Jocelin of Soissons

Jocelin of Soissons^[1] (died 24 October 1152) was a French theologian, a philosophical opponent of Abelard. He became bishop of Soissons, and is known also as a composer (commonly as Goslenus Suessionensis, or Magister Goslenus, episcopus Suessionensis), with two pieces in the Codex Calixtinus. He was teaching at the Paris cathedral school in the early 1110s.^[2]

Bishop

He began work on the present Soissons Cathedral; it only took shape in the 1190s.^[3]

Abbot Suger addressed his history of Louis the Fat to him.^[4] In the papal politics of the late 1120s and 1130s, Suger counted Jocelin, at Soissons from 1126, as a supporter of Pope Innocent II against antipope Anacletus II, along with other bishops of northern France.^[5][6]

As bishop he founded Longpont Abbey^[7] in 1131, a Cistercian monastery supported by Bernard of Clairvaux;^[8] Bernard was a correspondent.^[9][10] He favoured the Knights Templars, having participated in the Council of Troyes that gave them full standing.^[11] He was present at the 1146 Council of Arras, a probable occasion for the planning of the Second Crusade.^[12]

Works

The De generibus et speciebus has been attributed to him.^[13] Now scholars call its author Pseudo-Joscelin.^[14] It may be by a student of his.^[2] The Metalogicus of John of Salisbury attributed to him the view that universals exist only in the collection, not the individuals.^[15][16][17]

References

• Annales de la vie de Joscelin de Vierzi in Achille Luchaire, Quatrièmes mélanges d'histoire du moyen age, Paris: Alcan, 1905.
• Desmond Paul Henry, Medieval Mereology, Amsterdam: B. R. Grüner., 1991.
• Pseudo-Joscelin, Treatise on Genera and Species, edited and translated with an introduction by Peter King, Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, 2, 2015, pp. 104–210.

Notes

1. Gauslen, Gauslenus, Gauzelin, Goslen, Goslenus, Goslin, Jocelin, Jocelyn, Joscelin, Joscelinus, Joslain, Joslein, Joslin, Josselin; surnamed de Vierzy.
2. Cambridge Companion to Abelard (2004), p. 310.
3. "Abelard condamne au concile de Soissons en 1121". Pierre-abelard.com. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
4. "SUGER's Life of Louis the Fat". Falcon.arts.cornell.edu. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
5. Mary Stroll, The Jewish Pope: Ideology and Politics in the Papal Schism of 1130 (1987), p. 176.
6. "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Soissons". Newadvent.org. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
7. "Se connecter: LES CHERISEY histoire et gnalogie de la famille de Chrisey". Lescherisey.free.fr. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
8. "Ancienne abbaye Notre-Dame". Fr.structurae.de. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
9. "LET. CCXXII-CCXXIV". Livres-mystiques.com. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
10. "LET. CCXXII-CCXXIV". Livres-mystiques.com. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
11. "Fondation de La Milice des Pauvres chevaliers du Temple de Salomon". Templiers.net. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
12. Jonathan Phillips, The Second Crusade (2007), p. 82.
13. (by Victor Cousin).
14. "Medieval Mereology". Plato.stanford.edu. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
15. "History of Medieval Philosophy 171". Maritain.nd.edu. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
16. "The Problem of Universals from Antiquity to the Middle Ages". Ontology.co. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
17. "Ars Magica Secretum secretorum : Abelard's Theory of Universals". Granta.demon.co.uk. Retrieved 4 January 2015.