What Conception is, and the usefulness of the Periermeniae or
     more correctly Periermenia. [Peri Hermeneias.  On Interpretation.]

     Of what the Body of Art consists; and on the usefulness of the
     Topics.

     Why Aristotle deserved more than others the name of philosopher.

     That Aristotle erred in many ways; that he is eminent in Logic.

John of Salisbury clearly recognized the supremacy of Aristotle among logicians.  After naming Apuleius, Cicero, Porphyry, Boethius, Augustine, and others, he adds: 

But while individually they shine forth because of their own merits, they all boast that they worship the very footsteps of Aristotle; to such a degree, indeed, that by a sure pre-eminence he has made peculiarly his own the common name of all philosophers.  For by Antonomy [a figure of speech] he is called The Philosopher par excellence.

It is clear, however, that Aristotle had by no means attained, at the middle of the twelfth century, the authoritative position which he held a hundred years later.  This appears in the chapter “On those who Carp at the Works of Aristotle”: 

I cannot sufficiently wonder what sort of a mind they have (if, that is, they have any) who carp at the works of Aristotle, which, in any case, I proposed not to expound but to praise.  Master Theodoric, as I recall, ridiculed the Topics,—­not of Aristotle, but of Drogo.  Yet he once taught those very Topics.  Certain auditors of Master Robert of Melun calumniated this work as practically useless.  All decried the Categories.  Wherefore I hesitated some time about commending them; but [there was no question as to] the rest of his works, since they were commended by the judgment of all; but I did not think that they should be praised grudgingly.  Yet opposition is made to the Elenchi [Sophistical Refutations], though stupidly, because it contains poetry; but clearly the idiom of [the Greek] language does not lend itself readily to translation.  In this respect the Analytics seem to me preferable, because they are no less efficient for actual use, and because by their easier comprehension they stimulate eloquence.[18]

The slowness with which these works made their way is described by Roger Bacon at the end of the thirteenth century.

But a part of the philosophy of Aristotle has come slowly into the use of the Latins.  For his Natural Philosophy and Metaphysics, and the Commentaries of Averrhoes and of others, were translated in our times, and were excommunicated at Paris before the year of our Lord 1237 on account of [their heretical views on] the eternity of matter and of time, and on account of the [heresies contained in the] book on Interpretation of Dreams (which is the third book on Sleep and Wakefulness), and on account of the many errors in the translation.  The Logicalia were also slowly received and read,