BERNARD OF MORLAIX- John Balnaves

Bernard of Cluny by John Balnaves.
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APPENDIX BERNARD'S SOURCES

It is impossible to quantify Bernard's use of his sources with precision for the purposes of comparison, because it is difficult in some cases to be sure that a particular phrase is in fact a quotation, even though it occurs in the works of a particular author. A less important difficulty is that quotations may be made from florilegia rather than directly from texts of the author's works. In such cases, there is the possibility that Bernard did not have a very good knowledge of his source. But that is not necessarily the case. Janet Martin has shown that John of Salisbury frequently quoted from excerpts or epitomes, even in cases where he is known to have been familiar with the full text. It was clearly a matter of convenience.¹ Twelfth- century use of florilegia may perhaps be compared to present-day use of the Patrologia Latina. It is often more convenient to give citations from the Patrologia, even when later and better editions of the cited work exist, simply because of the ready availability and accessibility of Migne's great compilation.

In the tables which follow, all quotations have been included, even those whose context suggests they were derived from florilegia. Despite the difficulties, and making allowances for a margin of error, the following attempt at comparison of Bernard's quotations from classical authors with his quotations from other sources may be helpful. In the table below, Pagan means non-Christian works up to 500 AD; O.T. means the Old Testament in the Vulgate (except for vary rare indirect quotations from the Septuagint²); N.T. means the New Testament in the Vulgate; Pat. means Christian writers up to 500 AD; and Med. means writers from 500 AD.

Table of quotations.

	Pagan	O.T.	N.T.	Pat.	Med.	Total
De contemptu mu 2966 l.	58	29	30	1	10	128
De Trinitate 1402 l.	13	37	59	32	55	196
De castitate 523 l.	13	18	18	26	2	77
In libros Regum 1018 l.	7	72	16	0	50	145
De octo vitiis 1399 l.	37	26	19	8	19	109
Total	128	182	142	67	136	655

The proportions of the various sources of quotation are better seen if the table is expressed in the form of percentages.

Table of quotations as percentages of all quotations

	Pagan	O.T.	N.T.	Pat.	Med.	Total
De contemptu mu	45.3	22.7	23.4	0.8	7.8	100
De Trinitate	6.6	18.9	30.1	16.3	28.1	100
De Castitate	16.9	23.4	23.4	33.7	2.6	100
In libros Regum	4.8	49.7	11.0	0	34.5	100
De octo vitiis	33.9	23.9	17.4	7.4	17.4	100
Total	19.5	27.8	21.7	10.2	20.8	100

If there are difficulties in quantifying quotations, there are even greater difficulties in quantifying the whole range of Bernard's classical learning, including his use of commonplaces, florilegia and schoolbooks; his mention of mythological and legendary characters and of historical characters; and his mention of writers whom he does not quote. Counting all those allusions and references presents formidable problems, and it is probable that no two people attempting the task would arrive at precisely the same totals in every case.³ With that proviso, and on the understanding that the figures cannot claim exactness, such a count may perhaps be regarded as not totally unreliable. In the following table, all kinds of quotation, allusion and reference have been included, except those cases in which terms are so much a part of the language that they can hardly be regarded as allusions. For example, "Venus," which Bernard uses frequently to mean "lust," has not been included. Nor have mentions of Christ or the Apostles, for example, which are, of course, frequent, been taken as references to the New Testament.

Table of all quotations and allusions

	Pagan	O.T.	N.T.	Pat.	Med.	Total
De contemptu mu	185	88	67	5	16	361
De Trinitate	35	82	84	47	59	307
De castitate	16	33	37	27	2	115
In libros Regum	13	257	28	0	50	348
De octo vitiis	110	75	32	12	20	249
Total	359	535	248	91	147	1380

Again, it may be helpful to express the table in the form of percentages of all quotations and allusions.

Table of all quotations and allusions - percentages

	Pagan	O.T.	N.T.	Pat.	Med.	Total
De contemptu mu	51.2	24.4	18.6	1.4	4.4	100
De Trinitate	11.4	26.7	27.4	15.3	19.2	100
De castitate	13.9	28.7	32.2	23.5	1.7	100
In libros Regum	3.7	73.9	8.0	0	14.4	100
De octo vitiis	44.2	30.1	12.9	4.8	8.0	100
Total	26.0	38.8	18.0	6.6	10.6	100

With the provisos mentioned above, the figures for Bernard's quotations and allusions may be compared with Jan van Laarhoven's figures for all quotations and allusions in the Entheticus major of John of Salisbury, and in all the works of John of Salisbury.⁴

John of Salisbury

	Pagan	O.T.	N.T.	Pat.	Med.	Total
Entheticus	211	31	40	37	17	336
All works	2110	1561	1358	731	792	6552

If, for purposes of easier comparison, we express those figures as percentages of all quotations and allusions, we derive the following table.

John of Salisbury - percentages

	Pagan	O.T.	N.T.	Pat.	Med.	Total
Entheticus	62.8	9.2	11.9	11	5.1	100
All works	32.2	23.8	20.7	11.2	12.1	100

Since the Entheticus is John's only poetical work, the figures for all his works do not bear direct comparison with the figures for all Bernard's poems, but the figures for John's Entheticus may be compared with those for Bernard's poems, especially with the De contemptu mundi. For that purpose, we need to take into account the length of the poems. John's Entheticus has 211 classical quotations and allusions, or 62.8% of all quotations and allusions, in a poem of 1852 lines, against Bernard's De contemptu mundi, which has 185 or 51.2% in a much longer poem. In other words, John's Entheticus has a classical quotation or allusion on average every 8.8 lines, while Bernard's De contemptu mundi has a classical quotation or allusion on average every 16 lines. Comparative frequency of classical quotations and allusions may be tabulated as follows.

Classical quotations and allusions per line

	lines	quotations and allusions	quotations and allusions per line
De contemptu mundi	2966	185	0.06
De Trinitate	1402	35	0.02
De castitate	523	16	0.03
In libros Regum	1018	13	0.01
De octo vitiis	1399	110	0.08
Total Bernard	7308	359	0.05
Entheticus	1852	211	0.11

¹Janet Martin, "John of Salisbury as a classical scholar," in The world of John of Salisbury, edited by Michael Wilks, Oxford, Blackwell for Ecclesiastical History Society, 1984 (Studies in church history, subsidia, 3), p.184-185.
²For example, De octo vitiis, 289.
³The difficulties of such quantification in relation to the works of John of Salisbury have been addressed briefly by Jan van Laarhoven (John of Salisbury's Entheticus major and minor, vol. 1, Leiden Brill, 1987, p.62-63) and in detail by Janet Martin ("John of Salisbury as a classical scholar," p.179-201.)
⁴Jan van Laarhoven, John of Salisbury's Entheticus major, p.63.