THE BEGINNING OF THE RENAISSANCE? PHILOLOGICAL BEHAVIOUR IN EARLY FRENCH PRE-UNIVERSITIES *

The article will demonstrate how early French pre-universities in the Loire valley began to look at texts written by Roman writers such as Horace, Ovid and Virgil with the aim of interpreting and explaining the text as Roman texts, without trying to search for ‘hidden meanings’. The article will focus on the philological Ovid-commentary by William of Orléans (c1200), this being a clear example of this philological way of thinking. This approach to classical ‘pagan’ texts provoked a strong reaction that finally resulted in an allegorising interpretation of the classical texts and often the elimination of such texts from the school curriculum. This was the situation which early humanists protested against.


Introduction
The Middle Ages owe their name among others to the renowned Italian Renaissance poet and humanist Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) who stated in his Rerum memorandarum libri (Letters on Memorable Things) written in the years 1343-1345: 1 "Sed quot praeclaros vetustatis auctores, tot posteritatis pudores ac delicta commemoro. Quae, quasi non contenta propriae sterilitatis infamia, alienis fructus ingenii ac maiorum studiis vigiliisque elaboratos codices intolerabili negligentia perire passa est." [But how many world-famous ancient authors I can name, how many shameful acts and errors of later authors are associated with them. It as if they were not merely satisfied with the shame of their own sterility, but idly watched as the results were lost through inexcusable neglect of the talents of others and the manuscripts which the ancients had so laboriously produced.] 2 After his remarks, Italian humanists coined the term medium aevum, "middle period" or even media tempestas, "middle time". 3 Celebrated medievalists such as Ludwig Traube (1861-1907) emphasised, in contrast, the so-called "Renaissance of the Twelfth Century": "Es ist auch wieder die Zeit gekommen, in der den lateinischen Dichtern der Reim trivial und vulgär schien. Schon im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert enthalten sich die Dichter wieder der Leoniner, die sie im 10. und besonders im 11. Jahrhundert ganz ausnahmslos verwandten. Es ist das Zeitalter, das ich die aetas Ovidiana nennen möchte, die Zeit, die der aetas Vergiliana, dem 8. und 9. Jahrhundert, und der aetas Horatiana, dem 10. und 11. Jahrhundert folgt. Denn so könnte man ungefähr die Jahrhunderte abgrenzen nach den Dichtern, die ihnen die nachahmenswertesten schienen." [The time has also come again when the Latin poets found rhyme trivial and vulgar. As early as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the poets again abstained from using the leonines, which they used without exception in the tenth and especially in the eleventh century. It is the age that I would like to call aetas Ovidiana, the time that follows aetas Vergiliana, the eighth and ninth centuries, and aetas Horatiana, the tenth and eleventh centuries. One could roughly delimit in this way the centuries according to the poets who seemed to them the most worthy of imitation.] In the Middle Ages themselves, many intellectuals viewed their period as the modern era, a time of progressive progress. Even the term modernitas, modernity, was coined in the eleventh century by Berthold of Reichenau (c1033-1088). 4 The question is, of course, how these diametrically opposed opinions can be reconciled.

An allegorical approach
Why did Petrarch find the period just before and of his day as so barbaric? A glance at one of the most famous commentaries on Ovid, written around 1342 by the Benedictine monk Petrus Berchorius (Pierre Bersuire, c1290-1362) makes this clear. Berchorius was in his day a famous preacher, who apart from his sermons and some historical works also wrote an enormous morally founded encyclopaedia Reductorium Morale (Moral Guide) in 16 books, of which the fifteenth book was a moralisation of Ovid's work, specifically of the Metamorphoses. Petrarch must have been familiar with Berchorius's work, the two men corresponded, and in 1361, when Petrarch was diplomat of Galeazza II Visconti at the court of John II of France, he and Berchorius also met in person. 5 Whether or not Petrarch had Berchorius's commentary in mind, which had just been edited, when he himself wrote his Rerum memorandarum libri, is unknown. A small excerpt from Berchorius' Ovidian commentary does make it clear why Petrarch wrote down his remark.
In the seventh book of the Metamorphoses, Ovid describes how Jason and the Argonauts acquired in Colchis with the help of Princess Medea for the Golden Fleece. To obtain the Fleece, Jason had to perform three tasks imposed by Medea's father Aeëtes: to plough a field with fiery oxen, to slay a dragon and to sow its teeth in a field. Thanks to the help of Medea, endowed with supernatural powers, Jason succeeded and then the couple fled from Colchos with the Fleece. Medea later ensured that the life of Jason's father Aeson was extended. The daughters of Jason's uncle Pelias consequently asked her to do the same for their father. Medea had already anticipated this request and, under the pretext of a marital quarrel, had fled to the court of Pelias. She promised to do it, but the daughters had to first kill their father. They did so, but Medea did not keep her promise and fled to Athens instead. Berchorius did not comment on the book verse by verse, but summarised the main lines of the book in several fabulae, in which he dealt with the individual stories that Ovid tells in succession. He thus arrived at 33 stories, of which the first 8 concern Jason and Medea, roughly verses 1-470 of Metamorphoses VII. To provide an idea of how his allegorisation functioned, we will give two highlights from Berchorius's interpretation.
After [Through the Golden Fleece we are able to perceive temporal riches and especially the riches of the Church. These are the fleece, that is the possession, of a ram which is ordered to make tunice for the poor. Through Jason I perceive a good prelate who wants to get that fleece, that is to supply churches. Through the fire-breathing oxen 6  [When Medea had been taken to Thessaly, she restored Jason's old father Aeson to youthful years. She made for him a miraculous potion of herbs and mixed it while adding spells. After she had mixed it in a pot over a fire, she wanted to test whether it was well-prepared. She put a dry stick in and at once it bloomed. A drop fell on the ground and made the plants grow at once. An old ram was killed and put in and a young lamb immediately came out. She killed Aeson and having drawn out his old blood she put it in the pot. When his limbs had been soaked in the liquid he regained life and became younger than his son.
[…] Such a Medea seems to be a preacher who seems to enchant his hearers because he leads them to believing and to acting against the desire of the will. Psalm 57: 6: "He will hear the voice of the singers." He it is who with herbs and spells, that is with words and examples, makes old men young because he morally renews through penitence those who are old in sin and leads them to virtues. Above all, he should have the herbs of good words, pay attention to the pot of penitence, expel the old blood, that is old sins through confession, and moisten the limbs of piety with the liquid of penitence and tears. Thus, he will certainly make him return to the glory of spiritual youth: thus rams are changed into lambs, that is sinners into just men, dry sticks into blooming ones, the old into young, and the evil into the innocent. Psalm 102: 5: "Your youth will be renewed as the eagle's."] Jason can therefore be interpreted as 'a prelate', or Christ, Medea as a sorceress, wisdom or even the Blessed Virgin Mary or a preacher. These are rather contradictory interpretations and one wonders how Berchorius could have them in one commentary. Berchorius' Moralised Ovid is certainly one of the most exponential versions of the allegorised commentaries, but his allegoresis is by far not the only one. Nevertheless, his Metamorphoses ad usum praedicatorum (the Metamorphoses explained for preachers), as Ralph J. Hexter aptly called it, 9 was a kind of close reading with the eyes of a preacher, systematically interpreting the Ovidian text with the help of numerous biblical quotations (and here and there of Church fathers as well) in a Christian framework.

Another type of allegorisation
About twenty years earlier, Dante Alighieri's friend Giovanni del Virgilio, who taught in Bologna in the years 1319-1327, also wrote an allegorical commentary on the Metamorphoses, the Allegorie librorum Ovidii Metamorphoseos. 10 Del Virgilio, unlike Berchorius a university lecturer, commented on the same passages as follows, in quite another way: 11 "Secunda transmutatio est de vellere aureo, nam Ovidius sub quadam fictione veritatem hystorie exprimit in hunc modum. Nam verum fuit quod Frixus et Heles fictione noverce exulaverunt a patre. Quibus apparuit mater et dedit sibi arietem cum vellere aureo. Id est accepta dote matris que mortua erat, recesserunt in navi que habebat arietem pro signo. Ex quo Heles cadens submersa est et mari nomen dedit. Dictum enim est mare Helespontiacum. Frixus autem incolumis appulsus in Colcho insula dedicavit arietem Marti, id est aurum quod habebat imposuit turri in regno Oete, ad cuius custodiam erat draco pervigil, id est custos prudens ut serpens. Et erant ibi duo tauri indomiti, id est duo comites illius custodis qui ore flammas vomebant, id est qui erant deputati ad consulendum illi principali. Per dentes intellige stipendiarios quos habebant. Sed venit Iason armata manu ut raperet illud. Domuit ergo illos tauros, od est corripuit denariis illos comites. Postea seminavit dentes, id est denariis etiam decepit stipendiarios. [The second transmutation is the one of the golden fleece, for Ovid expresses a real story in a kind of fiction in this way. For it was true that Phrixus and Helle were banished by their father because of their stepmother's deceit. Their mother appeared to them and gave them a ram with a golden fleece. This is that having received the dowry of their mother who had died, they went away in a ship carrying the ram as a sign. Helle fell overboard and drowned, and thus gave the sea her name. It is called Hellespont. Phrixus, however, landed unharmed on the island of Colchos and gave the ram to Mars, that is he stored the gold he had in Aeëtes's kingdom in a tower. To guard it there was a waking dragon, this is a guard sharp as a serpent. And there were there also two indomitable bulls, that is, two companions of that guard, who spat flames, that is, they were deputed to counsel their principal. By the teeth should be understood the mercenaries they had. But Jason came to steal this by force of arms. So he tamed those bulls, that is he bribed those companions with money. Then he sowed the teeth, that is, he bribed the mercenaries with money as well. But they rose up against him because they did not get as much as they wanted. But later he intoxicated, that is he poisoned with a poisonous lance the head-guard. And this thanks to Medea's intervention. And then he stole what was in the tower and went away with Medea […] The third transmutation is that of Aeson who is made young. This is to be understood as follows: when Aeson saw that his son had returned safely with so much treasure and such a beautiful wife, he became so delighted that he seemed to be rejuvenated. However, it is also possible that Aeson was in good health. For medics know how to bring this about. That is why it is said: "Thanks to the art of his daughter-in-law, Aeson magically lived more cheerfully / and the greybeard was transformed into a youth by prosperity."] Del Virgilio's approach is thus quite different: he tries to explain Ovid's mythical metamorphoses in a natural way, a method that is somewhat reminiscent of that of modern theologians who want to explain Biblical miracles in a similar manner. Del Virgilio remains of course a child of his Christian age, as can be seen from the concluding commentary, in which he discusses the deification of Caesar: 12 [The tenth and last change is that of Julius Caesar changed into a star or his deification. That Caesar was deified is to be understood that he was the most skilful and the bravest in wars and in other worldly affairs, so that his works shone as if they were a star in all the world because he subjugated it to Rome. Thus arose the story that he was turned into a star. But that a star appeared to Augustus when he sacrificed, this is really true. Whence he thought that this was the star of his father, and had it told all over the world. But the Catholics assume that this was the star of the announcement of Christ that appeared to the Magi and led them to the East. For Christ, by a true and holy transformation, changed himself into a man to wash away and cleanse our sins. After being cleansed, we too shall likewise be changed into a god, that is, we shall partake of divinity. For according to the testimony of Boëtius, all will be as gods through participation in blessedness.]

The Renaissance versus 'the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century'
Del Virgilio and Berchorius lived in the fourteenth century, at the transition from the Middle Ages to the early Renaissance that is represented here by their contemporaries, the two Italian poets Petrarch and Dante. The main difference between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is, as said by the celebrated humanist Erasmus: "Sed in primis ad fontes ipsos properandum, id est Graecos et Antiquos." (Above all, one must hasten to the sources, this is to the Greeks and the Ancients). 13 The second difference is the humanitas of the Renaissance, its clear anthropocentric orientation. But why did Charles Homer Haskins   The difference between the Renaissance and the so-called Renaissance of the Twelfth Century lies first and foremost in technical possibilities. Petrarch and Dante still belonged to the pre-Renaissance, a period in which the Middle Ages were by no means ended. It was only with the invention of the printing press around 1450 that the conditions were created for the rapid distribution of texts in an unaltered form. This also made it possible to revise texts and adapt the editions of those texts accordingly. This by no means implies that serious philology did not exist before. To understand this, a short excursion on what a Medieval university actually looked like will be needed.

Medieval Universities
As is generally known, the oldest still existing university is that of Bologna, founded in 1088 as a corporation of students and teachers, called universitas. The first universities emerged spontaneously, without any formal consent. 15 Their forerunners were often cathedral schools but the difference was that universities were not per se -or rather were per se not -ecclesial bodies. It was the Studium Generale, an attempt to catch all knowledge, that was important. In a somewhat later phase, from the middle of the twelfth century onwards, more clearly defined programmes emerged. Generally speaking, the arts formed the basic education, and after a bachelor's or possibly master's degree in the arts, one could study further in legal studies, medicine or theology.
Within the arts, the study of texts by classical Latin authors, especially Virgil, Horace and Ovid, had a fixed place. These were usually taught by masters. The basic methods were lectio (reading), disputatio (discussion) and quaestio (questioning about the deeper meaning of the text discussed). 16 The lectio took the form of a recitation by the master of the whole text to be treated in such a way that the students could remember it. Parchment was far too expensive to ensure that all students had their own text, so the students were forced to memorize the text. After the reading, the teacher would go through the entire text, explaining grammatical problems, mentioning interesting facts and providing background information if necessary. This method had already become established by the eleventh century. In order to remember the text and explanations better, students often chose among themselves a reporter who wrote down a summary of the lecture or even reproduced it word for word. 17 For this method, a philological approach was essential.
The disputatio took the form of an independent debate between students led by a master who usually decided on the themes. For students, this was the way to learn to argue independently. In Paris, students in the bachelor's phase had to regularly discuss sophismata over one academic year, difficult issues or difficult textual passages. 18 At the bachelor examination, the candidate was presented with a determinatio, an exercise in which he had to respond to a thesis and then systematically refute this thesis with logical arguments. In a higher phase of study, the licenciate, students had to regularly argue about quaestiones over two years, whereby they were the respondents at determinations of bachelor candidates. 19 The quaestio was originally part of the lectio and concerned the clarification of unclear textual passages. As of the second half of the thirteenth century, it became a separate genre of academic work. Such quaestiones concerned themes that had been touched upon in the lectio, but had not been dealt with in the disputatio. They were dealt with by the master in the form of a dialogue, after which he arrived at a certain conclusion together with the students. 20

The form of the texts
The fact that, for practical reasons, students were forced to learn texts by heart should be emphasised. This explains the philological approach of that time. There are thousands of manuscripts left from the Medieval period (and certainly more have been lost), as well as of texts by classical authors. These types of commentaries were already quite strictly distinguished at that time, including glossae or glosulae, glosses, commentarii or commenta, commentaries, and allegoriae or integumenta, allegories. The glosses systematically dealt with the entire text, usually in a rather basic way. Commentaries usually provided background information and paraphrased the text. The allegories focused on the deeper meaning of the text. This corresponds to what one of the most important pedagogues of the twelfth century, Hugo of St. Victor (1096-1141), considered a good way of explaining during the lectio: 21 "Expositio tria continet: litteram, sensum, sententiam. Littera est congrua ordinatio dictionum, quod etiam constructionem vocamus. Sensus est facilis quaedam et aperta significatio, quam littera prima fronte prefert. Sententia est profundior intelligentia, que nisi expositione vel interpretatione non invenitur. In his ordo est, ut primam litteram deinde sensus, deinde sententia inquiratur." [Interpretation has three elements: sound, meaning and sense. Sounding is the correct arrangement of words, which we also name the sentence construction. Meaning is a kind of simple and clear sign that the wording provides at a glance. Sense is a deeper understanding that cannot be found without explanation or interpretation. In this area, the order is to analyze the wording first, then the meaning, and then the sense. Afterwards the interpretation is complete.] In the eighth century, the habit of dividing the page space of manuscripts into several columns emerged. The original text was written in larger letters in the middle column and glosses and comments on both sides in smaller letters. As the number of commentaries increased, the page level was adjusted accordingly. At the end of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth century, a type of manuscript layout emerged that was characterised by the late Frankfort librarian Gerhard Powitz (1930-2020) as Glossenbibelform, a form of biblical glosses. 22 It looked something like this (on the left the layout scheme after Powitz, on the right a thirteenth century manuscript of Ovid's Heroides (Tours, Bibliothèque municipale Ms. 881, fol. 28 r ): The central part was also reserved in this layout for the original Ovidian text, with or without interlinear glosses; the margins were for various commentaries on the text. From the thirteenth century onwards, such commentaries also came into circulation independently, as so-called catena commentaries. The name stems from the appearance of the commentaries, in which literal citations of the original text were directly linked to the commentary. An apt example of such a commentary, intended for study, is the so-called students and were therefore often written on cheap parchment and in as small a script as possible. An example of the same commentary of another manuscript, today bound together in the same volume Lat. qu. 219 (fol. 119 v ) written around 1200 on sheets of 22,7 × 14,2 cm with 62 lines on two columns is showed below. 24 The perforations in the parchment are original, as the copyist wrote around them. This kind of parchment was, of course, not used in decorative manuscripts.
Most commentaries of this type have been handed down anonymously. Thanks to the systematic work of Frank T. Coulson and Bruno Roy, 25 a fairly good overview exists of the commentaries on Ovid. If there is nevertheless an idea that most commentaries were allegorical, this is because they were intended for higher study.

Philological features
Petrarch's main complaint was that the manuscripts of the classics were being neglected. Was this true? Some commentaries, such as the one by the Bursarii super Ovidios already mentioned, compare and discuss manuscripts quite systematically at problematic places in the text. An example is the commentary on Ovid, Heroides 1, 36. The version generally accepted today reads: "hic lacer admissos terruit Hector equos." (Here it was, that Hector, torn to shreds, frightened the chased horses). The medieval textus receptus, the generally accepted text, reads, however: "hic alacer missos terruit Hector equos" (Here the impetuous Hector frightened the sent horses). The Bursarii commentary reads: 26 "Hic alacer. Ita legendum est: Hector alacer, id est probus, terruit hic, id est in hoc loco, equos, Achillis scilicet, missos adaquatum. Quod est dicere: In hoc loco obviacione sua terruit Hector Patroclum, quem miserat Achilles equos adaquatum. Vel aliter: Misos equos, ita quod ibi sit una littera s et erit vicium scriptoris, id est equos quos Achilles abstulerat Telepho regi Misiae. Vel aliter: Hic lacer admissos. Construe: Hector lacer, quia distractus circa muros terruit distractu sui cadaveris equos admissos, id est veloces." [Here the impetuous. It should read like this: The impetuous Hector, this is the brave, frightened here, this is in this place, the horses of Achilles sent to the wateringplace. This means: In this place Hector, by appearing, frightened Patroclus, who was sent by Achilles to water the horses. Or, The Mysian horses, so that there is only one letter s, 27 and it is the scribe's error, this is the horses which Achilles took from Telephus, king of Mysia. Or so: Here torn to shreds. Construe: Hector torn to shreds, because he was dragged round the walls, frightened by the dismemberment of his corpse, chased horses, this is swift horses.] William starts his comment with the textus receptus, logically, as this was the text usually noted in the manuscripts or that what his students knew by heart. He then discusses a variant mentioned in manuscript Barth. 110 in the Frankfurt University library, a well-known twelfth-century codex that provides, along with the genuine Ovidian texts, an extensive choice of so-called pseudo-Ovidian texts, texts written mostly in the twelfth century by younger scholars as imitations of Ovid's style but in later centuries considered genuine Ovidian texts. 28 William marks this possibility as "a scribe's error". The currently accepted reading, present only in a few manuscripts, with which William ends his comment, seems to have been considered the right one.
William regularly uses this approach in his commentary. The question then arises as to why the variants that were apparently considered better were not included in the text. The reason is most likely that the text would not be retrievable. Thus, textual variants, which important philologists knew to be correct at the time, remained unchanged in the manuscripts. This only changed substantially after the advent of printing that made memorising by heart superfluous.
William's commentary was intended for undergraduate students. It is not known what the title Bursarii super Ovidios means exactly, but we can freely translate it as "an aid for the preparation of exams". Unlike many other commentaries, the text does not focus only on a few special places, but on all of Ovid's works. This included lexical explanations, such as this one: 29 "Graminis herbis. Hoc distat inter gramen et herbam, quod gramen dicitur herba quae provenit ex grano, herba que provenit ex radice. Ergo graminis herbae, id est segetis. Alii dicunt quod gramen est proprium nomen herbae." [Grass plants. The difference between a grass and a plant is that a grass is a plant that grows from a seed, whereas a plant grows from a root. Therefore, grass plants are grain. Others say that grass is the proper name of a plant.] Of course, even factual information that was unclear to the students had to be explained. For example, in Roman times it was customary that the doors of the Temple of Janus were closed in times of peace. William explains this when discussing a verse in the Epistulae ex Ponto: 30 "Clausit et aeterna civica bella sera. Quia terminavit usque in perpetuum civile bellum. Sed sera dicit, quia templum Iani in tempore guerrae aperiebatur, in pace vero claudebatur. Sub Augusto vero semper clausum fuit, unde Ianus in Ovidio Fastorum: Caesareoque diu numine clausus ero." [Who's placed an eternal bar on civic war. Because he ended the civil war forever. But he says bar, because the temple of Janus was opened in time of war, but closed again in peace. Under Augustus it was always closed, therefore Janus says in Ovid's Fasti: During the godness of Caesar I will be closed (Fasti 1, 282) [Mars father and father Caesar, give to the one who is coming divine power, For one of you is already a god, the other will become one. Construe: O father Mars, father of the Romans through Romulus, and O Caesar, this is O father Julius, give divine power, this is divine favour, to the one who is coming, this is to August. Or, Name, this is the glory of victory, and this you may well give, for, because, one of you, this is Mars, is god, and the other, this is Julius, will become one. Some want to counter by saying that Julius was already a god. This is not correct, for we know that the Romans had no knowledge of his deification until he was avenged by his son and until the Parthians were defeated, as it says in the Bucolics: When August sacrificed in thanksgiving for the victory over the Parthians, a star appeared to him about noon, through which he gained knowledge of Julius's deification, as the verse says: "See the star of Caesar, born of Dion, appeared." (Virgil, Bucolica 9, 47).]

The practical and ideological decay of the Classics
This way of explaining classical Latin texts was especially popular in the Loire Valley and in northern France. It is therefore no coincidence that the largest numbers of highquality manuscripts of these texts are found in France, as well as in Italy, where Roman culture originated. The great emphasis on classical Latin literature evoked an ideological reaction from people who considered such pagan literature and its extensive explanation harmful for students. [For the poet in antiquity was inclined to overload his theme with various embellishments and minor clauses, in order to mask the lack of theme with exuberant poetic creation and revel in artistic luxury. This, however, is not allowed to the moderns. The old things end with the coming of the new.] Here begins Ovid's Amores: "We, who were once five books, are now three. / The author preferred the work this way." Here begins Ovid's Ars amatoria: "Should anyone here not know the art of love, / read this, and learn by reading how to love."] One of the ways to manage the enormous mass of possibly interesting literature was to make choices and read selections from the others next to shorter works. It is no coincidence that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries so-called florilegia became popular. These were anthologies of the most popular quotations from classical authors which, however, resulted in students reading these anthologies rather than the classical authors themselves. 35  [The main reason for writing this work Ars lectoria Ecclesie (Art of Reading for the Church) is twofold, this is friendship and ignorance of modern times due to the demise of the authors. For in order to avoid errors in the common language, the two modern writers of [the writings of ] the Grecismus and Doctrinale endeavored to impart the doctrine of writing, sentence structure, the knowledge of short and long syllables, the correct pronounciation according to accent, and to define grammatical turns of phrase. All this, however, they did inadequately, and therefore the author of the present 35 However, the interpretation of this development varies. Alastair J. Minnis tends to think in his Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c. 1100-c. 1375 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 6-9, that scholars in these centuries further developed their knowledge on the basis of anthologies and commentaries published in that period. They applied moralising more systematically and thus adapted classical texts to the needs of scholasticism. In my opinion, the result was the same as contemporary critics of this development cited below have suggested: the original texts were no longer read. I discussed this with Ralph J. Hexter in connection with his preparation of an edition of pseudo-Ovidiana. Hexter reminded me of our discussion in his Shades of Ovid (2011) work before us wrote, as a supplement to them, a work which he called Compendium (Concise Grammar), and also this treatise, which is connected with it, and another work which he called Clavis Compendii (Key of the Concise Grammar).] To some extent, the commentary Bursarii super Ovidios is also an example of the new trend of reading only a selection of works by classical authors. This led to the fact that many people no longer knew exactly which works an author like Ovid had written, nor were they familiar with his style. For this reason, from the late thirteenth century onwards, pseudo-Ovidiana were increasingly seen as works written by Ovid, even by a humanist like Bernardo Moretti who was a professor of rhetoric in Bologna around 1459. 37 It was exactly this ignorance which Petrarch criticised.

Conclusion
Humanists such as Petrarch assessed the Middle Ages from the point of view of their own time, reacting to the situation as it had arisen in the fourteenth century. With this situation, in which allegorical commentaries became the standard which tried to give classical texts a Christian interpretation in every possible way, and where modern grammars and textbooks were supposed to replace 'pagan' literature, the image of Latin literature drastically changed. Many teachers even downright condemned the reading of classical authors as being 'immoral'.
In addition, students and scholars at that time generally stopped reading complete works by classical authors, which was in fact an unintended consequence of the socalled Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, when the teaching of classical texts had been so successful that many authors began to write in the vein of classical Latin poets. In this way, the quantity of qualitative texts increased enormously, threatening to overload school curriculums. The transition from the study of complete texts to a knowledge of selections of texts resulted in many pseudo-classical works gradually being regarded as original classical Latin writings -a consequence of insufficient knowledge of the complete works and of the style of classical authors due to fragmentary study.
Nevertheless, a few individuals such as John or Garland remained faithful to the philological approach and tried to resist it. On the basis of their works and attempts, a movement was born at the end of the fourteenth century, from which the Renaissance would emerge in the fifteenth century.