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© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, DOI: 10.1163/187124109X506295

Pavel Blazek, Die mittelalterliche Rezeption der aristotelischen Philosophie derEhe. Von Robert Grosseteste bis Bartholomäus von Brügge (/–)[Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions ]. Brill, Leiden/Boston, xiii + S. isbn . us; .

The process by which the social philosophy—by which I broadly mean thefields of ethics, politics, rhetoric, and economics—attributed to Aristotle cameto be known to and disseminated during the Latin Middle Ages has been widelystudied in recent times. An international cast of scholars, including RobertoLambertini, James Blythe, Janet Coleman, Odd Langholm, Christoph Flüeler,Vasileios Syros, Steven Williams, and (in all due modesty) the present reviewer(to name a few), have labored to enhance the understanding of the complexand often muddy circumstances surrounding the translation, circulation, andreception in Europe of the genuine texts of the corpus Aristotelicum (Politics,Nicomachean Ethics, Rhetoric), as well as spurious writings misascribed to Aris-totle (Secreta secretorum, Economics), that illuminate the Aristotelian systemof ‘practical knowledge.’ To this burgeoning body of literature must now beadded Pavel Blazek’s Die mittelalterliche Rezeption der aristotelischen Philosophieder Ehe. The accomplishments represented in this volume (a revised Germandoctoral dissertation) are numerous and striking, and contribute notably to thefield of thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century intellectual history.

The first and perhaps leading facet of Blazek’s contribution is the organiza-tion of his study of Aristotelianism thematically around the idea of marriage.Of course, considerable scholarly attention has been devoted to the theoryas well as practice of wedded life and domestic relations during the MiddleAges (one thinks of the germinal and still useful books by Georges Duby andChristopher Brooke from the latter part of the last century). But this scho-larship has concentrated primarily on canon law and theological sources, aswell as on literary and visual representations of the marital state, rather thanon scholastic philosophy. By contrast, as Blazek rightly points out, the dif-fusion of Aristotelian texts in European universities provided a distinct alter-native tradition of thought about the nature of marriage, one grounded in anaturalistic philosophical perspective. In the initial substantive section of thebook, Blazek provides a synoptic overview of the Aristotelian position on theproper ordering of marital relations as found in the main thirteen-century Latintranslations of the Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, and Economics (including anedition and German translation of the latter, contained in Chapter ). For-tunately, he is not overly concerned about potential problems posed by theauthorship and provenance of the Economics; since medieval readers took it

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to be authentic, it deserves to be counted as part of the body of Aristoteliandoctrine received and appraised during the Middle Ages. Blazek thereafter sur-veys a number of the central attempts to integrate Aristotelian teaching aboutmarriage into a scholastic Christian framework during the second half of thethirteenth century, including works by Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas,Giles of Rome, and Engelbert of Admont as well as the florilegium AuctoritatesAristotelis ascribed to Johannes de Fonte. Blazek highlights the great diversityof uses to which the Aristotelian materials were put, depending upon the intel-lectual (and sometimes political) context and agenda of the author in question.

Another significant dimension of Blazek’s scholarship is his particular em-phasis on the reception of the Economics, a topic that has not been widelydiscussed among current scholars of Latin Aristotelian ideas (perhaps preciselybecause of its spurious status). Although there are some exceptions to this gen-eral tendency to neglect the Economics (such as research by Lambertini, Flüeler,and Langholm), Blazek’s volume is the first recent account of which I am awareto trace the fuller story of how that text came to be disseminated in the LatinWest. In this connection, Blazek is especially insightful concerning the contri-bution of Bartholomew of Bruges, a largely unknown and sadly underappre-ciated schoolman who around the dawn of the fourteenth century produceda series of commentaries on many of the minor works within the Aristoteliancorpus, among which was an exposition (dating to about ) of the Eco-nomics. In Part of the book—by far the single lengthiest section—Blazekintroduces his readers to Bartholomew’s text and explicates the importance andoriginality of his thought. Although concentrating upon Bartholomew’s inter-pretation of pseudo-Aristotle’s ideas about marriage, Blazek makes it evidenthow this commentator’s philosophical hermeneutic is innovative and deservingof wider attention from historians of medieval thought.

Blazek closes his survey with a brief coda that draws some conclusions aboutthe significance of his inquiry for the study of conceptions of marriage duringthe Middle Ages. Here one might have hoped for a somewhat more extensiveand bolder discussion of how the Aristotelian tradition interacted with other(canonistic and theological) teachings over the course of the fourteenth cen-tury. Moreover, I am curious about the extent to which Aristotelianism shapedlater political debates surrounding the nature and basis of marital relations.One such dispute occurred during the s and s in Germany, when anumber of eminent philosophers and lawyers (such as Marsilius of Padua andWilliam of Ockham) wrote substantial polemic tracts in support of King Lud-wig of Bavaria’s attempts to build dynastic ties by marrying his son off to anheiress at a time when he and his family were under papal interdict. Another

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example may be the French language translation of and commentary on theEconomics undertaken by Nicole Oresme in the later fourteenth century at thecourt of King Charles V, which Blazek mentions only once (on p. ) in thecontext of discussing the influence of Bartholomew. These remarks should notbe taken in any way to disparage Blazek’s considerable achievement. But if heremains interested in continuing to investigate the topic of the Aristotelian phi-losophy of marriage beyond this worthy and substantial tome, I would encour-age Blazek to consider writing a follow-up volume that pursues a similar lineof research beyond c. and into the later scholastic debates. Regardless ofwhether this suggestion is heeded, historians of medieval philosophy, politicalthought and social life all owe a profound debt of gratitude to Pavel Blazek forthe meticulous and far-reaching scholarship on display in Die mittelalterlicheRezeption der aristotelischen Philosophie der Ehe.

Cary J. Nedermannederman@politics.tamu.edu

Texas A&M University

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