The Liberal Arts

At the beginning of the 6th c., Cassiodorus gathered together in one compilation, for the instruction of monks, the whole of the liberal arts, which Augustine in his De doctrina christiana had already identified with the path of philosophy which leads to the understanding of Sacred Scripture: the arts of language (called the sermoncinales or Trivium: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric), and the arts of measure (called the reales or Quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy). The De nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae of Martianus Capella (a pagan author of the third century), an encyclopedia steeped in Platonic cosmology, was one of the principal channels of transmission of this ancient tradition. Boethius and Alcuin wrote compendia on all or some of the liberal arts. The classical texts associated with each of these arts—whether they were simply summarized, or whether they were effectively read and commentated—remained for the entire Middle Ages the basis of cultural formation, as two compilations of the 12th century demonstrate, one originating from a monastic environment (the Hortus deliciarum of Herrade of Landsberg) and the other originating from a scholastic environment (the Eptatheucon of Thierry of Chartres). During the same period, Hugh of Saint Victor composed a manual for teaching, the Didascalion, in which alongside the liberal arts he classified the mechanical arts, or the technical and practical knowledge fundamental for medieval civilization (weaving, architecture, navigation, agriculture, hunting, medicine, and scene design). In the universities the liberal arts constituted an introduction to philosophy taught during the firsts years of schooling in the faculty of arts.