BERNARD OF CHARTRES. - Philosopher, who lived between the end of the 11th century and the beginning of the 12th, mistakenly identified for some time, due to the similarity of philosophical ideas and style, with Bernard of Moélan and with Bernard Silvestris, his contemporaries. The best and most reliable information about B., Magister Scholae first at Chartres and then at Paris, comes to us from John of Salisbury, who studied theology at Paris and Chartres, and who has preserved fragments of works by B. that have been lost. B.'s works are three: a prose treatise *De expositione Porphyrii*, in which he sets out his opinion on matter and on the idea; another treatise in verse on the same subject, of which only a few fragments remain; and a lost writing in which he attempted to reconcile Aristotle and Plato.
The inspiration of his thought is decidedly Platonic. He distinguishes between realities, which are immobile and invisible, and temporal, sensible, and mutable appearances. To the former belong the three principles of things: God, the idea, and matter. God, the creator of matter, distinct in three equal and coeternal persons, is the «author» of the idea, which is therefore not coeternal with God, but only eternal. Pursuing this theme, B. shows himself closer to Plato in the question of the relationship between the eternal and immobile idea and the temporal and mutable appearances of reality. B. resolves the problem by admitting a «native form», a second species of idea which, unlike the first—which God has drawn directly from Himself and preserves within Himself as the immobile exemplar of things—is extracted from matter and is a copy of that exemplar; when mixed with matter, it constitutes bodies. According to other passages reported by disciples, it seems that this Platonism degenerates into pantheism, but in that case the accusation concerns more the disciples than B. himself.