Happiness, Contemplative Life, and the tria genera hominum in Twelfth-Century Philosophy: Peter Abelard and John of Salisbury

Quaestio ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 73-98
Author(s):  
Luisa Valente
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
John Of Salisbury ◽  
Peter Abelard ◽  
Contemplative Life

Peter Abelard, Heloise and Jewish Biblical Exegesis in the Twelfth Century

2010 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19
Author(s):  
CONSTANT J. MEWS ◽  
MICHA J. PERRY
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
Peter Abelard ◽  
Jewish Scholar ◽  
1 Samuel

This paper revisits the question of the influence of Jewish biblical exegesis on Christian scholars in twelfth-century France, by focusing in particular on Abelard's response to a question of Heloise in herProblemataabout questions raised by1 Samuel ii.35–6 (=1 Regum ii.35–6)concerning ‘the faithful priest’ prophesied as Eli's successor, the meaning of ‘will walk before my anointed’ and the nature of the offering his household should make. Abelard's discussion of the views of an unnamed Jewish scholar illustrates a consistent movement evident in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries for certain Christian exegetes to approach Jewish scholars to resolve problems posed by the text of the Old Testament. While the passage in1 Samuelwas traditionally interpreted in a Christocentric fashion, Heloise implicitly supports a more historical reading of the text in the question she puts to Abelard. The Jewish scholar's interpretation reported by Abelard is very close to that of Rashi's twelfth-century disciples.

Isaac of Stella (d. c.1177)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winthrop Wetherbee
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Spiritual Psychology ◽  
Contemplative Life ◽  
Cosmic Model

Like other twelfth-century Cistercians, Isaac of Stella was well versed in secular learning. Centrally engaged with the contemplative life, he expresses his spiritual insights in terms of the science of his day, and combines a spiritual psychology derived from Johannes Scottus Eriugena and Hugh and Richard of St Victor with an anthropology grounded in Stoic physics, Greek and Arab medicine, and a cosmic model derived from Plato’s Timaeus. A unifying theme of his writings is the relation between the physical and spiritual dimensions of human experience.

The ‘Entheticus’ of John of Salisbury: A Critical Text

Traditio ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 127-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald E. Pepin
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
British Museum ◽  
John Of Salisbury ◽  
University Library ◽  
Critical Text ◽  
Standard Edition ◽  
The University ◽  
Editio Princeps

The Entheticus de dogmate philosophorum of John of Salisbury has come down to us in three manuscripts: a twelfth-century codex in the British Museum (Royal 13. D. IV); a fourteenth-century manuscript in the University Library at Cambridge (Ii. II. 31); a seventeenth-century codex now located in the Staatsbibliothek, Berlin (Hamburg Cod. Phil. 350). The editio princeps was published by Christian Petersen (Hamburg 1843), and it has remained the standard edition. However, important deficiencies in that work have made a complete re-examination of the text necessary.

John of Salisbury and His Brothers

1995 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Barlow
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Intimate Relationship ◽  
John Of Salisbury ◽  
The Church

The church of Exeter, although geographically remote from the centres of royal and ecclesiastical power in England, was in the twelfth century in no way isolated. The rule of the important royal clerk and ambassador, William de Warelwast (1107–37), destroyed its provincialism and much of its archaism; and in the second half of the century a connection with the church of Salisbury led to the influx of some interesting men. It may be that the intimate relationship with Canterbury, inaugurated by the election of Bartholomew, Archbishop Theobald'sformer clerk, to Exeter in 1161, and repaid by the final location of the Exeter clerk Baldwin on the primatial throne in 1184, was the more rewarding for both. But the seemingly largely one-way contribution of Salisbury to Exeter is just as interesting.

Abelard’s Rib: Dialectics of a Twelfth-Century Monastic Marriage and the Historical Epistemology of Spirituality

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-89
Author(s):  
Babette S. Hellemans
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
Peter Abelard ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
To Come ◽  
Marital Love ◽  
The One

This article proposes to describe the oxymoronic aspect of twelfth-century ascetic life, as it is couched in the semantics of marital ‘love-talk.’ By extending Christian asceticism to the field of marital semantics, I hope to come closer to a more intellectual kind of spirituality, situated in the philosophical discourse of the ars dialectica. While it is commonplace to state that affective speech in the twelfth century is a constitutive element of Western ‘spirituality’—up to the point that this period is sometimes credited with being the founder of an individual love-talk—the nature of a ‘matrimonial’ love-speech firmly located within monastic walls is far from self-evident. Furthermore, there is the issue of physical desire in both Christian worship (hymns, liturgy) and reflective, religious language. This ‘incarnation’ of love inside the history of Christianity was coined by the twelfth-century reformer and intellectual Bernard of Clairvaux in the most tangible terms possible, especially in his Sermons on the Song of Songs and in his devotional texts on Mary. However, it is not a broad claim with regard to the status of ‘spirituality’ within history that dominates the present article. If anything, this contribution could be characterized as exploring the opposite of the common semantics of spirituality: the argumentative and dialectical speech on the one hand and the fragility of poetry on the other, glooming beneath the surface of a meandering Christian tradition. My analysis of the work of Peter Abelard (1079–1142)—a fierce opponent of Bernard—will demonstrate a rather radical view of ‘spirituality’ as a sometimes veiled (integementum) and sometimes shattered specimen of medieval love-talk.

The contents and affiliation of the scientific manuscripts written at, or brought to, Chartres in the time of John of Salisbury

1994 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 127-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Burnett
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
John Of Salisbury ◽  
New Science ◽  
Scientific Learning

In the debate over the state of cathedral schools and their displacement as centres of learning by the rising universities, the case of Chartres has, for nearly a century, excited the most attention. Much has been written on, first, whether the activity of several prominent intellectuals of the twelfth century such as Thierry, William of Conches and Gilbert of Poitiers was primarily at Chartres or at Paris; and, secondly, whether the thought of ‘Chartrian’ masters is old-fashioned or open to the profound changes which effected twelfth-century scientific learning. These changes resulted largely from the introduction of works translated from Greek and Arabic during that century. In this paper I try to clarify the situation at Chartres itself by summing up the evidence from the manuscripts known to have been in the cathedral library in the twelfth century of the degree to which this ‘new science’ was received there, and how it was assimilated.

John of Salisbury and William of Malmesbury: currents in twelfth-century humanism

1994 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 117-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
John Of Salisbury ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
William Of Malmesbury

In their excellent little book Scribes and Scholars Reynolds and Wilson comparejohn of Salisbury and William of Malmesbury as classicists. The fact that the two men have never before been so compared, and the fact that even Reynolds’s and Wilson’s account contains a good many errors, shows how much is yet to be learned about the humanistic scholarship of the twelfth century. William and John are comparable in a number of ways, but most particularly in their interest in Greco-Latin antiquity: it is central to their scholarship, it is a major preoccupation in their works, it provides a key (and if we add biblical and patristic antiquity as well, the key) to their thinking about their contemporary world.

William of Champeaux (c.1070–c.1120)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin M. Tweedale
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Peter Abelard ◽  
University Of Paris ◽  
The University

William studied under Anselm of Laon and became one of a number of famous teachers of logic, rhetoric, grammar and theology in early twelfth-century France, teachers who helped to establish the schools which eventually turned into the University of Paris. He is perhaps best known for his dispute with his young pupil Peter Abelard over the reality of universals, a debate which William lost so badly that most of his students elected to be taught by Abelard instead.

The Council of Sens Reconsidered: Masters, Monks, or Judges?

2005 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 460-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim Verbaal
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Peter Abelard

The Council of Sens (May 25, 1141), during which the teaching of Peter Abelard († 1143) was condemned by an ecclesiastical court, has long been one of the most disputed subjects in twelfth-century scholarship. The outcome of the Council, understood as a victory for Bernard of Clairvaux († 1153) over master Abelard, bequeathed us centuries of distorted historical interpretation. For far too long, understanding of what happened was firmly based on the account given by Bernard's biographers, in the first place his secretary (and adoring admirer) Geoffrey of Auxerre, who related the confrontation between Bernard and Abelard in his contribution to the hagiographical biography of the abbot. Not unnaturally, the Vita places Bernard at the center of his time, making him the dominant figure of the twelfth century. Thus no doubt was admissible concerning Abelard's heresy and Bernard's right and justice in condemning him.

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