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Marek T. Kretschmer. Serlo of Wilton. The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, 2017, pp.1687-1688. hal-04665665

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Serlo of Wilton

MAREK THUE KRETSCHMER

Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

Serlo of Wilton (c. 1105–81) is the author of 84 relatively short (from 1 to 131 verses) metrical (hexametric and elegiac) Latin poems of various kinds (didactic-grammatical, erotic-amatory, satirical, proverbial, religious, and occasional) and of a small treatise on the Lord’s Prayer. A couple of sermons ascribed to him are of uncertain authorship. His poetry (Öberg 1965) enjoyed fairly wide circulation: groups of poems are contained in some 40 extant manuscripts of which the most important are the two twelfth-century witnesses Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 6765 and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 53. Our knowledge about his life (Rigg 1996) rests on the mention of a *magister Serlo* in certain charters of Reading Abbey, the mention of his death in the Waverley Annals, and the descriptions of him by Walter Map (*De nugis curialium* 2, 4) and Gerald of Wales (*Speculum Ecclesiae* 2, 33) who both knew him. Additional information can be derived from his “autobiographical” poems (24, 78, 80), and even from some of his occasional poems (8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 25, 26, 36) dedicated to historical (mainly based on Öberg’s conjectures) personages. Thus, based on the documentary and literary evidence, we are able to reconstruct the main stages of Serlo’s career: Born in Wilton, Serlo came as a student to Paris where he later became a teacher and taught grammar and rhetoric. Back in England, he was in the service of Adeliza of Louvain from 1136 until her death in 1151 (Rigg 1996, 96). Some scholars (notably Friend 1954) have taken poem 15, the elegy mourning the death of Robert

of Gloucester, as evidence of Serlo’s siding with Matilda (daughter of King Henry I) during the Anarchy (1135–54), and poem 24 as evidence of a period of exile that Serlo supposedly spent in Antibes subsequent to the defeat of Matilda. We know for certain, however, that he left the schools (probably around the year 1155) to become a Cluniac at Charité-sur-Loire, but then joined the Cistercians and eventually became abbot of L’Aumône abbey in the diocese of Blois by 1173. According to the scribal rubrics in the above-mentioned Oxford manuscript, poems 78 (the famous *Linquo coax ranis*) and 80 (*Mundus abit*) are allusions to these two events. His conversion from the secular to the monastic world became a popular legend. It is contained in MS Troyes 946 and included in the sermons of Odo of Cheriton, Jacques de Vitry, Robert de Sorbon, and also in the *Legenda Aurea* (chap. 163) of Jacobus de Voragine. The French author Marcel Schwob gave the legend new life with his publication of *La légende de Serlon de Wilton* in 1899.

Serlo’s grammatical poems 1–3 date from his period at the schools, the most famous of which is poem 2, his longest poem, a sort of *aide-mémoire* to distinguish homographs by their vowel quantities. From the same period is poem 16, a petition to King Louis VI or VII for the abolition of the fee required of *licentia docendi*, and his collection of proverbs (44–73). His amatory poems (7, 14, 18, 19, 20, 28, 29, 31, 32) are certainly written before the conversion. They are among the finest examples of poetry from the so-called Ovidian Age (Dronke 1968, 163ff. and 239ff.; Kretschmer 2013). In that respect, the poetical exchange with Hugh Primas contained in poem 75 is also a precious example.

SEE ALSO:
2 SERLO OF WILTON

REFERENCES

Dronke, Peter. 1968. *Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric*. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Friend, A.C. 1954. "Serlo of Wilton: The Early Years." *Archivium Latinitatis Medii Aevii* 24: 85-110.

Kretschmer, Marek Thue. 2013. "The Love Elegy in Medieval Latin Literature (Pseudo-Ovidiana and Ovidian Imitations)." In *The Cambridge*

*Companion to Latin Love Elegy*, edited by T.S. Thorsen, 271–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Öberg, Jan, ed. 1965. *Serlon de Wilton: Poèmes latins*. Stockholm: Almqvist og Wiksell.

Rigg, A.G. 1996. "Serlo of Wilton: Biographical Notes." *Medium Ævum* 65 (1): 96–101.
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ABSTRACT

Serlo of Wilton (c. 1105–81) started his career as a teacher in Paris, but withdrew from secular life probably around the mid-1150s, becoming first a Cluniac and then a Cistercian. He has left some 84 metrical Latin poems, considered to be among the finest examples of poetry of the so-called Ovidian Age (twelfth and thirteenth centuries).

KEYWORDS

1100–1199; Latin literature; medieval literature; poetry