Franciscan Studies

POLITIA CHRISTIANA: THE ECCLESIOLOGY OF ALVARUS PELAGIUS The development ofecclesiology looms across the horizon of the late Middle Ages. Reflected in the legal deliberation of the canonists, in the conflict between seculars and mendicants, in the movements of apostolic poverty, in heterodoxy and dissent, and throughout the heyday of the publicists and the conciliar era, the emergence of ecclesiological Selbstverständnis is a common chord.1 While we might quarrel about relegating the 13th century to the prehistory ofecclesiol1 For general treatments of the ecclesiology of the Middle Ages, see Yves Congar, L'ecclésiologie du haut Moyen-Age (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1968), and idem L Église de saint Augustin à l'épogue moderne (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1970) 157-338. Studies of the idea of the church in the later Middle Ages include Scott H. Hendrix, "In Quest of the vera ecclesia: The Crises of Late Medieval Ecclesiology," Viator 7 (1976): 347-78; Friedrich Merzbacher, "Wandlungen des Kirchenbegriffs im Spätmittelalter,"Zeitschri/t der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistiche Abteilung 39 (1953): 274-361; Francis Oakley , The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1979) 157-74; Steven Ozment, The Age ofReform (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980) 135-81; and, recently, Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 4: Reformation of Church and Dogma (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1984) 69-126. For canonical and conciliar themes, see Brian Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1955) and idem, Origins ofPapal Infallibility (Leiden: Brill, 1972). On the conflict between seculars and mendicants, see Yves Congar, "Aspects ecclésiologiques de la querelle entre mendiants et séculiers dans la seconde moitié du XIIIe siècle et le début du XIVe," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litt éraire du moyen âge 36 (1961): 35-151, and M-M. Dufeil, Guillaume de SaintAmour et la polémique universitaire parisienne, 1250-1295 (Paris: Picard, 1972). 3l8KENNETH CAPALBO ogy, as some scholars have suggested, we would readily concur that the later Middle Ages provided a setting for the emergence of ecclesiological treatises "at once more extensive, more varied, more developed, and more systematic than anything emerging from the centuries preceding."2 Prominent in the ecclesiological debate of the early fourteenth century were the publicists who engaged in a veritable war of words and developed a vast armory of ecclesiopolitical writings. Historical retrieval of the publicist tracts has rightly emphasized the polemical and political thrust of these works without a corresponding appreciation of the ecclesiological issues treated. While scholars acknowledge that the ecclesiology of the publicists is noteworthy, they often conclude that the atmosphere of crisis in the early fourteenth century restricted ecclesiological inquiry.3 The publicist genre, analyzed early in the twentieth century by Richard Scholz and further investigated in recent decades, is undeniably argumentative and repetitive.4 An imFor standard treatment of the publicists and their milieu, as well as critical editions of texts, see Richard Scholz, Die Publizistik zur Zeit Philipps des Schönen und Bonifaz VlII (Stuttgart: Enke, 1903) and idem, Unbekannte Kirchenpolitische Streitschriften aus der Zeit Ludwigs des Bayern, 1327-1354 (Rome: Loescher, 1911-14). A most authoritative study of the publicists is Michael Wilks, The Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963). Works critical of Wilks which do not supplant his effort include Wilhelm Kölmel, Regimen christianum (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1970); Gordon Leff, "The Apostolic Ideal in Later Medieval Ecclesiology," Journal of Theological Studies 18 (1967): 58-82; and William D. McCready, "Papalists and Anti-Papalists: Aspects of the Church/State Controversy in the Later Middle Ages," Viator 6 (1975): 241-73. 2 Francis Oakley, "Natural Law, the Corpus Mysticum, and Consent in Conciliar Thought from John of Paris to Matthias Ugonius," Speculum 56 (1981): 786-810. Oakley alludes to Georges de Lagarde, La naissance de l'esprit laïque au déclin du Moyen Age, vol. 5: Guillaume d'Ockham: Critique des structures ecclésiales (Louvain: Nauwelaerts, 1963) 4. 3 Hendrix 347-49; Kölmel, Regimen 591-608. 4 Scholz, Publizistik 22ff. For a post-Scholz perspective on the...