Cares at the Curia: Andreas de Escobar and Ecclesiastical Controversies at the Time of the Fifteenth-Century Councils

Johanna Leigh Sturgeon

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/N29111

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Cares at the Curia: Andreas de Escobar and Ecclesiastical Controversies at the Time of the Fifteenth-Century Councils

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This dissertation explores the extent to which Portuguese theologian, papal penitentiary, bishop, and abbot Andreas de Escobar, O.S.B. (1348-1448) benefited from contemporary trends in manuscript culture and thereby functioned as a late-medieval public intellectual. Recent research suggests that early-fifteenth-century university-trained theology masters used their expertise and authority to intervene into current controversies by writing brief, focused tracts that were copied and distributed more widely and read by a broader audience than the theological works of previous centuries. However, this research has focused only upon theologians who remained professional academics. This dissertation examines Escobar’s career in the Church, his writings, and the success of his works via three research methodologies to evaluate the extent to which he also performed this role. Primary and secondary sources show that Escobar entered into ecclesial and other contemporary debates both orally and in writing, although the Schism-era disorder in the Church and weakening of papal authority prevented him from effectively exercising his public authority as bishop. Close reading and analysis of Escobar’s five Latin theological treatises demonstrate his overriding concern for unity of the Church, and also show that Escobar thought of his writing as a part of his preaching and teaching responsibilities. Manuscript analysis demonstrates that while one of his Latin treatises was enormously successful, surviving in over 100 copies, the other four were relatively unsuccessful. Failing to appreciate the potential advantages of brief tracts aimed at a broader audience, instead Escobar instead usually wrote long treatises aimed at a small circle of readers. The most successful of his treatises was also the shortest and aimed at the widest audience: all clergy with pastoral responsibilities. The recently-formed Melk Congregation of reformed Benedictine monasteries and the relatively new audience of educated German priests were mainly responsible for the copying and transmission of Escobar’s most successful treatise. The results of this research confirm that Andreas de Escobar did function as a late-medieval public intellectual, although his modest employment of changes in contemporary manuscript culture limited his influence.

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