Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/365

 wrote an ‘Epistola ad Fratres minores in capitulo apud Assisium congregatos,’ which has not been printed (manuscript at Paris, Bibl. Nat. 3387, ff. 262 b–265 a; see, p. 229).

After the death of John XXII on 4 Dec. 1334 and the accession of Benedict XII, Ockham did not cease his attack upon the papacy. In October 1336 the emperor, seeking to make terms with Benedict, offered to abandon and destroy Ockham and his allies (Vatik. Akten, No. 1841, p. 642; cf., p. 312); but the negotiation came to nothing. Ockham wrote, probably before 1338 (ib. p. 245), a ‘Compendium errorum papæ’ (, ii. 957–76), in which he made John answerable for seventy errors and seven heresies, and a ‘Defensorium contra Johannem papam’ (, ii. 439–65, who identifies it with the tract cited by Tritheim, Opp. hist. p. 313, ‘Contra Johannem 22 de paupertate Christi et apostolorum’). ‘The Defensorium,’ which is addressed in the name of the Franciscans to all Christian people, is in part a sort of summary of the ‘Opus nonaginta dierum,’ though differently arranged, and in part (from the second paragraph on p. 453 onwards) an indictment of the papal authority. It probably belongs to the same period as the ‘Compendium,’ for Dr. Riezler's argument (p. 247) in favour of a later date is not conclusive. M. Hauréau's contention (vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 359) that it was written before 1323 is manifestly impossible, because of the discussion it contains of the pope's ‘heresies,’ which were not published until 1331–2. The work is ascribed by Nicolaus Minorita (manuscript at Paris; see, i. 355), but without plausibility, not to Ockham, but to Michael da Cesena. About 1338 also Ockham wrote a ‘Tractatus ostendens quod Benedictus papa XII nonnullas Johannis XXII hæreses amplexus est et defendit,’ in seven books (manuscript at Paris, Bibl. Nat. 3387, ff. 214 b–262 a; see, p. 232).

It was the defence of his order that had thrown Ockham into opposition to the papacy; this opposition had been strengthened and defined by the discovery of strictly dogmatic heresies in the teaching of John XXII; and his attack upon the authority of the holy see came as a result of his controversy. It was the conclusion to which his reasoning led, not, as with Marsiglio, the premise from which he started. The conditions of the struggle had driven him to cast in his lot with the emperor Lewis, and when in 1338 the crisis in Lewis's contest arrived it was Ockham whose services were called for. In July the electors declared at Rense that the prince whom they elected needed no confirmation by the pope; and on 8 Aug. Lewis, at Frankfurt, protested, in virtue of his plenary authority in things temporal, that the action taken by the pope against him at Avignon was null, and made his solemn appeal from the pope to a general council. The authorship of this appeal is attributed by Andrew of Ratisbon to Francesco da Ascoli and Ockham, and Ockham lost no time in writing a set defence of the imperial authority (Chron. Gen. in, vol. iv. pt. iii. pp. 565 f.) Glassberger, who quotes Andrew's notice, says that the defence in question was the ‘Opus nonaginta dierum’ (p. 168); but this is a manifest error. The work is no doubt the ‘Tractatus de potestate imperiali,’ preserved in manuscript at the Vatican (Cod. Palat. Lat. 679, pt. i. f. 117; see, pp. 232 f.)

The controversy being now broadened into a general discussion of the nature of the papal and the imperial authority, Lupold of Bebenburg wrote his great treatise, ‘De juribus regni et imperii,’ and Ockham followed it up by his ‘Octo quæstiones super potestate ac dignitate papali’ (, ii. 314–391), otherwise entitled ‘De potestate pontificum et imperatorum,’ between 1339 and 1342; in connection with which may be mentioned an unpublished treatise, ‘de pontificum et imperatorum potestate,’ opened by a letter and divided into twenty-seven chapters, which is preserved in the British Museum (Royal MS. 10 A. xv.;, p. 232). To 1342 belongs also a ‘Tractatus de jurisdictione imperatoris in causis matrimonialibus’ (, i. 21–4), written with reference to the proposed marriage of Lewis's son, Lewis of Brandenburg, with Margaret Maultasch, the wife of John of Luxemburg. The genuineness of this work has been contested on insufficient grounds (see, pp. 254–7; cf. , ii. 161 f.)

Not long after the declarations of Rense and Frankfurt, Ockham resolved to elaborate his views on the questions agitated between church and state in the form of an immense dialogue between a master and a disciple. There is evidence that this ‘Dialogus,’ arranged and divided as we now have it (, ii. 398–957), was in circulation in 1343, for in that year Duke Albert of Austria refused to allow Clement VI's interdict to operate within his dominions, on the ground that the emperor had convinced him of its illegitimacy—so we must read a sentence which is defective in our authority—by means of Ockham's book which he sent him (, vi. 12 in, Fontes, i. 447); but whether the work was ever actually completed according to the author's design remains uncertain. It con-