EDUCATION IN THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD
Introduction
Medieval period is a portion of European history that stretches from the end of the fifth century
to the end of the fifteenth century. The period is also referred to as the Middle Ages. It came
about as a result of the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West following the overthrow of
Romulus Augustulus by the barbarians in A.D. 476. This marked the transition from ancient to
medieval civilization with the church as the successor to the imperial power of Rome. As a result
of the collapse of central authority, chaos was evident everywhere. In fact, the early part of the
period was characterized by plunder, pillage, hopelessness and collapse of the education
institutions developed in the Roman Empire. This left the Roman Catholic Church as the only
organized institution with the capacity to sustain western civilisation. This chapter will look into
the role played by the Roman Catholic Church in the development of western education starting
with the rebuilding of elementary schools such as the parish, chantry and convent schools. This
will be followed by discussion of higher institutions; monastic and cathedral schools and lastly
schools that were established by lay authorities.
Apart from the above, the chapter will examine the establishment medieval universities, a major
contribution by the church in developing education at high levels. Although these institutions had
existed from the ancient days, it was not until the late Middle Ages that universities got
established in Europe mainly as a result of Islamic influence. It is from these institutions that our
modern universities trace their origin. We will start by outlining the challenges that faced early
Christians with regard to the education of their children, discuss the effort of the church in
establishing different schools and lastly analyse the establishment of medieval universities
beginning with factors that led to the same.
Early Christian education
Christianity was founded by Jesus who was born around 5 BC. His eschatological preaching laid
emphasis on the impending coming of God’s Kingdom and was meant to prepare Jews for God’s
reign through repentance and baptism for salvation. He exalted humility, gentleness, peace and
poverty. Jesus was a powerful and charismatic figure as well as a masterful teacher who taught
with simplicity using vivid imagery, direct speech, and sharp sarcasm. Instead of reasoned
arguments, he relied on similes, metaphors, aphorisms, analogies and parables.
Christianity as a religion was founded by a small group of his followers soon after his death
around the year AD 30. The history of Christianity during the first two centuries is obscure and
lacks systematic account apart from revealing trials and tribulations of the Church. The
foundation of Christianity in Western Europe was realized through the work of St. Peter and St.
Paul when they established the Church in Rome. St. Paul was not only responsible for the
internationalization of Christianity around the Mediterranean which led to the spread to the
church in every corner of the Roman Empire but he also founded an organized religion by
developing a system of theology in antiquity.
For a long period, Christianity grew slowly and remained a minority dissenting sect within
Judaism. Its early members were mostly Jews or those who had converted to Judaism. With time,
other groups got attracted. The new religion was regarded by most people as another fanatical
Jewish sect that was afflicted with a “deadly superstition”. This view was further reinforced
following the refusal by its members to worship the divine Roman emperor, a stand which made
them very unpopular with the Roman authorities. Apart from this, the movement’s decision to
welcome followers from members of the low class that were highly despised in society on the
promise of a happier life to come did not help matters.
The Christians at first did not have schools of their own. Their energies were mostly directed
towards the more immediate task of establishing a system of canonical discipline, liturgy and
ethics. Education meant moral training and learning dogmas for salvation through communal and
family worship. In addition, they also felt that there was no need to engage in this laborious
activity because of their anticipation of the end of the world. According to them, instruction in
language, rhetoric, grammar, logic and dialectic was important for secular life and not vital for
salvation or eternal life. A more important task for Christianity was its survival as a movement
by waging political and cultural battles against paganism thereby leaving little time for other
pursuits.
The persecutions endured by Christians under the Roman authorities came to be a major political
challenge to the survival of Christianity. The refusal by Christians to participate in public life
was interpreted by the Romans as a threat to the social order. Apart from this, the denial of the
authenticity of the emperor set in motion attacks to Christians for two and half centuries. These
killings commenced at the beginning of the 2 nd century and continued till the early 4 th century
when Emperor Constantine initiated a series of reforms that later culminated into the recognition
of Christianity in the empire. The emperor had seen in Christianity a potential agent for unifying
a disintegrating social culture and to quelling political conflicts in his vast empire. This in effect
turned Christianity into a state religion with its Bishop in Rome as the head.
One major challenge that the early Church was confronted was how to reconcile itself to the
Greco-Roman culture. Could Christianity oppose the pervasive Hellenistic culture and still make
its message intelligible? During the first hundred years, Christianity mainly attracted the poor
and illiterate but with time, the better educated classes got attracted to it. The new converts were
not willing to disengage themselves from the wisdom of the time and were therefore not ready to
let their children remain ignorant of the Hellenic culture. The urge for secular education in pagan
schools was no doubt going to put their children in a big dilemma as they would be forced to
observe ideas that were opposed to those of their faith. This was not only likely to endanger but
it would also subvert Christian training in the process.
While some of the Church fathers of the time such as Tertullian and Cyprian took a hard-line
stand against pagan education during the third century, most of them were well-schooled in
pagan wisdom and they found it difficult to divorce themselves from it. Interestingly, while the
Church councils forbade the clergy from pursuing pagan learning, they still went ahead to
promulgate doctrinal creeds fashioned in the Greek philosophical thought. By the 4 th century,
only a small minority of Christians advocated a neglect of pagan learning. This acceptance
endeared more people to Christianity since no one would have been willing to associate himself
with illiterates. This change of attitude led Christians to build an extensive school system whose
curricula was derived almost exclusively from Christian sources during the second half of the 4 th
century. Some of the church fathers such as; Clement, Origen and Augustine sought an education
synthesis that could preserve Christianity and still retain the best elements of a pagan culture.
St. Augustine (A.D. 354 -430) was instrumental in making paganism acceptable to the
Christians. He developed the best accommodation between the opposing classical and spiritual
traditions and his synthesis of the two eventually gained widest acceptance. He argued that
although Christianity was sufficient in itself and needed no support (just like Clement and Origen
implied) from Hellenistic sources, it was dangerous to ignore pagan learning completely. He told
Christians to come to terms with it and use secular scholarship when necessary, to support
religious truth and insisted that God did not deny the knowledge of his nature to the pre-Christian
thinkers and that Christian literature did not enjoy a monopoly of truth. He advised Christians to
use what was valuable whatever the source but the core of Christian curriculum was to remain
scriptures. The classics were to be included but used sparingly while the form of instruction was
to follow the grammatical and rhetorical patterns of pagan schools.
The Catholic Church and education
The conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity at the beginning of the fourth century
became a turning point in the history of the early church because in this act, the church
conquered the Roman Empire. Soon Christianity became a state religion, the only religion
permitted in the empire. Before this, the church had developed an administrative structure similar
to that of the Roman Empire so that its representative officials were scattered across the extent of
the empire. The authority of the church was highly respected by the time the empire collapsed.
Indeed, the church remained as the only force that held society together and gave hope in a world
full of hopelessness.
Although most of the knowledge developed by the Greeks and Romans was lost with the
disappearance of Roman schools, some of it survived in monasteries. The church particularly in
the early medieval period was forced to provide education mainly because of self-interest; it
required catechists, teachers, theologians, administrators, lawyers and managers of its vast
landed estates and diplomats. Accordingly, different types of schools were established to address
this need as presented below.
Parish, chantry and convent Schools were established by the church to offer elementary
education. Parish schools were set up in the villages within a given parish became the
forerunners of present-day village schools. Chantry schools on the other hand were supported by
wealthy men in form of money or land on whose income the priests trained boys in church choir.
The elementary school curriculum comprised; reading, writing and arithmetic, some elements of
Latin, religious instruction, church music and rituals. The convent schools which initially
developed within the convents were the only institutions that educated women. The courses
offered ranged from reading, writing, arithmetic, religious instruction, church music and rituals
and domestic (today’s home science).
Monastic Schools existed within the monasteries which at the beginning only offered learning
opportunities for those within the monasteries but later admitted boys from the surrounding
villages. In their early stages, monastic schools offered all the courses that dominated the parish
schools. This was necessitated by the fact that some of those who joined monasteries had not
acquired literacy. Later monastic schools came to specialize in offering what is today regarded as
secondary education. By the year 1000, the monastic school had organised a regular course of
studies which comprised the “Seven Liberal Arts” divided into two: the elementary and the
advanced parts. The elementary part the Trivium comprised of logic, grammar and rhetoric. Each
of these courses had its own value in the education of church men. For example, rhetoric was
regarded as extremely important because a priest was supposed to be a good public speaker, a
speech needed to be organized logically if it was to be effective; hence the importance of logic.
Furthermore, a very good command of language is an imperative for a public speaker. These
elementary courses, which were in essence language arts, were the foundation for the advanced
part of the liberal arts.
The advanced part, the Quadrivium, comprised arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. All
these, like the elementary ones, met the needs of the church. For instance, the medieval church
owned about a third of all the land in Western Europe. Land was at the time the main source of
wealth. Relationship to land determined a person’s place in the social hierarchy. Consequently,
the church needed bookkeepers to maintain records of its land and income derived from it.
Geometry was essential for those who specialized in surveying church land as well as designing
buildings. In addition, a priest was required to be a good singer to guide the congregation in
singing hymns. Astronomy provided the skills required in fixing the various feast days – what
are today referred to as holidays. This was important because the Church followed the Julian
lunar calendar.
Cathedral Schools formed the pinnacle of medieval educational institutions before the rise of
universities. These schools were to be found in the main towns particularly in the high middle
ages. At first, they were only for those intending to spend their life in the church as priests. The
Third Lateran Council in 1189 however called for the establishment of these schools to educate
both the clergy and the laity with the local bishop in charge. The curriculum of the cathedral
schools revolved around the seven liberal arts where a student would first be thoroughly
grounded in the language arts before he ventured into other specialized courses. Thus, in addition
to the liberal arts, other courses like history, science, philosophy, law, theology, church
administration and mathematics would be offered depending on the availability of qualified
masters to teach them. Cathedral schools like those of the city of Paris which had many famous
masters would attract students from across the whole of Western Europe. Indeed, the most
famous of these cathedral schools such as Salerno, Paris and Bologna later evolved into
universities.
Lay authorities and education
By the tenth century, moderate peace and stability had returned to most parts of Europe which in
part also encouraged the return of city life which in turn enticed more people, particularly
craftsmen and merchants who, required literacy for their children and apprentices. This saw the
establishment of secular schools such as guild and court schools.
Guild schools provided both literacy, vocational and technical training. They were the
forerunners of present day vocational and technical schools. Court Schools on the other hand
were set up by the nobles for the education of their children. The revival of education by
Charlemagne (742-814) in the 8th and early 9th century following his accession to the throne in
768 later led to the revitalization of the court school. On noticing the poor state of education with
clergy being illiterate, Charlemagne forced Bishops and Abbots to reopen schools, encouraged
nobility to broaden their own education and invited intellectuals from abroad to help him reform
education. Education in court schools placed emphasis on training in manners appropriate to the
learners’ station including; language, walking style, manner of dress, dancing music and playing
the musical instruments. Boys learned military skills, the use of weapons, swimming, boxing,
horsemanship and the art of chivalry. Girls learned domestic science, for example dressmaking,
cookery, home administration, entertaining and child care.