Honorius of Autun

Honorius Augustodunensis (1080-1154), commonly known as Honorius of Autun, was a very popular 12th-century Christian theologian who wrote prolifically on many subjects. He wrote in a non-scholastic manner, with a lively style, and his works were approachable for the lay community in general. He was, therefore, something of a popularizer of clerical learning.

Very little is known of his life. He says that he is Honorius Augustodunensis ecclesiae presbyter et scholasticus, but nothing else is known. "Augustodunensis" was taken to mean Autun, but that identification is now generally rejected. However, there is no solid reasoning for any other identification (such as Augst near Basle, Augsburg in Swabia, or Augustinensis, from St Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury), so his by-name has stuck. It is certain that he was a monk and that he travelled to England and was a student of Anselm's for some time. Toward the end of his life, he was in the Scots Monastery, Regensburg, Bavaria, probably living as a recluse.

Among Honorius's works are:

His most important work was the Imago mundi, an encyclopedia of popular cosmology and geography combined with a chronicle of world history. It was translated into many different vernacular languages and was popular throughout the medieval period. It contained, among other things, a scheme for the operation of guardian angels.

A major scholar of Honorius is Valerie Flint, whose essays on him are collected in Ideas in the Medieval West: Texts and their Contexts (London, 1988). See also her study of Honorius in Constant J. Mews and Valerie I. J. Flint, Peter Abelard; Honorius of Regensburg (Aldershot, 1995).

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