JOHN OF SALISBURY (c. 15-1180), English author, diplomatist and bishop of Chartres, was born at Salisbury. From his own accounts, he seems to have crossed to France in '136 and to have studied for the next ten years under Abelard, Alberich of Reims, Robert of Melun, Gilbert de la Porree, Robert Pullus, Simon of Poissy, William of Conches, and Richard l'Eveque. From the last two, who were disciples of Bernard of Chartres, he imbibed his Platonic leanings and especially his love of the Latin classics. The purity of his own style, which was evidently moulded on that of Cicero, was unsurpassed in the middle ages. On the completion of his studies, John stayed for a time with his friend Peter, the Cistercian abbot of Moustier la Celle, near Troyes. In 1148 he was present at the council of Reims, in which St. Bernard opposed Gilbert de la Porree, and was probably pre sented to Bernard by Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, who made him his secretary in 115o. He was frequently sent on mis sions to the pope, to whose household he seems to have been at tached from 1148 onwards. After the death of Theobald in 1161, John continued as secretary to Thomas Becket, whom he sup ported in his long disputes with Henry II. His letters throw light on the constitutional struggle then agitating the English world. In he withdrew with Becket to France during the king's dis pleasure; he returned with him in I170, and was present at his assassination. In 1176 he was made bishop of Chartres, where he passed the remainder of his life, taking an active part in the council of the Lateran in 1179. He died at or near Chartres on Oct. 25, 1180.
terial sword from the church, but only when he disobeys the law or ceases to rule the people by it, can he be deposed. In the Metalogicus we find a fusion of Augustinian and Aristotelian phi losophy. Thus the doctrine of the necessity of the rationes aeternae as the foundation of certitude is combined with a moderate real ism. There is also a noteworthy appreciation of the difficulties of such problems as that of substance, the movement of bodies, tides and other natural phenomena, time and space, the nature of the soul, the limits of knowledge, and Providence. In addition to these two works, John wrote a Historia Pontificalis, a philosophi cal poem, Eutheticus de Dogmate Philosophorum, two lives of St. Anselm, and a life of St. Thomas of Canterbury.
His collected works were edited by J. A. Giles (5 vols. 1848) and reprinted in Migne's Patrol. Lat., vol. 199. The Polycraticus has been edited by C. C. J. Webb (2 vols., 1909) and the Historia Pontificalis by R. L. Poole (1927) ; and also in the Mon. Germ. Hist. (5868, 2nd ed. 1885). See C. Shaarschmidt, Johannes Sarisberiensis (1862) ; R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the Hist. of Mediaeval Thought (1884, 2nd ed. i920) ; "Early Correspondence of John of Salisbury," in Proc. of Brit. Acad. (vol. xi. 1924), articles in the Eng. Hist. Review for 1920 and 5923, and in the Dict. Nat. Biog.; and E. F. Jacob's article in Social and Political Ideas of Some Great Mediaeval Thinkers (edit. Hearnshaw, 1923).