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John of Salisbury as historian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Marjorie Chibnall
Marjorie Chibnall*
Affiliation:
Clare Hall, Cambridge
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Extract

Among the works of John of Salisbury the short, unfinished treatise that we call the Historia Pontificalis represents his only incursion into the writing of conventional history.’ Indeed even this, like the Metalogicon, Policraticus and Entheticus, bears the stamp of his unique individual approach to any branch of thought; and to call it conventional is little more than a polite bow of acknowledgement to the graceful preface in which he passes it off as merely another continuation of the world chronicle stretching from the Old Testament through Eusebius and Jerome to Sigebert of Gembloux and Hugh of Saint-Victor in his own age.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 3: The World of John of Salisbury , 1984 , pp. 169 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1994 

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References

1 [The] Historia Pontificalis [of John of Salisbury (ed. Marjorie Chibnall: Edinburgh 1956)].

2 [The] Letters [of John of Salisbury] 1 [ed W.J. Millor and H. E. Butler (Edinburgh 1955) Nelson Medieval Texts, OMT]; 2 [ed W. J. Millor and C. N. L. Brooke, OMT: Oxford 1979)].

3 See Historia Pontificalis pp xxiv-xxx, xlvii-xlix.

4 Chronique de Robert de Torigni (ed L. Delisle: Rouen 1872-3), 1 pp 93-6.

5 In common with most monastic chroniclers, he made the mistake of thinking that Cassiodorus was a senator (Historia Pontificalis p 2).

6 He thought that the whole of the Gembloux chronicle up to 1148 was the work of Sigebert, whereas in fact Sigebert died in 1112 and the chronicle was continued in his monastery by others (Historia Pontificalis p 95). John’s statement that Hugh of Saint-Victor ‘variationes regnorum succincta narratione complexus est’ (ibid, p 2), suggests a work more comprehensive than the chronicle called Liber de tribus maximis circumstanciis, and in 1956 I believed that he might have referred to some unpublished work; but recent studies of the works of Hugh have not brought to light any other historical chronicle, and the description does not fit the Didascalicon: see Goy, Rudolf, Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos von St. Victor (Stuttgart 1976)Google Scholar, van den Eynde, D., Essai sur la succession et la date des écrits de Hugues de Saint-Victor (Rome 1960)Google Scholar; moreover the research of Jean Chatillon, Richard de Saint-Victor: Liber exceptionum (Paris 1958) has shown conclusively that the Liber exceptionum must be attributed to Richard of Saint-Victor, not to Hugh. John may have known of Hugh’s chronicle only at second hand.

7 Historia Pontificalis pp 3, 41. Reciprocally, Peter refers to John in one letter as ‘clericus quidam nobis longe superamicissimus’ (Letters 2 p 28).

8 Letters 2 ep 209. In Bibl. nat. MS latin 8562 (Q), the best copy of John’s own collection of letters, it comes between Letters 181 and 182, written probably in the summer of 1166 (for a description of the manuscript, and table of the order of letters, see Letters 2, pp xlvii-xlviii, lxxiv-lxxvi). If John’s collection was originally on loose quires a letter may have been displaced, and the order is only roughly chronological; nevertheless the sequence could be an indication of dating. In the earliest manuscript collections it is always among the first 40 letters. Count Henry also corresponded with Herbert of Bosham, another of Thomas Becket’s clerks in exile ( Benton, John F., ‘The court of Champagne as a literary center’, Speculum 36 (1961), pp 573–5).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 The Historia Pontificalis begins with Jerome’s views on the importance of the Book of Chronicles: ‘Paralipomenon liber …tantus et talis est ut, absque illo si quis scientiam scripturarum sibi voluerit adrogare, se ipsum inrideat. Per singula quippe nomina iuncturasque verborum, et praetermissae in Regum Hbris tanguntur historiae et innumerae explicantur evangelii quaestiones’: ep 53, Saint Jérôme ‘Lettres’ (ed J. Labourt: Paris 1949-63) 3 p 21.

10 Letters 1 pp 51, 54.

11 Letters 1 p 62. The same letter refers to a commentary by Hugh of Saint-Victor, which was in Peter’s possession.

12 Historia Pontificalis pp 36, 38.

13 Letters 2 pp 294-5: no. 201 (in MS Q between no. 191 (late 1166) and no. 215 (early 1167)). D. E. Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard (Cambridge 1969) p. 71, refers to John’s association with Richard ‘the Bishop’ and his circle.

14 Historia Pontificalis pp 33-4.

15 Historia Pontificalis pp 16-17, 26-7.

16 See Historia Pontificalis pp xxxv-xxxvii.

17 Historia Pontificalis pp 83-5.

18 The Letters and Charters of Gilbert Foliot (ed A. Morey and C. N. L. Brooke: Cambridge 1967) pp 65-6.

19 The most recent full discussion of the proceedings described by John and Gilbert is in The Letters of Peter the Venerable (ed Giles Constable: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967) 2 pp 252-6.

20 A slightly different version of the same story is told by Eadmer, The Life of St. Anselm, ed R. W. Southern (Edinburgh 1962) pp 167-8.

21 Historia Ponlificalis pp 69-70.

22 See Newman, W. M., Les seigneurs de Nesle en Picardie (Paris 1971), 1 pp 225–6.Google Scholar

23 The letter of Eugenius to bishop Henry contains the statement: ‘Ut responsum super eo, quod a nobis post discessum tuum primum petisti, secrete suscipias, propria manu quas legis litteras scripsimus’ (PL 180 1459).

24 Papsturkunden in Frankreich, neue folge 7, ed Dietrich Lohrmann (Göttingen 1976), pp 393-4; the witnesses to a case of 1162-7 include ‘Petrus abbas Sancti Remigii’ and ‘magister Iohannes Cantuariensis’.

25 Letters 2 pp 176-9. In other letters to Thomas Becket his comments were equally critical; he wrote in 1164 ‘quisquis sit in persona, magnus est in regno Francorum’ (ibid, p 8); and a little later he suggested that Henry was not a friend to be counted on if the interests of his kinsmen were involved (ibid, pp 32-3).

26 See Leclercq, J., ‘Les écrits de Geoffroy d’Auxerre’, RB 62 (1952) pp 274–5.Google Scholar

27 Letters 2 pp 178-9.

28 Historia Pontificalis p 16.

29 Letters 2 pp 384-7.

30 See Historia Pontificalis p xxxiv; Letters 2 p lx; Walberg, F. G. E., La tradition hagiographique de Saint Thomas Becket (Paris 1929) pp 173–85.Google Scholar

31 Letters 2 pp xx, xlvii-xlviii.