School of Chartres
Encyclopedia
During the High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....

, Chartres Cathedral operated a famous and influential cathedral school
Cathedral school
Cathedral schools began in the Early Middle Ages as centers of advanced education, some of them ultimately evolving into medieval universities. Throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, they were complemented by the monastic schools...

, an important center of scholarship. It developed and reached its apex in the 11th and 12th centuries. It was a transitional period, at the very start of the Latin translation movement and right before the propagation of the medieval universities
Medieval university
Medieval university is an institution of higher learning which was established during High Middle Ages period and is a corporation.The first institutions generally considered to be universities were established in Italy, France, and England in the late 11th and the 12th centuries for the study of...

, which eventually superseded cathedral schools and monastic school
Monastic school
Monastic schools were, along with cathedral schools, the most important institutions of higher learning in the Latin West from the early Middle Ages until the 12th century. Since Cassiodorus's educational program, the standard curriculum incorporated religious studies, the Trivium, and the...

s as the most important institutions of higher learning in the Latin West.

In the early 11th century, (around 1020), Bishop Fulbert
Fulbert of Chartres
Fulbert of Chartres –10 April 1028) was the bishop of the Cathedral of Chartres from 1006 till 1028. He was a teacher at the Cathedral school there, he was responsible for the advancement of the celebration of the Feast day of “Nativity of the Virgin”, and he was responsible for one of the...

 established Chartres as one of the leading schools in Europe. Although the role of Fulbert himself as a scholar and teacher has been questioned, perhaps his greatest talent was as an administrator, who established the conditions in which the school could flourish.

Great scholars were attracted to the cathedral school, including Bernard of Chartres
Bernard of Chartres
Bernard of Chartres was a twelfth-century French Neo-Platonist philosopher, scholar, and administrator.- Life :...

, Thierry of Chartres
Thierry of Chartres
Thierry of Chartres or Theodoric the Breton was a twelfth-century philosopher working at Chartres and Paris, France....

, William of Conches
William of Conches
William of Conches was a French scholastic philosopher who sought to expand the bounds of Christian humanism by studying secular works of the classics and fostering empirical science. He was a prominent member of the School of Chartres...

 and the Englishman John of Salisbury
John of Salisbury
John of Salisbury , who described himself as Johannes Parvus , was an English author, educationalist, diplomat and bishop of Chartres, and was born at Salisbury.-Early life and education:...

. These men were at the forefront of the intense intellectual rethinking that culminated in what is now known as the twelfth-century renaissance
Renaissance of the 12th century
The Renaissance of the 12th century was a period of many changes at the outset of the High Middle Ages. It included social, political and economic transformations, and an intellectual revitalization of Western Europe with strong philosophical and scientific roots...

, pioneering the Scholastic
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...

 philosophy that came to dominate medieval thinking throughout Europe.

The teaching in monastic and cathedral schools was typically based on the traditional seven liberal arts
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...

, including the trivium
Trivium
In medieval universities, the trivium comprised the three subjects that were taught first: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The word is a Latin term meaning “the three ways” or “the three roads” forming the foundation of a medieval liberal arts education. This study was preparatory for the quadrivium....

 (study of logic, grammar and rhetoric) and the quadrivium
Quadrivium
The quadrivium comprised the four subjects, or arts, taught in medieval universities, after teaching the trivium. The word is Latin, meaning "the four ways" , and its use for the 4 subjects has been attributed to Boethius or Cassiodorus in the 6th century...

 (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). There were, however, differences among the schools on the emphasis given for each subject. The Chartres school placed special emphasis on the quadrivium (the mathematical arts) and on natural philosophy
Natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...

.

The school of Chartres' greatest period was the first half of the twelfth century. By the latter 12th century the status of the school was on the wane. It was gradually eclipsed by the newly emerging University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

, particularly at the School of the Abbey of St Victor (the 'Victorines').

External links

  • The School of Chartres in A History of Western Philosophy Vol. II / by Ralph McInerny
    Ralph McInerny
    Ralph Matthew McInerny was a Roman Catholic, American, philosopher, University professor, and prolific author, including fiction of which some appeared under the pseudonyms of Harry Austin, Matthew FitzRalph, Ernan Mackey, Edward Mackin, and Monica Quill, and mysteries of which his best known is...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK