Medieval learning and thought
Since the 5th century, as the Western Roman Empire collapsed, learning and education had deteriorated in the cities and found refuge in monasteries and monastic schools. Starting from around 1200, as towns and trade flourished in Europe, universities also started to grow in European towns. Their rise was partly a result of the Crusades, when Christians traversing the Byzantine Empire fighting the Muslims in the Near East and Egypt came across collections of ancient Roman and Greek writings. Universities started as centers of theology, but as time went on, they incorporated more pagan learning in their teaching, including extensive readings of Aristotle. Debates ensued on how to situate non-Christian writings in relation to Christian ones, and the relationship between (pagan) reason and Christian faith.
1.The rise and development of cathedral schools
The cathedral schools were developed in northern and central France to give a thorough training to the clergy, who were the only people required to be literate in society. In time cathedral schools became centers of learning.
2. Curriculum
French cathedral school started to teach what later were called the seven liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Students read Latin authors such as Cicero and Virgil. In Antiquity, literature and rhetoric had become major components of vocational education. Similarly, now in the cathedral schools, literature and grammar became major components of the education of the clergy. But there was a rising interest in logic, philosophy, and science.
3. From cathedral schools to universities
As cathedral schools grew and student population increased, incidents of townspeople and student clashes increased, too. To protect themselves, the teachers, and students, formed into guilds that demanded self-rule from the towns and the church.
The word university (universitas) meant guild, and they were comparable to the merchant guilds in that both asked for autonomy.
4. The clash between reason and faith
Early Christianity emphasized human weakness and salvation through and faith in the grace of God.
This contrasted with the Greco-Roman concept of the human being and emphasis on logical reasoning.
The Crusades and intellectual communications between the Christian and Islamic worlds led to a revival of Greek writings by Aristotle that emphasized logic and knowledge through observations.
5. Theology and philosophy
As most universities were subject to the approval of the church or even papacy, the teaching of Aristotle became a point of contention.
The University of Paris, approved of by the Pope in 1215.
Oxford: patterned after Paris around 1200. Taught liberal arts, medicine, law, and theology.
6.Thomas Aquinas (1224-74) and his treatment of reason/faith
Coming from a southern Italian aristocratic family (lord of Aquino), Thomas tried to blend theology and philosophy, reason and faith.
He believed that reason could not contradict faith, because the same God had given both faith and reason to humanity. In fact, rather than contradicting it, he said that faith expands upon reason.
7. The rise of colleges
They arose as dormitories for poor students, and as time went on, they started to offer courses that competed with the universities.
For instance, Robert Sorbonne founded a college at Paris in the late-13th century for impoverished students of theology. Eventually, the Sorbonne College became the center of theological studies at Paris.
By the late Middle Ages, well-endowed, well-organized colleges that offered various services to their students were attached to, and even came to dominate, the universities.