context, had been one of the attractions of the great collection 
of sentences of Peter Lombard, of the Sic et Non  of Abelard, 
and the concordances of Discordant Canons that were great 
literary labors of this time: ÒQuaestiones  were not only 
excerpted from their original commentary and issued 
separately; they were also transferred to a different kind of 
work. . . . Hence we are faced with the difficult problem of 
distinguishing between exegesis and systematic doctrinal 
teaching.” (p. 75)

     The Adagia  and Similia  of Erasmus, excerpted from every 
sort of work, were later transferred into sermons, essays, plays, 
and sonnets in the sixteenth century. The real pressure 
towards visual schemes and organization came from the 
mounting volume of matters to be processed: