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Quodlibeta

( Medieval European Education )

Authors of ''quodlibeta'..
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John Peter Quodlibeta William

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During the Middle Ages, quodlibeta were public disputations in which scholars debated questions "about anything" ( de quolibet) posed by the audience. The practice originated in the theological faculty of the University of Paris around 1230. Classes were suspended just before Christmas and Easter holidays so that the masters could hold public sessions taking questions from the audience. After 1270, the practice spread beyond Paris, but elsewhere was usually associated with the studia (schools) of the mendicant orders. The first to introduce the quodlibeta to an institution outside of Paris was John of Peckham at Oxford University in 1272–1275. Records of quodlibeta survive on parchment from the 1230s to the 1330s, but thereafter written records are scarce. The practice, however, continued into the sixteenth century.

A catalogue of quodlibetal questions and manuscripts was published by in two volumes between 1925 and 1932. Glorieux catalogued about 325 recorded quodlibeta by about 120 named authors and 30 anonymous quodlibeta. This amounts to over 6,000 individual questions. About half of quodlibeta and a definite majority of questions and manuscripts are attributed to Dominican Order or Franciscan scholars.

Some Dominicans produced responses to written quodlibeta, imitating the form in what Russell Friedman calls "anti- quodlibeta", usually in defence of Thomas Aquinas. These writers include Robert of Orford, Thomas of Sutton, Bernard of Auvergne and Hervaeus Natalis.

Authors of quodlibeta

The following list is from Glorieux, except as noted.