Condemning the Condemnations: The Ineffectual Attempts to Censor Thought at the University of Paris, 1210–1277
To cite this essay:
Voltz, Alexander. "Condemning the Condemnations: The Ineffectual Attempts to Censor Thought at the University of Paris, 1210–1277." A. D. K. Voltz. Last modified [month and year on website footer; see below]. https://adkvoltz.com/essays/condemning-the-condemnations.
The censure of thought remains a pervasive global dilemma. On the one hand, “freedom” of “conscience” is considered a fundamental human right and accordingly mandated by the United Nations.[1] That said, what governing body is there to judge the appropriateness of these free thoughts? In an age of violent radicalism, technological dependency and corporate exploitation, there is a growing expectation that a basic standard – a distinction between the acceptable and the unacceptable – be codified. Some might call that political correctness, but let’s not fall down that rabbit hole.
History, particularly medieval history, is rich in examples of attempts to codify acceptable and unacceptable. There is perhaps no greater example than the Condemnations, or the restrictions placed on teaching at the University of Paris throughout the thirteenth century. These effectively culminated in 1277 with the denunciation of 219 academic and philosophic propositions.[2]
Initially, because of their extremity and protraction, I thought the Condemnations would have significantly impacted medieval society, thwarting the advance of knowledge and crashing the West into a new Dark Age. My research has proven contrary. The Condemnations, whilst of contextual importance, did not have lasting effects on medieval society. To prove this, I discuss the Condemnations from three different angles: the philosophical, the religious and the political. But don’t lose heart: the Condemnations are still a fascinating subject, and it’s just as important to understand why things didn’t turn out the way they were expected to.
The Condemnations started garnering attention in 1977 due to the 700th anniversary of the 1277 denunciations.[3] Based on the available sources, scholars have identified the following events as critical. The Condemnations began in 1210, only ten years after Philip II officially chartered the University of Paris. The provincial synod of Sens declared that “neither the books of Aristotle on natural philosophy nor their commentaries” were to be taught by the university “in public or in secret”.[4] Aristotelianism had dominated university curriculums throughout the twelfth century and achieved further prominence with the Latinisation of texts like Posterior Analytics and Sophistical Refutations.[5] Sens, then, was a reaction by those who felt Aristotle’s teachings conflicted with the doctrines of Christianity.[6] Although the ban was reaffirmed in 1215 and extended to include the University of Toulouse, it was largely noneffective by 1230.[7] In fact, the University of Paris’s 1255 statutes list all known works of Aristotle as “required reading”.[8] By that time, as well, the translated works of Aristotle’s commentators, such as Averroes, were being studied and taught.[9] Needless to say, Aristotelianism began to generate friction between various factions within the university.
Since its inception, the University of Paris had been organised into four distinct faculties: Arts, Theology, Law and Medicine.[10] The Theology Faculty took offense at the Arts Faculty’s liberal incorporation of controversial material (the works of Aristotle, Averroes, and others) into its syllabus.[11] What internal squabbling resulted did not go unnoticed. In 1270, Giles of Lessines sent to Albert the Great a set of fifteen philosophical propositions which he admired. Retaliating, the Bishop of Paris and our chief antagonist throughout the Condemnations, Stephen Tempier, denounced thirteen of the fifteen as heretical.[12] Not sufficiently mollified, it was Tempier who issued the 1277 denunciations. Caught up in Tempier’s censuring were scholars like Siger of Brabant and Boëthius of Dacia, along with the memory and teachings of Thomas Aquinas. Ironically, the latter would be canonised by the Catholic Church in 1323, but that’s a case for later down the track.
Worth nothing is that, also in 1277, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Kilwardby attacked thirty philosophical theses that were being propagated by the University of Oxford.[13] I confine my inquiry to the events of Paris, fascinating as an examination of the institutions’ relationship might develop to be. It has, however, been proven unlikely that Kilwardby and Tempier were colluding.[14]
If you are to understand the lacking effects of the Condemnations, you need first appreciate the University of Paris’ academic approach to philosophy. For whatever reason, facets of the modern world have come to resent the study of humanities at a tertiary level.[15] Which is quite a polite way of putting it, but I suppose I can thank my Arts degree for the ability to…recontextualise my thoughts.
A Bachelor of Arts was foundational to the academic career of any scholar in the High Middle Ages.[16] In the 1230s, the works of Priscian, Donatus, Cicero, Aristotle and Boëthius were all being taught at Paris as part of the Arts Faculty’s trivium.[17] (That’s a fancy medieval word for a first-year course in grammar, rhetoric and logic.) At many universities, Paris being one, a degree in philosophy was necessary before further studies could be undertaken in another faculty; in other words, one needed hold a Bachelor of Arts to hold a doctorate in Medicine, Theology or Law.[18] Discrepancies began to arise when those appointed as masters of the Theology Faculty did not always hold philosophical qualifications.[19] Master and student, then, might have held quite divergent opinions.
Or perhaps not. The Arts Faculty issued the following declaration in 1272:
No master or bachelor of our faculty should presume to determine or even to dispute any theological question, as concerning the Trinity and incarnation and similar matters, since this would be transgressing the limits assigned him. . . adding further that, if any master or bachelor of our faculty reads or disputes any difficult passages or any questions which seem to undermine the faith, he shall refute the arguments or text as far as they are against the faith or concede that they are absolutely false and entirely erroneous.[20] In other words, the doctrines of Christianity were beyond reproach. Someone like Thomas Aquinas would no doubt have appreciated this gesture; his Summa contra Gentiles observed that “[natural] truths…cannot be contrary to the truth of faith”.[21] What’s interesting, however, is that the declaration appears unprovoked. Unless there had been formal intervention from higher theological authorities, such as the papacy, the Arts Faculty had no need to reprimand its masters and students alike.[22] Nonetheless, it did, and in 1276 went further by instating a ban on general teaching in secret or private places.[23] The possibility that both actions were the result of generational differences in education between masters and students should not be ruled out. With the frequent induction of new work into the university’s syllabi, older staff may well have felt regulation necessary to preserve order.[24] Scholars agree that the Condemnations and particularly the 1277 denunciations represent a growing divide between reason and faith.[25] While this seems irrefutable, the Condemnations are valuable in another sense, in that they highlight the divides in philosophical theory that were prevalent in thirteenth century Paris. Take, for example, some of the propositions which Tempier denounced concerning the eternity of the world: 83) That the world, although it was made from nothing, was not newly-made, and, although it passed from nonbeing to being, the non-being did not precede being in duration but only in nature.[26] 86) That eternity and time have no existence in reality but only in the mind.[27] 87) That nothing is eternal from the standpoint of its end that is not eternal from the standpoint of its beginning.[28] In other words, the world was created from something, time is without physical constraints, and nothing lasts forever. Tempier’s denunciations imply that these Aristotelian principles were dominant within the university. In reality, the University of Paris was a melting pot of ideas. While Bonaventure agreed with Tempier, Aquinas adopted a tolerant perspective, arguing that the world’s beginning could not be scientifically proven:
It is impossible for that which has being after non-being to have eternal being, because this implies a contradiction. But the world has being after non-being. Therefore it is impossible that it be eternal.[29]
We hold by faith alone that the world has not existed forever; this truth cannot be proved demonstratively … God’s will cannot be investigated by reason, except as regards those matters which God must will with absolute necessity; such however, are not those things which he wills with reference to creatures, as we said above. But the divine will can be made known to man by revelation, on which faith is based. That the world had a beginning, therefore, is an object of faith, but not of demonstration or science.[30]
In stark opposition to Aquinas and Bonaventure were Siger of Brabant and Roger Bacon. Siger maintained that the very existence of nature causes the world’s eternity, and Bacon offered a unique, “benign reading” of Aristotle’s theory that was likely inspired by William of Conches. But some have argued that it was actually Bacon and not Bonaventure who first raised concerns over the liberal teaching practises of Paris’s Arts Faculty.[32] If so, then here is a philosopher sitting on the fence. Let us hope he does not get splinters. With their conflicting views, it’s not surprising that philosophers resorted to openly attacking each other. In his 1270 On the Unity and Intellect against the Averroists, Aquinas blatantly criticized Siger’s support of Averroes’ “material” intellect, an extension of Aristotle’s “possible” intellect:[33]
Against these views we have already written many things in the past. But because the boldness of those who err [like Siger] has not ceased to strive against the truth, we will try again to write something against this same error to refute it clearly.[34]
So, we have proof that Bonaventure disputed Aquinas, Aquinas disputed Siger, and Bacon had a foot in both camps. Evidently, there were no clear-cut sides to Paris’s philosophical battlefield. By 1277, scholars had become the by-products of institutionalisation, their identities “formed by the university”.[35] And, even if they did disagree with each other’s thoughts on knowledge, “they all agreed that it was possible to know truths”.[36] If lines were so blurred, who exactly were the Condemnations, particularly Tempier’s denunciations, in aid of? Or, more accurately, who could the Condemnations have been in aid of? The answer remains unclear, and it is for this reason that the Condemnations did not have a lasting impact on medieval society. Strangely, while the Arts Faculty did not “wilfully repudiate” Tempier, the Theology Faculty did.[37] Certainly, the 1277 denunciations strove to “emphasise the power of God”.[38] And they did, because appeals to the Lord’s divinity began to be introduced into discussions of Aristotelian physics and cosmology.[39] But some of the propositions Tempier called into question were legitimately dangerous to the Church, like “there is no more excellent state than to study philosophy” and “the only wise men in the world are the philosophers”.[40] While Robert Kilwardby was backed by both Oxford’s philosophical and religious masters, Tempier had only been advised by certain doctors of theology, like Henry of Ghent.[41] His denunciation was significantly without support, and therefore insignificant itself. Prior to the thirteenth century, censorship at Paris had strictly been used to enforce academic integrity. The university had handled all its investigations internally. There’d never been any mention of heresy.[42] But just as restrictions had crept into the Arts Faculty, so too did they begin to creep their way into the Theology Faculty. While theologians were not initially prohibited from studying the works of Aristotle by the synod of Sens, they were in 1228.[43] Pope Gregory IX (r. 1227–1241) forbade the teaching of natural philosophy by the theology masters at Paris.[44] Then, crucially, in 1272, the Theology Faculty was also required to swear, in conjunction with the Arts Faculty, that it would not teach anything deemed unacceptable by the Roman Curia.[45] The Holy See was tightening its leash. That leash, arguably, had been tightening for quite some time. Three years after his 1228 ban, Gregory IX wrote a letter to various canons, the subject of which is quite interesting:
The books on nature which were prohibited at Paris in provincial council are said to contain both useful and useless matter, lest the useful be vitiated by the useless, we command to your discretion…examining the same books as is convenient subtly and prudently, you entirely exclude what you shall find there erroneous or likely to give scandal or offense to readers, so that, what are suspect being removed, the rest may be studied without delay and without offense.[46] Though it did supress knowledge and was ultimately biased towards the opinions of the inquirers, Gregory’s approach is tolerant. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of his letter, likely because the chief investigator, William of Auxerre, suffered an untimely death shortly after it was written.[47] Nine popes later, John XXI (r. 1276–1277) wrote another important letter on 18 January 1277, addressed to Tempier himself:
An exceedingly worrisome relation has recently disturbed our hearing and excited our mind, that in Paris…certain errors in judgment of the [Catholic] faith are said to have sprung forth anew. …By the authority of these presents we wish and strictly enjoin that you should diligently cause to be inspected or inquired by which people and in which places the errors of this kind are spoken or written, and whatever you may hear about or find, you should not omit to faithfully write them down, to be transmitted to us through your messenger as quickly as possible.[48] And thus, with His Holiness’ command, Tempier began furiously compiling the 219 propositions which he would condemn. So furious was that compiling that his denunciation was published only two weeks after he received John’s letter. But he did not have the pope’s ratification.[49] John XXI sent a second letter to Tempier shortly after the denunciations’ public dissemination in which he denied any prior knowledge of the bishop’s intentions.[50] In fact, all the evidence would suggest that Tempier was already writing up his denunciation before John’s initial letter.[51] We’ll come to that possibility. From that point onwards, Rome abandoned Tempier’s efforts. The bishop might have expected this. Previously, the chancellor of Notre-Dame, John of Candeilles, had caused friction with Parisian scholars when he tried to undermine their independence. The scholars appealed to the then-pope, Innocent III (r. 1198–1216), who swiftly answered their pleas and reprimanded the meddlesome chancellor.[52] There was a precedent, then, of popes deferring to the secular. Moreover, John XXI was very possibly the same man as Peter of Spain, a physician who wrote an important treatise on Aristotelian logic.[53] If that were the case, he must have been personally offended by Tempier’s suppressive attempts. When it became obvious that Tempier’s reinforcements had abandoned him, the Theology Faculty counterattacked. In 1297, Godfrey of Fontaines decreed that the University of Paris had completely misinterpreted the 1277 denunciations.[54] He went as far to demand that all condemnations of teachings related to Aquinas be overturned.[55] Some, he argued, like Tempier and William de la Mare, had considered Aquinas and his avant-garde philosophies heretical, but they were simply a vocal minority.[56] By the turn of the century, Aquinas was strongly favoured by the Roman Curia, which was what probably led to his canonisation. When the ever-hungry Tempier began investigating one of Aquinas’ students, Giles of Rome, on charges of heresy, the papacy stopped him.[57] To condemn Giles would be to condemn Aquinas. While Tempier ignored Godfrey’s petitions, his successor to the Bishopric of Paris, Stephen de Bourret, did not. In 1325, de Bourret overturned the denunciations relating to Aquinas, stating that such were of “no canonical value”.[58] Despite this, however, the Condemnations were still effective throughout the fourteenth century.[59] Over a century after de Bourret’s revocation, John of Naples felt the need to reassure the University of Paris that Aquinas’s works could actually be taught without fear of excommunication.[60] By the fourteenth century, the followers of Aquinas were a solidified, resilient community.[61] At large, Tempier and the Condemnations had failed. If either had been supported by Rome, a very different scenario might have arisen. And even then, scholars to this day refute the notion that logic – and, by extension, knowledge – has ever been permanently altered by “ecclesiastical action”.[62] The Condemnations had little philosophical effect. The Condemnations had little religious effect. What about the Condemnations’ political effects? It might seem abstract to suggest that the Condemnations even had political effects, but think about places in our world today like Russia, China, North Korea and even the United States. In these places, restrictions on knowledge have produced quite serious political situations.[63] Earlier, the possibility was raised that Tempier was already working on his 1277 denunciations prior to any communique by John XXI. Why? Had the bishop’s careful study of the thirteenth century’s philosophic misbehaviours led him to the conclusion that ecclesiastical action needed to be taken? Probably not, but the answer might be found lurking in the November of 1276. At that time, a papal inquisition was examining Siger of Brabant and his beliefs, concerned by their unorthodoxy.[64] While Siger was eventually acquitted, Tempier can only have been disturbed by the papacy’s charges.[65] Very possibly, he set to work, and six months later had published his denunciations. If his work wasn’t a two-week job, it’s odd that Tempier attributes no specific philosophers to the propositions he condemns. Thomas Aquinas, Siger of Brabant and Boëthius of Dacia have all been generally accepted by historians as Tempier’s targets.[66] That said, difficulties arise. We have already discussed the Church’s eventual sympathy towards Aquinas. The fact that Tempier published his denunciations exactly three years and three days after Aquinas’ death is certainly remarkable, although scholars think there was nothing personal between the two.[67] Some have argued that, despite the inquisition, evidence that Siger of Brabant’s work qualified him for denunciation is tricky to find.[68] That said, Siger felt threatened enough to resign his university post, and Boëthius of Dacia eerily disappears from academic records after 1277.[69] In recent years, attention has been drawn to an anonymous text written around the same time as Tempier’s denunciations, because it “contradicts the Christian doctrine”.[70] One scholar has even gone far enough to suggest that it was the University of Paris’ students, rather than its masters, that irked Tempier – but this theory has been properly debunked by others.[71] As I alluded to earlier, the point of working out who Tempier was targeting is that he must have thought some tangible entity (i.e. not God) could benefit from his denunciations. If it wasn’t one person or group of philosophers, it must have been a broader collective. Very possibly, that broader collective was the Franciscan order. The Franciscans were a group of prominent Christian medicants across the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as were their great rivals the Dominicans.[72] On the grounds of Christian moral theory, the Franciscans strongly opposed the Dominicans; on the grounds of Aristotelianism, the Franciscans strongly opposed any who supported it.[73] Tempier was a Franciscan. Aquinas was a Dominican. William de la Mare, the one who criticised Aquinas as heretical, was a Franciscan.[74] The Roman Curia that opposed Tempier’s investigation into Aquinas’ disciple Giles of Rome was predominantly made up of Dominicans.[75] Bonaventure was a Franciscan. John of Naples was a Dominican.[76] Now, that’s almost too coincidental. While these medicant orders did occasionally include popes – Gregory IX, for example, was a Franciscan – they were external conglomerates to a kingdom’s real political authority: its king. The Condemnations seem not to have bothered the French monarchs of the thirteenth century in the slightest. That’s not to say there wasn’t precedent for the king to interact with the University of Paris. Louis IX (r. 1226–1270) personally intervened alongside the papacy to expel Guillaume de Saint-Amour, a secularist who had insulted him.[77] Otherwise, though, Louis’ only other dealing with the university was in 1263, when his coinage reforms sparked debate as to the extent of his royal power.[78] In his defence, he was preoccupied with retaking the Holy Land. His mother, Blanche of Castile, served as his regent while he was away. Interestingly, in 1250, she grew agitated by the papacy’s exploitation of supposedly designated crusade resources, declaring: “Those who fight for the Pope should…leave [France] never to return”.[79] Is this evidence of strained relations between the French government and Rome? Coupled with Louis’ absence, it might explain why the monarchy took little interest in the Condemnations. By 1277, Louis had been succeeded by his son, Philip III (r. 1270–1285). France probably hoped it could have avoided Philip. He was an indecisive leader who was too caught up in scandals and war to pay any attention to happenings at the University of Paris.[80] His disastrous campaign into Castile actually coincided about the same time as the 1276 trial against Siger. Dealing with accusations of heresy just wasn’t on the royal agenda. So, on all three counts, the Condemnations are letdowns. They were too confused to be of benefit to any one stream of philosophical inquiry. The necessary religious authorities did not support them. And in trying to aid the politically weak Franciscans and failing to capture the Crown’s attention, Tempier’s 1277 denunciations had minimal political effect. For these three reasons, the Condemnations did not gravely impact medieval society. It would be easy for us to be carried away by what ifs. What if the University of Paris had stood as a unified front against its condemners? What if Tempier had waited for John XXI’s approval to proceed with his denunciations? What if Louis or Philip had taken an interest? I think the next question trumps all: Why are the Condemnations worth caring about? The answer is a simple one. The Condemnations happened. They were a micronarrative within that epic we call humanity. That alone makes them simply fascinating. In our age of violent radicalism, technological dependency and corporate exploitation, I do think people have a propensity to forget the little things. Try not to forget the little things. You’re made up of them. A. D. K. Voltz October 2019
No master or bachelor of our faculty should presume to determine or even to dispute any theological question, as concerning the Trinity and incarnation and similar matters, since this would be transgressing the limits assigned him. . . adding further that, if any master or bachelor of our faculty reads or disputes any difficult passages or any questions which seem to undermine the faith, he shall refute the arguments or text as far as they are against the faith or concede that they are absolutely false and entirely erroneous.[20] In other words, the doctrines of Christianity were beyond reproach. Someone like Thomas Aquinas would no doubt have appreciated this gesture; his Summa contra Gentiles observed that “[natural] truths…cannot be contrary to the truth of faith”.[21] What’s interesting, however, is that the declaration appears unprovoked. Unless there had been formal intervention from higher theological authorities, such as the papacy, the Arts Faculty had no need to reprimand its masters and students alike.[22] Nonetheless, it did, and in 1276 went further by instating a ban on general teaching in secret or private places.[23] The possibility that both actions were the result of generational differences in education between masters and students should not be ruled out. With the frequent induction of new work into the university’s syllabi, older staff may well have felt regulation necessary to preserve order.[24] Scholars agree that the Condemnations and particularly the 1277 denunciations represent a growing divide between reason and faith.[25] While this seems irrefutable, the Condemnations are valuable in another sense, in that they highlight the divides in philosophical theory that were prevalent in thirteenth century Paris. Take, for example, some of the propositions which Tempier denounced concerning the eternity of the world: 83) That the world, although it was made from nothing, was not newly-made, and, although it passed from nonbeing to being, the non-being did not precede being in duration but only in nature.[26] 86) That eternity and time have no existence in reality but only in the mind.[27] 87) That nothing is eternal from the standpoint of its end that is not eternal from the standpoint of its beginning.[28] In other words, the world was created from something, time is without physical constraints, and nothing lasts forever. Tempier’s denunciations imply that these Aristotelian principles were dominant within the university. In reality, the University of Paris was a melting pot of ideas. While Bonaventure agreed with Tempier, Aquinas adopted a tolerant perspective, arguing that the world’s beginning could not be scientifically proven:
It is impossible for that which has being after non-being to have eternal being, because this implies a contradiction. But the world has being after non-being. Therefore it is impossible that it be eternal.[29]
We hold by faith alone that the world has not existed forever; this truth cannot be proved demonstratively … God’s will cannot be investigated by reason, except as regards those matters which God must will with absolute necessity; such however, are not those things which he wills with reference to creatures, as we said above. But the divine will can be made known to man by revelation, on which faith is based. That the world had a beginning, therefore, is an object of faith, but not of demonstration or science.[30]
In stark opposition to Aquinas and Bonaventure were Siger of Brabant and Roger Bacon. Siger maintained that the very existence of nature causes the world’s eternity, and Bacon offered a unique, “benign reading” of Aristotle’s theory that was likely inspired by William of Conches. But some have argued that it was actually Bacon and not Bonaventure who first raised concerns over the liberal teaching practises of Paris’s Arts Faculty.[32] If so, then here is a philosopher sitting on the fence. Let us hope he does not get splinters. With their conflicting views, it’s not surprising that philosophers resorted to openly attacking each other. In his 1270 On the Unity and Intellect against the Averroists, Aquinas blatantly criticized Siger’s support of Averroes’ “material” intellect, an extension of Aristotle’s “possible” intellect:[33]
Against these views we have already written many things in the past. But because the boldness of those who err [like Siger] has not ceased to strive against the truth, we will try again to write something against this same error to refute it clearly.[34]
So, we have proof that Bonaventure disputed Aquinas, Aquinas disputed Siger, and Bacon had a foot in both camps. Evidently, there were no clear-cut sides to Paris’s philosophical battlefield. By 1277, scholars had become the by-products of institutionalisation, their identities “formed by the university”.[35] And, even if they did disagree with each other’s thoughts on knowledge, “they all agreed that it was possible to know truths”.[36] If lines were so blurred, who exactly were the Condemnations, particularly Tempier’s denunciations, in aid of? Or, more accurately, who could the Condemnations have been in aid of? The answer remains unclear, and it is for this reason that the Condemnations did not have a lasting impact on medieval society. Strangely, while the Arts Faculty did not “wilfully repudiate” Tempier, the Theology Faculty did.[37] Certainly, the 1277 denunciations strove to “emphasise the power of God”.[38] And they did, because appeals to the Lord’s divinity began to be introduced into discussions of Aristotelian physics and cosmology.[39] But some of the propositions Tempier called into question were legitimately dangerous to the Church, like “there is no more excellent state than to study philosophy” and “the only wise men in the world are the philosophers”.[40] While Robert Kilwardby was backed by both Oxford’s philosophical and religious masters, Tempier had only been advised by certain doctors of theology, like Henry of Ghent.[41] His denunciation was significantly without support, and therefore insignificant itself. Prior to the thirteenth century, censorship at Paris had strictly been used to enforce academic integrity. The university had handled all its investigations internally. There’d never been any mention of heresy.[42] But just as restrictions had crept into the Arts Faculty, so too did they begin to creep their way into the Theology Faculty. While theologians were not initially prohibited from studying the works of Aristotle by the synod of Sens, they were in 1228.[43] Pope Gregory IX (r. 1227–1241) forbade the teaching of natural philosophy by the theology masters at Paris.[44] Then, crucially, in 1272, the Theology Faculty was also required to swear, in conjunction with the Arts Faculty, that it would not teach anything deemed unacceptable by the Roman Curia.[45] The Holy See was tightening its leash. That leash, arguably, had been tightening for quite some time. Three years after his 1228 ban, Gregory IX wrote a letter to various canons, the subject of which is quite interesting:
The books on nature which were prohibited at Paris in provincial council are said to contain both useful and useless matter, lest the useful be vitiated by the useless, we command to your discretion…examining the same books as is convenient subtly and prudently, you entirely exclude what you shall find there erroneous or likely to give scandal or offense to readers, so that, what are suspect being removed, the rest may be studied without delay and without offense.[46] Though it did supress knowledge and was ultimately biased towards the opinions of the inquirers, Gregory’s approach is tolerant. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of his letter, likely because the chief investigator, William of Auxerre, suffered an untimely death shortly after it was written.[47] Nine popes later, John XXI (r. 1276–1277) wrote another important letter on 18 January 1277, addressed to Tempier himself:
An exceedingly worrisome relation has recently disturbed our hearing and excited our mind, that in Paris…certain errors in judgment of the [Catholic] faith are said to have sprung forth anew. …By the authority of these presents we wish and strictly enjoin that you should diligently cause to be inspected or inquired by which people and in which places the errors of this kind are spoken or written, and whatever you may hear about or find, you should not omit to faithfully write them down, to be transmitted to us through your messenger as quickly as possible.[48] And thus, with His Holiness’ command, Tempier began furiously compiling the 219 propositions which he would condemn. So furious was that compiling that his denunciation was published only two weeks after he received John’s letter. But he did not have the pope’s ratification.[49] John XXI sent a second letter to Tempier shortly after the denunciations’ public dissemination in which he denied any prior knowledge of the bishop’s intentions.[50] In fact, all the evidence would suggest that Tempier was already writing up his denunciation before John’s initial letter.[51] We’ll come to that possibility. From that point onwards, Rome abandoned Tempier’s efforts. The bishop might have expected this. Previously, the chancellor of Notre-Dame, John of Candeilles, had caused friction with Parisian scholars when he tried to undermine their independence. The scholars appealed to the then-pope, Innocent III (r. 1198–1216), who swiftly answered their pleas and reprimanded the meddlesome chancellor.[52] There was a precedent, then, of popes deferring to the secular. Moreover, John XXI was very possibly the same man as Peter of Spain, a physician who wrote an important treatise on Aristotelian logic.[53] If that were the case, he must have been personally offended by Tempier’s suppressive attempts. When it became obvious that Tempier’s reinforcements had abandoned him, the Theology Faculty counterattacked. In 1297, Godfrey of Fontaines decreed that the University of Paris had completely misinterpreted the 1277 denunciations.[54] He went as far to demand that all condemnations of teachings related to Aquinas be overturned.[55] Some, he argued, like Tempier and William de la Mare, had considered Aquinas and his avant-garde philosophies heretical, but they were simply a vocal minority.[56] By the turn of the century, Aquinas was strongly favoured by the Roman Curia, which was what probably led to his canonisation. When the ever-hungry Tempier began investigating one of Aquinas’ students, Giles of Rome, on charges of heresy, the papacy stopped him.[57] To condemn Giles would be to condemn Aquinas. While Tempier ignored Godfrey’s petitions, his successor to the Bishopric of Paris, Stephen de Bourret, did not. In 1325, de Bourret overturned the denunciations relating to Aquinas, stating that such were of “no canonical value”.[58] Despite this, however, the Condemnations were still effective throughout the fourteenth century.[59] Over a century after de Bourret’s revocation, John of Naples felt the need to reassure the University of Paris that Aquinas’s works could actually be taught without fear of excommunication.[60] By the fourteenth century, the followers of Aquinas were a solidified, resilient community.[61] At large, Tempier and the Condemnations had failed. If either had been supported by Rome, a very different scenario might have arisen. And even then, scholars to this day refute the notion that logic – and, by extension, knowledge – has ever been permanently altered by “ecclesiastical action”.[62] The Condemnations had little philosophical effect. The Condemnations had little religious effect. What about the Condemnations’ political effects? It might seem abstract to suggest that the Condemnations even had political effects, but think about places in our world today like Russia, China, North Korea and even the United States. In these places, restrictions on knowledge have produced quite serious political situations.[63] Earlier, the possibility was raised that Tempier was already working on his 1277 denunciations prior to any communique by John XXI. Why? Had the bishop’s careful study of the thirteenth century’s philosophic misbehaviours led him to the conclusion that ecclesiastical action needed to be taken? Probably not, but the answer might be found lurking in the November of 1276. At that time, a papal inquisition was examining Siger of Brabant and his beliefs, concerned by their unorthodoxy.[64] While Siger was eventually acquitted, Tempier can only have been disturbed by the papacy’s charges.[65] Very possibly, he set to work, and six months later had published his denunciations. If his work wasn’t a two-week job, it’s odd that Tempier attributes no specific philosophers to the propositions he condemns. Thomas Aquinas, Siger of Brabant and Boëthius of Dacia have all been generally accepted by historians as Tempier’s targets.[66] That said, difficulties arise. We have already discussed the Church’s eventual sympathy towards Aquinas. The fact that Tempier published his denunciations exactly three years and three days after Aquinas’ death is certainly remarkable, although scholars think there was nothing personal between the two.[67] Some have argued that, despite the inquisition, evidence that Siger of Brabant’s work qualified him for denunciation is tricky to find.[68] That said, Siger felt threatened enough to resign his university post, and Boëthius of Dacia eerily disappears from academic records after 1277.[69] In recent years, attention has been drawn to an anonymous text written around the same time as Tempier’s denunciations, because it “contradicts the Christian doctrine”.[70] One scholar has even gone far enough to suggest that it was the University of Paris’ students, rather than its masters, that irked Tempier – but this theory has been properly debunked by others.[71] As I alluded to earlier, the point of working out who Tempier was targeting is that he must have thought some tangible entity (i.e. not God) could benefit from his denunciations. If it wasn’t one person or group of philosophers, it must have been a broader collective. Very possibly, that broader collective was the Franciscan order. The Franciscans were a group of prominent Christian medicants across the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as were their great rivals the Dominicans.[72] On the grounds of Christian moral theory, the Franciscans strongly opposed the Dominicans; on the grounds of Aristotelianism, the Franciscans strongly opposed any who supported it.[73] Tempier was a Franciscan. Aquinas was a Dominican. William de la Mare, the one who criticised Aquinas as heretical, was a Franciscan.[74] The Roman Curia that opposed Tempier’s investigation into Aquinas’ disciple Giles of Rome was predominantly made up of Dominicans.[75] Bonaventure was a Franciscan. John of Naples was a Dominican.[76] Now, that’s almost too coincidental. While these medicant orders did occasionally include popes – Gregory IX, for example, was a Franciscan – they were external conglomerates to a kingdom’s real political authority: its king. The Condemnations seem not to have bothered the French monarchs of the thirteenth century in the slightest. That’s not to say there wasn’t precedent for the king to interact with the University of Paris. Louis IX (r. 1226–1270) personally intervened alongside the papacy to expel Guillaume de Saint-Amour, a secularist who had insulted him.[77] Otherwise, though, Louis’ only other dealing with the university was in 1263, when his coinage reforms sparked debate as to the extent of his royal power.[78] In his defence, he was preoccupied with retaking the Holy Land. His mother, Blanche of Castile, served as his regent while he was away. Interestingly, in 1250, she grew agitated by the papacy’s exploitation of supposedly designated crusade resources, declaring: “Those who fight for the Pope should…leave [France] never to return”.[79] Is this evidence of strained relations between the French government and Rome? Coupled with Louis’ absence, it might explain why the monarchy took little interest in the Condemnations. By 1277, Louis had been succeeded by his son, Philip III (r. 1270–1285). France probably hoped it could have avoided Philip. He was an indecisive leader who was too caught up in scandals and war to pay any attention to happenings at the University of Paris.[80] His disastrous campaign into Castile actually coincided about the same time as the 1276 trial against Siger. Dealing with accusations of heresy just wasn’t on the royal agenda. So, on all three counts, the Condemnations are letdowns. They were too confused to be of benefit to any one stream of philosophical inquiry. The necessary religious authorities did not support them. And in trying to aid the politically weak Franciscans and failing to capture the Crown’s attention, Tempier’s 1277 denunciations had minimal political effect. For these three reasons, the Condemnations did not gravely impact medieval society. It would be easy for us to be carried away by what ifs. What if the University of Paris had stood as a unified front against its condemners? What if Tempier had waited for John XXI’s approval to proceed with his denunciations? What if Louis or Philip had taken an interest? I think the next question trumps all: Why are the Condemnations worth caring about? The answer is a simple one. The Condemnations happened. They were a micronarrative within that epic we call humanity. That alone makes them simply fascinating. In our age of violent radicalism, technological dependency and corporate exploitation, I do think people have a propensity to forget the little things. Try not to forget the little things. You’re made up of them. A. D. K. Voltz October 2019
ENDNOTES
[1] Martin Scheinin, ‘‘Article 18,’’ in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Common Standard of Achievement, ed. Gudmundur Alfredsson and Asbjørn Eide (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1999), 379–92. See Linde Lindkvist, “The Politics of Article 18: Religious Liberty in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 4, no. 3 (2013): 429–47.
[2] For a categorisation of the propositions’ subject matters, see Pierre Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l’Averroïsme Latin au XIIIme Siècle, vol. 1 (Louvain: Institut Supérieur de Philosophie de l’Université, 1908). Throughout this investigation, Mandonnet’s reorganisation of the propositions is used. The original ordering can be found in Henry Deniflé and Émile Châtelain, eds., Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. 1 (Paris: Delalain, 1889). This investigation uses the English translations of Ernest Fortin and Peter O’Neill, “Condemnation of 219 Propositions,” in Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook, ed. R. Lerner and M. Mahdi (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963), 335–54. [3] Sara Uckelman. “Logic and the Condemnations,” Journal of Philosophical Logic 39, no. 2 (April 2010): 202. See Roland Hissette, Enquête sur les 219 Articles Condamnés à Paris le 7 Mars 1277 (Paris: Vander-Oyez, 1977).
[4] Lynn Thorndike, University Records and Life in the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944), 26. The mere difference of a decade is perhaps itself significant, reflecting the controversies that surrounded the advancement of knowledge in the High Middle Ages.
[5] Bernardus Dod, “Aristoteles Latinus,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100–1600, ed. Norman Kretzmann et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 74–9.
[6] Richard Dales, “The Origin of the Doctrine of the Double Truth,” Viator 15 (1984): 170 has, however, provided evidence for the peaceful coexistence of Aristotelianism and Augustinianism in the thirteenth century due to the efforts of William of Conches.
[7] John Wippel, “The Parisian Condemnations of 1270 and 1277,” in A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, ed. J. J. E. Gracia and T. B. Noone (Malden: Blackwell, 2003), 66; Uckelman, 211.
[8] Edward Grant, “The Reaction of the Universities and Theological Authorities to Aristotelian Science and Natural Philosophy,” in Source Book in Medieval Sciences, ed. Edward Grant (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974), 43–4.
[9] Ian Wei, Intellectual Culture in Medieval Paris: Theologians and the University, c. 1100– 1330 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 162. [10] Henry Lyte, A History of the University of Oxford from the Earliest Times to the Year 1530 (London: MacMillan, 1886), 54. The University of Oxford was structured identically.
[11] Uckelman, 209–10.
[12] John Wippel and Allan Wolter, eds., Medieval Philosophy: From St. Augustine to Nicholas of Cusa (New York: Free Press, 1969), 366. See William Courtenay, “Dominicans and Suspect Opinion in the Thirteenth Century: The Cases of Stephen of Venizy, Peter of Tarentaise, and the Articles of 1270 and 1271,” Vivarium 32, no. 2 (1994): 191.
[13] Uckelman, 206–8. [14] Uckelman, 207. [15] See, for example, Lauren Anderson, “Why I'm a Feminist,” Canadian Woman Studies (Winter 2001): 32–4.
[16] Uckelman, 209.
[17] Charles Lohr, “The Medieval Interpretation of Aristotle,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100–1600, ed. Norman Kretzmann et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 85.
[18] Uckelman, 210. [19] Thomas of York is one example. See Lyte, 52.
[20] Thorndike, 85–6.
[21] Paul Sigmund, ed., St. Thomas Aquinas on Politics and Ethics (New York, 1988), 4–5. [22] Uckelman, 213. [23] John Wippel, “The Condemnations of 1270 and 1277 at Paris,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 7, no. 2 (1977), 185–6.
[24] Dod, 74–9; Wei, 162.
[25] Rik van Nieuwenhove, “The Condemnations of 1277,” in An Introduction to Medieval Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 227–8; Hans Thijssen, “What Really Happened on 7 March 1277? Bishop Tempier’s Condemnationin its Institutional Context,” in Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval Science, ed. E. Sylla and M. McVaugh (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 85; Uckelman, 217. [26] Mandonnet, no. 83.
[27] Mandonnet, no. 86.
[28] Mandonnet, no. 87.
[29] On the Eternity of the World: St Thomas Aquinas, Siger of Brabant, St Bonaventure, trans. C. Vollert et al. (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1964), 109.
[30] Eternity of the World, 65–6.
[31] Thomas Bukowski, “The Eternity of the World According to Siger of Brabant: Probable or Demonstrative?” Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 36 (1969): 228; Jeremiah Hackett, “Roger Bacon, Aristotle, and the Parisian Condemnations of 1270, 1277,” Vivarium 35, no. 2 (1997): 290 fn. 25; Mandonnet, 238. [32] Hackett, 238 fn. 2. [33] Thorndike, 65.
[34] Thorndike, 66.
[35] Wei,168. [36] Wei,168.
[37] Edward Grant, “The Condemnations of 1277, God’s Absolute Power, and Physical Thought in the Late Middle Ages,” Viator 10 (1979): 213 fn. 5.
[38] Grant, “Condemnations of 1277,” 214.
[39] Edward Grant, “The Effect of the Condemnation of 1277,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100–1600, ed. Norman Kretzmann et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 537.
[40] Mandonnet, nos. 1–2.
[41] William Courtenay, Schools and Scholars in Fourteenth-Century England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 179; Uckelman, 208.
[42] Hans Thijssen, Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris, 1200–1400 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 42.
[43] Uckelman, 211; see Edward Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 73. [44] Grant, Foundations, 73.
[45] Hans Thijssen, “1277 Revisited: A New Interpretation of the Doctrinal Investigations of Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome,” Vivarium 35, no. 1 (1997): 97.
[46] Thorndike, 39–40. [47] Grant, “Reactions of the Universities,” 43. [48] Uckelman, 203–4. [49] Uckelman, 204.
[50] Thijssen, “What Really Happened,” 93. For a contrasting view, see Leland Wilshire, “The Condemnations of 1277 and the Intellectual Climate of the Medieval University,” in Intellectual Climate of the Early University, ed. N. van Deusen (Kalamazoo: Medieval Studies Institute, 1997), 153.
[51] Thijssen, “What Really Happened,” 92.
[52] Wei, 94.
[53] Richard McBrien, Lives of the Popes: The Pontiffs from St. Peter to John Paul II (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 222. [54] Wiltshire, 178. [55] John Wippel, Medieval Reactions to the Encounter Between Faith and Reason (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1995), 19. [56] John Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas and the Condemnation of 1277,” Modern Schoolman 72 (1995): 241. [57] Thijssen, Censure, 54–5. [58] Uckelman, 220. [59] Grant, “Condemnations of 1277,” 213–4. [60] Thijssen, “1277 Revisited,” 88. [61] David Knowles, “Some Aspects of the Career of Archbishop Pecham (Continued),” The English Historical Review 57, no. 226 (1942): 186. [62] Uckelman, 224; Patrick Lewry, “Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric 1220–1320,” in The History of the University of Oxford: The Early Oxford Schools, ed. J. Catto and R. Evans (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1984), 425. [63] See, for example, Christopher Marsh, Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival (Continuum: New York, 2011); Darren Zook, “Reforming North Korea: Law, Politics, and the Market Economy,” Stanford Journal of International Law 48, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 131–84. [64] Thijssen, “What Really Happened,” 94. [65] Thijssen, “What Really Happened,” 105. [66] Uckelman, 203. [67] Thijssen, Censure, 55. [68] Wippel, “Condemnations of 1270 and 1277 at Paris,” 180. [69] Wilshire, 178. [70] Silvia Donati, “A New Witness to the Radical Aristotelianism Condemned by Étienne Tempier in 1277,” in Was ist Philosophie im Mittelater? ed. J. Aertsen and A. Speer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), 374. [71] Malcolm de Mowbray, “1277 and All That – Students and Disputations,” Traditio 57 (2002): 236–7; Luca Bianchi, “Students, Masters, and ‘Heterodox’ Doctrines at the Parisian Faculty of Arts in the 1270s,” Recherches de Thélogie et Philosophie Médiévales 76, no. 1 (2009): 103. [72] See Thomas McGrath, “Dominicans, Franciscans, and the Art of Political Rivalry: Two Drawings and a Fresco by Giovanni Battista Della Rovere,” Renaissance Studies 25, no. 2 (2011): 185–207. [73] Servais Pinckaers, “The Sources of Christian Ethics,” in The Sources of Christian Ethics, ed. Mary Noble (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 240. [74] Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas,” 241. [75] Pinckaers, 240. [76] Thijssen, “1277 Revisited,” 88. [77] William Jordan. Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 201. [78] Pierre Michaud-Quantin, “La Politique Monetaire Royale en 1265 a la Faculte de Theologie de Paris en 1265,” Le Moyen Age (1962): 149–51. [79] Maureen Purcell, Papal Crusading Policy, 1244–1291 (Leyden: Brill, 1975), 79. [80] See William Jordan, “The Struggle for Influence at the Court of Philip III: Pierre de la Broce and the French Aristocracy,” French Historical Studies 24, no. 3 (2001): 439–68.
[2] For a categorisation of the propositions’ subject matters, see Pierre Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l’Averroïsme Latin au XIIIme Siècle, vol. 1 (Louvain: Institut Supérieur de Philosophie de l’Université, 1908). Throughout this investigation, Mandonnet’s reorganisation of the propositions is used. The original ordering can be found in Henry Deniflé and Émile Châtelain, eds., Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. 1 (Paris: Delalain, 1889). This investigation uses the English translations of Ernest Fortin and Peter O’Neill, “Condemnation of 219 Propositions,” in Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook, ed. R. Lerner and M. Mahdi (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963), 335–54. [3] Sara Uckelman. “Logic and the Condemnations,” Journal of Philosophical Logic 39, no. 2 (April 2010): 202. See Roland Hissette, Enquête sur les 219 Articles Condamnés à Paris le 7 Mars 1277 (Paris: Vander-Oyez, 1977).
[4] Lynn Thorndike, University Records and Life in the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944), 26. The mere difference of a decade is perhaps itself significant, reflecting the controversies that surrounded the advancement of knowledge in the High Middle Ages.
[5] Bernardus Dod, “Aristoteles Latinus,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100–1600, ed. Norman Kretzmann et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 74–9.
[6] Richard Dales, “The Origin of the Doctrine of the Double Truth,” Viator 15 (1984): 170 has, however, provided evidence for the peaceful coexistence of Aristotelianism and Augustinianism in the thirteenth century due to the efforts of William of Conches.
[7] John Wippel, “The Parisian Condemnations of 1270 and 1277,” in A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, ed. J. J. E. Gracia and T. B. Noone (Malden: Blackwell, 2003), 66; Uckelman, 211.
[8] Edward Grant, “The Reaction of the Universities and Theological Authorities to Aristotelian Science and Natural Philosophy,” in Source Book in Medieval Sciences, ed. Edward Grant (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974), 43–4.
[9] Ian Wei, Intellectual Culture in Medieval Paris: Theologians and the University, c. 1100– 1330 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 162. [10] Henry Lyte, A History of the University of Oxford from the Earliest Times to the Year 1530 (London: MacMillan, 1886), 54. The University of Oxford was structured identically.
[11] Uckelman, 209–10.
[12] John Wippel and Allan Wolter, eds., Medieval Philosophy: From St. Augustine to Nicholas of Cusa (New York: Free Press, 1969), 366. See William Courtenay, “Dominicans and Suspect Opinion in the Thirteenth Century: The Cases of Stephen of Venizy, Peter of Tarentaise, and the Articles of 1270 and 1271,” Vivarium 32, no. 2 (1994): 191.
[13] Uckelman, 206–8. [14] Uckelman, 207. [15] See, for example, Lauren Anderson, “Why I'm a Feminist,” Canadian Woman Studies (Winter 2001): 32–4.
[16] Uckelman, 209.
[17] Charles Lohr, “The Medieval Interpretation of Aristotle,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100–1600, ed. Norman Kretzmann et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 85.
[18] Uckelman, 210. [19] Thomas of York is one example. See Lyte, 52.
[20] Thorndike, 85–6.
[21] Paul Sigmund, ed., St. Thomas Aquinas on Politics and Ethics (New York, 1988), 4–5. [22] Uckelman, 213. [23] John Wippel, “The Condemnations of 1270 and 1277 at Paris,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 7, no. 2 (1977), 185–6.
[24] Dod, 74–9; Wei, 162.
[25] Rik van Nieuwenhove, “The Condemnations of 1277,” in An Introduction to Medieval Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 227–8; Hans Thijssen, “What Really Happened on 7 March 1277? Bishop Tempier’s Condemnationin its Institutional Context,” in Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval Science, ed. E. Sylla and M. McVaugh (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 85; Uckelman, 217. [26] Mandonnet, no. 83.
[27] Mandonnet, no. 86.
[28] Mandonnet, no. 87.
[29] On the Eternity of the World: St Thomas Aquinas, Siger of Brabant, St Bonaventure, trans. C. Vollert et al. (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1964), 109.
[30] Eternity of the World, 65–6.
[31] Thomas Bukowski, “The Eternity of the World According to Siger of Brabant: Probable or Demonstrative?” Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 36 (1969): 228; Jeremiah Hackett, “Roger Bacon, Aristotle, and the Parisian Condemnations of 1270, 1277,” Vivarium 35, no. 2 (1997): 290 fn. 25; Mandonnet, 238. [32] Hackett, 238 fn. 2. [33] Thorndike, 65.
[34] Thorndike, 66.
[35] Wei,168. [36] Wei,168.
[37] Edward Grant, “The Condemnations of 1277, God’s Absolute Power, and Physical Thought in the Late Middle Ages,” Viator 10 (1979): 213 fn. 5.
[38] Grant, “Condemnations of 1277,” 214.
[39] Edward Grant, “The Effect of the Condemnation of 1277,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100–1600, ed. Norman Kretzmann et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 537.
[40] Mandonnet, nos. 1–2.
[41] William Courtenay, Schools and Scholars in Fourteenth-Century England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 179; Uckelman, 208.
[42] Hans Thijssen, Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris, 1200–1400 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 42.
[43] Uckelman, 211; see Edward Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 73. [44] Grant, Foundations, 73.
[45] Hans Thijssen, “1277 Revisited: A New Interpretation of the Doctrinal Investigations of Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome,” Vivarium 35, no. 1 (1997): 97.
[46] Thorndike, 39–40. [47] Grant, “Reactions of the Universities,” 43. [48] Uckelman, 203–4. [49] Uckelman, 204.
[50] Thijssen, “What Really Happened,” 93. For a contrasting view, see Leland Wilshire, “The Condemnations of 1277 and the Intellectual Climate of the Medieval University,” in Intellectual Climate of the Early University, ed. N. van Deusen (Kalamazoo: Medieval Studies Institute, 1997), 153.
[51] Thijssen, “What Really Happened,” 92.
[52] Wei, 94.
[53] Richard McBrien, Lives of the Popes: The Pontiffs from St. Peter to John Paul II (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 222. [54] Wiltshire, 178. [55] John Wippel, Medieval Reactions to the Encounter Between Faith and Reason (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1995), 19. [56] John Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas and the Condemnation of 1277,” Modern Schoolman 72 (1995): 241. [57] Thijssen, Censure, 54–5. [58] Uckelman, 220. [59] Grant, “Condemnations of 1277,” 213–4. [60] Thijssen, “1277 Revisited,” 88. [61] David Knowles, “Some Aspects of the Career of Archbishop Pecham (Continued),” The English Historical Review 57, no. 226 (1942): 186. [62] Uckelman, 224; Patrick Lewry, “Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric 1220–1320,” in The History of the University of Oxford: The Early Oxford Schools, ed. J. Catto and R. Evans (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1984), 425. [63] See, for example, Christopher Marsh, Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival (Continuum: New York, 2011); Darren Zook, “Reforming North Korea: Law, Politics, and the Market Economy,” Stanford Journal of International Law 48, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 131–84. [64] Thijssen, “What Really Happened,” 94. [65] Thijssen, “What Really Happened,” 105. [66] Uckelman, 203. [67] Thijssen, Censure, 55. [68] Wippel, “Condemnations of 1270 and 1277 at Paris,” 180. [69] Wilshire, 178. [70] Silvia Donati, “A New Witness to the Radical Aristotelianism Condemned by Étienne Tempier in 1277,” in Was ist Philosophie im Mittelater? ed. J. Aertsen and A. Speer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), 374. [71] Malcolm de Mowbray, “1277 and All That – Students and Disputations,” Traditio 57 (2002): 236–7; Luca Bianchi, “Students, Masters, and ‘Heterodox’ Doctrines at the Parisian Faculty of Arts in the 1270s,” Recherches de Thélogie et Philosophie Médiévales 76, no. 1 (2009): 103. [72] See Thomas McGrath, “Dominicans, Franciscans, and the Art of Political Rivalry: Two Drawings and a Fresco by Giovanni Battista Della Rovere,” Renaissance Studies 25, no. 2 (2011): 185–207. [73] Servais Pinckaers, “The Sources of Christian Ethics,” in The Sources of Christian Ethics, ed. Mary Noble (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 240. [74] Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas,” 241. [75] Pinckaers, 240. [76] Thijssen, “1277 Revisited,” 88. [77] William Jordan. Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 201. [78] Pierre Michaud-Quantin, “La Politique Monetaire Royale en 1265 a la Faculte de Theologie de Paris en 1265,” Le Moyen Age (1962): 149–51. [79] Maureen Purcell, Papal Crusading Policy, 1244–1291 (Leyden: Brill, 1975), 79. [80] See William Jordan, “The Struggle for Influence at the Court of Philip III: Pierre de la Broce and the French Aristocracy,” French Historical Studies 24, no. 3 (2001): 439–68.
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