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Inquiry and Inquisition: Academic Freedom in Medieval Universities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

William J. Courtenay
Affiliation:
Mr. Courtenay is D. H. Haskins Professor of History inthe University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. This is his presidential address delivered at the annual metting of the American Society of Church History, 29 December 1988.

Extract

The year 1988 marks not only the centennial of the American Society of Church History, it is also the anniversary of two important works dealing with the theme of religious toleration and freedom of ideas. One is the fiftieth anniversary of G. G. Coulton's Inquisition and Liberty. The other is Henry Charles Lea's History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, published in three volumes early in 1888. Coulton's work became a model for many that followed: a highly readable, consciously engaging narrative outlining the main features of one of the darker chapters of medieval church history. It covered the development of religious nonconformity, the church's response, especially through the creation and operation of the Inquistion, and the principal victims of the Inquisition: the Albigensians, Waldensians, Spiritual Franciscans, and those accused of witchcraft. Lea's earlier treatment covered those themes in a far more extensive way, and he also included, unlike Coulton, a final chapter on the problem of religious orthodoxy in the schools as viewed from the standpoint of the Inquisition. Lea, in fact, is one of the few authors writing on heresy and inquisition who attempted to place the cases of questioned orthodoxy and freedom of thought in medieval schools and universities in this larger context. Although he did not pursue the topic in any depth, Lea was aware that the character of theological study and the proper training of an educated priesthood were linked to the issue of religious orthodoxy in the schools and the threat of heresy among those charged with the preservation and dissemination of truth.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1989

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References

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19. Eugenius III and Alexander III; see note 8 above.

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26. In the list of new Parisian articles used by Hugolino of Orvieto at Bologna in 1364 and recorded in CUP, 2:610–614, items 4,6–8, 30,32, 39–42,44, and 49 are not from Mirecourt or other known lists of articles condemned between 1340 and 1364.

27. CUP, 2:587, 622–623, 3:114, 121.

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31. CUP, 3:108–109, 193–194.

32. It was Autrecourt's magisterial status that was removed in arts and denied in theology. He was allowed to retain his licentiate in theology.

33. The language of “ill-sounding” and “offensive to pious ears” reveals the concern over the effect of these statements on younger members of the university community or on those outside the university.

34. In a revealing passage Jean Gerson, former chancellor of the University of Paris, admitted that many of the articles of Wyclif and Hus condmned at Constance “could have been defended by the power of logic or grammar,” but were rightly condemned; see Shank, Michael, “Unless You Believe, You Shall Not Understand”: Logic, University, and Society in Late Medieval Vienna (Princeton, 1988), pp. 179180.Google Scholar