When we are talking about medieval semiotics we speak about the complex field of more or less

elaborate reflections on the concept of sign, its nature, function, and classification.

There are various areas where a rich tradition of semiotic questions and answers accumulated over the
centuries. Most important are these fields which are in the realm of so called trivium from which the
most important is logic where the discussion of the basic logical notions gave rise to explicit remarks on
the concept of sign.

Auvgustine in his work named de dialecta defines a notion of sign and says that it is “something that
shows itself to the senses and something other than itself to the mind”. The concept of sign provides the
general basis for Avgustine’s theory of language. He also says “To speak is to give a sign in articulate
voice” and a word by its definition is a “sign of something, which can be understood by the hearer when
pronounced by the speaker”.

Augustine, in his work named De Magistro, says that words or signs have the power of ‘showing’
anything in the sense of making something present to the understanding. But in De Doctrina Christiana
he claims that “a sign is something which, offering itself to the senses, conveys something other to the
intellect.”

Augustine divides the sign in to the two main classes natural signs and given signs. Natural signs are for
example a smoke which indicates fire or footprint of animal which shows that it passed by. As for given
signs they are those which humans exchange in order to show their fillings and thoughts.

And finally Augustine's doctrine of sign is based on a definition of the sign that intends to embrace both
the natural indexical sign and the conventional linguistic sign as species of an all-embracing generic
notion of sign.

A christian philosopher Boethius is considered to be the main source for medieval theories of signs. He
commented Aristotelian writings where he focuses on the concept of linguistic signification and hardly
ever explicitly speaks of signs. And in the second commentary which he made on Peri Hermeneias he
discusses at length the interrelations between the four elements of linguistic semeiosis which was
mentioned by Aristotle. And these discussed interilations are

between external objects or things

- mental concepts or representations

- spoken words (voces), and

written words (scripta).

This elements build up order of speaking called by boethus which means that , without the existence of
things there would be no concepts, without concepts no spoken words, and without spoken words no
written ones.

The unknown author, now commonly named Ps.-Robert Kilwardby, says that every science is about signs
or things signified”. Kilwardby points out that according to the various kinds of signs there are several
‘sciences of signs’. In case of natural signs and also moral signs the theory of signs cannot be separated
from the theory of things signified. And these signs fall under natural and moral science. The linguistic
signs which are produced by the human understanding for the purpose of communicating its ideas, are
the subject-matter of a rational science.

Roger bacon is considered to be the most important medieval theorist of sign. According to him, the
concept of sign belongs to the category of relation.

In his works he develops a general conception of signification and a detailed theory of the linguistic sign

He defines the sign as “that which upon being offered to the sense or intellect designates something to
the intellect itself”, and also says that there are signs which are offered only to the intellect.

Bacon presented a detailed classifications of signs based on several theories such as Augustine’s natural
and given signs also the distinction between necessary and probable signs from Aristotle.

The general class of natural signs is divided into the three subclasses, according to the relation between
a sign and its significate. The firs class is inferential signs which is subdivided in to necessary and
probable signs, the second is iconic signs and the third is signs which are based on a causal relation
between the sign and the signified thing.

The general class of signs given and directed by a soul is divided according to whether the living being
brings forth the sign together with a deliberation by reason and choice of will , or by a natural instinct or
impulse and Interjections are considered as a hybrid of the two other sorts of given signs.

Bacon gives to understand that he takes inferential and iconic signs to be signs.

The primary intention of Bacon's semiotic analyses is to provide the foundations for the semantics of
spoken language. According to him, a complete account of the “difficult issue” which is the significate of
a vocal expression has to consider three different aspects 1) the signification of vocal expressions apart
from their being endowed with meaning by ‘imposition’, 2) their signification according to imposition,
and 3) their signification over and above imposition.