Rhetoric in the European Tradition
Chapter Four: “Rhetoric in the Latin Middle Ages”
Thomas Conley
Augustine
The Rhetorical Tradition
Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg
On Christian Doctrine
Augustine
Boethius
The Rhetorical Tradition
Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg
An Overview of the Structure of Rhetoric
Boethius
Anonymous
The Rhetorical Tradition
Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg
From The Principles of Letter Writing
Anonymous
Christine de Pizan
The Rhetorical Tradition
Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg
From The Book of the City of Ladies
Christine de Pizan
From The Treasure of the City of Ladies
Christine de Pizan
Rhetoric Retold
Cheryl Glenn
Chapter Three:
“Medieval Rhetoric: Pagan Roots, Christian Flowering, or Veiled Voices in the Medieval Rhetorical Tradition.”
Rhetoric in the European Tradition
Chapter Four: “Rhetoric in the Latin Middle Ages”
Thomas Conley
The chapter opens with the traditional take on rhetoric in the middle ages, which Conley then refutes by the second full page of the chapter.
First, there is far more gong on in the history of medieval rhetoric than once was thought. Indeed, since the 1960s, it has become a scholarly commonplace that it no more possible to speak as though there were a “medieval rhetoric” than it is to speak of “Classical rhetoric” as though it were a unitary concept. Second, medieval rhetoric was far more than a mere transmission of mummified traditions that were poorly understood by those who transmitted them…It is clear, however, that such a representation fails dismally to do justice to the intellectual complexity and sophistication of medieval rhetorics. (73)
Cicero is the major figure–according to Conley–that influences the work of medieval rhetoricians–essentially clergy.
For Conley this means following the work without using prefabricated categories; the taxonomy, in his estimation, is broken and not a good representation of how rhetoric in the medieval period actually worked.
Augustine was a trained rhetorician/rhetor before his conversion and professional life as a member of the clergy. He, like other clergy of his time, proclaimed rhetoric as bordering on a sin and at the same time used it in their treatises on how to convert the masses. As Conley points out, most of De catechizandis rudibus (On Indoctrinating the Uncultivated) reads a a text highly influenced by Ciceros’ De oratore (75-76).
De doctrina christianais in the Ciceronian fashion of making meaning. In this case its focus is scripture (exegesis) and also how that interpretation of scripture is to be delivered to the masses (76-77).
Boethius subordinates rhetoric to dialectic in his works, and changes how Cicero is read and used from his time period until late in the 15th century. Rhetoric is the arrangement of speech that would idle rambling without the truth finding powers of dialectic. This is a reversal of Cicero, and definite tilt more towards Aristotle’s ideas concerning rhetoric.
Treatsie concerning the church were actually rhetoric tomes that allowed for the continuation of an idea of a unified culture, hence the importance of Cicero and his concepts of service to the state. It seems, though, there is this odd conflict since the spin is also Aristotilean. Rhetoric is less about making knowledge and more about proving/persuading, ie, the vehicle that moves the unenlightened to accept the church and the governmental structure that under-girds it. (86)
Gerbert of Reims forwarded the idea that theology can only be taught after a thorough and systematic grounding in the liberal arts. Gerbert conceptualized rhetoric as more than eloquence; he wanted his students to posses the wherewithal to stand up and argue a case (88). There was, in Gerbert paradigm, a connection between eloquence and action.
And while Alcuin, for instance, seems to have considered rhetoric a civil science, Gerbert is here far more specific than his predecessor about the practical implication of such a conception of the art. That rhetoric should be useful in the active life is more than a scholastic commonplace for Gerbert…He was recognized in his time as a consummate stylist and as a powerful advocate in political causes…with no little justification. (88)
NokterdevelopedGerman translations of Latin texts for his students (he was a monk and teacher at the monastery at St. Gall), and also taught and theorized rhetoric as something more concerned with invention (substance) than style (elocution). He felt the “old” rhetorics of his immediate time privileged style over substance (89). For Nokter “[t]he end of rhetoric is not just ’speaking well,’ but the vital purpose of eliminating conflict and establishing concord” (90).
Conley floats the idea that since both Gerbert and Nokter lived in the age of iron and lead (a turbulent time it seems) that they emphasized the ability of rhetoric to elimante discord through “rhetorical sweetness” (90).
In the 11th and 12th centuries there was an intense interest in rhetoric as “a school discipline and as an art that could be usefully exploited” (91). This led to new commentaries on classical treatises on rhetoric. Toward the end of the 11th century are examples of new systematic treatises on letter writing, poetic composition, and preaching. These concepts were based on “Ciceronianism.”
Definition of Ciceroianism bracketed on 91. Essentially, develops along two lines split by region. In places like France, rhetoric was more theoretical, and is often the “sterile” rhetoric reviled by Renaissance humanists. In places like Germany, Italy, and England, there is more a concern about the practical–rhetoric as “civil science” which manifests self in preaching and letter writing. More than regionalism, this was also based on Boethian (more theoretical) and Ciceonian(more practical) interpretations of rhetoric. I assume this means both strains used the language, figures, and strateigies of Cicero’s treatise, but the actions prescribed by each were very different in accordance to their theoretical lens.
In both of the above mentioned environment, rhetoric becomes the handmaided to another art or science (93, underline and bracket).
The final section of the chapter deals with the Cicero’s influence in the arts, specifically artes dictaminis (the art of letter writing), artes praedicandi (the art of preaching), and artes poetriae (the art of poetry). In each Conley demonstrates how each art was actual a way of producing discourse–either how to write or to preach, or how to judge and produce commentaries on these subjects. This much different than the move made by rhetorics influenced by Boethius.
Augustine
Converted late in life to Christianity (age 32). Trained in a throughly secular manner in the liberal arts, and eventually converted his training as a way to defend church doctrines from challengers; he, according to B & H, considered himself a “controversionalist…defending the correct doctrine of a young and volatile Christian Church against various heresies–as if transforming for sacred use his old ambition to be a secular lawyer” (450-451).
On Christian Doctrine (Doctrina Christiana)
The first three books discuss how to interpret the Bible while book four takes up the important topic of how to convey the truths discovered (451). Note: Augustine is dealing with/talking about sermons that are delivered orally that are only partially composed before delivery. The preacher may have notes, should be well-versed in Scripture and Christian doctrine, and he must be able to adapt his discourse on the spot. Wisdom, in the Platonic sense, is more important for Augustine than eloquence (wisdom equates to understanding the bible).
Augustine asserts that the preacher can not assume everyone will accept, outright, the Christian church. In this way, it becomes important to use rhetoric to persuade people to what is actually in their best interest (Cicero, Isocrates connection). Augustine stresses that there can be no decptioninthis persuasion; such persuasion is not true turning towards (conversion) but coercion (so here is a break with Quintillian).
Augustine, like Cicero, sees three offices for rhetoric: pleasing, teaching, and moving to action. The appeal of Christianity at this time is its more democratic ideals, and Augustine is dealing with a more diverse audience than Cicero at this time. In contrast to Cicero, Augustine emphasized the truth of Christian doctrine over the plausibility of future action. Through this, rhetoric is given the heavy responsibility of assisting divine grace, and therefore, many scholars do not see Augustine as arguing for the evil of the Second Sophistic as pruning its excesses.
Augustine believes in using a rhetoric based in wisdom (aka “Truth” captial”T” intended) that will allow the preacher to speak persuasively and interpret the true meaning of the writers of the Bible. Scripture is hard reading, and it is a task that provides enjoyment for its completion and in finding the truthofthe text. It is also a way to correct human sin of pride. Logic is privileged in his system over disputation because logic allows the individual to see the pre-existing truthGodalready laid out; Sophistic disputation (forensic rhetoric?) is dangerous as it allows falsehood to become truth through the speaker’s words. Augustine recovers classical learning by saying it’s alright to use it, which is in contrast to his predecessors since they used such scholarship but publicly denounced it as paganism (Augustine seems to have an affinity for Plato).
“Augustine employs Cicero’s conception of the three offices of rhetoric and also of the three levels of style. He fuses these categories more neatly than Cicero does…The Christian orator should use subdued style to teach, temperate style to “condemn or praise,” and grand style when he wants to move to action” (454).
Augustine has no qualms withplagiarism. Truth is the not the individual’s, but God’s, and so one preacher may read and use another’sworksince no one person can lay claim to true exegesis of Scripture. Good words that persuade the masses to what is right is part of the collective commons.
The first half of the text, which is Book IV, expounds the connection between wisdom and eloquence. When one has been blessed, through research, work and prayer, with the true meaning of Scripture, than he is able to speak wisely about divine word, and therefore, in his understanding can speak eloquently because he knows the simplest but most persuasive words to convey this truth to the congregation.
It seems that Augustine is pressing the Bible as the ultimate model for eloquence, once it is properly understood. This wisdom has been written by men, but men who have been given Divine Grace. The orator/preacher is the conduit.
Para 31: The pruning of the Second Sophistic (468).
Para 33: The importance of rules and teaching, of guidance, of being prepared (469).
Para 34: Underlined. The articulation of the synopsis (469).
Para 38: The three registers of discourse as called out in the synopsis (underlined 471).
“[T]hesethreestyles can be found scattered through their many writings and treatises, and can, through abundant reading and hearing, with the addition of practice, become engrafted in students’ minds” (478). Even though Augustine opens this book saying rhetorical training is something that this text will not cover, he is still covering issues of style/eloquence as they matter within Scripture and preaching. So, I don’t think he would see this as rhetorical training but as professional training for the up and coming clergyman. Is this a moment of the professionalization of the clergy? A codification and licensing of clergy who are officially licensed by the orthodox church to teach the masses?
All orations should use to use all three purposes of oratory and use all three registers to lead the masses to the truth as given by Scripture. ”[U]nlessthespeaker can makes himself both understood and enjoyed, he cannot make himself persuasive” (482).
Para 62: Section on the collective commons of good words which move people to good living, ie, there is no such thing as plagiarism (485).
Boethius
Boethius was a Christian scholar who served in Theodoric the Great’scourt. Theodoric was an Ostrogothwho ruled Rome after the fall of the last Roman Emperor. Boethius was a philosopher who was in charge of education Theodoric’s family and was eventually put to deathundersuspicion of colluding with the Byzantine empire to overthrow Theodoric.
Boethius is considered important to rhetorical theory although he thought little of rhetoric, and described himself as a philosopher practicing philosophic argument, or dialectic (see a full explanation on 486 in the bracketed section). For Boethius rhetoric is subordinate to dialectic; rhetoric has no epistemological force of its own and becomes the means of applying general rules of argumentation that have been established by dialectic. This means no knowledge can be generated through rhetoric (out Aristotling Aristotle). This colors Boethius’ description of rhetoric. In “Overview of the Structure of Rhetoric”, Boethius “barely mentions style, memory, and delivery, giving the reader very little sense of how rhetoric might be used to affect an audience” (487). He sees rhetoric’s purpose in Ciceronian fashion in that it should teach and move, but he “omits the third duty…namely ‘to please’” (487).
An Overview of the Structure of Rhetoric
The texts seems a rehash of stasis theory. The language is very cyclical, and reads like the classic “A Friend is a Friend” essay that uses nothing more than maxims to define friendship.
Anonymous
A basic overview of the history of letter writing. Letter writing was an important genre, and much like the Egyptian rhetoricsdiscussed with Lipson, these texts were meant to be read aloud. Also, the letter was had to follow strict rhetorical moves to ensure that the intention and views of the ruler were understood and made abundantly clear. Due to the aural status of the genre, monks like Alberic of Monte Cassino connected the art to Cicero’s ideas about the form of spoken orations (see 493 for more info). Over time, rhetoric was taught solely in this discipline. As the discipline of letter writing was absorbed into law, it became exceptionally formulaic.
From The Principles of Letter Writing
This text displays the formulaic quality mentioned above. Much of the text consists of writing the appropriate salutations (all of which would be in Latin, it seems). The types of verbs to use, titles to mention, and emotions to evoke through word choice and motive are all discussed at length here. Most interesting is the small section page 502, “The Securing of Goodwill.” In this section there is even advice how to not secure goodwill but to invoke animosity (see underlined section in text). By the end of this section the importance of the salutation is brought up once again, since the writer(s) point out most goodwill can be garnered through a salutation which honors the receiver of the letter through the use of titles and politeness strategies germane to the receiver’s social status.
Christine de Pizan
Women involved in rhetoric does not have to mean women writing treatises on rhetoric. The definition can be broadened to mean women concerned with the education of women and “how they should use language at court and in other walks of life” (Glenn qtd. in Bizzell and Herzberg 540). The first of such women to meet such a definition of rhetoric is Christine de Pizan.
Pizan’s father was the astrologer and physician to King Charles V of France. She was educated by her father and other court tutors. Pizan acquired literacy in Italian, French, and Latin; knew some classical texts in their vernacular translations; and was aware of the scholarly discourse of the middle ages. She married one of Charles’ legal secretaries, and learned the conventions and rhetorical moves of legal/royal letter writing (ars dictaminis) from him.
After the death of her father, husband, and patron-king, Pizan became a letter writer and active critic (see the Quarrel of the Rose 541) and eventually found paying work as the historian for Charles V’s reign. From there she began producing texts arguing for women’s rights and recogniton of the roles in soceity (541-542), and because of this is often seen as a protofeminist. Along the way she invents the genre of autobiography and is the first to voice socially conscious criticism concerning gender; Pizan saw gender as a social construction leveraged by men to create an exclusively female social–and economic–underclass (demonstrated in the texts excerpted in The Rhetorical Tradition).
While all the character constructions of Pizan’s texts are involved in the secular and civic world (Dame Reason, Worldly Prudence–counter to the tradition of intelligent women turning to convent life in fiction and reality) they are also often working behind the scenes and using persuasive lanugae to move men to action. The advice often extended to imagined female readers of thesetextsis realistic and practical (taking stock and pride in the roles they–women–played in civic and public life; how to use language to benefit them in a range of situations) and at the same time exceptionally conservative (Pizan points out she would have never entered into public life if not forced to; Pizandoesnot advocate for a redrawing of labor lines but recognition of the labor women already and its importance; she argues for more freedom of movement for women on the basis it was needed to take care of daily familial business) (542-543). Still, she is considered the beginning of the Renaissance humanist movement and an important figure within feminist rhetorical studies; however, her lack of a explicit concern with rhetoric and lack of education in the classics often brackets her from being labelled a Renaissance humanist (543).
In The Book of the City of Ladies, Pizan:
sets her accounts of these of these women into a discussion of socially reinforced misogyny and the limitations it has placed on women. In spite of these odds, as her famous examples show, women have achieved far more than their critics give them credit for. In the passage excerpted here, Christine defends the right of women to be educated. (541)
In The Treasure of the City of Ladies, Pizan
provides instruction that will help fit women of all social ranks for inclusion in Christine’s ideal female community. Although the same three virtues briefly appear to introduce the teachings, the main voice of instruction belongs to a character named Worldly Prudence. This choice is meant to indicate that the book will focus primarily on the active life of a woman engaged in familial and civic affairs, rather than that of one withdrawn into contemplative religion. (542)
From The Book of the City of Ladies
The first full paragraph on the second page (545) demonstrates Pizan’s conservative nature; the section bracketed discusses the good and right choice of the Church limit acceptable fields of study. It doesn’t appear ironic.
From The Treasure of the City of Ladies
Page 546: The first full paragraph in the second column is a good example of a female rhetorworkingbehind the scenes and using language to persuade those in power to do what is ethically right.
“Since the good lady…”(547). This seems an example of the good woman trained well in speaking. The ideal woman is what Pizan is constantly forwarding in this text.
Part Two explains the pitfalls of language, whereas part one dealt with how to language persuasively. Slander is the worst thing that happens in this set up; the worst part is that it reflects poorly on the speaker practicing slander (549 bracketed).
550 serves as the marker that this section is a practical way to navigate life at court. This echos the section of the summary.
Rhetoric Retold
Cheryl Glenn
Chapter Three:
“Medieval Rhetoric: Pagan Roots, Christian Flowering, or Veiled Voices in the Medieval Rhetorical Tradition.”
Glenn opens with an interesting and articulate statement about what rhetoric meant to Aristotle and Plato, continues on with how Christianity appropriated pagan rhetoric for its own end, and then explains how medieval rhetoric actually worked to disenfranchise both men and women, but especially women, by limiting its practitioners to men of the clergy. At the end of the intro she explains several women did contribute to rhetorical theory and practices in an indirect fashion.
Two such figures would be Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. Through their inclusive mysticism they created a feminine rhetorical power based on religious devotion and fervor that allowed them to speak about the world in ways that still matched the epistemology of their world. Through their literay activity, they provided the most important texts of the Middle Ages, “mystical treatises, available to all in the vernacular” (117).
“Bolstered by their Christian faith, these women (Julian and Kempe) inscribe the rhetorical tradition in new ways: they break their silence, speak in the vernacular, as women, and reach women and men of all classes” (75).
Page 76-77 list the work/social roles women participate in that Pizan argued should be recognized. On 77 there is an interesting note: lineage (and therefore rights to titles and wealth?) is passed through women, not men.
78 through 79 Glenn discusses religion at this time, and its propensity towards misogyny. She equates Augustine’s ideas about exegesis and hermeneutics to the ability to take from pagan culture without fear of damnation, and especially any ideas or concepts that “justify the terms of human (in)equality” (78). Glenn also points out that Christ protected and healed men and women alike, which would point to the concept of an egalitarian social system devoid of division based on sex. Unfortunately, this concept was filtered by the social mores of this time, and only women who desexed themselves through devotion to the Church (nuns) was a woman able to receive such treatment in the material world. A woman who did not desex was offered the promise of a better society “‘in Christ,’ not the real world” (78).
This meant a huge amount of power in monastic life (running convents financially and socially) but still meant a denial of participation in dealing with the more esoteric practices of church philosophy. This lack of accessibility meant the creation and recreation of a worldview which constantly pejoritized woman.
This pejoritized woman was reified by the character constructions floating around at the time. All fictional women were “emotional creature[s]” who were “inherently weaker than and inferior to rational man” (87).
God becomes the Word, that is, language itself. Rhetoric becomes the way to defend the Church from pagans and heretics. So, although the Church looked down on pagan rhetoric, it was still motivated to appropriate Rhetorica as a way to become mobile, persuasive, and defensible. “Christianity, about words, their interpretation, belief, and practice, colored all intellectual activity including each of the several liberal arts” (88).
“In the better convent schools, women learned the trivium, the Holy Scripture, the Fathers, and music. Because of Church-supported educational opportunities, nearly all the medieval women in rhetoric were convent educated; all of them were religious women” (92).
Julian and Kempe’s work should be literature as viewed by Burke, that is, well executed rhetoric. In this way, there is an amount of authorial intention and self-determination we can give to the writers since they can be interpreted as rhetoricians working in a specific, limiting rhetorical situation.
