Chapter CVII: Section 2 (12)

King Alfred "gathered round him at his own court the sons of
his nobility to receive, in conjunction with his own children,
a better education than their parents would be able or willing
to give them in their own households. To this assemblage of
pupils Asser has attached the name of school, and a violent
controversy once distracted the literary world concerning the
sense in which the word was to be understood, and whether it
was not the beginning or origin of a learned institution still
existing. In speaking of this subject, Asser has taken
occasion to enumerate and describe the children who were born
to Alfred from his wife Elswitha, daughter of Ethelred the
'Big,' alderman of the Gaini, and a noble of great wealth and
influence in Mercia. 'The sons and daughters,' says Asser,
'which he had by his wife above mentioned, were Ethelfled the
eldest, after whom came Edward, then Ethelgiva, then
Ethelswitha, and Ethelwerd, besides those who died in their
infancy, one of whom was Edmund. Ethelfled, when she arrived
at a marriageable age, was united to Ethelred, earl of Mercia;
Ethelgiva was dedicated to God, and submitted to the rules of
a monastic life; Ethelwerd, the youngest, by the Divine
counsels and admirable prudence of the king, was consigned to
the schools of learning, where, with the children of almost
all the nobility of the country, and many also who were not
noble, he prospered under the diligent care of his teachers.
Books in both languages, namely, in Latin and Saxon, were read
in the school. They also learned to write; so that, before
they were of an age to practise manly arts, namely hunting and
such other pursuits as befit noblemen, they became studious
and clever in the liberal arts. Edward and Ethelswitha were
bred up in the king's court, and received great attention from
their servants and nurses; nay, they continue to this day,
with the love of all about them, and shew affability, and even
gentleness, towards all, both foreigners and natives, and are
in complete subjection to their father; nor, among their other
studies which appertain to this life and are fit for noble
youths, are they suffered to pass their time idly and
unprofitably, without learning the liberal arts; for they have
carefully learned the Psalms and Saxon books, especially the
Saxon Poems, and are continually in the habit of making use of
books.' The schools of learning, to which Asser alludes in
this passage, as formed for the use of the king's children and
the sons of his nobles, are again mentioned elsewhere by the
same author, as 'the school which he had studiously collected
together, consisting of many of the nobility of his own
nation:' and in a third passage, Asser speaks of the 'sons of
the nobility who were bred up in the royal household.' It is
clear, then, from these expressions, that the king's exertions
to spread learning among his nobles and to educate his own
children, were of a most active and personal nature,
unconnected with any institutions of a more public character:
the school was kept in his own household, and not in a public
seat of learning. We may perhaps adduce these expressions of
Asser as militating against the notion, that an University or
Public Seminary of Learning existed in the days of Alfred.
Though it is most probable that the several monasteries, and
other societies of monks and churchmen, would employ a portion
of their idle time in teaching youth, and prosecuting their
own studies; yet there is no proof that an authorized seat of
learning, such as the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge,
existed in England, until many hundred years after the time of
Alfred."

_J. A. Giles,
Life and Times of Alfred the Great,
chapter 21._

EDUCATION:
Saracenic and Moorish learning.

"Even as early as the tenth century, persons having a taste
for learning and for elegant amenities found their way into
Spain from all adjoining countries; a practice in subsequent
years still more indulged in, when it became illustrated by
the brilliant success of Gilbert, who … passed from the
Infidel University of Cordova to the papacy of Rome. The
khalifs of the West carried out the precepts of Ali, the
fourth successor of Mohammed, in the patronage of literature.
They established libraries in all their chief towns; it is
said that not fewer than seventy were in existence. To every
mosque was attached a public school, in which the children of
the poor were taught to read and write, and instructed in the
precepts of the Koran. For those in easier circumstances there
were academies, usually arranged in twenty-five or thirty
apartments, each calculated for accommodating four students;
the academy being presided over by a rector. In Cordova,
Granada, and other great cities, there were universities
frequently under the superintendence of Jews; the Mohammedan
maxim being that the real learning of a man is of more public
importance than any particular religious opinions he may
entertain. In this they followed the example of the Asiatic
khalif, Haroun Alraschid, who actually conferred the
superintendence of his schools on John Masué, a Nestorian
Christian. The Mohammedan liberality was in striking contrast
with the intolerance of Europe. … In the universities some
of the professors of polite literature gave lectures on Arabic
classical works; others taught rhetoric or composition, or
mathematics, or astronomy. From these institutions many of the
practices observed in our colleges were derived. They held
Commencements, at which poems were read and orations delivered
in presence of the public. They had also, in addition to these
schools of general learning, professional ones, particularly
for medicine. With a pride perhaps not altogether inexcusable,
the Arabians boasted of their language as being the most
perfect spoken by man. … It is not then surprising that, in
the Arabian schools, great attention was paid to the study of
language, and that so many celebrated grammarians were
produced. By these scholars, dictionaries, similar to those
now in use, were composed; their copiousness is indicated by
the circumstance that one of them consisted of sixty volumes,
the definition of each word being illustrated or sustained by
quotations from Arab authors of acknowledged repute. They had
also lexicons of Greek, Latin, Hebrew; and cyclopedias such as
the Historical Dictionary of Sciences of Mohammed Ibn
Abdallah, of Granada."

_J. W. Draper,
History of the Intellectual Development of Europe,
volume 2, chapter 2._

"The Saracenic kings formed libraries of unparalleled size and
number. That of Hakem amounted to 600,000 volumes, of which 44
were employed in the mere catalogue. Upwards of 70 public
libraries were established in his dominions. 100,000 volumes
were numbered in the library of Cairo, and were freely lent to
the studious citizen. The taste of the sovereign communicated
itself to the subject, and a private doctor declared that his
books were sufficient to load 400 camels.
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Nor were the Saracens less attentive to the foundation
of schools and colleges. Eighty of the latter institutions
adorned Cordova in the reign of Hakem; in the fifteenth
century fifty were scattered over the city and plain of
Granada. 200,000 dinars (about £100,000 sterling) were
expended on the foundation of a single college at Baghdad. It
was endowed with an annual revenue of 15,000 dinars, and was
attended by 6,000 students. The princes of the house of Omeya
honoured the Spanish academies by their presence and studies,
and competed, not without success, for the prizes of learning.
Numerous schools for the purpose of elementary instruction
were founded by a long series of monarchs. … In this manner
the Arabians, within two centuries, constructed an apparatus
for mental improvement which hitherto had not been equalled
save in Alexandria, and to which the Church, after ruling the
intellect of Europe for more than five hundred years, could
offer no parallel."

_The Intellectual Revival of the Middle Ages
(Westminster Review, January, 1876)._

EDUCATION:
Scholasticism.
Schoolmen.

In the later times of the Roman empire, "the loss of the
dignity of political freedom, the want of the cheerfulness of
advancing prosperity, and the substitution of the less
philosophical structure of the Latin language for the delicate
intellectual mechanism of the Greek, fixed and augmented the
prevalent feebleness and barrenness of intellect. Men forgot,
or feared, to consult nature, to seek for new truths, to do
what the great discoverers of other times had done; they were
content to consult libraries, to study and defend old
opinions, to talk of what great geniuses had said. They sought
their philosophy in accredited treatises, and dared not
question such doctrines as they there found. … In the mean
time the Christian religion had become the leading subject of
men's thoughts; and divines had put forward its claims to be,
not merely the guide of men's lives, and the means of
reconciling them to their heavenly Master, but also to be a
Philosophy in the widest sense in which the term had been
used;—a consistent speculative view of man's condition and
nature, and of the world in which he is placed. … It was
held, without any regulating principle, that the philosophy
which had been bequeathed to the world by the great geniuses
of heathen antiquity, and the philosophy which was deduced
from, and implied by, the Revelations made by God to man, must
be identical; and, therefore, that Theology is the only true
philosophy. … This view was confirmed by the opinion which
prevailed, concerning the nature of philosophical truth; a
view supported by the theory of Plato, the practice of
Aristotle, and the general propensities of the human mind: I
mean the opinion that all science may be obtained by the use
of reasoning alone;—that by analyzing and combining the
notions which common language brings before us, we may learn
all that we can know. Thus Logic came to include the whole of
Science; and accordingly this Abelard expressly maintained.
… Thus a Universal Science was established, with the
authority of a Religious Creed. Its universality rested on
erroneous views of the relation of words and truth; its
pretensions as a science were admitted by the servile temper
of men's intellects; and its religious authority was assigned
it, by making all truth part of religion. And as Religion
claimed assent within her own jurisdiction under the most
solemn and imperative sanctions, Philosophy shared in her
imperial power, and dissent from their doctrines was no longer
blameless or allowable. Error became wicked, dissent became
heresy; to reject the received human doctrines, was nearly the
same as to doubt the Divine declarations. The Scholastic
Philosophy claimed the assent of all believers. The external
form, the details, and the text of this Philosophy, were
taken, in a great measure, from Aristotle; though, in the
spirit, the general notions, and the style of interpretation,
Plato and the Platonists had no inconsiderable share. … It
does not belong to our purpose to consider either the
theological or the metaphysical doctrines which form so large
a portion of the treatises of the schoolmen. Perhaps it may
hereafter appear, that some light is thrown on some of the
questions which have occupied metaphysicians in all ages, by
that examination of the history of the Progressive Sciences in
which we are now engaged; but till we are able to analyze the
leading controversies of this kind, it would be of little
service to speak of them in detail. It may be noticed,
however, that many of the most prominent of them refer to the
great question, 'What is the relation between actual things
and general terms?' Perhaps in modern times, the actual things
would be more commonly taken as the point to start from; and
men would begin by considering how classes and universals are
obtained from individuals. But the schoolmen, founding their
speculations on the received modes of considering such
subjects, to which both Aristotle and Plato had contributed,
travelled in the opposite direction, and endeavored to
discover how individuals were deduced from genera and
species;—what was 'the Principle of Individuation.' This was
variously stated by different reasoners. Thus Bonaventura
solves the difficulty by the aid of the Aristotelian
distinction of Matter and Form. The individual derives from
the Form the property of being something, and from the Matter
the property of being that particular thing. Duns Scotus, the
great adversary of Thomas Aquinas in theology, placed the
principle of Individuation in 'a certain determining positive
entity,' which his school called Hæcceity or 'thisness.' 'Thus
an individual man is Peter, because his humanity is combined
with Petreity.' The force of abstract terms is a curious
question, and some remarkable experiments in their use had
been made by the Latin Aristotelians before this time. In the
same way in which we talk of the quantity and quality of a
thing, they spoke of its 'quiddity.' We may consider the reign
of mere disputation as fully established at the time of which
we are now speaking [the Middle Ages]; and the only kind of
philosophy henceforth studied was one in which no sound
physical science had or could have a place."

_W. Whewell,
History of the Inductive Sciences,
book 4, chapter 4 (volume 1)._

"Scholasticism was philosophy in the service of established
and accepted theological doctrines. … More particularly,
Scholasticism was the reproduction of ancient philosophy under
the control of ecclesiastical doctrine. … The name of
Scholastics (doctores scholastici) which was given to the
teachers of the septem liberales artes [seven liberal arts]
(grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, in the Trivium; arithmetic,
geometry, music and astronomy, in the Quadrivium), or at least
some of them, in the Cloister-Schools founded by Charlemagne,
as also to teachers of theology, was afterwards given to all
who occupied themselves with the sciences, and especially with
philosophy. … Johannes Scotus, or Erigena [ninth century]
is the earliest noteworthy philosopher of the Scholastic
period. He was of Scottish nationality, but was probably born
and brought up in Ireland. At the call of Charles the Bald he
emigrated to France."

_F. Ueberweg,
History of Philosophy,
volume 1, pages 355-484._

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"Scholasticism, at the last, from the prodigious mental
activity which it kept up, became a tacit universal
insurrection against authority: it was the swelling of the
ocean before the storm. … It was a sign of a great awakening
of the human mind when theologians thought it both their duty
and their privilege to philosophize. There was a vast waste of
intellectual labor, but still it was intellectual labor, and,
as we shall see, it was not in the end unfruitful."

_C. J. Stillé, Studies in Mediæval
History, chapter 13._

"Scholasticism had its hour of glory, its erudite doctors, its
eloquent professors, chief among whom was Abelard (1070-1142).
… At a time when printing did not exist, when manuscript
copies were rare, a teacher who combined knowledge with the
gift of speech was a phenomenon of incomparable interest, and
students flocked from all parts of Europe to take advantage of
his lectures. Abelard is the most brilliant representative of
the scholastic pedagogy, with an original and personal
tendency towards the emancipation of the mind. 'It is
ridiculous,' he said, 'to preach to others what we can neither
make them understand nor understand ourselves.' With more
boldness than Saint Anselm, he applied dialectics to theology,
and attempted to reason out the grounds of his faith. The
seven liberal arts constituted what may be called the
secondary instruction of the Middle Age, such as was given in
the claustral or conventual schools, and later, in the
universities. The liberal arts were distributed into two
courses of study, known as the 'trivium' and the 'quadrivium.'
The 'trivium' comprised grammar (Latin grammar, of course),
dialectics, or logic, and rhetoric; and the 'quadrivium,'
music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. It is important to
note the fact that this programme contains only abstract and
formal studies,—no real and concrete studies. The sciences
which teach us to know man and the world, such as history,
ethics, the physical and natural sciences, were omitted and
unknown, save perhaps in a few convents of the Benedictines.
Nothing which can truly educate man, and develop his faculties
as a whole, enlists the attention of the Middle Age. From a
course of study thus limited there might come skillful
reasoners and men formidable in argument, but never fully
developed men. The methods employed in the ecclesiastical
schools of the Middle Age were in accord with the spirit of
the times, when men were not concerned about liberty and
intellectual freedom; and when they thought more about the
teaching of dogmas than about the training of the
intelligence. The teachers recited or read their lectures, and
the pupils learned by heart. The discipline was harsh. Corrupt
human nature was distrusted. In 1363, pupils were forbidden
the use of benches and chairs, on the pretext that such high
seats were an encouragement to pride. For securing obedience,
corporal chastisements were used and abused. The rod is in
fashion in the fifteenth as it was in the fourteenth century.
'There is no other difference,' says an historian, 'except
that the rods in the fifteenth century are twice as long as
those in the fourteenth.'"

_G. Compayré,
The History of Pedagogy,
translated by W. H. Payne,
chapter 4._

EDUCATION: Universities, Their Rise.
Abelard.

"Up to the end of the eleventh century the instruction was,
speaking generally, and allowing for transitory periods of
revival, and for a few exceptional schools, a shrunken
survival of the old 'trivium et quadrivium.' The lessons, when
not dictated and learnt by heart from notes, were got up from
bald epitomes. All that was taught, moreover, was taught
solely with a view to 'pious uses.' Criticism did not exist;
the free spirit of speculation could not, of course, exist.
… As we approach the period which saw the birth of those
institutions known as Studia Publica or Generalia, and ere
long to be known as 'universities,' we have to extend our
vision and recognize the circumstances of the time, and those
changes in the social condition of Europe which made great
central schools possible—schools to be frequented not merely
by the young ecclesiastic, but by laymen. Among other causes
which led to the diffusion of a demand for education among the
laity, was, I think, the institution or reorganization of
municipalities. It was about the end of the eleventh century
that the civic Communes (Communia) began to seek and obtain,
from royal and other authorities, charters of incorporation
constituting their internal government and conferring certain
freedoms and privileges as against the encroachment of lay and
ecclesiastical feudal barons. … About the same time, and
somewhat prior to this, trade guilds had been formed in many
cities for mutual protection, the advancement of commerce, and
the internal regulation of the various crafts. There
immediately followed a desire for schools in the more
important commercial towns. In Italy such schools arose in
Bologna, Milan, Brescia, and Florence; and in Germany they
arose in Lübeck, Hamburg, Breslau, Nordhausen, Stettin,
Leipsic, and Nürnberg. The distinctive characteristic of these
city schools was, that they do not seem to have been under the
direct control of the Church, or to have been always taught by
priests; further, that the native tongue (German or Italian,
as the case might be) was taught. Reading, writing, and a
little arithmetic seem to have formed the staple of the
instruction. The custom of dictating, writing down, and then
learning by heart what was written—universal in the schools
of the preceding centuries—was, of course, still followed in
these burgh schools. This custom was almost inevitable. …
The increased communication with Africa and the East through
the Crusades had introduced men to a standard of learning
among the Arabs, unknown in Europe. Outside the school, the
order of chivalry had introduced a new and higher ethical
spirit than had been known in the previous centuries. Civic
communities and trade guilds were forming themselves and
seeking charters of incorporation. Above all; the Crusades, by
stimulating the ardour and exciting the intellects of men, had
unsettled old convention by bringing men of all ranks within
the sacred circle of a common enthusiasm, and into contact
with foreign civilizations.
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The desire for a higher education, and the impulse to more
profound investigation, that characterized the beginning and
course of the twelfth century, was thus only a part of a
widespread movement, political and moral. … While the
Romano-Hellenic schools had long disappeared, there still
existed, in many towns, episcopal schools of a high class,
many of which might be regarded as continuations of the old
imperial provincial institutions. … In Bologna and Paris,
Rheims and Naples, it was so. The arts curriculum professed in
these centres was, for the time and state of knowledge, good.
These schools, indeed, had never quite lost the fresh impulse
given by Charlemagne and his successors. … According to my
view of educational history, the great 'studia publica' or
'generalia' arose out of them. They were themselves, in a
narrow sense, already 'studia publica.' … Looking, first, to
the germ out of which the universities grew, I think we must
say that the universities may be regarded as a natural
development of the cathedral and monastery schools; but if we
seek for an external motive force urging men to undertake the
more profound and independent study of the liberal arts, we
can find it only in the Saracenic schools of Bagdad, Babylon,
Alexandria, and Cordova. … To fix precisely the date of the
rise of the first specialized schools or universities is
impossible, for the simple reason that they were not founded.
… The simplest account of the new university origins is the
most correct. It would appear that certain active-minded men
of marked eminence began to give instruction in medical
subjects at Salerno, and in law at Bologna, in a spirit and
manner not previously attempted, to youths who had left the
monastery and cathedral schools, and who desired to equip
themselves for professional life. Pupils flocked to them; and
the more able of these students, finding that there was a
public demand for this higher specialized instruction,
remained at headquarters, and themselves became teachers or
doctors. The Church did not found universities any more than
it founded the order of chivalry. They were founded by a
concurrence (not wholly fortuitous) of able men who had
something they wished to teach, and of youths who desired to
learn. None the less were the acquiescence and protection of
Church and State necessary in those days for the fostering of
these infant seminaries. … Of the three great schools which
we have named, there is sufficient ground for believing that
the first to reach such a development as to entitle it to the
name of a studium generale or university was the 'Schola
Salernitana,' although it never was a university, technically
speaking."

_S. S. Laurie,
Rise and Early Constitution of Universities,
lectures 6-7._

"Ideas, till this time scattered, or watched over in the
various ecclesiastical schools, began to converge to a common
centre. The great name of University was recognised in the
capital of France, at the moment that the French tongue had
become almost universal. The conquests of the Normans, and the
first crusade, had spread its powerfully philosophic idiom in
every direction, to England, to Sicily, and to Jerusalem. This
circumstance alone invested France, central France, Paris,
with an immense attractive power. By degrees, Parisian French
became a proverb. Feudalism had found its political centre in
the royal city; and this city was about to become the capital
of human thought. The beginner of this revolution was not a
priest, but a handsome young man of brilliant talents, amiable
and of noble family. None wrote love verses, like his, in the
vulgar tongue; he sang them, too. Besides, his erudition was
extraordinary for that day. He alone, of his time, knew both
Greek and Hebrew. May be, he had studied at the Jewish schools
(there were many in the South), or under the rabbins of
Troyes, Vitry, or of Orleans. There were then in Paris two
leading schools: the old Episcopal school of the parvis Notre
Dame, and that of St. Geneviève, on the hill, where shone
William of Champeaux. Abelard joined his pupils, submitted to
him his doubts, puzzled him, laughed at him, and closed his
mouth. He would have served Anselm of Laon the same, had not
the professor, being a bishop, expelled him from his diocese.
In this fashion this knight-errant of logic went on, unhorsing
the most celebrated champions. He himself declared that he had
only renounced tilt and tourney through his passion for
intellectual combats. Henceforward, victorious and without a
rival, he taught at Paris and Melun, the residence of
Louis-le-Gros, and the lords flocked to hear him; anxious to
encourage one of themselves, who had discomfited the priests
on their own ground, and had silenced the ablest clerks.
Abelard's wonderful success is easily explained. All the lore
and learning which had been smothered under the heavy,
dogmatical forms of clerical instruction, and hidden in the
rude Latin of the middle age, suddenly appeared arrayed in the
simple elegance of antiquity, so that men seemed for the first
time to hear and recognise a human voice. The daring youth
simplified and explained everything; presenting philosophy in
a familiar form, and bringing it home to men's bosoms. He
hardly suffered the obscure or supernatural to rest on the
hardest mysteries of faith. It seemed as if till then the
Church had lisped and stammered; while Abelard spoke. All was
made smooth and easy. He treated religion courteously and
handled her gently, but she melted away in his hands. Nothing
embarrassed the fluent speaker: he reduced religion to
philosophy, and morality to humanity. 'Crime,' he said,
'consists not in the act, but in the intention.' It followed,
that there was no such thing as sins of habit or of
ignorance—'They who crucified Jesus, not knowing him to have
been the Saviour, were guilty of no sin.' What is original
sin?—'Less a sin, than a punishment.' But then, wherefore the
redemption and the passion, if there was no sin?—'It was an
act of pure love. God desired to substitute the law of love
for that of fear.'"

_J. Michelet,
History of France,
volume 1, book 4, chapter 4._

"It is difficult, by a mere perusal of Abelard's works, to
understand the effect he produced upon his hearers by the
force of his argumentation, whether studied or improvised, and
by the ardor and animation of his eloquence, and the grace and
attractiveness of his person. But the testimony of his
contemporaries is unanimous; even his adversaries themselves
render justice to his high oratorical qualities. No one ever
reasoned with more subtlety, or handled the dialectic tool
with more address; and assuredly, something of these qualities
is to be found in the writings he has left us. But the intense
life, the enthusiastic ardor which enlivened his discourses,
the beauty of his face, and the charm of his voice cannot be
imparted by cold manuscripts.
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Héloise, whose name is inseparably linked with that of her
unfortunate husband, and whom Charles de Rémusat does not
hesitate to call 'the first of women'; who, in any case, was a
superior person of her time; Héloise, who loved Abelard with
'an immoderate love,' and who, under the veil of a
'religieuse' and throughout the practice of devotional duties,
remained faithful to him until death; Héloise said to him in
her famous letter of 1136: 'Thou hast two things especially
which could instantly win thee the hearts of all women: the
charm thou knowest how to impart to thy voice in speaking and
singing.' External gifts combined with intellectual qualities
to make of Abelard an incomparable seducer of minds and
hearts. Add to this an astonishing memory, a knowledge as
profound as was compatible with the resources of his time, and
a vast erudition which caused his contemporaries to consider
him a master of universal knowledge. … How can one be
astonished that with such qualities Abelard gained an
extraordinary ascendency over his age; that, having become the
intellectual ruler and, as it were, the dictator of the
thought of the twelfth century, he should have succeeded in
attracting to his chair and in retaining around it thousands
of young men; the first germ of those assemblages of students
who were to constitute the universities several years later?
… It is not alone by the outward success of his scholastic
apostolate that Abelard merits consideration as the precursor
of the modern spirit and the promoter of the foundation of the
universities; it is also by his doctrine, or at least by his
method. … No one claims that Abelard was the first who, in
the Middle Ages, had introduced dialectics into theology,
reason into authority. In the ninth century, Scotus Erigena
had already said: 'Authority is derived from reason.'
Scholasticism, which is nothing but logic enlightening
theology, an effort of reason to demonstrate dogma, had begun
before Abelard; but it was he who gave movement and life to
the method by lending it his power and his renown."

_G. Compayré,
Abelard,
part 1, chapters 2-3._

EDUCATION: Latin Language.

"Greek was an unknown tongue: only a very few of the Latin
classics received a perfunctory attention: Boethius was
preferred to Cicero, and the Moral Sentences ascribed to Cato
to either. Rules couched in barbarous Latin verse were
committed to memory. Aristotle was known only in incorrect
Latin translations, which many of the taught, and some of the
teachers probably, supposed to be the originals. Matters were
not mended when the student, having passed through the
preliminary course of arts, advanced to the study of the
sciences. Theology meant an acquaintance with the 'Sentences'
of Peter Lombard, or, in other cases, with the 'Summa' of
Thomas Aquinas; in medicine, Galen was an authority from which
there was no appeal. On every side the student was fenced
round by traditions and prejudices, through which it was
impossible to break. In truth, he had no means of knowing that
there was a wider and fairer world beyond. Till the classical
revival came, every decade made the yoke of prescription
heavier, and each generation of students, therefore, a feebler
copy of the last."

_C. Beard,
Martin Luther and the Reformation,
chapter 3._

"What at first had been everywhere a Greek became in Western
Europe a Latin religion. The discipline of Rome maintained the
body of doctrine which the thought of Greece had defined. A
new Latin version, superseding alike the venerable Greek
translation of the Old Testament and the original words of
Evangelists and Apostles, became the received text of Holy
Scripture. The Latin Fathers acquired an authority scarcely
less binding. The ritual, lessons, and hymns of the Church
were Latin. Ecclesiastics transacted the business of civil
departments requiring education. Libraries were armories of
the Church: grammar was part of her drill. The humblest
scholar was enlisted, in her service: she recruited her ranks
by founding Latin schools. 'Education in the rudiments of
Latin,' says Hallam, 'was imparted to a greater number of
individuals than at present;' and, as they had more use for it
than at present, it was longer retained. If a boy of humble
birth had a taste for letters, or if a boy of high birth had a
distaste for arms, the first step was to learn Latin. His foot
was then on the ladder. He might rise by the good offices of
his family to a bishopric, or to the papacy itself by merit
and the grace of God. Latin enabled a Greek from Tarsus
(Theodore) to become the founder of learning in the English
church; and a Yorkshireman (Alcuin) to organize the schools of
Charlemagne. Without Latin, our English Winfrid (St. Boniface)
could not have been apostle of Germany and reformer of the
Frankish Church; or the German Albert, master at Paris of
Thomas Aquinas; or Nicholas Breakspeare, Pope of Rome. With
it, Western Christendom was one vast field of labor: calls for
self-sacrifice, or offers of promotion, might come from north
or south, from east or west. Thus in the Middle Ages Latin was
made the groundwork of education; not for the beauty of its
classical literature, nor because the study of a dead language
was the best mental gymnastic, or the only means of acquiring
a masterly freedom in the use of living tongues, but because
it was the language of educated men throughout Western Europe,
employed for public business, literature, philosophy, and
science; above all, in God's providence, essential to the
unity, and therefore enforced by the authority of, the Western
Church."

_C. S. Parker,
Essay on the History of Classical Education
(quoted in Dr. Henry Barnard's "Letters, Essays and
Thoughts on Studies and Conduct," page 467)._

EDUCATION: France.

"The countries of western Europe, leavened, all of them, by
the one spirit of the feudal and catholic Middle Age, formed
in some sense one community, and were more associated than
they have been since the feudal and catholic unity of the
Middle Age has disappeared and given place to the divided and
various life of modern Europe. In the mediæval community
France held the first place. It is now well known that to
place in the 15th century the revival of intellectual life and
the re-establishment of civilisation, and to treat the period
between the 5th century, when ancient civilisation was ruined
by the barbarians, and the 15th, when the life and intellect
of this civilisation reappeared and transformed the world, as
one chaos, is a mistake. The chaos ends about the 10th
century; in the 11th there truly comes the first
re-establishment of civilisation, the first revival of
intellectual life; the principal centre of this revival is
France, its chief monuments of literature are in the French
language, its chief monuments of art are the French cathedrals.
{695}
This revival fills the 12th and 13th centuries with its
activity and with its works; all this time France has the
lead; in the 14th century the lead passes to Italy; but now
comes the commencement of a wholly new period, the period of
the Renaissance properly so called, the beginning of modern
European life, the ceasing of the life of the feudal and
catholic Middle Age. The anterior and less glorious
Renaissance, the Renaissance within the limits of the Middle
Age itself, a revival which came to a stop and could not
successfully develop itself, but which has yet left profound
traces in our spirit and our literature,—this revival belongs
chiefly to France. France, then, may well serve as a typical
country wherein to trace the mediæval growth of intellect and
learning; above all she may so stand for us, whose connection
with her in the Middle Age, owing to our Norman kings and the
currency of her language among our cultivated class, was so
peculiarly close; so close that the literary and intellectual
development of the two countries at that time intermingles,
and no important event can happen in that of the one without
straightway affecting and interesting that of the other. …
With the hostility of the long French Wars of Edward the Third
comes the estrangement, never afterwards diminishing but
always increasing."

_M. Arnold,
Schools and Universities on the Continent,
chapter 1._

EDUCATION:
University of Paris.

"The name of Abelard recalls the European celebrity and
immense intellectual ferment of this school [of Paris] in the
12th century. But it was in the first year of the following
century, the 13th, that it received a charter from Philip
Augustus, and thenceforth the name of University of Paris
takes the place of that of School of Paris. Forty-nine years
later was founded University College, Oxford, the oldest
college of the oldest English University. Four nations
composed the University of Paris,—the nation of France, the
nation of Picardy, the nation of Normandy, and (signal mark of
the close intercourse which then existed between France and
us!) the nation of England. The four nations united formed the
faculty of arts. The faculty of theology was created in 1257,
that of law in 1271, that of medicine in 1274. Theology, law,
and medicine had each their Dean; arts had four Procurators,
one for each of the four nations composing this faculty. Arts
elected the rector of the University, and had possession of
the University chest and archives. The preeminence of the
Faculty of Arts indicates, as indeed does the very development
of the University, an idea, gradually strengthening itself, of
a lay instruction to be no longer absorbed in theology, but
separable from it. The growth of a lay and modern spirit in
society, the preponderance of the crown over the papacy, of
the civil over the ecclesiastical power, is the great feature
of French history in the 14th century, and to this century
belongs the highest development of the University. … The
importance of the University in the 13th and 14th centuries
was extraordinary. Men's minds were possessed with a wonderful
zeal for knowledge, or what was then thought knowledge, and
the University of Paris was the great fount from which this
knowledge issued. The University and those depending on it
made at this time, it is said, actually a third of the
population of Paris; when the University went on a solemn
occasion in procession to Saint Denis, the head of the
procession, it is said, had reached St. Denis before the end
of it had left its starting place in Paris. It had immunities
from taxation, it had jurisdiction of its own, and its members
claimed to be exempt from that of the provost of Paris; the
kings of France strongly favoured the University, and leaned
to its side when the municipal and academical authorities were
in conflict; if at any time the University thought itself
seriously aggrieved, it had recourse to a measure which threw
Paris into dismay,—it shut up its schools and suspended its
lectures. In a body of this kind the discipline could not be
strict, and the colleges were created to supply centres of
discipline which the University in itself,—an apparatus
merely of teachers and lecture-rooms,—did not provide. The
14th century is the time when, one after another, with
wonderful rapidity, the French colleges appeared. Navarre,
Montaigu, Harcourt, names so familiar in the school annals of
France, date from the first quarter of the 14th century. The
College of Navarre was founded by the queen of Philip the
Fair, in 1304; the College of Montaigu, where Erasmus,
Rabelais, and Ignatius Loyola were in their time students, was
founded in 1314 by two members of the family of Montaigu, one
of them Archbishop of Rouen. The majority of these colleges
were founded by magnates of the church, and designed to
maintain a certain number of bursars, or scholars, during
their university course. … Along with the University of
Paris there existed in France, in the 14th century, the
Universities of Orleans, Angers, Toulouse, and Montpellier.
Orleans was the great French school for the study of the civil
law. … The civil law was studiously kept away from the
University of Paris, for fear it should drive out other
studies, and especially the study of theology; so late as the
year 1679 there was no chair of Roman or even of French law in
the University of Paris. The strength of this University was
concentrated on theology and arts, and its celebrity arose
from the multitude of students which in these branches of
instruction it attracted."

_M. Arnold,
Schools and Universities on the Continent,
chapter 1._

EDUCATION:
The Sorbonne.

The University of Paris acquired the name of "the Sorbonne"
"from Robert of Sorbon, aulic chaplain of St. Louis, who
established one of the 63 colleges of the University. … The
name of Sorbonne was first applied to the theological faculty
only; but at length the whole University received this
designation."

_J. Alzog,
Manual of Universal Church History,
volume 3, page 24, foot-note._

EDUCATION:
The Nations.

"The precise date of the organization at Paris of the four
Nations which maintained themselves there until the latest
days of the university escapes the most minute research.
Neither for the Nations nor for the Faculties was there any
sudden blossoming, but rather a slow evolution, an insensible
preparation for a definite condition. Already at the close of
the twelfth century there is mention in contemporary documents
of the various provinces of the school of Paris. The Nations
are mentioned in the bulls of Gregory IX. (1231) and of
Innocent IV. (1245). In 1245, they already elect their
attendants, the beadles. In 1249, the existence of the four
Nations—France, Picardy, Normandy, and England—is proved by
their quarrels over the election of a rector. … Until the
definitive constitution of the Faculties, that is, until 1270
or 1280, the four Nations included the totality of students
and masters.
{696}
After the formation of the Faculties, the four Nations
comprised only the members of the Faculty of Arts and those
students of other Faculties who had not yet obtained the grade
of Bachelor of Arts. The three superior Faculties, Theology,
Medicine, and Law, had nothing in common thenceforward with
the Nations. … At Bologna, as at Paris, the Nations were
constituted in the early years of the thirteenth century, but
under a slightly different form. There the students were
grouped in two distinct associations, the Ultramontanes and
the Citramontanes, the foreigners and the Italians, who formed
two universities, the Transalpine and the Cisalpine, each with
its chiefs, who were not styled procurators but counsellors;
the first was composed of eighteen Nations and the second of
seventeen. At Padua twenty-two Nations were enumerated.
Montpellier had only three in 1339,—the Catalans, the
Burgundians, the Provençals; each sub-divided, however, into
numerous groups. Orleans had ten: France, Germany, Lorraine,
Burgundy, Champagne, Picardy, Normandy, Touraine, Guyanne, and
Scotland; Poitiers had four: France, Aquitaine, Touraine, and
Berry; Prague had four also, in imitation of Paris; Lerida had
twelve, in imitation of Bologna, etc. But whether more or less
numerous, and whatever their special organization, the Nations
in all the universities bore witness to that need of
association which is one of the characteristics of the Middle
Ages. … One of the consequences of their organization was to
prevent the blending and fusion of races, and to maintain the
distinction of provinces and nationalities among the pupils of
the same university."

_G. Compayré,
Abelard,
part 2, chapter 2._

EDUCATION: Italy
Revived Study of Roman Law.

"It is known that Justinian established in Rome a school of
law, similar to those of Constantinople and Berytus. When Rome
ceased to be subject to Byzantine rule, this law-school seems
to have been transferred to Ravenna, where it continued to keep
alive the knowledge of the Justinian system. That system
continued to be known and used, from century to century, in a
tradition never wholly interrupted, especially in the free
cities of Northern Italy. It seems even to have penetrated
beyond Italy into Southern France. But it was destined to
have, at the beginning of the twelfth century, a very
extraordinary revival. This revival was part of a general
movement of the European mind which makes its appearance at
that epoch. The darkness which settled down on the world, at
the time of the barbarian invasions, had its midnight in the
ninth and tenth centuries. In the eleventh, signs of progress
and improvement begin to show themselves, becoming more
distinct towards its close, when the period of the Crusades
was opening upon Europe. Just at this time we find a famous
school of law established in Bologna, and frequented by
multitudes of pupils, not only from all parts of Italy, but
from Germany, France, and other countries. The basis of all
its instruction was the Corpus Juris Civilis [see CORPUS JURIS
CIVILIS]. Its teachers, who constitute a series of
distinguished jurists extending over a century and a half,
devoted themselves to the work of expounding the text and
elucidating the principles of the Corpus Juris, and especially
the Digest. From the form in which they recorded and handed
down the results of their studies, they have obtained the name
of glossators. On their copies of the Corpus Juris they were
accustomed to write glosses, i. e., brief marginal
explanations and remarks. These glosses came at length to be
an immense literature. … Here, then, in this school of the
glossators, at Bologna, in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, the awakened mind of Europe was brought to
recognize the value of the Corpus Juris, the almost
inexhaustible treasure of juristic principles, precepts,
conceptions, reasonings, stored up in it."

_Jas. Hadley,
Introduction to Roman Law,
lecture 2._

EDUCATION: Italy
University of Bologna.

"In the twelfth century the law school of the University of
Bologna eclipsed all others in Europe. The two great branches
of legal study in the middle ages, the Roman law and the canon
law, began in the teaching of Irnerius and Gratian at Bologna
in the first half of the twelfth century. At the beginning of
this century the name of university first replaces that of
school; and it is said that the great university degree, that
of doctor, was first instituted at Bologna, and that the
ceremony for conferring it was devised there. From Bologna the
degree and its ceremonial travelled to Paris. A bull of Pope
Honorius, in 1220, says that the study of 'bomæ literæ' had at
that time made the city of Bologna famous throughout the
world. Twelve thousand students from all parts of Europe are
said to have been congregated there at once. The different
nations had their colleges, and of colleges at Bologna there
were fourteen. These were founded and endowed by the
liberality of private persons; the university professors, the
source of attraction to this multitude of students, were paid
by the municipality, who found their reward in the fame,
business, and importance brought to their town by the
university. The municipalities of the great cities of northern
and central Italy were not slow in following the example of
Bologna; in the thirteenth century Padua, Modena, Piacenza,
Parma, Ferrara, had each its university. Frederick II. founded
that of Naples in 1224; in the fourteenth century were added
those of Pavia, Perugia, Pisa, and Turin. Colleges of
examiners, or, as we should say, boards, were created by Papal
bull to examine in theology, and by imperial decree to examine
in law and medicine. It was in these studies of law and
medicine that the Italian universities were chiefly
distinguished."

_M. Arnold,
Schools and Universities on the Continent,
chapter 9._

"The Bologna School of jurisprudence was several times
threatened with total extinction. In the repeated difficulties
with the city the students would march out of the town, bound
by a solemn oath not to return; and if a compromise was to be
effected, a papal dispensation from that oath must first be
obtained. Generally on such occasions, the privileges of the
university were reaffirmed and often enlarged. In other cases,
a quarrel between the pope and the city, and the ban placed
over the latter, obliged the students to leave; and then the
city often planned and furthered the removal of the
university. King Frederic II., in 1226, during the war against
Bologna, dissolved the school of jurisprudence, which seems to
have been not at all affected thereby, and he formally
recalled that ordinance in the following year. Originally the
only school in Bologna was the school of jurisprudence, and in
connection with it alone a university could be formed. ….
Subsequently eminent teachers of medicine and the liberal arts
appeared, and their pupils, too, sought to form a university
and to choose their own rector.
{697}
As late as 1295 this innovation was disputed by the jurists
and interdicted by the city, so that they had to connect
themselves with the university of jurisprudence. But a few
years later we find them already in possession again of a few
rectors, and in 1316 their right was formally recognized in a
compromise between the university of jurisprudence and the
city. The students called themselves 'philosophi et medici' or
'physici'; also by the common name of 'artistæ.' Finally a
school of theology, founded by pope Innocent VI., was added in
the second half of the 14th century; it was placed under the
bishop, and organized in imitation of the school at Paris, so
that it was a 'universitas magistrorum,' not 'scholarium.' As,
however, by this arrangement the students of theology in the
theological university had no civil privileges of their own,
they were considered individually as belonging to the
'artistæ.' From this time Bologna had four universities, two
of jurisprudence, the one of medicine and philosophy, and the
theological, the first two having no connection with the
others, forming a unit, and therefore frequently designated as
one university."

_F. C. Savigny,
The Universities of the Middle Ages
(Barnard's American Journal of Education,
volume 22, pages 278-279)._

EDUCATION:
Other Universities.

"The oldest and most frequented university in Italy, that of
Bologna, is represented as having flourished in the twelfth
century. Its prosperity in early times depended greatly on the
personal conduct of the principal professors, who, when they
were not satisfied with their entertainment, were in the habit
of seceding with their pupils to other cities. Thus high
schools were opened from time to time in Modena, Reggio, and
elsewhere by teachers who broke the oaths that bound them to
reside in Bologna, and fixed their centre of education in a
rival town. To make such temporary changes was not difficult
in an age when what we have to call an university, consisted
of masters and scholars, without college buildings, without
libraries, without endowments, and without scientific
apparatus. The technical name for such institutions seems to
have been 'studium scholarium,' Italianised into 'studio' or
'studio pubblico.' Among the more permanent results of these
secessions may be mentioned the establishment of the high
school at Vicenza by translation from Bologna in 1204, and the
opening of a school at Arezzo under similar circumstances in
1215; the great University of Padua first saw the light in
consequence of political discords forcing the professors to
quit Bologna for a season. The first half of the thirteenth
century witnessed the foundation of these 'studi' in
considerable numbers. That of Vercelli was opened in 1228, the
municipality providing two certified copyists for the
convenience of students who might wish to purchase textbooks.
In 1224 the Emperor Frederick II., to whom the south of Italy
owed a precocious eminence in literature, established the
University of Naples by an Imperial diploma. With a view to
rendering it the chief seat of learning in his dominions, he
forbade the subjects of the Regno to frequent other schools,
and suppressed the University of Bologna by letters general.
Thereupon Bologna joined the Lombard League, defied the
Emperor, and refused to close the schools, which numbered at
that period about ten thousand students of various
nationalities. In 1227 Frederick revoked his edict, and
Bologna remained thenceforward unmolested. Political and
internal vicissitudes, affecting all the Italian universities
at this period, interrupted the prosperity of that of Naples.
In the middle of the thirteenth century Salerno proved a
dangerous rival. … An important group of 'studi pubblici'
owed their origin to Papal or Imperial charters in the first
half of the fourteenth century. That of Perugia was founded in
1307 by a Bull of Clement V. That of Rome dated from 1303, in
which year Boniface VIII. gave it a constitution by a special
edict; but the translation of the Papal See to Avignon caused
it to fall into premature decadence. The University of Pisa
had already existed for some years, when it received a charter
in 1343 from Clement VI. That of Florence was first founded in
1321. … The subjects taught in the high schools were Canon
and Civil Law, Medicine, and Theology. These faculties,
important for the professional education of the public, formed
the staple of the academical curriculum. Chairs of Rhetoric,
Philosophy, and Astronomy were added according to occasion,
the last sometimes including the study of judicial astrology.
If we enquire how the humanists or professors of classic
literature were related to the universities, we find that, at
first at any rate, they always occupied a second rank. The
permanent teaching remained in the hands of jurists, who
enjoyed life engagements at a high rate of pay, while the
Latinists and Grecians could only aspire to the temporary
occupation of the Chair of Rhetoric, with salaries
considerably lower than those of lawyers or physicians."

_J. A. Symonds,
Renaissance in Italy: the Revival of Learning,
chapter 3._