Rabelais and the Abbey of Saint-Victor Revisited

The seventh chapter of François Rabelais’s Pantagruel concludes with a list of books attributed to the Abbey of Saint-Victor. The chapter’s brief nar­ rative foregrounds the catalog by touching on aspects of intellectual life in Paris, mentioning both the “great University of Paris” and the “seven liberal arts.” It is not surprising, then, that critics have viewed the catalog as a broad critique of scholasticism. Evidence presented here warrants the addition of a further layer of nuance to this critique that is directly related to this abbey’s contributions to education, reading, textual organization, and library classification.