Martin's at Tours, and identifies Adalbert's correspondent with Herman, the abbot of that establishment till 1136. The editor in Migne calls this Adalbert ‘Scolasticus Mettensis,’ and boldly assigns the year 879 as the date of his death.
Though the author of the ‘Speculum’ can hardly have been a native of Spalding, yet there may have been an ‘Adalbertus Spaldingensis’ who was the author of the ‘Homiliæ’ mentioned by Bale and Pits; and the testimony of these two writers may then be accepted as regards his character and the age in which he lived.
Bale, Scriptorum Catalogus, i. 205; Pits, Rel. Hist. de Reb. Angl. 225; Tanner, Bibl. Brit. Præfat. xxvii, and under Adalbert; Leland's Collect. iii. 32; Martene's Anecdota, i. 83, 84; Mabillon's Analecta, i. 132; Migne's Curs. Patrolog. cxxxvi. 1309, ccxviii. 402.]
ADAM Anglicus is identified by Tanner with Adam Angligena [see Adam Angligena]. Quetif, on the other hand, contends that he is none other than Adam Goddam, and in support of his position quotes the opening words of the so-called Adam Anglicus, ‘Commentarii in Magistri Sententias,’ which are almost exactly the same as the commencement of a similar treatise written by Adam Goddam as given by Wadding [see Goddam, Adam]. The very name of Adam Anglicus is unknown to Leland; but in Bale this author appears as ‘Adamus Scholasticus,’ and is by him assigned to the Dominican order on the authority of Peter Vincentinus (Bandellus), who describes him as maintaining that the Virgin Mary was born in original sin. But Bale's argument is very fallacious; for many of the writers cited by Bandellus, though adhering to the doctrines which in later times were so strongly upheld by the Dominicans, were most certainly not themselves members of that brotherhood. Indeed, it is part of Bandellus's argument to show what was the orthodox and early creed of the church on the above question; and so far is his list of names from being one of Dominicans exclusively, that we have the name of Maurice, bishop of Paris, quoted on the opposite page, and, only a few leaves before, that of Alcuin—both of whom flourished before the Dominican order was instituted; while just above the name of Adam Anglicus comes that of the fierce enemy of both the great mendicant orders, Richard Fitzralph, the archbishop of Armagh. Pits's account, which is plainly based upon that of Bale, adds to the list of his works certain ‘Quæstiones Ordinariæ;’ but in this assertion too he is merely following Bale, who gives us the additional information that Adam Anglicus won great fame for himself at Paris by his skill as a disputant and a teacher. Neither of our two English authorities knows anything respecting the age in which this writer lived. If we accept Quetif's theory, and then identify Adamus Scholasticus and Adamus Anglicus, as Pits has done, the writer will have to be considered a Franciscan, and to have flourished in the fourteenth century. Perhaps, on the whole, it is safer to acknowledge that we know nothing more of him than what Bandellus tells us, viz. that a certain ‘Magister Adamus Anglicus, doctor Parisiensis,’ wrote a Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard.
[Bale, Scriptorum Catalogus, ii. 81; Pits, Rel. Hist. de Reb. Angl. 819; Wadding's Scriptores Ordinis Minoris, 1; Quetif's Scriptores Ordinis Prædicatorum, i. 739; Bandellus de Puritate Conceptionis, 36.]
ADAM Angligena (d. 1181?), called by Tanner Adam Anglicus, and by him identified with the author of the ‘Commentarii in Magistrum Sententiarum’ [see Adam Anglicus], was a theologian of some eminence, and flourished in the twelfth century. His life has to be made out from the scattered pieces of information to be found among the writings of his contemporaries. Du Boulay tells us that he was surnamed Adam de Parvo-Ponte, from the little bridge over the Seine near which he gave his lectures. The same authority also states that he was a pupil of Abelard, and identifies him with Adam, bishop of St. Asaph (to whom we shall refer below), and also with John of Salisbury's friend, ‘ille Anglus Peripateticus Adam.’ The grounds for this identification will appear in the course of this account. The year 1147 saw the commencement of one of the most famous ecclesiastical trials of the twelfth century. Gilbert de la Porée, the aged bishop of Poitiers, was accused by two of his archdeacons—Calo and Arnold Neverlaugh—of heresy. St. Bernard embraced their cause, and the pope promised to consider the case when he reached Gaul. After a first hearing at Auxerre the question was formally opened at Paris. Gilbert was summoned to defend himself, while two ecclesiastics were appointed to collect the evidence against him—Adam de Parvo-Ponte, ‘a subtle man,’ who had recently been made canon of Paris, and Hugo de Campo-Florido, the king's chancellor. These two seem to have given great offence to unprejudiced hearers by the system they adopted; for, without bringing forward passages from the writings of Bishop Gilbert, they proposed to swear that they had heard heretical opinions fall from his lips; and people were astonished
