Remigio, Auriol, Scotus, and the Myth of the Two-Year Sentences Lecture at Paris
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REMIGIO, AUrIOL, SCOTUs, aND THE MYTH OF THE TWO-YEar SENTENCEs LECTUrE aT ParIs William DUBA and Chris SCHABEL Abstract In his sermo finalis on the Sentences, Remigio de’ Girolami OP introduced the next bachelor to read the Sentences, Bernard of Auvergne. This detail allows us to date Remigio’s lectures on Peter Lombard’s Sentences at Paris to the year 1297-98 and to confirm that he read the four books in the order I-IV-II-III. It also indicates that, by that time, bachelors at Paris read the Sentences over the course of a single academic year, thereby falsifying the myth that, until around 1318, their lectures took two years. Thus Peter Auriol OFM read the Sentences in the order I-IV-II-III at Paris in the academic year 1317-18, not in 1316-18, and John Duns Scotus lectured in the sequence I-IV-II-III in 1302-03, stopping midway through book III when he refused to adhere to the king of France’s appeal against Boniface VIII. These findings raise the question whether a two- year lecture cycle was ever the rule. When compared against what we know about Sentences lectures, even the case for Thomas Aquinas teaching the Sen- tences across two years is, in its current state, unconvincing. As is often the case, a conjecture or an unsubstantiated assertion by one scholar becomes an accepted fact in a subsequent account. —William J. Courtenay1 In late June 1298, a Dominican who was lecturing on the Sen- tences, Remigio de’ Girolami, concluded his year of teaching with a speech, having as its theme Ecclesiasticus 18:6: “When a man hath done, then he will begin” (Cum consumaverit homo tunc incipiet). After a protheme in which he associates homo with both 1 W.J. COURTENAY, “Early Scotists at Paris: A Reconsideration,” in: Franciscan Stud- ies 69 (2011), pp. 175-229, at p. 210. Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 84(1), 143-179. doi: 10.2143/RTPM.84.1.3212078 © 2017 by Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales. All rights reserved. 144 W. DUba aND C. SCHabEL a lecturer and a listener in a classroom, he bridged back to the theme: To the matter at hand it can be truly said: when a man hath done listening to the book of the Sentences, then he will begin to listen to it, namely because the past audition is almost nothing with respect to the future. And again, when a man hath done reading the Sentences, then a man will begin to read it, namely, because the man who has already read it is almost nothing with respect to the man who will read it.2 Thereby Remigio ends his lectures on the Sentences with a refined take on “You ain’t heard nothing yet: wait till you hear the next guy.” Remigio names his successor, “frater Bernardus de Claromonte,” bet- ter known as Bernard of Auvergne, and makes a pun on his name, calling him bona nardus (“good nard”), saying that he lectures de claro (“brilliantly”) because of his excellence, and more or less associating monte with mountains of wisdom.3 Remigio’s praise neatly crystallizes the problem facing historians of universities and of university thought. On the one hand, Remigio’s speech matches conventions of the genre. Fifty years later, the Cistercian Pierre Ceffons gave a speech at Paris introducing his successor, William of Cappel, with mocking praise.4 Remigio’s parsing his successor’s name reflects the practice of Robert Holcot, who in the 1330s finished his lectures on the Sentences at the Dominican convent of Oxford with a similar play on the name of his successor, Roger Gosford.5 On the other hand, we do not have enough examples of the genre to determine these conventions; 2 REMIGIO dE’ GIROLAMI, “Prologus in fine Sententiarum,” in: E. PANELLA, Il “De subiecto theologie” [1297-1299] di Remigio dei Girolami O.P., Milan 1982, pp. 73-75, at p. 73: “Potest ergo ad propositum vere dici: cum consumaverit homo audire librum Sententiarum, tunc incipiet ipsum audire, quia scilicet auditio preterita quasi nichil est respectu auditionis future. Et iterum cum consumaverit homo legere librum Sententiarum, tunc incipiet ipsum legere homo, quia scilicet homo qui iam legit quasi nichil est respectu hominis lecturi.” 3 REMIGIO, “Prologus,” ed. PANELLA, p. 74: “Lector autem Sententiarum futurus con- respondenter quatuor proprietatibus enumeratis ad ostendendum excessum ipsius in eis, bene vocatur frater Bernardus de Claromonte.” 4 A. CORBINI, “Pierre de Ceffons et l’instruction dans l’Ordre cistercien: quelques remarques,” in: K. EMERY, Jr. – W. J. COURTENAY – S. M. METZGER (eds.), Philosophy and Theology in the Studia of the Religious Orders and at Papal and Royal Courts, Turnhout 2012, pp. 549-574, at pp. 563-564, edition pp. 568-574. 5 K. H. TACHAU, “Looking Gravely at Dominican Puns: The ‘Sermons’ of Robert Holcot and Ralph Friseby,” in: Traditio 46 (1991), pp. 337-345, at pp. 340-341. THE MYTH OF THE TWO-YEar sENTENCEs LECTUrE 145 the only other final speech that has attracted attention is one by Ralph Friseby, another Oxford Dominican from the 1330s, and he does not introduce his successor.6 Prescriptive documents such as statutes make the situation murk- ier. The first such mention of a ceremonial conclusion to Sentences lectures comes from the statutes for the University of Bologna in 1364, a series that claims to be based on the practice for Paris. These statutes state that in their final lecture “each [bachelor] shall com- mend the bachelor who is supposed to be his successor in the month of October,” and that bachelors should limit their criticism of their colleagues to their ceremonial first lectures (principia) and their final lecture.7 But a final lecture (lectio ultima) is not a final speech (sermo finalis): a university speech follows the rhetorical rules of medieval sermons, beginning with the theme (a short passage, usually from the Bible) and elaborating on it, while a university lecture investigates an issue, usually by asking one or more questions and arguing the merits. Such is the case, at least, for the final lecture of the Franciscan Land- olfo Caracciolo at Paris in 1319.8 And neither speech nor lecture matches the statutes. Although the Dominicans Holcot and Remigio do praise their replacements, they do not criticize the other bachelors reading the Sentences (sententiarii). This same can be said for Pierre Ceffons. On the other hand, Landolfo’s lecture takes the form of a classroom question and does not mention his successor. Confusing matters more, while Landolfo’s lecture does resemble the Bologna statute in that Landolfo uses it to criticize contemporary theologians, 6 In addition to the article by Tachau just above, see also S. WENZEL, Preaching in the Age of Chaucer: Selected Sermons in Translation, Washington, D.C., 2008, pp. 298- 315; Id., Latin Sermon Collections from Later Medieval England: Orthodox Preaching in the Age of Wyclif, Cambridge 2005, pp. 126-127. 7 F. EHRLE, I più antichi statuti della facoltà teologica dell’università di Bologna, Bologna 1932, p. 23: “Ultimam vero lectionem possunt omnes simul perficere, in qua quisque recommendet debentem sibi succedere lectur<um> bachalarium in eisdem scolis de mense octobr<is>. Et licet legentes bachalary possint in lectionibus quandoque impugnare dicta collegentium sociorum, illud tamen potius faciant in principys et ultima lectione, ita sane ut gratia disputative impugnationis non asserant aliquid revocationi obnoxium, id est non sane dictum seu etiam utcunque suspectum.” 8 LANdOLFO CARACCIOLO, In tertium librum Sententiarum, d. 40, q. unica, ed. C. SCHABEL – W.O. DUBA, in DUBA, “Masters and Bachelors at Paris in 1319: The lectio finalis of Landolfo Caracciolo, OFM,” in: A. SpEER – T. JEsCHKE (eds.), Schüler und Meister, Berlin 2016, pp. 315-370, at pp. 366-370. 146 W. DUba aND C. SCHabEL the statute explicitly restricts the colleagues to those who are also lecturing that same year, but none of the theologians Landolfo names appears to have been among his associates who lectured on the Sentences in 1318-19.9 In sum, Remigio’s speech attests to the practice of commending the next year’s bachelor two-thirds of a century before the first surviv- ing university statute makes mention of it. In spite of the large num- ber of Sentences commentaries, so few examples of final lectures or speeches have been identified and analyzed that we are left to conjec- ture, and to wonder: “How far back did the practice go?” In fact, Remigio’s speeches on the Sentences raise the same question about two other practices as well, namely, how long it took for a bachelor to lecture on the Sentences and in what order he read the books. For Remigio’s statements reveal that, in his days, bachelors read the Sen- tences over the course of a single academic year, and in the sequence I-IV-II-III. The sheer paucity of cases where this information can be explicitly derived has led to great confusion. 1. Sentences Lectures at Paris: One or Two Years? Books I-II-III-IV or I-IV-II-III? That there should be so little unambiguous information on reading the Sentences seems surprising, especially given the huge number of Sentences commentaries that survive. In fact, for historians of phi- losophy and theology, the defining moment of a medieval bachelor of theology was not the inception ceremony, but his lectures on Peter Lombard’s Sentences.10 “Reading the Sentences,” as it was called, required the theologian to elaborate a coherent and comprehensive philosophy and theology. The Sentences commentaries that have come down to us constitute one of the primary stores of systematic thought, and their relationship with a datable series of lectures in the classroom provides a tempting chronological axis from which to spin out narra- tives tracing philosophical and theological debates, especially at the University of Paris.