Alain de Lille

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Alain de Lille
Born1128
Lille, France
Died1202-1203
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of Paris
Influences
Academic work
EraMedieval philosophy
School or traditionScholasticism
Main interestsPhilosophy, mysticism, theology, poetry

Alain de Lille (Alan of Lille) (Latin: Alanus ab Insulis; c. 1128 – 1202/03) was a French[1] theologian and poet. He was born in Lille, some time before 1128. His exact date of death remains unclear as well, with most research pointing toward it being between 14 April 1202, and 5 April 1203. He is known for writing a number of works on that are based upon the teachings of the liberal arts, with one of his most renowned poems, De planctu Naturae (The Complaint of Nature), focusing on human nature in regard to sexual conduct. Although, Alain was widely known during his lifetime, there is not a great deal known about his personal life, with the majority of our knowledge of the theologian coming from the content of his works.[2][3]

As a

theologian, Alain de Lille opposed scholasticism
in the second half of the 12th century. His philosophy is characterized by rationalism and mysticism. Alan claimed that reason, guided by prudence, could discover most truths about the physical order without help; but in order to understand religious truth and to know God, the wise must believe in faith.

Life

Little is known of his life. Alain entered the schools no earlier than the late 1140s; first attending the school at Paris, and then at

Cîteaux, where he died in 1202.[7]

He had a very widespread reputation during his lifetime, and his knowledge caused him to be called Doctor Universalis. Many of Alain's writings are unable to be exactly dated, and the circumstances and details surrounding his writing are often unknown as well. However, it does seem clear that his first notable work,

allegory, the form of which recalls the pamphlet of Claudian against Rufinus, is agreeably versified and relatively pure in its latinity.[7]

Theology and philosophy

As a theologian Alain de Lille shared in the mystic reaction of the second half of the 12th century against the

Victorines. In the Anticlaudianus he sums up as follows: Reason, guided by prudence, can unaided discover most of the truths of the physical order; for the apprehension of religious truths it must trust to faith. This rule is completed in his treatise, Ars catholicae fidei, as follows: Theology itself may be demonstrated by reason. Alain even ventures an immediate application of this principle, and tries to prove geometrically the dogmas defined in the Creed. This bold attempt is entirely factitious and verbal, and it is only his employment of various terms not generally used in such a connection (axiom, theorem, corollary, etc.) that gives his treatise its apparent originality.[7]

Alan's philosophy was a sort of mixture of

Neoplatonic philosophy. The Platonist seemed to outweigh the Aristotelian in Alan, but he felt strongly that the divine is all intelligibility and argued this notion through much Aristotelian logic combined with Pythagorean mathematics.[4]

Works and attributions

One of Alain's most notable works was one he modeled after

Consolation of Philosophy, to which he gave the title De planctu Naturae, or The Plaint of Nature, and which was most likely written in the late 1160s.[5] In this work, Alan uses prose and verse to illustrate the way in which nature defines its own position as inferior to that of God.[5] He also attempts to illustrate the way in which humanity, through sexual perversion and specifically homosexuality, has defiled itself from nature and God. In Anticlaudianus, another of his notable works, Alan uses a poetical dialogue to illustrate the way in which nature comes to the realization of her failure in producing the perfect man. She has only the ability to create a soulless body, and thus she is "persuaded to undertake the journey to heaven to ask for a soul," and "the Seven Liberal Arts produce a chariot for her... the Five Senses are the horses".[8] The Anticlaudianus was translated into French and German in the following century, and toward 1280 was re-worked into a musical anthology by Adam de la Bassée.[9][10] One of Alan's most popular and widely distributed works is his manual on preaching, Ars Praedicandi, or The Art of Preaching. This work shows how Alan saw theological education as being a fundamental preliminary step in preaching and strove to give clergyman a manuscript to be "used as a practical manual" when it came to the formation of sermons and art of preaching.[11]

Alain wrote three very large theological textbooks, one being his first work,

Gilbert of Poitiers, of which Alan could be associated.[5] Other than these theological textbooks, and the aforementioned works of the mixture of prose and poetry, Alan of Lille had numerous other works on numerous subjects, primarily including Speculative Theology, Theoretical Moral Theology, Practical Moral Theology
, and various collections of poems.

Alain de Lille has often been confounded with other persons named Alain, in particular with another Alanus (

Alan of Tewkesbury. Alan of Lille was not the author of a Memoriale rerum difficilium, published under his name, nor of Moralium dogma philosophorum, nor of the satirical Apocalypse of Golias once attributed to him; and it is exceedingly doubtful whether the Dicta Alani de lapide philosophico really issued from his pen. On the other hand, it now seems practically demonstrated that Alain de Lille was the author of the Ars catholicae fidei and the treatise Contra haereticos.[7]

In his sermons on capital sins, Alain argued that

bestiality, masturbation, oral and anal intercourse, incest, adultery and rape. In addition to his battle against moral decay, Alan wrote a work against Islam, Judaism and Christian heretics dedicated to William VIII of Montpellier
.

List of known works

References

  1. ^ Alain de Lille WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
  2. ^ Zott, Lynn (2003). Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Farmington Hills: Gale.
  3. ^ Wetherbee, Winthrop. "Alan of Lille, De planctu Naturae: The Fall of Nature and the Survival of Poetry". The Journal of Medieval Latin 21 (2011): 223–51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45019679/
  4. ^ a b c d Evans, G.R. (1983). Alan of Lille: The Frontiers of Theology in the Later Twelfth Century. Cambridge: University Press.
  5. ^ a b c d e Marenbon, John (2002). A Companion to the Philosophy of Education. Blackwell.
  6. ^ Muston, Alexis (1875). The Israel of the Alps: a complete history of the Waldenses and their colonies, Vol. 2. Translated by Rev. John Montgomery. London: Blackie & Son. p. 509. Alain de l'Isle (Alanus Magnus de Insulis), a celebrated professor of Theology at the University of Paris, towards the end of the twelfth century.
  7. ^ a b c d Alphandéry 1911.
  8. ^ Sheridan, James J. (1980). Introduction to The Plaint of Nature. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
  9. ^ A. J. Creighton, Anticlaudien: A Thirteenth-Century French Adaptation (Washington: 1944).
  10. ^ Andrew Hughes, "The Ludus super Anticlaudianum of Adam de la Bassée". Journal of the American Musicological Society 23"1 (1970), 1–25.
  11. ^ Evans, G.R. (1981). Introduction to The Art of Preaching. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications.

Attribution:

Translations

  • Alan of Lille, A Concise Explanation of the Song of Songs in Praise of the Virgin Mary, trans Denys Turner, in Denys Turner, Eros and Allegory: Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs, (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1995), 291–308
  • The Plaint of Nature, translated by James J Sheridan, (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980)
  • Anticlaudian: Prologue, Argument and Nine Books, edited by W. H. Cornog, (Philadelphia, 1935)

Further reading

External links
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