§3. THE CAROLINGIAN REVIVAL OF LEARNING The fusion and Teu tonic ele ments in civilization THE WORK OF CHARLES THE GREAT (г. 771-814). The one important aspect of educational history from the seventh of Roman to the twelfth centuries that was not wholly monastic, was the revival of learning under the Emperor Charlemagne. The task of this great emperor was to unify the work of the Teuton and that of the Roman, to adjust the barbarian Frank to the Roman culture, to transfer the foundations of social organization to the German, who was hereafter to build upon it the structure of modern society. The transfer of the religious element had been made through the Holy Catholic Church, and the barbarians were now at least nominal Christians. Through the Holy Roman Empire, established by Charles in 800, the political and legal structure of society was finally accepted by the Teuton. There remained to be added to these forms of external unity, that internal unity which consists in a community of ideas, of language, and of the cultural elements of social life. It was the ambition of Charles to bring about this union, by the adoption of the Latin language, of the learning of the Church, and of such of the Roman culture as survived. In 782 Charles called Alcuin from the cathedral school at York to assist him in this work. For a century or more preceding this time, Irish monks had been largely instrumental in missionary and educational activities on the Continent, and the chaplains of the court of the Merovingian kings had in a way attempted to foster learning. But this school of the palace was developed by Alcuin into a definite institution, patronized by Charles himself, by other members of the royal family, and by the youth of the nobility. From it Charles drew many of his assistants in the administration of his great empire. While the work of the school was very meager in its literary character, yet its importance was great owing to the influence which it exerted as an example. In 787 and following years, Charles The palace school and its influence The capitularies of the reforms of monastic education issued his capitularies upon schools, which have been considered by some, though in a somewhat figurative sense we believe, to be the foundations of modern education, "the charter of modern thought." They commanded the study of letters both by the clergy and by the monks. The capitulary of 789 says: "Let every monastery and every Charles and abbey have its school, where boys may be taught the Psalms, the system of musical notation, singing, arithmetic, and grammar; and let the books which are given them be free from faults, and let care be taken that the boys do not spoil them either when reading or writing." Charles's officials, the missi dominici, were empowered to visit all monasteries, in order to enforce the provisions of these edicts and to see that the monks lived according to their rules. At least in one bishopric, that of Orleans, there was an attempt to carry out similar provisions in regard to the parish churches, and thus to form a system of elementary schools. This gives basis to the extravagant claim that elementary education for the lower classes was more general in France in the eighth century than in the early half of the nineteenth century. The other extreme of interpretation is given by Gibbon, who summarizes the whole movement by saying that “the emperor strove to acquire the practice of writing, which every peasant now acquires in his infancy." Alcuin as Abbot of Alcuin (735-804), on account of his influence upon Charles, as seen through these various edicts, is generally regarded as the most important educator during the first half of the Middle Ages. The abbacy of Tours, which Charles bestowed upon Alcuin in 794, was the most important ecclesiastical office in France. Its landed possessions were almost a department in extent, and it was offered as a reproach to Alcuin that he was master of twenty thousand slaves. This monastery Alcuin made the center of learning in France as well as the center of influence in the Church. To him flocked the youth desirous of learning, and from the monastery went out an ever increasing stream of influence in the work of his pupils and disciples, in numerous tion were monasteries throughout the land. In Alcuin's later years, his ideas of education grew more restricted. He rejected the study His ideas of the classical literature, to which as a youth he himself had of educabeen addicted; he emphasized the ascetic aspect of the monastic narrow training; he limited his pupils and the monasteries in general to the study of the sacred writings. On the other hand, he took pains to build up a great library at Tours, sending copyists to England for this purpose, and encouraged a like activity and interest in the other monasteries. Though his learning was probably as great as that of any one of his century, yet his scholarship was limited. His great service was to bring learning to the support of the Church, and in conjunction with Charles to demonstrate that intellectual training was quite as essential to the welfare of society as efforts at purely religious and moral betterment. writings of Following Cassiodorus, with whose writings he was familiar, Educational and from whom he borrowed in his own writings on the liberal Alcuin arts, he identified these latter with the seven pillars of the temple of wisdom and thus gave Biblical sanction to such study. He himself wrote on Grammar, on Rhetoric, on Dialectic, on Arithmetic, and on The Seven Liberal Arts. The treatises on the special subjects are in the catechetical form, — that of question and answer, so familiar for centuries to come. Some of them are almost puerile in character. The arithmetic consists of fifty-three propositions, of which forty-five are in simple reckoning. Many are in arithmetical and geometrical proportion, with little or no idea of principles involved. Several are trivial catch questions of modern almanac variety, such as "After a farmer has turned thrice at each end of the field, how many furrows has he drawn?" Alcuin's reputation as a scholar depended upon his several works on grammar. The school under Rabanus Maurus (776-856) was the ablest and most noted pupil of Alcuin. As the abbot of Fulda, the first and most im- at Fulda portant monastery and school in North Germany, he exerted Rabanus an influence in this region similar to that of Alcuin in Frank The beginnings of scholastic discussion under John the Scot land. Like Alcuin, he had some slight knowledge of Greek, Joannes Scotus Erigina, or John the Scot (c. 810-c. 875), the most noted successor of Alcuin in the palace school, was called by Charles the Bald, about 845, from the British Isles as Alcuin had been by Charles. Of greater scholarship than either Alcuin or Rabanus, he introduced the study of the Greek language and brought a wider knowledge of the ancient learning, especially of the Greek Fathers, than had hitherto been found among the Teutons. With a much more liberal attitude toward the pagan authors, with whom he had a fairly wide acquaintance, he made the work of Capella the chief text in secular learning in the monasteries. Of more vigorous mind than any of his predecessors, he laid more emphasis upon the study of dialectic than had any before him. Being somewhat heretical in his views, he stimulated an unprecedented activity in theological (discussion. With John the long conflict between realism and nominalism really begins. The work and influence of Rabanus Maurus and John the Scot lead directly to the great revival of intellectual interest in the eleventh and the twelfth centuries which will be discussed under scholasticism. 84. SCHOLASTICISM. EDUCATION AS AN INTELLECTUAL DISCIPLINE /NATURE OF SCHOLASTICISM. Scholasticism is the term given to the type of intellectual life, and hence of education, that prevailed from the eleventh to the fifteenth century inclusive. It was largely responsible for the origin of universities and represented the work of these institutions for three cism is the type of life that during the later Middle Ages It is not a body of principles isolation, there re sulted a or four centuries. Scholasticism produced a vast literature Scholastiwhich possesses very distinct characteristics of its own. Its aim was definite, though narrow; its subject-matter restricted; intellectual its method keen and subtle; its outcome fruitful in the develop- dominated ment of certain mental traits and abilities. As a type of intellectual life, scholasticism has been as grossly abused and as much underestimated during the centuries following its overthrow by the Renaissance movement of the sixteenth century, as it was over-valued by its own devotees. Scholasticism is not characterized by any group of principles or beliefs, but is rather a peculiar method or type of intellectual activity. THE PURPOSE OF SCHOLASTIC THOUGHT. — The dom- With the inant characteristic of the intellectual life of the early half of down of breaking the Middle Ages was the attitude of unquestioned obedience mediaval to authority; of receptivity to all doctrines, statements or incidents sanctioned by the Church; of dependence upon formal truths dogmatically established; of an antagonism to any state of doubt, of questioning or of inquiry as wrong and sinful in itself. By the eleventh century a new attitude was necessary. Heretical views had crept in from the East and had to be met by argument as well as by force. A few men of exceptional learning, especially John the Scot of the ninth century, had suggested many questions that could not be ignored. The study of dialectic, which had received new and unprecedented emphasis from the time of Rabanus Maurus, had stimulated an interest in intellectual activity and in the logical formulation and statement of religious beliefs. The Crusade movement had broken down the isolation and the rusticity of the people of the West through their contact with the variety of beliefs in the East. All these changes stimulated new intellectual interests and made it necessary to state religious beliefs in new forms. new type of thought The purpose of scholasticism was to bring reason to the sup- Support of (port of faith; to strengthen the religious life and the Church faith by by the development of intellectual power. It aimed to silence R reason |