John of Salisbury
A European rather than merely an Englishman, John embodied the new humanism that permeated twelfth-century thought, by J.J.N. McGurk.
In the 1140s an Englishman from Salisbury arrived at the Papal Court of Pope Eugenius III to seek employment and advancement. John of Salisbury, or Johannes Parvus, as he was known to the Middle Ages, did not merely become an ordinary Papal chancery clerk but the outstanding scholar of his age, memorable in his elegant writings for the light he threw on so many of the more important figures in church and state of the second half of the twelfth century.
Popes, prelates and kings stand out the more distinctly from the praises and criticism of this articulate yet unmalicious observer of their characters and actions. But he was not simply a good journalist of his times; for, in the range and readiness of his classical learning he became the most representative English figure of the twelfth-century renaissance.
Throughout his work there is a noteworthy commonsense, a subtle humour, a deep regard for human values, a tenacious loyalty to his friends and a clear conviction of the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal ends of mankind.
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