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 on the arts." He transcribed the Ars minor of Donates and then portions of his larger work. Having commended this author for his conciseness and subtilty, Thierry next copied out the whole of Prisdan. As textbooks for the second branch of the Trivium, he gives Cicero s De inventione rhetorica libri 2. Rhetoricorum ad Herennium libri 4, De partitione oratoria dialogus, and concludes with the rhetorical writings of Martianus Capella and J. Severianus.[1]
So much for the books. Now for the method of teaching as described by John of Salisbury. He gives the practice of Bernard of Chartres, Thierry's elder brother, who was scholasticus and Chancellor before him, in the first quarter of the twelfth century. John has been advocating the study of grammar as the fundamantum atque radix of those excuses by which virtue and philosophy are reached; and he is advising a generous reading of the Classics by the student, and their constant use by the professor, to illustrate his teaching.
"This method was followed by Bernard of Chartres, exundissimus modernis temporibus fons litterarum in Gallia. By citations from the authors be showed what was simple and regular; he brought into relief the grammatical figures, the rhetorical colours, the artifices of sophistry, and pointed out how the text in hand bore upon other studies; not that he sought to teach everything in a single session, for he kept in mind the capacity of his audience. He inculcated correctness and propriety of diction, and a fitting
use of congruous figures. Realizing that practise strengthens- ↑ The Eptateuchon exists in manuscript. I have taken the above from Clerval, Les Écoles de Chartres au moyen âge (Chartres, 1895), p. 221 sqq. Thierry appears to have written a commentary on Cicero's Rhetoric. See Mélanges Graux, pp. 41-46.
