Mediaeval Commentaries on the

Sentences of Peter Lombard

Volume 3

Edited by

Philipp W. Rosemann

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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Contents
List of Figuresvii
Abbreviationsix
Introduction: Three Avenues for Studying the Tradition
of the Sentences1
Philipp W. Rosemann
1 Filiae Magistri: Peter Lombards Sentences and Medieval Theological
Education On the Ground26
Franklin T. Harkins
2 Les listes des opiniones Magistri Sententiarum quae communiter
non tenentur: forme et usage dans la lectio des Sentences79
Claire Angotti
3 Henry of Gorkums Conclusiones Super IV Libros Sententiarum:
Studying the Lombard in the First Decades of the
Fifteenth Century145
John T. Slotemaker
4 The Past, Present, and Future of Late Medieval Theology:
The Commentary on the Sentences by Nicholas of Dinkelsbhl,
Vienna, ca. 1400174
Monica Brinzei and Chris Schabel
5 Easy-Going Scholars Lecturing Secundum Alium? Notes on
Some French Franciscan Sentences Commentaries of the
Fifteenth Century267
Ueli Zahnd
6 The Concept of Beatific Enjoyment (Fruitio Beatifica) in the
Sentences Commentaries of Some Pre-Reformation Erfurt
Theologians315
Severin V. Kitanov

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vi

Contents

7 John Majors (Mairs) Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard:

Scholastic Philosophy and Theology in the Early Sixteenth
Century369
Severin V. Kitanov, John T. Slotemaker, and Jefffrey C. Witt
8 The Sentences in Sixteenth-Century Iberian Scholasticism416
Lidia Lanza and Marco Toste
9 Texts, Media, and Re-Mediation: The Digital Future of the Sentences
Commentary Tradition504
Jefffrey C. Witt
Bibliography517
Figures533
Index of Manuscripts546
Index of Names552

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Introduction: Three Avenues for Studying

the Tradition of the Sentences
Philipp W. Rosemann

It is in three major ways that this volume adds both substance and nuance
to our knowledge of the tradition of the Sentences. First, several of the chapters published here enrich the contemporary debate, lively amongst medievalists as well as intellectual historians more generally, concerning the meaning
of authority and authorship. The question, What is an author? is answered
diffferently in diffferent cultures, and the rise of scholasticism was one of the
points in intellectual history when the function of the author underwent significant change. Secondly, the volume sheds much light on what one of its
contributors calls theological education on the ground, especially during the
later Middle Agesthe kind of teaching that was dispensed by the average
master and received by his average student, and not just the content of the few
most original masterpieces by the most celebrated doctores. Finally, the contributors to this third volume of Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of
Peter Lombard paint a picture of the reception of the Book of Sentences which
suggests that Peter Lombards great textbook played a much more dynamic
role in later medieval theology than hitherto assumed. Far from being marginalized and superseded after the flourishing of the great commentaries of
the thirteenth century, the work remained a force to be reckoned with until
at least the sixteenth century. The following pages will elaborate on each of
these points, thus highlighting the major themes that hold the chapters of this
volume together.

Authorship, Modern and Scholastic

Even today, the concept of authorship remains problematic and, in fact, paradoxical. We live in an age in which the idea of the author implies notions of
both original creativity and property rights. An author, according to this understanding, is a person who creates value by originating words and ideas that are
novel, innovative, unheard-ofin short, original. At the opposite pole of the
author, thus conceived as the fount of value and innovation, we have the plagiarist, who steals the authors creations, enriching him- or herself illicitly by
infringing on the authors right to be recognized and rewarded.

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004283046_002

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Rosemann

The logic that drives the contemporary notion of the author is thrown into
sharp relief in the concept of self-plagiarism. In relation to the world of art,
self-plagiarism has been defined as occurring when the artist takes from the
aesthetically significant features of his/her previous work, and presents them
under the false assumption that they are creatively original and that aesthetic
progress has been made....1 Here, originality is conceived of in terms of progress in relation not only to the work of others, but even to ones own productions. Let us note, in passing, how modern the emphasis on progress is as a
criterion of an aesthetically significant work. One wonders how this criterion
would apply to, say, a Byzantine icon.
The trademarking of common phrases is another consequence brought
about by the contemporary notion of the author. Originality and creativity are
so valuable that not only entire works need to be protected (through copyright laws), but individual symbols and phrases as well. Thus, for example, the
phrases play and fun for everyone, black history makers of tomorrow, and
even hey, it could happen are trademarks of the McDonalds corporation,
which has used them in a variety of advertisements and promotions.2 In this
context, what the law protects are less the claims of an author to be recognized
for his or her original creations, than the economic interests of a corporation
that wants to be associated with certain vernacular terms so as to insinuate
itself more deeply into the thought processes of its customers. The consequence which such pervasive trademarking produces is that more and more
words and phrases of the language of a particular culture come to be absorbed
into the domain of property. The vernacular thus takes on the characteristics of
a commodity from which its users feel increasingly alienated.3
The final step in this development is that not only language, but nature
itself is commodified. In the United States, which has often been at the leading edge of modern social and technological developments, living matter was
not patentable until 1980. The situation changed when the Supreme Court
ruled, in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, that a certain bacterium which the biochemist Ananda M. Chakrabarty had developed to digest oil spills could indeed be

1 David Goldblatt, Self-Plagiarism, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 43 (1984): 717,
at 71.
2 See David Bollier, Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture (Hoboken, n.j.,
2005), 112.
3 I have discussed these developments in two previous publications: Where America Takes
Its PicturesTM: Only Theology Saves Language, in Pragmata: Festschrift fr Klaus Oehler
zum 80. Geburtstag, ed. Kai-Michael Hingst and Maria Liatsi (Tbingen, 2008), 1707, and
Vernacularity and Alienation, Existentia 23 (2013): 13954.

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introduction

protected by a patent.4 This decision paved the way for commercial bioengineering. Henceforth, human beingsand corporations, in particular5have
been able to claim legally, and enforce the claim, that they have invented, created, authored parts of nature.
But we were talking about the paradoxical nature of the contemporary
notion of authorship. On the one hand, the way in which the authors originality contributes to human progressnot least economic progressis valued
so highly that it is protected by rigorous copyrights, trademarks, and patents,
as well as the taboo of plagiarism. Yet at the same time, authorship appears to
be dissipating in a digital culture in which there is a boundless proliferation
of author-less meaning (texts, images, sounds) on websites, in blogs, and in
tweets. Material is posted, often under a screen name, then copied, modified,
and reposted in a manner that subverts the conventional notions of authorship, originality, and property. The Wikipedia is only one example of a website that relies on the collaboration of a multitude of authors who contribute
their expertise, efffort, and time in the full knowledge that there will be neither
acknowledgment nor pay.
Some decades before the popular availability of the Internet, Michel
Foucault already spoke of the death of the author in the context of contemporary literature. He meant the fact that literary figures of the modern avantgardethe likes of Beckett, Flaubert, Proust, and Kafkano longer regarded
writing as the expression of their deepest interiority, pursued with the goal
to ward offf death through an act of literary immortalization. On the contrary,
Foucault argued, for these modern authors writing became a sacrifice of self.6
Indeed, Foucault himself practiced writing as a method of self-efffacement. The
idea irritated him profoundly that what he called the author function could
dominate the interpretation of his work, reducing the multiplicity of meaning
in his books to a predictable set of Foucauldian positions.7
4 See Daniel V. Kevles, Ananda Chakrabarty Wins A Patent: Biotechnology, Law, and Society,
19721980, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 25 (1994): 11135, and
idem, Diamond v. Chaskrabarty and Beyond: The Political Economy of Patenting Life, in
Private Science: Biotechnology and the Rise of the Molecular Sciences, ed. Arnold Thackray
(Philadelphia, 1998), 6579.
5 Chakrabarty himself was an employee of the General Electric Research Center in Schenectady,
New York, when he engineered the oil-eating Pseudomonas bacterium.
6 See Michael Foucault, What Is an Author?, in Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology, ed.
James D. Faubion, Essential Works of Foucault 2 (New York, 1998), 20522.
7 I have explored this theme in my essay, What Is an Author? Bonaventure and Foucault on
the Meaning of Authorship, Fealsnacht: A Journal of the Dialectical Tradition 2 (200102):
2245.

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Rosemann

Foucault claimed that, due to the tensions inherent in the contemporary

notion of authorship, the author has in fact become an ideological construct,
that is to say, a notion which is defined in a way that veils its actual function.
We say that our laws must protect the rights of the author, who is the genial
creator of a work in which he deposits, with infinite wealth and generosity, an
inexhaustible world of significations.8 In reality, however, the flourishing of
signification is precisely what the legally sanctioned understanding of authorship prevents; for the author is a certain functional principle by which, in our
culture, one limits, excludes, and chooses; in short, by which one impedes the
free circulation, the free manipulation, the free composition, decomposition,
and recomposition of fiction.9
In a discussion of medieval authorship, it is good to remember, with
Foucault, that [t]he author function does not afffect all discourses in a universal and constant way.10 While it is not possible, therefore, to define the author
in a unified way across the diffferent centuries, regions, disciplines, and genres
of medieval culture, it is clear that the medieval notion of authorship, unlike
the modern one, did not constitute itself at the intersection of concepts of
originality, progress, and property. There is also evidence that the author function underwent a significant reconfiguration precisely in conjunction with the
rise of the new scholastic genre of the Sentences commentarythe subject
matter of this volume.
In a well-known passage of the prologue to his Sentences commentary,
Bonaventure asks the question, certainly puzzling from the modern point
of view, Quae sit causa effficiens sive auctor huius libri?, what is the effficient
cause or author of this book?11 The modern answer would be, Look at the
name on the cover! But, of course, the medieval book was constructed diffferently: to begin with, there was no cover or title page to look at. In his answer,
Bonaventure develops a fourfold distinction among the scriptor (who merely
copies the words of someone else), the compilator (who copies the words of
someone else, or of others, but adds to them), the commentator (who adds
words of his own to clarify a copied text), and finally the auctor (who combines

8
9
10
11

Foucault, What Is an Author?, 221.

Ibid.
Ibid., 212.
Bonaventure, Commentaria in quatuor libris Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi, vol. 1:
In primum librum Sententiarum, prooemium, qu. iv, in Doctoris seraphici S. Bonaventurae
Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii a S. Bonaventura, 10 vols. (Quaracchi, 18821902), 1: 14. For
commentary, see A.J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship, 2nd ed. (Aldershot, England,
1988), as well as Rosemann, What Is an Author?

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introduction

text both by himself and by others, but provides the leading voice). Such was
the Master, Bonaventure concludes, who posits his own sententiae and confirms them through the sententiae of the Fathers. This is why he must truly be
called the author of this book.12
Bonaventure further elucidates his conception of authorship in response
to an objection: does Peter Lombard himself not admit that he composed his
Book of Sentences from the examples and teachings of our forefathers, and
that his own voice is hardly ever heard?13 Yes, Bonaventure concedes, this may
be true, but the fact that there are many citations from others here, that does
not do away with the auctoritas of the Master, but rather confirms his auctoritas
and commends his humility.14 Since this is the final sentence in Bonaventures
response to the question, Quae sit causa effficiens sive auctor huius libri?, it is
likely that the term auctoritas should be rendered as authorship here. Yet
of course it also means authority. The auctor is credited with auctoritas,

12

13

14

Bonaventure, In i Sent., prooem, qu. iv, resp. (1: 1415): Respondeo: Ad intelligentiam
dictorum notandum, quod quadruplex est modus faciendi librum. Aliquis enim scribit
aliena, nihil addendo vel mutando; et iste mere dicitur scriptor. Aliquis scribit aliena,
addendo, sed non de suo; et iste compilator dicitur. Aliquis scribit et aliena et sua, ed
aliena tamquam principalia, et sua tamquam annexa ad evidentiam; et iste dicitur commentator, non auctor. Aliquis scribit et sua et aliena, sed sua tamquam principalia, aliena
tamquam annexa ad confirmationem; et talis debet dici auctor. Talis fuit Magister, qui
sententias suas ponit et Patrum sententiis confirmat. Unde vere debet dici auctor huius
libri.
Ibid., videtur 2 (1:14): ...sed Magister hoc opus composuit ex aliena doctrina, sicut ipse
dicit in littera, quod in hoc opere maiorum exempla doctrinamque reperies; ergo non
debet dici auctor. Si tu dicis, quod non tantum hoc est doctrina Sanctorum, sed etiam sua,
ratione cuius debet dici auctor; contra: A maiori et digniori debet fieri denominatio; sed
Magister dicit, quod paulisper vox sua insonuit, et tunc a paternis limitibus non discessit; ergo non deberet iste liber dici esse Magistri. Note that Bonaventure has altered the
second quotation, which in the Sentences reads: Sicubi vero parum vox nostra insonuit,
non a paternis discessit limitibus (Peter Lombard, Sentences, prologue, no. 4 [1: 4]). This
sentence translates as: But wherever our voice has made itself heard too little, it has [at
least] not deviated from the bounds of the fathers. Peter Lombard appears to be apologizing for sometimes being too hesitant in advancing positions of his own. Giulio Silanos
translation misses this point: And if in some places our voice has rung out a little loudly,
it has not transgressed the bounds of our forefathers (The Sentences, Book i: The Mystery
of the Trinity, trans. Giulio Silano [Toronto, 2007], 4). Parum does not mean too loudly,
but rather too little, not enough.
Bonaventure, In i Sent., prooem, qu. iv, ad 2 (1: 15): Et quod sunt ibi multa dicta aliorum,
hoc non tollit Magistro auctoritatem, sed potius eius auctoritatem confirmat et humilitatem commendat.

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Rosemann

authorship, but he is also someone who enjoys authority: the two seem to be
inextricably connected in Bonaventures mind. Another term that appears in
our sentence is humility. Peter Lombards humility bolsters his auctoritas:
the latter does not require bold claims to originality, as one might expect in a
modern context, but rather the humble building of doctrinateachingout
of material inherited from the maiores, the elders.
In a recent study devoted to the genesis of magisterial authority in the
school of Anselm of Laon, Cdric Giraud has impressively shown that humility was an essential ingredient in the construction of the notion of authority
in the schools on the twelfth century: The nature of magisterial authority,
Giraud writes in the final pages of his book, is such that it manifests itself
but in a hidden manner, as though obliquely, with a kind of reserve that is
its distinctive characteristic.15 A masters authority in his school depended
on his perceived humility and moderation in handling the tradition, and was
amplified, not reduced, by the fact that his students often did not acknowledge his authorship in compiling manuals based on his teachings: The master acquires the status of reference only at the conclusion of an operation in
which his name is silenced, to better incorporate his sententia into a scholarly
vernacular.16 Girauds research raises the intriguing possibility that, although
authorship may have required authority at a certain point in the development
of the scholastic discourse of the Middle Ages, authority may in turn have led
to the elision of authorship.
Bonaventures position according to which Peter Lombard was indeed the
author of the Book of Sentences was by no means undisputed. Lecturing on
the Sentences at Oxford only a few years (124145) before Bonaventure was
baccalaureus sententiarius in Paris (125052), Richard Fishacre, in the prologue
to his commentary on the Sentences, asks the same question regarding the
authorship of the work: Sed quis potest esse auctor huius Scripturae vel sapientiae? Yet he provides a very diffferent answer: Ergo Deus huius est auctor.17
However, perhaps Fishacres answer is diffferent because the question he asks
is, in fact, not the same as Bonaventures. Note that, curiously, Fishacre refers
to the Book of Sentences as this Scripture or wisdom. There is no confusion
here: in Fishacres mind, Peter Lombards work possesses no literary identity of
15
16
17

Cdric Giraud, Per verba magistri. Anselme de Laon et son cole au xiie sicle (Turnhout,
2010), 499. I have reviewed this book in Speculum 88 (2013): 5201.
Giraud, Per verba magistri, 436.
R. James Long, The Science of Theology according to Richard Fishacre: Edition of
the Prologue to his Commentary on the Sentences, Mediaeval Studies 34 (1972): 7198. The
quotations are on pp. 87 and 88, respectively.

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introduction

its own, for it represents nothing more than a set of excerpts from Scripture.
Writing about the two parts of the science of theologyfaith and morals
Fishacre explains:
I acknowledge that both of these parts are contained in the canon of
Sacred Scripture, albeit indistinctly. Nevertheless, only one of these
partsnamely, the one concerned with the instruction of moralsis
taught by the modern masters when they read the holy books. The other,
regarded as more diffficult, is reserved for disputation. Now it is this more
diffficult part, extracted from the canon of the Sacred Scriptures, which
has been placed in this book that is called of the sentences. For this reason, reading [or lecturing] and disputing do not difffer here.18
It is easy to see, then, why Fishacre does not consider Peter Lombard to be an
author: he did not compose any book of his own, but prepared only a compilation of extracts from Gods work. There is no authorship of the Book of Sentences
because the sententiae contained in the book all come from Scripture.
The latter claim glosses over the fact that, while there are certainly a lot
of scriptural quotations in the Sentences, the bulk of the work is derived
not from the Bible, but from the writings of the Church Fathers and other
authoritiesabove all, Augustine. In Fishacres mind, however, all these different authors appear to be absorbed into the one Author, of whom they are
nothing but mouthpieces. Fishacre himself does not articulate this idea in so
many words, but one of his successors at Oxford, Robert Kilwardby, does. In
his Sentences commentary, composed around the year 1255, Kilwardby concurs with Fishacre that, although one can say that the Master compiled this
book or promulgated it, nonetheless God must be called its author.19 In elaborating on this thesis, Kilwardby posits a remarkable continuity among types
of voices whom we would nowadays take care to distinguish. When it comes
to delivering Gods Word, there does not seem to be much diffference among

18

19

Ibid., 97: Utraque fateor harum partium in sacro Scripturae sacrae canonesed indistinctecontinetur. Verumtamen tantum altera pars, scilicet de moribus instruendis, a
magistris modernis cum leguntur sancti libri docetur. Alia tamquam diffficilior disputationi reservatur. Haec autem pars diffficilior de canone sacrarum Scripturarum excerpta
in isto libro qui Sententiarum dicitur ponitur. Unde non difffert hic legere et disputare.
Robert Kilwardby, Quaestiones in primum librum Sententiarum, ed. Johannes Schneider
(Munich, 1986), qu. 1, p. 3: Licet igitur huius libri possit Magister dici compilator vel promulgator, auctor tamen esse debet dici Deus.

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Rosemann

angels, prophets, apostles, evangelists, and others inspired by God. The latter
category, Kilwardby suggests, includes Peter Lombard:
Now, angels and human beings are those who promulgate, or write, or
even compile this teaching, like the Master of the Sentences, [or] angels
like those on Mount Sinai and elsewhere in the Old Testament. About
which the Epistle to the Hebrews, 2[:2], [declares]: For if the word, spoken by angels, became steadfast, etc. The Gloss: To Moses and others
like the law. [I mean] human beings like the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and evangelists, as well as others who are inspired by God.20
The point here is: Gods overarching authorship leaves no room for other effficient causes in the realm that concerns his own Word: whether we are talking
about angelic messengers or about masters of theology in the universities, we
are dealing only with instrumental causes.
Or are we? At the very end of the ninth question of his commentary on the
prologuethe question that is devoted to the effficient causality or authorship
of the SentencesKilwardby makes a remark as though in passing: nota quoque, he writes,
note, too, that, although God is the author of the truth handed down in
the Sentences, nonetheless the Master is rightly and truly called the effficient cause of the compilation, or its author insofar as it is a compilation.
It is to be noted, therefore, that he is the principal effficient cause. But a
double charity motivates him toward this, like a disposition that assists
him (as the prologue of the book testifies), that is to say: He himself is the
effficient cause insofar as he is motivated and pushed toward this, out of
a twofold charity.21

20

21

Ibid., qu. 9, p. 22: Angeli autem et homines sunt huius doctrinae promulgatores vel scriptores vet etiam compilatores, ut Magister Sententiarum, angeli ut in Monte Sina et Veteri
Testamento alibi. De quo Hebr. 2: Si enim qui per angelos factus est sermo, factus est firmus etc. Glossa: Ad Moysem et ceteros ut lex. Homines ut patriarchae, prophetae, apostoli et evangelistae et alii a Deo inspirati.
Ibid., p. 23: Nota quoque quod licet veritatis traditae in Sententiis Deus auctor sit, compilationis tamen effficiens vel auctor secundum quod compilatio est bene et vere dicitur Magister. Ubi notandum quod ipse est effficiens principalis. Sed gemina caritas eum
movet ad hoc tamquam dispositio iuvans, sicut Prologus libri testatur, hoc est dictu: Ipse
est efffciens secundum quod motus et promotus ad hoc ex gemina caritate.

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introduction

In this passage, Kilwardby nuances his position significantly. At first, he writes

carefully, as though eager to avoid a direct contradiction with the position that
he just defended in the immediately preceding text; but then he asserts, without further hedging: ipse est effficiens principalis.
Various (speculative) explanations are possible for this surprising nota at
the end of question 9. One is that Kilwardby added the note to his text at a
later point, when his previous position had become untenablefor remember
that Bonaventure, in Paris, was already teaching that Peter Lombard was the
author and effficient cause of the Book of Sentences, not just the instrumental
conduit of Gods Word. Alternatively, it is possible that, in the main part of
the question, Kilwardby simply reports what he takes to be the opinion prevailing at Oxford, and then chooses to register his dissent in the final note.22
Whatever the case may be, in Kilwardbys note we witness something rather
dramatic: the emergence of the notion of human authorship in scholastic
theology.
It would be interesting to pursue further this investigation of the scholastic author in statu nascendi, in particular by exploring the roots of this notion
of authorship in the Christian metaphysics of the book as one sees it in Fishacre
and, in particular, Bonaventure. But such an investigation would go beyond
the scope and purposes of this introduction, whose goal is, more narrowly, to
provide a context for the chapters published in the present volume.
Several of these chapters throw light on the problem of authorship as I
have sketched it here. Franklin Harkins provides a first, fascinating example of
the complex characteristics of scholastic authorship in his contribution on the
Filia Magistri, the Daughter of the Master. The title under which the work
circulated already indicates its nature as a mere compilation23 or abbreviation of the Book of Sentences itself. There is no claim to originality here; on
the contrary, the title emphasizes filiation, dependence, and service to an
(authoritative) tradition. The Daughter first surfaced in the 1240s in the circle
of Hugh of Saint-Cher in Paris; rather than being attributable to any particular individual, its production appears to have occurred in a team.24 Indeed,

22
23
24

Alain Boureau (cole des hautes tudes en sciences sociales, Paris) suggested the second
explanation in a discussion following a lecture that I delivered at the ehess in June, 2013.
On the medieval practice of compilation, one may read the now classic piece by Neil
Hathaway, Compilatio: From Plagiarism to Compiling, Viator 20 (1989): 1944.
Alain Boureau has spoken of auteur collectif or atelier scolastique as one of the ways in
which texts were produced in the scholastic milieu of the high Middle Ages; see Peut-on
parler dauteurs scolastiques?, in Auctor & auctoritas. Invention et conformisme dans
lcriture mdivale, ed. Michel Zimmermann (Paris, 2001), 26779, at 273.

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10

Rosemann

it is misleading to characterize the Filia as a work or one work, because it

continued to evolve until the fifteenth century. We find quite diffferent Filiae
witnessed in the manuscripts, as the Book of Sentences was abridged according
to the needs of various academic communities across the centuries.
Monica Brinzei and Chris Schabel present a similar case in their chapter on
the Sentences commentary by the Viennese master Nicholas of Dinkelsbhl,
whose work was among the most widely copied Sentences commentaries in history.25 In terms of influence, it ranks only after the commentaries
of Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Scotus. But who was Nicholas of Dinkelsbhl?
He was a master who lectured on the Sentences at the University of Vienna at
the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. His method of commenting
consisted largely in compiling and abbreviating the commentaries of others.
Brinzei and Schabel demonstrate, for example, that the prologue to Nicholass
commentary is nothing more than an abridgment of Gregory of Riminis own
prologue. Indeed, the entire commentary constantly rearranges and recycles
elements from the work of Nicholass predecessorsalthough not in an unintelligent, merely mechanical manner. Rather, Nicholass choice of sources
reflects his theological preferences, as is clear from a comparative study of the
sources that he employs in the diffferent books of his commentary. In Book i,
he mostly follows the teachings of Henry of Langenstein and Henry Totting
of Oyta, two masters from Paris under whom Nicholas studied in Vienna.
Thus, Brinzei and Schabel write, his goal might have been to make the recent
Parisian theological tradition more accessible and easier to follow.26 In the
later books, however, Brinzei and Schabel note a shift to earlier, safer doctors.27
This tendency was common in the fifteenth century.28 Indeed, when he taught
at the Benedictine abbey of Melk later in life, Dinkelsbhl thoroughly revised
his commentary on Book iv in order to emphasize the communis opinio of the
great doctors, especially Bonaventure, Aquinas, and Scotus. The point now
was no longer to provide material for scholastic disputation, but to facilitate
monastic contemplation of the mystery of the sacraments as elucidated by
sound doctrine.

25

26
27
28

Monica Brinzei and Chris Schabel, The Past, Present, and Future of Late Medieval
Theology: The Commentary on the Sentences by Nicholas of Dinkelsbhl, Vienna, Ca.
1400, 261.
Ibid., 230.
Ibid., 192.
See Rosemann, Great Medieval Book, chap. 4: The Long Fifteenth Century: Back to the
Sources.

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11

But the story of Nicholas of Dinkelsbhl does not end here. Nicholass first
commentary on the Sentences, which is preserved in the ms. Vienna, Schottenstift, 269, spawned a whole maze of revisions. Brinzei and Schabel term this
group of works derived from Schotten 269 the Vienna Group commentary.
These works cannot be attributed to particular authors, but rather represent a
team efffort, a communis creatio29 that occurred at the University of Vienna
in the first half of the fifteenth century. This, then, is how the theological tradition developedat least at this particular point in this history of Sentences
commentaries: one author, who functioned more like a compiler or abbreviator, creatively rearranged materials handed down to him by his teachers. His
creativity consisted less in the production of the kind of deep synthesis of currents of thought or even diffferent traditions that we see in thinkers like Augustine or Thomas Aquinas, than in the selection, abridgment, and combination
of excerpts. This compilation subsequently served as the starting point for a
large number of similar textsfiliae, one could saywhich continued to use
the same core sources, but rearranged them while adding a certain number of
new elements.
Brinzei and Schabel are vigorous in their defense of the value of Nicholas
of Dinkelsbhls work, as well as that of his followers in the Vienna Group.
It is important not to impose a univocal, modern standard of originality on
these texts. To borrow a metaphor from Alain Boureau, even if the building
blocks that an architect or mason employs remain the same, the edifice resulting from their combination depends on how they are fitted together, and on
the kind of cement that is used to join them.30 Reliance on a relatively stable
patrimony of texts therefore does not preclude that genuine insight can arise
from a reconsideration and rearrangement of essentially identical elements.31
And while such creative reuse may at first appear less deep than the syntheses of the most original scholastic authors, not every reproduction of a
text is the same. Reuse is not plagiarism; neither is it the same as citation.32
29
30

31

32

Brinzei/Schabel, The Past, Present, and Future of Late Medieval Theology, 220.
Boureau employs this metaphor in a contribution to a volume that contains several chapters on medieval architecture; see Alain Boureau, Le remploi scolastique, in Remploi,
citation, plagiat. Conduites et pratiques mdivales (xexiie sicle), ed. Pierre Toubert and
Pierre Moret (Madrid, 2009), 4352.
As Jaroslav Pelikan writes, insight has often come through the recitation and rearrangements of materials from tradition (The Vindication of Tradition [New Haven and London,
1984], 73).
A useful distinction that Boureau makes in Le remploi scolastique (see above, note 30).
Boureau defines a citation through its emphasis on the distance between a text and
its use (52), while claiming that the intellectual (and not calligraphic) invention of

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Furthermore, reuse may involve what Jaroslav Pelikan has termed the recital
of texts, which he characterizes as a way of identifying what had not been
said, but had been assumed, in the sourcesor of what had not been said, but
had been implied.33 Such recital brings to the surface foundations of a tradition that have up to that point remained implicit and un-thought. However,
we cannot undertake a typology of textual borrowing here. It has become sufficiently clear that the adequate study of scholastic texts requires a nuanced
conceptual framework to capture the development of the scholastic concepts
of authorship and authority, as well as the variety of scholastic strategies of
composition.

Theological Education on the Ground

Historians of scholasticism have expended significant efffort on the task

of reconstructing the infrastructure of medieval education. The first edition of
Hastings Rashdalls The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages appeared in
1895,34 simultaneously with the first (and only) volume of Heinrich Denifles
Die Universitten des Mittelalters bis 1400.35 These books inaugurated the modern scholarly study of the medieval university system, which has in our own
day borne fruit in the work of scholars such as Olga Weijers and her circle
of collaborators.36 This research has affforded medievalists the opportunity of
approaching intellectual history not, as is often done in philosophy and theology departments, as though ideas existed in some abstract space of pure
intellectuality, but rather with proper attention paid to the material forms that

33
34

35

36

quotation marks occurred at the turn of the fourteenth century: The scholastic reuse
had had its day (52). The work contained in the present volume suggests that scholastic
texts were reused until at least the fifteenth century.
Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition, 75.
See Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1895); a revised edition, by F.M. Powicke and E.B. Emden, appeared in
1936, in three volumes.
See Heinrich Denifle, Die Universitten des Mittelalters bis 1400, vol. 1: Die Entstehung der
Universitten des Mittelalters bis 1400 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1895). The
first volume remained the only one Father Denifle completed.
For a synthesis of her research, one may consult Olga Weijers, Le maniement du savoir.
Pratiques intellectuelles lpoque des premires universits (xiiiexive sicles) (Turnhout,
1996). A Festschrift dedicated to Dr. Weijers was recently published under the title,
Portraits de matres offferts Olga Weijers, ed. Claire Angotti, Monica Calma, and Mariken
Teeuwen (Turnhout, 2013).

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contribute to the shape of human discourse. Such emphasis on the incarnate

nature of medieval intellectual life has also allowed medievalists to appreciate the deep roots of the great and most original authors of the period in
the cultural and institutional conditions of their time, rather than viewing
them as isolated monuments.37 In this manner, the distance between thinkers considered canonical and others regarded as minor is reduced as well, as it
becomes clear that even the intellectual creations of the most revered thinkers
frequently find expression in well-established genres, as well as being replete
with reuse, citation, and recital of traditional material.
The present volume of Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter
Lombard offfers several studies that provide insight into the way in which
teaching the Sentences shaped scholastic discourse from the ground up, as it
were. In connection with the question of authorship, we have already touched
on the set of abridgments of the Sentences that circulated under the title Filia
Magistri. The Filia Magistri is equally interesting, however, in the light that it
sheds on practices of theological education. As Franklin Harkins points out
in his chapter, the Filia Magistri was not intended to function as a university
textbook: the manuscript evidence suggests that the Filia was not used for the
professional training of the theological high-flyers at the medieval universities,
but rather for the more basic education and pastoral formation of friars, canons, and monks on the ground in various religious houses and schools across
Europe.38 It is worth noting, moreover, that the type of low or everyday
theology that the Filia exemplifies was by no means static or simplistic. The
masters who compiled the text made sure to bring it up to date by incorporating more recent theological concepts and developments. Neither was the
Filia a simplified work, or set of works, lacking theological nuance and sophistication. In studying how one version of the Filia deals with a famously difficult passage in the Book of Sentencesnamely, Peter Lombards summary
37

38

Two classic works exemplifying this approach are M.-D. Chenu, O.P., Introduction
ltude de saint Thomas dAquin (Montreal/Paris, 1950), and Jacques Guy Bougerol, O.F.M.,
Introduction saint Bonaventure (Paris, 1988). The concept of a monumental history
is, of course, Nietzschean; see Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Advantages and Disadvantages
of History for Life, trans. R.J. Hollingdale, in Untimely Meditations, ed. Daniel Breazeale
(Cambridge, England, 1997), 57123, at 68: That the great moments in the struggle of the
human individual constitute a chain, that this chain unites mankind across the millennia like a range of human mountain peaks, that the summit of such a long-ago moment
shall be for me still living, bright and greatthat is the fundamental idea of the faith in
humanity which finds expression in the demand for a monumental history.
Franklin T. Harkins, Filiae Magistri: Peter Lombards Sentences and Medieval Theological
Education On the Ground, 345.

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and discussion of three sententiae regarding the union of God and man in the
Incarnation39Harkins concludes that this authorless compilation conveys
the Lombards position with more attention to detail than Thomas Aquinas
does in the Summa! Perhaps, then, Harkins suggests, the distance between
high and low theology was far less in the scholastic period than it is tempting to assume: Our comparative analysis suggests that Filiae and formal commentaries or other synthetic works are separated by a much smaller theological
distance than scholars have previously imagined.40
Other contributors to this volume make similar points about the value
of research into the reception of the Book of Sentences in everyday theological practice. Studying the multiple revisions of Nicholas of Dinkelsbhls
Sentences commentary by the Vienna Group helps us understand the way in
which theology was practiced and taught at the University of Vienna in the
first half of the fifteenth century. Even if none of the theologians working in
the Vienna Group were mountain peaks in the landscape of intellectual history, the simple acts of citing or not citing a text in a compilation, or of rearranging the order of familiar material, may produce significant efffects. Brinzei
and Schabel argue that this is precisely what happened in the foregrounding
of Gregory of Riminis doctrine of double predestination in the Viennese commentaries: these commentaries paved the way for a conception of predestination that was to come to full fruition in the Reformation.41 On the other
hand, even explicit theological restraintthe efffort to limit oneself to quod
recitant communiter doctorescan be a powerful intellectual agenda, as it is in
Nicholas of Dinkelsbhls Lectura Mellicensis, the version of his commentary on Book iv that he prepared for instruction of the Benedictine monks at
Melk.42 This derivative, conservative, and irenic work, which prefers inofffensive consensus to theological innovation and progress, was among the most
widely copied Sentences commentaries in history, perhaps even the most popular commentary on any one book,43 thus exerting inestimable influence on
the tradition as a whole.
Not all fifteenth-century Sentences commentators employed a method
of compilation to compose their commentaries. In his chapter on three of
the most influential Franciscan commentators who were active in Paris in
39
40
41
42
43

See Peter Lombard, Sentences, iii, dist. 6 and 7 (2: 4966).

Harkins, Filiae Magistri, 78.
See Brinzei and Schabel, The Past, Present, and Future of Late Medieval Theology, esp.
175 and 263.
See ibid., section 9: Stage Three: The Lectura Mellicensis, 25062.
Ibid., 261.

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the fifteenth centurynamely, William of Vaurouillon, Nicholas of Orbellis,

and Stephen BruleferUeli Zahnd demonstrates that these authors did not
practice the type of lectura secundum alium or bricolage textuel that Brinzei/
Schabel found in their Viennese colleagues.44 The Paris commentators did
share with the Viennese ones an emphasis on the need to create pedagogically useful works, after the fourteenth century had seen the rise of increasingly technical and complex, but at the same time incomplete commentaries.45
The Parisian Franciscans were not willing to sacrifice theological accessibility,
reliability, and comprehensiveness to the undisciplined focus on a few issues,
judged to be most interesting by a master who devotes enormous space to their
discussion while neglecting other topics. This more didactic approach, in turn,
entailed the recovery of older and doctrinally less controversial sources. In a
way, then, we are dealing with a return to the original intent of the Book of
Sentences itself, which was not meant to present breathtakingly novel theological insights, but to transmit traditional truths in an accessible manner.
But were the fourteenth-century commentaries not also products of teaching
in an academic environment? Zahnd explains: there is an undeniable diffference between these fifteenth-century commentaries and the commentaries
preceding them: although in those earlier commentaries the authors were
theologizing in the context of a university or a studium, the fifteenth-century
authors aimed not so much to theologize in a pedagogical environment, as to
prepare theological content pedagogically.46 In other words, the fifteenth century emphasized the needs of theological education on the ground over the
possible fruitfulness of advancing the understanding of controversial issues.
John Slotemaker provides an instructive example of the interaction of high
and low theology in his examination of Henry of Gorkums Conclusiones in iv
libros Sententiarum. These conclusions,47 which Henry composed in the early
fifteenth century at the University of Cologne, fall into the literary genre of the
many study aids that were created throughout the centuries to help students
grasp the basic content of the Book of Sentences. This late scholastic precursor of our modern-day SparkNotes presents each distinction in a brief text of

44

45
46
47

For the origins of these terms, see Ueli Zahnd, Easy-Going Scholars Lecturing Secundum
Alium? Notes on Some French Franciscan Sentences Commentaries of the Fifteenth
Century, 2689.
See Rosemann, Great Medieval Book, chap. 3: The Fourteenth Century: The Movement
away from the Sentences.
Zahnd, Easy-Going Scholars Lecturing Secundum Alium?, 31213.
For the late scholastic use of the word conclusio, see Rosemann, Great Medieval Book,
index s.v. conclusion.

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600 to 900 words. These overviews invariably have the same structure, leading
the student from a first, general summary through two sets of three propositions (which Slotemaker calls propositiones generales and propositiones speciales) to a more detailed understanding of Peter Lombards meaning. Slotemaker
notes that, although Henry of Gorkum was a Thomist and hence defender of
the via antiqua, he is careful not to project contemporary theological disputes
into the Sentences.
Henrys Conclusiones proved to be a popular text, frequently appearing alongside the Sentences themselves in printings of the late fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries. Many contemporary readers of the Sentences thus
approached the work through Henry of Gorkums summaries, with their structure of two times three propositiones. Most of these readers have left no trace
of their impressions, of the way in which their reading of the great textbook
was shaped by Henrys humble abridgment. One user of the Conclusiones,
however, is well known: when the future Reformer Martin Luther lectured on
the Sentences at Erfurt, in the years between 1509 and 1511, he based himself
on an edition that left Nicholas Kelers Basel printing-house in 1489and
this edition presented the Sentences accompanied by Henry of Gorkums study
tool.48 As Slotemaker points out, there are no explicit references to Henry of
Gorkum in Luthers marginal comments on Peter Lombard; yet this does not
mean that Luther did not consult and profit from the Conclusiones. For, Luther
has a curious habit of summarizing distinctions always in three parts. Closer
analysis shows the provenance of these tripartite divisions:
What is interesting for the present argument is that Luther did not
merely divide the individual distinctions into three propositions, but
often adopted Gorkums textual divisions of the individual distinctions
as developed in the propositiones generales. Thus, while Luther did not
explicitly engage with the theological statements in the Conclusiones, the
work exerted a strong influence on how Luther understood the Sentences
themselves.49
Right here, in the influence of a simple study tool upon the young Luthers early
intellectual career, we can see the interplay of high and low theology
of epoch-making theological insight and basic pedagogical practices
impressively exemplified.

48
49

See Rosemann, Great Medieval Book, 17183.

John Slotemaker, Henry of Gorkums Conclusiones in iv libros Sententiarum, 1723.

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Claire Angottis chapter is devoted to another aspect of the study of the

Book of Sentences on the ground: namely, the function that criticism and
censure exercised in the reading of Peter Lombard. Many modern students of
the tradition of the Sentences are familiar with the list of eight propositions
that Bonaventure cites in Book ii of his commentary as being not commonly
held (communiter non tenentur).50 According to Angotti, Bonaventures list
or rather, lists, as a second one appears at the very end of Book iiinspired
other effforts to indicate, in manuscripts of the Sentences, which aspects of
Peter Lombards teaching were not in accordance with the communis opinio
of the masters. Angotti closely analyzes one coherent corpus of manuscripts
which feature such indications, namely, the copies of the Book of Sentences
that were owned by the lending library of the Sorbonne. Among the forty copies that have survived, nine contain lists of propositions not commonly held.
As Angotti explains, these lists by no means enjoyed the status of offficial condemnations. The consensus of the masters regarding the problematic nature
of some of Peter Lombards teachings rendered the latter minus probabiles, but
this judgment remained subject to criticism and further examination.51 One
of the lists preserved in the Sorbonne library introduces a distinction which
highlights the tentative character of the masters judgment: it is a distinction
between propositions of the Master that are contrary to the communis opinio,
and others that are diffficult to explain. Furthermore, the most controversial of
teachings attributed to Peter Lombard, and the only one that was, in fact, offficially censured, does not even figure in the lists, which give no hint that Pope
Alexander iii twice condemned the so-called Christological nihilianism.52
What, then, was the function of these lists? Angotti writes:
It seems possible to me to say that the point, for the masters, was to
update the Lombards text and to lead the reader of the Sentences
to remain attentive to the Masters wordsto sift through the latter with
the help of more recent texts. The lists thus cause their users to read the
Sentences in an active, dynamic way.53

50
51
52
53

For a brief discussion, see Rosemann, Great Medieval Book, 702.

See Claire Angotti, Les listes des opiniones Magistri Sententiarum quae communiter non
tenentur: forme et usage dans la lectio des Sentences, 92.
On the question of Christological nihilianism, and whether Peter Lombard even held this
position, see Rosemann, Peter Lombard, chap. 6.
Angotti, Les listes des opiniones Magistri Sententiarum quae communiter non tenentur,
109.

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What Angotti suggests, then, is that the lists of propositions did not suppress
critical discourse, as one might expect, but rather incited it. The strange dialectic of prohibition and transgression is well known; St. Paul talks about it
in Romans 7, just as Foucault does when he describes the perpetual spirals
of power and pleasure in the History of Sexuality.54 It appears that Angottis
lists may well have given rise to such a dialectic: the fact that a proposition was
marked as non tenetur caused readers not only to study the passage in question particularly carefully, but to engage in a chase for other occurrences of the
same position judged problematic.55

The Dynamic Role of the Sentences in Later Medieval Theology

Many of the chapters published in this book contribute to a better understanding of the role that the Book of Sentences and the Sentences commentary played
in later medieval theology, in particular in the fifteenth century and beyond.
When I wrote the concluding summary for the preceding volume of Mediaeval
Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, I had to state with regret
that this volume did not contain a single chapter on this fascinating period of
harvest and waning.56 We are beginning to see this major lacuna being filled.
I am not going to return to the contributions by Brinzei/Schabel, Slotemaker,
and Zahnd, the principal findings of which we have already had an opportunity to consider in the previous sections. They, too, of course constitute major
steps in writing the story of the Book of Sentences in the fifteenth century. Let us
here focus on three chapters that are devoted, respectively, to the tradition of
the Sentences at pre-Reformation Erfurt, to John Mairs early sixteenth-century
Sentences commentary, and to the reception of the Sentences in sixteenthcentury Spain and Portugal.
Studying a series of Sentences commentaries composed at Erfurt in the fifteenth century, Severin Kitanov finds that these authors have in common a
deliberate return to Peter Lombards text. This movement toward a recovery
of the Masters voice finds expression in a composite form of commentary
which begins with a literal exposition of each of the Lombards distinctions
before moving on to a quaestio disputata. Behind the attention affforded to
54
55
56

Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley
(New York, 1978), 45.
See Angotti, Les listes des opiniones Magistri Sententiarum quae communiter non tenentur, 120.
Philipp W. Rosemann, Conclusion: The Tradition of the Sentences, in Mediaeval
Commentaries, vol. 2, 495523, at 519.

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the Sentences themselves, Kitanov sees a sense of nostalgia for the past of a
systematic theology saturated by the living word of Scripture and the Church
Fathersan almost Reformation-like desire to recover a more authentic core
of the Christian tradition,57 free of the doctrinal disputes of later scholasticism.
The Erfurt commentaries implement their shared goals through an astonishing variety of approaches, a diversity that testifies to the vitality of the genre. In
the one commentary that has come down to us by a member of Luthers order
of Augustinian Hermits, Angelus Dobelinus, Kitanov finds a wide-ranging
treatment of the test question he examines, namely, the problem of beatific
enjoyment and Augustines famous distinction between uti and frui; indeed,
Kitanov speaks of the breathtaking scope of Dobelinuss treatment.58 The
positions that Dobelinus embraces are largely those of Hugolino of Orvieto,
whose Sentences commentary Dobelinus tends to follow closely. Hugolino,
then, appears to have functioned as an important conduit of Augustinian
theology to the new University of Erfurt (whose first theology professor
Dobelinus was).
The largest number of Sentences commentaries at Erfurt were the work of
Franciscan authors. Kitanov acquaints us with four of them: John of Erfurt,
Matthew Dring, John Bremer, and Nicholas Lakmann. He finds that Drings
commentary is written from a largely Scotist point of view, which is not to
say that he copied the Subtle Doctor in a slavish and unoriginal manner. On
the contrary, [w]e are dealing with lectures that are not characterized by
expository lassitude and scholarly detachment, but which have a mode of exposition that is dramatic and sufffused with the unique qualities of the authors
temperament.59 Bremers and Lakmanns approaches are diffferent: rather than
aligning themselves with a particular thinker and offfering a spirited defense
of his position, they endeavor to bring out the unity of the Franciscan tradition, with Bonaventure occupying a privileged position in their commentaries,
in addition to Scotus and other representatives of the Franciscan school. In
Bremers commentary, in particular, Kitanov detects a certain weariness with
regard to doctrinal disputes, together with a didactic orientation whichhe
surmisesmay well be due to the fact that Bremer presented his explanation
to an audience of Franciscan confrres at the orders studium, rather than to
theologically more sophisticated and demanding university students.
Kitanov finds this reluctance regarding doctrinal dispute even more clearly
evidenced in the Sentences commentary by one of Erfurts secular priests, John
57
58
59

Severin V. Kitanov, The Concept of Beatific Enjoyment (Fruitio Beatifica) in the Sentences
Commentaries of Some Pre-Reformation Erfurt Theologians, 367.
Ibid., 337.
Ibid., 347.

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of Wesel. Wesels conciliatory attitude is so strongly developed that it becomes

diffficult to determine where his doctrinal allegiances lie at all! And yet, we are
not dealing with a tired, wishy-washy approach to theology: indeed, Kitanov
marvels at Wesels magnificent stylistic elegance and didactic brilliance.60
This author belongs to a period of harvest, not decay and decline.61
A contemporary of Erasmus and Martin Luther, John Mair wrote at a time
of religious and social upheavaland at the time of the transition from the
manuscript to the printed page. (His Sentences commentary, the final redaction of which he published in Paris in 1530, is no longer extant in manuscript
form.) As Severin Kitanov, John Slotemaker, and Jefffrey Witt demonstrate in
their contribution on this early sixteenth-century Scottish thinker, amidst
the uncertainties of his age, Mair finds a foothold in the tradition, just as his
fifteenth-century predecessors did. However, unlike many of the Sentences
commentators of the fifteenth century, Mair does not regard the thirteenth
century as the golden age of scholasticism; the renaissance that he promotes
vigorously, both in Paris and in his native Scotland, involves a dialogue with the
likes of Gregory of Rimini, Ockham, Pierre dAilly, Adam Wodeham, and the
Scotistae. Mairs commentary, then, is a testimony to the fruitfulness and vitality of fourteenth-century scholasticism.62 Kitanov/Slotemaker/Witt note that
Mair does not identify within the body of the text the authors whom he cites
most frequently (although he adds marginal notes with their names in the first
redaction of Book Ivery helpful in identifying his most important sources,
at least in a provisional manner). Mair chooses this literary device in order
to suggest that these authorities remain subject to evaluation and discussion:
a dialogue is what he is interested in, not facile copying. Mair acknowledges by
name only authorities from a more distant past, that is to say, thinkers such as
Aristotle, Augustine, and Averros.
Part of Kitanov/Slotemaker/Witts chapter is devoted to the task of distinguishing the numerous redactions and printings that appeared, during their
authors lifetime, of Mairs commentaries on the four books of the Sentences.
Book ii, for example, was printed first in 1510, then republished in an expanded
edition in 1519, and again appeared in another redaction (closer to the first
one) in 1530. Mair, then, kept reworking his Sentences commentaries over a
period of twenty years during which he taught variously in Paris, Glasgow, and
at St. Andrews. The genre, then, was far from exhausted, remaining a viable
60
61
62

Ibid., 359.
Ibid., 366.
Severin Kitanov, John Slotemaker, and Jefffrey Witt, John Majors (Mairs) Commentary
on the Sentences of Peter Lombard: Scholastic Philosophy and Theology in the Early
Sixteenth Century, 370.

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means of theological expression even during the Reformation. When Mair

realized, for example, that his students were much more interested in the
practical questions of Book iv than in the speculative questions of Book i,63
he added lengthy discussions on questions of contemporary relevance, such as
a treatment of property rights in distinction 15.
In 1530, Mair noted with regret that after Luthers heresy, students of theology tended to abandon the study of the great theologians of the past, focusing
instead on the Bible. He was aware, as well, of humanist criticisms of the scholastic method and languagecriticisms that he did not share, but to which
he found it diffficult to respond. In sum, Kitanov/Slotemaker/Witt characterize Mair as a transitional figure in the history of Western philosophical theology: Mair is a theologian who identified very strongly with the great tradition
of Latin scholasticism, realized that times were changing, but did not fully
embrace or share the spirit of novelty.64
Lidia Lanza and Marco Tostes chapter on The Sentences in SixteenthCentury Iberian Scholasticism takes us into the largely uncharted territory of
the post-Reformation period in the Lombards Wirkungsgeschichte. In a veritable tour de force, Lanza and Toste introduce us to some of the most significant
theologians at the major universities in Spain and in Portugal, while sketching an outline of the pedagogical and institutional structures that governed
theological teaching at these universities. For instance, we learn of the existence of major and minor chairs of theology, which were devoted to specific
authorswhich does not mean that the holders of the chairs always respected
these designations. It was not uncommon for a theologian holding one chair
(say, the Scotus chair) to be lecturing on another author, such as Durand of
Saint-Pourain.
The general picture that emerges from Lanza and Tostes groundbreaking
study of dozens of theologians at numerous Iberian universities is this:
from being the standard text which was read and commented on in the
faculties of theology, the Sentences disappeared from the major chairs
(being superseded by the Summa) and in the minor chairs were replaced
by medieval commentaries (by Gabriel Biel, John Duns Scotus, and
Durand of Saint-Pourain). The classes were no longer devoted to reading
the Sentences, but to lecturing on a Sentences commentary.65

63
64
65

Ibid., 383.
Ibid., 415.
Lidia Lanza and Marco Toste, The Sentences in Sixteenth-Century Iberian Scholasticism,
434.

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Lanza and Toste speak of supercommentaries to designate the latter phenomenon. As the Book of Sentences was felt to have fallen out of date, yet the
centuries-old tradition of lecturing on Peter Lombard was still deeply rooted
in the theology faculties, the logical solution was to move from studying the
Lombard himself to expounding his more recent commentators. Moreover,
lectures in the form of supercommentaries allowed instructors to remain
within the doctrinal parameters of their preferred schools. Thus, for example, a
Franciscan could lecture on Bonaventures or Scotuss Sentences commentary.
Interestingly, as Lanza and Toste note, Dominicans appointed to the Durand
chair often opted to read Aquinas instead, due to the greater prestige that the
Angelic Doctors theology enjoyed.
The adherence that university statutes still required to lecturing on the
Sentences or at least on a commentary on the Sentences, combined with
the ever-increasing status of Aquinass Summa as the principal basis for theological instruction, gave rise to some interesting hybrid literary genres, such
as commentaries on the Summa presented according to the order of the Book
of Sentences, or commentaries on the Summa containing sections devoted
to Peter Lombard. As a general rule, however, Lanza and Tostes research has
found that neither the commentaries on the Sentences nor the supercommentaries offfer literal explorations of the doctrines contained in their base
texts; rather, following the order of these base texts, the commentaries develop
questions on the subjects suggested by them. Toward the end of the period
under investigation, however, even the supercommentaries begin to fall out
of favor. Thus, for example, Francisco Carreiro, a theology master teaching at
Coimbra at the turn of the seventeenth century, uses Scotuss and Biels commentaries to construct short treatises of his own which are not based on their
commentaries.66
The movement away from the tradition of Sentences commentaries appears
to be an undeniable fact, then, but it was slow. Toward the end of their chapter,
Lanza and Toste point to the case of the newly founded colonial university of
Mexico City, which in its statutes from 1668 still stipulated that the Sentences
serve as the text for the theology examinations. Moreover, in the Prime and
Vespers chairs the professors were expected to teach the Sentences, albeit
according to the order of the Summa, which in practice meant lecturing on
the Summa but presenting Peter Lombards theses at the beginning of each
questiontogether with the manner in which they are commonly held to
be certain or uncertain (en que se tienen comnmente por ciertas inciertas).67
66
67

Ibid., 485.
Ibid., 494 n. 275.

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introduction

The latter phrase is remarkable in that it echoes, over several centuries, the
Parisian lists of opiniones Magistri Sententiarum quae communiter non tenentur, the subject matter of Claire Angottis piece in this volume.
A final remark on the fading of the tradition of the Sentences: it seems worth
pointing out that the supersession of the Book of Sentences, and of commentaries on the latter, by the Summa theologiae is not tantamount to the replacement of one genre of theological writing with another completely unrelated
one. The Summa is Thomas Aquinass revision of his own commentary on the
Book of Sentencesa thorough revision, doubtless, but a revision nonetheless.68 Thus, even though references to the Magister are few and far between in
the Summa, Aquinass magnum opus still largely follows the structure of Peter
Lombards work, from the consideration of the nature of the theological enterprise in the first pages of Book i (corresponding to the Prima Pars) to the study
of the sacraments and Last Things in Book iv (corresponding to the second
half of Aquinass Tertia Pars). Not surprisingly, therefore, it was relatively easy
for Thomass disciples to complete the Summa, left unfinished after question
90 of the Tertia Pars, by means of relevant sections from the Angelic Doctors
Sentences commentary. The precise relationship between Thomass Sentences
commentary and the Summa has not yet been fully explored, despite the flourishing of Thomistic scholarship in the past 150 years, and would be a worthwhile topic for further research.

Reflection on the Book of Sentences began when Peter Lombard taught the material it contains at the cathedral school of Notre-Dame de Paris in the middle of
the twelfth century. The tradition that thus started, some 850 years ago, on the
le de la Cit has continued until the present day. Was it ever truly interrupted,
in the sense that the Sentences no longer influenced theological teaching and
reflection at all? This is a question for further research. What this volume has
shown is that commentaries on the Book of Sentences, as well as commentaries on these commentaries, were written well into the age of the printing
press. But how is the tradition of the Sentences going to fare in the digital age?
This question Jefffrey Witt appropriately addresses in the final contribution
to this volume.
68

An important step between Aquinass Sentences commentary and the Summa is the revision of the former that he undertook while teaching in Rome in 12651266; on this socalled Lectura romana, see John F. Boyle, Thomas Aquinas and His Lectura romana in
primum Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, in Mediaeval Commentaries, vol. 2, 14973.

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Rosemann

Witt draws on the experience he has gained in the ongoing project of

realizing an online edition of Peter of Plaouls Sentences commentary (http://
petrusplaoul.org). Unlike some recent critics of digital publication, such as
Nicholas Carr, who argues that it encourages shallow reading, Witt believes
that the digital edition of medieval texts holds valuable opportunities.69 To
begin with, in an age in which the audience for medieval Sentences commentaries is limited, online publication makes it possible to bring to light texts
whose edition most traditional publishing houses would be unwilling to take
on. The principle of publishing material early and often, whose virtues Witt
strongly emphasizes, encourages extensive collaboration from the earliest
stages of a project to its completionalthough a digital edition may never be
truly complete (just as medieval readers never stopped annotating the manuscripts that they studied, or as modern-day library books keep being defaced
by users with their pencils, pens, and highlighters). Again, there is a crucial
diffference between the shift from the manuscript to the printed page, and
from the printed page to the screen: whereas the printing press simply supplanted the manuscript culture that preceded it, the digital medium
allows for the preservation of previous media andeven more powerfullythe interweaving of these old forms of media within the larger
framework. Thus, one can present not only the text, but also the history of
its mediation: both its original mediation and its historical re-mediations,
even as the digital medium re-mediates the text anew. Thus, instead of
exchanging the new for the old, this new digital medium simultaneously
gives us increased, though not total, access to the old.70
Witt envisages the creation of digital editions in which simple mouse clicks
reveal multiple layers of mediation for any given passage, from images of manuscript witnesses to modern transcriptions. Cross-references will no longer
require the reader to flip pages or even consult a diffferent book (from a different library, in a diffferent city!), as the relevant texts can be linked directly
to particular words or phrases. In this manner, Witt believes, deep reading
will be encouraged, due to the greater ease with which it will be possible to
compare texts.

69
70

See Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (New York, 2010).
Jefffrey C. Witt, Texts, Media, and Re-Mediation: The Digital Future of the Sentences
Commentary Tradition, 50506.

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25

The considerable promise that digital editions hold does, however, require
more than the mechanical scanning that forms the basis for so many online
projectsGoogle Books, for example. Witt writes:
I cannot stress enough the importance of semantic encoding. It is the
backbone of an efffective digital edition. It is what makes possible diffferent visualizations of the same text, efffortless construction of indices, and
robust text searches. Perhaps more important than any of this is that it
allows for the text to be used in ways that were not envisioned at the time
of its creation: analysis of large corpus sets, aggregated from several editions, is one such example.71
Semantic encoding means that every significant word of a digitally edited
text must be accompanied by metadata which allow it to be linked to other
words, passages, ormore generallydigital resources. A reference to a passage from the Book of Sentences in a later commentary will appear at a click
of the mouse only if the relevant word or phrase in that commentary has previously been linked, through semantic encoding, to the referenced text. The
biographical data of a cited authority will be accessible immediately only if
the name of that authority was properly encoded. And so forthin other
words, digital editions, for all their novelty and promise, require precisely the
type of scholarly work that learned and curious readers of Peter Lombards
Book of Sentences have been practicing for many centuries.

71

Ibid., 511.

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