Before and After Wyclif: Sources and Textual Influences (Textes Et Etudes Du Moyen Age) 9782503594064, 2503594069

Table of contents :
Front Matter
LUIGI CAMPI – STEFANO SIMONETTA. INTRODUCTION
MARK THAKKAR. WYCLIF’S LOGICA AND THE LOGICA OXONIENSIS
ALESSANDRO D. CONTI. OXFORD REALISTS’ CRITICISM OF WALTER BURLEY’S LAST THEORY OF PROPOSITION
AURÉLIEN ROBERT. Atomism at Oxford after John Wyclif
STEPHEN E. LAHEY. STANISLAUS OF ZNOJMO AND THE ECCLESIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF WYCLIF’S DIVINE IDEAS
IAN CHRISTOPHER LEVY. THE WORDS OF INSTITUTION AND DEVOTION TO THE HOST IN THE WAKE OF WYCLIF
SEAN OTTO. ANTI-FRATERNALISM AND THE SOURCES OF JOHN WYCLIF’S SERMONES
KANTIK GHOSH. AFTER WYCLIF: PHILOSOPHY, POLEMICS AND TRANSLATION IN THE ENGLISH WYCLIFFITE SERMONS
JINDŘICH MAREK. JAKOUBEK OF STŘÍBRO AS A WYCLIFFITE. THE TESTIMONY OF HIS SERMON COLLECTIONS
GRAZIANA CIOLA. THE APOLOGUE OF THE BIRDS
Back Matter

Citation preview

Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales TEXTES ET ÉTUDES DU MOYEN ÂGE, 97

BEFORE AND AFTER WYCLIF: SOURCES AND TEXTUAL INFLUENCES

Edited by L. CAMPI and S. SIMONETTA

FÉDÉRATION INTERNATIONALE DES INSTITUTS D’ÉTUDES MÉDIÉVALES

Présidents honoraires : Leonard E. BOYLE (†) (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana et Commissio Leonina) Louis HOLTZ (Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes, CNRS, Paris) Jacqueline HAMESSE (Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-laNeuve) Président : Maarten J. F. M. HOENEN (Universität Basel) Vice-Président et Éditeur responsable : Ana GÓMEZ RABAL (Institución Milá y Fontanals, CSIC, Barcelona) Secrétaire : Marta PAVÓN RAMÍREZ (Centro Español de Estudios Histórico-Eclesiásticos, Roma) Trésorier : Ueli ZAHND (Université de Genève) Membres du Comité : Alexander BAUMGARTEN (Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca) Patricia CAÑIZARES FERRIZ (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) Massimiliano LENZI (Sapienza, Università di Roma) Roberto H. PICH (Pontificia Universidade Católica do Río Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre) Dominique POIREL (Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes, CNRS, Paris) Anne-Marie TURCAN-VERKERK (École Pratique des Hautes Études, PSL, Paris) Carmela VIRCILLO-FRANKLIN (Columbia University, New York)

Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales TEXTES ET ÉTUDES DU MOYEN ÂGE, 97

BEFORE AND AFTER WYCLIF: SOURCES AND TEXTUAL INFLUENCES

Edited by L. CAMPI and S. SIMONETTA

Basel 2020

Cover illustration: By permission of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and of Tourism – Marciana National Library (Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice). Prohibition of reproduction.

ISBN: 978-2-503-59406-4 E-ISBN: 978-2-503-59407-1 DOI: 10.1484/M.TEMA-EB.5.122974 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. © 2020 Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales. Philosophisches Seminar Universität Basel Steinengraben 5 CH-4051 Basel (Schweiz)

CONTENTS LIST

Luigi CAMPI – Stefano SIMONETTA, Introduction Mark THAKKAR, Wyclif’s Logica and the Logica Oxoniensis Alessandro D. CONTI, Oxford Realists’ Criticism of Walter Burley’s Last Theory of Proposition Aurélien ROBERT, Atomism at Oxford after John Wyclif. The Cases of Robert Alyngton and Roger Whelpdale Stephen E. LAHEY, Stanislaus of Znojmo and the Ecclesiological Implications of Wyclif’s Divine Ideas Ian Christopher LEVY, The Words of Institution and Devotion to the Host in the Wake of Wyclif Sean OTTO, Anti-fraternalism and the Sources of John Wyclif’s Sermones Kantik GHOSH, After Wyclif: Philosophy, Polemics and Translation in The English Wycliffite Sermons Jindřich MAREK, Jakoubek of Stříbro as a Wycliffite. The Testimony of His Sermon Collections Graziana CIOLA, The Apologue of the Birds

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1 33 57 95 111 153 167 187 203

Bibliography

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Index of Names Ancient and Medieval Authors Modern and Contemporary Authors

255 259

Index of Manuscripts

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LUIGI CAMPI* – STEFANO SIMONETTA** INTRODUCTION

Most of the students were younger than William, certainly still studying the Trivium, but the lad who now spoke was older. «I am at St Edmund’s, not Hart Hall, but I know William. We both attend Master Wycliffe’s lectures on Ethics». [...] There was a fellow student of ours who had often argued this point with us. Nowadays he was a Regent Master of Arts, like Jordain, and in fact he was the very man whose lectures on rhetoric William and Peter de Wallingford had attended. John Wycliffe had argued –and indeed very persuasively– that the Bible should be translated into English, so that any man might read its words for himself. It was a dangerous and radical idea, verging on heresy. As students we had urged him to be careful who heard him put forth such ideas. I had not seen much of him of late, being taken up with my secular life, but I reckoned that he probably still held his radical views. You cannot often turn a fanatic from the path on which he has set his foot, whatever the catastrophe that lies ahead.

With such brush strokes, a rather unexpected portrait of the «young Regent Master» John Wyclif is sketched in The Bookseller’s Tale, a book of Medieval crime fiction published in 2016 as the first volume of the series Oxford Medieval Mysteries Books1. Certainly, these few lines conceal a number of mysteries (blunders) that require a solution (rejection), starting from the curious curriculum studiorum –divided into a propaedeutic Trivium followed by the advanced Quadrivium with a splash of (presumably

*

Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano (Italy); [email protected] Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano (Italy); stefano.simonetta@ unimi.it 1 A. SWINFEN, The Bookseller’s Tale, Shakenoak Press, [UK] 2016, pp. 35, 48, 166. We are indebted to Costantino Marmo for having shared with us the final draft of his article, «Fictiones nelle filosofie medievali e filosofie medievali nelle fictions», forthcoming in an issue of Mediaevalia. Textos e estudos and originally presented at the SISPM 24th Conference, Finzione nel discorso filosofico medievale (Porto, 5th-6th September 2019). **

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Aristotelian) philosophy2– that students allegedly had to follow in Oxford schools as late as the spring of 1353. Needless to say, at that time Wyclif was not a master of Arts, since we have evidence that he was still a bachelor in May 13563, and –in spite of his intense activity as a preacher– his Latin could hardly be labelled as eloquent, nor was his interest in Aristotelian Ethics particularly remarkable4. Incidentally, it was of course part of his academic duties to ‘read’ Aristotelian works while teaching at the Faculty of Arts5; yet his 2 A. SWINFEN, The Bookseller’s Tale, p. 14: «Two of the older students came to return peciae of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Boethius’s Music. Both students had completed the fundamental course of the Trivium –Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric– and were now studying the more advanced Quadrivium –Geometry, Music, Arithmetic and Astronomy–, which also included additional reading in Philosophy». 3 Cf. J.A. ROBSON, Wyclif and the Oxford Schools: The Relation of the ‘Summa de Ente’ to Scholastic Debates at Oxford in the Later Fourteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1961, pp. 10, 13; A. HUDSON – A. KENNY, «Wyclif [Wycliffe], John [called Doctor Evangelicus]», Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Oxford 20102 (online edition: , accessed on May 21, 2020). 4 On the marginal role of the teaching of Rhetoric at Oxford, see Statuta antiqua universitatis Oxoniensis, Ed. by S. GIBSON, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1931, pp. 25-26: «[1268 statute] Coram quibus magistris cum laudabili testimonio magistrorum vel bachilariorum conveniant bachillarii anno eodem determinaturi, qui, si fuerint pro seipsis determinaturi, iurabunt, tactis sacrosanctis, quod omnes libros veteris logice ad minus bis audierint, exceptis libris Boecii, quos semel sufficiat audivisse preter quartum librum Topicorum Boecii, quem audivisse non astringantur»; ibid., p. 33: «[1340 statute] Tenentur insuper omnes incepturi [...] si ad incipiendum fuerint presentati, proprio iuramento firmare quod sex libros Euclidis, Arsmetricam Boycii, Compotum cum Algorismo, tractatum De spera, et saltim vice rhetorice quartum Topicorum Boecii audierint competenter». Cf. P.O. LEWRY, «Rhetoric at Paris and Oxford in the MidThirteenth Century», Rhetorica, 1 (1983) 45-63: 57-58. Attending lectures on Ethics was mandatory for incepting as masters of Arts at Oxford in Wyclif’s time –something which Wyclif must have done between 1356 and 1360, when he is known to have become magister and Master of Balliol College; cf. Statuta antiqua universitatis Oxoniensis, p. 33; ROBSON, Wyclif and the Oxford Schools, 13; J.I. CATTO, «Wyclif and Wycliffism at Oxford 1356-1430», in ID. – R. EVANS (eds.), The History of the University of Oxford, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1992, vol. 2, pp. 175-261: 187. 5 Of the extant writings by Wyclif, only one can be surely considered to be based on his teaching of an Aristotelian work, even though –strictly speaking– it is not a commentary, namely the De ente praedicamentali, which deals with the ten categories; in the only transmitted copy, the De ente praedicamentali lacks the section devoted to

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attitude towards the Philosopher, inspired to caution at earlier stages of his career, turned into overt suspicion over the years, until Wyclif definitely

‘quality’, but Mark Thakkar has recently informed us that it survives through another work by Wyclif, De actibus animae, which is actually a collection of extracts from other works. Cf. John Wyclif, De ente praedicamentali, Ed. by R. BEER, Trübner & Co., London 1891; Id., De actibus animae, in Id., Miscellanea philosophica, Ed. by M.H. DZIEWICKI, 2 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1902, vol. 1, pp. 1-127: 116-127. A commentary on the Physica is ascribed to Wyclif by the only extant manuscript copy, MS Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Lat. VI. 173, ff. 1ra-58vb; though its authorship still needs to be confirmed, it is at least worth recalling that an item recorded under the title Super tres libros methereorum & super 8 libros phisicorum Aristotelis appears in the index of the holdings of the Library of Syon Monastery; cf. Catalogue of the Library of Syon Monastery, Isleworth, Ed. by M. BATESON, The University Press, Cambridge 1898, p. 244. It is worth recalling that John Bale lists two tracts on a physical subject (namely, De physica naturali and De intentione physica) in his catalogue, without recording their incipits; cf. John Bale, Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytanniae ... Catalogus, Centuria Sexta, Apud Johannem Oporinum, Basileae 1557-1559, p. 455. As pointed out by Anne Hudson, further evidence of the existence of a commentary on the Meteora by Wyclif is provided by the catalogue of the Library of Hedvika’s College at the University of Prague, which lists the item Wygleff super Metheorum; cf. A. HUDSON, Appendix II: Supplement to Manuscript Listings, in EAD., Studies in the Transmission of Wyclif’s Writings, EAD., Studies in the Transmission of Wyclif’s Writings, Ashgate Variorum, Aldershot 2008, pp. 1-16: 2; Catalogi librorum vetustissimi Universitatis Pragensis, ed. Z. SILAGIOVÁ – F. ŠMAHEL (CCCM, 271), Turnhout 2015, p. 37. As far as we know, neither the Syon Monastery manuscript nor the Prague one survives. A commentary on the De anima (or a part of it) ascribed to Wyclif was contained in one of the three volumes that Thomas Markaunt bequeathed to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1439; cf. Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues: The University and College Libraries of Cambridge, Ed. by P.D. CLARKE – R. LOVATT, The British Library – The British Academy, London 2002, p. 200, #43. Ivan Mueller’s conclusion that the following excerpt contains a reference to his commentary on the De anima is perhaps too hurried; see John Wyclif, De actibus animae, p. 52: «Ad primam confirmacionem dicitur, ut patet 4° libro, quod inpossibile est animam elicere novum actum, nisi moveatur»; cf. I.J. MUELLER, «A “Lost” Summa of John Wyclif», in A. HUDSON – M. WILKS (eds.), From Ockham to Wyclif, Blackwell, Oxford 1987, 179-183 (Studies in Church History: Subsidia, 5): 182-183. To corroborate his claim, Mueller hinted to the evidence provided by S. Harrison Thomson regarding a reference found in the commentary on the Physica ascribed to Wyclif; cf. S.H. THOMSON, «Unnoticed MSS and Works of Wyclif II», Journal of Theological Studies, 38 (1937) 139-148: 147; cf. MS Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Lat. VI. 173, f. 13ra, l. 16. A reference to a certain De mundo is found in Wyclif’s De potentia productiva Dei

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excluded him from the pantheon of authorities6 and ended up targeting Aristotle not only for some views considered philosophically untenable –the eternity of the world, above all7– but also in order to oppose some methodological and epistemological trends of his own time8.

ad extra, MS Cambridge, Trinity College Library, B.16.2, f. 148rb, ll. 63-64: «set declarabitur oppositum sequi in tractatu proximo de mundo»; as far as we know, this is the only cross-reference to a work with such a title, which seems to have been understood by Wyclif as part of the same collection of tracts to which De potentia productiva must belong –most likely, the Summa de ente. The title De mundo does not seem appropriate to describe the content of any other known text by Wyclif, and there are no grounds to ascertain whether this (at least, planned) tract was based on Aristotle’s De caelo et mundo. Cf. L. CAMPI, «Introduction», in John Wyclif, De scientia Dei, Ed. by L. CAMPI, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2017, pp. xi-cxlix: lvi, note 164. 6 See John Wyclif, De logica, Ed. by M.H. DZIEWICKI, 3 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1893-1899, vol. 3, p. 109: «revera multi subtiliores, ut Pitagoras, Democritus, Plato, Epicurus, et inter moderniores Lincolniensis cum aliis»; Id., Trialogus cum supplemento Trialogi, Ed. by G. LECHLER, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1869, p. 84: «Democritus autem, Plato, Augustinus, Lincolniensis, qui ita senserant, sunt longe clariores philosophi, et in multis metaphisicis scientiis plus splendentes» (that is, than Aristotle); Id., De intelleccione dei, in Id., De ente librorum duorum excerpta, ed. M.H. DZIEWICKI, Trübner & Co., London 1909, p. 104: «Ponunt enim Augustinus, Anselmus, Lincolniensis, et alii sequaces eorum veritates ex parte rei eternas independentes ab intellectu creato». Cf. also Id., De civili dominio liber secundus, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, London 1900, pp. 212, 263; Id., De Trinitate, Ed. by A. DUPONT BRECK, University of Colorado Press, Boulder 1962, p. 2; Id., Tractatus de universalibus, Ed. by I.J. MUELLER, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1985, p. 138; Id., De veritate sacre Scripturae, Ed. by R. BUDDENSIEG, 3 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1905-1907, vol. 1, p. 38; Id., De eucharistia, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, Trübner & Co., London 1892, p. 254. Southern’s claim that «Wycliffe counted himself among the “others”; so, the line of descent ran from Pythagoras to Wycliffe, with Grosseteste as the only modern link» is, perhaps, a little precipitous; R.W. SOUTHERN, Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe, Oxford University Press, Oxford 19922, p. 299. 7 Cf. L. CAMPI, «Sicut dixit in ultimis diebus suis. Alberto Magno e il presunto ravvedimento di Aristotele sull’eternità del mondo», in L. BIANCHI – C. PANTI – O. GRASSI (eds.), Edizioni, traduzioni e tradizioni filosofiche (secoli XII-XVI). Studi per Pietro B. Rossi, 2 vols., Aracne, Roma 2018, vol. 1, pp. 255-270. 8 Cf. L. CAMPI, «Puri philosophi non est theologizare. Reflections on Method in John Wyclif’s and his Bohemian Followers’ Discussions of the Eternity of the World», in K. GHOSH – P. SOUKUP (eds.), Wycliffism and Hussitism: Methods, Impact, Responses, Brepols, Turnhout (forthcoming).

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As is apparent, the association with rhetorical9 and moral10 teachings must have seemed to fit very well with the hackneyed image of Wyclif as a “fanatic” spreading “radical” ideas and views, who allegedly translated 9 Note that, in the lecture he gave while incepting as a master of Theology, Wyclif stated that Logic, rather than Grammar or Rhetoric, has primacy among the artes sermocinales for the role it plays in theological enquiries; see John Wyclif, Prefatio introductoria ad intellectum Cantici Canticorum seu potius totius Scripture, Ed. by G.A. BENRATH, Wyclifs Bibelkommentar, De Gruyter, Berlin 1966, pp. 338-346: 341: «Felix qui omnia ista [viz. rudiments in Grammar] perfecte cognosceret, sed felicior qui quodlibet latinum resolvere in primitivum grecum aut hebreum, cognoscendo rei proprietatem et racionem secundum quam nomen rei imponitur; felicissimus autem qui perfecte cognosceret dialecticam, cum dialectica vel ars silogizandi non minus est utilis, cum ipsa detegit veritates inertibus absconditas, dilucidat universales substancias plebeis incognitas, et extendit presenciam successivorum». Wyclif regards Rhetoric as especially useful for pastoral purposes rather than theological enquiries, and –in the wake of Augustine– warns his audience not to indulge in rhetorical devices when there is no sincere search and love for truth; cf. ibid., pp. 341-342: 342: «Bonorum, inquit Augustinus 4 ° de doctrina Christiana 11°, ingeniorum insignis est indoles in verbis veritatem amare, non verba. Quid enim prodest clavis aurea, si aperire quod volumus non potest? aut quid obest lignea, si hoc potest, quando nihil queritur nisi patere quod clausum est. Si ergo ista assint, non est cura quantumcunque ruditer et incomposite sit locutum. Sicut enim plus dolendum est cuius pulchrum est corpus et turpis animus quam econtra, ita magis abhominabile est falsa dicere eloquenter quam vera difformiter» (italics ours); cf. Augustine, De doctrina christiana, Lib. 4, cap. 11, Ed. by J. MARTIN, Brepols, Turnhout 1962, pp. 134, l. 7 - 135, l. 11. 10 Among other sources, it was not Aristotle, but Grosseteste who was very influential as far as Wyclif’s pastoral and ecclesiological approach is concerned, as well as his insistence on the moral requirements that theologians and philosophers must meet if they wish to search for the truth. On Grosseteste’s influence on ecclesiological issues, see John Wyclif, De officio regis, Ed. by A.W. POLLARD – Ch. SAYLE, Trübner & Co., London 1887, p. 82: «Et hinc scripsit pape Lincolniensis volenti proficere unum inydoneum in sua diocesi: “Obedienter resisto et contradicendo obedio”». As for the idea that spiritual obedience may sometimes be shown by reproof and resistance, and the «discrepancy» between Wyclif’s treatment of secular rulers and his attitude towards the ecclesiastical authorities, who should only be obeyed to the extent that they closely follow the way of Christ, see S. SIMONETTA, «La maturazione del progetto riformatore di Giovanni Wyclif: dal De civili dominio al De officio regis», Medioevo, 22 (1996) 225-258: 241-244. Cf. also John Wyclif, De ordine christiano, in Id., Opera minora, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, C.K. Paul, London 1913, pp. 129-139: 138. Wyclif also shared the legend circulating at the time, and originally introduced by the Lanercost Chronicle, of Grosseteste’s excommunication by Innocent IV –an excommunication that he deemed to have no efficacy; cf. Id., Tractatus de civili dominio. Liber primus,

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the whole Bible into English on his own11, with the result of later being acknowledged as the “Morning Star ‘of the Reformation’”12. It would be of little interest in this context to hunt for further oddities concerning Wyclif and the Oxford of his day in this novel. However, it Ed. by R.L. POOLE, London 1885, p. 374: «Quo supposito, quod si Romana ecclesia ex ignorancia Scripture, zelo vindicte, vel appetitu commodi temporalis, excommunicet quemquam illegitime, et Deus revelet sibi in Scriptura suam excommunicacionem esse erroneam (ut credo fuisse de domino Lincoliniensi), tunc nedum licet sed opertet ipsam personam credere ecclesiam Romanam excommunicando errare»; cf. also ibid., p. 457. Cf. J. MCEVOY, Robert Grosseteste, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2000, pp. 6466. As for Wyclif’s moralising attitude towards philosophical and theological studies and its dependence on Grosseteste, see again his principium; John Wyclif, Prefatio introductoria, pp. 338-341: «Tria sunt que magis conferunt mundicordibus, ut perveniant ad noticiam debitam scripturarum. Primum est moralis disposicio informans affectum […]. Secundum est laudabilis habitudo intellectus in triplici philosophia, scilicet sermocinali, naturali et morali […]. Tercium est virtualis operacio producens effectum secundum habitus supradictos. Ista quidem trinitas, si insit anime, plene disponit disposicione antecedenter necessitante ad veram sapienciam vel veritatem theologicam cognoscendam, quia habita disposicione completa materie formator non potest informando deficere. […] Sed hic quereret philosophus naturalis quomodo disposicio affectus antecedit disposicionem intellectus ad sapienciam theologicam capescendam, cum intellectus antecedit voluntatem in ordine cognoscendi. […] Errat igitur naturalis philosophus, partem considerans et non totum»; on Grosseteste’s use of formulae such as affectus and aspectus mentis, and their relevance as far as the Trivium Arts are concerned, cf. N. LEWIS, «The Trivium», in G.E.M. GASPER – C. PANTI – T.C.B. MCLEISH – H.E. SMITHSON (eds.), Knowing and Speaking: Robert Grosseteste’s De artibus liberalibus and De generatione sonorum, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2019, pp. 96-111. 11 Cf. HUDSON – KENNY, «Wyclif [Wycliffe], John [called Doctor Evangelicus]»: «Critical investigation of the processes that lie behind the final translation, itself an idiomatic revision of an earlier very literal version [...] indicates that one person certainly cannot be regarded as solely responsible; a large team of academic helpers must have been involved. Whether Wyclif himself participated at an early stage seems irretrievable, though the multitude of his Latin writings from 1378 onwards can hardly have left him time. The association of biblical translation with his followers, an association which by 1407 was so close as to be an identifying mark, confirms Wyclif’s inspiration as a crucial factor in the collaborative labours. The continued use of the term “Wycliffite Bible” seems therefore justifiable, even if Wyclif’s direct participation in its production seems improbable». Cf. also E. SOLOPOVA (ed.), The Wycliffite Bible: Origin, History and Interpretation, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2016. ne 12 Cf. M. ASTON, «John Wycliffe’s Reformation Reputation», Past and Present, 30 (1965) 23-51: 25; EAD., «Wyclif and the Vernacular», in HUDSON – WILKS (eds.), From Ockham to Wyclif, op. cit., pp. 281-330.

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is worth at least saying that misleading commonplaces and inaccuracies like the ones pointed out above might have been less disturbing if they had been formulated in the early Eighties –and not in 2016, the year of the conference at the origin of this collection of essays. After all, leaving aside all the various scientific publications held in libraries, by this year Alessandro Conti’s excellent survey of Wyclif’s life and thought could easily be accessed, free of charge, on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website13. If one looks through the bibliography of Conti’s entry, with a few remarkable exceptions the essays listed date from the mid-Eighties onwards, which is to say from the publication of Ivan Mueller’s edition of Wyclif’s De universalibus in 1985, which marks a watershed in the recent history of Wyclif studies14. The publication of this major metaphysical tract fostered a renewal of interest in Wyclif. The latter came to be envisaged no longer mainly as a religious reformer, but as a prominent philosopher and theologian, as is attested by the subsequent issuing of a series of Oxonian volumes edited by Anne Hudson, Michael Wilks and Anthony Kenny. These provided significant contributions to a proper understanding of Wyclif’s place in his own intellectual milieu and of his influence in England and on the Continent15. A few years later, a milestone in Wyclif scholarship 13 Cf. A.D. CONTI, «John Wyclif», The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2017 Edition), Ed. by E.N. ZALTA, (accessed on May 22, 2020; the first version of this entry dates back to 2001. Another entry is devoted to Wyclif and his political thought in the SEP; cf. S.E. LAHEY, «John Wyclif’s Political Philosophy», The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Ed. by E.N. ZALTA, , first published in 2006. Swinfen must have consulted instead Wikipedia, as Costantino Marmo has convincingly shown apropos of the bizarre curriculum studiorum mentioned above; cf. «Medieval University», Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia, . 14 See John Wyclif, Tractatus de universalibus, Ed. by I.J. MUELLER, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1985. 15 Cf. A. KENNY (ed.), Wyclif in his times, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1986; HUDSON – WILKS (eds.), From Ockham to Wyclif. Since 1983 scholars can also rely on a catalogue of Wyclif’s works which, though not always reliable or convincing as far as codicological details, chronology and the textual tradition are concerned, nonetheless provides an important research tool that has replaced all previous catalogues; cf. W.R. THOMSON, The Latin Writings of John Wyclyf: An Annotated Catalog, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto 1983. A lucid and sharp review of the catalogue was

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was established by Jeremy Catto with his chapter «Wyclif and Wycliffism at Oxford 1356-1430» in the History of the University of Oxford. Then, from the early Nineties onwards, many authoritative essays on Wyclif’s works and their diffusion in England and Bohemia were published by Anne Hudson16. Since then, a lot of water has passed under the bridge and many efforts have been made not only to delve into Wyclif’s doctrinal views, but also to set them within the framework of the debates of his time, by taking into consideration his sources and his impact. To limit ourselves just to a couple of examples, let us refer here to Kantik Ghosh’s monograph on the reception of Wyclif’s hermeneutics, and to Laurent Cesalli’s book on propositional realism17. As a matter of fact, nowadays nobody working in the field of medieval intellectual history would be surprised to see Wyclif’s name printed on the spines of an introductory volume within a series devoted to «Great Medieval Thinkers», or would be puzzled by a book like A Companion to John Wyclif18. Italian academia has also played a role in the history of this recent “Wyclif renaissance”. In 1984 a conference was organised by the Department of English of the University of Genoa, focusing on Wycliffian and Wycliffite Biblical exegesis19. Anne Hudson took part in it, as the only foreign contributor, and so did Mariateresa Fumagalli Beonio Brocchieri, whose works on Wyclif as an ecclesiological and political thinker have been known to Italian readers since the mid-Seventies20. During the published by Anne Hudson the following year; cf. A. HUDSON, «Review», Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 35, 1984, pp. 628-630. 16 Cf. J.I. CATTO, «Wyclif and Wycliffism at Oxford 1356-1430». Hudson’s papers have been collected, together with more recent as well as unpublished ones, in A. HUDSON, Studies in the Transmission of Wyclif’s Writings, Ashgate, Aldershot – Burlington 2008. 17 Cf. K. GHOSH, The Wycliffite Heresy: Authority and the Interpretation of Texts, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001; L. CESALLI, Le réalisme propositionnel. Sémantique et ontologie des propositions chez Jean Duns Scot, Gauthier Burley, Richard Brinkley et Jean Wyclif, Vrin, Paris 2007. 18 Cf. I.C. LEVY (ed.), A Companion to John Wyclif: Late Medieval Theologian, Brill, Leiden 2006; S.E. LAHEY, John Wyclif, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009. 19 Cf. John Wyclif e la tradizione degli studi biblici in Inghilterra, Il Melangolo, Genova 1987. 20 Cf. Mt. FUMAGALLI BEONIO BROCCHIERI, Wyclif: Il comunismo dei predestinati, Sansoni, Firenze 1975; EAD., La chiesa invisibile: Riforme politico-religiose nel basso

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Nineties, Alessandro Conti published a number of groundbreaking essays on Wyclif’s logic and metaphysical works, along with studies on –and editions of– similar texts by English, German and Italian followers of Wyclif21. In 1999 an international conference was hosted by Mariateresa Fumagalli and Stefano Simonetta at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Milan, with the participation of some of the most active researchers interested in John Wyclif. The proceedings of the conference, published in 2003, have become an essential book for Wyclif scholars22. Over the last few years, interest in Wyclif’s thought and influence has not declined, as the number of publications and the frequency of conferences somehow related to him indicate, starting from Europe after Medioevo, Feltrinelli, Milano 1978. In the following years a significant contribution to the study of Wyclif’s spiritual and political reform project came from the essays published by Stefano Simonetta: cf. S. SIMONETTA, «John Wyclif between Utopia and Plan», in S. WŁODEK (ed.), Société et Église. Textes et discussions dans les universités d’Europe centrale pendant le moyen âge tardif, Brepols, Turnhout 1995, pp. 65-76; ID., «Una singolare alleanza: Wyclif e Lancaster», Studi Medievali, 36 (1995) 797837; ID., «Una riforma prematura? Realizzabilità del progetto di Wyclif», Il Pensiero Politico, 29 (1996) 343-373; ID., «Due percorsi paralleli nel pensiero anti-ierocratico del XIV secolo: Marsilio da Padova e John Wyclif», Rivista di Storia della Filosofia, 52 (1997) 91-110; ID., «John Wyclif e le due chiese», Studi Medievali, 40 (1999) 119137; ID., «Sulle tracce dell’Anticristo. L’escatologia in Giovanni Wyclif», Medioevo, 26 (2001) 203-237; ID., «Pace e guerra nel movimento wycliffita», in Pace e guerra nel basso medioevo, Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, Spoleto 2004, pp. 79-111; ID., «Governo ideale, potere e riforma nella riflessione di John Wyclif», Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge, 71 (2004) 109-128; ID., «Il movimento wycliffita di fronte a Francesco», Pensiero Politico Medievale, 2 (2004) 161-174. 21 Cf. Johannes Sharpe, Quaestio super universalia, Ed. by A.D. CONTI, Olschki, Firenze 1990; A.D. CONTI, «Il problema della conoscibilità del singolare nella gnoseologia di Paolo Veneto», Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo e Archivio muratoriano, 98 (1992) 323-382; ID., «Logica intensionale e metafisica dell’essenza in John Wyclif», Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo e Archivio muratoriano, 99/1 (1993) 159-219; ID., «Linguaggio e realtà nel commento alle Categorie di Robert Alyngton», Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 4 (1993) 179-306; ID., Esistenza e verità: Forme e strutture del reale in Paolo veneto e nel pensiero filosofico del tardo medioevo, Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo, Roma 1996; ID., «Analogy and Formal Distinction: on the Logical Basis of Wyclif’s Metaphysics», Medieval Philosophy and Theology, 6/2 (1997) 133-165. 22 Mt. FUMAGALLI BEONIO BROCCHIERI – S. SIMONETTA (eds.), John Wyclif: Logica, politica, teologia, SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo, Firenze 2003.

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Wyclif. This conference, held at Fordham University in June 2014, focused, on the one hand, on the extent of the influence of Wyclif and Wycliffites’ works on the Continent and the networks by which it spread and, on the other hand, on how Wycliffites were influenced by Continental writings23. In December 2016, the second annual meeting of the Societas Artistarum, Studying the Arts in Medieval Bohemia: Production, Reception and Transmission of Knowledge at the Arts Faculty of Prague University in the Middle Ages, included some papers explicitly devoted to Bohemian discussions of Wyclif’s philosophy. More recently, in May 2018 the conference Wycliffism and Hussitism: Contexts, Methods, Perspectives was organised in Oxford24. A common feature of all these events has been the emphasis on Wyclif’s legacy, which is also shared by two recent projects on the Wycliffite Bible and on the Prague 1409 Quodlibet25. When planning a second meeting in Milan in September 2016, our purpose was to reconstruct Wyclif’s place in his intellectual milieu from the standpoint of his textual and doctrinal dependence or influence. Our choice of this topic was due both to an assessment and to an expectation: the assessment that a lot of excellent work had been done (and was being done) on the transmission of Wyclif’s writings and ideas –hence, on his having become a source for so many followers and opponents– which suggested we offer a further opportunity to share recent findings and critical evaluations; and the expectation that –also thanks to the work carried out by some of the participants on forthcoming critical editions or re-editions of works by Wyclif26– renewed 23

J.P. HORNBECK II – M. VAN DUSSEN (eds.), Europe after Wyclif, Fordham University Press, New York 2016. 24 Volumes originating from these conferences are forthcoming; cf. O. PAVLÍČEK (ed.), Studying the Arts in Late Medieval Bohemia: Production, Reception and Transmission of Knowledge, Brepols, Turnhout; K. GHOSH – P. SOUKUP (eds.), Wycliffism and Hussitism: Methods, Impact, Responses, Brepols, Turnhout. 25 The first project, Towards a New Edition of the Wycliffite Bible, based in Oxford, was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council for the years 2016-2019, with the involvement of Elizabeth Solopova and Anne Hudson, among other scholars. The second project, Philosophy at the University of Prague around 1409: Matěj of Knín’s Quodlibet as a Crossroads of European Medieval Knowledge, funded by the Czech Science Foundation for the years 2019-2021, has seen the participation of Ota Pavlíček, Lukáš Lička and Luigi Campi, among others. 26 A critical edition of Wyclif’s De ideis by Vilém Herold and Ivan J. Mueller is expected to be published in the Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi series of the British

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attention might be paid to Wyclif’s attitude towards his sources. This volume collects some of the papers presented at the conference –which was held in the same prestigious hall as the 1999 one– along with some new essays, illustrating how questions may be addressed and research goals defined so as to enhance our knowledge of Wyclif’s sources and of Wyclif as a source. The volume opens with a contribution in which Mark Thakkar aims to dispel the mist that has enveloped Wyclif’s logical works ever since they were first published in the 1890s under the collective title Tractatus de logica. According to Thakkar, Michael Dziewicki’s three-volume edition presents the material in a way that obscures its nature, purpose and sources. To a significant extent, this depends on the fact that the edition provides two different answers to the question of how many works it contains: the first is that the three volumes contain two works, called by Dziewicki Logica and Logice continuacio (divided in its turn into three treatises), while the second answer is that they contain just one work, which Dziewicki calls Logica and divides into three parts: an «abstract», the Logice continuacio and the Tractatus tertius. As Thakkar convincingly argues, the first answer is the right one; he presents textual evidence from the works themselves and codicological evidence (in particular, tituli and colophons, where present) from all the extant manuscripts that preserve them, as well as cross-references within the three volumes of Dziewicki’s edition, in order to prove that they include two distinct logical textbooks. Thakkar pays particular attention to the existence of two different prefaces, each providing a summary of the contents of the work that follows. As for the nature of these works, Thakkar describes the first one as a short collection of introductory treatises, and the second one as an advanced logic textbook, consisting of three conspicuously unequal treatises, each dealing with the proofs of propositions of a certain kind: treatises composed –maybe at different times– «as a sequel» to Wyclif’s previous undertaking, Academy; Herold had announced it at the end of the Sexties; cf. Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 10-12 (1968-1970) 95. The impact of political events in Czechoslovakia on Herold’s scholarly activity caused a significant delay in the completion of this work. In recent years, Mueller has been involved in the completion and revision of the edition, but passed away in 2019 without seeing it published. A re-edition of Wyclif’s logical tracts is currently being prepared by Mark Thakkar, and an edition of the De tempore has been announced by Włodzimierz Zega. At the time of the Milan conference, Luigi Campi’s edition of Wyclif’s De scientia Dei was still unpublished.

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«to facilitate instruction in the more advanced part of logic», as we read in the preface. Thakkar therefore suggests that we abandon the titles chosen by Dziewicki and replace the second one, Logice continuacio (with no manuscript basis), with Tres tractatus de probationibus propositionum, in accordance with evidence from the manuscripts and Wyclif’s own prefatory description. It is more difficult to find an accurate title for the string of basic treatises (Dziewicki’s Logica), but Thakkar proposes that we use Tractatuli logice. The last section of Thakkar’s contribution focuses on the introductory textbook, to show that its aim has been radically misunderstood by scholars ever since it was published. Thakkar bases his understanding of the work on a partial identification of its source material: Wyclif’s Tractatuli are for the most part pedagogical adaptations of the logical treatises which form the core of the so-called Logica Oxoniensis, a collection of university teaching materials that began to take shape in the mid-fourteenth century and were continually developed. With respect to his source, Wyclif’s most obvious innovation is the substitution of the previous limited stock of examples –such as ‘Socrates is running’– with other ones ‘that should be inferred from the Scriptures’, as the preface states. These would be more interesting for students who are taking up logic to improve their understanding of the Bible, since Wyclif’s «realword» examples involve virtues and vices, sins and charity. Therefore, while it is a commonplace in the literature that Wyclif’s intention in the preface to the basic textbook –his stated willingness ‘to elucidate the logic of Holy Scripture’– is to extract a logical system from the Bible, the actual contents of the work prove that Wyclif’s «pedagogical agenda» amounts to nothing grander than taking propositiones, rather than probationes, from the Scriptures and to teach his students how logic can be applied to propositions found in the Bible. Alessandro Conti takes the semantics of proposition as a particular viewpoint to look at the doctrinal tradition in which Wyclif represents one link in a chain of late medieval realist scholars educated at Oxford. His enquiry sets out from Walter Burley’s theory of proposition, which was quite influential among fourteenth-century authors, albeit mostly as an object of criticism. What is apparent from Conti’s account is that alternative assumptions made about the status of universals and categories are at the root of the divergent positions held by Burley’s realist readers, who nonetheless shared similar views on a number of issues, including the idea that language, thought and the world are homologous. Wyclif

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followed Burley in maintaining that the significatum of a true sentence is a real proposition existing in the extramental world, i.e. that a singular is such and such, that a general form is predicated of a singular. Yet, Burley considered common essences and individual substances to be really distinct, whereas Wyclif conceived of them as formally distinct, but really identical –a thesis generally upheld by the so-called ‘Oxford Realists’, scholars influenced by Wyclif who were active in Oxford at the turn of the fifteenth century. According to Burley, true propositions denote states of affairs, understood as aggregates of really distinct simple objects (the real subject and the real predicate) and of a relation of identity or non-identity (depending on whether the true sentence is affirmative or negative) produced by our mind. By contrast, the real identity of universals and singulars defended by Wyclif entails that the same individual thing be the referent both for the subject and for the predicate, even though their formal principles are distinct. Conti’s detailed analysis of the differences between Burley and Wyclif in terms of semantic approaches and their relevant ontological and categorial counterparts extends to the linguistic and semantic properties of general and singular terms, supposition, and the signification of concrete accidental terms, taking into account some peculiar views of the two authors, such as Burley’s ‘macro-object’ theory and Wyclif’s ‘pan-propositionalism’. Among the ‘Oxford Realists’, Paul of Venice is acknowledged by Conti to have a prominent place. He was influenced by Wyclif’s semantic and ontological views, which he nonetheless significantly modified, also drawing on the works of earlier moderate realist thinkers. Conti shows how Paul’s theory of proposition differs from Burley’s in that he did not agree with him about the status of universals and categories. He rejected Burley’s notion of real propositions and his theory of macro-objects, and developed a doctrine of real identity and formal distinction of universal and singulars which was different from that of Wyclif, and did the same as far as the distinction between concrete accidents and their substrate of inherence is concerned. Owing to his original conception of real identity and formal distinction, he also came to reject Wyclif’s pan-propositionalism and to embrace a complexe significabile theory –a distinctive feature of the ‘Oxford Realists’. In metaphysics Wyclif often deviated from the canons of the Aristotelian tradition; this was also the case with his atomism, which elicited criticism from his opponents on both philosophical and theological grounds –especially since it was associated with his rejection of transubstantiation.

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A lot of work remains to be done in order to set Wyclif’s atomism in the context of the Oxford debates of his day. In his contribution, Aurélien Robert presents the results of a first yet fruitful enquiry in this vein, partly based on a number of still unpublished works. Although the names of Democritus and Epicurus were held in great regard by Wyclif, his atomism rather depended on the Neo-Pythagorean and Platonic tradition inspired by the Timaeus and by Nicomachus of Gerasa. Wyclif’s aim was not to reduce physical processes and properties to material atoms provided with magnitude, shape and causal powers; rather, in conceiving of atoms as immaterial, indivisible and without quantity, and in describing them as the principles of every Aristotelian category, his aim was to subordinate natural philosophy to mathematics and metaphysics. According to Wyclif, the study of physical processes can still benefit from the tools and concepts provided by Aristotelian natural philosophy, but metaphysics and mathematics enable one to access the intimate structure of reality, which is made up of a finite number of contiguous non-extended indivisible atoms. Wyclif was confident that every kind of motion can be described using the principles of any individual category –for examples, points for spatial magnitudes and indivisible degrees of quality for alteration. Belief in the homology between matter, space, time and motion is found in Wyclif’s De logica, as well as in the still unpublished commentary on Aristotle’s Physica ascribed to him. Yet, it is far from clear whether his works only endorse the idea of homology in structure, or that of a full correspondence of mathematical and physical points. This issue also represented a challenge for his disciples at Oxford, including Robert Alyngton and Roger Whelpdale. Alyngton probably met Wyclif at Oxford before the latter moved to Lutterworth. Like other ‘Oxford Realists’, Alyngton pondered what kind of reality one should grant accidental categories as distinct from substance, and considered quantity to be not only the first accident which comes to inhere in a substance, but also the first determination of all other accidents, for it is what enables them to be measured. Even when Alyngton did not follow Wyclif closely –with regard to the category of position, for example– or when he depended on Porphyry, he still shared a common doctrinal framework with his main source. Alyngton argued at once for homology and antinomy between mathematical and natural levels of reality, stating that while their relevant entities are different in nature, the structure within which they are arranged is the same. Still, Alyngton did not clarify how a minimal physical and dimensioned body can be the subject

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of a non-quantified, mathematical body. Whelpdale’s De compositione continui ex non quantis –extant in five manuscripts, of which four are housed in Continental libraries and at least three were copied in Central Europe– is «the most important and detailed defence of John Wyclif’s mathematical atomism at Oxford», and may have been quite influential in Bohemia. Whelpdale tried to systematise Wyclif’s material and reckon with Walter Burley’s teaching –something which Alyngton too had to deal with. He rejected Alyngton’s view that the natural point is the subject of the mathematical point, adopting an ontology in which mathematical entities have their own substrate; unlike Wyclif, then, he also concluded that units of any of the nine different accidental categories can coexist in the same punctual location. Alyngton’s and Whelpdale’s attitudes towards Wyclif’s atomism had common features and points of disagreement; what they shared for sure, according to Robert’s well-documented account, was their attitude towards atomism, which they regarded as serving not theological, but exclusively metaphysical and physical goal. That the true church is not reducible to an assembly of people professing their belief in Christ, but is the invisible congregation of those predestined to salvation, is a renown principle of Wyclif’s ecclesiology. Disputed by many critics, starting with Thomas Netter, it was well-received in early fifteenthcentury Bohemia, where it found an enthusiastic advocate in Jan Hus. Stephen Lahey’s paper focuses on Hus’s teacher, Stanislaus of Znojmo, who was one of the most authoritative disseminators and (original) interpreters of Wyclif’s thought in Prague from the 1380s to 1410, when he was finally brought back to obedience to the Roman see and started firmly opposing Wyclif’s ecclesiology –something which he continued to do until his death, in 1414. Lahey sheds light on some philosophical premises of Wyclif’s conception of the church and on how Stanislaus dealt with them before and after he changed his mind and committed himself to his late anti-Hussite campaign. In Wyclif’s view, God eternally knows with certainty who the members of the true church are; that being so, one may raise the question of what part, if any, human free will plays in the process of justification. As is well known, Wyclif’s metaphysics has often been labelled as deterministic, and the nuances and precautions he adopted to avoid such an outcome were frequently overlooked by his readers, who tended to trivialise his teachings, regardless of whether they were his followers or not. Stanislaus diverged from this general trend, since already in his De universalibus –deeply indebted to Wyclif’s teachings on the topic– he showed himself aware of

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such a risk and, according to Lahey, developed a theory of counterfactuals, based on a different doctrine of divine ideas, to avoid it. Wyclif’s De ideis was quite popular among the Bohemian reform-minded masters of Charles University, and was one of the tracts publicly defended in Prague –notably, by Procopius of Pilsen– after its condemnation by Archbishop Zbyněk. Lahey stresses that Stanislaus’s theory of divine ideas, presented in the first section of his De universalibus, differs from Wyclif’s. He points out that Stanislaus's metaphysics was also influenced by John Duns Scotus, from whom he derived the view that singular beings are composites of common natures and an individuating principle (haecceitas). This, Lahey argues, might also be the case with collective entities like the church, of which God may possess an eternal idea –though neither Wyclif nor Stanislaus explicitly mentioned the possibility. Still, already in his De vero et falso (datable to before 1404) Stanislaus warned those who dangerously went «digging» in search of hidden metaphysical truths, thereby making themselves and their audience likely to waver in their faith and trust in God’s salvation; among these truths, Lahey suggests, are «the absolute necessity of predestination and, with it, a divine idea of the body of the Elect». The belief that what defines the true church (its haecceity) exceeds human understanding is also found in the ecclesiological tracts Stanislaus composed after 1410. Here, by developing in metaphysical terms the organological model of the church as the mystical body of Christ, he countered Hus’s conviction that the Elect make up the church. As is well known, three out of the forty-five articles attributed to Wyclif and definitely condemned at the Council of Constance in 1415 were related to his Eucharistic doctrine, one of the most controversial and polarising of Wyclif’s theological and philosophical conclusions, but also –as Ian Christopher Levy convincingly argues in his contribution– one of the least clear. While he rejected transubstantiation, Wyclif would not seem to have denied the real presence of Christ’s body in the host; yet, he was rather opaque as to what kind of presence was at work there. As a result, both his followers and his opponents had trouble dealing with his position –the latter being inclined to reduce it to the theories ascribed to Berengar of Tours. Levy’s essay covers several stages in the reception of Wyclif’s views on the Eucharist, both in England and on the Continent, reporting the hermeneutical riddles they posed to readers and showing how they urged a reshaping of theological and homiletic discourse, especially in vernacular texts meant to reach a larger audience and in which scholastic

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technicalities needed to be expressed in plainer terms. This is apparent in the words of consecration that Christ uttered during the Last Supper and which are repeated daily be any priest celebrating the Mass: were they employed by Christ in the same manner as they are used by priests? Does the demonstrative pronoun ‘hoc’ occurring in the Eucharistic formula ‘hoc est corpus meum’ refer to the material bread or to the body of Christ? The late Wyclif seems to have maintained at once that ‘hoc’ supposits for the bread which remains after the consecration and that the same bread undergoes a spiritual and sacramental conversion into Christ’s body, yet not a substantial one, which would imply the annihilation of the bread’s substance –something incompatible with Wyclif’s metaphysical assumptions. Some of his English followers, like William Thorpe, tried to avoid prosecution by protesting that they were not versed in academic sophistries and prone to speculating about what happened to the ‘material bread’ after the consecration of the host, since such an expression is not to be found in Scripture. Others, like the unknown author of the Wycliffite tract De oblacione iugis sacrificii, listed a number of implausible theories and musings that the advocates of the prevailing orthodox doctrine had to defend –above all, the idea that the Eucharistic sacrament is an accident without substance that signifies Christ’s body. Of course, some of Wyclif’s followers took his views even further, as is the case with the author of the English tract Wycklyffes Wycket, in which an overt rejection of the idea of the presence of Christ’s body is attested. Levy offers an overview of the lively Eucharistic debates in fifteenth-century Bohemia, where transubstantiation was rejected yet the real presence of Christ was generally accepted, with the exception of the Pikarts; a variety of interpretations of Christ’s presence in the host are documented, and a prominent place on the Prague scene must be assigned to Jakoubek of Stříbro. Levy’s contribution also offers a survey of some late fourteenth– and early fifteenth-century English reactions to Wycliffite eucharistic theology, like the ones by Roger Dymmok or Nicholas Love, who both insisted that the real presence of Christ’s body is «essential for a divine-human relationship grounded in sacrificial love» and that «far from [being] a dry scholastic doctrine, [it] is a cause of rejoicing among faithful communicants». The same Wycliffites who regarded some technicalities of sacramental theology with suspicion were therefore charged by the champions of devotion to the host with being hyper-rationalists, who rejected the real presence on the grounds of the dry principles of philosophy.

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In the first contribution devoted to the homiletic genre –and one of those focusing on Wyclif’s attitude to his sources– Sean Otto takes into account a particular aspect of Wyclif’s anti-fraternal preaching program, that is his use of one of the friars’ most respected authorities, the French Dominican William Peraldus, to support his attack on the friars’ hypocrisy and practice. As Otto documents through references to two sermons by Wyclif, this tactic consists of two coordinated moves. First of all, Wyclif cites Peraldus in support of the idea that laypeople have the right to withdraw endowment from erring clergy. So, for example, in his sermon on the Epistle for the 3rd Sunday of Advent (1 Corinthians 4), there is a section drawn from Peraldus’s De avaritia, part of his treatise on vices, whose quotations serve to denounce the evils of worldly priests and prelates (here friars are not mentioned) and, above all, to prove that if they wish people to believe them, they ought to return to the Church’s primitive state by depriving bad priests of their temporal possessions. Secondly, in the other sermon on which Otto’s paper focuses in detail, and which is mostly concerned with the Pharisees’ hypocrisy, Wyclif borrows many similitudes from Peraldus’s double Summa virtutum ac vitiorum –a classic in its day– to explain the nature of hypocrites (Matthew 22). The last of these, the comparison of the hypocrite with a fox, shifts the sermon «into anti-fraternal territory». Wyclif comments on such a similitude by stating that, when the New Testament prophesies of these foxes, it is referring to what Wyclif calls secte ficte or religiones private, that is to say religious orders and especially mendicant ones, whose hypocrisy, according to him, has made it possible for the Antichrist to strengthen himself through the endowment of the Church. Making use of Johann Loserth’s Johann von Wiclif und Guilelmus Peraldus as a starting point, Otto’s analysis goes beyond simple textual comparison and shows how Wyclif’s use of Peraldus is not uncritical; rather, it seeks to integrate Peraldus’s material into Wyclif’s own polemic and exploits the friars’ arguments against them. Among the essays devoted to Wyclif’s legacy, Kantik Ghosh’s one focuses on the long cycle of 294 sermons in English known as the English Wycliffite Sermons and in particular on some of the sermons on the Sunday Gospels (EWS 30 and 33). Ghosh first examines the relationship between them and the almost 200 Latin sermons written by Wyclif in the last two years of his life, whose discursive texture is characterised by intellectual density, in turn due to his eagerness to introduce and discuss philosophical dubia about the preaching of pastoralia (for example, that concerning the

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conversion of water into wine). It emerges that in the specific case of the Sunday Gospel set the English followers of Wyclif draw extensively on his sermons, which they come close to replicating even in terms of style. However, in the rendition of these sermons into the vernacular an attempt was made to simplify Wyclif’s Latin, for the benefit of the pore symple men to whom they are partly addressed, despite the persistent allusive references to the philosophical and theological questions underlying the evangelical passages which are the subject of the various sermons. In certain cases, such references make the meaning of the texts opaque, especially considering that the latter tend to move swiftly and continuously from one topic to the next. At the same time, the authors of these sermons often seem to presuppose that at least part of their expected audience has a certain capacity to understand the concepts out of which such debates arose. Ghosh points out how their discursive density and tonal ambiguity, their «idiosyncratic and oblique» nature, raise some important questions about readership, comprehensibility and the peculiar function attributed to them. This theme is closely linked to the many ambiguous and, to some extent, conflicting meanings that these sermons attach to the expression ‘common understanding’, in which the word common does not always mean basic, simple, and non-technical. Ghosh then takes into account the reflections contained in some Wycliffite Sermons about what kind of language should be used to try to explain the Bible to the people: what is central here is the belief that ordinary language is generally to be preferred, that the exegete must employ the ‘language of the people’, as opposed to the sophistries found in the discourses of scholastic experts. But this does not exclude that the reference to ‘common speech’ and ‘the understanding of the people’ might sometimes also indicate a widespread consensus about the meaning of technical terms and the interpretation of ambiguous statements, thus assuming good working-knowledge of the methods and vocabulary accompanying such philosophy on the part of the presumed audience. Ultimately, the Wycliffite position as expressed in these sermons is not that theological discourse should be tailored to the intellectual and spiritual capacities of different listeners, but that such discourse must always abide by the ‘common’ senses of words, except in the few cases where scriptural language uses words in a figurative or parabolic sense, whose obscurities have to be grasped by appropriate means. With the third essay on homilies, by Jindřich Marek, we move from England to Bohemia, where Wyclif’s ideas found fertile ground among

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several masters of the Bohemian nation at Charles University, as well as among many adherents within the so-called Czech reform movement. Particularly fascinated by Wyclif’s ecclesiological and political thought, Bohemian reformers appreciated his views on a number of moral and theological issues that had been on their agenda since the pre-revolutionary days, and which they then condensed in the renown Four Articles of Prague, by blending local traditional reformatory claims with Wyclif’s views. This was also the case with Jakoubek of Stříbro, a priest, preacher and university master who greatly contributed to the development of the Bohemian Reformation program –notably, by extending communion under both species to laypeople. As Marek illustrates, Jakoubek was significantly influenced by Wyclif and drew on many of his writings (still extant in Bohemian manuscript copies, as is also the case with the Wycliffite Opus arduum valde); he even promoted the circulation of Wycliff’s Dialogus in a Czech adaptation. Yet, his views cannot entirely be reduced to Wyclif’s ones, as they were also influenced by the teachings of Bohemian reformers like Milíč of Kroměříž and Matthias of Janov; as a matter of fact, they were the result of a creative reuse of previous materials, with some original contributions by Jakoubek himself. Marek’s analysis mainly focuses on two tools for preachers composed by Jakoubek, and which are not yet available in a critical edition. One dates form before the outbreak of the Hussite revolution (1413/1414), the other from the 1420s. Wyclif’s influence is remarkable in both texts, in relation to a number of heated ecclesiological, legal and sacramental issues, including simony, the corruption and worldliness of the Church, just war, oaths, the penance for murder and executions, and the Eucharist. In his later postil, Jakoubek shows himself less committed to criticising religious orders –something which reflects the changes brought about by the Hussite revolution, with the closing of monasteries and seizing of ecclesiastical properties. What is apparent, then, is that a significant change of attitude towards Wyclif occurred between the first and the second postil: whereas Jakoubek had formerly borrowed textual passages without explicitly quoting from Wyclif, in the 1420s he tended to openly cite the English master by name and to also provide his readers with extended compendia of excerpts from Wyclif’s writings, thus patently putting himself under the latter’s aegis. A common feature of both postils is that Jakoubek avoided reproducing the most speculative passages to be found in the tracts by Wyclif on which he drew, carefully selecting instead concise and straightforward portions

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of his texts that could usefully be adapted and incorporated by Bohemian preachers in their sermons. Finally, Graziana Ciola’s essay fully achieves the aim of the conference which partially lies at the origin of this volume, as it deals with textual influences exerted both by Wyclif and on Wyclif. Ciola examines the particular case of the so-called Apologue or Fable of the Birds, an exemplum occurring in the opening chapter of De civili dominio liber secundus, where Wyclif is committed to defending against an Oxonian Benedictine monk the «evangelical truth» –one of the key principles of his reform proposal– that temporal rulers may lawfully and meritoriously deprive churchmen of their worldly possessions, if they openly misuse them, i.e. if their property leads them to corruption and luxury. More specifically, the reference to the Fable of the Birds allows Wyclif to challenge the idea that the English clergy should be exempt from paying any taxes, even though they own large estates and even if the kingdom is facing a serious emergency situation. It is in this context that Wyclif presents his version of the allegorical story, which he claims to have heard at a recent parliamentary session, where it was used in response to ecclesiastics’ claim that they ought not contribute to the costs of defending the kingdom. According to Ciola, this particular use of the Apologue made by Wyclif may be seen to account for the significant differences to be found –both in the details of the fable (for example, in the portrayal of the main character and of the other birds’ reaction) and in its polemical aims– compared to the version recorded by Jean Froissart in his Chroniques, the source of the main line of transmission of the text. According to Froissart, it was first delivered during an interrogation in the context of John of Rupescissa’s trial for heresy, around 1353. Froissart’s tale is essentially a prophecy, whose main purpose is to condemn the corruption of the prelates of Rupescissa’s time and to issue a warning about the risks the Church will run if it is not restored to its original poverty and humility. By contrast, Wyclif’s version is firmly rooted in the sociopolitical context of its day: it does not make any predictions about the future decadence of the Church and it is nothing more than an allegorical example meant to support a specific view about secular rulers’ right to confiscate the wealth of the Church in times of need. Anyway, even putting these differences aside, it is impossible that Froissart might be Wyclif’s source for chronological reasons, although the two could depend on a common source. According to Ciola, this source may have been an actual statement by the Franciscan John of Rupescissa (who however is not mentioned by

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Wyclif). In searching for this remote source, Ciola carries out a detailed analysis of some of the Apologue’s occurrences throughout the erudite and polemical tradition up to Pierre Bayle’s Dictionnaire, focusing on how –via its association with Rupescissa’s name– it became a tool in early modern theological polemics between Protestant and Catholic authors. The series of contributions collected in the present volume ends, significantly, with the name of Pierre Bayle. In presenting the project of his Dictionnaire (1692), he proudly affirmed the usefulness of critical research, which, if carried out scrupulously, «is able to produce great goods». It is in this spirit that the contributions presented here strive to shed as much light as possible on both Wyclif as a source and his relation to his sources. For the two editors, the organisation of the conference that in a way lies at the origin of these pages –and of their subsequent collection and publication– closed a circle opened many years before: one fine day in 2004, when one of the two proposed a thesis on John Wyclif to the other, who during his first steps as a scholar in the Nineties had found his “morning star” in this English thinker. The younger researcher thus began studying Wyclif’s political theology under the senior researcher’s supervision. Since then, besides devoting a series of studies to Wyclif’s ecclesiology, eschatology, theory of salvation, metaphysics, and reception in Bohemia27, during the last fifteen years both have been working on various other authors and topics. However, from time to time they still like 27

Cf. L. CAMPI, «Iusti sunt omnia. Note a margine del De statu innocencie di John Wyclif», Dianoia, 12 (2007) 97-123; ID., «“In ipso sunt idem esse, vivere, et intelligere”. Notes on a Case of Textual Bricolage», Viator, 45/3 (2014) 89-100; ID., «Was the Early Wyclif a Determinist? Concerning an Unnoticed Level in His Taxonomy of Being», Vivarium, 52/1-2 (2014) 102-146; ID., «Mutual Causality in Wyclif’s Political Thought. Some Logical Premises and Theological Results», in C. LÓPEZ ALCALDE – J. PUIG MONTADA – P. ROCHE ARNAS (eds.), Legitimation of Political Power in Medieval Thought, Brepols, Turnhout 2018, pp. 85-100; S. SIMONETTA, Libertà del volere e prescienza divina nella teologia filosofica di Wyclif, «Rivista di Storia della Filosofia», 61 (2006) 193-217; ID., Si salvi chi può? Volere divino, merito e dominio nella riflessione del primo Wyclif, Lubrina Editore, Bergamo 2007; ID., «Verso l’apocalisse, a piccoli passi. Escatologia e riforma in John Wyclif», in R. GUGLIELMETTI (ed.), L’Apocalisse nel Medioevo, SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo, Firenze 2011, pp. 595-616; ID., «Mutual Causality in Wyclif’s Political Thought: His Doctrine of Dominion», in LÓPEZ ALCALDE – PUIG MONTADA – ROCHE ARNAS (eds.), Legitimation of Political Power in Medieval Thought, op. cit., pp. 385-404; ID., «Dal modello ideale di un’aristocrazia di santi alla figura del re come vicario di Dio Padre e viceversa. Elementi discontinui di

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to get back to Wyclif, like murderers returning to the scene of their first crime –to evoke the mystery novel atmosphere that marked the beginning of this brief introduction– only more happily and with less fear of being caught. Milan, 15 June 2020 .

teologia politica in John Wyclif», in D. POIREL (ed.), Le théologico-politique au Moyen Âge, Vrin, Paris 2020, pp. 125-144.

MARK THAKKAR* WYCLIF’S LOGICA AND THE LOGICA OXONIENSIS

John Wyclif’s logical works have lain under a kind of fog since they were first published in the 1890s under the collective title Tractatus de logica. My first aim in this paper is to clear up some long-standing confusions (§ 1) by dispelling this fog once and for all (§§ 2-3). Once the air is clear, a partial identification of Wyclif’s source material (§ 4) will allow me to make a more dramatic claim about persistent misunderstandings of what is generally taken to be his earliest work (§ 5).

1. Wyclif’s Tractatūs de logica In a crowded field, Michael Dziewicki’s three-volume Tractatus de logica may be the most frustrating of all the editions of Wyclif’s works1. The conspicuous unreliability of the text, occasionally lamented by the editor himself, has long been recognized as an obstacle to scholarship2. * Honorary Research Fellow, University of St Andrews, [email protected]. This paper is the first fruit of an editorial project that would have been impossible without significant financial support. I am deeply indebted to the Leverhulme Trust for the Early Career Fellowship (2014-2018) during which I carried out the research. 1 Johannis Wyclif Tractatus de logica, Ed. by M.H. DZIEWICKI, 3 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1893-1899 (henceforth Logica). I am working on a replacement for Dziewicki’s edition for precisely this reason. 2 See e.g. M.H. DZIEWICKI, «Introduction», in Logica, vol. 1, pp. iii-xlvi: iii-iv; ID., «Introduction», in Logica, vol. 3, pp. v-xxxviii: v; Logica, p. 89. Some ninety years later, it was still true that «[no] detailed work on Wyclif’s logic can be undertaken with confidence until his Logica and [Logice continuacio] are edited anew»: P.V. SPADE – G.A. WILSON, «Introduction», in Johannis Wyclif Summa insolubilium, Ed. by P.V. SPADE – G.A. WILSON, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, Binghamton 1986, pp. ix-xlviii: xlvi, n. 130. In a study published in the same year, Norman Kretzmann reported: «I found so many passages that seemed garbled or otherwise unlikely that I could not have continued with this project if John Murdoch had not lent me his microfilm of [the Assisi manuscript]»: N.J.K. KRETZMANN, «Continua, Indivisibles, and Change in Wyclif’s Logic of Scripture», in A.J.P. KENNY (ed.), Wyclif in His Times, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1986, pp. 31-65: 40, n. 30.

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What has not been noticed, though, is that the edition presents the material in a way that obscures its nature and purpose. The basic problem is deceptively trivial: the edition provides two different answers to the question of how many works it contains. The first answer (and, as we shall see, the right one) is that the three volumes contain two works. Dziewicki calls these Logica (vol. 1, pp. 1-74) and Logice continuacio, the latter being divided into three treatises: Tractatus primus (vol. 1, pp. 75-120), Tractatus secundus (vol. 1, pp. 121-234) and Tractatus tertius (voll. 2-3). The second answer is that the three volumes contain just one work. Dziewicki calls this Logica, and he divides it into three parts: an «abstract» (vol. 1, pp. 1-74), the Logice continuacio (vol. 1, pp. 75-234) and the Tractatus tertius (voll. 2-3). It would be tedious to trace his vacillation on the matter; suffice it to say that it pervades the edition3. What’s worse, the wrong answer is implicit in the chapter numbering, which restarts on p. 75 of the first volume (as it should, marking the end of the first work and the start of the Tractatus primus) but which fails to restart again on p. 121 (where the Tractatus secundus begins), instead only restarting at the start of the second volume (where the Tractatus tertius begins). This has even confused two of the few scholars who have studied the material closely enough to realize that the Logice continuacio is a distinct three-part work. In what has long been the most perceptive discussion of this work in print, František Šmahel claimed that «Wyclif himself conceived the matter of the first and second treatises so much as a whole that both treatises have a continuous pagination [sic] of Chapters I-VII and VIII-XVIII»4. And in another invaluable contribution to the literature, Norman Kretzmann suggested in passing that the chapter numbering might 3 Dziewicki gives yet another answer in the introduction to the second volume, namely that the edition contains three works (M.H. DZIEWICKI, «Introduction», in Logica, vol. 2, pp. v-xlvi: v); I am treating this as a notational variant of the second answer. 4 F. ŠMAHEL, «Eine hussitische Collecta de probationibus propositionum», in ID., Die Prager Universität im Mittelalter. The Charles University in the Middle Ages, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2007, pp. 581-598: 592: «Wyclif selbst begriff die Materie des ersten und zweiten Traktates dermaßen als ein Ganzes, daß beide Traktate eine laufende Paginierung der Kapitel I-VII und VIII-XVIII haben». This article was originally published in Czech as «Husitská „Collecta de probationibus propositionum“ v rukopise SK ČSR VIII F 16», in P.R. POKORNÝ (ed.), Pocta dr. Emmě Urbánkové, Státní knihovna ČSR, Praha 1979, pp. 365-389.

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be a «slight consideration [...] in favour of considering Trs. i and ii as constituting Logicae Continuatio and Tr. iii as ‘De logica tractatus tertius’»5. Evidently neither scholar had spotted the apparatus entry that accompanies each chapter number, «Cap. deest», which was Dziewicki’s modest way of confessing that the chapter numbering was his own invention. Two final observations should indicate the extent of the confusion that Dziewicki has caused here and the degree to which the wrong answer has become entrenched. Firstly, in the entry on the allegedly two-part Logice continuacio in his indispensable catalogue of Wyclif’s works, Williel Thomson found himself able to write the following: «The second part (confusingly, “tractatus secundus”) commences with cap. viii ... and extends through cap. xviii»6. Secondly, Jeremy Catto’s brief but firm attempt to set the record straight a quarter of a century ago7 has since been described by Anne Hudson, whose knowledge of Wyclif’s bibliography is unrivalled, as «doubts ... about the traditional numbering of De logica in three books» –a numbering that she claims is supported by new manuscript evidence8.

2. Wyclif’s Two Logical Textbooks9 It is time to dispel the fog. Let me begin with an unequivocal claim: there is no doubt whatsoever that Dziewicki’s edition of the Tractatus de 5

KRETZMANN, «Continua», p. 40, n. 32. W.R. THOMSON, The Latin Writings of John Wyclyf: An Annotated Catalog, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto 1983, p. 5 (my italics); cf. n. 39 below. 7 J.I. CATTO, «Wyclif and Wycliffism at Oxford 1356-1430», in ID. – T.A.R. EVANS (eds.), The History of the University of Oxford. Volume II: Late Medieval Oxford, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1992, pp. 175-261: p. 190, n. 47: «The first [work] is printed ibid. i. 1-74, the second ibid. i. 75-234, ii and iii. Some confusion has been caused by treating these two works as parts of the same, and by dividing the second as Logicae continuatio and Tractatus tertius». 8 A.M. HUDSON, «Introduction: Wyclif’s Works and their Dissemination», in EAD., Studies in the Transmission of Wyclif’s Writings, Ashgate, Aldershot 2008, I, p. 7 (my italics); I disprove this claim in § 2 (at n. 48 below). The «traditional» view is not universally held, but it is prevalent enough to be followed without qualification in S.E. LAHEY, John Wyclif, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, pp. 9, 50. 9 In this paper I am not concerned with the treatise on insolubles that has been attributed to Wyclif and printed under the title Summa insolubilium (cit. n. 2 above) 6

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logica contains two distinct logical textbooks, one basic and one advanced, the advanced one being divided into three parts. I will confine myself here to substantiating this claim using textual evidence from the works themselves and codicological evidence from the manuscripts that preserve them10. External evidence could be adduced as well, but by the end of this section it should be clear that I am already using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The most glaring piece of textual evidence is the existence of two distinct prefaces, each of which provides a more or less accurate summary of the contents of the self-contained work that follows. Here is the preface to the first work (omitting a sentence that I discuss in §§ 4-5 below): I have been prompted by some friends of God’s law to compile a certain treatise to elucidate the logic of Holy Scripture. [...] And first, since all the variation in the proof of propositions arises from terms, I aim to elucidate the properties and attributes of different terms; then I will look at universals and categories; and then I will put together summule, suppositiones, consequencie and obligationes; and finally I will turn specifically to the topic of knowledge (materia de scire)11 to finish and complete the whole work12. or with the elementary Summula summularum that is ascribed to Wyclif in three incomplete copies of Italian origin (HUDSON, Studies, Appendix II, pp. 1, 16). 10 The fundamental reference for the transmission of Wyclif’s prodigious output is THOMSON, Latin Writings (cit n. 6 above), which must be used in conjunction with the list of addenda and corrigenda in HUDSON, Studies, Appendix II. In the case of the Tractatus de logica, Dziewicki was aware of only two of the eight manuscripts now known to survive. For convenience, I provide an up-to-date list of all the relevant manuscripts at the end of this paper (cf. n. 113 below). 11 Phrases of the form «materia de X» were used by late medieval scholastics to refer to specific topics within an academic discipline; besides the many instances in Wyclif’s own writings, compare William Milverley’s Materia de sciencia, entitled «Materia de scire» in MS Oxford, New College, 289, f. 95r. This observation vitiates the interpretation in E. MICHAEL, «John Wyclif’s Atomism», in C. GRELLARD – A. ROBERT (eds.), Atomism in Late Medieval Philosophy and Theology, Brill, Leiden 2009, p. 202: «Scripture, thereby, provides the “matter of knowledge”». 12 Logica, vol. 1, p. 1 (modified as shown using my draft edition): «Motus sum per quosdam legis dei amicos certum tractatum ad declarandam logicam sacre scripture compilare [...]. Et primo, cum tota variatio probacionis proposicionum habeat ortum ex terminis, diversorum terminorum proprietates et passiones intendo declarare; deinde [Dz. dein] ad universalia [Dz. universalitatem] et praedicamenta respiciam; et deinde [Dz. dein] summulas, supposiciones, consequencias et obligationes [Dz. obligatoria] componam; et demum ad materiam de scire propter finem et perfeccionem totius operis specialiter me convertam».

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This first preface is followed by: a chapter each on terms, universals, and categories13; some chapters on basic propositional logic, collectively described as summule14; a short treatise on suppositiones15; a treatise on consequencie16 followed by a treatise on proofs of propositions17; and a treatise on obligationes that breaks off mid-sentence in all three extant manuscripts. In the Vienna manuscript (the only witness available to Dziewicki) the rest of this sentence has subsequently been filled in, evidently from a source independent of the archetype of the extant tradition18. But the additional text is not even enough to complete the paragraph19, so presumably the obligations treatise originally contained more material, and we may reasonably suppose that it was followed by a treatise on scire20. 13

These three chapters, inc. «Terminus large loquendo», are well defined by their opening sentences. The additional chapter break in the printed edition (Logica, vol. 1, p. 13) is an unwarranted innovation of the only copy known to Dziewicki: MS Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (henceforth ÖNB), 4523, f. 3v. 14 The content of these chapters, inc. «Propositio large loquendo», is summarized retrospectively at the start of the following treatise: «Quia dictum est de summulis, in quibus tractatur quodammodo de propositionibus...» (Logica, vol. 1, p. 39). 15 This treatise begins «Quoniam ignorantibus suppositiones terminorum», if we ignore the opening phrase that links it to the previous chapters (n. 14 above). 16 The content of this treatise, inc. «Consequencia est quedam habitudo», is summarized in different terms at the start of the following chapter: «Dicto de modo arguendi...» (Logica, vol. 1, p. 61). 17 This treatise is announced as being «de modo exponendi propositiones», i.e. as concerning the specific case of proof by exposition, but the final chapter (Logica, vol. 1, pp. 67-68) also involves proofs by officiation and by resolution. 18 MS Wien, ÖNB, 4523, f. 16r. The scribe had left four blank lines after the obligationes, as he had after the summule (though he had only left two lines after the suppositiones and the consequencie-plus-proofs, and none at all after the chapter on categories). A casual inspection of f. 16r will suggest that the last three lines of text (after «Paulus non acquirit») were added later; closer inspection of the medial letter «r» will further suggest that the addition was made by a different hand. 19 The final paragraph of the obligationes (Logica, vol. 1, p. 74) presents a dilemma as to whether Paul is more perfect than Peter if he has obtained an infinitesimally higher degree of charity; the additional text merely completes the second horn of the dilemma. Dziewicki himself inferred that «possibly there is here something wanting»: DZIEWICKI, «Introduction», in Logica, vol. 1, p. xii. 20 This lost treatise will have had echoes of William Heytesbury’s Regule solvendi sophismata (1335), ch. 2; see most relevantly G.A. WILSON – P.V. SPADE, «Richard Lavenham’s Treatise Scire», Mediaeval Studies, 46 (1984) 1-30. Wyclif’s longer textbook does have a chapter on scire and dubitare: Logica, vol. 1, pp. 177-190.

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This collection of basic treatises is presented on its own in two of the manuscripts21. In the Vienna manuscript, though, it is immediately followed by our second work, whose preface reads as follows: Overcome by requests from youths of whom I am fond22, I intend to compose three treatises as a sequel to the summule, suppositiones and consequencie that I had put together for them23, to facilitate instruction in the more advanced part of logic. The first treatise elucidates seriatim, both generally and specifically, the proofs of a purely categorical nonmodal proposition. The second treatise, on exclusives and exceptives along with other familiar exponible non-modal propositions and modal propositions, follows the same procedure in dealing with their various proofs. But the third explains at greater length about all the kinds of compound proposition with regard to their proofs in general, relying for the most part on the opinions of previous logicians24.

This second preface is followed by: (i) a series of chapters on «the proof of a simple categorical non-modal proposition»25, evidently the first 21

In MS Schlägl, Stiftsbibliothek (henceforth SB), 78, Wyclif’s text occupies the last three quires (ff. 203-238), following a blank one (ff. 191-202); see further n. 114 below. In MS Erfurt, Universitätsbibliothek (henceforth UB), CA Q 253, Wyclif’s text occupies the first two quires (ff. 1-24), which form a codicological unit of their own; the next text is Stephen of Páleč’s question on the archetypal world. 22 The Latin (n. 24 below) is grammatically ambiguous, and may instead mean «Overcome by requests from youths which assail me». 23 According to THOMSON, Latin Writings, p. 5, Dziewicki was wrong to see this as referring back to the basic textbook: «a closer reading and comparison with the organization of the text shows that the term “summulas” [...] refers rather to the first part of the present work, capp. i-vii [= Tractatus primus]». Thomson’s reasoning is unfathomable, especially given the reference back to the summule at the start of the Tractatus primus (n. 25 below); still, see n. 28 below for an important caveat. 24 Logica, vol. 1, p. 75 (modified as shown): «Iuvenum rogatibus quibus afficior superatus, tres tractatus summulas, supposiciones et consequencias quas eis collegeram consequentes pro faciliori doctrina superioris partis logice propono contexere; quorum primus probaciones pure categorice de inesse tam in generali quam in speciali seriatim dilucidat; secundus, de proposicionibus exclusivis et exceptivis cum aliis famosis exponibilibus [Dz. exponentibus] de inesse et proposicionibus modalibus, processum priorem prosequitur, probaciones ipsarum varias pertractando. Sed tercius de cunctis speciebus hypothetice quo ad earum probaciones in genere declarat diffusius, priorum logicorum sentenciis ut plurimum innitendo [Dz. intendo]». 25 Logica, vol. 1, p. 120 (explicit, modified as shown): «Et tanta dixerim ut promisi de probacione simplicis [Dz. simplici] kategorice de inesse». This first treatise

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of the «three treatises» advertised in the preface; (ii) a longer treatise on «exclusives, exceptives, and other propositions that do not unambiguously have the quantities and other accidental properties of a simple and purely categorical proposition»26; and (iii) a much longer treatise on «the kinds of compound proposition»27. The cross-references within Dziewicki’s edition confirm the impression that the first answer given in § 1 above was the right one. The first work (in which we have already seen some internal structural signposting) contains no references to the second work. As we have seen, the preface to the second work refers back to the summule, suppositiones and consequencie; the main text also apparently refers back to the summule, consequencie, and obligationes28. The only mentions of specific «tractatus» are internal cross-references within the second work; in particular, the phrase «tractatus primus» refers to the first series of chapters advertised in the second preface, not to the first work29. The textual evidence from the works themselves, then, is clear: we have (1) a short textbook comprising a string of introductory treatises, and (2) a long textbook comprising three advanced treatises, each dealing with the proofs of propositions of a certain kind: (i) purely categorical, (ii) quasi-intermediate30, (iii) purely compound. begins (p. 76): «Suppositis autem descripcionibus et distinccionibus proposicionum [Dz. terminorum] in [Dz. om.] summulis prelibatis, superest primo de probacionibus proposicionum de inesse per ordinem pertractandum». 26 Logica, vol. 1, p. 121 (incipit, modified as shown): «Secundarie superius principaliter est promissum de exclusivis, exceptivis et aliis que non sorciuntur univoce quantitates [Dz. universalitatem quantitatem] et cetera accidencia simplicis et pure kategorice, pertractandum». This second treatise ends (p. 234): «huic medio [Dz. meo] tractatui finem pono». 27 Logica, vol. 2, p. 1 (incipit): «Sequitur de speciebus ypoteticarum, ut prius promiseram, in isto tractatu tercio pertractandum». This third treatise ends (vol. 3, p. 227): «finem tocius operis quiecius inponendo». 28 Logica, vol. 1, p. 76 («descripcionibus [...] in summulis prelibatis»); vol. 1, pp. 92, 129, 180 («regulis in consequenciis traditis», et sim.); vol. 1, pp. 147, 180, 183, vol. 2, p. 209 («ex regulis obligacionum», etc.). Given what I say in § 4 below, though, at least some of these may have been generic references to standard treatises. 29 The Tractatus primus is explicitly referred to as such in Logica, vol. 1, p. 123 and vol. 2, p. 204; it is also referred to in the Tractatus secundus as the «tractatus proximus/prior»: vol. 1, pp. 126, 159, 160. 30 Wyclif himself says (vol. 1, p. 121) that the propositions dealt with in the Tractatus secundus are «quasi medie [Dz. media] inter kategoricas et ypoteticas [...] dici tamen possunt kategorice modo suo». See also n. 38 below.

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Where the manuscripts are equipped with tituli and colophons31, these also support my interpretation of the structure of the material. Unfortunately, the basic textbook is poorly served in this regard: it has no titulus in any of the three extant manuscripts, and a colophon in only the Erfurt manuscript, which simply labels it «Summule»32. What is clear, though, is that the three surviving copies provide no codicological evidence to support the prevalent view that the basic textbook was the first part of a three-part Logica. Turning to the advanced textbook, we find some helpful evidence from two copies of English origin. The Madrid manuscript provides no tituli, but it does give laconic colophons that divide the work into three treatises at the appropriate points33. The Assisi manuscript is more forthcoming, providing separate tituli for the first two treatises and colophons for all three: «Tractatus primus de modo probandi propositionem esse veram» (f. 1r); «Explicit primus tractatus Magistri Johannis Wyclyf. Incipit secundus editus ab eodem» (f. 8ra); «Explicit tractatus secundus editus a magistro Johanne Wyclyf» (f. 27r); «Expliciunt tres tractatus logice venerabilis doctoris et ingeniosissimi logici maistri +Johannis Wychf+ deputati ad usum +fratris+ [peregrini] de [Durachio] +ordinis minorum provincie+ [dalmatie] quos emit i ox» (f. 109va)34. In both of 31 Here I am following William Jerome Wilson’s recommendation to stick to traditional usage in reserving the terms «incipit» and «explicit» for the opening and closing words of the text itself and using the terms «titulus» and «colophon» for scribal superscriptions and subscriptions: W.J. WILSON, «Manuscript Cataloging», Traditio, 12 (1956) 457-555 (esp. p. 458); cf. also R. SHARPE, Titulus: Identifying Medieval Latin Texts, Brepols, Turnhout 2003, p. 48, to which I owe the reference. 32 MS Erfurt, UB, CA Q 253, f. 24v: «Expliciunt sumule magistri Johannis Wicleph». Alert readers may be worried that «Summule» seems too narrow a title for the textbook as a whole. I address this worry in § 3 below. 33 MS Madrid, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, e.II.6: «Explicit primus tractatus» (f. 5vb); «Explicit tractatus secundus» (f. 18vb); «Explicit tractatus tertius» (f. 76vb). 34 MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale (henceforth BC), 662. The final colophon is a possession note that may have been added later; plus signs enclose writing +over+ an erasure and square brackets enclose writing [under] an erasure. Depending on when this note was written, the author’s name may have been erased either by whoever erased every single instance of «Wyclyff» in the running headers in the Tractatus primus (ff. 1r-8r), or by someone who wanted to correct an ascription to Ferrybridge, under whose name the manuscript was entered in a 1449 register of books bequeathed to the Franciscan convent by Magister Lucas de Assisio: L. ALESSANDRI, Inventario

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these copies, the codicological evidence makes it clear that we are dealing with a self-standing work in three conspicuously unequal parts. This is fortunate, because the four Bohemian manuscripts provide almost no relevant evidence. The only one that contains all three parts of the advanced textbook is the Prague copy that Dziewicki used, which limits itself to a colophon for the Tractatus tertius that has no bearing on our question35. Another Prague copy only contains the Tractatus tertius, with a colophon that does not help us here either36. A third Prague copy only contains the Tractatus primus and the Tractatus secundus, with a more expansive but frustratingly ambivalent colophon: «Et sic est finis partis loyce Wykliff de proposicionum probacione»37. Finally, the Vienna copy used by Dziewicki also only contains the first two treatises of the advanced textbook, but this time with neither tituli nor colophons; the only clue here comes from a subsequent annotation at the start of the second treatise, which helpfully labels it «secundus tractatus»38. The thought that the Tractatus tertius was a third work in its own right, distinct from both the basic textbook and the first two treatises of dell’antica Biblioteca del S. Convento di S. Francesco in Assisi compilato nel 1381, Tipografia Metastasio, Assisi 1906, p. 142 (cf. p. 218). The reinstated name «Wychf» is presumably an understandable miscopying of the intact occurrences of «Wyclyf» quoted above. As for Peregrine of Durazzo OFM (Dalmatia), I have taken the three erased words (illegible on my digital images) from C. CENCI, Bibliotheca manuscripta ad sacrum conventum Assisiensem, Casa Editrice Francescana, Assisi 1981, vol. 1, p. 397. 35 MS Praha, Národní knihovna (henceforth NK), V.E.14, f. 176v: «Et sic est finis Tertii tractatus Magistri Johannis Wikleff doctoris Ewangelici cuius anima habeat eterne visionis iocunditatem». 36 MS Praha, NK, IX.E.3, f. 176r: «Et sic est finis huius de yppoteticis». A comparison with the preface (n. 24 above) will confirm that «de hypotheticis» is a brief but accurate description of the Tractatus tertius; cf. also n. 43 below. 37 MS Praha, Knihovna metropolitní kapituly, N.19, f. 166ra. Wyclif’s name has been cancelled –a familiar phenomenon (cf. n. 34 above) that deserves systematic investigation– and it is possible that the correct reading is «Wykleff». The same codex also contains untitled and anonymous extracts from the Tractatus secundus and the Tractatus tertius (cf. n. 118 below). 38 MS Wien, ÖNB, 4523, f. 27r. The annotation continues: «Et est de semiypotheticis et semikathegoricis propositionibus, et non de simpliciter ypotheticis nec simpliciter de kathegoricis. In primo tractatu tractabatur de probacione simplicis propositionis kathegorice; hic autem tractatur de propositionibus mediis».

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the advanced textbook39, has been encouraged by its absence from two of the Bohemian manuscripts40 and by its independent transmission in another of them. As it happens, there is codicological evidence to suggest that the Prague manuscript containing only the Tractatus tertius might originally have contained all three treatises of the advanced textbook41. Still, it must be admitted that a lost English manuscript attested in a late 15th-century catalogue may perhaps have been a standalone copy of the Tractatus tertius42, and in any case there is clear evidence that it was regarded as a separate work («De hypotheticis») for the purposes of the 1410 condemnation of Wyclif’s writings in Prague43. 39

Thomson’s catalogue gives the Tractatus tertius its own entry, calling it «a simple continuation of the preceding item, deserving of its traditional separate listing chiefly because of its divergent MS history»: Latin Writings, p. 6. Similar reasoning would inflate the number of works attributed to many medieval authors. 40 THOMSON, Latin Writings, p. 5 lists a third Bohemian manuscript in this category (Praha, NK, V.H.33, ff. 1r-28r), but this proves to contain a desultory commentary on all three treatises of the advanced textbook, as should have been apparent from the intermittent headers: «dubia de primo tractatu M. J. W.» (f. 1 bis r), «incipit secundus tractatus» (f. 10r), «tertius tractatus de ypoteticis» (f. 19r). 41 The evidence is circumstantial and the case is not watertight; see n. 117 below. 42 The catalogue of Leicester Abbey printed as «A20» in M.T.J. WEBBER – A.G. WATSON (eds.), The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, British Library, London 1998 contains a «Summa magistri Johannis Wyclyffe in logica et philosophia sua» (#1107), also listed as «Liber logicalis» (#1661) and, in a list of Wyclif holdings, simply «Logica» (#612). The second folio of this lost manuscript began with «diminutus», which may correspond to Logica, vol. 2, p. 7/3 (Tractatus tertius, cap. 1); «diminutus» is a rarity in Wyclif’s oeuvre, and the second-folio incipit of the Assisi copy of the Tractatus tertius («propter quid que», f. 28v) falls on the same page of Dziewicki’s edition. This identification would be fatal to the speculation about this «summa in logica et philosophia» in J.A. ROBSON, Wyclif and the Oxford Schools: The Relation of the ‘Summa de Ente’ to Scholastic Debates at Oxford in the Later Fourteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1961, pp. 127-128. 43 Archbishop Zbyněk’s condemnation of Wyclif’s books included both a De probationibus propositionum and a De hypotheticis, listed disconnectedly; the defensive appeal to Pope John XXIII also included them both, listed adjacently: Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam [...] illustrantia, Ed. by F. PALACKÝ, Tempsky, Praha 1869, pp. 380, 392. The identification of the De hypotheticis with the Tractatus tertius (cf. n. 36 above, n. 116 below) is confirmed by the lament for its quadrivial content in Zdislav of Zvířetice’s defence of the De universalibus against the book-burners, printed in J. LOSERTH, Hus und Wiclif. Zur Genesis der husitischen Lehre, Tempsky – Freytag, Praha – Leipzig 1884, p. 287: «Surgant arithmetici, musici, mathematici et astronomici,

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Even so, the unified transmission of all three treatises in 14thcentury England44, and even to an extent in 15th-century Bohemia45, should discourage this thought. Admittedly, it is possible that (as some scholars have suggested) Wyclif composed or revised the Tractatus tertius significantly later than the primus and secundus46. This is a difficult matter, and an attempt to resolve it here would take us too far afield. The present question is simply whether the Tractatus tertius is the «third» treatise because it follows (i) the Tractatus primus and (ii) the Tractatus secundus as part of a three-part advanced textbook, or because it follows (i) the basic textbook and (ii) the two-part Logice continuacio. And even a twenty-year hiatus before its composition would have no bearing on this question. In sum, then, there is no evidence from the manuscripts to support what I have been calling Dziewicki’s wrong answer –or is there? In 2006, Anne et hauriant quod in magistri Iohannis Wyklef libro de †Ypocritis [MS: yppoteticis] est consumptum». 44 Besides the Assisi and Madrid manuscripts, written in 14th-century England and containing all three treatises, a lost manuscript that may fall into the same category is attested in Thomas Markaunt’s 1439 bequest to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: «Libellus Wyklef qui incipit Iuvenum rogatibus. Cuius secundum folium incipit vel quo ad sensum [Logica, vol. 1, p. 80/17], et penultimum folium incipit punctorum equinoct’ [vol. 3, p. 221/6]» (MS Cambridge, Corpus Christi College (henceforth CCC), 232, f. 7r). This evidently began with the Tractatus primus and ended with the Tractatus tertius, contrary to the identification of the text as the twopart «Logice continuacio» in P.D. CLARKE (ed.), The University and College Libraries of Cambridge, British Library, London 2002, p. 200 (where «punctorum» is misread as «piu’tor’»). For potential evidence of another copy, see n. 51 below. 45 Although the only Bohemian manuscript with all three treatises is MS Praha, NK, V.E.14, where the tertius does not follow smoothly on from the others (n. 116 below), there is also a Bohemian commentary on all three treatises (n. 40 above) and a unified entry for them in the Hussite catalogue of Wyclif’s works (n. 52 below). 46 For useful details, see (with caution) M. WILKS, «The Early Oxford Wyclif: Papalist or Nominalist?», Studies in Church History, 5 (1969) 69-98: 91-94; independently, see the briefer but more reliable remarks in KRETZMANN, «Continua», pp. 40-41; for an argument based on the contentiousness of the Tractatus tertius, see HUDSON, «Introduction», p. 8. A weak indication of a chronological gap may perhaps be discerned in the tenses that Wyclif uses in his opening words: in the preface, he uses the pluperfect to refer to the basic treatises that he had previously put together («collegeram», n. 24 above); at the start of the Tractatus secundus he uses the perfect to refer to what he has promised in the preface («superius [...] est promissum», n. 26); and at the start of the Tractatus tertius he reverts to the pluperfect to refer to what he had previously promised («prius promiseram», n. 27).

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Hudson announced the Bodleian’s momentous acquisition of five large bifolia recovered from a previously unknown manuscript, certainly English and probably Oxonian, that some philistine had cut up and used in the binding of a book47. This is the source of the new evidence that I mentioned at the end of § 1: according to Hudson, «the traditional numbering of De logica in three books» is, pace Catto, supported by «the headings visible in the newly discovered fragments»48. For this to be true, though, the headings would need to show either that the basic textbook was entitled the Tractatus primus or that the first part of the Logice continuacio was included in the stretch of text entitled Tractatus secundus, because these are the only places where the «traditional» numbering and Catto’s numbering would give different answers. And since the text covered by the Bodleian fragments only begins on p. 192 of Dziewicki’s first volume, i.e. well into the second part of the Logice continuacio, there is no way that the headings could perform this function.

3. The Two Titles49 Now that the fog has lifted, let us banish it for good by refusing to speak of the «Logice continuacio». This title, which Dziewicki presumably inherited from Walter Shirley’s pioneering Wyclif catalogue, is a 19thcentury invention with no medieval basis50. A better starting-point is 47

HUDSON, «New Fragments of Wyclif’s De Logica», Bodleian Library Record, 19 (2006) 244-250. 48 HUDSON, «Introduction», p. 7 (cf. n. 8 above). Where the damage permits us to see them, the running headers in these fragments are beautifully clear, with «Tractatus» on the far left, «Secundus» or «Tercius» in the centre with a chapter title above it, and «Wyclyff» on the far right. 49 In this section I am guided by Richard Sharpe’s frustrated plea for an «evidencebased approach» to the identification of medieval Latin texts: SHARPE, Titulus (cit. n. 31 above). The new editions that I have promised (n. 1 above) will include discussion of some evidence omitted here for reasons of space and focus; in particular, seasoned bibliographers will note the absence of Leland, Bale (mostly) and Tanner, whose testimony is interesting but does not invalidate what I say here. 50 W.W. SHIRLEY, A Catalogue of the Original Works of John Wyclif, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1865, p. 1 (the Tractatus tertius appears on p. 51 as a lost work «De speciebus hypotheticis»). Shirley in turn presumably concocted the title from the following catalogue entry for the Vienna manuscript, which was, however, more typographically sophisticated: «fol. 16. absque inscriptione Logicae Continuatio

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Wyclif’s own prefatory description of the advanced textbook as «tres tractatus», which we saw reprised in the possession colophon to the Assisi manuscript («Expliciunt tres tractatus logice...»). And since each treatise is said to show how to prove propositions of a certain kind, we should also recall the Assisi manuscript’s title for the first treatise: «Tractatus primus de modo probandi propositionem esse veram»51. As a title for the whole work, «Three Treatises on How to Prove that a Proposition is True» would be accurate but rather prolix. Happily, external evidence from early 15th-century Bohemia yields two pithier suggestions: the Hussite catalogue of Wyclif’s works contains an entry for «tres tractatus de probandis propositionibus»52, and one of the diatribes against the bookburners of Prague in 1410 was given in defence of Wyclif’s (curiously singular) «tractatus de probationibus propositionum»53. This last phrase sequitur»: M. DENIS, Codices manuscripti theologici Bibliothecae Palatinae Vindobonensis, Trattner, Wien 1794, vol. 1, part 2, col. 1472. 51 Cf. n. 34 above. The Tractatus primus apparently had a similar title in a lost manuscript containing all three treatises that was seen by the bibliographer John Bale in around 1550 in the offices of the London printer and bookseller Robert Stoughton: «De modo probandi cathegoricam de inesse». See Index Britanniae scriptorum quos ex variis bibliothecis non parvo labore collegit Ioannes Balęus, cum aliis, Ed. by R.L. POOLE – M. BATESON, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1902, pp. 273-274. 52 This catalogue, which survives in three 15th-century manuscripts plus an early modern codex descriptus that we may safely ignore, is most recently edited in HUDSON, «The Hussite Catalogue of Wyclif’s Works», in Studies, III. Unfortunately, Hudson prints the text of MS Wien, ÖNB, 3933 «since this appears to be the earliest copy» (p. 13), and her selection of variants from the other two MSS (3935, 4514) is too economical. Our entry, found in a kind of postscript to the main catalogue, is thus printed only as «tres tractatus» with no recorded variants (p. 21) even though the more informative versions in the other manuscripts suggest an erroneous truncation: «tres tractatus de exponendis propositionibus» (MS 3935, f. 224v), «de probandis propositionibus tres tractatus» (MS 4514, f. 104v). See also n. 67 below. 53 Simon of Tišnov’s speech is printed in LOSERTH, Hus und Wiclif, pp. 271-276. Tišnov also calls his defendant a tractatulus, but there is nothing diminutive about the Tres tractatus (over 600 pages in Dziewicki’s edition). The explanation can be found in Tišnov’s sketch of the contents, which clearly excludes the Tractatus tertius: «docens qualiter universalis tam affirmativa quam negativa particularis qualitatis utriusque probari debeant ... nullum genus proposicionis kathegorici obmisi» (p. 273); see further n. 43 above. The Tractatus secundus is not obviously included here (cf. n. 30 above), but a quotation appended to the speech in MS Wien, ÖNB, 4002 suggests that it did fall under Tišnov’s remit: «patet veritas talium sophismatum: tantum verum erit verum, tantum episcopus potest esse filius tuus vel famulari tibi, tantum papa potest

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should ring some bells, as we have already seen it at the start of the first treatise («superest primo de probacionibus proposicionum de inesse per ordinem pertractandum») and in the colophon to one of the Prague manuscripts («finis partis loyce Wykliff de proposicionum probacione»)54. It is, in fact, a common name for logical works in a poorly-understood genre apparently inaugurated in around 1350 by Richard Billingham55. It is too early for me to gauge Wyclif’s debt to other works in this genre, but the closing words of the preface («relying for the most part on the opinions of previous logicians») suggest that it was considerable56. At any rate, I think we have enough evidence to support my replacement title: «Tres tractatus de probationibus propositionum» («Probationes» for short)57. So much for the advanced logic textbook. From now on, this paper is only concerned with the introductory textbook that occupies the first 74 pages of the combined edition. Frustratingly, it is harder to find a title for this string of treatises. Dziewicki himself inherited the title «Logica», and «De logica» has been the default option in modern scholarship since Thomson published his catalogue, but these are essentially just placeholders. The absolvere te a quocumque peccato. hec W. in de probationibus capitulo de Exceptivis» (f. 41r; the quotation is from Logica, vol. 1, p. 151). 54 Martin Dekarli has kindly alerted me to an earlier (ca. 1395) Bohemian use of this title to refer to the advanced textbook: «ut patet in tractatu de probationibus propositionum»: Commentarius in I-IX capitula tractatus De universalibus Iohannis Wyclif Stephano de Palecz ascriptus, ed. I. MÜLLER, Filosofia, Praha 2009, p. 299. The reference is to ch. 7 of Wyclif’s Tractatus primus, on partial negatives (not, pace Müller, ch. 5 on universal negatives). 55 The fundamental work on this genre is A. MAIERÙ, Terminologia logica della tarda scolastica, Edizioni dell’Ateneo, Roma 1972, pp. 393-498. For a more recent sketch, see E.P. BOS, «Richard Billingham», in H. LAGERLUND (ed.), Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy, Springer, Dordrecht 2011, pp. 1118-1120. 56 Dziewicki’s version of the last sentence of the preface (n. 24 above) fatally distorts its significance, as can be seen from his marginal summary: «hypothetical propositions dealt with at more length than by former writers» (vol. 1, p. 75). In fairness, the manuscripts all give a final word that makes no sense (e.g. «imitendo», «mittendo»); my own hypothesis is that Wyclif’s original word «innitendo» has been diffracted through an error or obscurity in the archetype. 57 I should mention the alternative suggestion in CATTO, «Wyclif and Wycliffism», p. 190, n. 47 (cit. n. 7 above): «De logica superiori». This title would certainly fit Wyclif’s preface, especially if we expanded it to «Tres tractatus de superiore parte logice», but my own suggestion has two advantages: it locates the work more precisely in the relevant genre and it has documentary support from near-contemporary sources.

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bolder title «De logica sacre scripture» has been suggested by Jeremy Catto on the basis of Wyclif’s stated intention to put together a treatise «ad declarandam logicam sacre scripture»58. I find this suggestion misleading for reasons that will become clear in the next two sections, but for now I will just make the general precautionary point that a treatise compiled in order to elucidate something needn’t be a treatise about it. I am also not aware of any evidence that late medieval scholars ever referred to the work by a title that mentioned «the logic of scripture»59. The only direct evidence from the manuscripts is the Erfurt colophon that we saw in § 2, which calls the work «Summule». In itself, this seems reasonable: a summula is a «brief treatise or textbook, esp. one drawing together material on a particular topic»60, and the introductory textbook could certainly be seen as a collection of summule in this general sense61. The trouble is that Wyclif uses the word «summule» twice in this very work to refer specifically to its chapters on basic propositional logic62. On pain of ambiguity, then, we could do with 58 CATTO, «Wyclif and Wycliffism», p. 190 n. 47. In a similar vein, albeit without Catto’s appreciation of the points made in § 2 above, Ivan Müller once wrote: «Logicae continuatio, i.e. Wyclif’s study of the logic of the Holy Writ»: I.J. MUELLER, «Introduction», in John Wyclif, Tractatus de Universalibus, Ed. by I.J. MUELLER, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1985, pp. xv-xciii: p. xxxvii. 59 I should note that the phrase «logicam sacre scripture» in the preface has been underlined in MS Wien, ÖNB, 4523, f. 1r. Judging by the colour and thickness of the ink, though, this was probably done by the person who wrote «Ex Augustissima Bibliotheca Caesarea Vindobonensi» at the foot of the page. Irina von Morzé of the «Mitteleuropäische Schulen VII» cataloguing project informs me that this manuscript («No. 28») should be added to the list of books that Kaspar von Niedbruck borrowed from the Carolinum in Prague and inadvertently left to the emperor by dying intestate in Vienna in 1557 (see HUDSON, Studies, XVI, pp. 31-33). 60 R.K. ASHDOWNE – D.R. HOWLETT (eds.), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources: Fascicule XVI Sol–Syr, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013, p. 3290, s.v. summula 3. 61 This might partly explain the medieval rubric on the front pastedown of MS Wien, ÖNB, 4523, which seems rather confused: «In isto libello continetur Tractatus primus sumularum magistri (?) Johannis Wyklyff». 62 See nn. 12 and 14 above. This narrow usage of «summule» was common in 14thcentury logic. The older term «introductiones» was similarly ambiguous and apparently also caused confusion over a title: L.M. DE RIJK, Logica Modernorum: A Contribution to the History of Early Terminist Logic, vol. 2.1, Van Gorcum, Assen 1967, pp. 167-171; ID., «Introduction», in Peter of Spain. Tractatus called afterwards Summule logicales, Ed. by L.M. DE RIJK, Van Gorcum, Assen 1972, pp. vii-cxxix: xlv-xlvi.

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something different as a title for the whole work –at the very least, following a 15th-century hint from the cover of the same manuscript, «Summule logice»63. Unfortunately, external evidence is also in short supply. My only concrete discovery is a quotation from the summule jotted inside the cover of a Bohemian philosophical manuscript and citing «Wyclif in summa»64. But «summa» would be a grand word for the introductory textbook65, and in any case the quotation is followed by three notes that are not taken from either textbook, the third of which cites «ille in summa».66 Presumably, therefore, the introductory textbook was at best just a component of this summa, which could conceivably have been the «Summa in logica» listed immediately before the Probationes in the Hussite catalogue of Wyclif’s works67; it might also have been the «Summa Wyclyffe» listed under the heading of «Libri logice» in an Oxford college booklist from the 1390s68. 63

MS Erfurt, UB, CA Q 253, front cover: «Summula loyce Jo. Wicleff». MS Wien, ÖNB, 5204, verso of front cover (trimmed): «o realis est quelibet res extra movens ad componendum vere vel false. hec Wyclif in summa». The quotation differs in two minor respects from the transmitted text of the summule, and is probably right to do so (cf. Logica, vol. 1, p. 14: «propositio realis ut quelibet res movens ad componendum vere vel false»). The manuscript in question has been dated to the late 14th century on decorative grounds: U. JENNI – M. THEISEN, Mitteleuropäische Schulen III (ca. 1350-1400), Textband, Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 2004, no. 53, p. 163. For its contents, see for now SPADE – WILSON, «Introduction» (cit. n. 2 above), pp. xxi-xxii. 65 An obvious comparison to draw here is with Richard Brinkley’s Summa logice (ca. 1350), which is much longer than Wyclif’s work; see most recently L. CESALLI, «Pseudo-Richard of Campsall and Richard Brinkley», in C. RODE (ed.), A Companion to Responses to Ockham, Brill, Leiden 2016, pp. 79-108. 66 MS Wien, ÖNB, 5204, verso of front cover: «Nota quod concedere est assentire ad sic esse. | Nota signum significare est ipsum movere virtutem cognitivam ad aliqualiter comprehendendum. | Nota quod ens naturaliter dicitur esse quando est sine violenta dispositione vel voluntate hominis faciente illud esse, et isto modo loquitur Aristoteles 2o phisicorum 5o et 2o ethicorum capitulo primo, et breviter quot modis dicitur natura tot modis dicitur esse a natura. hec ille in summa». The third of these notes is only faintly related to Logica, vol. 1, p. 173 (cf. et. p. 139). 67 Hudson’s edition of the catalogue runs the two entries together: «[98] summa in logica tres tractatus» (cf. n. 52 above). Not only is this grammatically improbable, but the entries are separated by clear punctuation in the two manuscripts that contain them. (The entry for the Summa in logica is missing in MS Wien, ÖNB, 4514.) 68 W.A. PANTIN, «Catalogue of the Books of Durham College, Oxford», in H. SALTER – W.A. PANTIN – H. RICHARDSON, Formularies Which Bear on the History of Oxford, c. 1204-1420, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1942, vol. 1, pp. 240-245: 243. 64

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My only other scrap of evidence is the following entry in a mid15th-century booklist from Reček’s College at the University of Prague: «Tractatuli Wikleff logice»69. Some of the entries in this library catalogue are furnished with dictiones probatoriae (incipits of non-initial folios) that allow a work or even a manuscript to be identified, but not this one. It is therefore impossible to say for certain what Wyclif’s «little treatises on logic» were. Nevertheless, I will stick my neck out and claim that the Tractatuli logice were, in fact, the little treatises that made up his introductory textbook. For one thing, the title does not fit any of his other known works. For another, it would have been no surprise to find this particular work on the shelves: the college library was well stocked with logic texts, and its six Wyclif manuscripts included two copies of the Probationes70; for that matter, the three known copies of the basic textbook were probably all Bohemian productions of the early 15th century71. Despite the flimsiness of the evidence, I will therefore refer to this work as the Tractatuli logice («Tractatuli» for short).

Pantin identified this as «Probably Wyclif’s Summa de ente» (p. 245), a suggestion made more fully and more cautiously in ROBSON, Wyclif and the Oxford Schools, pp. 127-128 (cf. n. 42 above). As Robson himself acknowledged, this identification would be at variance with its inclusion in the list of logical works (e.g. «Summa Occam», presumably Ockham’s Summa logice) rather than the lists of theological and philosophical works. Anne Hudson has since pressed the point against Pantin and argued for a probable identification of the «Summa Wyclyffe» with «all or part of Wyclif’s De logica»: HUDSON, «Wyclif and the North: The Evidence from Durham», in D. WOOD (ed.), Life and Thought in the Northern Church c. 1100-c. 1700, Boydell, Woodbridge 1999, pp. 87-103: 94. 69 Catalogi librorum vetustissimi Universitatis Pragensis, Ed. by Z. SILAGIOVÁ – F. ŠMAHEL, Brepols, Turnhout 2015, p. 45 (M50). 70 Catalogi, p. 43 (M1 and, with the Tractatus tertius only, M2). 71 The Bohemian copy in MS Wien, ÖNB, 4523 has a secure terminus post quem non of 1412, as it is followed immediately on f. 58r by a later copy of Wyclif’s De universalibus that was finished on 31 December 1412 (f. 132v). The Bohemian copy in MS Schlägl, SB, 78 probably postdates the fallacie in the same (noncomposite) manuscript with a scribal date of 21 July 1411 (f. 179v). The copy in MS Erfurt, UB, CA Q 253 is harder to pin down: the 1416 date on f. 81r occurs in a different codicological unit and is therefore useless; on the other hand, although the copy is listed as South German in THOMSON, Latin Writings, p. 4, Martin Dekarli informs me that it may have been Bohemian.

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4. Wyclif’s Tractatuli and the Logica Oxoniensis The conclusions reached so far are hardly earth-shattering. Let me raise the stakes with a bolder claim about Wyclif’s introductory logic textbook: its nature and purpose have been repeatedly and radically misunderstood ever since it was brought to light over 125 years ago. In this section I will present my own understanding of the work based on a partial identification of its source material. This will allow me to explain in § 5 what the misunderstandings are and where I think they have come from. The source material in question is the so-called «Logica Oxoniensis», a loose collection of university teaching materials that began to take shape in the mid-14th century and was continually developed and recycled before being ossified in print at the end of the 15th century in the Libellus sophistarum ad usum Oxoniensium72. It was a loose collection in two senses: firstly, there was considerable variation in the selection and arrangement of its constituent treatises, and secondly, each treatise was liable to be more or less lightly adapted by the master who was teaching it73. Even so, there was a fairly stable core of logical treatises, which de Rijk numbered as follows74: (1) summule, (2) consequencie, (3) suppositiones75, 72

In its manuscript form, the Logica Oxoniensis was first hypothesized 40 years ago by Lambertus de Rijk: «There seems to have existed a more or less established set of tracts on the different logical topics of those days [ca. 1400]. Far from having one specific author this “Oxford Logic” seems to consist of adaptations of famous fourteenth century tracts»: L.M. DE RIJK, «Logica Oxoniensis. An Attempt to Reconstruct a Fifteenth Century Oxford Manual of Logic», Medioevo, 3 (1977) 121164: 163. De Rijk was apparently unaware of the printed editions that are attested from 1499 to 1530; see in the first instance E.J. ASHWORTH, «Text-books: A Case Study – Logic», in L. HELLINGA – J.B. TRAPP (eds.), The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain: Volume III 1400-1557, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, pp. 380-386. 73 Accordingly, the manuscript tradition is forbiddingly complex and far from fully understood. No one has attempted to survey it since the fundamental article by de Rijk (cit. n. 72 above), but there have been useful studies of two of the constituent treatises: M. BERTAGNA, «Peter of Candia’s Treatise On Consequences», Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 19 (2008) 619-675: 630-639; E.J. ASHWORTH, «Richard Billingham and the Oxford Obligationes Texts: Restrictions on positio», Vivarium, 53 (2015) 372-390 and the references on p. 374, n. 7. 74 DE RIJK, «Logica Oxoniensis», pp. 155-163. 75 De Rijk himself only conjectured the existence of the Oxford suppositiones, as he knew «of no manuscript containing an anonymous tract on supposition presented as

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(4) de probatione/expositione propositionum, (5) insolubilia, (6) obligationes. My claim is essentially that Wyclif’s extant Tractatuli are –except for the three opening chapters on terms, universals and categories– pedagogically innovative adaptations of items (1), (3), (2), (4) and (6). In order to substantiate this claim, I will focus on the consequencie for the simple logistical reason that I currently have access to more manuscripts of this treatise (eleven, plus two indirectly via printed editions).76 In the absence of a critical edition of the Logica Oxoniensis, this will make it easier for me to identify close parallels that are buried in the diffuse tradition. To avoid cluttering the page, I will suspend my practice of noting the differences between my quotations and Dziewicki’s edition. Wyclif’s consequencie, like its equivalents in the various manifestations of the Logica Oxoniensis, begins by defining «consequencia» (inference). In fact, some versions give two definitions, allowing a consequencia to be either an inferential relationship or a compound sentence expressing such a relationship. The following examples should give a sense of the variability of the text: JW: Consequencia est quedam habitudo inter antecedens et consequens cum nota consequencie, vel consequencia est quoddam aggregatum ex antecedente et consequente cum nota consequencie, ut hic homo currit, ergo animal currit. LOL: Consequencia est quoddam aggregatum ex antecedente et consequente cum nota consequencie, vel consequencia est quedam sequela inter antecedens et consequens cum nota consequencie. secundum usum Oxonie» (DE RIJK, «Logica Oxoniensis», p. 158). Sadly, he did not live to see this conjecture vindicated: there is a version entitled «Suppositiones secundum usum Uxonie» in MS Assisi, BC, 690, ff. 97v-98r (split across two quires in different hands). Accordingly, I suspect that «Oxonie» has been omitted in the colophon of the almost identical version in MS Assisi, BC, 664, ff. 114v-115r: «Expliciunt suppositiones secundum usum bone et utiles studere volentibus». 76 I am assuming that, as was often the case, a single manuscript lies behind the editio princeps of the Libellus sophistarum ad usum Oxoniensium, Richard Pynson, London 1499/1500 (STC 15576.6), but nothing important hangs on this. MS Gdańsk, Polska Akademia Nauk, Biblioteka Gdańska, 2181, ff. 68r-71v is edited in Wilhelm von Osma. De Consequentiis – Über die Folgerungen, Ed. by F. SCHUPP, Felix Meiner, Hamburg 1991; in my view, this text (dated by Schupp to 1340×70) is just Guilelmus de Osma’s version of the same material. Mario Bertagna generously sent me his transcriptions from seven other manuscripts of which I now have images.

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LOW: Consequencia est aggregatum ex antecedente et consequente cum nota consequencie, vel consequencia est quedam sequela vel habitudo inter antecedens et consequens cum nota consequencie. LOC: Consequencia est quoddam aggregatum ex antecedente et consequente cum nota consequencie, ut hoc totum homo currit, ergo animal currit77.

The introductory remarks soon give way to a long list of rules, sometimes half-heartedly numbered. The selection and arrangement differs from version to version, and sometimes the rules are peppered with additional comments, but they are mostly quite stable. Here are three of the 25 or so that Wyclif gives in this chapter, along with one illustrative counterpart for each rule from the Logica Oxoniensis: 78 79

JW: quelibet consequencia est bona et formalis quando ex contradictorio consequentis sequitur contradictorium antecedentis, ut homo currit, ergo animal currit, quia sequitur formaliter nullum animal currit, ergo nullus homo currit.

LOD: quelibet consequencia est bona et formalis quando ex opposito consequentis sequitur oppositum antecedentis, ut ista est bona homo currit, ergo animal currit, nam ex opposito consequentis sequitur oppositum antecedentis, sc. nullum animal currit, ergo nemo currit78

JW: ab universali affirmativa ad suam singularem affirmativam sine debito medio, ubi †singulares† significant res corruptibiles, non valet consequencia, ut sic arguendo omnis homo est animal, ergo iste homo est animal.

LOO: arguendo ab universali affirmativa ad suas singulares quarum subiecta supponunt pro rebus corruptibilibus, sine medio argumentum non valet, ut non sequitur omnis homo currit, ergo iste currit vel ista currit79.

77

JW: Logica, vol. 1, p. 43. LOL: Libellus sophistarum, sig. A vi v-B i r. LOW: MS Worcester, Cathedral Library, F 118, f. 4va. LOC: MS Cambridge, CCC, 244, f. 6r. I have not seen «aggregatum» used in any definition of «consequencia» before Billingham’s mid-14th-century treatise: Richard Billingham “De consequentiis” mit Toledo-Kommentar, Ed. by S. WEBER, B.R. Grüner, Amsterdam – Philadelphia 2003, p. 135. 78 JW: Logica, vol. 1, p. 43. LOD: MS Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 378, f. 11r. 79 JW: Logica, vol. 1, p. 44. LOO: MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Lat. misc. e.79, f. 5rb.

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JW: a superiori ad suum inferius sine negatione et sine distributione et sine aliqua dictione habente vim negationis non valet consequencia, ut animal currit, ergo homo currit.

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LOG: arguendo a superiori ad suum inferius sine negatione et sine distributione et sine aliqua dictione habente vim negationis vel distributionis non valet consequencia, ut ista consequencia non valet animal currit, ergo homo currit80.

80

So far, so typical. But now look at these three rules, which in Wyclif’s text are adjacent to the above: 81 82 83

JW: quelibet consequencia est bona et formalis in qua consequens formaliter intelligitur in antecedente, ut sic arguendo Petrus est caritativus, ergo ipse est virtuosus, quia hoc consequens ipse est virtuosus intelligitur in hoc antecedente Petrus est caritativus.

LOV: quelibet consequencia est bona et formalis ubi consequens formaliter intelligitur in antecedente, ut ista consequencia est bona et formalis homo currit, ergo animal currit, nam hoc consequens animal currit intelligitur in hoc antecedente homo currit81.

JW: a particulari ad suam indefinitam, tam affirmative quam negative, est consequencia bona, ut quedam caritas est virtus, ergo caritas est virtus, negative ut sic quedam caritas non est peccatum, ergo caritas non est peccatum.

LOU: a particulari ad suam indiffinitam, tam affirmative quam negative, est consequencia bona, sic aliquod animal currit, ergo animal currit, negative aliquod animal non currit, igitur animal non currit82.

JW: a superiori ad suum inferius cum negatione vel distributione vel aliqua dictione habente vim negationis est bona consequencia, ut omne animal est perfectum in natura, ergo omnis homo est perfectus in natura; nulla virtus est vicium, ergo nulla caritas est vicium.

LOP: arguendo a superiori ad suum inferius cum distributione vel negatione vel aliqua dictione habente vim negationis est bona consequencia, ut bene sequitur omnis homo currit, ergo omnis homo albus currit83.

80

JW: Logica, vol. 1, p. 47. LOG: Wilhelm von Osma (cit. n. 76 above), p. 12. JW: Logica, vol. 1, p. 43. LOV: MS Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (henceforth BAV), Vat. lat. 3065, f. 12rb. 82 JW: Logica, vol. 1, p. 44. LOU: MS Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. lat. 4269, f. 188r. 83 JW: Logica, vol. 1, p. 47. LOP: MS Pistoia, Archivio Capitolare, C 61, f. 88vb. 81

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Besides the usual minor variations in wording, these rules exhibit an immediately striking feature: Wyclif has shunned the logician’s limited stock of examples in favour of sentences involving virtues and vices, sins and charity, and even Peter where one would normally expect Socrates or Plato. What’s more, it turns out that he has done something similar for roughly half of the rules included in this chapter. This modus scribendi should not come as a surprise given what Wyclif said in the first half of the preface. Here it is again, but this time including the crucial sentence that I omitted in § 2: I have been prompted by some friends of God’s law to compile a certain treatise to elucidate the logic of Holy Scripture. For seeing many people moving on to logic84 with the intention of getting to know God’s law better through it, and, because of the bland mixture of pagan terms85 in every proof of propositions86, abandoning it because of the emptiness of the enterprise, 84 The phrase «ad logicam transeuntes» may have had a more precise institutional meaning. In 1421, Oxford agreed to exempt priests from the civil law requirement for canon law students because they «ad leges [civiles] transire non possunt», and likewise in a follow-up statute of 1438: The Register of Henry Chichele, Ed. by E.F. JACOB, vol. 3, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1945, p. 72 (cf. p. 276); Statuta antiqua universitatis Oxoniensis, Ed. by S. GIBSON, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1931, p. 259. But Chichele’s ordinance of 1417 had referred to those who «in ipso [jure] studere non possunt» (The Register, p. 42), and the New College statutes of 1400 had allowed for a civil law student becoming a priest «et sic jura civilia publice ulterius audire non valens» (Statutes of the Colleges of Oxford, Ed. by E.A. BOND, vol. 1, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London 1853, pt. 5, p. 3). 85 The phrase «terminorum gentilium» has sometimes been interpreted (following DZIEWICKI, «Introduction», in Logica, vol. 1, p. xii) as referring to pagan technical terminology; cf. e.g. J. COLEMAN, Piers Plowman and the Moderni, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Roma 1981, p. 185. This is strange given that Wyclif shows no sign of (as Coleman puts it) «opposing the rigid terminology of the logicians». I take it that «terminorum» instead refers to terms as potential components of sentences, in line with what Wyclif says at the start of ch. 1: «Terminus large loquendo est dictio artificialiter inventa propter composicionem proposicionis» (Logica, vol. 1, p. 2). As for «gentilium», the most obvious candidates for pagan terms in the average 14thcentury logic textbook are the ubiquitous names «Socrates» (or rather «Sortes») and «Plato». 86 The phrase «in omni probacione proposicionum» might refer not to individual proofs but to standard textbooks in the genre mentioned in § 3 (cf. n. 55 above); if so, it could be translated as «in every Proof of Propositions».

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I propose, in order to sharpen the minds of the faithful, to present proofs of propositions that should be drawn from the Scriptures87.

Wyclif’s pedagogical agenda is clear. In his experience, students who take up logic to improve their understanding of the Bible are put off by the constant stream of vapid examples like «Socrates is running». He therefore wants to make the course less boring for them by using examples with more relevant content, ones «that should be drawn from the Scriptures». Kretzmann, who came close to understanding this, took Wyclif to be promising to use quotations from the Bible88, but the verb «elicere» is not limited to mere excerption. You might, for instance, «draw» (i.e. infer) from the Bible the fact that Peter is virtuous, and Wyclif tells us that you could prove it from the fact that he is charitable89. I do not have enough space here to show that Wyclif has the same agenda in the other parts of his basic textbook, but a flick through the summule will illustrate my claim on almost every page90. There are slimmer pickings in the brief suppositiones, though even here Wyclif manages to slip in a discussion of the supposition of «homo» in «omnis 87

Logica, vol. 1, p. 1: «Motus sum per quosdam legis dei amicos certum tractatum ad declarandam logicam sacre scripture compilare. Nam videns multos ad logicam transeuntes qui per illam proposuerant legem dei melius cognovisse, et, propter insipidam terminorum mixtionem gentilium in omni probacione proposicionum, propter vacuitatem operis eam deserentes, propono ad acuendum mentes fidelium ponere probaciones proposicionum que debent elici ex scripturis». 88 KRETZMANN, «Continua», p. 42 and n. 39: «Wyclif only rarely manages (or, perhaps, remembers) to choose his logical examples from Scripture, and it is possible that he intended only the De Logica [sc. the Tractatuli and not the Probationes] as an exposition of the logic of Scripture. [...] Wyclif does, however, often use ‘Petrus’ and Paulus’ instead of the more traditional ‘Socrates’ and ‘Plato’, and his examples often have theological roots». 89 Wyclif himself repeatedly uses «elicere» to mean «infer», e.g. Logica, vol. 1, p. 202: «Ex istis dictis elicere potes consimiles conclusiones»; an especially pertinent example can be found in Iohannis Wycliffe De Dominio Divino libri tres, Ed. by R.L. POOLE, Trübner & Co., London 1890, p. 235: «Quia tamen ista sentencia non patenter omnibus potest elici ex Scriptura, ideo non presumo nisi cum decenti modestia illam asserere». 90 It will help to take on trust de Rijk’s neglected observation that «Wyclif rather closely follows the [O]xford Summule and the Oxford Consequentie»: DE RIJK, «Logica Oxoniensis» (cit. n. 72 above), p. 159.

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homo est mendax»91. In the treatise on proofs of propositions he is back in full swing with idiosyncratic examples like «cuiuslibet sancti existentis in celo anima est beata»92. And although better illustrations could be chosen, we have already seen that the obligationes breaks off during a discussion of the degrees of charity attained by Peter and Paul93. Now, none of this is to say that the logical doctrines presented in the Tractatuli are necessarily unoriginal. But it is to say that Wyclif’s most conspicuous contribution is the pedagogical innovation of using «real-world» examples to retain the interest of theologically-minded students94, and that we cannot assume that the philosophical content bears his own stamp without investigating its relationship to the tangled and mostly unedited mass of teaching materials now collectively known as the Logica Oxoniensis95.

91

Logica, vol. 1, p. 41 (cf. Psalms 115:11, Romans 3:4). Logica, vol. 1, p. 61 (cf. Johannis Wyclif Tractatus de Benedicta Incarnacione, Ed. by E. HARRIS, Trübner & Co., London 1886, p. 181: «anime sanctorum sunt beate in celo»). The equivalent example in one version of the Logica Oxoniensis is «cuiuslibet hominis oculus est dexter»: MS Padova, Biblioteca Universitaria (henceforth BU), 1123, f. 5vb. 93 Logica, vol. 1, p. 74 (n. 19 above). For another example, see n. 103 below. 94 An obvious question is whether any other logic masters took inspiration from this innovation. The only clear case I know of is the anonymous text in MS Praha, NK, VIII.F.16, identified by František Šmahel as a free compilation from Wyclif’s textbooks and John Tarteys’ summule and consequencie. As the epilogue suggests («sum secutus doctores antiquos et catholicos, de meis nulla vel pauca scribens, exempla scripture sacre verum etiam logice adducens», f. 60v), the author has extended Wyclif’s modus scribendi in the Tractatuli to the Probationes; e.g. on f. 143r he reproduces Logica, vol. 1, p. 87/28-34 but replaces Wyclif’s stereotypical «omnis homo currit» with an evangelical example: «omne regnum divisum contra se desolabitur» (Matthew 12:25). See ŠMAHEL, «Eine hussitische Collecta» (cit. n. 4 above), esp. pp. 593-595. Ota Pavlíček and Miroslav Hanke have now begun editing this anonymous text and following up Šmahel’s suggestion that it may be connected to Jerome of Prague. 95 By way of illustration, an awareness of the dependence revealed in this section would have improved the only discussion of Wyclif’s consequencie in print: J. SPRUYT, «John Wyclif on the Formal Nature of Inference», in L. CESALLI – F. GOUBIER – A. DE LIBERA (eds.), Formal Approaches and Natural Language in Medieval Logic, FIDEM, Barcelona – Roma 2016, pp. 149-172: 154-158. 92

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5. The Logic of Holy Scripture The picture sketched in § 4 needs further elaboration, but it does not strike me as controversial. It is, however, squarely at odds with much that has been written about the Tractatuli over the past 125 years. For readers who are new to the literature, the following quotations should give a sense of what I mean: The work he composed is, he declares in the Proemium, the Logic of Holy Writ. From the beginning of his career [...] he raises his standard with a determined hand, and no doubt, as we may infer from the tone of the Proemium, expects many zealous followers to crowd round it. We shall not be far wrong then, I think, if we consider Logica as but the first commencement of a concerted movement [...] recognizing as the rule, both of faith and of right reasoning, the Holy Scriptures above all things96. Wyclif had asserted the importance of scripture to reason in the opening of his earliest extant work on logic [...] Wyclif claims in the proem of his De logica to be «making plain the logic of Holy Scripture» by eschewing pagan references and relying exclusively on biblical proofs...97. Wyclif will show them various proofs which should be drawn from Scripture. [...] Wyclif takes it for granted that [grammar and logic] are important tools in the explication of the sacred text, which itself can be understood to contain logical propositions. Of course, it is never a matter of imposing logical systems on the text, but rather explicating a text inherently replete with its own logic98. Cette enterprise est dirigée contre ces «insipides mixtures de termes» qu’affectionent les «gentils» sous les figures desquels semblent se confondre les nominalistes et les infidèles [...] L’Ecriture contient 96

DZIEWICKI, «Introduction», in Logica, vol. 1, p. x. F. SOMERSET, Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998, p. 181 and n. 13. I have skipped a century since the previous quotation because I am especially concerned with the survival of this view in modern scholarship, but the gap could easily be filled in. 98 I.C. LEVY, John Wyclif: Scriptural Logic, Real Presence, and the Parameters of Orthodoxy, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee 2003, pp. 91-92 (carried over almost verbatim to ID., John Wyclif’s Theology of the Eucharist in its Medieval Context, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee 2014, p. 94). 97

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la logique. Il suffit de l’en extraire. C’est en elle que se trouvent les bons principes démonstratifs [...]99.

In short, it has long been a common refrain in the literature that Wyclif’s stated intention in the preface to the introductory textbook was to extract his logic from the Bible. The contrast with the actual contents of the work is so stark that some scholars have suspected the preface of being a later addition100. These misunderstandings must be partly due to Dziewicki’s excitable framing of the work, which has conditioned scholars to approach the text expecting to find the seeds of later controversies. Dziewicki himself diagnosed two symptoms of incipient heterodoxy in the Tractatuli: Wyclif’s use of «Antichristus est Rome» in an obligation and his use of «sicut vixerunt Apostoli in ecclesia primitiva, sic eciam tenentur episcopi vivere circa finem mundi» as an example of an analogy101. The first diagnosis is certainly overhasty: although Antichrist is liable to set historians’ pulses racing, he was (qua future entity) one of the four stock characters in medieval logic, along with Socrates (a generic human, «Smith»), Plato (his companion, «Jones»), and Adam or Caesar (a past entity)102; likewise, 99

L. CESALLI, Le réalisme propositionnel. Sémantique et ontologie des propositions chez Jean Duns Scot, Gauthier Burley, Richard Brinkley et Jean Wyclif, Vrin, Paris 2007, p. 320. I think we may safely dismiss as fanciful Cesalli’s suggestion that «gentilium» in the preface was a covert reference to nominalists; cf. n. 85 above. 100 ROBSON, Wyclif and the Oxford Schools (cit. n. 42 above), pp. 163-164: «It is impossible to say precisely when Wyclif first began to apply his realism to Scripture. There is the well-known preface to De Logica [...] But what evidence have we that the prefatory note is not a later addition?» Robson’s speculation is cited in LEVY, Wyclif: Scriptural Logic, p. 92 n. 16 and echoed without citation in K. GHOSH, The Wycliffite Heresy: Authority and the Interpretation of Texts, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001, p. 229 n. 61 and F. GOUBIER, «Wyclif and the Logica Augustini», Medioevo, 36 (2011) 137-164: 139-140, n. 11. It has apparently become so commonplace that Levy felt able to delete the citation in the second edition of his book: Wyclif’s Theology of the Eucharist, p. 94 n. 16. 101 DZIEWICKI, «Introduction», in Logica, vol. 1, p. vii; for the passages in question, see Logica, pp. 69 and 35 respectively. 102 The banality of the Antichrist was noted in passing in F. DE BOOR, Wyclifs Simoniebegriff. Die theologischen und kirchenpolitischen Grundlagen der Kirchenkritik John Wyclifs, Max Niemeyer, Halle 1970, p. 155 n. 6. As he says, Antichrist was traditionally invoked «für die Klärung des Zeitproblems»

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Rome was a stock place (somewhere else), along with Oxford or wherever (here). At this point in the Logica Oxoniensis, the standard example was «Aliquis homo est Rome», and it is no surprise that Wyclif has adapted it to allow some salutary inferences concerning the Antichrist103. With this in mind, it hardly seems worth pointing out that the papacy was based in Avignon until 1377. Dziewicki’s other diagnosis has at least some initial plausibility, but this solitary instance would be a long way from showing that «the germs of the whole of Wyclif’s system were already in his mind [...] and that he brought them forward [...] in the shape of examples, in order to accustom his disciples [...] to follow in his wake»104. Dziewicki’s sense of teleological inevitability is unlikely to be shared by modern historians, though, so I will venture a more prosaic explanation for the longevity of his mischaracterization of the work: scholars have missed the grammatical ambiguity in Wyclif’s claim to be offering «probationes propositionum que debent elici ex scripturis»105. The quotations at the start of this section reflect the assumption that it was the probationes (proofs) rather than the propositiones that were to be drawn from the Scriptures. This interpretation might have raised an eyebrow at the best of times, but it is surely untenable in the light of the observations in § 4 above. I can see only one piece of evidence that might support it: in (cf. KRETZMANN, William of Sherwood’s Treatise on Syncategorematic Words, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1968, pp. 101-102, n. 7). For the purposes of an obligatio, Antichrist was also useful as a possible but non-existent individual; cf. e.g. DE RIJK, «Some Thirteenth Century Tracts on the Game of Obligation. II», Vivarium, 13 (1975) 22-54: 29-30. 103 For this part of the Logica Oxoniensis, see e.g. MS Padua, BU, 1123, ff. 3vb4ra. One of Wyclif’s tailor-made inferences runs: «Antichristus est homo, et ipse est contrarius Christo, ergo Antichristus vitiose vivit» (Logica, vol. 1, p. 70). 104 DZIEWICKI, «Introduction», in Logica, vol. 1, p. viii. An important conduit for this view was S.H. THOMSON, «The Philosophical Basis of Wyclif’s Theology», Journal of Religion, 11 (1931) 86-116: 88: «whether he felt from the first that the logic of his position would bring upon him the wrath of the Roman curia or not, it is sure that the germs of his later revolutionary doctrines are distinctly present in his earliest writings». 105 Logica, vol. 1, p. 1. Dziewicki himself retained the ambiguity in his translation (p. xii), as I made sure to do in § 4 above. Kretzmann (n. 88 above) parsed the phrase correctly without drawing attention to the ambiguity. The sentence as a whole is given a particularly implausible reading in G.R. EVANS, «Wyclif’s Logic and Wyclif’s Exegesis: The Context», in K. WALSH – D. WOOD (eds.), The Bible in the Medieval World, Blackwell, Oxford 1985, pp. 287-300: 287-288.

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the consequencie, discussing the rule that a truth never entails a falsehood, Wyclif gives a New Testament quotation that can be cited in its favour106. As this is a unique exception, I am minded to see it as an opportunistic byproduct of Wyclif’s trawl for pedagogically useful material in the Bible, especially as he had already used this particular passage in the summule for his usual purposes107; at any rate, we can hardly take it to reveal the architectonic principle of the whole work. A final question108: if the introductory textbook is not an attempt to extract a logical system from the Bible, what does Wyclif mean by «elucidating the logic of Holy Scripture»? It is tempting to read this phrase in the light of the De veritate sacre scripture, where he famously eulogizes the eternal «logica scripture» that will outlast the ephemeral logics egotistically churned out at Oxford109. Indeed, this is how scholars have read it110. But I think we should resist the temptation. A sober reading of the Tractatuli shows that Wyclif neither promises nor delivers a newly pristine scriptural logic. Moreover, the work apparently precedes the De veritate sacre scripture by a decade or so, during which time Wyclif not 106

Logica, vol. 1, p. 45: «nunquam ex vero sequitur falsum formaliter ... et pro ista regula potest illud sacre scripture allegari: omne mendacium ex veritate non est [1 John 2:21], quod equipollet huic: nullum mendacium ex veritate est». 107 Logica, vol. 1, p. 22: «quando negacio postponitur signo universali immediate ante verbum principale, equipollet suo contrario, ut ... ista propositio omne mendacium ex veritate non est equipollet huic nullum mendacium ex veritate est». 108 I must thank Laurent Cesalli for pressing me on this point at the conference in Milan, and I regret not being able to answer him more conclusively here. 109 John Wyclif’s De veritate sacre scripturae, Ed. by R. BUDDENSIEG, 3 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1905-1907, vol. 1, cap. 3, pp. 47-54; e.g. on p. 54: «ut patet in Oxonia, vix durat una aliena logica per viginti annos, sed sepissime variantur, quia quot sunt capita logicorum, tot ex affeccione proprietatis superbe sunt logice variate. Logica autem scripture in eternum stat, cum fundatur independenter a fama vel favore hominum infringibili veritate». 110 See in particular the classic article by N.W. GILBERT, «Ockham, Wyclif, and the “via moderna”», in A. ZIMMERMANN (ed.), Antiqui und Moderni: Traditionsbewusstsein und Fortschrittsbewusstsein im späten Mittelalter, De Gruyter, Berlin 1974, pp. 85125: 100-105. See also A. BRUNGS – F. GOUBIER, «On Biblical Logicism: Wyclif, Virtus Sermonis and Equivocation», Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales, 76 (2009) 199-244, § 1, and L. CESALLI, «Augustine and Wyclif on Truth. An Attempt to Elucidate Wyclif’s Notion of Logica Sacrae Scripturae», Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales, 80 (2013) 145-163.

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only became a theologian and a controversial exegete111, but also wrote the Probationes, an ephemeral Oxford logic that does not even hint at the notion of a «logica scripture»112. I suspect the explanation lies instead in what Wyclif says immediately afterwards in the same preface: by showing how to prove «propositions that should be inferred from the scriptures», his textbook will «sharpen the minds of the faithful» who want to «get to know God’s law better». That is, perhaps «elucidating the logic of Holy Scripture» amounts to nothing grander than showing theologicallyinclined students how logic can be used to draw inferences from the Bible –in which case we could replace the examples all over again to produce a treatise to elucidate the logic of Harry Potter.

Manuscript Listings Full details of the manuscripts containing Wyclif’s two logical textbooks will be provided in the editions that I am preparing. In the meantime, here is a brief handlist for ease of reference113:

111

Wyclif became a master of theology in around 1372. On his exegesis, see in the first instance I.C. LEVY, «The Place of Holy Scripture in John Wyclif’s Theology», in E. SOLOPOVA (ed.), The Wycliffite Bible: Origin, History and Interpretation, Brill, Leiden 2017, pp. 27-48. 112 THOMSON, Latin Writings, p. 56 dates the relevant part of the De veritate sacre scripture to 1377. The dating of the logical works is still a matter of guesswork and controversy (cf. e.g. n. 46 above), but it seems fair to assume that the Probationes (ca. 1368-72) were written after the Tractatuli. Against the traditional dating of the latter to Wyclif’s stint as Master of Balliol in 1360-61 (e.g. THOMSON, Latin Writings, p. 4), the work seems to betray evidence of the theological training that he began in 1363 (e.g. Logica, vol. 1, p. 28). I am therefore more inclined to assign it to the early part of his troubled time as Warden of Canterbury College, i.e. ca. 1366; on this episode see A.E. LARSEN, «John Wyclif, c. 1331-1384», in I.C. LEVY (ed.), A Companion to John Wyclif: Late Medieval Theologian, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2006, pp. 1-65: 12-15, and for more detail W.A. PANTIN, Canterbury College Oxford, vol. 4, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1985, pp. 17-34. 113 For further details, see THOMSON, Latin Writings, pp. 4-7. Readers who have updated their copies using HUDSON, Studies, Appendix II should now add my MS S to Thomson’s «A1. De logica», add my MS L to his «A2. Logice continuacio» and to his «A3. De logica tractatus tercius», and correct his listing of MS Praha, NK, V.H.33 in line with n. 40 above.

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Tractatuli/Summule logice (inc. Motus sum per quosdam...) E S114 V

Erfurt, Universitätsbibliothek, CA Q 253, ff. 1r-24v Schlägl, Stiftsbibliothek, 78, ff. 203r-238r Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 4523, ff. 1r-16r

Tres tractatus de probationibus propositionum (inc. Iuvenum rogatibus...) A115 B116 K M P117 V

Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale, 662, ff. 1ra-109va Praha, Národní Knihovna, V.E.14, ff. 1r-176v Praha, Knihovna Metropolitní Kapituly, N.19, ff. 129ra-166ra (I-II only) Madrid, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, e.II.6, ff. 1ra-76vb Praha, Národní Knihovna, IX.E.3, ff. 1r-176r (III only) Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 4523, ff. 16r-58r (I-II only) 114

I owe my discovery of the Schlägl copy to the In Principio database of incipits. The manuscript is otherwise a typical Bohemian collection of logical texts by Peter of Spain, Thomas Maulevelt, Richard Billingham and John of Holland. The description in the library catalogue is hopelessly deficient: G. VIELHABER – G. INDRA, Catalogus Codicum Plagensium (Cpl.) manuscriptorum, Canonia Plagensis, Linz 1918, pp. 113-114. 115 Caveat lector: Dziewicki’s edition (cit. n. 1 above) used the siglum «A» to refer to the Vienna manuscript (my MS V). I felt it would be perverse to retain this particular siglum despite the benefits of continuity. 116 This is the other manuscript known to Dziewicki, and I have retained his siglum. The text of the Tractatus secundus is incomplete, breaking off halfway through (f. 32r; Logica, vol. 1, p. 176) before 17 unnumbered blank folios. The Tractatus tertius follows in a distinct codicological unit, and a slightly unclear medieval label on the front cover lists it separately: «Wikleph de probandis propositionibus (?) et de yppoteticis». 117 The bulk of this manuscript consists of 15 twelve-folio quires (ff. 2-181), the first 11 of which are numbered on the back. But this numbering begins at sextus (f. 13v), and the text itself begins on f. 1, a loose leaf whose verso bears the quire number «quintus». Assuming that the lost quires were also of twelve folios, the manuscript must therefore have lost its first 59 folios. The text on the first 59 surviving folios occupies roughly 150 pages in Dziewicki’s edition (Logica, vol. 2, pp. 1-150). Since the Tractatus primus and secundus occupy roughly 160 pages (vol. 1, pp. 75-234), including the additional white space incurred by more frequent chapter breaks, it is hard not to conjecture that the lost folios originally contained the rest of the work.

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L118 Praha, Knihovna Metropolitní Kapituly, N.19, ff. 114rb-123rb (extracts) N Oxford, New College, 289, ff. 37r-38r (extract) O119 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Lat. misc. b.27, ff. 1r-10v (fragments)

118

These anonymous extracts come immediately after the anonymous insolubilia of Robert Alyngton (ff. 110vb-114rb). The first extract, which begins without fanfare and is not advertised in the table of contents (f. 1r), contains the last 30% or so of the Tractatus secundus (Logica, vol. 1, pp. 203-234); readers prepared to hunt down obscure literature will find this extract listed in ŠMAHEL, Verzeichnis der Quellen zum Prager Universalienstreit 1348-1500, Ossolineum, Wrocław 1980, p. 10. The second extract, listed in the table of contents as «de punctis et linea», contains the first 20% of the subtreatise on atomism in the Tractatus tertius (Logica, vol. 3, pp. 30-41). The complete copy of the Tractatus primus and secundus in the same codex, oddly not listed by Šmahel, occupies a distinct codicological unit (my MS K). 119 These fragments cover about 15% of the Tractatus secundus and (ignoring mutilation and other damage) likewise for the Tractatus tertius. For a concordance with Dziewicki’s edition, see HUDSON, «New Fragments» (cit. n. 47 above), p. 246. It is tantalizing to think that other fragments of the same manuscript might survive in other bindings from the same source, but unfortunately the provenance has only been traced as far back as 20th-century Germany, and we do not even know whether the manuscript had travelled from England to the continent before being dismembered; the modern pencilled annotation «Trümersberg» (f. 1r) remains stubbornly enigmatic.

ALESSANDRO D. CONTI* OXFORD REALISTS’ CRITICISM OF WALTER BURLEY’S LAST THEORY OF PROPOSITION

Burley’s final semantic and ontological theories, supported and expounded in his last commentary on the Ars Vetus (1337), are characterized by three theses, concerning the existence and status of universals, categories, and the meaning and truth of propositions. According to him, these theses were necessary for a realism that would ground the validity of our knowledge of the world without falling prey to Ockham’s critiques to the traditional realist view1. They are the following: (1) Substantial essences are general forms existing in re, having their own being distinct from the being of those singulars which instantiate them. For instance, the general form of humanity is something real, different from the individual human beings. (2) The items belonging to the ten Aristotelian categories are really different from each other. For example, the form of whiteness is really distinct from the form of similarity. (3) In the external world there are real propositions which are what true sentences signify2. The ultimate significatum of a sentence like *

Università degli Studi dell’Aquila, L’Aquila (Italy); alessandrodomenico. [email protected] 1 On Burley’s life and thought see A.D. CONTI (ed.), A Companion to Walter Burley: Late Medieval Logician and Metaphysician, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2013. For a much more synthetic exposition see A.D. CONTI, «Walter Burley», The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2016 Edition), Ed. by E.N. ZALTA, . 2 In his youth (in the middle commentary on the Perihermeneias, for instance) Burley had taught that real propositions (propositiones in re) do not exist in the extramental world; on the contrary they properly exist in our mind, but only as objects of its acts of judgment (obiective) – see A.D. CONTI «Significato e verità in Walter Burley», Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 11 (2000) 317-350. The existence in the external world of real propositions which are what true sentences signify is a new version of that early theory and the most discussed point of Burley’s final philosophical system. As Laurent Cesalli explains in his chapter on meaning and truth in CONTI (ed.), A Companion to Walter Burley, op. cit., pp. 87-133 (see there for further bibliography), Joël Biard, Hans-Ulrich Wöhler, Christian Rode, and Alessandro

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‘Socrates is a philosopher’ is the fact that Socrates is a philosopher, namely that the form of philosophy is predicated of Socrates.

The most discussed thesis among them was the last one, concerning propositions. It is the logical consequence of the first two theses, the former of which was rejected by every late medieval Realist and the latter questioned by quite a few. In particular, the most important school of later medieval Realists, the so-called ‘Oxford Realists’3, argued that: (1) Common essences (such as humanity) and individual substances (such as the substance proper to Socrates) are really identical and formally distinct at the same time, since the two notions of formal difference and real identity are logically compatible. (2) The abstract accidents (such as whiteness and similarity) are nine really distinct kinds of real forms, but the concrete accidents (i.e. ‘things’ like white and similar) are only formally distinct from the substance (in which they inhere) and from each other. (3) Predication is a real relation between things (res). Nevertheless, there are not real propositions signified by true sentences in the world, but complexe significabilia, that is something (which is not a thing) signifiable in a complex way, through a proposition.

Started by John Wyclif, this school includes a number of people who studied and/or taught in Oxford in between the end of the fourteenth and D. Conti defend the thesis of a plurality of theories, whereas Alain de Libera, Stephan Meier-Oeser, and Cesalli himself think that Burley develops the same theoretical intuition from his first commentaries on Aristotle to his last works. Furthermore, Cesalli considers the real proposition as described in the last commentary on the Ars vetus as a sort of complex, immanent, intentional object rather than an extra-mental state of affairs, or a fact, while other scholars, such as Gabriel Nuchelmans, Biard, and Rode, reckon it as a kind of mixed entity, partly mental, partly extramental, and others, such as Jan Pinborg, de Libera, Meier-Oeser, and Conti, think of it in terms of a state of affairs that obtains. Recently, Nathaniel Bulthuis has proposed yet another interpretation of the theory – see N.E. BULTHUIS, «The Motivations for Walter Burley’s Theory of the Proposition», British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 24/6 (2016) 1057-1074. 3 On the Oxford Realists see A.D. CONTI, «Wyclif’s Logic and Metaphysics», in I.C. LEVY (ed.), A Companion to John Wyclif: Late Medieval Theologian, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2006, pp. 67-125: 118-25; ID., «Categories and Universals in the Later Middle Ages», in L. NEWTON (ed.), Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2008, pp. 369-409: 393-405; and ID., «The English Way to Realism: from Burley to Paul of Venice via the Oxford School», in F. AMERINI – L. CESALLI (eds.), Universals in the Fourteenth Century, Edizioni della Normale, Pisa 2017, pp. 37-63.

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the beginning of the fifteenth centuries: the Englishmen Robert Alyngton († 1398), William Milverley (fl. 1400), John Tarteys (fl. 1400), William Penbygull († 1420), Roger Whelpdale († 1423), as well as the German Johannes Scharpe –or Sharpe, according to the English spelling– († after 1415) and the Italian Paul of Venice († 1429)4. In what follows, I shall examine Wyclif’s and Paul’s criticisms of Burley’s theory of proposition and their alternative proposals, trying to show the connection of their semantics of proposition with the ontological assumptions on universals and categories.

1. The meaning and truth of proposition in Walter Burley 1.1. The basic idea of Burley’s last theory of meaning is that the simple expressions in our language (i.e., nouns) are distinct from complex expressions (i.e., sentences of the form: subject –copula– predicate) by virtue of their own significata, that is, by virtue of the different kinds of objects they designate. In fact, the objects designated by simple expressions are simple objects, that is categorial items (a particular substance, or a substantial form, or an accidental form), while the objects designated by (true) complex expressions are states of affairs that obtain. The latter are compounded by two simple objects plus a relation of identity holding between them in the case of true affirmative sentences (or non-identity, in the case of true negative sentences)5. Furthermore, only complex 4

As a matter of fact, Burley’s last commentary on the Ars Vetus (Isagoge, Praedicamenta, Liber sex principiorum, Perihermeneias) is the main source of Wyclif’s De ente praedicamentali, Robert Alyngton’s Litteralis sententia super Praedicamenta Aristotelis, and Paul of Venice’s Expositio super Universalia Porphyrii and Expositio super Praedicamenta Aristotelis. Burley’s main theses on universals, categories, and the meaning and truth of propositions are recalled and discussed in Wyclif’s Tractatus de universalibus, John Scharpe’s Quaestio super universalia, William Penbygull’s De universalibus and Divisio entis, William Milverley’s Compendium de quinque universalibus, Roger Whelpdale’s Tractatus de universalibus, John Tarteys’s Problema correspondens libello Porphyrii, and Paul of Venice’s Quaestio de universalibus. 5 Cf. Walter Burley, In Physicam Aristotelis expositio et quaestiones (after 1324), prooem., ed. Venetiis 1501, f. 5vb; Id., Expositio super Praedicamenta Aristotelis, in Expositio super Artem Veterem Porphyrii et Aristotelis (A.D. 1337), ed. Venetiis 1509, prol., ff. 17vb-18ra; ibid., cap. de subiecto et praedicato, f. 20ra; ibid., cap. de

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expressions can be literally true or false, whereas simple expressions are true or false only metaphorically6. As a result, Burley assumes that (1) every simple expression in our language is like a label naming only one object in the world, and that (2) semantic distinctions are derived from ontological differences between the objects designated by names. He recognizes that general terms such as ‘man’ name the plurality of objects belonging to a set as well as the set itself, whereas proper names such as ‘Socrates’ and singular expressions such as ‘a certain man’ (‘aliquis homo’) or ‘this man here’ (‘hic homo’), name only one of the objects belonging to a set. However, this difference is not explained by appealing to some semantic distinction between terms, but to the different modes of existence and mutual relationships of their significata. Since the criterion for distinguishing linguistic expressions is based on ontological differences among their significata, Burley’s semantic system includes a third kind of expression falling in between the simple and the complex expressions: the concrete accidental terms (such as ‘white’, ‘album’, or ‘father’, ‘pater’), whose significata are not absolutely simple but not exactly complex either. Quite often in the last commentary on the Categories7 he affirms that instead of signifying a simple object, a concrete accidental term signifies the aggregate compounded by the substance denoted by the accidental concrete term itself and the accidental form connoted by it. For instance, the term ‘white’ signifies an aggregate consisting of an individual substance and the form of whiteness. Such aggregates are lacking in numerical unity and hence do not fall under any of the ten categories; they are not properly beings (entia). For this reason, although concrete accidental terms are simple expressions from a grammatical point of view, they do not count as nouns8. The metaphysical constituents of such aggregates (substance and accidental form) are related to the concrete oppositione, f. 44rb; ibid., cap. de priori, f. 47va; Id., Expositio super Perihermeneias Aristotelis, in Expositio super Artem Veterem Porphyrii et Aristotelis, prol., f. 66ra. 6 Cf. Walter Burley, Expositio super Praed., cap. de oppositione, f. 45va; Expositio Perih., prol. f. 66rb. 7 Cf. Walter Burley, Expositio super Praed., cap. de sufficientia praedicamentorum, f. 21ra; ibid., cap. de substantia, f. 24rb; ibid., cap. de relatione, f. 34rb; see also the commentary on the Liber sex Principiorum, in Expositio super Artem Veterem Porphyrii et Aristotelis, cap. de ubi, f. 59vb. 8 Cf. Walter Burley, Expositio super Praed., cap. de relatione, f. 37ra-b; ibid., cap. de qualitate, f. 41rb.

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accidental term in different ways, since concrete accidental terms derive from the nouns of the accidental forms they connote, but name substances and supposit for them. For example, ‘album’ derives denominatively from ‘albedo’ (which is the name of the form of the whiteness), but it names the substance in which the form of the whiteness is present (or inheres). So concrete accidental terms name substances only insofar as substances are subjects (subiecta) in relation to an accidental form. This semantic approach entails a peculiar ontology based on macroobjects, the inner structure of which is unchangeable. A macro-object (obiectum sensus9) is an orderly collection of categorial items, namely an aggregate made up of a primary substance (being this man here) and of all the substantial forms (being a man, being an animal) and accidental forms (being six feet tall, whiteness, fatherhood and so on) existing in it. Primary substance, even though the most important element of the macro-object, does not exhaust the whole being of it. From a semantic point of view, macro-objects are what is signified by a proper name, such as ‘Socrates’, or by individual expressions such as ‘this particular horse’. Although they are simple, some of these components are in a sense composite because they are reducible to something else –for example, the primary substance of Socrates is composed of a particular form (Socrate’s soul) and matter (Socrate’s body). Primary substance differs from the other components of a macro-object because of its peculiar mode of being as an autonomous and independently existing object– in contrast with the other categorial items. As the latter are forms, they necessarily presuppose a primary substance for their existence (that is, for being something in actu), even though not for their being something such and such (that is, for being an item of a certain nature). Primary substances are therefore substrates of existence in relation to everything else. The distinction between substantial and accidental forms derives from their different relations to primary substances: a substantial universal form (such as being a man or being an 9

Cf. Walter Burley, Tractatus super librum Predicamentorum, cap. de regulis predicationis, provisional edition by A.D. CONTI available at , p. 24: «Si tamen ponitur tantum una forma substantialis in substantia composita, tunc oporteret dicere quod corpus quod est pars importat aggregatum ex materia prima et quantitate. Sed tunc dico quod illud corpus non est pars substantie, sed est pars unius aggregati per accidens. Est enim pars aggregati ex substantia, quantitate et qualitate, et sic de aliis. Quod quidem aggregatum est obiectum sensus».

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animal) discloses the nature of its primary substance10; by contrast, those forms that simply affect primary substances (that is, those that are present in them) without being actually joined to their natures are accidental forms. 1.2. As far as the problem of the meaning and truth of complex expressions is concerned, Burley thinks that real propositions (propositiones in re) are the significata of true sentences, just as individuals (both substantial and accidental) are the significata of singular expressions and universal essences the significata of general nouns. The real proposition is the last of the four/five kinds of propositions mentioned by Burley in his last commentary on the Categories: written, spoken, mental (two subspecies), and real. According to Burley, these so-called ‘real propositions’ do properly exist in the extramental world. He clearly states that whilst the first sub-species of mental propositions (namely of the complex acts of understanding) exist in our minds as in their subjects of inherence (habent esse subiectivum in intellectu) and the second sub-species exist in our minds as intentional objects (habent esse obiectivum in intellectu), namely as mental contents of the acts of understanding, real propositions are complex entities formed by the things to which the subjects and predicates of mental propositions refer, together with an identity relation (if the proposition is affirmative) or a non-identity relation (if the proposition is negative)11: Et ex hoc patet quod per propositionem in voce et etiam in conceptu significatur aliqua res complexa quae non est proprie aliqua res praecise significata per subiectum nec res significata per praedicatum, sed aggregatum ex his. Et illa res quae est ultimum et adaequatum significatum propositionis in voce et in conceptu est quoddam ens copulatum; et propter hoc potest dici ‘propositio in re’, sicut declaratum est in principio huius libri. Sciendum quod propositio habet esse quattuor modis, scilicet in scripto, in prolatione et in mente, et etiam in re, ut visum est 10 Burley calls it ‘forma declarans quidditatem’. This means that substantial forms, like humanity, are a sort of chemical formulas in relation to the whole macroobject: they express (and are) the inner metaphysical structure of a certain ‘thing’, as they prescribe which kind of ‘elements’ (singular form and matter, and the various accidental forms) must make up the macro-object. 11 Walter Burley, Expositio super Praed., cap. de priori, ff. 47va and 48vb.

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superius in isto libro. Propositio in mente est duplex, quia quaedam habet esse subiective in mente, et talis propositio componitur ex conceptibus, et quaedam est propositio habens esse obiective in intellectu. Et huiusmodi propositio componitur solum secundum considerationem intellectus et ex partibus habentibus solum esse obiective in intellectu, sive sint voces praeteritae sive futurae, et sic de aliis. Item, propositio existens in sola consideratione intellectus significat intellectum verum vel falsum. Et hoc est satis intelligibile omni intellectui bene disposito.

The things signified exist in the extramental world, but the identity relation is produced by our minds. This identity relation is a sort of intellectual composition by which we understand that the thing (res) signified by the subject term and the thing signified by the predicate term of a proposition (for instance, ‘Sortes est albus’ or ‘Sortes est homo’) belong to the same macro-object (or macro-objects), that is, they share the same substance (or substances) –a fact that does not depend on our minds12: Sed dubium est an ipsi copulae existenti in intellectu correspondeat aliquid in re aut non. Dicendum quod copulae existenti in intellectu copulanti extrema propositionis vere ad invicem correspondet aliquid in re, scilicet identitas extremorum vel identitas eorum pro quibus extrema supponunt. Divisioni vero vel negationi copulae in propositione negativa vera correspondet aliquid in re, scilicet diversitas extremorum vel illorum pro quibus extrema supponunt. Sed copulae existenti in intellectu copulanti extrema propositionis falsae ad invicem nihil correspondet in re nisi ipsa extrema, ut patet de copula huius propositionis ‘homo est asinus’. Similiter nec divisioni vel negationi copulae in propositione falsa negativa nihil correspondet in re nisi ipsa extrema. Et si quaeratur a quo ergo movetur intellectus ad fabricandum huiusmodi copulam, vel divisionem, vel negationem copulae, dicendum quod non movetur nisi ab extremis ipsis in propositione et a voluntate imperante intellectui ad copulandum extrema ad invicem, vel ad dividendum extrema ab invicem, si propositio sit falsa (pro: negativa).

As the subject of a standard philosophical sentence must be the name of a substance and the predicate a general noun signifying a substantial 12

Walter Burley, Expositio super Praed., prol., ff. 17vb-18ra.

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common nature or an aggregate of substance and accidental form, it is clear that the identity relation can hold only between the things which the subject and predicate of a true affirmative proposition stand for in personal supposition, i.e., between the particular substance (or substances) named by the subject and predicate expressions of the proposition. In a standard affirmative proposition, such as ‘Socrates is a man’ or ‘Every man is mortal’, the significata of subject and predicate are diverse, but what they stand for has to be the same if the proposition is true. And in fact, according to Burley’s theory of supposition, in the first sentence the predicate ‘man’ supposits for Socrates himself, who is the thing for which the subject ‘Socrates’ supposits, while in the second ‘man’ and ‘mortal’ supposit for all men. Since the things a term stands for are not established a priori but depend on the propositional context, the analysis of the structure of a proposition in terms of the identity-relation entails a correspondence theory of truth. In his last commentary on the De Interpretatione, Burley speaks openly of truth in terms of the “adequation” or congruity between thought and reality (adaequatio intellectus ad rem)13. Every being (ens) is true (verum) in itself, insofar as its structure and inner organization are plainly revealed to the mind. This real truth (veritas rei) corresponds to a mental truth (veritas in intellectu): when our minds successfully reproduce the internal structure of what is signified by a simple expression, or when they grasp the lack of any relationship between the significata of two simple expressions, a diminished being (ens diminutum), which has our mind as its subject of inherence, is generated by the mind. This diminished being is the veritas in intellectu, which corresponds to the veritas rei. If our attempt fails, falsity (falsitas) is generated instead14. 1.3. It is to Burley’s credit that he is able to distinguish between the intension and extension of complex expressions, as indicated by his distinction between a proposition ‘habens esse subiectivum in intellectu’ and ‘habens esse obiectivum in intellectu’. In fact, (1) although the first subspecies of mental proposition exists in the mind as in its subject, the second sub-species of mental proposition is present in the mind only qua object of the act of understanding. (2) The proposition ‘habens esse obiectivum in intellectu’ provides the objective content which the proposition ‘habens 13 14

Cf. Walter Burley, Expositio super Perihermeneias, prol., f. 66ra. Cf. ibid.

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esse subiectivum in intellectu’ aims to express. And (3) the two kinds of mental proposition are the semantic link between the spoken and written propositions on the one hand, and the real proposition they refer to on the other. At this point we can ask why Burley called ‘propositio in re’ the significatum of a true sentence. The answer is that the distinction between simple and complex objects (incomplexa and complexa) is the objective counterpart of the linguistic distinction between simple and compound expressions (i.e., nouns and sentences, or propositions). Thus, Burley can view the complexa as propositions existing in re. In the prologue to his last commentary on the Categories, he claims that a mental proposition is what is signified by a spoken (or written) sentence. The mental proposition in turn signifies something else, because it is composed of concepts, which are themselves signs. As a result, the ultimate significatum of this chain must be something that is signified but does not signify, and which has the same logical structure as the mental proposition –that is, it must be a proposition in re15.

2. Wyclif on meaning and truth of propositions 2.1. Burley’s semantics of propositions was well known in the fourteenth century, but not widely appreciated. Wyclif, the ‘father’ of the Oxford Realists, supported a different view. His basic ideas are almost the same as those of Burley, since he thinks that (1) every simple expression in our language is like a label naming only one item in the world; and (2) distinctions among terms as well as their linguistic and semantic properties are derived from the ontological features of signified things. Moreover, he explains the semantic difference between general terms, such as ‘man’, which names a set of individuals, and singular expressions, such as ‘Socrates’ or ‘aliquis homo’, which name only one item of this set, by means of the different modes of existence of their different significata. In Wyclif’s view, just as in Burley’s view, a singular expression names and has as its own significatum an individual, albeit a general term names and signifies a common nature directly, and the individuals of this nature 15

Cf. Walter Burley, Expositio super Praed., prol., f. 17va-b.

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indirectly, by way of the nature that it primarily signifies16. Yet, unlike Burley and the whole medieval semantic tradition, Wyclif (1) affirms that ‘everything which is’ (omne quod est) signifies in a complex manner that it is something real17, and (2) claims that supposition is also a property of the signified things: Terminus concretus est terminus significans rem que indifferenter potest contrahi ad supposicionem simplicem vel personalem; sicut iste terminus, ‘homo’, significat in proposicione tam personaliter pro persona, quam eciam simpliciter pro natura18.

As is evident from what he says in the first three chapters of his Tractatus de logica (on terms, universals, and categories respectively), Wyclif identifies secondary substances (that is, the universals of the category of substance) with the significata of general (concrete) terms of that category (such as ‘man’ or ‘animal’) and individual substances with the significata of singular expressions of that category (such as ‘this man’, which refers to a single human individual only). Furthermore, he holds that (1) common terms of the category of substance, when used predicatively, specify which kind of substance a certain individual substance is; (2) individual substances are unrepeatable physical entities, located at a particular place in space and time; and (3) universal substances are the specific or generic natures proper to the individual substances, identical to them, and apt to be common to many individuals at the same time. As a result, like Burley, Wyclif thinks of universals and individuals as linked together by a sort of relation of instantiation. In other words, he conceives of individuals as the tokens of universal natures, and universal natures as the types of individuals. This consequence was common also to many other Realist authors of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But, because of his 16

Cf. John Wyclif, De logica, Ed. by M.H. DZIEWICKI, 3 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1893-1899, vol. 1, cap. 1, p. 7: «Terminus significat primarie illud quod principaliter apprehenditur per illum; sicut iste terminus, homo, primarie vel principaliter significat hominem, scilicet naturam humanam, et secundarie significat Johannem vel Robertum». 17 Cf. John Wyclif, De logica, vol. 1, cap. 5, p. 14: «Proposicio large loquendo est ens complexe significans; et sic quia omne quod est significat complexe se esse, omne quod est satis bene potest dici proposicio». 18 John Wyclif, De logica, vol. 1, cap. 1, p. 5 (italics mine).

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peculiar reading of the relation between universals and individuals, Wyclif derived from it an original conception of the signification and supposition of concrete accidental terms, such as ‘white’, by which the new theories and divisions of supposition developed in Oxford between fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were to be inspired. According to them, every concrete accidental term that occurs as an extreme in a proposition can stand (1) for the substrate of inherence of the accidental form that it connotes (suppositio personalis), or (2) for the accidental form itself (suppositio abstractiva –a new kind of supposition), or (3) for the aggregate composed of the individual substance, which plays the role of the substrate of the form, and the singular accidental form at issue (suppositio concretiva– another new kind of supposition)19. 2.2. Like Burley, Wyclif speaks of propositiones reales in terms of what is signified by true sentences, but in his view a proposition, broadly speaking, is a being which signifies in a complex manner; and therefore everything which is (ens, entia) can be called a proposition, since ‘everything which is’ signifies in a complex manner that it is something real; even “simple” things, like men or horses, are such20. As a consequence, ‘everything which is’ is a truth, and therefore complex, since every truth is something complex. From the ontological point of view, this choice entails the uniqueness in type of the significata of every class of categorematic expressions, both simple and complex. From the semantic point of view, this means the collapsing of the fundamental distinction of Burley’s theory of meaning (and of Aristotle as well), namely that between simple signs (like nouns) and compound signs (like sentences). Within Wyclif’s world it is the same (kind of) thing which both concrete terms and sentences refer to, as the individual substances have to 19

On this subject see A.D. CONTI, «Johannes Sharpe’s Ontology and Semantics: Oxford Realism Revisited», Vivarium, 43 (2005) 156-86: 177-184. 20 Cf. John Wyclif, De logica, vol. 1, cap. 5, p. 14. On the contrary, narrowly speaking, a proposition is a well formed and complete speech which signifies the true or the false, and can be perfectly understood. On Wyclif’s theory of proposition see A.D. CONTI, «Analogy and Formal Distinction: on the Logical Basis of Wyclif’s Metaphysics», Medieval Philosophy and Theology, 6/2 (1997) 133-165: 136-142; L. CESALLI, «Le “pan-propositionnalisme” de Jean Wyclif», Vivarium, 43/1 (2005) 124-155; A.D. CONTI, «Wyclif’s Logic and Metaphysics», in LEVY (ed.), A Companion to John Wyclif, op. cit., pp. 67-125: 78-89.

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be regarded as (atomic) states of affairs, and therefore can be conceived of and signified both in a complex (complexe) and in a non-complex way (incomplexe). When we conceive of a thing in a complex manner, we think of that thing in accordance with its metaphysical organization, and so as a real proposition (in other words, as a sort of state of affairs that obtains). Even abstract forms, because of their own inner structure, are such –for example, humanity is equal to the “sum” (that is, the union) of the form of animality and that of rationality, which combine as potency and act respectively. Accordingly, in Wyclif’s opinion, we can refer to the same entity by means of various types of linguistic expressions: abstract terms (like ‘humanitas’), concrete terms (like ‘homo’), infinitive expressions (like ‘hominem esse’), and complex nouns (like ‘humanitas communis’, ‘homo in communi’, and ‘species hominis’), which have to be considered as synonymous21. This is at the origin of Wyclif’s idea that the world consists of essences (that is, single items classified into ten different types of beings, or categories), which are not simple, but composite, because they are reducible to something else, belonging to a different rank of reality and unable to exist by itself: being and essence (in the sense of quiddity); potency and act; matter and form; abstract genera, species and differences. For that reason, every thing about which one can speak or of which one can think is both a thing and a real proposition (we could say: a sort of atomic state of affairs), while every true sentence expresses a simple or a complex real proposition, that is, the union (if the proposition is affirmative) or the separation (if the proposition is negative) of two (or more) items. In particular, according to him, a singular man (iste homo) is nothing but a real proposition (propositio realis), where the actual existence in time as an individual (ista persona) plays the role of the subject, the common nature, that is human nature (natura humana), plays the role of the predicate, and the singular essence (essencia istius hominis), that is what by means of which this individual thing is a man, plays the role of the copula22. 2.3. Wyclif derives the notion of real proposition from Burley; the difference between the theory of Burley and that of Wyclif is immediately clear, however. It depends on the dissimilar positions they hold on universals 21

Cf. John Wyclif, Tractatus de universalibus, Ed. by I.J. MUELLER, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1985, cap. 3, pp. 70 and 74. 22 Cf. Wyclif, De logica, vol. 1, cap. 5, p. 14.

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and categories. For Burley, singular and common constitutive parts of material things, as well as substances and accidents, are really distinct from each other. Hence, the items to which the subject and the predicate of a sentence refer are really distinct, and the complete significatum of a sentence must be a complex entity compounded by the union of the real subject and the real predicate, if the sentence is affirmative. For Wyclif (and the other Oxford Realists as well), it is not the case. Universals and singulars are really identical and formally distinct, namely they share the same empirical reality, namely that of the singular itself, although they have different metaphysical constitutive principles23. Furthermore, as far as the categorial table is concerned, accidents considered in an absolute way, i.e. as essences or natures, according to their main level of being, are abstract forms, really distinct from the substance and from each other; yet, if considered from the point of view of their existence as concrete accidents, they are not really distinct from the substance in which they are present, but only formally. In the latter case, they are mere modes of the substance24. But universals and concrete accidents only can play the role of predicates in real propositions, which therefore should be really identical with the singular things themselves. There is a further difference between Burley and Wyclif which concerns the individuation of the whole significatum of a concrete accidental term. According to Burley, no universal form can inhere in another form, since inherence only concerns individual items; therefore the whole significatum of a concrete accidental term is, for him, the set of all the individual aggregates made up by a substance and the accidental form signified by the abstract term, which corresponds to the concrete accidental term at issue –for instance, in the case of the term ‘album’, the set constituted by those aggregates made up by an individual substance and the abstract form of whiteness (albedo) that inheres in it. In Wyclif’s view, the significatum of a 23

See CONTI, «Analogy and Formal Distinction: on the Logical Basis of Wyclif’s Metaphysics», pp. 150-158; and ID., «Wyclif’s Logic and Metaphysics», pp. 95-102. 24 Cf. Wyclif, De actibus animae (1365 ca.), pars II, cap. 4, in Johannis Wyclif miscellanea philosophica, Ed. by M.H. DZIEWICKI, 2 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1902, vol. 1, pp. 122-123, 127; Id., De ente praedicamentali (A.D. 1369), cap. 3, Ed. by R. BEER, Trübner & Co., London 1891, p. 28. On this subject see A.D. CONTI, «Logica intensionale e metafisica dell’essenza in John Wyclif», Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo e Archivio muratoriano, 99/1 (1993) 159-219: 201206.

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concrete accidental term seems to be an aggregate formed by two natures, one of which indirectly inheres in the other(s), by means of the individuals which are their subjects (or bearers). In the Tractatus de universalibus, he accepts that a sentence such as ‘species humana est risibile’ is a wellformed and true proposition, even though ‘species humana est risibilis’ is not, because the human species is really identical to something (i.e. the concrete human beings) which is capable of laughing25: Non est aliquod genus vel individuum accidentis, quin ipsum sit vere praedicabile tam de universali quam de individuo substantiae, diversimode tamen quia utrobique in concreto: de individuo formaliter et de universali secundum essentiam. Ut species humana, quamvis sit risibile, quantum et quilibet homo qualitercumque accidentatus, non tamen est risibilis, quantitative divisibilis, accidenter qualis vel quomodolibet aliter accidentata.

2.3.1. Nonetheless, Wyclif’s opinion is not even a new formulation of the theory of the complexe significabile. According to the supporters of this theory, the same “things” which are signified by simple concrete terms are signified, in a different way, by complex expressions (namely, propositions). For instance, in Gregory of Rimini’s view, in order for there be a complexe significabile it is sufficient that there is one thing in the world, since the existence of that thing gives rise at least to this state of affairs (or situation): that that thing is. This situation differs from that thing itself, although properly it is not another entity26. According to Wyclif, on the contrary, there are no simple things in the world which match simple concrete terms, but simple concrete terms, such as ‘homo’, designate real propositions, that is atomic states of affairs27. For Wyclif, every creature is a real proposition, given that everything, except for God, is compound28. When one conceives of a thing in a complex manner, one thinks of that thing according to its metaphysical structure, 25

Wyclif, Tractatus de universalibus, cap. 11, p. 240. See A.D. CONTI, «Complexe significabile and Truth in Gregory of Rimini and Paul of Venice», in A. MAIERÙ – L. VALENTE (eds.), Medieval Theories on Assertive and Non-Assertive Language, Olschki, Roma – Firenze 2004, pp. 473-494. 27 It is Wyclif’s well-known pan-propositionalism, as Laurent Cesalli called it; cf. above, n. 20. 28 At least of potentia and actus: see Wyclif, De ente praedicamentali, cap. 5, pp. 38-39; but also Tractatus de universalibus, capp. 2, 3, and 6, passim. 26

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and so according to its four levels of being and the two kinds of essence: universal and singular29. As a matter of fact, Wyclif’s position on semantics and ontology implies that the world itself is intrinsically linguistic: a sort of semiotic system where everything is at the same time what it is and the natural sign of itself (and of anything else really identical to itself), so that the reality could be described as a language of things30. Just the opposite of Ockham’s nominalism (his polemical target), which is based on the sharp distinction between things as they exist in the extramental world and the various mental forms by means of which we think of and talk about them. But it is a position quite different from Burley’s too, for Burley clearly denied that a thing by nature, and in itself, can be the sign of something: things are signified, but do not signify31.

3. Paul of Venice as a critic of Burley’s and Wyclif’s theories of proposition 3.1. The so called ‘Oxford Realists’ followed Wyclif’s ideas on universals and categories, but not on the theory of proposition. They rather supported a complexe significabile theory. Among them, the most original 29

In Wyclif’s view, creatural beings have four distinct levels of being (esse), of which the most important are the first and the second ones: (1) the ideal being (esse ideale) that every creature has in God, as eternal objects of His mind and the means by which He creates all that is outside Himself. This first level of being proper to creatures is really and essentially the same as the divine essence. (2) The potential being that everything has in its causes, both universal (genus, species) and particular. This second level of reality is closely connected with the nature of the individual substance on which finite beings are founded, and is independent of its actual existence. It is called by Wyclif ‘essential being’ (‘esse essentiae’ or ‘esse in genere’) as well. (3) The individual existence (esse existere individuum), namely, the actual existence in time of a finite being as an earthly object (res). (4) The accidental being (modus essendi accidentalis substantiae) caused in a substance by the inhering in it of its appropriate accidental forms – see Wyclif, Tractatus de universalibus, cap. 7, pp. 127-130. 30 See A.D. CONTI, «Semantic and Ontological Aspects of Wyclif’s Theory of Supposition», Vivarium, 51 (2013) 304-326. 31 Cf. Burley, Tractatus super librum Predicamentorum, cap. de substantia, p. 36.

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was Paul of Venice32, the most important logician and metaphysician of the fifiteenth century. He studied in Oxford in 1390-1393 before returning to Padua, where he spread Oxford Realism to a wider audience. He fully developed the new form of realism started up by Wyclif, but was open also to influences from other authors, as he gave serious attention to moderate realism (Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome) and critically discussed the doctrines of Burley, on the one hand, and of the main fourteenth-century nominalists, such as Ockham, Buridan, and Marsilius of Inghen, on the other hand. Paul’s world consists of finite beings (such as human beings and horses), which are compounds of an individual substance and a host of formal items (substantial and accidental forms, both universal and singular) existing in and through that individual substance. The components of material beings are nothing but the categorial items themselves, together with their own modes of being. All these items are real, in the sense that they are mind-independent beings, none of which can be reduced to another; still, only individual substances exist, inasmuch as only individual substances are actual beings (entia in actu). Unlike Burley, Paul thought that (1) universals and singulars are really identical and only formally distinct (his description of this relationship was quite different from Wyclif’s, however33), and that (2) concrete accidents (such as album or pater) are not really distinct from the substance that acts as their substrate of inherence, but only formally different from it, even if abstract forms (such as albedo or paternitas) are really distinct from their substance and between them.

32 On Paul’s life see A.R. PERREIAH, Paul of Venice: a Bibliographical Guide, Philosophy Documentation Center, Bowling Green, OH 1986, who, however, mistakenly thinks that Paul is not the author of the Logica Magna; on Paul’s thought see A.D. CONTI, «Il problema della conoscibilità del singolare nella gnoseologia di Paolo Veneto», Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo e Archivio muratoriano, 98 (1992) 323-382; and ID., Esistenza e verità: Forme e strutture del reale in Paolo Veneto e nel pensiero filosofico del tardo medioevo, Edizioni dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, Roma 1996. For a much more synthetic exposition see A.D. CONTI, «Paul of Venice», The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition), Ed. by Edward N. Zalta, available online at . 33 On this subject see A.D. CONTI, «Paul of Venice on Individuation», Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales, 65/1 (1998) 107-132.

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3.2. Given these premises, it is not surprising that, when Paul discusses Burley’s theory of proposition in his commentary on the Categories (written in 1428), he denies the existence of real propositions even though he admits the existence of real subject and predicate34. After all, in his Logica magna Paul had defined the proposition as a well formed and complete mental sentence which signifies the true or the false35, and had claimed that the adequate significatum of a proposition is at once really identical and somehow (more precisely, formally) distinct from what is signified by the subject-term (or sometimes by the predicateterm) alone36. On the other side, following Grosseteste37, like Wyclif38, in his commentary on the Categories he claims that every sentence has a twofold being: primary, or natural, and secondary, or ‘artificial’. According to its primary being, a proposition is nothing but a certain res that is such and such, and therefore it is always true; according to its secondary being, a proposition is the complex sign of a res complexa, and so a proposition signifies what is or what is not, and it may therefore be true or false39. He explains that the direct and adequate object of a proposition, which matches it and makes it true, is a res complexa 34

Cf. Paul of Venice, Expositio super Praedicamenta, cap. de subiecto et praedicato, in Expositio super Universalia Porphyrii et Artem veterem Aristotelis, ed. Venetiis 1494, ff. 47va-48rb. 35 Cf. Paul of Venice, Logica Magna, pars II, Tractatus de propositione, ed. Venetiis 1499, f. 101rb-va. 36 Cf. Paul of Venice, Logica Magna, pars II, fascicule 6: tractatus de veritate et falsitate propositionis et tractatus de significato propositionis (henceforward LM, II, tr. 10 or 11), edited with notes and sources by F. DEL PUNTA, translated into English with explanatory notes by M. MCCORD ADAMS, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1978, tr. 11, p. 156: «Cuiuslibet propositionis adaequate complexe significabile quod in natura ponitur a suo incomplexe significabili per subiectum vel praedicatum enuntiabile aliqualiter distinguitur». 37 Cf. Robert Grosseteste, De veritate, in Die philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste, Bischofs von Lincoln, Ed. by L. Baur, Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Münster i.W. 1912, pp. 130-143: 135-136. 38 Cf. Wyclif, De logica, vol. 1, cap. 5, pp. 14-15. This same distinction can be found in Robert Alyngton’s Litteralis sententia super Praedicamenta Aristotelis, cap. de complexo et incomplexo, in A.D. CONTI, «Linguaggio e realtà nel commento alle Categorie di Robert Alyngton», Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 4 (1993) 179-306: 249-250. 39 Cf. Paul of Venice, Expositio super Praedicamenta, cap. de affirmatione et negatione, f. 52vb.

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extra animam40. Such an entity is a complexe significabile, namely an extramental reality made up of a subject-thing and a predicate-form linked together in one and the same substance (in the case of singular sentences, such as ‘Socrates is white’) or the same set of substances (in the case of particular and universal sentences, such as ‘Some men are philosophers’ or ‘All men are capable of laughing’). 3.2.1. Paul’s approach to the question of the truth of a proposition is ontological, as those of Burley and of Wyclif. In his view, the true is first of all an attribute of things and only secondarily of thought. But, just like the approach of Burley, his is also consistent with the fundamental principle of every form of correspondence theory of truth: the principle of the isomorphism of language, thought, and the world. In his commentary on the Metaphysics (after 1420, according to Perreiah41) Paul distinguishes three different, but strictly connected, kinds of truth: truth of imitation, truth of disclosure (veritas manifestationis), and relational truth (veritas respectiva). The first type of truth is the measure of the conformity (adaequatio) which all the things have in relation to their corresponding ideas in the mind of God, from which they derive42. The second type is also a real property of extramental things, which measures their various degrees of disposition to be apprehended by our intellect. Finally, a relational truth is that relation of conformity that have its substrate of inherence in our mind, its fundamentum in a mental sentence, and its terminus ad quem in the res complexa existing outside our mind43. Despite the fact that it is related to the activity of the intellect, the veritas respectiva is the effect caused in the human intellect by the existence of the veritas manifestationis. If things were not intelligible by themselves, they could not be grasped by the human intellect and recognised by it for what they are in themselves. 40

Cf. Paul of Venice, Expositio super Praedicamenta, cap. de subiecto et praedicato, f. 48ra: «Propositio mentalis non est ultimum significatum, sed res extra animam, non incomplexa sed complexa. Haec tamen res complexa non est aliqua propositio, sed significatum ultimum, primarium et adaequatum propositionis». 41 Cf. PERREIAH, Paul of Venice, p. 121. 42 On Paul’s doctrine of divine ideas see A.D. CONTI, «Paul of Venice’s Theory of Divine Ideas and Its Sources», Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 14 (2003) 409-448. 43 Cf. Paul of Venice, Lectura super librum Metaphysicorum, VI, cap. 4, MS Pavia, Biblioteca Universitaria, Fondo Aldini 324, f. 233rb-va.

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As a consequence, our knowledge is true if and only if it is the knowledge of an ontological truth. While sentences (or propositions) are true in so far as they are signs of ontological truths. 3.3. In the Logica Magna Paul had argued against Wyclif’s panpropositionalism; in the commentary on the Categories he argues against Burely’s propositio realis. In the treatise on the meaning of proposition of the Logica Magna, Paul maintains that the adequate significate of a proposition is, implicitly or explicitly, determined by the composition of its parts44, and that it is impossible that the adequate significate of a simple expression (a term) is also the adequate significate of a complex expression (a proposition). If so, then an absolutely simple term would adequately signify the true or the false –an evident falsity45: Est impossibile alicuius incomplexi simpliciter aliqualiter complexe esse significatum adaequatum [...] quia aliter terminus simpliciter simplex significaret adaequate quiescenter verum vel falsum, et sic esset propositio. Immo tunc quaelibet propositio posset cum quolibet suorum extremorum converti – quorum quodlibet est falsum.

Against Burley, Paul remarks that the res complexa to which a true affirmative sentence refer cannot be in any way a proposition, just as a res signified by a noun cannot be described (or defined) as a term. Terms and propositions are signs, and as such they do depend on our intellect. On the contrary, simple and complex things are totally independent of our mind, as well as their mutual relations. Moreover, if there were real propositions, there would be real syllogisms, given that a syllogism is a sequence of three connected propositions –a manifest absurdity46. 3.4. In his discussion of the problem of the meaning of propositions, Paul also addresses the delicate question, never sufficiently dealt with by medieval logicians, of the meaning of negative and false propositions. Paul is able to distinguish between the significatum of a true sentence and the significatum of a false sentence. As a matter of fact, his view on the nature and status of the significatum of propositions (true and false, affirmative 44

Cf. Paul of Venice, LM, II, tr. 11, p. 196. Ibid. 46 Cf. Paul of Venice, Expositio super Praedicamenta, cap. de subiecto et praedicato, f. 47vb. 45

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and negative) underwent a certain development over time. In the Logica Magna (an early work) he denies that a singular negative proposition (such as ‘Socrates is not white’) adequately signifies something real, for its significatum adaequatum is neither an individual (aliquid), nor an aggregate of substance and one accidental form (aliqualiter), nor a plurality of “things” (aliqua)47. This thesis is not consistent with the view that propositions are true in so far as they are signs of ontological truths. Since no proposition can be true if it has no meaning, then, if a negative proposition has not got an adequate significatum, it cannot be true. On the contrary, it would be always false, as it would be lacking of a reference in reality –the main condition for falsity, according to Paul. In the commentary on the Categories (his last writing) he modifies a bit his earlier opinion. Like Burley, he now admits that there are two different kinds of mental expressions (both simple and complex), those which exist subiective in the mind, as its acts of understanding, and those which exist obiective in it, as the direct objects of those acts of understanding. According to Paul, the mental proposition existing obiective in the mind is the significatum adaequatum of any kind of proposition, false propositions included48: «Licet propositio individua non possit bis proferri, tamen manet per tempus obiective in intellectu, in quo tempore est successive vera et falsa. Igitur potest concedi et negari». On the contrary, the significatum ultimum et adaequatum of a true, affirmative proposition is a complexe significabile (a state of affairs, we could say) existing outside our minds49. It is a complex reality which is part of the whole reality of a material thing. For instance, Socrates being white (Sortem esse album) is in re Socrates himself considered together with all the properties of which he is the bearer. But the proposition identifies only one of these properties, that signified by the predicate-term (in our example the property of being white), which is formally different from the form (in our example that of whiteness) connoted by the predicate-term itself. True negative propositions too have something complex which corresponds to them in reality, a sort of negative state of affairs grounded in the whole realities of the things signified by subject-term and predicate-term and/or in the laws which rule the order and structure of the world50: 47

Cf. Paul of Venice, LM, II, tr. 11, p. 122. Paul of Venice, Expositio super Praedicamenta, cap. de priori, f. 136vb. 49 Ibid. 50 Paul of Venice, Expositio super Praedicamenta, cap. de substantia, ff. 65vb66ra (italics mine). 48

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Haec est vera ‘nulla chimaera est’, quia verum est nullam chimaeram esse; neque istud verum est in illa propositione, sed est quoddam complexe signficabile multiplicatum ad omnem puctum mundi, eo quod ubique est verum nulla chimaeram esse. [...] Et si quaeritur utrum nullam chimaeram esse sit substantia vel accidens, dicitur quod non est proprie substantia nec accidens. Nec est verum quod omne ens sit substantia vel accidens, nisi stricte accipiatur ens ut immediate dividitur in decem praedicamenta, quia large accipiendo, ut se extendit ad privationes et negationes, non inconvenit aliquid esse quod non sit substantia nec accidens.

Here Paul follows Wyclif51 and therefore extends the set of referents of the term ‘ens’ to include in addition to the categorial beings those states of affairs which are signified by privative expressions (like ‘caecitas’) and negative true sentences. Wyclif speaks of entia intelligibilia in relation to privationes and negationes, while Paul does not take care to spot the kind of reality which is proper to them. In any case, the reality of a negative state of affairs (negatio) must be sufficient to allow it to play the role of terminus ad quem of a relational truth, otherwise negative true propositions, such as ‘nullus homo est asinus’ could not be true. At this point, if we were to ask ourselves again whatever the ontological status of a negative state of affairs might be according to Paul, an intuitive answer could be that negative states of affairs are like the ‘shadows’ of actual things (entia in actu). That no man is a donkey is an incorporeal reality produced by the real existence of men and donkeys («sed bene haec veritas, nullum hominem esse asinum, est extra animam, quia aliquid, vel aliqualiter est nullum hominem esse asinum, vel saltem aliqua, scilicet homo et asinus, cum quilibet illorum sit nullum hominem esse asinum»52), just as a shadow is nothing but the effect of the interaction between a light and a body.

4. Some kind of conclusion Paul of Venice’s approach to the problem of the meaning and truth of the proposition is markedly ontological, inspired by the same general 51

Cf. Wyclif, De ente praedicamentali, cap. 1, pp. 2, 5. Paul of Venice, Scriptum super libros De anima, III, tr. 1, cap. 4, t.c. 22, ed. Venetiis 1504, f. 145rb. 52

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principle that inspires Burley’s theory: the isomorphism of language, thought, and the world. Paul supports the thesis that our knowledge concerns structural relations holding among the different constitutive elements of the res: matter and form, individuals and common natures, substance and accidents. The main difference between Paul’s theory of proposition and Burley’s, therefore, lies in the different positions on universals and categories. According to Burley, the universal essences are really distinct from their individuals and what is signified by a concrete accidental term, like ‘album’, is a mere aggregate and not one in number. Consequently, Burley’s macro-object is not properly something unitary. It has a sort of focal unity because of its singular substance, which gives an actual being both to the substantial and accidental forms. In contrast, Paul of Venice’s finite being is one entity, composed by many constitutive elements which fit together perfectly, since substantial natures and concrete accidents are really identical to the singular substance. The difference between Paul’s theory of proposition and that of Wyclif lies mainly in their different ideas about identity and difference. Paul elaborates a new theory of identity, where two kinds of identity had to be recognised: the material (secundum materiam) and formal (secundum formam) identities. In his view, there is material identity when the material cause of two (or more) things is the same, either in number (it is a case of the same thing called in different ways) or by species (it is a case of two objects made of the same kind of stuff). There is formal identity when the formal cause is the same. This happens in two ways: if the form at issue is the singular form of the individual composite (the forma compositionis), then there is a unique object known in different ways; if the form at issue is a common essence, then there are two distinct objects belonging to the same species or genus. Correspondingly, the main types of distinction (or difference) are also two: material and formal. There is material distinction when the material cause is different, so that the objects at issue are separable entities. In general, there is formal distinction when the formal cause is different. This happens in two ways: if the material cause is also different, then it is a particular case of material distinction. If the material cause is the same, then a further analysis is necessary. If the material cause is the same by species only, then it is an improper case of formal distinction; but if the material cause is the same in number, then there is properly formal distinction, since the forms at issue have different metaphysical constitutive parts (expressed by different definite descriptions) but share

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the same substrate of existence, so that they are one and the same thing in reality. For example, there is a proper formal distinction in the case of the two forms (our properties) of being-capable-of-laughing (risibile) and of being-capable-of-learning (disciplinabile), which are connected forms instantiated by the same set of individual substances53. Material distinction is a necessary and sufficient criterion for real difference, traditionally conceived, whereas there is formal distinction if and only if there is one substance in number (i.e. material identity in the strict sense) and a multiplicity of formal principles with different descriptions which rest on it. Paul therefore inverted the terms of the question in relation to what Wyclif’s approach to these problems had done. As a matter of fact, Paul was attempting to reduce multiplicity to unity: the passage was from many items to one thing (and not from one to many, as in the case of Wyclif). Once more, what Paul wanted to account for was the way in which many different entities of a certain kind (namely of an incomplete and dependent mode of existence) can constitute one and the same thing in number.

53

Cf. Paul of Venice, Lectura super libros Metaphysicorum, V, tr. 2, cap. 3, f. 185ra-b.

AURÉLIEN ROBERT* Atomism at Oxford after John Wyclif. The Cases of Robert Alyngton and Roger Whelpdale

In his introduction to the treatise On Universals, Paul Vincent Spade complained that «we know next to nothing about Wyclif’s philosophical opinions» and that «this fact is all the more unfortunate because Wyclif appears to have been one of the most important figures in Oxford intellectual life during the second half of the fourteenth century»1. This situation has changed during the last thirty years and now we know quite a lot about his realist metaphysics2, his logic3, or his defence of mathematical atomism4. However, the influence of his philosophy on his contemporary fellows and immediate successors at Oxford still has to be investigated in detail. Earline Jennifer Ashworth already emphasized the role of Wyclif’s logic for his successors at Oxford5 and Alessandro Conti already did a very important work on the impact of his theory of universals on a series of authors, from the 1380s onward6. The same kind of work must be done *

Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, CNRS-Université François Rabelais (Tours), 59, rue Néricault Destouches, BP 12050 – 37020 Tours Cedex 1; [email protected] 1 P.V. SPADE, «Introduction», in John Wyclif, On Universals, Transl. by A. KENNY, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1985, pp. vii-l: ix. 2 A.D. CONTI, «Wyclif’s Logic and Metaphysics», in I.C. LEVY (ed.), A Companion to John Wyclif: Late Medieval Theologian, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2006, pp. 67-125. 3 L. CESALLI, «Le “pan-propositionnalisme” de Jean Wyclif», Vivarium, 43/1 (2005) 124-155. 4 E. MICHAEL, «John Wyclif’s Atomism», in C. GRELLARD – A. ROBERT (eds.), Atomism in Late Medieval Philosophy and Theology, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2009, pp. 183-220. 5 E.J. Ashworth wrote extensively on Late Medieval Logic after Wyclif. For an overview, see E.J. ASHWORTH – P.V. SPADE, «Logic in Late Medieval Oxford», in J.I. CATTO – T.A.R. EVANS (eds.), The History of the University of Oxford, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1992, vol. 2, pp. 35-64. 6 See, for instance, the introduction to his edition of Johannes Sharpe’s treatise on universals: A.D. CONTI, «Studio storico-critico», in Johannes Sharpe, Quaestio super universalia, Ed. by A.D. CONTI, Olschki, Firenze 1990, pp. 211-336: 211-238, 295-336. See also ID., «Johannes Sharpe’s Ontology and Semantics: Oxford Realism Revisited», Vivarium, 43 (2005) 156-186.

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for all the topics that are important for Wyclif’s system. In this paper, I will focus on John Wyclif’s atomism and its role and importance for his scholarly disciples at Oxford. At first sight, as Emily Michael remarked, «though Wyclif was well known in his time, currently there is no evidence of discussion or influence of his atomism in the natural philosophy of his immediate successors»7. According to her, this situation would be the result of his condemnation at the Council of Constance in 1415, which «succeeded very well in suppressing Wyclif’s views»8. Indeed, among the propositions condemned on this occasion, four are directly targeting his atomism. 49. God cannot annihilate anything, nor increase or diminish the world, but he can create souls up to a certain number, and not beyond it. 50. It is impossible for two corporeal substances to be co-extensive, the one continuously at rest in a place and the other continuously penetrating the body of Christ at rest. 51. Any continuous mathematical line is composed of two, three or four contiguous points, or of only a simply finite number of points; and time is, was and will be composed of contiguous instants. It is not possible that time and a line, if they exist, are composed of in this way. (The first part is a philosophical error, the last part is an error with regard to God’s power.) 52. It must be supposed that one corporeal substance was formed at its beginning as composed of indivisibles, and that it occupies every possible place.9

These propositions were first examined by Oxford scholars in 1411 and judged as philosophical and theological errors, because they supported Wyclif’ negation of the dogma of transubstantiation10. As far as I know, no condemnation of Wyclif’s ideas at Oxford before this date mentions his 7

MICHAEL, «John Wyclif’s Atomism», p. 184. MICHAEL, «John Wyclif’s Atomism», p. 187. 9 Council of Constance 1414-1418, session of the 6th July 1415, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Ed. by G. ALBERIGO, Trans. by N.P. TANNER, 2 vols., Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC 1990, vol. 1, p. 426. 10 For an overview of Wyclif’s attitude towards the Sacrament of the Eucharist, see I.C. LEVY, John Wyclif: Scriptural Logic, Real Presence, and the Parameters of Orthodoxy, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee 2003. 8

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atomist conception of the continuum11. Later, however, after the Council of Constance, Thomas Netter continues to attack Wyclif’s atomism in his famous Doctrinale antiquitatum fidei ecclesiae catholicae composed some time before 142712. In order to destroy Wyclif’s thesis, which Netter considers as a central piece of his view on the Eucharist, he endeavours to ridicule his arguments with the affirmation that he was a follower of Democritus –which is false, strictly speaking– and that he was obliged to renounce to the continuity of the world. Emily Michael’s opinion that the official condemnation of Wyclif’s atomism prevented other philosophers to subscribe to his views should be examined in details with a systematic confrontation with the texts produced after 1415. But what happened before the Council of Constance or, at least, before 1411? What was the reaction of Wyclif’s fellows and followers at Oxford? In the following pages, my aim is to show that during this period, the Evangelical doctor imposed his views on the composition of the continuum to the philosophical agenda of the so-called «Oxford Realists», namely Robert Alyngton, William Milverley, William Penbygull, Roger Whelpdale, John Tarteys, Johannes Sharpe, and Paul of Venice. Here we will focus on two members of this group, namely Robert Alyngton and Roger Whelpdale, who explicitly discussed and eventually endorsed John Wyclif’s atomism. The others would also deserve a thorough analysis, but, as far as I can tell, their position on this topic does not seem as clear as it is in Alyngton and Whelpdale. For instance, Johannes Sharpe is very cautious in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics when he presents some 11

There is no trace of atomism in the document published in the Fasciculi Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif cum Tritico, Ed. by W.W. SHIRLEY, Longman – Brown – Green – Longmans – Roberts, London 1858. Even William Woodford, in his examination of Wyclif’s doctrine, does not mention atomism. Cf. William Woodford, De causis condempnationis articulorum 18 damnatorum Joannis Wyclif, in Fasciculus rerum expetendarum et fugiendarum prout Orthuino Gratio Presbytero Daventriensi editus est Coloniae, A. D. MDXXXV, Ed. by E. BROWN, Richard Chiswell, Londini 1690, vol. 1, pp. 191-265. 12 Thomas Netter, Doctrinale antiquitatum fidei catholicae ecclesiae contra Wiclevistas et Hussitas, Ed. by B. BLANCIOTTI, 3 vols., Typis Antonii Bassanesii ad S. Cantianum, Venetiis 1757-1759, vol. 2, De sacramento Eucharistiae, cap. 73, coll. 442A-445B. For a comment on this text, see I.C. LEVY, «Thomas Netter on the Eucharist», in J. BERGSTRÖM-ALLEN – R. COPSEY (eds.), Thomas Netter of Walden: Carmelite, Diplomat and Theologian, Saint Albert’s Press – Edizioni Carmelitane, Faversham – Roma 2009, pp. 273-314.

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arguments pro and contra Wyclif’s atomism13. Even though he seems to disagree with Wyclif, he does not give a clear-cut answer to the problem. In the same vein, Paul of Venice seems to have Wyclif’s theory in mind when he discusses the problem of the continuum in his commentary on the Physics, but his own position resembles much Walter Burley’s14. We would probably find some interesting information about the debate on the continuum after Wyclif in John Tarteys’s Problema de figuris15 and William of Milverley’s commentary on the Liber sex principiorum, which are both extant and unedited. Other lesser-known authors might also be added to this list, such as the “Magister Grene Oxoniensis”, who wrote a Tractatus de quantitate copied in a single manuscript containing texts of John Chilmarke and William of Milverley16. In short, this paper constitutes only the first step of a wider and more detailed analysis of the history of the reception of John Wyclif’s atomism at Oxford.

13

His commentary on the Physics is conserved in ten manuscripts. See C. LOHR, Latin Aristotle Commentaries, I.1. Medieval Authors, SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo, Firenze 2013, p. 331, who mentions nine manuscripts, to which we can add the MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Lat. misc. d. 53, ff. 1v-68v. There is only one question for book VI on the continuum: Utrum nulla magnitudo continua sit ex indivisibilibus integrata. The text begins with a series of arguments in favour of atomism; a second part contains arguments derived from Aristotle and Al-Ghazali; a third part endeavours to show how Aristotle could be followed; the question ends with some remarks about the ontological status of points, in which Sharpe seems to defend a position similar to Walter Burley’s (points exist in some way in the continuum even though they cannot be considered as real parts of the continuum). It is difficult to understand his position because the manuscripts have different texts, with the same arguments, but organized in different ways. 14 Paul of Venice, Expositio super octo libros physicorum Aristotelis necnon super commento Averrois cum dubiis, Venetiis 1499, book VI (this edition does not have any foliation). 15 MS London, Lambeth Palace, 393, ff. 239v-243r. 16 Magister Grene Oxoniensis, Tractatus de quantitate, MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 676, f. 178: Inc.: «Nihil totum quantum est continuum vel discretum». Grene (or Green) is a quite common name at Oxford at this time. This master could be John Grene, fellow of Merton College and doctor in theology in 1381, or another John Grene, fellow of New College (1401-1416), who died in 1434. See A.B. EMDEN, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 vols., Clarendon Press, Oxford 1957-1959, vol. 2, pp. 815-819.

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1. A brief sketch of John Wyclif’s mathematical atomism John Wyclif is an atomist, but what he calls ‘atoms’ (athoma or indivisibilia or puncta) do not correspond to the atoms described by Democritus, Epicurus or Lucretius. They are not material, they have no magnitude, no shape, no causal powers. They are point-like entities, and as such they are absolutely indivisible and without quantity (non quanta). Indeed, like some of his predecessors at Oxford (Henry of Harclay, Walter Chatton and William Crathorn), he indifferently uses the terms ‘indivisibles’ and ‘points’ when he describes these atoms as components of the continuum17. What he tries to demonstrate throughout his works is that bodies are composed of surfaces, surfaces of lines, and lines of points, a thesis Aristotle usually attributes to Plato. As a consequence, Wyclif’s atomism has nothing to do with the reductionist program of Ancient atomists. It is rather a metaphysical assumption about the mathematical structure of the universe. At a macro-level, the physical processes can still be described with the Aristotelian concepts of the four elements, of matter and form, potentiality and actuality, but at a micro-level, everything is composed of indivisible units and principles, which we cannot apprehend in our ordinary experience. The central intuition behind this system is that there must be indivisible units for every category of being because God has disposed everything according to weight, number and measure (Wisdom 11:21)18. The result of this philosophical interpretation of Scripture is a total reappraisal of Aristotle’s Categories: In every category there must be one principle, which is the metre and the measure of all the things contained in this category: the first principle in the category of substance is God, who is superior to all created substances; the first principle in the category of quantity 17

For an overview of these authors dealing with atomism, see J.E. MURDOCH, «Beyond Aristotle: Indivisibles and Infinite divisibility in the Later Middle Ages», in GRELLARD – ROBERT (eds.), Atomism in Late Medieval Philosophy and Theology, op. cit., pp. 15-38. 18 On the importance of this verse for Wyclif’s system, see L. CAMPI, «“But and alle things in mesure, and noumbre, and peis thou disposedist”: Some notes on the role of Wisdom 11, 21 in Wyclif’s writings», Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales, 80/1 (2013) 109-143.

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is the unit, because unit is the principle of continuous quantity as well as discrete quantity; the first principle in the category of quality is the degree, because every latitude of a quality is composed of degrees; the first principle in the category of relation is dependence; the first principle in the category of action is the contemplation of an intelligence, because every action will be performed by this action; the first principle in the category of passion is the reception of prime matter; the first principle in the category of ‘where’ is the position (situs) of a point, because the whole position (situs) of the world is composed of punctual positions (ex sitibus punctalibus); the first principle in the category of ‘when’ is the indivisible instant, because in the same way as the world is composed of punctual entities, time is composed of instants; the first principle of position (positionis) is the position of the centre (situs centri) [of the world], because position (posicio) is a relation (respectus) between the position of a body and this position (situm).19

In order to understand Wyclif’s motivations for this interpretation of Aristotle’s Categories, it is worth reminding that his conception of the continuum belongs to a Neo-Pythagorean and Platonic tradition according to which geometric figures are reducible to sums of indivisible points. As 19 John Wyclif, Logica, vol. 1, cap. 4, ed. M.H. DZIEWICKI, Trübner & Co., London 1893, p. 13: «In omni predicamento est dare unum principium, quod est metrum et mensura omnium aliorum contentorum in illo predicamento: sicut primum principium de predicamento substancie est deus, et ipse est super omnem substanciam creatam; primum principium de predicamento quantitatis est unitas, quia unitas est principium tam quantitatis continue quam discrete; primum principium de predicamento qualitatis est gradus, quia omnis latitudo qualitatis componitur ex gradibus; primum principium de predicamento relacionis est dependencia; primum principium de predicamento actionis est contemplacio intelligencie, quia per illa accionem formabitur alia omnis accio; primum principium de predicamento passionis est recepcio prime materie; primum principium de predicamento ubi est situs puncti, quia totus situs mundi componitur ex sitibus punctalibus; primum principium de predicamento quando est indivisibile instans, quia sicut mundus componitur ex punctalibus, sic tempus componitur ex instantibus; primum principium posicionis est situs centri, quia posicio est respectus inter corpus positum et illum». The references to the Logica are from the nineteenth-century edition whenever the text is correct, but when it is not, in particular for the Logicae continuatio, I will correct the text with the MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale, 662, dating from ca. 1385, which gives a better version. I kept the title Logicae continuatio as it is in the edition for convenience, but see Mark Thakkar’s remarks in this volume for a revision of this division of the text.

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a consequence, the minimal triangles, squares, pyramids, cubes, etc. of Plato’s Timaeus are composed of points, which are equivalent to the units for numbers: they are units with a particular position in space. In the Latin world, this theory has been developed by Boethius in his De arithmetica, a translation in Latin of the Greek Pythagorean mathematician Nicomachus of Gerasa, which was very popular in the Middle Ages20. One consequence of this derivation of spatial magnitudes from points is the subordination of geometry to arithmetic. As John Wyclif puts it: Natural philosophy, in which the cause is demonstrated by the effect with a factual demonstration (demonstratio quia est) based on experience or the senses, does not have to deal with punctual parts. A point is neither sensible nor imaginable. Therefore, its treatment neither comes down to the geometer in particular, who is only directly concerned with imaginable entities, nor to the natural philosopher, but must be reserved to the metaphysician and the arithmetician.21 In his De arithmetica, Boethius already affirmed that arithmetic is the best way to understand the intelligible structure of the world as described by Plato22. Our sense experience gives us an access to only one aspect of reality in which everything has a magnitude and is therefore infinitely divisible, whereas arithmetic, which is a purely intellectual science, helps us understanding reality as organized by mathematical laws and ordered 20

For an overview of the medieval reception of this model from the twelfth century to John Wyclif in relation to atomism, see my «Atomisme pythagoricien et espace géométrique au Moyen Âge», in T. SUAREZ-NANI – O. RIBORDY – A. PETAGINE (eds.), Lieu, espace, mouvement: physique, métaphysique et cosmologie (XIIe-XVIe siècles), FIDEM, Barcelona – Roma 2017, pp. 181-206. 21 John Wyclif, Logicae continuatio, vol. 3, cap. 9, p. 36, (corrected with MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale, 662, f. 72rb): «non interest tractare de partibus punctalibus in philosophia naturali in qua demonstratur causa per effectus demonstratione quia est, cuius principium est experientia vel sensus. Punctus autem non est sensibilis vel ymaginabilis, ideo tractatus eius non specialiter pertinet geometre qui solum de ymaginabilibus pertractat directe, sicut nec naturali philosopho. Sed illud conservandum est metaphysico et arithmetico». 22 Boethius, On Arithmetic, Trans. by M. MASI, in Boethian Number Theory: A Translation of the De institutione arithmetica, Rodopi, Amsterdam – New York 1983, pp. 73-74 for instance.

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according to numbers. From this, John Wyclif concludes that the role of metaphysics and arithmetic is to reform our empirical conception of the material world23. One result of this subordination of natural philosophy to mathematics and metaphysics is an interesting interpretation of Plato’s conception of matter, influenced by Calcidius’s commentary on the Timaeus, but also by Augustine and Robert Grosseteste24. According to the Doctor evangelicus, our material universe is conceived as a maximum (maxima materia), which corresponds to the maximal extension of matter, i.e. to the maximal number of atoms/points from which it has been created by God in the first instant of the world. Although the term ‘place’ is equivocal, it is sufficient for now to know what place is when understood as location. In order to know what it is, it is worth noticing that the world is composed of a fixed number of atoms and that it cannot be increased or diminished or locally moved along a straight line or changed in its figure, so that, from natural and immutable causes, its continuous quantity and figure follows from the number of atoms. Otherwise, indeed, the world would not be at its maximal capacity and would not be maximally harmonious relatively to its figure. The location and dimension25 of the world follow from these [indivisibles]. This is why, when Aristotle mentions continuous quantities, he names the different species in a certain order: line, surface and body, and beyond this, place and time; and the point is the principle for all, and the unit is the principle of the point. And place follows matter to such an extent that wherever there is this maximal matter (maxima materia) of the world there is a place. As a consequence, even if it were –per impossibile– moved locally along a straight line in an infinite void space, its location would be continuously the same, insofar as the extension of this matter is sufficient to individuate its location. [...] And this was Plato’s opinion, who 23

On this aspect of Wyclif’s atomism, see my «Space, Imagination, and Numbers in John Wyclif’s Mathematical Theology», in F. BAKKER – D. BELLIS – C.R. PALMERINO (eds.), Space, Imagination and the Cosmos, from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, Springer, Dordrecht 2019, pp. 107-131. 24 Z. KALUZA, «La notion de matière et son évolution dans la doctrine wyclifienne», in Mt. FUMAGALLI BEONIO BROCCHIERI – S. SIMONETTA (eds.), John Wyclif: Logica, politica, teologia, SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo, Firenze 2003, pp. 113-151. 25 The edition has duratio but the MS Assisi has dimensio.

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called matter ‘hyle,’ ‘vacuum,’ ‘a forged craftiness enveloped by thick darkness.’26

Plato’s chôra corresponds to a perfect sphere composed of a certain number of points. John Wyclif owes a part of this interpretation of Plato’s theory of matter with the Neo-Pythagorean derivation of magnitudes from points to Robert Grosseteste’s metaphysics of light. Indeed, the Bishop of Lincoln explains that God created the world from the multiplication of a single point of light in all directions27. This multiplication of a point of light has created at the same time matter, extension, and the place of the world. The result is a perfect sphere composed of point-like entities with a particular position in this finite space28. Every part of this continuous sphere of matter corresponds to a certain number of points, which only God knows. John Wyclif explicitly recognizes his debt to Plato, Augustine and Robert Grosseteste when he summarizes his theory in his Trialogus:

26

John Wyclif, Logicae continuatio, vol. 3, cap. 9, pp. 1-2: «Pro quo noscendo, notandum mundum componi ex certis athomis, et nec posse maiorari, nec minorari, nec moveri recte localiter vel aliter figurari, ita quod tantam multitudinem athomorum consequitur tanta quantitas continua et talis figura, propter causas immutabiles naturales. Aliter enim non esset mundus capacissimus et convenientissimus in figura. Et ex illis sequitur situacio mundi et eius duracio. Unde Aristoteles, nominans quantitates continuas, nominat species per ordinem se habentes, ut lineam, superficiem et corpus; et preter hoc locum et tempus, quorum omnium principium est punctus; et unitas est principium puncti. Et tam necessario consequitur locus materiam quod ubicunque fuerit ista maxima materia mundi, ibi est iste locus. Sic quod, si moveretur recte (per impossibile) in vacuo infinito, foret continue idem situs, cum ad individuacionem illius situs sufficit extensio illius materie. [...] Et illius opinionis videtur fuisse Plato, vocans locum materiam, ylen, vacuum, vel fraudem fictam crassis tenebris involutam». 27 See N. LEWIS, «Robert Grosseteste and the Continuum» in L. HONNEFELDER – R. WOOD – M. DREYER – M.-A. ARIS (eds.), Albertus Magnus and the Beginnings of the Medieval Reception of Aristotle in the Latin West, Aschendorff, Münster 2005, pp. 159-187. 28 John Wyclif, Logicae continuatio, III, cap. 9, p. 119 (corrected with MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale, 662, f. 88r): «[...] ymaginandum est igitur unam essenciam corpoream, in principio productam ex indivisibilibus compositam, et occupantem omnem locum possibilem [...]. Et post modum, considerata eius extensione, attribuunt sibi corporeitatem quam Lincolniensis vocat lucem».

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Pseustis: You frequently assume what is impossible, that a continuum is composed of non-quanta, for which Aristotle often reproves Plato and Democritus. On the contrary, a vigorous argument and a mathematical demonstration inform us that it is true. Phronesis: It appears certain to wise men that in arithmetic, as in geometry and other sciences, a quantum is composed of nonquanta, which must be the principles of any sort of composite. [...] I have often made this argument in evidence: Given body A, or any continuum, and after identifying every one of the parts of which it is composed, I ask further, whether they are indivisible and nonquanta, or divisible and quantifiable, or partly one way and partly the other. If it is composed either in the first way or in the third we have what we are seeking, namely that a continuum is composed of non-quanta. If it is composed in the second way, then each and every one of these parts is divisible into further parts, therefore the number of them assigned in the beginning is not the total number of the identified parts of A. I give this response along with Augustine and the authority of Scripture, that just as God saw everything that He made [Genesis 1:31], so He understands distinctly every part of every continuum, so that there are not given more or other components of that continuum. And in that way the reasoning seems plainly to succeed. And as for the text of Aristotle and his followers, it is clear that it does not produce faith, since it had often erred. But Democritus, Plato, Augustine, and Robert Grosseteste, who thought in this way, are much more distinguished philosophers, and much more brilliant in many metaphysical issues.29 29

John Wyclif, Trialogus cum supplemento Trialogi, ed. G. LECHLER, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1869, Lib. 2, cap. 3, pp. 83-84: «Pseustis. Impossibile saepe assumis, quod continuum componitur ex non quantis, quod Aristoteles saepe reprobat contra Platonem atque Democritum, imo vivax ratio ac demonstratio mathematica illud docet. Phronesis. Certum videtur sapientibus, sicut in Arithmetica, sic in Geometria et ceteris scientiis, quantum componi ex non quantis, quae oportet esse principia cujuscunque compositi [...]. Feci autem saepius hanc evidentiam: capiatur A corpus vel quodcunque continuum, et noto omnes ejus partes, ex quibus componitur, et quaero ulterius, utrum sunt indivisibiles et non quantae, vel divisibiles atque magnae, vel partim sic et partim sic. Si primo modo aut tertio componitur habetur propositum, scilicet quod continuum componitur ex non quantis; si secundo modo, tunc omnes illae partes et quaelibet earum est divisibilis in partes ulteriores, ergo numerus illarum assignatus in principio non est numerus totalis omnium partium A signati. In ista autem responsione suppono cum Augustino et fide scripturae, quod sicut Deus vidit cuncta quae fecerat, sic distinctissime intelligit omnes partes cujuscunque continui, sic quod non est dare

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John Wyclif’s ambition is quite clear: explaining how the world has been created by God in number, weight and measure, with philosophical tools coming from the Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean tradition on one hand, and from the Atomist tradition on the other hand. Because of the importance of Scripture and authorities such as Augustine, and because of the crucial role of divine ideas and knowledge in comparison with our limited and weak knowledge, many commentators argued that Wyclif’s fundamental motivations to endorse atomism were theological. Norman Kretzmann, for instance, explains that Wyclif «must have believed he was committed to [indivisibilism] in spite of its unhappy intellectual consequences», and this was because of «certain theological considerations, especially concerning the requirements of omniscience»30. In the same vein, Emily Michael, who wrote the most complete overview of Wyclif’s atomism, takes for granted that this mathematical atomism is the consequence of his ‘logic of scripture’31. They are absolutely right about Wyclif’s theological commitment. Indeed, he frequently repeats, like Robert Grosseteste, that only God knows precisely the ontological organization of continua and their atomic constitution. And for this reason, he argues, it is difficult for the human intellect to understand the mathematical and atomic structure of our material world, because it is too dependent on sensitive cognition. It is also true that atomism served as a philosophical tool for his reappraisal of the dogma of transubstantiation. It is not surprising then that we find this theory in some of his theological works32, even in his sermons33, and not only in his philosophical treatises. ulteriores vel alias ipsum continuum componentes; et sic videtur ratio plane procedere. Et quantum ad textum Aristotelis et suorum sequacium, patet quod non facit fidem, cum saepe erraverat. Democritus autem, Plato, Augustinus, Lincolniensis, qui ita senserant, sunt longe clariores philosophi, et in multis methaphisicis scientiis plus splendentes». For the English translation (modified here), see Trialogus, Trans. by S.E. LAHEY, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2013, pp. 76-77. 30 N. KRETZMANN, «Continua, Indivisibles, and Change in Wyclif’s Logic of Scipture», in A. KENNY (ed.), Wyclif in his Times, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1986, pp. 31-65: 50. 31 MICHAEL, «John Wyclif’s Atomism». 32 See, for instance, John Wyclif mentions the existence of points in his De apostasia (passim). 33 John Wyclif, Sermones, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, 4 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1887-1890, vol. 1, serm. 2, p. 13; vol. 2, serm. 17, pp. 126-128; serm. 37, pp. 272-273; serm. 52, pp. 380-385; vol. 3, serm. 50, p. 436.

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Nevertheless, John Wyclif’s atomism is also based on philosophical arguments, which constitutes the major part of his presentation in his early works, such as his Logica. Wyclif’s longest argumentation in favour of atomism is found in the ninth chapter of third treatise of his Logica, usually called Logicae continuatio34. This is a philosophical text with only a few references to theology and Scripture. Moreover, what is interesting in this long chapter of the Logica is that Wyclif endeavours to apply mathematical atomism to physical phenomena such as local motion and its speed, growth, rarefaction, condensation, or alteration. This is probably one of the first attempts in the Middle Ages to read systematically Aristotle’s Physics with the tools of his Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean atomism. The intuition behind this interpretation of the Aristotelian cosmos is that every kind of motion can be described with units belonging to one of the ten categories: points for spatial magnitudes, indivisible locations and indivisible instants for motion and speed, indivisible degrees of quality for alteration, etc. The same goal is pursued in the still unedited commentary on the Physics attributed to John Wyclif35. If the authorship is confirmed, it is probably a writing of youth, when he was fellow of Merton College or master of arts at Balliol in the 1360s. The topic of atomism is present in almost all the quaestiones of this commentary, but occupied a central place in a question in which the Doctor evangelicus asks «Utrum omne tempus, magnitudo et motus diversificate se invicem consequuntur»36. According to Aristotle, time, magnitude and motion must have the same structure, which means that they must be continuous. If every continuum is infinitely divisible, indivisible beings cannot exist in continuous magnitudes, times or motion, i.e. neither instants nor atoms of matter, space, and motion. Since Wyclif is convinced that the continuum is composed of indivisibles, he begins this quaestio with a long argumentation in favour of the existence of indivisibles in geometrical magnitudes, and then turns to time and motion in order to show that Aristotle was right about the homology between matter, space, time, and motion, but was wrong when he denies 34

See the references quoted in footnote 19 and following. MS Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Lat. VI. 173. We have to wait for an edition of it for a confirmation of authorship; the explicit could refer to a reportatio or to the commentary written by a disciple: «Et patent dubia super materia librorum physicorum Aristotelis secundum sententiam magistri Johannis Wycliff» (f. 58vb). 36 MS Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Lat. VI. 173, ff. 52vb-55ra. 35

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the existence of indivisibles in the continuum. For there are indivisibles at all levels of reality. One question often comes back in the Logica and the commentary on the Physics: what is the relationship between mathematical and natural entities? At the beginning of the commentary on the Physics, the author asks «whether no quantity is per se a substance, as Robert Grosseteste says»37. John Wycflif’s answer to this question is typical of the Oxonian realists: quantity is really distinct from the substance. The problem is therefore the following: if one accepts the existence of bodies, surfaces, lines and points in the category of quantity, and if, like Wyclif, one accepts that bodies are composed of surfaces, lines and points, does it imply the existence of real counterparts of these mathematical entities in material bodily substances? In other words, does the existence of indivisible points in geometric figures imply the existence of something equivalent to the point in material reality? This is the case in Robert Grosseteste’s metaphysics of light, because the existence of points in geometric magnitudes is explained by the multiplication of a point of light. If it were not the case, the scope of this metaphysical atomism would be limited to the analysis of quantity, i.e. to a mere accident of substances. If John Wyclif wants to apply his mathematical atomism to material reality and to physical processes, he must explain in details how the analysis of quantity with arithmetic can be applied to material substances as well. When he addresses a similar issue in the Logicae continuatio, Wyclif briefly suggests that there must be something like a ‘natural point’ corresponding to the ‘mathematical point’38. But the relationship between these to levels of reality –mathematical and intelligible on one hand, physical and sensible on the other– remains unclear. Wyclif’s disciples at Oxford will precisely try to make this point clearer.

2. Robert Alyngton’s commentary on the Categories We know next to nothing about Robert Alyngton’s life, except that he was fellow of Queen’s College between 1379 and 1386, Chancellor of the 37

MS Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Lat. VI. 173, ff. 4vb-7rb: «Utrum per se nulla quantitas sit substantia, sicut dicit Lyncolniensis». 38 See Logicae continuatio, vol. 3, cap. 9, p. 47.

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University between 1393 and 139539, and a reputed logician for decades at Oxford40. He died in 1398 in Long Whatton (Leicestershire). He probably met John Wyclif at Queen’s College, where he stayed from his return to Oxford in 1363 to 1381, at least41. In a mandate sent by William of Wykeham to the vicar of Odiham on the 21th of may 1382, we learn that Robert Alyngton was preaching some of Wyclif’s ideas, notably on the sacraments42, so that he probably belonged to the first generation of reformers among the Wycliffites. He apparently became more orthodox later in his life43. Robert Alyngton is the author of important commentaries on the Categories and the Liber sex principiorum, of a treatise on the supposition of terms (Tractatus de suppositionibus terminorum) and another one on the notion of genus (Tractatus generum)44. Here we will focus on his commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, in which, as we shall see, Wyclif’s influence is particularly clear45. Robert Alyngton is one of the so-called ‘Oxford realists’, a group of philosophers who defend a realist ontology inspired by Walter Burley and John Wyclif46. As a realist, he is not only opposed to the Ockhamist 39

EMDEN, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to AD 1500, vol. 1, pp. 30-31. During this period, he continued to be related to Queen’s College. 40 On his reputation as a logician, see ASHWORTH – SPADE, «Logic in Late Medieval Oxford». 41 On Wyclif’s stay at Queen’s College, see G.R. EVANS, John Wyclif, Lion Hudson Plc., London 2005, pp. 96-98. 42 A.K. MCHARDY, «The Dissemination of Wyclif’s Ideas», in A. HUDSON – M. WILKS (eds), From Ockham to Wyclif, Blackwell, Oxford 1987, pp. 361-368. 43 As it appears in his Determinatio de adoracione ymaginum (MS Oxford, Merton College, 68, ff. 32rb-40ra). See the commentary of A. HUDSON, The Premature Reformation. Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1988, pp. 69-70 and 93. 44 Unfortunately, we did not have access to these works for the present studies. 45 Alessandro Conti transcribed the nine first chapters from a single manuscript, MS London, Lambeth Palace, 393 (there are several other copies). His transcription is accesible online at the following address: . It is worth noticing that Alyngton’s commentary is copied with the third treatise of John Wyclif’s Logicae continuatio in the MS El Escorial, e.II.6. For a description of this manuscript, see G. ANTOLÍN, Catálogo de los códices latinos de la Real Biblioteca del Escorial, vol. 2, Imprenta Helénica, Madrid 1911, pp. 38-39. 46 For an overview of his philosophy, see A.D. CONTI, «Robert Alyngton», The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2017 Edition), Ed. by E.N. ZALTA, .

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account of universals, but also to the nominalist interpretation of the Categories. Even though the substance is prior to the other categories, all the accidental categories have some kind of reality, not only quality, as Ockham says for instance47. Every accident is an accident of a substance, but every accident is something distinct from the substance, at least logically and conceptually. The problem for Alyngton and the other realists is to know whether they are also really distinct and, if so, which mode of being should one ascribe to these entities. When he turns to the nature of the accidental categories in his commentary on Aristotle’s work, Alyngton asserts that quantity is the first accident of a material substance48. In the same way as prime matter comes first in the process of generation of a material substance, the quantity, which follows from matter, i.e. from the material substance, appears to be prior to the other accidents that follow from the substance in the order of procession; for this reason it is considered by many as the foundation of the other accidents.49

It is precisely in the context of this discussion of quantity that Alyngton deals with the continuum and argues in favour of a particular form of atomism. Following one central thesis of Wyclif’s system, Alyngton presents as a general principle that in each category of being there must be a first principle, which is equivalent to the unit for numbers, and which describes the inner metaphysical structure of these beings. This idea is derived from 47 For an analysis of some chapters of the commentary on the Categories, see A.D. CONTI, «Linguaggio e realtà nel commento alle Categorie di Robert Alyngton», Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 4 (1993) 179-306; and ID., «A Realist Interpretation of the Categories in the Fourteenth Century: the Litteralis Sententia super Praedicamenta Aristotelis of Robert Alyngton», in L. NEWTON (ed.), Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2008, pp. 317-346. 48 This assertion is common to the realists at Oxford. It is found in Robert Grosseteste, Walter Burley and John Wyclif for instance. 49 Robert Alyngton, Litteralis sententia super Praedicamenta Aristotelis, MS Lambeth Palace 393, f. 106r: «Sicut enim materia prima est prima in via generationis substantiae materialis, ita quantitas, quae consequitur materiam seu substantiam materialem, videtur esse prior in ordine procedendi quam alia accidentia consequentia substantiam materialem. Ideo ponitur a multis tamquam basis aliorum accidentium».

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Aristotle’s Metaphysics (I, 1, 1052b18), but here Robert Alyngton is quoting quasi verbatim John Wyclif’s De ente praedicamentali. The first and most simple principle in the category of substance is God; the first principle in the category of quality is the degree; in the category of quantity it is a unit, which is more simple than a point, insofar as the point is a unit having a position; in the category of action it is the contemplation of an intelligence; in the category of passion it is the reception of prime matter; in the category of ‘where’ it is the punctual location; in the category of time it is the indivisible instant; the first principle of the position is the location of heaven; and the first principle of ‘having’ is the ‘having’ of God.50

Exactly like John Wyclif, he endeavours to reduce all kinds of beings to an indivisible principle, with God as the absolute and transcendent unit of measurement. As it appears in this text, quantity is not only the first accident after the generation of a substance, it is also the first determination of most, if not all the accidents, insofar as every category of being is susceptible of being measured by a specific kind of unit. In other words, there are atoms in every category of being. The most important element here is that the principle of spatial quantities is the point, so that three-dimensional geometric figures are reducible to these units with particular positions in space. It is also suggested that the numerical unit comes first, because it is simpler than the point, which also has position in space. As a consequence, arithmetic should be prior to geometry, as Wyclif says51. Unfortunately, Alyngton does not give more details on these aspects of his generalized ontological atomism. 50 Robert Alyngton, Litteralis sententia super Praedicamenta Aristotelis, MS Lambeth Palace 393, f. 83v (Conti’s transcription slightly modified): «Ut primum et simplicissimum in genere substantiae est Deus; primum principium de praedicamento qualitatis est gradus; in genere quantitatis unitas, quae est simplicior puncto, quia punctus sit unitas positionem habens; in paedicamento actionis contemplatio intelligentiae; in praedicamento passionis receptio materiae primae; in praedicamento ubi situs punctalis; in praedicamento quando [instans] indivisibile; primum principium positionis est situs caeli; et primum principium habitus est habere Dei». For Wyclif’s parallel texts, see John Wyclif, Logica, vol. 1, cap. 4, p. 13 quoted above, and Id. De ente praedicamentali, Ed. by R. BEER, Trübner & Co., London 1891, cap. 1, p. 3. 51 For more details on this aspect of John Wyclif’s thought, see my paper «Space, Imagination, and Numbers in John Wyclif’s Mathematical Theology», pp. 124-127 in particular.

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There is actually on difference with Wyclif’s presentation, which concerns the category of position. According to Alyngton, it is defined by the location of heaven (situs caeli), whereas Wyclif, in his Logicae continuatio, preferred describing it with fixed points on the Earth, like the centre and the Poles52. Despite this modification, they reach the same conclusion that the place of a body is twofold: on one hand it depends on the location of all the points composing it, on the other hand, these locations are relative to fixed points in the universe. They both defend a Platonic conception of place understood as the totality of the material world in which one can distinguish the relative positions of singular bodies. In the chapter on substance, Alyngton explicitly refers to Plato when he mentions atomism, but also, more surprisingly, to Porphyry. The context is a discussion about the applicability of the definition of a substance to non-material entities like God or separate substances. Alyngton wonders whether hylomorphism can still hold for these entities. At first sight, it seems to contradict the fundamental division of substances into corporeal and incorporeal substances. Here is what Alyngton responds to this objection: If one argues against this presentation that the substance, which is the first genus [of beings], is divided into corporeal and incorporeal, as Porphyry says, I respond that Porphyry, who expresses himself according to the opinion of those who affirm that a quantified being is composed of entities without quantity, means by ‘corporeal substance’ the substance with three dimensions and by ‘incorporeal substance’ the punctual, linear or plane substance, which is composed of matter and form, but is not extended in three dimensions. This is not a problem, because Porphyry was of Plato’s opinion. And Plato is told to have maintained with some verisimilitude that the continuum is composed of entities without quantity53. 52

See for instance John Wyclif Logicae continuatio, vol. 3, c. 9, p. 3. Robert Alyngton, Litteralis sententia super Praedicamenta Aristotelis, MS Lambeth Palace 393, ff. 85v-86r: «Et si contra hanc viam arguitur per hoc quod substantia quae est genus primum dividitur in corporeum et in incorporeum, ut ponit Porphyrius, dicitur quod Porphyrius, loquendo secundum opinionem ponentium quantum continuum componi ex non quantis, vocat substantiam corpoream substantiam dimensionatam secundum triplicem dimensionem et substantiam incorpoream vocat substantiam punctualem, linearem vel superficialem, quae quamvis sit composita ex materia et forma, non tamen habet partes secundum triplicem dimensionem extensa. 53

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This short remark, in passing, is interesting. Indeed, the reference to Porphyry does not originate from the Isagoge, but recalls some passages of his commentary on the Categories, which was not known in Alyngton’s time54. It is possible that he drew this interpretation from Boethius’s own commentary, but there is no strict evidence for that55. Whatever that may be, the idea defended here is the following: if one takes for granted the general scheme according to which 1) being is first determined as a substance, and then as corporeal and incorporeal, as in Avicenna’s metaphysics for instance, and 2) corporeal means quantified in the three dimensions, then it follows that everything which has only two, one or no dimension is either not a substance or an incorporeal substance. What is striking here is that Alyngton seems to suggest there can be incorporeal substances composed of matter and form, so that the term «incorporeal substance» would not be restricted to intelligences or angels, but can be applied to mathematical entities with zero, one or two dimensions. Now the question is: what would it mean for a substance to be plane, linear or punctual? Robert Alyngton explicitly deals with this issue when he discusses the relationship between substance and quantity. Robert Alyngton begins with affirming that quantity first expresses the idea of measure (Omnis quantitas habet rationem mensurae). This is true for discrete and successive quantity, but also for continuous and permanent quantity. For instance, if we consider the quantity of a body as regards to its occupation of a portion of space, then, Alyngton says, the measure of a continuous and permanent entity either has one, two or three dimensions, depending on the nature of this entity (a line, a surface or a solid). He also adds that there are two kinds of measures, intrinsic and extrinsic: A certain quantity measures the permanent being of a substance and the continuum either according to one dimension only, and in this case it is a line, or according to two, and its is a surface, or three and it is a corporeal substance, which is called a body belonging to the category of quantity. Indeed, we can understand ‘body’ as meaning Nec est inconveniens, cum Porphyrius fuit in opinione platonicus. Plato vero fertur compositionem continui ex non quantis [f. 86r] verissimiliter posuisse (potuise ms.)». 54 Porphyry, Commentary on the Categories, 100.14 and 102.37-103.2, in Porphyre, Commentaire aux Catégories, Ed. by R. BODÉÜS, Vrin, Paris 2008, pp. 306307 and 316-317. 55 Boethius, In Categorias Aristotelis commentaria, PL 64, col. 202B-202C.

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either the corporeal substance or the permanent, long and deep quantity of heap, of which we are presently talking. All these kinds of quantity have an intrinsic relation of measurement relatively to the quantity of the multiplication of matter and the multiplication of indivisibles they contain, as Robert Grosseteste says. It is also possible to measure a quantified substance according to these three modes with something extrinsic, according to the [space] it occupies or fills, and then place serves as measure insofar as linear, plane and bodily places are distinct. [...] It is therefore affirmed in the text that the line, the surface, the body are continuous quantities, and in addition to them, i.e. to those that measure intrinsically, place and time are quantities measuring extrinsically.56

This short and very dense passage is clearly reminiscent of Walter Burley’s commentaries on the Categories, especially for the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic measures, and the distinction between the body-substance and the body-quantity57. Now what is the relationship between the body and quantity and the bodily substance? Is there an equivalent of these intrinsic measures on the side of the corporeal substance? 56

Robert Alyngton, Litteralis sententia super Praedicamenta Aristotelis, MS Lambeth Palace 393, f. 107r-v (Conti’s transcription slightly modified): «Aliqua ergo quantitas mensurat esse substantiae permanens et continuum, et hoc secundum unam dimensionem tantum, et sic est linea, aut secundum duas, et sic est superficies; aut secundum tres, et sic quantitas corporea, quae dicitur corpus de genere quantitatis. Potest enim corpus sumi vel pro substantia corporea vel pro quantitate molis permanente, longa, lata et profunda, de qua nunc loquitur. Omnes tamen istae maneries quantitatum habent rationem mensurandi intrinsece quo ad continentiam multiplicationis materiae sive multiplicationis indivisibilium, ut dicit Lincolniensis. Ideo secundum istos tres modos potest substantia quanta mensurari ab extrinseco secundum suam occupationem vel repletionem, et sic est locus eius mensura, ut alius est locus linearis et alius superficialis et alius corporeus. [...] Dicitur ergo in textu quod quantitates continuae sunt linea, superficies, corpus et amplius praeter haec, scilicet quae mensurant intrinsece, locus et tempus sunt quantitates quae extrinsece mensurant». 57 The following text is a partial quotation of Walter Burley, Tractatus super librum Praedicamentorum, provisional edition by A.D. CONTI, available at (see MSS G18a-b, R7ra-rb, P181va). One finds the same position, less developped, in his first commentary on the Categories. See M. VON PERGER, «Walter Burley’s Expositio vetus super librum Praedicamentorum. An Edition», Franciscan Studies, 61 (2003) 55-96: 74-75.

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What is more, in order to deal with these problems, Robert Alyngton has to choose between Walter Burley’s moderate position about the reality of indivisible points and other mathematical entities on one hand, and John Wyclif’s atomism on the other. Indeed, for Walter Burley, surfaces, lines and points only exist as extremities or limit entities of other figures, not as parts of the continuum58, whereas, as we have seen, John Wyclif goes one step further and affirms that points compose the line, lines compose the surface, and surfaces compose the body. The reference to Robert Grosseteste’s theory of light, as exposed in his Notes on the Physics and his De luce, suggests that Alyngton endorses his atomist conception of matter59. Indeed, the Bishop of Lincoln explains that our material world was created from a single point of light multiplied infinitely by God in the first instant of the universe, so that every part of the universe corresponds to a part of this total multiplication of points in space, which in turn corresponds to a certain number of points. John Wyclif’s atomism was already dependent on this theory, even though he did not develop this particular metaphysics of light. In several occasions, indeed, he says that God could have created a point and then another one with a distinct position but without any gap between them, and so on ad infinitum until the totality of the universe if filled by points. We can imagine this process, but cannot have God’s knowledge of these points and their numbers. Wyclif concludes that we are forced to use extrinsic measures60. It is possible that Alyngton had something similar in mind when he wrote this passage, but contrary to Robert Grosseteste and John Wyclif, he never uses theological arguments in this text. His principal concern here is the ontological status of points, lines, and surfaces, not only in the category of quantity, but also in the substance underlying this quantity, exactly like Walter Burley in his various philosophical commentaries on the Categories and the Physics, and in his treatise On forms (De formis). Walter Burley accepted the ontological distinction between the category of substance and quantity, and he asked whether there must be some correspondent to the line or the surface in the substance itself, 58 See C. NORMORE, «Walter Burley on continuity», in N. KRETZMANN (ed.), Infinity and Continuity in Ancient and Medieval Thought, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1982, pp. 258-269. 59 See LEWIS, «Robert Grosseteste and the Continuum». 60 On these aspects of Wyclif’s atomism, see my paper «Space, Imagination, and Numbers in John Wyclif’s Mathematical Theology», passim.

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insofar as it is the subject of quantity. In the De formis, Burley suggests distinguishing not only substance and quantity, but also the body-substance and the body-quantity. His intuition is the following: even though the substance is not quantified by itself, but only though its quantity, which is an accidental property, the fact remains that the substance has the same dimensions as its quantity. The body-substance and the body-quantity have the same dimensions61. In other words, what we call ‘a body’ can be apprehended in two ways, either in its substantiality, as a body with a certain essence, or as a geometric solid, independently of its essence, from a purely quantitative point. But if the body-quantity is not a mere abstraction and possesses some degree of reality, and if not only the threedimensioned body, but also surfaces, lines and points, have some kind of existence in the body-quantity, shall we say the they also exist in some way in the body-substance? For Burley, points, lines and surfaces only exist as extremities and not as constituents of the continuum, but there must be something equivalent to a point, a line or a surface in the body-substance62. This, according to him, does not make the case for atomism. We find exactly the same idea, but fully developed, in his later commentary on the Categories (circa 1337). In a dubium about a passage of the Categories in which Aristotle says the lines, surfaces and bodies belong to the category of continuous quantity, he asks whether these quantities have an adequate subject (subiectum adequatum). If the quantity of a material substance primarily depends on its matter, what would it mean for surfaces and lines to exist in their subject, i.e. in the substance? Burley asks the very same question 61 Walter Burley, De formis, Ed. by J.D. SCOTT, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, München 1970, p. 57: «Dico igitur quod corpus substantia et corpus quantitas sunt duo profunda et duo corpora sed non habent duas profunditates nec duas corporeitates sed tantum unam, scilicet profunditatem et corporeitatem de genere quantitatis. [...] eadem profunditas numero denominat utrumque, scilicet corpus de genere substantie et corpus de genere quantitatis et etiam alia accidentia habentia profunditatem denominative accepta in numero plurali». 62 See, for instance, Walter Burley, De formis, p. 61: «Corpus enim de genere quantitatis habet partes quarum quelibet est corpus. Unde quelibet pars corporis de genere quantitatis est corpus et quelibet pars linee est linea et quelibet pars superficiei est superficies»; p. 62: «Ad secundum dubium quod erat de superficie et linea an sint partes corporis de genere quantitatis, dicendum quod non. Sicut enim linea non componitur ex punctis, ita nec superficies componitur ex lineis nec corpus ex superficiebus aut lineis [...]».

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about points: is there a specific subject of the point on the side of the substance? When he answers these questions, Burley first says that lines and surfaces belong to the category of quantity insofar as they can be used to measure something. On the other hand, he repeats his thesis according to which surfaces, lines and points are extremities, not parts of the whole continuum. But, concerning the relationship between the body as a quantity and the body as a substance, Walter Burley clearly affirms that points, lines and surfaces exist at both levels. Concerning points, he gives the argument usually used by the atomists, that of a spherical body touching a plane surface at one and only one point. This is true, he adds, not only for mathematical abstractions, but also for natural reality if such a perfect spherical body and perfect plane surface really existed. As a consequence, points have a real existence, i.e. not only in mathematics but also in natura rerum. Wyclif certainly agrees with Burley that there is a distinction between quantity and substance, as well as between mathematical and natural body. He also agrees with him that there is a correspondence between these two aspects of reality, because the accident of quantity inheres in a material substance. But the consequence, for him, is that points, lines and surfaces exist everywhere in the continuum, and not only as extremities, so that it is possible to apply this atomist conception of quantity to substances. As he puts it: The point or punctuality is for a substance the fact of being punctual; in the same way, the line or linearity is for a substance the fact of being linear and having length inseparably; and the surface is for a substance the fact of being plane, which means having width inseparably63.

Another consequence of this one-to-one correspondence between quantity and substance is that there must be something like ‘a natural point’ corresponding to the ‘mathematical point’:

63 John Wyclif, Logicae continuatio, vol 3, cap. 9, p. 47 (corrected with MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale, 662, f. 73vb): «[...] punctus aut punctalitas est substantiam esse punctalem, sic linea vel linealitas est substantiam esse linearem, cui inseparabiliter accidit longitudo, et superficiem que est substantiam esse superficialem inseparabiliter consequitur quoad speciem latitudo [...]».

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Indeed, ‘point’may mean either a sensible minimum with three dimensions, which is the intrinsic term of a continuous and permanent quantity or what terminates intrinsically a line, absolutely and without any part. In the same way, ‘line’ may mean either a continuous, permanent, and sensibly long quantity, without sensible width and depth, or, secondly, a permanent quantity which is absolutely without width and depth. Also ‘surface’ may mean a long and large quantity without sensible depth or a quantity without depth absolutely speaking. Among philosophers the things of the first type are called natural points, lines, and surfaces by, whereas the second type of things is called mathematical points, lines, and surfaces.64

Robert Alyngton agrees with Walter Burley that we can «understand ‘body’ either as the corporeal substance or as the long, large and deep permanent quantity of heap»65. Like Burley, he is also convinced that points, lines, surfaces exist, not only in the body-quantity, but also in the body-substance. And like John Wyclif, after he has posited the existence of an adequate subject for all kinds of quantity, he also distinguishes the natural point and the mathematical point, with the same qualifications. The natural point is described as something sensible, a minimum, like a corpuscle with a minimal size, like a point traced on a sheet of paper. Next, we ask about the line, the point and the surface, how they must be posited and what is their adequate subject? In order to answer these questions, it is worth noting that there exists a natural point and a mathematical point. The natural point is a minimal and 64 John Wyclif, Logicae continuatio, vol. 3, cap. 9, p. 47 (corrected with MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale, 662, f. 73vb): «Nam punctus potest significare vel minimum sensibile secundum tres dimensiones terminativus intrinsecus quantitatis continue permanentis vel terminativum linee intrinsece simpliciter sine parte. Et sic linea potest significare vel quantitatem continuam permanentem sensibiliter longam sine sensibili latitudine vel profunditate vel secundo quantitatem permanentem sine latitudine vel profunditate simpliciter. Superficies etiam potest significare quantitatem huiusmodi longam et latam sine profunditate sensibili vel quantitatem huiusmodi sine profunditate simpliciter. Et res primi modi vocantur apud philosophos puncta, linee vel superficies naturales, sed res secundi modi vocantur puncta, linee vel superficies mathematice». 65 See the text quoted in footnote 56.

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sensible three-dimensional quantity, which, you might add, is long, wide and deep, sensible to a minimal degree. On the other hand, the mathematical point is an indivisible, situated relatively to its position in a line, and which has a punctual substance as its first subject. According to others, the mathematical point is for a material substance the fact of being punctual. And, in the same way, we say of the natural line that it is a permanent and sensibly long quantity of heap, but sensibly wide and deep to a minimal degree, whereas the mathematical line is a permanent quantity of heap with length and without width and depth. This distinction appears in the second book, third conclusion of Vitello’s Perspectiva. As for the natural surface, it is a long and wide quantity for the sense, but sensibly deep to a minimal degree, whereas the mathematical surface is a permanent quantity of heap, which is long, wide and not deep. The first subject of the mathematical surface or the mathematical line is a plane substance or a linear substance. It is the natural philosopher or the geometer’s responsibility to deal with the natural point, line or surface, whereas it is proper to the mathematician to deal with the mathematical point, line or surface. This is why the natural philosopher, as such, would not accept that the continuum is composed of non-quantified beings, whereas the mathematician would probably accept that. But on this topic see my commentary on the Liber sex principiorum.66 66

Robert Alyngton, Litteralis sententia super Praedicamenta Aristotelis, MS Lambeth Palace 393, ff. 111v-112r: «Ulterius dubitatur de linea, puncto et superficie quomodo sint ponendae aut quae sunt eorum subiecta adequata. Pro quo notandum quod aliquis est punctus naturalis et aliquis punctus mathematicus. Est autem naturalis punctus quantitas minime sensibilis secundum trinam dimensionem, ut supple quae est sub minimo gradu sensibili longa, lata et profunda. Sed punctus mathematicus est indivisibile [f. 112r] situatum cum positione lineae, cuius primum subiectum est substantia punctualis. Vel, secundum alios, punctus mathematicus est substantiae materialis indivisibilitas quo ad molem, id est substantiam materialem esse punctualem. Et conformiter dicendum est de linea naturali quae est quantitas moli permanens, sensibiliter longa, sed sub minimo gradu sensibili lata et profunda; sed linea mathematica est quantitas permanens moli, longa, non lata nec profunda. Patet ista distinctio per Vitulonem in Perspectiva sua, libro secundo, conclusione tertia. Superficies autem naturalis est quantitas sensibiliter longa et lata, sed non profunda. Subiectum autem primum superficiei vel lineae mathematicae est substantia superficialis vel substantia linearis. Sed de puncto, linea vel superficie naturali pertinet ad naturalem vel geometrum tractare. De puncto vero, linea vel superficie mathematicis tractat proprie mathematicus. Ideo naturali, ut huiusmodi, non poneret

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This theory is clearly reminiscent of John Wyclif’s mathematical atomism. Robert Alyngton interprets Walter Burley’s distinction between substance and quantity in the same way as Wyclif: if mathematical entities have a counterpart in corporeal substances, and if the continuum is composed of indivisible points, then there must be something like a natural point in corporeal substances. Robert Alyngton’s conclusion is that there is at the same time a radical homology and a deep antinomy between mathematics and natural philosophy. Mathematics and physics deal with different objects, even though mathematical and physical reality is structured in the same way. On one hand, the dimensions of the bodysubstance and the dimensions of the body-quantity are identical. On the other hand, at a micro-level, there are some differences between natural and mathematical beings. If I understand correctly Alyngton’s point in this text, he wants to say that a natural body or a corporeal substance is composed of smaller natural and sensible bodies, some of which are plane, others linear or punctual. There is a kind of homology between the composition of a geometric solid and the composition of a threedimensional corporeal substance, insofar as they can be described in terms of surfaces, lines, and points, but mathematical and natural entities are really distinct and do not have the same properties. The natural point has a quantity, not the mathematical one, the subject of the mathematical point is sensible, the mathematical point itself is not. It looks as though the analysis of three-dimensional quantity as derived from points gives us the key to the understanding of the structure of substantial reality by a mysterious analogy. What is left unclear in this theory is how can a natural point be the subject of a mathematical point? How can a minimal body, with three dimensions, be the subject of a non-quantified being, if not in the sense of Walter Burley’s conception of points as mere boundaries? Unfortunately, Robert Alyngton does not answer these questions in his commentary on the Categories, but it is likely that he does so in his commentary on the Liber sex principiorum. Some years later, Roger Whelpdale tried to resolve some of these problems.

quantum continuum componi ex non quantis, quamvis mathematicus hoc probabiliter satis ponat. Sed de ista materia vide Super Sex principia».

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3. Roger Whelpdale’s treatise on the continuum Roger Whelpdale is probably one of the lesser-known disciples of John Wyclif at Oxford67. He was educated at Balliol College and became fellow of Queen’s College in 1402, where he was successively camerarius (1402-1403), treasurer (1403-1404) and provost in 1404, a position he kept until 141968. Bachelor in theology in January 1413, he became Doctor in theology in 141969. After he became Bishop of Carlisle (1419), in his native county of Cumberland, he apparently left Oxford definitively. He died in 1423 in London and was buried in Saint Paul’s cathedral70. Roger Whelpdale was a theologian, but his theological works did not survive71. The only evidence for his interest in theological matters is found in his will (dated January 1423), in which we learn that he bequeathed some manuscripts to Balliol and Queen’s Colleges, notably a copy of Augustine’s De civitate Dei, two biblical commentaries from Gregory the Great, Praepositinus of Cremona’s Summa theologiae, Quaestiones from Simon of Tournai, treatises on Canon law, and Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum historiale72. On the other hand, we know that he wrote many philosophical treatises: a De universalibus73, a commentary on 67

We only have scarce informations about his life, which are summed up by EMDEN, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, vol. 3, pp. 2031-2032. For more ancient sources, see John Leland, Commentarii de scriptoribus Britannicis, 2 vols., Ex theatro Sheldoniano, Oxonii 1709, vol. 1, p. 406. Th. TANNER – D. WILKINS, Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica sive De scriptoribus qui in Anglia, Scotia et Hibernia ad saeculi XVII initium floruerunt, G. Bowyer, Londini 1748, p. 760. 68 For his activity at Queen’s College, see J.R. MAGRATH, The Queen’s College, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1921, pp. 72-73, 79, 116-120, 133-138, 146, 159, 162, 261, 263. 69 Francis Godwin, De praesulibus Angliae commentarius, 2 vols., Officina Nortoniana, Londini 1616, vol. 2 (De episcopis Carleolensibus), p. 150. 70 D.B. TYSON, «The Death of Roger Whelpdale, Bishop of Carlisle 1419-23», Notes and Queries 57/2 (2010) 191-195. 71 In the sixteenth century, John Bale mentionned a De rogando Deo, but there is no evidence for the existence of this text. See John Bale, Index Britanniae scriptorum quos ex variis bibliothecis non parvo labore collegit Ioannes Baleus, Ed. by R.L POOLE – M. BATESON, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1902, p. 405; and the comments in EMDEN, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, vol. 3, p. 2031. 72 One of these manuscripts is described in details in R. MYNORS, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Balliol College Oxford, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1963, pp. 205-207. 73 Partly edited in Johannes Sharpe, Quaestio super universalia, Ed. by A.D. CONTI, Olschki, Firenze 1990, pp. 189-197.

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Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics74, on Porphyry’s Isagoge,75 a lost treatise on aggregates (De aggregatis) formerly conserved at Balliol College, and a De compositione continui ex non quantis76. This last work, which contains what might be the most important and detailed defence of John Wyclif’s mathematical atomism at Oxford, was mentioned by John Bale and John Leland in the sixteenth century77 and by Thomas Tanner in the eighteenth century, who referred to a manuscript in Corpus Christi College, Oxford78. Fortunately, this treatise also survived in a number of manuscripts, but they remained unnoticed because of a wrong and lasting attribution of this text to John Tarteys, another contemporary Wyclifite. Guy Beaujouan, in his catalogue of the scientific manuscripts of the University of Salamanca, affirmed that this treatise on the continuum was ‘probably’ by Tarteys, as the sixteenth-century table added at the f. 164v seems to suggest79. Most commentators followed this judge74 MS Oxford, Magdalen College, 47, ff. 86r-105r («Problemata super primum librum Analyticorum posteriorum secundum M. R.»; and in the tabula is added «quod Welpedale»). See H.O. COXE, Catalogus codicum mss. qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur, 2 vols., E Typographeo Academico, Oxonii 1852, vol. 2, pp. 28-29. 75 MS London, British Library, Royal 12 B XIX, f. 36r-45r («Poprhyrius secundum Whelpdale») and MS London, British Library, Harley 2178, ff. 14r-23r (where it is attribtued to «magister W.P.», which could stand for Whelpdale «Praepositus»). 76 We might add a short text on the ampliation of the verb ‘to be’ attributed to ‘Rogerus Anglicus’, which is present in at least two manuscripts containing works of John Tarteys and William of Milverley: De ampliatione huius verbi est, MS Oxford, Magdalen College, 92, ff. 81r-82v, and MS Praha, Národní knihovna, VIII.E.11, ff. 140v-143r (this copy is dated 1423, and we also find a Rogeri Oxoniensis Universalia at ff. 73r-81v). 77 They saw a copy in the Library of Balliol College, which did not survive. 78 Th. TANNER – D. WILKINS, Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica, p. 760. The manuscript in question is MS Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 116 (see our remarks below). 79 G. BEAUJOUAN, Manuscrits scientifiques médiévaux de l’Université de Salamanque et de ses «Colegios mayores», Féret et fils, Bordeaux 1962, pp. 148-151: 150: «Ce conglomérat de textes logiques se présente à nous hérissé d’abréviations très sévères. Les huit livres dont il se compose émanent d’un même auteur, comme le suggère la table du début du XVIe s. placée à la fin du volume (f.164v): “Logica Jo. de Cart (ou Tart), liber 5 ponitur tractatus de arithmetica speculativa et liber 6, c. 6, ponitur multa ad mathematicam scientiam pertinentia et post librum 6um ponitur

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ment80, except Earline Jennifer Ashworth, who raised some doubts about the attribution to John Tarteys of some of the logical works conserved in this manuscript81. Indeed, only the first text of this collection is attributed to John Tarteys (f. 14v) and the volume is not composed of his collected works in “eight books” as suggested by Beaujouan82. John Tarteys and Roger Whelpdale were active at the same time at Oxford, they both studied at Balliol College, and there are evident similarities between their works, so that it is difficult, without any precise comparison between their arguments and thesis, to avoid mistaken attributions. For instance, the anonymous treatise immediately preceding Roger Whelpdale’s treatise on the continuum in the Salamanca manuscript also defends mathematical atomism83. Nevertheless, the other copies confirm the attribution of the De compositione continui ex non quantis to Roger Whelpdale. This text is still extant in five manuscripts:

latinus tractatus utrum continuum componatur ex non quantis.’ De là vient la mention portée sur le dos de la reliure comme dans les anciens inventaires: ‘Logica Joannis de Cart.”. Cette indication erronée se réfère, sans doute, à John Tartays ou Tarteys donné au f.14v comme l’auteur du premier livre (les Summulae logicales), ouvrage qui lui est attribué, d’après un manuscrit aujourd’hui perdu de Balliol College, par John Bale». 80 See, for instance, P.V. SPADE – G.A. WILSON, «Introduction», in Johannis Wyclif Summa insolubilium, Ed. by P.V. SPADE – G.A. WILSON, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, Binghamton 1986, pp. XIX-XXI. 81 E.J. ASHWORTH, «The Obligationes of John Tarteys: Edition and Introduction», Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 3 (1992) 653703: 658-659. 82 Beaujouan’s error is probably due to the incipit of one piece at f. 68v, in which a ‘sixth book’ is mentionned (Quia in sexto libro sunt certe materie tangende [...]), but the reference is probably to the sixth book of Aristotle’s Physics, as is clear from the content of this text, not the sixth book of Tarteys’s collected works. 83 MS Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria 2358, f. 97v: «In ista materia, sicut in omni alia materia naturali et philosophica, est specialiter credendum illi parti pro qua ratio plus laborat inducendo nuda dicta Aristotelis sonantia in oppositum cum tunicis quas texerunt sapientes sequaces Platonis et Democriti qui convincerunt ex ratione infallibili corpora continua ex atthomis, id est, partibus indivisibilibus, integrari». (quoted by J.E. MURDOCH, «Beyond Aristotle: Indivisibles and Infinite Divisibility in the Later Middle Ages», p. 18).

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(O) Oxford, New College, 289 (ca. 15th), ff. 3r-18r (Inc: Opinio est quod quantum continuum componatur ex non quantis) (S) Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2358 (ca. early 15th), ff. 101r-121r (Inc.: Opinio est quod quantum continuum componitur ex non quantis) (W) Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Codex Vindobonensis Palatinus 4002 (ca. 15th), ff. 54v-80v (Inc.: Opinio est quod quantum continuum componitur ex non quantis) (P1) Praha, Knihovna Metropolitni kapituly, M.82 (1447-1450), ff. 91r-110v (Inc.: Opinio est quod quantum continuum componitur ex non quantis) (P2) Praha, Národní knihovna, V.H.33 (before 1450), ff. 76v-100r (Inc.: Opinio est quod quantum continuum componitur ex non quantis)84

Only one manuscript (P1) explicitly ascribes the text to Roger Whelpdale (Explicit tractatus de compositione continui ex non compositis reverendi magistri Rogeri Welpedal compilatus Oxonie per eundem etc.) 85. But, in another manuscript (Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 116), which contains excerpts from Wyclif, William of Milverley’s De inceptione, and many anonymous materiae and notabilia on logic and natural philosophy, there is a «Textus solemnizatus a mag. Rogero Whelpdale in vico scolarum», which «primus titulus est iste: nunquid, sicut et omne continuum, linea vel planum ex indivisibilibus sit compositum»86. This last text seems to be a different version of his treatise, probably designed for teaching purposes87, but there is no good reason for questioning the attribution of P1, which was already attested by John Bale in the sixteenth century from a lost copy at Balliol College.

84

In the catalogue it appears under the heading ‘1010’. Cf. J. TRUHLÁŘ, Catalogus codicum manu scriptorum latinorum qui in c. r. bibliotheca publica atque universitatis Pragensis asservantur, 2 vols., Regia Societas Scientiarum Bohemica, Praha 19051906, vol. 1, p. 421. 85 MS Praha, Knihovna Metropolitní kapituly, M.82 (1447-1450), f. 110v. 86 MS Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 116, ff. 69v-77r. For the description of this manuscript, see R.M. THOMSON, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts of Corpus Christi College Oxford, D.D. Brewer, Oxford 2011, pp. 53-54. 87 Unfortunately, I did not have the oppourtunity to consult this manuscript before the publication of this paper.

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Many elements in the manuscript tradition confirm a close relationship with John Wyclif and his disciples. The manuscript (S), for instance, contains John Wyclif’s Summa insolubilium, as well as John Tartey’s logical works and other anonymous English tracts of the same period. (P2) contains some excerpts from Wyclif’s Logicae continuatio, as well as some of John Tarteys’s logical works (De insolubilibus, Problemata, De modis). The manuscript New College 289 (O) is particularly interesting for the understanding of the context of the De continuo insofar as it contains other short texts on augmentation, aggregates and successive beings written by John Chilmarke (who died in 1396), as well as others, anonymous, dealing with similar issues, such as a De materia quantitatis, a De motu locali notabilis materia and a Materia de motu. As Jeremy Catto has recently shown, all these ‘matters’ correspond to the traditional teaching of natural philosophy in Wyclif’s circle at Oxford in the first decades of the fifteenth century88. Therefore, it is very likely that Roger Whelpdale’s treatise, as well as his Textus solemnizatus, are good representatives of the teaching of Wyclif’s scholarly disciples at Oxford. The De compositione continui ex non quantis also gives evidence for the transmission of Wyclif’s atomism in Bohemia. Indeed, the Vienna manuscript (W) bears witness of Whelpdale’s association with Wycliffism at Prague, for it contains some of the most famous defences of Wycliffism in Bohemia, such as, for instance, Procopius of Pilsen’s Pro libro idearum, Zdislav of Zvířetice’s Pro libro universalium, Gyczin’s Pro tractatu materiae et formae, and Simon of Tišnov’s Pro tractatu probationum. If we consider the two extant manuscripts conserved in Prague, as well as the existence of equivalent quaestiones on the continuum by bohemian authors89, it is tempting to imagine that Roger Whelpdale’s De compositione 88

J.I. CATTO, «Thomas Moston and the Teaching of Wyclif’s Logic in Oxford, c. 1410», in H. BARR – A.M. HUTCHINSON (eds.), Text and Controversies from Wyclif to Bale: Essays in honour of Anne Hudson, Brepols, Turnhout 2005, pp. 119-130. Jeremy Catto analyzes in detail the MS Oxford, Magdalen College, 92, which contains Robert Alyngton’s commentary on the Categories, as well as other works by John Tarteys, William of Milverley, and Roger Whelpdale. 89 Let us mention, for instance, Peter of Nahošice, Utrum in quolibet continuo permanenti puncta indivisibilia sunt ponenda (composed in 1409), MS Praha, Národní knihovna X.H.18 ff. 165v-169r; MS Praha, Knihovna Metropolitní kapituly, L.45, ff. 147v-148v: MS Praha, Knihovna Metropolitní kapituly, L.27, ff. 69-70; Anonymous,

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continui ex non quantis served as a sourcebook for the defence of Wyclif’s atomism in Bohemia. What is striking in Roger Whelpdale’s treatise is that, like Robert Alyngton’s commentary on the Categories, there is no hint of theology, nothing about God’s creation of the world, and nothing about the sacrament of the Eucharist. It is a purely philosophical approach of the problem of the continuum. What is more, Roger Whelpdale does not only deal with the metaphysical question of the existence of points, lines, and surfaces in mathematical and natural bodies, as Robert Alyngton, but also with physical processes, such as the different kinds of changes and motions described in Aristotle’s Physics and De generatione et corruptione. This clearly appears in the organization of the chapters: 1 – De compositione continui ex non quantis 2 – De circulis perfectis et imperfectis 3 – De mixtionibus + De qualitatibus (mainly on colours) 4 – De densitate et raritate 5 – De augmentatione 6 – De motu locali 7 – De alteratione Each chapter reflects Wyclif’s argumentation in his Logicae continuatio, with a slightly different order90. Roger Whelpdale rearranged Wyclif’s original material in order to give a more systematic presentation of his arguments, proceeding from the basic structure of reality (atoms and their geometrical configurations) to the natural minima and their mixture, and from the qualities originated in the mixture of the elements to the different kinds of motion according to different categories (quantity, place, quality). In the following pages I will focus on the first chapter dedicated to the composition of the continuum and compare it to John Wyclif and Robert Alyngton’s treatment of the same topic. The text begins with the description of ‘an opinion’ according to which mathematical and natural continua are composed of entities without Utrum quodlibet continuum ex non quantis finitis componatur, MS Praha, Knihovna Metropolitní kapituly, L.45, ff. 124v-126r. 90 Wyclif deals first with local motion, and then the compostion of the continuum, rarefaction and condensation, mixture, the speed of motion, angles and circles, augmentation, and alteration.

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quantity (non quanta)91. More precisely, this anonymous opinion assumes that in the category of quantity, bodies are composed of surfaces, surfaces of lines, and lines of points. The point is therefore the ultimate component of geometric figures and can be defined as a unit with a particular position in space. Like some of his predecessors who also accepted this NeoPythagorean derivation of magnitudes from points, Roger Whelpdale affirms that the atomic composition of the continuum does not only hold for abstract mathematical quantity, but also for natural and material reality. Indeed, Roger Whelpdale continues, the term ‘point’ is equivocal and means either an accidental form, from which something is called ‘punctual’ (punctale), or «an indivisible with a position constituting intrinsically a line»92. According to Whelpdale, however, the distinction between the abstract punctual form and the concrete punctual entity in geometric figures is not sufficient to understand the structure of material reality. For it is also necessary to distinguish the mathematical and the natural point, as well as the mathematical and natural lines, surfaces, and bodies. Some people (aliqui) –i.e. John Wyclif and Robert Alyngton– define the natural point as a minimal, sensible and three-dimensional entity93. But Whelpdale prefers the following definition: a natural point 91

Roger Whelpdale, De compositione continui ex non quantis: «Opinio est quod quantum continuum componitur ex non quantis. Et sic: puncta componunt lineam, et linee superficiem, superficies corpus de genere quantitatis. Et ex alio latere conformiter punctalia componunt lineare, et linearia superficialia, et superficialia corpus de genere substantie» (MS Oxford, New College, 289, f. 3r / MS Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2358, f. 101r). 92 Roger Whelpdale, De compositione continui ex non quantis: «Pro quo est notandum quod punctus multipliciter sumitur. Uno modo pro forma accidentali, secundum quam aliquid dicitur esse punctale. Et sic patet quod punctus et punctale differunt, sicut abstractum et concretum. Alio modo et proprie sumitur pro uno indivisibili positionem habente intrinsece compositive linee. [...] Et punctus differt ab unitate in hoc quod supra illam addit positionem, ut patet Aristotelem Primo Posteriorum, ubi sic inquit ‘punctus est unitas positionem habens, unitas autem non’» (MS Oxford, New College, 289, f. 3r / MS Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2358, f. 101r). 93 Roger Whelpdale, De compositione continui ex non quantis: «Ulterius est notandum quod aliquis est punctus naturalis, qui secundum aliquos est quantitas minima sensibilis secundum trinam dimensionem, scilicet longitudinem, latitudinem, et profonditatem. Sed verius dicitur quod punctus naturalis est quantitas continua molis, insensibiliter divisibilis, intrinsece compositivum linee naturalis» (MS Oxford, New College, 289, f. 3r / MS Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2358, f. 101r).

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is a continuous quantity of mass, non-sensibly divisible (insensibiliter divisibilis), intrinsically composing a natural line94. He does not deny the fact that a natural point is a natural and sensible minimum, nor that it has three dimensions. What he wants to make clear is that natural points are not discrete entities like numbers, but continuous entities, which are therefore divisible, at least conceptually if not really, so that these corpuscles can be considered as the minimal bodily parts of a natural body. Roger Whelpdale is still not satisfied by this definition. Indeed, he continues, it is necessary to separate the punctale mathematicum, which is the immediate subject of the mathematical point, and the punctale naturalis, which is the immediate subject of the natural point95. As a result, contrary to Robert Alyngton, who affirmed that the natural point is the subject of the mathematical point, Roger Whelpdale seems to adopt a new and more complex ontology in which mathematical entities have their own substrate, i.e. something having the form of a mathematical point, line, surface or body, whereas natural points, lines, surfaces and bodies have a different subject, which is a material substance having the form of a natural point, line, surface or body. According to Roger Whelpdale, this enriched ontology is the consequence of the realist interpretation of the ten Aristotelian categories, which implies the real distinction between the body as quantity and body as substance conceptualized by Walter Burley and John Wyclif96, 94

Roger Whelpdale, De compositione continui ex non quantis: «Sed verius dicitur quod punctus naturalis est quantitas continua molis, insensibiliter divisibilis, intrinsece compositivum linee naturalis» (MS Oxford, New College, 289, f. 3r / MS Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2358, f. 101r). 95 Roger Whelpdale, De compositione continui ex non quantis: «Et conformiter potest iste terminus ‘punctale’ sumi dupliciter. Aliquod enim est punctale mathematicum et aliquod naturalis. Punctale mathematicum est mole indivisibilis, sive per se, sive per accidens, habens positionem, et sic sumitur large. Sed stricte loquendo, solum mole indivisibilis per accidens habens positionem est punctale mathematicum, et punctale isto modo dictum est subiectum immediatum puncti mathematici et punctale naturalis est subiectum immediatum puncti naturali, sicut punctale mathematicum, ut prius dicitur» (MS Oxford, New College, 289, f. 3r / MS Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2358, f. 101r). 96 Roger Whelpdale, De compositione continui ex non quantis: «Pro processu est notandum quod corpus multipliciter sumitur: aliquod est corpus de genere quantitatis habens longitudinem, latitudinem, et profunditatem; et aliquod est corpus de genere substantie» (MS Oxford, New College, 289, f. 3r / MS Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2358, f. 101r).

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but it certainly points to a realist philosophy of mathematics in which mathematical beings have their own mode of being and are not mere mental abstractions from material entities. With this rich ontology, he has to face the same problems as Wyclif and Alyngton: what is the relationship between mathematical and natural entities? On one hand, Whelpdale seems to accept a sort of antinomy between the mathematical and the natural world, on the other hand he seems to agree with his predecessors who affirmed that natural points, lines, surfaces and bodies are in some way the subjects of the corresponding mathematical entities. Here is the problem raised by this theory. Following the NeoPythagorean and Boethian derivation of magnitudes from points, Roger Whelpdale asserts that the minimal line in the category of quantity is equivalent to two points, the minimal surface to three points, and the minimal body to four points97. As a result, minimal bodies in the category of quantity are minimal cubes, i.e. three-dimensional solids made of eight points, and their natural subjects are cubic, corporeal, and material substances98. But if the natural point is a minimal body, is it a minimal cube? If so, the natural point would be composed of eight mathematical points? In this case, what is the subject of each of these mathematical points? Shall one say that these four points have the same natural point as an immediate subject? Unfortunately, Roger Whelpdale does not respond to this problem. One possible interpretation is the following: having the accidental form of a point, a line, a surface or a body, does not mean the same thing for 97

Roger Whelpdale, De compositione continui ex non quantis: «Ex qua opinione sequitur manifeste quod est dare minimam lineam et minimam superficiem et minimum corpus de genere quantitatis, et minimum corpus de genere substantie. Unde minima linea est linea bipunctalis, cuius subiectum immediatum est linearis substantia. [...] Minima superficies constat ex tribus punctis superficialiter positis, cuius subiectum immediatum est substantia superficialis» (MS Oxford, New College, 289, f. 3v / MS Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2358, f. 101v). 98 Roger Whelpdale, De compositione continui ex non quantis: «Minimum enim corpus de genere quantitatis constat ex quatuor [ms. pro octo?] punctis corporaliter positis, cuius subiectum immediatum est substantia corporea, et tale corpus est bipunctaliter longum, bipunctaliter latum, et bipunctaliter profundum» (MS Oxford, New College, 289, f. 3v / MS Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2358, f. 101v). The idea of minimal cubes was already in the Logicae continuatio, vol. 3, cap. 9, p. 50, for instance), but Wyclif did not assert the equivalence between natural points and minimal cubes.

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mathematical and natural beings. In a natural body, having the form of a natural point means being a minimal body, indivisible according to our sensitive cognition, physically indivisible but mathematically or conceptually divisible, spatially situated in the natural line as one of its real parts. In a mathematical body, having the form of a point means being an indivisible in a mathematical way, i.e. being an absolutely indivisible entity, which is beyond the senses and which is defined with its particular position in space. The relationship between these two worlds –the world of natural substances and the world of pure quantity– can be more than a mere relation of homology –mathematical and natural entities have the same structure, but different kinds of components. One might say that the natural minima have a mathematical structure, which is not sensible but only intelligible. The Aristotelian natural philosophy would be based on our sensible experience, so that it is limited to the apparent structure of natural reality, whereas metaphysics and arithmetic can consider the deep mathematical structure of reality. As a result, what appears to us as naturally indivisible –the minima naturalia– is still divisible, but not infinitely, as Aristotle says, but only in a finite number of mathematical points, which are absolutely indivisible. From this mathematical point of view, the minimal body is a cube (or possibly a pyramid), the minimal surface is a triangle, the minimal line is made of two points. If this were the solution adopted by Roger Whelpdale, it would be in some way similar to Epicurus’s and Lucretius’s attempts to respond to Aristotle’s arguments against atomism99. Indeed, they also distinguished atoms and minima, in order to show that physical minima can move, touch, and be part of bigger wholes, whereas real indivisibles are invisible and only have some kind of potential existence in these minima, insofar as we can still consider these minima as conceptually divisible. But Roger Whelpdale is a metaphysical realist and his ontology has nothing in common with the Epicurean ontology, as it appears when he details the different levels of reality existing in a natural point. The first thing to be noticed is that Whelpdale develops in his own fashion Robert Grosseteste’s metaphysics of light. On one hand, he says that 99

See A. LAKS, «Épicure et la doctrine aristotélicienne du continu», in F. DE GANDT – P. SOUFFRIN (eds), La Physique d’Aristote et les conditions d’une science de la nature, Vrin, Paris 1991, p. 181-194; and F. VERDE, Elachista. La dottrina dei minimi nell’Epicureismo, Leuven University Press, Leuven 2013.

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a point, by its own nature, is able to be multiplied in space, identically, in all the possible indivisible situs in our universe, exactly like units, which can be indefinitely multiplied in numbers100. Thus far, it is exactly what Robert Grosseteste explained about the creation of the universe, which occurred from the indefinite multiplication of a point of light. But, elsewhere, Roger Whelpdale has to face the objection according to which his theory implies the possibility that several points exist within the same indivisible situs. In his answer, he affirms, unlike John Wyclif101, that nine –and only nine– ‘punctual beings’ can coexist in the same ‘punctual location’: punctual matter, punctual form, the composite of punctual matter and punctual form, the punctual light (lux punctalis), the punctual ray of light (lumen punctale), the punctual dryness, the punctual heat, the punctual potency and the punctual brightness (claritas punctalis)102. Again, Wheldpale does not give more details. Why only heat and dryness exist in a punctual being and not the four elementary qualities? What is the difference between the punctual lux and lumen at this level of reality? What is clear, however, is 100

Roger Whelpdale, De compositione continui ex non quantis: «Pro quo est sciendum, quod illud dicitur habere positionem, cuius nature non repugnat ipsum secundum se et aliquod individuum eiusdem speciei specialissime multiplicari. Et illud dicitur non habere positionem, cuius nature non repugnat ipsum secundum se et aliquod individuum multiplicari, ut patet de unitate et multis aliis. Et illud dicitur multiplicari, quod est complete in diversis sitibus non communicantibus» (MS Oxford, New College, 289, f. 3r / MS Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2358, f. 101r). 101 In Logicae continuatio, vol. 3, cap. 9, p. 42, he says that it is impossible that many points exist in the same indivisible situs. 102 Roger Whelpdale, De compositione continui ex non quantis: «Et conceditur quod novem punctalia ad maximum sunt in eodem situ indivisibili et hoc sic: capto igne punctali in illo situ indivisibili est materia punctalis, forma punctalis, compositum punctalis, lux punctalis, lumen punctale, siccitas punctalis, caliditas punctalis, potentia punctalis, claritas punctalis, et causa quare plura punctalia sunt in eodem situ indivisibili simul et plura puncta non est quia nulla talia que sunt immediate contraria sive eiusdem speciei specialissime possunt taliter esse in eodem situ indivisibili, sed materia punctalis, forma punctalis, caliditas punctalis, etc., non sunt immediate contraria, nec eiusdem speciei specialissime, ideo relinquitur quod non repugnat plura talia esse in eodem situ indivisibili simul et semel. Vel alia causa potest esse talis: ubi unum accidens sufficit plura denominare, superfluit ponere multa; sed unus punctus potest denominare illa omnia novem punctalia; ergo superfluit ponere in eodem situ indivisibili plura puncta, cum unus sufficit, et ita, ut creditur, fuit causa quare Aristoteles negavit quantitates posse penetrare se» (MS Oxford, New College, 289, f. 4r / MS Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2358, f. 102r-v).

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that a natural point is not only a minimal body with a minimal quantity, it is also a small substance with a matter, a form, and some basic qualities. The remainder of this first chapter is devoted to the traditional arguments against atomism, extracted either from Aristotle’s Physics or from Al-Ghazali’s summary of Avicenna’s attack against atomism. First, Whelpdale discusses nine ‘common’ arguments: 1) if there is a certain number of points in continuum, not all the continua are divisible in two equal parts (if there are five points, for instance); 2) several points could be in the same indivisible situs, and therefore continuous quantities would interpenetrate; 3) points cannot be contiguous; 4) if a line is composed of points, one point is in a relation of continuity with another point, so points must have extremities, which is impossible; 5) the continuum would not be infinitely divisible; 6) points cannot touch points, because they do not have parts; 7) if there exist a minimal line made of two points, then the two points are not continuous because they do not have a third and common extremity or limit; 8) the same argument holds for time, which could be two instant long; 9) an hour would be composed of its last instant (which can be considered as the first of the next hour). Roger Whelpdale adds nothing new to the traditional way of answering these problems since Henry of Harclay and Walter Chatton103. The general idea is that points can be distinguished by their position in space, so that it is possible to imagine them as touching each other, or as being contiguous or continuous large loquendo. It is not clear, however, if it is the case for both mathematical and natural points. Then he turns to the mathematical arguments against indivisibilism, such as the incommensurability of the side and the diagonal of a square for instance, and other paradoxes about commensurability constructed by biunivocal projection of a point on different sides of the same geometric figure. Here again, Roger Whelpdale’s answers are rather classical: on one hand, if the Neo-Pythagorean derivations of magnitudes from points is true, and if there are minimal figures, such as the minimal square of four points, etc., then the arguments of incommensurability do not hold; on the other 103 For a general presentation of these arguments, see J.E. MURDOCH, «Naissance et développement de l’atomisme au bas Moyen Âge latin», in La science de la nature: théories et pratiques, special issue of the Cahiers d’études médiévales, 2 (1974) 11-32; and ID., «Infinity and continuity», in N. KRETZMANN – A. KENNY – J. PINBORG (eds.), Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982, pp. 564-591.

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hand, in physical reality, geometric figures do not have exactly the same properties they have in Euclid’s geometry, because of their materiality. This presentation of Roger Whelpdale’s treatise on the continuum is only a first survey of his atomism before the completion of the critical edition of the text. The six chapters would deserve a complete and detailed analysis, but our aim was only to show that it is related to John Wyclif’s teaching.

4. Conclusion It is difficult to evaluate the effects of the condemnation of John Wyclif’s atomism at the Council of Constance. It is quite certain, however, that some philosophers have defended his views at Oxford before 1415. As we have seen with the cases of Robert Alyngton and Roger Whelpdale, the main difference with John Wyclif lies in the fact that they avoid mentioning theological arguments and religious concerns. If their aim is to defend John Wyclif, they defend him as a philosopher, not as a theologian or a reformer of the Church. They do not only defend him, they develop his atomist theory and try to forge a more solid and systematic account of mathematical and physical reality. Indeed, in the works we have presented so far, and more particularly in Roger Whelpdale’s treatise on the continuum, John Wyclif’s disciples endeavour to turn his mathematical and metaphysical atomism into a physical theory, which is able to deal with almost all the questions raised by Aristotle’s Physics.

STEPHEN E. LAHEY* STANISLAUS OF ZNOJMO AND THE ECCLESIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF WYCLIF’S DIVINE IDEAS

Arguments about the doctrine that the church consists of the gracefavored Elect were central to the genesis of Hussitism in early fifteenthcentury Prague. When Wyclif’s writings appeared in the 1380s, Bohemian theologians had already been struggling with questions about how to understand this question. Wyclif’s deterministic interpretation of Augustine’s definition of the church was itself the product of his earlier philosophical theology, particularly as expressed in his Summa de ente. Wyclif addressed his treatises concerned with the divine nature, including De ideis, De intelleccione Dei, De sciencia Dei, and De volucione Dei, on questions concerning the causal power of God’s understanding of creation, and most notably, those concerning God’s absolutely necessary understanding of human actions. When Bohemian theologians began to read Wyclif’s philosophical theology, they quickly fastened on Wyclif’s doctrine of the divine ideas. Such was their fascination with this doctrine that the halls of Charles University rung with debates about the nature of the divine world of archetypes well into the third decade of the fifteenth century. Hus himself was a proponent of a Wyclif-inspired understanding of the divine ideas, and like Wyclif, he developed an ecclesiology that was identified as dangerously deterministic1. Before understanding Hus’s thought, though, one must understand the world in which Hus developed as a thinker. His teacher, Stanislaus of Znojmo (d. 1414), was the foremost authority on Wyclif’s thought in Prague in the 1390s and 1400s: his reading of Wyclif’s *

Department of Classics and Religious Studies, University of Nebraska, Lincoln NE, U.S.A., [email protected] 1 See Jan Hus, Super IV Sententiarum, Ed. by V. FLAJŠHANS, Nákladem Jaroslava Bursíka, Praha 1904, I, dist. 35, a. 3, p. 154/28 «nullum eum Dei intelligere terminatur ad existenciam creature principaliter, sed ad eius ydeam, a qua habet esse». See my «The Sentences Commentary of Jan Hus», in F. ŠMAHEL – O. PAVLÍČEK (eds.), A Companion to Jan Hus, Brill, Leiden 2015, pp. 130-169; P. SOUKUP, Jan Hus, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2014; T. FUDGE, Jan Hus Religious Reform and Social Revolution in Bohemia, I.B. Tauris, London – New York 2010; M. SPINKA, John Hus’ Concept of the Church, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1966.

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philosophical theology was at the center of the Wyclif movement in Prague in those years. Later, he opposed Wyclif’s ecclesiology with great zeal. The question of whether he compromised his earlier metaphysics in doing so will underlie our survey of the relation of Wyclif’s doctrine of divine ideas, and its subsequent impact on his ecclesiology, to the thought of Stanislaus on those two topics. When Thomas Netter arranged his massive list of the errors of Wyclif and his followers into the Doctrinale, he paid special attention to the connection of Wyclif’s metaphysics to his conception of the church. Netter devoted the whole of the first book to errors about God’s nature, God’s understanding of creatures, and the nature of Christ, and the second to the nature of the church. In the second, the first eight chapters concern papal authority, but the next fifteen address the true nature and membership of the church. In the first book, one of the chief issues regarding Wyclif’s theology is the determinism that Netter views amounts to double predestination; the same concern underlies his criticism of Wyclif’s ecclesiology in the second. Netter devotes his attention in the first book to Wyclif’s doctrine of divine ideas, which he views as dissolving the boundaries between God and creation. If all things have some form of being in God, he argues, then all things are, in some sense, God. And if God eternally knows all things of necessity, then there is no real freedom in creation. Someone God foreknows to be damned for a choice made in adulthood is, even as a child, damned2. The result of this, for the church, is that only the Elect are true members of Christ’s body, while the damned are not. The dangerous conclusion Wyclif draws, Netter concludes, is that any member of the clergy, then, who is not among the Elect, ought not be obeyed3. Netter effectively provides a collection of premises that establish that Wyclif’s doctrine of divine ideas leads directly to his heretical view of the church. This view, that there is a true church composed of the Elect which is likely not identical with the Roman church, was at the heart of Hus’s 2 See Thomas Netter, Doctrinale antiquitatum fidei catholicae ecclesiae contra Wiclevistas et Hussitas, Ed. by B. BLANCIOTTI, 3 vols., Typis Antonii Bassanesii ad S. Cantianum, Venetiis 1757-1759, vol. 1, Lib. 1, a. 1, cap. 2, coll. 38-43. For an overview of Netter’s criticism of Wyclif, see K.J. ALBAN, O. Carm., The Teaching and Impact of the Doctrinale of Thomas Netter of Walden (c.1374-1430), Brepols, Turnhout 2010, esp. pp. 63-85. 3 Thomas Netter, Doctrinale, vol. 1, Lib. 2, a. 2, cap. 9, coll. 279-284.

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theology, and was central to the Hussite ideology. I would formulate the reasoning this way: 1. God eternally and perfectly knows each creature in the divine ideas. 2. God’s perfect knowledge of a creature entails knowledge of its membership in the Body of Christ. 3. If someone has been baptized, and is a believing member of the Roman church, it is possible that this person will, in the future, commit a mortal sin thereby obviating membership in the true Body of Christ. 4. Membership in the Body of Christ in time is primarily grounded in God’s eternal knowledge, and only secondarily in the individual’s actions. 5. Therefore, God eternally and perfectly knows the true membership of the Body of Christ on earth, which membership is not the same as membership in the Roman church. While Wyclif was aware that he could be understood as having made this argument, and devoted great efforts to show its errors, his followers were not necessarily prepared to follow his arguments regarding the difference in kind between God’s understanding and God’s knowing, and between the necessity by which God knows something to occur in creation and the necessity by which it occurs4. Evidence for this lies in Peter Payne’s De necessitate absoluta evenientium, written shortly after his arrival in Prague in 1415. Payne, an Oxford-educated disciple of Wyclif, appears to have been asked to explain how Wyclif’s famous phrase, «Omnia qui eveniunt de necessitate absoluta eveniunt» was commensurate with the contingency with which human beings will5. Payne’s distillation of Wyclif’s arguments 4

See I.C. LEVY, «Grace and Freedom in the Soteriology of John Wyclif», Traditio, 60 (2005) 279-337; S.E. LAHEY, John Wyclif, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, pp. 169-199 for overviews of Wyclif’s arguments regarding determinism and the nature of necessity. 5 See L. CAMPI, «Una difesa del determinismo dell’ultimo Wyclif attribuita a Peter Payne», Rivista di storia della filosofia, 70 (2015) 829-871 (the edition of Payne’s De necessitate absoluta evenentium is at pp. 843-859); S.E. LAHEY, «Peter Payne Explains Everything that Happens», in J. SMRČKA – Z. VYBÍRAL (eds.), Jan Hus 1415 a 600 let poté, Husitské Museum v Táboře, Tábor 2015 (Husitský Tábor, Supplementum 4), pp. 129-143. See also L. CAMPI, «Determinism between Oxford and Prague. The Late

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from De universalibus, Trialogus, and elements of De intelleccione Dei suggests that few of his Bohemian colleagues had pursued the finer points of Wyclif’s metaphysics6. One Bohemian reader of Wyclif stands above the rest in his grasp of Wyclif’s philosophical system. Stanislaus of Znojmo does not have the stature in the history of the Hussite movement that he should have. After all, he was the foremost Bohemian master among the followers of Wyclif at Charles, author of a longer and a shorter treatise on De universalibus, a treatise exploring the connection of true predication in language and truths in the world (De vero et falso), a treatise on the nature of human happiness (De felicitate), another on soteriology and the Christian life (De gratia et peccato), and numerous shorter works on a host of subjects philosophical and theological. His grasp of Wyclif’s thought was superb, I will argue, and he appears to have been very sensitive to the dangers in the line of reasoning outlined above. Before analyzing his thought on the divine ideas and determinism, it is important to understand his having been relegated to a comparatively minor role in the history of the Hussites7. Wyclif’s Retractions and Their Defense Ascribed to Peter Payne», in J.P. HORNBECK II – M. VAN DUSSEN (eds.), Europe after Wyclif, Fordham University Press, New York 2016, pp. 115-134. 6 Procopius of Pilsen represents an exception. He explored the simple necessity by which God produces creatures in a quaestio, Utrum simpliciter necessario multitudo ydearum prerequiritur ad multitudinem productorum (MS Praha, Národní knihovna, X.E.24, ff. 150v-155r). 7 For a catalogue of Stanislaus’s works, see P. SPUNAR, Repertorium auctorum Bohemorum provectum idearum post Universitatem Pragensem conditam illustrans, Tom. 1, Officina editoria Academiae Scientiarum Poloniae, Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk – Łódź 1985 pp. 286-304 (entries 779-841); S. SOUSEDÍK, «Stanislaus z Znojma (Eine Lebenskizze)», Medievalia Philosophica Polonorum, 17 (1973) 37-56; F. ŠMAHEL, «Wyclif’s Fortune in Hussite Bohemia», in ID., Die Prager Universität im Mittelalter, Brill, Leiden 2007, pp. 467-489 (an expanded English version of his earlier «Universalia realia sunt heresis seminaria», Československy Časopis historický, 16 (1968) 797-818); ID., «The Faculty of Liberal Arts 1348-1419», in Die Prager Universität im Mittelalter, pp. 213-271; G. NUCHELMANS, «Stanislaus of Znaim (d.1414) On Truth and Falsity», in E.P. BOS (ed.), Medieval Semantics and Metaphysics, Brepols, Nijmegen 1985, pp. 314-341; J. SEDLÁK, «Stanislav ze Znojma na Moravě», Hlídka, 24 (1907) 173-177: 173; S. SOUSEDÍK, «Pojem distinctio formalis u českých realistů v době Husově», Filosoficky časopis, 18 (1970) 1024-1029; V. HEROLD, Pražká Univerzita a Wyclif, Univerzita Karlova, Praha 1985; S. SOUSEDÍK, «Traktát Stanislava ze Znojma De Vero et Falso», Filosoficky časopis, 63 (2016-2017)

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Wyclif’s thought had been condemned in Prague in 1403, but that condemnation seems only to have fanned the flames of Bohemian interest in his philosophy8. In 1409, Archbishop Zbyněk consigned Wyclif’s books to the flames, thereby moving their author from theologically controversial to politically dangerous; Stanislaus and his protégé Stephen of Páleč had been ordered to Rome earlier, and when they returned, they had been convinced of their errors, and set about vigorously opposing their quondam students and followers. Stanislaus’s works from 1410 until his death in 1414 are no longer notable for their subtle arguments, careful reasoning, or incisive questions; it is as if he had been instructed to write no longer with a razor-sharp pen, but with a club. His attacks on the 45 errors of the Hussites are clumsy, predictable, and lacking imagination, and his several works against Hus’s conception of the church rely wholly on authoritative sources, a ploddingly orthodox reading of Scripture, and hackneyed organological metaphors. Three treatises criticizing Hus’s view of the church are associated with Stanislaus: Tractatus de Romana ecclesia (1412), Tractatus de ecclesia (Contra hereses et errores Iohannis Hus), Alma et venerabilis (Replicacio magistri Stanislai [...] Contra Hus, 141213) and Contra dogmata Iohannis Hus (1413)9. Of these, the latter two are 831-858. I have discussed Stanislaus on the divine ideas in describing the basis for his understanding of the relation of propositions to reality in «Stanislaus of Znojmo and Prague Realism: First Principles of Theological Reasoning», Kosmas, 28 (2015) 9-26. 8 É. JEAUNEAU, «Plato Apud Bohemos», Mediaeval Studies, 41 (1979) 161-214; F. ŠMAHEL, «Wyclif’s Fortune in Hussite Bohemia», pp. 467-489. For a catalogue of extant Bohemian works on Ideas and Universals see ID., «Verzeichnis der Quellen zum Prager Universalienstreit 1348-1500», Medievalia Philosophica Polonorum, 25 (1980). For an overview of Charles University and Wycliffism, see ID., Alma Mater Pragensis, Karolinum, Praha 2016, pp. 229-409. Vilém Herold wrote extensively on the importance of Wyclifs doctrine of the divine ideas for the Hussite ideology. Among the last of his works are his «Intelligibilní bytí stvořených věci v Bohu v nauce o ideách Jana Wyclifa», Filosoficky časopis, 63 (2015) 815-831 and «Master Jan Hus and St. Augustine», Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice, 8 (2011) 42-51. More recently, see M. DEKARLI, «Suppositio Universalia Realia sunt Ponenda est Admittenda: Nominalismus a Realismus na Pražské Univerzitě v Pozdním Středověku ve Světle Jednoho Anonymního Logického Traktátu z Let 1394-1397», Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis, 54/2 (2014) 11-42. 9 Stanislaus of Znojmo, Tractatus de Romana ecclesia, Ed. by J. SEDLÁK, in Hlídka, 28 (1911) 83-95; Stephen of Páleč, Tractatus de ecclesia, in M. Jan Hus, Ed. by J. SEDLÁK, Dědictví sv. Prokopa, Praha 1915, pp. 202-304 (partial); J. SEDLÁK, «Die Streitschrift der theologischen Fakultät gegen die Replik der Hussiten», Archiv

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likely to have been jointly authored by Stanislaus and Stephen of Páleč; only the former contains evidence that could be interpreted as having a bearing on the relation of Wyclif’s metaphysics to ecclesiology. It will help to begin with a brief overview of Wyclif’s treatise on the divine ideas; the completed edition of Vilém Herold and Ivan Mueller will appear shortly in the Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi series. First, Wyclif addresses the objection that it makes no sense to say that an act has being in some way distinct from its agent. When Socrates roasts a potato (my example), there is no ‘roasting’ distinct from Socrates or the potato. When Socrates understands that it needs some salt, there is no understanding distinct from Socrates. So why posit a set of divine understandings? If God understood only actual creatures, Wyclif explains, there might be no need to distinguish the set of God’s understandings as distinct from what is understood. But God understands more than simply what is; God must understand what might be, possible being, as well as what is. This makes two classes of intentional objects in God, or two classes of things understood: what is, and what can be10. These two kinds suggest division, and division cannot be between nothings. So there must be some sense in which divine ideas have reality. This seems debatable; could one not say that God understands the dog, and God understands the elephant, and since there cannot be division between nothings, it follows that these two acts of understanding have some degree of reality? Wyclif is not presenting a serious argument for the reality of divine ideas here; he is introducing the main classes of divine ideas with which he intends to explore God’s understanding, namely ideas of possibles, actuals, necessaries, and impossibles. The main topic of this treatise is God’s understanding of things or acts that really occur in creation. To us, the vast range of what is actual or real is diminished because we live für Österreichische Geschichte, 75 (1889) 361-416. De ecclesia remains unedited; see SPUNAR, Repertorium Auctorum Bohemorum, p. 291; I use MS Praha, Narodni knihovna, XIII.E.7, ff. 195r-252r. 10 John Wyclif, De ideis, Ed. by V. HEROLD – I.J. MUELLER, unpublished, cap. 1: «Idem autem suppono esse rem esse intellectam et rem intelligi, et rem esse intelligibilem et istam esse aptam natam intelligi vel posse intelligi. Sed constat cuicumque logico quod non oportet, si quicquam intelligitur, quod habet esse existere. Quod autem omnis intelligibilitas sit entitas, patet ex hoc quod omne ens est entitas, ex I° tractatu I libri. Sed omnis intelligibilitas est ens, ut patet ex eodem, igitur est entitas». All citations from this treatise are with the permission of Ivan Mueller.

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within time and space. A future contingent event to us is either an actual to God, if it occurs in the future, or a counterfactual possible, if it does not. Is the future contingent, once it does not occur, now an impossible? No; while it is impossible that an event that did not occur in the past be changed in the present, so that it did occur in the past, before its non-occurrence, it was possible, even if now it is a counterfactual. If it was always impossible, it was never a future contingent. In this treatise, the main issue is God’s knowledge of possibles. First, if God knows that a fact is possible, is that God knows this a ground for attributing actual being to the fact in some sense? Wyclif says no. Next, if God has an eternal idea for creation, then creation is eternally real in a sense, and there is no real distinction between the eternally real creation and God, making God into all things in creation. This is the question that Netter uses to show how Wyclif is in error, and Wyclif goes to great lengths to establish how this argument involves mixing up species of predication11. Wyclif takes the opportunity to distinguish between the formal predication of being in the first premise, and the essential predication of being in the second, allowing him to formulate a response to the objection by holding that one can say that every idea is God, using essential predication, and no idea is God, using formal predication. Netter appears to have ignored this distinction in his criticism of Wyclif’s position in Doctrinale, making Wyclif into a pantheist12. Six conclusions follow from Wyclif’s analysis of the non-identity of God’s being with the being of the object of an idea. First, God has no idea of impossibles. Second, God’s knowledge of a possible is not the basis for attributing any kind of actuality to that possible. Third, pantheism is 11 See John Wyclif, De ideis, cap. 3: «Ad secundam rationem dicitur quod oportet catholicum quodammodo aequivocare in ista materia. Et hoc est valde oportunum ut habeat scalam per quam gradatim ascendat in Deum». 12 Wyclif expressly warns against lack of care in this matter; see John Wyclif, De ideis, cap. 3: «Sed quia credo quod ex iam dictis vel forte alias subtilius consideratis maior pars huius auditorii sane concipit: illis confidenter praedico quod omnis creatura fuit vita aeterna in Deo. Laicis autem propter defectum capacitatis illud subticeo, nec scio quibus exprimeretur sensus Scripturae si non talibus! Et revera, quod dormiret in illo esset nimis magna vecordia et intelligibile fundamentum Ecclesiae, tam subtilem et necessariam sapientiam, omittere». See HEROLD, «Intelligibilní bytí stvořených věci v Bohu v nauce o ideách Jana Wyclifa», pp. 815830.

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incommensurate with Wyclif’s position. Fourth, God does not generate ideas. Fifth and sixth, while «Peter is» and «Peter is in God» is a legitimate equivocation, one cannot convert that equivocation into univocation. From these, Wyclif establishes that divine ideas are relations of reason, and continues to the final conclusion that God only has ideas for possibles that will be, and actuals; God has no ideas for counterfactuals13. This leads to his assertion that, simply because God’s ideas are causally prior to creatures, it does not follow that creatures lack causal efficacy. How creatures maintain causal power is one of the main topics of De universalibus, making De ideis the necessary prequel to that treatise. Many of the frankly puzzling elements of De universalibus are less puzzling with a firm grip on the argument of De ideis, particularly the difficult issue of keeping the species of predication of identity and difference upon which so much of De universalibus relies. Stanislaus understood this, and begins his De universalibus treatise with four chapters on the divine ideas14. There are three things intelligible about any creature in the divine mind, he says: God’s understanding about any given fact about the creature, God’s understanding of the creature as a being in itself, and finally, God’s understanding about each universal associated with the being of that creature. Each relies upon the latter, which demands that Stanislaus account for the former two before exploring universals. The divine mind, he explains, is a mirror in which the ideas 13

John Wyclif, De ideis, cap. 5: «Secundum patet quod nullum impossibile et nihil quod non potest esse habet ideam in Deo. Patet dupliciter: primo quia Deus nullum tale intelligit, secundo quia omnis idea est exemplar producendi creaturam ad extra, sed nullum tale potest a Deo produci, igitur nullum tale habet ideam. Si tamen Deus intelligeret aliquod tale quod non posset esse, non video quin Deus haberet exemplar aeternum penes se, per quod illud intelligeret, sicut patet de ista veritate: “hoc est intellectum”. Et tunc oportet ponere duplices ideas: ad intellectionem et productionem Dei, sicut et ideam ad conservationem, et sic in infinitum procedendo. Sed illud tollitur per interemptionem assumpti». 14 Stansilaus of Znojmo, De universalibus, in John Wyclif, Miscellanea Philosophica, Ed. by M.H. DZIEWICKI, 2 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1905, vol. 2, pp. 1-188. Dziewicki published Stanislaus’s De universalibus as likely Wyclif’s work, which error was first recognized by J. SEDLÁK, «Filosofické spory pražské V době Husově», in ID., Studie a texty k náboženským dějinám českým, 2 (1915), pp. 200-203, and then by S.H. THOMSON in «Some Latin Works Erroneously Ascribed to Wyclif», Speculum, 3 (1928) 383-384. See SPUNAR, Reportorium Auctorum Bohemorum, p. 292.

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are images of creatures.15 This analogy evokes Wyclif, who describes the being of the ideas as like the being of the reflections of things in a mirror. But there is a notable difference between the two descriptions: Wyclif does not delineate a difference in kind between the intelligibility of a creature’s action, and the creature, as Stanislaus does. While Wyclif recognizes an idea for every possibility and every act, he does not distinguish between them as though they are different in kind. Stanislaus continues by expanding the range of possibles from only what will be actual to include counterfactuals as well. God does not have an idea of a possible because it will become real sometime, but God understands every possible, whether actualized in time or not, with simple necessity. For Wyclif, God understands eternally that 1) Before Time N, «Peter lies» and «Peter does not lie» are compossible contingents, but 2) At Time N, «Peter lies» is actualized, meaning that God eternally understands 1) without understanding «Peter does not lie» as a distinct possibility. Stanislaus expands this by arguing that God understands 1) Before Time N, «Peter may lie», 2) Before Time N, «Peter may not lie», 3) At Time N, «Peter lies» and «Peter does not lie» was possible but now is not. This matters because Stanislaus’s insistence that God understands counterfactuals reduces the determinism Wyclif must work so vigorously to avoid in De universalibus. Introducing counterfactuals into the mix expands the breadth of divine ideas considerably. Stanislaus recognizes this, and follows with a discussion of God’s understanding of degrees of force. That is, does God have a distinct idea for ‘96 degrees’, ‘175 degrees’, and so on? No; any degree of magnitude contains within it all of the lesser degrees of magnitude, so God need only have the highest possible degree of magnitude of a given force to understand the realm of possibilities within that given force. For example, God does not have a separate idea for ‘34 degrees Celsius’ and for ‘38 degrees Celsius’; God simply understands the absolute magnitude of heat, thereby containing all possible iterations of heat16. This illustrates another point. Is there the possibility of an infinite range in a scale? Stanislaus reflects that if there were an infinite number of degrees, there would be no first, most basic level, and so no means of determining the individual increment that defines the degree. Since 15 16

Stansilaus of Znojmo, De universalibus, cap. 2, p. 6/1-16. Stansilaus of Znojmo, De universalibus, cap. 4, pp. 20/29-22/25.

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motion, increase, or decrease in any given medium is not arbitrary, there must be a primary idea for every scale defining the minimum, maximum, and increment of increase and decrease. This applies, for example, in assessing substantial accidents. God does not have an idea for ‘moist’, ‘soaked’, ‘dry’, or any other word we use to assess degrees of moisture in a substance; God understands liquid and substance, and the base unit of relation of the two. There is enough here to assay an answer to the question whether God has an idea of the church. To establish whether there can be such a thing, we need to look for criteria by which to identify whether something we understand to be real is something corresponding to a divine idea. One of the main topics for understanding created substance in Aristotelian thought is the relation of identity and difference. We have already alluded to this when acknowledging that lack of care about this issue allows one to assume that creation is identical to God if God has an understanding of each creature. In chapters 9-12 of his De universalibus, Stanislaus examines how a particular property inheres in a thing so that it imparts a specific identity to that thing. For us, that property is the ability to reason; having this ability in a way that it stands out, speciates us. The subject of that property receives its specific identity from this property. In our case, our specific identity as human beings is based in the property of being able to reason. But Stanislaus also does not describe things in terms of identity, as Wyclif did. Instead, he speaks in terms of composition17. This is, in itself, interesting; it suggests an approach to describing individual being evocative of John Duns Scotus, who describes a creature as a composite of natural kinds and an individual nature, a haecceity, rather than as a singular entity in which natural kinds inhere and bear identity relations of various stripes to one another. Scotus gained his reputation as for formidable complexity by carefully assessing questions such as, when is it suitable to account for an individual being in terms of how its general and specific natures inhere and share an identity with that individual, and when to consider the individual as a composition of abstract, non-numerically unified natures and an abstract particular individuating factor, the haecceity. Wyclif approached this question in a slightly different manner. He preferred to frame the question in terms of 17

Stansilaus of Znojmo, De universalibus, cap. 10, p. 59/5; compare with John Wyclif, De universalibus, Ed. by I.J. Mueller, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1985, cap. 4.

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predication rather than ontology. That is, when he seeks to understand how general and specific natures inhere in an individual, at once sharing being with that individual while maintaining a distinct reality, Wyclif describes the differences in terms of kinds of predication. He describes the difference between a genus and a species in an individual being as a formal difference within a single essence, which is identified through formal predication about that essence. So to say «Socrates is a human being» and «Socrates is an animal» involves truths predicated of Socrates pointing to two formally distinct natures within Socrates18. Stanislaus seems to have had a taste for Scotus’s approach, because he borrows from it here by describing the individual being of a thing using the latter, ontological method, rather than Wyclif’s method of describing kinds of predication. The two methods are certainly not incompatible; Scotus used both as it suited him. But there is an important difference between Scotus and Wyclif that makes Stanislaus’s choice significant. The reason Wyclif frames his metaphysical explanation of the relation of forms in things in terms of predication is that his entire philosophical system rests on his pan-propositionalism19. For him, reality is everything that is so. If it is so, it must be arranged the way we perceive it to be; so if a dog is sitting in a tree, what is true is «A dog is sitting in a tree». That propositionally structured statement, with a subject and a predicate, is isomorphic with the dog sitting in the tree. Everything that is so, or can be so, is known by God in exactly the way propositions are structured, so that God knows, «Peter lies at Time N» because Peter lies at Time N is the truth. When we think about the metaphysical components of Socrates, so that «Socrates is a Man and Socrates is an animal» is a true conjunct, the kind of predication we use matters. Socrates cannot be two things at once, so «being a man» and «being an animal» must be formally distinguishable predicates, both true of Socrates at the same time. Hence, Wyclif frames 18

John Wyclif, De universalibus, cap. 4, pp. 92/164-95/212. See Paul Spade’s lucid explanation of the relation of kinds of predication to kinds of difference in his «Introduction» to Anthony Kenny’s translation of De universalibus: John Wyclif, On Universals, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1985, pp. vii-l: xx-xlv. 19 L. CESALLI, Le réalisme propositionnel: Sémantique et ontologie des propositions chez Jean Duns Scot, Gauthier Burley, Richard Brinkley et Jean Wyclif, Vrin, Paris 2007; ID., «Propositions: Their Meaning and Truth», in C. DUTILH NOVAES – S. READ (eds.), Cambridge Companion to Medieval Logic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2016, pp. 245-264.

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his discussion of the relation of forms in a substance in terms of formal predication. What complicates matters is that Wyclif’s approach leads to surprising claims about the reality of groups. That is, if «The Chicago Cubs win the world series in 2016» is true, then «The Chicago Cubs» must have a degree of reality somehow20. It would have to be something more than [«player A wins [...] », «player B wins [...]» etc. naming all the players on the team] because simply naming the constituents of an aggregate is itself a kind of predication, the same way naming the kinds of forms in a creature is a kind of predication. Is ‘The Chicago Cubs’ a subject in reality? If so, is ‘The Church’ a subject in reality? If it is true to say «The Church is made up of the Elect», then what sort of predication is used? And does God know «the Church» as a real subject in creation through a divine idea? Wyclif’s understanding of the nature of Scripture demands that he understand ‘the Church’ as a real subject in creation. First, he holds that every truth is known by God, and «as I make clear in my De ideis, every creature according to its intelligible being is God Himself, in keeping with that passage in John 1:1-2, «that which was made, in Him was life»21. But if the Church is a collection of people, does that make it something beyond the sum of its parts? Wyclif explains that real beings made up of a set of beings are either aggregates or mixtures in De Logica. An aggregate, he holds, is a juxtaposition of bodies which, had we eyes sharp enough to see them, is just a collection of bodies without a superadded substantial form. If the bodies are joined together somehow so that a new form emerges from the combination, there is a mixture or a compound. A group of human beings, while they all share the same composite form Humanity, may appear to be an aggregate, but Wyclif understands them to be a mixture, or a compound, because each human being is individually a compound of disparate forms, identified by the superadded substantial form of individual identity. So a set of beings, each itself an individualized mixture of elements, must itself be a mixture, even if they are members of one species22. He speaks of the 20

D.P. Henry commented on this in «Wyclif’s Deviant Mereology», in O. PLUTA (ed.), Die Philosophie im 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, Grüner, Amsterdam 1988, pp. 1-17. 21 John Wyclif, De veritate sacrae Scripturae, Ed. by R. BUDDENSIEG, 3 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1905-1907, vol. 1, p. 392; cf. Id., On the Truth of Holy Scripture, Transl. by I.C. LEVY, TEAMS, Kalamazoo, MI 2001, p. 208. 22 John Wyclif, Tractatus de logica, Ed. by M.H. DZIEWICKI, 3 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1893-1899, vol. 3, cap. 9, pp. 79-80. Confusingly, he describes the species

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church frequently as if it were a mixture, just like an individual human being. «[...] [T]he whole church is one body successively, for which there is greater care from Christ than for any of its simple parts»23. «All the Elect, from the beginning of the world through to the day of judgement, are one person, which is the mother church»24. While Wyclif never specifically describes a divine idea of the Church, its existence is unavoidable, as Netter saw, given his description of composite beings. Does Stanislaus perceive this? Before addressing his understanding of the church, we should start with how Stanislaus describes individuation. Stanislaus describes God’s creation of an individual creature as first beginning with the most general essence, substantiality, and combining this with the immediate essential nature, say animality and felinity, which combination creates a feline essence in which these natures are only distinct from one another through our rational recognition, what scholastics call a distinction of reason. This is not two distinct things, substantiality and essential nature, mixed together into one essence, but one essence in which the two parts are really one. Finally, God imprints the cat that results with an individual essence itself not made of anything else. In Stanislaus’s words, «God imprints it with the most individuated quiddity appropriate to it, as Socrateity to Socrates»25. This is, I think, the crucial distinguishing characteristic delineating Stanislaus from Wyclif; Stanislaus argues that there is an abstract particular nature, a haecceity, distinguishing a particular creature from all others like it26. Wyclif does not. He views a creature as two natures combined, from which a third individual nature arises as an emergent property. That is, Stanislaus views a creature as put together by God, a part of which is the abstract particular nature that makes it individual, while Wyclif understands Humanity as an aggregate singular man, and the whole church is one aggregate person, in Id., De veritate sacrae Scripturae, vol. 3, 30, p. 223. Either way, the result is the same: the church is a real entity, not a fictional being. See also Id. De composicione hominis, Ed. by R. BEER, Trübner & Co., London 1884, cap. 1, pp. 12-15. 23 John Wyclif, De veritate sacrae Scripturae, vol. 1, cap. 10, p. 213/21-22. 24 John Wyclif, Tractatus de ecclesia, Ed. by J. LOSERTH – F. D. MATTHEW, Trübner & Co., London 1886, cap. 1, pp. 20-21. 25 Stanislaus of Znojmo, De universalibus, cap. 9, p. 56/31-34. See also Id. Tractatus de felicitate, Ed. by S. SOUSEDÍK, in Medievalia Philosophica Polonorum, 19 (1974) 65-126: 89-91. 26 Stanislaus of Znojmo, De universalibus, cap. 9, pp. 59-63.

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the individuality to arise from the creature’s coming to be from the combination of the universals by community in the action of the causal universals in time and space. Stanislaus establishes that any creature for which there is a divine idea must necessarily have an abstract particular organizing force, a haecceity. Given the twofold power of a divine idea, that is, given that it both represents a creature within the divine mind, and that it is the basis by which God causes the creature to come into being, the requirement for a divine idea of the church would be not only that it represent the body of the Elect in the divine mind, but that it would be the basis for the haecceity of the church as a creature –that the church be a creature in creation. The remarkable thing is that Stanislaus equivocates on this topic throughout his career. On the one hand, a creature must have a general and specific nature, universals by community that give it essential identity as a particular being. What could the general and specific nature of an aggregate be? Would not an idea for an aggregate, like the church, have a correspondent haecceity inhering in the aggregate but distinct, if only by reason, from the inherent haecceity of each member of the aggregate? Stanislaus does not expressly rule out such a thing in De universalibus, (dated to before 1400) but shortly thereafter, before 1404, in De vero et falso, he warns that exploring certain truths about the identity of whom God knows to be saved is best avoided. Hidden metaphysical truths have their grades. Some are near the surface, others more distant, and others lie hidden deep in the earth. So men according to varying degrees of subtlety and sharpness of human mind, with proportional aid from the first Truth, which is God, can have unearthed hidden intellectual truths [...]. Yet God does not allow certain hidden truths to be unearthed unless usefully to praise and honor God and nurture eternal life. God often, because of vain inquisition for the truth, permits useless and greedy digging [...]. the wise man frequently forbears in this excavation and inquiry into hidden truths, through which he merits full knowledge of truth in heaven [...]. An example is clear with knowledge reasonably prohibited by the church of God, even in sciences where it is generally permitted27.

27

Stanislaus of Znojmo, De vero et falso, Ed. by V. HEROLD, Ústav pro filozofii a sociologii ČSAV, Praha 1971, pp. 83/16-85/9.

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This warning appears in Stanislaus’s discussion of kinds of truth, just before he distinguishes between contingent and absolutely necessary truths. The latter kind are the components of the divine mind, and make up an archetypal world that no apparent truth in creation can gainsay. God’s knowledge of any fact, he continues, must be absolutely necessary, thereby illustrating His magnificence. This certainly entails knowledge of who merits salvation, as Stanislaus acknowledges in the next chapter, and can easily lead to confusion among believers. «Those who, without revelation of future salvation, believe all to occur with absolute necessity may waver in the fundamentals of religion and the Christian faith in their hearts, since they do not believe with firmness that God in His omnipotence can save them»28. It is difficult to avoid concluding that his warning against dangerous excavation is about speculation about the absolute necessity of predestination, and with it, a divine idea of the body of the Elect. On the other hand, Stanislaus’s vituperative and often rambling attacks on Hus’s concept of the church, the product of the last four years of his life, feature one metaphor again and again: the organological model of the church, sometimes with distinct parts, head, neck, body, and operations, like perception and understanding, just as any living body has, and other times, as a river. The church as a mystic body is more than simply a figure of speech. He describes it in Contra XLV articulos Wiclef as «a mystic composite, from material and formal parts»: the formal part is its mystic form, or the mystic formal principal, «and it has in itself such a form as a soul in an animal and its body»29. He gives a much more vivid picture of the church as a living, albeit non-human, body in Alma et venerabilis (14121413), another of his lengthy attacks on Hus’s concept of the church. Here he describes the church as a composite of matter and form: «the form is like a mystic trough in which the succeeding material parts of this pope and that cardinal flows in and out, as occurring to the church, which nevertheless remains always the same in number so far as mystic form [...] just as the Moldau remains the same in number over a century because it runs in the same trough, although some water is in one seventh, and other water in another; this trough can be called the apostolic see, in which Peter resided 28

Stanislaus of Znojmo, De vero et falso, p. 103/5-9. Stanislaus of Znojmo, Tractatus contra XLV articulos Ioannis Wiclef, Ed. By H. VON DER HARDT, in Magnum Oecumenicum Constantiense Concilium, Christianus Genschius, Francofurti – Lipsiae 1696-1742, Tom. III, Pars 13, coll. 212-335, a. XXXVII, col. 309. 29

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as head of the college of apostles [...]»30. His first treatise on the church, composed in 1412, explores the organological model with more depth. The church is a mystical body «flowing from Christ in a higher realm» with its origin based in Peter and the apostles. This mystical body, like any living body, has a sensus communis, the focal point for receiving, interpreting, and assessing all sense perceptions31. The pope functions in this role for the church, and all other ecclesiastical officials serve as the sense organs. Popes may come and go, but because the form of the church never varies, there is no real change in the living body. Popes also can err, just as the inner sense can sometimes make mistakes in interpreting the sense data. But this does not suggest that the church itself errs, nor that these errors suggest an inherent disorder in the mystical body32. Stanislaus’s account of individuation underlies this account. The soul is not the nature of the church, nor is the body. The haecceity of the church defines the mystical body, and attempts to define it in simple human terms must necessarily fail. Stanislaus’s target is Hus’s conviction that the Elect make up the church. The whole body is never gathered together in one place, and the company of the Elect is knowable only to God, so such a definition must necessarily fail. Continuing to cast doubt on membership like this, he concludes, can only lead to confusion and dissent, echoing his earlier admonition in De vero et falso. Stanislaus, like Wyclif, does not mention a divine idea for the church, even if, as it does for Wyclif, it could be argued that his philosophical system permits one. It is clear that he was aware of the danger of advocating a strong realist doctrine of divine ideas for considering issues of soteriology and ecclesiology by 1402, and was, to some extent, open to ecclesiastical correction when pressed in 1409. As to whether he expressly formulated his metaphysics to avoid Wyclif’s determinism regarding the church, his absence of direct reference to the subject provides no hard evidence in this regard.

30 Stanislaus of Znojmo, Tractatus «Alma et venerabilis», Ed. by J. LOSERTH, Beiträge zur Geschichte der hussitischen Bewegung, in Archiv für österreichische Geschichte, 75 (1889) 361-413: 372. 31 See De felicitate, pp. 106-107, where he cites Trialogus, Lib. 1, cap. 4 to explain sensus communis. 32 Stanislaus of Znojmo, Tractatus de Romana ecclesia, pp. 83-95.

IAN CHRISTOPHER LEVY* THE WORDS OF INSTITUTION AND DEVOTION TO THE HOST IN THE WAKE OF WYCLIF

It is quite possible that John Wyclif never thought through all the implications of his complicated and shifting views on Christ’s presence in the consecrated host. He knew what theories he did not like, but explaining precisely what he wanted to put in their place proved to be exceedingly difficult, especially as he rejected the established categories and terminology that formed the lingua franca of the late medieval schools. As it was, however, a discussion that should have remained within the lecture halls soon spilled into the general populace. And it was in that wider arena that otherwise abstruse speculations were wedded to larger matters that touched the very nature of the Church herself as the locus of Christ’s redemptive activity in this world. This essay will examine discussions of the eucharistic words of institution in the decades immediately following Wyclif’s death. We will ask, furthermore, why it mattered so much to opponents of the Wycliffites that those words rendered the historical body of Jesus Christ present on the altar at each Mass. We will also have cause to follow these discussions beyond Wyclif’s native England to Bohemia where questions of real presence and devotion to the consecrated host were debated, not simply between Hussites and their Roman opponents, but within the ranks of the Hussites themselves. We begin with a look at the words of institution spoken at every Mass by the priest who, standing in Christ’s place at the altar, offers up a sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world. What happens, precisely, when the priest speaks the words ‘Hoc est corpus meum’ such that the Lord’s body becomes present on the altar? Wyclif, it should be said, had no quarrel with the sacrificial component of the Mass; in that regard he was no proto-Protestant. Nor does he seem to have acknowledged that his rejection of transubstantiation might in some way undercut the salvific power of that sacrifice. To the extent that he dealt with questions regarding the Mass’s efficacy, he waded into traditional discussions as to how the *

Professor of Theology, Providence College, Providence, Rhode Island USA; [email protected]

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priest’s own moral standing might bear upon that effect for himself and those in attendance1. Nevertheless, Wyclif did have very strong opinions regarding the words of institution, which directly correlated with his views on Christ’s eucharistic presence. Wyclif insisted that in this brief proposition the demonstrative pronoun ‘hoc’ must consistently refer to the bread. For he believed that if it designates bread and wine at the beginning, and they are subsequently converted into something different at the end, then the proposition would either be false in its succession or just irrelevant to the conversion. If the pronoun, moreover, demonstrates what is already Christ’s body then nothing new is constituted; and if the pronoun connotes the body of Christ as that which is under the accidents without functioning as their subject, then this is just contrary to Scripture2. Wyclif was not swayed, therefore, by the argument of his opponents that the proposition is productive and transformative (factiva et conversiva) such that it anticipates its own verification: hence when one reaches the end of the proposition what was at first not true will then be true3. By way of some foundational principles, we note that in his 1360s De logica Wyclif had defined a proposition along traditional lines in keeping with Boethius and also William of Sherwood: «It is an indicative statement, grammatically correct, signifying something either true or false, and producing a complete thought in the mind of the hearer»4. And 1

For further discussion see I.C. LEVY, «Was John Wyclif’s Theology of the Eucharist Donatistic?», Scottish Journal of Theology, 53 (2000) 137-153. 2 John Wyclif, De eucharistia, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, Trübner & Co., London 1892, cap. 5, p. 123: «Si autem demonstratur pronomine panis aut vinum in principio et in fine fit conversio, tunc proposicio in sua successione foret falsa vel conversioni impertinens, nisi sompnietur quod Deus instituit proposicionem talem ad habendum efficaciam taliter convertendi; quod non fundabitur. Si demonstretur pronomine corpus Christi, tunc nihil novi constituitur, ut sic Christi carnis effectivum. Si autem pronomen connotat quod hoc sub istis accidentibuis non subiectatis est corpus Christi, petitur infundabiliter contra scripture ordinem sompniatum». For a full study of Wyclif’s eucharistic theology see: I.C. LEVY, John Wyclif’s Theology of the Eucharist in Its Medieval Context, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee 2014. 3 John Wyclif, De apostasia, Ed. by M.H. DZIEWICKI, Trübner & Co., London 1889, cap. 14, p. 188. 4 John Wyclif, De logica, Ed. by M.H. DZIEWICKI, 3 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1893-1899, vol. 1, cap. 5, p. 14: «oracio indicativa, congrua, verum vel falsum significans, perfectum intellectum reddens». See G. NUCHELMANS, Theories of Proposition: Ancient and Medieval Conceptions of the Bearers of Truth and Falsity,

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then, when addressing the type of proposition that is specifically relevant to the eucharistic formula, Wyclif observed that «a spoken proposition is composed from words successively uttered. And it exists only as long as any one of its parts is in existence; for it is a successive reality, just like time»5. Because the words of institution were, and must be, spoken out loud by somebody –first by Christ at the Last Supper and subsequently by priests at the altar– medieval theologians attempted to adapt theories of successive proposition to this utterance: ‘Hoc est corpus meum’. And since it was generally agreed that the body of Christ is not present under the species of the bread until the end of the formula’s enunciation, one needed to explain how the pronoun (hoc) could demonstrate a thing (corpus) that only becomes present at a future time. It was to that end that ca. 1245 the Dominican theologian Richard Fishacre had drawn a distinction between the time in which the words are being uttered (tempus in quo) and the time in view of which they are uttered (tempus pro quo). Even if all the elements of the proposition are not enunciated at the same instant, they are nevertheless spoken with reference to that last instant (pro ultimo instanti), and it is at this last instant that the proposition will be declared true. For example, says Fishacre, when I say ‘I am drinking’, this statement is not true at the moment when the ‘I’ is spoken, although it will be true by the time the enunciation is complete6. North-Holland, Amsterdam 1973, pp. 165-176; and C. KANN, «Assertive and nonAssertive Sentences: Classifications of the oratio perfecta in the Thirteenth Century», in A. MAIERÙ – L. VALENTE (eds.), Medieval Theories on Assertive and Non-Assertive Language, Olschki, Roma – Firenze 2004, pp. 245-257. 5 John Wyclif, De logica, vol. 1, cap. 5, p. 15: «Proposicio in voce componitur ex vocibus successive prolatis. Proposicio in voce est quamdiu aliqua pars eius est, quia est res successiva, sicut tempus». Here I am following Laurent Cesalli’s correction of this De logica text. Cesalli observes that Wyclif seems to be following Walter Burley who had opposed permanent things, like rocks, to successive things, such as time. Hence it is impossible for a vocal proposition to be a res permanens, since its parts ought necessarily exist one after another. See L. CESALLI, Le Réalisme Propositionnel. Sémantique et ontologie des propositions chez Jean Duns Scot, Gauthier Burley, Richard Brinkley et Jean Wyclif, Vrin, Paris 2007, p. 327. 6 P.J.J.M. BAKKER, «Hoc est corpus meum: l’analyse de la formule de la consécration chez des théologiens du XIVe et du XVe siècles», in C. MARMO (ed.), Vestigia, Imagines, Verba: Semiotics and Logic in Medieval Theological Texts, Brepols, Turnhout 1997, pp. 427-451; and A. DE LIBERA – I. ROSIER-CATACH, «L’Analyse Scotiste de la

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It should be noted that in his 1372 De scientia Dei Wyclif seems perfectly content to read the eucharistic formula successively: «It is nevertheless certain that a proposition is sufficiently true, even if its primary significate is not present for the duration [of the proposition], but is present either after or before [the proposition is complete], as with the proposition which the priest in the person of Christ utters when he says, ‘Hoc est corpus meum’. For surely this proposition is the sign of the confection of Christ’s body. It is certain that the body of Christ, as it is underneath the accidents of the host, is demonstrated by the pronoun [viz. ‘hoc’]. And it is also certain that the conversion or transference occurs for the first time only at the end [of the proposition] when the oration has been pronounced. For if one omits any part of this oration there can be no conversion, as the doctors generally say»7. Later in his career, however, Wyclif rejected the notion that the subject of a proposition could undergo a substantial conversion in the course of its utterance. He would instead insist that the bread Christ took in his hands is demonstrated by the first demonstrative pronoun (hoc), and the very same thing is indicated by the following possessive pronoun (meum). For no faithful person can be expected to believe that Christ accepted the bread and gave it to the disciples, unless he was thinking of the bread when he uttered that initial pronoun (hoc). Were this not the case, Christ would be deceiving his Church, having one thing in mind while indicating another by his gestures and words8. And yet Wyclif did not reject outright the formule de la consécration eucharistique», in MARMO (ed.), Vestigia, Imagines, Verba, pp. 171-201. 7 John Wyclif, De scientia Dei, Ed. by L. CAMPI, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2017, cap. 5, p. 49: «Certum est tamen quod proposicio est satis vera, etsi non habuerit pro mensura sui esse significatum primarium, set post vel ante, ut proposicio quam sacerdos in persona Christi profert, dicens: ‘Hoc est corpus meum’; que quidem proposicio est signum confeccionis corporis Christi. Certum est quod pronomine demonstratur corpus Christi ut est sub illis accidentibus hostie, et certum est quod conversio vel translacio est primo in fine, quando oracio est prolata, eo quod, dimittendo quamcunque partem huius oracionis, non convertit, ut dicunt doctores communiter». 8 John Wyclif, Trialogus cum supplemento Trialogi, Ed. by G. LECHLER, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1869, Lib. 4, cap. 3, pp. 251-252: «Nam priori pronomine demonstratur panis quem sumpsit in manibus; sed sequenti pronomine demonstratur idem quod fuit antea demonstratum; ergo per subjectum propositionis sacramentalis demonstratur etiam idem panis. Quomodo, rogo, caperet fidelis ingenium, quod Christus accepit panem in manibus, benedixit et fregit, et mandavit ex illo apostolos manducare, nisi

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transformative nature of the proposition. In fact, he said that in order for this to be a genuinely transformative (conversiva) proposition, the ‘hoc’ must supposit for the bread which remains after the consecration even though it is true that the bread is now –albeit in some indefinable spiritual manner– the body of Christ. Christ had blessed the bread before giving it to the disciples, which is an act of amelioration; the bread is elevated to a glorious state that it had not enjoyed only moments before the blessing. As Wyclif sees it, however, had the words of institution initiated a process of destruction such that the bread’s substance ceased to exist, this would amount to a curse (maledictio) rather than a blessing (benedictio). Actually, says Wyclif, it would have been a curse even more severe than withered the fig tree, for then at least the substance of the tree remained9. If Wyclif had merely proposed that the bread is bread alone and nothing more, such that Christ’s body is simply memorialized for those who eat by faith, his position would be easy to understand. But the fact is that Wyclif insisted that the bread does undergo a conversion into Christ’s body: sacramental and spiritual, as opposed to substantial, but a conversion just the same10. Appealing to basic Christological doctrine, Wyclif argued intellexerit priori pronomine illum panem? [...] tum etiam quia Christus aliter nimis illuderet suae ecclesiae; et ista ratio de demonstratione pronominis daret fidelibus plenam fidem». See however L. CESALLI, «Wyclif on the Felicity (Conditions) of Marriage», Vivarium, 49 (2011) 258-274, who notes that when Wyclif examined the formula for contracting marriage (ego te accipio in uxorem) he took issue with the use of the present tense, noting that when a word ceases to be, it does not exist anymore. As Cesalli notes, Wyclif would bypass the distinction between the tempus in quo and tempus pro quo. For Wyclif, however, precisely because the terms of the proposition are pronounced successively, and thus do not all exist at the same time, the marriage formula cannot do what it says. 9 John Wyclif, De eucharistia, cap. 9, p. 293: «Admisso ergo quod panis demonstratur in proposicione illa conversiva: Hoc est corpus meum, manifestum est quod supposita eius veritate sequitur panem remanere post consecracionem; nam post consecracionem est verum quod ille panis est corpus Christi, ideo post consecracionem remanet quod ille panis est panis. [...] Nam si ille panis benedictus secundum se totum destruatur, illa benediccio foret crudelior sive severior quam malediccio qua Christus maledixit ficui, Matt. XXI, quia post malediccionem ficus, substantia eius remansit arida, hic dicitur nichil de panis substancia remanere et conversio nichil facit ad bonitatem panis sive sue essencie». 10 See John Wyclif, Confessio, in Fasciculi Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif cum Tritico, Ed. by W.W. SHIRLEY, Longman – Brown – Green – Longmans – Roberts, London 1858, pp. 115-132: 115-117.

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that just as Christ is simultaneously God and man, so the sacrament can at once be bread and Christ’s body –the former naturally and the latter sacramentally11. As Wyclif attempted to clarify Christ’s spiritual, or sacramental, presence in the host, he enlisted another adverb: ‘virtually’. Virtual presence, for Wyclif, denotes, as the word’s root (virtus) would indicate, presence by way of a thing’s power. Thus, as he states in his De eucharistia: «Inasmuch as every material substance is diffused throughout a place, so it is impossible for the numerically same body to be extended to be extended throughout distant locations simultaneously. It is possible, however, for it to be extended in one place and yet possess a spiritual existence in another, as in a sign or through its power, just as it is said of a king. And so it is clear with respect to the body of Christ that it is present dimensionally in heaven and virtually present in the host as in a sign»12. Wyclif’s invocation of royal power as a suitable analogy for Christ’s eucharistic presence might be further clarified with a look at his De officio regis, wherein he directly addressed the means by which a king can be said to be present. Here Wyclif observed that a king, not unlike God himself, enjoys a threefold existence within his kingdom: as an individual body occupying a defined space; a still further presence extending as far as his appearance is perceived; and finally, the aforementioned virtual presence, which is to say presence by way of the power that he exercises over his whole kingdom13. If we turn to Wyclif’s Confessio we find one of his most careful presentations of the ways in which a thing can be said to be present. Here Wyclif states first of all: «We believe that the mode of existence of Christ’s body in the consecrated host is threefold: virtual, spiritual and sacramental. 11 John Wyclif, Sermones, Ed. by. J. LOSERTH, 4 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1897-1900, vol. 4, serm. 2, p. 15: «Veritas quidem est et fides ecclesie quod sicut Christus est simul Deus et homo, sic hoc sacramentum est simul corpus Christi et panis; panis naturaliter et corpus Christi sacramentaliter». 12 John Wyclif, De eucharistia, cap. 8, p. 271: «[...] sicut omnis materialis substancia per locum diffunditur, qualiter repugnat idem corpus in numero per distancia loca simul distendi; potest tamen distendi in uno loco et habere aliud esse spirituale in alio tamquam in signo aut in virtute, sicut dictum est de rege. Et sic patet de corpore Christi, quod est dimensionaliter in celo et virtualiter in hostia ut in signo». 13 John Wyclif, De officio regis, Ed. by A. POLLARD – Ch. SAYLE, Trübner & Co., London 1887, cap. 5, pp. 92-93: «Et propter hoc dicunt doctores quod rex habet ad similitudinem dei habet triplex esse in regno; scilicet esse individuale, esse presenciale, esse virtuale vel potenciale». Cf. Id. De eucharistia, cap. 9, p. 306.

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It is virtual as in the mode by which he [Christ] duly operates through his entire dominion according to the properties of his nature or grace. The [second] mode of existence is spiritual, as in the manner by which the body of Christ is present in the Eucharist and his saints through grace. And the third mode of existence is sacramental; this is the manner by which the body of Christ is present uniquely in the consecrated host. And just as the second mode presupposes the first, so the third mode presupposes the second»14. Wyclif is keen, however, to distinguish these three ways of being present, all of which are real, from three further levels, which are even more real. «Beyond those three modes of existence which belong to the body of Christ [in the host] there are three other modes which are more real and more true possessed by Christ’s body in heaven, namely the mode of existing substantially, corporeally, and dimensionally»15. It seems that, for Wyclif, the three lesser modes of existence enjoyed by Christ’s body in the host actually serve as signs for the three higher modes which the body possesses in heaven. The virtual, spiritual, sacramental way the body exists in the host is true and real, and is thus veritas; but it also functions as figura inasmuch as it signifies the so-called truer and more real way in which that very same body exists in heaven. If we respect Wyclif’s gradations of presence, or existence, we can see how it is that he remained confident that the words of institution do indeed effect a genuine transformation of the elements wrought by the power of the sacramental words (virtute verborum sacramentalium). Following the consecration, says Wyclif, the bread becomes Christ’s body supernaturally even as it retains its own essence which upholds the accidents16. Although 14 John Wyclif, Confessio, pp. 115-116: «Credimus enim quod triplex est modus essendi corporis Christi in hostia consecrata, scilicet virtualis, spiritualis, et sacramentalis. Virtualis est quo bene facit per totum suum dominium, secundum bona naturae vel gratiae. Modus autem essendi spiritualis est, quo corpus Christi est in eucharistia et sanctis per gratiam. Et tertius modus essendi sacramentalis, quo corpus Christi est singulariter in hostia consecrata. Et sicut secundus modus praeexigit primum, ita tertius modus secundum praeexigit, quia impossibile est praescitum carentem fide secundum justitiam praesentem conficere». 15 John Wyclif, Confessio, p. 117: «Sed praeter istos tres modos essendi corporis Christi, est dare tres alios modos realiores et veriores, quos corpus Christi appropriate habet in coelo; scilicet modus essendi substantialiter, corporaliter, et dimensionaliter». 16 John Wyclif, De apostasia, cap. 15, p. 196: «Ulterius, dico quod post consecracionem panis ille solum est corpus Christi supernaturaliter, licet essencia maneat subiectans naturaliter illas formas».

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Wyclif will not go so far as to say that the priest celebrating Mass creates the body of Christ, he will admit that the priest renders the substance which he consecrates Christ’s body and blood in some manner (quodammodo), an event which occurs miraculously by virtue of the Lord’s own words17. There were, of course, numerous scholastic opinions as to how precisely the words of institution functioned in the Mass. There was one opinion, however, that Wyclif found particularly objectionable. To trace that opinion we need to go back into the late twelfth century. It was then that Lotario di Segni –the future Pope Innocent III– in his De sacro altaris mysterio, addressed the question of what was demonstrated when Christ spoke the words ‘Hoc est corpus meum’. Specifically, Lotario asked what the demonstrative pronoun (hoc) was referring to here. He noted that it could not be referring to the bread, since bread cannot be Christ’s body. Nor can it refer to the body at that moment, since Christ had not yet completed the statement that effects the conversion. Lotario’s solution to this seemingly obscure scholastic question would endure among discussions of the consecratory formula for centuries to come. Even if not adopted by all, it was still regarded as a serious proposal at the turn of the fifteenth century. According to Lotario, at the Last Supper Christ actually consecrated the bread when he blessed it, such that it had been converted into his body before he said to his disciples, ‘This is my body’. Although Christ accomplished this by his own divine power through the blessing, he then presented the formula under which later priests would be able bless the host. What, then, does the pronoun ‘hoc’ demonstrate as the priest utters the words of consecration? The answer is nothing (nihil), for he is not employing these words in an assertive manner (enuntiative) but rather in a recitative way (recitative). The priest therefore is merely reciting, repeating out loud, the words which confer the power of Christ’s blessing18. 17

John Wyclif, De apostasia, cap. 14, p. 184: «Sed [sacerdos celebrans] facit substanciam consecrat esse quodammodo corpus Christi et sanguinem. Sed quia hoc fit miraculose per verba domini, et sacerdos solum ministratorie concurit, ideo dicitur solum conficere». 18 Lotario di Segni, De sacro altaris mysterio, PL 217, col. 868c-d: «Sed queritur, quid demonstratur Christus cum dixit: Hoc est corpus meum? Non panem, quia de pane non erat verum, quod corpus ejus existeret, nec corpus, qui nondum illa verba protulerat, ad quorum prolationem panem mutavit in corpus. [...] Ad hujus ergo quaestionis laqueo facile se absolvit, qui dicit, quod Christus tunc confecit,

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Lotario’s solution made its way into the Glossa Ordinaria on Gratian’s Decretum where the Eucharist is treated at length in the De consecratione section. It is within the gloss on the canon Timorem (De cons. 2, cap. 25) that the glossator, Johannes Teutonicus, notes that it is customarily asked what is demonstrated by the pronoun ‘hoc’. Johannes follows along the path outlined by Lotario just a few decades earlier, pointing out that the ‘hoc’ cannot refer to the bread, since the bread is not the body of Christ. Nor can it refer to the body, for it does not seem fitting that the ‘transubstantiation’ would occur prior to the completion of the whole formula. It is at this point that the glossator offers his own opinion, basically adopting Lotario’s solution, even if couched in different terminology. Nothing is demonstrated by this statement uttered by the priest, for the very fact that it is a case of material supposition (materialiter ponitur). Yet how, asks Johannes, could it be that transubstantiation takes place when nothing is signified by this statement? It is because when Christ uttered this phrase he employed it in a signifying manner (utebatur significative voce) whereas priests today are employing it materially (nos utimur materialiter)19. We see that Johannes substituted materialiter for Lotario’s recitative when describing the utterance of the priest. Although the adverb ‘recitative’ was most commonly employed in this case, Peter the Chanter had already sum benedixit. Nam si opponatur de sacerdote qui tunc consecrat, cum illa verba pronuntiat, respondetur, quod sacerdos nihil demonstrat, cum illis verbis non utatur enuntiative, sed recitative. Quemadmodum et Christus ait: Ego sum vitis vera; ego sum lux mundi, et innumera talia». It is not clear to me whether this recitation would qualify as what Geach calls an ‘unasserted proposition’. Elaborating on what he refers to as the ‘Frege point’ Geach writes: «A thought may have just the same content whether you assent to its truth or not; a proposition may occur in discourse now asserted now unasserted, and yet be recognizably the same proposition». See P. GEACH, «Assertion», The Philosophical Review, 74 (1965) 449-465; and also G. PINI, «Scotus on Assertion and the Copula: A Comparison with Aquinas», in MAIERÙ – VALENTE (eds.), Medieval Theories on Assertive and Non-Assertive Language, pp. 307-331. 19 De cons. 2, cap. 25, in Corpus juris canonici emendatum et notationibus illustratum Gregorii XIII. pont. max. iussu editum, 4 vols., Romae 1582, vol. 1 (Decretum Gratiani), col. 2518: «Ad hoc dico quod per hanc dictionem nihil demonstratur, nam ipsa materialiter ponitur ibi. Item Dominus utebatur significative voce illa; et nos utimur materialiter». See also Corpus Iuris Canonici, Ed. by E. FRIEDBERG, 2 vols., Bernhard Tauchnitz, Leipzig 1879 [repr. Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz 1959], vol. 1, col. 322.

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employed the adverb ‘materialiter’ with the same sense20. That the latter adverb specifically denotes an instance of material supposition seems to borne out by Richard Fishacre in his Sentences commentary (Lib. 4, d. 8). Richard observed that some say that when the priest utters these words he does not enunciate, but rather recites, the words of Christ. Hence the whole expression (oratio) is taken materialiter, which means that the pronoun ‘hoc’ functions there materially. It is just as if one were to say that ‘this pronoun hoc is a monosyllable’. The point being that the ‘hoc’ is not functioning demonstratively, but materially. For instance, says Fishacre, when one says that ‘amo is a part of an expression (oratio)’, one does not ask anything about its mode or time, since it is functioning here materialiter21. Fishacre’s definition, although offered here in the context of the eucharistic formula, runs very close to Wyclif’s own definition of material supposition as an instance in which a term stands in for itself (pro se ipso), for instance: ‘ego is a pronoun’, ‘dominus is a noun’, ‘amo is a verb’, and ‘Johannes is three syllables’22. This is not to say that Wyclif, at least in his later years, wished to see this principle applied to the ‘Hoc est corpus meum’ proposition. In fact, he specifically took issue with «certain decretists, such as the common glossator on De consecratione distinction 2, who maintain that nothing at all is demonstrated by the pronoun, since the whole prayer must be taken materially as though [the priest] is reciting what Christ has said». Yet, as Wyclif sees it, if the words of institution really are an instance of material supposition –whereby words stand in for words not things– they will be stripped of their effective sacramental power of conversion. The ‘hoc’ must demonstrate some actual thing in the world: this thing here to which one can point. Wyclif again maintains, therefore, that the pronoun ‘hoc’ signifies the bread throughout the proposition, even as that bread undergoes a miraculous sacramental (not substantial) conversion into Christ’s body. It is at once the same, and not the same, bread, for it has taken on a new way of existing in the world23. 20 I. ROSIER-CATACH, La parole efficace: signe, rituel, sacré, Éditions du Seuil, Paris 2004, pp. 392-394. 21 The Fishacre text is transcribed in the annex of ROSIER-CATACH, La parole efficace, p. 461. 22 John Wyclif, De logica, vol. 1, cap. 12, p. 39. 23 John Wyclif, Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 34, p. 278: «Decretiste quidam ut glossator ordinarius De Consecratione dist. II tenent quod omnino nichil demonstratur

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One may recall that when the Augustinian friar Thomas Winterton responded to Wyclif in 1381 he was willing to concede the possibility that the ‘hoc’ did refer to the material bread in Christ’s hands prior to consecration. That is to say, it referred to the bread which had not yet been transubstantiated, since the entire statement had not yet been pronounced. Nevertheless, Winterton would present two scenarios. The first maintains that what Christ held in his hands was not actually being demonstrated at that time by the pronoun ‘hoc’. Rather, this referred to Christ’s body alone, inasmuch as Christ was already referring to what the bread was being transubstantiated into, namely his own body. The second scenario, which Winterton reckons more likely and as far as he knows is not contrary to the teaching of the Church, applies the aforementioned theory of material supposition. «Christ transubstantiated the bread into his body through the blessing. He did not do this formally through the pronouncement of the words, ‘Hoc est corpus meum’, therefore, but formally through the power of his divine blessing applied to render that effect. [...] Since the blessing at that time preceded the pronouncement of those words, it does not seem unfitting that the transubstantiation also preceded that pronouncement. But now, in the mystery of the priests, transubstantiation occurs by virtue of Christ’s words, the pronouncement of which we believe confers the divine blessing». The words demonstrate nothing therefore, since they are only pronounced recitatively in the name of Christ. Winterton reckons that answer will clear up all difficulties regarding the demonstrative pronoun, with the proviso that it is not adversely ‘glossed’24. pronomine, cum ipsum et tota oracio sumitur materialiter tamquam recitatum a Christo; quod si sit verum, omnino tota oracio sicut et eius subiectum bonum demonstracione significans nichil penitus indicaret. Quomodo ergo forent hec verba Christi in nobis effectiva sacramenti altaris vel panis tam mirabiliter conversiva». 24 Fasciculi Zizaniorum, pp. 215-217: «Hic est duplex responsio: una communis, dicendo quod illud quod Christus tenuit in manibus non demonstrabatur tunc per illud pronomen hoc, sed solum corpus in quod est transubstantiatus, vel de proximo transubstantiandus est panis, est corpus meum. [...] Alia posse videtur dari responsio, quae apparet satis probabilis, dummodo determinationi ecclesiae catholicae non invenitur contraria: quia tunc quantumcunque probabilitatis habeat, est penitus abdicanda. [...] hic dicit ista responsio quod Christus transubstantiavit panem in corpus suum benedicendo, et non formaliter per prolationem illorum verborum, Hoc est corpus meum, sed formaliter per potestatem suae divinae benedictionis ad illum effectum applicatae. [...] Unde cum benedictio tunc praecessit prolationem verborum illorum, videtur non incongrue transubstantiatio illa praecessisse etiam illam

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1. William Woodford That this question surrounding the precise role of the priest in the Mass remained under discussion in Wyclif’s lifetime and beyond is evinced in the Franciscan William Woodford’s careful treatments of the Eucharist. In his 1382/1383 Septuaginta duae quaestiones de sacramento eucharistiae Woodford devoted Question 51 to surveying twenty-seven scholastic opinions as to «what is demonstrated through the term ‘hoc’ in the beginning of the sacramental words when the priest says, ‘Hoc est corpus meum’». Woodford clearly considered all of these opinions orthodox inasmuch as he referred to them as the ‘twenty-seven truths’ (veritates)25. Woodford’s catalogue is nearly exhaustive, although he informs us that there are even more opinions than the ones he has treated, leaving out those which he did not reckon worthy of inclusion. At length Woodford addressed the theory that he considered ‘most probable’, even as he would still not take the step of ‘asserting’ it outright. It runs as follows: «Although at the time of the Last Supper Christ through the pronoun ‘hoc’ demonstrated the bread which he held in his hands, it does not for this reason follow that [the bread] remained and was Christ’s body after consecration, but rather the opposite. For [in this case] the word ‘est’ is taken in an active sense (practice) rather than non-actively (epractice). And so if [the Wycliffites] would have it that through the ‘hoc’ in the sacramental prayer the material bread present on the altar is alone demonstrated, they assume a falsehood»26. prolationem. Sed in modo mysterio sacerdotum, virtute verborum Christi, in quorum prolatione cerditur conferri divina benedicitione, fit ipsa transubstantiatio [...] Et sic ista responsio, sine glossis quae videntur extortae parti adversae, potest evacuare omnes illas intricationes, quoad demonstrationem illius pronominis hoc [...] dicit ista responsio quod nihil demonstratur, vel debet demonstrari, cum solum recitateive in nomine Christi proferantur». 25 The text is partially edited by P.J.J.M. BAKKER, «Les Septuaginta duae quaestiones de sacramento eucharistae de Guillaume Woodford O.F.M. Présentation del’ouvrage et édition de la question 51», in ID. – E. FAYE – C. GRELLARD (eds.), Chemins de la Pensée Médiévale: Études offertes à Zénon Kaluza, Brepols, Turnhout 2002, pp. 440-491: 471-491. Bakker followed as his main text MS London, British Library, Royal 7 B III, and I have consulted alongside his edition MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 703, ff. 140r-143r. 26 BAKKER, «Les Septuaginta duae quaestiones», pp. 490-491; MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 703, f. 143r.

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Actually, Woodford had earlier noted that the verb ‘est’ could be taken either as a verbum practicon or verbum epracticon, the former effecting a conversion and the latter lacking ‘action’ (sine praxi) or ‘performative function’ (sine operatione). Thus when the est is understood to be a verbum practicon that means it is ‘conversive’ or ‘transubstantive’ owing to Christ’s institution. Read in this way, ‘This is my body’ means ‘This is becoming (fit) my body’, or ‘This is being converted into my body’, or again ‘This is being transubstantiated into my body’. The upshot is that when Christ first confected the sacrament, the pronoun ‘hoc’ would have demonstrated the material bread that he was consecrating, because the est functioned in this case as a verbum practicon signaling the conversion of that bread into Christ’s body27. Some years later in his 1397 De causis condempnationis articulorum 18 damnatorum Joannis Wyclif, written at the request of Archbishop Arundel, Woodford devoted three articles to Wyclif’s eucharistic theology: the bread’s substantial remanence; that the sacrament is Christ’s body in a figurative sense; and that –based upon the Ego Berengarius confession– the sacrament is naturally true bread.28 Woodford presented a catena of authorities from apostolic times up until the present all to the effect that Wyclif stood at odds with the continuous teaching of the Catholic Church. It is interesting to note, though, Woodford’s stated reliance on so many recent theologians (doctores moderni), many of whom of are fellow Franciscans: Alexander of Hales, St Bonaventure, John Pecham, Richard of Middleton, Peter Auriol, and Francis of Mayrone29. Among the theories canvassed here, Woodford did have recourse to Lotario di Segni’s widely cited tract on the canon of the Mass. Hence Christ had taken the material bread in his hands and consecrated it by means of his blessing before he spoke the words ‘Hoc est corpus meum’. This, in turn, means that the bread was fully converted into Christ’s body even before the Lord had begun to utter this proposition30. So it is, says Woodford, that 27

BAKKER, «Les Septuaginta duae quaestiones», pp. 488-89; MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 703, f. 143r. 28 The three eucharistic articles are found in De causis condempnationis articulorum 18 damnatorum Joannis Wyclif, in Fasciculus rerum expetendarum et fugiendarum prout Orthuino Gratio Presbytero Daventriensi editus est Coloniae, A. D. MDXXXV, Ed. by E. BROWN, Richard Chiswell, Londini 1690, vol. 1, pp. 191-204. 29 William Woodford, De causis condempnationis articulorum, pp. 191-194. 30 William Woodford, De causis condempnationis articulorum, p. 194: «Hic dico primo, quod tenendo opinionem et sententiam Innocentii de officio missae [...]

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Christ had not lied after all (contra Wyclif) when he called what he held in his hands his body. For the pronoun ‘hoc’ did not demonstrate the material bread, but rather the body of Christ which is now contained underneath the species of the bread that has been transubstantiated into his body31. Thus, when the priest at the altar today consecrates the host he is speaking the words ‘Hoc est corpus meum’ materially and recitatively, rather than indicatively or assertively. These words are simply conveying the blessing by means of which Christ had converted the bread into his body32. This was no doubt a respectable theory, having also been invoked by Winterton some fifteen years earlier, but it may not have been Woodford’s preferred reading of the text. For Woodford then pursued some more recent theories, although omitting many he tells us for the sake of brevity. In fact, he was drawing upon theories that he had explored at length in his earlier Septuaginta duae quaestiones. What Woodford had mentioned there as his favored opinion among many, he recounts here as one that seems especially accurate (quod mihi magis videtur esse verum). Woodford attributes this theory to a «certain doctor who has written excellently (egregie) about the Church’s sacraments», but who is not otherwise identified. In fact, in the Septuaginta duae quaestiones, Woodford also speaks of a «certain ancient doctor who wrote excellently about the sacraments, but whose name I do not know». At all events, according to this doctor, the verb est ought to be taken as a verbum practicum, such that the words are understood to be spoken consecratively: «This [bread] is being transubstantiated into my Et ideo Christus acceperat panem materialiam in manibus suis, ex quo consecraverat benedicendo, antequam diceret: Hoc est corpus meum. Panis materialis fuit plene conversus in corpus Christi substantialiter antequam inciperet dicere: Hic est corpus meum, et sic per ly hoc, in illis verbis non demonstrabatur pani materialis, sed corpus Christ, ut contentum sub speciebus panis conversi, licet panem materialem prius acceperat in manibus». 31 William Woodford, De causis condempnationis articulorum, p. 194: «Et sic sumendo esse proprie falsum est quod Christus qui mentiri non potuit, dixit panem quem accepit in manibus, esse realiter corpus suum, quia non demonstravit panem quem tenuit in manibus per pronomen, hoc, sed contentum sub speciebus panis transubstantiati in corpus suum, demonstravit per illum terminum, hoc». 32 William Woodford, De causis condempnationis articulorum, p. 194: «Et consequenter dicit Innocentius, quod quando alius sacerdos a Christo consecrat, verba dicuntur materialiter et recitative, et hoc sonare videntur verba Canonis, et non indicative nec assertive».

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body», or «This [bread] is being sacramentally and substantially converted into my body». Now according to Woodford, «By speaking these words consecratively, through the term ‘hoc’ Christ demonstrated the natural bread which he held in his hands. From this it does not follow, however, that the material bread remains and would thus be the body of Christ. In fact, just the opposite is the case: it does not remain, for it ceases to exist. It has been substantially converted into the body of Christ. Consider that when air condenses upon a mountain it is substantially converted into water. Not only has the air ceased to be air, therefore, but it follows that the air has ceased to exist. And so it is that the bread, according to the faith of the Church, is substantially converted into the body of Christ, which means that it ceases to exist and the material bread does not remain in existence»33. Yet if that is the case, there is the question of sense perception to consider: all our senses seem to testify to the bread’s remanence. Woodford identifies this objection as the chief concern of Berengar which had been effectively answered by Guitmund of Aversa. For his own part, Woodford contends that simply because the human senses indicate that the material bread is present following consecration does not make it so; after all, our senses are deceived on a regular basis. Our senses tell us that a stick is bent in the water even as it is not really the case. Isaac heard the voice of Jacob and yet felt the hand of Esau (Genesis 27:22); here four senses were deceived even as hearing was accurate. So too in Eucharist, although sight, taste, smell and touch are deceived, the hearing remains correct. For those 33

William Woodford, De causis condempnationis articulorum, p. 194: «Hic dico tertio, quod mihi magis videtur esse verum, sequendo sententiam cuiusdam doctoris, qui scripsit egregie de sacramentis ecclesia. Docet enim doctor ille, quod in verbis, Hoc est corpus meum, quando sumuntur consecrative, hoc verbus [est] est verum practicum. [...] Sensus verborum quando sumuntur et dicuntur conscerative: Hoc transunstantiatur in corpus meum, vel hoc sacramentaliter et substantialiter convertitur in corpus meum. Et sic dicendo haec verba consecrative per ly hoc, Christus demonstravit panem naturalem, quem in manibus habuit. Ex quo non sequitur, quod panis ille materialis mansit et sit corpus Christi; sed sequitur oppositum quod non mansit, sed desiit esse, ex quo substantialiter conversus fuit tunc in corpus Christi. Ex hoc enim quod aer clausus in monte covertitur substantialiter in aquam, sequitur quod non solum aer ille desnit esse aer, sed sequitur quod aer ille desinit esse. Et sic ex hoc quod panis substantialiter secundum fidem ecclesiae convertitur in corpus Christi, sequitur quod desnit esse et non remanet in esse panis materialis». See also BAKKER, «Les Septuaginta duae quaestiones», pp. 488-491.

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things that the Catholic Church teaches about this sacrament, and are heard by the faithful, are all true.34 Deception of the senses was, of course, one of Wyclif’s most persistent fears precisely because it seemed to cast Christ himself in the role of a deceiver.35 If the substance of the bread and wine no longer exist, how does one account for the fact that a priest can be nourished by consuming the host and inebriated from drinking the wine? Woodford contends that the priest may indeed feel himself to be nourished or inebriated, but this does not mean that the substance of the bread and wine, or even their accidents, must account for this fact. Drawing on the work of fellow Franciscans Peter Auriol and Francis of Mayrone, he notes that it is possible for the sacramental accidents at the end of the alteration to be converted into some other sort of substance that can provide nourishment. Thus the priest can be nourished and fattened, although not by the substance contained in the sacrament nor by its accidents as such, since these accidents have now been converted into some sort of nutritive substance36. In the end, though, one need not rely on such explanations. For it is quite possible, Woodford notes, that through divine power the priest consuming the sacrament, apart from any other food, could feel himself to be nourished even as he was nourished neither by the sacrament nor anything contained within it37. Woodford also responded to Wyclif’s consistent objection that the doctrine of transubstantiation ultimately amounts to the annihilation of one substance and its replacement by another. As it was, Wyclif never satisfactorily explained how it is that he came to equate transubstantiation with annihilation. That he did believe this, however, might be due to his temporal atomism and thus the notion that time itself is composed of

34

William Woodford, De causis condempnationis articulorum, p. 196. For further discussion see I.C. LEVY, «Christus qui non mentiri potest: John Wyclif’s Rejection of Transubstantiation», Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales, 66 (1999) 316-334. 36 William Woodford, De causis condempnationis articulorum, p. 196: «Patet hoc tertio, ex sententia doctoris de Aurelois super quartum, et Francisci de Maronis, qui dicunt quod possibile est accidentia sacramentalia in fine alterationis converti in substantiam quantam, et in tantam quod potest nutrire. Et sic ex illa substantia potest sacerdos satis nutriri et impinguari, licet non ex aliqua substantia contenta in sacramento, nec ex speciebus ipsis, quia propter hoc quod species convertuntur in substantiam nutritivam, non sequitur quod species nutriant». 37 William Woodford, De causis condempnationis articulorum, p. 197. 35

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indivisible instants. Given such a clear divisibility of time, there must be one instant when the bread ceases to exist followed by the next instant when the body of Christ takes its place beneath the accidents. Hence there could be no seamless conversion of one substance into another38. In fact, Thomas Netter singled out Wyclif’s atomism as a fundamental flaw in his larger philosophical program that produced all manner of eucharistic errors. Wyclif, he said, had forsaken the sound philosophy of Plato and Aristotle for the likes of the atomist Democritus39. At any rate, when Woodford addressed this question he seems to have adopted a line similar to his Franciscan predecessor, William of Ockham, who had carefully distinguished between two sorts of annihilation. If one means that the bread is annihilated such that it is reduced to nothing and cannot be converted into something else, then this sort annihilation must be rejected. Yet there is a second theory of annihilation that Ockham reckoned compatible with transubstantiation, whereby the bread is reduced to the sort of existence it once had in the divine power prior to the creation of the world. The bread can be said to abide, therefore, within the body of Christ along the same lines that it exists in the creative power of God40. In Ockham’s wake, Woodford argued that, although it is true that no part of the substantial bread remains in an actualized state following 38

S.E. LAHEY, John Wyclif, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, pp. 118-131. Thomas Netter, Doctrinale antiquitatum fidei catholicae ecclesiae contra Wiclevistas et Hussitas, Ed. by B. BLANCIOTTI, 3 vols., Typis Antonii Bassanesii ad S. Cantianum, Venetiis 1757-1759 [repr. Gregg, Farnborough 1967], vol. 2, De sacramento Eucharistiae, cap. 73, coll. 442-445. 40 William of Ockham, Quaestiones in Librum Quartum Sententiarum (Reportatio), Ed. by R. WOOD – G. GÁL, in Opera Theologica, St Bonaventure University Press, St Bonaventure, NY 1984, vol. 7, p. 148: «Ad septimum dico quod accipiendo adnihilationem sic quod illud quod adnihilatur redigitur in nihil et non covertitur in aliquid aliud, sic panis non adnihilatur. Accipiendo tamen sic quod illud dicatur adnihilari quod reducitur in ita purum nihil sicut fuit ante mundi creationem, sic vere adnihilatur panis. Quod probatur, quia non verius esse nec actualis habet substantia panis in corpore Christi quam in potentia Dei creativa. Sed non obstante esse quod habet in essentia divina, sive potentia Dei sive secundum contientiam virtualem sive perfectionalem sive quocumque alio modo, vere potest panis adnihilari licet habet esse in potentia divina, quia ante mundi creationem vere fuit nihil, et tamen tunc habuit esse in potentia divina. Similiter vere potest panem adnihilare, tamen tunc haberet esse in potentia Dei, igitur eodem modo, non obstante omni esse quod habet in corpore Christi, vere potest dici adnihilare». 39

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consecration, this does not mean it is thereby annihilated (as Wyclif seems to believe). Woodford points out first of all that Christ’s blessing is not the curse that Wyclif imagines. For although it is true that in the consecration the substance of bread and wine cease to exist, they are changed into something better; hence they really are blessed. Secondly, while no part of the substantial bread remains in a state of actuality following consecration, that does not mean it has been annihilated. For annihilation requires that the annihilated thing does not even remain in proximate potency so that it might later return to being. Yet the bread that is sacramentally converted into Christ’s body does remain in such proximate potency at the end of the alteration of the sacramental accidents; hence it is not annihilated. Annihilation, moreover, requires that the terminus ad quem be nothing rather than something. In the case of the Eucharist, however, the end point of the bread’s conversion is the body of Christ; and so this process still amounts to a conversion not an annihilation41.

2. Thomas Netter Woodford’s one-time student, the aforementioned Carmelite friar Thomas Netter, also weighed in against Wyclif’s claim that transubstantiation amounts to annihilation. Netter, for his part, insisted that it requires only a ‘simple mutation’ (per mutationem simplicem) whereby «one thing is commuted into another thing». Indeed, Netter was very keen to emphasize that transubstantiation involves the conversion of one substance into another within a single seamless process42. Netter would repeatedly argue that this is not a case of the bread’s substance being 41

William Woodford, De causis condempnationis articulorum, p. 203: «Hic dico secundo, quod quamvis nulla pars substantialis panis maneat actu post eius consecrationem, non oportet propter hoc quod panis annihiletur, quia ad annihilationem rei requiritur, quod non maneat annihilatum in potentia propinqua, ut redeat in esse. Panis autem conversus sacramentaliter in corpus Christi remanet in potentia propinqua, ut redeat esse, in fine alterationis accidentium sacramentalium [...] et ideo non annihilatur. Requiritur etiam ad annihilationem rei, quod terminus ad quem non sit aliquid, sed illius mutatione panis terminus ad quem est corpus Christi, et ideo hac mutatio non est annihilatio». 42 Thomas Netter, Doctrinale, vol. 2, De sacramento Eucharistiae, cap. 48, coll. 299-300.

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annihilated and then succeeded by Christ’s body. In fact, Netter was clearly irked by Wyclif’s harping on annihilation. Consider that when a man is converted into an angel one would not say that he is thereby annihilated, but rather that he is created and perfected. So too, then, the Eucharist does not entail a conversion from nothing or into nothing, but instead from something into something else (ab aliquo in aliquid). Hence the bread does not become nothing (nihil), nor does the body of Christ become something else (aliquid). What happens is that the bread itself becomes something that it was not before. It does not in the process relinquish its being unqualifiedly, therefore, inasmuch as its entire essence undergoes a process of wonderful amelioration43. «The bread transcends the merit of its own nature and genus such that it is commuted into the substance of Christ when he says: ‘This is my body’. It is not destroyed or annihilated if it transcends its whole nature and genus. Nor, however, does it remain according to its own substance, nor is it converted into a figure, but rather it is commuted into the substance of Christ»44. Netter recounted Wyclif’s position that we looked at earlier, whereby the pronoun ‘hoc’ demonstrating the bread at the beginning of the proposition must also do so at the end lest the proposition be false in its succession. For his part, Netter freely admitted that there is a range of theories regarding the manner by which the words of institution bring about the conversion of the elements, such that one could hold one or another view without necessarily being wrong (hic sine culpa erroris diversi diversa sentiunt). In the case of the sacramental words, according to Netter, God has affixed to them a certain power so that by one simple process they effect what they signify and thereby express a truthful meaning.45 Netter recounts that when he was younger (mihi quondam iuniori videbatur) he thought that the word est was the effective word, just as when Jesus cleansed the lepers with his word: ‘be clean’ (mundare); and when God created the components 43

Thomas Netter, Doctrinale, vol. 2, De sacramento Eucharistiae, cap. 68, col. 414: «Sed panis ipse sit aliquid quod ante non erat, sine omni detrimento sui esse simpliciter, et melioratione inaestimanda omnis suae totalis et partialis essentiae». 44 Thomas Netter, Doctrinale, vol. 2, De sacramento Eucharistiae, cap. 68, col. 419: «Non destruitur ergo, non adnihilatur, si transcendat totam naturam suam et genus. Nec tamen manet secundum suam substantiam, nec vertitur in figuram, sed in Christi (inquit) substantiam commutatur». 45 Thomas Netter, Doctrinale, vol. 2, De sacramento Eucharistiae, cap. 29, coll. 193-194.

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of the world: ‘Let there be [...]’ (fiat). Here Netter refines his position as he notes that one should not isolate the word est, as if it could stand alone and thereby render the remainder of the proposition superfluous. With the pronunciation of the word est the conversion has been immediately consummated, but only insofar as it is understood with reference to those words which follow and bring the proposition to its completion46. In this vein Netter recalled Wyclif’s objection to the theory that ‘Hoc est corpus meum’ is a transformative proposition which anticipates its own future verification. Yet, says Netter, this is precisely how successive propositions work. For instance, in the proposition, ‘This expression is complete’ (haec oratio est perfecta) what is demonstrated vocally anticipates the end of the statement. Hence the force (virtus) operative through the words is constantly looking forward; and so even as the utterance is passing away this force remains in the future. Netter provides the example of Christ’s statement that Peter would deny him three times before the rooster crowed (Matthew 26:75): «The vocal utterance of Christ had long since passed away according to its essence, even as it endured according to its force». So it is when the sacramental words that are proffered vocally come to an end their force still anticipates what they will effect47. Netter also dismissed Wyclif’s objection to material supposition in the case of the priest speaking the words of consecration, such that spoken recitatively (recitative) the words would not be effective (effectiva). Netter believes that they can indeed be effective, noting that the preacher effects something very real when he recites the words of Christ in the ears of men, even driving them to tears and eliminating their vices. Whose words, asks Netter, would Wyclif have us recite if not those of Christ? Yes, the priest 46 Thomas Netter, Doctrinale, vol. 2, De sacramento Eucharistiae, cap. 29, col. 194: «Ita pronuntiatio verbo est statim est consummata coversio, sed comparative ad reliqua, quae sequuntur de integritate sententiae». Cf. Wyclif, De eucharistia, cap. 5, p. 123. 47 Thomas Netter, Doctrinale, vol. 2, De sacramento Eucharistiae, cap. 29, coll. 194-195: «Et nonne in successivis, veritatis perfectio perfectionem rei expectat? Si dicam, haec oratio est perfecta, eadem demonstrata in voce finem prolationis expectat. [...] Tamen hoc sufficere debet in talibus, quod virtus operata per verba, constanter expectet, et iam transeunte oratione, virtus, quam operetur, permanet in futurum. [...] Periit autem dui vocalis oratio Christi secundum essentiam, sed permansit secundum virutem. Ita verba sacramentalia, quae vocaliter proferentur desiniunt; sed expectat virtus, quam efficiunt». Cf. Wyclif, De apostasia, cap. 14, p. 188.

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recites Christ’s words and in so doing effects what these words allege (efficit quod praetendunt). If the words of Christ recited in songs can effect miracles then all the more those in the sacraments. So it is that Christ’s words spoken at the Last Supper do retain their power (vis) and are thus effective even as they are recited48. In all fairness, Netter’s caustic response here never really engages Wyclif’s principled objection to the adaptation of material supposition to the eucharistic formula. It was, however, in his final response to the Wycliffites on the question of the Eucharist that Netter unveiled the full import of what Christ’s real presence means for the Holy Catholic Church. «The faith of all the Church’s mysteries is contained there in the Creed where it states by the mouth of the Apostles, ‘I believe in the communion of saints’. If the communion of Christians is above all else the communication of the sacraments, then how can the most excellent communion of them all be missing from among their number? [...] I think that the communion of saints should be understood in the Creed as referring to the communion of all the faithful in every holy thing, by faith, by love, and with holy prayers, but chiefly by participation in the sacraments. And among them all this article of the Creed chiefly extols the communion of the Eucharist. [...] For in the Eucharist God makes it possible for us to enter into communion with him when he offers us his very own body to eat and thereby conjoins us to his very own person»49.

3. English Wycliffites Anne Hudson has pointed out that while trial records are replete with colorful remarks on the part of Wycliffite defendants in their efforts to cast doubt on transubstantiation, there is more often than not an undercurrent of learned theology embedded within their statements. She notes furthermore that in the trial records one does not find bishops asking Wycliffites how precisely the est functions in the formula of consecration, but whether the 48 Thomas Netter, Doctrinale, vol. 2, De sacramento Eucharistiae, cap. 29, col. 195: «Vis unde verborum istorum, nisi a Christo? Et cujus verba nisi Christi? Recitat ea sacerdos, et efficit quod praetendunt. In carminibus verba Christi recitata mira quaedem efficiunt, et in sacramentis expirant». Cf. John Wyclif, Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 34, p. 278. 49 Thomas Netter, Doctrinale, vol. 2, De sacramento Eucharistiae, cap. 95, coll. 556-557.

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priest has the power to confect the sacrament, even if in state of mortal sin, and whether there is present upon the altar the true body of Christ (verum corpus Christi) to the exclusion of the substance of bread and wine50. In other words, the bishops did not wish to venture into the subtleties of scholastic theology, but wanted primarily to secure the most fundamental aspects of Catholic eucharistic doctrine as it pertained to the ordinary parishioner’s experience of the Mass. What does seem clear, however, is that the bread’s substantial remanence stood at the heart of Wycliffite eucharistic theology. Not only was this affirmed in their numerous tracts, but it was the position most often singled out as heterodox in the works of their opponents, who viewed the remanence theory as a threat to Christ’s real presence. And, as Patrick Hornbeck has rightly noted, while Wycliffites might have all agreed in their rejection of transubstantiation there was no such consensus regarding what precisely occurs following the words of consecration: some advocated the real, but spiritual, presence of Christ’s body, while others tended in the direction of simple memorialism51. Thus we find the English Wycliffite, William White accused of preaching that «no priest ordained according to the rite and custom of the universal church –which nevertheless in his tracts and writings he commonly calls the priesthood of Antichrist– has the power of confecting the body of Christ. But that after the sacramental words are spoken by such a priest, the material bread remains on the altar»52. And when Richard Wyche was asked in the course of his trial whether the consecrated host is material bread or not, Wyche declared: «I am not bound to believe other than Holy Scripture speaks. I believe that Christ took bread in his hands and said: ‘Hoc est corpus meum’. That faith is sufficient for any Christian. I do not wish to concern myself with the material bread. It suffices for a Christian to speak as Scripture speaks»53. Wyche would later reiterate this principle, declaring that «it is enough for any faithful person to believe just as Christ says, not by adding to his words»54. Wyche’s answers were 50 A. HUDSON, «The Mouse in the Pyx: Popular Heresy and the Eucharist», Trivium, 26 (1991) 40-53. 51 J.P. HORNBECK II, What is a Lollard? Dissent and Belief in Late Medieval England, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, pp. 68-103. 52 Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 423. 53 F.D. MATTHEW, «The Trial of Richard Wyche», The English Historical Review, 5 (1890) 530-544: 532. 54 MATTHEW, «The Trial of Richard Wyche», p. 537.

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purposely evasive, but his sentiments were widely shared among fellow Wycliffites who frequently complained that the friars, «glosen the wordis of holi writt euen to the contrarie»55. Another English Wycliffite, William Thorpe, recorded a conversation that he had with Archbishop Thomas Arundel in 1407 as the two men sparred on a series of controversial topics including eucharistic presence56. This encounter was not a formal heresy trial and is not recorded in Arundel’s register. Yet to whatever extent Thorpe may have embellished the episode, his account seems basically reliable and provides further insight, not only into Wycliffite thinking, but also the principal concerns of English ecclesiastical authorities at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The Archbishop produced evidence that Thorpe had been preaching openly at St Chad’s church in Shrewsbury that «the sacrament of the altar was the material bread after the consecration», and asked if he had indeed said this. Thorpe, who could be quite cagey at times, answered that while he had preached no such thing there, he did maintain that the true benefit of the Eucharist was a matter of inward belief rather than outward manifestation. Arundel pressed the point: even if Thorpe denies the charges, what does he say now? Does the material bread remain following consecration? To this query Thorpe replied that he would never have used the term ‘material bread’ inasmuch as it cannot be found in Holy Scripture. Arundel nevertheless implored him to explain his beliefs plainly. To which Thorpe said: «I believe and teach others to believe that the sacred sacrament of the altar is truly Christ’s flesh and his blood in the form of bread and wine». This response was met with suspicion: «Does not [Thorpe] and his sect teach that it is the substance of bread?» Notwithstanding the fact that Thorpe reckons form and substance synonymous in this case, Arundel put the question to him: «Since the Church has now determined that the substance of the bread does not remain following the consecration of the sacrament of the altar, do you not believe this ordinance of the Church?». It was at this point that Thorpe appealed to the Christological analogy of the two natures –specifically citing Fulgentius (Rupert of Deutz) as an 55 De sacramento altaris, in The English Works of Wyclif, Ed. by F.D. MATTHEW, Trübner & Co., London 1880, pp. 356-358: 358. 56 A. HUDSON, «Introduction», in Two Wycliffite Texts: The Sermon of William Taylor 1406; The Testimony of William Thorpe 1407, Ed. by A. HUDSON, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1993, pp. xi-lxiii: xlv-lix.

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‘authentic doctor’– to the effect that the Eucharist likewise comprises two substances57. Pressed further by the archbishop on the question of remanence, Thorpe took refuge in his own (supposed) unsophistication, although he was actually well-versed in scholastic methods of argumentation. Despite the fact that he had studied at Oxford, Thorpe claimed to be a simple priest who could not be expected to fathom the refined arguments of the schoolmen which he proceeded to mock with knowing familiarity. Fiona Somerset has perceptively remarked upon Thorpe’s appeal to ‘clergie’, which functions as an alternative erudition grounded both in ‘Goddis word’ and ‘opin resoun’, and is thereby not dependent upon the authoritative exposition of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. This invocation of an extra-ordinary ‘clergie’ was a means of grounding his own authority in a separate sphere of learning over which Arundel had no capacity to render judgment58. Hence we find Thorpe responding to Arundel: «But, sir, what you are asking surpasses my understanding. I dare not either deny or affirm this, for this is a school matter that I never took the time to learn about. And, therefore, I leave this term ‘accidens sine subiecto’ to the clerics who so delight in such curious and subtle sophistry [...] wandering about from argument to argument with their pro and contra to the point that they are often not even sure themselves whether they clearly understand these things». Unmoved by what he regarded as a ploy to divert attention from the matter at hand, Arundel said: «I am not concerned with having you speak to the subtle arguments of the clerics, since you are unable to do so, but rather I want to have you obey the determination of Holy Church». Protestations of simplicity aside, Thorpe demonstrated a facility with patristic authors and could recount doctrinal history. He proceeded to inform the archbishop that during the Church’s first thousand years, «the determination which I have confessed here before you was accepted by the entire Holy Church as sufficient for salvation». Everything went wrong, however, after the devil was set loose by Thomas Aquinas who claimed that «the most sacred sacrament of Christ’s body is an accident without a subject», thereby introducing terminology that has not been approved by God’s Law. As it was, 57

The Testimony of William Thorpe, pp. 52-55. F. SOMERSET, Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998, pp. 179-215. 58

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therefore, Thorpe steadfastly refused to reckon this one friar’s opinion an article of Catholic faith59. Just a few years later, in De oblacione iugis sacrificii, a tract that can be dated to 1413, an unidentified Wycliffite preacher presented a rather sophisticated critique of prevailing orthodox doctrine60. Like Wyclif before him, this author pointed to the wide range of opinions fostered by Antichrist and his minions as proof of the fundamental instability of current eucharistic teaching in the schools. The author displayed his own scholarly acumen as he recounted different takes on the effect of the words of consecration. More interestingly, perhaps, we see here the inherent difficulties one meets when theologizing bilingually: Latin to English. First of all, he criticized the theory that Christ had secretly blessed the bread and wine before showing the sacrament to his disciples; for this would mean that the Church had thereby lacked the formula of Christ’s consecration at that time. Next, he examined the English phrase, ‘Take ye and eat ye all of this; this is my body’. Some say that the former ‘this’ matches the Latin ‘hoc’ which refers to the bread; while the latter ‘this’ stands in for the Latin adverb ‘hic’ which is equivalent to the English ‘here’. Hence the Latin phrase ought to be rendered in English: ‘Take ye and eat ye all of this; here is my body,’ such that the ‘here’ denotes the location of the bread’s accidents. A third theory holds that the first instance of ‘this’ refers to the bread that Christ held in his hands, while the second ‘this’ refers to his body present there; but this amounts to an act of deception. Yet another theory states that the Latin word est should not be taken as the equivalent of ‘is’ as most English speakers understand it, but that est will require some elaborate (queynt) English equivalent to capture the Latin transubstantiatur. Thus the words of Christ in Latin, ‘Hoc est corpus meum’, cannot be adequately rendered by the English ‘this is my body’. In fact, though, «just how this Latin should be clearly conveyed in English (openli englischid), according to this interpretation, few men can clearly teach!». Then there are those who support the theory that when Christ said of the bread in his hands, ‘this is my body’, the word ‘this’ which renders 59

The Testimony of William Thorpe, pp. 55-56. A. HUDSON, «Introduction», in EAD. (ed.) The Works of a Lollard Preacher. The Sermon Omnis plantacio, The tract Fundamentum aliud nemo potest ponere, and The tract De oblacione iugis sacrificii, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001, pp. xv-lxxiv: xlviii-lxiii. 60

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the Latin ‘hoc’ does not signify Christ’s body or anything else. For it is an instance of material supposition whereby «that word and the whole clause is taken there in the manner of reciting (rehersing), signifying only the same word». This theory is written off as the same sort of ‘madness’ that we encountered above in the first theory. And finally, «some say that this phrase of Christ in Latin, ‘Hoc est corpus meum’, signifies that this accident without subject or substance sacramentally signifies Christ’s body. Thus they will not concede that the sacrament is Christ’s body in the form of bread, but an accident without subject or substance that signifies Christ’s body». For all that, however, these followers of Antichrist cannot agree amongst themselves on the nature of this accident, whether it is quantity (length and breadth) or perhaps quality (whiteness and taste). There is no end to their musings as they multiply all manner of implausible theories61. As the author goes on to note, «I know that very few can clearly explain what an accident is. For men are not yet decided in Oxford how an accident should be described or defined. [...] And therefore it is no wonder if the faithful do not acknowledge an accident without a subject anymore than Augustine acknowledged this when he said that faithful men understand this sacrament».62 Surely one of the most interesting eucharistic works produced by the English Wycliffites was the tract known as Wycklyffes Wycket, for which there is no medieval manuscript, but only a printed edition from 1546. It was being mentioned already in trial records by 1518, however, and may date to latter half of the fifteenth century.63 It is here that we encounter an unusual, if not unique, reading of the words of institution among Wycliffite works. Recounting an amalgam of Christ’s words at the Last 61 De oblacione iugis sacrificii, pp. 207-208. It is unclear whether the author of the De oblacione was relating specific attempts to devise an English-language liturgy or merely conveying the difficulties inherent to discussing the eucharistic formula when one departs from Latin. Although not directly pertinent to this question, cf. A. HUDSON, «A Lollard Mass», Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 23 (1972) 407-419. 62 De oblacione iugis sacrificii, p. 226. 63 Wycklyffes Wycket, ed. T.P. PANTIN, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1828, unpaginated. See the discussion in HORNBECK II, What is a Lollard?, pp. 81-83. On the dating of the Wycket see A. HUDSON, The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1988, pp. 11, 18, 451-452. See also A. HUDSON, «No Newe Thynge: The Printing of Medieval Texts in the Early Reformation Period», in E.G. STANLEY – D. GREY (eds.), Five Hundred Years of Words and Sounds for E. J. Dobson, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1983, pp. 74-83.

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Supper as recorded in the three Synoptic Gospels, the writer asks that we «nowe vunderstand ye the wordes of our sauyvour Christe». According to the Wycket’s author, Scripture does not say that «Christ toke bread and blessed it». Rather, «it seemeth more that he blessed hys dysciples and apostels, whom he ordayned witnesses of his passion, and in them he lefte his blessed worde whiche is the bread of lyfe». The writer thus appeals to John’s Gospel (6:48) to render the genuine exposition of the Synoptic texts. It is the bread of life, which is his Divine Word, that is at issue here, not the material bread that Christ held in his hands. In fact, according to our author, Christ never equated the bread with his body at all, thereby obviating all questions regarding substantial or figurative transformation. «But he sayd not this bread is my body or that the brede is geuen for the lyfe of the world». A little further on, dealing directly with the claim that Christ made his body from the bread by means of the words of institution, the author contends that these words could not have effected such a change: «Not wyth these words: ‘Hoc est corpus meum’, that is to saye in Englyshe, thys is my bodye, for they be wordes of gyuynge and not of makynge». With no apparent nod to the scholastic debates on this question, as we find in the De oblacione iugis sacrificii, the Wycket’s author flatly states that, «yf Christ had made of the breade hys bodye, [he] had made it in his blessynge or els in gyuynge of thankes and not in the wordes of gyuynge». The author finds that if Christ had actually been speaking of the material bread that he was holding in his hands, when he said ‘This is my body’, it must have been created beforehand or else Christ would have been telling a lie. The point of all of this is to thoroughly discount the idea that the words ‘This is my body’ ever had anything to do with changing material bread into the Lord’s body –no matter how one defines that change. The author will later take issue with the priest’s power to confect Christ’s body, but at this point the focus is still on the exposition of the words, the determination of what Christ intended to convey to the apostles gathered around him as he delivered his short discourse. Going much further than Wyclif himself, the author of the Wycket rejects outright the presence of Christ’s body on the altar: «Therefore all the sacramentes that he lefte here on earth be but myndes of the body of Christ for a sacrament is no more to saye, but a sygne or mynde of a thynge passed or a thynge to come». Thus the words ‘do this in remembrance of me’ refer to the bread which the disciples would partake of when they gathered to recall the benefits of the Lord’s

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great sacrifice. As this author would have it, therefore, when Christ said to his disciples, ‘This is my body which shall be given for you’, he was not referring to the material bread in his hands, but to the body that would soon suffer on the cross. It is worth noting that the Wycket’s interpretation of Christ’s words to the disciples is similar to a reading offered by the German Reformer, Andreas Karlstadt, in 1524. Karlstadt’s eucharistic theology, for its part, seems to have been influenced by earlier Bohemian arguments against Christ’s corporeal presence, which he would have learned from the Dutch humanist Cornelius Hoen in addition to other possible sources. Karlstadt also formulated some positions that have no immediate predecessors64. In one tract Karlstadt argued that the equation of the bread with Christ’s body is not in keeping with the ‘literal understanding’ of his words, which make it plain that, «Christ’s body is the body which must be given for the world and that we should take and eat this bread in his remembrance». Karlstadt, moreover, noted the grammatical incongruities –whether in Greek or Latin– that arise from a neuter demonstrative pronoun (hoc) referring to a masculine noun (panis)65. Along these same lines Karlstadt wrote in a separate tract that, «Christ spoke this verse, ‘This is my body’, not so that we would understand from it that the baker’s bread (which he held in his hand) was his body or that his body should be in that same bread or that Christ therefore wanted to give his body to his disciples in the bread». Rather, the words ‘This is my body’ do not look backwards to the proffering of the bread, but forwards to the words, ‘which is given for you’66. Thus for Karlstadt, as for the author the Wycket, Christ had never intended to equate the bread with his body; and a straightforwardly literal 64 See A. NELSON BURNETT, Karlstadt and the Origins of the Eucharistic Controversy: A Study in the Circulation of Ideas, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, pp. 77-90. For more on Cornelius Hoen see B.J. SPRUYT, Cornelius Henrici Hoen (Honius) and His Epistle on the Eucharist (1525), Brill, Leiden 2006. 65 Andreas Karlstadt, Whether One Can Prove from Holy Scripture that Christ is in the Sacrament with Body, Blood, and Soul, Ed. by A. NELSON BURNETT, in Eucharistic Pamphlets of Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Truman State University Press, Kirksville, MO 2011, pp. 116-143:137-138. See A. NELSON BURNETT, Karlstadt and the Origins of the Eucharistic Controversy, pp. 62-63. 66 Andreas Karlstadt, Exegesis of this Word of Christ: «This is my Body, which is Given for You. This is My Blood, which is Shed for You», Ed. by A. NELSON BURNETT, in Eucharistic Pamphlets, pp. 144-162: 146.

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reading of the passage would bear that out. Both Karlstadt and the Wycket, moreover, place all the emphasis upon Christ’s sacrifice of his own body that will then be remembered by the faithful in their celebration of the Eucharist. Yet if Karlstadt had been influenced by Bohemian sources, whether directly or indirectly, it raises the possibility at least that this anomalous English text was itself indebted to the Bohemians, prescinding from questions of Karlstadt’s own work influencing later editions of the Wycket.

4. Debates in Bohemia A brief foray into early fifteenth-century Bohemia might be helpful here, not only with respect to the Wycket, but also to see how questions of eucharistic presence and devotion were being debated outside of England. In 1421 the Prague masters insisted on Christ’s «real presence in the most divine sacrament of the Eucharist under the form of bread and likewise under the form of wine». This formula, as Kaminsky notes, could accommodate the more moderate Taborites, inasmuch as the ‘real presence’ was not further defined and thus could permit an understanding of sacramental, as well as substantial, presence. Only the more extreme Pikarts would find such a formula unacceptable, given their rejection of Christ’s presence in the sacrament under any conditions. Yet in 1422 the Prague masters would go further when they declared it necessary to believe that «Christ, true God and true man, is in the visible sacrament of the Eucharist according to his own nature and corporeal substance, and according to his natural existence». Taborites would not be able to sign such a statement that now equated real presence with the substantial and corporeal presence of Christ in the consecrated host. Note, however, that this later statement still allowed for a doctrine of remanence, inasmuch as it does not insist upon transubstantiation, and is thus compatible with the consubstantiation maintained by Jakoubek of Stříbro67. The Prague theologians maintained a strong doctrine of real presence, therefore, even if they did not endorse the doctrine of transubstantiation. Later at the 1441 Kutná Hora synod, Jan Rokycana upheld the ‘essential’ 67

H. KAMINSKY, A History of the Hussite Revolution, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA 1967, pp. 462-463.

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presence of Christ’s body over against the Taborite position of ‘spiritual’ presence68. Paul de Vooght, in his analysis, has identified two central components of the Taborite eucharistic theology, albeit allowing for small variations: the substantial remanence of the bread which functions as a symbol of Christ’s body; and the corporeal, or substantial, presence of Christ’s body in heaven following his Ascension until he comes again in judgment69. Here we can look at a succinct tract on the Eucharist composed sometime prior to 1422 by the Taborite priest Jan Němec of Žatec70. Jan had determined that the material bread remains in its original nature; although having been blessed, it is then Christ’s body by way of figure and signification (secundum figuram et significationem)71. Hence the true meaning of the eucharistic prayer, ‘This is my body [...] This is my blood [...]’ is that ‘this effectively signifies (efficaciter figurat) my body and blood’. The fact that when demonstrating the sacramental bread, Christ used the pronoun ‘hoc’ rather than ‘hic’ as one would expect to modify the masculine ‘panis’, is evidence that we must understand Christ to have been speaking figuratively (loqui figurative)72. Jan maintained furthermore that Christ in his humanity has multiple modes of existence: first and foremost substantially and corporeally, which is how his natural body exists essentially when it is co-equal with the space that it fills up. This is the corporeal manner of existing that Christ’s body had while he lived on the earth, as when extended on the cross or laid in the tomb. Corporeally existing on earth, Christ could not be present bodily in 68

W. COOK, «The Eucharist in Hussite Theology», Archiv für Reformationgeschichte, 66 (1975) 23-35; and F.G. HEYMANN, «John Rokycana: Church Reformer between Hus and Luther», Church History, 28 (1959) 240-280. 69 P. DE VOOGHT, «L’hérésie des taborites sur l’eucharistie (1418-1421)», Irenikon, 35 (1962) 340-350. 70 Jan Němec, Tractatulus de eucharistia, Ed. by J. SEDLÁK in Táborské traktáty eucharistické, Knihtisk. benediktinů rajhrad., Brno 1918, pp. 1-20. See KAMINSKY’S discussion in History of the Hussite Revolution, pp. 465-466. 71 Jan Němec, Tractatulus de eucharistia, p. 5: «Sensus autem catholicus est, quod ille panis est corpus Christi sacramentaliter aut figurative i. e. id quod in natura sua manet panis materialis, licet iam sanctificatus, illud est corpus Christi secundum figuram et significacionem». 72 Jan Němec, Tractatulus de eucharistia, p. 6: «Cum ergo Christus panem sacramentalem demonstrans dicit non hic, sed hoc sit corpus eius, totum oportet ipsum intelligi loqui figurative».

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different locations at the same time; rather, through real motion he walked from one place to another73. Jan would list various other modes of being that Christ’s body can possess: spiritual, virtual, and sacramental. He was not, therefore, restricting presence itself solely to the corporeal, but he was excluding corporeal presence in the celebration of the Eucharist. Hence Jan went on to argue that when Christ said, ‘Eat this all of you; drink this all of you’, and then immediately added, ‘Do this in remembrance of me’, he meant that he will no longer be present with them corporeally (corporaliter absens); thus they should henceforth devoutly bring him to mind. And when Christ said, ‘Drink from this all of you; this is my blood which is poured out [...]’, he made it clear that his blood was not corporeally (corporaliter), but rather sacramentally (sacramentaliter), in the chalice. For his blood at that moment was corporeally (corporaliter) on the inside of his skin (intra cutem) and within his veins (in venis), from which it would then be poured out in his passion74. As we touched on above, Jakoubek of Stříbro was staunchly committed to the real presence of Christ’s body in the Eucharist even though he would not endorse the doctrine of transubstantiation. Drawing upon the writings of John Damascene, and employing the Christological analogy of the burning coal, Jakoubek maintained that, following consecration the bread of the host –while remaining true bread– is inseparably united with the Divine Person. The bread undergoes a mystical transformation such that it is now principally identified with Christ’s body. The result is that the surpassing excellence of Christ’s presence leads the believer to lose sight of the material bread75. Although the bread remains naturally what it was 73 Jan Němec, Tractatulus de eucharistia, pp. 9-10: «Sed Christus secundum humanitatem adhuc habet multiplices modos essendi in sacra scriptura firmiter fundatos. Primum modum principalissimum essendi habet substancialiter et corporaliter, qualiter est ubicunque eius corpus naturale essencialiter existit, loco per quem diffunditur coequatum. Illo modo hic in terris viviat, hoc modo corporaliter in cruce est extensus. [...] Unde sicut Christus corporaliter vians in terris non potuit pro eodem instanti corporaliter esse in diversis locis localiter distantibus». 74 Jan Němec, Tractatulus de eucharistia, p. 18: «[...] quod erit corporaliter absens et ergo tamquam absentis debent ipsius devote memorari. [...] ille sanguis non erat corporaliter sed sacramentaliter in calice, sed corporaliter adhuc erat intra cutem Christi et in venis, ex quibus debebat adhuc effundi in passione». 75 Jakoubek of Stříbro, Tractatus de remanencia, Ed. by P. DE VOOGHT, in Jacobellus de Stříbro: Premier Théologien de Hussitisme, Publications Universitaires de Louvain,

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prior to consecration, it is nothing now in comparison to the ‘ineffable presence’ of Christ’s body76. Even as the bread retains its substance, and thus is not reduced to a set of subject-less accidents, it does therefore acquire a new way of existing in relation to the body of Christ. Jakoubek compared this to the scholastic theory whereby Christ’s assumed human nature can be considered accidental to the Divine Word which is itself the subject of the hypostatic union77. Very much like Wyclif, the central problem that Jakoubek had with transubstantiation was that he regarded it as a kind of annihilation, since the matter and form of the bread no longer exist following the consecration. This would mean, in turn, that the very bread which is blessed by divine power would cease to exist entirely. And taking a page directly from Wyclif, he notes that such a blessing would amount to a curse even more severe than Christ’s cursing of the fig tree, which at least retained its proper substance.78 Jakoubek insisted, therefore, that Christ offers his life-giving body under the appearances of real bread and wine without destroying their natural substance. Whereas the bread’s presence is corporeal and perceptible to the senses, Christ’s body is present in the Eucharist in a spiritual manner. Louvain 1972, cap. 1, pp. 323-324: «Secundo videtur innuere idem sanctus [Ioannes Damascenus] in verbis quod, sicut carbo non est pure, simplex lignum, sed lignum unitum igni, ita panis communionis non est simplex panis [sed] unitus deitati. [...] Ecce quam magni et quam multi sancti, cum fide apostolorum et domini Ihesu Christi, intendunt dicere, et nobis fideliter in scriptis reliquerunt quod, post consecracionem, sacramentum est vere et realiter panis». See John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa, PG 94, coll. 1150-1151. 76 Jakoubek of Stříbro, Tractatus de remanencia, cap. 2, p. 330: «[...] sic videtur esse dicendum de sacramentali pane quod, licet tam ante quam post sit naturaliter aliquid in se, tamen, propter ineffabilem presenciam corporis Christi, quoad eius comparacionem et respectum, vere est nichil et vere non manens aliquid». 77 Jakoubek of Stříbro, Tractatus de remanencia, cap. 2, p. 330: «[...] ideo non inconvenienter, quodam genere locucionis, humanitas Christi est ei accidens [...] Ideo non mirum quod panis et vinum, que in altari ponuntur, post consecracionem existencia novo modo, accidencia dicuntur per se stare». 78 Jakoubek of Stříbro, Tractatus de remanencia, cap. 2, p. 339: «[...] videtur, iuxta estimacionem modernorum, quod huiusmodi transsubstanciacio sive conversio sit anichilacio, cum, secundum eos, tam materia prima quam forma secundum se et quotlibet intentum individuale desinit esse. Et si ita esset quod ille panis, semel benedictus virtute divina, secundum se totum desineret esse, videtur quod illa benediccio fieret severior quam malediccio, qua Christus maledixit ficui [...]». Cf. John Wyclif, De eucharistia, cap. 9, p. 293.

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And because these two modes of presence are not incompatible, both can be really present each in their own way79. Even as Jakoubek defended the doctrine of remanence, we must not lose sight of his steadfast commitment to the presence of Christ’s body in the Eucharist, which he would state in much stronger terms than the English Wycliffites. In 1421 Jakoubek composed his Ihesus Christus Dominus et Salvator, which appears to be directed at the Pikarts, given the extremity of the positions he sets out to refute –positions that bear a striking similarity to those enunciated in Wycklyffes Wycket, which raises the possibility of some cross-current. Here Jakoubek states: «There are others who wrongly comprehend and gravely err regarding this venerable sacrament. For they say that Christ, while he was offering bread to his disciples and saying: ‘Hoc est corpus meum’ was not demonstrating that bread. Nor was he asserting something about that cup which he was holding in his hands, when he said: ‘Hic est sanguis meus’. But instead, through those demonstrative [pronouns] ‘hoc et hic’, he was demonstrating his own body in which he was sitting and that the apostles were looking at. And [he was demonstrating] that blood which was not in the cup, but rather underneath his own skin»80. In response Jakoubek insisted that Christ was certainly not indicating himself nor the blood under his skin, but rather the blood that was in the chalice. «Whereupon it follows that they clearly err who wish to say that Christ was demonstrating himself, in mortal form, in the manner that he was sitting at the table, sensible and visible, when he said ‘Hoc est corpus meum’»81. In fact, says Jakoubek, had the bread he 79

Jakoubek of Stříbro, Tractatus de remanencia, cap. 3, p. 347: «[...] sed quia modus presencie corporis Christi in sacramento est modus spiritualis, modus autem presencie panis est corporalis et nobis iam sensibilis, qui modi non sunt incompossibiles». 80 Jakoubek of Stříbro, Tractatus Ihesus Christus Dominus et Salvator, Ed. by P. DE VOOGHT, in Jacobellus de Stříbro, cap. 3, p. 391: «Sunt et alii male sencientes et graviter errantes de hoc sacramento venerabili. Dicunt namque quod Christus, dum discipulis panem porrigebat et dicebat: hoc est corpus meum, non demonstrabat illum panem, nec intendebat de illo calice, quem in manibus tenebat, cum dixi: hic est sanguis meus, sed quod per illa demonstrativa hoc et hic demonstrabat suum corpus, in quo sedebat et quod apsotoli videbant, et illum sanguinem, qui non in calice sed sub cute sua erat». 81 Jakoubek of Stříbro, Tractatus Ihesus Christus Dominus et Salvator, cap. 3, p. 391: «Unde sequitur quod manifeste errant qui dicere volunt quod Christus se, in forma mortali, sub modo eo quo ad mensam sedebat, sensibili et visibili, cum dixit hoc est corpus meum, demonstravit».

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handed to his disciples to eat not been his true body and the chalice his true blood, Christ the God-man would have been lying82. Jakoubek will later go onto to reprove those who would deny Christ’s presence in the consecrated bread and wine on the basis of Christ’s words in the Gospel of John, «Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life» (John 6:62-63). Yet, says Jakoubek, «Misunderstanding this statement, they claim that Christ, even while he ascended in his own body into heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father, would not be here in this sacrament, and would not bestow his own sacred body in keeping with his real presence (secundum realem presenciam). Instead [they say] his faithful ones alone enjoy his sacred body in a certain manner spiritually and not in the sacrament (quodammodo spiritualiter et non in sacramento)». As far as Jakoubek is concerned, however, this amounts to a «blasphemous heresy and an evil which cannot be tolerated by faithful Christians». It is the true body of Christ, insists Jakoubek, even while it is consumed in the sacrament in a certain spiritual manner (modo quodam spirituali). Hence when Christ said to his disciples, ‘Take and eat, this is my body’, this was the spiritual body of Christ (corpus spirituale) and not the sensible and palpable body, which was seated before them at the table in mortal form (in forma mortali)83. So it is that Jakoubek wished to defeat the «obvious error of those who say that the sacramental bread, and similarly the sacramental wine, are representative and significative of his body and blood, although not the reality of their presence contained therein». Jakoubek was convinced therefore that Christ is contained under the sensible species «really and truly, and not merely by way of signification, as some would have it»84. 82

Jakoubek of Stříbro, Tractatus Ihesus Christus Dominus et Salvator, cap. 3, pp. 391-392. 83 Jakoubek of Stříbro, Tractatus Ihesus Christus Dominus et Salvator, cap. 8, pp. 395-396. 84 Jakoubek of Stříbro, Tractatus Ihesus Christus Dominus et Salvator, cap. 12, pp. 400-401: «Et hoc militat contra illorum errorem manifeste qui dicunt quod panis ille sacramentalis, similiter et vinum sacramentale sint representive et significativa corpus domini et sanguinem suum, non autem illorum presencialem realitatem in se includencia et habencia. […] Et tantum sit dictum pro presenti de istis signis extrinsecis et visibilibus et figuris, sib quibus verus Christus continetur realiter, vere et non significative solum, ut quidam volunt».

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Jakoubek insisted upon restoring the full reverence due to the consecrated host, which the Pikarts had patently rejected. Christians with a true and living faith must not be hesitant in bestowing upon the consecrated host genuine adoration (cultu latrie adorari), since it is Christ himself who is present in that very host. «For if faith were genuine among Christians, and alive, it would compel them to adore the Lord Jesus in the sacrament, which would be displayed in such outward signs as genuflexion [before the consecrated host]»85. Jakoubek’s commitment to Christ’s bodily presence as integral to proper worship of the Divine Lord is a theme that we find also among English anti-Wycliffite sources, thereby making common cause with the Prague Hussites in one instance at least.

5. English Devotion to Christ’s Body in the Consecrated Host The final portion of this paper looks at some English reactions to Wycliffite eucharistic theology, and especially the emphasis placed upon Christ’s real bodily presence as the foundation for the soteriological effectiveness of the Mass. We turn first to the Cambridge masters who responded to William Swynderby’s eucharistic theories in 1393, as recorded in Bishop Trefnant’s register. Here is an instance of rank-andfile theologians presenting the bishop with their considered view of what constitutes orthodox eucharistic theology and, more importantly, a view as to why real presence is of the utmost importance. First of all, these theologians rejected as heretical the proposition that «the material essence of the bread is not changed upon consecration, but remains really bread and thus the body of Christ sacramentally». In response to the remanence theory the masters stated that through the words of consecration, «the material bread is changed and transubstantiated into the true body of Christ (mutata et transubstanciata in verum corpus) in the sacrament of the altar, such that the true body of Christ is present there really and sacramentally (realiter et sacramentaliter), because according to faith there is contained under the 85 Jakoubek of Stříbro, Tractatus Ihesus Christus Dominus et Salvator, cap. 13, pp. 401-402: «Adhuc restat et alia difficultas hiis temporibus emergens, quia plurimi hesitant an coram hostia rite consecrata debeat Christus, qui est in ipsa sacrata hostia cultu latrie adorari. [...] Quod si fides vera esset in christianis, et viva urgeret ipsos ad adorandum dominum Ihesum in sacramento, et colendum in spiritu et veritate eciam per signa extrinseca, ut puta genuflexiones et hiis similis [...]».

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sacrament of the altar the true body of Christ that he drew from the Virgin, and to say otherwise is a heresy». Here we see that ‘real’ and ‘sacramental’ presence are directly, and exclusively, linked to the presence of the ‘true body’ wrought by the process of transubstantiation. More importantly, however, we find that the position expressed by these theologians is born of clear soteriological concerns: «When Christ took bread in his hands, and blessed it, and then broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying ‘take’ etc. ‘this is my body’ so as to insinuate the truth of transubstantiation (ad insinuandum veritatem transubstanciacionis), he added, ‘which is handed over for you’. Yet it is certain that no material bread could be handed over for them upon the altar of the cross, nor could any other body be handed over except that one which he himself assumed from the Virgin and handed over for all of us. And this is why we must believe and firmly hold that it is by means of the power of the sacramental words that this occurs; for this is what the Catholic faith teaches». The attention of the masters then shifted to the related question of the priesthood: «Christ himself ordained the Mass and the Christian, or Roman, priesthood, which is one and the same; to pertinaciously assert the opposite is heretical». Despite Swynderby’s attempt to sever the Roman priesthood from Christian priesthood, therefore, the masters insisted that Christ, the God-man, had specifically ordained the Mass together with the Roman priesthood for its proper celebration. And to this end they asserted that «the very body that is sacrificed for the sins of men upon the altar is the same sacrifice that Christ himself offered up on the cross»86. Thus the Cambridge masters were ultimately interested in securing the Mass itself as the soteriological fulcrum upon which the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church turned. This is why the real presence of the crucified and risen body of Christ upon the altar had to be secured: not for sake of metaphysical coherence or doctrinal continuity, but owing to the centrality of this Divine Person’s sacrificial act in constituting the sacred body that is his Church. Shortly after the posting of the Twelve Lollard Conclusions in 1395, the Dominican friar Roger Dymmok responded with a point-by-point refutation within which he not only defended the doctrine of transubstantiation, but 86

Registrum Johannis Trefnant Episcopi Herefordensis, Ed. by W. CAPES, Canterbury and York Society, London 1916, pp. 365-66, 380-383. See p. 383: «Et quod idem corpus est sacrificium pro peccatis hominum et id idem sacrificium quod Christusmet obtulit […]».

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then made the case for why the real presence of Christ was so important for the life of the Church87. The fourth Lollard conclusion had contended that innocent people were being led into idolatry by the supposed miracle whereby «God’s body that, shall never leave heaven, by the power of the priest’s words should be essentially enclosed in a little piece of bread and exhibited to the people». The conclusion goes on, moreover, to single out Thomas Aquinas’s liturgy for the feast of Corpus Christi as especially harmful in perpetuating this falsehood. According to Dymmok, however, the real harm being done to the people is by the Lollards themselves who would deprive Christians of this great memorial of Christ’s perpetual sacrifice and all the attendant benefits which he bequeathed to his faithful upon taking leave of this world. The result, Dymmok warns, would be a falling off in devotion and a failure by Christians to offer God the thankfulness which they owe him. In fact, far from leading people into idolatry as the Lollards claim, the adoration of Christ’s body serves precisely as a bulwark against it88. Dymmok dutifully made the case that the bread becomes the true body (verum corpus) and cannot be reduced to a bare symbol (figura). The material bread is truly (vere), not feignedly (ficte) converted into Christ’s body. So it is that the true body is contained under the visible accidents of the bread such that it may be exhibited to the people and lawfully adored (adoratur) by the faithful as God without any danger of idolatry89. And meeting Lollard objections to accidents existing apart from their proper subjects, Dymmok reminds them that whatever God can produce through secondary causes, he can produce immediately of his own power (per se) and thus conserve the bread’s accidents without their usual subject90. Dymmok concedes nothing to the rationalistic mindset of his Wycliffite 87

Roger Dymmok, Liber Contra XII Errores et Hereses Lollardorum, Ed. by H.S. CRONIN, Trübner & Co., London 1922, pp. 89-112. 88 Roger Dymmok, Liber Contra XII Errores et Hereses Lollardorum, pars 4, cap. 1, p. 90: «Quod hec conclusio tollit a nobis maximum iocale et memoriale perhenne passionis Christi et omnium beneficorum eius, quod suis fidelibus in suo recessu de hoc mundo reliquid et sic populi devocionem minuit et confundit et Deo vicem gratitudinis refundere non permittit». 89 Roger Dymmok, Liber Contra XII Errores et Hereses Lollardorum, pars 4, cap. 3, pp. 94-95. 90 Roger Dymmok, Liber Contra XII Errores et Hereses Lollardorum, pars 4, cap. 4, p. 96.

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opponents, therefore, who are as loathe to accept eucharistic miracles as they are to believe in subject-less accidents. In fact, Dymmok will proceed to recount legends of St Gregory and Hugh of St Victor all to the effect that the truth of Christ’s presence can be manifested through miracles (ostendere per miracula)91. Dymmok had begun this discussion of the fourth conclusion with a call to the reverent devotion owed the memorial of Christ’s passion and returns later to address this theme in more stirring tones. Recalling how lovers customarily present images of themselves to those they love by which to remember them when they have gone away, Dymmok observes that Christ has done something even greater for his bride: He has left her not only an image but his very own body. There are many lovers (amatores), therefore, who seek to be present to the memory of their loved ones. Yet Christ is love (amor) itself, loving to the maximal degree and with infinite power, such that he is able to give his very self to his bride so that he might remain with her forever even as he ascended to the Father92. The real presence of Christ’s body is therefore essential for a divine-human relationship grounded in sacrificial love. Finally, we turn to the Carthusian monk Nicholas Love who had attached a vernacular Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament to his ca. 1400 Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ93. Here Love will speak of the «the flesh (mete) that Christ gives to us in the sacrament of the altar, for therein he truly exists, and in that same body that was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit». More pointedly, Love affirms that the Lord Jesus is «truly and bodily present with us under another form in his own proper substance». Love’s emphasis throughout this work on the presence of the Savior’s body in the celebration of the Mass is specifically designed to foster devotion on the part of his readers. Christ gave his body as food and his blood as drink, says Love, so that believers might bring especially to mind his passion and death. The real presence of Christ, far from a dry scholastic doctrine, is a cause for rejoicing among faithful communicants: it is spiritual food that tastes sweet to those who receive it and serves to comfort 91 Roger Dymmok, Liber Contra XII Errores et Hereses Lollardorum, pars 4, cap. 7, p. 99. 92 Roger Dymmok, Liber Contra XII Errores et Hereses Lollardorum, pars 4, cap. 9, pp.102-103. 93 Nicholas Love, Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament, in Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, Ed. by M. SARGENT, Garland Publishing, New York 1992, pp. 225-241.

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and strengthen them in goodness94. Heretics, however, «presumptuously relying upon their own sense experience (bodily wittes) and natural reason (kyndely reson)», trusting not in the holy doctors, «obstinately claim that the bread in its nature remains as it was prior to the consecration, so that the substance of the bread is not turned into the substance of God’s body». For Love, such «error and heresy [...] without doubt springs from spiritual pride and presumptuous reliance upon natural reasoning (kyndely witte)»95. Tackling directly Wycliffite claims that adoration of the host is tantamount to idolatry, Love asserts: «We say and believe that in that holy sacrament bread is turned into God’s body by the power (vertue) of Christ’s words. And so we all fully honor not bread but God and his blessed body in the form of bread; that is to say, in that likeness of bread that we see with our bodily eyes. We honor God’s body that we see by true belief in the soul with our spiritual eyes». Without entering into a detailed discussion of the words of consecration, Love nevertheless makes it clear on more than one occasion that this miraculous transformation is effected by the creative power of the Divine Word. «It is the greatest miracle that by the power of Christ’s words bread is turned into God’s body and wine into his blood», a miracle that Love likens to the «very same power of his word that made all the world from nothing and from the rib of Adam made Eve in flesh and blood»96. One should indeed believe that such a transformation of bread into Christ’s body is possible and not contrary to reason, since God has performed numerous acts like this throughout history. But it is a transformation that, nevertheless, «may not be comprehended fully by human reason; rather, one should hold this by faith»97. In this vein Love insists that the Wycliffite rejection of real presence, and thus the spiritual benefits found in the Blessed Sacrament, is principally due to their hyper-rationalism. So it is that their constant refrain about the impossibility of accidents subsisting apart from their proper subjects, can be chalked up to their steadfast allegiance to Aristotle who reckoned this impossible. «But the teaching of Holy Church is that in this Blessed Sacrament, by a special miracle of God transcending nature (aboue kynde), the color, taste and other accidents of bread and wine are present there 94

Nicholas Love, Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament, pp. 225-226. Nicholas Love, Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament, p. 227. 96 Nicholas Love, Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament, p. 228. 97 Nicholas Love, Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament, p. 229. 95

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apart from their natural (kyndely) subject». As is was, however, the «master of the Lollards» i.e., Wyclif had rejected the Church’s teaching precisely because it ran contrary to «the principles of philosophy, which is to say, natural science». So enthralled are the Lollards to Wyclif, that they place more trust in him, «for the opinion of his great erudition (grete clergy)» than in the «true teaching of Holy Church»98. We see here with Love, as we had also seen in Thorpe’s meeting with Arundel, competing centers of expertise. Ironically, though, it seems that if Thorpe found genuine erudition to be born of personal humility and sanctity, Love now proposes that it is the Wycliffites who have rejected a life of sacrificial devotion for the cold academic ‘book-learning’ of the university masters. So it is that Love, like Dymmok, appeals to the mystical rather than the rational side of his readers when he concludes his short treatise with instructions to the faithful on how they should approach the Blessed Sacrament. Again we find that Christ’s real presence testifies to the «ineffable goodness that the Lord Jesus showed to mankind in giving himself to us every day bodily in that precious sacrament». By way of conclusion Love offered his readers «a short devout prayer to [Christ] and his blessed body in the sacrament of the altar, which ought to be said in the presence of that holy sacrament at the Mass with inward devotion: Hail, holiest body of our Lord Jesus Christ that is now steadfastly contained here in this most excellent sacrament. I acknowledge you my Lord with my mouth. Love you with all my heart and I desire you with all the inward affection of my soul. [...] O you sweetest manna, the food of Angels. O you most like spiritual drink, bring to my inward mouth that honey-sweet taste of your healing presence. Kindle in me the fervor of your charity [...] My affection is enflamed with the fire of your love and my hope comforted and strengthened with this blessed sacrament»99.

6. Conclusion We began this essay by raising the possibility that John Wyclif had never really thought through the full ramifications of his rejection of transubstantiation. In its place he often spoke of the ‘sacramental’ or 98 99

Nicholas Love, Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament, pp. 238-239. Nicholas Love, Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament, pp. 240-241.

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‘spiritual’ presence of Christ’s body in the host, although he struggled to offer consistent and precise explanations of what these terms mean and how they could be integrated into a larger theology of the Mass. The doctrine of real presence –while absolutely essential to the Mass– was nevertheless just one component within a greater structure, and could not therefore be treated in isolation. On some occasions Wyclif was even willing to affirm that the very same body that had been crucified and resurrected was made present on the altar by the power of the Lord’s words of institution, so long as it was understood that this body is not an accidentalized substance in the host as it is heaven. Yet that left many people with the uneasy feeling that the body which Christ had bequeathed to his Church was less than fully present. In fact, Wyclif seemed to say as much when he presented gradations of presence100. It is in this same vein that Wyclif’s reading the of the words of institution sounded to his contemporaries like the condemned theories attributed to Berengar of Tours: a shifting of the res into the category of signum which thereby lessened the gravity of the salvific event occurring on the altar of each parish church. There is no point now lamenting that Wyclif and his opponents could not find some middle ground that would have accommodated each other’s positions. There is enough blame to go around on both sides, although Wyclif must bear the larger share of it. For it was Wyclif who set into motion a downward spiral as his own sophisticated, if convoluted, scholastic deliberations were adapted to popular religious expression. A process of devolution had set in by the first decades of the fifteenth century, such that Christ’s historical body –offered up as an oblation for all mankind– was gradually detached from the consecrated host, thereby undermining the central work of the Catholic Mass. Wyclif appears not to have foreseen such events, for even as he was uncomfortable with the adoration of the host, he voiced no strong opposition to the principle of the eucharistic sacrifice. Yet it was just such a threat to the very integrity of the Mass, as the locus of a salvific offering, that fifteenth-century opponents of Wycliffism regarded as the inevitable outcome of the rejection of transubstantiation. The formal detachment of the bread from the body that we find in Wycklyffes Wycket, resulting in a merely memorialistic Eucharist, was viewed as a dangerous assault on Catholic piety not only by English clerics such as Roger Dymmok and 100

For Wyclif’s discussion of different grades, or modes, of presence see his Confessio, pp. 115-116.

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Nicholas Love, but even by the Prague master Jakoubek of Stříbro in his defense of eucharistic devotion against the Pikarts in his native Bohemia. The denouement cannot be lain at the feet of Wyclif exclusively; there was precedent for this sort of reductionist sacramental theology and its concomitant anti-clericalism already among the Waldensians two centuries earlier. Yet, in England at least, Wyclif served as the principal catalyst –this Oxford master who set into motion a cascade of events he would have shuddered to imagine.

SEAN OTTO* ANTI-FRATERNALISM AND THE SOURCES OF JOHN WYCLIF’S SERMONES

Among the more well-known aspects of Wyclif’s later works is his strong anti-fraternal polemic. It has been suggested, by both contemporary and near-contemporary critics as well as modern scholars, that the basis of this antipathy was a disappointed careerism. Two particular incidents from Wyclif’s life are given in evidence of such a view. The first is a dispute over the wardenship of Canterbury Hall, Oxford1. Wyclif was appointed warden in 1365 when Archbishop Islip reformed the hall, which had been a mixed institution for Benedictines and seculars, as a secular college. After Islip’s death, his successor, Simon Landham, reversed his predecessor’s reform, and reinstated the previous warden, Henry Wodehull, a Benedictine monk, thus supplanting Wyclif, who was forced to leave Canterbury Hall in 1370 after a failed appeal to the papal court. William Woodford and Thomas Walsingham later suggested that Wyclif’s disappointment at losing the wardenship was a source of his anti-monastic and anti-fraternal feeling2. We must remember, however, that these men were Wyclif’s opponents, and their testimony in this regard must be treated with caution. Further, their interpretation ignores the fact that Wyclif had good relations with the friars *

Wycliffe College, Toronto, 5 Hoskin Ave, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 1H7, sean. [email protected] 1 On this, see H.S. CRONIN, «John Wyclif, the Reformer, and Canterbury Hall, Oxford», Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 8 (1914) 55-76; A.E. LARSEN, «John Wyclif, c. 1331-1384», in I.C. LEVY (ed.), A Companion to John Wyclif: Late Medieval Theologian, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2006, pp. 1-65: 14-15; A. HUDSON – A. KENNY, «Wyclif [Wycliffe], John [called Doctor Evangelicus]», Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Oxford 20102 (online edition: , accessed 7 July 2017). 2 For Woodford, see Fasciculi Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif cum Tritico, Ed. by W.W. SHIRLEY, Longman – Brown – Green – Longmans – Roberts, London 1858 (hereafter FZ), p. 517; for Walsingham, see Thomas Walsingham, The St. Alban’s Chronicle: The Chronica Majora of Thomas Walsingham, Ed. by J. TAYLOR – W.R. CHILDS – L. WATKISS, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003, pp. 74-75; cf. H.B. WORKMAN, John Wyclif. A Study of the English Medieval Church, Archon Books, Hamden 1966, vol. 1, p. 186.

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as late as 1379, nearly a decade after the dispute over the wardenship. The second event occurred a few years after the struggle over the wardenship of Canterbury Hall. In 1374, Wyclif was part of a commission to Bruges in service to the English Crown3. The purpose of this commission was to meet with papal representatives and discuss issues of taxation; it was the second of three such missions, and it achieved very little. Thomas Netter reports that he heard from Bishop Hallam of Salisbury that Wyclif was upset at being passed over for the bishopric of Worcester in 1376, which he felt entitled to after his service to the Crown, especially since two of his fellow commissioners were given bishoprics for their service4. This accusation ignores the fact that there was already a nomination to the see in 1373, and that Wyclif at the time of the supposed snub was already hopeful of a prebend at Lincoln Cathedral5. As with the dispute over the wardenship, it seems likely that the reports of Netter, who was writing against Wyclif’s teachings, were exaggerated polemic, attempting to discredit Wyclif by portraying him as a bitter and disappointed careerist. Instead of bitterness at a lack of ecclesiastical preferment, I would suggest that the roots of Wyclif’s anti-fraternalism lie rather in his theology and his pastoral concern for the members of Christ’s Church, whom Wyclif believed were being imperiled by what he saw as dangerous, false, and pernicious teachings of the friars. Even in his most stridently polemical anti-fraternal sermons, it is over theological and pastoral concerns that Wyclif attacks the friars’ teaching. Wyclif’s very real pastoral concerns are often masked by his passionate desire for reform of the church in teaching and morals and the consequent intensity of his polemics. That Wyclif used the friars’ greatest lights, men like William Peraldus and Thomas Aquinas, extensively in his polemics against the friars is remarkable. In fact, these two are particularly important sources for Wyclif’s theology in general, the theology which underlies and supports his anti-fraternal stance. This study explores how one of these two, William Peraldus, undergirds many of Wyclif’s specific arguments 3

LARSEN, «John Wyclif, c. 1331-1384», pp. 17-22. Thomas Netter, Doctrinale antiquitatum fidei catholicae ecclesiae contra Wiclevistas et Hussitas, Ed. by B. BLANCIOTTI, 3 vols., Typis Antonii Bassanesii ad S. Cantianum, Venetiis 1757-1759, vol. 1, coll. 560, 934. 5 LARSEN, «John Wyclif, c. 1331-1384», pp. 21-22, WORKMAN, John Wyclif, vol. 1, pp. 252-253, cf. J.H. DAHMUS, The Prosecution of John Wyclif, Yale University Press, Yale 1952, p. 6. 4

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against the friars as well, using one of the friars’ own authorities to criticize their theology and practice. We know little about the life of William Peraldus; he was a Dominican friar of the convent of Lyons, where he eventually became Prior, and he was a renowned preacher. The work for which he is most famous, the double Summa virtutum ac vitiorum, circulated widely in England and on the Continent, both as a whole, as separate summae, and in a number of abbreviations, and was eventually placed in every Dominican convent as required by statute6. The summa on the vices has been dated to about 1236, and that on the virtues either to shortly after the completion of the first summa or about a decade later, sometime before 12487. Both were probably available in England in the mid-thirteenth century8, and were thus venerable classics by Wyclif’s day. Both were meant to help Dominicans develop as preachers, providing material from which to teach both clergy and laity doctrinally and morally9. It is something of an irony, then, that Wyclif should construct his anti-fraternal sermons by recourse to one of the leading lights of thirteenth-century Dominican preaching. It has been slightly more than a century since the publication of Johann Loserth’s Johann von Wiclif und Guilelmus Peraldus10, in which he demonstrated that Wyclif had drawn extensively on the work of William Peraldus, especially the Summa. Loserth also disentangled the obscure references in Wyclif to two different Parisienses, both thirteenth-century Dominicans, William of Auvergne and William Peraldus. Yet Loserth’s analysis is somewhat superficial; he lists a great number of parallel passages, printing them side-by-side for comparison, but goes little beyond remarking on Wyclif’s textual dependence on Peraldus. So, while this study makes use of Loserth’s pioneering work as a starting point, the analysis will go beyond simple textual 6

See A. DONDAINE, «Guillaume Peyraut. Vie et Œuvres», Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 18 (1984) 162-236: 193-197; A. REEVES, Religious Education in Thirteenth-Century England: The Creed and the Articles of Faith, Brill, Leiden 2015, pp. 99-100. 7 See DONDAINE, «Guillaume Peyraut», pp. 185-187; I. BEJCZY, «John of la Rochelle and William Peraldus on the Virtues and Vices», Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 97 (2004) 99-110; REEVES, Religious Education, p. 97. 8 REEVES, Religious Education in Thirteenth-Century England, pp. 97-100. 9 REEVES, Religious Education in Thirteenth-Century England, pp. 100-110. 10 J. LOSERTH, Johann von Wiclif und Guilelmus Peraldus. Studien zur Geschichte der Entstehung von Wiclifs Summa Theologiae, Alfred Hölder, Wien 1916.

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comparison, and will do so by highlighting Wyclif’s use of Peraldus in his anti-fraternal polemic in his Sermones, demonstrating that Wyclif’s use of Peraldus was not uncritical, but rather sought to integrate Peraldus’s work into his polemic, and use the friars’ own arguments against them. As Loserth noted, Wyclif’s quotations of Peraldus are less careful and less verbatim than when he quoted other authors, such as Grosseteste11. Yet, Peraldus is an especially important source for Wyclif, both in the sermons and elsewhere, most especially in the De mandatis divinis12. He draws, for instance, on Peraldus when comparing the decretists and the lex Dei (a very important term in Wyclif, synonymous with the lex Christi, lex caritatis, and lex evangelicum)13. Wyclif’s use of Peraldus in this regard is not surprising, since Peraldus displays a similar suspicion of human law, and elevates scripture beyond all other scientiae, stating that «all other scientiae compared to sacred scripture are not scientiae»14. There are many other references to Peraldus in Wyclif, but this paper will focus closely on two of Wyclif’s sermons to demonstrate Wyclif’s method in his use of Peraldus. The first of these sermons is on the Epistle for the 3rd Sunday of Advent15, It has a long section, nearly 40% of the total length of the sermon, drawn from Peraldus’s De avaritia. The quotations are a very close paraphrase, and are used to demonstrate the evils of worldly priests and especially of worldly prelates16. This sermon makes no mention of the friars, but has a long discussion of disendowment and worldliness, which are among the 11

LOSERTH, Johann von Wiclif und Guilelmus Peraldus, pp. 35-36. LOSERTH, Johann von Wiclif und Guilelmus Peraldus, pp. 51-64. 13 I.C. LEVY, «The Place of Holy Scripture in John Wyclif’s Theology», in E. SOLOPOVA (ed.), The Wycliffite Bible: Origin, History and Interpretation, Brill, Leiden 2017, pp. 27-48. 14 William Peraldus, Summa virtutum ac vitiorum, Ed. by R. CLUTIUS, Martinus Durand, Parisiis 1629, Tom. 2, p. 108a. 15 See A. HUDSON, «Wyclif’s Latin Sermons: Questions of Form, Date, and Audience», Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge, 68 (2001) 223248 and EAD., «Aspects of the “Publication” of Wyclif’s Latin Sermons», in A. J. MINNIS (ed.), Late-Medieval Religious Texts and their Transmission: Essays in Honour of A.I. Doyle, Brewer, Woodbridge 1994, pp. 121-130. 16 John Wyclif, Sermones, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, 4 vols., Trübner & Co., London 18871890, vol. 3, serm. 3, pp. 20-21; William Peraldus, Summa, Tom. 2, pp. 122b-124b. Richard Newhauser has kindly allowed me access to his transcriptions of MS Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, 678, to be used in his forthcoming edition of the Summa de vitiis, against which I have checked the 1629 edition of Peraldus. 12

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most pressing of Wyclif’s concerns; he inculpates the friars in just this sort of worldliness elsewhere on numerous occasions. Wyclif’s use of Peraldus in this sermon must be understood within the larger framework of his polemical attacks on the abuses he perceived in the Church, abuses he thought were perpetrated and perpetuated by the friars among others. These attacks were based in Wyclif’s theological system, and were interrelated; attacks based on what Wyclif perceived as the idolatry of worshipping the host would lead him to attack various other connected issues. Thus, his use of Peraldus to support arguments against the worldliness of priests and prelates is of a piece with his arguments against the worldliness of the friars. The thema for the sermon is taken from 1 Corinthians 4:1: «Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ». Wyclif indicates that this epistle reading is especially pertinent to the clergy, that is to priests and bishops, who should «strive first themselves, that the Church might hold certain proof from their life and works, that they are special ministers of Christ and superior distributors of his ministries», which are identified here as preaching, devout prayer, and the provision of the sacraments17. This is what they should do, but if they are seen to do the opposite, how can the people but think that they are rather ministers of the devil than ministers of Christ? They can avoid this perception by getting rid of rich clothing and adornment and by doing works that demonstrate charity18. But princes draw clergy away from the churches to worldly office, and worse, the clergy even take up arms. «Are we to believe it a work of charity», asks Wyclif, «to charge at a neighbour clad in iron, on the back of a powerful horse with a sharp lance to wound him harmfully wherever possible?»19. If even the secular arm will beat its swords into ploughshares, then clerics who are warriors, by whom even pagan rulers would be horrified, make themselves 17

Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 3, p. 16/16-22: «Debent autem ipsi primo intendere, ut ecclesia capiat ex sua vita et opere manifestam evidenciam, quod sint speciales ministri Christi et superiora eius ministeria dispensantes, cuiusmodi sunt evangelizaciones, devote oraciones et sacramentorum collaciones». 18 Ibid., 22-24: «Si autem contraria insit illis, tunc manifeste populus debet estimare eos esse ministros diaboli». 19 Sermones, vol. 3, 3, pp. 16/32-17/1: «Numquid credimus sic opus caritatis in veste ferrea super equum validum currere contra proximum cum acuta lancea ubicunque possit eum nocivius vulnerare?».

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unfit for preaching, praying, and administering the sacraments20. A long section follows these discussions on how to judge these sorts of priests and prelates properly, within the limits of what scripture defines. Wyclif assures his audience that even bad prelates cannot stand in the way of God’s grace and that, while they might have suspicions about their prelates, the laity should have no doubts about God21. It is in the next section, Wyclif’s discussion of dubia about the scriptural reading, that Wyclif borrows from Peraldus, and this section deals with the right of the laity to withdraw endowment from bad priests. After what he claims is a careful investigation, completed in accordance with the limits of scripture, Wyclif thinks it allowable to withdraw possessions and tithes from erring clergy, but not to withdraw tribute from erring temporal lords. The difference is that temporal lords have always had temporal goods, and a right to impose tribute, but it is not so with the clergy, who were not endowed in the early days of the church22. And this, Wyclif is keen to point out, is not simply his own charge, but also «from the reasoning of Parisiensis and others who were grieved about that error, but forbearing»23. It turns out that the opinions on which Wyclif draws are those less of «others» and more or less completely those of Peraldus. They are taken, without exact reference, from a section of the treatise on the vices, De avaritia, from a subsection tellingly entitled «Why God in the primitive Church refused that the temporal should be joined to the spiritual»24. The long paraphrase that follows makes several points as to why the primitive church was not endowed, and here the dependence on Peraldus, as Loserth notes, is near total25. First, temporal goods are provocative, and Christ refused to have them in his Church because he wanted his disciples to be despisers of worldly goods, not lovers of worldly goods; «for he who wants to avoid flies, avoids for himself the milk and honey 20

Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 3, pp. 17/11-18/9. Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 3, pp. 18/21-20/23. 22 Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 3, p. 20/24-36. 23 Ibid., 37-39: «Patet autem hoc non solum ex allegacione mea frequenti in ista materia sed ex racionibus Parisiensis et aliorum qui de isto errore doluerant sed remisse». 24 William Peraldus, Summa, Tom. 2, pp. 122b-124b. 25 LOSERTH, Johann von Wiclif und Guilelmus Peraldus, pp. 29-43. 21

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which flies are inclined to love»26. The milk and honey, of course, are worldly goods. There follow three further, memorable examples: in order to have someone torn apart by dogs, one covers them in meat, and the dogs tear apart both the meat and the victim; a fish swallows the hook along with the worm, leading to its death, as the hook rips at the fish’s intestines; and proverbially it is said a wolf’s corpse becomes a harvest for worms or mice27. Temporal wealth frightens away good men, «for who of sound mind does not fear to be steward of temporal goods, when it is read [that] the thief Judas through an opportunity for temporal wealth became a traitor to the Lord and murderer of his own body and soul?»28. The Lord foresaw temporal goods rotting and submerging many in the Church under the river flowing from the mouth of the serpent as described in Revelation 12,29 and that temporal goods would lead to pride among prelates, whose pride would surpass that of temporal lords30. Further, Christ did not want the Church to have faith in anything other than himself, for if the Church were to have faith in Christ rather than in worldly wealth, it would not be separated from him but would remain close to him31. Finally, it would not be good for God to burden his prelates with possessions, since this would be an impediment to their office as the eyes of the Church, since the eyes’ function is totally impeded by the smallest particle of dust32. 26

Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 3, p. 21/5-7: «Nam qui vult sibi cavere de muscis, cavet sibi de lacte et melle que inclinativius musce amant. Previdebat enim Christus quod amatores temporalium auferrent ei animas si spiritualibus officiis temporalia lucra converteret». Cf. Summa, Tom. 2, p. 122b: «Qui vult sibi cavere a muscis, caveat sibi a lacte et melle, quae amant muscae. Praevidebat Christus quod amatores temporalium auferrent ei ecclesias, si spiritualibus officiis temporalia lucra connecterentur». Cf. LOSERTH, Johann von Wiclif und Guilelmus Peraldus, p. 39. 27 Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 3, p. 21/10-21; Summa, Tom. 2, pp. 122b-123a. 28 Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 3, p. 21/25-28: “Quis enim sane mentis non timeret esse dispensator temporalium, quando legitur Judam furem occasione temporalium fuisse proditorem Domini et corporis ac spiritus proprii homicidam.” Cf. Summa, Tom. 2, p. 123: “Quis enim sanae mentis non timeat dispensator terrenorum esse in ecclesia, quando legitur primum dispensatorem temporalium in ecclesia furem fuisse et proditorem et homicidam sui ipsius?». 29 Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 3, pp. 21/36-22/4; Summa, Tom. 2, p. 123a. 30 Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 3, p. 22/5-13; Summa, Tom. 2, p. 123a. 31 Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 3, p. 23/5-13; Summa, Tom. 2, p. 123b. 32 Sermones, vol. 3, serm. 3, p. 23/14-29; Summa, Tom. 2, pp. 123b-124a.

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At this point, the paraphrase ends, and Wyclif draws his sermon to a close with reference to Luke 14:33: «every one of you that does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be my disciple»; Luke 22:25-26: «The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them (...) but not so you»; and 1 Timothy 6:8: «But having food and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content», each a favourite passage for Wyclif. Peraldus continues his discussion with a quotation of the story of the voice from heaven at the Donation of Constantine, «This day poison was poured into the Church of God»33, and then compares those who seek after worldly goods to those who claimed to be disciples of Moses in John 9:2834. The dangers of endowing the Church are manifold and manifest, and Wyclif has proved to his own satisfaction, at length and based on a respected source, that the primitive Church, which was of course much more perfect than that of the present, was not endowed, and for good reason. One does wonder if perhaps Wyclif was quoting from memory or using an abbreviation of Peraldus in this sermon, for it does not seem very likely that Wyclif would miss the chance to use his respected source to attack the Donation of Constantine, a perpetual target of his rancor. At any rate, we can see why Wyclif would have recourse to such an authority as Peraldus, and even why he agreed with at least the friars’ understanding of holy poverty. How this fits into a larger anti-fraternal agenda will become apparent as we turn to our second sermon. The thema for this second sermon35 is Matthew 22:15, drawn from the Gospel for the 23rd Sunday after Trinity according to Sarum: «the Pharisees going, consulted among themselves how to ensnare him [Jesus] in his speech». This is the story in which Jesus is presented with a question about whether or not it is lawful (moral) to give tribute to Rome. In response, he calls the Pharisees hypocrites and asks for a coin, which his interlocutors must admit bears the face of Caesar, and Christ says to them: «Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to 33

Wyclif quotes this legend approvingly in several places: De civili dominio liber tertius, Ed. by J. LOSERTH – F. D. MATTHEW, 2 vols., Trübner & Co., London 19031904, vol. 1, pp. 232-233; Trialogus cum supplemento Trialogi, Ed. by G. LECHLER, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1869, p. 309; Tractatus de potestate pape, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, Trübner & Co., London 1907, pp. 168, 198; Tractatus de ecclesia, Ed. by J. LOSERTH – F. D. MATTHEW, Trübner & Co., London 1886, pp. 369, 317. 34 Summa, Tom. 2, p. 124a-b. 35 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55.

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God the things that are God’s». The sermon is mostly concerned with hypocrisy, and the focus remains squarely on the Pharisees’ hypocrisy, which is of the basest sort; when they approach Christ to attempt their trickery, they flatter him: «Master, we know that you are a true speaker and teach the way of God in truth. Neither do you care for any man: for you do not regard the person of men. Tell us therefore what do you think? Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?» (Matthew 22:1617). What they say about Christ is true, Wyclif notes, but their intent is to trap Jesus with a trick question. Their trickery fails, as Christ sees through their hypocrisy and sends them away wondering at his answer. Wyclif expounds upon the wisdom of Christ’s answer to the Pharisees, noting especially Christ’s example of submission to temporal powers, an example which modern Pharisees do not follow36. After a discussion of how hypocrisy seems to be the worst sin (it is a species of pride, it is the sin of the first angel, and it goes against not only justice as with other species of pride, but against the very truth itself)37, Wyclif turns to a list of comparisons or similitudes, drawn from Peraldus, to explain the nature of hypocrites. Wyclif references eight of these in total; the hypocrite is compared to an ape, a snow-covered dungheap, a dish cleaned only on the outside, a swan, an ostrich, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a reed, and a fox. Each of these in its own way offers a similitude illustrative of hypocrisy, some in a straightforward manner, but others less so; the hypocrite is like a swan, for instance, because while the swan has white feathers, its meat is black, and an ostrich, while it has feathers, «as if», Wyclif says, «it were able to fly, yet it neither desires to, nor can»38. These are more than just amusing sermon illustrations, however, and Wyclif’s use of them is not the straightforward borrowing that we saw in the previous sermon discussed above. The first of these comparisons, that comparing a hypocrite to an ape, makes little sense in Wyclif’s sermon without reference to the source material in Peraldus. Wyclif writes: «And thus Parisiensis compares the hypocrite in eight ways: he is, he says, like a diabolical ape, doing to the slicing of his own throat (iugulationem), what 36

Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, pp. 360-363. Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, pp. 363/12-364/11. 38 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, p. 364/29-30: «Quinto ypocrita similatur struthioni qui habet pennas ac si volare poterit sed neque appetit neque potest». 37

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the sons of God do to their own adornment (decorationem)»39. This makes much more sense in Peraldus: «It is to be noted that the hypocrite is a diabolical ape, wanting to imitate the sons of God. What the sons of God do to their adornment, this one does to the slicing of his own throat. Just as it was reported about a certain ape, who when he saw how someone shaved with a razor, afterwards wished to imitate him, and slit his own throat»40. Wyclif’s version is deficient. This might be because Wyclif was working from an abbreviated copy of Peraldus which contains this incorrect reading. It is possibly on account of memory; as this is a model sermon, the mention of the ape could be acting as a cue to relate the macabre and tragic tale in full. Wyclif might simply have misremembered the wording from the original, or he was perhaps paraphrasing, creating his own abbreviation as it were. In any case, Wyclif departs from the commonly transmitted text of Peraldus. He also goes beyond Peraldus and links the example of the ape to Ecclesiasticus 1:37, which warns «be not a hypocrite in the sight of men», but what this linkage entails, and what the message is for the sermon’s audience, is not spelled out explicitly. Other items in the list are expanded upon or modified by Wyclif, as with the snow-covered dung-heap; Wyclif comments that this dung-heap is where unwary sinners are sunk, presumably they fail to see the dung-heap until they step into it and fall through the snow. Peraldus, on the other hand, simply points to the dung-heap’s white exterior and fetid interior, while both cite Matthew 23:27 (in which Christ calls the Pharisees whited sepulchres), Peraldus in paraphrase, Wyclif in full41. Wyclif expands on the imagery of the vessel cleaned only on the outside, which in Peraldus seems simply a coda to the example of the dung-heap, as he explicitly ties the image back to Christ’s denunciation of the Pharisees, who clean their exterior, but neglect their interior foulness42. The swan and ostrich are treated together by Peraldus, who points to the prohibition against eating these birds in 39

Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, p. 362/11-13: «Et sic Parisiensis comparat ypocritam octo modis: Est, inquit, ut simea diaboli faciens ad sui iugulationem quod filii Dei faciunt ad sui decoracionem». 40 Summa, Tom. 2, p. 340b: «Notandum quod hypocrita est simia diaboli, volens imitari filios Dei. Quod filii Dei faciunt ad sui decorem, ipse facit ad sui iugulationem; sicut refertur de quadam simia, quae cum videsset quomodo quidam rasor rasisset, postea voluit imitari eum, & iugulauit se». 41 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, p. 364/15-19; Summa, Tom. 2, p. 340b. 42 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, p. 364/19-22; Summa, Tom. 2, p. 340b.

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Leviticus 11 (verses 18 and 16, respectively), stating that the prohibition is against hypocrisy, since the consumption of these birds makes one become like them. He points also to the description of the ostrich in Job 39, citing verse 13 («The wing of the ostrich is like the wings of the heron, and of the hawk»), and alluding to verses 14-16: «when she leaves her eggs in terra hypocrite», writes Peraldus, «she leaves her eggs in the earth as long as she seeks only earthly reward for her deeds»43. The passage from Job speaks of the forgetfulness and hardness of heart of ostriches as mothers, who leave their eggs to be trampled in the dust. Wyclif for his part discusses the swan and the ostrich separately. He follows Peraldus almost word-forword concerning the ostrich, adding only Christ’s prohibition in Matthew 6:2 against having trumpets sounded while giving alms «as the hypocrites do»44. To Peraldus’s scant description of the swan with white feathers and black meat, Wyclif adds, in a manner quite similar to Peraldus’s treatment of the ostrich, a reference to Deuteronomy 22:11, which prohibits the mixing of linen and wool. Wyclif interprets this as a prohibition against mixing hypocrisy (linen, which is fine-spun) with works contrary to hypocrisy (wool, which is white)45. For the examples of the wolf in sheep’s clothing and the reed, Wyclif is content to cite straightforwardly, if sparingly, from Peraldus. Taken as a whole, we can see that Wyclif’s use of Peraldus in this sermon is much less the straightforward, if extensive, borrowing of the sermon for Advent, and more of an integration and conversation. The final comparison drawn from Peraldus, that of the hypocrite to a fox, marks a transition in Wyclif’s sermon, one that builds on the list of similitudes that has come before, and moves the sermon into anti-fraternal territory. Wyclif’s citation of Peraldus for this last example is almost exact: «the hypocrite is similar to a fox which is a foul-smelling and cunning animal, whose meats are useless, but whose pelt is useful against paralysis. Whence Ezekiel 13:4, ‘your prophets, O Israel, were like foxes in the 43

Summa, Tom. 2, p. 340b: «Item est vt cygnus extra candidus, intus habens carnes nigras. Item similis est struthioni, quae similes pennas habet accipitri, vt ditur Iob 39. Struthionis penna similis est pennae herodii & accipitris. Quando derelinquit oua sua in terra hypocrita, derelinquit in terra oua sua dum de operibus suis solam mercedem terrenam quaerit. Vnde peccatum hypocrisis prohibetur Leuit. 11. vbi prohibere comedere cygnum & struthionem: id est, assimilari eis». 44 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, pp. 364/29-365/2. 45 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, p. 364/23-28.

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desert»46. Then comes the transition: «And hence the Apostle prophesies these foxes among the invented sects (sectis fictis, a byword in Wyclif’s writings for the mendicant orders) and names them hypocrites arriving at the end of time»47. This is something different than the additional citation of scripture, or the expansion of a description of hypocrisy as with the rest of Wyclif’s citation of Peraldus. Here Wyclif has turned scripture and Peraldus against the hypocrisy of the friars, for while they are only named as secta ficta and, a little further on, religionis privata, these are epithets for Wyclif denoting those in religious orders, especially the mendicant orders. Wyclif borrows from Peraldus for his description of the worldliness of these sects: «for they pretend themselves», Wyclif writes in a paraphrase of Peraldus, «to have died to the world just as a fox [pretends to be dead], but by the apparent privilege in which it shines forth to the world, they vigorously pursue prosperity»48. Expanding on this, Wyclif argues that this hypocrisy corrupts good works; it is the leaven of the Pharisees (Luke 12:1). Wyclif writes that it was by this sin of hypocrisy that the devil deceived Adam, by which Iscariot betrayed the second Adam with a kiss, and «Antichrist at the end of the age by the hypocrisy of the sects [i.e., the religious orders] will nourish his portion»49. Nor, he argues, would Antichrist have been able to strengthen himself through the endowment of the Church without the hypocrisy of the religionis privata and prelatis cesaris, who only simulate sanctity, and act against the ordinance of Christ50. The introduction of temporal goods into the Church through endowment, along with the other negative effects outlined in the first sermon, has led to the hypocrisy described in the second; and it is a key authority of one of Wyclif’s targets, the Dominicans, who provides the Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, p. 365/14-17. Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, p. 365/17-19: «Et hinc apostolus prophetat has vulpes in sectis fictis et nominat eos ypocritas novissimis temporibus adventuros». 48 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, p. 365/19-22: «Simulant enim se mundo mortuos tamquam vulpes sed apparente beneficio in quo reluceat mundi prosperitas vivaciter prosequuntur». Cf. Summa, Tom. 2, p. 341b: «Sicut fabulose dicitur de vulpe, quae mortuam se simulauit, donec posita fuit super quadrigam in quae erant gallinae, & tunc comedens gallinas se viuam ostendit». 46 47

49

Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, p. 365/30-33: «Dyabolus enim peccato illo decepit Adam, Scarioth per osculum traditit secundum Adam et Antichristus in fine seculi per ypocrisim sectarum nutriet partem suam». 50

Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 55, p. 366/1-7.

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most substantial textual support for these points. Utilizing Peraldus, Wyclif has established through a sort of via negativa two key components of his larger reforming and polemical agenda: 1) The Church of Christ has been damaged by endowment and ought to be returned to the more holy state of the primitive Church, which end can lawfully be achieved by depriving, after careful consideration and within the limits set out in scripture, erring clergy of their tithes and worldly possessions. 2) It is the hypocrisy of the private religions and worldly prelates which has led to this situation in the first place and this needs to be corrected. Taken together, these two sermons show us that Wyclif used Peraldus sometimes slavishly, almost simply copying his arguments, and sometimes much more freely, integrating the material into his own arguments more fully. Yet, even where Wyclif draws on Peraldus word-for-word, the use of this particular authority in the construction of this particular argument is significant; for Wyclif to argue, from a respected friar’s own works, that the Friars are hypocrites who are not living up to the standards of poverty they are supposed to espouse, is especially trenchant. This is only one line of attack for Wyclif, yet his use of Peraldus as support for his position on disendowment and for his attack on the friars’ hypocrisy elucidates an important, if less well-studied aspect of Wyclif’s anti-fraternal preaching program.

KANTIK GHOSH* AFTER WYCLIF: PHILOSOPHY, POLEMICS AND TRANSLATION IN THE ENGLISH WYCLIFFITE SERMONS

John Wyclif produced a substantial set of ca. 183 sermons after his enforced retirement from Oxford in 13821. These are complex and idiosyncratic texts and foreground a characteristic feature of much of his later output: a tendency to superimpose simultaneously a multiplicity of generic and conceptual frameworks onto exegesis. What is apparently meant to be homiletic scriptural exposition is therefore overlaid by discourses and methods relating to metaphysics, epistemology, Sprachlogik and topical polemics. Intra-clerical philosophical speculation and extra-clerical instruction of the ‘people’2 merge pervasively into each other, and the resultant, highly malleable, discursive form implicitly denies the necessity of tailoring language, style and method to one’s particular materia subiecta or one’s audience3. A recent commentator memorably describes Wyclif’s hermeneutic treatise De veritate sacre scripture *

Associate Professor of English and Stirling-Boyd Fellow and Tutor, Trinity College, University of Oxford, UK. [email protected] 1 Wyclif’s complete sermons, including a set dating from his university-years, are edited as John Wyclif, Sermones, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, 4 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1887-1890. All references are to this edition (henceforth Sermones) and supplied in the footnotes by volume, page and line number. 2 For Wyclif’s references to a postulated lay audience, see A. HUDSON, «Wyclif’s Latin Sermons: Questions of form, date and audience», in EAD., Studies in the Transmission of Wyclif’s Writings, Ashgate Variorum, Aldershot 2008, VI, pp. 223248: 233. 3 The comments here summarize my conclusions in «Genre and Method in the Late Sermones of John Wyclif», in U. ZAHND (ed.), Language and Method: Historical and Historiographical Reflections on Medieval Thought, Rombach, Freiburg-imBreisgau 2017, pp. 167-182. The seminal article on the question of method, style and materia subiecta is by Z. KALUZA, «Les sciences et leurs langages: note sur le statut du 29 décembre 1340 et le prétendu statut perdu contre Ockham», in L. BIANCHI (ed.), Filosofia e teologia nel Trecento: Studi in ricordo di Eugenio Randi, FIDEM, Louvainla-Neuve 1994, pp. 197-258.

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as ‘un traité-fleuve’4; the appellation could be extended to much of his other output, including the sermons. The intellectual density and allusive complexity of these pieces, as well as their methodological indeterminacy and slipperiness, form a rich –and for contemporaries, both pro and contra, highly problematic– discursive nexus: a problem intensified by Wyclif’s propensity to introduce and discuss philosophical dubia at length while ostensibly focusing, as for example in the Sunday Gospel sermons, on the preaching of pastoralia. When Wyclif’s followers came to produce a vast corpus of learned and quasi-learned materials, in English as well as in Latin, in the rough period of half a century from 1370-1420, they appear to have come up, on the evidence of some of the most substantial, and widely disseminated, surviving Lollard texts, with a two-pronged approach. A significant portion of what one might describe as scholarly aids to the study of the Bible, primarily in English, does draw upon Wyclif’s radical ideas in part but chooses a largely conventional, academically rigorous method and style. These works include such major productions as the Bible translation (including translations of the standard Jerome prefaces accompanying the Paris Bible)5, the translation of patristic scholarship known as the Glossed Gospels drawing upon the catena aurea and various other authoritative sources6, and the set of distinctiones which make up the Floretum / Rosarium in Latin (with one extant English translation)7. The aim of these productions is to equip the reader of the biblical text (presumably in English) with a largely uncontroversial and unexceptionable set of scholarly tools; together, they constitute nothing less than the ‘translation’ of a whole academic method and mentalité into the vernacular. Ideologically inflected polemics as also speculative theology take a back-seat here, though they occasionally do intrude. 4

F. GOUBIER, «Les propriétés du discours sont-elles réductibles à celles des mots? Sémantique de l’impropre chez John Wyclif et John Kenningham», Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft, 23 (2013) 173-198: 174. 5 See, most recently, the papers collected in E. SOLOPOVA (ed.), The Wycliffite Bible: Origin, History, and Interpretation, Brill, Leiden 2016. 6 The authoritative account is A. HUDSON, Doctors in English: A Study of the Wycliffite Gospel Commentaries, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2015. 7 These remain unedited; there is a partial edition of the English version in C. VON NOLCKEN (ed.), The Middle English Translation of the Rosarium Theologie: a selection, Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1979.

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The genres are recognizable in terms of the standard scholastic models of exegesis and commentary, distinctiones and catenae; the methods, relating to often highly labour-intensive textual criticism and a sustained engagement with biblical correctoria and with patristic originalia, can be of astonishingly high academic rigour8. However, the English followers of Wyclif also produced a quite different body of texts: these would include the original Wycliffite prologues accompanying the Wycliffite Bible in a range of copies, of which the so-called General Prologue is the most famous example9; stand-alone polemical tracts such as the one on the Eucharist edited by Anne Hudson10, and most significantly, the long (and widely disseminated) cycle of 294 sermons in English known as the English Wycliffite Sermons11. These works are much more stridently and sustainedly polemical, and methodologically, they come close to replicating the later Wyclif. Generically and in terms of style, they form a characteristic new vernacular Wycliffite category, one that combines, in a fluid and malleable fashion, aspects of philosophical theology, of Sprachlogik and grammatical analysis, of moral and spiritual exegesis and of homiletic exhortation –all of which can without warning merge into virulent anticlerical and anti-sacramental polemics12. In particular, the English Wycliffite Sermons, which will form the focus of 8 See A. HUDSON – E. SOLOPOVA, «The Latin Text», in SOLOPOVA (ed.), Wycliffite Bible, op. cit., pp. 107-132; HUDSON, Doctors in English, pp. liii-xcv. 9 See my discussion in «The Prologues», in SOLOPOVA (ed.), Wycliffite Bible, op. cit., pp. 162-182. 10 See A. HUDSON (ed.), The Works of a Lollard Preacher. The Sermon Omnis plantacio, The tract Fundamentum aliud nemo potest ponere, and The tract De Oblacione iugis sacrificii, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001; see my discussion in «Wycliffite ‘Affiliations’ – Some Intellectual-Historical Perspectives», in M. BOSE – J.P. HORNBECK II (eds.), Wycliffite Controversies, Brepols, Turnhout 2011, pp. 13-32. 11 English Wycliffite Sermons, Ed. by A. HUDSON – P. GRADON, 5 vols., Clarendon Press, Oxford 1983-1996. All references, unless specified otherwise, are to this edition (henceforth EWS) and supplied in the footnotes by volume, page and line number. For details of the many surviving manuscript copies and derivatives, see EWS, vol. 1, pp. 51-123. 12 It is not of course my intention to suggest that the two broad categories outlined here constitute an adequate taxonomy of the astonishingly varied Wycliffite textual output; however, a large number of major texts can, for the purposes of analysis, be productively aligned along these lines. For the range and diversity of Wycliffite scholarship and textual productions, see A. HUDSON, The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1988, chapters 4-5, pp. 174-277.

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this paper, draw extensively, though irregularly and diffusely, on Wyclif’s own sermons13, and it is instructive to examine how they respond to their peculiar texture. Of especial note is the Sunday Gospel set, in which, as Hudson has pointed out, Wyclif appears to be peculiarly aware of the teaching needs of the parish priest and the traditional association of such sermons with the preaching of pastoralia14. We will begin with looking at a selection of key passages from these sermons and their rendition into the vernacular. Wyclif’s 11th sermon on the Sunday Gospels has John 2 –the marriage at Cana– as pericope, and EWS Sermon 33 on the Sunday Gospels on the same theme draws extensively on it. Wyclif begins by speculating on the identity of the bridegroom: [...] creditur a magis probabili quod iste nupcie erant beati Johannis Evangeliste cum muliere nobis incognita (quam quidam fingunt fuisse Magdalene) desponsati, et sic die tercia a vocacione Philippi et Nathaneel (de qua Johannis 1º) in oppido Galilee quod Chana dicitur hoc miraculum supponitur probabiliter esse factum15.

The English sermon gives the following rendition: [...] as men seyn comunly, Iohn the Euangelist was weddid here [...] Studye we not to what woman Iohn was weddid, ne axe we not auctorite to proue þat Iohn was weddid now, for þat þat the gospel seiþ here is ynow to cristene feiþ16.

The vernacular sermon makes some attempt at simplifying Wyclif’s Latin: his terminology of probabilism17 is here replaced by a somewhat apologetic dismissal of the issue of whether or not the wedding at Cana was that of John. The phrase exhorting us not to ‘study’ suggests that 13

See P. GRADON, «Relation of the English Cycle to Wyclif’s Latin sermons», in EWS, vol. 3, pp. xcix-cxlviii; also the detailed editorial notes in EWS, vols. 4 and 5. 14 HUDSON, «Wyclif’s Latin sermons», p. 234. 15 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 11, p. 72/26-32. 16 EWS, vol. 1, p. 360/4-9. 17 On probabilistic terminology in Wycliffite discourse, see my «And so it is licly to men: Probabilism and Hermeneutics in Wycliffite Discourse», The Review of English Studies, n.s. 70 (2019), 418-436.

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such questions amount to unhealthy curiositas18, a critique related to that abiding Wycliffite bête noire –the name of Tobit’s dog19. EWS 33 then omits two of Wyclif’s mini-digressions: Christ’s presence at Cana proves the legitimacy of marriage; furthermore, John was called to the apostolic vocation before consummation (on the authority of Jerome), and therefore either part of a married couple may enter religion or the priesthood before carnal consummation, provided there are no other obstacles20. Wyclif then embarks on a detailed grammatical / logicolinguistic analysis of Mary’s verbal exchange with Jesus: Mary speaks «facete [courteously] et modeste [...] per modum interrogacionis», «they have no wine» (John 2:3), and it is evident to logicians and theologians that she could not have been guilty of lying («patet tam logicis quam theologis quod non oportet ipsam commisisse mendacium»)21. Jesus’s response in John 2:4 («Woman, what is that to me and to thee? My hour is not yet come») is formulated ‘extranee’ (‘strangely’ i.e. coldly / distantly) to indicate that the miracle would arise from his divine and not human nature. His response therefore is not merely strange but is phrased «instructive et racione preponderante» («in an instructive fashion and with the greater weight of reason») as this was going to be his first publicly performed miracle. Mary’s desire for the miracle is willed only «modeste et condicionaliter» («modestly and conditionally»). Jesus’s response is such that Mary understands her petition «non...repulsam sed racionabiliter dilatam» («not rejected but reasonably postponed») as through her perfect faith she knew Jesus to be omnipotent, omniscient 18

On the various connotations of ‘study’ in Middle English, see N. ZEEMAN, «“Studying” in the Middle Ages – and in Piers Plowman», New Medieval Literatures, 3 (1999) 185-212. 19 Speculating on the identity of Tobit’s dog (cf. Tobias 6:1, 11:9) is pointless and vain –for this topos and its wider resonances, see A.J. MINNIS, «Tobit’s Dog and the Dangers of Literalism: William Woodford OFM as Critic of Wycliffite Exegesis», in M.F. CUSATO – G. GELTNER (eds.), Defenders and Critics of the Franciscan Life: Essays in Honor of John V. Fleming, Brill, Leiden 2009, pp. 41-52. EWS, vol. 1, p. 241/36-40, points out that «hit is no nede to busyen [occupy] vs to wyte [know] what hiȝte [is the name of] Tobies hownd». 20 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 11, p. 73/3-11. 21 On the place of lying in Wyclif’s thought, and in medieval thought more generally, see D.G. DENERY II, The Devil Wins: A History of Lying from the Garden of Eden to the Enlightenment, Princeton University Press, Princeton – Oxford 2015, esp. pp. 85-88, and further bibliographical references therein.

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etc. She therefore leaves everything to his will, and «implicans suam condicionalem peticionem iam cessare» («indicating that her conditional request had already lapsed»), says to the servants, «Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye» (John 2:5)22. This detailed analysis, which then segues into a critical comment on ‘nostri prelati et clerici’ who should not ‘sophisticate’ against the commands and counsels of Christ23, is both drawn on and simplified by EWS 33, in a manner that is readily comprehensible as a self-conscious attempt to address a non-specialist audience. Mary is said to have meant «on curteys maner as sche durste that Iesu schulde helpe this feeste of wyn by his miracle» («in as courteous a fashion as she was capable of that Jesus should help this feast with wine through his miracle»). Jesus’s response is described as ‘straunge’ to indicate that he would need his godhead and not his manhood to perform miracles. The sermon, following Wyclif, next invokes Augustine as authority, and then clarifies that Mary, «supposyng ay goode of hire sone» («always supposing good of her son») asked the servants to do what Jesus said24. Wyclif’s own sermon then leads on to a logical / natural-philosophical dubium («dubitatur a naturalibus e logicis»): how is the conversion of water into wine possible? Wine and water belong to different species («corpora disparium specierum»); one must therefore be corrupted (‘corrumpi’) to generate another. However, the author of nature taught, via the words of this miracle, a more profound philosophy than the peripatetic sect touched upon; the truth is that «quecunque materialis essencia potest per auctorem nature fieri qualiscumque; et sic in fundamento materiali non est specierum distinccio» («any material essence can be converted into anything else by the author of nature; and thus in the material foundation or basis there is no distinction of species»). The Platonists are of this view; Aristotelians against. John (described as «profundus philosophus») is a Platonist «quia (ut refert Aug.) invenit in libris Platonis totam sentenciam decem proposicionum theologicarum, quas Johannes in principio sui evangelii inculcate [...]» («because, as Augustine says, he found in the books of Plato the entire 22 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 11, pp. 73/13-74/8; for some of the authorities, including Augustine and Hugh of St Victor, that Wyclif is drawing on here, see EWS, vol. 4, p. 268. 23 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 11, p. 74/10-13. 24 EWS, vol. 1, pp. 360/9-361/22.

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substance of the ten propositions of theology which John emphasizes in the beginning of his gospel»). Wyclif then seems to suggest that the conversion of water into wine is also in accordance with the «modum loquendi Aristotelis», who states that movements may be distinguished according to the end to which they tend, i.e. the new substantial or accidental form which replaces a previous one. And since everything in the Aristotelian schema tends to its own perfection, «notatur miraculi huius perfeccio a termino ad quem, cum post aquam dicitur factum vinum» («the perfection of this miracle is to be noted from its end-point, since after it the water is said to be made into wine»)25. This compressed and involved philosophical discussion is one in which Wyclif draws, in a highly elliptic fashion, on his extensive, and as Zénon Kaluza and others have shown, idiosyncratic theorizations of prime matter in De materia et forma, De logica and other philosophical writings26. Wyclif then characteristically puts it to one side: «sed dimisso isto sensu philosophico attendendum est alium sensum misticum dulciorem» («but laying aside this philosophical sense, one must attend to another sweeter mystical sense»)27. EWS 33, perhaps understandably, rather balks at the challenges of this particular dubium! Nevertheless –and this is a defining characteristic of the discursive texture of the sermons– it cannot quite leave the matter to one side, and makes an allusive and dismissive reference to the naturalphilosophical discussion: Þe turnyng of þis watur into good wyn techuþ vs how Crist maade his lawe moore sauery, as þe wyn was betture þan þe watur byfore. And riht as o substaunce is furst watur and siþ wyn, riht so o lawe is furst coold and siþen hoot [...] And drede we not þese philosophres 25

Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 11, pp. 75/7-76/9. Z. KALUZA, «La notion de matière et son évolution dans la doctrine wyclifienne», in Mt. FUMAGALLI BEONIO BROCCHIERI – S. SIMONETTA (eds.), John Wyclif: Logica, politica, teologia, SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo, Firenze 2003, pp. 113-151; also see J.A. ROBSON, Wyclif and the Oxford Schools: The Relation of the “Summa de Ente” to Scholastic Debates at Oxford in the Later Fourteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1961. 27 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 11, p. 76/13-15. There are several occasions in Wyclif’s sermons when the philosophical discussion is ‘parked’ on one side while he proceeds into homiletics or polemics: for some examples and discussion, see GHOSH, «Genre and Method», pp. 175-176. 26

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to graunten hem apertly þat þe same substaunce is furst water and siþ wyn; ne drede we not dyuynes þat askyn in þis cas what þing was maad newe of Crist in þis myracle, siþ qwalite as colowr or sauowr of wyn may not be by hitself, as Austyn seiþ28. The conversion of this water into good wine teaches us how Christ made his law more full of flavour, since the wine was better than the preceding water. And just as one substance is first water and then wine, similarly is one law [i.e. the Old Law] first cold and then hot [i.e. in the New dispensation] [...] Let us not be afraid to assert openly to philosophers that it is one and the same substance which is first water and later wine; nor should we be bothered by theologians who quibbling ask, if that is the truth, what new matter was added by Christ in this miracle since qualities such as colour or taste of wine cannot exist independently, as Augustine says.

The tonality of this passage is complex. As is characteristic of this genre of vernacular Wycliffite writing, while philosophical and theological debate is dismissed as the domain of mere verbal quibbling and academic vainglory, there is an implicit assumption of an understanding of the concepts out of which such debates arise. The voice in such passages is both intra-clerical and anti-clerical; its implied audience is simultaneously the «clerks of schools» who would appreciate its mocking and dismissive inflections, and, ostensibly, «pore symple men» / «lewid men & symple lettrid prestis»29. As if recalled to a consciousness of the latter audience, our sermon then proceeds to omit Wyclif’s long polemical discussion of how the ‘manifest heresy’ of ‘our religious’ (i.e. the monastic and mendicant orders) consists in adulterating Christ’s pure wine through the addition of their own traditions. Also omitted is his discussion of the different kinds of consent that we may give to –and thereby be culpable of– this adulteration of God’s 28

EWS, vol. 1, p. 362/52-61. On Wycliffite writers’ predilection for postulating, even in their most learned texts, an audience of the ‘simple’, see C. VON NOLCKEN, «A “Certain Sameness” and our response to it in English Wycliffite texts», in R.G. NEWHAUSER – J.A. ALFORD (eds.), Literature and Religion in the Later Middle Ages: Philological Studies in Honour of Siegfried Wenzel, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, Binghamton, NY 1995, pp. 190-208: 201. The Glossed Gospels, the product of painstaking learning and research into patristic originalia, posit as main readership one that is composed of ignorant and poor men, though, as Hudson points out, such cannot plausibly have appreciated or used their sophisticated academic learning: see HUDSON, Doctors in English, p. cxxxix. 29

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law30. Instead, and more appropriately for a vernacular sermon, it ends with a contrast between worldly feasting, which is first full of flavour and then as wormwood, and ‘goostly foode’, which is first unsavoury and then sweet, like herbs and spices which need grinding to elicit their fragrance31. The discursive density and tonal ambiguity of sermons such as this raise some important questions about readership, comprehensibility and projected use. It should be noted that Wyclif’s phrase ‘creditur a magis probabili’ in the passage quoted above is replaced by ‘as men seyn comunly’ in the vernacular sermon. Indeed, a recurring thematic in EWS is ‘common understanding’, ‘common speech’, ‘understanding of the people’. While apparently simple, these phrases actually reprise a range of complex and often conflicting discourses relating to scriptural language and the ‘proper’ language of exegesis and theology, to rhetoric and cognition, to probabilism and the authority of interpretative communities, and draw on a range of equally complex and conflicting meanings attached to the word ‘common’. The resultant terrain of debate is therefore conceptually messy but polemically fertile. We will begin to explore some of the major flashpoints in this terrain by looking in some detail at a particularly intellectually ambitious sermon. EWS Sermon 30 on the Sunday Gospels has as theme John 1 and offers a convoluted discussion of the hermeneutic and other complexities of John 1:32 (‘I saw the Spirit coming down, as a dove from heaven; and he remained upon him’) which deserves to be quoted at some length: But clerkys wyten þat þer ben two manerys of seyng, þat ben personel seyng and habitudynel seyng; þis dowue myȝte not be God in his kynde but by som habitude hit singnefieþ God, and þus by auctorite of God hit is God. And ȝif þow seye þat eche þing by þis schulde be God, as eche Godis creature signifieþ his makere [...] and þus, siþ God is bytokned furste and moste in eche þing, why may men not graunte þat God is eche þing? In þis mote men vndirstonde diuersite in wordis and to what entent þes wordes ben vndirstondene. And þus by auctorite of þe lawe of God 30 Sermones, vol. 1, serm. 11, pp. 77/15-78/22. On the complexities in Wyclif’s discussion of consent, see F. SOMERSET, «Before and After Wyclif: Consent to Another’s Sin in Medieval Europe», in J.P. HORNBECK II – M. VAN DUSSEN (eds.), Europe after Wyclif, Fordham University Press, New York 2017, pp. 135-172. 31 EWS, vol. 1, p. 363/79-84.

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schulde men speke her wordis as Godis lawe spekiþ, and straunge not in speche from vndirstondyng of þe peple, and algates be war þat þe puple vndirstonde wel, and so vse comun speche in þer owne persone; and, ȝif þei spekon in Cristes persone wordis of his lawe, loke þat þei declaren hem for drede of pryue errour. And scorne we þe argumentis þat fooles maken here þat by þe same skyle schulde we speke þus, for God spekiþ þus in wordus of his lawe; siche apis liknessis passen bestis foly [...] Þese wordus þat God spekiþ schulde we algatys graunte, and declaren hem to trewe vndyrstondyng. And recke we not of argumentis þat sophistres maken, þat we ben redarguede grauntynge þat we denyen; for we graunte þe sentence and not only þe wordys [...] And þus, ȝif we graunten þat Crist ys alle þingus, hit seweþ not hereof þat Crist is an asse, ne þat Crist is in eche þing, or what þing we wole nempnen, for God seiþ þe toon and he seiþ not þe toþur. But we graunten þat Crist is boþe lomb and schep, for Godis lawe graunteþ boþe þese two of hym; and so Crist is a lioun and a worme, and þus of many þingis þat hooli writt telliþ. And hit is ynow to seye for dyuersite þat God haþ special sentence of one and not so of anoþur. And þus þe comun vndyrstondyng schulden we algatis holde, but ȝif Godes wordis tauȝten vs his proper sence32. But clerks know that there are two manners of speech: these are personal speech and habitudinal speech; this dove cannot be God according to his nature, but [instead] it signifies God by some ‘habitude’ [i.e. ‘established convention of speech’], and thus by the authority of God, it is God. And if you say that, according to this argument, everything must be God, since every creature of God signifies its maker [...] and thus, since God is betokened first and foremost in everything, why might men not admit that God is everything? In this [matter], men must understand ‘diversity’ in words and the intention according to which these words are to be understood. And thus by the authority of God’s law, men should speak words as God’s law does, and not remove themselves from the understanding of the people through their speech, and always take care that the people understand well, and therefore they should use common speech when speaking in their own voice; furthermore, when they speak in Christ’s voice the words of his law [i.e. when they are quoting Christ], they should make sure that they clarify these words in order 32

EWS, vol. 1, pp. 347/50-348/93. This sermon is also edited in A. HUDSON (ed.), Selections from English Wycliffite Writings, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1978, pp. 113-115.

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to avoid unforeseen error. And here we reject the argument that fools make that by the same reasoning we should speak as God speaks in his law; such idiotic analogies surpass the stupidity of beasts [...] These words that God speaks we should always accept and expound according to the correct understanding. And let us not take heed of the argument of sophists that we are confuted in granting what in fact, we deny; for we grant the sense and not only the words [...] And thus, if we grant that Christ is all things, it does not follow from this that Christ is an ass, or that he is in everything, or in whatever thing we choose to name, for God says one thing and not the other [i.e. the Bible uses some creatures to speak of God and not others]. But we grant that Christ is both lamb and sheep, for God’s law [i.e. the Bible] speaks of him in terms of these two creatures; and in a similar way, Christ is a lion and a worm, and various other things that Holy Writ mentions. And it is enough to say that, because of ‘diversity’33, God attaches a special meaning to one [creature] and not to another. And thus we should always abide by the common understanding [when expounding scriptural words] unless God’s words teach us his own [intended] sense34.

As Anne Hudson explains in her notes to this passage, the author here attempts to explicate how John’s words should be understood since the question arises as to the precise manner in which the Holy Spirit may have been said to «come down from heaven as a dove». The sermon-writer makes a distinction between ‘personal’ and ‘habitudinal’ saying, the latter implying that by a conventional manner of speech, it is indicated that the Holy Spirit, in Hudson’s words, «inhered in the dove as a transitory theophany not as an incarnation». This then leads the homilist to discuss –and this will form the focus of my analysis– which kinds of language one should use when explicating scripture to the ‘people’. It is asserted that except when rehearsing the words of scripture, the exegete or homilist must use ‘common speech’. In other words, it is legitimate to diverge from conventional linguistic modes of signification only when scripture authorizes us to do so by using language in an ‘improper’ way –as for instance when God is described as a lamb or a sheep or a lion or a worm– 33

‘Diuersite’ here has the sense of ‘distinctness and individuality’: MED, s.v. 2(a). I have relied on Hudson’s extensive annotations and both drawn on and, on occasion, diverged from her suggested readings: see HUDSON (ed.), Selections, pp. 193194; EWS, vol. 4, pp. 258-263. 34

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and when we are quoting that scripture35. Our sermon half-acknowledges that there can be an opposing view: if one is to expound and explicate the Bible to the people in the ‘language of the people’, would one not be going against the divine intentions encoded in the obscurities, figurations and obliquenesses of the often parabolic and ‘dark’ scriptural discourse? This was a particular problem for the Wycliffite sermons as Wyclif himself repeatedly stressed the absolute uniqueness of scriptural language and the absolute obligation it places upon us to abide by its special form, though, as Hudson points out, Wyclif’s emphasis on scripture as a model for all human speech has the Augustinian proviso that human speech can at best be merely a poor imitation of that of God36. Underlying this emphasis on ‘common speech’ is an opposition –often made explicit in Wycliffite writing– between common speech and understanding and the discourse of scholastic experts, generally referred to by a derogatory use of ‘sophistry’37. This is at first glance simpler. The technical discourses of philosophy and theology can be dismissed easily enough as ‘sophistic’, ‘curious’ and concupiscent, and Wyclif’s writings constitute an often highly coloured, if imprecise, litany of such accusations directed against unspecified adversaries (the moderni). But these discourses could, and were, defended by many scholastic thinkers as having a special access to the specific difficulties and mysteries of scripture. As Catherine König-Pralong has pointed out in her work on the magisterium of the medieval university, «la verité est unique et elle n’est souvent pas accessible au sens commun, c’est-a-dire au commun des mortels». What 35

The question of the ‘improperness’ or metaphoricity of scriptural locutions constituted an abiding and fraught nexus in Wycliffite discourse, as, among other things, it had problematic implications for the literal versus figurative understanding of Christ’s Eucharistic formulation; indeed, this sermon itself broaches that controversial topic in a characteristically compressed and allusive manner (EWS, vol. 1, pp. 346/37347/50): for a full elucidation of the passage, see Hudson’s analysis (n. 33 above). 36 Wyclif declared in De veritate sacrae Scripturae that «cristianus debet loqui sub authoritate scripture verba scripture secundum formam, qua scriptura ipsa explicat»; cf. De veritate sacrae Scripturae, Ed. by R. BUDDENSIEG, 3 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1905-1907, vol. 1, pp. 51/26-52/1. See K. GHOSH, The Wycliffite Heresy: Authority and the Interpretation of Texts, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001, p. 48. 37 On the polemical usage of ‘sophistry’ and related words in Wycliffite discourse, see R. COPELAND, «Sophistic, spectrality, iconoclasm», in J. DIMMICK – J. SIMPSON – N. ZEEMAN (eds.), Images, Idolatry and Iconoclasm in Late Medieval England: Textuality and the Visual Image, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002, pp. 112-130.

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she calls «une orthodoxie de l’invraisemblable» is therefore posited by the magisterium as a defence of the specialist and exclusive access that ‘expert’ scholastic discourses have to a higher order of theological reality38. In the contemporary English context, for example, such a defence constitutes one of the over-arching themes of the early-fifteenth-century set of macaronic anti-Lollard sermons of Oxford Benedictine provenance39 which insist pervasively, and with much colourful polemic, that high theology is the exclusive province of university-trained theologians and emphatically not that of the «communis populus [who] pro maiori parte est illiteratus» («the common people who for the greater part are illiterate»)40. Richard Ullerston, an Oxford theologian and contemporary opponent of Wycliffism, has as a basic assumption, throughout his otherwise notably open-minded 1401 determinatio on the legitimacy or otherwise of biblical translation, that there is an unbridgeable gulf between learned and lay discourses, between technical academic theology and instruction in biblical teachings: indeed, drawing on Genesis 11:6 («And he [i.e. the Lord] said, Behold, it is one people, and all have one tongue [...]»), he posits that an identity of learned and lay language obtained so very long ago that it virtually recedes into the mythic –i.e. before Babel!41 38

C. KÖNIG-PRALONG, «L’empire de la doctrine: Théologie versus sens commun», in J.-Ph. GENET (ed.), La vérité. Vérité et crédibilité: construire la vérité dans le système de communication de l’Occident (XIIIe-XVIIe siècle): Actes de la conférence organisée à Rome en 2012 par SAS en collaboration avec l’École française de Rome, Publications de la Sorbonne – École française de Rome, Paris 2015, pp. 95-113: 98. See also the suggestive studies of the concept and status of ‘experts’ (experti / periti) in later medieval Europe: F. REXROTH, Expertenweisheit: Die Kritik an den Studierten und die Utopie einer geheilten Gesellschaft im späten Mittelalter, Schwabe, Basel 2008; ID., «Systemvertrauen und Expertenskepsis. Die Utopie vom maßgeschneiderten Wissen in den Kulturen des 12. bis 16. Jahrhunderts», in B. REICH – F. REXROTH – M. ROICK (eds.), Wissen, maßgeschneidert: Experten und Expertenkulturen im Europa der Vormoderne, Oldenbourg, München 2012, pp. 12-44. 39 Collected together in MS. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 649; see A Macaronic Sermon Collection from Late Medieval England: Oxford MS Bodley 649, Ed. and transl. by P.J. HORNER, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto 2006. 40 For this reference and discussion, see K. GHOSH, «Magisterial Authority, Heresy and Lay Questioning in Early Fifteenth-Century Oxford», Revue de l’histoire des religions, 231 (2014) 293-311: 299. 41 «[...] usque ad construccionem turris Babel post diluuium erat eadem lingwa clericis et uulgaribus dicit enim scriptura Genesis xj»: MS. Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 4133, f. 197vb (henceforth ÖNB 4133). For discussions of

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This opposition between ‘common sense’ and academic theological discourse was further complicated by the fact that ‘common understanding’ was also widely used to mean scholarly consensus about the meaning of technical terms and the interpretation of ambiguous statements. Indeed, the diffuse semantic range of the word ‘common’ is a major complicating ambiguity in these polemical oppositions. As Andrea Robiglio has clarified, ‘common’ can have quite contradictory referents. ‘Common understanding’, as I just pointed out, can refer to a shared expert consensus. In this sense, contemporary scholastic theologians can be held to abide by a ‘common doctrine’ which goes back to Christ and the apostles as the ‘doctores communes’ –hence the praise devoted to Aquinas as offering ‘communis illuminatio / ordo/ doctrina’42. This is the «fidei series» («continuity of faith») often resorted to by late-medieval anti-Wycliffite polemicists such as Thomas Netter to justify and defend their own attempts at synthesizing a common theological position as distinct from what they viewed as perverse heretical singularity and falsity43. The authority of Ullerston’s determinatio, see A. HUDSON, «The Debate on Bible Translation, Oxford 1401», in Ead., Lollards and their Books, Hambledon Press, London 1985, pp. 6784; GHOSH, The Wycliffite Heresy, pp. 86-111; F. SOMERSET, «Professionalizing Translation at the Turn of the Fifteenth Century: Ullerston’s Determinacio, Arundel’s Constitutiones», in F. SOMERSET – N. WATSON (eds.), The Vulgar Tongue: Medieval and Postmedieval Vernacularity, Penn State University Press, University Park, PA 2003, pp. 145-157. I am much indebted to Anne Hudson and Elizabeth Solopova for allowing me to consult their corrected transcription of the manuscript. 42 A.A. ROBIGLIO, «Christ as Common Doctor and John Duns Scotus’s Place in the History of Hermeneutics», in P. BÜTTGEN – R. IMBACH – U.J. SCHNEIDER – H.J. SELDERHUIS (eds.), Vera Doctrina: Zur Begriffsgeschichte der Lehre von Augustinus bis Descartes, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2009, pp. 85-113. 43 On Netter’s vast anti-Wycliffite compendium, the Doctrinale antiquitatum fidei ecclesiae catholicae, see GHOSH, The Wycliffite Heresy, pp. 174-208: 194; M. BOSE, «The Opponents of John Wyclif», in I.C. LEVY (ed.), A Companion to John Wyclif: Late Medieval Theologian, Brill, Leiden 2006, pp. 407-455: 436-446; J. BERGSTRÖMALLEN – R. COPSEY (eds.), Thomas Netter of Walden: Carmelite, Diplomat and Theologian (c. 1372-1430), Edizioni Carmelitane, Roma 2009; K.J. ALBAN, The Teaching and Impact of the Doctrinale of Thomas Netter of Walden (c. 1374-1430), Brepols, Turnhout 2010; I.C. LEVY, Holy Scripture and the Quest for Authority at the End of the Middle Ages, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame 2012, pp. 117-149. For an example of the widespread allegation that Lollards held on to their own perverse readings of the Bible as opposed to ‘common’ ones, see the Register of Nicholas Bubwith, Bishop of Bath and Wells (1407-24), «Lollardi [...] verum

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‘common understanding’ was also fundamental to hermeneutic discussions in legal theory and practice44. ‘Common’ could also, of course, refer to the common-sensical, the basic, the simple, the non-technical or -scholastic45, which could, in a further complication, be aligned with biblical language itself, above all with the language of Christ and the apostles. For example, Jean Gerson, writing in the early fifteenth century, repeatedly emphasized that the province of the instruction of the people in faith and morals was that of ‘moral logic’ –and for this what was required was a rhetoric which drew on common linguistic usage, the «vulgaris usitata locutio», «communes hominum locutiones», the «modus loquendi communis» which is also, significantly, the «modus loquendi evangelicus». Such ought to be the proper language of theology, the «stylus theologicus humilis et simplex» as opposed to scholastic subtleties and sophistries as well as platonic obscurities (of which he accused the Wycliffites and Hussites)46. Gerson’s polemical vision scripture sacre intellectum ad usum privatum non communem [...] pervertentes», cited by A. RUSSELL, Conciliarism and Heresy in Fifteenth-Century England: Collective Authority in the Age of the General Councils, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2017, p. 178. On some of the local problems that could be faced by the ecclesiastical authorities in attempting to forge a common religio-political position, see I. FORREST, «The Dangers of Diversity: Heresy and Authority in the 1405 Case of John Edward», Studies in Church History, 43 (2007) 230-240. 44 See I. MACLEAN, Interpretation and Meaning in the Renaissance: The Case of Law, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992; also see RUSSELL, Conciliarism and Heresy, pp. 171-176. 45 In the English context, there was furthermore a complex and much-debated socio-political dimension to the word ‘commons’, for which see the following papers by J. WATTS, «Public or Plebs: The Changing Meaning of “The Commons”, 13811549», in H. PRYCE – J. WATTS (eds.), Power and Identity in the Middle Ages: Essays in Memory of Rees Davies, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2007, pp. 242-260; J. WATTS, «The Commons in Medieval England», in J-Ph. GENET (ed.), La legitimité implicite: Actes des conférences organisées à Rome en 2010 et en 2011 par SAS en collaboration avec l’École française de Rome, 2 vols., Publications de la Sorbonne – École française de Rome, Paris 2015, vol. 2, pp. 207-222. 46 On this topic, see the following essays by I. IRIBARREN, «Le Paradis retrouvé: l’utopie linguistique de Jean Gerson», Revue de l’histoire des religions, 231 (2014) 223-251; EAD., «Le théologien: poète de la doctrine. Quelques réflexions autour de la Josephina de Jean Gerson», Revue des sciences religieuses, 85 (2011) 353370; EAD., «Question de style. Langage et méthode comme enjeux rhétoriques dans l’œuvre de Gerson», in ZAHND (ed.), Language and method, op. cit., pp. 183-221; also

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of a simple pellucid imagistic language of a reformed theology aligned with a rhetorically efficacious instruction in morality and spirituality (primarily via the affect) is based on an ideological rejection of what he saw as contemporary academic theology’s vainglorious and concupiscent excesses, in particular those he identified with English theology, the theologia anglicana47. Richard Ullerston, as we have seen, had a rather different assumption about the relationship of theology to basic scriptural instruction. In the course of his defence of biblical translation, Ullerston asserts that translating the simple stories of the Bible and the life of Christ is a far cry from meddling in the mysteries of philosophical theology. The former is possible and indeed necessary (with some appropriate safeguards against lay misinterpretation) while the latter –especially topics such as devotions and the religious orders, divine attributes and divine ideas, the relationship of human nature to the Word, accidents without a subject and numberless others– should not be approached, even by those who have prepared themselves through profound and assiduous study and labour, without fear and trembling48. Lying behind the Wycliffite sermon’s ambiguous engagement with the notion of commonality is that vast hinterland of scholastic discussion relating to the «medium and message», to borrow Alastair Minnis’s phrase, of both scriptural and theological (here inclusive of exegetical) discourse. As Minnis has pointed out in relation to Henry of Ghent’s theorizations: Z. KALUZA, «La Doctrine selon Jean Gerson», in BÜTTGEN – IMBACH – SCHNEIDER – SELDERHUIS (eds.), Vera Doctrina, op. cit., pp. 115-140: 132; M.J.F.M. HOENEN, «“Modus loquendi platonicorum”. Johannes Gerson und seine Kritik an Platon und den Platonisten», in S. GERSH – M.J.F.M. HOENEN (eds.), The Platonic Tradition in the Middle Ages: A Doxographic Approach, De Gruyter, Berlin 2002, pp. 325-343; A. ROBERT, «L’idée de logique morale aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles», Médiévales, 63 (2012) 27-46. 47 For background and full discussion, see Z. KALUZA, Les querelles doctrinales à Paris. Nominalistes et réalistes aux confins de XIVe et XVe siècles, Lubrina, Bergamo 1988. 48 «[...] eximie scripturarum difficultates non debent plebi propalari. Istud potest sane concedi et specialiter de illis ad que non sunt abiles, puta deuocionibus et religionibus, in diuinis de attributis et ydeis, de relacione nature humane ad uerbum, de accidentibus sine subiecto infinitisque alijs, ad que ex longinquo tempore philosophia politi cum graui studio et laboris uehemencia vix sufficiunt palpitando attingere. Sed ex isto non conuenienter concluditur, quod plane scripture historie, uita Christi, eius miracula et doctrina non possunt plebi enarrari in uulgari sicut iacent [...]» (ÖNB 4133, f. 204vb).

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Scriptural exposition should, he declares, always be prepared with one’s specific audience in mind, and since many learners are coarse (grossus) and stupid, in their case a broad (grossus) and common exposition is, in the main, to be provided [...] A particular exposition should not be propounded to someone whose abilities are inadequate to cope with it [...] The modus of holy scripture is singular but the needs of human beings are diverse –and hence stylistic diversity and pluralism in the Bible, and exegetical diversity and pluralism on the part of Bible commentators, is fully justified49.

Richard Ullerston, for instance, devotes a long section to a discussion of the different modes in which scripture signifies truth to listeners and readers of different intellectual and spiritual capacities. Jerome, says Ullerston, comments on Psalm 86:6 that scripture must be made available to all, unlike the hermetic and obscure writings of Plato: «[...] Plato scripsit in scriptura; sed non scripsit populis, sed paucis. Uix enim intelligunt tres homines. Isti vero, hoc est, principes ecclesie et principes Christi non scripserunt paucis sed vniverso populo». Hec Ieronimus ibidem. Quamuis igitur ewangelium ut refertur sit omnibus populis promulgandum, differenter tamen, istis grossius et sensibilius; illis uero subtilius et eminencius50. «Plato wrote his scripture, but not for the [many] people but for the few, for scarcely three people understand [it]. But they, i.e. the elders of the Church and the elders of Christ, wrote not for the few but for all people». Thus Jerome. Therefore, although as he says the gospel is to be promulgated/ published to all people, nevertheless [this must be done] in a differentiated manner, more roughly and perceptibly [i.e. via the corporeal senses] for some, with more subtlety and distinction for others. 49

A.J. MINNIS, «The Accessus Extended: Henry of Ghent on the Transmission and Reception of Theology», in M.D. JORDAN – K. EMERY (eds.), Ad litteram: Authoritative Texts and their Medieval Readers, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame 1992, pp. 275-326: 287-88; also see ID., «Quadruplex Sensus, multiplex modus: scriptural sense and mode in medieval scholastic exegesis», in J. WHITMAN (ed.), Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period, Brill, Leiden 2000, pp. 231-256; ID., «Medium and Message: Henry of Ghent on Scriptural Style», in NEWHAUSER – ALFORD (eds.), Literature and Religion, op. cit., pp. 209-235. 50 ÖNB 4133, f. 206ra; the Jerome reference is to his commentary on Psalm 86 in Breviarium in psalmos, PL 26, col. 1084A.

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And as Minnis points out, Moses himself was held, in Nicholas of Lyra’s vastly influential biblical commentary, to be «a man concerned with the needs and capacities of his audience».51 The Wycliffite position as expressed in EWS 30, however, is fundamentally opposed to the hierarchical52 and rhetorical53 vision and values implicit in Henry’s and Ullerston’s theorizations. The Wycliffite author’s point is not that theological discourse should be tailored to audience, but that such discourse must always abide by the ‘common’ senses of words except in the few cases where it must not –i.e. when scripture uses words in a figurative or parabolic sense and when these words must be rehearsed. The theologian must not seek to emulate the figurative mode of scripture and recklessly extend it to contexts where it is not appropriate or ‘habitudynel’, i.e. endorsed by the divine intention encoded in a (scriptural) convention. While the Wycliffite sermon thus invokes the notion of ‘common speech’ as the norm, it is to be noted that all this discussion in favour of ‘common speech’ is nevertheless informed by a fairly specialized and technical understanding of Sprachphilosophie as mediated by Wyclif54. It 51

MINNIS, «Quadruplex Sensus», p. 252. Of relevance here is von Nolcken’s discussion of Wycliffite attempts, linguistic and otherwise, to establish what she calls ‘group solidarity’: «They wanted to demonstrate [...] that where they really belonged was with the group of those resolving themselves towards the One’. She quotes EWS, vol. 1, p. 483/69-75: «And so onheed of mouþ [a unity of voice] shulde make accord in holy chyrche; but now dyuersite of mowþus makiþ discord among men»: «A “Certain Sameness”», pp. 206-207. See also Fiona Somerset’s discussion of what she calls ‘a lollard community united by love and governed by God’s law’: Feeling like Saints: Lollard Writings after Wyclif, Cornell University Press, Ithaca – London 2014, esp. chapter 2 (p. 73). 53 Note that Wyclif himself in effect replaces rhetoric with what he calls ‘logic’ in his reading of Augustine (and of scripture): see GHOSH, Wycliffite Heresy, pp. 46-52; ID., «Logic and Lollardy», Medium Aevum, 76 (2007) 251-267; A. BRUNGS – F. GOUBIER, «On Biblical Logicism: Wyclif, virtus sermonis and Equivocation», Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales, 76 (2009) 199-244; F. GOUBIER, «Wyclif and the logica Augustini», Medioevo, 36 (2011) 137-164. 54 For details of the sermon’s reliance on a range of Wyclif’s writings, see Hudson’s annotations: see above n. 34. Indeed, Thomas Netter thought that this sermon was by Wyclif himself and conflated some of its Sprachphilosophie with related passages from Wyclif’s Latin works when refuting it. For details of Netter’s citations, eight in all, of the English Wycliffite sermons in Latin translation, and their implicit or explicit ascription to Wyclif, see EWS, vol. 4, pp. 22-24. 52

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also appears to assume at least a good working-knowledge of the methods and vocabulary accompanying such philosophy in the presumed audience of the sermons. Again, a passage from Richard Ullerston is illuminating in this context. When defending biblical translation, he points out that the argument (derived from Roger Bacon) that translating logical texts into the vernacular would necessitate the invention of a new vocabulary is indeed correct, and that this new vocabulary, though it would be comprehensible to those who already knew logic in the original language (pace Bacon), would not be understood by ‘common people’. However, Ullerston goes on to say, the Bible is a different matter as its moral teachings would be entirely intelligible: Ad illud autem quod addit Bacon in argumento suo quod oporteret uolentem conuertere logicam in linguam maternam noua uocabula fingere, conceditur illud [...] Et quando ulterius additur quod talis sic loquens solum intelligeretur a seipso, dicitur quod hoc non sequitur, intelligeretur enim ab illis qui scirent logicam in priori lingua sicut iste. Sicut modo quando in uulgari loquimur de consequenciis, obligacionibus et insolubilibus et huiusmodi corrumpendo vocabula quedam Latina de facili intelligeretur vt predixi. Non tamen a populo simpliciter rusticano nisi per magnam asuefaccionem. [Sed] de translacione scienciarum liberalium modo non loquimur, sed ewangelii populo predicandi55. Regarding Bacon’s addition to his argument that it would be necessary for anyone wishing to put logic into [his] mother-tongue to invent a new vocabulary, it is conceded [...] And when he further adds that anyone speaking thus would be understood only by himself, I say that this does not follow, for he would be understood by those who knew logic in the original language, like himself. For instance, when these days we speak in the vulgar tongue of consequences, obligations, insolubles and suchlike, altering some Latin terms, we are understood easily as I have said before. Nevertheless, this would not be straightforwardly possible for country-people without long habituation. [But] we are not talking about the translation of the liberal arts now, but of the gospel that is to be preached to the people.

Ullerston’s discussion helps us see very clearly what is most idiosyncratic about the English sermons: their pervasive reliance on 55

ÖNB 4133, ff. 201vb-202ra.

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rendering into the vernacular a technical or quasi-technical vocabulary without sign-posting or any other pedagogic assistance. The cumulative impact of such a homiletic style in the English Wycliffite sermons is therefore difficult to assess. The oblique and compressed use of Wyclif’s Latin sermons, themselves compressed, idiosyncratic and allusive, is on occasion such that the resulting texture verges on the opaque. As Hudson says: It is [...] characteristic of these sermons, whether in the polemical or exegetical field, that a brevity of allusion amounting at times to apparent précis of argument is coupled to a tendency to slide sideways, unpredictably moving from one topic to another without any clear signposting. Whether this reflects an authorial quirk of mind or anticipated audience comprehension of a subject from the slightest of hints, or both, this habit poses very considerable problems for the modern interpreter56.

It might be pointed out that such a style –as developed by Wyclif– also posed considerable problems for contemporaries such as John Kenningham, who frequently commented unfavourably on the difficulty of his thought and its idiosyncratic expression57. When ‘translated’ into English, the difficulties multiply, for such a discourse in effect constitutes a rhetoricopolemical appropriation and rewriting –almost a ‘scrambling’– of the axioms, premises and fundamental methodological assumptions that made scholastic theological enquiry intelligible. The style and modus procedendi of Wyclif’s voluminous later productions amount to nothing less than an implosion of scholastic method from within; and this translatio of that style and mode, ostensibly for the benefit of the ‘people’, re-enacts that implosion in alternating accents of serious, if tortuous, engagement with scholastic theology and Sprachphilosophie, and their derisive and indignant dismissal. We can see why the implications of such vernacular translation for later medieval English religious, intellectual and institutional life ‘after Wyclif’ continued to be so very troublesome.

56

EWS, vol. 4, p. 2. See M.J.F.M. HOENEN, «Theology and Metaphysics. The Debate between John Wyclif and John Kenningham on the Principles of Reading the Scriptures», in FUMAGALLI BEONIO BROCCHIERI – SIMONETTA (eds.), John Wyclif, op. cit., pp. 23-55; and K. GHOSH, «Genre and Method», pp. 179-182. 57

JINDŘICH MAREK* JAKOUBEK OF STŘÍBRO AS A WYCLIFFITE. THE TESTIMONY OF HIS SERMON COLLECTIONS

Hussite thinkers were inspired not only in the Czech reform movement represented especially by priest and preacher Matthias of Janov, but also in the ideas of the English philosopher and theologian John Wyclif1. His work significantly influenced philosophers and theologians active at the University of Prague and therefore Hussites were also often perceived –especially by foreign opponents– as Wycliffites. In considering why Wycliffism in Bohemia became the «ideology of revolution», Howard Kaminsky drew the conclusion that Wyclif apparently impressed the Bohemian reformers with his condemnation of the papacy, which was closely tied to his concept of the church. Wyclif’s theory of dominion, the idea of the limitation of the power and property of the clergy, and his prioritization of divine order over the secular required by Christ’s law also influenced them2. Researchers noticed that whereas Wycliffism was relatively unsuccessful in England, it succeeded in a great extent in Bohemia. They attributed it mainly to the fact that in Bohemia there were enough charismatic people, who expanded Wyclif’s influence3. However, at the same time, they pointed out that Wyclif’s influence in Bohemia was never seminal, nor did it have a truly profound impact on the development of the Bohemian reformation. Wyclif engaged attention of his readers in Bohemia chiefly because of «the coherence * Charles University, Faculty of Arts, Institute of Information Studies and Librarianship, Náměstí Jana Palacha 1/2, CZ 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic, [email protected]. This chapter was created at Charles University under the PROGRES program Q09: History – The Key to Understanding the Globalized World. Translated by Sean Mark Miller. 1 Recent literature about Wyclif: S.E. LAHEY, John Wyclif, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009; I.C. LEVY (ed.), A Companion to John Wyclif: Late Medieval Theologian, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2006. 2 H. KAMINSKY, «Wyclifism as Ideology of Revolution», Church History, 32 (1963) 57-74. 3 D.R. HOLETON, «Wyclif’s Bohemian Fate. A Reflection on the Contextualization of Wyclif in Bohemia», Communio viatorum, 32 (1989) 209-222: 217.

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of the realist philosophical position that underpinned all his teaching, philosophical and theological»4. A suitable person for a detailed analysis of Wyclif’s influence in the Bohemian milieu is –besides Jan Hus, who had already been given relatively great attention in this respect– Jakoubek of Stříbro. In his literary work, which was connected with his activity as a priest, preacher and university master, he built both on the domestic tradition and adopted foreign influences, primarily the teaching of John Wyclif. The main contribution of Jakoubek of Stříbro for the Bohemian Reformation was the introduction of communion under both species even for laypeople, which from 1414 became a distinctive feature of Hussitism. He further developed in this direction the idea of the Bohemian reform thinkers on the necessity of the frequent communion of the Eucharist. Earlier research had noticed that in his treatises he adopted extensive passages from the work Regulae Veteris et Novi Testamenti by Matthias of Janov, but Jakoubek’s programme of the radical reform of the Bohemian church drew, as already mentioned above, in the same way from Wyclif5. However, Jakoubek was convinced of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and differed in this matter that had a special importance for the Hussites from Wyclif significantly6. He manifested himself as an adherent of the English reformer even then when he commissioned a Czech 4

M. KEEN, «The Influence of Wyclif», in A. KENNY (ed.), Wyclif in His Times, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1986, pp. 127-145: 144-145. Similar expression still by F. ŠMAHEL, «“Doctor evangelicus super omnes evangelistas”. Wyclif’s Fortune in Hussite Bohemia», Historical Research, 43 (1970) 16-34. 5 On Jakoubek‘s intellectual sources: M. UHLIRZ, Die Genesis der vier Prager Artikel, Hölder, Wien 1914; J. SEDLÁK, «Husův pomocník v evangeliu, vols. 1-4», in ID., Studie a texty k náboženským dějinám českým, 1 (1914) 362-428: 368-377, 2 (1915) 302-350: 310-316, 446-477, 3 (1919) 24-74; E. PESCHKE, «Die Bedeutung Wiclefs für die Theologie der Böhmen», Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 54 (1935) 462-483; P. DE VOOGHT, Jacobellus de Stříbro († 1429). Premier théologien du hussitisme, Bureaux de la R.H.E., Louvain 1972, passim (concerning the Eucharist, esp. pp. 108-121); H. KRMÍČKOVÁ, «Wycleff, Wycleff, nejednomu ty hlavu (ne)zvikleš!», in EAD., Studie a texty k počátkům kalicha v Čechách, Masarykova univerzita v Brně, Brno 1997, pp. 54-60. 6 KRMÍČKOVÁ, «Wycleff, Wycleff», pp. 55-56; P.J.J.M. BAKKER, «Réalisme et remanence. La doctrine eucharistique de Jean Wyclif», in Mt. FUMAGALLI BEONIO BROCCHIERI – S. SIMONETTA (eds.), John Wyclif: Logica, politica, teologia, SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo, Firenze 2003, pp. 87-112; see also the chapter by I.C. LEVY in this volume.

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translation (more precisely stated adaptation) of Wyclif’s Dialogus7. In the summer of 1410, in the famous dispute over Wyclif’s books, especially the philosophical ones, he defended his relatively orthodox theological exposition of the Ten Commandments known under the title Decalogus or De mandatis divinis8. Two years later in the defence of Wyclif’s articles at the University of Prague, while Jan Hus was devoting himself to the secularization of church manors, Jakoubek defended the thesis that the clergy was to be poor on the same day of the disputation. At that time, Wyclif’s teaching already penetrated his preaching, although Jakoubek’s main model was still Matthias of Janov. Taking as an example of Jakoubek’s postils from the time before the outbreak of the Hussite revolution (1413/1414) and after it (in the 1420s), I would like to show below how Jakoubek used Wyclif’s ideas in his works and how his approach to those texts changed over time. 1. Reception of Wyclif before Hussitism: Postil per circulum anni from 1413-1414 Jakoubek’s postil on ecclesiastical year 1413 to 1414 contains a preliminary version of the Hussite reform programme, which was later formulated in a short form as the Four Articles of Prague. It was a literary postil, an aid intended for preachers. Its popularity among readers is also proved by the fact that it has been preserved by three manuscripts in two textual redactions. In it, Jakoubek expressed his conviction on the necessity of immediate reforms of the church and also offered practical instructions on how to accomplish them. He utilized the Wycliffite concept of the apostolic church and the patristic concept of the church preferred by the Bohemian reformers. He built on the ideas of Milíč of Kroměříž, when he emphasized divine law, and Matthias of Janov, when he prioritized preaching of the word of God. Conceiving of divine law as the only rule by which people were to be governed, he concluded that not only the church was to be transformed, but also all of society9. 7 Jakoubek of Stříbro, Mistra Jakoubka ze Stříbra překlad Viklefova Dialogu. Z rukopisu knihovny Musea království českého, Ed. by M. SVOBODA, Česká akademie císaře Františka Josefa pro vědy, slovesnost a umění, Praha 1909. 8 SEDLÁK, «Husův pomocník», esp. (1915) 316-328. 9 About the postil: J. MAREK, Jakoubek ze Stříbra a počátky utrakvistického kazatelství v českých zemích. Studie o Jakoubkově postile z let 1413-1414, Národní

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In the entire collection, Jakoubek put emphasis on daily communion of the Eucharist inspired by Matthias of Janov and severely criticised human traditions that are contrary to divine law. In accordance with Matthias, he placed veneration of the Eucharist in sharp contrast to veneration of images and relics10. In various places of the postil, he mentioned references to the doctrine of communion under both kinds, which he introduced at the time of the writing of the collection11. However, a strong inspiration from Wyclif is also visible in the postil. Jakoubek was indebted to Wyclif’s opinions, especially in terms of the relationship of ecclesiastical and secular power, and found in Wyclif’s works impetuses also for his sharp attacks against religious orders and pilgrimages, and also for criticism of the clergy. In the text, he adopted Wyclif’s definition of simony along with a description of its manifestations and consequences12. According to Jakoubek, who drew from Wyclif also in this, the church was distracted from the right path, when the pope accepted Constantine’s donation. Because of that, the power of the Roman Church is derived from the power of the Roman emperors, not from saint Peter or the Apostles. And the corruption of the church reached its peak at that time, when «the last days of the Antichrist occurred»13. Jakoubek devoted great attention to the corrupt clergy, especially simony, the sale of indulgences and alleged excommunications for money. According to him, the clergy desires wealth and lives in pleasures, but does not have a right to secular rule. A manifestation of the period’s decay are also the corruption of the monks and bad human traditions, in that particularly the ‘priests’ traditions. He turned against the institutional church and devoted himself also to the role of the priest in the ‘end times’ and his political role, emphasizing the duties of the preacher –the spiritual shepherd–, especially preaching the word of God, which was not to be hindered. In a number of his views, he was relatively radical: he insinuated for instance the apostolic succession14. knihovna ČR, Praha 2011. Manuscript evidence: P. SPUNAR, Repertorium auctorum Bohemorum provectum idearum post Universitatem Pragensem conditam illustrans, Tom. 1, Officina editoria Academiae Scientiarum Poloniae, Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk – Łódź 1985, n. 648, p. 239. 10 MAREK, Jakoubek, p. 199. 11 MAREK, Jakoubek, pp. 204-210. 12 MAREK, Jakoubek, p. 196. 13 MAREK, Jakoubek, p. 195. 14 MAREK, Jakoubek, pp. 195-199.

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He also criticised the secular elites of his time, especially the educated and rich or otherwise privileged15. He expressed himself in the same way against the excessive veneration of the saints16. As already noticed, he also promoted the newly discovered communion under both kinds17. Some of Jakoubek’s demands did not remain on the individual level, but require specific reforms in all of the society, and thus –under the masque of morality and the Christian life– he actually formulates social demands. It was inter alia the usury, which was to be abolished according to Jakoubek18. In the mentioned sermon collection, Jakoubek included several of his own texts, which were to a great extent based on many compiled excerpts from Wyclif’s works. He further inserted several longer continuous texts taken from Wyclif’s tractates in the postil and further allowed Wyclif to inspire him in the writing of his own sermons. In none of these cases did he refer to Wyclif in any way, neither in the manuscript rubrics nor in his own text19. The postil includes two important shorter tractates by Jakoubek. The first of them, devoted to confession, is contained in both redactions of the postil and has two diverse versions, which are however identical in their meaning20. In the entire collection, confession was considered a necessary requirement for the communion of the Eucharist, since through it a person is purified from sins21. Jakoubek devoted to confession adequate attention and distinguished between three of its levels: to God, the public and the priest, and attributed the greatest significance to the first of them22. 15

MAREK, Jakoubek, p. 198. MAREK, Jakoubek, p. 199. 17 Ibid. 18 MAREK, Jakoubek, p. 201. 19 MAREK, Jakoubek, pp. 210-213. 20 The text is also preserved independently of the postil, once in full text and once radically shortened. Edition of the text: J. MAREK, «Sermo de confessione Jakoubka ze Stříbra», Studie o rukopisech, 48 (2018) 63-78. 21 MAREK, Jakoubek, p. 200. 22 «Sciendum, quod triplex est confessio. Quedam est vera soli Domino Deo. 2a est communis, ut cum peccator ordinate et circumspecte suam culpam confitetur, et talis in multis Scripturis habet fundamentum. Et 3a est secreta, qua quis ad aurem sibillat sacerdoti, et illa est meriti minimi, si non sic precedat minime prima. Nam ista est infima, 2a est alcior, prima altissima, quia soli Domino confiteri in veritate est quasi Deum in spiritu et veritate orare, et sine illa nullus salvari potest» (MAREK, «Sermo de confessione», p. 71). 16

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At the same time, he did not recognize the necessity to confess at least once a year according to provisions of the Fourth Lateran Council, nor did he even consider oral confession as necessary for redemption. According to him, the sinner should confess to whomever suitable, not necessarily only his own priest, as was determined by Christian tradition23. Despite that, Jakoubek was more conservative in this issue in comparison with Wyclif and the conclusions of his short tractate do not agree with the English reformer’s views. Jakoubek did not dare to say that a sinner can confess also to a layman.24 He came to the conclusion that between the two extreme views that a sinner never has to confess and that he must regularly confess, it is necessary to hold a central position.25 Jakoubek’s sources for this text were Wyclif’s Trialogus and De blasphemia26; it is also possible to prove Decretum Gratiani with the gloss was received most likely through Wyclif.27 Also, it is possible to mention tangentially here the reception of Wyclif’s De eucharistia et poenitentia and Opus evangelicum28.

23 «Ergo confitens querat sibi sacerdotem bonum et timentem Deum» (MAREK, «Sermo de confessione», p. 76). Concerning the Christian tradition, see H.C. LEA, A History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church, 3 vols., Lea Brothers & Co., Philadelphia 1896, vol. 1, p. 228. 24 DE VOOGHT, Jacobellus, pp. 206-211, J. KEJŘ, «Teaching on Repentance and Confession in the Bohemian Reformation», The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice, 5/1 (2004) 89-116: 95. 25 «Sed nos medium teneamus dicentes, quod quicumque potest habere confessorem tempore et loco bonum et iustum et scientem solvere et ligare iuxta tenorem Scripture sacre [cf. Matthew 18:18, John 20:23], ut illi confiteatur et ab ipso accipiat doctrinacionem; si vero ad certum tempus talem habere non potest, extunc prestoletur et sustineat interim, quod Domino concedente bonum talem habebit, ubi prima confessione Deo prehabita, extunc, ut illi confiteatur et sincere dolendo consilium accipiat salutare» (MAREK, «Sermo de confessione», p. 76). 26 Cf. John Wyclif, Trialogus cum supplemento Trialogi, Ed. by G. LECHLER, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1869, pp. 326-330; Id., Tractatus de blasphemia, Ed. by M.H. DZIEWICKI, Trübner & Co., London 1893, pp. 121, 124-125, 128-140, 157-158, 165. 27 For exact evidence, see the edition of the text: MAREK, «Sermo de confessione», esp. pp. 71-74. 28 Cf. John Wyclif, De eucharistia tractatus maior. Accedit tractatus De eucharistia et poenitentia sive De confessione, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, Trübner & Co., London 1892, p. 331; Id., Operis evangelici liber tertius et quartus sive De Antichristo liber primus et secundus, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, Trübner & Co., London 1896, p. 10. More precisely in the edition: MAREK, «Sermo de confessione», pp. 73, 75.

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The text entitled De bellis, which played an important role in the formulation of the Hussite position to the issue of just war, is contained only in the manuscript with the second redaction29. The stimulus to its writing was the conquest of Castle Skála in the Plzeň district in 1414, when the warriors turned to Jakoubek with the question of which of the parties was more just. In the interpretation of this question, Jakoubek applied a mixed civil-spiritual model, but the civil aspect with him is very weakened and almost lacks the natural-law approach present with John Wyclif, who works with the concept of homeland. According to Jakoubek, war is legitime, if it is waged not because of wealth, parsimony or honour or name, but because of God’s honour and His justice. In the wake of Thomas Aquinas and John Wyclif, Jakoubek also formulated three conditions for a war to be just, namely a just cause, confirmation from the superior and proper intention. These requirements must be met not only from the secular perspective, but chiefly from the perspective of divine law and divine justice. Jakoubek requests that people fighting have love for their enemies and confirmation from their superiors; in the same way, the superiors should have confirmation from God. Jakoubek expresses his conviction that human wickedness leads to wars, which in their turn paradoxically lower the level of evil in the world. He reaches the conclusion that everybody must first of all overcome sin in himself. The text is included in the manuscript after the sermon on the feast of John the Baptist, apparently because at its beginning there is a mention of this saint and the order that he gave to warriors («Neminem concutiatis, neque calumniam faciatis et contenti estote stipendiis vestris» – Luke 3:14). Ferdinand Seibt already noticed long ago that the text comes from the 17th chapter of the second book of Wyclif’s De civili dominio, but, in comparison with it, it is shortened and simplified and its meaning is different30. Jakoubek emphasizes the justice of wars waged in the Old Testament and avoids mentioning the New Testament, where no justification of war could be found. Wyclif’s influence here is, as was recently proved, far deeper31. The initial distinction based on the 29 J. MAREK, «Traktátek De bellis a pojetí tělesného boje v postilách Jakoubka ze Stříbra», Studia historica Brunensia, 62/1 (2015) 267-294, including the edition of the text. 30 F. SEIBT, Hussitica. Zur Struktur einer Revolution, Böhlau, Köln 19902, pp. 3031, DE VOOGHT, Jacobellus, pp. 246-248. 31 MAREK, «Traktátek», pp. 269-270, cf. also editorial apparatus on pp. 288-294.

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excerpt from Luke’s gospel with the orders of John the Baptist as well as several further places come from Wyclif’s sermon on the epistle of the third Sunday after the Octave of Easter (Appearance of the Lord32). It is possible to identify other places as ideas expressed in Wyclif’s Tractatus de officio regis and in various places of the first two books of the De civili dominio33. We do not know a direct model only for the last third of the text, which contains the explanation why God allows wars, the protest against the warriors taking prostitutes with them on military campaigns, and examples from the Old and New Testaments. Until they are found, it is possible to assume that it is Jakoubek’s own text. The short texts with independent excerpts from Wyclif are often included after the sermon, in which the given theme was discussed. The text on the oath is written down from two places of the Opus evangelicum34, the discussion of simony from two places of the Tractatus de simonia35. Only in one of the manuscripts of the first redaction and in an altered form also in the only manuscript transmitting the second redaction, there is the text on true penance based on the treatise De blasphemia36. In all of these cases, Jakoubek selected unproblematic passages of the text, which have clear meaning and could serve within the guide for preachers as the basis for the instruction of simple people. Since the text of the postil has not been published yet, I have analysed in detail in terms of textual influences –besides the texts mentioned above– 32

Cf. John Wyclif, Sermones, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, 4 vols., Trübner & Co., London 1887-1890, vol. 3. (Super epistolas), serm. 13, pp. 101-103. 33 Cf. John Wyclif, Tractatus de officio regis, Ed. by A.W. POLLARD – Ch. SAYLE, Trübner & Co., London 1887, p. 220; Id., Tractatus de civili dominio. Liber primus, Ed. by R.L. POOLE, Trübner & Co., London 1885, p. 298; Id., De civili dominio liber secundus, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, Trübner & Co., London 1900, pp. 234-237, 239-246, 249, 253-255. 34 MS Praha, Národní knihovna (henceforth NK) X.G.11, f. 257v / MS Praha, Knihovna Národního muzea (henceforth KNM) XII.F.25, f. 120r. Cf. Wyclif, Operis evangelici liber tertius et quartus, pp. 46-47; Id., Opus evangelicum (I-II), Ed. by J. LOSERTH, Trübner & Co., London 1895, pp. 177-187. 35 NK X.G.11, f. 260r / KNM XII.F.25, f. 122r. Cf. John Wyclif, Tractatus de simonia, Ed. by S. HERZBERG-FRÄNKEL – M.H. DZIEWICKI, Trübner & Co., London 1898, pp. 16-27 and 2-7. 36 NK X.G.11, f. 264 / KNM XIV.E.4, f. 82v (second redaction of the postil with altered text). Cf. Wyclif, Tractatus de blasphemia, p. 113.

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only the sermon for the feast of the main Bohemian saint, St Wenceslas37. This sermon is an exegetic homily with a prothema which contains narrative elements. It is said in the introduction that Christ in his words introduced the path to eternal life through pain and suffering, but today’s people –with some exceptions– do not take the route offered to them by Jesus. We could say that these exceptions are the “living saints” of Matthias of Janov. The contrast between the good and bad followers of Christ itself creates the opportunity for the preacher to criticise sharply the contemporary church and society. The emphasis on the imitation of Christ in morals, denial of the world and priestly life is a similar concept of the sermon of John Wyclif de uno martire, which interprets the same pericope38. Jakoubek refers especially to the terms regula, preceptum and lex dei. He criticizes those who perform ecclesiastical offices without being authorized to do so based on his moral life. Both criticism of the contemporary church and the claim that those who imitate Christ are only a few depend on an earlier sermon on the feast of St Wenceslas by the Catholic reformer Matthew of Cracow, similarly declaring the pericope «Si quis vult post me venire» (Matthew 16:24) as the norm of Christian life. It is evident that this sermon by Jakoubek is on the general level a synthesis of the approaches of Matthias of Janov and John Wyclif, and that the influence of the first of them is much clearer. To sum up, in terms of the method of dealing with Wyclif’s texts in this postil, it is obvious that Jakoubek shortened especially the theoretical and reflective passages and shifted the meaning of the texts used so that they corresponded to his own opinions. He used predominantly the theologically focused texts (Trialogus, De blasphemia, Opus evangelicum, De simonia, De eucharistia, De mandatis divinis) and sermons (Sermones super epistolas), but also works dealing with the essence of secular dominion (De civili dominio, De officio regis), which were, however, a part of Wyclif’s theologically based reform programme. In the end, all of these texts have been preserved also in Bohemian copies. 37 J. MAREK, «Svatováclavská kázání českých utrakvistů», in R. MODRÁKOVÁ – T. KLIMEK (eds.), Cesta k rozmanitosti aneb Kavárenský povaleč digitálním historikem středověku. Sborník příspěvků k životnímu jubileu PhDr. Zdeňka Uhlíře, Národní knihovna ČR, Praha 2016, pp. 167-175. Edition of the text: J. MAREK, «Svatováclavské kázání Jakoubka ze Stříbra z roku 1413», Studie o rukopisech, 49 (2019) 37-48. 38 John Wyclif, Sermones, vol. 2 (Super evangelia de sanctis), serm. 35, pp. 254-261.

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2. Doctor Evangelicus as an authority: Postil with an exposition of the Ten Commandments from the 1420s Jakoubek composed the postil exposing the Ten Commandments from the 1420s, according to his own words, to show especially the importance of the first three commandments, which were in his view often transcended in recent times39. It could be said that the text of the sermon collection is a kind of mirror of the “warrior for Christ’s truth”. Jakoubek explained in the preface that the commandments, which the people should fear («tremendissima mandata»), are to lead them to perfection. They serve also as a measure which rectifies human will40. Whereas Wyclif in his tractate De mandatis divinis, which also inspired Jakoubek, spoke mainly about love and focused on the New Testament, Jakoubek accented the Old Testament more41. In addition to the books of the Old Testament, he also cited the Church Fathers, the Decretum Gratiani and Wyclif to a greater extent. Although the text of the collection is not particularly long in comparison with other Hussite postils, it is divided by marginal markings –along with a few other sermons in this manuscript– into about 85 sections, comprising mainly independent textual units and often summarizing what was said before in the respective introductions. Since the Hussites prepared sermons for roughly this number of Sundays and weekdays in the course of a year, it was most likely a preaching aid, which could be used in the preparation of the sermons for the entire year. This is indicated also by the fact that in the manuscript there is a rubric on the day of the vigil of John the Baptist (23 June) and that in another place there is an exposition of the Gospel excerpt which is read on Saturday before the third Sunday in Lent42. In comparison with the earlier postil analysed above, it is possible here to observe a certain disillusion of the author of the collection because of the discredit of divine law (and communion from the chalice) by the Tabo39

MS Praha, Knihovna Metropolitní kapituly (henceforth Kapit), C.103, f. 17r. Cf. F.M. BARTOŠ, «Příspěvky k dějinám Václava IV. 6. Jakoubkův výklad Desatera», Věstník České akademie, 51 (1942) 92-100: 93; O. HALAMA, «Poznámky k interpretaci Dekalogu v českých dějinách církve», Studie a texty Evangelické teologické fakulty, 16 (2010) 2438: 32-33. Manuscript evidence: SPUNAR, Repertorium, Tom. 1, n. 654, p. 241. 40 Kapit C.103, f. 10v. 41 John Wyclif, Tractatus de mandatis divinis. Accedit Tractatus de statu innocencie, Ed. by J. LOSERTH – F.D. MATTHEW, Trübner & Co., London 1922. 42 Kapit C.103, ff. 47r, 62r.

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rite warriors43. Jakoubek speaks here against slaughter and against the death penalty, although he does not condemn the latter absolutely44. Like in his Exposition of the Revelation, chiefly the ‘bloody priests’, who directly call for slaughter, are a thorn in his eye45. This idea, which was clearly inspired in the Exposition by the Wycliffite work Opus arduum valde46, is expressed here rather generally, in accordance with Wyclif’s opinion47. Jakoubek adds that Christians should not accept the sacraments from such priests48. In terms of other issues, such as the cult of the Eucharist placed in sharp contrast with the undesirable cult of images49 or the position towards scholars and nobles50, Jakoubek remained with his radical opinions, which we already know from his earlier works. He also paid great attention to perpetual payments and usury, but his positions did not change at all even here from the earlier times51. Many of Jakoubek’s positions reflect the changes which Hussitism brought. His hard-line criticism of religious orders is no longer so sharp, because many monasteries had closed in the meantime and secularization of the ecclesiastical manors, which Jakoubek had called for earlier, had taken place52. On the contrary, he defined himself against those who refused the church sacraments, purgatory or communion from the chalice, hence against the Taborite radicals and Catholics53. An eschatological 43

«Falsum testimonium fit contra veritatem fidei ut in parte regis Ungarie, que negat veritatem de communione calicis, et in parte Thaboritarum, que negat sacramenta» (Kapit C.103, f. 63r). BARTOŠ, «Příspěvky», p. 97. «Sic sacerdotes multi adherentes isti calici videntes sibi adherere multitudinem populi, tunc per hoc superbierunt et sibi conplacerunt. Ideo ex hoc permissi sunt cadere in diversa peccata, et sic poluerunt illum calicem. Similiter multi domini et clientes videntes augmentari eis divicias, eciam apprehenderunt calicem Domini etc. Et sic omnis populus sua mala vita legem sanctam et calicem Domini dederunt in abhominacionem coram peccatoribus huius mundi et adversariis veritatis» (Kapit C.103, f. 41r). 44 Kapit C.103, f. 32v. BARTOŠ, «Příspěvky», p. 94. 45 Kapit C.103, ff. 34r, 35r. Cf. Jakoubek of Stříbro, Výklad na Zjevenie sv. Jana, Ed. by F. ŠIMEK, 2 vols., Komise pro vydávání pramenů českého hnutí náboženského ve stol. 14. a 15., Praha 1933, vol. 2, p. 195; cf. Wyclif, Tractatus de mandatis divinis, p. 335. 46 MAREK, «Traktátek De bellis», p. 276. 47 Cf. Wyclif, De civili dominio liber secundus, p. 267. 48 Kapit C.103, f. 35r. 49 Kapit C.103, f. 15rv. BARTOŠ, «Příspěvky», p. 93. 50 Kapit C.103, f. 37r. BARTOŠ, «Příspěvky», p. 96. 51 Kapit C.103, ff. 56r-59v. BARTOŠ, «Příspěvky», pp. 97-98. 52 Kapit C.103, f. 56r. 53 «Item [committunt mendacium] qui locuntur contra sacramenta ecclesie vel purgatorium vel communionem calicis » (Kapit C.103, f. 61r). BARTOŠ, «Příspěvky», p. 97.

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tone is present in the text, which can be found also in other works by Jakoubek from the time, i.e. in the already mentioned Czech exposition of the Apocalypse (Exposition of the Revelation54). There are even some passages of text that are included in the respective language in both works. In terms of how Wyclif’s doctrines were treated, a fundamental shift occurred in that Jakoubek entirely openly cited the English reformer and his works here («doctor ewangelicus», «Vikleff»). He referred to Wyclif’s De mandatis divinis with its exposition of the Ten Commandments and also to his De civili dominio, thus a work, which had an essential importance for the Bohemian reformation55. In the exposition of the individual commandments, he allowed himself to be inspired –as had already done Jan Hus in his Czech exposition of the Ten Commandments– to a greater or lesser extent by the Wyclif’s De mandatis divinis, which was a popular and almost orthodox work by the English reformer. In comparison with Wyclif, Jakoubek’s interpretations are briefer and mainly do not go into such detail. Just like Wyclif, however, Jakoubek resolved various practical issues connected with individual sins. All this shows that even this collection was a practical guide for pastoral care. As for the attitude towards Wyclif’s De mandatis divinis, of which Jakoubek paraphrased or adopted several sentences, it is clear right away in the explanation of the first commandment that he derived the motifs from the model, but provide a different interpretation of them to suit his own conviction. For instance, with the interpretation on the images, because of his strong aversion to their veneration, he left aside Wyclif’s historical excursion and his statement that images can be both good and bad56. In the exposition of other commandments, he stuck to Wyclif now more closely, now more loosely, but he often adopted motifs from him, such as he did with the various kinds of killing in the exposition of the fifth commandment57. The exposition of the fifth commandment offers itself as a suitable example for analysis, especially because it partially coincides in content with the text of the De bellis from the earlier analysed postil, and also because this commandment was quite topical at the beginnings of the 54

BARTOŠ, «Příspěvky», pp. 95-96. Direct references to Wyclif: De mandatis divinis: ff. 17r, 20v, 52r; De civili dominio: ff. 19r, 29v, 52v, 53r, 56v; De potestate papae (probably): f. 27v. 56 Exposition of the first commandment: Kapit C.103, ff. 12v-17r. 57 Kapit C.103, f. 30v. Cf. Wyclif, Tractatus de mandatis divinis, p. 329. 55

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Hussite wars58. The exposition on killing is based on the tractate De homicidio attributed to Jakoubek59. He rejects, although not absolutely, executions and emphasizes in accord with Wyclif that secular power does not punish sins according to their severity60. Secular judges should also take into consideration God’s mercy. About battles, he states that wars in the Old Testament were victorious, when waged for God’s sake, whereas defeats are to be meant as a punishment for sins. According to him, it is not possible to invoke the Old Testament statement that evil people are not to be tolerated, and he further presents three usual conditions for just war, because he also resolves the question, already elaborated by Wyclif, whether a priest or clergyman can kill. Jakoubek draws the conclusion that killing is not a cardinal sin only in extreme cases and that priests should avoid such situations. He points out that some priests invoke these Old Testament examples only because they want to kill, but the Old Testament should not be interpreted literally, and this is also the case with the Book of Joshua and the conception of physical battles which can be drawn from it. Nevertheless, war as such is allowed, but warriors for divine law should at the same time also love their enemies. The ideas formulated here are a clear echo of the Opus arduum valde, which Jakoubek used to a great extent in his Exposition of the Revelation61, and particularly the treatises of John Wyclif. The overall meaning of this passage is probably significantly more pessimistic due to the experience gained with warfare in comparison with the past. The manuscript with the exposition of the Ten Commandments also contains an independent brief exposition on war by Jakoubek62. This text

58 Kapit C.103, ff. 30r-35v. Cf. MAREK, «Traktátek», pp. 278-281, where are also quotations from the text. 59 Jakoubek of Stříbro, De homicidio, in Н.В. ЯСТРЕБОВ, Этюды о Петре Хельчицком и его времени. Из истории гусит. мысли, тип. М-ва пут. сообщ. (тва И.Н. Кушнерев и К°), Санкт-Петербург 1908 [N.V. YASTREBOV, Etyudy o Petre Khelchitskom i ego vremeni. Iz istorii gusit. mysli, tip. M-va put. soobshch. (t-va I.N. Kushnerev i K°), Sankt-Peterburg 1908], pp. 111-115. 60 Cf. Wyclif, Tractatus de mandatis divinis, p. 337. 61 See also similar Jakoubek’s views on warfare in this postil: MAREK, «Traktátek De bellis», pp. 276-278. 62 Kapit C.103, f. 9v-10r. Edited and commented by MAREK, «Traktátek», pp. 281-282.

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is strongly based on Wyclif’s De civili dominio, but it is shorter than the De bellis and contains only citations from the Bible, not from the Church Fathers or Canon law (the one exception is a single citation from Glossa ordinaria). It begins with a quote from Proverbs 20:18 («With good advice make war»). The first part of the text is a collage composed of passages from the 17th chapter of the second book of the De civili dominio63. It deals with the two conditions for waging a war: a just cause and proper intention. Besides the linking text and presentation of several ‘documentary’ biblical citations (one from the fourth chapter of the First Book of Maccabees and several from the fourteenth chapter of the Book of Genesis), there is a summary here of Wyclif’s ideas, which is almost literally the same as a short passage of the Bellandi materiam attributed to the conservative Hussite Jan Příbram. It is remarkable that from the two paragraphs of this small work, which do not contain textual borrowings from Wyclif, but summarize his ideas, Jakoubek chose the first, whose core is that warrior should be motivated by justice and divine truth, not wealth. Jakoubek did not include into his text the next paragraph of the Bellandi materiam, in which Příbram deals with defence of the homeland and put forward argumentats based on natural law64. This choice significantly captures the difference between Jakoubek and John Wyclif, or Jan Příbram. It is possible to consider also the concluding requirements of just war as the author’s own contribution, although also these are inspired by Wyclif. Purity, moderation, and obedience are to be maintained in war and God is to be thanked after a victory. It can generally be said that Jakoubek elaborated here the considerations from his early treatise De bellis and emphasized the inner motivation of the warrior.

3. Conclusion Jakoubek of Stříbro, who in the Bohemian milieu asserted communion from the chalice also for the laypeople, used in his works extensively the oeuvres of the Bohemian reformer Matthias of Janov, of which adopted entire passages, especially into treatises concerning the Eucharist65. Other 63

Cf. Wyclif, De civili dominio liber secundus, pp. 240-247. SEIBT, Hussitica, p. 50. 65 KRMÍČKOVÁ, «Wycleff, Wycleff», p. 59. 64

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opinions of Jakoubek agreed, and to a great extent, with those of John Wyclif or were derived from him. However, it was often a blending of the two sources that one may find in Jakoubek’s texts: for instance, in the translation of Wyclif’s Dialogus, he expanded some passages and added to them inter alia biblical mentions of the «abomination of desolation» (Matthew 24:15), which precisely Matthias of Janov had often cited in his work66. Despite the heavy use of the work of Matthias of Janov, Jakoubek did not hesitate to include in his postils longer excerpts from Wyclif since 1413. Nevertheless, some of his own shorter texts in the form of tractate which are included in these postils are compilations from the works of the Oxford thinker. However, he worked with Wyclif’s ideas also in a creative manner. While excerpting from Wyclif’s texts, he left out speculative passages and preferred concise, clear expressions. It is possible to document in Jakoubek’s position on confession in the short tractate De confessione found in the postil from 1413/1414, which is more conservative in comparison with Wyclif. On the contrary, the text on the oath from the 1420s is more radical.67 As for his position on battles, which have become a pivotal issue at the beginning of the 1420s due to the outbreak of Hussite wars, Jakoubek came to maintain that when a battle for divine law is taking place, it must be justified. Again, in this aspect he differed from Wyclif. Still, there is a clear shift here from the cautious statement in the earlier postil, in which war is allowed, to a certain disillusion and reference to the vices connected with battle in the 1420s. Jakoubek borrowed passages from Wyclif, which were suitable for the Bohemian reform programme. His position towards Wyclif did not change even after the realization of the Hussite programme and after the hard, internal battles among the Hussites on the acceptance of the works by John Wyclif after 1420. On the contrary, it was only then that Jakoubek began to mention Wyclif explicitly by name as an authority, and thus openly claimed his legacy –just like the Taborites or later Petr Chelčický68. He 66

Jakoubek of Stříbro, Mistra Jakoubka ze Stříbra překlad Viklefova Dialogu,

p. xxii. 67 He had similarly discussed this question earlier, but he had not yet expressed himself entirely clearly. 68 Similar development, although marked by the textual tradition of the respective postils and in the end different, has been traced in Jan Hus’s homiletical work. A. VIDMANOVÁ, «Autoritäten und Wiclif in Hussens homiletischen Schriften»,

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used his terminology and applied it to the new situation that had occurred in Bohemia in the meantime. In one of his late Eucharistic tractates (De existencia vera, 1428), he even tried to prove that the English reformer, just like him, believed in the real presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist69. Nevertheless, he had never cited Wyclif before in his treatises on this sacrament– not even by quoting his text without explicit reference to his name. It is apparent that he needed to protect himself with the help of a recognized authority at a time when harsh disputes on this issue were taking place, more than before, in Bohemia and when Wyclif was acclaimed by the Taborite party70. The ever tenser situation at the time is apparent also by considering the fact that in the exposition of the fifth commandment he spoke authoritatively in the first person similarly as Wyclif, but at the same time requested instruction, if he was wrong, and stated that he did not want to blame anyone, only sin itself71. Even in terms of the regulation of social relations, Jakoubek started from divine law, which he found in the Bible. He did not take natural law into account, which –even according to the English reformer John Wyclif– is inherent to people and their communities. In comparison with his predecessors and successors, Jakoubek lacks any indication of national awareness in his texts. All of human activity in his opinion should be subject to divine law and the struggle for profit and wealth is certainly not compatible with that. The reason why the ‘Evangelical Doctor’ was so attractive for Jakoubek can be seen in the fact that the work of John Wyclif had a compendial character and offered a clear and at the same time critical image of the world commented on with a reform ethos.

in A. ZIMMERMANN (ed.), Antiqui und moderni. Traditionsbewußtsein und Fortschrittsbewußtsein im späten Mittelalter, De Gruyter, Berlin – New York 1974, pp. 383-393. 69 KRMÍČKOVÁ, «Wycleff, Wycleff», p. 60. 70 Ibid. 71 Kapit C.103, f. 32v.

GRAZIANA CIOLA* THE APOLOGUE OF THE BIRDS

In this paper I am going to examine the so called Apologue or Fable of the Birds. This is an exemplum occurring in Wyclif’s De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1 and notoriously attributed to John of Rupescissa by Jean Froissart, the source of the main line of transmission of the text. Early on, several erudite authors and polemists associate Rupescissa and Wyclif with regards to the Apologue. However, Wyclif himself does not attribute this exemplum to Rupescissa and his version shows some significant differences from the one recorded by Froissart in the context of the enunciation, the details of the fable, and its polemical aims. After introducing the Apologue, the common outline shared by both versions, and some issues concerning the attribution (§ 1), I will analyse Wyclif’s passage in De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1 (§ 2) and Froissart’s version of the exemplum (§ 3), along with some of the Apologue’s occurrences throughout the erudite and polemical tradition up to Pierre Bayle (§ 4).

1. The Apologue of the Birds The Apologue of the Birds –alternatively defined in the tradition also as «exemplum»1 or «fable»2– is a short allegorical story of politicoecclesiological argument. * Center for the History of Philosophy and Science – Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies; Radboud University, Nijmegen; Erasmusplein 1, 6525 HT Nijmegen, [email protected]. 1 On the exemplum in late medieval literature, see: N. LOUIS, L’exemplum en pratiques. Production, diffusion et usages des recueils d’exempla latins aux XIIIe-XVe siècles, 2 vols., PhD dissertation, Namur – Paris 2013. 2 For example, Wyclif (De civili dominio liber secundus, Ed. by J. LOSERTH, Trübner & Co., London 1900, cap. 1 p. 7) refers to the Apologue as «quaedam fabula», while Jean Froissart (Chroniques, Lib. 3, Ed. by L. MILLOT, Honoré Champion, Paris 1931, pp. 228-232), Mathias Flacius Illyricus (Catalogus testium veritatis, Ioannem Oporinum, Basileae 15561, Appendix, pp. 30-32), Johannes Wolff (Lectiones memorabiles et reconditae, Leonhard Reinmichel, Lavincae 1600, pp. 623-625),

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The narrative structure –shared, with some variations, by all recorded versions– is simple: there is a bird who does not have any feathers; the other birds, moved to compassion, give her some of their own; but the previously featherless bird grows prideful of her new plumage and starts bullying and harassing her benefactors, who retaliate and teach her a lesson in humility either by taking back their feathers or by threatening to do so, depending on who tells the story. While this Apologue is one «des morceau qui a mieux consacré la célébrité de notre Roquetaillade»3, it is only transmitted as the record of a verbal tale, for the first time –at least with this attribution– in the third Book of the Chroniques by Jean Froissart. Froissart, however, was not present when the Apologue was allegedly delivered during an interrogation in the context of Rupescissa’s trial for heresy4, so he reports the whole episode by word of mouth. Almost three centuries later, when listing Rupescissa’s works Giovanni Giacinto Sbaraglia seems to refer to a possibly more direct and Philippe Du Plessis Mornay (Mystère d’Iniquité, c’est à dire l’Histoire de la papauté, Thomas Portau, Saumur 1611, pp. 449-450) define it as an «exemplum». Nicolas Vignier (Bibliothèque historiale, vol. 3, Abel l’Angelier, Paris 1588, p. 513) calls it «apologue» and compares it to «la fable de la corneille d’Horace» and Nicolas Coeffeteau (Réponse au livre intitulé Mystere d’Iniquité du sieur Du Plessis, Sebastian Cramoisy, Paris 1614, pp. 1075-1076) introduces it as «apologue», but later alternates between «fable» and «apologie»; and Pierre Bayle (Dictionnaire historique et critique, vol. 4, P. Brunel et alii, Amsterdam – Leyde – La Haye – Utrecht 1740, pp. 74-75) alternates between «apologue» and «example». 3 J. BIGNAMI-ODIER, «Jean de Roquetaillade (de Rupescissa), théologien, polémiste, alchimiste», Histoire littéraire de la France, 41 (1981) 75-240 p. 177. 4 John of Rupescissa was an extremely prolific author; only a small part of his works are edited: De consideratione quintae essentiae rerum omnium d’après l’édition de 1597, Ed. by D. KAHN, Manucius, Paris 2003; Liber secretorum eventuum, Ed. by R. LERNER – C. MOREROD-FATTEBERT, Éditions universitaires, Fribourg 1994; Liber lucis, Ed. by A. AROMATICO – M. PERUZZI, Marsilio, Venezia 1998; Liber ostensor quod adesse festinant tempora, Ed. by C. THÉVENAZ MODESTIN – C. MOREROD-FATTEBERT, École française de Rome, Roma 2005; Vade mecum in tribulatione, Ed. by E. TEALDI, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 2015; a partial edition of the Commentum super Cyrillum is available in M. BOILLOUX, Étude d’un commentaire prophétique du XIV siècle: Jean de Roquetaillade et l’oracle de Cyrille (v. 1345-1349), PhD dissertation – École de chartes, Paris 1993. On John of Rupescissa’s life and works see, among others: BIGNAMI-ODIER, «Jean de Roquetaillade»; EAD., Études sur Jean de Roquetaillade (Johannes de Rupescissa), Vrin, Paris 1952; G. CIOLA, «Giovanni di Rupescissa: autobiografia, profezia e leggenda», Micrologus, 21 (2013) 517-578.

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transcript of the Apologue5; nonetheless, this alternative source has not yet been recovered and might be lost. As of now, the earliest record of Rupescissa’s Apologue remains a second-hand tale, which by its nature should make the attribution doubtful –even if the themes of the exemplum are in line with those preeminent in Rupescissa’s surviving works. Analogously, the passage in De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1 is presented as the transcript of quandam fabulam heard directly by Wyclif from «unum dominum periciorem ceteris» during a discussion «in quodam parliamento Londonie»6. Wyclif does not attribute this fabula to Rupescissa, nor does he mention the French Franciscan in this chapter; nonetheless, several historians (including Bignami-Odier) have acknowledged Rupescissa as Wyclif’s source –presumably with the intermediation of Froissart7. This interpretation is not completely unfounded. It is not impossible that the source of the dominus pericior ceteris’ fable was indeed Rupescissa’s exemplum– even if Wyclif does not refer to it and might not even be aware of this supposed origin. Besides, Rupescissa and Wyclif come quite early to be mentioned side by side in Lollard writings and this association is reiterated, later on, in the polemical debates between Protestant and Catholic erudite authors8. Both their recurring association 5

Giovanni Giacinto Sbaraglia, Supplementum ad Scriptores trium ordinum sancti Francisci, vol. 2, ex Typogr. S. Michaelis ad ripam, Romae 1806, pp. 128-130: p. 130: «Apologum propheticum prodiisse in lucem post litteras Petri de Vineis». Non invenitur. 6 Wyclif, De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1, p. 9. 7 See for example the lemma «Cutcliffe, John» in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 13, Smith, Elder & Co., London 1888, pp. 357-359: «The cardinals of Auxerre and Ostia were sent to persuade him to omit his denunciations, but his reply (according to the story which Froissart, xi. 253 et seqq., says he heard when he was in Avignon in the time of Innocent VI) was only a new prophecy, given in the familiar fable of the bird which came into the world without feathers and was kindly clothed by the other birds, whereupon it became puffed up, and was despoiled. This story, together with its application to the endowments of the church, was already commonplace in religious controversy; it reappears ten years later in Wycliffe ‘De civili Dominio,’ ii. 1». See also BIGNAMI-ODIER, «Jean de Roquetaillade», p. 179. 8 For example, John of Rupescissa is mentioned next to Wyclif in the Opus arduum, one of the major Lollard apocalyptic texts, composed by an anonymous Lollard author around 1390. On this text see A. HUDSON, «A Neglected Wycliffite Text», Journal of Ecclesiastical History 29/3 (1978) 257-279. As for the association within the Protestant erudite and polemic literature, see for example John Foxe, Actes and Monuments, Ed. by J. DAYE, London 1583, p. 414: «And pronoūceth plainly that God will purge his

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within the tradition and some points of analogy within their ecclesiological ideas have likely influenced the outlook of several modern historians. Yet, there are some issues with this account, beginning with the two texts’ respective dates of composition. The history of Froissart’s Chroniques is philologically complex: Froissart reworked the four books several times and, in a number of instances, the dating of the different versions is controversial.9 We know that Froissart begins to work on Book I at some point in the 1370s and that by then he is familiar with John of Rupescissa’s life and writings, since a chapter in Book I is devoted to his imprisonment and his eschatological theses10. The Apologue is reported already in the early drafts of Book III11, in Clergy, and wil haue priestes that shalbe poore, godly, and that shal faithfully feede the Lordes flocke: moreouer, that the goods of the church shal returne againe to the lay men. He prophesied also the same time, that the French king and his army should haue an ouerthrow. Which came likewise to passe during the time of his imprisonment. Of this Ioannes de rupe, wryteth Froysard in hys time, and also Wickliffe, of whose prophecies, more may be said at more leisure (Christ willing) hereafter». 9 See for example: P. AINSWORTH, «Froissart and his Second Book», in C. ALLMAND (ed.), War, Government and Power in Late Medieval France, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2000, pp. 21-36; P. COURROUX, L’écriture de l’histoire dans les chroniques françaises (XIIe-XVe siècle), Classiques Garnier, Paris 2016, pp. 352-361; G. CROENEN, «A “refound” manuscript of Froissart revisited: Newberry MS F.37», French Studies Bulletin, 31 (2010) 56-60; ID., «Stemmata, philology and textual history: a response to Alberto Varvaro», Medioevo Romanzo, 34 (2010) 398402; ID., «Jean Froissart, Chronicles [B/C version]», in M. LIVINGSTON – K. DEVRIES (eds.), The Battle of Crécy: A Casebook, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2015, pp. 407-410; G.T. DILLER (ed.), Froissart. Chroniques. Livre I. Le manuscrit d’Amiens. Bibliothèque municipale n° 486, 5 vols., Droz, Genève 1991-1998; ID., «La dernière rédaction du premier livre des Chroniques de Froissart. Une étude du Reg. lat. 869», Le Moyen Âge, 76 (1970) 91-125; J.-M. MOEGLIN, «Froissart, le métier d’historien et l’invention de la Guerre de Cent Ans», Romania, 124 (2006) 429-470; J.J.N. PALMER, «Book I (1325-78) and its sources», in ID. (ed.), Froissart: Historian, Boydell Press, Woodbridge 1981, pp. 7-24; M. SCHWARZE, Generische Wahrheit – Höfischers Polylog im Werk Jean Froissarts, Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 209; A. VARVARO, «Problèmes philologiques du Livre IV des Chronique de Jean Froissart», in G. CROENEN – P. AINSWORTH (eds.), Patrons, Authors and Workshops: Books and Book Production in Paris around 1400, Peeters, Leuven 2006, pp. 255-277. 10 Froissart, Chroniques, Lib. 2.2, 119. 11 See e.g. MS Besançon, Bibliothèque d’Étude et Conservation, 865, edited in Jean Froissart, Chroniques Livre III – Le manuscrit Saint-Vincent de Besançon, Ed. by P. AINSWORTH – G. CROENEN, Droz, Genève 2007.

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a chapter containing an explicit reference to its year of composition: 1390. Wyclif completes the De civili dominio around 1376-77 and –if his account is to be believed– it is plausible that he heard the fabula in London before 1375, since the DCD seems to be based upon a course of lectures delivered in Oxford that year12. According to Froissart, Rupescissa had presented the tale at some point during Innocent VI’s pontificate (1352-62), presumably before 1355 –since some of the events he allegedly prophesied over the course of that interrogation had yet to happen– and likely around 135313. Therefore, although it is possible that Rupescissa might have been the remote source of Wyclif’s fable, Wyclif’s reference cannot have been Froissart: we either have to follow the Dictionary of National Biography and accept that «[t]his story, together with its application to the endowments of the church, was already commonplace in religious controversy» –which, however, would not explain why the Apologue comes to be commonly attributed to Rupescissa already by the end of the 14th century– or to presume the existence of another, earlier line of transmission, independent of Froissart, and possibly even of a shared source that is lost to us. Be that as it may, at a closer examination, Wyclif’s and Froissart’s versions of the Apologue of the Birds show several differences not merely of detail, but in their context and polemical aims as well.

2. Secundum quandam fabulam: De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1 Wyclif’s version of the Apologue appears towards the end of De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1, just before the closing remarks. This chapter is quite complex and layered with subtle thematic shifts. The author’s main concern, as stated in the opening, is to defend his claim that «ecclesiasticos ad tantum posse delinquere quod domini temporales possent ab eis ligittime ac meritorie auferre temporalia»14 against the criticisms of 12 A.E. LARSEN, «John Wyclif, c. 1331-1384», in I.C. LEVY (ed.), A Companion to John Wyclif: Late Medieval Theologian, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2006, pp. 1-65: pp. 26-27; W.R. THOMSON, The Latin Writings of John Wyclyf: An Annotated Catalog, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto 1983, p. 84. 13 For some details supporting this dating, see CIOLA, «Giovanni di Rupescissa», pp. 335-340. 14 Wyclif, De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1, p. 1.

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an Oxonian Benedictine monk. However, Wyclif’s responses to his critic’s objections address several issues that, albeit related, go beyond arguing that secular authorities should have the right to appropriate those ecclesiastics’ worldly possessions, at least in some extreme cases of ecclesiastical crimes or misconduct. Despite the presence of a moral component to the chapter, the focus is not so much on the condemnation of the corruption and excesses within the Church, but rather on the relationship between the jurisdiction of canon and secular law. Throughout De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1 Wyclif argues that, if need be, secular authorities should legitimately constrain (refrenare) the vices of the ecclesiastici delinquentes. These criminals should not be persecuted exclusively by their superiors within the ranks of the Church. In case of either internal impediments over the normal course of the ecclesiastic justice or if the offense being persecuted happened to be against secular institutions15, the secular powers should intervene against ecclesiastic perpetrators. On the requisition of ecclesiastic possessions by secular princes and potentates, Wyclif seems to allow both for the requisition of properties belonging to the Church (nobis communia) or ecclesiastic groups, and for the seizing of assets belonging to «rich clergymen» (clerici possessionati). In either case, this type of secular intervention would be legitimate both as a punishment in case of misconduct and as an action due to force majeure (e.g. a war) for the common good of the secular state. Wyclif does not seem to oppose the idea of subjecting ecclesiastics to ordinary taxation and overall he rejects the thesis –defended by his opponent– that the members of the Church should be exempt in all circumstances. It is in this context that he presents his version of the Apologue: Sed alius videtur sensus pretensus ex verbis aliis fratris mei. Videtur enim ipsum velle innuere quod nulli religiosi in Anglia solvant regi decimas, quindenas vel quodunquem pendagium, quantumcunque illi fuerint temporalibus predotati et quantumcunque immineat ardua causa regis. Sed absit catholicum credere exemcionem istam fore legittimam, cum includit repugnanciam. Unde audivi religioso possessionatos in quodam parliamento Londonie illud expetere et unum dominum periciorem ceteris secundum quandam fabulam respondisse. Quondam, inquit, audivi congregatas fuisse avinculas, inter quas bubo affuit sed inplumis. 15

Wyclif, De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1, p. 4.

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Simulans se exanguem et frigidum petivit tremulus pennas ab aliis avinculis sibi dari. Quibus misericordia motis singula pennas buboni adiecerat, quousque fuerat pennis alienis deformiter onustata. Quo facto statim affuit accipiter ad depredandum; aves autem ad evitandum invasionem defensione vel fuga insultus accipitris a bubone pennas proprias repetebant. Quo negante quelibet propriam pennam violenter arripuit, et sic evaserunt periculum bubone remanente deplumato miserabiliter plus quam prius. Sic, inquit, si contra nos bellum ingruerit, oportet de clericis possessionatis temporalia tamquam nobis communia et regno recipere et regnum nostrum cum bonis propriis tamquam magis superfluis prudenter defendere16.

Besides the lack of attribution to Rupescissa, Wyclif’s version of the Apologue shows several other interesting features, especially in comparison to Froissart’s. While shorter than the exemplum in Froissart’s Chroniques, this fabula includes some details that are not found in the predominant tradition, along with a richer and more condensed symbolism, resulting in a quite different tone. For instance, here the featherless bird is specifically an owl (bubo), whose negative connotation –already present in classical antiquity– had been received and consolidated in the western tradition since the time of Isidore of Seville17. The featherless owl of Wyclif’s tale is not simply offered the other birds’ feathers out of generosity and compassion, but because she goes to ask for help, «pretending to be feeble and cold». Since the bird is said to be featherless, this request could have been perfectly legitimate, but Wyclif connotes the owl’s actions negatively defining them as deceiving, even if they would not need to be so. Then, instead of beautifully adorned, the owl becomes deformed by the foreign plumage (deformiter onustata) and turns into an unnatural monstrosity. Yet, not only does she grow prideful, but she also goes beyond simply bothering and harassing the other birds, by attacking 16

Wyclif, De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1, p. 7. See Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, XII, 7, [39]: «Bubo a sono vocis conpositum nomen habet, avis feralis, onusta quidem plumis, sed gravi semper detenta pigritia: in sepulcris die noctuque versatur, et semper commorans in cavernis. De qua Ovidius (Met. 5, 549): Foedaque fit volucris venturi nuntia luctus, / ignavus bubo dirum mortalibus omen. Denique apud augures malum portendere fertur: nam cum in urbe visa fuerit, solitudinem significare dicunt». 17

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them and stealing from them. The wronged birds’ reaction, then, is more extreme than the one presented in Froissart’s version of the Apologue: instead of simply threatening to take back their feathers to teach the owl a lesson in humility, here the other birds do take back what’s theirs (and then some) to stop the owl’s offences, leaving her «even more featherless than before». Moreover, despite the particularly negative connotation of the featherless owl and her behaviour, the moral teaching in Wyclif’s tale is not simply a blanket condemnation of ecclesiastic corruption and luxury, but it also makes a more restricted point about the necessity of seizing the assets of the Church in order to defend the kingdom under extraordinarily taxing circumstances in times of struggle. Certainly, the moral condemnation of the Church’s unnatural wealth along with its resulting degeneration, is a central theme of the fable: the owl was supposed to be featherless; her request for help is dishonest and deceitful; covered in feathers that do not belong to her, not only is she monstrous, but also prideful and violent. In this characterisation, there is an obvious ecclesiological stance, a clear view of how the Church should be –and is not. While the current condition of the Church, just like the owl’s pride, deserves to be punished, this general appeal for a moral reformation seems secondary to the explicit moral at the end of the fable: «si contra nos bellum ingruerit, oportet de clericis possessionatis temporalia tamquam nobis communia et regno recipere et regnum nostrum cum bonis propriis tamquam magis superfluis prudenter defendere». Then, the main aim of Wyclif’s Apologue is to address the present political situation and the current relations between the English kingdom and the Church, exemplifying, summing up, and finally supporting the theses presented throughout the previous sections of De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1. Overall, Wyclif’s Apologue is firmly rooted in the present sociopolitical context and is not a prophetic exemplum. This little metaphoric tale does not make predictions about the future, nor contains any warnings, or ties into a comprehensive historical picture of the decadence of the Church and the times: it is nothing more than what it is said to be –quaedam fabula.

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3. Froissart Froissart’s Apologue, on the other hand, is essentially prophetic, with a moral focus and an eschatological background. Froissart himself is not unfamiliar with the earlier and contemporary prophetic literature, which happened to be quite popular and discussed at the court of his patron, William of Hainaut, and is a recurring theme throughout the Chroniques18. John of Rupescissa is a recurring character throughout this work. This Spiritual Franciscan has certainly caught Froissart’s attention beyond the anecdotic curiosity of an extravagant figure who enjoyed a measure of fame during the chronicler’s youth: Froissart’s remarks about Rupescissa’s previsions, along with an understanding of their epistemological and exegetical background, show a direct familiarity with his works and theories19. The section devoted to Rupescissa’s enunciation of the Apologue, in the third book of the Chroniques, is extensive and includes a contextualisation20 of the example (likely based on Jean le Bel’s Chronique)21, Rupescissa’s interpretation, and some observations about his trials and his prophecies22. The Apologue itself goes like this: 18 See for example C. BEAUNE, «Perceforêt et Merlin. Prophétie, littérature et rumeurs au début de la guerre de Cent Ans», Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 27 (1992) 237-255. 19 See Chroniques, Lib. 2.2, 119, pp. 428-429. For Froissart’s reconstruction of Rupescissa’s biography see CIOLA, «Giovanni di Rupescissa», pp. 544-545. 20 Chroniques, Lib. 3, p. 228: «Dont en escripsant de ces estas et differens que mon temps je veoie ou monde et en l’eglise, qui ainsi branloit, et des seigneurs terriens qui le souffroient et dissimuloient, et m’ala souvenir et revint en ramembrance comment de mon jone temps, le papa Ynocent resgnant en Avignon, on tenoit en prison ung frere mineur, très notable clerc, lequel s’appelloit frere Jehan de Rocetallade. Ce clerc, si comme on disoit lors et que j’en oy parler en pluseurs lieux, en requoy non en publique, avoit mis hors et mettoit pluseurs auctoritez et grans notables et par especial des incidenses fortuneuses qui avinrent de son temps et son ancore advenues depuis ou royame de France et de la prise du roy Jehan. Il parla moult et bien monstra aucunes voies raisonnables que l’Eglise aisroit moult à souffrir pour les grans superfluitez que il veoit et qui estoient entre ceulx qui le baston du gouvernement avoient. Et pour le temps de lors que je le vey tenir en prison, on me disit une fois ou palais du pape en Avignon ung exemple que il avoit fait au Cardinal d’Ostie, que on disoit Arras et au cardinal d’Aucerre qui l’ estoient alé veoir et arguer de ses parolles, don’t entre les deffenses et raysons que il mettoit en ses paroles il leur fist ung exemple et ve le cy». 21 Jean le Bel, Chronique, Ed. by J. VIARD – E. DÉPREZ, Société de l’Histoire de France, Paris 1905, vol. 2, pp. 273-275. 22 Froissart, Chroniques, Lib. 3, p. 232: «Ainsi frere Jehan de Rocetaillade, que les cardinaulx pour ce temps faisoient tenir en prison en Avignon, remonstroit ses

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Ce dist frere Jehan de Rocetallade: «Il fu une foys ung oysel qui nasqui et apparut au monde sans plumes; les autres ouseaux, quant ilz le sceurent, l’alerent veoir pour tant que il estoit si bel et si plaisant en regard, et ymaginerent sur lui et se conseilierent quelle chose ilz en feroient, car sans plumes il ne povoit voler, et sans voler il ne povoit vivre. Dont distrent-ilz que ilz voloient que vesquesist, car il estoit moult bel. Andont n’y ot là oysel qui ne li donnast de ses plumes, et plus estoient gentilles et plus en lui donnoient, et tant que ce bel oysel fut tout enpenné et commença à voler, et encores en volant prenoient tous les oyseaux qui de leurs plumes li avoient donné grant plaisance. Ce bel oysel, quant il se vey cy au dessus de plumaige et que tous oyseaulx l’onnouroient, il se commença à enorguellir et ne fist compte de ceulx qui fait l’avoient, mais les debiechoit, poindoit et contrarioit. Les oyseaulx se miserent ensemble et parlerent de cel oysel que ilz avoient enpenné et creü, et demanderent l’un à l’autre quele chose estoit bon à faire, car ilz n’avoient tant donné du leur que ilz l’avoient si engrandi et enorgueilli que il ne faisoit compte d’eulx. Adont respondi le paon: “Il est trop grandement enbelli de mon plumaige. Je reprendray mes plumes». «En nom Dieu –dist le faucon– aussi ferai-ge les miennes»; et tous les autres oyseaux aussy ensieuvant, chacun dist que il reprendroit ce que donné li avoient, et li commencierent à retolir et à oster son plumaige. Quant il vey ce, si s’umilia grandement et recongnut oprimes que le bien et l’honneur que il avoit et le biau plumaige ne li venoit point de lui, car il estoit né au monde nud et povre de plumaige, et bien li povoient oster ses plumes ceulx qui donnez li avoient quant ilz voloient. Adont leur pria-il mercy et leur dist que il s’amenderoit et que plus par orgueil ne par beubant n’ouvreroit. Encore derechief les gentilz oyseaux qui emplumé l’avoient en orent pitié quant ilz le veirent humilier, et li rendirent plumes ceulx qui ostez li avoient, et li distrent au rendre: «Nous te veons volentiers entre nous voler tant paroles et exemplioit ceulx qui entendre y voloient, et tant que moult souvent les cardinaulx en estoient tous abus, et voentiers l’eussent condempné à mort, se nulle juste cause peussent avoir trouvé en luy, mais nul n’en y veoient ne trouveoient: si le laisserent vivre tant que il peut durer, et ne l’osoient mettre hors de prison, car il pesoit ses choses si parfont et aleguoit tant de haulte escripture que espoir eust-il fait le monde errer. On a veu avenir, se dient les aucuns qui ont mieulx pris garde à ses paroles, que je n’ay, moult des choses que il mist avant et qu’il escripsi en prison, et tout voloit prouver par l’Apocalipse; les preuves don’t il s’armoit le sauverent de non estre ars trop de fois. Et aussi il y avoit aucuns cardinaulx qui en auroient pitué et ne le grevoient pas du plus que ils povoient».

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que par humilité tu vueilles ouvrer, car moult bien y affiers, mais saches, se tu t’enorgueillis plus, nous te osterons tout ton plumaige et te metterons ou point où nous te trouvasmes».

The example is then followed by the report of Rupescissa’s own interpretation: Ainsi, biaux seigneurs –disoit frere Jehan aux cardinaulx qui estoient en sa presence–, vous en envera, car les empereur de Romme et d’Alemaigne et les roys Crestiens ensieuvant, et les haulx princes terriens vous ont donné les biens et les possessions et les richesses pour servir Dieu et vous les dispensez et alevez en orgueil, en beaubans, en pompes et superfluitez. Que ne liséz vous la vie de saint Sylvestre, pape de Rome, aprés saint Pierre premier, et ymaginéz et consideréz en vous justement comment Constantinus lui donna tout premierement les dismes de l’Eglise et sur quelle condicion? Saint Sylvestre ne chevauchoit point à deux cens ne à trois cens chevaulx parmi le monde mais se tenoit simplement et closement à Romme et vivoit sobrement avecques ceulx de l’Eglise quant l’ange par la grace de Dieu annonça comment l’empereur Constantin, qui estoit mescreant et incredule, l’envoieroit querir, car il lui estoit aussi revelé par l’ange de Dieu que Sylvestre lui devoit la voie demonstrer de sa garison, car il estoit si malade de meselerie qu’il cheoit trestout par pieces et quant il fut devant lui, il lui monstra la voye de baptesme et le baptisa et il fu guery, dont l’empereur Constantin pour celle grace et vertu que Dieu lui fist il creut en Dieu et fist croire tout son empire et donna a Sylvestre et a l’Eglise toutes les dismes, car au paravant icellui empereur de Romme les tenoit et lui donna encores plusieurs beaulx dons et grandes seigneuries en augmentant nostre foy et l’Eglise, mais ce fut son entencion que ces biens et ces seigneuries on les gouverneroit justement et humillement, non pas en orgueil ne en bobant, mais on en fait a present tout le contraire, pourquoy Dieu de presentest courroucé et se courroucera grandement sur ceulx qui ou temps avenir viendront tellement que les nobles qui se sont eslargis de donner les terres, les rentes, les seigneuries, que ceulx de l’Eglise tiennent, se refroideront de donner et par aventure retoldront, ce qu’ilz ont donné et si ne demoura pas longuement23.

23

Chroniques, Lib. 3, pp. 228-232.

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This whole passage –for its structure, its content, the details of the exemplum and its interpretation– represents the main template for the vast majority of the later presentations of the Apologue. Froissart’s tale is profoundly different in tone and characterisation from Wyclif’s fable. Here the protagonist is an unspecified bird, who was born without any feathers but was «otherwise beautiful and pleasant to the eyes». The other birds –aware of her beauty and concerned for her fate, since «without feathers she could not fly, and without flying she could not survive»,– having agreed among themselves, offer some of their feathers without being asked. Whereas Wyclif’s bubo was hideously deformed by the foreign feathers, Froissart’s bird is beautifully adorned and admired, to the point of growing prideful. It should be noted, that this bird’s offences against her benefactors (debiechoit, poindoit et contrarioir) do not seem to be as extreme and negatively connoted as the plundering and invading committed by Wyclif’s owl. While the following council of the birds –which is not mentioned in De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1– is not always reported fully in the tradition, even abbreviated accounts of Froissart’s tale often mention the meeting and the resulting deliberation. Moreover, in this case, the birds’ resolution is not carried out: when they begin to take their feathers back, the offender repents and begs for mercy –which is granted along with a warning not to grow prideful again. Instead of leaving the bird «even more featherless than before», the others return the feathers that they had retaken, but assure her that they will keep an eye on her behaviour and will not be as forgiving of any future infractions. Here is an opening to the future that is completely absent in Wyclif’s conclusion– where there was no room for appeal. The moral of Froissart’s tale is more far-reaching than Wyclif’s: while it still concerns the relations between the Church and the secular potentates, it is first and foremost an ethical condemnation of the excesses and luxuries of the corrupt cardinals of Rupescissa’s time. What is at stake is not the right for the secular powers to seize the wealth of the Church for the greater good of the kingdom in times of need; rather, it is their duty to intervene and bring the Church back to its original poverty and humility, for the sake of the morality of the Church itself. This tale is a warning and a prophecy, just like its conclusion in Rupescissa’s interpretation: the kings and princes of Christianity will take back the wealth bestowed on the Church by Constantine, because such riches were not meant to let the ecclesiastics grow decadent and prideful, but to facilitate them into living

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a humble life of service and prayer. Under this respect, the Apologue of the Birds and its interpretation –as they are presented in Froissart’s Chroniques– are perfectly coherent with Rupescissa’s undoubtedly authentic prophetic texts and his positions about evangelic poverty.

4. The Following Tradition When Rupescissa is listed among the precursors of the Reformation24 because of his insistent appeals for a moral reforming of the Church and a return to the evangelic poverty of its origins, Froissart’s recollection of his Apologue gains a renewed popularity in Protestant erudite compilations and, by reaction, in their Catholic counterparts. Overall, many Protestant authors seem to take the prophetic value of the exemplum quite seriously, while Catholic writers usually belittle the prophetic features of Froissart’s tale by treating it as just a little fable. Then, not only is the Apologue a tool for early-modern theological polemics, but these discussions tend to proceed side by side with the debates about true prophecy25. For example, Mathias Flacius Illyricus follows Froissart quite punctually in his retelling of the Fable26 and also the two other sections devoted to John of Rupescissa (i.e. the lemmas «Hayabalus»27 and «Ioannes de Rupescissa»28) in the Catalogus closely mirror analogous passages in the Chroniques. The Latin text in Johannes Wolff’s Lectiones is almost identical to Flacius Illyricus’s29. Nonetheless, Froissart’s text does not come to be merely repeated over and over again without any significant changes: another pivotal moment 24 See for example, among other references: Edward Brown, Appendix ad Fasciculus rerum expetendarum et fugiendarum prout Orthuino Gratio Presbytero Daventriensi editus est Coloniae, A. D. MDXXXV, Richard Chiswell, Londini 1690, pp. 496-508, 714, 797. 25 Useful references for an outlook on Rupescissa’s occurrences in these debates are for example: P.J. POU Y MARTÍ, Visionarios, Beguinos y Fraticelos catalanes (siglos XIII-XV), Ed. Seráfica, Alicante 1930; M. MENÉNDEZ Y PELAYO, Historia de los heterodoxos españoles, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Santander 1947, vol. 3, pp. 308-310. 26 Flacius Illyricus, Catalogus, pp. 30-32. 27 Catalogus, p. 449. 28 Catalogus, p. 519 D. 29 Wolff, Lectiones, pp. 623-625.

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in the history of the tradition of the Apologue is the abbreviated version presented –along with some further remarks that were not in Froissart’s text– by the French Protestant erudite Philippe du Plessis Mornay in his Mystère d’Iniquité (1611)30. On the one hand, this abbreviation is, unsurprisingly, identical to the text reported and commented by the Dominican Nicolas Coeffeteau in his Réponse to Du Plessis (1614)31. Later, it appears also in the lemma devoted 30

Du Plessis Mornay, Mystère d’Iniquité, pp. 449-450: «En un autre lieu apres avoir deploré la misere de l’Eglise soubz le schisme d’Urbain sixiesme, & Clement septiesme, auquel les Princes Chrestiens n’avoient aucun soin de pourvoir, il [Froissart] se resouvient de ce frere Iean en ces mots: De mon jeune temps le Pape Innocent regnant en Avignon, on tenoit en prison un Frere Mineur, moult Clerc, lequel s’appelloit Frere Jean de Roquetaillade. Celui Clerc (comme il disoit) & comme j’ai oui parler (en plusieurs lieux en privé & non en public) avoit mis hors, & mettoit plusieurs authoritez des grands, notables & par special des incidens fortuneux, qui advinrent de son temps, & sont encore advenus depuis, au Roiaume de France; de la prise du Roi Iean, il parla moult bien, & monstra par aucunes choses raisonnables, que l’Eglise avoit encore moult à souffrir, pour les grandes superfluitez qu’il voioit entre ceux, qui le le baston du gouvernement avoient, & pour le temps de lors que vi tenir en prison celui, on me disoit une fois au Pallais du Pape en Avignon, un exemple qu’il avoit fait au Cardinal d’Ostia, qu’on disoit d’Arras, & au Cardinal d’Auxerre, qui l’estoient aller voir & arguer de ses paroles. La somme est: Qu’il seroit advenu de l’Eglise comme d’un oiseau fort beau, qui seroit né sans plumes & ne pouvant voler estoit en danger de ne pas vivre; Que les autres oiseaux en auroient eu pitié, l’auroient couvert de leurs plumes; les Rois et les Princes enrichie de leur domaines, honoré outre mesure; Qu’il s’en seroit enorgueilli, se voiant creu & pensant n’avoir plus besoin d’eux, se seroit mis à le becqueter & pointre, à faire des querelles aux Empereurs & aux Princes; Que les oiseaux la dessus seroient resolus de reprendre leurs plumes, & ainsi retireroient les Princes leurs biens faits & leurs Domaines, tant qu’il seroit contrainct de leur crier merci; l’Empereur & les autres Princes Chrestiens en danger de reprendre le tout, s’il retournoit à son orgueil; Et la dessus. Que ne lisez vous, dit-il, la vie de Sainct Sylvestre, &c. comment l’Empereur Constantin lui donna les dismes de l’Eglise & sur quelle condition; il ne chevauchoit point à 200 & 300 chevaux parmi le monde, mais se tenoit simplement & closement à Rome, & vivoit sobrement avec ceux de l’Eglise, &c. Et leur déclaroit que ce changement n’avoit longuement à tarder». For Du Plessis’s further remarks, see nn. 35 and 36. 31 Coeffeteau, Réponse, pp. 1075-1076: «[I]l reprenoit auec une grande liberté les vices des Prelats ce que nous auon dit mille fois ne preiudicier nullement à notre creance. Certes il n’éparagnoit non plus nos Roys, ains les menassoit du courroux de Dieu, à cause, dit l’Auteur, des grandes oppressions qu’ils faisoient au commun peuple. Et toutesfois pour toutes les clameurs leur authorité n’en estoit moins sainte, ny moins venerable à leur sujets. Il disoit en somme: Qu’il seroit advenu de l’Eglise comme d’un oyseau fort beau qui seroit né sans plumes, &ne pouuant voler estoit en

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to Rupescissa in Pierre Bayle’s Dictionnaire historique et critique –which probably is the most complete early modern compilation on the Apologue32.

danger de ne pas vivre; Que les autres oyseaux en auroient en pitié, l’auroient couvert de leurs plumes: les rois & les princes enrichie de leurs domaines, honoré outre mesure, Qu’il s’en seroit enorgueilly se voyant creu, & pensant n’avoir plus besoign d’eux, se seroit mis à les becqueter & poindre, à faire des querelles aux Empereurs, & aux Princes, que les oiseaux là dessus seroient resolus de reprendre leurs plumes, & qu’il seroit contraint de leur crier mercy, l’Empereur & les autres Princes Chrestiens en danger, de reprendre tout s’il retournoit à son orgueil». 32 Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, pp. 74-75: «De mon jeune temps le Pape Innocent regnant en Avignon, on tenoit en prison un Frere Mineur, moult Clerc, lequel s’appelloit Frere Jean de Roquetaillade. Celui Clerc (comme il disoit) & comme j’ai oui parler (en plusieurs lieux en privé et non en public) avoit mis hors, & mettoit plusieurs autoritez des grands, notables, & par special des incidents fortuneux, qui advinrent de son temps, & sont encores advenus depuis au Roiaume de France; de la prise du Roi Jean, il parla moult bien, & monstra par aucunes choses raisonnables, que l’Eglise avoit encor moult à souffrir, pour les grandes superflutez qu’il voioit entre ceux, qui le baston du gouvernement avoient, & pour le temps de lors que vi tenir en prison celui, on me disoit une fois au Pallais du Pape en Avignon, un exemple qu’il avoit fait au Cardinal d’Ostia, qu’on disoit d’Arras, & au Cardinal d’Auxerre, qui l’estoient allez voir et arguër de ses paroles (2 [Là-même, Vol III, Chap XXIV, cité là-même, pag. 450]). Cet exemple est l’Apologue que l’on verra ci dessous (3 [Dans la Rem D]). Que ne lisez vous, continua-t-il (4 [Froissard, cité par Du Plessis Mornai, Mystère d’Iniquité, pag. 450]), la vie de Sainct Sylvestre, &c. comment l’Empereur Constantin lui donna les dismes de l’Eglise & sur quelle condition; il ne chevauchoit point à 200 & 300 chevaux parmi le monde, mais se tenoit simplement & closement à Rome, & vivoit sobrement avec ceux de l’Eglise, &c. Ce Moine leur déclaroit que le changement qu’il désignoit dans son Apologue se feroit bientôt, tant, ajoùte l’Historien, que moult souvent les Cardinaux en estoient esbabis, & volountiers l’eussent à mort condamné, si nulle juste cause peussent avoir trouvé en lui; Mais nulle n’en y voioient, ni trouvoient. [...] Il s’en servit quand le Cardinal d’Arras, & le Cardinal d’Auxerre furent le voir en prison pour le censurer. Mr. du Plessis Mornai en tire une preuve des oppositions qui furent faites à l’Antechrist: voions comment il abrege le long récit de Froissard. “La somme est: Qu’il seroit advenu de l’Eglise comme d’un oiseau fort beau, qui seroit né sans plumes & ne pouvant voler estoit en danger de ne pas vivre; Que les autres oiseaux en auroient eu pitié, l’auroient couvert de leurs plumes; les Rois et les Princes enrichi de leur domaines, honoré outre mesure; Qu’il s’en seroit enorgueilli, se voiant creu & pensant n’avoir plus besoin d’eux, se seroit mis à le becqueter & pointre, à faire des querelles aux Empereurs & aux Princes; Que les oiseaux là dessus seroient resolus de reprendre leurs plumes, & ainsi retireroient les Princes leurs bienfaits & leurs Domaines, tant qu’il seroit contrainct de leur crier merci; l’Empereur & les autres Princes Chrestiens en danger de reprendre le tout, s’il retournoit à son orgueil (16 [Du Plessis Mornai, Mystère d’Iniquité, pag. 450])”».

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However, it should be mentioned that there are some other abbreviations of this fable for which it is not clear whether they are following Du Plessis’s template or another reference. For example, the relevant chapter in the Narration Historique et Topographique (1619), by the Spiritual Franciscan theologian Jacques Fodéré, might be at least partially modelled upon the abbreviation in the Mystère d’Iniquité, but presents some interesting differences of detail and interpretation that seem closer to Wyclif’s fabula33. For instance, Fodéré’s birds, rather than issuing a simple warning, take back all of their feathers; moreover, in his notes, Fodéré mentions that the prelates criticised by Rupescissa were intentioned to take arms against the secular princes, which is among the topics examined in De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1 but does not appear in the tradition of Froissart’s Apologue. On the other hand, Du Plessis’s further comments on Rupescissa’s Apologue are a main contribution to the early modern discussions about the textual sources of this exemplum. Already in 1588, Nicolas Vignier had observed that the Apologue of the Birds carried some resemblance to «the fable of Horace’s crow»34, but he did not infer any genealogical relation. Perhaps Du Plessis takes seriously Froissart’s reiterated remarks about Rupescissa «wanting to explain everything with the Apocalypse» (which 33

Jacques Fodéré, Narration Historique et Topographique des couvents de l’ordre de St. François, Pierre Rigaud, Lyon 1619, pp. 318-322: «Cestuy ci prevoyant que l’orgueil, & le grand luxe de plusieurs Prelats Ecclesiastiques seroit cause de l’ire de Dieu par trop irritee, affligeroit l’Eglise, preschant contre tel abus, usoit d’n gentil Apologue, & disoit qu’un oyseau estoit iadis descendu du Ciel, si beau, si doux, & si humble, que tous les autres oyseaux y accoururent pour le voir, et le trouuant tout desnué de plumes, qui estoit cause qu’il n’auoit moyen de voller & se leuer de terre, en ayant oitié se tiroyent à l’ennuy l’vn de l’autre, chascun leurs plus belles plumes, & le reuestirent si magnifiquement, qu’il se retreuua ke okus, & le mieux emplumé mais se regardant, & glorifiant en ceste pompe mesprisoit, & de plus insultoit à grand coups de bec & d’ongles contre les autres oyseaux, ses bien facteurs, les quels ne pouuant supportret telle ingratitude, repeterent chascun sa chascune, & reprindrent leurs plumes, laissant cest oyseau tout nud, comment il estoit à son arriuee. Et en apres ledit F. Iean accommodant cest Apologue à l’estat de l’Eglise, disoit, qu’elle estoit pauure & humble à la premiere naissance (mais Diuine & Celeste) dequoy les Chretiens eurent telle compassion, qu’ils l’ont enrichie du plus beau, dius plus liquide, & du meilleur de tous leurs biens terriens: mais les Prelats d’icelle mescognoissant ses bien-faicts se sont enorgueillis, & voulu equiparer aux plus grands Princes, iusques à leur vouloir faire la guerre». 34 Vignier, Bibliothèque historiale, vol. 3, p. 513: «Finalement on recite qu’il expliquoit la naissance, grandeur, estat & fin de la Papauté par un apologue quasi semblable à la fabe de la corneille d’Horace».

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is a fairly accurate assessment of his exegesis and epistemology) or maybe he follows Petrus Premonstratensis’ Chronicon which he cites among his sources;35 nonetheless, Du Plessis relates the Apologue of the Birds to the Apocalypse, stating that «it has its obvious grounding» in chapter 1736. Later Protestant polemists seem to take Du Plessis’s observation and to run with it; even Pierre Bayle quotes only Du Plessis’s reference to the Apocalypse, albeit with caution and without explicitly embracing the claim37. On the Catholic front “Horace’s crow” is more successful as an identifiable precursor of the Fable of the Birds, while the reference to the Apocalypse is heavily criticised –as we can read, for example, in Coeffeteau’s Réponse38. The hypothesis of Apocalypse 17 as the Apologue’s actual source seems pretty far fetched. Considering Rupescissa’s profound 35

Du Plessis Mornay, Mystère d’Iniquité, p. 450: «Petrus Premonstratensis in Chronico quod inscribitur in Biblia pauperum Ann. 1363». Non inveni. In this instance, Du Plessis’s reference seems to be imprecise or even misleading. Petrus Premonstratensis is never mentioned by any of the later erudite authors examining the question of the Apocalypse as a source: as far as I could see, Du Plessis seems to be the only explicit reference. 36 Du Plessis Mornay, Mystère d’Iniquité, p. 450: «Et de fait cest Apologue de l’oiseau, par lui recité, à son fondement manifeste dans l’Apocalypse, chap. 17, où il est dit Que les Rois bailleront leur puissance & authorité à la Beste ou Paillarde; Mais viendront pius après à la haïr, & la rendront desolée, & mangeront sa chair, & la brusleront au feu». 37 Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, p. 75: «Mr. du Plessis ajoûte que de fait cest Apologue de l’oiseau a son fondament manifeste en l’Apocalypse, chap. 17 où il est dit (* [Apoc. chap. 17 v. 13 &16]) Que les Rois bailleront leur puissance & authorité à la Beste ou Paillarde; Mais viendront plus après à la haïr, & la rendront desolée, & mangeront sa chair, & la brusleront au feu». 38 Coeffeteau, Réponse au livre intitulé Mystere d’Iniquité, p. 1076: «Pour donc commencer par ce dernier, l’Adversaire a bien fait de nous advertir que cette apologie auoit son fondement manifeste en l’Apocalypse. Car nous ne nous fuissons iamais imaginés que la S. escriture deust estre ainsi prophanée, & iniurieusement convertie en fables, qu’il deuoit plustost rapporter à la Corneille d’Horace. [...] Quant’à la substance de l’Apologie, si du Plessis la rapporte à l’Apostasie, & reuolte excitée de nostre temps par Luther, & par Calvin, nous disons qu’encor que ces furieux esprits ayent débauché quelques Princes, & leur ayent persuandé de renoncer à la comunion du Pape, si est-ce qu’ils n’ont encore peu luy arracher les plus grands Roys de l’Europe. [...] Pour revenir à la Rochetaillée, s’il luy est échappé parmy ses autres hardiesses de nommer l’Eglise la Paillarde de l’Apocalypse, & le Pape l’Antechrist, ç’a esté l’esprit de mensonge qui luy a faict vomir ces outrages, dignes d’estre punis du’un feu du ciel, mais c’est Illyrycus qui l’à dit à du Plessis sans qu’il en puisse produire un meilleur Autheur».

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knowledge of the Arthurian prophecies39 and Froissart’s familiarity with both prophetic and chivalric literature, it might be tempting to look for the source of the Apologue in the Prophetia Merlini, heavy with birdthemed symbolism as it is, but none of those passages seems to fit. Overall, “Horace’s Crow” is a better candidate40 than any prophetic source, as it refers to the most appropriate literary precursor to our exemplum: Aesop’s and Phaedrus’s fable of the prideful jackdaw in borrowed feathers41. The structure, plot, and moral of the two fables are quite similar and this could very well be Wyclif’s and Froissart’s remote source. Besides, the medieval tradition of “Aesop’s crow” shows a shift in the direction of the Apologue’s political and ecclesiological colouring42. For example, two similar tales –derivative of the classical fable– are found in Odo of Cheriton’s Parabulae –respectively «De Cornice»43 and «De Pavone deplumato» [= Perry 39

We have records of a commentary of his to the Prophetia Merlini and several references to that text in some of his surviving works, e.g. both in the (still unedited) commentary to the Oraculum Cyrilli and in the Liber Ostensor. See: F. SCHMIEDER, «Non capit in corde meo ut possim expositioni Joachimi penitus acquiescere in hoc loco – Pseudo-Joachims Kommentar zum „Oraculum Cyrilli“ und seine Kommentierung durch Johannes von Rupescissa», in Ioachim posuit verba ista. Gli pseudoepigrafi di Gioacchino da Fiore dei secc. XIII-XIV, Convegno internazionale, San Giovanni in Fiore 2014, Viella, Roma 2016, pp. 169-179. 40 Horace, Epistulae, I, 3, vv. 18-20: «si forte suas repetitum venerit olim / grex avium plumas, moveat cornicula risum / furtivis nudata coloribus». 41 Phaedrus, Fabulae, I, 3, vv. 1-16: «Ne gloriari libeat alienis bonis / Suoque potius habitu vitam degere, / Aesopus nobis hoc exemplum prodidit. / Tumens inani graculus superbia, / Pennas, pavoni quae deciderant sustulit / Seque exornavit. Deinde contemnens suos / Se immiscuit pavonum formoso gregi. / Illi impudenti pennas eripiunt avi / Fugantque rostris. Male mulcatus graculus / Redire maerens coepit ad proprium genus; / A quo repulsus tristem sustinuit notam. / Tum quidam ex illis, quos prius despexerat: / “Contentus nostris si fuisses sedibus / Et quod natura dederat voluisses pati, / Nec illam expertus esses contumeliam / Nec hanc repulsam tua sentiret calamitas”». 42 See for example L. HERVIEUX, Les fabulistes latins depuis le siècle d’Auguste jusqu’à la fin du Moyen-Âge, 5 vols., Firmin-Didot, Paris 1893-1899. 43 HERVIEUX, Les fabulistes, vol. 4, Paris 1896, pp. 180-181: «Contra illos qui iactant se habere quod non habent. Cornix semel, uidens se turpem et nigram, conquesta est Aquile. Aquila dixit ei quod mutuo reciperet plumas de diuersis auibus. Fecit sic. Accepit de cauda Pauonis, de alis Columbe, et, sicut sibi placuit, de ceteris auibus. Cornix, uidens se ornatam, cepit deridere et inclamare contra alias aues. Venerunt igitur aues, et conquerebantur Aquile de superbia Cornicis. Respondit Aquila: Accipiat quelibet auis suam pennam, et sic humiliabitur. Quo facto, Cornix relicta est

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621]44. The plot of the first parable is close to the Apologue’s and its moral contains a general condemnation of riches; moreover, the Peacock’s tale is accompanied by an explicitly political and ecclesiological interpretation. Certainly, both main versions of the Apologue present major differences and elements of originality, both in the story itself and in its teachings’ connotations. Nonetheless, given the popularity and wide transmission of Odo’s anthology, the Parablulae could be a likely source for Wyclif’s, Froissart’s, or Rupescissa’s exemplum –possibly even going through another intermediary source.

5. Some Closing Remarks Overall, Wyclif’s and Froissart’s versions of the Apologue of the Birds show some similarities but several important differences as well. Both anecdotes are introduced as records of verbal presentations: in Froissart’s Chroniques this is John of Rupescissa’s heartfelt defence of his positions, during an interrogation over the course of his trial for heresy; in Wyclif’s turpis et nuda. Sic miser homo de ornatu suo superbit. Set accipiat Ouis lanam suam, Terra linum, Boues et Capri corium suum, Cirogrilli et Agni suas pelles, et remanebit miser homo nudus et turpis; et ita fiet saltem in die mortis, quando nihil secum afferet de omnibus bonis suis. / Item hoc exemplum ualet contra diuites qui pro multitudine diuitiarum gloriantur; sed Dominus quandoque omnia aufert, et sic humiliantur». 44 B.E. PERRY, Aesopica, University of Illinois Press, Urbana 1952, text 621: «Contra uanam gloriam et cetera. Pavo, inter ceteras aues plumis ornatus et diuersis coloribus distinctus, mansuetus et curialis, uenit ad congregationem auium. Venit Coruus et rogauit quod daret ei pennas duas. Ait Pauo: Quid facies pro me? Et ait Coruus: Alta uoce in curiis coram auibus te laudabo. Pauo pennas suas ei concessit. Similiter Cornix peciit et impetrauit; sic Cucula et multe alie aues, quod Pauo totus deplumatus remansit. Debuit pullos suos cum ali(i)s protegere; non potuit, quia pennas non habuit. Superuenit frigus, et periit. Pulli ab eo recesserunt, et prout pot[u]erunt uixerunt. Sic quandoque rex, uel comes, uel miles, uel episcopus habent multas uillas, castra, campos et uineas, et est quasi Pauo multis uariis pennis bene ornatus. Veniunt et adulatores, Hospitalarii, Templarii, monachi, canonici ad talem Pauonem, petunt terras, uineas, castra, donaria; promittunt laudes, missas orationes. Stultus Pauo quando adquiescit, et possessiones, unde ipse et sui deberent uiuere, aliis distribuit./ Sic fecit quidam rex Aragonum; vnde successores sui non pot[u]erunt, ut decuit, milites tenere, nec inimicis resistere, nec regnum suum defendere. / Sic quandoque de militibus uidemus quod tantum dant religiosis, quod totique remanent deplumati et heredes exheredati».

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De civili dominio liber secundus, cap. 1, it is a speech delivered by «unum dominum» during a discussion «in quodam parliamento Londonie». While the structure of the two exempla is very similar, the details of Wyclif’s fable offer a more unforgiving picture of the featherless bird. Whereas Froissart’s tale aims to condemn the corruption and the excesses of the prelates, Wyclif’s Apologue is also meant to support a specific view about the seizing of ecclesiastic assets in times of crisis and, therefore, it has specific political objectives and presupposes a more articulated view of the relation between the Church and temporal power. Moreover, on the one hand, Froissart’s Apologue has a marked prophetic connotation and it is supposed to be interpreted as a prophecy; this reading is widely successful in the later tradition that discusses this text, even when the Apologue itself is judged to be a false prophecy. On the other hand, Wyclif’s Apologue is no more, no less than an allegoric example and does not have prophetic features. Even putting the most evident differences aside, it is impossible for Froissart to be Wyclif’s source for chronological reasons. However, Froissart and Wyclif could have a shared source and this source might have been an actual statement by John of Rupescissa, since the content of the Apologue is perfectly coherent with Rupescissa’s surviving works and prophecies. Nonetheless, Froissart’s Chroniques –the earliest document attributing the Apologue to Rupescissa– reports the fable only as a secondhand tale, by word of mouth; therefore, this attribution could (and perhaps should) be considered dubious, despite its triumph in the late medieval and early modern tradition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY*

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*

Abbreviations: CCSL = «Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina»; CCCM = «Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis; EETS = «Early English Text Society»; PG = ed. J.-P. MIGNE, «Patrologia Greca»; PL = ed. J.-P. MIGNE, «Patrologia Latina».

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F. SOMERSET, Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, 37). ––, «Professionalizing Translation at the Turn of the Fifteenth Century: Ullerston’s Determinacio, Arundel’s Constitutiones», in F. SOMERSET – N. WATSON (eds.), The Vulgar Tongue: Medieval and Postmedieval Vernacularity, Penn State University Press, University Park, PA 2003, pp. 145-157. ––, Feeling like Saints: Lollard Writings after Wyclif, Cornell University Press, Ithaca – London 2014. ––, «Before and After Wyclif: Consent to Another’s Sin in Medieval Europe», in J.P. HORNBECK II – M. VAN DUSSEN (eds.), Europe after Wyclif, Fordham University Press, New York 2017, pp. 135-172. P. SOUKUP, Jan Hus, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2014. S. SOUSEDÍK, «Pojem distinctio formalis u českých realistů v době Husově», Filosoficky časopis, 18 (1970) 1024-1029. ––, «Stanislaus z Znojma (Eine Lebenskizze)», Medievalia Philosophica Polonorum, 17 (1973) 37-56. ––, «Traktát Stanislava ze Znojma De Vero et Falso», Filosoficky časopis, 63 (2016-2017) 831-858. R.W. SOUTHERN, Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe, Oxford University Press, Oxford 19922. P.V. SPADE – G.A. WILSON, «Introduction», in Johannis Wyclif Summa insolubilium, Ed. by P.V. SPADE – G.A. WILSON, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, Binghamton 1986, pp. ix-xlviii. P.V. SPADE, «Introduction», in John Wyclif, On Universals, transl. by A. KENNY, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1985, pp. vii-l. M. SPINKA, John Hus’ Concept of the Church, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1966. B.J. SPRUYT, Cornelius Henrici Hoen (Honius) and His Epistle on the Eucharist (1525), Brill, Leiden 2006. J. SPRUYT, «John Wyclif on the Formal Nature of Inference», in L. CESALLI – F. GOUBIER – A. DE LIBERA (eds.), Formal Approaches and Natural Language in Medieval Logic, Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales, Barcelona – Roma 2016, pp. 149-172 (Textes et Études du Moyen Âge, 82). P. SPUNAR, Repertorium auctorum Bohemorum provectum idearum post Universitatem Pragensem conditam illustrans, Tom. 1, Officina

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M. WILKS, «The Early Oxford Wyclif: Papalist or Nominalist?», Studies in Church History, 5 (1969) 69-98. G.A. WILSON – P.V. SPADE, «Richard Lavenham’s Treatise Scire», Mediaeval Studies, 46 (1984) 1-30. W.J. WILSON, «Manuscript Cataloging», Traditio, 12 (1956) 457-555. H.B. WORKMAN, John Wyclif. A Study of the English Medieval Church, Archon Books, Hamden 1966. N. ZEEMAN, «“Studying” in the Middle Ages – and in Piers Plowman», New Medieval Literatures, 3 (1999) 185-212.

INDEX OF NAMES: ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL AUTHORS Albert the Great: 48 Alexander of Hales: 123 Aristotle: VIIIn2, IX, IXn5, X, Xn56, XIn10, XX, 16n66, 34n2, 43, 59-60n13, 61-62, 64, 65n26, 66, 66n29, 67n29, 68, 68n35, 70-72, 77, 83, 84n82-83, 87, 88n92, 91, 92n102, 93-94, 127, 149 Augustine: Xn6, XIn9, 64-67, 67n29, 82, 95, 136, 171n22, 172, 174, 184 Avicenna: 74, 93 Berengar of Tours: XXII, 125, 151 Boethius: VIIIn2, VIIIn 4, 63, 74, 112 Bonaventure: 123 Democritus: Xn 6, XX, 59, 61, 66, 66n29, 67n29, 84n83, 127 Epicurus: Xn6, XX, 61, 91 Euclid: VIIIn4, 94 Francis of Mayrone: 123, 126 Al-Ghazali: 60n13, 93 Giles of Rome: 48 Gregory the Great (St Gregory): 82, 148 Magister Grene Oxoniensis: 60, 60n16 Guitmund of Aversa: 125 Henry of Ghent: 182, 184 Henry of Harclay: 61, 93 Henry Wodehull: 153 Horace: 204n2, 218, 218n34, 219, 219n38, 220

Hugh of St Victor: 148, 171n22 Jean Froissart: XXVII, 203, 203n2, 204-205, 205n7, 206-207, 209-211, 211n19, 213-216, 216n30, 217n32, 218, 220-222 Isidore of Seville: 209 Jan of Gyczin: 86 Jan Hus: XXI-XXII, 95-96, 99, 109110, 188-189, 198, 201n68 Jan Němec: 140 Jan Příbram: 200 Jan Rokycana: 139 Jean le Bel: 211 Jean Gerson: 181 Jakoubek of Stříbro: XXIII, XXVI, 139, 141-145, 152, 187, 188, 188n5, 189, 190-197, 198199, 199n61, 200-201, 202 Johannes Sharpe (also Scharpe): 35, 57n6, 59, 60n13 Johannes Teutonicus: 119 John Buridan: 48 John Duns Scotus: XXII, 104-105 John of Holland: 30n114 John Kenningham: 186 John Pecham: 123 John of Rupescissa: XXVII, 203-204, 204n4, 205, 205n8, 206-207, 209, 211, 211n19 213-215, 215n25, 217-219, 221-222 John Tarteys: 24n94, 35, 35n4, 59-60, 83, 83n76, 84, 84n79, 84n82, 86, 86n88 John Trefnant: 145

256

INDEX OF NAMES ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL AUTHORS

John Wyclif: VII-VIII, VIIIn5, IX, IXn5, xn5, Xn6, XI, XIn9, XIn10, XII, XIIn10, XIIn11, XIII, XIIIn13, XIIIn15, XIV, XV, XVn20, XVI, XVIn26, XVII, XVIIn26, XVIIIXXVIX, 1, 1n2, 2-3, 3n9, 4n9, 4n10, 4n11, 5n20, 6n21, 6n23, 7n30, 9n37, 10, 10n42, 10n43, 11, 11n45-46, 12-14, 14n54, 14n56-57, 15, 15n58, 16, 16n65, 17, 17n68, 17n71, 18-22, 22n85, 23, 23n88-90, 24, 24n94-95, 25-26, 26n100, 27, 27n103, 28-29, 29n111112, 34-35, 41-43, 43n20, 4446, 46n27, 47, 47n29, 48-51, 53-55, 57, 57n5, 58, 58n10, 59, 59n11, 60-61, 61n18, 6263, 63n20, 64, 64n23, 65-67, 67n32, 68, 68n35, 69-70, 70n41, 70n45, 71, 71n48, 72, 72n50, 73, 76, 76n60, 78-79, 81-83, 85-87, 87n90, 88-90, 90n98, 92, 94-96, 96n2, 97, 97n4, 98-99, 99n8, 100-101, 101n12, 102-107, 110-112, 112n2, 113, 113n5, 114-115, 115n8, 116-118, 120-124, 126131, 135, 137, 142, 150-151, 151n100, 152-158, 160-167, 167n1-2, 168-171, 171n2122, 172-173, 173n27, 174, 174n30, 175, 178, 178n36, 184, 184n53-54, 186-187, 187n1, 188-198, 198n55, 199203, 203n2, 205, 205n8, 207, 208, 209, 210, 214, 218, 220222

Lotario di Segni (pope Innocent III): 118-119, 120n30, 123, 124n32 Lucas of Assisi (Lucas de Assisio): 8n34 Lucretius: 61, 91 Matthias of Janov: XXVI, 187-190, 195, 200-201 Matthew of Cracow: 195 Marsilius of Inghen: 48 Milíč of Kroměříž: XXVI, 189 Nicholas Bubwith: 180n43 Nicholas Love: XXIII, 143, 148-150, 152 Nicholas of Lyra: 184 Nicomachus of Gerasa: XX, 63 Paul of Venice: XIX, 35, 47-48, 48n32, 49-50, 50n42, 51-55, 59-60 Peregrine of Durazzo: 8, 9n34 Peter Auriol: 123, 126 Peter the Chanter: 119 Peter Payne: 97, 97n5 Peter of Spain: 30n114 Petr Chelčický: 201 Peter of Nahošice: 86n89 Phaedrus: 220 Plato: Xn6, 61, 63-65, 65n26, 66, 66n29, 67, 67n30, 73, 74n53, 84n83, 127, 172, 183 Porphyry: XX, 73, 73n53, 74, 74n53, 83 Procopius of Pilsen: XXII, 86, 98n6 Richard Billingham: 14, 20n77, 30n114 Richard Brinkley: 16n65 Richard Fishacre: 113, 120, 120n21 Richard of Middleton: 123

INDEX OF NAMES ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL AUTHORS

Richard Ullerston: 179, 179n41, 182-185 Richard Wyche: 132 Robert Alyngton: XX-XXI, 31n118, 35, 57, 59, 69-70, 70n45, 71, 72-74, 76, 79, 81, 86n88, 8790, 94 Robert Grosseteste: Xn6, XIn10, XIIn10, 49, 64-67, 69, 71n48, 75-76, 91, 156 Robert Hallam: 154 Robert Stoughton: 13n51 Roger Bacon: 185 Roger Dymmok: XXIII, 146-148, 150-151 Roger Whelpdale: XX-XXI, 35, 57, 59, 81-82, 83n75, 84-86, 86n88, 87-94 Rupert of Deutz: 133 Simon Islip: 153 Simon Landham: 153 Simon of Tournai: 82 Simon of Tišnov: 13n53, 86 Stanislaus of Znojmo: XXI-XXII, 95-96, 98, 98n7, 99-100, 102, 102n14, 103-105, 107-110 Stephen of Páleč: 6n21, 99-100 Thomas Aquinas: 48, 134, 147, 154, 180, 193 Thomas Arundel: 123, 133-134, 150, Thomas Markaunt: IXn5, 11n44 Thomas Maulevelt: 30

257

Thomas Netter: XXI, 59, 96, 96n2, 101, 107, 127-131, 154, 180, 180n43, 184n54 Thomas Winterton: 121, 124 Vincent of Beauvais: 82 Thomas Walsingham: 153, 153n2 Walter Burley: XXI, 33, 33n1-2, 34n2, 35, 35n4, 36, 38, 38n10, 40-45, 47-54, 60, 60n13, 70, 71n48, 75-79, 81, 89, 113n5 Walter Chatton: 61, 93 William of Auvergne: 155 William Crathorn: 61 William of Hainaut: 211 William Heytesbury: 5n20 William Milverley: 4n11, 35, 5960, 83n76, 85, 86n88 William of Ockham: 17n68, 33, 47-48, 71, 127 William of Osma: 19n76 William Penbygull: 35, 59 William Peraldus: XXIV, 154-156, 156n16, 157-158, 160-165 William of Sherwood: 112 William Swynderby: 145-146 William Thorpe: XXIII, 133-135, 150 William White: 132 William Woodford: 59n11, 122128, 153 William of Wykeham: 70 Zbyněk of Házmburk: 22, 10n43, 99 Zdislav of Zvířetice: 10n43, 86

INDEX OF NAMES: MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS Ainsworth, P.: 206n9, 206n11 Alban, K.J.: 96n2, 180n43 Alberigo, G.: 58n9 Alessandri, L.: 8n34 Antolin, G.: 70n 45 Aromatico, A.: 204n4 Ashdowne, R.K.: 15n60 Ashworth, E.J.: 18n72-73, 57, 57n5, 70n40, 84, 84n81 Bakker, P.J.J.M.: 113n6, 122n2526, 123n27, 125n33, 188n6 Bale, J.: IXn5, 12n49, 13n51, 82n71, 83, 84n79, 85 Bartoš, F.M.: 196n39, 197n43-44, 197n49-51, 197n53, 198n54 Bateson, M.: IXn5, 13n51, 82n71 Baur, L.: 49n37, Bayle, P.: XXVIII, 203, 204n2, 217, 217n32, 219, 219n37 Beaune, C.: 211n18 Beaujouan, G.: 83, 83n79 Beer, R.: IXn5, 45n24, 72n50, 107n22 Bejczy, I.: 155n7 Bergström-Allen, J.: 59, 12, 180n43 M. Bertagna: 18n73, 19n76 Biard, J.: 33n2 Bignami-Odier, J.: 204n3, 204n4, 205, 205n7 Blanciotti, B.: 59n12, 96n2, 127n39, 154n4 Bodéüs, R.: 74n54 Boilloux, M.: 204n4

Bond, E.A.: 22n54 Boor, F. de: 26n102 Bos, E.P.: 14n55 Bose, M.: 180n43 Brown, E.: 59n11, 123n28, 215n24 Brungs, A.: 28n110, 184n53 Buddensieg, R.: Xn6, 28n109, 106n21, 178n36 Bulthuis, N.E.: 34n2 Campi, L.: Xn5, Xn7-8, XVIn25, XVIIn26, XXVIIIn27, 61n18, 97n5, 114n7 Capes, W.: 146n86 Catto, J.I.: VIIIn4, XIV, XIVn16, 3, 3n7, 12, 14n57, 15, 15n58, 86, 86n88 Cenci, C.: 9n34 Cesalli, L.: XIV, XIVn17, 16n65, 26n99, 28n108, 28n110, 33n2, 34n2, 43n20, 46n27, 57n3, 105n19, 113n5, 115n8 Childs, W.R.: 153n2 Ciola, G.: XXVII, XXVIII, 204n4, 207n13, 211n19 Clarke, P.D.: IXn5, 11n44 Coeffeteau, N.: 204n2, 216, 216n31, 219, 219n38 Coleman, J.: 22n85 Clutius, R.: 156n14 Conti, A.D.: XIII, XV, XVn21, XVIIIXIX, 33n1-2, 34n2, 34n3, 37n9, 43n19-20, 45n23-24, 46n26, 47n30, 48n32-33, 49n38,

260

INDEX OF NAMES MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS

50n42, 57, 57n2, 57n6, 70n4546, 71n47, 75n57, 82n73 Cook, W.: 140n68 Copeland, R.: 178n37 Copsey, R.: 59n12, 180n43 Courroux, P.: 206n9 Coxe, H.O.: 83n74 Croenen, G.: 206n9, 206n11 Cronin, H.S.: 147n87, 153n1 Dahmus, J.H.: 154n5 Daye, J.: 205n8 Dekarli, M.: 14n54, 17n71, 99n8 Denery II, D.G.: 171n21 Denis, M.: 13n50 Del Punta, F.: 49n36 Déprez, E.: 211n21 Diller, G.T.: 206n9 Dondaine, A.: 155n6-7 Du Plessis Mornay, Ph.: 204n2, 216, 216n30, 217n32, 218, 219, 219n35-38 Dziewicki, M.H.: IXn5, Xn6, XVIIXVIII, 1, 1n1-2, 2, 2n3, 3, 4n10, 5, 5n13, 5n19, 6n23, 7, 9, 10n42, 12, 13n53, 14, 14n56, 19, 22n85, 25n96, 26, 26n101, 27, 27n104-105, 30n115-117, 31n119, 42n16, 45n24, 62n19, 102n14, 106n22, 112n3-4, 192n26, 194n35 Emden, A.B.: 60n16, 70n39, 82n67, 82, 71 Evans, G.R.: 27n105, 70n41 Flajšhans, V.: 95n1 Fodéré, J.: 218, 218n33 Forrest, I.: 181n43 Foxe, J.: 205n8 Friedberg, E.: 119n19

Fudge, T.: 95n1 Fumagalli Beonio Brocchieri, Mt.: XIV-XV Gál, G.: 127n40 Geach, P.: 119n18 Gibson, S.: VIIIn4, 22n84 Ghosh, K.: XIV, XIVn17, XXIV-XXV, 26n100, 173n27, 178n36, 179n40, 180n41, 180n43, 184n53, 186n57 Gilbert, N.W.: 28n110 Godwin, F.: 82n69 Goubier, F.: 26n100, 28n110, 168n4, 184n53 Gradon, P.: 169n11, 170n13 Halama, O.: 196n39 Hardt, H. von der: 109n29 Harris, E.: 24n92 Henry, D.P.: 106n20 Herold, V.: XVIn26, XVIIn27, 98n7, 99n8, 100, 100n10, 101n12, 108n27 Hervieux, L.: 220n42-43 Herzberg-Fränkel, S.: 194n35 Heymann, F.G.: 140n68 Hoen, C.: 138, 138n64 Hoenen, M.J.F.M: 181n46, 182n46, 186n57 Holeton, D.R.: 187n3 Hornbeck II, J.P.: 132, 132n51, 136n63 Horner, P.J.: 179n39 Hudson, A.: VIIIn3, IXn5, XIIn11, XIIIXIV, XIVn15, XIVn16, XVIn25, 3, 3n8, 4n9-10, 11n46, 12, 12n47-48, 13n52, 15n39, 16n67, 17n68, 29n113, 31n119, 70n43, 131, 132n50, 133n56,

INDEX OF NAMES MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS

135n60, 136n61, 136n63, 153n1, 156n15, 167n2, 168n6, 169, 169n8, 169n10-12, 170, 170n14, 174n29, 176n32, 177, 177n34, 178, 178n35, 179n41, 180n41, 184n54, 186, 205n8 Illyricus, M.F.: 203n2, 215, 219n38 Indra, G.: 30n114 Iribarren, I.: 181n46 Jacob, E.F.: 22n84 Jeauneau, É.: 99n8 Jenni, U.: 16n64 Kahn, D.: 204n4 Kaluza, Z.: 64n24, 167n3, 173, 173n26, 181n46, 182n47 Kaminsky, H.: 139, 139n67, 140n70, 187, 187n2 Kann, C.: 113n4 Karlstadt, A.: 138-139 Keen, M.: 117, 188n4 Kejř, J.: 192n24 Kenny, A.: VIIIn3, XIIn11, XIII, 57n1, 105n18, 153n1 König-Pralong, C.: 178, 179n38 Kretzmann, N.: 31n2, 2, 3n5, 11n46, 23, 27n102, 27n105, 67, 67n30 Krmíčková, H.: 188n5, 188n6, 200n65, 202n69 Lahey, S.E.: XIIIn13, XIVn18, XXIXXII, 3n8, 67n29, 97n4, 97n5, 127n38, 187n1 Laks, A.: 91n99 Larsen, A.E.: 29n112, 153n1, 154n3, 154n5, 207n12 Lea, H.C.: 192n23 Leland, J.: 12n49, 82n67, 83 Lerner, R.: 204n4

261

Lewis, N.: XIIn10, 65n27, 76n59 Levy, I.C.: XXII-XXIII, 25n98, 26n100, 29n111, 58n10, 59n12, 97n4, 106n21, 112n12, 126n35, 156n13, 180n43, 188n6 Lechler, G.: Xn6, 66n29, 114n8, 160n33, 192n26 Libera, A. de: 34n2, 113n6 Lohr, C.: 60n13 Loserth, J.: Xn6, XIn10, XXIV, 10n43, 13n53, 67n33, 107n24, 110n30, 112n2, 116n11, 155, 155n10, 156, 156n11-12, 156n16, 158, 158n25, 159n26, 160n33, 167n1, 192n28, 194n32-34, 196n41, 203n2 Louis, N.: 203n1 Maclean, I.: 181n44 Magrath, J.R.: 82n68 Maierù, A.: 14n55 Marek, J.: XXIII, XXV-XXVI, 189n9, 190n10-14, 191n15-16, 191n18-22, 192n23, 192n25, 192n27-28, 193n29, 193n31, 195n37, 197n46, 199n58, 199n61-62 Martin, J: XIn9 Masi, M.: 63n22 Matthew, F.D.: 107n24, 132n-54, 133n55, 160n33, 196n41 McCord Adams, M.: 49n36 McHardy, A.K.: 70n42 Meier-Oeser, S.: 34n2 Menéndez y Pelayo, M.: 215n25 Michael, E.: 4n11, 57n4, 58, 58n78, 59, 67, 67n31 Millot, L.: 203n2

262

INDEX OF NAMES MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS

Minnis, A.J.: 170n19, 182, 183n49, 184, 184n51 Moeglin, J.-M.: 206n9 Morerod-Fattebert, C.: 204n4 Mueller, I.J.: IXn5, Xn6, XIII, XIIIn14, XVIn26, XVIIn26, 14n54, 15n58, 44n21, 100, 100n10, 104n17 Müller, W.: 31n119 Murdoch, J.E.: 1n2, 61n17, 84n83, 93n103 Mynors, R.: 82n72 Nelson Burnett, A.: 138n64, 138n65-66 Niedbruck, Kaspar von: 15n59 Nolcken, C. von: 168n7, 174n29, 184n52 Normore, C.: 76n58 Nuchelmans, G.: 34n2, 98n7, 112n4 Palacký, F.: 10n43 Palmer, J.J.N.: 206n9 Pantin, T.P.: 136n63 Pantin, W.A.: 16n68, 17n68, 29n112 Perger, M. von: 75n57 Perreiah, A.R.: 48n32, 50, 50n41 Perry, B.E.: 220, 221n44 Peruzzi, M.: 204n4 Peschke, E.: 188n5 Pinborg, J.: 34n2 Pini, G.: 119n18 Poole, R.L.: XIIn10, 13n51, 82n71, 194n33 Pou y Martí, P.J.: 215n25 Pollard, A.W.: XIn10, 116n13, 194n33 Reeves, A.: 155n6, 155n7-9 Rexroth, F.: 179n38 Rijk, L.M. de: 15n62, 18, 18n7275, 19n75, 23n90, 27n102 Robert, A.: XX-XXI

Robiglio, A.A.: 180, 180n42 Robson, J.A.: VIIIn3-4, 10n42, 17n68, 26n100, 173n26 Rode, C.: 33n2, 34n2 Rosier-Catach, I.: 113n6, 120n2021 Russell, A.: 180n43, 181n44 Sargent, M.: 148n93 Sayle, Ch.: XIn10, 116n13, 194n33 Sbaraglia, G.G.: 204, 205n5 Schmieder, F.: 220n39 Schupp, F.: 19n76 Schwarze, M.: 206n9 Scott, J.D.: 77n61 Sedlák, J.: 98n7, 99n9, 102n14, 140n70, 188n5, 189n8 Seibt, F.: 193, 193n30, 200n64 Sharpe, R.: 8n31, 12n49 Shirley, W.W.: 12, 12n50, 59n11, 115n10, 153n2 Silagiová, Z.: IXn5, 17n69 Šimek, F.: 197n45 Simonetta, S.: XIn10, XV, XVn20, XXVIIIn27 Šmahel, F.: IXn5, 2, 2n4, 17n69, 24n94, 31n118, 98n7, 99n8, 188n4 Solopova, E.: XVIn25, 169n8, 180n41 Somerset, F.: 25n97, 134, 134n58, 174n30, 180n41, 184n52 Soukup, P.: 95n1 Sousedík, S.: 98n7, 107n25 Spade, P.V.: 1n2, 5n20, 16n64, 57, 57n1, 57n5, 70n40, 84n80, 105n18 Spinka, M.: 95n1 Spruyt, B.J.: 138n64

INDEX OF NAMES MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS

Spruyt, J.: 24n95 Spunar, P.: 98n7, 100n9, 102n14, 190n9, 196n39 Svoboda, M.: 189n7 Tanner, N.P.: 58n9 Tanner, Th.: 12n49, 82n67, 83, 83n78 Taylor, J.: 153n2 Tealdi, E.: 204n4 Theisen, M.: 16n64 Thévenaz Modestin, C.: 204n4 Thomson, R.M.: 85n86 Thomson, S.H.: IXn5, 27n104, 102n14 Thomson, W.R.: XIIIn15, 3, 3n6, 4n10, 6n23, 10n39-40, 14, 17n71, 29n112-113, 207n12 Truhlář, J.: 85n84 Tyson, D.B.: 82n70 Uhlirz, M.: 188n5 Varvaro, A.: 206n9 Verde, F.: 91n99 Viard, J.: 213n21

263

Vidmanová, A.: 201n68 Vielhaber, G.: 30n114 Vignier, N.: 204n2, 218, 218n34 Vooght, P. de: 140, 140n69, 141n75, 143n80, 188n5, 192n24, 193n30 Weber, S.: 20n77 Yastrebov, N.V. (Ястребов, Н.В.): 199n59 Watkiss, L.: 153n2 Watson, A.G.: 10n42 Watts, J.: 181n45 Webber, M.T.J.: 10n42 Wilkins, D.: 82n67, 83n78 Wilks, M.: XIII, 11n46 Wilson, G.A.: 1n2, 5n20, 16n64, 84n80 Wilson, W.J.: 8n31 Wood, R.: 127n40 Wöhler, H.-U.: 33n2 Wolff, J.: 217 Workman, H.B.: 153n2, 154n5 Zeeman, N.: 170n18

INDEX OF MANUSCRIPTS Assisi Biblioteca Comunale 662: 8, 30, 62, 63, 65, 78-79 664: 19 690: 19

London British Library Harley 2178: 83 Royal 7 B III: 122 Royal 12 B XIX: 83

Besançon Bibliothèque d’Étude et Conservation 865: 206

Lambeth Palace 393: 60, 70-73, 75, 80

Cambridge Corpus Christi College 232: 11 244: 20 378: 20 Trinity College B.16.2: ix Città del Vaticano Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Vat. lat. 3065: 21 Vat. lat. 4269: 21 Erfurt Universitätsbibliothek CA Q 253: 6, 8, 16, 30 Gdańsk Polska Akademia Nauk, Biblioteka Gdańska 2181: 19

Lyon Bibliothèque municipale 678: 156 Madrid Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial e.II.6: 8, 30, 70 Oxford Bodleian Library Bodley 649: 179 Bodley 676: 60 Bodley 703: 122-123 Lat. misc. b.27: 31 Lat. misc. d.53: 60 Lat. misc. e.79: 20 Corpus Christi College 116: 83, 85 Magdalen College 47: 83 92: 83, 86

266

INDEX OF MANUSCRIPTS

Merton College 68: 70 New College 289: 4, 31, 85-86, 88-89, 90, 92 Padova Biblioteca Universitaria 1123: 24, 27 Pavia Biblioteca Universitaria Fondo Aldini 324: 50 Pistoia Archivio Capitolare C 61: 21 Praha Knihovna Metropolitní kapituly C.103: 196-199, 202 L.27: 86 L.45: 86-87 M.82: 85 N.19: 9, 30-31 Knihovna Národního muzea XII.F.25: 194 XIV.E.4: 195 Národní knihovna V.E.14: 9, 11, 30 V.H.33: 10, 29, 85 VIII.E.11: 83

VIII.F.16: 24 IX.E.3: 9, 30 X.E.24: 98 X.G.11: 194 X.H.18: 86 XIII.E.7: 100 Salamanca Biblioteca Universitaria 2358: 84-85, 88-89, 90, 92 Schlägl Stiftsbibliothek 78: 6, 30 Venezia Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Lat. VI. 173: ix, 68-69 Wien Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 3933: 13 3935: 13 4002: 13, 85 4133: 179, 182-183, 185 4514: 13, 16 4523: 5, 9, 15, 17, 30 5204: 16 Worcester Cathedral Library F 118: 20

Collection « Textes et Études du Moyen Âge » publiée par la Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales

Volumes parus : 1.

Filosofia e Teologia nel Trecento. Studi in ricordo di Eugenio Randi a cura di L. BIANCHI, Louvain-la-Neuve 1995. VII + 575 p. 54 Euros

2.

Pratiques de la culture écrite en France au XVe siècle, Actes du Colloque international du CNRS (Paris, 16-18 mai 1992) organisé en l’honneur de Gilbert Ouy par l’unité de recherche « Culture écrite du Moyen Âge tardif », édités par M. ORNATO et N. PONS, Louvain-la-Neuve 1995. XV + 592 p. et 50 ill. h.-t. 67 Euros

3.

Bilan et perspectives des études médiévales en Europe, Actes du premier Congrès européen d’études médiévales (Spoleto, 27-29 mai 1993), édités par J. HAMESSE, 54 Euros Louvain-la-Neuve 1995. XIII + 522 p. et 32 ill. h.-t.

4.

Les manuscrits des lexiques et glossaires de l’Antiquité tardive à la fin du Moyen Âge, Actes du Colloque international organisé par le «Ettore Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture» (Erice, 23-30 septembre 1994), édités par J. HAMESSE, Louvain67 Euros la-Neuve 1996. XIII + 723 p.

5.

Models of Holiness in Medieval Studies, Proceedings of the International Symposium (Kalamazoo, 4-7 May 1995), edited by B.M. KIENZLE, E. WILKS DOLNIKOWSKI, R. DRAGE HALE, D. PRYDS, A.T. THAYER, Louvain-la-Neuve 1996. XX + 402 p. 49 Euros

6.

Écrit et pouvoir dans les chancelleries médiévales : espace français, espace anglais, Actes du Colloque international de Montréal (7-9 septembre 1995) édités par K. FIANU et D.J. GUTH, Louvain-la-Neuve 1997. VIII + 342 p. 49 Euros

7.

P.-A. BURTON, Bibliotheca Aelrediana secunda (1962-1996). Ouvrage publié avec le concours de la Fondation Universitaire de Belgique et de la Fondation Francqui, Louvain-la-Neuve 1997. 208 p. 27 Euros

8.

Aux origines du lexique philosophique européen. L’influence de la « latinitas », Actes du Colloque international de Rome (23-25 mai 1996) édités par J. HAMESSE, 34 Euros Louvain-la-Neuve 1997. XIV + 298 p.

9.

Medieval Sermons and Society : Cloisters, City, University, Proceedings of International Symposia at Kalamazoo and New York, edited by J. HAMESSE, B.M. KIENZLE, D.L. STOUDT, A.T. THAYER, Louvain-la-Neuve 1998. VIII + 414 p. et 7 ill. h.-t. 54 Euros

10. Roma, magistra mundi. Itineraria culturae medievalis. Mélanges offerts au Père L.E. Boyle à l’occasion de son 75e anniversaire, édités par J. HAMESSE. Ouvrage publié avec le concours de la Homeland Foundation (New York), Louvain-la-Neuve épuisé 1998. vol. I-II : XII + 1030 p. ; vol. III : VI + 406 p. 11. Filosofia e scienza classica, arabo-latina medievale e l’età moderna. Ciclo di seminari internazionali (26-27 gennaio 1996) a cura di G. FEDERICI VESCOVINI, 39 Euros Louvain-la-Neuve 1999. VIII + 331 p. 12. J.L. JANSSENS, An annotated Bibliography of Ibn Sînæ. First Supplement (1990-1994), uitgegeven met steun van de Universitaire Stichting van België en het Francqui26 Euros Fonds, Louvain-la-Neuve 1999. XXI + 218 p. 13. L.E. BOYLE, O.P., Facing history: A different Thomas Aquinas, with an introduction by J.-P. TORRELL, O.P., Louvain-la-Neuve 2000. XXXIV + 170 p. et 2 ill. h.- t. 33 Euros

14. Lexiques bilingues dans les domaines philosophique et scientifique (Moyen Âge – Renaissance), Actes du Colloque international organisé par l’École Pratique des Hautes Etudes – IVe Section et l’Institut Supérieur de Philosophie de l’Université Catholique de Louvain (Paris, 12-14 juin 1997) édités par J. HAMESSE et D. JACQUART, Turnhout 2001. XII + 240 p., ISBN 978-2-503-51176-4 35 Euros 15. Les prologues médiévaux, Actes du Colloque international organisé par l’Academia Belgica et l’École française de Rome avec le concours de la F.I.D.E.M. (Rome, 26-28 mars 1998) édités par J. HAMESSE, Turnhout 2000. 716 p., ISBN 978-2-503-51124-5 75 Euros 16. L.E. BOYLE, O.P., Integral Palaeography, with an introduction by F. TRONCARELLI, Turnhout 2001. 174 p. et 9 ill. h.-t., ISBN 978-2-503-51177-1 33 Euros 17. La figura di San Pietro nelle fonti del Medioevo, Atti del convegno tenutosi in occasione dello Studiorum universitatum docentium congressus (Viterbo e Roma, 5-8 settembre 2000) a cura di L. LAZZARI e A.M. VALENTE BACCI, Louvain-la-Neuve 2001. 708 p. et 153 ill. h.-t. 85 Euros 18. Les Traducteurs au travail. Leurs manuscrits et leurs méthodes. Actes du Colloque international organisé par le « Ettore Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture » (Erice, 30 septembre – 6 octobre 1999) édités par J. HAMESSE, Turnhout 2001. XVIII + 455 p., ISBN 978-2-503-51219-8 55 Euros 19. Metaphysics in the Twelfth Century. Proceedings of the International Colloquium (Frankfurt, june 2001) edited by M. LUTZ-BACHMANN et al., Turnhout 2003. XIV + 220 p., ISBN 978-2-503-52202-9 43 Euros 20. Chemins de la pensée médiévale. Études offertes à Zénon Kaluza éditées par P.J.J.M. BAKKER avec la collaboration de E. FAYE et Ch. GRELLARD, Turnhout 2002. XXIX + 778 p., ISBN 978-2-503-51178-8 68 Euros 21. Filosofia in volgare nel medioevo. Atti del Colloquio Internazionale de la S.I.S.P.M. (Lecce, 27-28 settembre 2002) a cura di L. STURLESE, Louvain-la-Neuve 2003. 540 p., ISBN 978-2-503-51503-8 43 Euros 22. Bilan et perspectives des études médiévales en Europe (1993-1998). Actes du deuxième Congrès européen d’études médiévales (Euroconference, Barcelone, 8-12 juin 1999), édités par J. HAMESSE, Turnhout 2003. XXXII + 656 p., ISBN 978-2-503-51615-865 Euros 23. Lexiques et glossaires philosophiques de la Renaissance. Actes du Colloque International organisé en collaboration à Rome (3-4 novembre 2000) par l’Academia Belgica, le projet « Le corrispondenze scientifiche, letterarie ed erudite dal Rinascimento all’ età moderna » et l’Università degli studi di Roma « La Sapienza », édités par J. HAMESSE et M. FATTORI, Louvain-la-Neuve 2003. IX + 321 p., ISBN 978-2-503-51535-9 39 Euros 24. Ratio et superstitio. Essays in Honor of Graziella Federici Vescovini edited by G. MARCHETTI, V. SORGE and O. RIGNANI, Louvain-la-Neuve 2003. XXX + 676 p. – 5 ill. h.-t., ISBN 978-2-503-51523-6 54 Euros 25. « In principio erat verbum » . Mélanges offerts à Paul Tombeur par ses anciens élèves édités par B.-M. TOCK, Turnhout 2004. 450 p., ISBN 978-2-503-51672-6 54 Euros 26. Duns Scot à Paris, 1302-2002. Actes du colloque de Paris, 2-4 septembre 2002, édités par O. BOULNOIS, E. KARGER, J.-L. SOLÈRE et G. SONDAG, Turnhout 2005. XXIV + 683 p., ISBN 2-503-51810-9 54 Euros 27. Medieval Memory. Image and text, edited by F. WILLAERT, Turnhout 2004. XXV + 265 p., ISBN 2-503-51683-1 54 Euros 28. La Vie culturelle, intellectuelle et scientifique à la Cour des Papes d’Avignon. Volume en collaboration internationale édité par J. HAMESSE, Turnhout 2006. XI + 413 p. – 16 ill. h.t., ISBN 2-503-51877-X 43 Euros

29. G. MURANO, Opere diffuse per «exemplar» e pecia, Turnhout 2005. 897 p., ISBN 2-503-51922-9 75 Euros 30. Corpo e anima, sensi interni e intelletto dai secoli XIII-XIV ai post-cartesiani e spinoziani. Atti del Colloquio internazionale (Firenze, 18-20 settembre 2003) a cura di G. FEDERICI VESCOVINI, V. SORGE e C. VINTI, Turnhout 2005. 576 p., ISBN 2-503-51988-1 54 Euros 31. Le felicità nel medioevo. Atti del Convegno della Società Italiana per lo Studio del Pensiero Medievale (S.I.S.P.M.) (Milano, 12-13 settembre 2003), a cura di M. BETTETINI e F. D. PAPARELLA, Louvain-la-Neuve 2005. XVI + 464 p., ISBN 2-503-51875-3 43 Euros 32. Itinéraires de la raison. Études de philosophie médiévale offertes à Maria Cândida Pacheco, éditées par J. MEIRINHOS, Louvain-la-Neuve 2005. XXVIII + 444 p., ISBN 2-503-51987-3 43 Euros 33. Testi cosmografici, geografici e odeporici del medioevo germanico. Atti del XXXI Convegno dell’Associazione italiana di filologia germanica (A.I.F.G.), Lecce, 26-28 maggio 2004, a cura di D. GOTTSCHALL, Louvain-la-Neuve 2005. XV + 276 p., ISBN 2-503-52271-8 34 Euros 34. Écriture et réécriture des textes philosophiques médiévaux. Mélanges offerts à C. Sirat édités par J. HAMESSE et O. WEIJERS, Turnhout 2006. XXVI + 499 p., ISBN 2-503-52424-9 54 Euros 35. Frontiers in the Middle Ages. Proceedings of the Third European Congress of the FIDEM (Jyväskylä, june 2003), edited by O. MERISALO and P. PAHTA, Louvain-laNeuve 2006. XII + 761p., ISBN 2-503-52420-6 65 Euros 36. Classica et beneventana. Essays presented to Virginia Brown on the Occasion of her 65th Birthday edited by F.T. COULSON and A. A. GROTANS, Turnhout 2006. XXIV + 444 p. – 20 ill. h.t., ISBN 978-2-503-2434-4 54 Euros 37. G. MURANO, Copisti a Bologna (1265-1270), Turnhout 2006. 214 p., ISBN 2-50352468-9 44 Euros 38. «Ad ingenii acuitionem». Studies in honour of Alfonso Maierù, edited by S. CAROTI, R. IMBACH, Z. KALUZA, G. STABILE and L. STURLESE. Louvain-la-Neuve 2006. VIII + 590 p., ISBN 978-2-503-52532-7 54 Euros 39. Form and Content of Instruction in Anglo-saxon England in the Light of Contemporary Manuscript Evidence. Papers from the International Conference (Udine, April 6th-8th 2006) edited by P. LENDINARA, L. LAZZARI, M.A. D’ARONCO, Turnhout 2007. XIII + 552 p., ISBN 978-2-503-52591-0 65 Euros 40. Averroès et les averroïsmes latin et juif. Actes du Colloque International (Paris, juin 2005) édités par J.-B. BRENET, Turnhout 2007. 367 p., ISBN 978-2-503-52742-0 54 Euros 41. P. LUCENTINI, Platonismo, ermetismo, eresia nel medioevo. Introduzione di L. STURLESE. Volume publié en co-édition et avec le concours de l’Università degli Studi di Napoli « l’Orientale » (Dipartimento di Filosofia e Politica). Louvain-laNeuve 2007. XVI + 517 p., ISBN 978-2-503-52726-0 54 Euros 42.1. Repertorium initiorum manuscriptorum Latinorum Medii Aevi curante J. HAMESSE, auxiliante S. SZYLLER. Tome I : A-C. Louvain-la-Neuve 2007. XXXIV + 697 p., ISBN 978-2-503-52727-7 59 Euros 42.2. Repertorium initiorum manuscriptorum Latinorum Medii Aevi curante J. HAMESSE, auxiliante S. SZYLLER. Tome II : D-O. Louvain-la-Neuve 2008. 802 p., ISBN 978-2503-53045-1 59 Euros

42.3. Repertorium initiorum manuscriptorum Latinorum Medii Aevi curante J. HAMESSE, auxiliante S. SZYLLER. Tome III : P-Z. Louvain-la-Neuve 2009, 792 p., ISBN 978-2503-53321-6 59 Euros 42.4. Repertorium initiorum manuscriptorum Latinorum Medii Aevi curante J. HAMESSE, auxiliante S. SZYLLER. Tome IV : Supplementum. Indices. Louvain-la-Neuve 2010. 597 p., ISBN 978-2-503-53603-3 59 Euros 43. New Essays on Metaphysics as «Scientia Transcendens». Proceedings of the Second International Conference of Medieval Philosophy, held at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Porto Alegre / Brazil, 15-18 August 2006, ed. R. H. PICH. Louvain-la-Neuve 2007. 388 p., ISBN 978-2-503-52787-1 43 Euros 44. A.-M. VALENTE, San Pietro nella letteratura tedesca medievale, Louvain-la-Neuve 2008. 240 p., ISBN 978-2-503-52846-5 43 Euros 45. B. FERNÁNDEZ DE LA CUESTA GONZÁLEZ, En la senda del «Florilegium Gallicum». Edición y estudio del florilegio del manuscrito Córdoba, Archivo Capitular 150, Louvain-la-Neuve 2008. 542 p., ISBN 978-2-503-52879-3 54 Euros 46. Cosmogonie e cosmologie nel Medioevo. Atti del convegno della Società italiana per lo studio del pensiero medievale (S.I.S.P.M.), Catania, 22-24 settembre 2006. A cura di C. MARTELLO, C. MILITELLO, A. VELLA, Louvain-la-Neuve 2008. XVI + 526 p., ISBN 978-2-503-52951-6 54 Euros 47. M. J. MUÑOZ JIMÉNEZ, Un florilegio de biografías latinas: edición y estudio del manuscrito 7805 de la Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, Louvain-la-Neuve 2008. 317 p., ISBN 978-2-503-52983-7 43 Euros 48. Continuities and Disruptions Between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Proceedings of the colloquium held at the Warburg Institute, 15-16 June 2007, jointly organised by the Warburg Institute and the Gabinete de Filosofia Medieval. Ed. by C. BURNETT, J. MEIRINHOS, J. HAMESSE, Louvain-la-Neuve 2008. X + 181 p., ISBN 9782-503-53014-7 43 Euros 50. Florilegium mediaevale. Études offertes à Jacqueline Hamesse à l’occasion de son éméritat. Éditées par J. MEIRINHOS et O. WEIJERS, Louvain-la-Neuve 2009. XXXIV + 636 p., ISBN 978-2-503-53146-5 60 Euros 51. Immaginario e immaginazione nel Medioevo. Atti del convegno della Società Italiana per lo Studio del Pensiero Medievale (S.I.S.P.M.), Milano, 25-27 settembre 2008. A cura di M. BETTETINI e F. PAPARELLA, con la collaborazione di R. FURLAN. Louvainla-Neuve 2009. 428 p., ISBN 978-2-503-53150-2 55 Euros 52. Lo scotismo nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia. Atti del Congresso Internazionale (Bitonto 25-28 marzo 2008), in occasione del VII Centenario della morte di del beato Giovanni Duns Scoto. A cura di F. FIORENTINO, Porto 2010. 514 p., ISBN 978-2-50353448-0 55 Euros 53. E. MONTERO CARTELLE, Tipología de la literatura médica latina: Antigüedad, Edad Media, Renacimiento, Porto 2010. 243 p., ISBN 978-2-503-53513-5 43 Euros 54. Rethinking and Recontextualizing Glosses: New Perspectives in the Study of Late Anglo-Saxon Glossography, edited by P. LENDINARA, L. LAZZARI, C. DI SCIACCA, 60 Euros Porto 2011. XX + 564 p. + XVI ill., ISBN 978-2-503-54253-9 55. I beni di questo mondo. Teorie etico-economiche nel laboratorio dell’Europa medievale. Atti del convegno della Società italiana per lo studio del pensiero medievale (S.I.S.P.M.) Roma, 19-21 settembre 2005. A cura di R. LAMBERTINI e 49 Euros L. SILEO, Porto 2010. 367 p., ISBN 978-2-503-53528-9 56. Medicina y filología. Estudios de léxico médico latino en la Edad Media, edición de A. I. MARTÍN FERREIRA, Porto 2010. 256 p., ISBN 978-2-503-53895-2 49 Euros

57. Mots médiévaux offerts à Ruedi Imbach, édité par I. ATUCHA, D. CALMA, C. KONIGPRALONG, I. ZAVATTERO, Porto 2011. 797 p., ISBN 978-2-503-53528-9 75 Euros 58. El florilegio, espacio de encuentro de los autores antiguos y medievales, editado por M. J. MUÑOZ JIMÉNEZ, Porto 2011. 289 p., ISBN 978-2-503-53596-8 45 Euros 59. Glossaires et lexiques médiévaux inédits. Bilan et perspectives. Actes du Colloque de Paris (7 mai 2010), Édités par J. HAMESSE et J. MEIRINHOS, Porto 2011. XII + 291 p., ISBN 978-2-503-54175-4 45 Euros 60. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109): Philosophical Theology and Ethics. Proceedings of the Third International Conference of Medieval Philosophy, held at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre / Brazil (02-04 September 2009), Edited by R. Hofmeister PICH, Porto 2011. XVI + 244 p., ISBN 978-2-50354265-2 45 Euros 61. L’antichità classica nel pensiero medievale. Atti del Convegno de la Società italiana per lo studio del pensiero medievale (S.I.S.P.M.), Trento, 27-29 settembre 2010. A cura 59 Euros di A. PALAZZO. Porto 2011. VI + 492, p., ISBN 978-2-503-54289-8 62. M. C. DE BONIS, The Interlinear Glosses to the Regula Sancti Benedicti in London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A. III. ISBN 978-2-503-54266-9 (en préparation) 63. J. P. BARRAGÁN NIETO, El «De secretis mulierum» atribuido a Alberto Magno: Estudio, edición crítica y traducción, I Premio Internacional de Tesis Doctorales Fundación Ana María Aldama Roy de Estudios Latinos, Porto 2012. 600 p., ISBN 978-2-503-54392-5 65 Euros 64. Tolerancia: teoría y práctica en la Edad Media. Actas del Coloquio de Mendoza (1518 de Junio de 2011), editadas por R. PERETÓ RIVAS, Porto 2012. XXI + 295 p., ISBN 978-2-503-54553-0 49 Euros 65. Portraits de maîtres offerts à Olga Weijers, édité par C. ANGOTTI, M. BRÎNZEI, 65 Euros M. TEEUWEN, Porto 2012. 521 p., ISBN 978-2-503-54801-2 66. L. TROMBONI, Inter omnes Plato et Aristoteles: Gli appunti filosofici di Girolamo Savonarola. Introduzione, edizione critica e comento, Prefazione di G. C. 55 Euros GARFAGNINI, Porto 2012. XV + 326 p., ISBN 978-2-503-54803-6 67. M. MARCHIARO, La biblioteca di Pietro Crinito. Manoscritti e libri a stampa della raccolta libraria di un umanista fiorentino, II Premio de la Fundación Ana María Aldama Roy de Estudios Latinos, Porto 2013. 342 p., ISBN 978-2-503-54949-1 55 Euros 68. Phronêsis – Prudentia – Klugheit. Das Wissen des Klugen in Mittelalter, Renaissance und Neuzeit. Il sapere del saggio nel Medioevo, nel Rinascimento e nell’Età Moderna. Herausgegeben von / A cura di A. FIDORA, A. NIEDERBERGER, M. SCATTOLA, Porto 2013. 348 p., ISBN 978-2-503-54989-7 59 Euros 69. La compilación del saber en la Edad Media. La Compilation du savoir au Moyen Âge. The Compilation of Knowledge in the Middle Ages. Editado por M. J. MUÑOZ, P. CAÑIZARES y C. MARTÍN, Porto 2013. 632 p., ISBN 978-2-50355034-3 65 Euros 70. W. CHILDS, Trade and Shipping in the Medieval West: Portugal, Castile and England, Porto 2013. 187 p., ISBN 978-2-503-55128-9 35 Euros 71. L. LANZA, «Ei autem qui de politia considerat ...» Aristotele nel pensiero politico medievale, Barcelona – Madrid 2013. 305 p., ISBN 978-2-503-55127-2 49 Euros 72. «Scholastica colonialis». Reception and Development of Baroque Scholasticism in Latin America, 16th-18th Centuries, Edited by R. H. PICH and A. S. CULLETON, 49 Euros Barcelona – Roma 2016. VIII + 338 p., ISBN 978-2-503-55200-2

73. Hagiography in Anglo-Saxon England: Adopting and Adapting Saints’ Lives into Old English Prose (c. 950-1150), Edited by L. LAZZARI, P. LENDINARA, C. DI SCIACCA, 65 Euros Barcelona – Madrid 2014. XVIII + 589 p., ISBN 978-2-503-55199-9 74. Dictionarium Latinum Andrologiae, Gynecologiae et Embryologiae. Diccionario latino de andrología, ginecología y embriología (DILAGE), dir. E. MONTERO CARTELLE, 95 Euros Barcelona – Roma 2018. LI + 1045 p., ISBN 978-2-503-58163-7 75. La Typologie biblique comme forme de pensée dans l’historiographie médiévale, sous la direction de M.T. KRETSCHMER, Turnhout 2014. XII + 279 p., ISBN 978-2-50355447-1 54 Euros 76. Portuguese Studies on Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Edited by M. A. MIRANDA and A. MIGUÉLEZ CAVERO, Barcelona – Madrid 2014. XV + 195 p., ISBN 978-2-50355473-0 49 Euros 77. S. ALLÉS TORRENT, Las «Vitae Hannibalis et Scipionis» de Donato Acciaiuoli, traducidas por Alfonso de Palencia (1491), III Premio de la Fundación Ana María Aldama Roy de Estudios Latinos, Barcelona – Madrid 2014. CLXXVI + 245 p., ISBN 978-2-50355606-2 55 Euros 78. Guido Terreni, O. Carm. (†1342): Studies and Texts, Edited by A. FIDORA, Barcelona – 55 Euros Madrid 2015. XIII + 405 p., ISBN 978-2-503-55528-7 79. Sigebert de Gembloux, Édité par J.-P. STRAUS, Barcelona – Madrid 2015. et 24 ill. h.-t., ISBN 978-2-503-56519-4

IX

+ 210 p. 45 Euros

80. Reading sacred scripture with Thomas Aquinas. Hermeneutical tools, theological questions and new perspectives, Edited by P. ROSZAK and J. VIJGEN, Turnhout 2015. XVI + 601 p., ISBN 978-2-503-56227-8 65 Euros 81. V. MANGRAVITI, L’«Odissea» marciana di Leonzio tra Boccaccio e Petrarca, IV Premio de la Fundación Ana María Aldama Roy de Estudios Latinos (accésit), 79 Euros Barcelona – Roma 2016. CLXXVII + 941 p., ISBN 978-2-503-56733-4 82. Formal Approaches and natural Language in Medieval Logic, Edited by L. CESALLI, F. GOUBIER and A. DE LIBERA, with the collaboration of M. G. ISAAC, Barcelona – 69 Euros Roma 2016. VIII + 538 p., ISBN 978-2-503-56735-8 83. Les « Auctoritates Aristotelis », leur utilisation et leur influence chez les auteurs médiévaux, édité par J. HAMESSE et J. MEIRINHOS, Barcelona – Madrid 2015. X + 362 p., ISBN 978-2-503-56738-9 55 Euros 84. Formas de acceso al saber en la Antigüedad Tardía y en la Alta Edad Media. La transmisión del conocimiento dentro y fuera de la escuela, editado por D. PANIAGUA y M.ª A. ANDRÉS SANZ, Barcelona – Roma 2016. XII + 311 p., ISBN 978-2-503-56987-1 50 Euros 85. C. TARLAZZI, Individui universali. Il realismo di Gualtiero di Mortagne nel XII secolo, IV Premio Internacional de Tesis Doctorales de la Fundación Ana María Aldama Roy de Estudios Latinos, Barcelona – Roma 2017. XL + 426 p., ISBN 978-2503-57565-0 55 Euros 86. Lieu, espace, mouvement : physique, métaphysique et cosmologie (XIIe-XVIe siècles), Actes du Colloque International, Université de Fribourg (Suisse), 12-14 mars 2015, édités par T. SUAREZ-NANI, O. RIBORDY et A. PETAGINE, Barcelona – Roma 2017. XXIII + 318 p., ISBN 978-2-503-57552-0 49 Euros 87. La letteratura di istruzione nel medioevo germanico. Studi in onore di Fabrizio D. Raschellà, a cura di M. CAPARRINI, M. R. DIGILIO, F. FERRARI, Barcelona – Roma 2017. X + 330 p., ISBN 978-2-503-57927-6 49 Euros

88. Appropriation, Interpretation and Criticism: Philosophical and Theological Exchanges between the Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Intellectual Traditions, Edited by A. FIDORA and N. POLLONI, Barcelona – Roma 2017. XI + 336 p., ISBN 978-2-50357744-9 49 Euros 89. Boethius, On Topical Differences, A commentary edited by F. MAGNANO, Barcelona – 59 Euros Roma 2017. XCIV + 400 p., ISBN 978-2-503-57931-3 90. Secrets and Discovery in the Middle Ages. Proceedings of the 5th European Congress of the Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales (Porto, 25th to 29th June 2013), edited by J. MEIRINHOS, C. LÓPEZ ALCALDE and J. REBALDE, Barcelona – 65 Euros Roma 2017. XV + 489 p., ISBN 978-2-503-57745-6 91. J. DELMULLE, Prosper d’Aquitaine contre Jean Cassien. Le « Contra collatorem », l’appel à Rome du parti augustinien dans la querelle postpélagienne, V Premio Internacional de Tesis Doctorales de la Fundación Ana María Aldama Roy de Estudios Latinos, Barcelona – Roma 2018. XLIV + 381 p., ISBN 978-2-503-58429-4 55 Euros 92. Il calamo dell’esistenza. La corrispondenza epistolare tra Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī e Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, cura e traduzione dall’arabo di P. SPALLINO e dal persiano di 65 Euros I. PANZECA, Barcelona – Roma 2019. 424 p., ISBN 978-2-503-58411-9 93. From Charters to Codex. Studies on Cartularies and Archival Memory in the Middle Ages, edited by R. FURTADO and M. MOSCONE, Basel 2019. XVI + 328 p., ISBN 978-2-503-58556-7 50 Euros 94. El lenguaje del arte. Evolución de la terminología específica de manuscritos y textos, editado por A. GÓMEZ RABAL, J. HAMESSE y M. PAVÓN RAMÍREZ, Basel 2019. XXXI + 243 p., ISBN 978-2-503-58791-2 50 Euros 95. I. VILLARROEL FERNÁNDEZ, «Flores philosophorum et poetarum»: tras la huella del «Speculum doctrinale» de Vicente de Beauvais, VII Premio Internacional de Tesis Doctorales de la Fundación Ana María Aldama Roy de Estudios Latinos, Basel 2020. XII + 754 p., ISBN 978-2-503-59067-7 69 Euros 96. E. BERNABÉ SÁNCHEZ, «Signa iudicii»: orígenes, fuentes y tradición hispánica, VIII Premio Internacional de Tesis Doctorales de la Fundación Ana María Aldama Roy de 55 Euros Estudios Latinos, Basel 2020. VIII + 400 p., ISBN 978-2-503-59342-5 97. Before and After Wyclif: Sources and Textual Influences, ed. by L. CAMPI and 49 Euros S. SIMONETTA, Basel 2020. XXX + 266 p., ISBN 978-2-503-59406-4

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