¹ For a bibliographical study and discussion of Robert's importance, see Backmund, N., Die mittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreiber des Prämonstratenserordens (Bibliotheca Analectorum Praemonstratensium 10; Averbode 1972) 260–67. The critical edition of Robert's chronicle is by Holder–Egger, O.: Robert of Auxerre, Chronicon (MGH SS 26; Hanover 1882) 219–87. Unless otherwise noted, subsequent references to Robert's text will be to the MGH edition. A preliminary study toward this article was presented to the Ninth St. Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies, St. Louis University, St. Louis, October 1982. The author wishes to thank the staff of the municipal library of Auxerre for its generous assistance during the summer of the same year, and the MacArthur Foundation, the Newberry Library, and Colorado College for their subsequent support of the project.Google Scholar

² See, for instance, Gabriel, A. L., The Educational Ideas of Vincent of Beauvais (Texts and Studies in the History of Medieval Education 4; Notre Dame 1956) 53; McCarthy, J. M., Humanistic Emphases in the Educational Thought of Vincent of Beauvais (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 10; Leiden 1976) esp. 80, 108–109. M. Paulmier offers the first French work toward a critical edition: ‘Étude sur l'état des connaissances au milieu du xiii^e siècle: nouvelles recherches sur la genèse du Speculum maius de Vincent de Beauvais,’ Spicae 1 (1978) 91–121. See also Eckenrode, T. R., ‘Vincent of Beauvais: A Study on the Construction of a Didactic View of History,’ Historian 46 (1984) 339–60.Google Scholar

³ Spörl, J., ‘Das mittelalterliche Geschichtsdenken als Forschungsaufgabe,’ Historisches Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft 53 (1933) 281–303, repr. in Geschichtsdenken und Geschichtsbild im Mittelalter (ed. Lammers, W., Wege der Forschung 21; Darmstadt 1965) 1–29; id., Grundformen der hochmittelalterlichen Geschichtsanschauung: Studien zum Weltbild der Geschichtsschreiber des 12. Jahrhunderts (Munich 1935).Google Scholar

⁴ See the recent critical edition: Otto of Freising, Chronica sive historia de duabus civitatibus (ed. Lammers, W., trans. Schmidt, A., Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters 16; Darmstadt 1980) lxiii–lxv.Google Scholar

⁵ Boehm, L., ‘Der wissenschaftstheoretische Ort der Historia im Mittelalter: Die Geschichte auf dem Wege zur Geschichtswissenschaft,’ in Speculum historiale: Geschichte im Spiegel von Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsdeutung (edd. Brauer, C. et al.; Munich 1965) 667.Google Scholar

⁶ Although Vincent was not a university master and there is no evidence that he earned a degree at Paris, his work was informed by the methods and the interests of his scholastic contemporaries. See McCarthy, , 3–4, 80–88.Google Scholar

⁷ For a general discussion of the relationship between scholastic thought and historical writing, see Boehm, , 667–68; Kölmel, W., ‘Typik und Atypik: Zum Geschichtsbild der kirchenpolitischen Publizistik (11.–14. Jahrhundert),’ in Speculum historiale, 289–90; Smalley, B., Historians in the Middle Ages (London 1974) 179. Compare n. 9 below.Google Scholar

⁸ The prologue to Bonaventure's Breviloquium describes the analogy between the six days of Creation and the six ages into which the saeculum might be divided: see especially Breviloquium prol. 2, Opera omnia V (Quaracchi 1882–1902). That Breviloquium 4, on fallen man's sacramental remedy, is indebted to Hugh's work, will be clear in the description below of the Victorine's interpretation of the efficacy of the sacraments across time.Google Scholar

⁹ Among examples of twentieth–century scholarship focusing on the twelfth-century's historical thought and minimizing the interest in later historiography, see Chénu, M.-D., ‘Conscience de l'histoire et théologie au xii^e siècle,’ Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 21 (1954) 110–11; Kölmel, , 289; Southern, R. W., ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 2. Hugh of St–Victor,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (5th ser. 21; 1971) 163.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See, e.g., Melville, G., ‘Zur “Flores–Metaphorik” in der mittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreibung: Ausdruck eines Formungsprinzips,’ HJB 90 (1970) 65–80; idem, ‘System und Diachronie: Untersuchungen zur theoretischen Grundlegung geschichtsschreibischer Praxis im Mittelalter,’ HJB 95 (1975), esp. 50–52, 310–11.Google Scholar

¹¹ Van den Brincken, Compare A.-D., ‘Geschichtsbetrachtung bei Vincenz von Beauvais: Die Apologia Auctoris zum Speculum Maius,’ Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 34 (1978), 433–42; Lusignan, S., ‘Préface au Speculum Maius de Vincent de Beauvais: réfraction et diffraction,’ Cahiers d'études médiévales 5 (Montreal 1979) 111.Google Scholar

¹² Leclercq, J., The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture (trans. Misrahi, C.; 3rd ed. New York 1982) 1–3.Google Scholar

¹³ Sigebert of Gembloux, Chronographia (ed. Bethmann, L. C., MGH SS 6; Hanover 1844) 268–374. Jerome, Compare, Chronicon (PL 27.675–702); Eusebius of Caesarea, Chronici canones (ed. Fotheringham, J. K.; London 1923). As Robert's editor Holder-Egger pointed out, the canon of Auxerre employed a version of Sigebert's chronicle descended from a manuscript from the library of his order's mother house, Prémontré herself, and continued there until 1154: 221. The apparent familiarity with and preference for Sigebert's work among Premonstratensian houses in Burgundy and the Low Countries probably resulted from regional interest and availability.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Bynum, C. W. distinguishes the canons 'self-image from the monks': ‘The Spirituality of Regular Canons in the Twelfth Century,’ in Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley 1982) 22–40.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Bischoff, G. G. emphasizes the consequences of canonical spirituality for the theology of history in Anselm's and Robert's own order: ‘Early Premonstratensian Eschatology: The Apocalyptic Myth,’ in The Spirituality of Western Christendom (ed. Elder, E. R.; Kalamazoo 1976) 41–71. See Salet's, G. translation and reprint of the PL edition of Anselm's central work: Dialogues, livre I: Renouveau dans l'église (Sources chrétiennes 118; Paris 1966), esp. 92–104. Southern has emphasized Anselm's debt to Hugh's understanding of history, especially as expressed in De sacramentis: 175. Others have found his thought more characteristically Premonstratensian: compare Edyvean, W., Anselm of Havelberg and the Theology of History (Rome 1972) esp. 62; Bischoff, , esp. 59–60. Otto of Freising, a Cistercian, had likewise attributed great significance to the monastic and canonical reform of the twelfth century: Chronica 7.34–35. The two theologians of history belonged to orders at once alike and different, but proximate from their early years in their mutual pursuit of apostolic poverty and in their historical self-consciousness.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Robert of Auxerre, Chronologia, ed. Camusat, N. (Troyes 1608).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Delisle's, L. lengthy article describes the relationships among editions and manuscripts: ‘Chronique de Robert de Saint-Marien d'Auxerre,’ in Histoire littéraire de la France 32 (Paris 1898) 503–35, esp. 534–35. See also Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France: Départements (4°; Paris 1896–1971) VI 59–60; and Holder-Egger's comments on this ms, 223–24.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Holder-Egger outlines Robert's written sources: 221–22. His edition identifies in the margins borrowed sections of the chronicle.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Compare Hugh of St-Victor, Chronica quae dicitur Hugonis de Sancto Victore (ed. Waitz, G., MGH SS 24; Hanover 1879), 88–97; Green, W. M., ‘Hugo of St-Victor De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum,’ Speculum 18 (1943) 484–93; Baron, R., ‘La chronique de Hugues de Saint–Victor,’ Studia Gratiana 12 (1967) 165–80; Zinn, G. A., ‘The Influence of Hugh of St. Victor's Chronicon on the Abbreviationes chronicorum by Ralph of Diceto,’ Speculum 52 (1977) 39 n. 8.Google Scholar

²⁰ An edition of Peter of Poitiers' Compendium historiae in genealogia Christi was in preparation by Johnson, William R.; see Speculum 54 (1979) 213. The project was recently abandoned: Speculum 60 (1985) 239.Google Scholar

²¹ Delisle's discussion of the manuscript is precise and detailed: 505–12. Compare Holder-Egger, 224.Google Scholar

²² Quires begin on pp. 5, 17, 33, 49, 63, 79, 97, 117, 133, 149, 165, 181, 197, 213, 229, 245, 261, 277, 293, 309, and 325.Google Scholar

²³ Compare Holder-Egger, , 223; Green, , 486–87; Goy, R., Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos von St. Viktor: Ein Beitrag zur Kommunicationsgeschichte des Mittelalters (Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 14; Stuttgart 1976) 37.Google Scholar

²⁴ A candelabrum of interest for the history of art appears, for instance, on p. 64; it illustrates the history of the Jews. This leaf and similar decorations in other manuscripts of Peter of Poitiers' genealogy of Christ are being studied by W. H. Monroe of the University of London.Google Scholar

²⁵ See Green, , pl. A, descr. 487. The analogy between this diagram, with its subsequent tables, and many medieval examples of decorated canon-tables is at once clear.Google Scholar

²⁶ Holder-Egger, , 221.Google Scholar

²⁷ See n. 19 above.Google Scholar

²⁸ Zinn, , ‘Influence’ 42–43.Google Scholar

²⁹ Hugh of St-Victor, Didascalicon de studio legendi (ed. Buttimer, C. H., Catholic University of America Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin 10; Washington 1939) 6.3.Google Scholar

³⁰ Hugh, , ‘De tribus’ 491.Google Scholar

³¹ Zinn, , ‘Influence’ 44.Google Scholar

³² Zinn, , ‘Historia fundamentum est: The Role of History in the Contemplative Life According to Hugh of St. Victor,’ Contemporary Reflections on the Medieval Christian Tradition: Essays in Honor of Ray C. Petry (ed. Shriver, G. H.; Durham 1974) esp. 136–37.Google Scholar

³³ Students of the Victorine tradition have consistently given attention to Auxerre 145's version of Hugh's chronicle: Green, , 487; Goy, , 37.Google Scholar

³⁴ Southern, , 166–68; Zinn, , ‘Historia’ 135–58. See also Evans, G. R., ‘Hugh of St. Victor on History and the Meaning of Things,’ Studia Monastica 25 (1983) 223–34.Google Scholar

³⁵ The best edition remains the PL version: Hugh of St-Victor, De sacramentis christianae fidei (PL 178.173–618). The English translation was prepared from a better edition by Buttimer, which has never been published: Hugh of St-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (trans. Deferrari, R. J.; Cambridge 1951). In the first sentence of the prologue, Hugh explains that he comes to the task of allegorical interpretation after completing a more basic historical work: ‘Cum igitur de prima eruditione sacri eloquii quae in historica constat lectione compendiosum volumen prius dictassem….’ As Green points out, Hugh is here referring to his Chronicon, which must bave been written before De sacramentis: 485. Hugh stressed in his pedagogical work that this was the proper order of scholarly pursuit. Moral investigation, such as the Victorine performed in De arca Noe morali, should come even later: Didascalicon 6.3.Google Scholar

³⁶ Zinn, , ‘Historia’ 135.Google Scholar

³⁷ Augustine, , De doctrina Christiana (ed. Tomber, P.; CCL 32.2.109).Google Scholar

³⁸ For example, Hugh, , De sacramentis, PL 178.335–39.Google Scholar

³⁹ Zinn has stressed the relationship of Hugh's ‘De tribus’ to the classical ars memoriae tradition: ‘Hugh of St. Victor and the Art of Memory,’ Viator 5 (1974), esp. 215.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Hugo, C. L., Sacri et canonici ordinis Praemonstratensis annales II (Nancy 1736) cols. 234–36.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Catalogue général (4°) VI 5.Google Scholar

⁴² Catalogue général des bibliothèques publiques de France: Départements (8°; Paris 1849–1885) I 697–717.Google Scholar

⁴³ Catalogue général (4°) VI 1.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ See Smalley, B., The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame 1964), esp. 196–98.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica I (Quarrachi 1924) tract. intro. q. 1 c. 1. Citing Augustine, Alexander raises the problem: “‘Quaedam creduntur et numquam intelliguntur, sicut est omnis historia singularia et humana gesta percurrens.” Cum ergo doctrina theologiae pro magna parte sit Historica … ergo est eorum quae numquam intelliguntur….’ The question ‘utrum theologia sit scientia,’ which Alexander addresses here, becomes a touchstone for scholastic discourse on the nature of history, since revelation is in time, is of singulars, and is therefore strictly speaking unscientific.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Hugh, , ‘De tribus’ 488.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Robert, , 226.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Hugh, , ‘De tribus’ 491. Zinn has shown that Hugh's understanding of colligere in the text borrowed by Robert is based on its usage in ancient rhetorical texts: Zinn, , ‘Hugh and Memory’ 218. Hugh discussed ‘gathering’ further in Didascalicon 3.11 and 6.3. In the latter, he described at length its specific usefulness for historical study.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Robert, , 227.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Robert, , 227.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Hugh, , ‘De tribus’ 492 and pl. A. Google Scholar

⁵² Robert, , 222: ‘Sed hic insolubilis exoritur controversia, cum legatur in Gestis pontificum, quod sub Eusebio papa crux Domini sit inventa. Sed nec satis mirari possumus, quomodo illa apocrifa scriptura, in qua plenius describitur huius inventionis ficticiae hystoria, ad legendum sit in ecclesia introducta. Nam nullatenus stare potest, si temporum series discutiatur et veritas inquiratur.’ Google Scholar

⁵³ Robert, , 222: ‘Confutandum est igitur, quod sic et auctoritas refellit et ratio, arbitrandum est, figmentum esse falsitatis, cum ibi nullum eluceat vestigium veritatis. Quod si quis asserat, hoc ideo esse tenendum, quia recitari in ecclesia ex longa consuetudine sit inductum, sciat, quia, ubi racio repugnat usui, necesse est usum cedere racioni.’ Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Robert, , 222 n.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Hugh, , ‘De tribus’ 488.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Delisle, , 512–18.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Holder-Egger's distinction of several marginal hands was, as he acknowledged, too precise: e.g., 228 nn. b–f; compare 224. Some marginal notes are clearly not in the text hand, but the occasional mixture of book and charter letter forms in the same note (e.g., ms Auxerre 145, 280, upper r.) suggests that fine distinctions are useless, and that general congruity of scripts is sufficient grounds for a note's attribution to the original author.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ ms Auxerre 145, 281. The MGH edition, which takes marginal note of pagination in the autograph, reproduces this and subsequent manuscript notes when they clearly represent the author's additions to his text.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Compare Sigebert, 362.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ ms Auxerre 145, 283.Google Scholar

⁶¹ ms Auxerre 145, 285.Google Scholar

⁶² ms Auxerre 145, 287.Google Scholar

⁶³ ms Auxerre 145, 302.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Robert mentions the foundation of Cîteaux, for instance, then Clairvaux, : 287, 289. He consistently stresses Cistercian and Premonstratensian activities.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Compare Partner, N., Serious Entertainments: The Writing of History in Twelfth-Century England (Chicago 1977) 194; Brandt, W. J., The Shape of Medieval History: Studies in Modes of Perception (New Haven 1966) esp. 65–76. Robert's work escapes the ‘apparent shapeless-ness’ attributed to that of many contemporaries.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Robert, , 235: ‘… magister Hugo Parisiensis Sancti Victoris canonicus, religione et literarum scientia clarus et in 7 liberalium artium pericia nulli sui temporis secundus, obit; qui etiam tanta ingenii subtilitate et vivacitate sensus eminuit, ut suo tempore vix parem habuerit. Inter ceteras vero virtutes, quibus non mediocriter claruit, humilitate floruit admiranda. Qui inter multa quae utiliter scripsit etiam librum de sacramentis valde necessarium duobus voluminibus comprehensum edidit.’ Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Robert, , 235: ‘Eodem anno Senonis presente rege Ludovico episcoporum et abbatum religiosorum fit conventus contra Petrum Abaelardum, qui quadam profana verborum vel sensuum novitate aecclesiam scandalizabat…. Hic ingenio subtilissimus mirabilisque phylosophus construxit cenobium in territorio Trecassino in prato quodam….’ Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Bernard of Clairvaux, Treatises II: The Steps of Humility and Pride (trans. Conway, A., Cistercian Fathers 13; Kalamazoo 1980) 29–82.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Robert, , 248–49: ‘Per hos dies venit ex Calabriae partibus ad Urbanum papam Verone morantem quidam abbas nomine Ioachim, de quo ferebant, quia, cum prius non plurimum didicisset, divinitus acceperit intelligentie donum, adeo ut facunde diserteque enodaret difficultates quaslibet scripturarum…. Dicit enim, quia, sicut scripturae veteris Testamenti quinque etatum seculi ab Adam usque ad Christum decursarum hystoriam continent, sic liber Apocalypsis etatis sexte a Christo inchoate cursum exponit, ipsamque etatem sextam in sex etatulas dispertitam earumque singulas singulis huius libri periodis satis congrue designatas…. Id vero in libello eius pre ceteris notabile ac suspectum habetur, quod mundi diffinit terminum, et infra duas generationes, quae iuxta ipsum annos faciunt 60, arbitratur implendum quicquid de Antichristo legitur eventurum. Dicat quisque quod senserit, nos tutius iudicamus non discutere quam arguere quod nescimus et rei nobis incerte presagium iudicio relinquere posterorum.’ Google Scholar

⁷⁰ As Reeves, M. E. points out, Robert's description of Joachim's theology of history is among the earliest transalpine notices of his influence. Robert clearly wrote before the Fourth Lateran Council's condemnation of his doctrines: The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study in Joachimism (Oxford 1969) 39–40. Compare Reeves, M. E. and Bloomfield, M. W., ‘The Penetration of Joachimism into Northern Europe,’ Speculum 29 (1954) 775–76.Google Scholar

⁷¹ See Reeves, M. E., ‘History and Prophecy in Medieval Thought,’ in Medieval Historiography (ed. Clogan, P. M., Medievalia et Humanistica n.s. 5; 1974) 51–57.Google Scholar

⁷² Alberic of Trois Fontaines, Chronicon (ed. Scheffer-Boichorst, P., MGH SS 23; Hanover 1874) 879.Google Scholar

⁷³ Robert, , 240: ‘Petrus Comestor Celebris habetur in Francia, magistrorum Parisiensium primas, vir facundissimus et in scripturis divinis excellenter instructis; qui utriusque testamenti historias uno compingens volumine, opus edidit satis utile, satis gratum, ex diversis hystoriis compilatum.’ Google Scholar