the faculty of theology at Oxford in the 1300s, the statutes that continued in force favored the Bible over the Sentences and certainly over the Histories. In the earliest statute, passed in 1253, it is said that before one can incept (meaning “commence” in the academic sense of finishing all requirements and receiving a degree) as a master of theology (after fulfilling the requirements of a bachelor and being licensed), one must read (lecture on) a book of the Bible or one of the four books of the Sentences, or a book of the Histories.11 A later statute requires lecturing on a book of the Bible or the Sentences,12 but further on it says that one must have audited (taken courses on) the Bible for three years and lectured on a book of the Bible,13 with no mention of the Sentences.
The requirements for proceeding from bachelor of theology to doctor of theology are obscurely stated: “After lecturing on a book of the Sentences, the one intending to incept must undertake study for at least two years or so before he ascends the magistral chair.”14 James Weisheipl tells us that this means that the new bachelor, called a “bachelor of the Sentences,” is to first lecture on the Sentences before giving at least two years of “cursory lectures” on the Bible.15 This procedure differed from that of the University of Paris, where the lectures on the Sentences followed those on the Bible. The Dominicans objected to the Oxford order, but the settlement of 1314 left the English custom in place.16
It is odd that Wyclif left no traces of a Sentences commentary or writing in the form of disputed questions or quodlibets, although he did leave behind determinationes, reflecting public academic disputes on controversial questions (but without using the term questiones). Given Wyclif ’s obsessive desire to write and publish constantly, and to rewrite and edit earlier writings, it is hard to believe that he would not have preserved such scholastic efforts if he took them seriously. We know from Woodford’s testimony that Wyclif did lecture on the Sentences, but it may be that he merely summarized the material for the students without adding anything original of his own. Instead, he wrote treatises on a wide range of subjects; and those who argue that some of them were outgrowths of his Sentences work must deal with the point that none of them preserve the sentential mode of discourse.
It has been suggested that the sentential style of presentation was going out of fashion in England just at this time, which might account for Wyclif’s failure to use it.17 But perhaps there was another explanation for his dislike of the discourse. For some reason Wyclif had never learned to speak and write Latin properly; his academic style may have been the worst in medieval Christendom. Could he have realized that his linguistic skills were not equal to the questionoriented give-and-take of scholastic disputation? Blame for his poor Latin has been unjustly put on his scholastic studies.18 Another spurious explanation is that by this time English scholars had stopped thinking in Latin and were instead thinking in English: “Wycliffe’s Latin is base even as compared with that of such of his predecessors as Ockham; there is a gulf between it and that of Thomas Aquinas. Wycliffe in fact belongs to a time when scholars were ceasing to think in Latin. It is significant of his position that he is one of the founders of English prose-writing. To understand his Latin it is often necessary to translate it into English; certainly in obscure passages this is often the readiest way of getting at his meaning.”19 However, other writers of the time wrote good Latin, from his former scholastic colleague William Woodford to formulators of episcopal constitutions and registers to legal commentaries to chronicles to spiritual treatises and other kinds of composition. The idea that Wyclif’s Latin is infected by English constructions is sound enough in his case, in contrast to other authors of the time. But the further notion that, even though he was linguistically inept in Latin, he was masterful in English needs reconsideration, since it is based on the assumption of his authorship of numerous English treatises. Perhaps, however, one might make a case that he served as an inspiration for the awkward Latin-based language of EV, though hardly for Fristedt’s theory that Wyclif carefully doctored a Latin Bible with English glosses, which provided the basis for the First Revision (that is, from EEV to EV). The great mystery is that he went through the entire master of arts (MA) and bachelor of theology curricula with defective language skills and emerged at the level of theological master.
The above-stated possible reasons for Wyclif ’s neglect of sentential discourse, that it was going out of fashion and that his Latin was not up to it, lead me to consider another possibility: he elected to spend more time and effort on the Scripture track, coming up with an ambitious plan to produce postils on the entire Old and New Testaments. Though there seems to be nothing of his own in these commentaries, he must have preferred to produce a routine biblical commentary, unusual for his day, to creating yet another commonplace Sentences summary. His plan had the distinct advantage of giving him a supreme mastery of the Word of God, to prepare him for his lectures.
Bible Study at Oxford: Graduate Students and Extracurricular Auditors
We can only conjecture whether Wyclif ’s concentration upon the Bible during his theological studies and doctoral teaching had an immediate effect upon the way in which the Bible was taught at Oxford. It would not seem that his postils were a great success, since they survive, if at all, only in scattered copies,20 and there is no indication that anyone after him attempted a similar feat, even in part.
It is assumed that Wyclif lectured from his postils between 1371 and 1376.21 But every theology master must have lectured on the books of the Bible in his own way. And, contrary to what is often stated, I argue below that such lectures could be attended not only by arts masters who were proceeding to a degree in theology, but also by clerical auditors who came to the university with no intention of obtaining a degree.
Who were the clergy who went to Oxford to study the Bible? John Moorman, writing about the thirteenth century, says that rectors of parishes “were sent to the Universities for a few years not to read the usual ‘arts’ course but to study such subjects as would enable them to serve more efficiently in the parishes. Among the many licences which were granted to men who wished to leave their parishes for a time ‘to frequent the schools’ we find that some went to read theology, some Canon Law, while a few made the Bible the special object of their studies.”22 He finds the latter group of students specified under the designations “in Sacra Pagina” and “in Sacra Scriptura,”23 but these phrases were simply different ways of designating theology: in other words, theology itself was thought of as primarily the study of the Bible.
In his recent book on study leaves for parish clergy, Donald Logan has found that well over a thousand curates (rectors) were given permissions in the first half of the fourteenth century from the diocese of Lincoln alone. They went to university (overwhelmingly to Oxford) for a few years to improve themselves.24 Logan, however, believes that they would not have been allowed to study the Bible, because the MA was required for incepting in theology.25 But, as we saw above, the curates he is speaking of, for the most part, like the majority of other students at Oxford, did not intend to get a degree,26 and it would follow that they were under no constraint to follow degree programs.27
It is true that almost all of the licenses for study leave in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries refer only to studium litterarum, but this should not make us think that the rectors studied only arts courses. The licenses are simply following the text of Boniface VIII’s decretal Cum ex eo in the Liber Sextus, issued in 1298, allowing new appointees to rectorships to put off progression to the priesthood while in studies.28 John Andrew in the Ordinary Gloss to the Sext (finished in 1304 or 1305) says at litterarum that because the pope does not make distinctions, he understands it as a general expression, to refer to grammar, canon or civil law, or theology.29 The decretal allows dispensations for as long as seven years, and Andrew comments, “Note that a scholar should be proficient (provectus) in seven years,” adding that a five-year period of proficiency is specified for a theology student in an earlier decretal, and the same period is set elsewhere
