Adam of Balsham ( la, Adam Balsamiensis or ') (c. 1100/1102 – c. 1157/1169) was an

Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman may refer to: *Anglo-Normans, the medieval ruling class in England following the Norman conquest of 1066 * Anglo-Norman language **Anglo-Norman literature * Anglo-Norman England, or Norman England, the period in English history from 10 ...

scholastic and churchman.

Life

Adam was born in Balsham, near

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

, England. He studied with

Peter Lombard Peter Lombard (also Peter the Lombard, Pierre Lombard or Petrus Lombardus; 1096, Novara – 21/22 July 1160, Paris), was a scholastic theologian, Bishop of Paris, and author of '' Four Books of Sentences'' which became the standard textbook of ...

at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

. He later taught at Paris; among his pupils were

John of Salisbury John of Salisbury (late 1110s – 25 October 1180), who described himself as Johannes Parvus ("John the Little"), was an English author, philosopher, educationalist, diplomat and bishop of Chartres. Early life and education Born at Salisbury, E ...

and

William of Tyre William of Tyre ( la, Willelmus Tyrensis; 113029 September 1186) was a medieval prelate and chronicler. As archbishop of Tyre, he is sometimes known as William II to distinguish him from his predecessor, William I, the Englishman, a former ...

and might have been a contemporary there of Rainald of Dassel (c. 1120 – 14 August 1167). Gabriel Nuchelmans surmises that he may have been the first person to introduce the term ''enuntiabile'', which came to be used in the same sense as

dictum In general usage, a dictum ( in Latin; plural dicta) is an authoritative or dogmatic statement. In some contexts, such as legal writing and church cantata librettos, ''dictum'' can have a specific meaning. Legal writing In United States legal ter ...

.Nuchelmans, p. 169. Many sources have assumed Adam of Balsham and Adam, Bishop of St Asaph (or Adam the Welshman) to be the same person, although

Raymond Klibansky Raymond Klibansky, (October 15, 1905 – August 5, 2005) was a German-Canadian historian of philosophy and art. Biography Born in Paris, to Rosa Scheidt and Hermann Klibansky, he was educated at the University of Kiel, University of Hamburg ...

concludes that they were two different men. The Petit-Pont attached to Adam's name and which crosses the Seine linking the west front of

Notre-Dame Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris (; meaning "Our Lady of Paris"), referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the Seine River), in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. The cathedral, dedicated to the ...

in Paris (and the site of a former bishop's palace) to the

Left Bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography, as follows. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terra ...

St Michel area would have been the main centre of Adam's intellectual group (it was renamed in 2013 with the addition of the name of

Cardinal Lustiger Aron Jean-Marie Lustiger (; 17 September 1926 – 5 August 2007) was a French cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was Archbishop of Paris from 1981 until his resignation in 2005. He was made a cardinal in 1983 by Pope John Paul II. His life ...

: 'Petit-Pont Cardinal Lustiger').

Works

* Lorenzo Minio-Paluello (ed.), ''Twelfth Century Logic: Texts and Studies. Vol. I:Adam balsamiensis parvipontani. Ars disserendi (Dialectica Alexandri)'', Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1956. * ''De utensilibus'', (or ''Fale tolum'') on rare words.

Notes

External links

* 1100s births 12th-century deaths English logicians English non-fiction writers Catholic philosophers Scholastic philosophers English philosophers English male non-fiction writers People from Balsham 12th-century English writers Anglo-Normans 12th-century Latin writers {{England-nonfiction-writer-stub

Life

Works

Notes

Further reading

External links