Ioannis Saresberiensis episcopi Carnotensis Metalogicon, ed. C. C. I. Webb, Oxford, 1929, lib. I, cap. 24 (in part) ; Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. 199, cols. 854-55.
John of Salisbury, who died in 1180, completed the Metalogicon (or, Metalogicus, as it is less correctly called), from which the following extract is drawn, in 1159. It describes the much earlier teaching of Bernard of Chartres, who was perhaps dead by 1130. As the previous selection by Abelard depicted lectures in logic and theology, so John tells of more elementary instruction in the rudiments of Latin grammar, literature, and composition in the early twelfth century. Bernard of Chartres is no longer identified with the poet, Bernard Silvester, whose De mundi universitate was written later in the century during the pontificate of Eugenius III (1145-1153). Bernard of Chartres seems to have left no writings and to have been first and foremost a teacher. John of Salisbury seems to have learned of his methods of teaching only at second hand and after the event.Bernard of Chartres, the most copious fount of letters in Gaul in modern times, followed this method and in the reading of authors pointed out what was simple and in accordance with the rules. Grammatical figures, rhetorical embellishments, the cavils of sophistry, and the bearings of the passage assigned for reading upon other disciplines he set forth as he went along, not however trying to teach everything at once but dispensing gradually a measured amount of learning according to the capacity of his hearers. And because a brilliant style comes either from propriety, that is, when adjective or verb is elegantly united with its substantive, or from translation, that is, when a word for good reason is altered to another meaning, he inculcated these points as occasion offered in the minds of his hearers. And because memory is strengthened and talent is sharpened by exercise, he urged some by admonitions to imitate what they heard and others by blows and penalties.[1] Each was obliged to review on the following day something of what he had heard on the preceding day, some more, others less; for the day after was with them the disciple of the day before. The evening exercise, which was called declinatio, was so stuffed with grammar that if anyone took it for a full year, unless he was duller than the average, he would have in hand the principles of speaking and writing and could not remain ignorant of the meaning of words that are in common use.
But since neither school nor any day should be without religion, such material was set before them as would edify faith and morals, and by which those who had assembled, as if for some collation, should be stimulated to good deeds. So the last part of this declinatio, or rather philosophical collation, preferred the paths of piety and commended the souls of the dead to their Redeemer by devout repetition of the sixth Psalm in the Penitentials and the Lord's Prayer. As for the boys' preceding exercises, he assigned poets or orators whom they should imitate in prose or poems, bidding them follow in their footsteps, and he showed how to join statements together and how to end them elegantly. If anyone to improve his own work sewed on foreign cloth, he would call attention to the theft but usually would inflict no punishment. Rather if the inept composition merited this, he would with gracious indulgence order and make the person who had been thus detected set to work imitating authors, so that he who imitated the men of the past might come to deserve the imitation of posterity. This, too, he taught among the first rudiments and fixed in their minds, what virtue there is in economy, what in the adornment of things, what words are praiseworthy; when speech should be bare and, as it were, lean; when abundant, when fulsome, when moderate in all respects. He advised them to read over histories and poems carefully, not as if impelled by spurs to flight; and he was always demanding that from each reading one should daily commit something to memory. Yet he said to avoid what was superfluous and that the writings of illustrious authors were sufficient, since ``to busy oneself with what any worthless man has ever written is either too wretched a task or a matter of empty boasting, and detains and wastes ability that might better be occupied otherwise. For that which takes the place of something better is in that respect disadvantageous and cannot be held of good repute. For to open every volume and turn over every leaf, even those not worth reading, is no more necessary than to attend to old wives' tales. For as Augustine says in the book De ordine, 'Who says that a man appears uneducated because he has not heard of Daedalus's flying? Does not he seem to be a liar who told the story; and he stupid who believes it; and he impudent who asks about it? Or take a case which I am accustomed to pity my friends greatly, who, if they cannot tell the name of the mother of Euryalus, are accused of ignorance, although they dare not call those who question them curious and idle triflers.'" [2] Such were his words, spoken elegantly and truly. Wherefore it was justly held by the ancients to be a virtue in a grammarian to be ignorant of some things.
And since in every exercise for pupils nothing is more useful than to be accustomed to that which should be done by the art, they daily wrote prose and poems and drilled themselves in mutual collations, an exercise than which indeed there is nothing more useful for eloquence, nothing more expeditious toward science; and it is a great help in life, if only charity rules this industry and if humility is maintained in this literary progress. By no means "is it for the same man to serve letters and carnal vices." [3]
After the standards of this master my teachers in grammar, William of Conches and Richard Bishop,[4] now archdeacon at Coutances, a man of good life and conversation, for some time trained their students. But afterwards, because opinion made prejudice to the truth, and men preferred to seem rather than be philosophers, and professors of the arts promised to transmit all philosophy to their hearers in less than three or two years' time, they ceased teaching, overcome by the onslaught of the unskilled multitude. And from that time on less time and pains have been spent on the study of grammar. The result is that those who profess all arts, both liberal and mechanical, do not know even the first, without which one vainly advances to the others. It may be, it is true, that the other subjects are of assistance to literature, but it is the peculariar prerogative of this study to make men lettered. . . .
[2] Augustine, De ordine, II, 12, 37, Migne, Patrologia latina, 32, 1012-13.
[3] Jerome, Epistolae, 125, II, Migne, Patrologia latina, 22, 1078.
[4] John seems to have studied under William and Richard from about 1138 to 1141. William later entered the service of Geoffrey Plantagenet, to whom as duke of Normandy he addressed his Dragmaticon, a revision of Philosophia, between 1144 and 1150, while he prepared for the future Henry II of England a collection of moral extracts from classical Latin authors. Richard Bishop became bishop of Avranches in 1171, dying only in 1182, but one infers that William was no longer living in 1159 when John wrote.
Anselmi Havelhergensis Vita Adelberti Moguntiae episcopi, ed. Jaffe, Biboliotheca rerum germanicarum, III, 592-93; reprinted in Cartulaire le l'universite de Montpellier, I (I890), 758, and from it by Fournier, Les statute et privileges, II (189I), I.
The selection is from the life by Anselm, bishop of Havelberg, of Adelbert II of Saarbrucken, elected bishop of Mainz in August 1137, consecrated May 29, 1138, and deceased at Erfurt July 17, 1141. It describes Adelbert's studies at Montpellier, which he visited after attending classes in Reims and Paris. Fournier gives a false impression that the lines apply to Anselm: "Anselm de Havelberg, avant son retour a Mayence, suit les cours de medecine a Montpellier." Anselm was sent in 1136 by the emperor Lothair to Constantinople where he disputed theological questions with Nicetas of Nicomedia, in the presence of the Byzantine emperor, John Comnenus, and such learned westerners and translators from the Greek as James of Venice, Burgundio of Pisa, and Moses of Bergamo, the last-named acting as interpreter. Anselm became archbishop of Ravenna in 1155 and died in 1158. In translating the leonine hexameters I have endeavored to keep the internal rhymes and something of the general effect.
Here an adolescent arrived to find the town pleasant,
Dear old Montpellier, whose real middle name is Live-well-aye,
Where medical science is granted a seat and appliance.
Here, too, sound doctrine, practical precepts of medicine,
By doctors are stated who have truly meditated
On giving advice to the well, to the sick a poultice.
He learned, while there dwelling, in brief what medicine is telling,
The causes perceiving of nature, things occult believing,
Not wealth to importune, nor seeking after a large fortune,
But because of Nature he would learn the true nomenclature.
Metalogicon, ed. Webb, 1929, lib. II, cap. IO; Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. 199, cols. 867-69.
Concerning John of Salisbury see the introduction to Selection 1. His recollections as to his teachers and the time spent with them do not seem to be in exact chronological order, or at least are sometimes hard to reconcile with dates which are derived from other sources.
When first as a mere lad I went to Gaul for an education in the year after the illustrious king of the Angles, Henry, the lion of justice, departed from human affairs, I betook me to the Peripatetic of Palais [1] who at that time presided on the hill of Sainte Genevieve as a doctor celebrated and admired by all. There at his feet I received the first rudiments of the art of logic and as far as my small talents permitted I received with all the avidity of my mind whatever fell from his lips. Then after his departure, which seemed to me all too soon, I attached myself to master Alberic, who shone forth as the dialectian most esteemed among the rest and was indeed the sharpest opponent of the nominalists. Thus, spending almost the whole of two years on the hill, I had as my teachers in this art Alberic and master Robert of Melun, to use the name that he earned in the school system, although he was of English birth. One of them, very exact in everything, found room for questioning everywhere, so that no matter how polished the surface he could find some flaw in it and, as they say, a rush would not have been without knots for him, for even in it he would have shown where there ought to be knots! The other, on the other hand, very quick in his answers, never dodged any question by means of subterfuges, nay he would take either side of a contradiction, or by bringing out the manifold arguments he would teach that there was no one answer. So one was subtle and prolific in questions; the other, clear headed, brief, and apt in his answers. If the qualities of these two had all been combined in any one man, his equal as a disputant would not have been found in our age. For both were sharp-witted and hard students and in my opinion would have become great and famous men in physical studies, if they had built on the great foundation of literature, if they had devoted as much attention to the remains of the ancients as they gave applause to their own inventions. So much for the time in which I heard them. For afterwards one of them going to Bologna unlearned what he used to teach and on his return untaught it‹whether for the better, let those judge who heard him both before and after. The other forsooth becoming proficient in divine letters won the glory of an even higher philosophy and of a more celebrated name. [2] Drilled by them for all of two years, I became so accustomed to allotting places, and to rules, and to the other elementary rudiments with which the minds of boys are instructed and in which the aforesaid doctors were most capable and expeditious, that it seemed to me that I knew all these things as well as my own nails and fingers. Evidently I had learned this: to account my knowledge with youthful levity as of more importance than it was. I thought myself an adept because I was quick in those things that I had heard.
Then coming to myself and measuring my powers, thanks to the kindness of my teachers I straightway betook me to the grammarian of Conches and heard him lecture for three years. Meanwhile I did a great deal of reading, nor shall I ever regret that time. Later on I followed Richard Bishop, a man ignorant of scarcely any science, who had more heart than mouth, more learning than facility, truth than vanity, virtue than ostentation; and what I had heard from others received all again from him and I learned some things which I had not heard pertaining to the quadrivium, on which to some extent I had previously heard Hardewin the Teuton. I reviewed rhetoric too, which before I had understood little of, when with some others I heard it scantily discussed by Master Theodoric. But later I received it more fully from Peter Helias. And inasmuch as I had become the tutor of some nobles' children, who supplied me with a livelihood, destitute as I was of aid from friends and relatives, God relieving my poverty, I was stimulated by the requirements of my position and the urging of the boys to recall more frequently to mind what I had heard. Wherefore I struck up a closer friendship with master Adam, a man of keenest wit and, whatever others may think, of much learning, who applied himself to Aristotle more than the rest. So that, although he was not my master, he kindly gave me the benefit of his learning and showed himself very open with me, which he did to no one else or to very few. For he was thought to be of a jealous disposition.
Meanwhile William of Soissons--who later made an engine to lay siege, as his adherents say, to old-fashioned logic and reach unexpected consequences and destroy the opinions of the ancients--was teaching the first elements of logic, and finally I added him to the preceptor already mentioned. There perhaps he learned that the same is from contradiction, when Aristotle is maligned, because the same when it is and when it is not is not necessarily the same. And also when something is, it is not necessary that it be the same and not be. For nothing comes from contradiction, and it is impossible that contradiction come from anything. Wherefore I could not be induced by the impelling engine of my friend to believe that all impossibles come from one impossible. From this I was withdrawn by the scantiness of my income, the request of my associates, and the advice of friends, to assume the position of a teacher. I obeyed.
Returning at the end of three years I found master Gilbert [3] and heard him lecture on logic and theology, but all too soon he was removed. Robert Pullus succeeded, praiseworthy alike in life and learning. Then Simon of Poissy received me, a conscientious lecturer but dull disputant. But I had these two teachers in theology exclusively. Thus well nigh twelve years slipped by, as I was occupied with varied studies.
So I thought it would be pleasant to revisit the old classmates whon I had left and whom dialectic still detained on the Mount, to confer with them concerning the old problems, and, by comparing notes, measure our respective progress. I found the same men and just where they were, for they neither seemed to have advanced an inch towards solving the old problems, nor had they added a single new one. As teachers they drove with the same goads that drove them a students. In only one respect had they grown proficient: they had un-learned moderation, they knew no modesty, to such a degree that one despaired of their reformation. Thus I learned by experience an evident lesson, that, just as dialectic facilitates other disciplines, so, if studied alone, it remains lifeless and sterile, nor does it stimulate the soul to bear fruits of Philosophy, unless it conceives elsewhere.
[2] R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought, p. 205, commenting upon this passage, says: "Of Robert of Melun he could not now foretell the future, when as bishop of Hereford, twenty-five years later, he proved a prelate after Henry the Second's own heart and a sturdy combatant against the archbishop's party. At present John knows only his achievement' as a theologian, in which quality he was greatly esteemed as a systematic and most orthodox writer."
[3] Gilbert de la Porree left Paris for Poitiers in 1141-1142 and died in 1154. He composed a standard work, The Book of Six Principles (Liber sex principiorum) which treated of the last six of the ten categories, of which Aristotle had discussed only the first four. It was printed accurately in 1479, 1481, and 1484, but in 1496 appeared in a garbled humanistic edition by Hermolaus Barbarus in which the sense of the original was often lost in the attempt to paraphrase it in more elegant Latin. This garbled version came to prevail in most subsequent editions and citations, and was even regarded as a translation from a Greek original. See Haureau, Notices et Extraits, I (1890), 298-301. A recent edition of the Liber de sex principiis is by A. Heysee, O.M., Munich, 1929.
John of Salisbury, Entheticus, lines 42-54, Migne, Patrologia latina 199, 966.
In these lines John of Salisbury satirizes the self-confidence and presumption of the young scholars and teachers of his time.On all sides they shout: "Where is this old donkey going ?
I am a resident of the Petit-Pont,[1] a new author in arts,
And glory that previous discoveries are my own.
What the elders taught, but dear youth knows not yet,
I swear was the invention of my own bosom.
A worshipping crowd of youth surrounds me, and thinks
That when I make grandiloquent boasts, I merely speak the truth."
Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, I, 27-29.
Peter of Blois was a disciple of John of Salisbury and maintained much the same views as his master with regard to the classics and contemporary education. He was on intimate terms with both Henry II of England and William II of Sicily and held high offices in both countries and in the church, but is noted especially as an elegant letter-writer. He did not die until the end of the twelfth century or beginning of the next.To his dearest lord and friend R., archdeacon of Nantes, Pierre de Blois greeting and anything better. The day before yesterday you entrusted two of your nephews to me to educate, the one still a child, the other already past the age of puberty. Now by letter you strongly extol and commend the talent of the older and you assert that you have never found a man of subtler vein. So you beg and urge that timely magisterial vigilance center upon him, for you deem it light to put the finishing touches on that edifice to which another's care has given increment. But the thing really goes the other way. For I hope better things of the education of him who comes to me rude and unformed than from another whose character has already begun to harden and has as it were impressed on itself the stamp of another teacher. Wax and clay and things which are susceptible to moulding are shaped more easily and faithfully to the moulder's will if they have never received the lineaments of form before. Indeed Quintilian says in the book On the Training of the Orator [1] that Timotheus, a famous artist with the flute, was wont to ask double pay from those who had had a previous teacher. ...
You regard William as of subtler vein and acuter genius because omitting grammar and literature he has hastened to the cunning of logic, where he learns dialectic not in books as is customary but in schedules and notebooks. In these there is no foundation for literature, and that subtlety which you extol is harmful to many. For Seneca says: "Naught is more hateful than subtlety, where subtlety is alone." [2] For what good does it do them to spend their days on these things which are of no advantage to anyone at home or in the camp or in the forum or in the cloister or at court or in the church, but only in the schools?
...Some before they are imbued with elementary disciplines are taught to inquire about the point, the line, the surface, the quantity of the soul, fate, the inclination of nature, chance and free will, matter, and motion, the principles of bodies, the progress of multitude and section of magnitude, what time is, what empty space, what pIace de eodem et diverso, of the divisible and individual, of the substance and form of the voice, of the essence of universals, of the origin, use and end of virtues, of the causes of things, of the tides of ocean, of the source of the Nile, of various secrets of latent nature, of various figures of cases which occur in contracts or quasi-contracts, in criminal or quasi-criminal actions, of the first beginnings of things, and many other matters which require a foundation of fuller science and more eminent intellects.
Tender years should first be instructed in rules of the art of grammar, in analogies, in barbarisms, in solecisms, in tropes and schemata. These were the studies on which Donatus, Servius, Priscian, Isidore, Bede and Cassiodorus expended much diligence, which rest assured they would not have done if the foundation of science could be laid without these. For Quintilian, too, who transmits this discipline and asserts it should be transmitted, extols it with such praises that he openly protests that without it the name of science cannot exist. Caius Caesar published books on analogy, knowing that without this science neither prudence, in which he was most perfect, nor eloquence, in which he was most potent, could easily be obtained by anyone. Marcus Tullius as is plain from his frequent letters, diligently invites his son to study grammar which he cherished most tenderly. And what use is it to evolve schedules, to found verbose Summae and invert cunning sophismata, to damn the writings of the ancients, and to reprove everything not found in the syllabi of their masters. It is written, that science is in the ancients. Nor is Jeremiah rescued from the lake till old and worn garments are let down to him by ropes. For one does not ascend from ignorance to the light of science, unless the writings of the ancients are pored over zealously. Jerome glories that he spent much time on the writings of Origen. Horace, too, boasts that he had read and reread Homer,
Who tells what's beautiful, what shameful, what useful,
What not, more plainly and better than Chrisippus and Crantor.[3]
I know that it was of great use to me that, when as a boy I was trained in the art of versification, at the suggestion of the master I took my material not from fables but true history. It was of advantage to me that as an adolescent I was forced to memorize the letters of Hildebert of Le Mans, noted for their elegant style and suave urbanity. Besides certain other books which are celebrated in the schools, it was advantageous to me to inspect frequently Trogus Pompeius, Josephus, Suetonius, Egesippus, Quintus Curtius, Cornelius Tacitus, Titus Livius, who all insert in their histories much for the edification of morals and the perfecting of literary style. I read others too who do not deal with history, whose number is legion, in all whom the diligence of moderns can pluck flowers as it were in a fragrant garden and make for itself the honey of suave urbane speech.
Do not therefore allege further the subtle genius of your nephew William nor impute to me the fault if he does not attain perfection shortly. For a patient is purged before he diets, and according to the opinion of Timotheus, who required double pay for his labor from the disciples of others, what is useless must first be torn up before what is useful is planted. For in her marriage with Mercury, Philology vomits up books of useless science before she merits to be raised to the eminence of desired dignity. [4] Indeed I fear lest the saying of Timotheus be too true, for John now is ahead of William in a certain textbook, the head is turned towards the tail, and if John perseveres in purpose, the junior will supplant the firstborn, and Jacob, Esau.
[2] Epist. 88.
[3] Horace, lib. I, ep. 2.
[4] Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, lib. II.