Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/298

280 Vincent of Beauvais, to take but a single instance, says about him, is all derived, including the epitaph, through the channel of Helinand, from William of Malmesbury. William has, in common with Asser, just three points, (a) that John was a learned man, (b) that he was invited from Gaul by king Alfred, and (c) that he taught in England; in other words exactly what Asser relates about John the companion of Grimbald, with the exception of the notice that he was priest and monk: it has nothing corresponding to what he says of John the Saxon. Apart from the question of nationality, the latter was made abbat of Athelney, and his life was attempted by the servants of two Gaulish brethren of the monastery; whereas John the Scot, according to William of Malmesbury, went not to Athelney but to Malmesbury; he was not abbat, simply a teacher; was not wounded at the instigation of monks, but was actually killed by the boys whom he taught. The only point in common between the two is the name John.

6. With the epitaph quoted by William as commemorating this sanctus sophista loannes, we may connect a notice c Hist univ which is contained in a chronicle referred to by du Boulay Pans. 2. 443. ag fa e Historia a Roberto Rege ad Mortem Philippi I:

In dialectica hi potentes extiterunt sophistae, loannes qui eandem artem sophisticam vocalem esse disseruit, Robertus Parisiacensis, Eocelinus Compendiensis, Arnulphus Laudunensis. Hi loannis fuerunt sectatores qui etiam quamplure habuerunt auditores.

M. Hauréau rejects the comparison with the Malmesbury inscription, but he is in the meshes of the old snare about John the Saxon. His caution in refusing to apply the inscription as a help to explain the Paris chronicle will be respected; but when he urges on other grounds that