The Englished

Authors

Every author with a work now in English here — 26 so far, out of the hundreds still waiting. Each name grows a list as more of their writing is translated.

Abbo of Fleury

Abbo Floriacensisc. 945 – 13 November 1004

Monk and abbot of Fleury (Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire), educated at Paris and Reims. He spent 985–987 at Ramsey Abbey assisting Archbishop Oswald of York's monastic reforms, then returned to Fleury as abbot in 988, writing on computus, logic, canon law, and hagiography. He was killed at La Réole in Gascony in 1004, speared while trying to quell a fight between two factions of monks, and died in the arms of his disciple Aimoin, who later wrote his life.

Canones PL 139

Agobard of Lyon

Agobardus Lugdunensisc. 779 – 840

Spanish-born archbishop of Lyon and one of the sharpest polemical minds of the Carolingian church. He wrote against judicial ordeals, against superstition about weather-magic, and on the relation of ecclesiastical to imperial authority, and took part in the revolts against Louis the Pious.

De modo regiminis ecclesiastici PL 104

Alcuin of York

Alcuinusc. 735 – 19 May 804

Northumbrian deacon, poet, and master of the cathedral school of York, whom Charlemagne drew to the Continent around 782 to lead the palace school at Aachen and direct the Carolingian revival of learning. He spent his last years as abbot of Saint-Martin of Tours. This compendious commentary on the Song of Songs is among his biblical works.

In Cantica canticorum PL 100
Vita S. Martini Turonensis PL 101

Anonymous

Auctor incertus (Alcuinus?)

Exhortatio ad monachos PL 18
Expositio cantici Magnificat PL 40
De unitate sanctae Trinitatis PL 42
Sermones PL 47
Norma vivendi PL 83
De computo PL 90
Chronicon breve PL 94
Tractatus PL 96
Dubia alia PL 101
Appendix ad translationem corporis S. Hunegundis PL 137
De prandio monachorum PL 138
De monasterio Fructuariensi PL 141
De primordiis et inventione sacrae religionis Hierosolymorum PL 155
Flores seu sententiae ex S. Bernardo PL 183
In parabolam de decem virginibus PL 184
Vita et passio S. Thomae Cantuariensis PL 190
Annales PL 204

Anselm of Laon

Anselmus Laudunensisc. 1050 – 1117

Theologian and master of the cathedral school of Laon, whose teaching on the sacraments and on the ordered reading of Scripture shaped the twelfth-century schools. He and his circle are traditionally associated with the origins of the Glossa ordinaria on the Bible.

Enarrationes in Cantica canticorum PL 162
Epistola PL 162

Atto of Vercelli and Various Authors

Testamentum PL 134

Avitus of Vienne

Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus Viennensisc. 460 – c. 518

Bishop of Vienne in Burgundy, from a Gallo-Roman senatorial family, who worked to draw the Arian Burgundian kings toward Catholic Christianity. He left letters, homilies, and a biblical epic in verse on the events of Genesis and Exodus.

Sermo in rogationibus PL 59

Berno of Reichenau

Berno Augiae Divitisd. 7 June 1048

Abbot of Reichenau from 1008 until his death, and one of the leading liturgists and music theorists of his age. He wrote on the computus, on the chant and its tonary, and on the ordering of the church year — the last of which drew him into the exchange with Aribo of Mainz over how Advent is to be reckoned.

Liber qualiter adventus Domini celebretur PL 150

Bruno of Segni

Bruno Astensisc. 1045–1123

Born at Solero in Piedmont and educated at Bologna, Bruno was made bishop of Segni in 1079 and consecrated by Gregory VII, whose reform he defended in print — his Libellus de simoniacis argues the case against simony. In 1099 he withdrew to Monte Cassino without giving up his see, and was elected its abbot in 1107; in 1111 Paschal II obliged him to resign the abbacy and return to Segni after he criticized the concessions of the Concordat of Ponte Mammolo. He died at Segni on 18 July 1123 and was canonized in 1181. His surviving work is overwhelmingly exegetical.

Expositio in Cantica canticorum PL 164

Haimo of Halberstadt

Haymo Halberstatensis

Commentarium in Cantica canticorum PL 117

Hincmar of Reims

Hincmarus Rhemensisc. 806 – 882

Archbishop of Reims for nearly forty years and the dominant ecclesiastical politician of the later Carolingian world. He wrote extensively on predestination, on royal and episcopal office, and on canon law, and shaped the practice of anointing West Frankish kings.

Instructio ad Ludovicum Balbum PL 125
Quae exsequi debeat episcopus PL 125

Hugh of Saint Victor

Hugo de S. Victorec. 1096 – 11 February 1141

Theologian and head of the school of the abbey of Saint-Victor in Paris, and the founding master of the Victorine tradition of learning and contemplation. His work ranges across the liberal arts (the Didascalicon), sacramental theology (De sacramentis christianae fidei), and mystical writing. The present piece is a short exposition of the Magnificat, the canticle of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Adnotationes in libros Regum PL 175
Adnotatiuncula in librum Ruth PL 175
Adnotatiunculae in Joelem PL 175
Adnotatiunculae in librum Judicum PL 175
De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris PL 175
Explanatio in Canticum B. Mariae PL 175
Expositio in Abdiam PL 175
Expositio in Hierarchiam Coelestem S. Dionysii PL 175
Quaestiones in Epistolas Pauli PL 175
De fructibus carnis et spiritus PL 176
De modo orandi PL 176
De potestate et voluntate Dei PL 176
De quatuor voluntatibus in Christo PL 176
De sacramentis legis naturalis et scriptae PL 176
De sapientia animae Christi PL 176
De virginitate B. Mariae PL 176
Epistolae PL 176
Expositio in regulam S. Augustini PL 176
Institutiones in Decalogum PL 176

Joel

13th-century Byzantine chronicler; nothing is known of him beyond this work.

Chronographia compendiaria PG 139

Justus of Urgell

Justus Urgellensisfl. 527–546

First bishop of Urgell in the Pyrenees (in present-day Catalonia), a signatory of the Second Council of Toledo (527) and the First Council of Lérida (546). His Explanatio in Cantica canticorum — which Migne prints as Explicatio — is dedicated to Sergius, archbishop of Tarragona, and is the earliest surviving Latin commentary on the Song of Songs.

Explicatio in Cantica canticorum PL 67

Lanfranc of Canterbury

Lanfrancus Cantuariensisc. 1010 – 1089

Lombard jurist turned monk, prior of Bec and abbot of Caen before William the Conqueror made him archbishop of Canterbury. He argued the eucharistic case against Berengar of Tours and reorganised the English church, its councils, and its monastic observance.

De celanda confessione PL 150

Nicholas of Clairvaux

Nicolaus Claraevallensisd. after 1176

Monk of Montieramey and then of Clairvaux, where he served as secretary to Bernard until a breach of trust over the abbot’s seal ended his position there. His sermons and letters circulated widely, some of them long transmitted under Bernard’s name.

In festo S. Andreae PL 184

Odo of Cambrai

Odo Cameracensisc. 1050 – 1113

Master of the cathedral school of Tournai, later abbot of the monastery he founded there and bishop of Cambrai. A realist logician and biblical expositor, he wrote on original sin and on the canon of the Mass, and ended his episcopate in exile over the investiture struggle.

Homilia de villico iniquitatis PL 160

Peter Damian

Petrus Damianusc. 1007 – 1072

Hermit of Fonte Avellana, cardinal-bishop of Ostia, and the fiercest voice of the eleventh-century reform against simony and clerical marriage. His letters and short treatises are vehement, concrete, and often mordantly funny; Dante set him in the highest sphere of contemplatives.

Passio SS. Florae et Lucillae PL 144
Vita S. Mauri PL 144
De castitate et mediis eam tuendi PL 145
De dignitate sacerdotii PL 145
De picturis principum apostolorum PL 145

Peter of Blois

Petrus Blesensisc. 1130 – c. 1211

Letter-writer, poet and administrator, trained at Bologna and Paris, who served as secretary to the archbishops of Canterbury and archdeacon of Bath and London. His large and much-copied correspondence made him one of the most widely read prose stylists of the later twelfth century.

De divisione et scriptoribus sacrorum librorum PL 207

Peter the Deacon

Petrus diaconusc. 1110 – after 1159

Librarian and archivist of Monte Cassino, and for a time notary and secretary in the service of the emperor Lothar III. He continued the abbey chronicle begun by Leo Marsicanus and compiled its register of documents; he is also the most industrious forger of the twelfth century, and much of what he says about himself and his house was manufactured to defend its claims. His letters are read for their Senecan artistry as much as for their history.

Epistolae PL 173

Rabanus Maurus

Rabanus Maurusc. 780 – 856

Pupil of Alcuin, abbot of Fulda and archbishop of Mainz, and the most prolific compiler of the Carolingian renewal. His biblical commentaries and the encyclopaedic De rerum naturis transmitted patristic learning to the medieval schools; later ages called him praeceptor Germaniae.

De passione Domini PL 112

Richard of Saint Victor

Richardus S. Victorisd. 1173

Canon regular of the Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris — of British, probably Scottish, origin — and its prior from 1162. After Hugh, whose pupil he was, he was the leading theologian of the Victorine school: his De Trinitate reasoned toward the persons of God from the nature of perfect love, and his Benjamin minor and Benjamin major mapped the ascent to contemplation for generations of later readers.

De comparatione Christi ad florem et Mariae ad virgam PL 196
De differentia sacrificii Abrahae a sacrificio B. Mariae Virginis PL 196
De exterminatione mali et promotione boni PL 196
De gemino paschate PL 196
De judiciaria potestate in finali et universali judicio PL 196
De sacrificio David prophetae PL 196
De spiritu blasphemiae PL 196
De superexcellenti baptismo Christi PL 196
De tribus appropriatis personis in Trinitate PL 196
De Verbo incarnato PL 196
Declarationes nonnullarum difficultatum Scripturae PL 196
Epistolae et miscellanea PL 196
Explicatio aliquorum passuum difficilium Apostoli PL 196
Expositio de tabernaculo PL 196
Quomodo Christus ponitur in signum populorum PL 196
Quomodo Spiritus Sanctus est amor Patris et Filii PL 196
Sermo de missione Spiritus Sancti PL 196

Robert of Tombelaine

Robertus de Tumbalenac. 1010 – after 1084

Monk of Mont-Saint-Michel, later abbot of Saint-Vigor of Bayeux (1066–1084). He wrote this two-book commentary on the Song of Songs at the request of a fellow monk, Anastasius, prefacing it with a covering letter to a monk named Ansfrid.

Commentaria in Cantica canticorum PL 150

Various Authors

Auctores varii

Vincent of Lérins

Vincentius Lirinensisd. before 450

Monk of the island monastery of Lérins, off the coast of Provence, and one of the sharpest Latin minds of the semi-Pelagian milieu of southern Gaul. Around 434, three years after the Council of Ephesus, he composed the Commonitorium under the pen-name Peregrinus, 'the Pilgrim' — a handbook for telling catholic truth from heresy by the test of what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. Migne prints the surviving first book together with the recapitulation that is all that remains of the lost second.

Commonitoria PL 50

William of Saint-Thierry

Guillelmus abbasc. 1085 – 1148

Benedictine abbot of Saint-Thierry near Reims, who later laid down his abbacy to become a Cistercian monk at Signy; a close friend of Bernard of Clairvaux and the author of the first book of his life. He wrote his own exposition of the Song of Songs; the present work is an anthology he wove together from Bernard's sermons on the same book — hence 'ex Bernardo contexta,' compiled out of Bernard.

Commentatio in Cantica canticorum ex Bernardo contexta PL 184