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

by Reginald Lane Poole

VII. Excursus on the interpretation of a place in John of Salisbury's Metalogicus, i. 24 pp. 784 sq.

1. William of Conches has been generally regarded as a teacher who abandoned the thorough and honest system of the school of Chartres in order to compete with the shallower and more pretentious masters of his day. The ^a Histoire littéraire de la France illustrates this defection by the instance of his work, the Philosophia, which it supposes to be an abridgement of a previous book, the very existence of which the preceding excursus has shown to be more than doubtful. 'Ce qui l'engagea,' we are told, 'de composer cet abrégé, ce fut vraisemblement l'envie de se conformer, ou plutôt la nécessité où il se trouva de céder au torrent des philosophes de son temps, qui décrioient la prolixité de leurs prédécesseurs, et se piquoient de donner toute la philosophie en deux ans. Car il est certain par la témoignage de Jean de Sarisbéri, qu'après avoir longtemps résisté à ces sophistes, il se laissa entraîner par leur exemple, pour ne pas voir déserter son école.' The same statement involves also the character of William's colleague, Richard l'Évêque, and is accordingly repeated under his article in the ^b fourteenth volume of the Histoire. It has become the accepted view in regard to William, and is adopted, to give a single instance, in ^c Ritter's Geschichte der Christlichen Philosophie. It is therefore the more necessary to subject the hypothesis to a close examination.^[1] The part of it, however, concerning the sequence of William's works needs no refutation, since it is directly contradicted by his own ^d statement that he wrote the Philosophia in his youth, many years before John of Salisbury came in contact with him.

2. John of Salisbury's words are as follows:

Ad huius magistri [Bernardi Carnotensis] formam praeceptores mei in grammatica, Gulielmus de Conchis et Richardus cognomento episcopus, officio nunc archidiaconus Constantiensis, vita et conversation vir bonus, suos discipulos aliquandiu informaverunt. Sed postmodum, ex quo opinio veritati praeiudicium fecit et homines videri quam esse philosophi maluerunt, professoresque artium se totam philosophiam brevius quam triennio aut biennio transfusuros auditoribus pollicebantur, impetu multitudinis imperitae victi, cesserunt. Exinde autem minus temporis et diligentiae in grammaticae studio impensum est, etc.

The language is no doubt ambiguous, and everything hangs on the sense we give to cesserunt. We may understand the passage, 'Once they taught well, but after a while they yielded to the rush of incompetent rivals and followed their example;' or equally legitimately, 'Once these worthy successors of Bernard handed on his tradition, but after a while, disgusted with the prevalent method of teaching, they withdrew from the field.' The words will bear either rendering; but John of Salisbury's other evidence about his masters, as well as the incontrovertible language of William of Conches' own writings, can only be reconciled with the second alternative: the first is altogether excluded by the known facts about William and Richard.

3. Taking first the testimony to be drawn from John of Salisbury's writings, we find that Richard l'Évêque remained through life a valued correspondent of his, and ^e was consulted by him on exactly those points of scholarship on which, if Richard's career were as is commonly supposed, John would be the least likely to trust him. William of Conches died before John had become conspicuous in the learned world, but John's recollections of master are uniformly honourable. ^f He couples William's name with those of Gilbert of La Porrée, Abailard, and others of his most respected teachers, just by virtue of William's steady hostility to the empty-headed crammers of his day. John also speaks of the jealousy which William and his friends excited in the latter; but of their yielding in consequence of it there is not a word.

4. It is precisely to these envious detractors that William constantly alludes in the prefaces to that Philosophia which, according to the Histoire littéraire, he condensed in deference to their opinion. The evidence of the prefaces to books i., ii., and iii. bears directly on the point; that of the two former, which I quote, is especially pertinent:

^g Multos tamen nomen magistri sibi usurpantes, non solum hoc agere sed etiam aliis sic esse agendum iurantes, cognoscimus, nihil quippe de philosophia scientes, aliquid se nescire confiteri erubescentes, sive imperitiae solatium quaerentes, ea quae nesciunt nullius utilitatis minus cautis praedicant.

^h Quamvis multos ornatum verborum quaerere, paucos veritatem scire [al. scientiae] cognoscamus, nihil tamen de multitudine sed de paucorum probitate gloriantes, soli veritati insudamus.

Another passage answers the allegation of the Histoire littéraire in a curiously exact manner. Speaking of the duties of a teacher, William says:

ⁱ Sed si amore scientiae ad docendum accesserit, nec propter invidiam doctrinam subtrahet; nec ut aliquid extorqueat, veritatem cognitam fugiet; nec si deficiet multitudo sociorum, desinet; sed ad instructionem sui et aliorum vigil et diligens erit.

These quotations, I repeat, are taken from a work which, we are asked to believe, was shortened in concession to the rage for short and easy methods.

5. At a considerably later date William wrote the Dragmaticon, and in this the protests against the fashionable tendency are if possible stronger than in the Philosophia. One ironical reference to the author's constitutional dulness and incapacity to understand things after long thought, which his pretentious rivals professed to grasp in a moment, has been ^k already quoted. ^l In another he complains of the way in which the teachers of his time have lost credit among their scholars. Both he says are in fault; for to establish confidence one needs two things, knowledge and uprightness:

Quia igitur omnes fere contemporanei nostri sine his duobus officium docendi aggrediuntur, causa sunt quare sibi minus credatur. Discipuli enim culpa non carent, qui relicta Pythagoricae doctrinae forma (qua constitutum erat discipulum septem annis audire et credere, octavo demum anno interrogare), ex quo scholas intrant, antequam sedeant, et interrogant, imo (quod deterius est) iudicant; unius vero anni spacio negligenter studentes, totam sapientiam sibi cessisse putantes, arreptis ab ea panniculis, vento garrulitatis et superbiae pleni, pondere rei vacui abeunt: et cum a suis parentibus vel ab aliis audiuntur, in verbis eorum parum aut nihil utilitatis perpenditur; statimque quod hoc solum a magistris acceperint, creditur undo magistri authoritas minuitur.

6. The words of John of Salisbury, as I construe them, read precisely as an echo of what we now find to have been the consistent attitude towards learning and teaching maintained by William alike in his earliest and in his latest works. It is right to add that I was led to my interpretation of the passage in dispute, by a comparison of John of Salisbury's different references to William of Conches and Richard l'Évêque, and before I had entered upon the examination of William's own writings. It may be doubted whether the common view which I combat would ever have been suggested, far less accepted, had the historians of medieval literature taken the trouble to acquaint themselves personally with the books they describe.

1. The only writer I have found who interprets the passage of John of Salisbury as I do, is M. Léon Maitre, Écoles épiscopales et monastiques 209; but he does not seem to be aware of the difference of opinion that has arisen on the point.