principles of realism to their furthest issues, and argued
from the doctrine of the unity of all being, that all being
is God, and that God is the form of being of all things.
How far the author s influence was exercised in the
school of Chartres, we are left to surmise from that of his
elder brother, whose philosophy was of a similar complexion.
For it is to Bernard in all probability that the restoration of the school to its old repute was due. Yet there
is little beyond the external relation to connect the teaching of Bernard with that of Fulbert or, for that matter,
of Lanfranc. Perhaps the single link is to be discovered
in its conservative character, its aversion from modern
innovations ; but even this attitude marks the great
difference between Bernard and his predecessors. They
looked back and relied upon Christian doctrine as it had
filtered through the dark ages ; he sought his models
beyond Christianity in the reliques of classical antiquity,
and emulated neither the theological weight of Fulbert
nor the dialectical prowess, such as it was, of Lanfranc.
Bernard[1] was a devoted Platonist, perfectissimus inter Platonicos seculi nosiri, says John of Salisbury, but instead of for that reason attacking nominalism, he rather sought to win his opponents over to his side by a demonstration of the essential harmony of Plato and Aristotle. We may believe John of Salisbury when he says that the proof was unsuccessful ; but he gives no details, nor is it likely that he entered into a minute examination of the different theories current in his day. He stood by the ancients and took little heed of what appeared to him ephemeral controversies. It is indeed
- ↑ [In the first edition of this book I followed the prevailing opinion and took Bernard of Chartres to be the same person as Bernard Silvester or Silvestris, the author of the treatise De mimdi universitate. But M. Haureau, revising his earlier view, has shewn that the latter’s connexions. were with Tours, not Chartres: Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions 31. (2.) 99 sq. ; 1884. Moreover the abbe A. Clerval, Les Ecoles de Chartres au moven Age, p. 161, gives reasons for believing that Bernard of Chartres died before 1130; whereas his namesake wrote in the time of Eugenius the Third. See my article on The Masters of the Schools at Paris and Chartres, in the English Historical Review, 35, 326-331; 1920.]
