Name Richard Fournival | Died 1260, Amiens, France | |
 | ||
Books Master Richard's Bestiary of Love and Response Similar People Adam de la Halle, Gace Brule, Jean Bodel, Conon de Bethune, Gautier de Coincy | ||
Montpellier codex mo 111 en mai richard de fournival anonymous 4
Richard de Fournival or Richart de Fornival (1201 – ?1260) was a medieval philosopher and trouvere perhaps best known for the Bestiaire d'amour ("The Bestiary of Love").
Contents
Life
Richard de Fournival was born in Amiens on October 10, 1201. He was the son of Roger de Fournival (a personal physician to King Philip Augustus) and Elisabeth de la Pierre. He was also half-brother of Arnoul, bishop of Amiens (1236–46). Richard was successively canon, deacon, and chancellor of the cathedral chapter of Notre Dame d'Amiens. He was also a licensed surgeon, by the authority of Pope Gregory IX and this privilege was confirmed a second time in 1246 by Pope Innocent IV. He died on March 1, either 1260 or 1259.
Writings
Richard also wrote several other lyrical poems besides the Bestiaire d'amour: the Commens d'amours, Censes d’amore, Poissance d’amore, De vetula and Amistie de vraie amour. As well he composed his list of books entitled the Biblionomia, the Nativitas (an astrological autobiography), and the De arte alchemica.
The Biblionomia
The Biblionomia is a list of 162 volumes (some containing more than one work), divided into grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry and arithmetic, music and astronomy, philosophy, and poetry. Whether this was an ideal library or a real one is uncertain. But we can say, however, that at least 35 volumes have been identified as items in medieval libraries (e.g., the Sorbonne) and still existing in various modern libraries (e.g., the Bibliotheque nationale de France), so it cannot be entirely made up.
The list (and its latest possible date of 1260) does allow us to date certain medieval writings. For instance, the inclusion of various works by Jordanus de Nemore – his Liber philotegni (Fournival no. 43), the De ratione ponderis (no. 43), an Algorismus (no. 45), his Arithmetic (no. 47), the De numeris datis (no. 48) and the De plana spera (no. 59) – is our only information on when Jordanus must have lived, i.e., before 1260.
His library
Richard’s library (of which the Biblionomia must be in part a catalogue) passed to Gerard d'Abbeville, an archdeacon at Amiens, who then left many of them to the recently established College de Sorbonne. Some of these volumes then passed to the Royal Library (now the Bibliotheque nationale de France) in the 18th century.