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Presidential Address: Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 2. Hugh of St Victor and the Idea of Historical Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

R. W. Southern
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Extract

A YEAR ago I took the opportunity presented by this obligatory address to survey the working out of a classical formula for historical writing during the three hundred years which separate Einhard's Life of Charlemagne from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. History written in accordance with these rules had many merits, and its emphasis is often right, or at least illuminating, but it never had a more than uncertain hold on the matter-of-fact world. Geoffrey of Monmouth was a historian who followed the old rules, but he did his job so well that he could have no successor except in the realm of romance. This is no place for us, and it is time for us to come down to earth again.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 21 , December 1971 , pp. 159 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1971

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References

1 See De Civitate Dei, xxii, 30. For an account of the early history of the division into seven Ages, see Schmidt, R., ‘Aetates Mundi: die Weltalter als Gliederungsprinzip der Geschichte’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, lxvii (1955–1956). pp. 288–317.Google Scholar

2 For Bede's speculations on universal history see Bedae Opera de Temporibus, ed. Jones, C. W. (Medieval Academy of America, 1943), pp. 201–2, 303, 307–15 (=De Temporum Ratione, c.x; De Temporibus, c.xvi; Epistola ad Pleguinam). In his Introduction, pp. 130—39, Professor Jones gives an illuminating account of Bede's use of his sources.Google Scholar

3 For a different view, with many penetrating observations on the authors discussed below, see Chenu, M. D., ‘Conscience de l'historie et théologie au XIIe siècle’, Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age, xxi (1954). pp. 107–33.Google Scholar

4 For a study of the evidence, see Baron, R., Etudes sur Hugues de St-Victor (Paris, 1963), pp. 9–30.Google Scholar

5 There is a convincing description of his school by Lawrence of Durham, later Abbot of Westminster, in Bischoff, B., Mittelalterliche Studien (1967), ii, pp. 182–87.Google Scholar

6 Hugh of St Victor, Didascalicon, VI, iii, De historia, ed. Buttimer, C. H. (Washington, D.C., 1939); translated with valuable notes by Jerome Taylor (Columbia Univ. Press, 1961).Google Scholar

7 De Sacramentis, II, 14, i (Migne, Patrologia Latina, 176, 551–52). On this subject more than any other we can catch a glimpse of the confusion and controversies which went far beyond the walls of the schools. As Hugh wrote: Quando dicimus hominibus ut confiteantur mala quae fecerunt, dicunt nobis, ‘Date auctoritatem’. Many of the works of the period testify to the difficulty of meeting this demand.

8 De Meditatione, c.3 (Hugues de St. Victor: Six Opuscules Spirituels, ed. Baron, R., Paris, 1969, p. 48).Google Scholar

9 The sources for this sketch of Hugh's historical ideas are his De Sacramentis, I, i, iii; I, 3, iii; I, 8, iii, xi; I, 10, iv, vi—vii; I, II, i—vii; I, 12, i, iii, vi (P.L. 176, 187–364); De Sacramentis legis naturalis et scriptae Dialogus ( P.L. 176, 17–42); De varietate mundi, ii—iii (P.L. 176, 716–30). See also Summa Sententiarum, IV, i-ii; V, i (P.L. 176, 117–20, 127–28). Several of the same ideas are found also in Lawrence of Durham's report on Hugh's lectures in Bodleian Library, MS. Laud misc. 277.

10 For the background of Newman's idea of development, see Chadwick, O., From Bossuet to Newman: the idea of Doctrinal Development (Cambridge, 1957).Google Scholar

11 Abelard's main attack on Hugh (he does not mention him by name, but the source of the doctrines attributed to a master in France, qui se quasi singularem divinae paginae magistrum omnibus praefert is unmistakable) is in Theologia Christiana (P.L. 188, 1285). In his Problemata Heloissae (Ibid., 698), Abelard's position with regard to salvation in a state of natural law is in practice very similar to Hugh's, except that he still insists on a special revelation of Christian doctrines as a requirement for salvation. Hugh's appeal to St Bernard is known only from St Bernard's reply, Tractatus de Baptismo aliisque quaestionibus, c. 3 (P.L. 182, 1038–46).

12 The substance of Hugh's argument is reported by St Bernard with the remark that he had almost nothing to add (P.L. 182, 1038–39).

13 Expositio in Hierarchiam coelestem, II, 1 (P.L. 175, 948).

14 Eusebius—Hieronymus, Chronica, ed. R. Helm, Berlin, 1956 (see esp. annals for 1684, 1637, 1569, 1471, 693 B.C.); Isidorus, Etymologiae sive Origines, ed. W. M. Lindsay, Oxford, 1911 (see esp. I, 3, iv; II, 2, i; II, 24, iv-v, vii; III, 2, i; 10, i; 16, i; 25, i; IV, 3, i); Remigius, Comm. in Martianum Capellam, ed. C. E. Lutz, 2 vols. Leiden, 1962–65 (see esp. i, 145, 175; ii, 3, 12–13, 15–16, 26, 179–80).

15 Hugh's waverings on this point are analysed by Eynde, D. van den, Essai sur la succession et la date des écrits de Hugues de St-Victor, Rome, 1960, pp. 41–42.Google Scholar

16 Didascalicon, I, i: Naturae nostrae dignitas reparatur per doctrinam, ut nostram agnoscimus naturam, et ut discamus extra non quaerere quod in nobis possumus invenire. For some further discussion of this view of man's nature, see Southern, R. W., Medieval Humanism and other Studies (Oxford, 1970), pp. 29–60.Google Scholar

17 Epitome Dindimi in Philosophiam, in Opera propaedeutica Hugonis de S. Victore, ed. Baron, R. (Paris, 1966), p. 193.Google Scholar

18 Didascalicon, I, xii.

19 Ibid., II, xi. For the origin of the legend of Parmenides, see Klibansky, R., ‘The Rock of Parmenides’, Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies, i (1943), 178–86.Google Scholar

20 Didascalicon, I, xii, where he appears to reject the view of Remigius (Comm. in Martianum Capellam, ed. Lutz, , ii, 3) that Grammar was the earliest of the arts.Google Scholar

21 The mechanical, no less than the liberal, arts were opera artificis imitantis naturam: hence they served to develop the powers of human reason (see Didascalicon, I, x). Hugh would find the seeds of this idea in Remigius, op. cit., i, 208; ii, 299, 302–3.

22 The Chronicle has never been printed in its entirety; hence it is difficult to study it in detail. Professor A. Vernet, who has kindly communicated to me his views, has made the closest study of the manuscripts, and he has doubts about the authenticity of t h e work. I t is clear t h a t some of the manuscripts preserve additions which could not have been written by Hugh himself. Nevertheless I accept it as in t h e main a genuine work of Hugh of St Victor. The Preface is printed by Green, W. M. in Speculum, xviii (1943), 484CrossRefGoogle Scholar–93, and some of the lists of rulers in M.G.H. Scriptores, xxiv, 88–97. There are convenient descriptions of t h e contents of t h e work in Green, op. cit., pp. 492–3, D. van den Eynde, op. cit., pp. 90–92, and in Baron, R., ‘La chronique de Hugues de S.-Victor’, Studio Gratiana, xii (1967), 167–80.Google Scholar

23 Didascalicon, VI, iii.

24 ‘Sunt quaedam fundamenta scientiae, quae si memoriae firmiter impressa fuerint, facile cetera omnia patescunt. Haec tibi in subiecta pagina eo ordine disposita praescribemus quo ipsa volumus animo tuo per memoriam inseri, ut quicquid postea superedificaverimus solidum esse possit.’ Praef., ed. Green, op. cit., pp. 490–91. An interesting parallel to Hugh's method in his Chronicle is to be found in contemporary penitential literature: the circumstantiae peccatorum begin at this time to play a part in moral theology similar to the part of the circumstantiae gestorum in Hugh's Chronicle. See Gründel, J., Die Lehre von den Umständen der menschlichen Handlung in Mittelalter(Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, xxxix, 1963).Google Scholar

25 Green, op. cit., lists sixteen manuscripts, nearly all in Northern France.

26 Richard of St Victor, , Liber Exceptionum, ed. Chatillon, J. (Paris, 1958)Google Scholar. The editor lists about 170 surviving manuscripts, and discusses their influence and usefulness (pp. 81–86). For other works of Richard of St Victor in which the influence of Hugh's historical ideas can be found, see his Opuscules Théologiques, ed. Ribaillier, J. (Paris, 1967), pp. 237–41, 256–80 (=P.L. 196, 995–1010).Google Scholar

27 Anselm of Havelberg, Dialogi, I, ed. Salet, G. (Paris, 1966), p. 34 (P.L. 188, 1141).Google Scholar

28 I have not found any verbal dependence on Hugh of St Victor, but the Dialogi I, i-iv, op. cit., pp. 48–50 (P.L. 188, 1145–46) adopt the main lines of Hugh's view of religious development.

29 Op. cit.. p. 116 (P.L. 188, 1160).

30 Dialogi I, i-iv, pp. 64–66 (P.L. 188, 1148–49).

31 Otto, Bishop of Freising, Chronica sive Historia de duabus Civitatibus, ed. A. Hofmeister (M.G.H. Scriptores in usum scholarum, 1912), pp. 7, 67–68, 285.

32 Ibid., p. 309.

33 Gesta Frederici, ed. G. Waitz, M.G.H. Scriptores in usum scholarum (1912), p. 65. For the contrast with his earlier view, cf. Chronica, p. 7.

34 Chronica, p. 8.

35 Ibid., p. 227.

36 Nequam, Alexander, De Naturis Rerum, ed. Wright, T., Rolls Series (1863), p. 398.Google Scholar

37 Bishop Berkeley, Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America.

38 An Universal History from the earliest Time to the Present, compiled from Original Authors, and illustrated with Maps, Cuts, Notes, Chronological and other Tables, 8 vols., London; J. Batley and others, 1736–1750Google Scholar. The work was started by the Arabic scholar George Sale and continued by ‘many learned men’ chiefly from Oxford and Cambridge. It was never finished. A parallel French work, but much more timid in its scholarship, is Calmet, Dom Augustin, Histoire Universelle, sacrée et profane, depuis le commencement du monde jusqu'à nos jours, 8 vols. (Strasburg, 1735–1747).Google Scholar

39 It is interesting to observe how the eighteenth-century scholars dealt with the materials used by Hugh of St Victor six centuries earlier: they had more materials and more assurance, and criticized their predecessors with greater freedom. But their point of view had scarcely changed: see for instance i, 81 (on Seth), i, 117 (on Shem), i, 122–23 (on Nimrod), i, 218 (on Egypt), ii, 222 (on the astrology of the Chaldaeans). These scholars were more learned and in a sense more rational than Voltaire, whose Essai sur les macurs et l'esprit des Nations, 1756, was the first really damaging attack on the whole system of history which had dominated European historical thought since the time of Eusebius. But Voltaire's suspicions about this whole edifice of learning happened to be right.