§ 113.3. =Nominalists and Realists.=--After nominalism (§ 99, 2) in the person of Roscelin had been condemned by the Church (§ 101, 3) realism held sway for more than two centuries. Both Thomas and Duns supported it. By sundering philosophy and theology Duns opened the way to freer discussion, so that by-and-by nominalism won the ascendency, and at last scarcely any but the precursors of the Reformation (§ 119) were to be found in the ranks of the realists. The pioneer of the movement was the Englishman =William Occam=, a Franciscan and pupil of Duns, who as teacher of philosophy in Paris obtained the title _doctor singularis et invincibilis_, and was called by later nominalists _venerabilis inceptor_. He supported the _Spirituals_ (§ 112, 2) in the controversies within his order. He accompanied his general, Michael of Cesena, to Avignon, and escaping with him in A.D. 1328 from threatened imprisonment, lived at Munich till his death in A.D. 1349. There, protected by Louis the Bavarian, he vindicated imperial rights against papal pretensions, and charged various heresies against the pope (§ 118, 2). In philosophy and theology he was mainly influenced by Scotus. In accordance with his nominalistic principles he assumed the position in theology that our ideas derived from experience cannot reach to a knowledge of the supernatural; and thus he may be called a precursor of Kant (§ 171, 10). The _universalia_ are mere _fictiones_ (§ 99, 2), things that do not correspond to our notions; the world of ideas agrees not with that of phenomena, and so the unity of faith and knowledge, of theological and philosophical truth, asserted by realists, cannot be maintained (§ 103, 2). Faith rests on the authority of Scripture and the decisions of the Church; criticism applied to the doctrines of the Church reduces them to a series of antinomies.--In A.D. 1339 the University of Paris forbade the reading of Occam’s works, and soon after formally condemned nominalism. Thomists and Scotists forgot their own differences to combine against Occam; but all in vain, for the Occamists were recruited from all the orders. The Constance reform party too supported him (§ 118, 4).[333] Of the Thomists who succeeded to Occam the most distinguished was =William Durand= of St. Pourçain, _doct. resolutissimus_, who died in A.D. 1322 as Bishop of Meaux. =Muertius of Inghen,= one of the founders of the University of Heidelberg in A.D. 1386 and its first rector, was also a zealous nominalist. The last notable schoolman of the period was =Gabriel Biel= of Spires, teacher of theology at Tübingen, who died A.D. 1495, a nominalist and an admirer of Occam. He was a vigorous supporter of the doctrine of the immaculate conception, and delivered public discourses on the “Ethics” of Aristotle.