Papias and Hugutio were
sharply condemned by Friar Bacon, but they remained
in use long after his time, and Balbi owed much to both
of them. Many copies of the Catholicon seem to have
been made, although the transcription of so large a book
was costly: even before it was printed (1460), copies for
reference were sometimes chained up in English churches,
and after it was printed this practice became more general,
at any rate in France. By the fourteenth century Priscian
was almost superseded by Alexander and Eberhard, whose
versified grammars came into common use; a jingle,
whether it be--
"Ne facias' dices oroque ne facias.'
Humane, dure, large, firmeque, benigne,
Ignaveque, probe vel avare sive severe,
Inde rove, plene, vel abunde sive prolerve,
Dicis in er vel'in e, quamvis sint illa secundae,"
in the fourteenth century, or
"Feminine is Linter, boat
Learn these neuters nine by rote,"
in the twentieth century, seems to help the harassed student
along the linguistic path. The reading of Virgil and
Statius and some other writers put flesh upon these
grammatical dry bones. But as the masters of grammar
at Oxford were expected to be guardians of morals as
well, they were expressly forbidden to read and expound
to their pupils Ovid's Ars amandi, the Elegies of Pamphilus,
and other indecent books.
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