Francis of Meyronnes

Abstract

Francis of Meyronnes, O.F.M. (c. 1288–c. 1328), was a Provençal Franciscan theologian and sermonist. Francis studied with John Duns Scotus at the University of Paris and came to prominence in the early 1320s as a bachelor and then master of theology at Paris. His works were extremely influential from the years immediately following his teaching into the modern era, but only a small fraction is edited. Heavily influenced by John Duns Scotus, he does not hesitate to modify or abandon Scotus’ thought. His metaphysics is heavily realist: he explicitly declares his allegiance to Platonic ideas, which he understands as identical with quiddities and beings of essence, and he holds that propositions have real existence. Francis’ doctrine of divine knowledge largely derives from Scotus; his notion of intuitive and abstractive cognition, on the other hand, differs by positing that intuitive cognition is the mental seizing of an object with all its merely formally distinct modes, and can occur through species. Francis defines place as the located object’s presentiality as related to God, and time as the flux of place to God. His sermons have been praised for their mystical and ascetic quality, but his treatises on the mystical and ascetic topics have been characterized as impersonal. In his political writings, Francis favored the subjection of secular authority to the pope.