ADAM of PERSEIGNE. - First a regular canon, then a Benedictine and librarian at Marmoutier, and finally a Cistercian in the abbey of Pontigny, where he was master of novices. Elected abbot of Perseigne (in the diocese of Le Mans) in May 1188, he remained there until his death (1221). Renowned for his holiness and learning, A. exercised spiritual direction not only over his monks,
but also over many laypeople, such as Count John of Alençon and his son Robert, Mary, Countess of Champagne, Richard the Lionheart, and Alice, daughter of Louis VII. In Rome, in 1198, he refuted Abbot Joachim of Fiore. Innocent III entrusted him with many delicate missions (reforms of monasteries and dioceses, pacifications of princes). Ever solicitous for the discipline of his monastery and the conversion of sinners, he tirelessly preached, with Fulk of Neuilly, the Fourth Crusade.
He left behind Sermons and Letters (PL 211, 583-780). Among the sermons, those on the solemnities of the Blessed Virgin Mary deserve special mention; they were collected and edited by I. Marracci (Mariae Adami Abbatis Perseniae, Rome 1652). In his letters (thirty, in PL 211), A. almost always treats matters of spirituality.
ADAM of PETIT PONT. - A native of the county of Cambridge, but so called from the quarter of Paris in which, after studying under Matthew of Angers and Peter Lombard, he delivered highly successful courses in dialectic and grammar. Later he moved to the school of the Cathedral and, in the Trinitarian controversies stirred up by Gilbert de la Porrée, took a position against him. Appointed bishop of Saint Asaph, he took part in the Third Lateran Council (1179), in which, through his influence, he helped secure the condemnation of a suspect proposition of Peter Lombard. He died on 6 Aug. 1181.
He wrote De arte dialectica, in which traces of terminism are found and of which Cousin published some extracts (Fragm. phil., II, Paris 1865, pp. 385-90), and De Utensilibus ad domum regendam, important for the knowledge of medieval vocabulary, re-edited by Hauréau in 1891.