CHAPTER XXXVII
WILLIAM OF CONCHES
His relation to his time—Early life—Writings—Philosophia: general character—Contemporary education—Good and bad demons—Astronomy and astrology—Extent of the influence of the stars—Science and religion—Letter of William of St. Thierry to St. Bernard—Extent of William’s retraction in the Dragmaticon—Reassertion of previous views—No denial of science—William’s future influence—Appendix I. Editions and Manuscripts of the Original and of the Revised Version of the Work of William of Conches on Natural Philosophy.
“... rejoicing not in the many but in the probity of the few, we toil for truth alone.”
—Philosophia (1531) p. 28.
His relation to his time.
Practically contemporary with Adelard of Bath and associated like him with members of the English royal line was William of Conches,[119] of whom we shall treat in the present chapter. Like Adelard also he withdrew from the schools of Gaul after teaching there for a time—longer apparently than Adelard; like Adelard he followed the guidance of reason and took an interest in natural science; like him he employed the dramatic dialogue form in his works. John of Salisbury, who studied grammar under William of Conches and Richard Bishop (l’Évêque) from about 1138 to 1141,[120] represents those masters as successors to the thorough-going educational methods and humanistic ideals of Bernard of Chartres; but adds that later, when men “preferred to seem rather than be philosophers, and professors of the arts promised to transmit all philosophy to their hearers in less than three or two years’ time, overcome by the onslaught of the unskilled multitude, they ceased teaching.”[121] William then seems to have entered the service of Geoffrey Plantagenet, to whom as duke of Normandy as well as count of Anjou we find William addressing his Dragmaticon or Dramaticus, which takes the form of a dialogue between them. It thus was written at some time between 1144 and 1150, the period when Geoffrey was duke of Normandy.[122] His son, the future Henry II of England, was in Normandy from 1146 to 1149, when William appears to have been his tutor.[123] In the Dragmaticon William praises Geoffrey for training his children “from a tender age” in the study of literature,[124] and before the boy was made duke of Normandy by his father in 1150 at the age of seventeen William prepared for his perusal a collection of moral extracts from such classical Latin authors as Cicero, Seneca, Juvenal, Horace, Lucan, and Persius, entitled De honesto et utili.[125] The last we hear of William seems to be in 1154, under which date Alberic des Trois Fontaines,[126] a thirteenth century chronicler, states that he had attained a great reputation. He might well have lived on for some time after that date, since his former associate, Richard Bishop, was archdeacon of Coutances at the time John of Salisbury wrote the Metalogicus in 1159, and survived to become bishop of Avranches in 1171, dying only in 1182. One infers, however, from John’s account that William was no longer living in 1159.
Early life.
We may next look back upon the earlier events of William’s life. In the Dragmaticon he speaks of having been previously engaged in teaching “for twenty years and more than that.” Still earlier he had been a student, presumably under Bernard of Chartres, in which town it is possible that much of his own teaching was done. John of Salisbury, however, simply says of his studies with William, “Straightway I betook me to the grammarian of Conches,” while in another passage he mentions “my teachers in grammar, William of Conches and Richard, surnamed Bishop, now an archdeacon at Coutances.” Although this passage might seem to suggest that William taught at Conches, no one so far as I know has ever entertained that supposition, and the chief dispute has been whether he taught at Chartres or at Paris.[127] But that he was born at Conches no one doubts, and he himself once speaks somewhat satirically of his Norman dulness compared to the lightning intelligences of some of his contemporaries.[128]
Writings.
The Dragmaticon was a revision of a work on philosophy or natural philosophy composed in William’s “younger days.”[129] He also appears to have commented upon Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy,[130] and to have written a gloss on the Timaeus[131] in which among other things he dilates upon the perfection of certain numbers. But our discussion will be almost exclusively concerned with his much more influential Philosophia and its revised version, Dragmaticon. We shall first examine the original version.[132]
Philosophia: general character.
The original treatise touches on the fields of philosophy and astronomy in a simple and elementary way, but with considerable skill, if not originality, in the selection and presentation of its subject-matter. William does not seem acquainted with Arabic science except that he has read Constantinus Africanus and from him derived the same doctrine that the four elements are never found in a pure state which we met in Adelard of Bath. William gives us a Platonic interpretation of nature, in which nevertheless he does not adhere at all closely to the Timaeus, interspersed with not infrequent quotation from or reference to astronomical works, classical literature, and the Bible and church fathers. Indeed, he is always careful to allow for divine influence in nature and for the statements of Scripture, and to show that his theories do not contradict either. In such passages his language is always reverent, and he not infrequently alludes respectfully to what the saints have to say (sancti dicunt) on the theme in hand. The body of the treatise opens with definition of philosophy and statement of its method of inquiry, after which the author argues that the world was made by God and discusses the Trinity at some length. He then discusses the topics of world-soul, demons, and elements; next passes to various matters astronomical and astrological concerning the sky and stars; and finally treats of our lower world and of man.
Contemporary education.
The work also contains, especially in the prefaces to its different books but also in other passages, a number of interesting allusions to contemporary learning and education. William frequently refers to the existence of other scholars and furthermore makes it evident that this learned society is not in its earliest stage. Its paradise period is over; the evil has entered in among the good; the enemy has sown tares amid the wheat. Education has become too popular, and already the insincere and the incapable, the charlatan and the unthinking mob, are cheapening and degrading the ideals of the true philosopher. William speaks of “many who usurp the name of teacher,”[133] and of “certain men who have never read the works either of Constantinus or of any other philosopher, who out of pride disdain to learn from anyone, who from arrogance invent what they do not know,”[134] and who actually insist that the four qualities, hot, cold, moist, and dry, are elements. In another passage William says, “Although we are aware that many strive for an ornate style, few for accuracy of statement, yet rejoicing not in the many but in the probity of the few, we toil for truth alone.”[135] These are not all of William’s complaints. Back in the world of feudalism, crusades, and Holy Roman Empire which seems to many so foreign, distant, and incomprehensible, he voices grievances which are still those of the college or university professor of to-day. The teacher is so occupied with classes that he has little time for research and publication;[136] the vulgar crowd has stolen philosophy’s clothing and left the essential body of truth naked and vainly crying for covering,—a figure borrowed from The Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius without express acknowledgment,[137] but perhaps the allusion was so familiar as not to require one; the truly learned are in danger of the bite of envy; most teachers are catering to their pupils and giving “snap courses” in order to gain popularity; the elective system is a failure, since the students, in the words of the Apostle, “after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers having itching ears”; academic freedom has become a thing of the past now that masters are become flatterers of their students and students judges of their masters, while “if there is anyone who does maintain a magisterial air, he is shunned as if insane by the meretricious scholars and is called cruel and inhuman.”[138] All which agrees perfectly with John of Salisbury’s statement why William had ceased teaching.
Good and bad demons.
William does not mention magic in his treatise, but the fact that he does not condemn all demons indifferently is perhaps worth noting as a departure from the usual patristic view and as offering opportunity for an innocent variety of necromancy. William, who attributes his classification to Plato, distinguishes three sorts of demons. The first class, existent in the ether betwixt firmament and moon, are rational, immortal, ethereal animals, invisible and impassive, whose function is blissful contemplation of the divine sun. The second class, who dwell in the upper atmosphere near the moon, are rational, immortal, aerial animals. They communicate the prayers of men to God and the will of God to men, either in person or through signs or dreams and “by the closest aspiration of vocal warning.” They are capable of feeling, and, devoting themselves to good men, rejoice in their prosperity and suffer with them in their adversity. Both of these first two classes of demons are good,—kalodaemones. But the third class, who inhabit the humid atmosphere near the earth and are rational, immortal, watery animals, and capable of feeling, are in every way evil,—kakodaemones. They are lustful, cohabit with women, and envy and plot against mankind, for men, although fallen from grace like these demons, can recover their lost estate as the demons cannot.[139]
Astronomy and astrology.
William offers a rather novel and unusual explanation of the difference in meaning between the terms “astronomy” and “astrology,” stating that authorities on the subject speak of the superior bodies in three ways, the fabulous, the astrological, and the astronomical. The method by fable is that employed by Aratus, Memroth (Nimrod the astronomer?), and Hyginus (“Eginus”), who interpret the Greek myths in an astronomical sense. Hipparchus and Martianus Capella are representatives of the astrological method, which treats of phenomena as they appear to exist in the heavens, whether they are really so or not. Astronomy, on the contrary, deals with things as they are, whether they seem to be so or not. Exactly what he has in mind by this distinction William fails to make any clearer as he proceeds, but from the fact that he lists Julius Firmicus and Ptolemy as instances of the astronomical method it would appear that he included part at least of what we should call astrology under “astronomy.” William cites yet other astronomical authorities, advising anyone wishing to learn about the Milky Way to read Macrobius, and for an explanation of the signs of the zodiac to consult Helpericus (of Auxerre), the ninth century compiler of a Computus which occurs with fair frequency in the manuscripts.[140]
Extent of the influence of the stars.
William represents “Plato, most learned of all philosophers,” as saying that God the Creator entrusted the task of forming the human body to the stars and spirits which He had first created, but reserved to Himself the making of the human soul.[141] This Christian interpretation or rather perversion of Plato’s doctrine in the Timaeus is characteristic. William accepts to the full the control of the stars over nature and the human body, but stops there. Like Adelard he states that the stars are composed of the same four elements as earthly objects. The predominance in their composition of the superior elements, fire and air, accounts for their motion. Their motion heats the atmosphere which in turn heats the element water, which is the fundamental constituent in the various species of animals, which further differ according to the admixture in them of the other elements. Of the superior elements the birds of the air have the most, and fish next. Of land animals choleric ones, like the lion, possess most fire; phlegmatic ones, like pigs, most water; and melancholic ones, like the cow and ass, most earth. The human body is composed of an unusual harmony of the four elements, to which Scripture alludes in saying that “God formed man of the dust of the earth.”[142] William also lists the natural qualities and humors of each planet and its consequent influence for good or evil. He believes that the ancient astrologi discovered that Saturn is a cold star by repeatedly observing that in those years when the Sun in Cancer burned the earth less than usual, Saturn was invariably in conjunction with it in the same sign. How Saturn comes to exert this chilling influence William is less certain. He has already denied the existence of the congealed waters above the firmament, so that he cannot accept the theory that Saturn is cold because of its proximity to them. He can only suggest that its great distance from us perhaps explains why it heats less than the other planets.[143] The good and evil influences of the planets also come out in the astrological interpretation of myth and fable. Thus Saturn is said to carry a scythe because one who carries a scythe does more execution in receding than in advancing. Jupiter is said in the fables to have ousted his father Saturn because the approach of the planet Jupiter increases the evil influence of Saturn. Jupiter is said to have begotten divers children in adultery because the conjunctions of that planet produce varied effects upon earth; and Venus is said to have had adulterous intercourse with Mars because the propinquity of the planet Venus to the planet Mars renders the former less benevolent. Mars is god of battle because the planet of that name produces heat and drought which in their turn engender animosity.[144] As the tides follow the phases of the moon, so, William believes, a universal flood or conflagration may be produced by the simultaneous elevation or depression of all the planets.[145] But he accepts comets as special signs of the future caused by the Creator’s will instead of attempting to give a natural explanation of the events which follow them.[146] This is perhaps because of their signifying human events. Thunder and lightning are discussed without mention of divination from them.[147]
Science and religion.
Thus far we have heard William cite authorities rather than spurn them as Adelard did. He could, however, be independent enough on occasion. He went so far as to reject the Scriptural account of waters above the firmament, if that word were taken in its ordinary astronomical sense, as naturally impossible; he explained away the passage in Genesis by interpreting the firmament to mean the air, and the waters above it, the clouds.[148] Like Adelard, too, he several times feels it essential to justify his views against the possible criticism of an obscurantist religious party. Discussing the Trinity, he insists that if anyone finds something in his book which is not found elsewhere, it should not on that account be stigmatized as heresy but only if it can be shown to be against the Faith.[149] Thus he confirms Adelard’s complaint that the present generation is prejudiced against any modern discoveries. William, by the way, also employs the word “modern.” Again, in affirming the physical impossibility of reconciling the elements fire and earth, he notes that someone may object that God could find a way. To this he replies that “we do not place a limit upon divine power, but we do say that of existing things none can do it, nor in the nature of things can there be anything that would suffice.”[150] In a third passage his indignation is fanned to a white heat by those who say, “We do not know how this is, but we know that God can do it.” “You poor fools,” he retorts, “God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so.”[151] Elsewhere he yet further dilates upon the unreasonableness of the opponents of natural science, who are loath to have explained even the natural facts given in the Bible but prefer to accept them blindly, and who, “since they themselves are unacquainted with the forces of nature, in order that they may have all men as companions in their ignorance, wish them to investigate nothing but to believe like rustics. We, on the contrary,” continues William, “think that a reason should be sought in every case, if one can be found.”[152] Thus he vigorously echoes Adelard’s exhortation to give and take reason, and his retort to the nephew’s suggestion that the growth of plants from earth can be explained only as a divine miracle.
Letter of William of St. Thierry to St. Bernard.
William, it turned out, was too original and bold in some of his assertions concerning the Trinity and kindred topics, which were not allowed to pass unchallenged. A letter to St. Bernard from William, abbot of St. Thierry,[153] shows the attitude of William of Conches’ opponents. The abbot first says,—with the assumption of superior seriousness and dignity characteristic through all time of conservatives, bigots, and pompous persons subconsciously aware of their own stupidity—that anyone who knows William of Conches personally is aware of his levity and will not take his vanities too seriously, and that he is to be classed with Abelard in the presumptuousness of his opinions. The abbot then devotes most of his letter to an attack upon William’s discussion of the Trinity, taking umbrage at his discussing questions of faith at all, especially upon a philosophical basis, and at his distribution of the three faculties, power, will, and wisdom, among the Three Persons. The abbot more briefly objects to William’s physical account of the creation of man, saying: “First he says that man’s body was not made by God but by nature, and the soul was given him by God afterwards, and forsooth that the body was made by spirits whom he calls demons and by the stars.” This doctrine the abbot regards as on the one hand dangerously close to the opinion “of certain stupid philosophers who say that there is nothing but matter and the material, and that there is no other God in the world than the concourse of the elements and the system of nature”; and on the other hand as manifestly Manichean, affirming that the human soul is created by a good God but the body by the prince of darkness. Finally the abbot complains that William “stupidly and haughtily ridicules history of divine authority,” and “interprets in a physical sense” the account of the creation of woman from one of Adam’s ribs.
Extent of William’s retraction in the Dragmaticon.
The effect of this theological attack upon William of Conches can probably be discerned in the Dragmaticon. There he states that it is his purpose to include “many essential points” which were not contained in the earlier treatise, and to omit those statements which he has since become convinced are erroneous. He then proceeds to list and expressly condemn certain statements in the earlier work as contrary to the Catholic Faith, and he asks those readers who have copies of that treatise to make these corrections in it.[154] He accordingly retracts his assertion that in the Trinity the Father represents power and the Holy Spirit will, since there is no direct scriptural authority for this view, but he still maintains that the Son is Wisdom on the authority of the Apostle. He takes back his interpretation of the words of the Prophet concerning Christ, “Who will tell his generation?” as indicating merely the difficulty and not the impossibility of solving that mystery. Finally he reverts to the letter of Scripture in regard to the creation of Eve.
Reassertion of previous views.
But this done, William becomes his old self again in the remainder of the Dragmaticon. In the rôle of the philosopher he argues at length with the duke whether Plato’s five circles of the sky and division of spirits into kalodaemones and kakodaemones is in agreement with the Christian Faith. Later on, when the duke cites Bede against him in regard to some astronomical point, he replies that in a pure matter of faith he would feel obliged to accept Bede’s authority, but that on a point of philosophy he feels perfectly at liberty to disagree with him. This declaration of scientific independence from patristic authority became a locus classicus cited with approval by several writers of the next century. Presently to our surprise we find William boldly inquiring at what time of year the six days of creation occurred. He also indulges as before in somewhat bitter reflections upon the learned world of his day.
No denial of science.
William, therefore, has had to withdraw some theological opinions for which he could not show authority in Scripture, and some other opinions wherein he disregarded the literal meaning of the Bible. But except that he has to agree to the miraculous account of the creation of the first woman, he does not seem to have altered his views concerning nature and philosophy, nor to have given up in any way his scientific attitude or his astrological theories. The theologians have forced him to conform in respect to theology, but his retraction in that field takes the form of a second edition of his treatise and a reaffirmation of his astronomical and philosophical views. As Hauréau well says, “He always believes in science, he still defends in the name of science, in the accents, and by the method of the scholar, everything in his former writings that has not been condemned in the name of the Faith.... So it is no denial of philosophy that has been won by the outcries of William of St. Thierry and Walter of St. Victor;[155] those attacks have resulted in merely intimidating the theologian.”[156]
William’s future influence.
Such attacks, moreover, had little or no success in lessening William’s ultimate future influence. How utterly they failed to intimidate astrologers may be inferred from the much greater lengths to which William’s contemporary, Bernard Silvester, went without apparently getting into any trouble, and from the half-hearted arguments against the art of John of Salisbury a little later in the century. As Doctor Poole has already pointed out, even the Philosophia, which William of St. Thierry censured and which William of Conches himself modified, survived in its original and unexpurgated version “to be printed in three several editions as the production of the venerable Bede, of saint Anselm’s friend, William of Hirschau, and of Honorius of Autun; the taint of heresy plainly cannot have been long perceptible to medieval librarians.”[157] Also the revised edition, or Dragmaticon, “enjoyed a remarkable popularity, and a wide diffusion attested by a multitude of manuscripts at Vienna, Munich, Paris, Oxford, and other places.”[158] We shall find William’s book much used and cited by the learned writers of the following century, and a number of copies of it are listed in the fifteenth century catalogue of the library of St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury. If then from the contemporary and passing world of talk William retired disgusted and discomfited to the shelter of ducal patronage, in the enduring world of thought and letters he carved for himself a lasting niche by his comparative intellectual courage, originality, and thoroughness.
[119] On William of Conches see, besides HL XXI, 455 et seq. and DNB, Antoine Charma, Guillaume de Conches, Paris, 1857; B. Hauréau, in his Singularités historiques et littéraires, Paris, 1861; H. F. Reuter, Geschichte der religiösen Aufklärung im Mittelalter, II (1877) pp. 6-10; R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought, 1884, pp. 124-31, 338-63, (or, 1920, pp. 106-12, 293-310) and “The Masters of the Schools at Paris and Chartres in John of Salisbury’s Time,” EHR, 35 (1920) pp. 321-42. For editions and MSS of the original version and revision of William’s chief philosophical treatise see Appendix I at the close of this chapter. For his other works see my subsequent foot-notes.
[120] Metalogicus II, 10.
[121] Metalogicus, I, 24.
[122] Haskins, Norman Institutions, 1918, p. 130. Haskins, Ibid., p. 205, has found no authority for Geoffrey’s absence on crusade in 1147, so that it need not be taken into account in dating the Dragmaticon.
[123] R. L. Poole, in EHR (1920) p. 334.
[124] R. L. Poole (1884), p. 348, (1920) p. 299, concluded from this, “The dialogue was written therefore some time, probably some years, before Henry was of an age to be knighted, in 1149; and we shall certainly not be far wrong if we place it about the year 1145.” As, however, Henry was knighted when only about sixteen, and as the remark “quos ... studio literarum tenera aetate imbuisti” may be retrospective, and as one can scarcely argue with any chronological exactness from these medieval phrases denoting time of life—Henry, for example, is addressed as “vir optime atque liberalis” in the preface of the collection of ethical maxims which William made for him before he was seventeen,——it seems to me that there is no sufficient reason for fixing on 1145 as the date of the Dragmaticon.
[125] Printed in Migne, PL 171, 1007-56, among the works of Hildebert of Le Mans. William’s authorship was determined by Hauréau, Notices et Extraits, XXXIII, i, 257-63.
[126] Bouquet, Recueil, XIII, 703D.
[127] R. L. Poole, in EHR (1920) p. 334, decides in favor of Chartres.
[128] Cited from the Dragmaticon by Poole (1884) pp. 348-9, (1920) 300.
[129] In iuventute nostra, another example of a vague chronological phrase.
[130] Charles Jourdain, Des Commentaires inédits de Guillaume de Conches et de Nicolas Triveth sur la Consolation de la Philosophie, Paris, 1861.
[131] Printed in part as by Honorius of Autun in Cousin, Ouvrages inédits d’Abélard, Appendix, p. 648, et seq.
[132] My references will be to the editio princeps of Basel, 1531, which is, however, not particularly accurate.
[133] Edition of 1531, p. 1.
[134] Ibid., p. 14.
[135] Ibid., pp. 27-8.
[136] Ibid., p. 51.
[137] The parallel passages are: De consolatione philosophiae, I, i, 21-3 and I, iii, 19-28. It will be recalled that William wrote a commentary on Boethius’ work.
[138] Ed. of 1531, p. 65.
[139] Ibid., pp. 9-10.
[140] Ed. of 1531, pp. 30-32.
[141] Ibid., preface.
[142] Ed. of 1531, pp. 24-25, “... et hoc est quod divina pagina dicit deum fecisse hominem de limo terrae.”
[143] Ibid., p. 34.
[144] Ibid., pp. 36-7.
[145] Ed. of 1531, p. 64.
[146] Ibid., p. 60.
[147] Ibid., pp. 55-6.
[148] Ibid., pp. 28-9.
[149] Ibid., p. 7.
[150] Ibid., p. 19.
[151] Ibid., p. 29.
[152] Ed. of 1531, p. 26.
[153] Migne PL 180, 333-40, Guillelmi abbatis S. Theodorici De erroribus Guillelmi de Conchis ad sanctum Bernardum.
[154] This was the impression that I received from the text in CLM 2595 rather than that “His former work, therefore, he suppressed and begged everyone who possessed the book to join him in condemning and destroying it”;—R. L. Poole (1884) p. 130, (1920) p. 110.
[155] Walter, in an attack upon the views of Abelard, Gilbert de la Porrée, and others, unjustly accused William of holding the Epicurean atomic theory; Poole (1884) pp. 349-50, (1920) pp. 300-1.
[156] B. Hauréau, Histoire de la philosophie scolastique, ed. of 1872, I, 445.
[157] R. L. Poole (1884) p. 130, (1920) p. 111.
[158] Ibid., p. 131, (1920) p. 111.