modern editors. He was a diligent compiler and accurate researcher, keen to tease the
truth from contradictory sources. Traveling from monastery to monastery, Bernard
assembled evidence, interviewed witnesses, and verified his sources at every step. As
information accumulated, he prepared copious lists, edited, revised, and expanded. Faced
with mountains of material, he regularly composed abridged versions of his most
important works. Bernard’s lack of literary skill is compensated for by his careful
preservation of significant documents and information whose original sources have been
lost.
Grover A.Zinn
[See also: AVIGNON PAPACY; DOMINICAN ORDER; GOLEIN, JEAN;
INQUISITION]
Bernard Gui. Practica Inquisitionis heretice pravitatis, ed. C. Douais. Paris: Picard, 1886.
——. Manuel de l’inquisiteur, ed. and trans. G.Mollat. 2 vols. Paris: Champion, 1926–27.
Delisle, Léopold. “Notice sur les manuscrits de Bernard Gui.” Notices et extraits des manuscrits de
la Bibliothèque Nationale 27(1885):169–455.
Thomas, Antoine. “Bernard Gui, frère precheur.” Histoire littéraire de la France 35(1921):139–
232.
Vernet, A. “La diffusion de l’œuvre de Bernard Gui d’après la tradition manuscrite.” Cahiers de
Fanjeaux 16(1981):221–42.
BERNARD OF CHARTRES
(d. 1124–30). Most of our knowledge of Bernard comes through John of Salisbury’s
Metalogicon. John studied with Gilbert of Poitiers, William of Conches, and Richard the
Bishop, who were all Bernard’s pupils at Chartres when he was chancellor of the schools.
Not only was John’s knowledge secondhand, but his Metalogicon has an ulterior motive:
he is not merely describing Bernard for archival reasons but wishes to contrast his good,
old teaching methods with the newfangled approach of the Cornificians. It is difficult,
then, to be certain how far to trust John’s encomium.
John counted Bernard the best Platonist of his time, although to us he seems less
interesting than Gilbert of Poitiers or Thierry of Chartres (who is unlikely to have been
his younger brother, as is sometimes asserted). He seems to have had no academic
contact with the great scholars of his day, William of Champeaux, Roscelin, or Anselm
of Laon. Like all the Chartrians, he got his Plato through Neoplatonist sources, chiefly
Chalcidius, Boethius, and Eriugena. His work survives only in fragments quoted by John
of Salisbury, though a possible set of glosses on the Timaeus by Bernard is now in print.
Famous for his cultivation of faith and goodness, as well as simple academic brilliance,
Bernard is perhaps best remembered today for reporting the aphorism that compared
scholars of the modern age to dwarfs standing on giants’ shoulders—their further vision
was the result of their elevated viewpoint, not their greater acumen (Metalogicon 3.4).
Lesley J.Smith
The Encyclopedia 211