Schedel Weltchronik CCXIIII Alexander-de-Villa-Dei

Alexander of Villedieu was a

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

writer,

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

, who wrote text books on

Latin grammar Latin is a heavily inflected language with largely free word order. Nouns are inflected for number and case; pronouns and adjectives (including participles) are inflected for number, case, and gender; and verbs are inflected for person, numbe ...

and

arithmetic Arithmetic is an elementary branch of mathematics that deals with numerical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In a wider sense, it also includes exponentiation, extraction of roots, and taking logarithms. ...

, everything in verse. He was born around 1175 in

Villedieu-les-Poêles Villedieu-les-Poêles is a former commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Villedieu-les-Poêles-Rouffigny.Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...

, studied in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, and later taught at Dol in

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

. His greatest fame stems from his versified Latin grammar book, the ''Doctrinale Puerorum''. He died in 1240, or perhaps in 1250. He was a

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...

and a Master of the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

. His ''Doctrinale puerorum'', a versified grammar, soon became a classic. It was composed around 1200, and was all written in '' leonine

hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek as well as in Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of s ...

s''. Even after several centuries, with the advent of printing, it appeared in countless editions in Italy, Germany and France. It was based on the older works of Donatus and

Priscian Priscianus Caesariensis (), commonly known as Priscian ( or ), was a Latin grammarian and the author of the ''Institutes of Grammar'', which was the standard textbook for the study of Latin during the Middle Ages. It also provided the raw materia ...

. Alexander also wrote a short tract on

called ''Carmen de Algorismo''—''the Poem about Arithmetic'', which also achieved a wide distribution.While the ''Doctrinale'' was in leonine verse, the ''Carmen'' in

dactylic hexameter Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter used in Ancient Greek epic and didactic poetry as well as in epic, didactic, satirical, and pastoral Latin poetry. Its name is derived from Greek (, "finger") and (, "six"). Dactylic hexameter consists o ...

s. Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi
(Alexander de Villa Dei at end) A typical line from his Carmen de Algorismo, runs like this: :''Extrahe radicem semper sub parte sinistra'' Wherein he instructs his students: "always extract the

square root In mathematics, a square root of a number is a number such that y^2 = x; in other words, a number whose ''square'' (the result of multiplying the number by itself, or y \cdot y) is . For example, 4 and −4 are square roots of 16 because 4 ...

by starting from the left". The poem is not very long, only a few hundred lines, and summarizes the art of calculating with the new style of ''Indian dice'', or Talibus Indorum, as he calls the new Hindu-Arabic numerals.

References

*Dietrich Reichling editor (1893),
Das Doctrinale des Alexander de Villa-Dei
'.

Notes

External links

* Carmen de Algorismo
Franaut entry
* ttp://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/treasures/html/3.html Image of 1463 printed edition of the ''Doctrinale''
Bibliographical page

1170s births 1240 deaths People from the Duchy of Normandy French Franciscans French male writers 13th-century French mathematicians {{France-poet-stub