ROBERTO of MELUN (Melodunensis). – Theologian and bishop, born in England at the end of the 11th century, died at Hereford on 27 February 1167.
A student at Oxford and Paris, around 1137 he succeeded Abelard as professor of dialectic in the school of arts at the “Montagne Ste-Geneviève,” and around 1142 as theologian at Melun. At the Council of Reims (1148), together with Peter Lombard (q.v.) and John of Cornwall (q.v.), he opposed the Trinitarian doctrine of Gilbert of Poitiers (q.v.). After several years of teaching at the Abbey of St Victor (Paris), at the suggestion of St Thomas Becket he was summoned to England (1160) by King Henry II and appointed (1163) bishop of Hereford; though for a time he was too compliant with the king against Becket, later he took a firm stand in favor of the illustrious martyr.
Between 1145 and 1155 he composed a commentary on the Gospel of St Matthew, substantially preserved in the Quaestiones de divina pagina (ed. R. Martin, Oeuvres de Robert de Melun, I, Louvain 1932), and a theological treatise on the Pauline epistles: Quaestiones de epistolis Pauli (ed. R. Martin, op. cit., II, ibid. 1938). The Quaestiones follow the lectio of the biblical text and discuss, with original method and insights, important topics later taken up by the author in his most celebrated work (which became almost classical in theology by the end of the 12th century), the Sententiae (unpublished; numerous manuscripts), which, though imitating in arrangement the De Sacramentis of Hugh of St Victor, do not attain its inner fervor and innate simplicity. A personal theologian gifted with insight, Roberto of M. while admiring the Victorine school dared to attack its leading figures (William of St-Thierry and St Bernard) and to oppose Peter Lombard himself; by defending Abelard in the question of Trinitarian appropriation, he paved the way for a doctrine that was adopted by all the great scholastics of the 13th century.