5.Characteristics of mediaeval education
FOUNDATIONS LAID FOR A NEW ORDER. The education which we have just described covers the period from the time of the downfall of Rome to the twelfth or the thirteenth century. It represents what the Church evolved to replace that which it and the barbarians had destroyed. Meager as it still was, after seven or eight centuries of effort, it nevertheless presents certain clearly marked lines of development. The beginnings of a new Christian civilization among the tribes which had invaded and overrun the old Roman Empire are evident, and, toward the latter part of the Middle Ages, we note the development of a number of centers of learning (R. 71) and the beginnings of that specialization of knowledge (church doctrine, classical learning, music, logic and ethics, theology), at different church and monastery schools, which promised much for the future of learning. We also notice, and will see the same evidence in the following chapter, the beginnings of a class of scholarly men, though the scholarship is very limited in scope and along lines thoroughly approved by the Church.
In education proper, in the sense that we understand it, the schools provided were still for a very limited class, and secondary rather than elementary in nature. They were intended to meet the needs of an institution rather than of a people, and to prepare those who studied in them for service to that institution. That institution, too, had concentrated its efforts on preparing its members for life in another world, and not for life or service in this. There were as yet no independent schools or scholars, the monks and clergy represented the one learned class, Theology was the one professional study, the ability to read and write was not regarded by noble or commoner as of any particular importance, and all book knowledge was in a language which the people did not understand when they heard it and could not read. Society was as yet composed of three classes—feudal warriors, who spent their time in amusements or fighting, and who had evolved a form of knightly training for their children; privileged priests and monks and nuns, who controlled all book learning and opportunities for professional advancement; and the great mass of working peasants, engaged chiefly in agriculture, and belonging to and helping to fight the battles of their protecting lord.
For these peasants there was as yet no education aside from what the Church gave through her watchful oversight and her religious services (R. 81), and but little leisure, freedom, wealth, security, or economic need to make such education possible or desirable. Moreover, the other-worldly attitude of the Church made such education seem unnecessary. It was still the education of a few for institutional purposes, though here and there, by the close of the twelfth century, the Church was beginning to urge its members to provide some education for their children (R. 82), and the world was at last getting ready for the evolution of the independent scholar, and soon would be ready for the evolution of schools to meet secular needs.
REPRESSIVE ATTITUDE OF THE MEDIAEVAL CHURCH. The great work of the Church during this period, as we see it to-day, was to assimilate and sufficiently civilize the barbarians to make possible a new civilization, based on knowledge and reason rather than force. To this end the Church had interposed her authority against barbarian force, and had slowly won the contest. Almost of necessity the Church had been compelled to insist upon her way, and this type of absolutism in church government had been extended to most other matters. The Bible, or rather the interpretations of it which church councils, popes, bishops, and theological writers had made, became authoritative, and disobedience or doubt became sinful in the eyes of the Church. [22] The Scriptures were made the authority for everything, and interpretations the most fantastic were made of scriptural verses. Unquestioning belief was extended to many other matters, with the result that tales the most wonderful were recounted and believed. To question, to doubt, to disbelieve—these were among the deadly sins of the early Middle Ages. This attitude of mind undoubtedly had its value in assimilating and civilizing the barbarians, and probably was a necessity at the time, but it was bad for the future of the Church as an institution, and utterly opposed to scientific inquiry and intellectual progress. Monroe well expresses the situation which came to exist when he says:
The validity of any statement, the actuality of any alleged instance, came to be determined, not by any application of rationalistic principle, not by inherent plausibility, not by actual inquiry into the facts of the case, but by its agreement with religious feelings or beliefs, its effect in furthering the influence of the Church or the reputation of a saint—in general, by its relationship to matters of faith. Thus it happens that the chronicles of the monks and the lives of the saints, charming and interesting as they are in their naïveté, their simplicity, their trustful credulity, and their pictures of a life and an attitude of mind so remote from ours, are filled with incidents given as facts that test the greatest faith, strain the most vivid imagination, and shock that innate respect for reality, that it is the purpose of modern education to inculcate. [23]
This authoritative and repressive attitude of the Church expressed itself in many ways. The teaching of the period is an excellent example of this influence. The instruction in the so-called Seven Liberal Arts remained unchanged throughout a period of half a dozen centuries—so much accumulated knowledge passed on as a legacy to succeeding generations. It represented mere instruction; not education. As a recent writer has well expressed it, the whole knowledge and culture contained in the Seven Liberal Arts remained "like a substance in suspension in a medium incapable of absorbing it; unchanged throughout the whole mediaeval period." Inquiry or doubt in religious matters was not tolerated, and scientific inquiry and investigation ceased to exist. The notable scientific advances of the Greeks, their literature and philosophy, and particularly their genius for free inquiry and investigation, no longer influenced a world dominated by an institution preparing its children only for life in a world to come. Not until the world could shake off this mediaeval attitude toward scientific inquiry and make possible honest doubt was any real intellectual progress possible. In a rough, general way the turn in the tide came about the beginning of the twelfth century, and for the next five centuries the Church was increasingly busy trying, like King Canute of old, to stop the waves of free inquiry and scientific doubt from rising higher against the bulwarks it had erected.
THE MEDIAEVAL EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. The educational system which the Church had developed by 1200 continued unchanged in its essential features until after the great awakening known as the Revival of Learning, or Renaissance. This system we have just sketched. For instruction in the elements of learning we have the inner and outer monastery and convent schools, and, in connection with the churches, song schools, and chantry or stipendary schools. In these last we have the beginnings of the parish school for instruction in the elements of learning and the fundamentals of faith for the children of the faithful. In the monasteries, convents, and in connection with the cathedral churches we have the secondary instruction fairly well organized with theTriviumand theQuadriviumas the basis. At the close of the period under consideration in this chapter a few privately endowed grammar schools were just beginning to be founded to supplement the work of the cathedral schools (RS. 141-143). In some of the inner monastery schools and a few of the cathedral schools we also have the beginnings of higher instruction, with theology as the one professional subject and the one learned career.
[Illustration: FIG. 50. EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION DURING THE EARLY MIDDLEAGESThe relative weight of the lines indicates approximate development. Thelines along which educational evolution took place in the later MiddleAges are here clearly marked out.]
All these schools, too, were completely under the control of the Church. There were no private schools or teachers before about 1200. Only the chivalric education was under the control of princes or kings, and even this the Church kept under its supervision. The Church was still the State, to a large degree, and the Church, unlike Greece or Rome, took the education of the young upon itself as one of its most important functions. The schools taught what the Church approved, and the instruction was for religious and church ends. The monks who gave instruction in the monasteries were responsible to the Abbot, who was in turn responsible to the head of the order and through him to the Pope at Rome. Similarly thescholasticusin the cathedral school and theprecentorin the song school were both responsible to the Bishop, and again through Archbishop and Cardinal to the Pope.
THE FIRST TEACHER'S CERTIFICATES AND SCHOOL SUPERVISION. Toward the latter part of the period under consideration in this chapter an interesting development in church school administration took place. As the cathedral and song schools increased assistant teachers were needed, and thescholasticusandprecentorgradually withdrew from instruction and became the supervisors of instruction, or rather the principals of their respective schools. As song or parish schools were established in the parishes of the diocese teachers for these were needed, and thescholasticusandprecentorextended their authority and supervision over these, just as the Bishop had done much earlier (p. 97) over the training and appointment of priests. By 1150 we have, clearly evolved, the system of central supervision of the training of all teachers in the diocese through the issuing, for the first time in Europe, of licenses to teach (R. 83). The system was finally put into legal form by a decree adopted by a general council of the Church at Rome, in 1179, which required that thescholasticus"should have authority to superintend all the schoolmasters of the diocese and grant them licenses without which none should presume to teach," and that "nothing be exacted for licenses to teach" issued by him, thus stopping the charging of fees for their issuance. Theprecentor, in a similar manner, claimed and often secured supervision of all elementary, and especially all song-school instruction. Teachers were also required to take an oath of fealty and obedience (R. 84 b).
As a result of centuries of evolution we thus find, by 1200, a limited but powerful church school system, with centralized control and supervision of instruction, diocesan licenses to teach, and a curriculum adapted to the needs of the institution in control of the schools. We also note the beginnings of secular instruction in the training of the nobility for life's service, though even this is approved and sanctioned by the Church. The centralized religious control thus established continued until the nineteenth century, and still exists to a more or less important degree in the school systems of Italy, the old Austro-Hungarian States, Germany, England, and some other western nations. As we shall see later on, one of the big battles in the process of developing state school systems has come through the attempt of the State to substitute its own organization for this religious monopoly of instruction.
1. Outline the instruction in an inner monastery school.
2. Show how the mediaeval parish school naturally developed as an offshoot of the cathedral schools, and was supplemented later by the endowed chantry schools.
3. What effect did the development of song-school instruction have on the instruction in the cathedral schools?
4. Why was it difficult to develop good cathedral schools during the early Middle Ages?
5. About how much training would be represented to-day by the Seven Liberal Arts, (a) assuming the body of knowledge then known? (b) assuming the body of knowledge for each subject known to-day?
6. What great subject of study has been developed out of one part of the study of mediaeval rhetoric?
7. Why would dialectic naturally not be of much importance, so long as instruction in theology was dogmatic and not a matter of thinking?
8. Characterize the instruction in arithmetic, geometry, and geography during the early Middle Ages. Would we consider such knowledge as of any value? Explain the attention given to such instruction.
9. What great modern subjects of study have been developed out of the mediaeval subjects of arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy?
10. Compare the knowledge of mediaevals and moderns in (a) geography, (b) astronomy.
11. What does the fact that the few great textbooks were in use for so many centuries indicate as to the character of educational progress during the Middle Ages?
12. Was the Church wise in adopting and sanctifying the education of chivalry? Why?
13. What important contributions to world progress came out of chivalric education?
14. What ideals and practices from chivalry have been retained and are still in use to-day? Does the Boy Scouts movement embody any of the chivalric ideas and training?
15. Compare the education of the body by the Greeks and under chivalry.
16. Compare the Athenian ephebic oath with the vows of chivalry.
17. Picture the present world transferred back to a time when theology was the one profession.
18. What educational theory, conscious or unconscious, formed the basis for mediaeval education and instruction?
19. Explain why the Church, after six or seven centuries of effort, still provided schools only for preparation for its own service.
20. What does the lack of independent scholars during the Middle Ages indicate as to possible leisure?
21. Was the attitude of Anselm a perfectly natural one for the Middle Ages? Can progress be made with such an attitude dominant?
22. Contrast the deadly sins of the Middle Ages with present-day conceptions as to education.
23. Contrast the purposes of mediaeval education and the education of to- day.
24. When Greece and Rome offered no precedents, how did the Church come to so fully develop and control the education which was provided?
25. Compare the supervisory work of a modern county superintendent with that of ascholasticusof a mediaeval cathedral.
In the accompanyingBook of Readingsthe following selections are reproduced:
70. Leach: Song and Grammar Schools in England.71. Mullinger: The Episcopal and Monastic Schools.72. Statutes: The School at Salisbury Cathedral.73. Aldwincle: Foundation Grant for a Chantry School.74. Maurus: The Seven Liberal Arts.75. Leach: A Mediaeval Latin Colloquy.76. Quintilian: On the Importance of the Study of Grammar.77. Anglicus: The Elements, and the Planets.(a) Of the Elements.(b) Of Double Moving of the Planets.78. Cott: A Tenth Century Schoolmaster's Books.79. Archbishop of Cologne: The Truce of God.80. Gautier: How the Church used Chivalry.81. Draper: Educational Influences of the Church Services.82. Winchester Diocesan Council: How the Church urged that the Elementsof Religious Education be given.83. Lincoln Cathedral: Licenses required to teach Song.84. English Forms: Appointment and Oath of a Grammar-School Master.(a) Northallerton: Appointment of a master of Song and Grammar.(b) Archdeacon of Ely: Oath of a Grammar-School Master to.
1. Distinguish between song and grammar schools (70), and state what was taught in each. Do we have any modern analogy to the same teacher teaching both schools, as was sometimes done?
2. Distinguish between monastic and episcopal (cathedral) schools (71). When was the great era of each? How do you explain the change in relative importance of the two?
3. Explain the process of evolution of a parish school out of a chantry school.
4. What was the nature of the cathedral school at Salisbury (72)?
5. What type of a school was provided for in the Aldwincle chantry (73)? Why was it not until after the twelfth century that the endowing of schools (73) began to supersede the endowing of priests, churches, and monasteries?
6. How do you explain the need for so many years to master the Seven Liberal Arts (74)?
7. Into what subjects of study have we broken up the old subject of grammar, as described by Quintilian (76), and how have we distributed them throughout our school system? Is technical grammar at present taught in the best possible place?
8. What stage in scientific knowledge do the selections from Anglicus (77 a-b) indicate? What rate of scientific progress is indicated by its translation and length of use?
9. What scope of knowledge is represented in the library (78) of the tenth-century schoolmaster? What does the list indicate as to the state of learning of the time?
10. Picture the manners and morals of a time which called for the proclamation of a Truce of God (79). Would the rate of progress of civilization and the rate of elimination of warfare up to then, and since, indicate that the Church has been very successful in imposing its will?
11. Show how Chivalry was made a great asset to the Church (80).
12. How do you explain the much greater simplicity of the church service of modern Protestant churches than that of the Roman (81) or Greek Catholic churches?
13. Explain the form of mild compulsion toward learning which the diocesan council of Winchester (82) attempted to institute.
14. Is the modern state teacher's certificate a natural outgrowth of the mediaeval licenses (83) to teach grammar and song? Why did the Church insist on these when Rome had not required such?
15. Show how the modern oath of office of a teacher, and the possibility of dismissal for insubordination, is a natural development from the oath of fealty and obedience (84 b) of the mediaeval teacher? Is this true also for our modern notices of appointment (84 a)?
* Abelson, Paul.The Seven Liberal Arts.Addison, Julia de W.Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages.Besant, W.The Story of King Alfred.* Clark, J. W.The Care of Books.Davidson, Thomas. "The Seven Liberal Arts"; inEducationalReview, vol. II, pp. 467-73. (Also in hisAristotle.)Mombert, J. I.History of Charles the Great.* Mullinger, J. B.The Schools of Charles the Great.Sandys, J. E.History of Classical Scholarship, vol. I.Scheffel, Victor.Ekkehard. (Historical novel of monastic life.)Steele, Philip.Mediaeval Lore. (Anglicus' Cyclopaedia.)
THE MOHAMMEDANS IN SPAIN. It will be recalled that in chapter V we mentioned briefly the Mohammedan migrations of the seventh century, and said that we should meet them again a little later on as one of the minor forces in the development of our western civilization. After their defeat at Tours (732) the Mohammedans retired into Spain, mixed with the Iberian- Roman-Visigothic peoples inhabiting the peninsula, and began to develop a civilization there. Figure 33 (p. 114) shows how much of the world the Mohammedans had overrun by 800 A.D., and how much of Spain was in their possession.
In Spain they developed a skillful agriculture (R. 85), as, in lands as hot and dry as Spain, all agriculture to be successful must be. They introduced irrigation, gave special attention to the breeding of horses and cattle, and developed garden and orchard fruits. To them western Europe is indebted for the introduction of many of its orchard fruits, useful plants, and garden vegetables, as well as for a number of important manufacturing processes. The orange, lemon, peach, apricot, and mulberry trees; the spinach, artichoke, and asparagus among vegetables; cotton, rice, sugar cane, and hemp among useful plants; the culture of the silkworm, and the manufacture of silk and cotton garments; the manufacture of paper from cotton, and the making of morocco leather—these are among our debts to these people. Though many of the above had been known to antiquity, they had been lost during the barbarian invasions and were restored only through their re-introduction by the Moslems.
GREAT ABSORPTIVE POWER FOR LEARNING. The original Arabians themselves were not a well-educated people. Before the time of Mohammed we have practically no records as to any education among them. When in their religious conquests they overran Syria (see Map, p. 103), they came in contact with the survivals of that wonderful Greek civilization and learning, and this they absorbed with greatest avidity.
It will be recalled, too, that in chapter IV (p. 94), it was stated that the early Christians developed very important catechetical schools in Egypt and Syria, and especially at Alexandria, Antioch, Edessa, Nisibis, Harran, and Caesarea. [1] (See Figure 27, p. 89.) It was also stated that the Christian instruction imparted at these eastern schools was tinctured through and through with Greek learning and Greek philosophic thought. Here monasteries also were developed in numbers, and Syrian monks had for centuries been busy translating Greek authors into Syriac. It was also stated (p. 94) that the Eastern or Greek division of the Christian Church, of which Constantinople became the central city, was more liberal toward Greek learning than was the Western or Latin division of the Church.
By the fifth century, though, due in part to the breakdown of government, the increasing barbarity of the age, and the greater control of all thinking by the Church, the Eastern Church lost somewhat of its earlier tolerance. In 431 the Church Council of Ephesus put a ban on the Hellenized form of Christian theology advocated by Nestorius, then Patriarch of Constantinople, and drove him and his followers, known asNestorian Christians, from the city. These Nestorians now fled to the old Syrian cities, which early had been so hospitable to Greek learning and thinking. [2] Being now beyond the reach of Christian intolerance and in a friendly atmosphere, they remained there, developing excellent higher schools of the old Greek type, and there the Mohammedans found them when they overran Syria, in 635 A.D.
Mohammedanism now came in contact with an educated people, as it did also in Babylonia (637), in Assyria (640), and in Egypt (642), and the need of a better statement of the somewhat crude faith now became evident. The same process now took place as had occurred earlier with Christianity. The Nestorian Christians and the Syrian monks became the scholars for the Mohammedans, and the Mohammedan faith was clothed in Greek forms and received a thorough tincturing of Greek philosophic thought. Within a century they had translated from Syriac into Arabic, or from the original Greek, much of the old Greek learning in philosophy, science, and medicine, and the cities of Syria, and in particular their capital, Damascus, became renowned for their learning. In 760 Bagdad, on the Tigris, was founded, and superseded Damascus as the capital. Extending eastward, these people were soon busy absorbing Hindu mathematical knowledge, obtaining from them (c. 800) the so-called Arabic notation and algebra.
THEY DEVELOP SCHOOLS AND ADVANCE LEARNING. In 786 Haroun-al-Raschid became Caliph at Bagdad, and he and his son made it an intellectual center of first importance. In all the known world probably no city, not even Constantinople, during the latter part of the eighth century and most of the ninth, could vie with Bagdad as a center of learning. Basra, Kufa, and other eastern cities were also noted places. Schools were opened in connection with the mosques (churches), a university after the old Greek model was founded, a large library was organized, and an observatory was built. Large numbers of students thronged the city, learned Greeks and Jews taught in the schools, and a number of advances on the scientific work done by the Greeks were made. A degree of the earth's surface [3] was measured on the shores of the Red Sea; the obliquity of the ecliptic was determined (c. 830); astronomical tables were calculated; algebra and trigonometry were perfected; discoveries in chemistry not known in Europe until toward the end of the eighteenth century, and advances in physics for which western Europe waited for Newton (1642-1727), were made; and in medicine and surgery their work was not duplicated until the early nineteenth century. Their scholars wrote dictionaries, lexicons, cyclopaedias, and pharmacopoeias of merit (R. 86).
This eastern learning was now gradually carried to Spain by traveling Mohammedan scholars, and there the energy of conquest was gradually turned to the development of schools and learning. By 900 a good civilization and intellectual life had been developed in Spain, and before 1000 the teaching in Spain, especially along Greek philosophical lines, had become sufficiently known to attract a few adventurous monks from Christian Europe. Gerbert (953-1003), afterward Pope Sylvester II (p. 159), was one of the first to study there, though for this he was accused of having transactions with the Devil, and when he died suddenly at fifty, four years after having been elevated to the Papacy, monks over Europe are recorded as having crossed themselves and muttered that the Devil had now claimed his reward. A monk from Monte Cassino also studied at Bagdad, and brought back some of the eastern learning to his monastery.
[Illustration: FIG. 51. SHOWING CENTERS OF MOSLEM LEARNING]
MOHAMMEDAN REACTION SENDS SCHOLARS TO SPAIN. The great intellectual development at Bagdad was in part due to the patronage of a few caliphs of large vision, and was of relatively short duration. The religious enthusiasts among the Mohammedans were in reality but little more zealous for Hellenic learning than the Fathers of the Western Church had been. Finally, about 1050, they obtained the upper hand and succeeded in driving out the Hellenic Mohammedans, just as the Eastern Christians had driven out the Nestorians, and these scholars of the East now fled to northern Africa and to Spain. [4] Almost at once a marked further development in the intellectual life of Spain took place. In Cordova, Granada, Toledo, and Seville strong universities were developed, where Jews and Hellenized Mohammedans taught the learning of the East, and made further advances in the sciences and mathematics. Physics, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, physiology, medicine, and surgery were the great subjects of study. Greek philosophy also was taught. They developed schools and large libraries, taught geography from globes, studied astronomy in observatories, counted time by pendulum clocks, invented the compass and gunpowder, developed hospitals, and taught medicine and surgery in schools (R. 86).
Their cities were equally noteworthy for their magnificent palaces, [5] mosques, public baths, market-places, aqueducts, and paved and lighted streets—things unknown in Christian Europe for centuries to come (R. 85). It became fashionable for wealthy men to become patrons of learning, and to collect large libraries and place them at the disposal of scholars, thus revealing interests in marked contrast to those of the fighting nobility of Christian Europe.
THEIR INFLUENCE ON WESTERN EUROPE. Western Europe of the tenth to the twelfth centuries presented a dreary contrast, in almost every particular, to the brilliant life of southern Spain. Just emerging from barbarism, it was still in an age of general disorder and 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 Averroës (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 Averroës 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'sEthics,Metaphysics,Physics, andPsychology, 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 taleWhich 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."
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 hisBook 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 East. A desire for a philosophy which would explain the mysteries and contradictions of the Christian faith found expression among the scholars of the time. In the larger cathedral schools, at least, it became common to discuss the doctrines of the Church with much freedom.
THE RISE OF SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY. The Church, in a very intelligent and commendable manner, prepared to meet and use this new spirit in the organization, systematization, and restatement of its faith and doctrine, and the great era of Scholasticism [13] now arose. During the latter part of the twelfth and in the thirteenth century Scholasticism was at its height; after that, its work being done, it rapidly declined as an educational force, and the new universities inherited the spirit which had given rise to its labors.
With the new emphasis now placed on reasoning, Dialectic or Logic superseded Grammar as the great subject of study, and logical analysis was now applied to the problems of religion. The Church adopted and guided the movement, and the schools of the time turned their energy into directions approved by it. Aristotle also was in time adopted by the Church, after the translation of his principal works had been effected (Rs. 87, 90), and his philosophy was made a bulwark for Christian doctrine throughout the remainder of the Middle Ages. For the next four centuries Aristotle thoroughly dominated all philosophic thinking. [14] The great development and use of logical analysis now produced many keen and subtle minds, who worked intensively a narrow and limited field of thought. The result was a thorough reorganization and restatement of the theology of the Church.
[Illustration: PLATE 3. SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS]
This was the work of Scholasticism. The movement was not characterized by the evolution of new doctrines, but by a systematization and organization into good teaching form of what had grown up during the preceding thousand years. To a large degree it was also an "accommodation" of the old theology to the new Aristotelian philosophy which had recently been brought back to western Europe, and the statement of the Christian doctrines in good philosophic form.
THE ORGANIZING WORK OF THE SCHOOLMEN. Peter the Lombard (1100-1160), whoseBook of Sentences, mentioned above, had so completely changed the character of the instruction in Theology, began this work of theological reorganization. Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus, 1193-1280) was the first of the great Schoolmen, and has been termed "the organizing intellect of the Middle Ages." He was a German Dominican monk [15], born in Swabia, and educated in the schools of Paris, Padua, and Bologna. Later he became a celebrated teacher at Paris and Cologne. He was the first to state the philosophy of Aristotle in systematic form, and was noted as an exponent of the work of Peter the Lombard. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274), the greatest and most influential scholastic philosopher of the Middle Ages, studied first at Monte Cassino and Naples, and then at Paris and Cologne, under Albertus Magnus. He later became a noted teacher of Philosophy and Theology at Rome, Bologna, Viterbo, Perugia, and Naples. Under him Scholasticism came to its highest development in his harmonizing the new Aristotelianism with the doctrines of the Church. His class teaching was based on Aristotle, [16] the Vulgate Bible, and Peter the Lombard'sBook of Sentences. During the last three years of his life he wrote hisSumma Theologiae, a book which has ever since been accepted as an authoritative statement of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.
The character of the organization made by Peter the Lombard and Thomas Aquinas may be seen from an examination of their method of presentation, which was dogmatic in form and similar in the textbooks of each. The field of Christian Theology was divided out into parts, heads, subheads, etc., in a way that would cover the subject, and a group of problems, each dealing with some doctrinal point, was then presented under each. The problem was first stated in the text. Next the authorities and arguments for each solution other than that considered as orthodox were presented and confuted, in order. The orthodox solution was next presented, the arguments and authorities for such solution quoted, and the objections to the correct solution presented and refuted (R. 152).
RESULTS OF THEIR WORK. The work of the Schoolmen was to organize and present in systematic and dogmatic form the teachings of the Church (R. 92). This they did exceedingly well, and the result was a thorough organization of Theology as a teaching subject. They did little to extend knowledge, and nothing at all to apply it to the problems of nature and man. Their work was abstract and philosophical instead, dealing wholly with theological questions. The purpose was to lay down principles, and to offer a training in analysis, comparison, classification, and deduction which would prepare learned and subtle defenders of the faith of the Church. So successful were the Schoolmen in their efforts that instruction in Theology was raised by their work to a new position of importance, and a new interest in theological scholarship and general learning was awakened which helped not a little to deflect many strong spirits from a life of warfare to a life of study. They made the problems of learning seem much more worth while, and their work helped to create a more tolerant attitude toward the supporters of either side of debatable questions by revealing so clearly that there are two sides to every question. This new learning, new interest in learning, and new spirit of tolerance the rising universities inherited.
THE OLD ROMAN CITIES. The old Roman Empire, it will be remembered, came to be largely a collection of provincial cities. These were the centers of Roman civilization and culture. After the downfall of the governing power of Rome, the great highways were no longer repaired, brigandage became common, trade and intercourse largely ceased, and the provincial cities which were not destroyed in the barbarian invasions declined in population and number, passing under the control of their bishops who long ruled them as feudal lords. During the long period of disorder many of the old Roman cities entirely disappeared (R. 49). Only in Italy, and particularly in northern Italy, did these old cities retain anything of their earlier municipal life, or anything worth mentioning of their former industry and commerce. But even here they lost most of their earlier importance as centers of culture and trade, becoming merely ecclesiastical towns. After the death of Charlemagne, the break-up of his empire, and the institution of feudal conditions, the cities and towns declined still more in importance, and few of any size remained.
In Italy feudalism never attained the strength it did in northern Europe. Throughout all the early Middle Ages the cities there retained something of their old privileges, though ruled by prince-bishops residing in them. They also retained something of the old Roman civilization, and Roman legal usages and some knowledge of Roman law never quite died out. In other respects they much resembled mediaeval cities elsewhere.
REESTABLISHMENT OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. After the disintegration of Charlemagne's empire, the portion of it now known as Germany broke up into fragments, largely independent of one another, and full of fight and pride. The result there was continual and pitiless warfare. This, coupled with the raids of the Northmen along the northern coast and the Magyars on the east, led to the election of a king in 919 (Henry the Fowler) who could establish some semblance of unity and order. By 961 the German duchies and small principalities had been so consolidated that a succeeding king (Otto I) felt himself able to attempt to reëstablish the Holy Roman Empire by subjugating Italy and annexing it as an appendage under German rule.
He descended into Italy (961), subjugated the cities, overthrew the Papacy, created a pope to his liking, and reëstablished the old Empire, in name at least. For a century the German rule was nominal, but with the outbreak of the conflict in the eleventh century between king and pope over the question of which one should invest the bishops with their authority (known as theinvestiture conflict, 1075-1122), Pope Gregory VII humbled the German king (Henry IV) at Canossa (1077) and won a partial success. Then followed repeated invasions of Italy, and a century and a half of conflicts between pope and king before the dream of universal empire under a German feudal king ended in disaster, and Italy was freed from Teutonic rule.
[Illustration: FIG. 54, THE CITY-STATES OF NORTHERN ITALYAll of the cities in the valley of the Po, except Turin, Pavia, andMantua, were members of the Lombard League of 1167.]
THE ITALIAN CITIES REVIVE THE STUDY OF ROMAN LAW. As was stated above, Roman legal usages and some knowledge of Roman law had never quite died out in these Italian cities. But, while regarded with reverence, the law was not much understood, little study was given to it, and important parts of it were neglected and forgotten. The struggle with the ruling bishops in the second half of the eleventh century, and the discussions which arose during the investiture conflict, caused new attention to be given to legal questions, and both the study of Roman (civil) and Church (canon) law were revived. The Italian cities stood with the Papacy in the struggles with the German kings, and, in 1167, those in the Valley of the Po formed what was known as theLombard Leaguefor defense. Under the pressure of German oppression they now began a careful study of the known Roman law in an effort to discover some charter, edict, or grant of power upon which they could base their claim for independent legal rights. The result was that the study of Roman law was given an emphasis unknown in Italy since the days of the old Empire. What had been preserved during the period of disorder at last came to be understood, additional books of the law were discovered, and men suddenly awoke to a realization that what had been before considered as of little value actually contained much that was worth studying, as well as many principles of importance that were applicable to the conditions and problems of the time.
[Illustration: FIG. 55. FRAGMENT FROM THE RECOVERED "DIGEST" OF JUSTINIAN Capitals and small letters are here used, but note the difficulty of reading without spacing or punctuation.]
The great student and teacher of law of the period was Irnerius of Bologna (c. 1070-1137), who began to lecture on theCodeand theInstitutesof Justinian about 1110 to 1115, and soon attracted large numbers of students to hear his interpretations. About this same time theDigest, much the largest and most important part of the old law, was discovered and made known. [17]
This gave clearness to the whole, as before its discovery the study of Roman law was like the study of Aristotle when only parts of theOrganonwere known. Irnerius and his co-laborers at Bologna now collected and arranged the entire body of Roman civil law (Corpus Juris Civilis) (R. 93), introduced theDigestto western Europe, and thus made a new contribution of first importance to the list of possible higher studies. Law now ceased to be a part of Rhetoric (p. 157) and became a new subject of study, with a body of material large enough to occupy a student for several years. This was an event of great intellectual significance. A new study was now evolved which offered great possibilities for intellectual activity and the exercise of the critical faculty, while at the same time showing veneration for authority. Law was thus placed alongside Theology as a professional subject, and the evolution of the professional lawyer from the priest was now for the first time made possible.
CANON LAW ALSO ORGANIZED AS A SUBJECT OF STUDY. Inspired by the revival of the study of civil law, a monk of Bologna, Gratian by name, set himself to make a compilation of all the Church canons which had been enacted since the Council of Nicaea (325) formulated the first twenty (p. 96), and of the rules for church government as laid down by the church authorities. This he issued in textbook form, about 1142, under the title ofDecretum Gratiani. So successful were his efforts that his compilation was "one of those great textbooks that take the world by storm." It did for canon (church) law what the rediscovery of the JustinianCodehad done for civil law; that is, it organized canon law as a new and important teaching subject.
TheDecretumof Gratian was published in three parts, and was organized after the same plan as Abelard'sSic et Non, except that Gratian drew conclusions from the mass of evidence he presented on each topic. It contained 147 "Distinctions" (questions; cases of church policy), upon each of which were cited the church canons and the views and decisions of important church authorities. [18] This volume was added to by popes later on, [19] so that by the fifteenth century a large body of canon law had grown up, which was known as theCorpus Juris Canonici. Canon Law was thus separated from Theology and added to Civil Law as another new subject of study for both theological and legal students, and the two subjects of Canon and Civil Law came to constitute the work of the law faculties in the universities which soon arose in western Europe.
[Illustration: FIG. 56. THE FATHER OF MEDICINE HIPPOCRATES OF COS (460- 367? B.C.)]
THE BEGINNINGS OF MEDICAL STUDY. The Greeks had made some progress in the beginnings of the study of disease (p. 47). Aristotle had given some anatomical knowledge in his writings on animals, and had theorized a little about the functions of the human body. The real founder of medical science, though, was Hippocrates, of the island of Cos (c. 460-367 B.C.), a contemporary of Plato. He was the first writer on the subject who attempted to base the practice of the healing art on careful observation and scientific principles. He substituted scientific reason for the wrath of offended deities as the causes of disease, and tried to offer proper remedies in place of sacrifices and prayers to the gods for cures. His descriptions of diseases were wonderfully accurate, and his treatments ruled medical practice for ages. [20] He knew, however, little as to anatomy. Another Greek writer, Galen [21](131-201 A.D.), wrote extensively on medicine and left an anatomical account of the human body which was unsurpassed for more than a thousand years. His work was known and used by the Saracens. Avicenna (980-1037), an eastern Mohammedan, wrote aCanon of Medicinein which he summarized the work of all earlier writers, and gave a more minute description of symptoms than any preceding writer had done. These works, together with a few minor writings by teachers in Spain and Salerno, formed the basis of all medical knowledge until Vesalius published hisSystem of Human Anatomy, in 1543.
The Roman knowledge of medicine was based almost entirely on that of the Greeks, and after the rise of the Christians, with their new attitude toward earthly life and contempt for the human body, the science fell into disrepute and decay. Saint Augustine (354-430), in his great work onThe City of God, speaks with some bitterness of "medical men who are called anatomists," and who "with a cruel zeal for science have dissected the bodies of the dead, and sometimes of sick persons, who have died under their knives, and have inhumanly pried into the secrets of the human body to learn the nature of disease and its exact seat, and how it might be cured." [22] During the early Middle Ages the Greek medical knowledge practically disappeared, and in its place came the Christian theories of satanic influence, diabolic action, and divine punishment for sin. Correspondingly the cures were prayers at shrines and repositories of sacred relics and images, which were found all over Europe, and to which the injured or fever-stricken peasants hied themselves to make offerings and to pray, and then hope for a miracle.
Toward the middle of the eleventh century Salerno, a small city delightfully situated on the Italian coast (see Map, p. 194), thirty-four miles south of Naples, began to attain some reputation as a health resort. In part this was due to the climate and in part to its mineral springs. Southern Italy had, more than any other part of western Europe, retained touch with old Greek thought. The works of Hippocrates and Galen had been preserved there, the monks at Monte Cassino had made some translations, and sometime toward the middle of the eleventh century the study of the Greek medical books was revived here. The Mohammedan medical work by Avicenna (p. 185), also early became known here in translation. About 1065 Constantine of Carthage, a converted Jew and a learned monk, who had traveled extensively in the East [23] and who had been forced to flee from his native city because of a suspicion of "black art," began to lecture at Salerno on the Greek and Mohammedan medical works and the practice of the medical art. In 1099 Robert, Duke of Normandy, returning from the First Crusade, stopped here to be cured of a wound, and he and his knights later spread the fame of Salerno all over Europe. The result was the revival of the study of Medicine in the West, and Salerno developed into the first of the medical schools of Europe. Montpellier, in southern France, also became another early center for the study of Medicine, drawing much of its medical knowledge from Spain. Another new subject of professional study was now made possible, and Faculties of Medicine were in time organized in most of the universities as they arose. The instruction, though, was chiefly book instruction, Galen being the great textbook until the seventeenth century.
THE CRUSADES. Perhaps the most romantic happenings during the Middle Ages were that series of adventurous expeditions to the then Far East, undertaken by the kings and knights of western Europe in an attempt to reclaim the Holy Land from the infidel Turks, who in the eleventh century had pushed in and were persecuting Christian pilgrims journeying to Jerusalem. For centuries single pilgrims, small bands of pilgrims, and sometimes large numbers led by priest or noble, had journeyed to distant shrines, to Rome, and to the birthplace of the Saviour, [24] impelled by pure religious devotion, a desire to do penance for sin, or seeking a cure from some disease by prayer and penance. It was the spirit of the age. Says Adams: [25]
A pilgrimage was … in itself a religious act securing merit and reward for the one who performed it, balancing a certain number for his sins, and making his escape from the world of torment hereafter more certain. The more distant and more difficult the pilgrimage, the more meritorious, especially if it led to such supremely holy places as those which had been sanctified by the presence of Christ himself. For the man of the world, for the man who could not, or would not, go into monasticism, the pilgrimage was the one conspicuous act by which he could satisfy the ascetic need, and gain its rewards. A crusade was a stupendous pilgrimage, under especially favorable and meritorious conditions.
[Illustration: FIG. 57. A PILGRIM OF THE MIDDLE AGES(From an old manuscript in the British Museum)]
The Mohammedan Arabs who took possession of the Holy Land in the seventh century had treated the pilgrims considerately, but the Turks were of a different stamp. In 1071 they had defeated the Eastern Emperor, captured all Asia Minor, and had taken possession of the fortress of Nicaea (Map, p. 183), near Constantinople. The Eastern Emperor now appealed to Rome for help. In 1077 the Turks captured Jerusalem, and returning pilgrims soon began to report having experienced great hardships. In 1095 Pope Urban, in a stirring address to the Council of Clermont (France), issued a call to the lords, knights, and foot soldiers of western Christendom to cease destroying their fellow Christians in private warfare, and to turn their strength of arms against the infidel and rescue the Holy Land. The journey was to take the place of penance for sin, many special privileges were extended to those who went, and those who died on the journey or in battle with the infidels were promised entrance into heaven. [26] nobles and peasants, filled with a desire for adventure and a sense of personal sin, no surer way of satisfying either was to be found than the long pilgrimage to the Saviour's tomb. In France and England the call met with instant response. Unfortunately for the future of civilization, the call met with but small response from the nobles of German lands.
The First Crusade set out in 1096. A second went in 1144, and a third in 1187. These were the great Crusades, though five others were undertaken during the thirteenth century. Jerusalem was taken and lost. The Christians quarreled with one another and with the Greeks, though with the Saracens they established somewhat friendly relations, and a mutual respect arose. The armies which went were composed of all kinds of people —lords, knights, merchants, adventurers, peasants, outlaws—and a spirit of adventure and a desire for personal gain, as well as a spirit of religious devotion, actuated many who went. In 1204 the Venetians diverted the fourth crusade to the capture of Constantinople, and established there an outpost of their great commercial empire. The history of the crusades we do not need to trace. The important matter for our purpose was the results of the movement on the intellectual development of western Europe.
RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES ON WESTERN EUROPE. In a sense the Crusades were an outward manifestation of the great change in thinking and ideals which had begun sometime before in western Europe. They were at once both a sign and a cause of further change. The old isolation was at last about to end, and intercommunication and some common ideas and common feelings were being brought about. Both those who went and those who remained at home were deeply stirred by the movement. Christendom as a great international community, in which all alike were interested in a common ideal and in a common fight against the infidel, was a new idea now dawning upon the mass of the people, whereas before it had been but little understood.
The travel to distant lands, the sight of cities of wealth and power, and the contact with peoples decidedly superior to themselves in civilization, not only excited the imagination and led to a broadening of the minds of those who returned, but served as well to raise the general level of intelligence in western Europe. Some new knowledge also was brought back, but that was not at the time of great importance. The principal gain came in the elimination forever of thousands of quarreling, fighting noblemen, [27] thus giving the kingly power a chance to consolidate holdings and begin the evolution of modern States; in the marked change of attitude toward the old problems; in the awakening of a new interest in the present world; in the creation of new interests and new desires among the common people; in the awakening of a spirit of religious unity and of national consciousness; and especially in the awakening of a new intellectual life, which soon found expression in the organization of universities for study and in more extensive travel and geographical exploration than the world had known since the days of ancient Rome. The greatest of all the results, however, came through the revival of trade, commerce, manufacturing, and industry in the rising cities of western Europe, with the consequent evolution of a new and important class of merchants, bankers, and craftsmen, who formed a new city class and in time developed a new system of training for themselves and their children.
THE REVIVAL OF CITY LIFE. The old cities of central and northern Italy, as was stated above, continued through the early Middle Ages as places of some little local importance. In the eleventh century they overthrew in large part the rule of their Prince-Bishops, and became little City- Republics, much after the old Greek model. Outside of Italy almost the only cities not destroyed during the period of the barbarian invasions were the episcopal cities, that is cities which were the residences of bishops.
Outside of Italy the present cities of western Europe either rose on the ruins of former Roman provincial cities, or originated about some monastery or castle, on or adjacent to land at one time owned by monks or feudal lord. An ever-increasing company of peasants, themselves little more than serfs in the beginning, huddled together in such places for the protection afforded, and a walled feudal town eventually resulted (R. 94 a). This later, in one way or another, secured its freedom from monastic control or feudal lord, and evolved into the free city we know to-day. Originally each little city was a self-sustaining community. The farming and grazing lands lay outside, while the people were crowded compactly together within the protecting town walls. The need for walls that could be manned for defense, gates that could shut out the marauder, the narrow, dirty streets, and the lack of any sanitary ideas, all alike tended to keep the towns small. [28] The insecurity of life, the constant warfare, the repeated failures or destruction of crops without and want within, and the high death-rate from disease, all kept down the population. A town of a thousand people in the early Middle Ages was a place of some importance, while probably no city outside of Italy, excepting Paris and London, had ten thousand inhabitants before the year 1200. In all England there were but 2,150,000 people, according to the Domesday Survey (1086), while to- day the city of London alone contains nearly three times that number.
[Illustration: FIG. 58. A TYPICAL MEDIAEVAL TOWN (PRUSSIAN) All the elements of a typical mediaeval town are seen here—the walls for defense, the watch-towers, the churches, the tall cathedral, the castle, and the high houses huddled together.]
After about the year 1000 a revival of something like city life begins to be noticeable here and there in the records of the time (R. 94 a), and by 1100 these signs begin to manifest themselves in many places and lands. By 1200 the cities of Europe were numerous, though small, and their importance in the life of the times [29] was rapidly increasing (R. 94 b).
THE RISE OF A CITY CLASS. As the mediaeval towns increased in size and importance the inhabitants, being human, demanded rights. Between 1100 and 1200 there were frequent revolts of the people of the mediaeval towns against their feudal overlord, and frequent demands were made for charters granting privileges to the towns. Sometimes these insurrections were put down with a bloody hand. Sometimes, on the contrary, the overlord granted a charter of rights, willingly or unwillingly, and freed the people from obligation to labor on the lands in return for a fixed money payment. Sometimes the king himself granted the inhabitants a charter by way of curbing the power of the local feudal lord or bishop. The towns became exceedingly skillful in playing off lord against bishop, and the king against both. In England, Flanders, France, and Germany some of the towns had become wealthy enough to purchase their freedom and a charter at some time when their feudal overlord was particularly in need of money. These charters, or birth certificates for the towns, were carefully drawn and officially sealed documents of great value, and were highly prized as evidences of local liberty. The document created a "free town," and gave to the inhabitants certain specified rights as to self-government, the election of magistrates—aldermen, mayor, burgomaster—the levying and payment of taxes, and the military service to be rendered. Before the evolution of strong national governments these charters created hundreds of what were virtually little City-States throughout Europe (R. 95).
In these towns a new estate or class of people was now created (R. 96), in between the ruling bishops and lords on the one hand and the peasants tilling the land on the other. These were the citizens—freemen, bourgeoisie, burghers. Out of this new class of city dwellers new social orders—merchants, bankers, tradesmen, artisans, and craftsmen—in time arose, and these new orders soon demanded rights and obtained some form of education for their children. The guild or apprenticeship education which early developed in the cities to meet the needs of artisans and craftsmen (R. 99), and the burgh or city schools of Europe, which began to develop in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, were the educational results of the rise of cities and the evolution of these new social classes. The time would soon be ripe for the mysteries of learning to be passed somewhat farther down the educational pyramid, and new classes in society would begin the mastery of its symbols.
[Illustration: FIG. 59. THE EDUCATIONAL PYRAMID(From Smith, W. R.,Educational Sociology, p. 176)The concave pyramid suggests comparative numbers. Formal education beganat the top, and has slowly worked downward.]
THE REVIVAL OF COMMERCE. The first city of mediaeval Europe to obtain commercial prominence was Venice. She early sold salt and fish obtained from the lagoons to the Lombards in the Valley of the Po, and sent trading ships to the Greek East. By the year 1000 Venetian ships were bringing the luxuries and riches of the Orient to Venice, and the city soon became a great trading center. There the partially civilized Christian knight "spent splendidly," and the Bohemian, German, and Hunnish lords came [30] to buy such of the luxuries of the East as they could afford. By 1100 Venice was a free City-State, the mistress of the Adriatic, and the trade of the East with Christian Europe passed over her wharves. From the Crusades she profited greatly, carrying knights eastward in the great fleet she had developed, and carpets, fabrics, perfumes, spices, dyes, drugs, silks, and precious stones on the return voyage. From Tana and Trebizond her traders penetrated far into the interior. Her ships and merchants "held the Golden East in fee." By 1400 she was the wealthiest and most powerful city in Europe.
[Illustration: FIG. 60. TRADE ROUTES AND COMMERCIAL CITIES]
Genoa in time became the great rival of Venice. Marseilles also developed a large trade in the Mediterranean and with the north. From these three cities trade routes ran to the cities of Flanders, England, and Germany, as is shown in the map below. By the thirteenth century, Augsburg, Nuremburg, Magdeburg, Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, Antwerp, Ghent, Ypres, Bruges, and London were developing into great commercial cities. Despite bad roads, bad bridges, [31] bad inns, "robber knights" and bandits, the commerce once carried on by Rome with her provinces was reviving. Great fairs, or yearly markets, came to be held in the large interior towns, to which merchants came from near and far to display and exchange their wares, and, still more important, from the standpoint of advancing general education, to exchange ideas and experiences. The "luxuries" displayed at these markets by traveling merchants from the south—salt, pepper, spices, sugar, drugs, dyestuffs, glass beads, glassware, table implements, perfumes, ornaments, underwear, articles of dress, silks, velvets, carpets, rugs—dazzled and astounded the simple townspeople of western Europe. These fairs became educational forces of a high order.
THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRY AND BANKING. The trading of articles at seaports and at the interior city fairs came first, and this soon worked a revolution in industry. Instead of agriculture being almost the only occupation, and the feeding of the local population the only purpose, with only such arts and industries practiced as were needed to supply the wants of the townsmen, it now became possible to create a surplus to barter at the fairs for luxuries from the outside. Local industries, heretofore of but little importance, now developed into trades, and the manufacture of articles for outside sale was begun. At first manufacturing was very limited in scope, and confined largely to local handicrafts or the imitation of imported articles, but later new and important industries arose—the glass industry in Venice, the gold and silver industry of Florence, the weaving industry at Mainz and Erfurt, and the wool industry of Flanders. The craftsman and artisan, as well as the merchant and trader, were now developed in the towns, and soon became important members of the new social order. As serfs and villeins [32] were set free from the land [33] they came to the towns, adding more members to the new industrial classes (R. 96). From 1200 on there was a great revival of industry in western Europe, and by 1500 merchants and craftsmen had won back the place once held by merchants and craftsmen in Roman life and trade.