The Classical Trivium Personified

A l’alta fantasia qui mancò possa;
ma già volgeva il mio disio e’l velle,
sì come rota ch’igualmente è mossa,
l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

"That lofty fantasy here failed in its power. But already my will and desire were turning like a wheel moved by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.”
Dante, Paradiso Canto 33, the final 4 lines.

Be sure to read Parts 1 and 2 if you haven’t already. Translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.

Last time, I introduced Martianus Capella as a lesser-known and little-read source on the Trivium, who was among the first to formulate the “liberal arts” in the form that we recognize it today. Essentially he wrote a textbook with a frame narrative about Mercury falling in love with a girl named Philology who brings 7 handmaidens to the marriage with her: each one one of the 7 Liberal Arts. Martianus Capella’s De Nuptiis was used as a textbook on liberal arts education for a thousand years after its appearance.

The frame narrative is important because it bequeathed to educational philosophy a symbolic association: marriage and unity.

Capella spends two books elaborating this frame narrative, and then introduces each of the liberal arts as a lady with her own distinct appearance. Each liberal art receives its own book and she lays out the boundaries (and overlaps) of her subject. It can be read, perhaps, as an attempt to explain the unity and multiplicity of knowledge and reality (a problem which has haunted philosophy from its earliest days).

The first of the handmaidens to speak is ‘Grammar.’

She of course begins with individual sounds or phonemes (as do all humans when they learn to speak), and an explanation of grammar and syntax. She emphasizes even more the mastery of literature that is required because that is the fountain from which we learn our language. Then we hear from Dialectic, who (borrowing heavily, though indirectly, from Aristotle) discusses the proper use of logic in argumentation. Then comes magnificent Lady Rhetoric who teaches us about the proper use of rhetorical figures and demonstrates her power to sway a crowd.

The Trivium comes first.

Then comes the Quadrivium; we hear from Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and finally, Harmony (music), whose conclusion has important consequences for the allegory as a whole.

Harmony is presented as the ultimate aim of the entire educational endeavor, through the specific subjects of grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and music/harmony. Harmony, the last handmaiden to speak, tells us that her mother is the ‘Paphian,’ that is Aphrodite, which is appropriate given the theme of marriage and marital harmony. She is said by Jupiter to have been in long hiding and unheard by mortals for generations (9.899).

In this narrative, however, Harmony brings a kind of ‘resurrection’ of all the great mythical poets such as Orpheus and Amphion (9.908) and she sings the marriage song as the happy couple retreat from the gathering. The bard or great poet is “resurrected” in the practice of music (hence the inseparability of poetry from music).

As a summation of the whole idea of the work, the aim of all these branches of knowledge together is their harmonization and unification, symbolized by music. Music binds all knowledge together, which is why music was such an important and abiding image for the Middle Ages and Renaissance, whereas now we all have minds of metal and machinery when we think about education.

If we wish to attain an accurate picture of the Trivium (let alone the Liberal Arts as a whole) we must consider language and literature as one and the same. ‘Grammar’ the character is painted as an old nursemaid whose ‘first duty’ is attending to youngsters’ diction. However, she says early in her speech:

‘Partes autem meae sunt quattuor litterae, litteratura, litteratus, litterate. Litterae sunt quas doceo, litteratura ipsa quae doceo, litteratus quem docuero, litterate quod perite tractaverit quem informo.’

My four parts are: letters, literature, the learned man, and literary style. Letters are what I teach, literature is I myself who teaches, the learned man is the one whom I teach, and literary style is what someone will have achieved whom I inform. 3.231

(Even if you don’t know Latin, reading over this passage may give you some idea of Capella’s cartoonishly effusive style, which evidently didn’t put off anyone from reading him and taking him very seriously in the Middle Ages and Renaissance).

This passage asserts the fullness of what ‘grammar’ means, and it is fairly clear (despite the difficult Latin construction) that this includes all aspects of language, including its literature, which is what is meant by litteratura. She equates herself with literature. In other words, literature is the medium of instruction for grammar. This is apparent from Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria, which is of course prior to Martianus.

We also know from other later authors such as Cassiodorus that grammar was a course of study in literary models, and this idea is present here as well. Lady Grammar begins with the literal letters, and interweaves her explanation of letters and phonemes with copious allusions to mythology and Roman history, exactly the sort of rhetoric you would expect an educated person to use.

The characterization of Grammar as a nursemaid is stressed as she is introduced, because she is in charge of a child’s very earliest experience of learning, which is important to my overall point here: grammar is focused on the ‘accidents’ of language (e.g. nouns and verbs) but especially through the medium of literature. Various ancient authors believed firmly in the importance of the earliest years of a child’s life because these are formative years, and even a child’s nursemaid has to be very carefully selected.1

When Capella introduces Grammar as a character, she brings with her an array of tools and medicines (2.224) such as a knife with which to prune away faults in pronunciation, and other medicinal plants that are supposed to drive away ignorance, which are applied using papyrus (that is of course because paper as the medium of learning - we cannot learn without paper).

When she begins giving an account of herself in 3.230, she says that her first duty is to teach children their letters. She gives some examples of the sorts of exercises they will undergo, but then she says that her duties do not end there but she must then lead students to understand and criticize ‘knowledgeably.’

At this point in the text, the Capella scholar Stahl has a very helpful footnote:

‘Grammar’ in antiquity not only meant the study of linguistic forms but also embraced the study and appreciation of literature. Hence, Grammar admits that her duties are shared by the philosophers and literary critics, each of whom has an interest in the forms of verbal expression.’ (Stahl Martianus 67)

Lady Grammar says at one point that Romulus himself named her ‘Litteratura’ or ‘Literature’ (3.229). She also connects her form of study to others (citing specifically astronomy and geometry) because all of the liberal arts share a certain affinity with one another (3.230).

As Dame Grammar describes the early stages of her field, she describes how Latin has adopted various Greek names, such as Ajax (3.236) or Ariadne (3.250) and she does this to explain sounds and sound changes. She mentions a number of authors by name such as Catullus (3.229), Sallust (3.241), Cicero (3.269), to name but a few. She spends a considerable amount of time on prosody and the proper lengths of syllables, which is of course going to be drawn from poetic examples. There was no ‘theory’ except what could be drawn from their great literature. She quotes at the outset of her phonetics lesson the poet Catullus, poem 14:

‘Munus dat tibi Sulla litterator.’

‘Sulla2 the literature teacher gave you a gift.’

This helps to show the interwovenness of literature with early language instruction, and also the extreme importance attached to studying poetics which took place under the heading of “grammar” study.

Most of what Grammar describes is her earliest duties: letters, morphology and the origins of words, though with apologies for the times she overlaps with other fields of study. However, Minerva interrupts her in 3.236 before she can bore everyone else present. The narrator says that she had only just begun to introduce her subject before she was interrupted, implying of course the endless amount that one could say on the subject.

What is interesting about Minerva’s remarks is that if she were to let Grammar keep droning on, Grammar would soon find herself encroaching upon the other Liberal Arts because Grammar also will have to discuss ‘music’ in connection to poetry, and if she did not stop, she would soon be discussing the ‘bards’ or ‘vates’ and their peculiar speech patterns.3 This is because so much of Grammar’s instruction is clearly derived from literary examples, which are the source for all knowledge of Latin (or Greek) grammar and style.

The implication of Minerva’s warning is that Grammar will end up discussing her subject for countless hours and have too much overlap with other Liberal Arts, including (and especially) music:

'nam si rhythmicum quid metricumque, sicut inter cirratos audes, assumpseris, profecto Musices impetu, cuius praevertis officium, discerperis.'

'For if you take up the subject of music as you would with young students, you will surely be struck a blow from Music, whose office you are overturning.' (9.910).

Quintilian regards rhythm and meter to be important for discussion, but to belong more 'absolutely' to music - we ought to see a “full circle” between Grammar and Music (Harmonia). Minerva goes on to emphasize that Grammar should not 'cheapen' her instruction by venturing into the territory of others. Nevertheless, the overlap is clear.

There is a remark in Boethius’ Consolatio Philosophiae:

“Adsit igitur Rhetoricae suadela dulcedinis quae tum tantum recto calle precedit, cum nostra instituta non deserit cumque hac Musica laris nostri vernacula nunc leviores nunc graviores modos succinat.”

"Let us now use the sweet persuasion of Rhetoric which can only proceed from the straight page, if we do not depart from our practices and if it harmonizes well with our native Music that is sometimes light, and other times serious." CP 2. Prosa 1.

Boethius, writing well after Capella, makes good use of this analogy with music which is a central part of his thinking. The final element of the Trivium (Rhetoric) is harmonized with the final element of the Quadrivium (Music) in Boethius’ formulation, which points to the pervasiveness of this particular image after the appearance of De Nuptiis in the intellectual sphere. 4

Returning to Capella, after Lady Grammar is stopped by Minerva, we then hear from the other members of the Trivium. Lest I drone on too long in a similar fashion, I will quickly provide some highlights from Dialectic and Rhetoric since they are also a part of the Y (the Trivium) and must not be discounted.

Dialectic is characterized as a somewhat shy Greek woman who is at first uncomfortable speaking Latin. She soon gains her footing. Symbolically this is because the formalization of dialectic is attributed to Aristotle. She is, however, careful to credit her transferal into the Roman realm to the polymath grammarian Varro (4.335) and she will make very clear her indebtedness to Cicero throughout her speech. The Latin authors did much to advance the study of dialectic. Dame Dialectic will discourse on logic and the discovery of truth by means of various logical arguments, which goes hand-in-hand with Rhetoric which is the art of communicating the truth that one has discovered by means of Dialectic.

After Dialectic concludes, the handmaiden Rhetoric enters with magnificence. She is described as a beautiful and striking woman who immediately takes command of the whole room. Well into her speech, Lady Rhetoric quotes Homer and Cicero (5.430) and goes on to explain that her duty is to teach persuasive language (5.439), which requires her to reference Cicero on nearly every page as she explains the different figures of speech (of which Cicero was the consummate master). Her speech is significantly longer than either Grammar or Dialectic because she so thoroughly overawes her audience that she is allowed to reach a suitable conclusion rather than being interrupted. Lady Rhetoric then ends in a poetic address to Philology, before returning to join the other handmaidens.

I have not the space to devote to the other liberal arts in this post, but it may come at a future date. I will skip to the end of the work for now.

Fittingly, De Nuptiis ends with Harmonia explaining music to the room, and poetically weaving a picture of the unity of the couple who symbolically represent perfect learning.

Music exerts a special sway over the imaginative landscape of antiquity and the Middle Ages. We can perceive this earlier in the literary tradition in the Roman sphere. Cicero’s “Somnium Scipionis” borrows this imagery and calls it the musica univeralis, elaborating on this old Platonic and Pythagorean formulation.5 The famous Roman general and politician Scipio, in his dream, is hearing this beautiful music and does not immediately realize that it is coming from the seven planets producing their unique harmonies - it is this music that holds all of reality together.

This idea was extremely influential in antiquity and survived into Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages via Boethius and Macrobius (among others). Boethius’ Consolatio Philosophiae is filled with these heavenly musical images, although Boethius is later than Martianus Capella and the time period I am particularly interested in here.6

Boethius also writes extensively on this theme in some of his treatises such as De Musica, especially the notion of ‘musica mundana’ which manifests itself in the rhythms of nature and is inaudible to human ears.7 The workings of the universe itself, in the seasons and the movements of the planets and stars are conceived of as being part of a heavenly symphony that produces sounds that we cannot hear, but we can perceive the effects of this music in the world around us.

This idea (musica mundana) is perhaps alluded to when Harmony begins her song and Martianus writes, ‘...in venerationem extra mundanae omnes intelligentiae surrexerunt.’ (9.910).

The gods are inspired to the veneration of ‘all extramundane intelligences’ through her song. I think that this is the ‘worldly’ music in the same sense that Boethius means in De Musica 1.2: the music that ‘makes the world go ‘round’ so to speak. Boethius also uses the term ‘mundana,’ as I mentioned above. It refers to the ‘heavenly’ music of the spheres, where each planet produces a unique pitch and resonates in harmony with other planets. This conception of heavenly harmony is what forms the basis of medieval cosmology, and consequently, the point of education. The point of medieval education is to be harmonized with the cosmic music, and in that harmony, to find unity with God.

Harmonia, despite being essentially a textbook on music, gives us all the seeds of this understanding of the unifying effect of music and how it unifies all the Liberal Arts together. Music is mathematics in time, and when combined with poetry, it is untied with the Trivium, and the very divine beauty of music points us to the heavens (astronomy).

From all of this, I think we can conclude two things. Firstly, the immense influence of Martianus upon the medieval imagination as a seminal influence on the development of allegory (even when it is ham-handed as some medieval allegory was).

Even when Capella ceased to be useful in the education landscape of Europe, he still describes an important educational and imaginative impulse towards unity, and this is a theory of knowledge which was certainly shared between Christian and pagan. The biggest difference, broadly speaking, between the two camps is the source of that unity. While the Christian would say that unity is ultimately found in the Judeo-Christian God as the Creator and with a distinct personality, the pagan (particularly those of the Neoplatonist strain) would say that unity is found in ultimate Being, or the ultimate One, or Supreme Deity as I termed it above.

The primary impulse of Neoplatonism is also to seek unity. The Christian Supreme Deity is a personal God with a distinct identity and a mode of communication with humans, whereas the Neoplatonic Supreme Deity is impersonal and lacking in any distinct identification or personality.8 However in both systems the impulse towards understanding all things as manifestations of the Transcendent is shared. The ‘downstream’ implication of this is that knowledge is also a unity and can be sought though there is never any guarantee of any one human being able to master all knowledge. It means rather that we can perceive what Cassiodorus calls the ‘divine structure,’ the divine scaffolding of the world upon which all other pieces of knowledge hang.

The conception of the liberal arts and the Trivium as such is that it is considered the most sensible way for a human being who has leisure to acquire that unified body of knowledge. Despite being nearly universally despised for his ‘dullness’ and difficulty, Martianus Capella has had a profound influence on the development of education in Europe for several hundred years and is now all-but-forgotten.

William Stahl writes:

‘It is easy to hold Martianus’ book up for scorn; but as a guide to the intellectual developments in the Latin West during the Middle Ages it has few equals. It must also be acknowledged that the manual is a well-proportioned and comprehensive handbook of the liberal arts which played an important role in education for a thousand years.’ Stahl, 115

Martianus generally merits a mention here and there (although little outside of scholarly journals and the occasional book). He is a difficult author to read, so it is understandable. Martianus can also be seen as a pivot point between the classical and the medieval world in that he forms an important intellectual bridge between the two. In him we see the early stages of allegory as it would manifest in the centuries of the Middle Ages, while also being rooted in the ancient world and its priorities. He utilizes Greco-Roman mythology as freely as he does Neoplatonic doctrine.

The throughline that connects Martianus to the classical world is his vision of knowledge as a unity, which he renders into a glittering, panoramic vision of a divine marriage. Understanding this image is key to understanding most of our educational and philosophical background.

Perhaps most importantly, we see centrality of language for this type of education as it was traditionally understood. The handmaidens of Philologia, the personifications of the seven Liberal Arts, ultimately serve their mistress Philologia whose name means ‘Word-lover,’ or even ‘Language lover.’ Language itself is the center of the unified vision of knowledge, and Philologia as the personification of language presents us with a view that language can be studied with just as much rigor as any other subject. The Trivium (specifically grammar) is about learning one’s own language and literature, and this is the vision that medieval education held for itself for centuries.

Charlotte Mason is perhaps the closest example we have of an educational philosopher upholding this medieval vision in the modern era, and adapting her educational program to the very real demands of the day without compromising the foundational ideals of a ‘classical’ education: putting the humane focus on literature first and assuming that knowledge is unified. When she says ‘education is the science of relations,’ she means that we are pursuing those interconnections that exist because all knowledge ultimately has One source (Mason, Parents 258-9). In effect, one can study anything and still be pursuing this medieval educational ideal, as long as it is properly contextualized in that sense of unity.

In closing, I will reassure the reader that the result of pursuing an education in this manner is not necessarily that a student needs to start cramming in Latin and Greek, or forcing your kids to cram it in starting at the age of 5.

Latin and Greek will certainly help one understand Western literature intimately especially when studied with love of the literary tradition at the forefront. I have never for one second regretted the many years I have spent on these languages.

However, one can gain an education after this fashion by reading a lot of good books in English (or any language that has good books in it) and becoming very conversant with one’s own native tongue, and one’s own native history, and with the outlook that all of our knowledge as humans does have an ultimate unity, no matter how narrow the fields may be (from geometry to calculus and biochemistry).

None of this is to say that we will ever attain perfect knowledge as there will always be much we do not and cannot understand, but the existence of the ideal is important. It is also worth emphasizing the fact that methodology flows more naturally from the ideal, rather than turning the ideal merely into a convenient three-step method that deprives us of far richer fields of inquiry. I shall end this reflection with the words of Cassiodorus when he concludes his work on Christian and secular education:

‘Let us consider why this arrangement of the disciplines led up to the stars. The obvious purpose was to direct our mind, which has been dedicated to secular wisdom and cleansed by the exercise of the disciplines, from earthly things and to place it in a praiseworthy fashion in the divine structure.’ (Cassiodorus Institutes 2).

May we also seek this divine structure and tread that same path to the stars.

The bibliography (selected) for these posts is available at the end of Part 1.