Some Recent Mediaeval Studies

Extract

We are glad to begin these notes with the work of the Institute of Mediaeval Studies established at Ottawa. The two volumes under review are the real primitiae of a new series and, with the exception of one contribution, deal with doctrinal and literary problems of the thirteenth century. As one may expect in such a publication, not all the essays have the same value and importance; but all of them deserve praise for their accuracy and rigorous historical method, which prove the efficiency and activity of the Institute.

The eminent mediaevalist, Père Chenu, O.P , director of the Institute, opens these studies by publishing from a MS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris most interesting and valuable information on some of the leading professors at the University of Paris about the year 1240. The MS., in a very difficult script, is a reportatio, or as we should say, a note-book, of a diligent student of the University of Paris who, day by day following the classes of several professors, carefully reported their lectures. By the aid of this MS. we may reconstruct the intellectual life of the great University in the years immediately preceding the period of St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas Aquinas. Several Baccalaurei and Magistri not elsewhere mentioned are here rediscovered. Thus we have the introitus, or inaugural lecture, of four baccalaurei sententiarii, Peter the Archbishop, Stephen de Poliniaco, John Pagus, and Odon Rigaud. They reappear in the following year, with the exception of Odon, whose place is taken by a certain Adam. The lectura on the Sentences or on the Bible follows in the MS. according as the professor was Bachelor or Master. Père Chenu has succeeded in his historical notes in gathering from scattered elements data which enable us to settle more than one historical problem, as, for instance, the chronology of the Dominican Albert the Great and of the Franciscan Odon Rigaud.