Cassi-
Capella Boethius odorus Isidore Alcuin Maurus
Subject (c. 425) (c. 520) (c. 575) (c. 630) (c. 800) (c. 844)
/Grammar…… 11 — 25 50 54 55
|Rhetoric….. 14 — 5-1/2 14 26 —
\Dialectic…. 11 — 18 14 25 —
/Arithmetic… 11 40 2 2 — —
|Geometry….. 15 30 2 1 — —
|Astronomy…. 9 — 15 3 23 60
\Music…….. 11 67 2 12 — —
—- —- —- —- —- —-
Totals in pages 82 137 69-1/2 96 128 115
[15] The mediaeval serf was the successor of the Roman slave, and was a step upward in the process of the evolution of the free man. The serf was tied to the soil and by obligations of personal service to the lord. Gradually, due to economic causes, the personal service was changed from general to definite service, and finally to a fixed rental sum. When a fixed money payment took the place of personal service the free man had been evolved. This took place rapidly with the rise of cities and industry toward the latter part of the Middle Ages.
[16] The German private duel and the American fist fight are the modern survivals of the time when personal insults, easily taken, and private grievances were settled in the "noble way" by sword and battle-axe and torch.
[17] In the earlier days of noblemen's education reading and writing were regarded as effeminate, but in the later times the nobles became increasingly literate. By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries many began to pride themselves on their patronage of learning.
[18] Rhyming in the vernacular language came to be an important part of the training, and many old love songs and songs expressing the joy of life date from this period. Chaucer's knight is described as:
"Syngynge he was or floytynge [playing], al the day;
He was as fressh as is the monthe of May.
Short was his gowne, with sleves longe and wyde.
Wel cowde he sitte on hors and faire ryde;
He cowde songes make and wel endite,
Juste and eek daunce, and wel purtreye and write.
So hote he loved, that by nighterdale [night time]
He slept no more than doth the nightingale."
[19] From the life of the Frankish Abbot, John of Gorze, Abbot at Gorze in the tenth century.
[20] Leach, A. F., Educational Charters, p. 143.
[21] Ibid., p. 147.
[22] Anselm (1033-1109), Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109, formulated the early mediaeval view when he said: