metal book; Arithmetic emanates rays; Music has a stringed instrument. Commentaries
were written in the 9th century by Dunchad, Johannes Scottus Eriugena, and Remigius of
Auxerre, and in the 12th by Bernard Silvestris among others.
In the Carolingian period, two of Charlemagne’s court poets, Theodulf of Orléans and
the anonymous Hibernicus exul, wrote verses on the Liberal Arts, which have sometimes
been considered as sources for artistic depictions, possibly in Charlemagne’s palace at
Aix-la-Chapelle. One of the most widespread brief descriptions of the Liberal Arts occurs
in the account of Charlemagne’s Spanish campaign ascribed to Archbishop Turpin of
Reims (Pseudo-Turpin), a text that first appears in Latin ca. 1138 and was rapidly
translated into French and most of the other vernaculars of Europe. In this text, the
Liberal Arts were depicted in Charlemagne’s palace at Aix-la-Chapelle. The Pseudo-
Turpin does not describe the pictorial images but lists the subdivisions of each subject,
with some brief interpretation. Grammar and its subdivision orthography teach one to
write down words correctly and then to understand what is written, as church lectors must
do. Music is the art of David and the angels; the four lines of a staff signify the cardinal
virtues, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance, and the eight notes the beatitudes.
Dialectic teaches us to discern right from wrong. Rhetoric teaches us to speak suitably,
calmly, and beautifully. Geometry measures spaces, such as cities, fields, and army
camps. Arithmetic counts things. Astronomy, here conceived as astrology, tells about
lucky and unlucky hours for doing things. Though not depicted, necromancy, or magic, is
also discussed briefly. At about the same period, Baudri of Bourgueil (1045–1130)
described the chamber of Countess Adèle of Blois, where the decoration included statues
of Philosophy, Medicine, and the Seven Liberal Arts surrounding the bed.
Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Didascalicon: de studio legendi (before 1141), a general
introduction to the disciplines necessary for the study of Scripture and theology, presents
the Liberal Arts as the remedy for the loss of knowledge and goodness in the Fall, while
the mechanical arts compensate for the resulting weakness of the human body. The
Didascalicon was accompanied in many manuscripts by schematized diagrams of the
Arts. But Hugh did not restrict learning to the usual seven. Like the Seven Deadly Sins,
the Arts acquired hangers-on and subdivisions. The Didascalicon also discussed
medicine, magic, and practical arts.
The longest and most carefully integrated 12th-century study of the Liberal Arts was
the Heptateuchon of Thierry of Chartres (1141), designed to organize learning for the
ultimate purpose of understanding philosophy. All seven Arts, even arithmetic and
geometry, were useful in understanding the nature of God in different ways. In the late
12th century, Godefroi of Saint-Victor composed an 800-line Fons philosophiae, an
allegorical dream vision inspired by Hugh, in which philosophy and theology are the
crowning intellectual experiences of human life; the Liberal Arts are described at the
beginning of the quest.
Alain de Lille’s Anticlaudianus (ca. 1179–83) describes the Liberal Arts constructing
the chariot of Nature. Alain also wrote a short Rhythmus de incarnatione Christi on the
Incarnation, which defines the usual laws of Nature viewed through the Seven Liberal
Arts.
Two closely related 13th-century poems describe the Mariage des sept arts. One is by
Jehan le Teinturier d’Arras and the other is anonymous. In both, the poet lies in bed and
dreams that he is in a flowery meadow where he sees seven beautiful maidens. The
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