Reviewed by: Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and their Art 400–1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 Ce by John O. Ward Stephen Joyce Ward, John O., Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and their Art 400–1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 ce (International Studies in the History of Rhetoric, 10), Leiden, Brill, 2019; hardback; pp. xvii, 706; 1 colour illustration; R.R.P. €199.00, US$239.00; ISBN 9789004368071. Almost fifty years after it was examined, John O. Ward finally publishes his influential dissertation on Western medieval attitudes toward the Graeco-Roman art of rhetoric. His ground-breaking work, targeting neglect of a significant aspect of the medieval imagination, has been ‘refreshed’ for a contemporary academic audience. Ward follows the reception of two key Roman rhetorical texts from the year 400 to 1300, namely De inventione and Rhetorica ad Herennium, attributed to the Roman rhetor, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 bce), though his authorship of the latter is no longer accepted. Ward begins with the commentary on De inventione by the fourth-century rhetor, Victorinus, and ends at the point where the rhetorical texts of Aristotle become widely influential in the West. Noting that these Ciceronian texts are, in the modern era, regarded as lesser works, Ward establishes these ‘juvenilia’ as fundamental to medieval approaches to rhetoric. His analysis of the surviving manuscript corpus demonstrates the importance of these works on the intellectual culture of the medieval period. In a Christian tradition, it was, perhaps, Augustine of Hippo who first endorsed the select influence of Cicero’s juvenilia on the medieval West, cementing subsequent suspicions of Cicero’s more mature works as ‘showy’. It is only in the Renaissance, Ward argues, that the ‘true’ figure of Cicero is revived. Ward subsequently moves to examining medieval attitudes to classical rhetorical theory through an investigation of the impact of the juvenilia. The Ad Herennium represents a more systematic teaching tool, and Ward details its utility in the learning and practising of the art of rhetoric, especially as an authority on style and memory and their impact on persuasive speech and writing. The De inventione, on the other hand, concentrates, as per its title, on an aspect of rhetoric, [End Page 253] invention, and is less tightly organized. However, the De inventione still had utility, particularly in its rhetorical classification systems and its discussions of practical applications of rhetoric. Moving to a teleology of Ciceronian textbooks, Ward charts the influence of Cicero (and the ‘Ciceronian’ first-century rhetor, Quintilian) on the period 400– 1100. The decline in the classical Ciceronian rhetorical tradition in the late Roman period sees Victorinus’s new take on Cicero. His commentary on De inventione, inspired by the Platonic philosophies of Quintilian, shifts rhetoric from a high art to an art dependent on the character and motivations of the person using it, thus attaining, in the new Christian landscape, a theological aspect. The fifth-century rhetor, Grillius, subsequently shifts the debate further to more Hellenistic ideas of rhetoric as an acquired art and not an innate talent, though not without some resistance from sixth-century rhetors such as Boethius and Cassiodorus. Seventh-and eighth-century figures such as Isidore and Alcuin pick up on the classical, now Christian, ideal of the rhetor as the vir bonus. Alcuin, in particular, relates rhetoric to a doctrine of persuasion, perhaps in a context of increasing religious compulsion in secular politics. Increasingly, as Ward shows, rhetoric is displaced by grammar in this period, with rhetoric regarded as an abstraction. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries are the hey-day of the De inventione and the Ad Herennium. The scholastic revolution sees an increasing interest in defining art and the relationship between the arts. Rhetoric becomes increasingly embedded in theological debates over whether it is a tool for reason, an innate truth, or a simple art. These fierce debates involved notable medieval intellectuals such as Abelard, Hugh of St Victor, and Bernard of Chartres, and produced a group that spurned both rhetoric and Cicero, the so-called Cornificians. In a climate increasingly charged with accusations of heresy, the De inventione became preferred because of its...
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Jan 2, 2021
Lucy Underwood 
Open Access