Eifelheim

He meant free of Thomists and Averröeists. “A place where they may pursue nominalism?” Dietrich teased.

Ockham snorted. “I am no nominalist. The problem with teaching the Modern Way is that lesser scholars, excited by the novelty, seldom bother to master my insights. There are lips on which I heartily wish my name had never rested. I tell you, Dietl, a man becomes a heretic less for what he writes than for what others believe he has written. But I will outlive all my enemies. The false pope Jacques is dead, and that old fool Durandus. One hopes the odious Lutterell will soon follow. Mark me. I shall dance on their graves.”

“ ‘Doctor Modern’ was hardly an ‘old fool’…,” Dietrich ventured.

“He sat on the tribunal that condemned my theses!”

“Durandus himself once faced the tribunal,” Dietrich reminded him. “Peer-review is the fate of all philosophers worth reading. And he did exert his influence favorably on two of your propositions.”

“Out of fifty-one on trial! Such a mewling favor is more insult than the honest hostility of the odious Lutterell. Durandus was a falcon that had choosen not to fly. He would have been less a fool had he been less brilliant. One does not criticize a stone for falling. But a falcon? Come, who else did we know at Paris?”

“Peter Aureoli… No, hold. He was raised archbishop, and died the year before you came.”

“Is an archbishopric often so fatal?” Ockham said with amusement.

“You and ‘Doctor Eloquent’ would have found much in common. He shaved with your razor. And Willi is archdeacon now in Freiburg. I posed him a question this past market.”

“Willi Jarlsburg? The one with the pouty lips? Yes, I remember him. A second-rate mind. An archdiaconate suits him, for there he will never be called upon to utter an original thought.”

“You are too harsh. He always treated me kindly.”

Ockham regarded him for a moment. “His sort would. But a kindly man may yet own a second-rank intellect. The assessment is no insult. The second rank is far more than what most scholars achieve.”

Dietrich recalled Ockham’s agility in taking shelter behind his precise words. “The Herr brought me a tract by a young scholar now at Paris, Nicholas Oresme, who has a new argument for the diurnal motion of the earth.”

Ockham chuckled. “So, you still debate the philosophy of nature?”

“One does not debate nature; one experiences nature.”

“Oh, surely. But John Mirecourt — you will not have heard of him. They call him ‘White Monk.’ A Capuchin, as you might suppose. His propositions were condemned at Paris last year — no, it was in ’47 — by which accolade we know him for a thinker of the first rank. He has shown that experience — evidentia naturalis — is an inferior sort of evidence.”

“Echoing Parmenides. But Albrecht said that in investigations of nature, experience is the only safe guide.”

“No. Experience is a poor guide, for tomorrow one may have a contrary experience. Only those propositions whose contrary reduces to a contradiction — evidentia potissima — can be held with certainty.” Ockham spread his hands to invite rebuttal.

Dietrich said, “A contradiction in terms is not the only sort of contradiction. I know that grass is green from experience. The contrary can be falsified by experientia operans.”

Ockham cupped his ear. “Your lips move, but I hear Buridan’s voice. Who can say but that, in some far-off place, one may not find yellow grass?”

Dietrich was brought short by his recollection that, in the krenkish homeland, the grass was indeed yellow. He scowled, but said nothing.

Ockham pushed himself to his feet. “Come, let us proof your proposition with an experience. The world turns, you said.”

“I did not say that it did turn; only that, loquendo naturale, it might. The motion of the heavens would be the same in either case.”

“Then why seek s second explanation? Of what use would it be, even were it true?”

“Astronomy would be simplified. So, applying your own principle of the least hypothesis -”

Ockham laughed. “Ah. Argument by flattery! A more potent argument by far. But I never intended entities in nature. God ca

Outside, Ockham studied the indigo sky. “Which way is east? Very well. Let us apply experience. Now, if I move my hand rapidly, thus, I feel the air pushing against it. So, if we are moving toward the east, I should feel an east wind on my face, and I -.” Closing his eyes, and spreading his arms. ” — feel no wind.”

Joachim, climbing Church Hill, stopped in the path and gaped at the scholar, who seemed to have adopted the attitude of the Crucified.

Ockham turned toward the Lesser Wood. “Now, if I face north…” He shrugged. “I feel no change in the wind whichever direction I face.” He paused expectantly.

“One must arrange the experience,” Dietrich insisted, “so that all matters affecting the conclusion are accounted for, which Bacon called experientia perfectum.”

Ockham spread his hands. “Ah, so the common senses are insufficient for this special sort of experience.” Gri

Dietrich pressed the argument. “Buridan considered the objections to a turning earth in his twenty-second Question on the heavens, and found a response for each, save one. If the entire world moves, including earth, water, air, and fire, we would no more feel a resisting wind than a boat drifting with the current feels the motion of the river. The one compelling objection was that an arrow loosed straight up does not fall west of the archer, which it would if the earth were turning underneath it, for an arrow moves so swiftly that it cuts through the air and thus would not be carried along by it.”

“And this Oresme has resolved the objection?”

“Doch. Consider the arrow at rest. It does not mover. Therefore, it begins already with the motion of the earth and, when loosed, possesses two motions: a rectilinear motion up and down, and a circular motion toward the east. Master Buridan wrote that a body impressed with motion, will continue in its motion until the impetus is dissipated by the body’s gravity or other resisting forces.”

Ockham shook his head. “First the earth moves, then the people move with it to explain why they do not constantly stumble; then the air must move with it to answer a second objection; then the arrow, to answer another; and so further. Dietl, the simplest explanation for why the stars and the sun appear to circle the earth is that they do circle the earth. And the reason why we feel no motion in the earth is that the earth does not move. Ah, ‘Brother Angelus,’ why waste your powers on such trivia!”

Dietrich stiffened. “Do not call me that!”

Ockham turned to Joachim and said, “He would be at his readings before the morning bells and stayed at it by candlelight after the evening bells, so the other scholars called him—”

“That is a long time since!”

The Englishman tilted his head back. “May I still call you doctor seclusus?” He grunted and sought another bout of ale. Dietrich retreated into silence. He had thought to share a fascinating idea, and Will had somehow created a disputatio. He should have remembered that, from Paris. Joachim glanced from one to the other. Ockham returned to the table. “This is the last of the ale,” he said.

“There gives more in the kitchen,” Dietrich answered.