Quadrivium
The quadrivium (plural: quadrivia[1] ) are the four sub-
jects, or arts, taught after teaching the trivium. The word
is Latin, meaning the four ways (or a place where
four roads meet),[2] and its use for the four subjects
has been attributed to Boethius or Cassiodorus in the
6th century.[3][4] Together, the trivium and the quadriv-
ium comprised the seven liberal arts (based on think-
ing skills),[5] as opposed to the practical arts (such as
medicine and architecture).
The quadrivium consisted of arithmetic, geometry, music
and astronomy. These followed the preparatory work of
the trivium made up of grammar, logic and rhetoric. In
turn, the quadrivium was considered preparatory work
for the serious study of philosophy (sometimes called the
liberal art par excellence")[6] and theology.
1 Origins
These four studies compose the secondary part of the
curriculum outlined by Plato in The Republic, and are
described in the seventh book of that work (in the or-
der Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, Music.) [5] The
quadrivium is implicit in early Pythagorean writings and
in the De nuptiis of Martianus Capella, although the term
quadrivium was not used until Boethius early in the
sixth century.[7] As Proclus wrote:
The Pythagoreans considered all mathe-
matical science to be divided into four parts:
one half they marked o as concerned with
quantity, the other half with magnitude; and
each of these they posited as twofold. A quan-
tity can be considered in regard to its charac-
ter by itself or in its relation to another quan-
tity, magnitudes as either stationary or in mo-
tion. Arithmetic, then, studies quantities as
such, music the relations between quantities,
geometry magnitude at rest, spherics [astron-
omy] magnitude inherently moving.[8]
2 Medieval usage
At many medieval universities, this would have been the
course leading to the degree of Master of Arts (after the
BA). After the MA, the student could enter for bache-
lors degrees of the higher faculties (Theology, Medicine
or Law). To this day, some of the postgraduate degree
1
courses lead to the degree of Bachelor (the B.Phil and
B.Litt. degrees are examples in the eld of philosophy).
The study was eclectic, approaching the philosophical
objectives sought by considering it from each aspect of
the quadrivium within the general structure demonstrated
by Proclus (412485 AD), namely arithmetic and music
on the one hand,[9] and geometry and cosmology on the
other.[10]
The subject of music within the quadrivium was origi-
nally the classical subject of harmonics, in particular the
study of the proportions between the music intervals cre-
ated by the division of a monochord. A relationship to
music as actually practised was not part of this study,
but the framework of classical harmonics would substan-
tially inuence the content and structure of music theory
as practised both in European and Islamic cultures.
3 Modern usage
In modern applications of the liberal arts as curriculum
in colleges or universities, the quadrivium may be con-
sidered to be the study of number and its relationship to
physical space or time: arithmetic was pure number, ge-
ometry was number in space, music number in time, and
astronomy number in space and time. Morris Kline clas-
sies the four elements of the quadrivium as pure (arith-
metic), stationary (geometry), moving (astronomy) and
applied (music) number.[11]
This schema is sometimes referred to as classical educa-
tion but it is more accurately a development of the 12th
and 13th centuries Renaissance with recovered classical
elements, rather than an organic growth from the educa-
tional systems of antiquity. The term continues to be used
by the Classical education movement and at the indepen-
dent Oundle School, in the United Kingdom.[12]
4 See also
Andreas Capellanus
Degrees of the University of Oxford
Trivium
Four arts
2 5 REFERENCES

5 References
[1] Kohler, Kaufmann. Wisdom. Jewish Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 2015-11-07.

[2] The word quadrivium indicates a 4-way intersection (as

in a 4-way stop), while trivium refers to a 3-way junc-
tion.

[3] Part I: The Age of Augustine, ND.edu, 2010, webpage:

ND205.

[4] quadrivium (education)", Britannica Online, 2011, web:

EB.

[5] Gilman, D. C.; Thurston, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905).

"Quadrivium". New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.).
New York: Dodd, Mead.

[6] Daniel Coit Gilman et al. (1905) New International Ency-

clopedia, lemma Arts, Liberal

[7] Henri-Irne Marrou, Les Arts Libraux dans l'Antiquit

Classique, pp. 6-27 in Arts Libraux et Philosophie au
Moyen ge, (Paris: Vrin / Montral: Institut d'tudes
Mdivales), 1969, pp. 18-19.

[8] Proclus, A commentary on the rst book of Euclids El-

ements, xii, trans. Glenn Raymond Morrow (Princeton:
Princeton University Press) 1992, pp. 29-30. ISBN 0-
691-02090-6.

[9] Craig Wright, The Maze and the Warrior - Symbols in

Architecture, Theology, and Music, Harvard University
Press 2001

[10] Laura Ackerman Smoller, History, Prophecy and the

Stars: Christian Astrology of Pierre D'Ailly, 1350-1420,
Princeton University Press 1994

[11] Morris Kline, The Sine of G Major, Mathematics in

Western Culture, Oxford University Press 1953

[12] Oundle School - Improving Intellectual Challenge. The

Boarding Schools Association. 27 October 2014.
Each of these iterations have recently been discussed in a
conference at Kings College London on "The Future of
Liberal Arts" at schools and universities.
 3

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