To browse Academia. This volume brings leading scholars of medieval thought together to undertake the first major study of the sources and context of the so-called Summa Halensis , which was one of the earliest and most signifi cant instalments in the Summa genre. This Summa was collaboratively authored by the founding members of the Franciscan school at Paris, who sought to lay down a uniquely Franciscan intellectual tradition for the fi rst time.
In examining how the Summa reckons with some of the most signifi cant sources of the day, the contributions to the volume illustrate that early Franciscans interpreted their authorities to their own ends, developing highly innovative ideas that had a lasting impact on the Franciscan intellectual tradition and the disciplines of philosophy and theology.
It is generally accepted that the Summa Halensis is an authoritative text insofar as it faithfully reproduces and reflects upon the earliest forms of Franciscan life. But might it not be authoritative in another way too? Contemporary science casts light on many of the systems that shape our sociality and the production of community. In so far as these scientific understandings converge with the practices and teachings of Franciscan life as detailed in the Summa Halensis, this becomes a text which begins to show an unusual authority.
The nature of the transcendentals, the structure of our freedom in ethical decision-making, and natural law, are all areas in which an extensive convergence appears between the Franciscan text and the science of today. This has important implications for our contemporary reception of this text, but it also makes a significant contribution to the ongoing dialogue between science and religion.
The Summa minorum or Summa Halensis, long attributed mistakenly to Alexander of Hales, the founder of the Franciscan intellectual tradition, was known in its own time as the first comprehensive and systematic effort to lay down distinctly Franciscan theological and philosophical perspectives. The famous early Franciscan Bonaventure appears to have had much of it at his fingertips, though he may have contributed to later sections himself, and to have regarded it as a key resource in his own training in the burgeoning Franciscan intellectual tradition.
