The School of Heretics: Academic Condemnation at the University of Oxford, 1277-1409 by Andrew E. Larsen (review)

Abstract

The School of Heretics: Academic Condemnation at the University of Oxford, 1277-1409. By Andrew E. Larsen. [Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Vol. 40.] (Leiden: Brill. 2011. Pp. xii, 322. $166.00. ISBN 978-90-04-20661-8.)Andrew E. Larsen's study is an excellent historical and doctrinal analysis of accusations of heresy leveled against various academicians related to the University of Oxford during the period in question.The author has carefully designated the parameters of his study so as to limit its scope and purview.Regarding heresy and heretics, there was a prevailing distinction among falsity, error, and heresy alluded to by Henry of Ghent in his Quodlibet X, q. 5 (Leuven, 1981, p. 12). Likewise, suspects were to be given three warnings before being brought to inquisitorial proceedings (p. 151), a rule to be found somewhere in canon law. The author, understandably, struggles a bit with how to translate the Latin fama, deciding on rumor (p. 15); repute, reputation, as-widely-viewed might be alternatives but hardly more satisfying.References to the Lollards occur periodically in Larsen's work. In addition to the individuals considered to be Lollards mentioned in the index, it would have been helpful for those unfamiliar with this period of history to learn what ideas or views earned them the label.With respect to the controversy regarding the plurality/unicity of forms (pp. 27-29, 46), there was a refinement that seems to have escaped the purview of the author-namely, the opinion that there were multiple grades of a single form. Whether this opinion can initially be traced to John Pecham, we may never know, since his treatise De gradibus formarum (once housed in the Merton library) is now lost. Positing grades of a single form responds to St. Thomas Aquinas's argument that a plurality of forms leads to a sort of metaphysical schizoid in any given individual being.The grades theory was subsequently supported by Roger Marston and opposed by Giles of Rome in his Contra gradus formarum (Venice, 1500).Regarding the career of Blessed John Duns Scotus (pp. 64-65), details may be found in William A. Frank and Allan B. Walter's volume on Duns Scotus Metaphysician (West Lafayette, IN, 1995) as well as in Antonie Vos's monumental treatment in The Philosophy of John Duns Scotus (Edinburgh, 2006). Regarding the allusion to Walter Chatton's view that the brouhaha about the various signa originis in the divinity had come to be considered frivo lous on both sides of the channel, this can now be found in the critical edition (Toronto, 2002).Allusion is made to Ockham's treatises on the Eucharist (p. 77). These have been edited in the critical edition by Carl A. …