All through the history of the Church, we see that the first care of her pastors is to provide learning and teachers for the young. Every monastery had its school, every bishop his seminary, where lads of all ranks, but most frequently those from the peasant classes, were taught. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries these seminaries attained an immense development. Certain among them drew vast numbers of scholars, attracted by the fame of the teaching there given. Such was the monastic school at the Abbey of Bec, at which the great scholastic philosophers Lanfranc and St. Anselm taught. Often the monastic scholars would be sent to join the studies of the seminarians. Sometimes it was the reverse, the monastery had the famous teachers, and all flocked thither.
Very early in the existence of such schools lay students would beg to be admitted; the monastery would then provide them with lodging. But as the numbers grew they overflowed into the town, which before long swarmed with young men clamoring to be taught. Poor, ill-fed, and wretchedly lodged by night, they crowded round their teachers by day, congregating wherever there was space enough to hold them. At first a church porch, a monastic yard, sometimes an open square, would be their lecture-hall. The Pope, or an emperor, or a king, would grant a charter; the school became a university; buildings would be erected, and a regular course of lectures given.
When a student wished to gain great proficiency, he would go from one university to another, to study what was best taught in each. Thus, there succeeded a migration of thousands of students, eager for learning, moving across Europe from one seat of lore to another. Oxford, the oldest University in England had at one nearly thirty thousand students, while the University of Paris had up to fifty thousand. Naturally, the events taking place in the world around would have influence over the numbers flocking to any particular university. For instance, the Hundred Years' War between England and France stopped the migration of English scholars to Paris.
A university properly so called offered to all comers instruction in all the sciences. The ordinary course comprised the Seven Liberal Arts, which were also taught in the lesser schools, of which we have still to speak. These arts were grammar, logic, and rhetoric, called the Trivium, which had first to be mastered. Then came the Quadrivium, or geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, and music. After these were added medicine, law, and theology, and the whole course often concluded with metaphysics, natural history, and languages, Latin being always taught, Greek being a later addition.
Each of the chief departments of learning was called a faculty, and its professors had the privilege of granting degrees. The degree was earned by following the complete course prescribed, by a successful examination, and, in the case of the highest, by sustaining a thesis—that is, by defending a given knotty point in the subject professed against the objections of all comers. The degrees were baccalaureus, magister, and doctor. The second and third conferred the license to teach, and were not, as now, merely a token of acquaintance with the subject. The degrees were always awarded with religious ceremonies, often in the church, and by the hands of a bishop.
The whole multitude of scholars, no matter whence they came, could attend the same lectures, since all instructions were given in Latin. Thus a brotherhood of letters grew up which tended to weld together the interests of nations, and to unite men together in a way that nothing else has been able to do, except the Church of God herself, which makes all the faithful the one Body of Christ.
There were two great types among the universities, those molded on the form established at Bologna, the others following the example of Paris. The former were frequented by men of mature years, who formed themselves into bands or groups, something after the fashion of guilds. They elected the governing body and named the rector or head of the university. Thus the students themselves formed the ruling body, the professors having the teaching only in their hands. In the second or Paris type, the professors were the rulers, sometimes aided by proctors for each nation chosen from among the students. As time went on, colleges began to be formed in the university itself; that is to say, certain bodies of students would gather round their teachers in a dwelling of their own. Magnificent buildings were erected, with church, lecture-halls, and common rooms, as well as suites of smaller apartments, affording lodging to both teachers and students.
The college system brought order and regularity into the university, but the general lectures began to be forsaken, each college or group of colleges having its own tutors. Each monastic Order had its own college whither its members were sent to study and obtain their degrees. One very favorite form of charitable work in the Middle Ages was to make provision for the instruction of poor scholars. Colleges were founded and endowed to afford means of education to those who could not pay their own expenses. Some of our most famous English schools—for instance, that of Winchester—owe their existence to the enlightened piety of our Catholic forefathers.
Emperors and kings often granted great privileges to the universities they had founded. This often led to unseemly strife between the students and the townsfolk. Just as often the students would fight among themselves; their nationality, the fame of rival students or of rival teachers, would be enough to turn the streets of a university town into a battle-field. Sometimes the Pope himself had to interfere before order could be restored. Stories of this kind meet us in the lives of all great medieval scholars. Even such men as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Ignatius and his companions had to suffer from the violence of university factions.
The most famous European universities were Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Salamanca, and Rome. Bologna, with the Italian universities generally, was famous for civil and canon law; Paris was the great theological university: its most famous college, the Sorbonne, still exists. This college has had a most memorable history; it will be met with more than once in this narrative.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, sixty-five universities gathered together the studious youth of Europe, but by that time they had passed from the hands of the Church to those of the State.
But we must not omit to say that the desire for university training quickened the appetite for learning all over Europe. Every town had its schools, in many of which the seven arts were taught; for the numberless men holding degrees could not all profess in universities and were glad to teach in lesser schools. Even villages were not without such means of instruction. Thus, high and low, rich and poor, shared the general ardor for letters, and all found the means at hand of satisfying their desire.
Dominicans and Franciscans attended the universities in great numbers. Both
Orders soon opened schools, and the fame of the new teachers spread far and
wide. So great was their influence that Green says: "The Friars preserved the
universities to the Church." This was chiefly seen in the immense strides made
in the study of theology, which became the engrossing topic of scholars for
upwards of three hundred years. Philosophy, the science of man, as theology is
that of God, also took vast developments. Aristotle, the greatest of the old
Greek philosophers, had been discredited up to the time of the Crusades, owing
to the very faulty translation (the work of the Arabic and Spanish Saracens,
Avicenna and Averroes), by which alone he was known in the west. But when the
friars taught from the correct version brought by the Crusaders from the east,
the subject acquired new luster, and in the hands of St. Thomas Aquinas became a
powerful help to the clear understanding of science in general, and of theology
in particular.
Up to this time, treatises on theology had been either simple statements of the Church's teaching, or apologies—that is, discourses in which the Church's doctrines are defended against the attacks of pagans or heretics. But henceforth theology was treated as a science. The relations between the various branches of dogma were studied. The several points were classified, and the method of dealing with each laid down. It was not a question of what the Church's teaching was—no one disputed that—but the "hows and whys" of truths were studied.
Besides the two great branches of theology and philosophy, other sciences made great progress. Biblical research assumed wider proportions. English Franciscans produced the first concordance ever drawn up. It was printed in Oxford, and known as the "English Concordance." Oriental languages were studied with a view to Scriptural research, and the natural sciences began to receive attention. Roger Bacon, also a Franciscan, insisted on the necessity of experiments preceding statements when treating of the natural kingdoms, a method which many conceive to have originated centuries later with his more famous namesake, Francis Bacon, the author of the "Novum Organum."
Medieval theologians may be considered as forming two classes—those who studied theology as a science for its own sake, and those who studied it for the sake of advancing in holiness. The former are called Scholastics or Schoolmen, because of their labors taking place in the great university schools; the second were Mystics, mysticism being the science of the spiritual life. The greatest of the Mystics were St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Bernard, and two monks of the monastery of St. Victor, named Hugh and Robert.