Inside the Scola Minorum

Classroom Evidence for teaching at the University of Paris and the Establishment of a Scotist School

Přednášející: William Duba

Many great works of fourteenth-century thought had their origins in the classroom; most famously, the massive, systematic commentaries on the Sentences that dominate philosophical and theological debate have their origins in university lectures, and often survive as reportationes (as happens with Duns Scotus, Peter Auriol and William of Ockham, among many others). This presentation identifies two manuscripts of Sentences commentaries as original reportationes from the classroom, in this case the Franciscan school (scola minorum) at Paris in the 1330s. The more spectacular of the two, Prague, Univ. knihovna Ms. VIII.F.14, contains the entire series of lectures of the Franciscan Theologian and Scotist William of Brienne in the academic year 1330-1331. A close examination of the quires of this document, their content and their meaning provides a precious understanding of how medieval university lectures were structured, recorded and revised.