Chapter 2 The Ad Herennium and the Rhetorical Works of and Quintilian in Relation to the Rhetorical Interests of the Middle Ages

The aim of this chapter is to deduce certain preliminary conclusions about medieval notions of the utility of classical rhetorical theory from the nature of textbooks chosen for close and continuous study in the Middle Ages, and from the nature of the other available Latin rhetorical treatises that did not find the same degree of favour in the medieval schools. Cicero’s speeches cannot be discussed in the present context. Medieval scholars of unusual tenacity did attempt to come to grips with certain of the speeches as pre-eminent oratori- cal examples; Gerbert of Rheims in the tenth century and Wibald of Corvey in the twelfth spring to mind as outstanding examples. Nevertheless, the ma- jority of medieval students of contented themselves with occasional references to the Verrines, or the Catilinarian conspiracy, and such citations of individual speeches as were to be found in the commentaries of Grillius and Victorinus. Needless to say, references to Cicero’s speeches in the medieval rhe- torical commentaries quickly become stereotyped.1 Modern scholarship is generally agreed on the superiority of Cicero’s and Quintilian’s Institutes of Oratory over the other rhetorical treatises of classical and late classical antiquity. Both these works were inspired by a lofty educational ideal which has proved more appealing to scholars since the Renaissance than have the dry technicalities that characterise so much of the

1 On the medieval knowledge of Cicero’s speeches, see the appropriate places in M. Manitius (1935); Delisle (1868–1881) vol. 2 on the library of Richard de Fournival; Mynors (1957) p. 202; MS Cambridge, University Library Dd. 13.2, a collection of Cicero’s philosophical works and speeches compiled by William of Malmesbury, contains a surprisingly broad array of speeches: , Pro C. Plancio, , Pro P. Sulla, Pro C. Pompeio, parts of , , Pro Q. Ligario, Pro Rege Deiotaro, In Pisonem, In Catilinam I–IV, and Phillippics. The absence of the Verrines (see Cicero Verrines in the Bibliography below) from this gathering is surprising, but in the eyes of a monastic writer it may have been too closely associated with the secular rhetorical tradition to warrant copying. On William’s collec- tion see Harrison (1968) pp. 100–102 and James (1931) pp. 21–3. I have to thank my colleague Professor R.M. Thomson for providing me with the contents of this MS. Cf. also below Ch4.3 for Cicero’s speeches in the writings of Adelard of Bath and Brunetto Latini; also now Ward (2015b) and (2016). See too the relevant entries in Reynolds (1983).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004368071_005 AD HERENNIUM AND THE RHETORICAL WORKS OF CICERO & QUINTILIAN 93 rhetorical literature of antiquity.2 Medieval attitudes towards rhetoric, how- ever, reflect an interest quite contrary to that of the modern world. Reserving consideration of Quintilian’s Institutes and the Rhetores Latini Minores until later, it will be found that the medieval reception of Cicero’s rhetorical works is the clearest evidence of this. The De Oratore, the De optimo genere oratorum, the , and , were not popular textbooks in the Middle Ages.3 Indeed, knowledge of these works is rarely found in the sources. One reason is simply that these works do not ‘teach the art’ in the concise and systematic manner to be found in the vastly more popular and Ad Herennium. They are not school manu- als. The popularity of the De Inventione and the Ad Herennium from the tenth and eleventh century,4 together with that of the minor treatises that preceded them in the same didactic role, is the strongest evidence for the very practical

2 See now Ward (1999a) pp. 77–87. 3 Howell (1941) pp. 29–30; Vickers (1970) p. 31. Struever (1970) p. 28 has some perceptive re- marks on the significance of a culture’s preference for the De Inventione / Ad Herennium over the De Oratore. Pirenne, Cohen and Focillon (1933) p. 200 is quite wide of the mark. The omis- sion, in the present study, of any full-scale treatment of the rôle played by the De Oratore in the Middle Ages may strike the reader as a serious defect, especially since the influence of the Ad Herennium and De Inventione has been the subject of at least one previous work (Grosser [1953x]). However, the influence of the De Oratore in the Middle Ages can be ascertained fairly readily from the MS history of the treatise and the occurrence of copies of it in medieval libraries together with a notice of the intellectual career of scholars like Lupus of Ferrières. The study of the De Oratore in the medieval period reveals the intellectual curiosity of the exceptional individual rather than the ordinary scholastic interests of the day. The scholar anxious to plumb the depths of medieval rhetorical practice and theory cannot, therefore, justify exceptional attention to the Überlieferung of the De Oratore. The minor rhetorical trea- tises of Cicero, and the Rhetores Latini Minores printed by Halm, have also been relegated to an incidental place in the present work, but here, at least, it is hoped that sufficient material has been provided to allow an understanding of their place in the medieval rhetorical tradi- tion to emerge. See further now de Filippis (2013) chapters 4–6 and, on the De oratore in me- dieval rhetorical culture, Ward (2017); one curious and unanswered question is what Lupus actually did with his knowledge of the De oratore, which he copied out (in mutilated form). 4 Grosser (1953x) pp. 195–6 asserts that the De Inventione appears in the medieval library cata- logues more frequently than any other work of Cicero. Other popular ‘Ciceronian’ works in the catalogues are the Ad Herennium, the , De Amicitia and De Senectute. Mynors (1957) p. 202 says that the De Inv. and Ad Her. are easily the commonest Ciceronian works in the English library catalogues. Abelson (1906) p. 54 is out of date. He has the curious no- tion that the De Inv. and Ad Her. were ‘advanced’ texts only, This is true of the period before 1000 but decreasingly so thereafter. Abelson supposes, probably in part correctly, that the De Inventione was popular because of the survival of antique commentaries on it. See also Appuhn (1900) pp. 90+, and below Ch4.7 on the contents of medieval libraries.