""Is it heretical to assert that Christ and the apostles had none of the things that come into use in human life either in regard to ownership of or dominion over them?""--BOOK JACKET. "From 1321 to 1323, debate about this question sparked a passionate and bitter controversy over the Franciscan doctrine of the "absolute" poverty of Christ and the apostles and hence of the basis of the Franciscan practice of poverty. The controversy pitted the Franciscan Order against Pope John XXII and the Dominican Order."--BOOK JACKET. "This volume contains a translation of two works from that controversy - Hervaeus Natalis's The Poverty of Christ and the Apostles and a Vatican scribe's summary of the positions of several Franciscan clergy, including those of two prominent cardinals: Vital du Four and Bertrand de la Tour. Hervaeus Natalis (d. 1323), a distinguished philosopher and theologian, was Master General of the Dominican Order during the controversy."--BOOK JACKET.