Carolingian Structures of Logic and Learning: The Evidence of University of Pennsylvania Libraries LJS 101

• Published in: Manuscript studies (Philadelphia, Pa.) Vol. 6; no. 1; pp. 145 - 164
• Main Author: Bachman, Christine E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press 01.06.2021
• Subjects: 6th century; Dialectics; Early Middle Ages; Education; Grammar; Grammatical subject; Greek language; Handbooks; Isidore, of Seville, Saint (560-636); Learning; Libraries; Library catalogs; Logic; Pedagogy; Rhetoric; Rhetorical figures
• ISSN: 2381-5329; 2380-1190; 2381-5329
• DOI: 10.1353/mns.2021.0005

Orleans, Bibliotheque municipale MS 277, and Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, MS lat. 6638.7 However, the attribution needs to be more fully investigated, especially in light of recent questioning of the centralization of Carolingian manuscript production and a more nuanced understanding of the mobility of artists, scribes, and book making practices during this period.8 Nevertheless, as an important Carolingian center of education and book production, Fleury offers a useful starting point for investigation of LJS 101. Relating to the subject of rhetoric are the definition adapted from Isidore of Seville on folio 1r and the specimen letter on folios 60v and 63r, which demonstrates rhetorical techniques in epistolary form.12 Although a full course of study in grammar or rhetoric would have involved more extensive texts, such as those of Donatus, Priscian, and Cicero, these inclusions might be seen as a brief review of the two subjects before the subject of dialectic is introduced. The thoughtful assembly of texts with a clear pedagogical purpose allows us to classify LJS 101 as a miscellany and, more specifically, to place it within the group of Carolingian bibliographical handbooks defined by Rosamond McKitterick as manuscripts containing compilations of texts intended to be treated as a unit and serving as a guide to the organized acquisition of knowledge.13 Carolingian bibliographical handbooks and educational miscellanies, like LJS 101, are further defined by the communal and organic process of their making and use. The pairing of their works perhaps emphasized the historical significance of the texts and the interest in Greek scholarship that developed in the intellectual circles of the sixth-century Ostrogothic court.15 Orleans, Bibliotheque municipale MS 277, on the other hand, pairs Boethius's commentary on the Peri hermeneias with a variety of other logical texts, including Porphyry's Isagoge, Aristotle's Categories, Abbo of Fleury's work on syllogisms, and Apuleius's commentary on the Peri hermeneias}6 This manuscript, therefore, goes into greater depth on the subject of logic than LJS 101, but does not reference the trivium more broadly.