The Quodlibets of St. Thomas and Pastoral Care

THE QUODLIBETS OF ST. THOMAS AND PASTORAL CARE XTHE NAME SUGGESTS, the Quodlibet or Quaestio de quolibet was an open, " free for all," debate in which the questions discussed were not, as in the Quaestio disputata, announced and specified beforehand, but were put at random from the floor on the day of the debate.1 The procedure of the medieval quodlibetal disputation was first established by P. Glorieux in his pioneer work, La litterature quodlibetique, in 1925, and his findings were later refined in articles over the next forty-five years, as well as in his second volume on La Litterature quodlibetique in 1935.2 According to Glorieux, this type of unprepared public discussion first came to be used at Paris in the Mendicants' schools, and probably during the student strike of 1229-1231. From Paris it later spread to Oxford, Toulouse, Cologne, and the Roman curia. Altogether some 356 Quodlibets are extant from the Paris schools, and some Paris and Oxford masters, e. g., Henry of Ghent, Geoffrey of Fontaines, and Roger Marston, became so enamoured of the form that they made the Quodlibet their chief means of literary expression.3 1 " de quolibet ad voluntatem cuiuslibet," as the General of the Dominicans, Humbert de Romanis, put it in his lnstructiones de officiis ordinis, c. 12, ed. J. J. Berthier, Beati Humberti de Romanis Opera de Vita Regulari, II (Rome, 1889), p. 260. 2 P. Glorieux, La litterature quodlibitique de 11160 a 13120, I (Kain, 1925), pp. 11-95, II (Paris, 1985), pp. 9-50 "Le Quodlibet et ses procedes redactionnels," in Divus Thomas (Piacenza) 42 (1989), 61-98; "Ou en est Ia question du Quodlibet? ", in Revue du moyen age latin 2 (1946), 405-414. 8 P. Glorieux, "L'enseignement au moyen age. Techniques et methodes en usage a Ia Faculte de Theologie de Paris au XIIIe siecle," in Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen age 48 (1968)' 65-186 at pp. 128-184. Quodlibets were not confined to university circles but were common where the various orders of friars had schools and at chapters of these orders: see L. Meier, "Les disputes quodlibetiques en dehors des universites," in Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique 58 (1958) 401-442. THE QUODLIBETS OF ST. THOMAS AND PASTORAL CARE 233 Like the more formal Quaestio disputata, the Quodlibet was held under the direction of a regent-master of the University, after whom the Quodlibet was named (" Quodlibet Petri," " Quodlibet Thomae," etc.) . It was held twice a year, in Advent before Christmas and in Lent towards Easter, and seems to have been designed to test both the bachelors who were preparing for the degree of master and the regent-masters themselves . That the Quodlibet was a rough test there can be no doubt, for only an exceptional bachelor would be able to field without flinching a series of unpredictable questions from an audience composed of masters, students, and visitors.4 Some modern authors, however, give the impression that the Quodlibet was first and foremost a test of the regent-master, and that it was such a formidable test that " many a master refused to risk himself at it, or felt satisfied when he had done so once in his career." 5 There is possibly some exaggeration here. For one thing, a Quodlibet involved two really distinct sessions, a " Disputatio generalis de quolibet " and a " Determinatio de quolibet." In the General Disputation the master 's role was hardly more than that of referee, immediate answers to questions from the floor being left to the Responsalis, that is, to the bachelor who was being put through his paces in public. If the regent-master entered at all into the discussion , it was probably only to stress a point here or make more explicit a point there, in the replies of the Responsalis. Sometimes , indeed, the master might throw in a question himself, as Robert Holcot certainly did in the early part of the 14th century: " In disputatione generali de quolibet proponebantur a sociis decem questiones praeter duas quas proposui ego ipse." '1 From the regent-master's point of view the second stage of • For some examples, with names, of those who were...