The Latin rhetorical commentaries by Thierry of Chartres (review)

146 Reviews Fredborg, K. M., ed., The Latin rhetorical commentaries by Thierry of Chartres (Studies and Texts, No. 84), Toronto, P.I.M.S., 1988; pp. 403; R.R.P. C A N $39.50. The scholar and teacher Thierry, whose life occupied the whole of thefirsthalf of the twelfth century, is by any standards an important figure. His work is absolutely crucial to our understanding of the intellectual and institutional turmoil which spanned his life. Much about both scholar and writing, however, is still shrouded in mystery. Controversy rages over whether we should assign Thierry primarily to Paris rather than Chartres; controversy which Dr Fredbord reviews but which she sensibly does not attempt to setde finally here, although her suggestion of Paris with, as it were, a commuter post in Chartres has much to recommend it Bewilderment reigns over the dates and original texts of many of Thierry's commentaries and, as a result, over the vital question of what precisely was his contribution to the formation of a syllabus appropriate to the nascent universities. Did he or did he not favour the trivium over the teaching of theology? Did he regard rhetoric, rather than patristics, as the truly essential preparation for the understanding of, and preaching upon, Holy Writ? All of these questions are of thefirstimportance and none of them can be resolved without m o d e m editions of the master's works. All of this makes the present quite excellent edition extraordinarily welcome. Dr. Fredbord presents us for the first time with two of Thierry's trivium teaching commentaries: one on the De Inventione of Cicero and an subordinate one on the Rhetorica ad Herennium thought to be by Cicero. Both were, she suggests convincingly, written between the years 1130-1138. As a technical achievement the production is hard to fault. It is a most worthy successor and vital complement to Haring's edition of the 'theological' commentaries. The apparatus is a joy because of its scrupulous line by line collations, its reference backwards to Stroebel's Rhetorici..., and forwards to later adaptations such as that of Gundissalinus (here placed convincingly as a follower of Thierry). The stemma, complete with the usual frustrations, is carefully constructed. Dr. Fredborg might, it is true, sometimes have told us more than she does about the codices within which these commentaries are bound. Measurements are not given for all of the texts, for instance, and no word is said about their possible origins. Mere nods towards notoriously inadequate manuscript catalogues, such as those of the Harleian or Arundel collections, rob us of potentially interesting information about the company the commentaries kept in other schoolrooms. 'Praha' for Prague, in an edition meant for English readers, is trying, and so is 'interlineary' for 'interlinear'. These are, however, minor cavtis in the context of Reviews 147 this impressive piece of scholarship. Might she now turn her hand to the horrors of Alanus? I hope so. Valerie IJ. Flint Department of History University of Auckland Griffin, C, The Crombergers of Seville: the history of a printing and merchant dynasty, Oxford, Clarendon, 1988; pp. xix, 270; 20 microfiche; 5figures;4 tables; R.R.P. A U S $155.00. This book covers the rise and fall in the Seville of 1504-1560 of a printing house founded, like so many in the early stages of the great revolution in European book production, by a German immigrant. Unlike many others, however, this printer, not content with becoming an outstanding practitioner of his craft, branched out into publishing, book selling, property investments and ventures in trade and silver mining in the N e w World. Readers should not expect a sixteenth-century version ofBuddenbrooks. The founder of this house, Jacobo Cromberger, and his successors remain shadowy figures. There are no memoirs, diaries, or personal letters to illuminate them. What they did leave behind are masses of legal and business records that were lodged with the various notaries who obtained their custom. Fundamentally, the sourcesrisefrom the Crombergers' activities in earning a living; however, Dr. Griffin has used them in such a way as to enrich our understanding of many aspects of social, cultural and religious history, as...