Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 2.djvu/141

129 to set forth Greek grammar, for the use of the Latins, it is necessary to compare it with Latin grammar, because I commonly speak Latin myself, seeing that the crowd does not know Greek; also because grammar is of one and the same substance in all languages, although varying in its non-essentials (accidentaliter) also because Latin grammar in a certain special way is derived from Greek, as Priscian says, and other grammarians."

The dialecticizing of grammar took place in the north, under influences radiating from Paris, the chief dialectic centre. These did not deeply affect grammatical studies in Italy, or in the Midi of France, which in some respects exhibited like intellectual tendencies. Grammar was zealously studied in Italy, but it did not there become either speculative or dialectical. To be sure northern manuals were used, especially the Doctrinale; but the study remained practical, an art rather than a science, and its chief element, or end, was the ars dictaminis or dictandi. The grammatical treatises of Italians were treatises upon this art of epistolary composition and the proper ways of drawing documents. These works were studied also in the North, where the ars dictaminis was by no means neglected.

Latin grammar, although over-dialecticized in the North, and in Italy made very practical, remained of necessity the foundation of classical studies, and of mediaeval literary effort, in prose and verse. As the basis of liberal studies, it had no truer home than the cathedral school of Chartres. Contemporary writers picture the manner in which this study was there made to perform its most liberal office, under favourable mediaeval conditions, in the first