371. William of Ockam: His Life and Works. -- WILLIAM OF OCKAM, born at Ockam in the County of Surrey in England, earned a great reputation towards 1320 in the University of Paris, where he had followed the lectures of Duns Scotus, his brother in religion. It is likely that William also taught in England. The early portion of his career was devoted mainly to science. From this period date those great works in which he formulated his new theories: the Super IV. L. Sentent., the Quodlibeta, the commentaries on Aristotle (Expositio Aurea super Totam Artem Veterem) and the Tractatus Logices. He resigned his chair in 1323 to devote himself to politics and to religious and ecclesiastical polemics. He defended the disciplinary reforms advocated by the "spirituals" (259); he conducted a campaign against Boniface VIII. and John XXII. and refused to recognize the temporal power of the Popes.

The fourteenth century was marked by events of grave import for Christianity: in the bosom of the Church itself the struggles of the Great Schism; in the world the insurrection of the Empire against the Papacy. It was realized, little by little, that the great intellectual and social organization of the West was being severely shaken. While in the scientific order philosophy sought to rid itself of the protection of theology, in the political order the modern nationalities were slowly emerging and shaking off the supremacy of the popes. Into the details of these latter long-drawn-out hostilities it is not our business here to enter, In the order of ideas, William of Ockam led the campaign, publishing pamphlets and manifestoes in quick succession: the Dialogus, the Opus nonaginta dierum, the Compendium Errorum Joannis Papae XXII., the Quaestiones octo de Auctoritate Summi Pontificis. Cited to appear before the ecclesiastical court, he managed to escape from Avignon where he had been detained prisoner (1328). With his friends, Michael Cesena and Bona Gratia of Bergamo, he reached the court of Louis of Bavaria, where two years previously John of Jandun and Marsilius of Padua had taken refuge. All historians register William's salute to the haughty monarch: Tu me defendas gladio, ego te defendam calamo. And when the latter wanted to have his son's adulterous marriage declared valid, in opposition to the laws of the Church, William defended the absolute omnipotence of the State in this as a political matter. He died probably about 1347.