Olivi, the Beguins, and the Blurred Boundaries of Academic and Popular Heresy

Abstract

This article conducts an initial exploration of the ways in which academic and non-academic heresy blended into one another in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Often treated as separate spheres in historiography, both in terms of content and the ways in which they were dealt with by authorities, this article argues that contact between the two intensified in the early fourteenth century, creating a third category where elements of both spheres blended into one another. Books are identified as one of the main conduits through which this blending and intensification of contact occurred.

Keywords

• academic heresy
• heretical movements
• heretical books
• inquisition
• peter of john olivi