medical writers and to the commentaries of Averroes.
Outside Padua and Bologna Averroes retained his position as the principal exponent of Aristotle to the end of the 15th century. In the ordinances of Louis XI. (1473) it is laid down that the masters at Paris are to teach Aristotle, and to use as commentaries Averroes, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and similar writers instead of William of Ockham and others of his school, which is no more than saying that the official attitude is to be realist and not nominalist.
With the 16th century the study of the Arabic commentators on Aristotle fell into disrepute outside Padua and its circle, but for a century more the Arabic medical writers had a limited range of influence in the European universities.
The actual line of transmission in and after the 15th century lay in the passage of the anti-ecclesiastical spirit developed in North East Italy under the influence of the Arabic philosophers to the Italian renascence. The arrival of Greek scholars after the fall of Constantinople and the resultant interest developed in archæological research diverted attention into a new direction, but this should not disguise the fact that the pro-Arabic element in scholastic days was the direct parent of the philopagan element in the renascence, at least in Southern Europe. In northern lands it was the archæological side which assumed greater importance and was brought to bear upon theological subjects.
