Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Part I John Moorman and His Franciscan Studies
- Part II The Order of Friars Minor in England
- Part III The Friars and the Schools
- Appendix: The Moorman Letters in the Archive of the Collegio San Bonaventura (Quaracchi/Grottaferrata/Rome)
- Index
12 - The Paradox of Franciscan use of Canon Law in the Fourteenth-Century Poverty Disputes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Part I John Moorman and His Franciscan Studies
- Part II The Order of Friars Minor in England
- Part III The Friars and the Schools
- Appendix: The Moorman Letters in the Archive of the Collegio San Bonaventura (Quaracchi/Grottaferrata/Rome)
- Index
Summary
Abstract
The friars’ disputes at the court of Pope John XXII at Avignon are well known, as is the impact of a series of papal rulings concerning the theological basis and character of evangelical poverty. The writings of William of Ockham and some lesser-known friars are frequently invoked in connection with these disputes. While John XXII undermined traditional Franciscan teaching about the use of material possessions, the friars were required to respond from a firm canonical basis. Dr Canning brings his knowledge of the world of canon law to this dispute, and turns the spotlight on the arsenal of texts pertaining to this discipline. The result is a fresh perspective on how the friars assembled and deployed canonical materials. The friars appealed to a pre-lapsarian world which predated the existence of private property. One of the leading figures in the friars’ ranks was Bonagratia of Bergamo, whose canonical writings are evaluated within these polemical exchanges.
Keywords: Avignon, Bonagratia of Bergamo, canon law, John XXII, William of Ockham
The disputes over poverty within the Franciscan order in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and the ensuing conflicts with Popes John XXII and Benedict XII on this issue were some of the most well-known episodes in Franciscan history, and have stimulated a vast scholarly literature. John Moorman himself in his A History of the Franciscan Order from its Origins to the Year 1517 of necessity had to give an outline treatment of these disputes. The question of poverty and property was an enduring problem for Christianity given the deep suspicion of riches exhibited by the New Testament: in the medieval Church there was tension between the demands of the poverty ethos and ecclesiastical possessions. The memory of the community of possessions referred to in the Acts of the Apostles could create a bad conscience in the face of the Church's compromise with the world through its integration into society's structures of property and power.
The defence of Franciscan positions on poverty lay in the fundamental distinction between use and ownership. In the conflicts with the papacy, Franciscans of various kinds used the authority of previous papal bulls and decretals which they maintained favoured their interpretations.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Franciscan Order in the Medieval English , pp. 255 - 270Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018