3. They maintained educational interest during this long, dark period. We have seen that the monasteries contained the only schools. Through them the Church kept up whatever educational interest survived during the Middle Ages, and her work then conserved the energies employed in later educational enterprise.
4. They originated a great course of study by giving to the world the seven liberal arts.
5. They furnished places of refuge for the oppressed.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Laurie thinks that these names were first appropriately used about the end of the fourth century.