Richard de Fournival or Richart de Fornival (1201 – ?1260) was a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

philosopher and

trouvère ''Trouvère'' (, ), sometimes spelled ''trouveur'' (, ), is the Northern French ('' langue d'oïl'') form of the '' langue d'oc'' (Occitan) word ''trobador'', the precursor of the modern French word ''troubadour''. ''Trouvère'' refers to poet ...

perhaps best known for the '' Bestiaire d'amour'' ("The

Bestiary A bestiary (from ''bestiarum vocabulum'') is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history ...

of Love").

Life

Richard de Fournival was born in

Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; pcd, Anmien, or ) is a city and commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in the region of Hauts-de-France. In 2021, the population of ...

on October 10, 1201. He was the son of Roger de Fournival (a personal physician to King Philip Augustus) and Élisabeth de la Pierre. He was also half-brother of (1236–46). Richard was successively canon, deacon, and chancellor of the cathedral chapter of Notre Dame d'Amiens. He was also a licensed surgeon, by the authority of

Pope Gregory IX Pope Gregory IX ( la, Gregorius IX; born Ugolino di Conti; c. 1145 or before 1170 – 22 August 1241) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 March 1227 until his death in 1241. He is known for issuing the '' Decre ...

and this privilege was confirmed a second time in 1246 by

Pope Innocent IV Pope Innocent IV ( la, Innocentius IV; – 7 December 1254), born Sinibaldo Fieschi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 25 June 1243 to his death in 1254. Fieschi was born in Genoa and studied at the universitie ...

. He died on March 1, either 1260 or 1259. Richard's library (of which the ''Biblionomia'' must be in part a catalogue) passed to Gérard d'Abbeville, an archdeacon at Amiens, who then left many of them to the recently established

Collège de Sorbonne The College of Sorbonne (french: Collège de Sorbonne) was a theological college of the University of Paris, founded in 1253 (confirmed in 1257) by Robert de Sorbon (1201–1274), after whom it was named. With the rest of the Paris colleges, ...

. Some of these volumes then passed to the Royal Library (now the Bibliothèque nationale de France) in the 18th century.

Writings

Richard also wrote several other works besides the prose ''Bestiaire d'amour'': the , , , '' De vetula'' and ''Amistié de vraie amour''. In addition, he composed a list of his own books entitled the ''Biblionomia'', the ''Nativitas'' (an astrological autobiography), and the ''De arte alchemica''.

The ''Biblionomia''

The ''Biblionomia'' is a list of 162 volumes (some containing more than one work), divided into

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...

, dialectic, rhetoric,

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ...

and arithmetic,

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

and

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...

, philosophy, and

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

. Whether this was an ideal library or a real one is uncertain. But we can say, however, that at least 35 volumes have been identified as items in medieval libraries (e.g., the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

) and still existing in various modern libraries (e.g., the Bibliothèque nationale de France),For instance, BnF, ms lat 6602 (Fournival’s no. 31), ms lat 16646 (no. 37), ms lat 16647 (no. 38), and ms lat 16648 (no 40). See Aleksander Birkenmajer, “'La Bibliothèque de Richard de Fournival”, in ''Études d’histoire des sciences et de la philosophie au moyen âge'', Studia Copernicana 1 (Warsaw, 1970), pp. 117-210, esp. p. 167; also p. 214. so it cannot be entirely made up. The list (and its latest possible date of 1260) does allow us to date certain medieval writings. For instance, the inclusion of various works by

Jordanus de Nemore Jordanus de Nemore (fl. 13th century), also known as Jordanus Nemorarius and Giordano of Nemi, was a thirteenth-century European mathematician and scientist. The literal translation of Jordanus de Nemore (Giordano of Nemi) would indicate that he w ...

– his ''Liber philotegni'' (Fournival no. 43), the ''De ratione ponderis'' (no. 43), an ''Algorismus'' (no. 45), his ''Arithmetic'' (no. 47), the ''De numeris datis'' (no. 48) and the ''De plana spera'' (no. 59) – is our only information on when Jordanus must have lived, i.e., before 1260.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fournival, Richard de Trouvères 1201 births 1260s deaths 13th-century philosophers Male classical composers