Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/332

314 interpretation of the passage in dispute, by a comparison of John of Salisbury's different references to William of Conches and Richard l'Évêque, and before I had entered upon the examination of William's own writings. It may be doubted whether the common view which I combat would ever have been suggested, far less accepted, had the historians of medieval literature taken the trouble to acquaint themselves personally with the books they describe.   manuscript of Saint Emmeram's, Ratisbon (now at Munich), from which Pez printed Abailard's Scito te ipsum and Rheinwald more recently the same writer's Sententiae contains a notice of his biography which, it seems to me, is worthy of attention. The character of the works in the volume is such as to mark it as proceeding from the inner circle of Abailard's disciples; for the Scito te ipsum had the reputation at least of being peculiarly esoteric, in fact, like the Sic et non, of shunning the light. The presumption therefore is that the biographical record which accompanies these pieces is based upon special sources of information. Unfortunately a part of it is so evidently apocryphal that it has discredited the remainder. It runs as follows:

Petrus, qui Abelardus, a plerisque Baiolardus, dicitur, natione Anglicus, primum grammaticae et dialecticae, hinc divinitati operam dedit. Sed cum esset inaestimandae subtilitatis, inauditae memoriae, capacitatis supra humanum modum, auditor aliquando magistri Roscii, coepit eum cum exfestucatione quadam sensuum illius audire. Attamen im- 