## 1. Life and Work



 Francis of Marchia (a.k.a. de Appignano, de Pignano, de Esculo, de
Ascoli, Franciscus Rubeus, and the *Doctor Succinctus*) was
born ca. 1285-1290 in the village of Appignano del Tronto in the
province of Ascoli Piceno, east of Rome and near the Adriatic (see especially Marchia 2008, xiii-xvii). He became a Franciscan and rose in the order's educational hierarchy, probably studying theology at the
University of Paris around 1310, then teaching at a Franciscan
*studium* elsewhere, before returning to the Minorites' Paris
*studium* to lecture on the *Sentences* of Peter Lombard
as bachelor of theology, a common career path for members of the
mendicant orders at the time. Marchia's Parisian lectures on the
*Sentences* were delivered during the 1319-20 academic
year. What little information we have suggests that Marchia remained in Paris at least until 1323, by which time he had most likely been promoted to master
of theology. He did not attend the Franciscan General Chapter in Perugia in 1322, although in 1321 he may have visited the court of King Robert of Anjou, then residing in Avignon. A document of April 1328 places Marchia as *lector* at
the Franciscan convent in Avignon (Nicolaus Minorita 1996, 189), the
site of the papal court, but we have no solid evidence for his earlier
presence there. (Marchia's stay in Avignon is commonly thought to have begun by
1324, but this is based on an error: a reference to Marchia's confrere Francis of Meyronnes in the *Quodlibet* of the Augustinian James of Pamiers was misinterpreted as citing Marchia. Without contemporary documentation, later
writers claimed that Marchia was elected Franciscan provincial minister
of his native area, Marchia, in 1327, but Roberto Lambertini has found evidence definitively refuting this assertion.)



The 1328 document concerns Marchia's falling out with
Pope John XXII for supporting the Franciscan Minister General Michael
of Cesena on the issue of apostolic poverty. The next month Marchia
fled Avignon with William of Ockham and others, first going to Pisa,
where, under the protection of the Holy Roman Emperor Louis of
Bavaria, Marchia and Ockham respectively were the top witnesses to a
document composed against Pope John in September 1328 (Nicolaus
Minorita 1996, 423, 455). Soon afterwards Marchia apparently went on a
mission to France, for in February of 1329 Pope John wrote to Elias of
Nabinaux, then Franciscan bachelor of the *Sentences* at Paris,
ordering him to arrest Marchia and ship him to Avignon under guard
(CUP II, no. 886). The pope had heard recently that Marchia had gone
"to Paris and other parts of France to spread the worst errors and to
turn the hearts of the faithful religious and others, especially our
most dear children in Christ the illustrious king and queen, as well
as other princes and magnates, from their devotion to the Church." The
Franciscans at Paris loyal to the pope moved against the rebels in
June. Marchia and his colleagues continued to write against the pope;
the pope responded in the bull *Quia vir reprobus* of 16
November 1329. Meanwhile Marchia had taken refuge in Munich at the
court of the Emperor, along with Cesena, Ockham, Marsilius of Padua,
and others. It was in Munich, probably around the start of the new
year, 1330, that Marchia began to write his *Improbatio*
against John XXII's bull (Lambertini 2006a, 187-9). Marchia remained a
fugitive and important papal adversary for several years, well into
the reign of Pope Benedict XII, but he was eventually
captured. Although there are problems with the date, a document
indicates that Marchia's trial began in early 1341. He confessed and
retracted his errors before the Inquisition at the end of 1343
(Wittneben-Lambertini 1999, 2000). Thus reconciled with the Church,
Francis of Marchia disappears from the historical record.



From Marchia's Parisian lectures of 1319-20 we have a popular commentary on all four books of the *Sentences*, extant in at least ten manuscripts
for each book, with two distinct redactions of book I and two differing versions of books III and IV, alongside various abbreviations (on Marchia's works, see Friedman-Schabel 2001 and Marchia 2008, xix-xxiii). Manuscript Vat. lat. 943 preserves a full redaction of book II and fragments of the other three books of a commentary on the *Sentences* that Marchia may have composed outside
Paris *after* studying there, so this could represent Marchia's early teaching, although it may also be connected with his Paris lectures themselves. Marchia's sole *Quodlibet* was probably held in Marchia's Paris period as well, rather than in Avignon as previously thought, although the first two questions in the modern edition do not belong to Marchia's text but to John Duns Scotus' *Sentences* commentary (Duba 2007, 2008). It is difficult to date Marchia's literal commentary on
the *Physics*, his short commentary on the first two books of the *Metaphysics*, and his related question commentary on the first seven books of the
*Metaphysics*. The question commentary had been dated to before 1323, but this was based on the erroneous *terminus ante quem* of 1323 for the question commentary on the *Physics* of 'John the Canon', actually Francis Marbres, which cites explicitly and copies from Marchia's *Metaphysics* questions. Marbres actually composed his work after 1325 and probably around 1330 (Duba 2014a, 445-6; Schabel 2014).




Until 1991, when Notker Schneider's monograph on Francis of Marchia's cosmological ideas appeared (Schneider 1991), almost none of Marchia's writings had been published and only
Anneliese Maier had devoted serious and sustained attention to his thought
(Maier 1940-1958). Since then, however, Nazzareno Mariani has
published eight volumes of Marchia's works: the *Improbatio*
(Marchia 1993; also in Italian: Marchia 2001a), the *Physics* commentary (Marchia 1998), the
*Quodlibet* (Marchia 1997, including a transcription of roughly a quarter of
the *Scriptum* version of book I of the *Sentences*
commentary and two questions from book II in appendices), the four
*Principia* and the Prologue to his *Sentences*
lectures, the *Reportatio*
version of book I of the *Sentences* commentary (Marchia
2003, 2006a, 2007, 2009), and finally the *Metaphysics* commentary (Marchia 2012; in Italian: Marchia 2013a). While Mariani has edited the *Reportatio* of book I, Russell Friedman and Christopher
Schabel have laid the foundations for the *Scriptum* edition
(Friedman 1997, 1999; Marchia 1999, 2000, 2001b), and Girard J. Etzkorn has completed a working edition of the entire book. For book II, Etzkorn's edition of the Vat. lat. 943
version is forthcoming, and the critical edition of the main redaction has already been published in three volumes by Tiziana
Suarez-Nani, William Duba, Etzkorn,
Emmanuel Babey, and Delphine Carron (Marchia 2008, 2010, 2013b). Duba is completing an edition of the versions of book III (Duba 2003-04; Duba-Schabel 2006-08), and Roberto
Lambertini and Schabel have been untangling book IV (Lambertini 2004,
2006b; Marchia 2006b, 2006c; Katsoura-Papamarkou-Schabel 2006).



 With the edition of many of Marchia's works thus completed and the
remainder in progress, Marchia studies have matured since the first
version of this entry was published in early 2001. Six papers on Marchia were presented at the SIEPM congress on medieval philosophy in Porto in 2002, a special issue
of *Vivarium* was devoted to Marchia in 2006 and published as
a book (Friedman-Schabel 2006), a monograph on Marchia appeared in 2008 (Folger-Fonfara 2008), and a volume of Tiziana Suarez-Nani's revised articles on Marchia will appear shortly (Suarez-Nani 2015). The journal *Picenum*
*Seraphicum*, edited by Roberto Lambertini, continues to be a
forum for Marchia studies. Most impressively, with the initiative
of the Comune di Appignano del Tronto under the leadership of Domenico
Priori, the Centro Studi Francesco d'Appignano was established in
Marchia's hometown in May of 2001 during the First International
Conference on Francis of Marchia. With the publication of the proceedings of the sixth such
conference in 2014 (Priori 2014), some fifty studies on Marchia by leading scholars have appeared from these venues alone, and the seventh meeting is
planned for 2016. Thus around one hundred new studies have
appeared dealing with different aspects of Marchia's thought. Many questions about his works have been settled, but
new disagreements have arisen, for example about the relative
chronology of the Vat. lat. 943 version of Marchia's
*Sentences* commentary, the character of the main versions of
book IV, the respective dating and nature of the
*Scriptum* and *Reportatio* on book I, and the authenticity of sermons attributed to him (Friedman-Schabel
2001; Mariani 2002; Friedman 2004; Schabel 2004; Lambertini 2004;
Lambertini 2006b; Alliney 2006a; Katsoura-Papamarkou-Schabel
2006-08; Lambertini 2009a; Duba 2014b). There is also significant
debate about Marchia's thought, as will be seen below in
the section on natural philosophy.



Much work from the past few years has concentrated on Marchia's ideas in metaphysics, both in his commentaries on the Aristotelian work and in the various versions of his *Sentences* commentary. In particular, Marchia has been singled out for the theory of 'supertranscendentals' and for his explicit distinction between special and general metaphysics, foreshadowing an early modern development. There is some indication that Marchia's innovations in metaphysics were influential into the fifteenth century, but more research is called for (see especially Folger-Fonfara 2008; Amerini 2008b; Aertsen 2012; Duba 2014a). In anticipation of the reaction of
the scholarly community to these and other new studies and of the further
contextualization of Marchia's ideas, the present edition of this
entry will concentrate on what is already known to be both distinctive and
influential in Marchia's thought.


## 2. Philosophical Theology




Marchia's main and most popular writing, larger than all his other
works combined, is the *Sentences* commentary. Although this
genre of scholastic writing contains much material that we would call
pure science, especially in Marchia's case (see
 Natural Philosophy
 below), it is primarily a vehicle for philosophical
theology. Here it must be stressed at the outset that Francis of
Marchia was *not* a faithful Scotist, contrary to a
common opinion based on misconceptions from early in the twentieth
century. Most recent research has proven that Marchia generally
rejected or severely modified John Duns Scotus's doctrines, rather than
followed them, even in the specific contexts like Trinitarian theology
where he was claimed to have been a loyal Scotist (Friedman 1999). For
example, Marchia was uncomfortable with Scotus's stress on and use of a
strong distinction between the divine intellect and will, and this led
Marchia to oppose Scotus on issues such as the procession of the Holy
Spirit and the mechanism of divine foreknowledge. Indeed, it seems that
Marchia was perhaps less of a Scotist than any of the other continental
Franciscans active between Peter Auriol and the Black Death.
Nevertheless, Scotus forms much of the backdrop for Marchia's theology.
The other thinker against whose theories Marchia often developed his
own doctrine was Auriol, whose *Sentences* commentary Marchia
appears to have known in a *Reportatio* version. 




The completed critical edition of just one redaction of Marchia's *Sentences*
commentary will take up about a dozen volumes. It is
roughly equal in size to that of his contemporary and confrere
Landulph Caracciolo. Whereas Caracciolo's commentary is frequently a
disjointed, point-by-point refutation of Peter Auriol and defense of
Scotus on many issues, however, Marchia was more selective in choosing
his topics, more independent in giving his determination, and generally
more eloquent. For example, Marchia asks only one brief question on the
Immaculate Conception, a favorite Franciscan topic (book III, q. 8; Duba 2004), showing himself to
support the immaculatist position, but he asks a great number of
questions in books I, II, and IV on the relationship between the will
and intellect.




Thus, although Auriol's controversial opinions on epistemology and
divine foreknowledge drew fire from Caracciolo and most other Paris
theologians up to Gregory of Rimini's day, even from Oxford
Franciscans, Marchia devoted much energy to foreknowledge but almost
ignored the great debate over intuitive and abstractive cognition.
Aside from an isolated mention of "intuitive cognition" in
*Scriptum* I, d. 3, q. 4, and of "intuitive vision" in the very
last question in book IV, Marchia merely discusses the problem in
passing on two brief occasions: first, in book II, q. 25 (Marchia
1997, p. 322), while treating angelic knowledge, and second, in book
III, q. 13, in the context of the beatific vision of the Word (Duba
2003-04). In the latter case, the more substantial passage, he gives a
somewhat Scotistic definition: "Intuitive and abstractive cognition
are not distinguished according to having a species or not, but only
according to the disposition of the object, because if the object is
present, the species represents it intuitively; if absent, it
represents it abstractively." Therefore, "the same species that is
intuitive in the presence of the object is abstractive in the absence
of the object." Marchia adds in agreement with Auriol that God "can
cause the act of seeing without the object," and that a species of a
created object "indifferently represents" a present or absent object.
Although this might provoke some epistemological questions, Marchia
turns to the vision of the Essence and leaves human cognition *in
via* aside.




In contrast, Marchia singled out divine foreknowledge for special
treatment, devoting three entire distinctions (*Scriptum* I, dd.
35, 36, and 38) to the issue and concentrating most of his discussion
on the reconciliation of foreknowledge with human free will (Marchia
1999, 2000; Schabel 2000). Here Marchia was opposed in some way to
just about everyone else who had written on the issue, but mainly
Auriol, who had claimed that any determination prior to the coming
about of a contingent event destroyed contingency, including the truth
or falsity of future-contingent propositions. Marchia's defense of the
application of the Principle of Bivalence to propositions about the
contingent future was the model for Gregory of Rimini. But having shown
that such propositions are either determinately true or false, Marchia
went on to articulate a type of prior determination that saved
foreknowledge while preserving contingency. In fact, according to
Marchia, there *must* be some determination in the causes of
future contingent events prior to their actual occurrence; otherwise
nothing would occur:



> And I ask about that determination in the cause, was it in
> the cause before the placing of the effect [into reality] or not? If it
> was, then I have my point. If not, I ask, how is the effect determined
> in its cause before it is put into being, necessarily or contingently?
> If necessarily, then it comes about necessarily, according to this
> opinion. If contingently and a contingent is not determined to one side
> in its cause, then that determination is not determined except through
> some prior contingent determination. And I would ask of this just as
> before, will it go on infinitely, or is it necessary to stop at some
> contingent determination in the cause before the effect? (d. 35:
> Marchia 1999, p. 75)



 Marchia, however, was aware that Auriol had claimed that any such prior
determination was fatal for contingency, so Marchia draws a distinction
between different indeterminations and determinations, perhaps
expanding on isolated remarks made by Scotus. There is (1) an
indetermination 'about the possible' (*de
possibili*), with respect to being able to act and being able not
to act. With this indetermination, we are *not* determined
*de possibili* before an event, so we are free and act
contingently and not necessarily. There is also (2) a posterior
indetermination 'about inhering' (*de inesse*), with
respect to what will be the case in reality. This indetermination
toward what will inhere in reality, however, would be an
*obstacle* to foreknowledge and, for us, to acting. Thus it must
be replaced by (3) a determination in the contingent cause toward
acting, both for the future to be known and for us to act. The (4)
determination *de possibili*, toward being able to act or being
able not to act, is absent from free causes until the event occurs, at
which time our freedom and power with respect to that event are
removed. 




An obvious objection is that, for Marchia, the effect is determinate
in the cause before the action of the cause, and thus that
determination is 'presupposed' in the subsequent action of
the cause. Since it is 'presupposed', that determination is
not in the cause's power, and thus is not contingent. Marchia replies
with another distinction:



> 'Action' can be taken in three ways: either it
> can be taken actually, namely when an agent is actually acting; or it
> can be taken virtually, when an agent can act although he is not
> acting; or it can be taken in a middle way, not purely actually nor
> purely virtually, but in a middle way as 'dispositionally'
> or 'aptitudinally', namely when an agent is not acting but
> is determined toward acting, although in actuality he is not acting
> -- and he not only can act, but is determined to be acting later.
> Similarly there is a threefold 'determination' of the
> agent: one actual, by which an agent actually determinately puts one
> part of a contradiction into effect; a second is a potential
> determination by which an agent posits or can determine any part of a
> contradiction dividedly; the other is, as it were, a
> 'dispositional' or 'aptitudinal' determination,
> by which an agent is determined with respect to the future to putting
> one part of a contradiction [into effect]. Each determination
> presupposes the action corresponding to it, because an actual
> determination follows the action in actuality; the dispositional
> determination follows the action dispositionally, although it precedes
> the actual action; the potential determination follows the potential
> action, although it precedes that actual and dispositional action. (d.
> 35: Marchia 1999, pp. 89-90)



 Thus when an agent is determined *de inesse* to doing
something in the future, that determination is like a disposition, and
neither actual, because the event has not yet occurred, nor potential,
because the possibility to do otherwise is not removed. Such a
determination is not 'actually' in the agent's power,
Marchia grants, but it is in his power 'dispositionally',
for although the agent cannot act before he acts, he can be disposed
to act so that he will in fact act.




The foregoing example is representative of Marchia's thought in many
ways. He frequently draws clever and original distinctions, and the
*de possibili/de inesse* division is employed in other contexts
such as predestination (book I, d. 40: Marchia 2001b; see also Duba 2012). He makes
similar innovative distinctions when discussing the different types of
human and divine willing, where his voluntarist opinions are quite
interesting (*Reportatio* I, dd. 45-48: see the
critical edition cited below; Alliney 2006b; Robiglio
2006). Although one could argue about the cogency of Marchia's
arguments, in the case of the *de possibili/de inesse*
distinction Marchia found a favorable response among the following,
who adopted the device: his Franciscan successors at Paris in the next
decade Aufredo Gonteri Brito, William Rubio, and William of Brienne;
the Augustinian Hermits Michael of Massa and Gregory of Rimini; the
arts master John the Canon; and, in the later fifteenth century,
Fernando of Cordoba and Francesco della Rovere, who was to become Pope
Sixtus IV. Thus in philosophical theology one could and often did look
to Marchia for an alternative to Scotus and an innovative response to
Auriol.


## 3. Natural Philosophy



 Since the time of Pierre Duhem in the early twentieth century,
Francis of Marchia has been known to historians as a scientist. In
fact, to a large extent Marchia had gained such a reputation in his
own lifetime. It is in the question commentary on the *Physics* of Francis Marbres (a.k.a. John the Canon; Schabel 2014) that we find him paraphrasing Marchia on future contingents, for
example, and Marbres' commentary is full of references to Marchia's own
commentaries on the *Sentences* and the *Metaphysics*
(Friedman-Schabel 2006, 8-10). Looking through the titles of Marchia's
questions, one finds an abundance of scientific topics related to such
things as the infinite and the psychology of willing
(Friedman-Schabel, 2001). In general, Marchia displays a great
interest in the causal process. One thing that helps explain his
popularity among historians of medieval science, and perhaps his own
interest in scientific matters, is his clear and sharp distinction
between natural causation that works necessarily and the contingent
causation of human and divine free will. In an influential passage
containing echoes of Siger of Brabant, a passage to which Anneliese
Maier first drew attention (*Scriptum* I, d. 36: Maier 1949;
Marchia 2000), Marchia explains that there are two types of
contingency in the world: first, there is contingency *per se*,
*simpliciter*, *positiva*, and *intrinseca*. This
is the contingency by which something is still able to occur or not
occur even when all the required accidental, natural causes have been
posited. There is only one source of such contingency: free
will. Second, there is contingency *per accidens*, *secundum
quid*, *privativa*, and *extrinseca*. This is the
contingency of natural causation. A natural effect takes place as the
result of many accidental causes. Some of these causes may be impeded
by other natural, accidental causes, and so with respect to a small,
limited number of causes a natural effect may be considered
'contingent'. This does not mean that the natural effect
is really and truly contingent without qualification in the first way,
however, because if we take *all* of the natural effect's
causes into account, the effect will *necessarily* follow, or
not follow, as the case may be. That is, assuming God's contingent
creation in the first place, and His 'general influence'
that keeps the chain of causation in existence, natural causation
works necessarily, and so with all of an effect's causes taken
together, what happens in nature is necessary. Of crucial important
for science is Marchia's further assertion that these
'contingent' effects can even be known by a
*created* intellect. This is because the number of natural
causes is not infinite. Thus a finite, created intellect can know the
natural future with certainty. The only problem, says Marchia, is that
we humans have a short life and an intellect that is bound with the
body.



 Interestingly, one of the debates that has arisen recently
surrounding Marchia's scientific ideas concerns his concept of natural
causation and predictability. In giving an analysis similar to the one
above, one scholar remarked that "Marchia in essence is laying down
one of the bases of modern science, at least before Heisenberg:
predictability is theoretically obtainable in natural systems because
natural causes are finite and act necessarily" (Marchia 2000, 22;
Schabel 2000, 196-7). A second scholar replied that Marchia is
not a natural determinist, that for him, while "generally it's
possible to achieve merely the habit of foreseeing the development of
causal chains, ... physical events happen because causes and
effects have *dispositiones* or *aptitudines* that make
more probable some chains than different ones." According to this
response, Marchia was more in line with "Heisenberg's principle of
indetermination" than with post-Galilean physics (Zanin 2006a). It
seems clear, however, that Marchia's analysis of
*dispositiones* and *aptitudines* in this context is
focused entirely on the problem of knowing causes that are fully
contingent in themselves, that is, human free will, as outlined above
in the section on
 Philosophical Theology.
 By Marchia's time, treatments of divine foreknowledge of future
contingents, where Marchia's discussion occurs, had become almost
exclusively concerned with the reconciliation of human free will and
divine omniscience. Thus Marchia explains that the seemingly
contingent effects of the natural world are not the issue here, since
they are not really contingent at all, but necessary, given God's
general influence and understanding all natural causes taken
together. Outside of human and divine free will, there are no sources
of contingency. Indeed, the only reason the natural world can be
called contingent at all is because God acts freely and contingently
in the world as creator and sustainer, not because there is any real
contingency in natural causation:



> 
>  Everything *per accidens* is brought back to something *per
> se*; but the contingency *per accidens* of natural causes
> cannot be brought back to their *per se* necessary causality,
> because the causality of contingency does not follow from necessary
> causality alone, since a contingent effect does not follow from
> necessary causes alone; therefore this contingency *per accidens*
> is brought back to some *per se* contingency. But not to the
> *per se* contingency of the human will, since it is not dependent
> on the human will; therefore it is brought back to the *per se*
> contingency of a separate cause. Therefore the First Cause acts
> contingently, because if it did not act contingently, nothing in
> things would come about contingently, but all things would come about
> necessarily. (d 36, a. 1: Marchia 2000, 34)



 Accordingly, were Marchia alive today, he might very well have great
confidence in the ability of scientists and their computers to predict
natural phenomena, since he would see that to some extent the
"imperfection of our intellect" and the "brevity of life" have been
neutralized:



> Therefore I maintain differently that, as was said, there
> are two kinds of contingent effects: one natural, one voluntary. And
> according to this I posit two conclusions. The first conclusion is
> that a contingent natural effect, given the general influence of the
> First Cause, can be known determinately by a created intellect,
> although not by a human intellect, through its contingent causes. Let
> me explain: every effect that is dependent on a finite number of
> causes necessarily bringing it about can be known determinately
> through its causes by some finite intellect. (This is clear, because
> since the causes are finite, they can all be comprehended by a finite
> intellect, and if they necessarily cause the effect, the effect can be
> concluded determinately on the basis of such causes.) But every
> contingent natural effect is dependent on a finite number of causes
> concurring and necessarily causing it in a finite number of ways,
> given [God's] general influence. Therefore, every contingent natural
> effect, given [God's] general influence, can be known determinately by
> some finite intellect though its contingent causes... [For] although a
> contingent effect compared to one particular cause can be impeded by
> another natural cause, compared to the entire order of natural causes
> that concur all at once the effect cannot be impeded by any natural
> cause. (d. 36, a. 2: Marchia 2000, 38)




One thing is certain: it is hard to resist comparing the scientific
ideas of a medieval scholar to those of later thinkers, even when one
is vehemently opposed to doing so. Another debate that has arisen over
Marchia's scientific theories further illustrates this. One of the
most important innovations of the mature Galileo was the assertion
that the celestial and terrestrial realms are made of the same
fundamental matter and therefore follow the same basic natural
laws. In the book that inaugurated the renaissance, or rather birth,
of Marchia studies, Notker Schneider declared that Francis of Marchia
put forth a hypothesis similar to Galileo's in his commentary on book
II of the *Sentences*, qq. 29-32 (Schneider 1991). On the basis
of texts he himself edited, Schneider maintained that, contrary to
contemporary Aristotelian theory, Marchia argues that the heavens are
not made up of matter so completely different from terrestrial matter
that it radically differentiates the supralunar realm from the
sublunar one. On the contrary, the basic matter is the same
everywhere, and just as Marchia considers the natural world to follow
predictable patterns, he also thinks that those patterns are
universally applicable. These two tenets have important implications
for the practice of natural philosophy (Schneider 1991).



 Recently, however, it has been argued convincingly that Marchia's
admittedly complicated texts could be read in a different, less
radical way. Marchia may say that at the most fundamental level the
matter in the celestial and the terrestrial realms is the same, since
they share "the same prime matter and thus the same bare
potentiality," but practically speaking he drew such strong
distinctions that, since their natural potencies are different, the
laws applying to each are different (Thakkar 2006). In response to
this reinterpretation, one could point out that, even in the
post-Galilean world, we still think that the celestial and terrestrial
realms are really different, just as water and air are radically
different realms on earth. The search for the luminiferous ether went
on until comparatively recently, and it is still common sense that
objects in deep space behave differently from those in our
atmosphere. All agree that the question for future research is whether
and to what extent Marchia went further than his predecessors and
contemporaries.




Given these fascinating debates, it is no wonder that Marchia's
physical theories drew the attention of medieval and modern scholars
alike. The first important study on Marchia's thought was Anneliese
Maier's partial edition and analysis of book IV, q. 1, of Marchia's
*Sentences* commentary (Maier 1940; critical edition Marchia
2006b; version from Vat. lat. 943 in Marchia 2006c). There Marchia
puts forth his famous forerunner to John Buridan's impetus theory of
projectile motion. Aristotle had not provided a satisfactory
explanation for why, when we throw a ball, for example, the ball keeps
going even after we have released it. Marchia's explanation was that
we leave behind a force in the ball -- a *virtus
derelicta* -- that keeps the ball in motion. The fact that
this force was temporary rather than permanent meant that it was not
akin to the inertia theory of classical mechanics, but, as Marchia
stated explicitly, it was a simple theory and did explain the
phenomena in temporary projectile motion.



 As part of the recent "upsurge" in Marchia studies, his theory of
*virtus derelicta* has also been reconsidered (Zanin 2006b;
Marchia 2006b, 2006c). It is clear that the basic idea of a force left
behind had been circulating for several decades, so Marchia did not
develop the theory *ex nihilo*. Nevertheless, Marchia appears
to have spent much more time and energy on projectile motion than his
predecessors. Aristotle himself did not go on at great length and in
much detail, which probably explains why his theory was so flawed. It
seems, then, that the scientific problem only became a significant
issue among natural philosophers with Francis of Marchia. Despite its
obvious improvement on Aristotle, before the 1330s Marchia's theory
was opposed by his Franciscan successor at Paris Francis of Meyronnes
and by Meyronnes' follower Himbert of Garda, another Franciscan,
although it was treated more favorably by Francis Marbres (a.k.a. John the Canon) and the
Franciscan Nicholas of Bonet. But none of them analyzed it
extensively. Already in the mid-1320s, however, Gerard Odonis embraced
it wholeheartedly and in detail. Therefore, although the famous
theories put forth by John Buridan and Nicole Oresme in the following
decades in lengthy discussions differ in some ways from Marchia's, the
similarities between the theories and the mere fact that Buridan and
Oresme took the issue of projectile motion so seriously surely point
to Marchia's impact. In this way, Marchia most probably had an impact
on the development of the theory of inertia.



 Yet Marchia did not come up with the theory of inertia, Buridan's
theory of *impetus*, or Oresme's modifications to Buridan's
theory. Part of the reason for this is that Marchia presented his idea
in the context of a discussion of the sacraments. This is not unusual
for Marchia: in developing his doctrine on the nature of accidents,
for example, the Franciscan theologian began with the miracle of the
Eucharist and modified Aristotelian metaphysics accordingly (Amerini
2006). Thus for Marchia, projectile motion was just one of many
instances where a force was left behind. In essence Marchia wanted a
unified theory of *virtus derelicta* that would explain a
number of phenomena, including speaking, seeing, celestial motion, and
the conversation of the saints in heaven, in addition to the power of
the sacraments and projectile motion. Since some of these phenomena
were temporary and not permanent, exhausting themselves without
external resistance, Marchia applied this to the general theory:
*virtus derelicta* is a self-expending and therefore temporary
force. Accordingly, Marchia believed that celestial motion was
probably not perpetual based on an initial *virtus derelicta*,
perhaps left behind by God, although he asserted that it was at least
possible that, in the heavens, without resistance, the *virtus
derelicta* could be incorruptible. Making it a permanent force is
the step that Buridan would take. But Buridan was not concerned with
all those other phenomena. For all we know, Marchia would have
approved of Buridan's notion. As it stands, Marchia's theory,
especially in its particular details, "is neither an Aristotelian
solution to the problem of projectile motion nor a new development on
the road to early modern science; it belongs to a new (but
subsequently undeveloped) understanding of motion" (Zanin 2006b,
81). Nevertheless, if we consider that Marchia appears to have been
the first in the West to break with Aristotle so clearly, decisively,
and prolixly, it is more than likely that his *virtus
derelicta* was Buridan's inspiration.




Perhaps medieval scholars did not arrive at inertia because of their
reluctance to accept and then analyze at length motion in a
vacuum. One of Aristotle's arguments for the impossibility of a vacuum
was the lack of resistance of the medium. If velocity was a function
of the proportion of force to the resistance of the medium, then with
no resistance there would be motion in an instant, something usually
considered an impossibility. In
 book II, q. 16, a. 5
 of his *Sentences* commentary, however, Marchia has to
wonder why an angel, which is not a "*corpus quantum*," or
bodily mass, cannot move instantaneously, i.e. from one place to
another without any temporal duration. Part of the answer is simply
that it is a contradiction to be two places at once, but Marchia adds
that there must be some sort of internal resistance in angels that
makes instantaneous motion impossible. The notion of internal
resistance unrelated to natural place (even though no *corpus
quantum* is involved) and the concept of impetus (Buridan's making
the *virtus derelicta* permanent) appear to be primitive
versions of the ingredients of a theory of inertial mass. Since
Marchia's writings predate those of his more famous successors, the
Oxford Calculators and Buridan and Oresme at Paris, and some of
his ideas at least resemble Galileo's in some way, Marchia's possible
impact on later scientists is a good topic for future research.


## 4. Political and Social Thought



 With the progress of the critical edition of Marchia's
*Sentences* commentary, we are beginning to appreciate more
fully his thought in philosophical theology and natural
philosophy. Investigating where Marchia stands in political theory has
been much easier due to Mariani's publication of the
*Improbatio* some fourteen years ago (Marchia 1993), probably
written in the beginning of 1330. While the nature of the relationship
between societal factors, on the one hand, and science and
philosophical theology, on the other, has long been a subject of
controversy, it is clear that political thought is closely tied to the
circumstances of the thinker. As in the case of Ockham, circumstances
drove Marchia into opposition to Pope John XXII. Unlike Ockham,
however, Marchia had dealt with some issues of social and political
philosophy in the early 1320s in book IV of his *Sentences*
commentary. In the tense climate of the struggle against Pope John at
the end of the decade, when Marchia's writings focused on more worldly
affairs, he made some subtle modifications to serve his new aims
(Lambertini 2006b). The group of scholars supporting the ex-minister
general of the Franciscans Michael of Cesena gathered at Louis of
Bavaria's court in Munich and collaborated on their anti-John XXII
tracts. It has been shown that Marchia's *Improbatio*
influenced Ockham's *Opus nonaginta dierum* (Miethke 1969;
Lambertini 2000, 2003, 2006a, 2006b) and most probably the Cesena
group's *Appellatio magna monacensis* (Lambertini 2001). Thus,
as in philosophical theology and natural philosophy, Marchia had an
historical impact.




The Franciscans maintained that they lived the most perfect life
that was humanly possible, following the model of Christ and the
apostles who, they claimed, possessed nothing either as individuals or
in common. John XXII not only denied that Christ and the apostles had
no possessions, but he also declared the Franciscan position to be
heretical. The resulting quarrel came to touch on such issues as usury,
ownership of property, disposal of property, natural and divine law and
rights, papal infallibility, and ultimately the basis of
sovereignty.




On the question on dominion, or possession, of property, Marchia
accepted the pope's assertion that, even in the state of nature before
the fall, Adam had dominion over the things he used, but Marchia denied
that this type of dominion had much at all in common with
post-lapsarian dominion: they are *alterius generis*, differing
like violent and natural, like corruptible and incorruptible
(Lambertini 2000, VII). Before the fall, Adam had "dominion of natural
liberty and perfection," according to the "primaeval natural law";
afterwards, although Marchia admitted that there was a "remnant of
natural law," basically it had to be replaced by positive law and the
dominion of "servile necessity" and the "power of compulsion." This is
because, if left to his own devices, post-lapsarian man would grab all
he could get.




Marchia describes the situation in the state of nature thus:



> In the state of nature all things had been common to all
> people, not only with respect to the dominion of things but also with
> respect to use, whether *de iure* or *de facto* --
> with respect to use de iure because the right of using whatever was
> suitable to them had been common to all and proper to none. (Marchia
> 1993, pp. 154-5)



 Moreover, even before the creation of Eve, Adam had no dominion over
things that was "proper" to him. Therefore Pope John erred in claiming
that the eventual "division of things" into private possessions
stemmed from divine law, since it came from human or positive law,
necessitated by human iniquity. The first division, by human law,
occurred already with Cain and Abel before the Flood. Of course God
restored common dominion to Noah and his sons with the Deluge, but
humans and human law soon reinstated the division of goods. This was
not by divine will, for "when they began to build the tower [of Babel]
it was by human counsel, not by divine -- indeed God was not
pleased." By extension, the laws of emperors and princes derive from
human law, not divine, with the exception of Hebrew law in the time
before Christ, a special status lost at the crucifixion.




The upshot is that private property is not divinely instituted, for
Marchia: it is a human introduction. In the state of nature, by divine
law, humans had a common "dominion" over goods, but this dominion is
not at all the dominion of human law, of private property. Moreover, it
is this common dominion that Christ and the apostles followed. It is
therefore humanly possible to do so, indeed the best possible way to
live, and the Franciscans approached it more closely than anyone
else.




On the question of ecclesiastical power, of course, Marchia was also
in disagreement with Pope John XXII (Lambertini 2000, IX). In order to
defend Christ's poverty and that of the Franciscans by extension,
Marchia interpreted Christ's remark to Pilate that "my kingdom is not
of this world" as meaning not only that the origins of his kingdom and
the source of his power are not of this world, but also that his
kingdom and his power are not with respect to the things of this world.
Indeed, for Marchia, Caesar had legitimate sovereignty over this world.
Marchia thus denied that Christ, as a man, possessed any temporal
power, and hence he rejected John XXII's claim that Christ was
*rex* and *dominus* in a temporal sense. The implication
is that the pope could not inherit temporal power over the entire
earth, although Marchia admitted that the temporal sword could pertain
to the pope indirectly and mediately.




Given that the few historical surveys that have been done demonstrate
that Marchia had an impact on his successors in many areas of
philosophical thought, and given that it is only in the past twenty-five
years that any substantial part of his works has been available in
print, we can expect the flood of investigations of the ideas of this
interesting and important scholastic thinker to continue.


## 5. Critical Editions of Texts



 The following texts are critical editions, using all known manuscript
witnesses. Distinctions 35-48 of book I of the
*Sentences* concern the unified themes of divine knowledge,
power, and will. Marchia's *Scriptum* for book I ends
prematurely at distinction 40, and distinction 39 on divine ideas is
much truncated. Since distinctions 35-40 of the Scriptum have been
published (Marchia 1999, 2000, 2001b), the following texts from the
*Reportatio* for book I, distinctions 39, 42-44, and 45-48,
complement the *Scriptum* material on these subjects. Since there are some differences between this text and that in Marchia 2009, the below edition has been retained.



> 
> * Francis of Marchia,
>  *Reportatio in primum librum Sententiarum*,
> Distinctio 39, 42-44, 45-48
>