Richard Southern and the Twelfth–Century Intellectual World: Essay Review of R. W. Southern, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, Vol. I: Foundations, Vol. II: The Heroic Age

Abstract

Richard Southern’s most recent book proposes an interpretation of the intellectual life of twelfth–century Europe that deserves both close attention and critical scrutiny. Particular issues questioned in this review are the dominant centrality of the “scholastic enterprise,” Southern’s idiosyncratic definition of “humanism,” and his prolongation of the twelfth–century renaissance through most of the thirteenth. It is argued that Southern’s interpretation has led to the undervaluation of regions of western Europe such as Germany, and of non–scholastic communities such as Benedictine monasticism.