Bernard of Chartres (fl. 1114–26), French philosopher. He was first a teacher (1114–19) and later chancellor (1119–26) of the cathedral school at Chartres, which was then an active center of learning in the liberal arts and philosophy. Bernard himself was renowned as a grammarian, i.e., as an expositor of difficult texts, and as a teacher of Plato. None of his works has survived whole, and only three fragments are preserved in works by others. He is now best known for an image recorded both by his student, John of Salisbury, and by William of Conches. In Bernard’s image, he and all his medieval contemporaries were in relation to the ancient authors like ‘dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants.’ John of Salisbury takes the image to mean both that the medievals could see more and further than the ancients, and that they could do so only because they had been lifted up by such powerful predecessors. M.D.J.