CHAPTER 7. Questiones libri Economice (date uncertain; 1309 or 1319?)
Inc. Queritur circa Yconomicam Aristotelis primo utrum de ea possit esse scientia […]
Expl. bonos pueros et fortes procurare.
Colophon : Expliciunt libri Yconomice Aristotelis reportati a magistro Johanne de Gendunis anno Domini m°ccc°xix° (m°ccc°nova) feria tercia ante Dionysii.
Ms. Erfurt, Amplon. (Dep. Erf. CA) 4° 188 f. 70v-71v.
Cf. Repert. p. 97 ; MacClintock, p. 119.
The few questions of this commentary are ‘reported’ by John of Jandun, according to the colophon, thus they may simply be a reportatio of the lectures by a different master. The questions have rarely been studied. Apart from the mention in Flueler’s repertory[1] and in the repertory of Slomczynka[2], I am aware only of the contribution of Pavel Blazek[3] during the conference on John of Jandun organised in Paris in November 2022.
Blazek has shown that the questions are indeed the abbreviation of another commentary, which precedes the one attributed to John of Jandun in the same manuscript. This commentary is the one written by Bartholomew of Bruges, the well-known contemporary of John at the faculty of arts in Paris, and it is dedicated to Annibaldo de Ceccano, whom we met before[4]. Dating from 1309, it corresponds to the very beginning of John’s career as a master of arts.
In his paper, Blazek examines the textual and doctrinal relationship between the two commentaries and discusses the authenticity of the questions attributed to John. He concludes that John’s Questiones are a kind of selective and simplified summary of Bartholomew’s commentary.
In the colophon quoted above, the questions are said to have been ‘reported’ by John in 1319, but above the line the word nona is written[5]; the date 1319 is not convincing, because at that time he was already teaching since about ten years. The date 1309 is more acceptable. We can imagine that the young master assisted to the lectures of his slightly older colleague and made a reportatio of them. Thus, either the original date in the colophon is erroneous and has been justly corrected, or we may assume that the scribe of the questions in the Erfurt manuscript wrote in 1319 and that we should read the colophon in two separate parts, as ‘reported by master John of Jandun’, ‘(written) Anno Domini etc.’[6]. Anyway, the questions are very much dependent on Bartholomew’s commentary and thus hardly worth to be considered as a commentary by John of Jandun. They are also very short indeed, each introduced with “Consequenter queritur utrum’, and they do not contain any real discussion.
Thus, we cannot use the ‘commentary’ on the Problemata for the purpose of this book, except if we consider that making ‘editions’ or summaries of earlier commentaries tells us something about John’s teaching practice. However, this seems farfetched; at the most, the taking down of a report or the making of a summary is a preparation for later activity such as preparing a commentary or a teaching course.
[1] Chr. Flüeler, Rezeption und Interpretation der Aristotelischen Politica im Mittelalter, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 1993, II, p. 28 ; id., « Die stemmatischen Verhältnisse der Aristoteleskommentare dargelegt anhand der Kommentare zur Yconomica », in Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 48 (2001) pp. 182-190.
[2] A. Slomczynska, « Repertorium Commentariorum in Aristotelis « Economica » Latinorum », in Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum 28 (1986) p. 125.
[3] P. Blazek, « Jean de Jandun abréviateur de Barthélemy de Bruges ? Les Quaestiones Libri Yconomice Aristotelis conservées à Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche Allgemeinbibliothek, CA Q. 188 », in Jean de Jandun et son temps. Nouvelles perspectives de recherche, Paris 17-18 novembre 2022 (forthcoming).
[4] See for instance Chapter 6.
[5] I read : « anno domini m cccnona xix° feria tertia ante dyonisii ». I thank Andrea Langner for communicating the website where the digitalised version of the manuscript can be found (dhb.thulb.uni-jena.de).
[6] R. Lambertini, « Jandun’s Question-Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics », in A Companion to the Latin Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, ed. F. Amerini & G. Galluzzo, Leiden/Boston 2014, p. 389, seems to interpret the colophon as meaning a reportatio of John’s commentary by some student. I quote : « For example, the reportatio of Jandun’s Commentary on the pseudo-Aristotelian Oeconomica is but an abbreviation of the extremely influential work by Bartholomaeus of Bruges ». Or he might mean the reportatio made by Jandun of Bartholomew’s commentary, with which I agree.
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