This paper examines the links between Classical (Ciceronian) rhetorical theory and the teaching of medieval Latin prose composition and epistolography between the eleventh century and the renaissance, mainly in Italy Classical rhetorical theory was not replaced by dictamen, nor was it the “research dimension” of everyday dictaminal activity. Rather Classical rhetorical theory, prose composition and epistolography responded to distinct market niches which appeared from time to time in different places as a consequence of social and political changes. Boncompagno’s apparent setting aside of Ciceronian rhetorical theory in favour of stricter notarial and dictaminal procedures was in turn superseded by his successors who chose to enrich their notarial theory with studies of classical rhetoric. Classical rhetorical theory proved influential on dictaminal theory and practice. Dictamen was not ousted by classical rhetoric. It only really declined when growing lay literacy and the use of the vernacular combined with the autonomous professionalism of the legal training institutions to erode the privileged position occupied in medieval times by the dictatores.

Abstract: It is often asserted nowadays that the medieval period “fragmented” the classical rhetorical inheritance, while the Renaissance restored it to its former coherence. The story of the assimilation in the Middle Ages and Renaissance of Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory is examined here in order to demonstrate the problems inherent in such a position. It is argued that the full utilization of the text of Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory in the Renaissance, along with the discrediting of the Ad Herennium (as a work of Cicero) that is associated with the name of Raffaello Regio in the last decade of the fifteenth century, are not the instances of the “recovery” of antiquity and supersession of “medieval philology” that they are often thought to be. Instead the opposite seems to be the case. The philological “recovery” of Quintilian led away from the incorporation of the Institutes into contemporary rhetorical practice and towards philology for its own sake. This, together with the bitter professional jealousies among the Italian schoolmen of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, led, almost “accidentally” as it were, to a “sundering” of the “whole” that the Middle Ages had put together out of rhetorical fragments from antiquity. The medieval period, less concerned with philological niceties than with the practical utility of good advice from the past, constructed a new kind of rhetorical text from an amalgam of old texts: the Ad Herennium commentary, made up of the text of the Ad Herennium, explanations, summaries, and discussions from the medieval schoolroom, and portions of Boethius' De differentiis topicis, Quintilian's Institutes, and other classical sources. This serviceable “unity” the Renaissance “sundered” by (a) discrediting the Ad Herennium as an authoritative Ciceronian text, and (b) placing the Institutes far beyond the practical capabilities of contemporary rhetorical training courses by restoring it to its original length (vis-à-vis the abridgements and assimilations of the medieval period). In this process of turning the classical texts into icons, the Renaissance scholars were predictably unable to re-create the kaleidoscopic, one-thousand-year reality of rhetorical attitudes and texts in antiquity, from the fragments that the Middle Ages had used to build up their new form of integrated text. Much had been lost, but what had been gained?

Research Article| November 01 1989 The Latin Rhetorical Commentaries by Thierry of Chartres The Latin Rhetorical Commentaries by Thierry of Chartres, edited by Karin Margareta Fredborg. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Shidies, Studies and Texts 84, 1988.) John O. Ward John O. Ward Department of History, Sydney University, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1989) 7 (4): 359–368. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1989.7.4.359 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation John O. Ward; The Latin Rhetorical Commentaries by Thierry of Chartres. Rhetorica 1 November 1989; 7 (4): 359–368. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1989.7.4.359 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1989, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1989 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Research Article| February 01 1988 Magic and Rhetoric From Antiquity to the Renaissance: Some Ruminations John O. Ward John O. Ward Department of History, Sydney University, Sydney NSW 2006 Australia. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1988) 6 (1): 57–118. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1988.6.1.57 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation John O. Ward; Magic and Rhetoric From Antiquity to the Renaissance: Some Ruminations. Rhetorica 1 February 1988; 6 (1): 57–118. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1988.6.1.57 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search Copyright 1988, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1988 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.