by Anthony FREDETTE and Simon WHEDBEE
Many surviving twelfth-century Latin commentaries associated with the influential cathedral schools of northern France have in common the focus, treatment, and scope of the ars grammatica: the philological exegesis of texts for grammatical, logical, and rhetorical instruction. One medieval commentary on the Georgics of Virgil demonstrates the wide application of philological exegesis in medieval scholastic thought, branching out from studies of the poem’s language along the lines of the Trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) into the natural sciences. An Aeneid commentary appearing to have the same provenance as this Georgics commentary recalls the teaching of Anselm of Laon (1050-1117). Modern scholars attribute its authorship to a slightly later figure who may have learned from Anselm or his disciples: Hilary of Orleans (first half of the twelfth century). Based on numerous similarities between the commentaries, we may tentatively attribute the Georgics commentary to Hilary as well, though only future studies can confirm this.
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