Concerning the "original" and
more or less off-hand lecture we have the amusing account of Giraldus
Cambrensis (_c._ 1146-1220), in his "most flattering of all
autobiographies." After recounting--in the third person--his studies at
Paris in Civil and Canon Law, and Theology, he says:
He obtained so much favor in decretal cases, which were wont to
be handled Sundays, that, on the day on which it had become known
throughout the city that he would talk, there resulted such a
concourse of almost all the doctors with their scholars, to hear
his pleasing voice, that scarcely could the amplest house have
held the auditors.
And with reason, for he so supported with rhetorical
persuasiveness his original, wide-awake treatment of the Laws and
Canons, and so embellished his points both with figures and
flowers of speech and with pithy ideas, and so applied the
sayings of philosophers and authors, which he inserted in
fitting places with marvellous cleverness, that the more learned
and erudite the congregation, the more eagerly and attentively
did they apply ears and minds to listening and memorizing. Of a
truth they were led on and besmeared with words so sweet that,
hanging, as it were, in suspense on the lips of the
speaker,--though the address was long and involved, of a sort
that is wont to be tedious to many,--they found it impossible to
be fatigued, or even sated, with hearing the man.
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