TEACHPOL · Freedom of Teaching and Political Control: The Case of Thomas Aquinas’ Assimilation in William of Peter Godin’s Lectura Thomasina (14th C.)
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2015-05-15 → 2017-05-14
- EU contribution
- €171,461
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Freedom of Teaching and Political Control:The Case of Thomas Aquinas’ Assimilation in William of Peter Godin’s Lectura Thomasina (14th C.)
The proposed project “TEACHPOL - Freedom of Teaching and Political Control: The Case of Thomas Aquinas’ Assimilation in William of Peter Godin’s Lectura Thomasina (14th C.)” aimed at exploring the speculative, historical, religious, and political role played by William of Peter of Godin’s Commentary on the Sentences, the so-called Lectura Thomasina, in the interpretation, transmission, and teaching of Thomas Aquinas’ controversial doctrines after the series of condemnations, censures, and corrections, to which Aquinas’ writings were subjected a few years after his death. A comprehensive study of the work, still unpublished and preserved in fifteen manuscripts, but especially the critical edition of a significant section of the text (Book II, dist. 1-22), offered the great opportunity to add a fundamental piece to the mosaic of the reworking of Aquinas in late medieval teaching activity before the emergence of the historiographical notion of «Thomism». Moreover, an in-depth analysis of William’s text served as case-study for accessing a wider investigation on the contrast between freedom of teaching and educational policy – recurring in many other cases in European intellectual history –, by emphasizing the aspects which usually typify the process of transmission of pioneering and ground-breaking ideas in a hostile intellectual context.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The project intends to explore the speculative, historical, and political functions assumed by William of Peter Godin’s Lectura thomasina in the assimilation and teaching of Thomas Aquinas’ doctrines after the series of condemnations, censures, and corrections promulgated by some political authorities between the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century. The text, still unpublished and preserved in fifteen manuscripts, does not represent a mere collection of Thomas’ dicta, but rather a sort of authorized handbook for students, which frequently replaced the direct lecture of Aquinas’ texts. In line with the educational policies, but true to Thomas’ intentions, the Lectura thomasina is an outstanding multidisciplinary document: it harmonizes speculative contents from Thomas Aquinas’ texts with political pressures and religious convinctions.Through a comprehensive analysis of the work, a transcription of some selected passages, in which William’s reworking of censured Thomistic doctrines emerges, and, for the first time, the critical edition of a significant section of the text (Book II – distinctions I-XXII), the research will focus on the Lectura thomasina as a case study that typifies the process of assimilation and transmission of groundbreaking ideas in a specific intellectual context, when it is subjected to political or religious restrictions. Then, the text will be a gateway to access a wider investigation on the contrasts between freedom of teaching and educational policy, recurring in many other cases in European intellectual history, and it will convert a specialists’ discussion on a medieval problem into a far-reaching intellectual challenge.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITAT ZU KOLN · KolnCoordinatorGermany
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/657033
- http://thomasina.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/
- https://arquivo.pt/wayback/20201229135318/https://thomasina.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/
Data: CORDIS, © European Union