J.E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship Vol. 1:
“Bernard of Chartres (d. c. 1126), William of Conches (d. 1154) and Adelard of Bath {fl. 1130) held a Platonism modified by Christianity, while they maintained the authority of Aristotle with regard to our knowledge of the world of sense.’ In comparison with the ancients, we stand (says Bernard, of himself and his contemporaries) like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants’. Bernard, ‘the most perfect Platonist of his age’, was a believer in the essential harmony of Plato and Aristotle. He looked on learning as the fruit of humble and patient research, pursued through a tranquil life of poverty and seclusion from public affairs’. The fame of his School of Classical Scholarship, and the story of his method, still live in the pages of John of Salisbury.”
