|
COPYRIGHT 2002 Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literature
A survey of the literary sources of late eleventh-century Germany reveals the degree to which the ars dictandi was used by clerks. The publication in 1948 of Leonid Arbusow's Colores rhetorici highlighted the practice of this period in the application of rhetorical colours to writing. (1) Though some limited attempts have been made by musicologists to examine the role of rhetoric in medieval music treatises, the implications of Arbusow's important work have not yet been fully realized. (2) The approach adopted by his study--that of providing examples of the medieval application of classical rhetorical figures--reminds us of the need to consider a medieval author's style within its proper intellectual context. (3) Eleventh-century music theorists from southern Germany were invariably learned men: Bern of Reichenau (d. 1048) and his erudite pupil Herman (1013-54), William of Hirsau (d. 1091), a distinguished scholar and a leader of the Gregorian party in Germany, Henry, master of the cathedral school at Augsburg (d. 1083), and Frutolf of Michelsberg (d. 1103), an eminent historian and chronicler, are among their ranks. To this list of scholars we may add a `scholasticus' named Aribo. His treatise, which is entitled De musica, was written sometime in the 1070s and dedicated to Ellenhard, Bishop of Freising, who died in 1078. Acute observation, knowledge of grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, and arithmetic, in addition to a sophisticated use of metaphor and analogy, show De musica to be the product of a learned musician, conversant not only in music theory, but in the other disciplines of the liberal arts. One of the most striking examples of this erudition is Aribo's exploitation of the colores rhetorici, which shows itself to have been influenced by the practices of the intellectual world of late eleventh-century southern Germany.
Aribo's treatise comprises 102 chapters. (4) Some of these take up only a few lines; other are quite lengthy. Its dedication to Ellenhard of Freising is, however, not the mere courtesy address that the modern editor of De musica has suggested: (5) the elaborate dedicatory letter and conclusion, as well as the references to Bishop Ellenhard in the course of the treatise, suggest something of the epistolary genre. Though Aribo does not call his treatise epistola, it is not an unsuitable comparison: many polemical works of the late eleventh century are entitled not tractatus or liber, but epistola. (6) This was a convention that the influential reformer Peter Damian had insisted upon, (7) and which was taken up by his many admirers in Germany, among them Master Onulf of Speyer, who characterized his own treatise on the rhetorical figures as `opusculum seu carta seu epistola'. (8) It is these epistolary characteristics that give Aribo the scope for an extravagant display of rhetorical skill in his De musica.
The art of writing persuasively by using the rhetorical figures was a particularly medieval response to the classical models of rhetoric and was given a new impetus as a school discipline in the eleventh century. The use of the ars dictandi has been observed in the polemics of the Investiture Contest (known as the Libelli) and especially in the works of south German writers such as Meinhard of Bamberg and his pupil Bernard of Hildesheim. (9) Indeed, their use of the ars dictandi was so striking and consummate that long after the subject matter of their polemics ceased to be topical, their Libelli continued to be copied as examples worthy of stylistic imitation. The Codex Udalrici, compiled by Udalric of Bamberg in the early twelfth century, is such an example. The second of its two books contains a mixture of formal salutations from letters, extracts from ecclesiastical formularies, an anti-papal treatise concerning clerical chastity, III diplomas, and some 250 letters that share a common didactic usefulness as models of epistolary style. (10)
The ars dictandi includes all forms of Latin composition but was especially suited to letter-writing where the purpose in this period was often to persuade, frequently by using a mixture of flattery, exhortation, and bullying. It was used to persuade in scholarly writing too, which may or may not have possessed an additional polemic nature. The influence of rhetoric may also be traced in other forms of literature in the eleventh century, especially in the form of dialogue or dispute between two individuals. (11) Here, the subject might range from topics such as papal reform and the relationship of pope and emperor, which are dealt with in Peter Damian's Disceptatio synodalis, (12) to the sixth liberal art discussed between William of Hirsau and Otloh of St Emmeram in William's Musica. (13)
The model of the ars dictandiwas classical, but a classical model seen through medieval eyes and practised through medieval experience. The codex Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2521, which may have originated at the monastery of Michelsberg near Bamberg, (14) gives a good indication of what the medieval scholars and clerks had at their disposal. It consists of a series of extracts from Cicero, Quintilian, and Martianus Capella on oratory prefaced by two poems by Udalric of Bamberg. In the second of these Udalric explains that the art of composition can only be learned from a long course of study in the liberal arts, the classical authors, and the divine expositors, that is, the church Fathers. The Patristic works are especially valuable, according to Udalric, because of the training they provide in the ars dictandi. (15) An important influence on the central Middle Ages' attitude to rhetoric was St Augustine's De doctrina christiana. (16) Though written to advocate the exploitation of rhetoric by Christian speakers in debate with the pagan philosophers of late antiquity, medieval clerks also took Augustine's challenge fully to heart. The classical works that were most widely available to the medieval scholars, however, were Cicero's youthful De inventione and the anonymous treatise Rhetorica ad Herennium, which by the late fourth century was being misattributed to Cicero. The copying of these two works was given added impetus by the revival of interest in rhetorical techniques that took place in German centres during the eleventh century.
An early manifestation of this interest is one of the manuscripts copied by Hartwic, a monk of St. Emmeram--possibly while studying with the distinguished teacher Fulbert of Chartres in the first third of the eleventh century--which subsequently became part of the monastic library at St. Emmeram (now Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14436). (17) This manuscript was partly in existence by the time Hartwic acquired it: fols 34-61 contained fragments and excerpts of works on the mathematical arts. (18) These quadrivial works included part of the second book of Macrobius' Commentarius in somnium Scipionis, excerpts from book II of Pliny's Natural History, and accompanying diagrams of the planetary systems. To this already constituted section Hartwic added most of the material on fols 1-33 and 89-118. The contents of the existing portion obviously influenced Hartwic's copying activity, for he continued the emphasis on astronomical material. He supplemented the abbreviated Macrobius by adding parts not found in the proto-manuscript. (19) Additionally, he copied two extracts from Bede's De temporum ratione, Gerbert of Aurillac's treatise De numerorum divisione (as well as a commentary on his Regulas abaci), and a fragment from Hedger of Laubach's Regulae de numerorum abaci rationibus. Turning to material on the trivium, Hartwic copied a compilation derived from the fourth book of Boethius' De differentiis topicis that went by the title Speculatio de rhetorice cognatione, (20) Julius Severianus' Praecepta artis rhetoricae, some of Julius Victor's -Ars rhetorica, and, most importantly, the Rhetorica ad Herennium. (21) Though the appearance of material relating to both the trivium and quadrivium in one codex may seem strange, palaeographic analysis confirms that Hartwic intended such a division. (22)
Another example is the codex Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 51, which contains an early twelfth-century copy of both De inventione and Ad Herennium. This manuscript of 166 folios is of south German origin; in addition to the rhetorical material it comprises a compilation of geometrical texts and music-theory works by eleventh-century authors. (23) The first ninety-one folios contain Boethius' De institutione musica, the entirety of Guido of Arezzo's musical aeuvre, treatises (or excerpts of treatises) by pseudo-Odo of Cluny, Hucbald of St. Amand, Bern of Reichenau, Herman of Reichenau, William of Hirsau, Master Henry of Augsburg, and the otherwise unknown John, as well as a miscellany of short texts on aspects of music...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
