William of Alnwick was an important theologian in the first quarter of the fourteenth century, when he rubbed shoulders with some of the luminaries of the Franciscan schools at Oxford and Paris. He was placed among the ‘inceptores ordinis Minorum qui egregie scripserunt super sententias’ by William Woodford (BL, ms Harleian 31, fo. 96v). He was studying at Paris under Gonsalvus of Spain from June 1303 and it was there that he met John Duns Scotus, whose colleague and secretary he became. He was the editor of Scotus’ Ordinatio and Additiones magnae. Unlike the subtle doctor, he sided with Philip iv against Boniface viii on 5 June 1303 and remained in Paris. He was appointed as a bachelor of theology between 1313 and 1315, when he lectured on the Sentences. In 1316 he returned to the English province and became the forty-second regent master at the Oxford Greyfriars, probably at the end of Henry of Harclay's chancellorship. Harclay's name – ‘ratio Magistri Henrici Cancellarii Oxoniensis’ – occurs in the margins of BAV, ms vat. lat. 1012, fo. 32rb (Fr. Guillelmi Alnwick, O.F.M. Quaestiones disputate de esse intelligibili et de quodlibet, ed. A. Ledoux ofm, Florence 1937, 494 n. 5) and in Biblioteca Antoniana, Padua, ms 58va – ‘ad rationem Cancellarii Oxoniensis’ (Ledoux edn, 497 n. 2). On other occasions he refers to Harclay as ‘cancellarii quondam Oxoniae’ (Ledoux edn, p. xxiv). John of Reading and William of Ockham were then bachelors at the Oxford Greyfriars. During Alnwick's sojourn there he disputed quodlibetal questions and continued to edit his lectures on the Sentences. The explicit of Quaestio 10 of his Quodlibetum confirms that Alnwick held these disputations at Oxford (p. 19 n. 50; Ledoux edn, 605). His commentary on the Sentences is still extant, with two drafts of the first two books. When he was close to completing his edition of Scotus’ Ordinatio, he returned to Paris as a doctor of theology. His Quaestiones disputatae de esse intelligibili belong to this period. His time in Paris was, however, brief. He was transferred to Montpellier. Fr Victorin Doucet ofm found a reference to a quodlibetum disputed at Montpellier in a catalogue of the library of SS John and Paul in Venice. Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence, ms plut 31, dextr. 8, fos 79v–126r contains his Determinationes (Questiones mag. Guillelmi Amoyc anglicii lectoris Bononie). This reference to his teaching in Bologna is confirmed by BAV, ms vat. lat. 318, fos 37c–42c, 42d–50d, where he was described as the seventeenth lector between 1321 and 1323 (C. Piana, Chartularium Studii Bononiensis S. Francisci [saec. XIII–XVI], Florence 1970, 12–13). He was one of the signatories of the declaration on evangelical poverty issued by the general chapter of the Franciscans at Perugia on 7 June 1322. During his stay in Bologna he was one of the judges in the trial against Raymond and Opizone of Este. On 13 December 1323 John xxii encouraged the bishops of Bologna and Ferrara to initiate proceedings against Alnwick, who had publicly defended the teaching of the general chapter of Perugia in sermons to the laity and clergy of Bologna, reaffirming that Christ and his Apostles possessed nothing either in common or individually (Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence, ms plut. 31 dextr. 8, fo. 62rb). This theme was reiterated in his Determinationes. In his plight he took refuge in Naples, where he may have been engaged in disputations in the studium of San Lorenzo. Fr Ledoux ofm presents Alnwick as an independent Scotist, who enjoyed the protection of King Robert of Anjou, who appointed him to the bishopric of Giovinazzo on 31 July 1330. On 29 March 1333 he preached to the clergy at the Dominican church at Avignon, where he was pleading the cause of the fraticelli, Peter of Cadeneto and Andrew of Galiano. He died the following week.

The handsome volume contains a critical edition and English translation of questions one to six of the prologue of William of Alnwick's Commentary on the Sentences and two questions de scientia, which are directly related to the prologue. The editor provides a list of the questions in Alnwick's commentary on the Sentences along with a table of the manuscripts. Reviewing the evidence of the manuscript tradition, he tends to the view that Alnwick prepared two sets of lectures on the Sentences on different occasions. This critical edition is based on five manuscripts. First, Biblioteca Comunale, Assisi, ms 172. This composite manuscript is the work of several scribes of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and includes works by Henry of Harclay, James of Ascoli and some anonymous authors. Secondly, Jagellonic Library, Krakow, ms 732, a composite manuscript which can be assigned to the fourteenth century. Thirdly, Biblioteca Antoniana, Padua, ms 291, was written in the fourteenth century. Fourthly, Biblioteca Antoniana, Padua, ms 295, was written by fourteenth century hands. Fifthly, BAV, ms vat. lat.1012, is divided into four sections and includes Alnwick's quaestiones disputae. Alnwick cites a relatively small number of scholastic figures: Alexander of Hales, Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, Godfrey of Fontaines, Henry of Ghent, Robert Grosseteste and John Duns Scotus. Debates in the Franciscan school at Oxford and Paris reveal the influence of William of Ware, Richard of Conington, John of Reading and Robert of Cowton. Alnwick was already describing John Duns Scotus as the doctor subtilis within a decade of his death (pp. 664–5). In a number of places he employs images from the construction of a house and refers to tools, such as a saw, which might contain clues about his father's profession (for example, pp. 403, 407, 423, 501). He also mentions bridle-making (pp. 423, 427). Typographical errors are few: ‘as well [as] the third condition’ (p. 22); ‘Scotus is always anonymously cited in the body of the test [text]’ (p. 32); and ‘which comes though [through] his hearing alone’ (p. 75). The meaning of ‘messy questions by Scotus’ remains unclear (p. 15). Assisi's Biblioteca Comunale is quaintly translated as ‘Town Library’ (for example, pp. 15, 759). This is an admirable critical edition which will be of immense interest to those steeped in the history of the schools and the mendicant orders.