CHRIS SCHABEL

University of Cyprus

The Redactions of Book I of Francesco d’Appignano’s

Commentary on the Sentences*

Riassunto

Due recenti studi sul commento alle Sentenze di Francesco si trovano talvolta in disaccordo tra di loro per quanto riguarda il Io libro. Per Padre Mariani la redazione dei 13 manoscritti (la cosiddetta versio maggiore) è una reportatio anteriore, mentre la redazione dei 3 manoscritti (cosiddetta versio minore) è considerata posteriore alla prima, forse una ordinatio. Friedman-Schabel sostengono la tesi opposta. Gli explicit e altri commenti che risalgono allo stesso periodo sembrano confermare la nostra teoria. L’argomento centrale è costituito dal fatto che ci sono parecchie lacune nella versio maggiore, tra l’altro incompleta, lacune che indicano una redazione scritta, ossia una ordinatio. Tali lacune sono state spesso colmate utilizzando il testo della versio minore, che dovrebbe essere anteriore.

Anneliese Maier once wrote that Francesco d’Appignano’s Sentences commentary is not only interesting with respect to its content, but also from the point of view of literary history, which is the subject of the present paper.Recently the study of Francesco’s commentary has advanced considerably, especially with the published contributions of Nazzareno Mariani, but also with those of Notker Schneider, Russell Friedman, and myself, primarily on books I and II. Currently Girard Etzkorn and Tiziana Suarez-Nani are working on a critical edition of book II, and, as their contributions to this volume demonstrate, William Duba and Roberto Lambertini are busy studying books III and IV respectively.

In the past couple of years two major studies of the redactions of Francesco’s commentaries appeared: Friedman and my “Francis of Marchia’s Commentary on the Sentences,” in the 2001 volume of Mediaeval Studies, and Father Mariani’s “Certezze e ipotesi sul Commentoalle Sentenze di Francesco della Marca,” in the 2002 issue of Archivum Franciscanum Historicum. In many ways these two studies achieve separate goals and complement each other, while in others they reach similar conclusions. Naturally, however, given the complexity of the problem, in some cases they disagree. One of the points of disagreement concerns the nature and chronological sequence of the redactions of Francesco’s commentary on book I, an issue that must be resolved before anyone proceeds to the critical edition of this book. Here I propose to look again at the two scenarios for the redactions of the commentary on book I by re-analyzing the evidence of the explicits, by comparing the case of Francesco with that of his Franciscan and other contemporaries who also produced more than one version of their Sentences commentaries, and by closely examining the differing redactions.

Before moving to the main arguments of this paper, it is important to stress two points. First, as Father Mariani has emphasized, we are talking about ipotesi and not certezze, the only certainties being the words preserved in the manuscripts. Moreover, there once existed many more manuscripts and perhaps even other redactions and abbreviations of Francesco’s commentary that have since disappeared. What survives, unfortunately, is consistent with several possible theories. Even today, if a number of versions of someone’s PhD thesis survived, and if the title pages and prefaces were removed, then considering the pressures of deadlines and word limits, in many cases it would be impossible to piece together the history of the work.

The second preliminary point that must be stressed is that, without doing a complete study and edition using all manuscripts, it will not be possible to put forth the best theory about the nature of what is still preserved. Recently, for example, I edited a question from near the end of the Carmelite Paul of Perugia’s commentary on book I from the four extant manuscripts, and found that they all preserved the same text. Then I edited a question from near the beginning, and discovered that one manuscript actually contains a rearranged abbreviation. Francesco’s own commentary on book II provides another example. Father Mariani recognized that this book exists in two redactions and one abbreviation. However, Friedman and my full collation of all manuscripts for certain sections revealed that Vat. lat. 1096 carries yet another abbreviation different from the one Mariani notes.

Since the chronology and nature of the redactions of the commentary on book I is at issue, in what follows I will adopt neutral labels for the redactions. The redaction surviving in 13 manuscripts, which is Mariani’s A version and our Scriptum, will be called the “major” version. The one extant in three manuscripts, which is Mariani’s B version and our Reportatio, I refer to here as the “minor” version.

Previous Views of Francesco’s Commentary on Book I

Although no full critical edition of Francesco’s book I has been completed, it is and has been the historian’s task to determine the nature and priority of the redactions with the evidence at hand. Cardinal Ehrle seems to have been the first to offer a conjecture. In his 1925 book on Peter of Candia, Ehrle listed several manuscripts of Francesco’s works. Concentrating on the Naples manuscripts for the Sentences commentary, he dated the lectures to 1320 and recognized that the witnesses contained different redactions, alhough he did not attempt to characterize them. Because of a typographical error, however, he labled both manuscripts as Biblioteca nazionale VII C 27, when the second should have been VII C 23 for the major version. Konstanty Michalski took a closer look in 1927. Comparing only the two consecutive manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Latin 3071 (minor version) and 3072 (major version), Michalski reached the conclusion that the minor version has a more correct text and contains more questions than the major one, but that the individual questions are longer in the major version than in the minor. But Michalski was concentrating on the Prologue, which is not really an intregal part of book I, and for which the manuscript tradition is mixed and therefore confusing anyway, as Russell Friedman explains in his paper. Because of his limited examination and choice of manuscripts, Michalski admitted that his impressions were tentative. He guessed that Francesco himself had revised one of the redactions, although he was not clear about which one.

Amedeus Teetaert examined the situation still more closely in 1933. Like Michalski, Teetaert looked at the same consecutive manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Latin 3071 and 3072, and he reached the same conclusion that there were two redactions of book I, the text “differing completely from one manuscript to the other.” Contrary to Michalski, however, based on the explicit in manuscript VII C 27 of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples, Teetaert specified that the text in that manuscript, the minor version, is a “Reportatio made by one of his students,” the major version being “very probably a commentary [Francesco] himself composed.” For Teetaert, then, the major version is an Ordinatio, the written product of the author himself, while the minor version is a Reportatio, a text recorded by a student from lectures. Teetaert also thought that this student was probably William of Rubio, who was a reporter for versions of Francesco’s books II and IV. Again according to the explicit in the Naples manuscript, Teetaert dated the Reportatio to 1320, but stated that the date of the other version could not be determined.

The following year, 1934, Hermann Schwamm looked at two versions of Francesco’s questions on future contingents, using the two Naples manuscripts and Vat. lat. 1096, which contains the major version. Because Schwamm was interested in sections that happen to be incomplete in the major version, and he chose the worst two witnesses of the major version’s 13, he drew the conclusion that the text in Naples 27, i.e. the minor version, was better than that in the other two. He did not attempt to determine the nature and chronology of the versions, however, other than to repeat the 1320 date for the Paris lectures.

In 1940 Anneliese Maier returned again to the redaction question. She interpreted Michalski’s remarks as suggesting that the minor version was a later Ordinatio. Regardless of whether this is what Michalski believed, Maier cast doubt on this theory anyway in giving the explicit of the Naples 27 manuscript of the minor version, which says that it is a Reportatio. She also stated that there was no good textual reason given for Michalski’s theory. Maier added the famous Chigi manuscript to the study, but she concentrated on other books, considering both versions of books II and IV to be Reportationes, so that like Peter Auriol and Francis of Meyronnes, Francesco never had time to revise beyond book I, if he had done that. One thing about which Maier seems to have been sure was that Francesco lectured on the Sentences at Paris in the 1319-20 academic year, something she repeated at least a dozen times. She was also aware of the 1323 date given in one manuscript, but apparently did not interpret it as the date of any lectures.

Thus by Maier’s time the only things on which everyone agreed were that there were at least two versions of Francesco’s commentary on book I and that he lectured on the Sentences at Paris in 1320. As we shall see, probably Michalski and perhaps Schwamm seem to have leaned toward what is now Mariani’s theory, while certainly Teetaert and perhaps Maier accepted what is our scenario.

The Two Competing Scenarios

Although Notker Schneider made a significant contribution to our knowledge of book II in his 1991 monograph, the next person to make an important advance for book I was Russell Friedman in his 1997 PhD dissertation, who presented a question list for the versions of book I from most of the manuscripts. This was the first truly systematic attempt to understand the redactions of book I, the earlier theories being mere impressions based on brief examinations of a small number of manuscripts. Then, in the 1999 through 2001 issues of PicenumSeraphicum, I published an edition of some questions using all the witnesses from the major version, along with a stemma codicum and a theory about the redactions. We republished our results in improved form in the 2001 article in Mediaeval Studies (pp. 49-54). Briefly, like Maier, we maintain that Francesco lectured on book I of the Sentences as a bachelor of theology at the Franciscan convent at Paris in 1319-20. We think that the minor version, which we consider a polished Reportatio, stems from these lectures, although one of the witnesses of the minor version carries a less polished Reportatio for the last section. Then Francesco began reworking his polished Reportatio into a more mature Ordinatio, the major version, which was was left unfinished. Some sections were completed in all manuscripts, others in most manuscripts, using passages from the earlier, minor version. Thus for us, the minor version is an earlier, polished Reportatio, while the major version is a later Ordinatio.

Nazzareno Mariani then published a theory roughly opposing ours in the 2002 issue of Archivum Franciscanum Historicum (pp. 99-109). He claims that Francesco lectured at Paris from 1319 to 1323, suggesting that Francesco was already a master and that the written products of these lectures are all magisterial. He agrees with us on the basic make-up of the versions, but for him the manuscript tradition of the major version is “unanimous” (p. 109) in affirming that version to be a Reportatio and not an Ordinatio. According to Mariani, the major version survives in more manuscripts exactly because it is a Reportatio. He states (p. 100): “The text of the Reportatio was the one that circulated immediately and was better known in the world of studies. Thus it was more read and quickly analyzed” than the minor version. For Mariani, two of the three manuscripts of the minor group appear to support calling that version a later Ordinatio (p. 104), of which one manuscript carries an Abbreviatio for the later sections (pp. 101-2). Even if the minor version turns out to a Reportatio, however, Mariani maintains that it postdates the major version and that the author probably had the major version before his eyes (p. 102).

Let us begin by taking a look at Mariani’s claims about the circumstances of the lectures. First, there is no reason to think that Francesco was already a master of theology in 1319 when he began his Sentences lectures. It was customary for Franciscan and other Sentences lectures at Paris to be given by a bachelor of theology, or bachelor of the Sentences, and we have ample evidence of this. Second, 1323 should not be considered the end of his Parisian lectures on the Sentences. Franciscans at Paris had been lecturing on the Sentences over a two year period up until the time of Peter Auriol, who read the Sentences in the two academic years 1316-18. Afterwards, however, it appears that this period was reduced to one year, so that in 1318-19 it was probably Landulph Caracciolo, in 1319-20 Francesco, in 1320-21 Francis of Meyronnes, and so on, although there is evidence that Gerard Odonis lectured from 1326-28. It does not seem that Francesco’s Parisian Sentences lectures could have lasted beyond 1321. Third, although Francesco may have been promoted to master by 1323, this does not mean that all authorial revisions necessarily occurred after Francesco had become master.

The Evidence of the Explicits

Our evidence for Francesco’s lectures in general is very slim, as is our evidence for the nature of the texts themselves, based mostly on explicits in the manuscripts. None of the explicits of the major version mentions a date or a place. It is the explicit of the Naples 27 witness of the minor version that gives us our best information: “Thus ends Brother Francesco de Marchia’s lecture/reading of the first book, according to the Reportatio made at the time he was reading the Sentences at Paris, in the year of the Lord 1320.” Because it appears that the Franciscan bachelor of the Sentences in 1320-21 was Meyronnes, Maier interpreted the Naples explicit as referring to the 1319-20 academic year.

Two manuscripts of the major version of book II also mention Paris. The Rome, Biblioteca nazionale witness says that William of Rubio reported the book at Paris, but the Leipzig manuscript simply appears to refer to the place and date (1329) where the manuscript was completed. This has to borne in mind in looking at the explicits for book IV. For that book, the Prague manuscript again says that it was reported by William of Rubio at Paris, but it is the Chigi codex that is troubling: it says that Brother G, presumably William of Rubio, reported the text in 1323. This does not necessarily mean that Francesco was still lecturing on the Sentences at Paris, as Mariani assumes. Both the Prague manuscript and the Chigi manuscript also give the information that the book was editus a, or the Reportatio was facta subMaster Francesco de Marchia. This suggests that Francesco himself helped revise the work and that at this time he was already a master of theology. Since at Paris bachelors lectured on the Sentences and Francesco had already done so in 1319-20, this is not a raw Reportatio from his Parisian lectures. If we are to accept the explicits, is either a Reportatio edita done in Paris in 1323 with the help of William of Rubio, and not directly associated with any lectures, or, as Courtenay suggests, it is based on Francesco’s later lectures at the Franciscan convent in Avignon.

With that in mind, we can turn to Mariani’s claims about the nature of the redactions of book I. First, with respect to the assertion that the minor version may be an Ordinatio, it is important to distinguish between the above explicits that hint that Francesco was a master at the time that a work was composed and those explicits that simply call Francesco “master.” Two of the three explicits for the minor version of book I refer to Francesco as “master,” and Father Mariani takes this as potential evidence that the minor version is an Ordinatio done while Francesco was a master. The problem with linking the title assigned to the author with the unspoken nature of the text is that the title was often given on the basis of the author’s status at the time the manuscript was produced, or even because of the author’s later reputation. For example, we might have a Reportatio from the Minister General of an order, or even from a saint. This may be why for Francesco’s book IV no less than four manuscripts refer to the text as a Reportatio, and yet the author is called “master” in each case. Likewise, for book III, three explicits mention a Reportatio, of which one refers to “Master Francesco.” The only other book III explicit that offers information says that it was editusa Brother Francesco, suggesting if anything a bachelor’s revision. Book II has four explicits with “Master Francesco,” but the only witness to describe the text says it was reportatus. Thus, unless we are prepared to admit that wherever we have “Master Francesco” we have an Ordinatio – in which case we have nothing but Ordinationes – then the two manuscripts of the minor version of book I that refer to Francesco as “master” are giving no information whatever about the nature of the text. The only indication we have of the minor version’s nature is the explicit of the Naples 27 manuscript, and this calls it a Reportatio.

While Mariani believes that the minor version could be an Ordinatio, he states that the manuscript tradition for the major version is “unanimous” that it is a Reportatio. One cannot see how this is so on the basis of Mariani’s own criteria, for three manuscripts of the major version call Francesco “master.” But since this is of no account anyway, it is more important that the only explicit to give any hint of the text’s genre calls it a “Scriptum,” the term most frequently used at the time for Ordinatio. Thus, far from being unanimous in supporting the text’s Reportatio nature, the explicits are rather unanimous in claiming that it is an Ordinatio. In fact, of all versions of all books, it is only the major version of book I that has a unanimous claim to being an Ordinatio. True, a note to the Chigi manuscript refers to the Reportatio on all four books, but this note is in a later hand on an attached piece of paper, not in the original parchment. On the contrary, a note to Vat. lat. 1096, containing the major version of book I, also calls it a Scriptum.

In short, based on the explicits, the major version of book I is the only version that has unanimous support for its being an Ordinatio, while the minor version has unanimous support for its being a Reportatio. But it should be emphasized that the term Ordinatio and Reportatio, especially the latter, are vague. It is possible that none of the surviving versions of any book is a raw Reportatio. Indeed single explicits from books III and IV refer to them as “editus,” which suggests authorial revision, while a note in Vat. lat. 1096 calls the main version of book II a “Scriptum.” Therefore Friedman and I apply the terms Reportatio and Scriptum to the redactions of book I in part for the sake of convenience, since even the minor version (along with the main versions of all the other books) may in some way be an Ordinatio.

Other Contemporary Commentaries

There still remain Mariani’s claims, first, that the Reportatio would have circulated more quickly and more widely, and, second, that therefore the major version precedes the minor version – for which reason the minor version could be an Ordinatio, despite the Naples manuscript’s explicit. For the first claim, Mariani presumably considers as evidence the sheer number of manuscripts of the major version, which must therefore be a Reportatio. This also supports the second claim, that the major version precedes the minor one, for which theory Mariani presents 13 pages of parallel passages between the two versions (pp. 171-83).

To deal with these claims, a glance at other Parisian Sentences commentaries from Francesco’s time will be of some help. Over the past 15 years or so Russell Friedman and I have been engaged in a detailed study of all the Parisian Sentences commentaries on book I composed in the 1310s and 1320s, the period of Francesco’s authorial activities. Several Sentences commentaries survive from these years in two or more quite distinct redactions, even if we eliminate minor revisions and versions that are merely literal commentaries on Peter Lombard’s text. To note some famous examples, Francesco’s Franciscan confrères Hugh of Novocastro, Peter Auriol, and Francis of Meyronnes each produced at least two different versions of their commentaries, as did the Dominican Durand of St Pourçain and the Carmelite John Baconthorpe. The same can be said for Francesco’s contemporary Franciscan brothers in Oxford: William of Ockham and Walter Chatton.

In many instances the distinct versions are identical in most sections, which is not surprising since it is the same author dealing with the same subject matter. We are told that the first redaction of Baconthorpe’s commentary is a Reportatio or a modified Reportatio and that the second is a Scriptum or Ordinatio, but with the exception of a couple of paragraphs, there are no differences at all in four questions that I have inspected or edited. Durand’s case is similar: three distinct versions of book I exist, and yet in the two places I have examined carefully, either there is no difference or Durand simply replaced small sections of text, and where they differ it is usually not possible to decide merely on that basis which version comes first. In other situations we see in the later versions contractions as well as expansions, deletions as well as additions. Thus where we find parallel or common passages in the various versions of Francesco’s text, it is not at all obvious which version borrows and which version lends.

Often later redactions do not appear to add material reflecting developments in the intervening years. For example, Hugh’s Parisian lectures on the Sentences and probably the first written redaction stem from before Peter Auriol’s activities, while Hugh’s second redaction apparently post-dates Auriol’s works. Since Auriol was a crucial figure in Parisian and especially Franciscan theology, one would expect Hugh’s second redaction to show obvious and frequent influences from Auriol, whether negative or positive. This does not appear to be the case, however, and so the absence of such differences does not mean simultaneity in composition.

Although prima facie it would seem logical to assume that the longest and most polished version, where that can be determined, would be the latest redaction, this is not always the case. Peter Auriol left three redactions of book I. The longest and most polished version is the so-called Scriptum, apparently a written work from the start, but it is the earliest version, not the latest. Nevertheless, Mariani’s hunch would be true in most cases, because usually Ordinationes follow chronologically Reportationes.

But Mariani’s implication that the Reportatio is the one that is preserved in the most manuscripts cannot stand. Auriol’s Scriptum, although the earliest version, survives in over a dozen complete witnesses, compared to the few copies of the other redactions. Likewise, no manuscript of Ockham’s Reportatio for the first book has been discovered, so only the Ordinatio is extant. The bulk of Meyronnes’ manuscripts for book I carry the Ordinatio or Conflatus text. Thus on this criterion, if any of the redactions of Francesco’s book I is an Ordinatio, it is the major version.

Although Mariani’s assertion that the Reportatio was the most read version has to be rejected, his claim that the Reportatio was the first to be received and analyzed by students and masters may be correct in many instances. But this assertion actually works against his identification of the texts, at least according to the sections I have studied. For example, William of Rubio would have had early access to Francesco’s text, especially since he was his reporter for at least books II and IV, and indeed Mariani claims that he was most likely the reporter for the major version of book I (p. 103). It turns out that Rubio’s own Sentences commentary, in distinction 35, follows the minor version represented in that distinction by Naples 27 and Ross. lat. 525. The logical inference is that the minor version which Rubio used is a Reportatio, probably the one that he himself took down. Likewise, when in his Barcelona lectures dated to 1322 Aufredus Gonteri Brito took a break from copying Henry of Harclay’s Sentences commentary to add something from Francesco, the material he added corresponds more closely to the minor version in Paris 3071, which on Mariani’s criteria would be a Reportatio. These are the only cases I have investigated so far, but there may be more evidence from other theologians using Francesco. Nor should we be surprised that, even though the Reportatio version survives in fewer manuscripts, it was more used by contempories. I have also found this to be the case for Auriol, whose Sentences commentary both Francesco and Landulph Caracciolo seem to have known in Reportatio versions, and the same is true for Meyronnes, whose Reportatio was used soon afterwards by Himbert of Garda. In short, that the minor version was used early on supports its identification as a Reportatio, while the high number of manuscripts of the major version bolsters our claim that it is an Ordinatio.

Completing the Scriptum with the Reportatio

Besides the evidence given above, there are other reasons to suppose that the major version is a Scriptum postdating the minor version. In my opinion the text is more mature than that of the minor version in the places I inspected, and to my mind this goes along with the fact that there are fewer but more developed questions in the major version. But this is highly subjective. Another characteristic of a written work in the major version is the brief introductory passages describing Peter Lombard’s text that are absent from the minor version and, for the most part, from all versions of the other books.

But the best argument has to do with the incomplete nature of the major version. Ordinationes were usually composed after the Reportationes, and, logically, there was not always enough time for completion. Often this meant that only book I was revised, as in the case of Ockham and Meyronnes, and this also seems to be true for Francesco, for whose books II-IV, even where they are extant in more than one version, we seem to have no real Ordinatio. Moreover, the Ordinatio on book I was not always completed. Michael of Massa appears to have stopped in mid-sentence in distinction 38. Walter Chatton only got as far as distinction 17. It should also be noted that it is not at all necessary for one manuscript to contain the same redaction of all four books, but rather they often carry mixed texts. At least one witnesses of Ockham’s Ordinatio for book I contains Reportationes for the other books. Thus the Chigi manuscript of Francesco’s commentary may very well preserve a Scriptum for book I and Reportationes for books II-IV.

Interestingly enough, the manuscript of Chatton’s incomplete Ordinatio fills in the remainder of book I with the text from the earlier Reportatio. It seems that this is exactly what happened with Francesco. Here I shall repeat my earlier theory: Francesco finished his lectures on all four books, and he began to revise them into an Ordinatio, starting with book I. He got only as far as distinction 40, however, and even with much of the material he did revise, he failed to complete sections. Were this a Reportatio, how would we explain the frequent gaps in the text and the lack of distinctions 41 to 48? Even if we accept the possibility that Francesco never even lectured on these last distinctions, it would be hard to imagine him leaving gaps in the lectures that he did give. It is far more likely that an incomplete text such as this is the result of a writing process than a series of lectures.

One branch of the major version’s stemma, ACLU, has the text with the lacunae. C preserves both the physical gaps or blank spaces and notes to seek, “quaere,” some of the missing sections, labelled alphabetically from A through N. These sections come from the minor version recorded in Naples 27 and Ross. lat. 525, and there once was a witness of the minor version that had letters in the margins, A through N, next to the text to be copied into the major version. One of the early Ordinatio manuscripts (the major version) was in fact completed with the minor version as directed, and it served as the exemplar for the other branch of the major version’s stemma. The ACLU branch of the stemma was never wholly completed, which suggests that it predates the other branch. Accordingly, where the order of the questions differs near the end of the book, it is the older ACLU branch of the stemma that agrees with the earlier minor version, and the later branch that does not. The conclusion is that the minor version is the earlier one and the major version is a later Ordinatio.

But there is one other possible explanation: the gaps are only in a few manuscripts (our ACL and sometimes U), whereas in the bulk of the manuscripts of the major version the gaps are filled in. Perhaps ACLU are simply faulty manuscripts, and the others are more correct? To address this possibility, I have compared the complete passages corresponding with the gaps to the parallel sections of the minor version. If Mariani is correct, where the passages match, it would be the later, minor “Ordinatio” borrowing the text from the earlier, major “Reportatio.”

The results do not support this possibility. I have found that wherever the ACL group of manuscripts for the major version is incomplete and where there is a refutation of the opening arguments that is common to the rest of the major version’s tradition and to the minor version, the refutation applies more closely to the opening arguments given in the minor version than to the ones given in the major version. Below are some examples.

For the major version of book I, distinction 8, question 1, the manuscripts agree on the explicit, but U ends early and is then completed in margin, which provokes the suspicion that this version was actually incomplete. This is in fact the case, because the response to the opening argument is common to both the major and minor versions, yet it quotes verbatim the argument as presented in the minor version.

For distinction 8, question 2, the major version witnesses agree on the explicit, but U again ends early and is completed in the margin. Here there is no verbatim quotation, but the common response fits the minor version slightly better:

With distinction 22, question 1, the ACLU branch of the major version’s stemma is incomplete. The gap is filled in the other branch with the minor version’s explicit, which quotes verbatim from the minor version’s opening argument:

The same is the case with distinction 27, questions 1 and 2. Question 2 would be less a clear example than question 1, except for the fact that the common response to question 2 refers to arguments that do not even exist in the major version:

In distinction 35 there are the same gaps and the situation is quite clear:

Distinction 36 is an odd exception, because although there are the gaps and the explicit is common, it does not seem to refer to the opening argument of either version:

Distinction 38 is again clear, with the gaps and the common explicit that refers verbatim to the opening argument in the minor version:

The same is true for distinction 39:

These examples demonstrate that the minor version precedes the major version, for it would be hard to imagine why someone would leave a Reportatio incomplete, compose a finished Ordinatio, and go back and fill in the blanks in the earlier version. Of course, these texts are only the most obvious, because they are refutations of opening arguments. We will uncover more such examples in studying the body of the questions themselves, as Russell Friedman has in the case of distinction 11.

Abbreviation or Separate Reportatio?

There is one other point of disagreement between Mariani and us. Mariani concluded that, after distinction 18, Paris 3071 contains part of an abbreviation (version C) of the minor version, an abbreviation that may have been complete at some time, while we suggested that this text is probably another Reportatio of the same lectures. Mariani defended his assertion by claiming (p. 101) that abbreviations, as in Paris 3071, are more brief, and cut down on authoritative quotations and opening arguments as well as opposing opinions, which are reduced to a minumum. He provides several pages of parallel passages in support of his characterization of the text as an abbreviation (pp. 116-23).

Here Mariani may be correct, but it may be helpful to look at the parallel example of Peter Auriol’s Reportatio. To put it simply, as with Francesco, three manuscripts carry the same text up to a certain point, in Auriol’s case distinction 32, then they split into two. One version is represented by two manuscripts, but one of these is in turn considerably shorter than the other. But the two versions of Auriol are probably both different Reportationes, and even the manuscript that carries the shorter text of one version may be a different Reportatio. Certitude is perhaps impossible. Parenthetically, a fourth witness has selected questions from throughout book I, and the later ones match those in the version represented by two manuscripts. Thus the entire book I of this version of Auriol’s Reportatio was probably once extant, and Mariani’s guess about the C version of Francesco being once complete may be correct.

Let us compare the two versions of the minor redaction of Francesco’ commentary. First, in general, it is true that Paris 3071 carries a text that is more brief than that of Naple-Ross. lat. An example from Mariani’s own samples of texts (in the final question of book I), however, shows that version C is not a simple reduction of version B:

It would be hard to explain why an abbreviator would want to change the wording in this way. An inspection of distinction 39 revealed several other examples where the wording is different with no apparent saving of space.

Nor does Paris 3071 always cut down on authoritative quotations. In distinction 40, for example, where a very long quotation from Augustine in the major version is only half the size in the Naples-Ross. lat. version, the Paris 3071 text has almost the entire quotation:

Interestingly, Paris 3071 does not even have the same words from the Corinthians quotation as the major version. In any case, if Mariani is right and authoritative quotations are cut down in abbreviations, then Paris 3071 cannot be an abbreviation.

That there is confusion in Paris 3071 is obvious, however, for in distinction 39 the Naples-Ross. lat. text makes plain that a third way of speaking has itself three ways of being expressed, and so the argument contra goes against these three ways. The Paris manuscript, however, omits these three ways and then gives the arguments “contra omnes istos modos,” not realizing that the refutation is not against the three ways of speaking, but against the three ways of expressing the third way:

On Mariani’s criteria, the evidence for Paris 3071’s being an abbreviation is somewhat weak. On the other hand, it may not be possible to claim with certaintly that it is another Reportatio of the 1319-20 lectures. One problem is that, although most abbreviations are simple reductions of the text, this is not always the case. Abbreviations of Michael of Massa’s commentary, for example, involved much reworking on the part of the abbreviator. Moreover, medieval texts were treated in such a great variety of ways that reportatio, ordinatio, and abbreviatio do not begin the cover the spectrum.

Conclusion

I shall conclude using distinction 39, on divine ideas, as an example of what might have occurred:

In his lectures in the Franciscan convent at Paris in 1319-20, Francesco said he would talk about three questions together, as is reflected in the incipit of Paris 3071. When William Rubio drew up a polished and expanded Reportatio in Naples 27 and Ross. lat. 525, it became one question combining two of the three questions. Finally, when Francesco began to revise the text into an Ordinatio, it became one simple question. In the body of the distinction, some things were expanded, some contracted, but the text was left unfinished before the third way of speaking. Later it was decided to fill in the blanks with the text from the polished Reportatio.

Nazzareno Mariani is to be congratulated for his contributions to the study of Francesco d’Appignano. It is certain that without his efforts the field would be set back decades. I hope that this article has shown that, for the edition of book I, Father Mariani should begin with the minor version, the “Reportatio,” since it surely represents an earlier version of Francesco’s text than the major version, the “Scriptum.”

* I thank William Duba, Russell Friedman, and Roberto Lambertini for their comments, and Theodoros Mavroyiannis for the Italian summary.

ANNELIESE MAIER, Ausgehendes Mittelalter. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Geistesgeschichte des 14. Jahrhunderts I (Rome 1964), p. 72: “Der Sentenzenkommentar Franciscus de Marchias enthält also nicht nur vom inhaltlichen, sondern auch vom literarhistorischen Standpunkt aus noch manches interessante problem.”

NOTKER SCHNEIDER, Die Kosmologie des Franciscus de Marchia: Texte, Quellen, und Untersuchungen zur Naturphilosophie des 14. Jahrhunderts (=Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 28) (Leiden 1991); Francisci de Marchia sive de Esculo, OFM, Quodlibet cum quaestionibus selectis ex commentario in librum Sententiarum, ed. NAZARENO MARIANI (=Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, 29) (Grottaferrata 1997); RUSSELL L. FRIEDMAN, Francis of Marchia and John Duns Scotus on the Psychological Model of the Trinity, in Picenum Seraphicum 18 n.s. (1999), pp. 11-56; CHRISTOPHER SCHABEL, Il determinismo di Francesco di Marchia (Parte I), in Picenum Seraphicum 18 n.s. (1999), 57-95, and Parte II in Picenum Seraphicum 19 n.s. (2000), 15-68; and CHRISTOPHER SCHABEL,La dottrina di Francesco di Marchia sulla predestinazione, in Picenum Seraphicum 20 n.s. (2001), pp. 9-45.

RUSSELL L. FRIEDMAN and CHRIS SCHABEL, Francis of Marchia’s Commentary on the Sentences: Question List and State of Research, in Mediaeval Studies 63 (2001), pp. 31-106, and NAZARENO MARIANI, Certezze e ipotesi sul Commento alle Sentenze di Francesco della Marca, in Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 95 (2002), pp. 93-183.

See CHRIS SCHABEL, The Sentences Commentary of Paul of Perugia, O.Carm. With an Edition of His Question on Divine Foreknowledge, in Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum, forthcoming.

MARIANI, Certezze e ipotesi, pp. 109-15; FRIEDMAN-SCHABEL, Francis of Marchia’s Commentary, pp. 54-7. Parenthetically, manuscript Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale 1007 (= K), contains the main text and agrees with the tradition represented by mss BCY.

FRANZ EHRLE, Der Sentenzenkommentar Peters von Candia, des Pisaner Papstes Alexanders V. (Münster 1925), p. 253-4.

KONSTANTY MICHALSKI, La physique nouvelle et les différents courants philosophiques au XIVe siècle (Krakow 1928), pp. 1-2 (reprinted from the Bulletin de Académie polonaise des Sciences et des Lettres. Classe d’histoire et de philosophie [1927]; reprinted in IDEM, La philosophie au XIVe siècle. Six etudes, ed. KURT FLASCH [Frankfurt 1969], pp. 207-8).

AMEDEUS TEETAERT,Pignano (François de), in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique XII (Paris 1933) (cols. 2104–2109), at cols. 2107-8.

HERMANN SCHWAMM, Das göttliche Vorherwissen bei Duns Scotus und seinen ersten Anhängern (Innsbruck 1934), pp. 240-1.

ANNELIESE MAIER, Franciscus de Marchia, in EADEM, DieImpetustheorie (Vienna-Leipzig 1940), (pp. 45-77); reprinted in EADEM, Zwei Grundprobleme der scholastischen Naturphilosophie (Rome 1968) (pp. 161–200), at pp. 163-5.

References throughout her oeuvre. Actually, in dealing with Francesco’s discussion of an actual infinite in distinction 2 of book I, Maier considered the fragment contained in Vat. lat. 4871 to be part of a third version of book I. Because in the fragment the author deals with arguments of Francis of Meyronnes, who lectured after Francesco, Maier first thought the fragment might be from a later Ordinatio or a second series of lectures given after 1321 (MEIER, Ausgehendes Mittelalter I, p. 71). Later, however, she suggested that it was better to claim that Meyronnes had, like Auriol, completed his Ordinatio, the Conflatus, before Francesco’s lectures in 1319-20 (MEIER, Ausgehendes Mittelalter I, p. 178). In any case, it is not clear that the section of the fragment dealing with Meyronnes is actually from Francesco.

RUSSELL L. FRIEDMAN, In principio erat Verbum. The Incorporation of Philosophical Theology into Trinitarian Theology, 1250-1325 (PhD dissertation, University of Iowa, 1997), pp. 573-91.

For Schneider’s book and my articles, see above, note 2.

See also the introduction to Francisci de Marchia sive de Esculo, OFM, Sententia et compilatio super libros Physicorum Aristotelis, ed. NAZARENO MARIANI (Grottaferrata 1998), p. 22, and the introduction to NAZZARENO MARIANI’s translation of Francesco’s Contestazione (Appignano del Tronto 2001), p. 23. Mariani’s further claim that Francesco lectured at the Sorbonne is highly unlikely, because at that time it was still just a college of secular theologians; see for example HASTINGS RASHDALL, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages I, revised ed. by F.M. POWICKE and A.B. EMDEN (Oxford 1936), p. 509, explaining that the popular application of the name “Sorbonne” to the entire faculty of theology occurred in the sixteenth century. It is almost certain that Francesco lectured at the Franciscan convent in Paris.

On these matters in general see WILLIAM J. COURTENAY, Programs of Study and Genres of Scholastic Theological Production in the Fourteenth Century, in J. HAMESSE, ed., Manuels, programmes de cours et techniquesd’enseignement dans les universités médiévales (Louvain 1994), pp. 325-50, and BERT ROEST, A History of Franciscan Education (c. 1210-1517) (Leiden 2000). For Franciscan dates, see the works of FRIEDMAN and SCHABEL cited, below, note 21, and for Odonis, CHRIS SCHABEL, Non aliter novit facienda quam facta: The Questions of Gerard Odonis on Divine Foreknowledge, in P.J.J.M. BAKKER, ed., Chemins de la pensée médiévale. Études offertes à Zénon Kaluza (Turnhout 2002), pp. 351-377.

For the explicits and other notes in the mss, see FRIEDMAN-SCHABEL, Francis of Marchia’s Commentary.

COURTENAY, Programs of Study, p. 344, n. 38.

However, Father Mariani kindly corrected my erroneous claim (FRIEDMAN-SCHABEL, Francis of Marchia’s Commentary, pp. 49 and 72) that two explicits call it a Scriptum; M’s does not.

On the terms “reportatio,” “ordinatio,” “edita,” and so on, see for example JACQUELINE HAMESSE, “Reportatio” et transmission de textes, in M. ASZTALOS, ed., The Editing of Theological and Philosophical Texts from the Middle Ages (Stockholm 1986), pp. 11-34; COURTENAY, Programs ofStudy, pp. 342-6; and JACQUELINE HAMESSE, La technique de la reportation, in O. WEIJERS and L. HOLTZ, eds., L’enseignement des disciplines à la Faculté des arts (Paris et Oxford, XIIIe-XIVe siècles) (Turnhout 1997), pp. 405-21.

Indeed COURTENAY, Programs ofStudy, p. 343 and n. 37, after saying that “edita/editum usually denotes the editorial activity of the author,” gives many examples where “editus” means exactly this for Sentences commentaries of the early fourteenth century.

This is based primarily on editions of questions on the Filioque (mostly d. 11) and on divine foreknowledge (usually dd. 38-39). Preliminary results were published in RUSSELL L. FRIEDMAN, The Sentences Commentary, 1250-1320. General Trends, the Impact of the Religious Orders, and the Test Case of Predestination, in G.R. EVANS, ed., Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard I (Leiden 2002), pp. 41-128, and CHRIS SCHABEL, Parisian Commentaries from Peter Auriol to Gregory of Rimini, and the Problem of Predestination, in EVANS, ed., Mediaeval Commentaries, pp. 221-65. “Final” results will appear in book form in RUSSEL L. FRIEDMAN and CHRIS SCHABEL, The Filioque in Parisian Theology from Scotus to the Black Death. With Texts and Studies on Sentences Commentaries, 1308-1348, in the series Bibliotheca of the journal Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales, Leuven: Peeters. Unless otherwise noted, these publications are the main support for the claims I make below.

See BARTHOLOMEUS M. XIBERTA, De scriptoribus scholasticis saeculi XIV ex ordine Carmelitarum (Louvain 1931), pp. 177-83.

On Durand’s commentary, see CHRIS SCHABEL, RUSSELL L. FRIEDMAN, and IRENE BALCOYIANNOPOULOU, Peter of Palude and the Parisian Reaction to Durand of St. Pourçain on Foreknowledge and Future Contingents, in Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 71 (2001), pp. 183-300, which contains editions from and information on the other Parisian Dominican commentaries from the 1310s and 1320s.

See MARCO ROSSINI and CHRIS SCHABEL, Time and Eternity among the Early Scotists. Texts on Future Contingents by Alexander of Alexandria, Radulphus Brito, and Hugh of Novocastro, in Documenti e Studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 16 (2005), forthcoming.

See especially LAUGE NIELSEN, Peter Auriol’s Way With Words. The Genesis of Peter Auriol’s Commentaries on Peter Lombard’s First and Fourth Books of the Sentences, in EVANS, ed., Mediaeval Commentaries, pp. 149-219, but also CHRIS SCHABEL, Theology at Paris, 1316-1345: Peter Auriol and the Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents (Aldershot 2000), pp. 69-75.

See SCHABEL, Theology at Paris, p. 211 (on Rubio), and the paraphrases of Francesco in the edition in CHRIS SCHABEL, Aufredo Gonteri Brito secundum Henry of Harclay on Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents, in CAROL POSTER and RICHARD UTZ, eds., Constructions of Time in the Late Middle Ages (Evanston, Illinois, 1997), pp. 159-196.

See the apparatus in my editions cited above in note 2, and in CHRIS SCHABEL, Landulphus Caracciolo and a Sequax on Divine Foreknowledge, in Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge 66 (1999), pp. 299-343.

See CHRIS SCHABEL, Questions on Future Contingents by Michael of Massa, OESA, in Augustiniana 48 (1998), pp. 165-229, and CHRIS SCHABEL, Oxford Franciscans after Ockham: Walter Chatton and Adam Wodeham,” in EVANS, ed., Mediaeval Commentaries, pp. 359-77.

Distinctions 42-48 (and 39) of the minor version (our Reportatio) were published in CHRISTOPHER SCHABEL, Francis of Marchia, in EDWARD N. ZALTA, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2001 edition), [URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/francis-marchia/primum/html].

References are to the editions cited above in note 2; in SCHABEL, Francis of Marchia, in ZALTA, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia; and in the mss as listed in FRIEDMAN-SCHABEL, Francis of Marchia’s Commentary.

See the work cited above in note 2.

See NIELSEN, Peter Auriol’s Way With Words, and SCHABEL, Theology at Paris, pp. 69-75.

See e.g. various works of DAMASUS TRAPP; COURTENAY,Programs of Study, pp. 346-8; P.J.J.M. BAKKER and CHRIS SCHABEL, SentencesCommentaries of the Later Fourteenth Century, in EVANS, ed., Mediaeval Commentaries, pp. 425-64; and CHRIS SCHABEL, Haec ille: Citation, Quotation, and Plagiarism in 14th Century Scholasticism, in I. TAIFACOS, ed., The Origins of European Scholarship (Conference, Nicosia, April 2000) (Stuttgart 2004), forthcoming.