On the right of the cartoon is the figure of grammar;
beneath is Priscian. For the study of this subject John
Garland recommended Priscian and Donatus. Priscian
was a leading text-book on the subject, and it was supported
by a short manual compiled from Donatus. At Oxford
extracts from these authors were thrown into the form of
logical quaestiones to afford subjects of argument at the
disputations held once a week before the masters of
grammar.[1] To these books should be added a dictionary,
with some peculiar and quaint etymologies, by Papias
the Lombard; grammatical works by John Garland;
Bishop Hugutio's etymological dictionary (c. 1192);
a dreary hexameter poem by Alexander Gallus, the
Breton Friar (d. 1240)--"the olde Doctrinall, with his
diffuse and unperfite brevitie"; Eberhard's similar poem
(c. 1212), called Graecismus, because it includes a chapter
on derivations from the Greek; and a very large book, the
Catholicon (c. 1286), partly a grammar and partly a
dictionary, with copious quotations from Latin classics,
which had been compiled with some skill and care by John
Balbi, a Genoese Black Friar.
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