The Historical and Biographical Context

The relationship between Oresme and his patron provides another context for the Aristotle translations.^[1] Although scholars now agree that Oresme was not Charles's childhood preceptor,^[2] it seems likely that he served as an informal intellectual adviser. Oresme's early writings in French provide evidence that by the late 1350s he had attracted the prince's attention. Miniatures in manuscripts commissioned by Charles clarify not only his relationship to Oresme but also some of the future king's interests.

Details of Oresme's early life are sparse. He was probably born near Caen sometime in the early 1320s. His name first appears in a document of the University of Paris dated 1348 among the masters of the Norman nation and as a scholarship holder of the College of Navarre. After teaching arts and then theology, he became a master of theology in 1356. Oresme probably studied with Jean Buridan, head of the College of Navarre, which was founded in 1304 by Queen Joan of Navarre, wife of King Philip IV. Buridan, an interpreter of Aristotle, was also an important nominalist and natural philosopher and may have influenced Oresme's thinking.^[3] Since Oresme was at the leading center of Aristotelian studies in Europe, he would have been infused with a thorough knowledge of the Philosopher's thought. The first group of Oresme's writings date from the late 1340s to the early 1350s, when Oresme was teaching in the arts faculty. Among these unpublished works are collections of individual questions on selected topics, a method of scholastic argument, six of which concern works of Aristotle. A second group of Oresme's writings in Latin on mathematics and physics addressed to scholarly audiences probably dates from the late 1340s to the early 1360s.

In 1356 Oresme was named Grand Master of the College of Navarre, a royal foundation, around the same time that scholars believe he came to the attention of the royal family. That year marked a low point in the fortunes of the new Valois dynasty that had succeeded the last Capetian king, Charles IV, in 1328. The accession to the French throne of King Philip VI, the first of the Valois line and father of John the Good, had precipitated the Hundred Years' War. At the decisive battle of Poitiers that ended the first phase of the Hundred Years' War, in 1356, King John the Good and the flower of French chivalry were defeated and captured by the English. Leadership of France fell to the Dauphin Charles, eldest son

of John. Only eighteen years old, Charles faced the threat of civil war. Certain aristocratic factions sided with the English claimant to the French throne, King Edward III. Opposition to the Valois dynasty also arose from Charles the Bad of Navarre. His mother, Queen Joan II of Navarre, was the daughter of Louis X, one of the last Capetian kings. But the exclusion of women from inheriting the French throne either directly or passing it to a male heir negated the claims of both Edward III and Charles the Bad.^[4]

Other threats to the Valois monarchy came in the late 1350s from a revolt in Paris led by Etienne Marcel, provost of the wool merchants, who allied himself with Charles the Bad. In 1358 the peasant revolt called the Jacquerie broke out. Furthermore, a financial crisis, partly caused by the need to raise the ransom for the captured king, brought cries for monetary reform. The various meetings of the Estates General between 1355 and 1358, summoned to raise money first by John the Good and then by Charles, brought pressure for political and monetary reform of the monarchy. A particular sore point was the king's continued debasement of the coinage. Disaffection with royal power was widespread and extended to members of the faculty of the University of Paris, among them Nicole Oresme. As master of the College of Navarre, he may have been an adherent of the faction supporting Charles the Bad.^[5]