Students, masters, and ‘heterodox’ doctrines at the Parisian Faculty of Arts in the 1270s

Abstract

A few years ago, Malcolm de Mowbray argued that nearly everything that had been written concerning the origins of the condemnation issued on March 7, 1277 by the bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier, was based on the unproven assumption that what motivated the condemnation were provocative doctrines taught by university (especially Arts) masters; in contrast, de Mowbray maintained that the sources of the prohibited views were not the Arts masters, but students who uttered them in the course of «their disputations». The present article discusses the historiographical and methodological background of de Mowbray's interpretation, provides evidence of the involvement of full-fledged masters in the dissemination of the prohibited doctrines, and examines the meaning of some controversial expressions and passages found in Tempier's prefatory letter (specifically: studentes in artibus, quasi dubitabiles in scolis tractare et disputare presumunt, ut eis nesciant respondere).