The humility topos

In literary criticism a "topos" is a standard method of constructing an argument, or more generally, a commonplace: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_topos So, from what you wrote, I guessed that the medieval "humility topos" was the commonplace that religious figures were humble. But why guess? These days one can use Google! There are lots of discussions of the humility topos: http://www.google.com/search?q=humility+topos and I see that my guess was not quite right: http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_h.html Best, jb [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]