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Richard FitzRalph and the Fourteenth-Century Poverty Controversies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

James Doyne Dawson
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Richard FitzRalph, archbishop of Armagh (c. 1300–60), is a well-known but ill-defined figure in the history of fourteenth-century thought. Two aspects of his writings have chiefly attracted the attention of modern scholars: his theory of dominium and grace, and his polemics against the mendicant orders. In the former role, he is considered the source of one of the major doctrines of Wyclif; in the latter, a continuator of the polemic of William of Saint-Amour, and a source of the anti-mendicant sentiment prevalent in English literature in the age of Chaucer.

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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , July 1983 , pp. 315 - 344
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 There is now a comprehensive biography of FitzRalph: Walsh, K., A Fourteenth-Century Scholar and Primate: Richard FitzRalph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh, Oxford 1981Google Scholar. The pioneering studies on FitzRalph by Aubrey Gwynn are still useful: ‘Richard FitzRalph, archbishop of Armagh’, Studies: an Irish quarterly review of Letters, Philosophy and Science, xxii (1933). 3897405. 591–607Google Scholar; xxiii (1934), 395–411; xxiv (1935), 25–42, 558–72; xxv (1936), 88–96; xxvi (1937), 50–67; ‘The Sermon-Diary of Richard FitzRalph, archbishop of Armagh’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, xliv (1937–1938), 1–57Google Scholar; and The English Austin Friars in the Time of Wyclif, Oxford 1940, 80–9Google Scholar. There arc short accounts of the controversies between FitzRalph and the mendicants in VV. Pantin, A., The English Church in the Fourteenth Century, Cambridge 1955Google Scholar, and Knowles, D., The Religious Orders in England, Cambridge 1961, ii. 63–7, 95–7Google Scholar; and a fuller discussion in Walsh, K., ‘The De Vita Evangelica of Geoffrey Hardeby, O.E.S.A. (c. 1320-c. 1385): a study in the mendicant controversies of the fourteenth century’, Analecta Augusliniana, xxxiii (1970), 151–261Google Scholar; xxxiv (1971), 5–83 (repr. Bibliolheca Augustiniana: Nova Series, Sectio Hislorica, iv, Institutum Historicum Augustinianum, Rome 1972)Google Scholar. There are general discussions of FitzRalph’s philosophical thought in Robson, J. A., Wyclif and the Oxford Schools, Cambridge 1966Google Scholar, and Leff, G., Richard FitzRalph, Commentator on the Sentences, Manchester 1963Google Scholar. FitzRalph’s influence on Wyclif was recognised long ago by R. L. Poole, who published the first four books of the De Pauperie salvaloris as an appendix to his edition of Wyclifs De Dominio divino: Wyclifs Latin Works, London 1890, x. pp. xxxiv-xlix, 257–476Google Scholar. The influence of this treatise on political thought is discussed by Carlyle, R. W. and Carlyle, A. J., A History of Mediaeval Political Theory in the West, 6 vols., London 1903, 36, vi. 56–62Google Scholar; Gwynn, English Austin Friars, 59–73; Betts, R. R., ‘Richard FitzRalph, archbishop of Armagh, and the Doctrine of Dominion’, Essays in British and Irish History in Honour of James Eadie Todd, Cronne, M. A., Moody, T. W. and Quinn, D. B. (eds.), London 1949, 46–60Google Scholar; Wilks, M., ‘Predestination, property and power: Wyclifs theory of Dominion and Grace’, Studies in Church History, II London 1965, 220–36Google Scholar; Leff, G., Heresy in the Later Middle Ages, Manchester 1967, ii. 546–9Google Scholar; and Walsh, FitzRalph, 377–86. For FitzRalph’s influence on anti-mendicant literature, Williams, A., ‘Chaucer and the Friars’, Speculum, xxviii (1953), 499–513CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Erickson, C., ‘The fourteenthcentury Franciscans and their critics’, Franciscan Studies, xxxv (1975), 107–35Google Scholar; xxxvi (1976), 108–47; and Szittya, P. R., ‘The antifraternal tradition in Middle English literature’, Speculum, lii (1977), 287–312CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 With the exception of the various heretical groups of Spiritual Franciscans and Fraticelli, who had small influence on intellectual developments in either the order or the Church.

3 The most useful general studies on the earlier stages of this controversy are Yves M.-J. Congar, ‘Aspects ecclésiologiques de la querelle entre meridiants et séculiers dans la seconde moitié du xiiie siècle et la début du xive siècle’, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge, xxxvi (1961) 35–151; and Dufeil, M.-M., Guillaume de Saint-Amour et la polé mique universitaire parisienne, 1250–1259, Paris 1972Google Scholar.

4 Apologia pauperum in Opera Omnia, 11 vols., Quaracchi 1882–1902, viiiGoogle Scholar. See especially the seventh book.

5 Augustine, De Opere monachorum, v (P.L., xl. 552–3). Similar passages from Augustine’s commentary on the Gospel of John were cited by Gratian, Decretum, C. 12 q. I c. 12, c. 17; and in the Glossa Ordinaria on John xiii. 6 (P.L., cxiv. 401).

6 On the medieval theory of property: Carlyle, Mediaeval Political Theory, i. 132–46, ii. 41–9, 136–42, v. 14–20, 406–24; McKeon, R., ‘The development of the concept of property in political philosophy’, Ethics, xlviii (1938), 297–366CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Leclercq, , Jean de Paris et l'ecclésiologie du xiiie siècle, Paris 1942Google Scholar; and Tierney, B., Medieval Poor Law, Berkeley 1959Google Scholar. The most influential canons relating to property in the primitive Church were three letters attributed to early popes found in the collection of Pseudo-Isidore: the decretal of ‘Clement’ describes common property as the state of nature and links it to the communism of Acts; the decretals of ‘Urban’ and ‘Melchiades’ both describe how the Church lived from alms until the time of the endowment, which the latter associates with Constantine. All three were assembled by Gratian in C. 12 q. 1 of the Decretum, which became the basic canonical collection on the subject of church property, and which also included citations from Augustine on the meaning of Christ’s moneybag. For the history of this section of the canon law see Dereine, C., ‘Le Problème de la vie commune chez les canonistes, d’Anselme de Lucques à Gratien’, Studi Gregoriani, iii (1948), 287–98Google Scholar; Miccoli, G., ‘Ecclesiae primitivae forma’, in Chiesa Gregoriana, Florence 1966, 244–349Google Scholar; and Olsen, Glenn, ‘The idea of the Ecclesia Primitiva in the twelfth-century canon lawyers’, Traditio, xxv (1969), 61–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Summa Theologiae (hereafter cited as ST), 2a2ae. q. 66, especially art. 2.

8 Glossa Ordinaria, P.L., cxiv. 339; the gloss came originally from Bede’s commentary on Luke.

9 ‘Fratres nihil sibi approprient nee domum nee locum nee aliquam rem’. Regula bullata, vi (Boehmer, H., Analekten zur GeschichU des Franziskus von Assisi, Tubingen 1904, 22)Google Scholar. For the development of the Franciscan theory of poverty, see M. D. Lambert, Francisan Poverty: the doctrine of the absolute poverty of Christ and the Apostles in the Franciscan Order 1210–1323 London 1961; idem, ‘The Franciscan crisis under John XXII’, Franciscan Studies, xxxii (1972), 123–43Google Scholar; Leff, G., Heresy in the Later Middle Ages, 2 vols., Manchester 1967Google Scholar; Moorman, J. A., A History of the Franciscan Order from its Origins to the Tear 1517, Oxford 1968Google Scholar; and other general histories of the order.

10 Lambert, Franciscan Poverty, 129.

11 Bullarium Franciscanum, (hereafter cited as BF), Sbaraleartal, J. H.. (eds.), Rome 1759-, iii. 404–16Google Scholar.

12 See the Institutes ofjustinian, book 11, titles 1–6. Roman law makes a clear distinction between absolute ownership (dominium) and all relative rights over property. This distinction would be crucial to the debate that followed. The question of who had dominium over the Franciscans’ property could hardly have arisen in Germanic systems of law, which recognised only relative property rights.

13 Oliger, L., ‘Die theologische Quastion des Johannes Pecham iiber die vollkommene Armut’, Franziskanische Studien, iv (1917), 127–76Google Scholar. See Harkins, Conrad, ‘The authorship of a commentary on the Franciscan rule published among the works of Saint Bonaventure’, Franciscan Studies, xxix (1969), 157–248CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Bonaventure was, of course, aware of the different meanings ‘common’ ownership might have in natural and civil law (cf. Apologia, x. 13–16). But he showed little interest in the implications of his theory for natural law.

15 Many friars other than the Franciscans accepted the theory of a double profession and the distinction between the apostles and the faithful in Jerusalem; but they meant by this that the apostles lived a strict version of the common life, accepting a limited amount of property, like the Dominican and Augustinian friars, who rejected all real property other than their convents. The views of Aquinas are probably representative: Contra Impugnantes Dei cultum et religionum, and Contra Retrahcntes, Mandonnet, P., ed., in 5. Thomae Aquinilatis Opuscula Omnia, iv, Paris 1927, 1–95Google Scholar. Contra Impugnantes, written against William of Saint-Amour in 1256, emphasises the double profession in the primitive Church in language very like the contemporary apologetic writings of Bonaventure. No one would think from these tracts that there was any serious division between Franciscans and Dominicans on the poverty question, and no such division could have been obvious until the publication of Bonaventure’s Apologia in 1269. There is a better-known discussion of this issue in the Summa Theologiae, which leaves a very different impression. There Aquinas made it clear that Christ’s purse and the Jerusalem Church are models of common property, that such common property is no impediment to perfection and that different professions have it in different degrees according to their purposes; there is no mention of a higher profession (ST 2a2ae, q. 188, a. 7).

16 Gwynn, English Austin Friars, 35–44, 59~73; Carlyle, Mediaeval Political Theory, v. 402–19; W. Ullmann, Medieval Papalism: the political theories of the medieval canonists, London 1949, 129–3 7; Wilks, M., The Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages, Cambridge 1963, esp. 177–83Google Scholar; McCready, W. D., ‘Papal Plenitudo Postalis and the source of temporal authority in late medieval papal hierocratic theory’, Speculum, xlviii (1973), 654–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walsh, FitzRalph, 381–4.

17 AegidiusRomanus, DcEcclesiasticaPoUstate, K. Scholz(ed.), Weimar 1929, ii. 1, pp. 37–8.

18 ‘Habuit enim prius ecclesia inicium, postea incrementum, nunc autem habet perfeccionem et statum…’, De Eccl. Pot. ii. 3 (Scholz, 48). Similar views on the historical benefits of endowment are found in the influential Carmelite friars, John Baconthorpe and Guido Terreni; to be sure, they wrote after the bulls ofjohn XXII on Franciscan poverty had changed the situation drastically. See Smalley, B., ‘John Baconthorpe’s Postill on St Matthew’, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, iv (1958), 91–145Google Scholar; Tierney, B., Origins of Papal Infallibility, Leiden 1972, 261–2Google Scholar.

19 ‘Hervaeus Natalis, Liber de paupertate Christi et apostolorum’, J. G. Sikes (ed.), Archives d’Histoire DoctrinaU et Litteraire du Mojren Age, xii-xiii (1937–8), 209–79.

20 Roman law held that a usufruct could not be constituted of things that are consumed by being used (quac ipso usu consumuntur), such as food and clothing, since otherwise the property could not be restored to its owner (Institutes 11. Tit. 4, De usufructu). This argument was first introduced by Bonaventure’s opponent, Gerard of Abbeville, in his Contra Adversarium perfectionis christianae in 1269: S. Clasen, (ed.) Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, xxxi (1938), 276–329; xxxii (1939), 89–202; especially xxxi, 277–83.

21 BF, v. 224–5.

28 Oliger, L., ‘Fr. Bonagratio de Bergamo et eius Tractatus de Christi et apostolorum paupertate’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, xxii (1929), 292–335, 487–511Google Scholar. See also Bonagratia’s Appellalio responding to the decretal Adconditorem, written in the year following: it is edited in BF, v. 237–46, in notis.

23 ‘…Christum ct apostoli, postquam statum perfectionis et paupcrtatis evangelice assumpserunt, nusquam habuerunt proprietatem scu dominium alicuius rci temporalis; nee aliquam rem tamquam domini et proprietarii possederunt, et quod loculos, quos interdum habuisse, infirmis condescendendo dicuntur, habuerunt solummodo ut dispensatores et amminstratores pauperum, non ut proprietarii seu dominii’. Ibid., 487. ‘… Et sic Christus ex causa aliquando et dispensatione loculos habere consensit, sciens non omnes posse semper in predicte districtionis semita ambulare. Habuit ergo loculos aliquando, mere pro aliorum necessitatibus, ut supra ostensum est; aliquando, condescendens infirmis, qui habent loculos pro seipsis, ut doceret servis Christus non esse peccatum habere loculos. In quibus tamen loculis ipsc Christus nihil dominative seu potestative habere voluit…’ Ibid., 500.

24 Ibid., 502, 511. In his Appellatio of 1323 Bonagratia added the example of the entire property of the Church, lordship of which rests with the Christian community, but which nevertheless may be used by individuals; the use of some of this property by the Franciscans was merely a specific case. BF, v. 242n. (For Bonaventure’s treatment of this issue, see Apologia, xi. 7–11.) These became the stock examples of the Michaelists, who seem to have had the better of the argument so long as it was confined to such legal technicalities. As usual, one feels that the real issue became lost. The opponents of the Franciscans brought up the point about usufruct not just because this term appeared in the papal bulls, but because the property being ‘used’ by the Franciscans resembled a long-term tenure like the Roman usufruct and did not at all resemble the examples of the son, the horse, etc.; in those cases the master of the property retains complete control over it at all times. The real point underlying this objection was that ‘lordship’ becomes a pure fiction when the ‘lord’ loses all control over the property to which he has legal title.

25 Ibid., 489, 504, 507.

26 ‘Sic et dominium sive proprietas rerum, quibus utebantur apostoli, erat universitatis omnium fidelium sive bonorum. Nam iure divino omni sunt bonorum…’ Ibid., 506.

27 BF, v. 233–46.

28 Ibid., 240–1.

29 Ibid., 256–9.

30 Ibid, 408–49.

31 BF, v. 417–18. ‘Legitur enim Genesis 1 c. quod Dominus primis parentibus dixit: “Crescite et multiplicamini, et replete terram et subiicite earn… Et dominamini piscibus mans,” etc Ex quibus evidenter apparet prios parentes post benedictionem praedictam et terrae et piscium man’s ac volatilium caeli et universorum animantium, quae moventur super terram, dominium in statu innocentiae habuisse.’

32 Ibid., 422–3.

33 ‘Nee philosophus inducit comparationem aeris et splendoris solis ad temporalia respectu dominii, ut sicut non habebant dominium aeris et splendoris solis, sic nee haberent dominium temporalium rerum; sed respectu indivisionis tantum illam comparationem induxit.’ Ibid., 423–4.

34 Ibid., 439–41.

35 ‘Verum est tamen, quod de iure gentium multi modi acquirendi dominium, et nonnulli per iura civilia seu imperialia fuerunt introducti. Item, modus agendi pro istis rebus temporalibus in iudicio, id est certa forma proponendi ius suum in iudicio, fuit per iura civilia introductus.’ Ibid., 441.

36 Ibid., 441–3.

37 Ibid., 408–420, 443–7. For Melchiades, see above n. 6.

38 Guillelmide Ockham Opera Politico, 3 vols., J. G. Sikes etal. (eds.), Manchester 1940–56, i. 287–374; ii. 1–858.

39 Ockham admitted Adam had lordship alone before Eve was created, but he no more had proprietor or dominium proprium than a monk who happens to be the only monk in his monastery. Proprietas cannot pass to another without donation, sale, or other contract. Ibid., xxvi-xxviii (ii. 484–94). In response to another of the pope’s arguments, he said the friars needed a licence to use goods owned by someone under positive law, since natural law suffices for this purpose only in cases of necessity. But this licence was not itself a civil right; it only removed an impediment to the operations of natural law. Ibid., lxi (ii. 561).

40 Bihl, M., ‘Constitutions generales editae in Capitulis generalibus Caturci an. 1337 et Lugduni an. 1351 celebratis’, Archivum Franriscanum Historicum, xxx (1937), 69–169Google Scholar. In the article ‘De observancia paupertatis’ (131), the two bulls are referred to as definitive interpretations of the Rule on the observance of poverty Exivi de paradiso, issued by Clement v in 1312, was traditionally linked with Exiit as a basic interpretation of the Rule. This injunction was repeated at Lyons, Ibid., 161. Cf. idem, ‘Statuta Generalia Ordinis edita in Capitulo Generali an. 1354 Assisii celebrato’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, xxxv (1942), 35–112, 177–253Google Scholar; article iii, ‘De observantia paupertatis’, 90–1.

41 Oliger, L., ‘Documenta in edita ad historiam Fraticellorum spectantia’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, iii (1910), 267–79, 505–29, 680–99Google Scholar.

42 ‘Omncs ergo doctores qui, exceptis prcfatis, fuerunt et sunt et opinantur prcfatas decretales posse convenire…. In singulari adduco venerabilcm magistrum meum Magistrum Ludovicum de Castilionc aretino, qui regens Oxonie, ibidem hanc quaestioncm determinavit concordiam astruens cum magna laude et totius universitatis illius complacentia, quam determinationem de propria manu illius scriptam habeo’. Ibid., 276–7. See Little, A. G., The Grey Friars in Oxford, Oxford 1892, 224Google Scholar. Several English Franciscans contributed to this controversy about the time of Ad Conditorem, repeating the arguments of Michael and Bonagratia, and four Cambridge friars were arrested and sent to Avignon c. 1330 for contesting John’s decretals. But after that date the Michaelists had no following among the English Franciscans. See Douie, D. L., ‘Three treatises on evangelical poverty by Fr. Richard Conyngton, Fr. Walter Chatton, and an Anonymous’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, xxiv (1931), 341–69Google Scholar; xxv (1932), 36–58, 210–40; Walmsley, C., ‘Robert of Leicester’s Treatise on Evangelical Poverty’, Collectanea Franciscana, xxx (1960), 78–100, 176–207Google Scholar; Moorman, J. R. H., The Grey Friars in Cambridge, 1225–1538, Cambridge 1952, 95–9Google Scholar. Lambert, ‘Franciscan crisis’, 139–40, notes that the Observant Franciscans in 1484 were discussing evangelical poverty in the terms of Bonaventure just as though John XXII had never existed.

43 See above n. 1. Born c. 1300 to an Anglo-Irish burgess family at Dundalk in the Pale, FitzRalph had enjoyed a brilliant academic and ecclesiastical career, becoming master of theology at Oxford, chancellor of the University in 1332, dean of Lichfield in 1335, and archbishop of Armagh in 1347. He was well known in the schools through his Commentary on the Sentences and Summa in Questionibus Armenorum.

44 Super Cathedram (BF, iv, 498–500), issued by Boniface vin in 1300, regulated the pastoral activities of the mendicant orders and specified their obligations to the secular clergy. Revoked in 1304, it was restored by Clement v at the Council of Vienne as the decretal Dudum, and inserted in the Clementines in 1317 (Clem. m. 7. 2). It required friars to be licensed by the diocesan ordinary to hear confessions, forbade them to preach when ‘prelates’ were preaching, and made them pay to the secular clergy of the parish a fourth of all legacies, bequests and burial dues. There had been repeated efforts to tighten these controls. Many bishops required the friars to secure licences merely to preach in their dioceses. Another source of controversy was the ambiguous word ‘prelate’, which might mean all parish clergy or only the bishop. Another disputed point was the relationship between Super Cathedram and the canon Omnis utriusque sexus of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which had imposed the obligation of annual confession to one’s parish priest. The Paris secular master, John of Pouilly, had held that those confessing to a friar were bound to reconfess the same sins to a parish priest, an interpretation which would virtually have destroyed the efficacy of mendicant confession. This doctrine had been condemned by John xxii in Vas electionis (1321), but the interpretation of Omnis remained unclear. There were, therefore, ample grounds for requesting a re-interpretation of this canon. See Williams, A., ‘Relations between the mendicant friars and the secular clergy in England in the later fourteenth century’, Annuale Medievale (Duquesne Studies), i (1960), 22–95Google Scholar; B. Z. Kedar, ‘Canon law and local practice: the case of mendicant preaching in late medieval England’, Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law, N.S. ii (1972), 17–32; and J. Copeland, ‘The relations between the mendicant friars and the secular clergy in England during the century after the issue of the bull Super Cathedram (1300)’, unpublished M.A. thesis, University of London.

45 Edited by L. L. Hammerich, The Beginning of the Strife between Richard Fitzralph and the Mendicants, with an edition of his autobiographical prayer and his proposition ‘Unusquisque’ (Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-Filologiske Meddelelser, xxvi. 3), Copenhagen 1938, 53–73.

46 We are not so much concerned here with the reasons for FitzRalph’s personal involvement in the issue, which have been throughly discussed in [Catherine Walsh’s biography. She points out that rivalry between the secular and mendicant clergy was particularly acute in Ireland. There had been disagreements between the archbishop and the friars in his Irish see, but nevertheless until 1350 he seems generally to have remained on good terms with them and had frequently preached in their churches; as late as October 1349, on the feast of St Francis, he had been invited to preach in the Franciscan church at Avignon.

47 A. G. Little, ‘A royal inquiry into property held by the mendicant friars in England in 1349 and 1350’, in Historical Essays in Honour of James Tail, J. G. Edwards et al. (eds.), Manchester 1933, 179–88 (repr. in Little, A. G., Franciscan Papers, Lists and Documents, Manchester 1945, 144–55Google Scholar). Aubrey Gwynn thought the friars acquired considerable property after the plague: Austin Friars 74–9.

48 Szittya, ‘Antifraternal tradition’, 308–13. In the sermon Defensio curatorum (1357) FitzRalph charged that the friars ‘wexith grete and encresith with-oute eny ende’ (trans. John Trevisa in Dialogus inter Militem et Clericum, Richard FitzRalph’s Sermon: ‘Defensio Curatorum ‘, and Methodius: ‘The Beginning of the World and the Ende of Worldes’, by John Trevisa, Vicar of Berkeley, A. J. Perry (ed.), (Early English Text Society, CLXVII), Oxford 1925,39–93; quote from 59–60. Cf. Piers Plowman B, Passus 20, 11. 252–70. The friars are thought to have suffered a decline of about 60% in the plague, from a total of over 5,000 to little more than 2,000; their numbers rose slowly to nearly 3,000 by the early fifteenth century and then remained stable till the Dissolution. The general clerical mortality in the plague is commonly reckoned at 35–40%. See Knowles, D. and Hadcock, R. N., Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales, New York 1971, 45–7, 488–95Google Scholar; Courtenay, W. J., ‘The effect of the Black Death on English higher education’, Speculum, Iv (1980), 696–714CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walsh, FitzRalph, 280–1.

49 Courtenay, op. cit.

50 Walsh, FitzRalph, 407, 421. To all such appeals the pope replied by directing the ordinary to enforce Super Cathedram.

51 The first four books were edited by R. L. Poole as an appendix to Wyclifs De Dominio divino: Wyclifs Latin Works, x, London 1890, xxxiv-xlix, 257–476. The remaining three books of the De Pauperie salvatoris have been twice edited but never published: C. H. Hughes, ‘De Pauperie Salvatoris of Richard FitzRalph of Armagh’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester 1927; and R. O. Brock, ‘An edition of Richard FitzRalph’s De Pauperie Salvatoris, books v, vi and vn’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Colorado 1954. It is cited in the text hereafter as PS. I have used Brock’s edition for the later books.

52 ‘… racionalis creature mortale ius sive auctoritas originalis possidendi naturaliter res sibi natura subiectas conformiter racioni, et eis plene utendi sive eas tractandi’. PS, ii. 2 (Poole, 335). Cf. Ockham’s definition in the Opus Nonaginta Dierum: the lordship of the first parents was ‘potestas rationabiliter regendi et gubernandi temporalia absque eorum resistentia violenta, ita quod homini violentiam nel nocumentum inferre non poterant’. Opera Politico, xiv (ii. 432). In both definitions the absence of coercion is the essential point in original lordship.

53 ‘homo primus in iustificante gracia erat creatus…et…gracia talis ipsum dominium primo homine, ordine causalitatis seu nature, precessit’. PS, ii. 6 (Poole, 344).

54 PS, ii. 20 (Poole, 363).

55 ‘… non fuisset igitur in hominibus innocenter viventibus quevis presidencialis auctontas dominativa; set in omnibus presidentibus ac subiectis, ad omnes actus dominii exercendos, originale ipsorum equale dominium in racione dominii suffecisset’. PS, ii. 26 (Poole, 370). The doctrine that some inequality would have existed even in the state of nature was found in the writings of some Augustinian friars; see Wilks, Problem of Sovereignty, 59.

56 M PS, iv. 2–3 (Poole, 438–40).

57 PS, iii. 34 (Poole, 430–3).

58 PS, iii. 27 (Poole, 419–20).

59 ‘… caritas sive gracia primo homini in origine sua sibi collata fuit previa causa dominii et causa cuiusque actus huius dominii… unde nullus de stirpe ipsius primi parentis seminalis filius, donee a peccato mundetur et graciam gratificantem receperit, istud dominium potest recipere seu habere’. PS, ii. 8 (Poole, 348) ‘Civile dominium, sicut originate dominium, (non dubium) datum est a Deo hominibus pro prestando debito Deo obsequio ab eo cui est datum; igitur, cum quis peccat mortaliter, per hoc perdens ac fbrefaciens originale dominium, pariter et pan racione forefacit civile dominium’. PS, iv. 4 (Poole, 441).

60 PS, iv. 15 (Poole, 462).

61 PS, iv. 4 (Poole, 443). ‘Lex non prebet auctoritatem seu causam aut possessionem nisi per accidens.’ PS, iv. 9 (Poole, 448).

62 Carlyle, Mediaeval Political Theory, vi. 56–62. Gordon Left* has said of Wyclif that his doctrine of dominion dependent on grace is ‘singularly devoid of immediacy… its practical consequences were reduced to nullity… by the impossibility of knowing who was damned and who was saved’. Heresy in the Later Middle Ages, ii. 549. The same could be said of FitzRalph. Gwynn (Austin Friars, 68–71) thought that FitzRalph’s point was that the friars should lose their pastoral jurisdiction because they had abused their privileges. This interpretation has been widely followed. David Knowles (The Religious Orders, 96) describes the De Pauperie salvatoris as ‘an elaborate statement of the Augustinian theory of lordship and grace, constructed to prove that the friars, by sinfully soliciting and discharging tasks foreign to their vocation, have forfeited any title they might be supposed to have possessed to the privileges given by popes’. Cf. Walsh, FitzRalph, 402–3. It is true, as Gwynn noted, that in the Proposicio of 1350 FitzRalph said that the friars should lose their privileges because of abuse, as Adam was cast out of paradise after the Fall. But in the De Pauperie FitzRalph came to understand that to make such a statement is to confuse natural and civil lordship. The point of the De Pauperie is not that the friars should lose civil lordship because they abused it; it is rather that the friars are supposed to live by natural lordship and should never have had civil lordship in the first place.

63 The words of Clement do not allow communal property, but rather ‘talem communitatem qualem habent homines in aere et in solis splendore’. PS, vi. 21 (Brock, 148).

64 ‘…nulli fratrum suorum utendi ius aliquod adimentes, sed semper observare parati spiritus tui sancti illam sacram regulam inspiratam tuis apostolis. Nee quisquam eorum que possidebat suum aliquid esse dicebat sed erant illis omnia communia et dividebatur singulis prout cuique opus erat (Acts, 4 34–5)…Sic enim nullo iure mundano eisobsistente in aliis nee eciam iure aliquo adquisito sancte ac iuste tuis bonis utuntur, nee nos tui apostolici ordinis successores indigni quamvis multarum diviciarum ad distribuendum simus prepositi. Divites sumus sed pauperes si vitam tibi similem transigimus quam debemus. Sicud nee tui primi apostoli cum ad pedes eorum agrorum precia ponebantur divites extiterunt.’ PS, vii. 18 (Brock, 304–5).

65 ‘Et ita consequitur quod in habente artissimam paupertatem nullum remanet civile dominium nee utendi aliquod ius civile nee aliqua eivilis possessio, cum hec omnia possint a voluntate libere abici…’ PS, vi. 16 (Brock, 126). The strictest grade of poverty belongs to ‘qui cum derivato iure utendi et omni civili dominio abdicato, solo originali dominio cum possessione sibi conformi, scilicet iure communi iustis omnibus contentatur’. PS, vi. 17 (Brock, 129). ‘Hanc igitur pauperiem observantes a nostre nature ingenuitate primaria non recedunt, sed rupto federe inter carnem et spiritum ex originali peccato et per ipsum nuto ac firmato gracie originalis legibus se coaptant.’ PS, vi. 17 (Brock, 32).

66 PS, vii. 7 (Brock, 246–7).

67 PS, iv. 21 (Poole, 472).

68 PS, vii. 4 (Brock, 217).

69 PS, vii. 5 (Brock, 223–4).

70 ‘… talis exempcio iuxta premissa legem nature impugnat ecclesiasticam ierarchiam dividat, seu prescindat, quam per Christi apostolos celesti ierarchie conformiter Spiritus Sanctus instituit, ecclesiam in super ierarchiam reddat celesti Ierarchie difformem in qua nulla umquam talis erat exempcio…Item in statu innocencie nulla talis exempcio a iure communi penitus extitisset. Qui igitur earn in ecclesiasticam ierarchiam conantur inducere aut inductam acceptant, reduccionem presentis vite ad conformitatem innocentis vite primitus institute, quam dominus noster Ihesus Christus facere satagebat opere ac sermone molliuntur in se econtrario impedire’. PS, vii. 6 (Brock, 237).

71 The most vigorous attack was concentrated in four sermons (nos. 65–8) preached on 18 December 1356, 22 January 1357, 26 February 1357 and 12 March 1357. These were frequently copied in isolation and were printed with the edition of FitzRalph’s Summa de erroribus Armenorum, Paris 1511Google Scholar, and in Brown, E., Fasciculus Rerum Expetendarum, ii, London 1690Google Scholar.

72 The case is studied in detail by Walsh, FitzRalph, 406–51.

73 This text was widely circulated in both Latin and English versions. The Latin text was printed in M. Goldast, Monarchia S. Romani Imperii (Frankfurt 1612), ii. 1394–1410. The English translation of Trevisa is edited in the Early English Text Society; see above n. 48.

74 For the sources of William’s doctrines see Dawson, J. D., ‘William of Saint-Amour and the apostolic tradition’, Mediaeval Studies, xl (1978), 223–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A more complete summary of William’s thought than any found in FitzRalph is contained in the encyclopedia called Omne Bonum attributed to ‘James the Cistercian’, dated about the middle of the fourteenth century: Royal MS 6 E VII : ‘Fratres mendicantes: De quibusdam privilegiis concessis fratribus predicatoribus et minoribus et eciam de eorum moribus et delictis’, 154–61; ‘Eleemosina’, 17–19. The author repeats faithfully all the major theses of Saint-Amour, including the charge that they are precursors of Antichrist, being the false prophets predicted in 2 Timothy. This apocalyptic element, common in anti-mendicant literature, is conspicuously absent in FitzRalph’s writings. The use made of the mendicant rules in Omne Bonum, and the claim that friars have fallen from their original poverty and disobey their rules by seeking privileges, may reflect FitzRalph’s influence. (155, 160–1). See Gwynn, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, xliv. 15–16.

75 Roger of Conway, Defensio Religionis Mendicantium, in Goldast, Monarchia, ii. 1410–44. The treatise of Bolsenheim is edited by Meersseman, G., ‘La Defense des ordres mendiants contre Richard FitzRalph, par Barthelemy de Bolsenheim, O.P. (1357)’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, v (1935), 124–73Google Scholar. The longest and most impressive response was the De vita evangelica of the Augustinian friar Geoffrey Hardeby; but though parts of this treatise were probably written at this time it was not completed until the 1380s and the version we possess is influenced by the Wycliffite controversy. Hardeby alone of these controversialists responded to FitzRalph’s argument of lordship and grace: he held that civil lordship belongs to the order of nature and does not depend on grace, which is a supernatural gift. If my interpretation is correct, FitzRalph did not intend anything substantially different from this. This polemical literature is discussed by Katherine Walsh, ‘The De Vita Evangelica’; see above n. 1. On the monk Uthred of Bolton, who succeeded FitzRalph as the main apologist for the ‘possessioners’ in the 1360s and 1370s, see W. A. Pantin, ‘Two treatises of Uthred of Bolton on the monastic life’, in Studies in Medieval History presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke, R. W. Hunt et al. (eds.), Oxford 1948, 363–85; and C. H. Thompson,’ Uthred of Bolton (a study in fourteenth century political theory)’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Victoria University, Manchester.

76 In the 1380s the Oxford Franciscan William Woodford openly sided with the possessioners in his writings against FitzRalph and Wyclif (who by then had turned against the mendicants); he completely rejected the Bonaventuran doctrine, defended the decretals of John xxii and argued that Christ and the apostles had civil lordship. See J. I. Catto, ‘William Woodford, O.F.M. (c. 1330-c. 1397)’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford 1969; and E. Doyle, ‘William Woodford’s’ De Dominio Civili Clericorum’ against Wyclif, John, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, lxvi (1973), 49–109Google Scholar.

77 Knowles, The Religious Orders, 95.