From marginal gloss to catena commentary: the eleventh-century origins of a rhetorical teaching tradition in the medieval West

From marginal gloss to catena commentary: the eleventh-century origins of a rhetorical teaching tradition in the medieval West In the following paper I draw attention to two different manuscript formats for the medieval tradition of textual annotation, in this case within the ars rhetorica and concerning the major rhetorical teaching texts for most of the period 1050-1600 A D , namely the Ciceronian D e inventione and the pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium} Thefirstof these two formats is represented by the continuous or 'chain' (catena) gloss, and the second by the marginal or scholion gloss. In brief, the catena gloss contains, not the text being glossed, but only key-words abstracted from that text, each of these being followed by the gloss on it. The resultant text, made up of these 'key-words' inserted into the gloss, like links in a chain, looks like a new continuous prose work which completely replaces the original (see Fig. 1 below, p. 113).2 The second type of formatting, the scholion gloss, presents the original text as an integral unit, the glosses being arranged around the text-block or inserted between the lines (see Fig. 2 below, p. 115). The differences between these two formats is never made plain in the published texts, nor is the cultural significance of the phenomenon given the attention it deserves. M y aim here is to attempttoremedy this situation. Rhetoric is in some ways an inappropriate topic for a medievalist. The term 'rhetoric' implies the negotiability of all certainty, whilst medieval scholasticism assumed the certainty of all truth, and eschewed an art that taught the fabrication of plausibility outside the schools, in the market-place, the forum, the law court, the retinue of duke, king, pope. Yet rhetoric comes to the fore even in a medieval context when certainties begin to crash, when truth becomes negotiable, when institutions lose dieir monopolistic control of knowledge.3 Such a period was the century and a half that divides die 1 In fact, the De inventione lost its popularity after the middle of the twelft 2 See, for example, the only modern printed edition of such a gloss: K. M . Fredborg (ed.), The Latin Rhetorical Commentaries by Thierry of Chartres, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts 84, Toronto, 1988. 3 See J. O. Ward, 'Rhetoric, Truth, and Literacy in the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century', in R. L. Enos (ed.), Oral and Written Communication: historical approaches, Written Communication Annual 4, London, 1990, pp. 126-57; and T. Coletti, Naming the Rose: Eco, Medieval Signs and Modern Theory, Ithaca (NY), P A R E R G O N ns 13.2, January 1996—Text, Scribe, Artefact 110 J. O. Ward lead-up to the Investiture Contest from the Fourth Lateran Council. These years represent the classic period for the role of rhetoric in medieval education and thinking. T w o aspects of the time-span to which this paper is devoted claim attention here. Thefirstis the advent of conflict and intellectual strife, and the second is the not-unrelated birth of the rhetorical catena commentary. The controversies that erupted over lay investiture, transubstantiation, the correct use of the ones in theological discussion, the construction of what Gillian Evans has called 'a missionary theology'4 —to name four of a number that could be cited—rendered truth and certainty negotiable in a way that cannot be detected for earlier centuries of the Middle Ages. It would be a mistake to confine the ramifications of these controversies to the literate elite alone. O n the contrary, as with the related controversies that surrounded the sacraments, the worship of crucifixes, the eating of meat, and the practice of contraception in the same period, ordinary people were deeply divided by controversies over the correct use of word sciences, over the correct understanding of the Trinity, over the preaching of the word of God, and over the lay investiture of priests and clergy.5 Widespread uncertainty in turn led to a renewal of interest in the rhetorical techniques of persuasion. It is no accident, therefore, that the years in question saw the birth and growth to maturity of the rhetorical commentary. By the...