Accessus Ad Lombardum: the Secular and the Sacred in Medieval Commentaries on the Sentences

ACCESSUS AD LOMBARDUM: THE SECULAR AND THE SACRED IN MEDIEVAL COMMENTARIES ON THE SENTENCES

Steven J. LIVESEY

Abstract

From the early thirteenth century, when Alexander of Hales began to use his lectures on Peter Lombard’s Sentences as a vehicle that provided a comprehensive treatment of theological doctrine to his Parisian students, commentaries on the Sentences began a gradual metamorphosis that transformed their use within the theological faculty. By the 1320s, commentaries on the Sentences had ceased to provide a comprehensive treatment of all four books, at the same time they were becoming ever longer. Part of the transformation included an increasing injection of philosophical content into the commentaries, which in turn altered both the theological enterprise and the philosophical foundation on which it rested. This paper provides a preliminary picture of this transformation by looking at some of the issues that excited late-medieval lecturers on the Sentences.

On or about the 10th of October, 1317, the Franciscan John of Read- ing began his obligatory lectures on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, reading the first line of the Lombard’s text, «Cupientes aliquid de penuria…». By the time he finished his year-long exercise, perhaps around July 5th or 6th, he had compiled a text that in the almost con- temporary hand of the sole-surviving copy, Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Conv. Soppr. D.iv.95, extends to 279 folio pages, a massive work of erudition that displays familiarity with the positions of his contemporaries and predecessors, and especially those of his mentor, Duns Scotus, confronts the views of rivals like William of Ockham, and dresses all of this in the language of scholastic discourse of the early fourteenth century1. Yet if one turns

1. Steven J. LIVESEY, Theology and Science in the Fourteenth Century: Three Questions on the Unity and Subalternation of the Sciences from John of Reading's Commentary on the

©RTPM 72,1 (2005) 153-174 154 S. J. LIVESEY to folio 279, one finds that at the end of this enormous work, John has only addressed the first five distinctions of book I, that is, perhaps only about 3% of the Lombard’s comprehensive work. One hundred seventeen folios are devoted to the prologue to the Sen- tences, which in Brady’s modern edition covers only 2 printed pages! What is going on here? It would, perhaps, be sanctimonious of me to suggest that John exemplifies a serious problem with course management. After all, many have been the times in August when my pedagogical ambitions outstripped my skills and the willingness of my students to maintain a relentless pace. But three percent? Perhaps it was just inexperience. But we have evidence that this wasn’t John’s first assignment to lecture on the Sentences, because it seems that his arguments against Ockham were aimed at Ockham’s own responses to John2. Perhaps it was reduced class time, because medieval universities divided the teaching day into the same number of ‘hours’ even though the available daylight was reduced in the winter; but on that score, one might expect book I to suffer most, because Michaelmas term experienced a noticeable shortening as December approached. Nor does it seem that this should be attributed to youthful exuberance, because by our nearest calculations, in 1317 he would have been about 45. In fact, as William Courtenay3 and others have observed, John’s experience was hardly atypical. By the 1320s, commentaries on the Sentences had long ceased to provide a comprehensive treatment of all four books, just at about the time that for various reasons the standard lecture course on the work was reduced from two years to one. More often than not, commentaries on book I received the most detailed reading, followed by commentaries on book IV. Books II and III, by contrast, were given relative scant attention. The Domini- can, Robert Holcot, who read the Sentences about a dozen years later, devoted only one question to book III, and that may have been added after the course was completed.

Sentences, Leiden 1989, esp. ch. 1; E. LONGPRÉ, «Jean de Reading et le bienheureux Duns Scot», in: La France franciscaine 7 (1924), pp. 99-109; S. BROWN, «Sources for Ockham’s Prologue to the Sentences», in: Franciscan Studies 26 (1966), pp. 37-51. 2. BROWN (note 1 above), pp. 36-37. 3. William J. COURTENAY, Schools and Scholars in Fourteenth-Century England, Princeton 1987, ch. 9: «Theologica Anglicana». ACCESSUS AD LOMBARDUM 155

University statutes themselves provide evidence that those in authority were well aware of the problem. Lecturers were routinely and universally admonished not to read too slowly, in response to students’ inability to transcribe authoritative texts viva voce. More- over, masters of theology were instructed to avoid philosophical sub- tleties in the course of their lectures on the Sentences4, a measure perhaps aimed as much at moving teachers through the curriculum as avoiding theologically dangerous tangents. But why was this the case? What was so profoundly attractive about the philosophical material that inspired generations of young (and not so young) theologians to inject material that had marginal theological import into the central theological textbook of the university? And finally, how did this change both the theological enterprise and the philosophical foundation on which it rested? These are significant, and quite obviously unanswerable questions in the amount of time permitted today — were I to try, I would fall into the same trap that held John of Reading seven centuries ago. But perhaps we can tease a few conclusions from the material by looking at some of the issues that excited late-medieval lecturers on the Sen- tences. I propose to do this by borrowing an idea from a good friend, the late George Molland, and a technique familiar to most medieval- ists, the accessus ad auctores5. At its core, the accessus typifies scholastic culture because it sug- gests that knowledge derives from books and authorities and because it asserts that one must analyze the text in a conventional and uniform way. In its original form, this introductory device explained who, what, why, in what manner, where, when, and by what means. But under the influence of Aristotle’s terminology, many of these explanatory categories were subsumed under the four causes: material (that is, what was written), formal (that is, the mode and order of treatment), efficient (that is, the author) and final (that is, the intention or utility of the work). By way of intro-

4. Heinrich DENIFLE, Emile CHATELAIN, Charles SAMARAN, Emile-A VAN MOÉ, Chartu- larium Universitatis Parisiensis, 4 volumes, Paris 1889-1897. vol. 2, p. 698, no. 1189. 5. A. George MOLLAND, «The quadrivium in the universities: four questions», in: Ingrid CRAEMER-RUEGENBERG (ed.), Scientia und ars im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter. Albert Zimmermann zum 65. Geburtstag (Miscellanea mediaevalia 22), Berlin 1994, pp. 66-78. On the accessus in general, see Edwin Alphons QUAIN, «The Medieval Accessus ad Auc- tores», in: Traditio 3 (1945), pp. 215-264. 156 S. J. LIVESEY ducing some of the basic issues of this commentary tradition, let us look briefly at these four causes, which, for purposes of explanation I will reorder.

1. Efficient

At 45, John of Reading was certainly not the youngest student to lecture on the Sentences, but neither was he the oldest: after a long arts career at Paris and then Heidelberg, Marsilius of Inghen completed his degree in theology by lecturing on the Sentences in 1393 at about age 63. We know the identities of some 896 commentators on the Sentences6, hailing from virtually every part of Western Europe, more from France and England (22% and 21%, respectively), followed by Italy (19%), Germany (15%), the Low Coun- tries (7%), and the remaining 16% from the remainder of Europe. The majority (72%) of these commentators were members of religious orders, with the Franciscans and Dominicans constituting more than half of the total. But if one looks at the subset for whom we know birthdates, there is an interesting shift observable: while the numbers born before and after 1300 are roughly the same (79 and 83, respectively), the orders preferred by the younger pool are Franciscans (54%), Dominicans (20%) and Augustinians (14%); those born after 1300 preferred the Augustinians (29%), Domini- cans (19%), Franciscans (16%) and Carmelites (16%). Clearly, this is a tremendous gain for the Augustinians and a dramatic loss for the Franciscans, probably reflecting the rise of covenantal theology, combined with recruitment problems among Franciscans in the 1320s and 1330s — caused by the controversy over apostolic poverty — and unequal effects of the Plague on religious orders in the 14th century.

6. The quantitative data in this section has been extracted from my database of medieval commentators on the Sentences and Aristotle’s works, http://www.ou.edu/class/ med-sci/Commbase.htm. Portions of these biographical entries are being reformated as part of the International Encyclopaedia for the Middle Ages-Online, A Supplement to LexMA-Online. Turnhout: Brepolis 2004-. [http://www.brepolis.net/info_iema_en.html], and the relational database itself will eventually be available on the Brepolis site. ACCESSUS AD LOMBARDUM 157

At least for those who entered religious orders early in life, intro- duction to non-theological disciplines took place within the schools of the order, at studia artium or naturalium. This might occupy between four and six years, after which, depending on the needs and resources of the order, the scholar might move on to a studium par- ticulare theologiae (or a provincial school) for at least two years prior to completing his training at a studium generale, for example, at Oxford, or Paris, Cologne, Bologna or the like. In fact, by the fourteenth century, the general rule that prevailed among the mendicants that only one student from the order could read the Sentences at a studium generale during a given academic year meant that others, in some cases, many others, were forced to bide their time at provincial studia while waiting for a chance in the major leagues7. For secular scholars, on the other hand, the course of study involved first passing through the curriculum of the arts faculty, then proceeding to the theological faculty, during the course of which students read the Sentences (depending on the statutes of their institution) rather toward the end of their programs. In the arts, students spent three to four years pursuing the first degree, and four or five years beyond that before they became masters. While curricular requirements varied across Europe, and although we know that curricular statutes often failed to mirror what was actually taking place in the course of studies, the combination of statutory materials, man- uscript evidence, and individual reports of scholars themselves bear witness to a curriculum that was heavily invested in Aristotle, and especially the logical works and the libri naturales. Furthermore, it was not uncommon for students to have reached the end of their arts training having ‘heard’ — that is, having listened to the lectures of their masters — or ‘read’ — that is, having themselves lectured on — the same works multiple times. In other words, before they ever matriculated in theology, secular scholars as well as those in orders had a training in arts that made Aristotle a constant and familiar companion8.

7. Alfonso MAIERU, University Training in Medieval Europe, trans. D. N. PRYDS, Lei- den 1994, esp. chapter 1: «Regulations governing teaching and academic exercises in Mendicant Studia». 8. Rainer Christoph SCHWINGES, «Student Education, Student Life», in: Hilde DE RIDDER-SYMOENS (ed.), A History of the University in Europa. Vol. 1: Universities in the 158 S. J. LIVESEY

This, then, was one effective influence, the pervasive presence of Aristotle at one end of their training. At the other end was the goal of most, if not all students pursuing a theological degree, a ranking position outside the university. In a world without defined benefit programs, security lay not in a long academic career, but the rapid attainment of an extramural position. Among the commentators on the Sentences, we find some 241 canonries, 226 positions as provincial leaders of the order and 92 as generals of the order, 24 abbots, 147 bishops, 38 archbishops, 43 cardinals, and 4 popes. While lecturing on the Sentences did not guarantee the attainment of ecclesiastical prefer- ment, distinguishing oneself in this and other exercises was the first step in creating the kind of reputation that could be translated into a position. Conduct among socii who were assigned to lecture on the Sentences was regulated by the fourteenth century to preserve civility, but we see in the principia, or opening lectures on each book, that students steered a tight course between ad hominem attacks on their colleagues and bland, conventional material that aroused no one’s attention. Furthermore, the relationships that one formed at university were designed, it seems, to assist this post-academic goal. Again and again, we see that as students matriculated, they often attached themselves to masters from their home or at least a nearby diocese, perhaps on the grounds that such relationships could result in early notification of and perhaps a favorable action in a supplication for a benefice. Masters also found that this worked for them as well: we know some 58 students taught by the fourteenth-century Parisian master, Walter of Wardlaw, and the countries of origin for 43 of these. Thirty-eight were Scots, and of these we know the dioceses of 24; fourteen of them were from St. Andrews. One of Walter's teachers hailed from St. Andrews, and Walter himself was born in Glasgow and eventually became bishop of that city. A number of his former students returned to Scotland, several becoming canons of the Glasgow cathedral, some before Walter assumed the see in 1367, and therefore had a hand in electing their mentor9.

Middle Ages, Cambridge 1991, pp. 195-243, esp. pp. 231-235. In the same volume, see also the two articles on the Faculty of Arts by Gordon Leff («The Trivium and the Three Philosophies», pp. 307-336) and John North [«The Quadrivium», pp. 337-359). 9. On Walter’s career, see D. E. R. WATT, A Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Grad- uates to AD 1410, Oxford 1977, pp. 569-574. ACCESSUS AD LOMBARDUM 159

In short, commentators on the Sentences were often intellectually curious and trained in the philosophy of Aristotle, socially adept in a dynamic institution like the university, and professionally ambitious within the larger world around them.

2. Material

If we turn now to what commentators did in their lectures on the Sentences, the field is so vast that I can only provide an impressionis- tic picture of the situation. The three examples I want to discuss have been selected from the prologue, book I, distinction 44, and book IV, in part because each example had a significant following across more than one generation of commentators or addressed a topic that proved influential in the history of natural philosophy, and because these three parts of the Sentences acquired the most attention among commentators. So let us turn first to the prologue, where one of the issues addressed in a sequence of questions was the issue of scientia itself.

2.1 Scientia As is rather well known from the early discussions of Chenu and others10, over the course of the twelfth century, the older descriptive and exegetical senses of theology came to be augmented and in some quarters replaced by an analytic, systematic theology. As in the case of medicine, the introductory lectures on or prologues to theological texts began to explore the scientific nature of theology, drawing on Clement of Alexandria’s imagery, whose typological interpretation of the story of Abraham and his sons born of Sarah and Haggar came to prefigure the proper Christian use of secular knowledge: the useful parts of philosophy were to be employed to the advantage of the

10. M. D. CHENU, «La théologie comme science au XIIIe siècle», in: Archives d’his- toire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 2 (1927), pp. 31-71; «Un essai de méthode théologique au XIIe siècle», in: Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 24 (1935), pp. 258-267; «The Masters of the Theological Science», in: Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century, trans. Jerome TAYLOR & Lester K. LITTLE, Chicago 1968, pp. 270- 309. 160 S. J. LIVESEY spiritual, as a handmaid [ancilla] of theology. While more conserva- tive commentators emphasized that ancilla must be taken in the sense of famulatus [that is, a servant], more philosophically astute writers drew the parallel of the ancillary relationship of philosophy and theology and Aristotle’s discussion of subalternation of scientific disciplines11. Their discussions followed two paths. Some, like Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1224 — 1274), asked whether Aristotle’s account of scientia and the first principles on which it was based shed light on the foundations of theology: is theology scientific because it proceeds from principles known in a superior scientia, viz. the knowledge of God and the blessed? In other words, as subsequent readers of Thomas rendered his position, «our theology is a subalternated science to the science of the blessed»12. The other path focused instead on the relationship between theology and the human sciences; as Henry of Ghent (d. 1293) argued, theology subalternates other sciences to itself because scripture speaks propter quid, through causes, about those things that the human sciences speak only quia and by experience13. While these kinds of speculations about the relationships between theology and the human sciences had a residual effect beyond the middle ages — consider, for example, Galileo’s arguments in his Let- ter to Christina about the proper understanding of the preeminence of theology — for a variety of reasons, such discussions seem to have been eclipsed by the third or fourth decade of the fourteenth century. First, prologues to commentaries on the Sentences diminished in size and all but disappeared by 1340. More to the point, scholars seem to have exhausted the traditional questions of the scientific status of theology and moved on to epistemological questions about the sources and certainty of scientia14.

11. See Stephen F. BROWN, «Key terms in medieval theological vocabulary», in: Olga WEIJERS (ed.), Méthodes et instruments du travail intellectuel au Moyen Age. Etudes sur le vocabulaire (Etudes sur le vocabulaire intellectuel du Moyen Age 3), Turnhout 1990, pp. 82-96. 12. Summa Theologiae I, 1, 2; see the summary of Thomas’ position by JOHN OF READING, Quaestiones super libros Sententiarum, Prol., q. 6; ed. LIVESEY (note 1 above), p. 102. 13. See the summary of the various positions, including that of Henry of Gent, in: LIVESEY, Theology and Science in the Fourteenth Century (note 1 above) chapter 2. 14. COURTENAY, Schools and Scholars (note 3 above), pp. 257ff. ACCESSUS AD LOMBARDUM 161

The strands of those developments are numerous, complex, and not always disentangled. One focused on the psychological states by which scientia was acquired and retained. Drawing upon an account in Aristotle’s Categories [VIII 8b28-34], scholastic authors considered scientia a mental state, or habitus, that was permanent or at least difficult to change. Beginning in the late thirteenth century and extending through the next century, scholars debated the relationship between those mental states and the particular elements of scientific knowledge humans possess. Some, like Peter Aureol (d. 1322), argued that there was a single overarching habitus that governed each discipline, conferring an essential unity rec- ognizable in the discipline’s content and method. Others, like William of Ockham (ca. 1285 — 1347), argued that this did not suffice to explain how humans acquired discrete parts of disciplinary understanding, and so proposed that each discipline was governed by multiple mental habits, each corresponding to a proposition or even a part of a proposition within the discipline. Essential unity of scientific disciplines was therefore sacrificed for a conventional unity that permitted more flexible alterations of their con- tents15. Another important element of this development concerned the sufficiency of the criteria for scientia. Although the standard criteria involved the evidence of both reason and experience, increas- ingly in the fourteenth century there were doubts about the possi- bility of one or the other, or in some cases, both16. Many of the novel positions of fourteenth-century natural philosophy were developed secundum imaginationem, that is, hypothetically and not categorically. Thus, in a famous passage from his Livre du ciel et du monde, Nicole Oresme argued that neither experience nor rational proof was capable of establishing the cause for diurnal phenomena. His objective in the discussion was to provide a «means of refuting and checking those who would like to impugn our faith by argu-

15. See the summary of the various positions in LIVESEY, Theology and Science in the Fourteenth Century (note 1 above) chapter 3. For Aureol in particular, see Paul Vincent SPADE, «The unity of a science according to Peter Auriol», in: Franciscan Studies 32 (1972), pp. 203-217. 16. Katherine H. TACHAU, Vision and certitude in the age of Ockham. Optics, episte- mology and the foundations of semantics, 1250-1345, Leiden 1988. 162 S. J. LIVESEY ment»17. By the end of the fourteenth century, scholars at the new university in Vienna expressed doubts about the sufficiency of Aris- totelian syllogistic in proving or even expressing core theological positions like the Trinity18. There are perhaps several interrelated developments that were responsible for these shifts. First, the Con- demnations at Paris and elsewhere in the late thirteenth century, combined with an emphasis on voluntarist theology at the same time, encouraged subsequent scholars to include possible divine interventions in the natural world, and consequently all demonstrative or inductive proofs were subject to cancellation by divine omnipotence19. Second, while Aristotle had distinguished sharply between dialectical and demonstrative proofs, later medieval scholars came to blur the distinctions between these modes of argu- ment20. Third, many of the natural speculations of the late middle ages arose in quaestiones disputatae, and especially quaestiones de sophismatibus, in which the goal of the participant in debate was not demonstration of universal truth, but agility in the disputa- tion21. On occasion, these currents — one disciplinary, the other epistemological — merged in the late middle ages. In 1342/43, the Augustinian Hermit Gregory of Rimini (d. 1358) argued in his commentary on the Sentences that God could preserve the habit of perspective (i.e. mathematical optics) in the intellect, while not preserving the habit of geometry. In such an intellect, perspective

17. Le livre du ciel et du monde, text and commentary by Albert D. MENUT and Alexander J. DENOMY, Toronto 1943, Bk. II, ch. 25, p. 359. 18. Michael H. SHANK, «Unless you believe, you shall not understand»: logic, university, and society in late medieval Vienna, Princeton, N.J., 1988. 19. See, for example, Amos FUNKENSTEIN, Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the middle ages to the seventeenth century, Princeton 1986, esp. chapter III: «Divine Omnipotence and Laws of Nature». 20. Eleonore STUMP, «Dialectic», in: David L. WAGNER (ed.), The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages. Bloomington, IN, 1983. pp. 125-146. 21. See E. D. SYLLA, «The fate of the Oxford calculatory tradition», in: Christian WENIN (ed.), L'homme et son univers au Moyen Age. Actes du septième congrès international de philosophie médiévale (30 août — 4 septembre 1982), 2 volumes, Louvain-la-Neuve 1986, vol. 2, pp. 692-698; B. BAZAN, «La Quaestio disputata», in: Les Genres littéraires dans les sources théologiques et philosophiques médiévales. Définition, critique et exploitation, Louvain-la-Neuve 1982, pp. 31-49; Brian LAWN, The Rise and Decline of the Scholastic ‘Quaestio Disputata’. With Special Emphasis on its Use in the Teaching of Medicine and Sci- ence, Leiden 1993. ACCESSUS AD LOMBARDUM 163 would be a subalternate science, even though it would have no understanding of its own principles, but rather only faith. In this hypothetical example, fueled by the emphasis on divine omnipotence, only those parts of perspective that were acquired before the loss of geometric knowledge would retain their scientific status; conclusions derived subsequently would fail to be scientific22. Sub- sequent commentators, like the Cistercian James of Eltville (d. 1393), even argued that evidence is not necessary for scientia: a col- lection of propositions would be scientific by virtue of the fact that it conforms to the rules of consequentiae, even though by divine omnipotence it has no subjective referent23. Extreme though these examples may be, they suggest the extensive deviations between late medieval understandings of scientia and the Aristotelian sources on which they were grounded.

2.2 Can God make a better world? Near the end of Book I, Peter Lombard takes up the question whether God can do better or different than he does. This was one of the most contentious issues of the twelfth century, and already before Peter addressed it, Peter Abelard had responded negatively, collapsing God’s power and will and arguing that what God wills, he must do necessarily. Although he was not the only one to do so, Peter Lombard vigorously opposed this position, and while he never actually used the terms potentia ordinata and potentia absoluta, much of his discussion hinges on this distinction that bore considerable fruit later when applied to the inviolability of Aristotle’s discussions of

22. GREGORY OF RIMINI, Lectura super primum et secundum Sententiarum, Prologue, q. 1 (ed. A. DAMASUS TRAPP & Venicio MARCOLINO, t. 1, Berlin-New York 1981, p. 52). See also Onorato GRASSI, «La questione della teologia come scienza in Gregorio da Rim- ini», in: Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica 58 (1976), pp. 610-44, esp. at p. 631. 23. JACOBUS DE ALTAVILLA, Lectura super IV libros Sententiarum (ms. Cambrai, Bib- liothèque de la ville 570, fol. 4rb): «Prima sit ista, quod evidentia non est de necessitate scientie. Probatur: scientia potest esse sine evidentia; ergo propositio vera. Consequen- tia tenet. Antecedens probatur quia si Deus causaret unam scientiam absque omni subiecto, talis nulli esset evidens quia nullus per eam esset sciens, et tamen vere esset scientia, quia esset certitudinalis veritas principiorum et necessaria illatio conclusionum ex ipsis. Sed quia ad istam rationem potest dici quod sicud talis habitus est scientia et nullus est per eum sciens, sic etiam est evidentia et nulli erit aliquid per ipsum evidens». 164 S. J. LIVESEY nature. As a result, Book I, d. 44 became a frequent site for such questions as «Whether God could make a better world than this world»24. Such a question resonated with commentators on this passage, because in Book I, chapter 8 of De caelo, Aristotle had argued that all matter must be confined to this world, that is, that there could not be more than one heaven, one world. The reasons Aristotle adduced for this proposition strike at the heart of his physical theory: elements have well-defined natures, and simple bodies have at most a single simple motion. Heavy bodies, like earth, fall by nature to the center of the world; light bodies like fire rise by nature away from the center. Were there a second, or multiple worlds, earth falling to the center of that world would be moving by nature contrary to its natural motion (viewed with respect to the center of this world). And to argue that such things depended on position — proximity to the center of this or that world — would demand that inanimate objects ‘sense’ where they are and act accordingly, which Aristotle considered not only unlikely but irra- tional and contrary to nature25. It would be impossible to give a comprehensive picture of medieval responses to this argument, especially because there was no consensus about either Aristotle’s position or God’s relationship to the natural world. Nevertheless, if we look selectively at one response — that of William of Ockham in his Ordinatio — we can see both one approach and its consequence for Aristotelian natural philosophy26. Ockham’s response turns on the definition of natural place, because he observes that while heavy bodies in this world ostensibly move to a single place both numerically and specifically, this is not the case for light bodies, like fire. Fire, he says, kindled at Oxford and Paris moves up to the same specific place, but not the same

24. Marcia COLISH, Peter Lombard, 2 volumes, Leiden 1994, vol. 1, pp. 290-302. 25. De caelo I.9 276a18 — 279b4; Steven J. DICK, Plurality of Worlds: The Origins of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant, Cambridge 1982, pp. 23ff; Leo ELDERS, Aristotle's cosmology, a commentary on the De caelo, Assen 1966, pp. 137- 149. 26. Ordinatio, I, d. 44; on this issue, see Armand A. MAURER, «Ockham on the Pos- sibility of a Better World», in: Mediaeval Studies 38 (1976), pp. 291-312; FUNKENSTEIN, Theology and the Scientific Imagination (note 19 above), pp. 142ff. ACCESSUS AD LOMBARDUM 165 numerical place, for their paths take them to different points on the circumference of the sphere that surrounds the earth. In the same way, if God were to have created another world, a heavy body placed below the heaven of that world would move naturally to the center of that world, but not to the same numerical place as the center of our world. Seen from this perspective, centers of multiple worlds, although distinct in number, nevertheless form one natural place in species. And to the objection that allowing this modification destroys the dichotomy between natural and violent motions, Ockham observes that the same thing can be seen in our world: a fire placed midway between the earth and the vault of heaven moves naturally to the numerical place immediately above it, but it also recedes naturally from the point on the sphere diametrically opposite the earth, which is equally the place (specifically) of fire27. Thus, the inconve- nient consequences that such a solution produces are not the result of admitting plural worlds, but inherent in Aristotle’s own system. Ockham’s response, in other words, goes far beyond what God can and cannot do or what Peter Lombard originally intended by this passage of the Sentences. Ockham has instead argued that Aristotle’s categories of motion are inadequately defined and his cosmological positions are thus inconsistent. And while it is probably the case that Ockham himself was less interested in the natural consequence than the theological ones, I think it is fairly clear the extent to which such arguments could help encourage at the least multiple Aris- totelianisms, and perhaps even counter-Aristotelian perspectives.

2.3 The Physics of the Eucharist In taking up sacramental theology in Book IV, Peter Lombard exam- ined the status of accidental properties of bread and wine that remain after the sacramental change in the Eucharist. One position that he raises but dismisses is the incomplete change of the elements, so that the accidental properties might inhere in what remains of the bread and wine. The alternative, with which he is clearly not satisfied, is that the substance of bread and wine is totally annihilated and the «accidents remain, subsisting by themselves» [IV, d. 12. c. 1]. While

27. WILLIAM OF OCKHAM, Ordinatio Bk. I, d. 44, q. 1 (ed. G. I. ETZKORN & F. E. KELLEY, OTh 4, St. Bonaventure, NY, 1979, pp. 650-661, esp. pp. 655-660). 166 S. J. LIVESEY the doctrinal solution of Transubstantiation was affirmed in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council, by the early fourteenth century, issues of motion and a natural causal mechanism came to be applied to sacramental discussions as well28. And so as the last example of this section, I would like to relate very briefly the discussion of Franciscus de Marchia, whose questions on the Sentences date from 1319/132029. The occasion for Franciscus’s remarks is the question of efficacy: what initiates and conserves the change in the elements? Obviously, the initial conversion is brought about by the words of the Cele- brant: «hoc est corpus meum». But if a cause must be present for an effect to remain, what keeps the consecrated elements in their mirac- ulous configuration? Clearly, the priest need not continue to say the words of consecration throughout the remainder of the mass. To better explain the situation, Franciscus resorts to what he considers a parallel natural situation, projectile motion. Such motions are initi- ated by a first cause, the projector. But once the projector and projectile are parted, what conserves motion? The answer, says Francis- cus, is a residual power, a virtus derelicta, that was transferred to the projectile at the initiation of the motion and that remains for a time in the object. So too, in the case of the Eucharist, the initial consecration of the elements impresses a virtus derelicta in them even after the words of the celebrant have ceased to exist. What is most interesting about this passage is not Franciscus’s decision to invoke a physical example to explain a mystical doctrine.

28. For a brief discussion of Eucharistic doctrinal development, including Peter Lom- bard’s position, see COLISH, Peter Lombard (note 24 above) vol. 2, pp. 551-583. For a particularly insightful discussion of the physics of the Eucharist focused on two promi- nent authorities, see Edith D. SYLLA, «Autonomous and handmaiden science: St. Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham on the physics of the Eucharist», in: John E. MUR- DOCH & Edith D. SYLLA (edd.), The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning, Dordrecht- Boston 1975, pp. 349-391. 29. The material under discussion in this section may be found in de Marchia’s first question of his Reportatio on Book IV of the Sentences, edited by Anneliese MAIER: «Franciscus de Marchia», in: Die Impetustheorie der Scholastik, Vienna 1940, pp. 45-77; repr. Zwei Grundprobleme der scholastischen Naturphilosophie, 2nd edn. Rome 1951, pp. 166-180. A partial translation of the material may be found in Marshall CLAGETT, The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages, Madison 1959, pp. 526–30. For a recent discussion of de Marchia’s commentary on the Sentences, its textual tradition and the state of the edition in progress, see Russell L. FRIEDMAN & Chris SCHABEL, «Francis of Marchia’s Commentary on the Sentences: Question List and State of Research», in: Mediaeval Stud- ies 63 (2001), pp. 31-106. ACCESSUS AD LOMBARDUM 167

We can find any number of such occurrences in the late middle ages. Rather, it is the theoretical impact of one discipline upon the other that is so intriguing. As he puts it, If one asks what sort of power this is, it can be said that it is neither an absolutely permanent nor an absolutely fluid one, but almost midway between them, since it remains for a certain time, just like heat which arises in water as a result of fire doesn’t have to be absolutely permanent like fire, nor is it impermanent like heat itself…30. That is, while this residual power is naturally self-dissipating, it remains for a time, depending on the original power whose remnant it is. This is why projectiles return to earth and why trajectories vary with the configuration of the body. The theological conveniences of this explanation are fairly obvious, for even consecrated hosts corrupt if left exposed for a long enough time. Likewise, if the host remained efficacious long after the original consecration, the insincere might evade their obligation to come to Mass by stockpiling a supply. In other words, Franciscus’s position holds both physical and theological advantages. The crucial question, then, is whether this physical theory, the impetus, was developed in this form because its theological consequences were convenient, or the theological applications were addressed because they happened to follow the physical analogy. Unfortunately, we cannot determine this, because if Franciscus ever considered this metascientific issue, he never addressed it explicitly in his work.

3. Formal

If we wish to borrow a page from our scholastic forebears, the formal aspects of the accessus included a double distinction: the mode of treatment [forma tractandi] and the form of the work itself [forma tractatus]. In the case of the Sentences, both of these were intimately

30. Reportatio IV, q. 1 (ed. MAIER, pp. 172-173): «Et si quaeratur qualis sit huius- modi virtus, potest dici quod nec est forma simpliciter permanens nec simpliciter fluens, sed quasi media, quia per aliquod tempus permanens, sicut caliditas ab igne genita in aqua non habens esse permanens, simpliciter sicut in igne, nec simpliciter etiam fluens ut calefactio ipsa, …». 168 S. J. LIVESEY wedded, it seems, from the time of the Lombard himself, for as Father Brady has shown, the Sentences comprised both the fruits of Peter Lombard’s own teaching career, as well as rubrics and other devices to encourage efficient use of the work. In early manuscripts of the Sentences, these rubrics were sometimes moved from the mar- gins into the text itself, in an effort to create more room for marginal glosses of the classroom. But the customary distinctiones of the text did not appear until between 1223 and 1227, when Alexander of Hales incorporated them into his own lectures on the Sentences31. If Alexander borrowed this idea from Gratian’s Decretum in order to facilitate the divisio textus, then we already see as early as 1230 the inclination to use the techniques of another discipline in theological pedagogy. Another indication of this comes in the early structure of the lecture itself, for there seems to have been no overt prescription about the form that the lecture should take; instead, theologians took inspiration from the technique already in use in the faculty of arts. The first step was the division of the text, already aided by Alexander’s distinctiones, but amenable of further gradations, as Bonaventure and Aquinas demonstrated in their own commentaries on the Sentences. Following this, each section was subjected to the expositio textus, commencing with a literal, comprehensive exposition, and gradually incorporating quaestiunculae, dubitationes, and other devices aimed at teasing out meaning from difficult passages of the text or places where the passage of time had introduced new problems beyond those addressed by the magister Sententiarum. Between 1230 and 1250, quaestiones came to assume a greater and greater role in the form of the commentary, until by the beginning of the fourteenth century they had squeezed out the other, earlier elements of the lecture32. This specialization underwent a further development in the fourteenth century. By 1330/1340, the average length of commentaries had increased, but the number of questions addressed in them decreased. About 1330, Adam Wodeham still had 70 questions in his

31. Ignatius C. BRADY, «The Distinctions of Lombard’s Book of Sentences and Alexander of Hales», in: Franciscan Studies 25 (1965), pp. 90-116; «The Rubrics of Peter Lombard’s Sentences», in: Pier Lombardo 6 (1962), pp. 5-25. 32. For a concise discussion of the evolution of the genre, one may still consult P. G LORIEUX, «Sentences (Commentaires sur les)», in: Dictionnaire de théologique Catholique, vol. 14, Paris 1941, col. 1860-1884 at 1871ff. ACCESSUS AD LOMBARDUM 169 commentary, of which more than half were focused on Book I. At about the same time, Robert Holcot produced only 19 and Richard Fitzralph 25; a few years later (ca. 1338-39), Robert of Halifax made only 9 questions. Across the Channel at Paris, Francis Bacon’s commentary (ca. 1364-65) included only 26 questions, 22 of which were focused on books I and IV; James of Eltville’s 48 questions (1369- 70); and Peter of Candia’s (1378-80) 11 questions33. At the same time, the internal complexity of individual questions increased: instead of the straightforward responsio following the argumenta principalia, we now find opiniones and instantiae and responses (by both the author and his predecessors) to them, distinctions that sub- divide the issue under consideration, dubia further complicating the responses, and the like. Even with the supposed aural skills of medieval scholastics, it seems difficult to see how listeners could grasp the structure of these questions without a roadmap to guide them. And finally, the questions themselves were divorced from the distinctiones of the Sentences as their ultimate raison d’etre: after Adam Wodeham it is quite rare to find that the lecturer has the founda- tional text before him as he addresses the questions. In its place, one finds other interests, largely logic and physics up to 1350 in England and still later on the Continent; so obvious was this trend that an alarmed faculty of theology at Paris ordered that those reading the Sentences should not discuss questions that focus on logical or philosophical matters, unless the text of the Sentences should require it or the solutions to arguments demand it, but rather discuss speculative or moral theological questions pertinent to the distinctiones34. The tone (and repetition) of this message is not too different from that of the ineffectual parent who warns a child sternly and frequently. We have no evidence that the style or content changed appreciably. Indeed, after mid-century, the practice of lecturing on the Sentences secundum alium — that is, rereading one’s predecessor’s lectures — perpetuated this content35.

33. COURTENAY (note 3 above), pp. 252ff; GLORIEUX (note 32 above), col. 1875. 34. Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis (note 4 above), p. 698 (no. 1189). 35. A. D. TRAPP, «Augustinian Theology of the 14th Century. Notes on editions, marginalia, opinions and book-lore», in: Augustiniana 6 (1956), pp. 146-274, esp. at pp. 250-263, where Trapp discusses Simon of Cremona’s Lectura secundum Hugolinum deliv- ered 1365-66, and follows that with a list of other Augustinians who lectured secundum alium through the end of the century. 170 S. J. LIVESEY

In part, this evolution is a natural consequence of the assimilation of a text: in the early years of the thirteenth century, when the Sen- tences was coming to be recognized as a standard for theological education, the literal, comprehensive exposition, accompanied by an explication of terminology, was essential. As theologians became more comfortable with the text, there was a natural gravitation toward those topics that were more difficult or perhaps more current. But this tendency also resulted in the loss of the principal goal of the Sentences and the commentary tradition: lecturing on the Sentences was obligatory for all bachelors of theology so that they became com- prehensively acquainted with the fundamental principles of Christian theology. On the other hand, as commentaries took on a more spe- cialized focus, students who lectured on the Sentences became fully adept at the argumentative tradition of these particular topics, without acquiring the comprehensive structure that their predecessors had developed.

4. Final

We now come to the issue that began this brief investigation. Why did commentators on the Sentences inject significant issues into their lectures, and how effective was this? Lest this seem a trivial question, let me just note the recent observations of a very sophisticated and informed specialist on the relationships between medieval religious and scientific traditions. After spending nearly 75 pages describing and cataloguing questions from the Sentential tradition that developed issues of natural philosophy, cosmology, or other scientific questions, he asks … one wonders what theologians themselves thought about their efforts to do theology by the application of logic and natural philosophy to ostensible theological problems. Did they believe that they were contributing positively to knowledge and understanding about God and the faith? Did they regard the application of quantitative and analytic methods to theological problems as, in some sense, enhancing their spiritual understanding of the faith? And did they regard it as important to determine what God could or could not do, or what He could or could not know? The theologians themselves fail to shed light on such questions. But somehow, in addition to the personal plea- sure they might have derived from the effort to resolve challenging, if ACCESSUS AD LOMBARDUM 171

bizarre, questions by analytical means, we must, I believe, assume that medieval theologians regarded their efforts as in some sense advancing and buttressing their faith. To think otherwise would signify that they knowingly engaged in meaningless and empty puzzle solving, analytic exercises that had no relevance to their faith. But in what sense they may have regarded their contributions as meaningful for the faith escapes my understanding36. Clearly they must have considered this exercise one with a serious and edifying purpose, for how else can we explain the frequent cita- tions of the handmaid analogy and as the fourteenth century pro- gressed, observations that the sophisticated analysis was intended to thwart those who sought to impugn the faith37. But it may not have been the only explanation that helps us understand the motivations of these philosophical intrusions. I believe that there were significant institutional factors — some of which I have already discussed — that contributed to this development. As we have seen, professional ambitions may have played a large role in the course of one’s intellectual formation, including the opportunities to stand out among one’s peers within the university. Furthermore, especially for secular scholars, theological training was generally preceded by training in the arts faculty, and we know that members of religious orders underwent a similar training in philosophy within the schools of their own orders. But the relationship was even more intimate, for many if not most of the secular masters reading the Sentences were simultaneously teaching in the Arts Faculty. This career path is easiest to see at universities founded after 1348, probably because of more complete records, but it also seems to reflect practice at older universities as well. At Vienna, Leipzig, Ingol- stadt, Cologne, Louvain, Cracow, Prague and Heidelberg, to name just a few, scholars continued to be active in the Arts Faculty as long as 20 years after their time as sententiarius. Often, they held high- profile positions such as dean or receptor of the faculty, but more often than not they were examinatores or temptatores of bachelors and licentiates, and they continued to lecture and put their candi- dates up for degrees within the faculty. The result was that at the very same time they were preparing and delivering lectures on the Sen-

36. Edward GRANT, God and Reason in the Middle Ages, Cambridge 2001, p. 280. 37. For an excellent discussion, focused on Vienna, see SHANK, «Unless you believe, you shall not understand» (note 18 above). 172 S. J. LIVESEY tences, they were exploring related philosophical issues in Aristotle’s libri naturales or using logical techniques of sophismata, consequentiae, obligationes, and similar treatises. It would be almost inconceiv- able that this professional calendar would produce no cross-fertiliza- tion. Moreover, we have, I think, often focused on the injection of philosophy into theology without recognizing fully that this was but one instantiation of a wider phenomenon. Just as many arts students went on to the faculty of theology, so too several of their colleagues entered the other two superior faculties, medicine and law. So, for example, Erhard Knab began his studies in medicine in 1451, after several years of teaching in the arts faculty at Heidelberg, yet he continued to serve in arts well into the mid-1460s, in fact after taking his medical degree38. The same was true for Helmhold of Soltwedel at the beginning of the 15th century39 and Magnus Hund at the end of the century, both at Leipzig40. And of course in Italy, where arts and medicine often formed a single college, we have several examples of medical doctors who continued to lecture on arts subjects even after attaining the MD41. We also have a number of cases of scholars like Johannes Brasiator of Frankenstein42, who matriculated in law, continued to teach in arts, and occasionally even pursued a theological degree. One of the consequences of this tendency is the frequent

38. Ludwig SCHUBA, «Die medizinische Fakultät im 15. Jahrhundert», in: W. DOERR (ed.), Semper Apertus. Sechshundert Jahre Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg 1386- 1986, Bd. 1, Berlin 1985, pp. 162-187 at pp. 171-178. 39. Liber decanorum facultatis philosophicae Universitatis Pragensis: ab anno Christi 1367 usque ad annum 1585 (Monumenta historica Universitatis Carolo-Ferdinandeae Pragensis, tom. I, pars 1-2), 2 volumes, Prague 1830-1832, vol. 1, pp. 19, 211, 236, 267, 270, 273, 284, 294, 295, 301, 307, 308, 309, 310, 313, 314, 315, 324, 329, 335, 336, 337, 340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 347, 353, 354, 357, 359, 360, 362, 363, 365, 366, 367, 377, 378, 379, 384, 385, 393, 401; Josef TRÍSKA, Zivotopisny slovník predhusitské Prazské Univerzity 1348-1409 (Repertorium biographicum Universitatis Pragensis praehussiticae 1348-1409), Prague 1981, p. 138. 40. G. BUCHWALD, «Magnus Hundt der Altere von Magdeburg (1519)», in: Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde N.F. 11, zweite Hälfte (1919-1920), pp. 275-279. 41. For example, the career of Ugo Benzi, who taught both arts courses and medicine at several universities following his initial degree at Pavia in 1396; see D. P. LOCKWOOD, Ugo Benzi: Medieval philosopher and Physician, 1376-1439, Chicago 1951. 42. TRÍSKA, Zivotopisny slovník predhusitské Prazské Univerzity 1348-1409 (note 39 above, p. 276; while there is some question about Brasiator’s designation by Tríska as bac- calaureus decretorum in 1389, he continued to teach in Arts while lecturing on the Sen- tences at Prague ca. 1405-1408. ACCESSUS AD LOMBARDUM 173 injection of both arts material and arts techniques into medical and legal texts, particularly in the fourteenth century and beyond. In law, for example, the early glossators use Aristotle’s discussion of the causes to explain and extend discussions of contracts; after the Meta- physics and the Ethics were translated by the third quarter of the thirteenth century, Aristotle’s categories, causes, and concepts of distrib- utive and commutative justice were employed by 14th-century jurists like Bartolus and Baldus de Ubaldis to form a general theory of the contract43. In medicine, arts techniques like the quantification of qualities that were so useful in natural philosophical discussions of motion were employed to create a theory of quantified medicine and compounded drugs44. In other words, the very same disciplinary intrusions that we see in theology can be found in the other two superior faculties. Now the result of this amalgamation of techniques and material is quite interesting. In medicine, it produced an almost unworkable theory of disease and treatment, leading one to ask why medical scholars would pursue such a course. The reason — or at least one of the reasons — is pragmatic: in an attempt to distinguish themselves from the non-professional, non-university trained practitioners, university medical faculty could cite the extraordinarily complex quantified medicine that was their exclusive domain, and thereby justify their claim on well-heeled clients45. The same, mutatis mutandis, seems to be the case for theologians. The motivation seems not (at least superficially) a monetary one, but rather an intellectual one: faced with an alternative, populist theology, academic theologians frequently pointed to the complexity of their subject matter and the concomitant exclusivity of their domain. So, for example, in his commentary on the Sentences, James of Eltville asks whether the

43. Harold Joseph BERMAN, Law and revolution: the formation of the Western legal tradition, Cambridge, MA, 1983, pp. 245-250. 44. Michael MCVAUGH, «Quantified Theory and Practice at 14th-Century Montpel- lier», in: Bulletin of the History of Medicine 43 (1969), pp. 397-413. 45. See, for example, Cornelius O’BOYLE, «Surgical texts and social contexts: physi- cians and surgeons in Paris, c. 1270 to 1430», in: Luis GARCÍA-BALLESTER et al. (edd.), Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death, Cambridge 1994, pp. 156-185; Nancy SIRAISI, «The Faculty of Medicine», in: Hilde DE RIDDER-SYMOENS (ed.), A History of the University in Europa. Vol. 1: Universities in the Middle Ages, Cambridge 1991, pp. 360- 387; and John M. RIDDLE, «Theory and Practice in Medieval Medicine», in: Viator 5 (1974), pp. 157-184, esp. pp. 170ff. 174 S. J. LIVESEY acquisition of theological knowledge is a scientific intellectual habit, and to an objection that it is not (because it must be believed, not known), James responds, «If this were the case, theological study would be wholly useless, because through it the theologian would be no more expert in opposing the arguments of the infidel than some old woman»46. How else can we explain the frequent disparaging ref- erences to the stulti, whose theological understanding is incompara- bly poorer than the academic’s? Is this a matter of faith, knowledge, or professional self-preserva- tion? Perhaps in the end, a bit of all three. Like the other academic disciplines, theology had since the twelfth century incorporated the language of philosophy to secure a sound academic foundation. But now, two centuries later, a new challenge emerged. In his characteris- tically blunt way, Ockham commented on the contested magisterial authority: perhaps theological truth did not reside in pope, council, or academic theologians, but rather in the «pauperes, simplices, illit- eratos et rusticos»47. Faced with that alternative and a consequent intellectual anarchy it would produce, fourteenth-century theologians may very well have considered philosophically exclusive theology good for the church and good for the faithful within it.

46. Quaestiones totius libri Sententiarum, Prologue, q. 1, a. 2 (ms. Cambrai, BV 570, fol. 3va): «Nulla notitia est scientifica qua scientifice argumentis infidelium respondetur et fides non implicare ostenditur. Talis est processus theologicus, aliter enim frustra est theologia et studium in illa, cum per eam non posset plus periti in ista argumentales fidei substinere contra infidelem quam una altiqua vetula». 47. Dialogus, ed. and trans. John KILCULLEN, George KNYSH, Volker LEPPIN, John SCOTT and Jan BALLWEG, under the auspices of the Medieval Texts Editorial Commit- tee of the British Academy, Pars I, L. 5, c. 28 [http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/ dialogus/t1d54.html; accessed 5 November 2004]. See also Dialogus, I, L. 5, c. 25, where Ockham notes that «sepe multi sapientes catholici inveniuntur extra concilium generale qui possunt defendere fidem licet omnes errarent in concilio generali congregati».