Jonathan Robinson

School of Canon Law • 345 Caldwell Hall
The Catholic University of America • 620 Michigan Avenue NE
Washington • DC • 20064
robinsonj [at] cua edu or jon robinson [at] utoronto ca

Teaching

In 2010–2011, I taught a course at Trent University (Oshawa campus) on medieval warfare (more details here), and Latin III–V at St. Philip's Seminary in Toronto, which covered introductory-intermediate ecclesiastical Latin (III), Vulgate and scholastic Latin (IV), and patristic Latin (V).

In spring 2009, I taught a course at York University entitled 'Structure and Function in Institutions of Medieval Europe' (History 3200). More information can be found here.

I have also taught in the CMS' summer Latin programme. I taught the M.A. course in 2008 (now known as 'Level One') and the Ph.D. course in 2007 ('Level Two'). A list of the texts we read is listed here. Before that I held various Latin teaching assistantships at the CMS.

Publications

Translations

In what I now recognize as an example of structured procrastination, over the last few years I have translated a few texts pertaining to the mendicant poverty controversy of thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. I have since then widened my perspective some, with the goal of providing a series of texts that may be used in the classroom free of charge. However, I encourage students who wish to use anything from this website to speak to their professors beforehand.

I have aimed to provide literal rather than elegant translations, much like (one gets the sense) the original authors themselves aimed for clarity of expression over elegance. However, errors both small and large are no doubt present. If you notice any, I would appreciate it if you could let me know, no matter how trivial they may be.

These texts undergo sporadic revision at irregular intervals. Most of the time I remember to increment the 'version' number found at the bottom of the first page—so you can easily check which version is the newest—but I do forget occasionally. If the version number on the .pdf does not match the number list below, please contact me for the more recent version (and I can fix my mistake!).

Finally, those interested in other translations pertaining to the poverty controversy should visit the website of Professor John Kilcullen, first for translations of some of the relevant papal bulls, and for translations of some of William of Ockham's writings (and indeed much, much more).

Bonagratia of Bergamo, A Tract on the Poverty of Christ and the Apostles [rev. 1.3]
Bonaventure of Bagnoregio
- A Disputed Question on Evangelical Poverty as it Concerns Renunciation (De perfectione evangelica q. 2 a. 1 — De paupertate quoad abrenuntiationem) [rev. 1.4]
- A Disputed Question on Evangelical Poverty as it Concerns Mendicancy (De perfectione evangelica q. 2 a. 2 — De paupertate quoad mendicitatem) [rev. 1.7]
Declaration of the 'Community' Regarding the Matter of Poor Use (ca. 1309–1310; 'Circa materiam') [rev. 1.0]
Michael of Cesena, The Shorter Appeal (Appellatio abbreviata, extracta de Appellatione prolixa) [rev. 1.10]
- This translation is based on Gál and Flood's edition (1996) of the Chronica by 'Nicholas the Minorite' (perhaps Nicholas of Freising), who compiled a large dossier of texts related to the controversy between the Michaelists and Pope John XXII. The text is available from the Franciscan Institute; some readers might be interested in a small list of minor corrections I have compiled.
Peter (of John) Olivi, On Poverty and Revenue (Quaestiones de perfectione evangelica, q. 16) [rev. 1.1]
Walter Chatton, 'Whether Christ Merited by Lacking All Lordship to Temporal Things' (Reportatio 3.16.un) [rev. 1.1]
William of Saint-Amour
- [William of St-Amour et al.?], A List of Sententiae Taken from the Eternal Gospel by Professors of the University of Paris [rev. 1.1]
- A Disputed Question on the Quantity of Alms (De quantitate eleemosynae) [rev. 1.3]
- A Disputed Question on Able-Bodied Begging (De valido mendicante) [rev. 1.3]
- 'He Who Loves Danger...' (a sermon beginning 'Qui amat periculum') [rev. 1.5]
- A Brief Tract on the Dangers of the Last Days (Tractatus brevis de periculis novissimorum temporum ex scripturis sumptus) [rev. 1.4]
Papal Bulls
- Pope Gregory IX, Quo elongati [rev. 1.0] [new: December 2012]
- Pope Innocent IV, Quanto studiosius [rev. 1.0] [new: December 2012]
- Pope Martin IV, Exultantes in Domino [rev. 1.0]
- Pope John XXII
  - Quia nonnunquam [rev. 1.3]
  - Ad conditorem canonum (A comparison of both versions, including the Latin texts) [rev. 1.1e]

Of course, not everything has to be about mendicants and poverty....

Bartolus of Saxoferrato
- On Guelfs and Ghibellines [rev. 1.0]
- On the Government of a City [rev. 1.0]
- On the Tyrant [rev. 1.0a] [new: August 2012]
Peter Lombard, On Penance (Sentences 4 D. 14 cc. 74(1)–78(5)) [rev. 1.3]
Tolomeo Fiadoni (Ptolemy of Lucca)(?), On the Origin, Translation, and State of the Roman Empire [rev. 1.0]

Texts

My new project, loosely speaking:

Bartolus of Saxoferrato, Liber decisionum minoricarum [rev. 1.5c]
(Note: this text will be under considerable development for some time. Pay attention to the version number, and exercise considerable caution if you use it! — and of course I am happy to provide a more up-to-date version if you contact me.)

Below are a few texts, so far mainly only a few papal bulls, which I have found useful over the years to have lying around. I include them here because they are not already available online and I know I wish they had been. The bulls following are based on the versions found in the Bullarium franciscanum (Rome, 1759–1904). The Constitutiones are based on the versions found in Analecta franciscana 13 and 17, and the document is (as of May 2011) under active development.

A partial comparison of the Franciscan Constitutiones generales (1260–1325). (Chapters 1–3) [rev. 1.2]
Innocent IV, Nimis iniqua, 21 July 1245
Innocent IV, Ordinem vestrum, 14 November 1245
Innocent IV, Quanto studiosius, 19 August 1247
Martin IV, Exultantes in Domino, 18 January 1283

Miscellaneous

The files found on this website were (almost entirely) written using the versatile text editor, Gnu Emacs (with AUCTeX), and formatted with LaTeX, using the pdfTeX or (recently) LuaTeX engines. (Of course, vim was also used on occasion, but, as this cartoon suggests, what you really want is emacs.)

All are free and open source software—which is, of course, the only kind of software one should use.

Although TeX and LaTeX are used more often by people in mathematics and the physical sciences, the program offers many benefits to those who work in the humanities. I encourage you to take my word for it, but sceptics should look here. Would-be editors of (medieval) texts will probably find the ledmac package extremely useful as well. It is designed for meeting the demands of critical editions: footnotes keyed to line numbers, multiple footnote apparatus (i.e., with 'paragraph'-style notes), etc.; a related package allows for parallel editions, such as the critical text alongside a facing-page translation. There is also ednotes, which is another LaTeX package meant to facilitate the typesetting of critical editions. It is similar to ledmac, but not identical; I recommend taking a look at both and using the one that suits your needs best.

BibTeX is a type of reference management software initially designed to work with LaTeX. However, because the BibTeX format is plain ASCII, it is a convenient, platform-independent way to share bibliographical data. Virtually all reference management software can import and export .bib formats (even EndNote, I'm told), which is partly why I use it here. Emacs+AUCTeX is all anyone needs, of course, but I've heard good things about JabRef; and I have used Zotero myself on occasion (its BibTeX export function works quite well, but, unfortunately, the entries it reads from library web catalogues tend to be poorly structured and/or incorrectly entered).

I should also mention Biber and biblatex, which represent a complete reimplementation of BibTeX. Although the BibTeX format is still usable by biblatex-biber, much more is possible. There is, for example, full unicode support, which is crucial for multi-language bibliographies. Looking ahead, biblatex-biber will also support a XML format, which will (I suspect) increase its portability across applications. — Even so, none of this denies the basic virtues of the BibTeX format, even for non (La)TeX users.

For what it's worth, I use GNU/Linux, usually a form of Ubuntu because it is easy to use and because I like the Apt system of package management. For my window manager, I use Openbox (with conky, tint2, dmenu), but most my actual work is done inside a tmux session: emacs for most things; mutt, offlineimap, and notmuch (etc.) for email; mpd for music, which I usually use control through openbox itself or ncmpcpp (this goodsong script is also highly recommended). For my browser, I typically use conkeror; if you like emacs, I recommend it.

Welcome

Teaching

Publications

Translations

Texts

Miscellaneous