Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

Logic in the 14 th Century after Ockham 485
to have been written on obligationes (in any case, we have not been able to unearth
anything so far) until Kilvington’s Sophismata [Kretzmann and Kretzmann,
1990], written before 1325), which contains interesting remarks on the genre (without
actually presenting a full-fledged theory of obligationes — see [Spade, 1982]).
Kilvington’s remarks seem to have sparked renewed interest in the genre, especially
among the Oxford Calculators, who then began to write prolifically on obligationes.
The first of such treatises is Roger Swyneshed’s treatise ( ∼ = 1330-1335)
[Spade, 1977], which indeed inaugurated a new trend within the genre, later to be
named ‘nova responsio’ by Robert Fland in his treatise ( ∼ = 1350) [Spade, 1980c],
as opposed to the ‘antiqua responsio’ represented by the Burley-style form of obligationes.
As for what exactly differentiates the antiqua from the nova responsio,
this will be the core of the conceptual discussion to follow. 57
Other British authors having written on obligationes in the decades following
Swyneshed’s treatises are (for the dates, I follow [Braakhuis, 1993]): Billingham
( ∼ = 1350s) (cf. [Ashworth, 1985]), Martin of Alnwick ( ∼ = 1350s), Richard Brinkley
( ∼ = 1350s) [Spade, 1995], Ralph Strode ( ∼ = 1360s) (cf. [Ashworth, 1993; Dutilh
Novaes, 2006b]), an anonymous Mertonian [Kretzmann and Stump, 1985], and
Richard Lavenham (later 14 th century) [Spade, 1978]. Paul of Venice, who for
our present purposes is counted among ‘British’ authors, has a long treatise on
obligationes in the Logica Magna [Paul of Venice, 1988], which is heavily inspired
by Strode’s treatise, and a short chapter on obligationes in the Logica Parva.
Among these, Martin of Alnwick, Richard Lavenham and, to some extent, Robert
Fland, follow Swyneshed’s nova responsio style of obligationes; the others remain
by and large faithful to the antiqua responsio.
As for continental authors, currently we only know of six continental authors
who wrote obligationes treatises: Albert of Saxony ( ∼ = 1350) (cf. Braakhuis 1993),
John of Wesel ( ∼ = 1350) (cf. [Spade, 1996b]), William Buser ( ∼ = 1355) (cf. [Keepkens,
1982; 1993; Pozzi, 1990] for the edited text), Marsilius of Inghen (just before
1360) (cf. [Keepkens, 1982, 159-160]), John of Holland (just after 1360) (cf. John
of Holland 1985) and Peter of Candia (very end of 14 th century) (cf. [Keepkens,
1982, 154]). The last two are thought to have studied in England, and therefore
their exposure to the British obligationes literature can be taken for granted. As
for the others: it has been argued convincingly that Albert of Saxony would have
drawn significantly from Billingham’s treatise, or in any case from the chapter on
obligationes of the general manual Logica oxoniensis, which in turn is basically
Billingham’s text (see [Ashworth, 1985; Braakhuis, 1993]). As for William Buser
and Marsilius of Inghen, it is certain that they would have had direct contact with
Albert and his obligationes; Buser’s text resembles Albert’s in many aspects, and
Marsilius’s text in turn is visibly inspired by his master Buser’s text (cf. [Keep-
57 Notice though that these terms, ‘antiqui’ and ‘moderni’, are not consistently used by our
authors; given the natural flow of generations, those that are referred to as ‘moderni’ often end
up being referred to as ‘antiqui’ in subsequent generations (cf. [Spade, 1980, 42; Pozzi, 1990, 17,
fn. 25]). In any case, in this section I will use the term ‘nova responsio’ to refer to Swyneshed’s
style and ‘antiqua responsio’ to refer to Burley’s style of obligationes.