1277 and All That — Students and Disputations

1277 AND ALL THAT — STUDENTS AND DISPUTATIONS By MALCOLM DE MOWBRAY On 7 March 1277, Etienne Tempier, bishop of Paris, issued a decree condemning 219 "errors" that were henceforth not to be taught in the university under threat of excommunication. So much has been written about this episode, from the thirteenth century onwards, that it scarcely needs introducing .1 Indeed, a leading scholar in the field has implied that nothing remains to be said about the events themselves since the standard problems either have been solved or are insoluble owing to the absence of documents.2 Yet the continuing speculation is a clear sign that the episode is poorly understood. Major studies of the last twenty-five years have offered markedly different interpretations of the intentions of those involved and the effects of their actions. Much effort has gone into condemning or excusing Tempier, but we still have little idea of where, and in what context, the condemned articles originated, rendering such judgments at best premature. The present study will attempt to address this problem by reexamining the text of the condemnation and other related sources to argue that they contain important evidence that has so far been overlooked. The texts will be examined for clues to how the offending activities may have arisen within the everyday functioning of the university of Paris, and the condemnation analyzed in this institutional context.3 Particular atten1 For a general background to the historiography, see Fernand van Steenberghen, La philosophie au xnf siècle (Louvain, 1991), 11-22; for a review of more recent scholarship, see Kent Emery Jr., and Andreas Speer, "Introduction," in Nach der Verurteilung von 1277, ed. Jan A. Aertsen, Kent Emery Jr., and Andreas Speer, Miscellanea Mediaevalia, 28 (Berlin, 2001), 3-19. This paper was first presented at Professor Giles Constable's seminar at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. I wish to thank all those who took part for their valuable comments, and especially Jason Glenn for commenting on an earlier draft. 2 Luca Bianchi, "1277: A Turning Point in Medieval Philosophy?" in Was ist Philosophie im Mittelalter? ed. Jan A. Aertsen and Andreas Speer, Miscellanea Mediaevalia, 26 (Berlin, 1998), 90-110, at 91. This also supplements the extensive bibliography of Bianchi, Il vescovo e i filosofi. La condanna parigina del 1277 e (evoluzione dell'aristotelismo scolastico (Bergamo, 1990). 3 That is, the context of the university as a teaching institution, rather than the juridical context employed by J. M. M. H. Thijssen, "What Really Happened? Bishop Tempier's Condemnation and its Institutional Context," in Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval Science: Studies on the Occasion of John E. Murdoch's Seventieth Birthday, ed. Edith Sylla and Michael McVaugh (Leiden, 1997), 84-114. 218TRADITIO tion will be given to the students in the university, especially their role in intellectual life, and the importance in university teaching of the disputatio, or disputation, the occasion on which students most actively participated. Both of these aspects of medieval and early modern universities have tended to be undervalued by scholars, if perhaps to different degrees. Thus, even though some authors have noted that disputation is involved in the condemnation of the 219 articles, and even gone so far as to state that the condemnation is primarily a prohibition against teaching, nobody, to my knowledge, has attempted to explain Tempier's actions in this perspective. Such an analysis, however, can help remove much of what seems puzzling or arbitrary about the 1277 condemnation. Where Did the Errors Originate? In an important contribution to understanding the causes of the 1277 condemnation and its aftermath, John Wippel articulated five questions that, with some modification, have shaped the course of the ensuing debate.4 But one question in particular, "What individual or individuals did Stephen have in mind?" has proved most intractable, and the continuing inability to answer it has given rise to some of the more extreme interpretations of Tempier's actions. It may be noted, however, that a problem with Wippel's analysis, and others, is that the answer to this question is already largely assumed — we are dealing with masters of the arts faculty, and the question is reduced to one of...