Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought and Learning/Appendix VI

by Reginald Lane Poole

VI. Excursus on the Writings of William of Conches.

1. The number and attribution of the works of William of Conches have always been a standing puzzle in medieval bibliography. It has already been stated that the book which forms the subject of the preceding excursus, and which has been confused among the editions of the venerable Bede, William of Hirschau, and Honorius of Autun, is now generally ascribed to William of Conches. But it will be best to assume nothing about it until we have gathered sufficient evidence to warrant a certain conclusion. All William's productions hang so closely together that the proof that one of them is his involves all the rest: and if the following investigation goes over a good deal of ground which has already been covered by previous bibliographers, it does not in all points arrive at the same results as they have done.

2. The book that may serve as a foundation for our inquiry is the Dialogus de Substantiis physicis ante annos ducentos conjectus a Wilhelmo aneponymo philosopho, published in octavo at Strasburg in 1567.^[1] The editor, G. Gratarolo, a Basle physician, who discovered the book in Italy, apparently at Padua, took it (as appears from the title-page) to be a composition of the fourteenth century: the internal evidence, however, is decisive on this head. The dialogue is held between the author and a certain dux Normannorum et comes Andegavensium, a style by which only two persons could possibly be designated. One is Geoffrey the Fair, the husband of the empress Matilda, from the year 1143 or 1144, until his resignation of the duchy in 1150^[2]; the other is his son, our king Henry the Second, from the latter date until his accession to the English throne. Henry, however, is excluded^[3] by the ⁱ mention of the education of the duke's sons, since he only married in 1152. It may be observed that the belief that Henry was intended, combined with the mistaken inference from ^k John of Salisbury that William was about the year 1138 a teacher at Paris, plainly originated the fable which we read in ⁱ Oudin, that Henry the Second olim in curia regis Franciae enutritus et litteris in Parisiensi academia initiatus sub Guillelmo fuerat. The same passage which shows that Henry was not the interlocutor in the dialogue helps to fix the composition of the work within narrower limits. In te tamen, says William, et in filiis tuis aliquid spei consistit; quos non, ut alii, ludo alearum sed studio literarum, tenera aetate imbuisti: cuius odorem diu servabunt. The dialogue was written therefore some time, probably some years, before Henry was of an age to be knighted, in 1149; and we shall not be far wrong if we place it about the year 1145.

3. The author describes himself at the opening of the sixth book:

^m Ea autem quae a magistris, dux serenissime, multotiens audivi, atque omnia quae recordatione usque ad meditationem memoriae commendavi, et ut firmius verba retinerem (quae irrevocabilia volant) stili officio designavi, et iam quae per viginti annos et eo amplius alios docui, adhuc vix plene et perfecte intelligo, vixque intellecta propriis et apertis verbis explicare valeo: et unde mihi tam hebes ingenium, tam rnodica memoria, tam imperfecta eloquentia? an quia in patria vervecum^[4] crassoque sub äere Nordmanniae sum natus? alios affirmare audio non solum minima, sed etiam maxima, quae nunquam a magistris audierunt, per se intellexisse, nihilque esse tam inusitatum, tam difficile, quod si sibi ostensum fuerit, statim non intelligant atque expedite alios doceant.

The passage therefore tells us what William's native country was,—and we have only to add the concordant testimony of ⁿ all the known manuscripts of the work, which bear any title, to identify the place as a matter of certainty with Conches;—it tells us also the author's age, as having been a teacher since about 1120–1125, besides some other particulars about him to which we shall return hereafter.

4. Walter of Saint Victor in his polemic against the opinions of Abailard, Gilbert of La Porrée, Peter Lombard, and Peter of Poitiers, written about the year 1180, expressly mentions, in his fourth book, William of Conches as having adopted the Epicurean doctrine of atoms: Quae forte Democritus cum Epicuro suo atomos vocat. Inde Willielmus de Conchis ex atomorum, id est, minutissimorum corporum, concretione fieri omnia. The passage occurs among the copious extracts from Walter given by ^o du Boulay, and the reference is to the dialogue i. pp. 25 sqq.:

Sunt igitur in unoquoque corpore minima, quae simul iuncta unum magnum constituunt. Haec a nobis dicuntur elementa.

The interlocutor here objects, Ut mihi videtur, in sententiam Epicureorum furtim relaberis, qui dixerunt mundum constare ex atomis: to which the author replies,

Nulla est tam falsa secta quae non habeat aliquid veri admixtum; sed tamen illud admixtione cuiusdam falsi obfuscatur. In hoc vero quod dixerunt Epicurei, mundum constare ex atomis, vere dixerunt: sed in hoc quod dixerunt, illas atomos sine principio fuisse, et diversas, permagnum et magne volitasse, deinde in quatuor magna corpora coactas fuisse, fabula est.^[5]

5. In most manuscripts the work is called the Dragmaticon Philosophiae, 'dragmaticon' being a synonym of 'dialogus'. ^p Ducange quotes a sentence describing it as 'a work conducted by means of question and answer,' and ^q Dr. Schaarschmidt, who does not profess to have seen the dialogue with which we are concerned, rightly corrects the title into Dramaticon. William, as it happens, himself explains the source of the title:

^r Sed quia, similitude orationis mater est satietatis, satietas fastidii, nostram orationem dragmatice distinguemus. Tu igitur, dux serenissime, interroga: philosophus sine nomine ad interrogata respondeat.

The published book was edited from a comparison of two manuscripts, one of which bore yet another title. The preface is headed 'Authoris Wilhelmi in suam Secundariam praefatio: nam hoc eius nomen fuit et haec libri inscriptio, ut ex antique exemplari constat.' Possibly therefore the printed title De Substantiis physicis is an insertion of the editor. From the Secundaria we pass to a fourth title, namely, Secunda Philosophia, which appears in two manuscripts of the Staats- und Hof-Bibliothek at Munich. A fifth designation is found in a manuscript, nr xcv, of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, dating, according to Coxe's Catalogue, from the thirteenth century: 'Gulielmi de Conchis, alias Shelley, Universalis Philosophiae Libri III. per modum dialogi,' &c. Sixthly, in one of the Digby manuscripts in the Bodleian library, nr cvii, the work is entitled Summa Magistri Willelmi de Conchis super naturalibus Quaestionibus et Responsionibus, &c. In the following pages I shall cite the book as the Dragmaticon.

6. We have now to inquire in what way it bears upon the other works of its author. Here its testimony is precise and unambiguous. It is a new edition of a former work entitled Philosophia, modified in concession, as would appear, to certain complaints on the score of heresy; and the passages thus altered or expunged are to be found in that work which in the preceding excursus was recognised under the different names of Bede, William of Hirschau, and Honorius of Autun. It is also known that ^s objections were raised to a work of William of Conches, entitled the Philosophia, which objections are substantially the same with those enumerated in the following paragraph of the Dragmaticon. I have inserted in the margin the corresponding places in the Philosophia.

After announcing the subject of his treatise William proceeds:

^t Est tamen de eadem materia libellus noster qui Philosophia inscribitur, quem in iuventute nostra imperfectum, utpote imperfecti, composuimus; in quo veris falsa admiscuimus, multaque necessaria praetermisimus. Est igitur nostrum consilium, quae in eo vera sunt hic apponere, falsa damnare, praetermissa supplere. Falsa vero illa quae contra fidem catholicam nobis in eo videntur esse, ante auspicium dictionis, nominatim damnare dignum duximus. Unde omnes qui ilium habent libellum rogamus quatenus ea nobiscum damnent et exterminent. Verba enim non faciunt haereticum sed defensio.

^u In illo diximus, in divinitate esse tria, potentiam, sapientiam, voluntatem: potentiam esse patrem, sapientiam esse filium, voluntatem spiritum sanctum. Sed quod dictum est de potentia quod sit pater, de voluntate quod sit spiritus sanctus, etsi possit quoquo modo defendi, tamen quia nec in evangelio nec in scripturis sanctorum patrum illud invenimus, propter illud apostoli damnamus, Prophanas novitates verbonim devita. De sapientia quod sit filius, non damnamus, cum apostolus dicat Christum dei virtutem et dei sapientiam.

^v In eodem conati sumus ostendere quomodo pater genuit filium, illudque quod dictum est, Generationem eius quis ennarabit? ideo esse dictum quod sit difficile, non quia impossible: hoc iterum damnamus, et aliis damnandum esse pronunciamus.

^w Cum in eodem de creatione primi hominis loqueremur, diximus deum non ex Adam vel ex costa foeminam fecisse, sed ex limo qui coniunctus illi fuerat, ex quo viri corpus plasmaverat; ideoque translatitie esse dictum quod ex costa Adae facta sit foemina: hoc iterum damnamus damnandumque iudicamus, sanctae et divinae scripturae consentientes quae ait quod immisso sopore in Adam tulit deus unam costam de costis eius, ex qua materialiter corpus mulieris plasmavit.

Haec sunt igitur quae in illo libro damnamus.

7. There is therefore no doubt that the early work of William of Conches to which reference is here made, is that same production which forms the subject of the preceding excursus and which, according to ^x Dr. Wagenmann, actually bears the specific title of Philosophia Willihelmi Magistri in a Stuttgart manuscript.^[6] Of this the Dragmaticon is in fact a new edition, rewritten and cast in the form of a dialogue. The substantial agreement of the two has been already pointed out by professor Karl Werner in the ^y Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften at Vienna. This point being established it remains to apply the evidence thus obtained to clear up the other disputed facts in William's bibliography. One of these may be cursorily mentioned before we attack more serious difficulties.

In the Philosophia i. 15, quoted ^z above, there is a reference to glossulis nostris super Platonem, a reference which ^a Cousin easily discovered in a Paris manuscript of which he gives extracts. Knowing however only the 'Honorius' recension of the Philosophia, which is in its turn referred to as 'nostra Philosophia,' in the glosses in question, Cousin supposed that the latter were by Honorius of Autun, because he failed to observe the identity of the presumed Honorius with that printed as Bede; which latter ^b he rightly attributed to William of Conches.^[7] The glosses themselves are on the Timaeus, and abound in silent allusions to William's other works. Some of the definitions, those, for instance, of ^c philosophia and ingenium, occur verbally in the ^d Philosophia or the ^e Dragmaticon;^[8] but I am inclined to think that the quotation from the Dragmaticon is only apparent, and really comes from the Philosophia which ^f we have seen to be a fragment as we now have it. If this be so the Philosophia and the Timaeus glosses may have been written about the same time and naturally contain cross-references.

To this same early date are evidently also assignable a set of annotations on Boëthius's Consolation of Philosophy,^[9] of which extracts have been printed by ^g Jourdain, and which ^h the editor claims to be the first real Commentary, as distinguished from formal glosses, with the partial exception of that of Bovo of Corvey, devoted to the favourite author of the middle ages.^[10]

8. Two other works of William of Conches, the Secunda Philosophia and the Tertia Philosophia, are described in the twelfth volume of the Histoire littéraire de la France. They remain in manuscript at Paris; but specimens, some chapters at length, and tables of contents, are printed by ⁱ Cousin. The first, ^k we are told, is a dialogue on anthropology between a master and a disciple; the second, also a dialogue, is an abridgement of the author's system of cosmography, derived from the Philosophia. Had however Cousin been acquainted with the Dragmaticon he would probably have suspected that this was the immediate source, and would have found that D. stands not for discipulus but for dux, the duke of Normandy to whom the work is dedicated. Moreover these works are not abridgements at all. The one is a literal transcript of part of the Dragmaticon, the other is a set of disconnected extracts from it. The latter is taken from different parts of books ii.–vi., and leaves off just before the point from which the former is transcribed. Of course it is impossible to speak with absolute certainty from Cousin's specimens, but the following details of collation suggest a sufficiently plain inference.^[11]

The Secunda Philosophia begins with the words Dicendum est, &c., which introduce the section on animals occupying the major part of the sixth book of the ^l Dragmaticon. The extracts which Cousin gives represent with trivial variants the identical text of the corresponding passages in the Dragmaticon, and the order of the thirty-five chapters is exactly the same. The two copies end with the same words.

The Tertia Philosophia contains ten chapters of which Cousin has printed the first. This is simply a set of extracts from the Dragmaticon. I take the sentences as they follow. Mundum... extra quem nihil est will be found in the Dragmaticon, ii. p. 41; Nota quod tempore Martii... moritur, in lib. iv. pp. 123 sq.; Nota: dicit Constantinus... pessima, in lib. iv. pp. 127 sq.; Verbi gratia... iudica, in lib. iv. p. 128; Nota: in autumno... periclitantur homines, on the same page. Chapters ii.–ix. from their headings correspond to passages in the fourth and fifth books of the Dragmaticon; chapter x. to something near the beginning of the sixth. The extracts speak for themselves: the Tertia Philosophia is nothing more than a note-book of selections from the Dragmaticon.

Such are the ^m 'valuable fragments' from which later scholars have drawn. Beyond insignificant various readings they add nothing to what was already printed in a complete form in 1567.^[12] William's original works therefore (excluding his glosses) are now reduced to two: the early Philosophia and the corrected edition of the same, the Dragmaticon. Is there a third to be added?

9. The literary historians speak of a Magna de Naturis Philosophia by William of Conches as having been printed in folio, without place or date, about the year 1474. * This is a statement which has grown up by several stages. Josias Simler in his Epitome of Gesner's Bibliotheca, published at Zurich in 1574, says on p. 254^a that William

scripsit philosophiam universalem lib. i. De naturis inferiorum, seu philosophiam primam lib. i. De superiorum naturis, seu philosophiam secundam lib. i. Sunt autem duo magna volumina, ante multos annos impressa.

Then ⁿ Possevinus spoke of a work by William super Opere sex Dierum, of which he had seen only the volume beginning with book xix. His description leaves no doubt that the work he mentions is the second volume of Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum naturale in the edition, s. l. aut a., presumed to have been printed at Strasburg in 1468^[13] or 1473 (not in that of Nuremberg, assigned to the year 1483, and also in folio). The first page of this volume begins book xix. (after the table of contents) with an extract from William of Conches, headed conspicuously: De opere sexte diei. Et primo de animalibus. Guillerinus de conchis. This is the very title which has been constantly repeated as William's by the ^o bibliographers, and which even M. Hauréau ^p once sought to restore to the catalogue of William's writings.^[14] In 1722 ^q Casimir Oudin connected the description given by Possevinus with the statement in the Epitome of Gesner.

Scripsit igitur Guillelmus de Conchis Magnam de naturis Philosophiam, desumptam ferme verbotenus ex Operibus veterum Ecclesiae Patrum.

It was a book of extracts systematically arranged. But Oudin, too, had only seen the second volume printed without date or place about 1474. The same work manifestly is intended by J. A. Fabricius, when he says of William of Conches:

^r Prodiit etiam sub tempus nascentis typographiae Philosophia eius maior de naturis creaturarum superiorum, sive super opere sex dierum libri. xxxiii. duobus maioribus in folio voluminibus rarissime obviis, excusisque sine anni nota locive.

The authors of the ^s Histoire littéraire de la France complicated the matter by erroneously asserting that Fabricius spoke of the book as in three volumes and confused it with the work of Vincent of Beauvais. Fabricius said two volumes, of which the second is beyond doubt the second volume of the Speculum naturale. The probable inference is that the first volume of which Possevinus, Fabricius, and the authors of the Histoire littéraire were unable to find a copy, was likewise the first volume of the Speculum.

10. These last writers state, with Oudin, that the book contained little original matter, being mainly compiled by means of extracts from the fathers. Nevertheless they regard it as the source from which (a) the Philosophia, (b) the Secunda Philosophia, and (c) the Tertia Philosophia, were successively abridged; a statement which has been repeated by ^t Cousin and others. Even the accurate Hauréau, who had the Dragmaticon before him, said in the first edition of his ^u Philosophie scolastique, that the Secunda and Tertia Philosophia 'paraissent avoir été faits pour venir à la suite de celui que nous venons de nommer,' the Magna de Naturis Philosophia; 'si, toutefois,' he adds, 'ils n'en forment pas une partie.' ^x It has further been asserted that the great work was largely used by Vincent of Beauvais in his Speculum naturale; but all the extracts from William which I have met with in it are taken either from the Philosophia or the Dragmaticon.^[15]

11. The character of the supposed Magna de Naturis Philosophia, as described, is in itself such as to arouse suspicion. For in William's known writings we do not find very many patristic quotations. His authorities are Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle, Cicero, Pliny, Ptolemy, Galen, Solinus, Macrobius, Boëthius, Constantine, etc.; he draws illustrations from Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Seneca, Juvenal. But engaged as he was in the pursuit of natural philosophy and natural history, he had small occasion to quote the fathers, and his references to them seem to be limited to Augustin, Ambrose, Gregory, and Bede. In fact he expressly declares his independence, as a philosopher, of the fathers. In eis, he says, quae ad fidem catholicam vel ad morum institutionem pertinent, non est fas Bedae vel alicui alii sanctorum patrum (citra scripturae sacrae authoritatem) contradicere: in eis tamen quae ad philosophiam pertinent, si in aliquo errant, licet diversum affirmare. This statement occurs in the ^y Dragmaticon, a work which we have seen to be scrupulously modified in deference to orthodox objections. It is therefore the less likely that, even before his plain-spoken Philosophia, William should have written a great philosophical work chiefly constructed of select passages from the fathers. Besides, if such be the nature of this Magna Philosophia, how can it contain the material which he subsequently, ex hypothesi, 'abridged', so as to form the Philosophia as we know it? The latter, as I believe on account of this assumed chronological arrangement, the authors of the Histoire littéraire designate the Philosophia minor, a title, however, which they do not assert to be found in any manuscript or edition of it.^[16] I believe further that the entire basis of their theory rests on a misunderstanding of a passage in John of Salisbury, on which I shall comment in the ensuing excursus.

12. I have spoken of the Magna de Naturis Philosophia on the authority of those who profess to have seen the book and who declare that it bears this title ^z 'in most of the manuscripts.' But since writing this and the foregoing excursus I have had the advantage of reading M. Hauréau's admirable criticism contained in the eighth chapter of his Singularités historiques et littéraires.^[17] He there states positively that no such manuscript exists in France, nor to his knowledge elsewhere. Accordingly he conjectures that the bibliographers mistook some other book, published about the same time, for William of Conches's; and he suggests that the book in question is the De Universo of William of Auvergne. The precise identification will not serve, but there can be little doubt—as I think, a confusion with the Speculum naturale—that some blunder of this kind originated the whole theory which, it has already appeared, is so difficult to reconcile with the known facts about William of Conches.

1. This at least is the date that appears in the two copies of this very rare work that I have used, one in the Stadtbibliothek at Zurich and the other in the Bodleian library. It has been repeatedly given as 1566; see the Histoire littéraire de la France 12. 464, and Hauréau, Singularités historiques et littéraires 246.
2. [See C. H. Haskins, Norman institutions 130; 1918.]
3. This, I see, is observed by M. Hauréau, Singularités, 232 sq., who also notices the source of the statement that Henry was William's pupil at Paris; although I do not find that he disputes the story that John of Salisbury heard the latter there. Compare, however, above, p. 181 n. 6.
4. The edition reads Vernecum for vervecum, as though it were a proper name: the reference, however, to Juvenal, Sat. x. 49, 50, is obvious,

   Summos posse viros et magna exempta daturos

   Vervecum in patria crassoque sub äere nasci.

   M. Hauréau had the right reading in his manuscript, and translates 'la patrie des béliers,' p. 231. [It is found also in the Arundel MS. 377 f. 131 in the British Museum.]

5. Dr. Reuter verifies Walter's citation in that work which is the subject of the foregoing excursus, and which, for reasons that will appear immediately, I shall cite simply as the Philosophia. He says, Geschichte der religiösen Aufklärung in Mittelalter 2. 309 n. 28, that it occurs there in book i. ch. 21 (Honorius, pp. 999 g–1001 c); but in that passage there appears neither the reference to Epicurus nor the word 'atoms,' while both are found in the dialogue. The authors of the Histoire littéraire de la France were unable to find the reference in any of William's writings, vol. 12. 456.
6. The work also, according to M. Hauréau, Singularités, 237 sq., bears the name of William of Conches in two Paris manuscripts; the titles added to the name, Tractatus Philosophiae and Philosophia are modern. M. Hauréau, pp. 240 sq., takes the same argument as I have done from the Dragmaticon.
7. In his later edition, entitled Fragments philosophiques 2. 355, Cousin still only goes so far as to say that the glosses on the Timaeus 'pourraient bien être de Guillaume de Conches.'
8. See other examples in Hauréau, Singularités, 244.
9. At least they contain a precise declaration of a doctrine which William may be presumed to have withdrawn with his other impeached errors. See the quotation, above, p. 151, n. 11.
10. The manuscript which contains the glosses on the Timaeus includes a fragmentary commentary on Priscian, which M. Hauréau, pp. 244 sq., conjectures is also by William.
11. M. Hauréau in his Singularités still clings to the idea of these works being independent productions. I may, however, take leave to doubt whether this distinguished scholar had always the Dragmaticon itself before him. At least it is certain that every reference he makes to the Secunda Philosophia occurs, just as Cousin's do, in the Dragmaticon [e. g. ch. xviii. (Hauréau, p. 252) = Dragm. p. 281; ch. xxx. (Hauréau, p. 252 n. 2) = Dragm. p. 306]: and not in the fourth book of the Philosophia, as M. Hauréau says (p. 241), nor anywhere else in that work. The substance may be there very possibly, though Cousin's excerpts contain much that is definitely not there; but the form is that of a dialogue, and this fact alone decides the point. M. Hauréau speaks (p. 247) of the Dragmaticon as borrowing from the Secunda Philosophia; but when the smaller work is contained verbatim (within the limits of scriptural aberration) in the greater, we need not be long in deciding which is the original and which the extract. With regard to the Tertia Philosophia M. Hauréau says little (p. 248), and does not seem to suspect that it is in fact derived from the Dragmaticon.
12. I have already stated, above §5, that the title Secunda Philosophia is also borne by the complete Dragmaticon itself. The manuscripts thus entitled Dr. Reuter described as containing an entirely different work from Cousin's Secunda Philosophia, Geschichte der religiösen Aufklärung 2. 309 n. 30. What he quotes however certainly exists in the printed Dragmaticon, and I make no doubt that had Dr. Reuter read the manuscripts further he would have found all Cousin's extracts there, as I have found them in the printed text. Moreover he misread Cousin, Ouvrages inédits d'Abélard, 669, and applied what the latter said of the Tertia Philosophia to the Secunda. Here he was no doubt misled by M. Hauréau, who speaks, p. 241, of part of the Secunda Philosophia being borrowed directly from the Philosophia, book iv. The immediate source is incontestably the Dragmaticon, though the substance may often agree with that of the Philosophia. See preceding note.
13. It is attributed to Mentelin's press under this date by Robert Proctor, Index to early printed Books, No. 255; 1898 quarto. Both volumes are in the Bodleian library, Auct. Q sub fen. 4, 5.
14. In correcting this mistake (which is repeated by cardinal Pitra, Spicileg. Solesm. 2. 188, Paris 1855 quarto), M. Hauréau has fallen into a new one, in speaking, Singularités 236 sq., of the original as the Speculum historiale, in which what little is said about the sixth day of creation occurs in bk. ii. (misnumbered i.) ch. 38, and bk. xix. (opening with the history of Honorius) does not begin a volume.
15. For instance in book xxxii. 77, Vincent cites the latter as 'Guilhermus de Conchis' without further specification, and then adds a quotation from the Philosophia as 'Ex libro de natura rerum.'
16. William excuses the imperfections of this book by the plea that, 'studiis docendi occupati, parum spacii ad scribendum habeamus,' lib. iii. praef. (Bed. 2. 330; Hon., p. 1010 b). This is scarcely the way in which an author would speak of abridgement.
17. M. Hauréau's essay, I have lately found, is in the main an enlargement of his article on William of Conches in the twenty-second volume of the Nouvelle Biographie générale, pp. 667–673; 1858.