Gerbert of Aurillac (c. 940-1003). Later Pope Sylvester II. Best known for his travels into Spain to retrieve and translate Arabic texts of Aristotle. 

Berengar of Tours (c. 1010-1088). Wrote on Eucharistic doctrine, and was criticized for some aspects of his theology by Lanfranc of Bec. 

Lanfranc of Bec (c. 1010-1089). Abbot of Bec (France) and later Archbishop of Canterbury. Mentor of Anselm of Canterbury and opponent of Berengar of Tours. 

St. Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109). Italian by birth, he migrated to Bec, in northern France, studying there with Lanfranc. He eventually became abbot, and, while at Bec, composed the treatises that made him the pre-eminent pre- scholastic theologian, the Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man), the Monologion, and the more famous Proslogion, both arguments seeking to prove the existence of God by the use of human reason. Anselm's guiding principle, however was "Fides quaerens intellectum" or "faith seeking understanding," and his writings were firmly grounded in monastic scriptural tradition.  Anselm ended his life as Archbishop of Canterbury at the behest of William I (the Conqueror), successfully defending the rights of the monks against William II (Rufus).

Peter Abelard  (1079-1142).  Pre-scholastic philosopher and theologian.  Abelard  studied under Anselm of Laon, but left the school to found his own.  His best known work is the treatise on ethics, Sic et Non (Yes and No).  After giving his monastic foundation of the Paraclete to Heloise, he became abbot of a Breton monastery. His teachings were condemned at the Council of Soissons (1121) and later, at the behest of Bernard of Clairvaux, at the Council of Sens (1139), but his dialectic of question and answer "sic et non," laid the foundation for the work of later theologians such as Thomas Aquinas. 

Heloise  (c.1100-1101-1163-64).  Student and later lover and wife of Abelard.  Co-author of the early letters (published as the "lost" love letters) and of the more famous exchange which includes Abelard's Historia Calamitatum, as well as of the theological queries known as the Problemata. She became the much-respected abbess of the convent of the Paraclete. 
 

Monasticism and Learning in Western Europe

1000-1200:  Cathedral Schools (especially after 1006 [Fulbert at Chartres]) 

1050-1500:  Individual masters such as the "Anselms" and Abelard, and clerks, and lawyers 

c.1150 (Italy)-and c.1200 (France):  the great universities (Bologna, Paris) still in existence) and the rise of dialectic 
 

Revised January 15, 2006