INTRODUCTION to Many Franciscans, the Situation Looked

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION To many Franciscans, the situation looked dire in the 1320s. Some, notably the so-called Spiritual Franciscans, had already been marginalized in the previous decade, and the outlook had not improved since then. It was, as Angelo Clareno thought, the time of the sixth and seventh tribulations since the days of St Francis.1 Others, notably the emerging Michaelist faction, were in transition from cooperating with the pope,John XXII (1316–1334), to outright defiance because of his pronouncements about Franciscan and evangelical poverty.2 In many ways, the Michaelist–John controversy was the last great phase of Franciscan thought about poverty and property. The debate never died out entirely, and it exerted a profound influence on subsequent theologians and jurists alike, but the Michaelists failed to attract enough adherents to their cause to effect any meaningful change. Nonetheless, the 1320s and early 1330s were a period of fruitful reflection about poverty—and, by the same token, property rights. It has for this reason attracted a great deal of attention by modern scholars. Yet this attention has been uneven, partly due to the length of the texts involved, and partly because many of them remained unedited (and untrans- lated) for so long. Pope John XXII has certainly not been neglected, but even his bull Quia vir reprobus (1329) has not always received the consideration it merits.3 William of Ockham has of course received the lion's share of the scrutiny, not wholly without reason. His Opus nonaginta dierum of about 1 See Historia, trib. 6–7 (288–309). On Angelo, the best study remains Potestà, Angelo Clareno, but see also Burr, Spiritual Franciscans, 279–304, as well as the essays in Angelo Clareno Francescano; of particular interest in this connection are Accrocca, “« Filii canis–filii spiritus»” and Bartoli, “La dimensione escatologica.” 2 I have preferred to use ‘Michaelist' and ‘Spiritual' over the older terms Fraticelli de opinione and Fraticelli de vita paupere, but neither usage is correct if used in a monolithic sense. My forthcoming “Property Rights” tackles the terminology briefly before examining the evolving “Michaelist” views of the previous two decades. 3 Brunner, “Pope John XXII,” esp. 1–15, has recently reviewed the historiography as it relates to John. 1 2 chapter one 1332 may be exceedingly long and rather repetitive, but it contains many important ideas about the nature of property and of rights, and the text is often seen as an important formative step to his later, more overtly political works.4 The other Michaelists have not been so fortunate, although things are beginning to change.5 The most important reason for this change is that we now have critical, or at least convenient, editions of almost all the major texts from the Michaelist camp.6 These editions, as well as the publication of other relevant tracts from around this time, stand to put the history of this controversy, particularly Ockham' role in it, in a whole new light.7 The time is surely ripe to take advantage of these developments. The focus of this book is on the Michaelist theory of property rights.That is, to extract from their writings so far as we can their view of how property is acquired, what legal or moral powers are associated with property rights, how such rights may be lost or renounced, and what kinds of things people can do with other people's property without possessing or gaining any rights over the thing(s) they use.The Michaelists, and John for that matter, were generally only interested in the first and last of these questions.Yet in an- swering them, they also discussed the other questions. Unfortunately, these discussions often lack the rigour we might wish for since their objective was only to refute, albeit in as many ways as possible,John's claims, and to 4 Miethke,“Dominium, ius und lex,” 241. On the dating, see OPol 1:288, and Miethke, Ockhams Weg, 83; Baudry, Guillaume d'Occam, 150–53, argued for a redacted version in 1333. McGrade, Political Thought, 14 n. 51, and Spade, Companion to Ockham, 10, listed the broad- est possible range of dates (1332–34). However, 1334 seems to be too late a date, especially when one considers when the other major responses to QVR were composed. 5 Biographical studies of the major protagonists of this study can be found in Robinson, “Ockham's Early Theory of Property,” 1 n. 5. See now Lambertini, “Political Theory in the Mak- ing” and Miethke,“Der „theoretische Armutsstreit‘‘” for extensive and up to date bibliogra- phies. 6 The two main editions in question are: Gál and Flood, Nicolaus Minorita: Chronica, which is not, properly speaking, a critical edition, and Mariani, Improbatio. Of interest, too, especially since consensus on the authorship of the text has not been settled to everyone's satisfaction is the so-called Impugnatio, which is edited in Knysh, “Ockham's First Political Treatise?” I have chosen to make sparing use of the text in the notes as a point of comparison with Ockham, but Roberto Lambertini's hesitations deserve consideration; see his “Natural Law” 3:1626 n. 3. 7 We should mention here Walter Chatton's question in his Reportatio 3.16.un, in Wey and Etzkorn, Chatton: Reportatio 4:139–68, an important companion piece to the complicated text edited in Douie, “Three Treatises”; Durand of St-Pourçain's De paupertate, in Miethke,“Das Votum De paupertate”; the Dicta domini Bertrandi cardinalis de Turre in Nold, Pope John XXII, 178–94; and the Dicta domini Berengarii Episcopi Tusculani in Flood,“Review of Nold,” 230–35..

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