JOHN OF SALISBURY. - Medieval scholastic, a complex figure of philosopher, historian and humanist, b. in Salisbury ca. 1110-20, d. at Chartres in 1180. He was educated in France (1136-48) and there had as teachers, among others, Abelard and Gilbert de la Porrée. Having returned to England, he became, on the recommendation of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, first secretary of Theobald archbishop of Canterbury, then of his successor St. Thomas Becket. Employed on embassies to the Holy See, and, because he was held to be too papally minded, viewed with disfavor by King Henry II, he was, following the murder of St. Thomas, forced to settle in France, where he held the bishopric of Chartres (1176, until his death).
J. of S. occupies a prominent place in the history of philosophical and political thought of the 12th century. Moreover, well versed in the Latin classics and particularly in Cicero, his works, in prose and in verse, display a rare dignity and propriety of style. He wrote: Entheticus seu de dogmate philosophorum (in verse: PL 199, 965 ff.); Polycraticus sive de nugis curialium et vestigiis philosophorum (ed. C. J. Webb, 2 vols., Oxford 1909, and PL 199); Metalogicon, containing a complete treatise on logic (ed. Webb, Oxford 1929 and PL 199); Letters (in J. A. Giles, Johannis Salisbentiensis opera omnia, 5 vols., Oxford 1848, I and II: PL 199); Historia pontificalis (MGH, Scriptores, XX: only a fragment); Vita Anselmi Cantuariensis (PL 199, 1000-1040); Vita Thomae Cantuariensis (PL 199, 193-234); Carmen de membris conspirantibus (doubtful: J. A. Giles, op. cit., V).
Of the question of universals J. of S. narrates the vicissitudes in his own time, noting that in it « laborans mundus iam senuit » and « plus temporis consumptum est quam in adquirendo et regendo orbis imperio consumpserit Caesarea domus » (Polyc., VII, 12: ed. cit., II, p. 141). J. of S. adheres to a moderate realism. In logic his admiration goes to Aristotle, who was then making his entry into the Latin world with the « new logic »: an entry that he defended with such passion in bk. IV of the Metalogicon against the retrograde Cornificius (an ideal or real name?) and against his followers « Boetio fere solo contenti » (ibid., IV, 27). Even the psychology of J. of S., though of Augustinian inspiration, moves toward Aristotelian positions, and derives rational knowledge from sense data, through the three degrees of abstraction: physical, mathematical, metaphysical.
But where J. of S. occupies a unique place in the history of 12th-century thought is in regard to political doctrines, developed in the Polycraticus, written, as C. Schaarschmidt explains interpreting the title, « in usum civitates regentium » (cf. A. J. Carlyle, A history of mediaeval political theory, III, London 1946, p. 102). He wants the prince to be cultured because « rex illiteratus est quasi asinus coronatus » (IV, 6); his power comes from God (« omnis potestas a Domino Deo est », IV, 2; ed. cit., I, p. 236), and in the Christian world, through the authority of the Church (« hunc ergo gladium de manu Ecclesiae accipit Princeps »). But if the prince turns into a tyrant, that is, to the harm of the people, his authority ceases, and it is just and honorable to remove him, even by murder. « Hoc tamen cavendum docent historiae, ne quis illius moliatur interitum cui fidei et sacramenti religione tenetur adstrictus... Sed nec veneni, licet videam ab infidelibus usurpatam, ullo unquam iure indultam lego licentiam » (VIII, 20). In the Entheticus J. of S. had sung: « libera philosophi vita est et libera lingua: est libertatis auctor utrique Deus » (PL 199, 1003). Perhaps the free tongue of the free philosopher did not impose upon itself here all the limits of the case.
Bibliography6 works
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