The Mediaeval Mind (Volume II of II)

mar was, and never ceased to be, the basis of the co

umental in preserving mediaeval Latin from violent deflections, which would have left the ancient literature as the literature of a forgotten tongue. Had mediaeval Latin failed to keep itself veritable Latin; had it instead suffered transmutation into local Romance dialects, the Latin classics, and all that hung from them, might have become as unknown to the Middle Ages as the Greek, and even have been lost forever. It was the study of Latin grammar, with classic texts to illustrate its rules, that kep

Thenceforward there was to be a difference between the people who lived in countries where Romance dialects had emerged from the spoken Latin and prevailed, and those people who spoke a Teuton speech. Although always drawing away, the natal speech of Romance peoples was so like Latin, that in learning it they seemed rather to correct their vulgar tongue than to acquire a new language. So it was in the Christian parts of Spain, in Gaul, and, above all, in Italy, where the vulgar dialects were tardiest in taking distinctive form. Nevertheless, as the Romance dialects, for instance in the country north of the Loire,

and conjugation, needed for the instruction of those who, unlike the Roman youth, could not speak the language. This little book went by the name of the Ars minor. The same grammarian composed a mor

ions of gender, declension, and conjugation. The remaining two treated of constructio or syntax. As early as the tenth century Priscian was separated into these two parts, which came to be known as Priscianus major and minor. The Priscian manuscripts, whose name is legion, usually present the

ation from the ancient usage. The last came usually from the Vulgate text of Scripture, which sometimes departed from the idioms or even word-forms approved by the old authorities.[179] T

or quasi-living language, departed from the classical norms far more in syntax and composition than in word-forms. The latter continued much the same as in antiquity. But the popular and so to speak Romance tendencies of mediaeval Latin brought radical changes of word-order and style, which worked back necessarily upon the rules of syntax. These had been but hazily stated by the old writers, and the task of constructing an adequate Latin syntax remained undone. It was a task of vital importance for the preservation of the Latin tongue. Word-forms alone will not preserve the continuity of a language; it is essential that their use in speech and writing sho

ed their memory by setting his rules in rhyme; and the bishop asked him to write a Summa of grammar in some such fashion. Complying, he composed the Doctrinale in the year 1199, putting his work into leonine or rhyming hexameter, to make it easier to memorize. Rarely has a school-book met with such success. It soon came into use in Par

an's; and he did not hesitate to defer to the Vulgate and other Christian Latin writings. Thus he made his work conform to contemporary usage, which its purpose was to set forth. He did the same in the section on Prosody, in which he says that the ancient metricians di

as legitur pos

do servandas temp

He was indeed vehement in his advocacy of recent and Christian authors as standards of writing, and he inveighed against the scholars of Orleans, who read the Classics, and would have us sacrifice to the gods and observe the indecent festivals of Faunus and Jove.[186] But other

fluenced by the language of philosophy, and drew from its training principles which they applied to their own science. Grammar could not help becoming dialectical when the intellectual world was turning to logic and metaphysics. Commencing in the twelfth century, overmasteringly in the thirteenth, logic penetrated grammar and compelled an application of its principles. Often grammarians might better have looked to linguistic usage than to dialectic; yet if grammar was to become a rational scienc

for the view that, in order to be a science, grammar must be universal, or, as they phrased it, one, and must possess principles not applicable specially to Greek or Latin, but to congruous construction in the abstract; "de constructione congrua secundum quod abstrahit ab omni lingua speciali," are the words of the English thirteenth-century philosopher and grammarian, Robert Kilwardby.[191] A like idea affected Ro

different languages, but different properties which are peculiarities (idiomata) of the same language.[193] Wishing to set forth Greek grammar, for the use of the Latins, it is necessary to compare it with Latin grammar, because I commonly speak Latin myself, seeing that the

Grammar was zealously studied in Italy, but it did not there become either speculative or dialectical. To be sure northern manuals were used, especially the Doctrinale; but the study remained practical, an art rather than a science, and its chief element, or end, was

irst half of the twelfth century. The time antedates the Doctrinale, and one notes at once that the Chartrian masters used the ancient grammatical authorities. This is shown by the Eptateuchon of Thierry, who was headmaster (scholasticus) and then Chancellor there for a number of years between 1120 and 1150. As its name implies, the work was a manual, or rather an encyclopaedia, of the Seven Arts. Thierry compiled it from the writings of the "chief doctors

cus and Chancellor before him, in the first quarter of the twelfth century. John has been advocating the study of grammar as the fundamentum atque radix of those exercises by wh

rectness and propriety of diction, and a fitting use of congruous figures. Realizing that practise strengthens memory and sharpens faculty, he urged his pupils to imitate what they had heard, inciting some by admonitions, others by whipping and penalties. Each pupil recited the next day something from what he had heard on the preceding. The evening exercise, called the declinatio, was filled with such an abundance of grammar that any one, of fair intelligence, by

rtue of economy, and the values of things and words: he explained where a meagreness and tenuity of diction was fitting, and where copiousness or even excess should be allowed, and the advantage of due measure everywhere. He admonished them to go through the histories and poems with diligence, and daily to fix passages in their memory. He advised them, in reading, to avoid the superfluous, and confine themselves to the works of distinguished authors. For, he said (quoting from Quintilian) th

d his pupils' prose and metrical compositions, criticizing their knowledge and their taste. He was a man mindful of his Christian piety toward the dead and living, but caring greatly for the Classics, and loving

studium quaeren

, paupertas, terra

turned from the pagan classics, not as impious, but as a waste of time. Some of the good scholars of Chartres lost heart, among them William of Conches and a certain Richard, both teachers of John of Salisbury. They had followed Bernard's methods; "but when the time came that so many men, to the great prejudice of truth, preferred to seem, rather than be, philosophers and professors of the ar

s consciousness of the value of classical studies and deepened his sense of obligation to the ancients, until it drew from him perhaps the finest of mediaeval utterances touching the matter: "Bernard of Chartres used to say t

of Blois, who was educated at Paris in the middle of the twelfth century, became a secretary of Henry Plan

sources of the Nile! Our tender years used to be spent in rules of grammar, analogies, barbarisms, solecisms, tropes, with Donatus, Priscian, and Bede, who would not have devoted pains to these matters had they supposed that a solid basis of knowledge could be got without them. Quintilian, Caesar, Cicero, urge youths to study grammar. Why condemn the writings of the ancients? it is written that in antiquis est scientia. You rise from the darkness of ignorance to the light of science only by their diligent study. Jerome glories in having read Origen; Horace boasts of reading Homer over and over. It was much to my profit, when as a little chap I was studying how to make verses, that, as my master

tion of some "hidden detractor," that he, Peter, is but a useless compiler,

him try his hand at compiling, as he calls it.-But what of it! Though dogs may bark and pigs may grunt, I shall always pattern

tore of antique ethical citations.[205] It is also borne witness to by the treatise Moralis philosophia de honesto et utili, placed among the works of Hildebert of Le Mans,[206] but probably from the pen of William of Conches, grammaticus post Bernardum Carnotensem opulentissimus, as John of Salisbury calls him.[207] In some manuscripts it is entitled Summa moralium philosophorum, quite appropriately. One might hardly compare it for organic inclusiveness with the Christian Summa of Thomas Aquinas; but it may very well be likened to

on, for instance, by that truculent and well-born Welshman, Giraldus Cambrensis, in his De instructione principum, which the author wrote partly to show how evilly Henry Plantagenet performed the