Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/135

Rh middle ages who have been given the highest place in the literary history of France, was not a Frenchman. He was born in Brittany, at Palais, or Le Pallet, in the neighbourhood of Nantes. Although the eldest son of a good house, he early abandoned his birthright to his brothers and resolved to make himself a name in learning. He became a pupil, discipulorum minimus, of Roscelin, the daring nominalist whose doctrine was condemned in its theological issues by the council of Soissons in 1092, but who appears to have submitted to the sentence and to have been allowed to hold a scholastic post at the church of Saint Mary of Loches in Touraine. Roscelin, if we are to give credit to an old legend, soon excited a spirit