Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
The present comprehensive use of the term is but an extension of the Middle-Age division of the liberal arts into the Trivium, Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectics, and the Quadrivium, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy, as expressed in the verse, "Lingus, tropus, ratio, numerus, tenor, angulus, astra." The term Magister Artium Liberalium, so often met with, refers to these.
He was versed not less in the arts of the Trivium than in the sciences of the Quadrivium.
Besides, to use the words of a learned and amusing writer, it is well known that "music constituted a part of the quadrivium, a branch of their system of education, and it was more or less cultivated by persons of all conditions;" churchmen studied it by profession; and the students at the Inns of Court learned singing and all kinds of music.
This was a thoroughly rounded course in intellectual training. No wonder that Professor Huxley said in his Inaugural Address as Rector of Aberdeen, "I doubt if the curriculum of any modern university shows so clear and generous a comprehension of what is meant by culture as this old trivium and quadrivium does."
The secular knowledge taught in the ordinary schools was that represented 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.
It taught the three arts, Latin grammar, rhetoric and dialectics, known as the trivium. The quadrivium, embracing arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, was likewise taught. The Faculty of Theology was created in 1257, that of Law in 1271, and that of Medicine in 1274.
When, for instance, Giraut de Bornelli is said to have gone to "school" during the winter seasons, nothing more is meant than the pursuit of the trivium and quadrivium, the seven arts, which formed the usual subjects of instruction.
The trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the quadrivium comprehended arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. "These seven heads," says Enfield, "were supposed to include universal knowledge.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking