American Society of Church History

Inquiry and Inquisition: Academic Freedom in Medieval Universities

Author(s): William J. Courtenay
Source: Church History, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Jun., 1989), pp. 168-181
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church
History
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 Inquiry and Inquisition:
Academic Freedom in Medieval
Universities

WILLIAM J. COURTENAY

The year 1988 marks not only the centennial of the American Society of
Church History, it is also the anniversary of two important works dealing
with the theme of religious toleration and freedom of ideas. One is the fiftieth
anniversary of G. G. Coulton's Inquisition and Liberty. The other is Henry
Charles Lea's History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, published in
three volumes early in 1888. Coulton's work became a model for many that
followed: a highly readable, consciously engaging narrative outlining the
main features of one of the darker chapters of medieval church history. It
covered the development of religious nonconformity, the church's response,
especially through the creation and operation of the Inquistion, and the
principal victims of the Inquisition: the Albigensians, Waldensians, Spiritual
Franciscans, and those accused of witchcraft. Lea's earlier treatment covered
those themes in a far more extensive way, and he also included, unlike
Coulton, a final chapter on the problem of religious orthodoxy in the schools
as viewed from the standpoint of the Inquisition. Lea, in fact, is one of the few
authors writing on heresy and inquisition who attempted to place the cases of
questioned orthodoxy and freedom of thought in medieval schools and
universities in this larger context. Although he did not pursue the topic in any
depth, Lea was aware that the character of theological study and the proper
training of an educated priesthood were linked to the issue of religious
orthodoxy in the schools and the threat of heresy among those charged with
the preservation and dissemination of truth.
The theme of religious orthodoxy and academic freedom is not of import
simply to medievalists. It is a major theme of church history and a major
problem for Christian education. Arius and Pelagius were teachers in the
early Christian sense of that term. Wyclif, Hus, and Luther-the three most
celebrated cases of theological dissent in the fourteenth to sixteenth centu-
ries-were regent masters respectively at Oxford, Prague, and Wittenberg
when their views came under fire.1 One might even argue that concerns over

1. Wyclif and Luther were regent masters of theology; Hus was master of arts and bachelor of
theology.

Mr. Courtenay is D. H. Haskins Professor of History in the University of

Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. This is his presidential address delivered at
the annual metting of the American Society of Church History, 29 December
1988.

168

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INQUIRY AND INQUISITION 169

the orthodoxy of instruction were as potent a force in the fou

seminaries and religious schools in nineteenth and twentieth-century
ica as was the desire to provide for a learned clergy. Some contin
seminaries as seedbeds of secular humanism whose professors are
liberal than their students or the church at large-although they mig
as far as one medieval friar, who in 1358 characterized his own u
Oxford, as a "gymnasium haereticorum."2
To suggest that an entire university was composed of heretics is an
view, one which that particular friar was forced to retract. Yet medieval
scholars were not immune to accusations of heretical teaching. The long list of
academic martyrs, from Peter Abelard to Siger of Brabant, Meister Eckhart,
Ockham, Wyclif, and Hus, surely underscores the point that the church, as
the provider and guardian of Christian education throughout the Middle
Ages, was conscious of the problem and exercised a watchful eye and stern
control over the schools, especially theological training. Several of the ideas
that were condemned were labelled heretical (whether we concur in that
contemporary judgment or not), for example, Abelard's views on the Trinity,
Siger's views on causality and the eternity of the world, Eckhart's views on
mystical union and deification, or Wyclif's views on transubstantiation. It is
surprising, therefore, that these cases of what might be called "academic
heresy" have occupied little or no space in modern treatments of heresy. Why
should this be the case?
One answer that covers some of the best-known cases might be that figures
such as Wyclif, Hus, and Luther were reformers, not heretics. But such a
knee-jerk response derived in part from confessional allegiance and from
generations of Protestant textbooks on the history of Christian thought should
not blind us to the fact that many of their contemporaries as well as later
opponents viewed those three magistri as heretics. Is it anything more than
confessional bias that places Wyclif, Hus, and Luther within the history of
reform and Peter of Bruys, "Peter" Waldo, and Servetus within the history of
heresy?
Lea felt that the difference between academic heretics and "real" heretics
lay not in ideas but in the degree of religious conviction, which scholars then
and now presumably lack. As Lea expressed it,
The only heresies which really troubled the Church were those which obtained
currency among the people unassisted by the ingenioius quodlibets of dialecti-
cians.... The Cathari and the Waldenses, the Spirituals and the Fraticelli, even
the Hussites, had little or nothing in common with the fine-spun cobwebs of the
schoolmen. For a heresy to take root and bear fruit, it must be able to inspire the
zeal of martyrdom; and for this it must spring from the heart and not from the
brain. . . . History records few cases from Abelard to Meister Eckhart and

2. For the case of friar John, see H. Anstey, Munimenta Academica, or Documents Illustrative
of Academical Life and Studies at Oxford (London, 1868), pp. 208-211.

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170 CHURCH HISTORY

Galileo, in which intellectual conceptions, however firmly enter

strong enough to lead to the sacrifice. It is sentiment rather tha
renders heretics dangerous; and all the pride of intellect was insuf
the scholar to maintain his thesis with the unfaltering resolution
the peasant to approach the stake singing hymns and joyfully w
flames which were to bear him to salvation.3

Lea, like so many later writers on medieval heresy, saw mediev

antiestablishment heroes. Scholarly heresy was less interesting because
scholars were part of the establishment; they were not of the people. Whether
they also lacked nerve or conviction is another issue. For my own part, I find
it hard to believe that the peasant burned for heresy embraced his fate with
any more conviction than Hus; in both cases, I suspect that fear and anguish
were overriding factors.
A more plausible explanation of the absence of academic heretics in
surveys of medieval heresy may lie, as just suggested, in the different social
and institutional positions of the two groups: the magistri, clothed in their
academic gowns, and the simplices, clothed only in their poverty. Social status
and ecclesiastical privilege supposedly protected scholars from the punish-
ments that were inflicted on the simple laity. Those who experienced the full
weight of ecclesiastical and civil law were not Abelard and Gilbert de la
Porree but the Albigensians and Waldensians, not Meister Eckhart but
Marguerite Porete, not Peter Olivi but the Fraticelli, not Wyclif but the
Lollards. And had Hus not accepted safe conduct to present his views at the
Council of Constance, we might say: not Hus but the Taborites
I do not wish to argue that some medieval masters were in fact heretics or
that condemnations of academics should receive more treatment in surveys of
medieval heresy. Instead, I want to look at academic condemnations them-
selves, to reexamine the type and extent of ecclesiastical control in such
matters (including the presence or absence of official inquisitors), the
development of judicial procedures, what topics and persons came under
investigation and why, and finally to reassess the extent of freedom of thought
and expression in medieval universities.
There are over fifty known cases of academic or academically related
judicial proceedings in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, not counting
the numerous accusations of false teaching brought by one master against
another. And the amount of literature generated through the study of
individual condemnations, most notably that of Paris in 1277, is equally
large. It is remarkable, therefore, that despite the beginning made by Josef
Koch and Jurgen Miethke, there is no general, book-length study of these
cases to see what the collective ensemble might tell us that the individual case
does not reveal-especially with regard to post-thirteenth-century patterns in

3. H. C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, 3 vols. (1888; reprint,
Philadelphia, 1922), 3:550.

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INQUIRY AND INQUISITION 171

the interaction of various forces (university theological masters, bishops and

archbishops, and the papacy), judicial procedure, the types of issues that
concerned authorities, or the presence of other factors or less visible agenda,
such as the secular-mendicant controversy, age/generation concerns, or
religious conservatism versus university radicalism.4
At a spring meeting of this society a few years ago Miethke surveyed the
earlier phase of this topic.5 It was his impression that those in authority in the
fifth to eleventh centuries were seldom concerned with heresy and that the
principal vehicle for deliberation and judgment in that period, namely, the
papal or episcopal synod, was more concerned with moral behavior and
religious practice.6 Only in the eleventh century, with the case of Berengar of
Tours, do we encounter hierarchical concern over the orthodoxy of teaching.
During the twelfth century the synod remained the preferred vehicle for
investigation and judgment, under the authority of bishop or archbishop,
pope or papal legate.7 This situation continued in the thirteenth century with
the important change that university theological masters, acting as a corpora-
tion, replaced or became the synod that judged academic orthodoxy.
To the picture constructed by Miethke for the pre-1270 period and that
constructed earlier by Koch for the period from 1270 to 1329 much can be
added. Conclusions must remain tentative not only because we need more
intensive study of individual cases, but because there were undoubtedly more
cases than the documentation has preserved, and because some stages in the
process, especially the stage of initial accusations, is often unrecorded.
Let us begin with the pre-university cases, those of Berengar, Roscillin,
Abelard's two trials, Gilbert's successive trials, and the posthumous attack on
some aspects of Peter Lombard's teaching.8 In all cases the initial concern and

4. J. Koch, Kleine Schriften, vol. 2 (Rome, 1973); J. Miethke, "Papst, Ortsbischof und
Universitait in den Pariser Theologenprozessen des 13. Jahrhunderts," in Die Auseinander-
setzungen an der Pariser Universitat im XIII. Jahrhundert, ed. A. Zimmerman (Berlin,
1976), pp. 52-94. Koch's articles appeared in various journals and Festschriften between
1930 and 1960.
5. "Pope and Bishop as Judges of Academic Orthodoxy," Hope College, Holland, Michigan,
April 1983.
6. Exceptions were the controversy on grace that led to the canons at the Synod of Orange (529)
and the ninth-century controversies on adoptionism, the eucharist, and predestination.
7. In the case of Abelard's second trial, the pope became involved at the stage of Abelard's
appeal. In other cases when the papacy was involved, it was at the initial stage. Lanfranc
appealed immediately to the pope for the condemnation and excommunication of Berengar
in 1050; Conan as papal legate was in charge of the first condemnation of Abelard at
Soissons in 1121; Eugenius III presided at the council at Reims in 1148 that attempted to
censure the opinions of Gilbert de la Porree; and Alexander III became deeply involved at
the earliest stage in the censure of what was thought to be Lombard's Christology.
8. On Berengar, see Enchiridion symbolorum, ed. H. Denzinger and A. Schonmetzer, 32d ed.
(Rome, 1963), no. 700, p. 230.; on Roscellin, see Anselm, De incarnatione Verbi in Opera
Omnia, ed. F. Schmitt, 6 vols. (Edinburgh, 1946-61), 1:281-290; Epist. 128, 129, 136 in
Opera Omnia, 3:270-272, 279-281; on Abelard, see his Historia calamitatum, c.9-10
(Patrologia Latina, 178, 140-159) and Denzinger, Enchiridion, nos. 721-739, pp. 235-237;

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172 CHURCH HISTORY

the initiation of judicial action seem to have come either fr

schools entirely or from those in the schools who distrusted the
doing theology. In the case of Abelard, for example, cries of h
came not from William of Champeaux or Alberic of Paris, both
strong theological and philosophical disagreements with Abe
traditional theologians such as Alberic of Rheims and Berna
Moreover, it was more the written record, not the oral teachin
primary concern. In the case of Berengar it was his letter to L
reliance on the ninth-century eucharistic treatise by Ratramnu
the case of Roscellin and Abelard it was their treatises on the Trinity and
other writings; and in the case of Gilbert it was his commentary on Boethius's
De trinitate. This emphasis on the written record may have resulted from the
difficulty of proving heresy on the basis only of reports of oral teaching. Yet
one has the sense that accusers found the written form of heresy to be
particularly offensive, perhaps because it gave the elevated status of the
written word to those views and had the power to spread them through
manuscript copies.
There also seems to have been in most of these cases a close association of
person, offending opinions, propositions embodying those opinions, and the
book or treatise in which those statements appeared. In this quadripartite
sequence there was the assumption that the offending teacher was redeema-
ble, especially if he and others were made fully aware of the evil nature of the
suspect opinions and the works containing them. The works themselves,
however, were not considered redeemable. Ratramnus's treatise was ordered
destroyed, Abelard was forced to burn his work on the Trinity, there was
ultimately an attempt to condemn Lombard's Libri sententiarum, and Scotus
Erigena's De divisione naturae was twice condemned in the early thirteenth
century. Unless a teacher reasserted his condemned theses, as in the case of
Berengar, or added new ones, as in the case of Abelard, his career was only

on Gilbert, see M. Colker, "The Trial of Gilbert of Poitiers, 1148: A Previously Unknown
Record," Mediaeval Studies 27 (1965): 152-183; S. Gammersbach, Gilbert von Poitiers und
seine Prozesse im Urteil der Zeitgenossen (Cologne, 1959); N. Hiring, "The Case of Gilbert
de la Porree, Bishop of Poitiers (1142-1154)," MIediaeval Studies 13 (1951): 1-40; idem,
"Notes on the Council and Consistory of Rheims (1148)," Mediaeval Studies 28 (1966):
39-59; idem, "Das sogenannte Glaubensbekenntnis des Reimser Konsistoriums von 1148,"
Scholastik 40 (1965): 55-90; A. Hayen, "Le Concile de Reims et l'erreur theologique de
Gilbert de la Porree," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du Moyen Age 10
(1935-36): 29-102; H. C. Van Elswijk, Gilbert Porreta. Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensee
(Louvain, 1966); on Lombard, see Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. H. Denifle
and E. Chatelain, 4 vols. (Paris, 1889), 1:4, 8-9 (hereafter cited as CUP); Denzinger,
Enchiridion, nos. 749-750, p. 239; P. Glorieux, "L'orthodoxie de III Sentences (d.6, 7, &
10)," in Miscellanea Lombardiana (Novara, 1957), p. 137-147; A. M. Landgraf, Dogmen-
geschichte der Friihscholastik, vol. 2:1 (Regensburg, 1953), pp. 116-137, 172-198, 372-
373.

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INQUIRY AND INQUISITION 173

briefly and moderately handicapped for having held "heretical" views. With
regard to judicial procedure, the episcopal or papal synod was clearly the
vehicle for action, and no thought was apparently given to any need for a
separate learned body to evaluate the evidence. Evaluation of evidence was
done by the accusers and assembled prelates. If the presiding authority
refused to evaluate personally a suspected work, as the papal legate Conan
did in the first trial of Abelard, it was probably because Conan felt himself
unfamiliar with the technical language of scholastic argumentation and not
because of any desire to maintain a separation between those responsible for
evaluation and those who passed judgment. The task of evaluation in that
instance was given to Abelard's initial accusers.
The thirteenth-century cases up to 1280 present us with a continuation of
synodical procedures combined with some new elements. Before the end of
the twelfth century there was no corporation of regent masters in theology
who were or could be collectively concerned over the orthodoxy of teaching
among their number. Twelfth-century masters taught as individuals. If
action was to be taken against suspect teaching, it had to be taken by outside
authorities. From the opening years of the thirteenth century, however, we
find the corporation of masters, specifically masters of theology, taking over
the task of policing academic orthodoxy. They acted through the authority of
the local bishop and, in the case of Paris, under the leadership and direction of
the chancellor, but cases could be decided more or less on the expertise and
authority of this body of masters. Such is the case with the condemnations of
Amaury de Bene in 1204, of David of Dinant and the Amaurians in 1210, of
Scotus Erigena's De divisione naturae in or before 1225, and the condemna-
tions of the opinions of Stephen of Venizy, John of Brescain, and an
anonymous Master Raymond in the years between 1241 and 1247.9 Even the
famous cases of 1270 and 1277 at Paris and 1277 at Oxford, which are often
viewed as episcopal and archiepiscopal actions on the part of Etienne
Tempier and Robert Kilwardby, were undertaken in consultation with and
perhaps at the request of the regent masters of theology at the respective
universities.10 In contrast to the twelfth century, the papacy, either directly or
through a papal legate or a papally convoked council, entered only at the
postcondemnation stage by appeal from one side or the other, or to give
universality to a university cum episcopal condemnation. The potential
heresy of entire books remained a concern, as in the case of the quires of
David of Dinant, Erigena's De divisione naturae, Joachim of Fiore's

9. CUP, 1:70-72, 106-107, 170-172, 206-207; G. Thery, Autour du decret de 1210: I.David
de Dinant (Kain, 1925); G. C. Capelle, Autour du decret de 1210: III.Amaury de Bene
(Paris, 1932); G. Dickson, "Joachism and the Amalricians," Florensia 1 (1987): 35-45. I
am grateful to Robert Lerner for calling this article to my attention.
10. R. Hissette, Enquete sur les 219 articles condamnes a Paris le Mars 1277 (Louvain, 1977).

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174 CHURCH HISTORY

Concordia, or Gerard of Borgo San Donnino's Liber introductorius (1255),

but oral teaching did come under investigation and condemnation.11
Perhaps the most remarkable difference between the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries-one that has not been sufficiently noticed in the literature-is the
fact that all those accused before 1200 were recognized masters who taught
theology, while all those accused and prosecuted between 1200 and 1285 for
views that had or appeared to have had heretical theological implications
were masters of arts and/or students in theology. The inclusion of proposi-
tions from Thomas Aquinas among the 219 condemned in 1277 is an
anomaly and need not be construed as a posthumous attack on that master. It
is significant that the only attempt to initiate proceedings against a regent
master of theology in the century before 1285, namely, the case of William of
St. Amour, failed.
I offer two final observations on the thirteenth-century cases. First, the
effect of condemnation on careers varied with the academic level and, as
earlier, was more serious in the case of a second offense, which might have
been seen as equivalent to a lapsed heretic. Second, when severe punishment
was administered, as in the case of the Amaurians in 1210, it was the clerics
who were imprisoned or burned outside a gate of Paris, including one master
of arts, William of Poitiers. Their lay followers were allowed to go free.
For cases of academic orthodoxy, 1280 may be taken as a dividing line
arguably as important as that of 1200. Koch long ago called attention to the
precedent-setting first trial in 1283 of Peter Olivi, a Franciscan theological
student who had already begun to attract a following.12 Adopting the pattern
established by university masters of theology, the Franciscans, as a religious
order acting through its minister general and general chapter, judged and
censured Olivi's views by internal action, without recourse to bishop or pope.
Furthermore, the officials of the order introduced into the process a subcom-
mission separate from those who brought accusations, separate from the
general chapter, and separate from the minister general who would render
final judgment. That special commission composed of distinguished and
respected theological masters within the order was charged with the task of
examining the suspect propostitions and/or works and assessing the degree of
their error, if any.
The third innovation of 1283 was the categorization of the condemned
propositions according to the degree or type of censure. Certain ones were
viewed as heretical, others as erroneous or false, others as ill-sounding or
imprudent, others as rash. While the role played by the mendicant orders in

11. This appears to be the case both with Amaury de Bene and the Amaurians as well as in the
case of John Brescain and Master Raymond, and with some of the propositions condemned
in 1270 and 1277.
12. Koch, "Philosophische und theologische Irrtumslisten von 1270-1329. Ein Beitrag zur
Entwicklung der theologischen Zensuren," in Kleine Schriften, 2:423-450.

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INQUIRY AND INQUISITION 175

such matters became a feature of the 1280 to 1320 period (one thinks of the
cases of Olivi and Durand of St. Pourcain, a Dominican bachelor of theology
whose writings were examined by a commission of theological masters from
his own order in 1314), it had no place in the remainder of the fourteenth
century.13 The other two innovations of 1283, namely, the recourse to a
separate commission of inquiry and the division of lists as to type of censure,
became standard features in most subsequent academic inquisitions.
During the pontificates of John XXII and Benedict XII one can see not
only increased complexity in the juridical process of censuring erroneous or
heretical teaching but an attempt to move such cases directly into the papal
courts as the court of first inquiry. This change in jurdisdiction applied to the
cases of Jean de Pouilly, William of Ockham, Thomas of Elmedene and
Henry Costesey, Nicholas of Autrecourt and those summoned to Avignon
with Autrecourt in the same papal letter, and the Cistercian monk Richard of
Lincoln.'4 One has the feeling that Thomas Waleys, who viewed three
pontificates from within the walls of a papal prison, would have been called to
Avignon to answer charges had he not already been in Avignon at the time he
preached against John XXII's views on the beatific vision.'5 Only in the case
of Meister Eckhart did a local, non-Avignon trial and condemnation take
place before the process was transferred to Avignon by way of appeal.16
R. W. Southern has recently argued that this shift from university to
papacy grew out of a conflict over mendicant privileges.17 Around 1290,
secular masters of theology at Paris tried to extend their right to interpret
Scripture and judge the orthodoxy of university teaching and writing to
include the interpretation of Martin IV's 1281 privilege for the Franciscans.
The reaction of the curial spokesman in this matter, the future Boniface VIII,
was immediate and unambiguous: "You sit in your professorial chairs and
think that Christ is ruled by your reasonings.... Not so, my brethren, not so!
The world is committed to us, and we have to think of what is expedient for
the world, not of what is expedient or agreeable to you.... I tell you, before
the Roman Curia would take this privilege from the friars, it would rather

13. Koch, "Irrtumslisten"; Durandus de S. Porciano O.P. (Miinster, 1927), and Kleine
Schriften, 2:7-168.
14. Koch, "Irrtumslisten"; "Der Prozess gegen den Magister Johannes de Polliaco und seine
Vorgeschichte (1312-1321)," in Kleine Schriften, 2:387-422; "Neue Aktenstiicke zu dem
gegen Wilhelm Ockham in Avignon gefiihrten Prozess," in Kleine Schriften, 2:275-365; on
Elmedene and Costesey, see Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great
Britian and Ireland: Papal Letters, 13 vols. (London, 1893-1955), 2:493, 496; on
Autrecourt, see CUP, 2:505, 576-587; on Autrecourt, see Briefe, ed. R. Imbach and D
Perler (Hamburg, 1988); on Richard, see CUP, 2:541-542.
15. T. Kaeppeli, Le proces contre Thomas Waleys O.P. (Rome, 1936).
16. Koch, "Irrtumslisten." Other cases were settled at Avignon posthumously or absentia, such
as the 1326 condemnation of Olivi's errors, that of Marsilius of Padua in 1327, and of
Meister Eckhart in 1329.
17. R. W. Southern, "Fhe Changing Role of Universities in Medieval Europe," Historical
Research 60 (1987): 133-146.

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176 CHURCH HISTORY

put the university of Paris in total disarray."18 In South

delation of the case of Jean de Pouilly to Avignon in 1318 subs
for magisterial jurisdiction in matters of faith and orthodox teaching and
rejected the authoritative self-image that Innocent III had encouraged the
university to adopt more than a century earlier.
The actual situation, however, was not quite as Southern presents it. As a
body of experts, the magisterium did not really lose its right to examine and
judge; rather, its place of business had changed. Just as masters of theology at
universities had become in the thirteenth century the appropriate body to
judge cases of academic heresy, so in the second decade of the fourteenth
century masters of theology and canon law at the Roman curia gradually
became the appropriate deliberative body. Bishops, religious superiors, and
universities were still expected to be watchful for suspect opinions, but
individual accusers could bypass all three agencies and take their case directly
to the papal curia.
It is difficult to imagine that this centralization or curialization of cases of
suspected heretical teaching was not encouraged by John XXII and the papal
bureaucracy. More surprisingly, others seem to have found the change
unobjectionable. There are no recorded protests from the bishop of Paris, the
archbishops of Sens or Canterbury, or the regent masters of theology at Paris
or Oxford. All would have acknowledged the ultimate superior authority of
papal jurisdiction. The question was one of the timing of papal intervention.
Every previous case in which the papacy was involved at the initial stage
occurred in the twelfth century, and in each instance the pope or papal legate
was in the relevant local region at the time, namely, northern France.19 One
suspects that the new arrangement must have had some offsetting advantages
to the majority involved, apart from spending the winter in southern France.
Since the prosecution and judgment in such cases had long since passed to
masters of theology acting as a group, whose decision would be officially
declared through bishop, archbishop, or council, the new arrangement
offered little change. The theological magisterium was still in control, albeit

18. Cited from Southern, "Changing Role," p. 136, and revised according to H. Finke, Aus den
Tagen Bonifaz VIII, ed. H. Finke (Muinster, 1902), pp. vi-vii: "Seditis in Cathedris et
putatis quod vestris racionibus regatur Christus. Nam consciencia plurimorum vestris
frivolis racionibus sauciatur. Non sic, fratres mei, non sic! Set quia nobis commissus est
mundus, cogitare debemus non quid expediat vobis clericis pro vestro libito, set quid
expediat orbi universo.... Deberetis disputare de questionibus utilibus, set nunc assumitis
vobis fabulosa et frivola. Est enim questio vestra fatua, quam stultus fatue proponit vel quam
magister fatue assumit vel determinat. Vidi raciones vestras et vere sunt, set raciones
solubiles. Set hec sit solucio: Precipimus in virtute obediencie sub pena privacionis officii et
beneficii, ne aliquis magistrorum de cetero de dicto privilegio predicet, disputet vel
determinet occulte vel manifeste. . . . Vere dico vobis, antequam curia Romana a dictis
fratribus hoc privilegium ammoveret, pocius studium Parysiense confunderet."
19. Eugenius III and Alexander III; see note 8 above.

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INQUIRY AND INQUISITION 177

outside a university context and now limited to senior members of that group
who for the most part had completed their regency. They could also display
their theological talents in the presence of their principal patron, the pope.
Further, the new system had a theoretical advantage in that it removed cases
from the pressures of interest groups at the local university and transferred
them to an ostensibly more neutral setting. Finally, papal condemnations
could produce something that university and episcopal censures could not: a
definitive and universally recognized pronouncement.
Papal involvement also coincided with an increase in the number of
theological masters accused of heretical teaching. I have already remarked on
the fact that all our cases in the eleventh and twelfth centuries involved
masters and that no such cases were recorded for the 1200 to 1285 period.
John Pecham's censure of Richard Knapwell in 1286 was the first
thirteenth-century condemnation of a master's opinions, and the Parisian
trial of another Dominican, John Quidort, in 1305/6 was the second.20 In the
first case, Knapwell had vocally defended Thomistic positions which, because
of their controversial nature, had previously been removed from discussion.
The case of John Quidort was more straightforwardly theological, since it
concerned his teaching on the eucharist. Judgment was rendered by a
commission of distinguished theological masters including Giles of Rome.
After 1315, charges of false teaching brought against theological masters
became more frequent and were all tried at the papal court: Jean de Pouilly
in 1318, Henry Costesey and Thomas Elmedene in 1330 (if their case ever
came to trial), and Thomas Waleys in 1333. In every case the issues were not
fine points of scholastic theology but controversial social and religious issues
on which theologians across Europe were divided: the legitimacy of confess-
ing only to a mendicant friar, apostolic poverty, John XXII's views on the
beatific vision, and papal power. These trials, however, did nothing to make
those issues any less controversial.
Curiously enough, with the death of Benedict XII in 1342 regent masters
in theology at universities regained their right to judge cases of academic
orthodoxy at home. Those whose trials were already under way at Avignon
were concluded there, but no new cases were delated from Paris or England
to the Roman curia. The cases of Jean de Mirecourt, Jean Guyon, masters
Simon and Guido, Louis of Padua, and John of Calore were handled
completely within a university context.2' Among the numerous cases that
appeared after 1342, no Parisian theological masters were accused, and in
fact none had been accused since John Quidort and Jean de Pouilly. The
English academic community was not so charitable towards its senior

20. On Knapwell, see Koch, "Irrtumslisten"; F. J. Roensch, Early Thomistic School (Dubuque,
1964), pp. 34-39; on Quidort, see CUP, 2:120.
21. CUP, 2:610-614, 622-633; 3:11-12, 21-23, 95-97, 108-109.

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178 CHURCH HISTORY

members and in three decades condemned Uthred of Boldon, Jo

and Henry Crump.22
What caused this shift in judicial venue from the papal court
universities? It may have been administrative convenience. The
Paris alone sent at least seven cases to Avignon between 1340 an
also possible that Pierre Roger, as Clement VI and a former reg
theology at Paris, may have felt that these cases, most of whic
fine points of scholastic theology, could best be handled in a uni
Other possibilities need to be explored.
Censures of academic errors became almost routine at Paris after 1345. In
all cases they were censures of views put forward by advanced theological
students, never masters. Propositions were taken from the unbound quires of
Sentences commentaries that might later be published, as well as from oral
disputations (or the written notes from those debates). The fact that
accusations of false teaching occurred at specific moments in the career of a
theologian, namely, during the year in which he commented on Lombard's
Sentences and during the debates surrounding his inception as master,
suggest that many, perhaps all, candidates were routinely subjected to
examinations for orthodoxy at those two times and perhaps only at those
times.23 At least a decade or more before 1340, both at Paris and in England,
candidates were required to take an oath immediately before entering upon
the reading of the Sentences and immediately before inception.24 One effect
was to protect the bachelor and future master by publicly declaring his
intention not to teach anything contrary to the faith and not to argue
questionable theses pertinaciter or assertive but only disputabile (that is, for
reasons of academic discussion). It also formed the legal grounds for
prosecuting those who, in the eyes of their academic superiors, broke their
oath.25 Most examinations did not result in charges of false teaching, but in

22. D. Knowles, "The Censured Opinions of Uthred of Bolden," in Knowles, The Historian
and Character and Other Essays (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 129-170; H. B. Workman, John
Wyclif, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1926); on Crump, see A. B. Emden, Biographical Register of the
University of Oxford to 1500, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1957), pp. 524-525.
23. The number of cases at Paris between 1342 and 1370 in which statements from Sentences
commentaries or the inception disputation known as vespers came under scrutiny and
condemnation suggests that such proceedings became a frequent housekeeping event in the
last stages of many academic careers. Those who had opinions from their Sentences
commentaries condemned were Jean de Mirecourt, O.Cist. (1347), Jean Guyon, OFM
(1348), Guido (de Medonta?), OESA (1354), and Denis de Foullechat, OFM (1364).
Those with condemned opinions from their vespers or resumption disputations were Simon
(de Brossa?), OSB (1351), Louis of Padua, OFM (1362), John de Calore (1363), and John
de Montesono, OP (1387).
24. William J. Courtenay, Adam Wodeham (Leiden, 1978), pp. 172-174.
25. If a bachelor forgot to take this oath at the proper time, as happened with Richard
Kilvington at Oxford in the early 1330s, he was permitted or required to affirm the oath as
soon as possible. In no case could it be omitted. Kilvington, Lectura, Erfurt, Wissenschaft-
liche Bibliothek, MS CA 2, 105, f.134rb: "Ego, Richardus de Kilvyngton Eboracensis

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INQUIRY AND INQUISITION 179

the two decades between 1345 and 1365 at Paris the opinions of seven
bachelors were censured. The number is even larger, since the list of new
(condemned) Parisian articles, which was complete by 1364, contains
censured propositions that are not found among the cases for which we have
surviving documentation.26
By the 1360s the prosecution of these cases was assisted at Paris and
perhaps elsewhere by the diocesan inquisitor, invariably a Dominican.
Moreover, official public revocations took place at the Dominican convent of
St. Jacques. It was there that Nicholas Autrecourt recanted in 1347, John of
Guyon in 1348, and Denis Foullechat in 1364.27 Wherever the place of
revocation is known, it occurred at St. Jacques in the presence of the
chancellor and assembled masters and, we may presume, the Dominican
inquisitor.
The magisterial inquisitorial mill ground very fine, perhaps too fine.
Many of the propositions condemned at Paris between 1345 and 1365 were
considered permissible scholastic statements at Oxford in the 1330s and
probably at Paris as well in the decades after 1365. Pierre d'Ailly, who as
master and opponent helped condemn John de Montesono's suspect opinions
in 1387, remarked in his Insolubilia that many of Autrecourt's propositions
were condemned out of jealousy but were later publicly accepted in the
schools at Paris.28 The number of recorded cases of erroneous teaching
declined after 1365, but the procedures remained in place and continued to be
used in the fifteenth century. They were employed alongside the issuing of
papal bulls which, from Wyclif on and without trial or the presence of the
accused, were used to attack opinions that were not in keeping with papal
views. The collective wisdom of the regent masters of theology retained its
standing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as the case of Luther
illustrates, but the effectiveness of such condemnations outside the halls and
colleges of Paris is questionable.
In conclusion, I would like to offer the following observations. First of all,
the university community allowed a considerable range of debatable proposi-
tions, even ones which on the surface might seem blasphemous or heretical.
Censured propositions acted as guidelines for future students and bachelors
on the appropriate wording of statements for debate or conclusions. Contrary

dyocesis, debita protestatione praemissa nunc pro tunc, revoco in hiis scriptis et correctioni
sacrosanctae Romanae ecclesiae et doctorum meorum universitatis Oxoniensis ubi primi
mundi universitatibus ceteris viget amplius decor clerici penitus me submitto.
26. In the list of new Parisian articles used by Hugolino of Orvieto at Bologna in 1364 and
recorded in CUP, 2:610-614, items 4, 6-8, 30, 32, 39-42, 44, and 49 are not from Mirecourt
or other known lists of articles condemned between 1340 and 1364.
27. CUP, 2:587, 622-623, 3:114, 121.
28. CUP, 3:486-533; Peter of Ailly, Concepts and Insolubles, trans. P. V. Spade (Dordrecht,
1980), p. 58.

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180 CHURCH HISTORY

to what one sometimes hears, these lists of censured propositio

considered as authoritative as conciliar statements and were used in similar
ways. The Parisian articles of 1277 or the condemned propositions of Jean de
Pouilly were used in that way in England just as they were on the
Continent.29
Second, censure had little serious effect on subsequent careers even for the
obstreperous. The Sentences commentary of Jean de Mirecourt, many
propositions from which were censured at Paris in 1347, was permitted to be
widely circulated, often combined with the list of censured propositions and
Mirecourt's replies.30 Jean de Calore, who revoked his questionable proposi-
tions in 1363 before they were actually censured, became chancellor of the
university by 1371.31 Even Nicholas of Autrecourt, who was condemned in
1346, forced to burn his works at Paris, stripped of his magisterial status in
arts, and prohibited from ever becoming master of theology, went on to
become dean of the cathedral at Metz.32 Rarely was the person condemned;
only his ideas were, and those more as examples of the type of statements that
were heretical, ill-sounding, or offensive to pious ears.33
Finally, the right of masters of theology to evaluate and censure the
opinions of members of the university community was ultimately more
durable than either episcopal or papal control. Even during the pontificates of
John XXII and Benedict XII, freedom of thought and expression within the
university community were judged primarily by the masters themselves once
their corporate status had been achieved and recognized at the beginning of
the thirteenth century. Only if the topic of controversy had wider ecclesiasti-
cal or political meaning, as in the cases of mendicant privileges, apostolic
poverty, dominium, papal authority, and major points of doctrine, was the
issue adjudicated outside the university. And the most serious penalties were
imposed or were attempted in those cases in which a bachelor or master
allowed or encouraged his controversial views to influence a wider public. In
the long run it was not status or the lack of conviction that protected masters
from the penalities normally inflicted upon those thought to be heretical. As

29. Wodeham cites as authoritative the Parisian articles of 1277 in a way that parallels his
citations of the decrees of the Council of Vienne (1311). Holcot similarly uses the articles
from Pouilly; see Holcot, Lectura super sententias (Lyon, 1518), IV, q.5, B.
30. CUP, 2:610-614; F. Stegmiiller, "Die zwei Apologien des Jean de Mirecourt," Recherches
de Theologie ancienne et medievale (hereafter cited as RTAM) 5 (1933): 40-78, 192-204;
William J. Courtenay, "John of Mirecourt and Gregory of Rimini on Whether God Can
Undo the Past," RTAM 39 (1972): 224-256, and 40 (1973): 147-174; idem, "John of
Mirecourt's Condemnation: Its Original Form," RTAM 53 (1986): 190-191.
31. CUP, 3:108-109, 193-194.
32. It was Autrecourt's magisterial status that was removed in arts and denied in theology. H
was allowed to retain his licentiate in theology.
33. The language of "ill-sounding" and "offensive to pious ears" reveals the concern over t
effect of these statements on younger members of the university community or on tho
outside the university.

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INQUIRY AND INQUISITION 181

the case of the Amaurians illustrates, an arts master might be burned while
his lay follower was set free. The issue was whether a scholar knowingly and
willingly maintained views contrary to the faith (which most did not),
whether his views were disseminated outside the university, and, if so,
whether or not he could rely on political protection, as Wyclif could and Hus
ultimately could not.
The fate of Hus is indicative of an abrupt and tragic change in attitude
toward academic freedom that emerged in the early decades of the fifteenth
century. Since the beginning of universities, propositions that sounded
heretical had been viewed as perfect training tools to test the dialectical skills
of young theologians to find an orthodox truth beneath a seemingly false or
heretical statement. The internal and gentle mechanism of regent-master
review seemed sufficient to control any ill effects. That optimism ended with
Hus. The perceived dangers to faith and piety exceeded the benefits of open
debate and free expression.34 Yet at the very moment when a council took over
the task of judging academic heresy and imposed on a scholar a death sentence
that had not been used in 200 years, it was the theological masters themselves
who urged that very transformation and effected it under the auspices of the
conciliar movement.

34. In a revealing passage Jean Gerson, former chancellor of the University of Paris, admitted
that many of the articles of Wyclif and Hus condmned at Constance "could have been
defended by the power of logic or grammar," but were rightly condemned; see Michael
Shank, "Unless You Believe, You Shall Not Understand": Logic, University, and Society in
Late Medieval Vienna (Princeton, 1988), pp. 179-180.

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