The Encyclopedias

Alongside the treatises on the liberal arts, the standard knowledge of the Middle Ages was transmitted by encyclopedias; the most ancient of them is that of Isidore of Seville (7th c.), articulated in a broad and complex scheme, comprising among other things law, medicine, architecture, agriculture and computation (or ‘calendar science’). The Ethymologiae of Isidore had a long and lasting success and constituted the basis for similar texts, such as the De universo, composed in the 9th c. by Rhabanus Maurus. In the 12th century, thanks to translations from Greek and Arabic, the sources of philosophy and science were consistently broadened: this is apparent, for example, in the encyclopedia of William of Conches, Dragmaticon philosophiae. In the 13th c., with the new literary genres cultivated in the schools, encyclopedias continue to be produced such as the De naturis rerum of Alexander Neckham, the De proprietatibus rerum of Bartholomew the Englishman, and finally the monumental encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, the quadruple Speculum (Speculum Doctrinale, Naturale, Morale, and Historiale) of Vincent of Beauvais, tutor of the children of Louis IX of France. This last work is also partly due to the need to present the culture of the time to a lay public. Programs and encyclopedic texts are also composed, in connection with their programs of cultural reform, by Roger Bacon and by Ramon Lull. This last author introduced two innovations into encyclopedic writing: a new systematic way of structuring the contents of knowledge, based on the figure of a tree (Arbor scientiae), and the use of the vernacular. Between the end of the 13th c. and the beginning of the next, we see the production of other encyclopedic works in vernacular languages, such as the French Placide et Timée, the Tresor of Brunetto Latini; and the translation of Latin texts, such as the Dragmaticon of William of Conches and the De proprietatibus rerum of Bartholomew the Englishman.