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Charles V, Nicole Oresme, and Christine De Pizan: Unities and Uses of Knowledge in Fourteenth-Century France

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Charles V, Nicole Oresme, and Christine De Pizan: Unities and Uses of Knowledge in Fourteenth-Century France CHARLES V, NICOLE ORESME, AND CHRISTINE DE PIZAN: UNITIES AND USES OF KNOWLEDGE IN FOURTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE JOAN CADDEN One of John Murdoch's most influential contributions to the study of me­ dieval science has been to expand our understanding of the specific intellec­ tual contexts in which medieval ideas about the natural world were located. Long before the concept of intertextuality became fashionable, Murdoch's detailed empirical study of the concerns, arguments, and methods of scho­ lastic sciences demonstrated their ties to, indeed their integration with, the concerns, arguments, and methods of philosophy and theology. Without a grasp of these intellectual contexts, modern scholars are in danger of mis­ construing (or missing altogether) the medieval meaning and importance of specific developments in scientific theory or approach: If it is true, for example, that the new area of importance for fourteenth- century theology was that of justification, grace, and predestination, then the philosophical deliberations over the logic of future contingent propositions surely was a phenomenon of relevance.1 The intimate relations among such concerns are an example of what Mur­ doch calls the "unitary character of late medieval learning"; they have their foundation in the curriculum and milieu of universities, which promoted a complicated conversation within and among the arts, theology, medicine, and law. Although texts are the immediate context in which this unity is grounded, Murdoch has suggested that the institutions that frame it and the relations among the persons who enacted it have a bearing on its particular character.2 The work of Nicole Oresme, encompassing (among other things) natural philosophy, epistemology, mathematics, and theology, illustrates Mur­ doch's account of the fourteenth-century intellectual scene. Seen in dia- 1 John E. Murdoch, "The Analytic Character of Late Medieval Learning: Natural Philoso­ phy without Nature," in Approaches to Nature in the Middle Ages: Papers of the Tenth An­ nual Conference of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, ed. Lawrence D. Roberts, Medieval and Renaissance Studies and Texts 16 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and Texts, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1982), pp. 171-213, on pp. 173-74. 2 John E. Murdoch, "From Social to Intellectual Factors: An Aspect of the Unitary Char­ acter of Late Medieval Learning," in The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning: Proceed­ ings of the First International Colloquium on Philosophy, Science, and Theology in the Middle Ages, September 1973, ed. John Emory Murdoch and Edith Dudley Sylla, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 26; Synthèse Library 76 (Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel, 1975), pp. 271-348, on pp. 274-75, 309-10. CHARLES V, NICOLE ORESME, AND CHRISTINE DE PIZAN 209 logue with other developments—from the science of mechanics to the epistemology of probabilism—it takes on greater significance than it would have were Oresme not engaged in a wider scholarly conversation. Yet his systematic criticism of and polemical attacks upon astrology, particularly in the French Livre de divinacions, have suggested the existence of another set of contexts—the intellectual life of the laity, the social dynamics of the court, and the political interests of the monarchy.3 Historians of science have had limited interest in the connections between the production of learned texts about the natural world and these broader contexts, in part because (unlike much of Oresme's other work) the antiastrological writings have seemed to have existed in intellectual isolation—contesting unspoken views of silent adversaries (the astrologers) and addressing the unyielding position of an equally silent audience (King Charles V of France). Within the court itself, however, resides evidence of a serious exchange about the nature and role of astral sciences. Furthermore, this conversation reveals cultural and political roles for academic philosophy that extend be­ yond the simple deployment of horoscopes and elections. Though we have little direct record of their words, Oresme's adversaries were not silent. 3 At the core of Nicole Oresme's antiastrological corpus are the Questio contra divina- tores horoscopios, ed. Stefano Caroti, in Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age 43 (51st yr., 1976): 201-310; the Tractatus contra astrologos iudicarios, éd. Hubert Pruckner, in Studien zu den astrologischen Schriften des Heinrich von Langenstein (Leipzig: Teubner, 1933), pp. 227-45; and Le livre de divinacions (hereafter Oresme, Divi­ nacions), ed. G. W. Coopland, in Nicole Oresme and the Astrologers: A Study of His Livre de divinacions (Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press, 1952), pp. 50-210. The most impor­ tant related texts are the Ad pauca respicientes, in De proportionibus proportionum and Ad pauca respicientes, ed. Edward Grant (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), pp. 379-441; and the set of quodlibetal questions edited by Bert Hansen, Nicole Oresme and the Wonders of Nature: A Study of his De causis mirabilium, Studies and Texts 68 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1985). In addition to the studies accompanying the editions, see Charles Jourdain, "Nicolas Oresme et les astrologues de la cour de Charles V," in Excursions historiques et philosophiques à travers le moyen âge (Paris: Fermin-Didot, 1888), pp. 559-85; Lynn Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 1934), vol. 3, pp. 398-423; Edward Grant, "Nicole Oresme on Certitude in Science and Pseudo-Science," in Nicole Oresme: Tradition et innovation chez un intellectuel du XLVe siècle, ed. P. Souffrin and A. P. Segonds, Science et Humanisme (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1988), pp. 31-43; Stefano Caroti, "Éléments pour une reconstruction de la philosophie de la nature dans les Quodlibeta de Nicole Oresme," and Max Lejbowicz, "Chronologie des écrits anti-astrologiques de Nicole Oresme: Étude sur un cas de scepticisme dans la deuxième moitié du XlVe siècle," in Autour de Nicole Oresme: Actes du Colloque Oresme organisé à l'Université de Paris XII, ed. Jeannine Quillet (Paris: J. Vrin, 1990), pp. 85-118 and 119-74, respectively. Noted in virtually every scholarly treatment of the antiastrological works, the relationship with the court is addressed more fully in Jourdain, "Nicole Oresme et les astrologues"; Jean- nine Quillet, Charles V, le Roi Lettré: Essai sur la pensée politique d'un règne, Présence d'Histoire (Paris: Librairie Académique Perrin, 1984), pp. 96-114; Edgar Laird, "Astrology in the Court of Charles V of France, as Reflected in Oxford, St. John's College, MS 164," Manuscripta 34 (1990): 167-76. The subject is sometimes addressed under the heading of Oresme's "influence": see, e.g., Coopland, Nicole Oresme, pp. 7-13. .
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