John of Salisbury's Entheticus de dogmate philosophorum: The light it throws on the educational background of the twelfth century

Abstract

John of Salisbury's Entheticus de dogmate philosophorum is a poem of 1852 lines, written in elegiac couplets. It is in part didactic and in part a satire on the educational and moral standards of the time. Because in many respects it foreshadows the same author's Policraticus and Metalogicon it has been neglected in favour of these two works. Dr. R.L. Poole has written: ''The latter part of the Policraticus covers substantially the same ground, although with far greater elaboration and completeness, as the elegiac poem, the Entheticus .... The latter is however by no means superseded by the prose work, and we can readily forgive the jejune rhythm of its imitation of Ovid for the pointed epigrammatic accuracy with which it depicts the learning and manners of the day." (Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval Thought and Learning, p.191.) On the whole, the Entheticus can be allowed to speak for itself. The edition of the poem by C. Petersen (Hamburg, 1843) is based on only one of the two manuscripts, and Petersen's interpretation of the poem is vitiated by his belief that John of Salisbury attended the schools at Oxford. Dr. J.A. Giles's edition of the poem in Joannis Sare sberiensi s Opera Omnia (vol. v) is without introduction, notes or commentary; it is reprinted by Migne in Patrologia Latina, vol. 199. This thesis aims to put the Enthetlcus in perspective against the background of John of Salisbury's life and the intellectual environment of the twelfth century, to examine some of the problems and points raised by the poem, and to provide a critical edition of the text together with an English prose translation.