1921 MAURICE OF RIEVAVLX 21 library of Rievaulx contained a work on the translation by an author named Maurice, the conclusion is not merely plausible but highly probable. 1 The leaders among the early Cistercians were prolific letter- writers, and copies of their letters were frequently collected and preserved. Ailred, Maurice, and, later, Nicholas received this compliment. 2 The loss of Ailred's letters is a real misfortune. Whether Maurice's were worthy of preservation may be doubted. The one which has survived, if it may safely be ascribed to him, does not stir enthusiasm. It is contained in a thirteenth-century manuscript, part of the collection which was formed by William Gray, bishop of Ely, and which on his death in 1478 passed to Balliol College (Ball. MS. 65). The contents are : fo. 1. Disputationes of Simon of Tournai. 3 fo. 40. Eulogium of John of Cornwall addressed to Pope Alexander III ' de discussione philosophorum et haeresium 4 fo. 48. Letter from ' frater M. minimus pauperum Christi de Kieualle ' to Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury. fo. 49. Letter from the patriarch of Antioch on Saladin's victory at Hattin, July 1187. All the contents are written in the same hand, with no indication of origin. It is perhaps worth noting that the library of Rievaulx possessed a volume containing John of Cornwall's eulogium. 5 Except Maurice, no ' frater M.' of Rievaulx is known to us, and, what is more to the point, he was during his retirement, in his search after perfection, just the type of man to attract the interest of Becket after his elevation to the see of Canterbury 1 St. Ailred was a recognized authority upon St. Cuthbert and provided the monk Reginald of Durham with the materials for his Libellus de admirandis Bedti Cuthberti virtutibus (Surtees Soc., 1835). 2 The catalogue of the Rievaulx library mentions both Ailred's and Maurice's letters. For those of Nicholas see ante, xxxv. 341, n. They are contained in a manu- script of Saint- Victor, no. 1030, now MS. Lat. no. 15157 in the Bibliotheque Nationale (not 15127, as stated ante, xxxv. 341). M. Charles Bemont, who has kindly examined this manuscript for me, tells me that it contains five letters from Nicholas (f o. 85 b to 101 a) and two addressed to him (fo. 118 b to 124 b). It is clear from their contents and also from the verses of Nicholas printed by Picard in his edition of William of Newburgh, that Nicholas wrote in the years 1216-25. It is worth noting that he does not mention Maurice in his poem on the abbots of Rievaulx. 8 For the significance of these quaestiones or disputationes in the development of scholastic method, see Grabmann, Geschichte der Scholastischen Methode, ii. 537 (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1911). Simon of Tournai was a master in the Paris schools at the end of the twelfth and early years of the thirteenth century. 4 John of Cornwall was a disciple, and afterwards a critic, of Petrus Lombardus. The eulogium was concerned with the controversy on the Lombard's position ' Christus non est aliquid secundum quod homo '. See Hefele, Hist, des Conciles (trans. Leclercq), v. ii. 974-7 (Paris, 1913), and Grabmann, ii. 399. Pits refers to this Balliol manuscript in his note on John of Cornwall, sub anno 1170, p. 236 (Paris, 1619). 5 It was bound up with Hugh of St. Victor on Ecclesiastes, and the dogmata of Gennadius.
