Hugue de Saint Victor

The main goal of this dissertation is to describe how Achard of Saint-Victor uses Medio and Neoplatonic doctrines in his treatise De unitate et pluralitate creaturarum  in order to answer the question about unity and plurality of God and his creatures. This will lead to a better comprehension of the role of platonic metaphysics in the doctrine of the school of St. Victor despite the weak presence of Plato’s heritage in the XIIth century.
In the first part of the thesis, I introduce Achard’s philosophy and the paleographical and philological problems posed by the only manuscript of the De unitate. Then I consider the elements of the treatise (questions, doctrines, notions) which were borrowed from Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism.
The two other parts are dedicated to the examination of the possibility of a plurality in God (persons and reasons in the Word of God) and in the world (as it is conceived by God through form-prototypes). In each part, I examine the way that main thinkers of Late Antiquity and High Middle Ages (Apuleius, Augustin, Chalcidius, Boethius, Erigena) and the Victorins (Hugues and Richard) absorbed the platonic doctrines described in the first part of my dissertation. At the end of each part, I propose the reconstruction of Achard’s development of those doctrines.
This dissertation contributes to  two problems of the history of philosophy: what Platonic doctrines and sources were received in the XIIth century and what is the place of the Platonic heritage in Victorin thought. The philosophical problems of the multiplication of intelligible and sensible objects, of the definition of things and of the identity of beings are also addressed.

The Mystic Ark is a forty-two page description of the most complex work of art from the entire Middle Ages: a painting also known as The Mystic Ark.  The purpose of the painting was to serve as the basis of a series of brilliant lectures undertaken by Hugh--who was considered to be the leading theologian of Europe during his life--from around 1125 to 1130 at Saint Victor, a Parisian abbey of Augustinian canons, whose school, along with those of Notre-Dame and Ste-Geneviève, acted as the predecessor of the University of Paris.  The purpose of the text (which I have translated from the Latin) was to enable others outside of Saint Victor--teachers, advanced students, scholars, monks, canons--to undertake similar discussions themselves by providing the information necessary to produce the image.  Containing all time, all space, all matter, all human history, and all spiritual striving, this highly political image dealt with a series of crucial cultural issues in the education of society's elite during one of the great periods of intellectual change in Western history.  Essentially a visualization of Hugh's summa-like systematic theology, De sacramentis, the multiplication and systematization of imagery in The Mystic Ark bridged the gap between literature's potential for complex expression and such expression in large-scale public art, an achievement that led to the creation of the Gothic portal: the major means of public communication apart from the spoken word, and the most significant, fully indigenous expression of Northern European, public figural art of the Middle Ages.
    Hugh of Saint Victor's Mystic Ark: Illustrations: http://mysticark.ucr.edu.  This site presents a collection of images of The Mystic Ark that repeat in greater visual detail the same illustrations published in my study The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century for those who would like to study the image of The Mystic Ark more closely than is possible with the printed illustrations.

In the medieval sources, works of art are rarely referred to, let alone described in any detail.  When they are mentioned, it is seldom with more than a word or phrase, at the most a sentence.  Hugh of Saint Victor's Mystic Ark is a forty-two page description of what seems to be the most complex single work of art of the entire Middle Ages, a fundamentally political painting also known as The Mystic Ark, making both the text and the painting among the most unusual sources we have for an understanding of medieval artistic culture and its polemical context.
The Mystic Ark is known to have arisen from a series of brilliant lectures given by Hugh--considered to be the leading theologian of Europe during his life--sometime from 1125 to early 1130 at Saint Victor, a house of Augustinian canons in Paris whose school was a predecessor of the University of Paris.  Because of the immense difficulty of its text, The Mystic Ark has been almost completely ignored by art historians and often misunderstood by other scholars.  Generally speaking, it has been seen as a "step-by-step" set of instructions that were rarely or even never used to create an actual painting, the text being meant to be read strictly as a work of ekphrasis (the verbal evocation of an imaginary work of art) or as a memory aid in order to conjure up a purely mental image.
"First, I Find the Center Point": Reading the Text of Hugh of Saint Victor's The Mystic Ark (American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, forthcoming 2004) corrects this neglect and misunderstanding through a study of the nature of the text of The Mystic Ark as a necessary first step in a larger study.  It acts as a literal analysis for the non-literal conclusions of this larger study, The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, forthcoming 2013) (1258 typescript pages), in which I analyze the context and meaning of the painting of The Mystic Ark and demonstrate how it formed a crucial stage in the conceptual development of the Gothic portal, perhaps the most significant fully indigenous expression of Northern European, public figural art of the Middle Ages.)
My approach to the problem in Center Point is three pronged.  First, through close study of the text, I show that The Mystic Ark is not a work of literature properly speaking but a reportatio (something similar to class notes) by one of Hugh's students, although Hugh himself very much remains its author.  Recognition of this previously unrecognized aspect goes a long way in clarifying many difficulties of the text that previous authors were at pains to explain.  Second, I refute a large and impossibly complex body of opinions that has arisen to explain the relation between the painting of The Mystic Ark, the different recensions of The Mystic Ark, and The Moral Ark (a related treatise by Hugh).  In place of those tortuous arguments, I provide straightforward explanations for these relationships through analysis of the textual tradition and historical context of The Mystic Ark.  And third, having established The Mystic Ark as a reportatio and explained the relation of the painting and the various texts, I address the nature and immediate function of the text of The Mystic Ark, clearly establishing that a painting of The Mystic Ark originally existed at Saint Victor, probably in the form of a wall painting, an image I believe was painted by Hugh himself.  I show that, although the text of The Mystic Ark was not an actual "step-by-step" set of instructions, its purpose was to enable scholars outside of Saint Victor to undertake similar lectures and discussions based upon a reconstruction of the painting.  Since the major themes of the painting were the subjects of contemporary controversies such as the history of salvation, creation, neoplatonism, and the place of science in the education of society's intellectual elite, my conclusions demonstrate that The Mystic Ark--of which enough manuscript copies survive to indicate that it was the medieval equivalent of a best seller--served as a major and novel statement in the current intellectual controversies of the mid-twelfth century, a time of great intellectual and cultural change.
In the end, Center Point clarifies generations of confusion surrounding The Mystic Ark.  It reveals the striking role that a complex image could play in the spiritual and intellectual controversies of the day.  And it sets the stage for my future book on this amazingly popular image and text that, together, form one of the most important sources we have for medieval art in its social context.
    Hugh of Saint Victor's Mystic Ark: Illustrations: http://mysticark.ucr.edu.  This site presents a collection of images of The Mystic Ark that repeat in greater visual detail the same illustrations published in my study The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century for those who would like to study the image of The Mystic Ark more closely than is possible with the printed illustrations.