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"HE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES--
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LIBERAL ARTS CURRICULUM
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RELIGIOUS SCULPTURE

presented by

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THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES - THE DEVELOPMENT
OF THE LIBERAL ARTS CURRICULUM AND THE THEME OF THE ARTS IN
MEDIEVAL REUGIOUS SCULPTURE

By

Martha C. Oser

A THESIS

Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of ~

MASTER OF ART

Department of Art

1995

ABSTRACT

THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES - THE DEVELOPMENT
OF THE LIBERAL ARTS CURRICULUM AND THE THEME OF THE ARTS IN
MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS SCULPTURE

By

Martha C. Oser

The seven liberal arts first appear in Medieval religious
sculpture during the eleventh century and continue to appear in a
consistent manner well into the Renaissance. This paper attempts
to investigate the origins of these figures, the reason for their
female nature and the possibility of a standard iconography
emerging in the Middle Ages.

In the course of writing this paper, I have investigated the
educational systems of ancient Greece and Rome as well as the
schools of Europe in the dark ages through Medieval times. I have
also studied a set of sculptural representations of the liberal arts,
specifically those found at sites in France, Germany and Italy.

I have discovered the origins of the personiﬁcations of the
liberal arts in the ﬁfth century and revealed that there is a standard
iconography in the sculpture of the Middle Ages. l have also
endeavored to give a more detailed description of the arts in my
examples, since they are generally not clearly described in the
present literature.

Copyright by
MARTHA CAREY OSER
1995

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to acknowledge the assistance of my thesis committee,
Dr. Susan Madigan, Dr. Eldon Van Liere and Dr. Webster Smith. Also,
my thanks to the staff and students of the M.S.U. Art Library,
particularly Pat Thompson, who assisted with translations and
searching for necessary books. Finally, to my parents, who put up
with my procrastination and saved the money to send me to college

in the first place.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures

Introduction

Chapter One Ancient Education and the Liberal Arts

Chapter Two Education in the Middle Ages

Chapter Three Martianus Capella and the Liberal Arts

Chapter Four The Arts in Medieval Religious Sculpture

Conclusion

Appendix One Hugh of St. Victor and Vincent of Beauvais

Appendix Two A Second Cycle of the Arts at Chartres
Cathedral?

Bibliography

vi

18
36
45
102
106

109
113

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Apse of Cluny lll

Figure 2: Philosophy

Figure 3: Dialectic

Figure 4: Rhetoric

Figure 5: Grammar

Figure 6: Geometry/Hope

Figure 7: Music/Justice/Faith

Figure 8: Arithmetic/Charity

Figure 9: Astronomy/Justice/Faith
Figure 10: Chartres Cathedral, Royal Portal
Figure 11: Royal Portal, South Entry
Figure 12: Grammar

Figure 13: Dialectic

Figure 14: Rhetoric

Figure 15: Geometry

Figure 16: Arithmetic

Figure 17: Astronomy

Figure 18: Music

Figure 19: Laon Cathedral, West Facade
Figure 20: Laon Cathedral, Liberal Arts Window
Figure 21: Philosophy

vi

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55
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62
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68
69
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72
73
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78
81

INTRODUCTION

Paris and Orleans are at adds.
It is a great loss and a great sorrow
That the two do not agree.
Do you know the reason for the discord?
It is because they differ about learning;
For Logic, who is always wrangling,
Calls the authors authorlings
And the students of Orleans mere grammar-boys.1
So begins Henri D'Andeli's poem The Battle of the Seven Liberal
Arts, a thirteenth-century work which describes the battle of two
armies of liberal arts led by Grammar, who defended Orleans, and
Logic, who attacked from Paris. While this work is of the thirteenth
century, it demonstrates the enduring attraction of the mythology of
the seven liberal arts across several centuries. Indeed, this poem
may even reflect the culmination of medieval interest in the liberal
arts, an interest which first flowered in the Carolingian
Renaissance of the ninth century. In the twelfth and thirteenth

centuries occurred the rise of the universities and a great expansion

 

‘Louis John Paetow, The Battle of the Seven Arts (Berkeley. University of
California Press, 1914), 37.

Z
of the intellectual horizons of the time.Z It is at this point that we

see the mind of European education and civilization teetering on the
brink of the Renaissance, waiting expectantly for the tremendous
explosion of knowledge about the world that was to occur within the
next century.

Education in Europe up to this point was something of a limited
affair. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire and the
corresponding loss, or "forgetting,"3 of knowledge, education of the
sixth, seventh and eighth centuries was mainly conﬁned to monastic
institutions, as will be discussed below. The core of this education
was the liberal arts, which represented the traditions of Greek
education as interpreted and evolved by Roman scholars and
conveyed to the medieval world by the works of a few Roman
writers. The Carolingian Renaissance brought education to the
palaces and to the secular elite of Europe. By the twelfth century,
lay universities were beginning to emerge, though they were still
tied to religion through their connections to the great cathedrals,
such as Chartres.4

 

Zlbid, 16.

3"Forgetting" of knowledge is what the Dark Ages represent. Rather than a
calamitous, sudden loss of learning, the fall of the Roman Empire resulted in a gradual
reduction of Roman influence in the outlying provinces of Europe. This reduction of
governmental influence was accompanied by a gradual recession in learning and
education. Over time, as Rome-educated ﬁgures died off, learning was forgotten in the
day to day struggle for survival in the face of constant dangers from the surrounding
worId which were no longer constrained by the powers of Roman civilization.

4Raymond Klibansky, ”The School of Chartres," in Twelfth Century Euope and
the Foundations of Modern Society, ed. M. Claggett, G. Post and R. Reynolds (Maison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1961), 4.

3
Between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, medieval

intellectual life was supported by three main pillars. These were
education, religion and art. Central to these three movements were
the themes of the liberal arts. In education, the seven arts were
both the foundation and central themes. They organized one's
educational life and directed the courses of study. In religion, the
liberal arts were symbolic of the seven pillars supporting the house
of wisdom, even as the knowledge of the ancients supported the
contemporary knowledge of theology and phil050phy.5

ln art, the seven liberal arts were a common theme, often
depicted as described in the ﬁfth century work of Martianus Capella.
They appear further on nearly anything one might imagine, including
enameled boxes, ivory chalices, church frescoes, candlesticks and
countless manuscripts. Perhaps the most significant, and most
accessible, representations of the liberal arts are those found in the
monumental decoration of churches: frescoes, mosaics and sculpture.
This paper will focus on sculptural representations of the liberal
arts, including those on the facades of the cathedrals of Chartres
and Laon, and on the stone pulpits of the cathedral of Pisa and Siena.
The seven liberal arts, as central foci of Medieval intellectual life,
were conveyed to the lay public as essential mysteries of
knowledge. Often, they were related to the mysteries of religion,
which were an overwhelming force in the life of the average

Medieval person. Therefore, both religion and the arts were dealt

 

5Jean Favier, The World of Chartres (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990),
39-40. Thieny of Chartres, head of the cathedral school from AD. 1150-55, called
contemporary scholars "dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants," a theme which is
reﬂected in the windows of the southern facade of the church, showing the four
evangelists of the New Testament perched on the shoulders of Old Testament prophets.

4
with on an almost daily basis as the Medieval populace attended

religious services and ceremonies.

CHAPTER ONE

The cycle of the liberal arts in Medieval times is a direct
outgrowth of the Greek and Roman systems of education, though
somewhat modiﬁed by Christian ideals. Early Greek education
outside of Sparta, where it was controlled by the state, was often
highly individualistic. Eventually, a uniform curriculum came to
develop, but it was not directed by any state ofﬁce, school board or
law. In Athens, as early as 594 BC, laws were written to govern
the processes of the many private schools that existed at the time.
These regulations determined the hours during which school should
be in session, the number of students who could attend and the age
at which one might begin formal schooling.‘ At the core of early
Greek education were physical education and music, but this later
broadened to include poetry and letters.Z The growth of rationalism
in Greek thought and society played a major role in the development
and origins of each liberal art. Through the Greeks' quest to

interpret their universe in rational terms, all of their ways of

 

1J.F. Dobson, Ancient Education and Its Meaning to Us (New York: Longmans,
Green and Co., 1932), 25-26.

ZPaul Abelson, The Seven Liberal Arts (New York: Teachers' College Press,
1906), 1-2.

6
approaching and investigating the world around them became

saturated with rationalist ideals.3

By 479 BC, the itinerant scholars that came to be known as
Sephists began to appear. These men came to Athens and other Greek
cities claiming to answer the question, "What knowledge is of most
worth?" Their response, "Knowledge of the art of presenting
viewpoints in public," was of great interest to the Athenians in
particular, since their political life had come to revolve around a
public assembly. Thus, the orator who could speak most
persuasively and present his viewpoint most eloquently was sure to
have the greatest impact upon his fellow citizens. The Sophists,
then, proposed to instruct the individual on the arts of public
speaking: presentation and persuasion. At the same time, however,
the Sephists were concerned not with the content or message of the
speech they were preparing, but rather with the ideal form of the
speech and with their payment for assisting in the preparation of
the oration. This emphasis on ideal form over content became known
as the art of Rhetoric.4

Socrates and his student Plato both objected to the
opportunistic approach of the Sophists. Instead, these two men
advocated a less individualistic approach which revolved around the
search for Truth in all things. The Socratic method of education,

 

3For a full discussion of the inﬂuence of rationalism on the liberal arts, see
David L. Wagner, "The Seven Liberal Arts and Classical Scholarship," in The Seven
Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages, ed. David L. Wagner (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1983), 2-9.

4E.H. Gwynne-Thomas, A Concise History of Education to 1900 AD. (Washington,
D.C.: University Press of America, Inc., 1981), 7-8.

7
which employed reasoning and discussion as a means of revealing

falsehoods and eliciting truth came to be known as the Dialectic
method. This method was expected to result in the development of a
harmonious society, or one that was organized in such a way that its
citizens could achieve happiness, truth and goodness. Plato's
educational scheme was based partly on his ideal Republic, in which
the upper, or ”guardian" class was composed of an ”aristocracy of
talent”5 which was responsible for directing the state. To this end,
education was the means by which future leaders of the state were
trained and selected.

Prior to Plato's time, the Athenian state was not involved in
the education of its youth. Instead, the education of children was
left to the individual family. Children were sent either to the
palaestra, a school for physical education, the music school, or the
school of the grammatist, which focused on basic reading, writing
and arithmetic. Plato, unsatisﬁed with this system, devised a life-
long plan of instruction divided into distinct stages. This plan began
at age six and was preceded by family upbringing which was to focus
on good health and social habits intended to bring order to the
chaotic mass of conflicting impulses that make up a young child.
From age six on, the child was to be involved in the prescribed
course of study.

Elementary education, which lasted until age twenty,
consisted of instruction in gymnastics, music and grammar,
emphasizing virtue and beauty, as well as good character. Also, the
youth spent two years in military service, since defense of the state

 

5Gwynne-Thomas, Concise History, 10.

8
was often required, and young men at the peak of their physical

ability could best provide that defense. Higher education then began
at age twenty and consisted of a program of study directed toward
eventually conducting affairs of state. This focused on arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy and harmony, with the ultimate goal deﬁned as
the study of philosophy.6 Here one can see what may be a
foreshadowing of the Trivium and Quadrivium of Medieval times.
Themes of study were divided by Plato into the arts of expression-
grammar and music-and the arts of science—astronomy and
mathmatics.

At age thirty, an examination determined which students
should proceed to further studies and which should be given duties
as civil servants in the state bureaucracy. Those students who
continued on would focus their attention on advanced studies,
especially in philosophy, through the age of fifty. At that time, the
most accomplished of the lot were considered to have achieved a
balance between theory and practise, and were given positions in the
government as rulers or elder statesmen. They were expected to
perform their duties according to the rules of Reason, without
falling prey to any personal whim or prejudice.

The Roman Empire did not begin to adopt the ideals of Greek
education until after the Second Punic War. At ﬁrst, lessons were
conducted in Greek, based in Greek literature and taught by Greek
scholars. Eventually, though, there was a drive to develop a national

 

6For a full examination of Plato's system of education, see Gwynne-Thomas, 11-
17.

9
system of Roman literature and education. This drive was

spearheaded by M. T. Varro (116-27 B.C.), who worked to build a
nationalized system of education grounded in Greek ideals, but with
lessons based in Roman literature and using texts written in Latin.
Varro's lost work, the Disciplinarum Libn' Novem, included treatises
on many subjects taught in Greece in his day. These included
grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, geometry, arithmetic, astrology,
music, medicine and architecture.7 Other authors, such as Seneca
(B.C. 2 - 65 AD.) and Quintilian (35 - 95 AD), included or omitted
various subjects in their organization of the Roman Curriculum. For
example, Seneca includes medicine as a liberal art, and Quintilian
limited his curriculum to geometry, music, astronomy and grammar.8
Quintilian's system, like Plato's, began with a certain amount
of training in the home, and was geared toward the development of
the perfect orator. During his time at home, the child's parents were
to be responsible for the development of language, both in Latin and
Greek. Quintilian stresses that correct speech must be used around
children, since undesirable language is hard to eliminate at a later
date. Formal schooling was to begin at age seven, or, "when a boy
has learned to read and write with ease..."9 Primary education, under
the tutelage of the grammarian, was to be conducted in both Greek
and Latin, in small classes and including athletic play or gymnastic
training each day, so as not to over-stress the mind. Secondary

 

7Abelson, Seven Liberal Arts, 4.
8William M. Smail, Quintilian on Education (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938),

11-20, 34-44, 47-60, 69-72, for Quintilian's comments on grammar, music,
geometry and rhetoric..

9lbid, 34.

10
education focused on the development of reasoning and powers of

analysis, as well as advanced studies in philosophy, astonomy,
geometry and music. By age sixteen or seventeen or, as Quintilian
puts it, ”when he is ready for it,”10 the boy passes on to the school
of the Rhetor, where the disciplines are extended to include law,
logic and ethics, and where the student will be instructed in the arts
of the crater.

Like the Greeks, the Romans emphasized the link between
politics and education. The Romans, too, had formed a citizens'
Assembly to handle the affairs of state, and it was therefore
necessary that participants in the Assembly were capable of
presenting their viewpoints in an articulate, persuasive manner
which could be easily understood by their colleagues. So, the arts of
rhetoric became as signiﬁcant in Rome as they had in Athens during
its golden age.

Despite their use as topics for study by the educators of the
Greek and Roman worlds, the seven liberal arts were not known as
such. Through the fourth century AD, the ideas of the seven arts
were examined by the great minds of the church and eventually
emerged as the medieval concept of the arts. By the fourth century,
the curriculum of the pagan schools of Rome included the study of
what would be known as the seven liberal arts-grammar, rhetoric,
dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. Throughout
the second, third and fourth centuries, this curriculum solidiﬁed in
the secular schools. However, since the roots of the curriculum of

 

Iolbid, 7o.

11
the arts were entirely pagan, it was often viewed as a threat to

Christian religion during this same period.11

The ﬁrst Christian school in Rome was founded in AD. 160 by
Saint Justin Martyr.12 These early Christian, or catechetical,
schools existed originally for the sole purpose of educating
prospective church members, or catechumens, in the ways of
Christianity. This education consisted mainly of moral and religious
teachings designed to teach the Christian way of life to the
converts, who, at this time, were mostly adults. As such, baptism
was often deferred until the age of thirty, or until the catechurnen
had completed the introductory course of instruction. This
consisted of teachings on morality, piety, church laws, creation and
punishment of the wicked.13

By the third century AD, however, the Christian schools had
lost their wholly theological function, and instruction had advanced
from the simple principles of religion to investigation of the
mysteries of the gospels." This transition involved the integration
into the curriculum of education the works of pagan authors such as
Plato and Quintilian. This, in turn, caused some consternation on the
part of the church fathers, who took a dim view of such works. By
the end of the fourth century, the conflict and concern had grown to

 

11Abelson, Seven Liberal Arts, 6-7.

12Frank P. Cassidy, Molders of the Medieval Mind (Port Washington: Kennikat
Press, Inc., 1966), 39.

”Cassidy, Medieval Mind, 36-38.

14Geraldine Hodgson, Primitive Christian Education (Edinburgh: T 6: T Clark,
1906),107,121.

1

such a point that the Fourth Council 02f Carthage, held in AD. 398,
expressly prohibited the reading of secular material altogether.‘ 5

Saint Augustine (A.D. 354-430), Bishop of Hippo and teacher of
rhetoric in Rome, focused his writings intimately on the conflict of
Reason and Faith in his De Civitate Dei, which he began in AD. 413,
after Rome had been conquered and sacked by Alaric the Visigoth.
Under the influence of Plato and Aristotle, among others, Augustine
eventually came to determine that Faith was superior, and that
Reason followed as a natural consequence. Therefore, the entire
goal of education should be to strengthen and reinforce Faith.16 The
fathers of the church eventually came to support a similar
viewpoint, following the pagan scholars' philosophy that all learning
leads to the study of phil050phy. The church fathers took this one
step further and declared that the study of phil050phy was
preparation for the study and understanding of theology.17

Despite this early resistence, the Christian church was to
become the sole remaining bastion of culture and education in Europe
after the fall of the Roman Empire. Though centered in Rome, the
church managed to retain its prestige and power throughout the
chaotic years following the fall of Rome. It maintained a certain

 

“Gwynne-Thomas, Concise History, 38. In direct conﬂict with such edicts was
the overwhelming concern of both pagans and Christians that the ongoing barbarian
invasions of Roman lands would eventually destroy all culture. In attempts to preserve
knowledge, efforts were made to publish and distribute both old and new writings

16min, 41.

1"Cassidy, Medieval Mind, 14. Conﬂict still existed, however, as at the end of
the sixth century Pope Gregory the Great found it necessary to once again ban the
classical works, as liberal studies were found to encourage dissent from the church
doctrine.

13
structure and security against raiding barbarians, and eventually

took up its obligation as a teaching institution as well as a religious
one.18 Throughout the fifth century and into the sixth, education
was a main concern for scholars and religious figures of the time.
Cassiodorus (A.D. 480-575) secretary at the court of Theodoric,
king of the Ostrgoths, was influential in linking the church and
education during this period. Though the foundation of a monastery
with a scriptorium in southern ltaly, Cassiodorus set a precedent for
monastic institutions to become the major repositories of
knowledge throughout the dark ages. His colleague, Boethius (A.D.
480-524), also at the court of Theodoric, attempted to translate the
works of Plato and Aristotle. Though not entirely successful, he did
manage to produce a sizeable body of translations.19 Both of these
men had a signiﬁcant inpact on the acceptance of the liberal arts
into the curriculum of the time.

It was Cassiodorus who first referred to the "seven liberal
arts" as an independent body of knowledge. He used the term in
conjunction with his argument supporting Augustine's own
arguments in favor of the study of the liberal arts in preparation for
religious studies. While Augustine only advocated six of the seven
arts—excluding astronomy—Cassiodorus proposed a biblical proof
that the number of liberal studies had to be seven.20 Proverbs 9:1
can be interpreted as solid spiritual authority for the study of

 

18lbid, 32. Christ's declaration that his gospel be preached throughout the world
implied an educational responsibility for the church.

19Gwynne-Thomas, Concise History, 40,

20Abelson, Seven Liberal Arts, 8-9.

14
specifically seven liberal arts, stating, "Wisdom has built her house

and made seven columns for it." The enduring quality of this idea of
the liberal arts as a supporting body for the knowledge of the church
can be seen well into the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when
Nicola and Giovanni Pisano created pulpits for the cathedrals of Pisa
and Siena. While each of the pulpits has more than seven supporting
columns altogether, each has a centrally located column with the
seven liberal arts at its base. This location of a depiction of the
liberal arts as a physical support for the pulpit—where the wisdom

of the church was given to the public-is an even closer association
than the one which can be implied by the placement of the arts on
church facades.

f The works of Boethius served to construct a format for the
seven liberal arts that was to become the standard for education-
the trivium and quadrivium. Boethius writes a treatise on each
subject of the quadrivium. Sadly, only two-arithmetic and music-
have survived the Middle Ages.21 This division of the arts into two
groups will remain thoughout time. The quadrivium consists of
music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. These are the arts
through which one acquires and measures speciﬁc knowledge. The
trivium, consisting of rhetoric, dialectic and grammar, are the arts
which reflect the expression and ordering of knowledge.22 Boethius
ranks the quadrivium above the trivium and places philosophy at the

 

Ziulohael Masi, "Introduction - Boethius and the Liberal Arts," in Boethius and
the Liberal Arts, ed. Michael Masi (Beme: Peter Lang, 1981), 11.

z‘7-Jeffrey Huntsman, ”Grammar," in The Seven Liberal Arts in the Midde Ages,
ed. David L Wagner (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 60.

15
head of all the arts, much as the ancients had made philosophy the

ultimate goal of education.

In his final work, The Consolation of PhiIOSOphy, which he
wrote while awaiting execution for treason, Boethius describes his
progress from despair and mental imprisonment to enlightenment
and freedom. This is accomplished with the help and guidance of
Philosophy, who visits his cell. She chases away the old-fashioned
Muses in a show intended to demonstrate their lack of power. This
is a fairly signiﬁcant break with the attitudes of ancient educators.
Whereas before, the nine Muses were the inspiring goddesses of song
and poetry and presided over the arts and sciences, in the sixth-
century hands of Boethius, the seven liberal arts replaced them as
patrons of knowledge and expression. The Muses are dismissed by
Philosophy as harlots who encourage a man's low and despairing
thoughts.23 The seven arts, then, are advocated as the path of
enlightenment and reason throughout the course of his work.24

By far, the most well known and widely-used fifth-century
authority on the liberal arts was Martianus Capella, who wrote a
poetic account of the arts which served as the basis for both
Medieval education and the iconography of the liberal arts. Capella's
work dates to approximately A.D.439 and describes an allegorical
marriage of science and eloquence, in the forms of Mercury and
Philology. The seven liberal arts stand as handmaids to the bride.

 

23Anicius Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. William Anderson
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1963), 28.

24Myra L. Uhlfelder, "The Role of the Liberal Arts in Boethius' Consolatio," in
Boethius and the Liberal Arts, ed. Michael Masi (Beme: Peter Lang, 1981), 18.

16
They are represented by Capella as seven sisters, each of whom

stands forth to present her discipline to the marriage couple and the
assembled guests. In contrast to Boethius's later work, Capella's
arts are all on an equal footing-no one art or combination of arts is
of any more value or status than the others. They are, however,
quite clearly the same seven arts put forth by Boethius almost half a
century later. Though they are not named as such, Capella's seven
sisters formalize the concepts which will later become the Trivium
and Quadrivium. Moreover, they reflect the synthesis of classical
learning and Medieval thought that is coming into play in the
education and religion of the ﬁfth and sixth centuries.

Capella's book was used as a text throughout the Roman
Empire, particularly in North Africa, ltaly, Gaul and Spain, along
with works by such authors as Cassiodorus, Varro and Isidore of
Seville. These other works either gave introductions to or in-depth
descriptions of the arts at the time of their composition, and many
of them proved to be standards for education throughout the
medieval world. The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, however,
became the predominant text addressing the liberal arts throughout
the next five centuries. Cassiodorus refers to Capella's work twice
in his own writings, as do other authors such as Gregory of Tours
and Isidore of Seville.25 One of the major revivals of interest in
Capella's work took place during the Carolingian era, when it became
one of the most commonly used textbooks in schools of the period.

 

25William Harris Stahl, Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1971). Stahl describes a number of instances in
which Capella's work appears to have had a direct influence on other authors, including
Isidore of Seville.

17
This was due in part to the known interest of renowned scholars of

the time such as John Scot Eriugena, Remigius of Auxerre and Martin
of Law.“

 

26Stahl, Capella, 63-4. See Stahl for references to the use to which these
scholars put Capella's work.

CHAPTER TWO

The development of Christian education has been discussed
above. The church continued to play a major role in the development
of educational practises throughout the Middle Ages. The church
itself took on the role of educator in the ﬁfth through the eighth
centuries, reﬂecting the command of Christ given in Matthew 28:19.

Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you. And behold I am with you all days,
even to the consummation of the world.

This commission reflects both Christ's role as the ideal teacher and
the church's role as the originator of schools. From this
commission, the church has become a patron of art and science and a
supporter of architecture, sculpture, painting and learning.
Throughout the Middle Ages, lay education took place in a rather
unstructured manner. There were no formal schools for lay citizens,
and peeple did not dedicate speciﬁc time to education as we do
today. Rather, education focused on learning the scriptures, as
conveyed through sermons and, significantly, through religious art-
the decoration of the churches. The church was, as discussed in
Chapter One, the main repository of the knowledge of the ancients

18

19
throughout the dark ages. This took form mainly in the monasteries,

where the monks devoted their time to study, prayer and the copying
of ancient texts. Formal education in the early years of the

Christian church was mainly for the instruction of prospective
members of the congregation.

Secular education was not required for those within the
church. However, knowledge of Latin was necessary so that monks
could read the scriptures and so that they might understand the
words of their superiors' sermons and homilies.1 Therefore, it was
necessary, or at least it can be presumed, that the monks learned
something of Latin grammar. By the eighth century, the monasteries
of Europe had become the primary center for education of both the
lay and the religious populations. There were, at this time, also
village schools which existed separately from a monastic
establishment, but these were under the direction of the parish
priest and thus retained a close connection with the church. These
institutions provided a strictly elementary education.2

Monastic schools were divided into two types, the interior
school and the exterior school. The interior school was responsible
for the education of those boys who were destined to become
members of the order. The exterior school, as well as the cathedral
schools, held the position of educating those destined for life in the
secular world, including priests and the lay children of aristocrats.
Aside from the rigors of monastic life which were required of the

 

1M.M. Hildebrandt, The External School in Carolingian Society (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1992), 21.

2Andrew Fleming West, Alcuin and the Rise of the Christian Schools (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892), 56.

20
religious children, there was no difference between the curricula of

the internal and external schools.3

The Carolingian Renaissance was truly a rebirth of learning,
although more in terms of a rebirth of education itself, rather than
the return of knowledge which characterized the Renaissance of the
fifteenth century. Education had been lacking and neglected under
the Frankish kings before Charlemagne, and only monks isolated in
their monasteries had any learning at all.4 The religious orders had
long been a source for both aristocratic education and for
competent, intelligent court administrators. Religious reforms of
the eighth century put the orders and their holdings firmly in the
grasp of the head of state, and the monasteries became pawns in the
political dealings of the Frankish kings as income from church land
was often given to reward allies of the state.5

After Charlemagne's ascension to the throne in AD. 768, there
was a clear return to secular education which was led by the
emperor himself. Charlemagne had acquired some learning as a boy
from a man by the name of Peter of Pisa, who had served as a palace
instructor under Pepin, Charlemagne's father. Some scholars take
this to mean that the palace school was founded somewhat earlier

than Charlemagne's time.6 However, since the focus of this

 

3West, Alcuin, 57.

4J. Bass Mullinger, The Schools of Charles the Great (New York: G.E. Stechert 8t
Co., 1932), 37-9.

5Hildebrandt, External School, 50-51, 59.

5Eleanor Shipley Duckett, Alcuin: Friend of Charlemagne (Hamden: Archon
Books, 1965), 85.

21
education was on manners, court procedure and etiquette rather than

on expanding the mind of the student, it seems quite clear that the
court school founded by Charlemagne was a very different type of
institution.

The court's interest in education grew at this time not so much
out of a thirst for knowledge, but rather because of a need for
educated administrators to run the day to day affairs of the court
and empire.7 To ﬁll this administrative need, Charles the Great
turned first to the monasteries. His family's long-term connections
with the church had endowed Charles with a tradition of drawing
advisors, ambassadors and bishops from the ranks of the monastic
aristocracy, and Charles simply continued this tradition into his own
time. Eventually though, Charles saw the need for more thoroughly
educated administrators, and so he developed what has come to be
known as the Palace School. The original curriculum of this school
focused on Latin literacy and administrative skills, not education
for a career. In time, however, Charlemagne's interest expanded. He,
craved both knowledge and efﬁciency of operation. He felt strongly
that the king of a land must be able to speak with authority on
various subjects, and also that his administrators of both church and
state must be well-educated, as they are representatives of the
king.8 Therefore, the focus of the school shifted from
administration to scholarship, and the court began to recruit foreign
scholars. Perhaps the most significant scholar to come to Aachen

 

7Mullinger, Schools of Charles, 71. Hildebrandt, External School, 59.

8Duckett, Friend or Charlemagne, 86. Hildebrandt, External School, 57-59.

22
was Alcuin of York, recruited by Charlemagne to come from York,

where he was master of the cathedral library, to Frankland.
Charlemagne and Alcuin met in Italy in AD. 780-1 , and Alcuin was
installed as palace instructor at Aachen by AD. 782.9

Alcuin was born in AD. 735 near York. By AD. 766 he was
master of the cathedral school, and by AD. 780, he was master of
the library. Most research and education at this time was conducted
in Latin. Greek had fallen out of favor as a scholastic language, and
therefore the Greek scholars of the arts were dropped as well.
Alcuin had been educated at the monastery school of York, an
institution which maintained the traditions of Theodorus and
Paulinus. His placement at Aachen represented a distinct shift in
the curriculum of the Palace School from an emphasis on
administrative learning to an emphasis on more general, scholarly
learning that was available to a broader base of students.10

The basis of Alcuin's instruction was his own learning at York.
This included Boethius, Cassiodorus and Bede, and focused on
grammar, rhetoric and logic. He began the basic education at Aachen
with grammar and then expanded it to arithmetic, rhetoric, dialectic
and astronomy, which was the king's favorite subject.11 A notable
exception from Alcuin's curriculum was the work of Martianus
Capella, which was found to be distinctly at odds with the Christian
teachings of the time because of Capella's speculations on the

 

9Mullinger, Schools of Charles, 47, SO.
”Hildebrandt, Extemal School, 57-59.

1lwt-st, Alcuin, 45.

. 23
nature of mankind and the universe. Signiﬁcantly, Capella's work

was not to be found at the York library, where Alcuin had been
educated, and this may be another reason for his absence from the
curriculum of the Palace School.12 Despite this rejection by the
foremost educator of the Carolingian era, Capella's work remained
popular throughout the period. Even if it was not being taught by
Alcuin, it was used as a text by other scholars, including Martin of
Leon, Remigius of Auxerre and John Scot Eriugena.l3

The members of court who attended the school included both
Charlemagne and his queen, Liutgard, as well as Charles's sister and
his ﬁve children—three sons and two daughters. It is interesting to
note the mixture of male and female students at this school in a
time when most women were denied access to intellectual pursuits.
This mixture is due, no doubt, to the aristocratic position of these
women. Gisela, the sister of Charles who attended the school had
been abbess of Chelles and no doubt already had some skill at
reading, writing and numbers, as well as knowledge of scripture,
thanks to her position. Also attending the school were several of
Charlemagne’s cousins, again both male and female, and certain
highly-placed court figures, including Arno, the archbishop of
Salzburg and Theodulf, archbishop of Orleans, who was to become a
close friend of Alcuin's.“ It is clear from the mix of different '

 

lZlbid, 37.

”Mullinger, Schools of Charles, 65-66. William Harris Stahl, ”Introduction,”
Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts, ed. W.H. Stahl, R. Johnson and EL Burge
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 61-64.

14West, Alcuin, 43.

24
types of students Alcuin faced—young and old, male and female,

royal, religious and lay—that he was a skillful and energetic
instructor. This also becomes clear from the widespread success of
the Palace School. lts population increased steadily and it
eventually drew students from throughout Europe.15

Charlemagne himself was apparently an apt, able-minded
student who readily applied himself to his studies. According to
Einhard, a close friend and biographer of the king,

He paid the greatest attention to the liberal
arts...Charles spent much time and labor in learning
rhetoric and dialectic, and especially astronomy, from
Alcuin. He learnt, too, the art of reckoning, and with
close application scrutinised most carefully the course

of the stars. He tried also to learn to write, and for this
purpose used to carry with him and keep under the pillow
of his couch tablets and writing-sheets that he might in
his spare moments accustom himself to the formation of
letters.16

Charlemagne lavished funds upon the Palace School, so supportive
was he of the education of his court. Supplies, such as books, ink
and parchment, never ran low and the pupils paid no tuition and were
given room and board at the king‘s expense.17 Admittedly, since
most of the early students were related to the king or his household,
they would not have been charged in any case. However, this

 

15Patrick Joseph McCormick, Education of the Laity in the Early Midde Ages
(Washington, DC: Catholic Education Press, 1912), 29.

1‘5Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, trans. A.J. Grant (London: Chatto 81 WII'IdUS,
1926), 41.

176M. Almedingen, Charlemagne: A Stacy (London: The Bodley Head, 1968),
148.

25
penchant for providing free education was to continue through the

rest of Charlemagne's career as king and Holy Roman Emperor.

Once Charlemagne had been exposed to the wonders of
knowledge, he decided to civilize his kingdom and establish
Christian learning throughout the land. In AD. 787, Charlemagne
issued a now-famous proclamation delineating the development of a
new system of education for his people.18 This takes the form of a
letter to the abbots of the various monasteries, requiring them to
engage not just in a manner of life that is regular and "conformable
to holy religion," but also to engage in the study of letters.
Charlemagne equated pleasing God with both living right and with
right speaking. He admitted that, while right action was preferable
to right speech, one must have knowledge of what was right before
one could behave in a right manner. He exhorted his abbots to not
"neglect the study of letters, but to apply {themselves} thereto with
perserverance and with that humility which is well pleasing to
God...."19

The result of this charter was the development of a scholastic
system which was to last through the ninth century. Theodulf,
bishop of Orleans and attendee of the Palace School, responded to
the instructions of his king most thoroughly by organizing a school
for each parish which would be available to all children. He
followed in the footsteps of Charlemagne by making these

 

18See Mullinger, Schools of Charles the Great, for a commonly-used translation
of Charlemagne's words. All quotes in this paragraph are taken therefrom.

19West, Alcuin, 51.

26
institutions free of charge.20 Charlemagne himself continued to

encourage the growth of education throughout his reign. In AD. 802,
another proclamation of his suggested that all men should send their
sons to school, and that the sons should study with diligence. He
never went so far, however, as to attempt to force or compel his
people to learn.21 Charlemagne's schools lasted into the tenth
century, but after another intellectual crash, education was not to
see another great revival until the rise of the universities in the
twelfth century.

Eventually, Charlemagne would install Alcuin at the monastery
of St. Martin of Tours, Where Alcuin founded yet another schooL
Over time, the monasteries gradually withdrew from the world of
education, except for those Within the order itself, and, in AD. 817,
the Council of Aachen forbade public access to monastic schools.
However, further church councils continued Charlemagne's expansion
of schools to the public. In AD. 826, the General Council of Pope
Eugenius commanded bishops to establish schools to teach the
liberal arts, stating that, " in these...the commandments of God are
manifested..."22 Also, in AD. 853, the Council of Rome stated that
each cathedral should establish a school for teaching the liberal
arts. These religious proclamations make it quite clear that the
church recognized the value of secular knowledge in understanding

scripture.

 

20lbid, 55. West gives a translation of Theodulf's own words, which reﬂect the
sentiments of Charlemagne's charter of 787.

lebid, 58.

22Gwynne-Thomas, Concise History, 45.

27
While monasteries faded from the educational world, in

northern Europe particularly, one sees active schools still attached
to the great cathedrals such as those at Paris, Reims, Leon and,
particularly, Chartres. While in the eleventh century, instruction at
the cathedral school was not arranged systematically, the twelfth
century brought a new organization for which the school of Chartres
may be used as an example. Eleventh century instruction depended
on the interests of the scholasticus or primary teacher, who was
appointed by the cathedral chancellor.23

Originally, the bishop of a cathedral held primary
responsibility for instruction given at the cathedral school, but as
the power of the bishops increased and their time became more
commonly absorbed by temporal affairs, the responsibilities of the
school were taken on by the chancellor of the chapter. Such was the
organization of the school of Chartres throughout the eleventh and
into the twelfth centuries. However, with Bishop Bernard of
Chartres came a new hierarchy within the school. In AD. 1115,
Bernard abandoned his teaching duties altogether and gave total
control of the school over to his chancellor.24 This transfer of
power becomes significant at Chartres some twenty-ﬁve years later
when Thierry of Chartres, who may have been Bernard's brother,

became chancellor of the school. In addition to his educational

 

z3Urban T. Holmes, Jr., "Transitions in European Education,” Twelfth Century
Europe and the Foundations of Modern Society, ed. M. Claggett, G. Post and R. Reynolds
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1961), 16.

24liaymoncl Klibansky, "The School of Chartres,” Twelfth Century Europe and the
Foundations of Modern Society, ed. M. Claggett, G. Post and R. Reynolds (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1961), 4.

28
duties, the chancellor was also responsible for managing the

physical fabric of the cathedral. It is most notable that AD. 1141,
the year in which Thierry became chancellor, is the same year in
which construction of the west facade of the cathedral was begun.25
Thierry's philosophy of education and its possible effect on the
design of the west facade will be discussed later.

The renaissance of the twelfth century witnessed an explosion
in education and knowledge comparable to that which occurred under
Charlemagne three hundred years before. Sidney Packard feels that
the twelfth century is a time of tremendous development which
precedes and leads to the Renaissance in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.26 This development, he claims, is based in
population growth, agricultural surplus and freedom from invasions
in western Europe. These characteristics allowed the populace more
free time to devote to learning. Contact with Muslim-occupied
Spain, to be discussed below, was essential for the development of
this intellectual explosion, as it gave Europe access to the works of
Classical Greek society. Significantly, most of the translated
manuscripts were works on science and philosophy. This is possibly
one reason for the abandonment of the humanistic tendencies in
education of the first half of the century.27

The twelfth-century episcopal schools were not completely

separate from the monastic schools of the time. They were,

 

ZSlbid, 13.

26Sidney R. Packard, Twelfth Century Europe (Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1973), 151-153.

Z7Packard, Twelfth Century Europe, 152.

29
however, immersed in the growing cities of the day, and this, too,

had a profound effect on the character of education. Urban growth
stimulated the growth of new problems in areas such as law,
sanitation, housing and resource distribution. The close involvement
of the cathedral schools and the cities stimulated growth of both
the cities and the schools. Solutions to the growing problems of the
urban areas depended, to some extent, on the ideas of the scholars
for solutions, and, no doubt, the university students and masters
were able to provide some aid in solving urban difﬁculties.

The texts of the first half of the twelfth century were fairly
standardized. For grammar there were Donatus and Priscian,
rhetoric had Cicero, Quintilian, Ovid, Vergil and others. Dialectic
had the translations of Porphyry given by Boethius, who also had
prepared a text on music. Bede was used for arithmetic, and Albinus
for geometry?8 A list of texts from the close of the twelfth
century, probably compiled by Alexander Neckam, includes the
Metaphysics of Aristotle, Euclid's works on arithmetic and Ptolemy's
canons on astronomy. This list is subsequent to the work of Thieny
of Chartres, who compiled his own works on the liberal arts, and
includes most of the works employed by Thieny as well as some
others.29 After the mid-point of the century, however, when the
flood of information from Spain was being assimilated, much of the
list was altered. Perhaps the most signiﬁcant alteration was in the

use of Aristotle as a text for dialectic. This transition served to

 

28Holmes, "Transitions," 17.

29Charles Homer Haskins, "A List of Text-Books from the Close of the Twelfth
Century,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 20 (1909): 85-89.

30
alter the style of grammar used and also changed the common

teaching form to include a disputation between students and
masters at the end of the lesson.30

A chief twelfth-century proponant of the arts was Alan of
Lille, a scholar of French origin born around AD. 1128. He appeared
in Paris around 1155, and later worked for Count William VIII of
Montpellier.31 He was an educated man who gave lectures and held
debates. He was also the author of several books, including the
Anticlaudian, an epic poem which describes the voyage of the virtue
Prudence as she travels to Heaven to ask God for a soul to animate
the perfect man which has been created by Nature with the help of
the virtues and the seven liberal arts. The seven liberal arts endow
this perfect man with all of their" knowledge.32

The seven arts take on the role of building the chariot which
will carry Prudence to Heaven. As in Capella's work, they are seven
sisters, all beautiful virgins, and Alan describes them in great
detail. Grammar, who builds the tongue of the chariot, is dressed in
a papyrus gown inscribed with the rules of her art.33 Dialectic
builds the axle of the chariot and is lean and covered with "simple
skins.”34 She also carries with her a bunch of ﬂowers and a

 

3(’Packard, Twelfth Century Europe, 160.

31 John M. Trout, The Voyage of Prudence: The World View of Alan of Lille
(Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1979), 4-5.

32lbid, 40.

33William Hafner Comog, The Anticlaudian of Alain de Lille (Ph.D. Dissertation,
University of Pennsylvania, 1935), 74-75.

34lbid, 77-78.

31
scorpion. Rhetoric makes the chariot platform and carries a trumpet

and a horn.35 The quadrivium is responsible for fashioning the four
wheels of the chariot. Arithmetic brings with her the Pythagorean
table, Music plays a cithara, Geometry displays the arts of
measuring and Astronomy holds a sphere and explains various
astronomical mysteries.36 Thus, the seven liberal arts take their
place in the mind of the twelfth-century scholar as the means by
which the mind is able to travel to the divine.

The school at Chartres can serve again as an example of this
transitional period in the twelfth century. In the Carolingian era,
Chartres was already a center of learning. Clerics came from all
over Europe to study arts such as theology or medicine. By the
twelfth century the school had been host to such scholars as Gerbert
of Aurillac, who would be elected pope in AD. 1000, and St. Yves of
Chartres, a bishop who was to become one of the foremost legal
minds of the eleventh century. Under his influences, as well as in
response to the growing complexity of European social and
administrative machinery, the school of Chartres became a primary
center for administrative education.37 Chartres was distinguished
by a trend to replace the emphasis on rhetoric with a focus on the
sciences, which accounted for the popularity of Martianus Capella
and a new interest in Platonism at that school.38 And yet, despite

 

35lbid, 81.
36lbid, 84-92.
37Favier, World of Chartres, 38.

38Stahl, "Introduction," 67.

32
its popularity and early primacy, the school of Chartres never

developed into a full university. Instead, it faded in the shadow of
Paris, which was only about fifty miles away. Paris, no doubt,
benefitted as much from being a royal city as from being the
scholarly seat of Peter Abelard, who is often credited with founding
the University of Paris.39

Perhaps the most significant twelfth-century development is
the new focus on scholarship in education which is reflected in the
later development of the Medieval university system. The Medieval
university had little of the physical structure we see today.
Instead, the university was a collection of masters and students
living in an urban area in an arrangement not unlike a trade guild.40
The development of universities was undoubtedly an outgrowth of
the Carolingian revival of education and Charlemagne's
establishment of schools outSide the monasteries. Also a factor
was the arrival of a new surge of knowledge from the Arabic
scholars of Spain. A world which had still been working with Roman
numerals now had access to Arabic numbers, the concepts of solid
geometry and the writings of Aristotle, Euclid and Ptolemy. These
revivals, as well as the growth of the universities, served to remove
education from the confines of the monastery and created
professions, such as medicine and law, which were outside the
realms of church and court and therefore led to education and

 

39Packard, Twelfth Century Europe, 164. Packard gives a good deal of
commentary on the attraction a scholar such as Abelard would have for students and on
the effects this type of gathering would have on the formation of universities.

40Charles Homer Haskins, The Rise of the Universities (Ithaca: Great Seal Books,
1923), 2, 8'9.

33
schools which existed outside of those settings in the thirteenth

century.41

The twelfth century was a time of renaissance much like that
found in the ninth century under Charlemagne. This period is
characterized by an expanding population, linked with agricultural
revolution, urban expansion, religious institutionalization and
growth of regional political units. Other notable twelfth-century
events include the further separation of the eastern and western
churches, the Crusades and, significantly, the development of
education in the form of publicly accessible episcopal schools and
universities. Out of these events came the developments of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries in architecture, art and literature.
Many of these particular happenings have even had an impact upon
today's society. The Church, for example, which was such a potent
force in the Medieval world, is still a significant part of today's
world for millions of people.

By the end of the twelfth century, the liberal arts had lost
some of their prestige in the world of education. Universities,
which solidified in the thirteenth century, still taught the seven
arts, but they were no longer the supreme focus of education.
Rather, they were seen as a means to an end-a ladder which the
student could use to climb to the rariﬁed heights of philosophy,
theology or law. The seven arts were seen as a unit, but only in
their commonly introductory nature. They no longer corresponded to

an arts course of their own, but instead were replaced by the study

 

4‘ Haskins, Universities, 4-5.

34
of the three philosophies-natural, moral and metaphysical.“- This

new classification of the arts is due in part to the new use of
Aristotelian phﬂos0phy in this period, which interacts with the
traditional ideas of the arts. From this interaction comes the
conclusion that the seven liberal arts are only a partial division of
philosophy.43 The work of Martianus Capella, long the standard text
of the liberal arts, did not survive the transitions of the twelfth
century intact. While the allegory of the marriage which gives the
setting for the piece remained popular, the sections dealing with the
seven disciplines were no longer used.44

The twelfth century was also the time of the construction of
the great Gothic cathedrals. l have already brieﬂy touched on the
relationship between education and. cathedral decoration in the case
of Chartres. It is tempting to See the church as an entity separate
from the pulls of secular society. Especially during the Middle Ages,
however, this was definitely not true. The people of the Middle Ages
relied on their churches not just for guidance in their spiritual
lives, but for guidance in their secular lives as well. In the twelfth
century in particular, the Christian church was a major formative
force in the lives of the pe0ple and can perhaps be considered the
single most powerful institution of the day.

 

42Gordon Leff, "The trivium and the three philosophies," in A History of the
Universities in Europe, ed. Hilde de Ridder-Symoens (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992), 308. '

43Ralph Mclnemy, ”Beyond the Liberal Arts,” in The Seven Uberal Arts in the
Middle Ages, ed. David L. Wagner (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 253.

44Stahl, "Introduction,” 70.

35
The church, mainly in the form of the monasteries, was largely

responsible for the continuance of education from before the time of
Charlemagne. By the twelfth century, the church was nothing short
of an ecclesiastical monarchy whose ofﬁcials were a highly

educated elite. This connection with education and learning is
clearly reﬂected in the art of the church, especially in those
churches affiliated with schools, such as Chartres or Laon.

CHAPTER THREE

As discussed above, it was the work of the ﬁfth century
author Martianus Capella that gave the Medieval world a visual
interpretation of the seven liberal arts. In his work, Capella
introduces the arts as the seven handmaidens of Philology, who was
to wed Mercury. Capella's descriptions gave Medieval artists a basis
from which to draw their attributes and iconography for
representations of the seven arts.1

The work is set in the Olympian sphere, and involves all of the
ancient gods. This setting accomplishes two purposes. First,
Capella is able to allude to the traditions of epic poetry which
extend back to Homer. Secondly, and perhaps more signiﬁcantly for
this paper, the heavenly setting suggests that the study of the
liberal arts is sanctioned by an authority that is something more
than human.2 In this case, the author speaks of pagan gods, but

 

1Martianus Capella, "The Marriage of Mercury and Philology,” in Matianus Cape'a and
the Seven Liberal Arts, vol. 2, translated by W.H. Stahl and EL. Burge (New York: Cohrnbia
University Press, 1971 ). All descriptions of the setting of the allegory and the seven arts
themselves are found in this work. Speciﬁc (notations will be noted lndvldually as they occur.

ZRichard Johnson, "The Allegory and the Trivium,” in Martianus Capella and the
Seven LiberalArts, vol. 1, ed. W.H. Stahl, R. Johnson, EL. Burge (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1971), 83-89. Johnson gives a convincing discussion of Capella's
use of varying theological systems, including Neoplatonisrn, Hermeticism and Ehyptian
religion, as well as traditional Olympian mythology.

36

37
Capella was a Christian, and it is quite easy to transfer the sanction

of pagan gods to that of the Christian God. As we have seen3, the
study of the liberal arts, and with them their pagan authors, had to
be seen as a stepping-stone to the study of a higher subject, namely
theology, in order for them to be acceptible to the Christian church.
Thus, by associating the goal of knowledge and the liberal arts—the
means by which that goal was attaineduwith a superhuman
audience, Capella provided the world of the fifth century, both
secular and sacred, with a means to accept pagan literature.

At the marriage of Mercury and Philology, the seven liberal
arts are given as a gift to Philology from Mercury. They are brought
forward into the company of the gods by Apollo, and Capella
characterizes them as "women who shone with a beauty in every way
equal to their raiment."4 It is interesting to note that Philology is
accompanied by the Muses, the nine deities of the arts in the ancient
Greek world, who sing and dance at Olympian festivities. These nine
figures may be precursors for the seven liberal arts, but no direct
influence has been found. Neither is there a known iconographic
corollary between the Muses and the arts.5 It is also noteworthy

 

3See Chapter One, p. 6.
4Martianus Capella, "The Marriage,” 63.

5| would tend to think that there is some type of connection between these two
groups of women. The Muses were patrons of pursuits such as music and astronomy, two
of the arts, as well as philosophy and literature, which may tenuously be interpreted as
grammar. However, the possibility of such a relationship was not the focus of my
research. Katzenellenbogen, in his article "The Representation of the Seven Liberal
Arts," says that Carolingian depictions of the arts are "obviously" based on the tradition
of portraying the muses, but he does not extend an argument supporting that point. Adolf
Katzenellenbogen, "The Representations of the Seven Liberal Arts, " in Twelfth Centuy
Eur0pe and the Foundations of Modern Society, ed. M. Claggett, 6. Post and R. Reynolds
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1961), 41. Likewise, Michael Evans
characterises the arts as "the muses of the middle ages.” Michael Evans, "Allegorical

38
that Capella states that the seven arts were "chosen members” of

Mercury's household,6 suggesting that they were already known to
the gods and, in particular, to Mercury. This further supports the use
of the arts as a path to joining eloquence (Mercury) and learning
(Philology). It seems that before the arts became the seven pillars
of wisdom, they were the handmaidens of eloquence.

Capella's allegory sets a fanciful stage for his treatises on the
liberal arts. Throughout the work, Capella discourses with his muse
regarding various points of consistency and also speaks directly to
the reader, stating his purpose in writing. His treatises begin with
a description of each art and her attributes and then develop into
rather tedious discourses by each art on the details of her skill.
Grammar, for example, is described as an old woman "of great
charm,"7 dressed in a Roman cloak and carrying a beautiful box.
From this box she takes a pruning knife to remove faults in
pronunciation, a black powder - ink - which could restore children to
grammatical health, and several other herbal remedies which could
be used to remove ignorance or corrupt pronunciation. She could
sweeten unpleasant voices, clean out lungs, assist memory and
cleanse the teeth and tongue of poor grammatical residue. Grammar
goes on to speak at length on her art, giving great detail on
consonants and vowels, and pronunciation. She discusses the method

of pronouncing letters and goes on at length regarding the

 

Women and Practical Men: The Iconography of the Artes Reconsidered," in Medieval
Women, ed. Derek Baker (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978), 309.

6Capella, ”The Marriage," 63.

7Capella, "The Marriage," 64-105.

39
development of syllables and the various parts of speech. The other

six arts follow a similar format, though at this point I will only

address their attributes and physical appearances. At the end of

each section, another god or goddess who has become bored with the

recitation, suggests to the speaker that she complete her

commentary. Capella himself admits that these subjects can

become complicated, obscure and even boring in some cases.8
Dialectic, the second art to come forward, is described as ”a

woman whose weapons are complex and knotty utterances.”9 Capella

describes her as pale and sharp-eyed, with an elaborate hairstyle.

She is short and dark-skinned, with "thick, bushy hair on her

limbs."10 She wears Greek dress and carries in her left hand a large

coiled snake which symbolizes an opponent's overthrow in argument.

In her right hand she holds a set of beautiful, mesmerizing patterns,

which she offers to the assembled company. These represent that

which draws the opponent in and throws him off his guard, since

they are held by a concealed hook. When one is "hooked," or drawn in,

by the patterns, one is then pulled toward the snake, which is hidden

in Dialectic's robe. The snake then bites the victim with sharp and

venomous teeth and grips the victim in its coils until he is

compelled to accept Dialectic's arguments. She, like Grammar,

presents a long speech on the divisions and disciplines of her art.

 

8Capella, ”The Marriage,” 105, 153.
9lbid, 106.

10lbid, 107-110. See p.107, notes 8 and 9 for the signiﬁcance of her
hairstyle, which Stahl feels reﬂects the complete nature of logical argument. See
p.108, note 14 for Stahl's discussion of Dialectic's body hair.

40
Next, Rhetoric comes forward, on her own and unescorted by

any deity. She is the patron of the Roman rhetors and the Sophists,
who used words as a method of attack and defense. Capella
describes her as a beautiful woman clad in a helmet, a wreath and
holding arms which shone like lightening. Rhetoric wears a robe of
Latin style which is decorated with jewels and various devices. She
is characterized as tall, beautiful and self-confident. Her voice is
awe-inspiring, and she is accompanied by "a mighty army of famous
men,"11 the foremost of whom are Cicero and Demosthenes, who had
both been great orators. She is preceded by a crow, which suggests
to the assembled gods that she is somehow related to Apollo.12 The
speech of Rhetoric is said to have controlled the senate of Rome and
the theaters of Athens, and certainly she enthralled the assembled
guests of Capella's scene.

Geometry is the first representative of the Quadrivium to
appear to the wedding assembly. Capella describes her as
"distinguished-looking."13 She carries with her a sphere containing
a diagram of the heavenly bodies. In this model, the earth is
presented as a stationary point, central to the rest of the universe.
In her right hand, Geometry carries a geometer's rod, which is a
measuring tool. She wears a peplos marked with various figures
such as the dimensions and orbits of the planets and ther heavenly
bodies, the sun, the moon and even the shadow of the earth. Capella

 

11Capella, ”The Marriage," 157.

IZlbid, 159 n. 26. Apollo was the god of prophecy and the crow was traditionally
a prophetic bird.

13Ibid, 218-220.

41
says that this peplos may be of use to Geometry's sister, Astronomy,

as well, since it pertains to the heavenly bodies. Geometry is known
as a traveler who wanders the earth, measuring its size and shape.
She gives her discourse near an abacus board which had been brought
to the assembly by Philosophy and Learning. This abacus is most
likely a wooden tray filled with sand that could be put to use by both
geometricians and arithmeticians for the purpose of drawing ﬁgures
and diagrams. The arithmetician would use it divided into an equal
grid for representing problems of arithmetic.“ Geometry completes
her discourse by offering Jupiter and his company a set of texts for
the study of her art. Capella, unfortunately, does not reveal the
authors of these books. Knowing the names of the authors would be
invaluable in determining the identity of figures accompanying the
arts as at Chartres. Geometry is then recognized as the most
generous of the seven bridesmaids.

Capella's Arithmetic is a stately lady "of striking
appearance."15 A number of light rays extend from her forehead,
symbolizing mathmatical properties such as the monad, which is the
beginning of numbers. Like Geometry, Arithmetic wears a garment
which is covered with aspects of her art. In this case, Arithmetic's
robe holds "the operations of Universal nature." She greets Jupiter
by calculating the number 717 on her fingers and bathes him in the
light of the rays coming from her head. Pythagoras, who has been
standing with the other philosophers to this point, escorts

 

1“William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (New York: Harper
81 Brothers, 1850), 9.

15Capella, ”The Marriage,” 274-276.

42
Arithmetic to the abacus and holds a torch for her to see by.

Arithmetic is greatly honored by the assembled gods, who
acknowledge her as the procreator of the gods and a number of
philosophers.

Astronomy, the third representative of the quadrivium, appears
in a glowing ball of light. The glow of this light revealed the orbits
of several planetary figures and the material of the celestial sphere.
Astronomy herself is described as a winged female with sparkling
hair and golden crystal wings. She is decorated with gems and holds
in her hands a sextant, the tool of navigation, and a book containing
the dimensions of the orbits of planets and heavenly bodies, much
like the peplos of her sister Geometry. It is not known how the gods
reacted to Astronomy's recitation of her skills since part of this
book is lost.

Finally, as the assembled deities grew tired and the marriage
torches begin to ﬂicker and dim, Mercury becomes consumed with
passion for Venus, and wants to abandon the rest of the ceremony.
Jupiter, however, decides to complete the ritual and asks how many
bridesmaids remain. Medicine and Architecture remain, but are not
allowed to speak, as they are described by Apollo as mundane and
mortal subjects which can be examined by Philology at her own
leisure. Also remaining are seven further women to be presented by
Phronesis, the mother of the bride. These seven are the
representatives of the prophetic arts such as horoscopes and omens.
However, led by Luna, goddess of the moon, the gods agree to

postpone recitations by these seven women until a later time, when

43
"the audience is wide awake and thirsting to hear."15 At this point

is brought forth Harmony, "that most iminent of ladies...the
particular darling of the heavens.“7

She is introduced by Apollo, the god of music, and escorted in
to the strains of Hymen singing the song of Wedding. Many of the
lesser gods, such as the three Graces, join in a musical performance
that includes dancing to the combined music of various instruments.
Finally, Harmony approaches, escorted by Apollo and Athena. She is
ornamented with gold headpieces and wears a garment of stiff gold
cloth that makes music at every step. In her right hand she holds a
circular object which rings forth with divine music. In her left she
holds a number of small golden models of musical instruments.
These represent the earthly music made by mankind, as compared to
the divine harmony in her right hand. Finally, Harmony escorts the
marriage couple into their wedding chamber and hums a lullaby for
them.

So ends Martianus Capella's treatise on the seven liberal arts.
Though often the object of controversy, this work did, indeed, serve
as an iconographic source and a textbook throughout the Middle Ages.
In the paragraphs to follow, lwill discuss the common Medieval
iconography and significance of the seven arts. Finally, this work
will conclude with an investigation of the liberal arts as seen on
several specific religious monuments, as well as the iconography

and the artistic context in which these depictions are found.

 

1‘5Capella, "The Marriage," 348.

17lbitl, 346 n.8, 349.

44
As I shall demonstrate, there does develop by the twelfth

century a fairly standardized iconography of the seven liberal arts.
There is no concrete evidence, short of Capella's own descriptions,
for the origins of this iconography. l have already discussed briefly
the possiblilty of an iconographic connection to images of the nine
muses of Classical mythology. Many authors, including Emile Male”,
have discussed images of the seven arts with respect to their

relationship to Capella's characterizations.

 

18Emile Male, Religious Art in France: the Thirteenth Century (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1984), 81 -82.

CHAPTER FOUR

Prior to the twelfth century, pictorial images of the seven
arts are rarely seen. In general, they were conﬁned to manuscript
illuminations decorating the works of Boethius or Martianus Capella,
two of their chiefest exponents.‘ In opposition to Emile Male, who
has already been cited, Michael Evans claims that there is no direct
relation between Capella's descriptions and the iconographic
tradition which develops in the Middle Ages! In fact, there is such
variety in the iconography of early images of the arts, as
demonstrated by Evans, that there is little evidence that a uniform
tradition is even developing. However, once the twelfth century is
reached, as will be demonstrated later, it is clear that a standard
iconographic form is used for depictions of the seven arts in
religious sculpture.

From the time of Capella to the fifteenth century, the liberal
arts are represented as female ﬁgures. Evans claims that this is
due to the feminine gender-of the Latin names of the arts,3 and this

 

1Evans, ”Allegorical Women," 306.

2Evans, ”Allegorical Women," 308-309. Evans convincingly demonstrates the
lack of relation between Capella's words and the drawings found even in Capella
manuscripts. It may be noted that Capella's descriptions were perhaps too esoteric for
the medieval artist to translate literally into pictorial form.

3Evans, "Allegorical Women," 305.

45

46
reasoning is entirely plausible. Also, there is a long tradition of

female personifications of abstract concepts, both in art and in
literature. Virtues, Vices, Fortune and Philosophy are also generally
represented as female, and the liberal arts themselves tend to
remain female until the fifteenth century when the actual
personiﬁcations of the arts are sometimes replaced by the figures
of their scholarly exponants.4

They are commonly represented in twelfth century art as
queenly young women in classical robes, holding instruments as
attributes or engaged in activities which reveal their nature, as at
Chartres. Often, they are associated with the biblical virtues on
church facades, a relationship which suggests that knowledge and
virtue are connected somehow in raising mankind above our mean
existence.S Medieval encyclopedic works such as the Didascalicon of
Hugh of St. Victor and the Speculum Majus of Vincent of Beauvais
attempted to explain the means by which mankind could once again
know the Divine Wisdom of God. These works, and others like them,
propose that the Original Sin of Adam and Eve released three great
evils upon the world. These are sin, ignorance and mortality. To
offset these evils, God provided mankind with the remedies of
virtue, wisdom and practicality. To Medieval authors, these divine
gifts are represented by the seven virtues, the seven liberal arts and

the seven mechanical arts.6

 

4lbid., 311. This type of replacement happens most generally in manuscripts.
5Katzenellenbogen, ”Representation," 45.

5James Hall, A History of Ideas and Images in Italian Art (London: John Murray,
1983), 1 96.

47
From this linkage in purpose, it is easy to suggest a further

relationship in terms of appearance or form. After all, if we look at
twelfth century art as a whole, we see that individuals are not made
recognizable by physical features such as curly hair or a large nose,
but rather by attributes, such as St. Peter's keys or the shells of St.
James the Greater. To the medieval artist, a woman's body was a
woman's body and virtues, liberal arts and even biblical ﬁgures were
differentiated from one another only by their attributes. Indeed,
Michael Evans states that the appearance of the arts in the twelfth
century is probably related to the established formula of portraying
the virtues as female figures with specific identifying attributes!

In the ninth century, when Charlemagne's great educational
renaissance occurred, architecture enjoyed a time of prosperity as
well. Specifically, Charlemagne made use of a particular type of
state-ordered and -sponsored architecture which declared the ideals
of the new king. quite a bit of this new style was borrowed from the
art of antiquity. The palace of Charlemagne, for example, was based
more on the style of a Roman basilica than on the old Merovingian
palace which it replaced.8 For architectural decoration, Carolingian
style involved a great deal of mosaic on floors, walls and domes,
patterned masonry, as seen on the arches of the Palatine Chapel, and
also wall paintings, as seen at the church of Saint-Germain-en-
Auxerre. The figural motifs of the mosaics and frescoes include

 

7Evans, "Allegorical Women,” 309.

8Jean Hubert, "Architecture and its Decoration," in The Carolingian Renaissance,
ed. J. Hubert, J. Porcher and WP. Volbach (New York: George Braziller, 1970), 46.
Hubert gives an excellent explanation of the design and decoration of Carolingian
architecture, including a discussion of inﬂuences from north Italian wall painting.

48
biblical scenes such as God and the twenty-four elders of the

apocalypse. Also, there are floor and vault mosaics in geometric and
floral patterns and floral decorations in paint as well.

The world of sculpture, however, was not so widely populated.
Unlike the great Gothic cathedrals, Carolingian structures were not
ornamented with sculpted stone decoration. Exteriors were plain
and heavy, with monumental forms, thick columns and numerous
small windows. Sculpted decoration was in the form of plaster,
which has since been lost to the elements or covered by later
decorations. Charlemagne focused on the monumentality of form for
impression, rather than on elaborate decoration. Interiors, where
they were not painted or decorated with mosaic, were plain as well.
The sculpted forms of the Carolingian era are mainly closure slabs,
which separated the choir of a church from the nave. Often, these
were decorated with carved foliate forms and interlace designs.
Some, like one found at Metz, have cross and arch motifs comparable
to some themes in early Christian art.

So, where are the liberal arts in Carolingian decoration?
According to a poem by Theodulf of Orleans, the palace at Aachen
contained a mosaic depicting the seven arts, in company with some
of the virtues.9 This mosaic showed a tree growing from a globe
toward the stars. At the root of the tree sat Grammar, holding a
whip and a sword. Rhetoric and Dialectic sat on a branch to the
right, balanced by the four Cardinal Virtues on the left. Arithmetic

 

9Julius von Schlosser, Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der Karolingischen Kunst
(Vienna: Verlag von Carl Graeser, 1896), 377-380. Roger Hinks, Carolingian Art
(Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1962), 152.

49
embraced the trunk of the tree, while Music and Geometry sat among

the upper branches and Astronomy clung to the middle stem. Roger
Hinks, who comments on this work, points out that it may not be a
product of the ninth century at all, but rather a late-antique work
from Rome or Constantinople or a copy of such an artifact. Hinks
points out that Charlemagne owned a table topped with a plan of
Constantinople and says that other such artifacts may have been
products of Byzantine artists, rather than Carolingian ones.‘0

Given Charlemagne's international connections and educational
leanings, it is easy to suggest that he may have hired a Byzantine
rnosaicist to design and execute such a work, perhaps based on
Charlemagne's own conceptions. Indeed, it is well known that
Charlemagne visited ltaly, an area imbued with Byzantine
inﬂuences, and probably saw the work of Byzantine artists while
there.“ Kurt Weitzmann states that artistic connections between
East and West were closely maintained throughout the Carolingian
and Ottonian years. Also, Weitzmann claims that the art of the East
was considered superior to that of the West because of its virtually
unbroken connection to the Greek past, so it is entirely conceivable

that Byzantine artists were well known at Charlemagne's court, and

 

1°Hinks, Carolingian Art, 153. Michael Evans argues this point as well,
claiming that Theodulf's words are only literary in inspiration. Evans says that it Is
impossible to visually realize Theodulf's descriptions, but does not say why. Evans,
"AIIegorical Women,” 306-307.

11Magnus Backes and Regine Dblling, Art of the Dark Ages (New York: Harry N.
Abrams, Inc., 1969), 8. Charlemagne made as many as seven journeys to Italy.

50
they would have known of any such prototypes in the Byzantine

er'npire.‘2

The liberal arts were known to the scholars of the Byzantine
empire, but it seems that they may not have held the same high
position in the world of art as they did in the West. In philosophy,
the ultimate goal of the Byzantine thought as in the West, religious
faith was essential and secular learning was not as necessary to
reaching that goal.‘3 Even so, the liberal arts were a part of secular
education. Constantine VII, who came to the throne in 913, restored
the study of the quadrivium at the University in Constantinople and
searched for and hired masters in the appropriate subjects.‘4 In
1045, when the University was reopened, the head of the Philosophy
School was Michael Psellus, whose curriculum was similar to those
found in the schools of the West, and began with the study of the
trivium.‘ 5

However they arrived, the seven liberal arts eventually
crossed over into the world of sculpture. By the end of the eleventh
century, the arts appeared on column capitals from the third basilica
at Cluny, which was begun in AD. 1088. This rebuilding was
undertaken by Abbot Hugh of Semur, who ruled the abbey and the

 

12Kurt Weitzmann, ”Byzantium and the West Around the Year 1200,” in Art 91
the Medieval West and its Contacts with Byzantium, ed. Kurt Weitzmann (London:
Variorum Reprints, 1982), 54.

11"Constantine Cavamos, Byzantine Thought and Art (Belmont: The Institute for
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Inc., 1968), 30.

1‘IJM. Hussey, Church and Learning in the Byzantine Empire, 86 7-1 185 (New
York: Russeﬂ 8r Russell, Inc., 1937), 24.

‘Slbitt, 61.

51
Cluniac order for sixty years. According to Kenneth Conant, long the

foremost scholar of Cluniac art and archaeology, this stnIcture must
be viewed as a devotional focus for the entire Cluniac order.‘6
Accordingly, it was built large enough to accommodate the entire
membership of the order, had it been assembled. The church was of
Romanesque style, with a long, narrow nave, a transept and a
rounded apse with radiating chapels. Conant claims the plan of
Cluny III to be the ﬁrst to include a double transept.‘7 True to
Romanesque form, the church was not elaborately decorated, as the
Gothic cathedrals would be in the next two centuries. Instead, the
walls are thick and heavy, plain both inside and out, and are pierced
by small windows. The capitals of the nave columns were nearly all
of the Corinthian type. Figural sculpture was confined almost
entirely to the west facade and the capitals of the apse. The
decoration of the west portal, now lost, was completed around AD.
1113, and is thought to have contained an allegorical scene, perhaps
of the Last Judgement, like those found at Vezelay or Autun.‘8

The sculptural decoration of the apse is where the images of
the seven liberal arts were to be found. The carved capitals of the
eight freestanding apse columns have been the subject of much
debate over the years. Kenneth Conant identiﬁes their iconography

 

16Kenneth John Conant, Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture 800-1200
(London: Penguin Books, 1987), 199.

‘7lbid, 200.
”Md, 209.

52
and arrangement from the north end around to the south (Figure 1).‘9

The ﬁrst column has a Corinthian capital, with no symbolic meaning
whatsoever. Column Two displays the first four tones of the
liturgical plainsong, while the last four are found on column eight.
The third column, though damaged, has one identifiable ﬁgure, which
Conant calls a wind or harvest symbol. Peter Diemer, however,
argues for a representation of the four winds on this capital!0
Capital Four shows either the theological virtues or possibly the
quadrivium (Figures 6-9), and the trivium and Philosophy are seen on
Capital Six, which Conant claims displays two images of Prudence
and two seasons (Figures 2-5). The fifth capital is decorated with
the Four Rivers of Paradise and the seventh Conant identifies as
either sporting diversions or more seasons, and Diemer calls the
Four Seasons!‘

I would suggest an alternate arrangement which pairs the
columns. The northernmost and southernmost would be the two
capitals depicting the tones of the plainsong. Next would follow the
plain Corinthian capital paired with the capital depicting the four
seasons. 1 pair these two only because of the overwhelmingly

foliate decoration on the seasons capital. Third come the four winds

 

19Kenneth John Conant, "The Iconography and the Sequence of the Ambulatory
Capitals at Cluny," Speculum 5(1930): 278-287. To my mind, Conant relies too much
on what looks "handsome" or "satisfactory" in determining placement of the capitals. He
mentions occasionally the effects of the collapse of the apse vault as evidence for
arrangement, and should rely more fully on that.

”Peter Diemer, ”What does Prudentia Advise? 0n the Subject of the Cluny
Choir Capitals," Gesta 27(1988): 150. Diemer contradicts Conant with evidence from
Porter and Panofsky, as well as arguments of his own.

2‘ lbid, 160-162.

53

 

I
e
.0

 

 
   

l ‘ .
I I
.5 :‘I
O I
e .. I
‘ I .0. .
' 000 a
\ I .
o

 
     

I. no a o
a 2 I" Eli's 5'...
- a. 0

Figure 1: Apse of Cluny lll

54
and four rivers, two cosmological themes which are common to

Medieval sculpture. Finally, at the peak of the arch are the liberal
arts. Although I have no concrete proof for this arrangement, I
would argue that my proposed pairings seem logical.

Peter Diemer gives solid reasoning for his identiﬁcations of
the seven arts, so I will forego a lengthy description and instead
attend only to a few salient points.?-2 Grammar has lost much of her
attribute, but still retains the fragments of a whip or flail and a
child crouched at her feet (Figure 5). This follows the standard
representation of Grammar, much as seen at Chartres. Rhetoric also
lacks any item she may have been holding, but she is clothed in a
coat and cap of mail as in Capella's account (Figure 4). The figure
identiﬁed as Dialectic is badly damaged, and her attribute is almost
entirely missing, but points of attachment remain and are widely
spaced and numerous enough to suggest that this figure held the
enthralling and dangerous serpent of Capella's Dialectic (Figure 3).
The figure on the fourth side of this capital is identiﬁed by Diemer
as Philosophy, the higher goal of all those who study the seven arts.
Philosophy is often shown as a central ﬁgure in depictions of the
arts, with the other seven gazing up at her in a worshipful manner.
This figure does not pose in the frontal stance of most other
depictions of Philosophy, but she does seem to be more graceful than

the other arts, and her robes are certainly longer and more ﬂowing

 

zzlbid, 1 53-1 60.

55

 

Figure 3: Dialectic

Figure 2: Philosophy

 

 

Figure 5: Grammar

Figure 4: Rhetoric

56
(Figure 2). She holds open a book which she displays to the viewer.23

Diemer places the arts of the quadrivium on the capital which
Conant identifies as displaying the three theological virtues of
Faith, Hope and Charity, and a figure of Justice, one of the cardinal
virtues. Conant selects Justice as thefourth figure because the
Abbott of Cluny had judicial jurisdiction over the town of Cluny,
thus making Justice an appropriate virtue to be placed in the
church.“ These four ﬁgures are extremely difﬁcult to identify with
any certainty, since the column is highly damaged and many of the
emblematic attributes have been lost. Though Diemer argues for the
quadrivium, the attributes he uses do not fit the standard
iconography as neatly as do those of the trivium.

One figure holds a small box or casket. This is identiﬁed by
Diemer as Arithmetic, and he claims the casket is an artistic
misinterpretation of a model in which Arithmetic displayed an
abacus or demonstration tablet (Figure 8). Conant, however, calls
this figure Charity, who may be represented carrying a box out of
which she distributes alms to the poor.?-5 Diemer's Geometry holds a
rod or scepter which is flowering at the end (Figure 6). This
attribute is known from manuscripts, such as the one of the late

eleventh century found in paris, and may be an allusion to the

 

23lbid, 157. Diemer gives an explanation for the departure from the standard
iconography of Philosophy which revolves around a supposed confusion of terminology on
the part of a reader of Capella at Cluny.

24Conant, "Capitals of Cluny," 282.

ZSAdolf Katzenellenbogen, Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Medieval Art
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 56.

57
measuring rod which Geometry carries in Capellan‘!6 The potential

virtue is Hope, who carries an olive branch.

The remaining two figures are somewhat more problematic. A
kneeling figure with hands extended is identiﬁed by Diemer as
Astronomy, possibly holding a book of astronomical dimensions. He
gives no explanation for her kneeling position (Figure 9). Conant
calls the figure Faith, who kneels to receive the sacrament of Holy
Communion.27 An alternate identification of this ﬁgure is Justice,
who is generally shown with a balance or scales.28 In this case, she
may be weighing two opposing options in her outstretched hands.
The ﬁnal figure which Diemer calls Music, is almost entirely lost,
with only bits of hands and feet remaining (Figure 7). One can only
speculate on the attributes this figure may have held. If Music,
perhaps it was the bells or harp which she held. If Faith, it may
have been the symbolic font.29 Justice would have been shown with
her balance.

In all, it seems entirely probable that these two columns
represent both arts and virtues, with the trivium and Philosophy on
one and theological virtues plus Justice on the other. Given the
close relationship of the virtues and the arts in Medieval scholarship
and art, such depictions at Cluny are well within the realm of

possibility, especially when one considers again the educational role

 

26Diemer, "Prudentia," 162. This image was too difficult to copy.
27Conant, "Capitals of Cluny,” 282.
”Katzenellenbogen, AIIegories, 55.

29mm, 56.

\

'5; , ' 1w 5,139,, a. ‘
3‘3? Pr??? ‘ﬁggaﬂ

 

Figure 8: Arithmetic/Charity Figure 9: Astronomy/Justice/Faith

59
of the monasteries at the time. As to the partial representation of

each of these two themes, Conant says that it is common for the
Four Rivers of Paradise, depicted on another capital, to represent
the four cardinal virtues, and one might safely consider that the arts
of the trivium would perhaps be more known to a monastic
community thatn those of the quadrivium.

As we have already seen, the twelfth century was a time of
great development, both in education and in architecture. This is the
era of the construction of the great cathedrals, including Chartres
and Laon. During this century, the seven arts were still a central
facet of any school's curriculum, including that at Chartres, where
they were codified by Thierry, who was master of the school,
chancellor of the cathedral and is thought to have been the brother
of Bernard, grammarian and chancellor of the church from 1114-
1124. Thierry's treatise on the seven liberal arts, the Heptateuch,
was written around the middle of the century and gives a clear
record of the basic ideas which were involved in twelfth century
education and reflected the proto-humanist attitudes which were
budding in the school of Chartres.30 Thierry's work was based
solidly in ancient Latin sources, with a few ideas pared from ancient
Greece and the astronomy of the Arabs.31

Significantly, Thierry was completeing his Heptateuch at the

same time that the sculptural program of the Royal Portal was

 

3OStahl, ”Introduction,” 68 n.68. The remaining original manuscript at
Chartres was destroyed during World War ll. Microfilm copies had been made and
distributed, but still remain largely inaccessible.

31Favier, Chartres, 39.

60
conceived and begun. It is possible that Thierry even suggested the

placement of the liberal arts on the portal.32 Thierry's curriculum
focused closely on the liberal arts and the works of the ancient
giants of philosophy and education. He felt that the new learning of
the twelfth century was nothing without the support of the ancient
scholars-the "dwarfs on the shoulders of giants" philosophy
mentioned in the introduction. Thierry used Plato's Timaeus to
demonstrate how the quest for secular knowledge could be
incorporated into a religious education. In his interpretation, the
fact that God ordered the cosmos created a reason to understand it.
Therefore, the search for knowledge and understanding of the world,
which is the work of God, is done in the service of God.33 Since the
seven arts were seen as the means by which mankind could gain
knowledge of the world, and thereby knowledge of God, it does seem
logical to suggest the placement of the arts and their classical
representatives on the Royal Portal, especially in light of
Katzenellenbogen's Divine Wisdom argument, which will be
discussed later.

The seven liberal arts at Chartres Cathedral are placed on the
archivolts of the southern portal of the west facade (Figures 10,11).
This entire program, including the decoration of all three western
portals, is commonly known as the Royal Portal and includes scenes
of the Ascension of Christ, the Second Coming and the Incarnation.
These

 

32Adolf Katzenellenbogen, The Sculptural Probrams of Chartres Cathed‘al (New
York: WW. Norton & Company, 1959), 18-19.

33Klibansky, ”School of Chartres," 7.

61

Eton Exam .5858 8.226 ”op 2:9“.

 

62

>55 5:8 .58“. .98". u: 239“.

. . —
a. \L r.“ f It. 5.35.! .r
, n «

 

 

63
three themes work together on the west facade to show the lineage

of Christ and His life from infancy to His rise to glory.34 There is no
Last Judgment, a scene commonly found on the west facade of a
cathedral, and it seems that the program at Chartres is designed to
inspire conﬁdence in Christ and eternal life, rather than fear of
judgment»?5 The west facade is also a part of the sculptural and
decorative program which covers the rest of the interior and
exterior of the church. The programs of the north and south transept
portals include the Marian cycle of the north transept and, on the
south transept, scenes of the Church and the Last Judgment. In all,
these sculptural programs serve to glorify both Christ and the Virgin
Mary, to whom the cathedral is dedicated.

The west facade itself remains from a cathedral begun by
Bishop Fulbert after a ﬁre of AD. 1020. The towers of the facade
were constructed after another ﬁre of 1134. The sculpture of the
Royal Portal was installed with this construction and this entire
westwork was incorporated into yet a third reconstruction of the
church after a fire in 1194 destroyed the choir and nave. The church
was ﬁnally dedicated by King Louis in 1260. The archivolts of the
south doorway of the Royal Portal frame the scenes of the Nativity
and Presentation in the Temple, which are on the lintel, and the
enthroned Virgin and Child on the tympanum (Figure 11). These are

 

34Wilhelm nge, "From The Beginnings of the Monumental Style 31 the Midde
Ages,” in Chartres Cathedral, ed. Robert Branner (New York: W.W. Norton & Company
Inc.,1969), 126-127.

35Alan Priest, "The Masters of the West Facade of Chartres," in Chartres
Cathedral, ed. Robert Branner (New Yorlc W.W. Norton 8: Company Inc., 1969), 150.

64
scenes of the incarnation of Christ, who is enthroned on the typanum

as godhead incarnate.

The liberal arts are placed in a roughly circular arrangement.
Six arts and their representatives rest in the outer archivolt, with
Music and her master on the right end of the inner archivolt. The
remaining space on the archivolt is occupied by six angels and two
signs of the zodiac, Gemini and Pisces.36 Each art is represented by
an author whose writings contributed to that art. These figures are
found beneath the representation of each art and are shown in the
act of writing. The series begins on the bottom right end of the
outer archivolt with Grammar and Priscian and moves clockwise
across the portal to Dialectic and Aristotle and then continues up
one side of the tympanum and down the other in this order: Rhetoric
and Cicero, Geometry and Euclid, Arithmetic and Boethius,
Astronomy and Ptolemy and finally, Music and Pythagoras. The
representatives of all the arts except Music are identified according
to the Heptateuch of Thierry, but Music's delegate is identified by
the instruments she holds, which are those which tradition said
allowed Pythagoras to develop his system of intervals. The speciﬁc
sequence of the arts differs slightly from that in Thierry's
Heptateuch, but corresponds exactly to the order ascribed to by
Martianus Capella.37

 

36Vdge says that this is an intentional linkage of the north and south portals.
Vdge, ”Monumental Style," 127.

37Katzenellenbogen, Sculptural Programs, 20-21. This arrangement places
Geometry and Arithmetic at the apex of the arch. According to Katzenellenbogen, Thierry
used these two arts to explain the equality of Chirst and God.

65
Grammar is seated with two small boys ﬁgeting at her feet

(Figure 12). All three of these ﬁgures, and the rest of those related
to the arts, wear classical robes. Grammar holds a sheaf of plant
stems, bound together, which may be birch rods, a symbol of both
purification and punishment which she probably used to keep her
young charges in line and as an inducement to correct pronunciation.
Dialectic is characterized by an interpretation of the symbols she
carried in Capella's work, but in opposite hands (Figure 13). Her left
hand holds a ﬂower and the right a dragonlike beast which some
have identified as a scorpion.38 Rhetoric is not armed, as seen at
Cluny, but clothed in a beautifully pleated robe. She is shown
speaking, in the act of her art, with one hand raised in an oratorical
gesture (Figure 14).

Following this group is the quadrivium, beginning with
Geometry, to the left of the point of the archivolt (Figure 15). She
sits, tracing, figures on a tablet. Arithmetic, facing Geometry, has
lost her attribute (Figure 16). She may have been shown using an
abacus or counting on her fingers in the universal symbol of simple
addition, as she does so well in Capella.39 Astronomy at Chartres is
not the glowing, winged maiden of Capella's story (Figure 17).
Instead, she is simply seated with her head tilted back. One hand is
raised as if holding something to her eye, such as her sextant. The
angle of her gaze is such that, if she were holding her navigational
tool, it would be aiming directly at the enthroned Madonna and Child.

 

38mm, Religious Art: Thirteenth Century, 85.

39See p.38 above.

66

gr. .

_ .1 _.
\ .Q y.
t . r r 1‘.

e...”

 

 

Figure 12: Grammar

67
It is possible that this ﬁgure represents the search of mankind for

Divine Wisdom as discussed below. Finally, Music sits beside
Grammar (Figure 18). She is playing a set of bells, which have both
symbolic and biblical meaning. Bells were used as a call to worship
and, in their Christian signiﬁcance as the voice of Christ, as a
means of driving away demons or plagues. They also symbolize joy
and insistent preaching. The Old Testament King David, known for
his musical skill, was long considered to be a personification or
incarnation of music and is often shown striking a set of bells with
hammers, much as Music is here.40 Music also holds a type of lap
harp, which is symbolic of the celestial realms and heavenly bliss.

It is the instrument of angels and typiﬁes the praise of God. In this
case it may also symbolize man's praise of Divine Wisdom through
the growth of human wisdom. Psalms 33:2-3 directs mankind to
praise God with music, speciﬁcally with the harp.

Give thanks to the Lord with harps, sing to him with stringed
instruments. Sing a new song to him, play the harp with skill,
and shout for joy!

Musicians played a very special role in the Medieval connection
between heaven and earth. According to Pseudo-Dionysius, the
musician is the means by which the hymns of heaven are transmitted

to earth and made audible and understandable to mankind.41

 

40Male, Religious Art: Thirteenth Century, 88.

41Theodore C. Karp, "Music," in The Seven Liberal Arts in the Midde Ages, ed.
David L Wagner (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 176.

68

 

Figure 13: Dialectic

69

 

Figure 14: Rhetoric

70

 

Figure 15: Geometry

71

 

Figure 16: Arithmetic

72

 

Figure 17: Astronomy

73

 

Figure 18: Music

74
The depictions of the liberal arts on the west portal of

Chartres cathedral may seem somewhat out of place, located as they
are on a major Christian monument. However, when one understands
the close relationship of the cathedral and the cathedral school, the
reasoning behind this positioning becomes clear. As discussed
above, Thierry of Chartres was chancellor of the cathedral in the
mid-twelfth century. This put him in charge of both the cathedral
itself and the cathedral school, and we have already explored that
relationship. This makes it clear that the issues of education and
secular learning raised by the liberal arts do belong on the facade of
Chartres. The central equation here is the relationship of Divine
Wisdom to human wisdom-the relationship of God to man. Christ,
at Chartres, is seen as the wisdom of the Lord, a characterization
rooted in the writings of Boethius, on which Thierry had written
commentaries. Boethius, like Thierry, advocated the study of the
liberal arts as the means to gain wisdomnboth the human and the
Divine.”- Thus, the seven arts, enthroned as they are around the
image of Christ, are clear representations of man's search for
divinity and the wisdom of the Lord. The fact that some of the arts,
particularly Astronomy, gaze toward Christ further emphasizes the
fact that they are the path by which wisdom can be reached. In the
case of Astronomy, this is even more clear as she is the navigator
who helps mankind find its way, both on the earth and in heaven.

At Laon Cathedral, the seven liberal arts appear with some
additions. They are still found on the west facade, but are

 

42Katzenellenbogen, Sculptural Programs, 16-17.

75
somewhat removed from the main portals and, therefore, from the

casual view of those entering the church. From the ninth century,
Laon had a cathedral school which was to become one of the
foremost in Europe. Laon was notable for its large contingent of
Irish scholars, including John and Martin Scotus. These scholars
were clearly familiar with the standard texts used in instruction,
including the work of Martianus Capella.43

The liberal arts of Laon are placed in the second story of the
facade, this time in archivolts around the lancet window to the
north of the central rose window (Figure 20). In this situation, they
are placed without their accompanying masters. Instead, the seven
arts are joined by three new figures, one of whom has been seen
before in manuscript illuminations. The sequence begins with a
personiﬁcation of either PhiloSOphy or Theology, and continues up
the left side of the arch with Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric and
Arithmetic. Then, beginning at the bottom of the right side,
Medicine, a figure identified as either Painting or Architecture,
Geometry, Astronomy and Music.

From where do these additions come? As previously stated,
the ultimate goal of the study of the arts was either philosophy or
theology. Katzenellenbogen identifies this ﬁrst ﬁgure as Philosophy
with theology, the highest part of that art, symbolized by the clouds
surrounding her head.44 Since Philosophy has long been seen as the
ultimate goal of those studying the arts, the inclusion of Philosophy

 

43John J. Contreni, The School of Laon from 850-930: Its Manuscripts and
Masters (Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, 1971), 138-143.

44Katzenellenbogen, "Representation," 43—44.

76
in the cycle of the liberal arts is a logical development of the theme

which is seen not only at Laon, but also at Deols and Sens. Medicine
is traditionally included among the seven mechanical arts, which
only become popular artistic subjects in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. These arts are addressed by Hugh of St. Victor
in his Didascalicon of c. 1130.45 In addition, to Medicine, these arts
include Architecture, Metallurgy, Hunting, Agriculture, Commerce
and Theatrics. Significantly, the mechanical arts are generally
represented by male personiﬁcations, though at Laon Medicine is
female.46 Medicine is probably included in this cycle of the arts in
part because of the importance of medical studies at the school of
Laon, and also as one of the two bridesmaids at Capella's marriage
who are not allowed to present their arts.47 The third addition to
the cycle is a male ﬁgure who can be identified as Architecture in
light of the appearance of Medicine. Like Medicine, Architecture is a
bridesmaid in Capella and is also a mechanical art.

Here we ﬁnd the appearance of a male art in a usually female
grouping. Male personifications of the liberal arts appear also at the
cathedral of Sens, where there are two male figures included in the
cycle, and seem to be at least acceptable, if not commonplace, by
the end of the thirteenth century when the facade at Laon was being

 

45Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon; A Medieval Guide to the Arts, trans. Jerome
Taylor (New Yorlc Columbia University Press, 1961 ),74-79.

46Sue A. Levine, The Northern Foreportal Column Figures of Chartres Cathedral
(Frankfurt: Verlag Peter Lang, 1984), 132.

47Contreni, School of Laon, 8.

 

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7.. I p...
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wuv . .

 

Figure 19: Laon Cathedral, West Facade

78

‘T".J‘¢;6 x ”‘ 7‘
“.'J'L..”S

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 20: Laon Cathedral, Liberal Arts Window

79
completed.“8 Male representations of the arts were known in

twelfth century manuscripts as well, and it may be that these
ﬁgures are a more literal interpretation of the written word and my
well have served as a model for the sculpted forms, particularly

with regard to the arts of Medicine and Architecture, which were not
fully described by Capella.49

Eventually, male arts become the norm, as at the fourteenth-
century relief on the cathedral at Clermont-Ferrand, and the seven
mechanical arts put forth by Hugh of St. Victor are generally
represented as male. Perhaps these twelfth century men are echoes
of manuscripts. It is also possible that they are in some way a
reflection of society. After all, it was the men of the time who
were the doctors and astronomers and architects, and this may be
reflected in the art of the time.

The attributes of the arts at Laon have some similarities and
some differences to the iconographic type I have thus far discussed.
Grammar has lost her head, but the child at her feet remains (Figure
22). Instead of holding a bundle of switches, she points to a passage
in the book the child holds, while he gazes attentively up at her.
Dialectic gestures with both hands and has a large snake coiled
about her body, a clear reference to the description in Capella
(Figure 23). Rhetoric makes an oratorical gesture with one hand
(Figure24). Arithmetic, at the point of the arch, holds three small
balls in each hand (Figure 29). These are probably symbolic of the

 

48Evans, "Allegorical Women, " 314.

49lbid., 317.

80
beads or stones used in old abaci and counting boards.50 Geometry,

on the opposite side of the arch, makes use of a compass (Figure 26).
Astronomy holds out an image of the world divided by a jagged
horizontal line (Figure 27). This does not appear to be a globe, but
rather a disk, and so could be the astrolabe commonly used in
Medieval times for navigation. Finally, Music is shown playing a set
of five bells (Figure 28). Medicine, who anchors the opposite end of
the archivolt, holds up a jug or vase of some type (Figure 30). This
is apparently intended to be a glass vessel used by Asclepius, the
Greek god of healing, to study bodily fluids.51 Architecture, the only
male ﬁgure in this group, is shown drawing on a ﬁve-sided tablet
with a stylus (Figure 25).52

Philosophy is represented by a very stern female ﬁgure who
holds an open book in her right hand (Figure 21). A ladder with nine
rungs rests against her chest. The iconography of this ﬁgure is
taken almost directly from Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy,
where Boethius is visited by a majestic woman who could "touch
with her crown the very heavens" and had the symbols TI and 6 woven

into her gown with the rungs marked between them.53 The rungs

 

50Auguste Bouxin, La Cathedrale Notre Dame de Leon (Laon: A. Cortilliot, 1890),
1 00-1 01 .

5‘Bouxin, Notre Dame de Leon, 101. "...élevé a contre-lumiere le fameux urinal
de verre se souvent employé et questionné par les Esculape des vieux ages."

52The alternate identification of this ﬁgure is as a personiﬁcation of Painting.
This does not fit since Painting is neither a mechanical art, nor is it included in Capella.
Architecture, however is more logical, especially during the Gothic period, at which
time architects were responsible for the construction of the great cathedrals.

53Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, ed. W.V. Cooper (Chicago: Regnery
Gateway, 1981 ), 4. n denotes Practical philosophy and 8 Theoretical philosophy.

81

   

Figure 22: Grammar

 

Figure 23: Dialectic Figure 24: Rhetoric

82

 

Figure 25: Architecture

 

'M“ mml:llv""r‘“£y

 

Figure 27: Astronomy Figure 28: Music

83

 

Figure 29: Arithmetic

 

Figure 30: Medicine

84
would allow one to ascend from the lower levels of philosophy up to

the higher levels and, ultimately, to the heights of theology.
Presumably, one could ascend through the study of the liberal arts.
Significantly, at Laon, the ladder of Philosophy has nine rungs,
corresponding to the number of arts found on the archivolt as well
as the original number of arts in the work of Martianus Capella. The
number nine has further symbolism in the works of Pseudo—
Dionysius the Areopagite, the sixth century author of The Celestial
Hierarchy, a work that was well known in the Middle Ages. In this
work, Pseudo-Dionysius specifically considers the problem of
angels, their nature and arrangement. It was undoubtedly a major
inﬂuence on Medieval theology.“

Pseudo-Dionysius breaks the angels into three groups of three,
for a total of nine, corresponding to the number of arts and rungs of
Philosophy's ladder at Laon. The nine ranks of angels are arranged in
ascending order from angels to seraphim. In the Middle Ages,
Pseudo-Dionysius's system of angelic arrangement had a significant
impact on the study of angels by authors from Pope Gregory the
Great to Dante, and even affected Abbot Suger's design for his abbey
church at St. Denis.55 Essentially, the nine ascending ranks of angels
in The Celestial Hierarchy rise toward God, the ultimate goal of
religion, much as the seven, or nine, liberal arts allow man to rise
toward the study of Philosophy.

 

54Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an
Introduction to Their Inﬂuence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 73.

55lbid, 74, 81-83.

85
There is a second cycle of arts at Laon which exists in the

glass of the rose window of the north transept, which dates to the
early thirteenth century (Figure 31). Here, Philosophy is enthroned
in the central roundel, with eight others surrounding her in separate
small windows. These are Rhetoric, Grammar, Dialectic, Astronomy,
Arithmetic, Medicine, Geometry and Music. Architecture is missing.
This window was restored in 1856, at which time Philosophy,
Rhetoric, Medicine and Music had been lost. It is interesting to note
that the iconography of the arts here is extremely similar to that
seen on the church facade. Medicine holds herjug and Arithmetic her
counting balls. Philosophy is enthroned with her nine-runged ladder,
as on the facade (Figure 32).

Depictions of the liberal arts do not appear only in French
sculpture. At Freiburg Cathedral in Germany, it has been said that a
cycle of the seven arts appears in the enclosed porch of the west
facade. Instead of the standard tripartite Gothic facade, the church
at Freiburg has a single western portal capped by a tall tracery spire
(Figure 33). The porch is deep and almost fully enclosed, with only a
single entry (Figure 34). This portion of the church dates from 1260
to 1340, and it is clear from the sculptural style that the ﬁgures
enclosed within it are of late Gothic manufacture.

Enclosed within the porch are thirty-six sculpted figures
approximately two feet in height and mounted above a blind arcade
some six feet above the floor. They have been identified by Otto
Schmitt in his 1926 work Gotischen Skulpturen des Freiburger
Mansters. The series of ﬁgures includes vices, angels and biblical

figures such as Zachariah, Abraham and Mary Magdalen. Also

86

 

Figure 31: Laon Cathedral, North Transept, Rose Window

87

t :1 (El;

NW“. Jul E‘VI J.’ //e

li'ji’y} “(7“

‘Jix’ V‘s

 

Figure 32: Philosophy

88
depicted are the wise and foolish virgins--six wise and ﬁve foolish-

-and the Virgin and Child stand on the trumeau of the doorway into
the nave. Along the south wall supposedly stand the seven liberal
arts (Figure 35).

Viollet-le-Duc says that the names of the ﬁgures are painted
on the pedestals on which they stand, but at the time of Schmitt's
photographs, no such inscriptions appear to be in evidence.56
Schmitt lists the figures in the following order: Grammar, Rhetoric,
Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Dialectic, Astronomy.57 Unfortunately,
he gives no evidence for his attribution. It is clear that this order
deviates distinctly from that previously seen. However, when one
examines the attributes of these figures, it becomes clear that they
are not, after all, a complete cycle of the liberal arts.

The attributes of Grammar, Rhetoric, Geometry and Music
follow the standard pattern, as we have seen above. These figures
all carry a clear indication of their identity, such as Music's bell
(Figure 37). The figure Schmitt calls Arithmetic, however, is
something of a mystery. Viollet-le-Duc calls this ﬁgure Rhetoric,
and says she holds a bundle of flowers,which we have not seen
Rhetoric do before (Figure 36).58 A possible interpretation for this
figure will emerge shortly. Dialectic, according to Schmitt, was at

one time misidentiﬁed as the personiﬁcation of Painting. She does

 

56Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonné de L'Architectwe
Francaise du Xle au XVle Siecle, vol. 2 (Paris: A. Morel, 187 5-82), 9.

S7Otto Schmitt, Gotische Skulpturen des Freiburger Mansters (Frankfurt am
Main: Frankfurter verlags-anstalt, 1926), 2: XIII, n.117,118. All references to
Schmitt's identiﬁcations are from this section.

58Viollet-le—Duc, Dictionnaire, 10.

89

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Ln —, I 'l‘l .

E.

 

 

Figure 33: Freiburg Cathedral, West Facade

9O

 

Freiburg Cathedral, West Portal

Figure 34

91

 

 

 

 

o.
19
1a 20
1617 21
15 22,4324
14 25
13 26
12 27
11 28
1o 29
N. 9 so 5.
a 31
7 32
6 33
5 31
L1 35
’3 2 1 38 37 36
w.

Figure 35: Portal Sculpture Arrangement

92
hold what appears to be a bunch of brushes and a small palette

(Figure 37). It is also possible that this figure represents
Astronomy holding a sextant, as would be consistent with the
proposed theme of the arts and the well-known iconography of the
same. However, close examination of the image reinforces the
theory that she does, indeed, carry a palette and brushes and that
she is, then, Painting. Schmitt's title of Astronomy for the final
figure in the series is almost laughable. This figure quite obviously
holds the specimen jar of Medicine (Figure 37)!

In light of the re-identification of Schmitt's Dialectic and
Astronomy as Painting and Medicine, we may now look back at
Schmitt's Arithmetic. If this figure does hold a bundle of flowers as
Viollet-le-Duc says, is it possible that she is a personiﬁcation of
Agriculture, one of the seven mechanical arts? This would create an
integrated grouping of four liberal arts and three mechanical arts.
Given the mid- to late-thirteenth century date of these figures, the
popularity of Hugh of St. Victor's Didascalicon and the growing
popularity of the seven mechanical arts as an artistic theme, it
seems entirely logical to suggest that this group does not represent
the seven liberal arts, as reported by both Schmitt and Viollet-le-
Duc. Rather, it is a grouping of figures representing both liberal and
mechanical arts which, in turn, reﬂects the changing sentiments and
interests of the late Medieval era.

Representations of the liberal arts appear in Italy as well.
Prior to the eleventh century, these images are limited, but there is
a mosaic pavement at Ivrea which dates to that century and shows

93

 

, Rhetoric, Agriculture

Figure 36: Grammar

94

 

Geometry, Music, Painting, Medicine

Figure 37

95
Philosophy and the seven arts.59 The next signiﬁcant appearance of

the seven arts in Italy occurs in Siena, on the pulpit carved for the
cathedral there by Nicola Pisano (Figure 38).

Nicola Pisano agreed to a contract for the construction of a
pulpit with the authorities of the Duomo in 1265. The Sienese
wished their pulpit to rival that of the baptistry in Pisa, and their
wish was granted. The Siena pulpit is octagonal, while that at Pisa
is hexagonal. Both have sculpted figures over much of their surface,
but the Siena work represents a shift in the style of the artist.
While the figures at Pisa are strongly enclosed in frames divided by
grouped colonnettes and there are relatively few of them, those at
Siena are packed into their spaces in a somewhat friezelike
arrangement. Also, at Siena, the elements which divide one panel
from the next are not columns, but larger ﬁgures of Christ, the
Virgin and angels. Other minor changes include inlay work and more
elaborate decorative elements, such as the birds which appear in the
foliage of the column capitals.

0n the Pisa baptistry pulpit, the columns rest alternately on
plain pedestals and the backs of lions. At Siena, where there are
necessarily more supporting elements, this pattern is repeated, but
with lions and lionesses. The central column at Pisa has fantastic
animal and human figures around its base, while the central support
at Siena is decorated by the liberal arts. As stated in the
Introduction, this placement of the arts is especially signiﬁcant,

since the pulpit is where the wisdom of God is disseminated vocally

 

59Pietro Toesca, Starla Dell'Arte Italiana, vol. 1 (Torino: Unione Tipografico-
Editrice Torinese, 1927), 450-451.

96

.3353 22m £33m "mm 659“.

 

97
to the people through the sermon of the priest. The placement of the

seven arts on a supporting element for this dissemination indicates

the interests of educated Italians in the thirteenth century. We see
here a pattern here similar to that which occurred at Chartres. The
seven liberal arts have become support for the word of God and the
path by which one gains knowledge of that word.

The sequence at Siena includes a figure of Philsophy as well as
the seven arts, and each art is distinguished by her attribute. The
figures are carved in high relief in a circular arrangement, as if they
were seated on a bench around the trunk of a tree. They are not
separated by framing elements, but rather they seem to flow
together through the overlap of their robes into a seamless whole.
They are placed in the following order, beginning to the right of
Philosophy: Rhetoric, Dialectic, Grammar, Astronomy, Music,
Geometry and Arithmetic (Figures 39-41).

Once again, the arts are represented by attributes which
should by now be familiar to the reader. Grammar teaches a child,
Astronomy gazes at the sky, Arithmetic counts on her fingers, Music
holds a lyre and Geometry a tablet. There are, however, some
discrepancies from the apparently standard iconography. The figure
commonly identified as Dialectic is an aged woman with a wrinkled,
sagging face. In Capella, it is Grammar who is characterized as an
old womanﬁo Rhetoric, instead of making her usual oratorical
gesture, points to a passage in an open book on her knee. Philosophy
is by far the most elaborately dressed of the group, as is ﬁtting,

 

60See p. 35 above.

98

 

Figure 39: Geometry, Philosophy, Arithmetic

 

99

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Figure 40: Astronomy, Grammar, Dialectic

100

 

Figure 41: Rhetoric, Music, Astronomy

101
since she is their leader and the ultimate goal of education. Her

gown is covered with detailed patterns, embroidery, and fringe. She
gazes directly out at the viewer and holds a curved horn with ﬂames
coming out of its top. This probably symbolizes the illuminating
nature of Philosophy and the knowledge gained through study of the
liberal arts, which serves to aid in illuminating the mysteries of

God for mankind. Further, the horn itself is symbolic of

intelligence, salvation and divine strength. In the Hebrew tradition,

a flame-shaped horn appears at the four comers of the Altar of
Burnt Offerings which symbolizes the light and might of God.61
Christ is considered the light of the world that shines on all

mankind, as knowledge serves to illuminate the world. Finally, the
Bible verses of John 1:4-5, 9 comments on light and darkness and the

illuminating power of God.

The Word is the source of life, life brings light to mankind.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never
put it out.

In short, God's Word lights the way of man in the darkness of Satan,
much as the liberal arts light man's way through the earthly world
and toward the Divine Wisdom of God.

 

5‘ Gertrude Jobes, Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore and Symbols (New York:
The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1962), 787-8.

CONCLUSION

So, in conclusion, it is clear that the seven liberal arts are a
signiﬁcant part of the history of education. Though they were not
always grouped together or considered as a group by ancient
scholars, they were often, indeed almost always, included
individually in scholastic curricula from Plato until the time of
Charlemagne. From the time of the emergence of the Christian
church to the time of Charlemagne, the position of the liberal arts in
the eyes of religious leaders was generally rather tenuous, due to
the connection of the arts with pagan educators and philosophers of
the past.

Under Charles the Great, the arts were elevated to a new
status in his Palace School, where Charlemagne himself studied.
Charlemagne also developed a system of schools which made
education, and therefore the liberal arts, available to the public.
This system was to last until the tenth century and its close ties to
the church allowed the liberal arts to become more accepted,
especially since they could correspond to the biblical seven pillars
of the house of Wisdom.

Finally, we see this union of secular learning and religious
devotion come to a great bloom in the cathedral schools of the
twelfth century, speciﬁcally that of Chartres. Scholars of the

102

103
twelfth century, such as Thierry of Chartres and Hugh of St. Victor,

were able to use the knowledge returning from Muslim Spain to
further justify the study of the liberal arts by both religious and
secular figures. In their eyes, the liberal arts were the path which

led to the study and understanding of Theology and the word of God.
It became acceptable, and even necessary, for these men to study the
world around them, since the world was the work of God, and
understanding of God's works could lead to understanding of God.

At Chartres cathedral, we find a remarkable combination of
the two previously diverging paths of religion and knowledge. Here,
the liberal arts, joined by pagan scholars are placed on the
archivolts of one entry in the Royal Portal on the west facade - the
heart of secular learning included in what is perhaps the most
famous cycle of Christian iconography in the world. This 'placement
represents the nature of the school of Chartres and is the seed of
the great humanist monement which would flourish there in the
Renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

This paper has investigated the origins of the liberal arts
curriculum and the effect that curriculum had on the arts of the
Medieval world, specifically the art of sculpture. Depictions of the
arts were, however, not restricted to sculpture, but can be found in
manuscripts, mosaics, frescoes and decorative works such as
candlesticks and enameled boxes. Neither are the arts conﬁned to
France. They are found throughout Europe, in Germany, Italy and,
signiﬁcantly, on the painted ceiling of Peterborough Cathedral in
England, which this paper did not investigate. The arts emerge in
sculpture in the eleventh century in France at the monastery church

104
of Cluny and are consistent members of the artistic imagery of

Europe from that time into the Renaissance, when they become
especially popular in Italy and are depicted on the campanile of
Florence Cathedral.

The iconography of the arts also goes through a developmental
stage in the Middle Ages. It can be argued that the origins of this
iconography are found in the ﬁfth century work of Martianus Capella,
the African scholar. As seen in most Medieval sculpture, the
iconography of the liberal arts is as follows. Grammar is shown
teaching at least one child. Dialectic carries a flower and a snake.
Rhetoric gestures in the fashion of an orator. Geometry has a
compass or draws figures on a tablet. Arithmetic holds some
counting machinery or counts on her fingers. Astronomy gazes at the
sky through an astrolabe or sextant. Music carries a lyre or plays
bells. Philosophy, who is seen as the leader of the arts, as well as
their ultimate goal, holds a book and scepter and has a ladder
propped against her. Of course, there are some departures from
these attributes, but for the most part, Medieval sculptors seem to
have followed a standard plan for making the identities of the arts
known to their viewers.

In the thirteenth century, another set of arts becomes popular.
These are the seven mechanical arts, including Architecture and
Medicine. Sometimes, even in the twelfth century, mechanical arts
appear in cycles of liberal arts, as at Laon Cathedral. However,
these confluences can be explained through the appearance of
Architecture and Medicine in the allegory of Martianus Capella. At
Freiburg Cathedral, the mechanical arts take a more prominent

105
position, usurping the appearance of three of the seven liberal arts

and reducing their membership to Grammar, Rhetoric, Geometry and
Music.

Despite the appearance of the second group of arts, the seven
liberal arts remain popular, and their iconography remains standard
throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. They were, and
remain today, the basis of education and that on which higher
knowledge is based. In the final words of Henri d'Andeli,

For thirty years this will continue,

Until a new generation will arise,
Who will go back to Grammar,

Just as it was the fashion
When Henri D'A ndeli was born,
Who gives it us as his Opinion
That one should destroy the glib student
Who cannot construe his lesson;
For in every science that master is an apprentice

Who has not mastered his parts of speech.1

 

1Paetow, Seven Arts, 60.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX ONE

In the late 1120's, Hugh of St. Victor composed his
Didascalicon as an orientation to the world of education for the
students of the school of the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris.1 This
work emerged at a time in the twelfth century when education was
shifting from the rural monasteries to the urban schools of the
cathedrals and set out to enforce the necessity of the entire
complex of the traditional arts. This was in direct contrast to the
emerging educational specializations such as law and medicine and
the other educational philosophies such as the humanism of John of
Salisbury or the Platonism of the Chartrian school. Hugh advocated
instead the pursuit of the arts as a means to overcome the
weaknesses and hardships of mortal life and to reunite mankind with
the Divine Wisdom of God.2

In the Didascalicon, Hugh addresses the four branches of
knowledge: theoretical, practical, mechanical and logical and
specifically comments on the seven liberal arts and seven

mechanical arts.3 Unlike Capella's allegorical account of the fifth

 

1Jerome Taylor, The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1961), 3.

Zlbid, 4.

3lbid, so.

106

107
century, Hugh's work is a completely scholarly text which describes

the nature of the various arts. For example, he lists the art of
commerce as dealing with the purchase, sale and exchange of
domestic and foreign goods.4

This development of an alternate cycle of arts and sciences
does have an effect on the iconography of the later Middle Ages. For
example, as discussed above, the cycle of the arts at Laon cathedral
include Medicine, a mechanical art, and a male figure identiﬁed as
Architecture. Architecture has a double significance in the Middle
Ages as a mechianical art and the science by which the great
cathedrals were constructed. Later, in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, the mechanical arts as represented by male figures are
commonly seen in sculptural decorations. On the campanile of
Florence cathedral, they are shown in a series of relief panels
carved around the facade of the structure. Included in the series are
not only the liberal and mechanical arts, but also groups of planets,
virtues, holy sacraments and biblical scenes relating man's history
from creation to the time of Noah and the Flood.5

In the thirteenth century, Vincent of Beauvais completed his
own encyclopedic work, the Speculum Doctrinale. Like Hugh of St.
Victor, Vincent of Beauvais addresses the restoration of man's

divine nature after the Fall from Grace. This restoration is

 

4lbid, 76.

sEvans, "Allegorical Women," 314, 324.

108
accomplished through the study of the arts and sciences with the

assistance of Reason.6

In contrast to the work of Hugh, Vincent's thirteenth century
composition reflects not the order and organization of the twelfth
century, but rather a new sense of searching which emergences in
Vincent's time.7 This is in response to the further emergence of
study aids such as indices and marginal notes, which begin to
develop in the face of the vast numbers of books which appeared
during the previous century. Memory and recitation by rote were

replaced by study of and lecture from written material.

 

6Sue Levine, The Northern Foreportal Column Figures of Chartres Cathedral
(Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1984), 121 .

7E.R. Smits, ”Vincent of Beauvais: a Note on the Background of the Speculum,” in
Vincent of Beauvais and Alexander the Great, ed. W.J. Aerts, E.R. Smits and J.B. Voor’oij
(Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1986), 2.

APPENDIX TWO

In Jan van der Meulen's bibliography of Chartrian literature,
there is mentioned several times a second cycle of the liberal arts
at Chartres cathedral.‘ These figures supposedly exist on the socles
of the northern foreportal and are not mentioned in any of the
literature I have read in the course of researching this paper.

The second cycle of arts at Chartres is found on the socles of
four of the monumental column figures of the western bay of the
northern foreportal. These are a total of ten male figures separated
by columns topped with trilobate arches. According to Sue Levine,
these figures were identified as Arts and Sciences by Marcel Bulteau
in 1850, an attribution to which scholars have adhered until the
present day.2 Five of the ten figures are identiﬁed by inscriptions.

The cycle begins on the eastern side of the bay and progresses
inward to the portal and then continues out on the west side. The
cycle begins with and elderly man presumed to be Adam paired with
a young shepherd identified as Abel. On the next column are found
Cain, Jubal and Tubalcain, all identified by inscriptions. Across the
bay are a damaged figure holding a book and plants, which is

 

1Meulen, Jan van der, Chartres: Sources and Literary Interpretations: A Critical
Bibliography (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1989), 572.

ZLevine, Northem Foreportal, 127.

109

110
presumed to be Medicine. The second figure holds a square and was

originally identiﬁed as either Geometry or Architecture. The third
holds a brush and palette and is therefore Painting. 0n the final
column stand a bearded ﬁgure identiﬁed by inscription as
Philos0phy, and a ﬁgure with a dragon also identiﬁed by inscription
as the art of Magic or Alchemy
Adam, Cain and Abel together represent Agriculture, one of the
Seven Mechanical Arts of Hugh of St. Victor. Jubal, a descendant of _.
Cain, plays a lyre, and Genesis 4:21 records him as the originator of ['
music, so he can be read as a personiﬁcation of the art of Music.3 1:
Tubalcain, a descendant of Jubal, is recorded in Genesis 4:22 as a
maker of "all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron" and can therefore
be seen as a personiﬁcation of Metallurgy, another Mechanical Art.
However, these attributions are somewhat doubtful for several
reasons. Specifically, the combination of Adam, Cain and Abel as a
personiﬁcation of Agriculture is not fully understandable. After all,
after Cain killed Abel, God told him, "If you try to grow crops, the
soil will not produce anything..." thus making it difficult to see this
figure in particular as a representative of Agriculture.4 Also, these
three ﬁgures are not contained on the same socle, and only Cain is
identiﬁed by an inscription. It is more likely that the ﬁgures of
this Eastern socle zone are not personiﬁcations of Arts and
Sciences, but rather reflect a biblical geneology from the first man

 

3lbid., 128-31. All attributions are taken from this section of Levine's work,
where she cites Marcel Bulteau.

4Genesis 4:12.

11 1
to the time of Noah. This is a geneology of the degradation of man

that stems from the original fall from grace of Adam and Eve.5

On the Western socle zone, we ﬁnd what are more likely to be
a gathering of Arts and Sciences. A damaged ﬁgure closest to the
doorway holds a book and various plants grow up and around his feet.
This is probably a ﬁgure of Medicine, although the iconography here
differs from that usually found.6 Next, there is a male ﬁgure
holding a set square, 3 tool for drafting. Based on the male gender,
which was usually used in representations of the Mechanical Arts,
this figure can be called Architecture. Painting is represented by a
figure with a brush and palette, a fairly straightforward
arrangement. On the final socle are two figures who are identiﬁed
by inscriptions. First, there is a bearded male ﬁgure in a
contemplative pose whose inscription names him as Philosophy, a
figure usually represented as female.7 Finally, at the outermost end
of this zone is another male figure identified by inscription as
"Majus"-either Magic or Alchemy. He holds a banner, which may
have originally had a painted symbol or inscription, and stands with

a winged dragon at his feet. The dragon is a standard alchemical

 

5Levine, Northern Foreportal, 136, 141.

55ee Chapter Four above, Laon Cathedral and Freiburg Cathedral. Leine claims
that there is no standard for the depiction of Medicine in the Middle Ages, but we have
seen differently. Levine, Northern Foreportal, 130.

7See Chapter Four above, Laon Cathedral.

112
symbol of transmutation, and so this figure may be called Alchemy

rather than Magic.8

These ﬁgures form a combined set of Arts and Sciences, which
fits in with the philosophies of both Hugh of St. Victor and Vincent
of Beauvais, who connected the arts, both Mechanical and Liberal,
with the salvation of mankind. In short, these are the means by
which mankind is restored to the grace of God. So, we do not have a
second cycle of Liberal arts here, but rather a set of ﬁgures which
personify both the fall and rise of Mankind, based probably on the

work of Vincent of Beauvais.9

 

8See Levine, Northern Foreportal, 132-4 for an explanation of the inclusion of
Painting and Alcnemy in this cycle. Also, see pp. 141-45 for a possible dating of these
ﬁgures to the fourteenth century.

9Ibid., 124-4.

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