The humility topos

[Michael Barr <barr@math.mcgill.ca>]

Yesterday's NY Times magazine had an article about the British
experimental novelist David Mitchell.  Mitchell told a story to the author
of the article about how, after an event in New Zealand a woman, a
medievalist there asked him if knew about the humility topos.  I imagine
that Mitchell came across as very humble.  At any rate she went on to say,
and I quote because I am not certain how to parse it, "in the medieval era
humility was seen as a great virtue.  The humility topos was used for
those abbots...who were actually monsters of arrogance, but were always
banging on about how humble they were...".  The woman said to him, "Watch
out for the humility topos" and then disappeared.

Aside from wanting to know what was meant here, should the first quote
have put humility topos in quotes, for example, I would also like to know
what is the subobject classifier of the humility topos.

Michael

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