RICHARD OF SAINT LAURENCE. – A theologian of the 13th century, about whom almost no biographical data survives.
RICHARD OF SAINT VICTOR. – Theologian and mystic, not probably born in Scotland at the beginning of the 12th century, but in Paris on 10 March 1173. Having entered the Augustinian Canons Regular of Saint Victor (Paris) during the abbacy of Gilduin, he became a disciple of Hugh of Saint Victor (q.v.) and probably succeeded him in teaching theology in the monastic school.
RICHARD OF SAINT VICTOR — RICHARD OF WYCHE
In the Middle Ages, he was renowned for a series of works that constitute a complete theoretical treatment of the subject: *De praeparatione animi ad contemplationem, liber dictus Beniamin minor*: he indicates in the mortification of the passions and the exercise of the virtues the path to reach contemplation; *De gratia contemplationis, seu Beniamin maior*: this is Richard’s masterpiece, his most celebrated and most widely used work by later generations.
He treats of charity in the short treatises: *De gradibus caritatis, De quattuor gradibus violentae caritatis*. Important is the extensive treatise on the interior life: *De conditione interioris hominis*. Among the numerous short works of the same kind, mention should be made of the *Exit edictum* or *De tribus processionibus* (ed. I. Chatillon-W. J. Tulloch, in Richard de St-Victor, *Sermons et opuscules spirituels inédits*, I, Paris 1951, at pp. xv-xvii a complete bibliography). Although Richard indulged, *more victorino*, in an extreme allegorism and his style is sometimes overladen with words and images, nonetheless his thought is clear, sustained by an extraordinary speculative force, which Dante acknowledged in the well-known verse: *Che a considerar fu più che viro* (Parad., X, 132).