Krey—John of Salisbury and the Classics. 
951 
CHAPTER I. 
ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE CLASSICS. 
John of Salisbury, the great exponent of the classics in an 
age which was turning to practical studies, lived at a time 
when the Church was still the great, if not the sole educator of 
western Europe. The first Crusade had taken place, bringing 
with it greater prosperity and power to the Church than it had 
ever before enjoyed. The settlement of the investiture struggle 
at Worms had proclaimed the practical supremacy of the Popes, 
while the more peaceful conditions in the West were reflected 
in an increasing devotion to learning. It is not surprising 
then, that the studious activities of the age have won for it the 
fame of a great renaissance, the so-called Renaissance of the 
twelfth century. Peace, prosperity and leisure were wide¬ 
spread. Latin was the universal language of scholars, and the 
Church, in practically unquestioned supremacy, was in a po¬ 
sition not only to tolerate learning hut even to encourage it so 
long as it was not absolutely antagonistic to its teachings. The 
revival of the liberal, the classical studies, came therefore as a 
not unnatural result of existing conditions and it was amidst 
these conditions that John was born and educated. 
Born in the village of Salisbury in England between the 
years 1115-1120, he seems from the very beginning to have 
been gifted with an unusual amount of hard, English common- 
sense. The oft-told story of how he refused to be a party to 
the magic exhibitions of his teacher well illustrates this trait 
of John’s character, and his later education was not of a kind to 
diminish it. At a comparatively early age he went to the con¬ 
tinent to carry on his studies and Paris was his first stopping 
place. There at the feet of the great Abelard he spent one 
year, learning his Aristotle in a way that was new and bold ? 
and it was a source of great regret to John that he could be with 
