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  • Ockham, the Sanctity of Rights, and the Canonists*
  • Jonathan Robinson

Sixty years ago, Brian Tierney addressed the subject of William of Ockham’s political thought vis-à-vis the teachings of earlier canonists. It was a subject that he has returned to several times, and Ockham has remained a focal point in many other articles and books, especially in the last few decades — too many, in fact, to list here conveniently. In that first article, the focus was on the degree to which Ockham’s ecclesiological views, particularly those regarding the deposition of a heretical pope and the “location of unerring authority” in the Church,1 could be considered novel. Tied to this question was the status of Ockham’s relationship to and understanding of canon law.

It is the second issue that interests me. Professor Tierney has attracted enough controversy with his publications: I do not mean to add to the list.2 One point that has not been challenged, however, was the conclusion Tierney reached regarding Ockham’s [End Page 147] use of the sources. Contrary to previous scholarship,3 Tierney’s own extensive research into the works of the decretists and decretalists made him skeptical of Ockham’s originality.4 In particular, Tierney thought that Ockham probably at least relied on Guido de Baysio’s well-known compilation of earlier canonistic thought in his Rosarium (circa 1300);5 and he implied that Ockham was familiar with the Summa of the great decretist Huguccio.6 The textual evidence is certainly suggestive but hardly clinching. Partly the problem is, as Tierney said, due to the need for a critical edition of Ockham’s Dialogus; but the same could be said for the Glossa ordinaria itself. Had Tierney relied on a different edition of the Gloss, there would be no need to suggest that Ockham bypassed it in favor of Huguccio’s own work.7 Ultimately, the argument boils down to the fact that the Glossa ordinaria lacks the word ‘romana’ when it describes the Church as being wherever good people are, whereas Huguccio did make the case that wherever the good people are is where the Roman Church is.8 However, the best manuscripts of Johannes [End Page 148] Teutonicus’ Glossa ordinaria have ‘romana ecclesia’ as do the best manuscripts of the additions to Johannes’ Glossa by Bartholomaeus Brixiensis.9 It is true that some printings of the Glossa ordinaria lack the word ‘romana’, but this is by no means universally true. In an edition from Mainz (1472), for example, the gloss does contain the phrase Ockham claimed.10

But these are mere quibbles. The fact remains that Ockham’s debts to and influence on the medieval canonists requires further study.11 It has long been known that canon law served as one of his principal sources in his political writings.12 Sadly, not much [End Page 149] progress has been made on this front since Tierney concluded that where Ockham’s influence on later Conciliar thought was most evident, ‘he was restating, and sometimes verbally repeating, arguments which had first appeared in earlier canonistic glosses’.13 The pendulum has swung far from the view that Ockham’s ‘manipulation of the texts and concepts of canon and Roman law’ was ‘almost terrifying[ly] efficient’.14 Today the climate is much different. It is often still correctly stressed that Ockham’s main sources were the Bible and canon law,15 but there is still a tendency to question how well Ockham knew his sources.16

Takashi Shogimen has recently approached the topic from another direction. While he admitted in the end that Ockham relied extensively on canon law, he framed Ockham’s writings on evangelical poverty in terms of the medieval debates over the relationship of canon law and theology.17 Unlike his fellow dissident Franciscan and superior, Michael of Cesena, the heart of Ockham’s defence of Franciscan poverty was grounded in theological considerations of charity. According to Shogimen, [End Page 150] Ockham was not so much a good or bad expositor of legal texts as dismissive of its creators. He quoted from the concluding chapter of the fifth book of the Breviloquium (1341-1342) to illustrate his case. Ockham...

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