# Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought and Learning/Appendix VIII

VIII. Note on Abailard's Masters.
The manuscript of Saint Emmeram's, Ratisbon (now at Munich), from which Pez printed Abailard's Scito te ipsum and Rheinwald more recently the same writer'sSententiae contains a notice of his biography which, it seems to me, is worthy of attention. The character of the works in the volume is such as to mark it as proceeding from the inner circle of Abailard's disciples; for the Scito te ipsum had the reputation at least of being peculiarly esoteric, in fact, like the Sic et non, of shunning the light. The presumption therefore is that the biographical record which accompanies these pieces is based upon special sources of information. Unfortunately a part of it is so evidently apocryphal that it has discredited the remainder. It runs as follows:
Petrus, qui Abelardus, a plerisque Baiolardus, dicitur, natione Anglicus, primum grammaticae et dialecticae, hinc divinitati operam dedit. Sed cum esset inaestimandae subtilitatis, inauditae memoriae, capacitatis supra humanum modum, auditor aliquando magistri Roscii, coepit eum cum exfestucatione quadam sensuum illius audire. Attamen im- ​peravit sibi ut per annum lectionibus ipsius interesset. Mox ergo socios habere, et Parisius palam dialecticae atque divini- tatis lectiones dare coepit; et facile omnes Franciae magistros in brevi supervenit. Qui cum de Quadruvio nihil audisset, clam magistro Tirrico in quasdam mathematicas lectiones aures dabat, in quibus supra quam aestimaret obtentu diffi- cultatis intellectus resiliebat audientis. Cui semel afflicto et indignanti per iocum magister Tirricus ait, Quid canis plenus nisi lardum baiare consuevit? Baiare autem lingere est. Exinde Baiolardus appellari coepit. Quod nomen tanquam ex defectu quodam sibi impositum cum abdicaret, sub littera- tura non dissimili Habelardum se nominari fecit, quasi qui haberet artium apud se summam et adipem.
Taking these statements in order, we remark—
1. That the natione Anglicus, Britannus having been obviously changed into an apparent synonym, gives the impression of the writer being but remotely acquainted with Abailard's history.
2. On the other hand, the order of his studies is correctly given. We have, it is true, no information about the time when Abailard learned grammar and it must be presumed that the writer merely conjectured that Abailard followed what was after all the natural and customary curriculum.
3. But the mention of Roscius (though the corrupt form in which the name is given may be considered to tell both ways) is of distinct importance. For a long time this passage was the only one, besides the notice of Otto of Freising, that spoke of Abailard's personal relations with Roscelin; and Otto's testimony was commonly discredited, especially because Abailard in his Historia Calamitatum altogether ignored the fact. So soon however as Abailard's Dialectic was printed, it was found that he was in all probability the person referred to under the abbreviated style of magistri nostri Ros. The discovery in a Munich manuscript of a letter unquestionably addressed by Roscelin to his former pupil (though here the names are indicated only by initials), has finally decided the matter, and to this ​extent confirmed the evidence of the record here under consideration.
4. The next point, namely, that Abailard was unversed in the arts of the quadrivium is also of importance, since it is incidentally corroborated by Abailard's own statement that he was ignorant of mathematics: after quoting a geometrical argument from Boëthius, he adds,
Cuius quidem solutionis, etsi multas ab arithmeticis solu- tiones audierim, nullam tamen a me praeferendam iudico, quia eius artis ignarum omnino me cognosce.
5. Then follows the story of his attendance upon the lectures of master Tirric. After whatwe have said about Theodoric or Terric of Chartres, it is natural that we should be disposed to identify him with this teacher of mathematics, especially since Tirric is found among the audience at Abailard's trial at Soissons. But what raises this conjecture to a higher degree of probability is the circumstance that the extracts whichM. Hauréau has recently printed from an unpublished treatise by Theodoric, show an evident partiality for mathematical illustrations. The account then of Abailard's connexion with Tirric suits exactly with what we know from other sources of these scholars attitude towards mathematics.
6. The concluding story about the origin of the name Abailard is of course a figment. Apart from its grotesqueness and intrinsic improbability (especially when we remember that, on the narrator's showing, Abailard must have adopted a new name after he had acquired his remarkable reputation as a teacher), there is sufficient evidence that the name is not unique. A little before Peter Abailard’s birth, a son of Humphrey the Norman and nephew of Robert Wiscard received the name of Abaielardus.
7. Dismissing this legend then, we find that our document names two of Abailard’s teachers, one of whom (though the name is corrupted) points to an established fact, and the other to one inherently probable. The chronology however presents serious difficulties. There is no ​interval after Abailard entered upon the study of theology in which we can plausibly insert the lessons he had from Tirric; so that I incline to believe that Abailard made a short stay at Chartres during his first years of student life, after he left Roscelin and before he reached – possibly on his road to – Paris; or at the latest during the period
for which, suffering from ill-health or the hostility of William of Champeaux, he retired from the neighbourhood of Paris. However this may be, I see no reason for doubting the truth of the bare fact that Abailard did enter upon a course of learning under Tirric.
* ↑ m
* ↑ Sunt autem, ut audio, adhuc alia eius opuscula quorum nomina sunt, Sic et non, Scito te ipsum, et alia quaedam, de quibus timeo ne, sicut monstruosi sunt nominis, sic etiam sint monstruosi dogmatis: sed, sicut dicunt, oderunt lucem nec etiam quaesita inveniuntur: Epist. Guill. de S. Theod. ad Gaufr. et Bern., (Bern. Opp. 1. 303 B, ep. cccxxvi. 4, ed. Mabillon). The Sententiae are coupled with the Scito te ipsum by Bernard, Ep. clxxxviii. 2, p, 181 E.
* ↑ t
* ↑ u