The History Of Education by Ellwood P. Cubberley (epub e reader .txt) 📖

of the simplest religious faith. [6] The age of reason and of scientific experiment as a means of arriving at truth had not yet dawned, and would not do so for centuries to come. Monks and clerics, representing the one learned class, regarded this Moslem science as “black art,” and in consequence Europe, centuries later, had slowly to rediscover the scientific knowledge which might have been had for the taking. Only the book science of Aristotle would the Church accept, and even this only after some hesitation (Rs. 89, 90).

 

Western Europe had, however, advanced far enough through the study of the Seven Liberal Arts to desire corrected and additional texts of the earlier classical writers, particularly Aristotle, and also to be willing to accept some of the mathematical knowledge of these Saracens. It was here that the Moslem learning in Spain helped in the intellectual awakening of the rest of Europe. Adelhard, an English monk, studied at Cordova about 1120, and took back with him some knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. His Euclid was in general use in the universities by 1300.

Gerard of Cremona, in Lombardy (1114-1187), who studied at Toledo a little later, rendered a similar service for Italy. He also translated many works from the Arabic, including Ptolemy’s Almagest (p. 49), a book of astronomical tables, and Alhazen’s (Spanish scholar, c. 1100) book on Optics. Other monks studied in the Spanish cities during the twelfth century, a few of whom brought back translations of importance. Frederick II [7] employed a staff of Jewish physicians to translate Arabic works into Latin, but, due to his continual war against the Pope and his final outlawry by the Church, his work possessed less significance than it otherwise might have done. Among the books thus translated was the medical textbook of Avicenna (980-1037), based in turn on the Greek works by Galen and Hippocrates of Cos (p. 197). This book described ailments and their treatment in detail, became the standard textbook in the medical faculties of the universities, and was used until the seventeenth century. Another Moslem whose translated writings had great influence on Europe was Averro�s (1126-1198) who tried to unite the philosophy of Aristotle with Mohammedanism (R. 88). His influence on the thinkers of the later Middle Ages was large, he being regarded as the greatest commentator on Aristotle from the days of Rome to the time of the Renaissance.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 52. ARISTOTLE]

 

What Europe obtained through Moslem sources which it prized most, though, was the commentary on Aristotle by Averro�s and the works of Aristotle (R.

88). The list of the books of Aristotle in use in the mediaeval universities by 1300 (R. 87) reveals the great importance of the additions made. By the middle of the twelfth century Aristotle’s Ethics, Metaphysics, Physics, and Psychology, as well as some of his minor works, had been translated into Latin and were beginning to be made available for study. The translation route through which these works had been derived was a roundabout one—Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Castilian, Latin—and hence the translations could not be very accurate, but they sufficed for the needs of Europe until the original Greek versions were recovered when the Venetians and Crusaders took and sacked Constantinople, in 1204. These were then translated directly into the Latin. Western Europe also was ready to use the Arabic (Hindu) system of notation, the elements of algebra, Euclid’s geometry, and Ptolemy’s work on the motion of the heavens. These contributions western Europe was ready for; the larger scientific knowledge of the Saracens, their pharmacopoeias, dictionaries, cyclopaedias, histories, and biographies, it was not yet ready to receive.

 

One other influence crept in from these peoples which was of large future importance—the music and light literature and love songs of Spain. There had been developed in this sunny land a life of light gayety, chivalrous gallantry, elegant courtesies, and poetic and musical charm, and this gradually found its way across the Pyrenees. At first it affected Provence and Languedoc, in southern France, then Sicily and Italy, and finally the gay contagion of lute and mandolin and love songs spread throughout all western Europe. A race of troubadours and minnesingers arose, singing in the vernacular, traveling about the country, and being entertained in castle halls.

 

Lordlyng listneth to my tale

Which is merryr than the nightengale

 

won admission at any castle gate. “Out of these genial but not orthodox beginnings the polite literature of modern Europe arose.”

 

II. THE RISE OF SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY

 

THE ELEVENTH CENTURY A TURNING POINT. By the end of the eleventh century a distinct turning-point had been reached in the struggle to save civilization from perishing. From this time on it was clear that the battle had been won, and that a new Christian civilization would in time arise in western Europe. Much still remained to be done, and centuries of effort would be required, but the Church, almost for the first time in more than six hundred years, felt that it could now pause to organize and systematize its faith. The invasions and destruction of the Northmen had at last ceased, the Mohammedan conquests were over, almost the last of the Germanic tribes in Europe had settled down and had accepted Christianity, [8] and the fighting nobility of Europe were being held somewhat in restraint by the might of the Church, the “Truce of God” (R. 79), and the softening influence of chivalric education (R. 80). There were many evidences, too, by the end of the eleventh century, that the western Christian world, after the long intellectual night, was soon to awaken to a new intellectual life. The twelfth century, in particular, was a period when it was evident that some new leaven was at work.

 

Up to about the close of the eleventh century western Europe had been living in an age of simple faith. The Christian world everywhere lay under “a veil of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession.” The mysteries of Christianity and the many inconsistencies of its teachings and beliefs were accepted with childlike docility, and the Church had felt little call to organize, to systematize, or to explain. Here and there, to be sure, some questioning monk or cleric had raised questions over matters [9] of faith which his reason could not explain, and had, perhaps, for a time disturbed the peace of orthodoxy, but a statement somewhat similar to that made by Anselm of Canterbury (footnote, p. 173), as to the precedence of faith over reason, had usually been sufficient to silence all inquiry.

Once, in the latter part of the eleventh century, when a great discussion as to the nature of knowledge had taken place among the leaders of the Church, a church council had been called to pass upon and give final settlement to the questions raised. [10]

 

RISE OF THE SPIRIT OF INQUIRY. As the cathedral schools grew in importance as teaching institutions, and came to have many teachers and students, a few of them became noted as places where good instruction was imparted and great teachers were to be found. Canterbury in England, Paris and Chartres in France, and several of the cities in northern Italy early were noted for the quality of their instruction. The great teachers and the keenest students of the time were to be found in the cathedral schools in these places, and the monastic schools now lost their earlier importance as teaching institutions. By the twelfth century they had been completely superseded as important teaching centers by the rapidly developing cathedral schools. To these more important cathedral schools students now came from long distances to study under some noted teacher. Says McCabe: [11]

 

The scholastic fever which was soon to influence the youth of Europe, had already set in. You could not travel far over the rough roads of France without meeting some footsore scholar, making for the nearest large monastery or cathedral town. Robbers, frequently in the service of the lord of the land, infested every province. It was safest to don the coarse frieze tunic of the pilgrim, without pockets, sling your little wax tablets and stylus at your girdle, strap a wallet of bread and herbs and salt on your back, and laugh at the nervous folk who peeped out from their coaches over a hedge of pikes and daggers. Few monasteries refused a meal or a rough bed to the wandering scholar.

Rarely was any fee exacted for the lesson given.

 

The cathedral school in connection with the church of Notre Dame [12]

became especially famous for its teachers of the Liberal Arts (particularly Dialectic) and of Theology, and to this school, just as the eleventh century was drawing to a close, came a youth, then barely twenty years of age, who is generally regarded as having been the keenest scholar of the twelfth century. His brilliant intellect soon enabled him to refute the instruction of his teachers and to vanquish them in debate. His name was Abelard. Before long he himself became a teacher of Grammar and Logic at Paris, and later of Theology, and, so widely had he read, so clearly did he appeal to the reason of his hearers, and so incisive was his teaching, that he attracted large numbers of students to his lectures. To assist in his teaching of Theology he prepared a little textbook, Sic et Non (Yea and Nay), in which he raised for debate many questions as to church teachings (R. 91 b), such as “That faith is based on reason, or not.” In the introduction to this textbook he held that “constant and frequent questioning is the first key to wisdom” (R. 91 a). His method was to give the authorities on both sides, but to render no decision. His boldness in raising such questions for debate was new, and his failure to give the students a decision was quite unusual, while his claim that reason was antecedent to faith was startling. Even after being driven from Paris, in part because of this boldness and in part because of a most unfortunate incident which deservedly ruined his career in the Church, students in numbers followed him to his retreat and listened to his teachings. His method of instruction was for the time so unusual and his spirit of inquiry so searching that he stimulated many a young mind to a new type of thinking. One of his pupils was Peter the Lombard (p. 171), who completely redirected the teaching of theology with his Book of Sentences (c. 1145)—This was based largely on Abelard’s method, except that a positive and orthodox decision was presented for each question raised.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 53. THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME, AT PARIS

The present cathedral was begun in 1163, consecrated in 1182, and completed in the thirteenth century. It is built on an island in the Seine, and on the site of a church built in the fourth century. The little community which grew up about the cathedral church formed the nucleus about which the city of Paris eventually grew. This cathedral front, with its statues and beautiful carving, formed a type much followed during the great period of cathedral-building (thirteenth century) in Europe. The school in connection with this cathedral early became famous.]

 

What took place at Paris also took place, though generally on a smaller scale, at many other cathedral and monastery schools of western Europe.

The spirit of inquiry had at last been awakened, the Church was being respectfully challenged by its children to prove its faith, and the learning of the Saracens in Spain, which now began to filter across the Pyrenees, added to the strength of their challenge. Returning pilgrims and crusaders (First Crusade, 1099) also began to ask for an explanation of the doubts which had come to them from the contact with Greek and Arab in the