Krey—John of Salisbury and the Classics. 949 
liberal education to-day was employed by bim then. Not only 
does be figbt with tbe weapons of a modern humanist but, 
wbat is more astonishing, he bases his fight upon a knowledge 
of the ancient writers such as is possessed by comparatively 
few men to-day, as will be demonstrated in the present paper. 
The only safe basis for determining what classical authors 
he really knew, lies in the quotations, direct and indirect, 
which he makes from those authors. To credit him, however, 
with a personal knowledge of every writer whom he quotes 
would be even more erroneous than such a test could be to¬ 
day, for the man of the Middle Ages did not have our system 
of teaching grammar but had to rely for his training in this 
subject upon Donatus, Priscian, Nonius Marcellus and 
Servius. These grammarians treated the subject by quoting 
passages from classical authors in illustration of each point. 
When it is remembered that all instruction was in Latin and 
that for want of extensive libraries, grammar was very much 
emphasized, it will at once be apparent that very many of the 
quotations made by medieval writers found their origin in 
these grammars. Priscian alone quotes over ten thousand 
lines from ancient authors. Though these quotations were 
usually of single lines, yet a skillful teacher might be able to 
combine them and supply the missing words. That John had 
studied these works like every other medieval student, cannot, 
of course, be doubted. 
Furthermore, John had also a thorough knowledge of the 
works of St. Augustine, Jerome, Isidore, Lactantius, Martianus 
Capella, Macrobius and Boethius. These works, too, were an 
integral part of the education of every scholar of those times, 
and John’s frequent references to them show clearly that he 
was no exception. These writers had used the ancient authors 
very extensively and a student could obtain an almost endless 
fund of quotations from them alone without consulting any of 
the authors themselves. 
Mere quotation, therefore, cannot be considered as conclusive 
evidence that John had certain authors. If, however, he 
makes frequent and long quotations from such authors; if his 
quotations adhere more closely to the original texts than do 
