Middle Ages, and the evolution of distinctive mediaeval styles, did not result from a larger acquaintance with the Classics, or a better knowledge of grammar and school rhetoric. The range of classical reading might extend, or from time to time contract, and Donatus and Priscian were used in the ninth century as well as in the twelfth. It is true that the study of grammar became more intelligent in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and its teachers deferred less absolutely to the old rules and illustrations. They recognized Christian standards of diction: first of all the Vulgate; next, early Christian poets like Prudentius; and then gradually the mediaeval versifiers who wrote and won approval in the twelfth century. Thus grammar sought to follow current usage.[1] This endeavour culminated at the close of the twelfth century in the Doctrinale of Alexander of Villa Dei.[2] Before this, much of the best mediaeval Latin prose and verse had been written, and the period most devoted to the Classics had come and was already waning. That period was this same twelfth century. During its earlier half, Latinity gained doubtless from such improvement in the courses of the Trivium as took place at Chartres, for example, an improvement connected with the intellectual growth of the time. But the increase in the knowledge of Latin was mainly such as a mature man may realize within himself, if he has kept up his Latin reading, however little he seem to have added to his knowledge since leaving his Alma Mater.
So the development of mediaeval Latin prose (and also verse) advanced with the maturing of mediaeval civilization. That which was at the same time a living factor in this growth and a result of it, was the more organic appropriation of the classical and Christian heritages of culture and religion. As intellectual faculties strengthened, and men drew power from the past, they gained facility in moulding their Latin
- ↑ From Thurot, Notices et extraits, etc., 22 (2), p. 87, and p. 341 sqq., one may see that the principles of construction stated by mediaeval grammarians followed the usage of mediaeval writers in adopting a simpler or more natural order than that of classical prose. An extract, for example, from an eleventh-century MSS. indicates the simple order which this grammarian author approved: e.g. "Johannes hodie venit de civitate; Petrus, quem Arnulfus genuit et nutrivit, intellexit multa" (Thurot, p. 87).
- ↑ Ante, Chapter XXX., ii.
