Aufredo Gonteri, the Book of the Beadle and the Formal Distinction

I had meant to post this ages ago. Aufredo Gonteri, a Scotist who knew Scotus personally (he is on the Adhesion list of 1303), attests to a debate over the formal distinction at Paris in the 1320's. First I list the literature below, then the quote. Apparently, the result of the debate was that all the masters of Paris declared that the Scotist formal distinction is fully catholic and sound. This was written in the "book of the beadle". A beadle was an office pertaining to management in the university, apparently they also kept records of official decisions as well. Anyway, the quote is below, the debate was with a Dominican who claimed the formal distinction was heretical (time travelling Garrigou-Lagrange perhaps). All knowledge of this debate has perished, save for Gonteri's reference, nor does the book of the beadle survive either.

Note that Gonteri's discussion of the univocity of being was recently published in Mediaeval Studies.



William Duba, Russell Friedman, Chris Schabel, “Henry of Harclay and Aufredo Gonteri Brito,” in Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, vol. 2, ed. P.W. Rosemann, Brill 2010, pp. 263-368, at 291.


Doucet, “Der unbekannte Skotist des Vaticanus Lat. 1113, Fr. Anfredus Gonteri OFM (1325),” Franziskanische Studien 25 (1938), 201-40, at 206

Aufredo Gonteri Sent. I d. 34 q. 3. “But on account of a controversy of Master Benedict of the Preachers, this truth was determined for me in Paris by all the masters regent and non-regent in the theological faculty, and it was promulgated publicly by the beadle and recorded in the common book of the masters, although the aforesaid Master publicly dogmatized otherwise in the schools that this determined truth is heretical. All the aforesaid masters determined that the contrary is true, Catholic, and sound.”

Hall on Scotus

Alexander Hall has an entry in the internet encyclopedia of philosophy on Scotus' on natural knowledge of God. A good intro  to the topic by a specialist currently working in the field. It had escaped my notice before, so  I call your attention to it now. Here it is.