This article treats vernacular works of three of the four medieval forms of applied
rhetoric – the ars poetriae (the art of versification), the ars dictaminis (the art of composing
letters), and the ars arengendi (the art of composing civic and lay speeches). The fourth, the
ars praedicandi (the art of preaching), will not be a focus ...
This article treats vernacular works of three of the four medieval forms of applied
rhetoric – the ars poetriae (the art of versification), the ars dictaminis (the art of composing
letters), and the ars arengendi (the art of composing civic and lay speeches). The fourth, the
ars praedicandi (the art of preaching), will not be a focus here, as treatises that deal with the
increased need to preach to the people in the vernacular were chiefly written in Latin, even if
at times writers of such Latin treatises, like the Franciscan Christian Borgsleben, were
themselves translators.
