John of Salisbury and Aristotle

Charles Burnett

John of Salisbury was born in Old Sarum (the old city of Salisbury)
some time between 1115 and 1120, and died in Chartres on 25 Octo-
ber, 1180.1 His career was long and turbulent. After twelve years in
the schools of Paris and Chartres, he served two archbishops of Can-
terbury, Theobald (1139-61) and Thomas Becket (1162-70). While in
the service of Theobald he was frequently sent on diplomatic commis-
sions to the pope in Italy. After the accession of Thomas Becket to the
archbishopric (1162), he tried to steer a reconciliatory course between
the archbishop and the king, but before long he had to share Thomas’s
exile. He returned with him to Canterbury in 1170 and was present
when the archbishop was slain. For the next few years he stayed in
England, supporting the cause of Thomas’s canonization. In 1176 he
was elected bishop of Chartres, ‘in honour of Saint Thomas’, and spent
the rest of his life in the comparative calm of the cathedral.
Although he wrote letters documenting the events in which he was
involved throughout his life, his most productive period as an author was
in the 1150s. During these years he wrote the Policraticus (completed by
September, 1159; a work on ‘the trifles of courtiers and the footsteps of
1
For a bibliography of works written on John of Salisbury between 1952 and 1983,
and studies concerning a wide range of topics, see The World of John of Salisbury,
ed. M. Wilks, Studies in Church History, Subsidia 3, Oxford, 1984. The most impor-
tant publications since then are P. von Moos, Geschichite als Topik: das rhetorische
Exemplum von der Antike zur Neuzeit und die historiae im“Policraticus” Johannes
von Salisbury, and new editions of John’s works: Entheticus Maior and Minor by J.
Van Laarhoven, 3 vols, Leiden, 1987, Policraticus I-IV , by K. S. B. Keats-Rohan,
Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, 118, Turnhout, 1993, and Metalogi-
con, ed. J. B. Hall, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, 98, Turnhout,
1991. All the quotations from the Metalogicon in this article are according to the
books, chapters and line numbers in Hall’s edition. I am very grateful to Barrie Hall
for helpful criticisms and for allowing me to quote from his forthcoming translation
of the Metalogicon. I am also indebted to Dag Nikolaus Hasse, Christopher Ligota,
David Luscombe, Constant Mews and Anna Somfai

19
20 Charles Burnett

philosophers’), the Entheticus de dogmate philosophorum (a long poem

on the benefit of philosophy, summarising the most useful statements
of the philosophers and commenting on contemporary morality), and
the Metalogicon (completed in October, 1159). The Policraticus and
the Metalogicon were both dedicated to Thomas Becket, and were, no
doubt, meant to complement each other. But it is the Policraticus that
was popular in the Middle Ages (some 120 manuscripts survive), and has
received the most attention in recent scholarship. Of the Metalogicon,
on the other hand, there are only nine manuscripts, and, aside from
its famous account of John’s schooling (Metalogicon II, ch. 10), only the
aspects of the text relevant to the history of logic have received close
attention.2
This is unfair, since the work provides information about the intel-
lectual activity in the second quarter of the twelfth century which is
of unique importance. This is not only because, were it not for John,
we would know much less about the schools of the first half of the
twelfth century. We would, for example, hardly have been aware of
the doctrines, let alone the eminence of Bernard of Chartres,3 and John
mentions certain masters that have not yet been identified elsewhere,
such as Tenredus, and Drogo of Troyes. It is also because he has strong
personal convictions about the purpose of scholarship, and thus he casts
light on the trends of scholarship in his time.
The dramatic framework for the Metalogicon is provided by his criti-
cism of the followers of ‘Cornificius’, a fictitious straw man, which set his
own convictions into relief. What is criticized is the seeking of shortcuts
and quick returns, study only for the sake of material gain (especially
in law and medicine), narrow specialisation, and disdain for the works
of Aristotle. These criticisms are all related to each other, and all re-
turn to the one focus: the advantage of studying Aristotle.4 It is not
2
Among the studies on the logic in the Metalogicon are K. Prantl, Geschichte
der Logik im Abendlande, 2nd ed., 2 vols, Leipzig, 1855-60, I, pp. 233-60, Ryszard
Palacz, ‘Bezpósrednia recepcja Arystotelizmu w Metalogiconie Jana z Salisbury’(‘The
Direct Reception of Aristotelism in the Metalogicon of John of Salisbury’), Studia
Mediewistyczne, 5, 1964, pp. 191-251 (in Polish with a French summary), and B. P.
Hendley, ‘John of Salisbury and the Problem of Universals’, Journal of the History
of Philosophy, 8, 1970, pp. 289-302.
3
Only recently has John’s summary of Bernard’s teaching on forms been confirmed
by Paul Dutton’s discovery of the latter’s commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. Bernard
of Chartres, Glosae super Platonem, Toronto, 1991.
4
For the praise of Aristotle, cf. Met. II, 16, title: ‘quod omnes alii professores huius
John of Salisbury and Aristotle 21

that John is an ‘Aristotelian’: he finds fault with Aristotle, not only

on account of his style, but also because of certain aspects of his doc-
trine,5 and he prefers to call himself an ‘Academic’.6 But Aristotle is the
prime example of a scholar who did not specialize in one subject, but
wrote on the whole of science.7 His works are not manuals for becoming
rich and famous quick, but are the most appropriate works for use in
teaching of the best kind. The major part of the Metalogicon, therefore,
is devoted to a detailed analysis of the contents of Aristotle’s works, as
John knew them, in order to counter the Cornificians’ claim that they
are useless. The Aristotle John knows best is the author of texts on
logic, and logic is the focus of the Metalogicon, as is already obvious in
the title.8 But the title also implies that John is looking beyond logic
(just as ‘Metaphysica’ looks beyond physics), and the implication is that
Aristotle’s method is relevant in the study of any science. The Parisian
scholars used Aristotle’s works as a starting point for detailed commen-
taries; John propounds an alternative way of teaching these works. In
his criticisms, he is sometimes seen as reactionary and conservative. He
should rather be seen as prefiguring the scholastic development of the
thirteenth century in which Aristotle’s works formed the backbone of
teaching in the Arts Faculties. This is because he is not advocating
Aristotelian logic as such, but rather perceives Aristotle’s method of ex-
position as being the best way to train in any discipline,9 hence opening
up the possibility of using hitherto unknown parts of the Aristotelian
corpus, in natural science, ethics and metaphysics.
The big question in Medieval Western philosophy is ‘Why Aristo-
tle?’ The Peripatetic School was only one of several schools in Classical
Antiquity, and the Romans had embraced Stoicism with greater enthu-
[ = dialectica] Aristotili cedunt’ (‘That all other professors of this art yield pride of
place to Aristotle’).
5
Met. II, 20, 523-5: ‘ei qui Peripateticorum libros aggreditur, magis Aristotilis
sententia sequenda est. Forte non quia verior, sed plane quia his disciplinis magis
accommoda est’ (‘but one who embarks on the books of the Peripatetics must rather
follow the view of Aristotle, perhaps not because it is more true, but simply because
it is more suited to these disciplines’).
6
Met. III, prol., 68: ‘Academicus sum’. For John’s sympathy with the New
Academy of Cicero see E. Jeauneau, ‘Jean de Salisbury et la lecture des philosophes’,
in The World of John of Salisbury (n. 1 above), pp. 77-125, at pp. 93-4.
7
Met. IV, 1: Aristotle aims at completeness.
8
Met. prol., 61-2: ‘Et quia logicae suscepit patrocinium metalogicon inscriptus est
liber’ (‘As it has undertaken the defence of logic, my book is entitled Metalogicon’).
9
Met. III, 8: Aristotle’s speciality is in providing for subtely of discourse.
22 Charles Burnett

siasm than Aristotelianism. Only in the schools of Alexandria in the

late Hellenistic period did Aristotle become the centre of philosophical
study, and this resulted in the adoption of Aristotle’s works as their
canon by Arabic scholars who studied philosophy.10 Then, in the early
twelfth century, certain Greeks in the court of the Comneni in Con-
stantinople were also reviving Aristotelian studies.11 These Arabic and
Greek interests provided the opportunity for Western scholars to become
acquainted with Aristotle. But Aristotle was not an obvious choice.
Before John of Salisbury, Cicero and Seneca were the ‘Philosophers’,
and Plato was honoured as much as Aristotle, if not more so.12 Only in
logic was Aristotle regarded as the leader, and had been championed as
such by Gerbert d’Aurillac and Peter Abelard. But the earliest trans-
lations from both Greek and Arabic in the field of natural philosophy
were of works by the Neoplatonist Nemesius of Emesa and by the Ara-
bic philosophers Qust.ā ibn Lūqā and the anonymous author of the De
ortu scientiarum, not of works by Aristotle. Latin natural and moral
philosophy in the Middle Ages could have been based on the writings of
the Church Fathers which the Greeks had preserved and cultivated, or
on the most popular philosophical tradition among the Arabs and Jews:
that of Avicenna. Yet from the 1140s onwards a systematic attempt
was made to translate the authentic works of Aristotle. The initiators
were, for the most part, Italian. On the one hand, Gerard of Cremona
travelled to Toledo where he inaugurated a series of translations of Aris-
totle’s works on natural science (in addition to the Posterior Analytics)
which was completed by his successors, Alfred of Shareshill and Michael
Scot.13 On the other hand, James of Venice, Burgundio of Pisa and Hen-
ricus Aristippus between them translated a large part of the Aristotelian
10
F. E. Peters overstated the lack of central importance for Aristotle among the
ancient Greeks, in claiming that Arabic scholars falsely believed that an Alexan-
drian list of Aristotle’s works was the blueprint for a curriculum which never, in fact,
existed; see History of Islamic Philosophy, eds. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Lea-
man, Routledge History of World Philosophies, vol. I, 2 vols, London and New York,
1996, p. 47.
11
See R. Browning, ‘An Unpublished Funeral Oration on Anna Comnena’, in Aris-
totle Transformed, ed. R. Sorabji, London, 1990 pp. 393-406.
12
For Adelard of Bath writing early in the twelfth century, Plato was the
‘philosophorum princeps’ in De eodem et diverso (Adelard of Bath, Conversations
with His Nephew, ed. and trans. C. Burnett et al., Cambridge, 1998, p. 3).
13
See Burnett, The Coherence of the Arabic-Latin Translation Programme in
Toledo in the Twelfth Century, Max-Planck-Institut fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte,
Preprint 78, 1997.
John of Salisbury and Aristotle 23

corpus directly from Greek. James and Burgundio were together in the
Pisan quarter of Constantinople in 1136, at the start of Burgundio’s ca-
reer, which unfolded largely in Pisa itself, where he was a judge (often
acting on behalf of the Papal Curia), until his death in 1193.14 James
probably stayed in Constantinople, and Henricus was working in Sicily.
The three translators must have cooperated with each other: there is no
duplication of translation, and, in one case, a translation of De genera-
tione et corruptione by Burgundio is erroneously attributed to Henricus.
Burgundio was probably the leading figure in this group.
John of Salisbury was aware of the work of the first two of these
Greek-Latin translators, and possibly of the third. He mentions ‘Bur-
gundio Pisanus’ as his authority for the statement that Aristotle merits
the name ‘Philosophus’ rather than any other philosopher;15 what be-
came a commonplace afterwards is innovatory for the time.16 James of
Venice is not mentioned by John by name in the Metalogicon, but John
is the earliest writer to quote his translation of Aristotle’s Posterior An-
alytics,17 and possibly the Physics,18 and he also advocated the study of
14
To the classic monograph by P. Classen, Burgundio von Pisa, Sitzungsberichte der
Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phi.-hist. Klasse, 1974. 4, Heidelberg,
1974, should be added the article by G. Vuillemin-Diem and M. Rashed, ‘Burgundio
de Pise et ses manuscrits grecs d’Aristote: Laur. 87. 7. et Laur. 81. 18’, Recherches
de théologie et philosophie médiévales, 64, 1997, pp. 136-97.
15
Met. IV, 7, 6-8: ‘Ideo enim ut aiunt, in ipso nomen philosophi sedit. Si mihi non
creditur, audiatur vel Burgundio Pisanus, a quo istud accepi’ (‘Therefore, as they
say, on him [Aristotle] the name of ”Philosopher” settles. If you don’t believe me,
listen to Burgundio of Pisa, from whom I got this’).
16
Note that in Policraticus, I, 6, ed. Keats-Rohan, p. 47, John is still considering
Plato as the prince of philosophers: ‘Totius etenim philosophiae princeps Plato (si
tamen Aristotilici acquiescunt)’ (‘. . . For Plato, the prince of the whole of philosophy
(if only Aristotelians agree)’; a similar title (‘philosophorum princeps’) reappears in
Policraticus, VII. 6. 2, ed. C. J. J. Webb, II, p. 111, lines 23-4: see Jeauneau, ‘Jean de
Salisbury’, p. 89). Burgundio’s assessment of Aristotle is shared by a contemporary
anonymous South Italian writer, the author of Tractatus compendiosus, MS Vat.,
Barb. lat. 283, fol. 64r (quoted by P. Morpurgo, L’idea di natura nell’Italia Nor-
mannosveva, Bologna, 1993, p. 95): ‘quidam veritatem sequentes, ut Aristotiles. . . ’
(‘certain people who follow the truth, like Aristotle. . . ’). This text on the elements
and the cosmos was dedicated to Robert of Selby, the chancellor of King Roger II of
Sicily, and John’s close friend.
17
E.g., Met. IV, 8, 36-40 = Post. Anal. I, 18, 91b1-9, Met. IV, 20, 33-4 = Post.
Anal. II, 19, 100a9-10 etc. Other examples are given in Palacz (n. 2 above), pp.
219-21.
18
Aristotle is cited (without mention of the title of the Physics) in Met. IV, 11,
16: ‘Quod Aristotiles docens, dicit ex eo contingere lactentes omnes viros putare
24 Charles Burnett

the Topics, in whose revival James had taken an active part.19 John is,
therefore, a rare witness to what probably marks the entry of James’s
translations and revisions into the Île de France.
The earliest direct evidence for the knowledge of James’s translations
is an entry that Robert of Torigni, abbot of Mont Saint-Michel from 1154
until 1186, added to his Chronicle between 1157 and 1169, which men-
tions that James of Venice translated and ‘commentatus est’ (i.e., per-
haps ‘revised’) several of the texts of the Logica nova, including the
Topics. Now, Robert was at that time a neighbour and close friend of
the archdeacon of Coutances, Richard L’Évêque, whom John of Salis-
bury mentions twice in the Metalogicon: first as a student of Bernard of
Chartres (I, 24, 118-9) and, the second time, in most glowing terms,

patres, feminas autem matres’ (‘In his proof of this point Aristotle observes that
babies regard all adult males as fathers and all adult females as mothers’ = Physics,
184b12-13). It is likely, however, that John is quoting at second hand, as he is in (1)
Met. II, 20, 416-8 (‘Sed plerumque quae naturaliter priora sunt, et notiora simpliciter,
ignotiora sunt nobis’; ‘For the most part, however, things which are by nature prior
and simply better known are less well known to us’) and Met. IV, 8, 14-17 (‘Refert
autem in his quae nota sunt, an natura, an ad nos notiora sint. Nam proxima sensui
notiora nobis, remotiora vero utpote universalia simpliciter, et naturaliter notiora’;
‘In the matter of things known it is of consequence whether they are better known
by nature or with respect to us, things closest to the senses being better known
to us, whereas things more remote from the senses, that is universals, are simply
and naturally better known’), which, while recalling Physics 184a19-21, come from
Posterior Analytics, 71b, and (2) Met. IV, 34, 31-3 (‘Aristotiles autem eas non nihil
esse asserit, eo quod non modo privant, sed ad se quodam modo subiecta disponunt’;
‘Aristotle, however, asserts that they [i.e., privations] are something, since they not
only deprive but also indefinably dispose the subject things towards themselves’)
which comes from Boethius, De divisione, PL 64, 883.
19
The Topics had been translated by Boethius, but this translation fell into disuse;
the earliest indications of its recovery are in its being quoted in the Metalogicon
and by the shadowy figure Gerlandus, and in its being copied in the Heptateuchon
of Thierry of Chartres and MS Oxford, Trinity College, 47 (both MSS of the early
1140s). It is possible that James is the unnamed scholar whom John credits with
the recovery of the Topics in Met. III, 5, 29-34: ‘Cum itaque tam evidens sit utilitas
topicorum, miror quare cum aliis a maioribus tam diu intermissus sit Aristotilis liber,
ut omnino aut fere in desuetudinem abierit, quando aetate nostra diligentis ingenii
pulsante studio quasi a morte vel a somno excitatus est, ut revocaret errantes, et
viam veritatis quaerentibus aperiret’ (‘So then, since the utility of the Topics is so
manifest, I wonder why that book of Aristotle, along with others, was neglected by
our ancestors for so long as to pass completely, or almost completely, into desuetude,
whereas in our own time, at the impulse of a mind diligent in study, it has been
raised up from death, so to say, or at least aroused from slumber, to call back the
wanderers and open up the path of truth to those seeking it’).
John of Salisbury and Aristotle 25

as his own teacher (II, 10, 45-51). In 1167 John of Salisbury asked
Richard l’Évêque for copies of Aristotle’s works that he had in his pos-
session. Richard l’Évêque had taught John in Paris but was archdeacon
of Coutances from 1163 to 1170,20 and bishop of Avranches from 1170
until his death in 1181. He was a neighbour and friend of the abbot of
Mont Saint-Michel, so he could have been responsible for bringing copies
of the ‘new Aristotle’ from Paris to Mont Saint-Michel.21 John did not
have a very high opinion of the translation of the Posterior Analytics
by James of Venice, and quotes from a nova translatio. This has been
identified as a translation surviving in only two manuscripts,22 composed
by a certain ‘John’. Minio-Paluello, the editor of this translation, sug-
gested that John of York, the friend of John of Salisbury who accom-
panied him to Apulia, was the translator, on the grounds that John of
Salisbury calls him an expert in three languages.23 Edouard Jeauneau
20
There is some confusion in the sources here, since John states that Richard is
already archdeacon of Coutance when he is writing the Metalogicon (i.e., in 1159):
see Met. I, 24, 119.
21
The story outlined in this paragraph is told by F. Bossier and J. Brams in the
introduction to their edition of the Physica, translatio vetus (Aristoteles Latinus,
VII. 1, Leiden, 1990, pp. xxi-xxiii). They base their conclusions on the research of
Minio-Paluello, but end with the suggestion that Richard L’Évêque had passed his
manuscripts to his friend Robert of Torigni. This suggestion also occurs in the thor-
ough study of the manuscripts of Aristotle’s works from Mont Saint-Michel of Colo-
man Viola, S. J.: ‘Aristote au Mont Saint-Michel’, in Millénaire monastique du Mont
Saint-Michel, 2: Vie Montoise et rayonnement intellectuel du Mont Saint-Michel, ed.
R. Foreville, Paris, 1967, pp. 289-312; see also M.-T. d’Alverny, ‘Les nouveaux ap-
ports dans les domaines de la science et de la pensées au temps de Philippe Auguste:
La philosophie’, in La France de Philippe Auguste, Colloques CNRS, Paris, 1982, pp.
863-80 (870-3).
22
In fact, one complete copy, and a set of 150 glosses in the margin of a copy of
another translation. The translator ‘John’ ’s preface is edited in Analytica Posteriora,
ed. L. Minio-Paluello and B. G. Dod, Aristoteles latinus IV. 1, Bruges and Paris,
1968, p. xliv. This preface includes a criticism of James’s translation: ‘Translationem
vero Iacobi obscuritatis tenebris involvi silentio suo perhibent Francie magistri qui,
quamvis illam translationem et commentarios ab eodem Iacobo translatos habeant,
tamen notitiam illius libri non audent profiteri. Eapropter, si quid utilitatis ex mea
translatione sibi noverit latinitas provenire, postulationi vestre debebit imputare’
(‘The masters of France say, by their silence, that the translation of James is wrapped
in the darkness of obscurity—those masters, who, although they have that translation
and commentaries translated by the same James, nevertheless do not dare to claim
knowledge of that book. For that reason, if Latinity knows that any usefulness will
come to it from my translation, it ought to impute that to your command’).
23
Analytica Posteriora, ed. L. Minio-Paluello (n. 17 above), p. xlvi; Policraticus,
II, p. 271 ‘trium linguarum’.
26 Charles Burnett

has recently proposed another John: John the Saracen, who made a
new translation of the works of Dionysios the Areopagite for John of
Salisbury.24 The motives behind making a new translation given by
the translators of the Posterior Analytics and the Pseudo-Denys are
strikingly similar and correspondences in translation-vocabulary make
the identification plausible. Jeauneau hypothesizes further that the two
Johns met in Magna Graecia, and that John the Saracen might have
been the ‘Graecus interpres noster’ whom John mentions in his Meta-
logicon.25 The latter boasts that he crossed the Alps ten times, usually
on visits to the Papal Curia, and twice visited Calabria. He laments the
fact that his teachers did not know Greek (Letter 194 ), and would have
agreed with Adelard of Bath that one should travel in search of masters,
‘For what French studies are ignorant of, those across the Alps will un-
lock; what you will not learn amongst the Latins, eloquent Greece will
teach you’.26 John discussed logical problems with a Greek master in
Calabria,27 and perhaps met Henricus Aristippus on a visit to Sicily: for

24
Jeauneau, ‘Jean de Salisbury’ (n. 6 above), pp. 103-8.
25
John the Saracen states that ‘in partibus illis Graeciae in quibus fui’ (‘. . . in those
parts of Greece in which I was’; preface to Theologia mystica); ‘Sarracen’is attested
as a surname in Anna Comnena, Alexiad, V, v. 1 and XIII, v. 2, ed. B. Leib, Paris,
1937-45, II, p. 22, line 22 and III, p. 104, lines 22-3. For John’s references to his Greek
interpreter see Met. I, 15, 90-91: ‘quod a Graeco interprete et qui Latinam linguam
commode noverat, dum in Apulia morarer accepi’ (‘. . . what I learned during a stay
in Apulia from a Greek translator who knew Latin pretty well’); Met. I, 15, 134-
5: ‘Sed nunc Graeci interpretis nostri procedat explanatio’ (‘But now should follow
the explanation of our Greek interpreter’); and Met. IV, 2, 10: ‘interpres meus’.
A ‘Johannes Saracenus’ participated in the translation of the Practica Pantegni of
al-Majusi in 1114/5; he was with the Pisans: see Rencontres de cultures dans la
philosophie médiévale, ed. J. Hamesse and M. Fattori, Louvain-la-Neuve and Cassino,
1990, Plate VII.
26
‘Quod enim Gallica studia nesciunt, Transalpina reserabunt; quod apud Latinos
non addisces, Grecia facunda docebit’; Adelard of Bath, De eodem et diverso (n.
12 above), pp. 68-70. Alfano,archbishop of Salerno had expressed a similar senti-
ment at the end of the eleventh century in the preface to his translation of Neme-
sius’s Premnon phisicon: ‘ad doctrinam huiusmodi copiosius a perpluribus dicta auc-
toribus, et praecipue ab his quos mater educavit Graecia, Latinorum cogente penuria,
. . . transferenda conferam’ (‘for the teaching of this kind I will devote myself to trans-
lating what is said more fully by many authors, and especially those whom mother
Greece educated, whilst the Latins were oppressed by lack [of knowledge]’).
27
Met. III, 5, 36-42: ‘Satis enim inter cetera quae translationis artissima lege, a
Graecis tracta sunt planus est, ita tamen ut facile sit auctoris sui stilum agnoscere,
et ab his dumtaxat fideliter intelligatur, qui sequuntur indifferentiae rationem, sine
qua nemo unquam nec apud nos nec apud Graecos, sicut Graecus interpres natione
John of Salisbury and Aristotle 27

he stayed with his good friend Robert of Selby, whom Haskins identified
as the ‘Roboratus’ in the dedication of Henricus’ translation of Plato’s
Phaedo.28
John was, therefore, right at the centre of the Greek-Latin translat-
ing movement. One of his reasons for travelling to the Greek-speaking
parts of Italy may have been to find Greek texts and translators, and he
himself commissioned translations from John the Saracen.29 John may
himself have been partly responsible for bringing the new Greek-Latin
translations north of the Alps. In the Metalogicon he keeps returning
to problems of translation. This is not only manifest in his citation of
alternative translations, and the questions he puts to a Greek speaker,
but also, at a higher level, in his concern about the comparative impor-
tance of words and the things signified by words. This does not mean
he advocated learning Greek, as Roger Bacon did one hundred years
later. John saw no necessity to read Aristotle’s works in their origi-
nal language. But a translation had implications of its own. Aristotle’s
words in Latin cannot have absolute authority, and therefore the scholar
should attend only to the res. Aristotle’s works need explanation of the
subject-matter, not word for word commentary, which was becoming
the tendency among certain logicians in Paris.

Severitanus dicere consueverat, Aristotilem intellexit’ (‘For, compared with other

books taken from the Greeks in accordance with very narrow rules of translation, it
is quite straightforward; with the qualification, however, that it is easy to recognise
the style of its author, and that it is properly understood only by those who follow
the principle of indifference, without which, as the Severitan translator from the
Greek was wont to say, no one among us or among the Greeks has ever understood
Aristotle’).
28
See Christopher Brooke, ‘John of Salisbury and His World’, in The World of John
of Salisbury, pp. 1-21, at p. 10. For the dedication of the Tractatus compendiosus to
Robert, see n. 16 above.
29
John of Salisbury’s knowledge of Salernitan medicine may also be associated with
his sojourn in the South of Italy; cf. his advocacy of Nemesius’s Premnon phisicon
as a useful work for obtaining knowledge of the soul (Met. IV, 29, 43-4), and his
reference to ‘Galen in Tegni’ in Met. II, 20, 162-6: ‘Simile est quod Galienus in tegni
medicinam dicit scientiam sanorum, aegrorum, et neutrorum. Non inquit omnium,
quoniam hoc infinitum, non quorundam, quoniam hoc ad artem imperfectum, sed
potius qualium quorum’ (‘What Galen says in his Techne, to the effect that medicine
is the knowledge of what is healthy, what diseased, and what the neutral state, is
analogous. It is not, he says, the knowledge of all cases, since this would be an endless
business, nor of certain cases, since this, in terms of the science, would be imperfect,
but rather of exemplary cases’). John’s awareness of medical learning is witnessed
by his use of the metaphor of the medical ‘spiritus’ in Met. II, 11.
28 Charles Burnett

In another respect, too, John of Salisbury’s philosophy of education

belongs not to the schools of Paris but to the milieu of the translators:30
his education is that of the members of the curia (whether of churchmen
or of nobles) and not of the classroom. Both Burgundio and John are
connected with the Papal Curia. The context of John’s philosophy of
education, therefore, should not be seen, as it has often been, as the
nascent university of Paris, but rather as the world of the popes’ and
bishops’ curiae in which the translators moved, and the households of
the nobility to which William of Conches escaped, and in which Ade-
lard of Bath functioned. John was against the narrow specialisation of
the university. He praised Richard l’Évêque and Thierry of Chartres
for their all-round knowledge,31 and emphasised the interdependence of
all the arts.32 In this the Metalogicon would seem to be a successor
to Adelard’s De eodem et diverso. Both belong to the tradition of
the Protrepticon—the exhortation to turn to philosophy in its broad-
est sense—and emphasize the moral values of education. Both describe
the subject-matter of the arts and the contents of the primary textbooks
in them (though John concentrates on the trivium). For both, many of
the arguments hinge on the difference between ‘res’ and ‘verba’. Both
spice their text by setting up an opposition between two parties: in the
De eodem et diverso, Philocosmia and Philosophia, in the Metalogicon,
Cornificius and the Academic author himself. Philocosmia is attended
by her maidens riches, power, honour, fame and pleasure; Cornificius
advocates a false quadrivium of riches, beauty, power etc.33 For both,

30
This milieu is explored, especially in respect of English scholars, in Burnett,
The Introduction of Arabic Learning into England, London, 1997, chapter 2: ‘The
Education of Henry II’.
31
Richard: Met. II, 10, 46-7: ‘nullius disciplinae expertem’ (‘. . . a man of well
nigh universal expertise’); Thierry: Met. I, 5, 10-11 ‘viri amatores litterarum ut-
pote magister Theodoricus artium studiosissimus investigator’ (‘. . . lovers of learning
also. . . master Thierry, for instance, that most dedicated student of the arts’). Both
scholars were associated with the ‘New Learning’: Richard knew some ‘inaudita’
concerning the quadrivium (Met. II, 10, 50: ‘inaudita quaedam ad quadruvium per-
tinentia’; ‘. . . various matters relating to the quadrivium which had not been heard
before. . . ’), Thierry received the dedication of a translation from Arabic and in-
corporated other Arabic-Latin translations into his Heptateuchon; see Burnett, ‘La
réception des mathématiques,de l’astronomie et de l’astrologie arabes à Chartres’,in
Aristote,l’École de Chartres et la Cathédrale, Actes du Colloque des 5 et 6 juillet 1997,
Association de Amis du Centre Médiéval Européen de Chartres, 1997, pp. 101-7.
32
E.g., in Met. II, 9.
33
Met. I, 4, 76-9: ‘Et genus et formam regina Pecunia donat, et bene nummatum
John of Salisbury and Aristotle 29

the essential thing is for the soul or mind to know itself, and not to
accumulate information for its own sake. Both are disdainful of sophistry,
and comment on the power of eloquence, even when not backed up by
knowledge.34
No direct quotation of Adelard’s De eodem et diverso, or of any of
his other works, has been recognized in John’s works. However, they
belong to the same intellectual milieu. Adelard’s writings first circulated
in Normandy (the abbeys of Bec and Mont Saint-Michel), in the same
manuscripts as the earliest copies of the Greek-Latin Aristotle. The
best text of the rediscovered Topics, translated by Boethius, which John
makes so much of, is in a manuscript which contains the earliest copies
of Adelard’s translations of Euclid.35 Both John and Adelard prefer
glosses and explanations to fully-fledged commentaries.
The common intellectual attitudes of Adelard and John could also be
seen as belonging to an ‘English’ tradition. John is clearly proud of the
achievements of English scholars, referring to ‘Baeda noster’ (I, 19, 38-
9), ‘noster ille Anglus Peripateticus Adam’ (his closest friend among the
Parisian scholars, though not beyond criticism), Robert of Melun,36 and
decorat Suadela Venusque. Hoc autem quasi quadruvio sibi utique necessario evade-
bant illi repentini philosophi’ (‘. . . money is queen and grants rank and beauty, and
the rich man is adorned with persuasion and love. It was from this quadrivium, as
one might call it, a course which they found indispensable, that there emerged those
overnight philosophers. . . ’).
34
Met. I, 7, 40-42: ‘Qui sunt qui opibus pollent, qui sunt qui praevalent viribus,
et in omnibus negotiis optinent, nisi eloquentes?’ (‘. . . those who enjoy the power
of wealth, those who prevail in strength and are successful in every enterprise—
who are they? They are the eloquent’); cf. Adelard, De eodem et diverso (n. 12
above), p. 40: ‘Hac nempe quicumque munitus fuerit, et amicis iocundus et inimicis
metuendus erit, utpote que non solum in philosopho spectabilis est, verum etiam inter
litterarum prophanos is sepissime magis consulitur qui maiori quadam verbositate pre
ceteris facundus videtur. Inde fit ut in quampluribus curiis rustici loquaces tacitis
philosophis preferantur’ (‘Obviously, whoever is armed with this art should be both
loved by his friends and feared by his enemies, in that not only is rhetoric respected in
a philosopher, but also, among those ignorant of letters, time and again the advice of
one who seems to be more eloquent than the others is the more sought after because
of his greater command of language. Hence it happens that in most curiae eloquent
churls are preferred to silent philosophers’).
35
MS Oxford, Trinity College 47; see n. 19 above. Palacz (n. 2 above) points out
the similarities between the wording of John’s citations of Aristotle’s logical texts
and that of the copies in Thierry of Chartres’ Heptateuchon.
36
Met. II, 10, 14-15: ‘ut cognomine designetur quod meruit in scolarum regimine,
natione siquidem Angligena est’ (‘. . . to give him the name he has won as a teacher
in the schools, for by birth he is an Englishman’).
30 Charles Burnett

his good friend the English Pope Adrian IV (IV, 42). His spirit is that of
Adelard and his imitator Daniel of Morley, both of whom disparage the
logic-chopping and the passion for minutiae of the Parisian masters.37
But there are important differences between John and Adelard. For
John, the discussion of ‘res’ and ‘verba’ leads him to talk about theories
of translation and the status of the texts of auctores; for Adelard the
verba themselves lead to understanding the res.38 For John the marriage
of philology and Mercury ( = philosophy)—the oft repeated allegory of
Martianus Capella—is the marriage of the arts of logic and ‘real life’;
for Adelard it is the necessary wedding of the trivium and quadrivium.
Adelard is intent on proving the reconcilability of Plato and Aristo-
tle, and develops a theory of universals to show how Aristotle’s genera,
species and individuals can describe the same reality as Plato’s forms
and matter. John refuses to reconcile the two philosophers and criti-
cizes a theory of universals of Walter of Mortagne which is very similar
to Adelard’s theory.39 Finally, Adelard’s favorite philosopher remains
37
For Daniel of Morley, see Burnett, The Introduction of Arabic Learning (n. 29
above), pp. 61-8.
38
cf. Met. I, 6, 30-32: ‘Postremo quid est eloquentiae cum philosophia? Altera
enim consistit in verbo, altera sapientiae vias affectat. . . ’ (‘Finally, eloquence has
nothing whatever to do with philosophy. For the former is confined to words, while
the latter desires. . . the paths of wisdom’); ibid., lines 35-6: ‘Res enim philosophia,
aut finis eius quae est sapientia quaerit non verba’ (‘For it is not words but objects
that are sought by philosophy, or rather by the end of philosophy, which is wisdom’).
For a summary of Adelard’s argument see Burnett, ‘Adelard of Bath’s Doctrine on
Universals and the Consolatio Philosophiae of Boethius’, Didascalia, 1, Sendai, 1995,
pp. 1-14.
39
Met. II, 17, 43-60. There might be an implied criticism of Adelard’s use of the
Salernitan question literature and his ‘wandering’, in John’s argument against seek-
ing information for its own sake and at the neglect of one’s soul, in Met. IV, 40, 38-44:
‘Quid autem prodest homini elementorum, aut elementatorum nosse naturam, mag-
nitudinis et multitudinis proportiones doctrinaliter quaerere, virtutum vitiorumque
speculari conflictum, complexiones attendere rationum et de omnibus probabiliter
disputare, et sui ipsius esse ignarum? Nonne stultus reputabitur qui aliena lustrat
hospitia, et quo sibi in necessitate divertendum sit obliviscitur?’ (‘But of what avail
is it for a man to know the nature of the elements or their compounds [i.e., physics],
to investigate scientifically the proportions of magnitude and multitude [i.e., math-
ematics], to contemplate the conflict of the virtues and the vices [i.e., ethics], to
pay close attention to the complexities of reasoning and to debate all questions with
probability [i.e., question literature], and yet to be ignorant of himself? Will not that
man be thought a fool, who moves from one alien lodging to another, and forgets
where he should seek shelter in time of necessity?’). But Adelard himself changes
the Salernitan question literature significantly by turning the emphasis to questions
John of Salisbury and Aristotle 31

Plato,40 whereas, as we have seen, John advocates the new Aristotle.

One might expect John to be more sympathetic towards Peter Abe-
lard whose teaching he followed and whom he described as the only
person who could have had a conversation with Aristotle.41 In the last
chapters of the Metalogicon, however, there is a thinly veiled criticism
of Abelard’s approach, in John’s complete rejection of the uses of the
tools of logic to explore religious questions such as the Trinity. For, as
an Academic, John cannot say whether things are true or not, but only
whether they are likely.42 The Metalogicon is entirely about ‘probable
arguments’, not ‘demonstrative arguments’. This is because (in accor-
dance with Aristotle’s own approach) its arguments are entirely derived
from sense perception, which is uncertain, and therefore cannot be used
for investigating religious truths. But John is not in sympathy with
‘Peripatetici’ either. For him, these are not the true followers of Aristo-
tle, but are rather the teachers of logic in Paris, and John is particularly
critical of the emphasis they place on Porphyry’s Isagoge rather than on
Aristotle himself, and their concern with minutiae.43
John of Salisbury, then, emerges not as a member of a particular
school: he praises his teachers without describing himself as a
disciple of any one of them. He finds the opinions of the ‘moderns’ valu-

concerning the soul.

40
See n. 12 above.
41
Met. I, 5, 13-14: ‘Peripateticus Palatinus qui logicae opinionem praeripuit om-
nibus coaetaneis suis, adeo ut solus Aristotilis crederetur usus colloquio’ (‘. . . the
Peripatetic of Le Palais, who so completely robbed his contemporaries of fame as
logicians that he alone was believed to be on speaking terms with Aristotle’).
42
Met. prol., 78-81: ‘Academicus in his quae sunt dubitabilia sapienti, non iuro
verum esse quod loquor, sed seu verum seu falsum sit, sola probabilitate contentus
sum’ (‘An Academic in matters which to a wise man are debatable, I do not swear
that what I say is true, but, be it true or false, I remain content with probability
alone’). Abelard, however, was more cautious than his critics lead us to believe,
for he, too, claims only to give his opinion, and not the ‘truth’: cf. Ethics, ed. D.
E. Luscombe, Oxford, 1971, p. 126: ‘Sufficit mihi in omnibus que scribo opinionem
meam magis exponere quam diffinicionem veritatis promittere’(‘It is sufficient for me
in everything that I write to explain my own opinion rather than to promise the
definition of truth’); and Theologia “Scholarium”, pref. 5, ed. C. J. Mews, Corpus
Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, 13, Turnhout, 1987, p. 314:‘. . . non tam nos
veritatem docere promittentes, quam opinionis nostrȩ sensum, . . . exponentes’(. . . ‘not
promising that we teach the truth as much as explaining the meaning of our own
opinion’). I owe these last two references to David Luscombe.
43
Met. II, 17.
32 Charles Burnett

able, and sometimes to be preferred to those of antiquity.44 However,

by calling himself an ‘Academic’ he can adopt a sceptical view of the
dogmas of all schools, and write as an independent scholar. The irony of
the situation is that, as far as we know, John did not put any of his opin-
ions into action: he did not teach, he did not write any textbooks based
on Aristotle’s writings, or on any other works that he admired, and he
was not instrumental in drawing up curricula for the schools. Jeauneau
may well be right in assigning to him the initiative for commissioning a
new, easier to follow, translation of the Posterior Analytics,45 but that
translation was not taken up by the schools and nearly disappeared
altogether. Partly because of his extensive travels, John was abreast
with, if not ahead of most scholars of his time, in knowing the latest
learning, especially in respect to Aristotle and medicine. But the schools
continued with their own momentum, apparently completely unaffected
by John’s criticisms or advice. His attitude towards Aristotle prefigured
rather than influenced the development of thirteenth-century scholasti-
cism. For one reason or another Aristotle’s writings were to sweep aside
those of other ancient writers in the study of philosophy; John’s Meta-
logicon provides a valuable insight into the beginning of this movement,
but was itself soon swept aside by the very force of that movement.

Warburg Institute, UK.

44
Met. prol., 69-70; see also Met. III, 4.
45
See p. 25 above.