Andreas Capellanus, Scholasticism, and the Courtly Tradition

3. The Intertextuality of Love: Authorities and Models

3 ≥ THE INTERTEXTUALIT Y OF LOVE Authorities and Models Having examined in Chapter  the use that Andreas makes of the liberal arts of the trivium, we must now take a closer look at his relationship to his sources. The two subjects are closely related, for it is the application of the liberal arts, especially dialectic, to textual material inherited from the past that constitutes the core of medieval scholasticism. Andreas’s relationship to his sources comprises two distinct but related aspects: the citation of authoritative opinions in support of arguments and the use of earlier texts as models for his own discourse . In the interest of clarity, we shall treat them separately, while keeping in mind their interrelatedness. But first a word about the medieval notion of auctoritas. Auctoritas and intertextuality The concept of auctoritas played an important role in the medieval liberal-arts curriculum. An established but flexible canon of authorauthorities (auctores) served as the basis for grammatical studies. They were also one of the chief sources of topical invention for rhetorical and dialectical argumentation.1 At least as early as Quintilian (1.4.2), grammar was defined as com86 1. Curtius, pp. 48–54, 247–64. prising two parts: the science of speaking correctly and the art of interpreting the poets. This is because the poets to be interpreted also served as models to be imitated in matters of usage and style. In the twelfth century John of Salisbury invokes Quintilian in his Metalogicon (1.24) in describing one of the basic medieval school exercises, lectio, as practiced by Bernard of Chartres. Lectio was the reading of and commentary upon the curriculum authors, who were also committed to memory, recited, and imitated in original compositions. In his Didascalicon (6.8–11), Hugh of St. Victor also describes the exercise of lectio, which progressed in three steps from the littera to the sensus and finally to the sententia, that is from analysis of the grammatical construction to the literal meaning and from there to the deeper moral or mystical meaning. In the Topics (1.1, 100a30–b17; 100b21–23), Aristotle defines dialectic as reasoning from generally accepted opinions, that is, from the opinions of all or of the majority or of the wise. Cicero, in his rhetorical Topica (2.8), distinguishes between “intrinsic arguments,” which are inherent in the nature of the subject under discussion, and “extrinsic arguments ,” which depend principally on authority. Boethius synthesized the Aristotelian and Ciceronian doctrines in his De differentiis topicis, incorporating in particular the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic arguments. It was in this form that the classical doctrine of authority was transmitted to the Middle Ages, where it would thus play an important role in the other basic school exercise, disputatio, as well as in the specifically medieval forms of rhetoric, namely the arts of preaching , letter writing, and poetry. The literary tradition of medieval schools was strengthened by two other sources of authority: the religious tradition of the theologians and the juridical tradition of canonists and lawyers. Christianity was a religion of written authority, a religion of the Book. All speculation in theology had as its point of departure the Bible and its authorized interpretation by the Fathers. Despite the ambivalence toward classical pagan authors that emerged periodically, medieval Christianity ultimately strengthened the notion of authority as applied to them by viewing them as a secular dispensation of divine wisdom and by allegorizing the incompatible elements. Like theology, jurisprudence depended upon an authoritative text, the Corpus juris civilis, the decretals, and the like, t h e i n t e rt e x t ua l i t y o f love 87 which the medieval commentator merely interpreted. From Quintilian (8.5.3) on, the term most often used for quotations of authority is a legal term, sententia, which originally designated the judgment or decision of a public body. Beginning in the mid-twelfth century, literary studies suffered a decline owing to the rise of dialectic. It was in part this tendency that John of Salisbury decried in attacking the Cornificians in Book I of the Metalogicon.2 This development did not signal the end of the auctores, but rather their transformation, for if they were no longer studied as authors , they were increasingly cited as authorities. This explains the semantic evolution of the term auctoritas: originally designating the prestige of the author or...