The sense of the ‘modern’ in 14th c.
poetry
The historic University of Paris (French: Université de Paris) first appeared in the second half of
the twelfth century, but was in 1970 reorganized as 13 autonomous universities (University of
Paris I–XIII). The university is often referred to as the Sorbonne or La Sorbonne after the
collegiate institution (Collège de Sorbonne) founded in 1257 by Robert de Sorbon, but the
university as such was older and was never completely centered on the Sorbonne. Of the
thirteen current successor universities, four have a presence in the historical Sorbonne building,
and three include “Sorbonne” in their names.
The original university had four faculties: Arts, Medicine, Law, and Theology. “The students
there were divided into four nationes according to language or regional origin. This faculty and
nation system of the University of Paris (along with that of the University of Bologna) became
the model for all later medieval universities in Europe.”- says Kennith Fletcher
The sense of the ‘modern’ in 14th c. poetry
Let’s imagine London in medieval England (12th-15th c.):
London was fast developing into a metropolitan city with migrants from rural England (remember
the plague, the peasant rebellion, the decline of the manorial system?) and immigrants and
visitors from the neighbouring regions of Italy and France. The institutions of learning in
medieval Europe were the Church and the University which may be typified as the medieval
academies of learning. The academic disciplines were the trivium (logic, rhetoric, grammar) and
the quadrivium (arithmetic, astronomy, music, geometry). The students were those who aspired
for a working life in the Church or the courtly bureaucracy. So, the intellectual climate in
medieval Europe was dominated by the Church and the Court and its officials.
Clerical literacy
In this context, let’s take a look at Philobiblon written by Richard of Bury (1287-1345).
Philobiblon has a chapter that prescribes how scholars should treat books: neither children nor the
adult laity should touch books at all; books are not to be touched with dirty or wet hands. Philobiblon is
an ode to books: Clerics, in all their diversity (parish priests, monks, students, friars), are encouraged to
preserve, read, write, and copy books. All the rest have no rightful relationship with books or the
knowledge therein. So, for Richard of Bury all clerics are obliged to lead an intellectual life. Books,
teaching from books, preaching from books, writing books, and preserving books are activities that were
central to clerical life. This continued when the clerics went to the University for professional
development. Philobiblon has examples of letter-writing, prose compositions and lessons on
Latin grammar and composition. Richard of Bury’s Philobiblon served the needs of not only the
clerics but also of the bureaucrats who had to write diplomatic and administrative letters.
Liber Albus of John Carpenter: John Carpenter was Common Clerk of the City of London (1417-
1438), not a university-trained servant of the Church.
De Planctu Naturae written by Alan of Lillie ( )
The University:
Oxford (50 miles, northwest) & Cambridge (50 miles, north) far away from London. = 80 km
Stephen Jaeger's influential The Envy of Angels introduces us to the rise and transformation of
Cathedral schools in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. These schools have bequeathed us
with written legacies, for example Hugh of St. Victor's De institutione novitiorum and his
Didascalicon, which document the teaching of "mores and letters" in Cathedral schools and the
crucial role of the school in the formation of young men. Jaeger continues his history with the
movement of the training of Cathedral schools, which had eroded in influence by the late twelfth
century, to the courts. Jaeger, therefore, explains the relative demise of the Cathedral school
and the emergence of courts, imagined as Episcopal as well as regal and baronial, as
alternative educational institutions.