Although the primacy of philosophy long remained unshaken in the
universities, humanists gradually established the primacy of rhetoric in
secondary education. They did so by means of a curriculum, the
studia humanitatis, which chiefly comprised grammar, rhetoric,
history, poetry, and moral philosophy.
This curriculum was inculcated by means of commonplace notebooks, the
direct descendants of medieval
florilegia. Students compiled
these notebooks in the course of their readings in order to create a
stock of ideas for their own speeches and compositions.
-- Michael E. Hobart and
Zachary S. Schiffman. Information Ages: Literacy, Numeracy,
and the Computer Revolution (1998) p.99