A History of Western Philosophy of Education in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 9781350074453, 9781350074484, 9781350074477

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Figures
Series Introduction Megan Jane Laverty and David T. Hansen
General Editors’ Acknowledgments
Volume Editor’s Acknowledgments
Timeline
Introduction: Historical Vision and Philosophy of Education in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Kevin Gary
1 The Monastic Turn: 400–1150 Brett Bertucio
2 Religion, Reason, and Educational Thought in the Twelfth Century Constant J. Mews
3 Jewish and Muslim Voices Gad Marcus and Yusef Waghid
4 Thomas Aquinas and Education Stein M. Wivestad
5 Humanism and Education Laura DeSisto
6 Women Writers and Education Cristina Cammarano
7 Religious Reformers and Education in the Sixteenth Century Carrie Euler
8 Michel de Montaigne and the Bridge to Enlightenment and Modernity Darryl M. De Marzio
Notes on Contributors
Index

Citation preview

A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION VOLUME 2

A History of Western Philosophy of Education General Editors: Megan Jane Laverty and David T. Hansen Volume 1 A History of Western Philosophy of Education in Antiquity Edited by Avi I. Mintz Volume 2 A History of Western Philosophy of Education in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Edited by Kevin Gary Volume 3 A History of Western Philosophy of Education in the Age of Enlightenment Edited by Tal Gilead Volume 4 A History of Western Philosophy of Education in the Modern Era Edited by Andrea R. English Volume 5 A History of Western Philosophy of Education in the Contemporary Landscape Edited by Anna Pagès

A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

IN THE MIDDLE AGES AND RENAISSANCE VOLUME 2 Edited by Kevin Gary

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 Copyright © Bloomsbury, 2021 The Contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p. xxiii & xxiv constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Charlotte James Cover image The Education of the Youth Bartholomew. Miniature from Life of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, 16th century © Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-7445-3 ePDF: 978-1-3500-7447-7 eBook: 978-1-3500-7446-0 Series: 978-1-3500-7466-8 Typeset by Integra Software Services pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS

L ist

of

F igures 

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S eries I ntroduction  Megan Jane Laverty and David T. Hansen

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G eneral E ditors ’ A cknowledgments 

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V olume E ditor ’ s A cknowledgments 

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T imeline 

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Introduction: Historical Vision and Philosophy of Education in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Kevin Gary

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1 The Monastic Turn: 400–1150 Brett Bertucio

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2 Religion, Reason, and Educational Thought in the Twelfth Century Constant J. Mews

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3 Jewish and Muslim Voices Gad Marcus and Yusef Waghid

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4 Thomas Aquinas and Education Stein M. Wivestad

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5 Humanism and Education Laura DeSisto

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CONTENTS

6 Women Writers and Education Cristina Cammarano

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7 Religious Reformers and Education in the Sixteenth Century Carrie Euler

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8 Michel de Montaigne and the Bridge to Enlightenment and Modernity Darryl M. De Marzio 201 N otes I ndex 

on

C ontributors 

223 226

FIGURES

1.1 St. Benedict

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1.2 Abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés

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3.1 Moses Maimonides

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4.1 Thomas Aquinas

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4.2 Medieval classroom

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4.3 John Amos Comenius

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4.4 Notre Dame Cathedral

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5.1 Leonardo Bruni

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5.2 Vittorino da Feltre

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5.3 Leonardo da Vinci sketch

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6.1 Hildegard of Bingen

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7.1 Philip Melanchthon, “Professor of the Germans.”

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7.2 Desiderius Erasmus

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8.1 Michel de Montaigne

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SERIES INTRODUCTION MEGAN JANE LAVERTY AND DAVID T. HANSEN

A History of Western Philosophy of Education is a five-volume series that traces the development of philosophy of education through Western culture and history. It seeks to illuminate the philosophical origins of contemporary educational debates, policies, and practices. Focusing on philosophers who have theorized education and its implementation, the series constitutes a fresh, dynamic, and developing view of educational philosophy. It expands our educational possibilities by reinvigorating philosophy’s vibrant critical tradition, connecting old and new perspectives, and identifying the continuity of critique and reconstruction.

AN UNBROKEN CONVERSATION Education and philosophy of education are not historical constants, either as concepts or as practices. Their meaning and enactments transform across space and time. What education meant to a medieval monk differs from how a twentieth-century child-centered educator conceived it, and both differ from the understanding of an ancient Roman. However, the questions that reside at the heart of philosophy of education have a long-standing lineage. These questions can be traced at least as far back as Plato. In Plato’s dialogues, ranging from the Laches and Protagoras to the Meno and Republic, Socrates asks: “Can you teach a person to be virtuous (i.e. good)?,” “Which of us is truly a teacher of the souls of youth?,” and “What is the relation between education and a just society?” In these questions, we see the meeting of philosophy and education: a fusion of the spirit of inquiry into fundamental issues of life characteristic of philosophy, with the necessity of education for human continuity, growth, and renewal. Plato thereby helps inaugurate an open-ended conversation that continues through the present day. It is a conversation, to cite Michael Oakeshott’s (1989)

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poetic terms, “in which human beings forever seek to understand themselves” (p. 41). The terms and the idiom of this conversation may change over time, but the questions persist, and in a pressing way. The value of participating in this historical conversation is that it allows today’s students and professors to “disentangle [themselves], for a time, from the urgencies of the here and now” (Oakeshott 1989, p. 41). This practice positions everyone to engage with thinkers from the past as if they were sitting around the table with us today. We revisit their writings in order to learn from them and, in an important sense, with them, for each is an inquirer rather than a peddler of a dogma. To learn from, and with, the past is to have one’s definition of and criteria for education challenged and potentially transformed, and in a highly distinctive and invaluable manner. While we do learn much from our contemporaries, we are typically too close to them in space and time to shake loose from their (and our) assumptions of what counts as “learning.” Every generation of scholars, teachers, and students faces this “almost insurmountable difficulty,” to borrow terms from John Dewey (1985, p. 154), of seeing beyond the end of its own nose. This predicament, too, is part of the long-standing conversation in philosophy of education: it calls for a dedicated effort to participate. The redeeming fact is that the conversation is always already at hand to assist us in facing the problems of a “presentist” myopia. The past can teach precisely because it stands outside current passions and fashions, even while helping us grasp how the latter came into being and why they grip current sensibilities. None of the above implies the past has a “superior” voice, any more than does the present, a point to which we will return. The long-standing conversation at the juncture of philosophy and education has been a constant process of criticism of the past, but always in the very moment that the past challenges the present to become self-aware and self-critical of that which it most takes for granted. To learn from the past is to overcome its limitations, even while striving to overcome one’s own. Philosophy of education features what can be seen across all domains of philosophy: an erotic aspiration, as Andy German (2017) puts it, to look beyond its own tradition and find a way back to the beginning: to that existential moment, metaphorically speaking, when “the first question” about education was enunciated, so that we might pose it in our own terms in light of our own realities. The perennial yearning in philosophy to overcome its own tradition— even while depending upon it as an indispensable inheritance (like one’s native language acquired as a child)—mirrors a deep, typically unspoken desire to grasp the unity behind the “bewildering variety of positions and doctrines” in the field (German 2017, p. 7). “Unity” does not mean unanimity in thought. It is a unity in eros. It represents a longing to find that existential place, named above, that is prior to the emergence, proliferation, and intensification of competing

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perspectives. “[T]he surest mark of philosophically inclined spirit,” contends German, is to be “seized” by this eros (p. 7). The educator aspires to truly think, and to think truly, rather than to mimic others’ thought. This desire means they must “find” their thought even as they “found,” or ground, their distinctive voice in the conversation (see Cavell 1989). The return “to the beginning” in philosophy, which we will witness across the volumes in this series, constitutes what Iris Murdoch conceives of as “an abiding and not regrettable characteristic of the discipline” (1997, p. 299). Contributors to this series do not examine ancient and modern philosophies of education in order to “improve” upon or “correct” them. Rather, they approach thinkers across the ages as our nonliving contemporaries, having recognized that they have something meaningful to say to us. Entering this conversation enables “another’s thoughts to re-enact themselves in [our] own mind,” thereby positioning us to understand ourselves afresh (Oakeshott 1989, p. 68). The educational questions first posed by Socrates and others burst upon each new generation of educators, inviting them to take hold of their educational inheritance and contribute to it in their own singular, irreproducible ways. Although each generation must answer the questions anew, they do not do so de novo, for the history of thought is a reservoir of responses waiting to be drawn upon and engaged. This series invites readers into the history of the most important philosophical questions for education. This history comprises an unbroken, lively, and vivid conversation across time. In looking back over the history of Western philosophy of education, we bear witness to the continuity of the questions, and to the profound commitment our forebears brought to addressing them. We hope the series will help readers sustain this crucial commitment.

A FRESH CANON Education is at the heart of the human experience. Philosophy of education is important because our values—that is, views on how we should live—do not emerge from nowhere. They must be cultivated or supported in individuals by means of education. As the process by which a society renews and improves itself, education is far more than social reproduction, and far less than total revolution. It is an elusive middle path constituted by love for the extraordinary endeavor of conceiving, and bringing to life, human possibilities. From the beginning, canonical philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, JeanJacques Rousseau, and John Dewey have addressed education. They have thought philosophically about education’s aims and methods, the nature of learning and thinking, the character of knowledge, and the contributions of curriculum, pedagogy, and schooling to maturation. Philosophers’ answers to these questions have defined key periods in the history of philosophy of

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education from antiquity, to the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and into the present. Although studying the history of Western philosophy writ large can advance the understanding of philosophical problems in education, this series attends directly to philosophy’s contribution to conceptions of education. It offers a fresh canon of educational philosophy rather than an overview of the philosophical canon per se (Mintz 2017). For this reason, readers will find that such prominent Western philosophers as Thomas Hobbes and Benedictus Spinoza, who wrote very little on education or whose work lacks explicit educational ramifications, will not be covered in detail. Instead, the contributors focus on those philosophers and educators who have theorized education and its practices, thereby identifying a dynamic and ever-changing canon of thinkers for philosophy of education. Individual thinkers or clusters of thinkers representing schools of thought—feminism, pragmatism, or phenomenology, for example—will be situated within the context of ongoing influences and intellectual relationships. A “canon” in philosophy can be understood as a body of continuously consulted, respected texts that have stood the test of time. People turn to them across the generations not as a result of dogmatic adherence or for purposes of propaganda (though every text, once it leaves an author’s hands, is subject to countless uses and abuses—consider, among other examples, Friedrich Nietzsche’s oeuvre). Nor do people take them in hand because they necessarily subscribe to the thinkers’ views. Agreement or disagreement, as such, is not the key issue, though it remains important depending on context. People read canonical works because they continue to provoke fresh thinking across space and time. As already touched on, they spark new lines of questioning and insight. Contemporary scholarship in any field, including in philosophy of education, is radically uncertain about which recent texts will endure. Current popularity does not necessarily predict longevity. At the same time, the canon in philosophy of education is ever-changing precisely because of new contemporary contributions, some of which spotlight hitherto neglected or forgotten writings, including by marginalized and excluded people in societies past and present. While many of these works will not themselves endure, in terms of a continued readership, they generate an ethos that makes it possible for others that will. This process is how a scholarly ethos functions, a dynamic which is equally true of the ethos in the arts. Shakespeare’s plays are found on stages everywhere in the world today not because they are pure miracles of genius or because some authority has made it so. They emerged out of traditions of theatre that created an ethos for them to take hold of people’s imaginations. Without that ethos, we today would likely have never heard of them. We illustrate this point in the next section with regards to what is often referred to as “progressive education.”

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THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION Roughly speaking, progressive education represents a commitment to fuse values sometimes seen as in tension: genuine student autonomy, alongside a strong, democratic social spirit. The approach pivots around learning by doing. Rather than sitting passively in rows of seats in the classroom while educators “pour” knowledge into them, students should be engaged actively with inquiring, discussing, experimenting, exploring, and more. While the progressive education movement began in the United States with the reception of John Dewey’s (1859–1952) philosophy of education, Aristotle (384–322 bce) was one of its earliest precursors. He argued that individuals develop practical wisdom by engaging practically in wise activities rather than by studying theories of wisdom alone. The early modern thinker Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) deployed this Aristotelian insight to argue that education should aim not at filling students with information but rather at cultivating persons holistically from an intellectual, aesthetic, and ethical point of view. From his perspective, young people develop practical wisdom—qualities of tenacity, flexibility, and sound judgment in the face of difficulty—by interacting with a diverse range of social, cultural, and physical environments. Seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury developments were also important. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), an avid reader of Montaigne, Plato, and other forebears, highlighted the qualities of integrity, decisiveness, and consistency that would, in his view, liberate the student to act autonomously. Rousseau would have the student learn firsthand, through concrete experience as well as in developmentally appropriate ways, about the unpredictability of countless life events, the necessity of work, the values in friendship, family, and mutually dependent, supportive male–female relations such as marriage, and the responsibilities of citizenship. Rousseau cautions traditional educators that their intense preoccupation with mature adulthood leads them to neglect the intervening and formative years. He argues that the core dispositions of humane adulthood, compassion and conscience, only develop if the individual fully experiences infancy, childhood, and adolescence. In his educational treatise, Emile, or on Education (1763), Rousseau-the-tutor attends closely to what Emile perceives, comprehends, needs, and desires, from birth through adolescence. Like Montaigne, Rousseau anticipates Dewey’s thesis that the first step in educating children is to observe them in their most natural state. An important philosopher of education influenced by Rousseau’s Emile was Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827). Pestalozzi founded several pioneering schools designed to educate the whole child. He promoted caring relationality rather than one-sided, top-down adult authority, as a model for the artful or well-lived life, including in his educational novel Leonard and Gertrude (1781). After visiting Pestalozzi’s schools, Friedrich

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Froebel (1782–1852) developed his own progressive educational philosophy and practice. He established the first kindergarten (German for “children’s garden” or “garden of children”) in the world, which stressed the importance of play in the education of the young (and which is now a prominent feature of progressive classrooms). In summary, while Dewey is the most renowned philosopher of progressive education, A History of Western Philosophy of Education clarifies the significance of his thought for contemporary educational theory by providing a rich account of its antecedents and shaping influences. The series identifies the key intellectual and pedagogical movements that inform progressive educational thought from antiquity, to the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and to the ethos created by Dewey and his contemporaries, among them Jane Addams (1860–1935), Elsie Ripley Clapp (1879–1965), William James (1842–1910), George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), Francis Parker (1837–1902), and Ella Flagg Young (1845–1918). As with so many figures in the history of Western educational philosophy, Dewey’s voice resonates with those of other thinkers. For example, there are unspoken resemblances between Dewey’s and Paulo Freire’s (1921–97) influential philosophy of education. Both argue that teachers, to quote Peter Roberts on Freire, Ira Shor, and bell hooks, “need to have an understanding of what they stand for: what they value and why. At the same time, both thinkers caution that teachers must avoid imposing their truths and their ideals on students. Teaching should, they suggest, foster a love of learning, respect for others, and a sense of community” (Roberts, volume five, p. 123). And as with Dewey, Freire’s thought “is shaped by multiple intellectual traditions, including liberalism, Marxism, critical theory, existentialism, phenomenology, radical Catholicism, and postmodernism” (Roberts, volume five, p. 111). As with progressive education, Freire’s critical pedagogy did not spring de novo on the scene, as our contributors to this series make plain. The continuity found in the history of educational philosophy is also present in educational practice, albeit with constant reconstruction and reframing. For example, as long as humans have inhabited the earth, young people have gathered to listen and to learn from their elders. The ancient Athenians formalized this indispensable intergenerational encounter into what they called paideia. The term denotes a systematic pedagogical course of study and activity, involving the education of both mind and body, intended to prepare good citizens. This conception, as Oakeshott (1989) argues, was “passed on (with appropriate changes) from the schools of the Roman Empire to the cathedral, the collegiate, guild and grammar schools of medieval Christendom … [It] informed the schools of renaissance Europe and … survived in our own grammar and public schools and their equivalents in continental Europe” (p. 71). Throughout this history, children and adolescents, concerned parents, professional teachers, and in some cases school administrators and representatives of the church or state, have all had a vital presence. Their debates about a developmentally

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appropriate curriculum, what is in the best interests of children, the requisite training and expertise of teachers, and the role of national interests served to motivate, direct, energize, and in some cases thwart educational reform. As emphasized, philosophers of education today do not scrutinize the history of educational thought for merely antiquarian purposes. On the contrary, they debate continuously their respective interpretations of past thought precisely because of its critical pertinence for forming sound theory and associated practices in our time. In the same breath, they engage one another in spirited dialogue about education’s foundational concepts such as teaching, learning, and curriculum. Understanding and sustaining such debates is critical to the ongoing vitality of the field. As the philosopher W.B. Gallie (1968) argued, reasoned disagreements regarding essentially contested concepts underscore the unity of a field—a unity not of thought but based on a shared spirit of inquiry— and further its optimum development. Philosophers of education know that how they understand educational practice and the constituent concepts of education will be contested by others who perceive them differently, though not so differently that they cannot appreciate the criteria implicit in each other’s understandings. In short, the more philosophers of education appreciate the merits of rival interpretations, the more they contribute to the quality and inclusivity of scholarly debate within the field.

A DYNAMIC AND CRITICAL TRADITION What are “ideas”? Where do they come from? And what are “thinking,” “inquiry,” “study,” and “criticism”? How do they arise? One way to respond to such questions is to ask: To what extent is philosophy, and by extension philosophy of education, a reflection of the particular culture in which it takes place? Is it largely an expression of the taken-for-granted assumptions and presuppositions of the surrounding culture, as might be said of the latter’s other practices pertaining to family life, health, and politics? Or does philosophy generate a different relation with culture, not one of simply swimming in it but of stepping outside the stream in a spirit of criticism and open-ended inquiry? We see truth on all sides of the equation. A heartening development in the long conversation touched on here has been how, in recent decades, it has been steadily recognizing how philosophy itself, like its surrounding milieu, has been at times exclusionary and discriminatory, if not in intent then in consequence. Philosophers and schools of thought have not always acknowledged, much less responded to, realities of sexism, racism, adultism, speciesism, and other “isms” emergent in culture over the millennia. We are moved by being participants in the intellectual-political-academic sea changes of our time, which have opened scholarship up to an expanding range of hitherto marginalized or uninvited voices, an array of whom will be heard

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across the volumes in this series. We picture this turn continuing, and suggest it promises an ever-widening, ever-deepening cosmopolitan ethos in the academy, in general, and in philosophy of education, in particular. At the same time, with regards to the question about the origins of ideas, of thinking, of inquiry, and the like, it is well to remind ourselves that our thoughts can have reasons behind them, not causes, whether the latter be cast as cultural or genetic (Oakeshott 1989, p. 20). This truth is both epistemic and ethical. As Richard Eldridge (1997) poetically writes: “[M]y remembrance of my humanity and its expression or repudiation, is not something that happens in me; it is not the effect of mental or physical or social substance acting according to their fixed and given natures. It is something that I, animated through my life with others, do” (p. 290). The philosophers and intellectual movements featured in this series, and which have given the long conversation its texture and openended trajectory, are not reducible to expressions of the cultural assumptions prevalent in their respective eras. Quite on the contrary. In many cases, ranging from Plato, to Montaigne, to Karl Marx, to Dewey, and to Hannah Arendt, they have been among the most critical thinkers the world in its totality has ever seen: critical of society, critical of prejudice and moral blindness, critical of themselves. To spotlight one specific example among others, in Immanuel Kant’s essay Perpetual Peace—a document that deeply informs the intellectual background to many peacemaking projects, including the creation of the United Nations—the author eclipsed his own prejudices in arguing against European imperialism and colonial exploitation. It bears adding that many thinkers in the long conversation have not even been “Western,” at least in a narrow intellectual sense of the term. In many cases, ranging again from the likes of Plato through Ralph Waldo Emerson, they have been mindful of ideas from the world over, and have embraced this influence. The central point in these remarks is that the history of Western philosophy, and specifically of philosophy of education, is not marked by a preset, linear progression, any more than it is marked by a single cultural, social, or political voice. People rediscover and reconstruct philosophy of education in each new encounter with the tradition, with each new retelling of how previous thought and present concerns intermingle. This five-volume series comes at a time when the horizons of Western philosophy of education are expanding to incorporate the insights of post-anthropocentric, postcolonial, and indigenous and Eastern philosophies. A vital starting point of these new  and inspiring theoretical developments is to acknowledge misunderstandings and blind spots, across space and time, and then attempt to correct them. And yet, if we fail to examine closely the intellectual movements that have shaped these misunderstandings and fueled their transcendence, we risk narrowing our thinking, constraining our possibilities, and reducing our potential for improvement (Carr 2004; Mintz 2017; Ruitenberg 2010). Leading scholars

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of educational philosophy have demonstrated the significance of the history of philosophical debate for critically reviewing extant research fields and developing emergent ones. Ultimately, this five-volume endeavor seeks to be a prize resource for students and scholars in education who perceive that the critical spirit of Western philosophy, including philosophy of education, remains a truly inspirational tradition. Our interest is in keeping the philosophical tradition vibrant so that it can continue to support the infusion of new voices, critiques, and reconstructions. This posture differs wholeheartedly from traditionalism. As a living tradition, Western philosophy of education has the “capacity to develop while still maintaining its identity and continuity” (Pelikan 1984, p. 58). It constitutes a dynamic, ever-changing constellation of pressing questions about teaching, learning, assessment, and more—including questions about how it has identified and posed questions in the past (Hansen 2001a, b). In contrast, intellectual traditionalism constitutes a reactionary, heels-dug-in attempt to resist any challenge to “the way things are.”

PHILOSOPHY’S TWO TRADITIONS We have spoken of “tradition,” but philosophy can be viewed as a dynamic intertwining of two long-standing traditions that reach back to such pioneering figures as Socrates and Confucius. The first tradition is theoretical and conceptual. It distinguishes education from socialization, parenting from schooling, and civics from indoctrination. The second tradition is philosophy conceived as an art of living. It not only embodies the desire to be wise but strives to incorporate philosophy within such a life. In this light, the art of living has four interrelated components: a moral component (living ethically); a social and political component (commitments to inquiry and communication); a psychological or spiritual component (enjoying peace of mind and curbing egoistic passions); and an intellectual component (thinking carefully and critically about one’s value-oriented vision of the world and one’s place within it). The pedagogical methods or “spiritual exercises” intended to help people achieve such a life include intellectual training, contemplative practices, and somaesthetic activities (Gregory and Laverty 2010; Hansen 2011). Living ethically involves engaging conceptions of human values as we seek to cultivate an awareness of how our own experiences are variously marked by compassion, selfishness, honesty, cruelty, and fairness. Ethical inquiry strengthens our capacities to think and feel carefully, to consider sound alternatives, and to self-correct problematic habits of belief and behavior. Moreover, arriving at the most reasonable judgment of an issue requires the free and open exchange of ideas. It calls upon the moral imagination as well as the virtues of intellectual humility and courage. The social and political component

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of the art of living requires individuals to be alive to the myriad ways that power operates in experience (racism, sexism, class oppression, etc.) and to forge and sustain practices of just interaction. The psychological or spiritual component involves working on the self to curb reactivity and recognizing the self’s relation to sources of deeper meaning that inspire awe and reverence, such as nature, cultural or religious traditions, and works of art. The intellectual component of the art of living has been a central focus because it drives the criticism of its very constituents, and such criticism is itself part of the tradition. Philosophy of education brings these two long-standing philosophical traditions—philosophy as the theorization of education and philosophy as a formative practice—into dialogue. Historical and contemporary philosophers who have theorized education in quite different ways nonetheless respect the Socratic imperative for wisdom-oriented education. In this spirit, contributors to the series examine the extent to which society and schools enhance or undermine personal and social transformation. They seek to revivify the two traditions today by refining them and demonstrating their relevance to practices of teaching, teacher education, curriculum development, and policymaking.

THEMES ACROSS THE VOLUMES AND CHAPTERS Philosophers of education across space and time do not share a consensus as to the aims, nature, and means of education. Nonetheless, we judge it valuable to identify characteristics that, taken together, distinguish philosophy of education from other fields of philosophical endeavor. In view of the divergence of thought among philosophers and intellectual movements, the characteristics should be understood as “family resemblances”—to recall a well-known term coined by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)—rather than as airtight ideational compartments. These characteristics comprise the themes and key questions that are addressed across all five volumes. Philosophical anthropology: What does it mean to be human? How are we to understand the relationship between the mind and body? Who should be educated? Is human maturation developmental or cyclical? What happens to our younger (past) selves? Is the child animal-like? Is childhood a form of life in its own right? Is philosophy native to children? What is the significance of our natality and mortality for education? Ethics: What does it mean for humans to live well or, as the issue is often expressed, to flourish? How does education contribute to living well or to flourishing? What forms of teaching and curriculum might ensure for all an artful, meaningful life? What are the virtues of teaching and learning? How should teachers be expected to conduct themselves in and beyond the school? What ethical dilemmas are unique to schools and school leadership?

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Social and political philosophy: What is justice and how should we teach it? How do we educate for a more equitable and just society when the educators and educational institutions themselves belong to the very society that they seek to reform? Is the aim of citizenship education knowledge of government, nationalistic patriotism, or a commitment to the common good? How can we ensure an equitable distribution of educational opportunity? Should education be monitored by national standards and tests? What authority should the state have over education? What authority should teachers have over education? What are the rights of children and parents? Epistemology: What constitutes an educational “experience”? What is knowledge? Where does knowledge come from? Is knowledge innate or does it come from sense impressions of the external word? Is it found, discovered, or made? If it is constructed, is that construction individual or social? Should teaching strategies focus on drawing out what the learner already knows or pouring in what the learner does not know? How does the structure of knowledge relate to the structure and sequence of learning? How does knowledge impact individual and social formation? How might education teach us to distinguish between knowledge and wisdom? What is the nature of reason? Is reason procedural/instrumental (i.e., distinct from the passions), or does it combine thinking with intuitive valuing capacities that are oriented to the real and the good? Aesthetics: What are the felt qualities of experience and how can we learn to be mindful of the qualitative dimension of our lives? What is the role of beauty in human experience and education? How might education influence our fundamental sensibilities toward the world? How could education enhance our ability to be sensitive, responsive, aware, and concerned? How might individuals tell their life stories? What are the aesthetic qualities that make the good stories? Pedagogy, schooling, and education: What is the ultimate aim of education? Is the aim of education to promote social order and assimilation or individual freedom? What is the role of institutions like school for generating such experiences? Should schooling focus on developing students’ marketable skills or on their cultural and political awareness? What instructional methods are most appropriate, and how do we warrant them from an epistemic and ethical point of view? How shall we conceive teacher education? Should we think of teachers as state functionaries and/or as “elders” with a profound responsibility for educating children and youth? Philosophy of Psychology and the Social Sciences: How should education be assessed? What does it mean to “measure” a human being’s education? What are the strengths and limitations of social scientific research into education? What is the distinctive contribution of the arts and humanities? What are the degrees of freedom individuals, communities, and societies have to form and reform themselves?

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CONCLUSION: AN OVERVIEW OF THE SERIES A History of Western Philosophy of Education consists of five volumes, each devoted to an examination of canonical philosophers of education and schools of thought in a distinct period. 1. Antiquity (Ancient Greece to Early Christian) (500 bce–500 ce) 2. The Medieval and Renaissance Period (500–1600) 3. The Age of Enlightenment (1600–1850) 4. The Modern Era (1850–1914) 5. The Contemporary Landscape (1914–present)

Each volume covers a recognizable period in the Western tradition because we want to contextualize emergent and abiding philosophical and educational ideas within a relevant historical and cultural context. To this end, we conclude Volume 1 and commence Volume 2 at 500 ce, which demarcates the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages. In these two volumes, we see the emergence of the Sophists, Cynics, and Stoics, and their later eclipse by the rise of the Judeo-Christian tradition that would prove so definitive of later thought. We end Volume 2 and begin Volume 3 with the start of the seventeenth century given its inextricable association with the Enlightenment and its emergent embrace of science, human rights, and liberal democracy. We conclude Volume 4 and commence Volume 5 with 1914, the year that saw the beginning of the First World War. This conflagration, unprecedented in its destruction and magnitude, would generate the conditions for the Second World War and the Holocaust, as well as spur the creation of the United Nations and innumerable other movements to foster peace, social justice, improved health and nutrition, and expanded educational provision the world over. While the dates that begin and end each volume serve to pivot us from one historical period to another—with each of these characterized by defining social, cultural, political, and economic events, unique and influential thinkers, and diverse schools of thought—they do not represent fixed, impermeable boundaries. The philosophical survey and analysis of education presented by this series transcends easy capture by historical dates. The discussion is wideranging and ever-dynamic, moving back and forth into the past and the future. The dates should be seen as porous membranes that allow for the easy flow of ideas across the different historical periods. Readers will see that the authors make connections between thinkers and lines of thought and practice from different eras, all of which shows the play of tradition across geographical and historical markers. While the volume dates are valuable to note, our focus in the series is on the thematic conversations that are woven throughout the history of Western philosophy of education.

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Chapters in the series are intended to be useful both in a retrospective sense, helping readers grasp the importance of previous thinkers and movements, and in a prospective sense, pointing out areas of inquiry for scholars and students to pursue. Part of what makes this retrospective and prospective approach possible is that many of the contributing authors work to correct stereotypical readings of seminal thinkers in the tradition. They work hard to explain why it behooves us to resist and move beyond canned views about the past. Readers will not find everything there is to know about Western philosophy of education in this series. While comprehensive in scope, the series does not attempt to be encyclopedic or exhaustive. Each volume comprises up to ten chapters and a wide-ranging introduction penned by the volume editor. With few exceptions, chapters were researched and written by professional philosophers of education. These philosophers of education were invited to draw upon, but not to repeat or rely on, their preexisting scholarly oeuvre. They were asked to reengage with a philosopher of education or school of educational philosophy that they knew well, in the spirit of contextualizing that thinker or school of thought in the broader sweep of educational history. Many took it as an occasion to ask new questions and read more broadly than they would have otherwise done. Some authors familiar with a given philosopher’s educational corpus chose to read other texts, including memoirs, plays, novels, and letters. Others familiar with the oeuvre of a particular philosopher of education chose to read texts by the individual’s contemporaries and critics. Still others familiar with one intellectual tradition choose to articulate it with another. Along the way, the contributors engaged in their own liberal learning as authors of the chapters—an experience not that dissimilar from our own, as general editors and readers of the chapters. We hope that future readers of the series will have a comparable experience. To study philosophy of education is to participate directly in one’s own ongoing education.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Bailey, Richard, Robin Barrow, David Carr, and Christine McCarthy (eds.) (2010), The Sage Handbook of Philosophy of Education, Los Angeles: Sage. Biesta, Gert (2014), “Is Philosophy of Education a Historical Mistake? Connecting Philosophy and Education Differently,” Theory and Research in Education, 12 (1): 65–76. Carr, Wilfred (2004), “Philosophy and Education,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 38 (1): 55–73. Cavell, Stanley (1989), “Finding As Founding,” in Stanley Cavell, This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures after Emerson after Wittgenstein, 77–118, Albuquerque, NM: Living Batch Press. Chambliss, Joseph James (1968), The Origins of American Philosophy of Education: Its Development As a Distinct Discipline, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

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Coetzee, J.M. and Arabella Kurtz (2015), The Good Story: Exchanges on Truth, Fiction and Psychotherapy, London: Penguin. Curren, Randall R. (ed.) (2005), A Companion to the Philosophy of Education, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Curren, Randall R. (2018), “Education, History of Philosophy of,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/97804152 49126NO142-2. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780415249126-N014-2 Dewey, J. (1985), “Democracy and Education,” in John Dewey, The Middle Works, 1899–1924, Vol. 9: Democracy and Education 1916, ed. J.A. Boydston, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Eby, F. and C.F. Arrowood (1940), The History and Philosophy of Education: Ancient and Medieval, Saddle River, NJ: Prentice. Eldridge, Richard (1997), Leading a Human Life: Wittgenstein, Intentionality, and Romanticism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gallie, W.B. (1968), Philosophy and the Historical Understanding, New York: Schocken Books. German, Andy (2017), “Philosophy and Its History: Six Pedagogical Reflections,” APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy, 17 (1): 1–8. Gregory, Maughn Rollins and Megan Jane Laverty (2010), “Philosophy, Education, and the Care of the Self,” in “Philosophy, Education and the Care of the Self,” special issue of Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children, 19 (4): 2–9. Hansen, David T. (2001a), “Teaching and the Sense of Tradition,” in David T. Hansen, Exploring the Moral Heart of Teaching: Toward a Teacher’s Creed, 114–36, New York: Teachers College Press. Hansen, David T. (2001b), “Cultivating a Sense of Tradition in Teaching,” in David T. Hansen, Exploring the Moral Heart of Teaching: Toward a Teacher’s Creed, 137–56, New York: Teachers College Press. Hansen, David T. (2011), The Teacher and the World: A Study of Cosmopolitanism As Education, London: Routledge. Hayden, Matthew (2012), “What Do Philosophers of Education Do? An Empirical Study of Philosophy of Education Journals,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 31 (1): 1–27. Higgins, Chris (2011), The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice, London: Wiley-Blackwell. Horlacher, Rebekka (2004), “‘Bildung’: A Construction of History of Philosophy of Education,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 23 (5–6): 409–26. Kaminsky, James S. (1988), “The First 600 Months of Philosophy of Education—1935–1985: A Deconstructionist History,” Educational Philosophy and Theory, 18 (2): 42–9. Mintz, Avi (2017), “The Use and Abuse of the History of Educational Philosophy,” in Natasha Levinson (ed.), Philosophy of Education Society Yearbook 2016, 406–13, Urbana, IL: Philosophy of Education Society. Muir, James R. (1998), “The History of Educational Ideas and the Credibility of Philosophy of Education,” Educational Philosophy and Theory, 30 (1): 7–26. Meyer, A.D. (1965), An Educational History of the Western World, New York: McGraw-Hill. Murdoch, Iris (1997), “The Idea of Perfection,” in Peter Conradi (ed.), Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature, 299–336, London: Penguin.

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Neiman, Susan (2014), Why Grow Up? Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Oakeshott, Michael (1989), The Voice of Liberal Learning, Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund. Pelikan, Jaroslav (1984), The Vindication of Tradition, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Roberts, Peter (2021), “A Philosophy of Hope: Paulo Freire and Critical Pedagogy,” in Anna Pagès (ed.) A History of Western Philosophy of Education in the Contemporary Landscape, 107–28, London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg (ed.) (1998), Philosophers on Education: New Historical Perspectives, London: Routledge. Ruitenberg, Claudia (2010), What Do Philosophers of Education Do? And How Do They Do It?, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Siegel, Harvey (ed.) (2009), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Soltis, Jonas F. (ed.) (1981), Philosophy of Education since the Mid-Century, New York: Teachers College Press. Standish, Paul (2007), “Rival Conceptions of Philosophy of Education,” Ethics and Education, 2 (2): 159–71. Titone, Connie (2007), “Pulling Back the Curtain: Relearning the History of Philosophy of Education,” Educational Studies, 41 (2): 128–47.

GENERAL EDITORS’ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The General Editors wish to thank the individuals who worked so tirelessly and graciously on this series. We owe a significant debt to our dedicated and tenacious volume editors: Andrea R. English, Kevin Gary, Tal Gilead, Avi Mintz, and Anna Pagès. They undertook a Herculean effort without which this series would not have been possible. We thank the chapter authors in each volume for their scholarly commitment and their responsiveness to our editorial suggestions. We appreciate the artful editorial assistance of three doctoral students in our Program in Philosophy and Education at Teachers College: Buddy North, Kirsten Welch, and Ting Zhao. Our editor at Bloomsbury Publishing, Mark Richardson, and his always upbeat assistant, Kim Bown, provided the perfect slipstream for our many-sided endeavor. Before Kim Bown, Maria Giovanna Brauzzi offered patient guidance as we shifted to the Bloomsbury Content Management System. We also want to thank the many colleagues who provided support and guidance along the way. Family and friends were always there to lighten our spirits at the end of a long day. For us, the series evokes the many years we have spent together with students in our program reading and discussing the great texts in our field, moving toward our deepest inquiries, and participating in one of humanity’s most compelling conversations.

VOLUME EDITOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Volume 2 owes a primary debt of gratitude to the contributing authors: Brett Bertucio, Cristina Cammarano, Carrie Euler, Darryl De Marzio, Laura DeSisto, Gad Marcus, Constant J. Mews, Yusef Waghid, and Stein M. Wivestad. Each worked diligently and responsively, opening up new vistas in the history of philosophy of education. In addition, I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to Heather Gary, John Fantuzzo, Mark Jonas, Avi Mintz, Megan Jane Laverty, and David T. Hansen who provided insightful and generous feedback on my introductory chapter.

TIMELINE

  155 ce c. 251 ce c. 291 ce   354 ce c. 476 ce   480 ce c. 487 ce   516 ce   524 ce c. 570 ce c. 590 ce c. 610 ce c. 632 ce c. 733 ce   800 ce c. 935 ce c. 1018 ce c. 1054 ce c. 1070 ce   1079 ce   1090 ce c. 1095 ce c. 1096 ce   1098 ce c. 1099 ce c. 1100 ce

Birth of Tertullian Birth of St. Anthony the Great of Egypt Birth of St. Pachomius the Great Birth of St. Augustine of Hippo Birth of Boethius Birth of St. Benedict of Nursia Birth of Cassiodorus Publication of Benedict’s Rule of St. Benedict Writing of Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy Birth of the Prophet Muhammad Gregory the Great becomes Pope First revelation of the Qur’an Death of Prophet Muhammad Birth of Alcuin of York Charlemagne crowned emperor Birth of Hrosvitha of Ganderscheim Birth of John of Salisbury Great Schism Birth of William of Champeaux Birth of Peter Abelard Birth of Bernard of Clairvaux Birth of Héloïse Birth of Hugh of St. Victor Birth of Hildegard of Bingen Birth of Peter Lombard Birth of Robert of Melun

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  1138 ce Birth of Moses ben Maimon c. 1151 ce Completion of Bingen’s Scivias; an illustrated work   1190 ce Publication of Maimonides’ The Guide for the Perplexed c. 1215 ce Signing of the Magna Carta   1225 ce Birth of Thomas Aquinas   1250 ce Birth of Marguerite Porete c. 1274 ce Completion of Aquinas’ Summa Theologica   1304 ce Birth of Francesco Petrarch   1320 ce Dante Alighieri completes the Divine Comedy   1331 ce Birth of Coluccio Salutati c. 1337 ce Beginning of the Hundred Years’ War c. 1347–51 ce Great Bubonic Plague   1364 ce Birth of Christine de Pizan   1370 ce Birth of Leonardo Bruni c. 1378 ce Western Schism begins   1396 ce Birth of Giannozzo Manetti   1404–5 ce Completion of Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies c. 1406 ce Completion of Pizan’s The Treasure of the City of Ladies   1407 ce Birth of Lorenzo Valla c. 1439 ce Gutenberg invents printing press   1463 ce Birth of Pico della Mirandola c. 1466 ce Birth of Desiderius Erasmus c. 1469 ce Birth of Niccolò Machiavelli c. 1483 ce Birth of Martin Luther c. 1491 ce Birth of Ignatius Loyola c. 1492 ce Columbus sails west   1496 ce Publication of Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man c. 1497 ce Birth of Philip Melanchthon c. 1493 ce Birth of Juan de Vives c. 1507 ce Birth of Johannes Sturm c. 1509 ce Birth of John Calvin c. 1511 ce Publication of Erasmus’s On the Method of Study c. 1515 ce Birth of Roger Ascham   1516 ce Publication of Erasmus’s The Education of a Christian Prince c. 1516 ce Publication of Erasmus’s On the Education of Children   1533 ce Birth of Michel de Montaigne c. 1543 ce Copernicus publishes On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres   1556 ce Publication of Loyola’s Constitutions c. 1554 ce Birth of William Shakespeare   1565 ce Birth of Marie de Gournay   1570 ce Publication of Ascham’s The Schoolmaster

TIMELINE

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c. 1592 ce Birth of John Amos Comenius c. 1596 ce Birth of René Descartes   1599 ce Publication of the Jesuit’s Ratio Studiorum   1622 ce Completion of Gournay’s essay “Equality of Men and Women” c. 1630 ce Publication of Comenius’ The Door of Languages Unlocked c. 1632 ce Birth of John Locke c. 1634 ce Birth of Madame de Lafayette   1648 ce Birth of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz c. 1657 ce Publication of Comenius’ The Great Didactic   1658 ce Publication of Comenius’ Orbis Pictus; a visual text for children

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Introduction: Historical Vision and Philosophy of Education in the Middle Ages and Renaissance K evin G ary

Imagine leaving your home to go live in a distant culture for a decade, immersing yourself fully in its routines and customs, perhaps even learning a new language. Such an experience would enable you to see your home culture with new eyes. Palpable differences would stand out, but what is gained cannot be easily quantified. Immersion nurtures a different sensibility—a new way of seeing the world. In a similar spirit, the authors in this volume provide readers with an opportunity to venture into what Charles Taylor (2007) describes as alternative social imaginaries. The authors offer rich and substantive historical work in philosophy of education that illuminates both the past and the present. In so doing, they nurture what Hannah Arendt describes as capacity to “think with an enlarged mentality … that trains one’s imagination to go visiting” (1982: 43). This volume traces the history of Western philosophy of education from the Medieval through the Renaissance periods (500–1550). This vast expanse of time includes, among other watershed events, the rise of Christian monasticism (an enduring way of life, as well as a repository of Jewish, Greek, and Roman thought and culture), the birth of Islam (with its advances in mathematical,

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scientific, and philosophical reasoning), the rise of the university (as an emerging force distinct from ecclesiastical and state control), and the dawn of the Enlightenment (and its hope that humankind, with reason and technical mastery, might create a utopia here on earth). Despite how historical work might enrich our understanding of philosophy of education, there is limited historical work in general and very little that focuses on the Medieval and Renaissance period. The handful of volumes that take up an historical perspective often pass over this time frame all together. For example, A Companion to the Philosophy of Education (Curren 2007) only includes historical chapters on ancient Greece, Judaism, Augustine, and humanism. Likewise, Nel Noddings (2015), in her admittedly “brief historical survey,” pivots from Aristotle to Rousseau, suggesting that whatever important thought there is to be found in the history of education can be gleaned in the classical and perhaps late Renaissance periods. Steven Cahn (2011), in his survey of readings in philosophy of education, also skips from Aristotle to Locke, reinforcing the contemporary bias that the Middle Ages were truly a dark age. In addition, a survey of major journals in the philosophy of education published between 2000 and 2010 also reveals limited engagement with not just Medieval and Renaissance sources but historical thought in general (Hayden 2012).1 This series, as well as this volume, aims to make a substantial contribution to historical work in philosophy of education. As the series editors underscore, the contributors to the series “do not examine ancient and modern philosophies of education in order to ‘improve’ upon or ‘correct’ them. Rather, they approach thinkers across the ages as our nonliving contemporaries, having recognized that they have something meaningful to say to us” (Hansen and Laverty, Series Introduction). This volume includes chapters on the dialectical contributions of Abelard, Heloise, Aquinas, and Maimonides, among others.2 It includes the educational contribution of medieval women such as Hrosvitha of Ganderscheim, Hildegard of Bingen, and Marguerite Porete, whose philosophical work often remains in the shadows. It examines the educational impact of Reformation thinkers like Erasmus and Luther, as well as Renaissance thinkers such as Montaigne. It begins with a chapter on one of the most enduring and revolutionary models of education in the history of the West: Benedict’s monasterium. Above all, this series, as well as this volume, seeks to cultivate our vision—to expand “our educational possibilities by reinvigorating philosophy’s vibrant critical tradition, connecting old and new perspectives, and identifying the continuity of critique and reconstruction” (Hansen and Laverty, Series Introduction). In this introduction, I first consider the context of this vast period, noting three significant educational movements that ought to be of interest to philosophers of education: the canon, monastic lectio divina, and scholastic dialectic. The

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emerging canon, which preceded this period, endures and expands during this time, setting the trajectory and substance of educational pursuits for centuries to come. Though monks preserved and transmitted the canon, which included Jewish, Christian, and classical sources, they were wary of texts that, in their view, amused and distracted more than edified. In response, monks created a canon within the canon and a distinctive pedagogy for reading texts for moral and spiritual edification—lectio divina. The canon’s reception, however, shifts within the scholastic milieu that takes hold during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Scholastics, in contrast to monastic reverence for texts, employed rigorous dialectic, subjecting all texts (whether sacred or profane) to the same exacting standards of inquiry. This approach eventually supersedes monastic lectio divina as the pedagogical standard within the emerging universities of the Middle Ages. This historical tension between monastic and scholastic ways of knowing and reading illustrates the complexity of this period. I then consider, in greater depth, the educational approach and way of life enacted within the monastic tradition. This movement, of the three noted, suffers the greatest neglect in contemporary philosophy of education and in educational conversations at large.3 We are most certainly heirs of scholasticism, understood broadly as employing dialectical inquiry to advance the state of knowledge. The notion of a canon also persists, although sometimes heatedly contested or debated. By contrast, the medieval conception of leisure— understood not (as it is today) as liberation from work but as a deliberate process of self-cultivation—appears to be a distant and largely forgotten ideal. While a wholesale retrieval of this ideal is hard to picture, its ethical impulse is well worth contemporary attention, especially in light of current worries about a narrow utilitarian, instrumental focus in educational systems the world over.

THE CANON, SCHOLASTIC DIALECTIC, AND MONASTIC LECTIO DIVINA Around the year 200, Tertullian (155–220), a theologian and convert to Christianity, asked the question: “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens, the Church with the Academy, the Christian with the heretic? After Jesus we have no need of speculation, after the Gospel no need of research” (Prescriptions Against Heretics, 7). Tertullian, though a former Stoic, was suspicious of ancient philosophy as a diversion, at best, or as a source for heretical thinking, at worse. Pagan thought, he feared, would dilute the pure truths of the gospel. A thousand years later, Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), at the outset of his magnum opus, the Summa Theologica, inverts this question, asking “Whether, besides philosophy, any further doctrine [i.e., specifically Judeo-Christian revelation] is required?”

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(Summa Theologica 1 Q 1,  A 1). Do we, Aquinas asks, need more than the wisdom of Athens to understand the vita bonum or good life. From Tertullian to Thomas Aquinas, the Medieval and early Renaissance periods can be characterized as an ongoing attempt to synthesize JudeoChristian with classical thought (Kimball 1986: 41). This engagement elevated a canon of particular texts, motivated by a deep admiration for Greek and Roman philosophical, political, and literary texts, which included the likes of Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Quintilian, and Virgil. The ongoing appropriation of the classical canon in turn yielded texts deemed worthy of canonical status, including, to name just a few, Augustine’s The City of God (426), Benedict’s Rule (516), Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (524), Anselm’s Proslogion (1077), Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed (1190), Aquinas’ Summa Theologica (1272), and Dante’s Divine Comedy (1320).4 Despite the substantial political and religious turmoil in the Medieval and Renaissance periods, the canon persisted, more or less intact, enduring the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, followed by the rise and fall of warring tribes and monarchies, the Western Schism in the fourteenth century—with three popes concurrently claiming the seat of Peter—and the Reformation of the sixteenth century, with its ensuing religious fragmentation. In the thirteenth century, the West had recently, via Jewish and Muslim scholars, rediscovered the thought of Aristotle. Impressed by Aristotle’s account, Aquinas has the intellectual and philosophical courage to ask, as noted, What more do we need than Greek metaphysics and ethics? Where Tertullian was looking to move beyond pagan sources, Aquinas resonates with a burgeoning dialectical tradition that included Augustine (354–430), Abû Nasr Al-Fârâbî (872–950), Peter Abelard (1079–1142), Héloïse d’Argenteuil (1101–64), Peter Lombard (1096–1160), Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides, 1138–1204), and Albertus Magnus (1200–1280). Aquinas redirects attention toward full engagement with pagan thought. His effort mirrors how the canon withstood Tertullian’s direct attempt in the early third century and later Martin Luther’s attempt in the sixteenth century to limit if not sever pagan ties. By the end of the Renaissance, classical education was the standard in both Catholic and Protestant schools for what it means to become an educated person.5 The dominance of the idea of a canon has continued into our contemporary era. In particular, it was buoyed by Robert Hutchins’s “Great Books” approach at the University of Chicago, along with Mortimer Adler’s (1998) Paideia Proposal. More recently, literary critic Harold Bloom (2014) made a case for the Western canon, offering a lament over its demise and an argument for its reconstruction. Alert to critiques that his plea may sound elitist or exclusionary, Bloom does not make a case for a reified canon but argues for a canon that extends across time, expanding and including diverse voices. The canon continues to animate conversations in education, though often more in reaction to it than in support of it (Deneen 2013; Hirsch 2002).

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More significant than the canon itself, however, was the approach with which it was engaged and appropriated. Tertullian’s very question—his juxtaposition of Jerusalem and Athens (faith and reason or revelation and philosophy)— betrays a classical sensibility and its commitment to dialectical inquiry as the supreme method for truth seeking. Though critical of Athens, Tertullian is marked by Athenian ways of seeing and reasoning. This approach persists and comes to fruition in the thought of Aquinas. Aquinas’ Summa, it is helpful to recall, was intended to be an introduction to Christian theology. It does not, however, proceed didactically but rather philosophically. The Summa is a series of mini-dialogues. Each responds to a key question, culling insights from a range of sources, which include classical, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim authors. Aquinas, as a philosopher theologian, did not regard his opus as the end of a discussion but rather as a continuation of many ongoing discussions, as well as the initiation of several new areas of inquiry. Aquinas’ thought, and his use of scholastic dialectic, is of particular significance because it holds faith and reason together, disposing the Catholic tradition to acknowledge truth wherever it may be found. He was able to recognize the insights of Aristotle, while also adhering to the truths of Christianity. The senses especially were for Aquinas, as G.K. Chesterton notes, “the windows of the soul” (1986: 525). If an obvious fact contradicts a literal interpretation of scripture “then we can only say that the literal interpretation must be a false interpretation” (p. 471). Aquinas sets up a scriptural hermeneutic that frees up inquiry to pursue truths of reason—hence the confidence in the question that opens the Summa: is faith necessary? Scholastic dialectic lays the foundation for what would eventually become the medieval university—the precursor of our modern university.6 Dialectical inquiry, it should be noted, was not the only manner with which texts were engaged during this period, which directs us to a third significant educational movement. Volume 1 of this series concludes with Augustine, who lived on the transitional cusp of the classical and medieval periods. Augustine’s life, especially, embodies the three abovementioned movements. He was formed by the classical tradition, trained as a dialectician, and eventually turned to monastic lectio divina as the preferred way to read texts. Lectio divina, which is examined further later in this introductory chapter, was not a discrete method or technique but a particular way of life. Augustine received what was considered to be a first-rate liberal arts education. He studied Virgil and Cicero, among others, excelling as a rhetor or orator. His education, as he recounts in his Confessions, was focused on learning “the art of words … [acquiring] that eloquence that is essential to persuade” (Confessions 1.9.14). Yet more than wisdom, or the love of truth, Augustine notes how he and his classmates were taught to prize being clever, or at least appearing so. He learned to value texts insofar as they entertained or sharpened his oratorical prowess.

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Augustine recognized the need for a new culture and new way of life to sustain a different kind of reading and spirit, which would nurture humility, the love of wisdom, and moral improvement. The Roman liberal arts culture was steeped in status mongering. In spite of Augustine’s recognition of this, he could not escape it. His new way of thinking demanded a new way of living. Augustine discovered this culture and pedagogical method within a Christian monastic context. Right reading, Augustine found, required right living. This distinction, Alasdair MacIntyre notes, can sound especially strange to modern ears, which assume “that every rational adult should be free to and is able to read every book” (1988: 133). By contrast, Augustine witnesses to the “concept of having to be a certain sort of person, morally or theologically, in order to read a book aright—with the implication that perhaps, if one is not that sort of person, the book should be withheld” (p. 133). Prior to the rise of scholastic universities in the thirteenth century, the monastery was the educational institution par excellence. Monasteries were not only repositories for classical Greek, Roman, and Jewish texts but also centers of education in their own right, cultivating and nurturing a distinctive kind of pedagogy, centered upon lectio divina. More than fodder for critical thinking, texts in the monastic tradition were regarded as sources of profound wisdom. This tradition cultivated a capacity to read certain texts for moral and spiritual transformation. Just a generation after Augustine’s death, the Roman Empire (c.  476) collapsed. Yet what Augustine and others had started—the creation of a monastic culture distinct from Roman imperial culture—endured. In the absence of central political power, the Catholic Church, especially through its monastic communities, stepped into the breach. By the year 500, monasteries populated Western Europe, reaching from Augustine’s North Africa to as far north as present-day Ireland. Largely due to the monastic movement, several texts from antiquity were preserved, copied, and transmitted to monasteries throughout Europe. Though valuing classical texts for literacy purposes, especially as supreme examples of belles lettres (rhetoric or the art of writing beautifully), monks were wary of the content, which in places celebrates what they regarded as immoral conduct as well as valorizing speculation in areas that monks deemed trivial. Augustine’s example illustrates this tension. He employs the tools of his Roman liberal arts education (logic, dialectic, and rhetoric) to criticize that very education and redirect it in a new way.

ON MEDIEVAL LEISURE Giambattista Vico is credited as the first philosopher of history “to take seriously the possibility that people had fundamentally different schemas of thought in different historical eras” (Bertland n.d.). Engagement with

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historical thought enables our capacity to see our taken-for-granted schema. It cultivates vision, or what Maxine Greene (1988: 13) describes as our ability to see things anew or to see the familiar as strange. Toward this end, I now turn to a core element of medieval educational thought and practice—otium, the Latin term for leisure. As we will see, the term denotes a deep commitment to cultivating and practicing a life of contemplation concerning important theological and philosophical matters. This view of leisure contrasts markedly, and dramatically, with the contemporary view of the term as merely escape or relief from work. In our present-day context, the term becomes a kind of “empty cell” to be filled by ever-proliferating forms of entertainment. Monks distinguished entertainment (on view in royal courts and nobles’ estates in their era) from generative contemplation. The medieval view of leisure, I contend, remains useful for us to consider today, especially in light of its near disappearance in what the poet W.H. Auden prophetically described as our “Age of Anxiety” (1947: 1). Along many familiar yardsticks, our era is indeed an anxious one. While the root meaning of the word school comes from the Greek word skholē, which means leisure, leisure is a distant ideal. As noted, the medieval conception of leisure can appear, at first glance, as a relic of the ancient past; yet as recently as 1918, The Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education report included leisure as one of seven essential aims for secondary students. This report was issued by the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education of the National Education Association. It was part of a national attempt to reform secondary education in the United States. The leisure objective merits quoting in full: Worthy Use of Leisure: The idea behind this principle is that education should give the student the skills to enrich his/her body, mind, spirit and personality in his/her leisure. The school should also provide appropriate recreation. This principle should be taught in all subjects but primarily in music, art, literature, drama, social issues, and science (Schugurensky 2005). Distinct from medieval leisure, as it was practiced and understood, this objective nevertheless was animated by a similar spirit. More than mere utility (or making a living), schools aimed to cultivate in students a way of living—an ability to use one’s leisure time well—to discover ways to re-create the self. In pursuing leisure, schools sought to cultivate in students the capacity to recognize and savor the intrinsic worth of school subjects, and activities, in addition to their extrinsic value.7 A century later, leisure has disappeared from the taxonomy of educational objectives. Apart from the use of the word school, the link to the ancient and medieval skholē has arguably been completely severed. Schools are increasingly positioned as instruments to serve a global economy, charged with producing

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highly skilled workers for the twenty-first century. Given this overarching vision, school studies are increasingly pressed to serve extrinsic purposes exclusively, at the expense of intrinsic purposes. When students complain about boring and meaningless school work, the justification teachers are increasingly pressed to offer is the telos of work (“You will need to know this in the real world”). Such utilitarian forces have not only practically disrupted skholē (schools provide less time for recess and recreation) but also theoretically dismantled it. Rather than defining leisure as the contemplative pursuit of activities seen as intrinsically worthwhile, leisure is largely understood as “the absence of work.” It has become synonymous with the word vacation—an escape from work and boredom. To begin to understand medieval leisure, its context must be considered (see Gary 2006, 2017).8 Leisure was sustained and practiced within a monastic setting. According to Benedict, the father of Western monasticism, “the whole organization for monastic life [was] dominated by solicitude for safeguarding a certain spiritual leisure, a certain freedom in the interest of prayer in all its forms, and above all, authentic contemplative peace” (Leclercq 1982: 19).9 Similar to the rabbinic tradition, monastic contemplation centered upon sacred texts (Bruns 1992). The monastic movement was animated by an attempt to create an alternative culture and way of being vis-à-vis Roman imperial culture (MacIntyre 1981: 263). As mentioned, the principal preoccupation of monks was lectio divina, meditative reading of sacred texts. This practice required knowledge of letters or grammatica—the liberal arts as they were referred to in pagan circles. These studies, however, were always with a view toward perfecting lectio divina. For Benedict, a monastery may have been a school or school-like, but it was indeed a monastery first and foremost. Studies in no way compromised the monastic ideal of contemplative peace; they were “not a part of this ideal, but of its realization … a means which [could] be modified, [could] become more or less important without the ideal being affected” (Leclercq 1982: 21). Monastic learning was distinguished by a prayerful and deeply personal contemplation of literature that involved the savoring of truth and the love of God. This endeavor was oriented not toward speculative knowledge but toward deepening one’s personal spirituality and practice of caritas or compassion. Literature, especially sacred literature, was read or contemplated not as an object of curiosity to be analyzed but as an invitation to deeper selfunderstanding and self-transformation or edification. The monk’s orientation involved a receptive vigilance and an ever-deepening state of humility, born of the knowledge of God that blossomed into expressive poetry and hymn. Active humility, notes Jean Leclercq, was “not the acquisition of a scientific principle” but “an experience, a personal growth in real awareness” (1982: 33).

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Though oriented toward receptive vigilance, the otium or leisure of monks was a busy leisure—“waking sleep” or negotiosissimum otium, as it was paradoxically referred to—which guarded against acedia or idleness. Leisure required practices of mortification, asceticism, and self-examination to properly orient oneself. These practices were born of compunction or fear over one’s sinful condition, as well as the desire to purify oneself. They also kept in mind the giftedness of leisure. To be clear, such practices did not involve extreme forms of self-denial, which Benedict cautioned against in contrast to other monastic rules. Benedict’s moderation on this front no doubt contributed to the sustainability and proliferation of the model he created. Monastic practices were situated and embodied within the liturgical life of the community. Each day was structured around times for communal and individual prayer, as well as time for work (both manual and intellectual). Fidelity to this liturgical structure, while flexible, was nevertheless sacrosanct. These practices formed the self, cultivating the interior dispositions that made lectio divina possible. As MacIntyre explains, such practices enabled “a prerational reordering of the self” so that a “reader [would] have an adequate standard by which to judge what is a good reason and what is not. And this reordering require[d] obedient trust” (1988: 133). Theorizing the practice of leisure, with the aid of Aquinas, Josef Pieper (1998: 9) describes this ability of simply beholding as the faculty of intellectus, wherein the truth presents itself to the eye as a landscape does. Intellectus contrasts with what Aquinas describes as ratio—or the discursive faculty of mind. While the discursive mind is busy and active, the intellectus mind is passive or, more accurately, receptive. The discursive mind questions the nature of being; the receptive mind savors and appreciates it. Ratio is obtained through human effort, while the vision of intellectus is a gift that surpasses human limits. Leisurely learning greets the world receptively, with an awareness of its mystery, rather than as something to be mastered. This mysterious encounter is negative but also positive. It is negative in the sense that the person senses there is something more to know, something they cannot grasp—“the sense that the world is a deeper, wider, more mysterious thing then appeared to the day-today understanding” (Pieper 1998: 105). This “not-knowing” is not the same as doubting, which risks resignation, but rather is accompanied by an “active longing to know” (p. 107). Leisure, Leclercq explains, was not the end result of a discursive activity of the intelligence, it [was] not the reward of learning acquired through study, and it [did] not result in an increase of speculative knowledge. It [tended] to foster love under the forms love takes on while awaiting celestial beatitude: a vague possession, the possession of desire. (1982: 67)

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Although monasticism persisted, scholasticism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries began to take hold, especially in Paris, laying the groundwork for what would become the modern university. The scholastic approach to learning that emerged, driven by ratio, stood in sharp contrast to monastic learning, characterized by intellectus. While monks were fond of poetic, personal, and narrative approaches to learning, scholastics favored impersonal and systematic methods. Scholastics were given over to disputatio and quaestio (the tools of dialectic), or rigorous question-and-answer approaches to texts, both sacred and secular. They favored an aggressive style of study, characterized by disinterested speculation that separated ultimate questions from the state of one’s soul. Monks, concerned primarily with personal spiritual growth, were wary of the new dialectics promoted by scholastics. Led by Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), they criticized this impersonal approach to learning. Bernard’s attacks on scholastic theology at Paris, observes Alven Neiman, are often “read as the reaction of a superstitious and dogmatic authoritarianism to the first stirrings in the Medieval West of an enlightened, objective reason” (2000: 579). As Leclercq points out, however, there is much more in Bernard’s critique. After visiting Paris, the bastion of scholasticism, Bernard finds, similar to Augustine, that the scholastic style of learning tended to promote more hubris and pride than intimacy with God. Discussions often degenerated into “mere verbal battles, pugnae verborum” (Leclercq 1982: 203). Bernard wondered if these verbal battles were not more likely to stir up idle curiosity and ambition than any sort of beatitude or satisfaction of those desires most worth having. If disputing did take place in monastic schools, it was almost always on the subject of grammatica in contrast to sacred literature. In these institutions, sacred literature always remained something more and other than liberal texts, whereas in scholastic schools the same procedure was applied to both sacred and secular texts. The monastic setting, cloistered as it was, provided a safeguard against such disputes. Ever mindful of human pride, monks regarded with distrust the dialectical methods of scholastics. Such methods, they feared, could easily be abused, allowing individuals to draw attention to themselves through new arguments. Monks worried that such an aggressive approach lacked “respect for divine truth and sought to penetrate it as if by forcible entry after breaking the seal of mystery” (Leclercq 1982: 204). Bernard illuminates further his concern with this methodology: Human ingenuity takes possession of everything, leaving nothing to faith. It confronts what is above and beyond it, scrutinizes what is superior to it, bursts into the world of God, alters rather than illumines the mysteries of faith; it does not open what is closed and sealed but rather uproots it, and what it does not find viable in itself it considers as nothing and refuses to believe in it (quoted in Pope Benedict XVI 2009).

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Monks were ever wary of the psychological inflation of ego that comes with learning. They were suspicious of intellectual complexity and jargon as evidence of a mind attracted to multiple and varied objects. Such scattered preoccupation incurred the risk of giving rise to a sort of agitation hardly compatible with contemplative repose or pure prayer. It also risked distracting the spirit from the undivided search for God. To offset these undesirable effects, the mind must be brought back to a single occupation and preoccupation: to seek God, not to discuss him; to avoid the inner turmoil of overly subtle investigations and disputes; and to flee from the outer noise of controversies and eliminate futile problems. Different than the scholastics, who often employed abstract philosophical language to make distinctions and formulate questions, monks preferred language that dealt with “actual happenings and experiences rather than with ideas, and which, instead of being a teacher’s instruction for a universal and anonymous public, are addressed to a specific audience, to a public chosen by and known to the author” (Leclercq 1982: 153). Above all else, monks were concerned with edification. They turned their gaze and spent their time only on that which built up the practice of charity, the experience of humility, and the savoring of wonder. Genres that sought merely to entertain were disregarded. Ancient liberal texts were taken seriously insofar as they contributed to personal edification. In summary, here we have the leisurely life of monks: an emphasis on humility, resisting the desire to be clever more than wise; taking time to savor rather than skim or dissect that which one contemplates; a single focus on reading for personal edification and moral growth that resists needless distractions—all of which cultivated, in the monks, a deep and abiding interior freedom. To contemporary ears, this education for leisurely contemplation may sound nostalgic, impractical, or even elitist. As scholars have made plain, ancient Greek leisure was largely the provenance of an elite minority. The leisure Aristotle spoke so fondly about was only available to Athenian gentlemen; and it was borne on the backs of slaves. The blanket criticism of leisure as elitist, however, is misleading and reductive. It wrongly suggests that arguments on behalf of leisure are politically motivated and/or based on class interest. While the Greek embodiment of this ideal raises class questions, this is only part of the story. This criticism overlooks the full history of the leisure ideal, which draws inspiration not just from Greek sources but from Hebraic ones as well.10 Where Greek leisure was a privilege for the few, Hebraic leisure (which is the inspiration for medieval leisure) was (and is) the right of the many, regardless of one’s socioeconomic station. Where Greek leisure was (and is to large degree) tethered to a place (the lyceum, the academy, or the monastery), Hebraic leisure was instituted within and across time as a day of Sabbath rest. The Sabbaths, Heschel observes, are the great cathedrals of the Hebraic Tradition. Hebraic leisure, however, like other forms, was and is not immune

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to economic-based criticism: “When the Romans met the Jews and noticed their strict adherence to the law of abstaining from labor on the Sabbath, their only reaction was contempt. The Sabbath is a sign of Jewish indolence, was the opinion held by Juvenal, Seneca, and others” (Heschel 1951: 13). Roman disdain for the Sabbath’s disruption of the empire’s work parallels the presentday neoliberal preoccupation with productivity, wherein time (reductively) equals money. Both of these critiques, leisure as a class power grab or leisure as a pretext for laziness, obscure what leisure is in itself. It is this tradition of Hebraic leisure that Benedict sought to extend and expand. Benedict’s option was not motivated by elitism or escapism but animated by a humble and intense practice of self-examination so as to ensure a genuine freedom, one born of intellectus receptivity more than ratio interrogation. Even though time for leisure is arguably available to more people today than ever, supportive conditions for it seem to be disappearing under the weight and noise of a consumer-entertainment worldwide culture. So much of our modern work (and vacations), Pieper reveals, is driven by a desire to escape from oneself—from an idleness or despair of being oneself: The metaphysical-theological concept of idleness means, then, that man [sic] finally does not agree with his own existence; that behind all his energetic activity, he is not at one with himself; that, as the Middle Ages expressed it, sadness has seized him in the face of the divine Goodness that lives within him. The opposite of acedia [idleness] is not the industrious spirit of the daily effort to make a living, but rather the cheerful affirmation by man of his own existence, of the world as a whole, and of the God-of-Love, that is, which arises from that special freshness of action, which would never be confused by anyone with any experience with the narrow activity of the “workaholic.” (1998: 28–9) The total claim made by the world of work is bolstered by this inner poverty— the sense that one’s worth is conditioned by one’s function or role in society. Pieper views this inner poverty (or despair) as the greatest challenge to a leisure that regards the self and its free activity apart from a utilitarian means–end calculus. Thinking within this leisurely imaginary, Oakeshott notes that, while “a large part of human conduct is, and always has been, concerned with exploiting the resources of the earth,” there is more to being human (1989: 11). We relate ourselves not just “to our inheritance of instrumental arts, but to the continuous intellectual adventure in which human beings have sought to identify and to understand themselves” (p. 13). More than workers, Oakeshott argues that we are beholders, given to marveling and wondering about the nature of ourselves and the universe. The Cardinal Principles Report of 1918 was on to this, positioning leisure as one of the key purposes for education. This vision, though, has been

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overshadowed. Such leisurely pursuits are fragile and often displaced by practical concerns. The receptivity that leisure involves does not come easy. Because this leisured condition is less at one’s disposal—there is something gifted about it, as experiences of awe and wonder suggest—it is, paradoxically, more difficult to attain. It takes work not to work—as perhaps a workaholic might attest. Leisure requires a concerted effort to “disentangle oneself from the here and now of current happenings and engagements, to detach oneself from the urgencies of the local and the contemporary, to explore and enjoy a release from having to consider things in terms of their contingent features” (Oakeshott 1989: 30–1). While displaced by the scholastic and subsequent Enlightenment tradition, the monastic leisure tradition has continued to attract notable voices. Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) was one of the great modern prophets of leisure (Saito 2006; Standish 2006).11 When Thoreau went to live in solitude in Walden Woods, he performed a leisurely, philosophical act. “There are nowadays professors of philosophers,” he observed, “but not philosophers” (1910: 17).12 Rather than talking about philosophy, he lived it. Like the early monastic desert mothers and fathers who fled Roman ways of seeing, thinking, and consuming, Thoreau broke free from the entanglements of his culture, the anxieties and ossified habits of his fellow citizens, and headed for the wilds. From this vantage point, he then was able to render his famously insightful judgment: The mass of men [sic] lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation … A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. (p. 8) Even our games and amusements, Thoreau strikingly observes, are haunted by despair. In 1854, Thoreau sees what Pieper later describes as the specter of “total work.” Work (or the necessary tasks of production and consumption) has become the exclusive point of reference for how we see, define, and educate ourselves. We are, Pieper and Thoreau feared, increasingly incapable of seeing beyond the working self. The human being (or Homo sapien) has become the human worker (or Homo faber). Against our present culture of total work, the telos of medieval leisure provides an altogether different vision. Thoreau’s leisurely vision was nurtured by a liberal education in the classics but also by his embrace of a different way of living. In his view, the philosophy of the salon, the coffee shop, and the classroom proved to be ineffectual, empty chatter—the philosophers’ soiree of Dante’s Inferno. Instead, Thoreau sought to live out a “manly” or “kingly” philosophy, rather than the idyll philosophy of the “courtesan” at the service of another’s beck and call (1910: 13). Thoreau’s “manly” philosophy, however, was not a masculinist mantra. Arguably a proto-feminist, Thoreau understood

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how embodied and situated our way of seeing and knowing truly is. He sought a way of doing philosophy that not only changed his way of thinking but transformed his way of living. For this to happen, he needed a change of venue: he needed to do philosophy under the stars and in the woods. Thoreau recognized that, to see otherwise, one must live otherwise. One’s habitus must change, lest one default to taken-for-granted assumptions, habits, and ways of seeing (Bourdieu 1990).

CHAPTER SYNOPSIS As with Thoreau, the authors in this volume provide an opportunity to think “with an enlarged mentality” (Arendt 1982: 43). This is nurtured through historical study. My overarching aim in this Introduction is to prompt, persuade, and provoke readers to take up and enjoy the thoughtful chapters that follow, and in turn be moved to read the sources they invoke: Benedict, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard of Bingen, Montaigne, and many others. In what follows, I offer a brief synopsis of each chapter. In Chapter 1, Brett Bertucio dispels the misconception that monasteries were merely repositories for the preservation of classic texts through the “Dark Ages.” He examines the “historical development of the monastic school,” illuminating in great depth the pedagogical practices within monasteries. Within the monastic context, the liberal arts endured, with monks learning the essential trivium that included “grammar (the structure of language itself), dialectic (the process of using language to structure arguments), and rhetoric (the art of making persuasive arguments).” The liberal arts, however, were appropriated for a new purpose: as preparation for sacred reading (lectio divina) and as exemplars for writing beautiful commentaries on sacred scripture. Benedict of Nursia (480–543 ce), as Bertucio notes, codified the monastic way of life. Influenced by both Eastern and Western forbears Benedict fashioned a sensible Rule that avoided the extremes of earlier and current rules. Monastic life was centered around the liturgical practices of reading, chanting, and meditating upon the psalms five times throughout the day. Structured time was also set aside time for “for periods for personal reading and meditation, and the reading of commentary during meals.” Given the need for scriptural literacy, the liberal arts were deemed essential, but always as means to a liturgical end, the worship of God. “As the summit of monastic life, liturgical activity both drew upon and shaped all the monk’s faculties.” “All of the liberal arts,” notes Bertucio, “especially the fifth—music—were put to use in the liturgy.” As Bertucio shows, Benedict, Augustine, Gregory, and others fit a pattern in the Christian West, of turning from the classical school to the “school of Christ.” Pagan thought becomes “a tool for intellectual knowledge to a window into the existential experience of the human person, thus allowing the arts to

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contribute more easily to one’s ascent toward the divine.” In sum, Bertucio illuminates the rich pedagogy and way of life developed within monasteries that preserves continuity with liberal arts, while also transforming and innovating the liberal arts tradition. In Chapter 2, Constant J. Mews considers the philosophical and pedagogical insights generated by Peter Abelard and his brilliant student and paramour Héloïse d’Argenteuil, as well as the scholastic contribution of Hugh of St. Victor, who established the abbey of Saint-Victor in Paris in the twelfth century. As Mews notes, this abbey, and the intellectual vibrancy it fostered, lays the foundation that makes “possible the emergence of the University of Paris and its distinguished masters.” Mews also examines two key figures from the following generation: Peter Lombard (d.1161), who “would combine Hugh’s synthetic vision of theology with the questioning method of Peter Abelard,” and John of Salisbury (c. 1120–80), who theorized the liberal arts as an education for wisdom above all else. Abelard, Mews illuminates, was particularly drawn to the dialectical techniques developed and sharpened by Roscelin of Compiègne (c. 1100) and Anselm of Canterbury (c.  1100). Dialectic, or “the art of reasoning and of distinguishing between what was true and false,” captivated Abelard. Taking his dialectical acumen into the public sphere, he challenged his teacher William of Champeaux (c. 1115), arguing that universal names are abstractions that do not have existence apart from a class of individuals they refer to. Abelard offers his “clearest formulation of his pedagogical vision in the prologue to the Sic et Non.” This work reconciles seemingly contradictory statements from early Church Fathers. Anselm underscores how language—or the meaning of words—changes depending upon context. The Church Fathers, Abelard notes, were keenly aware of the complexity of language—both sacred and secular. Tracing back to the early patristic sources, Abelard affirms a rich and nuanced tradition of scriptural interpretation. Rather than settled conclusions, Abelard underscores the provisional nature of all claims. In so doing, he elevates the standing of dialectic, arguing that “by doubting we come to enquiry, and by enquiry we perceive the truth.” Hugh of St. Victor, who was on the scene at same time as Abelard, offers a more discreet approach. Though he does not mention Abelard by name Hugh is wary of “self-promoting intellectuals who gloried in their own interpretation and offered teaching that was dangerously critical of the authority of the Church Fathers, above all of Augustine.” Hugh is deeply influenced by Boethius and Porphyry, especially by the Platonic vision that animates his work. Though Hugh pivots in a different direction, away from Abelard’s linguistic analysis, both he and Abelard affirm and add to the rise of dialectical approaches to scripture and scriptural authorities. Their immediate successors, Peter Lombard, John of Salisbury, and Bernard of Chartres, take this even further,

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with erudite commentaries on scripture and classical texts, including Plato’s Timaeus. While concerns about dialectic emerged (especially its tendency to promote conversations perceived as pointless), John defended its “utility, while never forgetting the value of situating dialectic within the broader curriculum, as part of the broader pursuit of philosophy—which he understood, like Boethius, as the love of wisdom, the goal of all the liberal arts.” In Chapter 3, Gad Marcus and Yusef Waghid explore philosophical aspects of Jewish and Muslim education in the Middle Ages. Both traditions, as Marcus and Waghid note, offer an “understanding that knowledge is not finite and fully attainable but rather requires an ongoing, infinite quest.” Both traditions also affirm that the right way of life can “somehow be attained through an initiation into the relevant Scripture through the agency of human understanding.” Commitment to literacy, Marcus and Waghid note, was central in Jewish communities, across social and economic contexts, to enable the religious duty to read and study the Torah, as well as the Mishnah and Talmud. The fruition of this study, though, or the manner in which it should be taken up, is captured by the concept of Torah lishmah (roughly translated as study for Torah’s sake). Rather than seeking a reward or enlightenment, study, as a form worship itself, requires a disinterested posture. Paradoxically, this approach yields the greatest reward: knowledge of the right deeds. Study, or contemplation, “allows for one to know what the right deeds are.” Marcus and Waghid examine related themes in the Muslim tradition, exploring “the most significant concepts that elucidate a Quranic conception of Muslim education.” Similar to Jewish education, contemplation is central. The Prophet Mohammad, Marcus and Waghid explain, was “repeatedly commanded to contemplate.” Education for Muslims, they note, is “underscored by a conscientious focus on contemplating life, that is, human existence, the creation of God, and the way that God ordered the universe.” Muslim education cannot exist without “contemplation … the capacity of humans to reflect upon and ponder over practically anything and everything.” Contemplation is the essential precondition for teaching. Another central theme in Muslim education, Marcus and Waghid note, is human fallibility. While Allah’s truth is infallible, human interpretations remain fallible. Thus human inquiry and education are without end. “When humans make judgments about particular matters pertaining to knowledge, these judgments should be viewed as imperfect for the reason that there is always more to know; understanding and interpretation are never complete.” The process of reflection, “interpretation, and reinterpretation, through intellectual exertion is not only an independent human judgment but also an act of spirituality.” Yet while grounded in contemplation, Muslim education is ultimately directed to right action or justice. The religious and the political spheres are integrated. Marcus and Waghid note that attempting to create a “dichotomy between

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religion and politics in Islam and … any attempt at separating the two is anathema to the spirit of Islam and Muslim education.” In Chapter 4, Stein M. Wivestad explores the contribution of Thomas Aquinas, noting his continuity with the past as well as his innovation in conceiving of an education as a process that cultivates faith and reason in service of caritas or unconditional love. While recognizing the fallibility of reason, Aquinas continues to bolster the truth claims of reason apart from faith and revelation. He strikes a via media, holding faith and reason in dynamic tension. The critical occasion for Aquinas is the ongoing appropriation of Aristotelian thought, passed along, with critical commentaries in tow, by Jewish (Maimonides, c. 1150) and Muslim (Averroes, c. 1150) scholars. In particular, Aquinas appropriates and extends Aristotle’s work on virtue. Apart from understanding our supreme telos (which is revealed in the New Testament), Aristotle, in Aquinas’ view, did get a lot right, with respect to human development and flourishing. Education, for Aquinas, as for Aristotle, involves practices that cultivate the virtues, especially the cardinal virtues of justice, courage, and moderation (or natural virtues). This, though, needs to be complemented with an understanding of the supernatural virtues: faith, hope, and love. While the natural virtues are acquired through human agency, acting just to become just, the supernatural virtues are infused, not earned. They are provided via God’s unmerited grace. Aquinas’ legacy, notes Wivestad, is a tradition of Christian humanism that persists and flourishes to this day. It includes philosophers such as Jacques Maritain, Elizabeth Anscombe, Alasdair MacIntyre, and John Haldane. Drawing from MacIntyre, Wivestad forwards an understanding of “ourselves as participants in a fellowship—in the family, in the workplace, in the school, and in the local community—and common goods as well as individual goods should be pursued with the fellowship as the frame of reference.” In Chapter 5, Laura DeSisto examines how the early Italian Renaissance humanists forged what would become known as the studia humanitatis— “the precursor to humanistic studies we encounter in many academic settings today.” Studia humanitatis “reinforced the principle that only when the pursuit of knowledge brings together the cultivation of one’s scholastic aptitude with the development of a sense of social responsibility is one’s individual and communal potential truly fulfilled.” The Renaissance humanists articulated a vision of education as a way of living a flourishing life. Continuing the retrieval and appropriation of classical sources that medieval scholars had begun, the early Renaissance humanists take this project even further, seeking “to emulate directives promoted in Aristotle’s works concerning the active application of intellectual knowledge toward the common good and the responsibility humans have for civic involvement.” What emerges, notes DeSisto, is an “empowered interpretation of human beings’ capabilities in

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relation to the world around them.” Pushing back against a medieval conception of human nature as fraught with sin and imperfection, Renaissance humanists “began to view humanity in an altogether new light. As individual power and control over economic well-being and social standing increased, the humanists’ thoughts concerning the inherent potential of man [sic] flourished.” Rather than freighted with sin, the humanists focused on each individual’s capacity “to shape and control her personal reality.” Their conception of the good life was rooted in the dignity and inherent potential of human beings. This broad vision, explains DeSisto, and the educational program it sponsored, transferred beyond the academic community “and into that of the living world.” “For the humanist philosophers, the studia humanitatis did more than develop rational skills; they also contributed to the attainment of a higher good—the Renaissance ideal of a metaphysically great, intellectually enlightened, and socially responsible individual.” In Chapter 6, Cristina Cammarano challenges the narrative that women were not a critical part of the history of educational thought. Cammarano outlines “the contributions to educational thought made by women over the span of eleven centuries (550–1650 ce).” Her survey, as she acknowledges, is selective, but it makes great strides toward what she rightly describes as the “erasure of women from the history of philosophy.” Cammarano’s overview includes “women representing a diversity of traditions and backgrounds in the context of medieval Christian Europe.” She examines Hrosvitha of Ganderscheim (c. 935–1001), a Latin dramatist, who, with a keen sense of irony, undermined “the common conception that women were less intelligent.” Hrosvitha was a master of classical literary models and innovated with tropes of her time, bending “Christian hagiography toward comedy” to “project an authorial position … denied to women by the Scriptures.” Cammarano also explores the contribution of Hildegard of Bingen (1098– 1179), whose body of works span “from books of visions to moral treatises and science books.” In her theological musings, Hildegard inverts the social order, underscoring how God chooses the socially weak as conduits for revelation. In doing so, Hildegard provided a defense for her own illuminations. Her “selfcharacterization as weak and uneducated appears as a strategy to better support her authority as a prophetess appointed by God.” Also, Hildegard turned to the visionary-mystical genre as “the only legitimate expression of women’s voices beyond the private sphere, allowing for commentary on history, both as a criticism of current times and as a prophetic articulation.” Cammarano also examines the thought of Marguerite Porete (1250–1310). Porete believed she belonged “to an invisible, ideal community of “free souls,” which had every right to judge the earthly church, Sainte Eglise la Petite (The Small Holy Church), which was established on earth but was not infallible.” In her dialogue the Miroir (c. 1285–95), Porete casts a vision of the soul that is

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able to lose itself in divine love, finds liberation, and “needs nothing humans can provide, not even the approval of the ‘small earthly church’ by way of the doctrinal endorsement of its doctors.” Cammarano then considers the contribution of Christine de Pizan (1364– c. 1430) from Venice, Italy. Born into an academic Italian family, Christine had access to the court’s extensive library. One of her major works was the Enseignemens moraux (Moral Teachings, c. 1398). Though situated primarily as counsel to her son, who was off to pursue his education in England, the Enseignemens provides rich insight into pedagogy. “The relation between teacher and students must be, Pizan suggests, informed by a gentle awareness of human fragility, patience, and pedagogical intentionality.” Throughout her survey, Cammarano reveals a rich tapestry of thought and insight by several notable women writers. Her work corrects a blind spot that often pervades historical work in this era. In Chapter 7, Carrie Euler considers the impact of religious reformers in the sixteenth century, especially Martin Luther, Desiderius Erasmus, and Ignatius of Loyola (the founder of the Jesuits). Euler notes that across religious persuasions “the basic classical curriculum of the Italian humanists” was embraced as the educational standard. As Euler notes, it “becomes apparent when reading the primary sources that [reformers] simply could not conceive of any kind of education that was not steeped in the classics of Greece and Rome and that they saw little or no tension or contradiction between the classics and Christianity.” The basic trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric endured across time and religious contexts. Euler notes two misconceptions about liberal education in the sixteenth century. The first pertains to censorship. Sources from the period reveal that there was “surprisingly little censorship” apart from sexually explicit passages. The second misconception pertains to pedagogical style or the assumption that this period “was full of mind-numbing rote learning and harsh discipline.” While this certainly depended, as Euler notes, upon specific teachers, it is “important to recognize that the majority of our theorists acknowledged that learning should be enjoyable and that excessive discipline was counterproductive.” What remains in dispute, Euler observes, is the extent to which a liberal arts education cultivated “freedom versus docility.” “Did this curriculum actually foster freedom, intellectual confidence, and innovation, or did it,” Euler asks, “mold young people into docile, pious Christians who did not know how to question authority?” That issue notwithstanding, what is outstanding, Euler rightly underscores, is “the tenacity of classicism and what it says about Western civilization.” Finally, in Chapter 8 Darryl M. De Marzio illuminates how Montaigne offers more than theoretical speculation about education, he offers a philosophy of education that “both articulates and enacts a way of educating and becoming

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educated.” Education, for Montaigne, is “a means to the right conduct of life— as a way of life itself.” Echoing themes in Euler’s chapter, Montaigne, as De Marzio explains, persistently criticizes “rote-learning methods” and shows “concern for the potential ill-effects on the student of too much authority wielded by the master.” Genuine education “entails an active engagement on the part of the student.” The telos of education for Montaigne is “to give the student the opportunity to exercise and cultivate his judgment.” “This is accomplished by placing before the student a wide range of phenomena from which to make judgments, such that the student is able to fully integrate the content of their learning into the conduct of their lives. In a word, learning should be useful insofar as it helps the student become better and wiser.” As is clear, the period covered by the chapters in this volume is saturated with powerful and pertinent educational ideas, practices, and ideals. As emphasized at the start, the people who conceived them can be seen as our contemporaries. They speak to perennial questions about the nature and purposes of education, and they address our fundamental human condition. Read the chapters ahead and enjoy.

NOTES 1 While there has been limited engagement with history there is, to be sure, notable and distinctive work in the history of philosophy of education. See especially Robert McClintock’s (1971) fine essay “Toward a Place of Study,” which examines the educational thought of Augustine, Comenius, Erasmus, Montaigne, Erasmus, Augustine, and the Jesuits, among others. McClintock’s essay inspired scholars to reengage with historical sources. More recently, see excellent work by Caranfa (2010a), Hansen (2002), Jonas (2015, 2016), Kristjánsson (2014), Laverty (2011), and Mintz (2012). 2 Dialectical refers to the refined and intensive analytic process that takes hold in the Middle Ages, wherein authors (e.g., Abelard, Aquinas, or Maimonides) offer a thesis and then summon forth the most compelling objections to be made, drawing from authorities both within and beyond their respective traditions. Each counterargument is then contested with the stated thesis standing as is, revised, or dismissed. 3 Again, there are exceptions, especially in the last decade. See especially Bertuccio (2016), Caranfa (2004, 2010b), Gary (2006), Ildefonso-Sanchez (2019), and Jo (2019). 4 On this dialectical innovation, see especially De Marzio, Chapter 8; DeSisto, Chapter 5; Euler, Chapter 7; Mews, Chapter 2; Marcus and Waghid, Chapter 3; Wivestad, Chapter 4; this volume. 5 On this point, see especially Euler, Chapter 7, this volume. 6 On this development, see Mews, Chapter 2, this volume. 7 There has been renewed interest among philosophers of education on the nature of skholē, which McClintock (1971) translated as study. In particular, see Claudia Ruitenberg’s (2017) edited volume, Reconceptualizing Study in Educational Discourse and Practice.

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8 This is work I have developed elsewhere (see Gary 2006, 2017). 9 For a full discussion of the Benedict monastic tradition, see Bertucio, Chapter 1, this volume. 10 For a full discussion of the Hebraic educational tradition, please see Marcus and Waghid, Chapter 3, this volume. 11 For a full discussion of Thoreau and the influence of American philosophy on education, see Naoko Saito, Volume 3, Chapter 7. 12 For this reading of Thoreau I am indebted to Pierre Hadot’s (2005) essay, “There Are Nowadays Professors of Philosophy, but Not Philosophers.”

REFERENCES Primary sources Aquinas (1947), St. Thomas Aquinas: The Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Benziger Bros. Available online: https://www.ccel. org/a/aquinas/summa/FP/FP001.html#FPQ1OUTP1 (accessed October 23, 2020). Augustine (2008), Confessions, trans. H. Chadwick, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tertullian (1956), Tertullian: The Prescription Against Heretics, trans. and ed. S.L. Greenslade. Available online: http://www.tertullian.org/articles/greenslade_prae/ greenslade_prae.htm (accessed October 23, 2020).

Secondary sources Adler, Mortimer J. (1998), The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto, New York: Touchstone. Arendt, Hannah (1982), Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, ed. Ronald Beiner, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Auden, Wystan Hugh (1947), Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue, ed. A. Jacobs, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bertland, Alexander (n.d.), “Giambattista Vico (1668—1744).” In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available online: https://www.iep.utm.edu/vico/ (accessed October 23, 2020). Bertucio, Brett (2016), “Paideia as Metanoia: Transformative Insights from the Monastic Tradition,” Philosophy of Education Society, Urbana, IL. pp. 509–17. Bloom, Harold (2014), The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Bourdieu, Pierre (1990), The Logic of Practice, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bruns, Gerald L.(1992), “The Hermeneutics of Midrash,” Hermeneutics: Ancient and Modern, 104–23, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Cahn, Steven M. (2011), Classic and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Education, 2nd edn., Oxford: Oxford University Press. Caranfa, Angelo (2004), “Silence As the Foundation of Learning,” Educational Theory, 54: 211–30. Caranfa, Angelo (2010a), “The Aesthetic and the Spiritual Attitude in Learning: Lessons from Simone Weil,” Journal of Aesthetic Education, 44 (2): 63–82. Caranfa, Angelo (2010b), “Contemplative Instruction and the Gifts of Beauty, Love, and Silence,” Educational Theory, 60 (5): 561–85. Chesterton, Gilbert Keith (1986), The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Vol. 2, San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

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Curren, Randall (2007), A Companion to the Philosophy of Education, Oxford: John Wiley & Sons. Deneen, Patrick J. (2013), “Against Great Books,” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, 229: 33–8. Gary, Kevin (2006), “Leisure, Freedom, and Liberal Education,” Educational Theory, 56 (2): 121–36. Gary, Kevin (2017), “Neoliberal Education for Work versus Liberal Education for Leisure,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 36: 83–94. Greene, Maxine (1988), Dialectic of Freedom, New York: Teachers College Press. Hadot, Pierre (2005), “There Are Nowadays Professors of Philosophy, but Not Philosophers,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 19 (3): 229–37. Hansen, David T. (2002), “Well-Formed, Not Well-Filled: Montaigne and the Paths of Personhood,” Educational Theory, 52 (2): 127–54. Hayden, Matthew J. (2012), “What Do Philosophers of Education Do? An Empirical Study of Philosophy of Education Journals,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 31 (1): 1–27. Heschel, Abraham (1951), The Sabbath, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Hirsch, Eric Donald (2002), The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Ildefonso-Sanchez, Giavanni (2019), “Revaluing Leisure in Philosophy and Education,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 38 (2): 163–76. Jo, Katherine (2019), “Learning to Rest: A Pieperian Approach to Leisure in Education,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 53 (2): 374–93. Jonas, Mark Edward (2015), “Education for Epiphany: The Case of Plato’s Lysis,” Educational Theory, 65 (1): 39–51. Jonas, Mark Edward (2016), “Three Misunderstandings of Plato’s Theory of Moral Education,” Educational Theory, 66 (3): 301–22. Kimball, Bruce (1986), Orators versus Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education, New York: Teachers College. Kristjánsson, K. (2014), “Undoing Bad Upbringing through Contemplation: An Aristotelian Reconstruction,” Journal of Moral Education, 43 (4): 468–83. Laverty, Megan Jane (2011), “Can You Hear Me Now? Jean-Jacques Rousseau on Listening Education,” Educational Theory, 61 (2): 155–69. Leclercq, Jean (1982), The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, New York: Fordham University Press. MacIntyre, Alasdair (1981), After Virtue, Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press. MacIntyre, Alasdair (1988), Three Rival Versions of Inquiry: Encyclopedia, Genealogy, and Tradition, Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press. McClintock, R. (1971), “Toward a Place of Study,” Teachers College Record, 67 (5): 161–205. Mintz, Avi I. (2012), “The Happy and Suffering Student? Rousseau’s Emile and the Path Not Taken in Progressive Educational Thought,” Educational Theory, 62 (3): 249–65. Neiman, Alven (2000), “Self Examination, Philosophical Education and Spirituality,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 34 (4): 571–90. Noddings, Nel (2015), Philosophy of Education, 4th edn., Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Oakeshott, Michael (1989), The Voice of Liberal Learning, Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.

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Pieper, Josef (1998), Leisure, the Basis of Culture, South Bend, IN: Saint Augustine’s Press. Pope Benedict XVI (2009), “Two Theological Models in Comparison: Bernard and Abelard,” Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Available online: http://www.vatican.va/ content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20091104.html (accessed October 23, 2020). Ruitenberg, Claudia, ed. (2017), Reconceptualizing Study in Educational Discourse and Practice, New York: Routledge Press. Saito, Naoko (2006), “Perfectionism and the Love of Humanity: Democracy As a Way of Life after Dewey, Thoreau, and Cavell,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 20 (2): 93–105. Schugurensky, Daniel (2005), “1918: The Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education,” in Daniel Schugurensky (ed.), History of Education: Selected Moments of the 20th Century. Available online: http://schugurensky.faculty.asu.edu/ moments/1918cardinal.html (accessed October 23, 2020). Standish, Paul (2006), “Uncommon Schools: Stanley Cavell and the Teaching of Walden,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 25 (1–2): 145–57. Taylor, Charles (2007), A Secular Age, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Thoreau, Henry David (1910), Walden or Life in the Woods, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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CHAPTER ONE

The Monastic Turn: 400–1150 B rett B ertucio

INTRODUCTION “We are, therefore, about to found a school of the Lord’s service.”1 Thus ends the Prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict, a sixth-century guide to monastic living and perhaps the most influential document in Western monasticism. Etymologically, if not historically, Benedict’s Rule also marks the foundation of many concepts related to Western schooling that persist into the present. The Latin term schola used here, from which we derive the English “school,” held a variety of meanings. It could signify the monastic choir, a classroom, any room in general, or indeed the entirety of the monastery (Riché 1978: 459). This latter sense of the monastic schola captures Benedict’s intentions most completely. The monks of his Monte Cassino Abbey, their contemporaries throughout the continent, and their successors adhered to a vision of education that encompassed the totality of the monastic experience. The integration of work, study, and prayer within a comprehensive worldview generated a form of human development that was both transformative and demanding. In their devotion to the written word, their insistence on silence, and their reorientation of the purpose of liberal learning, the monks and nuns of the early medieval period introduced a particular genius into the educational history of the West. Of course, the principles that informed monastic education were not created ex nihilo. In many ways, monastic culture was a synthesis of values adopted from the Roman classical school, the Jewish rabbinical tradition, and the theology of

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the early Christian Fathers. Still, this synthesis was veritably a turning point, a radix from which Western education has never truly departed. Indeed, many of the issues that preoccupied the monastics still attract the attention of philosophers of education. In this sense, an examination of monastic educational thought is not simply an exercise in nostalgia but an opportunity to recover insights that may illuminate contemporary questions. This chapter begins with a survey of the historical development of the monastic school. A common trope holds that the monastery preserved fragments of the classical tradition through the “Dark Ages” of the fifth through eighth centuries. It may be better to understand the rise of monasticism less as a feeble attempt to avert cultural collapse and more as a response to human desires born out of dramatic historical change. Following this historical overview, I outline several primary sources from which we can glean an understanding of the monastic philosophy of education. These two preliminary sections prepare the way for an analysis of several key principles of monastic education and their intersection with contemporary concerns in the philosophy of education literature. I conclude by reflecting on the range of possible attitudes toward the traces of monastic culture still present in Western schools, gesturing at possible lines of inquiry that scholars might take up in the future.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MONASTIC SCHOOL The classical school in the fifth century Whether they embraced it as an inheritance or rejected it as antithetical to their aims, early Western monastics invariably understood their endeavors vis-à-vis the culture of Rome. It will therefore be helpful to take stock of the state of education in the Roman Empire during its decline in the fifth century. From the second century bce, Roman education bore a markedly Hellenic flavor. Senatorial and aristocratic families ensured that their sons spoke Greek, and Greek slaves were often employed as tutors. Young men of means would be trained in grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic and were exposed to the Greek philosophical tradition. A system of imperial schools was erected in major cities to provide for the humane training of Rome’s upper classes (Marrou 1956: 325–41). A young man who aspired to membership in the governing class would embark upon a three-stage process of formal schooling. He was first sent to a local instructor, the primus magister, at the age of six or seven to learn to read and write. After a short period, he would study under a grammarian for a period of several years. Concern with the maintenance of a universal language and culture meant that these Roman “grammar schools” aimed to impart a stylistic form of Latin prose that adhered to rigorous grammatical rules. At this point, the student would also be introduced to classical literature.

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Although increasingly secondary in focus, classical study served to form the moral sensibilities of the young man, ensuring that he was fit for public service. The elements of poetry would be introduced at this stage as well. This was not only to allow the student to appreciate the aesthetic genius of Virgil. Much of Roman culture was communicated through verse, a tendency that remained true for early Christian monastics. Participating in, contributing to, and passing on the classical tradition therefore required a facility with poetic composition (Marrou 1956: 1–5). While many students would cease their formal education after leaving the primus or grammarian, those destined for higher office would spend between four and six years under the tutelage of a rhetor. In addition to grammar, which Cassiodorus would later term the first of the seven liberal arts, students would be trained in rhetoric and dialectic to complete the classical trivium (Leclercq 1974: 26). By learning grammar (the structure of language itself), dialectic (the process of using language to structure arguments), and rhetoric (the art of making persuasive arguments), students were prepared to explore any discrete area of knowledge.2 They would then undertake study in the four Platonic branches of mathematics—arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy— which later constituted the quadrivium. The Romans, after the Greeks, adopted this libera studia—the education proper to a free person—with the Platonic conviction that the universe was logically ordered and that human flourishing required understanding this order (Wagner 1983). Yet, by the end of the fifth century ce, knowledge of Greek had become quite rare. Education had turned toward the practical difficulties of managing a large and increasingly fragile empire. The instability caused by successive Germanic invasions weakened any institution serving the urban leisure class. The senatorial families began to migrate away from urban centers, and the classical studies that had been undertaken in municipal schools were largely abandoned to the domain of private tutors. To survive, Rome merely needed bureaucrats trained in law and politicians trained in rhetoric. Medical education persisted, as well as the more practical elements of astronomy, but the poetic genius of classical antiquity became increasingly the possession of a shrinking and isolated aristocracy (Riché 1978: 44–50, 67–70). The eventual collapse of the empire, traditionally dated to the late fifth century, did not mark the collapse of the classical school. One reason for this is that the Christian populace that generated the monastic movement inhabited the same culture and patronized the same schools as their pagan neighbors. Theological education occurred primarily in the home or in the church community. Indeed, classical culture was so ingrained in the members of Latin Christianity that the faith was most frequently expressed in verse. Between the second and fifth centuries, the most popular religious texts in the Italian peninsula were translations of the Bible into hexameters and varieties of

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Christian poetry. Thus, the advent of Christianity in Western Europe did little to reorient the content or pedagogy of the schools (Riché 1978: 81–2). Further, the conquest of the empire by various Germanic tribes changed little in the way of education and daily life in the sixth century. The princes of the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Vandals had spent a century intermingling with Roman culture and had adopted its language, laws, and traditions to a great extent. Many even fashioned themselves as heirs to the imperial legacy. To retain the bureaucratic health of their rule, they encouraged the operation of the primus magistri in urban areas. The Ostrogothic kings of the Italian peninsula made public expenditures to retain the grammarians and rhetors through the end of the sixth century. Theodric, who reigned from 475 to 526, famously employed Boethius and Cassiodorus as quastori—royal tutors and educational advisors (Riché 1978: 24–45; Vessey 2004: 13–14). The former composed a program of liberal studies while employed in this capacity, which would only be taken up in the eighth century. The latter established one of the centers of monastic learning after the fall of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in 540. These men were simply the most notable of a succession of prominent tutors available to the aristocracy in major cities. In this manner, the mode of education of classical Rome remained available—although less widespread—throughout the transition from the decline of the empire to the Carolingian renaissance in the eighth century (Riché 1978: 139–54). The rise of Western monasticism It is important to note that the Germanic kings were at this point either Orthodox Christians or Arians;3 the monastic movement was therefore not primarily a retreat from a repaganized world. By the end of the fifth century, the former territory of Rome was a thoroughly Christian land, and conversion to this new religion was hardly a countercultural decision. Instead, the choice facing the sixth-century European lay between an ascetic, contemplative life and a life in the world (Vessey 2004: 11–12). The ascetic option was not itself a Western invention. The Eastern eremitic tradition (the mode of life adopted by hermits) predates the development of Western monasteries by at least two centuries. Many look to Anthony of Egypt (d.356 ce) as the founder of Christian monasticism, although recent historical scholarship suggests that eremitism in early Christianity was perhaps an extension of the way of life practiced by first-century Jewish ascetic groups like the Essenes and the Therapeutae (Goerhing 1992: 236). Regardless, Athanasius of Alexandria’s Life of Anthony, penned the year after the hermit’s death, became a source of inspiration for those who would imitate his life. Influenced by the third-century Platonic theologian Origen, Anthony viewed the soul  as  originally resting in divine communion and perfection. Ascetic

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practices—fasting, voluntary poverty, celibacy, and keeping vigils—were necessary to return the soul to its ideal form (Dunn 2000: 2–3). Anthony’s Egyptian contemporary, Pachomius, undertook a similar life of self-denial but within a loosely arranged community. The cenobites (or “convent-dwellers”) who followed his example would gather in either a single dormitory (or twin houses when a community included men and women) or neighboring hermitages, share food, and practice daily prayer in common. The Pachomian literature appeals to the New Testament term “koinonia”—or spiritual communion—to describe this common life. The rigorous asceticism and inner purification practiced by these Eastern monastics required the mutual spiritual and emotional support of a sizable collective (Dunn 2000: 26–30). Pachomius’ legacy was innovative not only in its development of cenobitism but also in its consolidation of ascetic principles into a formal, written rule of life. Through the pen of Jerome, the famous fourth-century author of the Latin Vulgate, the various disciplines of the Pachomian communities were consolidated into the Pachomian Rule. Jerome was a native Roman but had traveled throughout the East, eventually settling in Bethlehem and living according to a monastic rule influenced by both Pachomius and Anthony (Dunn 2000: 33; Goerhing 1992: 238). During the same period, Basil of Caesarea developed a similar monastic rule, which gained adherents throughout Asia Minor. Through the Latin translations of Jerome and his contemporaries, these texts became available to the West in the late fourth century (Dunn 2000: 37–42). Benedict of Nursia, widely considered the founder of Western monasticism, was heavily indebted to his Eastern forbears. His decision to leave his aristocratic life in early sixth-century Rome was also influenced by the educational milieu of his day. As mentioned, the Italian peninsula under the Ostrogoths was at least nominally Christian, so Benedict did not abandon a formally pagan culture. Yet the classical schools were in numerical and moral decline. Given over to the practical study of law and government, they had largely discarded the study of philosophy. What remained of the classical tradition was not its humanistic wisdom but the often vulgar poetry and mythology of antiquity. Benedict’s personal conversion and exchange of classical culture for an ascetical life began a pattern that many—including his biographer Gregory the Great—would follow (Leclercq 1974: 1–4; Riché 1978: 87–90). In view of the decline of Roman educational institutions, Benedict’s “school of the Lord’s service” founded at Monte Cassino in 529 was conceived in direct contrast to the antique schools. Benedict’s Rule, written toward the end of his life around 547, would call monks and nuns to a literary diet composed mostly of Scripture and the Church Fathers. It is safe to say that, at least initially, the Western monastic movement did not embrace the classical course of study, even if many of its members were trained in the classical schools during

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FIGURE 1.1  St. Benedict. Woodcut engraving after a painting (1487) by Hans Memling (German painter, c. 1433/40–1494) in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, published in 1881. (via Getty Images).

their early lives (Riché 1978: 97–110). The exception may be Cassiodorus’ twin monastery at Vivarium. Following the Byzantine reconquest of Rome in 540, the former royal minister retired to his estate in Scyllacium and founded a monastic community that from the outset was intended to be a center of classical learning. The monks and nuns of Vivarium were instructed in the seven liberal arts and committed long hours to the production of texts (Vessey 2004:

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15–19). But, as Jean Leclercq observes, Cassiodorus was not himself a monk, and his initiative was not representative of the monastic spirit of the age. It would not be until the Carolingian renaissance some two centuries later that monastic schooling would start to resemble his model (Leclercq 1974: 26–9). Education in the sixth- through eighth-century monasteries was arranged primarily according to the need for entering aspirants to participate fully in the cycle of daily monastic life, much of which turned upon the written word. Benedict’s Rule required the chanting of the Psalms at five periods during the day, the setting aside of periods for personal reading and meditation, and the reading of commentary during meals. An interior school was established in most monasteries to train the illiterate and the young. While the majority of aspirants were adults, it was not uncommon for children as young as six or seven to be admitted to the monastery. Especially in Britain and Ireland, child mortality was remarkably high, and committing a child to the stability of a monastery was a prudent survival strategy. Aristocrats on the continent often offered their children to a monastery in fulfillment of a religious vow or in gratitude for fertility; our modern anxieties regarding child autonomy would have appeared bizarre to the early medievals (Riché 1978: 112–18, 448–50). Early monastic learning began under the tutelage of a master, often called the decantus since they often had charge of ten students. Students first learned to copy letters, then syllables, and finally whole words. They were soon given the Psalter (the arrangement of the 150 psalms into a weekly liturgy) to memorize via transcription and oral repetition. After between six months and three years, most had completed their basic literacy training and could be admitted to the choir. In addition, young monastics learned basic computation and completed arithmetical puzzles to calculate solar and lunar calendar dates. As they advanced in their studies, monks and nuns would examine Scripture via catechetical dialogues in which the master would ask a question, expecting a certain answer. True questio, an open form of discussion, would not emerge until Charlemagne’s period (Riché 1978: 452–75). Mature monastic culture The Carolingian renaissance under Charlemagne is typically dated from the late eighth century. Charlemagne, king of the united Franks, had by the end of the century amassed a large territory stretching from Spain in the west, to Bavaria in the east, and to the Lombardian region of Italy in the south. On Christmas Day of the year 800, Pope Leo III crowned him Holy Roman Emperor, confirming, in a sense, Charlemagne’s claim to the historical patrimony of ancient Rome. The relative stability that accompanied the Carolingian dynasty over the next century allowed for the flourishing of monastic learning. A decade prior, in 789, Charlemagne’s Admonitio generalis decreed that all monasteries should open schools for the education of young boys (Trompf 1973: 3–26). Although the monastic schools were typically limited to those who would remain in the

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monastery, many children of aristocrats received their early instruction as guests (Riché 1978: 320–3). Charlemagne also called a number of foreign scholars to serve as educational advisors. The most noted, Alcuin of York, helped bring a renewal of classical study into the monastery. The Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Churches had been spared the continental experience of a Germanic Christianity divorced from Latin culture. Alcuin, as well as the Irish monks who evangelized the northern regions of the continent, did not have the same misgivings regarding the decadence of late classical literature. To accomplish the larger liturgical and clerical renewals of which Charlemagne’s educational edicts were a part, the monasteries recovered the emphasis on the seven liberal arts as outlined by Cassiodorus centuries earlier (Leclercq 1974: 48–52; Riché 1978: 309–14). The period from the ninth century to the end of the twelfth century marks what many consider the mature form of monastic culture (Leclercq 1974: 45–6). Having embraced variations on Cassiodorus’ synthesis of the liberal arts, the monastic school followed a model partly reminiscent of the Roman system. A novice monk or nun would begin under a grammarian, who would teach literacy using classical literature. The grammarian would also expound the moral meaning of the texts through oral lessons. After their initial training, talented students would proceed in their studies at least through the trivium, the three literate arts. Additionally, copying work in the scriptoria was considered an essential ascetic practice, and the medieval monastery became the primary producer of books, both sacred and profane. Following the example of Augustine and the Latin Fathers, this ostensibly secular period of study aimed at preparing the student to understand more deeply the doctrines of the Christian faith (p. 144–5). In this first of the medieval renaissances, we can identify the particular “turn” the monastic movement brought to Western education. It received— initially skeptically, but soon enthusiastically—the tradition of classical paideia and reoriented the humane wisdom contained in the liberal arts toward the pursuit of the divine. This revolution of sorts was certainly not limited to the monastery. As a result of the Carolingian reforms, monasteries concerned themselves with the education of externs—those not destined for monastic life (Colish 1997: 68–9). In many ways, it was through this shared education, germinated in monasteries, that the concept of a culturally unified “Christendom” became possible (Mikkeli 1998). If there were significant changes to the monastic educational model during the next three centuries, they were comparatively small. Even the eleventh-century Cluniac reform simply sought a return to principles articulated earlier. If anything, the liberal arts gradually turned from a tool for intellectual knowledge to a window into the existential experience of the human person, thus allowing the arts to contribute more easily to one’s ascent toward the divine (Leclercq 1974: 181).

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We can see this tendency in Bernard of Clairvaux, the twelfth-century monk who in many ways symbolizes monastic learning at its height. Bernard hoped his monks might “burn with desire not so much to know as to experience” (p. 7, emphasis in original). To be sure, the monastery was not the only educational institution in the early medieval period. Since the fifth century, informal parish schools had existed to ensure the survival of rural Christian communities. Urban centers were often home to similar arrangements, and the cathedral schools of Charlemagne’s empire were significantly strengthened by his educational reforms (Riché 1978: 124–8, 496–7). Toward the end of the twelfth century, several factors contributed to the emergence of scholasticism, its divergence from monastic education, and the decline of the monastic schools’ prestige and influence throughout the West. The urbanization of the eleventh century led to the need for central institutions devoted to legal training. The cathedral schools, often supported by aristocratic families, began admitting laypersons as students. These changes created the conditions for universities to form around a core of celebrated lecturers in Bologna, Paris, and Cambridge (Haskins 2007: ix–xxvi). Rather than following the rigid structure of the monastic school, education in these institutions was determined by the competing intellectual interests of masters and students (Haskins 2007: 8–24). Further, the reintroduction of Aristotle’s corpus by way of Moorish Spain led the emerging schoolmen to forgo the monastery’s focus on grammar and rhetoric to elevate dialectic (Tierney and Painter 1999: 364–90). Cassiodorus had earlier described dialectic, the art of forming logical arguments, as a “closed fist” in contrast to the “open palm” of rhetoric. Whereas the monastic emphasis on rhetoric led to poetic elucidations of faith written to stir the heart, the scholastic mode of knowing prized impervious logical proofs of doctrinal truths (Anderson 1986: 244–5). While the monastic school endured, Western Christianity increasingly looked to the emerging university to train clerics and theologians. By the end of the thirteenth century, the centers of learning in the West were not those marked by meditation and silence but those concerned with public disputations and rational schemas.

PRINCIPLES OF MONASTIC EDUCATION Sources of historical understanding Unlike their Roman predecessors or their modern successors, the Europeans of the Middle Ages were little concerned with leaving extensive records of their actions to posterity. The literate culture that emerged with the Carolingian renaissance in particular involved the duplication and dissemination of important shared texts. This creates a problem for the professional historian, as unique sources are perhaps less common than in other periods. These same

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conditions are congenial to philosophers of education, however, since they can glean much of what constituted shared educational beliefs and practices from a relatively small number of manuscripts. Indeed, the monastic model of life, founded on a written rule, meant that imitation and appeal to authoritative texts were very much natural (Leclercq 1974: 140). In what follows, I give some historical background to the major works from which I draw out key principles of monastic education. As suggested, the mature development of monastic culture, wherein the monastery embraced the Roman libera studia and redirected it toward transcendent ends, did not emerge until the eighth century. Yet the germs of the monastery’s educational genius were contained in its earliest expressions and foundational documents. In the West, these were the several monastic rules, especially the sixth-century Rule of St. Benedict. I’ve chosen to draw from Benedict’s Rule as well as The Rule of the Master, a longer and slightly earlier text that informed many monastic practices. These guidelines for living serve to ground the entire monastic educational tradition in its comprehensive theology and anthropology. While many of the Master’s practices were eclipsed by those of Benedict, and Benedict’s admonitions were often modified in subsequent centuries, the monastic rules are the best expressions of the pedagogical intuitions of Western monasticism. The explicitly educational texts that informed Carolingian monasticism gave flesh to these intuitions. Foremost among these texts was Cassiodorus’ Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning.4 In 535, just five years prior to the Justinian reconquest of the Italian peninsula, Cassiodorus and Pope Agapetus formulated plans to build an explicitly Christian school of higher education in Rome. No such school had yet been erected in the Latin-speaking world, although Cassiodorus took inspiration from the Alexandrian school of the third century and the contemporary school of scripture study in Nisibis, Syria (Cassiodorus, Institutions 1.Preface.1). A program resembling his vision would not be fully accomplished until Alcuin of York was called in 781 to direct the Frankish educational reforms. Alcuin’s pedagogical texts, the Ars grammatica (Grammatical Arts) and the Disputatio Pippini (Disputation with Pippin), display his reverence for classical learning and lay out his approach to educating young scholars. Pippin, of course, was Charlemagne’s son and a great champion of educational revival during his reign (Gaskoin 1966: 176–91). Finally, the apex of monastic learning is perhaps best illuminated by the writings of two of its twelfth-century champions—Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh of St. Victor. The former helped initiate the Cistercian reform of Benedictine monasticism, calling for closer adherence to the ascetic demands of Benedict’s Rule. He also disputed with early scholastics—most notably Peter Abelard—regarding the schoolmen’s emphasis on rationalism to the detriment of the emotional, intuitive, and aesthetic sensibilities fostered by monastic study.

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Hugh’s Didascalicon de studio legende (On the Study of Reading) is perhaps the best articulation of the monastic philosophy of reading from the Middle Ages. Here, I rely on Ivan Illich’s (1993) excellent commentary on Hugh’s work to examine monastic education’s particular relationship to the written word. The monastery as a school of total formation Now, the Lord has given his Church, in conformity with the Trinity, three series of teachings: first, that of the prophets; secondly, that of the apostles; thirdly, that of the teachers. According to their authority and teaching, the churches and schools of Christ are governed. (The Rule of the Master, Theme)5 The Rule of the Master sets out two distinct Christian institutions: the “churches”—the ecclesial communities centered around cities with a bishop at the head—and the “schools,” or schola. These latter were in fact the monasteries. This nomenclature had actually been in common use throughout the previous century, and it expressed the uniquely educational purpose of the monastery. Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, on which this passage draws, lists the first of many vocations in the early church apparently in order of importance: “first, apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers” (1 Cor. 12:28). In the Master’s slightly altered reading, he transposes apostles and prophets and thereby places “teachers” in a chronological ordering of salvation history. The “teachers” of the medieval church—both bishops and, for the Master, abbots and abbesses— were the successors to the Old Testament prophets and were tasked with forming their charges according to a comprehensive theological anthropology (de Vogue 1977: 57–61). The monastery was a “total world” much more than the twentieth-century evangelical school of Alan Peshkin’s (1988) famous study. Every aspect of life was ordered toward the sacred liturgy—what Benedict called “the work of God”— and the formation of the monk or nun toward union with the divine. In the early monastic rules, a Christian anthropology informed by Patristic Neoplatonism is evident. The Rule of the Master evokes the Pauline concept of the person as body, soul, and spirit. The body, or “the flesh,” symbolized the self-will and material obsessions of the person. Opposed to this were the spirit and the transcendent aspects of human nature. The soul, placed between these two ideals, was meant to struggle to conform itself to the spirit (de Vogue 1977: 43–8). Following Plato and the Greek tradition, monastic education was a type of paideia, or “turning about” of the soul toward perfection. In Plato’s cave, the prisoner turns from the images of forms to the forms themselves. Likewise, the monastic undergoes the work of “conversion”—turning about—via ascetical practice. It is important to note that the monastic adoption of the Greek tradition does not impose a wholly foreign religious element; for Plato, conversion is inextricably religious. Plato identifies the Idea of Good—the

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proper end of paideia—as the divine, and in the Theaetetus, Plato characterizes the highest end of paideia as “assimilation to God” (Jaeger 1943: 286–7; cf. Plato, Theaetetus 176b–e; Republic 379b). For Benedict and the Master, turning the soul away from the flesh and toward the divine required daily activities that both encouraged self-denial and turned the monk’s mind toward his transcendent nature. Yet this was not a rigorous rejection of the body; while monastic rules almost universally prescribed times for fasting (Rule of St. Benedict 4, 41), Benedict especially displays concern for the care of the body. For example, the sick are given extra provisions, as are all monks during hot weather or periods of excessive labor (Rule of St. Benedict 38–40). The aim of monastic formation was an integration of the monk’s body, mind, and soul to effect a more spiritual existence. The Rule’s via media between ascetic extremism and bodily indulgence is perhaps one reason for its longevity (Leclercq 1974: 132–3). As German Abbot George Holzherr makes clear, the rhythms of work, prayer, and study aim to achieve a balance of mind and body. When Benedict enjoins the monk to “get heart and body ready,” he indicates his intention to provide a comprehensive program to foster the transformation of “the whole psychosomatic man” (Rule of St. Benedict Prologue, 40; Holzherr 1994: 35). If we peruse these sixth-century rules, we see that provision is made to form the soul during every moment of the day. Both Benedict and the Master detail the times of prayer, encompassing five communal periods during the day (Rule of St. Benedict 8–19; The Rule of the Master 23–49). The body itself is considered in instructions for prayer—Benedict adjures the monks to stand, while the Master details twenty-four times during which the monks should kneel throughout the hours of prayer (Rule of St. Benedict 19; The Rule of the Master 39). Periods of the day are devoted to labor, the aim of which is not merely utilitarian but directed toward the good of the monk’s soul. The Master even forbids heavy agricultural labor since it is inconducive to prayerful recollection (The Rule of the Master 86). Times for reading and study were similarly prescribed and dominated daily monastic life. Up to three hours in the morning and several at night were devoted to personal reading (Rule of St. Benedict 4; Riché 1978: 294). Additionally, one member of the community would read from a sacred or profane work during otherwise silent meals, and the Master even calls for one monk to read aloud to others while they labor if the community is large enough (Rule of St. Benedict 38; de Vogue 1977: 21). Seemingly nothing is so unimportant as to escape this “total formation.” The Master sacralizes countless mundane moments with prescribed communal prayers. The entrance of the table reader to the refectory, the arrival and departure of guests, and even the conclusion of dishwashing are marked by a prayer of thanksgiving, a petition for God’s mercy, and a shared kiss of peace (The Rule of the Master 24–5, 57, 63, 65; de Vogue 1977: 36). Even the prohibition on personal property was pedagogical; it reminded the monks of

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Christ’s admonition, “Do not worry about what you are to eat, or what you are to drink, or what you are to wear” (Mt. 6:25) (The Rule of the Master 82). Again, the source of monastic education’s coherence was its direction of life toward the liturgy. As Jean Leclercq (1974: 287) has put it, communal worship was both “the stimulus and the outcome,” the source and the end, of monastic life. The liturgical “Work of God,” as Benedict termed it, included the celebration of the Divine Office—the five daily periods of communal prayer, which included the chanting of psalms, the reading of Old and New Testament passages, and the singing of hymns. It also included the celebration of the Eucharist and the marking of many feasts throughout the Christian year. As the summit of monastic life, liturgical activity both drew upon and shaped all the monk’s faculties. All of the liberal arts, especially the fifth— music—were put to use in the liturgy. Much of a monastery’s original literary output consisted of commentaries on the Office or texts and hymns to be used therein (Leclercq 1974: 289–91). Even grammar, the most basic of liberal arts, “was elevated to the rank of an eschatological fact” (p. 308). Catholic and Orthodox Christians believe that in their celebration of the Eucharist they are participating in an eternal liturgy occurring in heaven. The monks of the first millennium knew that their mastery of grammar was the key to their participation in this liturgy. Indeed, the

FIGURE 1.2  Abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés. Lithograph. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images).

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entirety of monastic life was ordered to educate men and women who could participate well in the worship of the divine. The monastic “turning” of the liberal arts Bruce Kimball’s (1995) classic Orators and Philosophers traces the meaning and use of the liberal arts from their birth in the Ionian peninsula to their place in debates within twentieth-century American higher education. Kimball argues that the idea of liberal education was formed through the continuous tension between the “oratorical” tradition of Cicero and Quintilian, which emphasized moral formation and the good life, and the “philosophical” tradition of the Platonic Academy, which favored logical examination and unhindered thought. The monastic tradition fit in the oratorical column in Kimball’s estimation, and it was quickly eclipsed by the philosophically inclined scholastic movement (1995: 12–57). Yet Kimball’s account, as well as the dominant narrative that views the monastery as a mere safety deposit box awaiting the revival of Aristotelian thought, neglects the radical transformation—or rather, conversion—of the liberal arts during the early medieval period. The monastic “turn” in liberal education is perhaps best understood through the eyes of its champions. The hagiography of Benedictine patrons often follows an established pattern. Pope Gregory the Great described Benedict’s decision to leave his life within Roman walls as a rejection of the vanity of worldly learning. In Augustine’s terms, Benedict abandoned the classical school for the school of Christ. The renunciation of pagan literature and the sophisticated airs of antique learning marked many early conversion narratives. Gregory himself was trained in the classical manner prior to his entry into monastic life (Leclercq 1974: 1–14, 32–9). The educational profile of many sixth-century monks meant that they often had an ambivalent relationship to the classical liberal arts. On one hand, their extremely literate mode of life relied on the same training in grammar that was the first rung of classical schooling. On the other hand, they sought to signal their renunciation of the world by a humble course of study dominated by Scripture and the Fathers (Riché 1978: 79–97, 155–6). Fortunately, Gregory, Cassiodorus, Alcuin, and many others shared Augustine’s notion that the best of the Greco-Roman tradition should be adapted to Christian education. In a reference to the Hebrews’ flight from ancient Egypt, in which the exiles forsook Egyptian idols but left Egypt laden with gold and silver, Augustine famously quipped that the church could “despoil the Egyptians” without compromising her doctrine. That is, Christians could profitably adopt whatever was laudable in classical culture (De doctrina Christiana 40.60). This licensed appropriation of the classical heritage became the paradigm for the monks’ conversion of classical paideia. Their rationale was, unsurprisingly, theological. Just as the Old Testament foreshadowed and was contained by the

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New Testament, so anything good that existed in classical education was seen as a prefigurement of the fulfillment of human wisdom embodied in Christian learning. In this sense, the monastics did not “baptize” the liberal arts, grafting them onto a new system. Rather, they recognized the harmony between classical humanism and Christian humanism as a product of divine providence (Leclercq 1974: 101–5, 146–7). With the collapse of the Roman Empire, the usual reasons to study the liberal arts vanished. No longer did they serve as the precursor to a career in imperial governance. The monastic response to this crisis of meaning arguably put the liberal arts on a higher, more humane footing. When Cassiodorus crystalized the various disciplines into the now commonplace seven liberal arts, he did so on a theological basis—that of Patristic numerology. He opens the second book of the Institutions by meditating on the biblical significance of the number seven; David praises God seven times each day (Ps. 118:164), the Lord commands Moses to make seven lamps to lead the Hebrews in exile (Exod. 25:37), and John’s Revelation contains seven churches, seven seals, seven lampstands, and a host of other examples (Rev. 1:4, 1:12, 5:1). As “the Lord, maker of all things, arranged the universe by number, weight, and measure,” it should be no surprise that there are seven useful arts of learning (Institutions 2.Prologue.1–3, quotation from 3).6 In Cassiodorus’ Institutions, both the literate arts of the trivium and the theoretical arts of the quadrivium are directed toward understanding divine mysteries. For example, rhetoric, once employed in Rome to increase the “orator’s memory, delivery, and vocal quality” now allows the monk to “safeguard the memory of divine scripture,” “grasp the art of delivery in reciting the divine law,” and gain control “of vocal quality in the chanting of the Psalter” (Institutions 2.2.16). Dialectic, which Cassiodorus equates with philosophy, is in essence a preparation for death. It allows the monk to “go beyond the visible world to contemplate something of the divine and heavenly” (Institutions 2.3.6). Mathematics, a largely theoretical science for the Greeks, allowed the monk to abandon the world of tangible images and see “with the heart alone” (Institutions 2.3.22). By pursuing mathematics, the monk might learn to comprehend “the Trinity, which is beyond sight” (Institutions 2.Conclusion.5). Even geography, included in the art of geometry, was directed toward spiritual knowledge. Cassiodorus instructs his charges to read the geographers, “so that you know the location of each place you read of in holy books … Thus, although you are in one place (as monks ought to be) you may traverse mentally what others in their travels have collected with a great deal of effort” (Institutions 1.25.1). Some centuries later, Alcuin embraced the liberal arts for a similar purpose. In a letter to Irish monks, he described them as “ad altissimum evangelicae perfectionis culmen”—the steps by which one climbed to the perfection of the

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gospel (Gaskoin 1966: 191). From Charlemagne’s court, Alcuin composed a series of compilatios—synthesized collections of Roman rhetoricians such as Cicero and Quintilian. Other works sought not simply to make the classical tradition accessible once again but to put it to a new purpose. Thus, his Disputatio de rhetorica et de virtutibus (Disputation on Rhetoric and the Virtues) argues that rhetoric—the art of choosing words well—is an indispensable precondition for temperance, justice, and other virtues, which themselves are essential to the Christian life (Kempshall 2008: 7–30). His Disputatio Pippini, a humorous exercise in dialectic, relates the powers of reason to divine and natural realities. Alcuin’s most prominent disciple, Rabanus Maurus, defended the liberal arts to an even greater extent. He referred to Plato as the greatest authority on the perfection and intelligence observed in Creation (Gaskoin 1966: 202–6). The Alcuinian embrace of the liberal arts in the halls of kings would wane with the decline of the Carolingian dynasty, but its preservation in the monasteries of the West enabled its continuation through the next several centuries and paved the way for the rise of universities. Indeed, some historians have attempted to draw an uninterrupted line from Alcuin’s students through the Cluniac revival and to the University of Paris (Gaskoin 1966: 183–208). Yet despite the political changes that occurred throughout these long centuries, the monastic tradition asserted a single, transcendent purpose for the study of the liberal arts. At present, philosophers of education still look to the monastic model when exploring the purpose of liberal education. Kevin Gary (2006) contrasts the dominant ethos of liberal arts in higher education, which aims to foster freedom via critical thinking and personal autonomy, with the monastic ethos, which suggests that freedom is achieved through contemplation. Following Josef Pieper (2009), Gary diagnoses the contemporary obsession with discursive power as both a cause and a consequence of the modern commitment to learning as work. The monastic tradition, by comparison, advocated a more receptive approach to learning. By devoting much of the day to an attentive sort of leisure—whether in prayer or in study—the monks could foster a sense of wonder at reality and could bask in the miracle of being (Gary 2006: 121–36). Similarly, Alven Neiman (1997) has critiqued the modern university as devoid of “metaphysical contemplation.” Following Pierre Hadot (1995), he traces the tradition of rumination on existence from the Platonic school to Augustinian thought to Bernard’s monastery at Clairvaux. Like Gary, Neiman insists that the lack of meaning in modern liberal education stems from its preoccupation with pragmatic, rational skill rather than with wisdom. Indeed, monastic authors from Gregory to Bernard valued the otium—rest or leisure—fostered by monastic life. This was not total relaxation or time devoted to the mindless entertainment that the modern world often mistakes for leisure. The methodical practice of study, prayer, or manual crafts was

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meant to engender a “waking sleep” (Leclercq 1974: 84). Viewing life as an anticipation of heaven, the monk pursued liberal study not to acquire tools to face challenges in a changing world but to gradually conform himself to higher realities. Far from a mere safeguard of the classical school amid the “Dark Ages,” the monastic movement radically reoriented the purpose of the liberal arts, generating a new educational synthesis patterned after contemplation of the divine. Lectio divina and reading for ontological change Monastic education was, in contrast to the Roman oratorical culture that it succeeded, a thoroughly literate milieu. “Impregnation with the Word of God” defined the monastic day (Riché 1978: 116). In addition to the hours of liturgical prayer and reading at table, the Benedictine Rule prescribed at least two continuous hours for personal reading after morning labor and devoted almost the entirety of Sunday to quiet study. Isadore of Seville prescribed at least three hours for monks and nuns in seventh-century Spain, and the Master provides the same number of hours for the young novices to take instruction in their letters (pp. 113–14, 294). Benedict even instructed one or two senior monks “to go about the monastery during the time that the brethren devote to reading and take notice, lest perhaps a slothful brother be found who giveth himself up to idleness or vain talk, and doth not attend to his reading, and is unprofitable, not only to himself, but disturbeth also others” (Rule of St. Benedict 48). The heart of monastic reading was the practice of lectio divina. Often translated as “divine reading,” the term could variously mean “prayer,” “study,” or “meditation” (Riché 1978: 120–1). By the eleventh century, lectio had crystalized into a more formal practice. In brief, lectio follows four stages: lectio (simple reading), meditatio (often understood as “meditation,” but traditionally a process of internalization by imaginative memorization), oratio (spontaneous prayer), and contemplatio (contemplation of divine mysteries) (Studzinsky 2009: 140–66). Lectio was most often practiced with Scripture, but commentaries and other works could be used. For this reason, Hugh of St. Victor viewed prayer, contemplation, and reading as integral and in some ways undifferentiable aspects of studium—study (Illich 1993: 63). For the monastics, the purpose of reading was not simple knowledge acquisition. It employed the body, the intellect, and the emotions to effect a personal, even ontological, transformation. During the early medieval period, reading was an intensely bodily affair. Silent reading was fairly rare and would, in fact, come into common usage via a later monastic innovation (Riché 1978: 466). Lectio was accomplished through quiet oral recitation. The monk would imbibe the word through his eyes, through his moving lips, and through his ears. Following the Jewish precedent, reading was often depicted

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in digestive terms. Meditation is often described as rumination, the activity of “ruminators,” or livestock that chew their cud. Peter the Venerable, the twelfth-century abbot at Cluny, is described as “chewing the Scriptures,” while several sources describe monasteries as “the dwelling place of mumblers and munchers” (Leclercq 1974: 90; Illich 1993: 54–5). Many borrowed the image of honey—associated with the gods in antiquity—from the prophet Ezekiel, who testified, “He said to me ‘Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving to you.’ Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth” (Ezek. 3:3) (Rocha 2013: 123). Gregory declares, “One finds honey indeed when one tastes the sweetness of holy understanding” (Expositionem beati Job moralia, 75.1124C, quoted in Illich 1993: 55), and Bernard advises a young monk, “if you prepare your interior ear … and keep you inner senses open, the voice of your God will be sweeter than honey and the honeycomb” (Epistola 107 ad Thomam Prepositum de Beverla, 182.248C, quoted in Illich 1993: 55). To taste the text with the palatum cordis—the “palate of the heart” (Leclercq 1974: 90)—the monk had to prepare a wealth of memories within the “treasure chest of the heart” (Illich 1993: 35). Again following the rabbinic exegetical tradition, monastic exegesis tended to explain one passage of Scripture by reference to several others. If done well, this approach illuminates the books of Scripture, or indeed all of sacred and profane literature, as one unitary whole expressing the heights of human and divine wisdom. The process of “reminiscence” drove monastic meditation on the written word. The bodily mode of reading allowed the monk to more easily memorize the written word. Then, when reading a new text, “hook words” would serve to trigger memories, connecting one passage to another until the monk had assembled a collection of interrelated texts from which to meditate (Leclercq 1974: 91–2). By Hugh’s lifetime in the twelfth century, memorization techniques had evolved to help construct a veritable memory palace—the “treasure chest of the heart”—from which a monk could draw. Hugh asks his students to create a mental number line that possesses several thousand places. Students worked to place all the figures and events of biblical history on this timeline. With practice, they could quickly dart back and forth along the line, retrieving relevant passages and concepts. Advanced learners would even construct a three-dimensional palace, modeled after Noah’s ark. We should remember that these exercises were not simple memory tricks, such as the method of loci (locations) recommended by Cicero to help orators memorize their speeches (De oratore, 2.350–360). Rather, because memorization took place in the context of lectio divina, each item had emotional and even spiritual memories attached to it. For a student whose aesthetic and moral sensibilities had been formed by both classical literature and sacred scripture, this treasure chest became the

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repository of the heart’s greatest desires and experiences (Illich 1993: 35–8). When Jean Leclercq refers to the student thus trained as a “living concordance” (1974: 96), he signifies not simply a sort of “walking encyclopedia” (a strikingly modern notion) but a dynamic person whose character gradually conforms to the ideal laid out in both Christian and classical literature. For the monastics, of course, this ideal was in fact a person. By interiorizing the words of sacred texts and the wisdom of the ancients, the monk strove to be transformed into the image of Christ himself. How was this supposed to occur? Contemporary philosopher of education Sam Rocha (2013) points to the theological understanding of reading in the Jewish and Christian traditions. While the rabbinical world is replete with digestive references to the written word, Patristic theology seized upon the apostle John’s reference to Christ as the “Word” or Logos. Thus the mind of God expressed in Scripture had become enfleshed in a human person. In the Catholic and Orthodox tradition, transformation into the image of Christ is accomplished primarily through receiving the Eucharist—that is, consuming the sacramental body and blood of Christ. In devouring the Word, the Logos, the Christian takes on the mind and heart of God (Rocha 2013: 124–5). The monastic philosophy of reading imitates this ritual. By chewing on the written expression of the divine Author’s mind, the monk absorbs God’s wisdom and is transformed more and more into his likeness. The pedagogical value of silence Popular culture often portrays monks as bound to a vow of silence.7 This, in reality, was virtually nonexistent in the Western tradition. However, silence has been essential to monastic culture and monastic education from the beginning. Contemplation requires a minimum of distraction, and Benedict cautions his monks from reading loudly during prescribed study times (Rule of St. Benedict 48). Yet silence seems to be prescribed for its own sake. The “grand silence” is observed from the end of Compline (the last daily hour of prayer) to the end of Lauds (the second hour, just before breakfast) (Rule of St. Benedict 42). Benedict reveals the essentially pedagogical purpose of silence when he counsels, “For it belongeth to the master to speak and to teach; it becometh the disciple to be silent and to listen” (Rule of St. Benedict 6). This is not simply an affirmation of the abbot’s authority. Rather, it describes the essentially receptive mode that defines monastic education. Beginning in the Irish monastic scriptoria of the sixth century, copyists began placing spaces between words, allowing for the gradual spread of silent reading. Yet auditory reading, whereby the reader pronounced the words on the page, remained the quintessentially monastic mode. It was not until the middle of the twelfth century that readers began to associate printed words directly with concepts rather than with sounds. The monks of this period, particularly Hugh

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and Bernard, were perhaps the last Western authors to write primarily for auditory readers (Illich 1993: 86–92). If monastic silence was not primarily for reading, how did it contribute to learning? In pondering this question, we can see how lectio actually generated a complete life of contemplation. When laboring in the fields or in the kitchens, or resting on their beds at the end of the day, the monks would continually ruminate on the words they had heard—either from their own mouth or from those of their confreres (Riché 1978: 116–17). Monastic life became a continual meditation on the objects of study. Prolonged silence, accompanied by manual labor or mandated rest, provided the space in which to plumb the mysteries of self, God, and the world. Contemporary philosophers of education concerned with the absence of silence in present-day schooling help shed light on the pedagogical value of silence. Ana Christina Zimmerman and W. John Morgan (2016) have reflected on the potential power of silence in classroom dialogue. In their analysis, silence is a receptive posture by which the student can learn about the Other. In contrast to the determinative activity of speech, silence allows the student to intuit or receive the character of a dialogue partner as a mysterious whole. This in turn allows authentic reflection on the self. Silence “challenges the sovereignty of the subject and provides a way of finding one’s self, in other words learning” (2016: 405). In a certain way, silence could be said to foster what Josef Pieper (2009: 24–33) refers to as intellectus, a receptive mode of knowing dependent on Aristotelian connaturality—the idea that reality has a unified structure and therefore the person (who is part of reality) is able to intuit characteristics of being prior to rational discursus. The restive character of intellectus in comparison to arduous discursion has been noted by Jewish scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel. For Heschel, the Jewish Sabbath—which in many ways informs the Christian monastic conception of otium (leisure)—requires “the silence of abstaining from noisy acts” (1979: 15).8 Angelo Caranfa’s (2004) explication of silence is more explicitly theological and closer to the principles of monastic education. Caranfa examines the role of silence in the Socratic dialogues. On close inspection, Socrates’ interactions are not continuous exchanges of speech. In many cases, the philosopher pauses or abandons dialogue to listen to the voice (daimonion) that impels him to teach, the voice of the divine. Drawing on the work of Max Picard, Caranfa identifies this voice as the Logos, the divine reason that is both the pattern of human understanding and is beyond our comprehension. For this reason, speech may as easily reflect the Logos as impair knowledge. Caranfa declares, “Dialectic emerges from and returns to the Voice or Word of God, who always listens to what we say; and every word we speak refers to the truth that God speaks through what we say. Here, I think, we are at the very core of Socratic teaching: the limitation of our speech is the precondition for genuine or authentic learning” (2004: 216).

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Silence and humility are therefore necessary for the communion that makes Socrates wholly himself. We can see echoes of Socrates’ aversion to “the pretensions of wisdom” from Plato’s Apology (cited in Caranfa 2004: 213) in Benedict’s chapter on silence. Benedict admonishes the monks with the words of the Psalmist, “I said, I will take heed of my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I have set a guard to my mouth, I was dumb, and was humbled, and kept silence even from good things” (Ps. 39:2–3) (Rule of St. Benedict 6). This humility acknowledges the poverty of human expression in the face of transcendent realities and thereby preserves the spirit of wonder in monastic education. Caranfa contends that silence brings four principle goods to contemporary classrooms, which we might describe as potential legacies of monastic education in the present day. First, silence moves education from a posture of certain knowledge to that of curiosity and wonder. Second, the receptive nature of silence allows education to become dynamic, not governed by predetermined outputs. These first two principles lead to the third, joy in the learning and teaching process. Fourth, silence grounds learning in self-reflection and the search for wisdom, thereby uniting the curriculum around a coherent purpose (Caranfa 2004: 227–8). This last principle perhaps best encapsulates the character of monastic education in the past and in the present. John Senior, a twentieth-century advocate of monastic learning, complained that the modern university curriculum had disintegrated, as “there is no integer” (2008: 169). Senior’s “integer,” and that of the monastic movement, was of course the person of Christ. All of the monastic educational experience—the arrangement of daily life, the embrace of the liberal arts, the particular mode of study, and the provision of times for silence—directed learning toward the worship and enjoyment of the divine.

CONCLUSION: SCANDAL OR SOURCE? Several years ago, curriculum scholars Kevin Burke and Avner Segall began to publish analyses of the Christian vestiges within contemporary Western (particularly American) education. They sought to disabuse their colleagues of the notion that, after the abolition of official prayer and Bible reading in American public schools in the early 1960s,9 the education system had become a religiously neutral or secular one. On the contrary, the American school calendar, the language used to describe school activities, and the notion of children as simultaneously innocent yet potentially sinful imbues the educational system (Burke and Segall 2011: 631–58). Many of the most prominent elements they observed seemed to be monastic in origin. The practice of tracing letters and copying texts in early grades was attributed to the monastic scriptorium (Burke and Segall 2015: 2). A curriculum built around authoritative texts, a structured schedule delineated by bells, and what Foucault referred to as the

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“cellularization” of students’ lives were all residue from the monastic school (Segall and Burke 2013: 317–18). Indeed, certain Christian features do seem ingrained in our very concept of schooling. But these elements remained a scandal for the authors, especially considering American religious pluralism. But Burke and Segall did not advocate for attempts to rid Western education of these elements. Rather, as a solution, they proposed “an areligious teaching that will, somewhat oxymoronically, require attention to the religion that underlies schooling and its history” (Burke and Segall 2015: 21). By conducting honest conversations in teacher education programs, faculty might empower future teachers to move public education away from religious concepts that could be deemed problematic. If historically monastic concepts are at the heart of contemporary Western schooling, we must ask whether removing them might involve discarding the central aims of education at its best. Just prior to his death in 1968, celebrated Trappist writer Thomas Merton penned a short essay on university life to be published in the alumni magazine of his alma mater, Columbia University. Reflecting on the purpose of education, Merton made the striking assertion that the monastery and the university share the same end. That is, they are both intended to be “at once a microcosm and a paradise.” In Merton’s mind, “the original and authentic ‘paradise’” was to be found in “the inner self of the student who, in discovering the ground of his own personality as it opened out into the center of all created being, found in himself the light and the wisdom of his Creator, a light and wisdom in which everything comprehensible could be comprehended” (1992: 361–3). Merton was careful to insist that his vision did not require assent to certain theological principles but could appeal to even an avowedly secular institution. He argued that if education was not centered on finding the ground of being, a foundation for human personhood outside of sheer self-determination, students would be left to “the hell of meaninglessness, of obsession, of complex artifice, of systematic lying, of criminal evasions and neglects, of self-destructive futilities” (p. 359). Merton’s warning might be the best modern translation of the social realities Benedict feared in the declining Roman Empire. And just as the early monastic movement was a provocation, an impetus to reflection, for inhabitants of the European countryside, so the persistence of monastic elements in contemporary Western education calls scholars and educators to consider their worth. I for one am inclined to view tradition as “a guide, not a jailor” (Maugham 1938: 223). I believe the monastic tradition contains much to ponder and much that would enlighten our present educational sphere. Even if the early medieval period is a millennium in the past, the monastery can be a source of educational renewal. Of course, recovering insights from the past always requires verification of their worth and adaptation to present conditions. This is the task of practitioners and researchers, especially those who are sympathetic to a philosophical analysis

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of education. By way of conclusion, I venture to suggest a few lines of inquiry regarding monastic education that might be worth taking up in the future. First, while monastic reading has been well researched (see Bertucio 2015; Gary 2010; Rocha 2013), scholars have yet to explore the philosophical consequences of the twelfth-century transition from auditory to silent reading. This phenomenological change in the reading experience radically transformed the meaning of the written word and formal study and undoubtedly wrought consequences for our own age. Second, while accounts of memory in education abound, they are almost universally predicated on a modern understanding of the human capacity to memorize (see, e.g., Chinnery 2010; Jardine and Rinehart 1993; Trifonas 1996). The practical and philosophical implications of the ability to construct something akin to Hugh of St. Victor’s “treasure chest of the heart” may be worth examining. Third, Burke and Segall’s Foucauldian objections to regimentation aside, the monastic ordo (order of the day) may be worth plumbing for wisdom. At a time when popular and scholarly accounts of student burnout proliferate, the monastic balance between physical labor, study, and contemplation may provide some guidance. Finally, with the exponential growth of digital technology, educators and the general public are growing concerned with the ability of young people to focus on meaningful tasks.10 Just as Benedict offered a response to the triviality of sixth-century Roman life, perhaps the monastic genius might guide current researchers and educators to help students turn away from distraction and toward Merton’s inner “paradise.”

NOTES 1 Benedict’s Rule will be cited by chapter designation. 2 For a concise overview of the trivium and quadrivium, see Dorothy Sayer’s (1948) celebrated essay The Lost Tools of Learning. 3 The fourth-century preacher Arius of Alexandria taught that Christ was a creature created by God the Father. His followers, termed Arians, were widespread throughout the Germanic and Mediterranean world. Arianism was condemned by the First Council of Nicaea in 325 ce. See Wiles (1996). 4 The Institutions are typically cited by book, chapter, and verse, and I will follow this convention here. 5 The Rule of the Master is typically cited by chapter. Here the “Theme” is the chapter following the prologue. 6 The late philosopher of education Stratford Caldecott presented a similar theological analysis of the trivium. Drawing on Patristic theology, he suggested a rough analogy between the persons of the Christian Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) and grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. See Caldecott (2012). 7 For example, a 1998 television commercial for Beano, a digestive aid, featured Christian monks using the product to avoid flatulating and thereby breaking their “vow of silence.” 8 On the Sabbath as the origin of monastic leisure, see Dumm (1977).

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9 See the twin US Supreme Court cases Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963). 10 There is a vast and growing literature on the perils of digital technology for both adults and youth. By way of example, see Carr (2010); Gardiner (2016); George (2008); Rose (2013); Sullivan (2016). The authoritative commentary on technology, education, and society remains Postman (1992). I have suggested that monastic ascetic practices may be helpful in combating distraction at least in the university setting; see Bertucio (2018).

REFERENCES Primary sources Alcuin (2012), “Ars Grammatica and Disputatio De Rhetorica et de Virtutibus, CA. 790-800,” in Rita Copeland and Ineke Sluiter (eds.), Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300–1475, 272–98, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Athanasius (1979), The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus, trans. Robert C. Gregg, Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Augustine (1996), De Doctrina Christiana, trans. R.P.H. Green, London: Clarendon Press. Benedict (1998), The Rule of Saint Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry, O.S.B., New York: Vintage. Bernard of Clairvaux (1844–1864), Epistola 107 ad Thomam Prepositum de Beverla, in Patrologia Cursus Completes: Series Latine, ed. Jacques Paul Migne, Paris. Cassiodorus (2007), Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning, in Cassiodorus: Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning and On the Soul, trans. James W. Halporn, 103–232, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Cicero (1948), On the Orator, trans. E.W. Sutton and H. Rackham, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gregory the Great (1844–1864), Expositionem beati Job moralia, in Patrologia Cursus Completes: Series Latine, ed. Jacques Paul Migne, Paris. Hugh of St. Victor (1991), The Didascalicon of Hugh of Saint Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts, trans Jerome Taylor, New York: Columbia University Press. Pachomius (2006), Pachomian Koinonia: The Lives, Rules, and Other Writings of Saint Pachomius, trans. Armand Veilleux, Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications. Plato (2005), “Socrates’ Defense (Apology),” in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, trans. Hugh Tredennick, ed. Edith Hamilton, 3–26, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Plato (1992), Theaetetus, trans. M.J. Levett, ed. Bernard Williams, London: Hackett. Plato (2004), The Republic, trans. C.D.C. Reeve, London: Hackett. The Rule of the Master (1977), trans. Luke Eberle, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications.

Secondary sources Anderson, Luke. O Cist. (1986), “Enthymeme and Dialectic: Cloister and Classroom,” in E. Rozanne Elder (ed.), From Cloister to Classroom: Monastic and Scholastic Approaches to Truth, 244–5, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications. Bertucio, Brett (2015), “Paideia as Metanoia: Transformative Insights from the Monastic Tradition,” in Eduardo Duarte (ed.), Philosophy of Education Yearbook 2015, 509–17, Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

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Bertucio, Brett (2018), “Monastic Asceticism As Formation for a Distracted, ‘Disciplinary’ Age,” in Megan Laverty (ed.), Philosophy of Education Yearbook 2018, 446–60, Champagne: University of Illinois Press. Burke, Kevin J. and Avner Segall (2011), “Christianity and Its Legacy in Education,” Journal of Curriculum Studies, 43 (5): 631–58. Burke, Kevin J. and Avner Segall (2015), “Teaching As Jesus Making: The Hidden Curriculum of Christ in Schooling,” Teachers College Record, 117 (March): 1–27. Caldecott, Stratford (2012), Beauty and the Word: Rethinking the Foundations of Education, Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press. Caranfa, Angelo (2004), “Silence as the Foundation of Learning,” Educational Theory, 54 (2): 211–30. Carr, Nicholas (2010), The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Chinnery, Ann (2010), “‘What Good Does All This Remembering Do, Anyway?’ On Historical Consciousness and the Responsibility of Memory,” in Gert Biesta (ed.), Philosophy of Education Society Yearbook 2010, 397–405, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Colish, Marcia L. (1997), Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 400–1400, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. de Vogue, Adalbert (1977), “Introduction,” in The Rule of the Master, 57–61, trans. Luke Eberle, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications. Dumm, Demetrius, O.S.B. (1977), “Work and Leisure: Biblical Perspectives,” American Benedictine Review, 28 (4): 351–72. Dunn, Marylin (2000), The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Gardiner, Steve (2016), “The Student Cellphone Addiction is No Joke,” Education Week, April 26. Gary, Kevin (2006), “Leisure, Freedom, and Liberal Education,” Educational Theory, 56 (2): 121–36. Gary, Kevin (2010), “Liberal Education and Reading for Meaning,” in Gert Biesta (ed.), Philosophy of Education Yearbook 2010, 241–9, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Gaskoin, C.J.B. (1966), Alcuin: His Life and His Works, New York: Russell & Russell. George, Lianne (2008), “Dumbed Down: The Troubling Science of How Technology Is Rewiring Kids’ Brains,” McLean’s, November 7. Goerhing, James E. (1992), “The Origins of Monasticism,” in Harold Attridge and Gohei Hata (eds.), Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism, 235–55, Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Hadot, Pierre (1995), Philosophy As a Way of Life, ed. Arnold I. Davidson, trans. Michael Chase, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Haskins, Charles Homer (2007), The Rise of Universities, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Heschel, Abraham Joshua (1979), The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Holzherr, George (1994), Commentary on the Rule of Benedict, trans. Monks of Glenstal Abbey, Dublin: Four Courts Press. Illich, Ivan (1993), In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary on Hugh’s Didascalicon, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jaeger, Werner (1943), Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, Vol. 2, trans. Gilbert Highet, New York: Oxford University Press.

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Jardine, David W. and Pam Rinehart (1993), “Relentless Writing and the Death of Memory in Elementary Education,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 12 (2): 127–37. Kempshall, Matthew S. (2008), “The Virtues of Rhetoric: Alcuin’s Disputatio de rhetorica et de uirtutibus,” Anglo-Saxon England, 37 (1): 7–30. Kimball, Bruce (1995), Orators and Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education, exp. edn., New York: College Board. Leclercq, Jean (1974), The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, trans. Catharien Misrahi, New York: Fordham University Press. Marrou, H. I. (1956), A History of Education in Antiquity, trans. George Lamb, New York: Sheed and Ward. Maugham, W. Somerset (1938), The Summing Up, New York: Doubleday, Doran, & Co. Merton, Thomas (1992), “Learning to Live,” in Lawrence S. Cunningham (ed.), Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master, 357–67, Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Mikkeli, Heikki (1998), “Christendom and Europe in the Middle Ages,” in Jo Campling (ed.), Europe As an Idea and an Identity, 195–211, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Neiman, Alven M. (1997), “Pragmatism, Thomism, and the Metaphysics of Desire: Two Rival Versions of Liberal Education,” Educational Theory, 47 (1): 91–117. Peshkin, Alan (1988), God’s Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pieper, Josef (2009), Leisure: The Basis of Culture, trans: Alexander Dru, San Francisco: Ignatius Press. Postman, Neil (1992), Technocracy: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Riché, Pierre (1978), Education and Culture in the Barbarian West, From the Sixth Through the Eighth Century, trans. John J. Contreni, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Rocha, Sam (2013), “Incarnated Reading: A Cerebralist, Cows, Cannibals and Back Again,” in Cris Mayo (ed.), Philosophy of Education Yearbook 2013, 120–8, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Rose, Ellen (2013), On Reflection: An Essay on Technology, Education, and the Status of Thought in the Twenty-First Century, Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Sayers, Dorothy (1948), The Lost Tools of Learning, London: E.T. Heron. Segall, Avner and Kevin Burke (2013), “Reading the Bible as a Pedagogical Text: Testing, Testament, and Some Postmodern Considerations About Religion/the Bible in Contemporary Education,” Curriculum Inquiry, 43 (3): 306–31. Senior, John (2008), The Death of Christian Culture, Norfolk, VA: IHS Press. Studzinsky, Raymond (2009), Reading to Live: The Evolving Practice of Lectio Divina, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. Sullivan, Andrew (2016), “I Used to Be a Human Being,” New York Times Magazine, September 19. Tierney, Brian and Sidney Painter (1999), Western Europe in the Middle Ages: 300– 1475, New York: McGraw-Hill College. Trifonas, Peter (1996), “The Ends of Pedagogy: From the Dialectic of Memory to the Deconstruction of the Institution,” Educational Theory, 46 (3): 303–33. Trompf, G. W. (1973), “The Concept of the Carolingian Renaissance,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 34 (1): 3–26.

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Vessey, Mark (2004), “Two Pen-Portraits of ‘Cassiodorus,’” in Cassiodorus: Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning and On the Soul, trans. James W. Halporn, 3–12, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Wagner, David L. (1983), “The Seven Liberal Arts and Classical Scholarship,” in David L. Wagner (ed.), The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages, 1–31, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Wiles, Maurice (1996), Archetypal Heresy: Arianism Through the Centuries, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Zimmerman, Ana Christina and W. John Morgan (2016), “A Time for Silence? Its Possibilities for Dialogue and for Reflective Learning,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 35 (4): 399–413.

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CHAPTER TWO

Religion, Reason, and Educational Thought in the Twelfth Century C onstant J. M ews

Peter Abelard (1079–1142) and Hugh of St. Victor (d.1141) both contributed powerfully to transforming educational thought in the twelfth century, although in very different ways. One became known for provoking controversy, most famously for his love affair with a brilliant student, Héloïse (c. 1095–1164), but also for challenging religious orthodoxy. The other was a quiet teacher, about whom we know little other than that he established the abbey of SaintVictor as the preeminent educational center in Paris in the first half of the twelfth century and that he structured his prolific literary output around the theme of the pursuit of wisdom. These two figures were not the only teachers who helped shape the scholastic culture of the twelfth century. In the next generation, Peter Lombard (d.1161) would combine Hugh’s synthetic vision of theology with the questioning method of Peter Abelard, while John of Salisbury (c. 1120–80), who spent twelve years as a student in the schools of Paris (1136–48), would become interested in theorizing the liberal arts, at least in relation to language. Together, Abelard and Hugh provided a foundation for the scholastic intellectual culture that would develop with particular energy in the schools of twelfth-century Paris and make possible the emergence of the University of Paris and its distinguished masters. Both men emphasized in their educational philosophy the importance of developing the reasoning potential

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of every individual, even if they did so in different ways, one focusing more on questioning, the other more on the ideal of wisdom. In their different ways, both Abelard and Hugh were working within the paradigm established in the sixth century by Boethius, who articulated the idea that all disciplines were part of the love of wisdom, namely philosophia. Theorists in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries would find many different ways of expanding on Boethius in their desire to construct an educational framework for scholastic culture. In this chapter, I first examine the approaches exemplified by Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor before considering how their thought would be transformed by a new generation of thinkers, including the perhaps most sophisticated educational theorist of the twelfth century, John of Salisbury.

WILLIAM OF CHAMPEAUX AND PETER ABELARD One consequence of the economic prosperity of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries was the increased desire of students, especially in northern France, to study at the schools attached to cathedrals or major churches. Such an education was increasingly becoming a prerequisite for subsequent employment either in the church or in secular administration. There was keen competition, not just among students to be accepted into the best schools but also among teachers to gain the best employment. Such students needed financial resources to pursue their studies, they were not necessarily from important families and might well have to survive by teaching other students. The most well-known example of such ambition is provided by Peter Abelard in his autobiographical letter (Abelard 2013: 3–121), the first item in his exchange of letters with Héloïse. He addresses this letter, written around 1132/3, to an unidentified friend as a way of offering consolation by showing how he had overcome difficulties in his own life through eventually coming to trust in the consoling power of the Holy Spirit. He explains how (c. 1115) what seemed like a brilliantly successful career had been shattered by the consequences of his meeting Héloïse, the brilliant niece of Fulbert, a canon of the cathedral of Notre-Dame. Her uncle’s invitation to tutor Héloïse and lodge in his house led to a passionate love affair, which resulted in Héloïse giving birth to their child, Astralabe. After a secret marriage, Fulbert had Abelard castrated. In consequence, Abelard became a monk at Saint-Denis, while Héloïse took religious vows at Argenteuil, where she had initially been raised. Abelard took the opportunity to explain how unhappiness with the monks at Saint-Denis prompted him to escape to a parcel of land he had been given some 115 kilometers east of Paris in Champagne, where he established (c. 1122) an informal school around an oratory he had constructed. He dedicated it initially to the Holy Trinity but then to the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit. After this experiment collapsed in 1127, he transferred ownership of the Paraclete to

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Héloïse and her sisters in 1129, after they had been expelled from Argenteuil. Abelard tells this story to explain how the turbulence of his life in the schools was eventually transformed by God’s comforting goodness, the Holy Spirit. His narrative is inevitably selective, but it illuminates one key aspect of educational philosophy and practice in the twelfth century, namely the value attached to subjecting religious faith to reason and a critical assessment of authority. Abelard swiftly identifies at the outset of his account the excitement he encountered in his early education: “I preferred the weapons of dialectical reasoning to all the teachings of philosophy, and armed with these I chose the conflicts of disputes instead of the trophies of war” (Abelard 2013: 5). The figure under whom he studied during the 1090s was Roscelin of Compiègne (d. c. 1125), who had been accused in 1090 by Anselm, abbot of Bec and subsequently archbishop of Canterbury, of promoting dangerous heresy. Roscelin reportedly taught that the three divine persons, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, were separate things that could not be identified with each other, as otherwise God the Father would have become incarnate with God the Son. Anselm also accused Roscelin of teaching that a universal term did not refer to a specific thing in itself but was rather a term predicated of a specific individual (Anselm 1946: 282–4). Roscelin’s technique was to apply the focus of speculative grammar to thinking about the specific res of any noun (Mews 1992). Anselm’s claims are not accurate summaries of Roscelin’s teaching, whether in dialectic or scientia divina. In the Monologion and Proslogion Anselm himself had pioneered the use of dialectical questioning to reformulate Christian doctrine in a way that was very different from that of his own teacher, Lanfranc of Bec. Nonetheless, Abelard was excited by the intellectual potential of using dialectical analysis, such as Anselm and Roscelin were expounding in their teaching. They used close study of Aristotle’s Categories and On Interpretation (Periermeneias), as introduced by Porphyry in his Isagoge (Introduction), to analyze the foundational categories of discourse and to reflect on the meaning of both words and phrases. Roscelin (1910: 64–6) would subsequently accuse Abelard of ingratitude in forgetting the long period he had been his student, at Loches (the palace of the Counts of Anjou) and at Tours. A collection of books owned by Roscelinus grammaticus suggests that Abelard’s teacher was interested in a wide range of the liberal arts: the trivium, or arts of language (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic), and the quadrivium, disciplines concerned with the natural world (arithmetica, musica, astronomy, and geometry), as well as Christian doctrine (Mews 1996: 117–18). For the young Abelard, however, the discipline in which he first sought to excel was that of dialectic, the art of reasoning and of distinguishing between what is true and false. Abelard’s single-minded enthusiasm for dialectic led him into conflict with the teacher who was then most eminent in that discipline, namely William of Champeaux, whose interest was in the arts of language as a whole. William

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focused not just on dialectic but on grammar, as expounded in Priscian’s Grammatical Institutions, and rhetoric, as presented in Cicero’s De inventione and the Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium (Mews 2005). William’s primary interest was in promoting the educational contributions of Boethius on dialectic as a whole, of Priscian on grammatical categories, and of Cicero on the art of persuasion. The recently edited Notule Dunelmenses (Durham Notes) (Grondeux and Rosier-Catach 2017) provides a rich record of William’s classroom. It reveals William’s philosophical approach to parts of speech developed in the late eleventh century by the anonymous Glosule on Priscian’s Grammatical Institutes. One of its key insights is to clarify Priscian’s definition that a noun signified substance with a quality by explaining that a noun named (by imposition) a substance while signifying a quality (Marenbon 1997: 174– 201). Yet William still believed that a universal noun did refer to a reality beyond specific individuals. In questioning William’s understanding of universals, Abelard helped establish the art of public disputation as a key feature of educational practice in the schools. He forced William to concede that different individuals of the same species are not different from each other, rather than being the same in essence (Abelard 2013: 9–11). This laid the foundation for Abelard’s subsequent teaching that a universal was simply a name or noun (nomen) that did not refer to any reality in itself. While William had much to say about the truth value of different kinds of argument, Abelard became increasingly critical of the idea that a universal term signifies a universal thing, insisting that such a term is simply predicated of individuals that are identical in some attribute. While there might be different forms of a chair in a room, the word chair does not refer to a universal thing but is rather a signifying utterance (vox) or discourse (sermo), as Abelard subsequently came to define a universal. This was very different from William’s teaching that universal terms refer to something real and that words have strict grammatical meanings, distinct from any metaphorical usage. Abelard also went much further than William’s teacher, Anselm of Laon (d.1117), in applying the technique of dialectical questioning to the study of scripture and the teachings of the Christian faith. Abelard claimed that Anselm’s reputation for learning “owed little to intelligence or memory” and mocked his inability to answer questions with anything more than empty command of words (Abelard 2013: 15–17). Anselm of Laon (not to be confused with St. Anselm) had been the first teacher to deliver systematic commentary on key books of the Bible by selecting excerpts from the Church Fathers (above all Augustine). He was remembered as pioneering the practice of responding to a range of questions about God, creation, original sin, the redemption, the sacraments, and the obligations of Christian life (Giraud 2010). While dismissive toward Anselm’s originality, Abelard in fact drew extensively on his teacher’s technique

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in commenting on scripture, with the difference that he often questioned the views of certain Church Fathers, such as that of Augustine on original sin. In this respect, Abelard introduced a much greater diversity of views into the study of scripture. Abelard provided the clearest formulation of his pedagogical vision in the Prologue to the Sic et Non (Yes and No), a work that he started to compile in 1120/1 as a collection of apparently contradictory statements by the Church Fathers. It gradually evolved from being concerned primarily with the Trinity into three broad sections, the first about faith in God and Christ, the second sacraments, and the third on love (caritas), as the foundation of Christian ethics. This modified Hugh’s formulation of Christian teaching as about faith, sacraments, and good works (Hugh of St. Victor 1854: 35B). In the Prologue, Abelard emphasizes the multitude of ways in which words can change their meanings in different contexts. He argues that we should not judge writers as right or wrong but rather should attend to the different ways in which they may express themselves, without being bound by “proper” expression. Abelard draws on Augustine to argue that not all effective speech is directed to an educated audience. There were many apparent contradictions in the New Testament that needed to be understood as rhetorical claims made by the evangelists, or sometimes as the result of scribal error. Abelard makes a particular point of showing how such authorities as Augustine and Jerome were fully aware of the complex character of the scriptural record. Yet he could also refer to secular writings to make the same claim: “Poets and philosophers also, in their writings, make many statements in which they are similarly quoting another man’s opinion as if they were based on solid truth, and yet it is clear that they are completely at odds with the truth” (Abelard 1988: 92). We might appear to describe a situation in varying ways (such as that the sky is sometimes starry, sometimes not) when the reality remains uniform. “It is no wonder, then, that judgements have sometimes been expressed or even written by the holy Fathers which are grounded upon opinion rather than on truth” (Abelard 1988: 93). The Prologue is a lecture about how texts of scripture and the writings of the Fathers should be read. Whereas Anselm of Laon had quoted many passages from Augustine to present catholic truth, Abelard quotes from passages from the Retractions in which Augustine highlights the provisional nature of the responses at which he had arrived. Abelard’s key message in the Prologue is that “consistent and frequent questioning is defined as the first key to wisdom,” a theme he justifies by reference to the example of Jesus questioning teachers in the Temple, “for by doubting we come to enquiry, and by enquiry we perceive the truth” (Abelard 1988: 99; Luke 2:46). Neither Anselm of Laon nor William of Champeaux ever applied insights from Aristotle and Boethius to the study of sacred texts in this way. In the process, Abelard was laying a methodological foundation for transforming theologia, a term he started to use in his Theologia

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christiana (Christian Theology, c. 1122) to refer to discussion about God, into a discipline that could advance through questioning. This emphasis on questioning troubled some contemporaries but excited others—none more so than Héloïse, to whom Anselm started giving private tuition in the years 1115 to 1116 while lodging in the house of her guardian, Fulbert. Writing more than fifteen years later, Abelard (2013: 27–33) presents his relationship with Héloïse as one of seduction rather than serious education to reinforce his theme presenting the punishment meted out to him, that of castration, as a providential check on the pride and lust by which he became carried away during those years. Yet, if we view this experience through the recollections of Héloïse, who wrote in response to the Historia calamitatum, we see that they engaged in a profound encounter with the writings of Ovid and Cicero, in particular those about themes of love and purity of intention. When we look at the Epistolae duorum amantium, an exchange of more than a hundred love letters and poems between a famous but controversial teacher and his brilliant student, we find profound connections with the later writings of Abelard and Héloïse. In letter 53 (Mews 2008: 235), the young woman (Héloïse) transforms a neologism (scibilitas, knowability) devised by her teacher (Abelard) into a poetic image (“if only a droplet of knowability from the nectar of your mouth”). In letter 24 (p. 209), her teacher discusses love by drawing on precisely the one passage of Cicero’s De amicitia (On Friendship) that he includes in the Sic et Non to discuss whether love, once present in an individual, can ever fully disappear. Compared to Abelard’s later discussion of love in his theological writing, the young teacher’s ideal that love exists as a universal thing between himself and his pupil alone is presumptuous and is contradicted by Héloïse’s argument in letter 25 (p. 211) that true love between them has not yet been attained. The exchange records an extraordinary, extended discussion between a teacher and student in which two voices compete with each other in eloquence and reflection on the theme of love. Héloïse could not become a teacher in the formal sense of the word, except in relation to her nuns. Abelard, along with a few other contemporaries, leaves us in no doubt that she was widely respected for her wisdom and insight (Abelard 2013: 101). Her first two letters to Abelard, written in response to reading his autobiographical letter, take much further her discussion of the obligations of love in the Epistolae duorum amantium (Letters of Two Lovers), while her third letter is a masterly reflection on the inadequacies of Benedict’s Rule to address the difficulties women face since it is a text not written specifically for women. The forty-two questions that she puts to Abelard in the Problemata Heloissae (Problems of Héloïse), questions raised by particular passages in scripture, reveal the acuity with which she implemented Abelard’s emphasis on questioning in the search for wisdom (McNamer 1991).

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THE EDUCATIONAL VISION OF HUGH OF ST. VICTOR Abelard started to teach at the cathedral school of Notre-Dame in 1113, the same time as William of Champeaux left the abbey of St. Victor, which he had established in 1111 as a community of Augustinian canons (not in 1108, as traditionally assumed; see Mews 2011). Canons regular shared a common way of life but were able to continue pastoral duties. William’s interest in maintaining a public school at St. Victor, teaching both secular and sacred learning, was of huge influence in establishing a precedent that other masters (including Abelard) would follow. When William became bishop of Chalons in 1113, he left the further development of both the nascent community and  its  school to Gilduin, who would serve as its founding abbot until his death in 1155. Under Gilduin’s guidance and with significant royal patronage, St. Victor attracted a wide range of students from all over Europe, eager to benefit from an education that was not as explicitly philosophical as the one offered by Abelard but provided training in theological discussion within a meditative framework. In large part, this was a consequence of Gilduin recruiting (probably c. 1115) Hugh of St. Victor, a young Augustinian canon from Saxony, who was initially entrusted with obtaining relics of St. Victor from Marseilles but quickly rose in prominence within the community as its most outstanding teacher. The details of the early life of Hugh of St. Victor are much less well known than those of Peter Abelard. While Hugh certainly came to St. Victor from the recently founded Augustinian abbey of Hamersleben, the year and place of his birth are not certain (discussed by Taylor in notes to Hugh of St. Victor 1991: 174). It is quite possible that he came to Paris through the mediation of Cono (or Conan), cardinal of Praeneste and a friend of William of Champeaux, who traveled to Saxony in his role as papal legate around Easter of 1115 (Mews 2015: 86–7). Cono, who would preside over Abelard’s trial for heresy at the Council of Soissons in 1121 (Abelard 2013: 57), saw the need for St. Victor to resist the influence of Abelard even in 1115. These events were taking place at the same time that William was befriending Bernard, an eloquent Cistercian monk, whom he consecrated as the first abbot of Clairvaux. Hugh of St. Victor, who respected Bernard greatly, valued questioning not for the sake of argument but only for its capacity to promote meditation and growth in wisdom. While Hugh never referred to Abelard by name in any of his writings, there can be no doubt that he was always concerned by what he perceived as the negative example of self-promoting intellectuals who gloried in their own interpretation and offered teaching that was dangerously critical of the authority of the Church Fathers, above all of Augustine (Luscombe 1969: 183–97).

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Hugh first started to emerge as a teacher in the years prior to 1121, just as Abelard was at the height of his notoriety as a teacher at the cathedral school of Notre-Dame and before Abelard was forced to quit in disgrace (c. 1117) following his castration. While Hugh’s earliest writings may have included a basic introduction to grammar (without any of the speculative reflection introduced by William of Champeaux), his first major synthesis of educational theory was the Didascalicon de studio legendi (On the Study of Reading), composed perhaps around 1121, quite possibly at the same time as or in response to the initial reception of Abelard’s Sic et Non (Yes and No) (Poirel 2011: 307–11). The Greek title that Hugh chose for this treatise about the curriculum may have been deliberately intended as a complement to Porphyry’s Isagoge (Introduction) to logic. Whereas Abelard had reflected in his Prologue to the Sic et Non on the multiplicity of words used by the Father of the Church, Hugh focuses at the outset of the Didascalicon (1.1 on the Wisdom that underpins all things: “Of all things to be sought, the first is that Wisdom in which the Form of the Perfect Good stands fixed.” In doing so, he articulates a Platonic ideal, absorbed from the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius, but extends this with Porphyry’s understanding of the threefold power of the human soul (anima), namely the powers of giving life, feeling, and reasoning. This leads him to expand on Porphyry’s teaching about philosophy as involving both theory and practice by arguing that all actions relate to philosophy, including the mechanical arts (Didascalicon 1.4–5). Hugh’s pedagogical technique, very different from that of Abelard, is to avoid burdening the reader with the names of authorities to whom he is alluding. Hugh thus conceals the extent to which he subtly transforms Augustinian pedagogy, with its emphasis on contrasting secular reason with the understanding conferred by divine illumination, by building on an expanded understanding of philosophy as transmitted by Porphyry and Boethius. With his gift for felicitous expression, he argues that man is like God in two ways: in his capacity to engage in speculation of truth and the exercise of virtue (speculatio veritatis et virtutis exercitium; Didascalicon 1.8). Whereas Abelard always opened a discussion by reflecting on the meaning of words, Hugh starts by commenting on the natural world: the works of God, the work of nature, and the work of the artificer (as described in Plato’s Timaeus, with which Hugh was familiar). As if responding to Abelard’s enthusiasm for language, Hugh argues that logica was the last of the sciences to be discovered, after the theoretical, practical, and mechanical (Didascalicon 1.11). This allows him to introduce the various disciplines of the curriculum, beginning with the quadrivium (Didascalicon 2.6–16), before enumerating those various practical skills that Aristotle had excluded from consideration as part of philosophy (fabric making, armament, commerce, agriculture, hunting, medicine, and theatrics). Hugh remarks that

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commerce (navigatio), understood as the art of buying and selling, itself requires a kind of eloquence that helps merchants to search out unknown regions and peoples and thus is vital to peace, as it transforms the private good of individuals into the common good (Didascalicon 2.23). Hugh’s educational philosophy embraces a practical dimension not touched on by Abelard. Hugh is aware of the skills of logica, namely grammar, which is concerned with speaking correctly; dialectic, which is concerned with distinguishing truth from falsehood; and rhetoric, which studies the art of persuasion (Didascalicon 2.28–30). He criticizes those who confuse one discipline with another, emphasizing that students must be aware of the broad framework encompassing all the arts, each of which draws on its own science or form of knowledge. Students also need to cultivate reading and meditation or sustained thought, which “takes its start from reading, but is bound by none of reading’s rules and precepts” (Didascalicon 2.9–10). These were skills that the great monastic authority, Cassian, had recommended in relation to scripture but that Hugh here transfers to every kind of reading, secular and sacred. Quite possibly Hugh is drawing here on insights that Gilduin had absorbed from studying under William of Champeaux. In this respect, Hugh is moving monastic educational theory into a new context, that of a community of canons regular, whose ideal was to maintain a contemplative ideal while still serving the broader community, without strict rules of enclosure. Humility must be the goal of study, unlike the goal of those “with an inflated ego, who pay too much attention to their own knowledge” (Didascalicon 3.13). Hugh’s warning that his students should not imitate those who “wrinkle their noses and purse their lips at lecturers in divinity” is clearly directed against Peter Abelard, with whose teaching Hugh was certainly familiar. The last three books of the Didascalicon focus on the study of scripture, referring only very briefly to the Church Fathers. Thus, in these books Hugh provides key information about the contents of the Old and New Testaments, drawing from the fifth-century Gelasian Decree, which he quotes (like Abelard in the Sic et Non) regarding its identification of those early Christian writings deemed apocryphal rather than authentic. Hugh also presents the threefold understanding of scripture (based on the approach of Gregory the Great) as founded on history, allegory, and tropology (the moral sense, concerned with how one lives) (Didascalicon 4.2). Whereas for Abelard scripture was to be studied with a view to resolving its contradictions, Hugh emphasizes that such study should aim to promote, but not display, moral virtue and meditation, a topic that he argues “is truly subtle and delightful” (Didascalicon 6.13) but that would deserve a treatise of its own. The Didascalicon was widely influential in the twelfth century as a synthesis of learning well suited to urban schools like that of St. Victor, where (at least

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in the first half of the twelfth century) outside students as well as novice canons could be found. Hugh modifies a few details of his overview of the disciplines in his Epitome Dindimi in Philosophiam; for example, he corrects his earlier statement that logica was the last of the arts to be discovered (Didascalicon 1.11) with a comment that the mechanical arts were more recent (Hugh of St. Victor 1966: 198); he also hints at this in a passage added to the Didascalicon (see Hugh of St. Victor 1991: 154). In the Epitome, he explains that basic verbal skill came first, followed by ethical awareness, before the rules of language were precisely formulated (Hugh 1966: 195). In another early treatise, the De tribus diebus, he demonstrates what meditation can achieve, explaining three aspects of God’s self-revelation through the universe as his power, wisdom, and benignity. These are the same three divine attributes that Abelard identified in his Theologia “Summi boni” (Theology “Of the Supreme Good,” c. 1120) as signified by the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Whereas Abelard’s educational philosophy developed by analyzing words, Hugh preferred to begin by reflecting on the material world. By the early 1130s, Hugh was turning his attention to drafting the De sacramentis Christinae fidei, a vast synthesis of Christian doctrine centered around the theme that the Christian sacraments are foreshadowed in the Old Testament but culminate in the person of Christ and the sacraments, which Christ himself instituted (Hugh of St. Victor 1951). While Abelard did include sacraments within the Sic et Non, he was much more interested in the ideal of love (caritas) as the foundation of Christian ethics. Hugh admired what Bernard of Clairvaux had to say about the Song of Songs as articulating in allegorical form God’s love for the human soul, but, as a teacher, Hugh preferred to present such teaching in a systematic framework. He distrusted Abelard’s emphasis on purely human love. In the De sacramentis (2.13.10–12; Hugh of St. Victor 1951: 386–96), Hugh rejects the claim that charity, once acquired, can never be lost (pp. 390–6), without ever naming Abelard as author of that opinion. Hugh’s pedagogical technique was not to quote passages from the Church Fathers but rather to answer questions by reference to the core meaning of scripture. Hugh’s writings were much more widely copied than those of Abelard, and in this respect he exercised a much greater direct influence on scholastic educational practice. While Hugh highlighted the absurdity of theological propositions with which he disagreed, he never directly accused individuals of teaching heresy in the way that Abelard had done in the Theologia “Scholarium” (Theology “Of Students”) (2.62–66; Abelard 1987: 438–41). Hugh was also less aggressive in tone than Bernard of Clairvaux, once a protégé of William of Champeaux, who used his formidable rhetorical powers to present Abelard as a dangerous threat to Christian orthodoxy. Bernard described Abelard in 1140/1 as “a monk without a rule, a prelate without

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solicitude, an abbot without discipline, who disputes with boys and converses with women” (letter 244, trans. James; see Bernard of Clairvaux 1998: 325). Bernard’s invective against Abelard as a dangerous schoolman should not be interpreted as implying that Bernard was opposed to all scholastics. In the mid-1130s, he sent a letter of recommendation to Gilduin, dean of St. Victor, urging him to accept a young Italian scholar, Peter Lombard, who wanted to move to Paris after studying at Rheims under master Alberic, Abelard’s adversary at the Council of Soissons in 1121. In 1141, when Abelard would be accused of heresy a second time at the Council of Sens, Bernard of Clairvaux would accuse Abelard of undermining God’s omnipotence and questioning the notion that God became man in Christ to free humanity from being yoked to the devil. While Bernard’s claims made Abelard’s classroom out to be a nest of dangerous subversion of Christian orthodoxy, Abelard’s practice of promoting questioning of the traditional language of Christian teaching was, in its own way, as much a path to wisdom as the pedagogical method of Hugh of St. Victor.

ROBERT OF MELUN, PETER LOMBARD, AND THE SCHOLASTIC METHOD IN THEOLOGY The deaths of Hugh of St. Victor on February 11, 1141, and of Peter Abelard on April 23, 1142, marked the end of a remarkable generation in the Parisian schools. They were both pioneers in the teaching of divinity (or theology, as Abelard preferred to call discussion about the divine nature), creating systematic collections of sentences or teachings about a range of questions raised by scripture, such as the nature of God as a Trinity of divine persons, original sin, the redemptive work of Christ, the sacraments, and ethics. As Luscombe (1969: 213) has argued, an interesting group of teachers emerged in the mid-twelfth century who recognized that, in different ways, both Abelard and Hugh had much to contribute to a discipline that was in major development. One such figure was Richard of Poitiers, a monk at Cluny (the monastery to which Abelard transferred after the Council of Sens) who described Abelard and Hugh as two luminaries of France (Richard of Poitiers 1882: 81), reminding us that not all monks sided with Bernard in their view of Abelard. A similar perspective was taken by Robert of Melun, who taught both dialectic and theology in Paris from the mid-1130s to 1160, when he moved back to England (becoming bishop of Hereford in the last four years of his life, 1163–7). Writing in the 1150s, Robert singles out two teachers whom he considered to have produced helpful studies of scripture, one about the sacraments of faith (certainly referring to Hugh of St. Victor), the other about faith and charity (referring to the records of the teaching of Peter Abelard on faith, sacraments, and charity, as recorded by his students).

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Among those treatises which deal with sacred Scripture I find particularly useful those which are given the name of sentences, since in them there is a clear sparseness of words and a rich wealth of sentences, expressed not obscurely but clearly. There are two in particular who have made rational enquiry about the sacraments of faith as about faith itself and charity, who in everything outshine all subsequent commentators of scripture in the judgement of all; it happened that they did not keep the same paths in everything; in fact it rarely or never happened, even though they dealt with and taught the same matters. For what is dealt with by one more briefly than it ought to be or said more diffusely than necessary is dealt with in a different order by the other. (Robert of Melun 1947: 45–6) While Robert did not agree with everything that Abelard and Hugh had to say, he recognized that each of them had valuable insights to offer. Robert’s own theological sentences draw on both masters as sources of inspiration. Robert was also an authority on dialectic, acutely aware of how words can change their meaning in different contexts. His own discussion of the Trinity, for example, comes to a similar conclusion as that of Abelard insofar as it is based around the idea that the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit signify divine power, wisdom, and benignity, respectively. At the same time, he does not get into the same difficulties as Abelard in speaking about wisdom as a kind of power, that of discernment, which caused such controversy by implying to some that Christ is less powerful than God the Father. Robert also avoided extensive quotation from pagan authors in promoting Christian doctrine without renouncing completely the idea that they might have had similar insights into shared truths. Robert reserves his hostility for those masters who expound scripture through glosses, a stance that resonates with Abelard’s own dismissal of Anselm of Laon, whose reputation was based on his skill in collecting glosses of the Church Fathers: For those whom fame now extols to the stars plunge all into the murky darkness of ignorance by their public speech. It is clear that the masters of the glosses—for this is the name by which they are known—lack understanding of the glosses as much as of their text even though they can distinguish glosses and divide them with full stops and assign a gloss to the text to which it belongs … No-one is competent in reading who is not capable of discussion of sentences … For this is said to be the case where reading or rather recitation of glosses holds center stage. For there the text is spurned, the gloss is worshipped without devout veneration, the text is read for the gloss and the gloss not explained for the sake of the text. (Robert of Melun 1947: 10–12)

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Robert’s critique was probably in part directed toward one master who became particularly well known as “the master of the glosses”: Peter Lombard, who studied for a while at St. Victor in the late 1130s and emerged as perhaps the most prominent theologian in Paris between 1141 and 1159. He taught at the cathedral school of Notre-Dame, where he was a canon and archdeacon, before becoming bishop of Paris in 1159, a post he held for only a year since he died in 1160 (Rosemann 2004: 36–8). Even by 1150, Peter Lombard had established his reputation by producing two enormously successful sets of glosses—one on the Psalter, the other on the Pauline Epistles—which built on and expanded on the glosses on these key scriptural texts prepared by Anselm of Laon before his death in 1141. While Gilbert de la Porrée (d.1154), a former student of Anselm of Laon, had himself produced glosses on both the Psalter and the Pauline Epistles, those of Peter Lombard were already becoming widely diffused by the mid-twelfth century (Colish 1992; GrossDiaz 1996). Robert had taught dialectic at Sainte-Geneviève after 1137, taking over from Peter Abelard (who might have been his teacher). His preferred way of teaching scripture was by debating opinions rather than quoting the authority of the Church Fathers. Peter Lombard’s pedagogical technique was also based on combining methods and ideas culled from both Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor, but in a different way. His particular expertise lay in his remarkable familiarity with patristic texts relating to any disputed question. He initially absorbed this technique from studying under Alberic of Rheims, the leading disciple of Anselm of Laon. While Hugh of St. Victor was deeply versed in the writings of the Fathers, he avoided extensive quotation from patristic texts in his writing, preferring to focus on arguments rather than the authority of written texts. In this respect, Robert’s favored theological method was closer to that of Hugh, although perhaps without Hugh’s literary elegance. Peter Abelard, by comparison, became much more aware of the importance of marshalling patristic authorities to support an argument after his teaching had been accused of heresy at the Council of Soissons. The Sic et Non formulated his response to the teaching of the school of Laon, expanding on its awareness of patristic texts by emphasizing that they must provoke reasoned analysis. Peter Lombard was accused by certain of his critics (notably John of Cornwall) of always having his head buried in the Theologia of Peter Abelard, a charge substantiated by the accuracy of his patristic quotations culled from that treatise (Mews, Introduction to Abelard 1987: 264–6). While Peter Lombard rarely agreed with opinions put forward by Abelard in his teaching, he often drew on patristic texts cited by Abelard to formulate contrary opinions. Peter Lombard never theorized his educational principles in the same way as did Abelard in his preface to the Sic et Non. Nonetheless, Peter Lombard showed

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that rational discussion of the argument of patristic texts, carefully quoted in the interests of fidelity to the original author, provided a foundation for academic dialogue. By contrast, the Sentences of Robert of Melun were prolix and diffuse, often without concise exposition of what a Church Father had said (Colish 1996: 72–7). The success of Peter Lombard’s Sentences, completed around 1157, demonstrated that he had found a winning formula for teaching theology, one based on respect for the twin pillars of reason and authority. Peter Lombard’s reasoned discussion of how to explain the incarnation, in particular his comment that Christus is a name signifying the divinity of the Son of Man, not a specific thing (res), provoked alarm from masters such as John of Cornwall and Walter of St. Victor, who accused him of excessive sympathy with Abelardian ideas (Monagle 2013). Lombard disagreed with the Victorine explanation of the incarnation as achieved through Christ being a human “assumed” by divinity. Lombard preferred to say that the Son of God had taken the disposition (habitus) of being a man. Victorine accusations of heresy against Lombard stemmed from the concern that describing Christus as a name reflected excessive application of linguistic analysis to theological doctrine. There were sufficient admirers of Lombard at the school of NotreDame that, apart from one papal censure in 1170, a decade after his death, his Sentences established themselves as a foundation for theological doctrine after the mid-twelfth century. Unlike Robert of Melun, Lombard never acquired expertise in dialectica. While many students of theology may initially have appreciated this gap in his training, Lombard’s lack of familiarity with Aristotle would eventually provoke Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century to formulate a new way of explaining Christian doctrine. Thomas Aquinas would combine the sense of systematic structure provided by Hugh of St. Victor, supplemented by the patristic learning provided by Lombard, with philosophical argument, drawing on resources simply not available to the Latin West at the time of Abelard.

THE CHARTRIAN EDUCATIONAL VISION OF JOHN OF SALISBURY Perhaps the biggest weakness of Hugh’s Didascalicon was that it gave very limited attention to logica or the arts of language and never fully absorbed the details of the arguments about language expounded by William of Champeaux. By the mid-1150s, the Didascalicon was already appearing to be out of date because of its very limited awareness of the texts of Aristotle and the philosophical debates about the meaning of words. At the same time, the explosion in the study of dialectic in Paris was itself being criticized by those who felt it generated pointless discussion. During the 1150s, John of Salisbury, who had

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spent much time studying in Paris between 1136 and 1148 before working on behalf of the archbishop of Canterbury, composed the Metalogicon as a record of his own experience as a student and a synthesis of what he considered to be the ideals of education (Mews and Giraud 2014). It was a complement to the Policraticus (John of Salisbury 1990), a guide to good government, drawn from his appreciation of classical antiquity as well as from scripture. While John never offered more than incidental tuition in Paris, his experience and exceptional literacy made him remarkably well qualified to comment on both the strengths and weaknesses of education in his own day. His Metalogicon may never have circulated as widely as Hugh’s Didascalicon, but it provides an invaluable benchmark for studying education in northern France in the midtwelfth century. John opens the Metalogicon by bemoaning the followers of an imaginary figure called Cornificius (remembered as a critic of Vergil) who decry the study of logic and eloquence, undermine respect for the ancients, promote novelty and self-interest, and consider education simply as a path to selfadvantage (Metalogicon 1.1–9; John of Salisbury 2013: 124–43; Tobin 1984). Although he mentions Hugh of St. Victor only in passing, describing him as unfairly mocked by Cornificians (Metalogicon 1.5; also briefly at 4.3), the way John presents Cornificius suggests that he was consciously shifting away from Hugh’s image of Abelard as a dangerous influence to another kind of figure who did not appreciate that education in the arts of language had a fundamentally ethical end, training students to contribute to society as well as encouraging them in the path of virtue. John felt obliged to offer a manual for students who considered Hugh’s eulogy of meditation as the goal of reading to be out of touch with the pedagogical realities of his day. At a deeper level, John shared Hugh’s conviction that all the arts of the curriculum were important, but, rather than following Augustine’s argument that such disciplines are important for preparing the Christian for the study of scripture, he argued that the arts of the trivium can all contribute to virtue and wisdom in their own right. Whereas Hugh had identified logica as the last of the disciplines, John gives it primacy by arguing (from comments of Cicero) that it refers to “the system of argument (ratio disserendi) whereby the activity of prudence in all its aspects is placed on a firm foundation” (Metalogicon 2.1). Logica has two aspects: one of dialectic, distinguishing truth from falsehood (the modern meaning of logic), whose rules were defined by Aristotle, the other of probable reasoning, such as that employed in rhetoric. The strength of John’s analysis derives from his mastery of philosophical tradition, not just that of Aristotle but also that of Cicero and Boethius. John was aware that a generation of logicians had arisen after Abelard who would recognize only the authority of Aristotle, but who in fact had none of his subtlety and moderation (Metalogicon 2.8). His key

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argument is that dialectic must be supported by other disciplines, none more important than grammatica, which involves the study of Latin literature and not just of the rules of correct speech. In an autobiographical reminiscence (Metalogicon 2.10), John explains how he had come to this realization. He had initially absorbed dialectic while studying under Abelard himself before following the lectures of Alberic of Paris (a critic of Abelard’s nominalism) and of Robert of Melun on the subject. Although these scholars were expert in dialectic, they would have been more effective if they had possessed a broader foundation in letters. The figure whom John credits with making him realize the primacy of grammatica is William of Conches, whose lectures he followed for three years. He reports that he learned from William, as well as another teacher, Richard, who became archdeacon of Coutances, about the teaching practices of Bernard of Chartres, whom he sees as the epitome of a well-rounded teacher, one profoundly familiar with Plato’s Timaeus and the importance of drawing out ethical instruction from the study of classical letters (Metalogicon 1.24). A major enigma in John’s text is that he never clarifies where William taught, namely whether in Chartres, as traditionally assumed, or in Paris (see Hall’s summary of this debate in John of Salisbury 2013: 33–42). This has led to an argument (discussed by Southern 1970) that the idea that “the school of Chartres” was a center for humanistic study is an exaggerated myth without solid foundation. Yet the discovery of Bernard of Chartres’s commentary on the Timaeus (Bernard of Chartres 1991) reinforces that Chartres was a remarkable center for the reading of Platonic texts. There is little doubt that Bernard, a chancellor at its cathedral until his death around 1125, inspired a group of teachers, all of whom were admired by John of Salisbury. In particular, John looked up to Gilbert of Poitiers and Thierry of Chartres, both of whom served as chancellors of Chartres Cathedral. The fact that William of Conches and Richard of Coutances both have Norman connections reinforces the likelihood that they studied at Chartres, a city that was politically aligned with Normandy rather than with France in the mid-twelfth century. While Gilbert did move to Paris to teach there in 1141/2 (when he taught logic and theology to John of Salisbury), there is no such record of William of Conches and Richard conducting a school very different in its ethos from that of the dialecticians who dominated the Parisian schools. John of Salisbury was able to engage in his critique of their narrow-mindedness because of his familiarity with a much broader educational ethos transmitted by disciples of Bernard of Chartres, most likely at Chartres itself. This broader educational experience enabled John to give an account of the teaching of dialectic, precise in its critique of those who questioned its utility, while never forgetting the value of situating dialectic within the broader curriculum as part of the broader pursuit of philosophy—which he

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understood, like Boethius, as the love of wisdom, the goal of all the liberal arts. John gave attention to what “the peripatetic of Le Pallet” taught in dialectic without ever describing himself as committed to all of Abelard’s teachings. Thus, he recalled favorably certain teachings of William of Champeaux (Metalogicon 1.5; 3.9). The teacher by whom he was most influenced was Gilbert of Poitiers (Metalogicon 1.5; 2.10; 2.17; 3.Prologue), whose theological views, which were based around the distinction between a subject and the property by which it is informed, he defended at length in his Historia pontificalis (Papal History) against the criticisms being raised at the Council of Rheims in 1148 by Bernard of Clairvaux (John of Salisbury 1986: 15–41). John had absorbed many more writings of Cicero than were known to most Parisian students in the mid-twelfth century. He also had great familiarity with the major texts of the logica vetus, namely Porphyry’s Isagoge, Aristotle’s Categories and Periermeneias, and the writings of Cicero and Boethius on forms of argument (Metalogicon 3.1–10), although he possessed limited awareness of the Posterior Analytics, a text that was only beginning to be expounded in the late 1140s and that he recognized was understood only by a few (Metalogicon 4.6–9; Bloch 2012). In the final part of the treatise, John acknowledges that the efforts of Peripatetics to eliminate vanity and search for truth over falsehood are fully in accord with Christian life but are wasted if there is no self-knowledge (Metalogicon 4.40). As a theory of education, the Metalogicon was written for a more limited audience than the Policraticus, which was concerned with issues of government. Nonetheless, in both treatises John offers a bold attempt to give new emphasis to the role of reason and classical thought in the educational curriculum of the twelfth century. He promoted awareness of both Cicero and Aristotle as guides to public life, even before the recovery of a much broader range of Aristotelian texts in the thirteenth century.

CONCLUSION Compared to Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor, who both forged their intellectual identity in the early decades of the twelfth century, John of Salisbury offered a much more complete vision of educational theory, based primarily around logica—the arts of language—as they were known in the 1150s. Yet Abelard and Hugh nonetheless introduced new perspectives into existing thought about pedagogy. Abelard was always an outsider, whose commitment to questioning traditional authorities provoked admiration from some but suspicion from others, who accused him of misusing the gift of reason in relation to religion. Héloïse would become not just his most brilliant student but his greatest critic, forcing him in the 1130s to think through the implications of his views about what constituted ethical behavior. Abelard

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formulated his educational principles in his preface to the Sic et Non. While he would subsequently develop his expertise in both theology and ethics, as well as in the study of St. Paul, he could never throw off his early reputation as a controversial dialectician, not least because of the hostile claims made by Bernard of Clairvaux, who had himself been so much supported by William of Champeaux. By comparison, Hugh of St. Victor offered, in his Didascalicon, a more comprehensive theory of how students should approach study. He emphasized that students should appreciate the role of all forms of knowledge, including those practical skills, like commerce, that he included among the mechanical arts. He promoted the theme that all reading should lead to meditation (rather than excessive questioning, a view he associated with Abelard). His major focus, however, was on the study of scripture. By comparison, Hugh was not as well informed as Abelard in the development of new ways of thinking about language during the twelfth century. Only with a new generation could theorists begin to work out how best to communicate new insights in both the liberal arts and in theology. There were theologians such as Robert of Melun, who sought to imitate Abelard in combining expertise in dialectic and scripture while at the same time admiring Hugh of St. Victor for his mastery of doctrine. Much more successful, however, was Peter Lombard, who decided to improve upon Hugh of St. Victor by framing his teaching around questions and patristic texts in the manner of Peter Abelard without necessarily accepting Abelard’s conclusions. Even if Lombard was not a theorist of education, he provided a focused and systematic method of teaching theology that would continue to enjoy great success in the thirteenth century, when commentators would introduce many new authorities, notably Aristotle and many previously little-known Greek Church Fathers. Lombard’s method was to combine the questioning technique of Abelard with the emphasis of Hugh of St. Victor, taken from Boethius, that the goal of all learning is the pursuit of wisdom. Educational theory in the liberal arts took longer to develop than in theology. Most teachers were committed to developing their expertise in one discipline, whether it be in grammatica, the study of Latin literature, dialectic, the study of reasoning, or rhetoric (which was much less closely studied than dialectic). The dominance of dialectic and theology in the Parisian schools in the twelfth century had negative consequences in that it tended to marginalize the study of literature, more studied at Orleans than at Paris. Hugh of St. Victor had too little familiarity with the arguments about dialectic being pursued by Abelard. This enabled John of Salisbury to contemplate writing his Metalogicon in the decade after leaving the Parisian schools in 1148. In this text, he sought to explain the positive contribution of studying grammar and dialectic while refuting both those who mocked the study of questioning

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and those so passionate for the subject that they could not see its wider place in the pursuit of wisdom. John of Salisbury’s discomfort with talking about the quadrivium reflects the much weaker status in Paris of the disciplines concerning the natural world. Thierry of Chartres was interested in all of these subjects and incorporated many newly translated texts (such as the Elements of Euclid) into his Heptateuchon, a massive collection of texts relating to all seven liberal arts, including both language and the natural world (Thierry of Chartres 2009: 440–1). Thierry had wide-ranging interests but never synthesized or explained difficult scientific texts to a wider audience. In theory, students were expected to have some familiarity with all the disciplines of the trivium and quadrivium, as revealed by summaries of the curriculum designed to help students with their final exams. In practice, the greater part of the curriculum, at least in the schools of Paris, was given over to studying dialectic. This bias continued into the early thirteenth century, when new Latin translations of Aristotelian scientific and philosophical texts were coming into circulation, translations made from Arabic versions available in Spain. University regulations established that rhetoric and quadrivial subjects were taught only on feast days, while grammar and dialectic were taught on ordinary days (Denifle and Châtelain [1889] 1964: 78). This inevitably shaped the way scripture and theology were taught at a graduate level, heavily influenced by philosophical concerns raised by the study of dialectic but not by the natural sciences. Abelard’s writings on logic and theology were never as widely copied as those of Hugh of St. Victor, whose focus on meditation and the pursuit of wisdom would continue to be of enormous influence in the thirteenth century, particularly within the Franciscan tradition. Abelard’s influence in shaping the theological technique of Peter Lombard cannot be doubted, even if Lombard would reject many of the specific teachings put forward by Abelard in his writings. In his argument that theology should take into account the authority of secular philosophers, Abelard established a precedent that Dominican masters such as Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas would take much further, with their much wider knowledge of the writings of Aristotle and of the Greek Church Fathers. In their different ways, both Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor helped influence the love of questioning and of systematization that shaped scholastic thought in the medieval period.

REFERENCES Primary sources Abelard (1987), Theologia “Scholarium,” in E.M. Buytaert and C.J. Mews (eds.), Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica III, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaeualis XIII, 313–519, Turnhout: Brepols.

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Abelard (1988), “Sic et Non, Prologue,” in A.J. Minnis and A.B. Scott (eds.), Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c. 1100–c. 1375, rev. edn., 87–100, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Abelard (2013), The Letter Collection of Peter Abelard and Héloïse, ed. David E. Luscombe, trans. B. Radice, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Anselm (1946), De incarnatione Verbi, in Anselmi Opera Omnia, Vol. 1, ed. F.X. Schmitt, 281–90, Edinburgh: T. Nelson. Bernard of Chartres (1991), The Glosae super Platonem of Bernard of Chartres, ed. Paul Edward Dutton, Toronto: Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies. Bernard of Clairvaux (1998), Letters, trans. Bruno Scott James, Stroud: Sutton. Hugh of St. Victor (1854), De sacramentis legis naturalis et scriptae, in J. P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina 176, 17–42, Paris: Montrouge. Hugh of St. Victor (1951), On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. Roy J. Deferrari, Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America. Hugh of St. Victor (1991), Didascalicon, trans. Jerome Taylor, New York: Columbia University Press. Hugh of St. Victor (1966), Epitome Dindimi in Philosophiam, in Roger Baron (ed.), Hugonis de Sancto Victore Opera Propaedeutica, 187–207, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. John of Salisbury (1986), Historia pontificalis, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, Oxford: Clarendon Press. John of Salisbury (1990), Policraticus: Of the Frivolities of Courtiers and the Footprints of Philosophers, ed. and trans. Cary J. Nederman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. John of Salisbury (2013), Metalogicon, trans. J.B. Hall, Turnhout: Brepols. Richard of Poitiers (1882), Chronicon, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores, Vol. 26, 76–84, Hannover: Hahn. Robert of Melun (1947), “Praefatio de diversa consuetudine legendi sacram Scripturam,” in Raymond Martin (ed.), Oeuvres de Robert de Melun, Vol. 3: Sententie 1, 3–56, Louvain: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense. Roscelin (1910), Epistola ad Abaelardum, in J. Reiners (ed.), Der Nominalismus in der Frühscholastik, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie der Mittelalters 8.5, 60–80, Münster: Aschendorff. Thierry of Chartres (2009), in Ineke Sluyter and Rita Copeland (eds.), Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300–1475, 440–1, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Secondary sources Bloch, David (2012), John of Salisbury on Aristotelian Science, Turnhout: Brepols. Colish, Marcia L. (1992), “Psalterium Scholasticorum: Peter Lombard and the Emergence of Scholastic Psalms Exegesis,” Speculum, 67: 531–48. Colish, Marcia L. (1996), Peter Lombard, Leiden: Brill. Denifle, Heinrich and Emile Châtelain ([1889] 1964), Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, Vol. 1, Brussels: Culture & Civilisation. Giraud, Cédric (2010), Per verba magistri: Anselme de Laon et son école au XIIe siècle, Turnhout: Brepols. Grondeux, Anne and Irène Rosier-Catach (2017), Priscien lu par Guillaume de Champeaux et son école: Les Notae Dunelmenses (Durham, D.C.L., C.IV.29), 2 vols., Studia Artistarium 43.1–2, Turnhout: Brepols.

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Gross-Diaz, Therese (1996), The Psalms Commentary of Gilbert of Poitiers: From Lectio Divina to the Lecture Room, Leiden: Brill. Luscombe, David E. (1969), The School of Peter Abelard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marenbon, John (1997), The Philosophy of Peter Abelard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McNamer, Elizabeth M. (1991), The Education of Héloïse: Methods, Content and Purpose of Learning in the Twelfth Century, Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press. Mews, Constant J. (1990), “Orality, Literacy and Authority in the Twelfth-Century Schools,” Exemplaria, 2: 475–500; repr. in Constant J. Mews (2002), Reason and Belief in the Age of Roscelin and Abelard, Aldershot: Ashgate. Mews, Constant J. (1992) “Nominalism and Theology before Abaelard: New Light on Roscelin of Compiègne,” Vivarium 30: 4–33; repr. in Constant J. Mews (2002), Reason and Belief in the Age of Roscelin and Abelard, Aldershot: Ashgate. Mews, Constant J. (1996), “St Anselm, Roscelin and the See of Beauvais,” in David E. Luscombe and Gillian R. Evans (eds.), Anselm: Aosta, Bec and Canterbury. Proceedings in Commemoration of the Nine-Hundredth Anniversary of Anselm’s Enthronement as Archbishop, 25 September 1093, 106–19, Sheffield: University of Sheffield Press; repr. in Constant J. Mews (2002), Reason and Belief in the Age of Roscelin and Abelard, Aldershot: Ashgate. Mews, Constant J. (2001), “Hugh Metel, Heloise and Peter Abelard: The Letters of an Augustinian Canon and the Challenge of Innovation in Twelfth-century Lorraine,” Viator, 32: 59–91. Mews, Constant J. (2002), Reason and Belief in the Age of Roscelin and Abelard, Aldershot: Ashgate. Mews, Constant J. (2005), “Logica in the Service of Philosophy: William of Champeaux and his Influence,” in Rainer Berndt (ed.), Schrift, Schreiber, Schenker. Studien zur Abtei Sankt Viktor zu Paris und zu den Viktorinern, 77–117, Corpus Victorinum. Instrumenta historica, 1, Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Mews, Constant J. (2008), The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard: Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France, 2nd edn., New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mews, Constant J. (2011), “William of Champeaux, the Foundation of St Victor (Easter 1111) and the Chronology of Abelard’s Early Career,” in Irène Rosier-Catach (ed.), Arts du langage et théologie aux confins des XIe et XIIe siècle, 83–104, Turnhout: Brepols. Mews, Constant J. (2015), “Memories of William of Champeaux: The Necrology and the Early Years of Saint-Victor,” in Anette Löffler and Björn Geberd (eds.), Legitur in necrologio victorino: Studien zum Nekrolog von Sankt Viktor, 71–98, Corpus Victorinum. Instrumenta historica 7, Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. Mews, Constant J. and Cédric Giraud (2014), “John of Salisbury and the Schools of the Twelfth Century,” in Christophe Grellard and Frederique Lachaud (eds.), A Companion to John of Salisbury, 29–62, Leiden: Brill. Monagle, Clare (2013), Orthodoxy and Controversy in Twelfth-Century Religious Discourse: Peter Lombard’s “Sentences” and the Development of Theology, Turnhout: Brepols.

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Poirel, Dominique (2011), “Tene fontem et totum habes: L’unité du Didascalicon de Hughes de Saint-Victor,” in Cédric Giraud and Martin Morard (eds.), Universitas Scolarium. Mélanges offerts à Jacques Verger, 293–328, Geneva: Droz. Rosemann, Philipp W. (2004), Peter Lombard, New York: Oxford University Press. Southern, Richard W. (1970), “Humanism and the School of Chartres,” in Medieval Humanism and Other Studies, 61–85, New York: Harper & Row. Tobin, Rosemary Barton (1984), “The Cornifician Motif in John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon,” History of Education, 13 (1): 1–6.

CHAPTER THREE

Jewish and Muslim Voices G ad M arcus

and

Y usef W aghid

INTRODUCTION This chapter on Muslim and Jewish educational thought is divided into two parts: the first part is on philosophical aspects in education within the Jewish community in the Middle Ages and the second part is on philosophical aspects underlying and emerging form a Muslim education. As we will see, perhaps the most remarkable similarity—beyond belonging to monotheistic traditions— between these traditions that consequently forms part of their educational ethos is that their greatest scholars are meant to become interpreters of the texts and traditions to create new knowledge. Therefore, within both traditions there is an understanding that knowledge is not finite and fully attainable but rather requires an ongoing, infinite quest. Within this infinite quest, both Jewish and Muslim education are enhanced by a common understanding that a right way of living our lives can somehow be attained through an initiation into the relevant scripture through the agency of human understanding. Therefore, as espoused by several Jewish and Muslim luminaries, education can be understood to be about living a virtuous life (in the Aristotelian sense) guided by the Torah and Quran, respectively. The idea of acknowledging the omnipresence of an omnipotent God for Jews and Muslims constitutes the bedrock of their forms of education. Creating knowledge for its own sake and acting upon it as human agents working toward a good world are considered sacrosanct to building ethical, just Jewish and Muslim communities.

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A JEWISH PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION IN THE MIDDLE AGES The aim of this part of the chapter is to describe the main trends of an educational philosophy within the Jewish community of the Middle Ages. To do so, we first examine general ideas on education in the Jewish tradition that derive from biblical and Talmudic sources since they provide the fundamentals to any Jewish philosophy of education. We then provide a sketch of the Jewish community in the Middle Ages so as to illuminate the educational system that was in place during that particular period. The next section is an analysis of the Jewish concept of Torah lishmah (i.e., study for its own sake). In the Jewish tradition, this has always been the highest aim of a mode of study. Finally, we consider the thought of Moses ben Maimon (aka Maimonides or the Rambam) who, beyond being perhaps the best-known Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, was a philosopher of education too. The acts of teaching and learning, as well as studying, are and have always been a central theme within the Jewish tradition (Lamm 1989: 102; 1990: 7; Marcus 2016: 77–8). Already in the Bible, the commandment of teaching one’s children is emphasized and the act of studying is mentioned (Deut. 6:4– 9). Studying not only has been a central part of education but also has been subject at times to heated debates within the Jewish community. Many different matters within the educational endeavor have been topics for such discussions, ranging from defining the right age for studying specific subject matters (for an ancient example, see Mishna Nezikin, and Avot 5:21; for a modern example, see Hirsch 1899) to clarifying that it is the duty of a parent to teach a son a profession and how to swim (Talmud Bavli, Kiddushin 30b). These arguments and opinions not only cover a wide area of topics but also are pursued in a wide temporal range, from Talmudic times up until today.1 Many of these debates seem never to have been completely settled or solved. One point of agreement, however, dating back to as early as Talmudic times, is that the desired mode or way of studying is lishmah, that is, for its own sake (Lamm 1989). What exactly is meant by this term is more complicated than one might assume and will be discussed below. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, the act of studying was and still is considered to be a way of worship within the Jewish tradition. To better understand Jewish philosophy of education in the Middle Ages some historical context is needed. Jewish communities historically have valued literacy because it makes study possible. Toward this end, most communities seem to have provided institutionalized educational settings for adults as well as for the younger generations. Institutionalization differed depending on the size and wealth of a community as well as its location (Kanarfogel 1992: 21). Furthermore, Jewish communities were not only spread out geographically but

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also disparate in their ways of thinking; that is, not only were the main Jewish communities dispersed throughout Egypt, France, Germany, Palestine, and Iran but also the great thinkers of the time engaged in a wide range of discussions concerning theological and philosophical matters. When considering the sources that remain from the period, even though the Hebrew term for “school” is often times used, the term seems to have also stood for the room that the tutor used when teaching an individual or a small group of pupils. It might also refer to the local synagogue used to teach children from the surrounding community (Kanarfogel 1992: 21–3). What matters most for this chapter, however, is that there was a communal willingness and understanding to engage in educating and a shared desire to make education accessible to all. There were differences between the Sephardic and the Ashkenazi communities in terms of the institutionalization of education.2 Whereas within the Sephardic communities the funds for educating children were at times collected from the community, within the Ashkenazi congregations it seems that the payment was made almost exclusively on an individual basis (i.e., the head of the household paid the tutor from his own pocket to have his children taught). Even though at first it may appear as if education within these Ashkenazi communities was elitist or safeguarded for the descendants of more affluent families, this was not necessarily the case, for it seems that in the Ashkenazi communities there was an understanding that the wealthy should provide tutors for the poor (Kanarfogel 1992: 21–3). As for the curriculum, the studies of children seem to have started with reading, first learning the letters and then putting them together to read words. After mastering reading, a child was supposed to study a whole verse, then the weekly Torah portion, after that the Mishnah,3 and finally the Talmud (Kanarfogel 1992: 30).4 Class sizes were small; it seems as if a tutor taught only a handful of pupils at a time. Overall, then, we come to understand that these Jewish communities were committed to ensuring literacy across the divergent communities to enable everyone to engage in his religious duty of study. As for what an individual was supposed to study as part of his education, there were different opinions. It was agreed upon that the Torah, as well as the Mishnah and the Talmud, were part of the curriculum. However, the fact that the Torah has always been considered a sealed text has become of major importance for the Jewish tradition because this view of the Torah has turned the text into something that cannot be changed but can be interpreted. This in turn allowed for Judaism to develop into an interpretative tradition. Studying, then, also involves coming up with new interpretations and meanings of the texts being studied (Halbertal 1997: 122–3). Furthermore, prominent figures such as Maimonides argued that studying Aristotelian philosophy should be considered part of the curriculum too (a position that I will discuss below).

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FIGURE 3.1  Moses Maimonides. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images).

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Torah lishmah From a religious and philosophical standpoint, the mode of studying that Jewish tradition regards as the most desirable way is Torah lishmah (i.e., study for its own sake) (Kasher 1989: 153–63; Lamm 1989).5 But what does that mean? The term first appears in the Talmud, where it is mentioned in several places. Ever since, quite a bit has been written about this concept as well as about the ideas that derive from it. Furthermore, traditional Jews ask to achieve this mode of study on a daily basis as part of their morning prayers.6 The primary sources as to what exactly is meant by Torah lishmah are in the Talmud. Many of these sources list positive outcomes that occur when studying lishmah.7 Some try to determine whether studying or performing good deeds is of more value (see TB Kiddushin 40b), whereas others involve discussions that deal with studying she-lo lishmah (i.e., not for its own sake) and if there is at all any value in this mode of study (see Talmud Bavli, Pesachim 50b).8 For us to gain some sort of an understanding of the concept, let me quote two of the numerous Talmudic sources. In the tractate TB Nedarim 62a it is written, It was taught: “To love the Lord your God, to obey his voice and to cleave onto him” [from Deuteronomy 30:20]: [This means] that one should not say, I will read Scripture so that I will be called a Sage, I will study, so that I may be called a Rabbi, I will study, to be an Elder, and sit in the assembly [of elders]; rather, study out of love, and honor shall be at the end. … R. Eliezer son of R. Zadok says: Do [good] deeds for the sake of their Maker, and speak of them for their own sake. Make not of them a crown wherewith to magnify yourself, nor a spade to dig with [i.e., a means to earn a living].

We see that, according to the sages, one’s intention while studying is of great importance. Doing something lishmah is only possible if one does not expect a reward or benefit from the action. However, the mode of lishmah in itself is a reward, and we thus encounter this conundrum: to achieve the reward of lishmah one must not expect a reward from it. This idea of disinterestedness might very well remind us of Kant (2004). Furthermore, there is a certain idea of selflessness or studying for a greater good that becomes apparent from this notion. One is not supposed to study for oneself but rather for some greater idea and good. It is important to point out here, however, that even studying that is not performed for its own sake is believed to have value and is important too— especially since, according to the sages, study she-lo lishmah will ultimately lead to study lishmah. Other Talmudic discussions on studying lishmah deal with questions surrounding what mode of life should take precedence: doing a righteous deed or studying. The discussions are lengthy and numerous, but the main point

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that can be learned from them is that studying allows one to know what the right deeds are. Furthermore, studying never comes to an end. We therefore understand that it is through studying that one becomes a better person, and at the same time we come to realize that there is always room for improvement. Studying lishmah, then, not only allows for worship but also somewhat unintentionally turns studying into a creative act by bringing new knowledge into existence. Furthermore, as David Hartman has pointed out, the interpretative approach redefines the relationship between God and humans as, through the interpretative process, human beings “become participants in constituting the commandments themselves” (quoted in Halbertal 1997: 67). We can see, then, how this approach allows us to become an active and reactive part in the formation not only of the law but also of what it means to study. Furthermore, this perspective also allows us to determine not only how to study but also what it is that should be studied. Most importantly, however, we come to realize that any Jewish philosophy of education will always be somewhat embedded within the concept of lishmah, whether it is concerned with the reason or intention for studying or with questioning the receiving of payment for studying or teaching. Maimonides Maimonides (also known by his full name, Moses ben Maimon, or by his acronym, Rambam) was probably not only the most prominent Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages but also a true philosopher of education. Born in Cordoba around 1135, Maimonides, due to being a Jew, had to relocate several times before finally finding himself in Fustat (present-day Cairo), where he died in 1204. Among his best-known works are the Mishne Torah (which is often referred to as “the Code”) and The Guide for the Perplexed. Interestingly enough, each of these two masterpieces were written for quite opposite audiences: the Code was precisely written in Hebrew for the unlearned masses who would have had a hard time studying the complicated language of the Talmud, whereas the Guide was written in Arabic (but in Hebrew letters) for those that had not only mastered the studies of the corpus of Jewish texts but in addition had also studied Aristotle and were therefore in a state of “confusion” or “perplexity” about how to reconcile these two seemingly very different worldviews and approaches to explaining the order of nature and the existence of God (Bergman 1935: 90). However, whether writing for the knowledgeable and studied or for the unlearned, Maimonides’ intention was always educational (Bergman 1935: 91). Maimonides wanted people to learn and to know, which led him to change the curriculum from studying Jewish texts only to also include Aristotelian metaphysics and physics into the studies. Thereby, for Maimonides, insofar as study of the Torah is mandatory, philosophy too becomes a religiously obligatory subject to be studied; moreover, it actually becomes the highest aim of education.

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Yet Maimonides very much stresses the point that one ought to progress appropriately in studies, beginning with the Jewish sources before moving to the study of philosophy, and that not everyone has the same capabilities for studying the more advanced subject matter (Stern 2005: 112–14). It is important to note, though, that, according to Maimonides, the Aristotelian worldview and philosophy align with the Jewish ones. For him, there is no conflict between Jewish philosophy and the Aristotelian one. Therefore, like Aristotle, the ideal of life for Maimonides was not merely living a religious life or achieving moral excellence, which are ways of acting that allow for an intact communal life. Rather, according to Maimonides and Aristotle, the ideal life is a life of contemplation understood as achievement of the highest knowledge. Therefore, for Maimonides, the practices that are to be studied from scripture are merely a preparation for “the ultimate religious life that is accessible only to those able to use the tools of reason to contemplate the nature of God” (Alexander 1992: 386). For Maimonides, then, the most important knowledge is achieved not through interpersonal relations but through the intellectual pursuit of a theoretical truth about the cosmos and God. Interpersonal or social commitment is seen as a means only to Maimonides, and its role is to create the conditions under which virtuous individuals can engage in theoretical observation (Cohen 2004: 43). Josef Stern characterizes this process as follows: it is “achieving our greatest human perfection that in virtue of which humans are said to have been created in the ‘image of God’ (Genesis I: 1:22) a fully actualized intellect that is constantly and solely engaged in apprehension of and reflection on the most noble subjects: the deity and the physical world whose natural process and events are ‘divine acts’” (Stern 2005: 107). Religion for Maimonides was therefore ethics. Just as he educated the people toward a Judaism that was free from anthropomorphisms and superstitions, he also wanted to raise the people to ethical heights (Bergman 1935: 97). He made it an important point that one should serve God out of love rather than out of fear of evil or a desire to acquire happiness and practice the truth because it is truth—lishmah (p. 96). Religiously, though, Maimonides describes a new ideal of a religious type, which, according to David Hartman, “should be considered the pinnacle of educational aspiration,” in which one ideally is drawn to God by virtue of one’s own desire. Hartman sees the transition from fear of God to love as the expression of transcending awe (quoted in Cohen 2004: 35). Also, according to Jonathan Cohen (2004: 38), Maimonides represents the possibility of deriving an educational theory from Judaic sources. Further, Maimonides’ educational aspirations were successful: Jedaja Penini, a Jewish poet born in the thirteenth century, proclaimed a hundred years after the passing of Maimonides that, thanks to the “Thirteen Beliefs” by Maimonides, in which the philosopher argues for God’s unity, the belief in a corporeal God had

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vanished among Penini’s Jewish contemporaries. Yet, even for Maimonides, not at all stages of education can it be taught that God is to be understood as an idea of perfection and a focus for intellectual aspiration. When teaching a child, for example, he agrees that God ought to be presented as a figure who punishes and rewards, since most humans are unable to worship a God out of an internal will. According to Cohen, this shows how Maimonides distinguished between purposes and means, that is, between philosophy of education and theory of education (Cohen 2004: 38). From a pedagogical point of view, Maimonides writes that, depending on the student, one should sometimes not reveal the whole truth when teaching (Stern 2005: 115), but he is adamant in fighting obscurantism, anthropomorphism, and beliefs in astrology (Bergman 1935: 95). In the introduction to his Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides writes about the necessity of teaching and making someone understand: [T]here may be a certain obscure matter that is difficult to conceive. That the teacher will accordingly have to be lax and, using any means that occur to him or gross speculation, will try to make that first matter somehow understood. He will not undertake to state the matter as it truly is in exact terms, but rather will leave it so in accord with the listener’s imagination that the latter will understand only what he now wants him to understand. Afterwards, in the appropriate place, that obscure matter is stated in exact terms and explained as it truly is. (Maimonides 2002: Introduction) It hereby becomes clear that, according to Maimonides, each student needs to be taught according to their ability to understand and know. However, when discussing the way or mode of study, Maimonides naturally refers to the Talmudic teachings on studying lishmah, that is, for its own sake. When educating a child that “due to his youth and spiritual immaturity, is incapable of understanding the virtue of study,” Maimonides explains that one may need first to stimulate the will to study by offering sweets or garments (Molad-Vaza 2013: 157). Furthermore, according to Eliezer Schweid, Maimonides suggests that a teacher’s motivation for the teaching profession should be examined: “Did they choose to be teachers to glorify their dignity or to demonstrate the value of learning for their own sake?” (quoted in Cohen 2004: 36). We then come full circle and see that what is most important to point out when looking into the philosophy of education within the Jewish communities of the Middle Ages is the intention, which dictates the structure. Sharing knowledge with the greater community not for a monetary reward or out of pride but for the sake of knowledge itself was and still is the underlying philosophical commitment behind Jewish education.

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In conclusion, it is mainly the belief that studying is a way of worship that allows for this complex notion of study for its own sake. Furthermore, we have seen that the openness to new interpretations of the sealed canon leads to a notion that there is no such thing as knowing everything, an openness that allows the act of study to become a creative and lifelong endeavor. Lastly, the idea that Aristotelian texts as well as Jewish texts should be considered part of the quest of knowing opened the doors for students to study not only Aristotle but any text that could be considered worthwhile. However, no matter what text is being studied, the question of intention remains: is it being studied lishmah or not?

TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF MUSLIM EDUCATION: CULTIVATING THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL Based on my understanding of the first revelatory experience of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, surah (chapter ninety-six) al-‘alaq, in particular the first five verses (ayat), constitute the summoning of a human chosen from among the Arabs to think about what has been communicated to him. The first verses of the chapter read as follows: “Iqra’ bismi rabbikallathi khalaq Khalaqa al-insana min ‘alaq Iqra’ wa rabbuka al-akram Allathi ‘alama bi al-qalam Allama al-insana ma lam ya’lam” (Read in the name of your rabb [educator] who created you. Created a human from a clot of blood. Read and your rabb is the Most Bounteous, who teach by the pen, teach a human that which they knew not). In the exposition of Muslim education offered in this chapter, we shall focus on the most significant concepts that elucidate a Quranic conception of Muslim education. These concepts include iqra (read, comprehend), rabb (Lord, creator), khalaq (created), insan (humankind), akram (revered), ‘alama (to teach), qalam (literally, pen), qara (to contemplate), ‘allama (to teach), Allah, rahman (compassionate), and rahim (forgiveness). These concepts are all intertwined in a Quranic framework of analysis. The Quran is considered by Muslims to be the Divine Revelation communicated to the Arabs first through the agency of Prophet Muhammad over a period of twenty-three years in Makkah. It comprises 104 chapters revealed in both Makkah and Madinah (in the Arabic language) that invite people to live virtuous lives. The Quran is perceived as the primary source of Muslim education, whereas the life experiences of Prophet Muhammad are regarded as the Sunnah and confirmed in the Hadith (literally, explications of the Quranic text in relation to the Prophet’s understanding of the Quran). In addition, I also look at the interrelationship between religion and politics later in this section to show that the plausibility of Muslim education lies in its attenuation to understandings of knowledge, religion, and politics.

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On qara (to contemplate) and ‘allama (to teach) within Muslim education The divine revelation the Prophet received in the cave of Hira in Makkah upon his first encounter with the Angel Gabriel was to contemplate life, the universe, the creation of the heavens and earth, and the Divine messages that dawned upon him. Then the Prophet had to apply revelation in the pursuit of the good life on Earth. That the Prophet was repeatedly commanded to contemplate is a corroboration that education for Muslims should be underscored by a conscientious focus on contemplating life, that is, human existence, the creation of God, and the way that God ordered the universe. Without contemplation— that is, the capacity of humans to reflect upon and ponder over practically anything and everything—is a vindication that Muslim education cannot exist without the underlying guiding principle of reflective action. Only once humans have reflected upon that which they encounter are they in a position to teach what they have acquired. To reflect on something implies that one engages with that something. One cannot be in a position to teach authentically if one has not reflected upon that which one is about to teach. In this sense, teaching seems to be conditional upon reflective action—that is, the act of thinking through something. Teaching and contemplation are inextricably related, and, hence, teaching can never be unreflective. As a result, contemplation cannot be delinked from the act of teaching. In this sense, one can begin to talk about contemplative teaching or teaching with contemplation. That is, teaching can never occur without contemplation guiding its action. Contemplation and teaching are at the core of what it means to educate humans. Here, one can contrast between a transmission mode of teaching—that is, teaching through speaking only without reflection—and a transactional mode of teaching, whereby one engages one’s students, thus allowing them to reflect upon the meanings and to construct and reconstruct their own meanings. The upshot is that it is not possible to speak about unreflective education, and the idea of education without teaching is untenable. Putting it differently, education and teaching are not the same: to educate means to engage others, and to teach means to summon others to learn. As a result of this, the mere activity of Muslim education involves two interrelated processes: contemplation and teaching. Contemplation is linked to the practice of engaging others, whereas teaching involves inviting them to speak their minds. So, any talk of Muslim education involves accentuating how contemplation and teaching are manifested in the encounters of humans. Hence, it would be implausible to talk about Muslim education without focusing on contemplation and teaching. Based on the aforementioned notion of education as constitutive of contemplation and teaching, one finds several action concepts in the Quran pertaining to the notion of contemplation. Concepts such as fikr (thinking), tadabbur (reflection), taffakkur (critical thought), and ‘aql (intellect)

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are used in relation to summoning humans to action. For example, the Quran invites humans to ponder in the following manner: “Afala yafqahuna al-qawl” (Do you not ponder over this message?). This Quranic message urges or invites humans to think about what has been revealed. For example, humans should not just unquestioningly accept what they have been told; rather, they should become speaking beings, questioning and interrogating the messages they encounter. In Muslim education, two processes of contemplation are encouraged: tafsir (to interpret what has been revealed) and ta’wil (to reflect deeper over the divine messages). Because humans are urged to contemplate and teach, it is not unusual to summon humans to question, interrogate, and think differently about matters that concern them. The Quran even encourages humans to question and produce evidence for that about which they disagree: Qul hatu burhanakum (Produce your proofs). Why would the Quran challenge humans to produce evidence if the Quran is not inclined toward inviting humans to question? This brings me to an elucidation of the concepts of rabb (educator), rahman (compassion), and rahim (forgiveness) as they pertain to Muslim education. On rabb (educator), rahman (compassion), and rahim (forgiveness) The Quran is replete with verses containing the term rabb (educator). This makes sense, considering that the Quran is believed to contain the divine message of God. If God (Allah) revealed unto humanity his divine message, then it can be inferred that God is the educator of those who engage with His message. Such an understanding of rabb is most poignantly expressed in the following supplication: Rabbi zidni ‘ilma (My Educator, increase me in knowledge). If Allah (as rabb) is appealed to for enhancing a Muslim’s knowledge, then it can be inferred that Allah is the educator of those who engage with His message. Of course, renouncing the divine message would result in a denial of God as educator. However, generally, Muslims acknowledge Allah’s role as their educator and, by extension, recognize His role in educating them. The concept of knowledge in Muslim education involves, firstly, what can be referred to as “religious sciences” that include the Quran (its recitation and interpretation), Sunnah and Hadith (the life of Prophet Muhammad and his authoritative transmission of texts), sharia (jurisprudence and law), theology (knowledge of God), Islamic metaphysics (psychology, cosmology, and ontology), and Islamic philosophy, and the linguistic science of Arabic (grammar, lexicography, and literature). Secondly, knowledge in Muslim education also includes rational, intellectual, and philosophical sciences (that is, human sciences), natural sciences, applied sciences, technological sciences, comparative religion, and Islamic history (Islamic thought, culture, and civilization) (al-Attas 1991: 42–3). But, then, recognizing that knowledge comes from Allah (ulum al-naqliyyah)

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does not mean that a Muslim does not have the responsibility to engage with such an understanding of knowledge. When Muslims do engage with such knowledge, they use their intellect to arrive at various interpretations of Allah’s messages—a matter of constructing ulum al-aqliyyah (human interpretations of knowledge). As Allah announces in chapter three, ‘Ali al-Imran verse seven of the Quran: He (Allah) revealed the Book in which there are decisive verses— mukhkammat (verses whose meanings are central to human explanation) and allegorical verses—mutashabihat (verses whose meanings require extended interpretations). The mukhkamat are the basis of the Book, but those perverse ones among humans follow the path of allegory seeking to mislead (by explaining it literally). None of them understands the message (convincingly) except Allah and those firmly grounded in knowledge are the ones who are really attentive (to its meanings). Human interpretations are fallible because Allah alone knows—that is, He alone has a comprehensive account of His knowledge. The meaning of this verse is not that humans can never have access to Allah’s knowledge; rather, the verse points out that their interpretations are fallible and, hence, remain subject to further inquiry and interpretation. By implication, human “knowledge” is not complete, for such an understanding by its very nature would denote the end of education for Muslims. The pursuit of human understanding and interpretation is ongoing, and finality should never be an option. By implication, when humans make judgments about particular matters pertaining to knowledge, these judgments should be viewed as imperfect for the reason that there is always more to know; understanding and interpretation are never complete. For instance, judgments about climate change and global warming can be fallible. Something that can be explained in a particular way at a particular time does not have to be considered in exactly the same way at another time. In other words, explanations and justifications about global warming might be inadequate at a specific time. When more factual information becomes available the justifications and explanations might change. Therefore, humans should recognize one another’s vulnerabilities when they proffer their judgments. When humans recognize human error, this error should be considered in a light whereby they are urged to come up with more plausible meanings. What follows from this view is that human interpretation can always be subjected to change. Put differently, an interpretation once accepted as defensible might turn out to be wrong after new information has been acquired. An interpretation once accepted does not have to be endorsed at another time as human judgments are not infallible and will never be. Hence, dissent in understanding and interpretation should not be a condition for human irreconcilability. Even the most illustrious jurists of Islam—Abu

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Hanifah, Imam Shafi’i, Imam Malik and Ahamd ibn Hambal—were adamant that their judgments were but temporary truth claims about particular matters pertaining to knowledge (al-Attas 1991). They were prepared to build on their predecessors’ judgments without considering points of view as infallible and immutable. The spirit of human interpretation in Muslim education is such that judgments are but temporary human interventions about particular matters. Furthermore, the processes of tafsir (interpretation) and ta’wil (deeper reflection) attest to the practice of philosophical inquiry in and about Muslim education. This idea is aptly put by al-Attas: “the relevance obtained between tafsir and ta’wil as valid methods respecting our study of the world of nature is of considerable significance in our [Muslims’] conception of knowledge and education” (alAttas 1991: 7). By implication, the claims for absolute universalism in Muslim education are neither defensible nor desirable. Humans themselves are forgetful beings (insan from nasiya, which translates as “to be forgetful”). As a corollary, human interpretations can never be regarded as final judgments about matters of knowledge in Muslim education. Only God’s knowledge is universal, and human interpretations of such knowledge are fallible judgments that can be presented differently throughout differing times. On an analysis of qalam: A metaphor for political action Muslim education is guided by a notion of qalam, which literally means “a pen.” What has been produced through the use of a pen is scholarship. The Quran accentuates the importance of ‘ulum or “sciences” (‘ulum, the plural of ‘ilm, can also be translated as “knowledges”). Following one of the most prominent contemporary Muslim scholars, Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas (1991: 42–4), the ‘ulum al-naqliyyah, or revealed sciences, and ‘ulum al-aqliyyah, or rational sciences, can be categorized as follows: first, ‘ulum al-naqliyyah, or revealed sciences, include the study of the Quran (its recitation and interpretation); the Sunnah (the life experiences of the Prophet Muhammad) and the Hadith (authoritative sayings); the sharia (jurisprudence and law); theology or tawhid; metaphysics or tasawwuf and Arabic linguistics; second, ‘ulum al-aqliyyah or rational sciences, include human sciences; natural sciences; applied sciences; technological sciences; and comparative and historical sciences. As it is enunciated in the Quran (3:190), “Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth and [in] the difference of night and day are tokens [of His Sovereignty] for [wo]men of understanding.” This verse clearly accentuates the interrelatedness between the ‘ulum al-naqliyyah, or revealed sciences, and ‘ulum al-aqliyyah, or rational sciences. By implication, scholarship in Muslim education is constituted by both the pursuit of knowledge in ‘ulum al-naqliyyah and ‘ulum al-aqliyyah, and Muslim education consists of a complementary relationship between ‘ulum al-naqliyyah and ‘ulum al-

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aqliyyah. To bifurcate such forms of knowledge would be to undermine what Muslim education stands for. What this non-bifurcated view of Muslim education elucidates is not only a complementary relationship between ‘ulum al-naqliyyah and ‘ulum alaqliyyah but also the misguided position many Muslim curricula have assumed by favoring Quranic recitation and memorization and also the acquisition of voluminous ahadith (sayings of the Prophet) without deeper contemplation. Such a bifurcated view of knowledge construction seems to be dominant in many Muslim institutions all over the world, from high school to university level. It is perhaps for this reason that Muslim education finds it challenging to deal with several of the difficult situations in the world today—immigration, warfare, poverty and hunger, drug abuse, and human trafficking—especially considering that a non-bifurcated view of knowledge is required to address these societal malaises. That is, knowledge that is not compartmentalized should be oriented toward addressing social problems. Al-Attas (1991: 34–5) refers to this predicament as “confusion and error in knowledge,” which creates conditions “for a loss of adab (goodness) within the [Muslim] community … and the loss of the capacity for discernment [in Muslim institutions of higher learning].” To come back to the earlier point about human interpretation, Rahman (1982: 145) considers knowledge construction as open-ended on the basis of the following claim: It is obviously not necessary that a certain interpretation once accepted must continue to be accepted; there is always both room and necessity for new interpretations, and this is, in truth, an ongoing process. Based on this understanding of the inconclusiveness of knowledge and interpretation, the claim that “knowledge is not open to revision … but only to further elaboration and application” (Wan Daud 1997: 15) seems to be untenable because interpretation in itself is a particular perspective subjected to particular situational contexts, and when the contexts change new interpretations and reinterpretations might ensue. In this way, an interpretation does not seem to be final since varying contexts can render different and new interpretations— that is, revisions ensue that might be subjected to extensions and elaborations of meaning. Here, I am specifically thinking of verses in the Quran pertaining to human flourishing. Humans are constantly reminded in the Quran that their actions should be built around deliberative inquiry; humans should not just develop their own noncontextual and autonomous understandings. Of course, it is claimed by several translators of the Quran that the Quran and prophetic sayings are immutable. However, it is the interpretations of these texts that are changeable on the basis that judgments about these interpretations are made by humans. Both established meanings of the Quran (mukhkamat) and ambiguous meanings (mutashabihat) constitute the Divine Revelation of God, yet according

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to the Quran itself their interpretations might be subjected to rethinking by humans and, thus, be open for possible reinterpretation and revision. Hence, I agree with Rahman on his understanding of interpretation of the divine messages. The Quran is a book of guidance without doubt (shakk); however, there can be conjecture (zann) about its interpretations since the human mind is fallible. As Rahman (1982: 145) argues, an interpretation does not have to be connected to certainty (yaqin). On this basis, the necessity for shura (dialogue) is salient on the grounds that interpretations and reinterpretations can be put under critical scrutiny in a deliberative fashion. Dialogue in Muslim education is usually initiated by an authoritative person. This dialogue can be in the form of verbal communications or textual articulations to which others who have knowledge of the subject at hand might respond critically. I am thinking of the subject of euthanasia in Muslim education that can be resolved through dialogue among Muslims. However, the intervention of government in Muslim majority countries seems to be a major impediment in shaping consensual understanding. Often such governments rely on their religious authorities to advocate for less dialogical positions. Put differently, authoritative decisions are taken without necessarily consulting with progressive thinkers of Muslim education. The notion of qalam is relevant not only to a non-bifurcated understanding of Muslim sciences but also to the idea of human living. For a Muslim, to live one’s life according to the tenets of one’s faith, namely Islam, is to do so with a political conviction not to discriminate against other humans and to treat them with dignity and respect. The very idea of a pen is also a metaphor for indelible acts of human virtue that cannot easily be erased. More poignantly, the saying, “the ink of a pen is mightier than the blood of a martyr” is commonly quoted in Muslim circles. Yet, quite paradoxically, there are many examples of how political autocracy, especially in majority Muslim countries, seems to undermine the salience of the metaphorical pen. In this case, Muslims have been informed erroneously that religious judgments are only the domain of religious scholars. One powerful example of a definitive response to Muslim apathy, which occurred at a time when the Muslim and Western worlds had been overtaken by fear and disillusionment, was when Muhammad Iqbal (a Muslim luminary of Pakistan) emerged in the 1960s as a beacon of hope to reestablish much needed political deliberations between the two worlds (Malik 2013: 8). As Fateh Mohammad Malik suggests, reverting to Muhammad Iqbal’s political thought could “reopen the lines of communication within the Muslim world and between the Muslim and Western worlds” (p. 8). My attraction to Iqbal’s cogent thoughts is based on an understanding that there is no dichotomy between religion and politics in Islam and that any attempt at separating the two is anathema to the spirit of Islam and Muslim education. As Iqbal claims, in Islam “God and the universe, spirit and matter, Church and State, are organic

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to each other … [and] creating a false disconnect between religion and politics would rob a dynamic faith of its practical possibilities” (cited in Malik 2013: 11, 13). In this regard, Iqbal’s notion of religion is inclusive, and he recognizes that the “purpose of Islam is to create a society that holds all people, irrespective of their religion and nations, in high esteem and respect” (p. 13). Muhammad Iqbal, on whom scholars such as Fazlur Rahman drew for liberatory thoughts in and about Islam and Muslim education, championed the notions of reason and experience as enunciated in the Quran. For Iqbal (1988), Islam has a democratic spirit, evident from its insistence that shura (mutual consultation) and ijma (consensus of a community) should be revisited in Islamic discourses such as Muslim education. As a political riposte to the troubled times we encounter as humans today, I examine one particular practice, namely ijtihad (exertion), in relation to Iqbal’s assertion that Islam has a democratic ethos, and I then look at some of the implications of ijtihad for democratic Muslim education. Ijtihad and political agency in and through Muslim democratic education My own etymological analysis of the practice of ijtihad is premised on Edward W. Lane’s (1984: 473) definition of the term, namely exerting the faculties of the mind to the utmost. According to the Sunan Abu Dawud, ijtihad means to perform an intellectual judgment (Lane 1984: 687). Lane elucidates ijtihad as an intellectual action “suitable to the requirements of wisdom, justice, right or rightness” (p. 605). The notion of ijtihad as exertion finds expression in the seminal thoughts of Iqbal: The word literally means to exert. In the terminology of Islamic law it means to exert with a view to form an independent judgment on a legal question … [which] has its origin in a well-known verse of the Quran—“And to those who exert We show Our path” … [that is, it] embodies … an intellectual attitude. (1988: 148–9, emphases added) Iqbal articulates his view of ijtihad (intellectual exertion) as freedom to rebuild Islamic law (Shariah) in light of “modern thought and experience” (1988: 157). Put differently, for Iqbal, ijtihad is autonomous intellectual judgment commensurate with “modern Islam,” producing “fresh interpretation[s] of its principles” (p. 163). What is quite poignant about Iqbal’s understanding of ijtihad is the connection he makes between intellectual exertion and the cultivation of humanity. In his words, Humanity needs three things today - a spiritual interpretation of the universe, spiritual emancipation of the individual, and basic principles of a universal import directing the evolution of human society on a spiritual basis. (Iqbal 1988: 179)

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What seems to emanate from Iqbal’s understanding of ijtihad is that, firstly, interpretation, and reinterpretation, through intellectual exertion is not only an independent human judgment but also an act of spirituality. In this sense, Iqbal’s idea of ijtihad resonates with an act of emotion. Secondly, ijtihad should enable the emancipation of individuals from that which seems to constrain their thinking. Thirdly, ijtihad should be linked to cultivating a society that invokes spirituality, looking beyond merely acting rationally and extending such actions toward transcendental realities. In line with such an understanding of ijtihad, I next examine its implications for democratic education. Iqbal’s assertion that ijtihad (intellectual exertion) has an inherently democratic and spiritual ethos stems from his concern to resolve challenging matters regarding human cooperation and coexistence. Further, considering that he was mainly concerned with the disdain the Muslim community at the time showed toward experiential reasoning in and about their malaises, he became adamant that the Quran and Hadith (prophetic sayings), the primary sources of Islam, should be subjected to more independent analyses—that is, interpretations and reinterpretations—imbued with possibilities to see others’ points of view (democratic inclinations) and treating these others with a deep sense of respect for the human spirit in relation to its vexed contexts. Put differently, Iqbal’s claims about ijtihad are grounded in the possibilities the practice offers for democratic human action. In addition, ijtihad has an emancipatory potential in the sense that different autonomous human judgments can be brought into public deliberation whereby people’s thinking and acting can be liberated from what they previously favored. To become emancipated is tantamount to being freed from those ways of seeing events in the world that constrain human interaction and good living. Iqbal’s defense of ijtihad is premised on the notion that humans can learn to live with one another’s diverse perspectives and that difference does not have to become a license to discriminate against one another. To embark on emancipatory practices is conditional upon a practice of ijtihad that can attune a person to just human actions. Members of a community that thrives on practicing ijtihad would be able to act in one another’s interest without misrecognizing the views of others that might be different from their own. The point is that an emancipatory ijtihad summons humans to engage with diversity and difference and to recognize otherness without prejudice and intolerance toward that which is different. Only in this way can humans be emancipated and their free use of ijtihad inspire them to act with civility and love for one another. Toward another interpretation of Muslim education As a tribute in recognition of Iqbal’s monumental contribution to a rational-cumemotive understanding of Muslim education, a tombstone has been placed in his honor in the Rumi Museum in Konya, Turkey. Iqbal advocated a practice of

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ijtihad that is inherently spiritual. In other words, implicit in his understanding and practice is the notion that people are not just open and reflective about the human relations in becoming—that is, relations of cooperation, coexistence, and recognition of one another. What Iqbal’s exposition of the practice of ijtihad also encourages are forms of living whereby people become deeply (that is, spiritually) concerned about their own, perhaps unwarranted, practices. Introspection and a commitment toward identifying their deficiencies can become enabling practices to enhance human co-belonging and recognition of one another for the reason that people are then prepared to take into critical scrutiny what they hold to be true. Their spiritual recognition that their own practices might be deeply flawed and in need of reparations is a profound recognition of ijtihadi proportions. That is, only when people have internalized the fallibility of their own practices can they become more open to new beginnings. In this way, democratic Muslim education becomes a practice of immense spiritual advancement in the sense that people become prepared and willing to amend distortions associated with their own localized ways of being and acting.

CONCLUSION In this chapter, we have shown that both Jewish and Muslim education can be understood to be geared toward the cultivation of good human living in the Aristotelian sense. Without a recognition of significant transcendental religious sources and the inspiration of respected luminaries, Jewish and Muslim forms of education would not have been realized in this temporal world. We have also seen that by reinterpretation of the meaning of these sources the traditions are able to stay relevant and thereby can become compatible with different times— whether the Middle Ages or the present day. This is perhaps what makes these educational philosophies, although tightly bound to a tradition, so special. The innovative power of reinterpretation allows for changes and, thereby, for relevance. Furthermore, we have also argued that social and political enactments of human life are invariably underscored by the right interpretations of the divine sources of inspiration in the form of the Torah, for Jews, and the Quran, for Muslims. Such enactments are the direct outcome of our duty as moral agents and come about through the way we come to give meaning to the texts that we encounter. Engaging in encounters for its own sake, as argued in the Jewish tradition, or out of a certain selflessness, as is promoted in the Muslim tradition, should then result in similar ways of education toward conduct.

NOTES 1

The Talmudic era is considered to lie roughly between the third and seventh centuries ce.

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The Sephardic communities are the descendants of Spanish Jewry and were mainly located around the Mediterranean whereas the Ashkenazi communities were spread out mainly in northern Europe. The Mishnah is considered to be the first collection of the oral Torah and is believed to have been written down sometime during the third century ce. The Talmud is made up of the Mishnah and a compilation of subsequent commentaries by the Rabbis. Rabbi Meir (a late second-century Palestinian rabbi) is reported to have said, “Whoever occupies himself with Torah for its own sake merits many things; moreover, the entire world is worthwhile for his sake” (Pirke Avot 6:1). See Hirsch (1997: 8–9). See, for example, TB Sanhedrin 99b. For discussions about which is of more value, studying or performing good deeds, see, for example, TB Kiddushin 40b. As for discussions dealing with studying she-lo lishmah, that is, not for its own sake, and if there is at all any value to that, see, for example, TB Pesachim 50b

REFERENCES Primary sources Babylonian Talmud, Steinsaltz Edition (Aramaic/Hebrew), Jerusalem: Koren Publishers. Maimonides (2002), Maimonides: Guide for the Perplexed [Hebrew], trans. Ibn Tibon, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press.

Secondary sources Alexander, Hanan (1992), “Science and Spirituality: Tradition and Interpretation in Liberal Education,” Curriculum Inquiry, 22 (4): 383–400. al-Attas, Syed Muhammad al Naquib bin Ali (1991), The Concept of Education in Islam: A Framework for an Islamic Philosophy of Education, Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation Publications. Bergman, J. (1935), “Maimonides als Erzieher,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, 79 (2): 89–104. Cohen Jonathan (2004), “Theology of Jewish Education: Directions in the Teachings of Michael Rosenack,” in Jonathan Cohen (ed.), In Search of Jewish Paideia: Directions in the Philosophy of the Jewish Education (Studies in Jewish Education X) [Hebrew], 35–49, Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Halbertal, Moshe (1997), People of the Book: Canon, Meaning, and Authority, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hirsch, Samson Raphael (1899), Choreb, oder Versuche über Jissroels Pflichten in der Zerstreuung, Frankfurt: Kaufman Verlag. Hirsch, Samson Raphael (1997), Hirsch Siddur: The Order of Prayers for the Whole Year, Nanuet, NY: Feldheim Publishers. Iqbal, Muhammed (1988), The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Lahore: Muhammad Ashraf Publishers. Kanarfogel, Ephraim (1992), Jewish Education and Society in the High Middle Ages, Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

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Kant, Immanuel (2004), Kritik der Urteilskraft, Stuttgart: Reclam. Kasher, Hannah (1989), “Torah for Its Own Sake, Torah Not for Its Own Sake and the Third Way,” Jewish Quarterly, 79 (2–3): 153–63. Lamm, Norman (1989), Torah Lishmah: Torah for Torah’s Sake in the Works of Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin and His Contemporaries, New York: KTAV Publishing House. Lamm, Norman (1990), Torah Umadda: The Encounter of Religious Learning and Worldly Knowledge in the Jewish Tradition, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. Lane, E.W. (1984), Arabic-English Lexicon, Vols. 1 and 2, Cambridge: Islamic Text Society Trust. Malik, Fateh Mohammed (2013), Reconstruction of Muslim Political Thought, Islamabad: National Book Foundation. Marcus, Gad (2016), “Being in the Gap Between Past and Future: Hannah Arendt and Torah Lishmah,” Philosophy of Education, 1: 77–83. Molad-Vaza, Ora (2013), “Learn and I Will Buy You a Garment,” in Amir Ashur (ed.), Judaeo-Arabic Culture in al-Andalus, 155–172, Cordoba: UCO Press. Rahman, Fazlur (1982), Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stern, Josef (2005), “Maimonides on Education,” in Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Philosophers on Education: New Historical Perspectives, 107–21, London: Routledge. Wan Daud, Wan Mohd Nor (1997), “Islamization of Contemporary Knowledge: A Brief Comparison between al-Attas and Fazlur Rahman,” Al-Shajarah: Journal of the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, 2 (1): 1–19.

CHAPTER FOUR

Thomas Aquinas and Education S tein M. W ivestad

A hymn written by Thomas Aquinas is used in churches all over the world during Holy Communion, often on Good Friday. The hymn ends with this verse: Jesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio, oro fiat illud quod tam sitio: Ut te revelata cernens facie, visu sim beatus tuae gloriae.

O Christ, whom now beneath a veil we see, may what we thirst for soon our portion be. To gaze on thee unveiled, and see thy face, the vision of thy glory and thy grace.1

Aquinas’ voice has influenced Christian worship and theology since the thirteenth century. He is considered by many to represent the Catholic intellectual tradition, but he stood against the theological and philosophical movements dominating his own age and would certainly have been against the modern individual liberalism of our age (MacIntyre 1998). The neo-Aristotelian turn in moral philosophy after 1980 created a new interest in Aquinas as an excellent interpreter and reformer of Aristotelian ethics. Aquinas modified the Aristotelian framework with God-centered discussions of moral and existential questions. Even agnostic philosophers have found Aquinas’ truth-seeking relevant (Kretzmann and Stump 1993).

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The study of Aquinas is demanding. His “writing has the uncanny ability to respond to our interrogation ‘by interrogating us’” (MacIntyre, cited in Overmyer 2013: 684). Aquinas was primarily a theologian, and it would be “out of tune” to study him solely as a philosopher. Yet the unifying factor in his work is the search for truth. He was convinced that “any truth that is uttered by anyone is from the Holy Spirit” (Summa theologiae 1–2, Q 109, A 1, ad 1).2 However, he differentiated between the natural light of reason and the special revelation given through the prophets and apostles (Summa theologiae 1, Q 12, A 13, co.).3 In this chapter, I begin by describing the period in which Aquinas lived as well as his own biography. This serves as the context for my discussion of how he followed and changed the traditions to which he belonged, his thoughts on education, his impact and lack of impact on later philosophy of education, and particularly how his understanding of caritas (unconditional love) supplemented by prudentia (practical wisdom) as habitus (active conditions for action)4 may challenge educational thinking and practice in a fruitful way.

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY In the thirteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church, especially via monasteries, had controlled Western education and culture for more than six hundred years. Monastic life, following the Rule of St. Benedict, initiated young persons into communal divine worship comprising hymns, psalms, lessons, and prayers. Five times every day the monks came together for worship. Their studies focused on the scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers (see Chapter 1, this volume). With roots in the old religious and philosophical traditions from Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem, the commonplace view understood human beings not as independent and autonomous but as dependent on something above themselves, a perfect being in the center of the cosmos (the ordered universe as a whole). It became a custom for parents to offer some of their children to be brought up in a monastery as pueri oblati (children who are “handed over” or “oblated”). Most of the formal education of the time prepared students for positions in the church. After the fifth century, Latin was the common language, and much of the Hellenic philosophy was forgotten. Aristotle’s logical works were translated into Latin, but it was not until the twelfth century, after contact with Jewish and Muslim philosophers, that other works of Aristotle and comments on them were made available in Latin. The rediscovery of Aristotle gave a new impetus to higher education. The Aristotelian texts offered a brilliant account of the human condition. This challenged both Jews, Muslims, and Christians and instigated intense theological and philosophical debates (MacIntyre 2009: 43–60).

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In tandem with the discovery of Aristotle, a type of academic center called studium generale, institutions that would later become universities, were striving to be relatively independent and “free from undue ecclesiastical or secular control” (Cobban 1975: 22)—a precursor of modern academic freedom. Also noteworthy at the time was the spiritual awakening that included the founding of the Franciscan and Dominican orders. Dominic founded his order in 1217 because he had experienced a decay in ordinary Christian life (Healy 2003: 24). He recognized the need for preachers who could go out into the world, preach in the vernacular languages, defend the Gospel, listen to confessions, and give advice on practical questions. Religious life expanded outside of its monastic setting and into the burgeoning cities of Europe. It is within this context that Tommaso d’Aquino (see Figure 4.1) was born in 1225 into a wealthy family, which owned land around the castle of Roccasecca, halfway between Rome and Naples. From age six until fourteen he was an “oblate” at the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino (Williams 2005: xxxi), a magnificent abbey on the top of a fortified hill located approximately thirty kilometers south of Roccasecca. As preparation for monastic life, Aquinas learned to speak and read Latin and to remember and apply the grammatical rules of the language. He received his first introduction to the seven liberal arts (Boland 2007: 9) and became familiar with the Bible as well as the chants, hymns, and rituals of the Benedictine community. When Aquinas was fourteen years old, the Aquino family had to take sides in a fierce struggle between the pope and the emperor. Aquinas was removed from the Benedictine abbey and sent to Naples, where the emperor had established a studium generale, “the earliest secular university in Europe” (MacIntyre 1998: 96). It was there that Aquinas studied grammar, logic, and natural philosophy and started his lifelong engagement with Aristotelian philosophy. At the same time, he listened to some Dominican preachers and became attached to them, so much so that he joined the Order of Preachers at the age of nineteen— against the will of his family. The Dominicans wanted to send him away from the area, but the “family kidnapped him and subjected him to a year of virtual house arrest in the family castles,” where he “spent this time praying, reading the whole Bible, and studying the Sentences of Peter Lombard” (Boland 2007: 10–11). It was Aquinas’ own choice to take the Dominican habit. We can imagine that Aquinas, as a Dominican, wanted “to follow Jesus Christ whatever the cost” (Healy 2003: 2). Perhaps recalling his family’s attempt to use force to subvert his will, Aquinas later defended the human being’s “free choice proceeding from his own counsel” even when “obeying his superiors” (Summa theologiae 2–2, Q 104, A 1, ad 1).5 In 1245, having resisted the pressure of his family for a year, Aquinas returned to his Order and was sent to Paris, to the studium generale of the Dominicans (Boland 2007: 11). One of the famous teachers in Paris, Albertus

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FIGURE 4.1  Thomas Aquinas accepts to help a lay brother with some practical matters. (Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images).

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Magnus, took Aquinas with him to Cologne as an assistant from 1248 to 1252. From 1252 onwards, Aquinas was a university teacher: in Paris until 1259, in Naples for some years, in Orvieto (around 120 kilometers north of Rome) from 1261 to 1265, and in Rome from 1265 to 1268 at Santa Sabina, the Dominican headquarters. When Aquinas became a teacher of theology students, he understood “the notion of theology as serving those who try to help others live as Christians” (Healy 2003: 21). He was interested in philosophy and “made a life-long habit of writing treatises and commentaries upon philosophical works, although this was never a part of his official duties” (p. 3). In his teaching and in his main works, he appears primarily as a theologian. In Rome, Aquinas started working on the Summa theologiae, written “to propound the things belonging to the Christian religion in a way consonant with the education [eruditio] of beginners” (Summa theologiae 1, Prologue). He returned to Paris in 1268 to arbitrate between different camps of theologians who disagreed on the understanding of the human being. One camp maintained a Platonic split between soul and body. Aquinas defended an Aristotelian interpretation, taking the human being to be a unity of body and soul. The word “person” meant, for Aquinas, “a complete substance of rational nature” (Copleston 1955: 155, 161; Boland 2007: 148–9). In 1272, he moved to Naples where he worked on the last part of the Summa and taught at “a new studium generale for theological studies” (Healy 2003: 7). A couple of years later, while on a journey, riding on a donkey, his head hit the branch of a tree. He became ill and died March 7, 1274, at the abbey of Fossanova, at only forty-nine years of age. Aquinas’ work as a teacher and writer is astounding. His writings are “more extensive than those of Plato and Aristotle combined” (Kretzmann and Stump 1993: 3). His style of teaching and writing, which is characterized by raising questions, can be traced back to Peter Abelard and Peter Lombard (Hogan 1995: 62–3). The original format of the Summa is divided into numbered questions (Q) and articles (A), each article containing arguments (arg.), a brief contra argument (sed contra = s.c.), a main response (corpus = co.), and replies to the numbered arguments (ad … ). Some features of Aquinas’ work that stand out are his systematic search for arguments against his own views, his nuanced interpretation of Aristotelian ethics, and his clarification of concepts in dialogue with Hellenic, Roman, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim sources (Pinckaers 2002).

CONTINUITY AND ORIGINALITY Aquinas followed the traditions to which he belonged, but he also changed them. There is a continuity between Socrates and Aquinas. Both recognized the fallibility of human reason, and both displayed an untiring will to ask open, foundational questions concerning how human beings ought to live. Socrates

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differentiated between the voices of his fellow citizens and another voice, one higher than human voices, that called him to examine human life. Aquinas differentiated between theology as sacred doctrine built on the revelation of truth to the prophets and apostles and theology as part of philosophy (Summa theologiae 1, Q 1, A 1, ad 2). Theology as sacred doctrine was more important to him than theology as a part of philosophy, but he did not subordinate philosophy to theology by letting sacred doctrine determine the truth claims of philosophy. According to Copleston, Aquinas starts his philosophical work “with the finite things given in experience and comes to know spiritual reality only by reflection on these things” (1955: 53). Aquinas adopted and adapted a number of Aristotelian theories, but “this was not … because he thought them ‘useful’, but because he believed them to be true” (p. 63). Aquinas only used grounds for his arguments that could be accepted by his adversaries (Boland 2007: 30). When discussing with Jews, the Old Testament provided this common ground; when discussing with Manicheans, the New Testament served this role; and, with those who accepted no authority, he appealed to natural reason (Quodlibet 4, Q 9, A 3, co.).6 Aquinas was critical of some of his contemporary Augustinians who tended to let faith replace reason. He was also critical of Aristotelians who tended to place human reason above faith (MacIntyre 1998: 97–8). In the new universities of the thirteenth century, Aquinas “fought the battle of Revelation with the weapons of heathenism. It was no matter whose the weapon was–truth was truth all the world over” (Newman 1899/1996: 227). Aquinas summoned up all the relevant contributions to argument and interpretation which had been preserved and transmitted within the two major traditions [from Aristotle and Augustine]. So biblical sources are brought into conversation with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, and all of them with Arab and Jewish thinkers, as well as with patristic writers and later Christian theologians … always open to addition by some as yet unforeseen argument. (MacIntyre 1988: 171–2) Like some modern philosophers of education, Aquinas thought that tensions between critical rationality and faith “may be eased, if not completely resolved” (Alexander and McLaughlin 2003: 357). He did not wish to replace “philosophical analysis and reflection” with “mystical elevations or affective attitudes” (Copleston 1955: 59). He trusted the sacred doctrine, but he was aware of the problems of interpretation and the possibility of being deceived by language and the metaphors that human beings must use to speak about God. Therefore, even the greatest theologians could err. He cites Augustine: “no matter how distinguished they might be in holiness and learning, I do not think something true simply because they have thought it or written it”

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(Summa theologiae 1, Q 1, A 8, ad 2). Aquinas—like Socrates—thought that both philosophy and theology must be open to an unending search for truth and must not become closed systems. “Our natural desire for knowledge cannot come to rest within us until we know the first cause, and that not in any way, but in its very essence” (Compendium theologiae 1.104). Here and now, we see “beneath a veil.” The main philosophical authority for Aquinas was Aristotle. Aristotle understood eudaimonia (complete happiness) to be something divine. It cannot not be attained in this life but: We ought not to follow the proverb-writers, and “think human because you are human”, or “think mortal, since you are mortal”. Rather, as far as we can, we ought to be pro-immortal, and go to all lengths to live a life that expresses our supreme element. (Nicomachean Ethics 1177b35–1178a1) Relative happiness can be attained through the virtues, with phronesis as a kind of “coordinator” and a “director” of actions. Attaining relative happiness in life is an imperfect end but a necessary basis for the contemplative activity that Aristotle saw as our “supreme element.” One of the intellectual hexeis (active conditions) is called nous (understanding). When we are under-standing, we literally “stand under” what we cannot secure by arguments. Nous is “concerned with the last things, and in both directions. For there is understanding, not a rational account, about the first terms and the last” (Nicomachean Ethics 1143a36). Nous may be applied to challenge modern thinking. If you posit cogito ergo sum as your first term, with doubt as the only secure foundation, you can doubt everything except your own doubt. If you posit credo ergo sum, “as you believe, so you are” (Kierkegaard 1980: 93), you can doubt yourself and your own capacities, in awe of something higher than yourself. This is a choice. We live by some understanding of the first principle and the ultimate end— either explicitly or implicitly. The “ultimate order-of-things” (Wright 2007: 12) “grounds reality and provides it with its fundamental organizing structure and hence its ultimate meaning, purpose and direction” (p. 21). One’s ultimate end is something one desires more than anything else. According to Aquinas, “everyone desires that his own perfection be fulfilled … But as regards that which the ultimate end is found in, … some desire riches as their consummate good, some desire pleasure, and some desire something else” (Summa theologiae 1–2, Q 1, A 7, co.). The ultimate end could be sex, money, power, or honor— or a combination of these. It is also possible to choose as one’s ultimate end the attainment of power for a political party, a religious or humanitarian organization, an artistic or intellectual project, or even human wisdom per se. In all these cases we depend on human qualities. If our qualities are limited and incomplete, the result achieved must be defective or insufficient. Any ultimate

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end that depends on human qualities cannot reasonably be trusted absolutely. Just before he was sentenced to death, Socrates, as presented by Plato, said, “‘Human wisdom is of little or no value” and “the god is really wise” (Apology 23a; Plato 1966). Aquinas believed that “the first cause of all things is God. Therefore, the ultimate end of man is to know God” (Contra gentiles 3.25.11). It is reasonable to posit that God exists as something higher than ourselves. But we do not thereby know what God is, because God is not something we normally can see or hear. We are dependent on how God has been revealed to people whom we can trust. The revelation is “veiled” in human language: in stories, analogies, and metaphors. Christian theology is a continuous rational inquiry into the “the truth of the faith” (Aertsen 1993: 35). As a believer and theologian, Aquinas trusted the biblical prophets and apostles and tried to clarify a view of God and of human beings as dependent on God. Theologians may find some mistakes in his arguments on the ultimate end of human beings, but from an educational point of view, Aquinas’ most important claims are that “a human agent must always act for some ultimate end” and that “there is something that all human beings should take as their sole ultimate end” (Grisez 2008: 9; MacIntyre 1998: 99). According to Aquinas, this “something” must be above human limitations. It is not reasonable to choose an ultimate end that is imperfect. Aquinas considered Aristotle “an expert on human nature” (Pinckaers 2002: 20) but viewed Aristotle’s philosophy as “incomplete and inadequate” (Copleston 1955: 198). Aristotle and Aquinas had different views on the ultimate end of human life and, consequently, dissimilar thoughts on virtue and character education. Magnanimity (greatness of thought and purpose) is a central virtue for Aristotle. Aquinas supplements magnanimity with humility because “every man needs, first, the Divine assistance, secondly, even human assistance, since man is naturally a social animal” (Summa theologiae 2–2, Q 129, A 6, ad 1; MacIntyre 1999). The Aristotelian tradition has been related in a fruitful and constructive way to educational theory by philosophers of education (Carr 2003; Curren 2000; Dunne 1993; Kristjánsson 2015). The tradition of Aquinas has much to contribute to educational theory as well, and an exploration of such possibility is an appropriate task for philosophers of education. Aquinas combined Aristotle’s and Augustine’s definitions of virtue. Aristotle understood a virtue to be a quality acquired by emulation and practice, a quality that “causes its possessors to be in a good state [hexis] and to perform their function well” (Nicomachean Ethics 1106a17). Augustine added the qualities “which God works in us without our help” (De virtutibus Q 1, A 2; Q 1, A 2, co.; Aquinas 2005: 11, 14). However, Aquinas did not accept Augustine’s view that we, when we use our natural powers in acquiring virtues, are necessarily led to trust in ourselves instead of in God (Herdt 2008; Overmyer 2013). Aquinas

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FIGURE 4.2  Medieval classroom. Source: Tour du Monde 1851. (via Getty Images).

approved the relative value of our own efforts but did not hold our acquired virtues to be “perfect” (Summa theologiae 1–2, Q 65, A 2, co.). In his teaching of adult students, Aquinas, like Augustine, underlined that “the light of reason is placed in us by God” (Boland 2007: 48). This light of reason is a gift to all human beings. Both emphasized the students’ own discoveries, but Aquinas had greater confidence in the importance of the teacher as a motor essentialis (an essential mover) causing educens (a leading out or bringing up) (De veritate Q 11, A 1, ad 12), that is, “a movement from potency to act” (Boland 2007: 50). Aquinas’ view respects an asymmetric relation between teacher and students (see Figure 4.2) and insists at the same time on the freedom of both. The teacher’s “exterior action” initiates the disciples into his disciplina, “the pathways of reasoning to be followed, which he himself has traveled,” encouraging them to mindful “interior action,” using the naturally given “source within each person, the light of truth” (Pinckaers 2002: 26–7).

THOMAS AQUINAS’ CONCEPT OF EDUCATION Aquinas’ primary mission was to help students to “preach the Scripture better and … live the Gospel more truly” (Healy 2003: x). Their studies should prepare them for serving ordinary people. Therefore, questions about the nature of education, including questions about pedagogy, permeate his writings, and several theologians and philosophers have explored the educational thoughts in his writings (Boland 2007; Davies 2014; Elders 2009; Elias 2002; MacIntyre 1998, 1999, 2009; Mooney and Nowacki 2014).

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To understand Aquinas’ concept of education, it may be helpful first to sketch his “story” about how the human condition can be improved. Like Aristotle, he thought that human beings are endowed with freedom and reason, a given potential orienting us toward our final end: living a good life, flourishing as human beings. What we choose to do persistently influences our character. Single actions are like “individual tones within the larger melody of one’s life” (Schockenhoff 2002: 244). If our personality is unified by temperance, courage, and justice, these virtues direct our existence toward a good life. And if the virtues are coordinated by moral wisdom (called phronesis by Aristotle, in Latin prudentia) we can grasp “what the good life requires” of us in each particular case, even if the virtuous unification of the personality “will inevitably be partial and vulnerable to tensions and regrets” (Porter 1990: 169). Both Aristotle and Aquinas deny the possibility of attaining complete happiness before death. “For one swallow does not make a spring … nor, similarly, does one day or a short time make us blessed and happy” (Nicomachean Ethics 1098a19, 1177b25–27). Aquinas maintains that an educative process guided by the cardinal virtues (temperance, courage, justice, and moral wisdom) only helps the new generation to live relatively good lives. The final end, perfect happiness, is for him dependent on God’s grace alone. He believes that the message of the biblical prophets and apostles can open our hearts to the gifts of faith, hope, and love, and that our false human pride is “drowned” in the rite of baptism. This signals the “death” of a self-centered existence and the possible unification of the person inspired by charity/unconditional love (caritas). The new life is, for Aquinas, a life in relationship with Jesus Christ, a life engaged in spiritual practice: confessing sins and receiving forgiveness, worshipping and praying, receiving divine love and passing it on to others. The God-given fruits of caritas have a potential that the cardinal virtues by themselves cannot attain. Caritas gives “a new motivation for moral behavior,” “inner harmony,” and “patience” (Porter 1990: 67). According to Aquinas, we need moral wisdom (including the virtues) and divine love to improve the human condition. How can education help us? The concept of education is used today in many different ways, but often the focus is on schooling understood as the production of knowledge and skills that are demanded by the market. The main goals are determined by what is seen as good for workers, citizens, businesses, and states. Even principles of “effective parenting” are focused on preparing children for school (Ramaekers and Suissa 2012: 25–6). Aquinas challenges this understanding by discussing what is good for the newcomers to this world. For Aquinas, educatio (rearing and upbringing) concerns what is good in general for the human being as an animal: “those things are said to belong to the natural law which nature teaches all the animals, i.e., the union of male and female, the education [educatio] of offspring, etc.” (Summa theologiae 1–2, Q 94, A 2, co.). Educatio implies here

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that the parents take responsibility for the existence of their offspring and the upbringing of the child, not only in “the first stages,” as Elders (2009: 107) contends, but also in later stages as well. In the Commentary on the Sentences, book 4, distinction 33, Aquinas says that educatio and instructio (teaching) are the responsibility of both parents for a long time. In joint action they should constantly help their offspring.7 This is in accordance with the principle that “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children” (United Nations 1948: Article 26, 3). In a situation where the church had power in the society, Aquinas defends the rights of Jewish parents: “It would be contrary to natural justice if, before a child has the use of reason, he were taken away from the care of his parents or something were ordained for him against his parents’ wishes” (Summa theologiae 2–2, Q 10, A 12, co.). Aquinas and his contemporaries did not have a correct understanding of the physical process of conception, and his view of women is not acceptable today. A sentence in Summa seems to give the father more responsibility than the mother: “the father is a principle of generation and of esse [being] and, afterwards, of upbringing and teaching” (Summa theologiae 1–2, Q 100, A 5, ad 4). In Summa theologiae 2–2, Q 154, A 2, co., he compares different animal species and contends that among cats and dogs “the female alone suffices for the offspring’s upbringing” while the educationem hominis (upbringing of a human being) requires not only the mother’s nurturing care but multo magis (much more) the father’s care “as guide and guardian.” The general imbalance between men and women in the intellectual and political culture of the thirteenth century can explain why he assigned the dominant role to the father. Though Aquinas had incorrect biological information, his warnings against instability in the social structures that affect the care of offspring are noteworthy (De malo Q 15, A 1, co.). If the social structure makes it difficult to welcome the newcomer, that structure will threaten its existence, and the child might have problems finding a good balance between trust and mistrust of the world. Aquinas had concern for the emotional and moral dispositions (habitus) of children. Vivian Boland explains Aquinas’ valuing of good dispositions and mentions that “salvation and fulfillment for human beings are found primarily in the love of God and neighbor” (Boland 2007: 206). However, Boland takes for granted that education first of all is about intellectual teaching and learning, and he does not even mention how Aquinas uses educatio and the verb educare. Boland’s chapter “Thomas on Teaching” starts with the affiliated concept eductio and the verb educere, a word combining e(x) = out and ducere = to lead. Something that has a potential can be “led out” or “drawn up” to become actual and improved. What can be “e-ducted” includes “forms of natural things, of virtues and of knowledge” (p. 45). In the context of teaching, Aquinas supplements educatio with eductio and an educational concept that is almost forgotten today: eruditio. In the monastic

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tradition the communal mode of living together aimed at a “total formation” of the person (see Chapter 1, this volume), and a possible translation of eruditio is “teaching aiming at formation or cultivation.” Aquinas uses the concept of eruditio in a very central place in his work: the Prooemium or Prologue to Summa theologiae, where he sketches the program for his beginner students and the reason for his writing. He wants all his teachings to contribute to the students’ eruditio, that is, to help them e(x) = out of a condition that is rudis = “raw,” “rough,” or “rude.” This comes close to the abovementioned meaning of eductio, that is, a leading out from something negative or imperfect and a leading up to something desirable. Like the Greek word paideia (Bremer 1989), the word eruditio is used to refer to both the process and the ideal result of education. Boland (2007: 89) does not comment on the concept of eruditio but translates it from the prologue of Summa as “training” and the corresponding verb erudire as “to shape.” Shaping and training signal a forward-oriented educational process understood as pro-duction of specific goals. A one-sided focus on education as pro-duction may lead to a neglect of necessary e-duction, for instance, ignoring the need for helping persons to get out of negative habits (Wivestad 2020). Children and adults ought to be “e-ducted” (led out) of egocentric activities and into play and meaningful projects together with each other. I think that Aquinas understood the educational process as a life long “educative process” (Peters 1970: 18). Attaining detailed learning goals through pro-duction of desired knowledge and skills may be important here and now but only if the goals contribute to an ultimate end that is valuable in itself—both for the person and for the community. Not everything desired is really desirable. Just any final end will not do. It is desirable for us to become “educated” human beings, “fully human and fully ourselves” (Healy 2003: 121). This should include necessary e-duction as well as pro-duction. Aquinas understood education as broader than “teaching and learning.” He argued for rearing and upbringing in the best interest of the children, wanted to help the young out of bad habits, and to give them a model for a good human life. As humans, families, friends, schools, and societies, we should live by the self-evident principle “good ought to be done and pursued and … evil ought to be avoided” (Summa theologiae 1–2, Q 94, A 2, co.). This concerns our whole life and challenges us continually to deliberate our practice.

THE IMPACT OF THOMAS AQUINAS ON EDUCATION Aquinas passed on the Hellenic tradition that had used paideia as the central word for education. Paideia was translated to Latin and thereby changed by Roman rhetoricians and philosophers, possibly in the following way: paideia

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as a process was translated primarily with educatio (rearing and upbringing), eductio (leading out), and eruditio (cultivating teaching and formation). Eruditio was also used for paideia in the sense of a result (taught knowledge and culture), with humanitas (human-ness or Bildung) as the ideal result. In adult educational relations, the Greek verb didaskein (which means both “to learn” and “to teach”) was translated as docere (“to learn” and “to teach”) and disciplina (both “teaching” and “what is taught,” i.e., the discipline as an academic field). This use of words by the Romans had an impact on the translations of the Bible to Latin and on the writings of the Church Fathers, and thereby on Aquinas. The traditions from Athens—integrated with traditions from Rome and Jerusalem— seem to have a common model of education that aims at upbringing of persons as human beings. As newcomers to this world, we start with “raw” possibilities. Through our own play and discoveries, creative emulation and practice, and help from adults, we may be led “out of the cave,” as Plato depicts the process. We are brought up from our common possibilities as human species and our special possibilities as individuals, brought up to the actualization of sketches of what it is to be educated as fully human and unique persons. The ideals of the older generation take shape and must be modified in the lively relationship between the generations. Aquinas partakes in this traditional understanding of education, and though it is difficult to isolate his particular contribution from the impact of the tradition as a whole, he has a special position in virtue of his unique integration of Aristotelian philosophy and Augustinian theology “in a way that altered both” (Curren 2018). This, in turn, shapes his reflections on education. Aquinas has obviously had a great impact on Catholic education. Several notable philosophers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries developed educational theories built on Aquinas’ thought: John Henry Newman (1899/1996), the German phenomenological philosopher, Edith Stein (1933/2004), the French philosopher Jacques Maritain (1943), and more recently, the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre (1998, 1999, 2009). Edith Stein had been an atheist and Maritain an agnostic before they became Christians and started reading Aquinas. In 1879, Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Aeterni Patris (Of the Eternal Father). It was subtitled, “On the restoration of Christian philosophy in Catholic schools in the spirit of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas.” Furthermore, in 1965, the Second Vatican Council recommended that the training of priests and all studies within Catholic universities and colleges look to Aquinas for inspiration. Later, this recommendation was followed by a series of documents and official statements, for instance John Paul II’s 1998 encyclical Fides et ratio (Faith and Reason): “faith needs good philosophy and good science as much as they need faith if they are to find their place in a full understanding of the

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truth about our world” (Boland 2012: 124). Aquinas wanted a harmonious relation between faith and reason. This has become a central principle in Roman Catholic conceptions of education. When Boland (2012) assesses the relevance of Aquinas to Catholic education, he concentrates on Aquinas’ account of how God’s gifts may promote learning and teaching of intellectual virtues (reason). The legacy of Aquinas can be appreciated as a Christian humanism. “The humanism identified as the goal of Catholic education is, clearly, one that is founded on Christ” (Boland 2012: 124). Jesus Christ exemplifies a love that “is not self-seeking” (1 Cor. 13:5). Therefore, this humanism contradicts views that, following Protagoras, identify man as the measure of all things (Copleston 1955: 254). When contemporary culture concentrates on consumption, competition, and culture industry, the individual functions as “the measure of all things.” In practice, the “Christian heritage” can be paid lip service and the love of neighbor watered down to the reciprocal benefits of following the Golden Rule. The understanding of education as educatio, eductio, and eruditio, united in a broad concept of upbringing, has been alive in Protestant as well as Catholic traditions. John Amos Comenius (1572–1670; see Figure 4.3) belonged to the Unitas fratrum, a church that can be traced back to Jan Hus in the fourteenth century. Comenius does not make explicit references to Aquinas, but there are striking similarities between them. Some of their major works are structured by the same basic ideas: they use eruditio as a central educational concept, they understand the educational and the medical professions as analogous, they start with what we see and reflect on it in nuanced and clear language, and they demand that the rulers of the people should have their authority on the basis of virtue. Comenius was one of the first thinkers to write on education as a discipline, working systematically through the same questions that philosophers of education must face today. As an educational thinker and practitioner, he built a bridge between medieval and modern traditions (Mollenhauer 1983/2014: ch. 2; Murphy 1995; Smith 2017). Comenius applies his educational principles in a book for children called Orbis sensualium pictus (The World As Cosmos, Represented for the Senses), first published in 1658 (Comenius 1887), “a continuous bestseller with more than 250 revised and enlarged editions” in both European and Asiatic languages (Woo 2016: 215). The book has 150 lessons, each with a picture and a parallel vernacular and Latin text. Numbers in the text refer to numbers in the pictures. The book could be used at three different times in three different ways: first, as a picture book for a child on the lap of an adult; second, in the teaching of the vernacular language; and, third, in the teaching of Latin. The content is organized according to the same principle as Summa theologiae: “Things are to be considered according to the pattern of their proceeding from God as their source … and insofar as they return to him as their end” (Aertsen

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FIGURE 4.3  John Amos Comenius. Reproduction of a woodcut, published in the 19th century. (Photo by: Bildagentur-online/Universal Images Group via Getty Images).

1993: 16). Orbis pictus starts with God and the Creation and ends with Christ on Judgment Day. The book is introduced as a ruditatis antidotum (a remedy against the rough or raw), that is, as eruditio (Comenius 1970: 59).8 It combines sense experiences with language as the basis for an understanding of how things in the world are ordered. We find similar thoughts in the works of Aquinas. He

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understands teaching as analogous to how a medical doctor provides remedies, “foods and medicines which nature can use towards its intended goal” (Boland 2007: 55) and contends that “all our cognition takes its origin from the senses” (Summa theologiae 1, Q 1, A 9, co.). Aquinas accepted the rule of a monarch whose authority is based in virtue but warns that “monarchy easily degenerates into tyranny” (Summa theologiae 1–2, Q 105, A 1, ad 2). In Comenius’s Janua linguarum reserata (The Door of Languages Unlocked), thousands of students read similar thoughts during and after the Thirty Years’ War in a parallel vernacular and Latin reader: a monarch who “reigneth according to the appointment of lawes, is a king; if after his own lust (that what he listeth becometh lawfull) … is a tyrant” (see Janua linguarum reserata § 674). The reader was translated into eleven European languages with more than a hundred editions in the seventeenth century and some in the eighteenth century as well. Contemporary Anglophone philosophers of education have tended to ignore medieval as well as Continental Protestant education. For example, A Companion to the Philosophy of Education (Curren 2003) does not have articles on the monastic tradition and Aquinas, and a textbook that has been much used within education studies (Noddings 2016) jumps directly from Plato and Aristotle to Rousseau. With prejudices rooted in traditions from the Enlightenment, the word “medieval” is easily associated with obsolete practice and thinking. Noddings’s Philosophy of Education presents Christian ethics as “blind obedience to the laws of God” and contends that it was the Enlightenment that “brought with it the wonderful idea … that human beings are subjects, agents—not just vessels for divine intervention.” The point of medieval ethics was “to order life on earth, not to better it” (2016: 150, 153). This view cannot be ascribed to Aquinas. He thought that God as Creator works in the whole nature and in the will of everyone, including in those who are agnostics and atheists. “Every creature is oriented toward an end proportionate to its own determinate potentialities” (Porter 1990: 64). The destiny of human beings is to have full freedom as rational beings. Aquinas did not accept the Roman rhetorician Quintilian’s description of his students as empty “vessels” (Institutio oratoria 1.2.28). Humans express their potentialities in their acts. Every action is my action, even when “God acts immanently in my act” (Healy 2003: 86). Those who choose to follow Christ do not necessarily stop using their God-given ability to reason critically. Blind obedience must be distinguished from the seeing obedience, which Aquinas practiced already as a teenager. Aquinas wanted his ethics to order life, but he did not ignore improvements. When we are ordered toward the ultimate end, the virtues help us to avoid inconsequence and mistakes. Virtues direct us to actions that are good for all: the common good (Summa theologiae 2–2, Q 58, A 5, co.).

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The ideas of Aquinas about the common human good have been taken up by Alasdair MacIntyre in a convincing critique of the thinking behind the market society. The sharp separation of fact from value, the understanding of normative utterances as just an expression of individual feelings, and the refusal to accept common standards of what is good form a basis for “respect to individuals and their preferences” that is not to be questioned (MacIntyre 2016: 23, 41; 1988: 392). In the morality of the market, individuals are seen as competitors whose task is to maximize their own advantages and to minimize their disadvantages. “To be rational is to be a consistent maximizer of preference satisfaction” (MacIntyre 2016: 102) no matter whether the preferences are rational or not. In addition, “the social order of capitalism … miseducates and wrongly directs desires” toward “pleonexia, acquisitiveness” (pp. 108–9). MacIntyre argues against this view from a position he calls “Thomistic Aristotelianism”: we should understand ourselves as participants in a fellowship—in the family, in the workplace, in the school, and in the local community—and common goods as well as individual goods should be pursued with the fellowship as the frame of reference (p. 167). Aquinas “elaborates a unified conception of the human good, … of the virtues needed … and of the social relationships through which human goods and the ultimate human good are achieved. It is this account of the human good that provides the premises for Aquinas’s conclusions about … the kind of education that human beings need” (MacIntyre 1998: 98). As vulnerable animals, we have a special responsibility through our language and judgment abilities. Rationality combined with humility and “just generosity” can help us to find what is good for all (MacIntyre 1999: 121). MacIntyre blames the modern “multiversities” for their fragmented and isolated studies and for lacking a reasonable idea of the university as a meaningful whole. According to Aquinas, the ends of education can be correctly developed “only with reference to the final end of human beings” (MacIntyre 2009: 95). How we understand the meaning of the universities is connected to how we understand the universe and ourselves within it. A dialogue with philosophy and theology is necessary here. In this section, I have emphasized how Aquinas passed on a balanced Christian humanism, which understands human beings as free agents seeking harmony between faith and reason (see Figure 4.4). This view has inspired Roman Catholic schools and studies, especially within intellectual education. There are interesting similarities between Aquinas and Comenius. Both represent a conception of education that sees the aim of fellowship with God in heaven as a motivation for systematic improvements of life on Earth. Within contemporary philosophy, Alasdair MacIntyre has revealed moral, political, and educational implications of Thomistic thought.

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FIGURE 4.4  Notre Dame Cathedral. (via Getty Images).

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WHAT DOES THOMAS AQUINAS OFFER TODAY’S EDUCATORS? We live in an age of great uncertainty, global communication, and many mutually exclusive worldviews. A dominant Western worldview relativizes the truth claims of all the others and places the autonomous individual in the center of the world (Wright 2007: 41). Moral traditions that forward the common good tend to be ignored. Popular virtues such as resilience and self-confidence that might support what is morally good are instead invoked to promote the career of the individual (Kristjánsson 2015: 5–7). Those who have responsibility for the upbringing of children and youth may feel confused and hesitant concerning what is best for their children. Many adults back off from letting substantive ideals fill the “house” they live in together with the next generation. They leave the house “swept clean and put in order” (Lk. 11:26), open also to those media and influencers that shape children into consumers. Aquinas presents a substantive ideal for all educators—parents, teachers, and leaders. The ideal combines practical wisdom and divine love: we should live as exemplars for the new generation, expressing moral virtues in a life inspired, motivated, and “warmed” by divine love. Every action, even the seemingly insignificant ones such as a nod or a glance, should be done in wisdom and love. Every action and virtue should be ordered, like tones and rhythms in a beautiful melody, expressing movement toward the ultimate end: seeing and loving God. The ideal is that “every beginning of perfection is ordered toward consummated perfection, which occurs through the ultimate end” (Summa theologiae 1–2, Q 1, A 6, co.). If “each thing naturally desires its ultimate perfection” (Summa theologiae 1, Q 62, A 1, co.), the perfection of human beings presupposes a clarification of our natural human possibilities. The Catholic moral theologian Jean Porter argues that “the free human being is one who has made the roles that she occupies into a part of herself by her conscious choice to accept them, and who takes responsibility for the direction of her own life by fitting those roles together into an orderly life-plan that is the goal of her life” (1990: 82). The cardinal virtues coordinated by prudentia (practical wisdom) provide a foundation for this unification, and prudentia helps us to act in a way that is suitable in each unique situation. However, some options are closed. By the exercise of our free choice, our will is no longer “subject to God” (Summa theologiae 1–2, Q 82, A 3, co.) and, as a result, we have lost “freedom from sin and misery” (Summa theologiae 1, Q 83, A 2, ad 3). Human reason is fallible and should not be the only or primary standard for judging and deciding human action. Like the movement of the ocean is influenced by the properties of water and wind but also by the position of the oceans under the moon, similarly human action should be influenced not only by our own capacities

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and surroundings but also by our position in the universe under God (Summa theologiae 2–2, Q 2, A 3). The combination of caritas and prudentia “is based on the worldview of a Christian tradition where God is the center of the universe and of all that happens in it. The basic criterion for judgement of any action is here: does it unite me with God or not? All other criteria come in addition” (Wivestad 2008: 315). Human beings receive caritas as a gift of God, and “from the desire for the end it [caritas] conceives the acts of the other virtues by commanding them” (Summa theologiae 2–2, Q 23, A 8, ad 3). Caritas is distinguished from the Aristotelian understanding of love as friendship. Aristotelian friendship is a preferential and reciprocal love. Caritas is not preferential and does not maintain only that you should do good things to others in the same way as they do good to you. Caritas is the same kind of love as the love with which God loves all human beings, even those who are not loveable. Aquinas calls this love amicitia caritatis (the friendship of unconditional love). It is a friendship extended to all those whom God loves, “enemies” and “sinners” included (Summa theologiae 2–2, Q 23, A 1, ad 2, 3). Friendship with God, therefore, encompasses a love of yourself, your body, and your friends and foes. All should be loved with the same love that God has for all (Summa theologiae 2–2, Q 25, A 4–6, 8). Caritas is not primarily a feeling but rather an active condition for action, a readiness to do what is good to those who need your help. Through caritas a man “wills to fulfill the will of his neighbor as he wills to fulfill his own will” (Summa theologiae 2–2, Q 29, A 3, co.). Caritas must be supplemented by prudentia, an active condition for quick judgment of time, place, and situation, which activates the relevant moral virtues. If time allows, a person should deliberate on possible alternatives. Normally we will first help those who are close to us, but “in some instances a stranger should be helped more than even one’s own father—say, if the stranger is in extreme need and one’s father is not suffering such great need” (Summa theologiae 2–2, Q 31, A 3, co.). The combination of caritas and prudentia can be an attractive challenge even to those who deny the existence of God or have chosen other ultimate ends than “knowing and loving God.” For example, the moral philosopher André Comte-Sponville welcomes “a love that is freed of the ego and that frees us from it” (2003: 286). Further, it is an important educational challenge today to “exist in the world without considering oneself as the center, origin, or ground of the world” (Biesta 2017: 8). However, can we become free from our egoism without a loving relation with God? As human beings, we have a disorder also in our will (Summa theologiae 1–2, Q 82–3). If we trust absolutely in our own efforts to live by charity, both as individuals and as collectives, we will be tempted to hide our failings from others and ourselves. Our egoism becomes masked and concealed.

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According to Aquinas, it is impossible for human beings by their own effort to acquire and live by caritas (Summa theologiae 2–2, Q 24, A 2, co.). Human beings receive God’s gifts as undeserved gifts. Even the condition for receiving God’s gifts is itself a gift (Wivestad 2011). When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan and encouraged the listeners to act like the Samaritan (Lk. 10:37), he asked them to emulate a person who did not belong to the “chosen people.” Nobody knows how God can work through other people. If an atheist or a Hindu does works of caritas, “we should follow their example as well” (Wivestad 2008: 319). What can be the educational consequences of being open to living by caritas? An analogy can clarify: imagine that you live in a cold world where you are freezing. If you are always in this cold condition, you easily feel despair and become self-centered. But if you can regularly withdraw for a while into a warm room, you can relax, get in order within yourself, be motivated to do good to others, and even receive strength to face hatred and violence. Receiving caritas is like living in a warm room. Aquinas describes the fruits of caritas as internal harmony, joy, peace, compassion, kindness, caring for others, and education of others (Wivestad 2008: 316–17). Internal harmony can help adults to have less fear in unpredictable situations, to be free to “pay forward” the gifts that they have received themselves and become free from the need to be thanked. Children need adults to participate in their joys and sorrows and attend to their bodily and spiritual needs. All children need to be seen as persons and to be trusted. We should feel their vulnerability and provide encouragement and hope where a child is distressed or anxious. We should be inventive and open to the search for new ways to help children with learning difficulties, staying patiently in relationship with a child even when our proposals and efforts are met with indifference, harsh words, or ingratitude. In all relations with children, both within formal and informal education, caritas can open good possibilities and give direction to the moral virtues. Prudentia helps the adult in each unique situation to find the most appropriate time, place, and way of doing good and avoiding evil. Aquinas offers an understanding of how love and wisdom can improve education. In this section, I have suggested that this can have something important to say to all educators, whether or not they call themselves Christians.

CONCLUSION The writings of Aquinas challenge education theory to see the continuity between informal and formal education as a combination of upbringing and teaching ordered toward the ultimate aim of human beings. Educatio as rearing starts when a couple is prepared to take responsibility for the eventual offspring of their union. The upbringing of the child continues in the family,

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the neighborhood, the church, and the schools, today with assistance from the political system and the workplaces. In all these institutions, adults should help each other to receive caritas and acquire prudentia as well as the other active conditions for moral action, helping each other to practice what is best for the new generation. The task of teachers is to represent their disciplina to their “disciples” as a possible way to the true and the good, encouraging all to use their own inner light. This process starts in the home, and the home should coordinate the eductio, the leading of the child and youth out of a self-centered life and toward the free choice of a life ordered by the ultimate end: seeing and loving God. The aim is eruditio, through which persons in all ages aim to break out of their raw possibilities and actualize their humanitas in communion with Jesus Christ, “whom now beneath a veil we see.”

NOTES 1

2 3 4

5 6 7 8

This is the last verse of the hymn “Adoro te devote.” The hymn is sung to a Gregorian chant from around 1200 on YouTube. The English translation by James Woodford (1820−85) is taken from The New English Hymnal (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1986/2003), no. 308. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologiae is cited according to part 1–2, question 109, article 1, reply to objection 1. The translation is from Aquinas (2018). The abbreviation co. refers to the corpus, Aquinas’ main response in the article. The Greek concept hexis, which in Latin is translated as habitus, is a dynamic disposition or state, perhaps best translated as “active condition.” According to Joe Sachs, hexis is “an active condition of the soul” (2002: xiv) in which one is “holding oneself in a certain way” (p. xiii). “The Latin habitus is a perfectly good translation of hexis” (p. xii). Habitus is the perfect passive participle of the verb habere (to have or hold), so it can be translated as a way of “holding” oneself (in German, Haltung). I use the expression “active conditions for action” to describe caritas and prudentia because caritas is not a virtue in the same sense as prudentia. The newest translation of Summa theologiae, Aquinas (2018) is not completed, so citations after part 2–2, question 87 are taken from Aquinas (1947b). Si autem nullam auctoritatem recipiunt, oportet ad eos convincendos, ad rationes naturales confugere. https://www.corpusthomisticum.org/q04.html#67621 Cum autem educatio et instructio proli a parentibus debeatur per longum tempus; exigit lex naturae ut pater et mater in longum tempus commaneant ad subveniendum communiter proli ... https://www.corpusthomisticum.org/snp4027.html#19980 Ruditatis antidotum eruditio est, quâ in scholis ingenia imbui debent: sed ita, ut eruditio vera, ut plena, ut lucida, ut solida sit.

REFERENCES Primary sources Aquinas, Thomas (1947a), Compendium of Theology, trans. Cyril Vollert, London: B. Herder Book Co. Available online: https://isidore.co/aquinas/Compendium.htm (accessed October 23, 2020).

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Aquinas, Thomas (1947b), The Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, New York: Benziger Brothers. Available online: http://www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/home.html (accessed October 23, 2020). Aquinas, Thomas (1955–7), Contra gentiles: On the Truth of the Catholic Faith, ed. Joseph Kenny, New York: Hanover House. Available online: https://isidore.co/ aquinas/english/ContraGentiles3a.htm (accessed October 23, 2020). Aquinas, Thomas (2001), The De malo of Thomas Aquinas, trans. Richard Regan, ed. Brian Davis, Oxford: Oxford University Press [Database]. Aquinas, Thomas (2005), Disputed Questions on the Virtues, trans. E. Margaret Atkins, ed. Thomas Williams, New York: Cambridge University Press. Aquinas, Thomas (2013), “S. Thomae de Aquino Opera omnia,” database provided by Enrique Alarcón, Pamplona: Universitatis Studiorum Navarrensis. Available online: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html (accessed October 23, 2020). Aquinas, Thomas (2013), “De veritate,” in S. Thomae de Aquino Opera omnia, ed. Enrique Alarcón. Available online: https://www.corpusthomisticum.org/qdv11. html#54210 (accessed October 23, 2020). Aquinas, Thomas (2018), New English Translation of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae (in progress), trans. Alfred J. Freddoso. Available online: https://www3. nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/TOC.htm (accessed October 23, 2020). Aristotle (1985), Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Comenius, Johann Amos (1631/1643), Janua linguarum reserata/The Gate of Languages Unlocked. Comenius, Jan Amos (1887), The Orbis pictus, New York: C. W. Bardeen. Available online: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28299 (accessed October 23, 2020). Comenius, Jan Amos (1970), “Orbis sensualium pictus,” in Jaromír Červenka, Jiří Kyrášek, and Stanislav Králík (eds.), Dílo Jana Amose Komenského, Vol. 17, 53–300, Prague: Academia. Plato (1966), “Euthypro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo,” trans. Harold North Fowler, London: Heinemann. Available online: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus %3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DEuthyph (accessed October 23, 2020). Plato (2000/2005), The Republic, trans. Tom Griffith, ed. G.R.F. Ferrari, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quintilian (1920), Institutio oratoria, trans. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Available online: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:latinLit:phi1002. phi0011.perseus-eng1:1 (accessed October 23, 2020).

Secondary sources Aertsen, Jan A. (1993), “Aquinas’s Philosophy in Its Historical Setting,” in Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, 12–37, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Alexander, Hanan and Terence H. McLaughlin (2003), “Education in Religion and Spirituality,” in Nigel Blake, Paul Smeyers, Richard Smith, and Paul Standish (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Education, 356–73, Malden, MA: Blackwell. Biesta, Gert J.J. (2017), The Rediscovery of Teaching, New York: Routledge. Boland, Vivian (2007), St. Thomas Aquinas, Continuum Library of Educational Thought, London: Continuum. Boland, Vivian (2012), “St Thomas Aquinas: What Is His Relevance to Catholic Education Today?,” International Studies in Catholic Education, 4 (2): 122–35.

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Bremer, Dieter (1989), “Paideia,” in Joachim Ritter, Karlfried Gründer, and Rudolf Eisler (eds.), Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Vol. 7, 36–9, Basel: Schwabe. Carr, David (2003), Making Sense of Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Theory of Education and Teaching, London: RoutledgeFalmer. Cobban, Alan B. (1975), The Medieval Universities: Their Development and Organization, London: Methuen. Comte-Sponville, André (2003), A Short Treatise on the Great Virtues: The Uses of Philosophy in Everyday Life, trans. Catherine Temerson, London: Vintage. Copleston, Frederick (1955), Aquinas, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Curren, Randall R. (2000), Aristotle on the Necessity of Public Education, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Curren, Randall R., ed. (2003), A Companion to the Philosophy of Education, Malden, MA: Blackwell. Curren, Randall R. (2018), “4. Augustine and Aquinas,” in “Education, History of Philosophy of,” in Tim Crane (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https:// doi.org/10.4324/9780415249126-N014-1. Davies, Brian (2014), “Aquinas on Teaching and Learning,” New Blackfriars, 95 (1060): 631–47. Dunne, Joseph (1993), Back to the Rough Ground: ‘Phronesis’ and ’Techne’ in Modern Philosophy and in Aristotle, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Elders, Leo J. (2009), “St. Thomas Aquinas on Education and Instruction,” Nova et Vetera, 7 (1): 107–24. Elias, John L. (2002), “Medieval Christian Education,” in A History of Christian Education: Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Perspectives, 33–65, Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing. Grisez, Germain (2008), “The True Ultimate End of Human Beings: The Kingdom, Not God Alone,” Theological Studies, 69: 38–61. Healy, Nicholas M. (2003), Thomas Aquinas: Theologian of the Christian Life, Great Theologians Series, Aldershot: Ashgate. Herdt, Jennifer A. (2008), Putting on Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hogan, Pádraig (1995), The Custody and Courtship of Experience: Western Education in Philosophical Perspective, Dublin: Columba Press. Kierkegaard, Søren (1980), The Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kretzmann, Norman and Eleonore Stump (1993), “Introduction,” in Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, 1–11, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kristjánsson, Kristján (2015), Aristotelian Character Education, Routledge Research in Education, New York: Routledge. MacIntyre, Alasdair (1988), Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, London: Duckworth. MacIntyre, Alasdair (1998), “Aquinas’s Critique of Education: Against his Own Age, Against Ours,” in Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Philosophers on Education: Historical Perspectives, 95–108, London: Routledge. MacIntyre, Alasdair (1999), Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues, London: Duckworth.

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MacIntyre, Alasdair (2009), God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition, Lanham, MD: Sheed and Ward Book/Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. MacIntyre, Alasdair (2016), Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maritain, Jacques (1943), Education at the Crossroads, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Mollenhauer, Klaus (1983/2014), Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing, trans. Norman Friesen, New York: Routledge. Mooney, T. Brian and Mark R. Nowacki (2014), “The Metaphysical, Epistemological, and Theological Background to Aquinas’ Theory of Education in the De magistro,” Pacifica, 27 (3): 315–38. Murphy, Daniel (1995), Comenius: A Critical Reassessment of his Life and Work, Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Newman, John Henry (1899/1996), The Idea of a University, ed. Frank M. Turner, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Noddings, Nel (2016), Philosophy of Education, 4th edn., Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Overmyer, Sheryl (2013), “Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Pagan Virtues? Putting the Question to Jennifer Herdt’s Putting on Virtue,” Journal of Religious Ethics, 41 (4): 669–87. Peters, R.S. (1970), “Education and the Educated Man,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 4 (1): 5–20. Pinckaers, Servais-Théodore (2002), “The Sources of the Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas,” in Stephen J. Pope (ed.), The Ethics of Aquinas, 17–29, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Porter, Jean (1990), The Recovery of Virtue: The Relevance of Aquinas for Christian Ethics, Louisville, KY: Westminster/J. Knox Press. Ramaekers, Stefan and Judith Suissa (2012), The Claims of Parenting: Reasons, Responsibility and Society, London: Springer. Sachs, Joe (2002), “Introduction, Notes, and Glossary,” in Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Joe Sachs, Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing/R. Pullins. Schockenhoff, Eberhard (2002), “The Theological Virtue of Charity,” in Stephen J. Pope (ed.), The Ethics of Aquinas, 244–58, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Smith, David I. (2017), John Amos Comenius: A Visionary Reformer of Schools, Camp Hill, PA: Classical Academic Press. Stein, Edith (1933/2004), “Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person: Vorlesung zur philosophischen Anthropologie neu bearbeitet und eingeleitet von Beate BeckmannZöller,” in Klaus Mass and Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz (eds.), Edith Stein Gesamtausgabe: Schriften zu Anthropologie und Pädagogik, Vol. C 14, 1–172, Freiburg: Herder. United Nations (1948), “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. Available online: http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html (accessed October 23, 2020). Williams, Thomas (2005), “Introduction, Chronology, Further Reading,” in E.M. Atkins (ed.), Thomas Aquinas: Disputed Questions on the Virtues, ix–xxxv, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Wivestad, Stein M. (2008), “The Educational Challenges of Agape and Phronesis,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 42 (2): 307–24. Wivestad, Stein M. (2011), “Conditions for ‘Upbuilding’: A Reply to Nigel Tubbs’ Reading of Kierkegaard,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 45 (4): 613–25. Wivestad, Stein M. (2020), “Education as e-duction and pro-duction,” in Patric Howard, Tone Sævi, Andrew Foran, and Gert Biesta (eds.), Phenomenology and Educational Theory in Conversation: Back to Education Itself, 227−38, London: Routledge. Woo, Jeong-Gil (2016), “Revisiting ‘Orbis Sensualium Pictus’: An Iconographical Reading in Light of the Pampaedia of J. A. Comenius,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 35 (2): 215–33. Wright, Andrew (2007), Critical Religious Education, Multiculturalism and the Pursuit of Truth, Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

CHAPTER FIVE

Humanism and Education L aura D e S isto

This chapter examines how the educational program introduced by the early Italian Renaissance humanists succeeded in transferring its relevance from the classroom into the sociohistorical world of the fifteenth century.1 Known as the studia humanitatis, this educational program is the precursor to humanistic studies we encounter in many academic settings today. Briefly, the Italian Renaissance humanists envisioned an intrinsic connection between knowledge and the nature of reality, particularly our human reality. Through an education that raised and explored theories concerning human existence within the cosmos and the human form of the “good life,” students of the studia humanitatis were introduced to a curriculum that reinforced the principle that only when the pursuit of knowledge brings together the cultivation of one’s scholastic aptitude with the development of a sense of social responsibility is one’s individual and communal potential truly fulfilled. It was fundamentally important to the humanists, therefore, that their educational program enabled its students to engage in complete lives as enlightened and constructive members of society. To understand the studia humanitatis, it is necessary to address the philosophical concepts that drove the establishment and practice of the humanists’ educational program. The first section of this chapter provides a brief overview of the Italian Renaissance and some of the most noteworthy humanist scholars and educators. The second section focuses upon the manner in which the humanists characterized humankind’s relationship to fate, fortune, and free will. The third section of the chapter examines the studia humanitatis in terms of its philosophical underpinnings, curricular components, and establishment within the educational landscape of the Italian Renaissance. The fourth section

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describes the principle of civic humanism in light of the Renaissance debate concerning the form of the “good life”—whether it be active, contemplative, or a combination of the two. Building upon these points, I consider whether the humanists’ educational philosophy is applicable to the educational context of our contemporary society. If the humanists created a program of study that corresponded to their understanding of the nature of humanity, do their theories have a significance for human experience as a whole? If so, what might we learn from their insights?

ITALIAN RENAISSANCE HUMANISM The Renaissance was indeed a crucial period … in the history of the view of the life of man. For it was precisely during this time that the horizons … began to alter … [A] complete change in the relationships between man and the ultimate realities, between man and things, between man and human institutions took place. And all this bore witness to a total change in man’s attitude. (Garin 1969: 2)2

The dates by which we may classify or define the Italian Renaissance are debatable. For the purposes of this chapter, the range 1350 to 1600 will suffice. This time frame typically is separated into two distinct stages: the early Renaissance begins with the career of Petrarch and proceeds through to the final decades of the fifteenth century, while the late (or High) Renaissance carries into the beginning of the Reformation. The primary focus of this chapter will be on the early Renaissance. The early Italian Renaissance is important because it is during this period that we see the nature and priorities of human existence redefined and intellectual developments emerge that set important precedents for the late Renaissance and modernity as a whole.3 The early Renaissance began as the bourgeoisie gained economic independence and social status in the middle of the fourteenth century. Mercantilism became an essential aspect of a city’s economic well-being, and a new form of wealth materialized that was not controlled and accumulated solely for the benefit of the aristocracy. Resulting from this economic shift was a slight relaxation of social roles at the highest level. New families, such as the Medicis of Florence, appeared in elite and powerful circles, primarily due to the ingenuity and diligence of one or two generations of industrious patriarchs (Batkin 1990: 9). Along with these economic and social alterations came political adaptations and an increase in demand for a class of educated politicians. In accordance with this need, schools and universities began to prepare some students for more “useful” ends. Although the trend toward pragmatic intellectualism grew in popularity, the importance of religion as a cultural institution remained.4 The scholars of the time envisioned humanity’s relationship with God in a way that allowed

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for a certain type of individual “self-centeredness” (Ralph 1973: 16–17). This unique metaphysical position of humans poised between the natural and divine aspects of the universe will be discussed in the section that follows. For now, it is important to note that among the humanists the central calling of the Christian faith gradually received a new interpretation, focusing upon one’s individual contribution toward actively promoting the divine good within the earthly realm. Using “humanism” to characterize the main intellectual movement of the Italian Renaissance implies that there were people during that era who may easily be classified as “humanists.” According to scholars such as Paul Oskar Kristeller (1964: 3), humanists are quite simply those who took part in teaching the studia humanitatis. However, according to other scholars of the period, “in addition to these professional humanists, there were a great many other persons in their penumbra (so to speak) of humanism: men who had had a humanistic education and retained throughout their lives an interest in the humanities” (Griffiths, Hankins, and Thompson 1987: 8).5 This broader interpretation of “humanism” embraces a larger group of individuals who may be considered “humanists.” Although Kristeller’s explanation of a “humanist” may be compelling in its clarity and simplicity, it creates too constricting a definition for the overlapping nature of Renaissance professional careers. A number of Renaissance moral philosophers and statesmen never actually served as educators yet made significant contributions to the intellectual body of knowledge that is associated with Italian Renaissance humanism. When one attempts to identify the founding figures who may be credited with spearheading the cultural and intellectual movement of Italian Renaissance humanism, one cannot help but turn to Francesco Petrarch (1304–74) and Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406). Their influence during the first decades of the early Renaissance is difficult to ignore. Through their writings and the influence of their personal relationships, particularly with the younger generation (Seigel 1968: 63), these men established the initial impetus of change from medieval thought, which accordingly allowed for the growth and development of humanism during the fifteenth century. Neither is notable for a concise or well-defined expression of “humanism,” and it is possible to find inconsistencies in their writing,6 but this is to be expected from thinkers who were beginning to move away from the dominant mode of perceiving and judging the world around them. Among the other more notable early Renaissance humanists were Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444; see Figure 5.1), Lorenzo Valla (1407–57), Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459), Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72), and Giannozzo Manetti (1396–1459). Beginning with Bruni, educational treatises focusing on curricular discussions were introduced into the body of humanist work. Bruni’s particular area of interest was the promulgation of a working knowledge of Greek. An active participant in the philological movement of the Renaissance,

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FIGURE 5.1  Leonardo Bruni. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images).

Bruni also completed direct translations of Aristotelian texts (Seigel 1968: 99). The contributions made by Valla, Bracciolini, Alberti, and Manetti focused on themes such as the dignity of man and his function within the civil construct of the earthly society. Also worthy of attention are the individuals who are credited for being humanist educators, such as Guarino Veronese (also known as Guarino

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Guarini; 1374–1460), Pier Paolo Vergerio (1370–1444), and Vittorino da Feltre (1378–1446; see Figure 5.2). These men traveled throughout northern Italy, educated the noble and middle classes in private schools they founded with their own earnings, and wrote comprehensive treatises on the definition and significance of the studia humanitatis.7

FIGURE 5.2  Vittorino da Feltre. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images).

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In the final decades of the fifteenth century, at the advent of the late Renaissance, a shift was seen in the central focus of the prominent humanists, especially for those who were living and studying in Florence. For the most part, the early Renaissance humanists sought to emulate directives promoted in Aristotle’s works concerning the active application of intellectual knowledge toward the common good and the responsibility humans have for civic involvement. With the resurgence of Platonic studies in Florence, marked by the establishment of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Platonic Academy, the value of the contemplative life received more consideration, and new fonts of metaphysical discussions sprang forth. Despite this transition, philosophers such as Marsilio Ficino (1433–99), Pico della Mirandola (1463–94), and Pietro Pomponazzi (1462–1525)—who was not a member of the Academy but also exhibited a tendency toward metaphysical discourse—may still be considered “humanists” due to the focus of their work. The “active life” advocated by Salutati and exemplified by humanists such as Alberti transformed into a newfound emphasis on life dedicated to “introspective activity,” which expanded the conversations about humankind’s dignity and power. With such an array of different scholars, educators, and statesmen associated with Italian Renaissance humanism, it is easy to see why “humanism” has been interpreted in various ways. Notable in its promotion of a general “cultural program and ideal” (Kristeller 1990: 25), Italian Renaissance humanism contains an interwoven body of thought and activity that encompasses the intellectual and cultural developments of approximately two hundred years. As Kristeller suggests, If we compare the work of different humanists, we are led to the conclusion that they held a great variety of opinions and ideas, and that their common denominator is to be found in an educational, scholarly, and stylistic ideal, and in the range of their problems and interests, rather than in their allegiance to any given set of philosophical or theological views. (Kristeller 1964: 4) The educational ideals common among the humanists were influenced by, and even arguably resulted from, the philosophical theories that were characteristic of the Renaissance. One of the possible reasons why Renaissance humanism remains so difficult to define is the extent to which it was mutually dependent upon and influenced by the dynamics of the social, political, and economic forces of the times. As such, Renaissance humanism was unable to maintain the simple purity of one theoretical ideal. Its boundaries became blurred as it developed out of and entered into the living body of Italian Renaissance culture. Notwithstanding the differences among the humanists, they are united insofar as they contributed to the intellectual paradigm shift that serves to differentiate the Renaissance from the Middle Ages. As Garin notes,

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Between the beginning of the fourteenth century and the end of the fifteenth, society’s equilibrium was disturbed. Humanists, artists, artisans, and men of action replaced old medieval habits by a new impetus, new ideas, and a new ferment … In a complex and disconcerting crisis new ideas and new theories were evolved. An old way of seeing reality disappeared and a new way emerged. (Garin 1969: xii–xiii) This period of self-determination reflected an empowered interpretation of human beings’ capabilities in relation to the world around them. This new understanding of reality allowed for the active pursuit of groundbreaking advancements in the political, cultural, and intellectual environment of the times. In this equation, education maintained the essential role of providing a broad yet complete foundation for achieving such a goal (Grendler 1989: 410). Students of the educational teachings of Renaissance humanism became intellectually enlightened as to their metaphysical capacity to utilize their will to control their destinies as well as about the conduct by which one engages in a virtuous life. For the humanist philosophers, the studia humanitatis did more than develop rational skills; they also contributed to the attainment of a higher good—the Renaissance ideal of a metaphysically great, intellectually enlightened, and socially responsible individual.

DIGNITY OF MAN How marvelous and how great is the dignity of the human body, how great and sublime is the soul, and how great and outstanding is the excellence of the fully constituted man. (Manetti, quoted in Fallico and Shapiro 1967: 99–100)

Emerging from an era in which the “human” carried a negative connotation, implying concepts such as unavoidable sinfulness and pervasive imperfection, the people of the Renaissance began to view humanity in an altogether new light. As individual power and control over economic well-being and social standing increased, the humanists’ thoughts concerning the inherent potential of man flourished (Bec 1975: 14). For some humanists, it was not necessary to look further than humankind as a natural creation to find its inherent grandeur. Giannozzo Manetti is noted for his opinions concerning the excellence and beauty of human beings. Manetti promotes the inborn magnificence of humanity through an incorporation of philosophical studies of human dignity (both Aristotelean and Socratic in nature) with his Christian convictions concerning God’s paternal relationship to humankind (Garin 1965: 59). In his work On the Dignity and Excellence of Man (1452), Manetti directly responds to Pope Innocent’s treatise On the Misery of Human Existence, citing a passage from the pope’s work that states “Man is born naked, and he returns. He comes poor and departs poor” (quoted in Fallico and Shapiro 1967: 91). Manetti replies by claiming,

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It was necessary for man to be born in this way, precisely because of his grace and beauty … Precisely because of the excellence of our nature, it could not happen otherwise; and even if it had been otherwise, Nature would never have left the human body, the most beautiful, and without doubt the most marvelously accomplished of all her works, hidden under some covering. (Manetti, quoted in Fallico and Shapiro 1967: 91) Although he appreciates the qualities granted to humans in their natural state, Manetti praises humanity for more than its external beauty. In response to Pope Innocent’s claim that the production of human waste places us lower than trees, whose fruits are sweet and perfumed, Manetti asserts that “we must consider human fruits to consist in such things as acts of the intellect and the will; for it is these which man, by his nature, is born to produce” (Manetti, quoted in Fallico and Shapiro 1967: 92). For Manetti, humanity’s honorable essence also lies in the intellect, actualized through the utilization of free will. For scholars such as Manetti, humankind’s inherent honor is made evident through the cultivation of our rational abilities. The realization of human potential as such does not result from the simple process of natural development but is engaged through the conscious efforts of individuals. Therefore, the laudable nature of humankind is based upon individual activity. Such responsibility cannot be placed upon the shoulders of humans without the belief that action is the result of a freely chosen decision (Griffiths, Hankins, and Thompson 1987: 6). The conviction that each individual person is powerful in virtue of their capacity for freely determined acts of the will opens the door for selfish egoism. Since humans have control over their own actions, they are free to choose to be remarkably generous toward others or horrendously cruel. Aware of this possible ramification of free will, the humanists developed an ideal that served to guide the intentional acts of the fully actualized man. The concept of the uomo universale, or the universal man, emerged as a composite of personal ability and social awareness (Kristeller 1990: 44). Also referred to as the uomo completo (the complete man), this model of the human individual was realized through humanist educational efforts that developed people who recognized their moral responsibility to contribute to the good of society and who were capable of achieving such a goal. According to the humanists’ understanding of human nature, human beings are endowed by God with a trait that differentiates them from all other aspects of nature. This characteristic is best described by what we now refer to as “consciousness.”8 Aware of themselves and their surrounding world, human beings are capable of rational thought concerning their observations as well as action determined by the dictates of their reason. Therefore, a human being’s consciousness is manifested through acts of free will. The belief in free will is founded upon a faith in the fulfillment of God’s intentions as sanctioned through internal rather than external forces. For many of the Italian humanists,

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the divine, which is present in humanity, is revealed through humanity itself. Humanity does not create or control God but exemplifies God when it flourishes. Lorenzo Valla’s De libero arbitrio (On Free Will, c. 1436) may be used to highlight this point. The work is written as a dialogue between Valla and his scholarly friend Antonio Glarea. Throughout the discussion, Valla “sets out to answer [Antonio’s] question whether God’s foreknowledge and the freedom of human will are compatible” (Kristeller 1964: 26) through responses such as this: Because God foreknows an action of man does not mean that his action is necessitated, because he may perform it quite willingly—and what is voluntary cannot be necessitated … I do not understand why it should seem to you that God’s foreknowledge necessitates our will and our actions. In fact, if foreknowledge determined the actual being of the thing foreknown, knowledge should similarly determine the actual being of the thing known. However, if I judge you correctly, you will never say to me that a thing is because you know it is. You know, for example, that it is now day; but is it day because you know it? Or do you know it because it is day? … Now, if man’s foreknowledge is not the cause of something occurring, neither is God’s. (Valla, “On Free Will,” quoted in Fallico and Shapiro 1967: 47–8) In other words, that God knows what is to befall each individual does not necessarily signify that God controls our fate. Through this interpretation the relationship between God and humans becomes more intimate. According to the humanists, the gift of free will implies a godly trust in human potential to realize the responsibility inherent in the freedom to choose the path along which one’s life shall progress. The Renaissance humanists’ belief in human beings’ capacity for free will alters fortune’s hegemony over fate. No longer prone to the changing tides of fortune as determined through the “divine cosmos,” an individual’s fate is directly related to her actions and deeds. The writings of philosophers such as Ficino, Pico, and Pomponazzi signal the development of the metaphysical ideas that supported this evolving notion of humankind’s distinctive qualities. Ficino and Pomponazzi attempted to achieve this goal through their efforts to reorder the hierarchy of the cosmos, basically placing humans at a central location poised between the natural and divine worlds.9 Pico della Mirandola’s Oratio de hominis dignitate (Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1496) shares his understanding of this hierarchy: At last I feel that I have come to understand why it is that man, the most fortunate of all living things, deserves universal admiration; of what his proper place is in the hierarchy of beings that makes him the envy not only of brutes, but as well of the astral beings and the very intelligences which inhabit the world’s outer limits—a being beggaring belief and smiting the soul of awe. (Mirandola, quoted in Fallico and Shapiro 1967: 142)

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For Pico, the laudable characteristics associated with human beings are made possible through God’s benevolence. Each person’s individual nature is left to be molded by her own deeds, and each person has within herself the potential to be great and divine or base and reprehensible. An individual’s capacity to shape and control her personal reality is unique to humanity and therefore sets humankind apart from the rest of nature as a separate entity that is not altogether earthly (Cassirer 1927/1963: 84–6). Through the philosophical efforts of humanists such as Manetti, Valla, Ficino, and Pico, each dimension of humanity is addressed, every magnificent aspect praised. The beauty of the human form is admired, the uniqueness of the human mind (consciousness) revered, the gift of free will celebrated in its usurpation of “omnipotent” fortune, and a human being’s soul is established as holy in its immortality. The Renaissance humanists were dedicated to affirming that, both physically and metaphysically, humans possess glorious dignity, as created by God and actualized through earthly activity. It is within this context that the model for humanistic education emerges.

STUDIA HUMANITATIS “Only the scholar is never an alien in a foreign land … Wherever we happen to be going culture accompanies us and leads us into a port.” People who are shipwrecked and thrown by the waves upon an unknown shore, are immediately of good cheer when they discover in the sand geometrical figures. And the philosopher among them will greet them with the following words: “Tell my fellow-citizens that parents cannot give better provisions to their children than an education in the liberal disciplines.” (Platina, De falso et vero bono, quoted in Garin 1965: 49–50)

What is most evident in this quote from Bartolomeo Platina (1421–84) is the implied universality of knowledge within human society. At the opening of the passage, Platina states that the scholar, that is, the man who passes his life seeking knowledge, is at home in every land. For this to be true, knowledge must be something that is identifiable everywhere and whose importance continuously is acknowledged. If this is the case, knowledge, for Platina, consists of truths that are perceived to be present and recognizable regardless of social and environmental circumstances. It therefore must relate either to that which is common throughout or to that which permeates above and beyond earthly existence. These elements converge into a Renaissance concept of knowledge that includes considerations of life itself, civilization (which Platina refers to as “culture”), and metaphysics. The “education in the liberal disciplines” advocated by the philosopher at the end of Platina’s quote must, then, be based upon some, or all, of the above aspects of knowledge. In this case, knowledge as a whole must consist of a consolidation of various disciplines.

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According to Benjamin Kohl, “On 30 September 1369 [Coluccio Salutati] employed the term studia humanitatis for the first time in the West since antiquity” (1992: 188). By 1424, this program of study appeared in the schools and universities of the major cities of Italy (p. 200). Without the revival of the study of classic Greek and Latin literature, the studia humanitatis never would have emerged into the forefront of the Renaissance Italian educational scene. Although some ancient texts were available to be studied within medieval universities, humanist scholars beginning with Petrarch found the traditional translations of these works to be imprecise and devoid of the original voices of the authors (Kristeller 1964: 9–11).10 For the Renaissance philologists, the authenticity of the thoughts contained within the ancient literary works depended upon the accuracy of the translation. Through this process of “waking the dead,” the humanists recognized the universality of themes present in the classical texts. Similar to the logic promoted by scholars of the Middle Ages such as Aquinas, humanist scholars defended the pagan authors for their sound insight into social theory and moral philosophy, insofar as the ancients’ beliefs did not contradict religious doctrinal truths (Garin 1975: 25). Many humanists took pains to show that, with regard to existence within the earthly realm, ancient and humanist thinkers shared common views concerning the morally virtuous life. These readings of classical texts influenced the development of an understanding of knowledge in relation to humanity. Interpreting the ancients in this manner, the humanists proceeded to establish the literary and philosophical achievements of the classical world as the backbone of the studia humanitatis. These studies were referred to as the studia humanitatis because they focused upon fundamentally human questions concerning existence itself as well as life within a society. Coluccio Salutati, in his Letter to fra’ Giovanni of San Miniato, explains the early Italian Renaissance humanists’ concept of knowledge: Gli studi umanistici sono fra loro connessi … in modo che non può aversi scienza vera e completa d’una cosa senza l’altra. (The humanistic studies are inter-connected … in a way in which it is not possible to have a true and complete science of one thing without knowledge of another.) (Garin 1975: 24) The studia humanitatis were promoted as the ideal program of study for a person desiring to engage his inherent intellectual abilities and become the model Renaissance citizen. Pier Paolo Vergerio (c. 1368–1444) traveled throughout Italy during his career, which was spent writing educational treatises and promoting the humanist educational program. Vergerio’s first and most important work, De ingenius moribus et liberalibus studiis adulescentiae (On Noble Customs and Liberal Studies of Adolescents), was written from Padua in 1402/3 (Grendler 1989: 118). Dedicated to the development of the complete

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person, Vergerio promoted a humanist education in its most idealized form. The following passage from De ingenius moribus aptly summarizes the beliefs that motivated Vergerio’s work as an educator: We call those studies liberal which are worthy of a free man; those studies by which we attain and practice virtue and wisdom; that education which calls forth, trains and develops those highest gifts of body and of mind which ennoble men, and which are rightly judged to rank next to dignity and virtue. (Vergerio, quoted in Woodward 1897: 102) In addition to continuously striving to stimulate the innate abilities of his students, Vergerio was also dedicated to helping these young minds formulate an identity as citizens of the state (Saitta 1928: 71–2). Although human freedom was considered to be a gift from God, it was not a given. For the humanists, the studia humanitatis provided more than a suitable means by which humans actualized their glorious nature; they were also a necessary factor in the development of individuals who sought to distinguish themselves as uniquely, or fully, human. Recurring themes in the works grouped within the studia humanitatis include the ideal life of an individual, the virtuous life of a citizen, the inherent dignity of humans, and humankind’s metaphysical relationship with fate and fortune. Students of the humanistic program realized their human natures through the spiritual and intellectual enlightenment generated by this program of study. The terms studia humanitatis and artes liberales were used interchangeably among humanist philosophers and educators because these scholars studied subject matter (arts) that opened (freed) the minds of men to recognize their true essence as human beings. Consequently, the “liberal” portion of the phrase “liberal arts” needs to be understood in relation to the active verb “to liberate.” Released into the world without the shackles of predetermined fate and reckless fortune, intellectually capable of realizing humanity’s potential for perfection, the students of the studia humanitatis were therefore liberated into a “free world of free spirits” (Bec 1975: 19). The humanists’ intention in developing and promoting the studia humanitatis was to provide students with something broader and more fundamental than training for a particular professional field. The philosophers of the early Renaissance asserted that there is truth and virtue in the civil, active life. The virtuous life is one that applies the fruits of one’s education to activities geared toward the common good of the society. Therefore, these philosophers sought to educate the whole individual, addressing questions that challenged the intellect and emphasized ideals that deepened one’s commitment to the good of the whole of society. In a letter to Niccolò Strozzi, around 1431 to 1434, Leonardo Bruni addresses this issue while discussing the benefits of a liberal education:

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Let your studies have two aspects: first, an expertise in literature that shows great diligence and learning, not the usual mediocre competence … Second, a thorough acquaintance with those subjects that are related to life and behavior which are called the humanities (studia humanitatis) because they become a man, and perfect him. In this branch of knowledge, let your acquaintance be so wide, varied, and extensive that you omit nothing that appears to pertain to the ordering and enhancement of life and to your reputation … But if, as I hope, you should achieve this excellence, what riches can there be compared to the rewards of the humanities? Granted that the study of the civil law is more saleable, it is still surpassed by the humanities in usefulness and dignity. For all the humanities try to produce good men, than which nothing more useful can be imagined; but civil law has nothing to do with this. (Griffiths, Hankins, and Thompson 1987: 252) In this letter, Bruni makes the distinction between the utility of studying a particular trade (which is considered to be instrumental to living a fruitful life) and the usefulness of the cultivation of an individual’s moral virtue. According to Bruni’s example, someone who chooses to study civil law may live to become materially wealthy. However, such success pales in comparison to the life led by a person who benefits from the studia’s holistic development of human nature and serves the public good through the practice of his training. The studia humanitatis does not merely provide the vehicle by which one attains the “information” crucial for leading a fulfilling life; rather, its students become enlightened with an understanding of the good life, and the fruits of their wisdom are practiced on a daily basis. As the curriculum for the studia humanitatis developed, one of the major components of the students’ work was the perfection of their Latin grammar (Grendler 1989: 205). As a student of Chrysoloras, the most important Greek scholar who traveled to Italy after the fall of Constantinople, Bruni is credited for bringing a knowledge of Greek back into the West. In words that praise the return of this culture in Italy, Bruni notes, “Even though Greek is the source of every doctrine, it is seven hundred years since anyone in Italy has known any Greek” (Garin 1965: 38). Bruni translated Aristotle’s works with the intention that those translations be disseminated among all of its literate members so that they might be exposed to the treasures of the Greek era (Griffiths, Hankins, and Thompson 1987: 163). Owing to his interest in ethics and politics, Aristotle’s writings were considered to be housed in the terrestrial (both physically and intellectually), that is, the “human,” realm and therefore philosophically significant for the early Italian Renaissance scholars and students.11 In addition to their interest in the concepts contained within the works of the Greek and Latin scholars, the humanists sought to draw attention to the manner in which these ancient authors formulated their ideas (Griffiths, Hankins, and Thompson 1987: 4). The humanists perceived ancient texts to be ideal sources

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for stylistic expression and philosophical insight. Through this unity of content and form, substance and style, the ancient masters metaphorically mirrored the essence of human nature—understood as that which exists at a balanced combination of physical prowess and mental aptitude. Classic Greek and Latin works comprised an omnibus of wisdom well suited to the Renaissance humanists’ concept of knowledge. The resurgence of interest concerning these texts never would have occurred if it were not for the philological labors of the humanist scholars of the early fifteenth century. The main subject headings comprising the studia humanitatis consisted of Latin/Greek grammar, poetry, rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy (Grendler 1989: 204–5). The specific texts used from one teacher to the next saw some variation, but the students of the studia humanitatis were at the very least exposed to the writings of Cicero, Virgil, Caesar, Homer, and Aristotle. Given the political and economic forces at play during the Renaissance, it became an essential skill for individuals to communicate deftly and garner trust in their judgment. Many educated members of Italian Renaissance society were dedicated students of the art of poetic expression and the skill of rhetorical discourse. Students of the studia humanitatis spent a good portion of their studies focusing on the techniques used in the works of classical authors. By perfecting their linguistic skills and expression through practice and imitation, it was thought that these students approached a more actualized state of humanity (Kohl 1992: 3). The ability to speak well was valued not only because it exemplified the fulfillment of a purely human faculty; an individual’s capacity to express verbally their rational thoughts clearly and effectively also enabled humans to live in a communal environment run in accordance with wellexpressed concepts of right and wrong. The study of history as a discipline was an innovation particular to the Italian Renaissance humanists.12 The development of a sense of individual consciousness as well as one’s power to control fate through rational decisions logically led to an interest in the study of how people had chosen to act in the past. The humanist scholars perceived their historical situation to be distinct from the preceding historical eras. Although the historical past was regarded as separate from the present of the fifteenth century, the humanists believed themselves to be connected to the protagonists of the ancient world by virtue of being human (Garin 1965: 15). History became the study of classical examples that were applicable to the lives of politicians and laymen alike (Kohl 1992: 20). The students of the studia humanitatis focused on how these historical figures’ decisions and actions influenced their individual and communal well-being. They were also expected to reflect upon how they would and should act in similar situations. Each of three main disciplines under the studia humanitatis—rhetoric, poetry, and history—incorporated moral philosophy into their lessons. The poetic and historical works used within the studia were replete with examples

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of situations from which the students could engage in a discourse concerning principles of moral philosophy. As students examined a passage from Cicero, they also engaged in a study of Latin grammar, poetry, moral philosophy, and (depending on the particular work) possibly history. The result of this approach to education was that the students’ knowledge did not emerge in a disjointed, departmentalized manner. Instead, their intellects developed with an awareness of the interconnectedness of each dimension of their studies. The disciplines of study within the program of the studia humanitatis were not perceived as distinct aspects of the students’ education that were to be addressed at separate times and in separate contexts. Having established an understanding of the curriculum of the studia humanitatis, it is necessary to examine the environments in which these studies took place as well as the people engaged in its educational process. Although the scholars who have been discussed in relation to the philosophical underpinnings of the studia were of Tuscan descent, for example Petrarch, Salutati, and Bruni, the schools that may be credited with spearheading the establishment of the studia humanitatis were located in the Veneto (Kohl 1992: 194). Resulting from a combination of cultural environment and the influence of individual leaders, cities such as Venice, Verona, Padua, and Mantua were renowned for educational establishments that promoted the studia humanitatis. By the middle of the fifteenth century, the curriculum of the studia humanitatis was established in most elementary and secondary schools throughout the northern states of Italy. The majority of these schools were either privately run or established by the government. Some children were educated in institutions run by priests, but this trend diminished as city governments became more secular. Since the studia humanitatis prepared its students to live as enlightened individuals who were dedicated to serving actively their community, government officials and private sponsors considered their monetary support of these schools to be an investment in the future of their cities (Grendler 1989: 13). Parents who planned to have their children educated in the studia humanitatis chose the schools their children were to attend based upon the reputation of the teachers. Even though instruction took place in a classroom environment, the teacher–student relationship maintained a personal level of exchange. The humanist educators were dedicated to the task of aiding each individual student in realizing his inner intellectual and moral potential as a human being. For example, Vittorino da Feltre was indifferent to establishing his own legacy through the promulgation of educational treatises and spent the whole of his energy and enthusiasm in guiding the minds and lives of his students.13 Vittorino established his school, in a villa known as the Casa Giocosa, in Mantua in 1423 (Grendler 1989: 129). For the remainder of his career, he educated the children of the Gonzaga family along with their close friends and social peers as well as children from the lower classes,14 in a strictly run boarding school environment.

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The justification Vittorino had for keeping his students so close at hand was that he wanted to ensure that his pupils were cultivating both their bodies and their minds according to their particular weaknesses and abilities (Grendler 1989: 290, 293). Although he held high expectations for his students, Vittorino was realistic about the differences in natural ability that existed in his schoolrooms. As Woodward explains, The function of man as citizen was that which Vittorino always kept in view. “Not everyone,” he used to say, “is called to be a lawyer, a physician, a philosopher, to live in the public eye, nor has everyone outstanding gifts of natural capacity, but all of us are created for the life of social duty, all are responsible for the personal influence which goes forth from us.” Vittorino remained faithful to his humanistic ideals while also attending to the needs of his students. He was engaged in teaching about life while also taking into consideration the process of learning as it occurred within the living body of his classroom. This balance of the theoretical and realistic dimensions of teaching and learning created an academic environment that prioritized the active process of educating students far beyond a static code of scholastic objectives. The students of the studia humanitatis received an education that prepared them for productive lives in the private and public spheres of Renaissance society. The educational program was geared toward the cultivation of actualized individuals; anyone who possessed the economic means and social connections necessary to engage in its study became a student of the studia humanitatis (Woodward 1906: 9). Even a fortunate number of young women, usually from the privileged classes, were exposed to the basic program of the studia humanitatis; however, their reading list was commonly censored to include only those works deemed suitable for a female’s station in Renaissance society (Grendler 1989: 87–8). After finishing their studies, these students carried positions in society as scholars, teachers, politicians, businessmen, and aristocratic patrons. Insofar as they continued to be engaged in an active study of the meaning of humanity and contributed to the good of the community, the students of the studia humanitatis fulfilled their teachers’ goals by becoming uomini completi. Despite their diverse careers, these students dedicated their lives to realizing their potential as human beings. Therefore, they are to be included in the grouping of individuals who hold the distinction of being Italian Renaissance humanists.

CIVIC HUMANISM An eminent place among the precepts of moral philosophy which define and teach human conduct belongs to those concerned with cities and their government and conservation. For this is a philosophy whose whole purpose is to bring happiness

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to human beings. If it is a good thing for a single individual to attain happiness, how much more glorious it would be for a whole city to achieve the good life. The more wisely good is distributed, the more divine it must be. (Griffiths, Hankins, and Thompson 1987: 162)

Implicit in this quotation from Leonardo Bruni’s “Preface” to his translation of Aristotle’s Ethics are the various dimensions of the Italian Renaissance humanists’ concept of civic humanism. Bruni does not consider the life solely focused on attaining individual fulfillment to be praiseworthy. Rather, he imagines how personal happiness produced by intellectual development must become proportionately greater when individuals direct their knowledge toward action that is beneficial to the good of the whole. Therefore, the life that is most laudable for Bruni is one in which a student of the studia humanitatis dedicates his energy, insight, and virtuous activity to the civic community. Another dimension of the concept of civic humanism present in Bruni’s statement is that of the meaning of happiness in relation to human beings. Bruni does not seek to ascertain the “good life” of either beasts or gods but only of humans. This implicit distinction corresponds to the humanists’ interest in understanding the function of humans as social creatures with the rational capacity to influence the well-being of their community. Bruni maintains that to strive to be fully human is not only both desirable and great but also the only way in which we, as human beings, might reach a state of fulfillment. The question concerning the “good life” of humans is directly tied to the debate concerning the superiority of either the active or the contemplative life. The general position taken by the Italian Renaissance humanists concerning the form of the “good life” has been stated repeatedly throughout this chapter. The active life, understood as that which takes part in contributing to the good of the whole, was considered to be the end toward which all people should strive. As scholars, however, many of the humanists could not ignore the arguments Aristotle put forth in favor of the contemplative life. The most common way in which the humanists dealt with this dilemma was to acknowledge the superior level at which a life directed at contemplation arrived while still stressing the vital importance of the active life. This distinction is most evident when Eugene Rice quotes Bruni as saying, For he does not contemplate in so far as he is man, but so far as he is something divine and separate. As a man he exercises justice, temperance, fortitude and other moral virtues. Consequently, that is the proper life of man which acts through the moral virtues. (1958: 47) On the one hand, the contemplative life is acknowledged for its divine characteristics; on the other, the active life is praised for the beneficial effect it has both on an individual’s virtuous state and on the greater community. As long

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as the products of contemplation are directed at establishing the means by which people might live virtuously within a state, the associated acts of contemplation fall under the purview of an active life. In fact, this is the reason why the studia humanitatis remained at the core of humanist philosophy. Through a synthesis of philosophical thought and moral action, the students of the studia developed their human potential for greatness on all levels, with the final aim of becoming “complete men.” However, for these individuals to achieve fully such a goal, they needed to focus on the well-being of the polis. After all, according to the humanists’ understanding of human nature, it is only as social beings that men can achieve “completion.” Pier Paolo Vergerio, in his work De ingenuis moribus, shares his opinion concerning Aristotle and the contemplative life: Respecting the general place of liberal studies, we remember that Aristotle would not have them absorb the entire information of life: for he kept steadily in view the nature of man as a citizen, an active member of the State. For the man who has surrendered himself absolutely to the attractions of Letters or of speculative thought follows, perhaps, a selfregarding end and is useless as a citizen or a prince. (Vergerio, quoted in Woodward 1897: 110) For Vergerio, no matter how self-sufficient the life of a contemplative man may be, unless it is directed at some greater civic good it is useless to other members of the community and is therefore both selfish and irresponsible. Beyond being merely pragmatic, the active life was perceived by the Renaissance humanists to be natural to man. The reasoning went as follows: the intellect is the aspect of the divine that is present in men; therefore, humans share this characteristic with divine creatures. Since human beings’ more profane qualities are held in common with other natural creatures, the only characteristic that is unique to humanity is that of the will—a trait for which divine entities have no need due to their intimate interaction with truth as well as their complete lack of bestial temptations. Consequently, to act according to one’s will is to engage in the most human of all activities. To be virtuous, willful activity must be directed at the common good. In Della vita civile (On Civic Life; 1528), Palmieri states, Per questo s’afferma di tutte l’opere umane niuna essere più prestante, maggiore, né più degna, che quella se esercita per acrescimento e salute della patria et optimo stato di alcuna bene ordinata republica … Nulla opera fra gli uomini può essere più optima che prevedere alla salute della patria, conservare le città e mantenere l’unione e concordia delle bene ragunate multitudine. (For this it is affirmed that of all human works none can be better, grander, or more worthy than that which is directed at the growth and health of

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the homeland—optimal state of every well-organized republic … No work among men may be more optimal than that which attends to the health of the fatherland, conserves its citizens and maintains the harmony and cohesion of the well-ordered multitudes.) (Palmieri, quoted in Garin 1993: 82) Since civic activity is directed at the ultimate human good, that is, that of the community, this is the very type of activity that is most likely to produce happiness among men. Hence, the proper life of a human is to live actively for the sake of the civic good. It is also important to note, however, that the virtuous cultivation of one’s will depends on an intellectual understanding of human nature, particularly through moral philosophy. Since this was regarded as the natural aim of human life, the actualization of this potential is in itself divine. For this reason, the active life temporarily won the great debate and became a part of humanist ideology. The uomini completi who emerged from the humanistic education of the studia humanitatis recognized that, to realize their inherent potential as individual human beings, they needed to fulfill their natural function as active citizens in a community. Accordingly, the “dignity of man” revolved around the central belief that man has been endowed by God with the ability to control his own fate and fortune through freely determined acts of the will. Related to this idea is the responsibility on the part of human beings to decide whether to realize their inner potential to live a virtuous life. To that end, this ideal individual was said to result from a broad intellectual cultivation, which included the development of a strong sense of dedication toward acting for the “good of the whole,” that is, the benefit of the greater community. To focus on only one of humankind’s traits, such as each individual’s intellectual capacity, was to fail to embody completely the essence of humanity. For this reason, the humanists’ concept of civic humanism incorporated elements of both the active and the contemplative life, a combination that could only exist for human beings due to their position in the hierarchy of the cosmos. Without the final, civic dimension of the humanistic “program,” the overall picture of Italian Renaissance humanism is incomplete. After all, the concepts of the dignity of man and the studia humanitatis rely upon this ultimate aspiration concerning the manner in which human beings are to engage in the “good life.”

CONCLUSION Italian Renaissance schooling met the needs of its own times well, its mix of practical skills and moral values, intellectual creativity and tedium, mirrored the society from which it sprang … it is hardly surprising that Italian Renaissance education continues to attract attention and excite controversy. Its accomplishments and values are part of western civilization. (Grendler 1989: 402)

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FIGURE 5.3  Leonardo da Vinci sketch. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (via Getty Images).

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The early Italian Renaissance humanists’ conception of “the good life” developed out of a particular understanding of the dignity and inherent intellectual potential of human beings. Intellectually cultivated and morally developed, the Renaissance humanists perceived themselves to have realized a more complete form of human nature—the ultimate goal of any human being. The students who emerged from the studia humanitatis were prepared to live as productive and fulfilled members of their communities because the theories and ideas upon which their education was based were manifest in the world around them. As such, the educational program of the humanists succeeded in transferring its significance outside the academic community and into that of the living world, and the scholars and educators who first envisioned the studia humanitatis could not have formulated a better educational program for the needs of their time. It remains for us to ask if there is a place for the studia humanitatis within the context of the modern world. Insofar as the studia humanitatis represents an educational approach that is rooted in a study of life itself, thereby basing its methods upon an understanding of the nature of humanity, it is relevant to today’s, or for that matter, any, society. Does this mean that we should replace the curriculum in our schools with the subject matter and reading lists developed by fifteenth-century scholars? Not necessarily. To state that the humanists shaped their educational program around their understanding of human beings is not to claim that all of their particular theories were correct. Since the time of the Italian Renaissance we have benefited from a wealth of new information concerning how we might understand the human condition and the world around us, especially as those understandings have been informed by the invaluable inclusion of voices and perspectives of marginalized people that were historically silenced and ignored. To discard any consideration of these newfound truths in an educational environment is to perpetuate a denial of our own reality. Indeed, an important lesson that may be taken from the early Italian Renaissance humanists is that an educational system needs to adapt itself constantly to its contextual reality. As long as educators continuously challenge themselves to question the intentions and assumptions behind their approaches to teaching and learning, the field of education will flourish as a vibrant force corresponding to human life and will therefore be relevant. Even if we decide not to follow the specific educational program laid out by the early Italian Renaissance humanist philosophers, at the very least we should be inspired by their dedication to creating an educational environment that corresponded to their lived experiences and priorities.

NOTES 1 To learn more about sixteenth- and seventeenth-century humanist pedagogy in England, a good place to start would be Bushnell’s (1996) A Culture of Teaching: Early Modern Humanism in Theory and Practice.

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2 As this epigraph indicates and as will become apparent in the discussion that ensues, there are times when the words “man” and “men” are used in place of “human” and “human beings.” Given philosophers’ tendency to use language in this manner, it is difficult to avoid the inclusion of gendered language when engaging with this topic and citing their work. I do not want a (valid) feminist critique of this occurrence to distract from the crux of the discussion, nor do I want to ignore the fact that “man” historically has been used in similar discussions precisely because scholars really only had men in mind. Therefore, I shall attempt to achieve an equitable balance by referring to impersonal singular individuals with gender-neutral pronouns whenever possible. 3 “It has been frequently observed that Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was in many respects the nursery for the culture of modern Europe” (Griffiths, Hankins, and Thompson 1987: 3). 4 “The most significant and far-reaching works of philosophy in the Quattrocento are and remain essentially theology. Their entire content is concentrated in the three great problems: God, freedom, and immortality” (Cassirer 1927/1963: 3–4). 5 Scholars of the Renaissance such as Burckhardt, Garin, and Cassirer may also be associated with a broader interpretation of humanism than what Kristeller (1964) asserts. 6 “Petrarch’s life and philosophy revolve around these two points, always struggling to achieve a balance between the requirements of ancient humanism and of medieval religiosity. But he never reaches a resolution, an inner balance between conflicting forces … Petrarch’s inner world is divided between Cicero and Augustine. He must reject on the one hand what he seeks on the other. From the religious viewpoint he belittles what he otherwise considers to be the intellectual content and the intellectual value of life” (Cassirer 1927/1963: 37); “Salutati was a transitional figure. Not a monolithic thinker, his works betray reservations, hesitancies, and vacillations … Yet as a scholar and a thinker Salutati opened the doors that led to the more enduring accomplishments of the fifteenth century” (Stinger 1988: 184). 7 For more information on the careers of Guarino and Vittorino, see Grendler (1989: 133, 140). For more information on Vergerio, see Kohl and Witt (1978: 14–15). 8 “One of the basic motifs of the Renaissance, the motif of ‘microcosm’ … seemed to be a middle ground where the Renaissance concept of nature and its concept of humanitas met and reciprocally determined each other. As a symbol, as an image of nature, man is as much related to nature as he is distinct from it. He embraces nature within himself, without being completely absorbed by it; he contains all its powers, and also adds a specifically new one, the power of ‘consciousness’” (Cassirer 1927/1963: 109). 9 Ficino discusses his concept of the cosmic hierarchy in his “Disputatio Contra Iudicium Astrologorum” (“Disputation Against the Judgments of Astrologers”; 1477); see Kristeller (1937: 22–4). Pomponazzi’s discussion of free will due to man’s place in the universe may be found in Pomponazzi (1556/1997: 23–5, 29–30). 10 “L’Umanisimo comincia con l’esigenza critica, storico-filologica: ridare agli antichi il loro volto, alle parole il loro significato, ai testi la loro voce originaria” (Humanism begins with critical, historical-philological exigencies; giving back to the ancients their nature, to the words their significance, and to the texts their original voice) (Garin 1975: 11). 11 “Bruni depicted Aristotle as a thinker whose intellectual formation was in close harmony with the traditions of rhetoric … ‘He appears to support those things

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which take part in ordinary life and practice, not to invent things which are strange and abhorrent and of no use to it.’ Thus Aristotle was a friend to the life of men as it is actually lived; he was not merely a philosopher’s philosopher” (Seigel 1968: 111–12). 12 “The Renaissance’s most original curricular innovation was teaching history … Petrarch initiated the Renaissance appreciation of history. He saw history as biography and a source of examples” (Grendler 1989: 255). 13 “Wholly dedicated to the cares of teaching, and more anxious to survive in the good fame of his scholars than to secure the immortality of literature, Vittorino bequeathed no writings to posterity” (Symonds 1882: 297). 14 “Sixty poor students were taught, fed, clothed, and provided with implements of study at [Vittorino’s] cost” (Symonds 1882: 294n2).

REFERENCES Primary sources Bec, Christian (1975), L’umanesimo civile: Alberti, Salutati, Bruni, Bracciolini e altri trattatisti del ‘400, Turin: Nuovi Classici Paravia. Fallico, Arturo and Herman Shapiro, eds. (1967), Renaissance Philosophy, Vol. 1: The Italian Philosophers, Selected Readings from Petrarch to Bruno, trans. Arturo Fallico and Herman Shapiro, New York: The Modern Library. Griffiths, Gordon, James Hankins, and David Thompson, trans. (1987), The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni: Selected Texts, Binghamton, NY: The Renaissance Society of America. Kristeller, Paul Osar, ed. (1937), Supplementum Ficinianum, Florence: Olschki. Pomponazzi, Pietro (1556/1997), Gli incantesimi, Florence: La Nuova Italia. Woodward, William Harrison (1897), Vittorino da Feltre and other Humanist Educators: Essays and Versions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Secondary sources Batkin, Leonid M. (1990), Gli umanisti italiani: Stile di vita e di pensiero, Rome: Editori Laterza. Bushnell, Rebecca W. (1996), A Culture of Teaching: Early Modern Humanism in Theory and Practice, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Cassirer, Ernst (1927/1963), The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, trans. Mario Domandi, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Garin, Eugenio (1965), Italian Humanism: Philosophy and Civic Life in the Renaissance, trans. Peter Munz, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Garin, Eugenio (1969), Science and the Civic Life in the Italian Renaissance, trans. Peter Munz, Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Garin, Eugenio (1975), Educazione umanistica in Italia, Rome: Editori Laterza. Garin, Eugenio (1993), L’umanesimo italiano, Rome: Economica Laterza. Grendler, Paul F. (1989), Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning 1300–1600, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kohl, Benjamin G. (1992), “The Changing Concept of the ‘Studia Humanitatis’ in the Early Renaissance,” Renaissance Studies: Journal of the Society for Renaissance Studies, 6 (2): 185–209.

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Kohl, Benjamin G. and Ronald G. Witt, eds. (1978), The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists in Government and Society, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kristeller, Paul Oskar (1964), Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Kristeller, Paul Oskar (1990), Renaissance Thoughts and the Arts, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ralph, Philip Lee (1973), The Renaissance Perspective, New York: St. Martin’s Press. Rice Jr., Eugene F. (1958), The Renaissance Idea of Wisdom, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Saitta, Giuseppe (1928), L’educazione dell’umanesimo in Italia, Venice: La Nuova Italia. Seigel, Jerrold E. (1968), Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Stinger, Charles L. (1988), “Humanism in Florence,” in Albert Rabil, Jr. (ed.), Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, Vol. 1: Humanism in Italy, 175–208, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Symonds, John Addington (1882), Renaissance in Italy: The Revival of Learning, London: Smith, Elder, & Co. Woodward, William Harrison (1906), Studies in Education during the Age of the Renaissance 1400–1600, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER SIX

Women Writers and Education C ristina C ammarano

Since I am a living being with the capacity to learn … (Hrosvitha, Opera, 235)

INTRODUCTION Behold this image: A woman sits at a desk in her room (scriptorium), with her feet on a stool, holding what might be a reed pen whose slanted nib touches a wooden tablet filled with wax (Figure 6.1). The scriptorium cell stands at the center of a beautifully illuminated page. In the smaller cell on the right, a man sits on a higher stool, holding a book in his lap. The man occupies less room than the woman, but his head juts over into the woman’s cell. He is listening, or better, witnessing and assisting. The woman is portrayed as an authority, firmly at the center of the picture and proportionally of larger size than the man on her right. While the man leans in to take a look at the woman’s scriptorium, flames from above surround the writer’s head. The red tongues of flames seem to touch the woman’s eyes, cheeks, and neck. This figure is Hildegard of Bingen as portrayed on the first page of the Rupertsberg Codex, a medieval manuscript of her enormously influential book of visions, Scivias. Even though the original copy was lost in Dresden in 1945, fortunately we do have photographs of its richly illuminated pages. They are invaluable because they were created while Hildegard herself was still alive; therefore, they can be assumed to offer an acceptable and historically

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FIGURE 6.1  Hildegard of Bingen. (Photo by ullstein bild via Getty Images).

accurate representation of her. The above described Scivias Codex Plate One in Figure 6.1 illustrates Hildegard at work, recording her visions, embraced and enfolded by fiery flames, while her trusted secretary, Volmar, documents the experience. This image accompanies the preface to the narrative, depicting

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the moment in which Hildegard felt called by God as a prophetess. The event matches Hildegard’s description, in the preface of Scivias, of her visions in her forty-third year of life. Something should strike the eye of the contemporary reader: Hildegard. Hildegard is depicted as sitting at her desk with pen and paper. She is bent over, intent on recording the content of her visions. Her male secretary assists her, but she is the one writing. This image counters a commonly accepted perception of medieval women’s lack of literacy. Hildegard, like many women of her rank and status in the Middle Ages, knew how to read and write and was highly educated. Rather than dictating to a scribe, the image shows her actively writing by herself. The accepted narrative of the history of thought is that, because women were denied access to education, they did not produce any recorded knowledge. For this reason, their voices are absent from the narrative of history. This account of the role of women in Western intellectual history is, for the most part, realistic. Nevertheless, it is not entirely true, for it is also the case that women were actively engaged participants in the intellectual life of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Their contributions simply have not been acknowledged and recorded in the standard history of Western philosophy. The erasure of women from the history of philosophy is remarkably evident in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The richness and relevance of women’s contributions in these periods are rarely acknowledged, even though it is known that they were making valuable contributions to philosophy, engaged as they were in study, analysis, and dialogue about questions of theology as well as political, moral, and social philosophy. For example, a textbook I used to teach a survey class on Medieval Philosophy did not mention a single woman philosopher. The exception was Héloïse d’Argenteuil, who was discussed in reference to Abelard and the development of his philosophy. As Eileen O’Neill notes, “while explanations are readily available for the disappearance of women philosophers from our histories, no justification exists for the wholesale exclusion of early modern women from the histories of philosophy” (2005: 187).1 The history of this disappearance can be traced back to the nineteenth century, when reasons internal to philosophy caused this excision. Some themes that had traditionally engaged women philosophers, such as the “woman question,” were considered precritical, that is, of anthropological rather than of philosophical interest (p. 186). Moreover, for reasons that this chapter will address, women had so far attended to religious, mystical, utopian, and educational questions, which also were considered beyond the reach of philosophy at a time when philosophy was delineating itself as an academic discipline. In addition to the habitual neglect of the contributions of women to philosophy, the field of philosophy of education seems also to suffer from a certain forgetfulness toward the history of educational philosophy in general:

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these two factors combined have made it possible to read histories of philosophy of education in which the first mentioned woman is Maria Montessori or, in the best cases, Mary Wollstonecraft. As Connie Titone (2007) points out, the absence of a tradition of women thinkers is troubling not only because it is an inaccurate representation but also because it deprives current women of a tradition to lean on or against in developing their own thinking. Titone relates Virginia Woolf’s comments on the trials awaiting women when they have “no tradition behind them, or one so short and partial that it was of little help” (Woolf, quoted in Titone 2007: 131). In the light of this glaring omission of women’s thought from the canon, women of each age have had to “recreate arguments, to re-present and re-prove conclusions” (Titone 2007: 142). In the field of philosophy of education, Jane Roland Martin’s work unequivocally states the necessity of claiming women’s ideas, questions, and works as central to educational philosophy. Her foundational book, Reclaiming a Conversation: The Ideal of the Educated Woman, provides an examination of some canonical educational philosophies read in relation to debates on the conception of women’s nature, social roles, and educability (Roland Martin 1985). Since the 1980s, there has been some effort to retrieve, contextualize, and analyze women’s long-lost works, especially from the seventeenth century onward.2 However, women’s contributions still receive only an “off-hand mention in textbooks” and “their ideas are rarely consistently integrated into the history of ideas and debates” (Titone 2007: 142). Furthering efforts to expand the canon and prospecting new lines of research and study, this chapter outlines the contributions to educational thought made by women over the span of eleven centuries (550–1650 ce) in the territory that is now known as Western Europe. As an overview, it aims mainly at recovering the works of some major figures, highlighting their influence and impact on their times and on the traditional canon. The selection from within the Christian tradition is by no means exhaustive; rather, I attempt to represent various ways that women raised their voices and participated in the intellectual life of their time through their writing. This chapter focuses on texts written by women that have shaped our understanding of educational themes and debates. Before the Industrial Revolution, access to education was denied to most women. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, women who were educated received either a convent education or, if they were from wealthy families, private tutelage. The rise of Western monasticism in the twelfth century proved to be a major factor in providing women with “a source of spirituality, learning and autonomy in the intensely masculinized militarized feudal period” (Waithe 1989: xxi). In monasteries, the curriculum followed the traditional trivium: grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. There were no significant differences in tuition between male and female monasteries. Latin was taught based on biblical and patristic sources as

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well as available surviving pre-Christian texts. There were double monasteries, with women and men in separate convents receiving a similar education, such as Whitby in Northumbria and Helfta in Saxony, which produced four greatly regarded learned women in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: Gertrud and Mechtild of Hackenborg; Mechtild of Magdeburg; and Gertrud of Hefta, known as Gertrud the Great (see Gibson 1989: 115). The twelfth century also saw the rise of the university as a response to increased urban settings and the professionalization of clergy and of judicial systems. Universities, especially in southern Europe, were becoming professional training institutions, dedicated to the education of lawyers and medical doctors as well as to the preparation of clerics. The emphasis on dialectic and on logic leading up to scholastic debates on theology was common in the northern European universities, such as Paris and Oxford, while in Italian universities medical and legal studies were prevalent. Here we find mention of learned women who held professorships. Bettisia Gozzadini (1209–61) was probably the first woman ever to teach in a university. She was a professor of law and had to attend classes dressed like a man because women were not permitted to attend. It is said that Novella d’Andrea, who taught at the University of Bologna a century later, had to teach from behind a veil to hide her outstanding beauty (Eco 2017: 145). Let us keep this detail in mind, as the image of the veil could be taken clearly to accompany much of women’s experience in the millennium we are considering. The eleventh to the thirteenth centuries were characterized by a gradual transition of society and culture to that of modernity. The so called “low Middle Ages” saw a process of cultural and social innovation, by which themes and categories of ancient and early Christian thought were reworked, laying the grounds for early modernity (De Martino and Bruzzese 1994: 56). In a monastery, erudite women could hold positions of importance and have a following, at times even within the male world of the church. It is a testament to women’s ability to carve out spaces of freedom and flourish even within structurally oppressive institutions that they were able to find spaces of autonomy and self-governance within the Catholic Church of their times. Hrosvitha and Hildegard were nuns, as we will see in what follows. Just at the edge of modernity, in New Spain, Sor Juana Inez de La Cruz (1648–95) championed intellectual freedom and self-determination for women from the Convent of St. Jerome. Noble women received private tutelage in their homes. Some women were scholars who wrote in the scholastic tradition, others were mystics whose writing was seen as literary (because it was too emotional) and visionary. There is growing evidence that there were many educated women, knowledgeable and well trained in Latin and the scriptures, who produced works with an educational intention. For instance, Beatrice of Nazareth (1200–1268) journaled

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her spiritual exercises, recording her thoughts, visions, images, metaphors, and revelations. When she became prioress, she revised her notes and composed a sort of handbook for the education of novices and of girls who attended the convent’s school. “These women,” writes Annette B. Mulder-Bakker, “proved to be capable and creative authors, consciously shaping their reading and personal experiences into literary products designed for a specific readership” (MulderBakker and McAvoy 2009: 17). They steered away from scholastic erudition because they thought it “hindered the more direct experience of seeing and knowing. They relied instead on forms of their own” (p. 17). Women produced a wide variety of works drawing from diverse traditions and genres, often with an original and innovative spirit. This chapter presents Christian women writers whose work is of educational interest. The chapter does not address the works of women in the other two monotheistic religions that were practiced in parts of medieval Europe. Judith Baskin notes that “women’s voices are almost completely missing from the documents that constitute our knowledge of medieval Jewish societies” (2013: 48). Their absence simply derives from the fact that these were texts written by men for men, which reveal, mostly accidentally, that women were active and influential members of their communities and played a role in commerce. The rabbinic tradition, nevertheless, emphasized women’s “reduced connection to the divine and their potential for sexual disruption and ritual pollution” (p. 48). In the Islamic tradition, women played an important role in public life and public religious activity. Women could become authorities in the teaching of doctrine and were often mentioned in biographical dictionaries, a major source of information about the social history of Islamic teaching. One of the most respected Sufi mystics was a woman, Rabi’a of Basra (Berkey 2013: 65). Further studies on the contributions of women writers to educational thought in this age will want also to take into account the Judaic and Islamic traditions. For this chapter, I focus on women representing a diversity of traditions and backgrounds in the context of medieval Christian Europe. For each author, I provide a short biography and a list of notable works, and I discuss their thinking either with a thematic focus or in relation to educational questions. Obviously, there are countless other figures that should be here, for example, Julian of Norwich (1342–1416), an anchoress whose Book of Showing contains an elaborate epistemology; and Margery Kempe (1373–1438), who composed the first autobiography in the English language. The purpose of this chapter is simply to counter the absence of medieval and Renaissance women from histories of educational thought by sketching some exemplary figures, with the hope that it will encourage others to want to study more widely on the theme. As such, this chapter engages humbly but also ambitiously in a small step

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of canon creation, attempting to shed light back on a part of our educational intellectual history that is habitually ignored.

WOMEN WRITERS They were pharmacists, scribes, farmers, nurses, seers, preachers, editors, community leaders, heretics, poets, pilgrims, teachers, recluses, heiresses, midwives, sorcerers, bakers, artists, crusaders, migrants, philosophers, and so on. In what follows, I portray only some selected figures. May their stories be an encouragement for readers to want to learn and discover more. Hrosvitha of Ganderscheim (c. 935–1001): Humility and self-assurance Hrosvitha was a Benedictine nun who received a solid education in literature, mathematics, political history, and philosophy, most likely at the court of Otto I (Dronke 1984: 56). She was the first Latin dramatist (not the first female Latin dramatist but the first tout court) of the Middle Ages. Known as a hagiographer and a playwright, she wrote six comedies in Latin to portray ideals of Christian life modeled after the Roman poet-playwright Terence’s works. The comedies were to be performed in the local community, staged with an educated audience in mind. The characters often used an erudite speech and employed both learned references and parody. In the plays, Hrosvitha wove in many philosophical and theological elements, often in the form of mini treatises that accompany the plot or the prayers. For example, in the play Callimachus, a young protagonist describes his love for a girl by answering his friends’ questioning in a dialectical parody, at first giving the definition of universal substance and then moving to individual substance and finally to the specific female individual loved by him. Although she displayed a sophisticated preparation in philosophy, Hrosvitha declared that she did not want to be considered an actual philosopher (Epistolae 2.9, 974C: 108). Peter Dronke (1984: 55–83) traces Hrosvitha’s developing sense of self as a writer, especially in the prefaces to her plays. He points out that the prefaces are both written “in the most artificial prose of which Hrosvitha felt capable” and also are “full of self-revelations”: “the topoi of humility become nearly presumptuous through sheer over-insistence” (p. 64). In the first preface, for example, Hrosvitha offers her work to the reader for corrections and, as she owns the imperfections of her work, she also offers reasons why she did not want to ask for help while she was beginning as a writer: she did not want experts to keep her from composing, and she wanted to be able to follow freely her inner resolution to be a writer. Similarly, she explains her decision to write in hexameter, a meter used in heroic verses and therefore perceived as masculine, on the grounds of her desire not to be considered indolent. Dronke continues, “in this Preface every admission of weakness is inseparable from an

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impulse of self-assurance, or self-reassurance” (p.  66). In Hrosvitha’s works, the requisite humility formulas are tempered by irony, thereby undermining the common conception that women were less intelligent. She writes, God has given me a perspicacious mind, but one that lies fallow and idle when it is not cultivated. That my natural gifts might not be made void by negligence I have been at pains, whenever I have been able to pick up some threads and scraps torn from the old mantle of philosophy, to weave them into the stuff of my own book, in the hope that my lowly ignorant effort may gain more acceptance through the introduction of something of a nobler strain, and that the creator of genius may be honoured since it is generally believed that a woman’s intelligence is lower. (Hrosvitha, quoted in Waithe 1989: 312) Like a beggar, Hrosvitha was able to pick up some scraps “from the old mantle of philosophy” and incorporate them into her own work, hoping to gain approval and recognition despite her womanhood. Hrosvitha believed that, despite differences in social recognition, women and men have equal capacity for wisdom and virtue. She knew that natural talents and disposition need to be cultivated, a conviction shared by countless philosophers of education across space and time. She did indeed believe that every person has a capacity to learn, given by God. She wrote, Hence I do not deny that through the Creator’s grace I have knowledge of the arts potentially (per dynamin) since I am a living being with the capacity to learn; yet I confess I am utterly ignorant in actuality (per energian). I realize that a penetrating imaginative insight was divinely conferred on me, yet when the loving care of my teachers (magistrorum) ended it remained uncultivated. (Hrosvitha, Opera, 235–7, cited in Dronke 1984: 74) In this passage from a letter to her patrons, Hrosvitha learnedly displays philosophical Greek terms, while at the same time she also plays (overplays) the topos of woman’s intellectual inferiority. By adding the Aristotelian Greek terms, she makes the point that in potency she has the knowledge, but she is actually without that knowledge. Her lack of actual knowledge is due not to her womanhood but to the fact that her teachers (male in Latin, she probably received tuition by male teachers and not only by nuns) left. Without teachers, the divine gift of imaginative insight she possessed remained uneducated. We also learn from this passage that Hrosvitha believed that every living being is endowed with the capacity to learn. This capacity remains a potentiality unless cultivated by the loving care of teachers. Teaching will set this potentiality to learn in motion so that it becomes true imaginative, intuitive power. Hrosvitha is included in this chapter even though she did not write about education systematically. We know her as one of the earliest women voices in

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the Middle Ages. She sought to educate through theatre and literature. Her plays displayed an impressive knowledge of classical models and also an outstanding mastery of style and form. She also dared to “bend” Christian hagiography toward comedy and to project an authorial position that seemed denied to women by the scriptures. She did so by, in the same breath, preventively apologizing for her weakness while claiming a right to learn and to teach based on her natural capacity. In Hrosvitha we find a noteworthy model of a woman teacher who negotiated her position of recognized literary and moral authority with outstanding capacity and resourceful irony. In this, she stands as an inspiration to women teachers everywhere who sort out their position daily, negotiating power, knowledge, and social recognition. Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179): Teaching the world through visions and influence Hildegard was the tenth child of Mechtild and Hildebert von Bermersheim. Born in 1098 into a noble family in Alzey (in Rhineland-Palatinate, presentday Germany), she started having visions at age three. She became aware of her difference as a young child, even though she was not able to understand her visions or justify them in terms of a calling. When she was eight years old, she was entrusted by her parents to Jutta of Spanheim, a recluse who lived in a women’s hermitage on the slopes of the mount Disibod. Jutta taught Hildegard, preparing her for life in the Benedictine rule. Hildegard took the vows of the order and the veil in 1113. As a young Benedictine nun, she spent the next decade in communal life shaped by liturgy and prayer of the liturgical hours as well as practical work in the nunnery’s botanical garden, following the Benedictine rule of Ora et Labora (Gössman 1989: 27–65). She received instruction in elementary Latin language and in the readings of the Vulgate Bible and of the Church Fathers. She also had access to the library in the Benedictine monastery next door, which probably provided her with countless occasions for cultural exposure and stimulation. When Jutta passed away in 1136, Hildegard became the prioress and magistra (teacher) of the community of women, responsible for their instruction in the seven liberal arts, for the selection of readings from the scripture and from patristic tradition, and for organizing the liturgical singing. In 1141, she completed the first work of her visionary trilogy, Liber Scivias, which was examined by the synod of Trier in 1147 to 1148 and thus received papal endorsement. A few years later, Hildegard separated her convent from the Benedictine abbey for men and built a new convent on the Rupertsberg near Bingen. This decision was not without conflict, as it had both political motives (support from local nobility in separating from the influence of the very powerful Bishop of Mainz) and possibly church-related divergences (in relation to the monastic reform of Cluny), but it was principally an emancipatory move that put her in full charge of her convent.

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In the 1150s, Hildegard wrote her books on natural and medical sciences, Physica (Physics) and Causae et Curae (Causes and Cures), which were very influential and procured her the title of first German woman physician. It must be noted that pharmaceutics and medical treatment were traditionally women’s arts and were transmitted orally from one female generation to another (see Green 1989, 1995; Ritzmann Schilt 1994). Convents had established pharmacies using herbs from their botanical gardens, developing practices that dated back to pre-Christian times and accumulating knowledge that Hildegard preserved in written form. Hildegard was familiar with the medical literature of her time and had knowledge of the human body, its diseases, and pharmacology. Her convent at Rupertsberg contained an infirmary where a sister infirmarian prepared medicines and practiced therapeutic bloodletting (Glaze 1998: 125). In 1165, Hildegard founded her second convent in Eibingen and started composing her third book of visions, the Liber Divinorum Operum (The Book of Divine Works). It is likely that her second convent welcomed girls from less affluent backgrounds compared to those at Rupertsberg, which hosted the daughters of nobility. Hildegard was the abbess of both convents until her death in 1179. The Eibingen Monastery is still standing today as the abbey of St. Hildegard. Hildegard of Bingen was canonized formally only in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI. From this brief biographical sketch, Hildegard’s enormous influence and charisma can be ascertained. She was respected, listened to, and held in great esteem by notables of her time. During her lifetime, she completed three preaching tours that took her to Mainz, Würzburg, Bamberg, Trier, Lorraine, and finally Cologne, Siegburg, and the Werden/Ruhr. During her second trip to Trier, she successfully obtained a letter of safe conduct from the emperor, Barbarossa, for her convent, which was a transit safety letter allowing Hildegard and her nuns free movement in that war-ridden area. As Elisabeth Gössman notes, “this was possible because Hildegard was even during her lifetime viewed as a prophet, not primarily in the sense of predicting the future, but rather in the sense of interpretation of her own time” (1989: 31). She was compared to Deborah, the Old Testament judge and prophetess. Her numerous letters  to bishops and fellow monastic superiors, as well as her public sermons, attest to her powerful and unafraid public voice in political and ecclesiastic matters (Newman 1998: 17–23). Hildegard’s vast body of works spans from books of visions to moral treatises and science books. Her mystical works typically present an alternation of description (of what is seen in the vision) and interpretation (of the vision itself). Liber Scivias is a collection of twenty-six visions about the creation of the cosmos and the history of salvation. The last three visions are eschatological. Divinity (divinitas) sits on the throne of the world and carries the world from apocalypse to eternity. With a word choice that points subtly at different

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evaluation of the feminine element, Hildegard prefers to use “Divinitas” (which is a feminine noun) rather than “Deus” (which is a masculine noun) to complement her cosmogony. The image encapsulating the origin of the world is also a female-oriented reference where the universe is an egg and the earth is the yolk. The end of history is salvation, occurring after a final time of tribulation that is identified as starting at the end of the eleventh century with the attacks on the Roman Church led by the emperor Henry IV. Hildegard qualifies this era as a tempus muliebre, or female time. These references highlight Hildegard’s firm understanding that female elements ground the creation and the structure of our cosmos. Mention of and even appeal to women’s debility can be read as a rhetorical move to claim a special election by God, consequently bypassing official church hierarchies sanctioning women’s inferiority. Women in the Middle Ages could not claim philosophical-theological authority because St. Paul in the first letter to Timothy prohibited women’s teaching. The visionary-mystical provided the only legitimate expression of women’s voices beyond the private sphere, allowing for commentary on history, both as a criticism of current times and as a prophetic articulation (Gössman 1989: 32). In this context, Hildegard’s self-characterization as weak and uneducated appears as a strategy to better support her authority as a prophetess appointed by God. Given the numerous connections and parallels between her works and the themes and language of intellectual inquiry in her age, it is difficult to imagine she was as poorly educated as she claimed to be. Similarly, her frequent claims that she had not received an education in philosophy should also be heard as assertions to an authorial position within the boundaries forced upon educated women at the time. Her visionary work was indeed a translation of complex philosophical theories about the human, the world, and God. The very justification for visions as a form of authentic knowledge of the truth was based upon the contemporary retrieval of Platonic and Augustinian epistemologies. As exemplified in the allegory of the cave (Plato, Republic 514a–517a), truthful knowledge is achieved through a process of liberation of the person who leaves darkness behind to look into the sun. One’s eyes possess the capacity to see the light even when they are immersed in obscurity. By exiting the cave, one can achieve enlightenment gradually and painfully, as one’s eyes become accustomed to the power of the light and recover their own power. As Socrates instructs his friends, the eyes of the body are just a symbol of the eyes of the soul; seeing represents knowing, and the Sun, which enables bodily eyesight, is Truth. Hildegard’s visions, therefore, are not a lesser form of knowledge compared to more systematic, abstract, theoretical expressions but instead are a privileged form of knowledge since they apprehend the truth without mediation. Along with these Platonic lines of influence, the twelfth century had recovered the Augustinian theme of enlightenment as the means by which the human

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search for knowledge and for divine wisdom encounter each other (De Martino and Bruzzese 1994: 63). According to this epistemology, reason and intuition proceed in parallel ways toward knowledge because divine enlightenment combines them together. The School of Chartres claimed that there could be no contrast between philosophy and divine revelation so that cosmological and naturalistic interests were cultivated in view of divine revelation according to Neoplatonic influences. Hildegard inserts herself seamlessly into her cultural climate. In her cosmological visions, she institutes a new language, not in opposition to dialectic but by setting up a new order of language based on symbols and metaphors. Compared to other mystical descriptions, which culminate in a fusion between the mystic and the Light, Hildegard maintains some distance between herself and the Divine, insisting that revelation and illumination do not oppose dialectical thought or annihilate the rational subject but rather are complements to one another. The genre of vision was an avenue for women writers to affirm their authority in ways that were socially approved. Visions gave women the strength and power to build and lead convents, to raise their voices, and to be respected and also feared as critics of their times. By way of their prophetic visions, women could establish the authority that was denied them in relation to the teaching of doctrine. As sister Helen James John, a philosopher and a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, explains, For Hildegard, who seems to have known no woman author before herself, the prophetic calling served to energize her own natural gifts of symbolic imagination, analogical reasoning, understanding of what she read, and observation of nature and human experience. (1992: 121) The only way for Hildegard to contribute to the teachings of the church was by claiming a divine mandate since typically women were not allowed to hold positions of doctrinal authority. Exercising her prophetic persona is not to be taken as a disingenuous strategy on the part of Hildegard to seize power but rather as an expression of the medieval conception of the relation between human wisdom and enlightenment, in which mystic vision and creatural insight do not exclude each other but instead go hand in hand. “In point of fact, medieval Christian authors generally—from Augustine through Abelard and Aquinas to Dante—lived and moved, like Hildegard, in a world pervaded with lucid human intelligence and with mystical experience—both gifts of the one Spirit of Wisdom” (John 1992: 122). This world vision, in Hildegard’s perspective, possesses a structure perceived by inductive and deductive reasoning and symbolic imagination in its complex web of connections among the macrocosmos, the great world, the microcosmos, and each human being (themes that she later explores in her Liber Divinorum Operum).

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Hildegard’s choice of allegorical language has pedagogical and theological grounding, once more showing how fittingly she is connected to the thought of her times. For example, Scotus Eriugena’s idea of via negativa excellently translates the ineffability and transcendence of God, who can only be described by apophatic language, withholding any positive description and categorization of the divine. Similarly, Hildegard describes her way of seeing thus: The light that I see is not local and confined. It is much brighter than a lucent cloud through which the sun shines. And I can discern neither its height nor its length nor its breadth. This light I have named “the Shadow of the living Light” and just as the sun and the moon and stars are reflected in water, so too are writings, words, virtues and deeds of men reflected back to me from it … Moreover, the words I see and hear in the vision are not like the words of human speech, but are like a blazing flame and a cloud that moves through clear air. I can by no means grasp the form of this light, any more than I can fully stare fully into the sun. (Hildegard, Letter 70 to Guilbert of Gembloux) In this long excerpt from a letter to the monk Guilbert in which she describes her vision, Hildegard extends a concise and perfect depiction of theologia negativa: she claims to see everything as if in a shadow of the living light, which takes form, as she explains a few lines further in her letter, as “the appearance of the vault of heaven in a bright cloud on a starless night.” In this light, she sees and hears everything. Hildegard has exceptional skill at translating philosophical concepts into images, thereby fulfilling two functions through her language: recording divine elusiveness and communicating it through a language understandable to those who read or listen to her. Her visions are expressed through magnificently poetic language. As the Italian scholars, Giulio De Martino and Marina Bruzzese note, “It is as if the unintelligibility of God had opened the field to human imagination and at the same time had multiplied infinitely the symbolic manifestations of the divine in the world” (1994: 64). For Hildegard, an educated person is someone who can see correlatives of the large cosmos of God’s creation in the little world of human existence, so that nothing is without living meaning. Her very own long life could be read as a life intentionally directed at educating her contemporaries. We see this in her primary occupation as a magistra and abbess to her community of women, where she was responsible for instructing the nuns in the liberal arts, for choosing the readings from the scriptures and delivering sermons, and for composing music and leading the liturgy. We also see her educational intent in her extensive writing as a scientist and a prophetess. Finally, her numerous epistolary correspondence with notable church leaders and political authorities and her three preaching tours indicate that she actively took on the role of public educator. Considering the ambitious breadth of her knowledge and

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practice, it is safe to say that Hildegard also continued throughout her life to study, observe, read, and learn. Her conception of learning is made clear in a chapter “On Knowledge” from her medical work Causae et Curae. While still in the womb, the baby has its own wish and desire for knowledge which is filled by the Holy Spirit, thus making learning possible. Historian Florence Glaze notes that “although Hildegard acknowledges that understanding (like everything) is granted ultimately by the Holy Spirit, she emphasizes the essential importance of the individual’s role in pursuing willfully and laboriously the desired goal” (1998: 142). Humans are endowed with the capacity to learn whatever they seek to learn through their own choice, desire, and labor. Hildegard has been cast as an exceptional woman, a polymath of many achievements, the “Sybil of the Rhine.” She was indeed extraordinary. So much that, for many centuries, she was forgotten, because “posterity has found it hard to take her measure” (p. 1). In this, she is not extraordinary but shares the fate of many women of our past who are ignored. In the nineteenth century a historian imagined that she must have had a “male ghostwriter behind her mask” (p. 1). Just a few years later, another historian proposed that the ghostwriter was God himself, with Hildegard just “a passive and uncomprehending tool” (p. 1). Scholars have since regained an appreciation and understanding of her figure and production. Her outstanding contributions are to be seen as a sign of what is possible when parity, even if for a fleeting moment, is achieved. Concluding this section, I hope we can see how, despite her exceptionality, Hildegard should not be seen as an anomaly but instead as a woman with the resources and the position to pursue learning and teaching of her own choice, through desire and labor. Marguerite Porete (1250–1310): Reimagining education and love The last three centuries of the Middle Ages saw the expansion of cities; in addition, trade and crafts had a renaissance while famine and pestilences brought about new spiritual waves, and resources were spent to erect expansive monasteries and cathedrals. New waves of mendicant friars who had joined begging orders swept western Europe. These developments expressed an undeniable sense of movement and change accompanied by a certain dissatisfaction with official church customs. After Hildegard’s death in 1179, Europe saw an intensified production of writings by women; for example, there was Hadewijch of Antwerp, who wrote a beautiful Book of Visions, and Mechtild of Madgeburg, whose The Flowing Light of Divinity (c.  1250–80) is the first mystical book written in German. Thirteenth-century women writers, rather than being part of the regular clergy, belonged to the new communities in which women were less secluded from the world and engaged in charitable work outside their order. They did not possess the authority that Hildegard had earned during her life,

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sealed by the papal approval that gave her a sort of impunity in speaking out to such powerful figures as Emperor Barbarossa. Women of the thirteenth century gave expression to their ideas in mystical religious writing—either describing visions or hagiographies, in Latin or in the vernacular, in prose or poetry. For example, the Franciscan Angela da Foligno (1248–1309) dictated her Book of Visions and Instructions and her Memoriale in Umbrian dialect. Not much is known of the life of Marguerite Porete, a beguine itinerant mendicant mystic in thirteenth-century France. Beguines were part of an uncloistered religious movement, which began in the early thirteenth century in Belgium and spread across northern Europe. Porete believed she belonged to an invisible, ideal community of “free souls,” which had every right to judge the earthly church, Sainte Eglise la Petite (The Small Holy Church), which was established on earth but was not infallible. Her book, Les Miroir des simples ames anientis et qui seulement demourent en vouloir et desir d’Amour (The Mirror of Simple Souls Annihilated and Who Only Dwell in Want and Desire of Love), was written in French and gained a large diffusion. It was deemed heretical by a commission of twenty-one theologians in Paris. When Porete refused to renounce her ideas, withdraw her book, or cooperate with the authorities, she was imprisoned and sentenced to be burnt as a heretic by the Papal Inquisition. Porete died on June 1, 1310, in Paris. We know of five medieval translations of her work (Dronke 1984: 217), which provide evidence of her widespread influence and reach, despite the sentence of heresy, on the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Christian world. After Porete’s death, her book circulated widely but without attribution; only in 1945 did Romana Guarnieri identify a Latin manuscript as a translation of Porete’s Miroir. It could be argued, therefore, that the book’s popularity hinged at least in part on the anonymity of the female author. The Miroir (written around 1285–95) is a dialogue among three female allegorical figures of Love, Soul, and Reason. The work describes attempts by the Soul to join God, imagined as a distant beloved, through mediation of Reason. The soul is Porete’s soul, which, once joined with and annihilated in God, will be free and unified with God. In her prologue, Porete writes to theologians and other functionaries, “you will not understand this book, however bright your wits, if you do not meet it humbly.” She continues, “So bring low your sciences which are founded by Reason, and put all your trust in the sciences conferred by Love, that are lit up by Faith—and then you will understand this book, which by Love makes the soul live” (Porete, quoted in Dronke 1984: 224). The soul that learns to lose herself in divine love is liberated and needs nothing humans can provide, not even the approval of the “small earthly church” by way of the doctrinal endorsement of its doctors. Porete is certain of this fact, and it is such certainty that makes her influential and a danger to the establishment. The Inquisitors spoke of her as a pseudo-mulier (translated as “fake woman”).

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It is likely that the severity of the sentence for a book whose mysticism is not far from other mystical sources that the church revered was due especially to its author’s frightening independence, displayed by her life as an itinerant beguine and supported by the arguments in the book in favor of freedom. There are a few reasons why I include Porete in this chapter. As the author of a very beloved and widely read book, which was only very recently attributed to her, she unwillingly stands to symbolize the erasure of medieval women from the history of thought and, at the same time, the deep influence exercised by some medieval women on culture and practices of the time. As the writer of a book that theorizes that individual souls are free when they join with the divine and are released from control by the “Little Human Church” and indeed by any organized form of thought, she was silenced and censored in the most definitive way by the death penalty. As a likely sympathizer with the Cathar movement,3 she believed in the complete equality of men and women in religious life and was most likely punished so harshly also because of her frightening freedom of movement. As a woman with a strong, independent voice, she stated her thinking with integrity and refused even to acknowledge the inquisitors who were trying her. With audacity and originality, Porete writes in vernacular rather than in Latin, which was the language of the learned class and of the church. Contemporary author Anne Carson writes of her in an opera trilogy titled Decreation (2006). The final verses of the poem are in a section aptly called “Aria of the Flames,” describing Porete’s death at the stake (Carson 2006: 222). Here Carson has Porete sing, I am no more in danger of Reason! Reason is nothing. I am no more in danger of Virtue! Virtue is nothing. I am no more in danger of God. God has entire need of me. We are left with this image of the Porete, the forgotten mystic, poet, and heretic, singing her truth, that an actual, loving relationship with God places her beyond human reflections on morality (no more in danger of Virtue), rationality (no more in danger of Reason), and even theology (no more in danger of God). Porete has seen a point where the power relations are not reversed but evened out, in complete love; creator and creature are bound and need each other reciprocally, thus issuing a radical challenge to the traditional patriarchal and doctrinal structure of the institutional church. Christine de Pizan (1364–c. 1430): A humanist advocate for the education of women At the beginning of the fifteenth century, especially in Italy, which was the cradle of humanism and the Renaissance, a new phenomenon arose: that of the “learned woman,” who was normally the child of an upper-middle-class

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family and was encouraged to study and receive a humanistic education like her brothers (Kersey 1989: 8). They were instructed in moral philosophy, history, poetry, and rhetoric. The curriculum was composed of Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas together with the newly recovered ancient Platonic and Hellenistic texts (see Labalme 1980). The learned girl was considered literally a monstrum, monster, a wonderful prodigy to show off. Unfortunately, explains Ethel Kersey, “there was no place in society for the adult female intellectual” (1989: 8). They had the option to either marry or join a convent, where they could pursue intellectual life, as “intellectuality was correlated with Chastity” (p. 8). Humanistic educators emphasized the study of grammar, rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy. They believed that serious study of the classical authors would not only teach rhetoric and style but, more importantly, teach leadership and civic sense. While medieval universities aimed at training specialists, humanistic educators wanted to prepare judges, lawyers, and notaries for their role in the new society in which a set of social, political, and economic changes brought about the need for a new educated, urban, and mercantile class (Murphy 2006: 122–7). The new emphasis on practical, vocational education was accompanied by an interest in developing literacy in vernacular languages, side by side with the established use of Latin by the learned classes in Europe. The Lutheran Reformation accelerated this push by creating schools offering a basic curriculum in vernacular languages to support individual access to the scriptures, which had been translated into German from the widely used Latin translations. Literacy rates in the German Lutheran world increased significantly: by 1650, 30–40 percent of the adult population was able to read (Murphy 2006: 126). In this context of social and cultural change, a matter of intense intellectual debate originated in the so-called querelle des femmes, an examination and a critical rebuttal of how women were depicted in literature (especially in the chivalric courtly tradition) and how they were understood in philosophy (especially in the scholastic misogynistic treatises). This debate, which would remain in the intellectual landscape of Europe for four centuries, was started and shaped by Cristina da Pizzano, or Christine de Pizan. Joan Kelly explains, “Christine created a space for women to oppose this onslaught of vilification and contempt, and the example of her defense was to serve them for centuries” (1982: 11). Women took it upon themselves to dispute learned literary opinions of women’s inferiority. The misogynistic tradition repeated itself with little variation: women were not fully human, women were lewd and sinful by default, women were to be subject to male authority in the home and in the church, and so on. Overwhelmed by the vehemence of misogynistic views expressed in literature and philosophy, Christine wrote, “I began to examine myself and my condition as a woman” (City of Ladies 1.1).

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Christine de Pizan was born in Venice, Italy, around 1364 into an Italian academic family. When her father was appointed to the court of King Charles V, the family moved to Paris where the young Christine had access to the court’s extensive library and was most likely taught directly by her father, the court’s astrologer and physician. In all likelihood, he taught her to read French, Italian, and some Latin. Pizan’s education stopped when she married at age fifteen. Left a young widow at twenty-five years old, after a period of struggle and mourning Christine continued her self-education and published a collection of short prose works, Cent Ballades, Virelays, Roundeaux (1399). For the following decade, she supported her three children, her widowed mother, and a niece through writing. For this, she is often recognized as the first female professional writer. Pizan soon turned to other genres such as pastoral poems, allegorical visions, and prose. She reports that reading Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae (The Consolation of Philosophy, written c. 524) brought her great comfort, as can be seen by the presence of the Boethian Goddess of Philosophy in La VisionChristine (1526). This is her most autobiographical work, tracing a record of her development as a writer. Besides her two major works that I will describe below, Pizan wrote many other poems and treatises. Enseignemens moraux (Moral Teachings, 1398) was written to accompany her son, Jean de Castel, as he prepared to leave for England where he would join the court of the earl of Salisbury to continue his education. The collection of 113 pieces of moral advice addresses daily conduct and possible career paths for the future. They also provide words of wisdom on old age, advising Jean never to forget what it is like to be young and therefore to be patient with youth (see Reno 2005). She recommends, “If you have students do not scold them with a too great rigor, you do not want to be mistaken, think of how feeble and vain is human fragility” (Les enseignemens, str.18: 30). The relation between teacher and students must be, Pizan suggests, informed by a gentle awareness of human fragility, patience, and pedagogical intentionality. L’epistre d’Othéa la désse à Hector (Othea’s Letter to Hector, written c. 1400), a text concerning the education of a king, was one of her more popular books. In it, the goddess Othea addresses Hector, the young hero of the Trojan War, and advises him on becoming an adult with the moral excellence necessary in a leader. The book, addressed to young male readers, imparts an education by an innovative (for its time) pedagogy. Each chapter pairs a miniature and a mnemonic rhyme about the story and the lessons learned in it, encapsulated in a philosophical maxim, and encourages the young reader to memorize the rhyme (see Zimmerman 2003: 61). Christine also was asked by the duke of Burgundy, Philip the Bold, to write a biography of Charles V, Le Livre des fais et bonne moeurs du sage roy Charles V (The Book of the Deeds and Good Customs of the Wise King Charles V, 1404), which she intended as an example and a pedagogical work to instruct the king’s

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grandchild, Louis, duke of Guyenne. Witnessing France’s descent into civil war because of the rivalry between two aspiring monarchs, Christine wrote more political treatises depicting ideal, peaceful societies and instructing the nation’s leaders about their duties and the role of women in the nation’s struggles. Pizan withdrew to the abbey of Possey, where her daughter was cloistered, and there she died after composing the first literary tribute to Joan of Arc, le Ditie de Jeanne (The Tale of Joan of Arc, 1429), shortly before the French heroine was burnt at the stake in 1431. In the Le Livre de la cité des dames (Book of the City of Ladies, 1404–5), Christine offers a moral argument against the oppression of women. Inserting herself into a long tradition of philosophers who reflect on the image of building a city to illuminate moral and political values, ideas, and ends (for example, Plato’s Republic and Augustine’s The City of God), Pizan imagines the city of ladies as a place enwalled to protect women’s existence and support their flourishing with the assistance of three allegorical figures. Reason, Justice, and Rectitude appear to a dejected Pizan while she is wishing that she were a man in response to a misogynistic poem she had just read (see Chapters 2 and 9 in Volume 1). The three crowned figures encourage Pizan to advocate for women’s moral equality to men against demeaning views and disparagement. The book is indeed a vindication of women’s right to a full human status and to an education. It offers a history of women orators, warriors, teachers, and artists. It argues that the oppression of women not only is morally wrong but also works against the end of building a better society (see Waithe 1989: 312). This argument is framed within a woman-made city, in a manner that is utterly new and daring: her “pro-feminine revision of women’s place in history explicitly seeks to create a female textual community that valorizes women’s intellectual and moral worth” (Krueger 2013: 597). The Livre des trois vertus (Book of Three Virtues, 1406) was written as a companion text to the City of Ladies (which is also known as The Treasure of the City of Ladies) and was dedicated to Margaret of Burgundy, the twelve-year-old wife of the dauphin and future queen of France. Three early printed editions and numerous surviving manuscripts attest to the enduring influence that this book had on the education of young women (see Willard 1999). Here Christine depicts an ideal school for all women regardless of their social class or religious status. Women are urged to take on the humanist task of self-fashioning by cultivating their capacities and becoming engaged members of their society. Women are held to high moral standards of integrity, but how they contribute to family and societal life varies depending on their class. All are encouraged to manage their assets and provide for the household, including financially when possible. For the times, Pizan’s consideration of and practical advice to women as social agents were groundbreaking. She also actively endorsed women’s selfcultivation through learning.

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As a professional writer in a time before the printing press, Christine oversaw the production and circulation of her books. She pursued a wide readership among women as is made clear by the closing lines of The Treasure of the City of Ladies, [And I thought to myself] that I would distribute many copies of this work throughout the world whatever the cost, and it would be presented in various places to queens, princesses and great ladies, so that it might be more honored and exalted, for it is worthy of it, and it might be spread among other women … it will endure in many copies all over the world without falling in disuse, and many valiant ladies and women of authority will see it and hear it now and in time to come. (Christine de Pizan 1985:168) As noted by Roberta. Krueger, “in 1405 Christine had no way of anticipating the advent of printing, yet her words in the Treasure’s Epilogue about the broad circulation of her book seem almost prophetic about the great transformations in literacy what would soon occur” (2013: 600). Among the earliest books in print we find Pizan’s works; the English translation of Le Livre de la cité des dames was printed in London in 1521 (Krueger 2013: 601). Pizan was an influential writer, in some ways complexly rooted in the views of her time, in others truly forward-thinking, especially in relation to women’s equal status and right to self-cultivation. In her lifelong battle against misogyny, she established herself as a trusted author and cultural agent. Of the two hundred existing manuscripts of Pizan’s works, fifty-four were created in her own scriptorium under her supervision. Of these, twenty-five are “manuscrits autographes,” that is, manuscripts written in Pizan’s own hand (see Adams 2017). For example, the book of Letter of Othea to Hector was created under her supervision in a stunning combination of text and images. The hundred vignettes are presented and interpreted by the author herself, who guides the reader. An illumination represents Christine ex cathedra, holding a book while she teaches four men. This image stands in relation to Hildegard of Bingen’s self-representation as a writer, which I mentioned in the opening of the chapter. It seems that, by the end of the Middle Ages, a new representation of a woman teaching and men learning from her had become acceptable. Marie le Jars de Gournay (1565–1645): Claiming equality for women and men as a fact of nature Born into a noble but not wealthy family, Marie de Gournay opposed her mother’s pressure to marry and instead pursued an intense and rigorous selfeducation. She learned Latin and Greek and, at age eighteen, discovered Montaigne’s Essays, which had become a widely read book in sixteenthcentury France (see De Marzio, Chapter 8, this volume). Marie met Michel de Montaigne and became his fille d’alliance, that is, his adoptive daughter, a

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few years later in 1588. Her first work, Le Promenoir de Monsieur Montaigne (1594), is a tragic romance with a long feminist digression in which Marie presents her view that knowledge is the ground for virtue. This novel was so popular that it had six editions. Over the course of her life, Gournay contributed to contemporary debates on language and literature and also translated works from Latin. After Montaigne’s death, she became his editorial curator—perhaps the first professional editor in Western history. A major accomplishment, the new scholarly edition of Montaigne’s essays was published in 1595. Marie received a pension from Queen Marguerite of Valois and later one from Cardinal Richelieu. She had three cats (Piaillion, Minette, and Donzelle) and was derided by her contemporaries for not being married and for living in frugal conditions. She held a salon at her home in Paris, where possibly the idea of the French Academy was conceived (see Zedler 1989: 289). Having a wide range of intellectual interests (for example, she bought materials to make alchemistic experiments), Gournay engaged in correspondence with many notable characters of her century, such as Montaigne, but also Cardinal Richelieu, Madame de Loges, and Justus Lipsius (p. 289). She died in 1645. Her most outspoken essay, Égalité des hommes et des Femmes (Equality of Men and Women, 1622) posits that the equality of men and women is grounded in their nature as rational beings. Denying equality, then, is equivalent to spoiling nature itself. Gournay provides examples from history (in the tradition of the Renaissance) to demonstrate woman’s capacity to be fully a participant in the public domain by teaching, writing, and exercising political authority. When men do not allow women to fulfill their potential, she argues, men put themselves above God and are therefore blasphemous. She writes, the human animal is neither man nor woman, the sexes being formed not to constitute different species, but for propagation alone. The unique form and distinction of that animal consists only in a reasonable soul. And if we may be allowed a laugh along the way, this popular saying will not be inappropriate: there is nothing more like a male cat in the window, than a female cat. The man and the woman are so much one, that if the man is more than the woman, the woman is more than the man. (Gournay, in Dykeman 1999: 96) Woman and man are created with the same endowment that makes us human: reasonableness. Ignoring this truth by assuming that one sex is better than the other defies logic and divine command. The sexes share the same form, as Marie indicates when she writes, “there is nothing more like a male cat in the window, than a female cat”: in backlight, when only the animals’ shape is revealed, it is impossible to differentiate female from male cats. Therefore, assuming one’s superiority over the other translates into a logical absurdity. She asks, “Is there glory in their efforts to put women down by contempt?” only to conclude that,

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“We know women who would never glory in such a trifling victory,” explaining that women do not indulge in the same disdain with which men treat them but instead “pay them back by exerting their own talents” (Gournay, Complaints, quoted in Dykeman 1999: 103). Inserting herself in the querelle des femmes,4 Gournay claims that women’s difference and also their moral superiority are derived not from a natural asymmetry but simply from the higher moral ground reached as a result of continued oppression, the best retribution being the finally free exercise of women’s talents. Two Venetian writers who were contemporaries of Gournay, Lucrezia Marinella (The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men, 1601) and Arcangela Tarabotti (Paternal Tyranny, published posthumously in the 1650s), demanded a different social organization to allow women’s full expression as free agents. They pointed out how the enslavement of Venetian women in marriage and the involuntary enclosure of young women in convents were a glaring contradiction to Venetian men’s freedom as citizens of a free republic. Contemporary philosophers Jacqueline Broad and Karen Green explain that “women’s growing critique of marital authority subtly undermined the traditional parentalist and marital metaphors that were so important for legitimizing monarchy in the sixteenth century” (2009: 124). The parental metaphor was insufficient because a parent’s power over the offspring only lasts until the offspring’s adulthood while a husband’s power over the spouse was perceived to be absolute and never-ending. Once women themselves started to challenge the institution of marriage, a monarch’s absolute power over his subjects would also be called into question. The querelle laid ground for a new theory of political power: the theory of social contract. Gournay, despite being one of the first intellectuals in her era to defend explicitly the equality of women and men, did not directly discuss monarchism. When she thinks of political power, she considers it in terms of parental authority, connecting monarchical power with duty, especially with the duty to educate the offspring—divinely assigned to continue the king’s power—in a moral way. Les Advis ou le presens de la Demoiselle de Gournay (1634) contains her essays on the moral education of princes, written on the occasion of the marriage of Henri IV and Marie de’ Medici. Gournay voices the idea that a good birth is not sufficient to ensure virtue. Just as a pigeon neck has a natural rainbow shimmer that only reveals itself when the sunlight hits it, the soul of a noble-born man will need the sun of education to show its inner virtue (Marie de Gournay 1997: 640). Education, she writes, does to human beings what fire does to incense: it is needed to bring out the natural qualities of the substance. Montaigne’s influence is evident, especially in Gournay’s conception of virtue education as the education of judgment. There is an emphasis on the moral quality of goodness, which is connected to knowledge. Virtuous conduct is conduct according to reason. While Gournay seems to endorse the Stoic view

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that human reason is human natural good, she also declares that in her own time there are but a few examples of humans who possess reason, cultivate it, and use it as a direction for conduct (Zedler 1989: 297). Her perception of the lack of goodness and kindness in her time becomes especially acute when reflecting on the state of women, of which she was also painfully aware because of her personal experiences. Gournay was a learned and opinionated woman who suffered the misogynistic tide of her own times and became an object of mockery and a target of pamphlets such as the Remerciements des Beurrieres de Paris au sieur de Courbazon ou l’Anti-Gournay (“Thanks given by the female butter makers of Paris to the Lord of Courbazon, or the Anti-Gournay,” 1610; see Noiset 1981: 196). Given her preparation and her experience, she was in a good position to see that the inferior status of women in society mirrors a generalized renounce to reason. She believed that moral decline was caused by this generalized avowal of reason. Misogyny, for Marie, was really part of the moral misery of her times. She spent her life writing to combat this demise. In her marvelous study of Gournay’s literary works, Anna Lia Franchetti recalls the advice given by J. Du Bosc, a contemporary of Gournay, about feminine honesty. Du Bosc wrote, “the very innocence needs a mask or a veil … it is no lesser imprudence to show one’s heart uncovered to those who are always on their guard, than it is to march completely naked into the enemy army, where one cannot defend oneself” (Du Bosc, L’Honneste femme, 1640, quoted in Franchetti 2006: 11, my translation). Franchetti comments that Marie de Gournay accepted neither mask nor veil and instead exercised in full freedom her capacity to reason. Gournay’s intellectual honesty, her refusal to conform to societal expectations, her cutting critique of the hierarchy between the sexes, and her insistence on the necessity of education to cultivate virtue make her a “héroïne de l’imprudence” (Franchetti 2006: 11).

CONCLUSION Just a few decades after Marie de Gournay had proudly rejected mask or veil and instead, echoing Du Bosc’s words, had taken to walking around imprudently, cloaked only in her own skin, another young woman was advocating for her own right to pursue humanistic studies from her convent cell in the recently conquered territories of New Spain (modern Mexico). Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz (1648–95) penned her letter La Respuesta to explain her desire to study all available knowledge from behind her veil as a sister of St. Jerome. She had just been advised to refrain from all study except that of the scriptures. Eloquently and compellingly she makes her appeal: her intelligence is a divine gift and using her intelligence is a divine mandate. Even though she has prayed to God to snuff her light and had tried to bury her understanding by entering a convent (La Respuesta, 190), God has not allowed it. Instead she is forced to pursue her

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own education widely and deeply. Her natural bent cannot be corrected. Her voice cannot be silenced, even behind the veil. Like Hrosvitha had written six centuries earlier, she is a being with a natural capacity to learn. She writes, For ever since the light of reason first dawned in me, my inclination to letters was marked by such passion and vehemence that neither the reprimand of others (for I have received many) nor reflections of my own (there have been more than a few) have sufficed to make me abandon my pursuit of this native impulse (este natural impulso) that God himself bestowed on me. (La Respuesta, 170) In her letter, she narrates how, at the young age of six, she asked her mother to allow her to dress like boy and attend university. Her mother said no. The young Juana was hoping that male dress would allow her to access knowledge in formal schooling. Over the centuries, habit and veil have provided access and protection to women scholars, such as the two Italian women mentioned at the introduction of this chapter: Bettisia, who had to dress like a man to be allowed at the university, and Novella, who taught from behind a veil to protect her (male) students from her beauty. Despite her mother’s refusal, Sor Juana, the bright precocious child, continued her studies as an autodidact and went on to become the brightest scholar in early modern America.5 Some of us women choose the honesty of nakedness; others choose the honesty of screens and veils. Women have been joining their voices to the ongoing conversation of humankind, managing to thrive in a world that, as Sor Juana writes, wanted them to dim their light, to screen their brilliance, to pass as something they are not. At the Brooklyn Museum, one can see on permanent exhibition Judy Chicago’s installation titled The Dinner Party (1974– 9). It represents a large triangular dining table set with thirty-nine seats, each dedicated to a notable woman. Another 999 names are inscribed on the floor. Three of the women outlined in this chapter sit at the table: Hrosvitha’s place setting narrates scenes of life in a German monastery; Hildegard’s setting is based on the structure of a Gothic cathedral, with a representation of her vision of the universe as an egg; and, finally, Christine de Pizan is represented in her place setting as a butterfly, rendered in spinning, vibrant tones of green and red. Chicago describes the butterfly’s form as having “one wing raised in a gesture of defense, to symbolize her efforts to protect women.”6 Marguerite Porete and Marie de Gournay do not have a place setting at the dinner party, and neither does Sor Juana, but they might as well, considering Chicago’s mission as a feminist artist to combat the erasure of women from the conversation of humankind. In this chapter, I have outlined the contributions by women thinkers to philosophy and education over eleven centuries in a territory now understood as the West. The omissions and exclusions are probably as important as the

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women I decided to present. It is critical that even small acts of historiography, such as this one, be examined in relation to their own historical circumstances. Ours are times when women’s credibility is habitually questioned, when women’s predominance in the teaching profession seems to authorize further the social blame, devaluing, and even, in some cases, contempt for teachers and public schools, and when histories of philosophy still habitually lack mention of women thinkers. In times like ours, it is crucial to recover and amplify women’s voices and ideas and draw attention to the exemplary figures coming to us from a tradition that is not devoid of such treasures but has kept them, so to speak, at the bottom of the treasure chest. In this chapter, I drew an arch. I started with Hrosvitha, the fierce nun who decided preemptively to overplay the topoi of women’s humility and intellectual inferiority. I ended with Gournay, the unapologetic single woman who decided she did not need any masks or veil. She raised her voice while she taught of the equality of woman and man and of the importance of reason in the cultivation of virtues to readers of her time and ours. As we work with future teachers, with students, and with readers who want to understand the long, storied inheritance of Western educational thought, I hope that this chapter can help keep these women and the countless others who go unmentioned present in our reflection and imagination.

NOTES 1 2 3

4

While O’Neill’s (2005) argument applies to early modern thinkers, I think it extends to medieval thinkers as well. Connie Titone (2007: 142) shows that the tradition now can be considered to include works by and on Luisa May Alcott, Anna Julia Cooper, Charlotte Perkins, and Catharine Macaulay. Cathars were considered heretics. Their beliefs originated in third-century Mesopotamia and were introduced to Europe in the early eleventh century. Cathars believed in a loosely Manichean cosmogony, which contradicted some tenets of Christian theology such as the humanity of Christ and the resurrection of the body. They practiced abstinence, vegetarianism, and poverty. Cathars thrived in southern France in the twelfth century (they were called Albigenses), and they were massacred after a crusade was launched against them by Pope Innocent III. The few survivors were persecuted and their texts burned, and the sect extinguished itself in the following century (see Loyn 1989: 74–5). The so called querelle des femmes was started by de Pizan who wrote three letters taking issue with the misogyny of La Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the Rose, 1237) (see the section “Christine de Pizan (1364–c.  1430): A humanist advocate for the education of women”). Christine de Pizan shaped the woman question into a cultural debate that is at the roots of early feminist theory and lasted for several centuries (see Kelly 1982). While we have no proof that Gournay had read de Pizan or other French authors on the topic, as shown by O’Neill (2007), we know that she had corresponded with Maria van Schurman, regarding the woman question,

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therefore inserting herself in the long-standing early modern conversation on the querelle. For a discussion of Sor Juana’s philosophy of education, see Hansen (2018) and Aspe (2015). See Chicago’s description of her work of art at Brooklyn Museum (n.d.).

REFERENCES Primary sources Christine de Pizan (1886–96), Enseignemens Moraux, in Oeuvres poétiques de Christine de Pisan, ed. Maurice Roy, vol. 3, 27–44 Paris: Firmin Didot. Christine de Pizan (1982), The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. by E. Jeffrey Richards, New York: Persea Books. Christine de Pizan (1985), The Treasure of the City of Ladies, trans. by Sarah Lawson, New York: Penguin Classics. Hildegard of Bingen (1993), Letter 70 to Guilbert of Gembloux, in Epistolarium, ed. L. Van Acker, Turnhout, Pars I (I–XC), 1991 (CCCM 91); Pars II (XCI-CCLr), (CCCM 91A). Hrosvitah (1970), Epistolae, in Hrosvitae Opera, ed. H. Homeyer, Munich: Paderborn, Verlag Schöningh. Marie de Gournay (1910), Egalite des hommes et des Femmes, in Mario Schiff, La Fille d’Alliance de Montaigne: Marie de Gournay, Paris. Marie de Gournay (1997), Les Advis ou le presens de la Demoiselle de Gournay, Paris, Toussaint Du-Bray, 1634, Jean Du-Bray, 1641. Marie de Gournay (2002), Apology for the Woman Writing and Other Works, ed. and trans. Richard Hillman and Colette Quesnel, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (2009), La respuesta/The Answer, trans. Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell, New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York.

Secondary sources Adams, Tracy (2017), “Christine de Pizan,” French Studies, 71 (3): 388–400. Altmann, Barbara K. and Deborah McGrady (2003), Christine de Pizan: A Casebook, New York: Routledge. Aspe, Virginia (2015), “Una aproximación a Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: educación femenina en Nueva España,” in Filosofía de la Educación en México, New York: Latin American Philosophy of Education Society, Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, Columbia University. Babinsky, Ellen L. (1993), “Introduction,” in Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls, 5–62, trans. Ellen L. Babinsky, Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Baskin, Judith R. (2013), “Jewish Traditions about Women and Gender Roles: From Rabbinic Teaching to Medieval Practice,” in Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, 36–51, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bennett, Judith M. and Ruth Mazo Karras, eds. (2013), The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Berkey, Jonathan P. (2013), “Women and Gender in Islamic Traditions,” in Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, 52–67, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blamires, Alcuin (1997), The Case for Women in Medieval Culture, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Broad, Jacqueline and Karen Green (2009), A History of Women’s Political Thought in Europe, 1400–1700, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brolis, Maria Teresa (2016), Storie di donne nel Medioevo, Bologna: Il Mulino. Brooklyn Museum (n.d.), “Components of the Dinner Party.” Available online: https:// www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/home (accessed October 24, 2020). Carson, Anne (2006), Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera, New York: Vintage Books. De Martino, Giulio and Maina Bruzzese (1994), Le Filosofe: Le donne protagoniste nella storia del pensiero, Naples: Liguori Editore. Dronke, Peter (1984), Women Writers of the Middle Ages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dykeman, Therese Boos (1999), The Neglected Canon: Nine Women Philosophers – First to Twentieth Century, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Eco, Umberto (2017), Chronicles of Liquid Society, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Franchetti, Anna Lia (2006), L’Ombre discourante de Marie de Gournay, Paris: Honore Champion. Gabriel, Astrik L. (1955), “The Educational Ideas of Christine De Pisan,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 16 (1): 3–21. Gibson, Joan (1989), “Mechtild of Magdeburg,” in Mary Ellen Waithe (ed.), A History of Women Philosophers: Medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment Women Philosophers, A.D. 500–1600, 115–40, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Gibson, Joan (1992), “Women in/and Medieval Philosophy: A Survey and Bibliography,” Medieval Feminist Newsletter, 14: 1–12. Glaze, Florence Eliza (1998), “Medical Writer,” in Barbara Newman (ed.), Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and her World, 125–48, Berkeley: University of California Press. Gössman, Elisabeth (1989), “Hildegard of Bingen,” trans. Katherine Best, in Mary Ellen Waithe (ed.), A History of Women Philosophers: Medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment Women Philosophers, A.D. 500–1600, 27–68, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Green, Monica (1989), “Women’s Medical Practice and Health Care in Medieval Europe,” Signs, 1 (2): 434–73. Green, Monica (1995), “Estraendo Trota dal ‘Trotula: Ricerche su testi medievali di medicina salernitana,” trans. Valeria Gibertoni and Pina Boggi Cavallo, Rassegna Storica Salernitana, 24: 31–53. Hansen, David T. (2018), “Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the Demands of Education,” Educational Theory, 6 (4–5): 443–75. John, Helen J. (1992), “Hildegard of Bingen: A New Medieval Philosopher?,” Hypatia, 7 (1): 115–23. Kelly, Joan (1982), “Early Feminist Theory and the ‘Querelle des Femmes’ 1400– 1789,” Signs, 8 (1): 4–28. Kersey, Ethel M. (1989), Women Philosophers: A Bio-Critical Source, New York: Greenwood. Krueger, Roberta (2013), “Towards Feminism: Christine de Pizan, Female Advocacy, and Women’s Textual Communities in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond,” in

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Judith Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, 590–606, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Labalme, Patricia H., ed. (1980), Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past, New York: New York University Press. Loyn, H.R., ed. (1989), The Middle Age: A Concise Encyclopaedia, London: Thames & Hudson. McWebb, Christine (2003), “Female City Builders: Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias and Christine de Pizan’s Livre de la cité des dames,” Magistra, 9 (1): 52–72. Mulder-Bakker, Anneke B., ed. (2004), Seeing and Knowing: Women and Learning in Medieval Europe 1200–1550, Brepols: Turnhout. Mulder-Bakker, Anneke B. and L. Herbert McAvoy, eds. (2009), Women and Experience in Later Medieval Writing: Reading the Book of Life, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Murphy, Madonna M. (2006), The History and Philosophy of Education: Voices of Educational Pioneers, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Newman, Barbara (1998), Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, Berkeley: University of California Press. Noiset, Marie Therese (1981), “Marie de Gournay,” in Megan Conway (ed.), Sixteenth-Century French Writers: Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 327, Cengage, Gale Research. O’Neill, Eileen (2005), “Early Modern Women Philosophers and the History of Philosophy,” Hypatia, 20 (3): 185–97. O’Neill, Eileen (2007), “Justifying the Inclusion of Women in Our Histories of Philosophy: The Case of Marie de Gournay,” in Linda Martin Alcoff and Eva Feder Kittay (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Feminist Philosophy, 17–42, Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell. Quilligan, Maureen (1991), “The Allegory of Female Authority: Christine de Pizan and Canon Formation,” in Joan de Jean and Nancy K. Miller (eds.), Displacements: Women, Tradition, Literatures in French, 126–42, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Reno, Christine (2005), “Christine de Pizan’s Enseignemens moraux: Good Advice for Several Generations.” Available online: http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/ morauxnov05.pdf (accessed October 24, 2020). Ritzmann Schilt, Lys Dorin (1994), “Hildegard von Bingen; Pflanzliche Heilmittel mit gynäkologisch-geburtshilflicher Indikation.” Zürcher Medizingeschichtliche Abhandlungen 259, Zurich: Juris Druck and Verlag, Dietikon. Roland Martin, Jane (1985), Reclaiming a Conversation: The Ideal of the Educated Woman, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ruh, Kurt (1975), “Les Miroirs des simples ames der Marguerite Porete,” in Hans Fromm, Wolfgang Harms, and Uwe Ruberg (eds.), Verbum et signum, 365–87, Munich: Fink. Titone, Connie (2007), “Pulling Back the Curtain: Relearning the History of the Philosophy of Education,” Educational Studies, 41 (2): 128–47. Waithe, Mary Ellen, ed. (1989), A History of Women Philosophers: Medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment Women Philosophers, A.D. 500–1600, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Willard, Charity Cannon (1984), Christine de Pizan: Her Life and Works, New York: Persea. Willard, Charity Cannon (1999), “Christine de Pizan,” in Paul F. Grendler, Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, vol. 5, New York: Charles Scribner & Sons.

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Zedler, Beatrice H. (1989), “Marie le Jars de Gournay,” in Mary Ellen Waithe (ed.), A History of Women Philosophers: Medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment Women Philosophers, A.D. 500–1600, 285–308, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Zimmerman, Margarete (2003), “Christine de Pizan: Memory’s Architect,” in Barbara Altmann and Deborah L. McGrady (eds.), Christine de Pizan, A Casebook, 57–80, New York: Routledge. Zimmermann, Margarete and Dina De Rentiis, eds. (1994), The City of Scholars: New Approaches to Christine de Pizan, New York: W. de Gruyter.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

Religious Reformers and Education in the Sixteenth Century C arrie E uler

For the most part, the nature of man inclines towards evil. (Erasmus, Education of a Christian Prince, 8) How I regret now that I did not read more poets and historians, and that no one taught me them! (Luther, To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany, 370)

The relationship between the Renaissance and the Reformation has been the source of vigorous scholarly research and debate for centuries. The most common view is that, while the religious reformers of the sixteenth century— Protestants in particular—adopted the Renaissance humanists’ revival of ancient culture and languages to study and promote the holy scriptures, their negative, Augustinian view of human nature prevented them from being “true” humanists who believed in free will and the dignity of man. These two quotations, the first from Desiderius Erasmus—the most influential of the northern Christian humanists and a staunch defender of free will—and the second from Martin Luther—the ultimate Augustinian Protestant—reveal that the reality was more complex. It is certainly the case that one can also find statements by Erasmus that are much more positive about human nature and by Luther warning against the evils of philosophy, but these quotations remind us that we need to read

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carefully and pay attention to context when analyzing the relationship between Renaissance humanism and religious reform in the early modern period. This chapter will argue that, at least in the context of secondary education, the religious reformers of the sixteenth century—including pre-Reformation Catholic reformers (such as Erasmus), Protestants, and Jesuits—all adopted and promoted the basic classical curriculum of the Italian humanists. “Secondary” education refers here to what we would consider today to include late elementary school through high school. This educational system was centered around Latin grammar schools; the primary subjects for boys in these schools (approximately ages eight to sixteen) were Latin grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy, and the curriculum was heavily influenced by classical authors, especially Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian.1 This level of education was distinct from primary or vernacular education, in which students learned to read and write in their native tongues, and also from tertiary or higher education at colleges, academies, and universities. While the goals of this type of secondary education varied and often have to be inferred—it is relatively rare to find direct statements on the goals of education in writings from this period—it is clear that moral training and discipline were central (many of the authors mention over and over again the promotion of “virtue”), as was the need to train boys to be future leaders of church and state. It becomes apparent when reading the primary sources that these men simply could not conceive of any kind of education that was not steeped in the classics of Greece and Rome and that they saw little or no tension or contradiction between the classics and Christianity. Thus, it may be that, while the religious reformers were less likely than the earlier Italian humanists to write about concepts such as “dignity” and “freedom” in the context of education, the curriculum was much the same, as were the goals, namely access to ancient languages and literature, which would then lead to moral discipline and service to the community. Nevertheless, the religious reformers did make some important contributions to Western education and educational philosophy that went beyond those of the Italian humanists. The first was the systemization of the classical curriculum, both in terms of the organization of schools into levels or grades and in terms of more rigid rules and methods for teaching grammar and rhetoric. This is what some historians have referred to as the development of “method” or “ratio.” Second was the introduction of more religious instruction, although this varied from place and place and was always secondary to the basic classical curriculum. Third, religious reformers presided over an age of expansion in terms of the number of schools and pupils at all levels—from primary to grammar to university education. Protestant Germany led the way on the creation of the first state-supported schools, and Switzerland and the Jesuits on the founding of new institutions to train clergy. In the end, without the contributions of

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religious reformers in the sixteenth century, the classical curriculum of the ancient Romans and the Italian humanists would not have reached as widely as it did, in Europe and beyond, and probably would not have endured as long as it did. To demonstrate these arguments, this chapter will analyze educational sources by leading sixteenth-century theorists, focusing primarily on Desiderius Erasmus (See Figure 7.1), Johann Sturm, Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon (See Figure 7.2), and the Jesuit Ratio studiorum (Plan of Studies). The first section will examine statements by these authors on the goals of education. The second section will provide an overview of the basic curriculum proposed by these authors. The third and fourth sections will examine the inclusion of religious instruction in the curriculum and the vast increase in the number of schools that took place in the sixteenth century.

GOALS OF EDUCATION In the opening paragraph of On the Method of Study (De ratione studii, 1512), Erasmus’s most comprehensive educational treatise, he declares, “In principle, knowledge as a whole seems to be of two kinds, of things and of words. Knowledge of words comes earlier, but that of things is the more important” (1512/1978: 666). This is about as close as Erasmus ever comes to a statement of the goal or goals of education. He is the most general of our writers about the goals of education, perhaps because he was never involved with actually organizing or running a school and so did not have to be as pragmatic. This passage is important, nonetheless, because Erasmus states that knowledge of words comes first. The notion that training in languages—most importantly, Latin grammar—had to come before anything else was key to the educational programs of all of the reformers. At the end of this same paragraph, Erasmus also confirms the importance of moral training as a component of education. He writes, “Nothing to be sure is acquired more easily than what is right and true. But once bad habits get a grip on character, it is remarkable how they cannot be eradicated” (p. 666). The need to inculcate good habits is a common theme in the writings of all these authors, as it was in Greek and Roman sources (Gianoutsos 2008; Strauss 1978: 39, 64). There is very little mention of Christianity in On the Method of Study, but in other treatises, Erasmus makes it clear that he views a classical education as a necessary part of a Christian one. In the Education of a Christian Prince (Institutio principis Christiani, 1516), he writes, “Being a philosopher is in practice the same thing as being a Christian: only the terminology is different” (Erasmus 1516/1997: 15). In her introduction to this treatise, Lisa Jardine argues that what Erasmus really meant by “Christianity” was “morality and rule of law,” and she points out that he draws equally from pagan and Christian sources in the treatise (p. xi).

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Johann Sturm was the founder of the gymnasium at Strasbourg and the leading pedagogical theorist in the Reformed (later Calvinist) tradition. He was also profoundly indebted to Erasmus. In The Correct Opening of Elementary Schools of Letters (De literarum ludis recte aperiendis, 1538), he alternates between asserting that the goal of education is “knowledge”—specifically knowledge of the “physical world”—and “wise and eloquent piety,” to which he also refers at different points in the treatise as “educated piety” or “learned piety” (1995: 73, 85). The original Latin for this phrase is usually pietas litterata, but there are variants, for instance pietas eloquens. The phrase is also used by Melanchthon, and it perfectly encapsulates how the religious reformers assumed and proclaimed a connection between education in the classics and Christian piety (Bowen 1975: 365). Also significant is the fact that the word “virtue” appears repeatedly in Sturm’s treatise, over ten times in the first few pages. For example, he writes, Therefore knowledge and wisdom do not contribute much to states unless we also add the cultivation and teaching of virtue by which we become accustomed to do what we have learned. For there is true wisdom only where there appears no inconstancy in speech, no error in opinion, and in actions no infamy or any fault. (Sturm 1995: 72) For Sturm, as for Erasmus, wisdom, eloquence, and virtue were inextricably intertwined. Martin Luther was a strong believer in education, but he left consideration of the details of schooling and theorizing about education to his right-hand man, Philip Melanchthon. (For his reforms to the curriculum at Wittenberg University, his advice on the establishment of numerous secondary schools in Germany, and his many pedagogical writings, Melanchthon earned the title “Professor of the Germans” or Praeceptor germaniae.) Nevertheless, Luther’s treatise To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany That They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools (1524) is significant as a relatively succinct statement of why Luther believed education to be important. In this treatise, Luther is clearer than Erasmus and Sturm about the pragmatic benefits of education, namely access to the holy scriptures and the need for leaders in both church and state. He declares that learning in Greek and Latin is “actually a greater ornament, profit, glory, and benefit” than learning in the vernacular, “both for the understanding of the Holy Scripture and the conduct of temporal government” (Luther 1524/1962: 358). Much of the content of the treatise, in fact, is Luther expanding on these two goals of education with more details and examples. Melanchthon writes something very similar in his oration On the Order of Learning (1531), which is addressed to students themselves: “You ought to keep in view the purpose of your studies, and decide that they are provided for giving of advice for

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the state, for teaching in the churches, and for upholding the doctrine of religion” (Melanchthon 1999: 6). The Jesuit scholar John O’Malley has written that, by 1560, it was clear that education had become as important a part of the mission of the Jesuits as the ministry. The original Jesuit school at Messina was founded in 1548 for a very practical reason—the need to train more priests for the Society—and did not originally contain a humanist curriculum, but by the middle of the 1550s, Ignatius of Loyola had made the decision to adopt subjects such as Greek and Hebrew and to follow the educational ideals of the humanists. The two central

FIGURE 7.1  Philip Melanchthon, “Professor of the Germans.” (photo by: bildagenturonline/uig via Getty Images).

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documents for Jesuit education are Part IV of the Constitutions (1556), by Loyola, and the Ratio studiorum (1599), composed by numerous authors. Neither document contains a clear statement of the goals of education, but in the preamble to Part IV, Loyola writes about helping members of the order and others attain “the final end for which they were created” and setting a “moral example.” He also proclaims that an education in letters can “aid to a better knowledge and service of God” (Loyola 1933: 49). Similarly, one of the “Rules for the Prefect of Lower Studies,” in the Ratio studiorum, proclaims that students should “progress in the moral integrity of their lives, no less than in humanistic studies” (Pavur 1599/2005: 110). It is clear that the Jesuits too embraced the belief that classical studies and Christian morality went hand in hand. The English did not produce any major educational theorists, that is, no one as innovative or influential as Erasmus, Sturm, or Melanchthon. However, there were many pedagogical books and treatises published in England during the sixteenth century that demonstrate the influence of Renaissance humanism and the new pedagogical ideas coming from the Continent. This is particularly important for the history of Western education because of England’s outsized impact on education in North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The most well-known English pedagogical writers of the sixteenth century were Thomas Elyot and Roger Ascham, both of whom were influenced by Erasmus. Ascham also corresponded with Johann Sturm and cited several of his works in his treatise The Schoolmaster (1570) (Ascham 1570/1967: xxii, 14, 37, 93). Like Erasmus, both of these men wrote for aristocratic audiences. They were not concerned with setting up schools but rather with the private tutoring of future leaders of the “commonwealth.” Also, as is the case with Erasmus, it is difficult to find a clear statement in their writings of the goals of education, but the themes of religion, virtue, and service to the state are all present. For example, in a philosophical dictionary entitled The Banquet of Sapience, Elyot writes the preface from the first-person point of view of a female character, “sapience” or wisdom. Her declaration as to why men should listen to her can be read as a justification for education: “To me belong counsel and equity, mine is prudence and mine also fortitude. By me kings do reign and makers of laws do those things that be righteous. By me princes do govern, and men in authority sentence according to justice” (A4v).2 A view of education in England from further down the social scale is available through an analysis of the foundational documents of endowed grammar schools across the country. One benefactor declares that he is establishing a school so that students can have “instruction … in good manners, learning, knowledge, and virtue”; another proclaims that he wants children “brought up in the learning of true piety and the Latin tongue” (Stowe 1908: 21).

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CURRICULUM AND METHOD Medieval pedagogical theorists followed the late ancient program of dividing the liberal arts into the trivium—grammar, logic (also known as dialectic), and rhetoric—and the quadrivium—arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. The Italian humanists, rejecting the medieval emphasis on logic, replaced this scheme with the five liberal arts—grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy (Grafton and Jardine 1986: 1–28; see also Chapter 5, this volume). The basic curriculum advocated by the religious reformers consisted of four out of the five core humanist subjects—grammar, rhetoric, poetry, and history— with the reinsertion of dialectic and a more rigorous approach to structure and method.3 Starting once again with Erasmus and moving through the Protestants and the Jesuits, this section will demonstrate in more detail the most important aspects of this curriculum and the “method” developed by the reformers. Erasmus differs from the other authors in that he never wrote a document specifically for or about schools; his educational treatises were aimed at elites who hired tutors for their sons. Nevertheless, his treatises and his books on grammar and rhetoric were widely read, printed, and pirated all over Europe and were enormously influential on Western education and on the other theorists discussed in this chapter (Grafton and Jardine 1986: 135–50). Another consequence of the fact that Erasmus was not writing about schools is that he does not offer any plan for the division of students into classes or grades, as do the other, later authors. Ironically, in fact, his On the Method of Study is not particularly well organized or methodical, and yet he emphasizes the need for teachers to have a “method” or plan in place for the student’s progress. Erasmus recommends that parents and teachers speak Latin to boys as early as possible; formal schooling should start no later than age seven and should begin with Greek as well as Latin. He suggests various Greek and Latin grammars, both ancient and more recent humanist ones, for instance those of Theodorus Gaza and Niccolò Perotti. The desire for a structured method of teaching and a plan for students’ progress is evident in the abundance of sentences such as the following: After the boy has acquired some degree of skill in speaking by these methods, he should then, as it seems opportune, be referred to the more advanced stages of grammar, which should be imparted by some scheme of arrangement and systematization, in such a way that in the first place the simplest are set out, and briefly at that. (Erasmus 1512/1978: 678) Another important step for the student was to read original classics in Latin and Greek. Erasmus recommends, among others, Terence, Plautus, Virgil, Horace, and Cicero in Latin and Lucian, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Homer, and Ovid in Greek. These works would simultaneously introduce the student to poetry and history. For rhetoric, Erasmus advises Lorenzo Valla’s Elegantiae Linguae Latinae (Refinements of the Latin Language), Donatus, and Diomedes. He

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stresses that, to learn proper style, the student must practice writing prose and poetry himself and memorize the chief points of rhetoric (Erasmus 1512/1978: 670). Erasmus places more emphasis on learning rhetoric for writing rather than speaking. For example, he urges the student to memorize and practice the nine different types of letters (p. 680).4 In addition to these recommendations, Erasmus also wrote and published textbooks of his own. His primary book on rhetoric is De Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style (multiple editions between 1512 and 1534), which he refers to in On the Method of Study. His Colloquies (Colloquia), Latin dialogues written for schoolboys, were also immensely popular. These dialogues contain frequent satirical criticism of the church, so they provide a rare example of overlap between Erasmus’s pedagogical and spiritual priorities. Erasmus did not confine his curriculum to only grammar, rhetoric, history, and poetry. After one of his sections on style (remember that On the Method of Study is not particularly well organized but rather jumps around from topic to topic), Erasmus adds, “If someone should decide that dialectic be added to the above I shall not gainsay him much, provided that he learn his dialectic from Aristotle and not from the prolix breed, the sophists” (Erasmus 1512/1978: 670). This is important because it demonstrates that most Renaissance humanists were not completely opposed to dialectic or Aristotle and that the relationship between rhetoric and dialectic was close in the minds of many educational theorists. Melanchthon and Sturm would go on to advocate more directly for the teaching of dialectic. Erasmus also suggests readings for more advanced subjects. In fact, he specifies that one of the reasons that students should learn Greek is that Greek authors are the “fountain-head” of knowledge in all areas. For philosophy, he proposes Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Plotinus; for astronomy, Hyginus; and for theology, Origin, Chrysostom, Basil, and Ambrose (pp. 673–5). The Lutherans, Jesuits, and Reformed Protestants (including the English) all adopted similar programs in terms of grammar, rhetoric, history, and poetry, with the added element of greater systemization. The two main elements of systemization were set grades or levels, including specific instructions for what was to be taught at each grade, and a more systematic way of teaching grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, breaking down content into loci or topics and then further into binary distinctions or multiple categories. Both of these elements, along with the growth of the printing industry, contributed to an outpouring of textbooks, which historians also associate with the rise of educational systemization or “method” in this period. Historians of education have offered two different explanations for this phenomenon. Jesuit scholars refer to the rigid structure of the program set out in the Ratio studiorum as the Modus parisiensis, or Paris Method, a highly structured teaching method supposedly used at the University of Paris in the late medieval period that Ignatius of Loyola

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FIGURE 7.2  Desiderius Erasmus. (via Nastasic/Getty Images).

and other early Jesuits experienced as students there (O’Malley 1993: 217–18). This attribution seems to have originated in a letter written by Jerome Nadal, an important early Jesuit educator in the sixteenth century (Codina 2017: 106). These scholars often also connect this method with the schools of the Brethren of the Common Life. Furthermore, some have noted (both during the sixteenth

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century and in the centuries since) the similarities between the Jesuit method and that of Sturm in Strasbourg; this is usually explained by pointing out that Sturm also had connections to Paris and to the Brethren of the Common Life (Sturm 1995: 50). Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine (1986) put forward a very different theory in their book From Humanism to the Humanities: Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Europe.5 They argue that the Italian curriculum of the fifteenth century was relatively “unstructured,” which did not suit the more practical and moral aims of education in the north. Erasmus insisted on the need for “method” but, as we have seen, did not really come up with one himself. He did, however, help to publish and promote Rudolph Agricola’s De inventione dialectica (On Dialectical Invention), which provided a method for teaching rhetoric and a “rhetoricized” dialectic based around topics or commonplaces. This method, according to Grafton and Jardine, more closely aligned humanistic teaching with moral training and, therefore, provided the systematic and disciplined approach to classical education that the northern religious reformers desperately desired. The culmination of this trend can be found in the works of Peter Ramus.6 Regardless of its origins, the increasingly systematized educational approach of northern religious reformers and the Jesuits in the sixteenth century is significant for the history of education in the West because, through Jesuit and Protestant schools, it spread all over the globe and helped to normalize important features of education still present— and still debated—today, such as the benefits of method, the proliferation of textbooks, and the division of schools into grades. The earliest program for schools we have by a religious reformer is Philip Melanchthon’s plan in the Instruction of the Visitors to the Pastors in the Electorate of Saxony, Unterricht der Visitatorn an die Pfarhern im Kurfurstenthum zu Sachsen (1528).7 It is very brief, a few pages at the end of what is mostly a document about teaching and preaching religious doctrine, but along with Luther’s 1524 treatise To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany…, it demonstrates the Lutherans’ early commitment to classicism (Luther and Melanchthon 1528/1909: 236–40). Melanchthon advocates dividing schools into three grades and focusing on Latin; he warns against overloading students with Greek and Hebrew. The first grade (Haufen) should begin with the alphabet, prayers, and learning to read. Then students should learn grammar from Donatus and Cato and work on Latin verse and vocabulary. Melanchthon notes that slower students may need to go over Donatus and Cato a second time before advancing. He spends the most space describing the second grade, when serious grammatical training is to commence. This section contains fairly detailed descriptions of what the students should do at different times of the day and even some suggestions for short lessons or assignments to do at home in the evenings. The mornings at school are to be dedicated to grammar,

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including etymology, syntax, and prosody. The afternoons and evenings are for readings, including Aesop’s fables, the Paedologia by Peter Mosellanus (a German humanist), Erasmus’s Colloquies, and Ovid. The third-grade students are to advance to more sophisticated readings: Virgil, the letters of Cicero, and more Ovid. They are also to learn verse composition, dialectic, and rhetoric.8 While Melanchthon does not go into any detail on how dialectic or rhetoric should be taught in the Instruction, we know a lot more about his views on these subjects because of his own pedagogical orations and publications. His orations on eloquence and dialectic reveal that he was deeply indebted to Cicero and Aristotle, as do his own textbooks on Latin and Greek grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic. His textbook on dialectic was, in fact, published in Strasbourg and admired by Johann Sturm (Melanchthon 1999: xi). Gerald Strauss, writing on the pedagogical system that developed under Melanchthon’s leadership in Germany, describes it as “Ramism before Ramus,” built on the idea of “dismembering subjects into small segments and committing these to the pupil’s memory, bits at a time and by means of ceaseless repetition” (1978: 176). By far the most systematic in their educational plans, however, were Johann Sturm and the Jesuits. Sturm stipulates either eight or nine grades in his academy, starting with the simplest grammar lessons in the first year and culminating with higher philosophical works by Aristotle and others in the ninth year.9 He also sets up “public lectures” in higher subjects, like mathematics, theology, law, and medicine. He argues that if a boy starts school around age seven, he can proceed through the entire curriculum by about age twenty-one and be well prepared to go on to university. What follows is an extended quotation from the Correct Opening of Elementary Schools of Letters that demonstrates the detail of the schedule set up by Sturm as well as the classicism of the curriculum. He is writing about the second-year curriculum: Then in the first six months, grammatical distinction should be taught with the greatest care but not the points that are obscure or drawn from all sorts of exceptions. For the explanation of this, two hours a day are needed. Whatever time is left over should be devoted to the Eclogues of Vergil and the letters of Cicero. That is two hours; since instruction should last about four hours, I give this advice. The letters ought to be analyzed. Individual words must be inflected, interchanged, and again combined and the reason for each word’s sequence given. (89) In the fifth year, Sturm has students advance to Greek grammar; in the sixth, analysis of Greek and Latin oratory. In the eighth and ninth years, rhetoric and dialectic are to be taught together, the latter through Aristotle (p. 101). The Jesuit Ratio studiorum is even more systematic and detailed than Sturm’s plan. It is set up as a series of lists of “rules” for administrators and faculty. It begins with “Rules for the Provincial,” the highest position of authority

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at a Jesuit school or college, and proceeds to “Rules for the Rector,” “Rules for the Prefect of Studies,” and so on. The “Rules for the Prefect of Lower Studies” proposes five classes, three years of grammar and one each of rhetoric and humanities (history and poetry). The grammar assigned is that by Jesuit pedagogue Emmanuel Alvarez, divided into three parts, roughly corresponding to the three grammar classes. An example of the rigorous schedule proposed by the Jesuits that is similar to Sturm’s can be found in the “Rules for the Professor of Humanities.” In the first hour of the day, students are to recite from memory a passage from Cicero and a “prosody” (ars metrica).10 Then the teacher is to correct written work while the students do exercises, followed by more recitation at the end of the hour. In the second hour of the day, the students review the previous lesson and go over a new one. The teacher is then supposed to ask them to repeat the new lesson right away. The final half hour should alternate between a reading of a historian and of a poet (Pavur 1599/2005: 167). (The Jesuits divided the academic schedule into two sessions of two and a half hours each, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.) The authors of the Ratio Studiorum are adamant about the importance of preserving distinctions between grades. The prefect should make sure that classes “are not in any way mixed; so that if some class, on account of a large enrollment, is ever split into two at the instruction of the provincial, each should retain the same grade” (p. 12).11 Nevertheless, the authors recognize that some schools would not be big enough to have five classes, and so they set out guidelines for cases when there could be only four, three, or two (p. 115–16). Another important characteristic of the Jesuit program and that of Sturm in Strasbourg is an emphasis on competition and public ceremony. The authors of the Ratio studiorum make much of the need for written work competitions between students as well as public debates and declamations. Teachers are supposed to award public prizes to the students who win the competitions and offer private prizes and encouragement to those who may not win but demonstrate progress (O’Malley 1993: 221–2; Pavur 1599/2005: 125, 133). Jesuit schools also became famous for their theatrical performances. As John O’Malley writes, “the Jesuits did not invent the ‘school drama,’ but they cultivated it to an especially high degree over a long period of time in a vast network of schools almost around the globe” (1993: 223). Finally, both Sturm and the Jesuits believed that proper public notice should be taken when students graduated or were promoted up to the next grade. Sturm proposes a “solemn annual promotion” every October. In addition to recognizing the students moving up, the best two boys in each grade were to be particularly acknowledged at this event (Sturm 1995: 88). Similarly, the Ratio Studiorum advises a “general and formal promotion” once a year and states that the names of students advancing to the next grade should be posted publicly (Pavur 1599/2005: 118–19).

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Research has shown that Latin schools in Swiss Reformed cities and in England followed curricula based on the classics that were very similar to the ones put forward by the Lutherans, Sturm, and the Jesuits. Most of the research on education in Switzerland in this period has been on tertiary institutions. Zurich and Geneva both had academies that taught biblical languages, theology, and philosophy to future clergy (Euler 2013; Maag 1995). Basel had its famous university, which also produced many Reformed pastors (Burnett 2006). Less attention has been paid to the secondary level, but we know that most Swiss cities also had at least one Latin school. Zurich had two, and a late nineteenthcentury study of Zurich’s schools reveals a curriculum and timetable similar to Sturm’s and Melanchthon’s, with lots of Cicero, Cato, Virgil, Erasmus, and other ancient and humanist authors (Ernst 1879: 112–15). In contrast, many scholars have written about grammar schools in England in the late medieval and early modern period and vigorously debated the relative influence of the Renaissance and the Reformation on education there. A close look at school statutes and books used by students in England reveals, not surprisingly, a thoroughly classical approach, with an emphasis on writing and translating Latin in the style of Cicero (Green 2009; Stowe 1908: 104–24). The main grammar used in England was the “King’s Grammar,” a composite text with elements by different authors; a substantial part of the grammar, though, was written by William Lily and John Colet, who were both at St. Paul’s school in London in the early sixteenth century and were both friends and correspondents of Erasmus. Variants of this grammar were still assigned into the eighteenth century (Green 2009: 130–44). Systemization of learning also took hold in England. The English divided students into “forms,” which corresponded to grades, though the practice varied from place to place and was not as rigid as that instituted by Sturm or the Jesuits (Stowe 1908: 111–15). The most interesting example of “method” in England, however, is the practice of double or side-by-side translation promoted by Roger Ascham. Students would translate a Latin text into English and then back again from their own English into Latin. Ascham cites Cicero, Quintilian, Pliny the Younger, and Johann Sturm as earlier supporters of advocates of this method, and it is clear he believed it to be the most tried and true method for teaching Latin grammar and style (Ascham 1570/1967: xxxiii, 83–7). In the early seventeenth century, John Brinsley, a schoolmaster in Leicestershire and a Puritan Nonconformist, further popularized this method in his work Ludus Literarius, or, The Grammar School (1612 and 1627), a lengthy treatise written in the form of a dialogue to help younger teachers learn classroom techniques. Before moving on to the religious elements of these educational programs, it is important to dispel two popular misconceptions about schooling in the age of the Reformation. First is that the reformers subjected the pagan classics to a lot of censorship or expurgation to avoid content deemed inappropriate

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for Christians. In the sources analyzed for this chapter, there is surprisingly little censorship. It only comes up a few times in the context of certain classical authors, usually poets, whose works have relatively explicit sexual content. Erasmus, for example, occasionally refers to the need for care in choosing passages from certain authors. He writes that Plautus can be used if “free from impropriety” and that students need to be properly prepared before reading Virgil’s second Eclogue (Erasmus 1512/1978: 669, 683–7). Sturm does not even go this far—when he recommends the Eclogues for second-year students, he does so with no qualifications (Sturm 1995: 89). Similarly, historian Ian Green has found that various English authors and pedagogues did occasionally express concern about the content of pagan authors but that there were a lot of unexpurgated versions of pagan classics circulating in English schools (Green 2009: 154, 192, 224–5). It is not surprising that the Jesuits required the most censorship. One of the “Rules for the Provincial” listed at the outset of the Ratio Studiorum is that schools must “avoid entirely the books of poets or whatever material can injure moral integrity and good character, unless they have first been expurgated of unseemly language and subject matter.” Furthermore, the authors specify that there are some classical authors, such as Terence, that cannot be properly expurgated and so should not be used (Pavur 1599/2005: 25). The second misconception is that education in this period was full of mind-numbing rote learning and harsh discipline. While obviously practice depended on specific teachers, and the sources examined here are prescriptive rather than descriptive, it is important to recognize that the majority of our theorists acknowledged that learning should be enjoyable and that excessive discipline was counterproductive. As Gerald Strauss points out, all of the reformers were familiar with Plato’s explanation of the pleasure-pain principle as a rationale for human motivation, and they “made use of it in many ways” (1978: 57). No one banned corporeal punishment entirely, but “there is hardly an educational writer of the classical, medieval, and early modern periods who fails to insist that severe and frequent punishment is counterproductive” (1978: 58). Erasmus expounds upon this topic for several pages in his Declamation on the Subject of Early Liberal Education for Children (De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis declamatio, 1529). He asserts that a person who learns to change his behavior out of fear of negative consequences will become slavish and proclaims that “nothing is more damaging to young children than constant exposure to beatings” (Erasmus 1529/1985 327, 331). Sturm and the Jesuits both contend that corporeal punishment is sometimes necessary but should never be excessive (Sturm 1995: 223; Pavur 1599/2005: 127–8). Criticism of schoolteachers who beat students seems to have been one of the main motivating factors for Roger Ascham to write The Schoolmaster. He

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encourages gentleness in correction: “For I know by good experience that a child shall take more profit of two faults gently warned than of four things rightly hit” (1570/1967: 15). Ascham clearly believed that some intellectually promising boys were being discouraged from school because they did not appear “quick” and were terrified by overly harsh schoolmasters. He argues that this is a mistake because the “quick wit” boys often turn out to be bold, flattering, arrogant, and rash, while the “still, silent, constant” child may actually have more promise in the long term (p. 24). This brings up another way in which sixteenth-century reformers were perhaps more progressive in their ideas than we give them credit for. They recognized that different students have different abilities and ways of learning. Erasmus asserts that each child has “a nature unique to each individual being. Thus one child may have an aptitude for mathematics, another for theology, and third for poetry and rhetoric, and again another for military life” (Erasmus 1529/1985: 316). He encourages teachers to look for signs early on of the personality and particular abilities of each child. Similarly, all of these authors promoted the need to make learning enjoyable. Erasmus explains that teachers should make things interesting and fun for students with “delightful tales, witty aphorisms, memorable incidents from history,” and games. He refers to one ancient game for learning the Greek alphabet that involved cookies and a more recent one by the English involving archery (Erasmus 1529/1985: 338–9). Sturm admits that a lot of memorization is required for students, especially in the early years, but he encourages “variety” in teaching to prevent overwhelming them and inducing boredom (Sturm 1995: 91–2). He also advises mixing in physical games, races, and dances: “But we ought to follow Cicero, who wished us to use jests and games, with slumbers and rest periods, and then indeed after that satisfaction was given with grave and serious studies” (p. 248). As already discussed, Sturm and the Jesuits also emphasized the need for things such as competitions, public debates and declamations, and plays to motivate students to learn. While it is true that early modern education required more rote learning and memorization than the average twenty-first-century student is used to, it is clear that pedagogical theorists of the sixteenth century recognized the need for variety and pleasure in learning.

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION Another important contribution of religious reformers to education in the sixteenth century is, not surprisingly, more comprehensive religious instruction. This varied depending on the theorist and the place, however. Advocates for religious instruction can be divided into two main groups: those who proclaimed the need for religious training but do not seem to have made it a

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part of daily instruction and those who clearly did make it a significant part of daily instruction. In the first group belong Erasmus, Sturm, and the majority of the English theorists. In On the Method of Study, Erasmus writes very little about religious or spiritual instruction. In their analysis of Erasmus and his impact, in fact, Grafton and Jardine (1986: 137–8) assert that Erasmus operated on an unstated assumption that classical training would lead to moral discipline and the rearing of good Christians, but they argue that there is actually little connection between his spiritual piety and pedagogical writings. Sturm refers a lot to “piety” in his writings and sometimes to “religion,” but religious instruction does not seem to have played a large role in his curriculum (Sturm 1995: 104, 243, 250). Sturm stipulates that students should attend church on festival days and mentions the daily singing of psalms, but he does not mention religious instruction in his detailed descriptions of the lessons. Furthermore, the following statement appears in his program for the school at Lauingen, which implies that he does not believe religion has much place at all in the gymnasium: This youth, therefore, if he has learned how to pray to God at home, if he holds to the confession of the universal church, if he can recite from memory both tables of the law in his native language, need not be burdened with the Latin or Greek catechism. His youthful industry must be relieved and liberated from every oppressive weight. It is enough if what he has received at home is not forgotten in this school. It suffices if he prays piously in his native language, for his paternal language is equally pleasing to God, and these are the things that we wish the youth to learn. (p. 217) Similarly, Ian Green’s in-depth study of grammar school education in England reveals that religious instruction does not appear to have been a daily part of the schedule at most schools there. Canons issued by the Church of England in 1571 declared that teachers should teach catechism once a week and that students should attend sermons. In 1604, a new set of canons stated that teachers should teach “sentences of the holy scripture” but gave no further specifics. Green writes, “Only at some leading schools and in the handbooks of some innovative teachers do we have indications of intermediate or advanced exercises based on the Bible being stipulated or attempted” (2009: 289). Practice varied according to location and schoolmaster, but Green estimates that most English grammar school students only learned catechism and read the Bible about once a week. In fact, in the seventeenth century, Puritan preachers were known to complain about the lack of regular Bible reading (289–93). In the second group—those pedagogues who advocated more frequent and direct religious instruction—fall the Lutherans, the Swiss Reformed, and the Jesuits. Gerald Strauss argues that Martin Luther and his followers established a school system that, while highly classical (as we have seen), also aimed at

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religious indoctrination. More controversially, Strauss concludes that the plan failed. His analysis of visitation records of Lutheran pastors suggests that religious faith and comprehension of the basic teachings of the church did not increase in the second half of the sixteenth century, despite the proliferation of schools (Strauss 1978: 249–99). While this second argument has been hotly debated, there is no doubt that the schools established in Lutheran cities and territories did provide daily religious teaching. In the Instruction of the Visitors to the Pastors in the Electorate of Saxony, Melanchthon asserts that each morning the students should start with prayer and singing; all the grades should sing hymns together. Furthermore, almost half of the content of his description of the curriculum for the second-level students consists of prayer and scripture reading, mostly psalms and epistles (Luther and Melanchthon 1528/1909: 239). It is clear that Lutheran students read portions of the scriptures every day. We also know that Luther’s small and larger catechisms and variants on them became standard textbooks in the schools, particularly in the lower-level German schools but also in the Latin schools (Strauss 1978: 151–75). Hymn singing was also pervasive (pp. 230–6). Less is known about Latin schools in Reformed areas, but the same plan referred to earlier from the Zurich Latin schools indicates that students studied catechism, New Testament, and Hebrew alongside the classical curriculum, and broader studies of Reformed education (including not just Switzerland but also the Netherlands, France, and parts of Germany) suggest plenty of Bible reading as well (Ehrenpreis 2005). The Jesuits, of course, are famous for the spiritual rigor and religious instruction of their schools. Rules 2–9 under the section “Rules Common to All the Professors of the Lower Classes” are directly religious. They stipulate that each class session should start with prayer, that students are to attend mass every day, sermons on feast days and twice a week in Lent, spiritual exhortations on Friday and Saturday, and recitations of “Christian doctrine” on Friday and Saturday (Pavur 1599/2005: 137–40). In addition, teachers are to engage in private spiritual conversations with students and make sure they attend confession at least once per month. From all the schedules and prescriptions in the Ratio studiorum, we can reasonably estimate that students at Jesuit schools spent about five hours a day on academic or humanistic pursuits and about two hours engaged in religious instruction, prayer, or worship. It is also important to recognize that both Protestants and Catholics made important contributions in the sixteenth century to the study of theology at tertiary institutions. In fact, it can be argued that the sixteenth century saw the birth of the seminary as an institution. The Ratio studiorum provides just as much detail on the advanced religious curriculum for future members of the Society as it does for students in lower studies. The theology program was based on the thought of Thomas Aquinas and was laid out very systematically, just like

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the lower-level curriculum. Higher-level Jesuit students also had to study “cases of conscience,” which was a program for training future priests to work through difficult moral and spiritual dilemmas. The Lutherans had few Latin schools or gymnasia with higher studies; mostly, theology was taught at universities such as Wittenberg. Melanchthon was absolutely crucial in reforming the arts curriculum and the teaching of philosophy and theology at Wittenberg, and he set a model for other German universities as well. He was able to reconcile Luther’s theology and dislike of Aristotle with his own belief in the importance of ancient philosophy by distinguishing between theological truths and “truths attainable through human reason alone,” by balancing scripture and philosophy in many of his books and commentaries, and simply by writing so many well-respected textbooks on things such as moral and natural philosophy, rhetoric, and dialectic (Melanchthon 1999: xvii). He was also the first to write a systematic book of Protestant theology based on the loci method adopted from Agricola and popularized by northern humanists. The Loci Communes, or Commonplaces, became hugely influential in the teaching of theology in Lutheran cities and territories and beyond. In the Reformed world, the Swiss and the English led the way in establishing new institutions and reforming old ones for the study of theology and the training of future clergy. We have already seen how Zurich and Geneva established academies that occupied a gray area between seminary and university. Zurich’s academy, or Lectorium, had its roots in Huldrych Zwingli’s reorganization of education in Zurich in the 1520s. In addition to reforming the city’s two Latin schools, Zwingli instituted daily public biblical lectures in the nave of the Great Minster. These lectures, which were more like interactive discussions, became famous in the Reformed world; in the 1520s and 1530s, they were often attended by foreign students and guests, and the fruits of the discussions resulted in the publication of the Zurich German Bible. By 1560, this lively tradition of public lectures had developed into a more formal institution of higher education, and it is probably one of the reasons the academies in both Geneva and Strasbourg were often referred to as schola publica. The Lectorium still had a close relationship with the Latin schools, but it had a set number of professors and its own classroom; lectures and exams were given in theology, the three biblical languages, and natural philosophy. Thus, the approach to theological teaching at Zurich (and Geneva and Strasbourg) was more directly scriptural than that of the Catholics and even the Lutherans. It was also humanist. One of the teachers at the Lectorium in the middle of the sixteenth century was Peter Martyr Vermigli, whose theological writings and biblical commentaries have been the subject of much recent study. Scholars have noted his deep knowledge of Greek and Hebrew and the high number of classical, even pagan, references in his commentaries. His career is an example of how Reformed theology, humanism, and scholasticism could blend together

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in the writings of reformers and have an impact on the training of clergy in the sixteenth century (Kirby, Campi, and James 2009). In England, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge became centers for theological study and the training of clergy. Starting around the 1520s, both universities began to adopt more humanistic subjects, for instance Hebrew and Greek. These years also saw the creation of new professorships, including professors or readers in divinity (Logan 1977). New colleges were founded by Protestant elites. Emmanuel College and Sidney Sussex College, both at Cambridge, are prime examples. They were founded in 1584 and 1596, respectively, for the purpose of training future clergy for the Church of England, and they functioned in many ways as England’s seminaries. By 1600, it was much more common, even expected, that clergy in the Church of England would have a university degree (O’Day 1979). One reason for this was the emphasis that religious and educational reformers placed on the need for knowledge in languages and humanistic studies.

EXPANSION AND STATE SUPPORT The expansion of higher education in theology leads to the last main topic of this chapter: the growth of education at all levels in the sixteenth century, largely as a result of the efforts of men such as Sturm, Melanchthon, and Ignatius of Loyola. The number of schools started to increase all over Europe in the late Middle Ages, but the sixteenth century saw enormous growth, in large part because of the religious reformers’ identification of education with religious and moral training. The increase in secondary and tertiary institutions is the best documented, but it is clear that vernacular schools at the primary level also proliferated. We have the best evidence concerning this increase for schools in Germany and England and for Jesuit institutions. For example, Gerald Strauss notes that more than a hundred territorial and city governments in Germany passed new school ordinances in the sixteenth century and confirms that more schools existed in 1600 than in 1500 and that more Germans were being educated (Strauss 1978: 13–16). Christopher Friedrichs has studied smaller, lower-level German schools and, in response to Strauss’s argument that the Lutherans did not achieve their educational aims, points out that “functional literacy could and did coexist with religious illiteracy” (Friedrichs 1982). In other words, more Germans could read and write than at the beginning of the century, but they did not necessarily know their catechism any better. John O’Malley estimates that the Jesuits founded about eight hundred educational institutions in the first two centuries of their existence, mostly in Europe and Latin America (1993: 239). He also points out that the Jesuits were innovators in that their schools were tuition-free (p. 219). In England, most grammar schools were charities

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and were at least technically free of charge. They were endowed by wealthy clergy or laypeople to provide tuition-free education for talented local boys— hence the common designation of a “free school.” However, scholars have pointed out that, even at these schools, there were often hidden costs and fees that prevented genuinely poor students from attending (Stowe 1908: 89–94). One historian has estimated that about a hundred new grammar schools were founded in the sixteenth century, mostly in the Elizabethan period, and that this expansion continued until approximately 1640. When combined with the pre-Reformation school foundings, this means there were approximately three hundred grammar schools in England by 1600 (Stowe 1908: 9–11; Stone 1964). One of the ways that reformers were able to increase the numbers of schools was by convincing governing elites to help fund education. The level of support was often patchy and unreliable, but nevertheless, the sixteenth century marks a very important milestone in the history of education in the West as the first time that Europe saw widespread state support for schools. The Germans— especially Luther and Sturm—were the most influential in spreading the idea of government funding for education. One of the main messages of Luther’s treatise To the Councilmen of All Cities is the need for city magistrates to financially maintain and support schools and to try to enforce attendance. Luther believed this was necessary because he had come to the conclusion that parents were failing in their duty to educate their children at home and that this was harming the cause of the gospel. Similarly, two of Sturm’s main treatises on education, including On the Correct Opening of Elementary Schools of Letters, were directed at the city council of Strasbourg and contained forceful calls for city support for the school (Sturm 1995: 76–7). The most common way that cities financed education was to use funds from dissolved monastic houses or colleges of canons. This was done in many German and Swiss cities (Sturm 1995: 6; Euler 2013: 121–4). In Germany, territorial princes sometimes helped financially, and they often sent out visitors to churches and schools, but mostly it was the local governments, combined with tuition from the parents, that funded the schools (Strauss 1978: 25–7). England’s situation was less centralized. As mentioned, most grammar schools were privately endowed charities. There were plans in the 1530s and 1540s to put funds from dissolved monasteries into schools, but these mostly failed to come to fruition. The royal government did get involved in education by granting royal patents of incorporation to schools and requiring bishops to license schoolmasters (starting in 1559), but it did not fund schools directly (Cressy 1987; Euler 2019; Stowe 1908: 11–12). Local schools and governments were often closely connected, however. It was not unusual for a city’s town council to serve as the board of governors or trustees for schools in incorporated towns; in unincorporated towns, sometimes the board of governors for the local school acted in many ways like a town council (Euler 2019; Simon 1968).

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CONCLUSION It is clear that the main accomplishment of sixteenth-century religious reformers in terms of education was to continue the classical program of the Renaissance humanists. The support of men such as Erasmus, Luther, and Loyola for classical education; the support of governing elites, whom these men managed to convince of the value of classical education; and the added element of method or systemization—all three of these factors were crucial in allowing the ancient curriculum of the Greeks and Romans revived by the Italian humanists to spread as far and last as long as it did. In pondering the legacy of this system and these reformers today, two important issues arise. First is the debate over freedom versus docility. Did this curriculum actually foster freedom, intellectual confidence, and innovation, or did it mold young people into docile, pious Christians who did not question authority? The scholars who have most famously argued for the latter are Gerald Strauss, Anthony Grafton, and Lisa Jardine. Strauss believes that, for the Lutherans, education was all about religious indoctrination and political obedience. Grafton and Jardine emphasize that, for northern reformers, it was all about moral discipline and obedience to method, mastering the material rather than questioning it or putting it into action. Other scholars have offered more nuanced views, however. For example, Aysha Pollnitz, who studied the education of the English monarchs in the Tudor period, argues that the curriculum of royal tutors, based largely on Erasmus’s recommendations, equipped the young princes and princesses with the discipline, rhetorical skills, and wide-ranging scriptural and literary knowledge that helped them to assert royal authority over the church and the aristocracy. A humanist education may not have fostered “free thinking,” but it did encourage intellectual independence (Pollnitz 2015: 15). The resolution to this debate most likely falls somewhere in the middle, as is so often the case in history. It is clear that much of the classical curriculum as it developed in the sixteenth century was about mastery rather than innovation. It is also clear that those in elite positions or at elite schools probably had more opportunity to develop intellectual independence and, therefore, assert their social dominance over those lower down on the social scale. Nevertheless, many of the innovators in mathematics and science in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were middle-class boys educated at their local grammar schools—Isaac Newton went to the town grammar school in Grantham, England. A Latin grammar education could lead to creativity and innovation, and not only among the ruling class. Another issue this history brings to the forefront is the tenacity of classicism and what it says about Western civilization. In our age of globalism—when many university history departments have replaced Western civilization with world civilization—educators and cultural commentators are having a lot of

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conversations about how to define Western civilization and what its value is for the modern world. This chapter has shown that one way in which Europe and the places colonized by Europeans around the globe did tenaciously hold on to a very Western, classical idea of culture was through education. It also brings into relief just how much has changed. It took a long time, but between roughly 1650 and 1950, this model of classical education gradually ceased to be dominant and then ceased to exist at all. While a few elite secondary schools in the twenty-first century might still offer students Latin or ancient Greek, no one would now say that a person cannot be educated without reading Cicero or understanding Aristotelian philosophy. There are many reasons for this that will be explored in later chapters and volumes in this series. Among them are the rise of the new mathematics and science in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, new ideas about what constitutes “literature” (replacing Greek and Roman histories and dramas with authors such as Shakespeare and Jane Austen), and the emergence of global financial and military empires requiring mastery of modern languages and knowledge of places the Greeks and Romans knew nothing about. Nevertheless, this chapter in the history of education is not irrelevant today. Educators still grapple with many of the issues found in the writings examined here—such as the need for method or the division of students by age and ability—and with debates about the overall goals of education. Is education about acquiring knowledge for its own sake, fulfilling an individual’s potential, instilling religious faith, or producing citizens who will lead and contribute to (and obey) society? We still do not know and cannot agree.

NOTES 1 For an extended discussion of these authors, please refer to Volume 1 of this series. 2 I have modernized the spelling for early modern English quotations since all of the other primary sources are translated into modern English. 3 An introduction to the fifth subject, moral philosophy, was assumed in the assignment of treatises such as Cicero’s On Duties, but a more systematic training in moral philosophy, based on Aristotle’s Ethics, was usually reserved for more advanced students (at the college, academy, or university level). 4 These are persuasive, dissuasive, exhortatory, dehortatory, narrative, congratulatory, expostulatory, commendatory, and consolatory. For Renaissance humanists’ emphasis on letter writing over speaking, see Monfasani (1988). 5 The following argument is taken from chapter 6 of Grafton and Jardine (1986). 6 The scholarly debate on Renaissance rhetoric is complex, having to do with how different Italian and northern humanists defined the relationship between rhetoric and dialectic. Lisa Jardine and John Monfasani disagree over the similarities and differences between the ideas of Lorenzo Valla and Rudolph Agricola, and which of the five classical parts of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery) each man believed belonged to rhetoric and which to dialectic (Monfasani 1990). Further debate exists about how Agricola did or did not influence people such as Erasmus, Sturm, Ramus, and the Jesuits (Ong 1958; Hotson 2007).

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7 This work can be found in the Weimar edition of Luther’s works, because Luther wrote the preface, but scholars agree that Melanchthon was the primary author. 8 Melanchthon also includes religious instruction for all three grades. This will be treated in a later section of this chapter. 9 The following analysis is taken mostly from Sturm’s Correct Opening of Elementary Schools of Letters (1538), but also from his Advice on What Organization to Give the Gymnasium of Strasbourg (1538) and The Lauingen School (1565). All of these were published in English translation by Lewis Spitz and Barbara Tinsley in 1995; thus, the in-text references for all references will be “Sturm 1995:” followed by the page number for the specific document and quotation. Readers should also know that Sturm, rather confusingly, referred to the ninth or highest year of the gymnasium as the “first year” and to the actual first as the “ninth.” In my analysis, however, I refer to the first as the first, the second as the second, and so on, rather than counting backwards. 10 It is not entirely clear what these terms refer to, most likely a piece of verse. 11 A similar instruction can be found in an early section of the text (Pavur 1599/2005: 20–1).

REFERENCES Primary sources Ascham, Roger (1570/1967), The Schoolmaster (1570), ed. Lawrence V. Ryan, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Brinsley, John (1612/1627/1917), Ludus Literarius or The Grammar Schoole, ed. E.T. Campagnac, London: Constable & Co. Elyot, Thomas (1539), The Bankette of Sapience, London: Thomas Berthelet. Erasmus, Desiderius (1512/1978), On the Method of Study, trans. Brian McGregor, in Craig R. Thompson (eds.), Collected Works of Erasmus, Vol. 24: Literary and Educational Writings 2, 655–91, Toronto: Toronto University Press. Erasmus, Desiderius (1516/1997), The Education of a Christian Prince, ed. Lisa Jardine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Erasmus, Desiderius (1529/1985), A Declamation on the Subject of Early Liberal Education for Children, trans. Beert C. Verstraete, in J.K. Sowards (ed.), Collected Works of Erasmus, Vol. 26: Literary and Educational Writings 4, 291–345, Toronto: Toronto University Press. Loyola, Ignatius (1933), The Constitutions, Part IV, in Edward A. Fitzpatrick (ed.), St. Ignatius and the Ratio Studiorum, 46–118, New York: McGraw-Hill. Luther, Martin (1524/1962), To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany That They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools, 1524, trans. Walther I. Brandt, in Walther I. Brandt (ed.), Luther’s Works, Vol. 45: The Christian in Society 2, 347–78, Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Luther, Martin and Philip Melanchthon (1528/1909), Unterricht der Visitatorn an die Pfarhern im Kurfurstenthum zu Sachsen, in D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtsausgabe, Vol. 26, 195–240, Weimar: Herman Böhlaus Nachfolger. Melanchthon, Philip (1999), Orations on Philosophy and Education, ed. Sachiko Kusukawa, trans. Christine F. Salazar, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pavur, Claude, ed. (1599/2005), The Ratio Studiorum, the Official Plan for Jesuit Education, St. Louis, MO: Institute of Jesuit Sources.

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Sturm, Johann (1995), Johann Sturm on Education, ed. and trans. Lewis W. Spitz and Barbara Sher Tinsley, St. Louis, MO: Concordia.

Secondary sources Bowen, James (1975), A History of Western Education, Vol. 2: Civilization of Europe, Sixth to Sixteenth Century, London: Methuen & Co. Burnett, Amy (2006), Teaching the Reformation: Ministers and their Message in Basel, 1529–1629, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Codina, Gabriel (2017), “‘Our Way of Proceeding’ in Education: The Ratio Studiorum,” in José Mesa, S.J. (ed.), Ignatian Pedagogy: Classic and Contemporary Texts on Jesuit Education from St. Ignatius to Today, 103–27, Chicago: Loyola Press. Cressy, David (1987), “A Drudgery of Schoolmasters: The Teaching Profession in Elizabethan and Stuart England,” in Wilfrid Prest (ed.), The Professions in Early Modern England, 129–53, New York: Croom Helm. Ehrenpreis, Stefan (2005), “Reformed Education in Early Modern Europe: A Survey,” Dutch Review of Church History, 85 (1): 39–51. Ernst, Ulrich (1879), Geschichte des Zürcherischen Schulwesens bis gegen das Ende des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, Winterthur: Bleuler-Hausheer & Cie. Euler, Carrie (2013), “Faculty Recruitment and Retention in the Early Modern Era: The Zurich Lectorium, c. 1560-1610,” Zwingliana, 40: 113–26. Euler, Carrie (2019), “Education, Philanthropy, and Governance: A New Look at Lincolnshire Schools in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Midland History, 44 (1): 21–38. Friedrichs, Christopher (1982), “Whose House of Learning? Some Thoughts on German Schools In Post-Reformation Germany,” History of Education Quarterly, 22 (3): 371–7. Gianoutsos, Jamie A. (2008), “Cultivation as Metaphor in English Pedagogical Literature, 1531–1644,” M.Phil. thesis, Cambridge University. Grafton, Anthony and Lisa Jardine (1986), From Humanism to the Humanities: Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Europe, London: Duckworth. Green, Ian (2009), Humanism and Protestantism in Early Modern English Education, Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Hotson, Howard (2007), Commonplace Learning: Ramism and its German Ramifications, 1543–1630, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kirby, Torrence, Emdio Campi, and Frank James, eds. (2009), A Companion to Peter Martyr Vermigli, Leiden: Brill. Logan, Donald F. (1977), “The Origins of the So-called Regius Professorships: An Aspect of the Renaissance in Oxford and Cambridge,” in Derek Baker (ed.), Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History, 271–8, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Maag, Karin (1995), Seminary or University?: The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher Education, 1560–1620, Aldershot: Scolar Press. Monfasani, John (1988), “Humanism and Rhetoric,” in Albert Rabil Jr. (ed.), Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, Vol. 3: Humanism and the Disciplines, 171–235, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Monfasani, John (1990), “Lorenzo Valla and Rudolph Agricola,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 28 (2): 181–200.

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O’Day, Rosemary (1979), The English Clergy: The Emergence and Consolidation of a Profession, 1558–1642, Leicester: Leicester University Press. O’Malley, John (1993), The First Jesuits, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ong, Walter J. (1958), Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pollnitz, Aysha (2015), Princely Education in Early Modern Britain, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Simon, Joan (1968), “Town Estates and Schools in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries,” in Brian Simon (ed.), Education in Leicestershire, 1540–1940: A Regional Study, 3–26, Leicester: Leicester University Press. Stone, Lawrence (1964), “The Educational Revolution in England, 1560–1640,” Past and Present, 28: 41–80. Stowe, Ancel Monroe (1908), English Grammar Schools in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Darby, PA: Darby Books. Strauss, Gerald (1978), Luther’s House of Learning: Indoctrination of the Young in the German Reformation, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press

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CHAPTER EIGHT

Michel de Montaigne and the Bridge to Enlightenment and Modernity D arryl M. D e M arzio

But in truth I know nothing about education than this: that the greatest and the most important difficulty known to human learning seems to lie in that area which treats how to bring up children and how to educate them. (Montaigne, “On Educating Children,” 167)

INTRODUCTION A reasonable degree of uncertainty can be expected when considering the place and prominence of Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) in the history of philosophy of education. On the one hand, there is evidence that suggests Montaigne’s contributions have mattered very little to the development of educational thought in the West. Few philosophers today consider Montaigne or his major essays on education—“On Schoolmasters’ Learning” and “On Educating Children— as being worthy of attention when detailing the long history of philosophical reflection on education. For example, in the expansive Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education (Siegel 2009), Montaigne is not referenced even once. Nor does Nel Noddings’s (2016) oft-cited Philosophy of Education, which

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claims to chart the evolution of educational thought from ancient Greece to the present day, make any mention of Montaigne. This contemporary tendency to omit Montaigne from the historical record in philosophy of education is in fact continuous with much of the historical research on educational thought since the beginning of the twentieth century.1 Omissions such as these may ultimately have to do with the contentious question of whether Montaigne counts as a philosopher at all, let alone a notable philosopher of education.2 Further, while neglecting Montaigne in the history of philosophy of education may not be a universal habit, there exists currently no clear consensus as to whether he belongs to this history in any significant way as there surely does when it comes to the likes of Plato, Rousseau, and Dewey. On the other hand, there is also indication of sustained and growing interest in the educational ideas of Montaigne in contemporary philosophy of education, especially when it comes to taking note of the ways in which Montaigne’s writings have both influenced and anticipated subsequent major educational philosophies, particularly those of Locke, Rousseau, and the progressive education movement.3 In addition, some scholars have become increasingly drawn to Montaigne’s insights for developing novel ways of approaching contemporary educational concerns, both theoretical and practical.4 What is evident from this recent engagement with Montaigne—and what may ultimately explain why Montaigne is absent in historical surveys of the philosophy of education—is appreciation for the fact that Montaigne does not approach the topic of education, or any topic for that matter, theoretically, which is to say that his main concern is not to offer a description of the nature of education. Rather, Montaigne’s orientation to education is uniquely philosophical in that what is at stake in his writings is how education is conducted and lived. In other words, Montaigne does not present a theory of education insofar as he attempts to explain the nature of education; he offers a philosophy of education insofar as he both articulates and enacts a way of educating and becoming educated.5 C.W. Bingham, among others, has referred to Montaigne’s distinctive philosophy of education as a philosophy of “self-fashioning”—an orientation of which the goal is the right conduct of life (Bingham 2005; De Marzio 2012; Nehemas 1998). Philosophers of education who emphasize this orientation, Bingham suggests, merit special recognition in our educational tradition, more so than even the most acclaimed theorists: Philosophers of self-fashioning … deserve to be considered philosophers of education par excellence because, both in the writing that they dedicate specifically to education and in their other more general philosophical texts, they offer ways that one might negotiate nature, culture, and knowledge in order to enhance the living of one’s life. (2005: 2) Being such a philosopher of self-fashioning, Montaigne’s unique contribution to the philosophy of education must be interpreted not as a theory of education

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but as a philosophy that identifies education as a means to the right conduct of life—as a way of life itself. In this chapter, I highlight some of the major features of Montaigne’s philosophy of education by drawing upon both his major writings on education and other entries from the Essays. I will also situate Montaigne’s contribution to educational thought in relation to both the past—specifically the ancient and medieval philosophical inheritance, which in several ways both gratified and troubled Montaigne—and the philosophical milieu of the Enlightenment, which followed Montaigne and received his ideas. I will consider specifically the ways in which Montaigne served as a bridge connecting the Renaissance period to which he belonged to that of the Enlightenment and modernity. In the next section, however, I will discuss Montaigne’s own upbringing and schooling—specifically in the context of his main essay on education, “On Educating Children”—which did much to frame how Montaigne fashioned his philosophical orientation to the practice of education.

FIGURE 8.1  Michel de Montaigne. (via Nastasic/Getty Images).

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LIFE, TIMES, AND FORMATIVE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was born near Bordeaux in the Aquitaine region of France in 1533. His family was of considerable means, and his father, Pierre Eyquem, was a member of the French nobility. The Eyquems were an example of the kind of social ascent made increasingly possible by the economic transformations sweeping across Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, where the expansion of global trade gave birth to a merchant class of immense power and wealth (Desan 2016: 16). The Bordeaux of Montaigne’s France was a larger port city situated at the bend of the Garonne River. Throughout the period, the city welcomed various travelers, traders, and exiles, originating mainly from Spain and Portugal as well as from the other regions of France (Baumgartner 1995: 7).6 The source of the Eyquems wealth began with Michel’s great-grandfather, Ramon Eyquem, through the trade of herring and pastels. In just one generation, the family trade broadened to include all forms of goods, most notably wine. It was Ramon who purchased the land on which the noble estate of Montaigne was built, and it was Michel who was the first in the family to shed the patronymic name Eyquem in favor of the name of the estate, a change that coincided with Montaigne’s decoration as knight in the Order of Saint-Michel in 1571. While such a conferral would have reaffirmed Montaigne’s legal status as a member of the nobility and provided him with many privileges, he nonetheless remained ambivalent about the custom of taking the name of his estate, thus unmooring himself from the family lineage.7 While the economic boom helped situate Montaigne in a place at court,8 it was the consequences of a societal rupture of a different sort that had an even greater impact on his life and outlook: the French Wars of Religion. This viciously bloody and long-lasting conflict between Protestants and Catholics brought Montaigne to form a distinctively pluralistic outlook on the war and a deep skepticism regarding the many theological disputes that fueled it. While partisans in the conflict sought to harness verse from scripture or arguments from scholastic theologians to fortify their doctrinal positions, Montaigne tended to keep these sources at arm’s length, choosing instead to converse with the seemingly more tolerant and cosmopolitan writers of antiquity.9 In a wide-ranging essay on the topic, Mark Greengrass charts the many references to the war, and of war generally, that punctuate the Essays. He suggests that Montaigne conveys the experience of the war and the manner in which it permeated his world in remarkably varied ways, including how it might have informed Montaigne’s own concerns about the rote-learning methods so often employed by the schoolmasters of the day, methods that Montaigne sensed as potentially fanning the flames of intolerance between Protestants and Catholics

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(Greengrass 2016: 139). Stephen Toulmin suggests too that the more objectivist and rationalistic approach to philosophy of the early years of the seventeenth century following Montaigne was likewise a reaction to the war, a “counterRenaissance” that put its faith in a once-and-for-all philosophical method for arriving at certainty (Toulmin 1990: 36–44). There is little question that the Wars of Religion profoundly shaped Montaigne’s perspective on a broad range of topics, topics that would come to occupy much of the subject matter of the Essays. Years of experiencing the cruel effects of the war, along with time spent as a magistrate in Bordeaux (including a stint as mayor), certainly quickened Montaigne’s decision to retire to his estate and facilitated the project of writing the Essays. However, when it comes to Montaigne’s views on education, perhaps no other factor had as much influence on his outlook than that of his own peculiar upbringing and his earliest school experiences. Two features from this early learning stand out in particular—the first, an experimental approach to language learning devised by his father, which, Montaigne suggests, was unlike any other during the period; the second, a customary approach to learning to read to which Montaigne was exposed during his schooldays and that would come to shape the form of the Essays, itself serving as a model exercise for Montaigne’s philosophical selffashioning. Having served on long military campaigns in Italy during the early part of the sixteenth century, Montaigne’s father would have become deeply moved by the humanistic ideals nurtured by the Italian Renaissance. The biographer of Montaigne, Sarah Bakewell, describes the kind of edifying experiences that French soldiers such as Pierre Eyquem would likely have had: “Between sieges, Frenchmen encountered exciting ideas about science, politics, philosophy, pedagogy, and fashionable manners … new ways of thinking about almost everything, and when they came home they brought their discoveries with them” (Bakewell 2010: 50–1). Throughout the Middle Ages up until the sixteenth century, knowledge of Latin “was a sign of status, the more advanced one’s command of the language, the greater the social cachet attached to it” (Jensen 1996: 64). A perfect command of Latin during the Renaissance period was “the highest goal of a humanistic education: it unlocked the door to the ancient world … as well as to much of modern culture” (Bakewell 2010: 54). What Pierre specifically would have brought back to France, however, were some of the novel pedagogical methods involved in the teaching of Latin that were developing in Italy and spreading to the rest of Europe. As a result, after spending his first two years living with a wet nurse of a peasant village family, immersed in his local Périgord dialect, the toddler Montaigne returned to the family estate and spoke strictly in Latin. Montaigne’s father now placed him under the watchful eye of a German tutor whom, knowing no French, was nevertheless well versed in Latin. The German tutor was accompanied by two

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other caretakers who also spoke only Latin in the presence of the young Michel. In fact, Pierre, knowing little of the language himself, commanded that while cloistered in the Montaigne chateau the child could never be exposed to any tongue other than Latin. According to Montaigne, the pedagogical experiment that his father brought home from Italy was a remarkable success: “And so, without art, without books, without grammar, without rules, without whips and without tears, I had learned Latin as pure as that which my schoolteacher knew” (Montaigne 1991b: 195). In Montaigne’s view, however, the apparent effectiveness of Pierre’s method was not the main justification for such an experiential approach to learning the language. Instead, the primary value of the approach was that it allowed Montaigne, as he says, “to love knowledge and duty by my own choice, without forcing my will, and to educate my soul entirely through gentleness and freedom” (Montaigne 1991b: 196). It is this early educational experience, an experience that Montaigne suggests “will suffice to judge all the rest by,” that ultimately engendered in Montaigne some of his most important and influential educational ideas (p. 196). By trying to simulate for the toddler a more natural means of acquiring the Latin language, Pierre ultimately was forsaking the more familiar, methodical, and didactical approaches to instruction, which as Montaigne suggests, would likely have entailed the tutor’s harsh imposition against the young Michel’s will. In Montaigne’s writings on education we see a persistent criticism of rotelearning methods and a deep concern for the potential ill-effects on the student of too much authority wielded by the master. Thus, Montaigne writes, Teachers are forever bawling into our ears as though pouring knowledge down through a funnel: our task is merely to repeat what we have been told. I would want our tutor to put that right: as soon as the mind in his charge allows it, he should make it show its fettle by appreciating and selecting things—and by distinguishing between them, the tutor should sometimes prepare the way for the boy, sometimes let him do it all on his own. I do not want the tutor to be the only one to choose topics or to do all the talking: when the boy’s turn comes let the tutor listen to his pupil talking. (1991b: 169) In this passage we can also recognize another important educational idea coming to the fore, which is that genuine learning entails an active engagement on the part of the student. Here Montaigne wants his pupil to have the freedom to “appreciate,” “select,” and “distinguish”; “to do it all on his own,” to “choose,” and “to do the talking.” In a word, Montaigne wants the teacher to give the student the opportunity to exercise and cultivate his judgment—a concept I explore at greater length in the section that follows. As we will see there, for Montaigne the use of one’s judgment in educational settings is not to be limited to the cognitive dimension, a dimension to which Montaigne often refers with

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the term “understanding.”10 Rather, for Montaigne, the exercising of judgment is the activation and demonstration of that which comprises the understanding (La Charite 1968: 120). Thus, for Montaigne, education should highlight a student’s deeds more so than a student’s words: “My pupil will not say his lesson: he will do it. He will rehearse his lessons in his actions” (Montaigne 1991b: 188). Montaigne recalls his father’s pedagogical experiment with great appreciation for the liberty with which he was able to learn Latin and also for the tenderness with which his lessons were delivered. Again and again, Montaigne places great emphasis on the need for fostering in students a true love for learning and the experience of joy throughout one’s study. Here again we pick up on another theme that receives consistent emphasis in Montaigne’s writings on education: that learning ought to be relished by the student. If, as Montaigne says, “[the] profit we possess after study is to have become better and wiser,” then the pupil should likewise experience the study of ethics and philosophy with equal zeal and pleasure (Montaigne 1991b: 171). Yet, Montaigne had observed that these labors were often presented by tutors and schools in the most forbidding manner: It is a great mistake to portray Philosophy with a haughty, frowning, terrifying face, or as inaccessible to the young. Whoever clapped that wan and frightening mask on her face! There is nothing more happy and gay—I almost said more amorously playful. What she preaches is all feast and fun. A sad and gloomy mien shows you have mistaken her address. (p. 180) Similarly, the formation of ethical conduct in a student should also be experienced joyfully so that the teacher will “then be teaching him a new lesson: what makes true virtue highly valued is the ease, usefulness and pleasure we find to being virtuous: so far from being difficult, children can be virtuous as well as adults; the simple as well as the clever” (p. 182). While Pierre’s innovative approach to exposing Michel to the Latin language had a lasting and mostly positive effect on his son’s educational thought, Montaigne also drew from his more formal educational experiences at school to color his outlook. In spite of the prodigious ease with which Montaigne picked up Latin, his father nevertheless succumbed to the pedagogical orthodoxy in France, “no longer having about him the men who had given him his original educational ideas, which he had brought back from Italy” (Montaigne 1991b: 196). At the age of six, Montaigne was thus enrolled in the Collège de Guyenne in Bordeaux and remained a student there for the next eight years. The school was, Montaigne says, the best in all of France, and yet Montaigne would nonetheless lament that “it was still school … and in truth I now have nothing to show for it” (p. 197).

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Montaigne’s ambivalence about the Collège notwithstanding, the more likely truth is that he was exposed to an intensive program of reading, which following the recommendations of the more renowned humanist educators at that time, would have included the great Latin authors such as Virgil, Terence, and Plautus, as well as Plutarch’s histories of famous Greeks and Romans— works that would serve as mainstays throughout Montaigne’s life (O’Brien 2016: 60–1).11 In addition, while at the school, Montaigne would have been expected to maintain a notebook—a “commonplace book”—which required students to copy or translate select passages from the classical authors in Latin, either in translation, as in the case of the ancient Greek writers, or in the original of the ancient Roman authors (De Marzio 2012: 399; Hall 1997). Zachary Schiffman describes this school practice of keeping commonplace books as follows: Students would read a passage from a classical text at home and copy it into a notebook, leaving extra space between each line. They carried this notebook to school in lieu of the text itself … As the teacher analyzed the passage, his students would gloss it in their notebooks, using the extra space left for this purpose. When they returned home, they would generally copy their notes into three separate commonplace books, a liber styli that served as a reference grammar, a liber sermonis that served to provide eloquent expressions for their compositions, and a liber locorum that served as a storehouse of moral examples. (Schiffman 1991: 15) The use of commonplace books, however, left Montaigne on the verge of hating books by the end of his course of study at the Collège, most likely because the method served only to strengthen the memory of students by having them store passages to be retrieved later for the classroom purposes of rhetoric and dialectic.12 Montaigne says that while at the Collège he was rather fortunate to have a tutor who allowed him to read secretly the great authors of antiquity at Montaigne’s own leisure, thus lessening the burden of having only to relate to these great books only as sources from which to mine what he was expected to remember.13 Because of the sound judgment of this particular tutor, Montaigne became free to take pleasure in reading, and he later describes reading books, along with having loving friendships and romances, as one of his favorite personal occupations. He says of books, “it is impossible to describe what comfort and peace I derive from the thought that they are there beside me, to give me pleasure whenever I want it, or from recognizing how much succor they bring to my life” (Montaigne 1991f: 932). Montaigne gives considerable attention to the practice of reading in his essays on education, and, with his experience at the Collège likely in mind, he is careful about tending to the ways in which students should relate to books, particularly those of the classical authors whom the Renaissance so admired. In the same way that Montaigne was concerned about the subjection of students

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to the authority of the teacher, he was also anxious about subjection to the authority of the great classical writers. Here was a tendency that Montaigne witnessed all too often, even among the most accomplished scholars of his time: But what about the things I have caught others doing? They bedeck themselves in other men’s armour, with not even their fingertips showing. As it is easy for the learned to do on some commonplace subject, they carry though their projected work with bits of what was written in ancient times, patched together higgledy-piggledy … their action is, first and foremost, unjust and mean: they have nothing worthwhile of their own to show off so they try to recommend themselves with someone else’s goods. (Montaigne 1991b: 166) But as quick as Montaigne is to condemn those who pass off as their own what they had borrowed from the ancients, he considers his own act of borrowing, particularly the manner in which he peppers his writings with passages from the classical Greek and Roman authors: “For my part there is nothing that I would want to do less: I only quote others the better to quote myself” (Montaigne 1991b: 166). Montaigne extends this understanding of his own manner of borrowing from books to underscore the need to develop in students the capacity to judge what is useful in the course of their lives, and not simply to trust on authority what they garner from texts: Let the tutor pass everything through a filter and never lodge anything in the boy’s head simply by authority, at second-hand. Let the principles of Aristotle not be principles for him any more than those of the Stoics or Epicureans. Let this diversity of judgements be set before him; if he can, he will make a choice: if he cannot then he will remain in doubt. (Montaigne 1991b: 170) Montaigne continues, For it is by his own reasoning that he adopts the opinions of Xenophon and Plato, they are no longer theirs: they are his … He should not be learning their precepts but drinking in their humours. If he wants to, let him not be afraid to forget where he got them from, but let him be sure that he knows how to appropriate them. (p. 170) In the next section, I will develop Montaigne’s ideas about the cultivation of judgment through the appropriation of subject-matter—the stuff of learning— which for Montaigne extends far beyond books. For Montaigne, every feature of a student’s experience can warrant inclusion in the child’s curriculum: “This great world of ours (which for some is only one species within a generic group) is the looking-glass in which we must gaze to come to know ourselves from the right slant. To sum up, then, I want it to be the book our pupil studies” (Montaigne 1991b: 177).

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THE EDUCATION OF JUDGMENT AND MAKING LEARNING OUR OWN Montaigne’s earliest educational experiences—from his homeschooling in Latin to his reading at the Collège de Guyenne—certainly bear the marks of Renaissance trends in educational practice. However, his writings on education suggest that much of the pedagogical practice in Montaigne’s time still clung to a scholastic educational tradition that placed great emphasis on the classroom practices of didactic lecture and dialectic disputation.14 Montaigne’s initial essay on education, “On Schoolmasters’ Learning,” levies a damning critique against this mode of pedagogy, specifically against the model of the educated person to which scholastic teaching gave shape. These kinds of scholars, whom Montaigne observed to be overly stuck in their academic disciplines, often appeared to be incapable of normal commerce with their fellow human beings. Referring to such scholars, Montaigne writes, They are still trying to find out whether there is such a thing as life or motion; whether Man differs from Ox; what is meant by active and passive; what sort of creatures law and justice are! … [The] men we are talking about are despised as being inferior to the common model, as incapable of public duties, as men dragging their lives and their base vile morals way behind the common sort of men. (Montaigne 1991e: 151–2) Montaigne suggests that the reason such scholars were “dragging their lives” behind their fellows was because their education weighed them down; their minds were “swamped by too much study and by too much matter … remaining bowed and bent under the load” (p. 151–2). The problem, Montaigne submits, is that the matter of our learning all too often fills us without ever becoming incorporated into our being. When writing on education, Montaigne is especially fond of considering learning as akin to the digestive process: “Spewing up food exactly as you have swallowed it is evidence of a failure to digest and assimilate it; the stomach has not done its job if, during concoction, it fails to change the substance and the form of what it is given” (Montaigne 1991b: 169). When we do not transmute the stuff of our learning into our being and conduct, our knowledge remains dissociated from the course of our lives. It serves merely as an ornament and not as something designed to strengthen and improve us. Robert Miner has pointed out that this idea of assimilating what is external to us so as to make us wiser, healthier, and more virtuous is key to Montaigne’s overall philosophic outlook. Miner argues that, in Montaigne’s view, most of us spend our lives in a state of disintegration where the elements of our lives and ourselves remain dissociated, most notably for Montaigne, in the way we conceive of our body and soul as separate. Miner writes, “The actual

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problem for philosophy, as Montaigne understands it, is to achieve their integration. Didactic teaching that is unphilosophical (whether or not it calls itself ‘philosophy’) tends to have the opposite effect. It imparts what it knows, but in a manner that proves difficult for the student to digest. The result is not health but sickness” (Miner 2017: 46). Thus, Montaigne’s educational perspective extends beyond the horizon of the scholastic classroom, bringing into focus the formative features that round out the whole person, not just the intellect. While vital to the development of mind and of moral being, book learning, Montaigne says, should not serve as the foundation for one’s education. He recommends frequent interaction with people from all walks, “visits to foreign lands,” and grueling physical training (Montaigne 1991b: 172–3). He urges that children be engaged in theatre and sport, placing these activities on par with religious worship in that “a sense of community and good-will is increased” (p. 199). Montaigne was certainly not alone at the time in recommending that such extracurricular activities become part of a child’s education.15 However, arguably no thinker of the Renaissance was able to articulate better the correlation between the full development of the person and a well-rounded curriculum. While it is true that some of Montaigne’s contemporaries were also working to loosen the hold that scholastic pedagogy had on educational practice, no other Renaissance figure was able to draw a stronger link between scholastic education and the cult of vanity and pretension so often displayed by the learned as powerfully as Montaigne.16 Furthermore, no other figure so passionately defended the utility of the traditional scholastic subjects by demonstrating that when offered instead by a tutor with a “wellformed rather than a well-filled” mind, such courses of study could serve as the foundation for self-knowledge and humane living (p. 168). The end product of our education, according to Montaigne, is our judgment: “Similarly the boy will transform his borrowings; he will confound their forms so that the end-product is entirely his: namely, his judgement, the forming of which is the only aim of his toil, his study and his education” (Montaigne 1991b: 171). By exercising our judgment, by testing it and putting it on display through the course of our learning, we come to cultivate and improve our judgment. Exercising judgment entails making judgments, and making judgments entails exercising judgment. We cultivate our judgment by putting our judgment to work, so to speak, by coming to have judgments. This is why the issue of how we borrow from books is so central to Montaigne’s thinking about education. When we borrow a phrase or a passage from a book we have read—which is itself an exercise of the judgment—we supply ourselves with the judgment of others. But in making a judgment about which quotation to borrow, or how to utilize our borrowing to supplement an idea of our own, we have made a judgment for ourselves—we have, to “borrow” a phrase from Montaigne,

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quoted others to better quote ourselves. In this way, by exercising our judgment we have worked to fashion ourselves.17 As noted, I argue that Montaigne’s use of the term judgment is distinctive and ought not to be conflated with terms that also suggest cognitive function, terms such as understanding, sense, and knowledge, even if in fact Montaigne employs them in such a way that highlights the strong family resemblances between them. The concept of judgment has therefore both intrigued and puzzled Montaigne scholars. For example, Raymond La Charite argues that the terms “judgment” and “understanding” often coalesce in Montaigne’s writings on education: “Montaigne interchanges his psychological terms with such ease that one is frequently compelled to equate them. It is nearly impossible to determine the differences, if any, between one word and another when he brings them together as he does, for example, in ‘De l’institution des enfants’” (1968: 118). In my view, however, Montaigne’s concept of judgment is unique in that, unlike other intellectual capacities, such as understanding and knowledge, only judgment can actually work to form judgments. While understanding and knowledge can store and sort through judgments, only in exercising our judgment can we rightfully be said to apply, distinguish, transform, and make our judgments truly our own. To cultivate our judgment is to put our own personal stamp on the material of our learning—our thoughts, memories, experiences, borrowings, knowledge, judgments, and so on. Cultivating our judgment is thus equivalent to fashioning a self from the very subject matter of our lives. This is precisely why Montaigne claims, “Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement” (1991e: 158). Judgment is therefore the human capacity to integrate all that stands in relation to the self, referring it back to the self so that the content of learning becomes consubstantial with the self. This does not mean that such things—a term of choice for Montaigne—somehow lose their distinctiveness or become the property of the very self who exercises judgment in relation to them.18 To make this point, Montaigne concludes “On Educating Children” by employing the image of marriage, where two partners become one but nevertheless maintain their unique identities, to describe the relationship that students ought to have with their learning. If education is to improve the self, Montaigne says, “[learning] must not only lodge with us: we must marry her” (Montaigne 1991b: 199). If Montaigne’s philosophy of education could be captured in a basic maxim, it would be that education must aim to form the judgment through the exercise of judgment. This is accomplished by placing before the student a wide range of phenomena from which to make judgments, such that the student is able to integrate fully the content of their learning into the conduct of their lives. In a word, learning should be useful insofar as it helps the student become better and wiser. I have suggested that the educational goal of forming judgment can

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be located in the context of Montaigne’s earliest educational experiences— from his father’s novel experiment designed to teach him Latin to Montaigne’s use of commonplace books, which presented him with the problem of how best to assimilate what we learn so that our learning becomes authentically our own. By reflecting on his own education and testing that experience through the filter of his own judgment, Montaigne was able to fashion a distinctive philosophical outlook on education. As we have seen, his ideas on education are in several respects a critical response to the scholastic model of education that still prevailed in institutions of learning during the Renaissance.19 In the section that follows, I explore the issue of how Montaigne’s ideas were received in the period of the Enlightenment and how they helped pave the way for educational philosophy in what has come to be known as modernity.

MONTAIGNE AS BRIDGE TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND MODERNITY According to some scholars, the Enlightenment represents a radical departure from the type of philosophical program reflected in the Essays of Montaigne. For one, Stephen Toulmin (1990: 5–44) makes the case that, in several ways, Montaigne constitutes a culminating stage of Renaissance humanism, a stage halted by the rationalistic philosophy of René Descartes. Toulmin highlights several characteristics that Montaigne shares with his Renaissance contemporaries that ultimately become upended in the decades shortly following Montaigne’s death. While Montaigne places his focus on particular forms and examples to inquire into certain themes and topics—such as education—Descartes and his successors shift their attention to theoretical concerns independent of context. While Montaigne tested his ideas against the backdrop of history, his personal experience, and his direct observations, rationalist philosophers, particularly those of the seventeenth century, sought to derive universal principles regardless of particular circumstances. As I mention at the beginning of this chapter, Montaigne has become difficult to recognize as a philosopher of education in the eyes of some precisely because he lacks this theoretical character that is taken as synonymous with philosophy. Furthermore, when we read the Essays we quickly recognize that Montaigne’s inquiries rely upon “local research”—that is, his Essays borrow from the ethnographical, geographical, and historical accounts that he had read, which are all accounts of specific localities. In the rationalist philosophy of the seventeenth century, however, such local knowledge is eschewed for disciplines of general knowledge, such as mathematics and the natural sciences. Finally, whereas Montaigne was often prompted to reflection by timely concerns—for example, his essay “On Educating Children” is occasioned by the pregnancy of a close family friend—the research agenda of the philosophers of the early part

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of the Enlightenment is often triggered not by practical or timely questions but by problems considered relevant regardless of temporality.20 While Toulmin draws a clear line dividing the philosophical project of Montaigne and the Renaissance humanists from the Enlightenment philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he argues that both of these diverse strands in fact constitute the inauguration of modernity. In this way, Toulmin claims, the spirit of modernity is reflected in both philosophical orientations— the humanistic approach in the manner of Montaigne and the theoretical approach in the manner of Descartes. Toulmin’s thesis does, however, run up against the orthodoxy reflected in many accounts of the history of ideas, which often suggest that Montaigne falls between the late medieval period and the modern period. However, to support Toulmin’s thesis, we would have to show how, in spite of their differences, the two strands hold points of emphasis in common. Toulmin draws one such similarity when he suggests that both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment projects brought individual identity to the forefront of philosophical concerns. He writes, Both Montaigne and Descartes were strong individualists. Both men saw the first step in the getting of wisdom as lying in self-examination. Descartes’ Discourse on Method and Meditations, as much as Montaigne’s Essais, were meant to serve as a model of clear-headed self-reporting. In Descartes, there is already a flavor of “solipsism”—in the sense that every individual, as a psychological subject, is (so to say) trapped inside his own head, while the scope of his reflections is limited to sensory inputs and other data that reach his Mind and make him the individual he is. Fifty years earlier, Montaigne also wrote as an individual, but always assumed that his own experience was typical of human experience generally … he did not hesitate to rely on other people’s reports, but developed his own account of friendship, cripples, or whatever, in ways that move freely in a world composed of many distinct, independent persons. (Toulmin 1990: 41, emphasis in original) While clearly different in their approaches—Montaigne’s partakes of the particular, in spite of its diversity, whereas Descartes possesses a proclivity toward rejection of ordinary experience in favor of the orderly and abstract— both forms of inward self-examination have given form to our understanding of what it means to be a self. In Charles Taylor’s words, “These two facets of modern individuality have been at odds up to this day” (1989: 182). Yet, both belong equally to modernity. Toulmin and Taylor are by no means the only scholars who place Montaigne in the camp of modernity by showing how Montaigne’s ideas, in spite of their very clear differences, often connect with and even initiate the philosophy of the Enlightenment. For example, the literary critic Erich Auerbach suggests that Montaigne was the first to enact his inquiries not from the standpoint of a

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specialized discipline—that is, not as theologian, ethnographer, historian, or even philosopher—but from the only area of expertise to which he could lay claim: himself (Auerbach 2003: 307–9). In this way, Montaigne gave freedom to future thinkers who sought to investigate the totality of all phenomena from a singular perspective, even if that singular perspective was given a universal status with the name of Reason, as it was during the Enlightenment. Montaigne is also sometimes credited with setting in motion several idiosyncrasies of Enlightenment versions of the self and individuality. Benjamin Storey argues that, as Montaigne presents himself in the Essays, he comes to serve as an exemplary model for Enlightenment ideas of secular autonomy. However, whereas the Enlightenment put its faith in a rationality common to all so as to guide and bring individual differences under greater control, Montaigne took our capacity for reasoning itself as a manifestation of the innumerable ways in which persons, cultures, and historical periods vary from one another. Montaigne’s version of autonomy invites us to be ourselves and to think freely; the Enlightenment version calls upon us to fall in line with an abstract and timeless ideal of the autonomous self (Storey 2013). Montaigne’s appreciation of the diverse ways in which human beings express their humanity did not mean that he adopted a naïve brand of relativism, as some scholars have suggested.21 Montaigne acknowledges differences in conduct and ways of life and recognizes the reason that produces these divergent paths, and yet he still pursues the truth of the matter as he sees it. That is, he does not refrain from exercising his judgment when faced with diversity. Though Montaigne is often labeled as a skeptic with respect to his epistemological outlook, I consider his skepticism to be just one of several schools of thought that he assays in the course of his Essays—in the same category as Epicureanism or Stoicism—trying it on for size but never placing all of his eggs in a single basket, as one might when holding firmly to a specific philosophical doctrine.22 Once again, Montaigne does not offer a theory, though he tests and measures the theories of others according to his own needs and standards. Rather, he presents himself as maintaining a philosophical orientation to all aspects of human existence. Such is the case regarding Montaigne’s oft-celebrated cosmopolitanism. Montaigne’s cosmopolitanism is not revealed in the Essays as a theory of political organization but rather as a philosophical disposition. It is a way in which Montaigne seeks to find himself at home in a diverse world, not just in his estate, or in his native France, but everywhere: “I know of no better school for forming our life than ceaselessly to set before it the variety found in so many other lives, concepts and customs, and to give it a taste of the perpetual diversity of the forms of human nature” (1991g: 1101). He does not seek to overcome or eradicate nations and borders, cultures and customs; rather, he seeks to establish fellowship with all those who might reside beyond the nation and culture in which he finds himself.

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In doing so, he is as critical—perhaps even more so—of the injustices and cruelties that he observed happening close to home as he is of those he saw during his travels to other parts of Europe and heard in reports from the New World. Such an attitude is most famously on display in Montaigne’s essay “On the Cannibals,” where he writes, “It does not sadden me that we should note the horrible barbarity in a practice such as theirs: what does sadden me is that, while judging correctly of their wrong-doings we should be so blind to our own” (1991a: 235). Scholars credit Montaigne’s essay “On the Cannibals” with being one of the central influential works for the tradition of Enlightenment anti-colonial political thought developed by such luminaries of the period as Diderot, Rousseau, and Kant.23 Other scholars see in that same essay, as well as in much of Montaigne’s other writings, a rich investigation of the idea of nature that ultimately breaks with the medieval tradition of scientific inquiry by shifting away from teleological explanations of natural phenomena as relations of means and ends and toward seeing natural phenomena as relations of cause and effect. By applying this understanding of nature to the human condition, Montaigne initiated “the first recognizably psychological study of human nature,” paving the way for subsequent naturalist studies of human psychology conducted during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Hoffman 2005: 177). However, in those studies, the heterogeneous nature of psychological phenomena, which Montaigne considered to be part and parcel of human nature, is throughout the Enlightenment jettisoned to find an “irreducible form of psychological experience,” a permanent and stable ground for all human judgment (Cassirer 1955: 17). Once again, while echoes of Montaigne’s philosophical concerns can be heard in all manner of investigation during the Enlightenment period, clear differences in attitude and spirit remain: whereas Montaigne sought to dwell peaceably and authentically in a world full of uncertainty and disorder, the Enlightenment thinkers sought to guarantee certainty and impose order. As I mentioned at the outset, Montaigne’s position as a philosopher of education who articulates and enacts a way of educating and becoming educated rather than as a theorist who offers a general description of the nature of education makes it difficult to pinpoint the true measure of his influence on subsequent educational thought. Because Montaigne offers a disposition rather than a doctrine, it is not easy to recognize just exactly where Montaigne left his imprint on the educational philosophy that followed him. However, one place to start is to identify those canonical thinkers and writers of the Western tradition who thought seriously and carefully about the prospect of education while also confessing admiration for the grandeur of Montaigne’s philosophical project. Such a list includes the likes of Locke, Rousseau, Emerson, Nietzsche, Woolf, and Merleau-Ponty.24 Among these, Locke and Rousseau stand out

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especially. When, for example, Locke discusses the dangers of placing too much emphasis on book learning, one cannot fail to hear in these words the resonances of Montaigne: This may seem strange in the mouth of a bookish man, and this making usually the chief, if not only, bustle and stir about children, this being almost that alone which is thought on when people talk of education, makes it the greater paradox. When I consider what ado is made about a little Latin and Greek, how many years are spent on it and what noise and business it makes to no purpose, I can hardly forbear thinking that the parents of children still live in fear of the schoolmaster’s rod, which they look on as the only instrument of education, as a language or two to be its whole business. How else is it possible that a child should be chained to the oar seven, eight or ten of the best years of his life to get a language or two which, I think, might be had at a great deal cheaper rate of pains and time, and be learned almost in playing. (Locke 1693/1925: 129–30) And when we read in Rousseau’s Emile that the future of his pupil’s happiness depends on his “diminishing the excess of the desires over the faculties and putting power and will in perfect equality” so that the young Emile eventually “wants only what he can do and does what he pleases” (Rousseau 1762/1979: 80, 84), we cannot help but suspect that Rousseau must have lingered for some time over the following pedagogical prescription from Montaigne: “He should be able to do anything but want to do only what is good” (1991b: 187). While the influence of Montaigne is clearly present in these and many other passages from both Locke and Rousseau, it would be a mistake to consider their respective philosophies of education, or any other educational philosophy or movement for that matter, as being in the tradition of Montaigne. While Montaigne left a great legacy of educational thought, we cannot say that those who continue such a legacy are his disciples or even his students. Rather, those who truly follow Montaigne will tend to march with him shoulder to shoulder—together and side by side, perhaps, but always granting Montaigne his own path. Of Montaigne, then, we can utter the same words that the English philosopher Gilbert Ryle said of philosophers whom he considered to be of the highest rank: “He was too much of a philosopher to think that anything he had said was the last word” (1964: 14).

NOTES 1 For a review of this literature in the first part of the twentieth century and Montaigne’s absence from it, see Miller (1955). 2 For a thorough study of the question of Montaigne’s status as a philosopher and a defense of his place in the philosophical tradition, see Hartle (2003).

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3 For Montaigne’s influence on Locke, see Moseley (2014: 37–8). For Montaigne’s influence on Rousseau, see Hansen (2002). Montaigne is often credited with sowing the seeds of progressive education, as in Laverty (2014). 4 For example, Hansen (2011: 26–33) finds in Montaigne’s outlook a way of approaching education through the prism of cosmopolitanism. On the relationship between Montaigne’s perspective on education and the contemporary emphases placed on reflective practice and learning from experience, see Halpin (2015). On Montaigne’s ideas and educational responses to diversity, see De Marzio (2010). On Montaigne and the effective use of humor in education, see Basu (2014). Finally, on Montaigne’s educational thought as foundational for conversational classroom practice, see Williams and Williams (2017). 5 The difference between a theory and a philosophy of education, as I articulate it here, is described by Hansen (2007: 15). 6 In fact, Montaigne’s mother, Antoinette de Louppes, came from a family of wealthy merchants who had emigrated from Spain. Some scholars conclude that the Louppes were descendants of Jews who had converted to Christianity, and that is perhaps the primary reason Montaigne rarely discusses his mother in the Essays in comparison to the frequent references to his father. See Desan (2014: 14). 7 In an aptly titled essay, “On Names,” Montaigne writes, “it is a custom worthy of villains—and of great consequence for this France of ours—that we call people by the names of their lands and lordships: nothing in the world is so responsible for confusing and confounding our family trees. The younger son of a good family, having received as his portion lands by whose name he is honoured and known, cannot honourably go and dispose of them; but ten years after he is dead they do pass to a stranger, who then acts the same way. You can guess how far we get when we try to identify those men. We need to look no further for examples of this than to our own royal house: so many portions, so many surnames. Meanwhile we lost the original stem” (Montaigne 1991b: 310). 8 Montaigne became Cour des Aides of Périgeux in or around 1554, a position that would give the young magistrate sovereign jurisdiction over cases concerning duties and taxes. Later in his life, Montaigne would be received as a gentleman of King Henry III’s chamber in 1573 and of King Henry IV of Navarre’s chamber in 1577. See Frame (1984: 46–8, 266–7). 9 To underscore this point, there is but one reference to St. Thomas Aquinas in the entirety of Montaigne’s Essays, a remarkable fact considering the far-reaching influence Aquinas would have had on theological questions in both Montaigne’s time and beyond. The Essays evidence innumerable instances of Montaigne’s fondness and preference for the authors of antiquity, but perhaps none more direct as this: “I do not have much to do with books by modern authors, since the Ancients seem to me to be more taut and ample” (Montaigne 1991g: 459). 10 The concept of “understanding” in the Essays is usually rendered with the French word, entendement, whereas “judgment” is translated from jugement. According to La Charite’s study, Montaigne “conceives of entendement as an intellectual capacity whereas jugement is a quality which is obtained through the mutual checks and balances of a man’s intellectual, moral, psychological, and social existence. Judgment is wisdom; entendement or intelligence need not be” (1968: 119). 11 O’Brien (2016) claims that the works of Erasmus and Juan Luis Vives would have been most popular at the time of Montaigne’s enrollment at the Collège de Guyenne.

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12 In his masterful study, which also includes a chapter on Montaigne and the first English translator of the Essays, John Florio, William Engel describes how the commonplace book fits with Renaissance English practices of cultivating memory as a means of negotiating one’s own mortality: “Thus engaged in a dialectical relation to Oblivion, the figure of Memory can be seen as epitomizing the content, aim, and method of organization of Renaissance commonplace books. Such notebooks, whether kept in one’s own hand or already printed, were used to record and preserve sentences, anecdotes, and memorable passages from classical works, collected under topical headings and often grouped by opposites. In this way the individual had access to, and to some extent could create, a treasure house (or thesaurus) of past words, deeds, and ideas” (Engel 1995: 6). 13 In the Essays, Montaigne takes a measure of pride at having a poor memory: “I can hardly find a trace of it in myself; I doubt if there is any other memory in the world as grotesquely faulty as mine is!” (Montaigne 1991c: 33). For discussion of Montaigne and memory, see Frisch (2016). 14 For discussion of the prevailing scholastic pedagogical methods, see Novikoff (2013: 133–71). 15 In his classic study, William Woodward (1967) cites many instances in which sports and games are recommended in humanist educational treatises though he makes no reference to approvals for the study of drama. However, Jesuit schools and colleges had already made the performance of Greek tragedies and the plays of Terence and Plautus a regular feature of their curriculum during Montaigne’s lifetime; see Giard (2008). 16 On this point, see especially the second chapter in Haydn (1950: 76–130). 17 On the relationship between this sense of borrowing and the practice of selffashioning, see De Marzio (2012: 392–6). 18 The term “things,” which, in Montaigne’s French, is translated from choses, is a favorite term of Montaigne’s. He even says that, when in conversation, “I want things to dominate, so filling the hearer that he does not even remember the words” (1991a: I.26/193). For David Hansen, the meaning embodied by Montaigne’s term choses is essentially the “phenomena of living” (2002: 128). 19 For discussion on this point, see De Marzio (2010: 308–12). 20 I problematize Toulmin’s argument, particularly as it pertains to Descartes, by suggesting that Descartes initiated his quest for a universal philosophical method to address the very present and real concerns that he had about the religious and political divisions in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, much in the same way that Montaigne had. See De Marzio (2010: 301–8). 21 See, for example, the eloquent essay by Voget (1977). While Voget does not refer to Montaigne’s relativism as “naïve,” she does dub it “universal” in the sense that it pervades every aspect of Montaigne’s thought. 22 For a standard account of Montaigne as skeptic, see Popkin (1979: 42–65). 23 On this tradition of Enlightenment political thought, see the majestic work by Muthu (2003). 24 This list is derived mainly from David Hansen’s wide-ranging and artful study of Montaigne and education; see Hansen (2002). In addition, it is tempting to include both Shakespeare and Pascal in this list, both passionate readers of Montaigne whose works, if not dealing directly with education, offer much in terms of our understanding of the human condition.

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REFERENCES Primary sources Montaigne, Michel de (1991a), “On Books,” in Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. M. Screech, New York: Penguin. Montaigne, Michel de (1991b), “On Educating Children,” in Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. M. Screech, New York: Penguin. Montaigne, Michel de (1991c), “On Liars,” in Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. M. Screech, New York: Penguin. Montaigne, Michel de (1991d), “On Names,” in Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. M. Screech, New York: Penguin. Montaigne, Michel de (1991e), “On Schoolmasters’ Learning,” in Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. M. Screech, New York: Penguin. Montaigne, Michel de (1991f), “On Three Kinds of Social Intercourse,” in Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. M. Screech, New York: Penguin. Montaigne, Michel de (1991g), “On Vanity,” in Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. M. Screech, New York: Penguin.

Secondary sources Auerbach, Erich (2003), Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. W.R. Trask, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bakewell, Sarah (2010), How to Live Or, A Life of Montaigne, New York: Other Press. Basu, Sammy (2014), “‘But What’s the Use? They Don’t Wear Breeches!’ Montaigne and the Pedagogy of Humor,” Educational Philosophy and Theory, 46 (2): 187–99. Baumgartner, Frederic J. (1995), France in the Sixteenth Century, New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Bingham, Charles W. (2005), “Who are the Philosophers of Education?,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 24 (1): 1–18. Cassirer, Ernst (1955), The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, trans. F.C.A. Koelln and J.P. Pettegrove, Boston: Beacon Press. De Marzio, Darryl M. (2010), “Dealing with Diversity: On the Uses of Common Sense in Descartes and Montaigne,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29 (3): 301–13. De Marzio, Darryl M. (2012), “The Pedagogy of Self-Fashioning: A Foucaultian Study of Montaigne’s ‘On Educating Children’,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 31 (4): 387–405. Desan, Philippe (2014), Montaigne: A Life, trans. S. Rendell, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Desan, Philippe (2016), “From Eyquem to Montaigne,” in P. Desan (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne, 17–39, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Engel, William E. (1995), Mapping Mortality: The Persistence of Memory and Melancholy in Early Modern England, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Frame, Donald M. (1984), Montaigne: A Biography, San Francisco: North Point Press. Frisch, Andrea (2016), “Montaigne on Memory,” in P. Desan (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne, 648–62, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Giard, Luce (2008), “The Jesuit College: A Center for Knowledge, Art, and Faith, 1548–1773,” Studies in the Spirituality of the Jesuits, 40 (1): 18–21. Greengrass, Mark (2016), “Montaigne and the Wars of Religion,” in P. Desan (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne, 138–57, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Hall, Michael L. (1997), “Montaigne’s Uses of Classical Learning,” Journal of Education, 179 (1): 61–75. Halpin, David (2015), “Essaying and Reflective Practice in Education: The Legacy of Michel de Montaigne,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 49 (1): 129–41. Hansen, David T. (2002), “Well-Formed, Not Well-Filled: Montaigne and the Paths of Personhood,” Educational Theory, 52 (2): 127–54. Hansen, David T. (2007), “Introduction: Ideas, Action, and Ethical Vision in Education,” in D.T. Hansen (ed.), Ethical Visions of Education: Philosophies in Practice, 1–18, New York: Teachers College Press. Hansen, David T. (2011), The Teacher and the World: A Study of Cosmopolitanism in Education, London: Routledge. Hartle, Ann (2003), Michel de Montaigne: Accidental Philosopher, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haydn, Hiram (1950), The Counter Renaissance, New York: Charles Scribners’s Sons. Hoffman, George (2005), “The Investigation of Nature,” in U. Langer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Montaigne, 163–82, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jensen, Kristian (1996), “The Humanist Reform of Latin and Latin Teaching,” in J. Kraye (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism, 63–81, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. La Charite, Raymond (1968), The Concept of Judgment in Montaigne, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Laverty, Megan (2014), “Progressive Education and Its Critics,” in D.C. Phillips (ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy, 661–5, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Locke, John (1693/1925), Some Thoughts Concerning Education, London: Heinemann. Miller, William M. (1955), “Montaigne as Presented in Our Histories of Education,” Modern Language Journal, 39 (3): 131–4. Miner, Robert (2017), Nietzsche and Montaigne, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Moseley, Alexander (2014), John Locke, London: Bloomsbury Academic. Muthu, Sankar (2003), Enlightenment against Empire, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Nehemas, Alexander (1998), The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault, Berkeley: University of California Press. Noddings, Nel (2016), Philosophy of Education, 4th edn., New York: Routledge. Novikoff, Alex J. (2013), The Medieval Culture of Disputation: Pedagogy, Practice, and Performance, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. O’Brien, John (2016), “The Humanist Tradition and Montaigne,” in P. Desan (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne, 58–77, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Popkin, Richard H. (1979), The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, Berkeley: University of California Press. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1762/1979), Emile, or, On Education, trans. A. Bloom, New York: Basic Books. Ryle, Gilbert (1964), Dilemmas: The Tanner Lectures, 1953, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schiffman, Zachary (1991), On the Threshold of Modernity: Relativism in the French Renaissance, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Siegel, Harvey, ed. (2009), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Storey, Benjamin (2013), “Montaigne, Secularism, and the Enlightenment,” in C. Nadon (ed.), Enlightenment and Secularism: Essays on the Mobilization of Reason, 115–27, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Taylor, Charles (1989), Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Toulmin, Stephen (1990), Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Voget, Antoinette (1977), “Montaigne and the Homo Mesura: A Study of Relativism in Montaigne,” Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 8 (1): 27–47. Williams, Kevin and Patrick Williams (2017), “Lessons from a Master: Montaigne’s Pedagogy of Conversation,” Educational Philosophy and Theory, 49 (3): 253–63. Woodward, William H. (1967), Studies in Education during the Age of the Renaissance, 1400–1600, New York: Teachers College Press.

CONTRIBUTORS

Brett Bertucio is a doctoral candidate in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research in educational philosophy, history of education, and contemporary social studies teaching examines questions at the intersection of religion and civic formation. He is a former high school and middle school teacher and a graduate of the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program. Cristina Cammarano emigrated from Italy to the United States, where she is an associate professor of philosophy at Salisbury University. She has a PhD in Philosophy and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and is a Whiting Foundation Public Engagement Fellow. She likes to think of philosophy as an education for all human persons. Her research interests include historical conceptions of inquiry and travel in relation to education, the public dimensions of philosophy (especially but not only philosophy in schools), and the experience of migrants in multicultural societies. Darryl M. De Marzio is Professor of Foundations of Education at the University of Scranton, United States. He received his PhD in Philosophy and Education from Columbia University. His research interests include the ethics of teaching, philosophy, and childhood, and the history of educational ideas. He is the editor of the forthcoming book David Hansen and The Call to Teach: Renewing the Work that Teachers Do (2020) and the author of the forthcoming Making Sacred: Sacrifice and Desire in the Pedagogical Imagination (2021). Laura DeSisto has a PhD in Philosophy and Education from Columbia University, United States. She serves as the Program Director and a Senior Lecturer for Johns Hopkins University’s Master of Liberal Arts degree. Her research interests

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include questions concerning the human condition; existential, aesthetic, and hermeneutic philosophy; critical social justice theory in teacher education; international comparative education; and the historical and contemporary role of the liberal arts in higher education. Carrie Euler holds a PhD in History from Johns Hopkins University and is Professor of History at Central Michigan University, United States. She is the author of the book Couriers of the Gospel: England and Zurich, 1531–1558 (2006) and a number of journal articles and book chapters on various aspects of early modern religious and cultural history. Her current research focuses on local schools in early modern England. Kevin Gary is Professor of Education at Valparaiso University, US. His primary areas of interest include liberal education, ethics, and spiritual education. He is co founder of the North American Association for Philosophy of Education (https://www.naape.org/), which provides a hospitable space for scholars working at the intersection of philosophy and educational thought. Kevin recently completed a four-year term as the Richard P. Baepler Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities at Valparaiso University. He is currently a fellow with the Pedagogy of Christ and Being Human project, sponsored by the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He is the author of the forthcoming book Why Boredom Matters: Education and the Quest for a Meaningful Life. Gad Marcus holds a PhD in Education and Jewish Studies from New York University (NYU) and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Haifa, Israel. His research interests include philosophy of education, Jewish philosophy, German philosophy, liberal education, and a Jewish philosophy of education. Constant J. Mews is Professor and Director of the Centre for Religious Studies, Monash University, Australia. He is a medievalist, who specializes in the religious and intellectual history of Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, although he also has a strong interest in early medieval Ireland, as well as in interreligious issues. Yusef Waghid is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy of Education at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. His research interests integrate three domains of inquiry, namely democratic citizenship education, African thought and practice, and pedagogy and ethics in higher education. Stein M. Wivestad is Professor of Pedagogy at NLA University College in Norway. He is particularly interested in asking questions that are relevant for all educators (Allgemeine Pädagogik). His research includes articles in the

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Journal of Philosophy of Education and Studies in Philosophy and Education. The research group he leads develops a free internet database “Upbuilding examples for adults who are close to children.” It describes pictures, films, music, and texts that groups of adults may experience and converse about, becoming aware of how we actually are as exemplars, and how we ought to be. See http://oppbyggeligeeksempler.no

INDEX

Abelard, Peter 15, 34, 53–71, 99, 147, 156 abstract philosophical language 11 academic freedom 97 active life 126, 137–9 Adler, Mortimer 4 Aertsen, Jan A. 102 Aesop’s fables 185 Agapetus, Pope 34 Agricola, Rudolph 184 Alberic of Paris 68 Alberic of Rheims 65 Alberti, Leon Battista 123–6 Albertus Magnus 97–9 Alcuin of York 32, 34, 38–40 Alvarez, Emmanuel 186 d’Andrea, Novella 149 Angela de Foligno 159 Anscombe, Elizabeth 17 Anselm, St 15 Anselm of Laon 57–8, 64–5 Anthony of Egypt 28–9 appropriation of subject-matter from existing texts 209 Aquinas, Thomas 3–5, 9, 17, 66, 71, 95–116, 131, 156 his concept of and impact on education 103–12 history and biography of 96–9 offering to today’s educators 113–16 picture of 98

the Summa theologiae 99–101, 105–6, 113–15 Arabic language 80 Arendt, Hannah 1, 14 Aristotle and Aristotelianism 2, 4, 11, 17, 33, 38, 55, 60, 66–71, 77, 80–1, 92, 96–101, 104, 107, 110, 114, 133, 137, 139, 176, 182, 185, 192, 196, 209 rediscovery of (twelfth century) 96–7 asceticism 28–9, 32, 34 Ascham, Roger 180, 187–9 Ashkenazi Jews 77 assimilation of learning 209–10, 213 Athanasius of Alexandria 28 al-Attas, Syed Muhammad Naquib 87–8 Auden, W.H. 7 Auerbach, Erich 214–15 Augustine of Hippo (and Augustinians) 5–6, 10, 14–15, 32, 38, 57, 59–60, 67, 100–3, 107, 156 Austen, Jane 196 autocracy 89 Averroes 17 Bakewell, Sarah 205 The Banquet of Sapience 180 baptism, rite of 104 Basel 187 Basil of Caesarea 29 Baskin, Judith 150

INDEX

Beatrice of Nazareth 149–50 Bec, Christian 143 belles-lettres 6 Benedict of Nursia 2, 8–9, 12, 14, 25–6, 29, 31, 34–7, 41–7 picture of 30 Rule of 14, 25–6, 29, 31, 34, 36, 41–6, 96 Bernard of Chartres 15–16, 68–9 Bernard of Clairvaux 10, 32–4, 40, 43–4, 59–3, 69–70 Bertucio, Brett 14–15, 223; author of Chapter 1 Bible 27, 76, 97, 107 Biesta, Gert J.J. 114 Bingham, C.W. 202 Bloom, Harold 4 Boethius 15–16, 28, 54, 56, 60, 67–70 Boland, Vivian 103–8 book learning 217 Bordeaux 204 Bracciolini, Poggio 123–4 Brethren of the Common Life 183–4 Brinsley, John 187 Broad, Jacqueline 166 Brooklyn Museum 168 Bruni, Leonardo 123–4, 132–3, 137 picture of 124 Bruzzese, Marina 157 Burke, Kevin 45–7 Cahn, Steven 2 Cambridge University 193 Cammarano, Cristina 18–19, 223; author of Chapter 6 cannibalism 216 canonical literature 2–5, 150–1 Caranfa, Angelo 44–5 Cardinal Principles report (1918) 7, 12–13 cardinal virtues 17, 104, 113 caritas (unconditional love) 96, 104, 114–16 Carolingian reforms 32–4 Carson, Anne 160 Cassian 61 Cassiodorus 27–34, 38–9 catechetical dialogues 31 Catholicism 6, 95–6, 149 Cato 184

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cenobitism 29 censorship 19, 187–8 Charlemagne 31–3, 40 Charles V, King 162–3 Chartres 68, 156 Chesterton, G.K. 5 Chicago, Judy 168 children relations with 115 sent to monasteries 31–2, 96–7 Christendom, concept of 32 Christianity 5, 19, 27–8, 32, 177 conversion to 28 Christine de Pizan 19, 160–4, 168 Chrysoloras 133 Church Fathers 15, 25–6, 29, 56–7, 60, 62, 66, 70–1, 96, 107 Cicero 38–42, 56–8, 67, 69, 100, 135, 176, 185–9, 196 classical texts and thought 4–6, 19, 26–32, 38–40, 131, 176, 181, 208–9; see also education: classical Cluniac reform 32, 40 Cobban, Alan B. 97 Cohen, Jonathan 81 Colet, John 187 Collège de Guyenne, Bordeaux 207–8, 210 Comenius, John Amos 108–11 picture of 109 commonplace books 208, 213 complete men (uomini completi) 137–9 Comte-Sponville, André 114 consciousness, human 128, 130 contemplation and the contemplative life 16, 43, 81, 84, 137–8 Confucius xvi Copleston, Frederick 100, 102 Cornificius 67 corporal punishment 188 cosmopolitanism 215 Curren, Randall 2, 107 Dante Alighieri 13, 156 Dark Ages 2, 14, 26, 41 De Martino, Giulio 157 De Marzio, Darryl M. 19–20, 223; author of Chapter 8 Descartes, René 213–14

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DeSisto, Laura 17–18, 223–4; author of Chapter 5 desperation, feelings of 13 Dewey, John 202 dialectic and dialectical inquiry 2–5, 10, 14–16, 27, 33, 39, 44, 55, 61, 64, 67–71, 149, 181–4, 208–11 Didascalicon 67, 70 Diderot, Denis 216 dignity of man 127–30 Dominic and the Dominican order 97 Dronke, Peter 151–2, 159 Du Bosc, J. 167 edification 11 educatio 115–16 education 17–20, 122, 127, 139, 141 Aquinas’ concept of and impact on 103–12 classical 4, 13, 176–80, 185–7, 195–6 expansion of 193–4 formal and informal 115 of girls philosophy and theory of 82 progressive movement in 202 purpose and aims of 7–8, 12–13, 46, 176–80, 196 see also Jewish education; monastic education; Muslim education “educator” (rabb) role 85 Eibingen convent 154 Elders, Leo J. 105 elites 122, 181, 195 Elyot, Thomas 180 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 216 England 180, 187, 193–4 Enlightenment, the 2, 13, 110, 203, 213–16 enlightenment, divine 155–6 Enseignemens moraux 19 entertainment 7, 40 Erasmus, Desiderius 19, 175–85, 188–90, 195 picture of 183 eremism 28 Eriugena, John Scotus 157 eruditio 105–6 ethics 81 eudaimonia 101

INDEX

Euler, Carrie 19–20, 224; author of Chapter 7 euthanasia 89 expurgated books 188 extracurricular activities 211 Eyquem, Pierre 204–7, 213 Eyquem, Ramon 204 Ezekiel the prophet 42 faith, religious 100, 107–8, 111, 191 fallibility, human 16 fathers, dominant role of 105; see also Church Fathers Ficino, Marsilio 129–30 Florence 126 Foucault, Michel 45–6 Franchetti, Anna Lia 167 free thinking 195 free will 128–9 Friedrichs, Christopher 193 Garin, Eugenio 122, 126–7 Gary, Kevin 40, 224; editor and author of Introduction Gaza, Theodorus 181 Gaze, Florence 158 Germany 176, 178, 194 Gilbert of Poitiers 68 Gilduin 59–63 global warming 86 globalism 195 glosses 65 God existence 102 image of 81 knowledge of and control over human affairs 129 good life, the 18, 38, 92, 104, 106, 111, 121–2, 133, 137–41 Gössman, Elisabeth 154 Gozzadini, Bettisia 149 Grafton, Anthony 184, 190, 195 grammar schools 187, 190, 193–4 grammarians 26–8, 32 grammatica 8, 10, 68 Greek language 27, 133, 181–2, 185 Greek philosophy 11 Green, Ian 188, 190 Green, Karen 166

INDEX

Greene, Maxine 7 Greengrass, Mark 204 Gregory the Great 29, 38–42, 61 Griffiths, Gordon 123 Guarini see Veronese, Guarino Guarnieri, Romana 159 habitus 14, 96 Hadewijch of Antwerp 158 Hadith 83–8, 91 Hadot, Pierre 40 Haldane, John 17 Hansen, David T. 2 Hartman, David 80–1 Healy, Nicholas M. 97, 99, 103, 106, 110 Hebraic philosophy 11–12 Hebrew language 80 Héloïse 15, 54–5, 58, 69, 147 Henry IV, Emperor 155 Heschel, Abraham 11–12, 44 High Renaissance 122 Hildegard of Bingen 18, 145–9, 158–9, 164 Scivias 145–7 history as a discipline 134–5 Holy Roman Emperor 31 Holzherr, George 36 honey, image of 42 Hrosvitha of Ganderscheim 18, 145, 149, 151–3, 168–9 Hugh of St. Victor 15, 34–5, 41–4, 47, 53–4, 57, 59–71 influence on educational practice 62 human error 86 human nature 175, 216 humanism 17–19, 108, 111, 121–41, 177, 181, 184 Christian 39 civic 122, 136–9 educational philosophy of 122, 141 in the Renaissance 126–7, 130, 136, 175–6, 180–2, 195 humility 8, 45, 61, 102, 111 Hus, Jan 108 Hutchins, Robert 4 hymn singing 191 idleness 12 Ignatius of Loyola 19, 179–83, 193, 195 ijtihad (intellectual exertion) 91–2

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Illich, Ivan 35, 42 immersion in distant cultures 1 Inquisition, Papal 159 intellectual tradition 95 intellectus mind 9–12, 44 interpretation and reinterpretation, human 86–92 Iqbal, Muhammad 89–91 Isidore of Seville 41 Islam and Islamic tradition 1–2, 90, 150 Jardine, Lisa 177, 184, 190, 195 Jensen, Kristian 205 Jerome, St 29 Jesuits 179–92 Jesus Christ 57, 108, 115–16 Jewish communities 150 Jewish education 75–83, 92 Joan of Arc 163 John of Cornwall 66 John of Salisbury 15–16, 53–4, 67–71 John Paul II, Pope 107 Judeo-Christian thought 4 judgment 206–12, 215 cultivation of 209, 212 exercise of 206–7, 211–12, 215 human 86–7 Julian of Norwich 150 Jutta of Spanheim 153 Juvenal 12 Kant, Immanuel 79, 216 Kelly, Joan 161 Kempe, Margery 150 Kersey, Ethel 161 Kierkegaard, Søren 101 Kimball, Bruce 38 knowledge 86–8 concept of 87, 131, 134 forms of 87–8 interpretation of 86 inconclusiveness of 88 of things and of words 177 Kohl, Benjamin 131 Kretzmann, Norman 99 Kristeller, Paul Oskar 123, 126, 129 Krueger, R. 164 La Charite, Raymond 212 Lanfranc of Bec 55

230

Latin language 26, 96–7, 148–9, 176–81, 184, 205–7, 213 Laverty, Megan Jane 2 learned women 160–1 learning enjoyment of 189 systematization of 187 usefulness of 20 Leclercq, Jean 8–11, 31–2, 37, 43 lectio divina 2–5, 8–9, 14, 41, 44 leisure 6–14 contemporary view of 7–8 medieval view of 3, 7–9 seen as an educational objective 7 Leo III, Pope 31 Leo XIII, Pope 107 Leonardo da Vinci 140 liberal arts 14–15, 19, 30, 32, 37–41, 53, 69–71, 97, 132, 157, 181 monastic approaches 38–41 Lily, William 187 lishmah 76, 79–83 literacy 16, 76–7, 147, 161, 193 literal explanation 86 literal interpretation of scripture 5 liturgical practices 9, 14, 37, 41 Locke, John 2, 202, 216–17 logica 61–2, 66–7, 69 Lombard, Peter 15–16, 53, 63–6, 70–1, 97, 99 Luke, St. 113 Luscombe, David E. 63 Luther, Martin 4, 19, 175, 178–9, 184, 190–1, 194–5 picture of 179 Lutheranism 191–3 MacIntyre, Alasdair 9, 17, 96–7, 100, 107, 111 Maimonides, Moses 17, 76–83 picture of 78 Malik, Fateh Mohammad 89 Manetti, Giannozzo 123–4, 127, 130 Marcus, Gad 16–17, 224; co-author of Chapter 3 Marguerite of Valois 165 Marie le Jars de Gournay 164–9 Marinella, Lucrezia 166 Maritain, Jacques 107 mathematics 27, 39, 196

INDEX

Maugham, W. Somerset 46 Mechtild of Magdeburg 158 Medici, Lorenzo de’ 126 Medici family 122 Melanchthon, Philip 178, 182–5, 191–3 memorization 42, 189 mercantilism 122 merchant class, European 204 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 216 Merton, Thomas 46–7 the Metalogicon 67–70 Mews, Constant J. 15, 224; author of Chapter 2 Miner, Robert 210–11 misogyny 167 modernity 122, 149, 203, 213–14 monarchy 110 monastic culture, mature form of 32, 34 monastic education 26–47, 61, 96 history of 26–33 principles of 33–45 monasticism 1, 3, 6–15, 25–32, 40–1 provision for women 148–9 rise of 28–31 Montaigne, Michel de 19–20, 164–6 as a bridge to the Enlightenment and modernity 213–17 distinctive philosophical outlook on education 202–3, 212–13, 216–17 education of judgment and making learning one’s own 210–13 Essays 203–5, 213–15 influence and legacy of 217 life, times and formative educational experiences 204–13 philosophy of education 212 picture of 203 Monte Cassino abbey 25, 97 Montessori, Maria 148 moral philosophy, neo-Aristotelian turn (after 1980) 95 morality 177, 180 Morgan, W. John 44 Mosellanus, Peter 185 Muhammad the Prophet 16, 83–5 Mulder-Bakker, Annette B. 150 music 14, 37 Muslim education 16–17, 75, 83–92 dialogue in 89

INDEX

Nadal, Jerome 183 natural and supernatural virtues 17 Neiman, Alven 10, 40 Newman, Barbara 158 Newman, John Henry 100, 107 Newton, Isaac 195 Nicomachean Ethics 101–4 Nietzsche, Friedrich 216 Noddings, Nel 2, 110, 201–2 Notre Dame cathedral (picture) 112 nous (understanding) 101 O’Malley, John 179, 193 O’Neill, Eileen 147 Oakeshott, Michael 12–13 oratory 5 Origen 28 Ostrogothic Kingdom 28–9 otium 7, 9, 40, 44 Ovid 58, 185 Oxford University 193 Pachomius 29 pagan thought 4, 14 paideia, translation of 106–7 parental responsibilities 76, 194, 205 Paris 10, 71 University of 15, 40, 53, 182 Paris Method 182 Paul, St 35, 70, 155 pedagogical theories 189 Penini, Jedaja 81–2 Perotti, Niccolò 181 Peshkin, Alan 35 Peter the Venerable 42 Peters, R.S. 106 Petrarch, Francesco 122–3, 131, 135 Philip the Bold 162 philosophy 80–1, 148, 207 development as an academic discipline 147 living it rather than talking about it 13–14 phronesis 101, 104 physicians 154 Picard, Max 44 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni 126, 129–30 Pieper, Josef 9, 12–13, 40, 44 piety 178, 180, 190, 195

231

Pinckaers, Servais-Théodore 102–3 Plato and Platonism 15–16, 27, 35–6, 45, 60, 68, 99–102, 107, 110, 126, 188, 202, 209 Platonic Academy 38, 126 Plautus 188 plays, writing of 151, 153 Plutarch 208 poetry 27, 134 Policraticus 67, 69 Pollnitz, Aysha 195 Pomponazzi, Pietro 126, 129 Porete, Marguerite 18–19, 158–60, 168 Porphyry 15, 55, 60, 69 Porter, Jean 104, 110, 113 precritical themes 147 primary education 176 printing 164, 182 Protagoras 108 prudentia (practical wisdom) 96, 114–16 public lectures 192 pueri oblati 96–7 Puritan preachers 190 qalam concept 87, 89 querelle des femmes debate 161, 166 Quintilian 38, 40, 110, 176 Quran 83–92 Rabi’a of Basra 150 Rahman, Fazlur 88–90 Ralph, Philip Lee 123 Ramus, Peter 184 ratio (discursive faculty of mind) 9–12 rationality and rationalist philosophers 213, 215 reading 41, 43, 61 pleasure taken in 208 reason, human 103, 113 reflection and reflective action 16, 84 Reformation, the 4, 122, 161, 175 relativism 215 religion 81, 97, 122 religious instruction 176, 189–93 Renaissance, the 122–3, 126–31, 134–9, 203, 210, 214 humanism in 126–7, 130, 136, 175–6, 180–2, 195 Italian 122–3, 131, 134, 139 Renaissance ideal 18, 127

232

revelation through prophets and apostles 96 rhetoric 14, 27, 39, 61, 71, 134, 176, 182, 184, 208 rhetors 27–8 Rice, Eugene 137 Richard of Coutances 68 Richard of Poitiers 63 Richelieu, Cardinal 165 Robert of Melun 63–9 Rocha, Sam 43 Roman Empire collapse of 27–8, 39 education in 26–8 imperial culture in 8 Roscelin of Compiègne 55 rote-learning 19–20, 188–9, 204–6 Rousseau, Jean Jacques 2, 110, 202, 216–17 Rule of the Master 34–6 Rupertsberg convent 153–4 Ryle, Gilbert 217 Saint-Victor abbey, Paris 15, 53, 59–62, 65, 71 Salutati, Coluccio 123, 126, 131 Schiffman, Zachary 208 schola, meanings of 25 scholarship 87 scholasticism 3, 5, 10–11, 33, 38, 210–13 schooling 104, 139 schools increase in number of 193–4 programs for 184–5 state support for 194 misconceptions about 187–8 Schweid, Eliezer 82 sciences, revealed and rational 87 scripture complexity of 57 interpretation of 5, 15 Segall, Avner 45–7 self-fashioning 202 Seneca 12 Senior, John 45 Sephardic Jews 77 Shakespeare, William 196 Sic et Non collection 15, 57–62, 65, 70 silence and silent reading 43–7 social responsibility 121

INDEX

social structures 105 Socrates (and Socratic dialogue) 44–5, 99–102, 155 sophists 182 Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz 149, 167–8 spirituality 8 Stein, Edith 107 Stern, Josef 81 Storey, Benjamin 215 Strasbourg 186, 194 Strauss, Gerald 185, 188–95 studia humanitatis 17–18, 121, 123, 127, 130–41 and the modern world 141 studying 77–80 for its own sake 83; see also lishmah Stump, Eleonore 99 Sturm, Johann 178–90, 193–4 Sunnah 83–7 Switzerland 176, 187 ta’wil 85 tafsir 85 Talmud 79–82 Tarabotti, Arcangela 166 Taylor, Charles 1, 214 teachers duties of 116, 191 education of 46 importance of 103 motivation of 82 teaching, transactional and transmission modes of 84 Terence 151, 188 Tertullian 3–5 Theodric 28 theology 27, 96, 99, 100–2, 191–2 as sacred doctrine or part of philosophy 100 theoretical approaches 213–16 Thierry of Chartres 68, 71 Thompson, David 123 Thoreau, Henry David 13–14 Titone, Connie 148 Torah 80, 92 Toulmin, Stephen 205, 213–14 ultimate ends 101–2 universal man 128 universals 56

INDEX

universities 40, 149, 161, 193 origins of 2–5, 10, 33, 97, 100, 111 utilitarianism 8, 12 Valla, Lorenzo 123–4, 129–30, 181 Vergerio, Pier Paolo 125, 131–2, 138 Vermigli, Peter Martyr 192 Veronese, Guarino 124–5 Vico, Giambattista 6 Virgil 27, 188 virtues 17, 103 visions 156 Vittorino da Feltre 125, 135–6 Waghid, Yusef 16–17, 224; co-author of Chapter 3 Walter of St. Victor 66 Wan Daud, Wan Mohd Nor 88 war, reaction to 204–5 Western civilization 196 William of Champeaux 15, 55–60, 62, 66–70 William of Conches 68 Wittenberg University 178, 192 Wivestad, Stein M. 17, 224–5; author of Chapter 4

233

Wollstonecraft, Mary 148 woman question 147 women choices made by 168 contributions to educational thought 18 contributions to intellectual life 147–8 education of 136, 148 equality with men 165–6 false perceptions of 147 missing voices of 150, 158 new representations of 164 role and status of 147–8, 167 supposed inferiority of 155, 161 in the teaching profession 169 in their own communities 158 as writers 18–19 women’s thought 147–8 Woodward, William Harrison 136 Woolf, Virginia 148, 216 Wright, Andrew 101 Xenophon 209 Zimmerman, Ana Christina 44 Zurich 187, 192 Zwingli, Huldrych 192

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