The name given to several scholars and members of the spiritual and intellectual movement founded on the teaching and practice associated with the Abbey of Saint-Victor, Paris, the Victorines were renowned for their spirituality and biblical scholarship, who left a powerful and lasting imprint on Western Christianity through their lives and writings.
The Abbey, located on the Left Bank of the Seine, was founded by William of Champeaux in 1108, and dedicated to St Victor of Marseilles. Despite his departure from the abbey just five years later, the school continued to grow under capable leaders and its influence spread. Though founded on the Rules of St Augustine, it developed and supplemented them with its own rules and canons. Its influence was soon recognized and was made a Royal Abbey and endowed with gifts from King Louis VI on.
The intellectual climate of the Abbey owed mostly to Hugh of St Victor, who championed the importance of the historical and literal interpretation of Scripture as the foundation for other ways of understanding the Bible, thus planting the seed for the biblical interpretation that became crucial to the biblical understanding of men like Martin Luther and the other Reformers. Most significant for this was Hugh's own acquaintance with the blossoming Jewish scholarship of the period (esp. of Rashi's work on the Talmud). Other important members of the order include Richard of St Victor (famous for his mysticl literature) whose influence can be traced to other famous spritual writers like Bonaventure (author of the Cloud of Unknowing) which in turn shaped the spiritual outlook of the later Brethren of Common Life.
The Abbey was destroyed during the French Revolution and the community associated with it disbanded and dispersed. The only physical remains are those of its library which is today housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale.
Further Reading & Resources:
☰ "211. Learn Everything: the Victorines History of Philosophy. podcast
☰ Ralph McInerny, A History of Western Philosophy, Vol. II, Part III: The Twelfth Century. Jacques Maritain Center. html
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