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MS Bodl. Canon. Pat. Lat. 131 and a Lost Lactantius of John of Salisbury: Evidence in Search of a French Critic of Thomas Becket
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Extract
The English Historical Review for 1974 published an intriguing proposal by Braxton Ross concerning the early history of Bodleian MS Canon. Pat. Lat. 131, a twelfth-century copy of Lactantius' Divine Institutes. Ross noticed several marginalia that read “Audi Thoma” or “Henriciani Nota,” and he suggested that these might have been penned by an unknown French cleric who wished to criticize Henry II's chancellor, Thomas Becket. From fourteenth-century writings contained on the manuscript's fly-leaves, scholars have long recognized the Bodleian Lactantius as once having been the property of Landolfo Colonna, a canon at Chartres in the years 1298–1328. On paleographical grounds, Ross assigns the manuscript's provenance to central France in the twelfth century. Noting that the Istitutiones Divinae was a rare text at the time — apparently unknown in England from Alcuin's day until the fourteenth century — and that this “utilitarian” yet “handsome” manuscript was made using two exemplars, Ross concludes that the Bodleian Lactantius originated in “a centre of intellectual vigour and wide-ranging connections.” Three hands corrected the text, all at the site of production. One of these hands has left many remarks that (Ross felt) display the annotator's wide classical and patristic reading and, as the “Audi Thoma” notes seem to suggest, an interest in Thomas Becket and the “Henricians.”
- Type
- The 1987 Denis Bethell Prize Essay of the Charles Homer Haskins Society
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- Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1990
References
1 Ross, Braxton, “Audi Thoma…Henriciani Nota: A French Scholar Appeals to Thomas Becket?” English Historical Review [hereafter cited as EHR] 89 (1974): 333–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ross had cited the manuscript in an earlier publication, “Giovanni Colonna, Historian at Avignon,” Speculum 45 (1970): 533–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which includes a one-plate facsimile from MS Bodl. Canon. Pat. Lat. 131 in a discussion of Giovanni Colonna's books and sources. See also Ross, , “Manuscript Evidence in the History of Texts: A Twelfth-Century Codex of Lactanlius,” abstract of a paper delivered at the First St. Louis Conference, in Manuscripta 19 (1975): 81–82.Google Scholar
2 Below, n. 15, for Landolfo and the works of Guiseppe Billanovich.
3 Ross, , “Audi Thoma,” pp. 333–35Google Scholar. The notes occur on fol. 107–08. I have examined the manuscript on microfilm and wish to thank the Bodleian Library and the Interlibrary Loan Office of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for making this acquisition possible. My study of the marginalia suggests that most if nol all names of classical and patristic authors given in the margins are simply flags identifying such references by Lactantius in the text.
4 Ross, , “Audi Thoma,” pp. 335–37Google Scholar, especially p. 337, on the use of Henriciani to denote adherents of Henry II: “John writes that Becket as archbishop is rightfully a Christian, not a ‘Henrician,’ perhaps implying that Becket had once been among the ‘Henricians.’ John even makes the same opposition as the glossator — Henricianus against Christianus.”
5 Kerner, Max, Johannes von Salisbury und die logische Struktur seines Policraticus (Wiesbaden, 1977), p. 97 and n. 587Google Scholar, cites a passage from the last book of the Policraticus, ed. Webb, (See below, n. 10) 2: 423–27, 424–5Google Scholar, in which John asks Becket a series of questions by way of moral exhortation to choose the true way over a false Epicureanism.
6 Luscombe, David, “A Bibliography 1953–1982,” in World (see below, n. 7), pp. 445–57 at p. 451Google Scholar. Barlow, Frank, Thomas Becket (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1986), p. 62Google Scholar, assigns Ross's “unknown monk or cleric,” to “presumably…the Angevin dominions.”
7 On John in general, Schaarschmidt, Carl, Johannes Saresberiensis nach Leben und Studien, Schriften und Philosophic (Leipzig, 1862)Google Scholar and Webb, Clement C. J., John of Salisbury (London, 1932)Google Scholar are the standard older works. See especially the introductions to The Letters of John of Salisbury, Vol. 1: The Early Letters (1153–1161), ed. and trans. Millor, W. J., Butler, H. E., rev. Brooke, C. N. L. (London, 1955; microfiche ed., Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar, and The Letters of John of Salisbury, Vol. 2: The Later Letters (1163–1180), ed. and trans. Millor, W. J. and Brooke, C. N. L. (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar; all my citations, translations, and approximations of date from John's letters are from this edition. Many important recent studies occur in The World of John of Salisbury, ed. Wilks, Michael, Studies in Church History, Subsidia 3 (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar [hereafter cited as World]. For bibliography, sec Hohenleutner, Heinrich, “Johannes von Salisbury in der Literatur der letzten zehn Jahren,” Historisches Jahrbuch 11 (1958): 493–500Google Scholar; Luscombe, David, “A Bibliography 1953–82,” in World, pp. 445–57Google Scholar; and the bibliography in van Laarhoven's, Jan edition, John of Salisbury's Entheticus maior and minor (See below, n. 12), 3: 447–68Google Scholar. On John's humanism, the classic study is that by Liebeschütz, Hans, Mediaeval Humanism in the Life and Writings of John of Salisbury, Studies of the Warburg Institute 17 (London, 1950; 2nd ed., Nendeln, Liechtenstein, 1968)Google Scholar. The historiographical controversies surrounding the so-called School of Chartres have depended in large part upon John's, Metalogicon, 2: 10Google Scholar. For a recent look by the scholar who first sought to dispel the myth of Chartres, Southern, Richard W., “The Schools of Paris and the School of Chartres,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. Benson, Robert L. and Constable, Giles (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), pp. 113–37Google Scholar, with bibliography.
8 Ep. 19, Autumn 1156, Letters, 1: 31–32Google Scholar: “Solum in regno regiam dicor minuere maiestatem. Cum admissi mei factum diligentius exprimunt, haec in caput meum intorquent. Quod quis nomen Romanum apud nos invocat, michi inponunt. Quod in electionibus celebrandis, in causis ecclesiasticis examinandis vel umbram libertatis audet sibi Anglorum ecclesia vendicare, michi inputatur, ac si dominum Cantuariensem et alios episcopos quid facere oporteat solus instruam.”
9 Ioannis Saresberiensis episcopi Carnotensis Metalogicon libri III, ed. Webb, Clement C. J., (Oxford, 1929; reprint ed., Frankfurt-am-Main, , 1965)Google Scholar; McGarry, Daniel, trans., The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury: A Twelfth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium, Translated with an Introduction and Notes, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, 1962; reprint ed., Gloucester, Mass., 1971)Google Scholar; idem, “Educational Theory in the ‘Metalogicon’ of John of Salisbury,” Speculum 23 (1948): 659–75; Hall, J. B., “Towards a Text of John of Salisbury's ‘Metalogicon,’” Studi medievali, 3rd ser. 24 (1983): 791–816.Google Scholar
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11 John of Salisbury's Entheticus Maior and Minor, ed. van Laarhoven, Jan, 3 vols., Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 17 (Leiden, 1987)Google Scholar; Pepin, Ronald E., “The Entheticus of John of Salisbury: A Critical Text,” Traditio 31 (1975): 127–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Pepin's work was prepared, however, without knowledge of the important work by Sheerin, Daniel J., “John of Salisbury's ‘Entheticus de Dogmate Philosophorum’: Critical Text and Introduction” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1969).Google Scholar
12 See now Duggan, Anne, “John of Salisbury and Thomas Becket,” in World, pp. 427–38Google Scholar; McLoughlin, John, “The Language of Persecution: John of Salisbury and the Early Phase of the Becket Dispute (1163–66),” in Persecution and Toleration, ed. Sheils, W. J., Studies in Church History 21 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 73–87Google Scholar; Barlow, , Thomas Becket (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1986), passim.Google Scholar
13 Ross, , “Audi Thoma,” p. 334, n. 3.Google Scholar
14 Webb, Clement C. J., “Note on Books Bequeathed by John of Salisbury to the Cathedral Library of Chartres,” Medieval and Renaissance Studies 1 (1941–1943): 128–29Google Scholar; de Lépinois, Eugène and Merlet, Lucien, eds., Cartulaire de Notre-Dame de Chartres, 3 vols. (Chartres, 1862–1865) 3: 202Google Scholar. The bequest is also printed among John's, writings in Patrologiae…Latina, ed. Migne, J. -P., 221 vols. (Paris, 1844–1864), 199: xi–xiiGoogle Scholar [hereafter cited as PL].
15 Billanovich, Giuseppe, “Petrarch and the Textual Tradition of Livy,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes [hereafter cited as JWCI] 14 (1951): 137–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. p. 153 ff. Landolfo figures in many of Billanovich's other works, most importantly in: idem, “Gli umanisti e le cronache medioevali. II ‘Liber pontificalis,’ le ‘Decadi’ di Tito Livio e il primo umanesimo a Roma,” Italia Medioevale e Umanistica [hereafter cited as IMeU] 1 (1958): 103–37; idem, “Dal Livio di Raterio (Laur. 63, 19) al del Petrarca, Livio,” IMeU 2 (1959): 103–78, esp. pp. 141–73Google Scholar, passim, on Landolfo; idem, “La tradizione del testo di Livio e le origini dell'umanesimo, 1/1: Tradizione e fortuna di Livio tra medioevo e umanesimo,” Studi sul Petrarca 9 (Padua, 1981); see also Delaporte, Yves in Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques 13 (1956): 336–37Google Scholar, s.v. “Colonna, Landolfo.” Landolfo also figures in the following two works, for reference to which I wish to thank Professor Billanovich: Marsile de Padoue, Oeuvres mineurs: Defensor minor, De translatione imperii, ed. Jeudy, Colette and Quillet, Jeannine (Paris, 1979)Google Scholar; Liber Pontificalis nella recensione di Pietro Guglielmo O.S.B, ed. Prerovský, Ulderico (Rome, 1979)Google Scholar = Studia Gratiana, 21–23. On clerics' libraries at Avignon see Williman, Daniel, ed., Bibliothèques ecclésiastiques au temps de la papauté d'Avignon, 1, Documents, études et répertoires (Paris, 1980).Google Scholar
16 The two anthologies seem to have passed to Petrarch through his patrons, the Colonna family, at Rome in 1337, a few years after Landolfo's death there. In 1351 Petrarch purchased the Livy at Avignon; apparently it had been in the possession of Giovanni Colonna. The fourth book of Landolfo's that Billanovich identifies is the Lactantius, which, following Coxe's catalogue, Billanovich assigned to the late thirteenth century: Coxe, Henry O., Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1853–1885), 3: 367ffGoogle Scholar. Of these four books, the Lactantius is the only one that was “very probably…already made up when he acquired it”; Billanovich, , “Petrarch…Livy,” p. [165Google Scholar. On the contents of the fly-leaves, ibid., pp. 161–62. The letter from Landolfo to his nephew Giovanni is dated c. 1320, by Forte, Stephen L., “John Colonna, O.P., Life and Writings,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 20 (1950): 367–414Google Scholar, here at pp. 371–73, cited in Billanovich, , “Petrarch…Livy,” p. 161 n. 2Google Scholar. Balzani, Ugo was the first to study these flyleaves, in “Landolfo e Giovanni Colonna secondo un codice Bodleiano,” Archivio della Deputazione Romana di storia patria 8 (1885): 223–44Google Scholar. Facsimiles of fol. 3r (the letter to Giovanni) and fol. av (notes by Landolfo) appear in Billanovich, , “Petrarch…Livy,” pp. 159–60Google Scholar. The fifth book known to be from Landolfo's library is a Liber Pontificalis (Vat. lat. 3762); Billanovich, , “Gli Umanisti,” pp. 115ffGoogle Scholar. and passim. For the sixth manuscript, first identified by Elisabeth Pellegrin, see below, n. 17.
17 Pellegrin, Elisabeth, “Un Manuscrit de Justin annoté par Landolfo Colonna (Leyde Voss. Lat. Q. 101),” IMeU 3 (1960): 241–49Google Scholar. Pellegrin assumed, pp. 242–44, that the “Pompeyus Trogus” that Landolfo checked out on 12 November 1309 was Justin's Epitome historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi and that it must have been among the nine books that Landolfo returned to the chapter on his departure in 1328. Pellegrin's evident faith in the completeness of the surviving records, however, is misplaced, as I hope the discussion here demonstrates.
18 Omont, Henri et al., eds., Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France. Départements, tome XI: Chartres (Paris, 1890), pp. ii–xGoogle Scholar. Omont's excerpts represent only part of the records of Chartres MSS 1007–1009 (H.L. 37 & 39–40), which were destroyed in 1944.
19 Omont, , et al., Catalogue général, pp. ii–viGoogle Scholar. That the records are incomplete is readily apparent. We do not know, for instance, when what seems to be the famous Livy was first borrowed or last returned. Five books listed as returned are not recorded on the occasion of their removal from the chapter library, and only six of the books in the records could possibly be included among the nine unlisted works returned in 1328.
20 Billanovich, , “Petrarch…Livy,” p. 157.Google Scholar
21 Ibid., p. 155.
22 Pellegrin, , “Manuscrit de Justin,” pp. 243–34Google Scholar. I have not seen the list of manuscripts observed by Pierre Pithou on his visit to the library of Chartres in 1579, Paris, B.N. Collection Dupuy 673, f. 35r, mentioned by both Pellegrin, p. 244, n. 1, and Omont, , et al., Catalogue général, p. xi.Google Scholar
23 Brandt, Samuel, ed., Lactantii opera omnia, Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum 19 (Vienna, 1890), pp. xii–lxi.Google Scholar
24 Ross, , “Audi Thorna,” p. 334.Google Scholar
25 Pichon, René, Lactance: étude sur le mouvement philosophique et religieux sous le règne de Constantin (Paris, 1901)Google Scholar. A survey of previous work on the textual tradition is provided by Monat, Pierre, ed. and trans., Lactance: Institutions divines livre V, Sources chrétiennes, 204 (Paris, 1973), 1: 102–10.Google Scholar
26 Heck, Eberhard, Die dualistische Zusätze und die Kaiseranreden bei Lactantius: Untersuchungen zur Textgeschichte der Divinae Institutiones und der Schrift De opificio Dei (Heidelberg, 1972).Google Scholar
27 See above, n. 25, and Monat, Pierre, “Le classement des manuscrits par l'analyse factorielle recherches pour l'établissement d'un stemma: Lactance, Institutions divines, livre IV,” Revue d'histoire des textes 5 (1975): 311–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28 Lépinois, and Merlet, , Cartulaire de Notre-Dame, 3: 202Google Scholar; PL 199: xii, where the list of books bequeathed ends: “et bibliothecam integram, quorum maxima pars temporum incuria deperditi, aut aliquorum damnata cupiditate suffurati fuerunl.”
29 Omont, , et al., Catalogue général, pp. xi–xxi.Google Scholar
30 I am grateful for this last information to Frederick Behrends; see the introduction to his edition of The Letters and Poems of Fulbert of Chartres (Oxford, 1976), p. xxiii.Google Scholar
31 Webb, Clement C. J., John of Salisbury (London, 1932), pp. 167–68Google Scholar, suggested that this might be the “histories of the counts of Anjou and the lords of Amboise written about 1156 by John, a monk of Marmoutier near Tours”; Halphen, Louis and Poupardin, René, eds., “Chroniques des comtes d'Anjou et des seigneurs d'Amboisc,” Collection de textes pour servir à l'étude et a l'enseignement de l'histoire 48 (Paris, 1913).Google Scholar
32 Webb, , “Note on Books,” pp. 128–29.Google Scholar
33 Webb, , John of Salisbury, p. 166.Google Scholar
34 Brooke, Letters of John of Salisbury, above, n. 7, and Laarhoven, John of Salisbury's Entheticus, above, n. 11. In the introduction to his edition of Lactantius (above, n. 23), Samuel Brandt mentions that the eighteenth-century editor Johann Bunemann observed that John of Salisbury sometimes imitated the style of Lactantius and that Bunemann made specific reference to these instances in the notes to his edition. My examination of Bunemann's notes leads me to believe that he merely pointed out where John's choice of words resembles that found in Lactantius and did not suggest a conscious imitation of style. In several cases the similarities seem to stem from a common classical source, as Bunemann noted. Bunemann, Johann Ludolph, ed., Lactantii opera omnia (Leipzig, 1739)Google Scholar. Brandt's, reference is in his Lactantii opera omnia, p. x, n. 3Google Scholar: “Ioannem Sarisberiensem Lactantium nonnumquam imitatum esse observavit Bunemannus in Praefatione editionis Lactantii (quarta post a 5 pagine) eosque locos interdum in adnotationibus commemorat.” Bunemann does make this statement on the page noted, but his observations do not seem to support Brandt's conclusion.
35 Martin, Janet, “John of Salisbury and the Classics” (Ph.D. Diss, Harvard University, 1968)Google Scholar, abstract in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 73 (1969): 319–21Google Scholar; “John of Salisbury's Manuscripts of Frontinus and of Gellius,” JWCI 40 (1977): 1–26Google Scholar; “Uses of Tradition: Gellius, Petronius, and John of Salisbury,” Viator 10 (1979): 57–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “John of Salisbury as Classical Scholar,” in World, pp. 179–201Google Scholar. On John and the classics see also Schaarschmidt, , Johannes Saresberiensis, pp. 81–125Google Scholar; idem, “Johannes Saresberiensis in seinem Verhältniss zur klassischen Litteratur,” Rheinisches Museum, 3rd ser. 14 (1859): 200–34; Boczar, Mieczyslaw, “Jana z Salisbury znajomosc literatury antyczneij,” (with Latin summary, “De scriptorum antiquorum notitia apud Ioannem Saresbericnsem obvia”) Meander 36 (1981): 261–71.Google Scholar
36 The chronology of John's early life is based principally on the bits of biographical information contained in John's own writings and was revised significantly by Brooke, , Letters, 1: xii–xxivGoogle Scholar, where many of Poole's theories were overturned. John's schooling is examined anew by Weijers, Olga, “The chronology of John of Salisbury's Studies in France (Metalogicon ii. 10),” in World, pp. 109–16Google Scholar. See also Poole, Reginald Lane, “The Early Correspondence of John of Salisbury,” and “John of Salisbury at the Papal Court,” in Studies in Chronology and History, ed. Poole, Austin Lane (Oxford, 1934), pp. 259–86 and 248–58Google Scholar respectively; reprinted from Proceedings of the British Academy 11 (1924): 27–53Google Scholar and EHR 38 (1923): 321–30Google Scholar, respectively. See also Richardson's, Henry G. critique of Poole, “The Early Correspondence of John of Salisbury,” EHR 54 (1939): 471–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
37 The idea that Peter was John's student seems to have originated with R. L. Poole and enjoyed a wide popularity. I examined this issue, along with the early chronology of John's and Peter's acquaintance, in “Ecclesiology and the Twelfth-Century Church in the Letters of Peter of Celle” (M.A. Thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1978), pp. 7–11Google Scholar. On the friendship see now Brooke, in World, pp. 8–10Google Scholar, and Pepin, Ronald E., “Amicitia Jocosa: Peter of Celle and John of Salisbury,” Florilegium 5 (1983): 140–56Google Scholar. On Peter in general, see Leclercq, Jean, La spiritualité de Pierre de Celle, Études de théologie et d'histoire de la spiritualité 7 (Paris, 1946)Google Scholar and the works of de Martel, Gérard, including, “À propos d'un sermon attribué à Pierre de Celle,” Studia Monastica 19 (1977): 47–55Google Scholar; idem, “Mabillon et la préface aux oeuvres de Pierre de Celle,” Revue Mabillon 58 (1975): 245–69; idem, “Pierre de Celle à Reims,” Mémoires de la Société d'Agriculture, Commerce, Sciences et Arts du Département de la Marne 89 (1974): 71–105; idem, ed. and trans., Pierre de Celle, L'École du Cloître, Sources chrétiennes 240 (Paris, 1977)Google Scholar. Some of Peter's monastic writings are now available in English: Peter of Celle: Selected Works, ed. and trans. Feiss, Hugh (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1987)Google Scholar. On Peter's role in art history, Prache, Anne, Saint-Rémi de Reims: L'oeuvre de Pierre de Celle et sa place dans l'architecture gothique (Geneva, 1978).Google Scholar
38 Ep. 33, Letters, 1: 55Google Scholar: “Vestrum namque munus est quod reversus sum in terram nalivitatis meae; vestrum munus est quod principium virorum assecutus sum notitiam, familiaritatem gratiamque multorum…” Ep. 35, Letters, 1: 65Google Scholar: “sed ad hoc me cogerat amor vester, cui debeo quicquid sum et possim, immo et quicquid ero et potero, et si quid tamen amplius potuero (2 Cor. 10: 8).”
39 Constable, Giles, “The Alleged Disgrace of John of Salisbury in 1159,” EHR 69 (1954): 67–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where the falling-out is assigned to 1156.
40 Ep. 19, Autumn 1156, Letters, 1: 32.Google Scholar
41 Liber de panibus, PL 202: 927–1046; John's reply is his Ep. 33, Letters, 1: 57–59Google Scholar, from Autumn 1157 or later.
42 Ep. 111, Autumn 1159, Letters, 1: 182Google Scholar: “Sic et nos, si non dispiicet, nobis coutamur et nostris. Ego autem quod in promptu habeo proferam, si tamen nugas serietas vestra dignatur admittere….Edidi librum de curialium nugis et vestigiis philosophorum, qui michi a vestro placebit aut displicebit arbitrio. Incultus est, et ex edicto meo, a vobis amicis desiderat emendari. Ad illustrem virum regis Anglorum cancellarium properabat, sed eum, nisi processus expedient, cohibite. Garrulus enim est, et qui vix amicum habebit in curia. Nollem tamen quod me cuiralibus faceret inimicum. Precor ut eum incunctanter erudiatis….” The passage reflects the community of mind and of possessions that John and Peter shared, as well as the way in which Peter received gossip from John about Becket and the English court.
43 Brooke's, earlier thesis, presented in Letters 1: ix–xiGoogle Scholar, was based on the separate manuscript tradition for the first part of the collection and on Peter's Ep. 70, which thanks John for his letters and seems to refer to a sizeable collection. In Letters, 2: ix–xGoogle Scholar, Brooke retracted this idea in light of work by Hohenleutner and Southern.
44 This seems to me the likely origin of the archetype of a manuscript containing Peter's letters from his years at Celle, Oxford St. John's College MS 126, where the collection is attributed to one Walter of Dervy; Gualteri Abbatis Dervensis Epistolae: The Letters ofWalter Abbat of Deny now first published from a MS Preserved in the Library of St. John's College, Oxford, ed. Messiter, Carl, Publications of the Caxton Society, 10 (London, 1850; reprint ed., Philadelphia, 1967)Google Scholar. Heinrich Hohenleutner made the correct attribution to Peter, in “Die Briefsammlung des sogenannten Walter von Dervy (Montier-en-Der) in der Oxforder Handschrift St. John's College, MS 126,” Historisches Jahrbuch 74 (1955): 673–80Google Scholar. The manuscript is associated with Merton priory, where John's brother Richard was a canon, and it contains some of John's writings along with the letters of Arnulf of Lisieux. For connections among the manuscript, its compiler, and John of Salisbury, see Barlow, Frank, ed., The Letters of Arnulf of Lisieux, Camden Third Series 61 (London, 1939), p. lxxxv.Google Scholar
45 Chibnall, Marjorie, “John of Salisbury as Historian,” in World, pp. 169–77Google Scholar; Chibnall, , ed. and trans., The Historia Pontificalis of John of Salisbury (London, 1956).Google Scholar
46 Internal evidence suggests that the surviving letters do not represent all the ones that must have passed between the two friends. While John's later letters do not contain the same kind of information concerning books, we must remember that for most of the time when these were being written, John was in residence at St. Rémi.
47 Ep. 31, 1–8 April 1157, Letters, 1: 51Google Scholar: “Ex quo fidelem nuntium inveneritis, michi, si placet, epistolas beati B(ernardi) transmittite. Precor enim ut flores aliquos verborum eius et vestrorum et cantoris Trecensis, et si qui sunt similes, colligi faciatis; ita tamen ut foliorum laetitia non perimat aut minuat fructus utilitatem.” Master Gebuin, precentor of Troyes, was a follower of St. Bernard noted for his sermons; for details and bibliography, see Brooke's, note, Letters, 1: 51.Google Scholar
48 Ep. 32, July-August 1157, Letters, 1: 54Google Scholar: “De cetero, liberalitati vestrae pro epistolis beati B(ernardi) gratias ago, antiquis insistens precibus, ut flores verborum eius, quos conquirere poteritis, michi transcribi faciatis et, si quid huiusmodi apud vos paratum est, per vestros nuntios afferatur.”
49 Ep. 34, October-November 1157 or later, Letters, 1: 62Google Scholar: “Praeterea quia expositio magistri Hug(onis) apud nos inveniri non potest, illam si placet transmittite; recolo enim quod apud vos est. Boetium quoque de Trinitate, quern apud vos, et libros quos apud dominum Simonem priorem Pruuini deposui, quoniam eis frater meus indiget, si placet, per eundem michi mittatis.”
50 As “(liber) Hugonis super lamentationes Jeremie” Webb, “Note on Books,” 128. Brooke was not certain, Letters, 1: 62Google Scholar, which commentary of Hugh of St. Victor was meant in John's letter. Beryl Smallcy's discussion of Hugh in The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1983), p. 97Google Scholar, indicates that Hugh's major commentary was his work on Lamentations, Joel, etc.
51 Ep. 50, N[icholas] of Clairvaux to Peter of Celle, PL 202: 475: “Coegi tamen me, et duo volumina sermonum hominis Dei mitto vobis, in uno quorum ego dictavi quod ita incipit: Solet apostolus Paulus in verbis esse brevis, in sententiis densus. Aliud vero volumen jampridem dictatum est, et rosum et rasum, sed quaerite quis diligenter et sapienter illus scribat, multis enim sensibus plenum, illud autem scitote, quia non parvam amicorum multitudinem contempsi quibus nolui praestare ea, ad vos enim festinabat cor meum. Festinate et haec festinanter rescribere, et exemplaria remittite mihi et sic ad opus meum, secundum pactum meum rescribi quod dictum est, mittite mihi, et videte ut ncc unum iota perdam. Libellulum autem, qui ita incipit: Tria sunt quibus reconciliari debemus, et horas nostras, quas habetis de Domina nostra remittite.” In Ep. 62, PL 202: 491, Nicholas asks Peter to return another book: “Librum nostrum per praesentium latorem mihi remittite.” On Peter's correspondence with Nicholas, see Chenu, Marie-Dominique, “Platon à Citeaux,” Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen age 21 (1954): 99–106.Google Scholar
52 Below, n. 54.
53 MS Douai 219, a twelfth-century book containing, inter alia, Lactantius' Divine Institutes, De ira Dei, and De opificio Dei, was made by the monk Baudri of Anchin; Brandt, , Lactantii opera (above, n. 23), p. lvGoogle Scholar. For Peter's close ties with the abbot of Anchin, see Leclercq, Jean, “Nouvelles lettres de Pierre de Celle,” in Congar, Yves, Leclercq, Jean, et al., eds., Analecta monastica: textes et études sur la vie des moines au moyen âge, Cinquième série, Studia Ansclmiana 43 (Rome, 1958), pp. 160–64.Google Scholar
54 Ep. 24, PL 202: 426. The letter is worth quoting in full: “Quern fortuna non extollit prospera, magis pro humilitate quam pro sublimitate est admirandus. Gloria in vobis cum prosperitate, ut accepi ab his qui viderunt et noverunt, ambitiosius quam contentiosius contendit, nee confundit aliquando superata, nee unquam insolescit de victoria. Cedit gloria prosperitati, sed gloriose, sed prospere. Quaelibet obtineat, humilitatem seu moderationem non amputal. Gloria accedit, sed non superba; prosperitas venit, sed non effusa. Inde est quod de nube tantae sublimitatis ad latibulum nostrae paupertatis misistis, quia venire non potuistis. Rogastis de familiaritate et amicitia. Quod rogastis, si admitteretis, admirationi procul dubio habendum esset, pro inaequali rogantis et rogati fortuna. Ouae enim proportionalitatis habitudo inter abbatem Cellensem et cancellarium regis Angliae? Pene non est comparatio, ubi non est existimationis adaptatio. Secundum post regem in quatuor regnis, quis te ignorat? Primum in miseriis fratrum nostrorum, quis me non reputat? Dicam de compendio, quia quantum de vobis excellentiora, tanto de me sentio et scio viliora. Nullo igitur modo ad ingressum amicitiae manum porrigo; sed si vel de grege accidentalium amicorum fuero, bene mecum fecisse dignationem vestram aestimabo. Primitias autem illas non mitto, quia ampliorem gratiam facere propero. Non habebam sermones illos magistri G. sed quaero, et statim scriptorem cum omni instantia huic operi ad opus vestrum designo. Valete.” Smalley, Beryl, The Becket Conflict and the Schools (Totowa, N.J., 1973), p. 114Google Scholar, speculates as to how the reading of Gebuin's sermons might have affected Becket, “if Peter acted on his promise to send them.” Apparently Peter did so, for his cover letter for the promised text, while absent from the PL edition, appears in MS Oxford St. John's 126 and is printed in Leclercq, , “Nouvelles lettres,” pp. 178–79Google Scholar. The episode is also recalled by Barlow, , Thomas Becket, p. 63.Google Scholar
55 Smalley, , Becket Conflict, pp. 113–14.Google Scholar
56 As Smalley suggests, Becket Conflict, p. 237, Peter was at least willing to help Becket better himself by supplying Gebuin's sermons (above, n. 54), or what she terms “Bernard for junior forms.”
57 This letter contrasts sharply with Peter's Ep. 114, PL 202: 563–65, a letter of encouragement to archbishop Becket, and Ep. 85, PL 202: 532, to Alexander III on behalf of the exile's cause.
58 Ross, , “Audi Thoma” p. 338Google Scholar. The abbot of St. Rémi would probably have been present at Alexander's council. For the difficulties involved in determining abbots' attendance, however, see Somerville, Robert, Pope Alexander III and the Council of Tours (1163) (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1977), pp. 29–31.Google Scholar
59 Rodney Thomson's suggestion that John's hand may occur in a St. Albans manuscript of the Entheticus has so far been discounted; Thomson, , “What Is the Entheticus?” in World, pp. 287–301Google Scholar, with a partial facsimile of British Library MS Royal 13 D IV, f. 213v at p. 289. I have not seen this manuscript or its full reproduction. Additional facsimiles occur in Thomson, , Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey 1066–1235, 2 vols. (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1982), 2: plates 238–39Google Scholar; see also 1.66, 97–98. Clearly, a comparison of the St Albans hand and the Bodleian annotator's will be of interest. Laarhoven, Entheticus, 1.27 and n. 20, considers it unlikely that the St. Alban's hand was John's; I cannot posit a similarity from these facsimiles.
60 On Richard, see Brooke, , Letters, 1: 32, n. 1.Google Scholar
61 Chibnall, , “John of Salisbury as Historian,” pp. 169–72.Google Scholar
62 Ep. 124, PL 202: 573: “Si bene recolo jocos prioris saeculi, dum simul essemus, et ad invicem plura jocando sereremus, occurit inter caetera, quod quasi de magnitudine cassulae tune archiepiscopi Thomae, nunc pretiossisimi martyris, conquercbar ubi posset reperiri. Verbum illud fecit Deus, imo risum fecit nobis et toti provinciae vestrae et nostrae. Inde est quod undecunque non solum Angli, sed et Galli, quasi ad solemnes epulas, et ad fertilissimas jubilationes, concurrunt ad tumbam praedicti sancti….” Frank Barlow closes his biography of Becket with a reference to this letter (Thomas Becket, pp. 274–75): “These two choice souls and exquisite scholars retained, even after the tragedy, a touch of the old affectionate mockery which they had been wont to bestow on that monstre sacre, to whose cause they were nonetheless totally committed. But they were also awed by his unexpected triumph through the mysterious working of God, to whom all things were possible. It was something to ponder.”
63 Common ground is suggested by the inclusion of materials from John and Lactantius in a thirteenth-century manuscript at Florence: Garfagnini, Gian Carlo, “Da Seneca a Giovanni di Salisbury: auctoritates morali e vitae philosophorum in un ms. trecentesco,” Rinascimento, 2nd ser. 20 (1980): 201–47.Google Scholar
64 On John's use of “nos Francos” and the comforts of an unwelcome exile at Rémi, St., Brooke, , “John of Salisbury and His World,” in World, p. 9 and n. 44Google Scholar, where he cites Letters, 2: 546–47.Google Scholar
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