Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/333

 1920 PARIS AND CHARTRES, 1136-1146 325 another letter (xvn) it appears that Hugh had a brother Dionysius, to whom letter xvni is addressed. Three other letters (xx-xxn) are written by Dionysius. By whom the letters were collected must be left doubtful. They may have been by A., by Hugh, or by Dionysius. What is evident is that they come from some member of Arnold's family. Most of them belong to the time of Bishop Ivo, before December 1115. Two refer to Anselm of Laon, who died in 1117 (xxvi, xxvii) ; the second of these mentions the ruin of the city during the riots of 1112. Another letter (xxxv) is addressed on public affairs to Adela, countess of Blois, who retired to a nunnery in 1117. No letter to which a date can be assigned postulates a later year than 1116;^ and this being so, it is unlikely that the compilation was made very long afterwards. It is important to establish this, because one letter has been placed with confidence by Haureau ^ a quarter of a century later. A good many of the letters bring us into relation with the schools of the time, and three are directly connected with Chartres. In one of these (xvni) a friend at Orleans writes to Dionysius making mention of the brother of Master B. : this is Theodoric, the brother of Bernard of Chartres. He has heard news de gente nostra ; Bernard and Theodoric were Bretons, and the writer was of the same race. The next letter (xix) is accepted as the composition of Gilbert of La Porree to Bernard (it bears only the initials G. to B.), and almost every one has taken it as written soon after Gilbert left Paris, ex hypothesi in 1141, to become scholasticus at Poitiers. It may be noted that this letter is the only basis for the supposition that Gilbert returned to Poitiers before he was made bishop in 1142.^ But the letter says nothing of a recent departure ; it only expresses regret that his occupation as master of the schools in Aquitaine deprives him of the pleasure of Bernard's company. It is a rhetorical exercise which may have been composed at any time after he ceased to be Bernard's pupil at Chartres ; and Clerval ^ very reasonably assigned it to a date not long after Gilbert returned to his home at Poitiers, perhaps in 1116, perhaps a little earlier. The letter in fact helps us to fill in a gap in Gilbert's career. Now Gilbert is known to have studied under Anselm of Laon and Bernard of Chartres. In 1124 he is found as a canon of Chartres ^ and in 1126 as chan- cellor. It now becomes clear that in the interval he went back to his first home, Poitiers, as master of the schools, and presumably ' Letter xxxiii, indeed, bears the superscription of Bishop G. and Dean G., but at no time until 1165 did such a bishop and dean coexist. If the bishop be Geoffrey, who succeeded Ivo at the beginning of 1 1 16, the initial of the dean must be miswritten. " See below, p. 333. * p. 164.
 * Mem. de V Acad, des Inscr., xxxi. ii. 93.
 * Cartidaire de VAbbaye de Saint-Pere de Chartres, p. 469, ed. B. Guerard, 1840.