private estate, the instance of my companions, and the counsel
of my friends, that I should undertake the office of a teacher.
I obeyed : and thus returning at the expiration of three years,
I found master Gilbert and heard him in logic and divinity ;
but too quickly was he removed. Gilbert left Paris, as t> we
have seen, when he was elected in 1142 to the bishoprick of
Poitiers. His successor, proceeds John, was Robert Pullus,
whom his life and knowledge alike recommended. Then I
had Simon of Poissy, a trusty lecturer, but dull in dis
putation. But these two I had in theologies alone. Thus,
engaged in diverse studies near twelve years passed by
me. [1]
No doubt the reason why John adverts so perfunctorily to his theological studies is that the entire narrative upon which we have hitherto commented is inserted in the middle of a dialectical disquisition. Dialectics furnish its motive, and beyond them John does not think fit to pursue his story. Gilbert- of La Porree he heard in dialectics as well as theology : then he attended Robert and Simon ; but these, he explains, as though to excuse his not continuing a digression from his principal subject, I heard in theologies alone. Nor can we allow ourselves to be detained by an enquiry as to the influence which these masters had upon him. The character, the tran- scendental character, we should say, of Gilbert s theological system has been already sufficiently discussed ; but John was his pupil but for a short time. Robert Pullen also (if this is to be preferred of the many forms in which his name is written) did not remain long at Paris; and of Simon of Poissy we know next to nothing. Robert, who became a cardinal and chancellor of the Roman church, was held by his contemporaries in singular honour as a theologian, although it has been suspected that his famous Sum of Theology borrowed something more than its method
- ↑ The editions have duodecen- nium or duodennium ; the former of which I take to be a gloss upon the latter. Duodennium however itself is considered by Dr. Schaarschmidt, pp. 24 sq., to be a corruption from decenniam: yet compare above, p. 181 n. 7. [See also my article in the English historical Review, 35 (1910) 336.]
