The Critical Edition of David of Dinant’s Literary Work by Rev. Prof. Marian Kurdziałek

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present an eminent Polish historian of medieval philosophy Marian Kurdziałek as the author of the critical edition of David of Dinant’s Quaternulorum fragmenta (1963). Owing to a very high standard of critical principles applied to the constitution of the critical text, this edition still provides a point of reference for the investigation of various aspects of the phenomenon of David of Dinant. The article examines arguments presented by M. Kurdziałek in favour of David’s authorship of the fragments. After he had proved that they all come from the same author, Kurdziałek referred to the presentation of David’s doctrine by Albert the Great that agreed with the famous metaphysical portion of the fragments and thus provided a basis for the identification of the author. He then examined in detail various problems concerning Albert’s testimony and offered a critical discussion of the biographical data concerning David of Dinant. Another important Kurdziałek’s contribution were lexical comparisons of Aristotle’s Latin texts used by David with existing medieval translations. He argued that David’s version of Aristotle was his own free translation combined with intelligent interpretations. In the article I refer to the study of G. Vuillemin-Diem that fully confirms Kurdziałek’s conclusions.