. Although precedents for cathedral schools can be found from the early Middle Ages, they did not acquire a firm institutional base until 8th-and 9th-century Carolingian legislation required that arrangements be made for the proper education of clergy. Most cathedral schools aspired to little more, essentially dedicating themselves to ensuring that parish clergy and cathedral canons had sufficient education to perform their assigned tasks; what little we know about the education they provided suggests that they concentrated on the basics of Latin grammar and Christian doctrine. But cathedral schools occasionally did furnish an institutional fo-rum to masters whose ambitions were higher and who drew students from outside the immediate region, although this role scarcely ever outlived the master whose eminence it reflected. In the 11th century especially, it was generally cathedral schools that employed the masters who were responsible for redefining the objectives of higher education to include the extension as well as the transmission of knowledge. Indeed, the 12th-century studium of Paris originally grew up under the auspices and legal protection provided by the cathedral of Paris.
In the 9th century, cathedral schools were generally less prominent in the movement known as the “Carolingian renaissance” than their counterparts in the monasteries. Toward the end of the century, however, the cathedral at Laon under the patronage of Charles the Bald became a center for Irish scholars active in France; the schoolmaster appears to have been a certain Martin Hiberniensis (819–875), and Johannes Scottus Eriugena was also affiliated with the school. Much of the actual education provided, however, must have been at a fairly elementary level; its character is suggested by the contents of Laon manuscript 468. This manuscript, which is too large (12.4 inches by 8.4 inches) to be a student’s notebook and which was apparently corrected by Martin himself, consists of a life of Virgil, some glosses on Virgil’s poetry, several pages of comments on the Liberal Arts, and Alcuin’s Latin grammar. The material on the Liberal Arts, especially, is rudimentary; the longest discussions address ethics and logic, with the invention of ethics being attributed to Socrates and that of logic to Plato, with the author noting the divisions of the different arts and the names of the principal textbooks. In short, it is a compilation whose material is intended to be memorized as an end in itself rather than to serve as an initiation into more advanced studies.
The eminence of the school of Laon did not survive into the 10th century. Indeed, the only French cathedral school of note in this century was that of Reims, whose archdeacon Gerranus’s reputation in logic drew both Abbo of Fleury and Gerbert of Aurillac. Gerbert (later Pope Sylvester II) stayed on to become master at Reims from 972 to 982, returning to his post in 983 after a brief failed abbacy at Bobbio; he remained master until 989.
Gerbert himself enjoyed a reputation for logic and astronomy, and we are fortunate in having an account by his student Richer of the course of studies that he taught in logic. According to Richer, Gerbert began with the Isagoge of Porphyry, which he taught with Boethius’s commentary; he then taught Aristotle’s Categories and On Interpretation, proceeding afterward to Aristotle’s Topics in Cicero’s translation, which he also taught with Boethius’s commentary. This account of Gerbert’s curriculum has often been regarded as showing a revival of logical studies before the year 1000, but there are reasons for being more cautious. In the first place, Richer’s statement that Cicero’s Topics was a translation of Aristotle is incorrect—a fact that is explicit in both the Topics itself and in Boethius’s commentary; Richer’s acquaintance with those works must therefore have been far less thorough than he wished to imply. Richer’s account also bears a family resemblance to the synopsis of logic contained in Laon manuscript 468, a coincidence suggesting that Richer may have been borrowing traditional definitions of dialectic instead of describing his own experience. Finally, citations of Aristotle do not become at all frequent in works of French scholars until after 1050; Gerbert’s own learning in the subject, which is attested by his short treatise De rationali et ratione uti, does not appear to have been systematically conveyed to any of his students.
No teacher of comparable importance took Gerbert’s place after his departure from Reims. Basic instruction doubtless continued to be available, but it was now of only regional significance. The same pattern was to be repeated at other schools throughout the 11th and early 12th centuries, because a cathedral school rarely had two consecutive masters of more than regional importance. Chartres, Anjou, Liège, Laon, and Paris all had their moments of importance at different times in the 11th century, but none established an institutional tradition of scholastic excellence, and the importance of the school did not outlast the death or departure of its famous master.
In the early 11th century, the center for French education was the cathedral school of Chartres under Fulbert. Fulbert’s prestige is attested by the fact that, although many of his students were evidently drawn from regions near Chartres, others came from as far away as the Rhineland to study with him. The pattern of students traveling great distances to study with a distinguished master was not new; but it is harder to state with certainty where Fulbert’s academic expertise lay. It does not seem to have been in the Trivium; the mnemonic poems that he left in this area are elementary, and this impression is confirmed by the fact that Fulbert’s students, most notably Berengar of Tours, neither reveal any extensive knowledge of Aristotle nor do they often invoke arguments from the Liberal Arts. But Fulbert’s works and those of his students do reveal a measured and analytical approach to questions of Christian doctrine, as well as an ability to recognize and anticipate multiple points of view on contested issues. It was probably, therefore, a broadly based learning rather than any advanced technical expertise in the Liberal Arts that drew students to Fulbert’s school at Chartres.
Most of Fulbert’s students returned to their home cathedrals or monasteries after finishing their studies with him, often themselves becoming masters. But at least two of Fulbert’s students, Berengar of Tours and Adelman of Liège, followed more complex careers, serving as schoolmasters at more than one cathedral, and this shift in career pattern marks a quickening of the intellectual pace of cathedral schools. Not every cathedral schoolmaster was swept up in the movement; most remained essentially grammar masters, introducing students to the basics of Latin grammar and literature, often with an ethical or Christian overlay. But a handful of later 11 1th-century masters began the exploration of more speculative issues in the Trivium and in Christian doctrine, and although this movement did not leave monastic schools untouched it was generally in cathedral schools that these masters found an institutional home. The increasingly advanced character of the instruction is revealed not just by the sophistication of some of the theoretical analyses but also by the fact that masters now began to discuss the views of their contemporaries as well as the ancients. The basic texts (Priscian on grammar; Cicero on rhetoric; Porphyry, Aristotle, and Boethius on logic) continued to be expounded, but the glosses and commentaries increasingly took up “questions” where doctrine was unsettled. Masters could make reputations—and, apparently, fortunes—by their skill at expounding the standard texts.
During the decades ca. 1100, the two preeminent masters of cathedral schools in France were William of Champeaux in Paris and Anselm in Laon. William was better known for his work in the Liberal Arts, Anselm for his commentaries on the Bible; but neither was as specialized as later masters would be, and both appear to have taught a wide range of subjects. Students in this period, moreover, frequently traveled themselves, spending considerable amounts of time with a series of masters. Thus, for example, Peter Abélard spent time as a student of both William and Anselm before he launched his own career as a master.
After the 1120s, the cathedral schools gradually lost their role as centers of scholarship and teaching to the concentration of masters at Paris; students who went to Paris could study with several masters at once instead of being limited to the resources of a cathedral school. Although both Thierry of Chartres and Gilbert of Poitiers had ties to Chartres, both did most of their teaching in Paris. Despite the competition, cathedral schools continued to play a significant though reduced role in French education until the end of the century. Peter the Chanter studied at Reims, while Orléans was apparently a center of composition (ars dictaminis). Yet comparatively little is known about either center, and after 1200 any person intending to pursue a scholarly career would have sought his training in Paris or one of the other universities rather than in any local school.
Contreni, John. The Cathedral School of Laon from 850 to 930: Its Manuscripts and Masters. Munich: Arbeo, 1978.
Merlette, Bernard, and Suzanne Martinet. Enseignement et vie intellectuelle (IXe-XVe siècle [Actes du 95e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes]). Reims, 1970.
Radding, Charles. “The Geography of Learning in Early Eleventh-Century Europe: Lanfranc of Bec and Berengar of Tours Revisited.” Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio Muratoriano. Forthcoming.
——, and William W.Clark. Medieval Architecture, Medieval Learning: Builders and Masters in the Age of Ro-manesque and Gothic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Southern, Richard W. “Lanfranc of Bec and Berengar of Tours.” In Studies in Medieval History Presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke, ed. R.W.Hunt et al. Oxford: Clarendon, 1948, pp. 27–48.
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