| Hugh of St. Victor, mediaeval philosopher, theologian, and mystic, was born in 1096 in the castle at Hartingham, Saxony, the eldest son of Conrad, Count of Blankenberg. He was educated in the monastery at Hamersleben and there took the habit of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine. About 1115 he went to the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris, the mother house of the community at Hamersleben. It was to this house that William of Champeaux had retired after being defeated by his pupil Abelard in the controversy over the problem of universals. When William was elected to the see of Chalons-sur-Marne in 1113 he was succeeded at the monastery by Gilduin, under whom Hugh was to spend the rest of his life in study, teaching, and writing. In 1125 Hugh took up teaching duties at the monastery, and from 1133 to his death in 1141 he was in charge of this work as director of the school. He has been styled alter Augustinus, not only because of doctrinal resemblances but also because his writings possess a similar charm and power to attract and enlighten those who read them.1 |
| Hugh is recognized today as one of the most influential theologians, both dogmatic and mystical, of his time. He was also an advocate of the liberal arts, which he believed would aid in the study of theology, if rightly pursued within the hierarchy of the sciences. In fact, unlike St. Bernard and his own successors in the School of St. Victor he held that all knowledge was useful. Learn everything, he says; you will see afterwards that nothing is useless. (Didascalion 6, 3; PL 176, 801). This is an important principle in his view because in the ordered life of a monk a planned regimen of learning was a needful step toward the highest form of monastical activity, contemplation. Knowledge, like the habits of work and prayer, is to be acquired and developed in order to be transcended in a higher form of activity.2 In his classification of the sciences he shows his Aristotelian side, but in his psychology he is distinctly Augustinian.3 For him consciousness and introspection give evidence not only of the |
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