have promulgated a Neoplatonic cosmology, but what exactly this may mean is a moot
point. Orthodox Christian teaching did not allow for a separation between body and
spirit, or indeed of any of the Platonic divisions between light and darkness, good and
evil, and the like. Rather, in typical medieval fashion, Chartrian cosmology attempts to
express the unity of Truth and Creation. “Oneness” is crucial to being: in Boethius’s
words, “everything that is, is because it is one.”
There are particular difficulties in tracing the influence of Plato in the Middle Ages.
Patristic writers were saturated with Platonic influences, which were often inseparable
from the rest of the usual, classically educated mind; and although some Platonic
distinctions, such as that highlighted by Calcidius among the supreme God, the mind of
God (the place of Ideas), and the World Soul (fate; identified by William of Conches with
the Holy Spirit), were identifiable, much that is Platonic can be seen only in style and
tone rather than content. Perhaps as influential as its content was the form of the
Timaeus—philosophy by myth and metaphor. Plato, with his language of surface and
integument, of fable and hidden truth, supported the rationale of Christian biblical
exegesis. And Chartrian cosmology was intended, in Platonist fashion, to prefigure a new
moral order: from the macrocosm of the universe to the microcosm of the soul.
The long-running debate over universals—whether general concepts (“universals”)
have reality (a view called “realism”) or are simply convenient names (“nominalism”)—
originated in Neoplatonism and the question of Forms. Translation of the works of
Aristotle and the introduction of Arabic philosophy, Neoplatonist in style, into the early
13th-century University of Paris did not bring about a corresponding decrease in the
influence of Plato. Augustine continued to be the most influential Christian theologian,
and some “Aristotelian” works, in particular the Isagoge of Porphyry and the Liber de
causis (pure Proclus), were themselves infused with Neoplatonist ideas.
Lesley J.Smith
[See also: ARISTOTLE, INFLUENCE OF; CHARTRES; PHILOSOPHY; PSEUDO-
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE]
POIRE, ROMAN DE LA.
Composed ca. 1250 by an unknown poet who calls himself Tibaut, the Roman de la Poire
(3,034 lines) is a lyrical romance strongly influenced by the Roman de la Rose of
Guillaume de Lorris. The author tells how he falls secretly in love, how Love sends his
heart to his lady, how she reciprocates, and how they further their love through an
exchange of lyric pieces. The oldest Poire manuscript, B.N. fr. 2186, presents the poem
as a complete audiovisual experience in which paintings and music complement the text
and its word games.
Mary B.Speer
[See also: GUILLAUME DE LORRIS]
Marchello-Nizia, Christiane, ed. Le roman de la Poire par Tibaut. Paris: Picard, 1984.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1402