# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ockham, William

​OCKHAM or OCCAM, WILLIAM (d. 1349?), ‘Doctor invincibilis,’ was possibly a native of the village in Surrey from which he bore his name. He studied at Oxford in all probability as a member of the Franciscan house there, and not (as has commonly been asserted) as a fellow of Merton College. His name does not appear in the ‘Old Catalogue’ of fellows of the college drawn up in the fifteenth century, and his connection with it ‘seems to rest almost entirely on the authority of Sir Henry Savile, who cites an entry in a college manuscript which Kilner,’ the Merton antiquary of the eighteenth century, ‘failed to find’ (G. C. Brodrick, Memorials of Merton College, 1885, p. 194). Even Anthony Wood was disposed to doubt the fact (manuscript cited ib. p. ix n. 1). Ockham is said to have been a pupil of Duns Scotus, who is likewise claimed on equally slender grounds as a fellow of Merton, but who was certainly a member of the Oxford Franciscan house in 1300 (Wood, Survey of the Antiq. of the City of Oxford, ed. Clark, ii. 386, 1890) and probably remained there until 1304 (Little, Grey Friars in Oxford, 1892, p. 220). The date of Ockham's admission to the order of friars minor is unknown. He received the degree of B.D. at Oxford (ib. p. 224, n. 5), and afterwards passed on to the university of Paris, where he incepted as D.D. At Paris he became closely associated with the famous Marsiglio of Padua, who held the office of rector of the university in March 1312–13 (Denifle, Chartul. Univ. Paris. vol. ii. pt. i. p. 158, 1891). Ockham exercised a strong influence upon Marsiglio's political speculations, and it has consequently been supposed that Ockham was the elder of the two, but for this inference the data are insufficient.
Down to this point no certain date in Ockham's life has been established. It may, however, be accepted that at least the first book of his commentary on the ‘Sentences’ was composed during his residence at Oxford (Little, pp. 227, 228), and there is no reason for contesting the common tradition which makes Paris the scene of that course of study and teaching which formed an epoch in the history of logical theory. How far by this time Ockham had advanced in his political speculations need not be defined, though his influence on Marsiglio's ‘Defensor Pacis,’ which was written while he was still at Paris in 1324, can hardly be doubted (cf. Clement VI, ap. Höfler, Aus Avignon, p. 20). Ockham, as a Franciscan, entered loyally into the controversy which arose in his order in 1321 concerning ‘evangelical poverty.’ Previously to that year the dispute among the Franciscans had turned on the question of their obligation to observe strictly their vow of absolute poverty; the new controversy related to a matter of historical fact, whether Christ and his disciples ever possessed any property (see F. Ehrle, in Archiv für Litt. und Kirchengesch. des Mittelalters, i. [1885], pp. 509 ff.) In 1322 a general chapter of the order assembled at Perugia formally accepted the doctrine of evangelical poverty. Ockham was, until lately, believed to have occupied a prominent place at this chapter, and to have acted as provincial minister of England (Wadding, Ann. Min. vii. 7); but it is certain that the ‘William’ who subscribes the declaration was not Ockham, but William of Nottingham (Little, in Engl. Hist. Rev. vi. 747, [1891]; Denifle, Chartul. Univ. Paris. vol. ii. pt. i. p. 277), though very probably Ockham was also present (Little, Grey Friars, p. 224). In any case, next year he is found taking an active part in defence of the doctrine against Pope John XXII, who had authoritatively condemned it. On 1 Dec. 1323 the pope sent a mandate to the bishops of Ferrara and Bologna, calling upon them to make inquiry touching a report that Ockham had in a public sermon at Bologna maintained the pope's definition to be heretical, and ordering him, if guilty, to be sent to Avignon (Wadding, Ann. Min. vii. 7). What actually took place we do not know; but his capture seems not to have been effected until more than four years had passed, and then in connection not with the old sermon at Bologna, but with a renewed defence of his opinions at Paris. John of Winterthur says that ‘quidam valens lector de ordine fratrum minorum, dictus Wilnheim,’ was, on this ground, accused by the Dominicans before the pope, subjected to repeated examination, and imprisoned for seventeen weeks (Joh. Vitodur. Chron. pp. 88 f.). This precise statement conflicts with the account of his detention for four years which Dr. Carl ​Müller has cited (i. 208, n. 3) from an unpublished letter of Ockham; but, at any rate, until Dr. Müller's document is printed, we are inclined to assume that in it months have been mistaken for years. The pope himself in his bull of 6 June 1328 (printed by Martène and Durand, Thesaurus novus Anecdotorum, ii. 749 ff., and given in a better text by Glassberger, Chron. pp. 141 ff.) states that Ockham was charged with errors and heresies also in his writings; and according to Wadding (Ann. Min. vii. 82) he wrote during his confinement a treatise ‘de qualitate propositionum’ which he afterwards incorporated in his great ‘Dialogus.’
Ockham, with Michael da Cesena, the general of his order, Bonagratia of Bergamo, and other friars, resolved on flight. Lewis the Bavarian was appealed to, and sent a ship. The fugitives escaped from Avignon by night on 25 May 1328 (Nicol. Minor. manuscript cited by Denifle, Chartul. Univ. Paris. vol. ii. pt. i. p. 290; Glassberger, p. 140); they slipped by boat down the Rhône, and though pursued by Cardinal Peter of Porto, reached Aigues-Mortes in safety (John XXII's bull, ubi supra). Here they entered the galley sent them by the emperor, and on 8 June arrived at Pisa, where they were warmly welcomed by the inhabitants and by Lewis's officers (‘Chron. Sanese,’ in Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. xv. 81; ‘Ann. Cæsen.’ ib. xiv. 1148; cf. Riezler, Liter. Widers. der Päpste, p. 68). According to an old tradition, which is not, however, traceable beyond the ‘De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis’ (f. 82 b) of Tritheim, abbot of Sponheim (Basle, 1494), Ockham presented himself before Lewis with the words, ‘O imperator, defende me gladio et ego defendam te verbo’ (Opp. Hist. i. 313, ed. Frankfurt, 1601). At any rate he thenceforward attached himself to the emperor's fortunes, and probably remained at his court during the time of his residence in Italy, and accompanied him back to Bavaria in February 1330 (cf. Sächs. Weltchr., 3te Bair. Fortsetz. in Deutsche Chroniken, ii. 346). Meanwhile the pope lost no time in denouncing the fugitives. On 6 June he published their excommunication (bull, ubi supra); on the 20th he notified to the Archbishop of Milan the process against them, and ordered its publication (Vatik. Akten, No. 1044, p. 389); and in a series of undated mandates he warned the Margrave of Baden, the Count Palatine, the Duke of Wirttemberg, the Bishop of Strassburg, and other princes to look out for them, as they were expected shortly to pass through their territories, and informed them that the three friars were under excommunication and must be captured and sent back to the papal court (ib. No. 1105, p. 404). In March 1329 and a year later (in April 1330) we find the pope still pursuing them with rescripts to the six archbishops of the German provinces, urgently demanding their imprisonment (ib. No. 1143, p. 414; No. 1288, p. 452; cf. No. 1178, p. 421). The fugitives, however, while still at Pisa, had appealed from the pope's sentence to that of a general council (Glassberger, p. 146; cf. Ockham, ‘Comp. Error. Papæ,’ v., in Goldast, ii. 964 f.), and, after passing unharmed into Bavaria, lived on under the protection of Lewis in the house of their order at Munich (Sächs. Weltchr., ubi supra); and though the greater part of the Franciscan order was by degrees reduced to submission, a powerful minority remained staunch, and found their rallying-post in the imperial court. Of these ‘fraticelli’ Michael da Cesena and, next to him, Ockham were the leaders; and after Michael's death in 1342 Ockham became the undisputed chief. His life for the twenty years following his flight from Avignon has its record almost solely in the works which he produced, and the dates of which are ascertained by internal evidence alone.
When, in November 1329, John XXII published his constitution or ‘libellus,’ ‘Quia vir reprobus,’ against Michael da Cesena (printed in Raynald. Ann. v. 423–49), condemning the whole Franciscan doctrine concerning poverty, Ockham set himself at once to deal with it. He produced his ‘Opus nonaginta Dierum’ (printed by Goldast, ii. 993–1236), in which he replied to the pope's treatise sentence by sentence. The fact that he wrote a work of solid argument and massive erudition, which would fill a substantial volume of modern pattern, continuously within the space of ninety days (see p. 1236), shows that the undertaking was a matter of urgent pressure, and it may be dated with confidence in 1330; in no case can it be later than 1332 (see Riezler, p. 243, n. 3). Ockham's next work, ‘De Dogmatibus Papæ Johannis XXII,’ relates to the doctrine concerning the beatific vision of the saints which the pope had revived in certain sermons which he delivered at Avignon between 1 Nov. 1331 and 5 Jan. 1332 (Ockham, ‘Defens.’ in Brown, ii. 454; Jo. Minor., in Baluze, iii. 349 f.; Denifle, Chartul. Univ. Paris. vol. ii. pt. i. pp. 414 f.) Ockham obtained knowledge of the propositions on 3 Jan. 1333, and forthwith proceeded to examine them in two treatises which, although not written in the form of a dialogue, were subsequently incorporated in the ‘Dialogus’ as pt. ii. (Goldast, ii. 740–770). In 1334 he ​wrote an ‘Epistola ad Fratres minores in capitulo apud Assisium congregatos,’ which has not been printed (manuscript at Paris, Bibl. Nat. 3387, ff. 262 b–265 a; see Little, p. 229).
After the death of John XXII on 4 Dec. 1334 and the accession of Benedict XII, Ockham did not cease his attack upon the papacy. In October 1336 the emperor, seeking to make terms with Benedict, offered to abandon and destroy Ockham and his allies (Vatik. Akten, No. 1841, p. 642; cf. Riezler, p. 312); but the negotiation came to nothing. Ockham wrote, probably before 1338 (ib. p. 245), a ‘Compendium errorum papæ’ (Goldast, ii. 957–76), in which he made John answerable for seventy errors and seven heresies, and a ‘Defensorium contra Johannem papam’ (Brown, ii. 439–65, who identifies it with the tract cited by Tritheim, Opp. hist. p. 313, ‘Contra Johannem 22 de paupertate Christi et apostolorum’). ‘The Defensorium,’ which is addressed in the name of the Franciscans to all Christian people, is in part a sort of summary of the ‘Opus nonaginta dierum,’ though differently arranged, and in part (from the second paragraph on p. 453 onwards) an indictment of the papal authority. It probably belongs to the same period as the ‘Compendium,’ for Dr. Riezler's argument (p. 247) in favour of a later date is not conclusive. M. Hauréau's contention (vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 359) that it was written before 1323 is manifestly impossible, because of the discussion it contains of the pope's ‘heresies,’ which were not published until 1331–2. The work is ascribed by Nicolaus Minorita (manuscript at Paris; see C. Müller, i. 355), but without plausibility, not to Ockham, but to Michael da Cesena. About 1338 also Ockham wrote a ‘Tractatus ostendens quod Benedictus papa XII nonnullas Johannis XXII hæreses amplexus est et defendit,’ in seven books (manuscript at Paris, Bibl. Nat. 3387, ff. 214 b–262 a; see Little, p. 232).
It was the defence of his order that had thrown Ockham into opposition to the papacy; this opposition had been strengthened and defined by the discovery of strictly dogmatic heresies in the teaching of John XXII; and his attack upon the authority of the holy see came as a result of his controversy. It was the conclusion to which his reasoning led, not, as with Marsiglio, the premise from which he started. The conditions of the struggle had driven him to cast in his lot with the emperor Lewis, and when in 1338 the crisis in Lewis's contest arrived it was Ockham whose services were called for. In July the electors declared at Rense that the prince whom they elected needed no confirmation by the pope; and on 8 Aug. Lewis, at Frankfurt, protested, in virtue of his plenary authority in things temporal, that the action taken by the pope against him at Avignon was null, and made his solemn appeal from the pope to a general council. The authorship of this appeal is attributed by Andrew of Ratisbon to Francesco da Ascoli and Ockham, and Ockham lost no time in writing a set defence of the imperial authority (Chron. Gen. in Pez, vol. iv. pt. iii. pp. 565 f.) Glassberger, who quotes Andrew's notice, says that the defence in question was the ‘Opus nonaginta dierum’ (p. 168); but this is a manifest error. The work is no doubt the ‘Tractatus de potestate imperiali,’ preserved in manuscript at the Vatican (Cod. Palat. Lat. 679, pt. i. f. 117; see Little, pp. 232 f.)
The controversy being now broadened into a general discussion of the nature of the papal and the imperial authority, Lupold of Bebenburg wrote his great treatise, ‘De juribus regni et imperii,’ and Ockham followed it up by his ‘Octo quæstiones super potestate ac dignitate papali’ (Goldast, ii. 314–391), otherwise entitled ‘De potestate pontificum et imperatorum,’ between 1339 and 1342; in connection with which may be mentioned an unpublished treatise, ‘de pontificum et imperatorum potestate,’ opened by a letter and divided into twenty-seven chapters, which is preserved in the British Museum (Royal MS. 10 A. xv.; Little, p. 232). To 1342 belongs also a ‘Tractatus de jurisdictione imperatoris in causis matrimonialibus’ (Goldast, i. 21–4), written with reference to the proposed marriage of Lewis's son, Lewis of Brandenburg, with Margaret Maultasch, the wife of John of Luxemburg. The genuineness of this work has been contested on insufficient grounds (see Riezler, pp. 254–7; cf. Müller, ii. 161 f.)
Not long after the declarations of Rense and Frankfurt, Ockham resolved to elaborate his views on the questions agitated between church and state in the form of an immense dialogue between a master and a disciple. There is evidence that this ‘Dialogus,’ arranged and divided as we now have it (Goldast, ii. 398–957), was in circulation in 1343, for in that year Duke Albert of Austria refused to allow Clement VI's interdict to operate within his dominions, on the ground that the emperor had convinced him of its illegitimacy—so we must read a sentence which is defective in our authority—by means of Ockham's book which he sent him (John of Viktring, vi. 12 in Böhmer, Fontes, i. 447); but whether the work was ever actually completed according to the author's design remains uncertain. It con​sists of three parts, whereof the first (‘de fautoribus hæreticorum,’ as it is entitled in manuscripts; Little, p. 229) discusses in seven books the seat of authority in matters of faith, with special reference to the determination of heresy; and the second, in two treatises, is the work on the heresies of John XXII, already mentioned. Part iii., ‘de gestis circa fidem altercantium,’ was planned on a more extensive scale. It was to consist of nine treatises, whereof the first, on the authority of the pope and clergy, in four books, and the second, on the authority of the Roman empire, in three books, are all that remain, and the latter is imperfect. Cardinal Peter d'Ailly knew the titles of two further books of the second treatise, but not their contents; and all the manuscripts that have been examined break off at one point or another in the third book (ib. pp. 230 f.). But Ockham himself has given us the titles of the remaining seven treatises (Goldast, ii. 771); and a note prefixed to the ‘Opus nonaginta dierum’ suggests that this work was destined to find its place among them as treatise vi. It may be conjectured that the ‘Compendium errorum’ and the work against Benedict XII were intended to be incorporated as treatises iii. and v., so that only the end of treatise ii. and the whole of iv., vii., viii., and ix. would be unrecovered (cf. Riezler, pp. 262 ff.; Poole, p. 278, n. 24; Little, pp. 229–32); but the loss of treatise viii., which dealt with Ockham's own doings, is specially to be regretted. After the death of Lewis IV in 1347, and the election of Charles of Luxemburg, Ockham wrote, either in 1348 or early in 1349 (see Riezler, p. 272, n. 1), a ‘Tractatus de electione Caroli IV,’ of which only a fragment has been printed by Constantin von Höfler (Aus Avignon, pp. 14 f.)
Some years earlier, in 1342, Michael da Cesena, who still claimed to be general of the Franciscan order, had died; and from him the seal of office passed into the hands of Ockham, who retained it and styled himself vicar of the order (Clement VI, ap. Höfler, l.c., p. 20). But in time he wearied of his situation of increasing isolation, and he sent the ring to the acknowledged general, William Farinerius, with a view to his reconciliation to the church. Clement VI, who had declared in 1343 his earnest desire to effect this, now supplied, 8 June 1349, the required instrument for the purpose, conditional upon the recantation of his more obnoxious doctrines (printed by Wadding, viii. 12 f., and Raynald. vi. 491 f.). That Ockham performed the conditions and obtained absolution is asserted by Tritheim (Opp. Hist. i. 313) and maintained by Wadding; it is, on the other hand, disputed by Raynaldus.
Clement's document, as well as Ockham's tract, on the election of Charles IV disprove the statement that the friar died so early as 10 April 1347 which is made by Glassberger (p. 184) on the authority, no doubt, of a gravestone placed with others bearing equally incorrect inscriptions at a later date (see Riezler, p. 127). His death cannot have occurred before 1349, but it is unlikely that he long survived that year. He died in the convent of his order at Munich, and was buried there (Glassberger, l.c.) Wadding (vol. viii. 10 ff.) notes and corrects several other erroneous statements with respect to the time and place of his death.
Ockham's eminence lies in his work in logic, in philosophy, and in political theory. In the first two he powerfully influenced the schools of his day; in the last he profoundly agitated the church. Carl von Prantl considers (iii. 328) the peculiar characteristic of Ockham's logic to lie in the fact, not that he was the second founder of nominalism, but that he made the method of logic known as the ‘Byzantine logic’ his fundamental basis. Prantl assumes that the so-called ‘Byzantine logic’ was made known to the west in the ‘Synopsis’ bearing the name of Psellus, a writer of the eleventh century. Powerful arguments have, however, been adduced to prove that the ‘Synopsis’ of Psellus is in fact only a fifteenth-century translation into Greek of the ‘Summulæ’ of Petrus Hispanus, who lived in the thirteenth century. It therefore follows that Prantl's theory that Ockham derived his method from the ‘Byzantine logic’ in the ‘Synopsis’ of Psellus must be considered at least doubtful (see C. Thurot in the Revue Archéologique, new ser. x. 267–281, [1864], and Revue Critique, 1867, i. 199–202, ii. 4–11; and compare Valentin Rose in Hermes, ii. 146 f, 1867, and Ueberweg, i. 404 n.) But if it was not Byzantine logic by which Ockham was permeated, it was not the less a new method of logical treatment which came into currency in the middle of the thirteenth century through the works of William Shyreswood or Sherwood, and of Petrus Hispanus, and which left its impression upon Duns Scotus and others of his contemporaries. This method, in the form in which it was expounded by Ockham, may be said to have proceeded on the supposition that logic deals not with things nor with thoughts, but with terms arbitrarily imposed by ourselves. When we use certain terms in logic for the sake of convenience in drawing out a syllogism, we neither assert ​nor prove anything as to the relation of those terms to our thoughts or to existing realities. Argument is only true ex supposito. Duns Scotus, on the other hand, conceived the function of logic to deal with thoughts. As to the metaphysical basis, they were still more strongly opposed. Duns held to the reality of universals in the most uncompromising form to which the matured mediæval realism ever attained: Ockham declined to go beyond the logical necessity; he enforced the ‘law of parcimony’ (‘Entia non sunt multiplicanda præter necessitatem’) and regarded them as terms in a syllogism. It is because his view was confined to the region of logic that his doctrine is now often described as terminalism rather than nominalism. Universals were not so much names which we give to the results of our observation of many individuals more or less alike, as terms which we use to describe them for the purpose of arguing. The relation between terms and thoughts, and the relation between thoughts and facts, were both imperfect; words ultimately considered were but the signs of thoughts which were themselves signs of something else.
But if Duns and Ockham so diversely conceived the province of logic and the nature of its subject-matter, in one important respect they were led to a practical result not dissimilar. Since the days of Albert the Great there had been a gradual reaction against the earlier philosophy of the middle ages, which made the reconciliation of reason and faith its leading aim. St. Thomas Aquinas had reserved certain truths of revelation as unprovable by reason, and Duns had gone beyond him in such a way as to place theology outside the pale of the sciences. Duns's indeterminism was further extended by Ockham and the road left open for general theological scepticism. But it was only through this scepticism that he was able to retain his faith in theological dogmas, since these lay entirely beyond the possibility of human proof. In the uncertainty of intellectual processes he was forced to fall back upon the vision of faith. Morality, too, he held to be something not essential to man's nature, but (with Scotus) as founded in the arbitrary will of God.
With Ockham the sphere of logic was circumscribed, but within its limits it was the keenest of instruments. Revelation, indeed, was beyond its sphere, but it is not easy to say to what extent Ockham admitted the authority of the ecclesiastical tradition. As to the nature and power of the church, Ockham disputed with a vehement assurance doubtless born not so much of his philosophical principles as of loyalty to his order. Yet we cannot assert without qualification that he attacked the authority of the church in its strictly spiritual sphere (cf. J. Silbernagl in the Hist. Jahrb. vii. 423–33, 1886). He was indeed strongest on the critical or negative side; and while he denied the ‘plenitudo potestatis’ claimed for the papacy, he was not altogether disposed to place the emperor above the pope, nor was he happy in invoking, as was required by the controversy, the ultimate resort of a general council, even though formed alike of clergy and laymen, men and women. The infirmity of reason was with him the counterpart to the strength of the logician. He could criticise with freedom, but had scruples in reconstructing. He furnished invaluable weapons to those after him who opposed the authority of the pope, and even helped Luther in the elaboration of his doctrine concerning the sacrament; but his most enduring monument is found in the logical tradition which he established in the university of Paris. At first, in 1339, the faculty of arts forbade any one to teach his doctrine (Denifle, Chartul. Univ. Paris. vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 485 f.); but it grew and prevailed until by the end of the century it had become the generally accepted system in the leading school of Europe. It was from his position as the first man to bring the new nominalism into wide currency that Ockham received the title of ‘Venerabilis Inceptor,’ which is apparently older than the more familiar one of ‘Doctor invincibilis.’
Ockham's logical works are: 1. ‘Summa Logices’ (ad Adamum), printed at Paris, 1488; Venice, 1522; Oxford, 1675, &c. 2. Commentaries on Porphyry's Introduction to Aristotle's ‘Organon,’ and on the earlier books of the latter, the ‘Categories,’ ‘De Interpretatione,’ and ‘Elenchi,’ partly printed at Bologna, 1496, under the title ‘Expositio aurea super totam artem veterem.’ In philosophy and theology he wrote: ‘Quæstiones in octo libros Physicorum,’ printed at Rome, 1637; and ‘Summulæ’ on the same; ‘Quæstiones in quatuor libros Sententiarum,’ printed at Lyons, 1495, &c.; ‘Quodlibeta septem,’ printed at Paris 1487, at Strassburg 1491; ‘De Sacramento Altaris’ and ‘De Corpore Christi,’ printed at the end of the ‘Quodlibeta,’ in the Strassburg edition; ‘Centilogium theologicum,’ printed at Lyons, 1495, with the ‘Quæstiones’ on the ‘Sentences;’ and several other works which remain in manuscript. Ockham's political writings have all been enumerated in his biography. To them is usually added a ‘Disputatio inter militem et clericum’ on the civil ​and ecclesiastical power (printed by Goldast, i. 13 ff.), which was translated into English in the sixteenth century and twice published by Berthelet (2nd edit. 1540); but Dr. Riezler has shown (pp. 144–8) that it is not by Ockham, but probably by Pierre du Bois. The ‘Sermones Ockam’ preserved in a fifteenth-century manuscript in the Worcester Cathedral Library (74 Qu.), and extending to 270 pages, are of a practical character, and contain occasional translations of sentences and phrases into French, and here and there anecdotes (e.g. one about Londoners on p. 141): everything points to their being the work of some other Ockham.
Ockham is not to be confounded with William de Ocham, who appears as archdeacon of Stow in 1302 (see Denifle, Chartul. Univ. Paris'. vol. ii. pt. i. p. 486).
The name is spelt in a multiplicity of ways, but the form ‘Occam,’ which is now fashionable on the continent, seems to have the slightest contemporary support, most of our older authorities writing the name with at least one k.
[Johannes Victoriensis, in Böhmer's Fontes Rerum Germanicarum, vol. i., Stuttgart, 1843; Johannis Vitodurani Chronicon, ed. G. von Wyss, in the Archiv für schweizerische Geschichte, vol. xi., Zürich, 1856; Johannis Minoritæ Chronicon, in Baluze's Miscellanea, vol. iii., ed. Mansi, Lucca, 1762; Nicolai Glassberger Chronicon, in the Analecta Franciscana, vol. ii., Quaracchi, 1887; Sächsische Weltchronik, dritte bairische Fortsetzung, ed. L. Weiland, in the Monumenta Germaniæ historica, Deutsche Chroniken, vol. ii., Hanover, 1876. Ockham's political works are chiefly in Goldast's Monarchia's. Romani Imperii, vol. ii., Frankfurt, 1614, or vol. iii. in the reissue of the same book, Frankfurt, 1621; Documents in Martène and Durand's Thesaurus novus Anecdotorum, vol. ii., Paris, 1727; Wadding's Annales Minorum, ed. Fonseca, vols. vii. viii., Rome, 1733; Raynaldi Annales Ecclesiastici, vols. v., vi., ed. Mansi, Lucca, 1750; C. von Höfler's Aus Avignon, in the Abhandlungen der königlich böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 6th ser. vol. ii., Prague, 1868; Denifle and Chatelain's Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. ii. pt. i., Paris, 1887; Vatikanische Akten zur deutschen Geschichte in der Zeit Ludwigs des Baiern, ed. S. Riezler, Innsbruck, 1891. The best modern life of Ockham is contained, with a full treatment of his political works, in S. Riezler's Die literarischen Widersacher der Päpste zur Zeit Ludwig des Baiers, Leipzig, 1874; see also C. Müller's Der Kampf Ludwigs des Baiern mit der römischen Curie, 2 vols., Tübingen, 1879–1880. For the philosophy, see C. von Prantl's Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande, iii. 327–420, Leipzig, 1867, cf. vol. iv. 41–4, 1870; A. Stöckl's Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, ii. 986–1021, Mainz, 1865; F. Ueberweg's History of Philosophy (transl. by G. S. Morris), i. 460–4, London, 1872; J. E. Erdmann's Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, i. 423–34, 3rd edit. Berlin, 1878; B. Hauréau's Histoire de la Philosophie scolastique, vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 356–430, Paris, 1880; R. L. Poole's Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought, pp. 276–81, London, 1884; T. M. Lindsay, in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edit., xvii. 717 ff., 1884; cf. A. Seth, ib. art. ‘Scholasticism,’ xxi. 430, &c. 1886. Fuller lists of Ockham's works will be found in Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannica, pp. 555 f., in Wadding's Scriptores ordinis Minorum, pp. 106 f., and J. H. Sbaralea's supplement, pp. 326–8 (Rome, 1806), and in Mr. Little's Grey Friars, pp. 225–34, which contains the best critical catalogue. For the political works reference should be made specially to Dr. Riezler, pp. 241–72; and for the philosophical ones to Prantl, iii. 322, notes 737–40, and C. Thurot, in the Revue Critique for 1867, i. 194, note 1.]
R. L. P.