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[8] Anderson reproduces a portion of a chapter by Capella on the number four, which is illustrative of the mediaeval study of the properties of number:
“What shall I call four? in which is a certain perfection of solidarity; for it is composed of length and depth, and a full decade is made up from those four numbers added together in order, that is, from one, two, three, four. Similarly a hundred is made up of the four decades, that is, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, which are a hundred; and again four numbers from a hundred on amount to a thousand, that is, 100, 200, 300, 400. So ten thousand is made up of another series. What is to be said of the fact that there are four seasons of the year, four quarters of the heavens, and four principles of the elements?
There are also four ages of man, four vices, and four virtues.”
[9] Anderson reproduces a paragraph from Maurus, showing how number was applied to Holy Writ. It reads:
“A real thinker,” says Maurus, “will not pass on indifferently when he reads that Moses, Elijah, and our Lord fasted forty days. Without strict observance and investigation the matter cannot be explained.
The number 40 contains the number 10 four times, by which all is signified which concerns the temporal. For, according to the number 4, the days and the seasons run their course. The day consists of morning, midday, evening, and night, the year of spring, summer, autumn, winter. Further, we have the number 10 to recognize God and the creature. The three (trinity) indicated the Creator; the seven, the creature which consists of body and spirit. In the latter is the three: for we must love God with our whole heart and soul and mind. In the body, on the other hand, the four elements of which it consists reveal themselves clearly. So if we are moved through that which is signified by the number 10 to live in time—for 10 is taken four times—chaste, withholding ourselves from worldly lusts, that means to fast forty days. So the Holy Scriptures contain suggestively in many different numbers all sorts of secrets which must remain hidden to those who do not understand the meaning of numbers.”
[10] Gerbert (953-1003) was one of the most learned monks of his day, having studied in the Saracen schools of Spain. He afterwards became Pope Sylvester II (999-1003). Because of his scientific knowledge in an age of superstition he was accused of transactions with the devil.
[11] For example, the Stabat Mater and the Dies Irae, two thirteenth-century hymns. The former has been called the most pathetic and the latter the most sublime of all mediaeval poems.
[12] Cassiodorus was an educated later Roman, who had been chief minister to Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king, and had done much to carry over Latin learning and civilization into the new r�gime. He later founded the monastery of Viviers, in southern Italy, and spent the latter part of his life there in writing and contemplation. He urged the monks to study, and those who had no head for learning he advised to read Cato and Columella on agriculture, and then to devote themselves to it.
[13] “Wisdom hath builded her house; she hath hewn out her seven pillars.”
(Proverbs, IX, 1.)
[14] Abelson, in his monograph on The Seven Liberal Arts, reduces each of these textbooks to their equivalent in a modern 16mo printed page, with the following results:
Cassi-Capella Boethius odorus Isidore Alcuin Maurus Subject (c. 425) (c. 520) (c. 575) (c. 630) (c. 800) (c. 844) /Grammar…… 11 — 25 50 54 55
|Rhetoric….. 14 — 5-1/2 14 26 —
Dialectic…. 11 — 18 14 25 —
/Arithmetic… 11 40 2 2 — —
|Geometry….. 15 30 2 1 — —
|Astronomy…. 9 — 15 3 23 60
Music…….. 11 67 2 12 — —
– – – – – –
Totals in pages 82 137 69-1/2 96 128 115
[15] The mediaeval serf was the successor of the Roman slave, and was a step upward in the process of the evolution of the free man. The serf was tied to the soil and by obligations of personal service to the lord.
Gradually, due to economic causes, the personal service was changed from general to definite service, and finally to a fixed rental sum. When a fixed money payment took the place of personal service the free man had been evolved. This took place rapidly with the rise of cities and industry toward the latter part of the Middle Ages.
[16] The German private duel and the American fist fight are the modern survivals of the time when personal insults, easily taken, and private grievances were settled in the “noble way” by sword and battle-axe and torch.
[17] In the earlier days of noblemen’s education reading and writing were regarded as effeminate, but in the later times the nobles became increasingly literate. By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries many began to pride themselves on their patronage of learning.
[18] Rhyming in the vernacular language came to be an important part of the training, and many old love songs and songs expressing the joy of life date from this period. Chaucer’s knight is described as: “Syngynge he was or floytynge [playing], al the day; He was as fressh as is the monthe of May.
Short was his gowne, with sleves longe and wyde.
Wel cowde he sitte on hors and faire ryde; He cowde songes make and wel endite,
Juste and eek daunce, and wel purtreye and write.
So hote he loved, that by nighterdale [night time]
He slept no more than doth the nightingale.”
[19] From the life of the Frankish Abbot, John of Gorze, Abbot at Gorze in the tenth century.
[20] Leach, A. F., Educational Charters, p. 143.
[21] Ibid., p. 147.
[22] Anselm (1033-1109), Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109, formulated the early mediaeval view when he said: “I do not seek to know in order that I may believe, but I believe in order that I may know.”
“The Christian ought to advance to knowledge through faith, not to come to faith through knowledge.”
“The proper order demands that we believe the deep things of Christian faith before we presume to reason about them.”
[23] Monroe, Paul, TextBook in the History of Education, p. 258.
[1] “In the school of Nisibis the Church possessed an institution, which for centuries secured her a system of higher education, and therewith an important social and political position. To the older literature, consisting of translations, there was added, from the middle of the fifth century onward, a large number of philosophical, scientific, and medical treatises belonging to Greek antiquity, and especially the works of Aristotle. Through these Greek wisdom and learning, clothed in Syrian attire, found a home on these borders of Christendom.” (M�ller, D. K., Kirchengeschichte, vol. I, p. 278.)
[2] “By the year 600 A.D. the triumph of the oriental element in Christendom had well-nigh banished learning and education from the domain of the Church, giving place to a gloomy, unquestioning faith which sank ever deeper and deeper in the mire of superstition. What enlightenment survived had found a home beyond the limits of the Roman Empire,—in Ireland, in the extreme West; in Syria, in the far East.” (Davidson, Thomas, History of Education, p. 133.) [3] This was determined as being 56-1/3 miles, which would make the circumference of the earth 20,280 miles. The correct distance is 69 miles.
[4] The fanaticism of the eastern Arabs now reasserted itself, and higher education In the Mohammedan countries of the East drew permanently to a close. A harsh, rigid orthodoxy, fatal to educational progress, now triumphed. The coming of the Turks only made matters worse, and with their advent education throughout Arabia and Asia Minor became a thing of the past. Some day it will be the task of western Europe to hand back schools and learning to the Mohammedan East. This may be one of the by-products of the great World War.
[5] The Alhambra, built between 1238 and 1354, at Granada, is an exquisite example of their art. (See plate in vol. 1, p. 658, of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., for an illustration of their architecture and art.) [6] It was an age of superstition and miracles, diabolic influences, witchcraft and magic, private warfare, trials by ordeal, robber bands, little dirty towns, no roads, unsanitary conditions, and miserable homes.
Even the nobility had few comforts and conveniences, and personal cleanliness was not common. Disease was punishment for sin and to be cured by prayer, while the insane were scourged to cast out the devils within them.
[7] Frederic II was Emperor of the mediaeval Holy Roman Empire, ruling from 1227 to 1250. Though a German by birth, he had lived long in Sicily, and spent most of his time in Italy after becoming Emperor. He greatly admired the Saracens for their learning, and tried to transfer some of their knowledge to Christian Europe. He lived, however, at a time when the Papacy was cementing its temporal power and the Pope was becoming the Emperor of Europe. This encroachment Frederick resisted and tried to break, but without success. At his death the mediaeval German dream of world empire perished; Germany was left a collection of feudal States; and the temporal power of the Pope was henceforth for centuries to come undisputed.
[8] Christianity had not as yet been introduced among the mixed Slavic and Germanic tribes along the eastern Baltic. In Prussia and Lithuania, where missionary efforts had been made from 900 on, success did not come until more than three centuries later. (See art. “Missions,” Ency. Brit., 11th ed., vol. 18.)
[9] The more important questions arising concerned the Trinity, the Eucharist, and Transubstantiation.
[10] This discussion was over what was known as nominalism vs. realism.
Anselm of Canterbury (1034-1109), basing his argument largely on some parts of Plato, had declared that ideas constituted our real existence.
Roscellinus of Compi�gne (1050-1105), basing his argument on parts of the Organon of Aristotle, had held that ideas or concepts are only names for real, concrete things. Anselm, as a realist, contended that the human senses are deceptive, and that revealed truth alone is reliable.
Roscellinus, as a nominalist, held that truth can be reached only through investigation and the use of reason. The church accepted the realism of Anselm as correct, and Roscellinus was compelled to recant. The stifling effect of such an attitude toward honest doubt can be imagined.
[11] McCabe, Joseph, Peter Abelard, p. 7.
[12] By the beginning of the eleventh century this cathedral school had become the most important in France, a position which it retained for centuries. It was the great center for theological study, and drew to it a succession of eminent teachers—William of Champeaux, Abelard, Peter the Lombard—and, in time, thousands of students.
[13] The term scholasticism comes from scholasticus, because it was chiefly in the cathedral schools that scholasticism arose. It means, literally, the method of thinking worked out by the teachers in the cathedral schools.
[14] The English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) once said that when he considered the inertness of the Middle Ages he was led to think that God had been content to make man a two-legged animal, leaving to Aristotle the task of making him a thinking being. The worship of Aristotle is easily explained by the great amount of information his works contained, his logical method and skillful classification of knowledge, and the
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