Rolien Mark M.

Balisi
LINGG 206 SJKL

Written Report on the Traditional Grammar During the Medieval/Middle Ages

Contents:
 Historical Background on the Medieval/Middle Ages
1066 – William, Duke of Normandy defeated King Harold of England in the Battle of
Hastings. The Norman Conquest had devastating effects on Anglo-Saxon culture and society. In
the span of two decades, William replaced the entire English aristocracy and clergy wit French-
speaking Normans. Upper society followed suit. Common folk remained English-speaking.
Anglo-Saxon literacy came to an end.
In the west, the fall of the Western Roman Empire because of the Germanic invasions. It
was a conservative epoch where rote learning remained the norm; but it was not without
innovators.
The philosophical schools of Athens were closed by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.
The eastern Roman world, the repository for ancient Greek works, was difficult to access from
the west and north. In the east, held itself in being as Rome’s legitimate successor until the final
Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
Before the collapse of Rome as a secular capital, Christianity had already been accepted
as the state religion of the empire as a whole political entity, with control over:
o education,
o scholarship,
o literature, and
o the arts
 Historical Background on the Medieval/Middle Ages
Instead of studying grammar to improve understanding and delivery of the classical Roman
texts, it was a case of studying Latin grammar in order to understand Christian Scripture.
Throughout this period scholars across Europe dedicated themselves to the twofold task:
o Working through what they had inherited from Greco-Roman Antiquity.
o Reconciling that inheritance with Christian doctrine.
As a result of the fall of the Roman Empire, majority of the original Graeco-Roman manuscripts
where lost. Medieval linguistics is primarily concerned with:
o Descriptive-Normative Grammar (primarily focused on Latin, but gradually aimed at
other languages)
 o Interpretative Grammar (a speculation and re-interpretation of grammar – whether it
depended on theology, logic, or both)
Medieval linguistic development is far from linear. It deals with the complex interaction
of many cultural factors. Medieval linguists re-explored and restated early Latin manuals to “fit”
dogmatic principles and passages drawn from the Bible. An obligatory reference point for the
new “Christian Culture” in the field of reading/interpretation of texts. Schools study language
at:
o Elementary perspective
o Higher level of inquiry (altius de praedicatione perscrutantur) or the difficult process of
permeation between logic and grammar
In etymology – doctrinal speculation was conditioned by theology. Compilation of lexica
to represent the summa of scientific knowledge. Latin was described as “the universal language
of learned communication in the different ethnic and linguistic areas”. Latin grammar had two
main purposes:
o It was a basic component of higher education because it was regarded as one of the
seven liberal arts.
o Latin was the language of church, law, official communication and of all sorts and the
only means of communication of the Western world.
The literary greats were normally canonized only when long dead: good style was
invested in revered models from the past. Reverence for past authority in literary and
grammatical excellence was transferred to the language of the Bible and the Church fathers.
The celebrated originators of school grammars of Latin, such as Donatus and Priscian,
were also treated with reverence. However, it was acceptable to criticize their statements on
grammar and the limitations of their grammars. But it was not tolerable to criticize the
language of the Church, which set a new standard for pure Latin.
Because Classical Latin was written by pagans, many Churchmen believed that it could
not be studied in detail without barbarizing the student. The Latin of the Church fathers was
more highly valued because it had God’s imprimatur. Names and notions were chosen from
Scripture and the Church milieu to replace those of pagan Rome.
The pedagogical method of Donatus and of Priscian’s De Nomine and Partitiones was
hijacked and Christianized as in the early eleventh century Beatus Quid Est? or “What is
holiness?” (from England) with its uplifting vocabulary.
It was generally accepted that the standard for grammars should be founded on three
criteria:
o auctoritas – the authority of an accepted model (Virgil, Horace, Plautus, Cicero, Varro,
Donatus, Charisius, Priscian); auctoritas came to be confused with vetustas “antiquity”;
o ratio – rational explanation in a systematic account consisting of definitions and rules
(regulae, analogia);
 o consuetudo or usus – contemporary usage.
Of these criteria St Augustine judged ratio the least important (contrary to Apollonius)
and consuetudo the most important.
St Isidore of Seville reveals a lack of confidence in consuetudo, an awareness that Vulgar
Latin was not like the classical Latin of the Roman republic or early empire, but had become
‘corrupted’ by solecisms and barbarisms.
A good reason in the heavy reliance on the old masters of Latin. Graeco-Roman works
were reorganized, “Christianized”, and commented upon. A development on word-and
paradigm introductory school grammars that established a more pedagogical tradition.
The history of linguistic thought during the Middle Ages can be divided into four broad
stages:
1. the early Middle Ages (500-800),
o during which western European scholars grappled with the need to write descriptive
grammars of Latin for the use of nonnative speakers,
o Used Donatus’s two grammars and Late Latin commentaries on them along with Priscian’s
brief institutio de nomine as the starting-point for their own descriptive grammars;

2. the central Middle Ages (800-1100)

o from the Carolingian Renaissance to the twelfth-century Renaissance, a period during which
the rediscovery of Aristotle’s Categories and De interpretatione and Priscian’s Institutiones
grammaticae
o sparked off a rethinking of the nature and role of grammar, and the parsing grammar took
over from the Insular elementary grammar as the chief aid to grammatical pedagogy;

3. the later Middle Ages, or Scholastic era (1100-1350)

o Inspired by the discovery of further works of Aristotle’s, scholars in the new universities
strove to create a theoretical as well as a practical approach to the study of language
o Their colleagues in schools developed the verse grammar;

4. the end of the Middle Ages (1350-1500)

o People became increasingly aware of their vernaculars and began to teach Latin through the
medium of the vernacular (and even, here and there, to experiment with grammars of the
vernacular)
o In northern Europe, people try out visually striking ways of presenting grammatical
doctrine, such as tables and columns.
Scholars in the seventh and eighth centuries found it difficult to see any kind of higher
meaning in grammatical doctrine about the word classes and their properties. For instance, the
grammarian Smaragdus was to sketch the outlines of a spiritual interpretation of such
phenomena as the eightfoldness of the parts of speech, and the mysteries of gender and
number.
 Only the smallest and the largest linguistic units - the littera and the use of figures and
tropes - seemed to have potential for pointing to a meaning beyond the strictly literal and
earth-bound.
Figurative usage was the subject of a number of treatises by early medieval scholars,
which they used as a useful exegetical tool for explaining the many passages in the Bible in
which the literal meaning is hard to understand. By reading such passages figuratively,
commentators such as Bede could arrive at an appropriate interpretation.
An application of Bede’s littera theory:
o Three strokes form the letter A. What do they signify? They represent the Trinity.
o When a is thought of as a unit, what does it signify? The one God.
o Why? The three persons [of the Trinity] are called the one God.
Frustrating as this may be to a modern phonetician, many early medieval thinkers found
this a more satisfying way of studying the litterae than to treat them as purely (‘merely’, they
would have said) physical phenomena. They wanted to escape from the arbitrariness and
futility of the material world, subject as it was to constant change and deterioration.
Language, like all other human phenomena, partook of the bodily nature which was a
constant reminder of our Fall from Paradise. How could it be redeemed? Uncovering a link
between the form of the letters and spiritual truths was a way which appealed to some - even if
it lent itself to parody.
 Continuation of Linguistic Studies by Medieval Grammarians
Boethius is famous philosopher with the last in-depth knowledge sophisticated
knowledge of Greek. He Wrote De syllogismo categorico (2 books), De syllogismo hypothetico
(2 books), and De differentiis topicis (4 books). He Developed the use of technical terminology
in the context of logico-linguistic analysis. He defined the notions of “subject” and “predicate”.
Cassiodorus was one of the founders of Vivarium monastery – a kind of theological
university, which was a center of teaching and translation of Greek texts, with casts libraries of
secular texts. He wrote De orthographia, written when he was 93, focuses on monastic
instruction.
Isidore of Seville wrote Etymologiarum sive origium libri XX – the 9th book in particular
talks about the linguistic organization of the human society. He introduced the problems in
etymology, focusing on the arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign.
Iulianus Toletanus (Juluis of Toledo) wrote Ars Iuliani. He differentiated vox articulata
and vox confuse, where vox articulata – meaningful sound symbols, and vox confusa – sounds
that cannot be represented graphically, eg. bleating of sheep, whinnying of horse, etc. He
recorded the evidence of totto, or ‘baby talk’.
 Continuation of Linguistic Studies by Insular Grammarians in the Carolingian Renaissance
 Although Isidore thought Britain ‘beyond the circle of lands’ and ‘that the Britons were
so-called according to the Latin because they are bruti [“stupid”]’ Most influential grammarians
of the early middle ages were of British or Irish origin: ‘It was on the Continent that almost all
the Insular grammars were studied and copied’
In Ireland, Latin scholarship combined with bardic tradition to produce the medieval
bardic tracts such as the Auraicept na n-Éces “The scholar’s primer”, the oldest study of a west
European vernacular. The scotti peregrini, wandering Irish scholars, were influential throughout
Britain and the rest of Europe.
St. Tatwine wrote the Ars Tatuini, when teaching at the monastery at Breedon-on-the-
Hill, Leicestershire. The detailed elementary grammar (primer) is based on Donatus’ Artes.
Tatwine utilized Priscian for grammar while taking his vocabulary from ecclesiastical literature.
St. Boniface wrote Ars Bonifacii at Nhutscelle (Nursling, Hampshire) before he left on a
mission to Germany. He relies heavily on (indeed, plagiarizes chunks of) the third to fourth
century Greek commentators of grammar. The Ars Bonifacii is a good primer that pays more
attention to anomalies than other elementary grammars.
Alcuin taught in his native York before joining Charlemagne in 781 as palace educator
and librarian. He compiled the Epistula de Litteris Colendis for Charlemagne, prescribing
intensive study of Latin language and literature for all monastic and cathedral schools. He also
wrote treatises on grammar, orthography, rhetoric, and dialectic. He also developed a primer
which was presented grammatical instruction in easily digestible question-and-answer form in
his Dialogus Franconis et Saxonis de Octo Partibus Orationis “Dialogue between a Frank and a
Saxon about the eight parts of speech”
 Continuation of Linguistic Studies by Later Medieval Ages Grammarians
During this period, the first indications of speculative grammar started appearing. Ideas
fostered in this period were a continuation of ideas in the Renaissance.
Petrus Helias stated that language would explain the categories themselves, in this
sense, Latin, would be the object and instrument of study. Helias’ work focused on deepening,
in a speculative sense, Priscian’s definitions of the parts of speech, as well as problems on
syntax.
Ralph of Beauvais wrote Summa super Donatum, and Liber Titan that were primarily
another series of commentaries on Priscian’s work. It was concerned with the different nominal
derivational suffixes and the use of illustrative quotations from the classics. He also introduced
the “lucid representation” that an act of speech between a speaker and a listener must have an
object referent, and a verbal signifier.
 Grammatical Description of Languages other than Latin
Aelfric for Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon glosses of Latin were common, but the structure of Old English was
ignored. Literacy in Latin was dismal by the time that Ælfric of Eynsham in Oxfordshire wrote his
grammar in the decade after 992. Excerptiones de Arte Grammatica Anglice used the vernacular
as a medium for instruction, but in other respects it was a typical medieval elementary
grammar of Latin.
Ælfric presents a lot of vocabulary in his subject-based Glossary that was inspired by
Isidore’s Etymologies. Using loan-words, loan-formations, and semantic loans, Ælfric created an
Old English metalanguage. Ælfric expounds Latin morphology where he sees the necessity.
Elizabeth Elstob for Anglo-Saxon
She was a pioneer in studies of Anglo-Saxon, and the first woman whose grammar has
survived. Her Rudiments of Grammar for the English- Saxon Tongue was based on ‘Ælfric’s
Translation of Priscian and her grammar is therefore very much in the Western Classical
Tradition. Elstob identifies a traditional eight parts of speech, the first four of which decline:
noun, pronoun, verb, participle, adverb, conjunction, preposition, and interjection.
Under the heading ‘Of Syntax’ Elstob offers a brief discussion ‘Of the Construction and
Ordering of NOUNS and VERBS’ in phrases as well as sentences. Short accounts of the dialects
of Anglo-Saxon, of Anglo-Saxon poetry, and an unsatisfactory mention of ‘accent’.
Uc Faidit for Italian
He Wrote Donatz Proensals, a brief treatise the Neo-Latin linguistic system description
which was mainly used in Italy. It Characterized by an elementary exposition, following
Donatus. The work has no specific theoretical interests and primarily deals with morphology
and lexicon. It also completely ignores phonetics and syntax.