Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/335

 1920 PARIS AND CHABTRES, 1136-1146 327 end of his studies before he has laid a proper foundation. Thus William and Richard are John's own masters, who carried on the tradition of the senex Carnotensis} We must also note that if John was brought into relations with Bernard it was not before 1138, and evidence has been adduced to show that he was dead before 1130. This is taken from the oldest necrology of the church of Chartres, preserved in the library at St. Etienne, MS. 104. The book was written before April 1028. and received subsequent additions, the last series being inserted between 1090 and 1130. The name of Stephen, abbot of St. John at Chartres and patriarch of Jerusalem, who died 12 June 1130, is absent. There is no obit of any one who died after 1130, with the exception of a few royal names which were subsequently inserted in uncials. The text of this volume was printed with scrupulous distinction of the handwritings by M. R. Merlet and the late Abbe A. Clerval in 1893.^ Clerval observes ^ that the entry commemorating Bernardus subdiaconus et cancellarius Sancte Marie under 2 June states that he bequeathed his books to the church, whereas the necrology which was begun when this one was finished and continued in use down to the fourteenth century specifies the number of the volumes he left as twenty- four. The inference drawn is that Bernard's obit was one of the latest inserted in the old book. Clerval's argument about the date is indeed not absolutely conclusive. For first, though it may be true that all the obits of persons who can be identified relate to persons who died before 1130, there are many others of people about whom nothing is known. Secondly, it was not the practice to enter up an obituary at a precise date, immediately after the death of the person who died latest. In the third place, the entries in uncials relate to persons who died as late as 1137 ; and one cannot say for certain that some of the obits of unknown people, and also that of Bernard, belong to these later years. It would be unwise to speak too positively ; all I am inclined to assert is that it is improbable that Bernard lived beyond 1130 and therefore that John cannot have been personally acquainted with him. The chronological point is of importance, because it bears closely on the question whether Bernard of Chartres was the same person as Bernard Silvestris. Before Clerval published his book on the schools of Chartres in 1895,*Haureau in 1884 had brought forward other reasons ^ which make the identification, formerly accepted » Policrat. vii. 13. vol. ii. p. 145, ed. C. C. J. Webb, 1909. a publication which I have not seen.
 * Un Manuscrit Chartrain du XI' siecle, pp. 100 ff.
 * Ibid. pp. 140, 165 ; Lea Scolea de Chartres, p. 161.
 * Clerval first maintained that the two Bernards were different persons in 1882 in
 * Mem. de VAcad. des Inscr. xxxi. ii 99 f.