Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/445

 is printed among the works of Hugh of St. Victor in Migne's 'Patrologia,' clxxvii.
 * 1) 'Commcntariua in Aristotelis libros duo Analyticorum Posteriorum,' MS. Magd. Coll. Oxford, 162, f. 183.
 * 2) 'Merlini prophetia cum Expositione,' printed in 'Spicilegium Vaticanum,' pp. 92-106, by Carl Greith, Frauenfeld, 1838. It is a translation into Latin hexameters made at the request of Robert of Warelwast, bishop of Exeter, who died in 1160. The notes contain Rome Celtic words and references to Cornwall, John is also credited with 'Disceptationes quædam,' 'Epistolæ,' and 'Commentarii Scripturarum,' of which nothing is known. The 'Apologia' in reply to Peter Lombard, mentioned by Leland, if it was distinct from the 'Eulogium,' has apparently disappeared.



JOHN (d. 1180), called, and in official documents 'Iohannes de Saresberia' (epist. lvii. p. 61, cccxxiii. p. 291), bishop of Chartres, seems to have borne the surname of , perhaps 'Little' or 'Short'—'parvum nomine, facultate minorem, minimum merito,' as be describes himself (epist. ccii. p. 37). He was born at or near Salisbury (Polier, viii. 19), that is Old Sarum, probably between 1115 and 1120. The date commonly given (1110) is a mere inference from that of his death, on the assumption that he died at seventy years of age; whereas he himself says that he was 'adolescens admodum' at the time when he began to study at Paris in 1136 (Metalog. ii. 10). It has been inferred from a passage in one of John's epistles (xc. p. 135) that his father's name was Reinfred (, i. 480), but the text is ambiguous.

Of John's early life there is no record beyond a single notice in the 'Policraticus' (ii. 28, pp. 155 f.), which mentions that he was sent to a priest to learn his psalms, that the priest employed him as an instrument in certain magical experiments, and that the boy with characteristic common sense proved useless for the purpose. From the date of his journey to Paris, however. John has left us with the 'Metalogicus' (l.c.) a full narrative of his student's years, which is of exceptional value for the intellectual history of the time.

Upon his arrival in Paris he first attended the lectures of the great Peter Abailard. After a year, however, the master withdrew for a time, and John passed from a school of nominalism, tempered and qualifled by not a few elements drawn from the doctrine of its opponents (cf., Illustr. pp. 140 ff.), to one of uubending realism under the guidance of Alberic of Rheims, distinguished as Alberic de Porta Veneris (epist. cxliii. p, 206, cf. , p, 203, n. 4), and of , an Englishman, who afterwards won renown as a theologian, and was raised to the bishopric of Hereford. This course of dialectical learning occupied John for two years (1136-8), at the end of which he set himself to the study of grammar, and was the disciple of William of Conches, best known to us as a natural philosopher, for three years more. The place not being named, it was always assumed that William lectured at Paris, until Dr. Schaarschmidt pointed out that other passages in the 'Metalogicus' prove beyond question that the school to which John resorted, and at which William of Conches and the other masters whom he mentions in the sequel taught, was the cathedral school of Chartres, of which he elsewhere (Metalog. i. 24) gives a very full description. M. llaur£au, who formerly considered that the place must be Paris, has at length yielded in favour of Chartres (Comptesrendus de l' Académie des Inscriptions, 3rd. Ser. i. 81, 1873).

At Chartres then John of Salisbury pursued bis grammatical studies under William of Conches, and afterwards under Richard l'Évêque, subsequently bishop of Avranches; and it was there that he laid the foundations of that classical learning in which he was unapproached by any man of his age. The literary distinction of the school had been established by the former chancellor of the church, Bernard Silvestris (afterwards, if a highly probable identification is to be accepted, bishop of Quimper), and it was maintained under his presiding influence when he was succeeded in the active work of teaching by William and Richard, Theoderic (Bernard's brother), Hardwin the German, and Peter Helias, all of whom were John's teachers. During these years John had been compelled by the straitness of his means to take pupils at the same time that he was himself a learner; and it is likely that for a portion of the three years named he withdrew to Provins in the county of Champagne, and there studied and taught in company with his lifelong friend, Peter of La Celle (epist. lxxxii. p. 114), possibly supported in part by the liberality of Count Theobald (epist. cxliii. p. 206; cf., p. 23, , pp, 26 f.) Afterwards, presumably in 1140 or early in 1141, he returned to Paris, doubtless because of the greater advantages which that city offered to the teacher; but while he taught he entered upon