Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/124

106 of students than these, at least after the retirement of William of Champeaux, and the death of the brothers of Laon. John of Salisbury may again be called as witness. After two years under famous dialecticians at Paris, he was glad enough to spend three more under the masters of Chartres. The teachers he names in this connexion are William of Conches and Richard l'Évêque: a third distinguished disciple of Bernard, Gilbert of La Porrée, who was perhaps still resident at Chartres when he arrived, John did not attend as a master, so far as we know, until later. These successors of Bernard illustrate the tendencies of his teaching in several ways; but it is remarkable that only one of them, William, and William only in a modified degree, can be regarded as Bernard's heir in what we take to be his special characteristic, namely his indifference to, if not his negation of, theology as a branch of scientific study.

William of Conches is ranked after Bernard m as the most accomplished, opulentissimus, grammarian of his time. With him, as with Bernard and with n John of Salisbury, the rules of speech which comprise grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric, and are together included under the name of eloquence, are the first things which the philosopher must possess: with them equipped, as with arms, we ought to approach the study of philosophy, first as learned in the sciences of the Quadrivium, and finally in theology, since by the knowledge of the creature we attain to a knowledge of the Creator. But the basis of the whole is grammar: in omni doctrina grammatica praecedit. This is the mark of the school of Chartres; and it is unfortunate that William's comprehensive work, the Philosophia, remains a fragment at the end of the fourth book just at the point where he is about to introduce the characteristic subject.