Chapter 2
The Work ofNinety Days Chapter 2 {Jolin XXII] In the first place, then, this heretic tries to attack the constitution Ad conditerem canonum in this, that the said constitution, "intending to prove that the Friars Minor, professing to live without property in things that are consumed by being used, are not to be regarded as simple users," asserts the following: "To say that use of right or of fact separate from ownership or lordship can be established' in such things as are consumed by use conflicts with law and goes against reason... In things consumable by use neither a right of using nor a use of fact separate from ownership or lordship of the thing can be established or had." These are the words of the constitution, which, so this heretic says, "clearly go against sacred Scripture, the sacred canons and definitions of the holy doctors, and also the determinations of the holy Roman Church.
That they conflict with sacred Scripture is proved clearly from chapters 2 and 4 of Acts. For in chapter 2 it is said: 'All the believers were together and had all things common. They sold their possessions and property and diseributed them to indrviduals as each had need' [Acts 2:44—-5]. In chapter 4 it is written:
'The multitude of believers were of one heart and soul, and none of them said that anything he possessed was his... Nor * Constitui, which might also be translated "created," "brought into existence," or "set up." For example, the right called usufruct (a right to use something that belongs te someane else) could be created (constite®} by legacy, if the testator left ownership of land to one person bue the right to farm & to another; see Justinian,
Wiliam of Ockham was there among them anyone in want. For those who possessed fields and houses sold them and brought the price of the things they sald and put it at the feet of the apostles. They distributed to individuals as each had need... They broke bread in their homes, and took food with rejoicing' [Acts 4:32-46]. The word
'his' the saints explain thus: 'His, that is, proper [belonging exclusively to him],' as is clear in 12, g. 1, c. Scimus, c. Nolo, and c. New dreatis, and para. Sic ergo, and in Augustine's Rule
(near the beginning). And the ordinary gloss on the words 'they had all things common' says:
'It is a sign of brotherly love to possess all things and have nothing proper [exclusive to oneself]." These words," so this heretic says, "clearly suggest that the believers did not have ownership of any temporal thing, whether consumable by use or not consumable by use. For they sold their things not consumable by use — namely possessions, fields, houses, and property (gloss: 'that is, flocks') -— and did not keep them, either individually or in their cormmunity; and those things which the law (é#s1., de usufructu, para. constitutiur) says are consumable by use — namely monies taken as the price of things sold and bread (particularly mentioned here) - they had in common, and they 'distributed to individuals as each had need'; and 'none of them said that anything was his,' that is, proper, but 'among them all things were common.'
Thus each of them had use of things consumable by use without ownership and lordship" — that is, separate from ownership and lordship. From this he concludes that "the said assertion and teaching contained im the said constitution goes against divine
Scripture and destroys and confounds every religious order that has a vow renouncing the ownership of temporal things, for it implies that when any religious used things consumable by use he would have to be regarded as an owner." These are the words of this heretic, which undoubtedly include many falsehoods. We will answer them in what follows.
{Ockham] These are the words of the constitution [Quta wir reprobus]. This part begins the body of the constitution, which is divided into three main parts. The first part answers objections against the constitution Ad condfterem, the second answers objections against the constitution Cum inter, the third answers objections against the constitution Quia quorundam. The second part begins at "Again, this heretic tries to attack the constitution Cum inter nonnullos"
{chapter 82], the third begins toward the end, at "Again, this heretic tries to attack the constitution Qyia quorundam" [chapter
The Work of Ninety Days 120]. The frst part is divided into five parts corresponding to the five matters in Ad conditerem that brother Michael tries to disprove as erroneous. The second begins at ''Again, this heretic says that the aforesaid constitution" [chapter 33], the third at "Again, the said heretic says that the said constitution" [chapter 59], the fourth at "Again, this heretic tries to attack the said constitution" {chapter
67], the fifth at "Again, the said heretic tries to attack the said constitution" [chapter 74]The first part is further divided into seven parts, answering the seven objections against the first assertton taken from the constitution Ad conditorem. The second part begins at "Again, to prove that the assertion" [chapter 10], the third at "Further, this enemy of truth" [chapter rg], the fourth at "Again, he tries" [chapter 21}, the fifth at "Further, that heretic says" [chapter 25], the sixth at "Further, to show" (chapter 29], the seventh at '"'Again, he says that this assertion" [chapter 31]. The first part is further divided into two parts. For first the attack is reported and then it is answered in the part immediately following, at "For we say" {chapter 3].
In the first part, then, it is shown that in things consumable by use neither use of fact nor use of right can be separated from ownership or lordship. This is asserted in the constitution 4d conditorem, and in his appeal brother Michael attacks it by means of the statement of chapters 2 and 4 of Acts, "Among them all things were common" {Acts 4:32; cf. 2:44]. For he says that since according to the truth of Scripture "Among them all things were common," they did not have ownership of any thing consumable by use; yer certainly they had use of fact of things consumable by use; in things consumable by use, therefore, use of fact can be separated from ownership and lordship. This is the force of the attack reported above, which the attackers try to defend.
They say that since the attacked labors to bring in errors and destroy truth under the ambiguities of terms, they will, to clarify what is to be said, explain certain terms often used in this consttution, namely: "use," "use of fact," "use of right," "right of using," "simple users," "things consumable by use," "things not consumable by use," "lordship,"
"ownership," and the words "mine," "thine," "his," and the like.
Concerning the first, namely what is meant by use, they say that writers take the word "use" in various. ways. It can be taken in four ways. In one way "use" is taken as distinguished from enjoy1 yee "PAUAANA Seem real HES Fee* : ee William ofOckham ment, imsofar as use and enjoyment are acts of will by which something is taken in the faculty of will. It is seldom or never taken in this way in legal science. In another way use is taken for the act of using some external thing, and it is taken in this way in every discipline which uses the word "use." "Use" is taken this way in Judges 19[:19], where it is said, "Having bread and wine for use by your maidservant and myself." In a third way "use" is taken for being accustomed to do something. It is taken in this way in 1 Kings 17[:39], when David, when he put on the armor, said, "I cannot go like this, for I do not have the use." It is also taken this way in dist. r1, c. Consuetudinis, and Extra, De consuerudine, c. Cum consuetudinis, In a fourth way "use" is taken for a certain particular right by which one can use things belonging to another, preserving their substance. They say that "use" is taken this way in the legal sciences and in writings which imitate the manner of speaking of the legal sciences. They do not recall, they say, that "use" is ever taken this way in theology or philosophy. They say, therefore, that the poun "use" can be taken in these ways, without denying that it may be found taken in some other way.
Conceming use of fact, they say that use of fact is the act of using some external thing — for example, an act of living in, eating, drinking, riding, wearing clothes, and the like. They illustrate this from divine Scripture, from legal science, and also from sayings
.of the attacked himself. For Judges 19 {quoted above) says, "Having bread and wine for use by your maidservant and myself": this use was, certainly, to eat the bread and drink the wine; "use" therefore is sometimes taken for the act of eating or drinking. Again, /nst., de usu et habitatione, pava. 1, says: "Whoever has the bare use of a farm is understood to have no more than this, that he may use, for everyday use, the vegetables, fruit, flowers, hay, straw, and wood." In these words, when it is said "he may use, for everyday use," "use" does not mean a right, since it would be unsuitable to say "he may use, for everyday right." It is therefore taken here for the act of using to" which someone has this right, called "bare use," by which he can use the vegetables, fruit, and suchlike. But the act by which someone uses vegetables and fruit is the act of eating. The act of eating is therefore called "use" also in the civil
* Substiruciag pre for que.
The Work ofNinety Days law, and by the same argument the acts of drinking and wearing and the like can be called use.
Again, that the act af eating may be called "use of fact" is shown also by statements of the attacked himself. For in this constitution Quia vir reprobus he says: "Use of fact is proper to the user in such a way that it cannot be said to be another's or to be communicable to another; for it is clear that Peter's act of eating was in such a way proper to him that it could not be said to be common to others." These words clearly establish thae this act of eating is called a use of fact, and by the same reason acts of drinking, wearing, and the like can be called uses of fact. 'Thus, therefore, every act anyone performs in relation to an external thing, such as eating, drinking, wearing, wriung, reading in a book, riding, and the like, is called a use of fact, "fact" being added to distinguish such use from use of right. But [the attackers] do not deny that "use of fact" can be taken in some other way.
Concerning use of right, they say that use of right is a certain determinate positive right, established by human ordinance, by which one has the licit power and authority to use things belonging to another, preserving their substance.' Accordingly, it is defined in the law thus: "Use is the right of using the things of another, preserving their substance." Use in that sense can be divided into bare use and usufruct. Bare use is when one has the right of using something that is another's, preserving its substance, but cannot sell, rent, or give this right for nothing to another. Thus onc who rents a house has the right to live in the house with his family, but he cannot sell, give, or tent it to another. Similarly, one who has bare use of a farm has the right to stay on the farm, if he wishes, and also the right to gather certain crops growing on the farm, as determined by the civil law, but he cannot sell, give, or rent this right to anyone else. Usufruct is a fuller right in another's things, preserving their substance: for whoever has usufruct not only can use the thing but also sell, give, and rent all his right to another. So when use is called bare, the "'bare'' is added to distinguish it from usufruct. And thus "use of right" is sometimes taken generally, and in this sense it is common to bare
? On the right of use and usufruct see Justinian, Jastitetes, 01.4 and 4, and Digest, ve ARES RAAT LAAN CRMC ACGMEAVENE CIOS AT MES :
CIR err reemmiS SSRSTTITT William of Ockham use and usufruct, and sometimes it is taken more specifically for bare use as distinct from usufruct (just as the word "custom" is sometimes taken generally for human law both written and not written and sometimes specifically for human law that is not written, as can clearly be gathered from Decreta, dist. 1). In whichever way
"use of right" is taken, therefore, it is always a right and not an act of using. Thus whoever rents a house to live in has use of right in the house even while he is outside the house and not actually living in it. "Of right" is added to distinguish it from use
"of fact," which is a certain act performed in relation to an external thing, as this term is taken in the law — as it is often also found taken in theology.
Fourth, they explain right of using, saying that a night of using is a licit power of using an external thing of which one ought not be deprived against one's will, without one's own fault and without reasonable cause, and if one has been deprived, one can call the depriver into court. "Licit power" is included to distinguish it from the illicit power by which a thief often uses another's things; and many others also often use their own things by an illicit power.
"Of which without one's own fault," etc., is included to distinguish it from a grace, by which a licit power to use something is often granted to someone, of which, however, he can licitly be deprived at the granter's discretion, withour any fault of his or any reason, solely because the granter revokes the power granted. Thus poor people invited by a rich man have the licit power to use food and drink put before them, but the inviter can if he pleases take them away, and, if he does so, those invited cannot for this call the person who invited them into court; they have no action against him. In the law such a power is often called a "grace." Thus the ordinary gloss on 10, q. 3, Cavendum, notes that 'Sf a bishop has funds he can spend, he aught not burden others, for these things seem to be sought ofgrace rather than of right." The gloss to Extra,
De postulatione praclatorum, c. Bonae memoriae, also notes that if someone is called to some election "of grace" he does not acquire for himself any right or advantage. Thus a distinction must be made between a right and a grace. A right of using, therefore, belongs to those who have bare use and to those who have usufruct — and not to them only, but it often belongs to whoever has lordship and ownership of the thing. Thus in the definition of "use" a right of using is put as the genus, when it is said that The Work ofNinety Days "use is a right ofusing another's things, preserving their substance."
It is quite clear from this that not every right of using is a "use," for if it were, the first part of the definition of use, which is put in place of the genus, would be convertible with what is defined and the remaining parts would be superfluous. Therefore, although every use of night is a right of using, not every right of using is the use of right that is distinguished fram ownership and iordship; but every right of using things belonging te another, preserving their substance, iS a use.
If it be said that a right of using is a servitude, but no one has a servitude in a thing of his own, therefore whoever has lordship of a thing does not have a right of using the thing of which he has lordship; again, sometimes a person has lordship and ownership of some thing yet cannot licitly use it (for example, if he rents something of his own to someone else he cannot use it, except illicitly), therefore lordship of a thing or ownership is not a right of using:
Fo the first of these the attackers say that although it is found in the law that every use is a servitude and that every servitude is a right of using, nevertheless it is perhaps not found that every right ofusing is a servitude; and if this were found, they would say that there "right of using" was taken more narrowly and not as a general term for every kind of right of using (which would not be unsuitable, because as St Augustine shows by many examples im
De Trinttate, Book xv, the same word is taken sometimes generally, sometimes specifically or narrowly).
They say, therefore, that although no one has a servitude in a thing of his own, a person nevertheless has a right of using a thing of his own. For net all who use their own things use them unjustly, nor do they use them always by others' grace; they therefore use them of right, since whoever uses anything uses it either unjustly and illicitly, or by another's grace, or by a right he has in it. Thus, therefore, the lord of a thing in which another has no right uses it by a right he has in it, since he does not use it unjustly and illicitly or by another's grace. Therefore he has a right of using in that thing, though he does not have a servitude in the thing, because not every right of using is a servitude (though the converse is true).
To the second they say that although Jordship of a thing is not a right of using it whenever one wishes, yet often a person wha has lordship has, along with lordship, a right of using it when he
William of Ockham pleases; sometimes, however, he keeps the lordship and grants the right of using to another, either for nothing or for a price. And $0, granting that lordship of a thing or ownership is not a right of using, one need not grant that someone who has lordship does not have a right of using, though sometimes he who has lordship of the thing does not have a right of using at that ume (though he may have a right of using at another time, for example, when the other ceases to have a right of using the thing).
Fifth, they explain what they understand by simple users. They say that "user" is made from "use" and therefore, just as "use" is taken in two ways — namely for use of right and for use of fact, though it may be taken also in other ways — so also "user" can be taken in two ways: in one way as corresponding in meaning to "use" taken for use of right, as one is called a user who has use of right Gust as one is called owner who has ownership of the thing); and then a simple user is someone who has bare use, or at least has no right beyond use of right. In this way, the attackers say, the Friars Minor are not simple users, because they are not users in this way, since they do not have the use of right spoken of in the legal sciences (and never in theology). In another way
"user" can be taken as corresponding in meaning to "use" taken fot use of fact; thus one is called a user who has use of fact of the thing, and a simple user is one who has, or can have, use of fact of the thing by not having any right by which (either in his own name or in the name of his group') he could litigate in court for the thing or for use of fact of the thing. They say that in this way the Friars Minor are simple users.
Sixth, they explain which things are consumable by use and which not consumable by use. They say that things consumable by use are those which are consumed by the use itself - that is, by the act of using: either consumed altogether {as far as the user is concerned), or generally are made to deteriorate and are at length consumed. These include food and drink, medicines, ointments, money, clothes, and the like. For although in its substance money is not consumed or even made to deteriorate when something is bought with it, yet as far as the buyer is concerned it is consumed ~ that is, it totally ceases to be his, as if it were consumed
Colleginm, meaning any set of people acting as a body.
The Work ofNinety Days in its substance. Clothes, also, although they are by no means consumed by the first use of fact, generally begin to deteriorate and are at fength consumed. Other things that can be used are called things not consumable by use; for example, a house, which is net made to deteriorate by being lived in, except perhaps accidentally, and other like things, are said t be not consumabie by use.
Since someone might say that the attacked takes "things consumable by use" more narrowly and therefore according to him money and clothes should not be counted as things consumable by use
(which would exclude many objections appearing against him conceming clothes and money), the attackers therefore show that the attacked himself thinks clothes and money should be counted among things consumable by use. Concerning clothes, indeed, he says so plainly, for in the constitution Quia vir reprebus he says it in these words: "It is certain that everyday clothing is counted among things consumable by use." Concerning money he suggests the same in the answer to the sixth objection, as will be clear there. Clothes and money, therefore, even according to the attacked himself, are to be counted among things consumable by use.
Seventh, the attackers show what should be understood by lordship. They say that such words as dominium {lordship], dominus
[lord], dominator [lord], dominari [to be lord over, to dominate], and the like are taken in different disciplines equivocally and in different ways. For they are taken in one way in moral philosophy, in another way in natural philosophy, in another way sometimes in common speech, and in another way in legal science; and therefore, since according to Augustine theology in a way includes all the sciences, these words are taken equivocally in various places in divine Scripture.
Thus "lordship" is often taken in moral philosophy for the power by which someone can freely do opposite acts; and in this way they say that man is lord and has lordship over his acts, whereas brutes do not have lordship over their acts. "To dominate" is also taken in this way, according to one exposition, in Genesis 4[:7], when the Lord says to Cain, "Your appetite will be under you, and you will dominate it." Such words are taken in another way for the virtuous habit by which someone rules his passions according to right reason. "To dominate" is taken in this way in Proverbs
HWilktam of Ockham 16:32]: "Better is the patient man than the strong man, and he who rules {deminart] his soul than the destroyer of cities." Such words are taken in another way for violent and usurped rule over others who cannot er dare not resist it. Such lordship Peter prohibits to the elders in his first epistle, chapter 5. He says: "Feed the Lord's ftock which is in your charge, caring for them not by constraint but willingly according to God, not for the sake of shameful gain but voluntarily, not as dominating your charge, but being a wholehearted example to the flock' {1 Peter 5:2-3]. So also in common speech it is sometimes said that a wife dominates her husband, a servant his master, a companion his companion,
Such words are taken in another way for the power of ruling some thing in a due way, and thus a boy is sometimes said to dominate his lord's horse.
In natural philosophy some of these words are taken in another way for the power of changing another thing. In this sense it is said that in every mbcture there is some predominant element.
However, they [the attackers] say that they do not remember reading that the word "lord" is found with such a meaning.
In the legal sciences these words are taken in another way: for a specific power of laying claim to some temporal thing and defending, holding, and controlling it. They say "a specific power" because, although some power af laying claim to a temporal thing (etc.) is calted lordship in the law, not every such power of laying claim to a thing (etc.} is called lordship. For whoever rents a house has, in a certain way, power to lay claim to the house if he is driven out illicitly and also to defend it if someone tries to take it from him, and he also has power to live in the house and otherwise control the house, yet he is not for that reason understood to have lordship. Therefore not every power of laying claim to a ternporal thing {etc.} is called lordship. Yet it is certain that lordship is a power of laying claim to a temporal thing (etc.}. It is therefore necessary to search for a definition or proper description of the lordship often spoken of in the law.
Now the attackers say they have not read a definition or proper description of lordship in any authoritative writing, and therefore, wishing to give a definition of lordship, they draw distinctions concerning lordship as the term is taken in the law. They say that of lordships over temporal things, one is divine, with which they
The Work ofNinety Days are not concerned at present. Another is human lordship, and that is twofald. For one lordship belonged to men in the state of innocence by natural or divine law, concerning this lordship it is said to our first parents in Genesis rf:28], "Have lordship over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over all living things that move upon the earth." Another lordship belongs to mankind by positive law or by human establishment, and this lordship is often spoken of in civil and canon law. And lordship in that sense can be taken in two ways, namely generally or broadly, and specifically or narrowly.
Taking lordship gencrally or broadly, the attackers define or describe it as follows: "Lordship is a principal human power of laying claim to and defending some temporal thing in a human court." "Human power' separates this lordship from the divine lordship; "principal" separates lordship from bare use and usufruct and from every other right held from a principal lord, and also from the power of an agent, who has power to lay claim to something in another's name. Thus, although one who has bare use and usufruct has power to lay claim to the thing and also to defend it, yet he had that power from another who granted him the use or usufruct, keeping the first right to himself without acquiring a new right. Thus, also, although a creditor has power to lay claim to a thing pledged, indeed sometimes even has power to sell it and transfer the lordship, nevertheless he does not have lordship of the thing, because he had it from another who, keeping the first right to himself, has not acquired another right. The phrase "in a human court" separates this lordship from that which belongs to a man by natural law or by primary divine law; it also separates this lordship from every grace and permission to use a thing, though graces and permissions are also excluded, strictly speaking, by "laying claim to."
Taking "lordship" in this general sense, the attackers say that prelates and ecclesiastics have lordship in church property. They try to make this clear from the sacred canons. For blessed Gregory, as quoted 12, q. 2, c. Ecclesiasticis, says: "Because, therefore, we have learnt that Theodore, a most eloguent man and one of our councillors, is without the assistance of slaves, therefore we command that the boy Acosimus, a Sicilian, be given and handed over into his right and lordship. Since he already possesses him, handed
William af Ockham over by our own will, it was necessary for this to be supported by authority, for evidence in the future and for the con'irmation of the grant, so that, with the Lord's protection, he can possess him as lord, securely, always, and without any suspicion of his being taken back." From these words it appears that Theodorus had the right and lordship of a slave, whom he possessed as lord; and by the same reason the clergy have lordship of other church property.
Gregory also seems to suggest this, as we read in 16, q. 4, im the penultimate chapter, when, writing to Peter the Subdeacon, he says: "We want you to go to the city of Palermo and investigate the question on that basis, that is, with lordship of the thing remaining with the possessor, as it has been possessed until now."
These words imply that a church' possessed lordship of the thing in dispute.
Further, the attackers say that whoever has ownership of a thing has lordship of it; but prelates and ecclesiastics have ownership of church property, on the testimony of blessed Gregory, who {as quoted 12, q. 2, last chapter) commanded that a certain house, garden, and lodging be handed over to a certain religious woman to be possessed by right of ownership; that religious woman could therefore control temporal things by right of ownership. Bishops also are understood to have their own churches, as is clear from 3 q. 1, ¢. 1, and q. 2, c. Audivimus; and we read in many places that bishops and monks have their own property; prelates and ecclesiastics therefore have lordship of church property. We read this also explicitly in a decretal of Nicholas ili, Exit qut seminat, that he takes all the things the Friars Minor use inte the lordship and ownership of the Roman Church.
It is proved also by argument. For it is certain from the sacred canons that prelates and ecclesiastics have a right in temporal things. But running through the various rights by which temporal things are possessed, in many things they have no right except lordship. For although in some things they may have usufruct and in others use (as can be inferred from the words of Augustine, quoted 17, q. 4, last chapter), nevertheless they by no means have such a right in many other things which are known to have been alienated from every right of laymen. It seems, therefore, that in those things they have some sort of lordship.
* Or a monastery. The parties (o the dispute were a church and a monastery. ete The Work ofNinety Days The attackers therefore say that in many of the Church's things prelates of the Church and ecclesiastics have lordship. Thus the Church, in them, has Jordship in some way over things of the Church which have been given to the Church by the faithful freely and without condition, For although in such things the Church does not have as full a power of management as laymen have in theirs, ecclesiastics nevertheless have as full a power of laying claim in court in the name of the Church; and the Church should not be deprived of those things without a reason, just as laymen should not be deprived of theirs - though some ecclesiastical persons can be deprived for a reason more easily of things assigned to them.
And so, since they have power to lay claim to and defend church property in court and such power dees not belong more principally to anyone else than it does to them, it follows that in some way they have lordship.
In another way human lordship is taken more aarrowly, the ' attackers say. They define lordship taken in the narrowest sense thus: "Lordship is a principal human power of laying claim to a temporal thing in court, and of treating it in any way not forbidden by natural law." That last clause excludes the right the clergy are understood to have in temporal things; for, although they have the principal power of laying claim fetc.}, nevertheless they cannot treat church property as they please, and laymen can manage their temporal things in many ways absolutely forbidden to the clergy.
That, therefore, is the definition of lordship in the narrowest sense, according to them, and the more some right in temporal things falls short of that definition the more it falls short of the fullness of lordship. Thus it is certain that the more (or the less) people are limited to certain ways of managing and treating their things, the more (or the less} lordship they have in them. For this reason often a man has fuller lordship of some of his things and Jess full in others. For example, in many places some have fuller lordship in movable things, which they can freely and blamelessly give, sell, and bequeath, and less lordship of their immovable things, because they cannot give, sell, or bequeath those things, since they cannot disinherit their heirs of immovable things. And perhaps it has been established reasonably by human ordinance that no one should have in any of his things such full lordship that no ways of treating them can be forbidden to him for a reason.
William of Ockham Commonly, however, lordship (especially in movables) as it is taken more often and perhaps always in civil law and more commonly in canon law, includes power to sell, give, and bequeath. Tharasius, bishop of Constantinople, testifies concerning the power to sell; as we read in i, q. 1, c. Eos, he says: "For every lord sells what he has, if he wishes, whether it be a slave or some other of his possessions." The Canons of the Apostles clearly enough suggest the power of bequest; as we read, 12, q.
1, ¢. Sint manifestae, they say, "Let the things proper to the bishop (if he has things of his own) be clear, and clear the things which are the Lord's, so that the bishop when he dies may have pewer to leave things proper to him as he wishes to whom he wishes." The civil and canon laws clearly speak also of the power of giving.
But ecclesiastics do not have such lordship in any of the temporal things the faithful have offered to God. For the clergy are all limited to certain ways of managing church property, inasmuch as they sin mortally if they manage or treat them otherwise, unless perhaps they can be excused by ignorance or in some other way; also, if they have given, bequeathed, or alienated church property in any other way than has been granted to them, those things can be recalled by a judge. The canon laws often speak of this sort of lordship when they say that the clergy are by no means the lords of church property but agents or stewards; this could be fully proved by reference to many sacred canons, as will appear elsewhere.
Eighth, the attackers show what they understand by ownership, For they say that the words proprium ["proper," "one's own"), and proprietas ("ownership," "property''] are taken in one way in logic and in another in the legal sciences. How they are taken in logic need not be discussed here. In the legal sciences, that is in civil and canon law, "ownership" is usually taken for lordship of a thing, so that lordship and ownership are the same, though perhaps it is also taken differently sometimes. And just as lordship is taken in two ways, so therefore is ownership, corresponding to the last two ways of taking lordship.
Ninth, they say that the words "mine," "yours," "his," "to have," and other words of corresponding meaning are in various places taken equivocally. For sometimes they imply lordship and The Work ofNinety Days ownership, as the attacked also affirms, and it therefore seems unnecessary to prove it by examples. Sometimes such words imply a licit power of using some thing, or use of the thing, or the assignment of some thing to someone's use; thus in common speech it is said that someone invited to a lodging "has" the jodging, and often he says "This is my lodging," although he does not have lordship and ownership of it. Many examples of this way of taking such words will be given below [chapter 9.876-g07] when the lordship and kingship of Christ is discussed, and so for the present
I pass on. And these words can be taken, and are taken, in other ways which will be spoken of below.
These distinctions the attackers put forward because, they say, through them it will be clear what both the attacked and his attacker, brother Michael, mean, and how the attacked tries to bring in errors under the ambiguity of words, and how the answers of the attacked are easily disproved and the attacker's reasons appear evidently as unanswerable. They say also that some of these words can be taken in other ways; but these are enough for them at present.
With these things seen, the attackers say that from the foregoing it evidently follows that the above words that they attack contain two plain errors. The first is that a use of fact separate from lordship or ownership of the thing cannot be had in things consumable by use; the second is that a right of using separate from ownership or lordship of the thing cannot be had in such things. But since the attacked asserts and confirms these two propositions, which the attackers regard as erroneous, in his answer to the objection reported above, they defer their attacks on them to the following part, in which his answer is set out.
But the attackers concede a third point contained in those words, namely that in certain things consumable by use it is not possible to have use of right separate from ownership or lordship - they concede it taking "use of right" in its proper sense. For they say that this negative proposition has a true reason why it is true, which is this: in such things consumable by use it is not possible to have a use of right, because a use of right is a right of using another's things, preserving their substance; and therefore, in many things consumable by use, a use of right in the proper sense cannot