 40 Kalender der Juristischen Fakultät to April 13: Acta 1:14–32, no. 3, here 19. 41 Winkelmann, Urkundenbuch (as in n. 5), 1:49–50, no. 28. It seems unsurprising to me that the realization of a collegium artistarum in Heidelberg had to wait far longer than the two years Conrad had reckoned with, but his bequest was the deciding and long-standing motivation for all the efforts concerning a Collegium artistarum in Heidelberg. See Wolfgang Erik Wagner, Universitätsstift und Kollegium in Prag, Wien und Heidelberg, Europa im Mittelalter 2 (Berlin, 1999), pp. 208–11; before e.g. Ritter, Heidelberger Universität (as in n. 20), pp. 133–34. In 1410, in his report to the count Palatinate Louis III, the rector of the university Konrad of Soest mentions this donation in the following words (Acta I: 448–56, no. 446, here 451): “Item post defuncto illustri principe domino Ruperto preseniore non multo post obiit bone memorie venerabilis pater dominus Conradus de Geylnhusen prepositus Wormaciensis etc., qui


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the Count Palatine issued a charter of foundation for the College of Arts Students, adding new funds from tithes on the vineyards of Schriesheim (a village about five kilometers from Heidelberg down the Rhine valley) which was to remain a solid part of the revenues of the university until modern times.42 (This act of 1393 converted the originally private endowment of the Artists’ College in Heidelberg into a princely one, almost like a foundation of state in the modern sense.) Certainly the hand and the ideas of Marsilius are to be presumed behind this charter and its effects. We can support this assumption by looking at the next major consolidation of university finances, which came about in the same year 1390, the first year of Ruprecht II’s reign. On the 10th of August the prince declared that he had won by papal grace the commutation of his expensive vow to go on pilgrimage to the city of Rome for the Anno santo 1390.43 Ruprecht had sent a special embassy, which included Marsilius of Inghen, to the papal court which was busy with a rotulus of the university. On this occasion, he received (and certainly paid well for) a license allowing him to visit four churches within the Palatinate, which his confessor should assign to him, instead of the four papal basilicas in the Holy City. This license further granted him the same indulgences that were promised to the pilgrims for the Anno santo in Rome 1390.44 This really was a special grace and one of the first of its type. The prince had only to pay the estimated travel costs for his journey to Rome ad pios usus. And he had identified the University of Heidelberg as one such “pious purpose,” certainly not without the whisperings of Marsilius and of his confessor. Ruprecht promised to give to the university 3,000 ₤, which he succeeded later on

dicte universitati multa bona legavit in libris, in bonis et multis clenodiis et in parata pecunia, et venditis clenodiis tandem de consilio serenissimi principis etc. domini nostri noviter defuncti empta fuit area ‘hinder dem marckbronne’ wulgariter dicta pro fundacione collegii, et fuit fundamentum usque ad supraterram deductum, prout hodie apparet (!!!).” 42 Printed most recently by Wagner, Universitätsstift (as in n. 41), pp. 384–85, and in Acta (as in n. 2), 2:70–72. 43 Winkelmann, Urkundenbuch, 1:50–51, no. 29; see also Ritter, Heidelberger Universität, pp. 133–34. 44 Acta 1:448–56, no. 446, here 451–52: “Item ipso Marsilio de curia redeunti portavit pro domino nostro genitore domini nostri regis graciam anni iubilei, sic quod idem dominus noster expensas, quas fecisset eundo Romam et redeundo ab ea cum sua comitiva converteret in pios usus iuxta informacionem et direccionem sui confessoris. Item postquam hec gracia innotuit dicto domino nostro, ipse gratus et multum bene contentus ad hoc, ut esset capax indulgenciarum huiusmodi anni iubilei de consilio et direccione confessoris dedit pecunias certas ad universitatem …”

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in reducing to the sum of about 2000 ₤. But in any case, the university was able to buy a rent from the steady flow of customs at the toll stations on the Rhine in Bacharach and Kaiserswerth, where the university continued to receive money until the eighteenth century.45 It seems evident that all this information from our sources points to the same fact, that the university had to be supported by the prince, especially for stabilizing its financial income, for it became obvious within the stormy first months and years that without such stabilization the new foundation would go astray and vanish. Marsilius seems to have realized this point clearly and he succeeded in guiding the efforts of the ruling prince in this very direction. Certainly, a financial reconstruction of the university could not be the sole and unique aim of Palatinate politics, but Marsilius succeeded in taking advantage of all measures which could help his main purpose. We cannot say with certainty who struggled together with him in this same direction; certainly there must have been some support from other masters at the university. But the only information we have received about these measures are notices which Marsilius himself has written down into the official records of the university. At the very least, we should be permitted to say that he was one of the leading figures who drove the university and the court of the princes in this very direction. This estimation of Marsilius’s important role can also be said of an oft-mentioned case in which the prince added another important piece to the material frame of the university and to the well-being of its members. This time it came at the expense of the Jews in Heidelberg and the Palatinate. To understand this case, we must first look briefly at the situation of the Jews in the later Middle Ages, especially in the Palatinate. The general situation of medieval minority groups was growing more and more difficult in connection with the general streamlining of societies on their way to modern statecraft. In the early Middle Ages, the whole society was built up, so to speak, by different minorities which together formed the larger structures of the early kingdoms. Within these complex structures the Jewish minority group, too, could live subjected to a law which was appropriate to foreigners. 45 Markus Vetter, “Zur Finanzierung der Universität Heidelberg im Mittelalter, Die Einnahmen aus den Rheinzöllen in Bacharach und Kaiserswerth bis zum Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts,” Ruperto Carola, Heidelberger Universitätshefte 78 (1988), 59–66; Gerhard Merkel, Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Universität Heidelberg im 18. Jahrhundert, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Geschichtliche Landeskunde in Baden-Württemberg, B.73 (Stuttgart, 1973).


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The Jews lived quite similarly to merchants (and indeed were, often enough, merchants themselves) who had to travel far away on their journeys. In this respect the Jews had a bearable, though not a comfortable, status within the tiny agglomerations of the early cities and townships. With the growing discipline and intensification of power structures in the “second age of feudalism” (to use the classification of Marc Bloch), that is, since the eleventh century, and especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, their legal status deteriorated. In Germany we see the emergence of the so-called Kammerknechtschaft (that is to say, the “serfdom of the ruler’s chamber”),46 but very similar structures were also developed in the western European kingdoms of France, England and the Iberian peninsula.47 Since the thirteenth century, the question arose in all European countries of who had the right – and the duty – to protect this minority group, because the possessor of that right could use them and their property for his own sake. Protection and exploitation were going increasingly hand in hand. These two relations are not easy to distinguish. The protector held all the belongings of the protected at his disposition; he could even take away all their belongings, give away their property and eliminate their rightful claims. In the case of money lending he could decide to abolish, or lower at his own discretion, the interest of the debtors who had borrowed money from those under his protection at a certain rate of mortgage. This lowering or giving up of interests was an often-used instrument in the later Middle Ages, a sort of governmental burning of private debts, which could give immediate relief to favored groups. These were mostly done on behalf of those 46 Friedrich Battenberg, “Des Kaisers Kammerknechte, Gedanken zur rechtlichsozialen Situation der Juden in Spätmittelalter und früher Neuzeit,” Historische Zeitschrift 245 (1987), 545–99. 47 The literature is immense, but it may be sufficient here to mention Alexander Patschovsky, “Das Rechtsverhältnis der Juden zum deutschen König (9. bis 14. Jahrhundert), Ein europäischer Vergleich,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, germanistische Abt. 110 (1993), 331–71 (also available on the Internet: , nr. XXI [16.04.2008]), where there is to be found rich source material for the European situation. For Germany alone see Peter Aufgebauer and Ernst Schubert, “Königtum und Juden im deutschen Spätmittelalter,” in Spannungen und Widersprüche, Gedenkschrift für František Graus, eds. Susanna Burghartz and Hans-Jörg Gilomen (usw.) (Sigmaringen, 1992), pp. 273–314; an excellent summary of the German sitution is found in Dietmar Willoweit, “Die Rechtstellung der Juden,” in Germania Judaica, vol. 3: 1350–1519, part 3: Gebietsartikel, Einleitungsartikel und Indices, eds. Arye Maimon (s.A.), Mordechai Breuer and Yacov Guggenheim, Veröffentlichungen des Leo Baeck Instituts 3.3 (Tübingen, 2003), pp. 2165–2207.

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from the lower ranks of society, but also to those of noble stock who had gone deeper and deeper into debt, so that releasing debts altogether by one stroke was a very welcome relief, especially as the percentage of interests was normally extremely high (between 20 to 60 percent per year). Therefore we can observe the repeated occurrence of such measures of releasing debts and interests almost everywhere in the later Middle Ages. But this situation throughout Europe had sad consequences, especially for the Jewish minority which was dependent for their well-being and safety upon the decisions of the rulers, who of course did not all view their responsibilities towards the Jewish people in the same way. In the different European communities, at different times and in different individual circumstances, an application of the Christian polemic together with the traditional critique of usury against the Jewish moneylending had disastrous consequences;48 for instance, during the first, second and third crusades in France, Germany and England, during the so-called black death around 1348/1349, and during other catastrophes and famines. In all of these catastrophic experiences we can observe devastating persecutions against the Jewish groups, families and quarters of those living in European cities. The rulers did not all fulfill their duty to protect the Jews, who could be devastated and exterminated by ruthless mobs, or at least expelled from the cities and villages. Other times, rulers handled the Jewish communities like their own personal belongings, giving them away or pledging them to foreign competitive money lenders (like the Lombards or Kawerschen, i.e. merchants and bankers from Northern Italy or Southern France). And the princes taxed their protégés at their own discretion, charging high fees for protection and allowances. Finally, some of the rulers, following the anti-Jewish polemics of zealous Christian clerics, gave the problem a seemingly final solution by deciding to expel the Jews completely from their territory if they did not want to convert to Christianity. Constrained baptism and constrained confession of the Christian faith was the order of the day for a long time.49 48 To cite only one example from a rich bibliography pertaining to the fourteenth century (with a focus on the polemics, not the expulsions), see Manuela Niesner, “Wer mit juden well disputiren”, Deutschsprachige Adversus-Judaeos-Literatur des 14. Jahrhunderts, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters 128 (Tübingen, 2005). 49 Still valid is the overview given by Peter Browe S.J., Die Judenmission im Mittelalter und die Päpste, Miscellanea historiae pontificiae 6 (Rome, 1942; repr., with preface by


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We can observe such politics of expulsion almost everywhere throughout western Europe and in Germany. The kings of France and of England took this means as a “solution” for problems soon into the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.50 In Spain, even at the end of the Middle Ages – in the last years of the fifteenth century – a great expulsion was performed. In Germany there was no general policy from the king of the Romans or the Roman Emperors (when there was one), as the emperor had lost a considerable degree of his power to protect the Jews to local and regional princes and the cities. In the middle of the fourteenth century, the emperor Charles IV abandoned the politics of protection which his predecessor Louis the Bavarian had followed and made some terrible business transactions regarding the servants of “his” chamber (Kammerknechte), which he did not protect against real or planned attempts of devastation by their fellow citizens or rural mobs.51 Without going into the details of these sad stories here, it may be sufficient to remember that in Germany, too, there was a widespread tendency to expel Jews from various territories. But there was no unified or coordinated effort. Individual actions were unevenly distributed. This was of some help to the victims of these expulsions, as they could flee into neighboring territories, often quite close by. The count Palatine did not at first directly participate in these practices.52 Quite to the contrary, Ruprecht I managed to open his land as a sort of shelter for Jewish refugees from his neighbors.53 He also succeeded in

Bernhard Blumenkranz, 1973). A general overview is Peter Moraw, “Die Kirche und die Juden,” Germania Judaica 3.3 (as in n. 47), pp. 2282–97. 50 For France see William Chester Jordan, The French Monarchy and the Jews from Philip Augustus to the last Capetians, The Middle Ages series, (Philadelphia, 1989); for Germany see Michael Toch, Die Juden im mittelalterlichen Reich, Enzyklopädie deutscher Geschichte 44 (Munich, 1998); for England see Robin R. Mundill, England’s Jewish Solution, Experiment and Expulsion, 1262 – 1290, Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought 4.37 (Cambridge, 1998). 51 See Wolfgang Stromer von Reichenbach, “Die Metropole im Aufstand gegen König Karl IV. Nürnberg zwischen Wittelsbach und Luxemburg Juni 1348 – September 1349,” Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg 65 (1978), 55–90; František Graus, Pest – Geisler – Judenmorde, Das 14. Jahrhundert als Krisenzeit, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 86 (Göttingen, 1987). 52 A short and comprehensive view is in Wilhelm Volkert and Renate Höpfinger, “Kurpfalz,” Germania Judaica 3.3 (as in n. 47), pp. 1919–35; a synthetic view of all of Germany is Michael Toch, “Die Verfolgungen des Spätmittelalters,”Germania Judaica 3.3: 2298–2327; see also Franz-Josef Ziwes, Studien zur Geschichte der Juden im mittleren Rheingebiet während des hohen und späten Mittelalters, Forschungen zur Geschichte der Juden A.1 (Hannover, 1995). 53 Ritter, Heidelberger Universität (as in n. 20), pp. 135–36.

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gaining economic advantage from this, since he profited from the considerable fees that refugees were obliged to pay into the count’s coffers. Very shortly after the disaster of the Black Death and the concomitant persecution, which had taken place in Heidelberg as well, he bought the taxes of the Jews from the emperor for six years (for the lump sum of 2000 lb. of pennies). Therefore he was obviously interested in protecting them, as he could tax them only when they remained where they were. But Ruprecht I continued with this policy over the years and tried to create a stable framework for Jewish business. For instance, in 1355, and again in 1371, he forbade taking interests higher than 1 to 2 pence a week for a lb. of pennies (more than 23 or 46 % a year!!!).54 We must now consider the real numbers. Jews were not very numerous in the Palatinate then. In 1381 there were only 32 taxpayers in 10 localities in the Palatinate on the right side of the Rhine, 14 of them in Heidelberg, 4 nearby in Ladenburg, and 3 in Weinheim (about 20 km away).55 Ruprecht I indeed gained real advantages from being on good terms with powerful Jewish moneylenders, who lived for instance in his residential city of Heidelberg.56 The university seems not to have been interested in local confrontation, for in the first general statutes for the students, established in summer 1387 (formulated during the very first year of its existence) it is said, that “no student of our university shall offend by deed or word the belongings or the persons of any citizen or of any Jew, on penalty of 1 florin payable to the university and of incarceration…”57 When Ruprecht I died, his nephew and successor Ruprecht II decided to follow quite a different path. We do not know the circumstances of his politics and we do not hear of his advisors or their arguments for the change in attitudes, but we see the prince following the examples of his neighbors in expelling the Jews from the Palatinate. Already in the year 1390, the very first year of his reign, he must have decided to expel the Jews from his country.58 54

Germania Judaica (as in n. 46) 3.3:1921, with notes 17 and 18. Germania Judaica 3.3:1920. 56 Germania Judaica 3.1:1922. 57 Acta 1:163–64, no. 89, here 164: “Item fuit statutum concorditer, quod nullus scolaris studii nostri forefaceret verbo vel facto in rebus vel in persona cuicumque civi nec eciam cuicumque Iudeo sup pena unius floreni universitati applicandi, et carceris, si factum adeo esset enorme, quod faciens carceris pena merito deberet plecti.” 58 For the dating of the decision to the year 1390 see Ziwes, Studien (as in n. 52), pp. 253–54; 1391 was the date given by Wilhelm Volkert, “Die Juden in der Oberpfalz im 14. Jahrhundert, Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte 30 (1967), 161–200, here 186–87. 55


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The university very soon reacted to this – and this seems to be the first record we have of this whole event. A congregation of the masters discussed on November 2, 1390, whether it would be useful at that time to transform the houses and the synagogue, which were “assigned by the prince to the university after the expulsion of the Jews,” for the planned Collegium artistarum and to stop therefore the works outside the wall which had already begun.59 We are told this by Marsilius himself, who noted down the minutes of this congregation in the Rektorbuch during his sixth rectorate.60 The masters decided in the end to do this, but to be careful not to raise the prince’s question regarding money from the university in compensation for the houses of the Jews. We hear very soon, already by December 26, 1390, that the former synagoge of the Jews was transformed into a chapel and dedicated to Mary by the bishop Eckhard of Worms.61 Obviously the expulsion of the Jews from the Palatinate was seen by Marsilius as a welcome chance to foster the material framework of the university (or, to be more precise, the material framework of the university masters) for the future. He, and at least the majority of the masters, did not care about the former inhabitants of the houses assigned to them by the prince. They tell us nothing about the destination of the Jews or their paths to foreign lands. Even the date of the expulsion remains an open question.62 Only the houses of the Jews and the movable goods left by them were of interest to them. We have several notes in the Rektorbuch, mainly written down by Marsilius, tracking the financial consequences. Almost 20 years later, in 1410, we read in a report on the financial status of the university made for the grandson

59

See above, n. 41. Acta, 1:185–86, no. 124 [1390 XI 5]: “…quia tunc Iudeis expulsis domus eorum fuerunt cum synagoga universitati per principes nostros assignate, fuit propositum an expediret quod de illis domibus institueretur collegium universitatis et supersederetur de domo incepta extra muros opidi Heydelbergensis et quod restans pecunia converteretur in redditus pro magistris collegiandis et pecunia soluta pro domo lignea in istarum domorum reparacionem converteretur, videlicet 200ti floreni. (…) Super primo dictum fuit quod sic, sed quod hoc tractaretur subtiliter, ne per emulos studii suggeretur domibus ducibus restantes pecunias recipi ab universitate pro domibus Iudeorum sibi assignatis.” 61 Acta, 1:11–2, no. 1; almost the same entrance is written down in connection to the (I.) calendar of the university, see Toepke, Matrikel 1:647–58. Later on (by the Rotulus of 1401) it was supplicated that the “capella beate Marie virginis in Heydelberg Wormaciensis diocesis, que est capella universitatis predicte” should be exempt from the bishops and chapters of Mainz and Worms (Acta, 1:141–43, no. 69, here 142–43), but this supplication was not signed by the pope. 62 Ziwes, Studien (as in n. 52), p. 253–54. 60

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of Ruprecht II, Louis III, which was formulated shortly after the death of Ruprecht’s son and heir, the King of the Romans Ruprecht (III, as count Palatinate), some short remarks on the houses of the Jews and on their books, which were sold for a good sum of money (qui fuerunt venditi, et bona summa pecuniarum provenit).63 As usual, here too the only purpose of the notice was to secure the property of the university in the houses and the belongings left by the Jews expelled. As for the motives, we hear nothing at all. We do not know the feelings of the university masters, or of Marsilius. However, when on August 1, 1401 the Roman king Ruprecht III (the son and successor of Ruprecht II) received an oath from his two sons regarding who should succeed him afterwards and care for the university during their reign, he had them specify by oath “daz eweclich kein Jude oder Judinnen in slossen und landen der Phalz und herczogthoms obgenant wonen, sesshaftig oder blibehaftig sin sal (i.e. “that in perpetuity no Jew, man or woman, shall be allowed to stay, to live or to remain in the Palatinate”).”64 It was here that we do find a sort of motivation for that policy: the presence of Jews will cause “merklich schade geistlich und werntlich, (…) maniche sundige sachen und wehe, (…) wucher und anders daz Juden und Judinnen als offentlich under den Cristen wonend, wandernt und gemeinschaft mit yn hant,” to be brought into the country (i.e. “many sins and harm, … usury and other evils, which Jewish men and women, who live publicly in Christian neighbourhoods, or migrate there and have community with them, bring”).65 This is only a very shadowy hint

63 The famous report, delivered by the rector Konrad of Soest at the Castle to the new count Palatinate, is now edited in: Acta, 1:448–56, no. 446, here 451: “Item ex post tempore illustris principis domini Ruperti senioris genitoris domini nostri regis, expulsis Iudeis, matura deliberacione prehabita ad providendum universitati de congruis habitacionibus domos Iudeorum universitati donavit, prout ex litteris donacionis clare constat. Item donavit eidem libros Iudeorum, qui fuerunt venditi, et bona summa pecuniarum provenit…” The report continues by mentioning the great expenses in repairing and restructuring the houses “et fuerunt notabiles et magne pecunie exposite.” Marsilius himself had written expressly propria manu that the university had a considerable sum of money. See Acta, 1:203–07, no. 156, here 205: “de pecuniis quas recepit universitas de libris sibis ad collegium assignatis sumptis in expulsione Iudeorum.” 64 Cited after Ziwes, Studien, p. 173, n. 368; already transcribed by Leopold Löwenstein, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, Bd. I: Geschichte der Juden in der Kurpfalz, (Frankfurt am Main, 1895), p. 19; a short “regest” also in: Regesten der Pfalzgrafen bei Rhein, vol. II: 1400–1410, ed. Graf L. von Oberndorff (Innsbruck, 1939), no. 1246. 65 Cited after Germania Judaica (as in n. 47), 3.3:1928 and 1934, n. 91; a “regest,” i.e. a short description (not the wording) of the oath already in Karl Heinrich von Lang, Maximilian Prokop von Freyberg and Georg Thomas Rudhard, eds., Regesta sive rerum


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of the ideas which were common to Christian people in those times. We cannot see what more specific ideas were developed to motivate the policy of expulsion in Heidelberg. At any rate, Ruprecht II issued a great charter on May 21, 1391,66 which certified the transfer of property of the former Jewish houses to the university which received by this means a steady and fixed quarter within Heidelberg.67 The university profited greatly from these measures, which banned the Jews from the Palatinate (certainly not forever, but for many years to come). But we do not have space to follow up the history of Jewish living in Germany here. The University of Heidelberg seems to have finally obtained by all these means sufficient formal and material security to help it resist future calamities. In 2011, the 625th anniversary of the university will be celebrated, and to be sure, it will be feasted with all the solemnity an “excellent” German university can afford. It certainly was not for the sake of these advantages (at least not for these alone), that the university was interested in the policy of the prince Palatinate against the Jews. It seems to me remarkable that in Germany the foundation of universities gave a certain impulse to persecution and expulsion of Jews in the same manner as it gave impulses for persecuting heretics. There were several instances for driving Jews out of the city and from the territory when a new university was founded. In the later fifteenth century we can see it at the University of Tübingen, where in 1477 a university was founded. In this very year

Boicarum autographa ad annum usque MCCC: e regni scriniis fideliter in summas contracta iuxtaque genuinam terrae stirpisque diversitatem in Bavarica, Alemanica et Franconica synchronistice disposita 11 = Continuatio 7 (Munich, 1847), p. 219. Very similar is the motivation given in the famous so called “Ruppertinian Constitution” (13. July 1395), where Ruprecht II has given a comprehensive statute for his lands, cf. Meinrad Schaab, Rüdiger Lenz, eds., Ausgewählte Urkunden zur Territorialgeschichte der Kurpfalz, 1156–1505, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Geschichtliche Landeskunde in Baden Württemberg A.41 (Stuttgart, 1998), pp. 150–64, no. 93, here 159:§19: “…<Wir> sin auch underwieset, daz wir die juden, umb daz sie wuchergut hant, nit halten mogen mit unsir selenheile, darumb so seczen wir zu selegerede fur uns und unsir erben […] daz wir und unsere erben furbas mee keinen juden oder kauwerzen, die man nennet lamperter, husen halten oder haben sollen in unsern sloßen und landen, umb daz sie offenen wucherer sin und daz lant von teglichem wucher und schaden davon verderplich wirt und daz wir sie unser seleheile nit gehalten mogen.” 66 Urkundenbuch (as in n. 5) 1:51–53, no. 30. 67 Ritter, Heidelberger Universität, pp. 135–39; Andreas K. Vetter, “Die topographische Entwicklung der Universität Heidelberg im Mittelalter,” Ruperto Carola, Heidelberger Universitätshefte 85 (1992), 87–98.

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the Jews were driven from the town, and the university played an active part in these procedures. Similar phenomena can also be observed in Freiburg im Breisgau a little later (1502).68 We could also add the persecution of Jews in Vienna in 1419 where the university took an active part in the expulsion of Jews.69 In this city the debates on the Jewish citizens were especially intensive, as several treatises confirm.70 I want to add here some examples of the persecution of heretics, which seems to have been intensified immediately after university masters of theology were available in the region. I mention here only the Heidelberg situation: already in 1390, when debating the question of whether the houses of the Jews assigned by the prince to the university should be used for the Collegium artistarum, the masters felt it necessary to give their opinion on the strange phenomenon that they had heard about from their fellow citizens, namely that a group of flagellants had been seen near the town on the mountain “Heiligenberg.”71 The masters discussed this topic and decided to take part “by all means against those” and would write down a memorandum for the princes who should forbid them because of the dangers which they could arouse.72 Obviously they meant heretical deviation, which they wanted to eliminate by all means, including the then normal procedure of burning heretics. Only two years later there took place a somber ceremony in Speyer, the nearby city of a bishop, where several Heidelberg masters had their benefices and later on some benefices of the HeiligGeist-Stift of the university were situated. Here three clerics in higher ranks of the episcopal clercs were condemned as heretics. Two of them were certainly burned and the last one, who seems to have abjured his errors, was condemned ad perpetuos carceres in pane doloris et aqua 68

Willoweit, “Rechtsstellung” (as in n. 47), 2205–06. Michael H. Shank, Unless you believe, you shall not understand: Logic, University, and Society in Late Medieval Vienna (Princeton, 1988). 70 Manuela Niesner, “Über die Duldung der Juden in der christlichen Gesellschaft – Eine lateinisch-deutsche Quaestio aus der Zeit um 1400,” Mediaevistik 20 (2007), 185–214; see also Niesner, “Wer mit juden will disputirn” (as in n. 48), passim. 71 This movement of laicists has won a great attention in modern research. Here I want to cite only Graus, Pest – Geißler – Judenmorde (as in n. 51), look at the Index, 603a; succinctly Neithart Bulst, “Flagellanten (Geißler, Flegler) II. Gebiete nördlich der Alpen,” Lexikon des Mittelalters 4 (1989), 510–12. 72 See above note 60. Here, see Acta, 1:186: “Quintus [punctus] quia in monte omnium sanctorum fuerunt visi flagellatores die omnium sanctorum, quid super hoc esset agendum. … Super quinto, quod universitas omni modo se illis contraponeret et principibus et civitatibus scriberet de prohibicione eorum et ut ducibus insinuaret pericula, que de illis et huiusmodi sectis possent emanare.” 69


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angustie.73 Later on at the council of Constance, Heidelberg masters of theology took part in the trials against Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague, both of whom were burned as heretics.74 And in the third decade of the fifteenth century, the Heidelberg masters of theology were most keenly interested as inquisitors against Hussite heresy. Heidelberg thus had a leading role in this respect throughout all of Germany – several Hussite heretics were burnt in Heidelberg on the judgment of a learned commission, where several Heidelberg professors had taken part.75 Protestant theologians, and Luther himself, have acknowledged some of these Hussites as forerunners of the reformation of the sixteenth century. It seems evident to me that the existence of a university had farreaching consequences for its surrounding society. Learning interesting information and acquiring new knowledge were not the only possibilities introduced by this new institution in the territory of the prince. The precision and exactitude of controllable notions could also evoke the idea of strictly eliminating all deviance from the path of virtue. The authorities felt strongly enough to see the right and the wrong in any behavior. I think that this is the connection between the foundation of universities and the increasing persecution of minority groups, that is to say not a specific doctrine (like the theology of trinity76) or the motives of some leading figures of the faculties, but rather the mere existence of a university where such institutions of higher learning had not existed before. This effect of founding a new university was unavoidable in any case.

73 This is the wording in a contemporary notice made in the calendar of the Lawyers’ faculty, Acta 1:29–30 (printed also in Toepke, Matrikel, 1:647–48). 74 For the process against Hus, the most comprehensive study is now Jiří Kejř, Die ‘Causa’ Johannes Hus und das Prozessrecht der Kirche, trans. Walter Annuß (Regensburg, 2005), who does not go into details on the Heidelberg participants. 75 Hermann Heimpel, Zwei Wormser Inquisitionen aus den Jahren 1421 und 1422 hrsg. und erläutert, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse III/73 (Göttingen, 1969); idem, Drei InquisitionsVerfahren aus dem Jahre 1425, Akten der Prozesse gegen die deutschen Hussiten Johannes Drändorf und Peter Turnau sowie gegen Drändorfs Diener Martin Borchard hrsg. und erläutert, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 24 (Göttingen, 1969). Heidelberg masters had an active role to play in all of these persecutions; without them the inquisitions would hardly have been made. See also Kurt-Victor Selge, “Heidelberger Ketzerprozesse in der Frühzeit der hussitischen Revolution,” Zeitschrfit für Kirchengeschichte 82 (1971), 167–202. 76 Shank, Unless you believe (as in n. 69) has made this point. But I would not take this as a wholesome reason for the persecution of Jews.

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We must stop here. We cannot explain entirely the decisions made in Heidelberg at the end of the fourteenth century. We can only follow up step by step the single events which we know from our scattered sources. We cannot get a very vivid picture, but we see enough to be sure, that the founding of a university had, at least in this case (and we may add: as in others), two sides. Heidelberg is telling us the doublesided story of difficulties in founding universities in Germany in the later Middle Ages. The economic problems could only be solved by a steady and energetic aid from political authorities who had to initiate the foundation and had to continue their efforts in supporting the new institution again and again. Processes of rationalization and of augmentation of knowledge are nowhere a simple task, and by no means can they be considered only as a positive event. This is an experience not only of our modern times, but of the Middle Ages as well.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Marcia L. Colish is Frederick B. Artz Professor of History Emerita at Oberlin College and Visiting Fellow in History at Yale University Kent Emery, Jr. is a Professor at The Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Freiburg Danielle Jacquart is a Professor and Chair in the History of Medieval Science in the Department of Historical and Philological Sciences at the Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes Robert E. Lerner is Professor Emeritus and Ritzma Professor in the Humanities Emeritus at Northwestern University David Luscombe is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of Sheffield Michael R. McVaugh is William Smith Wells Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina Jürgen Miethke is Professor Emeritus of Medieval and Modern History at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg John E. Murdoch (†) was a Professor in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University Ken Pennington is Kelly-Quinn Professor of Ecclesiastical and Legal History at the Columbus School of Law and School of Canon Law at The Catholic University of America Chris Schabel is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Cyprus

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list of contributors

Karl Shoemaker is an Associate Professor of History and Law at the University of Wisconsin, Madison Spencer E. Young is a Post-Doctoral Mellon Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

INDEX INDEX NOMINUM Accursius 264 Adam 220, 264, 273 Adam of Buckfield 18 Adam of Cremona 221 Adam of the Petit-Pont (Balsham) 20, 22 Adam Wodeham 58, 90, 92 n. 19, 104 Adelard of Bath 15, 19 Adso (Dervensis) 290, 291 Agostino Nifo 177, 178, 179 n. 9, 187 Alan of Lille 13 n. 23, 32, 36–38, 38 nn. 20, 23, 39–42, 46, 162 Alberic of Rheims 20, 21, 23 Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus) 47, 48, 90, 93, 93 n. 20, 106 n. 71, 119, 119 n. 102, 121 n. 107, 124, 125, 125 n. 117, 145, 146, 147, 149, 151, 241, 257, 291 n. 44 Alexander III 23, 30, 30 n. 4, 33 n. 8, 44 n. 40 Alexander of Alessandria 58, 67 Alexander of Hales 27, 50, 149, 151, 152, 167, 170, 241 Alexander Nequam 17 Alexander of Roes 298, 299 Alexander of San Elpidio 65 Alexander of Villedieu 11 Al-Fārābi 13, 13 n. 24 Alfred of Shareshill (Sareshel) 17, 19, 221 Alphonsus Vargas of Toledo 78 Alvarus Thomas 183 Amalric of Bène 24 Ambrose 293 Anonymous (Augustinensis) 72, 143–44, 143 n. 72 Anonymous (Dominican) 291, 294 Anonymous (Franciscan) 48 Anonymous Jurist 233 Anonymous (of Vatican lat. 2186) 48 Anselm (of Canterbury) 80, 170, 265 Anthonius (pastor…sancti Pauli) 142 Apolinaris Offredi 182 Aristotle 2, 9, 10, 11, 13 n. 24, 14–18, 21, 22–27, 40, 41, 88, 88 n. 8, 89–92,

92 n. 18, 93–97, 103 n. 62, 107–11, 114, 114 n. 100, 115, 120, 121, 123, 123 n. 112, 124, 125, 127, 136 n. 35, 138 nn. 42, 44, 148, 152, 155, 163, 164, 167, 168, 170, 171, 177, 178, 178 n. 3, 179, 179 n. 10, 180, 181, 181 n. 15, 183, 184, 194, 197–200, 202–05, 210, 211, 211 n. 55, 219, 222, 242, 310 Armand of Belvézer 80 Arnald of Prato 80 Arnald of Villanova (Arnau de Vilanova) 209 n. 49, 211, 222, 288, 288 nn. 36, 37, 289, 290, 297, 298, 298 n. 61, 299, 307, 308, 309, 309 n. 90 Aufredo Gonteri Brito 67 Augustine (of Hippo) 41, 80, 136 n. 35, 154, 160, 164, 170, 265, 293 Augustine of Ancona (Augustinus Triumphus) 80 Augustine Favaroni 78 Averroes 18, 18 n. 48, 20, 24, 26, 27, 146, 199, 211 n. 55 Avicenna 13 n. 24, 146, 155, 159, 194, 198 n. 25, 203, 208, 209 n. 49, 219, 221, 222, 224 Azo 232, 264 n. 39 Bartholomew of Pisa 277, 285, 293 Bartolus 268, 268 nn. 52, 53 Bede 293 Benedict XI 305, 308 Benedict XII 82, 84, 260 Benedict XVI 251–2 Benedictus Pereira 182 Berengar of Langora 80 Bernard of Auvergne 69 Bernard of Chartres 14, 49 n. 55 Bernard of Clairvaux 23, 163, 164, 172, 256, 257, 293 Bernard Délicieux 308 Bernard Lombardi 75 Bernard of Pisa – See Eugene III Bernard de Trilia 68 Berthaud of St. Denys 56 Berthold Suderdick 325, 327

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Boethius 10, 13 n. 24, 21, 23, 24 n. 77, 37, 41, 169 Bonaventure 50, 149, 151, 164, 167, 171, 261, 290, 291 n. 44 Brendan, St. 44, 44 n. 40 Burchard of Weisensee 71 Burgundio of Pisa 15, 15 n. 32, 18–19 Cassiodorus 293 Celestine V 303 Charles IV (Holy Roman Emperor) 317, 333 Cicero 10, 177, 233, 241 Clement V 289, 301, 301 n. 65, 302 n. 67, 305 Clement VI (Pierre Roger) 82, 283, 283 n. 21 Clement VII 323 Coluccio Salutati 177 Columbinus (Brother Columbinus) 298–300, 300 n. 63, 306 Conrad of Ebrach 75 Conrad of Gelnhausen 328, 328 n. 41 Conrad of Soltau 77, 78 Conradus de Campis 103, 112, 119, 120, 136, 136 nn. 32–34, 138 n. 44 Constantine the African 197, 198, 201, 202, 203, 218, 219 Cornificius 14 Courtenay, William J. 5, 51, 72, 82 n. 67, 214, 255, 270, 281, 282, 282 n. 17, 289, 317 Daniel of Morley 17, 19 Dante Aligheri 257 David (King) 159 David of Dinant 23, 24 Denys the Carthusian 3, 119 n. 102, 145, 145 n. 1, 146, 146 n. 2, 147, 147 n. 5, 148, 148 n. 6, 149, 149 n. 9, 150, 150 n. 13, 14, 151–53, 153 n. 19, 154–56, 156 nn. 22, 23, 157, 157 n. 27, 158, 159, 159 n. 31, 160–63, 163 n. 42, 164–67, 167 n. 54, 168–70, 170 n. 61, 171–73, 173 n. 69 Dietrich of Freiburg 68, 69 Dietrich (Kerkering) of Monastery 325, 326 Donatus 11, 24 n. 77 Durand of Aureliac 70 Durand of St. Pourçain 3, 58, 60, 69, 83, 110, 110 n. 84, 139, 139 nn. 49, 50, 140 n. 53, 149, 150, 150 nn. 12, 14,

151, 153, 153 n. 19, 154, 156, 156 n. 24, 157, 157 n. 27, 158–61, 161 n. 33, 163–66, 166 n. 50, 167, 167 n. 54, 168, 169, 169 n. 60, 170, 171, 172, 172 n. 67, 173, 173 n. 72 Edmund of Abingdon 18 Engelbert II (Archbishop of Cologne) 125, 125 n. 17 Ermengaud of St. Gilles 38 Euclid 15, 41 Eugene III (Bernard of Pisa) 256–7 Eusebius of Caesarea 299 Eve 273 Everard of Béthune 12 Francis of Assisi 162 Francis Caracciolo 58 Francis of Marchia 58 Francis of Meyronnes (Franciscus Mayronis) 58, 284 Francisco Suárez 249 Fulbert of Chartres 14 Gabriel (Archangel) 271 Gabriel Biel 104, 111 n. 89, 112 n. 91, 113 n. 99 Gaius 228, 229 Galen 191, 192, 203, 207 n. 43, 208, 211, 211 n. 55, 216, 217, 222, 224, 225, 226, 257 Gaudentius of Brescia 235 Gaufridus le Marec 214 Gentile of Foligno 307, 309 n. 90 Geoffrey Chaucer 198 Georg Schwartz 87, 87 n. 5, 88, 88 n. 7, 102 n. 56 Gerald of Harderwijck 103, 103 n. 62, 108, 108 n. 78, 109, 110, 120, 136, 136 n. 34, 137 n. 38, 138 nn. 42, 44, 143 n. 68 Gerard of Abbeville 57, 65 Gérard de Berry 3, 197, 198, 198 n. 25, 199–202, 210 Gérard du Breuil 205, 206 Gerard of Bologna 63, 64, 79, 80 n. 61 Gerard of Buren 75 Gerard of Cremona 13 n. 24, 15, 205 n. 39 Gerard Odonis 58 Gerardus de Monte 121 n. 107, 126 Gerhoh of Reichersberg 23 Gilbert of Poitiers 23, 37, 40, 43

index Gilbertus Anglicus 3, 198, 199, 199 n. 26, 200–4, 207, 209, 209 n. 51, 210, 211 Giles (Brother Giles) 162 Giles of Corbeil 198, 199 Giles of Rome 55, 55 n. 13, 58, 64, 151 Godfrey of Fontaines 57, 58, 60, 65, 65 n. 33, 161, 171, 172, 173 Godfrey of Groningen 111, 120, 141, 141 n. 55, 143 n. 68 Godfrey of St. Victor 21, 21 n. 63 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 178 n. 3, 188 Gratian 228, 230, 230 n. 10, 231, 231 nn. 12, 13, 232, 233, 234, 234 n. 22, 235, 236, 236 n. 33, 237, 238 n. 39, 239, 239 n. 43, 240, 241, 242, 242 n. 55, 243–46, 246 n. 63, 247, 248, 250, 255 n. 2, 256, 264 Gregory IX 24, 194, 195, 195 n. 18, 204, 249 Gregory the Great 293 Gregory of Rimini 74, 112 n. 91, 113, 113 n. 96, 121 n. 109, 127, 131 n. 8, 149 Gundissalinus 13, 13 n. 24 Guido de Baysio 246, 248, 264 Guillaume d’Estouteville 215 Guillelmus de Breda 145 Guy of l’Aumône 55 Guy de Chauliac 213 Guy Terrena (Gui Terena/Guido Terreni) 61, 63, 64, 64 n. 31, 79, 260, 288, 298 Haimo of Auxerre 294 Haimo of Halberstadt 235 Haly (Abbas) 203 Hartlevus de Marka 325, 326 Hartmannus (Herman) de Augusta 71, 71 n. 46 Henricus Quentell 93 Henry I (King of England) 15 Henry Aristippus 16, 19 Henry de Bracton 265, 270 Henry of Cervo 70 Henry of Cologne 103, 103 n. 59, 106, 112, 130, 130 n. 3, 135 n. 27 Henry of Ghent 57, 58, 60, 65, 65 n. 33, 149, 151, 160, 161, 161 n. 33, 163, 168, 171, 172, 173, 173 n. 69 Henry of Harclay 58, 66, 288, 297, 298, 299, 299 n. 61 Henry of Langenstein 75, 76, 77

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Henry of Sully 38 Henry Totting of Oyta 77, 78, 112 n. 91 Hermann of Carinthia 15 Hermannus Alemannus 19 Hervaeus Natalis 58, 59, 69, 70, 81 Heymericus de Campo 86 n. 4, 93, 94, 95, 95 nn. 26, 27, 102 n. 55, 106, 106 n. 71, 114 n. 101, 121, 123, 125, 126, 145 Honorius Augustodunensis 235 Hippocrates 191, 211, 213 Hostiensis 261, 263, 264, 271 Hugh (Master) 18 Hugh of St. Cher 47, 48 Hugh of St. Victor 10 n. 4, 13, 13 nn. 22, 23, 23, 152, 235, 264, 265 Hugh of Sneyth 68 Hugo de Novocastro 4, 58, 277–79, 279 nn. 6, 9, 280–82, 282 nn. 17, 18, 283, 283 n. 21, 284, 284 n. 22, 285, 285 n. 30, 286, 287, 287 n. 32, 288, 288 n. 36, 289–93, 293 n. 49, 294, 294 n. 50, 295, 295 n. 51, 296–300, 300 n. 63, 301, 301 n. 65, 302, 302 n. 67, 303, 304, 304 n. 74, 305–7, 307 n. 84, 308, 308 n. 87, 309, 310, 310 n. 91, 311 Hugo Ripelin of Strassburg 291, 294 Huguccio of Pisa 12, 231, 232, 243 n. 59, 245 Humbert of Preuilly 56 Ibn al-Jazzār 197 Ibn Butlān 207 Innocent II 23, 237, 237 n. 35, 238 Innocent III 32, 34, 34 n. 9, 307 Isidore of Seville 33 n. 8, 230, 231, 231 n. 13, 241–46, 248, 249, 293 Jacob 170 Jacob van Maerlant 266 Jacobus Sprenger 103 n. 59, 131, 131 n. 7 Jacobus Wimpfeling 91 Jacques Duèse – See John XXII James of Aaleus 56 James of Ascoli 58, 67, 67 n. 39 James of Eltville 75, 76 James of Metz 58 James of Pamiers 65 James of Venice 16, 17, 17 n. 39, 18 James of Viterbo 55, 64 Jan Hus 339, 339 n. 74 Jan van Ruusbroec 162, 164 Jean de Coucy 213

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Jean (Johannes) Gerson 84, 112 n. 93, 149, 149 n. 9, 165, 226, 261 Jean Parvi 215 Jean Richardi 215 Jean de St. Amand 205, 205 n. 39, 207, 208, 209 n. 49 Jean Voignon 215 Jefferson, Thomas 154 Jerome 159, 170, 293, 295 Jerome of Prague 339 Jesus Christ 30, 42 n. 37, 47, 116, 117, 124, 158, 165, 170, 250, 265, 266, 267 n. 48, 268, 269, 270, 270 nn. 60, 63, 271–75, 285, 286, 293, 294, 296, 297, 300, 300 n. 63, 303, 304, 304 n. 74, 310 Johannes of Adorff 91, 114, 115 Johannes Alen 89, 96, 96 nn. 29, 31, 97, 99, 103, 105–115, 119–29, 129 n. 2, 131 n. 8, 132 nn. 14, 15, 133 nn. 16, 18, 20, 21, 134 n. 23, 25–27, 135 nn. 27, 29, 136 nn. 31, 33, 35, 137 nn. 37–39, 138 nn. 42, 44, 45, 139 n. 49, 140 nn. 52, 53, 141 n. 58, 142 n. 62, 143 nn. 68, 70, 71, 73, 144 nn. 74, 78 Johannes Berswort of Dortmund 324 Johannes Capreolus 121 n. 109, 122 Johannes Eck 113 nn. 95, 96, 127, 127 n. 122 Johannes Koelhoff 93, 124, 125 Johannes de Novo Domo 89, 89 n. 11, 93, 95 n. 26, 148, 149 n. 9 Johannes Versor 94, 94 n. 25 Johannitius 203 John (King of England) 34 John XXII (Jacques Duèse) 54, 82, 83, 84, 165, 169, 169 n. 60, 172, 190, 260, 262, 289, 301 John Baconthorpe 63, 80, 260 John Bale 63, 278, 278 n. 4, 279 John Blund 18 John Brammart 77, 78 John Buridan 90, 92, 93, 93 n. 20, 94, 113, 126, 127, 178, 180, 181 n. 15 John of Cornwall 23 John Damascene 293 John of Dambach 70 John Duns Scotus 58, 60, 81, 83, 104, 113, 131 n. 8, 149, 150, 150 n. 14, 151, 153 n. 19, 155, 156, 156 nn. 22, 23, 164, 171, 172, 278, 279 n. 6, 285 John Hiltalinger 76, 76 n. 53 John of Holland 182 John Klenkok 75

John of Lana 65 John Major 183 John of Naples 58, 59, 60, 69, 219 John of Paris 288, 289, 290, 297, 298 John Pecham 60 John Picard of Lichtenberg 69 John of Pouilly 57, 58, 60, 65, 66 John of Ripa 74 John of Rodington 58 John of Rupescissa 307 John of Salisbury 10, 14, 15, 16, 18 n. 47, 20, 21 John the Saracen 16 John of Seville 15 John of Waes 78 John of Walsham 68 John Wyclif 68, 97 Josephus 293 Juan Celaya 183 Juan of Vives 183 Justinian 228, 229 n. 6, 230, 232, 233, 234, 256, 257, 264, 269 n. 55, 272 Lambertus de Monte 89, 91, 92 n. 18 Landolfo of Capua 31 Landulph (Landulf) Caracciolo 58, 283 Laurentius Hispanus 248 Leo Amorós 279 Leo the Great 162 Leonardo Bruni 182 Lia 170 Lotulph of Rheims 23 Louis III (Count Palatine of the Rhine) 328 n. 41, 336 Louis the Bavarian (Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor) 317, 333 Ludovicus Coronel 183 Manuel González Téllez 249, 250 Marsilius of Inghen 76, 90, 91, 93, 93 n. 20, 94, 94 n. 24, 110 n. 84, 113, 113 n. 96, 126, 127, 181 n. 15, 318–21, 321 n. 11, 322, 323, 324, 324 nn. 17, 18, 325, 326, 326 n. 26, 327–30, 335, 336, 336 n. 63 Marsilius of Padua 259, 260 Martin V 189, 197 Martin Gazel 215 Martin Luther 339 Martin de St. Gille 213, 214 Mary 54, 76, 124, 163, 165, 266, 267, 267 n. 48, 268, 271–75, 303, 335 Mascaron (Maskeroen, Ascaron, Mascheron) 266, 268, 269, 271–74

index Matthew of Aquasparta 66 Maurice of Spain 24 Menso of Beckhusen 77–78 Michael (Archangel) 294 Michael of Cesena 4, 310 Michael of Rimini 78 Michael Scot 26, 197 Nemesius of Emesa 224 Niccoló da Reggio 224, 225, 225 n. 34 Nicholas III 194 n. 12, 301 n. 65, 302, 303 Nicholas of Amiens 41 Nicholas of Bar-le-Duc 56 Nicholas Biceps 74, 75, 76, 78 Nicholas Bonet 58, 80 Nicholas of Cusa 159 n. 31, 311 Nicholas of Dinkelsbühl 78 Nicholas of Lyra 58, 283 n. 22, 284 n. 22, 288, 297 Nicholas du Pressoir 57 Nicholas of Stratton 69 Nicholas of Trivet 69 Nicholaus de Tudeschis (Panormitanus) 247, 247 n. 68, 248, 249 Odo of Soissons 32, 33 n. 8 Osbern of Gloucester 12 Panormitanus – See Nicholaus de Tudeschis Paucapalea 234 Paul (Apostle) 165, 166 n. 50, 265, 290, 291, 301 Paul (Roman jurist) 229, 230, 243 Paul of Perugia 63 Paul of Venice 181 n. 15, 182 Pere Gavet 196 Peter Abelard 10, 20, 21, 22, 43, 234, 234 n. 24 Peter Alfonsi 15 Peter Auriol 58, 60, 83, 282, 282 n. 18, 283, 284 Peter of Auvergne 57, 288, 288 n. 37, 297 Peter (Petrus) of Bergamo 126, 126 n. 118 Peter of Candia 54 n. 11, 74, 76, 77, 78, 115, 149 Peter of Capua (Nephew) 31, 31 n. 6 Peter of Capua (Uncle) 31, 31 n. 6, 32, 32 n. 6 Peter the Chanter 26, 42 n. 37, 44

347

Peter Comester 35, 47, 49 n. 55, 50, 291 Peter of Corbeil 24 Peter Correger 70 Peter of Falco 66, 66 n. 37 Peter Helias 10 Peter John of Olivi 60, 66, 289, 298, 299, 299 n. 61, 304, 304 n. 76, 305, 306, 310 Peter of Joigny 56 Peter Lombard 23, 30, 31, 32, 33 n. 8, 35, 37, 42 n. 37, 43 n. 38, 47, 48, 49, 49 nn. 53, 55, 50, 65, 66, 73, 76, 77, 85, 88, 89 n. 10, 101, 102 n. 54, 127, 150 n. 14, 220, 239, 239 n. 43, 290, 291, 292 Peter of Mantua 182 Peter of Palude (Pierre de la Palude) 58, 260, 260 n. 23 Peter of Parma 70 Peter of Poitiers 30, 31, 32 Peter of Spain (Petrus Hispanus) 22, 23 n. 69, 93, 94 n. 24, 103 n. 62 Peter Swanington 63 Peter of Tarentaise 61, 151, 166 Peter Thomae 67 Petrus de Coppa 319 Petrus Nigri 121 n. 109, 122, 122 n. 111, 123 n. 112 Philip II (Augustus) 29 Philip IV (The Fair) 301, 308 n. 87 Philip of Alençon 324 Philip the Chancellor 27 Philip Caesar 237, 238, 238 nn. 39, 40, 239 Pierre d’Ailly 75, 75 n. 51, 76, 77, 258, 261, 263 Pierre Chauchat 213 Pierre Gros 215 Pierre de Limoges 206, 206 n. 42, 207 n. 43, 208, 208 n. 47, 209, 209 nn. 49, 51, 210, 216, 217 Pierre Roger – See Clement VI Pietro d’Abano 222, 223, 224 Plato 16, 19, 164, 186, 187, 188 Porphyry 10, 132 n. 14, 159 Prepositinus of Cremona 32, 33, 33 n. 8, 34, 34 n. 9, 44, 44 n. 40, 46 Priscian 11 Proclus 41 Prosper of Aquitaine 235 Prosper of Reggio Emilia 57, 282, 282 n. 17 Pseudo-Chrysostom 293 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite 146, 150

348

index

Pseudo-Methodius 293, 294, 294 n. 51, 295, 295 n. 51, 296 Pseudo-Peter of Poitiers 2, 47, 49 n. 55, 50 Rachel 170 Radulphus Brito 58 Rainier Jordan of Pisa 80 Ranulph of Houblonnière 56 Raymond of Marseille 15 Reginald of Aulne 326 Reginald of Piperno 290 Remigius of Auxerre 235 Rhazes 200 Richard Connington 67 Richard Fitzralph 80 Richard Knapwell 68 Richard of Middleton (Menneville) 151, 151 n. 16, 154, 155, 166, 170, 170 n. 61, 173 Richard of St. Victor 158, 162 Richard Swineshead 182, 187, 188 Robert Alyngton 68 Robert de Boron 266 Robert of Courson 14, 24, 25 Robert Cowton 58 Robert Grosseteste 19, 20, 26, 221, 263, 279 n. 4 Robert Halifax 67 Robert Holcot 58, 73, 111 n. 89, 113, 131 n. 8 Robert of Melun 21 Robert Pynk 70 Robert de Sorbonne 208, 208 n. 47, 216 Robert of Torigny 17, 18 n. 47 Robert Walsingham 63 Roberto da Senigallia 213 Roger Bacon 216, 257, 279 n. 4, 298 n. 61 Roger of Hereford 17 Roger Marston 60 Roger Roseth (Rosetus) 73, 182 Rupert of Deutz 235 Ruprecht I 319, 320, 327, 333, 334 Ruprecht II (The Hard) 5, 320, 327, 328, 329, 334, 336, 337, 337 n. 65 Ruprecht III 336 Satan (Lucifer, The Devil) 159, 264, 265, 266, 267, 267 n. 48, 268, 270, 271, 273, 275 Servais of Guez of Mont St. Eloi 56

Servatius Fanckel 3, 87, 87 n. 5, 88, 88 nn. 7, 8, 89, 89 n. 10, 96, 96 n. 29, 97, 98, 98 nn. 36, 37, 39, 99, 99 n. 42, 100–03, 109, 110, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 127, 128, 130 n. 3, 131 n. 7, 136 nn. 32–34, 137 n. 37, 138 n. 44, 139 n. 47, 141 n. 55, 142 nn. 60, 65, 143 n. 72, 144, 144 nn. 75, 78 Sibert of Beek 63 Sigfrid (Archbishop of Mainz) 32, 34 n. 9 Simon of Corbie 63 Simon of Tournai 32, 33 n. 8 Socrates 177, 180, 181, 182, 185–88 Stephen of Kettleburg 259 Stephen Langton 29, 32, 34, 38, 38 n. 23, 43, 46 n. 43, 50 Stephen of Tournai 32 Theodor of Susteren 103, 110, 120, 139, 139 nn. 47, 49, 140 n. 52, 142 n. 62 Thierry of Chartres 10, 10 n. 3 Thomas Aquinas 4, 43, 62, 68, 79, 89 n. 10, 90, 93, 93 n. 20, 104, 105, 105 n. 68, 106, 106 n. 71, 107, 111, 111 n. 86, 113, 113 n. 98, 119, 119 n. 102, 121 nn. 107, 109, 122, 124, 125, 126, 126 n. 119, 131 n. 8, 134 n. 27, 143 n. 71, 144 n. 78, 145, 146, 146 n. 2, 149, 150, 150 n. 13, 151, 154, 155, 158, 163, 166, 171, 173, 210, 220, 221, 224, 239, 239 n. 43, 240, 240 nn. 48, 49, 241, 242, 242 n. 55, 243–46, 246 nn. 63, 64, 247–50, 252, 290, 291 n. 44, 292 Thomas of Bailly 58, 60 Thomas Bradwardine 80, 182 Thomas of Strasbourg 78 Thomas of Sutton 60, 68 Thomas Wylton 58, 58 n. 20, 60 Ubertino of Casale 305 Urban VI 319, 323 Ulpian 229, 229 n. 6, 233, 236 Ulrich of Strassburg 151 Ulrich Zell 93, 94 n. 23 Valens Heynck 279 Vincent of Beauvais 291, 295 Vincent Ferrar 70 Vital du Four 60 Walter (Archbishop of Palermo) 31 Walter (of Bamberg?) 77, 78

index Walter Burley 178, 181 n. 15, 182, 185 Walter Chatton 58 Walter of Dordrecht 108, 108 n. 78, 120, 137 n. 38 Walter of St. Victor 23, 43 n. 38 William I (King of Sicily) 16 William VIII (Count of Montpellier) 38 William of Alnwick 58, 67, 284 William of Auvergne 20, 158, 222 William of Auxerre 27, 44, 44 n. 40, 148 William of Champeaux 10, 10 n. 5 William of Conches 10, 11

349

William Durantis 266 William Heytesbury 182, 185–86 William of Macclesfield 69 William of Nottingham 67 William of Ockham 54, 58, 90, 93, 104, 125, 149, 178, 181 n. 15, 261, 278 William of Pagula 260 William Peraldus 158 William of St. Thierry 23, 163, 164, 219 William of Sherwood 22 William de Vere 19 William of Woodford 68

INDEX LOCORUM Abruzzi, The 286 Amalfi 31 Angers 195 Avignon 60, 82 n. 67, 213, 214–15, 323 Babylon 293–94 Barcelona 66, 67, 196 Bath 19 Bethlehem 293 Bologna 2, 12, 67, 75, 79, 193 n. 11, 219, 228, 236, 239, 317, 328 n. 38

Heidelberg 5, 78, 91, 93, 318–21, 323, 323 n. 16, 324, 324 n. 17, 325–27, 327 n. 33, 328 n. 41, 329, 330, 334, 337–39, 339 nn. 74–75, 340 Hereford 19 Iberia 331 Ingolstadt 90, 91, 91 n. 17, 112 n. 93, 114, 115, 126 n. 119 Italy 11 n. 11, 12, 14, 292, 317, 323, 332 Jerusalem 296, 299, 300

Calabria 16 Capestang 305 Capua 31 Carcassonne 308 Catalonia 292 Catania 16 Cologne 3, 33 n. 8, 69, 70, 71 n. 46, 75, 78, 80 n. 61, 85, 85 n. 1, 86 n. 4, 87, 87 n. 4, 88, 89, 89 n. 10, 90, 90 n. 13, 91, 92, 92 n. 19, 93, 93 nn. 21–22, 94, 94 nn. 23–25, 95, 95 n. 27, 96, 96 n. 29, 97, 98, 101, 101 nn. 51–52, 103–04, 106, 107, 110, 113, 114, 120, 121–22, 124–26, 128, 142 n. 65, 145–46, 146 n. 2, 149, 285, 318, 325–27 Compostella 38 Constance 339 Constantinople 9, 15, 16 Cyprus 82

Kraków 318 Leipzig 96 Lérida 196 Lincoln 19 Loire Valley 12 Madison, Wisconsin 5, 5 n. 2, 255, 317 Magdeburg 75 Mainz 32–34, 34 n. 9, 42 n. 37, 335 n. 61 Majorca 70, 292 Malvern 19 Mannheim (Castle of Wersau) 319–20 Marseilles 305–06, 310 Melun 21 Mont St. Michel 16–17 Montpellier 14, 38, 189, 190, 191, 193, 193 nn. 11–12, 194, 194 n. 12, 195–96, 197, 199–200, 205, 207, 208–09, 214

Dunstable 17 England 14 n. 26, 17, 19, 34, 34 n. 9, 68, 73, 73 n. 49, 81, 82, 187, 278, 279, 292, 331, 332, 333, 333 n. 50 Erfurt 75, 96, 96 n. 29, 318 France 23 n. 69, 34, 214, 215, 277, 279, 280, 281, 283–84 n. 22, 284, 292, 301, 331, 332, 333, 333 n. 50 Freiburg (im Breisgau) 93, 94 n. 24, 100 n. 47, 107, 113 n. 96, 126, 338 Genoa 319 Germany 34, 34 n. 9, 280, 287 n. 33, 318, 325, 327, 331, 331 n. 47, 332, 333, 333 nn. 50, 52, 337, 339, 340

Naples 219, 317 Narbonne 305 Nazareth 293 Newcastle (Castelnuovo, Castrumnovum, Châteauneuf, Neuburg, Neuchatel, Neuenburg, Neufchatel, Novumcastrum) 278–79, 279 nn. 7, 9, 280 Northampton 17 Nuremberg 288, 292 Orléans 195 Oxford 2, 11 n. 11, 17, 18, 20, 26 n. 86, 54, 58, 59, 63, 66, 67, 68, 70, 73–76, 79, 83, 181 n. 15, 198, 278 n. 4, 279, 297, 317

index Palermo 9, 31 Paris 2, 9, 10, 11 n. 11, 14, 17, 18, 18 n. 48, 20–22, 23 nn. 69, 70, 24–27, 29–38, 38 n. 20, 39, 42, 44, 46, 47, 50, 52, 56–59, 63, 64, 66–69, 72, 73–78, 80 n. 61, 84, 89, 92, 92 n. 18, 94, 101 n. 51, 148, 150, 171, 180, 183, 189–95, 195 nn. 16, 18, 196, 196 n. 20, 197–200, 204–06, 206 n. 39, 207, 208, 208 n. 47, 209–11, 213–16, 219, 220, 222–25, 261, 279, 279 n. 6, 280, 281, 282, 284, 284 n. 22, 285, 288–90, 294, 297, 298, 299–303, 306, 307 n. 84, 308, 308 n. 87, 309, 309 n. 90, 310, 317, 318, 321, 323–26, 328 Perugia 279 n. 9, 283, 283 n. 22, 284, 310 Prague 74, 78, 317, 318 n. 1, 326

Rome 34, 35–36, 85 n. 1, 251, 286, 308, 320, 329

Rheims 23 Roermond 145

Washington, D.C. 227 Worcester 19

St. Albans 17 St. Gilles 38 Sicily 16 Speyer 338 Tarragona 308 Toledo 9, 17, 19 Toulouse 194, 317 Tübingen 97, 107, 337 United States 189, 227 Vienna 77, 78, 96, 318, 338 Vienne 289

351

Crossing Boundaries at Medieval Universities (Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance)

Culture and Power: Tuscany and its Universities 1537–1609 (Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Volume 34)

Alcuin: Achievement and Reputation (Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 16)

Reforming Priests and Parishes (Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance)

Schools and Schooling in Late Medieval Germany: Regensburg, 1250-1500 (Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance)

Jewish Education and Society in the High Middle Ages

Reason and Society in the Middle Ages

Humanismus und Universitatsbesuch - Renaissance Humanism and University Studies (Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance) (German Edition)

Soteriology and Mystic Aspects in the Cult of Cybele and Attis (Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance)

A History of Franciscan Education (C. 1210-1517) (Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, V. 11)

Friars and Jews in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (The Medieval Franciscans, V. 2)