Victor and William of Champeaux were names
to conjure with, while Anselm of Laon, Adelard of Bath, Alan of
Lille, John of Salisbury, Peter Lombard, were all from time to time
students or teachers in one of the schools of the Cathedral, the
Abbey of St. Victor or Ste. Genevieve.
Earlier in the Middle Ages the identity of theology and philosophy
had been proclaimed, following the Neo-Platonic and Augustinian
theory, and the latter (cf. Peter Damien and Duns Scotus Eriugena)
was even reduced to a position that made it no more than the
obedient handmaid of theology. In the eleventh century however, St.
Anselm had drawn a clear distinction between faith and reason, and
thereafter theology and philosophy were generally accepted as
individual but allied sciences, both serving as lines of approach
to truth but differing in their method. Truth was one and therefore
there could be no conflict between the conclusions reached after
different fashions. In the twelfth century Peter of Blois led a
certain group called "rigourists" who still looked askance at
philosophy, or rather at the intellectual methods by which it
proceeded, and they were inclined to condemn it as "the devil's
art," but they were on the losing side and John of Salisbury, Alan
of Lille, Gilbert de la Porree and Hugh of St.
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