Chapter VI Rhetoric and Logic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
References and Abbreviations
| ARP | Baldwin (C. S.), Ancient rhetoric and poetic, New York, 1924. |
| Clerval | Clerval (l’Abbé A.), Les écoles de Chartres au moyen âge, du Ve au XVIe siècle, Chartres, 1895 (Mémoires de la Société Archéologique d’Eure-et-Loir, XI). |
| Haskins | Haskins (C. H.), The renaissance of the twelfth century, Harvard University Press, 1927. |
| Manacorda | Manacorda (G.), Storia della scuola in Italia, vol. I, Il medio evo, Milan, 1913 (2 parts in separate volumes). |
| Mignon | Mignon (l’Abbé A.), Les origines de la scolastique et Hugues de Saint-Victor, Paris, 1895, 2 vols. |
| PL | Patrologia latina, Migne (cited by volume and column). |
| Poole | Poole (Reginald Lane), Illustrations of the history of medieval thought, London, 2d ed., 1920. See also his important biography of John of Salisbury in Dict. Nat. Biog., his article in Eng. Histor. Rev., July, 1923, and his communication, March 27, 1924, to the British Academy (Proceedings, xl) on the early correspondence. |
A. The Trivium at Chartres, Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
At the fall of Rome the Trivium was dominated by rhetorica; in the Carolingian period, by grammatica; in the high middle age, by dialectica. The shift of emphasis to logic probably began in the eleventh century. Even Chartres, renowned for its teaching of grammatica, shows hints of this under Fulbert.1 In the next century the theory of logic was fortified by commanding in Latin translation those parts of Aristotle’s Organon which had not been available; and its practise became more urgent through the historic debates as to universals. By offering thus the most active training in composition, logic confirmed the restriction of rhetoric to style. John of Salisbury, after giving full scope to grammatica, focuses his great book on dialectica. Rhetorica he merely mentions; it claims none of his thought. Nor does any other leader of the high middle age treat rhetoric as active in the intellectual processes of composing. Rhetoric has no educational vitality. The vital study that taxes and develops men’s minds is logic.
In detail, grammatica at Chartres2 during the great century of the school (about 1050-1150), shows a full development of prælectio and distinct cultivation of rhythmic.3 Rhetorica, except in dictamen and in some application of the larger ancient precepts of composition to preaching, is at a standstill.4 The more significance therefore attaches to a short poem of Fulbert summing up the differences between rhetoric and logic: the one concrete, current, reasoning in enthymemes, aiming at persuasion; the other abstract, syllogistic, aiming at conviction.5 This giving of the full ancient scope to rhetoric in theory may be a reminder, may be even a protest. At any rate the practise had no such scope. The Chartres manuscript6 containing these verses is an eleventh-century collection of traditional materials for the study of logic. The study was advanced by Gilbert de la Porrée.7 Thierry’s collection8 of the traditional writers on the seven arts, Bibliotheca septem artium, or Heptateuchon, gives 190 leaves to grammatica,9 88 to rhetorica,10 154 to dialectica.11 The remaining 160 leaves of the two large volumes are devoted to the Quadrivium. Thierry’s prologue,12 summarizing the functions of the several arts viâ Martianus Capella, distributes those of the Trivium as follows: through grammatica, elegance; through dialectica, logical coherence; through rhetorica, ornament. Oral composition, as distinct from revision for style, seems to have no pedagogy except through logic.
B. The Trivium in Hugh of St. Victor
Hugh of St. Victor’s13 Lore of teaching (Eruditio didascalica, or Didascalicon) is neither a compend nor a program; it is a concise philosophical survey of education. Though his primary concern is with what is to be studied, and to what ends, he sometimes gives also acute hints of method. Book I (De studio legendi), a preliminary survey of typical directions of study, ends (xii) with logica, Hugh’s general term for the Trivium as a group, i.e., for all language studies. Considering language as expression (logica sermocinalis), these are indeed the usual three; but considering language as thought (logica rationalis), they are only two, dialectica and rhetorica. Book II (De discretione artium) expands the exposition to determine the places of all seven arts in a scheme of philosophy. First the Quadrivium, then the manual arts, are classified under the traditional threefold division:14 theory (1) of thought, (2) of morals, or conduct, (3) of technical skill. Outside this division remains the Trivium, Hugh’s logica, as a fourth and final group. Though logica may be divided simply, as in Book I, Hugh now offers a more philosophical division by function in composing. By the latter we have (a) grammatica by itself as having no such function, and (b) rhetorica and dialectica together as both involving investigation (inventio) and the processes of arrangement, and revision (iudicium). These two composition studies are thus seen to belong, as probable proof (probabilis), between absolute, or abstract proof (demonstratio) and plausible, or illegitimate proof (sophistica).
PHILOSOPHIA
| theorica (speculativa) | { theologia (the Boethian intellectibilis) | { arithmetica | |
| { mathematica (” ″ intelligibilis) | { musica | ||
| { physica (” ″ naturalis) | { geometria | ||
| { astronomia | |||
| practica (activa, ethica) | |||
| mechanica: the seven manual arts, e.g., lanificium, agricultura | |||
| logica I | { rationalis | { dialectica | |
| { rhetorica | |||
| { sermocinalis | { grammatica (scientia loquendi sine vitio) | ||
| { dialectica (disputatio acuta, verum a falso distinguens) | |||
| { rhetorica (disciplina ad persuadendum quæque idonea) | |||
| logica II | { grammatica | ||
| { ratio disserendi | { demonstratio | ||
| { probabilis (involving inventio and iudicium) | dialectica rhetorica | ||
| { sophistica | |||
From these classifications Hugh proceeds in Book III to practical considerations: of studies as training (disciplina), of the interrelations of the seven arts, of a scheme of reading (ordo legendi), of meditation, etc. The three remaining books deal with sacred studies.
Hugh’s term logica expresses a conception of the Trivium as an integrated group. Less obvious, but hardly less significant, is the importance given implicitly to logic (dialectica). Though rhetoric is recognized as having theoretically a function in composing, it receives otherwise but little more attention than in the cardinal treatise of medieval pedagogy, the Metalogicus.
C. The Metalogicus of John of Salisbury
The most extensive reasoned medieval survey of the Trivium is the Metalogicus15 of John of Salisbury. Though this devotes most space to logic and to the logical aspects of other language study, it is a unified and carefully coherent presentation of all teaching that deals with words. Statesman as well as scholar, more widely known, perhaps, than any other man of his time, and more widely conversant with its movements in church and state, secretary to two archbishops of Canterbury, rounding out his life as Bishop of Chartres, he devoted his best thought to the Metalogicus. The classification underlying its first two books is that of Hugh of St. Victor.16
| logica | { grammatica | { scientia recte loquendi scribendique | |
| { poetica | |||
| { ratio disserendi | { demonstrativa | ||
| { probabilis | { dialectica | ||
| { rhetorica | |||
| { sophistica | |||
By the conception of the Trivium as twofold, rhetorica is theoretically subordinated; and in John’s working out of the scheme it is ignored. Barely mentioned,17 it appears to have no distinctive composing function. Part of its ancient function seems to be implied now and then under grammatica; more is certainly transferred to dialectica, with which John connects most of what he discerns of composition as a study. His scheme can be comprehended only as a whole and in sequence. The survey of logica in Books I and II is not primarily an analysis. Rather it develops the functions of language studies in progressive stages. This procedure, too, as well as some of its important details, may have been suggested by Quintilian.18 John is concerned less with division than with order. His own order is so significant and so carefully marked19 that it should be followed step by step.
Digest of Metalogicus
Book I. Grammatica i-vi. The opening takes occasion from certain opponents of the Trivium.20 “When logica was derided, and its envious opponent provoked me, in spite of my indignation and protests, by almost daily disputes, at length I accepted trial, and have studied to reply to his calumnies” (824 A)... “Since I have undertaken the defense of logica, the book is entitled Metalogicon.”
vii-ix. Eloquence is natural, not in the perverted sense that the full exercise of speech is instinctive, but only to the extent that speech is the peculiar opportunity of mankind.
x (837 B). “Logica, then, to show the widest meaning of the word, is the theory of speaking or of discoursing. Sometimes it is contracted to the extent of limiting the force of the word to theories of discourse. Whether, therefore, it teaches the ways of reasoning or offers a rule for all speech, they are evidently unwise who call it useless; for either [the narrower or the wider scope] is taught by most famous theory as necessary. The twofold meaning of the word comes from its origin in Greek; for there λόγος means now speech (sermo), now theory (ratio). But that its meaning may be extended most widely, let us assign to it at present the control of all speech, so that nowhere it may be proved useless, and so that in its more general sense it may appear as a whole very useful and necessary.”
xi. The idea of any art is to further nature by theory.
xii (839 C). “But since artes are of many kinds, the first of all for a mind bent on wisdom are the artes liberales. All these are included in the theory either of the Trivium or of the Quadrivium; and so great efficacy they are said to have achieved among the ancients, who taught them assiduously, that they opened all reading, roused the mind to everything, and sufficed to resolve the difficulties of all questions which can be settled. They to whom the theory of the Trivium expounded the secrets of all speech, the law of the Quadrivium the secrets of all nature, needed no teachers to explain their books or resolve their questions.”
xiii (840 A). “Of all these the first is logica, in that part of it which deals with the first teaching of speech.... This is grammatica, the lore of speaking and writing correctly, the origin of all liberal disciplines... the cradle of all philosophy... the first nurse of all literary study.”
xiv-xvi. Grammatica imitates nature by keeping congruity of thought.21 For instance, it does not tolerate adjectives of secondary application with nouns of primary application.
xvii (847 A). “In other things, too, grammatica imitates nature; for the precepts of poetica set forth the habits of nature and exact of the craftsman in this art that he follow nature—to that degree, indeed, that the poet shall not depart from the footprints of nature, but apply himself to stick to them in manner, gesture, even word. Moreover the theory is to be kept not only in feet or tenses, but in ages, places, seasons,22 and other details beyond our present purpose; for all these come from the workshop of nature. Indeed, poetica stays so close to the things of nature that many have refused to include it in grammatica, asserting that it is an art in itself, pertaining no more to grammatica than to rhetorica,23 though so far related to both as to have precepts in common. Let them snarl about this who will. I will not keep up the dispute; but under favor of them all I think that poetica is to be assigned to grammatica as to the mother and nurse of its study.... Either grammatica will hold on to poetica, or poetica will be turned out from the number of the liberal disciplines.”
xviii-xx. Grammatica deals both with precision and with imagery, both with denotation and with connotation. It includes letters, syllables, phrase, sentence-form, punctuation, figures, metric—everything that can be taught verbally.
xxi-xxiii. It has occupied persons no less eminent than Cæsar and Cicero. It is a practical guide to utterance and to learning. The objection derived from Seneca is insufficient. For the practise of philosophy and of virtue the important approaches are reading, teaching, meditation. Of these the root and foundation is grammatica.
xxiv. Actually the prælectio is vindicated by such a grammaticus as Bernard of Chartres.24
(853 C) “He, then, who aspires to philosophy, let him lay hold of reading, teaching, and meditation, with the practise of good works, lest God be angry and what he seemeth to have be taken from him. But since lectio is equivocal, applicable both to the practise of teacher and learner and to the absorption of one studying writings for himself, let the one, the interchange of teacher and learner, be called, to use Quintilian’s word, prælectio, the other, applied to the scrutiny of meditation, simply lectio. On the authority, then, of Quintilian, the grammaticus in his prælectio ought to attend to such details as to ask to have the verse analyzed into the parts of speech and the appropriate feet, which ought to be known in poems. He should take exception to barbarisms, improprieties, or other transgressions of the law of speaking—not, however, that he should find fault with poets for metrical necessities which, though faults in prose, are called virtues in verse, since force of necessity commonly wins the praise of virtue for what cannot be denied without sacrifice. Metaplasm, sentence variation, figures of speech and such various iterations as may be present, the theory underlying this way of speaking or that—all these the prælectio should point out and impress upon the hearer’s memory by frequent warnings.
(854 A) “The prælectio should make authors yield, without holding them up to ridicule, the feathers with which, crow-fashion, they have decked their works from various disciplines, to make the style more becoming. The more disciplines the teacher is imbued with, and the more abundantly, the more fully he will discern the elegance of authors, the more clearly he will bring it out in teaching. For they by the diacrisis which we may call illustration25 or visualization, when they had undertaken in bare outline story, plot, fable, or whatever else it might be, would develop it with such abundance of disciplines and such charm of sentence and style that the work when completed seemed the image of all the arts.
(854 B) “Grammatica and poetica, indeed, are entirely fused and control the whole surface of what is expounded. Campologica, as it is called, contributing descriptive amplification of proof,26 looses its theory in a blaze of gold; and rhetorica with store of persuasions and brilliance of style rivals the brightness of silver. Mathematics is borne on the wheels of its Quadrivium and, hard on the heels of the others, has woven its own figures and charms in manifold variety. Science, having searched the counsels of nature, brings from its own storehouse manifold charm of figures. Moreover that which rises above the other parts of philosophy—I mean ethics—without which not even the name of philosopher abides, surpasses all the others in the gift of ornament that it brings. Sound Vergil or Lucan, and there, whatever philosophy you profess, you will find its making. In proportion, therefore, to the capacity of the pupil, or to the industry and diligence of the teacher, the fruit of the prælectio auctorum is constant.
(854 C) “This used to be the habit of Bernard of Chartres, in our modern times the most overflowing spring of literature in Gaul. In his reading he would show first what was simple and regular. Grammatical forms, rhetorical figures, quibbles of sophistry, relations of the passage to other disciplines, he used to bring out clearly—not, however, by teaching everything at every point, but by adjusting to the capacity of his pupils and to the time of the instruction. Since appeal of discourse is either in precision, that is in the nice adjustment of adjective or verb to noun, or in imagery, that is in passing by comparison from one sense to another, he used to inculcate these in the minds of his hearers whenever he found occasion. Since memory is strengthened and talent is sharpened by practise, he would spur some by exhortation, others by punishments, to imitate what they had heard. Each of them was required to account on the following day for what he had heard on the preceding, some more, some less. For with them the preceding day always taught the following.27
(855 A) “The evening exercise, which was called declinatio,28 carried such abundance of grammar that any one keeping at it for a whole year, provided he were not too stupid, would control the principles of speaking and writing and could not remain ignorant of the meaning of expressions in common use. But since no school, nor any day, should be without religion, such a subject was proposed as would upbuild faith and morals and animate the group, as by common discussion, toward good. The final item, moreover, of this declinatio, or rather of this philosophical discussion, exhibited the footsteps of pious remembrance. The souls of the departed, by devout offering of the sixth penitential psalm [De profundis] and the Lord’s Prayer, were commended to their Redeemer.
(855 B) “For those whose assignments were elementary exercises in imitating prose or poetry he set poets or orators and prescribed close imitation after showing the art of connection and of sentence close.29 If a boy had brightened his work by sewing on a piece from some one else, he would show that the theft was detected, but very often would inflict no punishment. But if the borrowing was misplaced, with modest kindliness he bade the boy come down to express his author’s likeness; and his own practise was such that in imitating his predecessors he became a model for his successors. He also taught among the elements and fixed in mind the force of composition,30 the achievement of thought and of phrase, the character of the style, whether thinness or plausible abundance, extravagance or just measure.
(855 C) “Stories and poems, he used to say, were to be read carefully, not on the run; and of each pupil he required as a daily task something memorized with careful attention. But superfluous reading, he would add, should be shunned, famous authors are enough. To follow what every one, however unimportant, has ever said is to regard oneself either too meanly or too boastfully. It holds back and obstructs minds which would otherwise make better use of their leisure; and what displaces something better is so far unavailing that it cannot even be called good. To explore all papers and ponder all writings, even those not worth reading, is no more to the purpose than to attend to old wives’ tales. For, as Augustine says in his De ordine: ‘Who shall call that man uncultured who has not heard of the flight of Dædalus, or a liar for asserting it, or impudent for questioning it? I always feel deep pity for those of our friends who are accused of ignorance if they have not answered what was the name of the mother of Euryalus, and who dare not call the people who ask such questions shallow, impertinent, and curious.’ So says Augustine both neatly and truly. Therefore it was rightly reckoned by the ancients among the virtues of a grammaticus that there should be some things which he did not know.
(856 A) “Since in all the preliminary exercises nothing is more useful than to accustom oneself to what ought to be done expertly, Bernard’s students would daily write prose and verse and practise themselves by exchange of criticism. Nothing is more useful than this exercise for expression, nothing more promotive of learning; and its greatest contribution is to the conduct of life, provided this insistence be controlled by charity, and progress in literature contribute to humility.”
The last chapter (xxv) quotes at length the laus grammaticæ of Quintilian I. iv. 5-6.31
Book II. Demonstrativa and Dialectica
Proem. “The course of the former book has sufficiently, I think, disengaged the truth that grammatica is not useless, and that without it not only eloquence falls short, but the way toward the other expressions of philosophy is not open.”
i. Logica, being the theory of discourse, embraces both investigation and judgment.32
ii. Knowledge of truth being for them the highest good, the Peripatetics divided philosophy into two parts: natural, or physical, and moral, or ethical.33 But the difficulties arising from insufficient control of discourse “demonstrated the need of determining and publishing a lore which should distinguish words and concepts34 and dissipate the mists of fallacies. Here, indeed, as Boethius asserts in his second commentary on Porphyry, is the origin of the logica disciplina. For there had to be a lore which should distinguish the true from the false and teach which reasoning holds the path of [absolute] truth, which of probable, which of assumed,35 and which should be distrusted. Otherwise truth cannot be found by reasoning (858 C).... The rules of the art were seized and handed down finally by Aristotle.”
iii. (859 C) “Later in time than the other disciplines of philosophy, this is first in place. For beginners in philosophy it is a prerequisite, as the interpreter of words and concepts, without which no item of philosophy comes precisely to light. He who thinks that philosophy is taught without logica, i.e., by [direct] cultivation of wisdom, may as well do away with theory in everything, since this is the domain of logica.... The very name comes from its being an aid and a test of theory. Plato divided it into dialectica and rhetorica; but those who estimate its efficacy higher give it more, i.e., demonstrativa, probabilis, sophistica. Demonstrativa begins in the first stages of training, and passes on into the next. It is satisfied only by necessity; provided a thing ought to be so, it pays little attention to whether or not it appears to be so. This becomes the philosophical majesty of those who are teaching precisely, a majesty grounded, quite apart from the assent of an audience, on its own will. Probabilis, on the other hand, is occupied with what appears to be so to all, or to many, or to intelligent observers, with what is best known and most probable to them, or with what follows therefrom. This includes dialectica and rhetorica, since logician and orator alike striving to persuade, the one an opponent, the other a judge, think the [abstract] truth of their arguments makes little difference, provided they keep what seems to be true. But sophistica, which is apparent and not serviceable wisdom, assumes the likeness either of probability or of necessity, little caring what this or that may be, while it involves whatever is discussed in fanciful images and deceptive shadows. Dialectica, that member of the Trivium which all approach from this side and from that, but few, in my judgment, really pursue, neither aspires to dogma, nor is drowned in the waves of politics, but analyzes truth by prompt and reasonable probability.”
iv. Dialectica, moreover, is the art of effective debate.
v-viii. Logica has for its distinctive function to serve as effective instrument. It is not an end in itself. So perverted, it becomes the absurd and deplorable occupation of senility.
ix-xi. (866 C) “Dialectica, which among the servants of eloquence is most alert and prompt, avails each man according to the measure of his knowledge.... Deprived of the strength of the other disciplines, it is maimed and almost useless; thriving with their vigor, it is strong to overthrow all falsehood, and always suffices at least to reach a probable conclusion.” From my own teachers, to whom I returned years after they had schooled me, I conclude that “as dialectica advances other disciplines, so if it remain alone, it lies bloodless and sterile, and does not engender the fruit of philosophy in a soul not impregnated from other sources.” Of itself it can only despatch issues, not rise to others.
xii. Dialectica operates in all disciplines wherever the issue is abstract.36 It leaves to rhetorica whatever is hypothesis, i.e., whatever involves concrete circumstances: who, what, when, why, how. It makes no address to the public, expects no legal decision.
xiii-xv. Though each division of philosophy has its own field of inquiry and its own principles, yet logica supplies methods common to all, as it were theory in a nutshell. A problem in dialectica considers choice and avoidance, truth and knowledge, whether for itself or as aiding inquiry where opinion divides.
xvi-xvii. Review of the value and place of Aristotle, of the right use of Porphyry’s Introduction, and of other typical cases in teaching. Bernard (875 D) of Chartres and his followers took great pains to heal the breach between Plato and Aristotle; “but in my opinion they came late and labored in vain to reconcile in death those who differed as long as they lived.”
xviii-xix. Certain errors of those who profess Aristotle can hardly be overlooked: the burdening of tender shoulders, the making of Porphyry cover the whole ground, the misinterpretation that simplifies Aristotle by substituting Plato or something remote from both.
xx. The last chapter, much the longest, presents Aristotle on genus and species.
Book III. Topica i-iv. A survey of the teaching of categoriæ, prædicamenta, and interpretatio as preliminary begins with general advice (890 D). “The exposition of every book should be such as to furnish most readily the knowledge of what is written. No occasion should be sought of introducing difficulty; everywhere the way should be opened. That was the practise, I remember, of Abelard... (891 A). Thus Porphyry should be read so that the significance of the expressions in question may be retained and the sense of the words got from the surface. He will be sufficiently introductory so, and conspicuous for being quickly intelligible... (891 D). For the text is to be searched mannerly, not bitterly racked, as if it were a prisoner, until it gives up what it has not taken.” This preliminary closes with a reminiscence (900 C). “Bernard of Chartres used to say that we, like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, can see more and farther not because we are keener and taller, but because of the greatness by which we are carried and exalted.”
v-x. Forecasting the rest of the program, John wonders why Aristotle’s Topica should have been so long neglected (903 A). “Single words of it, in both rules and examples, are valuable not only for dialectica, but for almost all the disciplines. It comprises eight books, each more potent than the last.” The following digest, book by book, iterates (910 C) the general value. “The precepts of all eloquence seem to be derived originally from it as from the primary source. For it is indubitably true, as Cicero and Quintilian say, that rhetors and rhetoricians have found in it not only an aid, but a source.”
Book IV. Analytica
In contrast to the ten long chapters of III, IV is divided into forty-two short ones: i-v, analytica in general; vi-viii, demonstrativa; ix-xx, the progress of knowledge: sensus, imaginatio, prudentia, ratio, intellectus; xxi-xxiii, hypothetica, sophistica; xxiv-xlii, critical review: objectors to Aristotle the place of logica in teaching, typical conceptions of ratio, and of truth and error, the relation of ratio to veritas.
This last book iterates the importance of correlation (xxviii. 982 B). “But though logica is useful generally, he who is ignorant of other arts[37] is not so much helped by it toward philosophy as he is hindered by a habit of verbosity and presumption. For logica is almost useless if it be alone. It stands out when it shines by the power of correlated studies.”
John’s slighting of rhetoric cannot be explained merely by his preoccupation with logic. Why was he thus preoccupied in a consistent and progressive scheme of the whole Trivium? He begins with a logica embracing all studies of words; he devotes a whole book to grammatica; in his last pages he is speaking of an organon that shall be a minister to eloquentia. Yet rhetorica he merely mentions when he must. That he was aware of its ancient importance in such a scheme as his is evident from his large use of Quintilian’s Teaching of Rhetoric. No other medieval writer gave this work more attention. The much-quoted chapter (I. xxiv) on prælectio uses not only Quintilian’s ideas, but his very words;38 and other correspondences are no less significant. The following list, though not complete, is typical.
| QUINTILIAN, INST. ORAT. | METALOGICUS |
|---|---|
| I. iii. 3-5 Illud ingeniorum... decrescit. | II. viii. 865 B-C Hoc est quod... decrescit. |
| I. viii. 13-14 In prælegendo grammaticus... memoriam agitet. | I. xxiv. 853 D-854 A In prælegendo grammaticus... memoriam auditorum. |
| 17-21 Præcipue vero illa... aliqua nescire. | 855 B-D Id quoque inter prima... aliqua ignorare [with substitution of Augustine for Didymus, who is relegated to 864 C]. |
The correspondences above, verbatim for considerable stretches, involve here and there transpositions or other variations. The following are quotations or adaptations.
| I. iv. 5-6 Quo minus sunt ferendi... quam ostentationis. Ne quis igitur... scientiam possit. | I. xxv. 856 D in libro De institutione oratoris... Ait ergo: “Ne quis [and the two sentences are quoted in reverse order].” |
| II. iii. 3 Propter quod Timotheum... | II. vii. 864 D Refert Quintilianus [quotation with slight verbal variation]. |
| II. iv. 5-7 Nec unquam... quod exculpi. | IV. xxviii. 932 B Teneræ tamen ætati... improbitas conquiescat [correspondence evident in idea, occasionally in word]. |
| X. i. 83 Quid Aristotelem?... clariorem putem. | II. ii. 859 A quid de eo dicat Quintilianus: “Quid Aristotelem?... [exact quotation].” |
| X. i. 125-131 Ex industria Senecam... quod voluit efficit. | I. xxii. 852 B [Discusses Quintilian’s view (“ut pace Quintiliani loquar”) with occasional reminiscence of his words.] |
Even if these correspondences were confined to Quintilian’s first and second books, there would still be no sufficient ground for the inference that John, consulting him primarily for grammatica and further for his general ideas on education, did not think of him as a rhetorician. For Quintilian not only presents rhetoric from the beginning; he frequently in these first books cites and quotes Aristotle as a rhetorician. But the matter seems to be put beyond doubt by the use of Book X. It is only fair to assume of so careful a scholar reading the first books and one of the last, and occupied with Quintilian’s idea of educational sequence, that he read the whole work.39
Having read and admired one of the chief ancient works on rhetoric, why did he leave rhetoric out of his own scheme? The answer is probably in the contemporary conditions to which the Metalogicus is adjusted, and especially in the contemporary state of rhetoric. It seems not to have been in the twelfth century worth more than mention from a John of Salisbury seeking a vital sequence of studies. It lacked what he sought above all, vital relations. If he had known Aristotle’s Rhetoric, he might conceivably have sought to recall the ancient study to its better ancient aim. What he found vital in Quintilian’s rhetoric he transferred to grammatica or to dialectica, partly, no doubt, because the transfer was actually going on, partly, one may think, because he saw in these other studies the real opportunities of his time for composition. The current lore of ornament which passed for rhetoric could hardly detain his consideration.
What he discerns in grammatica, and had found in the teaching of Bernard, is of course training in precision. But though he makes much of this, he does not slight the value of concreteness for presentation; he sees the importance of studying style by imitation; and he adopts from Quintilian a word not common in medieval treatises, œconomia. All these point to composition; and composition seems to have been one of the essential applications of the master’s analysis. The prælectio as John describes it is tinged with Quintilian because it realizes fully the ancient function of grammatica with the poets.
In the rapidly expanding teaching of dialectica also he sees opportunity for composition. To this end, very likely, he urges repeatedly that the debates of the schools keep touch with reality by insisting on subject matter through correlation with other studies. Above all he desires that language studies be unified and progressive, that they call for expanding correlation of inventio and iudicium. The study that in his time actually demanded and exercised these was not rhetorica, which was by way of ignoring both; it was dialectica.
D. Thirteenth Century Surveys
1. The Anticlaudianus of Alain de Lille
The allegorical survey entitled by Alain40 Anticlaudianus has but superficial likeness to the De nuptiis philologiæ et Mercurii41 of Martianus Capella. Each presents the seven liberal arts in allegory; each is in nine books; but there is no real resemblance, nor any indication of Alain’s having used Martianus except as a stock source. The allegory of Martianus is confined to his first two books, and is purely decorative; the allegory of Alain pervades his whole work as a controlling idea. That idea is the function of education in the redemption of mankind. The sub-title “de officio viri boni et perfecti” is akin to Hugh’s42 “animæ perfectio.” The consistent, elaborate theological symbolism shows some force of conception and, in spite of occasional excursions into style, some ardor and elevation. The four thousand hexameters are usually above the medieval fatal fluency in this verse. The survey, though it has not Hugh’s originality and does not attempt John’s unification, is equally serious.
The seven arts are summoned to provide Prudentia with a chariot for her quest on behalf of man. Grammatica supplies the pole; Logica, the axle, which Rhetorica adorns with gems and gold; the Quadrivium, the four wheels. The horses, the five senses, are then harnessed by Ratio. When the upward journey has reached the term of human powers, Prudentia, leaving her chariot, is conducted by Theologia into the empyrean, to the saints, to Mary, to God himself. Obtaining of God the formation of the new man, Prudentia returns to seek gifts for the anima creata. Natura gives it a body. Concordia and Pudicitia, Ratio and Honestas, coöperate in gifts with the seven arts. The dubious gifts of Fortuna are assisted by Ratio. Thereupon the vices declare war, which is concluded by the victory of the opposed virtues.
Alain incidentally defines the character of each of the seven arts, and summarizes its scope. Each has its function—except rhetorica. The other members of the Trivium43 provide the car of Prudentia with essential pole and axle; the Quadrivium supplies essential wheels; but all that Rhetorica has to offer is quite unessential adornment. Though Alain rehearses the traditional parts of her ancient lore,44 he sums up her actual occupation in two lines of cardinal significance.
Supremasque manus apponit, opusque sororum
Perficit, atque semel factum perfectius ornat.
III. ii. 511 D.
In other words, rhetoric is not operative as composition, but only as style after the fact. Her gifts to the soul are only colores, decor, clausula.
Adsunt rhetoricæ cultus floresque colorum,
Verba quibus stellata nitent; et sermo decorem
Induit, et multa splendescit clausula luce.
VII. vi. 554 D.
Alain’s own use of rhetoric is consistent with this point of view. Each of his allegorical figures is introduced with the conventional descriptive ecphrasis; and his diffuseness arises from the idea that poetica involves decorative dilation by those colores of which Cicero and Vergil are equally patterns.
Verbi pauperiem redimit splendore colorum
Tullius, et dictis ornatus fulgura donat.
Virgilii musa mendacia multa colorat,
Et facie veri contexit pallia falso.
I. iv. 491 C.
2. The Speculum Doctrinale of Vincent of Beauvais
The vast Speculum of Vincent of Beauvais45 is a compend of all knowledge. Its second part, Speculum doctrinale, Mirror of Teaching, devotes two books to the Trivium. Grammatica,46 including metric, follows Isidore. The following book47 devotes ninety-eight chapters to logic (logica), ten to rhetoric, twenty-three to poetic. The proportion is significant; and poetica, taken from under the ægis of grammatica, appears as a separate, coördinate section. For rhetoric Vincent, still following Isidore,48 repeats the classical definition and division. The following chapters (101-108) deal briefly with the elements of a speech, the ideals of oratory, the types of cases, status, syllogisms, loci rhetorici, style.
Vincent then goes on to poetica,
which Alphorabius49 in his book on the division of the scientiæ puts last among the parts of logica, and which in his book on the origin of the scientiæ he describes thus: “Poetica is the lore of ordering meters according to the proportion of words (dictiones) and the times of feet and of their rhythms (numeri).” Again he says in the former book: “It belongs to poetica to make the hearer through its locutions image something as fair or foul which is not so,50 that he may believe and shun or desire it. Although certainly it is not so in truth, nevertheless, the minds of hearers are roused to shun or desire what they image.” Moreover poetry has seven species: comedia, tragedia, invectio, satyra, fabula, historia, argumentum.51 Comedia is poetry reversing a sad beginning by a glad end; but tragedia is poetry lapsing from a glad beginning to a sad end (109). The function, then, of the poet is in this, that with a certain beauty he converts actual events into other species by his slanting figures (end of 110).
Except meter, which belongs under grammatica, and the two forms of drama, which are not thought of as forms of composition, there is nothing to distinguish this poetic from rhetoric.
3. St. Bonaventure de Reductione Artium Ad Theologiam
St. Bonaventure52 distinguishes four “lights”: (1) the exterior light of a manual art, illuminating with regard to artistic form; (2) the inferior light of knowledge through the senses, illuminating with regard to the patterns of nature; (3) the interior light of philosophical knowledge, illuminating with regard to truth comprehended intellectually; (4) the superior light of grace and revelation, illuminating with regard to truth as a means of salvation.53 For (3), the “interior light,” his division is stated first in its commonest form. Philosophia is: (a) rationalis (i.e., sermonum), (b) naturalis (i.e., rerum), (c) moralis (i.e., morum). This division54 he then repeats in another form and order:
(a) physica, for knowing the causes of being;
(b) logica, for knowing the theory of understanding;
(c) practica, for knowing the conduct of living.
Finally he considers it in a third aspect. The domain of moralis is motive; of physica is self-limited and self-sufficient; of sermocinalis is interpretation. The last item he subdivides into:
grammatica, for expression, regarding reason as apprehension, seeking the appropriate;
logica, for instruction, regarding reason as judgment, seeking the true;
rhetorica, for persuasion, regarding reason as motive, seeking the ornate.55
Bonaventure does not use the word dialectica. His word for this, not for the whole Trivium,56 is logica. Though his movendum and motivam suggest association of rhetoric with morals, and remind one of Aristotle’s conception, and Cicero’s, and Quintilian’s, he is content to give rhetoric the narrow and barren field of ornatus, assigning docendum and verum to logic.
4. The Trésor of Brunetto Latini
The Old French Trésor of Brunetto Latini57 devotes a far larger proportion of space than Vincent’s Speculum to rhetoric. Book I, surveying the seven arts,58 includes history, geography, and the zoölogy of the bestiaries. Book II adds to Aristotelian ethics a collection of moral apothegms.59 Book III opens politics with rhetoric.
Here begins the third book of the Treasure, which speaks of the teachings of good speech and of the government of towns and cities.... Cicero says that the highest lore for governing a city is rhetoric.60 467.
They are mistaken who think that to tell fables or old stories... is matter of rhetoric.... [Rather rhetoric is concerned with] what is said by word of mouth or sent by letter to induce belief, to praise or blame, to advise... in something that demands decision. 471.
The following chapters present the ancient division into five parts and the lore of status and quæstio.61 But at this point the distinctive ancient function of rhetoric begins to fade. After saying that the main division of all expression is into prose and rime, he adds that “the teachings of rhetoric are common to both,” save for the restrictions of meter.62 The section on dispositio, the ordering of a speech, takes from Martianus Capella not his sober survey, but a single passage which Brunetto perverts by subdivision and by transfer to narrative.
To exploration of the material [of a speech], with discernment of its value for persuasion, is to be joined the ordering of the points, which is the part commonly called dispositio.... The scheme may be either the natural order or devised by the orator’s artifice; natural, when after the beginning comes the statement of facts, then the division, proposition, proof, conclusion and epilogue; by the orator’s artifice, when the things that must be said have been distributed through the parts of the speech.63
Here Martianus is apparently extending to the whole plan of a speech the commonplace of ancient rhetoric that the narratio (statement of facts) might be either continuous as a single, distinct part, or distributed for the sake of giving salience to its separate items. Brunetto’s further extension is not his own; it is common stock of the contemporary artes poeticæ.64 These manuals make much of “natural” and “artificial” order, subdivide each, and apply both to narrative. Brunetto is typical.
“Order [means] everything in its place; but this order is in two manners, one which is natural and another artificial.... The artificial order is divided into eight manners”:
(1) to say at the beginning what was at the end,
(2) to begin with what was in the middle,
(3) to base your story on the beginning of a proverb,
(4) to base it on the middle of the proverb,
(5) to base it on the end of the proverb,
(6) (7) (8) so for three uses of an example. 482.
The mechanical division reflects a wide abeyance in theory, not only of poetic shaping and movement, but even of the dispositio of ancient rhetoric; for its real concern is not with composition at all, whether in prose or in verse, but with the phrasing of certain patterns.
Brunetto’s preoccupation with style, and with style mainly as decorative dilation, soon appears in “how to dilate one’s tale in eight ways... which are called colors of rhetoric.”65 Among these colores, under demonstrance (demonstratio), is his celebrated, but entirely conventional, ecphrasis on Yseult.
The traditional parts of a speech (exordium, etc.) are used66 as an approach to dictamen, of which Brunetto appears to be thinking through much of what follows. The concluding chapters on statecraft are far from a discussion of politics. Rather they set forth the conduct of a seigneur. Thus they fail to carry out the relations of rhetoric to government which in his opening he borrows from Cicero. Book III, then, of the Trésor lapses further and further from the ancient conception of rhetoric with which it begins. The rhetoric which it actually presents, and which it applies to poetry as well as to dictamen,67 is a meager, though pleasant, review of style.68
What rhetoric appears in these surveys to lack most is distinct function. Writers as different as John of Salisbury and Brunetto Latini seem to think of it as polishing, decorating, especially dilating, what has been already expressed. It comes in after the real job is done; it has lost its ancient function of composing. The ancient lore of inventio kept rhetoric in contact with subject matter and with actual presentation. This had so much less scope in feudal society that the lore easily lapsed, or was perverted. The only large field for its exercise was preaching. Education, therefore, naturally threw its weight on grammatica for boys, on dialectica for men. Between the two rhetoric was crowded into narrow room. Whether it would still have vindicated itself if it had been the rhetoric of Aristotle, or oftener the rhetoric of Quintilian, can be only conjectured. Actually it was the rhetoric of De inventione and ad Herennium, and inculcated the sophistic of Sidonius. That may explain why there was no medieval rhetorician who really advanced the study.
Footnotes
1 Fulbert, c. 960-1028. His distinguished successor Ives, who ruled Chartres 1090-1115, had been, with Anselm, a pupil of Lanfranc at Bec, and had himself taught there (Clerval, 146).
That Chartres had the whole Organon even before Gilbert de la Porrée, Richard l’Evêque, and John of Salisbury is shown by Clerval, 244 seq.
Haskins notes in the twelfth century the primacy of the cathedral schools (Laon, Tours, Chartres, Orléans, Paris) over the monastic.
(The Normans in European History, 177; The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, 49.)
2 The traditional manuals and authors continue: Donatus, Priscian, Martianus Capella (not much used), Bede, De arte metrica; Livy, Valerius Maximus, Orosius, Gregory of Tours; Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Terence, Statius; Fortunatus, Sedulius, Arator, Prudentius, Boethius. Prælectio appears at its best in John of Salisbury’s account of the teaching of Bernard of Chartres (below pages 160-164). See the admirable summaries, period by period, in Clerval.
The library at Bec in the twelfth century had Priscian, Isidore, Martianus Capella (with Remi’s commentary), Anselm De grammatica, and Claudian (PL 150: 775-782).
3 Clerval, 111-113, suggests an influence on the earlier forms of liturgical sequences.
4 Colson (ed. of Book I, Cambridge, 1924) finds no clear indication of Quintilian in the eleventh century; and the large use of him by John of Salisbury in the twelfth (below, page 169) is not specifically related to rhetoric. Cicero is limited to De inventione and the commentary of Victorinus (Clerval, 115). The Rhetorica ad Herennium is the source of the Colores of Onulf, who taught at Speier c. 1050. The Bec library had in the twelfth century “utraque rhetorica” (i.e., De inv. and Ad Herenn.), Cicero, De partit. orat., Suetonius, and the letters of Sidonius. At Chartres Thierry cites Quintilian and, according to Clerval, 233, Cicero, De oratore. The latter, with Quintilian, appears in A list of textbooks from the close of the twelfth century, Haskins in Harvard Stud. Class. Phil. 20:92.
5 Clerval, 115-116.
6 *100 as described in Clerval, 117. Besides Fulbert’s verses, it has (*10) two short treatises: De rhetoricæ cognatione, and Locorum rhetoricorum distinctio. The Topica, of course, are common ground between rhetoric and logic.
7 Gilbertus Porretanus, c. 1075-1154, Chancellor at Chartres 1126, teacher at Paris 1141, Bishop of Poitiers 1142; Liber sex principiorum, Comment. IV libr. Boeth., Liber de causis. See Clerval, 163-168, and Poole. Clerval suggests that Gilbert, as well as Thierry and Bernard Silvester, had relations with the Toulouse translators of Arabic books into Latin.
8 Terricus Carnotensis, Breton, scolarum magister at Chartres 1121, taught rhetoric at Paris c. 1140, died c. 1150; Comment. De invent. and Rhet. ad Herenn.; Heptateuchon c. 1141 (Chartres MSS. *497, 498) described in Clerval, 220 seq., with a synoptic table of contents.
9 Donatus and Priscian.
10 Cic. De invent. and Partit. Orat., Rhet. ad Herenn., the summary of Severianus, and Martianus Capella.
11 The usual Boethian items.
12 Translated in Clerval, 221.
13 Hugh of St. Victor, Saxon, c. 1096-1141, entered the Abbey of St. Victor at Paris c. 1116 and taught there; works PL 175-177. See especially Mignon, whose second chapter is a good summary of studies before Hugh. A critical study of the MSS. by Hauréau (B.), Les œuvres de H. de St. V., Paris, 1886 (a revision of a study published in 1859), shows that Eruditio didascalica has only six parts, the seventh added in PL being a separate work. See also Fourier Bonnard, Histoire de l’abbaye royale et de l’ordre des chanoines réguliers de St. Victor de Paris, Paris (n. d.); and the index to Manacorda. John of Salisbury refers to Hugh, and uses part of his classification.
14 The division, which is common in the middle age (e.g., John of Salisbury, Metalogicus, II. ii), is in Quintilian, Inst. Or. XII. 2. 10.
15 About 1159. For John see Poole, the index to Clerval, and the antiquated, but still suggestive study of Schaarschmidt, J. S. nach Leben und Studien..., Leipzig, 1862. Webb (C. C. I.) has edited the Policraticus, Oxford, 1909, with an introduction especially valuable for John’s reading, and announced an edition of the Metalogicus, for which meantime the only available text is in PL 199, referred to in this section by column. The letters, also in PL 199, were printed with Gerbert’s and Stephen of Tournai’s in 1611 (Paris, Ruette). The Historia pontificalis, printed in MGH as anonymous, has been edited by Poole, Oxford University Press, 1927. Policraticus IV, V, VI, with selections from VII and VIII, are translated, with an introduction, by Dickinson (J.) as The statesman’s yearbook of J. of S., New York, 1927.
16 See the preceding section. John mentions Hugh at 833 A, 924 B. The word disserere Hugh and John may have taken, as John took other things at the opening of Book II, from Isidore (see above, page 97); but the ultimate source of the phrase ratio disserendi is probably Cicero’s Topica: “omnis ratio diligens disserendi duas habet partes, unum inveniendi alteram iudicandi.” Top. 2. Cf. Fin. 1. 7. 22; Fat. 1. 1. Disserere seems limited to dialectica in De orat. I. 9 (see Wilkins’s note); but using the same word in II. 157, Cicero points out that the proper function of dialectica is analysis (iudicium, not inventio). In Orator 113, discussing the common ground of rhetoric and logic, he says “utrumque in disserendo est,” and goes on to distinguish logic as ratio disputandi from rhetoric as ratio dicendi. Dicere is generally his word for rhetoric. Quintilian, whom John uses largely, probably has in mind the same distinction in X. 1. 81, though in other places he uses disserere more generally.
17 I. xvii (847 C), xxiv (854 B), II. x (868 B).
18 For John’s use of Quintilian, see below, page 169.
19 In this respect Metalogicus is conspicuously different from Policraticus.
20 These “Cornificians” are mentioned 825 C, 827 A, 852 B, 857 A. See Clerval 182, 211, 227.
21 Quadam proportione rationis, 841 B.
22 This poetic is none the less rhetoric for being confirmed by quotations from Horace (Ars poetica, 102-105, 108-111; see ARP 245). The general doctrine of appropriateness was the basis of the specific recipes for encomium (above, page 31).
23 Cf. Vincent of Beauvais below, section D. 2.
24 The following translation renders entire the most specific extant account of prælectio in the middle age. Long selections from it in French translation will be found in Clerval, 225-227; a shorter selection, with the corresponding Latin text, in Faral, Les arts poétiques du xiie et du xiiie siècle, Paris, 1924, 99-101. Haskins, 135, has a short selection in English translation.
For prælectio, see the index to ARP and to this volume.
25 Illustratio is Quintilian’s word (and Cicero’s, he says) in VI. ii. 32, where he is exhibiting the same sort of development as is here indicated by John. For historia, argumentum, fabula see the index. That these were elementary school exercises suggests that the subject of this sentence (Illi) refers not to authors, but to schoolboys engaged in developing a materia; but the reference can hardly be determined in PL, in which the whole sentence seems to me dubious.
26 Probandi colores. The word colores in this sense, unusual at this time, is characteristic of Seneca Rhetor, to whom John refers in II. viii. But the solution of a passage apparently corrupt may well await a better text.
27 Cf. III. vi (904 C). Et sicut juxta ethicum: discipulus prioris est posterior dies.
28 Declinatio is the eighth item, under Priscian, in the list from Thierry’s Heptateuchon cited above, page 153.
29 For clausula see the indexes to ARP and to this volume; for John’s own cadences, below, Chapter VIII.
30 Œconomia.
31 See below, page 170.
32 For inventio and iudicium see Hugh above, page 154, and note 16. Quintilian III. iii. 5 objects to the application of this to rhetoric.
33 See Hugh’s division above, page 155.
34 Vocum et intellectuum.
35 Ficta, hypothetical? Sophistica seems to be intended in the following clause.
36 Thesis.
37 Reading aliarum.
38 This is pointed out by Colson in his edition of Quintilian’s first book, Cambridge, 1924, page 1, note 2. It is the stranger that the quotations should not have been noticed before since John himself calls attention to them: “ut verbo utamur Quintiliani,” “ab auctoritate ejusdem Quintiliani” (I. xxiv. 853 D).
39 Illustratio in I. xxiv (854 A/B) is probably a reminiscence of Quintilian VI. ii. 32, to judge not only from the word, but from the context in both passages. Cf. 844 A, 851 C, 860 C, 910 D.
40 Alanus de Insulis (about 1128-1202), Cistercian at Citeaux, sometimes called “doctor universalis,” wrote mainly on theology. Anticlaudianus was edited by Wright in the second volume of his Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the Twelfth Century, London, (Rolls Series), which contains also De planctu naturæ. The latter has been translated by D. M. Moffat in Yale Studies in English, New York, 1908.
The citations in this section are by column from PL 210. For the Summa de arte predicatoria see below, Chapter IX. C.
41 See above, Chapter III. B. 1.
42 For Hugh, see above, page 153.
43 Alain’s order is the usual (1) grammatica, (2) dialectica, (3) rhetorica. His logica is dialectica, not the inclusive term of Hugh and John. Its auctores (III. ii. 510 A) are Porphyry, Aristotle, Zeno, Boethius.
44 III. ii. 512-513.
45 About 1190-1264. The Speculum was printed at Strasburg in 1473, and by the Benedictines at Douai in 1624.
46 Book III (II in the Benedictine edition).
47 Book IV (III in the Benedictine edition).
48 Vincent refers in Chapter 100 to Quintilian. “Tullius in libro de oratore” (100 and 127) is probably not a reference to De oratore. In 101 “Tullius in rhetorica prima,” and in 127 “idem in rhetorica secunda,” are the usual references to De inventione and ad Herennium. For the references to Quintilian see Bassi, Giornale storico, XXIII, 186, and Colson’s introduction to his edition of Quintilian’s first book, page lii.
49 Farabi. For translations from Arabic see above, page 153, and Haskins, Chapter IX.
50 Compare Alain above in the quotation on page 174.
51 For the three school exercises that conclude this list see the indexes to ARP and to this volume; for the rest of the classification, Bede, above, Chapter V. B. 1.
52 1221-1274. The Opusculum de reductione artium ad theologiam is number 4 (pages 317-325) in volume 5 of the Works edited by the College of St. Bonaventure, Quaracchi (Florence), 1891.
53
(1) Lumen exterius artis mechanicæ illuminat respectu figuræ artificialis;
(2) lumen inferius cognitionis sensitivæ illuminat respectu formæ naturalis;
(3) lumen interius cognitionis philosophicæ illuminat respectu veritatis intellectualis;
(4) lumen superius gratiæ et sacræ Scripturæ illuminat respectu veritatis salutaris.
54 For the classifications of Hugh of St. Victor and John of Salisbury see above, sections B and C.
55
(a) moralis regit motivam;
(b) naturalis regit se ipsam;
(c) sermocinalis regit interpretativam:
(1) grammatica ad exprimendum respicit rationem ut apprehensivam... congruum;
(2) logica ad docendum respicit rationem ut iudicativam... verum;
(3) rhetorica ad movendum respicit rationem ut motivam... ornatum.
56 That he does not intend logica in the larger sense of Hugh and John will be clear from comparative study of the three forms of his division, and also from Collationes in hexaëmeron (in the same volume), IV. 18-25. This briefly sums up rhetorica according to its ancient topics, including the three fields and the five parts. Here again dialectica is not used, and logica merely supersedes it.
57 1230-1294. The Trésor is edited, with an introduction, by Chabaille in the Collection des documents inédits sur l’histoire de France, Paris, 1863. References in this section are to the pages of this edition. The Italian version, also widely current, is edited by L. Gaiter, Bologna, 1878. See also F. Maggini, La rettorica italiana di B. L. (Pub. del R. Istituto di studi superiori), Florence, 1913.
58 The proem, beginning with theology as the highest lore of theorica, makes the usual enumeration under mathematica, divides practica, “la seconde science de philosophie,” into “éthique. économique. politique,” and so arrives at rhetoric, but with some confusion as to logic.
59 See Chabaille, xv.
60 Villani may be merely repeating this when he says: “Egli fu cominciatore e maestro in digrossare i Fiorentini, e farli scorti in bene parlare et in sapere guidare e reggere la nostra repubblica secondo la politica.” VIII. x.
61 Brunetto’s main source is Cicero De invent.
62 La grans partisons de touz parleors... en prose... en rime; mais li enseignement de rectorique sont commun andui, sauf ce que la voie de prose est large et pleniere, si comme est ore la commune parleure des gens; mais li sentiers de rime est plus estroiz et plus fors. 481.
63 His igitur ad fidem faciendam prudenter inuentis ordo rerum est sociandus, quæ pars dispositio uocitatur... duplex igitur huius partis est ratio; aut enim naturalis est ordo aut oratoris artificio comparatur: naturalis, cum post principium narratio, partitio, propositio, argumentatio, conclusio epilogusque consequitur; artificio oratoris, cum per membra orationis quæ dicenda sunt digerimus. V. 506 (Teubner, ed. Dick, 248).
64 See below, Chapter VII. B.
65 “Comment l’om puet acroistre son conte en viij manieres... qui sont apelees color de rectorique.” The first of these, aornement, is defined so bluntly that the humorous implication may be intentional: “tout ce que l’om porroit en iij moz ou en iiij, ou a mult po de paroles dire, il les acroist par autres paroles plus longues et plus avenans qui dient ce meisme.” 486.
66 490.
67 For dictamen, see below, Chapter VIII.
68 Jean d’Antioche in his introduction to the translation of De inventione and Rhetorica ad Herennium (end of XIIIth century) has two divisions of Philosophye: (A) into ethique morale, rationele, and naturele; (B) as follows:—
Delisle in Notices et Extraits, 36:216.
Neither Le mariage des sept arts nor Henri d’Andeli’s Bataille des sept arts contains any information about teaching.