  In the medieval university, arts masters provided students with their basic education in grammar, logic or dialectic, and Aristotelian philosophy, subjects that embodied the ideals of literacy and learning in the Middle Ages. What they taught is perhaps best understood as a specialized language of rational inquiry, which became the foundation for further study in the faculties of law, medicine, and theology. Students were required to learn, in ascending order, the exposition and interpretation of authoritative texts (grammar), the structure and modes of argumentative discourse (logic), and finally, the systematic analysis and investigation of the order of nature (Aristotelian philosophy). Although he did not write grammatical  treatises,[8]  Buridan asserts in the very first section of the Summulae that “positive grammar [grammatica positiva] has to be learned first, by means of which the master is able to communicate with the disciple, whether it be in Latin, French, Greek, or Hebrew, or whatever else” (S 1.1.1: 6). The disciple's knowledge of logic and Aristotelian philosophy is built upon this grammatical foundation.