'Famosus est et satis publicum‘: Factionalism and the limits of doctrine in the Case Against Meister

The articles demonstrates that, in the fourteenth century in Cologne, the charge of heresy against Meister Eckhart comes from Louis of Bavaria and his supporters for political reasons and that Eckhart had the support of his order even though they probably did not agree with him. The dispute that followed eventually concluded with the charges against Eckhart being reduced from a lengthy list of items declared heretical to a much reduced one mainly of doctrinal errors. However, although he seemed to go to some lengths to facilitate Eckhart and his supporters, John XXII condemned various of Eckhart’s propositions after the latter’s death in his 1329 bull, In agro dominico. this seems still to have left eckhart in something of a theological limbo: in 1992, in response to the dominican order’s campaign for his rehabilitation, the Vatican commented that since eckhart was not actually condemned for heresy himself, but rather only certain of his propositions, there is no necessity for such a procedure.