Jodocus Trutfetter (also Trutvetter) was a philosopher and theologian of the via moderna, at the University of Erfurt, in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. His main works include a textbook on logic, the Summule totius logice, and another on natural philosophy, the Summa in totam physicen. As a proponent of the via moderna, Trutfetter stressed the importance of taking both ancient and modern authorities into account. In questions concerning universals, categories, and psychology, his views were close to (...) those of John Buridan. On the relationship between theology and philosophy he shared, for the most part, William of Ockham’s position. (shrink)

This is the fourth instalment of our census and study of the reception of the first nine editions of De iure belli ac pacis. Here we focus on the two versions that Johannes Janssonius issued in 1632, one with a copy of Mare liberum attached to it. This report outlines the place of the 1632 Janssonius edition in the context of his long-running rivalry with the printer Willem Blaeu and his firm. It then explores the typographical differences between (...) the two issues, their causes, and their significance for our understanding of the reception of the text. Finally, it provides the preliminary results of the census concerning the circulation and provenance of the fifty-three copies of this edition that we have found. We hope that this research note on the preliminary results will attract interest in this edition and that readers will kindly inform us of further copies. (shrink)

It was because of the early modern system of invention privileges that questions concerning inventorship became a recurrent subject matter of legal dispute. This essay focuses mainly on the details of one such dispute, namely the 1597 case litigated in the Dutch Republic between Jacob Floris van Langren (ca. 1525–1610) and Jodocus Hondius Sr. (1563–1612). The essay assesses how the law shaped, challenged, and constrained claims to innovation, pushing the argument that it was because of the privilege system that (...) the borders between imitation and novelty became ever more clearly defined. The case study thus illustrates how the law functioned as a technology ordering a complex web of knowledge and status claims. (shrink)

During 2017, churches with their roots in the 16th-century Reformation, will be celebrating the legacy of the Reformation. It affords theologians and churches the opportunity to reflect on the principles of the Reformation and its relevance at the start of the 21st century. This contribution reflects on the question of the necessity of church reformation, based on three texts from different periods in the history of the church. Firstly and primarily, Calvin's 'De necessitate reformandae ecclesiae' of 1543 sheds light on (...) the issues the 16th century reformers were faced with and why they believed the church needed reformation. Calvin had a very clear view on the necessity of church reformation, but that it should also come to some conclusion once the liturgy and doctrine are in order. The question of church reformation is then further discussed in the light of two other texts, one from Jodocus van Lodenstein and Karl Barth. All agree on the necessity of church reformation, but differ in terms of theological and practical implications. The contribution concludes with a few remarks on the modern maxim 'ecclesia semper reformanda'. (shrink)

Der Sammelband vereint Beitrage, die dem Andenken an den Philosophiehistoriker Thomas Ricklin gewidmet sind und an dessen Arbeit anschlieaen. Die Texte befassen sich mit der Erforschung der Philosophie- und Kulturgeschichte des Mittelalters, der Renaissance und der Fruhen Neuzeit und bieten ein Panorama der verschiedenen Dimensionen dessen, was Weisheit und Philosophie in diesen Epochen bedeuteten. Im Zentrum stehen Dante und Boccaccio, wobei insbesondere deren Lehre vom "Schleier" der poetischen Sprache, unter dem die Wahrheit verhullt sei, in einer Reihe von Studien untersucht (...) wird. In diesem Kontext widmen sich weitere Beitrage den Konzepten einiger der wichtigsten Denker des Mittelalters, wie Boethius von Dacien, Roger Bacon, Johannes von Wales, Meister Eckhart und Pietro d'Abano, dessen "Differentia prima" hier zum ersten Mal in einer kritischen Edition vorgelegt wird. Auaerdem wird die Uberlieferung und Auslegung der antiken Exempla als viel zu lange vernachlassigter Teil der Philosophiegeschichte in den Fokus geruckt. Des Weiteren thematisieren die Beitrage Autoren und Texte, die philosophische Fragen verhandeln, ohne den paradigmatischen Formen des Kommentars oder der Summa zugerechnet werden zu konnen, weil sie Sprach- und Genregrenzen uberschreiten, wie Giordano da Pisa, Jodocus Eichmann und Henry More. Weitere Beitrage, die sich mit Philosophinnen und Historikerinnen der Renaissance und Fruhen Neuzeit beschaftigen, verschaffen den weiblichen Stimmen in von Mannern dominierten Diskursen Gehor. (shrink)

In this article, I present two virtually unknown sixteenth-century views of human freedom, that is, the views of Bartolomaeus de Usingen and Jodocus Trutfetter on the one hand and John Mair on the other. Their views serve as a natural context and partial background to the more famous debate on human freedom between Martin Luther and Erasmus of Rotterdam from 1524–1526. Usingen and Trutfetter were Luther’s philosophy teachers in Erfurt. In a passage from Book III of John Mair’s commentary (...) on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics from 1530, he seems to defend a view of human freedom by which we can will evil for the sake of evil. Very few thinkers in the history of philosophy have defended such a view. The most famous medieval thinker to do so is William Ockham. To illustrate how radical this view is, I place him in the historical context of such thinkers as Plato, Augustine, Buridan, and Descartes. (shrink)

This article provides new information on the printing and readership history of the fifth edition of De iure belli ac pacis. Building on our earlier research on the way that the dispute between Willem Janszoon Blaeu and Johannes Janssonius influenced the publication of the 1631 edition of the text, this article studies how Blaeu harnessed his position to make the 1632 edition more reputable than the earlier version published by his rival. The article considers how, over four centuries, readers (...) have appreciated the quality of the production and three engaged with the text for radically different ends: Remigius Faesch, Baron von Boineburg, and Wendell Phillips. The article draws attention to the changes and continuities in reading and annotation patterns and offers preliminary insights into the themes that these influential readers focused on. We hope that it will inspire readers to bring further copies to our attention. (shrink)

The present article discusses the concept of synderesis in the late medieval universities of Erfurt and Leipzig and the later developments in Wittenberg. The comparison between Bartholomaeus Arnoldi of Usingen in Erfurt and Johannes Peyligk in Leipzig shows that school traditions played an important role in the exposition of synderesis by the late medieval scholastic natural philosophers. However, Jodocus Trutfetter's example warns against overemphasizing the importance of the school traditions and reminds us of the manifold history of medieval discussions (...) on synderesis, which were more or less familiar to many authors of this period. Finally, the diverse references to synderesis in the texts of Martin Luther, Johannes Bernhardi of Feldkirch and Philip Melanchthon reveal no uniform relationship with late medieval discussions but rather indicate various ways of adopting scholastic ideas and transforming them in the context of humanist and reformation thinking. (shrink)

In 1513 the Fifth Lateran Council determined that the immortality of the rational soul is not true only in theology, but also in philosophy. The determination can be related also to the actual teaching of philosophy. In the university of Erfurt, Bartholomaeus Arnoldi de Usingen and Jodocus Trutfetter wrote expositions on natural philosophy at that time. Usingen's and Trutfetter's expositions of De anima represent a position, which faithfully follows in methodology and aspirations the tradition of the via moderna. Furthermore, (...) they give an interpretation of the relationship between philosophy and theology, which Trutfetter considered consonant with the intentions and the formulations of the Fifth Lateran Council; and finally, Trutfetter even presents a practical application of the Council's recommendations. (shrink)

Bartholomaeus Arnoldi (b. c. 1465, d. September 9, 1532) (also called Usingen after his birthplace), began as a philosopher in the via moderna school and later became a member and a theologian of the Order of Augustinian Hermits. Together with Jodocus Trutfetter, he was the most prominent philosopher in Erfurt in the early sixteenth century. Usingen’s main authorities were John Buridan, William of Ockham, Gregory of Rimini, Peter of Ailly, and Gabriel Biel. The focus of his teaching was on (...) a “common view of the via moderna,” which was strongly involved in semantic–metaphysical questions. Usingen stressed the importance of logic as a necessary tool for gaining scientific knowledge, but it was his works on natural philosophy, in particular, that were respected by his contemporaries. In natural philosophy, he generally followed the tradition of Buridan. His discussion on the theory of supposition follows Ockham. On the relationship between theology and philosophy, he strongly posited the unity of truth by allowing certain theological truths a sufficient degree of plausibility as truths in natural philosophy. This view was partly based on Lawrence of Lindores. (shrink)

The Buridanian view of the concrete cognition as the general characteristics of sense perception was adopted by Jodocus Trutfetter and Bartholomaeus Arnoldi of Usingen. This theory was not accepted merely on the basis of authority, but it was argued against the competing view, which appeared as legitimate inside the late medieval school of via moderna.

In his Questions on Aristotle’s De anima, John Buridan faced the problem, whether it follows from the definition of the term ‘animal’ that all quantitative parts of an animal are to be called animals. His solution was that parts of the animal are to be called animals, though in a extraordinary, non-connotative, sense of the term. The problem variously discussed by some later Buridanian authors from Erfurt. Bartholomaeus Arnoldi de Usingen ends up to deny the use of such terms as (...) ‘animal’ and ‘human being’ as connotative terms. Jodocus Trutfetter, however, uses the distinction between the absolute and connotative senses of these terms without reservation. (shrink)

In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the University of Erfurt was one of the strongholds of the via moderna in Germany. The present article examines how this school's identity was manifested in discussions on the soul and its powers, engaged in by three Erfurtian philosophers: Johannes Carnificis de Lutrea, Jodocus Trutfetter and Bartholomaeus Arnoldi de Usingen. In the various forms of their expositions these authors reveal a rather uniform stance concerning doctrinal issues. Their positions are largely based (...) on the tradition of the via moderna going back to the early fifteenth century, and their argumentation is deeply bound to the problems arising from this school's position. Comparisons with concurrent Thomist and Scotist sources show that the Erfurtians describe the positions of other schools in an appropriate manner, although the arguments for and against these positions are often borrowed from the authorities of their own school rather than from contemporaneous discussion. (shrink)