Alain de Lille

Alain de Lille , c.1128-c.1202, French scholastic philosopher, a Cistercian, honored by his contemporaries as the Universal Doctor. He was born in Lille; he taught at Paris and Montpellier before retiring to Cîteaux. Alain attempted to give rational support to the tenets of Christian faith in his writings. He held that the mind unaided by revelation can know the universe, but by faith alone can man know God. Although his thought was largely Neoplatonic, he made use of numerous Aristotelian and neo-Pythagorean elements. The mathematical and deductive method had an important place in the working out of his theology. One of his chief works, De fide catholica contra haereticos, was written in order to refute heretics and unbelievers. Alain de Lille was also one of the foremost didactic poets of his day; his chief poem Anticlaudian (tr. 1935) is a complicated allegory. He is also called Alanus de Insulis, the Latin form of his name.

Alan of Lille (or Alain of Lille) (d. 1203), poet, theologian, and preacher. He probably studied and taught at Paris c.1150–c.1185. Later he moved to the South of France and towards the end of his life entered the abbey of Cîteaux. His early theological writings include the incomplete Summa Quoniam homines, the Regulae caelestis iuris, in which he tries to state theological truths in a series of rules or axioms, and the allegorical poem Anticlaudianus (1182–3). He later compiled a dictionary of Biblical terms with literal, moral, and allegorical interpretations, an Ars praedicandi, to which was attached a set of 27 model sermons, and a Liber poenitentialis, the earliest medieval manual for confessors.

Louvier, Alain (b Paris, 1945). Fr. composer and teacher. Last recipient of Grand Prix de Rome, 1968. Dir., Nat. Mus. Sch., Boulogne-Billancourt 1972–85. Dir., Paris Cons. from 1986. Works incl. Hommage à Gauss, vn., orch. (1968); 4 Poèmes de Mallarmé, sop., narr., orch. (1968); Suite, chamber orch. (1977); Concerto for Orchestra, with elec. (1982); and many chamber works. Uses ondes Martenot and elec. in several of his comps.