ADAM DU PETIT-PONT
(Adam of Bosham or Adam Balsham; fl. early 12th c.). A shadowy figure, Adam was a
dialectician and moral theologian of the speculative school at a time when the most
famous names, such as Peter the Chanter and Stephen Langton, were “biblical moral”
theologians. Two of his works are preserved for us, an Ars disserendi or dialectica and
De utensilibus or Phaletolum. Although Adam is praised by a later member of the Petit-
Pont school, Alexander Neckham, the adjective parvipontani was used as a term of abuse
for sophistical hairsplitters.
Lesley J.Smith
[See also: THEOLOGY]
Minio-Paluello, Lorenzo, ed. Twelfth Century Logic, Texts and Studies I: Adam Balsamiensis
Parvipontani Ars disserendi (Dialectica Alexandri). Rome, 1956.
——. “The Ars disserendi of Adam of Balsham ‘Parvipontanus.’” Mediaeval and Renaissance
Studies 3(1954):116–69.
ADAM OF SAINT-VICTOR
(Adam Precentor; d.1146). Cantor (precentor) at the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris by
1107, Adam served in this high office until at least 1133, when he donated his prebend at
the cathedral, with all its monies and privileges, to the Augustinian abbey of Saint-Victor
and probably took up residence there. Adam was involved in the political embroilments
that divided the cathedral clergy in Paris during the first half of the 12th century and
found himself on the side of the reformers, an ally of Bishop Stephen of Senlis and the
Victorines. He was doubtless involved in the failed attempt to convert the cathedral
canons to the common life (ca. 1128).
Adam was known as a great sequence poet by the mid-12th century; his stature as first
musician at the cathedral makes it likely that he composed sequence melodies as well.
Some texts probably by Adam are Zima vetus, and Mundi renovatio, both for feasts of the
Easter Octave; Lux iocunda, lux insignis, for Pentecost; and Heri mundus, for St.
Stephen. Adam’s association with both the cathedral of Notre-Dame and the abbey of
Saint-Victor helps explain the fact that both institutions had related yet distinct sequence
traditions.
Margot Fassler
[See also: SEQUENCE (LATE)]
Adam of Saint-Victor. Œuvres poétiques d’Adam de Saint-Victor, ed. Léon Gautier. Paris: Julien,
Lanier, Cosnard, 1894.
——. Les proses d’Adam de Saint-Victor: texte et musique précédées d’une étude critique, ed.
Eugène Misset and Pierre Aubry. Paris, 1900.
Blume, Clemens, and Henry Marriot Bannister, eds. Analecta hymnica medii aevi. Leipzig:
Reisland, 1915, 1922, Vols. 54, 55.
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