Intro to Medieval Rhetoric

Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that Cicero was celebrated more so than any of the other rhetoricians from the classical time period. Every once in a while Quintilian or Aristotle are mentioned, but it seemed like whenever rhetoric was being taught, Cicero was at the center of the teachings. Jerome even dreams that he is too “Ciceronian” and he isn’t Christian enough. (I’m guessing they were slightly obsessed with Cicero.) After this dream he decides to “rely solely on the Bible and Christian commentary” (433) but it doesn’t end up working out for him. Augustine used his “Ciceronianism” to his advantage to study the Bible – something his mother also did.

Good thing the cathedrals started supporting grammar schools and not just song schools. (Imagine going to college to learn how to sing?) These schools studied seven basic subjects of the liberal arts.

In the twelfth century, students “were then encouraged to memorize and declaim the texts so analyzed, as well as to compose and declaim their own compositions in imitation of them” (440). This sounds a lot like what the Roman’s had their students do. Eloquence was also an important study – something from Cicero (and Quintilian).

Probably the most surprising piece of information from this introduction is the fact that schools weren’t just for the upper class. A lot more middle-class citizens were privileged enough to attend the same school which made the classroom more diverse than it was before. Also, of the seven subjects taught, the mathematical ones “tended to be neglected or omitted altogether at the university level; while of the three language-based arts, dialectic was dominant and regarded as the only ‘adult’ subject” (443). I wish it was still like that. It’s kind of strange to think about mathematical skills are usually valued more in our culture today than literary skills. Personally, I never liked math so I wouldn’t have minded if that part of my curriculum had been abolished growing up.