and innovative, and its Aristoteleanism was on the other side of the divide
from the radical metaphysics of the Ockhamists or even the Scotists. Never-
theless, Averroism flourished in a broader oppositional front, especially in the
anti-papal territories of northern Italy under protection of the emperor, where
they penetrated the university faculties of law and of medicine (see 172, 178,
179, 216, 264–266 in Figures 9.4 through 9.6).^13 Third, we may mention
a critical tendency in general, especially oriented toward overturning Aris-
toteleanism in philosophy and natural science. The most extreme of the critical
philosophers were Mirecourt and Autrecourt, who overlapped with the Paris
network around Buridan specializing in natural science. A counterpart groups
existed at Oxford, centered on the Merton College “calculators.” Here the
“nominalist” label is stretched beyond the breaking point, for these critical
innovators included anti-nominalists such as Bradwardine and Burley.
What the so-called nominalist opposition had in common was a feature of
internal university structure. We may take as emblematic the fact that William
of Ockham never acquired a higher degree as Doctor of Theology; his radical
work done as a Master of Arts was already enough to have him called to
answer heresy charges at Avignon, cutting off his university career. William
fled to protection at the court of the emperor in Bavaria, where he turned to
writing defenses of the secular state against the church. His companions in
exile and fellow ideologists of anti-papal secularism, Jean of Jandun and
Marsilius of Padua, were also arts masters, both former rectors at Paris, elected
by the masters of the arts faculty. Thomists and Scotists represented the
university power structure oriented externally to papal politics, for which
philosophy was subordinate to a reasoned theology. The oppositional front
consisted of those who specialized in the subjects of the arts: logic, mathemat-
ics, natural philosophy. Although Ockham himself wrote on theology as well,
he was asserting the primacy of his logical methods over the procedures of the
chair-holding theologians. Most subsequent nominalists pursued their own
specialties; this is true too of the Italian Averroists, the Parisian and Mertonian
scientists, and the rest of the “opposition.” What they have in common is that
their intellectual orientation was toward the arts faculty and its topics. Buridan,
for example, apparently remained a Master of Arts his entire career (DSB,
1981: 2:603). The struggle between theologians and philosophers, once so
creative, now was ending in divorce.
The emphasis on logic and natural science was not original to nominalism.
Science, or natural philosophy, had been the common ground of virtually all
philosophical positions for generations. Most of the major philosophers had
written in this area: Grosseteste, Albert, Bacon, but also Bonaventure, Aquinas,
Henry of Ghent, Duns Scotus, even conservatives such as Peckham (DSB,
1981: 10:473–476). After 1252 the Paris arts faculty added to the trivium and488 •^ Intellectual Communities: Western Paths