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The mediaeval rhetoric discipline of the ars dictaminis is precisely famous for having been something different from the classical rhetorics. It was conceived and employed mainly for writing, not of discourses, yet letters whose exchange makes up na important part of political e personal communication in period from 11th to 15th centuries. In nearly all cases, theoretical treatises presented the receipes for writing letters in prose and the huge amount of dictamina (textes obeying the laws of ars dictaminis) which have drawn on these conserved receipes are written in prose. Of course the Middle Ages have also known the scripture of letters in verse, according to the model of Ovid's Heroids, but the theorization of verse writing has rather beeb shaped by the neighboring discipline of ars poetriae. The present paper attempts to sum up views regarding the question of the relationships between ars dictaminis and poetry, displaying that things are much more complex. On the one hand, treatises very often insist upon the fact that the prosaic dictamen is only one of the three branches of « redactional genres » (genera dictandi), the two others of which are metric poetry and rhythmic poetry. Actually, the relationship between these two genres is not merely classificatory : the prose of ars dictaminis was a rhythmized prose, the teaching and practice of which depended on the knowledge of metric and rhythmic poetry. On the other hand, there is a huge number of interconnections between the practice of poetry and that of the ars dictaminis, as well from a theoretical point of view as from a practical one. There is a large intersection between the artes poetriae and the artes dictandi (theoretical treatises), as well as numerous hybrid treatises. Rhythmized prose is sometimes conceptualizes as a sort of poetry. In terms of practice, writers very often create prosaic letters that keeps up a complex relashionship with poetry, either by dint of the insertion of classical poetics' quotations, or due to the procedures (cadence prose and assonant prose, for instance), which bring their texts together with poetry. Definitely, the joint study of theory and practice of the ars dictaminis suggests that, for its contrivers as well as for its practitioners, rhythmized prose regarding the ars dictaminis was closer to poetry than to « simple prose ». [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I will try to approach the question concerning the theory of letter writing during classical and medieval periods among a wide variety of ways of approaching this topic. This study will refer not only to the different uses of the letter, but also to the different kinds of letters, their patterns, their appropriateness to the receiver's status, the question of the style used, among many other features. We will try to show that the theory of letter writing was never very far from the theory of speech composing during the classic period, but it was during medieval period that the connection between the two areas of knowledge became closer, since letter writing was strongly influenced by the rhetoric and it evolved as a part of this topic. This theory necessarily implies presenting some of the treaties on letter writing and the authors who cultivated th is theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Council of State analyzes the content of the preliminary draft of the organic statute (Ley orgánica) on budgetary stability and financial sustainability; it highlights the fact that the Statute itself is to develop the latest reform of the article 135 in the Spanish constitution. The Council of State places the greatest importance on the recent jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]