my inner senses tell me

My inner senses tell me my notional Week for William of Occam is nearly over. It’s time to write the epilogue and ring down the curtain.

I have a feeling I’ve learned more about myself than I have about Occam. I’m certainly not the same person I was a week ago.

But enough of that! What of our William?

The village of Ockham, in the English county of Surrey, has a website which claims William as one of its sons : “the proponent of Occam’s razor. “ We don’t know his exact date of birth. The best we can say is 1287/1288. At this distance it’s not all that important.

When he was seven - or maybe it was fourteen - he was taken into the Ordo Fratrum Minorum - the Greyfriars, the Franciscans - to be educated at their London house. 

Round about the year 1318 he is in their Oxford house studying theology at the university ; and from there he returned to London.

He comes across to me as an outstanding thinker. The kind of man unwittingly burdened with colleagues of lesser ability. They who so readily feel inadequate in his company. These are they who deceitfully go about to undermine and discredit any who are the more able. They spread rumours. Suspicion.

And so it came about that, in 1323, William was called before the provincial chapter to explain himself. 

And matters did not stop there. He was remanded to the supreme ecclesiastical court : Avignon - where Pope John XXII luxuriated in the gothic splendour of the Palais des Papes. Our Franciscan faced serious charges of heresy.

I’ve come across John XXII before. He merits - if that’s the right word - no more than a line or two in the better studies of medieval music. His complaint has survived the centuries. He inveighed against the singers in the papal choir for their newfangled fashion of vocal hockets. Like hiccups.

Now, at that time, there were Franciscans in dispute with His Holiness. Saint Francis of blessed memory had preached the gospel message of holy poverty. Franciscans - individually and collectively - should own no property. They observed John XXII living in ostentatious splendour. No hint of poverty there. This was palpable heresy.

1328. Confrontation. Occam is commissioned to further investigate and report. He finds among John’s own writings clear evidence of recalcitrance. This is not simply heresy. It is stubborn heresy. Ergo : John has effectively abdicated. He is no longer Pope!

Oops ..  for the Franciscans this is a no-win situation. Time to pack up and go. Under cover of darkness. Time to seek shelter in the retinue of Ludwig of Bavaria, the Holy Roman Emperor.

William of Ockham remains in München for the rest of his life. He died in 1347.

I am amazed at the breadth and depth of his scholarship. The magnitude of his output. Why is he not given more space in the histories? Perhaps it is that, after expounding on Aquinas and the Summa, there is neither space nor incentive for more.

// and here I compose a sad cynical internote :: Thomas Aquinas belongs in the previous century. The 1200s. I have seen his tomb in Toulouse. In the Church of the Jacobins. He was of the Order of Preachers. The Dominicans. The domini canes. The Hounds of the Lord. The Black Friars. The Inquisition which wreaked such havoc in fair Languedoc. 

// I stood at the foot of Montségur and wept for the destruction of the Cathars. //

 .. maintenant, à nos moutons

I read on. I am familiar with some of this. I observe glowing embers of Greek origin. 

R. W. Jepson, M.A., Headmaster of Mercers’ School gave us 6th formers his one term, one period a week class on Clear Thinking. I’m glad he did. Syllogistic Logic comes up in computer programming. IF x AND IF y THEN z. But If x AND NOT y THEN NOT z. QED.

QED. And that reminds me. Yes, reminds me. Old Age is replete with memories. A year in the 1930s. Possibly 1936. Mr Moulden’s class in St Mary’s (Church of England) Elementary School. Geometry lessons. And a textbook which began with the statement : a point has position but no area. It was Euclid. It was axiomatic! Something ‘given’ with which there is no questioning. 

Ockham had his axioms. For him, God was axiomatic. Though he might not have put it quite like that. God is the great ‘given’. With which there is no questioning. It’s a deep held comforting belief. 

I feel the vortices of my mind whirring around. Explore the whole of my past experience as I can, there are questions which remain stubbornly unformulate. I cannot, at this distance of space and time, tune in to the mind of the 14th century. Here am I. 86 years old and living on the edge of mainland Europe. I do not doubt the axiomaticity of Ockham’s God. I cannot explain, to my own satisfaction, the processes by which he reached that premise. 

Oh, yes! Glowing embers of Greek origin. This is not what we were taught at school. Not at all an attribute of the ‘Dark’ Ages. Yet here they are. Present. Well studied. Well understood. It was not until 1977 when I rode the train tracks of Western Europe that I really began to appreciate the multicultural ambience of Norman Vikings in the Mediterranean. The scholars of Toledo - Muslim Jew and Christian - patiently, together, transcribing, transmitting, jewels of learning from one culture, one generation, to the next.  

My story now is ended. My time is up. There is so much more of ‘presence’ in the writings of our William that fascinates me. But I’m too old to begin a doctoral study. Besides, I want to move on.

// Coming next week. Twice nightly and with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday. Direct from The Roadside at Ravenna. Waiting for Beatrice. Dante Alighieri. La Divina Commedia. In a deeply moving verse translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

francis cameron, oxford, 27 august 2014