by the division of the Seven Arts into the elementary Trivium of
Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, followed by the Quadrivium of Music,
Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy. The scope of the Trivium was much
wider than the terms denote. Thus Grammar included the study of the
classical Latin authors, which never entirely ceased; Rhetoric
comprised the practice of composition in prose and verse, and even a
knowledge of the elements of Roman Law; Dialectic or Logic became the
centre of the whole secular education, because it was the only
intellectual exercise which was supposed to be independent of pagan
writers. In the Quadrivium--the scientific education of the
time--Arithmetic and Astronomy were taught for the purpose of
calculating the times of the Christian festivals; Music consisted
chiefly of the rules of plain-song. It was the subjects of the
Quadrivium which were subsequently enlarged in scope by the
discoveries of the twelfth century. Apart from these subjects little
attempt was made at a systematic training in theology. In so far as
any such existed it was purely doctrinal, and aimed merely at enabling
those in Holy Orders to read the Bible and the Fathers for themselves
and to expound them to others.

[Sidenote: Scholasticism.]

Now the speculative intellect trained in dialectic had no material to
work upon save what could be got from the Scriptures, the Fathers, and
the dogmas of the Church; and Scholasticism is the name given to the
attempt to apply the processes of logic to the systematisation and the
interpretation of the Catholic faith. The movement was one which,
narrow as it seems to us, yet made for ultimate freedom of human
thought; for it meant the exercise of the intellect on matters which
for long were regarded as beyond the reach of rationalistic