The closing century of the Middle Ages not only witnessed the rise of the capitalist class, but it also saw the rise of the middle class, which has been described as the “most noteworthy feature in the history of social life in England in the late fourteenth and the early fifteenth century.”[387] The various changes in the economic conditions had made it possible to acquire wealth through successful trade, and abundant evidence exists that the merchant class was both numerous and was held in high esteem. Socially, these men seem to have ranked with squires and in consequence “Merchaundes and Franklonz, worship fulle and honourable, they may be set semely at a squyers table.”[388]
The educational development of a country is closely connected with its social and economic progress, and it is necessary clearly to bear in mind the economic changes of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries if we are properly to understand the educational adjustments which resulted.
CHAPTER II.
THE RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES.[389]
It is possible to trace a rapid advance in the intellectual life of England after the eleventh century. Among the contributory factors may be mentioned the restoration of social and political order, resulting in the greater security essential for intellectual life, and the influence of the Crusades. The Crusades were not only a sign of the reawakened energy of Europe but were also a cause of increased intellectual activity and change. Those who took part in the Crusades were brought in contact with new people and new ideas; new interests were created, and a more human conception of the world developed. Moreover, the deeds of the Crusades supplied new material for historical literature, and stimulated the romantic element in life and thought. The intellectual effect of the Crusades was manifested in every department of literary activity; the number of books written was greatly increased; studies of law, medicine, and theology received greater attention; scholastic philosophy manifested itself, and the universities came into being. Of these effects, the development of scholasticism and the rise of the universities are closely connected, and are of special importance for our present purpose.
The development of that system of thought known as scholasticism may be traced from the subjects taught in the medieval schools. These subjects were the Trivium,[390] and the more advanced Quadrivium.[391] The ordinary text-books of the age (of which the chief were founded on the works of five authors—Orosius, Martianus, Boethius, Cassiodorus, and Isidorus) enable us to estimate what was known of these subjects of instruction. Music included little more than the rules of plain song; arithmetic was discussed chiefly with reference to the mystical interpretation of numbers; geometry consisted of a few propositions from Euclid without demonstrations; astronomy, together with arithmetic, found its way into the curriculum chiefly because these subjects supplied the means of finding Easter.
The Trivium was the real basis of the secular education of the period. Grammar included both the rules formulated by Donatus and Priscian and the study of a few of the classical writers of ancient Rome. “Under the head of rhetoric, the treatises of Cicero, such as the ‘De Oratore’ and the pseudo-Ciceronian ‘Ad Herennium’ were largely read. The elements of Roman Law were often added, and all schoolboys were exercised in writing prose or what passed for prose.”[392] The most prominent and important of the subjects of secular instruction was Dialectic or Logic. The student of this subject had at his disposal richer material than in most other branches of secular knowledge. Rashdall instances the translations by Boethius of the “De Interpretatione” and the “Categoriae,” as well as the “Isagoge” of Porphyry.[393] It was this concentration on Dialectic by minds whose chief interest was theology that paved the way to that philosophic system known as scholasticism. From its nature, it is scarcely possible to define scholasticism, but its meaning may be understood by considering the ground on which theological statements were based. For some centuries, such statements were required to be accepted merely on the authority of the Church. By the eleventh century, heretical views had crept in which could scarcely be dealt with so summarily. The stimulation of intellectual interests, due to the Crusades, made it necessary that theological beliefs should be carefully formulated and defended by intellectual weapons.
The history of scholasticism falls into two fairly distinct periods. Among the great names associated with the first period are Anselm, “the last of the great monastic teachers,” Roscellinus, William of Champeaux, and Abelard, “the true founder of the Scholastic Theology.”[394] The second period which extended from the beginning of the thirteenth century to the Renaissance was the period of the culmination of scholastic thought and its consolidation into a system. The “great schoolmen” include Albertus Magnus, a Dominican who has been described as “the great organising intellect of the Middle Ages,” Thomas Aquinas, famous as the scholar who brought scholasticism to its highest development by harmonising Aristotelianism with the doctrines of the Church, and two Englishmen, both of whom were Franciscan friars, Duns Scotus, and William of Occam.