Re: The Need for Debate

From:    And Rosta <a.rosta@...>
> Tom Wier:
> > As Ray has already noted, this spawned
> > great debates, so great in fact that a papal bull was issued in 1272
> > and again in 1277 banning certain topics of debate in the University
> > of Paris (not, notably, banning them in general), not so much to
> > suppress dissent (the Pope himself had taught there and was a moderate
> > theologically IIRC), but to keep tempers to a manageable level.
>
> By analogy, then, this would make John Cowan the (of course, very
> liberal) pope of Conlang. Pope John II, to be exact -- successor to
> Pope John I, Pope Lars, and Pope David.
Incidentally, the Pope who promulgated the latter bull of 1277 was
also a John -- John XXI this time -- who was the first and so far
only Lusitanian to sit on the throne of St. Peter.  Also interestingly,
there never was a Pope John XX; people lost track sometime in the
11th century and misnumbered this one and the next (d. 1334).  I suppose
this may have been a factor in people waiting over 600 years before
naming another one (John XXIII, who died in 1963).  It would appear
our own list's Pontiff has an illustrious nomenclature behind him.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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