Hugo of St. Viktor

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Hugo of St. Viktor
Hugo von St. Viktor writes his Didascalicon . Illumination in the Leiden manuscript, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, Vulcanius 45, fol. 130r (14th century)

Hugo von St. Viktor (* around 1097 ; † February 11, 1141 in St. Victor near Paris ) was a Christian theologian and philosopher.

Life

He came from Saxony, where he was born as the son of Count Konrad von Blankenburg, possibly near the city of the same name. According to the work of Derling and Hugonin, it is known that Mabillon's assertion that Hugo was born in Ypres in Flanders is incorrect. Hugo received his training from the regular canons of Hamersleben and was considered a Saxon in Victorian tradition . Around 1115 or 1118 he entered the school of the Augustinian Canons of Saint-Victor (near Paris ), which had been founded in 1108 by William of Champeaux . Around 1133 he became head of this training center and held this office until his death. As abbot of St. Viktor, he cannot be proven, despite later tradition to the contrary. Special events from his life, which he seems to have devoted entirely to faith and teaching, are not known.

Hugo is considered to be the spiritual founding father of the Victorian tradition of thought connected with the name of St. Viktor , who in the philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages was assigned a more Platonic than Aristotelian orientation (see Neo-Platonism ), and which in the history of medieval Bible exegesis for one increased efforts to gain a literal and historical understanding of the biblical text. His theology was particularly influenced by Augustine , according to whose rule of Augustine he lived, and played an important role in the mediaeval reception of the mystically inspired works of Dionysius Areopagita . His works, handed down in more than 3,000 manuscripts , some of which have also been translated into various vernacular languages since the 13th century , had a great influence on theology, exegesis and philosophy of the following centuries and also on medieval education.

In the Martinus Library in Mainz, fragments of a handwritten parchment code were found as part of a targeted search, which could be assigned to the work Summa sententiarum septem tractatibus distincta .

Works

  • Charles H. Buttimer (Ed.): Hugonis de Sancto Victore Didascalicon De Studio legendi. Washington DC 1939.
  • Didascalicon de studio legendi (for example: “Instructions for the Study of Reading and Interpretation”, approx. 1128); some sort of introduction or guidance to the study of theology; Chapters 1-3 deal with the seven liberal arts ; chapters 4-6deal withreading the Scriptures.
    • Edition: Strasbourg: Printer by Henricus Ariminensis Georg Reyser, not after 1474. Digitized edition of the University and State Library of Düsseldorf
    • Edition: Thilo Offergeld (Ed.): Didascalicon de studio legendi. Study book, Latin-German, Freiburg im Breisgau, Herder 1997 (Fontes Christiani 27) with a copy of the Latin text edited by CH Buttimer from Washington 1939 (The University of America, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin 10).
  • Sums of Christian Faith: Sententiae de divinitate , Dialogus de sacramentis , De sacramentis christianae fidei , the latter ed. by Roy J. Deferrari, Cambridge (Mass.) 1955 (Publications of the Medieval Academy of America, 58). The latest edition of De sacramentis is the critical edition by Rainer Berndt: Hugonis de Sancto Victore De sacramentis Christiane fidei , Münster 2008 (Corpus Victorinum. Textus historici 1).
  • Smaller writings to introduce secular subject matter : De grammatica , Practica geometriae , Epitome Dindimi in philosophiam , ed. by Roger Baron, Notre Dame (Ind.) 1966 (University of Notre Dame, Publications in Medieval Studies, 20)
  • De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum (for example: "About the three most significant circumstances of historical events", a universal chronology and memory art , the attribution of which to the author is not undisputed), ed. by WM Green, ( Speculum 18) 1943, pp. 488-492.
  • De arca Noe morali and De arca mystica (for example: "On the moral sense of Noah's ark" and "On the mystical sense of the ark", two works for advanced students in which Hugo applies the linear memory plan of De circumstantiis to a space-time Matrix expanded and sketched a three-dimensional, multi-colored memory plan. Thanks to these three works Hugo is sometimes ascribed an important role in the medieval appropriation of the memory art or mnemonics known since antiquity .)
  • numerous adnotationes and explicationes on books of the Bible, including the Pentateuch, Book of Judges, Samuel and the Books of Kings, various Psalms, the preacher and the lamentations of Jeremiah
  • a commentary on the Heavenly Hierarchies of Dionysius Areopagita
  • De vanitate mundi (“On the nothingness of the world”), Apologia de verbo incarnato (“Defense of the Word made flesh”), De sapientia animae Christi (“On the wisdom of the soul of Christ”) and other textbooks
  • mystical writings such as B. De arrha animae ("On the pledge of the soul"), De amore sponsi ad sponsam ("On the love of the groom for the bride"), De meditando ("On immersion")

The most accessible edition of Hugo's works is found in the Patrologia Latina , edited by J.-P. Migne , Vol. 175–177, which, however, does not offer a critical text, and in which numerous foreign texts are printed under the name of Hugos which are published by other authors such as Richard von St. Viktor , Walter von St. Viktor and Hugo de Folieto .

Remembrance day

February 11 in the Evangelical Name Calendar .

research

Researching and editing the work of Hugo von St. Viktor is one of the tasks of the Hugo von Sankt Viktor Institute for Medieval Source Studies at the Philosophical-Theological University of Sankt Georgen .

literature

  • Edward Myers:  Hugh of St. Victor . In: Catholic Encyclopedia , Volume 7, Robert Appleton Company, New York 1910 (English).
  • Joachim Ehlers : Hugo von St.Viktor. Studies of historical thought and history of the 12th century . (Frankfurt historical essays, vol. 7), Steiner, Wiesbaden 1973, ISSN  0170-3226 .
  • Amos Funkenstein , Jürgen Miethke:  Hugo von Sankt Victor. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , pp. 19-22 ( digitized version ).
  • Rudolf Goy: The tradition of the works of Hugos von St. Viktor. A contribution to the communication history of the Middle Ages. (Monographs on the history of the Middle Ages, Vol. 14), Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1976, ISSN  0026-9832 .
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Hugo of St. Viktor. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 1148-1151.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Ivan Illich : In the vineyard of the text: when the typeface of modernism emerged. A comment on Hugo's “Didascalicon” . Luchterhand, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-630-87105-4 .
  • Jean Longère (ed.): L'abbaye parisienne de Saint-Victor au Moyen Âge. Communications présentées au XIIIe Colloque d'Humanisme médiéval de Paris (1986-1988). (Bibliotheca Victorina, vol. 1), Brepols, Paris, Turnhout 1991, ISBN 2-503-50048-X .
  • Mary Carruthers: The Book of Memory - A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, Vol. 10), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge MA 1990, ISBN 0-521-38282-3 .
  • Kurt Ruh : history of occidental mysticism . Volume 1: The basics through the church fathers and the monastic theology of the 12th century. Beck, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-406-34471-2 .
  • Ralf MW Stammberger: The edition of the works of Hugos von Sankt Viktor († 1141) by Abbot Gilduin von Sankt Viktor († 1155) - a reconstruction. In: Rainer Berndt (Ed.): Schrift, Schreiber, Schenker. Studies on the Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris and the Victorians . (Corpus Victorinum, Instrumenta, Vol. 1), Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-05-004038-6 , pp. 119-231, (complete critical catalog raisonné in the appendix).

Web links

Commons : Hugo von St. Viktor  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tract I, 2: De spe et charitate
  2. ↑ Cabinet exhibition “Greeks - Romans - Arabs in Parchment Fragments from the Martinus Library” PDF 300 kB
  3. ^ Hugo von St. Viktor in the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints
  4. ↑ Research projects , accessed on May 30, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Hugo of St. Viktor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hugo of Saint Viktor; Hugues de Saint-Victor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Theologian and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH around 1097
DATE OF DEATH February 11, 1141
Place of death St. Victor near Paris