Part 14 (1/2)

CHAPTER VII

EDUCATION DURING THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

II SCHOOLS ESTABLISHED AND INSTRUCTION PROVIDED

1 _Elementary instruction and schools_

MONASTIC AND CONVENTIONAL SCHOOLS In the preceding chapters we found that, by the tenth century, the monasteries had developed both innerto take the vows (oblati), and outer(externi) The distinction in name was due to the fact that the _oblati_ were fro to the brotherhood, participating in the religious services and helping the monks at their work The others were not so ad, outside the ure 38), was provided for the outer school A similar classification of instruction had been evolved for the convents

[Illustration: FIG 43 AN OUTER MONASTIC SCHOOL (After an old wood engraving)]

The instruction in the inner school was , writing, ious observances, and rules of conduct constituted the range of instruction Reading was taught by the alphabetby the use of wax tablets and the stylus Much attention was given to Latin pronunciation, as had been the practice at Rome As Latin by this tiue, outside the Church and perhaps in Central Italy, the difficulties of instruction were largely increased The Psalter, or book of Latin psal book, and this was memorized rather than read Copy- books, usually ith copies expressing so of so much importance in the church services, received er reckoning, after the Roht Latin was used in conversation asconversation books of to-day in the es (R 75)

Special attention see rules of conduct to the _oblati_, [1] andUp to the eleventh century this instruction, er as it was, constituted the whole of the preparatory training necessary for the study of theology and a career in the Church In the convents sih, as stated in the last chapter, iven to the education of those not intending to take the vows

SONG AND PARISH SCHOOLS In the cathedral churches, and other larger non- cathedral churches, the musical part of the service was very important, and to secure boys for the choir and for other church services these churches organized what ca schools_ (R 70) In these a nu boys were trained in the same studies and in much the same way as were boys in the iven to the musical instruction The students in these schools were placed under the _precentor_ (choir director) of the cathedral, or other large church, the _scholasticus_ confining his attention to the higher or iven board, lodging, and instruction in return for their services as choristers As the parish churches in the diocese also came to need boys for their services, parish schools of a sianized in connection with theradual evolution, that the parish school in western Europe was developed later on

CHANTRY SCHOOLS Still another type of elementary school, which did not arise until near the latter part of the period under consideration in this chapter, but which will be enumerated here as descriptive of a type which later becah wills, and the schools came to be known as _chantry schools_, or _stipendary schools_ Men, in dying, who felt themselves particularly in need of assistance for their misdeeds on earth, would leave a sum of money to a church to endow a priest, or sometimes tere to chant masses each day for the repose of their souls Sometimes the property was left to endow a priest to say mass in honor of soin Mary As such priests usually felt the need for soan voluntarily to teach the ele to selected boys, and in ti money for the prayers to stipulate in the will that the priest should also teach a school Usually a very elementary type of school was provided, where the children were taught to know the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Salutation to the Virgin, certain psaln of the cross, and perhaps to read and write (Latin) Sometimes, on the contrary, and especially was this the case later on in England, a grammar school was ordered maintained After the twelfth century this type of foundation (R 73) became quite common

2 _Advanced instruction_

CATHEDRAL AND HIGHER MONASTIC SCHOOLS As the song schools developed the cathedral schools were of course freed fro, and could then develop more advanced instruction

This they did, as did many of the monasteries, and to these advanced schools those who felt the need for hout all the early part of the Middle Ages, the first and most important subject of instruction, the advanced schools carammar schools_, as well as cathedral or episcopal schools (R 72) The cathedral churches and land and France early becah character of their instruction (R 71) and the type of scholars they produced All these schools, though, suffered a serious set-back during the period of the Danish and Nor totally destroyed On the continent, due to the greater deluge of barbarism and the more unsettled condition of society,cathedral schools established, as the following decree of the Lateran Church Council of 826 indicates:

Complaints have been rammar school is found Therefore all bishops shall bestow all care and diligence, both for their subjects and for other places in which it shall be found necessary, to establish rammar schools and the principles of the liberal arts, because in these chiefly the commandments of God are manifest and declared

These two types of advanced schools--the cathedral or episcopal and the ht be called the secondary-school systees (Rs 70, 71) They were for at least six hundred years the only advanced teaching institutions in western Europe, and out of one or the other of these two types of advanced schools came practically all those who attained to leadershi+p in the service of the Church in either of its two great branches Still iven to advanced study by the more important of these schools, the universities of a later period developed; and nuifts of lands and rammar schools to supplee church schools

THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS The advanced studies which were offered in the more important monastery and cathedral schools comprised what came to be known as _The Seven Liberal Arts_ [2] of the Middle Ages The knowledge contained in these studies, taught as the advanced instruction of the period, represents the a which was intentionally preserved by the Church fro the period of the barbarian deluges and the reconstruction of society

These Seven Liberal Arts were comprised of two divisions, known as:

I THE TRIVIUM: (1) Graic)

II THE QUADRIVIUM: (4) Arithmetic; (5) Geometry; (6) Astronomy; (7) Music

[Illustration: FIG 44 THE MEDIEVAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION SUMMARIZED Allegorical representation of the progress and degrees of education, from an illuarita Philosophica_ of Gregory de Reisch

The youth, having(reading, writing, and the beginnings of e Wisdom is about to place the key in the lock of the door of the te Graruite”) On the first and second floors of the temple he studies the Grae at the left on the third floor he studies the Logic of Aristotle, followed by the Rhetoric and Poetry of Tully, thus co the _Trivium_ The Arithmetic of Boethius also appears on the third floor On the fourth floor he co in order the Music of Pythagoras, Euclid's Geometry, and Ptolemy's Astronomy The student now advances to the study of Philosophy, studying successively Physics, Seneca's Morals, and the Theology (or Metaphysics) of Peter Looal tohich all has been directed]

Beyond these careatest of all studies, Theology This last represented the one professional study of the early oal tohich all the preceding studies had tended This mediaeval systeiven on the opposite page, taken from an illuminated picture inserted in a famous mediaeval manuscript, recopied at Basle, Switzerland, in 1508

Not all these studies were taught in every monastery or cathedral school

Many of the lesser rammar, and only a little of the studies beyond Others eht perhaps only a little of the second group Only a few taught the full range of reat schools of the tireatest es, Abbot for years at Fulda, and a ood description of each of the Seven Liberal Arts studies as they were developed in his day, and their use in the Christian scheme of education (R 74)