The place of Thomas of Cantimpré in the medieval encyclopedism : the sources of the Liber de natura rerum

The Liber de Natura Rerum is a medieval encyclopedia born from the need of a text capable of explaining nature and the Bible, viz. The Will of the Creator. The Dominican Thomas de Cantimpré (1201-1270/71) compiled the work with the view of helping preachers and Christian educators strengthen the faith of believers: a faith which must be without error. In order to understand this text and its compiler, the present work has been divided into two parts: 1) a new philological reconstruction of the Liber together with a statement of all the identifiable sources used by the Flemish Dominican; 2) a commentary of the new Liber analysing and explaining the culture of Thomas. By observing the explicit and implicit sources and the relationship between Thomas’ work and the encyclopedism of the Middle Ages, the aims of de Cantimpré can be reconstructed. The analysis of the Liber de Natura Rerum hence is not limited to the philological level, but portrays the text in hermeneutic terms; via the analysis of the sources, Thomas de Cantimpré and his work can be placed in the complex reality of medieval encyclopedism - [Abstract]

Language: French