GODFREY OF SAINT-VICTOR

Philosopher, theologian, and poet, b. c. 1125; d. after 1190. Godfrey studied the arts at Paris, where he was influenced by the dialectician Adam of Balsham (Adam Parvi Pontis). After his theological studies, he probably taught a few years prior to entering the Abbey of Saint-Victor, before 1160. He is to be distinguished from Godfrey of Breteuil, who lived in the second half of the 12th century and was subprior of Sainte-Barbe-en-Auge in Normandy. The abbey in which Godfrey became a canon was a center of piety and of the intellectual life; the influence of hugh of saint-victor was maintained by the prior, richard of saint-victor, and Godfrey could develop his cultural humanism. However, in 1173, at the death of Richard, the priorship was given to walter of saint-victor, a narrow-minded and violent character. Walter hounded Godfrey for his humanistic tendencies, and finally obliged him to leave the abbey for the solitude of a rural priory c. 1180. It was there that Godfrey wrote his principal work, the Microcosmus. After Walter's death c. 1190, Godfrey returned to the abbey and took up the duties of sacristan until his death.

Works. Godfrey's literary legacy is varied. Still extant are 32 of his sermons, one series dating from his early stay in Paris, the other after his return from exile; these use doctrinal explanations to excite devotion to the person of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. Godfrey was also a poet, composing a panegyric to St. Augustine that paraphrases the principal subjects treated by that doctor and a canticle of the Virgin Mary, inspired by Biblical themes. Shortly before 1176 Godfrey dedicated to his friend Stephen of Tournai a compilation of works that are varied in form and content. The collection is called the Fons philosophiae after the first of the works, an allegorical account of the sources of Godfrey's formation symbolized as a flowing stream from which he drew water as a student. It presents an interesting tableau of Parisian schools in the mid-12th century and epitomizes the ideals of Victorine culture as formulated by Hugh. Also noteworthy is the third work, the Anatomy of the Body of Christ, a long poem wherein Godfrey describes in detail each member and organ of Christ's body. This merits a place in the history of Christian symbolism, especially since it gathered together a long series of allegories used by the Fathers and helped form medieval devotion to the humanity of Christ.

Godfrey's masterpiece, however, is the Microcosmus. The work's theme is traditional in philosophy and in the Fathers, viz, that man is a miniature of the universe, a microcosm. The first part is an allegorical exposition of the Hexaemeron (the account in Genesis describing creation within six days) to explain how God produces each human soul. The work of the first three days corresponds to the nature God gives man; that of the last three days, to the crowning of man's nature by supernatural grace. The second part explains the gifts of God's grace and their relation to man's affective life, showing how the Christian regulates his affections and conforms their movements to God's will.

Influence. Godfrey represents the flowering of the richest elements in the Victorine tradition concerning man. His work, however, neither enjoyed a wide reading nor exercised direct influence on later thinkers. It came too late, at the moment when the brightness of the great abbey of Paris had begun to dim, but Godfrey's basic points, the distinction between grace and nature and the positive value of nature in a unified Christian and religious life, were to be recognized and reaffirmed in the high scholasticism of the 13th century.

Bibliography: godefroi de saint-victor, Fons philosophiae, ed. p. michaud-quantin (Namur 1956); The Fountain of Philosophy: A Translation of the Twelfth-Century Fons philosophiae of Godfrey of Saint Victor, trans. e. a. synan (Toronto 1972); Godefroy de Saint-Victor: Microcosmus. Texte, ed. p. delhaye (Lille 1951). f. bonnard, Histoire de l'abbaye royale et de l'ordre des chanoines réguliers de Saint-Victor de Paris, 2 v. (Paris 1907). j. chatillon, "Sermons et prédicateurs victorins de la seconde moitié du XIIe siècle," AHDLMA 32 (1965) 7–60. p. damon, "The Preconium Augustini of Godfrey of Saint Victor," Mediaeval Studies 22 (1960) 92–107. p. delhaye, Le Microcosmus de Godefroy de Saint-Victor: étude théologique, (Lille 1951); "Les sermons de Godefroy de Saint-Victor: leur tradition manuscrite." RTAM 21 (1954) 194–210.

[p. michaud-quantin]