Grammar, Reason, and Eloquence: The Trivium in John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon

In the opening lines of his preface to The Metalogicon, translator Daniel D. McGarry invokes Horace’s enduring admonition to writers: 

If ever you write anything, keep it to yourself for nine years, for what has never been divulged can be destroyed, but once published it is beyond recall.

McGarry, with quiet candor, confesses his own long delay before bringing John of Salisbury’s words to light. He does not apologize. He waits. As Horace had advised, he lets time do what time does best: refine, temper, and clarify.

I wrote this essay in 2015. And then, like McGarry, I waited.

Not from reluctance, but out of respect for the text, for the tradition it belongs to, and for the slow, contemplative pace that the Trivium itself encourages. Grammar, reason, and eloquence are not merely subjects of study; they are disciplines of patience. The trivium teaches us not just how to speak, but when to speak, and more crucially, when not to. It is a long apprenticeship in thinking before saying.

Ten years have passed. Now, in 2025, the silence has ripened. What follows is my meditation on John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon, a work that has endured for centuries, and which I now join in reading anew.

Brian D. Fitzgerald, author of the article “Medieval Theories of Education: Hugh of St. Victor and John of Salisbury” in the Oxford Review of Education, concludes that John of Salisbury’s (the author) pedagogical theory of education is rooted in the work of Aristotle, stating “knowledge is not truly possessed until it becomes fixed through regular practice” (580). In this thought-provoking exemplar of wordsmanship, the author defines the process (the "regular practice") of educating the mind.

Having survived nearly a millennium, this work is essential reading for any serious student of the classical tradition of the Trivium, whose foundational role in shaping medieval education is underscored by Lynn Thorndike’s seminal essay, “Elementary and Secondary Education in the Middle Ages,” and further analyzed by Gordon Leff, who shows how the Trivium provided the intellectual framework for medieval philosophy in A History of the University in Europe: Volume I (Leff 1992). John’s broader role in shaping medieval intellectual and political thought through his analysis of the organic metaphor is noted by Cary J. Nederman in the Policraticus (“The Physiological Significance of the Organic Metaphor in John of Salisbury’s Policraticus,” History of Political Thought, vol. 8, no. 2, 1987, pp. 211–223).

Grammar as Foundation

For John, “grammar is the cradle of all philosophy” (Metalogicon 37). The claim is directly informed by the educational practices at the School of Chartres, where grammar was rigorously taught as the key to philosophical learning (Núñez 2020, 51).

He argues that “grammar was [completely] made over” lessening the intrinsic value of “the science of speaking and writing correctly” which is “the starting point of all liberal studies” (Metalogicon 16, 37). While much is lacking in the form of philological inquiry, he insists that precision in grammar is the foundation of reason. Much of the intellectual world gives little credence to the proper use of language in oration.

Thus, the grammarian “will at once take the person to task" [who does not properly engage grammar], "and constrain him to correct his erroneous learning” (Metalogicon 49). Simply stated, “speaking is the articulate and literate verbal expression of our thoughts” while “barbarism is the corruption of a civilized word” (Metalogicon 52). To neglect grammaticral precision is to slip into barbarism.

From Grammar to Reason

John inquires as to “why our contemporaries have so neglected the rules of grammar” since grammar is the foundation that “prepares the mind to understand everything that can be taught in words” noting that “grammar equips us both to receive and to impart knowledge” (Metalogicon 57, 60, 61). In short, “prudence therefore begets Philology;” that is, being interpreted as the careful study of grammar and truthful expectation, thus making learning “sure and reliable” (Metalogicon 224).

In this context, Fitzgerald’s Aristotelian lens proves quite revealing. That is, grammar equips the mind to “receive and impart knowledge,” reflecting Aristotle’s conviction that knowledge must become habitual through practice. Grammar, for John, is technical, but, even more so, it is formative; it conditions the intellect to engage reason soundly and consistently, just as Aristotle described the cultivation of virtue through repeated action. This emphasis on disciplined learning and habit echoes Kristeller’s broader thesis on the transmission of Aristotelian thought, especially in “Renaissance Aristotelianism” (Kristeller), which highlights the continuity between medieval pedagogical practices and Renaissance epistemological frameworks.

From this foundation in grammar as habit, John moves seamlessly to his conception of reason as the guiding principle of intellectual life.

These interconnections among Grammar, Reason, and Eloquence, and the danger of eloquence divorced from reason, are illustrated in Figure 1.

Reason as Guiding Principle

He portrays reason as “the mother, nurse, and guardian of knowledge, as well as of virtue” (Metalogicon 11). The author laments the discarding of rules of grammar by predecessors who brought “new methods for the whole Quadrivium from the innermost sanctuaries of philosophy” (Metalogicon 16). The result is “a hodgepodge of verbiage, reveled in by a foolish old man, who rails at those who respect the founders of the arts, since he himself [the foolish old man] could see nothing useful in these arts when he was pretending to study them” (Metalogicon 16). From grammar springs reason, while philology remains the foundation entrusted with its care. Knowledge rests on a sound foundation in scientific learning, which is “the product of reading, learning, and meditation” (Metalogicon 64, 65).

Reason in Scholarly Context

This emphasis on reason’s formative role invites comparison with broader scholarly interpretations of its institutionalization in the medieval university. As Edward Grant has shown, reason itself became institutionalized as the framework of medieval intellectual life, providing the very conditions for the pursuit of knowledge in the liberal arts and sciences (God and Reason in the Middle Ages).

John reinforces this point by invoking Augustine, whose reflections on the origins and limits of reason underscore the centrality of reason to intellectual life.

John cites Augustine, who wrote, “After the work of completing grammar and organizing it [into a science] had been accomplished, reason was led to investigate and scrutinize the very power whereby it had begotten this art [of grammar]” (Metalogicon 241). According to Augustine, it is “more within one’s power to love wisdom than to attain it, so too it is easier to love reason than to possess it” (Metalogicon 224). To have reason is to “possess genuine certitude of judgment” (Metalogicon 224-225). Firmly grounded reason becomes the path to truth and reliable judgment in intellectual pursuits. Again, John relied on Aristotelian practice and habit as the basis of true knowledge; reason is deeply anchored in the disciplined study of grammar.

Modern scholarship has situated John’s synthesis within the broader evolution of medieval logical and grammatical traditions. As Ebbesen has shown, this linkage reflects the medieval synthesis of heterogeneous traditions in logic and grammar, where Aristotelian logic and the Priscian grammatical inheritance (via Stoicism) were fused into a “Late Ancient Standard” framework that shaped thinkers like John (Ebbesen 2007).

This turn to patristic authorities situates John’s thought within the enduring Augustinian tradition, where reason is framed not only as a tool of inquiry but also as a participation in divine wisdom.

Augustinian Perspectives on Reason

The original idea of reason, according to Augustine, may be “properly identified as the wisdom of God who established and decreed the divine eternal plan and the order in which it was to be unfolded” (Metalogicon 225).  This Augustinian framing resonates with later currents of medieval theology and philosophy, aligning with the broader currents of Augustinianism as explored by Robert Crouse in his study of Anselm and the persistence of Augustinian thought in the Middle Ages (Crouse 1987).

John also draws on Cassiodorus, who elucidates upon the idea of reason in his book on The Soul by defining the term as “that admirable activity of the rational soul whereby, through what is already granted and known, it concludes something that was formerly granted and known, and thereby gains access to hidden truth” (Metalogicon 226). While Augustine and Cassiodorus highlight the divine dimension of reason, John’s purpose in citing them is to reinforce the intellectual seriousness of grammar and reasoning in education rather than to write theology. John further cites Seneca, who exhorted that “reason is a certain part of the Divine Spirit, immersed in human bodies” (Metalogicon 228). Since reason is of divine origin “all philosophy agrees that the cultivation of reason should be our primary concern” (Metalogicon 228).

Limits of Reason

Augustine asserted “true reason is possessed only by God, and by those to whom God grants the privilege of genuine certitude and secure judgment” (Metalogicon 249). It does not “admit of the slightest error” for there is nothing more opposed to reason than error (Metalogicon 252). Truth abides in God, who remains without change or deviation. Truth is the principle upon which all reason is established. Sound reasoning strengthens; error undermines. When the firm structure of reason collapses into a flimsy, unstable framework, the integrity of truth is compromised (Metalogicon 252).

Through a process of investigation by categories the foundational questions are answered whereby certitude is possible allowing sound judgment to follow. “Once these questions have been answered, the thing [in question] is more accurately determined, and thus becomes a part of our knowledge” (Metalogicon 249). By combining grammar with reason one finds truth. As Augustine says, “our faith is the same [as theirs], even though we live in a different age” (Metalogicon 253).

Yet there are limits to reason. John cites Ecclesiasticus, which warns to

“refrain from being inquisitive about numerous unnecessary things, and do not be curious about too many of the divine works…for consideration of such things has caused the fall of many, and has enslaved their minds to vanity” (Metalogicon 272).

For John, the caution is not meant to silence inquiry but to remind scholars that reason must remain disciplined, proportionate, and oriented toward truth rather than vanity.

A similar balance is required in the exercise of eloquence, which, when detached from reason, degenerates into empty flourish and vain display.

Eloquence and Its Dangers

Eloquence, when severed from reason, becomes rash and blind (Metalogicon 10). Further, the “one who would eliminate the teaching of eloquence from philosophical studies, begrudges Mercury [Eloquence] his possession of Philology, and wrests from Philology’s arms her beloved Mercury” (Metalogicon 11). The unenlightened tend to verbosity rather than elocution “continually tossing to the winds verbal leaves that lack the fruit of meaning” (Metalogicon 13). The “fallacious profession of the verbose” lacks grammatical skill being devoid of reason where one might try to get to the root of a question through “noisy verbosity” in order “to win the victory, regardless of the kind of arguments advanced” (Metalogicon 31, 15).

“The device of learning precepts in order to become eloquent fails to accomplish its object. Even the most diligent study of rules cannot possibly make one eloquent” (Metalogicon 24-25). This is because it is clear that “the rules of eloquence confer neither wisdom nor love of wisdom” (Metalogicon 25). Wisdom “is concerned not with words, but with facts” (Metalogicon 25). True eloquence belongs to the one who “fittingly and efficaciously expresses himself as he intends” (Metalogicon 26).

Contemporary rhetorical scholarship echoes this concern with the dangers of style divorced from substance. James J. Murphy’s analysis of medieval rhetorical practices in Medieval Eloquence highlights this same tension, where eloquence over substance devolves into mere ornamentation devoid of logical grounding (Murphy 1980). (See Table 1 for a structured overview of John’s integration of Grammar, Reason, and Eloquence in the Metalogicon.)

Legacy of the Trivium

John of Salisbury wrote a timeless study of the education of the mind.  The Metalogicon was of worth in the 12th-century and is of great worth in the 21st-century. Both the 12th and 21st centuries had elegant minds desirous of the traditions of thought found in the Trivium. Its enduring relevance lies in John’s defense of the liberal arts as a rational and practical system of education, rather than in theological speculation.

Scholarship such as Mé Zovko’s “Humanism vs. Competency” demonstrates how the medieval model of liberal arts education continues to inform contemporary debates about the purpose of schooling, reaffirming the enduring value of the trivium (Zovko 2018). Whether read in the Medieval or the Post-Modern world the principles of the Trivium are without end. This work is to be read, digested and applied to the life of the mind interested in learning in the way of the classic tradition.

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