belonged to the Nominalist school. Its best representatives were Gregory of Rimini and Gabriel Biel. The Dominicans, with the exception of Durandus of St. Portiano (d. 1332), and Holkot (d. 1349), remained faithful to the Thomist traditions of the thirteenth century. Among their later writers may be mentioned St. Antoninus of Florence, John Capreolus, the powerful apologist of Thomism (Clypeus Thomistarum), Torquemada, Cardinal Cajetan, the first commentator on the Summa, and Francis of Ferrara, the commentator on the Summa contra Gentes. The Franciscans were split up into several schools, some adhering to Nominalism, others to Scotism. Lychetus, the renowned commentator on Scotus, belongs to this period, as also do Dionysius Ryckel, the Carthusian, and Alphonsus Tostatus, Bishop of Avila. Thomas Bradwardine, Archbishop of Canterbury (Doctor Profundus, 1290–1349) was the most famous mathematician of his day. His principal work, De Causa Dei contra Pelagianos, arranged mathematically, shows signs of great skilfulness of form, great depth and erudition, but gives a painful impression by its rigid doctrines. Some look upon him as one of the forerunners of Wyclif, an accusation which might with more justice be made against Fitzralph (d. 1360).
Thomas Netter (d. 1431), provincial of the Carmelites and secretary to Henry V., composed two works against Wyclif, Doctrinale Antiquitatum Fidei Catholicæ adversus Wicliffitas et Hussitas and Fasciculus Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif cum Tritico. Nicholas Cusa surpasses even Bradwardine in the application of mathematics to theology.
During this period of decay the ordinary treatment of theology consisted of commentaries on the Sentences and monographs on particular questions (Quodlibeta). The latter were, as a rule, controversial, treating the subjects from a Nominalist or Scotist point of view, while some few were valuable expositions and defences of the earlier teaching. The partial degeneracy of Scholasticism on the
