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, trans. 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. {693} 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,