Education During the Medieval Times

8/6/2019 Education During the Medieval Times

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Education During the

Medieval Times


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THE CHRISTIAN ERA

The Early Middle Ages was a period

of widespread missionary activity

Monasteries serve as havens for

those who seek a contemplative life,

as repositories of learning for scholars

and often as progressive farming

centers


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One of the great contributions of the

monasteries was the preservation of the learningof the classical world and that of the church.

Seeing that the ability to read Greek was quickly

disappearing, the sixth-century Roman scholarBoethius, an administrator under the Ostrogothic

king Theodoric, determined to preserve Greek

learning by translating all of Plato and Aristotle

into Latin. Only Aristotle's treatises on logic were

translated, and these remained the sole works of

that philosopher available in the West until the

twelfth century.


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IN all this medieval assimilation, it was butnatural that the Church should stand as the chief

guide and schoolmaster of the Germanic hosts.

Christianity had become the authoritativereligion of the Roman world, and, through thecomplete organization of the Church with the

Bishop of Rome as its head, its powerbecame practically unlimited.

While Christian culture and education had beengreatly influenced by Greco-Roman learning, the

Church had become very suspicious of thistraining, and in 529, by the decree of Justinian,had succeeded in having the pagan schoolsclosed, leaving Christian education without arival.


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Cassiodorus, a contemporary of Boethius who

had also served Theodoric, devoted most of his

life to the collection and preservation of classical

knowledge.

By encouraging the monks to copy valuable

manuscripts, he was instrumental in making the

monasteries centers of learning. Following hisexample, many monasteries established

scriptoria, departments concerned exclusively

with copying manuscripts.


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During the early Middle Ages most education

took place in the monasteries.

In the late sixth and seventh centuries, when theeffects of the barbarian invasions were still being

felt on the Continent, Irish monasteries provided

a safe haven for learning. There men studied

Greek and Latin, copied and preservedmanuscripts, and in illuminating them produced

masterpieces of art.


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The medieval church became the

guide, especially through

its monastic schools.


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MONASTICISM

Monasticism resulted in a time of moraldecay from the desire of some within theChurch for a deeper religious life.

By the third century Roman society hadbecome most corrupt, All hope of self-government had gone, class wasarrayed against class, and theprivileged orders revelled in luxury anddepravity.


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Monasticism is one of the most

fundamental institutions of Buddhism.

Monks and nuns are responsible for

preserving and spreading Buddhist

teachings, as well as educating and

guiding Buddhist lay followers.


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During the 1,000 years since the mid-8thcentury, when the Samye Monastery in

Shannan created its Excellent Buddhist

Doctrine School, Buddhism gradually

established its ruling position in Tibet andall monasteries made efforts to expand

monastic education by encouraging

disciples to follow Buddhism and spread

Buddhist scripture. In this way, a monasticeducation system was set up.


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Tibetan Buddhism ruled all thinking.

"Outside the monastery, there was no

school. There was no education

except for Buddhist studies, and there

was no teachers except lama

teachers."


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Students of the monastery schools,

mainly monks, majored in Buddhist

scriptures, but also gained some

knowledge of Tibetan language,

handwriting, literature and art,

philosophy logic, astronomical

Calendar and medicine.


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Monastic education, as a form of

spreading knowledge, had nurtured

some intellectuals, created numerous

historic books, and made some

achievements in architecture,

sculpture, painting, astronomical

calendar and medicine and publichealth.


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Monastic culture spread beliefs concerning

"reincarnation and transmigration," andpreached on the entry into the "heavenly

kingdom" which is "the extremely happy

world after death" to solace those living in

harsh conditions. The ideology convincedpeople they should seek to escape from

suffering in the next life. This impeded the

progress of their society and the

development of science and technology.

As a result, Tibetan lagged far behind other

nationalities in China.


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Monastic institutions and missions

became vehicles for the spread of

literacy and culture throughout the

ancient world and held an important

place in promoting charitable causes,

building libraries, hospitals, schools,

and universities.


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SCHOLASTICISM

Scholasticism is a method of critical

thought which dominated teaching by

the academics (scholastics, orschoolmen)

of medieval universities in Europe fromabout 11001500, and a program of

employing that method in articulating and

defending orthodoxy in an increasingly

pluralistic context. It originated as anoutgrowth of, and a departure from,

Christian monastic schools.


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The terms "scholastic" and

"scholasticism" were derived from

the Latin word scholasticus which

means "that [which] belongs to the

school." The "scholastics" were,

roughly, "schoolmen."


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Scholasticism places a strong

emphasis on dialectical

reasoning (critical thinking about

problems and evaluating conflicting

viewpoints) to extend knowledge

by inference, and to

resolve contradictions.


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Early Scholasticism

The first significant renewal of

learning in the West came with

the Carolingian Renaissance of

the Early Middle Ages.


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Charlemagne, advised by Peter ofPisa andAlcuin of York, attracted the

scholars of England and Ireland, and

by decree in AD

787 establishedschools in every abbey in his empire.

These schools, from which the

name scholasticism is derived,

became centers of medieval learning.


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Johannes Scotus Eriugena, one of

the founders of scholasticism, was the

most significant Irish intellectual of the

early monastic period, and an

outstanding philosopher in terms oforiginality. He had considerable

familiarity with the Greek language,

and translated many works into Latin,

affording access to the Cappadocian

Fathers and the Greek theological

tradition.


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The other three founders of

scholasticism were the 11th century

scholars Peter Abelard,Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury and

ArchbishopAnselm of

Canterbury. Anselm is sometimesmisleadingly called the "Father of

scholasticism," owing to the prominence

accorded to reason in his theology.

Rather than establish a position byappeal to authority, he used argument to

demonstrate why what he believed on

authority must be so.


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The universities developed in the

large cities of Europe during this

period, and rival clerical orders within

the church began to battle for political

and intellectual control over these

centers of educational life. The two

main orders founded in this periodwere the Franciscans and

the Dominicans.


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The Franciscans were founded

by Francis of Assisi in 1209. Their

leader in the middle of the century

was Bonaventure, a traditionalist who

supposed that reason can only

discover truth when philosophy is

illuminated by religious faith.


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The Dominican order, a teaching

order founded by St Dominic in 1215,

to propagate and defend Christian

doctrine, placed more emphasis on

the use of reason.


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Medieval Universities

Medieval university is an institution

of higher learning which was

established during High Middle

Ages period.


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These were the product of what

was highest and best in the Middle Ages,

and their growth is necessarily bound upwith all the history and contributions of the

times. The development of universities is

intimately connected with that of the

Empire, the Church and papacy, the olderschools, and many other institutions of

medieval days. They arose from the old

cathedral and monastic schools; and were

brought into prominence through thebroadening influences of the later Middle

Ages.


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The first institutions generally

considered to be universities were

established in Italy, France,

and England in the late 11th and the

12th centuries for the study

of arts, law, medicine, and theology.


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"The word universitas originally applied only to

the scholastic guild (or guilds)that is, the

corporation of students and masterswithinthe studium, and it was always modified,

as universitas magistrorum, oruniversitas

scholarium, oruniversitas magistrorum et

scholarium. In the course of time, however,probably toward the latter part of the 14th

century, the term began to be used by itself, with

the exclusive meaning of a self-regulating

community of teachers and scholars whose

corporate existence had been recognized and

sanctioned by civil or ecclesiastical authority


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Initially medieval universities did nothave a campus. Classes were taught

wherever space was available, such

as churches and homes. A university

was not a physical space but a

collection of individuals banded

together as an universitas. Soon,

however, some universities began tobuy or rent rooms specifically for the

purposes of teaching.


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CHIVALRY

The serious business of thefeudal noble was fighting, andto prepare him for this, mock

battles were engagedin, which eventuallydegenerated into a pastimeand pageant.


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Chivalric ethics originated chiefly in

France and Spain and spread rapidly

to the rest of the Continent and to

England. They represented a fusion

of Christian and military concepts of

morality and still form the basis of

gentlemanly conduct.


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Noble youths became pages in the

castles of other nobles at the age of7; at 14 they trained as squires in the

service of knights, learning

horsemanship and military

techniques, and were themselvesknighted, usually at 21.

The chief chivalric virtues were piety,

honor, valor, courtesy, chastity, andloyalty.


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Chivalrydeals almost entirely with theknight and his ideal behavior. Whilechivalry differed somewhat in differentplaces and from time to time, it may in

general divided into two periods. Chivalrybefore the middle of the twelfth centurymay be considered that of the heroicage,during which the ideal knight wasextraordinarily strong and brave, and was

devoted to God, his country, and king, andthat afterward an 'age of courtesy.'


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The Rise of theMiddle Class

In the past, historians have argued that anindustrious middle-class made greatfortunes in the early days of the industrialrevolution and converted economic

success into political power in the 1832Reform Act.


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Through education reform, schemes ofcivic improvement and the growth of themarket, the Victorian middle class saw

themselves as facilitating equality ofopportunity by enabling the workingclasses to realise their abilities.


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The Victorian middle-class is largelyassociated with the growth of cities and theexpansion of the economy. The term wasused from around the mid-eighteenth

century to describe those people below thearistocracy but above the workers.


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Samuel Smiles, in his best seller Self Help

published in 1859, argued, along with

others of his time, that individuals wereresponsible for their own future: men had

the same characteristics and potentialities

that could be maximised through hard

work, perseverance, thrift, prudence andself-reliance. These ideas emphasised

individuals rather than classes, morals

rather than economic realities, and talked

of the deserving and undeserving, the

rough and the respectable, thus reducing

persistent inequalities to moral rather than

economic causes.


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Middle-class values were carved out

in the attempts to define a society

based on merit rather than aristocratic

privilege.


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The success of the middle-classes in the

Victorian period can be seen in their ability

to universalise a set of principles based on

individuality and progress. In moving froma society based on rank and privilege to

one based on free exchange, the very idea

that an individual, through hard work, thrift

and self reliance, could achieve social andeconomic success provided an equalising

principle.


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Education During the Medieval Times