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Alan of Lille as a renaissance figure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

P. G. Walsh
P. G. Walsh*
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
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Extract

The Anticlaudianus of Alan of Lille was composed in 1183 when its author was in his sixties and when the greater part of his writing must have lain behind him. That writing, as D’Alverny has most recently demonstrated, overwhelmingly consists of treatises of theological and devotional learning. Whilst it would be oversimplification to suggest that these religious works offer little evidence germane to Alan as a renaissance figure, there is no doubt that the Anticlaudianus offers the deepest insights into the secular influences upon Alan’s modes of thought. In this paper I should like to examine the essential nature and purpose of the Anticlaudianus against the liberating twelfth-century influences which directed the author towards its composition, against the extraordinary range of secular authors which he deploys, and finally and most importantly against the attempted synthesis between secular and sacred, between the insights of classical humanism and doctrinal Christianity, which is such a feature of the intellectual thought of the century. Alan is far from being a pioneer in this direction, but his vision of the synthesis illumines the whole intellectual tradition within which he wrote.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 14: Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History , 1977 , pp. 117 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1977

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References

1 See [R.] Bossuat’s edition, [Alain de Lille, Anticlaudianus] (Paris 1955) p 13 Google Scholar.

2 D’Alverny, [M-T.], [Textes Inédits] (Paris 1965)Google Scholar. A useful summary of Alan’s writings can be found in the introduction to the translation of the Anticlaudianus by Sheridan, J. J. (Toronto 1973)Google Scholar.

3 For the archaeological evidence, see Lebeau, M., ‘Découverte du tombeau du bienheureux Alain de Lille’, COCR 23 (1961) pp 254 seq Google Scholar, and Delhaye, P., ‘Pour la fiche Alain de Lille’, Mélanges de science religieuse 20 (Lille 1963) pp 39 seq Google Scholar. For the date of death, Fontaines, Aubry de Trois in Recueils des historiens des Gaules et de la France, 18 (Paris 1882) p 761 Google Scholar. For a conventional assessment of the date of birth, see De Ghellinck, J., L’essor de la littérature latine au XIIe siècle (2 ed Brussels 1955) p 83 Google Scholar: ‘né vers 1128’.

4 See the good survey in D’Alverny’s introduction.

5 For the dedication of Contra Haereticos to William, and of Distinctiones dictionum theologicarum to Ermengard, see D’Alverny, p 13; for Ralph’s claim to personal friendship, D’Alverny, p 12.

6 Powicke, F. M. and Emden, A. B., Rashdall’s Medieval Universities (Oxford 1936) 2 pp 119 seq Google Scholar.

7 Metalogicon 1. 4. Saint Bernard’s ep 307 tells of the archbishop of Lyons attending there for a cure, spending in the medical school ‘quod habebat et quod non habebat’.

8 See the Vita Adalberti in Jaffé, P., Bibliotheca rerum Germanarum (Berlin 1873) 3 p 592 Google Scholar.

9 John of Garland, De triumphis ecclesiae libri VIII, ed Wright, T. (London 1856) p 14 Google Scholar; Henry of Brussels (?), see Haring, N.M., RB 80 (1970) p 82 Google Scholar.

10 Sermo de clericis ad theologiam non accedentibus (D’Alverny, pp 274 seq).

11 Walter of Châtillon, Moralisch-satirische Gedichte, ed Strecker, K. (Heidelberg 1929)Google Scholar; Hildebert, , Carmina Minora, ed Scott, A.B. (Leipzig 1969) nos 36, 38Google Scholar.

12 Jerome, epp 22, 70.

13 Institutes I 27: ‘utilis et non refugienda cognitio . . .’.

14 The researches of Pierre Courcelle are fundamental here; see especially (in addition to Les lettres grecques en occident (2 ed Paris 1948)) ‘Boèce et l’école d’Alexandrie’, Mélanges de l’Ecole française à Rome 52 (193s) pp 183 seq.

15 See the previous note.

16 See Wetherbee, [W.], [Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century] (Princeton 1972)Google Scholar.

17 PL 178 (1885) col 998. See in general Luscombe, D.E., The School of Peter Abelara (Cambridge 1969) cap 4 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 See Häring, N. M., ‘The Creation and Creator of the World according to Thierry of Chartres and Clarenbaldus of Arras’, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 22 (Paris 1955) pp 137 seq Google Scholar.

19 See Wetherbee pp 36 seq; Stock, [B.], [Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century: A Study of Bernard Silvester] (Princeton 1972) pp 49 seq Google Scholar.

20 The earlier treatment by Fulgentius, Expositio Virgilianae Continentiae, is resumed by Silvester, Bernard, Commentum Bernardi Silvestris super sex libros Eneidos Virgilii, ed Riedel, G. (Griefswald 1924)Google Scholar.

21 See Demats, P., Fabula (Geneva 1973) cap 3 Google Scholar.

22 See Stock pp 21 seq.

23 Stock pp 275 seq, emphasising that the idea is commonplace earlier in the century.

24 1. 3. 53f; ‘exemplar specimenque Dei virguncula Christum parturit et verum secula numen habent’.

25 Chenu, M-D., La théologie au douzième siècle (Paris 1957)Google Scholar.

26 Ziltener, W., Studien zur bildungsgeschichtlichen Eigenart der höfischen Dichtung (Bern 1972) p 25 Google Scholar.

27 Sermo de clericis ad theologiam non accedentibus (D’Alverny p 275). The threshold is that of theology.

28 Text in Wright, T., Anglo-Saxon Satirical Poets 2 (London 1872) pp 429 seq Google Scholar.

29 See Economou, G.D., The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature (Harvard 1972)Google Scholar; Nitzsche, J. C., The Genius Figure in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (New York 1975)Google Scholar.

30 Clarke, [A. K.] and Giles, [P. M.], [The Commentary of Geoffrey of Vitry on Claudian, De Raptu Proserpinae] (Leiden 1973)Google Scholar.

31 Clarke and Giles, pp 16 seq.

32 See Cameron, Alan, Claudian (Oxford 1970) cap 8 Google Scholar.

33 See Paulinus of Nola, Carm. 10.19 seq: ‘Hearts dedicated to Christ reject the Latin Muses and turn away Apollo’.

34 Bossuat’s edition does not pick up all the suggestive parallels between 1 300 seq and 313 seq and Cons 1.1.

35 De Trin 2. For the twelfth-century background, especially Richard, see D’Alverny, pp 168 seq.

36 See Hunt, R. W. and Klibansky, R., ‘Priscian in the 11th and 12th Centuries’ in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 1 (London 1941-3) pp 194 seq, 2 Google Scholar (1944) pp 1 seq.

37 IV 95 seq; compare Bernard Silvester II 14; Ovid, Met II 153.

38 V 57 seq; compare Juvenal X 346 seq.

39 See Häring, N.M., Commentary on Boethius by Thierry of Chartres (Toronto 1971) p 442 Google Scholar.

40 See the passages assembled by Bossuat at the beginning of book VIII.

41 I 26.

42 I 73.

43 Ennius and Mevius (I 166 seq) represent Joseph of Exeter and Walter of Châtillon; see Francke, K., Zur Geschichte der lateinischen Schulpoesie des XII und XIII Jahrhunderts (Munich 1878) p 22 Google Scholar.

44 I 232 seq.

45 II 45 seq.

46 V 147 seq.

47 Rom 10.17.

48 VI 226 seq.

49 See Origen, , PG 11 (1857) col 165 Google Scholar; Jerome, , PL Suppl 1 (1958) cols 164 seq Google Scholar and PL 24 (1865) col 802; Augustine, Civ Dei XX 7.

50 See Wetherbee p 153; text in PL 172 (1895) cols 1365 seq.

51 Matt 5.48. The whole question of the perfect man is set brilliantly in historical context by the paper of Professor Wilks which follows.