Reading Guide #6 : Study
Questions
for
(1) William of Ockham, A Short Discourse on the Tyrannical Government
and Bartolus of Sassoferrato, On the Tyrant
and
(2) Readings on the Bubonic Plague (Black Death) by Gabriele de'Mussis and
Gilles li Muisit
I. William of Ockham and Bartolus of Sassoferrato
Born about 1287 in Surrey, southwest of London, William Ockham entered
the Franciscan order as a boy. Educated in London at the Franciscan college
there, he later studied theology at Oxford ca. 1318-1321. He soon found himself
embroiled in controversy, and was examined first by his fellow Franciscans
before being summoned to Avignon, where the papal court then was located,
to answer charges of heresy in 1324. While waiting for his hearing, he continued
his theological writing. By this point, and even preceding it, the Franciscan
Order had splintered into divergent sects on the question of apostolic poverty,
and had run afoul of the papal position, which held that the convent could
own or hold property in common. Ockham eventually would denounce Pope John
XXII (1316-1334) as a heretic on the matter of apostolic poverty, a declaration
that caused him to flee Avignon in 1328, along with other Franciscans, for
the protection of the German imperial court under King Louis IV (r. 1314-1347).
After a brief time in Italy, Louis IV traveled back to Germany, and the fugitive
Franciscans followed. Ockham, excommunicated, never returned to England or
Avignon. He did leave a legacy of numerous theological, philosophical, and
political writings, including a Summa on logic and expositions on the
works of Aristotle. Among his political works are the Short Discourse
(composed 1341-1342) and other works questioning the limits of papal power.
He may be best known for his theory of ontological parsimony, known as Ockham's
Razor, which holds that "entities should not be multiplied except by necessity,"
or, in more direct terms, the simplest explanation for something is usually
the best one. He died in 1347.
Bartolus of Sassoferrato (1314-1357) studied law at Perugia and
later at Bologna, where he received his doctorate in 1334. He was then appointed
professor of law at Pisa (1339), but ultimately returned to Perugia in 1343,
where he remained until his death. He is most famous for his commentary on
the Justinian Code (Corpus Iuris Civilis) and his application of Aristotelian
political philosophy and Roman law to contemporary problems through use of
the scholastic method. His special concern was to reconcile universal applications
of law with local ones. He argued for the political sovereignty of the town—whether
its ultimate lord was emperor or pope, the city, he argued, was its own master
(civitas sibi princeps), a corporation with omnicompetent jurisdiction.
There was little obvious room in Roman law for this, which placed all authority
in the hands of the emperor.
II. Gabriele de'Mussis and Gilles li Muisit of
Tournai
Gabriele de'Mussis (c. 1280-1356) was a notary/lawyer from Piacenza,
who assumed responsibility for keeping a record of the disease there. He wrote
after 1350, the year of the Great Jubilee pilgrimage to Rome -- thus, at
the same time as Gilles, below.
Gilles li Muisit (b. 1272) was abbot of Saint-Martin of Tournai
from 1331-1353 and was an enegetic reformer of the religious life and financial
stability of the abbey. He studied at Paris and in Tournai (where his family
was from), and proved to be an excellent manager of his house. He was stricken
in 1348 with cataracts that left him blind until a German surgeon operated
on him successfully, but this did not stop him from being a major patron of
manuscript production in various areas. All his works were written between
1347-53, and the narrative here was composed between 1349 and 1352. The narrative
proper in this excerpt concludes in 1350, when Pope Clement VI proclaimed
a jubilee in the first week of Lent, followed by a proclamation by the town’s
‘governors’ proclaiming that everyone should cease public performances of
penance, on pain of banishment.