Orders of canons regular

In his magnum opus De Trinitate the twelfth-century canon Richard of St. Victor offers sustained reflection on core dogmatic claims from the Athanasian creed. At the heart of the treatise is Richard’s argument for exactly three divine persons. Starting with the necessity of a single maximally perfect divine substance Richard reasons along four steps: (i) God must have maximal charity or other-love; (ii) to be perfectly good delightful and glorious God’s other-love must be shared among at least two and (iii) among at least three divine persons; (iv) the metaphysics of divine processions and love each ensure the impossibility of four divine persons. For Richard Scripture and trustworthy church authorities already provide certainty in these truths of faith. Even so as an act of ardent love Richard contemplates the Trinity as reflected in creation. From this epistemic point of departure he supports his conclusions from common human experience alone.

Recently philosophers of religion have employed Richard’s trinitarian reflection as a springboard for constructive work in apologetics and ramified natural theology. His unique and meticulous approach to the Trinity has garnered attention from scholars of medieval and Victorine studies recognizing the novelty and rigour of his philosophical theology.

This volume presents the first focused exploration of Richard’s central thesis in De Trinitate combining historical context with philosophical scrutiny. It confronts the most challenging aspects of his argument presenting Richard’s insights as not merely intriguing but also profoundly compelling. His thesis if validated promises to significantly enrich modern dialogues on the philosophical and theological dimensions of the Trinity.

Les deux oeuvres De archa Noe Libellus de formatione archae occupent une place singulière dans la production du maître de Saint-Victor. Ils forment d’abord une somme morale ou tropologique tout comme le De sacramentis donnera une somme allégorique et à ce titre livrent tous les thèmes porteurs de la spiritualité de Hugues. Ils sont ensuite comme au centre de sa carrière enseignante mentionnant des traités déjà rédigés et en annonçant d’autres. La place de Hugues tant à Saint-Victor que dans le milieu des écoles parisiennes est déjà acquise et reconnue. Enfin nos écrits mettent en oeuvre des pédagogies visuelles qui lors d’entretiens réglés menés oralement s’appuient sur un diagramme support des expositiones orales. La mise par écrit de ces conférences (qui donnera le De archa Noe) fut suivie de la rédaction de directives (qui seront le Libellus) par lesquelles un lecteur puisse reconstruire le diagramme que les auditeurs avaient eu sous les yeux.

The Victorines were scholars and teachers of philosophy liberal arts sacred scripture music and contemplation at the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Paris. This collection focuses on the three greatest Victorines: Hugh (d. 1141) who established the direction of the school; Richard (d. 1173) who developed Victorine contemplation; and Thomas Gallus (d. 1246) who culminated Victorine contemplative thought and transmitted it to other schools especially the Franciscans. They offer an innovative revival of the Christian spiritual and intellectual tradition for their reforming pastoral mission in their urban setting and for the Church.

Their contemporaries saw the Victorines as beacons of spiritual love and intellectual richness. Later reformers and thinkers held their writings as touchstones of contemplative love including for example Bonaventure Thomas Aquinas Jean Gerson Thomas à Kempis the Devotio Moderna and many others. The writings of the Victorines found broad appeal among later medieval readers as well as praise among early modern reformers Protestant and Catholic alike. In recent decades the Victorines have returned to scholarly attention and renewed appreciation. Scholarly studies critical editions and translation projects reveal the treasures of Victorine thought and spirituality.

This volume showcases the findings of recent research and scholarly advances in Victorine studies offering new readers a status quaestionis of the field. It also features new research by eminent experts in Victorine thought that points out promising directions for future research thus offering important new findings for established specialists.

Achard de Saint-Victor (†1171) est un représentant moins connu de l’école de Saint-Victor élève d’Hugues chanoine régulier maître abbé de Saint-Victor à Paris (1155-1161) évêque d’Avranches (1161-1171). Son œuvre principal le De unitate et pluralitate creaturarum consiste en deux parties qui portent sur la doctrine trinitaire et sur la doctrine de la pluralité des raisons éternelles dans le Verbe de Dieu.

Cette recherche entend rétablir les thèses principales exposées par Achard de Saint-Victor dans son livre De unitate et pluralitate creaturarum pour montrer que les capacités métaphysiques de ce penseur ne le cèdent pas aux philosophes plus connus de son époque. Notamment l’autrice étudie la façon dont le De unitate recourt aux doctrines médio et néoplatoniciennes pour résoudre la question d’une coexistence de l’unité et de la pluralité en Dieu et dans les créatures. L’enjeu est de mieux comprendre la place de la métaphysique platonicienne dans l’école de Saint-Victor et ce malgré la rareté des sources au XIIe siècle en particulier des œuvres de Platon ou de ses disciples grecs.

Le présent ouvrage contribue à résoudre deux problèmes de l’histoire de la philosophie : quels éléments et sources platoniciens ont été reçus au XIIe siècle et quelle place la pensée victorine fait à l’héritage platonicien. Les problèmes philosophiques soulevés sont la multiplication des objets intelligibles et sensibles la définition de la chose et l’identité des êtres.

This book examines a cultural revolution that took place in the Scandinavian artistic landscape during the medieval period. Within just one generation (c. 1340-1400) the Augustinian monastery of Helgafell became the most important centre of illuminated manuscript production in western Iceland. By conducting interdisciplinary research that combines methodologies and sources from the fields of Art History Old Norse-Icelandic manuscript studies codicology and Scandinavian history this book explores both the illuminated manuscripts produced at Helgafell and the cultural and historical setting of the manuscript production.

Equally the book explores the broader European contexts of manuscript production at Helgafell comparing the similar domestic artistic monuments and relevant historical evidence of Norwich and surrounding East Anglia in England northern France and the region between Bergen and Trondheim in western Norway. The book proposes that most of these workshops are related to ecclesiastical networks as well as secular trade in the North Sea which became an important economic factor to western Icelandic society in the fourteenth century. The book thereby contributes to a new and multidisciplinary area of research that studies not only one but several European cultures in relation to similar domestic artistic monuments and relevant historical evidence. It offers a detailed account of this cultural site in relation to its scribal and artistic connections with other ecclesiastical and secular scriptoria in the broader North Atlantic region.

The present work tries to set the Victorine theological anthropology in the context of doctrinal history. In the twelfth century the canons of Saint-Victor formed the single largest community of theologians with the most extensive literary legacy. But is there a distinctive characteristically Victorine model of theological anthropology? The first half of the present volume investigates this question through a close reading of the works of Hugh Richard Walter and Achard and concludes with a positive answer. In a period of theological experimentation Hugh of Saint-Victor elaborated through selectively reading and altering Patristic sources his own model of theological anthropology. Its principles and concepts also appear in the spiritual works of other Victorine authors and set the Victorines apart from other spiritualities of the period. The second half of the work investigates the immediate thirteenth-century reception of this model. That scholastic authors held Hugh and Richard in high regard is well-known but a closer investigation reveals a different picture. The testimony of various theological sources (from Sentences glosses and commentaries to spiritual works) shows that thirteenth-century theologians have already found elements of the Victorine anthropology either untenable or unintelligibleas their reaction varies from explicit rejection to selective reading and reinterpretation. This transition from acceptable and inspirative to problematic occurred in less than a century’s time and still influences the way Victorine texts are read. Thus considering a twelfth-century model together with all of its necessary distortions in thirteenth-century interpretations may give us a better understanding of the limitations and potentials of the Victorine theology.