Alanus ab Insulis

[mit Lisa-Maria Knothe].
This essay investigates similarities and differences between two systems of attaining knowledge and human perfection as presented by two medieval thinkers of the 12th and 13th century ― Alan of Lille and Albert the Great. Both of them develop theories of intellectual ascent which deal with the knowability of God and have their aim in a state of ‘deification’. Alan and Albert conceive systems which include an obligatory curriculum of learning, each with the help of the available knowledge and methods of his time. Especially the philosopher and his discipline are held in great esteem by both doctores universales. In Albert’s concept, the philosopher can reach the highest form of perfection and attain a beatific state in this life. In Alan’s thinking, he is equated with a human-spirit and therefore has come closer to the highest form of perfection. This essay does not want to reject the significant impact of Arabic-Islamic writings and philosophers on Albert in that regard, but wants to highlight the importance of a longue durée-perspective, which has been emphasized by Andreas Speer and others. Accordingly, the influence on Albert the Great by intellectual forerunners of the 12th century, like Alan of Lille, should be taken into account.

Vincent de Beauvais se désigne lui-même comme actor dans le Speculum maius et sous cette rubrique il intervient dans le discours encyclopédique, mais pourquoi utilise-t-il le terme actor pour se désigner lui-même? quelles sont les fonctions des interventions de l’actor dans l’œuvre encyclopédique? Ces questions, examinées au début de l’article, servent de cadre pour l’analyse des fonctions de l’actor dans les livres V et VI du Speculum doctrinale et la découverte des sources cachées sous cette rubrique dans les définitions insérées au début des chapitres du livre V, dédié à la scientia moralis: auteurs de traités et summae sur vices et vertus des XIIe et XIIIe siècles comme Conrad de Hirsau, Alain de Lille ou Guido de Faba.

A kéziratban [2016] szereplő tanulmányok az OTKA K 101503 program részeként jöttek létre; a dokumentum eredetileg a program egyik dokumentációjaként készült, megtalálható itt is: https://btk.kre.hu/images/doc/Nemeth_OTKA_tanulmanyok_JAV2.pdf
A kézirat három magyar tanulmánya külön is publikálásra került.
// This unpublished collection (technically a "manuscript") was the output of an academic research program in 2016. The English article is still under rewriting thanks to the emergence of a fourth manuscript. The link above leads to the original place of this file (to the official repository of the program).

Keywords: Traité des cinq puissances de l’âme, Peripsichen Augustini, Alan of Lille, Raoul de Longchamp, Dionysius Carthusiensis, theological anthropology, Ms Paris Mazarine 657

In 2009, in an article published in the Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, I entertained serious doubts concerning the hypothesis formulated in 2003 by Françoise Hudry  on the identity of the author of the Epistulæ familiares, found in Paris Bibliothèque Nationale MS Latin 13575. The codex, a late twelfth-century compendium, had already been briefly described by Barthélemy Hauréau in 1891. 
The letter collection has been available to readers of Latin since its edition and publication by Jean Leclercq in 1953 under the title Les lettres familières d’un moine du Bec. Neither Hauréau nor Leclercq claimed to identify the letters’ author(s) or recipients, although both recognized they were of monastic provenance, almost certainly from the famous abbey of Bec in Normandy.
In 1972 Palémon Glorieux suggested that these letters showed certain resemblances to the work of Alan of Lille, whose writings are relatively well known but whose career remains to a large extent mysterious. F. Hudry's new edition of the letters sought not only to prove the conjectures of Glorieux but even to extend them beyond any previously accepted bounds. The historical and philological rectifications that I suggested in my article were such as to invalidate a whole series of forced interpretations and biographical guesses proposed by Françoise Hudry on Alan of Lille.
By continuing to carry out research, I reached good evidence that the Epistulæ familiares appear not to have been written by the doctor universalis and that the likely author of the letters is Henry, a monk from the Bec abbey, chosen by earl Galeran II de Meulan as abbot of Préaux in 1168.

KEY WORDS : Alanus ab Insulis, Alain de Lille, Doctor Universalis, Epistulæ familiaris, Bec Abbey, Henricus monachus Becci, abbas Pratellis