Bernard of Tours was a humanist who taught at Tours and was known as Bernardus Silvestris. He is uncertainly identified with Bernard, chancellor of Chartres circa 1156 and bishop of Quimper from 1159 to 1167. Very little else is known of his life except that he taught the art of writing and wrote an Ars Versificatoria, which has not been found. He also wrote a moralizing allegorical commentary on part of Vergil's Aeneid that displays leanings toward a naturalistic ethic. He translated into Latin an Arabic treatise on geomancy, the Experimentarius, and, inspired by Quintilian, composed the Mathematicus, a poem about an astrological prediction.

His most famous work, dedicated to Theodoric of Chartres in about 1150, is the De Mundi Universitate, an allegory in prose and verse on the origin of the world and man. The theme is Nature's appeal to Nous (mind), the...