Pope John XXII and his Franciscan Cardinal: Bertrand de la Tour and the Apostolic Poverty Controversy

The debate over the poverty of Christ and his apostles under Pope John XXII (1316-1334) is one of the most famous intellectual controversies of the Middle Ages. The story of the uncompromising pope on collision course with a united Franciscan Order has often been told, most memorably by Umberto Eco in The Name of the Rose. In this book, Patrick Nold sets out to investigate the Franciscan Cardinal Bertrand de la Tour, a man apparently torn between the pope who was his patron and the Order to which he had devoted his life. Until now Bertrand has been considered of little importance, owing to his neglect by the primary sources conventionally relied upon by hisorians. Dr Nold suggests that these sources are unreliable: they were written years after the fact by disaffected Franciscans such as William of Ockham. From unpublished manuscript sources, Nold reconstructs the beginnings of the controversy and reveals the crucial role played by the Franciscan Cardinal. His discovery of Bertrand's significance undermines the common scholarly understanding of this episode and of the character of John XXII himself. He provides a major reinterpretation of the apostolic poverty controversy and has far-reaching consequences for issues such as papal infallibility, natural rights theory, and Ockham's political writings.