Abstract

It is estimated that there are between 600 and 900 extant manuscripts of the Book of Sentences today, an incredible number for a medieval piece of writing. Peter Lombard, after becoming dissatisfied with the limitations of the literary genre of the gloss imposed upon theological reflections, turned in the 1150s to the composition of a sentence collection in his celebrated work entitled the Book of Sentences. It was a form of writing that he knew from his contemporaries, such as Master Otto who wrote Summa sententiarum. It was not a static work and underwent a process of revision. This chapter examines the structure of a typical chapter in the Book of Sentences, which characterized this great work, and this also highlights some of the strategies of argumentation that Peter Lombard employs in it.