Part 88 (1/2)

[7] Textbooks on the art of letter-writing began to appear by the eleventh century, explaining in detail how to prepare the five divisions of a letter: (1) the salutation (_salutatio_), (2) the art of introducing the subject properly and ood impression (_captatio benevolentiae_), (3) the body of the letter (_narratio_), (4) how toconclusion (_conclusio_)

[8] Anderson reproduces a portion of a chapter by Capella on the number four, which is illustrative of the mediaeval study of the properties of number:

”What shall I call four? in which is a certain perfection of solidarity; for it is coth and depth, and a full decade is ether in order, that is, from one, two, three, four Similarly a hundred is made up of the four decades, that is, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, which are a hundred; and again four numbers from a hundred on amount to a thousand, that is, 100, 200, 300, 400 So ten thousand is made up of another series What is to be said of the fact that there are four seasons of the year, four quarters of the heavens, and four principles of the elees of man, four vices, and four virtues”

[9] Anderson reproduces a paragraph fro how number was applied to Holy Writ It reads:

”A real thinker,” says Maurus, ”will not pass on indifferently when he reads that Moses, Elijah, and our Lord fasted forty days Without strict observance and investigation the matter cannot be explained

The nunified which concerns the te to the number 4, the days and the seasons run their course The day consists of , sunize God and the creature The three (trinity) indicated the Creator; the seven, the creature which consists of body and spirit In the latter is the three: for we must love God with our whole heart and soul and mind In the body, on the other hand, the four elements of which it consists reveal thenified by the number 10 to live in ti ourselves from worldly lusts, that estively in many different numbers all sorts of secrets whichof numbers”

[10] Gerbert (953-1003) was one of thestudied in the Saracen schools of Spain He afterwards became Pope Sylvester II (999-1003) Because of his scientific knowledge in an age of superstition he was accused of transactions with the devil

[11] For example, the _Stabat Mater_ and the _Dies Irae_, two thirteenth- century hymns The former has been called the most pathetic and the latter the most sublime of all mediaeval poems

[12] Cassiodorus was an educated later Roothic king, and had doneand civilization into the new regime He later founded the monastery of Viviers, in southern Italy, and spent the latter part of his life there in writing and conteed thehe advised to read Cato and Coluriculture, and then to devote themselves to it

[13] ”Wisdom hath builded her house; she hath hewn out her seven pillars”

(Proverbs, IX, 1)

[14] Abelson, in his raph on _The Seven Liberal Arts_, reduces each of these textbooks to their equivalent in aresults:

Cassi- Capella Boethius odorus Isidore Alcuin Maurus Subject (c 425) (c 520) (c 575) (c 630) (c 800) (c 844) /Grammar 11 -- 25 50 54 55 |Rhetoric 14 -- 5-1/2 14 26 -- Dialectic 11 -- 18 14 25 -- /Arithmetic 11 40 2 2 -- -- |Geometry 15 30 2 1 -- -- |Astronomy 9 -- 15 3 23 60 Music 11 67 2 12 -- -- --- --- --- --- --- --- Totals in pages 82 137 69-1/2 96 128 115

[15] The mediaeval serf was the successor of the Roman slave, and was a step upward in the process of the evolution of the free ations of personal service to the lord

Gradually, due to econoeneral to definite service, and finally to a fixed rental sum When a fixed money payment took the place of personal service the free man had been evolved This took place rapidly with the rise of cities and industry toward the latter part of the Middle Ages

[16] The Gerht are the modern survivals of the tirievances were settled in the ”noble way” by sword and battle-axe and torch

[17] In the earlier days of noblearded as effely literate By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

[18] Rhye ca, andthe joy of life date froynge he was or floytynge [playing], al the day; He was as fressh as is the e and wyde

Wel cowde he sitte on hors and faire ryde; He cowde songes make and wel endite, Juste and eek daunce, and wel purtreye and write

So hote he loved, that by nighterdale [night tiale”

[19] From the life of the Frankish Abbot, John of Gorze, Abbot at Gorze in the tenth century

[20] Leach, A F, _Educational Charters_, p 143

[21] _Ibid_, p 147

[22] Anselm (1033-1109), Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109, formulated the early mediaeval viehen he said:

”I do not seek to know in order that I may believe, but I believe in order that I e through faith, not to coe”