Teaching Grammars of the Middle Ages
Notes on the Manuscript Tradition
G. L. Bursill-Hall | Simon Fraser University
Grammar enjoyed a privileged position in the medieval curriculum; along with the other members of the Trivium it provided a thorough foundation which probably accounts for much of the intellectual success of the medieval schoolmen. This article discusses the material used in the Middle Ages for the teaching of grammar and aims at an exhaustive list of pedagogical material which can still be found, for the most part unedited, in European manuscripts collections; this material served not only for the teaching of Latin grammar to students whose mother tongue was not Latin but also as an introduction to the study of grammatical theory. The article refers to the changes that took place in grammar, i.e., from being a literary discipline it became a logical, speculative discipline, which is reflected in this pedagogical material. Furthermore, this material provides important indications of developments in grammatical theory and their effect on grammatical pedagogy. What is very striking is that certain text-books which enjoyed a widespread influence were written when there was not only a greatly increased demand for text-books but also when every discipline was undergoing radical change.
Published online: 01 January 1977
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.4.1.02bur
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.4.1.02bur
Cited by
Cited by 10 other publications
Allen, W.S. & C.O. Brink
1980. The old order and the new: A case history.
Lingua 50:1-2 ► pp. 61 ff. 
Bursill-Hall, G. L.
1981. Medieval donatus commentaries.
Historiographia Linguistica 8:1 ► pp. 69 ff.
Bursill-Hall, G. L.
1989. Medieval Priscian commentaries.
Historiographia Linguistica 16:1-2 ► pp. 89 ff.
Huntsman, Jeffrey F.
1978. Computers and medieval english lexicography.
Computers and the Humanities 12:1-2 ► pp. 53 ff.
HUNTSMAN, JEFFREY F.
1979.
In Medieval Studies and the Computer,
► pp. 53 ff.
Kneepkens, C. H.
2020.
In Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy,
► pp. 1430 ff.
Alastair Minnis & Ian Johnson
2005.
In The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism,
Reinikka, Anna
2017. Latin parsing grammars from the Carolingian age to the later Middle Ages.
Historiographia Linguistica 44:2-3 ► pp. 255 ff.
Rosier, Irène
1990.
In Philosophie et science au Moyen Age / Philosophy and Science in the Middle Ages,
► pp. 783 ff.
Rosier-Catach, Irène
1998. Remembering Geoffrey Bursill-Hall.
Historiographia Linguistica 25:3 ► pp. 251 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 august 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
References
References
A.Critical Editions
Fierville, Charles
(1833-?), ed. 1886 Une grammaire latine inédite du XIIIe siècle, extraite des manuscrits no. 465 de Laon et no. 15462 (fonds latin) de la Bibliothèque nationale. Paris: Impr. nationale.
Reichling, Dietrich
(1845–1921), ed. 1893 Das Doctrinale des Alexander de Villa-Dei: Kritisch-exegetische Ausgabe … Berlin: A. Hofmann & Co.
Wrobel, Johann
(1831–1909), ed. 1887 Eberhardi Bethuniensis Graecismus; ad fidem librorum manu scriptorum recensuit, lectionem varietatem adiecit, … Breslau: G. Koebner.
B.Secondary Works
Brother Bonaventure, F. S. C.
1961 “The Teaching of Latin in Later Medieval England”. MS 23.1–20.
Bursill-Hall, G. L.
1974 “Toward a History of Linguistics in the Middle Ages”. Studies in the History of Linguistics ed. by Dell Hymes, 77–92. Bloomington & London: Indiana Univ. Press.
1976 “Johannes de Garlandia – Forgotten grammarian and the manuscript tradition”. HL 3:2. 155–77.
Gibson, Margaret
1972 “Priscian, ‘Institutiones grammaticae’: A handlist of manuscripts”. Scriptorium 26.105–24.
Goetz, Georg
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Hunt, Richard William
1950 “Hugutio and Petrus Helias”. Medieval and Renaissance Studies 2:2.174–78. (Repr. in R. W. Hunt, Collected Papers on the History of Grammar in the Middle Ages, 145–49. Amsterdam: John Benjamins 1978.)
1964 “Oxford Grammar Masters in the Middle Ages”. Oxford Studies presented to Daniel Callus, 163–93. Oxford: Oxford Historical Society. (Repr. in Hunt, op. cit., 167–97.)
Manitius, Max
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Marigo, Aristide
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Pinborg, Jan
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Scaglione, Aldo D.
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Thurot, Charles
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