Monica Brinzei

L’article examine la vie et la doctrine du Catalan Francesc Cristòfol de Tortosa, chanoine régulier de Saint Augustin au chapitre de la cathédrale de Tortosa, prieur du Collège de la Sorbonne et bachelier des Sentences à Paris en 1369-1370. Bien qu’aucun texte de Cristòfol ne nous soit parvenu, nous reconstituons son parcours et sa pensée à travers la correspondance papale et les citations d’Étienne Gaudet, Jean Régis et Jacques d’Eltville. Ces sources permettent de cerner ses positions sur la vision béatifique et le rôle des species dans l’acquisition de la connaissance de Dieu. Une annexe présente une édition des passages du manuscrit Paris, BnF, lat. 15156.

English/French/Latin contributions.00Written 'Principia' on the Sentences of Peter Lombard constitute a largely unexplored but exciting genre that corresponds to a complex exercise imposed by the statutes of medieval universities throughout Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries. Although almost completely neglected by modern scholarship, the academic practice of 'Principia' was successful, long-lived, and widespread in the late Middle Ages. It required candidates for the title of doctor to begin their defense with a public debate in which they had to reveal their scientific interests, display their erudition, and demonstrate their intellectual prowess in the presence of a large audience. Before and during their 'Principia' lectures, each candidate for the doctoral degree chose a topic that would exhibit his knowledge and innovation. Through debate with his colleagues in front of the staff and students of the faculty of theology and other members of the university or reputable persons (in Vienna the chancellor and the duke could participate in the debate and in Heidelberg the stuff of all the faculties from the body of the university), the candidate was expected to employ new methods and explore new paths. In most cases the discussion exceeded the confines of theology strictly speaking and allowed the candidates to indulge their interdisciplinary interests, since the debaters (the authors) combined science, mathematics, ethics, politics, astrology, literature, and so on in their polemics. Thus 'Principia' or principial debates represent the cutting edge method to promote research in late-medieval universities. This volume aims to open a vast and advanced area of investigation by focusing on the 'principia' practice that linked together medieval universities from different geographical and cultural contexts: Bologna, Cracow, Florence, Heidelberg, Oxford, Paris, Prague, Vienna.

Innovation in medieval studies is the creative ability to go back to sources. Digging, exploring, and connecting material pieces of evidence, facts, and individuals uncover new knowledge. One of the most significant sources for the medieval textual production is the university. Understanding the writings stemming from different faculties of medieval universities requires skills, curiosity, and tools. Among such instruments, the statutes of universities help researchers not only to decipher the organization of the academic institutions and interpret the rules that apply to scholars and to their professors, but also to decode how and why texts were produced. The faculty of theology represents the highest level where education led during the Middle Ages and delivers the highest degree such as the master in theology. All over Europe, such faculties become the impetus that drives the intelligentsia to produce a textual heritage that today generates inspiration for magisterial carriers. Among them, Professor Maarten Hoenen is one to praise today. Taking as a point of departure a recent publication of Maarten Hoenen, 1 I will propose to investigate the relation between the statute of universities and of intellectual practices within medieval academia-more precisely, how a researcher should dig for complementary sources when the main documentation depicting an intellectual practice, such as the protestatio and gratiarum actio, is missing. I do not intend to be exhaustive, but simply to focus on how we should understand these two actions, protestatio and gratiarum actio, in connection with the Sentences commentaries. 2 The paradox is that we have traces of these two practices in the surviving manuscripts stemming from the university, but we do not always have a description of these actions in their statutes. Protestatio represents an oath that bachelors take at the beginning of an academic exercise, and the gratiarum actio is the final paragraph that closes the same exercise by thanks addressed to the public. The span of time I will focus on is between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, since this is the period from which some testimonies survived that today help to better clarify how these actions were performed in medieval academia. It is also the period of naissance of the new faculties of theology all around Europe, as it is the case with Bologna, Vienna, Cracow, or Prague. They all embraced the model disseminated in Paris and Oxford on reading on the Sentences of Peter Lombard to obtain the degree of doctor in theology, and they contribute to building tradition, and therefore to produce sources for us today.

Au f. 266r du manuscrit Vienne, ÖNB, 4497 un large colophon témoigne d’un épisode dramatique concernant une vague épidémique d’une violence particulière qui a eu un impact conséquent sur les activités de l’Universite de Vienne. Johannes Grössel, l’auteur de cette note, raconte comment en 1436 les cours ont été suspendus, les étudiants renvoyés chez eux, et qu’en une seule journée 70 étudiants et professeurs ont péri à cause de la peste. Le jeune étudiant Grössel a dû suspendre sa lecture des Sentences et déplorer la perte de trois de ses magistères illustres : Petrus Richter de Pirchenwart, Conradus de Herbst, Urbanus de Mellico et Johannes Straddler. L’article propose en annexe une transcription de ce colophon ainsi qu’une image de l’ecriture autographe de Johannes Grössel.

Cet article propose d’identifier le fragment anonyme du manuscrit Basel, UB, A.X.24, ff. 1‑73v avec les questionnes sur les Sentences de Nicholas Aston, connu grâce aux travaux pionniers de Zenon Kaluza. Une analyse des détails techniques de ce texte permet également d’avancer l’hypothèse que les Articuli d’Aston peuvent être lus comme des traces des principia. En annexe, nous éditons la liste des questions du manuscrit Basel, UB, A.X.24, ainsi qu’une concordance entre ce manuscrit et les autres témoins manuscrits d’Aston, afin de démontrer que ce nouveau témoin contient la tradition la plus complète du texte d’Aston.

The Cistercian Humbert de Preuilly played an important role as an early intellectual guide for the members of his Order. He delivered his lectures on the Sentences at Paris around 1290, from which we have the first Cistercian commentary on the Sentences in the form of Conclusiones that summarize the views of Giles of Rome in Book I and of Thomas Aquinas in Books II-IV. Preserved in some 46 manuscripts, Humbert's Conclusiones super librum Sententiarum clearly served as an introduction to systematic theology for the White Monks. This article presents a new catalogue of manuscripts, a transcription of the Prologue and the tabula questionum.

A team of young scholars from the University of Babes-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, has received funding to edit Book I of the commentary on the Sentences by the Cistercian Iacobus de Altavilla, or James of Eltville, who is attested as lecturing on the Sentences at Paris in 1369. The project has made it possible to correct Friedrich Stegmüller's findings, removing from his list several wrongly attributed manuscripts and adding to the list a number of authentic copies or fragments. The present article provides an inventory with short descriptions of the twenty-one manuscripts that preserve the whole or parts of James of Eltville's commentary, and presents new information about the manuscript tradition based on the preliminary results of the Romanian project.