Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/364

 Müller has cited (i. 208, n. 3) from an unpublished letter of Ockham; but, at any rate, until Dr. Müller's document is printed, we are inclined to assume that in it months have been mistaken for years. The pope himself in his bull of 6 June 1328 (printed by and, Thesaurus novus Anecdotorum, ii. 749 ff., and given in a better text by , Chron. pp. 141 ff.) states that Ockham was charged with errors and heresies also in his writings; and according to Wadding (Ann. Min. vii. 82) he wrote during his confinement a treatise ‘de qualitate propositionum’ which he afterwards incorporated in his great ‘Dialogus.’

Ockham, with Michael da Cesena, the general of his order, Bonagratia of Bergamo, and other friars, resolved on flight. Lewis the Bavarian was appealed to, and sent a ship. The fugitives escaped from Avignon by night on 25 May 1328 (. manuscript cited by, Chartul. Univ. Paris. vol. ii. pt. i. p. 290; , p. 140); they slipped by boat down the Rhône, and though pursued by Cardinal Peter of Porto, reached Aigues-Mortes in safety ('s bull, ubi supra). Here they entered the galley sent them by the emperor, and on 8 June arrived at Pisa, where they were warmly welcomed by the inhabitants and by Lewis's officers (‘Chron. Sanese,’ in, Rer. Ital. Script. xv. 81; ‘Ann. Cæsen.’ ib. xiv. 1148; cf. , Liter. Widers. der Päpste, p. 68). According to an old tradition, which is not, however, traceable beyond the ‘De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis’ (f. 82 b) of Tritheim, abbot of Sponheim (Basle, 1494), Ockham presented himself before Lewis with the words, ‘O imperator, defende me gladio et ego defendam te verbo’ (Opp. Hist. i. 313, ed. Frankfurt, 1601). At any rate he thenceforward attached himself to the emperor's fortunes, and probably remained at his court during the time of his residence in Italy, and accompanied him back to Bavaria in February 1330 (cf. Sächs. Weltchr., 3te Bair. Fortsetz. in Deutsche Chroniken, ii. 346). Meanwhile the pope lost no time in denouncing the fugitives. On 6 June he published their excommunication (bull, ubi supra); on the 20th he notified to the Archbishop of Milan the process against them, and ordered its publication (Vatik. Akten, No. 1044, p. 389); and in a series of undated mandates he warned the Margrave of Baden, the Count Palatine, the Duke of Wirttemberg, the Bishop of Strassburg, and other princes to look out for them, as they were expected shortly to pass through their territories, and informed them that the three friars were under excommunication and must be captured and sent back to the papal court (ib. No. 1105, p. 404). In March 1329 and a year later (in April 1330) we find the pope still pursuing them with rescripts to the six archbishops of the German provinces, urgently demanding their imprisonment (ib. No. 1143, p. 414; No. 1288, p. 452; cf. No. 1178, p. 421). The fugitives, however, while still at Pisa, had appealed from the pope's sentence to that of a general council (, p. 146; cf., ‘Comp. Error. Papæ,’ v., in , ii. 964 f.), and, after passing unharmed into Bavaria, lived on under the protection of Lewis in the house of their order at Munich (Sächs. Weltchr., ubi supra); and though the greater part of the Franciscan order was by degrees reduced to submission, a powerful minority remained staunch, and found their rallying-post in the imperial court. Of these ‘fraticelli’ Michael da Cesena and, next to him, Ockham were the leaders; and after Michael's death in 1342 Ockham became the undisputed chief. His life for the twenty years following his flight from Avignon has its record almost solely in the works which he produced, and the dates of which are ascertained by internal evidence alone.

When, in November 1329, John XXII published his constitution or ‘libellus,’ ‘Quia vir reprobus,’ against Michael da Cesena (printed in . Ann. v. 423–49), condemning the whole Franciscan doctrine concerning poverty, Ockham set himself at once to deal with it. He produced his ‘Opus nonaginta Dierum’ (printed by, ii. 993–1236), in which he replied to the pope's treatise sentence by sentence. The fact that he wrote a work of solid argument and massive erudition, which would fill a substantial volume of modern pattern, continuously within the space of ninety days (see p. 1236), shows that the undertaking was a matter of urgent pressure, and it may be dated with confidence in 1330; in no case can it be later than 1332 (see, p. 243, n. 3). Ockham's next work, ‘De Dogmatibus Papæ Johannis XXII,’ relates to the doctrine concerning the beatific vision of the saints which the pope had revived in certain sermons which he delivered at Avignon between 1 Nov. 1331 and 5 Jan. 1332 (, ‘Defens.’ in, ii. 454; , in , iii. 349 f.; , Chartul. Univ. Paris. vol. ii. pt. i. pp. 414 f.) Ockham obtained knowledge of the propositions on 3 Jan. 1333, and forthwith proceeded to examine them in two treatises which, although not written in the form of a dialogue, were subsequently incorporated in the ‘Dialogus’ as pt. ii. (, ii. 740–770). In 1334 he