Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/144

 Not to waste time upon minor names, we go on to Italy: there the greatest name of course is that of Nicolas Breakespere, the pupil of the Monastery of S. Alban's; the great legate of the north, the confidential friend of John of Salisbury, the one English pope, and the bestower of Ireland on Henry II. His life and career lie only on the very edge of the period which we are considering; and I can say no more of him than that he is one of those figures of medieval history of which what little we know is suggestive of a great deal more that we should desire to know. He was unquestionably a great pope; that is, a great constructive pope, not a controversial one, like those who preceded and followed; a man of organising power and missionary zeal; a reformer, and, although he did not take a wise way of showing it, a true Englishman. Next in dignity to him would come, if we were quite sure of anything respecting him, the great Robertus Pullus, who is said to have been made Chancellor of the Apostolic See under Lucius II and Eugenius III, and who likewise lies a little outside our limits. His history has yet to be worked out; but as he is, like John of Salisbury, a historical link of some importance, I must say a word or two about him. We know from a letter of S. Bernard addressed to Ascelin, Bishop of Rochester, between the years 114a and 11 48, that Robertus Pullus was at that time studying with great success in the University of Paris; he was then, it would appear from the Rochester Fasti, Archdeacon of Rochester; and S. Bernard's petition to the Bishop, that he might be allowed to pursue his studies at Paris, is thus quite in character with the usual practice for an archdeacon to go and study for some time in a foreign university before he began the formal exercise of archidiaconal functions. In 1146, or thereabouts, Robert was still at Paris teaching theology, and there John of Salisbury attended his lectures during the last two of the twelve years, dating from 1136, that his education was in progress. If these dates are accurate, it is a little difficult to identify him with the person who appears as Chancellor of the Apostolic See in 1145 and 1146. It is not impossible that he was then for a short time transferred to Rome; this, however, will leave no time for his teaching