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The Bible in the Fourteenth Century: Some Observations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

William J. Courtenay
William J. Courtenay
Affiliation:
Professor of history in the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
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Extract

One of the most pressing needs in the field of medieval biblical studies is for an adequate historical overview of developments in the late Middle Ages. One of the pioneers, the late Beryl Smalley, never fully achieved the intended sequel to her magisterial Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, although her English Friars and Antiquity was an excellent beginning, particularly for the early fourteenth-century English group. Other surveys end with Nicholas of Lyra, skip from the thirteenth century to the Reformation, or give only the most cursory attention to the late medieval period.2 And yet the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were rich in biblical commentaries, and scholars, have long considered a more precise understanding of developments in that period to be essential for an adequate appreciation of the character and significance of biblical commentaries in the early sixteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , June 1985 , pp. 176 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1985

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References

1. Smalley, Beryl, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1952; Notre Dame, 1964);Google ScholarEnglish Friars and Antiquity in the Early Fourteenth Century (Oxford, 1960).Google Scholar

2. In addition to the works of Smalley, , Spicq, Ceslaus, Esquisse d'une histoire de l'éxègese latine au moyen âge (Paris, 1944);Google Scholarde Lubac, Henri, Exégèse médiévale. Les quatre sens de l'Écriture (Paris, 1959–1964);Google ScholarThe Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2, The West from the Fathers to the Reformation, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (Cambridge, 1969).Google Scholar The exception remains de Vooght's, PaulLes sources de la doctrine chrétienne d'après les théologiens du XIVe siècle et du début du XVe avec le texte intégral des XII premières questions de la ‘Summa’ inédite de Gérard de Bologne (Bruges, 1954).Google Scholar

3. Henry of Langenstein's commentary on the opening chapters of Genesis provided the text for Steneck's, Nicholas excellent Science and Creation in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, 1976)Google Scholar, although the treatment is from the standpoint of science, not theology or exegesis. A brief overview of the Matthew commentary of Nicholas of Dinkelsbühl is given in Madre, Alois, Nikolaus von Dinkelsbühl: Leben und Schriften, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 40.4 (Münster, 1965).Google ScholarEarlier, , Lang, Albert, in his Heinrich Totting von Oyta, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie and Theologie des Mittelalters 33.4/5 (Münster i.W., 1937),Google Scholar surveyed Oyta's commentaries on Psalms, Mark, and John.

4. Stegmüller, Friedrich, Repertorium Commentariorum in Sententias Petri Lonibardi, 2 vols. (Würzburg, 1947);Google ScholarRepertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, 11 vols. and continuing (Madrid, 1949-1980)Google Scholar.

5. Although the Bible was the principal text for magisterial lectures and the Sentences was reserved for bachelors, there were times (specifically in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries) when masters read on the Sentences. See my discussion in Adam Wodeham (Leiden, 1978), pp. 51–53.Google Scholar The Paris statutes of 1366 recognize the possibility of magisterial lectures on the Sentences; see Denifle, Heinrich and Chatelain, Emile, eds. Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensts, 4 vols. (Paris, 1889-1897), 3:144Google Scholar (hereafter cited as CUP): “Item statuimus quod nullus magister aut bachelarius qui Sententias legerit, suam lecturam Sententiarum communicet tradendo stationariis directe vel indirecte, quosque sua lectura fuerit per cancellarium et magistros predicte facultatis examinata.”

6. For the Oxford regulations, see Anstey, Henry, Munimenta Academica, or Documents Illustrative of Academical Life and Studies at Oxford, Rerum Britannicarum Mcdii Aevi Scriptores, Rolls series 50 (London, 1868), pp. 391–392Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Mun. Acad.): “ut qui incipere in theologia proponit, antequam incipiat, omnia praemissa laudabiliter complesse, bibliam biblice [as opposed to cursorie] per triennium audisse…” For Paris, see CUP 3: 143 (June 1366): “Item quod scolares qui noviter incipiunt audire theologiam, primis quatuor annis portent vel portari faciant ad scolas biblici Bibliam, in qua lectiones Biblie audiant diligenter.” CUP 2: 469 (November. 1336): “… antequam textum Biblie cum glossis ordinariis studuerit.” Ibid., pp. 469–470: “Magistri quoque et lectores alii legentes textum Biblie, debeant insistere circa dubia, que fluntjuxta ipsum, et circa dicta sanctorum catholicorum Patrum, ac glossarum ordinariarum Biblie memorate.” CUP 3: 143 (June 1366): “… statuimus quod cursores theologie suos cursus legant ordinate, textum exponendo et glosas notabiles declarando secundum modum antiquitus in dicto studio approbatum.”

7. CUP 1: 79.

8. CUP 2: 450 (July 1335; when establishing regulations for Cistercian students at Paris, Benedict XII cites the earlier, general custom): “…illo presertim statuto, quo in eodem studio Parisiensi cavere dicitur, quod nullus possit legere cursum Biblie, nisi ibidem studuerit septem annis, quodque non permittatur Sententias legere, nisi etiam inibi studuerit decem annis, prout sic vel aliter in statutis ipsius studii Parisiensis dicitur contineri.” Benedict's legislation permitted the monks (and eventually other religious) to advance to the Bible and the Sentences earlier: “qui tamen in eodem studio Parisiensi vel in aliquo alio predictorum generalium ipsius Ordinis studiorum per sex annos in theologia studerint, et ad hoc idonei, quis cognoscet, extiterint, in dicto studio Parisiensi possint cursus Biblie facere, et qui per octo annos studuerint ut prefertur, Sententias legere in Parisiensi studio memorato, non obstantibus quibuscumque statutis et consuetudinibus ac observantiis…” This inequity was acknowledged in the mid-fourteenth-century statutes for Paris, edited in CUP 2:692: “Item, nota, quod studentes in theologia, si sint seculares, habent ibi audire per septem annos antequam admittantur ad lecturam Biblie, sed regulares admittuntur in sexto anno.” The freedom of selecting which books to read is stated in the mid-fourteenth-century statutes, CUP 2: 692: “Item, nota, quod admissi ad lecturam Biblie debent solum legere duos libros, et tales sicut voluerint eligere, scilicet unum de veteri Testamento, et alium de novo, exceptis illis de quatuor Ordinibus Mendicantium, qui debent Bibliam continue legere per duos annos, et etiam unus de Sancto Bernardo.”

9. The reduction from three to two years had already occurred by mid-century; CUP 2: 692: “Item, nota, quod illi qui legerunt cursus suos in theologia, debent expectare, postquam inceperunt legere Bibliam, per duos annos, antequam admittantur ad lecturam Sententiarum.” And from the end of the fourteenth century, CUP 2: 699: “Item, quod nullus legat Sententias Parisius, nisi compleverit ibi novem annos studendo in theologia…”

10. Statutes of Urban V, CUP 3: 143 (June 1366): “Item quod nullus cursor biblie legere presumat ultra unum capitulum in una lectione de libro quem leget, exceptis biblicis ordinarie legentibus.”

11. Roger Bacon, Opus minus, edited passage in Little, A. G., “The Franciscan School at Oxford in the Thirteenth Century,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 19 (1926): 808–809.Google Scholar

12. Statute of 1253, Mun. Acad., pp. 25, 396.

13. See note 6 above for length of attendance at Oxford biblical lectures. For the order of reading, see Gibson, Strickland, ed., Statuta Antiqua Universitatis Oxoniensis (Oxford, 1931), p. 177Google Scholar (ca. 1314, according to Little): “Item de statuto universitatis quo prohibetur quod nullus in Oxoniensi studio legat bibliam biblice, nisi prius fuerit bachalarius in theologica facultate [presumably as Sententiarius], ordinamus, arbitramur, diffinimus, et laudum seu dictum nostrum proferimus, quod statutum predictum maneat in eodem statu quo nunc est, per magistros universitatis concorditer ordinatum.” For the requirement of one book of the Bible, see Mon. Acad., pp. 391–392: “… ac aliquem librum de canone bibliae legisse…”

14. Such was the interpretation of Little, “The Franciscan School,” pp. 825–826.

15. Mon. Acad., p. 393: “Item, statutum est, quod liceat Bachilario theologiae legere bibliam biblice in magna vacatione, sic tamen quod illa lectura non cedat alicui pro forma.”

16. For example, see my Adam Wodeham, pp. 97–99, 108–109; and “The lost Matthew Commentary of Robert Holcot OP.,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 50 (1980): 103–112.

17. See the statements of Fitzralph, Richard and Bradwardine, Thomas in Pantin, W. A., The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1955;Google Scholar Notre Dame, 1962), pp. 132–133, and Oberman, Heiko A., Archbishop Thomas Bradwardine (Utrecht, 1958), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

18. Much of the manuscript information in this and the following section is derived from Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum, supplemented and corrected where necessary.

19. Smalley, , “The Bible in the Medieval Schools,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible, 2: 207;Google ScholarEnglish Friars, p. 31.

20. Smalley, , English Friars, pp. 133–202.Google Scholar

21. CUP3: 127; Smalley, , “Jean de Hesdin O. Hosp. S. Ioh.,” Recherches de theologie ancienne et mediévale 28 (1961): 283–330.Google Scholar

22. Xiberta, Bartholomew Maria, De scriptoribus scholasticis saeculi XIV ex ordine Carmelitarum (Louvain, 1931), pp. 328–329, 346.Google Scholar

23. On Oyta, see Lang, , Heinrich Totting von Oyta (Münster, 1937), pp. 16–17, 76–78;Google ScholarRosenthal, Frank, “Heinrich von Oyta and Biblical Criticism in the Fourteenth Century,” Speculum 25 (1950): 178–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Marsilius died within a year, possibly within months of his inception as master of theology. His commentary on Matthew dates either to his time as cursor at Heidelberg (1390–1392) or to his last years at Paris, when his study of theology was interrupted by the politics of the papal schism. For others mentioned, see Beckmann, Josef H., “Studien zum Leben und Literar. Nachlass Jakobs von Soest,” Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland 25 (1929);Google ScholarMadre, A., Nikolaus von Dinkeisbühl, Leben und Schriften (Münster, 1965).Google Scholar

25. For a recent exposition of Langenstein's commentary, see Steneck, Nicholas, Science and Creation in the Middle Ages: Henry of Langenstein on Genesis (Notre Dame, 1976).Google Scholar