include an allegorical interpretation in the basic meaning of the literal sense. This was,
for them, a “commonsense” extension of the definition of literalness: much of the point
of the Old Testament is to pave the way for the New.
Much has been made of supposed differences in exegesis between that of the
monasteries and that of the schools and later the universities, with the work of the
Augustinian abbey of Saint-Victor in Paris standing as a kind of bridge between the two.
Such a distinction must be made with care. It is not a simple question of different texts,
sources, methods, and procedures. If the distinction is to be found anywhere, it is in the
use and goal of the interpretations: why they were made, who was to read them, why they
read them. A biblical commentary made in a monastery as an aid to contemplation, for
example, will differ in tenor and style from one made in a mendicant school as a friar’s
preaching tool. In fact, we know little about why biblical commentary was done and what
purpose many of the vast, repetitive volumes of exegesis were intended to serve.
From the later 13th century, the place of the Bible as a source of revelation and in
theology and devotion was overshadowed by increased interest in science, the natural
order, observation, and experiment and by the production of devotional literature inspired
by direct revelation, written by or for laypeople. Many of these spiritual texts are in the
vernacular, and this fact, together with other devotional aids and translations, even of the
biblical text itself, illuminates a shift in the place of “professional” biblical interpretation
from the center of the Christian life—a shift that Protestantism would move to redress in
the 16th century.
Lesley J.Smith
[See also: ANSELM OF LAON; BIBLE, JEWISH INTERPRETATION OF; BIBLE,
LATIN VERSION OF; BIBLICAL TRANSLATIONS; GILBERT OF POITIERS;
GLOSSA ORDINARIA; HUGH OF SAINT-VICTOR; HUGUES DE SAINT-CHER;
PETER COMESTOR; PETER LOMBARD; POPULAR DEVOTION; SAINT-VICTOR,
ABBEY AND SCHOOL OF; SCHOLASTICISM; SCHOOLS, CATHEDRAL;
SCHOOLS, MONASTIC; SENTENCE COLLECTIONS; STEPHEN LANGTON;
THEOLOGY; UNIVERSITIES]
Lampe, G.W.H., ed. The Cambridge History of the Bible. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1969–70, Vol. 2: The West from the Fathers to the Reformation.
Lubac, Henri de. Exégèse médiévale. 2 vols. in 4 parts. Paris: Aubier, 1959–64.
Riché, Pierre, and Guy Lobrichon, eds. Le moyen âge et la Bible. Paris: Beauchesne, 1984.
Smalley, Beryl. The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.
Vernet, André, and Anne-Marie Genevois. La Bible au moyen âge. Paris: CNRS, 1989.
BIBLE, JEWISH INTERPRETATION OF
. The study and exposition of the Hebrew Bible was one of the fundamental activities of
the Jewish community in medieval France. The biblical text, understood as the “Written
Torah,” was augmented by an “Oral Torah,” which according to Jewish teaching had
been transmitted from God to Moses and then through a chain of tradition to the ancient
rabbis. The rabbis in France received this “Oral Torah” in the form of written
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 234