A definition of the seven liberal arts according to Edward Grant:

"They embraced both verbal and mathematical disciplines. The former, known as the "trivium," included grammar, rhetoric, and logic (or dialectic), whereas the latter, the "quadrivium," encompassed the four disciplines of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. All of these disciplines took form in classical Greece  as liberal arts suitable for teaching to free young men. The number of disciplines varied, however, and did not assume the canonical number of seven until the time of the Latin encyclopedists, who also coined the terms "trivium" and "quadrivium." The Latin encyclopedists shaped the seven liberal arts into the form they would have in the later Middle Ages. Martianus Capella's Marriage of Philology and Mercury was perhaps the quintessential Latin treatise that shaped the seven liberal arts. The setting of the book is the marriage of Mercury and Philology, where each of the seven arts is represented by a bridesmaid, who describes the art she represents. Others also wrote on the seven liberal arts, including Saint Augustine, Boethius, Cassidorus, and Isodore of Seville. It was Cassiodorus who urged that the seven liberal arts be incorporated in to a Christian education. By the end of the seventh century, the seven liberal arts were considered to be the basis of a proper education.