Since the time of the Carolingian Empire, monasteries and cathedral schools had offered the only formal instruction available. Monasteries, geared to religious concerns, were located in rural environments. In contrast, schools attached to cathedrals and run by the bishop and his clergy were frequently situated in bustling cities, where people of many backgrounds stimulated the growth and exchange of ideas. In the eleventh century in Bologna and other Italian cities, wealthy businessmen established municipal schools; in the twelfth century municipal schools in Italy and cathedral schools in France developed into much larger universities, a transformation parallel to the opening of madrasas in Muslim cities (see “Education and Intellectual Life” in Chapter 9).

The growth of the University of Bologna coincided with a revival of interest in Roman law. The study of Roman law as embodied in Justinian’s Code (see “Justinian’s Code of Law” in Chapter 8) had never completely died out in the West, but in the eleventh century the discovery of a complete manuscript of the code in a library in northern Italy led scholars to study and teach Roman law intently. They applied it to practical situations, such as cases of inheritance and landownership.

At the Italian city of Salerno, interest in medicine had persisted for centuries. Greek and Muslim physicians there had studied the use of herbs as cures and had experimented with surgery. The twelfth century ushered in a new interest in Greek medical texts and in the work of Arab and Greek doctors. Ideas from this medical literature spread throughout Europe from Salerno and became the basis of training for physicians at other medieval universities. University training gave physicians high social status and allowed them to charge high fees, although their diagnoses and treatments were based on classical theories, not on interactions with patients.

Although medicine and law were important academic disciplines in the Middle Ages, theology was “the queen of sciences,” so termed because it involved the study of God, who was said to make all knowledge possible. Paris became the place to study theology, and in the first decades of the twelfth century students from all over Europe crowded into the cathedral school of Notre Dame in that city.

University professors (a term first used in the fourteenth century) were known as “schoolmen” or Scholastics. They developed a method of thinking, reasoning, and writing in which questions were raised and authorities cited on both sides of a question. The goal of the Scholastic method was to arrive at definitive answers and to provide a rational explanation for what was believed on faith.

One of the most famous Scholastics was Peter Abelard (1079–1142). Fascinated by logic, which he believed could be used to solve most problems, Abelard used a method of systematic doubting in his writing and teaching. As he put it, “By doubting we come to questioning, and by questioning we perceive the truth.” Abelard was censured by a church council, but he was highly popular with students.

Thirteenth-century Scholastics devoted an enormous amount of time to collecting and organizing knowledge on all topics. These collections were published as summae (SOO-may), or reference books. There were summae on law, philosophy, vegetation, animal life, and theology. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), a professor at the University of Paris, produced the most famous collection, the Summa Theologica, which deals with a vast number of theological questions.

In northern Europe — at Paris and later at Oxford and Cambridge in England — university faculties grouped themselves according to academic disciplines, or schools: law, medicine, arts, and theology. Students lived in privately endowed residential colleges and were considered to be lower-level members of the clergy, so that any student accused of a crime was tried in church, rather than in city, courts. This clerical status, along with widely held ideas about women’s lesser intellectual capabilities, meant that university education was restricted to men.

At all universities the standard method of teaching was the lecture — that is, a reading. With this method the professor read a passage from the Bible, Justinian’s Code, or one of Aristotle’s treatises. He then explained and interpreted the passage. Students wrote down everything. Because books had to be copied by hand, they were extremely expensive, and few students could afford them. Examinations were given after three, four, or five years of study, when the student applied for a degree. Examinations were oral and very difficult. If the candidate passed, he was awarded the first, or bachelor’s, degree. Further study, about as long, arduous, and expensive as it is today, enabled the graduate to try for the master’s and doctor’s degrees. Degrees were technically licenses to teach. Most students, however, did not become teachers. They staffed the expanding royal and papal administrations.