 John of Salisbury was born at Old Sarum (the former site of Salisbury) in England between 1115 and 1120. Specific knowledge of his family background and early life is scant; something is known of a brother, Richard, and a half-brother, Robert, both of whom held offices within the English church. John probably received an early education at Salisbury and then at Exeter. The first date safely associated with him is 1136, when he traveled to Paris to study at Mont-Sainte-Geneviève. In a famous autobiographical passage in the Metalogicon, John narrates his twelve years of education, an important source for understanding French higher instruction in this period. The list of his teachers includes many of the great thinkers of the mid-twelfth century, among them Peter Abelard, Robert of Melun, William of Conches, Thierry of Chartres, Adam de Petit Pont, Gilbert of Poitiers, and Robert Pullan. John’s studies encompassed speculative philosophy, rhetoric, linguistic theory, literature, and theology. He seems to have tutored students during his later years in Paris. It was also during these years (specifically, 1141 to 1147) that John likely drafted the first two parts of his 1852-line philosophical and satirical poem, the Entheticus de dogmate philosophorum (or Entheticus maior); the final two parts likely date from late 1154 to mid-1156 (the much shorter Entheticus minor prefaces the Policraticus).