from the 12th, possibly Arras, Bibliothèque de la Ville 599. None of the philosophical
studies of the Arts have illustrations, and the only illustrations to the Arts in Alain de
Lille’s Anticlaudianus occur in the German translation. Occasionally, as in Pierpont
Morgan MS 222, Boethius is shown with Philosophy and the Seven Arts. Only the Image
du monde of Gossuin has a traditional picture cycle, which also appears in the Rothschild
Canticles and the Virgiet de solas.
In other decorative arts, a late 12th-century Limoges enamel casket survives in the
Victoria and Albert Museum in London, showing figures of the Arts, Philosophy, and
Nature in roundels. Rhetoric is a male, holding scales, but the other Arts are female.
The Seven Liberal Arts in Education: Grammar. The way in which students learned
basic Latin changed little throughout the medieval period. The grammars of Donatus
(Major and Minor) and Priscian, followed by moral proverbs of the Distichs of Cato and
the fables of Aesop, Avianus, and Phaedrus remained the core texts; as part of the
collection sometimes called the Auctores octo, they lasted into Renaissance printed
editions, supplemented by two 12th-century texts by French authors: Alain de Lille’s
Parabolae and the collecton of anecdotes called Moretus, usually ascribed to Bernard.
More recent texts, working specifically with biblical Latin, included studies of words and
constructions. The most widely used were by Bede and Alcuin.
In the late 12th century and early 13th, metrical grammars intended for students
having advanced beyond Donatus appeared. The two most popular were the Graecismus
of Eberhardt of Béthune (1212) and the Doctrinale de puerorum of Alexander of Villa
Dei (1199). The same period saw the more speculative and philosophical grammars of the
Modistae, whose inquiries into the nature of language, the modes of being,
understanding, and signifying (modus essendi, intelligendi, et significandi) were widely
read in the 13th and 14th centuries. Chief among them were Peter Helias, Jean de
Garlande, and Peter of Spain. Their theories were revived among linguistic philosophers
of the 17th and 18th centuries and again among modern-day French and American
theoreticians of language, such as Lacan, Derrida, and Jakobsen.
Dialectic, or Logic. Cassiodorus and Martianus Capella both treated dialectic, basing
their work on Aristotle, and the Dialectic and Rhetoric that Alcuin composed for
Charlemagne and his court had a modest circulation from the 9th through the 11th
century, but until the 12th century the core text remained Boethius, De topicis differentiis.
Rhetoric. Rhetoric changed and developed, especially from the 12th century on. While
Cicero and the Rhetorica ad Herennium (thought to be by Cicero as well) continued to be
read and commented on, new texts also appeared. Important French authors include
Thierry of Chartres, Matthieu de Vendôme, and Jean de Garlande. Geoffroi de Vinsauf,
despite his name, was English, but his Poetria nova (ca. 1200) circulated widely in
glossed manuscripts in France as well as the rest of Europe. From the late 12th century,
prose writing was taught especially through the art of official and unofficial letter writing,
the ars dictaminis.
Arithmetic. Classical arithmetic included number, ratio, and proportion and continued
to be studied from such authors as Boethius and Cassiodorus. The introduction of Arabic
numerals, which spread slowly from the 13th century on, made computation easier but
did little to change the study of numbers. The innovative work was done in the 13th
century, when the Elementa of Jordannes described experiments with weights and
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