and its exploration of the bass register are progressive
features, but in many respects its unpredictable, “mysti-
cal” character, which virtually defi es analysis, evokes a
Late Gothic spirit rather than displaying the clarity of
the emerging Renaissance style of his contemporaries.
See also Busnoys, Antoine; Charles VII;
Dufay, Guillaume; Louis XI
Further Reading
Ockeghem, Johannes. Collected Works, ed. Dragan Plamenac
and Richard Wexler. 3 vols. N.p.: American Musicological
Society, 1947–92.
Goldberg, Clemens, Die Chansons Johannes Ockeghems. Laaber:
Laaber, 1992.
Lindmayr, Andrea. Quellenstudien zu den Motetten von Johannes
Ockeghem, Laaber: Laaber, 1992.
Perkins, Leeman L. “The L’homme armé Masses of Busnoys
and Ockeghem: A Comparison. “Journal of Musicology 3
(1984): 363–96.
Picker, Martin. Johannes Ockeghem and Jacob Obrecht: A Guide
to Research. New York: Garland, 1988.
Sparks, Edgar H. Cantus Firmus in the Mass and Motet, 1420–
- Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963.
Thein, Wolfgang. Musikalischer Satz und Textdarbeitung im Werk
von Johannes Ockeghem. Tutzing: Schneider, 1992.
Martin Picker
OCKHAM, WILLIAM OF
(William Occam; ca. 1285–1347)
Born in Ockham in Surrey, England, William entered
a Franciscan convent at an early age. In 1306, he was
ordained subdeacon at Southwark in London and
began his education at Oxford, where he lectured on
Peter Lombard’s Sententiae from 1317 to 1319. John
Luttrell, the chancellor at Oxford, opposed Ockham’s
views. Pope John XXII called him to Avignon in
1323/24. A committee investigated Ockham’s works
and censured fi fty-one propositions but did not formally
condemn him. In 1327, he met Michael of Cesena, the
minister-general of the Franciscan order and leader of
the Spiritual Franciscans. Cesena requested Ockham
to examine John XXII’s constitutions on Franciscan
poverty. Ockham declared them full of error and the
following year fl ed Avignon with Cesena and others. He
was excommunicated in 1328. He joined the emperor
Louis of Bavaria in his dispute with the pope and in 1330
settled at the Franciscan convent in Munich. In 1331,
Ockham was expelled from the order and sentenced to
imprisonment. He died in Munich in 1347, still under
Louis’s protective care.
Ockham’s writings fall into three stages correspond-
ing to his major residences: Oxford (1306/07–23), Avi-
gnon (1323–28), and Germany (1330–47). At Oxford
and Avignon, his writings include his commentary on
the Sententiae, later published in two parts: the Ordi-
natio, his lectures on the fi rst book, and the Reportatio,
comprising notes taken at his lectures. He also composed
commentaries on Aristotle’s Organon; Summa logicae,
his major statement on logic; seven quodlibetals; and
treatises on the Body of Christ, on the eucharist, and
on predestination. After his departure from Avignon in
1328, he wrote works against the Avignon papacy, the
chief ones being Opus nonaginta dierum, about papal
errors regarding poverty; Dialogus inter magistrum et
discipulum (1333–47); eight quaestiones on papal au-
thority (1340); and a treatise on the respective powers
of emperor and pope (ca. 1347).
Ockham was principally a theologian, vigorously
exploring the philosophical limits of each epistemologi-
cal, logical, or metaphysical issue, often to see more
clearly the theological application. He rejected the older
Platonic Realism and the via antiqua of the Aristotelians
to pursue a via moderna, a path of demonstration and
the near-autonomy of faith. He insisted upon a method
of economy of explanation, later termed “Ockham’s
razor.” With the nominalists, he contested the reality
of universals and affi rmed the fundamental reality of
particulars for the human mind. His own solution to the
relationship between universals and particulars is often
called “conceptualist” instead of “nominalist,” because
he viewed concepts not merely as creatures of the mind
but rather as entities identical with the abstractive cogni-
tion by which the mind considers individual objects in
a certain way. With Duns Scotus, he asserted the utter
transcendence and unique necessity and freedom of God
in contrast with the contingency of all else, including so-
called natural and moral laws. He argued the distinction
between God’s absolute power and that of his ordained
power, manifest in his decrees, by which God limits
himself to operate within ordinations he established.
Ockham also contributed to medieval and early-modern
political theory and ecclesiology. He infl uenced con-
ciliarism, and his theological legacy reached to Pierre
d’Ailly, Gabriel Biel, and Martin Luther. He attacked
the wealth of the church, challenged the notions of papal
infallibility and plenitude of power, upheld the right
of imperial election apart from papal interference, and
conceded to the emperor the responsibility to depose
a heretical pope. He maintained that the papacy was
not established by Christ, that the general council was
superior to the papacy, but that the pope possessed an
ordinary executive authority unless he were heretical.
See also D’ailly, Pierre; Duns Scotus, JohnFurther Reading
Ockham, William of. Opera philosophica, ed. Philotheus Boehner
et al. 3 vols. St. Bonaventure: Editiones Instituti Franciscani
Universitatis S. Bonaventurae, 1974–85.
——. Opera theologica, ed. Gedeon Gá et al. 10 vols. St. Bo-OCKEGHEM, JOHANNES