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Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  
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II. THE MIDDLE AGES

The Middle Ages inherited the ancient idea of art
and made use of it theoretically and practically. Art
was considered as a habitus of the practical reason.
Thomas Aquinas defined art as an “ordering of reason”
and Duns Scotus as “the right idea of what is to be
produced” (ars est recta ratio factibilium, Col. I, n. 19),
or as “the ability to produce based on real principles”
(ars est habitus cum vera ratione factivus; Opus
Oxoniense,
I, d. 38, n. 5). Medieval art was indeed
governed by fixed canons and by rules of the guilds.
Hugh of Saint Victor said: “Art can be said to be a


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knowledge which consists in rules and regulations” (ars
dici potest scientia, quae praeceptis regulisque consistit;
Didascalicon,
II). This medieval idea of art embraced
handicrafts and sciences as well as fine arts. Liberal
arts were now considered as the arts par excellence,
the arts proper; “art” without an adjective meant:
liberal art. The seven liberal arts were logic, rhetoric,
grammar, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music
(including acoustics); they were—according to our
understanding—sciences, not arts.

However, the Middle Ages were interested in non-
liberal arts as well; they did not depreciate them any
longer by calling them “vulgar” but called them “me-
chanical arts.” Since the twelfth century Scholastics
had tried to classify these arts and made a point of
distinguishing seven of them, in symmetry with the
seven traditional liberal arts, as did Radulphus Ardens
in his “Speculum Universale” (see Grabmann). So also
did Hugh of Saint Victor, who divided the mechanical
arts into lanificium (supplying men with wearing ap-
parel), armatura (supplying men with shelter and tools),
agricultura, venatio (both supplying food), navigatio,
medicina, theatrica.
This was the major contribution
of the Middle Ages to the classification of the arts. Two
of those seven arts were similar to modern “fine” arts,
namely armatura, which embraced architecture, and
theatrica or the art of entertainment (a peculiar medi-
eval concept).

Music was considered a liberal art, being based on
mathematics. Poetry was a kind of philosophy or
prophecy, or prayer or confession, and by no means
an art. Painting and sculpture were never listed as arts,
either liberal or mechanical. Still they certainly were
arts, after all, as abilities based on rules; why then were
they never mentioned? It was because they could have
been classified only as mechanical arts, appreciated
only when useful; the utility of painting and sculpture
seemed insignificant. This shows the great change
which has taken place since; these arts which we con-
sider as arts in the strict sense, the scholastics did not
think worthy of being mentioned at all.