John of Salisbury (c. 1120 – October 25 1180), also known as Johannes Parvus, (John the Little)[1] was an English author, educationalist, diplomat and bishop of Chartres, and was born at Salisbury.
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Early life and education
Beyond the fact that he was of Anglo-Saxon Anglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066. The Benedictine monk, Bede, identified them as the descendants of three Germanic tribes:, not of Norman The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of mostly Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock. Their identity emerged initially in the first half of the tenth century, and gradually evolved over succeeding centuries. The name & extraction, and applied to himself the cognomen of Parvus, "short," or "small," few details are known regarding his early life; but from his own statements it is gathered that he crossed to France about 1136, and began regular studies in Paris Paris ([paʁi] in French, pronounced /ˈpærɪs/ in English) is the capital and largest city of France. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region (or Paris Region, French: Région parisienne). The city of Paris, within its administrative limits largely unchanged since 1860, has an estimated under Pierre Abélard Peter Abelard (1079 – April 21, 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician. The story of his affair with and love for Héloïse has become legendary. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary describes him as "the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century", who had there for a brief period re-opened his famous school on Montagne Sainte-Geneviève.
After Abelard's retirement, John carried on his studies under Alberich of Reims Alberich of Reims studied with Anselm of Laon. He was a master at Rheims from 1118 to 1136 and the Archdeacon there from 1131 to 1136. He served as Archbishop of Bourges from 1136 to 1141 and Robert of Melun. From 1138 to 1140 he studied grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. Linguists do not normally use the and the classics under William of Conches and Richard l'Evêque, the disciples of Bernard of Chartres, perhaps at Chartres.
Bernard's teaching was distinguished partly by its pronounced Platonic Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Plato was originally a tendency, partly by the stress laid upon literary study of the greater Latin writers. The influence of the latter feature is noticeable in all John of Salisbury's works.
About 1140 he was at Paris studying theology under Gilbert de la Porrée, then under Robert Pullus and Simon of Poissy. In 1148 he resided at Moutiers la Celle in the diocese of Troyes, with his friend Peter of Celle. He was present at the council of Reims, presided over by Pope Eugene III, and was probably presented by Bernard of Clairvaux Bernard of Clairvaux, O.Cist was a Frankish abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian monastic order. After the death of his mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order. Three years later, he was sent to found a new abbey at an isolated clearing in a glen known as the Val d'Absinthe, about 15 km southeast of Bar-sur- to Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury The Archbishop of Canterbury is the chief bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group of Christians in the world, under whose sponsorship he returned to England about 1150.
Secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury
Appointed secretary to Theobald, he was frequently sent on missions to the papal see. During this time he composed his greatest works, published almost certainly in 1159, the Policraticus, sive de nugis curialium et de vestigiis philosophorum and the Metalogicon, writings invaluable as storehouses of information regarding the matter and form of scholastic education, and remarkable for their cultivated style and humanist tendency. The phrase Standing on the shoulders of giants is attributed to this work. The Policraticus also sheds light on the decadence of the 12th century court manners and the ethical lowness of the royalty. After the death of Theobald in 1161, John continued as secretary to Thomas Becket Thomas Becket , later also known as Thomas à Becket, was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. He engaged in conflict with Henry II of England over the rights and privileges of the Church and was assassinated by followers of the, and took an active part in the long disputes between that primate Primate is a title or rank bestowed on some bishops in certain Christian churches. Depending on the particular tradition, it can denote either jurisdictional authority (title of authority) or ceremonial precedence (title of honour) and his sovereign A Monarch is the person who heads a monarchy, a form of government in which a country or entity is usually ruled or controlled by an individual who normally rules for life or until abdication. Monarchs may be autocrats or may be ceremonial heads of state who exercise little or no power or only reserve power, with actual authority vested in a, Henry II Henry II , ruled as King of England (1154–1189), Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the first of the House of Plantagenet to.
His letters throw light on the constitutional struggle then agitating England. With Becket he withdrew to France during the king's displeasure; he returned with him in 1170, and was in Canterbury at the time of his assassination. In the following years, during which he continued in an influential situation in Canterbury, but at what precise date is unknown, he wrote a Life of Becket.
Bishop of Chartres
In 1176 he was made bishop of Chartres Chartres is a town and commune and capital of the Eure-et-Loir department in north-central France. It is located 96 km (60 mi) southwest of Paris, where he passed the remainder of his life. In 1179 he took an active part in the third Lateran council The Third Council of the Lateran met in March 1179 as the eleventh ecumenical council. Pope Alexander III presided and 302 bishops attended. He died at or near Chartres on October 25, 1180.[1]
Scholarship and influences
John's writings are excellent at clarifying the literary and scientific position of 12th century Western Europe. His views imply a cultivated intelligence well versed in practical affairs, opposing to the extremes of both nominalism Nominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism. One version denies the existence of universals—things that can and realism Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular empirical rules," as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation. As such, the approach inherently implies a belief that such reality is ontologically a practical common sense Common sense, based on a strict construction of the term, consists of what people in common would agree on[citation needed] : that which they "sense" as their common natural understanding.[citation needed] Some people use the phrase to refer to beliefs or propositions that — in their opinion — most people would consider prudent and. His doctrine is a kind of utilitarianism Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its utility in providing happiness or pleasure as summed among all sentient beings. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome. The most influential contributors to this ideology were Jeremy, with a strong leaning on the speculative side to the modified literary scepticism of Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists, for whom he had unbounded admiration and on whose style he based his own.
Of Greek writers he appears to have known nothing at first hand, and very little in translations. The Timaeus of Plato in the Latin version of Chalcidius was known to him as to his contemporaries and predecessors, and probably he had access to translations of the Phaedo and Meno. Of Aristotle Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most he possessed the whole of the Organon in Latin; he is, indeed, the first of the medieval writers of note to whom the whole was known.
Fictional portrayals
John was portrayed by actor Alex G. Hunter in the 1923 silent film Becket, based on a play by Alfred Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS , much better known as "Alfred, Lord Tennyson," was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language.
Primary sources and further reading
- Latin text and English translations of John's works
- Anselm & Becket. Two Canterbury Saints' Lives by John of Salisbury, Ronald E. Pepin (transl.) Turnhout, 2009, Brepols Publishers,ISBN 978-0-88844-298-7
- The Letters of John of Salisbury, 2 vols., ed. and trans. W. J. Millor and H. E. Butler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979-86)
- Historia Pontificalis, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986)
- John of Salisbury's Entheticus maior and minor, ed. and trans. Jan van Laarhoven [Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 17] (Leiden: Brill, 1987)
- English translations of John's works
- Policraticus, ed. and trans. Cary Nederman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)
- The statesman’s book of John of Salisbury; being the fourth, fifth, and sixth books, and selections from the seventh and eighth books, of the Policraticus, trans. John Dickinson (New York: Knopf, 1927)
- Frivolities of courtiers and footprints of philosophers, being a translation of the first, second, and third books and selections from the seventh and eighth books of the Policraticus of John of Salisbury, trans. Joseph B. Pike (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1938)
- The Metalogicon, a twelfth-century defense of the verbal and logical arts of the trivium, trans. Daniel McGarry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1955)
- English excerpts of John's political theory
References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition is a 29-volume reference work that marked the beginning of the Encyclopædia Britannica's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the day. This edition of the encyclopedia is now in the public domain, but the outdated nature, a publication now in the public domain Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all, if the intellectual property rights have expired, and/or if the intellectual property rights are forfeited. Examples include the English language, the formulae of Newtonian physics, as well as the works of Shakespeare and the patents over powered flight.
Categories: 1120s births | 1180 deaths | Scholastic philosophers Categories: Aristotelian philosophers | Christian philosophers | Medieval philosophers | Philosophers by tradition | Scholasticism | Roman Catholic theologians | 12th-century Roman Catholic bishops | Bishops of Chartres | People from Salisbury | 12th-century writers | 12th-century English people
