ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the dictatores' remarks on genre from a different perspective. It emphasizes the differences among the various analyses of prose genres, but there is also a good deal of agreement among them as regards the principal varieties of prose. S. Bernard follows the usual practice of the dictatores in dividing dictamen into two broad categories – dictamen prosaicum and dictamen metricum – and then identifying the former as his special concern. At this point, most dictatores would either subdivide dictamen prosaicum into epistolare and non epistolare, perhaps naming a few examples of the latter, or else would proceed directly to discuss letter-writing. This attention to the interrelatedness of the various genres and subgenres that he distinguishes is an important way in which Bernard is more systematic than other medieval writers on genre. The same pragmatic recognition of prose genres that owe their new prominence in the artes dictandi to pedagogical innovation is evident in catalogue to be considered.
