Bernardus Silvestris was a twelfth-century cleric who wrote elegant, learned, and humane Latin works. Bernardus dedicated his major surviving work, Cosmographia, to Thierry of Chartres, chancellor of the cathedral school at Chartres and almost surely one of Bernardus’s teachers. Cosmographia compliments Pope Eugenius II, and a gloss in a surviving manuscript indicates that Cosmographia was read to Eugenius in Gaul in 1147. Cosmographia, along with Bernardus’s Mathematicus, subtly and poetically challenged dominant gynocentric values.
Gaia’s vicious hostility toward her husband Uranus’s genitals indicates castration culture in Hesiod’s Theogony. Bernardus’ Cosmographia is more humane. … Read the post castration culture shows ancient, bloody grip in Hesiod’s Theogony
A brilliant poetic figure, Patricida garnered public assent to destroying father-killing and liberating men from personal and political oppression. … Read the post killing Patricida frees men’s inner selves from political oppression
In the cosmic time before man, the goddess Silva was lethargic and unhappy. Bernardus Silvestris with his Cosmographia created a better world for women. … Read the post hopeful Cosmographia: goddesses reform Silva, primordial mother