The New Learning and the Rise of the University

Since the Carolingian period schools had been connected to monasteries and cathedrals, where they trained men to become either monks or priests. Some schools were better endowed with books and masters (or teachers) than others; a few developed a reputation for a certain kind of theological approach or specialized in a particular branch of learning, such as literature, medicine, or law. By the end of the eleventh century, the best schools were generally in the cathedrals of the larger cities: Reims, Paris, and Montpellier in France, and Bologna in Italy.

Finding these schools both exciting and practical, eager students flocked to them. Teachers were forced to search out larger halls to accommodate the crush. Some set up shop by renting a room. If a teacher could prove his mettle in the classroom, he had no trouble finding paying students.

Because schools hitherto had been the training grounds for clergymen, all students were considered clerics, whether or not they had been ordained. Using Latin, Europe’s common language, students could drift from, say, Italy and Spain to France and England, wherever a noted master had settled. Students joined crusaders, pilgrims, and merchants to make the roads of Europe crowded indeed as the consolidation of castellanies, counties, and kingdoms made violence against travelers less frequent. Markets, taverns, and lodgings sprang up in urban centers to serve the needs of transients.

What the students sought, above all, was knowledge of the seven liberal arts. Grammar, rhetoric, and logic (or dialectic) belonged to the beginning arts, the so-called trivium. Logic, involving the technical analysis of texts as well as the application and manipulation of mental constructs, was a transitional subject leading to the second part of the liberal arts, the quadrivium. This comprised four areas of study that we might call theoretical math and science: arithmetic, geometry, music (theory), and astronomy. Of all these arts, logic appealed the most to twelfth-century students. Medieval students and masters were convinced that logic could order and clarify every issue, even questions about the nature of God.

After studying the trivium, students went on to schools of medicine, theology, or law. Paris was renowned for theology, Montpellier for medicine, and Bologna for law. All of these schools trained men for jobs. The law schools, for example, taught men who would later serve popes, bishops, kings, princes, and communes. Scholars interested in the quadrivium tended to pursue those studies outside the normal school curriculum, and few gained their living through such pursuits. With books expensive and hard to find, lectures were the chief method of communication. Students committed the lectures to memory.

The remarkable renewal of scholarship in the twelfth century had an unexpected benefit: we know a great deal about the men involved in it—and a few of the women—because they wrote so much, often about themselves. Three important figures may serve to typify the scholars of the period: Abelard and Heloise, who were early examples of the new learning; and Peter the Chanter, the product of a slightly later period.

Although Peter Abelard (1079–1142) was expected to become a lord and warrior, he gave up his inheritance to become one of the twelfth century’s greatest thinkers. In his autobiographical account, The Story of My Misfortunes, Abelard described how he first studied with one of the best-known teachers of his day in Paris. Soon he began to lecture and to gather students of his own. Around 1122–1123, he composed a textbook for his students, Sic et Non (Yes and No). It consisted of opposing positions on 156 subjects, among them “That God is one and the contrary” and “That all are permitted to marry and the contrary.” Abelard arrayed passages from the Bible, the church fathers, and other authorities on both sides of each question. The juxtaposition of such sources was nothing new; what was new was calling attention to their contradictions. Abelard’s students loved the challenge: they were eager to find the origins of the quotes, consider the context of each one carefully, and seek to reconcile the opposing sides by using the tools of logic.*

Abelard’s fame as a teacher was such that a Parisian cleric named Fulbert gave Abelard room and board and engaged him as tutor for his niece, Heloise (c. 1100–c. 1163/1164). Brought up under Fulbert’s guardianship, Heloise had been sent as a young girl to a convent school, where she received a thorough literary education. Her uncle hoped to continue her education at home by hiring Abelard. Abelard, however, became Heloise’s lover as well as her tutor. “Our desires left no stage of love-making untried,” wrote Abelard in his Misfortunes.

At first their love affair was secret. But Heloise became pregnant, and Abelard insisted they marry. They did so clandestinely to prevent damaging Abelard’s career, for the new emphasis on clerical celibacy meant that Abelard’s professional success and prestige would have been compromised if news of his marriage were made public. After they were married, Heloise and Abelard rarely saw one another; Abelard’s sister took in their child. Fulbert, suspecting that Abelard had abandoned his niece, plotted a cruel revenge against him: he paid a servant to castrate Abelard. Soon after, Abelard and Heloise entered separate monasteries.

For Heloise, separation from Abelard was a lasting blow. Although she became a successful abbess, carefully tending to the physical and spiritual needs of her nuns, she continued to call on Abelard for “renewal of strength.” In a series of letters addressed to him, she poured out her feelings as “his handmaid, or rather his daughter, wife, or rather sister.”

For Abelard, however, the loss of Heloise and even his castration were not the worst disasters of his life. The heaviest blow came later, and it was directed at his intellect. He wrote a book that applied “human and logical reasons” (as he put it) to the Trinity; the book was condemned at the Council of Soissons in 1121, and he was forced to throw it, page by page, into the flames. Bitterly weeping at the injustice, Abelard lamented, “This open violence had come upon me only because of the purity of my intentions and love of our Faith, which had compelled me to write.”

By the second half of the twelfth century, masters like Abelard had become far more common. Many of them taught in Paris. Peter the Chanter (d. 1197) was one of the most influential and prolific. He studied at the cathedral school at Reims and was given the honorary title of chanter of Notre Dame in Paris in 1183. The chant, as we shall see, consisted of the music and words of the church liturgy. But Peter had his underlings work with the choir singers; he himself was far more interested in lecturing, disputing, and preaching.

Peter’s lectures followed the pattern established by other masters. The lecture began with the recitation of a passage from an important text. The master then explained the text, giving his comments. He then “disputed”—mentioning other explanations and refuting them, often drawing on the logic of Aristotle, which by Peter’s time was fully available. Sometimes masters held public debates on their interpretations.

Peter chose to comment on biblical texts. There were many ways to interpret the Bible. Some commentators chose to talk about it as an allegory; others preferred to stress its literal meaning. Peter was interested in the morals it taught. While most theology masters commented on just the Psalms and the New Testament, Peter taught all the books of the Bible. He wrote two important treatises and was particularly interested in exploring social issues and the sacrament of penance.

Peter also took the fruits of his classroom experience to the public. His sermons have not survived, but he inspired a whole group of men to preach in and around Paris. One of his protégés, for example, was renowned for turning prostitutes, usurers, and immoral clerics from their sinful ways.

Around 1200, the pope wrote to the masters of theology, church law, and the liberal arts at Paris. He called them a universitas—the Latin word for a corporation or guild. The pope was right: universities were guilds. Like guilds, they had apprentices (students) and masters (schoolmasters). They issued rules to cover their trade (the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge). They had provisions for disciplining, testing, and housing students and regulated the masters in similar detail. For example, masters at the University of Paris were required to wear long black gowns, follow a particular order in their lectures, and set the standards by which students could become masters themselves. The University of Bologna was unique in having two guilds, one of students and one of masters. At Bologna, the students participated in the appointment of masters and paid their salaries.

University curricula differed in content and duration. At the University of Paris in the early thirteenth century, for example, a student had to spend at least six years studying the liberal arts before he could begin to teach. If he wanted to continue his studies with theology, he had to attend lectures on the subject for at least another five years.

Because masters and students were considered clerics, and clerics were male, it meant that women could be neither students nor masters. And because clerics were subject to church courts only, no secular jurisdiction, whether town courts or lords, could touch those who attended the university. For example, in 1200 the king of France promised that “neither our provost nor our judges shall lay hands on a student [at the University of Paris] for any offense whatever.” The emperor in Germany declared that in his territories—Germany and northern Italy—“no one shall be so rash as to venture to inflict any injury on scholars.”

The combination of clerical status and special privileges made universities virtually self-governing corporations within the towns. This sometimes led to friction. For example, when a student at Oxford was suspected of killing his mistress and the townspeople tried to punish him, the masters protested by refusing to teach and leaving town. Incidents such as this explain why historians speak of the hostility between “town” and “gown.” Yet, as in our own time, university towns depended on scholars to patronize local restaurants, shops, and hostels. Town and gown normally learned to negotiate with each other to their mutual advantage.