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A ‘Lost’ Summa of John Wyclif

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Ivan J. Mueller*
Affiliation:
University of Freiburg
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Extract

In the course of the editorial introduction to my edition of Wyclif’s De Universalibus I drew attention to several enigmatic references in the text of Wyclif’s De Actibus Animae, and suggested that these should be taken as allusions to a lost philosophical summa. In that introduction it was impossible to include a full examination of this suggestion. Here I want to return to the question, a question which, apart from the intrinsic interest of the references, also sheds some light on Wyclif’s manner of working.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1987 

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References

1 Wyclif, John Tractatus de Universalibus, text ed. Mueller, I. J. (Oxford, 1985), pp. xxxiiixxxviii.Google Scholar

2 Text edited in Miscellanea Philosophica i, ed. M. H.Dziewicki (Wyclif Society, 1902), pp. 1-127. In the following discussion the treatises mentioned are named without capital letters, to distinguish them from independent works sometimes with the same names.

3 De Acta.An. p. 28/26; cf. p. 31/14 in materia insolubilium.

4 De Act. An. p. 25/31; cf. pp. 8/27, 15/27 where the reader is referred to a discussion de qualitate, and p. 14/21 where the book number is given ut dictum est secundo libro.

5 De Act. An. p. 20/23.

6 De Act. An. pp. 52/32, 9/19; cf. references simply to book 3 pp. 2/24, 12/37,38/2, 46/6, 53/3, 116/23, and to de motu p. 54/9, 11.

7 De Act. An. p. 56/5 ut dictum at 3° libro capitulo sexto.

8 De Act An. p. 52/26 ut faut 4° libro, p. 80/26 utpatebit 6° libro.

9 De Act.An. p. 107/37 net quantum ad notitiam nostrani, dicetur octavo libro, p. 109/32 sed de hoc octavo libro, p. 119/5 octavo libro, p. 126/4 ut docebitur octavo libro.

10 De Act.An. pp. 12-14 footnotes; Thomson, W. R., The Latin Writings of John Wyclyf (Toronto, 1983), p. 8.Google Scholar

11 De Act.An. p. 46/6-7.

12 Listed by Thomson, Latin Writings as no. 13, though Thomson’s comments on the text should be modified in die light of the following discussion. The text was edited by R. Beer from the only surviving manuscript (Wyclif Society, 1891).

13 Thomson, , Latin Writings no. 12Google Scholar; Lincoln Cathedral Chapter MS 159, fols. 331rb, 332ra, 332va.

14 Thomson, , Latin Writings no. 16Google Scholar; edited in De Ente, M. H. Dzie wicki (Wyclif Society, 1909), pp. 113-286 here pp. 160/17, 193/38, 195/26.

15 In De Act. An. references at pp. 2/24, 9/19, 12/37, 38/2, 52/32, 53/3, 54/9 are to the first chapter of de actione’, this latter is incorporated into De Ente Praed. as chapter 9, and the passages in question are pp. 80/1-2, 88/14ff, 88/18-20, 82/17ff, 88/5-14, 88/24ff and 88/14-20 respectively. There is one reference to each of the second and third chapters: De Act. An. p. 46/6 relates to De Ente Praed. p. 96/33ff, and De Act. An. p. 116/23 to De Ente Praed. p. 106/1-3.

16 De Act. An. p. 56/5, De Ente Praed. pp. 126/43-127/4.

17 De Act. An. p. 9/18; De Ente Praed. p. 179/2ff.

18 De Act. An. p. 46/1-9; I have capitalized the name in the parenthesis.

19 De Ente Praed. pp. 96/32-97/3.

20 Thomson, , Latin Writings p. 8.Google Scholar

21 Latin Writings no. 5; an edition is under way by G. A. Wilson and P. V. Spade.

22 Thomson, S. H., ‘Unnoticed MSS and Works of Wyclif’, JTS 38 (1937) p. 6974.Google Scholar

23 De Logica i, ed. M. H. Dziewici (Wyclif Society, 1893), pp. 69-74.

24 The reference in De Act. An. p. 124/9 to principio naturalium may refer to Wyclif’s commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (Thomson, Latin Writings no. 6), which is still unpublished.

25 De Act. An. p. 104/17.

26 De Act.An. p. 106/22 iam falsum est quod ego vixi 40 annis;p. 56/6 dicetur super libro Sententiarum alibi, si Deus deierit.

27 Thomson, , Latin Writings nos. 7-19.Google Scholar

28 Thomson, , Latin Writings nos. 7-10.Google Scholar