Program / Course 12: Patristics and Historical Theology / Lesson 5.1
What you will learn
- Describe the role of monasteries in preserving learning and shaping prayer in the early Middle Ages.
- Explain how cathedral schools and then universities arose in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
- Outline how a theology student studied in a medieval university.
- Explain the effect on theology of the recovery of Aristotle and the rise of the mendicant orders.
The big idea
Between the sixth and thirteenth centuries, the centers of Christian learning moved from monasteries to cathedral schools to universities. Each setting produced a different kind of theology: slow, prayerful reading in the cloister, lively questions in the cathedral schools, and organized disputation in the university. The thirteenth century added newly recovered works of Aristotle and the new orders of friars. Understanding these places explains why theology in the Middle Ages looks the way it does, and why a figure like Thomas Aquinas appeared when he did.
Key terms
- Monasticism
- A way of life in which men or women withdraw from ordinary society to pray and work in community under a rule.
- Cathedral school
- A school attached to a bishop’s church (a cathedral) that trained clergy and later developed into centers of advanced study.
- University
- From the Latin for a whole body or guild. A corporation of teachers and students with its own rules and degrees.
- Mendicant orders
- Religious orders such as the Franciscans and Dominicans whose members, called friars, lived by begging and preaching in towns instead of living in remote monasteries.
- Lectio divina
- Latin for divine reading. The slow, prayerful reading of Scripture practiced in monasteries.
- Sentences
- A textbook by Peter Lombard in the twelfth century that arranged the opinions of the Fathers on major doctrines. It became the standard theology text in the universities.
- Quadrivium and trivium
- The seven liberal arts: grammar, logic and rhetoric (trivium), and arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy (quadrivium).
Background
After the western Roman Empire broke up, learning continued in places that could support it. The most important were monasteries. Benedict of Nursia, writing in the sixth century, produced a Rule that organized the day around communal prayer, work and reading. Monks copied manuscripts of Scripture, the Fathers and some classical works, and without their labor much ancient literature would have been lost. The old picture of a dark age is now seen by most historians as too simple, since there was real intellectual life in many places, but there were also long periods of disruption.
Under Charlemagne, crowned emperor in the year 800, schools were encouraged across his realm, and scholars such as Alcuin of York revived the study of grammar and Scripture. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, towns grew, trade revived and cathedral schools in places like Chartres, Laon and Paris attracted students from far away. Teachers like Anselm and Peter Abelard drew crowds.
From these schools came the universities. Bologna was known for law, Paris for theology, and Oxford, which grew in the late twelfth century, for arts and theology. Cambridge began in 1209. These were guilds of masters and students, and they received privileges from popes and kings.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: The monastery
The monastery was a place of prayer first. Monks gathered several times a day to chant the psalms, and they read Scripture slowly, repeating and meditating on a passage, in the practice called lectio divina. Learning was a way of listening to God. The monastic theologians, such as Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century, wrote often in the form of sermons and commentaries on the Song of Songs, aiming at love of God as much as understanding.
Monastic reform movements arose repeatedly. Cluny, founded in 910, emphasized splendid liturgy. The Cistercians, beginning in 1098, returned to simplicity and manual work. Monasteries also ran schools, hospitals and hospitality, and they were important landowners, so they were entangled in the politics of the age.
Step 2: The cathedral schools
In cathedral schools, students learned the liberal arts and then theology, often from a master of renown. Teachers began to ask questions about the faith in a more systematic way. Abelard’s Sic et Non (Yes and No) lined up contradictory statements from the Fathers and argued that students should learn to examine them with reason. The goal was not to undermine the Fathers but to train the mind in finding agreement.
Around the middle of the twelfth century, Peter Lombard compiled the Sentences, a collection of the Fathers’ opinions on topics from God and creation to the sacraments, in four books. It became the basic textbook, and for centuries a theologian began a career by lecturing on it.
Step 3: The university
Students entered the university first in the faculty of arts, studying grammar, logic and the other liberal arts. After several years they could go on to law, medicine or theology. Theology was the longest course, taking a decade or more. A student progressed from bachelor to master and was licensed to teach.
Teaching took three main forms: the lecture, in which the master read and explained a text; the question, in which a topic was posed and debated; and the formal disputation, in which opposing arguments were set out and answered. These forms are the roots of the scholastic method, which the next lesson examines.
Step 4: Aristotle arrives
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, more works of Aristotle became available in Latin, through translations from Arabic and Greek, along with commentaries by Muslim and Jewish thinkers such as Avicenna, Averroes and Maimonides. These works presented a powerful account of nature, logic and ethics that did not depend on Christian revelation. Some church authorities were alarmed, and in 1277 the bishop of Paris condemned a list of propositions drawn from Aristotelian teaching. Others, including Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, set out to use Aristotle in service of theology.
Step 5: The friars
The thirteenth century saw the rise of the Franciscans, founded by Francis of Assisi in the early years of the century, and the Dominicans, founded by Dominic and approved in 1216. These friars lived in poverty, preached in towns and quickly entered the universities. Dominicans such as Albert and Aquinas and Franciscans such as Bonaventure became leading masters of theology. Disputes between friars and the secular masters at Paris, over who could teach and what poverty meant, were fierce.
- How does reading to pray differ from reading to answer a question?
- Why might teachers like Abelard want students to examine contradictory statements?
- What are the benefits and risks of a method that rests on disputation?
- Why might some church leaders fear the new books of Aristotle?
- How did the friars change the relation between the church and the towns?
- Which setting do you think is closest to how you study today?
Examples
A day in the cloister
A monk rises before dawn for the night office, chants psalms, works in the field or the library, returns to prayer and reads quietly in the afternoon. Learning is one part of a rhythm that includes work and worship. This is the life Benedict describes.
A disputation
A master proposes a question: whether God’s existence can be proved. A student offers objections, the master replies and later writes a summary of the question. The Summa Theologiae of Aquinas follows this pattern.
A student at Paris
A young man arrives from a distant country. He studies arts for several years, hears lectures on the Bible and on Lombard’s Sentences, and after many years may become a master of theology. The path is long and expensive, and few finish.
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholics see the medieval period as a flowering of faith and reason, with monasteries, schools and universities as expressions of the church’s care for learning. The Church treats figures like Benedict, Bernard, Aquinas and Bonaventure as saints and teachers.
Orthodox
Orthodox writers honor monasticism and often admire the monastic character of Western theology before the twelfth century. Many are critical of the rise of the schools, thinking that a rationalist method separated theology from prayer, although some Orthodox scholars appreciate Aquinas.
Protestant
Protestants have often been critical of medieval developments such as the cult of saints and the rule of the papacy, while borrowing much from medieval theology. The Reformers were trained in scholastic methods, and later Protestant scholastics used them. Some modern Protestants appreciate figures like Anselm, Bernard and Aquinas.
Scholarly views
Historians revise older ideas of a dark age and stress the creativity of the period. They debate how much the universities owed to earlier monastic and cathedral schools, how far medieval thought was shaped by Islamic and Jewish learning, and how to understand the relation between faith and reason.
Why it matters
Medieval Europe produced the form of study that most universities still use: lectures, set questions and degrees. It also produced the theological tradition that Catholics and Protestants have both drawn upon. Seeing how the setting shaped the method helps a student read a medieval text without expecting it to read like a modern essay.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: The Middle Ages were a thousand years of ignorance.
Correction: Historians now see real learning and creativity, though with great variation in time and place.
Misunderstanding: Medieval people thought the earth was flat.
Correction: Educated people knew the earth was round. The belief in a flat earth is a later invention.
Misunderstanding: Scholastic theology replaced prayer with logic.
Correction: The great scholastics were also monks, friars and preachers, and they wrote hymns and commentaries on Scripture. Whether logic ever overwhelmed prayer is a matter of opinion.
Misunderstanding: The church opposed the study of Aristotle outright.
Correction: There were restrictions and condemnations in Paris, but within decades Aristotle was a required text. Theologians disagreed on how to use him.
Knowledge check
What role did monasteries play in preserving learning?
Monks copied manuscripts of Scripture, the Fathers and some classical works, ran schools and kept prayerful reading alive through practices such as lectio divina. Benedict’s Rule organized monastic life around prayer, work and reading. Without monastic copying, much ancient literature would not have survived.
What was the Sentences of Peter Lombard?
It was a twelfth century collection of the opinions of the Fathers on major doctrines, in four books. It became the standard theological textbook in the universities, and a student of theology lectured on it for centuries. Aquinas wrote a commentary on it early in his career.
What were the three main teaching forms in the university?
The lecture, in which the master read and explained a text; the question, in which a topic was posed and discussed; and the disputation, in which objections and replies were set out formally. These forms shaped the scholastic method and the Summa Theologiae.
Who were the friars, and why did they matter?
Friars belonged to the mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, founded in the early thirteenth century. They lived in poverty, preached in towns and entered the universities, where figures like Aquinas, Albert and Bonaventure became leading teachers.
Think it through
- Is it possible to study theology in a way that keeps prayer at the center? What would that take?
- How does the place where you learn shape the questions you ask?
- What do you think of the idea that students should examine contradictions among authorities?
- How should a religious tradition deal with a powerful new body of knowledge?
Independent assignment
A map of medieval study
In your notebook, draw a simple timeline from 500 to 1300 and mark the following: Benedict’s Rule, Charlemagne’s coronation, Cluny, the Cistercians, Anselm, Abelard, Peter Lombard, the first universities, the Franciscans, the Dominicans and Aquinas. Then write 250 words explaining how the setting of study changed over these centuries. Aim for 300 to 450 words of prose.
Further study
- Benedict of Nursia, The Rule of St. Benedict Read the prologue and chapters 8 to 20 on prayer, and chapter 48 on daily work and reading.
- Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity Read the chapters on the medieval church, the monastic orders and the universities.
- Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (5 volumes) Read selectively on the growth of scholastic theology.
- Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ A late medieval example of devotional reading, from the Brethren of the Common Life.
- Psalm 119:97 O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.
- Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
- Luke 10:42 Mary hath chosen that good part.