. The education of Greek and Roman society was highly developed, but Christianity, having become the state religion in A.D. 380, faced a dilemma—how to marry the two strands of its tradition: that of the illiterate fishermen-Apostles with the bookish, classical training of its apologists. The tradition of learning was strong, and a number of patristic writers, especially Jerome, were associated with education, although we still see Au-gustine, for example, questioning the legitimacy of his use of his pagan, classical education for Christian ends. The first Christian, nonclassical religious schools date from the 4th century and were associated with monasteries.
The fate of these schools varied with the political situation of their times and places, so that in mainland Europe around the 5th-8th centuries few schools taught anything but the absolute basics of reading and writing. In the insular and insulated territories of Ireland and Britain, however, a brighter light burned, and monastic schools taught grammar and singing to their oblates and perhaps to secular children as well. Bede tells us of his education at Wearmouth-Jarrow, and famous schools existed at York, Canterbury, and Irish centers.
The Carolingian revival of education under Charle-magne drew heavily on insular scholars and included the importation of Alcuin from York. In 797, Theodulf of Orléans introduced parish schools into his diocese and laid down their mandate for teaching. From this time onward, schools spread throughout the Frankish empire and beyond, and from the beginning of the 9th century all the more famous monasteries had two distinct schools—one for its oblates, one for outsiders. The Council of Aix (817) decreed a separation of monastic and secular pupils at monastic schools. Although their histories vary at different periods, there were famous schools at most of the important Benedictine monasteries of the 9th-12th centuries, such as Bec, Fulda, and Reichenau.
Although the history of this period remains misty, at some time during the 11th century “secular” religious schools, based around cathedrals with nonmonastic foundations, grew fashionable. In particular, Notre-Dame in Paris, Reims, Laon, and Chartres had famous masters and pupils. They were perceived as offering a less traditional and accepting, more argumentative style of learning, with debate as well as lecturing as a teaching practice. Leclercq has characterized seven major differences between monastic and secular learning: the intended audience of the teaching, the subjects dealt with, the pastoral tendency of the writers, an interest in the reform of the church, the sources employed, the intellectual methods of the writers, and finally their modes of expression. This is perhaps too generalizing to be wholly convincing; however, it is true that some subjects, such as commentaries on the Song of Songs, are largely the province of “monastic” rather than secular authors, as is a preference for the Gospel of John over the Synoptics as a source of authority. And it is true that until the advent of the university any school of this period was only as famous as the master heading it at the time.
In 1108, William of Champeaux, former master of the cathedral school in Paris, opened a school at the abbey of Saint-Victor. A house of Augustinian canons (clergy who lived under a rule in a community), Saint-Victor occupied a point midway between secular clergy and cenobites. It has been suggested that Saint-Victor tried to hold just such a position in the spectrum of learning, blending monastic exegesis with scholastic as the latter became more occupied with theological questioning. But the picture is complicated, and we must not think that books of Sententiae, or theological questions, were not also produced and read in monasteries. Nor must we forget that the famous books produced from monastic learning, such as the works of Bernard of Clairvaux, Anselm, or Rupert of Deutz, were works produced for monastic learning. The day-to-day teaching in monastic schools was the usual round of basic literacy, followed by the Trivium and Quadrivium, with textbooks by Priscian, Donatus, Boethius, Aristotle, and Euclid. Indeed, the learned monks of the 12th century were influential despite the decline in influence of monastic schools and learning.
Although monastic schools continued into the 13th century and later, they were used only as sources of primary education: any ambitious pupil went to a secular school or university.
