John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres, in France, was born at Salisbury, in Wiltshire, in the beginning of the 12th century. He studied at Oxford, and afterwards under Abelard and other eminent teachers on the continent. After his return to England, he became the intimate friend and companion of Thomas à Becket, whom he had attended in his exile, and he is said to have been present when he was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. He was one of the best classical scholars of his time, and an elegant Latin poet. He has a place too in the history of philosophy, the progress of which he promoted by his attacks on the scholastic logic. He left numerous works, among which are Lives of Archbishops Anselm and Becket, and a very curious book entitled “Polycraticon.” Died, 1182.

  Is perhaps the most celebrated writer of the reign of Henry II…. As a writer, John of Salisbury is estimable for his great erudition, and for the general correctness of his style. We learn from his own writings that his favourite pursuits were grammar and rhetoric, i.e., the study of the ancient writers, and he quotes several who are no longer extant. His style is however sometimes confused. He seems to have had little taste for scientific studies; and he appears less as a philosopher himself than as a critic of the systems of the various sects of antiquity, as well as of those of the age in which he lived. He avows a strong leaning towards the doctrines of the Peripatetics.

  The style of John of Salisbury, far from being equal to that of Augustin, Eutropius, and a few more of those early ages, does not appear to me by any means elegant. Sometimes he falls upon a good expression; but the general tone is not very classical.

  He wrote Latin verses with extreme elegance.

  In John of Salisbury, a disciple of Anselm, we have one of the most enthusiastic students of the great classic authors of antiquity, and he is placed by Eichhorn and Heeren at the head of his contemporaries.

  Living in the twelfth century, a man of scholarly tastes, he devotes himself, by preference, to the study of so much as was then known of the classic literature of antiquity, Cicero being his favorite author. The influence of these studies on his own Latin style was such that he has received frequent and high praise for his elegant diction. An earnest churchman and sincere believer, he is yet, as a practical Englishman, more concerned with the external political relations of the church than with those subtle and, in his view, comparatively nugatory discussions regarding questions of doctrine, of faith and philosophy, which were going on in the church’s schools.

  He represents the humanist or literary spirit, so different from the subtle inquiries and logical refinements of the schoolmen of his time.