## 1. Life


Richard FitzRalph was born in Dundalk probably slightly before 1300. Although
not a member of the Gaelic race, he was referred to by his Oxford
contemporaries as "Hibernicus," as was the Anglo-Norman
Peter of Ireland (Petrus de Hibernia, ca. 1200-1265) a generation
before. Around the age of 15, he went to Oxford (there was no
university in Ireland before the reign of Elizabeth I) where he was a
fellow of Balliol College, and he gained his MA there. He later
went to University College (then University Hall), where he graduated
with a doctorate in theology in 1331. He became chancellor of the
University of Oxford in 1332, embarking thereafter on a successful
ecclesiastical career both in England and in Ireland. On his first
visit to Avignon, only five years after concluding his lectures on the
*Sentences*, FitzRalph it seems was consulted as one of the eighteen
leading theologians of Europe by Pope Benedict XII to correct the views
of his predecessor, John XXII, on the beatific vision. He became
archbishop of Armagh in 1347. He is perhaps best known for his
opposition to the mendicant orders on the question of evangelical
poverty and his defense of the rights of the secular clergy against the
friars. It was while pursuing his suit against the mendicants that he
died at Avignon in 1360. In the company of Ockham, Bradwardine, and
Wodeham, FitzRalph became one of the four most frequently cited insular
theologians in the fourteenth century.


## 2. Writings




FitzRalph was a prolific author and most of the works from his
mature period are of a theological or pastoral nature, or, indeed,
polemical writings concerned with the anti-mendicant controversy. 
And whereas some topics are dealt with such as future contingents (in
the *Summa de Quaestionibus Armenorum*) or the question of
*dominium,* it is to his earlier work, the *Lectura on the
Sentences*, dating from 1328-29, that we must look to for more
philosophical themes. FitzRalph was also the author of a (now
lost) *Commentary on the Physics* which brought him into
conflict with Richard Kilvington. Furthermore, some logical works
once attributed to FitzRalph are now to be attributed to another
Armachanus, John Foxhalls (Johannes Anglicus) (Dunne 2013b). The most
extensive treatment to date of FitzRalph's thought as presented
in the *Lectura* is that by Gordon Leff (1963). Leff's
book gives a good overview of FitzRalph's thought and is generous
with quotations from the text itself. What emerges from Leff's
examination is that a good deal of FitzRalph's *Lectura*
was not concerned with theology at all, or at least only tangentially
so. For example, when dealing with the theological problem of the
creation of the world, the discussion focuses on topics (such as the
eternity of the world) that FitzRalph had already dealt with in his
commentary on the *Physics* (Dunne 2008).


## 3. Position in the History of Philosophy




Although many hold that FitzRalph later turned away from
scholasticism (Leff 1963: 175), this point has been refuted by W. Duba
(Duba 2013: 104). FitzRalph's lectures on the
*Sentences* have turned out to be of greater importance than
might have at first been realized by some authors such as Leff. Leff
saw FitzRalph's approach as being heavily influenced by the
neo-Augustinian movement deriving ultimately from Henry of Ghent.
Leff's summation of FitzRalph is rather negative, holding that
FitzRalph shows an unwillingness to be deeply involved in the
controversies of his time, and that he was content to "restate
what his contemporaries re-formulated" (Leff 1963: 175). This
assessment, however, leaves one wondering what there was about
FitzRalph's ideas that his contemporaries such as Holcot and
Wodeham, and later, Gregory of Rimini and Pierre d'Ailly, found
so challenging. In fact, contrary to Leff's assessment recent
scholarship affirms that FitzRalph was one of the leading protagonists
of the Oxford of his day and at a time when Oxford briefly eclipsed
the University of Paris in importance.




In philosophical matters FitzRalph generally follows Aristotle, but an
Aristotle who is constantly read through the lens of his
Commentator. Averroes is taken by FitzRalph to be the authentic
interpreter of Aristotle despite the condemnations of the 1270s, but
in so doing FitzRalph is not an Averroist (as some surmised) but is
merely following the accepted practice of the times. For example, he
is not, as one would expect, Averroistic in accepting the doctrine of
a single soul and indeed doubts whether it is truly
Averroes's teaching. Aquinas, when mentioned, is treated
with respect and FitzRalph follows him on a number of important
points. Perhaps owing to a certain national loyalty, Anselm receives
significant (though not uncritical) attention. Grosseteste too
receives occasional mention. Again, as one might expect, Augustine is
the guide in theological matters, but FitzRalph does not content
himself to give references to Augustine's works. In fact, he
tends to provide long quotations from Augustine, indicating a close
personal reading, something he shared with his patron, Bishop John de
Grandisson. Contemporaries are not named (contrary to the practice of
Wodeham or Holcot a few years later), and their contributions have to
be identified (as does indeed FitzRalph's own positions) in the
course of his presentation of each topic in the text which usually
involves an examination of the answers given by Aquinas, Henry of
Ghent and Duns Scotus. FitzRalph would have perhaps felt closest in
spirit to (though not always agreeing with) the neo-Augustinianism of
Henry of Ghent; in method and approach, however, he seems closest to
Duns Scotus. However, the techniques he employs are something he holds
in common with his contemporaries, and it was these, it seems,
together with the high quality of his arguments which appealed to
other writers down to Jacques Almain and Francisco de Vitoria.




There is little or no evidence of radicalism in FitzRalph's
early writings such as *Lectura* which would anticipate the
polemical Armachanus attacking the privileges of the mendicant orders
at the papal court at Avignon in the 1350s. The later FitzRalph was a
socially conscious prelate who reprimanded his Anglo-Irish audience in
his sermons regarding their unjust treatment of the Gaelic Irish
population. It was in this context that he developed his
teaching on *dominium*, a doctrine which would have long-term
implications through his influence on Wyclif (Lahey 2003) or indeed in
its rejection by later authors such as De Vitoria (Dunne 2004:
243-58).


## 4. Natural Philosophy




FitzRalph's views on motion, time, and infinity were the
topics upon which his near contemporaries, especially Wodeham and
Holcot, most frequently quoted him (Dunne 2008). Wodeham, it seems, changed many
of his opinions in the light of FitzRalph's, especially regarding
infinity. In Book III of his Oxford *Lectura*, Wodeham followed
FitzRalph word for word on the issue, thereby rejecting the very
position he had himself defended in Book I. Again, Gregory of
Rimini recognized FitzRalph as the source for the common view of
infinity held at Oxford by Holcot and Wodeham, and he repeated
FitzRalph's arguments, albeit in order to reject this position
(Courtenay 1987: 76-8.)




FitzRalph deals with these topics in the *Lectura* Book II,
qu. 1: Whether God at the beginning of time created the world from
nothing. One of the more striking features of the text is its
predominantly philosophical flavor and its comparative lack of
theological material. The principal question is devoted to the general
problem of the eternity of the world. FitzRalph begins by putting
forward arguments against the beginning of the world in time. One goes
as follows: if God's power is always the same, then it was the
same before the world was created; therefore, God could always from
eternity have produced the world. Thus, there is no contradiction in
stating that the world has always existed. FitzRalph attributes this
position to the *Commentary on the Sentences* of Thomas Aquinas.
Indeed, he continues that, even if the world is not from eternity, we
can argue that in the future God might make it so, since what he once
can do, he can always do. In other words, it remains part of
God's power to make a universe that has always existed, just as
it remains possible for God to destroy this universe, or again, to
create other universes that have always existed.




Another argument among the many put forward is that if some
contradiction can be found in the notion of a world existing from
eternity, then this should be shown through the use of reason. If it
were possible to show that the world and time began at a certain
instant, then the philosophers of the past would have proven it.
FitzRalph quotes Aristotle as saying, in the first book of the
*Topics*, that either position is possible and can be argued
for, but neither position can be shown to be conclusive. Thus,
FitzRalph concludes that the creation of the world *ex nihilo et de
tempore* can be taken only as an article of faith; indeed, if this
were not the case, then there would be no merit in believing in the
creation of the world.


 When dealing with the associated question of the infinity
of the number of souls FitzRalph discusses the nature of the infinite.
He comments that the eternity of the world does not necessarily imply
an infinity of souls, since the first man could have been made at a
certain time and so have a finite number of descendants. Again, through
reincarnation a finite number of souls could be continually reborn
throughout a perpetual time. FitzRalph continues by pointing out that
some people say that an infinity of souls is in no way impossible, or,
at least, does not involve a contradiction, since God can make an
actual infinite number of souls, angels, or beings at once, or he can
do so successively, so that an actual infinite will exist at some
future time, even given that the world began at a certain
point.




Again, in every body there is an infinite number of proportional
parts (*partes proportionales*: the terminology is
Chatton's, and the source for the treatment that follows is
probably the *De indivisibilibus* of Wodeham) that are
completely distinct one from another (*totaliter diverse*).
Thus, God can make something exist at once which is actually infinite,
and the same is as true of souls or angels as it is of bodies. That
there is an infinite number of proportional parts in a body is
considered by FitzRalph to have been shown by Aristotle in Book III of
the *Physics* and in Averroes's commentary, since
every continuum is composed of an infinite number of proportional
parts, each of which is distinct from the other. FitzRalph holds
that it can be argued that in any line there is an infinite number of
points, that there is an infinite number of lines in any surface, and
an infinite number of surfaces in every body, and yet each is distinct
from the other.




FitzRalph continues his argument by stating that if there is an
actual infinity within bodies, that is to say, if they can actually be
divided to infinity, then it is clear that it is possible for God to
make an infinite number of other things. Thus, there is no
contradiction in there being an infinite number of human souls. Nor is
there any problem with God's not knowing which is first and
which is last in an infinite series; this is not because of any
ignorance on God's part but because, quite simply, there is no
first and last. In the end he refers his audience back to his
discussion of the topic in his commentary on the *Physics*, now
lost.




Finally, FitzRalph makes an interesting distinction between
philosophy and theology. In the ninth argument, where Anselm's
assertion (in the *Monologion*, chap. 22) that time is composed
of parts is addressed, FitzRalph begins by stating that he is concerned
here with Anselm's standing (*auctoritas*) as a natural
philosopher and not as a theologian. In fact, FitzRalph goes further:
"here we must follow reason more than the standing
(*auctoritas*) of any theologian."


## 5. Psychology and Cognition


### 5.1 Mind as a trinity of intellect, memory and will




In his *Lectura*, FitzRalph holds that memory, understanding
and willing are expressions of the essence of the soul, and whereas
each expresses something of the soul they cannot be said of each other
and as such are distinct (Dunne 2012: 443-50). Memory
understanding and willing are to be found in the soul's complete
nature but the soul is not to be found completely in any one of
them. As regards the relationship between willing and
understanding, Wodeham will later specifically oppose FitzRalph for
treating them as distinct. FitzRalph, on the other hand, opposed
Aquinas for regarding memory and understanding as the same. For
FitzRalph, memory, understanding and willing are not the same (which
was the position of Scotus and that adopted by Chatton against Ockham),
neither are they really distinct but are distinguished inasmuch as the
soul expresses itself differently through these powers. Finally,
for FitzRalph actual knowledge is really distinct from the species in
memory, i.e., there is a real distinction between the powers.




The topic was a traditional one but FitzRalph's treatment
shows how such a tradition was capable of renewal in the light of
contemporary developments such as the debate regarding the distinction
between the mind and its powers and that between the powers itself, as
well as the *species in memoria*.


### 5.2 Species theory




In the *Lectura* Book II, q. 1, a. 2, *Whether*
*motion and time are really distinct*, FitzRalph makes a
digression while defending the *species in medio* theory and
refers to a respected person (*valens*) who had argued against
the theory. He also tells us that he himself once shared a similar
opinion and gives the reason why.



> 
> 
> It seems to me that if those people are not aware that the species
> in their eyes are just like the sounds in their ears, then they will
> not believe that such things [as species] exist but will say that sight
> is seeing and that hearing is hearing and that illuminated air is light
> - and I once heard a very respected person (*valens*) say
> exactly this. Others say that every colour is light, and that every
> taste is a mixture of the prime qualities, and that every smell is
> taste - as indeed I believed once, holding that nothing existed except
> the five prime qualities, namely the four elemental qualities and light
> ... .




The *valens* in question could well be Ockham, since
FitzRalph was old enough to have heard him speak before the former left
Oxford in 1324 (Maier 1959: 16). (Maier also discusses
Fitzralph's text in the context of the later debate regarding
primary and secondary qualities). Nor was FitzRalph alone in defending
the theory of the *species in medio*: "Ockham's
attack on the species elicited an almost immediate and prolonged
negative response." (Tachau 1982: 395). Ockham's position
was criticized by John of Reading and also by Walter Chatton, Robert
Holcot, William Crathorn, and Wodeham. Thus, FitzRalph found himself in
the company of many who would normally be seen as close to the position
of Ockham. As Tachau concludes (1982: 443), "in epistemology at
any rate, there seems at Oxford to have been no school of
*Ockhamistae*."




However, with FitzRalph's treatment of the topic there seems
to be a shift from a concern with the *species in medio* to the
*species in memoria* and this seems to have influenced the
manner of the treatment of the topic by Holcot and especially that of
Crathorn who devotes much of his treatment to an analysis of
FitzRalph's arguments (Dunne 2012; both Holcot and Crathorn
lectured on the Sentences in the years 1330-32 around the time when
FitzRalph was *magister regens*).


### 5.3 The will and its relation to the intellect




Tachau (2013: 82) writes that on Leff's interpretation,
FitzRalph reached for a moderate if not mediocre position, rejecting
both Aquinas's "doctrine" of the intellect's
superiority and Scotus's decision in favor of the will's
"primacy," instead "contrapos[ing] his own *opinio
media*"(Leff 1963: 97). On the issue of which of the two
mental faculties, will or intellect, is superior, Scotus's
"view of the will as a power superior to the intellect ...
appealed to FitzRalph personally," in Walsh's judgment, but
he deemed Aquinas's support for the opposite ranking "more
authoritative." Walsh gained the impression that
FitzRalph's position was somehow untenable, so much so that
"Wodeham took him to task for trying to have things both
ways" (Walsh 1981: 60).




Tachau (2013: 85) points out that what Wodeham actually says is that
"the will truly is not nobler than the intellect nor
*vice* *versa*, and note that Fitzralph holds the
same". FitzRalph recognized that the various distinctions
(real, formal, intentional, or of reason) that previous scholastic
generations had drawn among the intellective and sensitive substances
of the soul, or its "faculties," or the faculties'
diverse acts and habits, were problematic; yet, he also pointed to
significant philosophical and theological impediments that would arise
from denying *all* distinctions, obstacles that neither he nor
his contemporaries had entirely satisfactory means of eluding (Tachau
2013: 92). So if there were no distinction whatsoever between the
intellectual soul's faculties of will and intellect, then
presumably a cognition of any given object, as an act of the intellect,
would be identical to the will's volition regarding the same
object. To accept this conclusion, however, would introduce
numerous complications into any theory of whether and how God reveals
future contingents, and lead to untenable consequences (Tachau 2013:
93). 


### 5.4. God as the Agent Intellect




In the *Lectura* there are a series of articles which deal with
matters closely related to the question on the human mind as an image
of the Trinity but which clearly were not integrated when FitzRalph
presumably abandoned the editing process when he became Chancellor of
Oxford University. These articles are of interest in their own right
since in them we see FitzRalph engaged in a long debate with both
certain quodlibets of Henry of Ghent and the Commentary on the *De
Anima* of Averroes. One of these articles is entitled "Whether
the Agent Intellect is a certain part of the Image". Somewhat
unexpectedly, at the end of the article FitzRalph, in a way
reminiscent of Bonaventure, asserts that the Agent Intellect is God,
or that the Agent Intellect is not a certain part of the image but is
the First Form or God. This seems to place FitzRalph in an earlier
tradition, going back even to William of Auvergne and Robert
Grosseteste and a return to an earlier Augustinianism.


## 6. Philosophical Theology


### 6.1 Proving God's existence




The first question of Book I of the *Lectura*, is
"Whether the wayfarer can know that God exists by means of
philosophical proof," and a number of arguments are presented,
six against and six for. He tells us how he will deal with the
problem: firstly, he will deal with the question as to whether the
existence of God as such can be known and then, secondly, whether one
can have both faith and knowledge of the same thing at the same
time. Then, thirdly, he will examine the various authorities. This is
the basic structure followed in the rest of the *Lectura*, even
if FitzRalph did not always reorganize his material fully in this
manner, since sometimes individual articles remain on their own or
questions are left unresolved. FitzRalph quotes the views of Henry of
Ghent on demonstrating the existence of God, but he accepts the
position of Aquinas. Again, regarding whether God's existence is
evident or not, he follows Aquinas. There then follows a long and
elaborate treatment of the ontological argument but, curiously, no
form of a cosmological argument is to be found in his writings. It
must be surmised that the latter was not the focus of debate in Oxford
at this time. 


### 6.2 Divine omnipotence




Leff judged that it was Ockham and his followers who pushed the
consequences of the discontinuity between faith and reason to often
irreverent conclusions in the debate on the *potentia Dei.*
Thus, thinkers such as Robert Holcot and Adam of Wodeham seem to show a
sheer fascination with the paradoxes open to God in his absolute power,
a fascination that led them to positions which were hardly in keeping
with traditional Christian teaching. FitzRalph opposes such views
by appealing to the Augustinian tradition. God's *potentia
absoluta* merely refers to God's ability to act outside the
present dispensation. Furthermore, God's omnipotence entails His
inability to sin and to deceive, just as it also excludes his dying. In
other words, what God cannot do is to act against his own nature: God
cannot be other than the *summum bonum*. God's power does
not consist simply and solely of doing anything whatsoever; his limit
is not just his freedom from contradicting himself, as others
held--rather it is his own nature. Since God is most good, most
merciful, and most just, his omnipotence must be in accordance with
these aspects of his nature. For God to act otherwise would not be a
sign of omnipotence but of impotence, since it would involve a denial
or negation of his own nature. Thus, what is possible from the point of
view of omnipotence taken in itself, is impossible from the point of
view of God's goodness, mercy, and justice, and thus impossible
not by reason of his power (*ratione potentie*) but by reason of
his justice or goodness (*ratione iustitie vel
bonitatis*)*.*


### 6.3 Divine Foreknowledge and future contingents




One of the topics which exercised the minds of FitzRalph and his
contemporaries was the topic of the revelation of future contingents.
Indeed, FitzRalph discussed it on three separate occasions. His first
treatment occurs in the *Sentences* commentary, where he
considers the matter so important that he promises his audience he will
return to it He kept this promise a few months later when he gave his
*Quaestio biblica* and before he left for Paris in October, 1329
(Genest 1991) . Again, he returned to the problem in his *Summa de
quaestionibus Armenorum*, where the matter is treated in a dialogue
form.




The specific way in which FitzRalph addresses the problem is in terms
of the revelation of future contingents. Given that future contingents
have a determinate truth--namely, that they will happen and cannot
not happen--how can their truth, as known by God, be revealed by
him to a created intellect without their losing their contingency? As
Leff points out, the problem as set out by his contemporaries was
whether God's knowledge of the future was different from that of
the present and the past (Leff 1963: 40). According to Wodeham,
Buckingham, and Holcot, God's knowledge about the future must be
related to the contingency of the future, and, therefore, this
knowledge is of a different kind from God's knowledge of the past
and present. FitzRalph accepts the distinction, seeking to defend his
position as being consonant with Augustine in the *83 Questions*
and *De Trinitate*. It was, in fact, a position rejected by
Bradwardine and Gregory of Rimini.




From the sources which we have FitzRalph is the first to devote an
entire question to the problem of the revelation of future contingents
and that it is no less remarkable that it is six times the length of
his question on divine foreknowledge (Genest 1991: 240). Again,
FitzRalph's treatment of the topic marks a turning point in the
history of the problem, as is clear from comparing it what Ockham had
written on the topic just before 1324 (in his *Quodlibet* IV,
qu. 4). Whereas Ockham dealt with the problem in 800 words,
FitzRalph--in a sign of the growing complexity of the
problem--writes 20,000 words on the matter. While Ockham sought to
remove all necessity from the proposition, "This was
revealed", by seeking to disassociate it from any temporal
implication on God's part, FitzRalph, without contesting this
thesis (then nearly universally accepted), has to resolve a series of
difficulties that this thesis leaves open. Against the possibility of a
revelation of the future, FitzRalph lists fourteen arguments, which
Genest examines in some detail. One of the central themes that emerge
is a disjunction between the certitude of revelation and the conditions
of acting for a creature, conditions which presuppose that in order to
be free, there must be a certain ignorance of the future on the part of
the creature. To take but one example: if God reveals to a just man
that he will be damned, should he pray for his salvation? FitzRalph
makes a distinction between a prophesy through which people are
deceived, on the one hand, and lying on the other; thus a person may be
deceived by the prophesy and yet God did not lie to them.




For FitzRalph God is good and does not act arbitrarily or
irrationally. The revelation of free actions is contingent so that, if
God should reveal to someone that he will be ultimately damned, this
cannot relate to the person's present state of grace but to
actions freely undertaken in the future. This is because, for
FitzRalph, if someone were to act necessarily his or her actions would
be neither just nor unjust. Someone might freely sin even if the future
consequences were revealed to him, but that does not mean that he is
compelled to sin.




With the exception of the final argument, all of the *quod
non*s are based upon "cases" or particular
circumstances (*in isto casu*, *in casu posito*) (Genest
1991: 242-3). Some are examples taken from Scripture, others we might
call scholastic "thought experiments," but most of them are
accompanied by cases of conscience. According to Genest, many of
them had already been put forward by his predecessors and many are to
be found in the *Lectura* of the Franciscan John of Rodington,
who read the *Sentences* at roughly the same time as FitzRalph;
Rodington's treatment is briefer, however (Genest 1991: 243). The
stock of hypotheses must have been more or less complete when FitzRalph
composed his question, but it is the breadth of the treatment which
marks FitzRalph's text as an important witness to the debate at
Oxford at the end of the 1320s. A sign of this importance is the
attention given to FitzRalph's text by Wodeham in his *Lectura
oxoniensis* (1333-1334), where he devotes five long questions
to the topic (*Sent.* III, qu. 5-9). Again, when Holcot
came to deal with the matter, he practically repeated what FitzRalph
had said.


### 6.4 Predestination and Free Will




John Wycliff paid tribute to both Thomas Bradwardine and
FitzRalph as the two Oxford teachers upon whom he relied most. 
However, on the question of predestination and free will, Wycliff
followed Bradwardine and not FitzRalph. Wycliff's position on
predestination contrasted sharply with FitzRalph's efforts to
reconcile free will with a moderate acceptance of divine
predestination. This might serve to explain why Wycliff quoted
from the *De Pauperie Salvatoris* on dominion and from the
*Summa de Quaestionibus Armenorum* on a wider range of
theological issues, but he never refers to the *Lectures on the
Sentences*. FitzRalph's strong emphasis on the primacy
of the will in the *Lectures* was of little use to Wycliff when
he was working out his position, nor was FitzRalph it seems free from
all traces of the doctrine that Bradwardine was to describe as
'Pelagian'.




In the *Summa de Quaestionibus Armenorum* XV-XVII, FitzRalph
turned to topics of free will and predestination being concerned with
what he regarded as a new heresy being spread in the schools. In
language more violent than anything found before the mendicant
controversy, he expressed his horror at the new teaching, which he
calls a 'diabolical knowledge'. Although Bradwardine
was not the object of FitzRalph's attack, it seems to be written
in response to disciples of Bradwardine who had espoused an extreme
form of predestinarianism from a reading of the *De Causa
Dei*. Predestinarianism reduces eternal salvation or
damnation to the sovereign will of God alone, and excludes free will as
a secondary factor in determining man's future state. Against an
absolute determinism FitzRalph held that the punishment of the damned
was just inasmuch as 'their sin or its futurity was the reason
from eternity why God willed to damn the wicked, and not the contrary,
(*Summa*, XVI, 12) and defended the free human choice. 
Although the background to the debate is clearly Augustinian (see City
of God, V:10), it is interesting to note that FitzRalph in the
*Summa* seeks also to justify his position on the basis of
Scripture.


## 7. Ethics and Political Theory: *Dominium*




After FitzRalph's death his fame and influence grew among those who
wished to reform the Church. His anti-mendicant polemic meant that he
was often referred to in Middle-English Lollard literature. He was
quoted extensively by Wycliff. His
*Defensio Curatorum* was printed several times in the late
fifteenth century and is the only work by an Irishman to be published
as an incunabulum. John of Trevisa translated it into Middle
English. Printings of this work continued in the following two
centuries. Through the work of Ussher, Wadding and others, the
memory of FitzRalph was kept alive in the first half of the seventeenth
century.




One topic in which FitzRalph was to have an influence was that of
his teaching on *dominium*, or lordship. In his dialogue *De
pauperie Salvatoris* (1356), FitzRalph argued that grace alone
entitled a person to lordship over temporal things. Some centuries
later Lutherans thinkers, held that rights, and hence the authority of
secular rulers, were dependent on God's grace. Thus, if a
ruler was a heretic or a sinner his laws could not be binding in
conscience - only a righteous ruler could be a just
legislator. An unrighteous ruler could be deposed; and such
'unrighteous' included unbelievers.




The Council of Constance met between 1414 and 1418 at which Wyclif and
Hus are condemned. Wyclif's views on dominium are condemned but
FitzRalph escapes censure. The acts of the Council are made public
and printed in 1500. FitzRalph's *Defensio Curatorum* is
printed at Louvain in 1475 and his Summa de Questionibus Armenorum in
1515.




The circulation of these newly printed works seems to have occasioned
a revival of interest in FitzRalph's ideas. Firstly Jacques
Almain in his *Question at Vespers* of March 1512 (published in
1518) engages with FitzRalph's views on natural dominion with
regard to taking from another in times of necessity.



 
In his *On the Civil Power*, Francisco de Vitoria (ca.
1485-1546) asked whether non-Christians have legitimate sovereigns in
view of the Spanish discovery of the 'New World'. He
states: 'Richard FitzRalph, archbishop of Armagh, a man of
otherwise blameless character and intelligence, certainly argues in his
*De pauperitate Saluatoris* that not merely unbelief but any
mortal sin impedes any kind of power or dominion (*dominium*)
or jurisdiction, either public or private; in the mistaken belief that
the true title and foundation of all power is grace.' Vitoria
fought against the notion of *dominium* through grace since, as
a consequence, Christians would be entitled to take the lands, wealth
and property from the native Americans, because Christians could and
should exercise *dominium* over all unbelievers and over the
whole world. This, of course, would render natural rights, or those
which belong to human beings precisely because they are human, null
and void. It was natural law theory which enabled de Vitoria to mount
an impressive argument against this position. I think that if we
consider FitzRalph's intentions in developing his theory of
dominion, he would have reacted strongly against the injustice
perpetrated by later upholders of grace-based dominium. Whatever his
polemical and sometimes extreme positions such as he writings against
the Franciscans, he had put forward a principle which was intended to
bring some measure of justice into law and to deal with the
'sinfulness' of the Franciscan poverty-fiction and he
would never have ended up with defending laws without a principle of
justice regarding first nation peoples in the Americas in the
sixteenth century and later.