ROBERT PULLEN

English theologian and cardinal (also Pullus, Pollanus, or Pulein); b. c. 1080; d. Viterbo, September 1146. He studied at Paris under william of champeaux after 1103, according to F. Courtney. In 1133 he came from Exeter to Oxford and lectured for about five years on Scripture, "which had fallen into neglect among the scholastics"; he also gained renown for his sermons. He was appointed archdeacon of Rochester in 1134. A letter of St. bernard of clairvaux speaks of a journey to Rome by Robert before or during 1142, and mentions Bernard's advice that Pullen spend some time in Paris "because of the sound doctrine he is acknowledged to possess" (Epistles 205, Patrologia Latina 182:372–373). This marks the beginning of his teaching at Paris, a fact confirmed by john of salisbury (Metalogicon 2.10, Patrologia Latina 1:99:869). Pullen was called to Rome by Lucius II (1144–45) and made the first English cardinal. After the election of Eugene III, Bernard exhorted Pullen to counsel and support the new Cistercian pope (Epistles 362, Patrologia Latina 182:563–564). Pullen's death probably occurred at Viterbo, not Rome, before Sept. 18, 1146. His extant and known writings include a number of sermons and the Sententiarum libri VIII (Patrologia Latina 186:639–1010), written in Oxford, perhaps before 1142. While many questions parallel the Sentences of peter lombard, it appears to have had no influence on Lombard (see scholasticism).

Bibliography: f. pelster, "Einige Angaben über Leben und Schriften des Robertus Pullus," Scholastik 12 (1937): 239–247. f. courtney, "Cardinal Robert Pullen: An English Theologian of the 12th Century," Analecta Gregoriana 64 (Rome 1954).

[i. c. brady]