3. Linguistics in the Renaissance period. Emergence of General rational grammar

Commentaria epistolarum conficiendarum by Heinrich Bebel (published
1503), a collection o f treatises which follow the pattern o f the Elegantie
even in their unsystematic form; the Grammaticae institutiones by Jacob
Heinrichmann (Pforzheim 1506) and the Institutiones grammaticae by
Johannes Brassicanus (Strassburg 1508); the Grammatica by Johannes
Turmair (Aventinus) 1512: enlarged edn 1517 under the title Rudimenta
grammaticae;13 the Grammatica latina by Philipp Melanchthon
(Schwarzerd), o f which Orthographia and Etymologia appeared in 1525,
Syntaxis and Prosodia in 1526 - a shortened version o f Brassicanus’
Institutiones which was destined to be pre-eminent in Protestant Germany
until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.14
The work on grammar by the Flemish Iohannes van Pauteren
(Despauterius), whose acknowledged sources are the grammars by
Perotti, Sulpicio Verulano, Aldus Manutius and Nebrija, is a product o f
the University o f Louvain; the first three parts o f the work were published
in 1510 and 1511 and were intended to take the place o f Alexandre
de Villedieu’ s Doctrinale; a fourth part followed in 1514 and, after
some resistance from the clergy, the whole work was published in 1537
by Robert Estienne under the title Commentarii grammatici, and it had
a dominant influence in France throughout the sixteenth century and
beyond.15 Even before that, the same Robert Estienne had published an
adaptation o f it written by Jean Pellisson and entitled Contextus universae
grammaticae Despauterianae (1530).
Still in the Flemish environment, the Restauratio linguae latinae
by the aristocrat Georges d ’Halluin (Antwerpen 1533), which takes the
Humanist idea o f Latin as a living language to its furthest consequences,
is very interesting. Halluin takes his starting point from the Italian
Humanists (mainly Biondo Flavio, Poggio Bracciolini, Guarino Veronese
and Francesco Filelfo) who in the years between 1435 and 1480 had
definitively proved that Latin had been the mother tongue o f the ancient
Romans;16 he then projects this acquired certainty onto Varro’s discussion
o f analogy and anomaly, dramatizing it as if it emphasized a
juxtaposition o f irreconcilable principles;17 and he finally deduces, going
back to Quintilian’s famous opposition between latine and grammatice
loqui, which Valla had already brought into vogue, a drastic choice: ‘Si
latine igitur loqui velimus, grammaticam dimittere ac fugere necesse
est, quia aliud est, teste Quintiliano, sed ex priscorum Latinorum libris
usum et consuetudinem ac etiam diversitatem eorum loquendi observare
opus erit; quam consuetudinem grammatica docere non potest: contraria
enim non nisi contraria docent’ .18 So his teaching method resolutely
excludes the use of any grammar and relies wholly on a selected list o f
authors to be read. The fact that V alla ’ s example lies behind this is
made clear by, among other things, the use o f the term elegantia linguae
latinae to indicate the final aim which the teaching must achieve, and
by the use o f the term sermo quotidianus to indicate the intermediate
stage o f familiarization with ‘ everyday Latin’ which was to characterize
the learning o f the pupil around the age o f 10 or n . It is equally
evident that in this short circuit between the ascertained nature o f Latin
in antiquity and the contemporary situation there is also a good deal
o f historical blunder. However, there is not only that. One is reminded
o f Montaigne’ s claim (we do not know how paradoxical it was) that
he spent the first years o f his life immersed in an artificial, exclusively
Latin-speaking environment. And if, precisely during the years o f
Montaigne’ s and Henri Estienne’ s childhood, Nicolas Berault was composing
a dialogue on how to speak Latin fluently (1534), there must have
existed in France some milieux for which such a work would prove
suitable.19 There is also evidence o f other manuals o f Latin conversation
from the last decades o f the fifteenth century onwards.20
However, unlike Valla and Erasmus,21 Georges d ’Halluin considered
the use o f the vernacular, and even its teaching, as the first stage
in schools, from about 6 to 10 years old. The instrumental use o f the
vernaculars in the primary teaching o f grammar is an unavoidable phenomenon,
and as such widespread everywhere; justifying it theoretically
is another thing. Systematic research on this theme would be very
interesting. It seems one could provisionally put forward the hypothesis
that the different attitudes on this matter on the part o f grammarians
who at the same time share a similar fundamental view, may be related
to the respective national linguistic traditions. The exclusively Latin
universe contemplated by Valla seems to be the mirage o f an extremist
avant-garde which was deliberately closed to a vernacular literary
tradition which was excellent but had no political support. Erasmus’
similar attitude seems to be connected to the relative weakness o f the
Netherlandish language as a language o f culture. Nebrija’ s and V iv e s ’
different attitude is conditioned by the greater weakness o f the Latin
strand and by the political strength of the national language (and Georges
d’Halluin, according to this hypothesis, seems to react more as a member
o f the French-speaking community o f his little court than as the lord o f
a Flemish territory).
The beginnings o f Humanist grammar in England, which include
prints o f Donatus, Perotti and Sulpicio Verulano, and works by local
authors such as the Compendium totius grammaticae (1483) by John
Anwykyll and the Introductorium linguae latinae (1495) by Wynkyn
de Worde, are linked to Oxford.22 The work o f three Humanists, Thomas
Linacre, John Colet and William Lily, who were instrumental in the
founding of Latin grammar, is also connected to Oxford. Thomas Linacre,
who had been in contact with Poliziano, Chalcondylas and Aldus
Manutius, from 1512 composed a couple o f school grammars in English
and French, but his principal work is the De emendata structura