Alcuin’s adaptation of the _De inventione_ of Cicero, Walafrid Strabo’s enumeration of the five ancient parts of rhetoric, do not prove the use of the whole ancient program. Even the ancient texts would not of themselves carry on the ancient method. The “_quæstiones civiles_” often quoted from Cicero’s opening definition could hardly carry their ancient content either in a society disturbed by the invasions or in a society reorganizing under feudalism. Moreover the teaching of _rhetorica_, even when it kept touch with Roman method, was likely to lean on the _declamatio_ handed down by the schools of Gaul.[34] For all these reasons the ancient lore naturally most sought and most used was _elocutio_, the counsels of style. The function of _rhetorica_ is usually described by some such verb as _ornare_. Little beyond this is suggested by the summary of Rabanus. Repeating once more that the field of rhetoric is _quæstiones civiles_, he adds: Nevertheless [rhetoric] is not outside the scope of training for the Church. For whatever an orator or preacher of the divine law sets out capably and fitly in teaching, whatever he expresses aptly and elegantly in letters, conforms to this art. _De clericorum institutione_ III. xix; PL 107: 396 C. The passage is reminiscent of St. Augustine’s _De doctrina christiana_;[35] and eight later chapters (xxix-xxxvi) follow this closely, sometimes continuously and word for word. But Rabanus is at once less specific and narrower as to style. As to composition in the large he says hardly anything; and he seems to miss the cogency of Augustine’s own order. The larger and more vital conception of rhetoric, which was at least before the eyes of Rabanus, seems more to beckon Loup de Ferrières. Man of letters in his intellectual eagerness[36] as well as in his style, and teacher as well, he makes requisitions on the libraries of his friends. The Quintilian that he needs is not the volume of selections, but all twelve books;[37] the Cicero, not only the common _De inventione_, but also the book whose recovery by Poggio in the fifteenth century was one of the literary events of the Renaissance, the _De oratore_.[38] If these two cardinal works of the better ancient tradition were not much sought, at least they were available. The “three styles” seem already to have been transferred in school from rhetoric to poetic, and exemplified from Vergil.[39] Mature practise was already attentive to prose rhythm. Abbo of Fleury, much preoccupied with this, was also fond of alliteration, and sometimes marked his balances with rime.