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Jan van Boendale, the most important author writing on matters of lay morality and everyday ethics in Middle Dutch, lived in Antwerp from (before) 1312 until (maybe his death in) 1351. The article first concentrates on Boendale’s profession as a clerck, which, as it appears, has been a determining factor for his self-conception and identity together with the Latin artes dictaminis, from which he embraced the idea that the noble art of professional writing was also very usefull for the writer himself as it held promises of social promotion and prestige. To correlate this to the historical reality, we try to draw up an image of what it meant to be a clerk in the Low Countries by the end of the thirteenth century, the time of Boendale’s youth. We conclude that vernacular clerks not only were by then very numerous, but also had remarkably diversified functions and careers, reaching from the simple production of documents, to very influential positions as secretaries of cities, lords and noblemen. The requirements to access the profession were quite modest. Training in the writing of specific documents would generally have taken place on the spot, under the guidance of an experienced master in the trade. So, Boendale, not only by his writting on the subject, but also by his own properous career as a scrivener and as a literary authority on ‘how to behave’, illustrates the emancipation and self-confidence of the ‘new’ clerck. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses and edits two anonymous Latin letters that help to assess the political climate in the aftermath of the Great Schism: a Devil’s letter addressed to Clement VII and a literary polished invective against Urban VI. After a brief investigation of the events that led to the outbreak of the schism, the paper compares the two letters in light of the contemporary political framework, in order to demonstrate why they qualify as propagandistic documents that present each of the two popes as a threat for Christendom and to evaluate how they exploited their literary distinctiveness to increase the strength of their political accusations. In doing so the aim is to assess the outbreak of the Schism from a viewpoint based on some distinctive strategies of political communication employed after the double election.

This contribution focuses on the usage of anthroponyms in poetic texts, epistles, and models of dictamen from the XIII and XIV centuries, specifically concerning Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen, his relatives, and the kingdom of Sicily. It is worth noting that both the poetic texts and prose dictamina feature sequences of anthroponyms, along with etymological explanations, puns, and clever wordplay, serving either an encomiastic or polemical purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this work is to analyze the processes of retextualization that shows an epistolary corpus composed of several versions of the same letter from its first textualization, carried out in the fourteenth century from the precepts of the ars dictaminis, until the seventeenth century, where it occupies a noted position in historiography. We focus on examining the linguistic variation related to the processes of linguistic elaboration oriented to the pole of communicative distance: the letters show the development of the conception of the epistolary genre from dialogue, with features of communicative orality, to authorial soliloquy of grandiloquent language and high degree of planification. Therefore, we also study how the morphology of the letter adapts to these new interests, theoretically related in this article to the processes of linguistic refection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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El presente trabajo plantea los lazos que a lo largo de toda la Edad Media han tenido la tradición del exemplum y la epistolar. Partiendo de una revisión de lo que estipulaban las artes dictaminis sobre el uso de proverbios y exemplay como rasgo de ciceronianismo, se observa que a lo largo de toda la tradición epistolar el relato breve fue un recurso retórico recurrente. No es necesario esperar al siglo XV –momento de mayor auge de la epistolografía– para hallar este cruce. Por tanto, se pasa revista tanto a la epistolografía del siglo XIV como a la del XV. La diferencia entre ambos períodos no está dada en la mayor o menos abundancia de esta técnica, sino en el tipo de relatos que se insertaron en las cartas. La tradición de Valerio Máximo o el relato histórico ganaron terreno en el siglo XV, mientras que la de la fábula fue más abundante en el período precedente. Lejos de agotar el tema, este artículo ofrece unos primeros lineamientos de una conexión que vale la pena explorar.

The libraries of the University and Archdiocese of Cologne keep numerous fragments of mediaeval Latin manuscripts. As a rule, their majority originated in the later middle ages and contains the most popular and widespread texts of the time. Besides grammatical treatises by Alexander de Villa Dei, John of Garland or Eberhard of Béthune and canonical poetical authors like Ovid one naturally encounters snippets of other popular didactic genres like the Ars dictaminis and the Ars notariae. This article presents two hitherto unknown fragments of the Summa notariae of John of Bologna and of the unedited Summa Thymonis, both copied in the 14th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being recognized as one of the most renowned masters of ars dictaminis of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the figure of Laurentius de Aquilegia has not received the attention that the importance of his work requires. Of his varied production as a master of dictamen, it has been his synoptic treatises that have aroused the most interest among scholars, to the point that his two great summae have lacked monographic studies so far. This essay focuses on one of them, the Summa dictaminis composita iuxta doctrinam Tullii. It proposes an update of the state of the question, provides new evidence on the manuscript tradition and analyzes its most relevant doctrinal aspects. This approach to the author's work should serve as a first step to a future critical edition of the Summa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a case study of how a royal letter can be studied both from verbal and material perspectives. It examines one such letter and the way it reveals personal intentions, and tensions in family relations. Building on their research on the sixteenth-century Swedish letter writing and the Vasa family, the authors give a detailed analysis of Countess Palatine Anna’s (1545–1610) letter from the year 1592, its content and context. The analysis also serves to illustrate the vulnerable position of a consort living far from her family of birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study argues for the importance of competitive discourse in placing the study of the ars dictaminis within the cosmopolitan tradition of humanistic Latin literature in the Middle Ages, particularly as it is expressed in the writing of Boncompagno da Signa and Guido Faba at Bologna in the first decades of the thirteenth century. Examining cultural links and similarities to the competitive literary culture of twelfth century humanism in France and northern Europe (especially the Goliardic poets), it also compares the function and relative prestige of ars dictaminis to other studies at Bologna, especally canon law. This comparison focuses in particular on the respective ways each discipline employs narrative fictions, and this comparison establishes the humanistic literary character of the cultivation of ars dictaminis. Ronald Witt has argued that the textual culture of Bologna in Boncompagno's day is dominated by a practical legal orientation, but this study would qualify that claim by exploring the literary copiousness of Boncompagno's writing and the literary character of several of his works, including the Rota Veneris; it likewise links this literary performance to a pattern of competitive discourse that elevates ars dictaminis above other disciplines, Bologna above other studia, and Boncompagno above other masters. The study then turns to the work of Guido Faba, especially the Summa dictaminis and Dictamina rhetorica to explore how Guido deepens and broadens Boncompagno's competitive discourse, especially through the epistolary narrative sequences of the Dictamina rhetorica.

Intento di questo contributo è quello di studiare l’ars dictaminis in rapporto alla diffusione del fenomeno della traduzione nella Toscana medievale (secc. XIII-XV). In particolare, l’articolo mette in discussione la vulgata storiografica che individua un “eccezionalismo” della regione in ragione dell’estensione del fenomeno dei volgarizzamenti nonché nella capacità di sottrarsi ai dettami della tradizione tipicamente mediolatina del dictamen producendo una retorica di impianto oratorio incentrata sull’uso del volgare. Dopo una breve panoramica degli studi sul dictamen degli ultimi anni, viene studiato il rapporto tradictamen e volgare in due contesti, che sono stati scelti per la loro vicinanza e differenza: Bologna e Firenze. Di quest’ultima si è tentato di fornire le linee-guida dell’influsso del dictamen in particolare in un autore (Brunetto Latini) che è solitamente considerato particolarmente eversivo nell’uso e nella concezione della retorica; si è quindi passati a verificare la permanenza del modello retorico-dictaminale imposto da Brunetto, grazie all’apporto di fonti estranee all’ars (in particolare Albertano da Brescia), nel XIV secolo, misurandone la consistenza in una linea che da Andrea Lancia porta al notaio episcopale Francesco da Barberino. Ne risultano, quindi, due modelli differenti – uno bolognese, uno fiorentino – che emergono come tali anche nelle scelte librarie della tradizione manoscritta, che viene analizzata nell’ultimo paragrafo. The purpose of this contribution is to study the ars dictaminis in relation to the diffusion of the phenomenon of translation in medieval Tuscany (XIII-XV centuries). In particular, the article calls into question the vulgate which identifies an “exceptionalism” of the region due to the extension of the phenomenon of vulgarization as well as the ability to escape the dictates of the latin tradition of dictamen producing an oratory focused on use of the vernacular. After a brief overview of the recent literature on the dictamen, the relationship between this latter and the affirmation of the vernacular is studied in two contexts, Bologna and Florence. Such a comparaison has provided the guidelines for studying the influence of the dictamen, particularly in an author (Brunetto Latini) who is usually considered to be particularly subversive in the use and conception of rhetoric; we then proceeded to verify the permanence of the rhetorical model imposed by Brunetto, thanks to the contribution of other sources (in particular Albertano from Brescia), in the fourteenth century, measuring its consistency in a line that led by Andrea Lancia to the episcopal notary Francesco da Barberino. The result is two different models - one from Bologna, one from Florence - which emerge as such also in the manuscript tradition, that is analyzed in the last paragraph.

A study of the practice of dictamen among the schools and chanceries of Late medieval Europe (13th–15th c.) offers a broad range of perspectives in order to map neglected dimensions of late medieval textual cultures. It is well known that Ars dictaminis was a set of rhetorical doctrines, mostly devised for and used in the world of chanceries and for the redaction of letters and charters. But how exactly did the process of translation of a sophisticated rhetoric in an epistolary, mostly political practice, work? This paper focuses on the coalescence and the impact of the rhetoric ‘database’ constituted by the great collections of dictamina traditionally called summae dictaminis. This material served as a matrix to create an immense array of rhetorically and rhythmically similar texts throughout Europe during at least two centuries. This process transcends the disciplinary frontiers between literary and politico-administrative studies. Not only had classical ars dictaminis developed into a sort of semi-formulaic logic, a combinatory technique that was in some ways more akin to poetry than to what we would imagine under the heading of ‘letter writing,’ but the variety of texts impacted by these techniques also cancelled every genetic barrier between ‘literary’ and ‘non-literary’ textual production.

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This paper presents the reception of the medieval didactic poem known as Pseudo-Ars amatoria in the environment of Cracow University. The poem, attributed to Ovid, was most probably written in the 12th century. Three of the codices that include the text are stored in the Jagiellonian Library (BJ 2035, 2115, 2233). Due to the unquestionable fact that the manuscripts were used in the academia, the purpose of the study is to determine the role that Pseudo-Ars amatoria had in the teaching process at Cracow University. Previous research was devoted to preparing the text's critical edition and pointing out the relationship with amour courtois and the oeuvre of Ovid. Considering the assumptions of Jaussian reception theory, the paper reconstructs the spectrum of reading experiences based on manuscript testimonials that refer to the two above mentioned hypotexts. The main part of the study therefore consists of three chapters. The first one discusses the courtly love motifs present in the work. Based the concept of Peter Allen (The Art of Love: Amatory Fiction from Ovid to the 'Romance of the Rose'), which emphasizes the primary literary dimension of amour courtois, the author stresses the didactic potential of medieval love textbooks. The second chapter is devoted to the medieval reception of Ovid's Ars amatoria, which is imitated in the anonymous work in question, and the intertextual connections noticeable at the level of structure and subject matter, due to which Pseudo-Ars amatoria was recognized as the work of the ancient poet, and so endowed with auctoritas, characteristic of school texts. In the third chapter, the author supplements the observations concerning the literary context with an analysis of messages found in Cracow manuscripts. He discusses the contents of the codices and their origin in the context of curriculum reforms related to the growing interest of ars dictaminis, proving the usefulness of the medieval poem in the art of writing. He supports his conclusions with comments regarding other codices. The Boncompagno da Signa's Rota Veneris treaty (BJ 2458) serves as a starting point for the approximation of the basic themes of ars dictaminis, which are then distinguished as the compositional axis of the central part of the poem. In order to document the didactic potential of Pseudo-Ars amatoria, the author refers to information about the 'lost witnesses' of the transmission, Jan of Słupca's codex described by Aleksander Bruckner in Medieval Latin Poetry in Poland and the codex of Stanisław Ciołek's chancellery, presented by Bolesław Ulanowski in Liber formularum ad ius Polonicum necnon canonicum spectantium in codice Regiomontano asservatarum, as well as unpublished marginal notes from BJ 2115. In summary, there are two primary teaching objectives resulting from reading the work in the Cracow University milieu, which correspond to Peter Allen's conclusions regarding the exact meaning of the textbooks of courtly love and the main directions of the reception of Ovid's teaching poems. Pseudo-Ars amatoria was considered a school text, adequate for transmitting the basics of Latin grammar, similar to its ancient model, and, due to the suitable subject matter and applied rhetorical figures, especially useful in explaining the rules of ars dictaminis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partiendo de la existencia de un propósito de autodefensa en el origen de Lo somni, y tomando como base la evidente formación retórica y dictaminal de su autor, es posible señalar numerosos elementos que se encuadran dentro del género retórico, concretamente del forense o judicial, y también otros pertenecientes al ars dictaminis, ambos géneros cargados de aspectos formales y a priori difícilmente adaptables a un texto de ficción literaria. Estos rasgos retóricos y dictaminales están tan integrados en el estilo del autor que fluyen de forma completamente natural en el texto, en un bello ejemplo de fusión literaria, jurídica y dictaminal. Based on the existence of a purpose of self-defense in the origins of Lo somni and on the obvious rhetoric and dictaminal formation of its author, it is possible to identify many elements that fall within the rhetorical genre, specifically forensic or judicial, and also others belonging to ars dictaminis, both genders loaded with formal aspects and a priori difficult to adapt to literary fiction. These rhetorical and dictaminals features are so integrated into the author’s style that flow quite naturally in the text, in a fine example of literary, legal and dictaminal merger.

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the scarce and irregular presence of love letters in preceptive epistolography up to the beginning of the 16th century, and to analyse the different conceptions and approaches that classical rhetors, medieval dictatores, and humanist secretaries had on the epistolary love discourse. A diacronic study shows that their opinions on love letters written in their manuals do not always derive form rhetorical, technical, or stylistic considerations, as happens in other epistolary genres. On the contrary, quite often they adopt ludic and/or moral criteria that are alien to other rhetorical and textual practices.

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]

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