Alanus de Insulis (Alain of Lille, Alanus ab Insulis, Alain of Ryssel) (ca. 1116– ca. 1202). Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature

Alanus was one of the leading intellectuals of his
time. We hardly know anything about his biography, but we can be certain that he was born in Lille
ca. 1116, studied in Paris ca. 1136 (perhaps also in
Tours and Chartres), taught at Paris and Montpellier, participated in the Third Lateran Council in
1179, and later joined the Cistercian monastery of
Citeaux, where he eventually died ca. 1202 or 1203.
Between 1160 and 1165 he wrote his treatises
Regulae caelestis iuris and Summa quoniam homines.
His true masterpieces, however, through which he
exerted profound influence on poets and philosophers alike throughout the subsequent centuries,
were his
Planctus naturae and the Anticlaudianus,
the first composed by the end of the 1160s, the latter composed around 1184. Subsequently, perhaps
while he lived in southern France, he also wrote a
number of theological treatises:
Ars fidei catholicœ,
Contra haereticos, Summa quadripartita adversus
huius temporis haereticos,
and Distinctiones, all exploring the most difficult question for the church:
How to deal with heretics and infidels, especially
the Muslims and Jews, and the Cathars and
Waldensians.
Alanus’s contemporaries and posterity harbored great respect for his intellect and called him
either Doctor Universalis, Poeta Magnus, or simply
Magnus. He was admired for his impressive

knowledge of the liberal arts, philosophy, theology,
and classical and contemporary literature. Alanus
gained most respect for his
Planctus naturae (The
Plaint of Nature
), in which he deplored man’s deviation from the natural course, hence man’s turn
away from the path of virtue and morality; and his
Anticlaudianus, in which he projected the principles of how to create the foundation for a new, religiously inspired human existence. The latter
consisted of an encyclopedic summary of all
learned knowledge available at that time. Alanus
also composed a curious poem,
Vix nodosum, in
which he advocated the love for a virgin over an
adulterous relationship with a married woman.
Among other critical studies, Alanus also wrote
De
incarnatione Christi,
which discusses man’s inability to comprehend the divine secrets of Christ’s incarnation; De natura hominis fluxa et caduca, on
the semiotic symbolism and temporality of this
world; and the
Liber parabolarum, a collection of
elegiacs consisting of proverb-like statements
about the contradictory nature of human life.
Alanus deeply admired Plato’s teachings, but he
was also familiar with Aristotle and B
OETHIUS. His
philosophy is characterized by a certain degree of
syncretism, reflected in his tendency to combine
mystical with philosophical and rational thought
that relied on the logical development of all
human understanding and belief systems. Following Boethius, Alanus argued that the entire Christian religion can be confirmed through
mathematical-philosophical principles.
The large number of manuscript copies of
Alanus’s works demonstrate the enormous popularity that he enjoyed throughout the intellectual
world of the Middle Ages. The
Vix nodosum is extant in 27, the Planctus in 133, and the Anticlaudianus in 110 manuscripts. In the 15th century,
Alanus’s texts were also among the earliest to be
printed. We have one very early edition each (ca.
1460) from his
Vix nodosum and his Planctus, and
four editions of his
Anticlaudianus. Amazingly his
rather plain
Liber parabolarum was printed in at
least 29 editions. This vast dissemination of
Alanus’s texts far into the early modern age is explained chiefly by their use as school textbooks,
many of which contain extensive interlinear and
marginal glosses by their readers. Some of the bestknown 13th-century commentators on Alanus’s
works were Radulphus of Longchamp, William of
Auxerre, Otho of Sankt Blasien, Alberic of TroisFontaines, and John of Garland.
Alanus’s
Planctus naturae shows many significant parallels with Matthew of Vendôme’s Ars versificatoria, the most influential 12th-century textbook
for rhetoric and poetry. Walther of Châtillon, in his
Latin
Alexandreis, was one of the first to adapt the
allegorical imagery from Alanus’s
Planctus, followed
by John of Hauvilla in his
Architrenius (12th century), and Adam de la Bassé (late 13th century). Not
only French and Italian, but also English and German vernacular poets, not to mention the vast
number of Latin writers, demonstrate the deep influence which Alanus’s rhetorical, didactic, and aesthetic ideals and concepts, especially of nature as an
allegorical figure, exerted on them. G
OTTFRIED VON
STRASSBURG, DANTE ALIGHIERI, and JEAN DE MEUN
(13th century), as well as Geoffrey CHAUCER and
Hans Sachs (14th and 16th centuries) are some of
the most important witnesses of Alanus’s influence
throughout the ages.
Bibliography
Alanus de Insulis. Anticlaudianus. Translated by
James J. Sheridan. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 1973.
———.
Anticlaudianus. Edited by R. Bossuat. Paris: J.
Vrin, 1955.
———.
Plaint of Nature. Translated by James J.
Sheridan. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980.
Evans, G. R.
Alan of Lille: The Frontiers of Theology in
the Later Twelfth Century.
Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1983.
Häring, Nikolaus M., ed.
De Planctu Naturae. Studi
Medievali,
3rd series, 19 (1978), 797–879.
Trout, John M.
The Voyage of Prudence: The World
View of Alan of Lille.
Washington, D.C.: University
Press of America, 1973.
White, Hugh.
Nature, Sex, and Goodness in a Medieval
Literary Tradition.
Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000.
Albrecht Classen

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