ALAIN DE LILLE (Alanus de Insulis) (c. 1128-1202), French theologian and Latinist, lived at Montpellier, and finally retired to the Abbey of Citeaux, where he remained until his death. His varied learning won for him the title of Doctor uni versalis. He was famed in his day for two of his Latin poems, De planctu naturae, a satire on human vices, and Anticlaudi anus, a long verse treatise on the arts and on morals. Alain shared in the reaction against scholasticism, and laid stress on the share of faith in the apprehension of religious truth. He must be classed with the so-called Summists. But his De arte seu de articulis catholicae fidei, which was a "summa" of Chris tian theology, brings the principles of mathematical science to bear on Christian dogma. He also wrote a treatise contra haereticos.
The works of Alain de Lille have been published by Migne, Patro logia latina, vol. ccx. A critical edition of the Anticlaudianus and of the De planctu naturae is given by Th. Wright in vol. ii. of the Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the Twelfth Century (London, 1872) . See Haureau, Memoire sur la vie et quel ques oeuvres d'Alain de Lille (Paris, 1885) ; M. Baumgartner, Die Philosophic des Alanus de Insulis (Munster, 1896) .