Hugo Metellus

Hugo Metellus (* around 1080; † around 1150) was an Augustinian canon in Toul , master's degree, poet and author of letters. Has become known Hugo Metellus for his invective (libel) against the philosopher and theologian Peter Abelard and his Eloge (eulogy) for Heloisa , his wife.

Life

Hugo Metellus was born in Toul around 1080. He first attended the schools in his hometown and probably made the acquaintance of the future bishop of Würzburg , Embricho , and a teacher named Tiescelinus. Hugo enjoyed a broad education in the trivium and quadrivium sciences. It is possible that one of his teachers was the famous Odo von Tournai , who is said to have been in Toul at the time. Hugo preferred to study ancient writers such as B. Aristotle and Cicero , whom he quotes widely in his works.

Hugo did not reveal his other places of study, at least he studied dialectics and rhetoric, presumably also the grammarian and philosopher Macrobius under Magister Hugo, Augustinian Abbot of Saint-Jean in Chartres between 1131 and 1136. He later sent him some writings for examination. As you can see from his correspondence, his subjects also included music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. At the end of his school career, after a stay in Rome around 1115, Hugo Metellus went to see the theologian Anselm in Laon to study the New and Old Testaments. This happened around the same time that Peter Abelard challenged Anselm in a scientific dispute.

For unspecified reasons, Hugo Metellus interrupted his studies in Laon prematurely and entered with 35 years, 1115-1120, as a novice in the Regularkanonikerstift Saint-Léon in his hometown Toul one which in the year 1091 by Bishop Pibo of Toul was founded . The pen followed the less strict rule of Saint-Ruf in Avignon , not that of Norbert von Xanten , which Hugo was rather critical of. Hugo later often addressed his conversion in his letters.

As an Augustinian canon, Hugo Metellus maintained a rich correspondence. I.a. he wrote to Archbishop Albero von Trier , the Bishops Embrico von Würzburg , Stefan von Metz and Heinrich von Toul , but also to the great Bernhard von Clairvaux , to Fulko von Epernay, Simon von Saint-Clément, Wilhelm von Saint-Thierry , Hugo von Chartres, Peter Abelard and even Pope Innocent II. He also tried to contact Heloisa , the abbess of Paraclete , not long after 1131, at a time when their monastery had just come under papal protection. The many correspondence with letters indicate that Hugo Metellus had acquired a reputation that went beyond the borders of his hometown. Hugo maintained great respect for his theology teacher Anselm von Laon throughout his life, which inevitably brought him into opposition to Peter Abelard and his new teachings.

Not much is known about the other contents of his life as a regular canon. In any case, Hugo gave lessons as a teacher in the disciplines in which he trained.

Hugo is said to have died around 1150. He is registered as Magister Hugo Metellus Canonicus in the Book of the Dead of Toul Cathedral . However, it cannot be completely ruled out that Hugo was almost 100 years old, because a regular canon of the same name from Oignies appears in a document from Countess Mathilde von Nevers from 1177 .

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Only a small part of Hugo's work as a writer and poet has survived. The premonstratensian historian Charles Louis Hugo, Abbot of Étival († 1739), identified two interdependent manuscripts in the Collége de Clermont in Paris, also known as the Collège Louis-le-Grand, and in the Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève at the beginning of the 18th century from which he took a total of 55 letters from Hugo and published them.

The manuscript from the Collège de Clermont was originally compiled in the second half of the 12th century in the Benedictine convent of Saint-Arnoul in Metz; it is now stored in the German State Library in Berlin as the so-called Codex antiquior of the Sigle B. The Codex recentior G comes from Sainte-Geneviève (MS 242) and is a copy of B from the second half of the 17th century. It also contains some poems written by Hugo Metellus. Nothing is known about the whereabouts of this manuscript.

Hugo addressed his letters and poems to a wide range of contemporaries. They cover a wide range of pastoral, literary and theological topics and reflect Hugo's great interest in classical and contemporary literature, cosmology and theology. The Augustinian canon is impressed by literary originality, as his two letters to Heloïsa emphasize, but is also concerned about educational trends that he considers dangerous, such as those reflected by Peter Abelard or Master Garland. Hugo's letters give a deep insight into the educational trend and cultural renewal in the first half of the 12th century.

style

Hugo orients himself on models from antiquity and patristicism , which he often imitates. He sometimes writes in panegyric, exuberant words of praise, sometimes in a caustic, hurtful tone. His texts are peppered with internal rhymes , indulge in a soulful, flowery world of imagination, are rich in metaphors and often dramatic in their contrasts. Like Heloisa, whom he therefore praises, he also tends to neologisms . B. Abelard's theologia as frivologia (lat. Frivolus = worthless), as it was previously described by Bernhard von Clairvaux as stultilogia (lat. Stultus = stupid). Hugo always tries to show his educational horizon and to present himself as Homo literatissimus .

Quote

“Hugo's correspondence reflects a deep tension within the educated elite to which he belongs. Impressed by new forms of language, new questions and the consequence of having to develop new answers and images from them, he is worried that the innovation could go too far, as he imagines in Abelard's case. While he is fascinated by Heloisa's writings, he wants them to remain stuck in tradition. His fears are those of his generation. "

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• MS Berlin, German State Library, Phillipps 1694 (2nd half of the 12th century)
• MS Paris, Bibl. Sainte-Geneviève 242 (copy of B, 2nd half of 17th century)
• CH Hugo: Sacrae Antiquitatis Monumenta Historica, Dogmatica, Diplomatica, 2nd vol., Etivel-St. Die, 1723-1731.

literature

• A. Fortia d'Urban: Histoire et ouvrages de Hugues Métel, né à Toul en 1080 ou mémoire pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique du douzième siècle. Paris 1839.
• A. Digot: Étude historique et littéraire sur Hugues Métel, chanoine régulier de l'abbaye Saint-Léon de Toul. In: Société philomatique de Verdun. Volume 3, 1848, pp. 255-327.
• F. Clement: Histoire littéraire de la France . Volume 12, Paris 1869, pp. 493-551.
• E. Martin: État d'âme d'un religieux Toulois au XIIième siècle. Hugues Métel, chanoine régulier de l'abbaye de saint-Léon, à Toul. In: Revue du clergé français. Volume 2, 1895, pp. 212-229 and pp. 327-344.
• L. Otto: Investigations on the theological letter literature of early scholasticism. Münster 1937, pp. 47-56.
• G. Bönnen: The episcopal city of Toul and its surroundings during the high and late Middle Ages. In: Trier historical research. Volume 25, 1995, pp. 194-195.
• C. Mews: Hugh Metel, Heloise and Abelard: The letters of an Augustinian Canon and the challenge of innovation in twelfth-century Lorraine. In: Viator. Volume 32, 2001, pp. 59–91 (with a critical edition of the letters to Heloisa and translation into English)

Web links

• Hugo Metellus in the repertory "Historical Sources of the German Middle Ages"
• Hugo Metellus: Letters to Heloisa ( online )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. C. Mews: Hugh Metel, Heloise and Abelard: The letters of an Augustinian Canon and the challenge of innovation in twelfth-century Lorraine. In: Viator. Volume 32, 2001, L. Otto: Investigations on the theological letter literature of early scholasticism. Münster 1937., M. Paulin: Histoire litéraire de la France. Volume 12, Paris 1869, pp. 493-511, Ch. Charrier: Héloise dans l'histoire et dans la légende. Paris 1933, Reprint Geneva 1977, pp. 281-289.
2. ↑ Cf. CH Hugo: Sacrae Antiquitatis Monumenta Historica, Dogmatica, Diplomatica, 2nd vol., Etivel-St. Die, 1723-1731
3. ↑ MS DSB Berlin, Phillipps 1694, fol139r-fol.185r.
4. ↑ More detailed information on the history of the works can be found in C. Mews: Hugh Metel, Heloise and Abelard: The letters of an Augustinian Canon and the challenge of innovation in twelfth-century Lorraine. In: Viator. Volume 32, 2001
5. ↑ The addressees include (the numbers of the letters in brackets): Bernhard, Abbot of Clairvaux (1), students from Toul (2), Magister Tiescelin (3), Pope Innocent II (4, because of Abelard), Peter Abelard ( 5, Invective), Albero von Montreuil, Archbishop of Trier (6, 30), Bishop Guilenc of Langres (7), Stephan von Bar, Bishop of Metz (8, 9), Heloisa, Abbess of Paraclete (16, 17), Bishop Embrico von Würzburg (21), Magister Gerland (33), Magister Hugo von Chartres (34), the Koncanons Humbert and Adam (40), Abbot Odo (45), Konstantin, Canon in Saint-Léon in Toul (52), Simon Abbot of Saint-Clément (54, 55), also Fulko Abbot of Sparnach, Thierry, monk of Saint-Mansuy, Hugo, chaplain of Saint-Aper, Seibert, Paulinus and Udelric, three philosophy students, Peter, Abbot of Toussaint , Garbod, student, Euchius, formerly a teacher, now abbot, Gerard, Mönch, Hugo, Gerhard, Sofrid, Gumbert, Rofrid and a few unnamed cardinals.
6. ↑ Garland or Gerland was a teacher in Besançon from 1118 to 1136, later a Magister scholarum in Metz. Like Abelard, he wrote a Dialectica , but based on his opponent Roscelinus , who held a canonate in Besançon around 1120.
7. ↑ C. Mews, 2001 , p. 88