ABSTRACT
In the latter half of the thirteenth century many of the universities of northern Europe, that is, those dominated by, or owing some degree of allegiance to, the papacy, became involved in a violent academic dispute known as the Scholastic Controversy. The centre of the conflict was Paris although it extended to other universities, including Toulouse, Montpellier and Orleans. The university was nominally subject to the bishop of Paris, and so to the pope, but early in the thirteenth century Rome was not anxious to test that dependence in any serious way. Dominicans embraced the ideal of poverty, although humility was never a prominent trait. The Scholastic Controversy had, in fact, been developing throughout the twelfth century, and when it became active around 1250, and reached its climax in 1277, it was the inevitable outcome of several centuries of speculation on the respective merits of the Augustinian and Aristotelian metaphysics.
