Gottschalk of Nepomuk

Abstract

Gottschalk of Nepomuk was a Bohemian Cistercian monk, trained as a theologian at St. Bernard’s College in Paris in the 1370s. He died shortly after completing his Quaestiones super Libros Sententiarum. His commentary on all four books of Lombard’s Sentences survived in only one manuscript at the Jagiellonian Library (Krakow), and it is currently being edited. In the prologue, Gottschalk discusses the problem of theology as a scientific habitus and confines the object of knowledge as a complexe significabile to the domain of theological knowledge. From a doctrinal perspective, the author belongs to a more general intellectual movement from the latter half of the fourteenth century, along with John Hiltalingen of Basel, James of Eltville, and others. Gottschalk’s work develops themes common to English theologians from the first decades of the fourteenth century (e.g., Walter Chatton, Robert Holcot, Adam of Wodeham), but also relies on the texts of various Parisian theologians, such as Thomas of Argentina, Gregory of Rimini, John Mirecourt, and Henry of Ghent. His doctrinal orientation consists in both the adoption and criticism of Gregory of Rimini’s thought.