Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/207

Rh archical principle with which Becket was popularly identified, made him stand firmly by his chief. In the revulsion of general feeling that followed his murder, John was reëstablished in the court at Canterbury, and finally in 1176 his loyalty to the cause was rewarded by his elevation to the bishoprick of the city in which so large a part of his student-life had been passed, and to which he owed his introduction to classical learning. He was bishop of Chartres however only for four years; he died in 1180 and was succeeded by his life-long friend Peter of La Celle.

The quality that first strikes one in reading the works of John of Salisbury—and they stand nearly alone in medieval literature for the wide circle of readers to which they appeal—is what almost may be described as their modern spirit. It is this, we suspect, which has laid their author open to the charge of cynical indifference and insincerity. His judgement is generally so liberal that it is perhaps difficult for those who merely read him in snatches, as the older classical scholars used to do, to believe that it is genuine. Yet it is in this freedom of outlook that John's individual distinction as a writer lies. There are some things in respect to which nothing would induce him to relax his positiveness. These are the affairs, the interests, of religion; and these, especially in the political atmosphere of John's time, covered a large enough field: for all knowledge, all thought, all the facts of life were to be estimated by reference to the supreme arbitration of theology. Yet even this restriction leaves a considerable space for free and irresponsible questioning, and John is evidently seen at his best when, having made the necessary stipulations and reservations in favour of catholic truth, he can range at pleasure among the memories of antiquity, and illustrate whatever comes to hand from the stores of his classical reading or from the shrewd observation of his own experience.