The theological course proper experienced a similar development. At first, as we saw in chapter V, there were but few principles of belief, and the church organization was exceedingly simple. In 325 A.D. the Nicene Creed was formulated (p. 96), and the first twenty canons (rules) adopted for the government of the clergy. With the translation of the Bible into the Latin language (Vulgate, fourth century), the writings of the early Latin Fathers, and additional canons and expressions of belief adopted at subsequent church councils, an increasing amount relating to belief, church organization, and pastoral duties needed to be imparted to new members of the clergy. Still, up to the eleventh century at least, the theological course remained quite meager. In a tenth-century account the following description of the theological course of the time is given: [19]
1. Elements of grammar and the first part of Donatus.
2. Repeated readings of the Old and New Testaments.
3. Mass prayers.
4. Rules of the Church as to time reckoning.
5. Decrees of the Church Councils.
6. Rules of penance.
7. Prescriptions for church services.
8. Worldly laws.
9. Collections of homilies (sermons).
10. Tractates on the Epistles and Gospels.
11. Lives of the Saints.
12. Church music.
It will be seen from this tenth-century course of theological study that it was based on reading, writing, and reckoning, and a little music as preparatory studies; that it began with the first of the subjects of the Trivium, which was studied only in part; and that its purpose was to impart needed information as to dogma, church practices, canon (church) law, and such civil (worldly) law as would be needed by the priest in discharging his functions as the notary and lawyer of the age. There is no suggestion of the study of Theology as a science, based on evidences, logic, and ethics. Such study was not then known, and would not have been tolerated. There were no other professions to study for.
SYSTEMATIC INSTRUCTION BEGINS. About 1145 Peter the Lombard published his Book of Sentences, and this worked a revolution in the teaching of the subject. In topics, arrangement, and method of treatment the book marked a great advance, and became the standard textbook in Theology for a long time. It did much to change the study of Theology from dogmas to a scientific subject, and made possible schools of Theology in the universities now about to arise. In the thirteenth century it was made the official textbook at both the universities of Oxford and Paris. The studies of dialectic and ethics were raised to a new plane of importance by the publication of this book.
By the close of the twelfth century the interest of the Church in a better-trained clergy had grown to such an extent that theological instruction was ordered established wherever there was an Archbishop. In a decree issued by Pope Innocent III and the General Council it was ordered:
In every cathedral or other church of sufficient means, a master ought to be elected by the prelate or chapter, and the income of a prebend assigned to him, and in every metropolitan church a theologian also ought to be elected. And if the church is not rich enough to provide a grammarian and a theologian, it shall provide for the theologian from the revenues of his church, and cause provision to be made for the grammarian in some church of his city or diocese. [20]
We also, in the early thirteenth century, find bishops enforcing theological training on future priests by orders of which the following is a type:
Hugh of Scawby, clerk, presented by Nigel Costentin to the church of (Potter) Hanworth, was admitted and canonically instituted in it as parson, on condition that he comes to the next orders to be ordained subdeacon. But on account of the insufficiency of his grammar, the lord bishop ordered him on pain of loss of his benefice to attend school. And the Dean of Wyville was ordered to induct him into corporal possession of the said church in form aforesaid, and to inform the lord bishop if he does not attend school. [21]
5. Characteristics of mediaeval education
FOUNDATIONS LAID FOR A NEW ORDER. The education which we have just described covers the period from the time of the downfall of Rome to the twelfth or the thirteenth century. It represents what the Church evolved to replace that which it and the barbarians had destroyed. Meager as it still was, after seven or eight centuries of effort, it nevertheless presents certain clearly marked lines of development. The beginnings of a new Christian civilization among the tribes which had invaded and overrun the old Roman Empire are evident, and, toward the latter part of the Middle Ages, we note the development of a number of centers of learning (R. 71) and the beginnings of that specialization of knowledge (church doctrine, classical learning, music, logic and ethics, theology), at different church and monastery schools, which promised much for the future of learning. We also notice, and will see the same evidence in the following chapter, the beginnings of a class of scholarly men, though the scholarship is very limited in scope and along lines thoroughly approved by the Church.