Chapter VI · RHETORIC AND LOGIC IN THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES
Reading edition
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 (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 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]
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 marked[19] that it should be followed step by step.