william t. costello, sj - The School of Literature, Communication, and ...

THE FRAMEWORK OF SCHOLASTICISM 27
ficiaries. The varier or prevaricator, as he was sometimes called,
was an official humorist introduced into the philosophy disputation
immediately after the "father's" speech. 60 The varier' s function
was to play verbally upon the question under dispute. The
product of these student punsters is usually shoddy, and, like
undergraduate humor today, apt to stray beyond the bounds of
decency. Another mark of these variers' speeches, also common
with modern undergraduate pronouncements, is the cruel dis-
respect paid to an unpopular don. Time and again official protests
curb the enthusiasm of the varier. On May 8, 1628, for
example, the Vice-Chancellor and heads of colleges, interpreting
the statute "De Modestia," decreed that ". . . prevaricators, tri-
poses, and other disputants should thereafter abstain from mimic
salutations and gesticulations, ridiculous jokes and scurrilous
jeers, at the laws, statutes or ordinances of the University, or the
magistrates, professors or graduates." 61
Examples of prevarication humor abound. One source is a
manuscript in the University Library, Cambridge, 62 in which is
found the punning of one Mr. Vintner on the question "Whether
celestial bodies are the causes of human actions." In this typical
varier's speech, Vintner offers a completely inconsequential syllogism,
puns on Aristotle's being a star because of his De Coelo,
calls Aquinas a meteor, and allows that the dons present may
also be called stars, since, as the stars are the denser part of the
heavens, so may they be called the denser part of the academic
world. In contrast to such insulse and heavy-handed humor, we
find in the same manuscript an excellent prevarication, headed:
"Oratio habita a Domino Fuller Praevaricatore Cantab. Quaestio.
An anima hominis sit rasa tabula." Toward the end of his speech,
the author 63 inserts some delightful verses in medieval Latin,
wherein he pretends that love is the only proper logic, cosmog-
raphy, poetics, physics, and mathematics. The verse is graceful,
whimsical, with only a breath of the risque", which evaporates in
the translating. The Latin is Fuller's text.
Sileant Thomistae Silent, Thomists!
Taceant Scotistae Quiet, Scotists!
Scholastica turba Mob scholastic
Nil dat nisi verba
Umbratiles quidditates
Paraphrastic
Words, nought else, can Nee non et leves haeccietates 64
[sicl ]
proffer.
Wet and shady quiddities
Haeccietas [sic!]
Est uxor parata
grata Empty, light
haecceities
These alone can offer.