Abstract

Francis of Marchia (also known as Franciscus de Esculo, de Apponiano, or de Pignano, called sometimes Franciscus Rubeus, either a nickname or a family name) was a Franciscan theologian, who became doctor theologiae in Paris and taught also in other Franciscan studia, such as that located in Avignon. Little is known about his life. His biography is however marked by his rebellion against the Pope John XXII, when in 1328 he decided to side with Michael of Cesena and fled Avignon. After escaping from Avignon, he spent many years at the Franciscan Convent in Munich, under the protection of the excommunicated German emperor Lewis IV of Bavaria. In 1343 he recanted. After this date, he disappears from the extant records.

Although an important part of his works still awaits an edition in print, Francis of Marchia has already emerged as an interesting and innovative thinker in many fields.

Scholars are still discussing the actual significance of his criticism of Aristotle’s theory of motion and of his rejection of a substantial difference among terrestrial and celestial bodies. His position concerning the relationship between God’s foreknowledge and human freedom proved to be very influential, so that specialists speak of a ‘‘Marchist school’’ in this field. Francis’ treatise Improbatio, aiming at a radical refutation of John XXII’s bull Quia vir reprobus, deeply influenced the formation of Ockham’s political thought.

Francis was born in the small village of Appignano, not far from Ascoli Piceno, in central Italy. The only reliable information we possess concerning his career as a theologian in the Franciscan Order derives from his writings. Combining what it is known about other Franciscan masters who were active in the same years with evidence contained in his commentary on the Sentences, it is possible to date his lectures as bachelor of the Sentences to the academic year 1319-1320. Francis’ commentary has come down to us in different versions, which numerous scholars have studied and (partially) edited in recent decades. The editorial enterprise is still in progress, but it is already clear that Marchia read the Sentences not only in Paris, but also elsewhere, as was the case for many theologians from the Mendicant Orders, although it is not yet known exactly where and when. After his Paris lectures Francis revised his commentary into a scriptum that may have been completed, according to a colophon, in 1323.

Some historians have maintained that Francis was acting as lector at the Franciscan convent in Avignon in 1324. This is quite possible, but the earliest explicit mention of him in this position, bearing the title of doctor in sacra theologia, dates to 1328, in the first document related to his rebellion against Pope John XXII. While in Avignon, Francis had come into contact with the minister general of his Order, Michael of Cesena, who had been summoned by the pope in 1327 and later forbidden to leave the city without permission. In the difficult months of tension between the pope and the leadership of the Franciscan Order, stemming from the controversy over the doctrine of absolute poverty, but worsened by the dispute with the excommunicated German Emperor Louis of Bavaria, Francis moved over to the side of his minister general. In 1328 Francis fled Avignon along with Michael of Cesena, Bonagratia of Bergamo, and William of Ockham, signed the appeals in which they accused John XXII of heresy, and, with Bonagratia, Ockham, and Henry of Thalheim, coauthored the Allegationes religiosorum virorum, defending Michael of Cesena. Francis was probably the first to respond to the papal bull Quia vir reprobus, penning a long treatise entitled Improbatio. In 1331 he signed the letter sent by Michael of Cesena to the general chapter of the Friars Minor in Perpignan. From a vitriolic letter of Gerald Odonis to Michael of Cesena, we learn that Francis had been robbed of a rather large sum of money while heading to Munich, probably in Como. Newly discovered documents confirm this passage through Como.

Fragments of a trial record inform us that at one point (most probably in 1341) Francis was in the hands of the Roman Church. At first he tried to defend his position, claiming that his statements were compatible with the doctrine held by Pope John XXII. In the end he recanted, on December 1, 1343. He then disappears from our records, although a late-fourteenth-century source (the Franciscan Andrea Richi) reports that Francis wrote a treatise in which he argued in favor of the compatibility of Nicholas III’s Exiit qui seminat with John XXII’s Cum inter nonnullos (that is, the contrary of what he had maintained while siding with Michael of Cesena). This work does not seem to have survived.

Francis of Marchia’s thought is far from having been investigated in full, so the present entry is limited to certain aspects. For several decades Francis’ writings have been the object of interest for historians of science, because in his commentary on book IV of the Sentences he puts forth an account of projectile motion that is different from that of Aristotle. It centers on the idea that a projectile can continue to move when no longer in contact with the source of its motion, because this source has impressed a certain virtus on the projectile. Since this virtus is, so to speak, “left” in the projectile by the mover, it is called virtus derelicta. Such a virtus diminishes gradually during motion, and this progressive diminution explains why projectile motion comes to an end. It is easy to see why Francis could have been considered a sort of ‘‘forerunner’’ of Galileo Galilei. Nevertheless, on the one hand, most recent studies have shown that Francis did not invent the basis for his account of projectile motion, but it had been circulating for decades in European arts faculties among commentators on Aristotle’s Physics, although few authors supported it at length or with Francis’ arguments; on the other, the link between virtus derelicta and the modern theory of inertia has been fundamentally reassessed. While scholars debate the true relationship between the virtus derelicta approach to a theory of motion and seventeenth-century mechanics, it is beyond doubt that Francis’ theory exerted an important influence, even on authors who only partially accepted his suggestions or who rejected them. Something similar holds for Francis’ rejection of Aristotle’s distinction between celestial and terrestrial matter. However ‘‘revolutionary’’ such a claim may appear at first glance, Francis did not draw the consequences as a “modern” reader would expect, so the connection between his position and the “Scientific Revolution” is not as close as some historians of thought claimed in the past.

More recently, scholars have investigated Marchia’s ideas concerning necessity and contingency with respect to divine foreknowledge. Like many Franciscan authors of his era, Francis is acquainted with the innovative theories Peter Auriol formulated in his lectures on the Sentences, reacting to them. In particular, Francis opposes Auriol’s opinion that propositions concerning future contingents are neutral, in the sense that they are neither true nor false. Francis of Marchia develops a solution to the problem that, while avoiding the existence of indeterminate future contingents, still maintains that contingency exists, and not only in an accidental way, that is, because of the shortcomings of our limited human knowledge, but also in itself, grounded in God’s freedom. Francis therefore supports a kind of ‘‘determinism’’ that does not rule out the possibility of human freedom. On this point, Francis found many followers in the fourteenth century, so that Chris Schabel speaks of a ‘‘Marchist’’ school.

Generally speaking, as our knowledge of the theological debates of the first decades of the fourteenth century increases, the influence that the thinker from Appignano actually exerted is turning out to be much greater than expected. This also holds true in the field of political theory. In his almost word-for-word refutation of John XXII’s Quia vir reprobus (which in turn resembles more a scholastic treatise than a papal bull), the lengthy Improbatio, Francis discusses some issues that connect the defense of the Franciscan theory of poverty to political theory. In particular he develops John Duns Scotus’ account of the origins of ownership and dominium in general into a refutation of Pope John’s claim that the division of property among men is a divine institution. According to Francis, on the contrary, the institution of ownership is nothing but an ad hoc solution to the problems caused by Original Sin. God’s plan and human nature privilege the community of goods. To some extent this influences the postlapsarian state as well, since humans can still renounce property by taking a religious vow that allows them to live in a state closer to perfection. Moreover, in cases of extreme necessity, the rule of property ceases to be valid and the person in need can use what she/ he requires to survive. Like ownership, political power is also solely of human and not of divine origin. This claim implies that, in order for temporal power to be legitimate, it need not be authorized by the spiritual power, because it belongs to the sphere of autonomous human initiative, which tries to adjust to the negative consequences of the Fall. As Hilary S. Offler and Jiirgen Miethke have shown, such ideas deeply influenced William of Ockham in the early stages of his involvement in the debate on Franciscan poverty and also paved the way for his political theory.

See also: > Future Contingents > John Duns Scotus > Nicholas Oresme > Peter Auriol > William of Ockham