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Science and Theology at Chartres: The Case of the Supracelestial Waters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Helen Rodnite Lemay
Helen Rodnite Lemay
Affiliation:
Institute for Research in History; State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N. Y. 11794, U.S.A.
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Extract

The twelfth-century school of Chartres has long been famous for its rhetorical excellence and its Platonist philosophy. Only recently, however, have scholars become aware of the important role played by natural science in this centre of European thought. Questions about the corporeal world, or, as one Chartrain put it, ‘those things which are and which are seen, were asked there just as frequently and their answers sought just as eagerly as more intangible queries about incorporeal beings. Chartres produced long encyclopedic works of natural philosophy and applied a scientific outlook to its theological writings as well.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , November 1977 , pp. 226 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1977

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References

NOTES

1 We do have some earlier studies of Chartrain scientific thought, for example, Werner, K., ‘Kosmologie und Naturlehre des scholastischen Mittelalters mit specieller Beziehung auf Wilhelm von Conches’, Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse, lxxv (Vienna, 1873), 309–403Google Scholar; Duhem, Pierre, Le système du monde, Volume ii (Paris, 1954)Google Scholar. However the overwhelming majority of studies have been devoted to Chartrain literary and philosophical culture.

2 William, of Conches, , Philosophia mundi I. 1Google Scholar; Migne, J. P., Patrologiae latinae cursus completas (hereafter PL), clxxii, 43B.Google Scholar

3 R. W. Southern, who criticizes the traditional conception of a ‘school’ of Chartres, gives 1141 as the year Thierry became chancellor: Southern, R. W., Medieval humanism and other studies (New York, 1970), p. 69Google Scholar. Nicolas Haring states that he took this office in 1142: Haring, Nicolas, Life and works of Clarembald of Arras, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Studies and Texts, 10 (Toronto, 1965), p. 25.Google Scholar

4 For a discussion of the supracelestial waters in the writings of the church fathers see Duhem, Pierre, op. cit. (1), pp. 487–94.Google Scholar

5 Ambrose, , Hexaemeron II. 3, 9–11Google Scholar; PL xiv, 160B–161D.

6 Abelard (Expositio in hexaemeron, PL clxxviii, 743D) follows Augustine closely on this point. For examples of other later authors who accept Augustine's conclusion see Jeauneau, Edouard, ‘Note sur l'école de Chartres’, Studi medievali 3a serie, v (1964), 848.Google Scholar

7 Augustine, , De Genesi ad litteram II. 5Google Scholar; PL xxxiv, 267A.

8 Bede, , Hexaemeron, Liber Primus, PL xci, 19A.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., 18C–D.

10 Haring, Nicolas, ‘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, xxii (1955), 146–8.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 155.

12 Eriugena, Johannes Scotus, De divisione naturae III, PL cxxii, 693C.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., 695C–696A.

14 Ibid., 697A.

15 On this controversy see Southern, R. W., op. cit. (3), Chapter 5: ‘Humanism and the school of Chartres’ pp. 61–85Google Scholar; Giacone, Roberto, ‘Masters, books and library at Chartres’, Vivarium, xii (1974), 30–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haring, Nicolas, ‘Chartres and Paris revisited’, in Essays in honour of Anton Charles Pegis (Toronto, 1974), pp. 268–329Google Scholar; Dronke, Peter, ‘New approaches to the school of Chartres’, Anuario de estudios medievales vi (1969), 117–40.Google Scholar

16 See Haring, Nicolas, op. cit. (10), pp. 146–54 and notes to the text.Google Scholar

17 William, of Conches, , Glosae super Platonem, ed. Jeauneau, Edouard (Paris, 1965), Introduction, pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

18 This influence is best demonstrated by the list of manuscripts of these works. See Vernet, André, ‘Un remaniement de la ‘Philosophia’ de Guillaume de Conches’, Scriptorium, i (1947), 243–59.Google Scholar

19 William, of Conches, , Glosae super Macrobii In somnium Scipionis I. 17, 8Google Scholar; MS. Copenhagen Kgl. Bibliothek G. Kgl. S. 1910 (K), f. 77; MS. Vatican Urbinas lat. 1140 (U), f. 99v. The text here follows MS. K except when emended by U as noted.

20 Tullio Gregory provides us with a list of earlier medieval authors who present the same argument: Isidore, , De natura rerum liber, cap. 14, PL lxxxiii 987Google Scholar; Bede, , In Hexaemeron, PL xci, 19Google Scholar; anon. De mandi constitutions, PL xc, 893Google Scholar. Gregory, Tullio, Anima mundi: La filosofia di Guglielmo di Conches e la scuola di Chartres (Florence, 1955), p. 243.Google Scholar

21 William, of Conches, , Philosophia mundi II. 2–3Google Scholar; PL clxxii, 57D–58D. William considers that the word ‘firmament’ is used here only as an allegory for air, for he makes clear in a preceding passage that he is discussing not the air but the region of fire above the moon which is known as ether. (Ibid., 57C).

22 William, of Thierry, Saint, De erroribus Guillelmi de Conches, PL clxxx, 340A–B.Google Scholar

23 William, of Conches, , Dragmaticon, ed. Gratarolus, G. (Strasbourg, 1567, reprint Frankfurt, 1967), pp. 6–7Google Scholar. For further discussion of William of Conches vs. the Cistercians see Gregory, Tullio, op. cit. (20), pp. 244–6.Google Scholar

24 ‘Physical laws’ should be understood here as the Platonic world order of four elements interpreted by William in terms of human reason.

25 Ibid., p. 6.

26 Ibid., pp. 65–6. See Tullio Gregory, op. cit. (20), p. 241.

27 Ibid., pp. 80–3. We should note that William is contradicting his statement in the Macrobius commentary (text above) that cold exists only among the inferior elements.

28 Lemay, Richard, Abu Ma'shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the twelfth century, American University of Beirut, Publication of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Oriental Series, 38 (Beirut, 1962), pp. 184–5.Google Scholar

29 Ambrose, , Hexaemeron I. 23Google Scholar; PL xiv, 145C–146B.

30 We have some later examples of Chartrain discussion of the quintessence (John of Salisbury and Bernard Silvestris) but none earlier. See Lemay, Richard, op.cit. (28), pp. 307–8, 261–2.Google Scholar

31 Richard Lemay has posited the influence of Arabic-Aristotelian ideas, or, as he puts it, ‘contaminated Aristotelianism’, on Thierry of Chartres' concept of form and matter in the Librum hunc. Ibid., pp. 289–96.

32 It is interesting to note this connexion that in his commentary on Boethius’ De consolatione philosophiae William of Conches does not mention his rejection of the supracelestial waters. His only reference to the firmament in the text of these glosses concerns its rational movement: ‘Duo sunt motus in celestibus, scilicet firmamenti et planetarum. Et movetur firmamentum ab oriente per occidentem in orientem, planete vero econtrario ab occidente per orientem in occidentem. Et dicitur motus planetarum erraticus, quia modo ascendant, modo descendunt. Motus firmamenti dicitur rationabilis quia semper eodem modo et eodem loco volvitur.’ William of Conches, Glosae super Boethium, MS. Troyes 1381 f. 48v, cf. MS. Troyes 1101 f. 6rb. The Consolation of philosophy had attained a quasi-theological status in the middle ages, and perhaps William felt it would be inappropriate to introduce this controversial theory in glossing such a work. Any respect he might have had for the Consolation did not preclude a modification of his notion that the World Soul is to be identified with the Holy Spirit, however, for it is in the Boethius commentary that he makes his strongest statement on this subject. See William, of Conches, , Glosae super Boethii De consolatione philosophiae, ed. Jourdain, Charles, in Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la bibliothèque impériale, xx (Paris, 1862), 41.Google Scholar

33 On Thierry's life see Nicolas Haring, op. cit. (3), Introduction, pp. 23ff.

34 Nicolas Haring, Ibid., pp. 27ff.

35 Clarembald, of Arras, , Tractatulus super Librum Genesis 40–1Google Scholar, ed. Nicolas Haring in Ibid., pp. 243–4.

36 Lemay, Richard, op. cit. (28), pp. 171, 272 note 1, 297.Google Scholar

37 Richard Lemay, Ibid, pp. 258–84.

38 On Clarembald's life and works see Haring, Nicolas, op. cit. (3), pp. 1–23.Google Scholar

39 Bernard's authorship is rejected by Stock, Brian in Myth and science in the twelfth century: a study of Bernard Silvester (Princeton, 1972), pp. 33ff.Google Scholar

40 Silvestris, Bernard, Commentary on Martianus Capello, ed. Edouard Jeauneau, in Stadi medievali, 3a serie, v (1964), 860–2.Google Scholar