Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris, 1200-1400

by J. M. M. H. Thijssen

Overview

For the scholastic philosopher William Ockham (c. 1285-1347), there are three kinds of heresy. The first, and most unmistakable, is an outright denial of the truths of faith. Another is so obvious that a very simple person, even if illiterate, can see how it contradicts Divine Scripture. The third kind of heresy is less clear cut. It is perceptible only after long deliberation and only to individuals who are learned, and well versed in Scripture.

It is this third variety of heresy that J.M.M.H. Thijssen addresses in Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris, 1200-1400. The book documents 30 cases in which university trained scholars were condemned for disseminating allegedly erroneous opinions in their teaching or writing, and focuses particularly on four academic censures that have occupied prominent positions in the historiography of medieval philosophy.

Thijssen grants central importance to a number of questions so far neglected by historians regarding judicial procedures, the authorities supervising the orthodoxy of teaching, and the effects of condemnations on the careers of the accused. He also places still current questions regarding academic freedom and the nature of doctrinal authority into their medieval contexts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812233186
Publisher:	University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication date:	01/29/1998
Series:	The Middle Ages Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

J.M.M.H. Thijssen is Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Natural Philosophy at the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. The Suppression of False Teaching
2. The Condemnation of March 7, 1277
3. False Teaching at the Arts Faculty: The Ockhamist Statute of 1340 and Its Prelude
4. Nicholas of Autrecourt and John of Mirecourt: Censure at the Faculty of Theology in the Fourteenth Century
5. Academic Freedom and Teaching Authority
Conclusion

List of Abbreviations
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"The book makes an important scholarly contribution. Thijssen puts academic censures in the context of ecclesiastical investigations of heresy and brings together the latest research on a number of specific Parisian cases and on the problem of academic censure."

W. J. Courtenay

"The book makes an important scholarly contribution. Thijssen puts academic censures in the context of ecclesiastical investigations of heresy and brings together the latest research on a number of specific Parisian cases and on the problem of academic censure."—W. J. Courtenay, University of Wisconsin, Madison

From the Publisher