Chapter VIII: Dictamen

REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS

Bornecque Bornecque (H.), _Les clausules métriques latines_,
Lille, 1907, Travaux et mémoires de l’Université de
Lille (for the ancient tradition, but including late
Latin).

Butow Butow (A.), _Die Entwicklung der mittelalt. Briefsteller_,
Greifswald (dissertation), 1908.

Clark Clark (A. C.), _The cursus in medieval and vulgar
Latin_, Oxford, 1910. See also his _Fontes prosæ
numerosæ_, Oxford, 1909.

Clerval (as in headnote to Chapter VI).

Croll Croll (M. W.), _The cadence of English oratorical
prose_, Studies in philology, 16 (1919): 1-55.

Fierville Fierville (C.), _Une grammaire latine inédite du xiiie
siècle_, Paris, 1886.

Gaudenzi Gaudenzi (A.), _Sulla cronologia delle opere dei dettatori
bolognesi da Buoncompagno a Bene di Lucca_,
Bulletino dell’ istituto storico italiano, 14 (1895):
85. See also in Bibliotheca iuridica medii ævi, vol.
II, Bologna, 1892, his _Rainerii de Perusia ars notaria_
(page 25) and _Boncompagni rhetorica novissima_ (page 240).

Hahn Hahn (S. F.), _Collectio monumentorum ..._,
Braunschweig, 1724.

Harmon Harmon (A. M.), _The clausula in Ammianus Marcellinus_,
New Haven, 1910, Conn. Acad. of Arts and Sciences.

Havet Havet (L.), _La prose métrique de Symmache ..._
Paris, 1892.

Langlois Langlois (C. V.), _Formulaires de lettres ..._, six
articles in NE, 34 (parts 1 and 2), 35 (part 2).

Manacorda (as in headnote to Chapter VI).

MGH _Monumenta Germaniæ Historica._

NE _Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque
Nationale...._

Paetow Paetow (L. J.), _The arts course at medieval universities
with special reference to grammar and rhetoric_,
University of Illinois Studies, vol. 3, No. 7, Jan.,
1910. See also the bibliography in his _Guide to the
study of medieval history_, University of California
Press, 1917.

PL _Patrologia latina_ (Migne) cited by volume and column.

Polheim Polheim (K.), _Die lateinische Reimprosa_, Berlin, 1925.

Poole Poole (R. L.), _Lectures on the history of the Papal
chancery ..._, Cambridge (University Press), 1915.

Rockinger Rockinger (L.), _Briefsteller und Formelbücher ..._,
2 vols., Munich, 1863-1804, Quellen zur bayerisch.
u. deutsch. gesch.

Thurot Thurot (C.), _Notices et extraits ... pour servir à
l’histoire des doctrines grammaticales au moyen âge_,
Paris, 1868, in NE 22, part 2 (entire).

Toynbee Toynbee (P.), _Dantis Alagherii epistolæ ..._ with
introduction, translation, notes, and indices, and
appendix on the _cursus_, Oxford, 1920.

Vacandard Vacandard (E.), _Le cursus, son origine, son histoire,
son emploi dans la liturgie_, Revue des questions
historiques, n. s., 34 (1905): 59-102.

Valois Valois (N.), _De arte scribendi epistolas apud gallicos
medii ævi scriptores rhetoresve_, Paris, 1880, in Bibl.
de l’École des Chartes, 22: 161, 257.

The art of letter-writing, especially the composition of official and other ceremonious letters, was of cardinal importance in the middle age. Even to-day, when letters of affairs are facilitated and multiplied by devices for dictation and despatch, it has a field smaller than the medieval in proportion to the other means of communication. Since these conditions lasted into modern times, letter-writing kept its importance throughout the Renaissance; but its art, developed in Latin antiquity and keeping for all affairs of moment the Latin language, became in the middle age a necessary ally alike to law and to diplomacy. _Dictamen_ was a recognized profession and an habitual means of education. The model for the official correspondence of the western world was the Papal Chancery. The chief center of teaching was Bologna.[1] Though there was rivalry at Orléans, there was a recognized primacy of _stilus Romanus_.

No medieval form of writing has come down to us more abundantly in manuscripts; and none is more abundantly available in print. In addition to the collections of letters by famous men, or included with them, are many form-letters preserved as models.[2] Medieval epistolary habits are thus amply exemplified as the most widespread applications of the study of style. As a fine art medieval diplomatic correspondence is seen at its finest in the letters of John of Salisbury. The expertness that illuminated even routine affairs and determined the direction of great ones was recognized in his own day. The Archbishop of Rheims, writing to the Pope concerning the exile of the Archbishop of Canterbury, leaves the form of his letter to John.[3] At an earlier crisis of that exile, when Becket cried out against Henry’s influence at Rome, the indignation of the great prelate was submitted to the great secretary; and he was too faithful a friend to forget his art.

On reading the letter that you have decided to send to the lord
William of Pavia, though I dare not judge its intention, I
cannot approve its literary conception.... If the items of your
letter are thus brought up one by one, your reply will seem to
have proceeded rather from bitterness and rancor than from the
singleness of charity. _Ep._ 220; PL 199: 246.

Having shown a list of grievances to be ineffective as composition, he adds immediately that accusations are dangerous as style. But not stopping with criticism, he took the great hazard upon himself in the following letter to the same Cardinal.

Popular rumor reports to us that you and the lord Otto,
Cardinal Deacon of the Holy Roman Church, invited by our
illustrious lord the King of the English, and commissioned by
Papal mandate, are come down to the Aquitanian country, with
the help of God by your best endeavor to restore to the English
Church its inalienable freedom, and to renew peace and concord
between the king and the archbishop. By princes, yea, and even
by prelates, it has been heard that our aforesaid lord the king
so trusts your devotion that his acceptance of your advice in
every particular is a foregone conclusion: in my exceeding
joy whereat, I have decided that I too should ask advice of
you and assistance, ready in all things to obey you, saving
my freedom of conscience and my personal honor. For I trust
in the Lord that with you consideration of personages and of
rewards will not be so influential that by any of your actions
the Church shall be injured, scandal be engendered in lay folk,
or your bright reputation be darkened. These, indeed, are the
works of men by whom either the law is unknown or its Author
is disregarded. Not such are you, whose good faith and whose
prudence the Lord has so honored with his approval that you
are set before the world upon the golden candlestick of seven
lamps as a lantern and as a beacon, that yours may be the light
for all men that enter. On you, therefore, all men are fixing
their observation; and many fear lest the temptation of Lucifer
should end in extinction and in ruin, lest the intimacy with
the king, which they say you have lately been cementing, be to
you beginning of dereliction. And indeed,

Sin will be judged by intent; but its crime becomes greater
and greater
Strictly with every degree of the criminal’s office and
station.

(Juvenal, III. viii. 140.)

But in the meantime I am hopeful that this intimacy between you
and the king, which to many is so suspect, will be fruitful to
the Church, necessary to us, salutary to him, to you a further
glory. For if he gives you obedience where even legal necessity
binds him, and where any evasion would be at the risk of his
salvation, without doubt he will be repentant, will confess his
transgression, and humbly giving the Church satisfaction, will
restore to us all peace and freedom with our stolen integrity,
and will tear quite out of his heart the hate of his brethren.
Otherwise what power is able to save him from the snare of the
devil?

I am most certain, since it is indubitably true and even most
obvious, that not even Peter himself received of the Lord such
plenitude of commission that he could absolve the impenitent;
and it no less certainly follows that if stolen goods can be
restored and are not restored, the move is not penitence, but
stratagem. Where, therefore, the prince of the apostles has
restricted authority, no argument will convince me that power
can be validly exercised by any man whatsoever. I admit, for
it is true, that our lord the king, as a prince among the
most glorious, is most highly to be considered, but with the
condition that God be never offended. Otherwise arises a form
of idolatry, when on whatsoever pretext of expediency the
creature is put above the Creator, as we are taught by Paul
the apostle. Wrongs are not to be done that good things may
issue; nor may any right of dispensation counter the Lord’s
commandment, which in law or in gospel has always the final
ruling.

As for me, that you may the more conveniently advise me, that
the cry of the poor man may be admitted to have its hearing,
exile for me has now passed its fourth year; notwithstanding
my lord the king, by me and through others, has often been
notified that, though at the bar of my conscience I have not
deserved his anger, yet to regain his favor I would gladly
perform whatever might please him, saving my conscience and
the integrity of my honor. Certain intermediaries, indeed,
have approached me, suggesting that I withdraw my fidelity and
devotion from the lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and swear
fidelity to the king and observance of the laws of the kingdom.
Because I cannot do this, and will not, for it is against my
conscience and my honor, proscribed as an exile, I shall be
gladly an exile till God shall deliver me. Am I to break my
obligation of obedience when the Church is in danger, and God
in the trial? Father and suzerain deserted, am I to swear to
laws disapproved by the canons, when our lord the Pope in
council at Sens with the brethren, with yourselves, I imagine,
in audience, has denounced them? Nay, I would not swear that I
had kept all the canons, or even all the gospel, since, as the
apostle sadly reminds us, in much we have all been offenders.
A lesser wickedness is simple prevarication than prevarication
that is loaded with perjury. Well I know that perjury,
disobedience, or any other baseness whatsoever, no one dare
impute to your Lordships.

But since I fear you may weary of my wordiness, my words shall
reach their conclusion, a fervent prayer that you may be
zealous to end the misery of a Church too long in danger of
foundering, and to defend us from the assaults of unremitting
injustices.

May my lord fare well, and upon the proscripts of Christ may he
have mercy. For I am interceding in the name of all my fellows
in exile; and if I fail of my consolation, none the less I
shall hold myself paid by whatever I know the other proscripts
of Christ to have through your offices. _Ep._ 221; PL 199:
247.[4]

Medieval letters, long studied for history, should be better known as literature.

Less available, though for our purposes more directly important, are the manuals. Called generically _ars dictaminis_ (or _dictandi_), or _summa dictaminis_, they are sometimes brief introductions to the formularies, sometimes substantial and detailed separate works. The latter have much less often than the formularies been printed. The ampler manuals apply to letter-writing a review of both grammar and rhetoric. This is instructive in Conrad’s _Summa de arte prosandi_.[5] The _Boncompagnus_,[6] so widely used that Boncompagno’s name, like Donatus, became a common noun, is amplified rather by diffuseness and by abundance of specimens. The _Rhetorica novissima_[7] of the same author is at once over-divided and ill-digested. Equally diffuse and equally relying on specimens, it appeals to students of law by deliberate and often inept variations from the traditional lore of rhetoric. The vogue of Thomas of Capua is hardly explained by the meager printed text of his _Dictator_.[8] None of these is at once so ample and so specific as a work by a Florentine of the Bolognese school, perhaps Bene of Florence, entitled _Candelabrum_.[9]

A. THE RHETORIC OF _DICTAMEN_

The international affairs of the Roman Curia demanded and developed professional _notarii_.[10] Their first and abiding concern was precision. Legal correctness of language, exactitude, systematic verification and record, precaution against tampering and forgery, all demanded an elaborate technical skill. This was _ars notaria_ in the stricter sense, an important branch of the practise of law, especially of canon law.[11] Beyond legal correctness and dignity it developed style befitting Rome. Privileges,[12] decrees, mandates, dispensations, commissions, and other forms observed exact appropriateness and rhythms that were at once marks of authenticity and models. The same care extended to diplomatic correspondence. The documents in both fields, a mine for students of medieval history, amply attest the importance of _dictamen_ as a profession.[13]

So wide a demand would of itself have maintained schools of professional technic. But since the technic demanded preliminary general training, it became a development of _rhetorica_. Not only so; it divided with preaching the whole field of daily prose composition. In current application oral composition was preaching, written composition was _dictamen_. The two were the typical medieval fields for the ancient lore of persuasion. The manuals of _dictamen_ often begin by defining it in the general sense of writing.[14] Dividing all writing into (1) _metricum_, the ancient quantitative verse still taught as a branch of _grammatica_, (2) _rithmicum_, the accentual rimed verse of the hymns, and (3) _prosaicum_, they confine themselves to the third, and make it equivalent to letter-writing (_prosaicum vel epistolare_). To this they apply the current ancient authorities, _De inventione_ and _Ad Herennium_, adding for its maxims of aptness _Ars poetica_. The ampler manuals include the sacred list of figures obligatory in the _poetriæ_.[15] Otherwise the application of the ancient rhetoric is practical and pointed.

For in fact the ancient lore was immediately and practically applicable. It did not, as in the _poetriæ_, have to be perverted. Of the traditional five parts of ancient rhetoric, _inventio_, _dispositio_, and _elocutio_, though not _pronuntiatio_ and _memoria_, bear directly on letters, whereas the first two have nothing properly to do with verse-writing. _Elocutio_ is applied practically by being focused on the cardinal ancient virtue of appropriateness; artistically, by elaborating _compositio_ as prose rhythm. Immediately adaptable were the five parts of a speech. The _exordium_ is always cardinal in a letter as _benevolentiæ captatio_. _Narratio_ applies exactly in its proper sense of statement of the facts. _Petitio_, though it has less scope, is quite pertinent. _Conclusio_, though varying most from its ancient function, has some general correspondence. In a word, the classical doctrine for the parts of a speech applied to a letter by mere reduction of scale.

_Dictamen_ was equally practical in actual teaching. Besides giving exercises in correctness, it compelled attention to elegance. Its study of appropriateness was readily extended by such imaginary adaptations as were inculcated in the ancient _prosopopœia_, and thus provided in writing the kind of practise sought orally in the ancient _controversiæ_.[16] John of Garlandia’s confused combination of verse and prose in a single manual[17] is insufficient to prove that the two were often taught concurrently; and the higher tone of the _artes dictandi_ suggests that they were addressed to older pupils.

B. DIGEST OF _CANDELABRUM_ I-V[18]