A number of modern theorists, in fact, read assiduously the kinds of medieval texts that many, if not most, medievalists who study literary texts have not read for themselves. Clearly, medievalists are not the only ones who can and have used their Latinity to study the functions of theory in the Middle Ages. The resistance many modern medievalists have to theory is perplexing, especially when it is supported by the assumption that modern theory has absolutely nothing in common with medieval texts. More disturbing, however, is the willingness of many of us to construct hasty distinctions between theorists and non- theorists. I have, in other words, already raised one of the topics that Steve Davis suggests in his summary that we ought to move on toward.
Theory is, by itself, neither tautologous nor careless.
What is careless is assuming that work couched in an unfamiliar idiom is not worth reading.