Folio, (298 × 203 mm). 139 ff., 1 blank. Contemporary blindstamped pigskin over wooden boards, retaining an original clasp; the initials “M.A.” in ink on the upper cover; manuscript waste used as pastedowns. A very fine copy, ff.10-11 repaired; occasional foxing and dampstaining, an attractive copy in a substantially contemporary binding.

William was among the earliest Latin theologians to make extensive, critical use of the writings of Avicenna and other thinkers transmitted through Arabic learning. He drew upon their accounts of causation, the soul and the structure of the natural world, while rejecting conclusions that he considered incompatible with Christian teaching. The resulting text provides unusually direct evidence of the intellectual negotiations through which newly available philosophical materials entered the schools of western Europe.

De fide et legibus examines the nature and grounds of faith, the authority of religious law and the relationship between true worship and its alternatives. William considers Jewish and Islamic belief alongside ancient pagan practices, idolatry and forms of superstition. His treatment is polemical rather than comparative in the modern sense, yet the range of traditions discussed makes the work a valuable witness to medieval Christian perceptions of religious difference.

Of particular interest are William’s discussions of magic, divination and astrology. Rather than treating every extraordinary effect as supernatural, he attempts to distinguish natural causes, human artifice and demonic agency. These passages have long attracted historians of medieval science and magic because they reveal how theological argument intersected with questions about the powers and limits of nature.

The book is also a significant example of printing in Augsburg during the first decade of the city’s typographical history. Günther Zainer, one of its pioneering printers, issued important theological and scholarly texts for a learned readership. This edition helped make William’s extensive treatise available beyond the comparatively restricted circulation of manuscripts.

Provenance: the contemporary blindstamped binding gives this copy particular material interest; the manuscript pastedowns offer evidence of the reuse of earlier written material in 15th century bookbinding. Front board lettered in ink at an early or contemporary time “Monasterium Artel[?]”. First blank with pasted on coat of arms dated 1577, which we have been unable to identify.

Hain-Copinger 8317; GW 11863; ISTC ig00711000; Goff G711; BMC II 323; Proctor 1556. For William’s thought, see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “William of Auvergne”; Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, vol. II, chapter LII.