Page "Rhetoric" Paragraph 68

After the breakup of the western Roman Empire, the study of rhetoric continued to be central to the study of the verbal arts ; but the study of the verbal arts went into decline for several centuries, followed eventually by a gradual rise in formal education, culminating in the rise of medieval universities.

But rhetoric transmuted during this period into the arts of letter writing ( ars dictaminis ) and sermon writing ( ars praedicandi ).

As part of the trivium, rhetoric was secondary to the study of logic, and its study was highly scholastic: students were given repetitive exercises in the creation of discourses on historical subjects ( suasoriae ) or on classic legal questions ( controversiae ).