The Carlovingian Schools and Their Masters

Article 2. The Carlovingian Schools and Their Masters

a) The Schools; b) Alcuin; c) Rhabanus Maurus; d) Fredegis;

e) Remarks.

a) The School s. As early as the 6 or 7 century there had been a Court School at the palace of the King of the Franks. This school was established, very probably, through the efforts of the Irish monks who labored as missionaries in Gaul. This Palace School —or Palatine School—was meant to fit the children of the nobility for their place in Church or State. Charlemagne himself was trained in the Palace School of Pepin, his father; and now the Palace School was made the nucleus of the great educational plan which Charlemagne inaugurated and got thoroughly under way before his death. Alcuin with a staff of teachers came from the School of York in England at Charlemagne’s invitation, and took charge of the Palace School in 782. With the cooperation of bishops and abbots throughout Frankland, schools were opened in monasteries, and at cathedrals and parish churches. By the beginning of the 9 century there was a great system of these schools, all busily employed with crowds of students. At the head of the “system” was the Palace School, the official centre of culture. Below this were, in order, the monastery schools, the cathedral schools, and the parish schools. The parish schools taught the elements, i. e., reading, writing, elementary arithmetic, and religion. The cathedral and monastic schools usually taught (in addition to the elements) the so-called liberal arts, or seven subjects divided into the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic) and the quadrivium (advanced arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music). The larger cathedral and monastery schools gave to the graduates of the “arts course” an opportunity of learning the natural sciences : medicine, history, philosophy, theology, and law, civil and ecclesiastical. The most important Schools founded in the time of Charlemagne were those of Tournai, Fulda, Tours, Auxerre, Chartres, and several in Paris (St. Genevieve, St. Victor, etc.) The master or teacher in these schools would “read” (i. e., explain) a text : this was the lectio. Then the matter explained would be discussed in the question-and-answer method : this was the disputatio. In this we see the beginnings of the Scholastic Method developed to such perfection at a later day. Teachers and students used the Latin language—very poor Latin, for the most part, up to the n century; for this was the time when Medieval Latin was being formed, a Latin that differs greatly from the classical, yet has a beauty of its own. It may not be out of place here to remark that the modern student who affects dismay or amusement at Medieval Latin does not know that language. Medieval Latin is a language as different from classical Latin as modern pure English is different from Shakespeare’s English. As we do not call modern pure English barbarous, so we must not call pure Medieval Latin barbarous. The library of the Medieval School was not large. The most important works available for the student were certain books of Plato and Aristotle; the Isagoge of Porphyry in transía-tions by Boethius and Marius Victorinus ; works of Macrobius, Apuleius, Cassiodorus, Hermes Trismegistus; something of Cicero, Seneca, Lucretius, Galen, Hippocrates, Martian Capella ; the genuine works of St. Augustine as well as many spurious works attributed to him ; works of Origen, St. Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Nemesius, Pseudo-Dionysius, and, near the end of the period, St. John Damascene. Louis the Pious (Le Débonnaire’) son and successor of Charlemagne, shared his father’s interest in learning, and furthered the work of the Schools.

b) Al cuin (about 735-804).

Life: Alcuin was born in Northumbria in England, and from youth was connected with the Benedictine School which was maintained in the Monastery of the Order at York. Summoned by Charlemagne in 782, he took charge of the Palatine School of Charlemagne. This School moved about as the king changed his residence, but for the most part it was maintained in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). Alcuin was a powerful factor in the movement which established monastic, cathedral, and parish schools. In 796 Alcuin was made Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery in Tours, and under his rule Tours became a notable centre of learning.

Works: Besides strictly theological works, Alcuin wrote the following, which belong, in part at least, to the domain of philosophy : On Grammar, On Rhetoric and the Virtues, On Dialectic, On the Soul, Disputation of Pepin with Albinus the Scholastic.

Doctrine: In philosophy Alcuin follows St. Augustine. He was not a great nor an original thinker, but he was a scholar and a zealous promoter of the movement for learning which brought Scholastic Philosophy into being. For this reason he deserves a place of prominence in the history of this period of the beginnings of Scholasticism.

c) Rhabanus Maur us (or Rhaban Maur) (about 776- 856).

Life: Rhabanus was born at Mainz (Mayence), and became a Benedictine monk in the great Abbey of Fulda, in central Germany. In 802 he was sent by his Abbot to study under Alcuin at Tours. So great was the esteem and affection of Alcuin for the young Rhabanus that he gave him the surname “Maurus,” after St. Maurus, the beloved disciple of St. Benedict. After a year’s training under Alcuin, Rhabanus Maurus returned to Fulda and was placed in charge of the monastic school there. Later he was elected Abbot, and Fulda became famous as a centre of learning under his rule. In later life Rhabanus Maurus was made Bishop of Mainz, and died in that office.

Works: Rhabanus Maurus wrote On the Universe, a great work in 22 books. This was a kind of encyclopedia of the knowledge current in his time. He wrote other works also, but none of these has a philosophical significance. It is said, but without much authority, that he wrote a Commentary on Porphyry.

Doctrine: Although he was a man of more independent mind and of more vigorous views than Alcuin, Rhabanus Maurus developed no philosophy of his own. His writings contain expressions that smack of Nominalism, but he did not deal expressly with the matter of Universals.

d) Fr edegis (9 century), successor of Alcuin at Tours, is another figure of note in the Revival of Learning. He wrote a speculative treatise On Nothingness and Darkness, in which he offers argument to prove that these things are not mere negations consisting, respectively, in the absence of being and of light, but are somehow positive entities in themselves. The work contains expressions that are obviously ultra-realistic. Still, Fredegis’ ultra-realism was probably unconscious, for he did not directly undertake the discussion of the question of Universals.

e) Remar ks.—None of the famous teachers of the early Schools originated an independent system of philosophy. The little philosophical doctrine which we find in their writings is but a restatement of Patristic teaching. As philosophers, these early Schoolmen were not innovators, but preservers of the past. Their place in the History of Philosophy is not, strange as it may seem, due to the fact that they were philosophers, but to the fact that they were leaders in that great cultural movement which gave rise to Scholasticism.