Medieval Theory of Authorship
Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages
Alastair Minnis
Series: The Middle Ages Series
Copyright Date: 2010
Edition: 2
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Pages: 368
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fhqd9
Search for reviews of this book
Book Info
Medieval Theory of Authorship
Book Description:

It has often been held that scholasticism destroyed the literary theory that was emerging during the twelfth-century Renaissance, and hence discussion of late medieval literary works has tended to derive its critical vocabulary from modern, not medieval, theory. In Medieval Theory of Authorship, now reissued with a new preface by the author, Alastair Minnis asks, "Is it not better to search again for a conceptual equipment which is at once historically valid and theoretically illuminating?" Minnis has found such writings in the glosses and commentaries on the authoritative Latin writers studied in schools and universities between 1100 and 1400. The prologues to these commentaries provide valuable insight into the medieval theory of authorship. Of special significance is scriptural exegesis, for medieval scholars found the Bible the most difficult text to describe appropriately and accurately.

eISBN: 978-0-8122-0570-1
Subjects: Language & Literature
You do not have access to this book on JSTOR. Try logging in through your institution for access.
Log in to your personal account or through your institution.
Table of Contents
Export Selected Citations Export to NoodleTools Export to RefWorks Export to EasyBib Export a RIS file (For EndNote, ProCite, Reference Manager, Zotero, Mendeley...) Export a Text file (For BibTex)
Select / Unselect all
  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-vi)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. vii-viii)
  3. Preface to the Reissued Second Edition
    Preface to the Reissued Second Edition (pp. ix-xxvi)
  4. Preface
    Preface (pp. xxvii-xxxix)
    A. J. M.
  5. Abbreviations
    Abbreviations (pp. xl-xlv)
  6. Notes on Style
    Notes on Style (pp. xlvi-xlvi)
  7. Introduction: The significance of the Medieval Theory of Authorship
    Introduction: The significance of the Medieval Theory of Authorship (pp. 1-8)

    IN RECENT YEARS, in discussions of late-medieval literature, it has become fashionable to employ a number of critical terms which derive their meaning from modern, not medieval, literary theory.¹ This practice can to some extent be interpreted as a tacit admission of defeat. There are many major aspects of medieval texts which cannot be discussed adequately in the terminology and framework of those sources of medieval rhetoric and poetic which have to date enjoyed full scholarly attention. For example, the arts of preaching are very specialised, while the arts of poetry offer practical instruction in the use of tropes, figures...

  8. 1 Academic Prologues to ‘Auctores’
    1 Academic Prologues to ‘Auctores’ (pp. 9-39)

    In the beginning of this book and of every other, the listeners are accustomed to ask who is the efficient cause. And it is very useful to know this, for statements of ‘authentic’ men are the more diligently and firmly inscribed in the mind of the hearer.¹

    The English grammarian William Wheteley (fl. 1309–16) is addressing his pupils in the introduction to his course of lectures on the De disciplina scolarium. It is very useful, he assures them, to know the name of the ‘efficient cause’ or writer of a book, because ‘authentic’ statements—statements which can be attributed...

  9. 2 Prologues to Scriptural ‘Auctores’
    2 Prologues to Scriptural ‘Auctores’ (pp. 40-72)

    THE ‘TYPE C’ PROLOGUE, specially adapted to meet the unique requirements of sacred Scripture, became the standard form of introduction to commentaries on the Bible. Theologians successfully exploited techniques of analysis which for generations had been employed in accessus. This development may be regarded as inevitable, since, in many cases, the same scholars were writing commentaries on both secular and sacred auctores. The outstanding example from the early Middle Ages is Remigius of Auxerre, who, apart from producing the commentaries on grammatical textbooks mentioned in the previous chapter, expounded some seven books of the Bible¹. Among the main twelfth-century polymaths,...

  10. 3 Authorial Roles in the ‘Literal Sense’
    3 Authorial Roles in the ‘Literal Sense’ (pp. 73-117)

    IN THE MOST CHARACTERISTIC and representative of the Scriptural exegesis produced in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the respective roles of God and man in producing Holy Scripture were described precisely. According to St Thomas Aquinas, God is the sole auctor of things and can use things to signify, whereas human auctores are auctores of words and use words to signify¹. When things are used significatively in Scripture, allegorical senses arise; when words are used significatively, we have the literal sense². The literal sense was believed to express the intention of the human auctor. As St Thomas’s teacher Albert the...

  11. 4 Literary Forms in the ‘Literal Sense’
    4 Literary Forms in the ‘Literal Sense’ (pp. 118-159)

    IN TWELFTH-CENTURY PROLOGUES to Scriptural commentaries, the heading ‘mode of proceeding’ (modus agendi) had usually introduced discussion, conducted with limited interest in literary issues, of the way in which the deep divine meaning of the work had been formulated. The modus was regarded as the property of the Holy Spirit rather than that of the human auctor. In the related sphere of literary construction, commentators had searched the books of the Bible for hidden principles of order and form. According to Honorius ‘of Autun’, ‘each book of sacred Scripture has its special divisions and its special significations of number’¹.

    The...

  12. 5 Literary Theory and Literary Practice
    5 Literary Theory and Literary Practice (pp. 160-210)

    SO FAR, we have been concerned with the historical development, mainly in French and English schools of philosophy and theology, of the theory of authorship channelled by two major types of academic prologue. The present chapter is different in nature, because it focuses on the way in which aspects of this literary theory moved beyond their initial intellectual milieu to become available to a wider range of writers and readers. What follows is essentially speculation regarding the dissemination, and to some extent the dilution and transformation, of the literary attitudes described above. A comprehensive survey of all the relevant permutations...

  13. Epilogue: The Familiar Authors
    Epilogue: The Familiar Authors (pp. 211-217)

    ONE OF PETRARCH’S Litterae de rebus familiaribus contains the following assessment of Cicero:

    . . . though nearly everything pleases me in Cicero—a man whom I cherish beyond all my other friends—and though I expressed admiration for his golden eloquence and divine intellect, I could not praise the fickleness of his character and his inconstancy, which I had detected in many instances.¹

    In this short passage are illustrated many of the features of a theory of authorship usually associated with the Renaissance. Cicero is at once someone to be respected and a ‘familiar’ or friend². Yet, this reverence...

  14. Notes
    Notes (pp. 218-281)
  15. Bibliography
    Bibliography (pp. 282-311)
  16. Index of Latin Terms
    Index of Latin Terms (pp. 312-316)
  17. General Index
    General Index (pp. 317-323)
University of Pennsylvania Press logo