Martianus Minneus Felix Capella, an African, wrote (early in the 5th cent.), in verse and prose, a sort of encyclopaedia, which is important from having been regarded in the middle ages as a model storehouse of learning, and used in the schools, where the scholars had to learn the verses by heart, as a text-book of high-class education in the arts. It is sometimes entitled Satyra, or Satyricon, but is usually known as De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, though this title is sometimes confined to the first two books, a rather confused allegory ending with the apotheosis of Philologia and the celebration of her marriage in the milky way, where Apollo presents to her the seven liberal arts, who, in the succeeding seven books, describe their respective branches of knowledge, namely, grammar, dialectics (divided into metaphysics and logic), rhetoric, geometry (geography, with some single geometrical propositions), arithmetic (chiefly the properties of numbers), astronomy and music (including poetry). The style is that of an African of the 5th century, full of grandiloquence, metaphors and strange words. He seldom mentions his authorities, and sometimes quotes authors whom he does not even seem to have read. His work was frequently copied in the middle ages by ignorant transcribers, and was eight times printed from 1499 to 1599. The best annotated edition is by Kopp (Frankfort, 1836, 4to), and the most convenient and the best text is that of Eysserhardt (Lipsiae, 1866, 8vo).
Isidore, bishop of Seville from 600 to 630, wrote Etymologiarum libri XX. (often also entitled his Origines) at the request of his friend Braulio, bishop of Saragossa, who after Isidore’s death divided the work into books, as it was left unfinished, and divided only into titles.
The tenth book is an alphabet of 625 Latin words, not belonging to his other subjects, with their explanations as known to him, and often with their etymologies, frequently very absurd. The other books contain 448 chapters, and are:—1, grammar (Latin); 2, rhetoric and dialectics; 3, the four mathematical disciplines—arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy; 4, medicine; 5, laws and times (chronology), with a short chronicle ending in 627; 6, ecclesiastical books and offices; 7, God, angels and the orders of the faithful; 8, the church and sects; 9, languages, society and relationships; 11, man and portents; 12, animals, in eight classes, namely, pecora et jumenta, beasts, small animals (including spiders, crickets and ants), serpents, worms, fishes, birds and small winged creatures, chiefly insects; 13, the world and its parts; 14, the earth and its parts, containing chapters on Asia, Europe and Libya, that is, Africa; 15, buildings, fields and their measures; 16, stones (of which one is echo) and metals; 17, de rebus rusticis; 18, war and games; 19, ships, buildings and garments; 20, provisions, domestic and rustic instruments.
Isidore appears to have known Hebrew and Greek, and to have been familiar with the Latin classical poets, but he is a mere collector, and his derivations given all through the work are not unfrequently absurd, and, unless when very obvious, will not bear criticism. He seldom mentions his authorities except when he quotes the poets or historians. Yet his work was a great one for the time, and for many centuries was a much valued authority and a rich source of material for other works, and he had a high reputation for learning both in his own time and in subsequent ages. His Etymologies were often imitated, quoted and copied. MSS. are very numerous: Antonio (whose editor, Bayer, saw nearly 40) says, “plures passimque reperiuntur in bibliothecarum angulis.” This work was printed nine times before 1529.
Hrabanus Maurus, whose family name was Magnentius, was educated in the abbey of Fulda, ordained deacon in 802 (“Annales Francorum” in Bouquet, Historiens de la France, v. 66), sent to the school of St Martin of Tours, then directed by Alcuin, where he seems to have learned Greek, and is said by Trithemius to have been taught Hebrew, Syriac and Chaldee by Theophilus an Ephesian. In his Commentaries on Joshua (lib. ii. c. 5) he speaks of having resided at Sidon. He returned to Fulda and taught the school there. He became abbot of Fulda in 822, resigned in April 842, was ordained archbishop of Mainz on the 26th of July 847, and died on the 4th of February 856. He compiled an encyclopaedia De universo (also called in some MSS. De universali natura, De natura rerum, and De origine rerum) in 22 books and 325 chapters. It is chiefly a rearrangement of Isidore’s Etymologies, omitting the first four books, half of the fifth and the tenth (the seven liberal arts, law, medicine and the alphabet of words), and copying the rest, beginning with the seventh book, verbally, though with great omissions, and adding (according to Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie, vii. 193, from Alcuin, Augustine or some other accessible source) the meanings given in the Bible to the subject matter of the chapter; while things not mentioned in Scripture, especially such as belong to classical antiquity, are omitted, so that his work seems to be formed of two alternating parts. His arrangement of beginning with God and the angels long prevailed in methodical encyclopaedias. His last six books follow very closely the order of the last five of Isidore, from which they are taken. His omissions are characteristic of the diminished literary activity and more contracted knowledge of his time. His work was presented to Louis the German, king of Bavaria, at Hersfeld in October 847, and was printed in 1473, fol., probably at Venice, and again at Strassburg by Mentelin about 1472-1475, fol., 334 pages.
Michael Constantine Psellus, the younger, wrote Διδασκαλία παντοδαπή, dedicated to the emperor Michael Ducas, who reigned 1071-1078. It was printed by Fabricius in his Bibliotheca Graeca (1712), vol. v., in 186 pages 4to and 193 chapters, each containing a question and answer. Beginning with divinity, it goes on through natural history and astronomy, and ends with chapters on excessive hunger, and why flesh hung from a fig-tree becomes tender. As collation with a Turin MS. showed that 35 chapters were wanting, Harles has omitted the text in his edition of Fabricius, and gives only the titles of the chapters (x. 84-88).
The author of the most famous encyclopaedia of the middle ages was Vincent (q.v.) of Beauvais (c. 1190-c. 1264), whose work Bibliotheca mundi or Speculum majus—divided, as we have it, into four parts, Speculum naturale, Speculum doctrinale, Speculum morale (this part should be ascribed to a later hand), and Speculum historiale—was the great compendium of mid-13th century knowledge. Vincent of Beauvais preserved several works of the middle ages and gives extracts from many lost classics and valuable readings of others, and did more than any other medieval writer to awaken a taste for classical literature. Fabricius (Bibl. Graeca, 1728, xiv. pp. 107-125) has given a list of 328 authors, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek and Latin, quoted in the Speculum naturale. To these should be added about 100 more for the doctrinale and historiale. As Vincent did not know Greek or Arabic, he used Latin translations. This work is dealt with separately in the article on [Vincent of Beauvais].
Brunetto Latini of Florence (born 1230, died 1294), the master of Dante and Guido Cavalcanti, while an exile in France between 1260 and 1267, wrote in French Li Livres dou Tresor, in 3 books and 413 chapters. Book i. contains the origin of the world, the history of the Bible and of the foundation of governments, astronomy, geography, and lastly natural history, taken from Aristotle, Pliny, and the old French Bestiaries. The first part of Book ii., on morality, is from the Ethics of Aristotle, which Brunetto had translated into Italian. The second part is little more than a copy of the well-known collection of extracts from ancient and modern moralists, called the Moralities of the Philosophers, of which there are many MSS. in prose and verse. Book iii., on politics, begins with a treatise on rhetoric, chiefly from Cicero De inventione, with many extracts from other writers and Brunetto’s remarks. The last part, the most original and interesting of all, treats of the government of the Italian republics of the time. Like many of his contemporaries, Brunetto revised his work, so that there are two editions, the second made after his return from exile. MSS. are singularly numerous, and exist in all the dialects then used in France. Others were written in Italy. It was translated into Italian in the latter part of the 13th century by Bono Giamboni, and was printed at Trevigi, 1474, fol., Venice, 1528 and 1533. The Tesoro of Brunetto must not be confounded with his Tesoretto, an Italian poem of 2937 short lines. Napoleon I. had intended to have the French text of the Tesoro printed with commentaries, and appointed a commission for the purpose. It was at last published in the Collection des documents inédits (Paris, 1863, 4to, 772 pages), edited by Chabaille from 42 MSS.
Bartholomew de Glanville, an English Franciscan friar, wrote about 1360 a most popular work, De proprietatibus rerum, in 19 books and 1230 chapters.
Book 1 relates to God; 2, angels; 3, the soul; 4, the substance of the body; 5, anatomy; 6, ages; 7, diseases; 8, the heavens (astronomy and astrology); 9, time; 10, matter and form; 11, air; 12, birds (including insects, 38 names, Aquila to Vespertilio); 13, water (with fishes); 14, the earth (42 mountains, Ararath to Ziph); 15, provinces (171 countries, Asia to Zeugia); 16, precious stones (including coral, pearl, salt, 104 names, Arena to Zinguttes); 17, trees and herbs (197, Arbor to Zucarum); 18, animals (114, Aries to Vipera); 19, colours, scents, flavours and liquors, with a list of 36 eggs (Aspis to Vultur). Some editions add book 20, accidents of things, that is, numbers, measures, weights and sounds. The Paris edition of 1574 has a book on bees.