Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/John of Salisbury
JOHN (d. 1180), called of Salisbury, and in official documents 'Iohannes de Saresberia' (epist. lvii. p. 61, cccxxiii. p. 291), bishop of Chartres, seems to have borne the surname of Parvus, perhaps 'Little' or 'Short'—'parvum nomine, facultate minorem, minimum merito,' as be describes himself (epist. ccii. p. 37). He was born at or near Salisbury (Polier, viii. 19), that is Old Sarum, probably between 1115 and 1120. The date commonly given (1110) is a mere inference from that of his death, on the assumption that he died at seventy years of age; whereas he himself says that he was 'adolescens admodum' at the time when he began to study at Paris in 1136 (Metalog. ii. 10). It has been inferred from a passage in one of John's epistles (xc. p. 135) that his father's name was Reinfred (Miss Norgate, i. 480), but the text is ambiguous.
Of John's early life there is no record beyond a single notice in the 'Policraticus' (ii. 28, pp. 155 f.), which mentions that he was sent to a priest to learn his psalms, that the priest employed him as an instrument in certain magical experiments, and that the boy with characteristic common sense proved useless for the purpose. From the date of his journey to Paris, however. John has left us with the 'Metalogicus' (l.c.) a full narrative of his student's years, which is of exceptional value for the intellectual history of the time.
Upon his arrival in Paris he first attended the lectures of the great Peter Abailard. After a year, however, the master withdrew for a time, and John passed from a school of nominalism, tempered and qualifled by not a few elements drawn from the doctrine of its opponents (cf. Poole, Illustr. pp. 140 ff.), to one of uubending realism under the guidance of Alberic of Rheims, distinguished as Alberic de Porta Veneris (epist. cxliii. p, 206, cf. Poole, p, 203, n. 4), and of Robert of Melun, an Englishman, who afterwards won renown as a theologian, and was raised to the bishopric of Hereford. This course of dialectical learning occupied John for two years (1136-8), at the end of which he set himself to the study of grammar, and was the disciple of William of Conches, best known to us as a natural philosopher, for three years more. The place not being named, it was always assumed that William lectured at Paris, until Dr. Schaarschmidt pointed out that other passages in the 'Metalogicus' prove beyond question that the school to which John resorted, and at which William of Conches and the other masters whom he mentions in the sequel taught, was the cathedral school of Chartres, of which he elsewhere (Metalog. i. 24) gives a very full description. M. llaur£au, who formerly considered that the place must be Paris, has at length yielded in favour of Chartres (Comptesrendus de l' Académie des Inscriptions, 3rd. Ser. i. 81, 1873).
At Chartres then John of Salisbury pursued bis grammatical studies under William of Conches, and afterwards under Richard l'Évêque, subsequently bishop of Avranches; and it was there that he laid the foundations of that classical learning in which he was unapproached by any man of his age. The literary distinction of the school had been established by the former chancellor of the church, Bernard Silvestris (afterwards, if a highly probable identification is to be accepted, bishop of Quimper), and it was maintained under his presiding influence when he was succeeded in the active work of teaching by William and Richard, Theoderic (Bernard's brother), Hardwin the German, and Peter Helias, all of whom were John's teachers. During these years John had been compelled by the straitness of his means to take pupils at the same time that he was himself a learner; and it is likely that for a portion of the three years named he withdrew to Provins in the county of Champagne, and there studied and taught in company with his lifelong friend, Peter of La Celle (epist. lxxxii. p. 114), possibly supported in part by the liberality of Count Theobald (epist. cxliii. p. 206; cf. Schaarschmidt, p. 23, Demimuid, pp, 26 f.) Afterwards, presumably in 1140 or early in 1141, he returned to Paris, doubtless because of the greater advantages which that city offered to the teacher; but while he taught he entered upon a fresh course of study, that of theology, together with logic, under Master Gilbert, the same evidently whom he had known as chancellor of Chartres (Metalog. i. 5, p. 21), and who is famous as Gilbert de la Porrée, the commentator on the books 'de Trinitate,' ascribed to Boethius, and the author of the 'Liber sex Principiorum,' which through the middle ages was accounted an indispensable complement to Aristotle's 'Organon.' Gilbert, however, soon (in 1141) quitted Paris for Poitiers, of which see he became bishop a year later, and John of Salisbury passed from his instruction to that of Robert Pullus, soon to be a cardinal, and of Simon of Poissy, both of whom he heard in theology alone. 'Thus,' he concludes, 'engaged in diverse studies, near twelve years passed by me.'
The word 'duodecennium' or 'duodennium ' here used has raised difficulties which are perhaps best solved by the emendation 'decennium' (Schaarschmidt, pp. 24 f.), since Robert Pullus seems to have been called to Rome, if he was not already made a cardinal, by Innocent II, who died in September 1143, while it is improbable that John should have attended Simon of Poissy for so many as five years continuously. If, on the other hand, we reckon ten years from 1136, and reckon loosely, John's student-life need not be extended beyond 1145, an approximate date which is rendered likely by other considerations. It has, however, been urged by the Abbe Demimuid (pp. 25-7), who is followed by Miss Norgate (i. 481 ff.), that the three years spoken of by John in connection with his beginning teaching (as is suggested, at Provins and Paris) were not the same with, but succeeded, the three years spent under William of Conches and the other Chartres masters. This arrangement is open to several objections: it requires us to distinguish 'Master Gilbert'—as an otherwise unknown person—from Gilbert de la Porrée, whom John elsewhere expressly calls 'Master Gilbert' (Metalog. i. 5), since the latter quitted Paris in 1141; it contradicts John's own statement that in 1159 'nearly twenty years' had elapsed since he ceased to attend lectures on logic (ib. iii. prol. p. 113); and it introduces a new difficulty with respect to Robert Pullus, who cannot well have continued his lectures at Paris long after his creation as cardinal, and who, unless he has been wrongly identified with a namesake (cf. Stubbs, Lectures, pp. 132 f.), was resident at the papal court from the beginning of 1145. A third view, that of Petersen (pp. 70-8), that John's theological studies were carried on at Oxford, is wholly without even plausible foundation, and has been decisively refuted by Schaarschmidt (pp. 14-21). It seems on the whole most probable that the two terms of three years, though mentioned separately, are really the same; in other words, they comprise the interval between John's removal from and his return to Paris. At the same time, if any other events may seem required to make up the total of twelve instead of ten years, it is quite possible that John's presumed stay at Provins took place after he had completed his theological studies at Paris. However this may be, there is no question that for some time previous to 1148 John waa established in the household of his friend, possibly his old pupil, Peter, abbat of Moûtier la Celle, near Troyes, 'nominally, it seems, in the capacity of Peter's "clerk" or secretary, but in reality as the recipient of a generous hospitality which sought for no return save the enjoyment of his presence and his friendship' (Miss Norgate, i. 483; see Peter's epistt. lxxxii. lxxxiii. cv. in Migne's Patrol Lat. ccii. 518, 519, 556; compare his epistt. lxvii-lxxv. throughout, and John's epist. lxxxv.) In the spring of 1148 he was present at the council held by Eugenius III at Rheims, which, as it has been variously maintained, silenced or failed to silence his old master, Gilbert de la Porrée (see Poole, pp. 187-99), and of which John has himself, in the recently recovered 'Historia Pontificalis,' given a vivid description. It was on this, occasion no doubt that he was presented to Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, by no less influential a person than St. Bernard (cf. Bern, epist. ccclxi., Opp. i. 325, ed. Mabillon). When the council was over he apparently attended the pope to Brescia, and in September went on to Rome (cf. Hist. Pontif. xviii. 531 f.); but it cannot have been long before he resolved to return after his many years' absence to his native country. Writing towards the end of 1159 he speaks of having been 'near twelve years' occupied in official business; 'iam . . . annis fere duodecim nugarum esse taedet' (Polier. i. prol. p. 13), where the 'nugæ' are unmistakably 'curiales.' But it does not follow that this official business was all in the court of Canterbury. It is quite possible that John was first for some time employed in the papal court. On the other hand, it is going too far to defer, with Reinhold Pauli (in Dove and Friedberg's Zeitschrift für Kirchenrecht, xvi. 271, 1881), his return until nearly 1153, the year of the death both of Eugenius III and of St. Bernard; for in 1159 he speaks of having ten times crossed the Alps on his road from England ('Alpium iuga transcendi decies, egressus Angliam;' Metalog. iii. prol. p. 113). It is perhaps most probable that he left the curia before 1150, and then set out for England. On his way through France Abbat Peter supplied him with the necessary means for his journey (see John's epist. lxxxv. p. 117), and St. Bernard with a letter commending him to Archbishop Theobald (Bern, epist. ccclxi. ubi supra), who at once attached him to his clerical staff.
Henceforth, until 1164, John lived at the court of Canterbury, where his talent for affairs as well as his remarkable scholarship caused him to be employed in official business of the most varied kind. The commanding position occupied by Archbishop Theobald made his court a centre of administrative activity; and after the accession of Henry II the king's long absences on the continent threw into the archbishop's hands a large share of the government of the country. John of Salisbury became more and more indispensable to Theobald, and as the primate advanced in years he seems to have acted as his confidential secretary and assistant; 'the charge of all Britain,' he wrote in 1159, 'as touching church matters, was laid upon me' (Metalog. prol. p. 9; cf. lib. iv. 42, p. 206). At the same time his indefatigable habits of study left him time and energy to engage in learned disputation, if not in actual teaching (cf. ib. prol. pp. 8f.), as well as in continual correspondence on literary subjects with a wide circle of scholars.
He was also repeatedly entrusted with delicate negotiations which required his presence abroad. He was in Italy in 1150 (Hist. Pontif. xxxii. 538, cf. xxxix. 542); afterwards he was with Pope Eugenius during his stay at Ferentino (Polier, vi. 24, p. 61), which lasted from November 1150 to June 1151 (cf. Jaffé, Reg. Pontif. Rom. ii. 69-73, ed. Loewenfeld, 1888). He was with the pope again in May 1152 (epist. lix. pp. 64 f.; where 'Romae' seems to be a slip of the pen, the pope being then at Signi). Twice he went as far south as Apulia (Metalog. iii. prol. p. 113); once before 1154 (Policrat. vii. 19, p. 155), and once later—some time between November 1155 and July 1156 (cf. Jaffé, ii. 113-120)—in company with Pope Hadrian IV, with whom he was on terms of affectionate intimacy, and in whose society at Benevento he lived for near three months (Policrat. vi. 24, pp. 59 ff.) It was in 1155 that he was instrumental in obtaining from Hadrian a bull authorising the conquest of Ireland by the English king (Metalog. iv. 42, pp. 205 f.; Girald. Cambe. De Instruct. Princip. ii. 19, Opp. viii. 195, ed. G. F. Warner, 1891). The genuineness of this bull has, it is true, been recently disputed by Bishop Moran (Irish Ecclesiastical Record, ix. 49-64, November 1872), bv a writer in the 'Analecta Juris Pontificii,' xxi. 257-397 (Paris, 1882), and by Father F. A. Gasquet (Dublin Review, 3rd ser. x. 83-103, 1883); but the arguments rest rather on grounds of political controversy than of historical criticism (cf. ib. 3rd ser. xi. 316-43, 1884).
John's close alliance with the hierarchical interest brought him into disgrace with Henry II. It was on his return from one of his visits to the papal court in 1159 (epist. cxv. p. 164) that Arnulf, bishop of Lisieux, made a report of his doings to the king, who was still absent on the continent, which aroused his wrath and placed John in such danger that 'to stay in England was unsafe, to escape impossible or very difficult.' John writes thus in a letter addressed to Alexander III, whose election fell in September 1159 (epist. cviii. p. 158; cf. Peter Of La Celle, epist. lxvii., Migne, ccii. 513). But the incident referred to must have taken place earlier in the year, since it was in this period of enforced leisure that John found time to revise and complete his two most considerable works, the 'Policraticus' and the 'Metalogicus.' Both were finished while the long siege of Toulouse was going on; the one while Pope Hadrian was still alive (Policr. viii. 23, p. 363, where the sense is confounded by false punctuation; cf. lib. i. prol. p. 16; lib. viii. 24, p. 379); the other just after his death on 1 Sept. (Metalog. iv. 42, p. 205). Nor can there be much doubt as to the offence which brought John into disfavour. The exactions levied to meet the charges of the expedition against Toulouse fell, if we are to believe the statement he made some years later (epist. cxlv. p. 223), with peculiar severity upon the church (cf. J. H. Round in the Engl. Hist. Rev. vi. pp. 635 f., 1891); and if, as may be presumed, he denounced them in like vehement, language at the time (cf. epist. cxiii. p. 102),he could not fail to suffer at least temporary disgrace. He was accused, he wrote to Peter of La Celle (epist. cxv. pp. 164 f.; cf. epist. xcvi. p. 142), of urging on the ecclesiastical party to assert more strenuously the privileges of the church; and he thought of going abroad before January to take his friends counsel, and then have recourse to Rome. Meanwhile he wrote to Thomas the chancellor, who was with the king in France, reminding him of their old friendship, and enclosing a letter in his support from the pope (evidently the new pope, Alexander III), in the hope of recovering Henry's favour (epist. cxiii. pp. 161 f.); this letter he sent through a friend, master Ernulf, whose private interest with Thomas he solicited at the same time (epist. cxii. pp. 160 f.). Archbishop Theobald also wrote on his behalf (see epist. cxiii. p. 162), perhaps the letter printed among John's as epist. lxiv*. p. 80 (see, however, J. J. Brial, Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits, ix. pt. ii. pp. 96 f., 1813).
John was for a time in deep despondency. Possibly he exaggerated his actual danger; but poverty and the pressure of debt (see his letter to Ralf of Sarr, epist. lix. p. 63) added to the load upon his spirits, and he knew not whither to turn. He was, however, dissuaded from leaving England (epist. xcvi. pp. 142 f.), and after a while, presumably through Thomas's mediation, and in spite of the resistance of Arnulf of Lisieux (see epist. cxxi. pp. 169 f.), he appears to have silently emerged from his difficulties (epist. xcvi. p. 143). When Theobald died in April 1161, John was one of the executors of his will (epist. lvii. pp. 60 f.), and when Thomas was consecrated as Theobald's successor, 3 June 1162, John was one of the five commissioners who went to Montpellier, some time before the middle of July ((cf. Jaffé, Meg. Pontif. Rom. ii. 157–60), to receive the archbishop's pall from Alexander III (William FitzStephen, Vit. S. Thom.,in Robertson, Materials, iii. 36; R. de Diceto, ed. Stubbs, 1876, i. 307 marg.) It was soon after this that John composed a life of Archbishop Anselm, with the design of procuring his canonisation. This was doubtless written at Thomas's request, and the latter sent it to the pope for consideration at the council of Tours. Alexander wrote back from Tours, 9 June 1163, explaining why the matter could not then be brought forward (Alex. iii, epist. clxix., in Migne, cc. 235 f.), and the canonisation was not effected for more than three centuries.
His friend's election to the primacy might seem to promise security for John's future; but when the king returned to England in January 1163 (R. De Diceto, i. 308), after an absence of five years, there was a rapid change in the state of affairs, and John found it necessary to leave the country. The date of his departure is not quite clear. William FitzStephen states that he was one of the archbishop's two firmest supporters whom Henry was careful to remove before the time of the council of Clarendon (Robertson, Materials, iii. 46; where the title assigned to him, ‘canonicus Sarum,’ is probably not a mistake: cf. epist. cxl. p. 200); and John himself, writing in the late summer of 1167, says: ‘Quartus exilii mei annus elapsus est’ (epist. ccxxi. p. 76). In his letter, however, to Thomas describing his journey through France (epist. cxxxiv. pp. 187–90), he mentions the councils of London and Winchester as having been held before he started. The former was on 1 Oct. 1163; the latter is not easily identified. Robertson understands it as the council of Clarendon itself (Materials, v. 97), in which case ‘Wintoniensi’ must stand for ‘Wiltoniensi;’ and the supposition is confirmed by the words in the same letter speaking of Margaret of France, ‘quam nuper sanam videram,’ where one manuscript reads Sar', i.e. ‘Saresberiæ’ (ib. p. 98 n. 5). If this be so, John must have quitted England in the first months of 1164. He made his way slowly across France, and had interviews with the Count of Flanders and with Louis VII, whose assistance he sought for the archbishop's cause. A postscript to the letter to Thomas just quoted, which is not in the printed collection (it is published by Brial, l.c. pp. 117 f. and by Robertson, v. 101 f.), informs us that he left England heavily in debt, and ‘did not possess twelve pence in the world;’ he had to borrow twelve marks before starting, and was grateful for the gift of seven more from the archbishop. He was accompanied to Paris by his brother Richard, who seems, however, soon to have returned to England (Schaarschmidt,, p. 40 n. 4).
In the end John found a shelter with Peter of La Celle, who was now abbat of St. Remigius at Rheims. Here he made his home for the next six or seven years, and, according to his wont, the first use he made of his freedom from official cares was to busy himself in the composition of a considerable literary work. This time the subject was historical, and the ‘Historia Pontificalis,’ following upon the Gembloux continuation of Sigebert, which ended in 1148, was doubtless intended to be, if it was not actually, carried on through a number of years. Unfortunately, in the only manuscript in which it is preserved, the work terminates abruptly in 1152, and there is no evidence to show how far it originally extended. Giesebrecht (Sitzungsberichte der philos.-philol. und hist. Classe der k. Bay. Akad. der Wissensch., 1873, p. 124) argued from internal evidence that it was written in 1162 or 1163; but since, as Pauli observed (ubi supra, p. 268), it mentions Robert of Melun as bishop of Hereford (cap. viii. p. 522) the date must be later than 22 Dec. 1163, while the posterior limit depends upon the time of Ralph II of Vermandois's death (he is here spoken of as living, cap. vii. p. 521), which may have taken place several years after 1163 (Art de Vérifier les Dates, ii. 707 a, 3rd edit. 1784; cf. Recueil des Historiens, xiii. 566 n. c. ed. Brial, 1786; and Comte de Mas Latrie, Trésor de Chronologie, 1889, p. 1698). In any case there can be hardly a doubt that the work was composed during the period of John's residence with Abbat Peter, to whom he dedicated it.
In spite of the assistance which he received from friends (cf. epist. cxciv. p. 19, &c), John's means were still very narrow (epist. cxlviii. pp. 237 f.) In 1165 he learned that all his property was sequestrated (epist. cxl. p. 200). He was, indeed, able to earn a little, thanks to his excellent scholarship, by writing letters for others (if this be the meaning of 'negotiate litterarum,' epist. clxviii. p. 266). But his expenses were also heavy; for, as the ecclesiastical conflict became more acute, after Archbishop Thomas had gone into exile, John's services were constantly employed in affairs of trust, which required long and expensive travels. One of these journeys, to Angers, cost him no less than 15l, (l. c.) But as time went on he seems to have become better off, and he was able to indulge his literary tastes by having books transcribed for him at his own cost (epist. ccxi. pp. 53 ff.)
John remained abroad, because he held that the principles to which he was devoted would be compromised by an unconditional return. Still he was persuaded of his entire loyalty, alike to church and king (epist. cxxxix. cxlii. pp. 199, 204), and he long trusted that the mediation of friends would make it possible for him to go back without any surrender of principle on the great question of the day. He sought repeatedly the good offices of Richard, archdeacon of Poitiers, of Gilbert Foliot, the bishop of London, and later on of Henry, bishop of Bayeux (in 1165, epist. cxli. pp. 202 f., in 1166, epistt. cxlviii. clxii. clxiii. pp. 237, 256); nor were his hopes unreasonable. True as he was to the archbishop's cause, he was frankly critical of his methods, and by no means approved the unsteady diplomacy of the papal court. His counsels were always on the side of moderation, and he did not spare his reproofs of Thomas's want of tact and temper in carrying on the contest. But it appeared more and more clearly that he could not separate his allegiance to the cause from his attachment to the fortunes of the archbishop, and the exile of both continued until 1170.
Early in 1165 John had audience both of the pope at Sens and of the French king at Paris, in the hope of restoring peace to the English church (epist. cxxxviii. pp. 194 f.) Meantime his friends pleaded his cause with King Henry. He was told that he might be taken back into favour if he would renounce obedience to the archbishop and cease to act against the king (epist. cxlii. pp. 204 f.) At Easter in the following year he attended the meeting of Henry and Louis VII at Angers (epist. cxlviii. p. 266), when he was offered similar terms, coupled with the acceptance of the obnoxious customs (the constitutions of Clarendon). These he naturally rejected (epist. clxxx. p. 294); but on the other hand he was equally firm, just afterwards, in urging Thomas not to proceed to the extreme measure of excommunicating Henry or placing England under an interdict (epist. clxxv. p. 282). Throughout he was indefatigable in promoting the cause he had at heart; and if at the first glance it might seem that he was seldom called upon to play a leading part, and that his business was rather to keep his friends informed of the progress of affairs, and to incite them to continued activity, there is, on the other hand, no doubt that in actual negotiations also his services were of the greatest value (see a letter of Bishop John of Poitiers in Robertson's Materials, v. 224).
In this same year, 1166, John was joined at Rheims by his brother Richard (epistt. clxxxiv. clxxxvii. pp. 309, 327), who, like him, had suffered through his attachment to the archbishop's cause (epist. cxl. p. 200), but had since been partly reinstated in the king's favour (epist. clxi. p. 254), and the two remained in company until the end of their life abroad. In 1166, also, John received an invitation from his friend Gerard la Pucelle to go to Cologne, evidently to watch the progress of events in Germany, but he declined (epist. clxviii. p. 267). Next year he planned an interview with the cardinals who were sent on a legation by Alexander III to deal with the issue between the archbishop and the king (epistt. ccxxii. ccxxiii. pp. 78 ff.); but the project seems to have come to nothing, and we have little definite information about his movements until the summer of 1169, half a year after Thomas's famous interview with the kings of England and France at Montmirail, when John paid a visit to the new papal envoys at Vezelay (epist. ccxcii. p. 218), from whom he learned that the cause was prospering. When peace was at last made at Fréteval, on 22 July 1170, there was no longer any obstacle to John's return to England. He wrote in October to the monks of Canterbury, announcing that their head was to be expected immediately (epist. ccxcix. p. 239). John himself landed on 9 Nov., and went at once to Canterbury, where he found the property of the church in the possession of the royal officers, the houses and barns empty. After attending a synod there he went on to Henry, 'the young king's,' court, where he was 'satis humane receptus.' He then hastened to see his aged mother. Shortly afterwards, on 1 Dec, the archbishop arrived at Sandwich (for particulars of John's return, and the events which followed down to near the middle of December, see his letter to Peter of La Celle, epist. ccc. pp. 240-5).
On the fatal 29 Dec. John was in the archbishop's company at Canterbury when his murderers made their appearance, and the words which passed between him and Thomas before they went into the church are recorded (Benedict of Peterborough, Pass. S. Thom. in Robertson's Materials, ii. 9; William FitzStephen, Vit. S. Thorn., ib. iii. 134; Auct. anon. I., Vit. S. Thom., ib. iv. 74). John's counsels of prudence were disregarded by the archbishop, and he went with the rest into the cathedral. But when the actual attack began his courage forsook him. William FitzStephen, who with Edward Grim and Robert, canon of Merton, remained on the spot, asserts (ib. iii. 139) that John and all the other clerks fled and took refuge under altars or where they could (cf. Herbert of Bosham, Vit. S. Thom., ib. iii. 491). William Tracy, indeed, boasted that he broke John's arm, but the blow really struck Edward Grim, and then descended upon the archbishop's head (William of Canterbury, Vit. S. Thom., ib. i. 134; cf. William FitzStephen, ib. iii. 141, Herbert of Bosham, ib. iii. 498). Still, it is possible that Tracy was not wholly mistaken, and that John, in fact, returned to the scene of the fray. Certainly, he was believed to have been 'pretioso sanguine b. m. Thomas intinctus' (Peter Of La Celle, epist. cxvii., Migne, ccii. 567).
For the rest of John's biography materials are scanty, few of his letters having been preserved. Immediately after the archbishop's death he urged the inclusion of his name in the calendar of martyrs (epistt. ccciv., cccvi. pp. 258, 263), and wrote a life of him in the style of a hagiologer, with a view to securing his canonisation. Part of this work is substantially a transcript of epist. ccciv. pp. 252 ff. Afterwards he was active in promoting the acceptance of Richard, prior of Dover, as archbishop; and he seems to have remained under him at Canterbury. Meanwhile he received church preferment, and in 1174 is named as treasurer of Exeter Cathedral (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, i. 414; cf. Chron. Monast. de Bello, a. 1176, p. 172, 1846). Two years later he was raised to the bishopric of Chartres. The appointment was made by the advice of his old friend Archbishop William of Sens, and partly out of regard for his trusty attachment to St. Thomas (see the letter of Louis VII, printed among John's letters, epist. cccxxiii. p. 291). The chapter elected John unanimously on 22 July 1176 (Gall. Christ, viii. 1146, 1744), and sent over the dean, precentor, and chancellor to announce their choice (epist. cccxxiv. p. 292). On 8 Aug. he was consecrated at Sens (Gall. Christ. 1. c.) He chose always to style himself bishop 'divina dignatione et meritis S. Thomæ martyris.' What is known of his official acts is recorded in 'Gallia Christiana,' viii. 1147 f. Almost his earliest exercise of power was to excommunicate no less a person than the Count of Vendôme, for injuries he had inflicted upon the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Vendôme. He did not release him until 1180, when he promised to make restitution (epist. cccxxvi. pp. 294 f.; cf. Recueil des Historiens, xii. 488 n. b, 1781). On 21 Sept, 1177 the bishop was present at the solemn meeting of the English and French kings, when peace was made, near Ivry (Gest. Henr. II, ed. Stubbs, 1867, i. 194), and in March 1179 he attended the third Lateran council (Mansi, Concil. Collect. ampliss. xxii. 239, 464, 1778), and took an active part in its proceedings (pp. 303, 318, 378, 434 f.) In the following year, on 25 Oct., he died, and was buried in the monastery of Josaphat, near his city. He bequeathed to his own church most of his possessions, reliques (including a phial containing some of the blood of St, Thomas), and books. It is said that his entire library thus passed to the cathedral, but by the middle of last century most of the books had been lost (Gall. Christ. viii. 1148 f.) John was succeeded in his see by the friend of his whole life, Peter of La Celle.
John of Salisbury, 'for thirty years ... the central figure of English learning' (Stubbs, Lectures, p. 139), was the fullest representative of the best scholarly training which France had to give, and he had used his time, constantly occupied as he was by other cares, to such signal profit that no writer in the middle ages can be placed beside him in the extent and depth of his classical reading. It is this fact, perhaps, which gives his works their unique attraction. John was a humanist, with the tastes and the quick curiosity of a humanist. If his knowledge of Greek was hardly more than what could be picked up from glossbooks, there is still good ground for believing that he was able to increase the store of accessible Greek literature by employing a Greek of Italy to translate the later books of Aristotle's 'Organon,' the 'Analytics,' 'Topics,' and 'Sophistici Elenchi' (see Schaarschmidt, pp. 120 f.) The disciple of Abailard, he divined a middle course between the accepted tenets of realism and the theological perils which lay beneath the qualified nominalism of his master. John is not only the best reporter of the philosophical debates of his day; he also shows us how a mature and all-embracing learning made it possible to extract their valuable elements and reject their eccentricities and excesses. He has the virtues of the humanists of the fifteenth century; but he is free from their vices. Imbued as he is with the classical spirit, no man was ever less inclined to revive the intellectual or moral code of paganism. John would have himself judged before all things as a theologian. His theology was based upon an extensive patristic learning. Sound as it was, its rigour was tempered not only by bis devotion to the Platonic tradition, which he took as he found it, filtered through the teaching of many, but also by that calm moderation of judgment which marked alike his public career and the books into which he poured the abundance of his thought. He has a worthy record in the necrology of his church at Chartres: 'Vir magnæ religionis totiusque scientise radiis illustratus, verbo vita moribus pastor omnibus amabilis; soli sibi crudelis'—it is added, after the example of St. Thomas—'a pedibus usque ad collum cilicio sempercarnem domante' (Gall. Christ viii. 1148).
His writings consist first of his letters. These he collected, edited, and arranged in four books, not long after St. Thomas's death, with the help of Guy, canon of Merton, afterwards prior of Southwick (see a nearly contemporary book of selections from them made by Guy, and formerly belonging to Southwick, now in St. John's College, Oxford, cod. cxxvi. f. 79); but the existing collection does not preserve this division, and includes a few letters of later date. They are printed by J. A. Giles in the first two volumes of John's 'Opera' (1848). They number 326, but among them are some letters by other writers, and many which John wrote as secretary to Archbishop Theobald. To them should be added a letter to the church of Canterbury incorporated by William of Canterbury in his 'Miracula Sancti Thomæ' (Robertson, Materials, i. 458 ff.) 2. 'The Policraticus,' in eight books, fills the third and fourth volumes of Giles's edition (five books in vol. iii., three in vol. iv.) It was completed before September 1159, and dedicated to Thomas as chancellor. The name was probably intended to mean 'The Statesman's Book;' but its twofold design is indicated by the alternative title 'De Nugis Curialium et Vestigiis Philosophorum.' The book is neither a satire 'on the vanities of courtiers' nor a set treatise on morals. It deals with the principles of government, with philosophy and learning; but the digressions, illustrations, reminiscences are so numerous that the work is less a systematic composition, though it has a scheme of its own, than an encyclopædia of miscellanies, the aptest reflection of the cultivated thought of the middle of the twelfth century. Probably the first printed edition appeared in 1476 at Brussels, under the care of the Fratres communis vitæ. 3. The 'Metalogicus,' in four books (Giles, v. 1-207), was finished a little later in the autumn of 1159 than the 'Policraticus,' and is likewise dedicated to Thomas. It was written in reply to the gainsaying of an unknown critic, and contains a more or less orderly defence of the method and use of logic. It furnishes the first mediæval work in which the whole of Aristotle's 'Organon' is made available. 4. 'The Entheticus' (possibly for 'Nutheticus') was first printed by C. Peterson (Hamburg, 1843; in Giles, v. 239-97). It is an elegiac poem of 1,852 lines, and was written probably some time earlier than the completion of the 'Policraticus,' to which it was apparently intended to serve as an introduction (a shorter poem bearing the same title now occupies that position). It deals in a briefer compass with many of the characteristic subjects of the 'Policraticus.' 5. The 'Vita Sancti Anselmi' (Giles, v. 305-57) was written not long before June 1163 (see above, p. 442 α). 6. The 'Vita Sancti Thomæ Cantuar.'(Giles, v. 359-380) has been already mentioned (p. 444 α). 7. To the works contained in Giles's edition must be added the 'Historia Pontificalis,' first published as an anonymous work by W. Arndt (Monumenta Germanic Historica, xx. 517-45, 1868), and identified by Giesebrecht (ubi supra). Giles has printed further a poem, 'De Membris conspirantibus' (v. 299-304), which has no claim to be regarded as John's, and a fragmentary work, 'De septem Septenis' (v. 209-38), which is justly suspected by Hauréau (in the Nouvelle Biographie Générale, xxv. 539, 1858) and Schaarschmidt (pp. 278 ff.)