especially from debates on the relationship of logic and grammar to theology and biblical
exegesis, such as that between Berengar of Tours (ca. 1010–1088) and Lanfranc of Bec
(ca. 1005–1089) on the interpretation of the wording of the eucharist. The stage was
being set for the development of the scholastic method of solving intellectual problems
that is the hallmark of medieval philosophy.
The scholastic method, the central method of medieval philosophy, is a technique of
teaching and interpreting texts by using a system of distinctions, definitions, and
disputation deriving from the logic of Aristotle and Boethius. In the 11th and 12th
centuries, this narrow basis was broadened to include other authors, and later the
scholastic method developed a terministic and semantic logic that made its work in
discovering meaning ever more subtle. Many of the important developments of the
scholastic method took place in France. Thus, Anselm of Bec (1033–1109), who hailed
from Aosta in northern Italy, can be called the “father of scholasticism” on the basis of
the treatises he wrote at the Benedictine monastery of Bec in Normandy on how grammar
and logic should be used to study the Scriptures.
Three important elements of the scholastic method are the textual commentary, the
quaestio (or disputatio), and the harmonization of authoritative texts. Hugh of Saint-
Victor’s (ca. 1096–1141) Didascalicon defined the commentary as a combination of
lectio (reading) and meditatio (understanding). Peter Abélard (1079–1142), working in
Paris, helped calibrate the scholastic method by the structure of his famous Sic et non, in
which arguments for and against theological and philosophical statements are
systematized. The great standard-bearers of the value of the quaestio in scholarship are
the masters of the so-called school of Chartres. Gilbert of Poitiers (ca. 1075/80–1154)
and Clarembald of Arras (ca. 1110-after 1170) stressed how important it was that the
quaestio be structured in terms of statement and contradiction. The masters of Chartres
used their method especially in the interpretation of Platonic texts, notably Plato’s
Timaeus and Boethius’s De consolatione Philosophiae. Peter Lombard (ca.1100–1160),
at Paris, wrote the standard harmonization of theological and philosophical knowledge,
Quattuor libri sententiarum, whose influence as the official textbook of theology in the
Middle Ages can hardly be exaggerated.
One of the most sustained developers and applicators of scholasticism is Thomas
Aquinas (ca. 1224–1274), who taught at Paris in 1256–59 and again after 1269. His
Summa theologica, the second part of which he wrote at Paris, is a model of medieval
methodology. Medieval philosophers themselves had the highest regard for Henry of
Ghent (ca. 1217–1293), a secular master of theology at Paris from 1276; his practice of
philosophy, too, is a good example of scholastic method.
Even if philosophical discussions were generally structured along the lines of the
scholastic method, there was speculation on the borderlines between philosophy and
theology on the one hand and cosmology and mysticism on the other. A literary style was
employed that was far removed from the clear distinctions of the quaestio. An example of
poetic cosmology is Bernard Silvestris’s (fl. 1147–77) Cosmographia. This work has
been rightly called an epic poem. In it, Silvestris made a brilliant synthesis of Chartrian
understanding of the Platonism of the Timaeus, Calcidius, Macrobius, Martianus Capella,
and Boethius. The Cosmographia combines 12th-century knowledge of science and
medicine—often derived from Arabic sources—with Platonism to form a veritable
encyclopedia in literary style.
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