  The Exigit ordo is the fruit of Autrecourt’s teaching in the arts faculty. In the first of its two prologues, it is addressed to the reverendi patres, i.e. to the theologians in religious orders. Instead of expounding his views in commentaries on Aristotle’s texts, Autrecourt chose to write an independent treatise discussing issues pertaining to natural philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophical psychology, and ethics, and engaging in debate with unnamed contemporaries. The work is not a neat sequence of chapters or questions with pro and con arguments. It has been suggested that the Exigit was a draft version in which Autrecourt had penned ideas, arguments and fragments of disputations that were awaiting their final ordering. The work was completed in the years 1333–35, at which time Autrecourt was preparing his commentary on the Sentences. For financial reasons, Autrecourt taught in the arts faculty while he was enrolled as a student in theology. Possibly, he even wrote the Exigit after he commented on the Sentences, but before 1340, when he was summoned to Avignon.