Grammar in the early Middle Ages

Medieval speculative grammar grew out of the schoolmens' work with ancient Latin grammar as it had been transmitted in the canonical works of Donatus and Priscian. The efforts of early medieval glossators were directed towards explaining the authoritative texts, towards systematising the descriptional apparatus used by the authors, and towards harmonising the apparent or real contradictions which arose in a comparison of the grammatical and logical traditions. The results of their combined efforts were summarised in the famous Summa super Priscianum compiled about 1140 by Peter Helias. The grammarians' discussions, which had been influenced by the logicians, in their turn influenced and refined logical doctrine and played an important role in the emergence of the specifically medieval logical doctrines known collectively as terminist logic. The grammatical discussions about the meaning of substantive words, for instance, were crucial to the development of the theory of supposition. The twelfth-century grammarians emphasised the importance of explaining linguistic features causally, instead of just describing them as Priscian had done, and in this way attained a high degree of linguistic sophistication. But it would perhaps be too much to say that their efforts already inaugurated a new paradigm of linguistic description.

The general nature of ‘modistic’ grammar

Around 1270, however, a new theoretical framework was established. The phases of the development which brought this about are not yet known in detail, but the first representatives of the new doctrine seem to be Boethius of Dacia and Martin of Dacia.