Biographical Rectifications Concerning Ockham's Avignon Period

BIOGRAPHICAL RECTIFICATIONS CONCERNING OCKHAM'S AVIGNON PERIOD While recently leafing through one of the Vatican Registers of Pope John XXLTs Secret and Curial Letters,1 I came across two items (one largely and the other almost completely unknown) the substance of which makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to maintain our conventional understanding as to the reasons which prompted William of Ockham's arrival in Avignon during the late spring or early summer of 1324. Briefly, the established theory holds that Ockham's new philosophico-theological outlook (particularly as enunciated in his Commentary on the Sentences) created unease in English intellectual circles, promoted significant theoretical infighting, and eventually resulted in the ex-Chancellor of Oxford University, John Lutterell, leaving the country to lodge an official complaint against the daring young innovator at the Papal Curia. Its officials thereupon ordered Ockham to appear before the Pontifical inquisition in order to answer charges of doctrinal heterodoxy.2 After years of hostile discussions, evaluations, and debates involving Lutterell, then a specially appointed Papal Commission , and finally the Pope himself with his Cardinals in consistory , the disillusioned, frightened and embittered William cast in his lot with the dissident Franciscan General Michael of Cesena, and fled from Avignon during the night of 26 May 1328 intending to actively resist 1 Reg. Vat. 114. 2 Johannes Hofer, "Biographische Studien über Wilhelm ?. Ockham O.F.M." Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 6 (1913): 203-33; 439-65. Léon Baudry, Guillaume d'Occam (Paris: Librairie J. Vrin, 1950) 18, 85-88, 90, 95-100. Jürgen Miethke, Ockhams Weg zur Sozialphilosophie (Berlin: De Gruyter , 1969) 46-74. 02GEORGE KNYSH a Pope whose theories concerning Evangelical Poverty he suddenly discovered to be heretical beyond remission.3 This conventional viewpoint, as is well known, has had considerable influence in structuring scholarly perceptions on the development of Ockham's non-polemic literary activity. The tendency of investigators , by and large, has been to integrate the bulk of his philosophicotheological works into a time frame preceding the putative inquisitorial summons. The likelihood ofAvignon as the venue ofimportant speculative productivity on his part has been correspondingly reduced to a bare minimum.4 Clearly any successful questioning ofthe notion that Ockham's career lay under a black cloud ofgrowing criticism and suspicion of the most official kind for some years prior to 1324 and increasingly thereafter is bound to have repercussions in many fields of inquiry, and quite probably reopen many issues, most obviously that of dating certain non-polemic works, which had been considered as practically if not completely settled. I. "The Papal Summons of 1324" An Unsubstantiated Hypothesis The items I recently discovered in the Papal Archives are letters of Pope John, written to the Kings of France and Aragon respectively .5 The letter to the King of France has been known to exist since the 1880's, but it had never been utilized in historical reconstructions because of a mistaken belief, initially fostered by S. Riezler,6 and authoritatively reinforced by C. Eubel,7 that it was irredeemably damaged and substantially undecipherable. This attitude sufficed to let the issue lie in limbo for almost three-quarters of a century. The 3 Ockham, Littera ad Fratres (OP III, 6, 10, 15-17). 4 The final form of the Quodlibeta has recently been dated c. 1324-1325 by J. C. Wey: cf. Ockham, Quodlibeta (OTh IX, 40*f.). 5 Reg. Vat. 114, f. 323 (n. 1874), and ff. 362-363 (n. 2136). The letter to Philip VI of France will henceforth be referred to as L-1874, and that to Alfonso IV of Aragon as L—2136. 6 Sigmund Riezler, Vatikanische Akten zur deutschen Geschichte in der Zeit Kaiser Ludwigs des Bayern (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1891) 388. 7 Conrad Eubel ed., Bullarium Franciscanum V (Rome: Vatican, 1898) 346 ?. 3. Ockham's Avignon Period: Biographical Rectifications63 new edition ofPope John XXII's Secret and Curial Letters Pertaining to France apparently confirmed the earlier judgment.8 Although the first portion of L-1874 was printed (this in itself should have been enough to arouse scholarly scepticism!) the lapidary contention that L-1874 represented a "texte très altéré / dont / la fin n'a pu être...