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 Chartres[2] 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 manuscript[6] 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 collection[8] 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’s[13] _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_ { theologia (the Boethian intellectibilis) { arithmetica
(_speculativa_){ mathematica ( ” ” intelligibilis) { musica
{ physica ( ” ” naturalis) { geometria
{ astronomia

_practica_ (_activa_, _ethica_)

_mechanica_: the seven manual arts, e.g., lanificium, agricultura

{ dialectica
{ rationalis { rhetorica
_logica_ {
I { { grammatica (scientia loquendi sine vitio)
{ sermocinalis { dialectica (disputatio acuta, verum a falso
{ distinguens)
{ rhetorica (disciplina ad persuadendum quæque
{ idonea)

{ grammatica
_logica_ { { demonstratio
II { ratio disserendi { probabilis (involving { dialectica
{ inventio and iudicium) { 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 _Metalogicus_[15] 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]

{ scientia recte loquendi scribendique
{ grammatica {
{ { poetica
logica {
{ { demonstrativa
{ { { dialectica
{ ratio disserendi { probabilis {
{ { 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 marked[19] that it should be followed step by step.

DIGEST OF _METALOGICUS_