Medieval France
(1157–1217). Alexander Neckham (or Nequam, a nickname meaning “worthless”) was born in England at St. Alban’s and traveled to read arts at Paris ca. 1175. He returned to England to teach at Dunstable (ca. 1182) and St. Alban’s (ca. 1185–90), then studied theology at Oxford (ca. 1190–97). Around 1200, he entered the order of Augustinian Canons, acted as a papal judge-delegate in 1203 and 1205, and was made abbot of Cirencester in 1213. He died in Kempsey, Worcestershire.
Like other “encyclopedists” in England and France at this time, Alexander wanted to know everything. He belonged to a group of Oxford scientists whose knowledge and methods were the best in Europe.
He wrote biblical commentaries, consulting Jews for this purpose, and learned some Hebrew, and he wrote on grammar and natural science. Alexander’s two major works, De nominibus utensilium and De naturis rerum, show his encyclopedic learning by defining long lists of words and thus describing everyday objects (saddles, clothing, beds), technology (goldsmithing, manuscript copying, agricultural tools), the liberal arts, buildings and their furnishings, and the like. He also versified Aesop’s Fables (Novus Aesopus) and was the author of a poem, De laudibus divinae sapientiae, and biblical commentaries. An Augustinian theologian who used Aristotle in his science, he complained, while abbot, that religion and study were becoming incompatible—creeping professionalism even in the 12th century.
Lesley J.Smith
Neckam, Alexander. Alexandri Neckam De naturis rerum libri duo: With the Poem of the Same Author, De laudibus divinae sapientiae, ed. Thomas Wright. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1863.
——. Speculum speculationum, ed. Rodney M.Thomson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Holmes, Urban Tigner, Jr. Daily Living in the Twelfth Century: Based on the Observations of Alexander Neckam in London and Paris. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1952.
Hunt, Richard W. The Schools and the Cloister: The Life and Writings of Alexander Nequam (1157–1217), ed. Margaret Gibson. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.
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